My memos will be sporadic from here on for several weeks.
Opening tomorrow
August 17
Regal Savannah Stadium 10 :
"2016: Obama's America"
This movie tells the complete history and motivation of Obama. Pass this on to everyone.
Just saw "2016: Obama's America" It was very good and insightful hope you can get to see it. It is at the Regal across from the Savannah Mall. Times: 1:30, 4:20, and 7:15...Don't know how long it will be showing.
P..
Another cogent thought regarding Biden from a friend and fellow memo reader: "His elevator certainly does not get all the way up to the top floor…"
My response was: "Has he tried elevator shoes? "
The gals on Fox, which Liberals fear watching, are brighter, more elegant and better educated than our dim wit V.P. (See
The gals on Fox, which Liberals fear watching, are brighter, more elegant and better educated than our dim wit V.P. (See
---
This from another very long time friend and fellow memo reader. My friend happens to be a very respected psychiatrist!: "Wrote this in 2008, I think it is still valid today
Miami,August 2008
A Manchurian Candidate?
When you see a candidate for the highest position in the country using language that, instead of creating a sense of unity and support for the values that have upheld this nation as the only true survivor of human ideals, only provoke disunion and upheaval and preach basic changes to the principles that we honor as foundation for our nation, we question the purpose and reason for such diatribe.
This is not a witch hunt or a smear campaign due to race or religion reasons, but we cannot but question if a basic undermining of our values has been well planned and is being executed by the "enemy within".
The biggest and most dangerous enemy of our nation is that which, using and benefiting from our laws and rights, twist the minds of the citizens by false statements and creates hate and division among them.We are, as many had said, in a war for our survival as a nation. The rivals are determined and fanatical in their purpose which has as only goal the destruction of our values of freedom and liberty. And they may be in the way of achieving this not by open confrontation but by self-destruction and political suicide caused by allowing these pronouncements to override common sense and national values.
---When a basically unknown entity of dubious background with proven ties to extremist values is heralded as the nation´s saviour and whose only political message is change, we question the wisdom of the supporters to such an ideology. Demagogy and cult of the personality instead of a sound and clear understanding of the political and ideological basis of a candidate can only bring a rude awakening when it is too late."
A distinguished professor at a Conservative College offers his thoughts. (See 2 below.)
---
Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader about black pathology. I believe the author is black. (See 3 below.)
---
This should warm the cockles of the hearts of those who are imbued with Obama's achievements: http://www.onetermmore.com/video.html
---
Not much new. Israel knows it must do what it must do. (See 4 below.)
then we have oil and water that do not mix and Jews in France who should get the hell out of Dodge! (See 3a below.)
---
I would not be excited about the prospect of facing someone who could outshine me. Is the Obama team whistling in the dark? (See 5 below.)
---
Obama's message now is I brought you hope and change, you can have more of the same but in order to get re-elected please disregard everything you have learned about me.
---
Dick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
For the past 10 years FOX News has had higher ratings and the largest audience numbers (for news and business/political "talk" programs) than all of the other TV and Cable news channels combined, which includes: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS!
Some folks (who are "bitter" about this) claim that FOX's higher ratings are only because FOX purposely hires a lot of female "reporters" who do nothing but sit around in short skirts and merely "read everything off of a teleprompter"
Bottom line: The next time you hear someone criticizing FOX News for supposedly having a "bunch of dumb gals" doing the news, etc. that are only on the tube to serve as "eye candy" . . . in order to catch the attention of stupid, Right-Wing men, etc. well don't be so quick to jump on that Left-Wing band-wagon!
Still not a believer? Well, scroll on down . . . and let the FOX ladies speak for themselves!
Brenda Buttner
She graduated from Harvard University with honors with a bachelor's degree in social studies. Buttner went on to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she graduated with high honors and a bachelor's degree in politics and economics.
Shannon Bream
She is a graduate of Liberty University and earned a Juris Doctorate with honors from Florida State University College of Law.
Gretchen Carlson
Carlson graduated with honors from Stanford University and also studied at Oxford University in England.
Jamie Colby
Aside from her journalism career, Colby is an attorney and served in private practice for 10 years. She is an attorney admitted to practice in New York, California, the District of Columbia and Florida. Colby is also a former law professor, a member of Law Review and has been a National Board member of American Women in Radio and Television for the last several years. Attending the University of Miami International School of Business at age 14, she received a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting as well as her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Miami School of Law at age 22.
Harris Faulkner
A graduate from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in mass communication.
Jennifer Griffin
A graduate of Harvard University in 1992, Griffin received a Bachelor’s degree in comparative politics.
Kimberly Guilfoyle
Guilfoyle is a magna cum laude graduate of University of California, Davis and attended the University of San Francisco School of Law and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where she studied and was published for her research in international children's rights and European Economic Community law.
Molly Henneberg
Henneberg earned her bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University, graduating summa cum laude.
Catherine Herridge
Herridge earned a Bachelor's degree from Harvard College and a Master's degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Amy Kellogg
Kellogg began to study Russian at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and then received her BA in Soviet Studies from Brown University. She spent a semester at Leningrad State University. She received her Masters from Stanford University in Russian and East European Studies and also speaks Spanish and French.
Megyn Kelly
Kelly earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Syracuse University and a J.D. From Albany Law School, where she also served as editor of the Albany Law Review.
Jenna Lee
A graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Lee obtained her master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Molly Line
Line is a graduate of Virginia Tech where she received her Bachelor of Arts in mass communication and political science.
Dagen McDowell
A native of Virginia, McDowell graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in art history.
Heather Nauert
She graduated from Mt. Vernon College in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor of arts in communications and she received her master’s in journalism from Columbia University. Nauert is also a term member at the Council of Foreign Relations.
Dana Perino
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from Colorado State University-Pueblo and went on to receive a Masters in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois-Springfield.
Anita Vogel
Vogel graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism and political science.
Lis Wiehl
Wiehl received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College in 1983 and received her Master of Arts in Literature from the University of Queensland in 1985. In addition, she earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1987.
After reading this I just realized that most of these ladies have better qualifications than our current President did when he ran for office!
2)John Steele Gordon
Author, An Empire of Wealth:
The Epic History of American Economic Power
The Epic History of American Economic Power
Economic Lessons from American History
JOHN STEELE GORDON was educated at Millbrook School and Vanderbilt University. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Forbes, Worth, National Review, Commentary, the New York Times, and theWall Street Journal. He is a contributing editor at American Heritage, where he wrote the “Business of America” column for many years, and currently writes “The Long View” column for Barron’s. He is the author of several books, including Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt, The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power, and An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power.
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on February 27, 2012, aboard the Crystal Symphony during a Hillsdale College cruise from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires.
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on February 27, 2012, aboard the Crystal Symphony during a Hillsdale College cruise from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires.
AMERICA is still a young country. Only 405 years separate us from our ultimate origins at Jamestown, Virginia, while France and Britain are 1,000 years old, China 3,000, and Egypt 5,000. But what a 400 years it has been in the economic history of humankind!
When the Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed dropped anchor in the James River in the spring of 1607, most human beings made their livings in agriculture and with the power of their own muscles. Life expectancy at birth was perhaps 30 years. Epidemics routinely swept through cities, carrying off old and young alike by the thousands. History tends to dwell on a small percent of the population at the top of the heap, but the vast mass of humanity lived lives that were, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Today we live in a world far beyond the imagination of those who were alive in 1607. The poorest family in America today enjoys a standard of living that would have been considered opulent 400 years ago. And for most of this time it was the United States that was leading the world into the future, politically and economically.
This astonishing economic transformation provides rich lessons in examples of what to do and not do. Let me suggest five.
When the Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed dropped anchor in the James River in the spring of 1607, most human beings made their livings in agriculture and with the power of their own muscles. Life expectancy at birth was perhaps 30 years. Epidemics routinely swept through cities, carrying off old and young alike by the thousands. History tends to dwell on a small percent of the population at the top of the heap, but the vast mass of humanity lived lives that were, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Today we live in a world far beyond the imagination of those who were alive in 1607. The poorest family in America today enjoys a standard of living that would have been considered opulent 400 years ago. And for most of this time it was the United States that was leading the world into the future, politically and economically.
This astonishing economic transformation provides rich lessons in examples of what to do and not do. Let me suggest five.
1. Governments Are Terrible Investors
When the Solyndra Corporation filed for bankruptcy last summer, it left the taxpayers on the hook for a loan of $535 million that the government had guaranteed. In a half-billion-dollar example of how governments often throw good money after bad, the government had even agreed to subordinate the loan as the company’s troubles worsened, putting taxpayers at the back of the line. In retrospect, it is clear that the motive behind the loan guarantee was political: to foster green energy, an obsession of the left. And that’s the problem with government investment: Politicians make political decisions, not economic ones. They’re playing with other people’s money, after all.
History is littered with government investment disasters. The Clinch River Breeder Reactor, for instance, authorized in 1971, was estimated to cost $400 million to build. The project ran through $8 billion before it was canceled, unbuilt, in 1983. A half century earlier, the Woodrow Wilson administration thought it could produce armor plate for battleships cheaper than the steel companies. The plant the government built, millions over budget when completed, could not produce armor plate for less than twice what the steel companies charged. In the end it produced one batch—later sold for scrap—and shut down.
Going back even farther, to the dawn of the industrial age, consider the Erie Railway. In order to get political support for building the Erie Canal, Governor DeWitt Clinton promised the New York counties that bordered Pennsylvania (known as the “Southern Tier”) an “avenue” of their own once the canal was completed. The canal was an enormous success, but as such it affected the state’s politics. A group of politicians from along its pathway, the so-called Canal Ring, soon dominated state government. They were not keen on helping to build what would necessarily be competition.
A canal through the mountainous terrain of the Southern Tier was impossible, and by the 1830s, railroads were the hot new transportation technology. But only with the utmost effort did Southern Tier politicians induce the Legislature to grant a charter for a railroad to run from the Hudson River to Lake Erie through their counties. And the charter almost guaranteed economic failure: It required the railroad to run wholly within New York State. As a result, it could not have its eastern terminus in New Jersey, opposite New York City, but had to end instead in the town of Piermont, 20 miles to the north. It was also forbidden to run to Buffalo, where the Erie Canal entered Lake Erie, terminating instead in Dunkirk, a town 20 miles south. Thus it would run 483 miles between two towns of no importance and through sparsely settled lands in between—not unlike the current proposed California high-speed rail project, the first segment of which would run between Fresno and Bakersfield and cost $9 billion.
The Erie Railway was initially estimated to cost $4,726,260 and to take five years to build. In fact, it would take $23.5 million and 17 years. With the depression that began in 1837, it soon became clear that only massive state aid would see the project through. So New York State agreed to put up $200,000 for every $100,000 raised through stock sales. Even that was not enough, however, and the railroad issued a blizzard of first mortgage bonds, second mortgage bonds, convertible bonds, and subordinated debentures to raise the needed money. This mountain of debt got the Erie completed in 1851, but it would haunt the railroad throughout its existence. Indeed, the Erie Railway would pass through bankruptcy no fewer than six times before it disappeared as a corporate entity in the early 1970s.
Why was the Erie Canal a huge success—it even came in under budget and ahead of schedule—that made huge profits from the very beginning, while the Erie Railway was a monumental failure? One reason was that canal technology was well-established and well-understood by the early 19th century. More important, the route of the Erie Canal was the only place a canal could be built through the Appalachian Mountains. Thus it would have no competition. And the reason the canal was built by government was that the project was simply too big for a private company to handle.
A very similar situation arose in the 1950s. Three decades before, a young U.S. Army captain had joined an expedition in which the Army had sent a large convoy of trucks from Washington to San Francisco, to learn the difficulties of doing so. They were very considerable because the nation’s road network hardly deserved the term. By the 1950s, that young captain had become president of the United States and road-building technology was well understood. Dwight Eisenhower pushed a national network of limited-access roads through Congress, and the country has hugely benefitted from the Interstate Highway System ever since.
Both the Erie Canal and the Interstate Highway System are passive carriers of commerce. Anyone can use them for a fee, although many Interstates are paid for through the Highway Trust Fund. But a railroad is a business that can only be profitable with careful attention to the bottom line forced by competition. And governments are notoriously bad at running businesses because government businesses are always monopolies. Just remember your last customer-friendly visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
In addition to building infrastructure such as the Erie Canal and the Interstate Highway System, government can be good at doing basic research, such as in space technology, where the costs were far beyond the reach of any private organization. Only government resources could have put men on the moon. Nevertheless, I’m encouraged to see that the next generation of rockets is being developed by private companies, not NASA. That’s a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, we are headed the other way with the American medical industry.
History is littered with government investment disasters. The Clinch River Breeder Reactor, for instance, authorized in 1971, was estimated to cost $400 million to build. The project ran through $8 billion before it was canceled, unbuilt, in 1983. A half century earlier, the Woodrow Wilson administration thought it could produce armor plate for battleships cheaper than the steel companies. The plant the government built, millions over budget when completed, could not produce armor plate for less than twice what the steel companies charged. In the end it produced one batch—later sold for scrap—and shut down.
Going back even farther, to the dawn of the industrial age, consider the Erie Railway. In order to get political support for building the Erie Canal, Governor DeWitt Clinton promised the New York counties that bordered Pennsylvania (known as the “Southern Tier”) an “avenue” of their own once the canal was completed. The canal was an enormous success, but as such it affected the state’s politics. A group of politicians from along its pathway, the so-called Canal Ring, soon dominated state government. They were not keen on helping to build what would necessarily be competition.
A canal through the mountainous terrain of the Southern Tier was impossible, and by the 1830s, railroads were the hot new transportation technology. But only with the utmost effort did Southern Tier politicians induce the Legislature to grant a charter for a railroad to run from the Hudson River to Lake Erie through their counties. And the charter almost guaranteed economic failure: It required the railroad to run wholly within New York State. As a result, it could not have its eastern terminus in New Jersey, opposite New York City, but had to end instead in the town of Piermont, 20 miles to the north. It was also forbidden to run to Buffalo, where the Erie Canal entered Lake Erie, terminating instead in Dunkirk, a town 20 miles south. Thus it would run 483 miles between two towns of no importance and through sparsely settled lands in between—not unlike the current proposed California high-speed rail project, the first segment of which would run between Fresno and Bakersfield and cost $9 billion.
The Erie Railway was initially estimated to cost $4,726,260 and to take five years to build. In fact, it would take $23.5 million and 17 years. With the depression that began in 1837, it soon became clear that only massive state aid would see the project through. So New York State agreed to put up $200,000 for every $100,000 raised through stock sales. Even that was not enough, however, and the railroad issued a blizzard of first mortgage bonds, second mortgage bonds, convertible bonds, and subordinated debentures to raise the needed money. This mountain of debt got the Erie completed in 1851, but it would haunt the railroad throughout its existence. Indeed, the Erie Railway would pass through bankruptcy no fewer than six times before it disappeared as a corporate entity in the early 1970s.
Why was the Erie Canal a huge success—it even came in under budget and ahead of schedule—that made huge profits from the very beginning, while the Erie Railway was a monumental failure? One reason was that canal technology was well-established and well-understood by the early 19th century. More important, the route of the Erie Canal was the only place a canal could be built through the Appalachian Mountains. Thus it would have no competition. And the reason the canal was built by government was that the project was simply too big for a private company to handle.
A very similar situation arose in the 1950s. Three decades before, a young U.S. Army captain had joined an expedition in which the Army had sent a large convoy of trucks from Washington to San Francisco, to learn the difficulties of doing so. They were very considerable because the nation’s road network hardly deserved the term. By the 1950s, that young captain had become president of the United States and road-building technology was well understood. Dwight Eisenhower pushed a national network of limited-access roads through Congress, and the country has hugely benefitted from the Interstate Highway System ever since.
Both the Erie Canal and the Interstate Highway System are passive carriers of commerce. Anyone can use them for a fee, although many Interstates are paid for through the Highway Trust Fund. But a railroad is a business that can only be profitable with careful attention to the bottom line forced by competition. And governments are notoriously bad at running businesses because government businesses are always monopolies. Just remember your last customer-friendly visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
In addition to building infrastructure such as the Erie Canal and the Interstate Highway System, government can be good at doing basic research, such as in space technology, where the costs were far beyond the reach of any private organization. Only government resources could have put men on the moon. Nevertheless, I’m encouraged to see that the next generation of rockets is being developed by private companies, not NASA. That’s a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, we are headed the other way with the American medical industry.
2. Politicians Have Self-Interest Too
In 1992, New York State found itself $200 million short of having a balanced budget, which the state constitution requires. The total state budget was about $40 billion, so it could have been balanced by cutting one half of one percent—the equivalent of a family with an after-tax income of $100,000 finding ways to save less than 50 dollars a month.
So did New York cut its budget? Don’t be silly. Instead, it had a state agency issue $200 million in bonds and use the money to buy Attica State Prison from the state. The state took the $200 million its own agency had borrowed, called it income, and declared the budget balanced. New York now rents the prison from its own agency at a price sufficient to service the bonds.
Had any private company sold, say, its corporate headquarters to a wholly-owned subsidiary and called the money received income, its management would be in Club Fed. So why wasn’t Governor Mario Cuomo or the state comptroller thrown in jail for what was a patent act of accounting fraud? Because government, unlike corporations, can keep their books as they please. And why must corporations obey accounting rules? In a beautiful example of Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work, it was the self-interest of Wall Street bankers and brokers that produced one of the great ideas in American economic history.
In the 1880s the great Wall Street banks that were emerging at that time, such as J. P. Morgan & Co. and Kuhn Loeb, as well as the New York Stock Exchange, began demanding two new ways of doing business: First, listed firms, and those hoping to raise capital through the banks, were required to keep their books according to what became known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. There are many ways to keep honest books—and, of course, an infinite number of ways to keep dishonest ones—so it’s important that all companies keep them the same way, so that they can be compared and a company’s true financial picture seen. Second, these firms were required to have their books certified as honest and complete by independent accountants. It was at this time that accountancy became an independent, self-governing profession, like law and medicine.
But while J. P. Morgan was probably the most powerful banker who has ever lived, not even he had the power to force governments to adhere to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and submit their books to independent certification. And because it is in the self-interest of politicians to cook the books—just as corporate managers did until Wall Street forced them to change their ways—they continue to commit accounting fraud on a massive scale. This is no small part of the reason that the federal government and many state governments are in financial crisis today.
In 1976 New York City went broke, thanks to spending borrowed money and hiding the fact by means of fraudulent accounting. The state refused to help until the city agreed to do two things: adhere to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and have its books certified by independent accountants. What a concept! Needless to say, the state imposed no such discipline on itself. So here we are, 36 years later, and the city is in pretty good financial shape while the State of New York is a financial basket case, almost as badly off as California. Maybe New York City should offer to help the state—once, of course, it agrees to keep honest books.
In 1992, New York State found itself $200 million short of having a balanced budget, which the state constitution requires. The total state budget was about $40 billion, so it could have been balanced by cutting one half of one percent—the equivalent of a family with an after-tax income of $100,000 finding ways to save less than 50 dollars a month.
So did New York cut its budget? Don’t be silly. Instead, it had a state agency issue $200 million in bonds and use the money to buy Attica State Prison from the state. The state took the $200 million its own agency had borrowed, called it income, and declared the budget balanced. New York now rents the prison from its own agency at a price sufficient to service the bonds.
Had any private company sold, say, its corporate headquarters to a wholly-owned subsidiary and called the money received income, its management would be in Club Fed. So why wasn’t Governor Mario Cuomo or the state comptroller thrown in jail for what was a patent act of accounting fraud? Because government, unlike corporations, can keep their books as they please. And why must corporations obey accounting rules? In a beautiful example of Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work, it was the self-interest of Wall Street bankers and brokers that produced one of the great ideas in American economic history.
In the 1880s the great Wall Street banks that were emerging at that time, such as J. P. Morgan & Co. and Kuhn Loeb, as well as the New York Stock Exchange, began demanding two new ways of doing business: First, listed firms, and those hoping to raise capital through the banks, were required to keep their books according to what became known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. There are many ways to keep honest books—and, of course, an infinite number of ways to keep dishonest ones—so it’s important that all companies keep them the same way, so that they can be compared and a company’s true financial picture seen. Second, these firms were required to have their books certified as honest and complete by independent accountants. It was at this time that accountancy became an independent, self-governing profession, like law and medicine.
But while J. P. Morgan was probably the most powerful banker who has ever lived, not even he had the power to force governments to adhere to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and submit their books to independent certification. And because it is in the self-interest of politicians to cook the books—just as corporate managers did until Wall Street forced them to change their ways—they continue to commit accounting fraud on a massive scale. This is no small part of the reason that the federal government and many state governments are in financial crisis today.
In 1976 New York City went broke, thanks to spending borrowed money and hiding the fact by means of fraudulent accounting. The state refused to help until the city agreed to do two things: adhere to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and have its books certified by independent accountants. What a concept! Needless to say, the state imposed no such discipline on itself. So here we are, 36 years later, and the city is in pretty good financial shape while the State of New York is a financial basket case, almost as badly off as California. Maybe New York City should offer to help the state—once, of course, it agrees to keep honest books.
3. Immigration is a Good Thing
Everyone living today in the United States either has ancestors who said goodbye to everyone and everything they had ever known, traveling to a strange land in search of a better life, or did so himself. That takes a lot of guts and a lot of gumption. Both are inheritable qualities.
The French and Spanish governments, far more authoritarian than the British, were very careful about who they permitted to emigrate to their colonies. They wanted no troublemakers, no dissidents, and especially no religious heretics. The British government, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less who went to its colonies. The result was a remarkably feisty mix of people. Many just marched to the beat of a distant drummer. More than a few arrived one jump ahead of the sheriff—and others one jump behind him, having been transported as criminals. But the bulk came of their own free will, and have been coming ever since, in hopes of finding a better and richer life. Even those who arrived as slaves, and thus had no choice about it, survived an ordeal that is utterly beyond modern imagination and passed that incredible strength down to their descendants.
But while immigration made this country, there has been a long history of anti-immigration in America, beginning as early as the 1840s when the Irish, fleeing the famine, began to pour into our burgeoning eastern cities. Western states later pressured the federal government to limit and even exclude immigration from China and Japan. In the 1920s we limited all immigration, trying to make the ethnic mix that was then in place permanent.
To be sure, we need to secure our borders. All sovereign governments have a right and a duty to decide who gets to come in. But it is entirely in our interest to allow in those who want to work hard and succeed, for that makes us all richer. And in a time when by far the most precious economic asset is human capital (a phrase not coined until the mid-18th century), turning away those who possess it makes no sense. In particular, current regulations regarding H-1B visas and visas issued to foreign postgraduate students at American universities often force the holders to return to their native countries after they finish their studies or the particular job for which they were admitted. Many of these highly educated and highly skilled people wish to stay. Instead of letting them, we send them back to work in economies that compete with us. That’s nuts.
The French and Spanish governments, far more authoritarian than the British, were very careful about who they permitted to emigrate to their colonies. They wanted no troublemakers, no dissidents, and especially no religious heretics. The British government, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less who went to its colonies. The result was a remarkably feisty mix of people. Many just marched to the beat of a distant drummer. More than a few arrived one jump ahead of the sheriff—and others one jump behind him, having been transported as criminals. But the bulk came of their own free will, and have been coming ever since, in hopes of finding a better and richer life. Even those who arrived as slaves, and thus had no choice about it, survived an ordeal that is utterly beyond modern imagination and passed that incredible strength down to their descendants.
But while immigration made this country, there has been a long history of anti-immigration in America, beginning as early as the 1840s when the Irish, fleeing the famine, began to pour into our burgeoning eastern cities. Western states later pressured the federal government to limit and even exclude immigration from China and Japan. In the 1920s we limited all immigration, trying to make the ethnic mix that was then in place permanent.
To be sure, we need to secure our borders. All sovereign governments have a right and a duty to decide who gets to come in. But it is entirely in our interest to allow in those who want to work hard and succeed, for that makes us all richer. And in a time when by far the most precious economic asset is human capital (a phrase not coined until the mid-18th century), turning away those who possess it makes no sense. In particular, current regulations regarding H-1B visas and visas issued to foreign postgraduate students at American universities often force the holders to return to their native countries after they finish their studies or the particular job for which they were admitted. Many of these highly educated and highly skilled people wish to stay. Instead of letting them, we send them back to work in economies that compete with us. That’s nuts.
4. Good Ideas Spread, Bad Ones Don’t
In colonial times we had a chaotic money supply. Britain forbade the export of British coins, so while American colonists kept their accounts in pounds, shillings, and pence, what circulated in day-to-day transactions was a hodgepodge of Spanish, French, Portuguese, and some British coins, warehouse certificates for tobacco and other products, paper money printed by the colonies—until the British government forbade that too—and even wampum, the form of money used by the Indians.
After the Revolution, the need to create a national money supply was an urgent task of the new nation. The question of what unit of account to adopt was a complex one because the colonists were accustomed to so many different, and often incommensurate, units. Robert Morris, who had done so much to keep the Revolution financially afloat, tried to bridge the differences by finding the lowest common divisor of the monetary units encountered in each state, calculating this to be 1/1,440th of a Spanish dollar. He proposed that this unit be multiplied by 1000, making the new American monetary unit equal to 25/36ths of a Spanish dollar. Thomas Jefferson—whose role in this process amounted to his one and only positive contribution to the financial system of the United States—argued instead for simply using the dollar.
Once the dollar was chosen, it would have been natural to adopt the British system of dividing the basic unit into twenty smaller units, and those into twelve still smaller units, the way American merchants kept their accounts. The Spanish system in use in the colonies—cutting dollars into halves, quarters, and eighths, called bits—would have been a natural idea as well. But Jefferson advocated making smaller units decimal fractions of the dollar, arguing that “in all cases where we are free to choose between easy and difficult modes of operation, it is most rational to choose the easy.”
That made Jefferson the first person in history to advocate a system of decimal coinage, and the United States the first country to adopt one. This was a very good idea, and, as good ideas always do, it quickly spread. Today every country on earth has a decimal currency system.
But if Jefferson’s decimal coinage concept was a good idea that quickly spread around the world, another idea that developed here at that time was lousy: the so-called American Rule, whereby each side in a civil legal case pays its own court costs regardless of outcome. This was different from the English system where the loser has to pay the court costs of both sides.
The American Rule came about as what might be called a deadbeat’s relief act. The Treaty of Paris (which ended the American Revolution) stipulated that British creditors could sue in American courts in order to collect debts owed them by people who were now American citizens. To make it less likely that they would do so, state legislatures passed the American Rule. With the British merchant stuck paying his own court costs, he had little incentive to go to court unless the debt was considerable.
The American Rule was a relatively minor anomaly in our legal system until the mid-20th century. But since then, as lawyers’ ethics changed and they became much more active in seeking cases, the American Rule has proved an engine of litigation. For every malpractice case filed in 1960, for instance, 300 are filed today. In practice, the American Rule has become an open invitation, frequently accepted, to legal extortion: “Pay us $25,000 to go away or spend $250,000 to defend yourself successfully in court. Your choice.”
Trial lawyers defend the American Rule fiercely. They also make more political contributions, mostly to Democrats, than any other set of donors except labor unions. One of their main arguments for the status quo is that the vast number of lawsuits from which they profit so handsomely force doctors, manufacturers, and others to be more careful than they otherwise might be. Private lawsuits, these lawyers maintain, police the public marketplace by going after bad guys so the government doesn’t have to—a curious assertion, given that policing the marketplace has long been considered a quintessential function of government.
The reason for this is that when policing has been in private hands, self-interest and the public interest inevitably conflicted. The private armies of the Middle Ages all too often turned into bands of brigands or rebels. The naval privateers who flourished in the 16th to 18th centuries were also private citizens pursuing private gain while performing a public service by raiding an enemy’s commerce during wartime. In the War of 1812, for instance, American privateers pushed British insurance rates up to 30 percent of the value of ship and cargo. But when a war ended, privateers had a bad habit of turning into pirates or, after the War of 1812, into slavers.
Predictably, the American Rule has spread exactly nowhere since its inception at the same time as the decimal coinage system. There is not another country in the common-law world that uses it. Indeed, the only other country on the planet that has a version of the American Rule is Japan, where a very different legal system makes it extremely difficult to get into court at all.
The United States has more lawyers and more lawsuits, per capita, than any other country. But lawsuits don’t create wealth, they only transfer it from one party to another, with lawyers taking a big cut along the way. Few things would help the American economy more than ending the American Rule. Texas reformed its tort law system a few years ago and the results have been dramatic. Doctors have been moving into the state, not out of it, and malpractice insurance costs have fallen 25 percent. And remember, good ideas always spread.
After the Revolution, the need to create a national money supply was an urgent task of the new nation. The question of what unit of account to adopt was a complex one because the colonists were accustomed to so many different, and often incommensurate, units. Robert Morris, who had done so much to keep the Revolution financially afloat, tried to bridge the differences by finding the lowest common divisor of the monetary units encountered in each state, calculating this to be 1/1,440th of a Spanish dollar. He proposed that this unit be multiplied by 1000, making the new American monetary unit equal to 25/36ths of a Spanish dollar. Thomas Jefferson—whose role in this process amounted to his one and only positive contribution to the financial system of the United States—argued instead for simply using the dollar.
Once the dollar was chosen, it would have been natural to adopt the British system of dividing the basic unit into twenty smaller units, and those into twelve still smaller units, the way American merchants kept their accounts. The Spanish system in use in the colonies—cutting dollars into halves, quarters, and eighths, called bits—would have been a natural idea as well. But Jefferson advocated making smaller units decimal fractions of the dollar, arguing that “in all cases where we are free to choose between easy and difficult modes of operation, it is most rational to choose the easy.”
That made Jefferson the first person in history to advocate a system of decimal coinage, and the United States the first country to adopt one. This was a very good idea, and, as good ideas always do, it quickly spread. Today every country on earth has a decimal currency system.
But if Jefferson’s decimal coinage concept was a good idea that quickly spread around the world, another idea that developed here at that time was lousy: the so-called American Rule, whereby each side in a civil legal case pays its own court costs regardless of outcome. This was different from the English system where the loser has to pay the court costs of both sides.
The American Rule came about as what might be called a deadbeat’s relief act. The Treaty of Paris (which ended the American Revolution) stipulated that British creditors could sue in American courts in order to collect debts owed them by people who were now American citizens. To make it less likely that they would do so, state legislatures passed the American Rule. With the British merchant stuck paying his own court costs, he had little incentive to go to court unless the debt was considerable.
The American Rule was a relatively minor anomaly in our legal system until the mid-20th century. But since then, as lawyers’ ethics changed and they became much more active in seeking cases, the American Rule has proved an engine of litigation. For every malpractice case filed in 1960, for instance, 300 are filed today. In practice, the American Rule has become an open invitation, frequently accepted, to legal extortion: “Pay us $25,000 to go away or spend $250,000 to defend yourself successfully in court. Your choice.”
Trial lawyers defend the American Rule fiercely. They also make more political contributions, mostly to Democrats, than any other set of donors except labor unions. One of their main arguments for the status quo is that the vast number of lawsuits from which they profit so handsomely force doctors, manufacturers, and others to be more careful than they otherwise might be. Private lawsuits, these lawyers maintain, police the public marketplace by going after bad guys so the government doesn’t have to—a curious assertion, given that policing the marketplace has long been considered a quintessential function of government.
The reason for this is that when policing has been in private hands, self-interest and the public interest inevitably conflicted. The private armies of the Middle Ages all too often turned into bands of brigands or rebels. The naval privateers who flourished in the 16th to 18th centuries were also private citizens pursuing private gain while performing a public service by raiding an enemy’s commerce during wartime. In the War of 1812, for instance, American privateers pushed British insurance rates up to 30 percent of the value of ship and cargo. But when a war ended, privateers had a bad habit of turning into pirates or, after the War of 1812, into slavers.
Predictably, the American Rule has spread exactly nowhere since its inception at the same time as the decimal coinage system. There is not another country in the common-law world that uses it. Indeed, the only other country on the planet that has a version of the American Rule is Japan, where a very different legal system makes it extremely difficult to get into court at all.
The United States has more lawyers and more lawsuits, per capita, than any other country. But lawsuits don’t create wealth, they only transfer it from one party to another, with lawyers taking a big cut along the way. Few things would help the American economy more than ending the American Rule. Texas reformed its tort law system a few years ago and the results have been dramatic. Doctors have been moving into the state, not out of it, and malpractice insurance costs have fallen 25 percent. And remember, good ideas always spread.
5. Markets Hate Uncertainty
The Great Depression that started in the fall of 1929 ended, at least technically, in early March 1933. The stock market, almost always a leading indicator, had bottomed out the previous June, down 90 percent from its high in September 1929. 1933 would be the second best year for the Dow Jones average in the entire 20th century, coming off, of course, a very low base.
But recovery was very slow in coming. Unemployment, over 25 percent in 1933, was still at 17 percent as late as 1939. Indeed, in 1937, when the economy suddenly turned south again, there was a problem: what to call the new downturn. Most people thought the country was still in a depression, so that word wouldn’t do. But economists, delighted to have a problem that they could actually solve, came up with the word “recession,” and that’s what we have been using ever since.
Usually, when there has been a steep decline in economic activity, recovery is equally steep. The valley is V-shaped. That is what happened in 1920, when there had been a severe post-war depression and then a strong recovery. So why was the recovery so slow in the 1930s? One reason, according to an increasing number of economic historians, is that Franklin Roosevelt had a bad habit of changing his mind. While highly intelligent, he was no student of economics and seldom read books as an adult. So much of his program was, essentially, seat-of-his-pants policy. First there was the National Recovery Administration, which amounted to a vast cartelization of the American economy. When the Supreme Court threw it out—by a unanimous vote—FDR moved on to other remedies, including big tax increases on the rich.
But markets, which can function even in disaster with ruthless efficiency, hate uncertainty. When uncertainty regarding the future is high, they tend to tread water. As a result, there was what is known as a “strike of capital.” While corporations often had large cash balances—General Motors made a profit in every year of the Great Depression—and banks had money to lend, there was little investment and few loans made. Both the banks and the corporations were too uncertain about what the government was going to do next.
That is precisely what is happening today. Banks and corporations have plenty of money. Apple alone is sitting on about $100 billion worth of corporate cash. And yet the recovery from the crash of 2008 has been tepid at best. The valley is U-shaped. Undoubtedly a big reason for that is the enormous uncertainty that has plagued the country since 2008. Will health care—one-sixth of the American economy—be taken over by the folks who run the post office? Will the Bush tax cuts be ended or continued? Will the corporate income tax go up or down? Will manufacturing get a special tax deal? Will so-called millionaires—who, when you listen carefully to what liberal politicians are saying, can earn as little as $200,000 a year—be forced suddenly to pay “their fair share”?
Who knows? So firms and banks are postponing investment decisions until the future is clearer. Perhaps the clearing will happen on November 6.
But recovery was very slow in coming. Unemployment, over 25 percent in 1933, was still at 17 percent as late as 1939. Indeed, in 1937, when the economy suddenly turned south again, there was a problem: what to call the new downturn. Most people thought the country was still in a depression, so that word wouldn’t do. But economists, delighted to have a problem that they could actually solve, came up with the word “recession,” and that’s what we have been using ever since.
Usually, when there has been a steep decline in economic activity, recovery is equally steep. The valley is V-shaped. That is what happened in 1920, when there had been a severe post-war depression and then a strong recovery. So why was the recovery so slow in the 1930s? One reason, according to an increasing number of economic historians, is that Franklin Roosevelt had a bad habit of changing his mind. While highly intelligent, he was no student of economics and seldom read books as an adult. So much of his program was, essentially, seat-of-his-pants policy. First there was the National Recovery Administration, which amounted to a vast cartelization of the American economy. When the Supreme Court threw it out—by a unanimous vote—FDR moved on to other remedies, including big tax increases on the rich.
But markets, which can function even in disaster with ruthless efficiency, hate uncertainty. When uncertainty regarding the future is high, they tend to tread water. As a result, there was what is known as a “strike of capital.” While corporations often had large cash balances—General Motors made a profit in every year of the Great Depression—and banks had money to lend, there was little investment and few loans made. Both the banks and the corporations were too uncertain about what the government was going to do next.
That is precisely what is happening today. Banks and corporations have plenty of money. Apple alone is sitting on about $100 billion worth of corporate cash. And yet the recovery from the crash of 2008 has been tepid at best. The valley is U-shaped. Undoubtedly a big reason for that is the enormous uncertainty that has plagued the country since 2008. Will health care—one-sixth of the American economy—be taken over by the folks who run the post office? Will the Bush tax cuts be ended or continued? Will the corporate income tax go up or down? Will manufacturing get a special tax deal? Will so-called millionaires—who, when you listen carefully to what liberal politicians are saying, can earn as little as $200,000 a year—be forced suddenly to pay “their fair share”?
Who knows? So firms and banks are postponing investment decisions until the future is clearer. Perhaps the clearing will happen on November 6.
Copyright © 2012 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the following credit line is used: “Reprinted by permission fromImprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.” SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. ISSN 0277-8432. Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. Patent and Trade Office #1563325.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Rising Black Social Pathology
By Walter Williams
The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn't even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year."
I graduated from Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954. Franklin's students were from the poorest North Philadelphia neighborhoods — such as the Richard Allen housing project, where I lived — but there were no policemen patrolling the hallways. There were occasional after-school fights — rumbles, we called them — but within the school, there was order. Students didn't use foul language to teachers, much less assault them.
How might one explain the greater civility of Philadelphia and other big-city, predominantly black schools during earlier periods compared with today? Would anyone argue that during the '40s and '50s, back when Williams attended Philadelphia schools, there was less racial discrimination and poverty and there were greater opportunities for blacks and that's why academic performance was higher and there was greater civility? Or how about "in earlier periods, there was more funding for predominantly black schools"? Or how about "in earlier periods, black students had more black role models in the forms of black principals, teachers and guidance counselors"? If such arguments were to be made, it would be sheer lunacy. If white and black liberals and civil rights leaders want to make such arguments, they'd best wait until those of us who lived during the '40s and '50s have departed the scene.
Over the past couple of decades, I've attended neighborhood reunions. I've asked whether any of us recall classmates who couldn't read, write or perform simple calculations, and none of us does. Back in those days, most Philadelphia school principals, teachers and counselors were white. At Stoddart-Fleisher junior high school, where I attended, I recall that only one teacher was black, and at Benjamin Franklin, there might have been two. What does that say about the role model theory? By the way, Asian-Americans are at the top of the academic ladder, and, at least historically, they rarely experience an Asian-American teacher during their K-through-12 schooling.
Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They are permitted to make education impossible for other students. Their misbehavior and violence require schools to divert resources away from education and spend them on security, such as hiring school police and purchasing metal detectors, all of which does little for school safety. The violent school climate discourages the highest-skilled teachers from teaching at schools where they risk assaults, intimidation and theft. At a bare minimum, part of the solution to school violence and poor academic performance should be the expulsion of students who engage in assaults and disrespectful behavior.
You say, "What's to be done for these students?" Even if we don't know what to do with them, how compassionate and intelligent is it to permit them to make education impossible for other students?
The fact that black parents, teachers, politicians and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat and blood of our ancestors. The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there's a change in what's acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change has to come from within the black community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Israel is on its own in war against terrorism
3a) Editorial of The New York Sun | August 14, 2012
Obama and his stooges will have to excuse me if I’m somewhat skeptical when they claim to be delighted that the GOP is running Romney and Ryan against them. I mean, I have tried to see things from their viewpoint, but I just can’t imagine why a radical leftist who has run this nation’s economy into the ground and his clownish sidekick would want to run against two guys who are smart, well-spoken and extremely personable.
I mean, at least when the various palookas said they were looking forward to facing Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and even Apollo Creed, in the boxing ring, guys like Tony Galento, Bernie Reynolds and Rocky Balboa, knew they were in store for a big payday. But faced with having to debate these two attractive, articulate Republicans, and without a Teleprompter feeding them their lines, Obama and Biden better hope their opponents will agree to take a dive.
I know that some conservatives are upset that Romney isn’t cool or charismatic, two words that Democrats always attach to Obama. As for me, it’s enough that I’m so cool, I could actually double as a refrigerator, and so charismatic, it’s almost scary. But I wouldn’t want to see me in the role of commander in chief and leader of the free world. For that job, I prefer someone who is honest, decent and competent.
One of the things I happen to like best about Paul Ryan is his ability to translate economics into perfectly understandable English. Although you would think that every single American would understand what four years of 8% unemployment, 8% underemployment and a $16 trillion dollar national debt, mean to our nation’s future and the future of the world. A world, by the way, that is faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran; a China lusting for more turf; and a Russia controlled by the former head of the KGB.
And then there’s the matter of Islamic ambitions. Let us never forget that Barack Hussein Obama once declared that if push ever comes to shove, he would side with the religion of his loony, racist, drunken, father. And why would we doubt him when everything he has said and done, even prior to taking up residence in the White House, has shown where his loyalties lie?
For more on this subject, I urge every voter, whatever his political affiliation, to see “2016” before Election Day.
What I don’t get is how oblivious so many Americans are to the economic precipice this nation is fast-approaching. You don’t have to be Milton Friedman or have a Ph.D in economics to understand that you can’t indefinitely deal with the problem by borrowing from China and printing worthless paper money. When towns and cities all over America are facing bankruptcy because their politicians gave public sector unions a blank check when times were flush, knowing they’d get votes and campaign contributions when election time rolled around, you would think everyone would be aware of the devastation our nation is facing.
Of course it’s only anecdotal, but Bret Baier, in his report about the dire circumstances facing American municipalities, mentioned that in San Jose, CA, prior to the city declaring bankruptcy, firemen were averaging $130,000-a-year while cops were pulling down $90,000, and after 20 years of service, they could look forward to equally generous pensions.
In San Bernardino, one police sergeant pocketed $317,000. No doubt he put in a lot of overtime, leading me to wonder if the man ever slept. But $317,000 in a city where the average taxpayer makes less than $40,000-a-year seems a tad outrageous. For that kind of dough, if I were a resident, I’d expect the cop to spend his weekends painting my house and repairing my plumbing.
What makes this all the more farcical is that these towns are in California, where the Democrats in Sacramento have spent decades squandering money we don’t have, while pretty much inviting companies to leave for business-friendlier locales like Arizona and Texas. As a result, we have what are probably the highest state and sales taxes in the land, and while the rest of the nation has apoplexy when gasoline prices hit $3.60 or $3.70-a-gallon, ours regularly soar well over $4.00. Liberals of course blame the oil companies for hiking prices at the pump, but the truth is that Jerry Brown and his cronies are gouging us to a degree that the folks at Mobil and Arco can only dream about.
Finally, one reader recently sent me an email, reminding me that, in declaring my skepticism where pacifism is concerned, I once wrote: “Gandhi was just lucky that his enemy happened to be England and not the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.”
In response, I added, “The tragedy in the Middle East is that Israel hasn’t been nearly as fortunate in its enemies as India was.
4)Israel is on its own in war against terrorism
3a) Editorial of The New York Sun | August 14, 2012
The escape of Jews from France, which has been picking up pace in the past decade, “may soon reach much more important proportions.” That is the prediction in an important dispatch by the French newspaperman Michel Gurfinkiel and issued this week by Pajamas Media. The prediction comes eight years after Prime Minister Sharon of Israel publicly called on Jews to get out of France and fewer than four months after three Jewish school children and their teacher were murdered at Toulouse.
It turns out, Mr. Gurfinkiel reports, that the killings at Toulouse, while denounced at the highest levels in the Fifth Republic, have actually increased anti-Semitic tendences in France. Even Jewish leaders who have sought a modus vivendi in France are warning that young Jews no longer see a future in the country. This is a story one isn’t getting from the major newspapers or from our own state department.
Mr. Gurfinkiel quotes a rabbi at Paris as telling him: “Any time young people approach me in order to get married, I ask them various questions about their future. Eighty percent of them say they do not envision any future in France.” Mr. Gurfinkiel wrotes that he has heard “similar statements from other French rabbis and lay Jewish leaders.” He quotes a leader at Lyons as confiding to him, “We have a feeling the words are on the wall now. It is not just our situation in this country deteriorating; it is also that the process is much quicker than expected.”
Even the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, “may be sharing that view now,” Mr. Gurfinkiel reports. A few weeks ago, he notes, the chief rabbi “suddenly warned Jewish leaders” about a “growing ‘rejection’ of Jews and Judaism in Franee.” The chief rabbi has linked the trend to what Mr. Gurfinkiel characterizes as “the global passing of ‘Judeo-Christian values’ in French society as a whole.” Mr. Gurfinkiel also reports on the connection between Muslim immigration — or what he calls Muslim-influenced immigration from the Third World — and “the rise of a new anti-Semitism” that has become a fact “all over Europe.”
It is not that the leadership of the new socialist government of France has been silent. On the contrary, Mr. Gurfinkiel credits President Hollande and the interior minister, Manuel Valls, “for taking the present anti-Semitic crisis seriously.” Mr. Gurfinkiel calls that “a noted departure from the ambivalent attitude of the last socialist administration of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin ten years ago.” On July 22, the “seventieth anniversary of the “grande raffle” (“great round-up”) of Jews by the Vichy government police in 1942,” Mr. Gurfinkiel reports, the new premier “drew a parallel between the Toulouse massacre and the deportation and mass murder of Jewish children during the Holocaust.”
Mr. Valls, Mr. Gurfinkiel reports, has not only repeatedly acknowledged the upsurge of anti-Semitism in France but, on July 8, “went so far as to stigmatize the ‘most stupid, most dangerous new anti-Semitism’ brooding among ‘young and not-so-young people’ in the ‘neighborhoods.’” It was, Mr. Gurfinkiel writes, reference to Muslim enclaves. He called it “quite a bold statement, since the Socialist party and the Left at large primarily derive their present electoral edge in France from the Muslim vote.” Valls and his staff may also have inspired several no-nonsense reports on anti-Semitism that were recently published in the liberal, pro-socialist press.”
Mr. Gurfinkiel reports that since Toulouse there have been no fewer than six cases of aggravated assault on Jewish youths or rabbis in France. He quotes the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations as reporting that anti-Semitic incidents of all sorts have increased by 53% compared to the year earlier period. One phenomenon Mr. Gurfinkiel marks is that “Muslim anti-Semitism reactivates in many places a dormant, but by no means extinct, non-Muslim European anti-Semitism.” If Muslims are unchecked when they question the Holocaust or cite the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, he notes, “a growing number of non-Muslims feel free to do the same.”
When Ariel Sharon issued his famous call for the Jews to get out of France while they could, he was challenged by the Quai D’Orsay, which makes our own state department look like the Council of Torah Sages. With every passing month, however, it becomes apparent that, as Mr. Gurfinkiel puts it, the “second half of the 20th century was a golden age for French Jews.” Their numbers soared, to 700,000 from 250,000, and there was what he terms a religious and cultural revival. The only shadow was the “anti-Israel switch engineered by Charles de Gaulle in 1966” that he reckons was in part “a consequence of a more global anti-American switch.” Today the number of Jews at France is probably below 500,000, and Mr. Gurfinkiel sees the 21st century “a much darker age.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)THE GOLDEN TICKET
By Burt PrelutskyObama and his stooges will have to excuse me if I’m somewhat skeptical when they claim to be delighted that the GOP is running Romney and Ryan against them. I mean, I have tried to see things from their viewpoint, but I just can’t imagine why a radical leftist who has run this nation’s economy into the ground and his clownish sidekick would want to run against two guys who are smart, well-spoken and extremely personable.
 |
| The Golden Ticket |
I know that some conservatives are upset that Romney isn’t cool or charismatic, two words that Democrats always attach to Obama. As for me, it’s enough that I’m so cool, I could actually double as a refrigerator, and so charismatic, it’s almost scary. But I wouldn’t want to see me in the role of commander in chief and leader of the free world. For that job, I prefer someone who is honest, decent and competent.
One of the things I happen to like best about Paul Ryan is his ability to translate economics into perfectly understandable English. Although you would think that every single American would understand what four years of 8% unemployment, 8% underemployment and a $16 trillion dollar national debt, mean to our nation’s future and the future of the world. A world, by the way, that is faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran; a China lusting for more turf; and a Russia controlled by the former head of the KGB.
For more on this subject, I urge every voter, whatever his political affiliation, to see “2016” before Election Day.
What I don’t get is how oblivious so many Americans are to the economic precipice this nation is fast-approaching. You don’t have to be Milton Friedman or have a Ph.D in economics to understand that you can’t indefinitely deal with the problem by borrowing from China and printing worthless paper money. When towns and cities all over America are facing bankruptcy because their politicians gave public sector unions a blank check when times were flush, knowing they’d get votes and campaign contributions when election time rolled around, you would think everyone would be aware of the devastation our nation is facing.
Of course it’s only anecdotal, but Bret Baier, in his report about the dire circumstances facing American municipalities, mentioned that in San Jose, CA, prior to the city declaring bankruptcy, firemen were averaging $130,000-a-year while cops were pulling down $90,000, and after 20 years of service, they could look forward to equally generous pensions.
In San Bernardino, one police sergeant pocketed $317,000. No doubt he put in a lot of overtime, leading me to wonder if the man ever slept. But $317,000 in a city where the average taxpayer makes less than $40,000-a-year seems a tad outrageous. For that kind of dough, if I were a resident, I’d expect the cop to spend his weekends painting my house and repairing my plumbing.
What makes this all the more farcical is that these towns are in California, where the Democrats in Sacramento have spent decades squandering money we don’t have, while pretty much inviting companies to leave for business-friendlier locales like Arizona and Texas. As a result, we have what are probably the highest state and sales taxes in the land, and while the rest of the nation has apoplexy when gasoline prices hit $3.60 or $3.70-a-gallon, ours regularly soar well over $4.00. Liberals of course blame the oil companies for hiking prices at the pump, but the truth is that Jerry Brown and his cronies are gouging us to a degree that the folks at Mobil and Arco can only dream about.
Finally, one reader recently sent me an email, reminding me that, in declaring my skepticism where pacifism is concerned, I once wrote: “Gandhi was just lucky that his enemy happened to be England and not the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.”
In response, I added, “The tragedy in the Middle East is that Israel hasn’t been nearly as fortunate in its enemies as India was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment