Iran: Sanctions are working

After two decades of being pampered with US and EU diplomatic gloves without stopping its Hezbollah and international terrorism sponsorship, Iran seems to be responding to bare knuckle financial sanctions better. Iranians are no longer buying into the "Great Satan" rhetoric that the aging Islamic Republic regime used 50 years ago to shift the blame for its dismal economic performance and systemic corruption. These Iranians are far more westernized and sophisticated  than their parents generation and therefore, harder to bamboozle. 

They haven't experienced a heavy-handed US foreign policy nor the abuses of the Shah. They have instead lived under the corruption and mismanagement of the mullahs and military Guard. 

Under the Islamic Republic regime, the country became increasingly dependent on oil prices. The bonanza of 2000's high prices favored imports, discouraged production and encouraged rampant corruption.  All those problems are now coming back to roost.

They also learned from their 2009 failed upraise to work in tandem between young, college-educated activists 

and the powerful economic forces of the Bazaar.

If Donald Trump gets reelected -as most analysts think- the pressure on the elites of Tehran will become unsustainable. For those who follow the twists and turns of Middle East politics, the question about Iran is no longer "what" will follow the aging regime but "when".

The fall of the Iranian regime will reverberate in all of Middle East and also Latin America, where Hezbollah and oil dollars -the military and economic arms of the regime- still sustain large networks of money laundering, drug trafficking and far-left, anti American regimes and organizations.

For more on this subject, check Michael Rubin's article.

Right-wing Welfare: US Defense Budget

US military budget is clearly both indefensible and unsustainable. 

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After spending almost 4 trillion dollars in a disastrous military engagement in Iraq,

US continues to overspend the rest of the world to act as an international police and army on US taxpayers' pockets.

US defense spending was among the things president Trump sensibly denounced as absurd, signaling an initial impulse to control.

But like most of his predecessors, Trump has just put Defense-subsidized state jobs (and votes) ahead. turning from critic to cheerleader of "two more years" of increased spending

Whether Trump will get Europe and Middle East partners to pay for US military services is still to be seen, but at least he has made clear they have to increase their share of funding military alliances. On this, he has once again flip-flopped dangerously, from critical:

to self-congratulatory conciliation

Both substantial increase on military partners and beneficiaries contributions and results- and foreign strategy-focused spending cuts are necessary.

In absence of a clear international strategy, both spending control and effective military alliances became more unlikely. 

Meanwhile,  the tab keeps running and US politics continue to depend on the perverse incentives of its military-industrial complex -as President Eisenhower warned back in 1961-

Democratic Socialism in Action: Puerto Rico

For those interested in "democratic socialism" Puerto Rico comes handy as the closest US-made example. 

WSJ's columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady summarized Puerto Rico's situation:

"More than two years into bankruptcy, there is still no agreement on the budget and no access to capital markets. On July 3 the oversight board sued the governor in federal court over his decision to allow municipalities to transfer some $330 million in pension and health-insurance costs to the bankrupt commonwealth."

The island got a pass from US Republican and Democratic Congress (a rare coalition between Paul Ryan -remember that fiscal plan?- and Nancy Pelosi) to bypass its Constitution and declare default. 

The banana republic picture completes with across the political spectrum accusations of corruption and mismanagement. 

Puerto Ricans keep voting with their feet, migrating to continental US, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's parents did a generation ago, migrating from Puerto Rico's misery to Bronx's low income class. 

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US capitalism gave ther daughter the chance to go to college where -like many second-generation migrant children- she became fascinated with the eternal promise of "democratic socialism". At just 29 years, the young and talented Alexandria became congresswoman for her adoptive Bronx.

Puerto Rico didn't do so well. Thanks to the kind of policies now promoted by AOC and her progressive "squad" caucus, net migration remained negative

Leaving an overpopulation of pensioners without working-age contributors to the pension system:

Which is exactly what happens when welfare states grow without welfare. Florida will benefit from working-age Puerto Ricans paying into Social Security and pension systems:

The next step of this example of "democratic socialism" will be a haircut for American bond holders.

More on Puerto Rico's bankruptcy and Puerto Rico's PROMESA