Poll- Do You Favor Obama's Syria Plan?

[touchring]

Re: Poll- Do You Favor Obama's Syria Plan?

The US is never going to make any real friends in the Muslim world until they convert to Islam. Until then, these are just temporary alliances. Its foolish to think there will be any feelings of loyalty to the US from the Syrian Rebels if they prevail, just because Obama sends some weapons. Osama Bin Laden ring a bell?

I don't think Obama is hoping that the Syrian rebels win, since he has not sent arms to back them. But at the same time, they should not lose to the Iranians. The Syrian people are the real losers.

[flintlock]

Re: Poll- Do You Favor Obama's Syria Plan?

I don't think Obama is hoping that the Syrian rebels win, since he has not sent arms to back them. But at the same time, they should not lose to the Iranians. The Syrian people are the real losers.

Its my understanding he has sent arms to the rebels.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...89d_story.html

I agree the Syrian people are the ones on the losing end. Civilians usually are in war unfortunately.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Poll- Do You Favor Obama's Syria Plan?

The train rolls forward don ...

Americans don't really know what it's like to have to buy another currency to buy gold, oil or other such things.

… or goods from China. The "chipping away" at reserve currency status continues ...

Canada joins global financial powerhouses with gain of yuan trading hub

Canada joins global financial powerhouses with gain of yuan trading hub

John Shmuel | November 9, 2014 | Last Updated: Nov 10 7:20 AM ET
More from John Shmuel | @jshmuel

BloombergSome economists say the growing acceptance of the renminbi means it could become a global reserve currency alongside the U.S. dollar within the next decade.

An agreement to make Canada a trading hub for the renminbi shows China’s quest to make the currency a global reserve continues at full speed.

The two countries agreed Saturday to establish Canada as the latest settlement hub for China’s currency, with the terms being roughly similar to what other cities such as London and Singapore have agreed to in recent years.

Those bilateral trade agreements have rapidly increased global ownership of the renminbi, with a number of countries now having renminbi, or yuan, clearing banks and investment quotas. Central banks are taking note, with Australia announcing earlier this year it will hold 5% of its reserves in Chinese bonds.

Some economists say the growing acceptance of the renminbi means it could become a global reserve currency alongside the U.S. dollar within the next decade.

“While the renminbi’s share was a modest 2.2% of total foreign exchange turnover in 2013, that figure has risen from near-zero in less than a decade,” said Benjamin Reitzes, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Renminbi trading is a growing business.”

The renminbi’s growing global importance is shown in the rapid growth of governments and companies issuing so called dim sum bonds — which are offshore bonds denominated in Chinese-currency — since the market was deregulated by the Chinese government in 2010.

While dim sum bonds were mainly issued by Chinese banks for the first few years, corporations and even regional governments have joined the market. McDonald’s Corp. became the first company to issue such bonds in 2010, while earlier this year, British Columbia became the first regional government to issue them when finance minister Mike de Jong reported a successful placement of 2.5-billion renminbi worth of dim sum bonds. The issue was five times oversubscribed.

A second issuance was announced by B.C. last month, raising 3 billion renminbi ($550-million) for a two-year term.
Canada, and in particular its financial hub Toronto, now joins financial powerhouses such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Frankfurt and London as a settlement hub for the renminbi. The Toronto Financial Services Alliance says the agreement will help solidify Toronto’s “stature as a global financial centre.”

Given the pattern of the past year, it seems clear that it is likely only a matter of time before all of the main financial centres of the world see similar renminbi settlement agreements.

Analysts point out that countries that have become settlement hubs for the renminbi have witnessed a big pay off. C.J. Gavsie, global head of FX products and China Capital Markets for BMO Capital Markets, noted that total trade with China has doubled or even trebled in countries with such agreements in the year after they have been made.

“The trading hub will ensure that Canadian firms doing business in China can purchase renminbi on the open market without converting to another currency first,” he said. “As we’ve seen in other jurisdictions, the cost savings will lead to more trade. This, in turn, will create more jobs for Canadians.”

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Poll- Do You Favor Obama's Syria Plan?

Canada may not have it but in your opinion how independent of the US hegemon is the Far North?

don, here's one of those "year end looks" at the Canada/US relationship thingy …

I'll remind you of part of my response to help keep it all in perspective

Both parties benefit equally, and politically our issues are akin to petty sibling rivalries, even when our governments are on opposite magnetic poles as they are today.

Canada has helped the U.S. in Cuba, Iraq and Ukraine, but gets little respect back from Obama


MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Barack Obama between the prime ministers of Canada and Australia, two countries he seems to feel he has no more need of.
Last Wednesday President Barack Obama formally thanked Canada for hosting the secret talks that led to Washington’s historic re-opening of relations with Cuba. Two days later, just before jetting off on a Christmas break, he devoted part of his year-end press conference to heaping scorn on the Keystone XL pipeline, a key Canadian concern that has been held up for six years by his refusal to render a decision on its future.

“It’s very good for Canadian oil companies and it’s good for the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge benefit to U.S. consumers,” he said. “It’s not even going to be a nominal benefit to U.S. consumers.”

The pipeline actually offers a good deal of benefit to Americans, but that’s another issue. It has been obvious for some time that Mr. Obama is keen to stick a dagger in the project. Why he’s delayed so long is a mystery, given how happy it would make his fans in Hollywood and the Democratic party’s populist wing. But his eagerness to deride an issue that is of major interest to a country that just did him a considerable favour is a bigger riddle. Perhaps it explains why his record on foreign relations has been so poor.

In his six years in office, he hasn’t been much of a friend to Canada. Like many Americans, what started as a relationship with high hopes has instead become a serious disappointment.

Americans by the millions registered that sentiment in November when they handed both houses of Congress to the Republicans. Europeans have similarly been let down – after helping to deliver a premature Nobel peace prize, they’ve watched the president dither over Russia, over Ukraine, over Egypt, over Syria, and over the effective use of U.S. power in general. (They’re also not very happy about discovering the U.S. has been spying on their phone conversations and internet use). After delivering a groundbreaking speech in Cairo, offering Islam the hand of friendship, Mr. Obama has managed to alienate both Israel and Egypt, while bombing Syria, which takes some doing.

The president came to office with much sympathy from Canadians, and was treated like a rock star on his first visit here after taking office. It has probably taken longer for expectations to erode than it has in the U.S., where his healthcare law and the struggling economy ate away at his support base. But it’s difficult to make a case that he’s been a respectful ally to Canada, or even a sympathetic neighbour. Casual disregard would be closer to the mark.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred ChartrandCanada is supporting U.S. efforts in Iraq and Syria, but Obama seems to have little appreciation of the effort.

It’s an attitude that’s been evident in matters large and small. A recent example is Washington’s determination to apply “Buy America” policies to the construction of a ferry terminal in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The terminal is on Canadian land leased by Alaska, which wants to block the use of Canadian iron and steel products in the project. The construction cost, $15 million, is a pittance between two countries that share hundreds of billions of dollars in trade, but the triviality just adds to the sense of insult. Why alienate a friend over something so minor?

Washington’s attitude was similarly on display when it dawdled so long over construction of a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor that Ottawa volunteered to pick up the entire cost, only to have the U.S. resist paying even for its own Customs plaza. Only after he left government for work as a consultant did Mr. Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, denounce the U.S. stance and declare the bridge “critically important to our relationship with Canada, critically important to trade with Canada, and critically important to jobs.”

Mr. Obama long ago quit pretending he was open to an unbiased view on the 1,900-kilometre Keystone XL pipeline project from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, parroting attacks on the project from U.S. environmental lobbyists in direct contradiction of the findings of his own experts in the State Department. Rather than acknowledge his opinion and simply reject the project, Mr. Obama has deliberately drawn out the process at great cost to the builders and to Ottawa, which has been forced to mount an extensive campaign arguing its merits against a White House that simply chooses not to listen. As a result Canada has had little choice but to work closely with Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents, who are now pledged to force a showdown with the President at the first opportunity. The incongruity of the situation is evident in the fact Canada’s point man in defeating Mr. Obama’s obstructionism is the former NDP Premier of Manitoba, now Ambassador to Washington, Gary Doer, who probably never expected to find himself rallying right-wing legislators against a left-wing President over an oil project.

Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen.Obama was warmly welcomed on his first trip to Ottawa in 2009.

Mr. Obama’s remaining supporters would presumably argue Canada is to blame for the poor relations. Prime Minister Stephen Harper unquestionably raised hackles when he suggested Keystone was a “no-brainer” and said he wouldn’t take no for an answer. But Mr. Harper has more than offset that remark by actively supporting U.S. military efforts in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, joining the coalition against ISIS, publicly reprimanding Russian President Vladimir Putin and backing western efforts in Ukraine.

Ottawa may have annoyed the White House with its reluctance to take tougher steps against global warming, but Canada’s policy has been to match U.S. efforts, and until recently Mr. Obama had done little to back up his rhetoric on the climate file. The Washington Post Fact-Checker file recently reported that Mr. Obama’s remarks on Keystone during an Asian tour (during which he also lectured Australia, another long-time ally) were so filled with falsehoods it awarded him “three Pinocchios” on a scale of four, representing “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”

The President still has two years in office during which he can continue to treat one of his country’s closest historical allies with disrespect. Canadians can only hope his successor is less careless of U.S. relations with its friends.