This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Hollande's women troubles and Peugeot layoffs overshadow France's Bastille Day
• Libor-fixing was well known in 2008
• China accuses U.S. of 'diplomatic encirclement' in Asia

Hollande's women troubles and Peugeot layoffs overshadow France's Bastille Day

French fighters and reconnaissance aircraft fly over Paris during the Bastille Day military parade in Paris on July 14 (AFP)

France's president François Hollande marked July 14 Bastille Day celebrations on Saturday with a pledges to fight industrial layoffs and keep the two women in his life from fighting with each other. The Socialist candidate is refusing to accept an announcement by money-losing French car make Peugeot that it would lay off 8,000 workers in France, and he promised public spending to support French-made cars. Hollande is also asking his partner, Valérie Trierweiler, to end an open feud with his former partner, Ségolène Royal. The spat became public in June, when a tweet from Trierweiler supported Royal's opponent in an election, which Royal then lost. Trierweiler stole François Hollande away from Royal, his previous partner of 30 years and the mother of his four children. Hollande's oldest son has said he and his siblings want o further contact with Trierweiler. France 24 and Reuters

Libor-fixing was well known in 2008

I've checked my own files, and I have about two dozen stories on file from 2008 that talk about investigations of illegal fixing of the Libor rate. Apparently Timothy F. Geithner, currently the Treasury Secretary but then at the New York Fed, was aware that illegal Libor-fixing was going on. And yet, nothing was done, and the criminal activity was allowed to go on as usual.

This is just one more example of the massive change to our culture since the 1990s. In the 1980s, when the Boomers were in charge, if you committed a crime, then you went to jail. In the 2000s, with the Gen-Xers in charge, if you commit a crime, then regulators refuse to investigate and prosecute, and you're allow to continue illegal activities. This is the major characteristic that distinguishes Generation-X from the Boomers -- not that there are more crooks in Generation-X, but that Gen-Xers refuse to blame or prosecute other Gen-Xers, even for obvious, major crimes. Thus there have been no prosecutions of the banksters who caused the financial crisis.

As I explained in "The Legacy of World War I and the Holocaust", this is also the same behavior that led to the 1930s Holocaust. Germany's Lost Generation (the generational predecessor of today's Generation-X) hated the previous Missionary Generation (which was identified with the Jews) just as much as today's Gen-Xers hate the previous Boomer Generation, resulting in world catastrophes in both cases. Bloomberg (2012) and Bloomberg (2008)

"Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC." -- British comic John Cleese

China accuses U.S. of 'diplomatic encirclement' in Asia

The ancient Chinese saying goes, "The tree craves calm but the wind keeps blowing." The wind, in this case, is the United States, and the Obama administration's "pivot," announced last year, of its armed forces from Europe/Atlantic to Asia/Pacific. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meddled in the South China Sea issue through her whirlwind tour of China's neighbors -- Afghanistan, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- to promote "strategic pressure" on China and "diplomatic encirclement" by its neighbors. Though China always exercises restraint and insists on diplomatic solutions to the disputes, Clinton has encouraged China's neighbors to keep challenging China.

Washington must understand that returning to Asia by way of militarily flexing its muscle, and diplomatically intervening in bilateral disputes is wrong and short-sighted. It is wrong because it is favoring confrontation instead of cooperation, which does not contribute to Asia's development and also goes against U.S. long-term interests. Americans should do more to promote regional and win-win cooperation rather than mess up peace and development in the Asia-Pacific region. Xinhua

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