according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy, unemployment is a lagging indicator, and its the supply side, not demand(WAGES):GDP shrunk:trade deficit up, consumer spending down
Nickname unavailable
healthy economy, unemployment is a lagging indicator, and its the
supply side, not demand(WAGES):GDP shrunk:trade deficit up, consumer
spending down
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091124/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy
Economy's rebound not as strong as first thought
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer – 3 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
period estimated just a month ago.
The main factors behind the downgrade: consumers didn't spend as much,
commercial construction was weaker and the nation's trade deficit was
more of a drag on growth. Businesses also trimmed more of their
stockpiles, another restraining factor.
The new reading on GDP, which measures the value of all goods and
services produced in the United States — from machinery to manicures —
was a tad weaker than the 2.9 percent growth rate economists surveyed
by Thomson Reuters had expected.
Still, the good news is that the economy finally started to grow
again, after a record four straight losing quarters. The bad news is
that the rebound, now and in the months ahead, probably will be
lethargic.
The worst recession since the 1930s is very likely over, but the
economy's return to good health will take time, Fed officials and
economists say.
Growth probably won't be strong enough to quickly drive down the
nation's unemployment rate, currently at 10.2 percent. It's only the
second time in the post-World War II period that unemployment has
topped 10 percent.
Some economists think economic growth will slow to around a 2.5
percent pace in the current quarter, although others say it could
clock in at about 3 percent if holiday sales are better than expected.
Most say they think the economy will weaken again next year, with
growth at a pace of around 1 percent as the impact of the $787 billion
stimulus package fades and consumers keep tightening their belts under
the strain of high unemployment and hard-to-get credit.
Much of the economy's return to growth last quarter reflected federal
support for spending on homes and cars.
But Tuesday's report shows that some of that spending was a bit less
robust than initially thought.
Spending on homes and other residential projects soared at an
annualized pace of 19.5 percent last quarter, a little slower than the
23.4 percent rate first estimated. Spending on big-ticket "durable"
goods — including cars — jumped at a pace of 20.1 percent, down from
22.3 percent.
Even with the downward revisions, it was notable that such spending
grew, after falling in the previous quarter.
In the third quarter, the popular Cash for Clunkers rebates and an
$8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers juiced up sales of cars
and homes. The clunkers program ended in August, but the tax credit
has been extended and expanded beyond first-time buyers.
What's not clear is whether the recovery can continue after government
supports are gone.
If consumers clam up, the economy could tip back into recession.
President Barack Obama recently cautioned that the economy could
suffer a "double dip" downturn.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, however, says he doesn't think that will
happen. But last week the Fed chief did warn the recovery faces
"important headwinds," such as tight credit and a weak job market that
will make consumers cautious in their spending.
Those factors "likely will prevent the expansion from being as robust
as we would hope," Bernanke said.
Tuesday's report showed that overall consumer spending — a major
shaper of national economic activity — grew at a pace of 2.9 percent
last quarter. That was down from a 3.4 percent growth rate first
estimated, but still marked the best showing since early 2007.
On the business side, companies cut back spending on commercial
construction — a weak spot in the economy — at 15.1 percent annualized
pace. That was deeper than the 9 percent annualized cut back first
estimated.
Businesses also trimmed stockpiles of goods by $133.4 billion last
quarter, slightly more than initially estimated.
And the nation's trade deficit ended up shaving 0.83 percentage point
off GDP last quarter, more than first thought.
Unlike past rebounds that were driven by the spending of everyday
Americans, this one appears to hinge on spending by businesses,
foreigners and — until it runs out — the government.
In an encouraging note on that front, businesses after-tax profits
grew at a 13.4 percent pace last quarter, up from a 0.9 percent pace
in the prior period, Tuesday's report showed.
In 1980, businesses led an economic recovery. It quickly fizzled, and
the economy fell into a severe recession in 1981 and 1982. The
unemployment rate climbed to 10.8 percent, the post-World War II high.
The government makes three estimates of economic activity for any
given quarter. Each is based on more complete data. Tuesday's was the
second reading of the third-quarter GDP data.
The return of economic growth puts the White House in a delicate
position: Obama wants to take credit for ending the recession, but
unemployment is still causing pain and anxiety nationwide.
Millions have yet to feel a benefit from the recovery in the form of a
new job or even an easier time getting a simple loan. Even those with
jobs are reluctant to go on a spending spree. The values of their
homes and 401(k)s have not fully recovered.
Some economists think the jobless rate could climb as high as 11
percent by the middle of next year before making a slow descent. It
could take at least four years for the unemployment rate to drop back
down to more normal levels.
"The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it
may be getting worse more slowly," Bernanke said last week.
Against that backdrop, Obama said he's weighing tax breaks that could
encourage businesses to hire again.
alexy
>according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>healthy economy,
Really? I've never heard that. Do you have any examples of free
traders making such a claim, or is this just another example of your
making stuff up?
> unemployment is a lagging indicator,
Yes, but that's not just free traders. I think anyone who observes
economic data observes that fact.
>and its the
>supply side, not demand(WAGES)
Supply siders are not free traders. They believe in manipulating the
markets (on the supply side, hence the name).
>:GDP shrunk
Not according to the article you posted. See line 1 on the article,
which says "The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter". Are
you aware that growing at 2.8% is not the same as shrinking? Geez, how
do you make up these lies?
>:trade deficit up,
I think you accidentally told the truth on this one.
>consumer spending down
According to the article you posted, "Tuesday's report showed that
overall consumer spending a major shaper of national economic activity
grew at a pace of 2.9 percent last quarter."
I guess this is another example of vid-talk, with growth at 2.9% pace
being described as "spending down".
I know, I know. I'm just picking at words. You know in your heart of
hearts that 2.9% growth equates to a decline, and picking on these
words is unfair. Mea culpa.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.
phil scott
it appears these free trade people are nuttier than fruit cakes,,,,
with evidence of that abounding on all sides. These are
people who have never worked for a living and do not produce goods
themselves, they live in the abstract... the proof of their
errors arrives only after the have ruined all they touched.
with the working/ productive class errors are seen almost
instantly.... if your gismo doesnt work, its obvious and no one buys
it
with politico's and the leach class, if it doesnt work, the error can
be spun,,,, with the eventual cause of the collapse hidden in history
Phil scott
Phil scott
phil scott
>
> - Show quoted text -
unfortunately alex your posting history of distortion, spin and
financial fakir side bias has preceeded you.
I would suggest you notice that slave labor nations collapse in all
cases and have a history of starvation and poverty.
Only america with its history of viable labor rates, and only in the
time frames when labor rates were viable for the workers, did
it rise to power and affluence..... and for the precise reasons video
elaborates on,,, 'no wages, no purchasing power, no economy, no
manufacturing. no production, no sustainable profit' (just the short
term profit any rip off produces)
You have been on the short term profit rant mode.
its not rocket science
Phil scott
Werner
I like:
No profit, no manufacturing, no production, no wages, no purchasing
power.
Nickname has been on the short term wage rant mode which you seem to
also subscribe to.
When customers prefer to pay less they don't want to pay more for
either wages or profits. It's not rocket science.
Werner
Millions of them live on decreed entitlements funded on the backs of
working people .
> with the working/ productive class errors are seen almost
> instantly.... if your gismo doesnt work, its obvious and no one buys
> it
>
Not the case with government gismos. Everyone is force to buy it.
> with politico's and the leach class, if it doesnt work, the error can
> be spun,,,, with the eventual cause of the collapse hidden in history
>
indeed. Which is why government power needs limits.
Dollars in the common treasury are like fish in the common sea -
anyone who can will harvest to extinction. That is why socialism is
fundamentally corrupting and can not work. The Fed is making a lot of
paper fish. This is an illusion of wealth. The real fish are gone.
----
http://www.capitaldistrict-lp.org/how.shtml
Governing has become a way to get privileges for some at the expense
of others.
http://www.capitaldistrict-lp.org/what.shtml
http://www.investmentu.com/IUEL/2008/August/the-national-debt.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8ZmQMCtqA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FSoXKapKQs&feature=related
Werner
I like:
Nickname unavailable
>
> I like:
> No profit, no manufacturing, no production, no wages, no purchasing
> power.
>
> Nickname has been on the short term wage rant mode which you seem to
> also subscribe to.
>
> When customers prefer to pay less they don't want to pay more for
> either wages or profits. It's not rocket science.
move to milton friedmans beach resort then. where workers cannot
consume, but the rich make money. what a ignorant moron. as phil said,
all free markets collapse.
another free market debt fueled demandless house of cards darling is
imploding:Milton Friedman’s beach club:Dubai, indeed, has achieved
what American reactionaries only dream of an oasis of free enterprise
without income taxes, trade unions or opposition parties
real profits come from demand(wages), without demand, real profits
collapse.
http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2635
New Left Review 41, September-October 2006
On the rim of the war zone, a new Mecca of conspicuous consumption and
economic crime, under the iron rule of Sheikh al-Maktoum. Skyscrapers
half a mile high, artificial archipelagoes, fantasy theme parks—and
the indentured Asian labour force that sustains them.
MIKE DAVIS
FEAR AND MONEY IN DUBAI
‘As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The
scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-
coloured islands in the shape of an almost-finished puzzle of the
world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken
shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Colosseum are clearly
visible. In the distance, three other large island groups are
configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise
resorts, amusement parks and a thousand mansions built on stilts over
the water. The ‘Palms’ are connected by causeways to a Miami-like
beachfront crammed with mega-hotels, apartment skyscrapers and
yachting marinas.
‘As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the
even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of
skyscrapers soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible half-mile
high: taller than the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself.
You are still rubbing your eyes with wonderment as the plane lands and
you are welcomed into an airport shopping emporium where seductive
goods entice: Gucci bags, Cartier watches and one-kilogram bars of
solid gold. The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce
Silver Seraph. Friends had recommended the Armani Inn in the 170-
storey tower, or the 7-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the
Statue of Liberty would fit inside it, and service so exclusive that
the rooms come with personal butlers; but instead you have opted to
fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to play Captain
Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
‘Your jellyfish-shaped hotel, the Hydropolis, is, in fact, exactly 66
feet below the surface of the sea. Each of its 220 luxury suites has
clear plexiglass walls that provide spectacular views of passing
mermaids and of the famed ‘underwater fireworks’: a hallucinatory
exhibition of ‘water bubbles, swirled sand and carefully deployed
lighting’. Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom
resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a
multi-level fail-safe security system which includes protection
against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft.
‘Although you have an important business meeting at Internet City with
clients from Hyderabad and Taipei, you have arrived a day early to
treat yourself to one of the famed adventures at the ‘Restless Planet’
themepark. After a soothing night’s sleep under the sea, you board a
monorail for this Jurassic jungle. Your first encounter is with some
peacefully grazing brontosaurs. Next you are attacked by a flock of
velociraptors, the animatronic beasts—designed by experts from the
British Natural History Museum—so flawlessly lifelike that you shriek
in fear and delight. With your adrenaline pumped up by this close
call, you round off the afternoon with some snowboarding on the local
indoor snow mountain (outdoors, the temperature is 105°). Nearby is
the world’s largest mall—the altar of the city’s famed Shopping
Festival, which attracts millions of frenetic consumers each January—
but you postpone the temptation. Instead, you indulge in some
expensive Thai fusion cuisine. The gorgeous Russian blonde at the
restaurant bar stares at you with vampirish hunger, and you wonder
whether the local sin is as extravagant as the shopping . . . ’
Fantasy levitated
Welcome to a strange paradise. But where are you? Is this a new
Margaret Atwood novel, Philip K. Dick’s unpublished sequel to Blade
Runner or Donald Trump on acid? No. It is the Persian Gulf city-state
of Dubai in 2010. After Shanghai (current population 15 million),
Dubai (current population 1.5 million) is the planet’s biggest
building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and
what the locals boast as ‘supreme lifestyles’. Despite its blast-
furnace climate (on typical 120° summer days, the swankier hotels
refrigerate their swimming pools) and edge-of-the-war-zone location,
Dubai confidently predicts that its enchanted forest of 600
skyscrapers and malls will attract 15 million overseas visitors a year
by 2010, three times as many as New York City. Emirates Airlines has
placed a staggering $37-billion order for new Boeings and Airbuses to
fly these tourists in and out of Dubai’s new global air hub, the vast
Jebel Ali airport. [1] Indeed, thanks to a dying planet’s terminal
addiction to Arabian oil, this former fishing village and smugglers’
cove proposes to become one of the world capitals of the 21st century.
Favouring diamonds over rhinestones, Dubai has already surpassed that
other desert arcade of capitalist desire, Las Vegas, both in sheer
scale of spectacle and the profligate consumption of water and power.
[2]
Dozens of outlandish mega-projects—including the artificial ‘island
world’ (where Rod Stewart has reportedly spent $33 million to buy
‘Britain’), the earth’s tallest building (Burj Dubai, designed by
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), the underwater luxury hotel, the
carnivorous dinosaurs, the domed ski resort and the hyper-mall—are
already under construction or about to leave the drawing board. [3]
The 7-star hotel, the spinnaker-shaped Burj Al-Arab—looking much like
the set of a James Bond film—is already world-famous for its $5,000
per-night rooms with 100-mile views and an exclusive clientele of Arab
royalty, English rock stars and Russian billionaires. And the
dinosaurs, according to the finance director of the Natural History
Museum, ‘will have the full stamp of authority of the Museum in
London, and will demonstrate that education and science can be fun’;
and profitable, since the ‘only way into the dinosaur park will be
through the shopping mall’. [4]
The biggest project, Dubailand, represents a vertiginous new stage in
fantasy environments. Literally a ‘themepark of themeparks’, it will
be more than twice the size of Disney World and employ 300,000 workers
who, in turn, will entertain 15 million visitors per year (each
spending a minimum of $100 per day, not including accommodation). Like
a surrealist encyclopaedia, its 45 major ‘world class’ projects
include replicas of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Taj Mahal and
the Pyramids, [5] as well as a snow mountain with ski lifts and polar
bears, a centre for ‘extreme sports’, a Nubian village, ‘Eco-Tourism
World’, a vast Andalusian spa and wellness complex, golf courses,
autodromes, race tracks, ‘Giants’ World’, ‘Fantasia’, the largest zoo
in the Middle East, several new 5-star hotels, a modern art gallery
and the Mall of Arabia. [6]
Gigantism
Under the enlightened despotism of its Emir and CEO, 58-year-old
Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, Dubai has become the new global icon of
imagineered urbanism. Multi-billionaire Sheikh Mo—as he is known to
Dubai’s expats—has a straightforward if immodest goal: ‘I want to be
Number One in the world’. [7] Although he is an ardent collector of
thoroughbreds (the world’s largest stable) and super-yachts (the 525-
foot-long ‘Project Platinum’, which has its own submarine and flight
deck), his consuming passion is over-the-top, monumental architecture.
[8] Indeed, he seems to have imprinted Scott and Venturi’s bible of
hyper-reality, Learning From Las Vegas, in the same way that pious
Muslims memorize the Qur’an. One of his proudest achievements, he
often tells visitors, is to have introduced gated communities to
Arabia, the land of nomads and tents.
Thanks to his boundless enthusiasm for concrete and steel, the coastal
desert has become a huge circuit board upon which the elite of
transnational engineering firms and retail developers are invited to
plug in high-tech clusters, entertainment zones, artificial islands,
glass-domed ‘snow mountains’, Truman Show suburbs, cities within cities
—whatever is big enough to be seen from space and bursting with
architectural steroids. The result is not a hybrid but an eerie
chimera: a promiscuous coupling of all the cyclopean fantasies of
Barnum, Eiffel, Disney, Spielberg, Jon Jerde, Steve Wynn and Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill. Although compared variously to Las Vegas, Manhattan,
Orlando, Monaco and Singapore, the sheikhdom is more like their
collective summation and mythologization: a hallucinatory pastiche of
the big, the bad and the ugly.
The same phantasmagoric but generic Lego blocks, of course, can be
found in dozens of aspiring cities these days (including Dubai’s
envious neighbours, the wealthy oil oases of Doha and Bahrain), [9]
but al-Maktoum has a distinctive and inviolable criterion: everything
must be ‘world class’, by which he means Number One in the Guinness
Book of Records. Thus Dubai is building the world’s largest theme
park, the biggest mall (and within it, the largest aquarium), the
tallest building, the largest international airport, the biggest
artificial island, the first sunken hotel and so on (see below).
Although such architectural megalomania is eerily reminiscent of
Albert Speer and his patron’s vision of imperial Berlin, it is not
irrational. Having ‘learned from Las Vegas’, al-Maktoum understands
that if Dubai wants to become the luxury-consumer paradise of the
Middle East and South Asia (its officially defined ‘home market’ of
1.6 billion), it must ceaselessly strive for visual and environmental
excess. If, as Rowan Moore has suggested, immense, psychotic
assemblages of fantasy kitsch inspire vertigo, then al-Maktoum wants
us to swoon. [10]
From a booster’s viewpoint, the city’s monstrous caricature of
futurism is simply shrewd branding for the world market. As one
developer told the Financial Times, ‘If there was no Burj Dubai, no
Palm, no World, would anyone be speaking of Dubai today? You shouldn’t
look at projects as crazy stand-alones. It’s part of building the
brand’. [11] And its owners love it when architects and urbanists,
like George Katodrytis, anoint it as the cutting edge:
Dubai is a prototype of the new post-global city, which creates
appetites rather than solves problems . . . If Rome was the ‘Eternal
City’ and New York’s Manhattan the apotheosis of twentieth-century
congested urbanism, then Dubai may be considered the emerging
prototype for the 21st century: prosthetic and nomadic oases presented
as isolated cities that extend out over the land and sea. [12]
In its exponential quest to conquer the architectural record-books,
moreover, Dubai has only one real rival: China—a country that now has
300,000 millionaires and is predicted to become the world’s largest
market for luxury goods (from Gucci to Mercedes) in a few years. [13]
Starting from feudalism and peasant Maoism, respectively, both have
arrived at the stage of hyper-capitalism through what Trotsky called
the ‘dialectic of uneven and combined development’. As Baruch Knei-Paz
writes in his admirable précis of Trotsky’s thought:
In appending new forms the backward society takes not their
beginnings, nor the stages of their evolution, but the finished
product itself. In fact it goes even further; it copies not the
product as it exists in its countries of origin but its ‘ideal type’,
and it is able to do so for the very reason that it is in a position
to append instead of going through the process of development. This
explains why the new forms, in a backward society, appear more
perfected than in an advanced society where they are approximations
only to the ‘ideal’ for having been arrived at piecemeal and with the
framework of historical possibilities. [14]
In the cases of Dubai and China, all the arduous intermediate stages
of commercial evolution have been telescoped or short-circuited to
embrace the ‘perfected’ synthesis of shopping, entertainment and
architectural spectacle, on the most pharaonic scale.
As a sweepstake in national pride—Arabs versus Chinese—this frantic
quest for hyperbole is not of course, unprecedented; recall the famed
competition between Britain and imperial Germany to build dreadnoughts
in the early 1900s. But is it an economically sustainable strategy of
development? The textbook answer is probably not. Architectural
gigantism has always been a perverse symptom of economies in
speculative overdrive, and each modern boom has left behind
overweening skyscrapers, the Empire State Building or the former World
Trade Center, as its tombstones. Cynics rightly point out that the
hypertrophic real-estate markets in Dubai and urban China are the
sinks for global excess profits—of oil and manufacturing exports,
respectively—currently being pyramided by rich countries’ inability to
reduce oil consumption and, in the case of the United States, to
balance current accounts. If past business cycles are any guide, the
end could be nigh and very messy. Yet, like the king of the enigmatic
floating island of Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels, al-Maktoum believes
that he has discovered the secret of eternal levitation.
The lodestone of Dubai, of course, is ‘peak oil’ and each time you
spend $50 to fill your tank, you are helping to irrigate al-Maktoum’s
oasis. Fuel prices are currently inflated by industrial China’s
soaring demand as well as growing fears of war and terrorism in the
global oil patch. According to the Wall Street Journal, ‘consumers
will [have paid] $1.2 trillion more in 2004 and 2005 together for oil
products than they did in 2003’. [15] As in the 1970s, a huge and
disruptive transfer of wealth is taking place between oil-consuming
and oil-producing nations. Already visible on the horizon, moreover,
is Hubbert’s Peak, the tipping point when new petroleum reserves will
no longer offset global demand, and thereafter oil prices will become
truly stratospheric. In some utopian economic model, perhaps, this
windfall would become an investment fund for shifting the global
economy to renewable energy while reducing greenhouse gas output and
raising the environmental efficiency of urban systems. In the real
world of capitalism, however, it has become a subsidy for the
apocalyptic luxuries that Dubai is coming to epitomize.
Miami of the Persian Gulf
According to his hagiographers, Dubai has arrived at its blessed state
thanks largely to the entrepreneurial vision that al-Maktoum inherited
from his father, Sheikh Rashid, who ‘committed himself and his
resources to turning his emirate into a modern world-class entrepôt
where free enterprise flourished’. [16] In fact, Dubai’s irresistible
rise, like that of its parent, the United Arab Emirates, owes as much
to a sequence of fortuitous geopolitical accidents. Dubai’s chief
regional advantage, paradoxically, has been its modest endowment, now
rapidly being exhausted, of offshore oil. With a tiny hinterland
lacking the geological wealth of Kuwait or Abu Dhabi, Dubai has
escaped poverty by a Singaporean strategy of becoming the key
commercial, financial and recreational hub of the Gulf. It is a
postmodern ‘city of nets’—as Brecht called ‘Mahagonny’—where the super-
profits of the international oil trade are intercepted and then
reinvested in Arabia’s one truly inexhaustible natural resource: sand.
(Indeed, mega-projects in Dubai are typically measured by volumes of
sand moved: one billion cubic feet in the case of the ‘island world’.)
If the current mega-project blitzkrieg, exemplified by Dubailand,
succeeds as planned, Dubai will derive all of its GDP from non-oil
activities like tourism and finance by 2010. [17]
The platform for Dubai’s extraordinary ambitions has been its long
history as a haven for smugglers, gold dealers and pirates. A late-
Victorian treaty gave London control over Dubai’s foreign affairs,
keeping the Ottomans and their tax collectors out of the region, but
otherwise allowing the al-Maktoum dynasty to exploit their ownership
of the only natural deepwater port along 400 miles of what was then
known as the ‘Pirates’ Coast’. Pearl fishing and smuggling were the
mainstays until oil wealth began to generate increased demand for
Dubai’s commercial savvy and port services. Up to 1956, when the first
concrete building was constructed, the entire population lived in
traditional ‘barastri’ homes made from palm fronds, drawing water from
communal wells and tethering their goats in the narrow streets. [18]
After the British withdrawal from East of Suez in 1968, Sheikh Rashid
joined with the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed, to create the United
Arab Emirates in 1971, a feudal federation bound together by the
common threat of the Marxists in Oman and, later, the Islamists in
Iran. Abu Dhabi possessed the greater share of the UAE’s oil wealth
(almost one-twelfth of the world’s proven hydrocarbon reserves) but
Dubai was the more logical port and commercial centre. When the city’s
original deep-water ‘creek’ proved too small to handle burgeoning
trade, the UAE’s leadership used some of their earnings from the first
‘oil shock’ to help Dubai finance construction of the world’s largest
man-made port, completed in 1976.
Following Khomeini’s revolution in 1979, it also became the Persian
Gulf’s Miami, providing refuge to a large community of Iranian exiles,
many of whom specialized in smuggling gold, untaxed cigarettes and
liquor to their puritanical homeland, and to India. More recently,
Dubai under the tolerant gaze of Tehran has attracted large numbers of
wealthy Iranians who use the city—more like Hong Kong than Miami —as a
base for trade and bi-national life-styles. They are estimated to
control as much as 30 per cent of Dubai’s current real-estate
development. [19] Building on such clandestine connections, Dubai in
the 1980s and early 1990s became the Gulf’s principal dirty-money
laundry as well as a bolthole for some of the region’s most notorious
gangsters and terrorists. As the Wall Street Journal recently
described the city’s underside:
Its gold and diamond souks, houses of barter and informal cash-
transfer storefronts have long formed an opaque business world based
on connections and clan allegiances. Black-market operators, arms
dealers, terrorist financiers and money launderers have taken
advantage of the freewheeling environment, even if the vast bulk of
business is legitimate. [20]
In early 2006 the US Congress erupted in a furore over Dubai Port
World’s imminent takeover of the London-based Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company, which operates docks from New York to Miami.
Despite support from the Bush Administration, Dubai was forced to
withdraw from the deal after a firestorm of accusations on cable news
programmes and radio talk-shows about the supposed dangers of ceding
control of American commercial ports to a Middle Eastern government.
Much of the controversy was unquestionably fuelled by anti-Arab
bigotry pure and simple (US port operations are already largely under
management of foreign-owned firms), but Dubai’s ‘terrorist
connection’, an outgrowth of its role as the Switzerland of the Gulf,
has been well documented.
Indeed, since 9/11 a huge investigative literature has explored
Dubai’s role as ‘the financial hub for Islamic militant groups’,
especially al-Qaeda and the Taliban: ‘all roads lead to Dubai when it
comes to [terrorist] money’, claims a former high-ranking US Treasury
official. Bin Laden reportedly transferred large sums through the
government-owned Dubai Islamic Bank, while the Taliban used the city’s
unregulated gold markets to transform their opium taxes, paid in gold
bullion, into laundered dollars. [21] In his best-selling Ghost Wars,
Steve Coll claims that after the catastrophic al-Qaeda bombings of the
US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, a CIA scheme to target bin
Laden with cruise missiles while he was falcon hunting in southern
Afghanistan had to be aborted because he was in the company of unnamed
Emirati royalty. Coll adds that the CIA ‘also suspected that C-130s
flying out of Dubai carried weapons to the Taliban’. [22]
In addition, al-Maktoum for almost a decade provided luxurious
sanctuary for Bombay’s Al Capone, the legendary gangster Dawood
Ibrahim. His presence in the sheikhdom in the late 1980s was hardly
low-key. ‘Dubai’, writes Suketu Mehta, ‘suited Dawood; he re-created
Bombay in lavish parties, flying in scores of the city’s top film
stars and cricketers as guests, and took a film starlet, Mandakini, as
his mistress’. [23] In early 1993, according to the Indian government,
Dawood, working with Pakistani intelligence officials, used Dubai as a
base for organizing the infamous ‘Black Friday’ bombings in Bombay
that killed 257 people. [24] Although India immediately requested
Dubai to arrest Dawood, he was allowed to flee to Karachi, where he is
still sheltered by the Pakistani government; his criminal
organization, ‘D-Company’, meanwhile, has reportedly continued to be
active in the sheikhdom. [25]
War zone
Dubai now enjoys high marks from Washington as a partner in the War on
Terror and, in particular, as a base for spying on Iran; [26] but it
is probable that al-Maktoum, like the other Emirati rulers, still
keeps a channel open to radical Islamists. If al-Qaeda so desired, for
example, it could presumably turn the Burj Al-Arab and Dubai’s other
soaring landmarks into so many towering infernos. Yet so far Dubai is
one of the few cities in the region to have entirely avoided car-
bombings and attacks on Western tourists: eloquent testament, one
might suppose, to the city-state’s continuing role as a money laundry
and upscale hideout, like Tangiers in the 1940s or Macao in the 1960s.
Dubai’s burgeoning black economy is its insurance policy against the
car-bombers and airplane hijackers.
In many complex and surprising ways, Dubai actually earns its living
from fear. Its huge port complex at Jebel Ali, for example, has
profited immeasurably from the trade generated by the US invasion of
Iraq, while Terminal Two at the Dubai airport, always crowded with
Halliburton employees, private mercenaries and American soldiers en
route to Baghdad or Kabul, has been described as ‘the busiest
commercial terminal in the world’ for America’s Middle East wars. [27]
Post-9/11 developments have also shifted global investment patterns to
Dubai’s benefit. Thus after al-Qaeda’s attacks on America, the Muslim
oil states, traumatized by the angry Christians in Washington and
lawsuits by WTC survivors, no longer considered the United States the
safest harbour for their petrodollars. Panicky Saudis alone are
estimated to have repatriated at least one-third of their trillion-
dollar overseas portfolio. Although nerves are now calmer, Dubai has
benefited enormously from the continuing inclination of the oil
sheikhs to invest within, rather than outside, the region. As Edward
Chancellor has emphasized, ‘unlike the last oil boom of the late
1970s, relatively little of the current Arab oil surplus has been
directly invested in US assets or even deposited in the international
banking system. This time much of the oil money has remained at home
where a classic speculative mania is now being played out.’ [28]
In 2004, the Saudis (500,000 of whom are estimated to visit Dubai at
least once a year) were believed to have ploughed at least $7 billion
into al-Maktoum’s major properties. Saudis, together with investors
from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Iran and even emulous Qatar, bankroll the
hubris of Dubailand (officially developed by Dubai’s billionaire
Galadari brothers) and other colossal fantasy projects. [29] Although
economists stress the driving role of equity investment in the current
Gulf boom, the region is also awash with cheap bank credit thanks to a
60 per cent increase in the local deposit base and the slipstreaming
of the US Federal Reserve’s easy money policies (the currencies of the
Gulf emirates are all linked to the dollar). [30]
Much of this money, of course, dances to an old tune. ‘A majority of
new Dubai properties’, explains Business Week, ‘are being acquired for
speculative purposes, with only small deposits put down. They are
being flipped in the contemporary Miami manner.’ [31] But what is too
often ‘flipped’, some economists predict, may ultimately flop. Will
Dubai someday fall from the sky when this real-estate balloon bursts,
or will peak oil keep this desert Laputa floating above the
contradictions of the world economy? Al-Maktoum remains a mountain of
self-confidence: ‘I would like to tell capitalists that Dubai does not
need investors; investors need Dubai. And I tell you that the risk
lies not in using your money, but in letting it pile up.’ [32]
Dubai’s philosopher-king (one of the huge offshore island projects
will actually spell out an epigram of his in Arabic script) [33] is
well aware that fear is also the most dynamic component of the oil
revenues that turn his sand dunes into malls and skyscrapers. Every
time insurgents blow up a pipeline in the Niger Delta, a martyr drives
his truck bomb into a Riyadh housing complex, or Washington and Tel
Aviv rattle their sabres at Tehran, the price of oil (and thus Dubai’s
ultimate income) increases by some increment of anxiety in the all-
important futures market. The Gulf economies, in other words, are now
capitalized not just on oil production, but also on the fear of its
disruption. According to a recent survey of experts by Business Week,
‘the world paid the Persian Gulf oil states an extra $120 billion or
so last year because of the premium in prices due to fear of
unexpected supply disruptions. Some cynics argue that oil producers
welcome the fear of disruption because it boosts their revenues’.
‘Fear’, according to one of the senior energy analysts that the
magazine consulted, ‘is a gift to oil producers’. [34]
But it is a gift that the oil rich would rather spend in a tranquil
oasis surrounded by very high walls. With its sovereignty ultimately
guaranteed by the American nuclear super-carriers usually berthed at
Jebel Ali, as well as by whatever secret protocols (negotiated during
falcon hunting trips in Afghanistan?) govern the Emiratis’
relationship to Islamic terrorism, Dubai is a paradise of personal
security, from the Swiss-style laws governing financial secrecy to the
armies of concierges, watchmen and bodyguards who protect its sanctums
of luxury. Tourists are customarily ordered away by the security
guards if they attempt to sneak a peek at Burj Al-Arab on its private
island. Hotel guests, of course, arrive in Rolls Royces.
Milton Friedman’s beach club
Dubai, in other words, is a vast gated community, the ultimate Green
Zone. But even more than Singapore or Texas, it is also the apotheosis
of the neo-liberal values of contemporary capitalism: a society that
might have been designed by the Economics Department of the University
of Chicago. Dubai, indeed, has achieved what American reactionaries
only dream of—an oasis of free enterprise without income taxes, trade
unions or opposition parties (there are no elections). As befits a
paradise of consumption, its unofficial national holiday, as well as
its global logo, is the celebrated Shopping Festival, a month-long
extravaganza sponsored by the city’s 25 malls that begins on 12
January and attracts 4 million upscale shoppers, primarily from the
Middle East and South Asia. [35]
Feudal absolutism—the Maktoum dynasty owns the land area of Dubai —
meanwhile has been spruced up as the last word in enlightened
corporate administration, and the political sphere has been officially
collapsed into the managerial. ‘People refer to our crown prince as
the chief executive officer of Dubai. It’s because, genuinely, he runs
government as a private business for the sake of the private sector,
not for the sake of the state’, says Saeed al-Muntafiq, head of the
Dubai Development and Investment Authority. Moreover, if the country
is a single business, as al-Maktoum maintains, then ‘representative
government’ is besides the point: after all, General Electric and
Exxon are not democracies and no one—except for raving socialists—
expects either to be so.
The state, accordingly, is almost indistinguishable from private
enterprise. Dubai’s top managers—all commoners, hired meritocratically—
simultaneously hold strategic government portfolios and manage a major
Maktoum-controlled real-estate development company. ‘Government’,
indeed, is really an equities management team led by three top players
who compete with one another to earn the highest returns for al-
Maktoum (see Table 2). ‘In such a system’, writes William Wallis, ‘the
concept of a conflict of interest is barely recognized’. [36] Because
the country has one ultimate landlord, and myriad streams of rent and
lease payments all flow to a single beneficiary, Dubai is able to
dispense with most of the sales, customs and income taxes essential to
governments elsewhere. The minimal tax burden, in turn, leverages the
sale or lease of Dubai’s golden sands. Oil-rich Abu Dhabi, meanwhile,
subsidizes the residual state functions, including foreign relations
and defence, entrusted to the Emirates’ federal administration—itself
a condominium of the interests of the ruling sheikhs and their
relatives.
In a similar spirit, personal liberty in Dubai derives strictly from
the business plan, not from a constitution, much less ‘inalienable
rights’. Al-Maktoum and his executives have to arbitrate between
lineage-based power and Islamic law, on the one hand, and Western
business culture and recreational decadence on the other. Their
ingenious solution is a regime of what might be called ‘modular
liberties’ based on the rigorous spatial segregation of economic
functions and ethnically circumscribed social classes. To understand
how this works in practice, it is necessary briefly to survey Dubai’s
overall development strategy.
Although tourist development and its excesses generate most of the
‘buzz’ about Dubai, the city-state has extraordinary ambitions to
capture as much value-added as possible through a series of
specialized free-trade zones and high-tech clusters. ‘One of the ways
that this trading town along a creek has reformulated itself into a
megalopolis’, writes an ABC News commentator, ‘is by throwing in
everything and the kitchen sink as incentives for companies to invest
in and relocate to Dubai. There are free-trade zones where 100 per
cent foreign ownership is allowed, with no individual or corporate
taxes or import/export duties whatsoever.’ [37] The original free-
trade zone in the port district of Jebel Ali now has several thousand
resident trading and industrial firms, and is the major base for
American corporations selling to the Saudi and Gulf markets. [38]
Most future growth, however, is expected to be generated within an
archipelago of specialized ‘clusters’. The largest of these cities-
within-the-city are Internet City, already the Arab world’s principal
information technology hub, with local subsidiaries of Dell, Hewlett-
Packard, Microsoft, and others; Media City, home to the Al Arabiya
satellite network and various international news organizations; and
the Dubai International Financial Centre, whose DFIX al-Maktoum hopes
will grow into the largest stock exchange between Europe and East Asia
as foreign investors rush to tap the Gulf’s vast reservoir of oil
earnings. In addition to these mega-enclaves, each with tens of
thousands of employees, Dubai also hosts or is planning to build a
Humanitarian Aid City, as a base for disaster relief; a free-trade
zone dedicated to the sale of used cars; a Dubai Metals and
Commodities Centre; a ‘Chess City’ headquartering the International
Chess Association and designed as a vast chess board with two ‘King’
towers, each 64 storeys high; and a $6 billion Healthcare Village, in
collaboration with the Harvard Medical School, that will offer the
wealthy classes of the Gulf region state-of-the-art American medical
technology. [39]
Other cities in the region, of course, have free-trade zones and high-
tech clusters, but only Dubai has allowed each enclave to operate
under regulatory and legal bubble-domes tailored to the specific needs
of foreign capital and expat professionals. ‘Carving out lucrative
niches with their own special rules’, claims the Financial Times, ‘has
been at the heart of Dubai’s development strategy’. [40] Thus press
censorship (flagrant in the rest of Dubai) is largely suspended inside
Media City, while internet access (regulated for content elsewhere) is
absolutely unfettered inside Internet City. The UAE has permitted
Dubai to set up ‘an entirely separate, Western-based commercial system
for its financial district that would do business in dollars, and in
English’. Although not without ensuing controversy, Dubai even
imported British financial regulators and retired judges to bolster
confidence that DFIX plays by the same rules as Zurich, London and New
York. [41] Meanwhile, to promote the sell-off of Palm Jumeirah
mansions and the private islands that make up the ‘island world’, al-
Maktoum in May 2002 announced a ‘freehold revolution’, unique in the
region, that allows foreigners to buy luxury property outright and not
just as a 99-year lease. [42]
In addition to these enclaved regimes of greater media and business
freedom, Dubai is also famously tolerant of Western vices, with the
exception of recreational drugs. In contrast to Saudi Arabia or even
Kuwait City, booze flows freely in the city’s hotels and expat bars,
and no one looks askance at halter tops or even string bikinis on the
beach. Dubai—any of the hipper guidebooks will advise—is also the
‘Bangkok of the Middle East’, with thousands of Russian, Armenian,
Indian and Iranian prostitutes controlled by various transnational
gangs and mafias. The Russian girls at the bar are the glamorous
façade of a sinister sex trade built on kidnapping, slavery and
sadistic violence. Al-Maktoum and his thoroughly modern regime, of
course, disavow any collusion with this burgeoning red-light industry,
although insiders know that the whores are essential to keeping the 5-
star hotels full of European and Arab businessmen. [43] When expats
extol Dubai’s unique ‘openness’, it is this freedom to carouse and
debauch—not to organize unions or publish critical opinions—that they
are usually praising.
An indentured, invisible majority
Dubai, together with its emirate neighbors, has achieved the state of
the art in the disenfranchisement of labour. In a country that only
abolished slavery in 1963, trade unions, most strikes and all
agitators are illegal, and 99 per cent of the private-sector workforce
are immediately deportable non-citizens. Indeed, the deep thinkers at
the American Enterprise and Cato Institutes must salivate when they
contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai.
At the top of the social pyramid, of course, are the al-Maktoums and
their cousins who own every lucrative grain of sand in the sheikhdom.
Next, the native 15 per cent of the population (many of them
originally Arab-speakers from southern Iran) constitutes a leisure
class whose uniform of privilege is the traditional white dishdash.
Their obedience to the dynasty is rewarded by income transfers, free
education, subsidized homes and government jobs. A step below are the
pampered mercenaries: more than 100,000 British expatriates (another
100,000 UK citizens own second homes or condos in Dubai), along with
other European, Lebanese, Iranian and Indian managers and
professionals, who take full advantage of their air-conditioned
affluence and two months of overseas leave every summer. The Brits,
led by David Beckham (who owns a beach) and Rod Stewart (who owns an
island), are probably the biggest cheerleaders for al-Maktoum’s
paradise, and many of them luxuriate in a social world that recalls
the lost splendour of gin-and-tonics at Raffles and white mischief in
Simla’s bungalows. Dubai is expert at catering to colonial nostalgia.
[44]
The city-state is also a miniature Raj in a more important and
notorious aspect. The great mass of the population are South Asian
contract labourers, legally bound to a single employer and subject to
totalitarian social controls. Dubai’s luxury lifestyles are attended
by vast numbers of Filipina, Sri Lankan and Indian maids, while the
building boom (which employs fully one-quarter of the workforce) is
carried on the shoulders of an army of poorly paid Pakistanis and
Indians, the largest contingent from Kerala, working twelve-hour
shifts, six and a half days a week, in the asphalt-melting desert
heat.
Dubai, like its neighbours, flouts ILO labour regulations and refuses
to adopt the international Migrant Workers Convention. Human Rights
Watch in 2003 accused the Emirates of building prosperity on ‘forced
labour’. Indeed, as the Independent recently emphasized, ‘the labour
market closely resembles the old indentured labour system brought to
Dubai by its former colonial master, the British.’ ‘Like their
impoverished forefathers’, the London paper continued, ‘today’s Asian
workers are forced to sign themselves into virtual slavery for years
when they arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Their rights disappear
at the airport where recruitment agents confiscate their passports and
visas to control them.’ [45]
In addition to being super-exploited, Dubai’s helots—like the
proletariat in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis—are also expected to be
generally invisible. The local press (the UAE ranks a dismal 137th on
the global Press Freedom Index) is restrained from reporting on
migrant workers, exploitative working conditions, and prostitution.
Likewise, ‘Asian labourers are banned from the glitzy shopping malls,
new golf courses and smart restaurants.’ [46] Nor are the bleak work
camps on the city’s outskirts—where labourers are crowded six, eight,
even twelve to a room, often without air-conditioning or functioning
toilets—part of the official tourist image of a city of luxury,
without poverty or slums. [47] In a recent visit, even the UAE
Minister of Labour was reported to be shocked by the squalid, almost
unbearable conditions in a remote work camp maintained by a large
construction contractor. Yet when the labourers attempted to form a
union to win back pay and improve living conditions, they were
promptly arrested. [48]
Dubai’s police may turn a blind eye to illicit diamond and gold
imports, prostitution rings, and shady characters who buy 25 villas at
a time in cash, but they are diligent in deporting Pakistani workers
who complain about being cheated out of their wages by unscrupulous
contractors, or jailing Filipina maids for ‘adultery’ when they report
being raped by their employers. [49] To avoid the simmering volcano of
Shiite unrest that so worries Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Dubai and its
UAE neighbours have favoured a non-Arab workforce drawn from western
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines. But
as Asian workers have become an increasingly restive majority, the UAE
has reversed course and adopted a ‘cultural diversity policy’—‘we have
been asked not to recruit any more Asians’, explained one contractor—
to reinforce control over the workforce by diluting the existing
national concentrations with more Arab workers. [50]
Discrimination against Asians, however, has failed to recruit enough
Arabs willing to work at the lowly wages ($100 to $150 per month) paid
to construction labourers to meet the insatiable demands of the
exploding skyline and half-built mega-projects. [51] Indeed the
building boom, with its appalling safety record and negligence of
workers’ most basic needs, has incubated Dubai’s first labour
rebellion. In 2004 alone, Human Rights Watch estimated that as many as
880 construction workers were killed on the job, with most of the
fatal accidents unreported by employers or covered up by the
government. [52] At the same time, the giant construction companies
and their subcontractors have failed to guarantee minimum facilities
for sanitation or adequate supplies of potable water at remote desert
labour camps. Workers also have been exasperated by longer commutes to
worksites, the petty tyranny (often with a racial or religious bias)
of their supervisors, the spies and company guards in their camps, the
debt-bondage of their labour contracts, and the government’s failure
to prosecute fly-by-night contractors who leave Dubai or declare
bankruptcy without paying back wages. [53] As one embittered labourer
from Kerala told the New York Times, ‘I wish the rich people would
realize who is building these towers. I wish they could come and see
how sad this life is.’ [54]
The first tremor of unrest came in fall 2004 when several thousand
Asian workers courageously marched down the eight-lane Sheikh Zayed
Highway toward the Ministry of Labour, only to be met by riot police
and officials threatening mass deportations. [55] Smaller
demonstrations and strikes, protesting unpaid wages or unsafe working
conditions, continued through 2005, drawing inspiration from a large
uprising of Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait during the spring. In
September, an estimated 7,000 workers demonstrated for three hours,
the largest protest in Dubai history. Then, on 22 March 2006, bullying
security men ignited a riot at the vast Burj Dubai tower site.
Some 2,500 exhausted workers were waiting after the end of their shift
for long overdue buses to take them back to their dormitories in the
desert, when the guards began to harass them. The enraged labourers,
many of them Indian Muslims, overwhelmed and beat the guards, then
attacked the construction headquarters: burning company cars,
ransacking offices, destroying computers and smashing files. The
following morning, the army of labourers defied police to return to
the site, where they refused to work until Dubai-based Al Naboodah
Laing O’Rourke raised wages and improved working conditions. Thousands
of construction workers at a new airport terminal also joined the
wildcat strike. Although some minor concessions along with draconian
threats forced most of the labourers back to work at the Burj Dubai
and the airport, the underlying grievances continue to fester. In
July, hundreds of labourers at the Arabian Ranches project on Emirates
Road rioted to protest the chronic shortage of water for cooking and
bathing at their camp. Other workers have held clandestine union
meetings and reportedly threatened to picket hotels and malls. [56]
The unruly voice of labour echoes louder in the deserts of the UAE
than it might elsewhere. At the end of the day, Dubai is capitalized
just as much on cheap labour as it is on expensive oil, and the
Maktoums, like their cousins in the other emirates, are exquisitely
aware that they reign over a kingdom built on the backs of a South
Asian workforce. So much has been invested in Dubai’s image as an
imperturbable paradise of capital that even small disturbances can
have exaggerated impacts on investors’ confidence. Dubai Inc. is thus
currently considering a variety of responses to worker unrest, ranging
from expulsions and mass arrests to some limited franchising of
collective bargaining. But any tolerance of protest risks future
demands not just for unions, but for citizenship, and thereby
threatens the absolutist foundations of Maktoum rule. None of the
shareholders in Dubai—whether the American Navy, the Saudi
billionaires, or the frolicking expats—want to see the emergence of a
Solidarnosc in the desert.
Al-Maktoum, who fancies himself the Gulf’s prophet of modernization,
likes to impress visitors with clever proverbs and heavy aphorisms. A
favourite: ‘Anyone who does not attempt to change the future will stay
a captive of the past’. [57] Yet the future that he is building in
Dubai—to the applause of billionaires and transnational corporations
everywhere—looks like nothing so much as a nightmare of the past:
Speer meets Disney on the shores of Araby.
A version of this essay will appear in Mike Davis and Daniel Monk,
eds, Evil Paradises: The Dreamworlds of Neo-Liberalism, to be
published by New Press in 2007.
[1] Business Week, 13 March 2006.
[2] ‘Dubai overtakes Las Vegas as world’s hotel capital’, Travel
Weekly, 3 May 2005.
[3] ‘Ski in the Desert?’, Observer, 20 November 2005; Hydropolis:
Project Description, Dubai, August 2003, www.conway.com.
[4] See the Mena Report 2005, at www.menareport.com.
[5] As a Dubai tourist official once complained to an American
journalist about Egypt: ‘They have the pyramids and they do nothing
with them. Can you imagine what we’d do with the pyramids?’ Lee Smith,
‘The Road to Tech Mecca’, Wired Magazine, July 2004.
[6] Official Dubailand FAQS (from the marketing department). ‘It’s as
if a list of all known human pastimes have been collected on
PowerPoint slides and then casually voted on by a show of hands.’ Ian
Parker, ‘The Mirage’, The New Yorker, 17 October 2005.
[7] Parker, ‘Mirage’.
[8] The Maktoums also own Madame Tussaud’s in London, the Helmsley
Building and the Essex House in Manhattan, thousands of apartments in
the Sunbelt states, enormous ranches in Kentucky and what the New York
Times describes as a ‘significant stake in DaimlerChrysler’. See
‘Royal Family of Dubai Pays $1.1 Billion for 2 Pieces of New York
Skyline’, 10 November 2005.
[9] Saudi Arabia’s ‘King Abdullah Economic City’—a projected $30
billion development on the Red Sea—will in fact be a satellite of
Dubai, built by Emaar, the giant real-estate company owned by the
Maktoum dynasty. See ‘OPEC Nations Temper the Extravagance’, New York
Times, 1 February 2006.
[10] Rowan Moore, ‘Vertigo: the strange new world of the contemporary
city’, in Moore, ed., Vertigo, Corte Madera, CA 1999.
[11] ‘Emirate rebrands itself as a global melting pot’, Financial
Times, 12 July 2005.
[12] George Katodrytis, ‘Metropolitan Dubai and the Rise of
Architectural Fantasy’ Bidoun, no. 4, Spring 2005.
[13] ‘In China, To Get Rich Is Glorious’, Business Week, 6 February
2006.
[14] Baruch Knei-Paz, The Social and Political Thought of Leon
Trotsky, Oxford 1978, p. 91.
[15] ‘Oil Producers Gain Global Clout from Big Windfall’, WSJ, 4
October 2005.
[16] Joseph Kechichian, ‘Sociopolitical Origins of Emirati Leaders’,
in Kechichian, ed., A Century in Thirty Years: Shaykh Zayed and the
UAE, Washington DC 2000, p. 54.
[17] Jack Lyne, ‘Disney Does the Desert?’, 17 November 2003, online at
The Site Selection.
[18] Michael Pacione, ‘City Profile: Dubai’, Cities, vol. 22, no. 3,
2005, pp. 259–60.
[19] ‘Young Iranians Follow Dreams to Dubai’, New York Times, 4
December 2005. There is also a dramatic recent influx of wealthy
Iranian-Americans and ‘some Dubai streets are beginning to resemble
parts of Los Angeles’.
[20] WSJ, 2 March 2006.
[21] Gilbert King, The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Dawood
Ibrahim, New York, NY 2004, p. 78; Douglas Farah, ‘Al Qaeda’s Gold:
Following Trail to Dubai’, Washington Post, 18 February 2002; and Sean
Foley, ‘What Wealth Cannot Buy: UAE Security at the Turn of the 21st
Century’, in Barry Rubin, ed., Crises in the Contemporary Persian
Gulf, London 2002, pp. 51–2.
[22] Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, New York 2004, p. 449.
[23] Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, New York 2004,
p. 135.
[24] S. Hussain Zaidi, Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb
Blasts, Delhi 2002, pp. 25–7 and 41–4.
[25] See ‘Dubai’s Cooperation with the War on Terrorism Called into
Question’, Transnational Threats Update, Centre for Strategic and
International Studies, February 2003, pp. 2–3; and ‘Bin Laden’s
operatives still using freewheeling Dubai’, USA Today, 2 September
2004.
[26] Ira Chernus, ‘Dubai: Home Base for Cold War’, 13 March 2006,
Common Dreams News Centre.
[27] Pratap Chatterjee, ‘Ports of Profit: Dubai Does Brisk War
Business’, 25 February 2006, Common Dreams News Centre.
[28] Edward Chancellor, ‘Seven Pillars of Folly’, WSJ, 8 March 2006;
on Saudi repatriations, AME Info, 20 March 2005.
[29] AME Info, 9 June 2005.
[30] Chancellor, ‘Seven Pillars’.
[31] Stanley Reed, ‘The New Middle East Bonanza’, Business Week, 13
March 2006.
[32] Lyne, ‘Disney Does the Desert?’.
[33] Viewed from space, 1060 Water Homes at The Palm, Jebel Ali, will
read: ‘Take wisdom from the wise people. Not everyone who rides is a
jockey.’
[34] Peter Coy, ‘Oil Pricing’, Business Week, 13 March 2006.
[35] Tarek Atia, ‘Everybody’s a Winner’, Al-Ahram Weekly, 9 February
2005.
[36] William Wallis, ‘Big Business: Intense rivalry among the
lieutenants’, Financial Times, 12 July 2005.
[37] Hari Sreenivasan, ‘Dubai: Build It and They Will Come’, ABC News,
8 February 2005.
[38] Pacione, ‘City Profile: Dubai’, p. 257.
[39] Smith, ‘The Road to Tech Mecca’; Stanley Reed, ‘A Bourse is Born
in Dubai’, Business Week, 3 October 2005; and Roula Khalaf, ‘Stock
Exchanges: Chance to tap into a vast pool of capital’, Financial
Times, 12 July 2005.
[40] Khalaf, ‘Stock Exchanges’.
[41] William McSheehy, ‘Financial centre: A three-way race for
supremacy’, Financial Times, 12 July 2005.
[42] ‘A Short History of Dubai Property’, AME Info, August 2004.
[43] Lonely Planet, Dubai: City Guide, London 2004, p. 9; and William
Ridgeway, ‘Dubai, Dubai—The Scandal and the Vice’, Social Affairs
Unit, 4 April 2005.
[44] William Wallis, ‘Demographics: Locals swamped by a new breed of
resident’, Financial Times, 12 July 2005.
[45] Nick Meo, ‘How Dubai, playground of business men and warlords, is
built by Asian wage slaves’, Independent, 1 March 2005.
[46] Meo, ‘How Dubai’.
[47] Lucy Williamson, ‘Migrants’ Woes in Dubai Worker Camps’, BBC
News, 10 February 2005.
[48] See account posted on 15 February 2005, at
secretdubai.blogspot.com.
[49] On the jailing of rape victims, see Asia Pacific Mission for
Migrants, News Digest, September 2003.
[50] Meena Janardhan, ‘Welcome mat shrinking for Asian workers in
UAE’, Inter Press Service, 2003.
[51] See Ray Jureidini, Migrant Workers and Xenophobia in the Middle
East, UN Research Institute for Social Development, Identities,
Conflict and Cohesion: Programme Paper No. 2, Geneva, December 2003.
[52] ‘UAE: Abuse of Migrant Workers’, Human Rights Watch, 30 March
2006.
[53] Anthony Shadid, ‘In UAE, Tales of Paradise Lost’, Washington
Post, 12 April 2006.
[54] Hassan Fattah, ‘In Dubai, an Outcry from Asians for Workplace
Rights’, New York Times, 26 March 2006.
[55] Julia Wheeler, ‘Workers’ safety queried in Dubai’, BBC News, 27
September 2004.
[56] Fattah, ‘In Dubai’; Dan McDougall, ‘Tourists become targets as
Dubai’s workers take revolt to the beaches’, Observer, 9 April 2006;
and ‘Rioting in Dubai Labour Camp’, Arab News, 4 July 2006.
[57] Quoted in Lyne, ‘Disney Does the Desert?’.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a.2e8IrtpImE
Dubai Autonomy Fades as Crisis Strengthens Abu Dhabi (Update2)
By Henry Meyer and Zainab Fattah
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Until last month, a billboard at one of Dubai’s
busiest roundabouts featured one photo, of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed
Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The new billboard says “Long live our Emirates
union” and also shows United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa
Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Dubai’s financial woes have tamed the once-independent emirate and
forced it closer to Abu Dhabi, which holds 90 percent of the U.A.E.’s
oil. Sheikh Mohammed last week demoted three business aides and fired
one. All had been pivotal in the debt-fueled expansion of past years,
requiring Dubai’s rescue with a $10-billion loan from the U.A.E.
central bank.
The global financial crisis that swept into Dubai last year not only
put an end to a construction boom that saddled it with $80 billion of
debt. It may also mark a turning point in the U.A.E.’s history toward
a stronger central state, which investors say will make Dubai a more
attractive destination by bolstering its creditworthiness.
“Abu Dhabi is pumping 2.5 million barrels a day of oil, of course you
want it and Dubai to be working together,” said Emad Mostaque, a
London-based Middle East equity-fund manager for Pictet Asset
Management Ltd., which oversees more than $100 billion globally. “They
don’t need to compete against each other,” he said in a phone
interview.
Mostaque said he is positive on Arabtec Holding PJSC, Drake & Scull
International PJSC and Depa Ltd., all Dubai-based construction
companies expanding into Abu Dhabi.
Central Bank
Sheikh Mohammed in February turned to Abu Dhabi, holder of the world’s
sixth-largest crude reserves, for a $10 billion bailout. The central
bank, which has its headquarters in the country’s capital of Abu
Dhabi, bought the entire bond issue.
Dubai is seeking an extra injection of $10 billion by the end of the
year, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman of the emirate’s
Supreme Fiscal Committee, said Nov. 16. The bond would get “majority
government” participation, Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar
Properties PJSC and a member of the Dubai Executive Council, said Oct.
9.
The renewed financial lifeline comes as Dubai and its state-owned
companies have to repay $15.8 billion of bonds and loans maturing this
year, $9.2 billion in 2010, $19.8 billion in 2011 and $17.3 billion
the following year, according to a Deutsche Bank AG report in August.
Islamic Bonds
The sheikhdom raised $1.93 billion last month from the biggest sale of
Islamic bonds in the Gulf Arab region this year. It was made possible
by investors’ confidence that Abu Dhabi stands behind Dubai, said
Tristan Cooper, a Dubai-based Middle East sovereign analyst at Moody’s
Investors Service.
“Assumed backing from Abu Dhabi and closer ties between the emirates
bolsters investor confidence generally in Dubai and helps to attract
foreign investment,” Cooper said by e-mail. Dubai’s $80 billion debts
are equivalent to 100 percent of the city-state’s 2008 gross domestic
product and nine times its 2008 revenue, according to Moody’s.
The cost of protecting Dubai bonds from default traded at 317 basis
points today from a peak of 977 in February, five-year credit-default
swap prices show. The contracts get cheaper as perceptions of credit
quality improve.
Since the start of the year, when Sheikh Mohammed launched a new Web
site dedicated to his activities as prime minister of the U.A.E., he
has been seen increasingly in public in that role. A front-page story
on the Dubai-based Gulf News on Nov. 8 showed the Dubai ruler touring
a new desert resort in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region with Sheikh Khalifa,
who in addition to being president also leads Abu Dhabi.
Separate Army
The air show in Dubai this year was inaugurated by the Crown Prince of
Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the U.A.E. Armed Forces
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of the president,
alongside Sheikh Mohammed.
Dubai split from Abu Dhabi in 1833. It kept its independence thanks to
the U.K., which pursued a policy of divide-and-rule in the Gulf
emirates, according to the 2008 book “Dubai: The Vulnerability of
Success,” by historian Christopher Davidson.
Though Dubai grudgingly integrated with Abu Dhabi in 1971 in a
federation of seven emirates, it maintained a separate army until
1996, the book said.
Billboards of the two sheikhdoms’ rulers are going up in Dubai ahead
of the Dec. 2 celebration of the 38th year since the U.A.E. was
founded.
Sheikh Mohammed, 60, who became ruler of Dubai in 2006, accelerated
his brother’s policy of diversifying the economy from dwindling oil
supplies by transforming Dubai into a tourism and finance hub.
Tower and Islands
The emirate is building the world’s tallest tower and largest man-made
islands in the shape of palm trees. This year it had to shelve plans
to construct a new waterfront development the size of Hong Kong Island
and “Dubailand,” a leisure park that would have been three times the
size of Manhattan.
Home prices are down more than 50 percent from their peak in the third
quarter of 2008, Deutsche Bank AG said on Nov. 5. Prices may drop as
much as 30 percent more, UBS AG said Nov. 18.
“The whole strategy of diversification was a consequence of oil
running out and wanting to keep their independence,” said Eckart
Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “Now this
diversification model is in dire straits and Abu Dhabi is the one that
can help Dubai out.”
Dubai oil production began in the 1960s, reached a peak of about
350,000 barrels a day in the late 1980s and has now declined to about
80,000 barrels a day, said Dalton Garis, a professor at the Petroleum
Institute, Abu Dhabi. The U.A.E. government says Dubai oil reserves
will run out within 20 years.
‘Shut Up’
On Nov. 9, Sheikh Mohammed said people who speculated about relations
between Dubai and Abu Dhabi should “shut up,” at an investors’
conference in Dubai organized by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The ruling lines of both emirates are “the same family, not only that
but the same tribe, the Bani Yas tribe,” he said. They “ruled many
many tribes in the Arabian Peninsula for hundreds and hundreds of
years.”
Eleven days later, the sheikh removed the governor of the Dubai
International Financial Centre, Omar Bin Sulaiman, who had led efforts
to transform Dubai into a Middle East finance hub. This came 24 hours
after he dropped Mohammad al-Gergawi, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and
Alabbar from the board of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the
emirate’s main holding company.
The centralization of the U.A.E. “could be the price Dubai has to pay
for the Abu Dhabi bailout,” said Woertz. “This might cause some
bruised egos here and there.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at
hme...@bloomberg.net; Zainab Fattah in Dubai at zfa...@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 24, 2009 09:09 EST
Nickname unavailable
Nickname unavailable
we are watching history unfolding, its the world wide implosion of
free market economics. demand does not matter, wages do not matter,
sustainability does not matter, deficits do not matter, feverish
speculation, and demandless hyper-speculative bubbles do not matter,
what matters is profits. of course that is the view of the insane.
alexy
<snip>
>
>unfortunately alex your posting history of distortion, spin and
>financial fakir side bias has preceeded you.
If by "spin", you mean calling a 2.8% growth rate "growth" rather than
"shrinking", or consumer spending increase of 2.9% and increase rather
than a decrease, I guess I have to plead guilty!
>I would suggest you notice that slave labor nations collapse in all
>cases and have a history of starvation and poverty.
Yes. And that fact does not need to be supported with lies about
growth rates.
>Only america with its history of viable labor rates, and only in the
>time frames when labor rates were viable for the workers, did
>it rise to power and affluence..... and for the precise reasons video
>elaborates on,,, 'no wages, no purchasing power, no economy, no
>manufacturing. no production, no sustainable profit' (just the short
>term profit any rip off produces)
Fairly reasonable. Does that make it okay to lie about [weak] economic
growth, calling it a decrease, or to lie about increases in consumer
spending, claiming that it is going down? I don't think reasonable
economic arguments require such lies for support, and in fact, lying
to support them implies that they can't stand on truth.
>You have been on the short term profit rant mode.
Any examples of a rant in favor of short-term profit?
>its not rocket science
No, and it can stand up to truth; it doesn't need lies to support it.
alexy
Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
Rod Speed
Another pig ignorant lie. Its been doing that ever since it chucked the english out.
> and for the precise reasons video elaborates on,,, 'no wages,
That has never happened.
> no purchasing power, no economy,
And that in spades.
> no manufacturing.
Hasnt happened either.
> no production, no sustainable profit'
Mindlessly silly.
> (just the short term profit any rip off produces)
> You have been on the short term profit rant mode.
> its not rocket science
Too hard for fools like you tho.
alexy
>Nickname unavailable <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote:
>
>>The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
>>the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
>>The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>>as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>>period estimated just a month ago.
>>
>> it shrunk.
>
>
>Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
>previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
>speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
Now that I think about it, this vid-speak could come in handy. My wife
has said that I look like I have put on 3.5 kilos. If I step on the
scale, and find that my weight is higher by only 2.8 kilos, I can use
vid-speak to claim that I have lost weight!
Me, again!
Yeah, the growth rate shrunk.
Or, alexy-speak which is like: Its OK for CEOs to rip off the underlings,
but not OK to do anything to help the underlings.
Or, the other alexy-speak, which is: If stuff is cheaper at Walmart,
that's great. Just forget that a sea-change transfer of our industrial
base OUT of the USA and INTO China means that down the road there ain't
gonna be anything left in the USA by which people can "make" money so they
can spend money to keep the economy going.
Two percent GDP growth? Probably ,ostly in your imagination from financial
tricks and tweaks that really don't _make_ anything.
Nickname unavailable
> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
> > alexy <nos...@asbry.net> wrote:
>
i know, where will it end. i was being straight forward. but just the
sight of one of my posts sets him off. how could this word set him
off,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shrunk
To become reduced in amount or value
unless of course he is unstable, and thinks what is going on is
healthy. it must be because the suckers money is flowing again, and he
fells safe and smug.
its got to be hard to ignore reality.
alexy
>
>
>On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>
>> alexy <nos...@asbry.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Nickname unavailable <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>> The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
>>>> the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
>>>> The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>>>> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>>>> period estimated just a month ago.
>>>>
>>>> it shrunk.
>>>
>>>
>>> Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
>>> previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
>>> speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
>>
>> Now that I think about it, this vid-speak could come in handy. My wife
>> has said that I look like I have put on 3.5 kilos. If I step on the
>> scale, and find that my weight is higher by only 2.8 kilos, I can use
>> vid-speak to claim that I have lost weight!
>
>Yeah, the growth rate shrunk.
No, the growth rate increased. It was merely less than previously
estimated.
alexy
>On Nov 24, 8:44�pm, "Me, again!" <arthu...@mv.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>> > alexy <nos...@asbry.net> wrote:
>>
>> >> Nickname unavailable <Vide...@tcq.net> wrote:
>>
>> >>> The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
>> >>> the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
>> >>> The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>> >>> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>> >>> period estimated just a month ago.
>>
>> >>> it shrunk.
>>
>> >> Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
>> >> previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
>> >> speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
>>
>> > Now that I think about it, this vid-speak could come in handy. My wife
>> > has said that I look like I have put on 3.5 kilos. If I step on the
>> > scale, and find that my weight is higher by only 2.8 kilos, I can use
>> > vid-speak to claim that I have lost weight!
>>
>> Yeah, the growth rate shrunk.
> i know, where will it end. i was being straight forward.
Straight-forward lies.
> but just the
>sight of one of my posts sets him off
Hmmm. Makes you wonder why I ignore most of the crap you post.
> how could this word set him off,
No single word. It was the whole set of lies.
>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shrunk
>To become reduced in amount or value
I think we all agree on what "shrunk" means. The issue of reading
comprehension is figuring out what has shrunk.
The article says that the estimate of GDP growth has shrunk: "The
Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
period estimated just a month ago." The new reading is less than the
estimate of the same item (Q3 GDP growth) from a month ago.
Art's reading of this is that the GDP growth rate has decreased. But
GDP growth was negative 0.7% in the previous quarter (the GDP was
shrinking then), so going from -0.7% to +2.8% is hardly a decrease in
the growth rate.
You claimed that "GDP shrunk". Are you even able to understand the
differences among "the GDP", "the rate of growth of the GDP", and "The
estimate of the rate of growth of the GDP"?
Me, again!
"less than previously estimated" = it shrunk.
Also, just like Walmart says "we slashed prices to save you money"
..surely one of your favorite thoughts to feel warm and fuzzy all over
about. I betcha you can save even more by just not buying ANYthing and
keep ALL of your money in your wallet.
Oh? Your wife says 3.5 kilos? Your scale says 2.8 kilos? I think I'll use
CEO-speak to suggest that you put springs inside your scale to cheat.
Me, again!
On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
> Nickname unavailable <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote:
>
>> On Nov 24, 8:44 pm, "Me, again!" <arthu...@mv.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>>>> alexy <nos...@asbry.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Nickname unavailable <Vide...@tcq.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
>>>>>> the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
>>>>>> The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>>>>>> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>>>>>> period estimated just a month ago.
>>>
>>>>>> it shrunk.
>>>
>>>>> Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
>>>>> previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
>>>>> speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
>>>
>>>> Now that I think about it, this vid-speak could come in handy. My wife
>>>> has said that I look like I have put on 3.5 kilos. If I step on the
>>>> scale, and find that my weight is higher by only 2.8 kilos, I can use
>>>> vid-speak to claim that I have lost weight!
>>>
>>> Yeah, the growth rate shrunk.
>
>
>
>> i know, where will it end. i was being straight forward.
>
> Straight-forward lies.
No, his first sentence was a question without a question mark, and his
second sentence was a self-report on his own evaluation of his intentions.
YOU may interpret it differently, but I don't think he was lying.
>> but just the
>> sight of one of my posts sets him off
>
> Hmmm. Makes you wonder why I ignore most of the crap you post.
Now that is a lie because it is clear that it proves that you didn't
ignore at least THIS post.
>> how could this word set him off,
>
> No single word. It was the whole set of lies.
Actually, "lie" would be a misnomer. Interpretation might be different
among different people, though.
>> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shrunk
>> To become reduced in amount or value
>
> I think we all agree on what "shrunk" means. The issue of reading
> comprehension is figuring out what has shrunk.
>
> The article says that the estimate of GDP growth has shrunk: "The
> Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
> period estimated just a month ago." The new reading is less than the
> estimate of the same item (Q3 GDP growth) from a month ago.
Yeah, it shrunk.
> Art's reading of this is that the GDP growth rate has decreased. But
> GDP growth was negative 0.7% in the previous quarter (the GDP was
> shrinking then), so going from -0.7% to +2.8% is hardly a decrease in
> the growth rate.
Oh, a ballpark figure of shrinkage is that 2.8 must be, off the top of my
head without using a calculator or doing pensil and paper, a good 20% less
than 3.5. Yaknow, 20% less seems pretty big to me.
> You claimed that "GDP shrunk". Are you even able to understand the
> differences among "the GDP",
GDP is X
> "the rate of growth of the GDP",
delta X over delta T
and "The
> estimate of the rate of growth of the GDP"?
when magicians pull rabbits out of hats, even if they are dead ones.
But, its worse if the rabbit, dead or alive, is smaller than originally
thought.
Ergo, it shrunk.
I think it's hillarious that I can understand Video and you can't.
alexy
>
>
>On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>
>> "Me, again!" <arth...@mv.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>>>
>>>> alexy <nos...@asbry.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Nickname unavailable <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as
>>>>>> the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
>>>>>> The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>>>>>> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>>>>>> period estimated just a month ago.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> it shrunk.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Amazing! So in your "mind", a positive growth rate smaller than a
>>>>> previous estimate is the same as shrinkage (a word that English
>>>>> speakers use to refer to a negative growth rate). Typical vid-talk.
>>>>
>>>> Now that I think about it, this vid-speak could come in handy. My wife
>>>> has said that I look like I have put on 3.5 kilos. If I step on the
>>>> scale, and find that my weight is higher by only 2.8 kilos, I can use
>>>> vid-speak to claim that I have lost weight!
>>>
>>> Yeah, the growth rate shrunk.
>>
>> No, the growth rate increased. It was merely less than previously
>> estimated.
>
>"less than previously estimated" = it shrunk.
>
Yes, the measurement shrank. The growth rate increased. I.e., Delta^2
GDP.Delta T^2 was positive.
This is not very difficult. Try to find someone who has worked in
science, and I am sure they will be able to explain to you the
difference between a quantity being measured and the measurement
itself.
alexy
I think you are probably right. I said "lie" for effect, but I really
do think he just doesn't understand that decreasing an estimate of a
positive growth rate is different from negative growth.
>
>>> but just the
>>> sight of one of my posts sets him off
>>
>> Hmmm. Makes you wonder why I ignore most of the crap you post.
>
>Now that is a lie because it is clear that it proves that you didn't
>ignore at least THIS post.
Reread. I said "most" not "all".
>
>>> how could this word set him off,
>>
>> No single word. It was the whole set of lies.
>
>Actually, "lie" would be a misnomer.
Okay, "stupidity".
>>> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shrunk
>>> To become reduced in amount or value
>>
>> I think we all agree on what "shrunk" means. The issue of reading
>> comprehension is figuring out what has shrunk.
>>
>> The article says that the estimate of GDP growth has shrunk: "The
>> Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product wasn't
>> as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September
>> period estimated just a month ago." The new reading is less than the
>> estimate of the same item (Q3 GDP growth) from a month ago.
>
>Yeah, it shrunk.
Yes, "it" being "the estimate of the growth rate", not "the growth
rate" or "the GDP", both of which increased.
>
>> Art's reading of this is that the GDP growth rate has decreased. But
>> GDP growth was negative 0.7% in the previous quarter (the GDP was
>> shrinking then), so going from -0.7% to +2.8% is hardly a decrease in
>> the growth rate.
>
>Oh, a ballpark figure of shrinkage is that 2.8 must be, off the top of my
>head without using a calculator or doing pensil and paper, a good 20% less
>than 3.5. Yaknow, 20% less seems pretty big to me.
Yes, the estimate of third quarter growth rate decreased by 20%. The
growth rate itself grew from negative 0.7 to 2.8.
>> You claimed that "GDP shrunk". Are you even able to understand the
>> differences among "the GDP",
>
>GDP is X
Very good. Let's work with real data. In billions of constant 2005
dollars, annualized GDP in Q1, Q2, and Q3 is $12,925, $12,902, and
$12,990.
GDP grew 12,902 to 12,990 over the last quarter. It did not shrink, no
matter what Vid says.
>
>> "the rate of growth of the GDP",
>
>delta X over delta T
delta T is 1/4
Q1 to Q2 growth = (12,902-12,925)/(1/4) = -92 = -0.7%
Q2 to Q3 growth = (12,990-12,902)/(1/4) = +352 = 2.8%
The GDP growth rate increased from -0.7% to 2.8%. This growth rate did
not shrink, no matter what you say.
> and "The
>> estimate of the rate of growth of the GDP"?
>
>when magicians pull rabbits out of hats, even if they are dead ones.
>
>But, its worse if the rabbit, dead or alive, is smaller than originally
>thought.
>
>Ergo, it shrunk.
Yes, the estimate of the growth rate shrunk. The growth rate itself
increased, as did the GDP.
>
>I think it's hillarious that I can understand Video and you can't.
Yes, it is not very surprising that the two of you share this mental
block.
Nickname unavailable
this cannot be rocket science. spending was down, the trade deficit
was up, and gdp was lower than first forecast, it shrunk.
is that lying? if it is, then go after the authors, not me, but the
authors are using government statistics. so i think he is trying to
silence the messenger. i think he is a stalker, whom tries to silence
what he does not like. as another poster has said about him, he uses
tactics that the scientologists use.
Me, again!
No, you're wrong again. The growth rate shrunk from 3.5 to 2.8.
You are overlooking the FACT that the "3.5" was not backed up by the "2.8"
> This is not very difficult.
Oh yes it is....for you.
Try to find someone who has worked in
> science, and I am sure they will be able to explain to you the
> difference between a quantity being measured and the measurement
> itself.
I am someone in science (you forgot that, too), and I've been explaining
things to you for the last ten years and you still can't get most of it
right.
alexy
> this cannot be rocket science.
No. In fact, it is really pretty simple.
> spending was down
Maybe in your mind. But annualized consumer spending in Q2 was
$9,189B, and in Q3 was $9,256B. I'm sure you, and maybe Art, consider
that a decrease. But the authors of the article you quoted know how to
work a calculator (or read a press release), so correctly reported
that it was an annualized increase of 2.9%.
>the trade deficit was up,
And I acknowledged that you got that right, although it is hard to
imagine any reason other than pure accident.
>and gdp was lower than first forecast, it shrunk.
No, it didn't. It went from $12,902B in Q2 to $12,990 in Q3. That is
NOT shrinking. It grew by 2.8%. It grew less than originally
estimated, but it still grew. I can't even imagine a mental defect
that would prevent someone from understanding that distinction. If I
think I have gained 10 pounds, but step on the scale and find that my
weight has only gone up by 8 pounds, that does NOT, in anything but
Vid-speak, mean that I have lost weight.
> is that lying?
Probably not. It is probably stupidity, pure and simple.
>if it is, then go after the authors, not me,
Why? They didn't lie. They said that the GDP increased by 2.8%. It is
only you who sid it shrunk.
alexy
>On Wed, 25 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>I really think that "estimates of" (eg 3.5) are different than
>"measurements of" (eg. 2.8)
Actually, both are inexact, just to differing degrees. One could call
the first a "rough measurement" or the latter a "more precise
estimate".
> but (I don't know about you) for me, 2.8 means
>things just ain't that as good as they thought.
No disagreement on that point. I just don't think that smaller
positive growth justifies a claim that the GDP had shrunk (negative
growth).
>
>>>>> but just the
>>>>> sight of one of my posts sets him off
>>>>
>>>> Hmmm. Makes you wonder why I ignore most of the crap you post.
>>>
>>> Now that is a lie because it is clear that it proves that you didn't
>>> ignore at least THIS post.
>>
>> Reread. I said "most" not "all".
>
>No, you still lied because you ALWAYS ignore ANYthing I post that YOU
>don't like, and I have a ten year recollection of that.
Nope, wrong again. I said I ignore most of what Vid posts. Your
initial claim the disprove that by showing that there is a post that I
did not ignore is pretty lame. But I think you topped it by claiming
that ignoring your posts has anything whatsoever to do with my claim
to ignore most of Vid's crap.
>At the moment, I'll prefer to understand that the mesurements fell short
>of the projections made earlier. Or....bad news.
Exactly!
>
>>>
>>>> Art's reading of this is that the GDP growth rate has decreased. But
>>>> GDP growth was negative 0.7% in the previous quarter (the GDP was
>>>> shrinking then), so going from -0.7% to +2.8% is hardly a decrease in
>>>> the growth rate.
>>>
>>> Oh, a ballpark figure of shrinkage is that 2.8 must be, off the top of my
>>> head without using a calculator or doing pensil and paper, a good 20% less
>>> than 3.5. Yaknow, 20% less seems pretty big to me.
>>
>> Yes, the estimate of third quarter growth rate decreased by 20%. The
>> growth rate itself grew from negative 0.7 to 2.8.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Where did you get that?
Three paragraphs above. And the BLS web site.
>
>>>> You claimed that "GDP shrunk". Are you even able to understand the
>>>> differences among "the GDP",
>>>
>>> GDP is X
>>
>> Very good. Let's work with real data. In billions of constant 2005
>> dollars, annualized GDP in Q1, Q2, and Q3 is $12,925, $12,902, and
>> $12,990.
>
>BFD.
LOL! Facts are so inconvenient, aren't they? Kinda makes it hard to
support the claim that GDP shrank!
>
>> GDP grew 12,902 to 12,990 over the last quarter. It did not shrink, no
>> matter what Vid says.
>>>
>>>> "the rate of growth of the GDP",
>>>
>>> delta X over delta T
>>
>> delta T is 1/4
>
>delta T can be anything we want..
>
>> Q1 to Q2 growth = (12,902-12,925)/(1/4) = -92 = -0.7%
>> Q2 to Q3 growth = (12,990-12,902)/(1/4) = +352 = 2.8%
>> The GDP growth rate increased from -0.7% to 2.8%. This growth rate did
>> not shrink, no matter what you say.
>
>I thought we were talking about projections of 3.5 compared to measures of
>2.8. Is that not true?
Vid said the GDP (which went from 12,902 to 12,990) shrank.
You said that the rate of growth in the GDP (which went from -0.7% to
2.8%) shrank.
The article spoke about the decrease from the first to the second
estimate of the GDP growth.
>
>>> and "The
>>>> estimate of the rate of growth of the GDP"?
>>>
>>> when magicians pull rabbits out of hats, even if they are dead ones.
>>>
>>> But, its worse if the rabbit, dead or alive, is smaller than originally
>>> thought.
>>>
>>> Ergo, it shrunk.
>>
>> Yes, the estimate of the growth rate shrunk.
>
>I thought the measured growth was less than the estimated growth. Is that
>not the case.
It is, assuming you are calling the second estimate the "measure".
>
> The growth rate itself
>> increased, as did the GDP.
>
>See above, first.
Saw above. The statement about the GDP and the GDP growth rate both
increasing stands.
alexy
>>
>> Yes, the measurement shrank. The growth rate increased. I.e., Delta^2
>> GDP.Delta T^2 was positive.
>
>No, you're wrong again. The growth rate shrunk from 3.5 to 2.8.
Between what two periods did the growth rate shrink? The estimate of
third quarter growth rate shrank, from 3.5% to 2.8%. But in either
case the growth rate itself (of which these two numbers are estimates)
grew from Q2 to Q3.
>
>You are overlooking the FACT that the "3.5" was not backed up by the "2.8"
>
>> This is not very difficult.
>
>Oh yes it is....for you.
>
> Try to find someone who has worked in
>> science, and I am sure they will be able to explain to you the
>> difference between a quantity being measured and the measurement
>> itself.
>
>I am someone in science (you forgot that, too), and I've been explaining
>things to you for the last ten years and you still can't get most of it
>right.
Okay, let's pretend you were a biologist. Someone finds a specimen of
new species of bird and estimates its weight at 350 grams. This same
specimen is captured and weighed, and found to weigh only 280 grams.
Do you claim that the bird lost weight?
Nickname unavailable
desperation, shame on you. it was lower than originally forecast.
Nickname unavailable
lets pretend you are honest, and understood what the article states,
that gdp shrank for the given reasons in the article.
alexy
> desperation, shame on you. it was lower than originally forecast.
EXCELLENT! I knew that if I repeated it enough, even you would catch
on.
alexy
>
> lets pretend you are honest, and understood what the article states,
>that gdp shrank for the given reasons in the article.
That's not what the article states. As you said in another post,
"it was lower than originally forecast".
And I thought that was an indication you were catching on.
Nickname unavailable
i will post this again.
i know, where will it end. i was being straight forward. but just the
sight of one of my posts sets him off. how could this word set him
off,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shrunk
To become reduced in amount or value
to bad you are so dishonest.
Nickname unavailable
Demon Buddha
> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
> healthy economy,
I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
phil scott
it seems for the last 10 or 20 years that the US govt has been
promoting foreign trade.. (which is good... imo)..
while ignoring the defecit caused by excess trade with slave labor
nations (which is fatal, imo)
that has decimated our own mfgr and made the US work force redundant
in many aspects...
the entire mess is compounded by offshoring entire mfg plants. and
bloat in the city, state and federal burocracy's not being fundable by
the resulting collapsed worker and tax base.
those are some of the historical drivers for collapse... when it
becomes pandemic nationally such does not result in recession or
depression... but national collapse. (recovery historically two
generations , currently in this speeded up world, 40 to 50 years.,
meantime loss of empire, but not total oblivion.)
the collapse/ starvation phase is mother natures way of forcing new
backbone into the residents... works perfectly. (a 5 generation
cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
exceptions have been the nations with no written language or money..
the Mongols for instance,
apparent exceptions are only apparent... china for instance 4,000
years... but thats broken up into dynasties... 200 years on average
life cycle
***'
the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with
china would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and
increase US sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy, with
labor unions, a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'... its
working class will not be buying much from the US relative to what it
exports. (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of sorts
perhaps)
Phil scott
Rod Speed
> Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote
>> Nickname unavailable wrote
>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy,
>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
>> any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
> it seems for the last 10 or 20 years that the US govt
> has been promoting foreign trade.. (which is good... imo)..
Its never been a very big part of the US economy.
> while ignoring the defecit caused by excess trade
> with slave labor nations (which is fatal, imo)
You wouldnt know what real slave labor was if it bit you on your lard arse.
> that has decimated our own mfgr
Only at the low cost consumer goods end of the market.
> and made the US work force redundant in many aspects...
Complete and utter pig ignorant drivel.
The unemployment rate bottomed at 4.x% with an immense
legal and illegal immigration rate. Some redundancy...
> the entire mess is compounded by offshoring entire mfg plants.
Manufacturing is only a very small part of any modern first world economy, stupid.
> and bloat in the city, state and federal burocracy's not being
> fundable by the resulting collapsed worker and tax base.
The unemployment rate bottomed at 4.x% with an immense legal
and illegal immigration rate. Some collapsed 'worker' base.
> those are some of the historical drivers for collapse...
Another pig ignorant lie.
> when it becomes pandemic nationally such does not
> result in recession or depression... but national collapse.
Odd that you cant actually list even a single example of that in the last THOUSAND YEARS.
> (recovery historically two generations , currently in this speeded up world, 40 to 50 years.,
Odd that you cant actually list even a single example of that in the last THOUSAND YEARS.
> meantime loss of empire,
The US has no empire, fool.
> but not total oblivion.)
Nothing even remotely resembling that either with
any of the empires in the last THOUSAND YEARS.
> the collapse/ starvation phase
Odd that you cant actually list even a single example of that in the last THOUSAND YEARS.
> is mother natures way of forcing new backbone into the residents... works
> perfectly. (a 5 generation cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
Odd that you cant actually list even a single example of that in the last THOUSAND YEARS.
> exceptions have been the nations with no written language or money..
> the Mongols for instance,
Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have
never ever had a fucking clue about anything at all, ever.
> apparent exceptions are only apparent... china for instance
> 4,000 years... but thats broken up into dynasties...
And it never ever saw any collapse/ starvation phase
> 200 years on average life cycle
Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have
never ever had a fucking clue about anything at all, ever.
Pity about Spain, Portugal, Holland, Britain, etc etc etc.
> ***'
> the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with china
> would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and increase US
> sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy, with labor unions,
> a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'... its working class
> will not be buying much from the US relative to what it exports.
Its no surprise that fools claim stupid stuff. You do that in spades.
> (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of sorts perhaps)
Tariffs dont level any playing field, fool.
Demon Buddha
> On Nov 26, 6:15 am, Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote:
>> Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>>> healthy economy,
>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
>> any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
>
> it seems for the last 10 or 20 years that the US govt has been
> promoting foreign trade.. (which is good... imo)..
Surely so, all else equal.
>
> while ignoring the defecit caused by excess trade with slave labor
> nations (which is fatal, imo)
"Free trade" vis-a-vis free market capitalism. The two are worlds
different and, in fact, have almost nothing in common.
I might also point people to the definition of "arbitrage". Given
that, it is clear that what is going on is an artificially maintained,
synthetic arbitrage opportunity in the global labor markets,
particularly in the case of China. There are two cardinal rules of
arbitrage in free markets:
1. Arbitrage opportunities are rare
2. Arbitrage opportunities are short-lived
The reasons for these are all academic and need not be addressed here.
Given them, however, we see that the Chinese government has created
and actively maintains this labor arbitrage opportunity through forced
slave labor and in violation of the above rules. That is the basis of
our "free trade" with China. It has NOTHING to do with free market
capitalism.
>
> that has decimated our own mfgr and made the US work force redundant
> in many aspects...
Said decimation was affected by political intent and economic design.
All that was required was to put the legislative formalities into
effect, stand back, and watch the fun. The moment the first US company
in a given sector moved to China, all others were forced to as a matter
of survival. When one competitor in a market can cut labor costs by
97%, all the rest MUST follow suit or go out of business.
> those are some of the historical drivers for collapse... when it
> becomes pandemic nationally such does not result in recession or
> depression... but national collapse. (recovery historically two
> generations , currently in this speeded up world, 40 to 50 years.,
> meantime loss of empire, but not total oblivion.)
Bootstrapping in the wake of a real collapse would probably take
decades to realize, maybe more. In the meanwhile, we would be open to
military attack due to a weakened state. Collapse is the last thing
anyone should be looking forward to.
>
> the collapse/ starvation phase is mother natures way of forcing new
> backbone into the residents... works perfectly. (a 5 generation
> cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
That may be OK, save for those who die in the process, as long as it
happens GLOBALLY. Given the current states of technology, foreign
forces could be on our shores in a matter of days (large forces). Not
saying it would happen - just that it could, and that possibility should
have everyone working for a different outcome. I don't see that
happening, so I suppose things are about to become REALLY interesting.
>
> exceptions have been the nations with no written language or money..
> the Mongols for instance,
Those who remain at a "lower" level of development hold this long term
advantage.
>
> apparent exceptions are only apparent... china for instance 4,000
> years... but thats broken up into dynasties... 200 years on average
> life cycle
True, but there is continuity at work there that cannot be dismissed as
coincidence, IMO.
>
>
>
>
> ***'
> the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with
> china would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and
> increase US sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy, with
> labor unions, a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'... its
> working class will not be buying much from the US relative to what it
> exports. (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of sorts
> perhaps)
The fools (some of them right here) who decry free market capitalism as
a "proven" or "demonstrated" failure fail to understand that in order
for free market capitalism to exist, ALL the markets operating within
the free market sphere MUST be free. China's is not - even the USA's is
not. Free market capitalism has not failed because it has not been in
existence for at least the better part of 100 years in the USA. That
aside, even if we were 100% free, China is not and therefore there can
be no free market capitalism at work in the sphere of trade between the
USA and China. I will add to this that the conditions for free market
capitalism are and all or nothing (logical AND) proposition - if so much
as one participant in a sphere of FMC trade is not free, the condition
of FMC cannot be realized. Therefore, all this talk of FMC as "failed"
is pure ignorant baloney.
Demon Buddha
> You wouldnt know what real slave labor was if it bit you on your lard arse.
Please illuminate us.
>
>> that has decimated our own mfgr
>
> Only at the low cost consumer goods end of the market.
This is demonstrably incorrect. For example, today Hardinge is having
lathes made in China. Hardinge produces the finest lathes on the
planet, bar none. Their machines are so precise and repeatable that
prior to the end of the cold war they were classified as "munitions" so
as to prevent export to Soviet Bloc nations.
My HLV-H, a $35K small engine lathe, is top of the top of the line.
Now they are at least being partly made in China. I see Hardinge
possibly going out of business are a result of this shift.
> Manufacturing is only a very small part of any modern first world economy, stupid.
You should watch your mouth. He has not been impolite with you.
Rod Speed
> phil scott wrote
>> Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote
>>> Nickname unavailable wrote
>>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy,
>>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist,
>>> including any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the
>>> precise opposite.
>> it seems for the last 10 or 20 years that the US govt has been
>> promoting foreign trade.. (which is good... imo)..
> Surely so, all else equal.
>> while ignoring the defecit caused by excess trade with slave labor
>> nations (which is fatal, imo)
> "Free trade" vis-a-vis free market capitalism. The two are worlds
> different and, in fact, have almost nothing in common.
> I might also point people to the definition of "arbitrage". Given
> that, it is clear that what is going on is an artificially maintained,
> synthetic arbitrage opportunity in the global labor markets,
> particularly in the case of China. There are two cardinal rules of
> arbitrage in free markets:
> 1. Arbitrage opportunities are rare
> 2. Arbitrage opportunities are short-lived
> The reasons for these are all academic and need not be addressed here.
> Given them, however, we see that the Chinese government has created
> and actively maintains this labor arbitrage opportunity through forced
> slave labor
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> and in violation of the above rules. That is the basis of our "free trade" with China.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> It has NOTHING to do with free market capitalism.
>> that has decimated our own mfgr and made the US work force redundant in many aspects...
> Said decimation was affected by political intent
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> and economic design. All that was required was to put the legislative formalities into effect, stand back, and watch
> the fun.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> The moment the first US company in a given sector moved to China, all others were forced to as a matter of survival.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> When one competitor in a market can cut labor costs by 97%, all the rest MUST follow suit or go out of business.
They can just buy goods from china, fool.
>> those are some of the historical drivers for collapse... when it
>> becomes pandemic nationally such does not result in recession or depression... but national collapse. (recovery
>> historically two
>> generations , currently in this speeded up world, 40 to 50 years.,
>> meantime loss of empire, but not total oblivion.)
> Bootstrapping in the wake of a real collapse would probably take decades to realize, maybe more.
How odd that it didnt when Germany lost WW1, WW2 and Japan post WW2 in spades.
> In the meanwhile, we would be open to military attack due to a weakened state.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> Collapse is the last thing anyone should be looking forward to.
And hasnt happened in the last THOUSAND years anyway.
Didnt happen with the Romans either.
>> the collapse/ starvation phase is mother natures way of forcing new backbone into the residents... works perfectly.
>> (a 5 generation cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
> That may be OK, save for those who die in the process, as long as it happens GLOBALLY.
It doesnt even happen nationally either.
> Given the current states of technology, foreign forces could be on our shores in a matter of days (large forces).
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
Have fun listing even a single country that could manage that.
> Not saying it would happen - just that it could,
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> and that possibility should have everyone working for a different outcome. I don't see that happening, so I suppose
> things are about to become REALLY interesting.
How odd that they didnt during the great depression.
>> exceptions have been the nations with no written language or money.. the Mongols for instance,
> Those who remain at a "lower" level of development hold this long term advantage.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
>> apparent exceptions are only apparent... china for instance 4,000 years... but thats broken up into dynasties... 200
>> years on average life cycle
> True,
Nope.
> but there is continuity at work there that cannot be dismissed as coincidence, IMO.
>> the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with
>> china would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and
>> increase US sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy, with
>> labor unions, a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'... its
>> working class will not be buying much from the US relative to what it
>> exports. (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of sorts perhaps)
> The fools (some of them right here) who decry free market capitalism
> as a "proven" or "demonstrated" failure fail to understand that in
> order for free market capitalism to exist, ALL the markets operating
> within the free market sphere MUST be free.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> China's is not - even the USA's is not.
No one is.
> Free market capitalism has not failed because it has not been in existence for at least the better part of 100 years
> in the USA.
It wasnt even then. In fact it never ever was.
> That aside, even if we were 100% free, China is not and
> therefore there can be no free market capitalism at work in the
> sphere of trade between the USA and China. I will add to this that
> the conditions for free market capitalism are and all or nothing
> (logical AND) proposition - if so much as one participant in a sphere
> of FMC trade is not free, the condition of FMC cannot be realized.
Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasyland.
> Therefore, all this talk of FMC as "failed" is pure ignorant baloney.
Your shit in spades.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed wrote
>> You wouldnt know what real slave labor was if it bit you on your lard arse.
> Please illuminate us.
How many of you are there between those ears ?
And what is the point in shining a light on a steaming turd anyway ?
>>> that has decimated our own mfgr
>> Only at the low cost consumer goods end of the market.
> This is demonstrably incorrect.
Nope.
> For example, today Hardinge is having lathes made in China. Hardinge produces the finest lathes on the planet, bar
> none. Their machines are so precise and repeatable that prior to the end of the cold war they were classified as
> "munitions"
> so as to prevent export to Soviet Bloc nations.
That particular industry hasnt been DECIMATED, fool.
> My HLV-H, a $35K small engine lathe, is top of the top of the line. Now they are at least being partly made in China.
And that particular industry hasnt been DECIMATED, fool.
> I see Hardinge possibly going out of business are a result of this shift.
And that particular industry hasnt been DECIMATED, fool.
>> Manufacturing is only a very small part of any modern first world economy, stupid.
> You should watch your mouth.
You should go and fuck yourself.
> He has not been impolite with you.
Nothing impolite about that, its a statement of fact, cretin.
Me, again!
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
> Demon Buddha wrote
>> Rod Speed wrote
>
>>> You wouldnt know what real slave labor was if it bit you on your lard arse.
>
>> Please illuminate us.
>
> How many of you are there between those ears ?
>
> And what is the point in shining a light on a steaming turd anyway ?
The "Rod Speed FAQ" read it below or at the URL for yourself.....
- - - - - - - - -
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.internet.wireless/2006-07/msg00462.html
- - - - - - - - - -
After its recent emergence in the thread "How to calculate increase
of home wireless router range?", readers of this group may find
this useful. [based on a post in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage]
Who or What is Rod Speed?
Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod
Speed is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered
he can enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the
big, hard man" on the InterNet.
Rod is believed to be from Australia.
Rod certainly posts a lot. Why is that?
It relates back to the point about boosting his own self esteem by
what amounts to effectively having a wank in public. Rod's
personality, as exemplified by his posts, means he is practically
unemployable which means he sits around at home all day festering
away and getting worse and worse. This means he posts more and
more try and boost the old failing self esteem. Being unemployed
also means he as a lot of time on his hands to post in he first
place.
But maybe Rod really is a very clever and knowledgable person?
Clever? His posts wouldn't support that theory. As far as being
knowledgable, well, Rod has posted to various aus newsgroups
including invest, comms, and politics. He has posted to all as a
self professed "expert" and flames any and all who disagree with
him. Logically, here's no way any single individual could be
more than a jack of all trades across such a wide spread of
subject matter.
But maybe Rod really is an expert in some areas?
Possibly. However, his "bedside manner" prevents him from being
taken seriously by most normal people. Also, he has damaged his
credibility in areas where he might know what he's on about by
shooting his self in the foot in areas where he does not. For
example, in the case of subject matter such as politics, even a
view held by Albert Einstein cannot be little more than an
opinion and to vociferously denigrate an opposing opinion is
simply small mindedness and bigotry, the kind of which Einstein
himself fought against his whole life.
What is Rod Speed's main modus operandi?
Simple! He shoots off a half brained opinion in response to any
other post and touts that opinion as fact. When challenged, he
responds with vociferous and rabid denigration. He has an
instantly recognisable set of schoolboy put downs limited pretty
much to the following: "Pathetic, Puerile, Little Boy, try
harder, trivial, more lies, gutless wonder, wanker, etc etc".
The fact that Rod has been unable to come up with any new insults
says a lot about his outlook and intelligence.
But why do so many people respond to Rod in turn?
It has to do with effrontery and a lack of logic. Most people
who post have some basis of reason for what they write and when
Rod retorts with his usual denigration and derision they respond
emotionally rather than logically. It's like a teacher in a
class room who has a misbehaving pupil. The teacher challenges
the pupil to explain himself and the student responds with "***
off, Big Nose!" Even thought the teacher has a fairly normal
proboscis, he gets a dent in his self-esteem and might resort to
an emotional repsonse like "yeah? well your *** wouldn't fill a
pop rivet, punk", which merely invites some oneupmanship from the
naughty pupil. Of course, the teacher should not have justified
the initial comment with a response, especially in front of the
class. The correct response was "please report to the
headmaster's office right NOW!"
What is a "RodBot"?
Some respondents in aus.invest built a "virtual Rod" which was
indiscernable from the "real" Rod. Net users could enter an
opinion or even a fact and the RoDBot would tell them they were
pathetic lying schoolboys who should be able to do better or some
equally pithy Rod Speedism.
Are you saying that Rod Speed is a Troll?
You got it!
What is the best way to handle Rod Speed?
KillFile!
.
////////////////////////////
Me, again!
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
There once was a bloke known as Rod Speed
Of course, but no one would heed
He was, of course, just a big
Flaming Blow-Hard Asshole
He huffed and puffed
Implied that only he knew the truth
That all others lied, ignoranted, etc.
And, he recycled all of his mirth
And, so he blew hard the flames as follows
Such wonderful examples of logical falacies and hollow
Ad hominems, and many other examples of diversions
Plays, ploys, plys, spins, and evasions from he
"No one ever said anything even remotely resembling anything like that."
"Just another of your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasys."
"He's just another pig ignorant fool. No surprise that you 'think' that
the sun shines out of his arse."
"Like hell it does."
"Just another of your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasys."
"Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have never ever had
a fucking clue about anything at all, ever."
And so one person wrote an FAQ about Rod Speed
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.internet.wireless/
2006-07/msg00462.html
(be careful about the line break if you copy and past)
That FAQ was written way before my meeting of Rod Speed
And, how should we think about Rod Speed?
Is he mentally ill?
Be glad he is not in the White House?
Treat him with humor instead of seriousness?
Nah, just watch him huff and puff
And blow himself to bits
And be entertained and give applause
And, ask for an encore
Me, again!
On Thu, 26 Nov 2009, Demon Buddha wrote:
> phil scott wrote:
>> On Nov 26, 6:15 am, Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote:
>>> Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>>>> healthy economy,
>>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist,
> should be looking forward to.
>>
>> the collapse/ starvation phase is mother natures way of forcing new
>> backbone into the residents... works perfectly. (a 5 generation
>> cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
>>
>> ***'
>> the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with
>> china would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and
>> increase US sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy, with
>> labor unions, a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'... its
>> working class will not be buying much from the US relative to what it
>> exports. (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of sorts
>> perhaps)
>
> The fools (some of them right here) who decry free market capitalism
> as a "proven" or "demonstrated" failure fail to understand that in order for
> free market capitalism to exist, ALL the markets operating within the free
> market sphere MUST be free. China's is not - even the USA's is not. Free
> market capitalism has not failed because it has not been in existence for at
> least the better part of 100 years in the USA. That aside, even if we were
> 100% free, China is not and therefore there can be no free market capitalism
> at work in the sphere of trade between the USA and China. I will add to this
> that the conditions for free market capitalism are and all or nothing
> (logical AND) proposition - if so much as one participant in a sphere of FMC
> trade is not free, the condition of FMC cannot be realized. Therefore, all
> this talk of FMC as "failed" is pure ignorant baloney.
There are interpretations different from yours that are equally valid.
Much of what you said has value, but I'll ask these questions: i) what is
the definition of "free" in a free market context, ii) why do you think
"FMC" has to be all or nothing when lots of examples of long-lived mixed
economic systems can be found in many many countries regardless of whether
they are considered Marxist-Leninist, or totalitarian, or "capitalist", and
iii) what definition would you come up with for "failed" or if "failed" is
"ignorant baloney," then what criteria (i.e. measurables in society, not
theory) would you apply to +prove+ that "failed" is ignorant balony.
On that last item, let me remind you that in all of recorded history, most
empires did not last more than about 250 years between the time they came
into existence and when they went out of existence. And, historians
mostly still cannot agree on why they go out of existence. As one basis
for that statement, I will cite Donald Kagan's book "The End of the Roman
Empire: decline or transformation" which summarized from quotes of other
historians at least a dozen "theories" about why the Empire ended. And,
for the record, it was the Western Roman Empire that ended after 250
years. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted another almost 1000 years (rare for
any empire).
I would prefer actual _examples_ and not "arguments."
Rod Speed
own lines, or anything else at all either, with pathetic psychotic
delusions about being a dog, desperately cowering behind
Me, again! desperately attempted to bullshit and lie its way out
of its predicament and fooled absolutely no one at all, as always.
No surprise that it got the bums rush, right out the door, onto its lard arse.
No surprise that its so pathetically bitter and twisted about it.
Rod Speed
Rod Speed
> Demon Buddha wrote
>> phil scott wrote
>>>> Nickname unavailable wrote
>>>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy,
>>>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist,
>> should be looking forward to.
>>> the collapse/ starvation phase is mother natures way of forcing new
>>> backbone into the residents... works perfectly. (a 5 generation
>>> cycle 260 years,,, 500 years peak to peak,)
>>> the bogus notion on the part of those in the US saying trade with
>>> china would rise, increase the chinese standard of living, and
>>> increase US sales to china .... is... that china is a democracy,
>>> with labor unions, a free press and not hooked on 'slave labor'...
>>> its working class will not be buying much from the US relative to
>>> what it exports. (unless we level the playing field. tarriffs of
>>> sorts perhaps)
>> The fools (some of them right here) who decry free market capitalism
>> as a "proven" or "demonstrated" failure fail to understand that in
>> order for free market capitalism to exist, ALL the markets operating
>> within the free market sphere MUST be free. China's is not - even
>> the USA's is not. Free market capitalism has not failed because it
>> has not been in existence for at least the better part of 100 years
>> in the USA. That aside, even if we were 100% free, China is not and
>> therefore there can be no free market capitalism at work in the
>> sphere of trade between the USA and China. I will add to this that
>> the conditions for free market capitalism are and all or nothing
>> (logical AND) proposition - if so much as one participant in a
>> sphere of FMC trade is not free, the condition of FMC cannot be
>> realized. Therefore, all this talk of FMC as "failed" is pure
>> ignorant baloney.
> There are interpretations different from yours that are equally valid.
You quite sure you aint one of those rocket scientist fuckwit psychotics ?
> Much of what you said has value, but I'll ask these questions: i) what is the definition of "free" in a free market
> context,
Try a dictionary.
> ii) why do you think "FMC" has to be all or nothing when lots of examples of long-lived mixed economic systems can be
> found in many many countries regardless of whether they are considered Marxist-Leninist, or totalitarian, or
> "capitalist",
Separate matter entirely to whether FMC has to be.
> and iii) what definition would you come up with for "failed" or if "failed" is "ignorant baloney," then what criteria
> (i.e. measurables in society, not theory) would you apply to +prove+ that "failed" is ignorant balony.
You'll end up completely blind if you dont watch out.
> On that last item, let me remind you that in all of recorded history,
> most empires did not last more than about 250 years between the time they came into existence and when they went out
> of existence.
Depends on what you call an empire.
> And, historians mostly still cannot agree on why they go out of existence. As one basis for that statement, I will
> cite Donald Kagan's book "The End of the Roman Empire: decline or transformation" which summarized from
> quotes of other historians at least a dozen "theories" about why the
> Empire ended. And, for the record, it was the Western Roman Empire
> that ended after 250 years. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted another
> almost 1000 years (rare for any empire).
> I would prefer actual _examples_ and not "arguments."
You have always been, and always will be, completely and utterly irrelevant.
What you might or might not prefer in spades.
alexy
I had the same reaction and asked the same question. But don't hold
your breath. Remember this is the same guy who posted an article that
said that GDP grew by 2.8% and Personal Consumption was up by 2.9%,
but claimed in his lead-in that GDP shrunk and Personal Consumption
was down. I think this claim about "free market dogma" bears the same
relationship to reality.
Les Cargill
Neither is actually true. It depends.
What is true is that alarm over trade deficits is the hallmark of
Mercantilism, not of Capitalism.
--
Les Cargill
Gutless Fuckwit
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
Ad Hominem attack.
>> Much of what you said has value, but I'll ask these questions: i) what is the definition of "free" in a free market
>> context,
>
> Try a dictionary.
Depends on the dictionary, and most people don't use one, anyway.
>> ii) why do you think "FMC" has to be all or nothing when lots of examples of long-lived mixed economic systems can be
>> found in many many countries regardless of whether they are considered Marxist-Leninist, or totalitarian, or
>> "capitalist",
>
> Separate matter entirely to whether FMC has to be.
No, it may be separate but it is relevant.
>> and iii) what definition would you come up with for "failed" or if "failed" is "ignorant baloney," then what criteria
>> (i.e. measurables in society, not theory) would you apply to +prove+ that "failed" is ignorant balony.
>
> You'll end up completely blind if you dont watch out.
Another ad hominem attack.
>> On that last item, let me remind you that in all of recorded history,
>> most empires did not last more than about 250 years between the time they came into existence and when they went out
>> of existence.
>
> Depends on what you call an empire.
All of my history books list the all the same empires, correctly,
accurately, and without controversy or conflict.
>> And, historians mostly still cannot agree on why they go out of existence. As one basis for that statement, I will
>> cite Donald Kagan's book "The End of the Roman Empire: decline or transformation" which summarized from
>> quotes of other historians at least a dozen "theories" about why the
>> Empire ended. And, for the record, it was the Western Roman Empire
>> that ended after 250 years. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted another
>> almost 1000 years (rare for any empire).
>
>> I would prefer actual _examples_ and not "arguments."
>
> You have always been, and always will be, completely and utterly irrelevant.
Boast, bluff, buffoonery, and bore.... as usual.
> What you might or might not prefer in spades.
I'd prefer, in spades, to have you remove your so cool ass off these
newsgroups and go back where you came from.
Here are some freebies for you....
Samples of actual sentences (actual quotes) that Rod Speed uses to
displayh his intellectual brilliance, spelling and grammatical prowess,
and other elements of his politeness/compassion/patience.....
---------
Gutless Fuckwit
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Rod Speed wrote:
I, Rod Speed, am a gutless fuckwit psychopath with pathetic psychotic
delusions about being a human, desperately cowering behind
my ass, desperately attempted to bullshit and lie my way out of
my predicament and fooled absolutely no one at all, as always.
No surprise that I got the bums rush, right out the door, onto my lard
arse.
No surprise that I'm so pathetically bitter and twisted about it.
Gutless Fuckwit
Once upon a time there was an emperor
Who had the idea he could spin clothes made out of gold
Of course, they were invisible, and all the emperor's people laughed
Because the emperor's clothes did not exist
Once upon a time there was a Rod Speed
Who no one would heed
He thought he had the one and ultimate truth
And no one else but him spoke it
And, thus he called everyone names and bad names
And, everone ignored him, as always
He lied, he fibbed, he spun, he spin
He huffed and puffed, buffooned, and bluffed
And, blew himself to bits.
Me, ...again!
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
> Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote:
>
>> Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>>> healthy economy,
>>
>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
>> any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
>
> I had the same reaction and asked the same question.
I hate to tell you guys, and I'm very sorry I don't keep _all_ of the
example newspaper articles on trade and "smoke and mirror"
rationalizations, but I have seen an essay in the WSJ by an economist that
says exactly that. Actually several times, too. One guy said that the USA
was in high trade deficit way back in 1700s-1800s, too.
But don't hold
> your breath.
Don't bother to use your little gray cells, either, or read a few books
(not to mention articles in The Economist), or be aware that a lot of
economics is controversial even among economists.
Remember this is the same guy who posted an article that
> said that GDP grew by 2.8% and Personal Consumption was up by 2.9%,
> but claimed in his lead-in that GDP shrunk and Personal Consumption
> was down.
Oh? Why don't you tell the whole story instead of the "cherry-picked"
parts?
I think this claim about "free market dogma" bears the same
> relationship to reality.
Why don't you just google someday on "myth of free trade" and see how many
hits you get. I've done it before, by the way.
alexy
>
>
>On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>
>> Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote:
>>
>>> Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>>>> healthy economy,
>>>
>>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
>>> any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
>>
>> I had the same reaction and asked the same question.
>
>I hate to tell you guys, and I'm very sorry I don't keep _all_ of the
>example newspaper articles on trade and "smoke and mirror"
>rationalizations, but I have seen an essay in the WSJ by an economist that
>says exactly that.
No problem. Don't try to find all of them; just one.
>Don't bother to use your little gray cells, either, or read a few books
>(not to mention articles in The Economist), or be aware that a lot of
>economics is controversial even among economists.
Apparently you find that noteworthy? Anyone having taken economics
courses would have to say "well, duh!".
> Remember this is the same guy who posted an article that
>> said that GDP grew by 2.8% and Personal Consumption was up by 2.9%,
>> but claimed in his lead-in that GDP shrunk and Personal Consumption
>> was down.
>
>Oh? Why don't you tell the whole story instead of the "cherry-picked"
>parts?
You mean the part about the article saying that the growth was less
than previously estimated, and Video being silent on the comparison of
two estimates of the growth rate, just making a claim that it was
negative while the article he quoted said it was positive, based on
either estimate?
Me, ...again!
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
> "Me, ...again!" <arth...@mv.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>>
>>> Demon Buddha <Nob...@no.where> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>>>> according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
>>>>> healthy economy,
>>>>
>>>> I have never heard this claim by any free market economist, including
>>>> any of my professors. They have, in fact, claimed the precise opposite.
>>>
>>> I had the same reaction and asked the same question.
>>
>> I hate to tell you guys, and I'm very sorry I don't keep _all_ of the
>> example newspaper articles on trade and "smoke and mirror"
>> rationalizations, but I have seen an essay in the WSJ by an economist that
>> says exactly that.
>
> No problem. Don't try to find all of them; just one.
While you spend less than ten seconds to type that line, I'm not going to
drop everything to spend an hour just to find, maybe, something in my
folders, just to save your lazy ass from looking it up yourself, but I'll
try to remember this next time I'm digging seriously in my folders for
some serious other interest in some economic question I have. But, yes,
I have seen all manner of justifications, by economists, for all manner of
inflating the status quo as "optimized" for our benefit, and the worlds
benefit. Unfortunately, the vast majority have more and bigger holes than
doughnut in the package.
>> Don't bother to use your little gray cells, either, or read a few books
>> (not to mention articles in The Economist), or be aware that a lot of
>> economics is controversial even among economists.
>
> Apparently you find that noteworthy? Anyone having taken economics
> courses would have to say "well, duh!".
Sorry, including you over all these years, have said even less than "well,
duh" unless it fits in with your mindset which is pro-business-profits-
and-screw-the-people-who-have-no-control-or-understanding-of-the-situation.
>> Remember this is the same guy who posted an article that
>>> said that GDP grew by 2.8% and Personal Consumption was up by 2.9%,
>>> but claimed in his lead-in that GDP shrunk and Personal Consumption
>>> was down.
>>
>> Oh? Why don't you tell the whole story instead of the "cherry-picked"
>> parts?
>
> You mean the part about the article saying that the growth was less
> than previously estimated,
Yes....
and Video being silent on the comparison of
> two estimates of the growth rate, just making a claim that it was
> negative while the article he quoted said it was positive, based on
> either estimate?
....and Video saying that the measured number was smaller (i.e. shrunk)
compared to the estimated number, in which he was actually right (although
his word usage might have been chosen with a little less awkwardness) in
perception.
But, then, bean-counters like yourself end up focusing on more on whether
an "i" is dotted, and picayune chickenshit, and sentences end in periods
rather than the substance of the message.
alexy
>
>
>On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, alexy wrote:
>>> Remember this is the same guy who posted an article that
>>>> said that GDP grew by 2.8% and Personal Consumption was up by 2.9%,
>>>> but claimed in his lead-in that GDP shrunk and Personal Consumption
>>>> was down.
>>>
>>> Oh? Why don't you tell the whole story instead of the "cherry-picked"
>>> parts?
>>
>> You mean the part about the article saying that the growth was less
>> than previously estimated,
>
>Yes....
>
> and Video being silent on the comparison of
>> two estimates of the growth rate, just making a claim that it was
>> negative while the article he quoted said it was positive, based on
>> either estimate?
>
>....and Video saying that the measured number was smaller (i.e. shrunk)
>compared to the estimated number,
Interesting. Where did he say that? In the post in question, here is
the sum total of what he wrote:
: according to free market dogma, a high trade deficit is a sign of a
: healthy economy, unemployment is a lagging indicator, and its the
: supply side, not demand(WAGES):GDP shrunk:trade deficit up, consumer
: spending down
The only thing I see there is a comment about the GDP itself, saying
it shrunk (when the article said it grew). Where is the part you are
referring to, where he says that the measured number was smaller than
the estimated number?
Me, ...again!
Oh, its easy to respond to this because you failed to quote all of the
narrative that went on between you and him, and you and him and myself.
But, that is actually quite a typical example of your modus operandi.
Nickname unavailable
all i said was that it shrank. everything else you have added.
Nickname unavailable
ROTFLOL, talk about taking out of context. boy, when you are caught
lying, you really go for the gusto. gdp shrank.
Me, ...again!
Yeah, he does the trick: cherry-pick the "data," then come to some
wild-ass conclusion.
Rod Speed
Corse you never ever do anything like that yourself, eh ?
Me, ...again!
----- Right, just like you (see below) ----
Rod Speed
delusions about being a dog, desperately cowering behind
Me, again! desperately attempted to bullshit and lie its way out
No surprise that it got the bums rush, right out the door, onto its lard arse.
No surprise that its so pathetically bitter and twisted about it.