Today’s links to interesting news and analysis. If you find this useful, please pass it to a friend or colleague.
- “Background on the US Housing Market“, T2 Partners, May 2010
- California can no longer afford to be the State it once was: “Overview of the 2010-11 May Revision“, Legislative Analyst’s Office, 18 May 2010 — The Analyst does not explain why this is so.
- “Lost Decade Looming?“, Paul Krugman, op-ed in the New York Times, 20 May 2010 — We’re not Greece or Argentina. But we might be Japan.
- “Rising Powers Do Not Want to Play By the West’s Rules“, Philip Stephens, op-ed in the Financial Times, 20 May 2010
More war-like rumors from Debkafile
“Obama starts massive US Air-Sea-Marine build-up opposite Iran“, DEBKFile, 20 May 2010 — Excerpt:
Carrier Strike Group 10, headed by the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, sails out of the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia Friday, May 21. On arrival, it will raise the number of US carriers off Iranian shores to 2. … Our military sources have learned that the USS Truman is just the first element of the new buildup of US resources around Iran. It will take place over the next 3 months, reaching peak level in late July and early August. By then, the Pentagon plans to have at least 4 or 5 US aircraft carriers visible from Iranian shores.
Update, emailed to me: “One thing I can goddam well guarantee you is that no US carriers, or any other capital ships, will be ‘visible from Iranian shores.'”
The Eisenhower deployed on January 2, so there will be no unusual overlap unless its deployment extends beyond the usual 6 months. As for the “at least 4 or 5 US aircraft carriers” near Iran — its possible, but more likely we’ll replay the great armada story of Summer 2008 — started by a blogger, not a shred of evidence, but picked up by the newspapers before dying quietly away. DEBKAfile’s contribution: “Three major US naval strike forces due this week in Persian Gulf“, 12 August 2008.
The real question is Does reading Debkafile make us smarter, or dumber? (a look at DEBKAfile’s history of rumor-mongering)
My posts about the summer 2008 info-caper:
- More rumors of war: our naval armada has sailed to Iran!, 9 August 2008
- Update on the rumored armada sailing to Iran, 13 August 2008
- A US naval armada is en route to blockade Iran and start WWIII (the story gets better every day), 14 August 200
- UPI reports on the multi-national armada sailing to Iran, 15 August 2008
- Stop the presses: no naval armada has sailed to blockade Iran!, 20 August 2008
Afterword
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