Dubaya is coming to the capital of “Good Korea” today as part of a larger trip to several Asian countries. Korea is deploying 16,000 riot police to make sure things are relatively incident free.
However, many Koreans are calling for massive protests centered (apparently) on American beef exports.
Should make for interesting times…
44 Comments
He could always change his mind about Dokdo…
If the protesters can’t put a 100,000 people on the street for an American presidential visit, then this thing is officially over.
worst.president.ever
The police could not even handle the Chinese torch churls in Seoul so how will this any different?
I only wonder why that putz-in-chief is coming here.
What about Carter? Is he coming also?
Seriously, are Koreans that dumb? Without the US support, Korea risks getting even more overshadowed by her nighbours (China, Russia, and Japan). And we all know how benevolent and forgiving these countries are.
China -> Tibet, border disputes with all of her neighbours including Cambodia, Aryanism.. I mean Hannism
Russia -> black mailing Europe through gas pipes, Chechen problem, and involvement with Georgia.
Japan -> currently very well behaved, but it will try to be the top dog (against the wishes of China) when the US departs from East Asia.
Korea has benefitted tremendously from the US over the last 50 years (despite the US support of Korean dictators, forcing on the Mad Cows), but amazingly many Koreans (except for the old ones who witnessed the Korean war) are totally clueless and ignorant.
@3/Kujo>lucky.you.forget.Carter
Damn Andy beat me to it.
@5/7
I thought Carter was attending that Hamas BBQ, or something…
Are you guys picking on the peanut farmer? You know he won the Nobel Dictator-Coddling, oops, I mean “Peace” Prize, right? I mean, Yassir Arafat and DJ won it, so it has to be good, right?
So, there I was in my hotel room in Vancouver last Thursday morning, swimming into consciousness with the first of a series of vicious hangovers, and there’s Obama on TV, about to start speaking in Berlin, and I think, “What the fuck is up with that?”
Countries don’t just let politicians from other nations get onto a podium and start giving political speeches to their citizens. The sheer complicity of it was surprising. For the German government to set that up, sponsor all the police presence, crowd control, technical support etc for such a speech to happen (timed for audience access across America’s time zones, too) required the very active endorsement of the German government.
Arriving in many countries, those immigration entry cards you get clearly state that any sort of political activity is forbidden to foreign visitors. In this case, it was clearly encouraged.
I can’t remember anything that was in his speech. The only take-home message I got was the one from the German government: Bush and his neocon ideology have been a disaster of unprecedented proportions, to such an extent that we feel justified in actually interfering with the voting American public, just to do whatever we can to make sure that this mistake is not repeated in the upcoming election. .
I was impressed.
#11: And if you know anything about foreign intervention in American elections, you’ll know having 80% of the Kraut vote matters not to Joe Sixpack in flyover country.
Let go of your fear, Wedge. The world is nice place with a few bad people, not the other way around. Go to the mirror, look yourself in the eye, and say “I will not be afraid anymore. The world does not hate me. I do not sanction a life of doing unto others before they do unto me. I will not feed this fear by condoning perpetual war. I am not afraid.”
Do we need to continue this educational series about the American voter? The election is 80% about domestic policy, and Obama is the perfect Hoover/FDR candidate, in that he’ll take a simple economic downturn and make it a hell of a lot worse:
Increased protectionism? Check.
Punitive marginal tax rates on people who actually invest in job-creating businesses? Check.
Increased government intervention in the market? Check.
Although the outside world may care a lot about this election, the average American voter doesn’t care back. No amount of egotistical overseas grandstanding will change that.
This is a true statement on its own accord. The Germans are merely correct in their judgment and not presumptuous, in the least.
I would add that the American ambassador to Germany specifically forbade Americans working for the embassy from attending Obama’s speech. This is yet another Bush-appointed schmuck who is also unpopular with the German Government.
# 12,
Biggest shocker… the Krauts are the largest declared national ethnic identity in the U.S. of A. About 17% of the total U.S. population, the largest nationality of non-hispanic whites.
Well…. at least that’s what the census says!
#13
That sounds like a good reason not to give a rat’s ass what Europeans think about our election.
BTW: what’s up with the pop psychology? Do you think folks need a hug to help bring out their inner child? That is some seriously vomit-inducing drivel.
BTW2: On a serious note, I think many folks would agree in their more ungarded moments that James Buchanan and Warren “teapot dome” Harding were probably our two worst presidents.
Bush is coming to Korea and the only ‘issue’ these professional protesters can think of is US beef? Talk about wasting a golden opportunity.
#11,
Maybe, but don’t forget that Obama wasn’t visiting Germany as a tourist but rather as a US senator.
On the three economic issues you refer to, I am every bit as conservative as you (with the caveat that if the government is going to repeatedly bail out your banking sector with massive Fed-sponsored interventions that socialize risk while privatizing reward, then the government ought to have some say in regulating your financial sector).
Since Ruben and Greenspan were effective at reigning in Clinton on all his high-cost campaign promises, though, I imagine that the same will happen when Obama takes office.
“Increased protectionism? Check.”
I thought most of the Marmot’s Hole burrowers were against the KorAm FTA, because it might benefit ungrateful Koreans.
“Increased government intervention in the market? Check.”
I thought it was Bush who was trying to take Social Security’s billions and
gamble itinvest it in the stock market.“Increased protectionism? Check.”
That will probably change if he wins. If a candidate wants to win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan - which I suspect Obama does - he’s going to push this, even if it is partially or largely bullshit.
“BTW2: On a serious note, I think many folks would agree in their more ungarded moments that James Buchanan and Warren “teapot dome” Harding were probably our two worst presidents.”
Buchanan and Harding were domestic disasters of presidents - the former in particular, if one looks at what immediately followed his presidency - but Bush may be looked at as both a domestic and international failure. (Having said that, one cannot be sure how his presidency will be seen in 5 or 10 or 25 years.) Combined, Buchanan and Harding didn’t serve in the office as long as Bush already has, so you could argue they were very efficient in their ineptitude.
user-81, good point. The 401K pension plan is a giant ponzi scheme to defraud the Babyboomers of their retirement. The stockmarket will continue to fall as the babyboomers are forced to sell their retirement to survive (because of increased unemployment and inflation). This is already happening. I guess better to bail out of the market before it totally tanks.
Good discussion on the continued demise fo the US (partly aided by the evil Asians).
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi.....amp;page=1
In case anyone cares, there are cops allll over Itaewon now blocking all roads up to the Hyatt hotel and secret service trucks have been there since Sunday. I wonder where Bush is staying. Might be a good time to have a martini at the Hyatt. Maybe I can do some lines with George in his room later.
Investing pension funds into the stock market is an excellent idea, from a collective perspective. No other investment offers the long-term gain that stocks do.
Individually, there are problems. Stock markets have down times. Sometimes they lose 20% or more in a single year. If this happens to you just when you retire, you’re kinda fucked. Also, the Bush plan of giving people a choice of 4 funds to invest in presupposed rather more knowledge of investing than most people possess, I think. It would be better to divide up Social Security among professional fund managers governed by appropriate investment guidelines (whatever those are), and let them go to work.
As for the baby-boomer redemption thing, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not just Americans who invest in the NYSE (myself a case in point). Finance is global. China, India and many other countries have plenty of people with rising incomes who will pick up the stocks that America’s relatively small population of boomers will sell during their retirement.
Linkd, you are echoing the standard party line (stocks go up and up over “long term,” despite minor “corrections”).
The problem is the system is rigged against the ordinary American. Google “naked short selling,” and you will realize your faith in the system is unfounded.
The bigger question is that the US bankrupt but for the grace of foreign investors. With the promised bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the US effectively doubled the national debt. How do you expect the US tax payers to service the increased debt burden?
Dear South Korea,
You’d better not mess with Texas. No matter what you think of President Bush personally, show some respect for the president of the country that saved you from tyranny.
You had better be on your best behavior these next two days. Otherwise, there is going to be trouble.
You are on my shit list. I am keeping my eye on you. Don’t let 2008 get worse than it already is. It threatens to be an Annus Horribilis for you.
Behave.
I’m familiar with naked short selling. It is indeed a slippery business, but it is a very short-term activity that is resolved within a few days, it never involves even as much as a percent of a company’s stock, and it is on the SEC’s radar. Sure, a very few people can make some quick bucks off it, but that doesn’t negate the long-term gains of stock investing. (And I certainly don’t believe this is a ‘minor correction’).
As for the US being bankrupt, that’s interesting. I’ve been watching it for more than a few years with some alarm, too. It seems to be mostly economists who are concerned, though. Everyone else just keeps on trading.
The dollar has been seriously undermined (overprinted). But the world is still quite willing to trade. Producers are producing like never before, consumers consuming, billions of peasants are slowing making their way into the middle class. This whole process has involved a hell of a lot of esoteric dollars collecting in China, Japan, the Gulf and Russia. And a lot of debt appearing on America’s balance sheet. To an accountant, that’s a big problem. The ongoing success of this system is indeed inexplicable. And yet it persists, and grows.
A reckoning does need to occur on those dollars, it is true. But they really are just a paper nuisance. Global trade works, it really does make people better off. China and the Saudis don’t want to crash the US economy. They know they will never be able to buy the whole NYSE with their multi-trillion-dollar reserves. In fact, their huge reserves are really a pain in their asses, and they’d be happy to find a solution to their problem of excess cash.
I don’t know what a solution will look like, but between the central banks, the investment banks and political leaders, something can be negotiated that lets trade continue to improve the world while not bankrupting the world’s most important trader on account of its overactive printing presses.
Here, for example, is one proposal (Financial Times):
How to solve the problem of the dollar
By Fred Bergsten
Published: December 10 2007 19:24 |
The world economy faces an acute policy dilemma that, if mishandled, could bring on the mother of all monetary crises. Many dollar holders, including central banks and sovereign wealth funds as well as private investors, clearly want to diversify into other currencies. Since foreign dollar holdings total at least $20,000bn, even a modest realisation of these desires could produce a free fall of the US currency and huge disruptions to markets and the world economy. Fears of such an outcome have risen sharply in both official circles and the markets.
However, none of the countries into whose currencies the diversification would take place want to receive these inflows. The eurozone, the UK, Canada and Australia among others believe that their exchange rates are already substantially overvalued. But China and most of the other Asian countries continue to intervene heavily to keep their currencies from rising significantly. Hence, further large shifts out of the dollar could indeed push the floating currencies far above their equilibrium levels, generating new imbalances and a possibly severe slowdown in global growth.
There is only one solution to this dilemma that would satisfy all parties: creation of a substitution account at the International Monetary Fund through which unwanted dollars could be converted into special drawing rights, the international money created initially by the fund in 1969 and of which $34bn-worth now exists. Such an account was worked out in great detail in 1978-1980 during an earlier bout of currency diversification and free fall of the dollar that closely resembled today’s circumstances.
There was widespread agreement, including from influential private sector groups and congressional leaders as well as the IMF’s governing body, that the initiative would enhance global monetary stability. It failed only because the sharp rise in the dollar that followed the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening of 1979-1980 obviated much of its rationale, and over disagreement between Europe and the US on how to make up for any nominal losses that the account might suffer as a result of further depreciation of dollars that had been consolidated.
The idea of a substitution account is simple. Instead of converting dollars into other currencies through the market, depressing the former and strengthening the latter, official holders could deposit their unwanted holdings in a special account at the IMF. They would be credited with a like amount of SDR (or SDR-denominated certificates), which they could use to finance future balance-of-payment deficits and other legitimate needs, redeem at the account itself or transfer to other participants. Hence the asset would be fully liquid.
The fund’s members would authorise it to meet the demand by issuing as many new SDR as needed, which would have no net impact on the global money supply (and hence on world growth or inflation) because the operation would substitute one asset for another. The account would invest the dollar deposits in US securities. If additional backing were deemed necessary, the fund’s gold holdings of $80bn would more than suffice.
All countries would benefit. Those with dollars that they deem excessive would receive an asset denominated in a basket of currencies (44 per cent dollars, 34 per cent euros, 11 per cent each yen and sterling), achieving in a single stroke the diversification they seek along with market-based yields. They would avoid depressing the dollar excessively, minimising the loss on their remaining dollar holdings as well as avoiding systemic disruption.
The US would be spared the risk of higher inflation and potentially much higher interest rates that would stem from an even sharper decline of the dollar. Such consequences would be especially unwelcome today with the prospect of subdued US growth or even recession over the next year or so.
The international financial architecture would be greatly strengthened by a substitution account. In the wake of the dollar crises of the early postwar period, the IMF membership adopted SDR as the centrepiece of a strategy to build an international monetary system that would no longer rely on a single currency.
The move to floating exchange rates by most major countries in the 1970s postponed the need to pursue that strategy to its conclusion but also generated the extreme currency instability that triggered official consideration of an account. The global imbalances and large currency swings in recent years, and the accelerated accumulation of official dollar holdings by countries that have essentially reverted to fixed exchange rates, replicate the conditions that led to both the creation of SDR and the negotiations on an account.
A substitution account would not solve all international monetary problems nor would it suffice to restore a stable global financial system.
The dollar needs to decline further to restore equilibrium in the US external position. China, many other Asian countries and most oil exporters will have to accept substantial increases in their currencies now and much more flexible exchange rates for the long run. But early adoption of a substitution account would minimise the risks of adjustment of the present imbalances and the inevitable structural shift to a bipolar monetary system based on the euro as well as the dollar.
Maybe it’s me, but I want to see every country hillbilly anti-US peasant with an agenda and a rock to show up and protest en masse and maybe even throw a bunch of those rocks at Bush’s motorcade and show him how many people in Korea are ungrateful asshats. And if they wish to attack the police and set their buses on fire, I give them my blessing. The more the merrier.
Then I can sit back and watch Obama slap them back down in a few months time.
On a practical note, stay away from anywhere near the Hyatt for the foreseeable future. I just had to dump my taxi half way up the hill from Bukhannam sageori to the Hyatt and walk the rest of the way. Nobody’s moving around there for a while. For you Itaewon residents, anywhere from Bukhannam to Kyeongridan is a disaster - stay far away.
Fan Death Avenger, hi. Coming here to vent your sociopathic hatred towards humanity, eh? And what ills befell you in the land of morning calm. Did some ajossi hurt your mighty ego?
I, for one, welcome the President of the US, despite being a lame duck, and pray for stronger and more mature relationship between these two countries. Many Koreans are waking up to the reality of more hostile East Asia, and will eventually appreciate the US-Korea Alliance Forged in Blood. God Bless America and South Korea.
#30: Just cruised from Yi Sun-shin to past the Hyatt in a mober. No slowdowns at all. Couldn’t see any wankers, oops, protesters, anywhere. Puke green mobile cages everywhere, though.
#21: I’m on record here as being for the FTA as being a step in the right direction, although I think the word “free” is a misnomer.
#19: This guy is not sounding at all like Clinton in terms of economic policy. But yes, his tabula rasa strategy is working as people on all sides have been rationalizing away their pet policy disagreements with the Chosen One.
Linkd, interesting article. Financial Times has a lot of great articles. However, I don’t the US insolvency issue can be fixed with a simple accounting change and currency-basket system. The rational choice would be to cut all wasteful spending, remove all tax loop holes, and encourage domestic saving. However, the consumers are so tapped out and this risks already fragile employment (unofficially at 15%), more defaults, etc. Only saving grace for the US is that it has the most powerful military in the world, so the creditor nations cannot liquidate the US assets (unless the corrupt officials are bribed).
“Many Koreans are waking up to the reality of more hostile East Asia, and will eventually appreciate the US-Korea Alliance Forged in Blood. God Bless America and South Korea.”
Who’s being hostile to Korea? It’s Korea that is into this never-ending quarrel over “history” and whatnot with its neighbors. I rather think Korea’s enemies in E Asia aren’t the Chinese or the Japanese, but the Koreans themselves. Maybe cooling down and taking it easy on nationalism might work, rather than preaching China or Japan as a threat.
squatch, hmm, I suggest you read some history.
“I rather think Korea’s enemies in E Asia aren’t the Chinese or the Japanese, but the Koreans themselves.” –> you forget that both Chinese and Japanese have been the worst aggresors in Asia. Chinese annexation of Tibet, Xijian/Uighur, a large chunk of Mongolia, continued harassment of Taiwan, military crash over Spratly Islands in the Pacific, invasion of Vietnam after Vietnam war, recent disputes with Cambodia, Laos, India, Korea, Japan.
It is true that Koreans needs to calm down, but they have ample reasons to be paranoid.
Speaking of “history”, you should see tons of examples for how hyped-up nationalism can destroy you. Branding certain nations as perpetual threats is not the way I see and use “history”.
Anyways, if Korea wants an alliance with the U.S., it has to earn it. It’s not a god-given gift.
squatch, Korea already is.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed an official defense strategy document which fails to mention Israel in a list of close allies.
“Our closest allies - the UK, Australia, and Canada. Other long-standing alliances - NATO, Japan and South Korea foremost among them. We will work to expand and strengthen other relationships, including with India,” says the yet unpublished US National Defense Strategy for 2008 which appears on InsideDefense.com.
The soon-to-be-published document is set to replace an earlier version released by Donald Rumsfeld in 2005, Haaretz reported on Monday.
http://www.presstv.com/detail......id=3510203
Interesting. I guess America thinks its Anglo relatives are “close allies” while non-Anglos are “long-standing alliances”.
I, for one, welcome the President of the US, despite being a lame duck, and pray for stronger and more mature relationship between these two countries. Many Koreans are waking up to the reality of more hostile East Asia, and will eventually appreciate the US-Korea Alliance Forged in Blood. God Bless America and South Korea.
This guy is a KCIA cyber-plant.
Well… looks like the water cannons have been deployed.
http://ap.google.com/article/A.....gD92C6IRG0
At least there are 30,000 pro Bush demonstrators…
At least there are 30,000 pro Bush demonstrators…
aka moonies
Shunyata: “It is true that Koreans needs to calm down, but they have ample reasons to be paranoid.”
Please cite examples to support this. The US supports the economy and credit rating by providing security for a song, as well as a steady market for goods; The Japanese ceased to represent a threat since WWII; NK is all bark and no bite; China is a source of black ink; and there is no terrorist threat.
Historically, Korea has never been so secure. Where are there the valid grounds for the incessant paranoia?
Shunyata, you speak as if being a misanthrope is a bad thing.
@#21
Excuse me for raising an older comment from the dead, but thats an interesting dicotomy. Presidents being a disaster either on a domestic basis or on a foreign basis.
Putting aside George W. (the verdict is really still out on that), I wonder who would take the top spot (or to placate some of you the second top spot)?
Pirece immedetly stands out, not only for his infamany domestically, but for the diplomaticaly embarassing Ostend Manefesto that ruffled feathers in Europe to no end.
I guess one could make an argument for Madison. However, the War of 1812 did end in some kind of victory. Hell of way to get there though.
You could make a case for Van Buren between his sloppy handling of Texas and supporting rebels in Canada (you could also arguably add forcible relocation of Native Americans, since technically they were not citizens).
Harding, again a domestic turkey, could have a case as well by supporting high tariffs, and restrictive immigration policies.
Johnson could be a contender with the Veitnam War. While it is mainly seen a domestic issue, the failure there likely lead to calculations by others about US power and prestige that were not flattering.
My pick though is a bit of dark horse, Woodrow Wilson. His dithering on entering WWI likely cost a great many lives, civilan and military. He was a complete failure at Versailles in getting Clemenceau to accept a more benevolent peace with the Germans. He interviened on the loosing side in the Russian Civil war. He squandered diplomatic capital on is 14 points and a Leauge of Nations.
Anybody with more thoughts?