Coming from a German political family - my father represented the East German refugees in the extended CDU board until reunification - I am commenting from time to time on political issues not directly related to the financial or housing sectors.
Most of my political commenting is through personalized e-mailing groups with continental or country focus. Key areas are geostrategy, where I advocate for a rebalancing of military vs. development and outreach efforts of the West, specific war and peace issues, social development - esp the rise of oligarchically organized societies in East and West - and general economic development.
Pls mail under aduebel@finpolconsult.de if you would like to receive my regular e-mail comments (indicating also whether you read German)
I may post some of the historic mailings going forward. For the time being only a few issues on this website. As usual, caveat emptor!
During 2015 the Syrian war and related policy activities inside my international networks against the war party that tries to dominate our lives again absorb a lot of time. As a housing and mortgage sector economist I am tired of being asked to design housing and credit solutions for people that our military and its shadow state just helped yesterday to cleanse from their homes and whose lives they destroyed. This holds true for yesterday in Bosnia, and today in Syria, respectively Lebanon or Jordan where we need to house these victims of our greedy and deeply unethical policies. Regarding the latter Middle Eastern states, Google up 'Seymour Hersh' and 'Rat Line' if you are not convinced. Brainwash and willful disinformation in Western media is now so complete on Syria and generally Middle Eastern affairs that anybody who intends to gain the foggiest understanding what is going on has to rely on independent commentators in the web and real time crowd information as available through Twitter or Facebook. Among the commentators of the political and economic-financial roots of this conflict I recommend reading David Stockman's Contra Corner and Consortium News.
August 2014: perhaps during this August 2014 when we remember the outbreak of World War I 100 years ago and at the same time see fresh tensions in Eastern Europe, it is worth reciting some of the last words of JM Keynes in his General Theory:
"Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."
In this vein, for those who would like to understand why we are seeing a senseless and bloody war over Ukraine, please take your time to read the works of Zbigniew Brzezinski, both Columbia University mentor and today top foreign policy advisor of President Obama. The Grand Chessboard (meant is Eurasia), published before Vladimir Putin came power in 1998, is nothing less than a fully fledged strategy for an imperial attack on Russia. Here is an excellent German summary of this and a somewhat more sober follow-up book. How sorely do we miss brilliant minds like Keynes today !!
November (9) 2009: comment on 20 years of fall of the berlin wall (deutsch)
