Though the words Conservative and Capitalist are in the title, the booklet is non-political in nature.
Half the proceeds from the sale of this modestly priced book goes to The Wounded Warrior Project!
Dick Berkowitz, has written a booklet entitled:"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born."
By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert
Dick wrote this booklet because he believes a strong country must rest on a solid family unit and that Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."
He hopes this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.
You can order a pdf version you can download and read on your computer, or print out if you want. Cost is $5.99
The book is also available in soft cover format at a cost of $10.99 plus $2.50 shipping and handling.
Simply go to www.brokerberko.com/book
Booklet illustrations were by his oldest granddaughter, Emma Darvick, who lives and works in New York.
Testimonials:
Dick, I read your book this weekend. I hardly know where to start. You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms. I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.
I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..
You did a great job. I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.
Mike
You wrote a great book. The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief. Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
"Dick, I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words. Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…
Regards, Larry"
Dick ,
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Regarding your booklet, I have begun to read it and look forward to finishing it this weekend. Congrats on getting it published and on the great reviews. I know how much this booklet means to you and how important getting this message out to the public is.
P------
Dick,
I finally found the time to read your book.
It contains much wisdom compressed within its short space.
Your advice for raising children by inculcating them with the traditional values with which you and I were both reared is the perfect antidote to the Dr. Spock mentality and self-esteem movement of the “Me Generation” of the 60s (remember “Do your own thing”?) from which we have never recovered.
We’re still swimming against the tide.
I commend you for your indefatigable battle against the moral bankruptcy of the Left. Keep up the good work.
All best,
Alan
Dick - The books arrived in the mail yesterday and a check went out in today's mail. Thank you. I just finished reading it and must say how thrilled I am that you took the time to write it. I can't wait to share it with S-----, N---, L----- and D----. In spite of mistakes in my own parenting skills brought to light in your book, the girls have turned out well and I am confident will be better parents because of your book. I love you like a brother, B--
About The Author:
After completing his formal education in 1960, Dick Berkowitz began his
professional career as a stockbroker in Atlanta, joining the nation's
largest Southeastern Regional NYSE Member Firm - Courts and Co. becoming a
general partner in seven years. Dick subsequently resigned after Courts
merged and he opened an institutional office for Burnham and Company. Twenty
years later, after Drexel Burnham closed its doors, he moved his staff to
Oppenheimer in 1990, retiring in 2009
During his business career he served on The President's Commission on White
House Fellows '90 - '92, The Board of Visitors St John's College '95 -2001,
The Board of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars '97 - '98, The
George Bush for President National Finance Committee '98.
Dick also was a Founding Member Univ of Ga. President's Club and Chaired
Blackburn Park Master Plan Committee '98.
Re-locating to Savannah, where he now lives with Lynn, his wife of 40 years,
he continues to manage money for a few clients, remains active serving on
The Board of Visitors of the State of Ga. Museum of Art. He also began The
JEA Speaker Series, serves on The Board of The Savannah Federation
Investment Foundation, The Advisory Board of Spine and Sports and, more
recently, The Board of The Skidaway Island Republican Club - 2012.
Dick Berkowitz also publishes his thoughts on The Middle East, politics and
economics which can be found at: www.Dick-Meom.Blogspot.com
Feel free to forward this to anyone on your own e mail list and encourage
others to order a copy.
professional career as a stockbroker in Atlanta, joining the nation's
largest Southeastern Regional NYSE Member Firm - Courts and Co. becoming a
general partner in seven years. Dick subsequently resigned after Courts
merged and he opened an institutional office for Burnham and Company. Twenty
years later, after Drexel Burnham closed its doors, he moved his staff to
Oppenheimer in 1990, retiring in 2009
During his business career he served on The President's Commission on White
House Fellows '90 - '92, The Board of Visitors St John's College '95 -2001,
The Board of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars '97 - '98, The
George Bush for President National Finance Committee '98.
Dick also was a Founding Member Univ of Ga. President's Club and Chaired
Blackburn Park Master Plan Committee '98.
Re-locating to Savannah, where he now lives with Lynn, his wife of 40 years,
he continues to manage money for a few clients, remains active serving on
The Board of Visitors of the State of Ga. Museum of Art. He also began The
JEA Speaker Series, serves on The Board of The Savannah Federation
Investment Foundation, The Advisory Board of Spine and Sports and, more
recently, The Board of The Skidaway Island Republican Club - 2012.
Dick Berkowitz also publishes his thoughts on The Middle East, politics and
economics which can be found at: www.Dick-Meom.Blogspot.com
Feel free to forward this to anyone on your own e mail list and encourage
others to order a copy.
This is just one 'hero family' you are helping.
May God Bless them and bring them peace!
Dick
---
There are times when less said is better.
Dick
---
With religion under attack by secularists, a prominent Southern Baptist preacher speaks out and challenges those who feel they are under attack to respond forcefully.
I am not willing to go so far as to accuse those who are seeking to denigrate religion as being Communists but let's face it, Communists oppose religion and believe citizens owe everything to the state. Our nation was founded on the precept that our rights were God given and as America loses its cultural and moral moorings perhaps it would be useful to take a step back and observe the frightening trends that have gripped our nation,
Our friends in the media and press have helped these anti-religion trends by their sophisticated urgings that anyone who is religious is radical and bigoted. Granted there are extremes in religion but, I submit, union head busters are equally dangerous.
A little balance in how we judge extremists is in order.
I won't go as far as Goldwater who said "Extremism, in defense of liberty, is no vice." but I understand his less than subtle underlying thought, though his words conveyed the wrong message.
That said, when our values, our morals and religion are attacked, as they are, then it is time to respond in a clear manner and one which leaves no ambiguities.
When and if America becomes a Godless nation the game is over and though I do not profess to being ritualistically religious, I do believe a certain moral code has guided my every step "Do unto others as they would you" has served me well. (See 1 and 1a below.)
---
Sent to me by a fellow conservative, friend and fellow memo reader. Some times a graphic comment puts things in perspective: "Some people don't quite get the SCALE of our debt. I work for a company in the northwest that builds airliners.
A 787 lists for about Two Hundred Million dollars. So Five 787's is about a Billion dollars.
That means FIVE THOUSAND 787s is a Trillion dollars.
Our debt is 16 Trillion dollars. That's EIGHTY THOUSAND 787's worth that we've borrowed.
At they rate we build them (or hope to) generations could live and die in the factory before we could build enough to pay off the current debt, and we're adding another 6-8,000 787's worth of debt EVERY YEAR.
The world can't buy that many jets. Even if we as a nation diversify our exports (like we have in reality) we can't bring in the money it takes to pay that debt. The whole thing is going to crash
(Written by a guy who calls himself Mauser)"
My friend's thoughts: "BHO and his helpers are actively seeking to destroy the USA. Why don't the brilliant people who live on the upper West Side not get this? "
---
This past week I had a friend from a high profile lobbying organization come to my home and give a review of the Middle East to several friends. This is what he had to say.
I did not take notes so this is from memory . (See 2 below.)
---
Chuck Hagel runs into Democrat and Republican Jewish buzz saw .
I know Sam Nunn always thought highly of Hagel but I never discussed with Sam, Hagel's Middle East views. (See 3 below.)
---
Obama cointinues along his either misguided or purposeful belief that it is American misunderstanding that is the root cause of terrorism.
He is now engaged in another attempt to sanitize military thinking and rules of engagement.
This president's deconstructionism and destructive ways seems to have no end. .(See 4 below.)
And then off to la la la land as we begin to be drowned in more 'Obamascare' red tape. Pogo had Obama and Pelosi in mind when he said 'the enemy is us.' (See 5 below.)
---
What next - Israel and Iran. (See 6 below.)
---
This too is worth re-posting . (See 7 Below.)
---
---
This too is worth re-posting . (See 7 Below.)
---
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1)PASTOR: ‘WIMPY’ WON’T CUT IT IN CULTURE WAR
By Charlie Butts
A respected Southern Baptist pastor and author says "wimpy" pastors and laypersons are the reason Christians are losing the culture war.
Why are many Christian leaders silent when religious freedom comes under attack? That question was raised Tuesday evening by Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and posed to Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor ofFirst Baptist Church Dallas and author of How Can I Know: Answers to Life's 7 Most Important Questions.
"I think one reason is a lot of Christian leaders have the wrong idea about Jesus," Jeffress replied when asked the question. "They see Jesus as this little, wimpy guy who walked around plucking daisies and eating birdseed and saying nice things, but never doing anything controversial. The fact is, Jesus did confront his culture with truth -- and he ended up being crucified because of it."
The Dallas pastor chastised pastors who shy away from controversy.
"Wimpy pastors produce wimpy Christians -- and that is why we are losing this culture war," he emphasized.
"I believe it's time for pastors to say, You know, I don't care about controversy, I don't care whether I'm going to lose church members, I don't care about building a big church. I'm going to stand for truth regardless of what happens."
Jeffress -- who also reprimanded school districts and elected officials for caving in -- contends secularists are going to take over if pastors and Christians continue to refuse to stand up and wage the necessary battle to secure their constitutional rights.
1a)The right-to-work dilemma
For all the fury and fistfights outside the Lansing Capitol, what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality. The most famously unionized state, birthplace of the United Auto Workers, royalty of the American working class, became right-to-work.
It’s shocking, except that it was inevitable. Indiana went that way earlier this year. The entire Rust Belt will eventually follow because the heyday of the sovereign private-sector union is gone. Globalization has made splendid isolation impossible
The nostalgics look back to the immediate postwar years when the UAW was all-powerful, the auto companies were highly profitable and the world was flooded with American cars. In that Golden Age, the UAW won wages, benefits and protections that were the envy of the world.
Today’s angry protesters demand a return to that norm. Except that it was not a norm but a historical anomaly. America, alone among the great industrial powers, emerged unscathed from World War II. Japan was a cinder, Germany rubble and the allies — beginning with Britain and France — an exhausted shell of their former imperial selves.
For a generation, America had the run of the world. Then the others recovered. Soon global competition — from Volkswagen to Samsung — began to overtake American industry that was saddled with protected, inflated, relatively uncompetitive wages, benefits and work rules.
There’s a reason Detroit went bankruptwhile the southern auto transplants did not. This is not to exonerate incompetent overpaid management that contributed to the fall. But clearly the wage, benefit and work-rule gap between the unionized North and the right-to-work South was a major factor.
President Obama railed against the Michigan legislation, calling right-to-work “giving you the right to work for less money.” Well, there is a principle at stake here: A free country should allow its workers to choose whether to join a union. Moreover, it is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus while denying it for such matters as choosing your child’s school or joining a union.
Principle and hypocrisy aside, however, the president’s statement has some validity. Let’s be honest: Right-to-work laws doweaken unions. And de-unionization can lead to lower wages.
But there is another factor at play: having a job in the first place. In right-to-work states, the average wage is about 10 percent lower. But in right-to-work states, unemployment also is about 10 percent lower.
Higher wages or lower unemployment? It is a wrenching choice. Although, you would think that liberals would be more inclined to spread the wealth — i.e., the jobs — around, preferring somewhat lower pay in order to leave fewer fellow workers mired in unemployment.
Think of the moral calculus. Lower wages cause an incremental decline in one’s well-being. No doubt. But for the unemployed, the decline is categorical, sometimes catastrophic — a loss not just of income but of independence and dignity.
Nor does protectionism offer escape from this dilemma. Shutting out China and the others deprives less well-off Americans of access to the kinds of goods once reserved for the upper classes: quality clothing, furnishings, electronics, durable goods — from the Taiwanese-manufactured smartphone to the affordable, highly functional Kia.
Globalization taketh away. But it giveth more. The net benefit of free trade has been known since, oh, 1817. (See David Ricardo and the Law of Comparative Advantage.) There is no easy parachute from reality.
Obama calls this a race to the bottom. No, it’s a race to a new equilibrium that tries to maintain employment levels, albeit at the price of some modest wage decline. It is a choice not to be despised.
I have great admiration for the dignity and protections trade unionism has brought to American workers. I have no great desire to see the private-sector unions defenestrated. (Like FDR, Fiorello La Guardia and George Meany, however, I don’t extend that sympathy to public-sector unions.)
But rigidity and nostalgia have a price. The industrial Midwest is littered with the resulting wreckage. Michigan most notably, where its formerly great metropolis of Detroit is reducedto boarded-up bankruptcy by its inability and unwillingness to adapt to global change.
It’s easy to understand why a state such as Michigan would seek to recover its competitiveness by emulating the success of Indiana. One can sympathize with those who pine for the union glory days, while at the same time welcoming the new realism that promises not an impossible restoration but desperately needed — and doable — recalibration and recovery.
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2) Joshua took us around the Middle East and began by saying that The Muslim Brotherhood were going to be a potent force and they had pretty much taken control of Egypt. Egypt was now a serious military threat to Israel. In fact for those who read my memos I noted yesterday that we were beginning to supply them with the latest American aircraft - F 16's. Joshua pointed out that the Egyptian army was modern and possessed much the same equipment Israel has obtained from America.
I will jump a bit and move to Jordan which has the longest shared border with Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood were now challenging Jordan's King. Here again, for those who read my memos, you will remember I warned about this several weeks ago and even more recently.
As for Gaza and Hamas, Elliot Chodoff's recent, review, which I posted a few memos ago, pretty much tells the story. and I commend it to your reading. Hamas will recover from the punishment the IAF delivered and it will be some time before they try more rocket launches. This time Netanyahu sent them a clear message he was prepared to respond and Israeli intelligence proved very effective in pinpointing military targets as well as the whereabouts of their leadership. Israel knows Hamas' main quarters are underneath a major Gazan hospital and refrained from attacking it for obvious reasons.
The problem Hamas will have is that other Islamist terrorists now occupy and operate in Gaza and are not about to restrain themselves. If a rocket were to hit a school with Israeli children, Joshua noted, the response from Israel would be swift. Barring that, Israel will exercise a degree of restraint.
In the case of Syria it is anyone's guess when and if Assad goes but it is becoming more evident he is on the ropes. Joshua discussed the WMD issue and pretty much said what any informed person understands. Obviously it must be remembered and repeated Assad, like Mubarak, basically did not stir the hornet's nest and there was relative calm between Syria and Israel. Now that Assad may be on the way out and more radical Islamists will be in control it is anybody's guess what the end game will be.
Taking out Syria has obvious negative implications for Iran because they were a conduit for Iranian arms supplies etc. to Hezballah in Lebanon. Joshua mentioned that Hezballah, unlike Hamas, has the ability to create terrorist havoc anywhere in the world. They are that capable and sophisticated.
As for Abbas and Fatah and their newly gained status vis a vis the U.N. vote. I personally believed the Obama administration were inept in preventing this from happening whereas Joshua believes it was a foregone matter. In any event, the consequences of this is yet to unfold. Israel could not stand idly by and thus have made some tactical moves, ie.announcing more settlements, withholding some of Palestinian funds etc. Nothing really major. Joshua also mentioned that Israel and Fatah have co-operated in terms of policing terrorists and want to continue this relationship because it mutally serves both peoples.
Obviously, Iran is the wild card and eventually their nuclear capability will have to be addressed. The Israeli attack in Sudan, which I reported on long before it was even mentioned in the press, was a clear message to Iran that the IAF has range capability. The problem, as we have heard from others, is that Israel cannot sustain attacks on Iran and does not possess the weaponry necessary to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities, short of using atomic weapons which, for obvious reasons, is out of the question barring an attack by Iran first.
If Iran obtains a nuclear capability then the Saudis, Egypt will be quick to do so as well. The Saudis might purchase from Pakistan since they helped finance Pakistan's nuclear capability. Consequently, Joshua believes, if I heard him correctly, that it is not out of the realm of possibility that America will eventually take on the task. I am not as sanguine because I do not believe Obama is likely to rise to the threat.
As for the Iron Dome, it proved effective and Israel needs many more at a very high cost. So far America has been willing to finance them and Israel has had to bear the cost of each rocket which is in the range of $50 to $75,000.
I may not be the most religious Jew but when it comes to Israel I am my father's son. My father, along with 17 other American Jews, helped the nation of Israel get established as members of The Sonneborn Institute. He left me a legacy which I have always felt deeply. (Read Slater's "The Pledge" or chat with me one day and I will tell you the story if you do not already know it.
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3)Jewish Leaders Blast Chuck Hagel at White House Function
WASHINGTON — On Thursday night, hundreds of American Jewish leaders visited the White House to celebrate Hanukah, but many also came with a less celebratory agenda: They were there to deliver a warning to President Barack Obama about the potential nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel.
The buzz around former Republican senator from Nebraska — seen as a top contender to lead the Department of Defense — has Israel supporters worried. Hagel has been a frequent target for Jewish Democratic and Republican groups for more than a decade, even as he is close to Obama, having been a supporter in 2008 and an appointee to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
“He was one of these worst senators in his party in memory when it comes to Israel,” said one Jewish Democratic operative. “It’s a terrible idea.”
Hagel is hardly overtly anti-Israel, but he's been less sympathetic to the Jewish State than most members of Congress in both parties. He was a critic, for instance, of Israel's assault on the Lebanese group Hezbollah in 2006, and his broader worldview — he's a "Republican realist," the political scientist and archenemy of what he calls the "Israel lobby" Stephen Walt wrote Thursday — is unsympathetic to an emotional American engagement in the Middle East.
And with Susan Rice withdrawing her name from contention to be Secretary of State, Republicans are gearing up for fight against Hagel, despite his fading ties to their party.
“Republicans will now turn their attention to blocking a potential Hagel nomination,” said one Senate GOP foreign policy aide, “which could become an ideological litmus test on foreign policy for both Republicans and Democrats.”
Complicated the potential selection of Hagel by Obama, is that Jewish Democrats, including one of the men Obama likely would turn to to assuage the fears of Jewish Americans is on record raising doubts about him.
"If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we'd have real concerns," Ira Forman, the Obama campaign’s Jewish Outreach Director and the former Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, told The Weekly Standard when Hagel was appointed to the intelligence board.
In 2007, when Hagel flirted with a presidential run, the NJDC blasted his credentials on Israel in a fact sheet, noting among other items, that in 2006 Hagel was “one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.”
Several attendees at the Hanukah party said they witnessed or participated in reaching out to administration officials about the potential selection of Hagel, with one attendee saying “he was the talk of the party.”
One Democrat in attendance predicted the fight over Hagel would be “Susan Rice times 10.”
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on what Israel supporters would think of a Hagel pick.
“The President thinks very highly of Senator Hagel,” Carney told reporters. “I think a lot of people in Washington and around the country, and especially in Senator Hagel’s home state think very highly of him.”
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4)Another low bow to radical Islam
By Wesley Pruden
Barack Obama says he's a Christian. Good for him (and for the Gospel). But rarely has a Christian paid such obeisance to another faith and ideology. The president's bow and scrape to Islam knows no end. That's not so good.
The U.S. Army is soon to issue a handbook instructing soldiers to copy Mr. Obama's example of when and how to defer to an alien ideology that stands against everything Americans are taught, whether by faith, ethics, morals or another code of good conduct.
The new manual, which runs to 75 pages, orders American military personnel to refrain from saying anything to offend the Taliban in Afghanistan, to be careful not to criticize the practice of sexual relations with children, the abuse of women, beheadings, massacres of girls and the killing of "unbelievers" and Muslims who Taliban enforcers regard as insufficiently devout in the faith. Holding to what they have been taught, whether at Sunday school or a mother's knee, is presumably OK for American soldiers, at least for now. But they must keep such ideas to themselves.
The manual, issued in the name of the U.S. Government, obviously at the command of the commander in chief, suggests that Western ignorance and arrogance and not the Taliban are responsible for the surge in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the soldiers of the allied coalition.
U.S. troops should prepare for "psychologically challenging conditions" inAfghanistan, and be prepared for "stressors" that some American soldiers have remarked from previous deployments, such as finding Afghan security forces "profoundly dishonest and [having] no personal integrity," and "gutless in combat," and "ignorant and basically stupid."
The manual's bottom line, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is that "troops may experience social-cultural shock and/or discomfort when interacting with [the Afghans]. Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [coalition] forces to effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead towards . . . violence."
The Army, citing "etiquette," specifically orders soldiers to avoid "conversation topics" such as "anything related to Islam, mention of any other religion and/or spirituality, debating the war, making derogatory comments about the Taliban, advocating women's rights and equality, directing any criticism towards Afghans, and mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct." The manual, according to the Journal, is the work of the Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Some lessons, alas, are still to be learned.
Some of this advice would be just good manners at a proper dinner party for the elites and the effetes, where custom forbids talking about religion or politics. But bitching about anything and everything is a soldier's cherished right. Any top sergeant (or major general) could tell you that bitching is crucial to good morale.
Nor is this the first time the Army has issued a manual to GIs with advice about avoiding cultural potholes. Every GI arriving in Britain in 1942, to train with our British cousins for the invasion of France, received a 31-page pamphlet detailing how to get along with the natives. Some of the advice is quaint today: Don't use the word "bloody" if women are present; "it's one of their worst swear words." Never apologize for "looking like a bum;" to the British "this means you look like your own backside." American GIs were reminded that a British female officer or non-commissioned officer is entitled to give orders to a man; "the men obey smartly and know it is no shame." Both American and Brit were civilized, of course. That made everything easier.
It's the tone and tint of the manual that offends. The Army of yesteryear would never feel it necessary to beg for an enemy's mercy or cultural indulgence. Ike did not caution Americans not to speak ill of the Nazis on the eve of D-Day lest they abuse his soldiers. FDR did not describe the beheading of American pilots by the Japanese in 1942 as "workplace violence" lest he offend the men ofNippon. Ike and FDR counted on soldiers and Marines to be big enough to take care of themselves.
The Army manual offends American fighting men today, too. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S.military commander in Afghanistan, neither endorsed the manual nor agreed to sign a foreword written in his name. "Gen. Allen did not author, nor does he intend to provide, a foreword," a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said. "He does not approve of its contents."
We should thank him for small mercies. No thanks at all to the commander in chief. All is not lost, not yet.
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5)It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad ObamaCare
The law's implementation is turning into one pratfall after another.
For sheer political farce, not much can compete with ObamaCare's passage, which included slipping the bill through the Senate before dawn three Christmas eves ago. But the madcap dash to get ready for the entitlement's October 2013 start-up date is a pretty close second.
The size and complexity of the Affordable Care Act meant that its implementation was never going to easy. But behind the scenes, even states that support or might support the Affordable Care Act are frustrated about the Health and Human Services Department's special combination of rigidity and ineptitude.
To take one example, for the better part of a year states and groups like the bipartisan National Governors Association and the National Association of Medicaid Directors have been begging HHS merely for information about how they're required to make ObamaCare work in practice. There was radio silence from Washington, with time running out. Louisiana and other states even took to filing Freedom of Information Act requests, which are still pending
Now post-election, new regulations are pouring out from HHS—more than 13,000 pages so far and yet nuts-and-bolts questions are still unanswered. Most of what we know so far comes from a 17-page question-and-answer document that HHS divulged this week, though none of the answers have the force of law and HHS says they're subject to change at any moment.
HHS is generally issuing rules with only 30 days for public comment when the standard is 60 days and for complex regulations 90 days and more. But the larger problem is that HHS's Federal Register filings reveal many of the rules were approved in-house and ready to go as early as May. Why the delay?
To take another example, the feds are building a data hub to determine who is eligible for Medicaid and ObamaCare's "exchanges," the bureaucracies that will dispense insurance subsidies and police the market. Many states have cut administrative costs by combining the application process for Medicaid, food stamps, cash assistance and other antipoverty programs, but HHS's privacy rules say the hub can only be used for ObamaCare. So HHS will force states to become less efficient and flatly refuses to reconsider.
In a word, HHS is treating the states not as the partners it needs to give ObamaCare any chance of success, but as serfs.
HHS did finally if "conditionally" approve the exchange blueprints of six states this week, though it has yet to release any formal objective standards for conditional approval. Some 24 states are refusing to participate, so the agency will be running a federal fallback exchange that it won't reveal how it will operate.
A federal exchange is a vast undertaking. The clearinghouses will be open to the uninsured but also to small businesses and people who already buy plans on the individual market. On average about a quarter of a state's population are expected to at least browse the exchange options, and the share will be far higher in states with large numbers of uninsured people under 65, like New Mexico (24%), Georgia (22%) and Texas (27%).
If 20% of Americans use exchanges, that's 62 million people. At a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Thursday, ObamaCare point man Gary Cohen all but took the Fifth on how he'll deal with this and other challenges.
The exchange naysayers now notably include Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bill Haslam of Tennessee. Sure, they're Republicans, but both Governors flirted with the idea and wanted to participate if it would result in a saner and more rational marketplace. The costs and risks were too high.
HHS also declared this week that states can decide either to expand Medicaid (after the Supreme Court decision made it optional), or not. But states are not allowed to make the partial expansion that many states would have considered. This all-or-nothing political gambit is meant to put the Governors in a bad political spot at home if they don't expand, but the irony is that many of them would participate if HHS gave them more flexibility to manage their own programs and control costs.
Yet HHS has made it almost impossible to qualify for Medicaid waivers. States aren't even allowed to "go green" by using digital instead of paper applications. These "maintenance of effort" rules weren't carved in stone tablets by LBJ. HHS formalized them in a regulation this February.
***
In other implementation hilarity, no fewer than 18 Democratic Senators and Senators-elect came out last week against ObamaCare's $28 billion tax on medical device sales—and not just the usual penitents from Massachusetts and Minnesota. The list includes Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray.
"With this year quickly drawing to a close, the medical device industry has receive little guidance about how to comply with the tax—causing significant uncertainty and confusion for businesses," they write about the tax most of them voted for.
The last entitlement to get off the ground was President Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit. Those rules were tied up with a bow by January 2005, giving business and government nearly a year to prepare—and that was far simpler than re-engineering 17% of the economy. No one knows where the current magical mystery tour is headed, especially not HHS.
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6)
For Israel, What Next In The Matter Of Iran? (Third of Three Parts)
Louis Rene Beres - The Jewish Press, December 13th, 2012
Sometimes, in complex military calculations, truth is counter-intuitive.
In essence, the persuasiveness of Israel's nuclear deterrent vis-Ã -vis Iran will require prospective enemy perceptions of retaliatory destructiveness at both the low and high ends of the nuclear yield spectrum. Ending nuclear ambiguity at the optimal time could best allow Israel to foster precisely such needed perceptions. This point is very important and possibly overriding.
Credible nuclear deterrence is never an automatic consequence of merely “being nuclear.” In the particularly arcane world of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it would never be adequate that Iran could simply acknowledge the Jewish state's nuclear status. Rather, it would be critical, among other things, that Tehran also believe Israel holds distinctly usable nuclear weapons, and that Israel would plainly be willing to launch these weapons in certain clear and more-or-less identifiable circumstances.
Whether Israel's leaders conclude that they will have to deter a rational or an irrational enemy leadership in Tehran, they will have to consider Moshe Dayan's injunction. What would be the expected strategic benefits to Israel of appearing to their Iranian foes as a “mad dog”? And what would be the expected costs?
Together with any such consideration, Israel’s civilian and military leadership will need to determine: (1) what, exactly, is valued most highly by Israel's Iranian enemies; (2) how, exactly, should Israel then leverage fully credible threats against these core enemy preferences.
Under international law, war and genocide need not be mutually exclusive. In the best of all possible worlds, Israel might still be able to stop a nuclear Iran with cost-effective and lawful preemptions; that is, with defensive first strikes that are directed against an openly belligerent and verifiably lawless Iran. Fully permissible, as long as they were judged to conform to the Law of Armed Conflict (humanitarian international law), such discriminating and proportionate strikes, observably limited by peremptory rules of “military necessity,” could still represent authentically life-saving expressions of anticipatory self-defense.
But this is not yet the best of all possible worlds, and soon Israel's prime minister will almost certainly have to deal with a nuclear Iran as a fait accompli. With this in mind, all early critical estimations of Iranian rationality will need to be correlated with appropriate Israeli strategies of defense and deterrence. Even in a worst case scenario, one in which Israeli military intelligence would determine a compelling risk of enemy irrationality, a thoughtful dissuasion plan to protect against Iranian nuclear weapons could still be fashioned.
This binary plan would seek to deter any Iranian resort to nuclear weapons, and, simultaneously, to intercept any incoming weapons that might still be fired if deterrence should fail. While the warning is now often repeated again and again that Shiite eschatology in Iran could actually welcome a cleansing or apocalyptic war with “infidel” foes, such a purely abstract doctrine of End Times is ultimately apt to yield to more pragmatic calculations. In the end, high-sounding religious doctrines of Final Battle that were initially trumpeted in Tehran will likely be trumped by more narrowly mundane judgments of both personal and geo-strategic advantage.
The primary goal of Israel's nuclear forces, whether still in the “basement” or partially disclosed, must always be deterrence ex ante, not preemption or reprisal ex post. If, however, nuclear weapons should be introduced into a conflict between Israel and Iran, some form of nuclear war fighting could ensue.
This would be the case as long as: (a) Iranian first strikes against Israel would not destroy that country's second-strike nuclear capability; (b) Iranian retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel's nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy Iranian second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliations for Iranian conventional and/or chemical/biological first strikes would not destroy Iran's nuclear counter-retaliatory capabilities.
From the critical standpoint of protecting its security and survival, this means Israel should now take proper steps to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and the corresponding unlikelihood of (c) and (d). It will always be in Israel's interests to avoid nuclear war fighting wherever possible.
For Israel, both nuclear and non-nuclear preemptions of Iranian unconventional aggression could lead to nuclear exchanges. This would depend, in part, upon the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting; the surviving number of Iranian nuclear weapons; and the willingness of Iranian leaders to risk eliciting Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations.
An Israeli nuclear preemption against Iran is highly improbable and effectively inconceivable. In principle, however, there are certain residual circumstances in which such a strike could still be perfectly rational.
These are circumstances wherein (1) Iran had already acquired and deployed nuclear weapons presumed capable of destroying Israel; (2) Iran had been open and forthright about its genocidal intentions toward Israel; (3) Iran was reliably believed ready to begin an actual countdown-to-launch; and (4) Israel believed that non-nuclear preemptions could not possibly achieve levels of damage-limitation consistent with its own physical survival.
Before such an argument on the logical possibility of preemption could be rejected, one would necessarily have to assume that ensuring national self-preservation was somehow not Israel's highest priority. Such an assumption, of course, would be incorrect on its face.
What's next for Israel in the recognizably existential matter of a steadily nuclearizing Iran? The answer will necessarily be contingent upon Jerusalem's antecedent judgments concerning Iranian decision-making on core strategic matters. Whether Israel should choose a last-minute preemption, or opt instead for a policy of long-term nuclear deterrence and corollary active defense, will depend upon what Prime Minister Netanyahu and his senior advisers may expect from enemy leaders in Tehran – rationality; irrationality; or madness.
In July 1945, upon observing the results of the first atomic test in the New Mexico desert, J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus: “I am become death,” recited the erudite American physicist, “the destroyer of worlds.”
Today, more than sixty-seven years after the Manhattan Project, we should be reminded of another portentous Oppenheimer metaphor, the dreadful image of nuclear adversaries as “two scorpions in a bottle.” Unless Israel can still find a way to remain as the only viable nuclear power in the Middle East, it will have to determine, as a residual strategy, the best way to coexist in close quarters with a determinedly hostile “scorpion.”
Louis René Beres, strategic and military affairs columnist for The Jewish Press, is professor of Political Science at Purdue University. Educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), he lectures and publishes widely on international relations and international law and is the author of ten major books in the field. In Israel, Professor Beres was chair of Project Daniel
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7)The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt
7)The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt
After Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, pundits everywhere smugly assured the world that Perry is crazy because, after all, the government can neverreally go bankrupt: it can always print money to pay its debts. Of course, that’s hardly a comfort to those who know what hyperinflation can do to an economy.
In any case, Perry can be commended for daring to violate the first law of politics: whatever you do, do not question entitlements. Despite the fact that the big three entitlement programs–Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare–have the U.S. government facing upwards of $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, they largely remain a third rail: touch not lest ye be voted out of office.
Why are they sacrosanct? Because, whatever else you can say about the entitlement state, no one disputes that it’s a moral imperative. Inefficient? Maybe. Expensive? You bet. But morally questionable? Absolutely not.
Why are they sacrosanct? Because, whatever else you can say about the entitlement state, no one disputes that it’s a moral imperative. Inefficient? Maybe. Expensive? You bet. But morally questionable? Absolutely not.
The problem with the entitlement state is not simply that it is bankrupting this country–the problem is that it is morally bankrupt.
The basic principle behind the entitlement state is that a person’s need entitles him to other people’s wealth. It’s that you have a duty to spend some irreplaceable part of your life laboring, not for the sake of your own life and happiness, but for the sake of others. If you are productive and self-supporting, then according to the entitlement state, you are in hock to those who aren’t. In Marx’s memorable phrase: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
As we’ve argued in past columns, no system that treats you as other people’s servant can be called moral. What made America the noblest nation in history was that it was the first country founded on the idea that each of us has a right to live and work for our own sake, that it’s our own job to try to make the most of our life, and that the government’s sole purpose is to protect our freedom to do so.
Some have raised objections to this line of argument, however. Here are three of the most popular objections.
1. “The entitlement state is no different from insurance.”
When Social Security first passed, under FDR, most Americans regarded being “on the dole” as shameful. One way the program garnered widespread support was by positioning itself, not as welfare, but as insurance. Medicare would later take the same tack. You pay in when you’re young and healthy, and when money is paid out to you, you’re not going on the dole–you’re simply getting back what’s yours.
This was always a fraud. Your taxes aren’t invested in order to generate your future benefits–they are used to supply benefits to current enrollees. If a private insurance company operated that way, racking up $100 trillion in debts it couldn’t pay, it would be bankrupt and its executives would be sent to prison.
When Social Security first passed, under FDR, most Americans regarded being “on the dole” as shameful. One way the program garnered widespread support was by positioning itself, not as welfare, but as insurance. Medicare would later take the same tack. You pay in when you’re young and healthy, and when money is paid out to you, you’re not going on the dole–you’re simply getting back what’s yours.
This was always a fraud. Your taxes aren’t invested in order to generate your future benefits–they are used to supply benefits to current enrollees. If a private insurance company operated that way, racking up $100 trillion in debts it couldn’t pay, it would be bankrupt and its executives would be sent to prison.
But the most vital difference is this: the entitlement state is involuntary. For the rational person, insurance is something he chooses to buy when he judges that a given policy represents a net gain. Even in a voluntary, competitive system where profit-seeking companies tailor policies to your individual needs, insurance isn’t for everyone. A young entrepreneur might rationally decide to forego homeowners insurance in order to make his fledgling business a success. But the entitlement state forces us into costly, one-size-fits-all programs regardless of whether we think it’s in our personal interest.
2. “The entitlement state benefits everyone.”
Far from offering genuine benefits, whenever the government takes people’s money and decides how that money is “best” spent, it makes life harder for rational people. A rational person needs the freedom to plan his own life, make his own choices, and support his own existence. Consider the impact of Social Security.
In a world without Social Security, the rational person would think about his own long range plans and interests. He might rationally decide that he loves working and never wants to retire, or that he’d rather invest his current income in growing his business today and start saving once he has established himself. When he does invest, he will think carefully about where to park his savings, consulting experts, judiciously diversifying. As a result he will know where his investments stand and why, and will not be at the mercy of a political process that might raise the retirement age, curtail promised “benefits,” etc. For him, Social Security is all downside. All its alleged benefits he could attain much better on his own.
So why is he deprived of this freedom to live and plan his own life? Because some people may choose not to plan.
Social Security, and the entitlement state more broadly, institutes a basic injustice:the rational and productive are sacrificed in the name of the irrational. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
3. “But what about those who can’t take care of themselves?”
Sure, some people say, most of us would thrive without the entitlement state–but what about those who can’t? What happens to them? Don’t they starve in the streets?
In any industrialized nation, it is only a fraction of a sliver of a minority who are unable to support themselves, and even in the days before America’s entitlement state, they didn’t starve in the streets. Most turned to friends and family. Many others turned to voluntary social insurance programs run by private mutual aid societies, like the Security Benefit Association. And some turned to private charities.
Sure, some people say, most of us would thrive without the entitlement state–but what about those who can’t? What happens to them? Don’t they starve in the streets?
In any industrialized nation, it is only a fraction of a sliver of a minority who are unable to support themselves, and even in the days before America’s entitlement state, they didn’t starve in the streets. Most turned to friends and family. Many others turned to voluntary social insurance programs run by private mutual aid societies, like the Security Benefit Association. And some turned to private charities.
If Americans a century ago could flourish without an entitlement state, how much easier would it be today, when even most “poor” people own cars and color TVs?
The entitlement state was never needed to ensure that the unable got fed. It is and always has been geared, not to the unable, but to the unwilling: to that entitlement mentality that expects payment “according to his needs.” And by rewarding that mentality, we foster that mentality.
The entitlement state is geared to the unwilling at the expense of the willing and able. What could be greater evidence that it is morally bankrupt?
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