The Down Side of Living Global

Some new global things to ponder as we enter 2015 and to encourage you to make it a resolution to get your head out of the sand.  Yes, the bright sunlight is painful at first, but the power of seeing is good for you.

The Good(?) side of the economy:
The fall of oil prices due to increase in fracking products and natural gas deposits in the Western world has given our economy a shot in the arm.  Travel and shipping of products is falling making it easier for those on budgets to spend money elsewhere, perhaps on food!  It means certain small businesses can turn better profits.  It means the market will rise for some time maybe with the DOW breaking 20,000 in the coming 2015... in some part due to cheaper energy.  This is a good thing, except that it is pushing conservative Congresspersons to argue for more fossil exploration in our national parks.  If you have not visited a fracking treatment site, you have no clue.  This is a good thing except it has environmental side effects that are certainly tragic and potentially more tragic as global climate change is not just an inconvenient truth, it is a dangerous truth.  Another side effect is it is one cause for the Russian Ruble to tumble.  We are happy for that evil person, Putin, to get this comeuppance but this shove means there is always a fall back somewhere.  Like HERE.  It is a global economy after all.  Pull one thread on this web and others feel it.

The bad side of the messing about where we should not:
We are winding down and ending our War in Iraq...at least that is what they tell us.  What a sticky tar pit we have entered.  The cost in money?  It is anyone's guess.  Some say $800 billion, a low-ball estimate.  Others say it has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest.  Money your grand-children will have to pay.   I think the Bush administration predicted the cost would be about $50 million to $60 million dollars.  Ignorance is bliss, but if you are Dick Chaney, you are making lots of money for your grandchildren, so perhaps it is all in how myopic you are.  And what did we get for this?  Where is Iraq now, 13 years and more than 2,300 troop deaths and over 13,000 wounded later?

"Ali Allawi, a former minister of trade, defense and finance, and author of two books on Iraqi history, agrees. "There is so much up in the air," he said. "There are the trappings of a functioning state, but it is like a functioning state lying on a sea of Jello...The ground is so unstable and shifting.""

Kurdish business tycoon Sirwan Barzani, a nephew of Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, sees this as a moment to advance his people's nationalist dream and take his country back to 1916!  Back when another developed nation meddled.   "They asked about my plan," Barzani told Reuters in a military base on the frontline near Gwer, 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil. "I said, 'My plan is to change the Sykes-Picot agreement'" –" a reference to the 1916 agreement between France and Britain that marked out what would become the borders of today's Middle East."  He goes on to describe the situation we leave..."Iraq is not real," Barzani said. "It exists only on the map. The country is killing itself. The Shi'ites and Sunnis cannot live together. How can they expect us to live with them? Our culture is different. The mentality of Kurds is different. We want a divorce."  Clearly our Western marital consultation skills are shiiite!  No pun intended, just trying to be polite.

And the Shi'ites?: ""We are like a sinking ship. Whoever gives you a hand lifting you from the sea whether enemy or friend, you take it without seeing his face because he is there."  The sheikh's changing perceptions are shared by other Iraqi Shi'ites. They once viewed Iran as the enemy but now see their neighbor as Iraq's one real friend. The streets of Baghdad and southern Iraq are decorated with images of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."


Ignorance is artificial bliss, and unless you know this, we will follow other well-meaning or ill-advised or corrupt leaders into other wars.