Blindsided In Black Coal

Turkey has such a perplexing flow of events that unless you are addicted or immune to it -- or completely apathetic -- you are bound to be overwhelmed.
At the beginning of the week, our newspapers and TV stations were flooded with a myriad of debates about peshmerga soldiers crossing the Turkish border to fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists after US pressure brought a halt to our government's vertiginous U-turns. In the meantime, a number of Cabinet members have been ripening their plans to assassinate civil society organizations, financial institutions and charities related to the faith-based Hizmet movement. The Interior Ministry's police forces were carrying out perception operations by detaining a number of police officers, apparently for no real reason, only to release them a few days later.
For me, they were deliberate attempts to distract public attention away from foreign policy blunders while sending fanatical supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) a message that they are fighting “enemies of the state.”
Concurrently, we were made to allocate some of our focus towards the Ak Saray, former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's generous gift to current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which was to be officially opened on Oct. 29, Republic Day. It was built on an invaluable piece of land in the historically important Atatürk Forestry Farm (AOÇ) against a court ruling stating that the construction was illegal. With a ground area of 300,000 square meters, it is one of the largest presidential residences in the world, and it has absorbed nearly TL 1 billion of the state's finances.
We were well-poised to hit the government for its extravagancy in building this ostentatious edifice in the heart of the capital city until a mine accident forced us to fall to our knees in grief.
We had to loosen our fists and close our mouths ruefully only to put them back in punch mode to lash out at the government for its failure to diligently inspect mines. As in the fatal Soma disaster and the deadly Torunlar lift crash, both of which happened just recently, the workplace owner had connections to the ruling party, stoking concerns once again that the government was advertently shutting its eyes to misdeeds by businessmen close to it.
This accident happened on the same day as a rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station crashed seconds after taking off in the US. I cannot think of a better example to show the frustrating discrepancy between poor us and a developed nation. They were annoyed by a rocket launch misfortune and we were aggrieved by a negligence-ridden, murderous coal mine collapse. Completely opposite directions, both physically and mentally.
Amid this hustle and bustle, we had to turn our ears to the US late on Wednesday for an extremely important event. US Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen finally declared the long-awaited end of the expansionary monetary policy era.
Some commentators described the Fed statement as “hawkish.” Yes, the expectations that the Fed would radiate dovish signals concerning future interest rate hikes were not realized, but I don't think this alone is enough to define the Fed's stance as hawkish. I found the Fed pretty realistic or, more precisely, honest, and direct in circulating its messages.
Other than that, I sensed a strong commitment on the part of the Fed to normalize itself by reinstituting conventional monetary policy tools that central banks simply and deftly employ to steer the economy's fundamentals under manageable risks. The Fed started a countdown for hiking its interest rates and they seem to be very cautious not to suffer a glitch similar to the one that caused the rocket to explode.
Raise the rates earlier and more than what is necessary and you will have huge cash flow back to the US, causing the major European and Far Eastern economies to slump harshly, as they have already languished terribly due to the heavy shackles of financial imbalances and stagnation.
My estimate is that the Fed will start raising the rates early in 2015, and by the end of the year, the benchmark rate will be about 1.35 percent. Some say the Fed will rest on its oars since hasty rate hikes will exacerbate the complications of other major economies, which will surely have an adverse impact on the US economy. I don't agree with this. Let the global economy die if it is still continuing to wade through a mud of inertia despite the fact that the Fed raised the size of its balance sheet threefold with near-zero rates; Bank of England saw its assets swell to over 400 billion pounds with expansionary measures; the European Central Bank decided to spree cash to purchase 1 trillion euros worth of bonds; Japan launched an ambitious and lavish quantitative easing scheme; Sweriges Riksbank officially lowered its key interest rates to zero percent to boost its economy; and so on.
Is Turkey ready to adapt itself to this new world, where the dollar is no longer copious? Who knows? And who cares? We have to first learn the very basic fact that extremely risky mines must be denied operating rights since they claim the lives of innocent workers when they collapse. And they do collapse.

İBRAHİM TÜRKMEN (Cihan/Today's Zaman)