Oklahoma City Bombing Victims Worth Less than New Yorkers

With all the news talk about the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, I have wondered how the compensation for Oklahoma victims compared to the New York victims of 9/11. This article in the Chicago Tribune makes it pretty clear. The Oklahoma City victims got virtually nothing compared to the New York City victims. The Oklahomans got about $10,000 each, while the New Yorkers got about $2 million each. There were several million dollars in charitable gifts to the Oklahoma victims, some of which is still being used to put the children of victims through college, but it's not from the government, and it's still paltry compared to what the New Yorkers got.

One reason the New Yorkers got so much was that the Democratic leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle, was married to a lobbyist for American Airlines. This article in the Washington Monthly details her long lobbying history, although it doesn't deal in detail with 9/11. Arianna Huffington also weighed in in 2003. The connection is important for 9/11 because the potential liability of American Airlines, Linda Daschle's client, was huge. So, the government gave huge amounts to the 9/11 victims to discourage them from suing the airlines. Sure, there was some public interest in preventing the airlines from being bankrupted by the liability, but did it really get debated with the Daschles on the case? It didn't hurt either that the 9/11 victims were a lot of loud, greedy New Yorkers, contrasted with the Oklahomans who were willing to die for their country. So, the government made the New Yorkers millionaires while it did almost nothing for the Oklahomans.

I suppose that if you pressed Congress, they would argue that the New Yorkers were killed by foreign terrorists, while the Oklahomans were killed by an American. They are all equally dead. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that loud, greedy New York bankers got their own bailout after they themselves almost bankrupted the US. New York is definitely the welfare capital of America, with Michael Bloomberg and Chuck Schumer as the beggars-in-chief for a bunch of con men. No wonder no one suspected Bernie Madoff; he was just another con man in the New York crowd.

US Skating around MTCR

As one of the creators of the MTCR (the Missile Technology Control Regime), I am a little disappointed to see the US try to skate around it by supplying unmanned drones to Pakistan, as this Reuters article reports. Of course, when we created the MTCR, it did not cover aircraft, only ballistic missiles. It was the rabid arms controllers who wanted to cover cruise missiles, too, but as cruise missiles have become more capable, there is more justification for doing so, although skating around the cruise missile coverage is not as bad as skating around the ballistic missile coverage. Nevertheless,I believe the US weakened the nuclear non-proliferation regime by making an exception for India under the Bush administration. Now it will weaken the missile non-proliferation regime by making an exception for Pakistan. Maybe we are trying to be evenhanded in the India-Pakistan dispute.

Health Care Not for Everybody

The pundits spend a lot of time talking about the low percentage of Americans who view the new health care legislation favorably. That is probably because the main beneficiaries are only about 10% of the population. Apparently of the approximately 300 million Americans, about 45 million have no health care insurance, or about 15% of the population. The new bill will cover about 30 million of them, or about 10% of the population. I suspect that they are very happy with the new legislation, but the 85% of Americans who have health care insurance may not be pleased with having this 10% added on, who will probably not carry their weight in terms of paying for their benefits. So, it's really only some altruistic motive that would make the 85% with insurance support the new bill. The 85% do get some things, like coverage of pre-existing conditions, perhaps access to more insurers, etc., but these advantages are small compared to what the uninsured get. Even some of the uninsured may be unhappy. Some of them will be healthy young people who have chosen not to buy health insurance because they don't want it. They will actually be a welcome addition to the insurance base, and will pay their own way. The unwelcome additions will be older people, not yet eligible for Medicare, who have serious health problems. To take care of them, there will be costs that must be covered somehow, currently by anticipated taxes on higher, investor incomes, on "Cadillac" health plans and by cuts to Medicare payments, among some other things.

The Tea Party demonstrators object to most of these taxes, which is understandable, but looked at another way, they are saying, "I am willing for my neighbor to die, so that I can have my current level of health care." In addition, most of the Tea Party types are white middle class, while the "neighbor" is likely to be black or Hispanic. But if they were as Christian as they claim to be, they should be willing to help their neighbors, especially since the costs are relatively low.

Financial Times Has It Right on Israel

A March 27 opinion piece by Max Hastings in the Financial Times has an excellent analysis of Israel's situation, entitled "A Deaf and Defiant Israel Is Gambling with Its Future." The picked out blurb says, "The claim upon East Jerusalem is rooted in a sense of moral entitlement, which the world increasingly rejects." He cites a book by Esther Barbarossa called "Suffering as Identity" that says Jews must cease to define their world view in terms of the Holocaust, ruthlessly politicised since the 1950s. Hastings says, "Some day Americans will awaken to the heavy strategic price their own nation pays for indulging Israeli excesses."

More on the Death of Foreign Reporting

The Washington Post has a story on the decline of foreign correspondents and the rise of Global Post to fill in the gap. The story shows how CBS got caught short when the Chilean earthquake hit, how Global Post filled in, but also some of the shortcomings. It's ironic that the Internet is decreasing the quality of foreign reporting. But by killing off traditional newspapers, it's decreasing the quality of news in general. TV news is increasingly becoming celebrity and salacious, sensational news, the same junk that tabloids have long reported.

Get Israel to Apologize

Israel should apologize for insulting Vice President Biden by announcing new Israeli settlements in the Arab part of Jerusalem during his visit. As Tom Friedman said, friends should not let friends do this. Hillary Clinton's speech to AIPAC today basically surrendered to Bibi Netanyahu, although she tried to include a few face-saving complaints. It is Israel who should be saving face for insulting Biden, not the US that is trying to save face for pandering to Israel after being insulted by Israel. The US should cut off all assistance, including military assistance, until Israel does something to apologize for insulting Biden. Obama won a round at home by passing health care, but Israel made him look like a weak fool before the rest of the world. The Iranians must be laughing that Israel has such a weak, powerless ally, who gets spat upon and is too cowardly to do anything about it. At least Congressman Emanuel Cleaver reacted when got spit on by the Tea Party protesters outside Congress yesterday, even if he didn't bring criminal charges. Obama and Clinton should do at least as much in reaction to Israel figuratively spitting on Biden.

Hooray for Health Care

I am pleased that the Democrats passed health care, although I wish it could have been a better bill. The problem was the Republicans, who were completely uncooperative and blocked every effort at bipartisanship. As a result, the bill expands coverage to many more Americans, but the funding and organization is shaky. The main goal of the Democrats was to expand coverage, and it took so much effort to do that over the opposition of the Republicans that there was nothing left for other issues, like funding.

The Republicans like this result, perhaps the silver lining of their black cloud, because it will give them something to campaign on this fall. While messing up the funding for health care is good for Republicans for campaign purposes, it's bad for the United States. The Republicans put their partisan interests ahead of the best interests of the country. Whether this tactic will work remains to be seen. There may be a revulsion against the Republicans as simply the party of "No," which stands for nothing. They claim to stand for responsible finance, but they are responsible for at least part of the irresponsible finance built into health care.

How can they claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Their Medicare Part D legislation was not paid for; it was just a gift of federal taxpayer money to the pharmaceutical companies. And the Republican Bush administration never put the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars in the budget; they were always separate, supplemental appropriations.

News Reporting Going Down Hill

I have been increasingly unhappy with television new reporting. To me it was highlighted by the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes. All the networks just put their anchors or assistant anchors on planes and flew them to the trouble spots. They apparently didn't have any correspondents on the same continent who could speak intelligently about the countries. In general, CNN has fallen spectacularly. Ted Turner must be ashamed of what his network has become. I recently ran across this report of CNN dumping its science expertise, although it happened about a year ago.

Today's news now largely consists of warmed over summaries of New York Times or Washington Post stories, and commentators arguing with each other about them, Crossfire style. The BBC still does some real reporting, and PBS often uses some real reporting from British news agencies. Reuters also still does some real reporting, as do the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, at least on financial topics. But not-PBS news is practically worthless, except as a summary of what the few remaining new organizations have already said.

Fox Says Dont' Worry about Sick Ohio Woman

Fox News says not to worry about the sick Ohio woman whom Obama has used as an example of what's wrong with our health care system. Fox says she'll be taken care of by charity. Since she must depend on charity, I'd like to know how much Fox News is contributing to her care. Their position is that we don't need government help because private charity will take care of all sick people. So, Fox, the ball is in your court. If you have the courage of your convictions, you should give her at least $100,000 for her treatment at the Cleveland Clinic. Have you done it?

Israel's Insult

I just want to note that last week Israel spit in America's face when it announced new Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem during Vice President Biden's visit. I am inclined to take it as contempt that all Jews (represented by their country, Israel) have for gentiles. But, it's not all Jews, witness the op-ed by Tom Friedman, and his comments to Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press" yesterday. It probably does represent the view of Likud and Zionists, represented in the US by AIPAC and other big Jewish political organizations. But even if it's not a sign that all Jews hate America, it's not good for race relations. America should certainly suspend all cooperation with, and foreign assistance to, Israel.

I Still Support Obama

In the WSJ, Peggy Noonan says Democratic congress-persons should abandon Obama because he is serious about being a one term President. I think that Obama is putting the United States ahead of his political ambitions, which is very rare in Washington. Peggy Noonan does not understand that, nor do the Republicans in Congress, who see "success" as totally blocking the legislative process.

I should like Peggy Noonan. She seems like a very nice lady. She may be a polite WASP, a rarity in the political world today. But I don't agree with her.

On health care, I think the situation is like the following: Problems with private health care, Medicare, and Social Security are like long-term, chronic diseases. They are not going to kill you now, but they might in a few years. So, the Republicans during the Bush Administration took the United States and ran it into a wall, like a catastrophic auto accident. With two wars and tax cuts bleeding the national treasury, the Republicans now cry, "You can't do anything about those chronic diseases, we have people lying the street bleeding to death." The Republicans did wreck the US economy by tax cuts and failed regulation of Wall Street. But the question is: Can we continue to ignore the long term problems. To do so would be irresponsible. Obama knows this and says so. The Republicans would destroy the United States in a few years in order to win an election next year. They scream that Obama is breaking the budget, but that's because they cut taxes during prosperous times under Bush, and then created a financial disaster requiring deficit spending to survive.

One of the most hypocritical Republicans is John McCain, who used to be a responsible maverick, but is now a right-wing hack. He has become a bitter old man. Unfortunately, he showed he does not intellectually understand economics, when during the campaign he cancelled the Letterman show to focus on the economy and then had no clue when he went to the White House meeting on the economy. Does he get a pass for being stupid? No, the situation is too perilous to allow him to muck it up just because we feel sorry for him.

Unlike McCain, Obama has America's best interests at heart, whether he gets a second term or not. He may not be doing everything right, but he's trying, and he's not getting much help. I can't help him, but I can support him for having his heart in the right place, which is unusual in Washington these days.

Republican Cowards

Newt Gingrich's recent appearance on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" illustrated the cowardice of Republicans in dealing with national security issues. The Republicans are afraid to grant civil trials and constitutional protections to anyone they suspect of having terrorist leanings, most recently demonstrated by their fear of having terrorist trials in New York. Jon's reply to Gingrich that he was not afraid to hold such trials was a lone voice in the media, but one that reverberated with me. How can we trust cowards like Gingrich, or George W. Bush and Cheney (who dodged the Vietnam draft), to defend the US? Somehow Republicans have the reputation of being strong on defense, which maybe they are, because they are so scared. They fear everybody, strange lights, noises in the dark, anything that might potentially threaten their ill-gotten wealth. These are the people who defend their "private property" by shooting trespassers on sight, even children, and asking questions later. I am ashamed for America. But the good news is that they don't represent all of America. Even if they make big gains in the next election, there are a lot of people who won't vote for them.

I suspect that a lot of the military is Republican, but I don't know for sure. It makes some sense, because Republicans support the troops in general, because they are so fearful that they want somebody to go out and fight for them. But Republicans are also in favor of low taxes that may leave the troops without the support they need. Bush and Rumsfeld sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq without the best body armor or Humvees, the army you have, not the army you would like to have. Then rather than raising taxes to support the wars, they said just to go out and shop. They certainly made no effort to increase the size of the military to fight two wars; that might inconvenience some of their wealthy friends, whose children might have had to go.

Iran's Nuclear Program Continued

Iran threatens to expand its nuclear program, with yet another reasonable justification, if we could believe them. We've found some significant discrepancies, but we haven't really found a smoking gun that would warrant military action. Economic sanctions are pretty ineffectual; so, it doesn't really matter whether we get some imposed despite China's resistance, or not.

Nobody is talking about the real problem, which is that Israel has many atomic bombs, and we have basically turned a blind eye to bombs developed by India and Pakistan. Arguably, the Pakistani bomb offsets the Israeli bomb, but Pakistan is fast becoming a failed state; so who know what will happen to the Pakistani bombs. They could fall to al-Qaeda, or the US military could take them over to prevent al-Qaeda from getting them. So, Iran is working working on a Muslim bomb that it can count on to counter to the Jewish bombs.

Unless the US does something about Israel, it's unlikely that it can do anything about the Iranian bomb. It's not clear that the Iranians really want to build a bomb; they may just want to be able to build a bomb if they feel the need for one. But they are a lot more likely to feel the need for one as long as Israel has many.

Great Article on Holocaust Remembrance

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has a great article on Holocaust remembrance day. It says that all the talk Israelis do about the Holocaust will not help Israel, unless it conducts itself in a more moral manner. It says the big Holocaust publicity push is to offset the UN Goldstone report condemning Israel for its conduct of the last war. It says that Netanyahu and his "racist" interior minister ranted against "migrants" in Israel. The article says:

No remembrance speech will obliterate the xenophobia that has reared its head in Israel, not only on the extreme right, as in Europe, but throughout government.

It concludes:

A thousand speeches against anti-Semitism will not extinguish the flames ignited by Operation Cast Lead, flames that threaten not only Israel but the entire Jewish world. As long as Gaza is under blockade and Israel sinks into its institutionalized xenophobia, Holocaust speeches will remain hollow. As long as evil is rampant here at home, neither the world nor we will be able to accept our preaching to others, even if they deserve it.

If only more American Jews were as perceptive as some Jews in Israel are.

Bernanke's Problems Due to Bankers

The main people responsible for Bernanke's problems with approval for another term at the Fed are the Wall Street bankers. They were so arrogant and disdainful of the the US Government, the Congress, President Obama, and the American people that there is a strong reaction against Bernanke's decision to bail them out. People ask, why should be have bailed out such ungrateful people, who brought themselves to the brink of disaster, and who probably did as much economic damage to the US as Osama bin Laden did when he destroyed the twin towers?

Bernanke deserves some credit for saving us from another depression, but he's sullied by the company he keeps. Wall Street bankers come across as some of the most morally despicable people in the US or even the world.

On Bernanke's behalf, he could go to work for these sleazeballs in New York and probably increase his income by 10 to 100 times. He could easily be making over $10 million on Wall Street. We should be grateful that he's willing to stay on as Fed Chairman.

We Need Some Financial Pain

This op-ed in the Financial Times by the Polish finance minister, "Intolerance of small crises led to this big one," makes a point that I have been thinking about and strongly agree with. We need some pain to shake out the aftereffects of the financial crises that we have been through. Fed chairmen, particularly Greenspan and Bernanke, have tried to keep their political masters happy by avoiding any economic pain, except that which blindsided them, like that accompanying the popping of the tech bubble and the housing bubble. This op-ed makes the correct point that they were blindsided by these crises precisely because they trying so hard to smooth out the smaller bubbles preceding them. There is no free lunch. If you pummel the economy, as the bankers did in the housing crisis, you hurt it, and it can't pop back up like nothing happened. If it appears to (as it has recently), it probably means that you've done something bad to it that will come back to haunt you sometime, in a few months or maybe if you're lucky, in a few years. The obvious possibility is that you will sow the seeds of inflation, and that when those seeds sprout, you're going to have a big mess on your hands, made worse by postponing it for years. On the other hand, you might get deflation, like that which produced the "lost decade" in Japan, about to become two lost decades.

What we need is an economy on a sound footing, which means among other things that there is moral hazard for messing up your business. Momma (the Fed and Congress) shouldn't always bail you out. So, should we have let a few more banks follow Lehman down the drain. I don't know, but I don't think so. I think it was probably right to save the banks, but we should have made them pay a higher price for being saved. And we should impose significantly stronger regulations, in particular limiting both their business size (Glass-Steagel) and geographic size.

Brits & US Share Problem

This op-ed in the Financial Times on how to reform the British Foreign Office could have been written about the US State Department. The US Foreign Service almost always suffers from budgetary problems, like their British colleagues. There are exceptions. Colin Powell was personally concerned about the Foreign Service, and Hillary Clinton may try to demonstration her political clout by helping increase State's budget, but most Secretaries of State are more interested in policy issues than personnel issues.

One big problem of both organizations is that they have no domestic constituency. Citizens often see the job of diplomats as representing the foreign countries they work with, rather than pushing the agenda of their home country. Yet, that is seldom the case. They may often argue for going slow in going to war on slapping on sanctions in trade disputes, but that is because they understand that such actions are likely to be futile or counterproductive, although they may make Americans (or Brits) feel better for a while, until the chickens come home to roost.

In any case, those unfortunate perceptions often mean that budgets for diplomacy are among the first to get cut in bad times and among the last to be increased in good times. American lawmakers should take these British arguments to heart in considering their appropriations for the State Department.

Howard Dean Is Right On Healthcare

I have been been a fan of Howard Dean since he ran for President in the 2004 race. He would have been a better candidate than John Kerry. He had good ideas. Unlike Kerry, he spoke his mind, which may have been what killed his campaign. Since he's a doctor, he's seen he's seen this country's healthcare system close up.

When he says the lobbyists and special interests, working through the last must-have votes in the Senate like Joe Lieberman, have made this bill worthless, or even making the healthcare system worse rather than better, I believe him.

It's time to put a public option or Medicare expansion option back in. If the bill won't get 60 votes, get 60 votes to bring cloture and cut off a Republican filibuster. Then go for a vote that only requires a majority of 51 Senators.

If such a plan fails, and the Senate passes something that it total garbage like the present bill, hopefully, they will be forced to revisit the issue and clean up healthcare in the coming years. But the Medicare Part D legislation, creating the doughnut hole that funnels money to the pharmaceutical industry while benefiting few people who can figure out the arcane rules, is not a good precedent. It is speeding the bankruptcy of the US, providing nothing like the benefits that it should for such huge costs.

Give Obama a Chance on Afghanistan

The fact that Obama is taking flack from both the Left and the Right indicates that his policy on Afghanistan is probably about right. The Democrats are complaining that he is the tool of the generals. If he were a Republican, I would worry more about this argument, but I believe that Obama's natural tendency would be to not to go with the generals' recommendations. That means that they must have some good arguments and that they will have to produce results or he will turn against them. Furthermore, I have more confidence in Bob Gates and Hillary Clinton than in most politicians or bureaucrats and am encouraged that they are on board.

I am not personally convinced that we currently need to be fighting in Afghanistan. I think that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld gave the Afghan war short shrift. They didn't really care about it; they cared about Iraq. The troops who died there were not appreciated, starting with Pat Tillman. Bush, Cheney and company were cowards; they were draft dodgers during the Vietnam War, and they hid during the 9/11 attacks. They felt they had to do something in response to 9/11; so, they sent troops to Afghanistan, but their heart was not really in the war, which is why all the troops, equipment and money went to Iraq.

Now that Obama is in office, Afghanistan if getting the attention it deserves for the first time. It deserves attention because Americans are dying there and we are spending billions there. Basically, I think Obama is saying to the military, "Okay, you've been in Afghanistan for eight years, but you've never had the manpower and resources to do the job. And you've never really been told was your mission was. Now, we are going to give you the men and resources to carry out a limited mission. You have 18 months. At the end of that time, if you've succeeded, or if it looks like success is impossible, we'll pull out. If something unexpected happens, we'll reevaluate then." So, the military has a chance to prove itself, after being given just the back of Bush's hand for eight years. We owe it to those who have died over the last eight years, and perhaps to the 3,000 who died on 9/11.

Time To Change Recession Strategy

It's time for the US to spend its money where it's needed, for the common people. The NYT article on debt repayment points out the problems facing the US if it borrows a ton more money for another stimulus or further bailouts. The main beneficiary so far of the taxpayer largess has been Wall Street, which got us into this fix in the first place. It was initially necessary to save the banks and the financial system, but now the idea seems to be that if we make the Wall Street financiers insanely, obscenely rich, some of that wealth will trickle down to ordinary people. It's not happening, as the 10% unemployment rate demonstrates.

Everybody says we need more jobs. So, why doesn't the government create jobs, rather than throw money at the banks and the Wall Street fat cats? It could do this more or less the way FDR did, just create make-work jobs. Construction projects only go so far, since we now have a lot of women and older men in the work force. One office version of make-work would be data entry. The government must have tons of data that it would like to have, or it could get started on computerizing medical records.

Another helpful step would be to impose a year or two of compulsory public service on all young people when they finish their studies, or when they are 18. We wouldn't need to impose a military draft, but military service would be one way to fill the compulsory service requirement. We need more soldiers, and we need fewer people entering the labor market. The compulsory service could be in the US, working in slums, or doing menial work in hospitals, or doing environmental conservation work, or many other things. They could also serve in the Peace Corps, or in the military. The military claims they prefer the all-volunteer Army, but these people could be cooks, or clean latrines, or do other menial work that the military now contracts out for much higher fees that the young people would get. They could get something like $10 per hour, and if they are married and have children, one spouse could be paid the same amount to stay home and take care of the children, thus doubling their income. They would generally live in barracks or group housing and eat in group cafeterias or mess halls, but in some cases could get food stamps or other subsidies as needed for a family living alone. Some young people would opt to serve in the military, thus easing the recruiting strain created by fighting two wars.

We needed Geithner and the bailout when we were on the verge of going over the financial cliff at the end of 2008. But that's over according to the economists. We're growing again. So, let's break up the banks that are too big to fail, raise taxes on the rich, give jobs to people who need them, and prevent young people from entering the labor market immediately by requiring a yar of two of public service.

One other thing -- raise interest rates. Everybody says that raising taxes and interest rates will kill the recovery. Okay, but save the ordinary people by giving them government jobs. Then let the rich fend for themselves if the recovery stumbles. They might have to sell one of their four houses. Good!

The perverse effect of keeping the recovery going is that it is creating the same asset bubbles that got us into this mess in the first place. Low interest rates are a primary culprit. We at least need some minimal interest. It's ridiculous that banks can borrow from the Fed at zero percent and then charge 25% or 30% to their credit card holders. There should be some cost of money to discourage the creation of new bubbles by the greedy barons of Wall Street. Ask Paul Volker!