Destruction de la classe moyenne: le voici Canadian style

Les profits explosent et on exige une réduction de salaire énorme (50%!!) des employés…. Pourquoi on ne déclare pas ca <<tentative de vol>> ??

Huffington. The union representing workers locked out of a Caterpillar locomotive plant in London, Ont., is taking the fight to Caterpillar’s customers on the day the company posted record profits and revenue.

The Canadian Auto Workers announced Thursday morning they will be picketing in front of a dozen Caterpillar dealerships and service centres in an effort to raise awareness about the nearly month-long lockout of workers at the Electro-Motive plant in London.

Caterpillar reported a 36 per cent increase in after-tax profit for both the fourth quarter of 2011 and the full year 2011. Revenues for the year increased four per cent to $2.65 billion.

Despite the record profits, the company is pressuring its employees at the London locomotive plant to accept a pay cut from $32 per hour to $16.50. Caterpillar locked out the workers on Jan. 1 after union members rejected the pay cut.

Unions must change

HRW: L’Irak tombe dans l’état policier

AFP.

BAGHDAD — Iraq is falling back into authoritarianism and headed towards becoming a police state, despite US claims that it has helped establish democracy in the country, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday.

The criticism from the New York-based HRW, which the government quickly disputed, comes less than a year after thousands of Iraqis took to the streets nationwide to criticise the government for poor services.

“Iraq cracked down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating and detaining activists, demonstrators and journalists,” HRW said in a statement accompanying its annual report.

It noted that Iraq remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, that women’s rights remain poor and civilians have paid a heavy toll in bomb attacks.

The rights group pointed to the discovery of a secret prison last February run by forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office, the same troops who ran Camp Honour, another facility where detainees were tortured.

“Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees,” Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, said in the statement.

Europe: Acte 3 prise 1!

Treasury plans for euro failure (UK)
“The Government is considering plans to restrict the flow of money in and out of Britain to protect the economy in the event of a full-blown euro break-up.”
ECB reports record cash deposits from banks
“The latest jump in deposits comes from cash lent to the banks by the ECB itself last week in order to ward off a fresh banking crisis and credit crunch.”

LTRO “Bazooka” Is Epic Disaster As Banks Scramble To Redeposit “Free Carry” Cash With ECB, Lose Money On “Inverse Carry” (ZH)

Italy Could Trigger Early End to Santa Claus Rally

Italians Cut Spending in Worst Christmas in 10 Years; Debt in Spanish City of Gandia 50% Higher than Previously Reported; Harsh Times Ahead for All Europe (Mish)

Réforme du système bancaire – Rien, toujours rien!

LeDevoir . Plus de trois ans après avoir évité une catastrophe économique grâce à l’injection massive de capitaux publics, les gouvernements d’Amérique du Nord et d’Europe n’ont pratiquement rien fait. À l’exception du Royaume-Uni, qui vient d’ordonner le re-cloisonnement entre la banque de dépôt et la banque d’investissement, les autres pays se contentent de cautériser les conséquences inhérentes à une multitude de vices financiers en concoctant des politiques logeant à l’enseigne de l’homéopathie. Rageant!

Il y a une quinzaine de jours, lors de son témoignage devant les membres de la Commission des finances du Congrès, Simon Johnson, du Peterson Institute for International Economics et professeur au MIT, a communiqué une batterie de chiffres propres à aiguiser un lot d’inquiétudes. Parmi eux, on a retenu celui-ci: l’actif combiné des six plus importants établissements financiers des États-Unis, soit Bank of America, Citigroup et consorts, équivaut, tenez-vous bien, à 62,5 % du PIB des États-Unis! Avant la crise de 2008, leur part était de 55 %. En 1995, c’est à méditer deux fois plutôt qu’une, elle était de 17 %. Entre ces deux dernières dates, on se souviendra qu’en 1999 le gouvernement Clinton avait aboli ce qui restait de la loi Glass-Steagall votée sous le gouvernement Roosevelt, en 1933, afin d’ériger des barrières entre les quatre piliers de la finance pour ne plus revivre les dérives bancaires des années 1920.

Détroit d’Ormuz: le front de 2012?

40% du pétrole transige par le détroit d’Ormuz. Les Iraniens ont toujours été très clairs à ce sujet. Ils sont en mesure de fermer ce détroit et ainsi plonger la planète entière dans une crise énergétique/économique sans précédent.

LaPresse . Le commandant de la marine iranienne a souligné mercredi qu’il était «très facile» pour l’Iran de fermer le détroit d’Ormuz, passage obligé de nombreuses exportations pétrolières, que Téhéran avait menacé la veille de fermer en cas de sanctions contre le pétrole iranien.

«Fermer le détroit est très facile pour les forces armées iraniennes, c’est comme boire un verre d’eau, comme on dit en persan», a déclaré l’amiral Habibollah Sayyari, tout en estimant qu’une telle mesure n’est pas nécessaire pour l’instant.

Des manoeuvres navales sont en cours depuis cinq jours dans ce détroit par où transite entre un tiers et 40% du trafic maritime pétrolier mondial.

TheGuardian. America warns Iran that blocking oil route will ‘not be tolerated’

Tensions mount between US and Iran as Fifth Fleet warns that any attempt to block Strait of Hormuz will elicit naval response.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have dangerously ratcheted up as naval officials with America’s Fifth Fleet warned any attempt by Iran to close a strategically vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz would “not be tolerated”.

The news heightens a sense of growing crisis in the Persian Gulf after two days of threats by senior Iranian figures that they might shut down the important trade route in response to any future international sanctions against the country’s oil exports.

“Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations: any disruption will not be tolerated,” US Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Lt Rebecca Rebarich told the Associated Press. She added that the US Navy was “…always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

La fin de la société de droit

Voici Obama qui n’oppose pas son véto sur une loi qui permets à l’armée de détenir un individu pour une période indéfinie et ce, sans procès ou processus de contrôle. En fait ceci est la fin de la société de droit.

Salon . In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.

Salon . Condemnation of President Obama is intense, and growing, as a result of his announced intent to sign into law the indefinite detention bill embedded in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). These denunciations come not only from the nation’s leading civil liberties and human rights groups, but also from the pro-Obama New York Times Editorial Page, which today has a scathing Editorial describing Obama’s stance as “a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency” and lamenting that “the bill has so many other objectionable aspects that we can’t go into them all,” as well as from vocal Obama supporters such as Andrew Sullivan, who wrote yesterday that this episode is “another sign that his campaign pledge to be vigilant about civil liberties in the war on terror was a lie.”

Canada: Kyoto aux oubliettes

On a donné un gouvernement majoritaire à ces similis Yankees… Voilà le résultat. Après l’abandon du régistre des armes à feu, du régime des jeunes intervenants. La suite? la criminalisation de l’avortement peut-être?

LeDevoir .  Ottawa — La décision ne faisait plus aucun doute, malgré le fait que le gouvernement conservateur laissait durer le suspense. Mais hier soir, dès son retour de la conférence de Durban sur les changements climatiques, le ministre de l’Environnement l’a confirmé: le Canada se retire officiellement du protocole de Kyoto. Il dit vouloir s’éviter une «amende» environnementale de 14 milliards de dollars. Les partis d’opposition crient au mensonge et ragent devant le bonheur des conservateurs.

«Nous invoquons notre droit légal de nous retirer officiellement de Kyoto», a déclaré Peter Kent au cours d’un point de presse organisé à 17 heures dans le foyer de la Chambre des communes. «Cette décision formalise ce que nous disons depuis 2006, à savoir que nous n’appliquerions pas le protocole de Kyoto.» Le ministre a dit que le protocole était un «obstacle» à toute solution aux changements climatiques.

L’hiver russe?

Telegraph. LeDevoir .

Tens of thousands of anti-Kremlin protestors are expected to take to the streets of Moscow on Saturday in the biggest demonstration of its kind since Vladimir Putin came to power more than ten years ago.

Moscou – Plusieurs dizaines de milliers de manifestants se sont rassemblés aujourd’hui dans le centre de Moscou pour dénoncer les fraudes, massives selon l’opposition, perpétrées lors des élections législatives du 4 décembre remportées par le parti de Vladimir Poutine, Russie Unie.

Economist .

The cracks appear

Vladimir Putin should clean up the Kremlin and modernise the economy—for Russia’s sake and for his own

RUSSIA’S elections are not intended to produce surprises, just as its streets are not meant to heave with protesters and its political leaders are not supposed to be publicly booed. The country’s “managed democracy”, with the media muzzled, only tame opposition candidates allowed and widespread vote-rigging, is designed to hand big victories to Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Yet the Duma election on December 4th produced an upset: United Russia’s share of the vote fell from 64% to under 50%, giving it only a slim majority. Even more remarkably, demonstrators took to the streets in the biggest protests Russia has seen in years, chanting “Russia without Putin” before troops poured in to stop them (see article). Smaller protests took place in other cities. Now some 17,000 people have signed up for a protest on December 10th in Revolutionary Square, Moscow’s main public space. The government has asked them to find a different location.

R-C .

Le sort de l’Afghanistan

Economist

La fin de l’Euro?

Economist. EVEN as the euro zone hurtles towards a crash, most people are assuming that, in the end, European leaders will do whatever it takes to save the single currency. That is because the consequences of the euro’s destruction are so catastrophic that no sensible policymaker could stand by and let it happen.

A euro break-up would cause a global bust worse even than the one in 2008-09. The world’s most financially integrated region would be ripped apart by defaults, bank failures and the imposition of capital controls (see article). The euro zone could shatter into different pieces, or a large block in the north and a fragmented south. Amid the recriminations and broken treaties after the failure of the European Union’s biggest economic project, wild currency swings between those in the core and those in the periphery would almost certainly bring the single market to a shuddering halt. The survival of the EU itself would be in doubt.