Dr Lee Jae Oh

Dr Lee Jae Oh's name deserves little household recognition outside of South Korea. Presently he is in the US on a visa which expires in May 2009 and holds the rank of senior visity scholar of the US Korea Institute at John Hopins University. Dr. Lee is the man who engineered the election of Mr. Lee Myung bak first as mayor of Seoul, and then as president of the Republic of Korea [ROK or South Korea]. Yet, Mr. Lee has not appointed Dr. Lee to any high post in his administration. Today [4 December 2008] New York's Korea Society rolled out the red carpet for Dr. Lee to talk of the role of president Lee Myung bak's administration. Which implies that Dr. Lee is in bad odour in Seoul since after the landslide election of president Lee, his campaign leader is sitting safely in Washington, DC. Dr. Lee faced a packed room of the South Korean press and the 'grattin' of Korea watchers in finance, the academy, business, the military and the diplomatic corps, and American Koreans. He approached his topic obliquely, talking of instituting a nation of 'the righteous', to eradicate corruption and open opportunities for all South Korea's to work hard to prove themselves as good, upright citizens. His call is right out of Korea's history of reformers, and with echoes of Jean Calvin's city of saints, Geneva. He then proceeded to talk of his trips to Peru, Brazil, among other countries in Latin America, but remained silent on his stay in Cuba. [There did he meet with North Koreans?] Furthermore, Dr. Oh is cut from the same wood as Confucianism, and his comments on the useless of a mountain in Rio which from the tope you see unfold before your eyes the splendour that is Rio de Janeiro. Yet, in the same vain, he doesn't see the ressemble with Mount Kumgang in North Korea to which South Koreans rush to visit. But that is his cultural blindness. His views on North Korea are firm the more especially since Pyongyang won't acknowledge the killing of a tourist in May at Mount Kumgang who strayed towards a military post. Nonetheless, he did go out of his way to stress that president Lee's approach towards Pyongyang is non threatening and peaceful. Dr. Lee said little about the US other than to reiterate that it is time for Washington to ratify the Korea FTA [which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton expressed in the past little enthusiasm for a free trade agreement with the ROK]. But the import of Dr. Lee's talk was his sincerest apology to president Lee. Obviously, he wants to come back to South Korea, but his return remains unsure, the more especially since he is favourable towards Mme. Park Guen hae, former president Park Chung Hee's daughter who is president Lee's rival. Did Dr. Lee express full repentence to the Korean press who will deliver his message on Seoul's airways, it is too early to tell.

US recession year 2

Yesterday [01 December 2008], the NYSE lost almost 700 points or 9 per cent in value. News that the US has been in recession since December 2007 caught everyone unaware. Well...many...not all...Some voices had been raised saying that the economic verities of the day had gone haywire, and that the country had slipped into recession. But the old shaggy heads shook it off hiding behind the dry textbook definition that it was too soon to come to that determination. After the failure of Bear Stearns, the old guard thought, they had saved the day. They didn't, and from there the situation went from bad to worse, and them from worse to worser. The US Treasury, the Fed, and the economic advisors and conventional economists tinkered with this and that but after the government let Lehman Brothers fail...it was difficult to believe that the economic establishment thought the spector of recession didn't hover over the global market. It did! Now, the truth is out. It had been swept under the rug until the dirt accumulated into a small Himalaya, it could no longer be denied. And now we know, what we all knew or suspected, we're in a deep and growing recession, bordering on depression. Which raises the question about collusion between the Treasury, the Fed, and the monied and corporate class to preach denial. And denial they did preach. And they bought time till after the US elections, and left the mess for someone else to clean up! So we may soon see a mighty broom sweep out old theories and practices, and hunker down to get a failing economy working again.

Paulson's Apologia pro sua vita 2

US secretary of the Treasury has gone on the telly to lecture us on the financial crisis which he as CEO of Goldman Sachs, among other bulge brack bankers, created, and which he as US secretary of the Treasury turned into a nightmare particularly after he, to teach Lehman a lesson, he refused to snatch it from bankruptcy. The rest we know as the world markets temble and continue tumbling. He has rewarded his friends in the financial sector and rescued AIG the spendthrift assurance company. Today's long, boring press conference bears no 'I take responsibility' at all, and he's done nothing to force the now more cash rich big banks, thanks to rate or taxpayers' largesse, refuse to loosen credit on the market. A casualty of this miserly attitude is the sinking of Detroit's auto industry, which again to teach the same lesson he taught Lehman, Paulson & co. are willing to tilt the deepening global crisis towards a worldwide depression. Once more, Paulson has shown too small for the job, and president Bush deserves complete blame.

Detriot's agony

The US auto industry is learning a hard lesson. It usually favours the Republican party. It contributions fill the party of Lincoln's war chests. But when it comes with cup in hand to Congress for a bridge loan to tie it over during an economic crisis which the government infused funds have pumped up bluge bracket banks who created the subprime mortgage meltdown, thereby cutting off avenues of credit to Detroit, it discovers that its Republicans friends ain't listening. In fact Mississippi senator Shelby is the spokesman who is willing to tell them 'drop dead', go into Chapter 11. Well old Shelby who is known for his know nothing politics has been preaching the same message since he turned thumbs down on the Chrysler bailout in 1979. Luckily, he wasn't listened to. But this time, Detroit's Republican friends are digging in their heels in the wake of the party of Lincoln defeat at the polls and loss of the White House. More, Shelby & co represent the extreme right wing of the party which believes the workers not the banks have done the economy in and suddenly wake up to blame generous senior managers of the auto industry for inefficiences, lavish living, and any other sins they can find in their bible of narrowmindedness. Well by refusing to vote for a bridge loan of us$25 billion with severe conditions, they're willing to worsen an already bad economic future for the US. It's not bad enough when they had Bush in the White House, they let the banks and big business get away with everything imaginable, they now find virtue in letting millions of workers lose jobs, and fill the growing army of the unemployed and the poor. Why worry says Shelby? The market will correct itself. It won't. And the dimlight from Mississippi hasn't a klew ... does he believe the world is flat?

Paulson's Apologia pro sua vita

The 18 November 2008 online edition of 'The New York Times' carried an op ed piece of US secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. It is called 'Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time'. As such, it sums up quite neatly Paulson's guiding star in handling the worst financial crisis in almost a century, and thereby hangs a tale of his inability to deal effectively with the toxic subprime mortgage bonds which have infected the world financial markets. In effect, Paulson has mistaken the tree for the economic forest. As such, by treating each forest fire individually, he has allowed other low grade fires to thrive until each and everyone flares up into a major crisis. In brief, his narrow approach has made a bad market worse, and one example is worth mentioning, his deliberate, not fully thought out decision to let Lehman fail. Lehman's bankruptcy percipitated the krash which have threatened world economic growth and good health for years to come. Paulson's apologia pro sua vita is his way of a cover up. 'Le Monde' reports that constrained by Senator Obama's election, Paulson has put a break on his plan to disburse us$700bn to his friends in the banking industry. Moreover, his decision to let the American automotive industry to fail, is proof again of his myopia and misunderstanding of the markets. His insouciance of letting the pillars of US capitalism crumble, boggles the mind.

Standoff between South and North Korea

Right wing talking heads and journalists in Washington are on the qui vive when it comes to the divided Korean peninsula. Especially worrysome is the new cold war of words between Seoul and Pyongyang, which they see as a North Korean ploy to put a wedge in the spokes of Washington's relations with South Korea, thereby forccing the US to choose between its long standing ally and Kim Jong il. Well, this standpoint has an odd logic to the like of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute for example, but it is a big pill to swallow hold. What may give it urgency is that these neo cons for the most part, are out of Mr. Obama's loop, and so a lot of second guessing is going on. Let's look at the lay of the land, as North Korea threatens to close the border at the 38 parallel on 1 December 2008, and the effects of the revived 'cold war' between Seoul and Pyongyang. Trouble lay ahead with the election of Lee Myung bak as South Korea's president. He campaigned on a get tough policy towards the North, Once in office, he dismantled the 'Sunshine Policy', cut off fertilizer shipments to the North in the face of a growing food crisis and imminent starvation of North Koreans; he engaged in a Bush like policy of moral posturing and verbal threats unless the North bent to his demands. This strategy may have played well in Washington, but it didn't in Korea. Furthermore, one had to wonder whether Mr Lee had an understanding of North Korea, or the slightest hint of face among South Koreans. With the absence of Kim Jong il and the questions about his health, Mr. Lee's policy has encouraged groups to send by balloon pamphlets denoucing the North's Dear Leader; this has not gone over well at all, if anyone needed to be told. It has raised the North's temperature and with anger came the bluster of warlike words. Looking from the South, the killing of a tourist last spring at Kumgangsan brought no apologies from Pyongyang. As a result the North Korean resort has gone downhill since visitors from the South have steadily declined. And so we have a shaky standoff which Mr. Lee has let deteriorate and has tried to use to his advantage. However this has backfired, for if North Korea closes the border crossing, the South's free trade zone at Kaesang will suffer and have to close down, and in the face of the growing recession which has bitten large into Seoul's export economy, this is bad news. Now let's turn our attention to US South and US North Korean relations. One, the newly elected president Barack Obama has already sent a message reaffirming US' support and traditional friendship to Mr. Lee. Korea is not at the top of his agenda. As for US North Korea relations, president Bush has perced the enflamed abcess of long standing grievances as to Yangbyon and the nuclear question, by taking Pyongyang off America's list of terrorists states, thus opening the path for North Korea to tap the world's capital markets to repair its economy so on and on. American neo cons viscerally hate North Korea so that they see one under every bed as though the spirit of America's witch hunters could smell a 'Commie' a kilometre away. Well times are changing despite the scare tactics and wild scenarios of theirs. And more likely than not, Mr. Obama will stay away from this madding dispute between South and North. Mr. Lee began a fight which he cannot win, and that's the simple and plain truth.

Rahm Emanuel brought up short

Barack Obama's new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has had to apologize to Arab Americans for the tasteless remarks of his father Dr. Benjamin Emanuel. In an interview with the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, Emanuel pere who holds an Israeli passport as does his children, proudly extolled the power that his son would have over the 44 president of the US by influencing American support for Israel. Well had he stopped there, it would've sounded no more than the average boast of a proud father and an Israeli citizen that the US is Israel's friend. But the elder Emanuel didn't. He went on to add as chief of staff at the White House, my son won't be 'an arab. He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House'. The American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee immediately pick up on this racial slur [substitute Arab for black in the American context...and what do we have?], shot off a letter to Rahm Emanuel calling on him to repudiate his father's remarks, and noting on the bottom of the letter it had also sent a copy to Mr. Obama. Well, Rahm Emanuel apologized; he did the right thing. His father is an unrepentent Israeli hawk. The main street media has not picked up on the fact that the father as a youth was a member of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun, which brought us the King David Hotel bombing and the Deir Yassine massacre. It would be in Rahm Emanuel's interest to keep a tight rein on his father, and to remember his first loyalty lies to the US not to Israel, despite the fact that he holds dual citizenship.

GM Paradise Lost

Emma Rothschild wrote a neat little book about the US automobile industry in 1974. She called it 'Paradise lost'. Sound familiar today when GM and Ford are on the cusp of bankruptcy? It took a Brit to calmly tell the decline of the US auto makers. She made a jolly good case as to why Volkwagen's Beatle could take away in the early
1960's up to 15 per cent of motor car market share in the US, and this at a time when motor gasoline was cheap! The buyer wanted fuel efficiency, not gas guzzler, and didn't give a fig about dinosaur like features like fins and long bodies and cumbersome motors. Sound familiar? It should, for the same complaints are with us today in a severe recession for GM and Ford. There was time when GM's CEO could arrogantly boast, 'What's good for GM, is good for America!' Not anymore! And this has been true for quite a long time as Korean, Japanese, and European carmarkers have shaken the pillars of Detriot's supremacy and smugness. Who remembers, too, when UAW president Walter Ruether urged GM's CEO to support Harry Truman's proposed single payer healthcare package? No one. GM didn't want anything to do with healthcare for all Americans, so wily Ruether got a contract and a promise that GM would look after GM's workers' health as employees and pensionners. Shortsighted GM is now stuck with the albatross of healthcare premina which it gladly put around its own neck itself. Why? Senior management were basking in GM's salad days and had no thought for the future nor any idea of social responsibility. Who remembers another Ruether initiative? As the US was building Fortress America to defeat Hitler and Italy and Japan...the Axis, Reuther came hat in hand to Washington asking that automotive assembly plants be turned into aerocraft factories. He got turned down, and today, the taxpayer is saddled with an inefficient semi private company called Boeing & its ilk, which basks in government largesse and cost overruns and gross inefficiencies. GM missed out as not only an automaker of note but a future aerospace and defence contractors. So today shrinking like violets they're a shadow of themselves, the for plain and simple truth, for over a half century its warts were there for all to see and they did little or nothing but continue business as usual which now has landed them on the edge of collapse and chapter 11. Sheds no tears for management but pity the poor working stiff!

US treasury won't purchase toxic debts after all

Speak of back peddling, US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson announced the US government won't purchase toxic subprime mortgage debt, as collatoral for bank bailouts. It is bad enough, Paulson has proven inadequate in the face of the worst economic crisis since 1929 [dixit John Thain Merrill Lynch CEO and former Goldman Sachs buddy of Paulson], but he has done everything to feather the incompetence of the investment banking industry with the promise of government largesse. Paulson's days are numbered at the Treasury and his band aids for the growing recession have become the joke of the day. He's willing to let AIG gobble up US$bns as executives of this assurance company waste millions on junkets and selfish pursuit, but he won't funnel money to GM and Ford. Is this surprising? No. Let's not forget, Paulson is the financial wizard who let Lehman fail without stopping to think that it was the largest vendor of commercial paper, and that it's bankruptcy would throw a spanner in the world's financial markets. Which it did, and accelerated the recession everywhere globally. So we dealing with not with a rocket scientist in finance but a small town banker who even with specs sees hardly the tip of his nose and even that hazily. It's time he's gone, and for good!

The Russian bear roared

Russia's president congratulated Barack Obama. He then went on to announce Moscow will station missiles on its European enclave of Kallingrad in response to Herr Bush's forward policy of putting missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic as a warning to Iran! Herr Bush's logic strains the imagination since the missiles are in Russia's backyard, so to Russia's way of thinking, Iran is a figure of speech for Russia. The Polish prime minister smiled at Russia's move by dismissing it as a Russian growl...in other words, the Russian wolfhound barks but doesn't bite. The stationing of Russian missiles in Kallingrad simply makes relations with its neighbours in Europe tenser and more unsettling. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, sighed with disappointment, but without a note of seriousness. Russia is serious; Herr Bush is not; he lacks a sense of history or for that matter why Churchill and Roosevelt couldn't but allow a Russian cordon sanitaire in eastern Europe after the end of world war 2. Herr Bush broke that sense of calm by his forward military policy in eastern Europe and then his wanting the Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. So, president elect Obama has another load of tsuris to carry before he enters office, and a clash with Russia at the green carpet is not one he would welcome. Beware of the growl of the Russian bear! Avoid adverturism!