Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Department of Worthiness! Millennials and Obama!

In years to come, it must be wonderful to look back and recognize all your school mates.

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Sweet Tammy's has begun to expand their Giant Eagle locations and now are starting a roll out in the Pittsburgh market district stores under their own brand and selling off their own personalized rack.

2014 hopefully could be their break out year. It has been a long slog but they have persevered and Tamara has been a great trooper.
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Obama seems to have lost Millennials according to 'Hahvahd' Poll. (See 1 below.)

But also the rest of the nation might be wising up as well. But what took so long is what bothers me because it suggests we are becoming less and less discriminating in our ability to reason.(See 1a below.)
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Which way OPEC, according to Stratfor. (See 2 below.)
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Excerpt of Netanyahu's conversation with Perry. (See 3 below.)\
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I often rail against government pointing out how it generally fails to meet its espoused goals in a cost effective manner. The more this happens the more citizens lose faith in government and become unwilling to obey laws etc. Let me cite two specific examples:

A) Certainly the failure and cost of the Obamacare roll out is a prime example. Though I have no way of proving this, I have heard alternative approaches could have resulted in a system capable of handling enrollment and securing the safety of those enrolling for less than 15 million rather than what I am sure will eventually exceed a billion dollar cost.

B) Our immigration laws are in need of modification because they have not changed with the times. Thus, it became evident illegal immigration could occur with little negative results. Consequently, our borders became a magnet for those seeking work and because they were willing to do labor other Americans were not the number of illegals exploded over time.

All proposals to correct this problem, to date, have proven either unworkable or politically unacceptable and the cost of resolving the matter through construction has proven enormous yet the problem remains -America's immigration laws do not serve the needs of our nation and, in fact, work against our attracting future citizens that would be beneficial.

Furthermore, in the hands of corrupt politicians, whose intent is questionable if not down right evil, government can become a powerful and destructive force. I see this happening with the passing of each Obama day. Obama has turned the Justice Department into a personal instrument of vindictiveness rather than doing what is best for the nation. The same with the IRS, the nation's health department, the energy department, the EPA and he has turned on the military in his effort to diminish America's ability to protect and defend our global interests.

Now, Obama, in order to turn attention from his many fiascoes both foreign and domestic, is back on his fairness kick believing that raising minimum wages will narrow the spread between rich and poor, when, in fact, there is empirical evidence it causes businesses to seek ways of replacing employees with more cost effective equipment and technology etc. Furthermore, minimum wage legislation was intended for entry level positions and was never assumed it would provide a livable individual and/or family wage.

The key to solving our social and economic problems is basically through subjecting the current generation to more rigorous education. Not everyone needs to go to college but everyone should be exposed to a course curriculum that includes emphasis on elevating reading, spelling and writing skills, includes a basic understanding of our nation's history and laws resulting in a personal ability to reason and driven by high goal achievement programs that build feelings of self worth and accomplishments..

Another solution would be to close about five or more government agencies and departments. I would start with The Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, The Indian Affairs Department ,Osha and The EPA for a start.

If over time we find they actually did something important we could re-open one of their magnificent buildings and name it The Department of Worthiness!

Meanwhile, I am moderately involved in such a school - The Savannah Classical Academy (SCA), which was the brain child of Roger Moss. The headmaster is Benjamin Payne, and in very short order they have put together a Charter School that is proving to be just what is needed. Their dream is being accomplished through private funding. SCA is the first urban centered charter school of its kind in the southeast

I have no doubt SCA will eventually stand as a beacon to what can be accomplished and my hope is that The Chatham County School System will embrace their techniques because we are cheating ourselves and future generations of a solid education and thus, putting at risk the survival of our Republic which must rest upon a cohesive family unit, an informed and participating citizen electorate.
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Political Correctness Gone Berserk !!!

Click Carlin

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Dick
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1)

Change: Obama Craters in New Harvard Poll of Young Americans

By Guy Benson

In mid-November, a series of national surveys included tantalizing nuggets suggesting that Millennials -- America's youngest voters -- were turning against the man they'd overwhelmingly supported for president twice. Young people were especially unforgiving on questions about Barack Obama's honesty and trustworthiness, a dramatic turn of events. But that data was derived from relatively small sub-samples of broader polls. Would a coast-to-coast survey of exclusively 18-to-29 year olds confirm or belie those apparent trends? We have our answer, courtesy of a new poll commissioned by Harvard University's Institute of Politics:

Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according to a new survey of millennials, people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are vital to the fortunes of the president and his signature health care law. The most startling finding of Harvard University's Institute of Politics: A majority of Americans under age 25--the youngest millennials--would favor throwing Obama out of office...The results blow a gaping hole in the belief among many Democrats that Obama's two elections signaled a durable grip on the youth vote. Indeed, millennials are not so hot on their president.

Before we delve into the results, it's worth examining whether the poll's results are reasonably reflective of young people's opinions, based on established data. Within this survey, young people were asked whom they supported in the 2012 presidential election. Obama beat Romney on this question by 22 points. In CNN's comprehensive post-election exit poll, Obama defeated Romney within this age cohort by 23 points. So that checks out. Also, the ethnic breakdown of the Harvard study was 59 percent white, 20 percent Hispanic and 13 percent black -- which appears to reflect the shifting racial demographics of the American electorate, particularly among the young. Finally, the sample pool for this scientific survey is relatively large at just under 2,100 respondents. So with that context in place, let's review some topline findings:

(1) One-third of young Americans consider themselves "liberal," 26 percent describe their views as "moderate," and 37 percent lean "conservative."

(2) President Obama's overall job approval rating among Millennials is (41/54), an 11-point drop since April. On every specific issue polled, Obama's level of support ranges from 28 percent (deficits, at 28/66) to 37 percent (Iran, at 37/56).

(3) Obamacare is a yoke weighing down this presidency. The law's approval rating languishes at 38 percent among young people, with a plurality responding that Obama's signature initiative will reduce the quality of their healthcare, and a majority expecting higher costs. Just 11 percent of those polled believe Obamacare will lower costs.

(4) Just 22 percent of Millennials indicated that they're likely to enroll in Obamacare. More than double that number said they're inclined against doing so. These results should worry supporters of the law, which relies on a sizable percentage of young, healthy Americans overpaying for health insurance to balance out the risk pools.

(5) Asked whether they would recall and replace their member of Congress if given the opportunity, young people split evenly on the question (45/45). What about Barack Obama? A slim plurality (47/46) said they'd boot Obama from office if given the opportunity. As National Journal's write-up above highlighted, a 52 percent majority younger Millennials (aged 18-24) said they'd show Obama the door.

Journalist Ron Fournier mines a few more details from the raft of facts and figures. Especially interesting is the closing gap between Democrats and Republicans, especially within the younger half of this age group:

Democrats' advantage among young voters is fading. Among the oldest millennials (ages 25 to 29), Democrats hold a 16-point lead over the GOP: 38 percent say they're Democrats, and 22 percent call themselves Republicans. Among the youngest of this rising generation (ages 18 to 24), the gap is just 6 points, 31 percent for Democrats and 25 percent for Republicans.

Between this question and the Obama recall numbers, it seems clear that the younger subset of Millennial voters are more conservative than their 25-to-29 year old peers. Perhaps they're less taken by Hopenchange nostalgia. I'll leave you withone last point of comparison:

1a)WE'VE FIGURED HIM OUT!

By Ben Stein

Why was President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. (Pig in a poke means: an offering or deal that is foolishly accepted without being examined first. A poke means sack.)

They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books.

They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student.

They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable, super leftist, and not a fan of this country.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way helped ALL Americans.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never can be -- "a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society." Either the costs go up or the free society goes away... an historical truth.

Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud, if believed to be caused by man.

Hillary has also signed on to a Small Firearms Treaty at the U.N. This is a back door gun control move. If this is approved by the Senate and a 2nd Amendment majority doesn't exist in the Senate now. It will supersede all U.S. Law and the 2nd Amendment. All citizen possession will be eliminated through confiscation. Just Like Great Britain andAustralia .

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms. There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America .
Ben Stein is a writer, economist, and lawyer. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary," for every issue of The American Spectator.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)The Future of OPEC

Summary

The prospect of revitalized oil production in Iraq and Iran may add to tensions between those two countries and Saudi Arabia over export quotas. On Dec. 4, representatives of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet in Vienna to discuss a number of topics. OPEC is facing two challenges. First, OPEC's historically biggest consumer -- the United States -- is rapidly increasing its own domestic production. At the same time, OPEC must deal with plans to expand oil production envisioned both by Iraq and Iran, which could lead to lower prices than the cartel desires. Ultimately, however, emerging markets in Asia will set global demand, and their energy thirst will determine the scale of the problem OPEC faces.

Analysis

OPEC was organized in the early 1960s by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela with the primary goal of unifying the five countries' oil export policies -- and hopefully dictating a high price for their oil. The five countries certainly possessed that power when the cartel was initially formed, and while the cartel still produces about 40 percent of the world's oil, OPEC's dominance has declined over the years. Today, only Saudi Arabia and to a certain extent the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait retain the ability to voluntarily adjust production levels. OPEC's other members -- Indonesia, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Gabon and Angola -- must maintain production to finance their national budgets. Effectively, this means that OPEC wields nowhere near the power it once did. Even a producer of Saudi Arabia's size is barely able to change the price of oil through boosting or cutting production.

A new wave of oil production outside the cartel has already hit. Production in the United States has increased to an estimated 8 million barrels per day -- the highest level since the 1980s. Elsewhere, production is set to take off in Canada and potentially Brazil. At the same time, increased production outside OPEC is dwarfed by the ambitious expansion plans put forward by OPEC members Iraq and Iran. While production outside the cartel is manageable, together with Iraq and Iran's plans it could represent a significant threat to oil prices in the latter half of the decade.

Iraq and Iran's Ambitions

Iraq's energy sector has been revitalized after the past five years and is now producing nearly 3.5 million barrels per day. Its oil ministry has set several ambitious goals, including production hitting 9 million to 10 million barrels per day by 2020. Iran, too, sees prospects for boosted production on the horizon. Complementing the negotiations with the United States on a possible long-term rapprochement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has started a significant reform campaign hoping to bring oil production back to the pre-sanction level of 4.2 million barrels per day within six months and increase it to the pre-revolution level of 6 million barrels per day within 18 months. To be clear, both goals are not attainable within their respective time frames, but significant increases are possible.

The amount of production that comes online in Iraq will largely depend on two factors. First, the political system and violence will shape the pace of investment and regulatory procedures, such as issuing contracts and permits. Second and more important, there are logistical limitations to bringing online that level of production in such a short period of time. Some of these limitations can be overcome with proper coordination between international oil companies, oil services providers, the Shia surrounding the Basra region and the various political interest groups in Baghdad. Adroit cooperation between all of these parties is unlikely, meaning Iraq will fall short of Baghdad's lofty goals, but Iraq can reach about 5 million to 6 million barrels per day by 2020, and closer to 6 million to 6.5 million barrels per day within a decade.

For Iran, the challenge is somewhat simpler, since its limitations are largely caused by external sanctions. As seen in other countries, typically when oil production has been interrupted following regime change, sanctions and other causes, production levels rarely reach the level achieved prior to the disruption. However, should sanctions be removed, Iran could quickly revive about half of its offline production within 12 to 18 months -- about 500,000 to 750,000 barrels per day. In the longer term, there are some reasons to believe that Iran could buck the trend and increase its production back to previously achieved levels, and perhaps even increase it, but the time frame would be measured in years, not months. All of this, of course, is subject to geopolitical events that could slow the process down or stop it entirely -- such as internal backlash in Iran and a slow timetable for negotiating with Washington. After bringing shut-in production back online, Iran (like Iraq) is more likely to slowly increase its daily oil production by about 250,000 to 300,000 barrels per year, pushing Rouhani's goals to after 2020.

OPEC Going Forward

OPEC is facing short-term and long-term challenges. In the near term, rising production in the United States and Canada has been unexpectedly quick -- increasing by 1 million barrels per day in each of the past two years. Although most of the U.S. increase has been offset by production taken offline due to instability in Libya, added U.S. exports have already forced Saudi Arabia to reduce production levels at times to maintain prices. U.S. production is set to grow by another 1 million barrels in 2014, potentially straining OPEC's preferential price points.

In the longer term, Iran and Iraq's production is the key issue. Should Iran and Iraq together boost production to a reasonably achievable level of 11 million barrels per day by 2020, that would represent an increase of 5 million-6 million barrels per day above present levels. OPEC's export quotas have already been a source of tension among its members, but producers have always found ways to skirt around them. That may no longer be possible. While Iran's domestic consumption will increase significantly, the potential export increases are still too high for Saudi Arabia to offset. This will cause stress within the organization among regional rivals Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia may ask Iran and Iraq to voluntarily limit export growth, but without other incentives there is no reason to believe they would do so when it is in their short-term economic interest to boost exports as much as possible.

Increased exports by Iran and Iraq also play into the broader rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran over issues such as the Syrian civil war and Iranian influence in Saudi Arabia's border regions as well as its oil-producing Shiite-dominated Eastern Province. Historically, Saudi Arabia has argued for increased production from the cartel to preserve OPEC's market share, since high prices have helped encourage alternative energy development elsewhere, whereas Iran and Iraq have argued for moderate production levels and strong prices. Additionally, while Saudi Arabia can afford to sell oil at $85 per barrel, many of the governments surrounding it need prices at or above $100 per barrel, and Riyadh does not want to see its neighbors engulfed in even more turmoil than they already are due to lower oil revenue. Iran and Iraq are pursuing this boost for their long-term production and believe they can do so without reducing prices by relying on increased demand from developing Asian markets.

Asia is now the world's biggest net importing region -- bigger than Europe and North America combined. Naturally, this has led to increased codependence between OPEC and developing Asian countries, principally India and China. Indeed, China has massive projects with Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. China's footprint has expanded dramatically in Venezuela and it imports about 15 percent of its oil from OPEC member Angola. India has also deepened its connections to OPEC countries and has emerged as Nigeria's biggest customer.

As OPEC's biggest customer, Asia will continue its strong demand in the near future, and so stress on OPEC will not necessarily mean lower oil prices. The impact on long-term prices is less certain, however; the price will be determined not only by the size of Asian growth in the future, but by global oil supplies in non-OPEC countries as well. While OPEC historically has been used as a political tool to increase oil prices or place an embargo on exports, as can be seen from the 2008 price spike, OPEC's modern challenge is more concerned with keeping oil prices reasonably low, not artificially raising them or embargoing oil. In order to preserve its long-term health, OPEC will need to preserve relatively low oil prices, both to ensure that developing markets in Asia can afford to keep buying the oil and to prevent alternatives such as shale oil, electric cars or natural gas-to-liquids technology from becoming more economically feasible. Furthermore, tempered oil prices for consumers in Asia will only reinforce the region's economic growth, contributing to increased demand for OPEC's oil.

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3)(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Following is an excerpt from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks
today (Thursday, 5 December 2013), after his meeting with US Secretary of
State John Kerry in Jerusalem:

"Our discussion this morning focused on two central issues. First and
foremost, we discussed the danger to the world posed by Iran's pursuit of a
nuclear weapons capability. We believe that, in a final deal, unlike the
interim deal, it is crucial to bring about a final agreement about the
termination of Iran's military nuclear capability. I have expressed my
concern since Geneva that the sanctions would begin to unravel, and I think
steps must be taken to prevent further erosions of sanctions.

Now, on the Palestinian issue, I want to say that Israel is ready for a
historic peace, and it's a peace based on two states for two peoples. It's a
peace that Israel can and must be able to defend by itself with our own
forces against any foreseeable threat. We don't need artificial crises. What
we need is not grandstanding, but understanding and agreements and that
requires hard and serious hard work. I'm fully committed and Israel is fully
committed to such an effort and I hope the Palestinians are committed to

this goal as well."

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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Our Humpty Dumpty President Has Become An Executive Used Car Salesman! The Education Morass!

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Pays to be sick in Bangkok! (See 1 below.)
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GO beats GDP! (See 2 below.)
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Obama has returned to his campaign mode to sell Obamacare. In doing so he sounds more like a used car salesman than a president. But then politicians do desperate things when they are desperate.

Obama can sell all he wants but he has several hurdles which seem impossible to overcome.

They are:

a) His plan is complex, costly and should prove beyond the ability of far too many to pay when they realize they have higher deductibles and premium costs and doctors, who are not of their choosing, are located far from what they have been accustomed to all in order to meet Obama's fairness goal for the uninsured.

b) The site is not protected and thus personal information is at risk of being stolen and, at the very least , arriving incomplete and the sender may not know this until it is too late.

Obama has repeated that Obamacare is the law and will remain so as long as he is in office. His disdain for the will of the people is becoming increasingly evident as is his disdain for Congress and our Constitution.

Even some liberal Harvard lawyers are beginning to point out Obama has engaged in several unconstitutional actions and have raised the specter of impeachment but that is a toxic matter and no Congress is going to touch that issue and Obama knows it so he will continue to get away with murder at the expense of our nation, its rule of law and tolerance for misdeeds.

c) Finally, Obama's credibility has sunk so low that his campaign style no loner sells.

He has become a humpty dumpty president but he still can blame GW for Iran's centrifuges so all is not lost.
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If you want more of something spend money on it and since we have a bad education system and the government is mostly to blame the hue and cry is spend more money. Well based on recent statistics we spend more than most on a per pupil basis and our ratings are lower than nations that spend half as much.

Education is the only way out for the social and economic dilemma our nation faces and until we get government and the PC apologists out of the education morass they have helped to create we are doomed. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)

Rushed to the Hospital in Bangkok

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

Less than 24 hours after landing in Bangkok, I was rushed to the hospital…

I was having trouble breathing. The problem came out of nowhere. And it was getting worse.

I had no idea what a hospital in Bangkok would be like… but I was about to find out.

I'm sure the average American thinks a hospital in Bangkok would be an incredibly risky place to go… But when I was having trouble breathing, what were my alternatives?

The mental picture most Americans probably have of a Bangkok hospital is an old, overcrowded, extremely unsanitary place… In short, a place where you could easily die from some sort of mistake or poor care.

The reality is completely different…

Consider the case of the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok. It's more like a five-star hotel with world-class medical facilities…

My friend Peter Churchouse – who lives in Hong Kong – says that many of his friends travel to Bumrungrad for their yearly checkups and medical procedures. They make a vacation out of it…

"Go to Thailand for a few days, get the medical stuff out of the way, and hit the beach. Adding it all up, including the flights and everything, the price still comes out at less than half of doing that at home."

For Americans, the deal is much better… Heart bypass surgery in the U.S. costs $113,000… while the same surgery in Thailand costs just $13,000. A knee replacement in the U.S. costs $48,000. In Thailand, it's nearly $40,000 less – at just $8,500. (These numbers come from a 2011 report from the OECD. You can find more cost comparisons on page 12 of the report here.)

But what about the quality of care? Who are the people taking care of you? Bumrungrad is run by a top-notch team of hospital administrators from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Singapore, and Thailand. It serves a half-million international patients from 200 countries a year.

The friend that took me to the hospital in Thailand is from Norway. His father has cancer. And he actually flies from Norway – one of the world's wealthiest countries – to Thailand for his cancer treatment.

Why do half a million people go to Thailand for medical care? It's simple… Service is excellent, fast, and inexpensive. And English is widely spoken.

I don't have time to go into all the details of the hospital… But here's a great overview of what happens at Bumrungrad. It really is an impressive place.

My experience was darn impressive… Within 30 seconds of entering the hospital, I was on a table. Blood pressure was taken on one arm, while the other arm was being prepped for a shot. The whole time, the doctors were asking me questions, making their diagnosis. Simultaneously, a staffer was checking me in, filling out information from my passport. (It turns out, I have a somewhat rare allergy to lemongrass. Who knew? Not me!) After a shot, I was feeling better in no time.

My entire experience in the hospital – from walking in the door to paying and leaving – lasted about 20 minutes. I've never had an experience like that in the U.S…

My typical U.S. experience is multiple rounds of 20-minute waits – if you're lucky – even when you have an appointment. First, it takes 20 minutes to check in and fill out the paperwork. Then you spend at least 20 minutes in the waiting room. Next, you get taken to the back, where you sit in a room. After 20 minutes, someone comes to ask what your symptoms are again, and takes your blood pressure. Then you wait another 20 minutes for a doctor to see you.

The doctor spends less than five minutes with you. Then you check out, spending more time figuring out payment. A five-minute doctor visit turns into half a day of burning time.

Before this trip to Asia, I never would have considered going to a hospital in Bangkok. Now, I have no problem with it.

And it's not just me. Thailand, it turns out, is the planet's top destination for what's known as "medical tourism." And Bumrungrad is the top medical tourism hospital on the planet.

Thailand had 1.2 million "medical tourists" in 2012. Mexico was in second place, with about 1 million. The U.S. was in third, with foreigners coming here to have medical procedures done and spend some time here.

The bigger lesson from this experience (and my trip to Asia) was learning just how far Asia has come…

Ten years ago, Asian countries looked up to the U.S. – they aspired to have our technology, our infrastructure, and our efficiency.

Now, many places in Asia – in particular Hong Kong and Singapore – have passed us by. China's big cities are not that far behind – and in some cases, are already more advanced.

You might not want to hear it – as an American I hate to admit it – but it's true.

Meanwhile, stocks in many Asian countries are cheaper than U.S. stocks… with better growth prospects.

I suggest allocating some of your investment dollars outside of U.S. stocks and into Asia.

Good investing,

Steve
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2)

Skousen: Finally We Get GO — and a Better Economic Picture

By Dan Weil

For more than 20 years, economist Mark Skousen has been calling for the use of gross output (GO) data in addition to gross domestic product (GDP) data to gain a complete view of the economy.

And now he's getting his wish. Starting in April, the government will release GO statistics along with GDP statistics.

"The biggest reason why GDP is incomplete — not wrong — as a measurement of the economy is that it just measures the final value of goods and services," Skousen, editor of Forecasts & Strategies and a presidential fellow at Chapman University in 2014, told Moneynews.

"GDP is a good reflection of people's standard of living. You can use per-capita GDP to compare it around the world."

But GDP leaves out much of the economy, Skousen said. GO measures sales at all levels of production, not just the end, allowing it to encompass the entire economy. GO measures the "make" economy, while GDP measures the "use" economy, he said.

GDP "leaves out all the production process," he said. "Goods and services go through a production stage, and gross output measures all the sales and spending that businesses engage in" to produce the product and get it to consumers.

He breaks it into a four-step process: resources, production, distribution, and final output. Add all four stages, and you have GO.

It's no wonder then that annual GO totals $29 trillion-$30 trillion, compared to around $16 trillion or so for GDP.

"GO gives a better sense of total economic activity, because instead of just focusing on final production and consumption, it focuses on all the money businesses have to put up to create products," Skousen said. "They have to hire workers, buy supplies, etc."

Looking at GDP gives the erroneous impression that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy, government spending for 20 percent and business spending for the rest, Skousen said.

As a result, the media incorrectly reports that consumer or government spending reductions are automatically bad for the economy, he added.

But GO data shows that business spending actually accounts for more than 50 percent of the economy and the consumer for only 40 percent, Skousen said. "It almost flips things over. That's a really important concept. The consumer is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity."

It makes sense that the business sector is bigger when you think that 80 percent of people are employed in the intermediate stages of production — manufacturing, wholesaling, etc. — while only 20 percent of people work in retail, Skousen said.

He sees GO and GDP working together to form a complete picture of the economy. "GO is total spending, GDP is final spending. I'm not suggesting we stop using GDP."

Interestingly enough, GO grows faster than GDP during economic recoveries and falls faster than GDP during recessions. "GO is more sensitive to the business cycle than GDP," Skousen said.

The way it works during a recession is that businesses just draw down from their inventories to get products to market rather than creating new productive processes, Skousen said.

GO is growing much faster than GDP now, he said. But looking forward, "if GO starts to drop faster than GDP, we know we're in for a recession."
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3)The Human Wealth of Nations

The latest Program for International Student Assessment global education scores are a warning to both parties.

Are the schools that serve the world's leading economy really only as good as those in Hungary, Lithuania, Vietnam and Russia? That's the conundrum posed by Tuesday's news of one more mediocre U.S. showing on international educational progress. If the findings land amid exaggerated angst about national decline, they still suggest that both Washington and the 50 states ought to be less complacent about prosperity and human capital.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Liberal Media Lies? How Can That Be?

; ===

What difference does it make if we manufacture news as long as we keep the unwashed informed. (See 1 below.)
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Even a cat can do it: Kitten On The Keys
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Stratfor's Friedman regarding Israel new strategic position. (See 2 below.)

Meanwhile my friend Avi writes that Iran knows how to play chess (See 2a below.)
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Victimhood triumphs again regarding British white and American black achievements? (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1) A World of Lies

By Dennis Prager

| Remember the terrible murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998 — tortured, beaten and left hanging on a fence to die because he was gay?

The American people were led from the outset to believe that Shepard was the victim of a hate crime, murdered because of his sexual orientation. And that is how virtually every American still views the story.

In the words of Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., "Matthew Shepard is to gay rights what Emmett Till was to the civil rights movement."

A play based on Shepard's killing, "The Laramie Project," became, according to the Wall Street Journal, "one of the most produced theatrical shows in the country." In 2009, Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, the Matthew Shepard law, which expanded the definition of hate crimes to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

It turns out that Matthew Shepard's murder had nothing to do with his being gay.

As early as 2004, the ABC News program "20/20" broadcast (to its credit) a denial by both murderers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, that the murder had anything to do with Shepard's being gay. It was, they both claimed, a robbery gone bad.

"It was not because me and Aaron had anything against gays," Henderson told ABC.

As a result, ABC News was widely attacked by all those who had a vested interest not in truth, but in maintaining the homophobia story: the liberal media, the gay-rights movement and the lawyers for the victim's mother.

The New York Times reported: "Those leading the charge against the heavily promoted ABC report [included] Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)."

Sean Maloney, the aforementioned congressman who was the lawyer for Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard's mother, called the program "just bad journalism ... there is a mountain of evidence that anti-gay bias was a trigger for the beating that left Matthew dead after they robbed him."

Now a book has been published, written by Stephen Jimenez, himself a gay man, that confirms the accuracy of the 2004 ABC News report. Matthew Shepard was involved in the hyperactive Wyoming meth drug culture; he was murdered over a drug deal; and his primary murderer was a bisexual who had probably slept with Shepard.

The media aspect of this case was summed up in a Wall Street Journal review: "Mr. Jimenez's book is most useful in illuminating the power of the media to shape the popular conception of an event. It shows how a desire for Manichaean morality tales can lead us to oversimplify the human experience."

That's a bit delicate. Actually, it shows how powerful the left-wing media are, how they are dedicated to agendas rather than to truth, and how much of what Americans believe is shaped accordingly.

Remember the 2006 story about nooses that were hung by racist white students in Jena, La., to signify lynchings?

CNN reported: "Jena's racial tensions were aggravated in August 2006, when three white teens hung the nooses the day after a group of black students received permission from school administrators to sit under the tree — a place where white students normally congregated."

That was the national story: There was a tree near the high school under which only white students sat, one day a black student sat under the tree, and the next day nooses were hung from the tree. As late as August 2007, the Washington Post still wrote about "Jim Crow-like hangman's nooses dangling from a shade tree at the local high school."

None of this story was true.

First, the tree was never reserved for white students. As the Associated Press reported in September 2007, "According to teachers and school administrators, students of all races congregated under it at one time or another."

Second, the nooses had nothing to do with lynchings or race. As the Christian Science Monitor reported in October 2007, "An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree. "[They] were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team."

Remember the white lacrosse-team members at Duke University charged with the gang rape of a black stripper — and how the New York Times and Duke and everyone in between reported this as an example of privileged white boys' racism?

That, too, was all a lie. The stripper made up the whole story. (Last week, she was convicted of murdering her boyfriend. Have you read about that?)

The list of lies is almost endless.

The New York Times reporter in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, Walter Duranty, denied that there was a famine in the Ukraine in 1931-32 — the Communist-induced famine that killed about 5 million Ukrainians. And he won a Pulitzer Prize for it.

The media has recently portrayed the Kennedy assassination as the product of Dallas's "right-wing" "climate of hate" — even though a card-carrying Communist committed the assassination.

The media told us over and over about a heterosexual AIDS "epidemic" in the U.S. There was none. The media fabricated the heterosexual epidemic in order to remove stigma from gay males and in order to garner support for more AIDS research money.

Why all this mendacity?

There are truth-tellers and there are liars on the right and on the left. But for the Left, truth is subordinated to whatever it is the Left most cares about. Gay rights, minority rights, women's rights, government health care, and environmentalism are only the most obvious current examples.

That's why talk radio, conservative websites, Fox News and conservative opinion pages are so important.

Europe doesn't have them. And its population is brainwashed. No wonder Europeans believe that America and Israel are the most dangerous countries in the world. Their media told them so.

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2)Israel's New Strategic Position

By George Friedman

Israel has expressed serious concerns over the preliminary U.S.-Iranian agreement, which in theory will lift sanctions levied against Tehran and end its nuclear program. That was to be expected. Less obvious is why the Israeli government is concerned and how it will change Israel's strategic position.

Israel's current strategic position is excellent. After two years of stress, its peace treaty with Egypt remains in place. Syria is in a state of civil war that remains insoluble. Some sort of terrorist threat might originate there, but no strategic threat is possible. In Lebanon, Hezbollah does not seem inclined to wage another war with Israel, and while the group's missile capacity has grown, Israel appears able to contain the threat they pose without creating a strategic threat to Israeli national interests. The Jordanian regime, which is aligned with Israel, probably will withstand the pressure put on it by its political opponents.

In other words, the situation that has existed since the Camp David Accords were signed remains in place. Israel's frontiers are secure from conventional military attack. In addition, the Palestinians are divided among themselves, and while ineffective, intermittent rocket attacks from Gaza are likely, there is no Intifada underway in the West Bank.

Therefore, Israel faces no existential threats, save one: the possibility that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon and a delivery system and use it to destroy Israel before it or the United States can prevent it from doing so. Clearly, a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv would be catastrophic for Israel. Its ability to tolerate that threat, regardless of how improbable it may be, is a pressing concern for Israel.

In this context, Iran's nuclear program supersedes all of Israel's other security priorities. Israeli officials believe their allies, particularly those in the United States, should share this view. As a strategic principle, this is understandable. But it is unclear how Israel intends to apply it. It is also unclear how its application will affect relations with the United States, without which it cannot cope with the Iranian threat.

Israel understands that however satisfactory its current circumstances are, those circumstances are mercurial and to some extent unpredictable. Israel may not rely heavily on the United States under these circumstances, but these circumstances may not be permanent. There are plenty of scenarios in which Israel would not be able to manage security threats without American assistance. Thus, Israel has an overriding interest in maintaining its relationship with the United States and in ensuring Iran never becomes a nuclear state. So any sense that the United States is moving away from its commitment to Israel, or that it is moving in a direction where it might permit an Iranian nuclear weapon, is a crisis. Israel's response to the Iran talks -- profound unhappiness without outright condemnation -- has to be understood in this context, and the assumptions behind it have to be examined.

More than Uranium

Iran does not appear to have a deliverable nuclear weapon at this point. Refining uranium is a necessary but completely insufficient step in developing a weapon. A nuclear weapon is much more than uranium. It is a set of complex technologies, not the least of which are advanced electrical systems and sensors that, given the amount of time the Iranians have needed just to develop not-quite-enough enriched uranium, seems beyond them. Iran simply does not have sufficient fuel to produce a device.

Nor it does not have a demonstrated ability to turn that device into a functioning weapon. A weapon needs to be engineered to extreme tolerances, become rugged enough to function on delivery and be compact enough to be delivered. To be delivered, its must be mounted on a very reliable missile or aircraft. Iran has neither reliable missiles nor aircraft with the necessary range to attack Israel. The idea that the Iranians will use the next six months for a secret rush to complete the weapon simply isn't the way it works.

Before there is a weapon there must be a test. Nations do not even think of deploying nuclear weapons without extensive underground tests -- not to see if they have uranium but to test that the more complex systems work. That is why they can't secretly develop a weapon: They themselves won't know they have a workable weapon without a test. In all likelihood, the first test would fail, as such things do. Attempting their first test in an operational attack would result not only in failure but also in retaliation.

Of course, there are other strategies for delivering a weapon if it were built. One is the use of a ship to deliver it to the Israeli coast. Though this is possible, the Israelis operate an extremely efficient maritime interdiction system, and the United States monitors Iranian ports. The probability is low that a ship would go unnoticed. Having a nuclear weapon captured or detonated elsewhere would infuriate everyone in the eastern Mediterranean, invite an Israeli counterstrike and waste a weapon

Otherwise, Iran theoretically could drive a nuclear weapon into Israel by road. But these weapons are not small. There is such a thing as a suitcase bomb, but that is a misleading name; it is substantially larger than a suitcase, and it is also the most difficult sort of device to build. Because of its size, it is not particularly rugged. You don't just toss it into the trunk, drive 1,500 miles across customs checkpoints and set it off. There are many ways you can be captured -- particularly crossing into Israel -- and many ways to break the bomb, which require heavy maintenance. Lastly, even assuming Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, its use against Israel would kill as many Muslims -- among them Shia -- as Israelis, an action tantamount to geopolitical suicide for Tehran.

A Tempered Response

One of the reasons Israel has not attempted an airstrike, and one of the reasons the United States has refused to consider it, is that Iran's prospects for developing a nuclear weapon are still remote. Another reason is difficulty. Israel's air force is too far removed and too small to carry out simultaneous strikes on multiple facilities. If the Israelis forward-deployed to other countries, the Iranians would spot them. The Israelis can't be certain which sites are real and which are decoys. The Iranians have had years to harden their facilities, so normal ordnance likely would be inadequate. Even more serious is the fact that battle damage assessment -- judging whether the site has been destroyed -- would be prohibitively difficult.

For these reasons, the attack could not simply be carried out from the air. It would require special operations forces on the ground to try to determine the effects. That could result in casualties and prisoners, if it could be done at all. And at that the Israelis can only be certain that they have destroyed all the sites they knew about, not the ones that their intelligence didn't know about. Some will dismiss this as overestimating Iranian capabilities. This frequently comes from those most afraid that Tehran can build a nuclear weapon and a delivery system. If it could do the latter, it could harden sites and throw off intelligence gathering. The United States would be able to mount a much more robust attack than the Israelis, but it is unclear whether it would be robust enough. And in any case, all the other problems -- the reliability of intelligence, determining whether the site were destroyed -- would still apply.

But ultimately, the real reason Israel has not attacked Iran's nuclear sites is that the Iranians are so far from having a weapon. If they were closer, the Israelis would have attacked regardless of the difficulty. The Americans, on the other hand, saw an opportunity in the fact that there are no weapons yet and that the sanctions were hurting the Iranians. Knowing that they were not in a hurry to complete and knowing that they were hurting economically, the Iranians likewise saw an opportunity to better their position.

From the American point of view, the nuclear program was not the most pressing issue, even though Washington knew it had to be stopped. What the Americans wanted was an understanding with the Iranians, whereby their role in the region would be balanced against those of other countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the Arabian emirates and to some extent Israel. As I've argued, the United States is still interested in what happens in the region, but it does not want to continue to use force there. Washington wants to have multiple relations with regional actors, not just Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Israel's response to the U.S.-Iran talks should be understood in this way. The Israelis tempered their response initially because they knew the status of Iran's nuclear program. Even though a weapon is still a grave concern, it is a much longer-term problem than the Israelis admit publicly. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried hard to convince the United States otherwise, the United States isn't biting.) Since an attack has every chance of failing, the Israelis recognize that these negotiations are the most likely way to eliminate the weapons, and that if the negotiations fail, no one will be in a more dangerous position for trying. Six months won't make a difference.

The Israelis could not simply applaud the process because there is, in fact, a strategic threat to Israel embedded in the talks. Israel has a strategic dependency on the United States. Israel has never been comfortable with Washington's relationship with Saudi Arabia, but there was nothing the Israelis could do about it, so they accommodated it. But they understand that the outcome of these talks, if successful, means more than the exchange of a nuclear program for eased sanctions; it means the beginning of a strategic alignment with Iran.

In fact, the United States was aligned with Iran until 1979. As Richard Nixon's China initiative shows, ideology can relent to geopolitical reality. On the simplest level, Iran needs investment, and American companies want to invest. On the more complex level, Iran needs to be certain that Iraq is friendly to its interests and that neither Russia nor Turkey can threaten it in the long run. Only the United States can ensure that. For their part, the Americans want a stronger Iran to contain Saudi support for Sunni insurgents, compel Turkey to shape its policy more narrowly, and remind Russia that the Caucasus, and particularly Azerbaijan, have no threat from the south and can concentrate on the north. The United States is trying to create a multipolar region to facilitate a balance-of-power strategy in place of American power.

Israel in 10 Years

I began by pointing out how secure Israel is currently. Looking down the road 10 years, Israel cannot assume that this strategic configuration will remain in place. Egypt's future is uncertain. The emergence of a hostile Egyptian government is not inconceivable. Syria, like Lebanon, appears to be fragmented. What will come of this is unclear. And whether in 10 years the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will remain Hashemite or become a Palestinian state is worthy of contemplation. None have military power now, but then Egypt went from disaster in 1967 to a very capable force in 1973. They had a Soviet patron. They might have another patron in 10 years.

Right now, Israel does not need the United States, nor American aid, which means much less to them now than it did in 1973. They need it as a symbol of American commitment and will continue to need it. But the real Israeli fear is that the United States is moving away from direct intervention to a more subtle form of manipulation. That represents a threat to Israel if Israel ever needs direct intervention rather than manipulation. But more immediately, it threatens Israel because the more relationships the United States has in the region, the less significant Israel is to Washington's strategy. If the United States maintains this relationship with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others, Israel becomes not the anchor of U.S. policy but one of many considerations. This is Israel's real fear in these negotiations.

In the end, Israel is a small and weak power. Its power has been magnified by the weakness of its neighbors. That weakness is not permanent, and the American relationship has changed in many ways since 1948. Another shift seems to be underway. The Israelis used to be able to depend on massive wellsprings of support in the U.S. public and Congress. In recent years, this support has become less passionate, though it has not dried up completely. What Israel has lost is twofold. First, it has lost control of America's regional strategy. Second, it has lost control of America's political process. Netanyahu hates the U.S.-Iran talks not because of nuclear weapons but because of the strategic shift of the United States. But his response must remain measured because Israel has less influence in the United States than it once did.

2a) Iran Checkmates the P5+1

by Avi Jorisch

)In the deal between Iran and the six world powers, it appears that a rogue regime marching towards nuclearization has outmaneuvered the West. In disarming the sanctions regime so painstakingly put together over the last few years, the Iranians have given almost nothing meaningful in return. Instead, they are employing the same playbook that brought the mullahcracy to power and the very strategy that allowed North Korea to get the bomb. Above all, Iran now has an international mechanism that will allow it to effectively play for time.

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the West has tried using covert and public negotiations with Iran, arms deals, direct confrontation, cyber-warfare, containment and indirect action against Iran's terrorist proxies. Most recently, the United States and its Western allies have strenuously employed sanctions to punish the banks, corporations and charities that have actively assisted Iran in its attempts to secure the bomb, and by all accounts, it was the sanctions that finally brought Iran to the negotiation table.

The goal of these sanctions was always to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program, not just to slow it down. Unfortunately, the new agreement fails to achieve that objective and takes the wind out of the sails of one of the few tools to have had measurable policy impact. The deal provides Iran with significant sanctions relief over the next six months. Iran is now expected to earn approximately $7-10 billion in oil sales, precious metal and automobile transactions that otherwise would have been frozen. The Obama administration is calling this a "small sum of money to be released." But the Iranian regime reportedly has only $20 billion in unrestricted access to foreign currency reserves, and the agreement will add another 30-50 percent to its coffers, a hefty sum for a regime facing a hobbled economy and a currency crisis.

A close reading of the agreement demonstrates that in return for these Western concessions, Iran is not obligated to stop uranium enrichment. On the contrary, through a gaping hole in the agreement, Iran may keep the 10,000 centrifuges already spinning and is merely forbidden to build new ones. It is not obligated to shut down its plutonium reactor at Arak, nor is it required to transfer its uranium and plutonium stockpiles out of the country.

Only hours after the deal came to light, the two sides were already at odds on its key provision: whether Iran has the right to enrich uranium. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is openly rejoicing that the agreement recognizes this "right" and takes a credible threat of military action off the table. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry disputes both interpretations, but notes that "everyone has the right to be skeptical" of Iran's intentions.

Many are dubbing the agreement a "fool's bargain." In fact, in return for Iran's agreement to freeze the growth of its nuclear program, the West should have frozen any new sanctions while continuing to implement existing sanctions. For each step Iran verifiably rolled back, the West should have responded in kind. Ultimately, this type of approach could have ensured that Iran's nuclear program was intended for peaceful purposes only.

The United States is claiming victory because it persuaded the Iranians to agree to oxidize their 20-percent stockpile of enriched uranium down to 5 percent. But by all measures, this type of stockpile can quickly be ramped back up to 20 percent, particularly with the regime's existing centrifuges. According to Zarif, all the measures Iran will take are "reversible, and they can be reversed fast."

The P5 +1's message is clear: the sanctions regime is dying. Iran is free again to sell its oil, trade in precious metals, buy new parts for its ailing airline industry and grow its automotive sector. No doubt many in China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and India are already lining up to continue doing business with the Islamic Republic.

Iran is following North Korea's example. The six-party talks that followed Pyongyang's withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003 were ostensibly aimed at finding a peaceful solution to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Though the discussions by all accounts were substantive and fruitful, in October 2006, Pyongyang announced that it was testing its first nuclear weapon. North Korea had simply played for time to master the full nuclearization cycle and test its bomb.

Iran is no stranger to bazaar negotiations and employing tactics that are less than transparent. For example, during Ayatollah Khomeini's exile in Iraq and France, he worked with opposition groups ideologically opposed to his own – ultimately bringing him to power - making pacts with them using tactics such as khode (tricking an opponent into misjudging a position), tanfia (removing the enemy's sting), and taqiyya (concealing one's true opinions when dealing with the "enemies of Islam".

Bumper stickers around the Muslim world state that innallaha ma sabirin, God is with those who are patient. As creators of the game of chess, Iranians are not only masters of strategy and thinking several steps ahead, but have more than enough patience to go around. As the West struggles with a simple game of checkers, it looks like the Iranians have gotten their checkmate.

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Depressing news about black students scoring far below white students on various mental tests has become so familiar that people in different parts of the ideological spectrum have long ago developed their different explanations for why this is so. But both may have to do some rethinking, in light of radically different news from England.

The November 9th-15th issue of the distinguished British magazine "The Economist" reports that, among children who are eligible for free meals in England's schools, black children of immigrants from Africa meet the standards of school tests nearly 60 percent of the time -- as do immigrant children from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Black children of immigrants from the Caribbean meet the standards less than 50 percent of the time.

At the bottom, among those children who are all from families with low enough incomes to receive free meals at school, are white English children, who meet the standards 30 percent of the time.

"The Economist" points out that, in one borough of London, white students scored lower than black students in any London borough.

These data might seem to be some kind of fluke, but they confirm the observations in a book titled "Life at the Bottom" by British physician Theodore Dalrymple. He said that, among the patients he treated in a hospital near a low-income housing project, he could not recall any white 16-year-old who could multiply nine by seven. Some could not even do three times seven.

What jolts us is not only that this phenomenon is so different from what we are used to seeing in the United States, but also that it fits neither the genetic nor the environmental explanation of black-white educational differences here.

These white students in England come from the same race that produced Shakespeare and the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton, among other world class intellects over the centuries. But today many young whites in England are barely literate, and have trouble with simple arithmetic. Nor are these white students the victims of racial discrimination, much less the descendants of slaves.

With the two main explanations for low performances on school tests obviously not applicable in England, there must be some other explanation. And once there is some other explanation in this case, we have to wonder if that other explanation -- whatever it is -- might also apply in the United States, to one degree or another.

In other words, maybe our own explanations need reexamination.

What do low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common? It cannot be simply low incomes, because children from other groups in the same low-income brackets outperform whites in England and outperform blacks in America.

What low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common is a generations-long indoctrination in victimhood. The political left in both countries has, for more than half a century, maintained a steady and loud drumbeat of claims that the deck is stacked against those at the bottom.

The American left uses race and the British left uses class, but the British left has been at it longer. In both countries, immigrants who have not been in the country as long have not been so distracted by such ideology into a blind resentment and lashing out at other people.

In both countries, immigrants enter a supposedly closed society that refuses to let anyone rise -- and they nevertheless rise, while the native-born at the bottom remain at the bottom.

Those who promote an ideology of victimhood may imagine that they are helping those at the bottom, when in fact they are harming them, more so than the society that the left is denouncing.

We in America have gotten used to vast gaps between blacks and whites on test scores. But this was not always the case, in places where there was anything like comparable education.

Back in the 1940s, before the vast expansion of the welfare state and the ideology of victimhood used to justify it, there was no such gap on test scores between black schools in Harlem and white, working class schools on New York's lower east side.

You can find the data on pages 40-41 of an article of mine in the Fall 1981 issue of "Teachers College Record," a journal published by Columbia University -- that is, if you think facts matter more than rhetoric or social visions.

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Middle East and Other Musings