Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told regional leaders on Wednesday that the capitalist system was close to collapse.
Sure seems to be the case in Iran ...
Opening a one-day summit of the 10-nation Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) including Turkey, Pakistan and other neighbors, he also suggested a single currency should be used in trade between members.
"After the collapse of the closed socialist economy, the capitalist economy is also on the verge of collapse," Ahmadinejad said in a speech. "The liberal economy and the free market have failed," he said, pointing to the use of "thousands of billions of dollars" to bail out Western banks and companies.
Like other big oil producers, Iran is facing falling revenue after crude prices plunged about $100 a barrel from a peak of $147 in July, hurting its main source of income. It is also struggling with double-digit inflation.
Iran, Turkey and Pakistan are the founding members of ECO, which was set up in 1985 and now includes seven other regional nations, Afghanistan among them.
The Tehran meeting is expected to discuss ways to boost trade and economic cooperation in a region which boasts major energy resources.
Ahmadinejad made a series of recommendations, including currency cooperation. "The process of obtaining one single currency in the trade and exchanges among members, and in the next stages with other countries and neighbors, should be designed," he said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he believed regional countries had the potential to turn the economic crisis into opportunities, with its natural and other resources. He called for a lowering of regional customs tariffs to boost trade and increased transport and energy cooperation.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the narcotics trade was hurting Afghanistan's economic and social development and asked ECO to help in fighting the problem. Analysts say combating drugs is one area where Iran, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, share an interest with its old foe the United States.
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#1
"The liberal economy and the free market have failed," he said, pointing to the use of "thousands of billions of dollars" to bail out Western banks and companies.
Actually, markets are working very well. You may not like the results and you may have lost a lot of paper value, but, trust me.
#2
ISRAEL MILITARY FORUM > [YouTube] CHICAGO LEADER SAYS US WILL BECOME A MUSLIM COUNTRY; + US INTEL [INTEL Chief Dennis Blair to Congress]DOES NOT RULE OUT POTENTIAL OF IRAN ACQUIRING NUCLEAR BOMBS, MATERIALS FROM ABROAD. By Year 2010 Iran is anticipated to have enuff fissle materials for an indigenous nucbomb/weapon.
#3
Sorry to always come back with my pet remarks about idiots in my native piece of land, but... it's not like I could bring any valid point to this discussion, could I?
Anyway, the idea of capitalism being on verge of collapse is a pretty common meme too both for french wingnuts (overall, some caveat) and leftitsts, both hoping for the famed "Big Crisis" that will enable a small, organized and lucid minority (them or their Leaders like pépé le pen who's been screwing french nationalists up the bunghole for 30 years) to lead the "sheeples" (very common idea of thre average man on the street being a "sheeple") into their own utopia.
I'd say this is pretty much the general idea glanced from the following of the blogosphere & websites from each and it's representative of the whole.
And, of course, both camp hates the USA, the jooooos, Nato, hate the Empire, hate free market (and wingnuts often blame free market ideology for mass immigration, morale decline,...), love chavez, the monkey, love putin (for the wingnuts, hey, he's their hero and new Man On A Horse), even from some on the "right", there is a call for "un-growth" (décroissance, a neboulous concept which means adopting a malthusian civilizational agenda, to protect Gaia), and many winguts even are very resentful against Christianity (either because they're neopagans, calling for europeans to go "back to their roots", by ignoring 2000 years of History and embracing a made-up religions set with no actual tradition and mostly embraced by leftits, or because they see Christianity as one or the source of european weakness)...
As an excuse for the "rightists", well, all of them went through the very same marxist/socialist school system than the rest of the french pop...
So, yeah, you've got a pretty broad convergence of red-brown-green people, with islam as the driver, socialism (neo or not, in its fascist guise or not) following, and far-"right" as a small adjunvant.
#7
Let's see what collapses first, Mahmoud. Capitalism or your government...
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to believe that only desperate measures on the economy can save his presidency when Iranians go to the polls in June, but he suffered a shocking setback on Monday when the legislature dominated by like-minded conservatives blocked his key initiative. Ahmadinejad had proposed legislation in the Majlis, Iran's parliament, that would have summarily withdrawn government subsidies on oil, gasoline and electricity, freeing up about $20 billion in government funds, of which he planned to transfer more than half in direct cash handouts to middle- and lower-income households. But the move would have sent energy prices skyrocketing in Iran, and the Majlis was having none of it despite the vote being widely viewed as a test of conservative loyalty ahead of the June poll.
Despite months of heated debate, Ahmadinejad had been expected to carry the vote on eliminating subsidies, and his supporters were shocked when the legislation was defeated by a vote of 132 to 102. "This vote ... shows Ahmadinejad can no longer count on the unanimous support of the fundamentalists in the upcoming elections," says Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst in Tehran, adding, "It could even mean that the Supreme Leader no longer unequivocally supports him."
It was the poor state of the economy that got Ahmadinejad elected in 2005, on promises to more equitably share the country's oil revenues. But with the population laboring under record inflation rates and widespread unemployment, the fall in world oil prices from $147 per bbl. last summer to less than $40 today has proved nothing short of catastrophic to Ahmadinejad's government, which faces a $44 billion deficit in next year's budget and, for reasons political as well as economic, does not have easy access to international credit.
The dangerous irony confronting Ahmadinejad is that it was his ability to tap into economic grievances with populist promises that got him elected four years ago, but the economy by almost every measure is far worse today. And that fact won't be lost on voters. "Ahmadinejad has not done as well as [his reformist predecessor President Mohammed] Khatami with twice the oil revenue," says Virginia Tech economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani. The Brookings Institution scholar says according to his data, the gap between poor and rich has worsened during Ahmadinejad's term, despite his promises of economic justice. The populist President has actually managed to make his predecessor's economic performance look good by comparison. And, of course, Khatami is among the candidates running against Ahmadinejad in June.
#8
That stupid fuck better shut his mouth. Hasn't he noticed when progressives run the US capitalist system into the ground, somebody pays, through war.
TOKYO - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his country could hold direct peace talks with Israel if the United States acted as an arbitrator, according to an interview published on Wednesday.
Assad also told Japan's Asahi Shimbun that he welcomed US President Barack Obama's new administration and wants to engage in dialogue for regional peace, but he also insisted on the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
And in return, what?
"We need the United States to act as an arbitrator when we move from the current indirect negotiations to direct negotiations (with Israel)," he was quoted as saying in an interview with the Japanese-language newspaper.
Let Slow Joe do it. He's the foreign policy expert in the Bambi administration. That used to be a joke but now is approaching reality ...
Syria held exploratory contacts with Israel through Turkish mediators last year about resuming peace negotiations that broke off in 2000 over the fate of the strategic Golan plateau.
Assad cautioned that possible progress of such talks would "depend on the next Israeli administration," the Asahi said.
US-Syrian ties were especially tense under former president George W. Bush, who correctly accused Damascus of supporting terrorism, helping Iran and of turning a blind eye to the flow of arms and supplies to insurgents in Iraq.
Washington has not yet taken a decision about returning its ambassador to Syria, a senior US envoy said this month after visiting Damascus to mend ties.
Assad harshly criticised the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hit out at Bush for putting pressure on Syria, the Asahi said. But he also stressed his willingness to help work toward regional peace. "Changes do not happen overnight," Assad was quoted saying. "We must first start dialogue to clarify the shared interest, which is to achieve peace.
It's amazing he can say stuff like that and keep his lips on. His only interest is in keeping power, and peace with Israel is the last thing he wants.
"The administration of Bush did not do that, and it only cared about the benefit of his own country."
Which is, if you think about it, the first charge in his oath ...
Assad welcomed the Obama administration's active engagement with Syria through sending envoys and US senators for meetings, the Asahi said. "It is important that we first begin dialogue and both take part in resolving problems," he told the newspaper. "It is not us who have changed. It is the Americans who have changed."
To achieve regional peace, the Syrian president emphasised the importance of including major parties in the peace process, adding that he would work to bring Islamist militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah to the table.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke Wednesday at the opening of the Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Tehran that brings together 10 regional countries.
President Ahmadinejad blamed the West for the global economic meltdown, declaring that capitalism has failed and that the capitalist system was close to collapse. "After the collapse of the closed socialist economy," he said, "the capitalist economy is also on the brink of disintegration, and despite all the efforts taken to
"It is clear that the same principles which have triggered the collapse cannot be used to reverse it."
save capitalism, the situation is hopeless. It is clear that the same principles which have triggered the collapse cannot be used to reverse it."
Mr. Ahmadinejad noted that capitalist organizations across the world have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the market to save major corporations and banks but they have not yet admitted that capitalism has failed.
During Wednesday's summit, Mr. Ahmadinejad also called for greater regional economic integration and urged member states to begin discussing the establishment of a single currency and a bank that would promote trade. Iran's closest neighbors and key trading partners, include Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is up for re-election in June, has repeatedly lashed out at the West for the current financial crisis. But he has been under fire at home for Iran's economic woes.
Iran has inflation in the mid-20 percent range and chronic unemployment, which stands at about 30 percent by unofficial estimates.
#2
If the crisis will rid us of oil ticks (and MBAs), and EUro elites... We can only hope. Unfortunately nature reliably produces another crop of knaves and fools with every generation, sigh...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
TOKYO - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his country could hold direct peace talks with Israel if the United States acted as an arbitrator, according to an interview published on Wednesday.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke Wednesday at the opening of the Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Tehran that brings together 10 regional countries. 
