Is China Really That Dangerous?

May 25, 2016

Doug Bandow

Nationalinterest.org

The United States dominates the globe militarily. Washington possesses the most powerful armed forces, accounts for roughly 40 percent of the globe’s military outlays, and is allied with every major industrialized state save China and Russia.

Yet the bipartisan hawks who dominate U.S. foreign policy see threats at every turn. For some, the People’s Republic of China is replacing the Soviet Union as America’s chief adversary. They view another military buildup as the only answer.

The PRC’s rise is reshaping the globe. Today, the PRC ranks second only to the United States economically. Increased financial resources have enabled Beijing to take on a much greater international role.

Of greatest concern in Washington is China’s military buildup. Indeed, a novel reportedly making the rounds at the Pentagon is Ghost Fleet, which posits a Chinese attack on Hawaii.

The Department of Defense publishes an annual review of China’s military. Thelatest report warns that the PRC “continued to improve key capabilities,” including ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft and air defense, information capabilities, submarines, and amphibious and airborne assault units. The Chinese military “is also focusing on counterspace, offensive cyber operations, and electronic warfare.” Further, Beijing “continued to modernize and to restructure its ground forces to create a fully modern army.”

This program may sound menacing, but Beijing’s ambitions are bounded. DOD observes that China’s leaders “portray a strong military as critical to advancing Chinese interests, preventing other countries from taking steps that would damage those interests, and ensuring that China can defend itself and its sovereignty claims.” Which is precisely what U.S. policymakers do.

In the short term, Beijing’s principal objective is to advance its territorial claims in the Asia-Pacific without provoking conflict. In the longer term the objective, says DOD, is “to deter or defeat adversary power projection and counter third-party—including U.S.—intervention during a crisis or conflict.” That is, deterrence.

Most important is planning for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait, East and South China Sea, and Korean peninsula. They all concern Beijing far more than America, and involve other, potentially well-armed states, including Japan, South Korea and the Southeast Asian nations, which are able to advance their own interests.

China also is developing a capability for such missions as “sea lane security, counterpiracy, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief.” These tasks actually mirror U.S. interests. Washington officials might feel uncomfortable sharing leadership with the PRC, but that cannot justify a military response.

Most important, even the Pentagon does not believe Beijing is planning an aggressive war. America enjoys a vast military lead, possessing a significantly larger nuclear force, ten carrier groups compared to China’s single carrier and much more. With Washington spending roughly $600 billion annually on the military, compared to an estimated $180 billion by Beijing, China is not overtaking America.

Moreover, the PRC’s economic predominance is not guaranteed. China’s challenges are huge: white elephant investments, a shrinking labor force, inefficient state enterprises, ubiquitous bank bad debts, pervasive corruption and regional disparities. Because of Beijing’s one-child policy, the country may grow old before it grows rich. China’s military modernization program also faces serious challenges, including a slowing economy and pervasive corruption that afflicts the People’s Liberation Army.

Even a more powerful PRC would not easily threaten the United States. Projecting force across oceans and continents is extraordinarily expensive. Deterring use of such force is relatively cheap. America is uniquely secure, enjoying relative geographic isolation—in contrast to China, which is surrounded by nations with which it has been at war over the last century: Russia, Japan, Korea, India and Vietnam.

In fact, only Washington’s attempt to dominate China along the latter’s border(imagine the Chinese navy patrolling America’s East Coast) might trigger war.

The United States understandably favors its friends in their disputes with the PRC. However, they should be responsible for defending their own interests. None of the ongoing territorial controversies is worth conflict with nuclear-armed China.

Unfortunately, deterrence often fails. If Beijing ignores U.S. threats, Washington could find itself in a real war with a real power. Are Americans prepared to sacrifice Los Angeles or San Francisco for Tokyo or Taipei? Doing so would be madness.

Despite the tendency to treat the PRC as the next superpower, Chinese officials are aware of their limitations, tempering any danger to America. Concludes DOD: “China continues to regard stable relations with the United States and China’s neighbors as key to its development.”

The United States should be watchful and wary of China’s rise. But the best way for the United States to prepare for the future is to husband its economic strength and respond militarily only if a serious threat develops. Otherwise, Washington should seek to accommodate, rather than combat such an important rising power.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is a Foreign Policy Fellow and Scholar with Defense Priorities.

MÉXICO EN RIESGO SISTÉMICO

El Fondo Monetario Internacional aceptó la solicitud del gobierno mexicano de elevar la Línea de Crédito Flexible (LCF) con la que cuenta, de 66 mil millones de dólares a 88 mil millones de dólares.

Desde el 2009 que el gobierno del fascista Calderón solicitó esta línea de crédito y hasta la fecha, México ha pagado como comisión para mantener abierto dicho crédito (sin haberlo utilizado nunca) un total de 902 millones de dólares, y ahora pagará más por haber ampliado el monto (la comisión pasa del 0.34% al 0.60%)[1].

¿Y por qué aceptó ampliar esa línea de crédito el Fondo, que sólo la tiene abierta para México, Colombia y Polonia? El Fondo afirma que México enfrenta “riesgos financieros crecientes” en el ámbito externo.

¿Cuáles son los riesgos que percibe el Fondo; y que el Banco de México y la Secretaría de Hacienda también perciben, por lo que pidieron la ampliación?

El principal es la estrecha vinculación de la economía mexicana con la de Estados Unidos en materia comercial y financiera.

¡Sí, ahora resulta que por fin se dice la verdad! Lo que los neoliberales mexicanos se la han vivido diciendo desde hace 35 años, que subordinar a la economía mexicana a la de Estados Unidos era la manera de salvar al país, viene a confirmarse que es en realidad el principal riesgo sistémico de la economía. Y lo es porque todo el sistema económico del país está atado a los vaivenes y decisiones que se toman en Washington y Nueva York, en donde el gobierno y los empresarios mexicanos no tienen absolutamente nada qué decir, ni como influenciar esas determinaciones.

Ese fue el diseño tanto del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (NAFTA por sus siglas en inglés), como de la subordinación financiera y desde el sexenio de Peña, también energética que se instrumentó por las élites serviles neoliberales “mexicanas”, para asegurar la perpetua servidumbre de México a los Estados Unidos.

En ese tenor el Fondo identifica el siguiente riesgo, el que tenedores extranjeros de bonos mexicanos, por el escalofriante monto de 456 mil millones de dólares (equivalente al 40 por ciento del PIB), decidan sacar su dinero bruscamente y moverlo a otras plazas internacionales, con lo que la supuesta fortaleza de las finanzas (entre los 88 mil millones de la línea de crédito flexible y las reservas internacionales, se contaría con 265 mil millones de dólares para hacer frente a una disminución brusca de divisas), en caso de que ese monto de dinero saliera completo, sólo alcanzaría para cubrir el 57.6% de las necesidades de divisas de la economía.

El punto más sobresaliente que indica el Fondo como riesgo es el siguiente: “Finalmente…hay el riesgo de un mayor proteccionismo en algunos de los socios comerciales de México. La percepción de un aumento de este riesgo por sí mismo puede reducir el atractivo de México para la inversión extranjera directa y para la inversión de portafolio en el corto plazo y la materialización de este riesgo puede tener un impacto significativo en los flujos de comercio e inversiones”.[2]

Lo que dice el Fondo es muy claro, un triunfo de Donald Trump en las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos (cada vez más probable) enviaría a la economía mexicana a una profunda crisis, pues los organismos financieros internacionales tienen muy claro que las amenazas de Trump de rechazar el NAFTA y establecer restricciones al envío de remesas hacia México, devastarían a la endeble y muy dependiente economía mexicana.

De ahí que el tal reconocimiento de la “responsabilidad” y “sólidos fundamentos” de la economía mexicana que dicha ampliación de la línea de crédito supuestamente suponen, según la desaforada versión de Peña y de su secretario de Hacienda Luis Videgaray, es una más de las mentiras de los gobiernos mexicanos.

Lo que significa esta ampliación de la línea de crédito es justamente lo contrario, que la economía mexicana es extremadamente vulnerable a pequeños cambios y vaivenes en la economía internacional, y que bien podría colapsar en caso de que dichos cambios sean bruscos (ya lo vimos en la crisis del 2008-2009, cuando México fue el país con la mayor caída de su PIB en América Latina, del orden de -6.5%). Por lo que el FMI considera necesario tener listo un salvavidas para evitar el derrumbe completo de la economía mexicana, cuando dichos cambios “se materialicen”. Es decir, cuando Trump les dé una patada en el trasero a los serviles, corruptos e incompetentes tecnócratas, políticos y oligarcas mexicanos que han vivido pegados a la ubre estadounidense durante 35 años, sin preocuparse por conformar una economía interna sólida, con cadenas productivas, suficiente producción de alimentos e independencia energética. Ahora no se tiene nada de eso y por lo tanto se recurre al FMI para que les lance un lazo antes del ahogamiento. Patético.

---

[1] http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/05/28/economia/020n1eco

[2] Ibidem

Donald Trump's new fundraiser's Israel connection.

The vice chairman of the Trump Victory Fund, Elliott Broidy, was removed as chairman of the Tel Aviv ­based venture capital firm Markstone Capital Partners after paying bribes to pension fund managers.

By Haaretz | May 26, 2016

Elliott Broidy, the American­ Jewish venture capitalist and the deposed chairman of Tel Aviv­based Markstone Capital Partners, has been appointed deputy chairman of a fundraising organization for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign. Broidy was removed as chairman of Markstone Capital after admitting to paying nearly $1 million in bribes to pension fund managers in New York State. He is still thought to have extensive political ties in Israel. Broidy's appointment as vice chairman of the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee sponsored by Trump and the Republican National Committee, comes just weeks after Steven Mnuchin, a Jewish Hollywood film producer and former Goldman Sachs executive, was named Trump's national finance chairman. About a decade and a half ago, Broidy decided to combine a Zionist act and a business opportunity in establishing a major venture capital fund that would operate in Israel. He used his ties with Alan Hevesi, the New York state comptroller at the time, who was also active in the Jewish community, to raise $250 million for the fund from the New York State pension fund, which had $100 billion under its management in the time. The stated Zionist mission of the fund as well as Broidy's ties meant that there was a lot of politics involved in establishing Markstone Capital. In mid­2003, when Israel's finance minister, and now prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited New York and met with finance officials from New York's state government, the matter of the establishment of Markstone also came up. Following that visit, the chairman of Israel's Histadrut labor federation at the time, Amir Peretz, approached American labor union leaders asking for their help with the new fund. That brought in an additional $50 million for Markstone. In the end, however, Markstone turned out to be one of the most resounding financial failures in the history of the Israel capital market. Broidy was removed as its chairman in late 2009 after being accused of paying bribes to New York pension fund managers, allegations that he ultimately admitted to, acknowledging giving nearly a million dollars to state officials in return for the pension funds' investment of roughly $250 million in Markstone Capital. Broidy, who invested in the past in several Israeli startup companies, is understood to have extensive political ties in Israel. He was also a regular dinner partner of the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Mexicanos sacaron a bancos del exterior 131% más dinero: BdeM

De enero de 2013 a marzo de 2016 depositaron casi 72 mil mdd, cerca del monto de divisas que ingresa por remesas

En los primeros años de este sexenio salieron 200% más recursos

En enero-marzo transfirieron casi 11 mil mdd; hace un año fueron 4 mil 725 mdd

Roberto González Amador

Periódico La Jornada
Jueves 26 de mayo de 2016, p. 23

Los depósitos transferidos por mexicanos a bancos del exterior sumaron 10 mil 924 millones de dólares en el primer trimestre de este año, cifra que superó en 131 por ciento a la que enviaron con el mismo destino en el periodo comparable de 2015, cuando fue de 4 mil 725 millones de dólares, informó este miércoles el Banco de México (BdeM).

Con esa cantidad, desde enero de 2013 y marzo de este año, ciudadanos mexicanos han transferido a bancos en el extranjero recursos por 71 mil 965.8 millones de dólares. Se trata de un monto apenas 6.4 por ciento menor al ingreso de divisas al país por las remesas de los trabajadores mexicanos en Estados Unidos que, en el mismo periodo, fue de 76 mil 957.3 millones de dólares, de acuerdo con datos del banco central.

El monto transferido por mexicanos a bancos en el extranjero en los primeros 13 trimestres del actual gobierno fue superior en 200 por ciento al registrado en el periodo comparable de la administración anterior, que fue de 23 mil 946.8 millones de dólares, según la información del banco central.

Desde el comienzo de la administración y hasta marzo de este año, el primer trimestre de 2013 fue el periodo en que se registró el mayor monto transferido por mexicanos a bancos en el extranjero, con 16 mil 757.2 millones de dólares. Siguió el comprendido entre julio y septiembre de 2015, con 13 mil 219.3 millones de dólares; abril a junio de 2014, con 11 mil 818.8 millones de dólares y, en cuarta posición por la magnitud de recursos transferidos, el primer trimestre de 2016, con 10 mil 924 millones de dólares, de acuerdo con la información estadística del banco central.

Menor déficit en cuenta corriente

La cuenta corriente de la balanza de pagos, que registra la diferencia entre el ingreso y salida de divisas del país por operaciones de comercio exterior, transacciones financieras, turismo y transferencias –como las remesas–, registró en el primer trimestre del año un saldo deficitario de 6 mil 991 millones de dólares, cantidad menor en 16 por ciento al del mismo periodo de 2015, cuando fue de 8 mil 341 millones de dólares, añadió el banco central.

Respecto del tamaño de la economía, el déficit de la cuenta corriente del primer trimestre de 2016 fue equivalente a 2.7 por ciento del producto interno bruto (PIB), ligeramente menor al del mismo periodo de 2015, cuando representó 2.8 por ciento del PIB, reportó.

En el primer trimestre de 2016 la economía mexicana captó suficientes recursos para financiar el déficit de la cuenta corriente, en un contexto en el que en la primera mitad del trimestre se presentó un aumento sustancial de la volatilidad en los mercados financieros internacionales, lo cual, a su vez, presionó de manera notoria el valor de la moneda nacional, apuntó.

No obstante, la disminución de la volatilidad cambiaria en la segunda parte del trimestre contribuyó a una reactivación en la colocación de deuda por parte de algunas empresas privadas en los mercados internacionales y a que la posición de extranjeros en valores de mediano y largo plazos emitidos en el mercado local continuara incrementándose, si bien a un ritmo menor que el exhibido en el cuarto trimestre de 2015, agregó.

How the World Ends

Baiting Russia is not good policy

PHILIP GIRALDI

MAY 24, 2016

www.unz.com

Last week I attended a foreign policy conference in Washington that featured a number of prominent academics and former government officials who have beenhighly critical of the way the Bush and Obama Administrations have interacted with the rest of the world. Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago was on a panel and was asked what, in his opinion, has been the most notable foreign policy success and the most significant failure in the past twenty-five years. The success was hard to identify and there was some suggestion that it might be the balancing of relationships in strategically vital Northeast Asia, which “we have not yet screwed up.” If I had been on the panel I would have suggested the Iran nuclear agreement as a plus.

As for the leading foreign policy failure there was an easy answer, “Iraq” which was on everyone in the room’s lips, but Mearsheimer urged one not to be so hasty. In reality the Iraq disaster has killed hundreds of thousands, has cost trillions of dollars and has unleashed serious problems for the Mideast region in general while allowing the rise of ISIS, but in “realistic foreign policy terms” it has not been a catastrophic event for the United States, which had hardly been seriously injured by it apart from financially and in terms of reputation.

Mearsheimer went on to say that, in his opinion, there is a far greater disaster lurking and that is the total mismanagement of the relationship with Russia ever since the downfall of communism. He cited the drive by Washington democracy promoters to push Ukraine into the western economic and political sphere as a major miscalculation as they failed to realize or did not care that what takes place in Kiev was to Moscow a vital interest. To that observation I would add the legacy of the spoliation of Russia’s natural resources carried out by Western carpetbaggers working with local grifters turned oligarchs under Boris Yeltsin, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s doorstep initiated by Bill Clinton, and the interference in Russia’s internal affairs by the U.S. government, to include the Magnitsky Act. There have also been unnecessary slights and insults delivered along the way, to include sanctions on Russian officials and refusal to attend the Sochi Olympics, to cite only two examples.

It should also be noted that much of the negative interaction between Washington and Moscow is driven by the consensus among the western media and the inside the beltway crowd that Russia is again or perhaps is still the enemy du jour. Ironically, the increasingly negative perception of Russia is rarely justified as a reaction in defense of any identifiable serious U.S. interests, not even in the fevered minds of Senator John McCain and his supporting neocon claque. But even though the consequences of U.S. hostility towards Russia can be deadly serious, the Obama Administration is already treating Georgia and Ukraine as if they were de facto members of NATO. Hillary Clinton, who has called Vladimir Putin another Adolf Hitler, has pledged to bring about their admittance into the alliance, which would not in any way make Americans more secure, quite the contrary, as Moscow would surely be forced to react.

A number of speakers observed that while Russia is no longer a superpower in a bipolar system it is nevertheless a major international player, evident most recently in its successful intervention in Syria. Moscow has both nuclear and advanced conventional arsenals that would be able to inflict severe or even fatal damage on the United States if animosity should somehow turn to armed conflict. Given that reality, if the United States has but a single foreign policy imperative it would be to maintain a solid working relationship with Russia but somehow the hubris inspired recalibration of the U.S. role in the world post the Cold War never quite figured that out, opting instead to see Washington as the “decider” anywhere and everywhere in the world, able to use the “greatest military ever seen” to do its thinking for it. This blindness eventually led to a de facto policy of regime change in the Middle East and a turn away from détente with the Russians.

The comments of John Mearsheimer and other speakers became particularly relevant when I returned home and flipped on my computer to discover two news items. First, NATO, with Washington’s blessing, has admitted Montenegro into the alliance. I must confess that I had not thought about Montenegro very much since reading how Jay Gatsby showed narrator Nick Carraway his World War I medal from that country in chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby. But perhaps in a “Lafayette We Are Here” moment to return the favor bestowed on Gatsby, the inclusion of Montenegro now means that under Article 5 of the NATO treaty the United States is obligated to go to war to defend Montenegran territorial integrity, something that few Americans would find comprehensible. Russia, which is directly threatened by the NATO alliance even though NATO claims that that is not the case, protested to no avail.

And the second article was far, far worse. It was in The New York Times, so it must be true: “The United States Justice Department has opened an investigation into state-sponsored doping by dozens of Russia’s top athletes…The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York is scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, antidoping authorities and anyone who might have benefited unfairly from a doping regimen…Prosecutors are believed to be pursuing conspiracy and fraud charges.”

Yes folks, the United States government, which has long claimed jurisdiction over any and all groups and individuals worldwide who might even implausibly be linked to terrorism is now extending its writ to athletes who take performance enhancing drugs anywhere in the world. Particularly if those athletes are Russians. Having read the article with disbelief I slapped myself in the face a couple of times just to make sure that I wasn’t imagining the whole thing but after the post-concussive vertigo abated there it was still sitting there looking back at me in black and white with a banner headline and a color photo, Justice Department Opens Investigation Into Russian Doping Scandal.

Being somewhat of a skeptic, I looked at the byline, expecting to see Judith Miller of weapons of mass destruction fame, but no it was Rebecca Ruiz. Could it be a nom de plume? I thought I might be on to something so I reread the piece more slowly second time around. How does Washington justify going after the Russkies? The article noted “In their inquiry, United States prosecutors are expected to scrutinize anyone who might have facilitated unclean competition in the United States or used the United States banking system to conduct a doping program.” The article added that some Russian athletes allegedly have run in the Boston Marathon, though they did not win, place or show. If they popped an amphetamine before using their Visa card to dine at Chuck e Cheese when sojourning in Bean Town they are toast, as the expression goes. Likewise for the handful of Russian athletes who have apparently participated in international bobsled and skeleton championships in Lake Placid, N.Y.

And of course there is a Vladimir Putin angle. The Russian sports minister, who has been implicated in the scandal, was appointed by Putin in 2008, so it’s all about Russia and Putin which makes it fair game. FBI investigators and U.S. courts are now prepared to go after Russians living in Russia for alleged crimes that may or may not have occurred in the United States based on the flimsiest of grounds to establish jurisdiction. Since much of the world’s financial dealings transit through American banks in some way or another the whole world becomes vulnerable to unpleasant encounters with the U.S. criminal justice system. If the accused choose to offer no defense to the frivolous prosecutions they will be found guilty in absentia and fined billions of dollars before having their assets seized, as happened recently to the Iranians, who had nothing to do with 9/11 but are nevertheless being hounded to prove themselves innocent.

My point is that the Russians are not exactly failing to notice what is going on. No one but Victoria Nuland and the Kagans actually want a war but Moscow is being backed into a corner with more and more influential Russian voices raised against détente with a Washington that seems to be intent on humiliating Russians at every turn as part of a new project for regime change. Many Russian military leaders have quite plausibly come to believe that the continuous NATO expansion and the stationing of more army units right along the border means that the United States wants war.

Russia’s generals base their perception on what they have very clearly and unambiguously observed. When Russia acts defensively, as it did in Georgia and Ukraine, it is accused of aggressive action, is sanctioned and punished. When the Western powers probe Russian borders with their warships and surveillance aircraft they claim that it is likewise aggression when Moscow scrambles a plane to monitor the activity. Washington in its own warped view is always behaving defensively from the purest of motives and Moscow is always in the wrong. But picture for a moment a reverse scenario to include a Russian missile cruiser lounging just outside the territorial limits off Boston or New York to imagine what the U.S. reaction might be.

Washington’s misguided policy towards Russia under both Republican and Democratic presidents indeed has the potential to become the greatest international catastrophe of all time, as Professor Mearsheimer observed. U.S. provocations and the regular promotion of a false narrative that Russia is both threatening and seeking to recreate the Soviet Union together suggest to that country’s leaders that Washington is an implacable foe. The bellicose posturing inadvertently strengthens the hands of hard line nationalists in Russia while weakening those who seek a formula for accommodation with the West. To be sure, Russia is no innocent in the international one upmanship game but it has been more sinned against than sinned. And the nearly constant animosity directed against Russia by the Obama Administration should be seen as madness as the stakes in the game, a possible nuclear war, are, or should be, unthinkable.

Captó el gobierno 112 mil mdp por la diferencia en precios de gasolinas

Pese a que los precios internacionales bajaban, aquí se pagaron 4.54 pesos más por litro

En 2015 la Magna costó en el país 50% más que su similar importada de Estados Unidos

Israel Rodríguez y Víctor Cardoso

Periódico La Jornada
Lunes 23 de mayo de 2016, p. 24

El gobierno federal obtuvo en 2015 ingresos por más de 112 mil millones de pesos solamente por el diferencial de 4.54 pesos en los precios a los que se vende la gasolina en México y el precio del combustible que se importa de Estados Unidos. Esta cifra fue mayor al recorte de 100 mil millones de pesos en Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) anunciado por la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP) en febrero pasado.

Durante el año pasado el precio de la gasolina Magna en el país fue 50 por ciento superior a su similar que se vende en Estados Unidos. Mientras, la gasolina de categoría regular se vendía en aquel país en un promedio equivalente de 9.03 pesos por litro y en México se vendió en 13.57 pesos.

Considerando que México importa 426 mil 600 barriles diarios, y cada barril tiene un contenido de 159 litros, se comercializan 69 millones 829 mil 400 litros por día, con lo que anualmente se venden en México 24 mil 757 millones 731 mil litros de gasolinas importadas, cuyo diferencial de precios fue de 4.54 pesos por litro.

La gasolina, como otros combustibles, es un mecanismo de recaudación en la que los elevados precios que hay en México están asociados a una amplia proporción de impuestos.

La gasolina Magna, que históricamente era más barata en el país que su similar en Estados Unidos, de donde proviene 90 por ciento de las importaciones de este combustible, tuvo un aumento a partir de 2013, revelan informes oficiales.

Lejos de una reducción en los precios de las gasolinas entre 2014 y 2015 se observó un diferencial creciente, que fue de entre 2.3 y 4.54 pesos por litro, respectivamente. Lo anterior, pese a que los precios de las gasolinas a nivel internacional llevan alrededor de 15 meses de disminuciones.

Entre 2010, 2011 y 2012 la gasolina Magna, la más utilizada por el parque vehicular de México, fue más barata que la que se comercializaba en Estados Unidos, revela el Diagnóstico de la industria de petrolíferos en México, elaborado por la Secretaría de Energía (Sener).

De acuerdo con el análisis difundido por la Sener con base a datos de Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) y la Energy Information Administration, en 2010 la gasolina Magna tenía un precio de 8.76 pesos por litro, es decir, 25 centavos menos que la gasolina regular de similar calidad que se vendía en Estados Unidos a 9.01 pesos por litro.

En 2011 la gasolina Magna se vendía a 9.73 pesos por litro contra la regular, con un precio de 10.88 pesos, lo que significaba que la gasolina que se comercializaba en territorio nacional tenía un costo 1.15 pesos menor.

Para 2012 la Magna llegó a un promedio de 10.81 pesos por litro, mientras la regular costaba 11.81, un peso más por litro.

Sin embargo, cuando se discutía la reforma energética y luego se aprobó el 20 de diciembre de 2013, la tendencia cambió y la Magna aumentó a 12.25 pesos por litro, mientras la regular se cotizó en 12.25, es decir, un diferencial 1.15 pesos en contra del precio de la gasolina estadunidense.

Para 2015 la banda de diferencial de precios se amplió, pues mientras en Estados Unidos la gasolina regular costaba un equivalente a 9.03 pesos por litro en México la Magna se comercializó en 13.57 por litro, un sobreprecio de 4.54 pesos.

La miscelánea fiscal y la Ley de Ingresos de la Federación 2016 define que entre este año y 2017 la política de precios máximos y mínimos se regirá bajo una banda de más/menos 3 por ciento, considerando la evolución de la inflación y los precios internacionales.

A partir del primero de enero de 2016 se permite la venta al público de combustibles de Pemex y de otras marcas, y a partir del primero de abril se permite la libre importación de combustibles.

En 2018 los precios del mercado de gasolinas se liberalizarán con base en las condiciones del mercado internacional.

Parallels Between Israel and 1930s Germany

by Uri Avnery, May 21, 2016

Antiwar.com

"Please don’t write about Ya’ir Golan!" a friend begged me, “Anything a leftist like you writes will only harm him!"

So I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep quiet any longer.

General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Wearing his uniform, he read a prepared, well-considered text that triggered an uproar which has not yet died down.

Dozens of articles have been published in its wake, some condemning him, some lauding him. Seems that nobody could stay indifferent.

The main sentence was: "If there is something that frightens me about the memories of the Holocaust, it is the knowledge of the awful processes which happened in Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90 years ago, and finding traces of them here in our midst, today, in 2016."

All hell broke loose. What!!! Traces of Nazism in Israel? A resemblance between what the Nazis did to us with what we are doing to the Palestinians?

90 years ago was 1926, one of the last years of the German republic. 80 years ago was 1936, three years after the Nazis came to power. 70 years ago was 1946, on the morrow of Hitler’s suicide and the end of the Nazi Reich.

I feel compelled to write about the general’s speech after all, because I was there.

As a child I was an eyewitness to the last years of the Weimar Republic (so called because its constitution was shaped in Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller). As a politically alert boy I witnessed the Nazi Machtergreifung ("taking power") and the first half a year of Nazi rule.

I know what Golan was speaking about. Though we belong to two different generations, we share the same background. Both our families come from small towns in Western Germany. His father and I must have had a lot in common.

There is a strict moral commandment in Israel: nothing can be compared to the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique. It happened to us, the Jews, because we are unique. (Religious Jews would add: "Because God has chosen us".)

I have broken this commandment. Just before Golan was born, I published (in Hebrew) a book called "The Swastika", in which I recounted my childhood memories and tried to draw conclusions from them. It was on the eve of the Eichmann trial, and I was shocked by the lack of knowledge about the Nazi era among young Israelis then.

My book did not deal with the Holocaust, which took place when I was already living in Palestine, but with a question which troubled me throughout the years, and even today: how could it happen that Germany, perhaps the most cultured nation on earth at the time, the homeland of Goethe, Beethoven and Kant, could democratically elect a raving psychopath like Adolf Hitler as its leader?

The last chapter of the book was entitled "It Can Happen Here!" The title was drawn from a book by the American novelist Sinclair Lewis, called ironically "It Can’t Happen Here", in which he described a Nazi takeover of the United States.

In this chapter I discussed the possibility of a Jewish Nazi-like party coming to power in Israel. My conclusion was that a Nazi party can come to power in any country on earth, if the conditions are right. Yes, in Israel, too.

The book was largely ignored by the Israeli public, which at the time was overwhelmed by the storm of emotions evoked by the terrible disclosures of the Eichmann trial.

Now comes General Golan, an esteemed professional soldier, and says the same thing.

And not as an improvised remark, but on an official occasion, wearing his general’s uniform, reading from a prepared, well thought-out text.

The storm broke out, and has not passed yet.

Israelis have a self-protective habit: when confronted with inconvenient truths, they evade its essence and deal with a secondary, unimportant aspect. Of all the dozens and dozens of reactions in the written press, on TV and on political platforms, almost none confronted the general’s painful contention.

No, the furious debate that broke out concerns the questions: Is a high-ranking army officer allowed to voice an opinion about matters that concern the civilian establishment? And do so in army uniform? On an official occasion?

Should an army officer keep quiet about his political convictions? Or voice them only in closed sessions – "in relevant forums", as a furious Binyamin Netanyahu phrased it?

General Golan enjoys a very high degree of respect in the army. As Deputy Chief of Staff he was until now almost certainly a candidate for Chief of Staff, when the incumbent leaves the office after the customary four years.

The fulfillment of this dream shared by every General Staff officer is now very remote. In practice, Golan has sacrificed his further advancement in order to utter his warning and giving it the widest possible resonance.

One can only respect such courage. I have never met General Golan, I believe, and I don’t know his political views. But I admire his act.

(Somehow I recall an article published by the British magazine Punch before World War I, when a group of junior army officers issued a statement opposing the government’s policy in Ireland. The magazine said that while disapproving the opinion expressed by the mutinous officers, it took pride in the fact that such youthful officers were ready to sacrifice their careers for their convictions.)

The Nazi march to power started in 1929, when a terrible worldwide economic crisis hit Germany. A tiny, ridiculous far-right party suddenly became a political force to be reckoned with. From there it took them four years to become the largest party in the country and to take over power (though it still needed a coalition).

I was there when it happened, a boy in a family in which politics became the main topic at the dinner table. I saw how the republic broke down, gradually, slowly, step by step. I saw our family friends hoisting the swastika flag. I saw my high-school teacher raising his arm when entering the class and saying "Heil Hitler" for the first time (and then reassuring me in private that nothing had changed.)

I was the only Jew in the entire gymnasium (high school.) When the hundreds of boys – all taller than I – raised their arms to sing the Nazi anthem, and I did not, they threatened to break my bones if it happened again. A few days later we left Germany for good.

General Golan was accused of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Nothing of the sort. A careful reading of his text shows that he compared developments in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison.

Things happening in Israel, especially since the last election, bear a frightening similarity to those events. True, the process is quite different. German fascism arose from the humiliation of surrender in World War I, the occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium from 1923-25, the terrible economic crisis of 1929, the misery of millions of unemployed. Israel is victorious in its frequent military actions, we live comfortable lives. The dangers threatening us are of a quite different nature. They stem from our victories, not from our defeats.

Indeed, the differences between Israel today and Germany then are far greater than the similarities. But those similarities do exist, and the general was right to point them out.

The discrimination against the Palestinians in practically all spheres of life can be compared to the treatment of the Jews in the first phase of Nazi Germany. (The oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories resembles more the treatment of the Czechs in the "protectorate" after the Munich betrayal.)

The rain of racist bills in the Knesset, those already adopted and those in the works, strongly resembles the laws adopted by the Reichstag in the early days of the Nazi regime. Some rabbis call for a boycott of Arab shops. Like then. The call "Death to the Arabs" ("Judah verrecke"?) is regularly heard at soccer matches. A member of parliament has called for the separation between Jewish and Arab newborns in hospital. A Chief Rabbi has declared that Goyim (non-Jews) were created by God to serve the Jews. Our Ministers of Education and Culture are busy subduing the schools, theater and arts to the extreme rightist line, something known in German as Gleichschaltung. The Supreme Court, the pride of Israel, is being relentlessly attacked by the Minister of Justice. The Gaza Strip is a huge ghetto.

Of course, no one in their right mind would even remotely compare Netanyahu to the Fuehrer, but there are political parties here which do emit a strong fascist smell. The political riffraff peopling the present Netanyahu government could easily have found their place in the first Nazi government.

One of the main slogans of our present government is to replace the "old elite", considered too liberal, with a new one. One of the main Nazi slogans was to replace "das System".

By the way, when the Nazis came to power, almost all high-ranking officers of the German army were staunch anti-Nazis. They were even considering a putsch against Hitler . Their political leader was summarily executed a year later, when Hitler liquidated his opponents in his own party. We are told that General Golan is now protected by a personal bodyguard, something that has never happened to a general in the annals of Israel.

The general did not mention the occupation and the settlements, which are under army rule. But he did mention the episode which occurred shortly before he gave this speech, and which is still shaking Israel now: in occupied Hebron, under army rule, a soldier saw a seriously wounded Palestinian lying helplessly on the ground, approached him and killed him with a shot to the head. The victim had tried to attack some soldiers with a knife, but did not constitute a threat to anyone any more. This was a clear contravention of army standing orders, and the soldier has been hauled before a court martial.

A cry went up around the country: the soldier is a hero! He should be decorated! Netanyahu called his father to assure him of his support. Avigdor Lieberman entered the crowded courtroom in order to express his solidarity with the soldier. A few days later Netanyahu appointed Lieberman as Minister of Defense, the second most important office in Israel.

Before that, General Golan received robust support both from the Minister of Defense, Moshe Ya’alon, and the Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot. Probably this was the immediate reason for the kicking out of Ya’alon and the appointment of Lieberman in his place. It resembled a putsch.

It seems that Golan is not only a courageous officer, but a prophet, too. The inclusion of Lieberman’s party in the government coalition confirms Golan’s blackest fears. This is another fatal blow to the Israeli democracy.

Am I condemned to witness the same process for the second time in my life?

Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, writer, and former member of the Israeli Knesset. Read other articles by Uri, or visit Uri’s website.

Think Tanks and the US Power Elite

by MANUEL E. YEPE

MAY 20, 2016

Counterpunch.org

The US power elite is involved in many ways in the dispute over global domination, its exercise and defense.

The precarious balance of forces in the bipolar world in which we lived after World War II prevented US imperialism from imposing its absolute hegemony world-wide. That was based on the nuclear blackmail it threatened after its genocidal bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Later, a tense arms race would arrive, promoted by the so-called “balance of terror”. According to this notion, which the forerunner power in the production of weapons would cause an imbalance in the international arena. The one with the most and deadliest weapons would be able to destroy the other.

Losing all hope that the end of the Cold War would open the way to a world without wars, an unstoppable arms race along the roads of neoliberal globalization has arrived. It has shaped imperialism into the dark reality it is today: the most powerful, brutal and ruthless hegemonic superpower in the history of humanity, bearing the greatest dangers to the survival of our species.

Today, we live in a uni-polar world, with one single superpower imposing its selfish interests on the rest of the world. This shows that it is the predatory nature of the prevailing capitalist order that causes most evils. There is a vital need to replace it with a new, just, and humane order.

In the struggle for global domination, the US government, far from taking the limited opportunities open through disarmament and peaceful coexistence, has based the pillars of its economy on a growing dependence on war situations.

It is in this context that Think Tanks (TTs) become important in the United States. These are public or private academic and study institutions staffed by personalities  fully identified with the US capitalist system. They produce political and ideological documents intended to provide US governments with weapons for their confrontation with the world they seek to dominate.

They are part of a system that produces ideological content for the defense of imperialist interests. Their mission includes propagating ideas useful to the US capitalist system by spreading its doctrines in books, magazines, and other media. To do this they have billion-dollar budgets.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) founded in 1921 by the Rockefeller economic group, is considered to be the first existing think tank. It had the task of providing the governing authorities (of either of the two parties in the US political scheme) with new ideas in foreign policy and the training of specialists and leaders.

Nearly 4,000 citizens work at the CFR, some with much more objective perspectives than the usual extreme right. Among them there are names as notorious as George Soros, the billionaire magnate of global financial speculation.

Its main publication is the journal Foreign Affairs which publishes academic papers containing their views on foreign policy.

According to surveys of academics and experts carried out annually for the Think Tanks Index in 2015, the Brookings Institution ranked as the most important TT in the world for eight consecutive years. The list also included the CFR, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the RAND Corporation, the Heritage Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the United States of America there are 11 think tanks specialized in political and economic matters; forty-nine in foreign affairs and international security; sixteen on the environment, science and technology; and twelve on the arts and humanities.

Most of them are registered as “non-profit” entities, but some are funded by the government or by legal or business organizations; others obtain funds from their research work on specific projects. In countries other than the United States, the TT Index registers Chatham House and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the United Kingdom, and the Bruegel in Belgium.

Like their namesakes in war, think tanks are intended to demolish their opponents through a display of apparent superiority of resources that does not always correspond to reality.

This article was translated from the Spanish by Walter Lippmann for the invaluable CubaNews.

Manuel E. Yepe is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He is a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana.

WORLD BEYOND WAR

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States of America has systematically violated the prohibition against the threat or use of force contained in the UN Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact. It has carved out a regime of impunity for its crimes based on its UN Security Council veto, non-recognition of international courts and sophisticated "information warfare" that undermines the rule of law with political justifications for otherwise illegal threats and uses of force.

Former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz has compared current U.S. policy to the illegal German "preemptive first strike" policy for which senior German officials were convicted of aggression at Nuremberg and sentenced to death by hanging.

In 2002, the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy described post-September 11th U.S. doctrine as "a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept." And yet the U.S. government has succeeded in assembling alliances and ad hoc "coalitions" to support threats and attacks on a series of targeted countries, while other countries have stood by silently or vacillated in their efforts to uphold international law. In effect, the U.S. has pursued a successful diplomatic policy of "divide and conquer" to neutralize global opposition to wars that have killed about 2 million people and plunged country after country into intractable chaos.

As representatives of civil society in the United States, the undersigned U.S. citizens and advocacy groups are sending this emergency appeal to our neighbors in our increasingly interconnected but threatened world. We ask you to stop providing military, diplomatic or political support for U.S. threats or uses of force; and to support new initiatives for multilateral cooperation and leadership, not dominated by the United States, to respond to aggression and settle international disputes peacefully as required by the UN Charter.

We pledge to support and cooperate with international efforts to stand up to and stop our country's systematic aggression and other war crimes. We believe that a world united to uphold the UN Charter, the rule of international law and our common humanity can and must enforce U.S. compliance with the rule of law to bring lasting peace to the world we all share.

This petition will be sent to all the world's national governments.