The Raw Deal?

This is a repeat but bears repeating. (See 1 below.)

Ideology rules and who knows where the whims of the left will take us? Walker walks us through a litany of offensive liberal actions that trashes the phrase 'objective and impartial justice' as something they care about or even seek. Many years ago I wrote a memo entitled: "Bork and the Liberal Stork" and I predicted much of what has come to pass - an increased passion for bias on the part of anyone who challenged liberal thought, dogma and dictum. I repeat - most liberals are a humorless lot trapped in their own cocoon of bias and unwillingness to debate. They loathe being challenged, they are interested in power, use it thuggishly to enhance their own lot while pretending to be for "The Forgotten Man." (See 2 and 2a below.)

Pope Benedict speaks of "inseparable bonds." (See 3 below.)

Obamacare is not for those who are sick. The stranglehold Obama intends for our healthcare system should be scary enough to wake up the sleeping but it is too late because the Democrats have the votes to ram it down our throats. On the face of it it will appear benign and affordable but down the road its effect and impact will be crippling.

This is why words and the ideology behind them are important enough not only to listen to, but also to think about and take to heart.(See 4 below.)

In Yale Hirsch's "Alamanac" he divides the market into two consecutive six months periods and the gains, going back over 70 plus years, from November - April far outstrip those from May - October. (See 5 below.)

What goes around is coming around but this time could it be "The Raw Deal?" (See 6 below.)

There are two ways to look at politicians who are in denial. Either they are lying or are too incompetent to remain in office. Either way they should be booted. We would not tolerate their response from our own children without consequences.

Why do we accept this behaviour from those who have control over our lives and are willing to spend us into poverty? Franklin was right: "We Have A Republic If We Can Keep It."(See 7 below.)

Looking out to 2012. (See 8 below.)

"Mein" David Kampf like Mark Twain, believes the prognosis of America's death is premature!

As I have written several times, it is not that America is dead or likely to to die. The critical issue is America's ability to remain a free and vibrant nation which must share the title of world leader with other emerging nations who are also powerful, far more competitive and whose leaders have their own design and views about how the world should look and pay homage.

The accomodation(s) demanded of us by these 'emergents' - which we must allow because of our own circumstances and their power - will have a lot to say about our own future.

Another unanswered question for us is how will we adjust to not being 'top dog?'

Welcome to the 'New World." I believe it will be a very bumpy ride for which we are neither prepared nor have the right political leadership, education and citizen comprehension. (See 9 and 9a below.)

Again a Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world and most particularly to those who are friends and family. We men have made a mess of things and acknowledge the hard job we have left for you when it comes to raising the next generation.

Dick




1)By Yashiko Sagamori

If you are so sure that " Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine :


1. When was it founded and by whom?


2. What were its borders?


3. What was its capital?


4. What were its major cities?


5. What constituted the basis of its economy?


6. What was its form of government?


7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?


8. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?


9. What was the language of the country of Palestine ?


10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine ?


11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.


12. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?


You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?


And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?

I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here.


The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel ; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza , Judea, and Samaria . How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza , respectively?


The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel , and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.


In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East . Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel 's ancient sovereignty over Gaza , Judea, and Samaria .


That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?

2) When Ideology Rules Us
By Bruce Walker

The unfolding spectacle of which leftist cipher should be appointed by Obama to replace departing leftist cipher, David Souter, on the Supreme Court underscores just how purely ideological justice in America has become. At first blush, conservatives might have taken some hope from Obama's promise to look for "those on the outside" to be on the court: there is no more underrepresented group in government or politics than conservatives, and there is no group more subject to the unfair application of the law than conservatives.


The left, of course, does not care at all about the qualifications of any nominee. Robert Bork was profoundly qualified and yet utterly unacceptable. The left, also, does not really care about demographic representation: ask Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown, or Priscilla Owen. The left cares only about having enough Lords in our American House of Lords so that the Constitution can be bent into any purpose that suits the agenda of the left.


It should be that justices are impartial, learned, honorable, and independent. But that ideal exists only when everyone with political power has the same tacit covenant with unprejudiced, individual justice. When justice is dragooned into a political movement or an ideological agenda, then justice no longer exists. It is not just judges who have become advocates of causes instead of neutral referees. Prosecutors have also pandered to racial and gender hatred (as in the Duke Lacrosse Case) or vicious partisan persecution (as with Scooter Libby or Tom Delay.)


The ugly fact is that in every crevice of public life in which we expect to find an unbiased, objective, and dispassionate guardian of individual fairness, we find instead a blindered, bigoted, and boorish hack whose only real interest is in advancing "the cause." Witness the nauseating spectacle of parrots and hand-puppets in the mainstream media slavishly advancing the Obaman cult of personality. Witness the thuggish intrusion of political correctness into the pleasant diversion of beauty contests. Witness the kindly mask of public librarians, whose mission was once to liberate minds through the vistas of books, and who have now descended into champions of the tunnel vision of the left.


Public education has become a form of thought control and textbooks have deleted from famous literature the very language which made the literature great, replacing forceful words with euphemisms, historical and fictional characters with proscribed dogmas of what the left believes that real life should be, and calculated excisions of vital knowledge as thorough as anything that Stalin's toadies could have done in the black dungeon of totalitarianism.


We are all marked, almost as brutally as the Nazis marked Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. "Let me see your skin color, and I can tell if you are just. Let me know your sex, and I can tell you if you are kind. Tell me where how you seek God, and I will tell you if you are a bigot -- and tell me nothing about you as ‘you,' for you are a sociological construct."


We are judged in courts of law or our Fourth Estate or in every public instrument of education and enlightenment according to how slavishly we mimic the party line. We look at a land, once basically free and noble and fair, and we see instead thousands of minions scurrying about, seeking enemies of the party to torment. (Alas, the Obama policy on torture is that only those who politically oppose him may be terrorized and threatened without due process or mercy.)


We are referred in the various contests of ordinary life by men and women who have no more interest in the standard rules of fair play than the Nazis had in universal science. They wait patiently. One last old professor (who believed in academic freedom and such nonsense) will retire soon: We will put a cipher in his place. One hopelessly objective journalist will die: We will find a jihadist to fill his shoes. And another jurist enamored with individual justice leaves the bench: We will slip our Stalinist into his seat.


It is not that "the cause" is always bad: Many ordinary people can be persuaded to believe in good ideas and in bad ideas, provided that a monolithic vision is not imposed and that the lessons of experience can be referenced when "the cause" fails. It is rather that "the cause" is preordained true and, like their colleagues, the Nazis and the Marxists, any apparent failure is simply proof that enemies of the cause must be smothered more thoroughly.


Life is not politics. Life is faith. Life is family. Life is love. Life is a leisurely but serious stroll toward truth. Life is the delightful enjoyment of our differences and disagreements. Life is a vocation which is not drenched in partisanship. Politics, justice, and formal education should transitory, limited, and simple processes which do not interfere with the much more important business of life. But what should be is not: the left, the Inquisition of our lifetime, demands we all be orthodox and that heresy be crushed. There are no barriers of gentle mediation. There are no guardians of good gamesmanship. There are only agents of the Inquisition -- and the rest of us.


Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

2a)When It Comes to Judges, 'Pragmatic' Means Unprincipled: How the president reasons that disregarding the rule of law can be a virtue.
By DAVID LEWIS SCHAEFER


In a front-page story this past Sunday the New York Times offered a laudatory account of President Barack Obama's likely approach to replacing Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. It was, the paper said, rooted in "pragmatism." The Times used the term to signify the absence of an ideological orientation -- as if the president intends to nominate a judge who will approach each case on the basis of the facts peculiar to it. Who could object to that?

Yet the term "pragmatism" means something quite different when applied to jurisprudence from what it connotes as a description of how statesmen should approach particular issues. American judicial pragmatism originates in the thought and practice of longtime Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who mocked the notion of natural rights and held that the very meaning of the Constitution, not just its application to particular cases, needs to be adapted to fit the most "advanced" thinking of the times.

In Holmes's hands, pragmatism was far from a consistent rationale for judicial activism: He used the notion of an inherently flexible Constitution both to uphold legislative regulations of workers' wages and hours -- and, infamously, in the 1925 case Buck v. Bell, to justify the mandatory sterilization of the retarded on the ground that "three generations of imbeciles are enough." Holmes's one guiding principle was the need for government to give way to the forces of ostensibly progressive historical change, and he offered no objective criterion for distinguishing progress from regress.

In a 2001 interview with a Chicago public radio station, Mr. Obama offered a radical view of the Supreme Court's capacity to transform our economic system that illuminates what the president himself evidently regards as a proper judicial pragmatism. He faulted the Warren Court for limiting its effort to defend "previously dispossessed peoples" to investing them with "formal rights" (e.g. protecting their right to vote), rather than addressing "more basic issues of political and economic justice" in American society such as "redistribution of wealth." He attributed this failing to the Court's deference to "the essential constraints that were placed [on our government] by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution." Mr. Obama expressed confidence in the interview that "any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about [such] economic change through the courts."

Interestingly, Mr. Obama's wish to use the courts as an instrument for economic redistribution echoes the views of one of the leading candidates to replace Justice Souter -- Cass Sunstein. In a 1985 article titled "Interest Groups in American Public Law," Mr. Sunstein, a former colleague of Mr. Obama's on the University of Chicago law faculty, called for "vigorous . . . judicial intrusions" into the political process on behalf of such causes as income redistribution so as to overcome the supposed domination of the legislative process by "powerful private groups."

In Sunday's New York Times story, a former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, Geoffrey Stone, recalls Mr. Obama often expressing concern that "democracy could be dangerous," since popular majorities may be "unempathetic" about "the concerns of outsiders and minorities." And "empathy" is the quality Mr. Obama has said he will look for most in a candidate to replace Justice Souter.

The price of what Mr. Obama calls judicial pragmatism or empathy is a willingness to disregard the rule of law, the democratic process, and the Constitutional text in favor of judges' own idiosyncratic notions of fairness. And that is hard to square with the president's constitutional duty to take care that the laws and Constitution are faithfully executed.

Mr. Schaefer is professor of political science at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass .




3) Pope speaks of 'inseparable' bond between Christians, Jews


Speaking at Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses was said to have first viewed Promised Land, Pope calls for 'renewed love for canon of sacred scripture'


Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that his visit to the Middle East was a reminder of the "inseparable bond" Between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, a relationship that has been strained at times under his leadership. He spoke from Mount Nebo, the hill overlooking the Jordan valley from where the Bible says Moses saw the Promised Land.

Papal Mission

Pope: I go to Holy Land as 'pilgrim of peace' / Associated Press

As prelude to tour of Israel pope says Middle East 'plagued by violence and injustice for 60 years'



"May our encounter today inspire in us a renewed love for the canon of sacred scripture and a desire to overcome all obstacles to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews in mutual respect and cooperation in the service of that peace to which the word of God calls us," said the German-born Benedict.



The pope's visit to Mount Nebo was the first of many that Benedict will make to holy places during his first visit to the Middle East. His visit to Jordan is his first to an Arab country since becoming Pope.



"The ancient tradition of pilgrimage to the holy places also reminds us of the inseparable bond between the church and the Jewish people," said Benedict. "From the beginning, the church in these lands has commemorated in her liturgy the great figures of the patriarchs and prophets, as a sign of her profound appreciation of the unity of the two testaments."



Criticism in the Middle East
The pope sparked outrage among many Jews earlier this year when he revoked the excommunication of an ultraconservative bishop who denies the Holocaust. Benedict had lifted his excommunication along with three other ultraconservative prelates in a bid to end a church schism.



The pope's forceful condemnation of anti-Semitism and acknowledgment of Vatican mistakes have softened Jewish anger over the bishop. But another sore point has been World War II Pope Pius XII, whom Benedict has called a "great churchman." Jews and others say he failed to do all he could to stop the extermination of European Jews.



The pope has also had strained ties with Muslims that he hopes to improve during his Mideast visit. Benedict angered many in the Muslim world three years ago when he quoted a Medieval text that characterized some of Islam's Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman," particularly

"his command to spread the faith by the sword."



The pope expressed his "deep respect" for Islam on Friday and has said he was sorry and that the quotes did not reflect his personal views. But the comments continue to fuel criticism by some Muslims.



Jordan's hard-line Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, said Friday that they were

boycotting the pope's visit because he did not issue a public apology ahead of time as they demanded.



Benedict is scheduled to meet with Muslim leaders Saturday at Amman's largest mosque - his second visit to a Muslim place of worship since becoming pope in 2005.

4) Stop ObamaCare: The Democrats' plan would displace tens of millions of happily insured Americans and exacerbate the worst elements of the current system.
By James C. Capretta & Yuval Levin



President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress have made it clear that health care reform is their top legislative priority this year. The administration laid down some general markers in its budget, and the president has enunciated principles in several speeches. Key committees in both houses of Congress are now beginning the work of drafting a bill.

The program's basic shape seems likely to follow the outlines of Obama's campaign proposal. Employers would be required to provide health coverage or pay a fine, proceeds from which would support the creation of a new government-run insurance option. There would be a national insurance exchange through which those without access to employer-provided coverage could enroll in the public plan or one of a range of private plans that agree to certain conditions (including covering all comers, regardless of health status). And those below a certain income threshold (likely around 300 percent of the poverty line) would receive subsidies to purchase such coverage.

This is clearly intended to be transitory, rather than a final program. It would create incentives for employers to drop their health coverage plan (by making it cheaper to pay the fine than offer coverage) and would enable the new public insurance plan to undersell private insurers by imposing price controls similar to those employed in Medicare. A large number of workers finding themselves without their old employer-based coverage would "opt" for the public plan, creating, in effect, a massive new public health insurance program. Call it single payer by degrees.

The approach has been carefully designed to avoid the failings of the last major Democratic attempt at health care reform, the Clinton administration's effort in 1993 and 1994. By providing only an outline and leaving the detailed work to Congress, the administration avoids having the complexity of the plan hung around its neck before legislators even take it up. By creating the impression of choice and competition, they avoid some of the opposition of private insurers--who will play along if they think they will have a chance at participating in the new marketplace. And, by providing something of an out for employers with the fine, Democrats hope also to avoid the opposition of business groups.

But the Obama plan, whatever its tactical cleverness, will suffer from the key drawbacks of all government-financed and managed health insurance. It would make the government the gatekeeper--the controller of prices and the provider of coverage. Health care decisions would increasingly be made in Washington and subject to political pressures that take into account neither patient needs nor economic realities. The cost of the program would be such that the effort to pay for it would become the central concern of American politics--rendering essentially untenable any effort to roll back government spending or reform federal tax law. As we see around the world, health care is the key to public enmeshment in ballooning welfare states, and passage of ObamaCare would deal a heavy blow to the conservative enterprise in American politics.

The combination of a plan that obscures the flaws that killed HillaryCare and the daunting Democratic majority in both houses of Congress has left many Republicans fatalistic. GOP leaders in Congress seem to be looking for ways to compromise at the edges or to live with what emerges. They take the successful enactment of some version of ObamaCare almost for granted. And yet Obama's plan is enormously vulnerable. Its sheer size and ambition argue against any notion that it will easily pass, and certain features suggest specific weaknesses that ought to draw the attention of conservative opponents.

First, the public insurance option, which is a central feature of the plan, seriously threatens the fragile alliance between Democrats and health insurance providers. Insurers worry that the public option is designed to price them out of business. If it is not subject to the same state and federal regulatory limits that constrain their practices and if it can strong-arm providers with artificial price controls--which would only shift costs to private insurers and patients as they now do in Medicare--the playing field will be uneven. The public plan has so far been the most prominent vulnerability of the Democrats' proposal, with Senate moderates like Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, and Arlen Specter expressing concerns about it. But it is crucial to the logic of the Democrats' approach and will be difficult for Obama and congressional leaders to give up.

Second, the Obama plan would involve a profound displacement of currently insured Americans, who for the most part are happy with their coverage and will not appreciate being dumped into a program that could end up resembling Medicaid. A recent study by the Lewin Group estimates that almost 120 million Americans could be forced from employer-based coverage into government-run insurance by the kind of two-step strategy the Democrats envision. Americans with stable job-based insurance do not know this is what Democrats have in store for them, and they will not be happy about it. Last year the Kaiser Family Foundation found that well over 80 percent of insured Americans rated their health insurance as excellent or good. The standing inertia of the happily insured has been the greatest obstacle to any reform of American health care--be it liberal or conservative. It was crucial to stopping the Clinton plan 16 years ago, when the level of satisfaction with existing arrangements was significantly lower than today.

And then there's the plan's immense price tag. The basic aim of the Obama plan is to add another health care entitlement to the unaffordable ones we already have in Medicare and Medicaid. Most analysts expect the subsidies for expanded coverage to cost at least $150 billion per year. Even if phased in over several years, the ten-year price tag will easily exceed $1 trillion. No Democrat has yet come forward with a credible plan to pay for such an expensive program. Paying for their health care plan, or even credibly pretending to pay for it, will require new taxes and spending cuts on a scale that most Democrats so far seem afraid to discuss in public.

Beyond the direct costs of a new federal entitlement are general questions about rising health care costs. If the government intends to take these costs upon itself, it will have to show how they will cease to balloon in the future or else how they can be paid for. So far, the president and congressional Democrats have relied on vague promises to "bend the cost curve" and on minor tinkering like increased investment in health information technology, additional research into cost-effective products and practices, and more preventive care. Some of this agenda might actually be meritorious, but it is certainly modest. The contention that it would reverse a half-century of costs rising faster than income is ludicrous.

The cost estimates paint a very grim picture of the future of health care and federal budgets under the Democrats' plans, and the greatest vulnerability of ObamaCare is that it will inevitably lead to rationing of health care. This is something the public, rightly, fears above all else. There are really only two ways to keep costs under control: by building a real marketplace in which cost-conscious consumers make choices or by imposing arbitrary limits, determined by the government, on care. As the Democrats have rejected the first option they will quickly have no choice but to adopt the second.

The Obama team hopes that by enacting the expansions of coverage but not the needed cost-controls this year, they can create unalterable facts on the ground without having a real debate about rationing. Then in a year or two, they will come back, as all government health insurance programs do, and insist on stricter controls in the name of protecting the Treasury. It is clear they are already contemplating this next step, with growing talk of federal "effectiveness research" and Obama's recent musings in the New York Times Magazine about whether his own grandmother should have been allowed to have a hip replacement in her final months. Above all else, Republicans must make it clear to the electorate that if Obama prevails with his plan, the government will end up controlling when and where they can obtain care.

One key to highlighting these weaknesses is not simply to talk about them, but to offer a credible alternative that assures those with insurance they will not be forced out and offers an appealing way to control costs--to both consumers and to the government.

The core of such a reform would involve replacing the tax exemption for employer-based health coverage with a new federal tax credit for everyone. This would convert millions of passive insurance enrollees into cost-conscious consumers shopping in an insurance marketplace. But unlike past iterations of this approach, conservatives should propose to pursue it in stages, beginning with small businesses and the uninsured--groups with poor existing options and thus not averse to change.

Such a reform would allow small-business employees to select their insurance in organized, state-facilitated marketplaces in the same way that federal workers can choose their coverage today. Workers would be making the insurance selection, not firms, from a menu of competing offerings. Workers in medium and larger firms would maintain the same coverage they have today--although the switch to tax credits would add a new level of cost-consciousness to the design of existing employer plans--and as the individual insurance marketplace developed around workers in smaller firms, it would help reduce public anxiety about a gradual transition away from employer-based health care.

Such a Republican initiative would demonstrate that we can build on what is best (and well liked) about the current system--high quality care, doctor and patient control--while adding options onto the existing employer-based structure that encourage gradual and sensible moves toward a genuine individual insurance market.

Conservatives can make it clear they support reform. But they must make it even clearer that the Democrats' plan would displace tens of millions of happily insured Americans and exacerbate the worst elements of the current system: gross inefficiency, high costs, and bureaucracy. President Obama and his congressional allies are pursuing a mammoth, complex, hugely expensive, ill-designed reform that is not likely to be popular when understood. Conservatives have a very real chance at stopping it if they highlight its key weaknesses and supply a superior alternative.

James C. Capretta and Yuval Levin are fellows at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Capretta is also a consultant to private health insurers.

5) On Wall Street: Beware of the sucker’s rally
By Spencer Jakab

The market is a cruel mistress indeed. Compounding the pain of big swoons, it kicks investors when they are down by luring them into sucker’s rallies – typically sharp but fleeting bounces in the middle of a bear market.

The current recovery has propelled the S&P 500 a third above its March low in just 60days, convincing many sceptics that a new bull market has begun. Noted bear Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners said the recent nadir may be a “generational low” and strategist Tobias Levkovich of Citigroup claimed many large investors who had feared another bear market rally may soon capitulate, pushing markets higher.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
Conflicting signs on road to recovery - May-05.Brave few looking to the bottom - Jan-09.Miners see light at end of tunnel - Jan-08.Banks miss out on FTSE gains - Jan-06.Money market rates fall as big freeze eases - Oct-20.Lex: Time to buy? - Oct-13..The Bull Market Express may really be pulling out of the station, but Wall Street’s trains have a nasty tendency to derail just as passengers jostle for seats. Most recently, the S&P 500 soared 24 per cent over seven weeks ending in early January, only to plunge to a new low. It was a fairly typical sucker’s rally and bear markets often need more than one to create sufficient disillusionment for a definitive bottom.

The 2000–2002 bear market had three, with average gains of 21 per cent in the Dow Jones Industrials over 45 days.

The granddaddy of all bear markets, 1929 –1932, had six false alarms with an average gain of 47 per cent. And Japan’s ongoing bear saw the Nikkei rise by at least a third four times in its first four years with 10 more false dawns since then.

Bear markets typically end with a whimper rather than a bang, casting doubt on the latest recovery according to Hussman Econometrics, which analysed numerous US market bottoms and bear market rallies. With the exception of the 1987 crash, the month before the lowest point of a downturn saw a gradual descent. By contrast, bear market rallies were preceded by steeper declines and had sharper rebounds. Another characteristic of bear market rallies has been modest volume on the rebound compared to the decline. The current recovery fits the pattern of bear market rallies in terms of volume and the “V” shape of the trough. Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group noted that there have been only seven other periods in the past 110 years with rallies of similar magnitude for the Dow. Three preceded the Great Depression, three came during the Depression and one in 1982.

That last example is a hopeful one as it kicked off the greatest bull market of all time. Expectations of a sustainable rebound have been helped by the fact that US stocks touched a 13-year low in March. But this was also the case in 1974, the start of a long rally – technically a bull market – that lost steam after a 73 per cent gain in two years. It would take four more years to reach the 1973 high and two more, the start of the 1982 bull market, to break decisively higher.

An authority on bear market bottoms, Russell Napier of CLSA sees a 1974-1976 scenario unfolding followed by an even worse slump. In Anatomy of the Bear, he scanned media coverage around the bottoms of 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982 and does not see the apathy that characterised those turning points.

“For the great bear market bottoms, you need a society-wide revulsion with equities,” he said. “It just doesn’t smell like the big one yet.”

Stocks also become incredibly cheap before major bull markets begin. Yale University Professor Robert Shiller notes that all four big bubbles of the 20th century saw stocks exceed 25 times cyclically-adjusted earnings and trough between 5 and 8 times. On this measure, the 2000 bubble never fully deflated and even the recent low did not breach 11 times.

For what it is worth, the US market’s best-informed participants do not find valuations compelling. April saw the lowest level of insider buying (by people associated with the company) ever recorded by research firm TrimTabs with insider selling 14 times as high. Likewise, companies sold 64 per cent more shares than they bought in April.

This last point though may be a contrarian indicator of a true bull market. Corporate America hardly displayed prescience prior to the bust, after all.

6) Yesterday Is Tomorrow:Revisiting Annie as a new New Deal dawns
By Brian Doherty

The second volume in IDW Publishing’s ongoing reprint of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie ends in a familiar place: Just after the 1929 stock market crash, a small-town bank goes under because of wild gambles made with other people’s money.

As America moved into the 1930s, the travails of the plucky, indomitable orphan girl had eerie resonance and relevance. While not a particularly funny funny, Annie can be read as a bitter comedy in which implacable fate batters one poor girl with more trouble than any reasonable providence could deem possible. The strip’s stock moment is Annie’s recurring reunion with adoptive father Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, who is always leaving her in some situation where his constant attention is required, but then getting scuttled in the Far East, sucked away in some complex and impenetrable business shenanigan, or left for dead under implausible pulp-magazine circumstances. Annie is then left to hit the streets again. She’s the kind of girl who gets to run away and join the circus (yay!), then become a trapeze apprentice and break her back (boo!). Spoiler: She gets better.

The strip, launched in 1924, quickly became a huge success and a pop culture landmark. It was also one of the few popular voices raised in opposition to the New Deal.

The treacly 1977 Broadway musical Annie and the film adaptation that followed five years later glorified a lovable Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Annie creator Harold Gray (1894–1968) would have been appalled. “I…have despised Roosevelt and his socialist, or creeping communist, policies since 1932, and said so in my stuff,” Gray once wrote.

Gray got his start in comics as an assistant to Sidney Smith, who drew the then huge, now forgotten strip The Gumps (from whom Gray lifted one of his most distinctive and most mocked stylistic tics, the pupilless eye). He soon surpassed his mentor, earning readers of every sort, highbrow and low, from all over the nation. Fans who wrote him letters ranged from Henry Ford to a young John Updike. Gray’s cartooning featured solid and meticulous draftsmanship, combined with the gritty feel of a real, dirty, raucous, scary world, a style that can be clearly detected in the works of such later underground cartoonists as Robert Crumb, Bill Griffith (who draws Zippy the Pinhead), and Chester Brown.

Comics historian Jeet Heer, in one of his smart and useful introductions to these Annie volumes, points out Gray’s most obvious literary progenitor in creating serialized, twisting, alternately sentimental and horrific tales of orphans: Charles Dickens. But as Heer notes, Annie had something over many Dickens children: “Her goodness is not passive but active.” When competitors try to drive her from the corner where she sells newspapers, she doesn’t just cry “woe-is-me”; she smacks ’em with a horseshoe.

The strip sneered at organized and impersonal charity. But to survive, Annie counts not only on her own grit but on the direct kindness of strangers, at the same time having to avoid the depredations of the professional do-gooder. The comic’s early days hold a winningly libertarian disdain for the uplifters and professional licensing and child labor laws that stymie Annie’s attempts to support herself and others who fall under her care.

Heer once characterized Gray’s philosophy as a sort of “two-fisted conservatism.” These first two volumes of the series, both of them pre–New Deal, are individualistic, but the anti-government mood is generally quietly suggestive, not obtrusive. The subtle politics are highly individualistic, promoting the virtues of the hard-working common man. The strip was suffused with Midwestern values (hard work and cheerfulness) and prejudices (pro-fisherman, anti-beard) and a very populist sense that it was who you were inside, not money or station, that mattered, and that “just plain folk—and plenty of ’em” were best.

In the 1930s, as the New Deal proceeded and Gray became increasingly appalled, his opposition became more apparent. He never named the president, but it was obvious where he stood. One stunning 1935 sequence told the tragedy of a man who invented Eonite, a wonder substance that could provide a cheap eternal building material, “ten times stronger than steel,” that had the potential to “replace all known woods or metals.” He is, alas, murdered by an angry mob whipped up by a union demagogue, and Eonite dies with him. Ayn Rand fans will hear echoes of that tale in both The Fountainhead’s Ellsworth Toohey and Atlas Shrugged’s Rearden Metal.

In the most vivid moment of FDR baiting, in August 1944, Gray killed off Warbucks (again) with the moneybags moaning, “Some have called me ‘dirty capitalist.’ But I’ve merely used the imagination…and energy that…providence gave me…times have changed…I guess it’s time to go.” A year later, with FDR now himself dead, Gray revealed that Warbucks’ death had been faked. The returning character slyly noted, “Somehow I feel that the climate here has changed since I went away.” Had Gray, or his Warbucks, imagined the particular tomorrow that the sun is shining down on today, he’d have to come up with a dozen new innovatively absurd ways to kill off the hard-driving but fair-dealing plutocrat.

Heer has characterized Annie as “combin[ing] the mass appeal of The Simpsons with the conservative politics of Rush Limbaugh.” It’s hard to imagine a cultural item in strong spiritual opposition to the age of Obama being that successful now. More likely it would be adopted as a beloved totem for one side of a culture war.

That’s a shame. More important than Annie’s politics were Gray’s lively and vibrant storytelling skills, his vivid characters, and his celebration of the timeless virtues of optimism, love, and pluck. Read hundreds of pages in a row, and Annie’s lack of guile and offense starts to seem disingenuous; her strip-ending bromides about “folks” delivered to her dog Sandy curdle. But read it how it was meant to be read—a day at a time—and the strip comes alive. Not because of its sadly contemporary relevance, but above and beyond it.

Senior Editor Brian Doherty is the author of This Is Burning Man (BenBella), Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs), and Gun Control on Trial (Cato).

7) EDITORIAL: Pelosi's amnesia:Either that or she slept through CIA briefings


Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a leading critic of the Bush administration for authorizing the "torture" (waterboarding) of three captured al-Qaida leaders, despite the fact that former Vice President Dick Cheney says the interrogation methods yielded valuable information from men who had not previously been forthcoming, leading the terrorists to spill the beans on planned attacks that could have killed thousands more Americans.

Now it appears Ms. Pelosi knew all about the methods being used, and raised not a peep of objection. Unless she wants to argue she was dozing during CIA briefings.

Congressional leaders were briefed dozens of times on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods on al-Qaida suspects, according to new information released by the Obama administration Thursday.

A chart compiled by the CIA shows that Ms. Pelosi, D-Calif., was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, on the agency's interrogation of alleged al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, and that the session covered "the particular (enhanced interrogation techniques) that had been employed."

As recently as a week ago, Ms. Pelosi contended, "We were not -- I repeat were not -- told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used."

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, said Thursday that "the briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not been used."

So ... they described tactics they claimed they weren't using? Why would they do that?

Overall, the chart describes 40 briefings over a seven-year period at which CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials described the agency's interrogation program to senior lawmakers.

The records were requested by congressional Republicans, who have accused Democrats on Capitol Hill of hypocrisy as majority partisans express outrage over the CIA's use of the interrogation methods.

Former House Republican and CIA Director Porter J. Goss -- who attended the 2002 briefing of Ms. Pelosi -- wrote last month in an opinion piece that he was "slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as 'waterboarding' were never mentioned." Mr. Goss described the lawmakers' claims as "a disturbing epidemic of amnesia."

Here's resounding evidence that Democrats' haughty accusations that only Republicans knew about or condoned waterboarding of the three captured al-Qaida leaders amount to political posturing, and little more.

8) Looking Ahead to 2012
By John Hinderaker

On Wednesday, I was part of a group that heard Minnesota's Governor Tim Pawlenty talk about his current battles with the Democrat-controlled Minnesota legislature; Pawlenty, like Horatius at the bridge, is all that stands between Minnesotans and a massive tax increase. But that was only the beginning: Pawlenty went on to lay out his vision for Minnesota with respect to some of the big issues of the day--the economy, education and health care. With few exceptions, his observations and prescriptions could easily be adapted to the national stage.

It was a masterful performance. Pawlenty is a conservative with a disarmingly moderate style. He is smart, articulate, youthful, energetic and likable. He is, to boot, one of the funniest storytellers in American politics. When he had finished, the question in my mind was: who in American politics is better? The only name that came to mind was Bill Clinton, but thankfully he's retired. Among Republicans, only Mitt Romney comes close. But Pawlenty communicates better with a wider range of people.

Around the country, Republicans are looking toward 2012. It is very early, obviously, but potential candidates are already evaluating whether to enter the race. Today's landscape is reminiscent of 1989-90. At that time, Democrats were reeling from three straight devastating Presidential defeats. The first President Bush was riding high in the polls and many thought he would be unbeatable in 1992. Some prominent Democrats, like the overrated Mario Cuomo, decided to sit out the race, leaving it to a lesser-known filed. But one of that group, Bill Clinton, turned out to be a political genius, and in the event, the Democratic nomination was very much worth having.

Prominent Republicans are guessing that something similar may happen in 2012. President Obama is sowing the seeds of unheard-of budget deficits, unprecedented federal spending, economic stagnation and inflation. The ill consequences of Obama's policies have not yet struck, but when they do, his political standing is likely to erode rapidly. And in foreign affairs, his weak, submissive posture guarantees that if anything goes wrong many will pin the blame on the administration.

Much will happen between now and 2011, when the Presidential race gets underway in earnest, and events as yet unknown will shape the race in ways we cannot foresee. But here's a guess: when the dust settles, Governor Pawlenty will be a top contender for the Republican nomination. And another one: the Republican nomination in 2012, like the Democratic nomination in 1992, will turn out to be very much worth having.

9) Not So Fast: Rethinking America's Decline
By David Kampf

Have we really reached the end of American hegemony? For those who think so, the signs of America's decline and the rise of emerging powers are everywhere. According to this line of argument, the world's sole superpower succumbed to overstretch. U.S. failures in the "war on terror" revealed the limitations of American military power, while its role in provoking the global economic crisis revealed the shortcomings of American economic leadership.

As a result, rising powers around the world feel suddenly emboldened by America's visible weakness. Brazil's president blames the worldwide recession on "white-skinned people with blue eyes," and Russia and China call for the creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar. Even President Barack Obama concedes that "if there's going to be renewed growth, it cannot just be the United States as the engine." America's obituary, it seems, has already been written, and the next great powers have already been crowned.

Not so fast. America's decline is overstated, and the questions and assumptions about its imminent fall need to be revisited.

Does the financial crisis reveal America's relative weakness?

Quite the opposite, actually. The worldwide economic turmoil underlines the importance of the United States -- for better or worse -- to the global market. As the U.S. goes, so goes the world. When the American bubble burst, the speed with which the contagion spread beyond its borders is an illustration.

Conventional wisdom holds that the recent period of high spending, lax regulations and an overheated housing market reveal the weaknesses of the U.S. economic model. Analysts are questioning the wisdom of open economies and liberalization, when the "Beijing Consensus" of greater government control and intervention seems more effective at promoting growth with less volatility.

While there are flaws in the American model, its basic tenets will not soon be replaced. The global marketplace and international norms will change slightly, but recovery relies on U.S. leadership. International financial institutions depend on U.S. support, the success of producers around the world is contingent on strong demand from American consumers and the dollar will continue to serve as the international currency reserve.

Is the world shifting from a unipolar to multipolar order?

It's too early to tell. The emergence of developing countries, the re-emergence of former powers and the growing influence of Europe are all undeniable. Still, no one can match America's universal reach and military muscle.

China continues to steadily expand and improve its armed forces and acquire new defense technologies, while Russia has begun to modernize its defense capabilities and rearm. According to figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, however, the United States still spends more on defense than the next 14 largest militaries combined. U.S. defense spending accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total.

After a period in which the U.S. deployed its hard power disproportionately, with a resulting a rise in anti-Americanism worldwide, it would be logical to assume that American soft power would have suffered dramatically. But a recent survey (.pdf) of public opinion in five Asian states -- including China and Japan -- conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that U.S. soft power and influence remains predominant in the region.

Finally, the "unipolar moment" was always exaggerated. The United States could never dictate international affairs to the extent that many presumed.

Will rising powers soon surpass the U.S. and reshape the global balance of power?

Hardly. The rise of the BRICs -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- is not inevitable. Brazil is constrained by crime and inequality. Russia is straddled with a shrinking population and debilitating corruption. India is plagued by massive poverty, insecurity and a lack of infrastructure. And China's widespread inequality and lack of political freedom make it impossible to rule out the potential for social upheaval.

Of the four, the most serious challenge to American supremacy is likely to come from China. But while it represents the world's third largest economy -- fourth if the EU is included -- China is still a poor country. If current projections hold, the Chinese economy will indeed surpass the U.S. economy in 30 or 40 years. But on a per capita basis, China will lag far behind deep into the 21st century.

Are we at the dawn of a new world order? Not yet. The United States remains the world's dominant power and will be for the foreseeable future. That's not to say that existing powers and emerging giants will not be relevant. The U.S. cannot address transnational threats -- including the Great Recession, climate change, nuclear proliferation, poverty and terrorism -- alone, and will have to rely on the cooperation of others. Just as in recent years, global problems will require global solutions, but also a global leader. And that's still the role the U.S. will play.

David Kampf is a writer and analyst based in Washington. Recently, he directed communications for the United States Agency for International Development and President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Rwanda. He writes for the Foreign Policy Association's blog, Rising Powers.

9a) A Pacific Warning: Australia prepares for U.S. decline


Since World War II, U.S. military dominance has underpinned the Asia-Pacific region's prosperity and relative peace. So it's cause for concern when one of America's closest allies sees that power ebbing amid unstable nuclear regimes such as Pakistan and North Korea and the expanding military power of China.

In the preface to a sweeping defense review released Saturday, Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon writes: "The biggest changes to our outlook . . . have been the rise of China, the emergence of India and the beginning of the end of the so-called unipolar moment; the almost two-decade-long period in which the pre-eminence of our principal ally, the United States, was without question."

Australia isn't forecasting the end of U.S. dominance soon; the report predicts that will continue through 2030. There are also a few bright spots, such as a stronger India and the emergence of Indonesia as a stable democratic ally.

But without sustained U.S. defense spending and focus on the Asia-Pacific, it's unclear which nation will ultimately dominate the region -- and that could have profound effects on security and trade. The clearest challenge comes from China, which the Pentagon estimates spent $105 billion to $150 billion in 2008 bulking up its forces. Australia also worries about instability among its Pacific island neighbors, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and emerging threats like cyber war.

In response to this outlook, Canberra is retooling its defense. It is doubling the size of its submarine fleet to 12 from six and buying about 100 Joint Strike Fighters, three destroyers and eight frigates. The ships and subs will be equipped with cruise missiles. It will also upgrade its army and special forces units and look for new ways to cooperate with the U.S. and other regional democratic powers.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Saturday: "Some have argued that in the global economic recession we should reduce defense spending to ease the pressure on the budget. But the government believes the opposite to be true. In a period of global instability Australia must invest in a strong, capable and well resourced defense force."

Australia currently spends around $13.1 billion a year on defense, not counting money for new equipment. The new policy paper says spending will increase by 3% annually until 2018, which isn't much. But the importance of Canberra's message is about priorities. Australia is worried about the end of the "unipolar moment." Americans and Asians should be worried too.