Tzipi Livni: The Latest Great Western Hope

Tzipi Livni was best friends forever with Secretary of State Condi Rice during the second Bush term and appeared on many lists of influential women. Tzipi Livni, the former leader of Kadima, was the latest but not the last of a string of Great Western Hopes in Israel who are more loved in America and Europe than in their own country. They are polyglot and erudite men and woman known for their reasonableness and learning. They explain Israel to the world and attempt to explain the world to Israel. All have been foreign ministers at one time or another and two have been prime ministers and a third--Livni--nearly became prime minister.

The first Great Western Hope was Moshe Sharett (ne Shertok) who served as foreign minister under David Ben-Gurion and was himself prime minister for about eighteen months while Ben-Gurion was recharging his batteries at Kibbutz Sde Boker.  Ben-Gurion returned to become Sharett's defense minister in 1955 and soon had outmaneuvered him to become prime minister again so that he could go to war against Egypt.  Sharett was the dovish alternative to Ben-Gurion, but he was a false alternative. This is because he was much more comfortable as an apologist for policies formulated by others than as a decision maker making tough decisions. He was unwilling to fight Ben-Gurion over his activist policies in the conflict. He was foreign minister at a time when the West was not yet enough engaged in the Arab-Israeli conflict--or at least not in a diplomatic mediatory mode--to need a Great Western Hope.

The next was Abba Eban, who like Sharett was a professional diplomat. Eban was fluent in about seven languages. He majored in Oriental (Middle Eastern) languages at Cambridge. After serving as ambassador to the United Nations he became the foreign minister under Golda Meir. He talked about the 1967 borders as Auschwitz borders but secretly was willing to return to them in exchange for peace. He like Sharett was more loved in the United States than in Israel, where he was considered to be too much of a compromiser. In 1971 Sadat offered an interim agreement to Golda Meir but against Eban's advice she turned down even exploratory negotiations. In December 1973 he represented Israel at the peace conference in Geneva that served as a cover for Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy. In early 1974 he represented Israel in the early Kissinger shuttle diplomacy where Kissinger negotiated a separation-of-forces agreement along the canal after Israel had suffered nearly 3,000 dead in the Yom Kippur War. But in June 1974 he lost his position after seven years to Yigal Allon and retired to a life of writing his memoirs, histories of Israel and the Jews and making TV programs.

The next Great Western Hope was Shimon Peres, but only after he ceased to be a hawk and became a dove as opposition leader. He converted as a result of Sadat's journey to Jerusalem and the influence of his younger advisors like Yossi Beilin who later became leader of Meretz. Peres was ambitious but politically inept and lost more elections for prime minister than any other leader in Israeli politics. He was the Henry Clay--Lincoln's model as statesman--of Israeli politics. He was a bitter rival of Yitzhak Rabin for two decades until the two declared an uneasy truce in order to make peace together with the Palestinians. He served as prime minister from mid-1984 to October 1986 and again from November 1995 to June 1996 following Rabin's murder. He lost the election to Netanyahu but twice returned to serve temporarily as head of the Labor Party before he finally bolted to join Sharon in Kadima. Active in Israeli politics for sixty years he began his career as the protege of Ben-Gurion at the defense ministry. His peak was from 1984 to 1996 when he twice served as prime minister, then as foreign minister and then finance minister under Shamir before serving as Rabin's foreign minister. Neither Rabin nor Shamir completely trusted him. He was defeated for president in July 2000 but was elected as a replacement for a disgraced Likud president in 2006.

Peres earned his reputation as the Great Western Hope by several moves. In the summer of 1978 he met Anwar Sadat in Vienna in support of a peace agreement when the peace process seemed to be lagging. In March 1979 he and the Labor Party voted in favor of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty when several influential Likud hawks like future Foreign and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir  and future Foreign and Defense Minister Moshe Arens abstained in the vote. Then as prime minister in 1984 he withdrew Israeli troops from central and most of southern Lebanon. He also put hyper-inflation under control. In 1986 after becoming foreign minister he negotiated a secret deal with King Hussein of Jordan to convene an international peace conference. But because Shamir opposed the conference Secretary of State George Schultz refused to back up the idea and it was stillborn. In 1994 he and his aide Yossi Beilin were the architects of the Oslo Process. In 1995 he negotiated most of the details of the Oslo II agreement that had the IDF pull out of the towns of the West Bank. And in the winter of 1996 he negotiated with President Hafiz al-Assad about a return of the Golan to Syria.

Livni became the latest Great Western Hope in 2006 when she became Ehud Olmert's foreign minister. The daughter of a former Etzel (Irgun) leader in Jerusalem, she served in the Mossad as an attorney after graduating from law school. The least prominent of the group of Likud "princes"--the children of prominent figures from Herut and the Likud that included Benny Begin, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, Dan Meridor, Ehud Olmert, and Tzahi Hanegbi--she only attained prominence under Sharon. With Ehud Olmert weakened in the Second Lebanon War Livni emerged as the leading figure in the party. But when Olmert resigned as party leader in late 2008 over legal problems stemming from corruption charges, Livni was unable to form a coalition government because she refused to give in to Shas's blackmail. She was too principled for Israeli politics. In December 2008 she defended Israel's invasion of Gaza. Livni then refused to join Netanyahu's coalition  after  she emerged as the leader of the largest party (by a single seat) but was again unable to form a coalition. Not very dynamic as a leader of a deeply-divided party she managed to hold Kadima together longer than any Center party in Israeli history. She will probably now retire from politics.

What these four politicians have in common is that they are considered at home to be squishy visionaries who are soft on the Arab question. They are more at home in international gatherings than in the rough and tumble world of Israeli politics. They to a large extent were responsible for Israel's good reputation in the West.

So far the Likud has failed to produce its Great Western Hope. The closest to that function was Moshe Dayan who served as Begin's foreign minister in his first government from 1977 to 1980. But Dayan never joined the Likud. Weizman also served in that function but he left the Likud in 1981 after resigning as defense minister. The closest thing among the current generation in the Likud is Dan Meridor, who has never served as foreign minister. Barak is serving as Netanyahu's Dayan equivalent, but he too has yet to join the party.

7 Deadliest Sins Causing The American Empire Collapse

Many people in America are still holding on to “hope and change” that the Obama administration would save them and the world from a devastating financial collapse. Gerald Celente has called out to the American people to stop believing in hope and change and immediately get into survival mode. As there is no recovery going on in the US (despite everything that the government is telling the people), many economic analysts predict that the American Empire is going to collapse very soon, and the collapse will be as severe as the Zimbabwean collapse. Another forecast say that America is turning into a third world nation, some even mentioned it will become as bad as the Indonesian economy under Soeharto.

There is so much that we can learn from people who understand the economy, are economic analysts and/ or are successful business people themselves, such as Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Gerald Celente and others, I have listed the 7 sins of the American government that have caused them to fall into a great collapse. Here they are

Deadliest Sin #1 – Giving Authority and Sovereignty of America into the Hands of Banks and Money

Although you may believe all you want that Obama is a good man and a good President, unfortunately he is not the one who is running the country. Politicians and the government are not the ones ruling over America, it is the bank and money. Read more.....

If You Don't Know This You Are Doomed

It's pretty obvious that the big-shot bankers on Wall Street have been getting richer and richer during this economic crisis, while your friends and family members haven't.

Well if you're interested in cracking open the "black-box investing strategies" of the rich, so you can see how they're doing it, you've gotta check out this video Mike Dillard just posted...

Despite the fact that he's not an investor, trader, or financial guru of any kind, he's made a 280% return since 2008, while the rest of the world has lost 30-40% of their portfolio. Read more.....

How the Affordable Care Act Helps the U.S. Economy

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether President Obama’s healthcare legislation is constitutional. It’s easy to get lost in tedious legal details, but let’s not neglect the critical patient at the heart of this case: the U.S. economy. If we don’t take bold steps to reinvent our healthcare system, that patient will decline and die.

The current healthcare system threatens our prosperity in three ways: It burdens the overall economy; it undermines individual businesses and the jobs they provide; and it saps the productivity of American workers. These threats confront both those of us who have insurance and those of us who don’t.

Our current healthcare system burdens the overall economy because it is far too expensive compared to the health benefits it delivers. In fact, the United States spends about 50 percent more on healthcare than any other developed country (as a fraction of our total national economy) and we get less for it on the measures that matter. What matters is how long people live and how healthy they are, not how many coronary bypasses were performed. As a former management consultant, I can tell you that no CEO would tolerate a division that spent 50 percent more than its competitors, and didn’t have much better results to show for it. Read more.....

Learn to Code in College Without Breaking the Bank

It's no secret that the online and offline worlds are one and the same these days. More than 1.2 billion people worldwide over the age of 15 regularly access the Internet, and nearly one in every five minutes spent online is dedicated to social networking sites, according to a December 2011 report by comScore.

The growth in a digital-dependent society is reflected in the job market, where the U. S. Department of Labor predicts employment opportunities for computer programmers and software engineers to increase more than 20 percent through 2018.

While computer programming may not appeal to all, there are benefits to learning the basics, notes Dmitry Grekov, a technology consultant based in Chicago.

"Even in most blue-collar jobs, you are going to be interacting with computers in some shape or form," Grekov says. "Knowing basic programming can make you more efficient [and] more valuable to your employer."

In addition to looking great on a résumé, coding introduces students to a new style of thinking, says Charles Isbell, associate dean for academic affairs at Georgia Tech's College of Computing.

"It goes beyond coding—it's computational thinking," Isbell says. "For the same reason everyone should take some history and political science—it's the style of thinking that's important. The way of thinking about addressing problems [in computer programming] is an important skill to have." Read more........

When will America Collapse? Today's bad news provide a timeline to Economic Collapse

Double dip recessions, falling home prices, mortgage foreclosures, high unemployment, tight oil supply and rising sovereign debt are today's news. What does tomorrow hold for us? By examining today's news we can look at one possible scenario and the future isn't pretty.

The beginning has just begun. Balfour Beattie are to lose 12-15000 jobs soon. Petrol panic buying causing mayhem today in the UK. Soon the governments across the world will create anther 9/11 to scare the crap out of you. Meltdown is on its way and with that will come martial law. Our right to freedom have gone. America has fema camps trains all in place these are the new work camps.Our imprisonment has always been their but now we can clearly see what is coming. stockpile food and weapons. Read more.....

The Sad Truth To Why Most People May Not Wake Up!

For a short ten minutes they manage to fit in a lot of the important things.

A few short years ago many of us were being laughed at for bringing these issues to light but now people are waking up by the millions as to how they've been controlled and lied to over the years.

If you happen to have already seen this - its worth passing on, some pretty hard proof of what we are trying to tell people! Excellent video! Read more.....

Household Net Worth: The "Real" Story

Note from dshort: With today's release of the Fed Flow of Funds for Q4 2011, I have updated this commentary to reflect the latest data.

A quick glance at the complete quarterly data series in linear chart suggests a bubble in net worth that peaked in Q2 2007 with a trough in Q1 2009, the same quarter that the markets bottomed. The latest Fed balance sheet shows a total net worth that is 15.9% above the 2009 trough but still 12.5% below the 2007 peak. The positive news in the Q4 balance sheet is that real total net worth has increased 2.1% from Q3 of 2011, although the year-over-year number is a fractional decline of 0.6%.

But there are problems with this analysis. Over the six decades of this data series, total net worth has grown by 5000%. A linear vertical scale on the chart above is misleading in its failure to provide an accurate visual illustration of growth over time. It also gives an exaggerated dimension to the bubble that began in 2002.

But there is another problem, one that has to do with the data itself rather than the method of display. Over the same time frame that net worth grew 5000%, the value of the 1951 dollar shrank to about 10.5 cents. The Federal Reserve gives us the nominal value of total net worth, which is significantly skewed by money illusion. Here is my own log scale chart adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. Read more.....

The Top Three Myths about Women Investors

Successful marketing requires an understanding of your target market. Too often, however, advisors are misled by outdated industry ideas and strategies that have shifted over time. Advisors who target women investors should avoid myth-based errors that others have made.

My friend, whom I’ll call Lauren (she requested I use a pseudonym), is a successful consultant with a good reputation and an international resume. She enjoys her considerable disposable income, her spacious Chicago condo, and weekends at her vacation home in Wisconsin.

But she doesn’t especially like her financial advisor.

“I need to be more proactive about investing and money in general, but I don’t have the extra time to focus on it,” she told me recently over drinks on her poolside terrace. ”My current advisor is okay, but he doesn’t really feel right to me.”

Why not? What does an advisor have to do to “feel right” to her? What’s Lauren looking for and, in general when it comes to financial advisors, what do women really want?

My firm, Invesco, set out to answer those questions with a series of qualitative focus groups in the US and Canada. Women participating in the groups already worked with financial advisors and had at least $100,000 of investable assets; many of them had much more. What we heard surprised us – and what was even more interesting was what we didn’t hear. Read more.....

What is Constitutional Money?

Rep. Ron Paul sponsored this Congressional lecture on "What is Constitutional Money?", part two of a three part series on the basic principles of money for Congressional staff. As a continuing educational tool this lecture was filmed and is provided to the public. The lecture was delivered by Edwin Vieira, Jr., J.D., Ph.D, the author of the definitive work on Constitutional money, Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution.

Dr. Vieira's lecture explores the development of the American monetary system from colonial times through the creation of the Federal Reserve System, explaining the constitutional underpinnings of our money and the erosion of that legal framework over 200+ years of monetary history. He also explains his plan to return to sound money, outlining the grim ramifications of continuing on a fiat money standard. Read more.....

Global economic collapse and one-world government by 2012, says evangelist

Revealed for the first time: The truth about Angels from Heaven … Armageddon … Israel’s Role in Prophecy … The Y2012 Crisis … The Rapture … The Mark of the Beast

THE world as we know is vanishing and will disappear in an earth-shaking series of Year 2012 events that are clearly laid out in prophecies appearing in the Holy Bible for everyone to see.

And contrary to what many clergymen have told their flocks, that God frowns on fortune-telling and has hidden the future from us, an increasing number of religious experts - from Pope Benedict XVI and the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham to hometown ministers from coast to coast - are taking a closer look at Bible passages, prophecies and symbols and using them to predict with startling precision what they are convinced is the shape of things to come.

“This isn’t the time to quibble over what God wants us to know and what He doesn’t want us to know,” Detroit, Michigan-based Dr. Roger Philpen, who is widely believed to have been the first Christian minister to have preached the gospel via short-wave to people in every country on Earth, told me exclusively.

“If God didn’t want us to predict the future and act on it, why did He use over one-third of the Bible to map the future in finely-detailed warnings and prophecies that predict our future? Read more.....

The Two Questions that Matter Most

Two questions stand out amid the complexity of the current economic and market environment, according to Jeffrey Gundlach, both of which relate to critical elements of fiscal and monetary policy and should guide portfolio construction for investors.

Gundlach, who is the founder and chief investment officer of DoubleLine funds, spoke to investors in a conference call last Tuesday. The title of his talk was the “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” The US economy, he said, is on a path that bears alarming similarities to the one that befell the Romans in the fifth century.

Gundlach’s two questions were when the Fed will increase interest rates and what effect the end of fiscal stimulus measures will have on the economy. I’ll return to why he said those questions are critical to investor’s decisions, but first let’s look at Gundlach’s parallels between the US today and the Romans a millennium-and-a-half ago.

Republicrats and perpetual dictators

The Roman Empire was founded in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar was appointed as a “perpetual dictator.” Gundlach said that reminded him of what is currently going on in Washington, DC. Read more......

Gerald Celente Predicts Economic Armageddon by 2012

Sell some of your assests i.e. real estate, keep your money at home not in the bank, buy precious metals, buy reseves of food,buy forms of protection, and hope for the best. When not to do this...when oil hits 200 a barrel or greater, when bankholidays(banks lock you out from withdrawing your own money) start happening globally, and when its to late.

A few years back someone who lived in Florida told me the city went from yard to yard and cut down fruit trees in people's back yards, when people complained they were just told it was an accident. There is definitely something happening here where we will be manipulated by our food supply, or the lack thereof. America is not the bread basket of the world anymore. We get wheat from China & remember the pet deaths in 97? it was from Chinese melamine tainted wheat gluten. Read more........

Shaul Mofaz decisively beats Tzipi Livni in Kadima Primary

At about midnight Israel time this morning with about 90 percent of the vote returned, challenger Shaul Mofaz had beaten incumbent leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party in Israel by a margin of 62 to 38 percent--the same margin by which Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972. There was a turnout of about 45 percent for the internal election indicating that many who had voted for the party in 2009 had abandoned it. Mofaz, who emigrated from Iran as a boy in the 1950s served as chief of staff of the IDF and then as Likud defense minister under Ariel Sharon. Initially when Sharon bolted the Likud to form Kadima, Mofaz remained behind in the Likud but then was persuaded by Sharon to follow. Tzipi Livni, who served as Kadima foreign minister under Ehud Olmert from 2006 to 2008 before becoming party leader, has not indicated what she will do now. Mofaz called on her to remain in the party. But many have speculated that she will either withdraw from politics entirely or form a new party with Ehud Barak's Atzmaut (Independence) faction.  This is because both Kadima and Atzmaut are parties without developed ideologies. Both Mofaz and the media were very hard on Livni for failing to form a governing coalition in late 2008, which forced elections, and then for refusing to join Netanyahu's ruling coalition. There was also speculation that Mofaz might return to the Likud if he lost his second bid for the party leadership.

Kadima's future course won't be clear until after a general election in Israel is held, probably in the fall of 2012 or the winter of 2013. In Israeli politics former generals seem to have a preference for going into a coalition or remaining there rather than staying in the opposition out of principle. The first former general to enter the Israeli Right, Ezer Weizman, was upset when Menahem Begin pulled his then Herut Party out of the first government of national unity in 1970. Yitzhak Rabin was upset when he lost the defense ministry due to a bid by Labor leader Shimon Peres to form a narrow coalition of the Center-Left in 1990. Both Barak and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer supported Labor joining the Likud in a coalition government in 2001. Former generals tend to look upon a government ministry as another command--a stepping stone on the way to becoming defense minister or prime minister as regional or branch commands in the army were stepping stones on the way to becoming chief of staff.

Polls indicate that Kadima will probably win between 10 and 13 seats in the next election, down from 28 at present, making the party a medium-size party like Labor or Avigdor Leiberman's Israel Beitenu. Ehud Olmert, attending the J Street conference in Washington, called for a ruling coalition of medium-size and small parties of the Left and Center to keep Netanyahu out of power. But the math and ideology is unlikely to support such a coalition.

Some Justices Question Health Law’s Constitutionality

U.S. Supreme Court justices hinted they might strike down President Barack Obama’s health-care law as the court’s Republican appointees suggested Congress went too far by requiring Americans obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

On the second of three days of arguments in the historic case, justices’ questions indicated they might split 5-to-4, with the court’s five Republican appointees joining together to overturn the law.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said the measure is unlike others the court upheld previously because it tells individuals they “must act.” Kennedy, who most often occupies the court’s ideological middle ground, said, “That changes the relationship of the government to the individual in the very fundamental way.”

The law would extend coverage to 32 million people and revamp an industry that accounts for 18 percent of the U.S. economy. The court hasn’t overturned a measure with such sweeping impact since the 1930s, when it voided parts of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the package of economic programs enacted in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. Read more......

Obama Relies on Debt Collectors Profiting From Student Loan Woe

The debt collector on the other end of the phone gave Oswaldo Campos an ultimatum:

Pay $219 a month toward his more than $20,000 in defaulted student loans, or Pioneer Credit Recovery, a contractor with the U.S. Education Department, would confiscate his pay. Campos, disabled from liver disease, makes about $20,000 a year.

“We’re not playing here,” Campos recalled the collector telling him in December. “You’re dealing with the federal government. You have no other options.”

Campos agreed to have the money deducted each month from his bank account, even though federal student-loan rules would let him pay less and become eligible for a plan -- approved by Congress and touted by President Barack Obama -- requiring him to lay out about $50 a month. To satisfy Pioneer, Campos borrowed from friends, cut meat from his diet and stopped buying gas to drive his 82-year-old mother to doctor’s visits for her Parkinson’s Disease.

With $67 billion of student loans in default, the Education Department is turning to an army of private debt-collection companies to put the squeeze on borrowers. Working on commissions that totaled about $1 billion last year, these government contractors face growing complaints that they are violating federal laws by insisting on stiff payments, even when borrowers’ incomes make them eligible for leniency. Read more.....

Three views of American power

The inescapable foreign-policy issue for U.S. presidential candidates this year is whether American power is declining and, if so, what to do about it. This strategic conundrum lies behind every challenge the U.S. faces, from Egypt to Afghanistan to China.

For your election-year reading table, I recommend three new books that tee up this question of American power and offer different conclusions. If candidates could honestly debate the issues raised in these books, maybe we could get beyond the slogan-filled evocations of the past — the idealized “shining city on the hill” — and frame policies that fit the real world.

My book-club selections are “The World America Made,” by Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution; “Liberal Leviathan” by John Ikenberry of Princeton; and “No One’s World,” by Charles Kupchan of Georgetown.

These are serious, scholarly books, but they go to questions that every voter can understand: Is America’s position in the world eroding? Can the U.S. bounce back, and what’s the right recovery strategy? Or is the liberal international order we’ve known since 1945 giving way to something different and disorderly, no matter what we do? Read more......

Health Care Jujitsu

Not surprisingly, today's debut Supreme Court argument over the so-called "individual mandate" requiring everyone to buy health insurance revolved around epistemological niceties such as the meaning of a "tax," and the question of whether the issue is ripe for review.

Behind this judicial foreplay is the brute political fact that if the Court decides the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the entire law starts unraveling.

But with a bit of political jujitsu, the president could turn any such defeat into a victory for a single-payer healthcare system -- Medicare for all.

Here's how.

The dilemma at the heart of the new law is that it continues to depend on private health insurers, who have to make a profit or at least pay all their costs including marketing and advertising. Read more.......

Give $500 per month to each U.S. Citizen as a Resolution to Our Economic Problems

In this essay I want to propose that the U.S. Treasury should give every U.S. Citizen $500 per month indefinitely. This view is very similar to the Social Credit ideas proposed by economist C. H. Douglas (1879–1952).

The dominant economic theme in the U.S. and the world economy today is: Factory over-capacity and lots of willing, and able labor which goes unemployed. I propose that we use this idle factory and people capacity by stimulating demand. I propose we give $500 per month to every U.S. Citizen indefinitely without regard to their current income or anything else. Rich, poor, young and old would receive this credit (i.e., cash). Even those currently on public assistance would receive this benefit. This rule also simplifies the implementation of this idea. The rich and the well-to-do may not even spend most of the cash given to them which is ok because the middle class, the poor and the unemployed are likely to spend most of the benefit.

The cost of this benefit would be about $1.85 trillion a year (about 12.5% of forecasted 2010 GDP). I am not proposing taxes be raised or other spending be cut. So where will the money come from? The money is already there in the form of idle capacity. This idle capacity consists of world manufacturing capacity running at record low utilization rate and hoards of healthy, willing, able, disciplined and educated labor (i.e., the unemployed). Read more...

Modern Monetary System: There Is Another Way

Modern monetary theory seems almost too good be true. It seems as if "one is getting something for nothing". Too many people who understand and write about modern monetary systems are very professor-ish and don't really answer the basic question: How can one get something for nothing?
We do get something -- a lot, actually -- for very little effort. How?

All goods and services (i.e., wealth) creation involves not only production (the engineering part) which is easy to see but also exchange (i.e., trading of one’s produced output for produced output of another person). The exchange part is hard to see unless one is involved in barter. Getting money for one’s produced output and buying other people's produced output with that money is just an extremely efficient form of barter. Therefore, going through this thing called "money" makes barter (trading) extremely efficient. So, there you have it. One is getting something (one becomes extremely efficient at barter) by using fiat money that costs very little to produce.

Of course, the producer (the seller) must trust that the money received will retain its value over time to a sufficient degree. This is the main challenge of all currency management by governments or anyone else: Maintain the trust. Currency failure occurs when this trust is compromised (actual rampant inflation or an expectation of rampant inflation). Read more......

Inequality of wealth and income in the Great Depression

Marriner S. Eccles, who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's Chairman of the Federal Reserve from November 1934 to February 1948, detailed what he believed caused the Depression in his memoirs, Beckoning Frontiers (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951).

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery. [Emphasis in original.]

Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped. Read more......

Here is how the banker's game works

Here is how the banker's game works:

1) Get the government to issue some currency (cash -- paper or reserves at the central bank -- reserves are government issued cash central bank deposits). Government issued cash is around 5% of the currency (money) supply. The government issued currency is put into circulation by the government simply spending it.


2) The rest (95%) of the currency is issued by the private banks. Each customer loan is a new bank deposit (i.e., new currency) and increases the currency (money) supply of the economy. Note that this newly created money (currency) is put into circulation by the borrower spending it. Most currency (about 95% America's currency supply) has been borrowed into existence and when bank customer pays the loan back that amount of currency is removed from circulation. The banking system cannot go backwards (fewer net loans) as time moves on because fewer net loans means less currency in circulation in the economy.

Accumulation of interest charges on outstanding loans means that the currency supply must constantly increase even if it means giving out lower quality loans. Think of it like a plane flying it must fly at some minimum speed or else the plane (the banking system) will crash (i.e., banking system collapse). Read more..,,,,,,,

Obama's "All-Of-The Above" Oil/Energy Policy Misguidedly Leaves Much Off The Table

On March 22 in Cushing, Okla. -- a municipality core to the nation's oil and gas industry, as it represents the cited location for domestic crude oil deliveries and is central to the determination of the 'WTI' (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil price quoted on the commodity exchanges -- President Obama, while rationalizing his holding back approval of the full Keystone Pipeline project because of environmental concerns, assured his audience that the southern leg of the Keystone route, from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast, would become "a priority."

Well thank you, Mr. President. Without the flow-through originating in Alberta, Keystone's point of origin, you will be helping to increase the price of oil by some $20 a barrel. You see, Cushing is choking with oil -- its storage capacity filled to the rafters from the new shale oil wells in North Dakota, Wyoming and on. It has brought the price of U.S. quoted crude oil to a discount of some $20 per barrel compared to that of the quoted price of Brent crude (Brent $125.13/bbl vs WTI 106.87/bbl). With the new pipeline in place, and without the back up of Alberta oil, that difference will all but disappear and we will all be paying higher prices for gasoline. Read more.......

Who Are America's 6 Richest Women?

Forbes' comprehensive list of the world's billionaires (there are 1226) came out recently, and we were curious -- are there women on the list?

Turns out, there are. Yes, men far outnumber the ladies. But starting at number 11, women help fill out the ranks of the fabulously wealthy.

Where do these fortunes come from? Uniformly, these top six women have shrewdly managed the companies and fortunes handed to them by husbands and fathers. But most of these women have put in their own hard work into these companies to grow them, especially the woman who is now president of Fidelity Investments. (Because women do make better investors!)

Of course, it took a few generations for these fortunes to build up, and many of the male billionaires on Fortunes' list are, well, advanced in age, having worked hard for their wealth over a lifetime. We're looking forward to a few years down the road when the list is populated by many more women and their own companies, instead of those founded by the the men in their lives. Read more.....

The Future of the U.S. Economy: 2050

Think back to 1967. The job you have today may not even have existed. The Internet, and all the jobs that have come with it, were decades away. The Detroit automakers were dominant. Quality of life was different, too: The median household income was an inflation-adjusted $40,261, compared with $50,303 in 2008. There were also a hundred million fewer of us; 1967 was the year the U.S. population hit 200 million. We passed the 300 million mark in 2006, and by 2050, there will very likely be more than 400 million Americans. The lifestyle of the average American may change just as much from 2010 to 2050 as it did from 1967 to 2006. The economy will especially undergo change.

Joel Kotkin, distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, has spent a lot of time thinking about exactly what those changes might look like in 2050. He previously wrote a book about the history of American cities, but in his new book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, he looks ahead to how recent economic and demographic trends may play out over the next few decades. Here are a few of the book's most striking predictions. Read more.....

The Best Jobs of 2012

Telecommuting and flex-time privileges might have made the world of work more comfortable, but they've also made the lines between our work life and the rest of our life less visible. This isn't an open letter of complaint, however. The truth is that we're a society that lives, and loves, to work.

So it's important to be a society that loves the work it does.

Each year, U.S. News compiles a list of the Best Careers based on the Labor Department's employment projections. And this year, we continue to base our picks for the Best Jobs of 2012 on professions that should hire abundantly over the next several years. To better help you make a smart career choice, we've also started ranking our selections.

Jobs from quick-to-hire industries made our list: business, creative services, healthcare, science & technology, and social services. John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas predicts many of these sectors will overlap, with one industry standing the tallest. "Healthcare has become the core industry in this country, just like manufacturing in another era," he says. "It's a confluence of forces causing this, including the science involved in uncovering new frontiers, the aging of the population, and government's commitment to providing healthcare to a broader generation of people. That causes job growth in several sectors." Read more......

J Street, Post-Zionism and the Two-State Solution

This weekend J Street, the liberal Zionist pro-peace lobby, will be holding its third conference since its founding in 2008. In 2009 it attracted 1500 people to its first conference, this expanded to over 2,000 at its second conference last year, and it is expected to have over 2500 attendees for its third conference. This has worried the Zionist Right in America, aligned behind the dominant Likud Party and the other parties of the ruling coalition. They have been very inventive in the ways they attack it, which mainly amounts to guilt by association and obfuscation.  But J Street may not be much of a threat to their Greater Israel project.

David Frum, a former Bush administration official and a columnist at The Daily Beast, had a column in which he claimed that Post-Zionists were Anti-Zionists. Post-Zionism was a term coined in the 1990s to cover the Zionist members of the Israeli New Historians school of historiography.  The New Historians are/were a group of Israeli historians that wrote about Israeli history outside of the prevailing Zionist narrative. They range from Benny Morris and Tom Segev who are definitely Zionists, to Ilan Pappe who is definitely anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian to Avi Shlaim who is in exile in London and is highly critical of Israel and Zionism but supports the existence of Israel. The term was then applied to the Meretz Party and to the left wing of the Labor Party to mean those who were critical of Israel as well as of the Palestinians. Frum has reapplied it to refer to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that wants to start an economic campaign against Israel proper. His justification is that some liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart, a featured speaker at this J Street conference, are advocating a boycott of products produced by Jews living in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Daily Commentary Magazine, one of the original platforms of the neo-Conservative movement, sends out an email, which often attacks J Street. It does this by attacking progressive or radical organizations that J Street refuses to condemn, such as the Occupy movement, because J Street's pool of supporters share many positions in common with them. 

The Zionist Right in both Israel and America see J Street as a threat because it genuinely supports a two-state solution with the Palestinians, instead of paying lip service to it while building settlements meant to make it impossible. But this may soon be irrelevant because of developments in both Israeli and Palestinian politics.

On Tuesday the Kadima Party holds its leadership primary to determine who will lead the party into elections late this year or early next year (Netanyahu has not yet set a date for the general election). The two main contenders are former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is also the opposition leader. Polls put the party in the 10-13 seat range in the next election or less than half of what it won in 2009. It will be about the same size as Labor and Israel Beitenu, the latter being the party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman. With Kadima at this size the Center-Left will be too small to form a governing coalition without participation by the Likud or other parties of the Right. 

Meanwhile a similar situation prevails among Palestinians between the former ruling Fatah and Hamas. Many Palestinians see the two-state solution as having passed its sell-by date (the date printed on perishable food items) and now serving only as a cover for further settlement.

J Street is ostensibly dedicated to facilitating a two-state solution by lobbying for such a solution in Washington. But in reality it may really be aimed at extracting more contributions for liberal Democratic candidates from liberal Jews and to keep American Jewish youth involved in Zionist issues. But its alarmist rhetoric of now or never for a two-state solution may well backfire. Politics weren't right for a two-state solution in Obama's first term. They appear highly unlikely to be ripe--for the reasons listed above--during his second term. The Republicans aren't interested in mediating a two-state solution as they are beholden to the Evangelical base that supports the Israeli Right. If J Street continues with its rhetoric it may well neutralize the college students that it is presently bringing into the liberal Zionist fold as the next generation. They might actually come to believe in that rhetoric and so drop out of the struggle once the two-state solution is deferred again.

Bertie Ahern to be expelled from Fianna Fail?

There were two stories of interest today in Irish Central's Newshound site dedicated to Northern Ireland politics. One is that an official Irish commission, the Mahon Commission, has found that former Taoiseach (Prime Minister pronounced teeshuck) Bertie Ahern, was less than honest about the source of his wealth. The other is that his party that he led to victory three times (1997, 2002, 2007) as the most successful party leader since Eamon de Valera, the party's founder, is seeking to expel him for corruption. Ahern collaborated with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in bringing peace to Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2007. Stephen Collins, the Irish Times political reporter and the author of a very good book on Fianna Fail from the 1970s to 2000 as well as a biography of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey, writes that expelling Ahern will be the easy part for the party. It will be much harder for the party to recover its reputation that it lost as a result of the economic collapse in 2010. A disclosure, two years ago I was researching Fianna Fail for a project to compare it with Israel's Likud Party. I turned to Collins to advise me on bibliography.

For observers of Irish politics what happens to Fianna Fail is of great interest. It should, however, also be of interest to those interested in the future of the Middle East peace process. Here is why.

Fianna Fail was the dominant part in Irish politics during the post-partition period from its founding in 1926. It twice went sixteen years in office without interruption and when the opposition came to power, it was usually to give FF a break of only three or four years. This dominance was based upon three things: a flexible economic policy, a policy of posturing in foreign policy, and a reputation for piety. The party appealed to the rural peasantry and workers by its support for the Irish language, calls for a united Ireland and attacks on Britain, and its economic populism. Like many a post-colonial revolutionary regime in the Third World it also helped to keep its electorate poor through its autarkic economic policies. 

In a new constitution written by Taoiseach Eamon de Valera and adopted in 1937 Ireland establishes a constitutional claim to the territory of Northern Ireland. It only ended that claim by altering the two relevant articles, 2 and 3, in 1999 as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. So for 62 years Ireland had an official policy of irredentism or pining after lost territory. 

Fatah, the dominant party in Palestinian politics from its founding in 1958 until 2006, had a similar irredentist policy towards Israel until the 1990s and the Oslo process. Many of its officials still make irredentist statements. And Fatah has been infamous for its corruption in the Palestinian Authority from 1994 onwards. Thus the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s has lessons to teach us today about ending irredentism in Palestine.

Obama on Trayvon Martin: ‘If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon’

The nation’s difficult history with race relations has been central to the narrative of Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency and has often complicated the ways in which he deals with the issue both as a candidate and as president.

But the president’s decision Friday to assertively insert himself into the controversy surrounding the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida 17-year-old, is evidence of Obama’s evolution and rising comfort level in dealing with the matter of race.

The new approach is at once deeply personal and completely universal, and avidly avoids taking sides in a political fight. His appeal Friday was to the parents. “I can only imagine what these parents are going through,” he said. “And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.” Read more.....

Why 3.5 Million Job Openings Isn't Great News

If you’re out of work and hungry for a paycheck, the news from the government on March 13 sounded almost too good to be true: Employers have literally millions of jobs going unfilled. To be precise, there were 3.5 million job openings in the U.S. as of the last business day in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said. That was an increase of 45 percent since the depth of the recession in 2009.

The news is accurate, but it’s not entirely a good thing. There’s a reason those jobs aren’t being filled. In fact, it’s a sign of ill health in the job market that employers can’t seem to find the people they need, even as 12.8 million Americans are officially searching for work. (That’s the February number.) Typically, one would expect to see this many openings only if the unemployment rate were down between 5.5 percent and 6 percent, economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., said in a March 16 research note. Read more......

How Buddy Roemer Wants to Fix America

The winner of the presidential election this year will probably be a Republican or a Democrat. But widespread disgust with both parties—and with America's whole political establishment—could make a third-party candidate as influential as Ralph Nader was in 2000 or Ross Perot was in 1992.

Buddy Roemer hopes to be the chosen china-breaker—and he's got the maverick credentials to pull it off. After graduating from Harvard and Harvard Business School, Roemer served eight years in Congress in the 1980s as a Louisiana Democrat. Then he spent four years as Louisiana's governor. He switched to Republican when running for re-election in 1991, but lost. Since then, Roemer has started two companies and a bank in his home state. Last year, the 68-year-old announced his candidacy for president as a Republican, but after the networks refused to include him in their televised GOP debates, he switched to independent. He's hoping to be the nominee of AmericansElect, a new online platform for third-party candidates. Read more.....

The Real Reason Obamacare Scares People

Sometimes the weatherman predicts a big storm that never materializes.

Politicians do the same thing, and right now many of them are warning that President Obama's 2010 healthcare reform law is about to come slamming into the nation like a once-a-century hurricane. Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney calls the law "an unfolding disaster for the American economy." His fellow candidate Rick Santorum routinely tells audiences that Obamacare "is the beginning of the end of freedom in America." Board up the windows. Hurry to the basement.

At the eye of this gathering storm is the "individual mandate," a key part of the law that will require most Americans to buy a minimum level of health insurance by 2014, or ask the feds for an exemption. Those in violation will have to pay a penalty fee that could be as high as the annual premium on a basic insurance plan. The mandate, which some people consider highly intrusive, generated court challenges almost as soon as Obama signed the law, with the Supreme Court now due to decide whether it's constitutional. (Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday morning.) If not, the whole reform scheme could unravel. Read more.....

Why You Should Hate the “Jumpstart Obama’s Bucket Shops” Act

Obama seems determined to roll back the few remaining elements of the New Deal. As we’ve recounted, he’s keen to cut Medicare and Social Security; he said as much in a dinner with leading conservative luminaries shortly after his inauguration. And his JOBS Act, which guts securities law protections on smaller stock offerings, is touted as a way to increase employment by helping to fund smaller businesses. In reality, the only jobs it is likely to create will be due to the resulting explosion in stock scamsters and bucket shop operators.

Amar Bhide, who has written the classic, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, has decisively debunked the idea underlying the Obama Bucket Shop act, which is that public stock offering are an important source of funding for new businesses. The problem is, as Bhide explained, is that academics focus on the easy to study but relatively inconsequential venture capital funded companies which look to IPOs as an exit. Bhide found that only 1% of new and young businesses were funded by venture capital. Similarly, his multi-year study of Inc 500 companies found that a comparatively small portion had VC backing, and even then, many got VCs in at a late stage, not because they needed the money but having the “right” VCs would lead to a much bigger premium when they went public.

Bhide found that most new businesses are based on an insight about an business opportunity that the founders discovered as employees (ie, they saw a market niche that incumbents were ignoring). These ventures were funded by savings, friends and family, and credit cards. Read more....

Market Analysts Are Bullish, Should We Be Concerned?

Analysts presently believe we are in a bullish trend. Six months later and a 30% increase in value-I am finally glad to know that. Now I can invest my money! All kidding aside, analysts have developed a bullish outlook over the last month providing more upgrades than downgrades.

Their move from a bearish to a bullish outlook is often associated with the general emotional transition from (fear to greed).

So what does this mean? Are the markets going to continue up because the analysts are on board? Or is it time to get defensive because analysts are bullish?

First of all, in defense of analysts, they have a very challenging job! A few years back, the Security and Exchange Commission passed a law that essentially took away any edge they might have in forecasting. Companies were now required to release information to the general public. It makes sense now that companies would be more cautious with what they release just because it will have such an influence upon the stock. Read more.....

4 Reasons The Bears Are Wrong And More Bubbles Are Coming

Bearishness in nominal terms - meaning expectations that broad indices like the S&P 500 (SPY) will decline - continues to be rampant: David Tice is calling for an S&P target of 1,000; John Hussman warns that the market is overbought; David Rosenberg says it's looking like the bear of 2011 all over again.

I tend to disagree. I already shared my technical view, in which I expect SPY to reach 182 by 2014, but here's a recap of the four fundamental reasons I think the bull market in equities that has kicked off 2012 is far from over:

1. Like Blackrock's Larry Fink, I think the weakness of the bond market is a major driving factor. It is not so much that equities are such a great opportunity as it is that money has to go somewhere -- and bonds do not look like the right answer. This may be a question bears should spend more time considering: if not stocks, then where? Granted, the "problem" of where to put all their money is not really an issue individual investors/traders like myself face, but for the super-rich and the mega-funds, it's a very real issue. Some will go to gold, some will go to fine art, some will be in cash...but when all the options are considered, I believe more is due to be allocated to stocks, simply because the size of the bond market and its current weakness are driving factors. Read more.......

Deflation - Why it is much scarier than inflation!

About mortgages - banks encourage now progressive rates (higher now, lower on the end). But if the difference (for the sake of argument) is +500 now and -500 in the end on the rate, with inflation that 500 is worth more now, than people would save in 30 years.

With deflation, whatever I earn now will keep it's value. I can borrow it or keep it under the pillow. It makes no difference to me, but banks could make them safe AND lend it to someone who wants to invest. Still not a bad thing to me.

"Why spend money on a house if that house is falling in value?"

Ok, if that is true, why didn't the high-tech economy sector crumbled already? Every year things are getting cheaper and cheaper. A computer bought now is worth around 2/3 of it's price in ~6-8 months, so why does anybody buy computers? Read more.....

Doomsday in Wyoming: Infowars Nightly News

On the Monday, February 27 edition of Infowars Nightly News, co-host Mike Adams interviews Patricia Finn, a New York attorney under fire by the NYS Ninth Judicial District Grievance Committee for the crime of representing victims and their families who have had severe adverse reactions following vaccination.

Host Aaron Dykes covers the latest news, including:
Paul Joseph Watson's story covering lawmakers in Wyoming who have introduced a bill that would compel the state to prepare for a complete collapse of the federal government, laying plans for an alternate currency, a standing army raised via a military draft, and an aircraft carrier.

How rapidly increasing gas prices signal that inflation is on the rise as governments address economic woes by so-called quantitative easing and printing paper money. Read more......

The Fed’s Recent Action on Swaps

What the Fed recently announced regarding its swap agreements should be helpful in forestalling a liquidity crisis in Europe, but it is not a “bailout” of anyone, and it does not increase any risk or cost to the U.S. taxpayer. It will help prevent a freeze up of European banks needing “dollar” liquidity. The swap agreements were already in place. What was announced was a maturity extension of the arrangements and a reduction in the interest rate charged. As long as the rate is positive, it will be a positive for the U.S. taxpayer; a zero rate would not be negative.

In a “swap” agreement, the Fed, for example, offers the European Central Bank (ECB) a given amount of dollar credit for an equivalent amount of Euro credit with an agreement that the swap will be reversed on the same terms at a point in the future with a modest interest payment. The ECB will then have dollars that it can lend to Euro-banks needing dollar liquidity, presumably with collateral receiving a haircut.

The Fed’s counterparty is the ECB, not the banks the ECB may lend the dollars to. The ECB’s risk is minimized because of the discounted collateral. This helps with banks’ liquidity, not solvency. However, that is not to minimize its importance since banks require a liquid money market to roll over their liabilities daily. What happens in a banking crisis is that banks become distrustful of each other and therefore reluctant to do business with each other. Each wants to wait to get paid before paying. Interbank credit “dries up.” The Fed’s action helps keep this from happening, at least as it pertains to the dollar market. Read more.....

Why? Few Clues From Afghan Attack Suspect's Home

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier alleged to have killed 16 Afghan civilians, was described by a former platoon leader Saturday as an "awesome" soldier.

"He always got the job done," said Cpt. Christopher Alexander, who led Bales on his second tour in Iraq. "You give this guy a task — it could be menial, it could be dangerous — either way, you never had to worry about whether he'd get it done and get it done well."

Alexander said he and other former members of the company found out Monday that Bales had been linked to the massacre. They kept it quiet until his name was leaked by government officials Friday. He said everyone who knows Bales from that time is mystified, and guesses this might be a case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I would be surprised, though, if we haven't been told everything," he said. "There's just a lot about this story that doesn't make sense."

Bales has not yet been charged. He was flown back to the U.S. from Kuwait and arrived Friday evening at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Read more.....

In Sit-Down Restaurants, an Economic Indicator

HAVE you been eating more at restaurants with waiters rather than fast-food joints?

If so, you are not alone, and that in fact is an indication that the American economy is improving.

Over the 12 months through January, sales at what the government calls full-service restaurants were 8.7 percent higher than in the previous 12 months. That was the fastest pace of growth since the late 1990s, when the economy was booming. Moreover, as is seen in the accompanying charts, that rate was much greater than the rate of growth in sales at limited-service restaurants.

Since those numbers became available 20 years ago, that difference has been a reliable indicator of how the economy is going. When times get tough, people may still eat out, but they cut back.

Full-service restaurants may or may not be expensive. Le Bernardin in Manhattan qualifies, but so does Red Lobster. The range at limited service places is not nearly as wide. Read more.......

The Tale of the $100 Bill

By now we’ve probably all been forwarded a version of the tale of the $100 bill that single handedly wiped out lots of debt. In case some readers haven’t seen it yet, it goes something like this:

A bald-headed bearded stranger stopped in town and went into an small old hotel to check in. He asked to go check out the rooms first so, in good faith, he left a $100 bill—a deposit of sorts—with the hotel owner. The hotel owner immediately ran next door to pay his grocery bill. The grocer ran it across the street to pay one of his suppliers. The supplier used it to pay off his co-op bill. The co-op guy ran it back across the street to pay the local hooker who had taken up residence in the aforementioned hotel. The hooker ran it downstairs to pay her hotel bill just ahead of the returning traveler, who picked the $100 bill off the desk and left saying that the rooms were not satisfactory.

Someone asked the hotel owner, “Who was that stranger?” The owner said, “I don’t know, but he sure looked a lot like Ben Bernanke.” Read more......

Fed Profits

The Fed announced yesterday that it turned over $76.9 billion of its earnings to the Treasury (and the taxpayer) during 2011. This was near the record $79.3 billion transferred during 2010. It is about three times the amount transferred during more normal times. For example, the transfers averaged $21.5 billion from 2002 through 2005.

While total Fed earnings include fees for services like check clearing and wire transfers provided to depository institutions, the bulk of the earnings come from interest on loans and securities acquired as a by-product of its monetary policy. The sharp increase in recent years resulted from the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet associated with so-called quantitative easing.

Past experience suggests that this announcement will do nothing to dispel the false notion that the Fed uses taxpayer funds in its operations rather than contributes to the pool of taxpayer funds. Its earnings contributions have made the fiscal situation less-worse than it otherwise would have been. That is a side benefit, of course, rather than a reason to expand its balance sheet. Read more.....

In Protest, Democrats Zero In On Men's Reproductive Health

Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a Democrat, has introduced legislation that would regulated men's use of reproductive health services.

Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University.

Some would prohibit men from getting vasectomies, such as Georgia's House Bill 1116, which states:

"Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies."

Others, like an amendment proposed by Oklahoma State Sen. Constance Johnson, restrict where a man can ejaculate, effectively outlawing all manner of sexual acts. The amendment says:

"Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman's vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child."

And Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner recently put forward legislation that would require men seeking drugs like Viagra to first get a cardiac stress test to ensure their heart is ready for sexual activity. Oh, and they would also have to obtain certification from one of their recent sexual partners that they are indeed experiencing problems with erectile dysfunction. And they would be required to see a sex therapist before getting a prescription. Read more.......

Why postgrads are taking New York law schools to court

Are law schools misleading potential students about the value of a JD (professional doctorate in law)? That's the argument that a handful of New York-based law grads from New York Law School, Hofstra and Brooklyn Law are making in a New York state court. They claim that the schools fudge postgraduate employment rates. They cite one school claiming that 90% of students are employed after graduation, when according to the complaints, only 40% have jobs that require a law degree and a number of students work in temporary jobs at the law school itself, which boots employment numbers.

The truth is that law school, if you don't go to a top one such as Harvard or Yale, is a gamble (especially in a bad economy). Students at top-tier schools are able to find jobs relatively easily, but students at other schools – New York Law, Hostra and Brooklyn among them – have to be at the top of their class to secure steady employment easily. It's easy to say that students should have known better, and that instead of filing a lawsuit they should take personal responsibility for their decisions. After all, if you're smart enough to go to law school, you should be smart enough to read employment data, right? And it's hard to feel sympathy for wannabe lawyers, who can come across as some of the most entitled people on the planet by seeming to say, "I went to law school, now give me a six-figure salary," when the unemployment rate in the US, though falling, is still more than 8%. Read more.....

Ulster Unionist Race is a Two-Man Contest

I was wrong--or at least premature--when I said in my last post that the Ulster Unionist Party leadership contest would be a three-man race involving Danny Kennedy, Mike Nesbitt, and John McCallister. Kennedy announced on Friday that he would not be filing nomination papers for the position and would instead be backing Mike Nesbitt. Nominations for the race closed yesterday with only McCallister and Nesbitt having filed. The former UTV anchor/presenter has emerged as the establishment choice for the leadership with backing by three out of four UUP lairds (UUP members elevated to the House of Lords) including former liberal faction leader Ken Maginnis, now Lord Maginnis, and former Good Friday Agreement skeptic John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney. Because former party leader David Trimble is now a Conservative peer, he is not among the four lairds. Nesbitt has also been endorsed by the Belfast Telegraph, the paper of the unionist establishment. 

Kennedy's main aim was to protect his ministerial position in the Executive, which was threatened by McCallister's call for the UUP to form the opposition. Kennedy is not a personality who relishes confrontation and so was happy to make an implicit deal with Nesbitt, after having been approached by a number of party figures, under which he will keep his ministry and Nesbitt will get the leadership. Had Kennedy remained in the race he would have risked splitting the non-liberal vote within the party and throwing the election to McCallister and thereby losing his ministerial position in the long run.

This is reminiscent of the 1825 "corrupt bargain" in which Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams made an implicit but unwritten bargain. Both despised Andrew Jackson--whose father had emigrated from Ulster shortly before Jackson was born, the third rival in a four-man presidential contest at a point when the United States effectively had a single political party. Because no single candidate had a majority of electoral votes the election went to the House of Representatives to decide the election with each state's House delegation casting a single vote. Clay, who had come in fourth behind Jackson and Adams and a Georgia Treasury secretary was eliminated from consideration. So Clay threw his considerable support in the House behind Adams who won the presidency even though he had received fewer popular and electoral votes than Jackson. Adams rewarded Clay by appointing him as his secretary of state, which in the early nineteenth century was considered to be the stepping stone to the presidency. Jackson made a major issue of this "corrupt bargain" in the 1828 presidential election that laid the foundation for America's two-party system.  Jackson won and became one of the great presidents of American history while Adams entered into a second career in the House during which he opposed slavery from 1835 until his death in early 1848. 

As I indicated in my previous post, liberals do not generally win UUP leadership elections. There have only been two UUP leaders who could be classified as liberals: Ken Andrews from 1940 to 1943 and Terence O'Neill from 1963 to 1969. Both were before the trauma of The Troubles and the competition with the DUP. In January 1974 when UUP leader Brian Faulkner adopted an uncharacteristic liberal persona by supporting power sharing with the nationalist SDLP party he was forced out of the leadership and forced to resign from the party.

The leadership election will be on March 31 in an as yet unnamed Belfast hotel.