Category Archives: Globalization

Blockade of Iran, Economics, Globalization, Iran, Khamenei, Middle East, U.S. Foreign Policy

Iran’s Khamenei Does a Trump: MAGA becomes MIGA……

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“Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei fleshed out his vision of a “Made in Iran” economy Tuesday, calling for a ban on certain imports and an end to the $15-billion smuggling trade. The annual speech on the first day of the Persian year serves as a sort of Iranian equivalent to the US State of the Union address, and Khamenei used it to provide more details about his calls for a self-sufficient “resistance economy” that has been his main theme in recent months. “The importing of products where an Iranian equivalent exists should be considered religiously and legally haram (forbidden),” he told a huge crowd in the holy city of Mashhad. He took aim at Iran’s rampant black market in smuggled goods, which he said was worth at least $15 billion annually. “Some speak of $20-25 billion,” he said. “We want greatness for our country, social well-being and security at the national level. Without a strong economy we cannot achieve all that…..”

Ayatollah Khamenei sounds almost like a Trumpista, but only in the economics of trade sense. I am exaggerating a bit: clearly Khamenei does not believe in a trickle-down economy, now set to become a gushing-up economy under Trump. He does not have a gaggle of billionaires around him defining his own “populist” comfort zone in Tehran. He mostly favors fellow mullahs.

Not as bad as many other Middle East leaders these days. Some groveling Arab leaders are the worst offenders, effectively throwing their fellow Muslims under the bus to please Trump. Before the November elections they expected a resounding Hillary Clinton victory. Their Wahhabi-Liberal mouthpieces in the press and social media obediently excoriated Trump. But that was then.

Soon after Mr. Trump issued his first unconstitutional Executive Order banning many Muslims from travel to the USA, surprisingly including legal residents, some Arab kings and princes reacted positively. Particularly Saudi and UAE rulers, who have certain demands of Mr. Trump for their own regional agendas, quickly praised his move. Even as many Americans and the US courts stood against it. Their hasty positive reaction was uncalled for, it was voluntary, did not even wait for the US court decisions, which turned out as I had expected.

Khamenei is also applying some pressure on President Rouhani in his election year, distancing himself from an economy that has not done as well. Some Iranian officials have recently expressed disappointment that the Nuclear Deal has not helped the economy as much as they had expected.

But the Iranians have become good at managing under forced self-sufficiency. The long decades of mostly-American sanctions have forced them to produce many of the tools, equipment, and weapons they have needed. An unintended positive by-product of the economic siege. Even with the reduction and lifting of sanctions, their country will continue to produce many of the goods it has been forced to make under the economic siege.
So, maybe its is the other way around: maybe Mr. Trump’s “Made in America” message is an imitation of the forced “Made in Iran” policy on the other side of the world. Ali Khamenei has not uttered the term “Make Iran Great Again” (MIGA), but his occasional exhortations and policy statements sound similar to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). Without the goofy red Trump hat.

More on this later, stay tuned.

Cheers
M. Haider Ghuloum

Corruption, Economics, Finance, Globalization

New Global Financial Phenomenon: from Poor Candidates to Rich Leaders…….

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All the recent talk of the Panama Papers and hidden wealth. It is, as I once observed, the tip of a huge global iceberg.

In the old days, three or four or five decades ago, when an Arab or Muslim leader (not a monarch) died or left power, he left behind only his personal belongings and (maybe) his pension. That was the case with Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Qassim of Iraq, Ben Bella of Algeria, and various other leaders. The same was true of American leaders: Truman and Eisenhower did not leave office as very wealthy men. In fact nor did Nixon. But that was then. Things are different now, especially in the past two decades.

Now there is one thing that most Middle Eastern leaders, especially Arab leaders, have in common with modern era American presidents  and with many European leaders of the past two decades. They all have the same thing in common with other Muslim leaders and with African leaders and with Latin American leaders and Chinese and Russian leaders.
Know what it is? They all leave office as very rich people, much richer than before they took office.

Americans call it “looking for number one“, and they don’t mean “the people“.  That is one risk they take when they seek office. It is a by-product of the globalization of many things, especially greed and corruption.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Economics, Finance, Globalization, Pacific, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Corporation Democrats and Globalization from Obama to Clinton: TP the TPP?……..

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“President Barack Obama is ready to buck his liberal base in order to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pro-corporate international trade deal currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries……..”

It is the corporations, stupid.
There was a time when it was true that what was good for corporate America was good for mainstreet America. Not so much anymore. Now what is good for corporate America is mainly good for the large shareholders and for the club of CEOs of America in this age of bonus-hunting by management. The real shareholders matter, not the average Jane with an IRA, as they try to tell us on the financial networks.

If you want to know what American corporations probably prefer the ideal state of American labor to be, look at China, India, and some Latin American countries. Well, a mild exaggeration to make the point perhaps, but not by much. A huge lower lower middle class enshrined in a permanent American class society the like of which has not been seen in more than a century.

Mr. Obama is in many ways like ALL other American presidents since Ronald Reagan. He is a corporation president, even though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly campaigned for his Republican rivals (that was just a matter of comparative preference). His party aspires that he will be followed into the White House by the two most corporatist Democrats available in decades: Hillary and Bill Clinton.
Given the country’s well-financed shift to the right, those two might be the only Democrats who have a chance to keep the White House for their party two years from now.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Britain, Culture and Sports, GCC, Globalization

Globalized Thieves of London………

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“UAE risk map calls Oxford Street, Soho and Piccadilly districts ‘dangerous’ after recent attacks but police insist crime has fallen. Scotland Yard insisted on Wednesday that there was “absolutely nowhere” in London that should be avoided after the United Arab Emirates advised its citizens against visiting certain “hazardous” and “less secure” parts of the city centre, including some of its most popular tourist destinations.……….. Using Google maps, areas identified as dangerous under the UAE guidance were Marble Arch tube station, running north to Edgware Road and beyond the Metropole Hotel, as well as an area including Piccadilly, Bond Street, Soho, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road……………“

Bustling West London has been a notorious place for robbing Arab and Middle East tourists. Especially for Gulfies who are seen as rich (not all are) and hence easy prey. London is the only Western capital I was ever robbed in: in fact it is the only city anywhere I was ever robbed in, and I have been to many cities and towns around the world. Mainly pickpockets and credit card fraud in my case: they see the name and bingo, easy prey. Not anymore, that was two decades ago.

Of course this does not mean the thieves are necessarily ‘English’, very likely not. I also get funny emails offering to share millions with me, mostly from London, but the offered easy money is usually Nigerian. Thievery, like its corporatist sister, has been globalized.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum