Archive for February 2009
Persia/Iran civilizations: Sassanide Dynasty (Part 3, February 27, 2009)
Note: There is a follow up chapter to the Sassanide period because it had considerable consequences to the Arab’s civilization.
The Sassanide Dynasty reigned from 224 to 651 AC. As usual, it started in the South East region of Iran. The ancestor of this dynasty is Sassan who was the administrator of the Immaculate Goddess Anahita; the head of a tribe was the guardian of their particular idol God. Most of the written accounts are due to the Romans, Byzantium, and Armenians who were the enemies of this dynasty; the remaining information can be found on monuments and current archeological finds.
Ardashir vanquished the Parthian King Artaban IV in 224 and inherit an Empire extending from current Iraq to the Indus River in current Pakistan. The Parthian Empire was a formidable adversary to the Roman Empire and checked and defeated the Romans on several occasions due to their heavy cavalry. The small horses of the cavalry were the ancestors of the Arab stallions.
“Shapur I” crushes three Roman Emperors’ attacks. Emperor Gordien dies in the battlefield. Emperor Philip the Arab or Syrian had to sign a humiliating treaty by which Rome had to pay a yearly tribute. Emperor Philip was born in Damascus of an Arab tribe that settled in that vicinity. It happened that Emperor Philip was engaged in the preparation for the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the establishment of Rome and badly needed peace in the Roman Empire. After the assassination of Philip the Syrian, two successive short lived Roman Emperors resumed paying the tribute to Shapur. Emperor Valerian broke the treaty and was defeated and made prisoner in 260 for 20 years before another Roman Emperor decided to pay for his release and the thousands of other Roman soldiers. Thus, Shapur expanded his territories to include Syria, Antioch, and Doura Europa in 253 where the secretaries of the Sassanide Empire visited the Jewish synagogues. .
It was during Shapur reign that the “prophet” Mani preached his new brand of religion that swept Persia, to the Indus and reached North Africa; Saint Augustine attended lectures in Tunisia on that religion. You may read my review of “The Gardens of Light” by Amin Maaluf.
In the following century, nomadic tribes from Central Asia harass the Sasanide Empire as well as Byzantium in the Caucasus. Emperor Theodose I of Byzantium pays Shapur III to contain those nomadic hordes called Chionites, Kidarites, and especially the Hephtalites “white Huns”. The Sassanide Dynasty will finally contain the Central Asian attacks by the year 560 thanks to the succor of the western Turks and the Sasanide Dynasty will control Afghanistan.
Khosro I signed a treaty of peace in 562 with Emperor Justinian for 50 years. Thirty years later, Khosro II captures Syria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Gaza, Babylon, and most of current Turkey. Emperor Heraclius would counter attack and enter one of the Sassanide Capitals of Ctesiphon, close to present Baghdad. The two arch enemies would be vanquished by the new Moslem Arab armies coming from the Arab Peninsula. In 637, Ctesiphon falls in the hand of the Moslems. After the defeat in Nahawand in 642, the last Sassanide monarch Yazdgerd III flee to Merv and then to Balkh (north of Afghanistan) and was assassinated in 651. This Persian Dynasty lasted over 400 years.
International Tribunal for God
Posted on: February 26, 2009
Son of Man: Margin for Freedom (February 25, 2009)
Heredity defines to great extent every individual. Every one of us is the product of long lines of successive unions and yet the probability of identical persons is nil among the billions upon billions of human kinds that roamed earth. Every person that dies is never replaced and his unique set of characteristics is gone for ever. Maybe our margin for developing certain characteristics is limited; even then, what could be modified a little by nature, environment, social conditions, and personal limited will have an impact in defining future generations.
We have always attributed our reality to act of God, His will, our Destiny; we have been sons of God until recently. Research and technology is altering many genomes for a healthier man, even before he is born, even when he is a fetus, even by sorting out and selecting one among the many embryos to re-insert in the mother’s uterus. Man has started to affect genetically future generations. God is no longer the sole and exclusive owner of man.
Man is becoming part owner, though with a tiny share so far. As long as man is not able to tamper with the brain on a large scale, then God will still have the bigger share to man. When you partially own a person then you are responsible for the whole entity. We tended to let God off the hook for too long. If man has to be taken to court for wrong doing or designing and manufacturing defective products, then it is about time that God be taken to court after each war, each genocide, each apartheid systems of suffering and humiliation.
We have always attributed to God all the good values, even the immoral values in our daily realities, and attributed to God, we have tried hard to interpret then in a lenient manner. If God exists, and he should exist, then God has to be taken to the International Tribunal for crimes against humanity. That is the margin of liberty that we still own; to study, read, reflect, have our own opinions, take hold of our personal responsibilities, and act accordingly. When a person denies his own share of responsibility and stop reflecting and studying then all he does is but wind. I have published many “poems” and I selected two that might be representative for this article.
I Say
I say, every one must have his identity:
Death has forced on us the I.
I say, what exists must be discovered:
Death impressed on us to know.
I say, every feeling must be experienced:
Death created stages for us to grow.
I say, there must be a meaning to life:
Death did not leave us a choice in that.
A Gentle Touch*
Prettier than white dust
You shall never be.
Uglier than a skeleton
You can never be.
Toward the scared souls, scared of death,
Scared in living,
Let your stretched hand
Be gentler, your voice softer.
Note: I republished under a different title for lack of readers.
The Third World War is tolling
Posted on: February 26, 2009
The Third World War is loudly tolling (February 27, 2009)
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar published in February 23, 2009 on “Information Clearing House“ a valuable review on the current economic situation. It is unfortunately one of so many technical or what I call mechanical explanations of the troubles but no substantive resolutions attached to it. I will try first to abrige that article and then offer a few solutions.
“In early February, the International Monetary Fund’s chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the world’s advanced economies — the U.S., Western Europe and Japan — are “already in depression”. The UK, Italy, Spain, Korea, Taiwan are in depression. All these States and many more have watched their GDP shrinking sharply. Japan, Ukraine, Ireland, and Iceland have experience shrinking in the two digits. An important fact to remember is that this depression is synchronised and this synchronicity has been made possible by the globalization and accompanying deregulation; the very things that were making workers poorer and the rich, richer. China’s growth rate is estimated to be around 1 percent.
Middle Eastern countries have also been severely affected by the financial crisis. Oil prices that were around 120 dollars last year have come down to around 35dollars this year. Every country has slashed its expenditure with the accompanying slowing growth. For example recently UAE was forced to halt construction projects worth $582 billion or fully 45% of all projects. Dubai’s economy is in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills)”. Iranians, Saudis, Iraqis, Kuwaitis and others have also been forced to slow down or freeze many projects. One must not forget that many of these countries’ petro-dollars are re-circulated back into the US and European economies. Those funds are drying-up fast.
Turkey sitting between the Europe and Middle East is also suffering. Turkey has the largest GDP in the Islamic world. Turkey’s GDP was 750 billion in 2008, the GDP of Saudi Arabia was 600 billion dollar for the same period. A once dynamic economy is now negotiating with IMF for help.
The Federal Reserves’ forecast for 2009 shows a contraction of 0.5 to 1.3 percent of the GDP with official unemployment rising to 8.5 or 8.8 percent. Here one should note that this official unemployment rate does not present a true picture, since all those who give-up registering with the unemployment office or are barely working (part-time workers, etc) are not counted as unemployed.
The missing engine of growth
There are four factors that power an economy: consumers, investors, government, and a favourable trade balance. Some economies such as China rely on favourable trade balance and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for their growth. For example according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, from 1990 to 2007, China received $748.4 billion in FDI. At the same time, since its economic liberalization, China has recorded consistent trade surpluses with the world. For example China has registered trade surpluses of $102 billion for 2005 to $295. billion for 2008. China currently has accumulated nearly two trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves.
In contrast to the China, the United States has relied on consumers and the government for its growth. U.S. consumers constitute only about 4.5% of the global world population, yet they bought more than $10 trillion worth of goods and services last year. In contrast the Chinese and Indian consumers combined which account for 40% of the global population bought only $3 trillion worth. The U.S. consumer spending shot up to nearly 77% of the economy.
Japan is once again entering another deflationary period. In deflationary periods, consumers spend less and try to save more. The fear of losing one’s job, the psychology of ever decreasing prices, and general feeling of doom act against free spending by the consumers. The Japanese consumption was only 55% of the GDP as much as the Euro zone. So the Japanese and EU consumers cannot help either.
The US consumers have to get used to lower spending levels for at least a decade, if not for good. American’s standard of living is undergoing a “permanent change” – and not for the better as a result of:
• An $8 trillion negative wealth effect from declining home values.
• A $10 trillion negative wealth effect from weakened capital markets.
• A $14 trillion consumer debt load amid “exploding unemployment”, leading to “exploding bankruptcies.”
“The average American used to be able to borrow to buy a home, send their kids to a good school [and] buy a car,” Davidowitz says. “A lot of that is gone.
The diminishing wealth
For people in general, shares act both as saving and investment. The average person buys share in hope of getting better return than the banks. It is also easy to get in and out of the market. The advancements in information and communication technologies, the costs of buying and selling have fallen steadily in the last decade. So now anyone with a computer can buy and sell shares. This ease of entry enticed an ever increasing number of ordinary people to enter the stock markets.
Now the people have been hit by three disasters. First they lost a lot of money in the housing market. Then they were hit with the collapse of the stock markets. Trillions of Dollars, Yens, Euros and Yuans have been wiped-out in a relatively a short time. Then many have lost their jobs and many are uncertain about the future job security. All these have had a tremendous impact on the consumers, forcing many to heavily reduce their consumption, which in turn have begun to affect businesses which in-turn are shedding workers to compensate for the loss of sales and revenues. This is a classical deflationary circle that feed on itself.
The governments’ response to this threat has been to stimulate the economy by pumping large sums of money into the economy. A decade ago, a hundred billion dollar was an astronomical sum. Today we don’t even bother to look at it twice. Today we talk of Trillions. A few hundred billions here and a few hundred billions there soon add up to a few nice trillions; especially the trillions that we don’t have.
Now we face a classical problem: the increasing budget deficits. Exactly when the economy is contracting and tax receipts are falling, the government expenditure is rising rapidly. In addition, the governments are buying bad debts and trying to spend more on whatever they can in order to arrest the increasing unemployment and stimulate the economy. These large sums have to come from somewhere. They can be borrowed or money can simply be printed. The problem is that some governments are opting for both.
So how can the US continue its deficit spending? By issuing treasury bonds and other security certificates of course. Both public and foreign governments buy these securities which are guaranteed by the US government. Foreign central banks alone held $1.76 trillion dollars in US treasuries. The combined holdings of Treasuries and agency securities by foreign central banks at the Fed totalled $2.573 trillion, up $11.223 billion”.
The coming inflation
So far the foreign governments and businesses have been willing to buy US debt, but with the current economic downturn things are beginning to change. In the last 5 years China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying mostly American debt. However, with the sharp slowdown in its economy, China is finding it difficult to keep buying. China has also come-up with its own $600 billion stimulus plan. This along with the falling trade surplus and the falling tax receipt will make it exceedingly unlikely that China can keep financing part of the US government’s deficit spending. The same applies to other countries as well.
As the economic downturn continues we can see two things: the interest on US treasuries increase substantially to make it attractive and or printing money. Printing money is not so farfetched as many would like to believe. Already countries that cannot find willing lenders are resorting to this. The Bank of England voted unanimously earlier this month to seek consent from the government to start the process of quantitative easing (means printing money) by buying gilts and other securities. With interest rates at 1%, printing money is likely to increase inflation.
It is especially appealing for the US government to print money since inflation means a real value reduction in debts. With mounting trade and budget deficit and decreasing tax receipts and the shrinking of the number of willing lenders, US government may not have any choice but to print money.
All governments are reducing their interest rates to historic lows and at the same time spending a lot of money that they don’t have. It will take at least two more years for the economy to stabilise (meaning an arrest in decline rather than outright growth). Once that point is reached we will begin to see the effects of the loose monetary policy: a tremendous rise in inflation which can be accompanied by low economic growth or in other words stagflation.
The current economic crises have left many countries’ local banks with foreign currency loans that they find difficult to repay in that currency. This and the possibility of defaults have made these countries a good target for speculators. If such an attack starts, many countries will automatically have to devalue their currencies (even more than they already have) or try to defend their currencies. In either case this may trigger yet another crisis that may actually destroy a good portion of many economies around the world.
Even if we assume that no more nasty surprises will appear in the next two years and the economies stabilise, we are left with the reduced levels of consumption around the world, especially in major economies. So there will be a dearth of market for the goods and services produced by others. In absence of the US, the question will be: which country or countries are able to increase demand to such a degree as to trigger a recovery; that most likely will be accompanied with high inflation?”
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar (Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no) is sugesting a second “Bretten Woods” agreement where we can address the existing problems and restructure the world’s economic system, otherwise we will face protectionism, low economic growth, and even trade wars. Dr. Bakhtiar failed to offer a blue print on what to agree on.
I suggest the folowing:
First, the developed States have to agree on another tangible standard (like gold) for currencies. Gold would not do because the US has abolished it in 1967 because all the gold in the world could not sustain the huge amount of paper dollars circulating or intended to circulate around the world. The alternative is a basket of depleting minerals that are essentials for manufacturing and production. The processed minerals do not have to be rare but very essentials for development. The US can agree to this idea since it has huge reserves in many important minerals.
Second, all the States that can account for at least 3% of all curency circulation should join an “International Money Printing Council” with tight control and monitoring creteria. Any combined States with over 40% of cash money shares in the global market should have a veto power.
Failing a convincing and sustainable agreement for monetary stability the Third World War is altready in the planning stage as the easiest and quickest way out of that morass. Only in major wars do printed money with no tangible backing has mythical values. No, the next region for the war scene is not Iran: no European or US soldiers want to fight in this “cursed region”. It won’t be Afghanistan: if Afghanistan was worth it then Bush Junior would not have invaded Iraq before stabilizing Afghanistan. It won’t be North Korea: it is bordering China. The batlefield will not be in any area bordering Russia. It won’t be the Congo River zone: no Western soldiers is about to step in this infested and contagious disease plagued region with AIDS consuming 30% of the population.
The next world war is in Sudan. Sudan is a continent by itself and rich in all kinds of raw materials, oil, and water and land to sustain the world agricultural needs. No, the superpowers will not directly fight one another. The war will last to the last Sudanese and any lame African soldiers that participate in the war. Egypt might get a tiny share of the spoil of the new colonial powers simply because it was impotent to secure its backyard. Egypt and the Arab States are feeling the heat and scrambling; it is kind of too late.
Persia/Iran civilizations: Achemenide Dynasty (Part 2, February 26, 2009)
There are no Persian historical accounts of antiquity Achemenide Persia Empire. Most of the stories are excerpts of biased Greek accounts, mainly of the Greek historian Herodotus, and some chapters in the Old Testament. Archeology would like to say that tribes in Afghanistan and Central Asia moved to south east Iran around 1000 BC of what is called Fars. The Babylon and Assyrian Empires mentioned the Kingdom of Elam with Capital Suse (Khuzestan by Iraq) that bordered Fars. Cyrus established his Kingdom “Anshan” in 557 BC that spoke the Elam language and in cuneiform writing.
Cyrus conquers the Kingdom of Medes (North of the Zagros mountain chains) in 550 and the Kingdom of Croesus in Turkey in 546. Babylon and the Near East Kingdoms are vanquished in 539 and pursue his military advances toward Bactrian (current Afghanistan and part of Central Asia). Cyrus allowed the Jews in “captivity” in Babylon to return to Judea; the poorer Jews returned and Cyrus funded the reconstruction of their temple. It was during that period that the Jewish Old Testament was initiated in writing and then completed many centuries later after Christ. Cyrus’ son Cambyse conquers Egypt and Darius I expands toward the Indus River regions. The north of Greece in Thrace and beyond the Danube River is part of the Achemenide Empire.
The administration of this huge Empire was very structured and divided into Satraps (about 20 of them) of local elites and Kings. The governor of Satrap (protector of the power) was administered by the central powers in Suse, Ctesiphone, Ecbatane, and later Persepolis in matter of Imperial Army, finance and taxes. The Imperial decrees were translated into the Aramaic language, the most widely local language outside Persia. The Persian Emperor moved from one capital to another to satisfy the yearly calendar of rituals of the Ahura Mazda religion. The Satraps were to meet the Emperor visiting their lands and the population offered what they produced such as milk, cheese, dates, and fruits of the season for sumptuous banquets that lasted 7 days and nights; about 15,000 were invited to share in the banquets. Every year, during the anniversary of the coronation of the monarch a special banquet is thrown and the monarch offered gifts and perfumed his head. The custom would not permit any demand or request to be denied. This custom was adopted by the Satraps and it became a tradition in all courts; Herode could not deny Salome her request for the head of Jean the Baptist.
When Alexander occupied Damascus after the battle of Issos they inventoried the residence of the Imperial Persian Artaxerxes III; there were 46 braiders of crowns, 14 manufacturers of perfumes, 329 female musicians or royal concubines (pallakai). The monarchs were to create, design, and plant royal gardens called “paradeis”
The route of the Imperial caravan was well defined from start to finish and horses were ready at every station. The Imperial army needed 30 days to cross from Suse to Persepolis and it was a true migration of thousands of people. When the monarch dies all the fires in Ahura Mazda temples were put out. The new monarch was enthroned in the town of Pasargades and in the shrine of Goddess Anahista, 60 kilometers off Persepolis. Meticulous and detailed ceremonials of all sorts are obligated on the monarch.
Alexander of Macedonia subjugated Persia in 331 but he did not change anything in the political structure of this well organized and administrated Empire; he even adopted the luxury and ceremonials of the Persian monarchs which angered the Macedonians soldiers greatly. Seleucus, one of Alexander officers, finally inherited the Persian Kingdom after many decades of infightings but short of Greece and Egypt. Pretty soon, the Satraps recovered their autonomies.
In Real Estates
The course was offered in a large room by a shopping center on the extension of Connecticut Avenue; it was mainly the legal aspects of doing Real Estates and the exam was mainly about its corresponding laws. I easily passed the exam and I presented myself to the Realtor who paid for the announcement. This Real Estate institution would be sold to Weichert Realtors two months later and my passage to Hell started big time. This lady Realtor got pissed off because I accepted to sit for an Open House for another Realtor in the same office and fired me from her “support”. Another lady office manager in Kensington (with the same institution) welcomed me in her office. She ordered me to place at least 50 cold call generating business such as “Would you list or buy properties?” By now you can have a feeling that females predominated in this line business, at least on percentage basis and in Montgomery County; the independent Realtors, those wiling to pay monthly dues for using a trademark name and pocket the whole commission on sales, were mostly males.
I diligently did what she wished me to do as a passage for learning the “trade”; I walked house to house in many neighborhoods, every day, asking to list properties; I mailed countless brochures but nothing would do. I didn’t make a dime for a whole year and I had spent my last nickel. I was a wreck and my acquaintances were scared of the thinness of my face and assumed that I might have AIDS or something.
I finally managed to list a property and sold it but the manager bilked me from the modicum profit I made; not only Weichert wanted 70% on the lousy commission that I set for 3% to list an old and small property but it subtracted around $400 of my net income on the ground of a technicality on one of the clauses referring to a lousy refrigerator. The worst is that I had the clause correct and had to go to small claims bureau to recover my money after at least five visits to Downtown Washington D.C. and the general manager of Weichert wasting his “precious time” joining me to refute my case. That is not the end of the story; the next year the IRS wanted part of the money that I recovered from small claims and I had to send at least six letters explaining that I didn’t make a dime last years and showed them the long list of ads that I paid for with my credit cards.
I was fired by the office manager on Christmas Day and my lousy car broke down and it was snowing and I was happy where I rented a room; the married son of the good and classy lady had separated from his wife and returned to give hell at “home”. The garage charged me $1000 for a transmission that failed to function. I was accepted by the across the road Re/Max office because the manager heard what a hard working guy I was at Weichert. I didn’t make a dime the next year too and the part owner of Re/Max in Kensington fired me but another part owner re-instated me and asked me to collaborate with a successful Realtor. Things started to move and I made money but nothing was saved because expenses on ads evaporated every income and the IRS was in wait on the assumption that Realtors make more money than they declare.
Adonis Diaries 