CREEPY

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two
grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you
shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you
have them, they are not worth the search.”
-Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare Act I, Scene I.

President Nixon established the famous Committee to Re-elect the President for the 1972 election cycle (a committee which was later found to be involved in the Watergate scandal); this committee was given the all-too-appropriate acronym CREEP. Like in 1972, this election cycle has a CREEP of its own — oh, but you probably won’t find it under the name of CREEP, instead try the Committee for the Deliverance of Puppies from Danger; or the Reference Forum for the Making of Resolutions in the Lower Parts of Northern America to End the Abuse of Goldfish. Modern politicians are much more careful than they used to be, and CREEP is much too obvious. Due to its similarities, we can simply say that this election cycle is becoming rather CREEPY.

For one thing, the unemployment rate dropped 0.4% in November — excuse me, dropped sharply — from 9% to 8.6%. The White House is happy, as expected. “Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Said Alan B. Krueger on the White House Blog. “While the U.S. economy is healing, the world economy continues to be in a fragile state and all economies are linked through trade and finance.  In this environment, the President’s American Jobs Act is the right medicine to sustain and strengthen the recovery.”

The American Jobs Act? That’s interesting. It was true, of course, that Obama was calling his “plan” by that name when he gave the speech before Congress. But, seeing that no such American Jobs Act had ever actually been submitted before Congress, Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) “borrowed” the name. The American Jobs Act is now a reference to H.R. 2911, a plan to Amend the IRS code of 1986 and repeal the corporate income tax. Thus, Krueger is absolutely right when he says that the American Jobs Act will do loads of good for our economy. But, the President’s American Jobs Act? I had no idea the President wanted to cross the isle and take credit for such a masterpiece.

Anyway, we can all get over the soft and cuddly everything’s  going to be alright feeling engendered by a 0.4% drop in unemployment when we assess some real employment data. As I have written on before, the official number used for unemployment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the U-3. This number is described as the total unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force. This number excludes those “marginally attached to the labor force” (which means citizens who are unemployed and have stopped looking for work; as you can easily guess, these people are equally unemployed, but simply not counted in the “total unemployed” number). For a full look at economic situation, one can instead view the BLS U-6. This number takes the total unemployed, plus those “marginally attached,” plus those employed part-time who would otherwise be employed full-time, as a percentage of the labor force. For November, the unemployment rate under the U-6 is 15.6%. Granted, last month it was 16.2%, so one could say that the “real” drop in November was 0.8%; but neither of these numbers paint as rosy a picture as the U-3. In fact, according to Gallup’s unemployment measurements the unemployment situation has gotten worse than even the U-6 records. According to Gallup’s statistical equivalent to the U-6, unemployment has gone up from 17.5% last month, to 18.2% this month. You get what you measure.

Yet, none of these numbers give quite the same insight as the labor force participation rate. This economic measurement is the percentage of working-age individuals (16-64) who are either employed, or unemployed and looking for work. In other words, this number measures a nation’s possible workforce. If you are employed, obviously you are a member of the workforce, if you are unemployed and looking for work you are a part of the possible workforce. To give you an even better idea of our economic situation, take a look at the labor force participation rate for the last ten years:

Graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

In October of this year, the labor force participation rate was 64.2%; but in November, the number is 64.0%. Thus, the possible labor force has gone down 0.2% in one month. This makes it easy to say that unemployment is going down since the possible workforce has also gone down. Especially when (as in the case of the U-3) those who have stopped looking for work are not counted. All of those wonderful little articles about how Obama is saving the planet are really just a masterful demonstration of how skillfully the media can pull the wool over our eyes. A little mathematical prestidigitation, and presto. As Krueger so adroitly instructs us, “The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.” Paraphrasing Krueger: Yes, yes. Broad strokes, broad strokes. Big waves, big waves. Don’t dig in here, just know that everything is getting better.

It’s all those broad strokes and big waves that keep us from back-tracking and remembering the old promises.

And this graph even uses the U-3 numbers. Can any one say CREEPY?

There is still more to be said here, but I fear that any more numerical pain inflicted upon my readers would render them no reader at all. Yet, you may view all the numbers presented, the tricks played on us by our government and media, and begin wondering when solutions come into the equation — you know, that number on the right side. Andy Stern, former President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and current senior fellow at Columbia University’s Richman Center, has found us a solution — he likes to call it China.

I was part of a U.S.-China dialogue—a trip organized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation and the Center for American Progress—with high-ranking Chinese government officials, both past and present. For me, the tension resulting from the chorus of American criticism paled in significance compared to reading the emerging outline of China’s 12th five-year plan. The aims: a 7% annual economic growth rate; a $640 billion investment in renewable energy; construction of six million homes; and expanding next-generation IT, clean-energy vehicles, biotechnology, high-end manufacturing and environmental protection—all while promoting social equity and rural development. . . .

As Andy Grove so presciently articulated in the July 1, 2010, issue of Businessweek, the economies of China, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and India have demonstrated ‘that a plan for job creation must be the number-one objective of state economic policy; and that the government must play a strategic role in setting the priorities and arraying the forces of organization necessary to achieve this goal.’

The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model—so successful in the 20th century—is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century. In an era when countries need to become economic teams, Team USA’s results—a jobless decade, 30 years of flat median wages, a trade deficit, a shrinking middle class and phenomenal gains in wealth but only for the top 1%—are pathetic. This should motivate leaders to rethink, rather than double down on an empirically failing free-market extremism.” -Andy Stern with The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2011

Stern salivates at the prospect of the emerging Chinese economy. In this article he promotes the adoption of a Chinese, authoritarian capitalist regime — as opposed to our democratic capitalist model. He appears as the journalist Lincoln Steffens who, after a trip to Soviet Russia in 1921, said, “I have seen the future, and it works!” The future caved in under great economic burdens seventy years later.

If the United States were to adopt “China’s superior economic model,” we would have one workers union run by the government, forced labor, terrible working conditions, extreme poverty, a one-child policy and elitism — not class warfare, just elitism. But who says it’s a bad economic model? As Jonah Goldberg with National Review writes, “You can hit your building quota a lot more easily when you can shoot inconvenient people and trample property rights at will.”

Goldberg makes the defensible argument that, “[T]he core problem with China envy is not economic but moral. To the extent that China’s economic planning ‘works,’ it does so because China is an authoritarian country.” While this argument is legitimate, there is also an argument to be made for the unsustainability of the Chinese model. Jim Walker, the economist who predicted the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, sees many problems with China’s economic model. For example, easy credit and their government’s stimulus plans are propping up droves of companies; many Chinese companies don’t even make a profit; not to mention account imbalances, unrealistic currency exchange rates, and capricious lending. And more recently, the Wall Street Journal‘s investment site made it clear that China is facing a “crisis of confidence” because of their dependency on exchange with shaky European markets, and because of rising loses. (Is that an oxymoron?)

In fact, the Chinese government has announced plans to build 20 cities every year for the next 20 years. This may sound like prosperity, but similar cities to the ones they plan to build are completely empty. They build roads no one will drive on, trains no one will ride on, and homes no one will live in. And the reason these towns are empty is because no one can afford to live in them. But at the same time, China can boost their Gross Domestic Production, and make themselves look like a thriving nation, by building these empty cities. The free market would never build such cities, but the Chinese government planners do. Thus, on all most all counts, China’s “prosperity” is hallow and unstable.

Stern seems to credit China’s five-year plans for their prosperity — even though China had five-year plans long before they became an emerging economy. Goldberg makes the point proficiently, “[R]apid economic growth always makes government planners look like geniuses when the reality is that the planners are more like self-proclaimed rainmakers who started dancing only after it started raining.” It was not the planning that spurred the Chinese economy into growth, it was the change to a capitalist economic system; and then later the stimulus, propping up of companies, and lending which have made it unstable. Capitalism made the Chinese economy strong, and Chinese authoritarian schemes and elitist interests are what will bring it down.

Thus, the argument against the Chinese model is the strongest because it is both economic and moral. Stern isn’t calling for a change in economic systems, rather a political change. A change from the republic our Founders created to an authoritarian regime that controls a quasi-capitalist market. We already have the capitalism, Stern wants us to adopt the authoritarianism. He gives not a fleeting thought to the Founders, our system of government, or the fact that we have been one of the freest nations in the world. To him it doesn’t seem to matter what freedom means, as long as the economic system works. And even there he has identified the wrong victor to credit with the Chinese success. It isn’t the government, but freedom, which creates a healthy economy.

Stern calls the American system “pathetic” because of flat median income and the middle class gains dropping while the “1%” experience gains. Not only is the claim false that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer (a topic for another piece), but even if true, these problems would be peanuts compared to the problems that would be engendered by copying China. Some of the most authoritarian countries in the world are also the poorest.

Andy Stern holds the record for most visits to the White House. He visited President Obama fifty-three times in Obama’s first year alone. It is more than reasonable to assume that in many of those visits Stern would have spoken to Obama on “China’s superior model.” This would have inevitably prompted Obama to consider many regulations, more stimulus packages — to put everything in an authoritarian state of mind. It is very possible that many of Obama’s policies were influenced by Stern. Upon this, I equally find it possible that much of America’s recent, negative economic circumstances are the result of China-like policies; the result of Andy Stern’s “solution.” His reasons for changing to the Chinese model are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff. . .

What the U.S. has been doing in recent years with regulations on personal freedom, stimulus plans, more spending, and impending inflation one cannot with a straight face call democratic and free capitalism. In recent years, America’s economy has been more and more like Europe’s and China’s. Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.

We have tried the future, and it failed.

-Ben

Occupation Unknown

They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.” -Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene I

The Occupy Wall Street protests began weeks ago. Everyone thought they would be over by now, but they remain. From what I’ve seen, many have weighty student loans, many have working jobs, most are young; and the old ones are just hoping to relive the 60s. Also, a surprising amount have Master’s degrees, some even with honors.

There has been much debate and question as to what the protesters are really about. Many have reached one singular conclusion: nothing in particular. Whoever they are, they claim to make up 99% of the general population; a claim that is not too outrageous to make when everyone there stands for something slightly different. Charles C. W. Cooke with National Review found a very telling interview with one of the protesters whose sign read, “I Hate Stuff Too!” When asked if there was any real consensus or coherence to their message, his answer was a plain, “No, not really.” But since everyone hates “stuff,” it would be a good place to start.

This fact has only been reaffirmed by the speech given to protesters by Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek. “We know what we do not want,” says Zizek. “But what do we want?” Many of the protesters are calling for “economic justice.” But, as Kevin D. Williamson in the October 31 issue of National Reivew pointed out, they don’t know what economic justice is; but whatever it is, it’s “Not this.” Yet a major gap in thought is demonstrated with this statement. You cannot claim that you know what isn’t economic justice when you don’t even know what economic justice is.

Some have come out in support of Occupy Wall Street. From a former grand-wizard of the Ku Klux Klan to President Obama (now how’s that for wide-spread support?) “The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side,” Obama said. Well, since you’re “on their side,” could you please, Mr. President, clarify for all of us what exactly that “side” stands for? After all, you seem to be its most credible representative. . .

Anyway, President Obama not only supports the protesters, but finds them conveniently similar to the Tea Party. “In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party,” he said. “Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them.” Yet, an important difference between the two is that the Tea Party wants to work within the system, but the Occupy protesters (as far as can be discerned) would prefer the system to be removed.

Jonah Goldberg points out another principal difference between the two groups in the October 31 issue of National Review: “Every tea-party meeting beings with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. As far as I can tell, every Occupy Wall Street meeting begins with a pagan drum circle and advice about which local restaurant protesters can steal toilet paper from.” Speaking of drum circles, there are a lot of those at the Occupy protests. So many, in fact, that it’s turning a profit. And they hate that. (At least, the ones who are anti-capitalist — which is quite a few.)

And so for many weeks they remained the aimless, pointless, grungy, sleeping street gang that we knew and could predict. Until recent times, when one of the spin-offs of Occupy Wall Street — Occupy Oakland — turned violent, and a protest turned into a riot.

Windows smashed, trashing stores and banks, graffiti, fifteen-foot flames, using children as human shields, trapping disabled individuals from leaving buildings, pushing old women down the stairs. This kind of wanton violence demonstrates a much darker side to the protests. And these people have Masters degrees? In what, graffiti — I mean, graphical design? (Actually, yes.) Apparently, they want “freedom” badly enough that they’re willing to incite anarchy to get it. Freedom from banks, student loans, responsibility, stress, trouble, acne — it all starts with a burning trash can and pushing grandma down the steps, right? Wrong. Americans are allowed to protest and should be allowed to protest — but this liberty must never stretch itself into the right to commit unlawful violence. (But if you ask the Oakland Tribune, the protesters were, “powerful and mostly peaceful.” By that I assume they mean vicious and violent.)

Some, though, would like to dismiss my last statement as mere opinion. They would assert that what we need, in fact, is more violence. United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard said, “What we need is more militancy. . . . I think we’ve got to start a resistance movement. If Wall Street Occupation doesn’t get the message, I think we’ve got to start blocking bridges and doing that kind of stuff.” In Oakland they have already obstructed and disturbed the work on the nation’s fifth-largest international shipping port. The majority of which is exports. Obstruction of international commerce and violence — can the police have any more justification to end the protests?

Obviously, that’s still not enough. Oakland’s Mayor, Jean Quan, denied the use of police force, or even sending out “peace negotiators” on the first night of violent protest. A member of her government justified her decision by saying, “She didn’t want to incite the anarchists any more than they already were.” My question: Which encourages the violent protesters more, the lack of resistance, or the end of the riot? I mean, really: police officers with shields, pads and guns verses an untrained mob with bandannas and rocks.

Many of these individuals claim that they’re looking for the “American Dream.” (The term seems to always come up between quotation marks, these days — as if it isn’t real.) And the strong impression I get from the protesters is that they believe someone is supposed to give you the American Dream. Almost as though it is the obligation of a bank or governmental entity to bestow upon each individual their American-ness. But that’s not the way the American Dream was ever supposed to work. The beauty of the American Dream is that it’s whatever you make it out to be. If you want to be a graphical designer, you have the freedom to do so. Just like your freedom to be a banker, investor, bartender, hotel manager, trash guy or business owner. The American Dream lies in liberty, not money or things. But that liberty must never encroach upon the property (or liberty) of another individual.

The one-percenters may hate “stuff” as much as the protesters do, by golly. The only difference between protesters and people who are getting their windows smashed is that one has made better decisions than the other. One may have waited for their education rather than take out a fifty-thousand dollar student loan — is that their fault? One may have studied in an area that is in higher demand in the market and pays more and the other in an area of lower demand — is that their fault? No, if the American Dream isn’t what you want it to be the only person to blame is yourself.

It all comes back to Willy Wonka:

VERUCA:
I want the world,
I want the whole world.
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It’s my bar to chocolate
Give it to me now.

I want today,
I want tomorrow.
I want to wear them like braids in my hair,
And I don’t want to share them.

I want a party with roomfuls of laughter,
Ten-thousand tons of ice cream.
And if I don’t get the things I am after,
I’m going to scream!

I suppose I could have substituted terms like “ice cream” for “student loans,” but I think you get the idea.

No matter how well it is hidden in smiles and affability, the ugliness within this movement has now been put on display for all to see. We can criticize the protesters to our hearts content telling them that they march without purpose, but it would be in vain. For they do not need a purpose to disturb the peace other than “fun.” This was clearly demonstrated by the British riots. No one knew, or really found out, what was wanted; it was a demonstration to show the respectable of the world that they may do whatever they please. And I suspect, on the bottom line, that the Occupy movement is supposed to satisfy similar emotions. (Or it’s a massive conspiracy to overthrow the American system. But I doubt that these individuals in particular would be the ones to devise such a sophisticated plan.)

As for the peaceful Occupy protesters, I still have no idea what you’re talking about.

-Ben

Midway

“Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it.” -Benjamin Franklin

On September 6, Brookings published an article entitled, “Ten Years After 9/11, We Still Can’t Agree On Who the Enemy Is.” And I thought, “Okay, maybe it’s about the TSA or something. . .” Nope. Stephen Grand (who wrote the article) instead decided to tell us who is really being unreasonable in the fight against terrorism: The United States.

Out of ignorance, we have tended to paint our enemies with a broad brush, implicating ordinary Muslims in the sins of an extremist few. In our television and film, Islam is often depicted as a violent religion. Rumors are spread that our president might be a closet Muslim (as if that were something dangerous and un-American). Conspiracy theories are spun—akin to those that once circulated about the Freemasons, the Papists and the Jews—that American Muslims are secretly plotting to establish a Muslim caliphate in the United States. . . . None of this goes unnoticed abroad. In a large Gallup survey of Muslim communities around the globe, one of the key findings was that Muslims feel a profound lack of respect from the West. They sense that Islam as a religion is under siege.” -Stephen R. Grand, Director, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, The Brookings Institution

Oh yes, I’m sure the U.S. is just ignorant about Islam. That’s the real problem. Broad brushes, and all that rot. The real problem (according the the wonderful and infallible Grand) is that the U.S. has an unacceptable inability to differentiate between the, “faithful and the fanatical.” I guess you could say that Islam is just, well, misunderstood.

On the contrary, one needn’t look too deeply into the meaning of the words in the Koran to understand what Islam means. A wise way to evaluate a religion or belief is to look at the principles that govern it and not the abuses of those principles. But are the terrorists an example of Islamic principles or the abuse of Islamic principles?

Take, for example, the brutal beheading of a Christian in Afghanistan in June. Obviously, Grand would tell us, this is a perfect example of the fanatical and not the faithful. Sorry to let you down, but before they beheaded this poor guy, they cited their Koran saying, “Whoever changed his religion must be executed.” A reference to Sura 8:12, “I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks . . .” I am not saying that all the Muslims you will meet will be terrorists. In fact, many Muslims are average, law-abiding people. Yet, while most Muslims aren’t terrorists it is also true that most modern terrorists are Muslims.

Many may call Islam a, “religion of peace.” Grand in the Brookings article even says as much. Some go as far as to suggest that the very word “Islam” means “peace.” But is that true? Well, if you ask renowned English historian Paul Johnson, he’ll soon inform you that Islam actually means “submission.” Johnson goes even further than that, he says, “one of the functions of Islam, in its more militant aspect, is to obtain that submission from all, if necessary by force.” This statement is reinforced by Sura 9:5, “Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them, in every strategem [of war].” And to do this to all nations, “until they embrace Islam.”

That sounds peaceful, doesn’t it?

After the Norway killing, the Wall Street Journal published a small piece that included some quotes from an interview with Noor Ahmad Noor (would that make him Noor Noor? “Can I call you Noor or is that too informal?”) When Noor found out that the shooter/bomber was just an average Norwegian nut case, here’s what he had to say, “That was the end of one grief, because he wasn’t one of us, thank [g]od, but it was the beginning of another grief, because some of those kids were ours.” What did Noor just say? He was relieved that the killer was not a Muslim. This draws just one small question from me: You mean, you expected the killer to be a Muslim? You assumed he was one of your guys until you learned otherwise? Hmm . . .

So all the bombings, killings, shootings, and chaos caused by the terrorists are not abuses of the principles of Islam but affirmations of those principles. It may very well be true that only a fraction of Muslims are crazy enough to act on what they believe, but that’s only luck on our part that they practice a moderated and watered down version of Islam.

The other part of Grand’s argumentation is that Muslims feel like Islam is under siege. The implication of his statement is that the U.S. should focus on making Muslims feel at home in the U.S. rather than actually work to stop terrorism. That kind of philosophy would only show the terrorists that we are really not serious about defeating the group that killed almost three thousand of our citizens on 9/11. The US should have no qualms about peaceful Muslims, and we don’t. What we want to do is extinguish and eradicate the terrorists — and if they happen to be Muslims, well, that’s just a part of enemy recognition.

If Hindus were terrorists, we’d be fighting Hindus. If Buddhists were terrorists we’d be fighting Buddhists. If atheists were terrorists we’d be fighting atheists. The war against terror has nothing to do with hatred and everything to do with terror.

When the U.S. entered the first World War, that was only after Germans torpedoed the Lusitania leaving a few hundred American bodies floating in the water. We declared war on Japan, entering WWII, after they’re attack on Peal Harbor killed 2,400 American soldiers. In both cases, war was justly declared because of the unnecessary killing of American citizens — and those declarations have been left mostly uncontested. The war declarations that have been contested were the ones established on more shaky ground, like Vietnam and Korea.

The terrorists attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11/01 killing the most American citizens in one fell swoop than any other army we’ve ever fought. And yet we continue to question and think that since America is fighting terrorists, they must therefore hate Muslims. Is that true? Did we “hate” the Germans and Japanese before or after our declaration of war? No, we would have had no problem with either of them had they not attacked American civilians. Did Japanese-Americans or German-Americans feel somewhat “under siege” during the war? Probably. But were we fighting peaceful Germans or Japanese? No, of course not. Would we have any problem with faithful Muslims didn’t keep trying to blow us up? Nope, not one.

If we actually want to win — as in, beat — the terrorists, it would be helpful if we acknowledged who the terrorists were. The movie Midway (1976) is about the famous American-Japanese battle at (shocker) Midway. In the movie a Captain Matt Garth (played by Charlton Heston) has a son who is in love with the child of some Japanese immigrants (Haruko Sakura.) The parents of Sakura are suspected of being involved in Japanese plans against the United States so Sakura and her family are forced to live under the surveillance of the U.S. government. When Garth goes to see if he can do anything to free them from suspicion for his son (who was a little busy fighting Japanese soldiers) and in their conversation, this short exchange occurs:

SAKURA: [Expletive deleted.] I’m an American! What makes us different from German-Americans or Italian-Americans?

GARTH: Pearl Harbor, I guess.

What makes a Muslim different from anyone else in the world? 9/11, I guess.

In the film, Garth’s son has “enemy recognition problems” supposedly due to the fact that he is in love with a Japanese-American. And the last time you see him in the movie, he is depicted being wheeled away on a gurney all burned, cut and shot. In a similar way, if America fails to recognize their enemy, it may very well be true that the last time you’ll see us in the war against terror, we’ll be on a gurney all cut, shot and burned.

The only thing worse than being at war is being at war half-way. Or should I say, midway?

-Ben