What Is Wrong with American Financial Policy?

Two interesting articles in the NYT point out some ideas that contradict the conventional wisdom about the US economy.  Robert Shiller writes that the stock market looks overvalued according to a stock index that he developed.  The CAPE index is at 25, a level it has reached only three times since 1881, each of those three just before a steep market drop.  Shiller looks for reason to say, “This time is different,” and says the answer could be low interest rates on bonds.  But he doesn’t entirely buy his own explanation.  He thinks the real reason may be psychology and what the common perception of the market is, rather than an economic explanation. 

I think another reason may be the disappearance of traditional company provided retirement plans.  People are under the gun to amass their own nest egg to support them during retirement.  To do this they are almost forced into risker, higher yielding investments.  In the old days, when interest rates were higher, companies would probably have invested in bonds.  Today there is a huge influx of money into the markets to pay for IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.  This new money is going to drive up stock prices.  But as Shiller says, if the psychology changes and people perceive that their stock investments are too risky, they may pull their money out.  You can lose money in the stock market; you won’t lose it if you hide it in your mattress, in government bonds, or some other very safe investment.  That happened to some extend after the 2008 Great Recession. 

The other article with an unconventional twist is AndrewSorkin’s reporting that actual corporate tax rates paid by US companies are not uncompetitive with corporate taxes levied by foreign countries.  Although the maximum tax rate is 35%, almost no company pays that rate.  There are so many loopholes and special tax breaks that the actual tax raid paid is about 12%, which is lower than the maximum rate that companies say are so appealing overseas.  Sorkin says the real reason for tax “inversions” in which companies reincorporate overseas is the piles of cash American companies are holding overseas that which they do not what to repatriate.  In any case, the screams of corporate CEOs about the high corporate tax rates are insincere and not based on facts.  Corporate CEOs love money and don’t care about America.  They are unwilling to pay taxes to support the military troops, the police, the firemen, or pave roads.  They just want their New York City penthouses, their Hamptons beach houses, and their Aspen ski chalets.  

Letter to Sen. Bennet re Social Security

I received your email and signed your petition about Social Security, but it is a sore point for me.

I am retired from the State Department Foreign Service.  I also earned enough quarters working in the private sector to qualify for Social Security.

Because of my Foreign Service retirement, my Social Security is reduced from a normal benefit of over $400 per month to an actual $48 per month that I receive from Social Security.  This amounts to a tax of about 90% on my Social Security benefits because I served my country in the US Foreign Service.

I am willing to sacrifice for my country.  I am also a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army artillery on the DMZ from 1969-1970.  I know that Social Security is underfunded, and am willing to do my part to preserve it.

But it makes me mad that rich people pay only a small part of their income into Social Security.  Contributions are capped at the first $117,000 of earnings.  For many rich people, this means that the Social Security tax is negligible, while for poor people, the Social Security tax is much higher than their income tax.  Meanwhile, for many investors, such as hedge fund managers, even income tax is capped at 20%, which may be a lower rate than the Social Security tax on the working poor.  Wall Street investors would scream bloody murder if they were taxed at 90%, as my Social Security is.

This is an example of extreme income inequality legally established by the United States Government.  I am happy to do my part to help save Social Security, but why should I contribute to government welfare programs for billionaires on Wall Street?

Something is rotten in Washington!

Middle East Policy Failures

ISIS’ success against the Kurdish Peshmerga highlights the failure of US Middle Eastern policy.  Our actions may have been better than nothing, or in some cases worse than nothing, but in any case they were not worth the cost.  Iraq and Afghanistan, where we fought hot wars, are absolute disasters.  We destroyed Iraq when we killed Saddam Hussein and Paul Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi army and ordered the de-Baathification of the Iraqi government.  In our Congress, Republicans have been screaming to do the same thing to Syria’s Assad.  They want to kill Assad and give military aid to his ISIS enemy which is killing everyone it doesn’t like in Iraq.  The Republicans and Obama worked together with the Europeans to kill Kaddafi and shove Libya into a rapid descent into a chaotic hell, killing an American ambassador in the process.  We didn’t kill Egypt’s Mubarek, but we did get him deposed, putting Egypt through years of turmoil, first under the Muslim Brotherhood and now under al-Sisi.

We didn’t create all of this instability.  Saddam, Mubarek and Kaddafi were all getting old and were going to have to leave in a few years.  We moved up that transition, but in retrospect we did not provide for a good transition; they have all gotten worse rather than better.  If we had left these leaders to their own devices, they might have arranged for a more stable government succession, or maybe not.  But for us, trillions of dollars and thousands of lives have been largely wasted.    The country that has probably gone through its transition better than the others is Tunisia, where we have been the least active.

ISIS’ savage, inhuman conduct in Iraq and Syria illustrate how awful our opponents in the Middle East are, but maybe this is neither the time nor the place for us to intervene in what is a regional conflict.

Of course, while all this is going on, the Israelis and Gazans are still fighting each other.  The Israelis face the same moral dilemma that the US does in trying to deal with this Middle East problem.  The more children and non-combatants Israel kills, the more horrendous it , and Jews in general, appear to the world.  The real anti-Semites are the Israelis; they are besmirching the reputations of all Jews everywhere.  When Jews invoke the Holocaust on behalf of Israel, it is an insult to the Holocaust, and makes Israelis look like foul hypocrites.

Oren WSJ Op-Ed on Zionism

I am not convinced by the WSJ op-ed of former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren that Zionism is or was a good thing.  He has a lot to say about how wonderful Israel is economically and politically, but he ignores the most important aspect of Zionism, the creation of Israel.  He also glosses over the fact that Israel’s wonderful democracy treats a number of people very badly, starting with the Palestinians in Gaza.  Gaza is not a country, but most Gazans are not Israeli citizens.  This is a “democracy” with a heavy strain of apartheid or at least very poor treatment of second class residents.

The problem goes back to Israel’s founding.  It was one of the first acts of the new United Nations after World War II, but I think it has turned out to be one of the worst UN mistakes.  The Palestinians were living in Palestine, albeit under some kind of British protectorate, rather than as an independent nation.  Nevertheless, the Jews had not lived in Palestine as a nation for at least 1,000 years.  It is as if someone came to your house and said, “My great-grandfather used to live in this house 100 years ago; I’m taking it back.  Get out!”  The Jews claim they have title to the land because God gave it to them 4,000 years ago, but I’m not sure that non-Jews have to take this title at face value.  Jesus, Paul and Peter made the Jewish God available to Christians; so, it’s not clear that the Jews are still the only people chosen by God.  And what about other gods, the Muslim God for example?   I don’t think the Palestinians agree that the Jews are God’s only chosen people, even if the United Nations said they were.

If the Jews are God’s chosen people and the Palestinians (and everybody else) are not, they have God’s approval to slaughter non-Jews occupying the Promised Land, and that’s what they have been doing.  But if this is truly a racial thing, how many Jews today are blood descendants of Abraham?  Do converts also acquire God’s permission to slaughter infidels on the Promised Land?  Is the right to slaughter non-Jews in the Promised Land acquired by race or religion?  Or was it simply granted by the UN’s creation of the state of Israel?

Zionism predates the Holocaust, but Israel is inextricable tied to the Holocaust.  It’s unlikely that the UN would have created Israel if it had not been for the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust.  To some extent the UN said, “Let the Palestinians make reparations for what Hitler did to the Jews.”  Not surprisingly, the Palestinians were not too happy about being designated to pay Europe’s debt.

The bottom line: I’m not convinced that Zionism is/was a good thing.  Israel may be the most democratic country in the Middle East, but given the Jews history, it should be more  understanding and forgiving of the hardships of the countries surrounding it.  The Jews are criticized (with justification) for meekly walking into the death camps, with some exceptions, such as the Warsaw ghetto uprising.  In Israel they fought to preserve Israel from Arab attacks like they never did to defend themselves in Europe.  But now they begin to become the oppressors, appearing to be getting revenge for being oppressed in Europe.  Thus Zionism begins to look like a way to get revenge, not a way to establish a Jewish nation.  And as the Israeli Jews lose the high moral ground, Zionism loses the high moral ground and becomes just some kind of racist, oppressive regime like those under which the Jews suffered for centuries in Europe.

Putin, Obama, Reagan, Gorbachev and the INF Treaty

The US allegation that Russia is violating the INF Treaty limiting intermediate nuclear forces comes at a worrisome time with the unrest in Ukraine already roiling European waters.  From Russia, intermediate range weapons threaten Europe rather than the US, which can only be reached by longer range, strategic weapons.  It is probably to Putin’s advantage to make Western Europe think twice about whether he is really serious about building a new cruise missile that threatens them, and puts Obama in the position of possibly looking weak if he doesn’t react strongly.

No doubt the Republicans will wax nostalgic for Reagan who negotiated the INF agreement with Gorbachev.  However, in Putin, Obama has a much stronger and wilier opponent than Reagan had in Gorbachev.  Gorbachev was interested in bringing Russia in from the cold and warming up to the West.  He responded when Reagan taunted him with “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  Would Reagan have gotten the same response if he had said in earlier years, “Mr. Stalin, tear down this wall,” or today, “Mr. Putin, tear down this wall.”  Putin sees Gorbachev as a failed, wimpy leader who gave away Russia’s international position.  He doesn’t want to give away Ukraine, as Gorbachev gave away most Soviet satellite countries.  The losses of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are particularly grating to Putin.  If Putin thinks Gorbachev gave away the store, he may be strongly opposed to doing the same thing in Ukraine.

The desire of the majority of Ukrainians, and particularly those of western Ukraine to join the West and the EU is understandable and laudatory.  However, they may be victims of the history of Ukraine and Russia, just as are many Russians who desire stronger ties with the West than Putin does.  It is not irrelevant that the Russian nation was created in Kiev about 1,000 years ago, before the rise of Moscow and St. Petersburg.  While the loss of some former Soviet satellites, particularly some of the “stans” to the south is more like the UK’s loss of its colonies, the loss of Ukraine is more like the UK’s loss of Scotland.  The divorce may come, but not without some wailing and gnashing of teeth, in both cases.  Although a replay of “Braveheart” is unlikely in Scotland, war remains a possibility in Ukraine.  Putin would no doubt like to keep control of Kiev, the birthplace of mother Russia, but if he finds this too challenging, he try for a land corridor to Crimea by annexing some of eastern Ukraine which favors Russian over the West.  On one of the political talk shows this morning, New Yorker editor David Remnick pointed out that there is still a lot of old Soviet heavy industry left in eastern Ukraine, another incentive for Putin to try to hang on to it.  

In any case, Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech is largely irrelevant.  It was made to a weaker Russian leader at a time when Russia was in great turmoil.  Russia may have lost ground economically and industrially since Gorbachev’s time, but Putin wants to reverse that trend, and keeping at least part of Ukraine may be important to that objective.  Obama has a much more formidable opponent.

Do Republicans Hate Children?

The hue and cry about the children entering the US from Central America has reinforced my impression that Republicans don’t like children.  It is hard to know what all the motivations are for their coming to the US, but at least part of the motivation is that their lives are threatened if they stay at home.  There is at least some chance that if they stay, they will die, or they will be drafted into drug gangs and be forced to kill other people.  To some extent they are escaping a culture of extreme violence.  The Republicans don’t seem to care about this; they seem perfectly willing to deport these children even if returning them to their homes means certain death.  When Ted Cruz was asked about this he avoided the issue of threats at home by talking about how dangerous the trip to the US is, and how the coyotes who transport them for thousands of dollars take advantage of them sexually and financially, and endanger or desert them on the trip.  He implied that he had no responsibility for what their life was like at home.  Yet, while they may not be political refugees, they appear to be refugees from fighting as much as Syrians, Palestinians, Ukrainians and others around the world.  You are just as dead if you or killed by a drug cartel or a rebel terrorist group.

This example of not caring about children is added to domestic attitudes, where they oppose abortion, forcing mothers to have unwanted children.  Then they cut off or reduce food stamps and other programs that would help the mothers take care of these children after they are born.  It’s almost as if they enjoy the screams of hungry children.  Perhaps it makes the Republicans feel better about their own coddled children who attend private schools and have everything they want.  They profess to be Christian but ignore the injunctions to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  The government may not be the best institution to carry out these Biblical injunctions, they should at least recognize that, and say who or what will help take care of these endangered children, or at least make the case that we (our society) would like to do so, but cannot afford to.

If we cannot take these children into the US, could we at least help set up safe havens for them in their own countries where their lives would not be in danger?  Could we do more to reign in the drug gangs?  Could we do more to stop Americans from strengthening the drug cartels by paying them billions for the drugs?  

Israeli Ghettos

It is interesting that Israel has created a hellish ghetto in Gaza.  You would think that Jews would be sensitive about creating and ruling a ghetto after all the time that Jews spent living in ghettos in Europe.  I’m guessing that Gaza today is about as bad as the Warsaw ghetto was during World War II.  Of course it is not like Auschwitz and other death camps, but not that many people were actually killed in the ghetto except during the Warsaw ghetto uprising near the end of the war.  Jews were usually shipped from the ghetto to the death camps, not killed in the ghetto itself, although many were, just as many Palestinians are being killed today in Gaza by Israeli Jews.

Israel is a fairly modern, democratic country compared to most of its neighbors in the Middle East, but that moderate democracy mainly applies to Jews.  Even Arabs, who are citizens of Israel itself, rather than of Gaza or the West Bank, are pretty much second class citizens.  One of Israel’s main worries is that Jews will become a minority in Israel, and thus Israel will lose its identity as a Jewish state, unless Israel does something to reduce the number of Arabs in Israel by stuffing them into ghettos like Gaza, or something worse.  This is a significant concern of Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and other powerful, politically conservative Jews in the Israeli government.  But in the process, Israel risks losing its reputation as a modern, democratic state.  It more and more becomes a repressive, apartheid state, allied with its repressive neighbors like Egypt.  

Congressional Letter on Middled East

I am coming to believe that America’s whole involvement in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, etc.) has been a mistake and/or handled very badly.  The most recent examples are President Obama’s decision to recommend $500 million to support “good” Syrian rebels, mainly the Free Syrian Army.  Ironically, Robert Ford just resigned a few weeks ago as US Ambassador to Syria because Obama had refused to do this.  Although I would like to support fellow Foreign Service Officer Ford, I agree with Obama’s previous position of not supporting the rebels.  The Free Syrian Army is caught between President Assad on one side and the terrorist rebels, including ISIS, on the other.  They are in an impossible position.  Obama’s flip-flop was obviously motivated by the ISIS invasion of Iraq, which I think is partially motivated by Assad’s success in defeating ISIS in Syria.  ISIS decided correctly that they could have more success in Iraq than Syria.  If we really wanted to defeat ISIS we should support Assad rather than the Free Syrian Army.  Of course, Assad is a murderous goon, but he’s winning.  Instead in Iraq, we have thrown our lot in with Iran, which is already supporting Assad (and Maliki).  No one seems to care that we have abandoned our long-term Sunni allies -- Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc.  Our interests may be diverging, but it’s hard to walk away and get nothing for the trillions of dollars we spent for Middle Eastern oil over the decades.

I think support for the Syrian rebels is a hopeless effort, illustrated in part by yesterday’s news from Benghazi, Libya, where somebody has murdered one of its leading human rights lawyers, Salwa Bugaighis, who was a leader of the rebellion against Qaddafi.  So far, our intervention in Libya has mainly created instability and violence.  Of course, Qaddafi was violent, but now we have other people doing the same sorts of things.  The recent elections seem unlikely to change that.  I am pleased that we have captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, who apparently led the attack on the US mission in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens.  I commend the President and the military for his capture.

Of course, Egypt is a mess, too.  I am disappointed at Egypt’s decision to imprison three Aljazeera journalists for seven years or longer.  I don’t understand the politics, but apparently Qatar, where Aljazeera is based, supports the Muslim Brotherhood.  Aljazeera Arabic has been outspoken in support to the Muslim Brotherhood, which new Egyptian President Sisi has sworn to destroy.  However, the three imprisoned journalists work for Aljazeera English, which has been evenhanded in its treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian politics.  The US should at least put some serious pressure on Egypt to release them.

Don't Get Involved In Syria

I would like to agree with Amb. Robert Ford's NYT op-ed, "Arm Syria's Opposition," about the need to support the Free Syrian Army in its rebellion against Syria’s Assad, but I don’t think it will work.  Assad and ISIS, which is trying to overthrow Assad, are both bad.  The Free Syrian Army is caught in the middle.  I can’t believe that it is strong enough to win against two enemies, even with US help.  The US has not successfully won long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Syrian rebels have not won against Assad; in fact, Assad appears to be winning against the Free Syrian Army, ISIS, and random other fighters, including Iranians, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.  We don’t need to join another losing effort, especially if there is no good outcome.  If Assad wins, we are not happy.  If the rebels win, the Free Syrian Army will be a weak competitor for power with the terrorists.  It’s hard, but we should stay out of involvement in Syria.  

Anne-Marie Slaughter on ISIS

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s op-ed in the NYT today strikes me as ridiculous.  She wants to fight ISIS in Syria as well as in Iraq.  I don’t think we should be fighting in either country.  She would have the “good” rebels in Syria fight ISIS on the one hand and Assad on the other.  This puts them in between two enemies, both of which are probably stronger than the “good” Syrian rebels are.  It’s a recipe for destruction of the “good” rebels.

If we had really wanted to destroy ISIS we should have supported Assad, who might have been able to destroy them with our help.  Of course, then you end up keeping Assad in power in Syria.  But you can’t have it both ways.  In Syria you have to choose between Assad and ISIS; choosing the “good” rebels is a recipe for defeat of the good rebels and their American patrons.

In part, the ISIS move into Iraq may be prompted by Assad’s success against them in Syria.  ISIS was losing in Syria, and decided maybe it would have better luck in Iraq.  If it had been more successful in Syria, it might have stayed there and taken over the Syrian government.  Creating a greater Sunni Iraq-Syria is a fallback position.  In Syria ISIS did okay in the Sunni areas, but the Assad government was Alawite allied with the Shiites, making it difficult for ISIS to take over important parts of the country, like Damascus.  They have been so successful in Iraq because they are taking over Sunni areas of the country, where they are to some extent welcomed, more so than America was after its invasion of Iraq.  However, ISIS will probably run into the same problem in Sunni areas of Iraq that it ran into in Syria, making it questionable whether they can take over Baghdad, for example, just as they could not take over Damascus.  As a result they will try to create a Sunni regime of some kind in the conjoined Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq, in the process probably freeing the Iraqi Kurds from Baghdad’s rule.

In any case, the solution to Iraq’s problems does not lie in Syria.  I also do not favor an alliance with Iran against the ISIS Sunnis.  The best thing we have done so far for Iran is kill Saddam Hussein.  Helping them destroy the Sunni insurgency would rank right up there with our earlier mistake.  If two of our enemies are fighting each other, the Sunni terrorists and the Iranian terrorists, let them kill each other; don’t stop them.  If one side ends up about to win a great victory, then we may want to intervene to maintain some kind of balance of power, but we are not there yet.

I want to blame George W. Bush and Republicans for this mess, because of their invasion of Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.  However, it looks like the Middle East was a powder keg about to go off.  All of these religious and ethnic tensions, not to mention the Israeli-Arab conflict, were already hot, but it was stupid for Bush and company to light the fuse that set off the powder keg.  If it had gone off in some other way, we might have been better able to manage it, or maybe not.  But as it is, virtually every country in the Middle East is in turmoil or on edge.  Although everyone seems to prefer to use the ISIS acronym (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the other acronym, ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), more accurately shows the intentions of the terrorist group.  Their ambitions extend overthrowing to Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.  You can add those countries to the existing list of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and others that have already been destabilized.  And ISIS-ISIL has plenty of support, financial and otherwise, from the Sunni petro-states, starting with Saudi Arabia.

Letter to Congress re Benghazi

I hear the House will investigate the Benghazi, Libya, incident in which Ambassador Stevens and several others were killed.  If they do, I hope they will also investigate the Pat Tillman incident in Afghanistan.  I believe the Republicans engaged in more lies and cover-ups about the Pat Tillman scandal than the Obama administration did about Benghazi.

As a Vietnam veteran (Army artillery) and retired Foreign Service officer, I would prefer to let both men rest in peace.  I believe the Benghazi investigation is motivated by partisan politics rather than genuine concern about the death of Amb. Stevens.  If the Republicans are going to spit on the graves of brave Americans who died in the service of their country, they should look at all the deaths whose details were covered up.

I believe Amb. Stevens died in part because of the CIA.  (Of course the main blame lies with the crazy Libyans who killed him.)  The post in Benghazi was not a consulate; it was some kind of special mission set up to cover CIA activities.  The CIA safe house was several blocks away from the mission, and was eventually attacked itself.  I’m not sure, but I would guess that the CIA had some paramilitary types in their safe house who did not immediately come to the aid of the State Department mission, although at some point they did come.  I think at least some of the confusion at Susan Rice’s Sunday show briefings was due to a CIA cover-up, because they did not want to admit that they had such a large operation in Benghazi.

In addition, I believe there was genuine confusion about why the Benghazi mission was attacked, whether it was a terrorist attack or a protest of the anti-Islam video that got out of control.  There is good reason that people talk about “the fog of war.”  I don’t know what happened in the embassy in Tripoli, but it looks to me like neither the CIA station chief, the military attaché, nor the State Department security officer rose to the occasion in terms of helping the Ambassador in Benghazi.  Ambassador Pickering, with whom I worked in State, investigated this issue, and I am sure that he did a thorough, professional job, as he did everything while in the Foreign Service.

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.

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.  

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.

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:

http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia

Cohen on PBS NewsHour

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365191559/

Mearsheimer on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/next-steps-u-s-ukraine-crisis

Kissinger on Charlie Rose

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-03-06/dr-dot-henry-kissinger-charlie-rose-03-06

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.

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.

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.

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.