L'?conomie am?riciane a cr? par 7,2%

Hier et aujourd'hui j'etndeu les nouvelles d'un fait assez extraordinaire: le produit domestique brut am?ricain a accru de 7,2%. Les ?conomistes concluent que cette croissance est due aux abaissements des imp?ts personnels qui ont contribu?s ? gonfler les portfeuilles des contribuables et donc encourager les achats personnels ainsi qu'une augmentation de d?penses corporatives.

Le seul hic qui d?range un peu les ?conomistes c'est que cette croissance sp?catulaire n'a pas ?t? traduite par une augmentation des emplois disponibles. C'est-?-dire que c'est un accroisement de la productivit? de travailleurs a ?galement jou? un r?le important au boom ?conomique. Papa n'y croit trop, trop aux chiffres qu'il les consid?res exagg?r?es.

Moi-m?me, je me demdande si il n'y a pas un d?faut du fait que c'est la consommation et non pas la production qui a contribu?e ? cette croissance de PDB. Ceschiffre me donnet l'impression que soit les gent rempla?aient des biens capitaux comme une auto, une laviselle, un nouvel ordi, etc soit ils ont d?cid? ? ach?ter une deuxi?me t?l?, une auto suppl?mentaire etc. Pour moi, la vraie preuve que les Am?ricain subissent un boom ?conomique c'est quand les manufacutriers embaucheront des nouveaux salari?s et que la production de biens et la vente des service accroissent de fa?on sp?catulaire que la consommation.

The Vatican and Islam: not totally clueless

Yesterday, I came across several blogs that cited the English translation of the Cilvit? catolica's article blasting the plight of the Christians in Moslem lands and the signifigance of the dimmitude.

Charles Johnson and the little green footballers areincredulous that the Vatican suddenly broke a taboo and dared criticize the Moslems for their discriminatory policies towards Christians and other non-Moselsm since the dawn of Islam.

It's rather patronizing of the little green footballers to presume that only America is aware of the threat that islamojihadism represents to Western civilization. Long before the New World was ever discovered and the United States became a political entity, the Catholic church, in particular, has fought, argued, debated and repulsed islamojihadism since the 7^th century. So it has accumulated about 1400 years of knowledge and understanding of what Islam and islamojihadism are about.

The Vatician has never been clueless about Moselms and just because the Curia has recently kept its mouth shut in public doesn't necessarily signify weak kneed appeasement or cowardice or whatever vice you can think of. The fact that the Civilit? catolica published a firm rebuttal of Islam's treatment of religious minorities is unsurprising. The article articulates what the Vatican and Arab Catholics have voiced privately for years if not centuries.

Nor is the criticism something out of the blue. The Pope last year rebuked Saudi Arabia, not in name; yet the allusion was quite obvious, during the regular meeting with the ambassadors for prohibiting Christians from even bring a bible to certain Arab lands and not being able to practice their faith even in the the privacy of theri own homes. So much for the Qu'ranic injunction to respect of the peoples of the book.

The publication of the article is a warning shot from the Vatican is fed up with the recent atrocities against Christians and other religious minoritis in Moselm lands. So don't be surprised if we read or hear about how some Christians defended themsleves by force or arms against islamojishadist assualts.

Contracfactual WW I: some follow up

Yesterday, I passed by Geitner's blog and found this interesting post on a contrafactual history of WW I. His post was in response to Dondald Sensing's own essay. I wrote Geitner a quick comment with respect to Belgium which he generously added to the original post.
Of course, it figures that the day, I can't blog is the day that Geitner gets 'instalanched' and he had linked to my blog along with my response.

In any case I'd like to contribute my own contrafactual WW I history.

He unecessarily antagonized the British who were at best indifferent to what Germany was up to. As long as neither France nor Germany nor Russia tried to dominate continential Europe, Britian would keep an eye but leave them alone. German ambitions provoked the British to look for allies to counterbalance. The French also happen to be looking for allies to bolster them against Germany. Rapprocahement lead to the Entente cordiale.

If the German military weren't so dominated by Prussians and their land oriented military tradition, the admirals might've provided a solution to the insoluable right wing problem of the Schifflien plan. How could the German nay have contributed to the victory of the Central powers? First, instead of building an ocean going navy, it would've built submarines and the ships to protect them. So the Germans would've pionnered the submarine as the capital ship of navies by a century. The aircraft carrier would've less important than it was throughtout the last century.

Thus the admirals, though the logic of submarine warfare, would've have eventually won the debate over the legal effect of the 1898 Merchant shipping law. This was an international agreement that spelled out how navies were to attack merchant shipping in times of war as well as the role of neutrals. The admirals would've persuaded the political leadership that an all out submarine war on merchant shipping would shorten war. Churchill himself attests how both in the First and Second, the German submariners were Britians most dangerous enemy and nearly brought Britian to its knees. The American submarine campaign against Japan in WW II is testimony to its lethal effect.

Second, the admirals would've provided an elegant solution to Schifflien's right wing problem. They would've proposed bypassing Belgium entirely and use the navy to transport the troops and land at the port de Calais . That way the Germans political leadershp would avoid violating Belgium's neutrality which the former guaranteed in a treaty with France and Great Britian

Indeed, the British would've found themselves in a quandry. They were rather wishywashy about whether or not to send its troops to France. Germany's invasion of Belgium and the destruction of Louvain settled the question. Had the Germans bypassed Belgium as an invasion route, the British might've sent token forces to honour the Entente pro forma and withdrawn them as soon as was feasible. From a German strategic point of view, a right wing sea route would contribute to final victory. As Belgium wasn't invaded, the British might've sent a token force to honour the Entente pro forma but withdrawn them as soon as feasible. Indeed, the relations between both countries would be strained enough that these would interfere in Anglo-French military cooperation (something of the sort did happen when Gort began the retreat of the BEF to Dunkirk in June 1940 and Churchill tried to rally the French not to give up) Eventually, the Brits would've become fed up with French pleas, conclude that they were losers and let them succumb to their fate.

As for the post war era. I suspect that France would've been deeply traumautized and there would be 2 responses to the defeat: a collaboration with the Germans victors; Most of the French would've fatalistically accepted that after 2 wars (the 1870-71 and the 1914 wars) the Germans were simply unbeatable. So might as well accept reality and collaborate with the Germans. The second reaction: revanchisme would've metastized into a dangerous ideology. Those French that couldn't, wouldn't, accept defeat and German dominance would've made common cause with the Balkan and Central European nationalists in order to subvert that hegemony. Thus, the next great power confligration most likely would've occured somewhere in the AustroHungarian empire. It, not Turkey, was the true sick man of Europe. And nothing since the Thirty years war would prepare Europe for the horror that would've awaited it.

France auarait d? perdre la Prim?re Guerre mondiale

En continuation de mes r?fl?ctions sur l'histoire contracafactuelle de la I^e GM, Andrew Sullivan a post? un lien du blog d'Oliver Kams qui d?nonce la politique etrang?re depuis Napol?on III

Kams articule la position typipquement anglophone dans laquelle, France est une 'loser' depuis la guerre de 1871 et implicitement aurait d? perdre la I^e Guerre mondiale puisque la domination all?mande eut ?t? pr?f?rable que supporter les pr?tensions odieuse d'un pays en d?clin permenant.

Ce qui me fait rire c'est de d?noncer l'amoralit? de la politique ?trang?re fran?aise. Ouais et la britiannique a ?t? toujour pure dans ses intentions, limpide dans son ?x?cution? Pas de tout. Je rappelle que les Britanniques ont toujours emp?ch? que les Europ?ens s'unissent. Cyniquement, je dirai que les guerres napol?oniques ne f?t jamais une question de retrouver les lib?rt?s de pays conquis mais d'emp?cher le Syst?me continental napol?nique qui aurait ?trangl? le commerce anglais. En plus quand Kams d?nonce la brutalit? de guerre d'Indochine par les Fran?ais, j'ai ne qu'? pointer le doigt ? la guerre de Malaysie m?n?e par les Britanniques au m?me temps sans parler de la supression de la r?bellion de Mau-Mau en Kenye.

Light to no blogging today

Foreign brain drain and the U.S. poaching isn't a policy

I've been taken to task by bloggers for decrying this policy as poaching. For sure Canada and Europe have been pretty boneheaded with their high taxes and scoleric industrial policies in the past; nonethless, I do resent the implicit consequences of such a policy of giving automatic green card to the world's best and brightest that come to the U.S. to teach, research or learn.

Why? It smacks too much of the ideology of the American century that only the U.S. is to benefit from prosperity, innovation, new products etc. I worry that if Europe and Canada galvinized themsleves to counter the brain drain by adopting similar policies, the Americans would retalitate in some manner pour encourager les autres to never, ever challenge American primacy.

Too bad that some of the American political and economic elite have decided to forget that free trade benefits everyone and rising prosperity creates new markets that either didn't exist or weren't available. Indeed, such sentiment expressed by Grove and others in Randall's citation certainly explains some of the protectionist reflexes that the current administration has adopted as policy in several trade sectors.

L'ob?sit? chez le juenes:des solutions pas ch?res

The assassination attempt on Wolfowitz: a reminder to Andrew Sullivan

Andrew just can't let go of the French He's taken a real cheap shot at them because munitions they manufactured were used in the assassination attempt on Wolofwitz. Hey Andrew, what about the Russians? Yeah, them! You see more American troops have died from 7,62 x39 mm bullets fired from Russian/Eastern European/Chinese Kalishnokovs and their variants as well as RPG rocket launchers than French made missiles.

Have you forgotten about the Gulf war? One of the most awkward facts was that the Iraqi military back them had military equipment from all over the world. In fact, the South Africans sold the Iraqis the 155 mm G5 howitzer which weapons experts consider to be the best in the world and outranged NATO's comparable guns by 20 or so km. It's not the first time Western troops have faced weapons they manufactured used against them by a non-Western military.

So spare us the feigned indignation. Bashing the French over some rockets they sold years ago, as evidence of their perfidity to sabotage Iraqi reconstruction and democratization is progressively embrassing in its shrillness and desperation to pin something, anything, on the French.