My First Reaction: It Sounds Like a Good Start

Vietnamese real estate mogul Truong My Lan has been convicted of fraud and sentenced to death.

Given that the fraud was $44,000,000,000.00, and Vietnam's annual GDP was $408,800,000,000.00, this means that her fraud was equivalent of 10.7% of Vietnamese GDP, so I understand the sentence.

I don't approve of the sentence though.  I oppose the death penalty:

It was the most spectacular trial ever held in Vietnam, befitting one of the greatest bank frauds the world has ever seen.

Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old Vietnamese property developer was sentenced to death on Thursday for looting one of the country's largest banks over a period of 11 years.

It's a rare verdict - she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.

The decision is a reflection of the dizzying scale of the fraud. Truong My Lan was convicted of taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. The verdict requires her to return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered. Some believe the death penalty is the court's way of trying to encourage her to return some of the missing billions.

………

The evidence was in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes. Eighty-five others were tried with Truong My Lan, who denied the charges and can appeal.

All of the defendants were found guilty. Four received life in jail. The rest were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended. Truong My Lan's husband and niece received jail terms of nine and 17 years respectively.

………

Truong My Lan comes from a Sino-Vietnamese family in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. It has long been the commercial engine of the Vietnamese economy, dating well back to its days as the anti-communist capital of South Vietnam, with a large, ethnic Chinese community.

This may explain why they went after Ms. Truong.

Going after an ethnic minority, in this case Vietnamese of Chinese descent, is generally a political win.

She started as a market stall vendor, selling cosmetics with her mother, but began buying land and property after the Communist Party ushered in a period of economic reform, known as Doi Moi, in 1986. By the 1990s, she owned a large portfolio of hotels and restaurants.

Although Vietnam is best known outside the country for its fast-growing manufacturing sector, as an alternative supply chain to China, most wealthy Vietnamese made their money developing and speculating in property.

A need for a translate here, "Made their money developing and speculating in property," translates to, "Corrupt parasite."

Of course, she made her money because she was lining the pockets of party officials, but at some point, it became unsustainable.

I'm wondering what the next step in this anti-corruption campaign will be.

Elections Tonight

It won't get much ink in the United States, because they are in Thailand and Turkey.

The results in Thailand are are pretty clear right now, with the opposition winning decisively, with a new party outpacing the traditional opposition.

This is notable because this party, Move Forward, was not expected to do so well, and it is the only of the Thai body politic that has expressed, even obliquely, a desire to reexamine the role of the Thai monarchy in the running of the country:

Voters in Thailand overwhelmingly sought to end nearly a decade of military rule on Sunday, casting ballots in favor of two opposition parties that have pledged to curtail the power of the country’s powerful conservative institutions: the military and the monarchy.

With 97 percent of the votes counted early Monday morning, the progressive Move Forward Party was neck and neck with the populist Pheu Thai Party. Move Forward had won 151 seats to Pheu Thai’s 141 in the 500-seat House of Representatives.

In most parliamentary systems, the two parties would form a new governing coalition and choose a prime minister. But under the rules of the current Thai system, written by the military after its 2014 coup, the junta will still play kingmaker.

The system is that there is the democratically elected House, and a Senate whose members are appointed by the military numbering 250, and to form a new government, a majority of both the House and Senate must approve, requiring 375 votes, so they will need at least 83 votes from some of the smaller opposition parties.

The current military backed party, the Palang Pracharat, appears to have lost at least half of its seats, though there was also a party that hived off of them, UTN since the last election.

The election had widely been seen as an easy victory for Pheu Thai, the country’s largest opposition party founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. A billionaire tycoon, Mr. Thaksin, 73, was ousted in a coup in 2006 after accusations of corruption, but he is still fondly remembered as a populist champion for the rural poor. Polls had showed that Mr. Thaksin’s youngest daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, was the leading choice for prime minister.

But in a surprise, the Move Forward Party, a progressive political party that called for upending old power structures and amending a law that criminalizes public criticism of the monarchy, made stunning strides, capturing young urban voters, and the capital, Bangkok.

“We can frame this election as a referendum on traditional power centers in Thai politics,” said Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. “People want change, and not just a change of government, they want structural reform.”

While Move Forward has tempered its rhetoric, it still is calling for a significant curtailment of the powers of the King, which is a very good thing.

I hope that this results in real change, but I expect it to result in another coup.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, it appears that the Turkish Presidential elections are headed toward a runoff.

This is still uncertain, Erdogan is currently less than 1% away from an absolute majority, and there is a lot of mischief that he could create using the levers of power of the Turkish state, either now, or during a runoff election.

I'd like to see Erdogon go, but I'm not optimistic:

Turkey’s presidential election appeared on Sunday to be headed for a runoff after the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to win a majority of the vote, a result that left the longtime leader struggling to stave off the toughest political challenge of his career.

The outcome of the vote set the stage for a two-week battle between Mr. Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader, to secure victory in a May 28 runoff that may reshape Turkey’s political landscape.

With the unofficial count nearly completed, Mr. Erdogan received 49.4 percent of the vote to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s 44.8 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

But both sides claimed to be ahead.

………

I cannot claim to have my finger on the pulse of Turkish politics, but it seems to me that his reputation as being scrupulously ethical, he is best known for his anti-corruption efforts, probably had a lot to do with the close contest.

If those numbers hold, then it is likely that Erdogon would win the runoff, votes typically come in at 2 or 3 to 1 for the challenger, but Erdogon is very close to the majority now.

I would expect to see attempt to suppress the Kurdish vote in the west of the country by Turkish security forces in the next few weeks, and perhaps some jailing of members of the political opposition.

About Bloody Time

The White House has finally stated that the Tatmadaw (Burmese Military) committed genocide.

It would be nice if they listed members of what was then the civilian polity who aggressively supported these actions, such as Nobel Peace Price Winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Unfortunately, unlike the Japanese military, the Tatmadaw was never cleansed of the brutality instilled in when the Kōgun (Japanese Army) created the force during WWII.

Still, this is long overdue

The Coup in Myanmar

Yes, the coup was caught on an aerobics video

I'm hoping that there is a way for both sides, a genocidal and dictatorial military and a genocidal Nobel Peace Prize Winner, can both lose as a result of the military seizing power in Myanmar.

Last time around, Aung San Suu Kyi had the support of human rights activists everywhere, but after years of her enthusiastic support for the genocide of the Rohingya, the blush is off the rose.

One hopes that whatever happens, that the end result will be a true multiparty democracy where all of its citizens, including the Rohingya, can fully and freely participate:

Myanmar’s military said Monday that it took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year, after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) in a predawn operation, staging a coup against the democratically elected government.

The raids came hours before a new session of parliament was scheduled to open and members who won the November elections were set to take their seats. Suu Kyi’s NLD won those elections in a landslide, capturing 396 out of 476 seats. It was Myanmar’s second democratic election since the country’s fragile transition from military rule to democracy.

………

Several hours after the raids, the military in a television broadcast said that a state of emergency had been declared in Myanmar and that power would be transferred to the commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing. Myint Swe, a former general and the military-backed vice president, will become the president, the broadcast added.

The sweep also included other prominent democracy activists who have been fighting against military rule for decades, leaders of other political parties and NLD lawmakers, according to social media posts and news reports.

………

Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before her release in November 2010, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her resistance to military rule. The military-drafted constitution prevents her from leading Myanmar as president, but she is unequivocally the nation’s leader, revered as a deity, and rules through proxies. The military-drafted constitution also allows the army to step in in a situation that may “disintegrate” the country and national solidarity.

Since taking power, though, she has disappointed old allies in the West, particularly for defending Myanmar — and its military in particular — against charges of genocide over the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Suu Kyi has in recent years moved closer toward powers such as China and India, and grown increasingly estranged from countries such as the United States and Britain, which once led advocacy efforts to get her released from house arrest.

She is up there with Henry Kissinger, Barack "DronesR Us" Obama, Jimmy "Bought 4 decades of war in Afghanistan" Carter, and Elihu Root (Philippine insurrection) on a list of horrible recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

For some reason, I tend to take it personally when people engage in religiously based genocide, and the Junta and Suu Kyi have.

The Vampire Squid Skates Again

Goldman Sachs, which was a conspirator in the Malaysian 1MDB scandal, will scate with a payment of a $2½ billion dollars.

As a part of this deal, the people at Goldman Sachs who personally aided, and personally profited from, the theft of billions of Malaysian state resources, will be getting get out of jail free cards.

This is disgusting:

Only Goldman Sachs. Last week, after months of public sparring and days of tough in-person negotiations, the Wall Street bank finally reached a deal with Malaysia over allegations that it had helped a former prime minister loot billions of dollars from the state investment fund, 1MDB.

Goldman will fork out $2.5bn, instead of the $7.5bn the finance minster had originally demanded, and the Malaysian government agreed to drop criminal charges against the bank and cease legal proceedings against 17 current and former Goldman directors.

………

Evercore’s Glenn Schorr argues that “the only thing that matters is, will this prevent Goldman from doing business in the way they need to do business? I believe it won’t.” If history — and the Malaysian result — is any guide, Mr Schorr is on to something.

Mr. Schorr means that he hopes that GS will continue business as usual.

What is left unspoken is that business as usual for the, "Great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," is corruption, looting, and fraud.

The UN Plans to Set up a Concentration Camp for Rohingya

This sort of sh%$ is why am not a fan of civil society groups.

Between their providing sanctuary for genocidal maniacs in Rwanda, and their agreeing to staff Serbian detention camps in Kosovo, I've never been impressed.

I understand the need to provide aid, if you aren't, then you have no job, but not when it makes you complicit in ethnic cleansing.

I understant the conflict inherent in their role: If they don't supply aid, they don't have a job, but the UN proposal to basically maroon Rohingya refugees on a barren and flood prone island int he Bay of Bengal is simply indefensible:

Human rights groups have reacted with horror to reports of United Nations draft plans to help relocate thousands of Rohingya refugees from Bangladeshi camps to a barren, flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal.

A document drawn up this month by the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN's food aid arm, and seen by Reuters, has revealed how the agency supplied the Bangladeshi government with detailed plans of how it could provide for thousands of Rohingya being transported to the island on a voluntary basis.

Dhaka has long insisted that it is unable cope with the dramatic influx of refugees to camps in Cox’s Bazar since a brutal crackdown by the Burmese military in August 2017, said by UN investigators to have been conducted with “genocidal intent”, prompted some 730,000 Rohingya to flee their homes.

Relocation to the uninhabited, remote island of Bhasan Char has been touted as a solution to chronic overcrowding. But many Rohingya are fearful to go and human rights experts warn that the move to an island made of silt and vulnerable to frequent cyclones could spark another crisis.

The revelation of draft WFP plans, including a timeline and a budget for how the agency and its partners "may facilitate the identification, staging, forward movement, reception, and sustainment of refugees" on Bhasan Char, was met with outrage on Monday.

“What the hell is the WFP thinking? Bangladesh’s plan to move Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char looks like a human rights and humanitarian disaster in the making so UN agencies should be talking about how to stop this ill-considered scheme, not facilitate it,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

This is being complicit in the Myanmar genocide of the Rohingya.

Pass the Popcorn

Malaysia has formally filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs for its role in the massive 1MDB scandal.

The scale of the scandal, and the Vampire Squid's involvement in the scandal, is huge, and as such, it's inconceivable that the most senior management at Goldman Sachs was unaware of what was going on.

All I want for New Years is Lloyd Blankfein frog-marched out of his office in handcuffs:

The breadth of Goldman Sachs ’ potential legal jeopardy in the 1MDB scandal keeps growing.

The U.S. Justice Department has already secured a plea agreement from the bank’s former chairman of its Southeast Asia business who said that evading compliance controls was part of the firm’s culture. The bank’s then-chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, attended meetings that the shadowy Malaysian financier at the heart of the scandal was also present on at least two occasions, according to reports.

………

Now, the Malaysian government has filed its own criminal charges against subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs (GS) in connection to the 1MDB scandal, the country’s attorney general said in a statement.

The attorney general also said that charges would be filed shortly against a former partner of the bank and ex-chairman of its Southeast Asia business, Tim Leissner, and another former Goldman Sachs banker, Roger Ng.

………

The spokesman later added: “Certain members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB lied to Goldman Sachs, outside counsel, and others about the use of proceeds from these transactions. 1MDB, whose CEO and board reported directly to the prime minister at the time, also provided written assurances to Goldman Sachs for each transaction that no intermediaries were involved. Under the Malaysian legal process, the firm was not afforded an opportunity to be heard prior to the filing of these charges against certain Goldman Sachs entities, which we intend to vigorously contest. These charges do not affect our ability to conduct our current business globally.”

(emphasis mine)

The technical term for this is, "Willfull blindness".  They knew about the looting, but made sure not to look in the right direction.

In a November radio interview, Malaysia’s finance minister said the country would seek a $600 million refund on the fees it paid to Goldman Sachs for three bond offerings the bank underwrote in 2012 and 2013. Billions of dollars from those deals were allegedly siphoned off to private accounts and used to pay bribes, and were laundered through things like real-estate deals and Hollywood investments.
………

At the center of the alleged fraud is Jho Low, a financier with no formal role in the fund who nevertheless effectively controlled it, and Leissner, who said in his plea statement that he evaded the bank’s compliance controls to help Low divert money and that such actions were part of the bank’s culture.

Goldman Sachs underwrote the bonds and reaped around $600 million in fees from the deals—equal to about 10% of the total issuance, which is an astronomical fee for what was putatively debt issued by a sovereign wealth fund.

Leissner pleaded guilty to his role in shifting money out of 1MDB and of bribing various government officials in order to pull off the fraud in November but has yet to be sentenced. Low has also been charged but his whereabouts are unclear.

Goldman Sachs needs to be "Arthur Andersoned", and their corporate carcass needs to be hung from the ramparts as a warning to other malefactors.

Irony Much?

In response to aggressive Chinese actions in the Pacific and Indian oceans, Vice Presidence announces, completly unaware of the irony, that, "Empire and aggression have no place in Indo-Pacific."

Seriously?  There has been nothing but since the East India Company became the furst trans-national firm:

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told leaders of Southeast Asian nations on Thursday that there was no place for “empire and aggression” in the Indo-Pacific region, a comment that could be interpreted as a reference to China’s rise.

………

The prime minister of Singapore later said that Southeast Asian countries did not want to take sides when pulled in different directions by major powers, but that one day it may have to.

Leaders at the ASEAN meetings this week heard warnings that the post-World War Two international order was in jeopardy and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing could trigger a “domino effect” of protectionist measures by other countries.

“Like you, we seek an Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, can prosper and thrive – secure in our sovereignty, confident in our values, and growing stronger together,” Pence said. “We all agree that empire and aggression have no place in the Indo-Pacific.”

Shameless.

As Yves Smith says, "Not the Onion"

I Can Haz Prosecushunz?

It has been known for some time that the Vampire Squid (Goldman Sachs) was heavily involved in the the Malaysian government's fabulously corrupt 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

We now know that Goldman Sachs' then CEO Lloyd Blankfein was directly involved in the program:

Years before Goldman Sachs Group Inc. arranged bond deals now at the heart of globe-spanning corruption probes, the firm’s then-CEO Lloyd Blankfein personally helped forge ties with Malaysia and its new sovereign wealth fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Blankfein was the unidentified high-ranking Goldman Sachs executive referenced in U.S. court documents who attended a 2009 meeting with the former Malaysian prime minister, the people said. The meeting was arranged with the help of men who are now tied to the subsequent plundering of the 1MDB fund, according to U.S. court documents unsealed last week.

………

The high-level gathering laid the groundwork for a relationship that would prove profitable for the investment bank. Since then, the use of $6.5 billion that Goldman raised for 1MDB has sparked investigations across several nations, and entangled the U.S. bank in a high-profile corruption probe

This is not a surprise.

Laundering ill-gotten gains is a major profit center for big finance, but their involvement in 1MDB is downright criminal.

Some serious jail time should be in order.

TPP: the Fat Lady Ain't Singing, but She Is Warming Up

At the end of last month, the negotiations that were supposed to put the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ended without an agreement.

What's more, there wasn't even a date set for a followup summit:

Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations failed to reach final agreement on Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever deadlocking over protections for drug companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific.

Trade ministers, in a joint statement, said late Friday they had made “significant progress” and will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon.

“There are an enormous number of issues that one works through at these talks, narrowing differences, finding landing zones,” said Michael B. Froman, the United States trade representative. “I am very impressed with the work that has been done. I am gratified by the progress that has been made.”

Still, the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the world’s economy under a new set of rules for commerce.

This is a failure, and a big one.

In a normally unproductive summit, the Japanese would oblique.

When a Japanese diplomat says, "It would be difficult," it should be read "No!" with the explanation point, and when a Japanese diplomat says that, "It would be very difficult, it's the equivalent of "F%$# You White Man."

This time, the Japanese Economy Minister, who is their lead on this deal, just explicitly stated that the US were too wimpy:

Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy.

Ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would stretch from Japan to Chile, fell short of a deal at talks last month on the Hawaiian island of Maui, despite early optimism.

Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari, in a blog circulated on Tuesday, also questioned why the United States appeared to have lacked its usual "stubborn persistence" at those talks, despite a willingness of some countries to stay to try to reach an agreement.

If this were translated into standard American discourse, it would use language that would make George Carlin uncomfortable.

And from Australia, a country whose foreign policy is defined by a desperate need to be "In the Club", the Trade Minister is saying that a deal is unlikely:

Australia’s trade minister, Andrew Robb, has appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra today, where he admitted that concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is looking increasingly unlikely.

According to AAP, Rob said that sugar and dairy access remained key sticking points, along with motor vehicle assess between Mexico, the US, Canada and Japan. He also noted that “the closer we get to a US presidential election, the more prospect (there is) of it falling over”.

There is also the upcoming Canadian elections later this year.

Seeing as how this deal sucks, it's a good thing that it appears to be comatose.

Reviewing Stories Over the Past Year, This One Wins the Award for Best "A Good Start"

I did not notice this story when the Global Post published it in April, but when they republished the fact that Vietnam is executing corrupt bankers, I felt kind of jealous:

Editor's note: This story was first published on April 3, 2014. GlobalPost is featuring it again as one of our must-reads of 2014.

BANGKOK — For the most part, American bankers whose rash pursuit of profit brought on the 2008 global financial collapse didn’t get indicted. They got bonuses.
Odds are that scandal would have played out differently in Vietnam, another nation struggling with misbehaving bankers.

The authoritarian Southeast Asian state doesn’t just send unscrupulous financiers to jail. Sometimes, it sends them to death row.

Amid a sweeping cleanup of its financial sector, Vietnam has sentenced three bankers to death in the past six months.

One duo now on death row embezzled roughly $25 million from the state-owned Vietnam Agribank. Their co-conspirators caught decade-plus prison sentences.

 I do not approve of capital punishment, but this whole "Decades-plus prison sentence" thing?  That I wholeheartedly approve.

Nope. Not at All Like a Brush War in Indochina.

The inimitable Charlie Pierce pulls some quotes from the early 1960s:

My Esky colleague John H. Richardson whiles away the slow days by immersing himself in recently declassified CIA documents. (Buy his book to find out why, dammit.) This is a very valuable habit he has, at least to those of John's friends who write political blogs for a living. So, the other day, he hipped me to some recently declassified CIA material, specifically National Intelligence Estimates dated April 17, 1963 and titled "Prospects In South Vietnam." These concerned, among other things, the CIA's assessment of the relative strength of the Viet Cong in our adopted Indochinese client state. There's some material that seems almost unbearably sad in retrospect:

We believe that Communist progress has been blunted and that the situation is improving. Strengthened South Vietnamese capabilities and effectiveness, and particularly US involvement, are causing the Viet Cong great difficulty, although there are as yet no persuasive indications that the Communists have been grievously hurt.

………

For weapons, ammunition, and related supplies, the Viet Cong rely primarily upon capture from government forces.

………

Nevertheless, the heavy US involvement and close working relationships between US and Vietnamese personnel have fundamentally altered the outlook...Developments in the past year or two have gone some distance in establishing a basis for winning over the peasantry and in improving the efficiency and the civilian bureaucracy...

………

Developments during the last year or two also show some promise of resolving the political weaknesses, particularly that of insecurity in the countryside, upon which the insurgency has fed. However, the government's capacity to embark on the broader measures required to translate military success into lasting political stability is questionable.

History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

We are so f%$#ed.

Why They are Protesting Against Democracy in Thailand

Per capita GDP


Thai vs. Australian per capita GDP


Government Debt


Social (health) spending

Look at the graphs on economic statistics for Thailand.

Why is anyone complaining about results like this?

Anti government forces Bangkok have vowed to rid Thailand of all vestiges of Thaksin — including Thaksinomics. So let’s pause to cast a medium-term eye over the country’s economic performance during the period (2001 to the present) that has been dominated by Thaksin-esque policies.

………

I’m sure there are plenty of other indicators and comparisons – good, not-so-good and bad – that could be used to plot Thailand’s economic performance since 2001 (comments on other indicators would be very welcome). But the overall point is that Thailand’s voters have some sound economic reasons to keep on electing Thaksin and his allies.

Strong economic growth, and increasing government spending on health, welfare and rural development, didn’t start with Thaksin, but he and his allies have been able to effectively place growing prosperity at the heart of their political success.

What the protesters are objecting to is not economic growth, but rather they are objecting to the fact that there are benefits accruing to the rural peasants.

So the hoi polloi are doing better.

There are new roads, new bridges, new rural clinics, and the position of the rural poor has improved.

It has improved a lot, and their lot relative to the urban elites has also improved.

So the protestors are upset that poor rural families are no longer forced to sell their daughters into prostitution in the big cities, and this is why they want to remove any vestige of Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra while insisting that there be no elections.

When I say that, "The Thai protesters are revolting," I am using the last word as an adjective, not a verb.

It is a Myth that US Forces Lost No Battles in the Vietnam War

That quote from the recently deceased General Vo Nguyen Giap is false, but we still find people claiming that neither the Viet Cong or the (then North) Vietnamese army ever won a battle.

David Petraeus was one of these people. He wrote that, "Military leaders recall US units never lost a battle," in 1986.

This is something that you will hear said from members of the US Military all the time.

It it might be legitimately through provoking if it weren't complete humbug.  A cursory examination reveals 70 lost battles in the Vietnam War.

Given that General Giap died a few days ago at the age of 102 (!), it behooves us to examine what happened in Vietnam, and Cambodia, and Laos, and ask how General Giap, and the people of Indochina beat us.

The military, as been asking a slightly different question, "How did we lose," and so blame the American public.

Malaysia Still On Board for A400M

Unlike South Africa, who canceled their order of the A400M military transport in the face of delays and performance issues, Malaysia has decided that it is still interested in the turboprop transport.

TIE Fighters Pics for you Star Wars Fans

My bad. These aren't TIE Fighters, these are Thai fighters, specifically the SAAB Gripens that are to be delivered to Thailand.

The SAAB has a contract to deliver at least 6 of the diminutive fighters to Thailand, and the first of these aircraft has been assembled, and has taken flight.

My bad...No Star Wars here.

Here, have some video fighter jet pr0n by way of apology for misleading you.

In the words of Emily Latella, "never mind".

Economics Update

We have a bumpy road ahead on the economy, with
retail sales falling 1.1% and the Producer Price Index (PPI) falling 1.2%, both of which indicating that there are still deflationary and recessionary pressures out there.

In regulation, there is finally an Obama choice to run the TARP, Fannie Mae CEO Herb Allison, replacing Bush holdover Neel "Cash and Carry" Kashkari, who along with Hank Paulson, should be in jail for the fraud perpetrated on the US taxpayers.

We also have some news from the moniliner insurers, after a long break, with Moody’s downgrading Ambac to junk status.

Dead man walking.

That being said, there are more signs that credit is thawing, with the LIBOR, the rate big banks charge each other for loans, falling at the fastest rate in 3 months.

In currency, we have news from Asia, where Singapore has devalued its currency by lowering interest rates in an attempt to stem its recession, the idea being that its export based economy would be boosted by a falling currency.

This is a fairly limited option for most nations, as many nations that need the help are debtor nations, while Singapore is a creditor nation.

Meanwhile, the US dollar is up vs. the Euro and down vs the Yen.

Oil fell below $50/bbl today.

Epic Fail: Condoleeza Edition

Condoleeza Rice, once more attempting to make the world look like it did before the USSR collapsed, has failed again, this time in attempting to form a NATO style security union.

In 1992, she suggested that Boris Yeltsin not be accorded the formalities of a head of state, because she thought that the USSR was coming back "real soon now", and since then, she has done her level best to recreate a Soviet style menace out of Russia.

I imagine it's because her so called area of expertise (see the Yeltsin example above), the USSR, has gone away, and so she is trying to recreate academic relevance.

Don't worry dear, you sucked at being a Sovietologist too.

Yes, Myanmar, There is a Panty Clause

Not sure if I can add much to this:

Panties sought for Myanmar protest

Two Canadian human rights group in Quebec are calling for women to mail panties to Myanmar's embassy to protest the ruling military junta.

The Quebec Women's Federation and the activist group Rights and Democracy claim the secretive military leaders in the country formerly known as Burma are superstitious and believe contact with women's underwear will usurp their power, CTV News reported.

...

Myanmar Seizes Aid Supplies from the UN

This is my first post on the subject, because I have very little to say. I am not a student of the region, and what can you say about a tragedy like the cyclone and its associates storm surge.

This story, where authorities in Myanmar seized aid supplies from the UN, puzzles me.

I am aware of the paranoia and xenophobia of the military dictatorship there, but I'm not clear why they would not allow in aid workers in a time like this.