Sorry for Fareed

I am so sorry that Fareed Zakaria plagiarized something from the New Yorker, according to Politico, and then got caught by the NRA.  The NRA is an unscrupulous, mean-spirited organization that lords itself over our political establishment.  That they got an intelligent liberal like Fareed will scare the less brave liberals in government.  It's like Parade Magazine's report of Grover Norquist fighting with a good man like George H.W. Bush because he went back on his pledge to not raise taxes. 

I hope that Fareed will continue to fight the good fight against the NRA and for intelligent, liberal policies to be pursued by the US Government. 

After comparing what is supposed to be plagiarized, I'm less concerned about Fareed.  Technically they got him, but in fact he gave credit to the real source of the information, a book by Adam Winkler.  The New York Times has a comparison of the texts.  He pretty much copied Ms. Lepore's summary of Winkler's book, but he didn't really copy any of her original ideas.  He could have read the book and come up with more or less the same summary.  This is sort of like "plagiarism lite," but it will be a stain on Fareed's reputation, and the NRA will be happy about that. 

In any case I will miss him in Time and on CNN. 

Did Jews Fight in Iraq?

In my opinion, the Iraq war was largely started by American and Israeli Jews who wanted to kill Saddam Hussein.  Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz led the charge aided by many Jewish colleagues at Defense and other parts of the foreign policy and defense establishment, such as Doug Feith, and Dov Zakheim. Senator Joe Leiberman was a big supporter.  Of course, President Bush II was interested in showing up or avenging his father, Bush I, and played into their hands.  Dick Cheney just wanted a war to throw some money to his defense industry buddies, but he had his own influential Jew to help him, Scooter Libby.  

So, Iraq was at least in part a war for Jews and Israel.  My question is, "Did Jews fight in it?"  I think not, although my evidence is not very scientific.  I looked up a list of the names of those buried in Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery, who were killed in Iraq.  I hoped there would be some listing of how many tombstones have stars of David on them, but I could not find out.  Looking at the names, it's hard to tell.  There are a lot of Polish and other Slavic names that could be Jewish, or could be Christians of Eastern European ancestry.  However, when I searched the list for "gold" or "stein," which appear in many Jewish names, I found no hits.  If it were an Asian war started by a Christian, e.g., Korea or Vietnam, I could understand, but this was a war in the Middle East pushed strongly by Jews.  

ObamaCare Should Have Been Single Payer

To control health care costs, we need single, public payer system.  The HCA takeover of Denver non-profit hospitals shows how profitable health care is.  Republicans kept it that way by blocking single payer and leaving insurance companies, huge medical companies, and doctors are in control.  Many doctors are working for hospitals or corporations rather than private practice because of the financial incentives.  

The obvious solution to the health care problem was Medicare for everybody, and then cost controls on what Medicare funds.  Obvious problems are the last six months of life for older people who incur huge costs that don't produce better quality of life, just longer life, as well as younger people with hugely expensive diseases, and of course the multiple unnecessary tests.  

High Speed Trading Takes Over Stock Market

This chart from Technology Review shows the growth of high speed trading over the last few years.  As the article says, at some point somebody other than insiders like Knight Capital is going to get burned, perhaps just some average investors.

You can thank 401(k)s and IRAs for a lot of this.  In many cases these are just money that is not actively managed by the people it belongs to, allowing the stock market to play with it.  They have just anted up and put a huge pot of money on the table for the hedge funds and big investors.  As this money gets churned, the big guys probably get rich (unless their computer program blows up) and the little guys get fleeced.  It's virtually (no pun intended) impossible for the SEC to police, because it's so big, so fast, and so complicated.