While we’re absorbed with our own problems here, the rest of the world turns. Here’s a potpourri of news items interesting to yours truly.
Britain’s Economy is Officially Deflationary. Well, Maybe Not. Then Again, We Have No Idea What’s Going On. On Monday London City economists were confidently asserting that the British economy was officially deflationary. Two days later, these same economists – and the markets – were shocked to discover that there was inflation after all. One more reason to doubt the ‘confident assertions’ of the supposedly smart.
No More Spending, the PM is Warned. The Bank of England has warned against further stimulus. Why? Because the bank’s not going to print any more money.
PM Brown was likewise excoriated in the European Parliament as ‘pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility’ for the debt disaster that’s overtaken Britain.
I love articulate British outrage.
At the same time, a UK government bond auction has failed for the first time since 2002.
Meanwhile, Hope ‘n Change is Getting Ready to Betray Our Polish and Czech Allies. And this after public pronouncements to the contrary. From the AP, via the Moscow Times:
A candidate for a top nonproliferation post in the U.S. administration has played down the threat from Iran’s long-range missile program as a reason to build a missile defense system in Central Europe, strongly opposed by Russia.
Democratic Representative Ellen Tauscher told a conference on missile defense on Monday that the United States and its allies should first develop and field short-range missile defense systems that could protect forces deployed in combat operations. She said advocates of the European plans “have been running around with their hair on fire.”
“The argument that the U.S. would be naked against an Iranian threat unless we deploy the GMD system in Europe is simply not right,” she said, referring to the long-range system.
Tauscher is under consideration to be undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, a position that has involved shaping policy on U.S. missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Her comments come as the administration of President Barack Obama reviews the missile defense plans and has signaled to Russia that it is willing to reconsider them should the threat from Iran recede.
What Hope ‘n Change says in public always has a shelf life and is usually at variance with what he privately believes. We’re getting ready to jettison the Poles and the Czechs.
And they probably know it.
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