Wasserman's view of decade 1

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Over the past two years I've written about the C.D.O., collateralized debt obligation, in not exactly favorable terms. Now Gretchen Morgenson etal writes about those who saw the weakness in the C.D.O. and bet against it. It so happens it was the same people who were selling the C.D.O. as a new paragon of investing smarts.

The article has a few telling quotations. From "an expert in structured finance", “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.” From a Goldman Sachs salesman, “Here we are selling this, but we think the market is going the other way.” And Morgenson writes about the myriad ways the banks modified the rules of the game to increase their profits when the C.D.O. tanked.

But, we need not worry that such a nasty process will weave its way into our financial system again. After all, Geithner has hired Lewis Sachs as a special counselor. His firm was quite active in this process.

Whatever GE Wants, GE Gets

and GE wants to build the backup engine for the F-35, whether we need it or not. We've already poured $2 billion and ten years into this project but have yet to produce an engine. Now we're throwing in another $600,000,000 for this year alone.

The Pentagon says we don't need it. Obama says we don't need it. Congressional Research Services says we don't need it. Taxpayers for Common Sense says we don't need it.

But the esteemed federal leaders of Massachusetts, Ohio and Indiana say we need it, otherwise GE would have to cut jobs in those states and in the 21st century capitalism under which we live that is a bad thing, 'that' being cutting jobs at a behemoth like GE. Cutting job's at Max's Manufacturing is, of course, not a bad thing as that is how capitalism is supposed to function.

How can we ever control our spending if we continually violate basic precepts of capitalism when it comes to the big guys?

Another Wasserman Cartoon That Is On The Money

Sometimes an 'eye for an eye' may be justified

You see the headline - Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off - and you shudder and wonder how a court in the 21st century could order such a punishment. Then you read the story and understand. The defendants cut off the ears and nose of their cousin when her parents refused to approve the marriage to one of the defendants.

Not doing too well

OneUnited Bank, a recipient of TARP funds, is having trouble paying dividends on this money. It has missed 3 of 4 opportunities, despite reporting $3,100,000 in profit for the first nine months of the year. Of the 600 banks that received TARP money, only 38 have failed to make a dividend payment. How likely is it that OneUnited will be here a year from now?

Doing the nation's business

Deeply concerned about our nation, Senators Ben Nelson and Harry Reid agreed that the nation would be much better off if the proposed health care bill

• freed Blue Cross of Nebraska from paying the proposed annual fee for insurers
• exempted Medigap policies sold by Mutual of Omaha from the annual fee
• allowed referrals by Nebraska doctors to hospitals owned by these doctors.

Having placated Senator Nelson, Senator Reid assured Senator Dodd that the bill would include $100,000,000 to allow UConn to build another hospital. Senator Bill Nelson was the next recipient of largesse from Reid; 800,000 Florida seniors can retain extra benefits based on the Medicare Advantage boondoggle.

Reid thinks big. He realized that drug makers needed help. Thus, he is wiling to allow some companies to restrict generics from entering their market for at least 12 years. And, of course, Reid refuses to allow the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients.

Don't you feel so much better knowing how much our leaders are doing for you?

I find this hard to believe.

The Pentagon pays a retired general $1,600 a day as an 'adviser' to its Joint Forces Command and this general works for seven defense contractors as either a consultant or board member. Doesn't this sound bizarre to you?

Apparently, this general is a fairly good marketing guy as he was able to sell the Marines on a video surveillance system that did not work. And, this is not a unique situation. 130 generals and admirals collect their pension from the military, are paid as advisers to the military and also work for defense contractors.

Isn't there something wrong here?

My lazy American students

That's the title of an op-ed by Kara Miller, who teaches rhetoric and history at Babson College, a business college in Wellesley, MA. She complains that the bulk of her U.S. students do not put in anywhere near the effort of her foreign students. If she is right and I think she may be, then our return to greatness is highly unlikely.

How stupid are we?

This whole brouhaha about filibustering really amazes me. One would think that the Senate actually gets things done so that the idea of some idiot or group of idiots holding up their sober and intelligent deliberations is something that we have to zealously guard against. It may very well be a good idea to let the filibuster proceed so that our nation can really see how ridiculous our leaders are. Let's show the filibuster on all the tv channels. Run it in place of Law and Order. Here we are sinking into the marshes and these people believe it more important to express their disagreement than to try to solve our problems. Why has this country sunk so low as to tolerate this bullshit by the lower orders?

Would an intelligent electorate see that a filibuster where a Senator talks about nothing for days on end is an abdication of responsibility by the Senate and by us? Should we not start a campaign to recall the entire Senate? The quality of these people is really sub-par. Would you hire Reid to run your operation? Would you trust Dodd to actually say what he really believes? Why should anyone pay any real attention to Nelson or Lieberman? Why do we tolerate suuch assholes?

Is Volcker Speaking Up More?

Here are some excerpts from his appearance at something called the Future of Finance Initiative. Emphasis mine. Will our leaders listen?

You concluded with financial-services executives showing cultural sensitivity and responsible leadership. Well, I have been around the financial markets for 60 years, and how many responsible financial leaders have we heard speaking against the huge compensation practices?

Every day I hear financial leaders saying that they are necessary and desirable, they are wonderful and they are God's work. Has there been one financial leader to stand out and say that maybe this is excessive and that maybe we should get together privately to think about some restraint?

I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets, and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two—credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations—which took us right to the brink of disaster. Were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?

I mean: Wake up, gentlemen. I can only say that your response is inadequate. I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information. I am getting a bit wound up here.

In Britain, I was just talking to a high-tech company about the immense attraction to go into finance when both Britain and the United States are suffering from a basic inability to produce things competitively, to keep up with the new economy. Is this a result of financial innovation that we should be really worried about?

I made a wiseacre remark that the most important financial innovation that I have seen the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine. That really helps people and prevents visits to the bank and is a real convenience.

How many other innovations can you tell me that have been as important to the individual as the automatic teller machine, which is in fact more of a mechanical innovation than a financial one?

I have found very little evidence that vast amounts of innovation in financial markets in recent years have had a visible effect on the productivity of the economy. Maybe you can show me that I am wrong. All I know is that the economy was rising very nicely in the 1950s and 1960s without all of these innovations. Indeed, it was quite good in the 1980s without credit-default swaps and without securitization and without CDOs.

I do not know if something happened that suddenly made these innovations essential for growth. In fact, we had greater speed of growth and particularly did not put the whole economy at risk of collapse. That is the main concern that I think we all need to have.

If it is really true that the world economy was on the brink of a great depression that was greatly complicated by financial problems, then we have a rather basic problem that calls for our best thinking, and structural innovation if necessary. I do not want to stop you all from innovating, but do it within a structure that will not put the entire world economy at risk.

First, let us agree that we have a problem with moral hazard. I do not think that there is any perfect answer in dealing with it, but I would suggest that we can approach an answer by recognizing that elements of finance have always been risky and that's certainly true of the commercial-banking system.

I think we need the commercial banking system for more than automatic teller machines. Commercial banks are still at the heart of the system.

In a crisis, everybody runs back to the commercial banks. They, after all, run the payment system. We cannot have this global economy without commercial banks operating an efficient payment system globally as well as nationally. They provide a depository outlet for individuals and businesses, and they are still big credit providers for small and medium-size businesses, but they backstop most of the big borrowers as well. The commercial-paper market is totally dependent on the commercial banking market. They are an essential financial institution that has historically been protected. It has been protected on one side and regulated on the other side.

I think that fundamental is going to remain. People are going to think it is important, it is important, it needs regulation and in extremis it needs protection—deposit insurance, lender of last resort and so forth.

I think that it is extraneous to that function that they do hedge funds, equity funds and that they trade in commodities and securities, and a lot of other stuff, which is secondary in terms of direct responsibilities for lenders, borrowers, depositors and all the rest.

There is nothing wrong with any of those activities, but let you nonbank people do it and you can provide fluidity in markets and flexibility. If you fail, you're going to fail, and I am not going to help you, and your stockholders are going to be gone, and your creditors will be at risk, and that is the way that it should be.

How can I be so blithe about making that statement? We need a new institutional arrangement which I believe has a lot of support. We need a resolution facility. What can that resolution facility do? If one of you fails and has systemic risk, then it steps in, takes you over and either liquidates or merges you, but it does not save you. That ought to be a kind of iron cross.

A Medicare Surplus?

It certainly sounds strange but an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes the claim. The argument is based on improvements in medical care so that older people are able to continue to be productive members of the work force. The authors believe that studies predicting deficits ignore the fact that people are living longer, healthier lives and a certain proportion of these people will continue to work into their 70s and 80s and, thus, our productivity will continue to increase at an annual growth in GDP of 3.2%.

Much of their work is based on a 1994 study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which projected that Medicare expenditures in 2004 would be $361 billion. The actual number was $268 billion, the difference being due, in the authors' opinions, to the failure by the BLS to fully consider all of the benefits of a longer, healthier life.

The authors made their own projection of the 2004 Medicare costs and came up with $268 billion, a lot closer to the actual number. Of course, I can't figure out when they made this projection. Furthermore I ask myself some basic questions:

Will enough oldsters want to continue to work?
What kinds of jobs will they hold?
How much will they be paid?
How productive will they really be?

They raise an interesting point. How likely is their conclusion?

Lunch on Boston Common

By Ted Gartland of the Boston Globe

CALMing the TV

We've all had the experience of being shocked out of our seat when a commercial comes on. Sometimes the noise is deafening. Surprisingly, our leaders are trying to do something about it. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) has been approved by the House. The bill attempts to prevent broadcasters from ramping up the volume when airing commercials.

A Surprise

The woman above was six months pregnant and did not know it as she trained for a weightlifting contest. She gave birth during the training session.

Not Out of the Woods

I was quite pleased with Obama's launching the Economic Advisory Board, especially by his appointment of Paul Volcker as chair. However, it seems that the board really has very little say in righting the ship, as indicated in this interview with Der Spiegel.

Unlike Bernanke, Volcker does not believe that we are out of the economic woods yet. Nor does he feel enough of the right things are being done to prevent another catastrophe.

Some quotes:

"Too much consumption and too little investment, too many imports and too few exports. We have not been on a sustainable economic track and that has to be changed. But those changes don't come overnight, they don't come in a quarter,
they don't come in a year. You can begin them but that is a process that takes
time. If we don't make that adjustment and if we again pump up consumption, we
will just walk into another crisis."

"...we have to get back in an area where there is confidence in the stability and the authority of the United States. I think we can do that but we have a challenge, we have gotten a wake-up call. There is concern in our recovery advisory group about how to rebuild the competitiveness of the United States, which inevitably means rebuilding, in part, the manufacturing sector of the economy."

"You are dedicated to exporting, we are dedicated to financial engineering and it hasn't worked out too well. I wish we had fewer financial engineers and more mechanical engineers."

"It's amazing how quickly some people want to forget about the trouble and go back to business as usual. We face a real challenge in dealing with that feeling that the crisis is over. The need for reform is obviously not over. It's hard to deny that we need some forward looking financial reform."

"Banking will never be boring. Banking is a risky business. They are going to have plenty of activity. They can do underwriting. They can do securitization. They can do a lot of lending. They can do merger and acquisition advice. They can do investment management. These are all client activities. What I don't want them doing is piling on top of that risky capital market business. That also leads to conflicts of interest."

"As an American, I have to be an optimist. But we have got a big challenge and we have to face up to it. And as you know, there is a lot of concern about the dysfunction of the political system."

An Obscenity

That's almost a perfect word to describe our willingness to let a very small percentage of the population bear the major burden of our amazingly stupid and arrogant current folly - escalation in Afghanistan. Bob Herbert's article today is a cry for us to stop passing the burden of this war onto 1% of the population. We are asking not only soldiers but also their families to bear all of the costs.

Yes, WWII was fought in the last century and we live in a new world. But, it's not a better world. Back then we all fought for our country. We used ration cards to buy food. The headlines in every newspaper were about the war every day; they wasted very little time on the activities of the rich and famous. All of my male relatives were drafted or volunteered; some were wounded. Neighbors' kids died. College freshmen were drafted. We bought e-bonds. Women took over the jobs left by men drafted and this country became a massive production machine aimed at defeating the enemy.

How long can we continue to ask others to pay the price of our collective stupidity and arrogance? How can the president believe that troops will be pulled out in a couple of years? Is he delusional or cynical?

HAMPered Mortgages

Our estimable Treasury Department introduced the Home Affordable Modification Program with considerable fanfare earlier this year. However, things are not getting better for those who have trouble paying their mortgage. The Treasury says that banks are not doing enough. But, it may be that the program is not good enough.

Consider how the program calculates affordability. It considers only the payments on the mortgage plus insurance and taxes. However, most of us have more debt obligations than the mortgage - the credit card, the car payment and, in too many cases, the second mortgage. Shouldn't these other obligations be factored into the calculation of affordability?

Further, it appears that another aspect of second mortgages is not playing a role here. There is no interest in pressuring the banks - to whom we have given so much money - to write some of these mortgages off. These second mortgages appear as a $442 billion asset on the books of the banks. Writing these mortgages down to their true value would seriously impact each banks' balance sheet, perhaps to such a degree that bonuses will not be earned. That would be a major problem for Tim and his friends.

From Don Wright of the Palm Beach Post

This is a strategy?

R. J Adams at Sparrow Chat has a clearer example of the folly that dares to call itself a strategy.

Where did 1,000,000 jobs go?

Look at this chart from the Labor Department. It plots private sector jobs from January 1998 to January 2009. It is not as clear as I'd like, but, if you look closely, you'll see that the number is about the same in 2009 as it was in 1999.

The accompanying text looks at October 1999 and 2009. In 1999 there were 109,000,000 private sector jobs, in 2009 there were 108,000,000.

Isn't this a more severe problem than sending troops to Afghanistan?

Do these photos really differ?

They are both using America's young men and women to make the sale and, in both cases, it's not a product we should be buying as it will kill us.

A Voice of Experience

In the current NY Review Dr. Jerome Groopman has some interesting comments about today's medicine and the proposed changes. He believes that the emphasis on money is not good for doctors or patients. Yet, he feels that we need to adopt a different insurance scheme, one closer to that of Europe.

Groopman realizes the importance of scientific analysis but is not in favor of the strong emphasis on evidence-based medicine that seems to be part and parcel of the proposals for new insurance plans. He believes - and offers fairly strong supporting evidence - that 'evidence' does change over time and not everyone fits the model on which the evidence is based. He also feels that the placebo effect is very strong, which, to my mind, supports the thesis that the mind has a heck of a lot of control over the body.

A Boffo Issue

Over the past few months I've considered cancelling my subscription to the New York Review of Books. Their Holiday issue made me once more realize why I subscribe. As usual, I skipped over a number of articles in which I had zero interest. But then, I read Cathleen Schine's review of Gail Collins' "When Everything Changed". And then Ian Buruma introduced me to Helene Berr. I've always been fascinated with George Kennan and Paul Nitze; Brian Urquart's review of "The Hawk and the Dove" made me see Nitze in a new light. The capstone was Tony Judt's thoughts on social democracy. Yes, I had no interest in Francis Bacon. But, the articles I've mentioned will last me into 2010 and beyond.

Where's the Guts?

In today's NY Times Bob Herbert sums up my attitude - and I suspect (or hope) that of many Americans - about the escalation of the war. Will any president take the higher road and admit mistakes? I've highlighted some points I think especially important.

“I hate war,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

He also said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

I suppose we’ll never learn. President Obama will go on TV Tuesday night to announce that he plans to send tens of thousands of additional American troops to Afghanistan to fight in a war that has lasted most of the decade and has long since failed.

After going through an extended period of highly ritualized consultations and deliberations, the president has arrived at a decision that never was much in doubt, and that will prove to be a tragic mistake. It was also, for the president, the easier option.

It would have been much more difficult for Mr. Obama to look this troubled nation in the eye and explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime. It would have taken real courage for the commander in chief to stop feeding our young troops into the relentless meat grinder of Afghanistan, to face up to the terrible toll the war is taking — on the troops themselves and in very insidious ways on the nation as a whole.

More soldiers committed suicide this year than in any year for which we have complete records. But the military is now able to meet its recruitment goals because the young men and women who are signing up can’t find jobs in civilian life. The United States is broken — school systems are deteriorating, the economy is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding — yet we’re nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a million dollars each.

I keep hearing that Americans are concerned about gargantuan budget deficits. Well, the idea that you can control mounting deficits while engaged in two wars that you refuse to raise taxes to pay for is a patent absurdity. Small children might believe something along those lines. Rational adults should not.

Politicians are seldom honest when they talk publicly about warfare. Lyndon Johnson knew in the spring of 1965, as he made plans for the first big expansion of U.S. forces in Vietnam, that there was no upside to the war.

A recent Bill Moyers program on PBS played audio tapes of Johnson on which he could be heard telling Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, “Not a damn human thinks that 50,000 or 100,000 or 150,000 [American troops] are going to end that war.”

McNamara replies, “That’s right.”

Nothing like those sentiments were conveyed to the public as Johnson and McNamara jacked up the draft and started feeding young American boys and men into the Vietnam meat grinder.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam. There was every reason for American forces to invade Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. But that war was botched and lost by the Bush crowd, and Barack Obama does not have a magic wand now to make it all better.

The word is that Mr. Obama will tell the public Tuesday that he is sending another 30,000 or so troops to Afghanistan. And while it is reported that he has some strategy in mind for eventually turning the fight over to the ragtag and less-than-energetic Afghan military, it’s clear that U.S. forces will be engaged for years to come, perhaps many years.

The tougher choice for the president would have been to tell the public that the U.S. is a nation faced with terrible troubles here at home and that it is time to begin winding down a war that veered wildly off track years ago. But that would have taken great political courage. It would have left Mr. Obama vulnerable to the charge of being weak, of cutting and running, of betraying the troops who have already served. The Republicans would have a field day with that scenario.

Lyndon Johnson is heard on the tapes telling Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, about a comment made by a Texas rancher in the days leading up to the buildup in Vietnam. The rancher had told Johnson that the public would forgive the president “for everything except being weak.”

Russell said: “Well, there’s a lot in that. There’s a whole lot in that.”

We still haven’t learned to recognize real strength, which is why it so often seems that the easier choice for a president is to keep the troops marching off to war.

Another Surprise

So American Prospect is not Time or a very well-known publication, but it is fairly well-known in political circles. It has endorsed Alan Khazei for Senate in Massachusetts. The laudatory article pitches Khazei as a social entrepreneur. And, if there is such a field, he's actually done quite well.

He started City Year, which now operates in 16 cities in the U.S. and also in Johannesburg; it has a budget of $46,000,000 and employs 1,000. City Year, the article claims, was the inspiration for AmeriCorps, which Khazei has also helped surmount budget challenges.

I was quite impressed that Bloomberg ran a fundraiser for him.

Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

A Surprise!

The Boston Globe has endorsed Alan Khazei for Senator! I'm shocked that they would go for the low man on the polling totem pole. Their basic argument is his potential and his success in bringing people together for the common good. Capuano is too angry for the Globe editorialists. Coakley is more a state than a federal person. And Pagliuca should run for governor.

Will the endorsement have much of an effect? Coakley should have the machine to get out her vote. If Pagliuca has called others as often as he's called my house, there is no way he will come close to winning. If anyone really reads the editorial, Capuano will lose.

1 in 8

Here we are contemplating an escalation of the war in Afghanistan - an escalation that will cost us billions today and trillions tomorrow - and we learn that one in eight of our neighbors is on food stamps. Nine million of us have joined the food stamp program in the past two years. The $1,000,000 a year it costs to deploy one soldier to Afghanistan would support 640 people for a year. Talk about misplaced priorities! How can our leaders be so cavalier?

Changing the Rules?

Far from it when it comes to the financial markets. Here's a quote from Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Tarp,

"The rules that got us into this financial crisis have not yet been changed. The too-big-to-fail institutions are bigger, the banking industry is more concentrated and the toxic assets remain on the books of the banks. Worse yet, the implicit government guarantee that let big companies take on high risks, then keep all the rewards if they succeed and get taxpayer bailouts when they failed, are even stronger than they were a year ago."

She added, "In other words, we are now operating under a set of rules that have proven to be disastrous, but we have not changed them."

And then, Bill Black, who helped resolve the S&L crisis, notes

"We're putting in place much more severely perverse incentives: There's the endorsement of ‘too big to fail’; and the gaming of accounting rules so they don't recognize the losses of lenders - and regulators can't prove that they should be shut down."

We seem to be quickly moving back to a world of excessive risk, some of which is fueled by our low interest rates which enable speculators to borrow low here and invest at higher rates overseas. Each week seems to produce another article about another bubble being pumped up.

What are our leaders doing about it? We still don't require TARP recipients to actually lend money. We still allow banks to inflate the value of toxic assets. We are still too skittish to accept that some banks will fail and should fail. We are more willing to accept 10+% unemployment than to do something about our banking system. It's a cliche but we care more about Wall Street than Main Street.

The Realm of the COIN

Gian Gentile makes a strong argument against what appears to be an almost religious belief on the part of our military leaders that population-centric counter insurgency (COIN) is the only way for our armies to go. He feels that we really have adopted a strategy of tactics; i.e., we have no strategy. Most importantly, our adoption of COIN has been one of the least debated changes in our military strategy. In Gentile's view, "The new American way of war has eclipsed the execution of sound strategy, producing never-ending campaigns of nation-building and attempts to change entire societies in places like Afghanistan."

Gentile quotes approvingly from an article by Major Ike Sallee:

The Army, if we want to remain a profession, is best served in adhering to core values, principles, and capabilities. If the core is strong . . . then we are able to transfer capability to other methods. But if we focus on methods (area-specific tactics, techniques, and procedures) at the expense of core capabilities (offensive, defensive, protection, battle drills, marksmanship, physical fitness) we will be chasing our tails and may find ourselves lacking identity and relevance . . . . If forced to prioritize (inevitable for the foreseeable future)—focus on core capabilities . . . what our Army can do exclusively for our Nation. If we are thrown into a condition requiring counterinsurgency tactics, we will be able to adapt because of our well-trained competencies.

Gentile goes on to quote Sun Tzu:

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory . . . . Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat . . . . There is no instance of a nation bene¬fitting from prolonged warfare . . . . Speed is the essence of war.

And he concludes:

The new American way of war — wars amongst the people — has turned Sun Tzu’s maxim on its head. These days it is customary to think of war and conflict as prolonged affairs that afflict the farthest-flung precincts of US influence, thereby demanding a long-term American military presence on the ground. We are told by the experts that this new way of war requires time, patience, modest amounts of blood, and vast amounts of treasure. Sun Tzu was highlighting strategy, and strategy is about choice, options, and the wisest use of resources in war to achieve political objectives. Yet in the new way of American war, tactics have buried strategy, and it precludes any options other than an endless and likely futile struggle to achieve the loyalty of populations that, in the end, may be peripheral to American interests.

Training: Who, What, Why

Listening to the talking heads on television, I get the impression that a fair number of the increased troops to be sent to Afghanistan will be "trainers". If this is the case, my first question is who will be trained. I assume it will be Afghans. But why do those Afghans - supposedly on our side - need training in the art of war when the opposition, who are mainly Afghans, is doing quite well without the benefit of foreign trainers? What will they be trained in? Winning hearts and minds?

Helping the Gulf countries

Of course, you know that most countries along the Persian Gulf are quite poor. Just think of some of them - Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi

Image via Wikipedia

Arabia, Jordan - and your heart goes out to the inhabitants who are really, really struggling to make a living. Couple the poverty with the attempt by these nations to give power to the people and you can readily understand why our military has financed a number of construction projects in these countries. It so happens that most of these projects involve bases for our troops.

But, hey, it's for a good cause.

What is it about the presidency?

It looks like Mr. Obama will escalate the battle in Afghanistan, which is probably what Bush would have done, though with much more alacrity. I wonder whether presidents take a secret oath to keep the nation in perpetual war. Obama may have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but will it be a more peaceful world after thousands more of our young people expand the war?

What is worth so much in Afghanistan? Would our world end if we left the place? Is it the only hotbed of terrorism? Are we there to support a corrupt government? Does the average Afghan think better or worse of us after nine years of combat? Does he even want us there? What do we gain by being there? What does it mean to win the war there? Can we afford to spend hundreds of billions there every year? What else could we do with the million dollars a year it costs to deploy one soldier there?

What kind of a country have we become? Is this change?

A perceptive view of Obama to date

Roger Cohen hits the nail on the head in this article from today's NY Times:

Before coming up to Canada’s Atlantic provinces, where the nicest people in this nice country are said to live, I found myself seated next to Henry Kissinger at a New York dinner and asked him how he thought President Barack Obama was doing.

“He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games,” Kissinger said. “But he hasn’t completed a single game and I’d like to see him finish one.”

I thought that wasn’t a bad image for Obama’s international gambits, and then here, at the first Halifax International Security Forum, I heard a similar observation from one participant: “We’ve had the set-up, but is there a middle game?” Or, put another way, can this probing, intelligent president close anything?

As an Obama admirer, I’m worried. He feels over-managed, over-scripted to me, to the point where he’s not showing the guts that prevailed at various difficult moments in the campaign. The ideas are good, but the warmth, cajoling and craft that make ideas more than that are lacking.

I find myself yearning for a presidential gaffe if only to reveal an instinctual human moment. Memo to Obama handlers: Give us a little more of the unvarnished. De-teleprompt the president for a few seconds!

The list of Obama’s international initiatives is of head-turning scope. There’s his “world without nuclear weapons,” announced in Prague last April, reiterated at the United Nations in September. It’s an idea with resonance, and may provide some moral suasion over countries contemplating pursuit of a bomb, but I can’t help recalling that the worlds of 1914 and 1939 were worlds without nukes. No thanks to that.

Unless proliferation, the most worrying global trend of the past 15 years is reversed, this dream is just a feel-good notion.

Then there’s the “reset button” with Russia, which always makes me think of those announcements on flights — “We’re trying to reset the video system” — and my heart sinks. One way to measure the importance of this attempt to warm a cool relationship is that Russia and the United States still control upward of 95 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal.

There are glimmerings with Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian president, but as Robert Gates, the U.S. defense secretary, observed here, Russia now offers “two perspectives on the rest of the world depending on which of its leaders you’re talking to.” The other perspective is called Vladimir Putin.

Obama needs Russian help on Iran, but I’m not holding my breath for forthright cooperation from Moscow on any eventual sanctions. As for the follow-up agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, intended to cut Russian and American arsenals by about half and supposed to be signed before the old pact expires on Dec. 5, it still needs work. I don’t believe Obama has yet shifted the basic confrontational optic of a resurgent Russia emerging from the humiliation of imperial collapse.

On Afghanistan, where an announcement is at last imminent on the troops the United States will commit to “the necessary war,” Obama has mixed messages with unhappy results. The clarity of March yielded to the cloudiness of fall and the long think has, in the words here of John McCain, “sounded an uncertain trumpet.” Peter MacKay, the Canadian defense minister, said the hesitation was “not helpful” because “everyone has hit the pause button until the U.S. decision.”

I worry now that Obama’s quest for perfect calibration will yield a less than resounding fudge where the tenacious message of a troop increase is undermined by talk of exit timing. That’s not how you break the will of an enemy.

In Europe, a more modest reset attempt has been compromised with political leaders (if not the public) by a perception of cool distance, underscored when Obama did not show at 20th-anniversary celebrations of the Berlin Wall’s fall. Feelings are particularly strong in Paris, where mutterings about Obama’s “Carterization” are heard. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who ushered France back to NATO’s integrated military command structure, and shattered political taboos dictating coolness toward America, has seen his hopes for a special relationship evaporate.

In Israel-Palestine, Obama underestimated the damage of the past decade and has been outmaneuvered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president’s groundbreaking outreach to Iran, which I applaud, has unsettled a regime that does not know how to respond. But here, as elsewhere, Obama has been unnecessarily weak on human rights issues in the face of an unconscionable crackdown. There’s a trace of churlish “ABB” — “Anything but Bush” — in Obama’s failure to speak out more for human rights and freedom. Once again, calibration has trumped gut to a damaging degree.

Ieva Kupce, a Latvian Defense Ministry official here, told me, “Watching Obama, I worry that democracy is going out of fashion. We in Latvia would not have made it without the United States.”

The great battle of the 21st century is going to be between free-market democracies and free-market authoritarian systems. America’s position in that struggle has to be clear if Obama’s simultaneous grandmaster openings are to produce victories.

Back in the day

In what appears to be the first of a series of articles about "Why They Hate Us", Stephen Walt really brings home the problems of an extended military occupation. He has a very apt analogy on the personal level.

Military occupation generates resistance because it is humiliating, disruptive, arbitrary and sometimes terrifying to its objects, even when the occupying power is acting from more-or-less benevolent motives. If you've ever been caught in a speed trap by a rude or abusive policeman (I have), or selected out for special attention crossing a border (ditto), you have a mild sense of what this is like. You are at the mercy of the person in charge, who is inevitably well-armed and can do pretty much whatever he (or she) wants. Any sign of protest will only make things go badly -- and in some situations will get you arrested, beaten, or worse -- so you choke down your anger and just put up with it. Now imagine that this is occurring after you've waited for hours at some internal checkpoint, that none of the occupiers speak your language, and that it is like this every single day. And occasionally the occupying power kills innocent people by mistake, engages in other forms of indiscriminate force, and does so with scant regard for local customs and sensibilities. Maintain this situation long enough, and some members of the local population will start looking for ways to strike back. Some of them may even decide to strap on explosive vests or get behind the wheel of a explosives-laden truck, and sacrifice themselves.

Many countries - England, France, Russia, Israel - have tried to dominate by sending their military to run another country. We ran into massive problems when we tried to militarily occupy parts of our own country. That experience, Reconstruction, has generated hatreds that have lasted more than 100 years. Think about it.

Is he nearing the end?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The week hasn't started well for Governor Mark Sanford. The state ethics commission has charged him with 37 violations. The South Carolina House has started impeachment proceedings. And to think that only a short while ago some people thought he would be a good candidate for President.

How little we know

Can you imagine a life whereby people think that you are comatose but you are not? Your brain is still functioning. Some scientists think a good number of supposedly comatose people areeally alert to what is going on around them. The primary example of this is Rom Houben, the victim of a severe auto accident in 1983.

Mr. Houben lived the life of the comatose for twenty-three years when in 2006. for some unknown reason, he was the beneficiary of advances made in brain technology at the start of this century. A scan of his brain showed that his brain was working. With the help of more technology he is now able to communicate with the world.

Wasting Money

We're considering spending some time in Florida this winter. So, I was pleased to see the special travel magazine in the NY Times today. My wife is interested in Sanibel and four Sanibel places had joined in a full page ad. Since we're just looking now, I went to their web sites. Or, I should say that I tried to go to the web sites listed in what had to be an expensive ad. One site could not be found via IE or Firefox. The search feature of a second site was in a loop that focused on bookings starting today. Did these organizations actually try to see how well their webs sites worked?

You're never too young

Would you spend $145 per session to enhance the chances of your child getting into a kindergarten for gifted children? If you lived in New York City, I guess you might. There seems to be a thriving kindergarten test prepa

Image via Wikipedia

ration industry there. We have more and more parents who are convinced their offspring live in Lake Woebegone, where all children are above average.

I guess their willingness to spend the money is good for some parts of the economy, but is it good for the kids and for our nation?A basic question: If your four-year-old has to have extra coaching to be considered for a program for the gifted, should he be consider gifted? I think one also has to question the quality of some of these programs when one of the instructors says “You can see that when I scaffolded her, she knew it,” when she means she explained something to a child rather than placed the child on a scaffold.

Lose your job, lose your house

Some chilly news on the mortgage front. Just about 10% of home mortgage holders are at least one month behind in their payment; last year the number was 7%. The current rate of 10% is the highest it has ever been since this data has been tracked. The worst part of the news is that it's starting to look like those with quality loans are falling behind in their payments largely due to the crappy job market.

Making the Sale

Apparently some candidates for the Kennedy Senate seat believe that the telephone is a good way to sell their candidacy. Three of the four have called us over the past week or so. They have all called around 6:30 (p.m., of course), which is a perfect time to interrupt our after-dinner conversation. These calls have been very short as I hang up almost immediately.

I'm sure that they do make some sales, but at what cost. I'm talking about more than dollars and cents. I'd bet that more of these calls result in lost rather than won sales. You have to wonder particularly about the candidate who boasts of his business credentials. Is this an example of his business acumen?

In Pursuit of Truth, Justice and the American Way

Yesterday I told you of my experience dealing with the offices of a long-term Congressman. That experience was disappointing. Being a persistent bloke, I decided to go to the source, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Renewal (HUD), as opposed to the agency's funders, Congress. My experience with HUD was unbelievably different and rewarding.

First of all, I was not halted by a 'gatekeeper'. I found the name of the person who headed the department I was interested in and telephoned him. He was not in, so I left a message, expecting that would be the end of it. However, twenty minutes later he called back and gave me the name and telephone number of the person who could answer my questions.

Again, there was no 'gatekeeper'. The woman to whom I was referred answered her own phone. Best of all, she was aware of the problem and knew how close HUD was to resolving it. After telling me when the solution was expected, she asked that I call her if the problem was not resolved within the expected time.

One would have expected exactly the reverse of the responses I received - Olver to be accommodating, HUD to be secretive. Why the difference between HUD and Congress? Was it because Olver has been in Congress for decades and has lost the fire of serving the nation as well as his constituents? Or, was it because the people I spoke to at HUD were likely new to the job? Interesting questions, the answer to which I think supports my contention that our 'leaders' should be recalled as they really do not believe that we are their bosses.

Another record year

Back in February we reported that it was starting out as a record year for Army suicides. Sadly, that is the reality. To date 140 soldiers have committed suicide this year and there is still six weeks to go. In all of 2008 there were 128 suicides, so we've got at least a 10% rise. What will it be next year if Obama deploys more troops to Afghanistan?

Who are your constituents?

Congressman John Olver believes that only people who live in his district are his constituents and, strictly speaking, he is correct. But, if one is chair of a House or Senate committee, isn't this much too narrow a definition? I think so.

So, for perhaps the first time in my life I called a Congressman's office, as an organization to which I am close is dramatically affected by the work of a subcommittee Olver heads. But, I could get nowhere with Olver's staff. Their advice was to contact my Congressman, who, as far as I know, has no connection with Olver's committee and, since I had already contacted him via the mail, had been unable to help.

Image via Wikipedia

I think this behavior is another indication of what is wrong with this country. Sure, you don't want YOUR Congressman wasting time talking with nuts. But, I really don't think I come across as a nutter. I'm of the school where Congressmen and Senators represent not only the people who elect them, but they represent the entire country.

Is our present system so much better than one where we would appoint our representatives by lottery? I think not.

Not Understanding the Real World

I think Geithner has lived in a bubble most of his life. His shirking of his tax obligations when working overseas was the first clue. His stumbling as the Treasury Secretary was another indication. Now, the report of the TARP Inspector General with regards to AIG provides still more support for this position.

The problem in the AIG situation began with Geinthner's belief that the government would not have to intervene, the private sector would take care of the matter and there would not be a bankruptcy. Thus, there was no Plan B when help did not emerge from the private sector. As a result, Geithner accepted the deal no private organization wanted and threw in an extra $10 billion. To add frosting to the cake, the deal was not workable, the interest rate was impossible for AIG to pay. So, Geithner and company at the NY Fed decided to get $40 billion from TARP to reduce the principal. They also created a special purpose vehicle, Maiden Lane III, to releive the pressure of the CDOs held by AIG. This SPV simply bought the CDOs at the contract price, which was quite a bit above market price. They initially tried to get a deal, but backed down at almost the first refusal.

The NY FED and company either forgot or refused to use any of the massive leverage they had over the situation. It seemed to be a case where the guys in deep shit were, in fact, calling the shots. The AIG counterparties got considerable cash - our cash - because of Geithner's lack of deal-making prowess. What did we get? What will we get? When?

10,400 vs. 17,000,000

The stock market closed above 10,400 today. Also happening today was the release of a study of hungry people by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This study shows that there are 17,000,000 households with 49,000,000 men, women and children who have gone to bed hungry over the past year. That works out to 14.6% of the households in our country. That's the highest percent since the government counted these numbers.

Is the economy stabilizing? Certainly it is for some. But not for the 10.2% unemployed or the 14.6% hungry. We have a ways - a long ways - to go before we can say goodby to economic adversity.

Getting By

These old Mainers show how you can get by - and do good - as you age. See it on PBS as soon as you can. And have a handkerchief handy.

Our Times

From today's NY Times:

• 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats either gave speeches - or included verbatim in their speeches talking points - written by lobbyists for Genentech.


• The White House estimates that it costs $1,000,000 to deploy a soldier in Afghanistan for one year.

And we're wasting time arguing whether Hasan is a terrorist! What kind of a country have we become?

Taking Kennedy's Place

Today's Boston Globe gives the four candidates for Kennedy's Senate seat a chance to advance their candidacies via a brief article.

Coakley, the state attorney general, apparently thinks the election is a referendum on health care since that's what her article is about. Capuano, a Congressman and formerly Somerville mayor, thinks it's about combating terrorism while maintaining our values. Neither appeals to me. Coakley appears to be getting bad advice as she entered this race as the leader, but, to someone who has not been closely following the race, seems to be fading. Why she would talk only about health care when our state government is approaching the ICU is beyond my comprehension. Sure, health care is a major issue, but there is more than one issue of vital importance as we enter 2010. Capuano is mouthing cliches.

Khazei argues that the problem is really with us as he says, "We need to move past the tired debate of Big Government vs. Big Business and embrace Big Citizenship. It is always citizens - involved in politics, service, and movements for change, combined with bold political leadership that changes our country.... I learned from Senator Kennedy that being a great senator is much more than casting votes and giving speeches. It is about utilizing the platform to empower citizens to achieve the American Dream, to make a

Image via Wikipedia

difference in their lives, communities, and the Commonwealth. That way, we will leave both the state and the country stronger and better for it." Khazei does have a point. We have ceded too much to 'leaders' who are incompetent, greedy or lazy. But he's been portrayed as a kook.

Pagliuca, the venture capitalist, focuses on the economy. He does have some good ideas - investing in the life sciences, overhauling the financial regulatory system, controlling health costs, spending tax revenue differently. He's come out of nowhere but has spent his way to some recognition.

I don't see myself voting for either Coakley or Capuano. I've voted for kooks before, as not all of them turn out to be weirdos. Some of Pagliuca's ads actually make sense.

It will be an interesting month, one in which hopefully the voters become more interested in the other Senator from Massachusetts. We need someone who actually will do something other than conduct a vapid campaign for President.

The Mysteries of Software

You'll note that I've dumped FeedBlitz as a way for you to be apprised of updates to this blog. For some unknown reason it just stopped working. Getting FeedBurner to work was not a piece of cake, but try it and let's see.

Let me know if you'd prefer to subscribe via RSS.

Thanks for subscribing and for reading these ruminations every so often.

Ah, the English

They would do almost anything to make their gardens grow. The latest is a pee bale, which is a three-metre long pile of straw and other things upon which the male employees of a National Trust property urinate. The Trust believes that urination activates a compost heap. Not only will this make grass grow greener, but it will save water in that toilet flushing is expected to be reduced by 30%.

Veteran's Day

Image via Wikipedia

It is my fervent wish that there never be a need for a Veteran's Day or, if you're old enough, an Armistice Day.

We have wasted so many lives in the pursuit of righteousness, in the belief that we know what's right for the rest of the world, convinced we know what's right for everyone else. And who has paid the price of our arrogance? Our youth and their parents and grandparents. Gates has not, Obama has not, Bush has not, Clinton has not.

I am not a pacifist, as I believe that evil exists and, at times, you must do what can be seen as bad things to defeat it. But, in the 21st century this country has overstepped its boundaries and has exhibited many qualities of an evil, arrogant nation. Will we ever return to a day when we practice what we preach? Hate and fear and greed and irresponsibility have taken over this nation.

"Defying Gravity"

That's what a JP Morgan managing director said about American Business Financial Services (ABFS) in February 2003. He went on, "A lot continues to rest on the willingness of subordinated debt investors to roll over their notes." These "investors" were mainly old folks who were somehow convinced of the soundness of ABFS, which went belly up in 2005 losing some $600,000,000.

A Morgan Stanley managing director forecast a PR nightmare by dealing with ABFS. Others at these two firms raised doubts about ABFS yet they made sure that the company would continue to deal in subordinated debt; in 2002 JP granted credit to the company only if the compamy maintained $375,000,000 in subordinated debt. Credit Suisse signed a similar agreement. Why do you suppose that JP and Credit Suisse force ABFS to continue to peddle crap? Do you suppose greed made them do it?

Sign the petition

Okay, Bernie Sanders does walk a different path than most of us. But, he's written a very simple bill which might actually restore some sanity to our financial system. Here's the bill (and it's not 1990 pages):

A BILL

To address the concept of ‘‘Too Big To Fail’’ with respect to certain financial entities.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Too Big to Fail, Too
5 Big to Exist Act’’.
6 SEC. 2. REPORT TO CONGRESS ON INSTITUTIONS THAT
7 ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL.
8 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later
9 than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the
10 Secretary of the Treasury shall submit to Congress a list

1 of all commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds,
2 and insurance companies that the Secretary believes are
3 too big to fail (in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Too Big
4 to Fail List’’).
5 SEC. 3. BREAKING-UP TOO BIG TO FAIL INSTITUTIONS.
6 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, begin
7 ning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the
8 Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities included
9 on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would
10 no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States
11 or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.
12 SEC. 4. DEFINITION.
13 For purposes of this Act, the term ‘‘Too Big to Fail’’
14 means any entity that has grown so large that its failure
15 would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either
16 the financial system or the United States economy without
17 substantial Government assistance.

Simple but powerful. Sign his petition.

Stimulating Afghanistan

Even before we passed the stimulus bill here we were providing economic stimuli to Afghanistan. In FY2009 the U.S. Army alone awarded $2.2 billion in contracts, $834,000,000 of which went for construction projects. It's amazing the amount of construction going on there.

Bagram Air Base is one of the more popular places to expand. The four concrete plants on the base have been working 24 hours a day for 18 months. The Air Force section of the base is building $200,000,000 worth of projects.We're building a prison that can hold more than 1,000 detainees. There will be a $30,000,000 passenger terminal opened in 2011.

Would fixing the infrastructure here have been a better use of the money? Does all this investment indicate our children's children will be serving in Afghanistan, as has happened with the overseas bases we established after WWII?

Europe Runs The Banks

Which is not quite the way things are turning out over here. A couple of examples show a Europe that does not want a repeat of the current situation. Ing has to split its banking and insurance operations and sell its on-line U.S. bank. Anglo-Irish Bank is nationalized. Commerzbank has to sell off its real estate lending operations. RBS has to sell off its insurance and commodity trading operations. Fortis is moving back to being split nationally.

By and large, all of these companies have gotten less from their governments than our banks have. Yet, the foreign governments do not seem to be returning to the good old days as we are.

A Professional Army

We've seen the difficulties that have occurred in recruiting soldiers over the past few years which have led to a growing number of waivers allowing many to jo

Image by US Army Africa via Flickr

in the armed services. Now a group of former and current military leaders have issued a report that asserts that 75% of our teenagers would not be admitted to the service because they are are either too fat, under-educated or have a criminal record.

Is a professional army a viable solution in an era of constant war? Does a professional army make it easier for people to avoid thinking of our constant wars? In every year of this century we have been at war and it looks like we'll continue that record. Is this what our country is about?

Believe this one and..

I have a bridge for sale.

A 68-year-old Korean woman claims to have taken the written exam for a driver's license 950 times in four years before she finally passed it. That's 237 times in a year. If South Korea has a five-day work week, that means she takes the test almost every work day. I know people aged 68 have more time, but who in their right mind would spend almost every day taking a test for four years.

Now she faces the task of passing the actual driving exam.

Proof Positive?

The Atlantic seems to be on a medical kick. Last month David Goldhill discussed an alternative way to pay for health care, a way that is quite different from our current structure. This month Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer question the efficacy of flu vaccines.

Essentially they argue that vaccines are not scientifically tested. In their opinion and that of some medical gurus we need to test vaccines in what I thought was the normal scientific method: have a large and representative enough sample, give half the people the vaccine and half a placebo, measure the result. Well, we have not done it that way.

The way we measure the efficacy of flu vaccines is “cohort studies”. In these studies the death rate of those who choose to be vaccinated is compared to the death rate of those who do not so choose. Is this a reasonably representative sample? Are those who choose vaccination fundamentally different – in education, income, health, etc. – than those who do not? True, there is an attempt to weed out variables that might bias the result, but one never knows whether these attempts are successful or not. The article quotes studies that demonstrate that there is a meaningful difference in the subject categories.

A couple of substantiating facts. In 2004 because of production problems 40% fewer people were vaccinated, yet the death rate did not climb. In 1968 and 1977 the vaccines that were produced protected against a different form of virus that actually appeared in the flu seasons for those years, yet the death rate did not climb. In 1989 15% of the elderly population had the flu shot. Now, more than 65% do. However, death rates among the elderly during flu season have increased. We are not at all specific about identifying deaths actually caused by the flu; if it’s caused by a respiratory failure, we call it flu.

Brownlee and Lenzer also do not have kind words to say about Tamiflu and Relenza, the vaccines of today. The FDA says. “Tamiflu has not been proven to have a positive impact on the potential consequences… of seasonal, avian or pandemic influenza”.

Have you gotten your flu shot yet?

Is Britain Leading The Way?

The Journal reports that the British "government is starting a process to rebuild the country's banking system, likely pressing major divestments from institutions and trying to attract new retail banks to the market". Maybe, "too big to fail" is not acceptable in England.

AIPAC Still Runs The Show

The Goldstone UN report on the war in Gaza castigated both Israel and Palestine and accused both of committing war crimes with Israel bearing more of the burden. Well, AIPAC didn't like the report and has convinced some of our peerless leaders to sponsor a resolution condemning the report.

It looks as though AIPAC has also succeeded in making its case with the Obama administration as Ms Clinton seems to believe that Netanyahu has made "unprecedented concessions" although he has continued to expand the settlements.

Change we can believe in?

Fun as a way to change behavior

You have to hand it to the Swedes

That makes 115

The FDIC has now taken over 115 banks this year to date. Will we see a new record set this year? The current record is 181 in 1992, the days of the S&L scandal.

"It's not our war. It is your war"

That's a quote from a Pakistani journalist who went on to say to Hillary Clinton, "You had one 9-11. We are having daily 9-11s in Pakistan."

True, it's only one person's comment. But Clinton heard many similar comments from Pakistanis this past week. Whether it was provincial leaders, students or journalists, the message was the same - we don't think that the U.S. actions are helping Pakistanis. And, of course, the more frequent use of drones does not help our position, no matter how many bad guys we kill.

The French Do It Differently

They apparently don't have a problem bringing to trial a former President, his ministers, or people with last names like DeGaulle and Mitterand. The charges are primarily about money and come long after some of the alleged crimes took place, but they demonstrate that the French either have a greater need to settle scores than we do or believe that justice should eventually prevail. I wonder what they would do if the president had tortured people.

Two Helpings Are Not Enough

GMAC needs more of our money. It's looking for between $2.8 and $5.6 billion. This is on top of the $12.5 billion we've given them via TARP and the FDIC's guarantee of $7.4 billion of GMAC's debt and a waiving of rules by the Fed and an agreement by us that GMAC is now a bank (and thus can borrow from the Fed). In exchange for all this we own 35.4% of the company.

We are the lenders of last resort for GMAC, because no one wants to lend to them. Shouldn't banks be doing much of the lending to the auto industry? Would they? They haven't been exactly passing out money for home loans.

It's Not The Pentagon Papers

But Matthew Hoh's resignation from the State Department has the potential of having the same impact. I've never seen so many comments to a Post article.

Hoh is an ex-Marine who served in Iraq twice. In March he went to Afghanistan as a Foreign Service Officer. It seems that whether he was a marine or foreign service officer he did an outstanding job. Read his resignation letter and you may understand why I feel this way.

Here are some excerpts from Hoh's resignation letter:

I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditure of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war.

Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging and ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.

the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency.

I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan.

Finally, if our concern is for a failed state... then we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.

The Case for Withdrawal

The Nation's current issue is primarily centered on the reasons why staying in Afghanistan in a mistake. As the following introduction from the periodical shows, the articles cover just about all of the reasons for disengagement.

Much like the debate surrounding the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the discussion on the best course of US policy in Afghanistan is distorted by a number of faulty assumptions, if not outright myths. The essays in this forum call into question many of those assumptions and offer a different way of looking at the crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan and what is at stake for the people of the region and for the United States.

The principal rationale for America's expanding military commitment in Afghanistan is that a Taliban takeover there would directly threaten US security because it would again become a safe haven for Al Qaeda to plot attacks against the United States. But the essays by Stephen Walt and John Mueller strongly refute that assumption, pointing out that a Taliban victory would not necessarily mean a return of Al Qaeda to Afghanistan, and that in any case the strategic value of Afghanistan and Pakistan as base camps for Al Qaeda is greatly exaggerated and can be easily countered.

Similarly, proponents of sending more troops to Afghanistan argue that Taliban success would embolden global jihadists everywhere and destabilize Pakistan in particular. Yet, as the essays by Selig Harrison and Priya Satia show, this narrative does not fit the realities. While American policy-makers and Al Qaeda may think of this as a grand meta-struggle between the United States and global jihadism, many Taliban fighters are motivated by other factors: by traditional Pashtun resistance to foreign occupation; by internal ethnic politics, such as rebellion against the Tajik-dominated government of Hamid Karzai; or by anger over the loss of life resulting from American/NATO aerial attacks that have gone awry.

As for Pakistan, the essays by Manan Ahmed and Mosharraf Zaidi explain why the Taliban threat to Pakistan is not as serious as many assume, and why a newly democratic Pakistan has turned increasingly against Islamist extremists. As Ahmed and Zaidi suggest, Pakistanis are quite capable of defending their country--not for American interests but for their own reasons--and Pakistani stability is more likely to be threatened than enhanced by military escalation in Afghanistan.

And finally, Robert Dreyfuss offers an exit strategy: as it winds down its counterinsurgency, Washington should encourage an international Bonn II conference that would lead to a new national compact in Afghanistan. --The Editors

A special kind of chair

This is a specially-equipped lounge chair that Dennis Anderson drove around the streets of Proctor, Mn. It has a stereo, a nitrous oxide booster, a parachute and headlights. It can get up to 20 mph. I'm not sure how fast Mr. Anderson was driving when he crashed into a parked car. He probably doesn't know as he was drunk when the accident occurred.

He's serving two years probation and has had his chair impounded by the police. Look for it on E-bay, as it will be auctioned off.