Although Citigroup’s $7 billion settlement for blatantly misleading investors on the toxicity of their home loans is quite significant, it is nothing compared to the damage done by the role this bank and other financial institutions played in causing the Great Recession. Given BP had to set aside $20 billon to compensate Gulf Coast residents affected by the 2010 Gulf Coast Oil Spill, as well as pay massive fines, it seems Citi is getting off the hook cheap, especially considering the far broader impact the Great Recession had as compared to the impact of the Oil Spill. Even though it appears BP is attempting to get out of its pledge to set things right, this settlement actually does little to address the underlying causes of Citi’s harmful activities. Businesses do not simply act on company interests; they act on the interests of their management teams. This makes it essential for observers of industry to recognize a firm will not solely act on its perceived interests, but rather, its interests and the interests of its leaders as perceived by the business leaders. This means the causes of the Great Recession cannot be addressed unless the decision makers are taken to account.
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Thanks to a Ukrainian transport plane being shot down and the killing of a man inside Russian territory from shelling, the conflict between Kiev and Moscow is once again forcing its way into the spotlight instead of deescalating. Although no one knows who actually shot down the Ukrainian plane and who shot into Russian territory, the unfolding events are leading to a shoot-first, ask-questions-later scenario. Whether pro-Russian rebels which the Ukrainian government believes includes Russian troops, are provoking Russian intervention, Russia set in motion these events, or these events were inevitabilities, the Ukrainian Crisis will eventually escalate out of control unless the broader interests of the parties involved are addressed.
Clearly, Russia’s involvement in Ukraine is murky, yet Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian territory Crimea, which makes Russia’s complaints that Ukraine is violating Russian sovereignty unreasonable, demonstrates Russia is playing a role in this ongoing conflict. Considering Russia’s apathetic response to the fact militants are violating their borders to ship weapons into Ukraine, it is clear Moscow is, at least, passively supporting the separatists while accusations that Russia is arming the rebels may well be valid. Given all of this, it is safer to assume Russia is impeding Ukraine’s efforts to reassure control over its own territories; therefore, ending the conflict starts with understanding Russia’s goal. Although the potential that Russia was trying to reclaim Ukraine in order to rebuild the Soviet Union has largely been ruled out based on the costs associated with doing such a thing, which hints that Russia’s annexation of Crimea based on history was just a rationalized opportunity Russia seized upon, Putin certainly wants political influence over Ukraine. While the militants in Ukraine will eventually prove to be a liability for Russia, they are a useful tool Russia can use to justify an attack on Ukraine and/or help delegitimize/weaken the Poroshenko government. Advances by the Ukrainian military, which has managed to cut the amount of territory held by militants in half, may have been tolerable to Putin, but it is certainly within his interests to ensure a limited insurgency continues to exist. Assuming something like this to be the case, it seems likely Putin is simply waiting for an opportune time to re-escalate the conflict. Even though Putin may have been willing to wait until European demand for Russian natural gas to began to tighten with the approach of winter, thus making Europe less likely to pursue sanctions against Russia, continued progress by the Ukrainian military would have probably lead to the dismantling of the separatist movement and Putin’s influence over Ukraine would have been even weaker. With all this in mind, it is becoming ever more clear that Putin will not allow the Ukrainian Crisis to be resolved without Russia gaining significant political leverage over the new Ukrainian government. As such, Western powers should seek out any evidence they can find on Russia’s involvement and act in accordance while they still have the upper hand. It is true that countries expect other countries to spy on them, even friendly nations. It is also true the officials of one country will always seek channels to get inside information about another country’s leadership. At the same time, America’s intelligence gathering apparatus is out of control as it does what is pleases. Even though the German government should have expected the US to spy on the German People and the German government, the fact that they have evidence of what American’s spies were doing warrants action. Although insiders of America’s spy apparatus and political system dismiss ongoing revelations of the CIA’s operations against Germany as the status quo, the German People were certainly never going to react well to such intrusions. After all, neither would the American People. In fact, the US government would probably react to such a blatant incursion by Germany in a similar fashion.
With that in mind, the US is clearly the dominate partner when it comes to the German-American relationship; however, Germany is also the economic center of Europe. Where America’s status as a global superpower affords the US leverage over weaker nations as well as the privilege to be hypocritical, Germany’s status as a regional power and America’s need for Berlin’s cooperation on issues like the Ukrainian Crisis puts Germany in a position where it must submit to US dominance or preserve its credibility as a world power. Given Germany’s dominance of European policy and America’s need for German cooperation, Berlin chose to act in its interests when it kicked the CIA station chief out of Germany then reaffirmed the importance of the German-American partnership. In doing so, German Chancellor Angela Merkel took control of the situation politically and strategically. As US retaliation could lead to escalation and America cannot afford to lose the support of Berlin at this time, the Obama Administration will simply have to take it on the chin and do something to appease Germany. Although illegal immigration has long been a hot topic for the political world, the sudden spike in children illegally entering the United States has generated a firestorm thanks largely in part to the highly volatile dynamics of our political system and the opportunity the situation represents to demonize partisan rivals. While the crisis is just as much a foreign policy issue as it is a domestic issue, which the current influx is simply part of a long-term problem, the American political system is focusing on solutions that tackle the problem as though it is just a domestic issue. In doing so, the US is hurting its credibility as a global leader and failing to act as a global power.
Certainly, the harm of economic destitution, gang violence, and the brutality of drug cartels is not as flamboyant as militant attacks and government bombardments, but it is just as great. In all the efforts to classify illegal immigration from a blatant disregard for US sovereignty and law to a humanitarian crisis to an alien invasion to a human rights issue, we are dancing around declaring the decades-old problem a refugee crisis. From the perspective of small countries like Lebanon and Jordan, which are hosting millions of displaced Syrians, the situation is no different for the United States, except for America’s distain when asked to care for its neighbors, its neighbors’ children in this case. What is lacking in America’s approach to dealing with illegal immigration is our failure to be a leader when it comes to the socioeconomic forces, i.e. poverty and violence, driving mass exoduses around the world. If Middle Eastern countries were to simply deport their refugees back to the Assad regime, there would be a massive outcry by countries like the United States over the inhuman nature of such policies while doing so would certainly not solve the problem. Clearly, the issues facing the people of Central America are not as intense or catastrophic as what has happened in Syria, but there are similarities that make them analogous. As such, the US needs to do more to address the long-term illegal immigration issue by reengaging our own hemisphere and showing the world how to properly deal with refugee crises. Israel has an unfortunate tendency to deflect criticism of its reaction to attacks by Hamas and rationalize even the most blatant disregard for the lives and wellbeing of innocent Palestinians who happen to find themselves in the middle of these two warring parties. While these defense mechanisms may sound legitimate inside Israel, Israel’s right to protect itself does not matter to Palestinians while the rest of the world is not so willing to accept Israel’s rationales. Gone are the days when Israel could respond to an escalating conflict with Hamas by unleashing a deadly barrage of missile attacks on the Gaza Strip, especially considering the potential security risk that globalized terrorism now plays in Israel’s conflict with Hamas. Consequently, Israel needs to make an even greater effort to avoid causalities and collateral damage, which may well involve far more careful ground missions.
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April 2020
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