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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Sept. 26, 2006 / 4 Tishrei, 5767

Insanity on a Global Scale

By Niall Ferguson


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's a mad world.


I was wondering why the antics of world leaders at the United Nations seemed so familiar last week. Then I realized it was just like a university faculty meeting. Extravagant, long-winded denunciations of the president are what professors do, not politicians. Sure enough, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez couldn't resist brandishing a book by Noam Chomsky — the United States-hating darling of all campus lefties.


Of course, all that drivel about the devil and the smell of sulfur — quite apart from the tedious cliches about the evils of American imperialism — wouldn't matter if Chavez really were just a professor of sociology. Unfortunately, he is president of a country that possesses more than 6.5% of global oil reserves and just under half of all the oil left in South America.


But that's nothing. Compared with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chavez is just a clown. By contrast, Ahmadinejad's speech the day before was seriously scary. Sure, he also heaped scorn on President Bush, not to mention the U.N. Security Council. But whereas Chavez cites Chomsky, Ahmadinejad has evidently been reading the works of Holocaust denier David Irving, imprisoned in Austria.


How else to explain the Iranian leader's crazy comments in last week's Time magazine? "As to the Holocaust," he said, "I just raised a few questions…. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then … why do they not allow independent research? … They put in prison those who try to do research…. Where did it take place?"


Great. We have a Holocaust denier as president of a country with 10 times the population of Israel,11% of proven global oil reserves and a thinly veiled program to build nuclear weapons.


In other news, there was a military coup in Thailand against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who made the mistake of attending the U.N. shindig. In Hungary, meanwhile, there was rioting in the streets after a tape was leaked of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany telling his Socialist Party colleagues that he and they had "lied morning, evening and night" to win April's election. And let's not forget that, only 10 days ago, Andrei Kozlov, the deputy chairman of the Russian central bank, was shot dead by a hit man in Moscow.


All of which might lead you to think that this must also have been a disastrous time in the world's financial markets. There was a time when just one of those stories would have sent a spasm through emerging markets. Oil prices would have jumped. The Thai baht would have collapsed. Hungarian bond yields would have soared. The Russian stock market would have tanked.


Not a bit of it. The price of crude oil for November delivery fell 5% last week. On news of the coup in Bangkok, the Thai currency declined by little more than 1% against the dollar — nothing compared with its spectacular gyrations during the Asian crisis of 1997. Investors in the Hungarian stock market are not having a great year, but recent political events have barely registered. To see just how far politics and economics have parted ways, just consider which of the world's stock markets have done best so far this year. In pole position is Morocco (up 58% in dollar terms since Jan. 1). Next is none other than Chavez's Venezuela, up 49%. In third place at 34% is Indonesia, where three Christian men were executed Friday for their part in sectarian violence, sparking riots. Russia — where it is bankers who get the bullet — is not far behind at 32%.


In January, a prudent investor aware of the many political dangers that beset this mad world might have elected to invest in secure, developed markets. But the U.S. stock market has risen by less than 5% this year. That of the world's next largest economy, Japan, is down more than 1%.


There are two ways of explaining this mystifying disconnect. One is that everything is going according to the dastardly plan of the infinitely cunning capitalist imperialist running dogs. In perfect unison, wacko demagogues from the developing world have been wrecking the credibility of the U.N. and making George W. Bush look like a model of sweet reason. What more could Republican Party strategists have asked for in the run-up to November's midterms?


Well, maybe. The other possibility is that investors are continuing to mistake liquidity for security. Despite the much-trumpeted tightening of interest rates by the world's principal central banks, the reality is that monetary expansion has barely slowed. That seems to be encouraging a rather cavalier approach to risk assessment.


Just where such an approach can lead was vividly illustrated last week by the calamitous losses suffered by the hedge fund Amaranth, which lost about two-thirds of its $9.2 billion in assets by making one-way bets on natural gas futures. Who entrusted their money to these guys? Investors included a London-listed Goldman Sachs fund and — wait for it — the San Diego County Employees Retirement Assn.


So much for the infinitely cunning capitalist imperialist running dogs. Like I said, it's a mad world.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


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Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empire" (Basic Books, 2003) and "Colossus" (Penguin, 2004). Comment by clicking here.


09/19/06: The GOP will hang on
09/13/06: Long Live Royal Bloodlines!
09/05/06: Red-state Republicans and blue-faced liberals are starting to agree: Green is the way
08/29/06: What if the London Bombers Succeeded?
08/15/06: Testing the Limits of the U.N.: Who seriously expects Kofi Annan to stop Al Qaeda terror attacks?
08/08/06: The coming tsunami of trash
07/18/06: Forget the '60s and ‘Make Love, Not War.’ Today's world is facing a Summer of Rage
07/11/06: When will China pull the plug on North Korea?
06/20/06: Hedge funds vs. central bankers: Will inflation, deflation or recession win in the coming months?
06/13/06: Britain's economy is just like America's — minus the entrepreneurs and growth
06/06/06: The X-Men have taken over Washington
05/30/06: Quit protesting, profs!
05/23/06: World markets' wild ride: Economic volatility is back with a vengeance
05/16/06: The Cold Wars are coming
05/09/06: Many commentators are missing dangerous political shift
05/02/06: Put some sugar in your tank
04/25/06: Hu and the dog that didn't bark
04/18/06: Should Americans be less optimistic?
04/11/06: Globalization's second death?
04/04/06: So many ‘special’ friends
03/28/06: Let's get it right about what has gone wrong
03/21/06: Congress is trying to give the world a globotomy
03/14/06: Lame ducks can still bite back
03/07/06: A 19th Century critique of a 21st Century president
02/28/06: The crash of civilizations
02/21/06: Not the president, but close
02/14/06: Want historic trouble? Look south
02/07/06: Greenspan advising Britain? It's housing bubbles, deficits and potential meltdowns all over again
01/31/06: Missing the Cold War
01/24/06: It's a sick, Thick World
01/17/06: Tomorrow's world war today
01/03/06: Scotland, it's over, but keep the accents
12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq
12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq
11/22/05: Ghost of Napoleon haunts Tony Blair
11/22/05: Can it happen in Britain too?
11/15/05: Red plus blue equals purple
11/10/05: The fires of disintegration
11/01/05: Triumph of an über-wonk

© 2006, Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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