Cervantes

Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quijote de la Mancha.

28 de mayo de 2012

America's Best Kept Secret: Rising Suburban Poverty

By Michelle Hirsch, The Fiscal Times
28 December 11

or years, the food pantry in Crystal Lake, Ill., a bedroom community 50 miles west of Chicago, has catered to the suburban area’s poor, homeless and unemployed. But Cate Williams, the head of the pantry, has noticed a striking change in the makeup of the needy in the past year or two. Some families that once pulled down six-figure incomes and drove flashy cars are now turning to the pantry for help. A few of them donated food and money to the pantry before their luck soured, according to Williams.
"People will shyly say to me, ‘You know, I used to give money and food to you guys. Now I need your help,’" Williams told The Fiscal Times last week. "Most of the folks we see now are people who never took a handout before. They were comfortable, able to feed themselves, to keep gas in the car, and keep a nice roof over their head."
Suburbia always had its share of low-income families and the poor, but the sharp surge in suburban poverty is beginning to grab the attention of demographers, government officials and social service advocates.
The past decade has marked the most significant rise in poverty in modern times. One in six people in the U.S. are poor, according to the latest census data, compared to one in ten Americans in 2004. This surge in the percentage of the poor is fueling concerns about a growing disparity between the rich and poor - the 99 percent versus the 1 percent, in the parlance of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
But contrary to stereotypes that the worst of poverty is centered in urban areas or isolated rural areas and Appalachia, the suburbs have been hit hardest in recent years, an analysis of census data reveals. "If you take a drive through the suburbs and look at the strip mall vacancies, the ‘For Sale’ signs, and the growing lines at unemployment offices and social services providers, you’d have to be blind not to see the economic crisis is hitting home in a way these areas have never experienced," said Donna Cooper, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank.
In the wake of the Great Recession, poverty rolls are rising at a more rapid pace in the suburbs than in cities or rural communities. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of suburban households below the poverty line increased by 53 percent, compared to a 23 percent increase in poor households in urban areas, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of census data.
Last year, there were 2.7 million more suburban households below the federal poverty level than urban households, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was the first time on record that America’s cities didn’t contain the highest absolute number of households living in poverty. There are many reasons for the dramatic turnabout in the geographic profile of poverty.
"Now, the economy tanks, they lose their jobs, they’re poor, and they’re out in the suburbs on the edge once again."
While many once depressed urban areas are being revitalized in an effort draw in more affluent residents, other areas are attracting lower-income families who have moved to the suburbs in search of more affordable housing and better schools. This shift in low-income families to the suburbs coincided with a move of low-wage, low-skilled jobs to those same suburban areas between 1970s and early 2000s, experts say. Meanwhile, the introduction of new commerce and high-cost housing in the urban neighborhoods pushed overall prices upward, providing added incentive for low-income people to head for the suburbs.
"These are families that were living on the edge in the city, but in many cases over the last 20 to 30 years, regained some stability when they found affordable housing in the suburbs," said Cooper. "Now, the economy tanks, they lose their jobs, they’re poor, and they’re out in the suburbs on the edge once again."
Both urban and suburban America were badly hammered by the financial meltdown and recession – leading to stubbornly high unemployment, widespread foreclosures and "underwater" homes, high food and gas prices and sharp cutbacks in government and private social services. But the overall impact has been worse in suburban areas, because many low-skilled jobs disappeared along with the plants and businesses that once provided employment. Other companies shifted their business strategy towards developing a high-skill, high-tech labor force.
To be sure, the picture of poverty in American suburbs is an uneven one. According to the census analysis, some suburban regions took bigger economic hits than others. Poverty rolls increased 121.8 percent in the Atlanta suburbs between 2000 and 2010, compared to a 6.8 percent increase in the city. Chicago and Seattle saw similarly large suburban-urban splits in poverty. The poverty rate increased by 76.3 percent in the Chicago suburbs compared to only 9.7 percent in the city during that period. In Seattle, the number of people living below the poverty line rose 74.4 percent in the suburbs versus 26.1 percent in the city proper over the decade.
The number of students qualifying for subsidized lunches grew by 63 percent this year, compared with a 46 percent increase in 2006.
The 10-year surge in suburban poverty is putting enormous budgetary pressure on county and local governments and non-profits, which are struggling to meet a rising demand for social services, counseling and financial assistance. The number of students qualifying for subsidized lunches in Conyers, an Atlanta suburb, grew by 63 percent this year, compared with a 46 percent increase in 2006. Many suburban areas of Columbus, Ohio, have also seen their subsidized lunch enrollment more than double over the past five years, the Columbus Dispatch reported earlier this year.


According to a separate 2010 census analysis from the Brookings Institution, the typical suburban nonprofit in the Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. regions reported about a 30 percent increase in demand for their services between 2008 and 2009 and substantial increases in the number of clients with no previous connection to social service programs. Nearly half of the nonprofit organizations reported a loss in key revenue during that time frame.
"This is a shift that’s happened over time, steadily over the last 10 years, and for reasons in addition to the recession," said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior research associated at Brookings who compiled the data. "Even if the recovery were to take hold tomorrow, I wouldn’t expect this to reverse."
In Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, a ballooning foreclosure crisis is forcing once middle and upper-income residents into poverty. One in 183 housing units received a foreclosure filing in November, compared to a national average of one in 579 units, according to RealtyTrac.
"People spent beyond their means without learning to save, so when everything came crashing down there was no reserves."
A nonprofit called The Impact! Group handles about 60 percent of the county’s caseload of homeless individuals in need of temporary housing to help them get back on their feet. Tom Merkel, president and CEO of the group, and his 10 staffers almost exclusively served individuals with four and low-five figure salaries five years ago. Today, Merkel says, his caseload has doubled, and spans the socioeconomic ladder, with an ever-increasing number of once middle and upper-middle class families.
"We have people that were making six-figure salaries, doctors and lawyers who lived in nice homes on golf courses, knocking on our door," Merkel told The Fiscal Times. "People spent beyond their means without learning to save, so when everything came crashing down there was no reserves." In the Seattle suburbs, the challenges of a burgeoning refugee and immigrant population are compounding economic pressures. In King County, which takes in both Seattle and neighboring suburbs like Kent, half of the population growth over the last two decades has come from immigrants and refugees, said Chandler Felt, King County’s demographer. The vast majority of those new foreign-born residents have settled into South King County suburbs, including Kent, instead of in Seattle to take advantage of more affordable housing, Felt said.
The surge in refugees and immigrants from East Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia settling in Kent has made the community more culturally diverse, but it’s also helped push the poverty rate to 25 percent, compared to 9 percent ten years ago, said Katherine Johnson, the city’s housing and human services manager.
"All of a sudden, the resettlement agency’s finished with you six or eight months after you arrive, you’re not able to find a job, and you’re just starting to learn the language and assimilate," Johnson said. "The next thing that happens is you have eviction notices, your utilities are turned off, and you have no finances to speak of." The city has seen thousands of cases like that, she said. "The food pantry here is a very popular place."
For Williams in Crystal Lake, the pantry’s growing traffic has meant food vanishes more quickly. Two or three years ago, a food drive’s proceeds would last four or five months, but now that food is out the door in two to three months. The rising demand has led Williams and her board to dip into their savings by $35,000 to keep dispensing basic food items like butter, cheese, milk, and eggs.
"Every day, it gets just a little clearer that people’s ideas of who a hungry or poor person is should be changing," Williams said. "It’s not just people pushing shopping carts along the street in a place like Crystal Lake…. Sure, people may still have their Lexus, but what lots of people don’t realize is that in lots of cases, [the car] is one step away from being repossessed."

Día de los caídos: honren a los caídos, curen a los heridos, detengan las guerras

26 de mayo de 2012

A User's Guide To Smoking Pot With Barack Obama

Barry was quite the accomplished marijuana enthusiast back in high school and college. Excerpts from David Maraniss' Barack Obama: The Story dealing with the elaborate drug culture surrounding the president when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles. He inhaled. A lot. posted
1. The Choom Gang
A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning "to smoke marijuana."

2. Total Absorption

2. Total Absorption
As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called "TA," short for "total absorption." To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled.

3. Roof Hits

3. Roof Hits
Along with TA, Barry popularized the concept of "roof hits": when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.

4. Penalties

4. Penalties
When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated," explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.

5. The Choomwagon

5. The Choomwagon
[Choom Gang member] Mark Bendix's Volkswagen bus, also known as the Choomwagon. … The other members considered Mark Bendix the glue, he was funny, creative, and uninhibited, with a penchant for Marvel Comics. He also had that VW bus and a house with a pool, a bong, and a Nerf basketball, all enticements for them to slip off midday for a few unauthorized hours of recreation...

6. Interceptions

6. Interceptions
Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!," and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.

7. Slippers

7. Slippers
Choom Gang members often made their way to Aku Ponds at the end of Manoa Stream, where they slipped past the liliko'i vines and the KAPU (keep out) signs, waded into waist-high cool mountain water, stood near the rock where water rushed overhead, and held up a slipper (what flip-flops are called in Hawaii) to create an air pocket canopy. It was a natural high, they said, stoned or not.

8. Ray The Dealer

8. Ray The Dealer
He was a long-haired haole hippie who worked at the Mama Mia Pizza Parlor not far from Punahou and lived in a dilapidated bus in an abandoned warehouse. … According to Topolinski, Ray the dealer was "freakin' scary." Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover. But at the time he was useful because of his ability to "score quality weed."
...
In another section of the [senior] yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. … Nestled below [Obama's] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: "Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times." … A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.

9. Pumping Stations

9. Pumping Stations
Their favorite hangout was a place they called Pumping Stations, a lush hideaway off an unmarked, roughly paved road partway up Mount Tantalus. They parked single file on the grassy edge, turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and Stevie Wonder, lit up some "sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds" and washed it down with "green bottle beer" (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).

10. Veto

10. Veto
One of the favorite words in their subculture revealed their democratic nature. The word was veto. Whenever an idea was broached, someone could hold up his hand in the V sign (a backward peace sign of that era) and indicate that the motion wash not approved. They later shortened the process so that you could just shout "V" to get the point across. In the Choom Gang, all V's were created equal.

11. Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud And Kona Gold:

11. Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud And Kona Gold:
In the Honolulu of Barry's teenage years marijuana was flourishing up in the hills, out in the countryside, in covert greenhouses everywhere. It was sold and smoked right there in front of your nose; Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud, Kona Gold, and other local variations of pakololo were readily available.

12. The Barf Couch

12. The Barf Couch
The Barf Couch earned its name early in the first trimester when a freshman across the hall from Obama [in the Haines Hall Annex dorm at Occidental College] drank himself into a stupor and threw up all over himself and the couch. In the manner of pallbearers hoisting a coffin, a line of Annexers lifted the tainted sofa with the freshman aboard and toted it out the back door and down four steps to the first concrete landing on the way to the parking lot. A day later, the couch remained outside in the sun, resting on its side with cushions off (someone had hosed it clean), and soon it was back in the hallway nook.

13. The Annex Olympics

13. The Annex Olympics
(The main hallway at Haines Hall was called the Annex,) home to the impromptu Annex Olympics: long-jumping onto a pile of mattresses, wrestling in underwear, hacking golf balls down the hallway toward the open back door, boxing while drunk. There were the non-Olympic sports of lighting farts and judging them by color, tipping over the Coke machine, breaking the glass fire extinguisher case, putting out cigarettes on the carpet, falling asleep on the carpet, flinging Frisbees at the ceiling-mounted alarm bell, tasting pizza boxes to the floor, and smoking pot from a three-foot crimson opaque bong, a two-man event involving the smoker and an accomplice standing ready to respond to the order "Hey, dude, light the bowl!"
Este es Matias lacava, niño venezolano,  fichado este mes 
por el Barça, le dicen el "nuevo messi". La foto es cuando
vino en abril para hacerle las pruebas.  
Cuando puedan mirenlo por youtube. Es fenomenal!
 
 
 
Foto tomada en el Consulado de Venezuela en Barcelona (España) 

22 de mayo de 2012

Denuncian intención de anexión de Bahrain por Arabia Saudita


EC Secretary Warns S. Arabia to Give up Plot for Annexing Bahrain

Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezayee condemned a recent plot hatched by Riyadh to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, warning the Saudi officials of Iran's tough reaction to such a move.

EC Secretary Warns S. Arabia to Give up Plot for Annexing Bahrain
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) -  "Such Saudi measures have created insecurity in the whole region and the Islamic Republic of Iran as an influential country in the Persian Gulf region will not keep mum about these moves of Saudi Arabia forever," Rezayee said on Monday.
"We advise Saudi Arabia to return from its current path and stop movement on this path since if it continues the path, the region will face unpredictable events," he added.
Rezayee warned the Saudi officials that insisting on the wrong positions they have adopted on Bahrain will secure the US interests, will harm the regional countries and will create insecurity in the Persian Gulf region.
Six Persian Gulf Arab states strived at a summit last week to forge closer political and military union which would start with a practical annexation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, but the talks ended inconclusively after the Bahraini people and other nations voiced strong opposition to the plan.
No agreement on further integration emerged as smaller Persian Gulf Arab states are wary of the Saudi domination of the region.
In the run-up to the Riyadh meeting, speculation was rife that an initial union would be announced between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where anti-government protests led by majority Shiites have gripped the island state since last year.
Riyadh has aided Bahrain's embattled Sunni monarchy with troops and money during the island nation's 15-month uprising.
Bahrain has been hit by near daily protests and clashes since the uprising began in February 2011 inspired by revolutions in other Arab countries. People seek an overthrow of the Al-Khalifa's over-40-year rule over the tiny Persian Gulf island. At least 50 people have been killed by the Manama regime, where a Saudi-led Persian Gulf force came to the aid of the ruling dynasty last year.
Majority Shiites have been leading a pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain for over a year. Saudi Arabia, fearing that unrest in Bahrain could spread to its own Shiite community in its major oil-producing Eastern Province, sent troops to Bahrain last year to help its government crush the initial phase of the revolution.
The Bahraini people call the unity proposal a sellout of the country's independence and an effort to give Saudi security forces a stronger hand in crackdowns in the strategic island kingdom, which is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet.
A spiritual Shiite figure in Bahrain, Ayatollah Issa Qassem, speaking at a mosque outside of Manama, demanded that any proposed union of the two countries be submitted to a referendum.
The Saudi plot has roused anger among the regional nations, specially in Iran. On Friday tens of thousands of Iranian people staged a rally to voice their strong protest against the provocative move.
The protesters, who staged a rally after the Friday Prayers, called the plan as an act of treason.
The Iranian protesters also criticized Riyadh for serving the US agenda in the region by helping Manama's crackdown on anti-government protests.
The move by the Iranian people was concurrent with a similar demonstration in Bahrain.
Protesters chanted slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty and renewed their call for the ouster of their country's tyrannical rulers.
The Bahraini protesters who stretched for five kilometers and jammed a major highway in the capital, Manama, chanted "Bahrain is not for sale".
On the surface the plan is aimed at developing unity between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with regard to foreign relations, security, military and economy, but in depth the plan is a last-ditch effort by the two countries' monarchs for preventing the success of Bahrain's revolution.
The Arab Spring uprisings have been a challenge for the Persian Gulf rulers. Saudi Arabia took action to suppress the uprisings in Bahrain after being shocked to see Hosni Mubarak fall in Egypt.
/106

18 de mayo de 2012

The Guardian: Rechazo de Chávez al neoliberalismo, ejemplo para Grecia


18/05/12.- El producto interno bruto (PIB) de Venezuela creció 5.6 por ciento el primer trimestre de 2012 frente al mismo periodo del año pasado, en lo que fue el quinto trimestre consecutivo en que la economía del país registra un crecimiento que se atribuye al impulso de sectores clave, como la construcción, y a la influencia de la expansión del gasto público a cinco meses de las elecciones presidenciales, mientras el diario británico The Guardian escribió que el rechazo del gobierno de Hugo Chávez a las políticas neoliberales que llevan a Europa a la ruina han establecido un ejemplo esperanzador para países como Grecia.
El crecimiento del PIB de Venezuela ha venido acompañado de una sorpresiva baja en la inflación, tras la aplicación de fuertes controles de precios. Es uno de los mejores resultados, casi, durante los últimos 15 trimestres y con la condición importante de que la inflación se ha desacelerado. Teníamos tiempo en que no ocurrían los dos fenómenos: crecer y que la inflación se desacelere, dijo el presidente del Banco Central de Venezuela, Nelson Merentes.
Venezuela estima que este año la economía se expandirá 5 por ciento y la inflación se mantendrá a raya, oscilando entre 20 y 22 por ciento, una meta ambiciosa luego de que el país tuviera un aumento de 27.6 por ciento en los precios al consumidor el año pasado.
La inflación acumuló un alza de 4.4 por ciento en los primeros cuatro meses del año, y anotó en abril su quinto mes consecutivo de desaceleración.
La economía venezolana creció 4.2 por ciento el año pasado, el doble de lo previsto en las cuentas nacionales, luego de una recesión de casi dos años desde 2008 y, de mantenerse la senda este año, apunta a ser una de las de mayor crecimiento en América Latina.
El sector construcción fue el que mayor alza registró en el primer trimestre, al expandirse 29.6 por ciento, mientras que el rubro de instituciones financieras avanzó 27.7. Chávez lanzó en 2011 un ambicioso plan para acortar el enorme déficit habitacional de unos 2 millones de viviendas con la meta de edificar unas 350 mil casas al cierre de este año, reactivando así el sector construcción. El segundo motor (de la economía) ya encendió, dijo Merentes.
La construcción no sólo resuelve un problema social (…), sino que además tiene un impulso sobre la economía y el empleo”, afirmó el ministro de Economía y Finanzas, Jorge Giordani.
El funcionario destacó que el aumento del PIB en Venezuela contrasta con otros países en América Latina y Europa, donde hay una economía de recesión caracterizada por el alto desempleo.
En un artículo publicado por el rotativo inglés, se recuerda que hace algunos años el entonces alcalde de Londres, Ken Livingstone, y Chávez hablaron de un tentativo acuerdo para que Venezuela proveyera a la capital británica de petróleo a precio especial, como el que le otorga a Cuba y a otros países de Centroamérica y el Caribe.
Pero más importante que el petróleo barato está el poder del ejemplo, dice The Guardian. Desde el inicio del siglo, Chávez se comprometió con un proyecto que rechaza las políticas neoliberales que perjudican a Europa y a mucho del mundo occidental. Se ha opuesto a las recetas de Banco Mundial y el Fondo Monetario Internacional, y ha combatido las privatizaciones que han dañado el tejido social y económico de Latinoamérica, y que con las que la Unión Europea ahora amenaza con destruir la economía de Grecia.
Aporrea/La Jornada

La necesidad del Control de Cambio

Is Greece the First Domino Toward Widespread Banking Panic and Currency Controls?

image source
Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

Money is being pulled out of Greek banks at an alarming rate, and if something dramatic is not done quickly Greek banks are going to start dropping like flies. As I detailed yesterday, people do not want to be stuck with euros in Greek banks when Greece leaves the euro and converts back to the drachma. 

The fear is that all existing euros in Greek banks would be converted over to drachmas which would then rapidly lose value after the transition. So right now euros are being pulled out of Greek banks at a staggering pace. According to MSNBC, Greeks withdrew $894 million from Greek banks on Monday alone and a similar amount was withdrawn on Tuesday. But this is just an acceleration of a trend that has been going on for a couple of years. It has been reported that approximately a third of all Greek bank deposits were withdrawn between January 2010 and March 2012.

So where has all of the cash for these withdrawals been coming from? Well, the European Central Bank has been providing liquidity for Greek banks, but on Tuesday it was reported that the ECB is going to stop providing liquidity to some Greek banks. It was not announced which Greek banks are being cut off. For now, the Greek Central Bank will continue to provide euros to those banks, but the Greek Central Bank will not be able to funnel euros into insolvent banks indefinitely. This is a major move by the European Central Bank, and it is going to shake confidence in the Greek banking system even more.

There are already rumors that the Greek government is considering placing limits on bank withdrawals, and many Greeks will be tempted to go grab their money while they still can.

Once strict currency controls are put in place, the population is likely to respond very angrily. If people can't get their money there is no telling what they might do.


We are reaching a critical moment. Many fear that a full-blown "bank panic" could happen at any time. The following is from a recent Forbes article....
The pressing problem isn't a splintered legislature that may balk at delivering the reforms that the IMF and European Community are demanding in exchange for the next tranche of bailout money. It's a disastrous, old-fashioned run-on-the bank. 'For a year, Greeks have been sending their savings from Greek banks to foreign banks,' says Robert Aliber, retired professor of international economics from the University of Chicago. 'Now, the flood has reached a crescendo.' Indeed on Monday alone, outflows from the Greek banks reached almost $900 million.
These banks would have collapsed already if not for the support of the European Central Bank and the Greek Central Bank. This was described in a recent blog post by Paul Krugman of the New York Times....
But where are the euros coming from? Basically, banks are borrowing them from the Greek central bank, which in turn must borrow them from the European Central Bank. The question then becomes how far the ECB is willing to go here; is it willing, in effect, to lend enough money to buy up the entire balance sheet of the Greek banking sector, given the likelihood that this sector will be left insolvent by Greek default?
Yet if the ECB says no more, Greek banks stop operating — and it’s hard to see how they can be restored to operation except by ditching the euro and using something else.

That is why the announcement on Tuesday was so dramatic. The ECB is starting to pull back and that is a very bad sign for the Greek banking system.

For the moment, the Greek Central Bank is continuing to support the Greek banks that the European Central Bank is no longer providing liquidity for. A Reuters article explained how this works....
The ECB only conducts its refinancing operations with solvent banks. Banks which fail to meet strict ECB rules but are deemed solvent by the national central bank (NCB) concerned can nonetheless go to their NCB for emergency liquidity assistance (ELA).
But this emergency liquidity assistance is not intended to be a long-term solution as a recent Wall Street Journal article noted....
The ECB's emergency-lending facility isn't intended as a long-term fix. National central banks must get approval each month that they want to let their banks access the facility from the ECB's governing council, which can veto use of the program.
If Greece installs an antibailout government that reneges on its austerity promises, it would almost certainly be cut off from ECB funding.

The truth is that we are heading for a financial tragedy in Greece. If the flow of money out of Greek banks intensifies, the Greek banking system might not even be able to make it to the next election in June. This point was underscored in an article that was published on Tuesday that was authored by renowned financial journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard....
Steen Jakobsen from Danske Bank said outflows are becoming unstoppable, not helped by open talk in EU circles of 'technical' plans for Greek withdrawal. 
'This has a self-fulfilling prophecy built into it and I don’t think we can get to June. The fuse is burning and the only two options now are a controlled explosion where Germany steps in to ensure an orderly exit, or an uncontrolled explosion,' he said.
So what should we expect to see next?

Well, James Carney of CNBC says that he believes that it is inevitable that Greece is going to have to implement currency controls in order to slow the bleeding....
It looks increasingly likely that Greece will have to implement controls to prevent capital flight and a banking collapse. To my mind, the only real question is when this will occur.
The widespread talk about Greece possibly leaving the euro zone is likely to trigger withdrawal of bank deposits and other financial assets, by those who fear they might be redenominated into a drachma that would be worth far less than the euro.

The Greek government may soon announce a limit on the amount of money that can be withdrawn on a single day.

The Greek government may also soon announce a limit on the amount of money that can be moved out of the country.

Those would be dramatic steps to take, but if nothing is done we are likely to watch the Greek banking system die right in front of our eyes.

A Greek exit from the euro seems more likely with each passing day. Such an exit would have a devastating impact on the Greek economy, but it would also dramatically affect the rest of the globe as well. The following is from a recent article by Louise Armitstead....
The Institute of International Finance has estimated that the global cost of a Greek exit could hit €1trillion. When Argentina defaulted in 2001, foreign debtors lost around 70pc of their investments.
That is a big hit for such a little country.

So what would it cost the globe if Spain or Italy left the eurozone?

That is something to think about.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to steamroll down the same road that Greece has gone. According to the Republican Senate Budget Committee, the U.S. government is currently spending more money per person than Greece, Portugal, Italy or Spain does.

We are spending ourselves into oblivion, and we are heading for a national financial disaster.

Unfortunately, most Americans are totally oblivious to all of this.

Instead of getting educated about the horrific financial crisis heading our way, most Americans would rather read about why Jennifer Lopez is leaving American Idol.

But those who are listening to the warnings will be prepared when the storm hits.

Things in Europe look really, really bad.

You better get prepared while you still can.

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

17 de mayo de 2012

Vargas Llosa, el último de los mohicanos

En 'La civilización del espectáculo', Vargas Llosa acierta al diagnosticar el final de una era: la de los intelectuales como él. Parece añorar los buenos tiempos en que una élite —justa e ilustrada— conducía nuestras elecciones
 
Por Jorge Volpi | 5 de Mayo, 2012

El último sabio de la tribu recorre el campo de batalla. Ante su mirada comparecen los árboles troceados, las cabañas incendiadas, los cuerpos exangües, los restos del pillaje y el saqueo, y no contiene su furia. Levanta los brazos y, con voz de trueno, impreca contra los bárbaros que han transformado al mundo en un páramo sin sentido. Con un nudo en la garganta, sigue su camino, consciente de que sus días están contados y de que —ay— ya nadie atiende sus consejos. Su nostalgia le impide recordar que, no hace tanto, sus palabras animaron la batalla.
En La civilización del espectáculo (2012), Mario Vargas Llosa se suma a la abultada lista de hombres de letras que, hacia el ocaso de sus días, se lamentan por la triste condición de su época. Si él no hubiese sido uno de los novelistas más portentosos y arriesgados del siglo XX —en muchos sentidos, el más joven—, recordaría al Sócrates que, en el Fedro, ruge contra la aparición de la escritura. Aunque a veces su tono moralista sea el de un héroe en el retiro, su voz mantiene la lucidez de sus mejores textos, aunque al final la ideología, más que los años, estropee algunas de sus conclusiones.
¿De qué se lamenta Vargas Llosa? De todo. Del estado actual de la cultura y la política, de la religión e incluso del sexo. Según él, todas estas vertientes de lo humano han sido pervertidas por la gangrena de la frivolidad. Ésta consiste “en tener una tabla de valores invertida o desequilibrada en la que la forma importa más que el contenido, la apariencia más que la esencia y el desplante —la representación— hacen las veces de sentimientos e ideas”. La frivolidad, pues, como causa de que la cultura haya desaparecido; de que los políticos se hayan vuelto inanes o corruptos; de que el arte conceptual sea un timo; y de que hayamos extraviado el erotismo. Por su culpa, vivimos en la civilización del espectáculo: una era que ha perdido los valores que separaban lo bueno de lo malo —en sentido ético y estético— y donde, al carecer de preceptores, cualquiera puede ser engañado por mercachifles.
Bajo esta justa invectiva contra el carácter banal —y venal— de nuestros días, Vargas Llosa parece añorar los buenos tiempos en que una élite —justa e ilustrada— conducía nuestras elecciones. Según él, la existencia de una auctoritas permitió el desarrollo de la cultura gracias a que un pequeño grupo de sabios, cuya influencia no dependía de sus conexiones de clase sino de su talento, señaló el camino a los jóvenes. (¿Quiénes serían esos aristócratas sin vínculos con el poder?) La consecuencia más perniciosa de la rebelión estudiantil de 1968 fue destruir la legitimidad de esa élite, provocando que toda autoridad sea vista como sospechosa y deleznable. Y, a partir de allí, le déluge.
El de Vargas Llosa es un vehemente elogio de la aristocracia (en el mejor sentido del término). No deja de ser curioso que alguien que se define como liberal —invocando una estirpe que va de Smith, Stuart Mill y Popper a Hayek y Friedman—, se muestre como adalid de una élite cultural que, en términos políticos, le resultaría inadmisible: un mandato de sabios, semejante al de La República, resulta más propio de un universo totalitario como el de Platón que del orbe de un demócrata. Por supuesto, Vargas Llosa no admite la paradoja: a sus ojos, su lucha contra al autoritarismo político —de Castro a Chávez, pasando por Fujimori—, no invalida su defensa de la autoridad en términos culturales porque ésta se demuestra a través de las obras.
Reluce aquí la fuente de su malestar: si el respeto a la élite cultural se desvanece, los parámetros que permiten distinguir las obras buenas de las malas —y a los autores que merecen autoridad de los estafadores— se resquebrajan. En un mundo así, ya no es posible confiar en nadie, ni siquiera en un Premio Nobel. Las masas ya no siguen a los sabios y, en vez de escuchar una ópera de Wagner o leer una novela de Faulkner, se lanzan a un concierto de Lady Gaga o devoran las páginas de Dan Brown. Para Vargas Llosa, no lo hacen porque les gusten esos bodrios, sino porque dejaron de hacer caso a los happy few que, a diferencia de ellos, poseían buen gusto. Vista así, la cultura —esa cultura— desaparece. Y se impone el cáos.
Vargas Llosa no es, por supuesto, el primero en entristecerse al ver un estadio lleno para Shakira cuando sólo un puñado de fanáticos asiste a un recital de Schumann pero, en términos proporcionales, nunca tanta gente disfrutó de la alta cultura. Nunca se leyeron tantas novelas profundas, nunca se oyó tanta música clásica, nunca se asistió tanto a museos, nunca se vio tanto cine de autor. El novelista acepta esta expansión, pero piensa que algo se perdió en el camino, que el público de hoy no comprende el sustrato íntimo de esas piezas. ¿En verdad piensa que en el siglo XIX los lectores de Hugo o Sue, o quienes abuchearon la première de La Traviata, eran más cultos?
¿Qué es, entonces, lo que le perturba? En el fondo, sólo ha cambiado una cosa: antes, las masas trabajaban; ahora, trabajan y se entretienen. Pero al marxista que Vargas Llosa tiene arrinconado en su interior esto le resulta indigerible: al divertirse, sin abrevar en las aguas del espíritu, las masas están alienadas. En cambio, la pequeña burguesía ilustrada sigue allí, aunque ya no sea tan pequeña. De hecho, muchos de los lectores de Vargas Llosa provienen de sus miembros, aunque él también se haya convertido en parte de esa cultura popular que tanto fustiga —y que vuelve sinónimo de “incultura”.
Cuando extrapola este análisis a la política, sus argumentos se tornan más inquietantes. Tras el fin del comunismo —el único lugar donde, por cierto, la alta cultura se mantuvo intacta—, las democracias liberales no han respondido a las expectativas de los ciudadanos. La causa es, de nuevo, la frivolidad. En la arcadia que dibuja, los políticos estaban comprometidos con un ideal de servicio que la civilización del espectáculo destruyó. Vargas Llosa no contempla que la actual crisis del capitalismo no se debe tanto a la falta de valores como a la ideología ultraliberal, inspirada en Hayek o Friedman, que hizo ver al Estado como responsable de todos los males y provocó la desregulación que precipitó la catástrofe.
Aún más lacerante suena la vena aristocrática de Vargas Llosa al hablar de religión. Él, que se declara no creyente y ha combatido sin tregua la intolerancia, recomienda para la gente común, es decir, para aquellos que no tienen la grandeza moral para ser ateos, un poco de religión, incluso en las escuelas. Aunque falsa, ésta al menos les concederá un atisbo de vida espiritual. Como cuando se refiere a la necesidad de devolverle ciertos límites a un sexo que juzga anodino, el discípulo de Popper no parece tolerar esa sociedad radicalmente abierta, en términos culturales, que tanto defendió en política.
En La civilización del espectáculo, Vargas Llosa acierta al diagnosticar el final de una era: la de los intelectuales como él. Poco a poco se difuminan nuestras ideas de autoría y propiedad intelectual; ya no existen las fronteras entre la alta cultura y la cultura popular; y, sí, se desdibuja el mundo del libro en papel. Pero, en vez de ver en esta mutación un triunfo de la barbarie, podría entenderse como la oportunidad de definir nuevas relaciones de poder cultural. La solución frente al imperio de la banalidad, que tan minuciosamente describe, no pasa por un regreso al modelo previo de autoridad, sino por el reconocimiento de una libertad que, por vertiginosa, inasible y móvil que nos parezca, se deriva de aquella por la que Vargas Llosa siempre luchó.

PDVSA antes y ahora


12 de mayo de 2012

Libro revela vínculo directo de Capriles Radonski, con operación paramilitar



El candidato presidencial de derecha, Henrique Capriles Radonski, tiene implicación directa en la operación paramilitar que se desarrolló en la finca Dacktari, en las afueras de la capital, Caracas, donde más de 150 paramilitares colombianos apoyados por la oposición pretendían desarrollar planes conspirativos contra el Gobierno venezolano.
Esta información es recogida en el libro La invasión Paramilitrar Operación Daktari, que fue presentado este sábado desde el Fuerte Tiuna, Caracas por sus autores Miguel Pérez Pirela, Luis Britto García, y Miguel Rodríguez Torres.
Pérez Pirela detalló que esta operación implicó una logística sin precedentes, que incluyó a dueños de medios privados, empresarios y políticos venezolanos. Además de la creación de organizaciones no gubernamentales como la impulsada por el ex presidente colombiano Álvaro Uribe “para desestabilizar a Venezuela, Ecuador y Bolivia”.
Dijo que Uribe confesó que está trabajando para recibir fondos para la campaña de Capriles Radonski, el cual acaba de regresar de Colombia donde se reunió con algunos financistas de operaciones como la que se pretendía desarrollar en Venezuela.
Mientras que el alcalde Metropolitano Antonio Ledezma le ofreció a Venezuela como regalo al Primer Ministro de Israel, Benjamín Netanyahu,de ganar las elecciones presidenciales Capriles Radonski.
También, Pérez Pirela mencionó que en Miami en la casa de una conocida periodista venezolana se reunía Eladio Aponte Aponte (ex magistrado del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia y Eligio Cedeño (banquero venezolano)”.
“Vamos a seguir nosotros permitiendo que se hable de casualidad, paranoia cuando todo nos muestra y señala que el 11 de abril (2002), que el hecho del paramilitarismo descubierto hace ocho años, para la oposición no es una excepción es la regla”, enfatizó el filósofo.
Pérez Pirela denunció que los planes conspirativos continúan y se hacen más arduos cuando las encuestas, las redes sociales y la calle dice que Henrique Capriles Radonski no sólo está derrotado sino que, como también reseñan las agencias internacionales, “esa candidatura no levanta vuelo”.
La última parte del libro La invasión Paramilitrar Operación Daktari la dedicaron a un análisis filosófico y político sobre el tema del Estado, “porque nosotros nos tenemos que mirar en el drama de Colombia que existe una nación que tiene que enfrentar un paraestado, creado por Álvaro Uribe”.
Recordó que en las declaraciones que da el ex comandante de las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), plantea que en el 2008 la oposición venezolana le pidió a éste crear un paraestado en Venezuela, “es decir un Estado fuera del Estado, que pudiera actuar al margen de la ley”.
Durante la presentación del libro en el Fuerte Tiuna, Pérez Pirela dijo que si el pueblo venezolano deja que la oposición siga en este juego, “nos vamos a encontrar en una guerra civil continuada silenciosa como la que Uribe creó en Colombia”.
Enfatizó que Venezuela tiene fronteras definidas, la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana y el liderazgo de Hugo Chávez. “No dejemos que ese Estado, las venga a romper un grupúsculo, un cogollo de la oposición que con tal de salir de Chávez y quedarse con el petróleo de Venezuela son capaces de hacer absolutamente todo”.
Fuente: Radio del Sur

Cuántas guerras secretas está combatiendo USA

How many secret wars are we fighting?

U.S. special ops forces are being deployed in more and more nations -- and the public has no idea

A photo taken by a local resident shows the wreckage of a helicopter next to the wall of the compound where Osama bin Laden was shot and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Monday, May 2, 2011
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.
After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.
Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. “We do a lot of traveling — a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently. This global presence — in about 60 percent of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged — provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.
The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military
Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight U.S. service members died, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate. Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.”
This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
Growth Industry
From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.
Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command — the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 — indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600. “I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,” he said at a June breakfast with defense reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.
During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3 percent to 5 percent a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.
A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite U.S forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that “as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia.”
During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet — mostly the industrialized nations of the global north — were considered the key areas. “But the world changed over the last decade,” he said. “Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south… certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren’t.”
To that end, Olson launched “Project Lawrence,” an effort to increase cultural proficiencies — like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs — for overseas operations. The program is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I. Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed “Lawrences of Wherever.”
While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world. All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government. According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85 percent of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.
Special Operations Command won’t disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in. “We’re obviously going to have some places where it’s not advantageous for us to list where we’re at,” says Nye. “Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have — it may be internal, it may be regional.”
But it’s no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the U.S. spends $50 million a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf.
Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism’s National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America’s most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland. So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. “Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises.”
The Pentagon’s Power Elite
Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence. Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces — like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines — a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists.
With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon. With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops. Since 2001, SOCOM’s prime contracts awarded to small businesses — those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons — have jumped six-fold.
Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theater commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself. As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM “is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies.”
Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialized Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military. Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as “the president’s private army,” today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach.
In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.
That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows. Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: “I am convinced that the forces… are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer.”
Recently at the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, “Are you talking about unattributed explosions?”
What he did let slip, however, was telling. He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common. A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said. Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM. Right now, he emphasized, U.S. Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada’s entire active duty military. In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where America’s elite troops now operate each year, and it’s only set to grow larger.
Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a “special” force this large, this active, and this secret — and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available. It just won’t be coming from Olson or his troops. “Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it,” he said in response to questions about SOCOM’s secrecy. When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object. The military’s secret military, said Olson, wants “to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do.”
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Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. This story is a joint investigative project of Salon, AlterNet, and Brave New Foundation.

6 de mayo de 2012

El esclavismo en la Alemania del siglo XXI

La otra cara del milagro laboral alemán: 7 millones de minijobs y 50 céntimos/hora

elEconomista.es
8/02/2012 -
Sueldos de dos euros la hora para fregar platos y limpiar suelos, agencias de empleo que demandan personal al que pagar menos de 60 céntimos la hora, siete millones de empleados con minijobs… ¿Qué hay detrás del milagro económico alemán?
“Mi empresa me explotaba”, asegura Anja, de 50 años, en declaraciones que recogeReuters. ”Si pudiera encontrar otro trabajo, me marcharía muy muy lejos”. Durante los últimos seis años se ha dedicado a fregar suelos y lavar platos por dos euros la hora.
La moderación salarial y las reformas del mercado laboral han empujado la tasa de paro hasta el nivel más bajo en 20 años, y el modelo alemán se cita a menudo como ejemplo al resto de países europeos que quieren reducir el desempleo y buscan ser más competitivos. Pero Anja se escandaliza cada vez que lee en un titular, “el milagro económico alemán”.

Las consecuencias de la reforma

Los críticos aseguran que los cambios laborales de principios de la década pasada han contribuido a crear puestos de trabajo, pero también han fomentado la existencia de trabajos temporales y mal pagados, incrementando la desigualdad salarial.
Los datos de la oficina de empleo germana muestran cómo el grupo de empleados con salarios más bajos creció tres veces más rápido que el resto entre 2005 y 2010. Eso explica por qué el milagro laboral no ha llevado a los ciudadanos a gastar mucho más, asegura Reuters en su artículo.
En Alemania no existe un salario mínimo a nivel nacional, por eso los sueldos pueden ser incluso inferiores a un euro la hora, especialmente en los estados de la antigua Alemania comunista.
“He tenido algunas personas que ganan apenas 55 céntimos la hora”, explica Peter Huefken, jefe de la agencia de empleo de la ciudad germana de Stralsund, la primera de este tipo que ha demandado a las empresas por pagar sueldos muy bajos. Huefken anima a otras agencias a seguir sus pasos.
En 2011, el número de ocupados en Alemania sobrepasó los 41 millones, el nivel más elevado desde la reunificación. La tasa de empleo ha disminuido prácticamente de forma constante desde el año 2005 y ahora se sitúa tan sólo en el 6,7%, frente al 23% de España o el 18% de Grecia.

¿Una reforma precoz?

En 2003, con Gerhard Schroeder como canciller, Alemania se embarcó en una serie de reformas laborales que fueron calificadas por muchos como “el mayor cambio en el sistema de bienestar social desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial”, aún cuando muchos otros se movían en la dirección opuesta.
Mientras los socialistas franceses introducían la semana de 35 horas y un mínimo arranque al alza de los salarios, el Partido Socialdemócrata Alemán (SPD) desregulaba el mercado laboral y aumentaba la presión sobre los desempleados para que encontrasen trabajo. Los sindicatos y los empresarios estaban de acuerdo en fomentar la moderación salarial en pro de una mayor seguridad laboral y crecimiento.
A partir de 2005, el desempleo comenzó a caer, acercándose a niveles previos a la reunificación. En otras partes de Europa, en cambio, se empezaba a luchar contra el paro. Pero, desde entonces, han crecido especialmente los empleos temporales y de baja remuneración como consecuencia de la desregulación y la promoción de empleos flexibles y con sueldos de 400 euros, los llamados minijobs, una opción de trabajo a tiempo parcial que puede resultar atractiva para muchos parados.

Las críticas de la OIT

La Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) ha criticado recientemente la política alemana de competitividad salarial, considerándola como la “causa estructural” de la crisis en la zona euro.
Según un informe que recoge France Press, las reformas de Schroeder tuvieron como efecto “reducir los ingresos más bajos, especialmente en los servicios, donde aparecieron nuevos empleos de baja remuneración”. Pero, al mismo tiempo, “se hizo poco para mejorar la competitividad a través de una progresión de la productividad”, según este informe.
La política de deflación salarial no solamente ha afectado al consumo. “También condujo a un aumento de la desigualdad de los ingresos a una velocidad jamás vista, ni siquiera durante el choque producido tras la reunificación”, denuncia por su parte la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE).
La cuestión es que “los demás países consideran cada vez más que una dura política de deflación salarial es la solución a su falta de competitividad”, subraya el informe.
Los economistas aseguran que el objetivo de Schroeder era conseguir la reincorporación al mercado laboral de los desempleados poco cualificados y de parados de larga duración. En 2005, su último año como canciller, se jactó en el Foro Económico Mundial de Davos de haber construido uno de los sectores de salarios más bajos de toda Europa, recuerdaReuters.
Hoy, siete años más tarde, los empresarios alaban las reformas que condujeron a la existencia de los minijobs y de los empleos temporales. “Fueron particularmente populares entre las mujeres y los estudiantes para ganar algo de dinero extra”, o “dieron más flexibilidad a las empresas y la posibilidad de contratar a más personas para empleos poco cualificados y de baja productividad”, son los argumentos que más resuenan.

¿Camino a ninguna parte?

En cambio, los más criticos con las reformas aseguran que se ha tenido que pagar un alto precio, el que supone un mercado laboral de dos niveles. Y apuntan a que si bien ha ayudado a trabajadores de baja cualificación a incorporarse al mercado laboral, las encuestas muestran que no les ha llevado a ninguna parte. Además, alegan que los empresarios tienen pocos incentivos para crear trabajos estables a tiempo completo.
El resultado es que uno de cada cinco empleos en Alemania es hoy un minijob: sueldos máximos de 400 euros al mes libres de impuestos. Para casi siete millones de trabajadores este es su principal empleo.

elEconomista.es

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