How : Illinois politics and World Cup soccer

Okay, there’s really no connection.


Other than a couple of stories turning up at the same time that have a glancing crossover. Like the one about how controversial the newly designed soccer ball is, because it performs so weirdly.

It is believed to have an unpredictable swerving movement which makes its hard for goalkeepers and strikers to anticipate its direction in flight.

They may have a hard time tracking the movement and behavior of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich along with a slew of politicians once that trial gets underway.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s federal corruption trial will feature prosecutors feeding voters a steady reminder of the worst elements of Illinois’ political culture — allegations that money, insider influence and personal interest drive public policy in this state.

And it has kicked off now, with jury selection in play.

18. If you’re on this jury, you will probably miss a lot of World Cup games, including USA vs. England. Can you stand it?

Some hot summer days ahead. Unpredictable, too.

@www.mercatornet.com

Diplomats seek Israeli approval for Gaza aid vessel

Jerusalem (ANTARA News/AKI) - European diplomats have been engaged in talks with senior Israeli foreign ministry officials to allow an Irish-owned humanitarian aid vessel to deliver supplies to the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.

The Rachel Corrie was to have been part of the flotilla that was stopped by Israeli naval forces early Monday but was delayed due to technical problems.

The Israeli foreign ministry for the past few days has been exchanging messages with the group operating the ship to allow it to dock, according to the report. It is expected to arrive this weekend.

Ireland has also asked Israel to allow the Irish-owned ship to break the Gaza blockade.

The Rachel Corrie, named for the American pro-Palestinian activist who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, left Malta on Monday with about a dozen activists aboard and 1,000 tonnes of aid.

Its cargo includes cement, medical equipment, toys and printing paper.
"We don`t want to be heroes or martyrs, but we have to keep going ahead,? activist Jenny Graham told the Irish daily, The Belfast Telegraph.

The Rachel Corrie`s trip to Gaza is sponsored by two non-governmental organisations, from Ireland and Malaysia.

On board is Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and former United Nations deputy secretary-general Denis Halliday. Also on board are a group of Malaysians sponsored by the former prime minister of Malaysia.

Nine activists were killed when Israeli naval commandos boarded six vessels in a humanitarian aid convoy on Monday.
(U.A051/S008/P003)

Obama Vs. China: Let’s Get Ready To Rumble

While there may be many promises of “change” happening in America…one thing that is definitely “changing” is the relationship between China and the U.S.

Why is this increasingly important? There are a few reasons but a couple of important ones off the top of my head are:

Just a few short years ago, China was only the 8^th largest economy in the world. Now they are at least 4^th and many argue that they are now the 3^rd largest economy in the world. Not too shabby for a country that wasn’t even invited to G-7 meetings.

Another important reason is that they are THE largest holder of U.S. treasuries as of last September. Until then, they were second only to Japan.

While I’m a “red-blooded” American…I’ll have to say that we picked this fight. We started it even before Tim Geithner officially became our Treasury Secretary when he stated that Obama feels that China is manipulating their currency. So that puts them both in the ring with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

China quickly refuted this claim that same week. However, for the first time ever, the Premier shows up at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland.

China’s first big Jab comes at Davos!

His speech, while not directly calling out the U.S., really alluded to the fact that the U.S. originator of the world’s economic woes.

My Wen blamed an “excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit” a “failure of government supervision” and an “unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption”.

I must say what the Premiere said makes a lot of sense.

We are “ticking off” our largest creditor and it’s not the smartest move we’ve ever made as a nation. While Obama will probably do a lot of great things for the economy, this is not one of them.

Not surprisingly, China says it’s “examining its investments”. Sounds like they are trying to say, “Watch it or we will pull the plug on you!”

The Chinese already haven’t been happy about their investments in Morgan Stanley (MS: 32.10 -0.21 -0.65%), Fannie Mae (FNM: 1.02 -0.01 -0.97%), Freddie Mac (FRE: 1.14 -0.02 -1.72%) and others. In fact, when many U.S. companies recently turned to China for funding, China backed away.

So while I don’t believe China will dump all of its U.S. treasuries like some say, I do think that they could still hurt us economically as they continue to climb the rungs on the economic ladder to the top.

China needs to be taken seriously and dealt with wisely. After all, they now have over $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves…and recently, China has been sharply trimming its holdings of Fannie and Freddie debt. After making net purchases of $46 billion in the first half of 2008, they were net sellers of $26.1 billion in the five months through November and that’s according to U.S. data, not China’s sources.

Also, one Chinese government official recently told the China Daily newspaper (in December) that “Washington shouldn’t expect continuous inflows of more cheap foreign capital to fund its one-after-another massive bailouts”.

You see, for the last number of years, we’ve preached to China about how they need to become more like us here in the U.S. Now that it doesn’t seem to be working as well for us as we’d like (at the moment), this argument becomes a “hard sell” to the Chinese.

Also, China will revalue its currency when it decides to and not when we tell them to do so. Besides, what country is going to jack their currency up higher when they are facing rough economic times? They know that there is no reason put the nail in the coffin of their exporters just to pacify the U.S.

So while I’m an American, I can’t always say what we do is right. It’s sort of like “standing up for family because they are family” rather than “standing up for what is right” instead.

If we are smart, we will take an approach with China much like former Treasury Secretary Paulson took. It’s one of the things he did get right. The Chinese ended up strengthening their currency at least 15% while he was in office. Before then, we didn’t have much luck in our talks with China. So in that regard, it was smart of Bush to pick him as his choice of Treasury Secretary. While both Bush and Paulson have had their screw ups, we are now getting “wrong” the areas they got right.

To sum it all up, I think that this could undermine the U.S. dollar, U.S. treasuries and boost the price of gold.

By Sean Hyman on January 30, 2009 | More Posts By Sean Hyman |