Trump's Foreign Policy

David Brooks NYT column, "Donald Trump Is Not Playing by Your Rules," is interesting, but gives Trump too much credit for thinking, or at least for having a basic idea that he is implementing.  It contrasts with Jeffrey Goldberg's article in the Atlantic, "A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: 'We're America, Bitch,'"  which says there is no underlying Trump foreign policy: America does whatever it wants.  Both analyses lead to the same conclusion: Trump doesn't care what the world thinks. 

I am disappointed that these are both Jews who are criticizing Trump for breaking with generations of foreign policy ideals, but I agree with them.  There is no excuse for Trump's attack on Justin Trudeau.  What Trudeau said after the G-7 summit ware not the "false statements" that Trump said it was.  Trudeau's saying that Canada will not be pushed around is not "dishonest and weak."  It's a simple statement of fact. 

Larry Kudlow made the argument that Trump needed to look strong before going into his meeting with Kim Jong Un, but as it turned out, he did not look strong when he met Kim, and didn't really get anything significant from the meeting with him.  The Iran deal Trump denigrates had much more substance and did much more to limit Iran's nuclear program than Trump's deal with Kim. 

I have tried to defend Trump, mainly because he represents white men who are increasingly being displaced by almost everyone else, blacks, women, Hispanics, but especially by Jews.  Brooks and Goldberg are representative of the Jewish intellectual establishment, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Bloomberg, and Adelson represent the Jewish financial and wealth establishment.  Schumer, Feinstein, Blumenthal, Schiff, and Polis represent the Jewish political establishment at the national level.  While there are still white men at the top of some of these lists -- Buffet and Bill Gates, McConnell and Ryan, they are getting older. 

Increasingly, though, I am displeased to have Trump as a leading example of white men in power.  I have looked the other way at many of the boorish things he has done, but I am getting tired of it -- his personal peccadillos and his professional faux pas.  His tweets are terrible, often mean and nasty with poor grammar.  The good side of his character is that he has the tough hide to take the criticism from the left.  I support him on immigration, for example, but so far he has done almost nothing on that issue.  He has tried, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as won most of the showdowns on immigration. 

NYT Article Inadvertently Confirms Trump's Claims

In the article "With 'Spygate,' Trump Shows How He Uses Conspiracy Thories to Erode Trust," the NYT actually strengthens Trump's claims and undermines its own credibility.  The article seems to emphasize the difference between a "spy" and an "informant."  To most people, including me, this is not an important distinction.  In fact most descriptions of Halper's activities by the liberal press (NYT), claim that he was investigating Russia's activities (spying on a foreign power), not the Trump campaign (informing on political activities).  Thus, from the liberal viewpoint there is more justification for calling him a spy that from the conservative viewpoint. 

So far, press reports have not made clear what Halper was doing.  There was a big meeting between the administration and Congressional representatives to discuss what he was doing.  The Democrats objected to Trump's lawyer's presence.  This objection seems inappropriate to me.  The Democrats seem to be arguing that Trump as a defendant against possible charges of treason has no right to hear the charges against him.  They seem to believe the prosecution process should be some kind of star chamber persecution process which blocks the participation of Trump's lawyers.  To me, this makes the liberal Democrats look more authoritarian than Trump.  They give credence to Trump's claim of a "witch hunt," just as the NYT article justifies his claims of a "spygate." 

If the liberals was to accuse Trump of bad conduct, they have to behave themselves better than he does.  Labeling this article "news analysis" does not prevent it from being pure tabloid mud-slinging that plays loose with the facts.  

Is Electing More Veterans the Solution?

This NYT op-ed by Allison Jaslow muddles the issue of veterans in politics.  After World War II being a veteran was a necessary, but not sufficient condition to being a politician.  You almost could not be a politician at any level -- local, state or national -- unless you were a veteran.  You just couldn't get elected.  But the fact that you were a veteran did not mean that you were a good politician or that you would get elected.  There were so many veterans after that war that there were many to choose from.  The percentage of veterans in Congress grew as veterans from Korea and Vietnam became politicians.  In the 1970s about 73% of the Congress were veterans.  In 1970 veterans made up almost 14% of the population.  Today veterans make up 20% of Congress and about 7% of the population. 

In addition, because of the draft, World War II veterans were a genuine cross section of America -- rich, poor, educated, uneducated.  Today, the rich and educated make up a very small proportion of the military.  Thus, there are fewer well qualified veterans to serve in political office.  Thus, if you simply increase the number of veterans in political office, you are likely to get more bad politicians.  Education and wealth are not necessary to be a good politician, but they help.  

Being a veteran should be a plus on a politician's resume, but there are other factors that may be more important, intelligence and character, for example.  Electing a stupid veteran over a wise non-veteran would be a poor choice. 

So, in essence I agree with the op-ed, but I think it grates on me as a Vietnam veteran. Vietnam veterans returned to such hatred and contempt from the population that did not serve, that I find it odd that now simply serving is somehow a wonderful thing that makes you a leader in the community.  Her column implies that today the populace belives that simply being a veteran is a sufficient condition to serve in high office.  It is not.  Today being a veteran is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to serve in office, and it should not be. 

If in the future, we find the United States' continued existence threatened by war, then military service may again be a necessary condition.  Decent men should all rise to defend the country.  Today, however, the US does not face an existential military threat; so, service in not a necessary qualification for political leadership. 

Pompeo Swearing-In

Here is a link to Pompeo's swearing in as Secretary of State:

https://www.facebook.com/NBC4Columbus/videos/10155318139252751/

A Card from the Bushes

The funeral for Barbara Bush reminded me of my one personal experience with the politeness and decency of the George H.W. Bushes.  I was deputy director of the State Department office dealing with "green" environmental issues -- animals, plants, and health -- while George H.W. Bush was President.  Somehow, I got word that President Bush wanted to encourage tree planting; one of Bush's personal secretaries in the White House asked me to take care of it. 

The difference between dealing with Bush's personal staff and the National Security Council was like night and day.  In my previous job working on missile proliferation, I had frequently dealt with the NSC, and I always had trouble with them.  They would never take my calls, would never keep me informed about where decisions stood, etc.  President Bush's personal secretary could not have been nicer. 

At their request, I drafted a cable to all the embassies in the world, asking them to do a public tree planting with an official of the host government, at the request of President Bush.  As usual, some embassies ignored it, but some took it to heart and the ambassador planted a tree with a high official of the host government, the foreign minister or the president.  President Bush was apparently pleased with the result, and I ended up getting a White House Christmas card, probably the lowest, most impersonal type, but still the only one I ever got. 

It was my personal experience with the decency and kindness of the Bush family.  I wish them the best.  I was particularly impressed with Barbara Bush's funeral service because of its upbeat tone, and lack of feeling sorry for themselves.  It was an example of the old British "stiff upper lip" that saw them through the Blitz and World War II.  The American news media today love weepy, sorrowful victims feeling sorry for themselves and sobbing on TV.  Cowardness sells ads, and then the anchors call it heroism, because they have no idea what true heroism is.  The Bushes know. Barbara taught them.  

Foreign Affairs on the Death of Democracy

The new issue of Foreign Affairs magazine asks, "Is democracy dying?"  Editor Gideon Rose's introduction says,"As a Latin American friend put it ruefully, 'We’ve seen this movie before, just never in English.'”  What Rose fails to note is that English is less and less the language of political discourse in the United States, as Spanish displaces English throughout the country.  America is becoming a Latin American country (where authoritarian government is more common), rather than a Western European country founded by British colonists who rebelled against the authoritarianism of the British king. 

Analyzing whether the US is becoming more authoritarian is a legitimate topic, but it is clearly aimed at being critical of President Trump.  I haven't read all the articles, but I guess it is going to have a strong anti-Trump bias, perhaps deserved, perhaps not.  One of Trump's main issues has been immigration, but surprisingly much of the Mexican immigration is due to Republican President Reagan.  However, much of the recent immigration has been due to Democratic appeals to Latinos, such as DACA, more lenient enforcement of immigrtation laws, etc.

The bipartisan Latinization of the United States didn't really begin until the middle of the 20th century.  The most important impetus was Ronald Reagan's grant of amnesty to illegal aliens in 1986 to deal with a vastly increased immigration flow that had begun about 20 years earlier.  This law triggered a subsequent more massive influx of aliens hoping to benefit from the next amnesty. 

The following graph from the Migration Policy Institute show the dramatic increase in Mexican immigrants following Reagan's 1986 amnesty. 

According to that group:

In 2016, Mexicans accounted for approximately 26 percent of immigrants in the United States, making them by far the largest foreign-born group in the country….  The predominance of Latin American and Asian immigration in the late 20th and early 21st centuries starkly contrasts with the trend in the mid-1900s, when immigrants were largely European. In the 1960s no single country accounted for more than 15 percent of the total immigrant population. 

It's not clear how these statistics differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants.  There are a number of legal Mexican immigrants, and the number of illegals is difficult to measure because most of them are in hiding of some kind.  So, estimates of illegals are untrustworthy, but from looking through some internet data, it looks to me like there are more or less equal numbers of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. 

I believe that the Foreign Affairs thesis about the death of democracy is largely the product of massive immigration that the changed the cultural climate of the United States.  This is no longer a Western or Northern European nation with a tradition of democratic institutions.  It has developed a culture that favors a caurdillo over a popularly elected president responsible to Congress and the people. 

From <https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Numbers>
From <https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Numbers>
From <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/democracy-dying

Samual Huntington on Multiculturalism in America

The following is from Samuel Huntington's 1993 essay in Foreign Affairs in reply to criticism of his 1991 essay.  

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/global-commons/1993-12-01/if-not-civilizations-what-samuel-huntington-responds-his-critics

AMERICA UNDONE?
One function of a paradigm is to highlight what is important (e.g., the potential for escalation in clashes between groups from different civilizations); another is to place familiar phenomena in a new perspective. In this respect, the civilizational paradigm may have implications for the United States. Countries like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia that bestride civilizational fault lines tend to come apart. The unity of the United States has historically rested on the twin bedrocks of European culture and political democracy. These have been essentials of America to which generations of immigrants have assimilated. The essence of the American creed has been equal rights for the individual, and historically immigrant and outcast groups have invoked and thereby reinvigorated the principles of the creed in their struggles for equal treatment in American society. The most notable and successful effort was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1950s and 1960s. Subsequently, however, the demand shifted from equal rights for individuals to special rights (affirmative action and similar measures) for blacks and other groups. Such claims run directly counter to the underlying principles that have been the basis of American political unity; they reject the idea of a "color-blind" society of equal individuals and instead promote a "color-conscious" society with government-sanctioned privileges for some groups. In a parallel movement, intellectuals and politicians began to push the ideology of "multiculturalism," and to insist on the rewriting of American political, social, and literary history from the viewpoint of non-European groups. At the extreme, this movement tends to elevate obscure leaders of minority groups to a level of importance equal to that of the Founding Fathers. Both the demands for special group rights and for multiculturalism encourage a clash of civilizations within the United States and encourage what Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., terms "the disuniting of America."
The United States is becoming increasingly diverse ethnically and racially. The Census Bureau estimates that by 2050 the American population will be 23 percent Hispanic, 16 percent black and 10 percent Asian-American. In the past the United States has successfully absorbed millions of immigrants from scores of countries because they adapted to the prevailing European culture and enthusiastically embraced the American Creed of liberty, equality, individualism, democracy. Will this pattern continue to prevail as 50 percent of the population becomes Hispanic or nonwhite? Will the new immigrants be assimilated into the hitherto dominant European culture of the United States? If they are not, if the United States becomes truly multicultural and pervaded with an internal clash of civilizations, will it survive as a liberal democracy? The political identity of the United States is rooted in the principles articulated in its founding documents. Will the de-Westernization of the United States, if it occurs, also mean its de-Americanization? If it does and Americans cease to adhere to their liberal democratic and European-rooted political ideology, the United States as we have known it will cease to exist and will follow the other ideologically defined superpower onto the ash heap of history.

What follows next is from a Brookings Institution study:

The U.S. will become “minority white” in 2045, Census projects

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/

New census population projections confirm the importance of racial minorities as the primary demographic engine of the nation’s future growth, countering an aging, slow-growing and soon to be declining white population. The new statistics project that the nation will become “minority white” in 2045. During that year, whites will comprise 49.9 percent of the population in contrast to 24.6 percent for Hispanics, 13.1 percent for blacks, 7.8 percent for Asians, and 3.8 percent for multiracial populations.... 

Among the minority populations, the greatest growth is projected for multiracial populations, Asians and Hispanics with 2018–2060 growth rates of 175, 93, and 85 percent, respectively. The projected growth rate for blacks is 34 percent.* The demographic source of growth varies across groups. For example, immigration contributes to one-third of Hispanic growth over this time span, with the rest attributable to natural increase (the excess of births over deaths). Among Asians, immigration contributes to three quarters of the projected growth.

Tillerson’s Firing

I think Tillerson is a good man, but I am not sorry to see him leave as Secretary of State.  He was better than Trump on foreign policy issues. He wanted to keep the Iran agreement; he wanted to negotiate with North Korea before Trump did; he was more concerned about climate change than Trump, even with his Exxon Mobil background; he was inclined to be tougher on Russian than Trump; he had a better feel for Middle East politics than Trump.  In general he favored a more traditional, conventional foreign policy than Trump.
On the other hand, administratively he almost wrecked the State Department.  He gutted the ranks of the Foreign Service. Partly Foreign Service officers left because they disagreed with Trump’s foreign policy, even as moderated by Tillerson; partly they left because of the mess he created trying to reform the State Department.  The Foreign Service is already one of the smallest organizations in the US Government. It may need reform, but Tillerson was on the way to destroying it with a meat cleaver. Maybe he had some bad experiences with American embassies when he was working for Exxon Mobil.  
The Foreign Service is probably a pretty liberal organization, but that’s not surprising since many of the officers are there, rather than in some high-paying private sector job, because they want to bring about world peace, just like most Miss America contestants.  Most, however, are willing to fight back rather than let a hostile country take advantage of us. They are willing to endure hardships and danger in poor or unstable countries around the world. They deserve better threatment than Tillerson gave them. 
With Tillerson’s leaving, therre has been some talk that some of the senior officers may come back.  It’s possible, but I think may of them objected to Trump’s foreign policy as much as they did to Tillerson’s admiistrative reforms.  Plus, they will have moved on with their lives. I doubt that many will come back, especially since it looks like Pompeo’s foreign policy philosophy is closer to Trump’s than Tillerson’s was.  
Pompeo’s military experience may make him more sympathetic to the Foreign Service.  Secretary Colin Powell was very helpful and supportive of the Foreign Service, given his experience as a general.  I hope that is the case, that he emulates Powell’s attitudes toward these State Department officers.

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is the Jewish author of the week.  Jewish commentators often hype books by Jewish authors.  I guess it's not unethical, but it gets a little tiresome.  The latest is StevenPinker and his book, Enlightenment Now.  The two Jewish commentators recommending it are David Brooks, in his NYT column "The Virtue of Radical Honesty,"

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/opinion/steven-pinker-radical-honesty.html

and Paul Solomon, in his PBS segment "Making Sense." 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/if-youre-worried-about-the-world-heres-reason-to-be-hopeful-and-keep-worrying

Solomon says this book is a favorite of Bill Gates, who is not Jewish.  It postulates that we are living in the best times in the history of the world.  People are wealthier and healthier than at any time in the past.  There are no huge wars going on, although there are some small ones.  Democracy has been spreading, although that is slowing down now. 

Neither commentary on the book reports whether we are happier now, because we are richer; Pinker wrote his book to counter the general pessimism because people are so unhappy now.  Does he posit that society is better simply because people live longer.  However, Brooks points out that

Pinker doesn’t spend much time on the decline of social trust, the breakdown of family life, the polarization of national life, the spread of tribal mentalities, the rise of narcissism, the decline of social capital, the rising alienation from institutions or the decline of citizenship and neighborliness. It’s simply impossible to tell any good-news story when looking at the data from these moral, social and emotional spheres.
From <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/opinion/steven-pinker-radical-honesty.html>

At least Brooks criticizes his Jewish fellow, although he closes by saying he likes Pinker because they took a DNA test that showed they were third cousins. 

What Do Democrats Fear from Russia?

On Februray 15, the New York Times wrote an editorial called, "Mr. Trump is Blind to Russia's Threat." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/opinion/trump-officials-warning-russia.html

I thought that here I would find what the Democrats fear from Russia.  What is Russia's threat.  I was not frightened by the editorial.  It seems the  main threat is Russian meddling in our elections, although it also mentions aggression against Ukraine, weapons deals, and human rights abuses.  This is a far cry from the threat by Khrushchev that "We will bury you," and installing missiles in Cuba. It said the senior intelligence officials who testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee said they had not been asked "to take measures to combat Russian interference and protect democratic processes."  There is no allegation that the Russians have physically manipulated the voting process by hacking voting machines, but rather that the Russians have used campaign dirty tricks to support some candidates (Trump and Sanders) over Hillary.  Lee Atwater would be proud the Russians learned from his playbook. 

The implication is that the NYT believes that democracy in America is extremely fragile, although so far I have not heard any responsible source, including the NYT, say that Russia was responsible for Mr. Trump's election.  Rather it looks like it's just sour grapes from  the NYT and other Democrats.  The NYT thinks it is the most important paper in the world, with the smartest reporters and editors.  It was fully supportive of Hillary Clinton, writing many articles and editorials daily during the campaign supporing her and telling the American populace to vote for her.  And America ignored them.  So now they blame a handful of Russian nerds sitting in a dark room in St. Petersburg for her loss.  They claim these few nerds were more powerful than the vaunted New York Times, not to mention the Washington Post, the major networks, and most other media outlets (except Fox). 

Mr. Mueller has indicted thirteen Russians for election meddling.  The NYT probably has that many reporters covering Congress, much less the White House, or campaign stops around the country.  Are thirteen Russian hackers really that much more powerful than the New York Times?  If so, then the Russians are supermen, and the NYT editorial should have said that we should fear the Russians because they are supermen, not because they have some good hackers. 

Huntington and the Russians

I have been mystified by why the NYT and Washington Post hate Russia so much and are engaging in yellow journalism fomenting war with Russia.  I thought it was because of the Jewish connection.  So many of their journalists and editors are Jewish, and Jews have a long (1,000 years) history of subjugation by Russian Slavs, so that hatred of Russians is embedded in Jewish DNA.  Israel is in many ways a country populated by Russians.  Most American Jews are Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe (often dominated by Russia) or from Russia itself. 

An old article that I am reading, maybe for the first time, raises the possibility that there are changes in Russia which may call for a reorientation in US policy toward Moscow.  Samuel Huntington says in "Clash of Civilizations":

"If, as the Russians stop behaving like Marxists, they reject liberal democracy and begin behaving like Russians but not like Westerners, the relations between Russia and the West could again become distant and conflictual."

 Clash of Civilizations (Page 25).

Arguably this is happening.  Putin may not be becoming another Stalin, but another Tsar.  Under the Tsars, Russia considered itself a European country, but with a strong Asiatic component, given its Asian and Middle Eastern components on the fringes of the Russian territory.  Moscow and St. Petersburg remained European, and if anything, Putin has increased the importance of St. Petersburg, Russia's European capital under the Tsars. 

I think Putin was inclined to make Russian a Western, European country, but the West pushed him away.  Russia's former empire in Central Europe, the Warsaw Pact, completely abandoned it after the fall of the Berlin wall.  NATO pushed farther and father east, until it came to Ukraine, whose capital, Kiev, was the original capital of Russia. 

While the West saw Russia's refusal to let Ukraine go and join the rest of the old Warsaw Pact as part of Europe, it might have been that Putin did not want to give up his last connection to the West and make Russia a solely Asiatic power.  Putin could have seen the refusal of the US and Europe to allow Ukraine to stay in the Russian orbit as saying, "Russia, we hate you and want nothing to do with you."  If so, Putin may have taken offense at this putdown.  The result may be the increasing tension between Russia and the West.  This would have little to do with Jewish control of American media and politics. 

Lest we forget, Russia under the tsars defeated Napoleon in 1812, beginning his removal as emperor of France.  In World War II, Stalin defeated Hitler, beginning his defeat.  Russia has played key roles in European history. 

I guess the question for me is, did Jews in the West significantly influence the decision to move against Russia by moving NATO to its front door and excluding it from various European activities, G-7 versus G-8 meetings, for example.  Russia was included in the G-8, but since the invasion of Crimea, it has been excluded and now the meetings just consist of the G-7 (no Russia).  Jews have been prominent in the foreign policy bureaucracy of both Democratic and Republican administrations.  

What Russia Did on Social Media Was Not Illegal

What the Russians did on social media during the 2016 election was not illegal.  It may have been mean-spirited or morally dishonest, but it did not violate the law.  It's not illegal to create bots on social media, and it's not illegal to spread fake news, unless it violates an old, somewhat irrelevant law, such as libel.  See

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html

This article reports on the creation of millions of Twitter bots, many based on real people, which are sold to minor celebrities and others to increase the number of their Twitter followers.  The article implies in passing that fake users may also be a problem for Facebook, but it only reports on Twitter.  Facebook has somewhat more stringent controls on who can open a Facebook account, while Twitter has almost no controls.  It does, however, claim that it does not want fraudulent users and removes them when they are called to its attention. 

The Twitter bots in the article are mostly used for advertising, but some are political; usually there are bots that espouse both sides of controversial issues, some leftist bots, some conservative bots.  However, the article does not claim that this activity violates any laws, although it may violate Twitter policies. 

If it's not illegal for a company in Miami to do this, it doesn't seem like it is illegal for a business (or government) in Moscow to do so.  Fake news is a problem, but so far not illegal.  The bigger problem is that Americans are so gullible that they fall for it.  I don't see how the government is going to limit fake news without getting into censorship.  Alreeady I think some of the procedures instituted by Twitter and Facebook border on censorship, although as private entities they do not have same high bar that the government does. 

Another consideration is that through the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe the US has directed news at the old Soviet Union, and now at Russia for many years. Although it was not fake, it was intended to bring down the Soviet Union, and it did.  I would guess, although I do not know of an example, that the CIA has planted fake news over the years. 

In a brief web search, I found this article about the CIA deceiving not only the Soviet Union, but the American people as well. 

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p305_Marchetti.html

What's going on now with fake news is bad, but it's not new. 

Debt Service and Mick Mulveney

People are talking about the huge deficit Trump's new budget will create and what that will do to the overall deficit.  The stock market tanked recently when there were fears that inflation was returning and the Fed would raise interest rates higher and more quickly.  So far, nobody is talking about what happens when these two things come together.  A huge public debt and high interest rates mean that paying interest on the debt will take up a bigger and bigger piece of the federal budget, leaving less money for everything from the military to medicare.  It's a problem that only gets worse.  Higher debt means investors from pension funds to the Chinese government will be less willing to buy US bonds, and that will mean the government will have to pay higher interest to get people to buy them. 

Mick Mulveney, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is the man who is supposed to keep the budget under control. I worry that he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in the Reagan administration, David Stockman.  Stockman and his Republican colleagues encouraged Reagan to cut taxes deeply.  Their idea was that once taxes were cut, there would be no money to fund the liberal programs, like Medicare and food stamps, that they disliked.  However, Stockman misjudged Reagan.  When push came to shove, Reagan was unwilling to cut these programs that helped poor and ordinary people. Reagan was too soft-hearted for Stockman.  As a result, Reagan cut taxes, but not spending, leading to huge deficits and the federal debt that we face today. 

It now looks like, not only Trump, but the entire Republican party (except for Rand Paul) has followed in Reagan's footsteps and ceased to worry about unfunded government spending and the deficits and increased debit that it brings.  Stockman has gone on to make millions in New York, but so has Donald Trump.  Nobody knows what the mplications are of this debt load, because there has never been anything like it before.  What it brings for smaller nations who have less control over financial markets is usually austerity and recession to pay for the years of carefree spending.  We'll see if the US profligacy will end any better will end any better than it has for other nations. 

One example that worries me, given the important role of Jews in the US government and the financial sector, is Germany between the world wars.  Germany found itself in terrible financial straits after World War I.  It could not pay the huge debts it had incurred to finance the war.  It printed money and inflation became rampant.  At that time Jews became very prominent in German business and financial affairs.  One study reports that

In the early 20th century, a dense corporate network was created among large German corporations, with about 16 percent of the members of this corporate network of Jewish background. At the centre of the network (big linkers) about 25 percent were Jewish. The percentage of Jews in the general population was less than one percent in 1914.

https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb4/prof/SOZ/APO/Windolf/ZUGJewishElite.pdf

This outsized influence of Jewish businessmen and bankers enabled Hitler to blame the Jews for many of the hardships the average German population was experiencing in the 1930s.  It influenced many average Germans to accept his increasing persecution of Jews.  Let us hope that America does not end up like Germany, with Jews presiding over a failing country that cannot pay its debts.  Chuck Schumer, Steve Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, Michael Bloomberg, Lloyd Blankfein, Larry Fink, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and company would do well to help America get its financial house in order, 

Opposition to DACA

I am against special treatment for DACA "Dreamers."

My first job in the Foreign Service was as a vice-consul issuing visas at the American Consulate General in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the 1970s.  Every time I refused a visa to a Brazilian applicant because I thought he might try to work illegally in the US, I felt badly because I knew if he lived in Mexico, he could just walk across the border into the US.  That was not an option for Brazilians, especially poor ones for whom travel was expensive. 

For immigrant visas, two of the most important requirements were that the visa applicant have a labor certification that he or she would not take a job in America that would displace an American worker, and that he or she had sufficient financial resources so that they would not become a public charge and receive welfare benefits.  Mexicans illegally entering the US did not have to meet either of these tests.  On the one hand, DACA advocates argue that illegals only take jobs that Americans will not do; on the other hand, PBS and other pro-DACA news media show many DACA candidates who are studying to be doctors, lawyers, or computer scientists, or who have started successful businesses.  Which is it?  It's some of both, but interestingly, many of the low wage Mexican workers probably displace African-Americans.  Democrats don't worry about African-Americans, because they are guaranteed to vote Democratic.  To assuage black concerns about losing jobs to Mexicans, Democrats will give them lots of welfare. 

The Democrats are pushing for DACA because they expect Mexicans will vote Democratic and they want as many of them in the US as possible to build up the Democratic base, even if it takes a few years to get them the vote. 

The American immigration system has been broken for at least 50 years.  It is sort of the reverse image of our drug laws.  We have relatively few immigrants in prison, even for serious crimes, while we have many drug users in jail for minor crimes.  Both represent failed policies and poor law enforcement. 

We should be somewhat concerned about hardships imposed on Dreamers; we don't have to put all of them on buses back to Mexico tomorrow.   But we should enforce applicable laws in a humane fashion.  While they are here, I don't think we should give them lots of money, whether for subsistence, health care, or other necessities.  If they can't support themselves, send them back to Mexico sooner rather than later, and let the Mexican government support them.  They should also show some interest in becoming Americans, whether as citizens or permanent residents, not just in working or going to school here because they just happen to be here.  The whole point of DACA is that these kids did not want to come to America; they were dragged here. 

People say that children should not be punished for the crimes of their parents, but if the parents rob a bank, the children should not be allowed to keep the money their parents stole.  Allowing Dreamers to stay in the US is a benefit for which they should be prepared to work and sacrifice.  If they don't want to, send them back to Mexico. 

I was concerned during the government shutdown that the Democratic Party was putting the interests of Mexicans (Dreamers) ahead of the interests of American citizens, such as military veterans.  The VA hospital in Denver is an illustration of government's perverse priorities.  Millions, maybe billions, have been paid to contractors and other political donors to construct an empty building that is an insult to veterans.  While veterans die, Democrats cry tears for Dreamers and shovel money out the door to help them.  I understand that Mexicans are the future of the Democratic Party and that they must buy their votes now to strengthen the party in future years, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of Americans. 

I do not care much about building a wall.  The wall is symbolic.  If we build it, it is concrete proof that we are serious about enforcing immigration laws.  If we don't build it, it means we will carry on with business as usual, ignoring many laws already on the books.  

Michael Wolff Is Austin Powers

Think you've seen Michael Wolff before?  Is it Austin Powers, international man of mystery, or just Mini-Me grown up? 

Brooks on Democracy

Brooks on Democracy David Brooks has a good column in the NYT on the virtues of democracy, “The Glory of Democracy,” but one questions he fails to deal with is who should participate in it. When the US was created, the founding fathers limited the vote to older, white, male citizens who owned property. If we still had these restrictions, the US government would look very different from how it does today. The founding fathers did not even trust this limited electorate, but instituted indirect elections for the most important offices, such as the electoral college for the Presidential election. They thought rough hewn voters would electe better educated, wiser men to make the final choice, hopefully adhering more closely to the ideals Mann and Brooks espouse.

 Mann and Brooks say that in an ideal world voters would “seek justice, freedom and truth.” I haven’t heard anybody campaign on those issues lately. Mann says democracy should encourage everybody to make the best of their capacities, to seek beauty and truth. Today we see mainly people whom Mann would call the enemies of democracy, seeking money, status, and a free lunch from the government.

 Brooks aims his criticism at the Trump Republicans as the crass money grubbers, but Trump is President because so many Americans saw the Democrats squandering the national inheritance of property and decency built up over hundreds of years through trial, error and hardship. Democrats espoused lofty goals, but sold them out for personal power and cronyism.

Browder, Putin, Congress, and the Magnitsky Act

William Browder was born in America, made billions in Russia during the 1990s, renounced his American citizenship in 1998, and then persuaded the Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012, punishing Putin and his friends after Putin barred Browder from Russia in 2006.  

The Magnitsky Act was the subject of the famous meeting between Donald Trump,Jr., and the Russian lawyer Natalia Vishnevskaya, that Trump famously said was about adoption, which it was.  After the US Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, in retaliation Putin passed a Russian law banning US adoption of Russian children.  

Of course, the main, underlying issue for Browder, Putin, and the Congress is money, particularly Jewish money.  Born in Chicago, Browder is Jewish.  His grandfather, Earl Browder, was the head of the Communist Party of the USA in the 1940s, when he was also a spy for the Soviet Union, according to Wikipedia.  

When the Soviet Union began to self-destruct under Yeltsin in the 1990s, Browder was there to grab some of the old Communist government assets that were being sold off for pennies on the dollar.  He was then still an American, but many of his Jewish colleagues were native Russians who also grabbed the opportunity to buy up these assets.  Several of the original Russian oligarchs were ethnic Russian Jews -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Fridman,  and Alexander Smolensky.  Under Putin a new group of Russian oligarchs has been created, which according to Wikipedia includes Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Prokhorov, Alisher Usmanov, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg, Leonid Mikhelson, Vagit Alekperov, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Potanin, Pyotr Aven, and Vitaly Malkin.  About half of the Putin oligarchs are also ethnically Jewish Russians.  Browder did not make the cut under Putin.  

In 1996 Browder founded Hermitage Capital Management with wealthy Jewish banker Edmond Safra to invest in Russian businesses.  As time passed, Browder felt that the Russian government was illegally taking or extorting money from the companies he had invested in, and he began exposing this Russian corruption.  In 2006 Browder was blacklisted by the Russian government.  A Russian raid on Hermitage offices found papers that the government said showed Hermitage had engaged in illegally claiming tax deductions.  In the process, they arrested Sergei Magnitsky, Hermiatage’s auditor, who died from mistreatment in prison.  Browder then persuaded the Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which targeted people around Putin who had been connected to Magnitsky death, preventing them from traveling to the US or using its banking system.  Putin then banned US adoptions, which was sort of a target of opportunity because it was a divisive issue in the news when Putin wanted to punish the US.  

I don’t understand why the US Congress was so quick to act on the request of a man who had renounced his American citizenship.  Browder couched his request in human rights terms, punishing Russia for torturing his auditor, but in fact it was largely Browder’s personal revenge against Putin for banning him from the Russian cookie jar where he had been making millions.  He essentially said, if you punish me, I will punish you by banning your buddies from the American cookie jar.  It was tit-for-tat financial retaliation, under color of human rights legislation.  It was probably a politically useful weapon as the US-Russian relationship deteriorated and Putin and Obama developed a personal animosity towards each other.  However, it made Browder appear to have enormous power over the US government, pushing the US into open hostility towards Putin.  I would think that if the US were going to do an enormous financial favor for someone, that person would at least be a US citizen, but Browder was not.  He had such contempt for the US that he had renounced his citizenship, but Congress still fawned over him and pandered to him.  You would think he was in the DACA program.  

Now this huge mess, which mainly affects  Browder and Jewish Russian oligarchs, threatens to envelop the whole Trump presidency.    

Income Inequality and Public Relations

Martin Wolf’s column in the Financial Times on “A Republican Tax Plan Built for Plutocrats” raised an interesting issue for me as a former Southerner.  Wolf wrote:

The pre-civil war South was extremely unequal, not just in the population as a whole, which included the slaves, but even among free whites. A standard measure of inequality jumped by 70 per cent among whites between 1774 and 1860. As the academics Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson note, “Any historian looking for the rise of a poor white underclass in the Old South will find it in this evidence.” The 1860 census also shows that the median wealth of the richest 1 per cent of Southerners was more than three times that of the richest 1 per cent of Northerners. Yet the South was also far less dynamic….

The South was a plutocracy. In the civil war, whose stated aim was defence of slavery, close to 300,000 Confederate soldiers died. A majority of these men had no slaves. Yet their racial and cultural fears justified the sacrifice. Ultimately, this mobilisation brought death or defeat upon them all. Nothing better reveals the political potency of tribalism.

Why wasn’t the antebellum South more upset by income inequality.  My great-grandfather, who fought in the Civil War as a colonel in the 21st Alabama regiment, moved to Mobile, Alabama, from Iowa just a few years before the war started.  He worked for a Mobile silversmith, James Conning, and had no slaves.  During the war, he was often so short of money that he asked to Mr. Conning to help out  his wife while he was away fighting.  (See From That Terrible Field by John Folmar.)  There were, no doubt, some in the South who resented the wealthy plantation owners, but as Gone with the Wind brings out, most Southerners looked at the aristocracy favorably, while the aristocracy exercised a sort of benevolent dictatorship that cared for the lower classes, even if they didn't do much to improve their situation.  

The lesson for me then is that income inequality is less of a problem if there is a friendly relationship between the classes.  The aristocracy had a sense of “noblesse oblige.”  In the South, this relationship had been built up over generations, and was made easier to bear because income and class inequality was widespread and accepted in in Europe at that time.  The US was much more democratic than Europe, which lessened the perception of differences in America.  We had rebelled against the British royalty and their decrees: “No taxation without representation.”  We declared that “All men are created equal.”  There was a softening at both ends, with the aristocracy showing sympathy for the lower classes, and the lower classes feeling empowered by their power in the democracy.  

Alexis de Tocqueville was apparently not as impressed with the South as he was of the Northern United States.  He thought that slavery and the agrarian economy made the South less responsive to the democratic trends sweeping the North.  But this view ignores the fact that many of the leaders of Revolution and creation of the new country were Southerners, particularly from Virginia , the bastion of the plantation aristocracy, or plutocracy as Martin Wolf calls it.  Most of the early Presidents came from Virginia, starting with Washington, as did many other political leaders.  The fact that Southern secession was widely supported in the Southern states is evidence of the support by the lower classes of the slave-holding aristocracy.  

Today, one problem of the aristocracy of the 0.1 percent is that they are not widely liked by the lower classes particularly by the white middle class.  Many of the upper one percent are recent arrivals in the US -- Jews, Indians, Asians -- who have made no effort to ingratiate themselves with the broader population.  If anything, they have isolated themselves in Manhattan or Silicon Valley.  Mark Zuckerberg went on some sort of a tour of the US, which turned out to be mainly a joke.  Buzzfeed reports that the trip increased Zuckerberg’s Q Score, a popularity rating, from 14 percent to 16 percent, about the same as Ashton Kutcher, Rachael Ray, Charles Barkley, Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban.  Elon Musk’s Q Score is 24%.  Tom Hanks has a Q Score of 46%.  Billionaires are not particularly well liked.  

The billionaires’ contempt for everybody else explains the resentment against them, and thus the rising concern about inequality.  The public perception is that these people don’t deserve the wealth and privilege they hold, that they gained it dishonestly, even if they came up with some brilliant new invention.  I would guess that Steve Jobs is viewed much more favorably that Bill Gates, because Jobs was concerned about the beauty and functionality of the products he built, while Bill Gates pretty much only cared about the money.  He is trying to make amends by giving money away now, but he has lots of evil to atone for.  Today’s billionaires might take a lesson in public relations from the plantation owners of the old South.  

Bad WSJ Op-Ed on Israel

Why did the Wall Street Journal publish the op-ed “Anti-Israel Activists Subvert a Scholarly Group”?  I have never heard of the group or the people involved.  Does this warrant national attention?  My reaction from reading the article is that everyone involved, the professors attacked in the article and the authors of the article are all racists.  A pox on both your houses!   Furthermore, I found the legal analysis unclear.  It sounds as if a court has refused to throw the case out, but has not yet decided the case on its merits.  If this is so, couldn’t the WSJ at least have waited for a final decision to comment on the case?  Why are you wasting my time on this?

Italian Fisheries

Following up the last post, on my last full day in Rome, I had to accompany the Ambassador to meet with the Italian Agriculture Minister.  The swordfish issue that my office was sued over was such a big issue that the US had sent a delegation of 15 or 20 Americans to meet with even more Italians to decide on a course of action on limiting Italian use of driftnets to catch swordfish.  They came to an agreement that was pretty restrictive.  Among other things, the Agriculture Ministry would send enforcement officers out with fishing boats to make sure that the fishermen were following the rules.  

My American assistant took the lead on the fisheries issue.  She had served in Venezuela, where she had been responsible for fishing matters.  I had never dealt with fishing policy, and was less interested in it than in other functions of the office, such as nuclear non-proliferation and space.  She took the lead in the big bilateral meeting, which ended with both sides being pretty happy.  

When the results of the meeting reached Sicily, however, things did not go as well.  Most of the fishermen affected by the agreement lived in Sicily, and they felt that the agreement damaged their livelihood.  As a result the took out hit contracts with the mafia to kill Agriculture enforcement officers were controlling them.  In addition, the organized a huge sit-down demonstration against the Ministry in downtown Rome that tied up traffic for hours.  Thus, the Minister called in the Ambassador to request that the restrictions be eased somewhat in order to appease the fishmen, and hopefully protect his enforcement officers from being killed by the mafia.  

I told the Ambassador that because of the suit that the government had lost against the environmental groups, he was not in charge of US policy on the issue.  A district judge in New York was.  Anything the Ambassador agreed to would have to be approved by the judge, and that often meant consultations with the environment groups, who in turn always asked Greenpeace Italy for its recommendation.  

We agreed to a slight relaxation of the rules, which I then sent to Washington for approval.  As far as I know they were approved.  The fishermen cancelled the mafia hit contract and quit tying up traffic in Rome.  However, I was gone before the changes were implemented.