New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a “government of national unity” to end the gridlock in Washington.

Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to “go beyond tokenism” in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.

Big names from both parties are endorsing. I like the idea. It’ll force the Democrats and Republicans to actually talk about issues rather than have the usual sorry, mud-slinging, poll-driven spectacle that passes for political campaigning in this country.

Bloomberg has said if he runs as an independent that he will spend one billion of his own money. That means he can outspend Republicans and Democrats put together. So their choice is simple. Discuss the issues or face their worst nightmare, a centrist candidate with enormously deep pockets.

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John Robb delivers a report from 2025 detailing how the US government has become completely privatized.

The goal of this brief is to get people thinking about the future in a way that helps them make decisions today.

In such a world, nationhood as we know it will have vanished. There would be increasing numbers of citystates, and no central authority as exists now. Access to goods, medical care, etc., even more than now, would be restricted to those with money, with obvious class tensions and revolts by the underclass.

Given the obvious competing interests between the various corporate entities involved, could such a scenario actually hold together for long? And how could there be a sense that it was an actual nation? With no real center, could it even hold together?

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In August 2007, a Russian adventurer descended 4,300 meters under the thinning ice of th North Pole to plant a titanium flag, claiming some 1.2 million square kilometers of the Arctic for mother Russia. Not to be outdone, the Prime Minister of Canada stated his intention to boost his nation’s military presence in the Arctic, with the stakes raised by the recent discovery that the icy Northwest Passage has become navigable for the first time in recorded history. Across the globe, the spreading desertification in the Darfur region has been compounding the tensions between nomadic herders and agrarian farmers, providing the environmental backdrop for genocide. In Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, the risk of coastal flooding is growing and could leave some 30 million people searching for higher ground in a nation already plagued by political violence and a growing trend toward Islamist extremism. Neighboring India is already building a wall along its border with Bangladesh. More hopefully, the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a clear recognition that global warming poses not only environmental hazards but profound risks to planetary peace and stability as well.

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Farooq Tariq, general secretary of Labour Party Pakistan, gives an on-the-ground report of what’s happening in Pakistan now. Serious rioting. A general strike has been called.

It is very volatile, unstable, unpredictable, explosive, dangerous, impulsive, fickle and capricious political situation. It never happened before in many years that mass reaction has erupted to this degree.

The general strike was a total success. All roads were empty. No traffic at all. All shops were closed. All industrial and other institutions were completely shut down.

The Army has been given shoot to kill orders. The strike continues.

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Let’s not forget, Benazir Bhutto was removed as president twice because of corruption.

We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.

And that’s from the opening paragraphs - the author is just warming up.

But the assassination may backfire on Islamists (which would be a good thing indeed.)

In killing Bhutto, the Islamists over-reached (possibly aided by rogue elements in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, one of the murkiest outfits on this earth). Just as al Qaeda in Iraq overplayed its hand and alienated that country’s Sunni Arabs, this assassination may disillusion Pakistanis who lent half an ear to Islamist rhetoric.

Extremists often think that violent actions on their part will provoke an overthrow on whatever government it is that they loathe. This rarely happens. Instead the populace, sickened by violence, often turns against them. The best possible move for the US would be to stay out of internal Pakistani politics. Any of the usual arrogant, blundering moves by the US will simply help the extremists. In fact, that’s precisely what they want the US to do.

A creature of insatiable ambition, Bhutto will now become a martyr. In death, she may pay back some of the enormous debt she owes her country.

No she won’t. She’s dead.

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How crazy is this?

Fifty-five million years ago the world’s climate was catastrophically changed when volcanoes melted natural gas frozen in the seabed. Now Japan plans to drill for the same icy crystals to end its reliance on imported energy.

The trick is extracting it without damaging the environment.

Well, yeah.. How can this possibly be done safely and without releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gases and destroying the natural balance of the ocean?

As energy gets scarcer, we will see more bizarre plans like this, trying to extract energy from the strangest places, cost and risk be damned.

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This worsening housing recession, together with the worst liquidity and credit crunch in the last 20 years, oil close to $100, faltering capex spending by the corporate sector and a saving-less and debt-burdened consumer that is on the ropes and stopped spending (in real terms) in December will lead in 2008 to the worst US economy wide recession of the last 20 years.

– Perma-bear Nouriel Roubini, who did indeed predict the housing crash early and accurately.

Commercial real estate is starting to wobble. Credit card debt is soaring as are late payments on them. The economy will be the major issue in the presidential elections, not the war. The war is far away while layoffs, foreclosures, and bankruptcies will be up close and personal issue for many.

If you haven’t done so already, batten down whatever financial hatches you may have. If you have investing money, is any of it in “enhanced” money market funds? If so, move it out, as the “enhancements” are now toxic. Cash rather than stocks is always a good place to be. Pay off credit card debt if you can, as interest rates and late penalty fees are high and rising.

The stock market, from all indications, is about to tumble. So it might be time to sell iffy stocks. Right now, Sue and I are almost entirely in cash and I’m using a tiny percentage of that, no more than 5-7%, to buy puts on homebuilder and financial indexes as well as on financial stocks. With puts, you make money if the price of the stock drops. This is not a strategy for all, as option trading, is extremely fast moving and tricky. But it could work for some. Another ploy is to buy short or ultra-short EFTs, which go up if the index they are based on goes down. If what I’m saying appears to be in a strange space alien language, then don’t even think of acting on it! Seriously.

But what about those with no financial resources? Job layoffs and company bankruptcies will hit them first. Maybe they have an ARM about to reset. They could lose everything. Given that millions or ARMs will be resetting in the next year or so with a spike coming early next year, this is no theoretical matter. Real people will be feeling real pain, just in time for the elections too.

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