printThe crazies are threatening it on the north (Lebanon & Syria), the south (the lovely Egyptian revolutionaries), and the east (the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and beyond), but, as the US and most of Europe decline, Israel’s economy flourishes. Here are Israel’s fiscal fundamentals, courtesy of Bloomberg.com:
• GDP growth of 4.8 percent this year
• A raised credit rating of A+
• Very low unemployment
• “60 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the most of any nation outside North America after China.”
• “The largest number of startup companies per capita in the world.”
• A ranking of “third in terms of projected growth this year among MSCI’s list of 24 developed economies, after 6 percent for Hong Kong and 5.3 percent for Singapore, according to the IMF.”
• “Israel’s exports are high-added value exports like informatics and technology”: This means the stuff the Israelis make adds real value and jobs, unlike Obama’s state-manufactured jobs, which are a result of moving money around.
SADLY, that thing we in the US celebrate and anticipate—the Arab spring—threatens commence, innovation and economic prosperity in the region’s most productive oasis. Some “spring” …
Not only should we NOT follow an interventionist foreign policy (on principle) – but the intervention almost always seems to be negative. What great benefits have come to ordinary Americans (State Department and Defense contractors do not count!) from our activities in Somalia, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc.?
It seems to me that the Israelis are taking care of business in a business like manner while we are running about ia all directions due to a disfunctional government, disfunctional fourth estate and a disfunctional populace. I suspect that, even in these perilous times, a significant percentage of the American public has no idea as to what is going on politically and economically. Israels GDP? What’s GDP? Is that part of Obama’s Jobs Plan? Who’s the next to be vored off Dancing With the Stars?
Israel also turned the desert into an oasis. They are now a food exporter.
The tale of every state that has a large population of Muslims is the same; there is no exception. And that tale is that we have seen the Western high water mark, and it is now receding (Arguably Europe has seen the western high water mark also, albeit for different reasons).
Is that an Arab spring? Ataturk must be rolling in his grave. And we fear for Indonesia and that the violence is only beginning there.