Friday, May 30, 2014

Congressional Letter - Net Neutrality

I am concerned that the FCC is destroying the Internet in America by ending net neutrality.  The Internet should be tightly regulated as a common carrier, as AT&T (“Ma Bell”) was 50 years ago.  The telephone system then only carried voice; the Internet is much more important since it carries data, music, and video as well as voice.  Nobody watches television broadcast over the airwaves anymore, but the broadcast spectrum is regulated as if it were much more important than the Internet.

Michael Powell decided that the Internet should not be regulated as a common carried when he was the chair of the FCC.  He later went on to reap his financial payoff by becoming president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, where he has continued to argue against regulating the internet as a public utility.

Currently the FCC is proposing an Internet “fast lane” for companies like Netflix, while arguing that this does not violate “net neutrality” because it does not create a “slow lane,” but if there is a fast lane, everybody else is in the slow lane.

Congress can remedy this situation and overrule the FCC by passing legislation strictly regulating the Internet as a public utility or common carrier.  I hope that you will do so.  The recent proposed mergers of Comcast and Time Warner cable and of AT&T and DirecTV show that this field is becoming a monopoly.  Government regulation becomes more important as competition decreases.

Already many countries outrank the US in Internet availability and speed.  I hope that you will take action to prevent American monopolies from destroying this important resource.

Congressional Letter - Keep Shinseki

I am writing to defend General Shinseki from charges that he should resign as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs because of delays in treating veterans in Phoenix, Fort Collins, and other locations.

While I was at Firebase Barbara in Vietnam, in 1970, a few miles away, the US Special Forces base at Mai Loc was overrun by the North Vietnamese.  Then Army Captain Eric Shinseki went to relieve the base.  Although I don’t know him at all, I feel a bond with General Shinseki as an Army veteran who cares about the people who served with him.  The VA faces an overwhelming task; things have improved under Shinseki although they still have a long way to go.

I have heard no one on the news explain well why the veterans in Phoenix died while waiting for care.  Except for veterans wounded or otherwise injured during their service, the VA is a caregiver of last resort.  The fact that these people died in Phoenix means that they had no military Tricare, no private healthcare insurance, no Obama Care, no Medicare, no Medicaid, and their local emergency rooms apparently refused to treat them when their condition became urgent.  It is an indictment of the whole American healthcare system, as well as an indictment of VA care.

One problem with firing Shinseki is replacing him.  Healthcare costs in America have skyrocketed.  To replace Shinseki, you would ideally get a senior administrator of a large, private hospital system, but almost every person in one of these positions makes millions of dollars per year.  They would have to make a significant financial sacrifice to take the VA job.  One example is former Senator Frist; the Frist family in Tennessee is fantastically wealthy because of its hospital chain which was taken over by HCA, in which the Frists remain involved.  If you look at other well-known hospital systems, the Cleveland Clinic or the Mayo Clinic for example, the senior personnel are extremely well paid.

Although all aspects of the VA could be improved, I think the current scandal mainly involves old veterans like myself.  For veterans who come home wounded in combat, my understanding is that the VA is doing a better job, and once a person is in the VA system, the VA health data (as opposed to service data) is probably automated better than any private hospital’s.  I have looked into somehow getting on the VA’s roles, and frankly have been put off, but I did not make an issue of it because I have private insurance and Medicare.  The VA replied to my letters by saying that because I had these other coverages, I did not qualify for VA care.  I belong to the American Legion mainly because I hope that if something catastrophic happened to me not covered by insurance, the American Legion would help my wife get some kind of VA care for me.  I understand that the VA cannot be the primary healthcare provider to everyone who ever served in the American military.  It is more important that the VA take care of wounded veterans rather than old guys with chronic diseases, although admittedly I might change my tune on this someday.

Meanwhile, I think Shinseki is doing a better job than almost anyone who would replace him.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Veterans Affairs

I am sure the Department of Veterans Affairs needs improving, but I am not sure the latest scandal sheds much light on what needs to be done.  The fact that the scandal occurred in Phoenix, although similar cases have been found in other cities, indicates to me that his is a problem affecting older veterans.  Nice people don’t serve in the military very often these days.  Most volunteers come from rural or inner city areas where jobs are scarce.  American elites talk about being patriotic, but they don’t often do anything about it.  Therefore, I don’t think the people in Phoenix who died waiting for a call from the VA were veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan.  There are a lot of old people in Phoenix; these veterans were most likely from an earlier war or peacetime service.  

This raises the question of what services the VA is supposed to provide.  In many cases, it is the caregiver of last resort for veterans.  It has been criticized for falling down on this job, for example, failing to care for homeless veterans.   Retired career military have a program called Tricare.  If these Phoenix veterans died waiting for VA medical care, it means they had no Tricare, no private health insurance, no Obama Care, no Medicare, no Medicaid, and no local hospital would admit them to the hospital’s emergency room.  That is a sad state of affairs for the veterans, and for the US health care system.  

The VA has an enormous number of programs, covering young vets who have been badly wounded in combat, old wounded vets, young vets who are failing to adapt to civilian life after leaving the military, and old vets who are down on their luck, broke and sick.  I am guessing the Phoenix scandal involves the last category, but the talking heads on TV don’t shed any light on the issue.  They talk as if the VA is your mother, and once you leave the military, the VA will take care of you for the rest of your life, no matter what.  I’m not sure that what the law says.  

Lots of people want Secretary Shinseki to go, but nobody talks about who should replace him.  He is a combat veteran (who served in I Corps in Vietnam while I was there), who cares about the men and women.  As a cabinet secretary, Shinseki makes about $200,000 per year.  Both the head of the Cleveland Clinic and the head of the Mayo clinic make over $2 million per year.  Most heads of hospital systems earn over $1 million, and those systems are all smaller than the VA system.  Most doctors running university medical schools earn well over $500,000.  For almost anyone in the private sector, taking a senior government job means a substantial cut in salary.  So the VA can probably rule out getting a first rate medical administrator.  I would not expect much improvement if Shinseki gets replaced by some political hack, although the people shouting, “Off with his head,” would be appeased for a while.  

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Jewish Takeover

I have become increasingly concerned about a Jewish takeover of the United States, in which the United States would become the guarantor of Israel’s security, while Israel increasingly becomes an undesirable, immoral country.  Secretary of State Kerry’s characterization of Israel as an “apartheid” country is only the most recent evidence of Israel’s downfall.

I think the main problem is Israel, not Jews in general.  There are many American Jews who are loyal, patriotic Americans.  Ironically, I had more friendships and interactions with Jews, blacks, and other minorities growing up in Alabama than I have had in Colorado, where the most visible minority is Hispanic.  Growing up, the family next door was Jewish, and I never thought of them as anything but American.  The main difference was that we seldom shared meals because they kept kosher.  However, today I am worried by people like Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, even Senator Charles Schumer, as well as organizations like AIPAC, and Israelis like Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.  How would they come down if they had to choose between Israel and America?

Israel is in a difficult position.  It wants to be a racially pure country, the “Jewish state” that Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to recognize, which unfortunately echoes Hitler’s attempt to make Germany racially pure.  More and more, Israel is a country of Ashkenazi Jews; even Sephardic Jews are second rate citizens, much less other ethnicities.  On the other hand, if Israel does not remain an ethnically pure Jewish state, the Palestinians will in a few years become the majority population of Israel, ending Jewish dominance of the government.

White men, mainly Anglo-Saxons of British ancestry, took North America from the Indians; so, it would be just another page for the history books for the Jews to take North America from the Anglo-Saxons

Of course it is not just the Jews, Asians, including the Indians from South Asia, are also on the ascendant, but they so far are not acquiring the financial and political power that the Jews have.  They are not united in supporting one country outside of the US.  Many of them, except for a few Indian financiers, seem content to remain millionaires, not become billionaires.  They also don’t have the political power that Jews do.  There are relatively few in Congress, compared to the huge caucus of Jews, who make up a much larger percentage of the political elite in Washington, than their proportion of the population at large.  There is also a different attitude toward the country they came from.  Asians left their own country, India, China or Vietnam for example, because they wanted to go somewhere else.  As a result I don’t feel that America is nearly as threatened by Asians as it is by Jews.

Most Jews immigrated to the U.S. before Israel was created.  They never left their “homeland” for political or other reasons.  They left Germany or Russia because things were bad there, but they didn’t leave Israel because things were bad there.  Many Jews slip back and forth between the US and Israel, often having dual citizenship.  Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, chose to serve as a volunteer in the Israeli military rather than the American military.  He apparently served in the IDF in Israel during the first Gulf War in 1991.  It’s possible that he might not have qualified for the American military because he is missing part of a finger.  Also his father emigrated from Israel to the US, not from Europe.  Nevertheless, it is odd to have someone who held one of the most influential positions in the US Government, President Obama’s chief of staff, who served in a foreign army while remaining an American citizen.

Another question for me is Stanley Fischer, the new vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, a job he took after being governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013.  He was born in Rhodesia, studied in Israel as a teenager, got undergraduate degrees in England, and got a Ph.D. at MIT, where he also taught.  He became an American citizen in 1976.  Apparently Israel made him take Israeli citizenship to be governor of their central bank, but Israel did not force him to give up his American citizenship; so, he is now a dual national.  I guess I should be happy that he was an American citizen before he was an Israeli citizen and that he didn’t renounce his American citizenship.  Also, at the Fed, Israel’s interests are unlikely to conflict with America’s, but if they do, can he be trusted, especially since his boss, Janet Yellen, is also Jewish, and of course most bankers, especially in New York City are Jewish.  When America was founded, almost everybody in the American government was of British birth or ancestry, but they also fought several wars (the Revolution and 1812) against Britain.  

I am not well connected to any immigrant community, but got some glimpses when I served in the American embassies in Warsaw and Rome. The embassy in Warsaw had a big contingent of Polish-Americans, and the embassy in Rome had a huge contingent of Italian-Americans.  Italian-Americans had a very close, loving relationship with Italy. It was a little different in Warsaw because Warsaw was just coming out of 50 years under Communist rule.  The Polish-Americans had never lived under Communism; in some ways they wanted to do more to help their former countrymen than the Italians did, but in some ways, they were a little more distant, trying to figure out how to handle the remaining Communist influences in Poland.

So, what do American Jews think about Israel being such a racist country?  Clearly some are worried about it, the Jews who support J-Street, for example, but most seem to say, “Israel right or wrong, I love it.”  There are a lot of bad countries in the world that violate human rights more than Israel does, but the United States is not their sugar daddy.  When it wants to, Israel acts like it is a 51st state, insatiably taking, taking, taking all that its Jewish Congressmen and Senators will give it, aided by their born-again, fundamentalist Christian colleagues who also support Israel strongly in Congress.  Israel is the biggest recipient of US assistance, except Afghanistan because of the war, despite the fact that Israel is much richer and more developed than any other recipient of such aid.

Jews curse America for refusing to take in more Jews before and during World War II; yet, Israel declares itself a Jewish state, accepting only Jews.  Why couldn’t America have done like Israel and declared itself a Christian state in the 1940s, refusing to take in any Jews at all?

The New York Times recently reported that Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League conducted a poll that found that 26% of the world population was anti-Semitic.  It turns out that most of those anti-Semites are Arabs and Muslims, especially Palestinians.  However, the article says, “The most widely held stereotype, the survey showed, was an affirmative answer to this statement: “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in.”  I’m sorry Mr. Foxman, but I worry that this statement is true.  While you may think this says something bad about me, I think it shows that many Jews need to do more to show that they are loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States.

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Go Slow on Ukraine

This Politico article is one of the most cynical I have read about the West's morals.  While it mainly indicts the Europeans, it also applies to the US, since the US and EU banks are competitors for Russian investments.  Russian oligarchs own US sports teams as well as European sports teams.  American banks are a little more distanced and a little more restricted by American laws and regulations, but not much.   

I tend to agree with Stephen Cohen and Mearsheimer that Russia has important strategic and historical interests in the Ukraine that are unmatched in the West, which is mainly concerned about preserving international law in general, rather than any specific threats to American or Western European security.  Poland, Moldova and perhaps the Baltic republics have some genuine security concerns, but those are not immediate.  Poland might end up being more secure if Ukraine remains a buffer state within the Soviet sphere of influence than if Ukraine appears to be a festering threat to Russian national security.  That might make Russia more likely to threaten nearby states like Poland than if it feels secure behind a friendly Ukraine.  Russia sees the encroachment of NATO as a threat; Poland's membership in NATO is a protection for it that is unlikely to be challenged by Russia.  

Here are some of the comments by Cohen and Mearsheimer that I think are more valid than a lot of the commentators (and Republicans) who fret about Obama's weakness and the need to punch Putin in the nose.  I think Kissinger may also incline toward the Cohen and Mearsheimer view based on his interview with Charlie Rose.  

Cohen in The Nation magazine:
Cohen on PBS NewsHour

Mearsheimer on PBS

Kissinger on Charlie Rose

Monday, March 03, 2014

Russia's Interests in Crimea

Russia has genuine strategic interests in Crimea, mainly the naval base which gives it access to southern oceans.  Otherwise, its ports are on the Baltic sea or Northern Pacific, a long way from the Mediterranean and Syria, for example.  Meanwhile, the US and Western Europe are mainly interested in the abstract principle of preventing the change in national boundaries by military force.  That is an admirable principle, but the US has dishonored it by acquiescing for decades in Israel's annexation of territory conquered by its military.  For Jewish money, the US has been glad to disregard international law as it applies to Israel.  Will it do the same for Russian money?  Politico says, "Yes," in one of the most cynical, damning articles that I have read about the loss in integrity in the west, "Why Russia No Longer Fears the West."  It says that Western Europe is so greedy to get money from the Russian oligarchs that it will not challenge Putin.  Although the article cites the Magnitsky Act as evidence of greater courageousness in the US, it's not much.  American banks are just as anxious to get Russian billions as European banks, despite the Dodd-Frank bill, which would put a few more restrictions on American banks, if it ever comes into full force.    

My guess is that Ukraine will end up being partitioned in some way, preserving Russian influence at least in Crimea, if not in all of Ukraine.  Putin would prefer to keep all of Ukraine in the Russian orbit, but may be willing to compromise to avoid a wider war or draconian sanctions on Russia.  I would guess that he wants Kiev more than western Ukraine, since it was the ancestral capital of Russia, predating Moscow.  The Polish Ukrainian border has moved east and west over the centuries, and part of what is now Ukraine used to be part of Poland and part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but a Ukraine that did not include Kiev would not be much of a country.  So, I would guess that Putin's first choice will be to keep all of Ukraine in the Soviet sphere of influence.  Perhaps the West can negotiate some sort of compromise, but when Yugoslavia disintegrated, the West facilitated its partition along ethnic lines.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Howard Kurtz Sells Out

I am disappointed at Howard Kurtz for moving to Fox without maintaining his journalistic integrity.  On Fox's "MediaBuzz" he slants his reporting to the Fox line, and just in case he doesn't, he has his pretty, blond minder along side to keep him in line, just like the North Koreans and old Soviets assigned a minder to watch visitors and make sure they didn't see or say anything that the government didn't want them to say.  Pravda's editorial policies are alive and well at Fox, and Howie is towing the line.  He was better at CNN's "Reliable Sources" than the new guy at CNN, but the new CNN guy, Brian Stelter, has more journalistic integrity now than Kurtz has at Fox; so, his show is better than Kurtz's.  I hope that Kurtz is getting paid lots of Fox money to disgrace himself.

Now it looks like Maria Bartiromo is going to follow Kurtz down the Fox media hole for money.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Russian Empire

Yesterday on Fox, George Will said that Russia had to learn to accept its loss of empire -- Ukraine -- as the British did.  But I think it he looking at the wrong countries that left the empire.  Ukraine is not like India or the Burma, but to Russia it is more like Scotland or Ireland.  Scotland is still part of the UK despite a long-running effort to separate, and there was a bitter terrorist war in Northern Ireland over the empire's control which might not be entirely extinguished today.

Not only is Kiev in many ways the first capital and heart of Russia, but the Crimea on the Black Sea is one of Russia's most important naval bases.  It is unlikely that Russia and Putin will quietly walk away from these ties, although they may eventually have to give them up.  I doubt they will go quietly, whether it means actual fighting or not.

However, I thought during the breakup of the old Soviet Union that the independence of the Baltic countries -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- was a step too far that would be resisted by Russia.  I was wrong; they have been some of the most successful of the old Soviet satellites.  But I am guessing that Putin regrets what happened with the Soviet Union disintegrated, and will not let Ukraine go quietly into the night.

We'll see.

One issue that seems to cut both ways for me is the Russian economy. It's not in good shape, and is unlikely to get better as fracking reduces natural gas prices and oil prices along with them.  Oil is Russia's main source of foreign exchange.  This Russia will be weakened in whatever it does to retain Ukraine, but on the other hand, because of economic pressures, it will be loath to lose an important partner and ally.


Thursday, February 13, 2014

Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable

This Comcast-Time Warner deal is clearly an agreement in restraint of trade that should be blocked by antitrust laws, but probably will not be.  These huge deals creating a few dominant companies in almost all sectors of the economy are bad for America in the long run.  Google-Yahoo, JP Morgan-Goldman Sachs, Comcast-DirecTV, GM-Ford, United-Delta Airlines, all of these, and more, oligarchies dominate their markets.  They can largely ignore their customers, because their customers have little or no choice.  If you want this service, you have to work with two or three companies; that's it.

Obama is a Democratic President who should be concerned about this, but he and his attorney general, Eric Holder, are too concerned about gay marriage and killing American citizens with drones to worry about antitrust issues.  We might as well have George W. Bush as President.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Bernanke's Scorecard

The WSJ had  fairly balanced editorial on Bernanke's tenure at the Fed.  He probably saved us from a second depression, but the long term effects of the rest of his term remain to be seen.  I have been a fan of Bernanke, but as the years pass, I have more doubts.

I think he has aided a stock market bubble, which has been good for many, but not for all.  His main justification for Quantitative Easing, the main force behind the bubble, is the Fed's legislated mission to reduce unemployment. I don't think the Fed can do this anymore.  It's main basis in a trickle down theory that if business booms, then it will hire more people and unemployment will go down.  But today, businesses don't need to hire people to expand.  Between outsourcing and automation businesses need fewer and cheaper employees to produce more and more products or services.  This is one reason that many businesses have huge piles of money sitting in banks (mostly overseas so they don't pay taxes) that they are not investing.  The Fed continues to throw free money at them; they take it, but they don't hire new employees; so, it has little or no effect on employment.  It turns out mainly to benefit the capitalists who use it to buy machines that are much cheaper and more efficient than people.

The zero interests rates have also been hard on honest people.  Some people on Wall Street are honest, but many are not.  Even the ones that are honest have been using the free money to gamble with, trading stocks rather than investing in businesses, with a few exceptions like Warren Buffett.  The bulk of honest people tend to live in cities and towns outside of New York.  People that have jobs would usually like to save money in a simple, safe way.  This used to be by putting money in bonds or savings accounts, but today these pay nothing.  So everyone is forced to make riskier investments, often through 401(k)s invested in the stock market.  This has been great off and on -- great last year, not so great in 2008.

So Bernanke has been great for his questionably honest, slick Jew buddies on Wall Street, and not so good the the average working people around the country who would like a decent return on their savings without huge risk.  This used to be case twenty or thirty years ago.  But the current situation is probably better than the high inflation we had at times back then, which ate up the savings of those same, honest risk-averse people who are losing again today.

It's not comforting that as Bernanke leaves and QE begins to taper off in 2014, the stock market is heading down.  The Fed says QE is ending because the economy can now support itself, but it appears that Wall Street does not believe that.  Wall Street appears to believe that America is failing, that its best days are behind it.  Unless the Fed is giving away free money, America is a losing proposition.  Right now, America is somewhat better off than some of its main competitors, Europe and Japan, for example.  China is probably in better shape, but people keep noticing signs of trouble there, too.  But there are signs of trouble in America, starting with its labor force, but including its biggest financial institutions, which have not really changed that much since 2008.  Nobody has gone to jail, and many of the changes are cosmetic.  Too big to fail is still a problem, and banks continue to produce exotic financial instruments that are probably too complicated for anybody to understand, especially what their long term impact may be.

I am generally pleased with Bernanke, but now I would only give him a "B", whereas a few years ago I would have given him an "A".  But a "B" is better than a "D", which is probably what Greenspan ended up with.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Let Amb. Stevens Rest in Peace

I am tired of having the Republicans make a political issue out of Amb. Stevens’ death in Benghazi.  Let him rest in peace.  He gave his life for his country; that should be an honorable thing, respected by his country.  When Secretary Robert Gates talks about supporting and respecting the troops; that should also apply to Foreign Service officers who are killed serving their country.  Why do McCain, Graham, and Issa have to make him into a political football?  If they hate the State Department, let them use some other weapon than a dead man’s body to whip it.  They want to blame Obama and Hillary Clinton for Amb. Stevens’ death and refuse to accept any explanation that does not arrive at that conclusion.  They say it is a matter of facts, but they have to hypothesize that al Qaeda is a powerful, worldwide terrorist organization that threatens the US at home and abroad, including in Libya.  Because of their all-consuming fear of al Qaeda, they would have had Hillary station a Marine battalion in Benghazi to protect the small mission there, which was not even a consulate.  They are probably right that Stevens was partly responsible for his own death..  He was a small scale Lawrence of Arabia; he was Lawrence of Libya.  He loved the Libyan people and wanted to work with them closely.  He didn’t want to be surrounded by a phalanx of security guards, which would have prevented him from doing his job.

McCain and Graham don’t want to believe the truth, and it is a fact that the truth is hard to come by in Libya; however, the New York Times report rings truer than McCain’s version of the truth.  I believe that as the NYT says, there are numerous militia groups roaming around in Libya, some of which hate the US, although some do not.  The leader of the group which attacked the US mission in Benghazi sounds like something of an idiot.  For some reason he attracted a group of followers who attacked the mission when the Ambassador happened to be there.  It is unlikely that anybody in the al Qaeda group formerly led by Osama bin Laden knew the attack was taking place.  The majority of the Libyan people who knew anything about the Ambassador liked him and would have protected him rather than killed him.

The crux of McCain’s argument is that the Benghazi groups Ansar al-Sharia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Muhammad Jamal Network are all groups created by, and formerly controlled by, Osama bin Laden.  I don’t believe they are.  It’s like saying the Boy Scouts are part of the US Marine Corps because they both wear uniforms and are loyal to the United States.

This is why the US Congress has a 10% approval level.  These people are not entirely stupid, although many are, but they are almost all corrupt, willing to bend the truth to fit their personal goals and ambitions.  I am sorry about McCain; he used to be a good guy, but he has lost his way, probably when he was running for President.  It’s hard to stand up in front of everybody and be rejected by the American people.  While it’s understandable, he still ain’t what he used to be.  And Hillary Clinton did not kill Ambassador Stevens.  

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Fischer at Fed

I am not happy about Obama's nominating Stanley Fischer to be vice chairman of the Fed.  Fischer, a dual national, has just completed a term as chairman of Israel's central bank. He has a distinguished record at MIT and the IMF, but I would prefer a Fed governor who does not have divided loyalties.  He can be a dual national or a senior US official, but I don't think he should be both.  If he wants to be Fed vice chairman,he should renounce his Israeli citizenship.  That may be impossible since all Jews have a right of return to Israel,but somehow he should demonstrate that if US and Israeli interests conflict, he will represent the US.

In addition, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen are all Jewish.  It looks like Jews control the banking system in the US.  Now we will have as the second-ranking Fed official a man who is not only Jewish; he is Israeli.  Anglos and Christians need not apply. Jews control most of the banking system in the US.  Even if you have a bank CEO who is not Jewish, like Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase, I'm sure he has lots of senior Jews just beneath him.

I am not worried about Jews per se; they are not a monolithic group; they are Republicans and Democrats.  But I worry that .some Jews represent the tiny Israeli tiny tail that often wags the US dog, not only regarding financial and economic policy, but in foreign affairs and military policy as well.  I think Volcker and Bernanke were excellent Fed chairs, but what if we have conflicting interests with Israel, over exchange rates for example.  I would prefer that senior US officials be 100% American.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Israelis from Texas and Alabama Attack Kerry

I just happened to flip on to C-SPAN's coverage of Secretary of State Kerry's testimony before the House on the nuclear agreement with Iran.  I was appalled at the questioning by Congressman Ted Poe from Texas' 2nd District and Congressman Mo Brooks from Alabama's 5th District.  They appeared to be representing Israel rather than America.  They appeared to be hired agents of a foreign power, not loyal Americans.  Texas 2nd District is famous as the seat of Charlie Wilson, of "Charlie Wilson's War" book and movie fame.  In the movie, Tom Hanks says as Charlie Wilson that he is supported by lots of Jewish money from New York; all he has to do is support Israel and make sure his constituents can keep their guns.  It looks to me like these congressmen have sold out to Jew money, like Judas did when he betrayed Jesus.  Israel may be a fine country, but it is not the United States of America.  These guys should be loyal to America and love this country. They should put America first.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Aparthied in Israel

The passing of Nelson Mandela reminds us of his fight against apartheid in South Africa.  Apartheid still exists in places around the world, one of which is Israel.  Israel legally imposes strict bias against non-Jewish people who live in or near Israel.  The most obvious, of course, is the Palestinian population that lives in Israel, but there are other affected populations.  How many blacks live in Israel?  There are groups of blacks who claim to be descended from Jews for hundreds or thousands of years, but they are not particularly welcome in Israel.  In general there is a huge Israeli bias against people who are not Jews.  There may be reasons for this, going back to the Holocaust or discrimination against Jews by gentiles for thousands of years, but that does not erase the fact that discrimination by Israelis exists.

There are many countries that engage in worse racial discrimination than Israel, but Israel claims to belong to the advanced group of civilized countries who were united in their opposition to South African apartheid.  Israel developed its nuclear bomb program in cooperation with the old, white, pre-Mandela South African government, with which it maintained close ties throughout its existence.  There is a legacy of discrimination that Israel needs to overcome.

Israel needs its own Nelson Mandela.

Income Inequality Forever

I am disappointed that the new budget deal did nothing about income taxes.  The budget deal a year ago carried over most of the Bush tax cuts.  One group said that it carried over 82% of the tax cuts.  These low taxes guarantee that income inequality will continue indefinitely.  While some rates went up a little a year ago, income taxes are still extremely low by historical standards.  That is certainly a major contributor income inequality.  There are a lot of other factors, including outsourcing and the displacement of human workers by computers, but the easiest way to rectify income inequality would be by implementing a more progressive tax structure which would tax higher incomes at a higher rate.  This would not affect many of the underlying issues favoring capital over labor in the financial market, as described in the book Race Against the Machine, but it would ameliorate the rate of destruction of the middle and lower classes in the US, ideally giving us time to address the more fundamental structural issues.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Bush and the Iranian Nuclear Program

An op-ed today in the NYT on Bush's failure to invade Iran, by Ari Shavit misses the point.  Shavit has gotten lots of praise for not hiding Israel's flaws in his recent book, My Promised Land.  However, his article just says that Bush should have attacked Iran rather than Iraq.  It's an example of Jewish hatred of Iran that I cited in my previous post, despite Shavit's reputation as an enlightened Israeli.

Where Bush erred regarding Iran's nuclear program was in India.  India has flouted the nuclear non-proliferation regime, mainly embodied in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for decades.  It has had a clandestine nuclear weapons program ever since it started working on nuclear energy.  At the end of his administration, Bush basically said, "Never mind about the NPT, India can have its nuclear program, civilian and military."  He made India the example for other proliferating countries, like Iran.  He said you can break all the rules, and once you become a true nuclear weapons state like the US and Russia, you can keep your nuclear weapons.  This is clearly what Iran wants, if it develops nuclear weapons, and India shows that it is a possibility.

I am not convinced that Iran has made the decision to develop nuclear weapons, and there are many examples of countries that have decided not to.  Brazil was once in a position similar to Iran's, having a nuclear energy program that could facilitate the development of nuclear weapons, and Brazil abandoned it and joined the NPT.  That could still happen with Iran.  Of course, one difference is that Brazil's potential nuclear rival was Argentina.  Brazil and Argentina mutually agreed to give up their military programs.  Iran's rival is Israel, and maybe Saudi Arabia.  Israel is not likely to give up its nuclear weapons program.  Saudi Arabia does not have one, and this is not a serious rival, although it has the money to buy one.  By retaining its nuclear weapons program, Israel is probably the main factor encouraging Iran to pursue an Iranian bomb.

Another example of a nuclear rivalry is India and Pakistan.  India has gotten the US seal of approval on its program.  Pakistan has not, but it is so far along, that there is not much the US can do about it.  It is probably in America's interest to allow the more responsible Indians to vastly overpower the Pakistani nuclear arsenal as a way of decreasing the likelihood that the crazier Pakistanis might use theirs.  However, there should be a better way to accomplish the goal of lowering tensions on the subcontinent without undermining the non-proliferation regime for the whole world, including Iran.

Why Stay in Afghanistan?

I don't buy that we are planning to leave American troops in Afghanistan for ten more years because we are afraid of terrorist attacks originating there.  Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden set up operations there because it was a weak state out of the public spotlight.  Today there are many other countries in a similar situation -- Somalia, Mali, Libya, and others.  The Taliban pretty much hate Americans, but there are lots of others around the world who feel the same.

On the other hand, Afghanistan would be a useful base of operations for an invasion of Iran next door.  The decision to keep troops in Iran probably has more to do with American and Jewish hatred of Iran than it does with the security of Afghanistan.  It's not enough to appease Netanyahu for a US-Iranian nuclear agreement, but it's better than nothing.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

JP Morgan and Dimon Guilty

During the 2008 financial meltdown, JP Morgan was often portrayed as the best big bank and the one most willing to work with the government to relieve the crisis.  That is probably true, although Wells Fargo seems to have been relatively safe, too, if less interested in helping the government.

The recent settlement between JP Morgan and the government indicates that even the best bank was not very good.  It was up to its ears in bad transactions for its customers and investors.  It was creating the selling the junk that led to the financial crisis and that destroyed the savings of many home buyers.  Jamie Dimon, the best of the big bank CEOs, turns out to have been pretty dirty.  Something is rotten on Wall Street.  During the recent stock market run-up to Dow 16,000 banks have been among those leading the way up, despite the fact that they seem to be corrupt.  This and the recent insider trading convictions/settlements, like SAC's, indicate that most of all of Wall Street is dirty, and thus likes their fellow dirty institutions, like the big banks.

This is not unusual; it happens in all countries where greed gets out of control, but it's unfortunate that it is happening to the US now.  It's just another sign of decline.  In a better country, the government would have reacted and reined in the miscreants.  In this huge fraud, the profits from these illegal trades are so big that even a multi-billion dollar settlement is just a slap on the wrist.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Tom Friedman on Israel and the US

Tom Friedman's column in the November 13 NYT made many of the points that I worry about.  I worry that the US is inclined to worry more about Israel's security than America's security.  It's interesting that these points are made by someone who is Jewish -- certainly ethnically, maybe religiously, I don't know.  He says we (the United States) are not just lawyers hired to negotiate with Iran on behalf of Israel and the Sunni Arab states.  We have our own interests to protect.  It's ironic that he makes this point while many conservative, Republican politicians seem much more concerned about Israel than they do their own country. And these conservatives ignore the fact that the positions they represent are those of Arab countries that have been generous (unofficially) to terrorists and who are sponsoring some of the most objectionable factions in the Syria fighting.  It reminds me of the "Charlie Wilson's War" movie in which he says that he is kept in office in his quiet Texas Congressional district by Jewish money from New York.  All he has to do is support Israel and protect his constituents right to bear arms.  Otherwise, nobody cares how he votes.

I don't understand why many conservatives support Israeli interests over American interests.  It's like that book, What's the Matter with Kansas, looking at why Kansans typically vote against their own personal interests in favor to some political theory that generally works against them.  I am glad Friedman calls for Americans to look out for their own interests, but I'm not sure whether we will or not.

Meanwhile, Roger Cohen defends the French position at the Iran talks, in which they blocked an agreement to the delight of the Israelis and the Sunnis.  He argues that the French are pursuing a hard-line, aggressive foreign policy across the board, while the US in wimping out.  There may be some truth in this, but I am not convinced.  I still think that France was influenced by Jewish/Israeli pressure to block the agreement, like conservative, Republican, American legislators.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Insider Trading by SAC

The insider trading agreement with SAC (Steven A. Cohen's hedge fund) shows how common insider trading is on Wall Street.  These guys are not so smart; they are crooks.  The stock market is not a level playing field, and the SEC has fallen far behind in trying to make it level. To some extent the Republicans under Bush and Cheney tried to tie the SEC's hands, but the bankers and hedge fund managers have been successful in lobbying everybody, Republicans and Democrats, to let them run amok, except maybe Elizabeth Warren.  She is an honest woman who scares them to death.  

Of course that means it's hard for small investors to trade in this market, because the insiders can make it turn on a dime, leaving main street behind holding the bag.  The policemen are asleep.  There have been several successful insider trading prosecutions, but that only shows how widespread the problem is.  For every successful prosecution there are probably 10 or 100 traders who have not been caught.

Insider trading is only one aspect of the corruption on Wall Street.  The 2008 debacle caused by worthless securities based on morgages showed there is lots of dishonesty in the securities business.  Salesmen and traders for the biggest banks, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc. were dishonest about what they were selling.  In most cases they new they were selling junk, and they sold it anyway.  

60 Minutes Benghazi Retractions

60 Minutes' retraction of its Benghazi report shows what a mess Benghazi was.  This is months after the attack and CBS still got it wrong.  So, it's not surprising that Susan Rice might have gotten something wrong when she appeared on TV news shows just a day or so after the attack.    The Republicans no doubt blame the State Department for hiring low quality people to defend Benghazi, but I blame them for forcing the government to outsource almost everything, including security for embassies.  Of course, Benghazi was not an embassy; it was not even a consulate.  It was some kind of special purpose cover mission for some wild, crazy CIA activities in Libya, which were run not out of the mission building, but out of some safe house a few blocks from the embassy.  The CIA officers were clearly the Keystone Cops in this operation who let Ambassador Stevens die through cowardice or incompetence.  The CIA station chief in Libya should be censured and fired.  The head of Blue Mountain Security should be no longer be allowed to do business with the US government, since the lying security agent who spoke to 60 Minutes worked for Blue Mountain.  This is a scandal, but not for the State Department; it's a scandal for the CIA which failed to come the Ambassador's aid and for the Republicans who failed to fund adequate security for the Benghazi mission, forcing it to outsource its security to a bunch of unknown, worthless foreigners.  

Israelis at Iran Negotiations

I think it is likely that the French were acting on behalf of the Israelis when they blocked an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.  A newer NYT article puts some of the blame on the Iranians, which is no doubt partly true, but it is most likely that Jews -- French, American and Israeli -- threw a monkey wrench into the works.  Today's NYT article reports that US delegation head Wendy Sherman flew immediately to Israel to brief Israeli reporters, but refused to include US reporters stationed in Israel in her briefing.

I worry that the French delegation at the Geneva talks on Iran was representing the views of French Jews, who have a lot of political influence in France.  It indicates that in France, as in America, many Jews have divided allegiances between their home country and Israel.  Years ago, France was instrumental in helping Israel develop its atomic bomb program.

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Education Failure

I'm disappointed that the education tax proposal, Amendment 66, did not pass yesterday.  It basically means that Colorado has thrown in the towel.  Coloradans have said that China won.  Our kids will work for your Chinese kids when they reach working age, because the Coloradans are so poorly prepared for life by their schools.  Today's adults will have a little more money in their pockets, while they borrow Chinese money and condemn their children to a life of poverty.  But it feels good now, especially if you smoke pot.  Colorado: home of stoners who hate school.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

NSA Incompetence

Everyone is "shocked, shocked" that the US is spying on its allies.  Of course almost everyone does it, but almost everyone who does it keeps it a secret.  NSA's failure was not so much spying on Angela Merkel as it was not keeping the spying secret.  The failure is due to the same thing as the Benghazi debacle, contracting out everything, because the Republicans hate the American government.  It was outside-contractor Snowden who disclosed the spying, not a government employee, just as it was not American military who were disgraced in Benghazi.

NSA chief Gen. Alexander should be fired immediately, not for spying on Merkel, but for allowed the spying to be made public.  His security arrangements for protecting American intelligence were obviously too weak.  He never should have agreed to all of the outsourcing that is taking place.  NSA is a spy agency that can't keep a secret, which makes it worthless.

Fire Alexander now and take away one of his stars.  He is a failure.  He has let down his country.  He has been defeated in the battle for international leadership, a battle that should be led by intelligence, not hindered by it.

Republicans Don't Love America

The last 60 Minutes show on Benghazi reawakened my concern that Republicans are more concerned about shovelling money to their contractor friends than they are about protecting the United States.  According to 60 Minutes, the man responsible for protecting the Ambassador was not an American, but a retired British military man.  During the Iraq war, the Republicans did not trust American Marines to protect the the Embassy, but hired their buddies who ran Blackwater.  Blackwater turned out to be so corrupt and inept that its headquarters had to leave the United States.

Further muddying the waters in Benghazi was the fact that the post there was not a normal Foreign Service post.  It was not an embassy nor a consulate, but some kind of special mission, the main purpose of which was to provide cover for clandestine CIA activity which was being carried out in a much more secure "safe house" distant from the mission building.  Apparently the CIA was more concerned about itself than about the Ambassador at the mission.  The CIA officers apparently let Ambassador Stevens die in the mission building while they hunkered down in their safe house.  I think it is despicable that Congressman Issa has been attacking the State Department for what was the cowardice of CIA officers and outside-hire mercenaries.  Basically Amb. Stevens' security team locked him in a jail cell in a burning building and left him there while they took refuge in the CIA safe house.

The other thing that never gets discussed is why Libya was so unsafe.  Libya was supposed to be a victory for the new American approach to regime change in the Middle East, but instead it has turned into a quagmire where the American Ambassador is killed and al-Qaeda is strengthened by acquiring new recruits and a new base of operations.  What about all of Qaddafi's weapons that have gone missing, probably now in the hands of terrorists across Africa?  American interests were better served by Qaddafi, than by the new terrorist-linked government that the US installed.  Sen. John McCain and his fellow Republican hawks are as responsible for Amb. Stevens' death as anybody not directly involved in the fighting at the Benghazi mission.

This is a black page in the history of American diplomacy.

Monday, October 07, 2013

The Fight Against ObamaCare

This NYT article about the money funding the fight against ObamaCare indicates to me that the fight is more than just against ObamaCare.  I think it is a coalition of white conservative groups who oppose Obama and the America he represents.  Part of it is whites against blacks.  Fox rounds up some black Tea Party hacks, but there are not many of them.  But the rebellion is not just whites against blacks, it is conservative, southern, rural men whose families have lived in America for many generations, and who used to lead America or have a large voice in running America, against the new darker hued, liberal, more recent immigrants to America who have become increasingly powerful, especially in the highly urbanized states on both coasts.  The less urbanized South, non-coastal West and Midwest are losing out.

It's ironic that the group representing the smaller population is making its stand in the House of Representatives, in which is representation is based on population.  It looks like they have just enough safe seats to be able to block legislation they oppose, although they don't have enough seats to pass legislation, which has brought the Congress to a deadlock. Part of the problem is gerrymandering, which has created too many safe seats, making Republican party primaries more important than the actual election.  However, many of these Congressmen and women come from states that are so Republican that redistricting would not make much difference, although more equitable redistricting would remove some of the obstreperous Republicans.

These are my guys.  I grew up in the South.  The first politician I ever supported enthusiastically was Barry Goldwater.  But the other side of the issue is, "What about the country."  These guys seem willing to destroy the country if they don't get their way.  I suppose Ted Cruz can go home to Canada or Cuba if he doesn't get his way, but a lot of the other leaders of the rebellion come from families who have lived in America for generations.  Do they think America is finished?  Are these the same guys who decided in Vietnam that they had to destroy the village to save it?  It didn't work in Vietnam, and I don't think it will work in America.

I think something needs to be done about government spending, and about ObamaCare.  The Republicans insisted on making ObamaCare into something like the plan proposed by the Heritage Foundation and enacted by Romney in Massachusetts.  It uses the existing insurance framework to expand the percentage of the population covered by healthcare.  By using that insurance framework, however, it gave up many opportunities to save money.  One of the main problems with American healthcare now is that it is not a marketplace.  The insurance industry massively overpays the medical industry because the insurance companies rake their profits off the top, and the bigger the pot is, the bigger their share is.  They have little incentive to hold down costs, and both the insurance executives and the medical executives paid Congress well to maintain the existing structure while expanding it to more people.  Most Democrats wanted a single payer system (the government) that would be something like Medicare for all.  In that case, the government could in theory reign in medical costs, and the HHS bureaucracy is probably more honest that either Congress or the health insurance industry.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Shutdown Is Bad

Just for the record, I'm am against a government shutdown.  I basically quit the government by retiring from the Foreign Service after the 1995-6 government shutdown.  I blame the Republicans.  I blamed Newt Gingrich and his Republican followers for the first shutdown, and I blame the Tea Party Republicans for this shutdown, if it happens.  The government should go about its business in a business-like way.  People say one test of a business is whether it can meet a payroll.  The Republicans can't do it.  For all of Boehner's talk about growing up as a small businessman in his father's bar, he is on the brink of being a failure as a businessman on a much bigger stage.

The government should honor its commitments.  If it is over committed, which it is, then it should have a debate about how to revise its commitments, but it should do that prospectively, not by refusing to pay people who have relied on it.  Presumably, the failure to raise the debt ceiling in about two weeks might be worse financially, but morally the two failures are more or less equivalent.  The US has lost its integrity.

I think that Newt consigned the US to the status of a second (or third) class country when he shut the government down.  These are not serious people, and if they run the government, this is not a serious government.  In the Foreign Service, I felt that the government abandoned me in Warsaw, Poland.  It seems possible that it may now abandon troops in the field.  In my opinion, the Republicans are largely unpatriotic cowards.  Most of them never served in the military, never fought for this country, although they are quick to send other people off to die for America.  John McCain is more or less the exception that proves the rule.

Right now, I hear former Republican Senator Fred Thomson selling reverse mortgages to old people on the TV.  What a disgrace!  He is typical of the low class of people who have become politicians in America, and who are now on the verge of shutting down the government and showing the world what a laughingstock America is.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Syria Did It

The UN report on the use of chemical weapons on Syria seems to pretty clearly link the weapons' use to Assad's Syrian government.  The rocket delivery system in particular seems to rule out the rebels.  While it might not clearly link the attack to Assad himself, if someone else initiated the attack, it is an even stronger argument for getting rid of all chemical weapons in Syria.

Bankers Are the Welfare Queens

It turns out that the big bankers are Reagan's real welfare queens driving their Cadillacs or more likely their BMWs or Mercedes.  When Larry Summers dropped out of the Fed Chair race, the stock market went up, because they thought that he would not be as likely to follow Bernanke's stimulative QE policies as Janet Yellen would.  I think that Bernanke is truly targeting high unemployment, which is being largely ignored by Congress (particularly Republicans) and the administration, which seems to have given up on any meaningful economic agenda.  The indirect effect of the Fed's trying to reduce unemployment, however, is low interest rates, essentially giving away money to the hanks and rich people on Wall Street.  This is partly because the Fed is an imperfect tool to reduce unemployment, especially when Congress is often working at cross purposes with it, which it is by enacting the sequester.

In addition, the banks have a huge, expensive lobbying effort to keep interest rates low and regulation to a minimum.  Corrupt Congressmen and Senators are happy to get their payoffs from the banks.  It's a dirty business, but the bankers are getting rich chowing down at the government table of free goodies.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Ecofund Did Its Job

While I was Science Counselor at the Amrican Embassy in Warsaw, we worked out a deal whereby Poland would pay part of its debt to the US to an enviornmental fund, Ecofund in English, Ekofundusz in Polish.  Just look around on a Polish newspaper web site, I found that the fund had endured until the debt payments ran out in 2010.  So at least one thing that I worked out appears to have done some good,  A Google translation of a Polish Ministry of Environment statement follows.

EKOFUNDUSZ - END OF THE MISSION
PROF. NOWICKI AWARDED THE COMMANDER'S CROSS

After more than 18 years of environmental activities EkoFundusz completes his mission. Almost 1500 for $ 8 billion investment zł (including EcoFund 2.5 billion zł) and strategic role in civilization leap that has been made in Poland in the environment after 89 on the shortest summary of the activities of the foundation. During the ceremony, Professor. Maciej Nowicki, a longtime president of the EcoFund, and two-time environment minister, received the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Polish for outstanding achievements in the field of environmental protection. Congratulations and thanks for making the hands of Professor. Maciej Nowicki by Janusz Zaleski, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Environment.
EkoFundusz managing funds from the conversion of the Polish foreign debt for investment in environmental protection, ceases to trade. In the 18 years of existence, the Foundation spent nearly 2.5 billion zł to finance projects related to environmental protection.
November 17 gala dinner on the occasion of termination EkoFundusz saying goodbye to the most significant for its business personalities, including former ministers Donald Tusk's government, including Waldemar Pawlak, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy. Among the guests were also prof. Leszek Balcerowicz and the representatives of the donor countries: USA, France, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden and Norway. The Ministry of Environment was represented by Janusz Zaleski, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Environment.
Minister Andrzej Kraszewski, commenting on the event emphasized:
- Eco-Fund is an initiative which was created thanks to the personal commitment of prof. Maciej Nowicki and during its operation significantly improved the state of the environment in Poland. It would not, however, without an understanding of the needs of the Polish governments of the donor countries, so we first need to thank them. The words of recognition and congratulations for making the Foundation for Polish environmental protection is filed in the hands of the former longtime president EcoFund, prof. Maciej Nowicki and current President of Stanislaus Sitnickiego. To all those who contributed to the success EcoFund - thank you very much.
President EcoFund Stanislaw Sitnicki thanking donors and colleagues emphasized:
- Eco-Fund participated in the financing of nearly 1,500 key projects for Polish output of ecological collapse. According to an independent evaluation of the program ecoconversion Foundation contribution to the improvement of the environment in Poland is far greater than its financial participation in the process. It would not, however, the chance of these projects or the staff were not magnanimous gesture of the donor, who took a risk and gave Poland the possibility of using part of the debt repayment from the 70's to invest in environmental protection.
During the ceremony, the Minister Jacek Michalowski, head of the President's Office on behalf of the President Bronislaw Komorowski gave prof. Maciej Nowicki Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta Polish for exceptional service to the environmental achievements undertaken for the benefit of the country and public work. This is the second highest civilian honor Polish state.
Minister Maciej Nowicki in a statement after ticking said:
- This high state award I receive as a culmination of my 47 - year career in the service of my homeland, as a scientist, minister, president EcoFund and an expert in international forums. I saw before my eyes changed Poland, and improving the state of the environment and was glad that his work could also contribute to this improvement. I am grateful to President Komorowski that recognizes the importance of protecting the environment for citizens and accept this order as a symbol of appreciation for the progress they have made in Poland in the last 20 years.
EkoFundusz was established in 1992 by the Minister of Finance, to administer foreign aid funds (so-called eco-conversion means). They were given to Poland on the basis of an agreement on debt reduction and reorganization of the Polish Republic, which concluded in 1991, representatives of the Polish Government and the 17 creditor countries grouped in the Paris Club.
The program ecoconversion joined the six countries: USA, France, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden and Norway. Their total contribution to the Foundation for Eco-Fund amounted to $ 573 million. They formed the main source of revenue for the Foundation. For 18 years, the Minister of Finance on a quarterly basis were sent to the account EcoFund installments as debt repayment.
The Foundation's purpose was to finance projects in the field of environmental protection, which are not only important for the region or the country, but also affect the achievement of environmental objectives in a European or even world-recognized as a priority by the international community.
Statute EcoFund identified five sectors identified as priority areas. Applicants may receive grants for projects related to the protection of air, water protection, climate protection, nature conservation and waste management. Area of activity within each sector was narrowed according to the urgency of needs and the availability of mature project proposals.
President of the Foundation, 1992-2007 prof. Maciej Nowicki, Minister of the Environment twofold.
In 2010, the year of the Polish debt is repaid in full under an agreement with the Paris Club, is the date of cessation of EcoFund.

Friday, August 30, 2013

No Moral Authority

It seems pretty clear that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, behind their front man Colin Powell, have destroyed the moral authority of the United States by invading Iraq under false pretenses and fake intelligence.  Obama now pays the price because he has to rely on the same discredited intelligence agencies, who bowed to political pressure and issued intelligence analyses requested by the White House, rather than supported by facts.

Because we have no moral authority, Obama is wasting his time trying to marshal intelligence to support his invasion of Syria.  It's not clear what he will do, but it certainly appears that it will be a military strike of some kind that would constitute an act of war.  Syria seems unlikely to respond militarily, but would have a legal right to do so under international law.  Syria may have committed unspeakable offenses against its own people, but it has not attacked the United States.  And there is no provision under the Chemical Weapons Convention which makes the US the unilateral enforcer of the Convention.

Under the circumstances, Obama should just go ahead and do whatever he and his advisers think is appropriate "punishment" for Syria, without worrying about whether Syria really should be punished and if so, how.  Act and get it over with!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Don't Intervene in Syria

President Barak Obama is looking at two types of precedents for his intervention in Syria.  There is Bill Clinton who waited too long to intervene in the genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda resulting in thousands of additional deaths.  And there is George W. Bush who jumped into Iraq and Afghanistan too soon, without adequate planning, resulting in wasted deaths of US soldiers and outcomes that probably will be detrimental to the US, rather than advantageous.  The Clinton example urges him to get in; the Bush example urges him to stay out.

For me, the Bush example urging him to stay out is more apposite than the Clinton example.  In both Bosnia and Rwanda there was a pretty clear villain carrying out the genocide.  That is less clear in Syria.

The first question is to be resolved is whether the Syrian government used chemical weapons.  It’s pretty clear that chemical weapons were used, but it’s less clear who used them.  Given Obama’s “red line” it would appear stupid for Assad to use chemical weapons; he would just be inviting the US to intervene.  But maybe Assad is stupid, or maybe he is counting on that appearance of stupidity to discourage retaliation.  On the other hand, the rebels have been pleading for the US to intervene against Assad.  Because of Obama’s “red line,” the rebels have a strong motivation to make it look like Assad used chemical weapons, but do they have access to chemical weapons?  It seems possible that they might, either brought from Syrian stockpiles by defectors to the rebels, or given to them by sympathizers in other countries.  However, I know of no evidence that the rebels to have such weapons, except for some suspect photos circulated by the Syrian government.

If the Syrian government did use the chemicals, then what were the circumstances?  Was it a top level government decision by Assad himself, someone lower but still senior, or were they used by a low level person without permission from the government.  The New York Times said that the intelligence it knew of did not show a “smoking gun” linking Assad to the weapons’ use, although it did link someone in the government to their use.  If the weapons were used by some low-level person, an American attack on Syria’s command and control network might actually increase the likelihood of CW use.  Because of defections, I would be leery of communications intelligence; defectors might have Syrian government radios, for example.  The intelligence would have to be good, in light of the disastrous intelligence presented to the UN to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

On balance, I think the US should stay out of the Syrian civil war at this time.  Condemn the use of CW, but don’t intervene militarily.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Recent Letter to Congerss

I am writing to you because of a program on the new Al Jazeera cable news network.  I turned it on just to see what it was like, and happened upon a David Frost interview of the Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta.  I knew nothing about Acosta, but the interview made me reflect on US-Cuban relations.  As a Vietnam veteran, I find it odd that after a hot, fighting war, we have become best friends with Vietnam, while because of a small guerrilla action in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, we are still consumed with virulent hatred of Cuba.  I think it is time to change this policy and develop a rapprochement with Cuba.

American policy toward Cuba is a legacy of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.  The Helms-Burton Amendment restricting visas for people connected in almost any way with Cuba was one of the reasons I retired from the State Department Foreign Service.  I was serving as science officer in Rome where my job required me to attend a cocktail party celebrating the launching of an Italian satellite by the US.  I was chatting with an executive of the Italian telephone company, who said something like, “You Americans must really hate us.  My daughter was just denied a visa to go to Disneyland because I work for the telephone company.”   I was totally surprised, and the next day went to ask the Consul General, who oversaw visa issuance, about it.  She said it was true.  Because the Italian telephone company had some connection with the Mexican telephone company, which had some connection to the Cuban telephone company, they were prohibited by Helms-Burton from issuing visas to family members of people who worked for the Italian telephone company.

Many years ago, I had read Herman Wouk’s books on World War II: Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.  At some point somewhat late in the books, I think the Jewish heroine is trying to get to Israel from Rome.  The Germans who controlled the visas said they would give her a visa, but they would not give a visa to her daughter, in effect preventing her from leaving.  I realize that these books are fiction, but the idea of punishing parents through their children was one of the worst things Wouk could think of to tar the Nazis with.  I found abhorrent the idea of the United States doing the same thing to penalize Cubans rather than Jews.  Why should the Bay of Pigs make Americans act like Nazis?  We need to put this hatred of Cuba behind us.

This was only part of the reason I retired because of my disappointment with the US government.  The main reasons had to do with government funding, which promises to be an issue again in the next few months.  I hope that you will not shut down the government as I happened to be scheduled to transfer from the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, to the American Embassy in Rome on the day that Speaker Gingrich closed down the government.  I was saying goodbye to friends at the Warsaw Embassy and was in the military attaché’s office, when my Polish assistant (who could not enter that classified area) called and said Embassy Rome was on the line.  They said that because of the government shutdown I could not leave Warsaw for Rome.  We had left our house; our car was packed, including two dogs, and we had planned to leave as soon as the Embassy closed for the day.  The State Department had a few weeks earlier asked me to curtail my assignment in Warsaw, because Italy was about to assume the Presidency of the European Union, and as a result of some dustup with the State Department personnel system, the Science Counselor in Rome had just resigned or been fired.  When a country assumes the EU presidency the workload for the embassy more or less doubles, because it has to maintain a dialogue about EU-wide issues, as well as the usual dialogue about bilateral issues.

Most Foreign Service officers fight for an assignment in Rome, but in this case I was doing it because the State Department said it needed me.  I didn’t know it until I got that 5:00 pm call, but I found out that the Deputy Chief of Mission (deputy to the Ambassador) was a friend I had served with in Brazil.  He made arrangements for me to travel to Rome, so that my wife and I were not turned out on the streets of Warsaw by the US government.  This was a bitter reminder of a night during the Vietnam War at Firebase Barbara on a mountaintop west of Quang Tri.  We received intelligence that an enemy unit was forming at the base of the mountain.  Because of Vietnamization, we had no American infantry support; we had air defense “dusters,” vehicles with twin 40 mm cannons to protect us.  Our battalion headquarters radioed and said that the dusters were notoriously lazy and had not resupplied with gasoline, which was difficult to get to the mountaintop.  Headquarters said we were not to give any of our gasoline to the dusters.  Under the circumstances this could have been a death sentence.  Of course we made sure the dusters had gas; they fired hundreds or thousands of rounds into the area where the enemy was massing and the attack never materialized.  I was not happy to have the government say that I was expendable in Poland, as it had in Vietnam.

Once I arrived in Rome, part of my nuclear non-proliferation portfolio was the US-North Korea nuclear agreement overseen by KEDO, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization.  Under this agreement one of the US responsibilities was to supply North Korea with a certain amount of fuel oil to keep their electrical generators going until the nuclear reactors promised under the agreement came on line.  This cost the US about $2 million per year, as I recall.  However, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee refused to appropriate the money to pay for the fuel oil.  Thus, part of my job in Rome was to go hat in hand to the Italians (representing both Italy and the EU) asking them for money to pay for the fuel oil so that the US would not be in breach of the agreement.  Again, I was horrified at the immoral US position.  We had an agreement with the rouge state of North Korea, but we were about to be guilty of breaching it, rather than the North Koreans, unless the Europeans helped us out.  I don’t know how this issue was resolved; I left before it was, when Italy’s EU Presidency ended, and the battle for money was being fought in Washington as well as in Rome.  I do not think that we breached the agreement at that time because of financial constraints, but I was not happy that there was even a question that we might do so.  

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Israel Is Center of US Middle East Policy

A New York Times headline today sums of US Middle Eastern policy for the last 50 years, "Chaos in Middle East Grows as the U.S. Focuses on Israel."  US policy toward Arab states has always been subordinate to our policy toward Israel.  This started when early in its life the United Nations accepted the partition of Palestine, thus allowing the creation of the state of Israel.  One of the first countries to recognize the new state was the US.  (For a slightly different view of how this happened, see "The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel.")  In any case, the State Department, led by General George Marshall, strongly opposed President Truman's immediate recognition of Israel, motivated in part by Truman's desire for Jewish votes in the upcoming election.

The US relationship with Israel has evolved over the years, becoming closer and closer, as the US sided with Israel in the various wars that the Arabs waged because of what they saw as the Jewish usurpation of Arab land.  The Arab states joined in various degrees of enthusiasm with the resistance of their Palestinian brethren, placing the US more and more at odds with the overwhelming majority of the states and populace of the Middle East.  But for Israel, there may never have been on OPEC and an oil crisis in the US.  The twin towers of the World Trade Center might still be standing in New York.  The US might not have fought two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  The US might be many billions of dollars richer for not having supplied Israel with massive aid over the years, about $135 billion by one estimate, and $118 billion by another estimate.

Israel is truly the tail that wags the dog of US foreign policy.  There are many reasons for this, but I do not think that many of them are driven by the national interest of the United States; they are driven by the national interest of Israel, represented by the high number of Jewish politicians in America, the huge influence of Jewish money in national elections (e.g. Sheldon Adelson), and the religious beliefs of a number of conservative, evangelical Christians that Israel is essential to the endtime or rapture.  Clearly there is also the charitable motive of helping an oppressed minority that suffered terribly in World War II.  But it's not clear to me why the Arabs had to pay for Hitler's atrocities, except that it was more convenient for whites of European ancestry.  Part of the original UN settlement also must have been that Britain was exhausted by World War II and did not want to get involved in another war in the Middle East over its Palestine mandate.  It just wanted to get out of Palestine, and giving it to Israel was the easiest alternative at the time.  It was also in accord with Britain's 1917 Balfour Declaration.  But these "easy" decisions have a way of coming back to haunt us.

At the current time, I am not sure that I agree with the New York Times article whose title I quoted above.  Israel and Palestine are still the core of the troubles in the Middle East; so, I don't think Kerry should ignore them.  But the article is right that the fires in the Middle East are now in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Iran, Afghanistan, maybe Turkey and other countries.  However, the ember that stays hot and ignites these other conflicts is the Israel-Palestinian conflict and there will be no long-term solution to Arab-spring arc of crisis until there is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.  


Monday, July 01, 2013

Bernanke stimulus v Congress sequester

The stock market was upset by Fed Chairman Bernanke's statement that he might let the Fed's quantitative easing bond purchases taper off as the economy improves.  The market's view was apparently that a good economy was worthless; all that mattered was the Fed-supplied QE stimulus.

While the Fed was supplying stimulus through its purchases, the Congress was applying austerity through the sequester, slowing the economy by reducing government spending on many programs. I would not blame Bernanke if he has gotten tired of trying to save the American economy single-handedly, while the idiots in Congress, especially the House, are trying to bring back the Great Depression.  The economy must be somewhat better, or Congress would have killed it, but it was not ready for Congress to start beating on it with a stick.  So, I would guess that Bernanke will be happy to walk away from this mess, but he may want to start to unwind QE so that he does not get blamed if his successor does not do it right.

 This may mean that he will have to start unwinding it a little earlier than he would like to.  If that is the case, then the market may be right that there will be some rough patches ahead, as Bernanke begins to withdraw his first aid while Congress continues to inflict harm on it.

Paula Deen

I think Paula Deen has gotten a bad deal from the press and social media.  Most of the criticism has been about political correctness, not about something terrible that she has physically done. There are currently two other celebrities -- George Zimmerman and Aaron Hernandez -- both of whom appear to have killed black men.  They have gotten more evenhanded treatment from the public than Paula Deen, who truthfully admitted to using the "N-word," but has not been shown to have mistreated blacks physically, much less to have murdered any.  Yet, judging from the public reaction, her crime was worse than Zimmerman's or Hernandez'.  Other football players, including O.J. Simpson and Ray Lewis, probably killed people, but get much less criticism than Deen.  I see a politically correct double standard.  A few people have been less quick to condemn her, including Bill Maher, who of course made his name by making fun of stupid political correctness.  He sees that Paula Deen's accusers are largely narrow minded slaves to political correctness.

People often condemn her for admitting that she has used the N-word.  In essence they condemn her honesty.  But I respect her honesty.  The fact that people don't commend her honesty illustrates the poor character of those who condemn her.  These are people who think it is okay for Wall Street to lie about mortgages and take America to the brink of bankruptcy.

I see the attack on Paula Deen as an attack on the American South.  They hate her Southern cooking, and now they have an excuse to hate her personally.  While what she did is wrong, it was not an unforgivable sin, and her pleas for forgiveness should not fall on deaf ears, as they have in the public media.  The South is not as bad as New York and Los Angeles try to portray it.  One Reconstruction is enough.  

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Money in America

I was saddened by two op-eds in the NYT on Friday.  David Brooks said that the only way to measure success in America is money.  Paul Krugman said that technology will mean that fewer and fewer people will have more and more of that money.

I don't disagree with Brooks that in today's America financial success is the main way to measure success, but I think there are still people, religious or not, who have other values, and who may value some form of personal goodness, loving your neighbor, or doing good for society in general as a higher value than financial success.  It's interesting that although Brooks column talks a lot about religion, it does not mention the "Protestant work ethic" which is probably the most well-known description of the moral system that he says is now dead.

By Brooks' measure, no doctor should aspire to be a family physician, keeping regular people well over time.  All doctors should aspire to be neurosurgeons, cardiac surgeons, or orthopedic surgeons, where the money is.  Everyone should be a specialist.  I suppose you could argue that the best doctors become specialists in high-paying fields, while the worse doctors have to settle for family practices.  But I think at least a few of those actually choose to be general practice doctors because they actually want to make people well and keep them that way, not just make money.

Similarly, no lawyer would ever become a judge.  Judges' salaries are nothing compared to corporate lawyers' or plaintiffs' lawyers.  But somebody has to make decisions that keep society functioning.  Many judges do it, because they feel that it is a higher calling than litigating or finding tax dodges for multi-billion dollar companies.  There are lots of claims that today judges are being bought or influenced by the enormous financial power of big corporations and super-rich individuals, but there are still some honest judges.

But Brooks is right that in today's society a good judge or family doctor no longer has the social status that he would have had a generation or two ago.  The military is another victim.  It's pinnacle was probably after World War II, because almost everybody served, the US won, and the US was relatively unscathed by the war, compared to Europe or Asia.  The nadir was probably post-Vietnam.  9-11 helped restore some luster to the military, but still no one from a "nice" family would serve.  We have developed something of a military caste, with an officer corps drawn from military families or families not connected to the American power structure, and enlisted men drawn from the under-classes of the country, again people who are somewhat alienated from "good" society before they enlist.  They get lots of thanks, but you don't get many people from good universities or wealthy families joining the military.  Because of the relatively small base from which to draw soldiers and the high volume and long duration of the wars they are called to fight, the military is constantly under stress.  In addition, it is now becoming a social experiment by integrating women and gays into the force.  Integration worked pretty well for blacks in the military, but that was a more democratic military with a broader cross-section of soldiers than today's.  We will see whether that makes the social experiment easier or harder.  But Brooks is right that the relatively low pay for the military reduces its stature in American society.  many people who sing the National Anthem or America the Beautiful at sporting events think they are doing just as much to show their love for America as soldiers facing bullets in Afghanistan or some other foreign war.

In the other column, Paul Krugman says that we are going through a change in the economy and the nature of work as great that of the industrial revolution.  It is changing the whole balance of power between labor and capital with capital far outstripping labor in importance.  Manual labor is no longer being outsourced to poorer countries, it is being eliminated by technology.  A CEO can almost run an industrial empire from a computer on his desk.  Thus he reaps almost all of the profit from his factories' production because there are no laborer with whom he has to share it.  For the last generation or so, the technological revolution created jobs in the tech industry, writing code for all the new computers, but Krugman adds that today even those jobs are disappearing.  Education is no longer a guarantee of a decent job.  Furthermore, he says we are duping our young people into going into huge debt to finance their education, which may turn out to be useless in the job market.

If they are both right, we doom the majority of Americans to a life of poverty and low self-esteem.  Neither of them addresses the issue of "celebrity," which is a relatively new American phenomenon.  It often includes people with no special or socially useful skills who make tons of money by playing themselves of some made-up version of themselves on television and the Internet.  If money is really the indicator of social value, we find these people with almost no real value given the highest social value under the new standards.

The histories of the Roman Empire and French Revolution show similar trends, as societies abandoned the values which made them great, in both cases yielding to corruption and income inequality that eventually destroyed them.  The demonstrations yesterday in Brazil, the day before in Turkey, and perhaps last year's Occupy Wall Street, and the Arab spring show that there may be a growing perception among the masses that the super-rich 1% is saying "Let them eat cake," while the masses want jobs and salaries that allow them to buy bread and veggies.




Friday, June 14, 2013

What Next for Syria?

It is odd that the administration has sort of anonymously announced that Syria has crossed the "red line" of using chemical weapons.  Nothing new has happened in the last few days, except that Susan Rice and Samantha Power have been named to new foreign policy positions.  Both of them are activists for using power to right humanitarian wrongs.  I think the new announcement is in some way linked to their joining the administration.

Apparently the finding is that the Assad regime used chemical weapons to kill 100-150 people.  No word on specifically when and where.  Why is it worse to kill 100 people with sarin, than to kill 93,000 (a recent estimate of deaths from the war) by conventional means?  Why would Syria purposefully cross Obama's red line by using sarin to kill 100 people, when the whole idea of WMD and the red line is mass casualties.  There is no "mass destruction" alleged.  It only makes sense if think Assad purposefully wanted to stick his finger in Obama's eye.  That's possible, but unlikely, unless it got Assad some reward from the Iranians or the Russians.

I would not discount the possibility that the rebels got some small quantity of sarin gas and used it to frame Assad.  Until we know more about when, where and how the sarin was used, I think that is a possibility.  I would not put is past the rebels to use sarin gas on a few of their own people if it meant that they would get Patriot missiles from the US.

So now we are going to arm the rebels.  The best justification I have heard was from David Ignatius on "Morning Joe," who said that we are not arming them for the fight against Assad, but for the war after Assad falls.  The rebels purportedly have some good guys interspersed with the al-Qaeda linked terrorists who are fighting Assad.  Presumably we would arm the non-terrorists to fight the terrorists after Assad falls.  However, most of the radical Sunni countries in the Middle East side with the terrorist-linked rebels, or at best don't care who they are as long as they fight the Shias and the Alawites.  The idea that that we can produce a good outcome from the Syrian civil war is preposterous.  You only have to look at the most successful of our recent interventions -- Libya -- to see that a good outcome is very unlikely.  The first thing that happened after we killed Qaddafi was that the Libyans killed our ambassador.  Libya is less of a mess that Iraq or Afghanistan, but it's still a mess.  Meanwhile, the Iraq war ended up strengthening our enemy in Iran, and the war in Afghanistan has failed to stop the Taliban, but has destabilized Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, possibly facilitating the transfer of nuclear weapons to terrorists around the world.

On this issue, as on most foreign policy issues, the two best commentators are Fareed Zakaria and Zbigniew Brzezinski, possibly joined by David Ignatius.  Meanwhile, the Republican lynch mob in Congress, led by John McCain, and now aided by Rice and Power, cries for more blood.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

NSA Spying on Americans

So far the biggest problem with NSA's collection of meta-data from various American phone companies is that it is spying on Americans.  NSA, Obama, and Congress argue that collecting just the phone numbers, locations, times, etc., in not an infringement of Fourth Amendment protection against searches and seizures.  However, it is collecting information about Americans that can be used for intelligence purposes, and the fact that it is stored by NSA means that it is already treated as intelligence data.  This data can be mined for many types of information by NSA, some legitimate and permitted under the Fourth Amendment, and some not.  It's sort of like saying that the government has the right to set up microphones and cameras in your house to record your every move, but it doesn't have the right to look at it, unless it gets a court order.  Maybe NSA is being law abiding, and maybe they are not.  Maybe they are being law abiding now, but won't be in ten years, but they will still have the data to mine for inappropriate information.

If the US faced a clear and present danger to its survival, then this program might be justifiable, but I don't think that it does.  The terrorism threats we face are low-level and usually amateurish.  If you weigh the threat against the loss of civil liberties, I think that loss of civil liberties far outweighs the threat.  The threat does not justify spying on Americans, even if this spying is just recorded and not looked at.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Hitler would have used against the Jews.  In today's world, he probably could have found out where Ann Frank was hiding within hours by collecting and analyzing the meta-data of the electronic footprint of the family hiding her.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Massive Intelligence Collection Threatens Liberty

The collection of metadata about the telephone calling habits of ordinary Americans is ust the sort of thing that an authoritarian government would need to keep its population under control.  By using location and numbers called, you can tell who is white, black, Hispanic, who is Muslim catholic, or Jewish, who is rich or poor, who is politically active as a liberal or conservative.  The information is all there in the big data that NSA is collecting, but NSA promises they won't mine the data for that information.  Maybe it won't today, but what about tomorrow.

Today the system targets Muslims who don't like America.  Tomorrow it could be Jews who belong to the ACLU, or Christians who belong to the NRA, depending on ho is in charge.  The information is all there in NSA's computers; it just depends on who is processing it, and what they do with the results.