Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 583

Rebranding of the Austrian Right

The European immigration crisis is beginning to reshape the political landscape, as across the continent nationalist parties propagating anti-immigrant beliefs are gaining support. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party is capitalizing on growing concerns over immigration by warning about “an Islamization of Europe.” From the NYT:

The Freedom Party’s strident anti-Islam message seems to have struck a chord in a city whose palaces speak of the bygone glory of a multiethnic European empire, and whose public spaces now attest to increasing diversity and a Muslim population of some 12 percent.

“We don’t want an Islamization of Europe,” the party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, told Austria’s public broadcaster as he began his campaign to be Vienna’s mayor. “We don’t want our Christian-Western culture to perish.”

In Germany, such sentiments exist on the fringe of politics. In Austria, which never underwent denazification programs after 1945, the Freedom Party has morphed from its roots in groups of former Nazis to a xenophobic message that it blends with concern for the little guy.

As Charles Hawley wrote in these pages earlier this month, the Freedom Party, which has roots in anti-Semitism, has   been rebranding itself over the last decade, jettisoning hostility to Israel in favor of this rhetoric on Islam. In order to make itself more electable and on improving its “anti-anti-Semitism” bona-fides, the Freedom Party has even gone so far as to add outspokenly pro-Israel rhetoric to its platform. Hawley puts Freedom Party’s shift away from anti-Semitism in the context of other European parties, like France’s National Front, angling to do the same. But anti-Semitism is still present in Europe, in part because of the anti-Israel sentiment that some immigrants bring with them. Read the whole piece

US Airstrikes Having Little Effect in Kunduz

Afghan forces struggled to retake Kunduz on Wednesday despite U.S. military assistance, according the The Wall Street Journal:

The Taliban tightened its grip on the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Wednesday, leaving only the local airport firmly in government hands, even as the U.S. military dispatched ground troops and carried out airstrikes in support of its allies.

Most Afghan forces and some 100 U.S. special-operations personnel remained in the heavily fortified airport late on Wednesday, and government troops battled militants in surrounding villages, Afghan officials said.

Last December, President Obama officially announced the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan and promised the U.S. would be out of the country by the end of his presidency in 2016. Yet after a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani earlier this year, Obama said the American drawdown would be slowed and that nearly 10,000 troops would remain in the country until this December. Kunduz is just the latest in a series of territorial gains for the Taliban (helpfully mapped by The New York Times). Now, the U.S. has to decide whether to provide even more backup in Kunduz and may ultimately have to reconsider the 2015 and 2016 deadlines.

Ukraine Rebels Talking About “End of War”

Russian-backed separatists are indicating that they might be willing to make the current ceasefire permanent, to Reuters:

A separatist representative to east Ukraine peace talks said on Wednesday an agreement signed with Kiev this week to withdraw more weapons could mean an end to the war with the Ukrainian government, separatist website DAN reported.

It said rebel leaders had signed the agreement to extend a pull-back of weapons to include tanks and smaller weapons systems, as part of a 12-point peace plan designed to end a conflict that has killed over 8,000 people since April 2014.“This could mean the end of the war,” rebel representative Denis Pushilin was quoted as saying.

Pushilin’s remarks come a few days before Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande.

From where we stand, this looks like Putin and his allies trying to persuade the Europeans and Americans to back off. Pushilin’s message: the situation is deescalating, and giving more support to Kiev will only undo the progress that has been made.As WRM wrote here recently, Putin’s “goal isn’t to conquer all of Ukraine or even part of it; his goal is to spoil Ukraine—to prevent it from taking the Westward road with success.” To keep Ukraine unstable, Putin doesn’t have to do a whole lot except keep the Europeans out and support rebels in eastern Ukraine so that he can create a crisis at any moment. “End of the war” thus could be a win for Russia.

H-1B Visas Pave Way for Outsourcing

From Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration advocacy group FWD.us to the Marco Rubio-backed “I-Squared” bill, increasing H-1B visas is a popular goal among immigration reformers. The temporary visa category is supposed to bring tech or other high-skilled workers to the U.S., and so do an end-run around a broken system waiting on comprehensive reform. But the evidence increasingly shows that H-1Bs offer the worst of both worlds: They undercut American jobs, but don’t bring contributing new citizens or legal residents, with new ideas, energy, and potential, into the national community.

We’ve pointed out before how companies including Disney have used H-1B visas to replace American jobs with the 21st century equivalent of indentured workers, who are not allowed to quit or change jobs without going home. (This results in lower wages for employees and better employee control for employers, which is one reason employers love the program.) But as a New York Times story illustrates today, the H-1B is also used as a tool to pave the way for outsourcing abroad:

For four weeks this spring, a young woman from India on a temporary visa sat elbow to elbow with an American accountant in a snug cubicle at the headquarters of Toys “R” Us here. The woman, an employee of a giant outsourcing company in India hired by Toys “R” Us, studied and recorded the accountant’s every keystroke, taking screen shots of her computer and detailed notes on how she issued payments for toys sold in the company’s megastores.

“She just pulled up a chair in front of my computer,” said the accountant, 49, who had worked for the company for than 15 years. “She shadowed me everywhere, even to the ladies’ room.”

By late June, eight workers from the outsourcing company, Tata Consultancy Services, or TCS, had produced intricate manuals for the jobs of 67 people, mainly in accounting. They then returned to India to train TCS workers to take over and perform those jobs there. The Toys “R” Us employees in New Jersey, many of whom had been at the company more than a decade, were laid off.

The contrast between traditional legal immigration and the H-1B was illustrated starkly by the situation at another company, New York Life, that is facing hundreds of H-1B related layoffs at the moment:

[A] hard irony for many of the New York Life employees losing jobs to immigrants is that they are immigrants themselves. They came to the United States a generation ago from the Philippines, Eastern European countries, and even India and raised families in this country. They followed the immigration rules — some coming as refugees, others with work visas and computer degrees from their home countries. Most became American citizens.

One technology manager, an immigrant from Europe, recalled that when he was hired at the insurer. “There was an open position that had to be filled,” he said. “Nobody lost their job because I got my job.”

Groups like Fwd.us are right: Our immigration system does need work. But when “reform” activists push for programs like this, they increase the—already well-grounded—perception that they are dealing in bad faith. Ultimately, that makes real reform—movement toward a system that would work properly and with wide public acceptance—that much harder to attain.

China Takes Baby Steps Towards Tapping Shale

When last we checked, China wasn’t making much headway in developing its shale. Though it sits on the world’s largest shale gas reserves, it has so far struggled to replicate America’s extraordinary success in the nascent industry. But as the EIA reports, there are now some encouraging signs for Beijing:

As Chinese companies gain experience producing from shale, the cost of shale gas drilling has declined. By mid-2015, the cost of drilling a horizontal well in shale formations in the Sichuan Basin was between $11.3 million and $12.9 million per well, according to China National Petroleum Corporation’s Economics and Technology Research Institute. This range was a 23% reduction in the cost of a shale gas well compared with the level in 2013 reports from Sinopec, one of China’s national oil companies. […]

Decreasing well costs and increasing experience in developing shale gas have been supplemented with continued government investment in the development of shale gas. In 2012, to encourage the exploration of shale gas, the Chinese government established a four-year, $1.80 per million British thermal units subsidies program for any Chinese company reaching commercial production of shale gas. In mid-2015, these subsidies were extended to 2020, but at a lower rate.

The EIA also points to Chinese investments in American shale plays as a valuable way for Beijing to develop its own industry. But while these are steps that will help China catch up to the shale bandwagon, it still has a long way to go. Water scarcity, the remote location of plays (and the lack of necessary infrastructure that goes along with that), and a still relatively inexperienced group of companies all stand in the way of an Asian shale boom.

Capital for the remote, intensive projects is drying up, too, as companies around the world revaluate their operations in the wake of low global oil and natural gas prices. In China, those investments may be especially hard to come by as the country’s economy sputters. In fact, earlier this year China’s state-owned oil firm CNOOC called it quits on a high-profile shale project, saying it wasn’t “suitable for development on a large scale.”And finally, China’s geology is less cooperative than America’s, the former being more “crunched” by tectonic forces while the latter is more evenly latticed, making it easier to drill horizontally into shale formations. China may be making headway in its attempt to tap its more than 1,100 trillion cubic feet of shale gas—and it has every energy security and air quality reason to do so—but it has a long road ahead before it enjoys any kind of success on the scale we’ve seen here in the U.S. these past few years.

Chinese Hackers Force CIA to Recall Spies

The Central Intelligence Agency was forced to recall its spies from Beijing after Chinese hackers stole information about 21.5 million government employees from the Office of Personnel Management, the Washington Post reports:

Because the OPM records contained the background checks of State Department employees, officials privately said the Chinese could have compared those records with the list of embassy personnel. Anybody not on that list could be a CIA officer.

The CIA’s move was meant to safeguard officers whose agency affiliation might be discovered as a result of the hack, said officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

This is a big setback for U.S. intelligence, and it is likely to be just one of many consequences of the OPM hack. It is the latest development in a new era of cyber warfare that shows few signs of cooling off. China and the U.S. did agree to some initial rules intended to limit cyber attacks last week, but President Obama sounded cautious when he announced the deal, according to Reuters:

“It has to stop,” Obama told reporters at a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden, with Xi standing beside him. Obama said he and Xi made “significant progress” on cyber security.

But he added warily: “The question now is, are words followed by actions?” and made clear he is prepared to levy sanctions against cyber criminals.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper expressed even clearer skepticism, Reuters reports:

Asked if he was optimistic the agreement would eliminate Chinese cyber attacks, Clapper said simply: “No.”

Clapper said he was skeptical because Chinese cyber espionage aimed at extracting U.S. intellectual property was so pervasive, and there were questions about the extent to which it was orchestrated by the Chinese government.He said the United States should “trust but verify,” a reference to former President Ronald Reagan’s approach to nuclear disarmament with the former Soviet Union.

In light of the CIA news, it’s no wonder that Clapper sounded so frustrated.

President Obama and Obama administration officials continue to say the right things about Chinese cyber warfare. Officials testifying at the hearing promised a “vigorous” response if another hack like the one on the OPM were to occur. But any response would face obstacles. In the first place, verification is much more difficult with cyber attacks than it is with conventional ones, and it’s not actually clear that the United States could reliably determine whom to sanction even if it wanted to respond. And then there is the question of political will: Even if verification became possible for an attack, will officials actually do anything to punish the Chinese companies and government agencies responsible?

Is a Palace Coup Brewing in Saudi Arabia?

Deep discontent within the Saudi monarchy has burst to the surface for the second time this year. The Times of London has obtained three letters circulating among the royal family that call for the removal of King Salman and his two anointed successors, his son Prince Mohammad bin Salman and his nephew Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef. The letters suggest that King Salman is suffering from dementia and is under the sway of the two princes:

“It is no secret that the most serious problem in his health is the mental side, which has made the king fully subject to the control of his son Mohammad [bin Salman],” said the second of two letters, written by a grandson of the state’s founder, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud.[..]

It calls on the 13 surviving sons of Ibn Saud — naming three princes, Talal bin Abdulaziz, Turki bin Abdulaziz and Ahmed bin Abdulaziz — to instigate a coup. “They have to isolate the powerless King Salman, the excessively arrogant, reckless Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef [and] the one who devastates the homeland, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,” it states.A third letter, obtained by The Times, was written by another prince and grandson of Ibn Saud. It says that most of the sons and grandsons of the state’s founder were in favour of the letters and were glad that “someone took the initiative”. It was released after the haj stampede in Mecca last Thursday, in which at least 769 pilgrims died. Two weeks before that a crane crashed through the Grand Mosque, killing more than 100.

Vague rumors had emerged from the normally secretive Kingdom earlier this year that family members were unhappy with how Mohammad bin Salman, the 30-year-old defense minister, had been prosecuting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The letters flesh out these feelings: “How have we accepted to enter into uncalculated military risks…” one of the letters asks. “And how did we accept that our fate depends on the whims of adolescents and the visions of the reckless? And how have we accepted the massive bleeding of state funds, including more than doubling spending in the past years?”

But the war in Yemen is not the only problem Saudi Arabia faces. The letters surfaced in the wake of a stampede in Mecca that killed more than a thousand people, and Crown Prince bin Nayef is currently serving as interior minister and is head of the hajj committee. Oil prices are well below the break-even price, and while some of that is due to market realities outside Saudi Arabia’s control, Riyadh has make things worse for itself, choosing to fight U.S. shale producers for market share rather than reduce production to set a price floor. Expenditures, conversely, are high, due to the ongoing efforts against ISIS, the war in Yemen, and attempts to limit Iranian influence across the region.If the letters are genuine, they are a real surprise. But there are also very clear reasons why this would be happening right now, and the conditions that led to the coup talk are unlikely to abate of their own accord soon. Iran continues to press its advantages regionally, the world is awash with cheap oil, and so on. One thing to watch for: If the Kingdom’s Yemeni proxies mess up the upcoming attack on Sana’a and Yemen is reduced to a quagmire, then Saudi Arabia is in real trouble.

The Popemobile Comes to America

A tacit assumption of my writing this blog is that I will try to say at least something about important developments in the field of religion. The visit to America of Pope Francis I can certainly be deemed to be important—his first ever visit to this country, the first pope to address a joint session of Congress, the first Jesuit pope and the first from Latin America (the “ends of the world”, as he himself put it half-jokingly). As I’m writing this post, the Washington and New York stops are over. Unless some highly unexpected event occurs before he leaves again for Rome, this is not a bad point to ask what we now know about Francis and whether the events of the last few days have added much to this knowledge: We now know a good deal. And we don’t know much more from what happened in Washington and New York. I have been watching Francis on television much of the time and have read all sorts of comments.

Paying close attention to what even for a younger man would have been a demanding program has reinforced my previous view—that the public persona does indeed correspond to the real character of the man. Of course one can never be sure—the public image of an individual can be reconstructed and manipulated, often irrespective of what is hidden from view. (The Latin word persona—Greek prosopon—refers to the mask worn by actors in classical drama.) But as I watch this elderly man precariously walking from place to place—stairs and all—I get the impression of someone genuinely believing what is his duty to do and overcoming his frailty for this purpose. The warmth toward the individuals in his path seems genuine too. Unlike so many politicians Francis seems to enjoy kissing babies! If my impression is correct, this explains why Francis is so popular (and not only among Catholics). Then of course there is all that ostentatious humility. It can be a bit irritating – that eagerness to wash feet at the drop of a pair of shoes (how many times have these feet been pre-washed before they get pontifically serviced?). Already when he was only bishop of Buenos Aires he regularly travelled by public transportation; now as pope he prefers to live in a relatively frugal guest house rather than in the luxurious papal apartments in the Vatican Palace, and when he is not using the ceremonial “popemobile”, he gets around in a simple Fiat. Golda Meir, when she was prime minister of Israel, used to say to some of her ministers—“don’t be so humble, you’re not that important.” She would have had enough chutzpah to even say this to a pope. Francis might have replied—“I am that important; I am the pope!” In other words, I would think that this humility is a genuine expression of the piety of St. Francis of Asissi whose name he chose for his papal title.Enough time has also passed since Francis’ elevation to get a sense of where he wants to go with the Roman Catholic Church. A more revolutionary figure may yet become visible, but as of now it seems that the hopes of progressives will be disappointed, as will the fears of conservatives. No dramatic changes are to be expected, nor could he bring them about even if he wanted to (the pope has great authority but he is not a dictator). What he clearly wants to achieve (particularly in the ongoing synod on the family) is to soften dogma with an overriding pastoral concern for individuals (be they homosexuals, divorced or cohabiting, or otherwise not living by the rules of canon law). He is not aiming to change basic Catholic teachings; he is changing the tone. That is no small thing—c’est le ton qui fait la musique. The new Franciscan music will help the position of the Church both among Catholics and in the wider world. In the meantime Francis is cleaning out the more smelly Augean stables both in the apparatus of the Curia and among bishops who covered up the pedophile scandals. Who would object to these moves? Certainly not I (incurable Lutheran though I am, not at all tempted to “swim in the Tiber”, as is said to describe the long line of converts who fell for the charms of Rome). It is when it comes to Francis’ more directly political initiatives that I, along with some Catholic commentators, continue to worry.Just before Francis’ arrival in the U.S. an article in The New York Times, listing the overlap between the policy agendas of the Pope and President Obama, observed that one gets “the impression of a secular-theological alliance.” No wonder that Obama personally went to the airport to welcome Francis as soon as he steps on American soil; Obama oozed with pleasure, like a little boy having just received the present of a really large teddy bear (it is not often that the President makes one think of a happy little boy). Appearing equally joyful were two other Democratic leaders—Nancy Pelosi, the ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, and Elizabeth Warren (known to her fans in Massachusetts as “our beloved Cherokee senator”). The overlap between Francis’ views and those of the American Left are of course not overt: The Pope does not want to be seen as openly partisan in U.S. politics, and American politicians cannot afford to be seen as agents of Rome. But, though statements coming out of the mouths of popes are typically broad enough to allow wiggle room for those who don’t quite agree, one just has to look at Francis’ main policy positions to see which U.S. party could plausibly consider them congenial with its own—global poverty and environmental degradation being caused by an unjust economic system (read “capitalism”), opposing “climate change” (also caused by capitalist “greed”), inequality within and between nations, and openness to the concerns of women (excluding those not yet born). Against all this massive benevolence are arrayed the allegedly selfish and uncaring Republicans, at least for now led by the unspeakable Donald Trump. As if to ratify this perception of the GOP, while Francis was still in New York John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, resigned under pressure from the Tea Party caucus gearing up again for yet another crazy campaign to stop funding the government and thereby risking economic disaster (this time, for a change, not in order to blackmail Congress to repeal Obamacare but to defund Planned Parenthood). Boehner, who is a practicing Catholic and had been the one who invited Francis to address Congress, cried copiously as is his habit, whether because he was moved by the Pope’s eloquence or because he knew that he was about to quit the speaker’s chair for good.Over and beyond whatever his intentions may be for the Catholic Church, Francis has launched two broad campaigns in the secular world—saving the environment against the threat of global warming, and fundamentally changing the world economic system to become more just and inclusive of the poor. The two agendas are linked: It is capitalist “greed” which is degrading the environment and which is the principal cause of global inequality and poverty. The first campaign is at best somewhat premature, based on the questionable assumption that all the scientific evidence is in, so as to justify unambiguous action. The second campaign is empirically untenable, since the great decline in world poverty has been precisely caused by robust capitalism (not least, paradoxically, in China, still ruled by a party that calls itself Communist). These are serious errors of judgment; to say this is not to deny the eloquent (and very Franciscan) celebration of the wonders of creation, or to be unmoved by the urgent call to identify with the most vulnerable members of society (as Jesus did). Much can be explained by Francis’ Argentinian background—all he knew from his own experience was old-style crony capitalism, Peronist populism, and military dictatorship—none of them morally appealing. While he was in Argentina, he did not sympathize with Liberation Theology; he did not like its dogmatic Marxist ideology, its concept of class struggle, and its sympathy for violent revolution. Now, however, as he needs a broad intellectual framework for desired social change, he gravitates toward a less dogmatic but still neo-Marxist version of Liberation Theology. I have for a while been concerned about the people who are now influencing his thinking about the contemporary world. There is the Catholic movement of Iustitia et Pax (which has a sort of Leftist niche within the Vatican). There is his friendship with Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian Dominican, who was one of the founders of Liberation Theology (he may have mellowed some in old age). Gutierrez, paradoxically, is also close to Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the theologically very conservative head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (previously known as the Holy Office and the Inquisition). Earlier this year Gutierrez and Mueller have published a co-authored book, On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation. I was surprised to read the other day that Francis has also been consulting with Naomi Klein, the Canadian neo-Marxist author who has written fierce attacks on global capitalism. I don’t know to what extent Francis has embraced these very unhelpful ideas, but one can certainly see their influence.Francis’ historic address to a joint session of Congress was well-crafted, but I don’t think it added anything very new to what had been his messages for a while. He paid tribute to America’s spirit of freedom, beginning by saying how glad he was to be in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. He spoke in English, slowly and laboriously (he had practiced a lot for this occasion before he set out on his journey). He paid tribute to four great Americans who had contributed to making the country what it had become. The first two were not surprising—Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. The other two were surprising, hardly known to anyone outside Catholic circles—Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a convert to Catholicism after a wild bohemian youth, self-defined as a “Christian socialist”, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement (which ran a network of homes for marginal people and also engaged in activism for various pacifist and progressive causes). And Thomas Merton (1915-1968), also a convert, who became a Trappist monk, spending most of his life at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. He became famous for his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), which explained his conversion. He became very interested in Asian spirituality, engaged in dialogue with Buddhist teachers (including the Dalai Lama), and died in Thailand on such an occasion. Francis did not explain in detail why he chose Day and Merton in addition to the more obvious first two. Francis advocated a spirit of openness and solidarity, condemned all forms of fundamentalism. Speaking in that polarized place, he implicitly urged Congress to overcome ideological rigidity; of course there was general applause, which doesn’t mean that all will mend their ways. (Did Francis’ words have anything to do, either way, with Boehner’s decision to step down from the speakership and to give up his efforts to bring to a measure of rationality the crazies in the Republican Party?) He strongly spoke for a generous policy to deal with the unprecedented refugee crisis (something for the Left), but also for the defense of human life at every stage of its development (something for the Right). He strongly endorsed a position more congenial to the Left—the global abolition of the death penalty, also reiterated his call to raise people out of extreme poverty and to understand the causes of the latter (gesture to the Left again—guess what he thinks the “causes” are!). He does concede that “business is a noble vocation”, at least if it is conscious of its social responsibilities. Francis paid tribute to the recent “efforts to overcome historic differences” (read Cuba, where he played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing the deal with the U.S. to fruition—and perhaps also the nuclear deal with Iran, with which, as far as we know, he had nothing to do). His last specific reference was to the role of the family in building America (“family”, not “families”—we know which kind of family he meant and which not—another grievance for the “LGBT community”!). He ended his speech with the benediction “God bless America!” (I wonder whether Obama remembered the malediction with which the Reverend Jeremiah Wright—whose church Obama belonged to in Chicago for some twenty years—concluded the sermon which was videotaped and induced Obama to sever his ties with his old mentor—“God damn America!”.)The other big speech, on the next day, was when Francis addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. For the first time ever, the Vatican flag was raised along with all the nations’ flags in front of the UN buildings (coincidentally that day the Palestinian flag was also raised for the first time—I doubt whether the Vatican was consulted, but of course the Israelis were furious). This time Francis spoke in his native Spanish. His topics ranged across the globe. He explicitly endorsed the nuclear deal with Iran. He referred to the “painful” situation in the Middle East, mentioning particularly the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities. He stressed the importance of educating girls. Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot by Islamists for the crime of going to school and who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, was in the audience; she applauded vigorously. But then of course Francis came back to his signature themes. He called for “environmental justice”, denounced the pursuit of “materialistic prosperity” (read capitalist greed) and the “inequitable distribution of resources” (wild applause from the Third World caucus dominating the General Assembly). He strongly endorsed the Paris conference on climate change that is to meet in December. He did have to give something to the cultural conservatives presumably represented very strongly in the Assembly (not just conservative Catholics, but Muslims, Hindus, Eastern Orthodox Christians put off by the sexual revolution in Western countries. He mentioned the “moral law” which affirmed “the natural difference between man and woman”, and he demanded “the absolute respect for life in all its stages.”How much will all this matter? Probably quite a lot in the long run. Stalin derisively asked how many divisions the pope had. He would have found out if he had lived long enough to witness the role of John Paul II in the collapse of the Communist regime in Poland and the subsequent disintegration of the once all-powerful Soviet empire. It is not only that there are millions of faithful Catholics who look to Rome for moral guidance. The papacy is a bully pulpit to which many non-Catholics are also attentive. It would be very unfortunate if the Roman pulpit were now to encourage a quasi-Marxist ideology that, if realized, would cripple economic growth and once again increase the global spread of extreme poverty (no doubt “equitably distributed”, except for the privileged political elite).

Another Stimulus in Japan?

Less than a week after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seemed to be moving toward more medium-term and longterm-minded economic reforms, one of Abenomics’s chief architects says Japan needs more stimulus. The Financial Times reports that advisor Etsuro Honda has called more stimulus an “urgent task.” The analysis comes amid widespread concerns that Japan may be sliding into recession. Honda himself told the FT that “I don’t think we should call it a technical recession yet, but generally speaking, the Japanese economy is in a static situation. It is not growing positively.” More, via the WSJ:

Output of goods, ranging from boilers and excavators to cars and cosmetics, fell 0.5% in August from the previous month, following a decline of 0.8% in July, according to government data released Wednesday.

The figure sharply undershot a consensus forecast for a 1.0% increase, prompting the ministry to downgrade its assessment of output to “trending on a weak note” from “trending with ups and downs.” […]“Japan’s recovery has ground to a halt,” said Marcel Thieliant, economist at Capital Economics. The latest output data suggests “Japan’s economy shrank yet again in the quarter that ends today. Additional easing by the Bank of Japan next month looks all but inevitable,” he added.

Moreover, last Thursday Abe declared an end to deflation just hours before the publication of reports finding that deflation had in fact returned.

Abe has acknowledged current economic difficulties, and has put forward new proposals to boost the country’s economy. But his biggest proposals focus on more structural issues like the low birth rate and the fast-growing elderly population, and if Honda and others are right Abe should be (and perhaps is) more concerned about the immediate future.Meanwhile, while Japan’s leaders might be discussing another stimulus, Reuters reports that Indonesia’s have gone ahead and announced one:

In a live television broadcast, [President Joko] Widodo announced a series of measures to attract investment, such as streamlining dozens of overlapping trade and industry regulations, simplifying the permission process for “strategic projects”, and easing rules for foreigners opening bank accounts in foreign currency.

These are just the early responses to a Chinese slowdown that Asian leaders, like many traditional investors, seem to believe shows few signs of abating.

Silicon Valley Eyes India

Last week, the news out of Silicon Valley was all about Chinese premiere Xi Jinping’s visit. Yet the hottest international market for technology companies right now, according to the New York Times, is India:

“They are looking at India, and they are thinking, ‘Five years ago, it was China, and I probably missed the boat there. Now I have a chance to actually do this,’” said Punit Soni, a former Google executive who was lured back to India recently to become the chief product officer of Flipkart, a Bangalore e-commerce start-up similar to Amazon.

The increasing appeal of India, now the world’s fastest growing major economy, was underscored in recent days.

During a meeting in Seattle on Wednesday with American technology executives, China’s president, Xi Jinping, was unwavering on his government’s tough Internet policies.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, on the other hand, was on a charm offensive during his own American tour.

India has always been an attractive market for companies like Facebook and Google. Many Indians speak English, they have political and civic traditions which encourage the free flow of information, and the middle class is growing faster than anywhere else in the world. There are now 168 million smartphone users in India—a lot of people, but not even fifteen percent of the whole population. Indians are already the second-largest demographic using Facebook and Google. It isn’t at all outlandish to think they will soon overtake Americans on many websites.

As we have said, India needs more than a high-tech boom to ensure enough jobs for its young, growing population. Modi is right to seize this opportunity in Silicon Valley, but he should also build relationships with manufacturers. Facebook may be an important social tool for young Indians, but Mark Zuckerberg will not hire all that many people in the subcontinent.