Irving Fisher was a noted 20th century economist. No less an authority than Milton Friedman called him "the greatest economist the United States has ever produced," and many of his contributions to economics, such as the Fisher equation, the Fisher hypothesis and the Fisher separation theorem are cited by economists to this day.
Yet despite his intellect, he made one statement in 1929 that destroyed his credibility for the rest of his life.
Three days before the Wall Street Crash of that year, he claimed that "stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." When he was disproved 72 hours later, he tried to get out from under the statement, but months of putting a positive spin on developments only further eroded his reputation. He died in 1947, but a renewed interest in neoclassical economics in the 1950s caused a re-evaluation of his work and a rehabilitation of his name.
********************
The Arctic Council and the Law of the Sea; the new Cold War
The Arctic Council, composed of eight Arctic nations, is the main discussion forum for issues related to the far north and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not signed, is supposed to govern resource claims in the region.
During a meeting of the Arctic Council held on May 12 in Greenland, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that US ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention was "way overdue".
Clinton's desire to change US policy to sign the convention may have more to do with resource battles than respect for international institutions. "If you stay out [of the convention]" then-Danish foreign minister Moller is quoted as saying in 2009 cables, "then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic".
The US position of not ratifying the convention means it cannot put forward a formal claim to the seabed directly north of Alaska, says Oran Young, a professor of environmental science at the University of California.
"If I knew why the US hasn't signed, I'd be happy," Young says, speculating that lobbyists for the mining industry and some senators who display "knee-jerk negativism to the UN in general" were driving the decision.
"The very best case scenario [for peace in the arctic] is that we move beyond fossil fuels," says American University's Paul Wapner. "The best case scenario is that we have cooperative institutions - with representatives of indigenous people - who use peaceful and cooperative means to ensure fair access to these resources.
"The doomsday would be competitive resource wars. As climate change gets worse, people will be pushed to get more resources to run their air conditioners and so forth. My prediction is that we are still going to be addicted to oil [when the main icecaps melt] and these resources are going to be extracted by the most powerful lot - which would include Russia, the US and China."
*******************
Who is Dennis Ross? --
May 17, 2011
RAMALLAH: A political adviser to the late president Yasser Arafat issued a statement Tuesday, alleging that US Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell resigned because of the "extreme bias" of his deputy Dennis Ross.
Bassam Abu Shareef said Ross obstructed all US initiatives aiming to achieve progress in the peace process, and blamed the deputy's bias for Mitchell's resignation Saturday.
Abu Shareef said senior American officials informed him that Mitchell viewed the appointment of Ross a step to obstruct the peace process. He added that Mitchell believed Ross was working against US interests.
The official paraphrased comments he said were made by Mitchell during a meeting, where he asked: "How can Dennis Ross assist in the peace process when he refuses to meet with the Palestinians, when he despises their leadership and hates their president?"
Abu Shareef also said Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "rejects peace," and would have no part of a Palestinian state with Hamas in its leadership.
"This means they are opening war on Palestinians and their nation," he added.
********************
-- And why is he pushing Obama around?
An Al-Jazeera piece entitled The Rasputin of the White House says:
Is time running out for Israel's best friend in the White House?
Dennis Ross has been described as Israel's advocate, more extreme than Binyamin Netanyahu, and "the éminence grise, a sort of Rasputin who casts a spell over secretaries of state and presidents”.
Now, The New York Times says Ross single-handedly made president Obama water down his criticism of Israel in his Thursday address.
The reality is that the course Mr. Obama outlined Thursday was much more modest than what some of his advisers initially advocated. [...] “Starting with Mitchell and Jones, there was a preponderance of advisers who were more in tune with the Palestinian narrative than the Israeli narrative,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a friend of Mr. Ross. “Dennis balanced that.”That Ross is single-handedly able to "balance" the opinions of "a preponderance of advisers" in this way is not a surprise to Washington insiders. What is unusual is to learn, from a mainstream publication like the Times, that the White House inner circle may be getting exceedingly uncomfortable about the grip Ross is exerting on Obama and his Middle East policies.
0 comments:
Post a Comment