heureusement, ici, c'est james

"The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

'A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared,' said Bob Janjuah, the bank's credit strategist.

A report by the bank's research team warns that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities is likely to fall by more than 300 points to around 1050 by September as "all the chickens come home to roost" from the excesses of the global boom, with contagion spreading across Europe and emerging markets.

Such a slide on world bourses would amount to one of the worst bear markets over the last century."

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Labels: credit crunch, dead paradigms, debt, delusions of grandeur, globalization, growth, mass consumption, psychopathic behaviour

Judging by its soulless anti-democratic swagger across the global village, the Chinese government thinks it can habitually brainwash the global population -- the same way it brainwashes its own -- into believing it's simply pursuing its national interest.

Today Chinese troops are on the streets of a Zimbabwean city, aiding Mugabe's cronies with another illegal helping at the government trough. This coincided with the arrival of a Chinese weapons shipment in South Africa bound for Zimbabwe.

This is the latest in a string of Chinese transgressions aimed at subverting the political behaviour of other states in their favour. Consider the purblind genocide-for-oil arrangement with Darfur and the habitual cover the Chinese provide for Burmese leadership at the UN. During the Olympics, we should be bearing in mind more than their domestic repression of human rights in Tibet and the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong members -- to say nothing of their gross contribution to a worsening environmental crisis.

Those at the top of the political food-chain in that country must not fool themselves into thinking that global citizens would naively shrug off those of China's problems which extend well beyond their borders.

And for those of us who consider ourselves global citizens, we have to ask ourselves how much we should be opening our pockets in support of this kind of arrogant criminality.

Labels: china, Darfur, environment, globalization, psychopathic behaviour, Tibet, Zimbabwe

Psychopath: a person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.

On a day when we learn that his Harper's been lying to Canadians over the issue of torturing prisoners in Afghanistan, has our dear leader apologized or shown remorse for his perverted behaviour?

No, Harper and his legions of unthinking minions decided instead to spend a few hours in an orgy of self-congratulations, thanking themselves for being great stewards of Afghanistan, of the economy - by cutting taxes and paying down the debt (nevermind about what he said about the environment, it's not worth paying attention to).

Not only was today's bombshell non-existent from his speech, but he lied about the economic record of the opposition, too, saying "their reckless spending would, in one budget, push the country back into deficit, adding to the federal debt and putting upward pressure on interest rates."

Forgive me for my lack of amnesia, but wasn't it only recently that your government fucked up its numbers and eked out a pathetic $100m surplus because of a fetish for cutting taxes and and overconfidence in the economy (it was our dear leader that just over a month ago said "the fundamentals of our economy are as strong as they've ever been").

The irony on the issue of Afghanistan isn't lost on any of us. Our dear leader's psychopathic behaviour isn't just alienating the media anymore. After today's bout of nauseating stupidity, he might even be alienating the military, too.

Labels: economy, psychopathic behaviour, Stephen Harper