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This is the last memo for a few days because tomorrow evening is the SIRC's PDD featuring our two guest speakers: David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski. I will be picking them up at the airport and introducing them so I will be out of pocket.
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Another rant. (See 1 below.)
And:
Edited Israel good news letter. (See 1a below.)
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More and more of everything we do and say is being criminalized.
This is the subtle manner in which "big government" is ridding us of our very freedoms. (See 2 below.)
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Noonan get out front. (See 3 below.)
And:
There was a time when The Democrat Party thought helping people get jobs was one of their sacred missions. (See 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)Amazon leaving NY will have huge ramifications nationally. It is living proof what happens when the kid from the Bronx is followed into a world of no jobs and missed opportunities. It was not just the 25,000 jobs at AMZN, it was all the other high paying tech firms that would have followed it in. It is all those sandwiches not sold by local restaurants, clothes not being cleaned by local cleaners, and on and on. For you who do not know, Long Island City had a remarkable awakening recently with thousands of new apartments and condos, new retail etc. A whole new city has been built there over the past few years. AMZN would have been the icing on the cake, and it would have done terrific things for Queens, and tax revenue for the city and state. All gone now. The kid from the Bronx can now trumpet -look at me -I just killed 25,000 good jobs plus all the spin off jobs and tax revenue it would have created. The NYC council and state Senate leader are as much to blame as they have gone so far left it is almost socialist. They claim AMZN was supposed to subsidize all sorts of things like housing, and other things private companies are not responsible for. They claim they mistreat workers and must be unionized. It is the classic left wing philosophy- you worked hard and made a lot of wealth through your own efforts, so now you need to share it with me because I am not willing to work hard and sacrifice to make it on my own, and I am jealous of what you have. I don’t know what Amazon promised the city, or how the negotiations with Cuomo and DeBlasio went, but DeBlasio had said it was a good deal until Amazon walked, and now his lefty friends suddenly say it was a bad deal, and AMZN did not subsidize all sorts of things government is supposed to support. Cuomo and DeBlasio offered the $3 billion to AMZN. They offered and AMZN accepted. Nobody forced the Cuomo and DeBlasio to offer what they did. I am already getting several rich guys saying “I am out of here now.” The ramifications of this are huge-and far beyond NYC. It sets a giant precedent, and makes a major statement that companies can go where they wish, and take jobs with them in these days of work anywhere digitally. Major Democratic city politicians just learned a big lesson. San Fran, NY, and other left wing cities will pay a huge price. This is a inflection point that will play out over the net several years and will have major political impacts.
CT went after the wealthy by raising taxes when the Dems took over. Result, the wealthy moved out. Now GE moved out. CT is in serious financial problems as a result. They never learn. Now NJ is trying hard to copy CT by raising taxes even more. The wealthy are leaving. Duh. So what does the left and Dem candidates for president say-raise taxes.
For some perspective, Germany closed its nuke power plants and switched to renewables. That did not work out so well, and they had to fire up a bunch of coal fired plants to keep the lights on when renewables don’t provide the power. Energy costs in Germany are roughly three times the cost in the US, and the US has closed many of its coal fired plants and switched them to gas, making the US far ahead of Germany in doing things to clean the environment. The US leads in cleaning up the environment and mainly it is being done by the private sector.
SOFR is the proposed new replacement for Libor. It is being used in some areas of the market to see how it works. It is a rate set by using actual transactions of several types. Recently the rate has become periodically volatile due to repo rates being more volatile at certain times. As a result, SOFR rates became volatile which is disconcerting for borrowers who are as a result less able to predict their rate costs. This is very technical and the NY Fed is working to solve this issue. For the moment, Libor is still in the phase out mode.
The next 90 days will determine the fate of the EU. March is deadline date for Brexit and nobody yet knows what will happen. May is the time of elections for the European Parliament. It is projected that the right wing parties and other populist Eurosceptic parties will gain a substantial number of seats. If that does happen, then the whole workings of the EU politics could be upset and less stable. Keep your eye on this to see where the EU is headed by the end of May. This could be the beginning of the long process of the EU coming apart in some fashion, especially with Merkel about to disappear from politics, and Macron so unpopular. With the end of the mass migration into Germany of cheap labor, the costs to produce are rising and business is slowing. Germany is key to the EU, so it is hard to know now what happens to German exports as the world economy slows, and especially as China slows, and buys fewer German cars and machines.
China’s current account balances are barely positive now. That means their balance of trade and investment is going negative as it becomes a consuming economy instead of a export economy. The theft of IP and the restrictions on foreign investment has further reduced the positive balance because foreign companies will not invest the billions they might otherwise. Result is China will soon have to rely on much greater foreign investment to fund its growth. This suggests the trade negotiations will likely have more success in opening the Chinese markets than we might have expected. One of the major issues for China is the rapidly growing number of old people who need support and healthcare. These days the kids move to urban areas, and do not stay home to care for the elderly as in the past, so the government has to step in and spend to care for these old people who no longer pay taxes since they are retired. The number of workers paying into the government for these costs is becoming less per old person, and that, as in the US is a growing major problem for the government. These are some of the underlying major trends in China which are shaping how the deal with trade and related issues ends up. The IP issues are still not resolved, but China publicly said the talks are going well and that is a very positive sign. There are still the really hard issues to get done.
New data in the US show consumer debt is in good shape. Total US consumer debt is $13.4 trillion, up from the prior peak in 2008 of $12.2 trillion. The only area of any concern is auto debt with 2.4% of auto loans 90 days past due. However, all auto debt has a higher quality as measured by average credit scores. The defaulted debt is mainly originated by small finance companies, and not the banks. As a portion of total consumer debt, the defaulted auto debt is not material. New applications for consumer loans is actually slowing which suggests people are more careful and cautious now about taking on debt they cannot afford. Student loans is the one area of real concern, and it is past time to deal with it. At some point there will be a massive forgiveness of some of this debt which in my view is OK because the kids were pushed to take these loans to fund excessive admin costs created by colleges who figured the students would borrow and pay, so why not hire all these diversity, sexual assault, race relations and other useless deans and groups. Costs at universities are out of control because the loans fund expansion of these bureaucracies.
A majority of Californians say they intend to move to another state due to costs, the homeless creating a huge mess on the streets, high taxes, low performing schools and crime. How many actually move is much different, but it suggests that the far left trend in CA is having serious potential consequences. Average home prices are more than double the rest of the country, and regulation just gets worse and more costly to business. Now they just cancelled the high speed train project. You might think the far left would look at CA and learn some lessons, but they see it as the goal, not the evolving mess it is becoming. In time the pendulum will swing in CA, and it will have a political shift to the right, but that is years away. Things have to get a lot worse first.
1a)Strong connections, bridge-building and teamwork are the main themes in this week's positive Israel newsletter.
Please recommend www.verygoodnewsisrael.
(If this email arrives in your spam / junk folder, please mark it as "not spam".)
Best regards and Shalom.
Michael
-.
In the 17th Feb 19 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Human trials for X-ray surgical glasses. I reported previously (Oct 2017) on Xvision (previously VIZOR), the Augmented Reality surgical navigation system from Israel’s Augmedics. Following testing on cadavers, Xvision is now undergoing human trials and has been successfully tested in six spinal operations.
https://www.businesswire.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The first wireless VAD. Doctors in Kazakhstan have implanted a wireless ventricular assist device (VAD) into a human for the first time. The VAD is made by Jarvik Heart Inc but the technology for charging the battery was developed by Israel-based Leviticus Cardio. Wireless VADs have less risk of infection than wired VADs.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.jhltonline.org/
Better connections for dialysis patients. 50% of dialysis patients experience failure of their AV fistula – the tubes that connect their arteries and veins to the dialysis machine. Israel’s Laminate Medical has developed the VasQ – a vascular support device that protects the connection. It takes only one extra minute to implant it.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Nano wound protection. Israel’s Nanomedic has developed the SpinCare device - a portable electrospinning wound care system that remotely generates a nano-fibrous protective layer on the skin for tissue healing. The wound is never touched, preventing infection and bandages can be changed without sticking to the wound.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
http://israelbetweenthelines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Treatment for pulmonary hypertension. Israel’s Teva has launched ALYQ - a generic form of Adcirca, to reduce the symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israeli cancer death rates drop. Between 1995 and 2016, cancer deaths for Israeli Jewish men dropped by an average of 1.7% every year and for Israeli Jewish women by 1.6%. Cancer deaths for Israeli Arabs also dropped significantly. Although Israel has the 50th highest cancer rate in the world, it is 92nd for cancer deaths.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Finding donors for complex kidney patients. Israel’s Beilinson Hospital has implemented a new program that locates matching donors for kidney transplant patients who suffer from high levels of antibodies due to previous transplants or blood donations. It has already helped the hospital perform successful transplants for 39 patients.
https://jewishnews.
Link between Celiac disease and Eating disorders. (TY Kay) Kay’s son-in-law Dr. Itay Tokatly-Latzer and his Tel Aviv University research team have linked adolescents and young adults with celiac disease (CD) to higher incidences of disordered eating behavior. Many CD patients exhibit excessive control over their food.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-
Health company’s $150 million fund. The Assuta chain of medical clinics and private hospitals, controlled by Israel’s Maccabi Health Services, has founded a venture capital fund for investing in medical devices in the later stages of development. It has already raised $35 million and plans to reach $150 million by mid-2019.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
Women and girls in science. This video was released to mark International Women and Girls in Science Day. The Israeli women featured are Weizmann Professor Varda Rotter, Dr Or-Yam Revach and Orit Shahar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Training for women in social technology. (TY Sharon) A group of 27 exceptional young women are working and studying in the 1st class of Carmel 6000 - a national service tech training program for volunteers to develop solutions with a social benefit. Non-Israelis can also volunteer (like lone soldiers) to join this program.
https://baltimorejewishlife.
Women’s summit in Jerusalem. US business magazine Forbes is hosting a first of its kind - the Forbes Under 30 Global Women’s Summit in Israel (Mar 31 – Apr 4). This event for top young female founders, leaders and mentors follows the 2018 Forbes Under 30 Global Summit when Forbes brought 800 business leaders to Israel.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Library for Haredi children with learning difficulties. (TY Sharon) I reported previously (Sep 2016) about Bnei Brak NGO Achiya which helps thousands of Haredi children with learning difficulties. Achiya has just opened a new library containing some 10,000 books plus facilities for sight-impaired and “special needs” kids.
https://baltimorejewishlife.
Israeli-Arab degree students double. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE) reports the doubling of Arab degree candidates in Israel over the last decade. Last year 48,627 Israeli-Arabs studied for degrees, thanks to investment to integrate the Arab population and improve their socio-economic standing.
https://che.org.il/en/
Increased medical permits for Palestinian Arabs. (TY Fred) In 2018, over 20,000 permits were granted to Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria to enter Israel and receive treatment or support a patient who was receiving treatment in the Jewish state. This was an increase of 3,000 on 2017. Israel also trains PA doctors.
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-
Israeli aid for Venezuelan refugees. Friends of Ziv Medical Center raised funds for Venezuelan refugees with an event at the Sound Nightclub in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Israel’s Ziv Medical Center is sending doctors to Brazil’s Northern Province, near the border with Venezuela, to treat many thousands seeking medical attention.
https://marketersmedia.com/
Bar-Ilan Uni ties with Macedonia Uni. Bar-Ilan University and UKIM University, Macedonia’s largest university, have signed new cooperation agreements. They cover the facilities of medicine, humanities and social sciences. https://www.jewishpress.com/
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Israeli innovation at MWC Barcelona. Dozens of Israeli startups will be presenting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (25 – 28 Feb 2019) They have solutions for telecom service providers, equipment vendors, smart device manufacturers; automotive, smart home, smart city and finance enterprises and users.
https://
Exhibition of 50 innovative startups. “The Israeli Expo,” an exhibition showcasing 50 Israeli startups has opened at the innovation center at Tel Aviv’s Peres Center for Peace & Innovation. They focus on artificial intelligence, IT, digital health, ag-tech, and cybersecurity. The exhibition will be updated on a yearly basis.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Tel Aviv is 18th best hi-tech city. Savills real estate agency rated Tel Aviv 18th in their list of the world’s best high-tech cities. High spots included air passenger growth, startups per capita, talent pool, population growth and co-working rental cost. https://www.savills.co.uk/
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israelis file nearly 5000 patents in the US. Of the 340,000 patents filed in the US in 2018, almost 5,000 (1.44%) originated with Israel inventors. Numbers of Israeli patents has been rising steadily over the past 15 years. Back in 2004, Israeli-linked patents filed accounted for only 0.68% of all patents in the U.S.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Young Israeli scientists win $100,000 awards. The prestigious Blavatnik Awards recognizes Israeli scientists 42 or younger conducting “breakthrough research” in life sciences, chemistry, physics or engineering. This year Weizman’s Michal Rivlin and Erez Berg and Technion’s Moran Bercovici won $100,000 each.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Sky’s no limit for Anières graduates. In 2016, Anières (Naale) Elite Academy launched “Aeronautics in the Valley” - an enrichment program to teach high-school students the basics of aerospace engineering. Today, 15 graduates are in the Technion’s academic reserve program, before joining the Israeli Air Force as engineers.
https://www.jewishpress.com/
University defense alliance. Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and BGN Technologies, (technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University) are to conduct joint research in cybersecurity, smart mobility, robotics and artificial intelligence. The first projects are on cyber threats to sensors in autonomous vehicles.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Heavy duty garment printing. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here)on Israel’s Kornit and its digital garment-printing systems. Kornit has just launched the Kornit Atlas - a heavy-duty system for super-industrial garment decoration businesses producing up to 350,000 impressions per year.
http://ir.kornit.com/phoenix.
Smart sensor analyzes farm feed. Eurofins Agro UK is partnering with Israel’s SCIO and its hand-held, connected smart sensor, to launch an advanced on-farm feed analysis solution. SCiO provides farmers with real-time insight into silage requirements. The cloud-based system then adjusts for forecast rain, snow etc.
https://www.consumerphysics.
Fungus-resistant basil. A mildew epidemic has devastated sweet basil crops all over the world. Researchers from Bar-Ilan University and specialists at Israel’s Genesis Seeds have developed a disease-resistant sweet basil with the trademark “Prospera”. Israel exports $40 million worth of basil to Europe, Russia & US each year.
https://www.israel21c.org/
http://www.genesisseeds.com/
Kibbutz smart energy grid pilot. Former Austrian chancellor Christian Kern is chairman of Austrian-Israeli startup FSIGHT. Kern is currently visiting Kibbutz Ma'ale Gilboa where FSIGHT is piloting a smart platform for managing distributed energy grids. Israeli and European energy companies are also participating in the pilot.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Preventing ships from colliding. Israel’s Orca AI develops a sensor-based imaging technology to prevent collisions between maritime vessels. It has been installed on several Ray Car Carriers vessels as part of a pilot program. Orca has just raised $2.3 million of funding.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Clean up the air in your house. Israeli startup Aura Smart Air has developed a combination of air purifier, smoke alarm and carbon-dioxide detector, plus an app to measure air quality inside and outside and provide tips and advice. Its kickstarter project’s goal was to raise $15,000 and it has already reached nearly $100,000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.kickstarter.com/
There you go. Israeli public transportation app developer Moovit, together with Microsoft’s Azure Maps and Dutch navigation developer TomTom have launched a joint trip planner. It gives all options (car, public, bike sharing, walking, parking) for a trip and was unveiled at the MOVE 2019 mobility conference in London.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
New record for foreign currency reserves. Israel’s foreign exchange reserves at the end of Jan 2019 climbed to a new record of $118.151 billion, up $2.872 billion from the end of Dec 2018,
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israeli startups on the road to China. At the Asian Financial Forum 2019 in Hong Kong, Israeli entrepreneur Jon Medved said that tiny Israel develops technology solutions and China provides for a massive scale-up of operations. An example is Israeli ag-tech, which increases food production for everyone.
https://hkmb.hktdc.com/en/
Bringing Israeli startups to NYC. B-Seed Investments is hosting a pitch from eight innovative Israeli startups on 24th Feb in Brooklyn New York City. They are Swathly (marketing), Class.Me,(Education), Fertigo (medical), Verto (imaging), Enerjoy (marketing), Innovesta (finance), MyTower (IoT0 and MYTech (media)
https://www.jewishpress.com/
Arkia to start two Tel Aviv to India direct routes. Israeli airline Arkia Airlines is to begin a direct weekly flight to India’s Goa state and twice-weekly to the city of Cochin (Kochi) in Kerala state. Flight times are around seven hours and will commence in September after the end of the monsoon season.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
El Al to fly direct to Orlando. El Al announced, during the IMTM International Tourism Exhibition in Tel Aviv, that it is to launch direct flights to Orlando, Florida in the summer of 2019. Tickets for the 13.5-hour Tel Aviv and 12-hour Orlando return night flights will go on sale shortly for a discounted price.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Share an electric scooter. Israeli startup Inokim is to launch its Leo electric scooter sharing service in Tel Aviv in March. It will initially operate 500 scooters, increasing to 3,000 by May. The service will then be expanded to Haifa and Eilat with 10,000 scooters by the end of 2019.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Intel appoints 7 new Israeli global VPs. Intel appointed seven Israeli executives to Vice President positions in its global operations, bringing the number of Israelis in these senior posts to nearly 20 of its 150 global VPs.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Boutique hostels for Tel Aviv. I reported previously (19th Aug) that Israeli-founded Selina was looking at possible sites in Tel Aviv to open boutique hospitality hostels. It has now announced that it will open the first of its Tel Aviv facilities this summer. Selina currently has 10,000 beds at 44 sites in Latin America and Portugal.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Mind the Tech for chance to win $1 million. The semi-final of Trifecta, a $1 million startup competition, will be held during Calcalist’s 3rd annual Mind the Tech Conference, in New York on April 10-12. The final will be in Israel in June where the $1 million investment will be awarded by Israel-based firm Pitango Venture Capital.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Symantec buys Luminate for $200 million. I reported previously (18th Nov)that US cybersecurity giant Symantec had bought its 3rd Israeli company. It’s now acquired a 4th – Luminate, for a reported $200 million - to “further extend… the power of Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defense Platform”
https://www.calcalistech.com/
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
The inside story on food trends. Israeli startup Tastewise can transform the strategy and decision-making of companies in the food business with its real-time industry data and predictive analytics. Tastewise is currently focused on the vast US market, but plans to expand, including to Israel where its R&D operations are based.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Giorgio Armani and Chanel coming to Israel. Armani Beauty, the beauty brand of Italian fashion house Giorgio Armani, is reportedly to open a store in Tel Aviv's Ramat Aviv Mall. The shop will offer cosmetics, skincare products and fragrances. Chanel is also opening in Ramat Aviv Mall and in the TLV Gindi Mall.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT
Celebrity chefs get the Birthright treatment. Culinary entrepreneur Herb Karlitz has brought a delegation of senior US chefs, food critics, stars of popular dining programs in America, and owners of well-known restaurants to explore Israel’s food experiences.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Listen to Israel’s music. The National Library of Israel, together with the Ministry of Culture and Sport, and the Digital Finjan project, have released Shiri (“my song”), a mobile phone app for listening to some 40,000 classic Israeli songs. Available for download from the Android Play Store or the Apple Store.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Netta’s latest video has 6 million views. The video of Israeli Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai’s new song “Bassa Sababa” had received over 1.8 million views just three days after its release on 31st Jan. As of 13 Feb, this had soared to over 6 million hits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Israel’s got magic. (TY Brad) Apologies, but I didn’t have time to include this video of illusionist Tomer Dudai’s performance when he won Israel’s Got Talent last year. Well over six million hits across the Internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Paralympic swimmer shatters world record. Israeli Paralympic swimmer Mark Malyar, 19, has set a new world record for 1,500 meters Paralympic swimming. Malyar, who has cerebral palsy, competed in the Wingate open competition and improved the previous record set in 2011 by almost 23 seconds.
https://www.haaretz.com/
THE JEWISH STATE
Israel’s young ambassadors. StandWithUs has launched the 13th year of its Israel Fellowship. It has recruited 150 articulate and diverse young Israelis, who have finished IDF service, to build bridges and educate people of all faiths and ages about Israel. By the end of 2019, the program will have graduated its 2,000th Israeli Fellow.
https://www.standwithus.com/
Indian Jewish manuscript displayed in Israel. The National Library of Israel has acquired a manuscript used originally by the India’s Bene Israel Jewish community. The 180-year-old book contains 94 pages of prayers in Urdu, from circumcision through to burial, transliterated into Hebrew script and then translated into Hebrew.
http://www.israelhayom.com/
1a)Strong connections, bridge-building and teamwork are the main themes in this week's positive Israel newsletter.
Please recommend www.verygoodnewsisrael.
(If this email arrives in your spam / junk folder, please mark it as "not spam".)
Best regards and Shalom.
Michael
In the 17th Feb 19 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
- Doctors have begun human trials using two innovative Israeli medical devices.
- Israel celebrates International Women & Girls in Science Day.
- Warsaw Middle East summit heralds a breakthrough in Israeli-Arab relations.
- Record number of Israeli patents filed in the US.
- Kibbutz hosts joint Israeli-European smart energy grid project.
- A new Israeli air-purifier also warns of smoke, carbon dioxide etc.
- More new direct airline routes from Tel Aviv to the USA and India.
- Israeli Paralympic swimmer breaks world record by nearly 23 seconds.
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Human trials for X-ray surgical glasses. I reported previously (Oct 2017) on Xvision (previously VIZOR), the Augmented Reality surgical navigation system from Israel’s Augmedics. Following testing on cadavers, Xvision is now undergoing human trials and has been successfully tested in six spinal operations.
https://www.businesswire.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The first wireless VAD. Doctors in Kazakhstan have implanted a wireless ventricular assist device (VAD) into a human for the first time. The VAD is made by Jarvik Heart Inc but the technology for charging the battery was developed by Israel-based Leviticus Cardio. Wireless VADs have less risk of infection than wired VADs.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.jhltonline.org/
Better connections for dialysis patients. 50% of dialysis patients experience failure of their AV fistula – the tubes that connect their arteries and veins to the dialysis machine. Israel’s Laminate Medical has developed the VasQ – a vascular support device that protects the connection. It takes only one extra minute to implant it.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Nano wound protection. Israel’s Nanomedic has developed the SpinCare device - a portable electrospinning wound care system that remotely generates a nano-fibrous protective layer on the skin for tissue healing. The wound is never touched, preventing infection and bandages can be changed without sticking to the wound.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
http://israelbetweenthelines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Treatment for pulmonary hypertension. Israel’s Teva has launched ALYQ - a generic form of Adcirca, to reduce the symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israeli cancer death rates drop. Between 1995 and 2016, cancer deaths for Israeli Jewish men dropped by an average of 1.7% every year and for Israeli Jewish women by 1.6%. Cancer deaths for Israeli Arabs also dropped significantly. Although Israel has the 50th highest cancer rate in the world, it is 92nd for cancer deaths.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Finding donors for complex kidney patients. Israel’s Beilinson Hospital has implemented a new program that locates matching donors for kidney transplant patients who suffer from high levels of antibodies due to previous transplants or blood donations. It has already helped the hospital perform successful transplants for 39 patients.
https://jewishnews.
Link between Celiac disease and Eating disorders. (TY Kay) Kay’s son-in-law Dr. Itay Tokatly-Latzer and his Tel Aviv University research team have linked adolescents and young adults with celiac disease (CD) to higher incidences of disordered eating behavior. Many CD patients exhibit excessive control over their food.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-
Health company’s $150 million fund. The Assuta chain of medical clinics and private hospitals, controlled by Israel’s Maccabi Health Services, has founded a venture capital fund for investing in medical devices in the later stages of development. It has already raised $35 million and plans to reach $150 million by mid-2019.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
Women and girls in science. This video was released to mark International Women and Girls in Science Day. The Israeli women featured are Weizmann Professor Varda Rotter, Dr Or-Yam Revach and Orit Shahar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Training for women in social technology. (TY Sharon) A group of 27 exceptional young women are working and studying in the 1st class of Carmel 6000 - a national service tech training program for volunteers to develop solutions with a social benefit. Non-Israelis can also volunteer (like lone soldiers) to join this program.
https://baltimorejewishlife.
Women’s summit in Jerusalem. US business magazine Forbes is hosting a first of its kind - the Forbes Under 30 Global Women’s Summit in Israel (Mar 31 – Apr 4). This event for top young female founders, leaders and mentors follows the 2018 Forbes Under 30 Global Summit when Forbes brought 800 business leaders to Israel.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Library for Haredi children with learning difficulties. (TY Sharon) I reported previously (Sep 2016) about Bnei Brak NGO Achiya which helps thousands of Haredi children with learning difficulties. Achiya has just opened a new library containing some 10,000 books plus facilities for sight-impaired and “special needs” kids.
https://baltimorejewishlife.
Israeli-Arab degree students double. (TY Hazel) Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE) reports the doubling of Arab degree candidates in Israel over the last decade. Last year 48,627 Israeli-Arabs studied for degrees, thanks to investment to integrate the Arab population and improve their socio-economic standing.
https://che.org.il/en/
Increased medical permits for Palestinian Arabs. (TY Fred) In 2018, over 20,000 permits were granted to Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria to enter Israel and receive treatment or support a patient who was receiving treatment in the Jewish state. This was an increase of 3,000 on 2017. Israel also trains PA doctors.
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-
Israeli aid for Venezuelan refugees. Friends of Ziv Medical Center raised funds for Venezuelan refugees with an event at the Sound Nightclub in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Israel’s Ziv Medical Center is sending doctors to Brazil’s Northern Province, near the border with Venezuela, to treat many thousands seeking medical attention.
https://marketersmedia.com/
Bar-Ilan Uni ties with Macedonia Uni. Bar-Ilan University and UKIM University, Macedonia’s largest university, have signed new cooperation agreements. They cover the facilities of medicine, humanities and social sciences. https://www.jewishpress.com/
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Israeli innovation at MWC Barcelona. Dozens of Israeli startups will be presenting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (25 – 28 Feb 2019) They have solutions for telecom service providers, equipment vendors, smart device manufacturers; automotive, smart home, smart city and finance enterprises and users.
https://
Exhibition of 50 innovative startups. “The Israeli Expo,” an exhibition showcasing 50 Israeli startups has opened at the innovation center at Tel Aviv’s Peres Center for Peace & Innovation. They focus on artificial intelligence, IT, digital health, ag-tech, and cybersecurity. The exhibition will be updated on a yearly basis.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Tel Aviv is 18th best hi-tech city. Savills real estate agency rated Tel Aviv 18th in their list of the world’s best high-tech cities. High spots included air passenger growth, startups per capita, talent pool, population growth and co-working rental cost. https://www.savills.co.uk/
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israelis file nearly 5000 patents in the US. Of the 340,000 patents filed in the US in 2018, almost 5,000 (1.44%) originated with Israel inventors. Numbers of Israeli patents has been rising steadily over the past 15 years. Back in 2004, Israeli-linked patents filed accounted for only 0.68% of all patents in the U.S.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Young Israeli scientists win $100,000 awards. The prestigious Blavatnik Awards recognizes Israeli scientists 42 or younger conducting “breakthrough research” in life sciences, chemistry, physics or engineering. This year Weizman’s Michal Rivlin and Erez Berg and Technion’s Moran Bercovici won $100,000 each.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Sky’s no limit for Anières graduates. In 2016, Anières (Naale) Elite Academy launched “Aeronautics in the Valley” - an enrichment program to teach high-school students the basics of aerospace engineering. Today, 15 graduates are in the Technion’s academic reserve program, before joining the Israeli Air Force as engineers.
https://www.jewishpress.com/
University defense alliance. Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and BGN Technologies, (technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University) are to conduct joint research in cybersecurity, smart mobility, robotics and artificial intelligence. The first projects are on cyber threats to sensors in autonomous vehicles.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Heavy duty garment printing. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here)on Israel’s Kornit and its digital garment-printing systems. Kornit has just launched the Kornit Atlas - a heavy-duty system for super-industrial garment decoration businesses producing up to 350,000 impressions per year.
http://ir.kornit.com/phoenix.
Smart sensor analyzes farm feed. Eurofins Agro UK is partnering with Israel’s SCIO and its hand-held, connected smart sensor, to launch an advanced on-farm feed analysis solution. SCiO provides farmers with real-time insight into silage requirements. The cloud-based system then adjusts for forecast rain, snow etc.
https://www.consumerphysics.
Fungus-resistant basil. A mildew epidemic has devastated sweet basil crops all over the world. Researchers from Bar-Ilan University and specialists at Israel’s Genesis Seeds have developed a disease-resistant sweet basil with the trademark “Prospera”. Israel exports $40 million worth of basil to Europe, Russia & US each year.
https://www.israel21c.org/
http://www.genesisseeds.com/
Kibbutz smart energy grid pilot. Former Austrian chancellor Christian Kern is chairman of Austrian-Israeli startup FSIGHT. Kern is currently visiting Kibbutz Ma'ale Gilboa where FSIGHT is piloting a smart platform for managing distributed energy grids. Israeli and European energy companies are also participating in the pilot.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Preventing ships from colliding. Israel’s Orca AI develops a sensor-based imaging technology to prevent collisions between maritime vessels. It has been installed on several Ray Car Carriers vessels as part of a pilot program. Orca has just raised $2.3 million of funding.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Clean up the air in your house. Israeli startup Aura Smart Air has developed a combination of air purifier, smoke alarm and carbon-dioxide detector, plus an app to measure air quality inside and outside and provide tips and advice. Its kickstarter project’s goal was to raise $15,000 and it has already reached nearly $100,000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.kickstarter.com/
There you go. Israeli public transportation app developer Moovit, together with Microsoft’s Azure Maps and Dutch navigation developer TomTom have launched a joint trip planner. It gives all options (car, public, bike sharing, walking, parking) for a trip and was unveiled at the MOVE 2019 mobility conference in London.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
New record for foreign currency reserves. Israel’s foreign exchange reserves at the end of Jan 2019 climbed to a new record of $118.151 billion, up $2.872 billion from the end of Dec 2018,
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Israeli startups on the road to China. At the Asian Financial Forum 2019 in Hong Kong, Israeli entrepreneur Jon Medved said that tiny Israel develops technology solutions and China provides for a massive scale-up of operations. An example is Israeli ag-tech, which increases food production for everyone.
https://hkmb.hktdc.com/en/
Bringing Israeli startups to NYC. B-Seed Investments is hosting a pitch from eight innovative Israeli startups on 24th Feb in Brooklyn New York City. They are Swathly (marketing), Class.Me,(Education), Fertigo (medical), Verto (imaging), Enerjoy (marketing), Innovesta (finance), MyTower (IoT0 and MYTech (media)
https://www.jewishpress.com/
Arkia to start two Tel Aviv to India direct routes. Israeli airline Arkia Airlines is to begin a direct weekly flight to India’s Goa state and twice-weekly to the city of Cochin (Kochi) in Kerala state. Flight times are around seven hours and will commence in September after the end of the monsoon season.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
El Al to fly direct to Orlando. El Al announced, during the IMTM International Tourism Exhibition in Tel Aviv, that it is to launch direct flights to Orlando, Florida in the summer of 2019. Tickets for the 13.5-hour Tel Aviv and 12-hour Orlando return night flights will go on sale shortly for a discounted price.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
Share an electric scooter. Israeli startup Inokim is to launch its Leo electric scooter sharing service in Tel Aviv in March. It will initially operate 500 scooters, increasing to 3,000 by May. The service will then be expanded to Haifa and Eilat with 10,000 scooters by the end of 2019.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Intel appoints 7 new Israeli global VPs. Intel appointed seven Israeli executives to Vice President positions in its global operations, bringing the number of Israelis in these senior posts to nearly 20 of its 150 global VPs.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Boutique hostels for Tel Aviv. I reported previously (19th Aug) that Israeli-founded Selina was looking at possible sites in Tel Aviv to open boutique hospitality hostels. It has now announced that it will open the first of its Tel Aviv facilities this summer. Selina currently has 10,000 beds at 44 sites in Latin America and Portugal.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Mind the Tech for chance to win $1 million. The semi-final of Trifecta, a $1 million startup competition, will be held during Calcalist’s 3rd annual Mind the Tech Conference, in New York on April 10-12. The final will be in Israel in June where the $1 million investment will be awarded by Israel-based firm Pitango Venture Capital.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Symantec buys Luminate for $200 million. I reported previously (18th Nov)that US cybersecurity giant Symantec had bought its 3rd Israeli company. It’s now acquired a 4th – Luminate, for a reported $200 million - to “further extend… the power of Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defense Platform”
https://www.calcalistech.com/
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
The inside story on food trends. Israeli startup Tastewise can transform the strategy and decision-making of companies in the food business with its real-time industry data and predictive analytics. Tastewise is currently focused on the vast US market, but plans to expand, including to Israel where its R&D operations are based.
http://nocamels.com/2019/02/
Giorgio Armani and Chanel coming to Israel. Armani Beauty, the beauty brand of Italian fashion house Giorgio Armani, is reportedly to open a store in Tel Aviv's Ramat Aviv Mall. The shop will offer cosmetics, skincare products and fragrances. Chanel is also opening in Ramat Aviv Mall and in the TLV Gindi Mall.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://en.globes.co.il/en/
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT
Celebrity chefs get the Birthright treatment. Culinary entrepreneur Herb Karlitz has brought a delegation of senior US chefs, food critics, stars of popular dining programs in America, and owners of well-known restaurants to explore Israel’s food experiences.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Listen to Israel’s music. The National Library of Israel, together with the Ministry of Culture and Sport, and the Digital Finjan project, have released Shiri (“my song”), a mobile phone app for listening to some 40,000 classic Israeli songs. Available for download from the Android Play Store or the Apple Store.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Netta’s latest video has 6 million views. The video of Israeli Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai’s new song “Bassa Sababa” had received over 1.8 million views just three days after its release on 31st Jan. As of 13 Feb, this had soared to over 6 million hits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Israel’s got magic. (TY Brad) Apologies, but I didn’t have time to include this video of illusionist Tomer Dudai’s performance when he won Israel’s Got Talent last year. Well over six million hits across the Internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Paralympic swimmer shatters world record. Israeli Paralympic swimmer Mark Malyar, 19, has set a new world record for 1,500 meters Paralympic swimming. Malyar, who has cerebral palsy, competed in the Wingate open competition and improved the previous record set in 2011 by almost 23 seconds.
https://www.haaretz.com/
THE JEWISH STATE
Israel’s young ambassadors. StandWithUs has launched the 13th year of its Israel Fellowship. It has recruited 150 articulate and diverse young Israelis, who have finished IDF service, to build bridges and educate people of all faiths and ages about Israel. By the end of 2019, the program will have graduated its 2,000th Israeli Fellow.
https://www.standwithus.com/
Indian Jewish manuscript displayed in Israel. The National Library of Israel has acquired a manuscript used originally by the India’s Bene Israel Jewish community. The 180-year-old book contains 94 pages of prayers in Urdu, from circumcision through to burial, transliterated into Hebrew script and then translated into Hebrew.
http://www.israelhayom.com/
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2)Collusion: The Criminalization of Policy Disputes By Andrew C. McCarthy
By Ruth King
The word covers every contact between anyone connected to Trump and anyone connected to Russia, with no need to show that a crime was committed.
What a weasel word “collusion” is.
In Washington, Senator Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has now seen fit to pronounce that, after two years of investigation, the panel has found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian regime. Meanwhile, in a nearby courtroom, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s senior staffer, Andrew Weissmann, told a federal judge that an August 2016 meeting between the then-chairman of the Trump campaign and a suspected Russian intelligence officer “goes . . . very much to the heart of what the special counsel is investigating” — which sure sounds like Mueller’s collusion hunt is alive and well.
What gives?
Readers of these columns know that the “collusion” label has been a pet peeve of your humble correspondent since the media-Democratic “Putin hacked the election” narrative followed hard on the declaration of Donald Trump’s victory in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016.
The reason for the collusion label is obvious. Those peddling the “Putin hacked the election” story have always lacked credible evidence that Trump was complicit in the Kremlin’s “cyber-espionage.” They could not show a criminal conspiracy. Connections between denizens of Trump World and Putin’s circle might be very intriguing, and perhaps even politically scandalous. But only a conspiracy — an agreement by two or more people to commit an actual criminal offense, such as hacking — would be a reasonable basis for prosecution or impeachment.
This dearth of proof was significant. The Russians apparently started hacking operations in 2014, long before Trump entered the race. The FBI first warned the Democratic National Committee about penetration of its servers in September 2015. By the time Trump won, the Bureau and U.S. intelligence agencies had been working hard to understand the nature and extent of Kremlin-directed hacking operations for two years. The investigation was so high-level, so intense, that shortly before the election, there were confrontational conversations between CIA director John Brennan and his Russian counterpart, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, and later between President Obama and Russian president Putin.
Yet, as thorough as the investigation was, no one could credibly say Trump was a participant in Russia’s malfeasance. The best Obama’s notoriously politicized CIA could say was that Trump was Putin’s intended beneficiary.
Unable to establish conspiracy, Trump’s opposition settled on collusion. It is a usefully slippery word. Collusion just means concerted activity — it can be sinister or benign. It can refer to a conspiracy or to any arrangement people have together, including those that may be sleazy but non-criminal.
This commitment to ambiguity came in handy for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when he appointed Robert Mueller to be special counsel. After President Trump fired FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017, and then shamefully talked Comey down for the consumption of Russian diplomats visiting the White House the next day, Rosenstein came under intense pressure. Because he had written the memorandum originally used to justify Comey’s dismissal, congressional Democrats slammed him for complicity in what they portrayed as Trump’s obstruction of the Russia probe. Rosenstein wanted to appease them by appointing the special counsel they were demanding.
Special counsels, however, are not supposed to be appointed unless there is a solid basis to believe a crime has been committed. Rosenstein was lawyer enough to know that a president’s firing of an FBI director — a firing that Rosenstein himself had argued was justified — could not be an obstruction crime. And he knew that there was no proof that Trump had conspired in Russia’s cyberespionage. So . . . how to justify appointing a special counsel?
Easy: Make it a counterintelligence probe. That way, there would be no need for a crime, since such investigations are just intelligence-gathering exercises.
What’s that? You say there’s no basis in the special-counsel regulations to appoint one for counterintelligence? You say the Justice Department does not appoint prosecutors for counterintelligence investigations, which are the FBI’s bailiwick? So what? The special-counsel regulationsexpressly say that they create no enforceable rights enabling anyone to challenge the Justice Department’s flouting of them. Rosenstein knew he could ignore the rules and there was not a thing anyone could do about it.
So instead of a prosecutor investigating a crime of conspiracy, we have a bloated staff of prosecutors gathering intelligence about “collusion”: Every contact between anyone connected to Trump and anyone connected to Russia.
Some of this could be valuable information. That brings us back to that August 2016 meeting Andrew Weissman was talking about, between Trump’s campaign chairman and a suspected Russian intelligence operative. Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, had high-level contacts and conducted multi-million-dollar business with oligarchs close to the Kremlin. Konstantin Kilimnik, his partner in Kiev, certainly is suspected of having a “relationship with Russian intelligence,” as Weissmann obliquely put it in the court session.That “relationship,” however, goes back to the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell and the United States was quite content to do business with lots of people who had “relationships” with Russian intelligence, the Kremlin, and even the Communist party. One of Kilimnik’s first jobs when he left the Russian military was to work for the International Republican Institute — the democracy-promoting enterprise that Senator John McCain ran for over 20 years. Kilimnik started there as a translator — hired for the skills he’d learned at the military academy that prepared translators for service in Russian intelligence. It didn’t seem to bother anyone — by the early 2000’s, Kilimnik was running the IRI’s Moscow office.
My point is not to defend Kilimnik. Not only has Mueller already him indicted for witness-tampering conspiracy in Manafort’s case (a charge to which Manafort has pled guilty).
Kilimnik also hovers as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of Samuel Patten, a lobbyist friend of Manafort’s who has pled guilty in a separate Justice Department case to being an unregistered agent of Ukraine and to violating the prohibition against foreign contributions to political campaigns — enabling Kilimnik and two Ukrainian oligarchs to donate to the Trump presidential-inaugural committee and attend the inauguration festivities.
The point is that if we are going to obsess over collusion rather than the actual crime of conspiracy, then we need to evaluate the Russian contacts of Trump associates in the context of everyone who has interacted with Russia in the last quarter-century. Under administrations of both parties, Washington has maintained that post-Soviet Russia was a perfectly fine country to partner with and do business with. Did the Trump campaign hope to tap Kremlin-connected sources for campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton? That seems undeniable. But it is not a crime per se. How does it rank on the scale of unsavory political behavior? You’d have to compare it to, for example, Democratic-party entreaties to the Kremlin — back when the Russians were our Cold War Soviet antagonist — for help in the campaigns against Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
I did not like candidate Donald Trump’s blandishments toward the Putin regime. It was part of why Trump was closer to the bottom than the top of my preferred GOP candidates. I thought his performance as president in the meeting with Putin in Helsinki was appalling. But we are talking here about policy disputes. Trump has a right to be wrong, even seriously wrong, on a policy matter. That does not make him a Russian agent.
If members of Trump’s campaign were corruptly selling accommodations (such as sanctions relief) to Russia, then by all means prosecute them to the full extent of the law. But if the campaign was exploring whether sanctions relief could be traded for Russian actions in America’s interests — just as Obama told us sanctions relief for Iran was being bargained in exchange for what he claimed were advances of America’s interests — that might have been wrong-headed or naïve, but it wasn’t criminal.
Apparently Senator Burr thinks of “collusion” as criminal conspiracy, and he thus realizes that there was not one. Special Counsel Mueller, by contrast, has been unleashed to probe collusion not just in the form of criminal conspiracy, but in whatever form: All manner of contacts with a regime that, just the blink of an eye ago, President Obama was mocking Mitt Romney for regarding as a geopolitical foe, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped Moscow build its version of Silicon Valley — notwithstanding Defense Department and FBI worries that we were thus improving their military and cyber capabilities.
What is “collusion,” then? Increasingly, it looks like the criminalization of policy disputes.
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3) Republicans Need to Save Capitalism
Let’s think about the broader, less immediate meaning of our political era.
3) Republicans Need to Save Capitalism
Democrats have gone left, so they’re not going to do it. The GOP needs a renewed seriousness.
By Peggy Noonan
Let’s think about the broader, less immediate meaning of our political era.
The Democratic Party is going hard left. There will be stops and starts but it’s the general trajectory and will be for the foreseeable future. Pew Research sees the party lurching to the left since 2009; Gallup says the percentage of Democrats calling themselves liberal has jumped 23 points since 2000. But you don’t need polls. More than 70 Democrats in the House, and a dozen in the Senate, have signed on to the Green New Deal, an extreme-to-the-point-of-
The academy and our mass entertainment culture are entities of the left and will continue to push in that direction. Millennials, the biggest voting-age bloc in America, are to the left of the generations before them. Moderates are aging out. The progressives are young and will give their lives to politics: It’s all they’ve ever known. It is a mistake to dismiss their leaders as goofballs who’ll soon fall off the stage. They may or may not, but those who support and surround them are serious ideologues who mean to own the future.
None of this feels like a passing phase. It feels like the outline of a great political struggle that will be fought over the next 10 years or more.
Two thoughts, in the broadest possible strokes, on how we got here:
The American establishment had to come to look very, very bad. Two long un-won wars destroyed the GOP’s reputation for sobriety in foreign affairs, and the 2008 crash cratered its reputation for economic probity. Both disasters gave those inclined to turn from the status quo inspiration and arguments. Culturally, 2008 was especially resonant: The government bailed out its buddies and threw no one in jail, and the capitalists failed to defend the system that made them rich. They dummied up, hunkered down and waited for it to pass.
Americans have long sort of accepted a kind of deal regarding leadership by various elites and establishments. The agreement was that if the elites more or less play by the rules, protect the integrity of the system, and care about the people, they can have their mansions. But when you begin to perceive that the great and mighty are not necessarily on your side, when they show no particular sense of responsibility to their fellow citizens, all bets are off. The compact is broken: They no longer get to have their mansions. They no longer get to be “the rich.”
For most of the 20th century the poor in America didn’t hate the rich for their mansions; they wanted a mansion and thought they could get one if things turned their way. When you think the system’s rigged, your attitude changes.
On the right the same wars, the same crash, and a different aspect. In the great issue of the 2016 campaign it became unmistakably clear that the GOP elite did not care in the least how the working class experienced immigration. The party already worried too much about border security—that’s the lesson the elites took from Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, according to their famous autopsy. They appeared to look after their own needs, their own reputations: We’re not racist like people who worry about the border! They were, as I’ve written, the protected, who looked down on those with rougher lives. The unprotected noticed, and began to sunder their relationship with establishments and elites.
Donald Trump came of that sundering. He was the perfect insult thrown in the establishment’s face. You’re such losers we’re hiring a reality-TV star to take your place. He’ll be better than you.
Conservatives regularly attend symposia to discuss the future of conservatism. Republicans in Washington stumble around trying to figure what to stand for beyond capitalizing on whatever zany thing some socialist said today.
But isn’t their historical purpose clear? Their job—now and in the coming decade—is, in a supple, clever and concerted way, to save the free-market system from those who would dismantle it. It is to preserve and defend the capitalism that made America a great thing in the world and that, for all its flaws and inequities, created and spread stupendous wealth. The natural job of conservatives is to conserve, in this case that great system.
I’ll go whole hog here. We need a cleaned-up capitalism, not a weary, sighing, acceptance-of-man’s-fallen-
All this must be done with a sense of how Americans on the ground are seeing things. What they see all around them cultural catastrophe—drugs, the decline of faith, the splintering of all norms by which they’d lived, schools that don’t teach and that leave their kids with a generalized anxiety. They want more help to deal with this. If you said, “We’re going to have a national program to help our boys become good men,” they would be for it, they would cheer. If you said, “We’re going to get serious and apply brains and money to what we all know is a mental-health crisis in America,” they wouldn’t care about the cost—and they’d be right not to care. They think as a people we’ve changed, our character has changed, and this dims our future. Make things better on the ground now and we’ll figure out the rest later.
These are not quaint nostalgists pining for the past, they are realists looking at ruin. They know some future crisis will test whether we can hold together as a nation. Whatever holds us together now must be undergirded, expanded.
Much will depend on how the Republican Party handles this epic era, because the Democrats are not only going left, they will do it badly. They will lurch, they will be spurred by anger and abstractions, they will be destructive. They really would kill the goose that laid the golden egg, because they feel no loyalty to it.
Republicans, save that goose. Change yourselves and save capitalism.
You are thinking, “My goodness, that’s what FDR said he was doing!”
Yes.
3a) Amazon Fiasco Splits New York’s Left
Not every city Democrat is an antibusiness progressive like Bill de Blasio and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Slathering on tax abatements and infrastructure promises to lure new development may be irresistible for communities, but is always a second-best idea. For New York it was especially unnecessary given all the city’s attractions. The city would be better off giving all businesses a tax cut.
One newly enlightened resident of Marblehead, since retiring his 2020 presidential hopes, is Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Unlike some of his allies, Mr. Cuomo hasn’t been back paddling to get on the right side of the left after the Amazon fiasco.
Compare this to Mayor Bill de Blasio, as much an architect of the Amazon deal as Mr. Cuomo was. Now he says: “We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world. Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”
Here Mr. de Blasio echoes an emergency talking point adopted by many liberals last seen mau-mauing the company for accepting a deal proffered by liberals. Suddenly they’re not so sure they want credit for the forfeited jobs and tax revenues. Solution: Blame the company for letting their over-the-top rhetoric drive it away.
Do they have half a point? Maybe. Amazon obviously holds to a mind-set native to much of America: A deal is a deal. A handshake settles matters. It’s not a signal for a new negotiation, complete with vilification of Amazon for agreeing to the terms you just put before it.
But New York is New York. It would have meant overcoming some bad blood but Jeff Bezos could have done worse than consult a certain Donald Trump, an expert in New York-style bargaining who has been through the rigadoon many times with the city himself.
He might have advised Mr. Bezos: Put on a plastic grin. Let the ninnies have their shriek. Hey, there’s no such thing as bad press in New York. And be open to some adjustment here and there, for which you can expect to receive down-low compensation in the future once the storm has passed.
Mr. Bezos might have been wise to entertain such advice since he’s in danger of dominating the news lately in more ways than are desirable. But then we’d be missing something salutary: an explosion of genuine and vociferous debate among Democrats in one-party New York. It almost sounds like democracy coming alive.
If there’s a downturn between now and 2020, possibly even the U.S. Congress might have to do without the services of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now bragging about her success in killing Amazon jobs. How she became the representative of a community that needs opportunity and economic development more than it needs campus lefty attitudinizing was always a bit of a mystery. Except for her ethnic background, she doesn’t fit the district that propelled her to overnight stardom. I bet many of the area’s residents, as they assess what her latest coup has cost them, are starting to feel the same way.
Our strange new respect for Mr. Cuomo has it limits, but he has allowed himself lately to notice that New York state’s high taxes are a deterrent to business. They drive high-earning taxpayers away. He finds it convenient to blame Mr. Trump for accentuating the problem by limiting the deductibility of state and local taxes. But being able to shift some of the cost of New York’s punitive tax rates to other states hardly proved a solution to upstate’s long economic decline.
In a pungent statement on the governor’s own website, Mr. Cuomo not only acknowledged New York’s fiscal unattractiveness and the reality of tax competition with other states. He skewered the disingenuous and just plain dumb critics who portrayed his Amazon deal as a net giveaway when Amazon would have brought New York $9 in tax revenues for every $1 in tax relief it enjoyed.
The governor especially unloaded on the New York Times, which has its own sterling history of extorting tax breaks and zoning exceptions from the city and state.
The world would be a better place, and New York would do better by its long-suffering job creators, if it spent less time dishing out favors to a handful of big-name companies. Political capital could be more intelligently employed making the state and city hospitable to businesses of all kinds, especially the smaller businesses that create most jobs.
You could possibly even have that debate once you thin out a political class for which progressive sloganeering is a weightier reality than the jobs and incomes and personal welfare of millions of citizens
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