G'day all,
Where in this world does one look, if not for comfort, at least for the
possibility of it?
India's just knocked off its fifth government in three years, its stock
market is in free fall, its 20 million public servants are on the streets,
its sabres are rattling nervously in all directions, and I wouldn't like to
have to pay the premiums on the life-policy of its likely new Prime-minister
neither (a secular foreigner called Ghandi fergawdsake!)
Indonesia is absolutely ablaze. East Timor is ablaze. The Indonesian
military still complicit with the murderous militias openly roaming the
streets, Somalia-style, and Gusmao calling his supporters to arms in the
firm knowledge that (a) Habibie can't reincarcerate him and (b) his
supporters will be slaughtered like Serbian commuters if they don't defend
themselves. Ambon and a heap of places whose names I can't remember are all
burned out. Habibie has told several people his job has become quite
impossible.
Japan is rearming, money there costs absolutely nothing now and billions
have been handed over to consumers without exciting one iota of economic
growth, its institutions are suffering legitimation crises of near-fatal
proportions, and a nationalist protectionist has just won its salient
municipal election.
South America's finance ministers have convened an emergency meeting
concerning the formation of a continental free-trade agreement, but haven't
been able to agree on a single thing. Protectionist noises from US-cleared
finance ministers, no less!
Russians are starving, belligerent nationalism is on the rise everywhere -
some of it in recognisable uniforms, some in black shirts - and none of it
paying the slightest attention to messrs Yeltsin and Primakov.
China's government is livid - it sees itself playing Serbia to Taiwan's
Kosovo in NATO's scheme of things, it sees Japan rearming, it sees North
Korea imploding, and it will go a long way to make a point if it has to.
The Balkans is on fire, already so torn apart nothing can make it remorely
stable again, and NATO is confonted with a ground-war option that will split
it. I can't see Hungary making their territory available for an invasion,
for a start. Greek and Italian leaders know their bollocks are on the block
if they send their lads in, and I even suspect LaFontaine got the
medium-term sentiment of his constituency right when he handed in his
pre-emptive resignation - sending a few Luftwaffe Tornadoes in is one thing,
throwing the Wehrmacht in is altogether a different bunch of signifiers. I
actually predict that this is the very week in which popular support
throughout the NATO countries peaks - PR works great in the short run, but
its fibs will out over time, causing a loss of the very credibility you need
when it comes to explaining a plane-load of body bags. And if other
adjoining countries go in instead (say, opportunistic adventures on the part
of Zagreb or Tirana) nothing will hold the Russians back.
North America is on the nose throughout the south, east and middle - it will
shortly be so in the west. Computer/high tech profitability has peaked, yet
its stock indexes depend on this sector more than all others combined.
Infinite price-earnings ratios in the context of almost zero assets has got
to be a recipe for a 'correction' that, at the very least, should ensure
America won't be buying up the rest of the world's goodies. That means
no-one'll have the money to buy theirs, and it means what investment capital
is left there will stay under its mattress.
Africa is a disaster from Cairo to Luanda - all wars, pestilence and
dissolved economies - and all of it paying more in interest than it gets in
aid. A horror story. South Africa's stability will be tested with
Mandela's majesterial presence out of the frame, and it's a test that comes
at least a decade too soon, for mine. If I lived anywhere in Africa, I'd
make for Namibia, I think - insignificant and peaceful - as long as UNITA
don't cross the river of course.
The Middle East is trapped between the rumbling Pakistan/India mess on one
side, and the dangerously relevant business in Yugoslavia on the other.
Israel is back in The Lebanon, and the election campaign makes its behaviour
unpredictable. Turkey's new dams threaten Iraq's lifeblood, its dealings
with Israel and Greece (and NATO) are dividing its population and attracting
suspicion and loathing in the region. Iraq is being bombed flat - even the
refineries from which it was technically allowed to take export dollars are
now being attacked. Iran is (tenably, given what's happening) accusing NATO
of aiding and abetting in the deMuslemising of Kosovo.
That leaves Europe - its first and second ways climbing out of the dustbin
as the third hits the wall on debut, electorates belligerently polarised, a
war threatening to engulf its guts, unemployment climbing, and economic
growth stalling.
There - I think I've covered everywhere that matters.
Do I need Prozac - or just a new planet to live on?
Rob.
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