TO WARREN OR NOT TO WARREN .........

The billionaire  Warren Buffet wrote in an article to Fortune , few years back : My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results , though overall it serves the country and its rich well . I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on battle fields with a medal , rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes  from parents , but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities  with sums reaching into the billions . In short , fate's distribution of long straws is  .wildly capricious .

No one denies that banks , large and small , and financial institutions , have an essential function in today's capitalistic societies , but the idea that such institutions will solely put peoples savings to its own most productive and accumulative , serving strictly their interests and the interests of their share- holders , while totally ignoring an over all improvement in the general living standards is unfair , and becoming widely unacceptable .

Huge wealth in 21st century America , as in all civilized countries , should be steered more toward serving the social good , and not simply accumulation and compilation , with always the use of better tools as a better and more efficient taxation system for the higher echelons, and not merely relying on donations , charity and philanthropy.

It shouldn't , and cannot be total freedom for bankers , traders and CEOs to go for transactions and schemes that only propels their profits , at the price of periodical catastrophic damages to the economy , leaving millions without their homes , their retirement funds depleted , and workers and young graduates jobless for years . Then be bailed out with taxpayers money , taxpayers left with little choices in the midst of the crises .

We live and cultivate a culture whereby more often than not , it is accepted that the rich and the very rich individuals and institutions , are gradually separating themselves from any and all social practices and institutions , resulting in a sharply divided society , with poorer and ineffective social programs ,  decaying infra-structures and faltering public educational systems , all absolutely needed for the survival of any civilized country , and to all societies aspiring to live by modern enlightened  values .

We are as individuals and as a society becoming obviously ineffective against decline , in all our social duties . We all should not settle for inherited state-of-affair stagnant situations , where some greedy few with their wealth , lobbyists and bought politicians , become the sole sources of legislation , exclusively to benefit and empower themselves and their small world . Falling miserably short of our standards and expectations of how things ought to be for all of society .

We should not allow the greedy few threaten the hard-won gains for decency America has made , even when we acknowledge that the same problems affect many societies all over the world . Let's all hope that such and similar ideas will be of some influence at the upcoming presidential elections .

An old blog of mine, published back in 2015, but with the actual bank crisis and its continuing ramifications, especially lately an Israeli strong connection, which transferred more than 43 billion Dollars to an Israeli bank account, just few days before the Feds froze the operation of two US banks, the transfer took place mostly at the NY Signature bank, and is not allowing this crisis to end nor be properly examined and contained.
MY usual thanks to all my good friends and readers .     

  

THE LATEST REVERBERATING LITTLE COUP......

 

Saudi-Iran Rapprochement: In China's Middle East, Israel Has Little Influence

Haaretz

Zvi Bar'el

Mar 10, 2023

Israel's dream of forming an Arab alliance against Iran was shattered on Friday with the news that Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore diplomatic ties within two months.

The dramatic announcement is likely to redraw the regional map of friends and foes, and will have global reverberations.

The agreement provides Iran with much-needed legitimacy in the Arab world, and could lead to further deals with Arab states like Egypt, pave the way to end the war in Yemen, offer a workable solution to the crisis in Lebanon, and even lead to a resumption of negotiations to save the nuclear deal.

The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement will force the United States to reevaluate its standing in the region. After all, it was China – not Washington or Moscow – that was able to reassemble a complex political constellation traditionally under American purview.

The renewal of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been on a slow burn for the past two years. Five rounds of talk were held with Iraqi mediation in Baghdad or under guidance of Oman, who had mediated between Iran and the U.S. in the lead up to the nuclear deal in 2015.

In December, four Saudi fighter jets escorted Chinese President Xi Jinping's plane as he landed on an official, or shall we say royal, visit to the kingdom. This wasn't his first visit, but this time he came to sign a strategic alliance agreement which included trade and investment deals worth tens of billions of dollars, and more importantly, developing nuclear power reactors designated for domestic energy production.

Saudi Arabia has been asking the United States to help it build nuclear reactors for many years. But American demands, including an insistence that the Saudis comply with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, derailed any cooperation on the issue. In 2020 The Wall Street Journal reported the disconcerting news that China and Saudi Arabia were cooperating to exploit the kingdom's vast uranium deposits, and shortly after that, U.S. intelligence agencies announced they are verifying reports that Saudi Arabia was looking to build a nuclear reactor with Chinese assistance.

Saudi Arabia has found a solution in China, with whom it signed a nuclear reactor construction memorandum in 2017. In any case, the Saudis have presented the U.S. with a serious dilemma: help Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear program and potentially gain its support for a deal with Israel, or to let China reap the economic and political rewards.

China has become a major a strategic ally of both Saudi Arabia and Iran, with whom it signed a 400 million dollar economic cooperation agreement over 25 years.

China has entered the fray as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to construct an alliance that serves the interests of all three without needing the services or assurances of the United States.

More importantly, China is taking the United States' place as an economic and strategic power in the region.. A power that Israel has little influence over. 

I've stressed several times in the past, that the U.S. has to look and deal with China in different ways and mentality, not everything is always solved controversially and by force, plus the fact that America cannot easily face an alliance of China and Russia, of course the Chinese are advancing rapidly in Africa, buying a big chunk of western industries and farm lands, thus further expanding their influence, and now surprise surprise, they are adding the most important two powers in the Middle-East and the shattered  Arab world, their influence is surely going to have implications in the region, more so as the U.S. is pulling out systematically from the region, of course it's not a comfortable situation or outcome for the U.S. immediately, but not necessarily bad on the long run or strategically,  but surely not good for Israel, that could try and push some solutions by triggering an adventure of their own, I hope that we won't be dragged again into foolish acts and dangerous wars for the sake of Israeli geopolitics of total supremacy and hegemony......  

As always, my profound many thanks to all my friends and readers....   

MORE WEAPONS TO UKRAINE !!!.......

 

Last month U.S. and French navies intercepted cargo ships smuggling thousands of weapons from Iran to Yemen. According to the Washington Post, these shipments are in defiance of a U.N. Security decision which prohibits supplying weapons to the Houthis, Iran's Yemeni partners. 

The navy seized thousands of Russian-style assault rifles and machine guns, dozens of anti-tank missiles, and more than half a million rounds of ammunitions. Similarly, last summer the British Navy impeded an Iranian ship carrying surface-to- air missiles and engines for land attack cruise missiles. Instead of allowing these weapons to build up, should Washington and its allies send them to Ukraine ??? The Post goes on; the U.S. Central Command through work with its European allies and Gulf partners, are on their way to turning important waterways around the Arabian peninsula into a panopticon, i.e. monitoring all, making it increasingly difficult for the Islamic revolutionary guards Corp navy.  

While undetected, U.S. Naval forces set the course for innovation in maritime domain awareness and surveillance, enabling more and more seizures of Iranian weapons smuggled at sea, and left huge stores of weapons under the command of the U.S. Central Command. These which were examined and recorded by the United Nations as evidence of Iran's violations of UN Security council resolution 2624, are being placed at U.S. military facilities throughout the region. 

The time has come to put these weapons to use for a good cause, support Ukraine. The ministry of Defence and NATO allies are mobilized to deliver various weapons to Ukraine, everything from guns to missiles to ammunitions, and soon tanks. In January the Pentagon went so far as to raid its stockpiles of weapons in Israel to support Kyiv, and the need and appetite are still there. The Pentagon for example, seeks to increase its production of artillery shells by 500% within two years. While stockpiling thousands of usable Iranian munitions, while these captured Iranian weapons will not meet every requirement of the Ukrainian military, many of them will certainly help, now that we've passed the first anniversary of the brutal and illegal Russian invasion and annihilation of Ukraine and it people. 

According to the Post, "In addition to meeting immediate military needs, the transfer of these weapons will have other positive effects, sending Iran weapons to Ukraine to be used against Russia, will stir up discord between Moscow and Teheran, at a time when their interests converge. Iran trained and equipped the Russian army with drones, which the Russians launched on mostly civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, in a blatant attempt to leave the Ukrainian civilian population in the dark and cold this winter, and now there's fresh talk of Iranian tanks to Russia as well. 

It should help limiting and redirecting Russian and Iranian destabilizing efforts in Europe and the Middle-East. The redirection of Iran's weapons, may prompt Moscow to put pressure on Teheran to stop arms smuggling into Yemen, especially when more and more shipments are being intercepted. 

There may be legal obstacles preventing the U.S. administration from treating  these confiscated Iranian weapons as U.S. stocks, and simply authorizing their transfer under presidential withdrawal authority, as Mr. Biden has done 31 times so far in the past 18 months . The Biden administration and its European allies, continues the Post, have already  shown tremendous creativity in implementing new policy tools to support Kyiv. Congressional support to authorize sending confiscated assets of the Russian oligarch to support the reconstruction of Ukraine, it should be there with confiscated weaponry, even if technically they are owned by Teheran. 

Iran and Russia are nowadays practically the main culprits who sought to bully their way by abusing their neighbors, Israel is just behind them, and for longer times, but that's another story to be discussed  under different circumstance. The Post concluded, that the sending of Iran's weapons to Ukraine, moves the mission forward in tangible and symbolic ways. It must move without delay. 

As always, my many thanks to all....