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Tag Archives: US

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A war between 2500-yr-old civilization and 250-yr-old civilization

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The longer the war against Iran drags on, it will have disastrous impact and the global economy will sink. Now, the question is how long the US-Israeli joint military campaign known as ‘Operation Epic Fury’ lasts. It is increasingly becoming evident that the US-Israel lacks the exit strategy of the war that they only had begun unjustifiably on February 28.

With a determined Iran under the leadership of the slain supreme leader Ayatollh Khomeini’s son Mojtaba Khomeini ruling out ceasefire talks, and the US threatening “most intense day of strikes” on Tuesday, the Trump administration is now facing growing pressure from base to end war.

The US-Israeli strikes have plunged the entire Middle East into a sprawling war. The US has committed heinous crime by bombing a girls’ school in Minab, Tehran on March 5 killing as many as 168 to 180, most of whom were schoolchildren. The attack was the deadliest strike in terms of civilian casualties.

It is almost certain that President Donald Trump’s ‘Operation Epic Fury’ will backfire. Their ‘assassination’ and ‘decapitation’ of leadership strategy in the Middle East has proved disastrous. It may give, as has been rightly pointed out by the Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab, “a quick short-term political boost but it will lead to long-time disaster.”

Look at what the US had done during the Iraq war. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified by the US-led coalition claims that Saddam Hussein possessed and was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Later it became abundantly clear that Saddam had no such weapons in his hands. While Iraq had a crash program in the early 1990s, no evidence of an active, post-1998, N-weapons programs were found. Ignoring the expert weapons inspectors 23 years ago proved to be a fatal mistake.

“Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here,” said David Kay, Head of the Iraq Survey Group, during testimony to the US Senate, 29 January 2004.

The invasion of Iran by the US-Israeli joint forces is also based on some crap and unreliable information. None of them will finally prove to be true. In the process, the entire world will be insecure, let alone the Gulf countries, and the US allies in the Middle East will be worst affected and they will have to bear the brunt.

Iran has already closed the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of global oil supplies are carried out. What will be the economic fallout of the ongoing war? Surging oil prices will lead to global energy crisis, the effect of which is already being felt across the world. On March 10, gas was sold at $3.40 per gallon in the US, which is quite high. Its ripple effect will now be felt by ordinary citizens across the world as transport costs keep rising.

When will the US leadership learn from the Vietnam War (1973), Afghanistan War (2001 to 2021, the longest in US history), Iraq war (2003) and the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya (2011)?

North Vietnam and the communist Viet Cong won the Vietnam War after the US was forced to pull out their forces. Following the withdrawal of the US troops in 1973, North Vietnam forces had captured Saigon on April 30, 1975 and the conflict came to an end. The US hubris got a serious blow.

Now, while the cost of living in the US keeps spiraling and inflation a matter of serious concern and the domestic audience has no appetite for war, President Trump (‘Titanic’ pose sculpture of Trump-Jeffrey Epstein appeared on Nation Mall near US Capitol on March 10) has declared war against Iran when the slain Iranian supreme leader was willing to make concessions to their N-research.

While Oman was actively brokering peace and mediated between the US and Iran to avert a direct military clash and talks were being held in Muscat and Geneva, the Israeli-US joint operation began late night and the joint forces assassinated the 86-year-old ailing supreme leader.

Decimating the leadership (a wrong tactic fiercely followed by Washington) will not ensure peace in the Middle East but it will open doors to violence, upheaval, chaos and much more radical successors. The US allies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait) in the Middle East are now feeling the hard truth.

With Iran saying on March 11 that it has launched its most ‘intense strikes’, and Israel saying “the war with Iran will continue until Israel and the US determine the time”, the war is not going to end anytime soon.

It’s an imposed war. It’s a war between the 2500-year-old civilization and 250-year-old civilization!

 


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Zimbabwe world’s most ‘miserable’ country, Switzerland ‘least’

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Thomas Hardy might have resigned to pessimism when he had said: “Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” However, modern-day economists have been making painstaking efforts to find out what causes ‘misery’ and ‘unhappiness’.

According to the US economist Steve H. Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI), Zimbabwe is the most ‘miserable’ country in the world. HAMI ranks 157 nations from ‘most’ to ‘least’ miserable.

Hanke, professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, had been the advisor to several world leaders, such as Ronald Reagan, Suharto of Indonesia, and the President of Bulgaria.

“The surefire way to mitigate the misery is through economic growth. Comparing countries’ metrics can tell us a lot about where in the world people are sad or happy,” said Hanke.

Zimbabwe has snagged the first-place slot with inflation — or, “economic mismanagement,” as the contributing factor to residents’ unhappiness. According to the index, Zimbabwe experienced a skyrocketing inflation rate of 243.8 per cent in 2022. Venezuela has the second highest misery index score of any country on the planet.

Switzerland has emerged as the ‘least miserable country’ in the world. “It’s hard to beat a democracy in which most major decisions can, if enough of the electorate insists, be put to a popular vote,” said Hanke.

The second-happiest country is Kuwait, followed by Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Niger, Thailand, Togo and Malta.

The US is among the least miserable countries with a rank of 134.

India has ranked 103rd. The country has fared better than countries like Brazil (rank 27), Pakistan (rank 35), Nepal (rank 63) and Sweden (rank 88).

Australia ranks 116 (Misery index 20.107% with unemployment being the major contributing factor). New Zealand’s ranking stands at 104.

While Finland has ranked 109th, it has historically reigned as the “world’s happiest country.”

The rankings are calculated using the sum of inflation, unemployment (multiplied by two), bank-lending rates, minus the annual percentage change in real gross domestic per capita.

Arthur Okun, a renowned economist who had served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during President Lyndon B.Johnson’s tenure (1963-1969), had developed the original ‘misery index’ for the US in the 1970s. His objective was to find a way to measure the overall well-being of the Americans. Okun believed that unemployment and inflation rate were the most important factors that affected people’s lives.

Later, Harvard Professor Robert Barro created what he had dubbed as the Barrow Misery Index (BMI) in 1999. He had modified the index by adding bank’s lending rate of interest. However, Prof Hanke had amended Barro’s version of the ‘misery index’ by replacing the output gap with the growth rate of real GDP per capita and replacing the 30-year government bond yield with lending rates. After all, higher lending rates mean more expensive credit, and more borrowers’ misery.

Prof Hanke’s latest misery index doubles the unemployment rate and the data is created on that basis.

One reason for Switzerland’s ranking, Prof Hanke says, is the Swiss debt brakeThe debt brake has worked like a charm for the country. Unlike most countries, Switzerland’s debt-to-GDP ratio has been on a downward trend in the last two decades, since it has enshrined its debt brake into its constitution in a 2002 national referendum.

The misery index of Zimbabwe counts 414.7 due to high inflation. The major challenge faced by the country is due to its government ZANU-PF. Prof Hanke states in his blog: “Indeed, ZANU-PF operates more like a political mafia than a political party. Its policies have resulted in massive misery.”He has been tracking Zimbabwe’s economy since 2008 when Robert Mugabe was President.

Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Argentina, Yemen, Ukraine, Cuba, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Angola, Tonga, and Ghana comprise the 15 most miserable countries in the world, according to HAMI.

 


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