Political Suggestion for Dems

Once the Democratic primaries are over, I have a suggestion for how the Democratic candidate could burnish their national security credibility and possibly help our diplomacy with Iran. The candidate should announce that he/she would implement a "Kill List" deterrence policy regarding any terrorist nuclear attack.

The idea behind a kill list is that normal deterrence might not work if a country like Iran developed a nuclear bomb and then "handed it off" to one of their proxies for use, or used it in such a way as to be less likely to be traced back to them as a state actor. For example, instead of a normal missile launch they would have Hezbollah smuggle the bomb in a shipping container to Long Beach and blow it up there. Iran could deny responsibility for the attack. Now we could probably trace the material signature, etc., back to them, and then strike back, but the Kill List makes it more automatic.

The Kill List also encourages those on the list to stop any proliferation they might be considering. North Korea might think long and hard before helping Syria or Iran out with a nuke program if they thought they would be held collectively responsible.

Another attraction of the Kill List is that you can offer to remove countries from the list as part of your bag of carrots during negotiations or make noises about adding countries as well. I remember how the Taiwanese hated being on the Super 301 List and incessantly bitched about it, but the have far better intellectual protection now in Taiwan as a result. (Sadly this killed off the MTV .)

Why should the Democratic candidate think about supporting such a Kill List policy? (And they would not have to be too explicit about naming names, etc.)

1. It's probably a good idea by itself. Even just discussing it serves as a warning to proliferating regimes.

2. It would assist their diplomatic position if elected.

3. It would burnish their national security credibility.

4. It's a pretty cheap program.

Yahoo News Headlines

Western expats in Dubai urged to act modestly during Ramadan

New Orleans should urge Muslim visitors to "loosen up and skip the veil during Mardi Gras?" "Those who refrain from drinking spirits and showing off your woman's breasts are being culturally insensitive."

When I lived in Indonesia, I had one really funny Ramadan experience when my less-than-devout Muslim friend went drinking with me. We came home about 4:00 a.m. which was coincidentally about the time that the mosque loudspeakers announce "Sayur" telling people to get in their last food before they must begin fasting again. So we helped out driving on our motorcycle through the rice fields yelling "Sayur! Sayur!"

Just as Muslims make excellent designated drivers, we drinkers can in turn assist the devout during Ramadan.

Though, I don't get why we can't eat food in front of them while they fast...its supposed to be a test of their faith, so why shouldn't they welcome the added difficulty level? "Hey, I can fast even if you are eating fresh baked cookies in front of me."

p.s. Another weird thing about Ramadan in Indonesia was going into a restaurant at lunch and realizing that the owner and all of the customers were probably Christian. You felt like you were part of some special club.

Gen. Abizaid on Iran

Abizaid: World could abide nuclear Iran

"Iran is not a suicide nation," he said. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon."

"I believe that we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear,"

"There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran,"

"Let's face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with (other) nuclear powers as well."

Abizaid stressed the dangers of allowing more and more nations to build a nuclear arsenal. And while he said it is likely that Iran will make a technological breakthrough to obtain a nuclear bomb, "it's not inevitable."

"War, in the state-to-state sense, in that part of the region would be devastating for everybody, and we should avoid it — in my mind — to every extent that we can," he said. "On the other hand, we can't allow the Iranians to continue to push in ways that are injurious to our vital interests."

"I believe the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran — that the United States can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons they'll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power," he said.

He described Iran's government as reckless, with ambitions to dominate the Middle East.

"We need to press the international community as hard as we possibly can, and the Iranians, to cease and desist on the development of a nuclear weapon and we should not preclude any option that we may have to deal with it," he said. He then added his remark about finding ways to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

My first little point...was the headline chosen well from the variety of quotes they had?

After reading all of his quotes, I almost wonder what the General is saying here - I mean how many qualifiers (both ways!) can we get about Iran? Bottom line is we should be able to deal with a nuclear armed Iran. I agree with him there.

Then again, this is the guy who was part of the brilliant counter-insurgency plan of holing up our forces in huge bases instead of small outposts in the community, because our troops were "anti-bodies" and thus let things get really out of control. I want to read more about him, before placing blame though - 20/20 hindsight and all. I do wonder if people were blinded by his Arabic skills - a case of "he speaks the language, so he must know what he's doing."

I do like this little blurb at the bottom, too.

The U.S. cut diplomatic relations with Iran shortly after the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Although both nations have made public and private attempts to improve relations, the Bush administration labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil," and Iranian leaders still refer to the United States as the Great Satan.

Mandatory Health Care

Hillary's new health care plan is similar to a lot of the other Donk candidates and also Arnold Schwarzenegger's for California.

Basically the idea is that you make health care mandatory and then figure out how to pay for coverage for poor folks.

What I like about these plans:

1. They are mandatory. Which helps lower some costs by including healthy young 24 year olds who otherwise wouldn't be in the insurance pool. (Now that I am middle-aged, I have no problem making them pay for insurance they may not need.)

Political Bonus: No more stories about the "millions of uninsured." I'm sure it will be replaced by "just above the cut-off for aid, yet still struggling" but hey.

2. The poor are covered, and via a direct subsidy that is transparent. We can set how generous we want to be. I would also include a plan for a non-profit organization that liberals could donate to that would fund this health care plan before we had to have taxes kick in. I wonder why those don't already exist?

Political Bonus: How many times poverty level will be considered needy? Maybe we can have some media stories showing how some family can't afford health-care but has a 47" Plasma on installment from Best Buy?

3. Most importantly, as long as any of these proposals just makes it mandatory to have insurance, with a state subsidy, it's not government-run health care and the free market is still completely involved. I guess it does impinge on the individual's liberty, and this is why libertarians will hate these ideas. I would suggest having an opt-out clause but that sort of ruins the effect of point 1.

What I don't like about these plans:

1. They keep making companies pay for their employee's insurance. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just factored as part of your wages and benefits, but it does make worker's worry about changing jobs. If companies did not provide insurance and it was paid for by workers, it would be "portable" and they would worry a little bit less about trying to switch companies or careers. Also, since health benefits are not taxed while wages are, there may have been an incentive to favor these over wages by both employer and employee.

2. These plans sometimes try to lower the cost of health care by fiat, or pay for it via taxes on doctors, etc. I am not sure that is a good idea. Let the market offer different plans and people choose them. Yes, insurance is complicated, so maybe you can have one simple government plan as a default, but I would guess once health insurance was decoupled from your employer, they would have to work harder to please the actual consumer. I could be wrong there, but you could always choose GovCare so why not?

Medecins Sans Frontier Founder on Iran

World should 'prepare for the worst' over Iran: France

The world should "prepare for the worst ... (which) is war" over the Iranian nuclear crisis, but seeking a solution through talks should take priority, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday.

"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," he said in an interview broadcast on television and radio.

"We must negotiate right to the end," with Iran, he said, but underlined that if Tehran possessed an atomic weapon, it would represent "a real danger for the whole world."

It looks like the French FM is more hawkish than I would expect. Personally, I think we should prepare for Iran having a nuclear bomb, since I don't think it will be possible to even bomb them. Well, possible, yes, but extremely unlikely. Maybe if it was the French Air Force doing the bombing unilaterally? Cuz America ain't gonna do anything about Iran until 2009 if at all. Now that I made a prediction, the bombing begins tomorrow.

Speculaton on Hsu

Beyond the "scandal" of Hillary Clinton and everyone else taking bundled contributions from Hsu without too many questions, there are worries about whether there is a PRC connection here, mainly because we don't know where Hsu got his money exactly.

The Wall Street Journal has an article that helps explain the source of his money:

Mr. Rosenman described the deal in a pitch letter he provided to prospective investors for Source Financing Investors, which he launched in 2005. The investment pool would "lend to U.S. private label designers that needed interim financing to fill orders for a select group of well-known, high-end U.S. apparel retailers." Since 2001, he writes, "the return of these short-term (typically 4½ months) loans has been no less than 40%."

In a "step-by-step" outline of a typical transaction prepared for investors, Source Financing describes the way a deal worked with Mr. Hsu. Source Financing would agree to provide bridge loans for seasonal high-ticket, high-quality retail goods made in China for exclusive brand names, according to investors. Mr. Hsu told the company that he would obtain from Chinese manufacturers a price quote for apparel production. He would then add a mark-up and give the quote to a high-end buyer in the U.S.

If the U.S. buyer accepted, according to the outline, Source Financing would transfer by wire what Mr. Hsu said was 80% of the necessary loan, with Mr. Hsu saying he would provide the other 20% himself. Mr. Hsu told the investors he would then receive a letter of credit from a Chinese bank and that the manufacturer would ship the apparel to the U.S., where Mr. Hsu would deliver it to the merchant.

Mr. Hsu would give the investment firm a check, post-dated for 135 days beyond the wire transfer, for the amount of the loan plus profit. When the check matured, Source Financing would deposit it and allocate the money to investors. The company that would carry out these transactions, Mr. Hsu told investors, was Components Ltd., set up in 1997.

So basically, the investors are factoring orders from stores to provide financing to factories in China. It makes sense if the stores demand very long payment terms and the factories are cash-strapped. You can often get a 5% discount for simply paying cash after shipment in Taiwan, though in China the factories often demand 20% down and 80% upon shipment anyways. The article has one error in that Hsu should be opening the letters of credit (backed by the investor's cash) rather than receiving them.

Now, the problem is that the investors are now receiving bounced checks. So he somehow went bankrupt recently or is once again running a Ponzi scheme. If it was a Ponzi scheme, there should be some more news coming since we don't know how he funded the initial "profits" back to the investors to start the scheme . Some possibilities,in order of probability:

1. The orders were fake. The investors were sure to ask to see each order before factoring it, but if the orders were fake, he could simply open the LC to a factory and ship an empty container to collect payment of 100%.
2. The orders were real, but he did not pay the factories and just kept switching suppliers. Actually, I have heard of this happening before with office chairs. This might be easier to do because the customers in the USA could be contacted by the investors to see if everything was legit, but if he used shell companies in China, that side would be very opaque.
   
3. The orders were real, but he had multiple investor's factoring them, and ditched some of those. I doubt this since he'd get sued earlier on. Remember the deals are only for 135 day financing.
4. He had a source of funds from the PRC government to pay the investors and then used the investor's "clean" money to funnel donations to candidates. Occam's Razor to me suggests that some guy who ran a Ponzi scheme based on importing gloves from China in the 90's probably is simply doing the same thing in 2002, and not on the PLA payroll.
   
5. The US investors knew this was a scheme to fund donations to the Democrats. (Rosenman's family is already maxed out to Clinton.) I doubt this since the investors are trying to get their money back. Hillary is trying to refund the donations and then have the donors immediately send them back to her, but Rosenman's lawyers don't want her to do that.
   

Scenarios 1,2 & 3 make the most sense since its simply a con-man running his con. Hsu's interest in Democratic politics could be just a way to meet investors, a hobby, or his attempt to get pardoned later on.

Scenarios 4 & 5 are out there, and far scarier, so hopefully will not be borne out in any way. The only reason I consider them possible is that in 1996, a PLA colonel did fund Bill Clinton and we also see situations like Edwards getting paid $500,000 for a "part time job" at a hedge-fund, so I am not putting it past people to find very creative ways to fund politicians.

UPDATE: my scenarios 1 & 2 have a problem maybe. Damn work getting in the way!

Culture of Corruption

California Attorney General spokesman Gareth Lacy said Hsu's lawyers told prosecutors Hsu arrived by charter jet at the Oakland airport about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday local time and then wasn't heard from again.

Obvious question: Who paid for the chartered jet?

At the end of the article

Afghan authorities often make claims they have killed Taliban commanders that turn out to be false. Taliban spokesmen have also downplayed or lied about the extent of their battlefield losses.

That just struck me as a strange but useful way to end the article.