Merci pour la question. Alors Je pense que cet très important que toute le monde parler de la politique. Pourquoi? Parce-que est notre avenir, et notre monde. Oui je suis très jeune mais un jour ma génération sera en charge, et je vais participer dans la discussion politique de toute le problèmes que notre monde est confrontes a.     

Merci de lire mon Blog 

-Carlos Perez

Travel to Shekou, a port city in Shenzhen, and you will find the stirrings of something unexpected: entrepreneurial capitalism.

This part of China, home to many mega-factories like those of Foxconn (which makes Apple’s iPads) is known as the world’s workshop. But if you visit Microport, a startup firm funded by venture capital, you will find a group of tech entrepreneurs with a global mindset trying to disrupt an overpriced, legacy-ridden industry (in their case, the one for medical diagnostics equipment). In the staff canteen hangs a portrait of the late Steve Jobs uttering his motto, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Microport’s dynamic founder says his dream is for China to become an innovation powerhouse that produces its own homegrown Apple.

Much has been made about Chinese sweatshops sucking away American jobs, of currency manipulation and unfair trade practices. In fact, there’s a bigger threat to American competitiveness.

Cheap China is fading fast, and innovative China is emerging. The Chinese government is investing tens of billions of dollars into science and engineering research and education, and lavishing tax breaks and subsidies on technology firms and clusters, in an effort to leapfrog the country to the cutting edge of innovation.

That is why bashing China and using it as an excuse for industrial policies that subsidize uncompetitive domestic companies is a folly. This applies as much to Solyndra, a bankrupt American solar firm that got taxpayer subsidies, as it does to the lagging French toymaking industry, which has been declared “strategic.”How should America and other developed economies respond and stay on top in the 21st century’s ideas economy? For a start, do no harm. Politicians should remember that global innovation is not a zero-sum game: China’s rise does not have to come at America’s expense. Three decades ago, many Cassandras wailed that Japan, with its centrally planned innovation investments and its superior cultural values, would crush the West. In fact, Japan’s peaceful rise went hand in hand with America’s entrepreneurs forging the new industries of the digital age.

An even more dangerous prospect is a trade war, somthing that might happen as a result of Western governments ganging up on China at the World Trade Organization over its policies on rare Earth minerals. Top-down efforts to pick technology winners are bound to waste taxpayers’ money. And forcing a trade war would actually hurt America, since its economy benefits the most from an open global flow of goods, people and ideas.

America’s leaders should see China’s inexorable surge as a rising tide that can lift all boats—providing, of course, that you patch the holes in your vessel first. That means shoring up the things that made America the world’s innovation powerhouse in the first place.

First, America needs to reverse its policies that, since 9/11, have turned hostile toward talented immigrants. For decades, the American economy benefited from the gift of the world’s brightest and most enterprising. Studies have shown that more than a third of the start-ups in Silicon Valley have at least one founder born in India or China.

Bill Gates points out the absurdity of today’s immigration policies. Brilliant Chinese students make up much of the graduate program in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley, benefiting from a subsidized education. When they graduate and want to start companies that would hire many Americans, they are refused visas. So, as Gates notes, they go home and start companies there that compete with America instead.

Another hole that needs to be patched is in research funding. America’s funding for research, measured as a percent of national output, has stagnated even as the rising giants of the developing world are investing heavily. It is wise to invest during economic recessions in those few things—like education, smart infrastructure and research—that are the essential enablers of longer term innovation, productivity and higher economic growth.

Finally, America can make it easier for young firms, which have created almost all the net new jobs the last few decades, to find capital. Banks usually refuse to fund start-ups, and even many venture capitalists have turned risk averse. Typically, entrepreneurs rely on friends, family and fools. But an important bill in Congress now that has support from both parties and the White House would make it easier to tap wider networks through “crowdfunding.” Congress should pass this bill quickly, and help entrepreneurial energy to kick-start growth.

The surest path from stagnation to rejuvenation lies in innovation. If America wants to stay at the top, it needs to gear up on innovation.

The situation in Syria is spiraling downward. The country is inching towards full scale civil war. Violence is increasingly sustained and the Syrian regime seems unable to stop the opposition.

At the same time, we are watching an open Cold War between Saudi Arabia and Iran with Syria as the battle ground. The Saudi King publicly said (and, remember, the Saudis are very reluctant to say things publicly) to the Russian President that any dialogue with Syria is “futile” - that we  need to push the regime of Bashar al-Assad out. The Iranians, on the other side, are warning the outside world against intervening in Syria.

This is all a huge security boon for Israel. Iran - the country that Israel views as its principle threat in the region - is finding itself in a very weakened position because it chose to go all-in on Syria. Iran made the decision to simply to back the Syrian regime no matter what and now they’re getting further and further isolated. The Russians have stopped publicly speaking out in favor of Syria. The Chinese have never been very vocal. And the Iraqis, who had initially taken a relatively supportive position, have retreated.

The Iranians are almost alone in supporting the Syrian regime now and this leaves them suffering humiliation and enormous cash outflows to support this regime. At the end of the day, Iran is backing a sinking ship. It seems highly unlikely that two years from now al-Assad will be in power.

In addition to that, the Iranians are feeling the pressure of sanctions and further isolation. I think that U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, was right to say that this would not be a prudent time to attack Iran. Doing so would completely change the debate. Right now, the discussion revolves around Iran’s support of Syria. If Iran is attacked, it would transform the debate into one about a western-supported attack on a Muslim country. It would completely change Iran’s political and military calculus. At the very least, now would seem to be the wrong time to strike Iran.

Meanwhile, we are seeing Yemen’s leader Ali Abdullah Saleh finally leaving office, potentially auguring a period of instability in Yemen. Outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, Yemen has had probably the strongest al Qaeda cells in the world. This is something to watch very carefully.

The Obama Administration has been inclined to play a balancing act in Yemen of supporting a democratic transition while also trying not to isolate President Saleh who has been very cooperative on counterterrorism. We’ll see if that balancing act can continue as a new regime comes to power.

In Afghanistan you have the reoccurrence of perhaps an inevitable phenomenon - lots of troops in a country where they are not as familiar with cultural sensitivities. Things go wrong that inflame local passions and nationalism.

And in Egypt, you have the trial of the nineteen Americans.

I’m struck at how in this one week you have seen – from Afghanistan to Yemen to Syria to Iran to Egypt – all these places at a boil. One reason for this, I suspect, is that oil is at over $105 a barrel. This adds to a very tense situation where any one of the places could spill over into something even more serious.

In protest of ACTA(The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.) , Polish Parliament members wear Anonymous masks in chambers on January 26 2012. P.S: this is what winning looks like… 

Though often overlooked, Africa plays a critical role in Iran’s quest to become a nuclear state.

Iran’s first uranium shipment came in the 1970s from a then nuclear South Africa, and as late as 1997 during Nelson Mandela’s administration, South Africa was purportedly in talks to share its enrichment expertise with Iran, an allegation that Pretoria has refuted. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election, however, Iran has viewed Africa as imperative for its nuclear program for three primary purposes: uranium, diplomatic support, and geostrategic protection.

Zimbabwe, one of Iran’s most reliable African allies and home to some 450,000 tons of uranium ore, signed a 2009 memorandum of understanding with Iran granting the latter exclusive mining rights to all “strategic” Zimbabwean minerals - including uranium - in return for long-term fuel assistance.  Again in 2011, Iran’s foreign minister met with a representative of Zimbabwe’s mining agency to “resume negotiations … for the benefit of Iran’s uranium procurement plan.”

Other Iranian attempts at getting to Africa’s uranium have been more fraught.   Controversially, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia in 2006 accused Iran of providing a range of weapons to the insurgent Islamic Courts Union (ICU) so as to be allowed access to certain Somali uranium deposits. A 2009 United Nations investigation confirmed that Iran had supplied the rebel group with military assistanceand also asserted that Iran might have sought to collaborate with Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a U.S.-designated terrorist and radical Islamist, so as to explore the possibility of purchasing uranium from his hometown of Dhusa Mareb.

Iran’s African uranium pursuits were roiled in controversy again in 2006, when officials in Tanzania uncovered a secret shipment of uranium originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s Lumbashi mines en route to Iran.  In 2007, the Commissioner General of the DRC’s atomic agency was accused of smuggling uranium out of the country to sell to Tehran.Thwarted again: Tehran’s pursuit of the ore from Niger, the world’s sixth-largest uranium producer, was derailed when that country’s president, Mamadou Tandja, was ousted in a coup d’etat in February 2010.

While Iran views Africa as a critical market for uranium, as concerns its nuclear program, it more importantly sees the continent as a do-or-die ally both diplomatically and geostrategically.

Diplomatically, Iran views Africa’s 54 states - more than one-quarter of the entire UN General Assembly - as imperative allies in global fora critical of its nuclear program. An international pariah himself, Ahmadinejad is constantly engaged in an unending search for friends. Thus when talking to African states, Iran has gone to great lengths to paint the United Nations and its subsidiary International Atomic Energy Agency as sycophantic lackeys of an imperial West of which many African governments and civil societies are still wary. Instead, Iran says, its nuclear program operates exclusively for peaceful purposes, and international furor has been caused more by Western realpolitik bullying than any actual threat that its program might present.

In response to these peace-promising overtures, African states broadly fall into two camps. While many of the continent’s more internationally visible states such as Nigeria and South Africa have stated bluntly that they do not want Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon (though they do support its right to access peaceful nuclear technology), some of Africa’s more prodigal states like Isaias Afiwerki’s Eritrea are more supportive of an Iranian nuclear weapon. As Afiwerki questioned, “If there are nuclear dangers and problems, why they cannot be solved within the region, among the countries which feel the danger if Iran has such intentions?”

But as its Strait of Hormuz threats underline, when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, geospatial control is arguably more important than ideological allies. Unsurprisingly then, African states’ greater instrumental value for Tehran are as friendly strategic buffers in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that can protect Iran in the event of an invasion to halt its nuclear activities. To win African allies, Iran has deepened its naval cooperation with strategic littoral African states Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan.

Since 2009 it has also begun to help patrol the beleaguered Gulf of Aden against Somali piracy alongside the United States, China, and India. Though to be sure, its seeming collaboration with so many potential adversaries is more the mark of a defiantly aspirant regional hegemon than of an increasingly cooperative but historically misunderstood outcast.

For most, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open remains a primarily economic matter. Nevertheless, ignoring Africa’s potential role in abetting the larger underlying issue of the emergence of a nuclear weapon-wielding Iran could ultimately prove far more costly than any barrel of oil could ever be.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten
comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like
this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you
are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your
daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what
about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that
everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end
up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill
by a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the
tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he
suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to
drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their
savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He
pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too.
It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I
got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get
anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down
and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of
them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our
tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will
naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much,
attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In
fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat
friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.  –   Professor of Economics.

There’s not much foreign policy talk on the campaign trail except for one issue - Iran. Everyone is talking about Iran’s new strength and assertiveness - its missile tests, its progress on the nuclear program, its moves in Iraq. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, describes Iran as “the greatest threat that the world faces over the next decade.” Newt Gingrich has compared the Iranian challenge to the rise of Hitler’s Germany. More measured commentators also see Iran’s rising influence and power across the Middle East.

In fact, the real story on the ground is that Iran is weak and getting weaker. Sanctions have pushed the economy into a nose-dive. The political system is fractured and fragmenting. Abroad, its closest ally and the regime of which it is almost the sole supporter - Syria - is itself crumbling. The Persian Gulf monarchies have banded together against Iran and shored up their relations with Washington. Last week, Saudi Arabia closed its largest-ever purchase of U.S. weaponry.

The simplest measure of Iran’s strength is its currency. When Barack Obama became president, you could buy 9,700 rials with one dollar. Since then, the dollar has appreciated 60 percent against the rial, meaning you can buy 15,600 rials.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told parliament recently that the latest sanctions were “the most extensive . . . sanctions ever” and that “this is the heaviest economic onslaught on a nation in history . . . every day, all our banking and trade activities and our agreements are being monitored and blocked.” The price of food staples has soared 40 percent the past few months, Reuters reported this week.

The Iranian government’s reaction to the prospects of sanctions that could hit its oil exports shows its desperation. First, one of its admirals threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, invoking the Persian expression that this would be as easy as “drinking a glass of water.” But a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards - Iran’s crucial power source - quickly backtracked, explaining that Tehran has no intention of blocking the strait.

Frankly it would be madness to do so because Iran would suffer more than any country. Blocking the strait would result in a near total shutdown of Iran’s exports and imports; and with 60 percent of Iran’s economy coming from oil exports, that would bring the government to a standstill.

Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program is making progress. This is inevitable: Nuclear technology is 70 years old; Iran has a serious scientific community, and it sees a nuclear program as an emblem of national security and pride. But do we think of North Korea as strong and on the rise because it has a few crude nuclear devices?

The Obama administration has put tremendous pressure on Iran on a variety of fronts — far more pressure than the Bush administration was ever able to muster. This is, in part, because the pressure has been brought to bear, wherever possible, with other countries. The United States does not buy oil from Iran. But European nations, Japan and South Korea do, and if they go along with a new round of sanctions, Iran faces the real prospect of an economic freefall.

The Obama administration seems to have concluded that the Iranian regime is not ready or able to make a strategic reconciliation with the West. The regime is too divided and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate authority, the Supreme Leader, is too ideologically rigid. So for now Washington wants to build pressure on Iran in the hopes that this will force the regime into serious negotiations at some point.

This strategy is understandable. But it also risks building up pressures that could take a course of their own — with explosive consequences. The price of oil is rising during a global slump only because of these political risks. Without a carefully considered strategy, these risks will grow. Weak countries whose regimes face pressure can sometimes cause more problems than strong nations.

Very Good question. Typically I would fall under the Democratic Side of the Aisle, but I also evaluate what ever it is I am wanting to Advocate. So For example I will not always vote democrat if I don’t like the guy running. A good example is I think Ron Paul would be a good President. So I Typically am Democrat maybe even Socialist, but do have moments of Exceptions to that. I like to go for the better idea. 

As 2012 begins here at Simply Carlos we are going to begin a series of indept analysis about the coming Post-America World. This year is going to be a critical year in which the Euros survival will come into question, and a war with Iran will increase in possibilities. As we continue to move forward into the future one thing remains clear. The American Super Power is on decline, and the world is no longer forged into the Post Cold war World Order, but is slowly changing the Status Que. As we look at the past year 2011 was filled with tumultuous events—the Arab Spring, the euro-zone crisis. But the most striking trend of 2011, one that will persist in 2012, was one that got little notice: the emerging powers that weren’t.

By now everyone knows that a new and rising group of nations, including China, India, Brazil and Russia, are reshaping the globe. Yet if 2011 demonstrated anything, it was the inability of these countries to have much influence beyond their borders. They continue to grow their economies, but they all face internal and external challenges that make them less interested and less capable of exercising power on an international or even regional scale.

Let’s start with China. though clearly the government is worried about the inflationary effects of the massive stimulus program it implemented after the financial crisis, which has created a boom-bust cycle and inflationary pressures across the country. The regime, however, is expert at dealing with economic challenges; political ones are harder. China faces a transfer of power in 2012 that is unprecedented. About 70% of the country’s senior leadership— the top 200 or so members of the Central Committee—will be replaced by autumn. The new leaders—Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang—are the first generation that was not personally blessed and selected by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China. Perhaps as a result, we are beginning to see factions develop within the Chinese Communist Party along regional, functional and ideological lines. The change comes at a delicate moment. Beijing’s foreign policy assertiveness over the past two years on the South China Sea and related territorial issues has provoked other Asian powers to stand up to China, band together more closely and ask openly for American involvement in the Pacific. The result is that Beijing is now quieter on the regional stage. Global leadership is unthinkable. No Chinese leader today has the authority or the inclination to make big, bold decisions that would involve, say, shoring up the euro or initiating a new East-West climate compact.

India is even more obsessed with domestic affairs than China is. With a bewildering array of local and regional pulls on it, the central government has had little scope for foreign policy—or indeed any policy. Facing opposition on –every front, with state and national elections looming, the coalition government of Manmohan Singh is like a patient on life support grabbing for the oxygen mask, simply trying to survive.

  Indian growth rates are declining, its currency is the worst performer in all of Asia, foreign investment is slowing, and government policy has alternated between populism and paralysis. In this context, foreign policy has been almost entirely secondary, confined to regional issues like Pakistan and Afghanistan, and even in those showing little in the way of leadership.

The other emerging powers face their own challenges. Russia has presidential elections in 2012, though the outcome is predetermined. Still, it faces new political dissent on a scale not seen since the rise of Vladimir Putin. Abroad, it has a skeptical Europe on one border, an expansive China on another and a hostile and increasingly radical Muslim population on a third. Brazil is in better shape, though its economy actually contracted in the third quarter of 2011. (If that happens in the fourth quarter, it will technically be entering a recession.) And its moves to become a regional leader have run up against a Mexico that is determined not to be forgotten or dominated. Turkey has been the one emerging power that has successfully projected influence in its region, but there are natural limits to that influence. The rise of the rest is real, but the emerging powers are not ready for prime time.

The U.S. has been able to fill the leader–ship vacuum quite effectively in some places. It has deftly expanded its role in Asia; continues to forge strong ties with India, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey; and has maintained a good relationship with Russia on nuclear-weapons reduction. But American influence is not what it used to be. During the Mexican and Asian crises of the mid-1990s, the U.S. managed global economic problems almost unilaterally. Today no one expects or believes that Washington could solve the euro-zone crisis or direct the outcome of the Arab Spring. It is a post-American world out there, one characterized more by the absence of great powers than by their presence.