Two Pauls: Ryan and Krugman September 24, 2013September 21, 2013 Clinton gave us peace, prosperity, and a balanced budget* . . . Bush, with a Republican Congress six of his eight years, gave us war, near-Depression, and trillion-dollar deficits . . . Obama has ended wars, avoided others McCain et al would have started, overseen 42 months of private sector job growth despite Republican refusal to pass the American Jobs Act, and shrunk the deficit from 10% of GDP to 4%. Is it really that simple? No. But you know what? It’s not far off. Does anyone seriously dispute that Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower and — yes, Richard Nixon — would be horrified by what the Republican Party has become? That even Ayn Rand . . . she of the epic superhero comic books, super-simplistic and super fun, beloved by precocious high school girls everywhere . . . in whose name so much of this is being done, might well have recognized that what she wrote in the 1940s, with the Stalinism her family had fled threatening half the world and communism having made meaningful inroads in her Depression-era America . . . that even she, given the context of 2013, might have been just a bit horrified? That, of course, we’ll never know. Though her disciple Alan Greenspan, as close to her as anyone half a century ago, is certainly no Tea Party Republican. He writes: “Rand’s Collective became my first social circle outside the university and the economics profession. I engaged in the all-night debates and wrote spirited commentary for her newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte drawn to a whole new set of ideas.” [Like Paul Ryan!] “Like any new convert, I tended to frame the concepts in their starkest, simplest terms. Most everyone sees the simple outline of an idea before complexity and qualification set in. If we didn’t, there would be nothing to qualify, nothing to learn. It was only as contradictions inherent in my new notions began to emerge that the fervor receded.” [Paul? Any chance you could listen?] No, Congressman Paul Ryan and his crew, financed by multi-billionaires who’ve persuaded themselves they are John Galt, they are the job creators — they are NOT — are poised to lead the country they love, and which they have already damaged so badly, over a cliff, if that’s what it takes to keep the struggling masses (the workers) from getting a better deal on health care and the food stamps that many of them, making minimum wage, need to keep from starving. I feel quite sure they will not succeed. How could they? But it’s crazy. The Crazy Party By PAUL KRUGMAN Early this year, Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, made headlines by telling his fellow Republicans that they needed to stop being the “stupid party.” Unfortunately, Mr. Jindal failed to offer any constructive suggestions about how they might do that. And, in the months that followed, he himself proceeded to say and do a number of things that were, shall we say, not especially smart. Nonetheless, Republicans did follow his advice. In recent months, the G.O.P. seems to have transitioned from being the stupid party to being the crazy party. I know, I’m being shrill. But as it grows increasingly hard to see how, in the face of Republican hysteria over health reform, we can avoid a government shutdown — and maybe the even more frightening prospect of a debt default — the time for euphemism is past. It helps, I think, to understand just how unprecedented today’s political climate really is. Divided government in itself isn’t unusual and is, in fact, more common than not. Since World War II, there have been 35 Congresses, and in only 13 of those cases did the president’s party fully control the legislature. Nonetheless, the United States government continued to function. Most of the time divided government led to compromise; sometimes to stalemate. Nobody even considered the possibility that a party might try to achieve its agenda, not through the constitutional process, but through blackmail — by threatening to bring the federal government, and maybe the whole economy, to its knees unless its demands were met. True, there was the government shutdown of 1995. But this was widely recognized after the fact as both an outrage and a mistake. And that confrontation came just after a sweeping Republican victory in the midterm elections, allowing the G.O.P. to make the case that it had a popular mandate to challenge what it imagined to be a crippled, lame-duck president. Today, by contrast, Republicans are coming off an election in which they failed to retake the presidency despite a weak economy, failed to retake the Senate even though far more Democratic than Republican seats were at risk, and held the House only through a combination of gerrymandering and the vagaries of districting. Democrats actually won the popular ballot for the House by 1.4 million votes. This is not a party that, by any conceivable standard of legitimacy, has the right to make extreme demands on the president. Yet, at the moment, it seems highly likely that the Republican Party will refuse to fund the government, forcing a shutdown at the beginning of next month, unless President Obama dismantles the health reform that is the signature achievement of his presidency. Republican leaders realize that this is a bad idea, but, until recently, their notion of preaching moderation was to urge party radicals not to hold America hostage over the federal budget so they could wait a few weeks and hold it hostage over the debt ceiling instead. Now they’ve given up even on that delaying tactic. The latest news is that John Boehner, the speaker of the House, has abandoned his efforts to craft a face-saving climbdown on the budget, which means that we’re all set for shutdown, possibly followed by debt crisis. How did we get here? Some pundits insist, even now, that this is somehow Mr. Obama’s fault. Why can’t he sit down with Mr. Boehner the way Ronald Reagan used to sit down with Tip O’Neill? But O’Neill didn’t lead a party whose base demanded that he shut down the government unless Reagan revoked his tax cuts, and O’Neill didn’t face a caucus prepared to depose him as speaker at the first hint of compromise. No, this story is all about the G.O.P. First came the southern strategy, in which the Republican elite cynically exploited racial backlash to promote economic goals, mainly low taxes for rich people and deregulation. Over time, this gradually morphed into what we might call the crazy strategy, in which the elite turned to exploiting the paranoia that has always been a factor in American politics — Hillary killed Vince Foster! Obama was born in Kenya! Death panels! — to promote the same goals. But now we’re in a third stage, where the elite has lost control of the Frankenstein-like monster it created. So now we get to witness the hilarious spectacle of Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal, pleading with Republicans to recognize the reality that Obamacare can’t be defunded. Why hilarious? Because Mr. Rove and his colleagues have spent decades trying to ensure that the Republican base lives in an alternate reality defined by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Can we say “hoist with their own petard”? Of course, the coming confrontations are likely to damage America as a whole, not just the Republican brand. But, you know, this political moment of truth was going to happen sooner or later. We might as well have it now. * And, with his Clinton Global Initiative, in session right now, continues to do tremendous, constructive things.
What Will YOU Pay With Obamacare? September 23, 2013September 23, 2013 As previously noted, Obamacare is going to improve the health of the citizenry and of the economy; it’s going to save people money (except those with income above $250,000, who will pay an extra $38,000 in tax on each additional $1 million in dividends and capital gains they receive); and it’s going to reduce anxiety for anyone who realizes that their current policy has a lifetime cap or that they can lose their insurance for getting sick or that a pre-existing condition could keep them from getting it in the first place. (It is also projected to reduce the deficit.) Reason enough, cry the Tea Party Republicans, to shut down the government if necessary — even destroy the full faith and credit of the United States for the first time since our founding — to repeal or defund it. The mind boggles. Right up there with climate change denial . . . and scientists from the Tobacco Institute who for decades disputed the health hazards of smoking . . . and claiming that the wealthy are the job creators (we are NOT) . . . and blocking efforts to put eager job seekers to work modernizing our D+ national infrastructure to kick start a virtuous economic cycle . . . and blocking even better, single-payer health care reform or “the public option” . . . and misleading us into a disastrous invasion of Iraq . . . and voting to cut food stamps for the working poor while continuing farm subsidies for wealthy corporate farmers. All these things — and more (discouraging the stem cell research that may now not come in time to save the life of someone you love?) — associated with the Republican Party. But I digress. As usual. With my usual defense: I’m old. I ramble. You don’t pay me enough to stay tightly focused. To see whether Obamacare may save YOU money, click here. “The calculator provides a rough estimate of costs for insurance, based on national averages and factors that may not apply to you. It will give you an idea of what someone with circumstances like yours could pay for Marketplace insurance in 2014.” The real premiums you will be offered, depending on where you live, are supposed to go live in just a few days: October 1. I assume several server farms will explode under the pressure of tens of millions of people attempting to visit healthcare.gov the site that day; but Estimates are that six in ten of the currently uninsured will be able to get coverage for less than $100 a month. Gerald Marinoff: “Your Thursday post on healthcare describes young people with group health insurance subsidizing the old. However, they, too, benefit from a subsidy that receives no publicity, namely the obscene premiums paid by people who are not members of a group. My wife is a healthy 50 year old with no pre-existing or existing medical conditions and on no daily medications. She has never had a serious medical condition. Other than for an annual flu shot, she does not see her physician. She has healthcare coverage through Oxford’s HMO, a branch of United Healthcare. This plan has co-payments for all services and drugs, and has restrictions on doctor choice — in other words, it is not a ‘Cadillac’ plan. Every year her premiums increase, always in excess of the rate of healthcare inflation. Her current premium is $1536.61/month ($18,439.32/year). People like my wife have no union or employers to advocate for them, so they suffer from this extreme discrimination in rates. If the Republican troglodytes manage to dismantle Obamacare, there is no limit to the excesses that the insurance companies will go to increase their profits. But, of course, unlimited profits for private business is what the Republican party stands for.” > It appears Gerald’s wife will save about $13,000 a year with Obamacare. Tomorrow (which you can read today): Paul Krugman on “The Crazy Party”
Hurray for the Pope September 20, 2013September 19, 2013 Yesterday’s column was posted late and you will probably want to go back and take a look if you missed it — it contains the keys to happiness. Today, the Pope speaks out. A taste: “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. We have to find a new balance.” Wow: better leadership in the Vatican, better leadership in Tehran, better leadership these past five years, in the U.S. What’s next: A stunning defeat for the Tea Party? FAA certification? We can only pray.
Happy and Healthy September 19, 2013September 19, 2013 Just a tiny bit of sarcasm before we get to the happy part: HEALTHY I don’t want free preventive care! And I don’t want others to have it either! This is important to me: Defund Obamacare before it’s too late! Kill it! I don’t want unlimited benefits if I get really sick or horribly injured — I want my coverage to run out once I reach a “lifetime cap.” Seriously: Defund Obamacare! Bring back lifetime caps! I don’t want insurers sending me refund checks if they hang on to more than 20% of the premiums they collect. I don’t want them to have to compete for business in state-wide “exchanges.” I want insurers to be able to drop me if I get sick! Or reject me if I have a pre-existing condition. And it’s not just me I’m thinking of: I want my friends and family at risk as well, and anyone else not in good health. I don’t want the “doughnut hole” closed for seniors. If they’re just scraping by, choosing between food and heat and medicine — well, that’s one place I’m pro-choice. Defund Obamacare! Because here’s the thing: I know the law is loaded with pilot programs and “incentives to adopt best practices” designed to improve the quality and lower the cost of health care delivery over time. And I’m not necessarily against that. But I also know that there’s no free lunch. All these benefits — more secure coverage, free preventive care, and the like — come at a cost that won’t all be covered by improvements in efficiency. And it’s spelled out right there in the law! In order to keep Obamacare from adding to the deficit (it’s projected to lower it slightly, in fact), taxes are raised on income above $250,000. And that’s just unAmerican and, dare I say, unChristian. Hear me proud and clear: I don’t want the well off helping the less well off. I don’t want higher income folks paying an extra $38,000 on each $1 million in dividends and capital gains they receive — I’d rather see millions of poor people uninsured and the elderly choosing between food and heat and medicine. I’d rather shut down the entire Federal government than fund this thing. That’s just the way I roll. I’m a Republican, and I’ve voted 42 times to kill it. (PS – I don’t mind the “group health insurance plans” at all those Fortune 500 companies, where the young and healthy in effect subsidize the old and diabetic — that’s capitalism. If the young and healthy don’t like it they can quit their jobs. But this? Forcing the young and healthy not already insured to to buy coverage or pay a fine? What’s next: requiring young healthy people to carry automobile insurance? Taking FICA out of their pay to support the social safety net they’re not likely to need while they’re young? I would never want to live in a country that does that. USA! USA!) (PPS – It’s not like I’m saying we don’t need some reform. But certainly not reform that places any burden on the wealthy who are, after all, [not] the job creators. Better to repeal Obamacare and let us Republicans start from scratch. Yes, we did have the White House and both houses of Congress for the first six years of this century — but at the time it just slipped our mind.) HAPPY GENE According to this, there is one — but you can help. Joy is contagious. Check it out.
7-Minute Checkup September 18, 2013September 18, 2013 KYTH This company has a treatment for double chins. Not something any of you have to worry about, but the stock closed up a further $8 or so yesterday, now nearly double what we paid four months ago. Guru writes: “If you want to hold this for a year and lower your tax rate you can. It should move into the 50s as people believe AGN will buy them. This will be an easy approval for the FDA. There will be more data at an Oct 3 medical meeting. On the other hand, they won’t file for approval till at least the end of 2013 and won’t get it until the end of 2014. Still, any partner, such as AGN can see that the data are fantastic and KYTH has a bunch of ex AGN people running it. VRX which markets Restylane facial filler would also be interested, so there should be competition to buy KYTH, which argues for a move sooner rather than later. Only 4% of patients discontinued for adverse events — a very low level. Patients are lining up for this already. The product will fly off the shelf.” MYLGF Paul O’Donnell: “What ever happened to MYLGF?” > It did a 1-for-50 reverse split — meaning that if you had bought 5000 shares at 37 cents, you’d now have 100 shares with a basis of $18.50 — and changed its name from Methylgene to Mirati Therapeutics, new symbol: MRTX. The stock is back up to around $15, after dipping to $8, and Guru writes: “Could double from here — possibly much more. I think the products really work. Now that they are on NASDAQ and they have a bunch of ‘winner’ managers running it, the story can run. On the other hand, they won’t have pivotal data any sooner than the end of 2014, or probably 2015, and they will have to raise money. The stock will trade back and forth. At 15, it’s a $130 million market cap. Could easily justify twice that for the products they have.” HEALTH CARE GENERALLY Do not miss this 7-minute overview (hat tip: Upworthy) — and then ask yourself why the Republicans are so maniacally committed to rolling things back to the way they were. They can say they, too, want to fix the system — and Romney actually did take a stab it, in Massachusetts, but once he was on the national ticket he had to join the Republican chorus in denouncing his own plan. Yet if they want to fix the system, why did they fight so hard to kill the Clintons’ proposed reform? Why did they propose no reform of their own in the eight years George W. Bush set the agenda, during six of which Republicans controlled both houses of Congress? Watch and be furious that the Republicans have devoted themselves to little more than blocking whatever the President wants to do — whether it be modernizing our infrastructure, improving our health care system, or so much else. FAILED – REALLY? Monday I dumped a bit of sarcasm on the “failed presidency” meme. I didn’t include anything on Syria, but that’s okay: Jon Stewart did it ever so much better than I could have — here. (The summary: “Pundits argue that the successful use of diplomacy in Syria is the worst defeat in American history.”)
Failed? Really? September 16, 2013September 16, 2013 BOREF Behold the WheelTug Twist and Twirl — a new 4-minute YouTube. Won’t it be nice, seated in 34C, not to have to wait that extra five or ten minutes to get off the damn plane? Or that extra 5 or 10 minutes to board? Or — even if you’re in First Class and get to board before anyone else — that extra five or ten minutes that can be cut from every flight you take while others board? And there are the environmental benefits — hence WheelTug’s ATW Magazine 2013 Eco-Technology of the Year Award, presented this past Thursday. Slowly but surely WheelTug becomes inevitable. Well, slowly, anyway. Maybe not surely. Only venture into shares of grandparent company Borealis with money you can truly afford to lose — and with “limit orders” so you aren’t gouged on the price. It remains very thinly traded. FAILED? REALLY? Bill Maher beats up on George W. Bush in the current Vanity Fair. Someone named Francesco thought Maher should have mentioned Obama’s failed presidency as well. I cannot not refrain from asking Francesco these questions: When you say “failed presidency,” is that because President Obama averted a depression and the stock market has doubled? Or because he saved Detroit and the auto industry is booming? Or because he ended two wars and restored respect among our allies? Is it because — at the expense of a modest tax increase on the best off — he set us on a course toward health care security with incentives and pilot programs to improve outcomes and efficiency? Or because he doubled CAFE standards and seeded alternative energy technologies that begin to deal, finally, with energy independence, energy security, and climate change? Is it because he saved the Court from going yet more firmly to the Citizens-United-Bush-v-Gore right? Or because he killed Bin Laden and decimated the ranks of Al-Qaeda? Is it because he won re-election with more than 50% of the vote? Because he’s done more for LGBT Americans than all 43 previous presidents combined? Or — to the extent there will be any truth to it at all when he steps down — will it be because he faced an opposition party willing to wreck the country to see him fail? Just asking. HARMFUL, REALLY? “We’re going to continue to do everything we can to protect Americans from this harmful health care law,” House Speaker Boehner said. Killing the law — which the House has now voted to do 42 times — would also kill the 3.8% surtax on dividends and capital gains that, arguably, “harms” those with more than $250,000 in taxable income: for every extra $1 million they make, they are harmed to the tune of $38,000. But it’s hard to see who else is harmed. Indeed, it is that extra tax revenue that makes the program a modest deficit cutter even as it improves health care security for almost everyone. It means that you and your loved ones will never have to fear being turned down for insurance due to a “pre-existing condition” or fear that an illness will exhaust your ‘lifetime cap” — or have to pay for preventive care. I suppose you could say that some insurance company shareholders will be harmed, but only because Obamacare requires insurers to spend at least 80% or 85% of their premium income (depending on the size of the insured group) on healthcare rather than on their own operating costs, marketing costs, and profit. Already they’ve been sending out hundreds of thousands of refund checks for the excess. Is that harmful to consumers in some way that I’m failing to grasp? There will be glitches that need fixing — Peggy Noonan found one involving 455 Oregon families, as already described — but the solution to that is to fix them. Not throw out reform that will make the American economy — and its citizenry — both healthier.
How I Get My Exercise September 13, 2013 JACOB GERSHOWITZ What a glorious four minutes. Rhapsody. Not to be missed. # WHAT YOU GOT, WHAT YOU GET If you happen to be L, G, B, or T . . . YOU GOT: Marriage! A doubled Dow! DADT repeal! An averted depression! Trans inclusion! Free preventive care! Hate crimes legislation! Ended wars! Progressive Supreme Court Justices! Hospital visitation rights, immigration equality, the Army paying to fly you to a state that allows your marriage, a President making a public point to meeting with Russian LGBT dissidents, an anti-bullying program, Medals of Freedom . . . in the words of Aretha Franklin: R.E.S.P.E.C.T. All deserved the day we were born, but only delivered in the last five years. Reason enough, it seems to me, to click here and join our LGBT Leadership Council, if you can afford it, at whatever level works for you ($32,400, for sure, but $100 a month would be great, too). YOU GET: A “free” ticket to our annual LGBT Leadership Council dinner, credit toward other stuff, and – if we have the funds to plant the crucial seed corn this year – voter turn-out sufficient to hold the Senate and take back the House next year . . . and hold the WH in 2016 (voters we register in 2014 +stay+ registered for 2016; tech advances we build for 2014 become the +base+ for further tech advances in 2016). And to flip state legislatures back into progressive hands, unseat Tea Party governors – all that. Most political giving doesn’t go to the infrastructure that powers turn out, it goes to an ocean of TV advertising. Necessary, but not nearly as leveraged. This is the seed corn. We need to be planting it NOW. Join us. We have further to go. Keep the progress coming. (If you happen not to be LGBT, feel free to join anyway — or click here to help “generically” instead. Either way, I’ll see it the minute it comes through and JUMP through the screen to say thanks. This is actually how I get my exercise.)
Syria – III September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 CBRX James Valente: “What ever happened with CBRX?” It had a 1-for-8 reverse split, so if you had 800 shares before (suggested here a couple of years ago at $2.50) you now have 100 (with a basis of $20). With the stock now at $8 and change — aren’t you glad you bought it with money you could truly afford to lose? Even so, Guru reports: “They are profitable! Consensus is they’ll do 0.56/share in EPS (royalty revenue growth from partners coupled with almost no operating expense). Could grow to a $1 in four years. You can hang on. I don’t see any product excitement, but this could chug along. ” BOREF A nice overview here in the current Flight International. Also: a presentation by Wheeltug‘s CEO scheduled for Tuesday in Toulouse to the Royal Aeronautical Society has had to be moved to a larger venue — the symposium room (which fits 100 people) proved too small for demand. Which is noteworthy, because Toulouse is home to Airbus. Both these data points (and the CNBC interview linked to a few weeks ago, not to mention its letters of intent with 11 airlines) suggest that WheelTug may be well past the “kooky” stage. Indeed, its two competitors — to this layman’s eye — are at the “clunky” stage. Their solutions to the eTaxi challenge range from needlessly large and complex (Safran/Honeywell, which has signed no customers yet) to the gi-normous (what appears to be a street-sweeper size robot thing that may be an even less elegant approach). None of this guarantees success. But at a $60 million market cap — less than a fourth what this gorgeous Cezanne fetched — WheelTug’s sparsely-but-publicly-traded grandparent, Borealis, continues to strike me as an extraordinary lottery ticket. By now, I’d guess any of you with money you can truly afford to lose already have your 50 or 500 shares. Newcomers to this page should use “limit orders” if they decide to hop on, as even small orders can move the price significantly when no limit is specified. SYRIA I have a friend who, with best of intentions and purest of hearts, when faced with a difficult decision, says, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” That’s not necessarily helpful, but it sure resonates with a lot of us these days as we think about Syria. Or did, at least, before the potentially wonderful development where, just maybe, Russia will join the world in requiring Assad — and Assad has seemingly assented — to cede control of his chemical weapons (which the day before he didn’t even acknowledge having). Yes, it’s a huge challenge to secure and destroy them all, made more so in the midst of a civil war. But if Russia is pressuring its ally Assad to cooperate and the US is pressuring the rebels to cooperate (and why would they not want to see chemical weapons taken off the table?), then the “only” folks who might actively work to screw this up are Al-Qaeda and related groups . . . but presumably, they’d like to mess with or acquire those weapons no matter what action we take or fail to take. So to me, this is extremely good news . . . and conceivably the beginning of further cooperation that could help broker peace talks — but at least a way for us not to have to lob hundreds of missiles into Syria: a red line was crossed and now, although we didn’t kill anyone (least of all innocent civilians), there were consequences: we confiscated Assad’s chemical arsenal. Lots could still go wrong, and the Syrian civil war rages on, and boy is there room in the world for miscalculation and catastrophe. What else is new? But maybe this wrenching decision — should we strike Syria or not — has been sidestepped. It sure feels that way. And that would be great. An added benefit has been the quality of debate the situation has produced. Even in Congress. It wasn’t just Frank Luntz writing focus-tested talking points for the Republicans to recite, many of them misleading, and Democrats doing our typically less-than-perfect best at refuting them with talking points of our own. (If only Frank would write ours! Which at dinner one night years ago he told me that for $5 million a year he’d be happy to do. He has no particular party allegiance. He’s just good at this stuff.) So if you have the time and are not already sick of this, you might want to listen to Chris Hayes, and then read Kevin Kinsella. Both of these were written before “the Russian deal” was put on the table. Presumably, their thoughts (especially Kevin’s) may now be different. But when a lot of us were at the “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” stage just a few days ago, here’s how two very bright people of good will expressed their opposing views. First . . . A must-watch case against military action is made by Chris Hayes here — even as he acknowledges that his own father, “an ex-Jesuit community organizer and a true moral beacon in my life,” disagrees. Six minutes. And now . . . What a left-leaning California venture capitalist friend sent his Senators and Representative before things took their unexpectedly hopeful turn: Dear [ . . . . ]: I have not been vocal on much of the Congressional agenda over the years – since most of it involves domestic politics where it is usually cathartic to thrash out the various partisan points of view. But in foreign policy America must speak with one voice and that voice is the President of the United States. You are probably inundated – like most of Congress – with heavy constituent sentiment against the strike on Syria. However, I need to express my strong contrary view to you about the Syria situation. To cut to the chase, if you do not vote to support President Obama on this issue, I would most likely never support you again and I would most likely work to have you defeated. I feel that strongly about this. Why do I feel this way? Only pedantic fools (like Vladmir Putin) question the overwhelming evidence about the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. There is no question that the Syrian regime used sarin gas against its own people. That is not the issue. The issue the neo-isolationists seize upon is, “It’s not our fight. Why should we get involved?” American isolationism is a strong part of our country’s psyche, from the earliest days of the Republic when we were admonished by George Washington of the evils of foreign entanglements. But our protection by the two great oceans ended when we were attacked on December 7, 1941. But what if the isolationists in the Senate had not defeated US membership in President Wilson’s hand-crafted League of Nations after World War I and that body had prevented Hitler from occupying the Rhineland in 1936. What if the League had stood for the integrity of nation states so that irredentist ideologues like the Sudeten Germans could not dismember Czechoslovakia – and involve that hapless British Prime Minister Chamberlain in the scheme? 9/11 above all showed us again that the great oceans offer no protection. Yet, the knee-jerk isolationist impulse rises to the fore as it has so many times before in our history with disastrous consequences. But the isolationists just want to hand pick their analogies – however misplaced – that serve their purpose: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. but they don’t mention Grenada, Panama, Kosovo. In fact, brief boots on the ground or no boots on the ground, seem to have served the US and the world’s interests very well. The isolationists prevented the US from helping even Britain in the early days of World War II. The fact is that the Lend-Lease act was a legal contortion by the Roosevelt Administration to get around severe isolationist-led congressional strictures on helping belligerents. We didn’t get full on board against the monstrous ideology of National Socialism until Pearl Harbor. Europe had been completely overrun by May 1940. And just how did letting Hitler overrun all of Europe work out for us? Read the just published third volume of Rick Atkinson’s magnificent World War II trilogy, The Guns at Last Light, to see the blood and treasure expended to take back the continent of Europe after the US had stood by from September 1939 until December 1941 – more than two years before only an attack by Japan brought us into the war. Go to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam where I just visited last week. She and her sister were gassed at Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, one month before the British liberated the camp. How did the Isolationist-caused delay work out for them or the other 6 million Jews, gypsies, communists, homosexuals and political opponents of Nazism? Sadly, history so often shows us that the fight gets brought to us anyway and the flames are a lot higher than if we had put it out earlier. Isolationists are always right, of course….until they are wrong – and then they couldn’t be more disastrously wrong. Can we or should we get into every fight to right the world’s wrongs? Of course not. We indeed are not the world’s policemen. But we are the world’s 911 Marine force when there is something that can easily erupt out of hand and threaten our vital national interests. Here we are talking about not only the horror of chemical weapons but also Iran possessing nuclear weapons. And perhaps that is where the sheep and goats need to be divvied up. If as an American, you are just fine and dandy with Iran having nuclear weapons, then oppose the Syria strike – because we will surely show Iran that they can crank up those thousands of centrifuges and move full speed ahead enriching uranium to make bombs. And they will gladly start up their heavy water reactor to make plutonium weapons. The isolationists carp, “What happens next? What if Assad uses chemical weapons again? What if this, what if that?” It is impossible to decipher all the permutations of outcomes of doing practically anything, even crossing the street. But one thing is very predictable, viz., tyranny runs downhill and it needs to be blocked at every path and its direction reversed at every opportunity. Should we have a tougher agenda in Syria…including regime change? Probably. But if we take out enough of his military assets, regime change will happen of its own accord. In the end – whenever that is – Assad has to go. So we probably shouldn’t be overly concerned about when. So we’re stuck with unpredictability. But it cannot paralyze us to inaction in the face of this outrage. No one can answer all these “what if” questions, let alone the president. The better question is: What if we don’t act? Syria’s regime under the Assads has been horrific from the get-go. In 1982 when the Muslim Brotherhood began an uprising in the town of Hama, Assad Senior surrounded the town with Syrian artillery for 27 days and shelled it into oblivion. From 20,000 to 40,000 civilians were estimated to have been killed. Now we are confronted by the son’s ruthless regime which launched a poison gas attack on his own people killing 1400, among them 400 children. Do we let him get away with it? Do we send a signal to every brutal dictator in the world that anything goes … chemical, biological, nuclear weapons? Much has been made by the neo-isolationists about the legality of striking Syria. 189 countries have signed the treaty banning the use of chemical and biological weapons. Do we just sign treaties and ignore them? What is the point of having a treaty at all? The UN is just a polite debating society. And It was deliberately constructed so that the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council can veto anything that they perceive to threaten their respective vital (or not so vital) national interests. Russia certainly and probably China would use their veto to squash the Syria attack. So the mantra of getting UN approval is just nonsense. Russia who sells arms to Syria, has use of a Mediterranean port of Syria’s (the only one outside the former USSR) and who provided nuclear technology to Syria and sells them massive amounts of weapons has “unclean hands” and, in every legal system I know of, it would have to recuse itself. Not Putin – each of whose domestic political opponents ends up in jail charged with some crime. So now, what exactly is the point of seeing if the UN will act? It won’t. Remember If Russia had not been boycotting the UN Security Council in 1950 (because the US would not agree to unseat the Nationalist Chinese in favor of the Chinese Communists at the UN), the UN Resolution to turn back the overrunning of the Korean peninsula by Kim Il-sung would have been vetoed. How would that have worked out for us? It is the US role to lead because we are the Indispensable Nation. Because we are the Last Best Hope on Earth. That’s why we act. Of course we are war weary, but when a nation needs to stand up to tyranny, we live in a world of midgets. The United States of America stills needs to stand up. At the end of the day, Americans have to ask themselves, Is there nothing so outrageous – gassing children to death in their cribs – that we will not go to war for? If not us, who? If not now, when? So, I hope you will stand with common sense, decency and responsibility and show some leadership to your constituents, not just be a weather vane in the wind, tacking with every shift of public opinion. Sincerely, Kevin J. Kinsella At the time — had I been in Congress and had it come to that — I would have voted with the President. And the Secretary of State. And the former Secretary of State. And Chris Hayes’ father. And Kevin Kinsella — albeit, with misgivings. With luck, we may never get to see how that would have turned out.
Health, Education, and Weather September 10, 2013December 27, 2016 NBIX Its drug failed yesterday and the stock dropped in after-hours trading from $16.70 to around $11. Still better than the $2.60 we paid for it three years ago. Guru thinks it might fall further before — perhaps — at some point getting its groove back. Others think it’s now a bargain again. I no longer own it. KYTH Suggested here at $22.70 in May, it touched $32 last night. I hold on — with money I can truly afford to lose. EDUCATION Yesterday: heath care. It looks as though Obamacare, for all the hysterical opposition to it, is going to make America better . . . just as the first Clinton budget — which evoked predictions of doom and not a single Republican vote — kicked off eight years of tremendous progress. Today: education. Specifically, an assessment of the President’s latest education initiative from my friend Zac Bissonnette (Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching off My Parents): . . . Obama’s plan to rate colleges based on affordability and then use those rankings to target federal aid is smart, and he’s brave for pushing for it; you can tell it’s a good idea because the higher education establishment hates it. It’s still in the early stages, and the notion of colleges losing federal money because of low affordability ratings is a long way off. But the goal is to shift higher-education funding away from schools that make America worse and into schools that make America better. That’s revenue neutral, and conservatives and liberals and everyone else should love it. THE WEATHER You know the famous, faceless unknown “they”? Who do so much? (“Why do they do it that way?” “What were they thinking?” “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”) Like — say — the folks who name hurricanes? And, now, winter storms? My friend and your fellow reader, Bryan Norcross, names them! In this case, he’s “they!” I get excited just having his cell phone number. I’m that close to the center of power. (“I hope,” as Ugarte says to Rick in Casablanca, “you are more impressed with me now.”) Anyway, there’s a movement afoot, in the form of a two-minute video millions of people have now seen, to get Bryan and the other “they’s” involved in this to come up with different names. Watch. It’s fun. And — oddly — important. # Don’t miss the president tonight. These are consequential times.
Healthcare.gov September 9, 2013September 7, 2013 How do you build the capacity to handle tens of millions of visitors at once? I can’t imagine healthcare.gov will not have problems October 1, when it’s supposed to go fully live with actual prices you would pay for various insurance options. Look at how hard it was to get Burning Man tickets when they went on sale — and there were only 70,000 people trying. But even if the first few days of October prove challenging for healthcare.gov as Obamacare finally rolls out for real, it will be worth the hassle. And you don’t have to wait until October 1 to explore the site. For example, this section explains how Obamacare improves your health care security — even if you’re already covered. The truth is, almost everyone will get a better deal from Obamacare, one way or another (not least because it will improve the overall health of our citizenry and our economy), which — there being no free lunch — is made possible in two main ways: First, income above $250,000 will be taxed a little more heavily (though at nothing like the rates that prevailed in, say, “the good old days” of the Fifties), which is why Obamacare, even with all its extra benefits (like free preventive care) is projected to shrink the federal deficit. Second, lots of provisions in the bill push the system toward more efficiency. And boy, is there room for improvement. It will be a long time (like: never) before we get our health care spending in line with the rest of the modern world — because the rest of the modern world has some variant of single-payer government health care, which we understand to be evil in some way. Pity the miserable Canadians. Pity the miserable Europeans. (This site purports to show a “happiness” index, and we rank ahead of all those countries!* And if you set all the sliders to zero, except health care, to isolate just the health care element of happiness, we still rank ahead of all of them!** ) But we don’t have to accept the tyranny of communist Canada to at least narrow the gap, because that gap is so wide. Right now, the modern nations spend 9% to 12% of GDP on health care — to our 17.9%. Yet their outcomes are generally better. And the Republicans in Congress are fighting desperately to keep it that way. It’s almost all they can think about, having now voted 40 times to repeal it. They urgently want to repeal it or defund it or just find some way to be make sure it doesn’t work. Just as they block the effort to put people to work modernizing our decaying infrastructure. And work to discourage young people from voting. Their singular focus and great success of the last few decades: lowering taxes for the wealthy, whom they see — incorrectly — as “the job creators.” Anyway, Obamacare is coming. Check out healthcare,gov to see how it might affect you. It will have problems; but — as President Clinton explained so well last week in Little Rock — the thing to do about that is just get together and fix them. What a concept. *Except five **Except nine.