Good article by David Goldman. I quote a fragment.
“Our children are our wealth. Too few of them are seated around America’s common table, and it is their absence that makes us poor.Not only the absolute count of children, to be sure,but also the shrinking proportion of children raised with the moral material advantages of two-parent families diminishes our prospects. The capital markets have reduced the value of homeowners’ equity by $8 trillion and of stocks by $7 trillion. Households with a provider aged 45 to 54 have lost half of their net worth between 2004 and 2009… there are ways to ameliorate the financial crisis but none of them will replace the lives that should have been part of America and now are missed”
” The declining demographics of the traditional American family raise a dismal possibility: Perhaps the world is poorer now because the present generation did not bother to rear a new generation. All else is bookkeeping and ultimately trivial. This unwelcome and unprecedented change underlies the present global economic crisis. We are grayer and less fecund, and as a result we are poorer, and will get poorer still- no matter what economic policies we put in place”
It is a very important article much more important for us Americans than the number of trucks blown up in the fastness of Central Asia, but our government prefers to fix its gaze in the far distant instead of digging into the weakness that corrodes us.

Posted by: jlcg | Apr 15 2009 10:54 utc | 4

…our government prefers to fix its gaze in the far distant instead of digging into the weakness that corrodes us.
You’re kidding, right?
Our government is fixated upon what profits the elite, and is handling the “far distance” about as well as a near-sighted, 80-year-old glaucoma patient.
The problems at home and the problems abroad are symptoms of the same disease:
Greed.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Apr 15 2009 13:48 utc | 6

Japan may have to rearm itself?
GlobalFirepower.com rates Japan #7 in the world, ahead of Turkey, the UK and South Korea. Japan’s constitutional proscription against arming itself hasn’t been an impediment, with he help of the US.
http://www.globalfirepower.com/

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 15 2009 14:31 utc | 8

Yunus is a debtor pimp, and a cheerleader for NeoLiberalism. MicroCredit is an abomination and in no way addresses the structural reasons for poverty. It merely allows the poor, impoverished debtor to survive another day…to pay their debt. Prior to MicroCredit they were poor and impoverished. Subsequent to MicroCredit they are still poor and impoverished….and in debt up to their eyeballs. Nice. Freaking Vampires. The entire system is vampiric….sucking every last drop of blood.
MicroCredit……SubSubPrime. How creative.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Apr 15 2009 16:01 utc | 10

The only real meaning of the constitutional limitations of the japanese ‘self defence’ forces (JSDF) has always been that Japan is a protectorate of the US and thus must bow to the imperial will (somewhat similar to South Korea military still being under control of the US top commander in South Korea). For that reason ‘imperial reach’ (an ‘agression’ force) was out of the question. In reality the US was already supporting the rearming of the japanese military in the 50s (to counter the ‘red menace’ of course).
Japan even has hundreds of (potential) nukes. They just need to mount their large stockpiles on plutonium as warheads (pretty sure they have tested designs). And they have the ICBMs (currently just used to put satellites on orbit) to deploy those nukes anywhere in the globe. It would take just a couple of months to become the third or so nuclear power. In fact they may be even have some already secretly assembled (Japan as a militaristic nationalist power is really scary for all that pacifist bullshit promoted since WW2).
They even build their own clones of the F16 (under somekind of license I guess), AEGIS destroyers and such. They don’t need any external help.

Posted by: ThePaper | Apr 15 2009 18:28 utc | 12

Obama on Durban II:

As University of Dayton, Ohio law professor Vernellia R. Randall has pointed out, pressures from the Obama White House caused revisions in the Durban II draft that
* withdrew language related to reparations;
* removed the proposed paragraph related to the transatlantic slave trade being a crime against humanity;
* removed proposed paragraphs designed to strengthen the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; and,
* overall weakened the efforts related to people of African Descent.
And of course, language related to Palestinian rights and Israeli racism was totally eviscerated. (Samantha Power: “..it did drop all references to Israel and all anti-Semitic language.”) But none of that was enough to satisfy the Zionists, who hope to utterly destroy Durban II, and erase Durban I from the record. (Power, on remaining U.S. objections: “But it continued to reaffirm, in toto, Durban I.”)
George Bush’s walkout at Durban I provided a sour ending for the event, but allowed participants to make some important statements and carry out additional work over the next eight years. The United States and other countries were to report to Durbin II on residential segregation, criminal justice, police brutality, felony disenfranchisement and Katrina displacement. That cannot happen if the official American delegation is not in Geneva. Samantha Power told her Jewish leadership friends, who don’t want Durban II to occur, at all, not to worry. “In order for us to participate in the negotiations, to sit behind the placard, to be involved in a frontal way, much more would need to be done. And all four of our red lines will need to be met.”
Israel and the White House speak of “red lines” that they will not tolerate being crossed in politics and diplomacy. But where are the “red lines” that so-called Black leaders will not allow to be breached? Where Barack Obama is concerned, such lines do not exist — which is why he is permitted to walk all over Black folks, with impunity.

how nice. i guess black people should just remember how great it was a few months ago to have that symbolic victory, because that is all it was, symbolic.
the hits just keep coming. what a groveling scumbag our new prez is turning out to be. and the bending over backward for israel is simply delightful. black folks should be so proud.

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 15 2009 21:40 utc | 14

Under Trita Parsi:
Read – ‘Reconciling With The Taliban? Toward an Alternative Grand Strategy in Afghanistan’ by Ashley J. Tellis, arguing against any coalition with Taliban in Afghanistan Pakistan, as the center cannot hold in Islamabad and Baluchistan seeks to secede, back to Afghanistan, which the Iranians are fighting by becoming friends with Pakistan over the $B gas deal in trade for nuclear technology, because their own Baluchs would also secede to Afghanistan, then Kabul would own the route to the sea, and why Israel is supporting Baluchistan, both to foil the oil and scoop the nukes, that doesn’t even touch on Beijing or New Delhi’s interests viz-a-viz Iran.
AfPak finally became the Brit’s much vaunted “Great Chess Game”. Thanks, Victoria!
“Field Marshall Kodandera “Kipper” Madappa Cariappa settled down amidst greenery and nature, in his house ‘Roshanara’ at Madikeri in Kodagu, after his retirement from public service in 2nd Queen Victoria’s Own Rajput Light Infantry. He loved the environment and the flora and fauna around him. He spent a lot of his leisure time educating people about cleanliness, pollution control and other essential issues.”
Which is where Brits coined the colorful phrase, “I don’t give a bloddy Cariappa.”

Posted by: Elmo Odwalla | Apr 15 2009 23:43 utc | 16