By Ted Belman
Today I attended the IDC Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel’s National Security, which continues until Wednesday. There were about 1000 people in attendence including 300 European parliamentarians. It is the biggest and most prestigous event of its kind.
Peres: Israeli-Palestinian peace urgent in light of Egypt crisis. Peres said time was not on Israel’s side as the area was being taken over by radicals and therefore Israel should make peace as soon as possible. I thought to my self if ever there was a reason not to make peace and give up territory, that was it.
One of the panels consisted of Defense Ministers from Israel, Britain, Czeck Republic and Hungary. I got the impression from them, especially the British Defense Minister, that they intend to do their utmost to insure we don’t end up with another Iran. But no one went so far as to say that the MB would be banned as a Party. At the same time they urged the peace process to continue.
This conference is an establishment conference which politically was left of center. The Europeans love them.
Former US Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers was the keynote speaker. His topic was “America’s resilience will prove prophecies of American decline false.”
- Professor Lawrence Summers optimistic address of the US and the future of the global economic system at the Herzliya Conference included three main factors which highlighted his prediction that the “American economy will grow by 3.5% this coming year”; the change in where the economy grows from, emerging nations and their effect on the United States as a global leader, and the reason why the US prevails.
Using Facebook as an example, Prof. Summers demonstrated how the American economy is “shifting from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy”. By using its capacity to adjust to world changes, the US has benefited from the shift in change.
In response to the concern of emerging economies overtaking the US, Summers said, “There is no reason why the success of emerging markets need to threaten those in industrial countries.” Exemplifying this through the global economy post World War II, when Japan and Germany recovered, this did not infringe on the American economy, so too, today, if the US embraces an open trade market, China’s growth will not impede on the US. He highlighted this point by stating that statistically speaking, “if you work very hard at flattering China, it has the standard of living of the US during the 1930s.”
Looking at current global issues, such as the protests in Egypt, the reaction of Washington is what people were interested in. “Those who believe that the US does not have the capacity or strength to respond to global events may be making a very serious mistake.”
Summers concluded by stating what is most crucial is that America “maintains the momentum of recovery”, which is achieved through its virtue of resilience. It has shown time and again that their own fears as well as the worlds’ were wrong and will continue to be so, proving most of the prophecies of “American decline will be not self fulfilling, but self denying once again”.
The speech was phenonmenal. A friend of mine recorded it and will be sending me a copy. I’ll try to get it typed up and posted or somehow make it available to you.
On a personal aside, I talked to Canada’s Amb Paul Hunt whom I met a few weeks ago. Also I said hello to Amb Yoram Ettinger a friend of mine and to Barry Shaw an author and fellow blogger.
I will be at the conference for the next three days..
Felix and Martel
On – Egypt – Students Of The World – WW3
Civil Unrest coming to AMERICA!!!!! Are you guys ready?!?!?!
What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it?
The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In World History Exposed – Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?
http://chronicle.com/article/Larry-Summersthe/124790/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/etc/script.html
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Larry_Summers
Summers promotes the concept of “a post-industrial age” where manufacturing is not key to prosperity. He has said that the strength of the US economy largely relies on the strength of its financial system. An expression he was fond of repeating as Treasury Secretary was: “Financial markets do not just oil the wheels of economic growth. They are the wheels.”
Ted, When you say Summers speech was phenomenal, please elaborate as I’m getting a mixed message. This guy is way behind the times and simply placating the ego of his boss.
Ted,
Is Zippi Livni channeling her inner Peres? Both of them have proven track records – they are always wrong. When is the Lame Stream Media going to notice?
Unfortunately both, Peres and Summers are not useful idiots, but saboteurs, who would be shot as such in Stalin times in my native USSR. Both of them have their own agenda, which has nothing to do with survival of Israel or prosperity of world Jewry as a whole. The former is a well known traitor, who was shooting his-fellow Jews at the onset of Israel and sold her security in Oslo for Arab voices in Knesset, while the latter was brought out of oblivion by Obama after being kicked out of Harvard (for good ideas, BTW) and thus learned to kiss liberal asses for his 30 pieces of silver. If they are the best what that conference is to offer, I would better spend my time at McDonald’s – even junk food wouldn’t be so detrimental to my health.
This just in from Zippi Livni!
Peres and the useful globalist idiots are always pushing for the ‘piece’ process to continue. Somehow they always make it ‘urgent’. In light of the events in Egypy and to some extent in Jordan it is clear that the region is much less stable. The agreements that could be reached with the weak western puppet, Abbas are meaningless. He is way over after his term as ‘president’ of the plo authority has finished. What about ‘hamastan’ in Gaza?. Now that the muslim ‘brotherhood’ will gain some power in Egypt, hamas will also gain strength. All these adds up to NOT giving up strategic territory to these thugs and instead advance an autonomy plan for those that want to remain non-violent together with Jordan.
Summers is thirty years late; the American economy shifted to the information age when I was selling PCs in 1980. Unfortunately, one cannot live by information alone; we still need to feed our bodies and fuel our cars, both of which are becoming increasingly costly thanks to mismanagement of the economy under Clinton (who Summers served), Bush, and now Obama.
Financialization, which is a byproduct of the information age, has led to inherently unstable systemic bubbles which, when they inevitably burst, are inevitably followed by the creation of trillions of new dollars to support collapsed asset prices and avoid depressions. A rising tide lifts all boats, including oil and agricultural commodities, which is at the root of the food riots and political unrest we’re currently seeing in the Middle East and elsewhere. Inflation, circa 1975, is well and truly on its way to these parts (I recently noticed that supermarkets are selling orange juice in “half-gallon” containers with 59 ounces) and as this process begins to quicken, our own standard of living will begin to resemble that of the 1930s.
I’m certain however, we will still have our Chinese and Korean-made cell phones.