I fought Erwin Rommel. Only a few people know that; now so will the six people who read this blog.
Although designated a political officer, as a junior FSO I had to spend a year doing consular work. I spent mine in Georgetown, Guyana in the late 1970s. As I have written before, Guyana then was under the rule of the charming socialist corruptocrat Forbes Burnham. Years of socialist policies and demagoguery had demolished the economy, and eroded a once fairly democratic and tolerant political system and society. Just about everybody in the country wanted out. One relatively easy way to escape involved convincing a junior consular officer at the Canadian or British High Commission, or the American Embassy to grant a "nonimmigrant visa" (NIV) of some type, e.g., tourist, student, business, and simply never come back.
Before today's elaborate computer and internet systems, and vast digital data bases, a visa officer largely flew solo when interpreting the case before him and deciding whether to grant a visa, "Is this person telling the truth? Does he intend to return to Guyana after visiting the US? Does he have a strong reason to return?" It all proved very fuzzy. In most cases, we had almost no rational basis on which to make decisions, especially since one of the country's richest men had skipped on his visa, preferring chicken farming in Georgia to his "mansion" in Georgetown. Each of us developed his own criteria. I settled on the "Would-I-Mind-If-This-Person-Became-My-Neighbor?" theme. That worked about as well as any other system.
We refused about 60% of the applicants, and should have refused about 99%. When, however, our refusal rate got "too high" we got pressure from our politically attuned front office and from Washington, especially Congress, to ease off. Congressional staffers would berate us for turning down the brother or friend of a constituent, and often accuse us of "racism." I would explain to these obnoxious staffers, trying to keep my anger and irritation under control, that we carried out the law as written by Congress, and that the people to whom we issued visas belonged to the same race as those we denied. It got tiresome and ridiculous.
The visa shop sat in a warehouse-type structure about a block or so from the main building. We had a tough working environment: noise, heat, mold, erratic electric current, beat-up furniture--some of WWII vintage--and peeling paint characterized the site. We had a blue collar, labor union resentment towards the "suits" in the main building. We felt unappreciated and put upon, drawing their attention only when some snooty political officer needed a visa for a contact, or called to yell at us for denying one to a child, spouse, or mistress of somebody "important."
Security was a joke. The Marines guarded the main building; we depended on Guyana's equivalent of mall cops. They wore ill fitting green slacks, cheap black shoes, a white shirt, and a dark green fiberglass helmet; some carried a baton. One or two milled around the main door, another occasionally would walk among the visa applicants who sat in grey metal folding chairs waiting for us to summon them. The smell of sweat filled the room. At one side of that big room we stood behind crude DMV-style wooden counters with no glass separating us from "those yearning to breathe free." We interviewed 80 to 200 NIV applicants in the morning, and 30-40 immigrant visa applicants in the afternoon.
NIV interviews generally went fast; we did not want to get drawn into details of applicants' tales. We tried to determine if the story generally seemed credible, and whether the person telling it intended to return to Guyana after the visit. I had applicants say they would visit Disneyworld in New York; my favorite, however, remained the Berbice cane cutter going to Brooklyn to see how they cut cane there. Applicants would turn in their visa forms, passports, and supporting documents to the Guyanese receptionist who would check them for completeness, get them organized, and pass the packet to the visa officers. We checked on employment, family status, bank accounts, and any other evidence that might show that the applicant had a well-established life he or she would not likely give up. We would review the documents, make quick notes, and in 90% of the cases decide whether to issue before conducting the required interview. That interview, frankly, usually proved a formality; rarely did the applicant say anything to change our initial decision.
One hot humid day, much like all the others, as the only officer on visa duty that morning, I had about 150 interviews waiting. Right off, the receptionist gave me a damp, beat-up passport and a dog-eared seaman's book in the name of, I kid you not, Erwin Johannes Rommel. According to the application, he wanted to visit a girlfriend in Brooklyn, and then join a cargo ship as a crewman. His seaman's book had expired years ago; he didn't know the girlfriend's address; and had no contract to go out as a crewman. Slam. Dunk. Refusal. Not.
Trying to suppress my laughter, I called out "Rommel, Erwin Rommel. Please come to the front." This Rommel did not look much like his Generalfeldmarschall namesake. While I never found out how well he commanded panzer formations, my Rommel was a thin black man, who stood about 5'5". He seemed extremely agitated; streams of perspiration poured from the man despite the--for once--working air conditioning.
"Mr. Rommel, your application doesn't make much sense. Tell me why you want to go to New York."
He backed away, and began walking in fast, tight circles, mumbling--not, however, in German. He would look at me out of the corners of his eyes. He stopped suddenly, head down, and began licking his lips. Jerking his head up, he stared at me. His eyes did not blink.
"Are you OK, Mr. Rommel? I don't think you should go to New York. Go home and get some rest."
He lunged. I stepped back. About a third of his body came over the counter; he reached for me, his fingers raking down my face, and ending up in my shirt pocket which he tore off. Rommel slid back off the counter, and stood looking at the cloth trophy in his hand.
My face stung where he had clawed me; my new shirt sported a gaping hole. Livid, I shouted for the receptionist to call the Embassy to send somebody to the consular section right away. I reached under the counter, and seized a heavy stapler used to bind large packets; it had a big, shiny brass knob. I clambered over the counter unfolding the stapler as I went.
I was considerably bigger and younger than he, but that didn't stop him. Just as I came over the counter, Rommel took a swing at me, barely missing. I used my stapler like a medieval flail. The brass knob whipping into his forehead. He went down . . . for about two seconds and bounced back up, cursing, swinging, and spitting. Another crack from my stapler; again, he went down and back up. He now had two nasty gashes on his forehead; blood mixed with sweat began oozing down his face, making his injury look more terrible than in actuality. He didn't give up: another lunge, another crack from the "flail," down, back up. Most of the other 149 applicants had formed a semicircle, watching the show, many probably thinking, "Wow! These Americans, when they turn you down for a visa, they really turn you down! A simple no would do." One of the security guards finally showed up, and got the dazed Mr. Rommel to sit. Our administrative officer, a political officer, and a visiting Regional Security Officer (RSO) from a U.S. embassy in a neighboring country also appeared.
Mr. Rommel, who never said a word the whole time, now seemed quiescent. The admin officer convinced him to go. The guard led the conga line to the door; Mr. Rommel right behind him; the admin officer next; then the RSO; and the political officer. I brought up the rear after returning my blood-specked "flail" to its perch under the counter. The guard opened the door, Mr. Rommel began to exit, then wheeled about, and landed the most perfect punch I ever saw. He caught the guard on the tip of the chin: down, out cold, just like in the movies. Rommel began to tap dance on the supine guard's head. We all jumped on the Field Marshall, but couldn't bring him down! We formed an absurd scrum bobbing, swaying, grunting, cursing, and crashing into folding chairs as we slid across the floor. The political officer and I pulled down Mr. Rommel's trousers around his ankles. He tripped, and our squirming clump of humanity crashed to the floor.
It got weird; no, it got weirder. The admin officer somehow came to sit on Rommel's chest, grabbed his ears, and began bouncing his head on the hard floor. We yelled, "You're going to kill him! Stop!" He stopped. Rommel slowly got up, looking battered, bloodied, and spent . . . well, almost. Rommel swung at the RSO, who, however, had a can of a then new item, "Mace." The RSO fired a jet of the noxious fluid . . . straight into his own face. He screamed in pain as the stuff burned into his eyes. The RSO dropped out of the picture, as did the political officer who ran to get him a wet towel. Mr. Admin threw Rommel against the wall, held him by the throat, and delivered two loud crunching blows to Erwin's nose and mouth.
The receptionist came running with a pair of handcuffs. "I forgot we had these. They might be useful."
We slapped the cuffs on Rommel and waited for the local law. After considerable time, the cops arrived; two very large plainclothes officers escorted the now docile Rommel to their small and battered unmarked car parked in front of the building. I went along to get our irons back.
At the car, one cop said, "Man, what you want us to do with him?" I stammered, "I, I don't know. Lock him up. Charge him with something. Get him a psychiatrist." The cop made a slight clucking sound, shook his head slowly, undid the handcuffs, gave them to me, and said, "You better not be here. Go back. Don't look at this."
As I walked away, these enormous cops drew wooden clubs from their car and administered Rommel a beating that Montgomery would have admired. They drove off, leaving him crumpled on the street.
We had to call and pay for an ambulance.
So ends the true story of how I saved New York from Erwin Rommel.
New Yorkers, be grateful!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Things That Will Not Die!
As mentioned before, I am a die-hard Sci-fi fan. I particularly love those old movies about giant reptilian monsters on the rampage able to withstand all that the insanely brave US army throw at them. In one of my favorites, the 1953 classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the beast, Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion "Rhedosaurus," which dared attack Coney Island, in the end (spoiler alert!) gets repelled only by an all-purpose "radioactive isotope" projectile fired from the top of the Cyclone roller coaster by a brave soldier-scientist-all-around-good-looking-stud. While watching the 1961 "masterpiece" Gorgo, in which pre-Beatle infestation London gets razed by a rubbery mother-son giant lizard tag team able to withstand all that the insanely brave British army throw at them, I got to thinking about "Things That Will Not Die!"
Many things, of course, do die, e.g., PanAm, TWA, the euro, the dollar, the pound, the economy, common sense, literacy, free speech, Cyndi Lauper's career, the city of Detroit, the border with Mexico. Despite repeated debunking, however, many horrid beliefs live on in popular culture, politics, academia, media commentary, and every day speech. Many have a totemic quality for the uneducated leftist college graduates who dominate the remaining shards of Western civilization. As with Godzilla, these beasts keep returning. As a public service, therefore, I have decided to begin a list, in no particular order, of seemingly immortal monsters. Please add at will. I make no claim to having a complete list. Consider this a work in progress; the first step in the hunt for an all-pupose "radioactive isotope."
1) The McCarthy "Witch Hunt": How often must we hear about Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy's "witch hunt"? I am amazed at how often foreigners babble on about McCarthy with absolutely no knowledge about the man or the era except what they pick up from the New York Times and some Hollywood movies, the main source of knowledge about America for Europeans. Just the other day I heard some British journalist going on about McCarthy and his Hollywood "witch hunt." Senator McCarthy, of course, had nothing to do with Hollywood; the House, not the Senate, investigated Communism in the film industry. McCarthy sought to expose Communist penetration of the State Department and the military. The term "witch hunt," of course, aims to show that concerns about Communism had no validity. As we have known for years (Whittaker Chambers, anybody?) and especially since the declassification of the Venona Project, the Soviets ran large spy rings at the highest levels of the US, Canadian, and British governments and societies, including security and military agencies, academia, media, and research organizations. Amazon carries several good books that cover the once very secret US/UK decoding of Soviet intelligence communications. Lloyd Billingsley's Hollywood Party, for example, provides a well-researched and detailed account of Soviet and Communist efforts in Hollywood.
McCarthy might have had little refinement, a bad hair cut, and a face made for radio, but history has proven him right. The "witches" were real and dangerous (e.g., Walter Duranty, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross, Klaus Fuchs, Alger Hiss, Morton Sobel, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, anybody? Anybody?)
2) Man-CausedGlobal Cooling Global Warming Climate Change: Does there exist a more vague, empty phrase than "climate change"? "Environmentalists," code word for New Age Luddites, have sought for decades to hamper economic development in pursuit of a vision of man living within Gaia's embrace. They exploited legitimate concerns over pollution, and came up with manmade global cooling, then--Oops!--warming. Big Fail. Their models could account for and predict nothing. While no great fan of Wikipedia, I found it has a nice explanation of scientific theory: "The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, which is measured by its ability to make falsifiable predictions with respect to those phenomena. Theories are improved as more evidence is gathered, so that accuracy in prediction improves over time." Since neither Cooling "Theory" nor Warming "Theory" explain or predict anything, the proponents of a prehistoric lifestyle settled on Climate Change "Theory" which "predicts" and "explains"--hurrah!-- everything! If we have more hurricanes or fewer hurricanes in a given year, that's "evidence" of manmade climate change; more or less rain, warmer or cooler, windy or becalmed all because of manmade climate change. If, of course, your "theory" explains "everything" but predicts "nothing" ahead of time (the very definition of prediction, no?), you have nothing except the jejune observation that "stuff happens." The proponents of this rubbish cannot answer even basic questions: Should the earth's temperature be what it is now, or what it was ten, twenty, thirty, 100, 1,000, or 10,000 years ago? When has there not been climate change? What causes climate change on Mars?
3) Palestinians: When the Arab countries attacked the new state of Israel, they did not do so in the name of establishing a separate Palestinian entity. They claimed the territory for themselves.
A few questions: How are "Palestinians" different than Egyptians or Jordanians (note: Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo)? Why isn't Jordan the Palestinian homeland? When Jordan controlled it, why wasn't the West Bank referred to as Palestine or Occupied Palestine? Why does the definition of Occupied Palestine only correspond to wherever Jews live? Where are the refugee camps and lavish UN programs for the one million Jews who had to flee their homes in the Arab world since 1948? You get the drift . . .
4) Bush Lied about Iraqi WMD: Let's remember one thing above all else: Iraq under Saddam had and used WMDs, in the guise of chemical weapons, against the Kurds and the Iranians. His agents spent years and millions of dollars trying to acquire the technology for nuclear weapons and a delivery system (Canadian readers please recite Gerald Bull Project Babylon.) It was the official position of the US Congress in the 1990s, and the Clinton administration, along with its reprehensible Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and CIA Director George Tenet, that Saddam sought to develop nuclear weapons. All the world's intel services reported the same thing. President Bush, who kept Tenet at CIA, accepted the wisdom of the world's intel wise men, and acted upon it. What else should a President do? Take a chance that everybody is wrong, and that Saddam had no nukes or nuke program? I am convinced that Saddam thought he had a nuclear weapon, certainly many of his senior military thought Iraq had it; the Iranians certainly thought he had or was about to get one. Enough.
5) Right Wing Nazis and Fascists: Very tiresome. One of the great propaganda victories of the Communists was to label Nazis and Fascists as right-wingers. This is in keeping with a Leninist strain of thought that labelled the true Bolsheviks as Mensheviks, and the true Mensheviks as Bolsheviks. Communism, Fascism, Nazism, all spring from the same leftist belief in mass movements and subordination of the individual to the power of the state.
6) John Kerry is Smart: Ok, you get the idea. Do I really need to "Swiftboat" this mountebank again?
Well, the floorers are drawing nigh, and soon I must disconnect my wifi again. I will stop here. Feel free to add others to this list.
Where is that isotope?
Many things, of course, do die, e.g., PanAm, TWA, the euro, the dollar, the pound, the economy, common sense, literacy, free speech, Cyndi Lauper's career, the city of Detroit, the border with Mexico. Despite repeated debunking, however, many horrid beliefs live on in popular culture, politics, academia, media commentary, and every day speech. Many have a totemic quality for the uneducated leftist college graduates who dominate the remaining shards of Western civilization. As with Godzilla, these beasts keep returning. As a public service, therefore, I have decided to begin a list, in no particular order, of seemingly immortal monsters. Please add at will. I make no claim to having a complete list. Consider this a work in progress; the first step in the hunt for an all-pupose "radioactive isotope."
1) The McCarthy "Witch Hunt": How often must we hear about Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy's "witch hunt"? I am amazed at how often foreigners babble on about McCarthy with absolutely no knowledge about the man or the era except what they pick up from the New York Times and some Hollywood movies, the main source of knowledge about America for Europeans. Just the other day I heard some British journalist going on about McCarthy and his Hollywood "witch hunt." Senator McCarthy, of course, had nothing to do with Hollywood; the House, not the Senate, investigated Communism in the film industry. McCarthy sought to expose Communist penetration of the State Department and the military. The term "witch hunt," of course, aims to show that concerns about Communism had no validity. As we have known for years (Whittaker Chambers, anybody?) and especially since the declassification of the Venona Project, the Soviets ran large spy rings at the highest levels of the US, Canadian, and British governments and societies, including security and military agencies, academia, media, and research organizations. Amazon carries several good books that cover the once very secret US/UK decoding of Soviet intelligence communications. Lloyd Billingsley's Hollywood Party, for example, provides a well-researched and detailed account of Soviet and Communist efforts in Hollywood.
McCarthy might have had little refinement, a bad hair cut, and a face made for radio, but history has proven him right. The "witches" were real and dangerous (e.g., Walter Duranty, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross, Klaus Fuchs, Alger Hiss, Morton Sobel, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, anybody? Anybody?)
2) Man-Caused
3) Palestinians: When the Arab countries attacked the new state of Israel, they did not do so in the name of establishing a separate Palestinian entity. They claimed the territory for themselves.
A few questions: How are "Palestinians" different than Egyptians or Jordanians (note: Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo)? Why isn't Jordan the Palestinian homeland? When Jordan controlled it, why wasn't the West Bank referred to as Palestine or Occupied Palestine? Why does the definition of Occupied Palestine only correspond to wherever Jews live? Where are the refugee camps and lavish UN programs for the one million Jews who had to flee their homes in the Arab world since 1948? You get the drift . . .
4) Bush Lied about Iraqi WMD: Let's remember one thing above all else: Iraq under Saddam had and used WMDs, in the guise of chemical weapons, against the Kurds and the Iranians. His agents spent years and millions of dollars trying to acquire the technology for nuclear weapons and a delivery system (Canadian readers please recite Gerald Bull Project Babylon.) It was the official position of the US Congress in the 1990s, and the Clinton administration, along with its reprehensible Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and CIA Director George Tenet, that Saddam sought to develop nuclear weapons. All the world's intel services reported the same thing. President Bush, who kept Tenet at CIA, accepted the wisdom of the world's intel wise men, and acted upon it. What else should a President do? Take a chance that everybody is wrong, and that Saddam had no nukes or nuke program? I am convinced that Saddam thought he had a nuclear weapon, certainly many of his senior military thought Iraq had it; the Iranians certainly thought he had or was about to get one. Enough.
5) Right Wing Nazis and Fascists: Very tiresome. One of the great propaganda victories of the Communists was to label Nazis and Fascists as right-wingers. This is in keeping with a Leninist strain of thought that labelled the true Bolsheviks as Mensheviks, and the true Mensheviks as Bolsheviks. Communism, Fascism, Nazism, all spring from the same leftist belief in mass movements and subordination of the individual to the power of the state.
6) John Kerry is Smart: Ok, you get the idea. Do I really need to "Swiftboat" this mountebank again?
Well, the floorers are drawing nigh, and soon I must disconnect my wifi again. I will stop here. Feel free to add others to this list.
Where is that isotope?
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Back in La-La Land and a Reprise
Back in California from eight days back home in Miami. Tired and the Diplowife has me moving furniture in anticipation of the flooring guys coming tomorrow to rip out the disgusting wall-to-wall carpet at the house in So. California. This flooring operation will require me to dismantle my computers and internet for a couple of days. So, therefore, I provide a little repeat from the recent past.
I noticed that others (here, for example) are finally catching up with the observations made some time back by this little blog that this century will not necessarily be China's Century. There are, in fact, many factors at work that make it increasingly unlikely that China will become the predominant power of the 21st century; the only hope they have, in fact, is if we self-destruct. That's possible, but the way the world is currently structured it would be a suicide-murder (as opposed to a murder-suicide): if we go, we're taking them with us . . .
Anyhow, here is a little piece I wrote almost eight months ago, which, in light of recent developments in the international oil industry, e.g., "fracking," is even more valid now than when I wrote it. By the way, two days after I posted this, my email was hacked, apparently by hackers based in China. Coincidence? I'll find out . . . I promise to write something new in a couple of days . . . back to moving furniture . . . "I used to be somebody . . . "
MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012
China's Century? Not if We Don't Give It Away
Years ago in Jakarta, I occasionally would meet, lunch, or dine with a husband-wife team of correspondents for two prominent American newspapers. They were very pleasant, had a sense of humor, and a great deal of experience overseas, mostly in Asia. They were well-educated, wrote well, and had the standard liberal biases of their class--e.g., they hated President Bush, hoped John Kerry would win the 2004 election, and viewed the United States as a seriously flawed country on the way to the dust-bin of history. They saw the 21st century "belonging" to China in the same way that the 20th "belonged" to us. They made the usual arguments about China's manufacturing prowess, well-coordinated and determined political class, social discipline, and education--which is the real kind, not the "women's studies" kind. Their writing reflected these views. This narrative continues today from other purveyors of conventional faux wisdom such as the annoying and boring Thomas Friedman, and the condescending and insufferable Fareed Zakaria.
Don't buy it. The 21st will prove "China's century" only if we destroy ourselves; but, if we do, odds are we're taking China with us--and the Chinese rulers know it (more to follow).
I love Chinese history; been to China several times; and like and respect the Chinese people--they work hard, like Americans, and want to study and live in America. I have dealt with China's very slick, tough, and well-trained diplomats. That said, I have found it impressive over the years to see how China has transformed itself from a poor, brutal, authoritarian police state into a poor, brutal, authoritarian police state with large foreign currency reserves. Sorry, but shoddily-built skyscrapers, and streets clogged with Fords, BMWs, Lexus, and Buicks, and lined with luxury stores and restaurants cannot hide the hard facts.
Confucius's 2500-year old Analects still provides an accurate account of China's philosophy of governance in which every person has an assigned role; failure to keep to it has dire consequences. I saw the repression at work in a visit to Tibet which escaped the control of our handlers. Even outside Tibet the legal system, to put it mildly, remains opaque, capricious, subject to political manipulation, and harsh. Avoid Chinese cops--who seem to be everywhere--and courts. For all the vaunted economic progress, control of the legal-political system remains with an unelected and corrupt Communist Party cadre. These rulers have agreed among themselves that not one will have the total power once wielded so disastrously by Mao. The top jobs rotate; major decisions are not made solo. Progress? I don't know. We saw a similar development in the USSR after Stalin: how is the USSR doing these days? The people remain cut out. The elite decide what's best, the people must comply--see Confucius. This secretive, stale, corrupt, aloof, and repressive system remains a major hindrance for China's development as a true power. Despite ham-handed attempts to block outside influence, word spreads of ways to live which do not involve fear and blind loyalty. We probably will not see a Chinese 21st century, but we will see a "Chinese Spring," and it could get nasty.
We hear a lot of heated nonsense about a GOP "war on women." To see a real war on women, go to China. Thanks to Chinese preference for sons, the one-child dictate means females in China are disappearing: they are being aborted, killed, and given for adoption overseas. This is gendercide, a human rights disaster of major proportions and one almost ignored. Moral issues aside, China is heading for demographic disaster. Marrying age men vastly outnumber women. Among those who can afford it, there is a hunt on for foreign brides. Large groups of young Chinese men charter planes to Indonesia, Malaysia, and elsewhere, and hold "speed dating" sessions at local hotels in the hunt for brides, stoking the anti-Chinese hatred which lies just beneath the surface of many Asian societies.
In East Asia, China is deeply feared and resented. East Asian leaders would much rather deal with the United States, and are big proponents of an active US military and economic presence in the area. They do not want China (and previously Japan) as the undisputed big gorilla in the region. As a senior Vietnamese diplomat once told me, "Everybody wants to be American. Nobody wants to be Chinese. Even the Chinese want to be American." This from a man whose father, he said, died fighting the US Marines in Hue, and whose own son was studying in California. Unless you're wealthy and can isolate yourself from Chinese reality, China is an unpleasant place to live for a foreigner, especially one from another Asian country. It has little in the way of "soft power" or uplifting universal values; it does not welcome immigrants, and views foreigners with the same sort of suspicion and disdain that Chinese citizens themselves find in much of East Asia.
Even in the economic sphere there is less than meets the eye. Most Chinese, the overwhelming number of them, live in crushing rural and urban poverty, work under appalling conditions, and suffer levels of environmental pollution and food contamination that no Western society would tolerate. The mass education system is a disaster. Increasingly foreign firms, which, after all, have fueled China's economic growth, are encountering shortages of skilled and semi-skilled workers, and are no longer quite so eager to set up shop in China.
China's banks are a mystery. They are secretive, corrupt, and work closely with the Party and the government. China pursues a policy which will be coming to the end of its rope soon, that of keeping their currency artificially low to keep exports cheap and try to keep the job creation machine churning. The central bank, which holds the largest foreign currency reserves in the world, must come up with ways ("sterilization") to sop up the currency generated in China by the influx of foreign currency to prevent inflation and prevent the Chinese currency from appreciating against other major currencies. This involves forcing the banks to keep an ever increasing reserve, and forcing them to buy low or no yield government bonds. I am no expert, but the ones whom I know wonder how long that can continue. The experts ignore another aspect to this: the overseas political side of it. China's trading partners, the US and Europe most notably, are reaching the end of their patience with China's currency manipulations. A trade war is not inconceivable; China would have the most to lose.
One of the greatest threats to China's future is President Obama. His administration's reckless spending and conjuring of dollars out of thin air, is ruining us and stretching the Chinese ability to "sterilize" the effects of all these cheap dollars pouring in. It is no wonder that Chinese authorities have been lecturing Obama on the need for fiscal restraint and budgetary responsibility. China is tied to our mast. If we sink, they go with us--their billions and billions of dollars in US bonds, worthless. Let's view it as a backhanded compliment to our silly President.
As stated at the outset, China will have as much power and influence as we let them have. China's future as a superpower will be decided in Washington, not in Beijing. Under the Communists, China has not proven an inventive or innovative society; their technological progress is bought, borrowed, copied, or stolen. The USSR tried that, too. They offer no compelling alternative vision to the West's prosperity and freedom. They can try to become a military bully, but that will go only so far in their very complicated neighborhood and with the serious structural and resource weaknesses they suffer.
China should copy and try one thing from the West it has not so far: it works in Japan, in the Republic of Korea, and, ironically, in the "breakaway" Chinese province of Taiwan. I am talking about freedom, the real kind, not the Communist Party kind.
I noticed that others (here, for example) are finally catching up with the observations made some time back by this little blog that this century will not necessarily be China's Century. There are, in fact, many factors at work that make it increasingly unlikely that China will become the predominant power of the 21st century; the only hope they have, in fact, is if we self-destruct. That's possible, but the way the world is currently structured it would be a suicide-murder (as opposed to a murder-suicide): if we go, we're taking them with us . . .
Anyhow, here is a little piece I wrote almost eight months ago, which, in light of recent developments in the international oil industry, e.g., "fracking," is even more valid now than when I wrote it. By the way, two days after I posted this, my email was hacked, apparently by hackers based in China. Coincidence? I'll find out . . . I promise to write something new in a couple of days . . . back to moving furniture . . . "I used to be somebody . . . "
MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012
China's Century? Not if We Don't Give It Away
Years ago in Jakarta, I occasionally would meet, lunch, or dine with a husband-wife team of correspondents for two prominent American newspapers. They were very pleasant, had a sense of humor, and a great deal of experience overseas, mostly in Asia. They were well-educated, wrote well, and had the standard liberal biases of their class--e.g., they hated President Bush, hoped John Kerry would win the 2004 election, and viewed the United States as a seriously flawed country on the way to the dust-bin of history. They saw the 21st century "belonging" to China in the same way that the 20th "belonged" to us. They made the usual arguments about China's manufacturing prowess, well-coordinated and determined political class, social discipline, and education--which is the real kind, not the "women's studies" kind. Their writing reflected these views. This narrative continues today from other purveyors of conventional faux wisdom such as the annoying and boring Thomas Friedman, and the condescending and insufferable Fareed Zakaria.
Don't buy it. The 21st will prove "China's century" only if we destroy ourselves; but, if we do, odds are we're taking China with us--and the Chinese rulers know it (more to follow).
I love Chinese history; been to China several times; and like and respect the Chinese people--they work hard, like Americans, and want to study and live in America. I have dealt with China's very slick, tough, and well-trained diplomats. That said, I have found it impressive over the years to see how China has transformed itself from a poor, brutal, authoritarian police state into a poor, brutal, authoritarian police state with large foreign currency reserves. Sorry, but shoddily-built skyscrapers, and streets clogged with Fords, BMWs, Lexus, and Buicks, and lined with luxury stores and restaurants cannot hide the hard facts.
Confucius's 2500-year old Analects still provides an accurate account of China's philosophy of governance in which every person has an assigned role; failure to keep to it has dire consequences. I saw the repression at work in a visit to Tibet which escaped the control of our handlers. Even outside Tibet the legal system, to put it mildly, remains opaque, capricious, subject to political manipulation, and harsh. Avoid Chinese cops--who seem to be everywhere--and courts. For all the vaunted economic progress, control of the legal-political system remains with an unelected and corrupt Communist Party cadre. These rulers have agreed among themselves that not one will have the total power once wielded so disastrously by Mao. The top jobs rotate; major decisions are not made solo. Progress? I don't know. We saw a similar development in the USSR after Stalin: how is the USSR doing these days? The people remain cut out. The elite decide what's best, the people must comply--see Confucius. This secretive, stale, corrupt, aloof, and repressive system remains a major hindrance for China's development as a true power. Despite ham-handed attempts to block outside influence, word spreads of ways to live which do not involve fear and blind loyalty. We probably will not see a Chinese 21st century, but we will see a "Chinese Spring," and it could get nasty.
We hear a lot of heated nonsense about a GOP "war on women." To see a real war on women, go to China. Thanks to Chinese preference for sons, the one-child dictate means females in China are disappearing: they are being aborted, killed, and given for adoption overseas. This is gendercide, a human rights disaster of major proportions and one almost ignored. Moral issues aside, China is heading for demographic disaster. Marrying age men vastly outnumber women. Among those who can afford it, there is a hunt on for foreign brides. Large groups of young Chinese men charter planes to Indonesia, Malaysia, and elsewhere, and hold "speed dating" sessions at local hotels in the hunt for brides, stoking the anti-Chinese hatred which lies just beneath the surface of many Asian societies.
In East Asia, China is deeply feared and resented. East Asian leaders would much rather deal with the United States, and are big proponents of an active US military and economic presence in the area. They do not want China (and previously Japan) as the undisputed big gorilla in the region. As a senior Vietnamese diplomat once told me, "Everybody wants to be American. Nobody wants to be Chinese. Even the Chinese want to be American." This from a man whose father, he said, died fighting the US Marines in Hue, and whose own son was studying in California. Unless you're wealthy and can isolate yourself from Chinese reality, China is an unpleasant place to live for a foreigner, especially one from another Asian country. It has little in the way of "soft power" or uplifting universal values; it does not welcome immigrants, and views foreigners with the same sort of suspicion and disdain that Chinese citizens themselves find in much of East Asia.
Even in the economic sphere there is less than meets the eye. Most Chinese, the overwhelming number of them, live in crushing rural and urban poverty, work under appalling conditions, and suffer levels of environmental pollution and food contamination that no Western society would tolerate. The mass education system is a disaster. Increasingly foreign firms, which, after all, have fueled China's economic growth, are encountering shortages of skilled and semi-skilled workers, and are no longer quite so eager to set up shop in China.
China's banks are a mystery. They are secretive, corrupt, and work closely with the Party and the government. China pursues a policy which will be coming to the end of its rope soon, that of keeping their currency artificially low to keep exports cheap and try to keep the job creation machine churning. The central bank, which holds the largest foreign currency reserves in the world, must come up with ways ("sterilization") to sop up the currency generated in China by the influx of foreign currency to prevent inflation and prevent the Chinese currency from appreciating against other major currencies. This involves forcing the banks to keep an ever increasing reserve, and forcing them to buy low or no yield government bonds. I am no expert, but the ones whom I know wonder how long that can continue. The experts ignore another aspect to this: the overseas political side of it. China's trading partners, the US and Europe most notably, are reaching the end of their patience with China's currency manipulations. A trade war is not inconceivable; China would have the most to lose.
One of the greatest threats to China's future is President Obama. His administration's reckless spending and conjuring of dollars out of thin air, is ruining us and stretching the Chinese ability to "sterilize" the effects of all these cheap dollars pouring in. It is no wonder that Chinese authorities have been lecturing Obama on the need for fiscal restraint and budgetary responsibility. China is tied to our mast. If we sink, they go with us--their billions and billions of dollars in US bonds, worthless. Let's view it as a backhanded compliment to our silly President.
As stated at the outset, China will have as much power and influence as we let them have. China's future as a superpower will be decided in Washington, not in Beijing. Under the Communists, China has not proven an inventive or innovative society; their technological progress is bought, borrowed, copied, or stolen. The USSR tried that, too. They offer no compelling alternative vision to the West's prosperity and freedom. They can try to become a military bully, but that will go only so far in their very complicated neighborhood and with the serious structural and resource weaknesses they suffer.
China should copy and try one thing from the West it has not so far: it works in Japan, in the Republic of Korea, and, ironically, in the "breakaway" Chinese province of Taiwan. I am talking about freedom, the real kind, not the Communist Party kind.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Surveying the Scene: Chaos
Sitting in my favorite city in the whole world, Miami, Florida. Whenever I get too depressed or downhearted or just need a break, I head back to Miami. That city has played a critical role in my professional life. During my many tours in Latin America, and, of course, with Southern Command, Miami and Florida, in general, including Hurlburt Field where I got to see an AC-130 light up the night, were my safe havens, my places of refuge. Almost regardless of the economic situation in the nation and the world, Miami seems to retain a vitality and cautious optimism that the days ahead will get better. Perhaps that comes from the sun, the heat, and the white beaches, or perhaps it comes from its demographic: people who have seen things get much worse in their countries of origin, and who have patience and still believe that America, in the end, will put things right at home and abroad.
Well, despite the optimistic city, I retain a considerable amount of pessimism, and even disgust with the result of the national elections earlier this month. I find myself distressed not just because a dangerous mediocrity such as Obama could get re-elected, but that a fine, intelligent, a genuinely patriotic man such as Congressman West could not get re-elected, and that another fine, intelligent, and patriotic woman such as Mia Love could not even get elected. I assume that those who voted against West and Love were old time Democratic KKK racists, after all, weren't we told by MSNBC and others that if we failed to vote for Obama we were racists? I assume that the MSNBC formula applies to the goose as well as to the gander . . .
Obamacare and all the other liberal money-fueled delusions are going to come crashing down on the American people in the next few months. I don't have much optimism about the economy. We are in for a rough time of increased taxes, rising deficits, inflation, stagnation and an endless parade of mountebanks, such as the disgraceful Paul Krugman, trying to convince us that more of the same policies that produced all that will somehow produce something different. I can assure you that as things get worse, the Democrat/media lie machine will blame it all on the Republican control of the House. The worse the economy gets, ironically, the worse it might get for the GOP unless the House leadership proves surprisingly adept at keeping the focus on the Obama misadministration.
Developments overseas are following the predictable path blazed by the Obama misadministration's absurd policies of apology, abasement, and accommodation. The Middle East is about as dangerous as it has ever been. Unlike previous major crises in the region, e.g., 1967 and 1973, we now have a welter of totally irrational and unpredictable actors running about on the stage. Nobody really knows what Iran might or might not do; nobody knows how crazed Hezbollah or Hamas might behave; nobody knows what exactly is going on inside Egypt as Morsi launches a pharonic power grab; nobody knows what is going on inside Syria; and we still have no answers as to what happened in Benghazi and why. The Middle East is descending into the sort of chaos eminently foreseeable as Obama dismantled American influence and power in that region. Thanks to the Obama misadministration's open hostility to our developing realistic domestic sources of energy, we remain vulnerable to the whims and manias of the loons in the Middle East. Nuclear-armed Israel stands alone as the sole representative of the West in the Middle East. How much longer before they act?
One last thought before signing off as I get ready to head back to California for a few more weeks. For the first time in about two years I went to the movies. At the urging of old Foreign Service colleagues, I saw "Argo." As you all know, it tells the "true" story of the rescue of six FSOs from Iran. They had managed to get out of the Embassy compound and got taken in by a very brave Canadian Ambassador who hid them for several weeks. The movie is fine, and captures well the 1970s environment in an Embassy. The take over of the Embassy by the Iranian "students" is well done, and most of the film which deals with a CIA plan to rescue these six before the Iranians figure out where they are hiding is good, straight-forward story-telling, with the predictable Hollywood dramatizations.
Even, however, when Hollywood is making a "true" movie, even a somewhat patriotic movie, it cannot resist injecting liberal bias into the story. Nowhere does the movie mention the 1980 elections. Once the six are safely in the air, the movie ends with a long addendum, as the credits roll, that discusses the releasing of the other hostages on January 20, 1981, without ever mentioning Reagan's election and that the hostages were released as Reagan was sworn in as President. It ends with a weird audio interview with President Carter in which he claims credit for the release of the hostages "peacefully" and in manner consistent "with the dignity of our nation." The movie does not mention Carter's botched rescue effort--except tangentially in a conversation at the CIA--and seems to give Carter the credit for freeing the hostages. Those of us in the Foreign Service at the time know the Iranians freed the other hostages out of fear of what Reagan would do to Iran.
More in a few days.
Well, despite the optimistic city, I retain a considerable amount of pessimism, and even disgust with the result of the national elections earlier this month. I find myself distressed not just because a dangerous mediocrity such as Obama could get re-elected, but that a fine, intelligent, a genuinely patriotic man such as Congressman West could not get re-elected, and that another fine, intelligent, and patriotic woman such as Mia Love could not even get elected. I assume that those who voted against West and Love were old time Democratic KKK racists, after all, weren't we told by MSNBC and others that if we failed to vote for Obama we were racists? I assume that the MSNBC formula applies to the goose as well as to the gander . . .
Obamacare and all the other liberal money-fueled delusions are going to come crashing down on the American people in the next few months. I don't have much optimism about the economy. We are in for a rough time of increased taxes, rising deficits, inflation, stagnation and an endless parade of mountebanks, such as the disgraceful Paul Krugman, trying to convince us that more of the same policies that produced all that will somehow produce something different. I can assure you that as things get worse, the Democrat/media lie machine will blame it all on the Republican control of the House. The worse the economy gets, ironically, the worse it might get for the GOP unless the House leadership proves surprisingly adept at keeping the focus on the Obama misadministration.
Developments overseas are following the predictable path blazed by the Obama misadministration's absurd policies of apology, abasement, and accommodation. The Middle East is about as dangerous as it has ever been. Unlike previous major crises in the region, e.g., 1967 and 1973, we now have a welter of totally irrational and unpredictable actors running about on the stage. Nobody really knows what Iran might or might not do; nobody knows how crazed Hezbollah or Hamas might behave; nobody knows what exactly is going on inside Egypt as Morsi launches a pharonic power grab; nobody knows what is going on inside Syria; and we still have no answers as to what happened in Benghazi and why. The Middle East is descending into the sort of chaos eminently foreseeable as Obama dismantled American influence and power in that region. Thanks to the Obama misadministration's open hostility to our developing realistic domestic sources of energy, we remain vulnerable to the whims and manias of the loons in the Middle East. Nuclear-armed Israel stands alone as the sole representative of the West in the Middle East. How much longer before they act?
One last thought before signing off as I get ready to head back to California for a few more weeks. For the first time in about two years I went to the movies. At the urging of old Foreign Service colleagues, I saw "Argo." As you all know, it tells the "true" story of the rescue of six FSOs from Iran. They had managed to get out of the Embassy compound and got taken in by a very brave Canadian Ambassador who hid them for several weeks. The movie is fine, and captures well the 1970s environment in an Embassy. The take over of the Embassy by the Iranian "students" is well done, and most of the film which deals with a CIA plan to rescue these six before the Iranians figure out where they are hiding is good, straight-forward story-telling, with the predictable Hollywood dramatizations.
Even, however, when Hollywood is making a "true" movie, even a somewhat patriotic movie, it cannot resist injecting liberal bias into the story. Nowhere does the movie mention the 1980 elections. Once the six are safely in the air, the movie ends with a long addendum, as the credits roll, that discusses the releasing of the other hostages on January 20, 1981, without ever mentioning Reagan's election and that the hostages were released as Reagan was sworn in as President. It ends with a weird audio interview with President Carter in which he claims credit for the release of the hostages "peacefully" and in manner consistent "with the dignity of our nation." The movie does not mention Carter's botched rescue effort--except tangentially in a conversation at the CIA--and seems to give Carter the credit for freeing the hostages. Those of us in the Foreign Service at the time know the Iranians freed the other hostages out of fear of what Reagan would do to Iran.
More in a few days.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Second Term Blues
Just made it out of LA before the Obama-supporting SEIU labor union decided to thank all the Obama supporters in Los Angeles by shutting down LAX on Thanksgiving, the busiest day of the year for air travel.
I know it shouldn't, but the sight of all those Obama voters having their holiday ruined by Obama's union thugs gives me a little secret "thrill up my leg." That is what you wanted, that is what you got, and we are just getting warmed up! Next up, the fire fighters, the cops, the bus drivers, the prison guards . . . Come to California if you want a good glimpse of what the Obamistas have in mind for the rest of the country.
Welcome to Britain 1971! The same mentality that almost succeeded in turning the UK into a hollowed out offshore slum of Europe is now loose and ruling in America. Not sure if we will have a Maggie Thatcher to rescue us.
And it gets worse.
The Benghazi gate might be shutting. Perhaps some fascinating and relevant stuff is being revealed in the classified hearings, but from what I am hearing, the Obamistas are sidetracking the investigation, stalling, citing spurious national security reasons, and just letting the air go out of the balloon. More or less the same tactics they have used successfully in derailing the Fast and Furious scandal, with added plus in the Benghazi mess they have a salacious angle missing from the F&F scandal.
Obama's America is not a happy place.
I know it shouldn't, but the sight of all those Obama voters having their holiday ruined by Obama's union thugs gives me a little secret "thrill up my leg." That is what you wanted, that is what you got, and we are just getting warmed up! Next up, the fire fighters, the cops, the bus drivers, the prison guards . . . Come to California if you want a good glimpse of what the Obamistas have in mind for the rest of the country.
Welcome to Britain 1971! The same mentality that almost succeeded in turning the UK into a hollowed out offshore slum of Europe is now loose and ruling in America. Not sure if we will have a Maggie Thatcher to rescue us.
And it gets worse.
The Benghazi gate might be shutting. Perhaps some fascinating and relevant stuff is being revealed in the classified hearings, but from what I am hearing, the Obamistas are sidetracking the investigation, stalling, citing spurious national security reasons, and just letting the air go out of the balloon. More or less the same tactics they have used successfully in derailing the Fast and Furious scandal, with added plus in the Benghazi mess they have a salacious angle missing from the F&F scandal.
Obama's America is not a happy place.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Travel and Reprise
I am heading back to Miami for a few days to see what's going on with my house and my kids in college there. I will take the IPad with me, but am absolutely horrible at blogging with it. I'll try. I want to write something about Benghazi and my sinking feeling that Obama has gotten away with it.
Anyhow, just to show you that I am not always wrong, I run a piece here that I wrote in May of 2011, some eighteen months ago, in which I laid out the key difficulty that would face the GOP in the November 2012 elections--note the last paragraph in particular.
Here it is,
Spent a considerable time this weekend reading about the very serious crisis of the Euro. Different analysts grade the severity slightly differently, but all seem in agreement that the Euro, as we know it, is doomed. The most dire scenarios see the whole EMU (Economic Monetary Union) blowing apart, while the most optimistic see Greece, Portugal, perhaps one or two other "Southern" economies separated from the Euro (the numbers, and who exactly gets kicked off the island depend on whom you read), and the currency is reserved for the core "Northern" economies.
This reading then led me to a great deal of reading about the almost equally serious crisis affecting our own dollar. Then, I read about the crisis affecting the British pound. It was an intense amount of very depressing reading: I really need to get out more.
None of the sophisticated and highly technical analyses I read, however, picked up on the real source of the crises facing the major currencies, and, in fact, our core economic well-being. It all comes down to a very simple and basic fact. The western nations have developed societies where those who pay for government services, in general, are not the ones benefitting from the services. In the United States, for example, we have the top one percent of earners paying 38-41% of all Federal income tax. We have nearly half of Americans who pay no income tax, and another large percentage 15-20% who pay minimal income tax (and lets not even get into "Earned Income Tax Credits".) We essentially have a society where some 25% of the income earners pay close to 90% of all Federal income taxes. That 25% does not consume anywhere near 90% of the services provided by the Feds.
You can argue until you're blue in the face that this imbalance is "fair" because those who make more SHOULD pay more. Whether, however, you are "right" or "wrong," in socio-political terms this imbalance has set up a clash between those who pay and those who do not. To varying degrees, it is this clash we see played out in the US and Europe. In Spain, for example, huge crowds of "protestors" take to the streets demanding, well, demanding more from the state. This in a country with an unemployment rate of over 21%, and some of the most generous public benefits anywhere on earth, benefits that do not make it worthwhile to work. So who pays in Spain? Not the protestors, that's for sure. The payers are the ever-shrinking number of Spanish tax-paying wealth producers and, of course, the Germans. Greece, too, has been wracked by massive demonstrations, and even violent and lethal riots, by tens-of-thousands of Greeks objecting to any austerity measures. In other words, the demands are don't pay back the Germans, and let us continue to have a standard of living we have not earned, just because that's what we want and have gotten used to having.
I don't mean to pick on Spain or Greece; we have the same situation developing in the US. Americans are now fully into a political battle waged along new class lines. This is not the old battle of "haves" versus "have nots." This is a battle between "payers" and "pay nots," in other words, between taxpayers and voters.
I listened over the weekend to a parade of Democrats coming on the talk shows, one after another, calling for tax increases on the "wealthy." Some of these calls would push our top rate to some 62%. The Democratic formula is simple. You take the money from the 40% of the people who pay income taxes, and you buy the votes of the 60% who do not--and if there's a gap you borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese. This formula for political success and economic disaster was driven home to me when I was visiting a college campus many months ago. Nearly all the students were voting Democrat. They were full of outrage over some proposed cuts to local government services. None of these students pays income or property tax, few were from the community where they were now voting, and after their college years would move on. The bill would be paid by the local taxpayers; the goods, however, would be consumed by people who were not taxpayers.
We can debate the deficit and entitlement programs all we want. The basic problem is this split between taxpayers and voters. We are going to see that played out big time in the 2012 elections. The Republicans will have a hard sell convincing the voters to cut the benefits they receive from the taxpayers. The Democrats will have a much easier time having the voters give themselves more of the taxpayers money.
Anyhow, just to show you that I am not always wrong, I run a piece here that I wrote in May of 2011, some eighteen months ago, in which I laid out the key difficulty that would face the GOP in the November 2012 elections--note the last paragraph in particular.
Here it is,
Modern Democracy: The Battle Between the Taxpayers and the Voters
Spent a considerable time this weekend reading about the very serious crisis of the Euro. Different analysts grade the severity slightly differently, but all seem in agreement that the Euro, as we know it, is doomed. The most dire scenarios see the whole EMU (Economic Monetary Union) blowing apart, while the most optimistic see Greece, Portugal, perhaps one or two other "Southern" economies separated from the Euro (the numbers, and who exactly gets kicked off the island depend on whom you read), and the currency is reserved for the core "Northern" economies.
This reading then led me to a great deal of reading about the almost equally serious crisis affecting our own dollar. Then, I read about the crisis affecting the British pound. It was an intense amount of very depressing reading: I really need to get out more.
None of the sophisticated and highly technical analyses I read, however, picked up on the real source of the crises facing the major currencies, and, in fact, our core economic well-being. It all comes down to a very simple and basic fact. The western nations have developed societies where those who pay for government services, in general, are not the ones benefitting from the services. In the United States, for example, we have the top one percent of earners paying 38-41% of all Federal income tax. We have nearly half of Americans who pay no income tax, and another large percentage 15-20% who pay minimal income tax (and lets not even get into "Earned Income Tax Credits".) We essentially have a society where some 25% of the income earners pay close to 90% of all Federal income taxes. That 25% does not consume anywhere near 90% of the services provided by the Feds.
You can argue until you're blue in the face that this imbalance is "fair" because those who make more SHOULD pay more. Whether, however, you are "right" or "wrong," in socio-political terms this imbalance has set up a clash between those who pay and those who do not. To varying degrees, it is this clash we see played out in the US and Europe. In Spain, for example, huge crowds of "protestors" take to the streets demanding, well, demanding more from the state. This in a country with an unemployment rate of over 21%, and some of the most generous public benefits anywhere on earth, benefits that do not make it worthwhile to work. So who pays in Spain? Not the protestors, that's for sure. The payers are the ever-shrinking number of Spanish tax-paying wealth producers and, of course, the Germans. Greece, too, has been wracked by massive demonstrations, and even violent and lethal riots, by tens-of-thousands of Greeks objecting to any austerity measures. In other words, the demands are don't pay back the Germans, and let us continue to have a standard of living we have not earned, just because that's what we want and have gotten used to having.
I don't mean to pick on Spain or Greece; we have the same situation developing in the US. Americans are now fully into a political battle waged along new class lines. This is not the old battle of "haves" versus "have nots." This is a battle between "payers" and "pay nots," in other words, between taxpayers and voters.
I listened over the weekend to a parade of Democrats coming on the talk shows, one after another, calling for tax increases on the "wealthy." Some of these calls would push our top rate to some 62%. The Democratic formula is simple. You take the money from the 40% of the people who pay income taxes, and you buy the votes of the 60% who do not--and if there's a gap you borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese. This formula for political success and economic disaster was driven home to me when I was visiting a college campus many months ago. Nearly all the students were voting Democrat. They were full of outrage over some proposed cuts to local government services. None of these students pays income or property tax, few were from the community where they were now voting, and after their college years would move on. The bill would be paid by the local taxpayers; the goods, however, would be consumed by people who were not taxpayers.
We can debate the deficit and entitlement programs all we want. The basic problem is this split between taxpayers and voters. We are going to see that played out big time in the 2012 elections. The Republicans will have a hard sell convincing the voters to cut the benefits they receive from the taxpayers. The Democrats will have a much easier time having the voters give themselves more of the taxpayers money.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Zombies and the Twinkie Defense
Back when I was a useful member of society, I had a real job. I don't refer to my 34 years in the Foreign Service, but to the work that paid my way through school. I was reminded of this while reading about the closing of Hostess Brands, makers, of course, of Hostess Cupcakes--my food of choice while in elementary school and college--Twinkies, and a slew of other classics from the days when we knew that sugar was healthy.
I held two off-campus jobs while an undergrad at UCLA. The first with a small struggling pillow, cushion, and quilt manufacturer barely hanging on in the face, even then, of California's over regulated business environment, high costs, cheap imports, and a relentless unionization drive by the then International Lady Garments Workers Union (ILGWU). I got hired initially to work in the warehouse loading and unloading trucks, and then, when my boss discovered that I spoke fluent Spanish, to serve as a translator between management and the firm's mostly Mexican and Central American employees. The company faced constant efforts by ILGWU to unionize the workforce. The main ILGWU organizer was a self-confessed "former" member of the Communist Party of the USA, a charming, very smart, Spanish-speaking Jewish New Yorker who had worked for years in Chile prior to Allende's overthrow. He would hang around outside the parking lot, talking to the workers as they came and left. Two company guards made sure he did not enter company premises. The ILGWU eventually got a ruling from the courts or the Labor Department that allowed him access to the parking lot where he talked to the employees during lunch and other breaks. In my 18 or so months there, we saw some fist fights and shoving matches; lots of colorful descriptions of various mothers' moral character and employment; vandalizing of cars and trucks; pro- and anti-union threatening phone calls; and the regular presence of cops and immigration agents. The situation grew increasingly tense.
One day representatives from the Department of Labor showed up to supervise a vote on whether to unionize the plant. Management told us that because of the flood of cheap imports it could not pay the wages the union demanded; if the vote went union, the factory would go dark. The ILGWU man said management sought to scare us, and to pay no heed. The vote, as expected, went overwhelmingly pro-union; only two votes cast (one of them mine) against unionizing. Two or three months later, the plant closed, and moved to Mexico--probably employing relatives of the workers who had voted to go with the union. The day management announced to us that the plant would close, the union rep showed up, blamed management and said the ILGWU would fight for us. Never heard from the union again.
Out of work, I found another job with Disneyland working the night shift from 11 pm to 7:30 am. The work was on the grim side: lots of crawling around in the dark, cleaning and fixing things, dealing with a highly anti-semitic American Indian foreman (yes, indeed), and once falling into the water while trying to scrub some green crud off a mechanical elephant in the jungle ride. Disneyland, at least then, had the ultimate in corrupt arrangements with the Teamsters Union which represented the workforce at "The Happiest Place on Earth." Disney would hire a number of college students at sub-union wages, in exchange, we got no union benefits, but STILL HAD TO PAY union dues. Talk about adding insult to injury. With the union dues, and deductions for Social Security, and state and federal income taxes, my check could barely cover my rent and gasoline. I ate a lot of Hostess Cupcakes for lunch and dinner . . . do I know how to segue or what?
Hostess Brands announced on November 16 that because it could not reach a deal with one of its unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), the company will close,
The BCTGM also made a statement,
We are seeing the consequences of the Obama war on "the rich" and the turning over of the economy to the zombies bound and determined to ruin it. We are hearing, in effect, the new Twinkies defense.
Zombies and Twinkies: the epitaph of America.
I held two off-campus jobs while an undergrad at UCLA. The first with a small struggling pillow, cushion, and quilt manufacturer barely hanging on in the face, even then, of California's over regulated business environment, high costs, cheap imports, and a relentless unionization drive by the then International Lady Garments Workers Union (ILGWU). I got hired initially to work in the warehouse loading and unloading trucks, and then, when my boss discovered that I spoke fluent Spanish, to serve as a translator between management and the firm's mostly Mexican and Central American employees. The company faced constant efforts by ILGWU to unionize the workforce. The main ILGWU organizer was a self-confessed "former" member of the Communist Party of the USA, a charming, very smart, Spanish-speaking Jewish New Yorker who had worked for years in Chile prior to Allende's overthrow. He would hang around outside the parking lot, talking to the workers as they came and left. Two company guards made sure he did not enter company premises. The ILGWU eventually got a ruling from the courts or the Labor Department that allowed him access to the parking lot where he talked to the employees during lunch and other breaks. In my 18 or so months there, we saw some fist fights and shoving matches; lots of colorful descriptions of various mothers' moral character and employment; vandalizing of cars and trucks; pro- and anti-union threatening phone calls; and the regular presence of cops and immigration agents. The situation grew increasingly tense.
One day representatives from the Department of Labor showed up to supervise a vote on whether to unionize the plant. Management told us that because of the flood of cheap imports it could not pay the wages the union demanded; if the vote went union, the factory would go dark. The ILGWU man said management sought to scare us, and to pay no heed. The vote, as expected, went overwhelmingly pro-union; only two votes cast (one of them mine) against unionizing. Two or three months later, the plant closed, and moved to Mexico--probably employing relatives of the workers who had voted to go with the union. The day management announced to us that the plant would close, the union rep showed up, blamed management and said the ILGWU would fight for us. Never heard from the union again.
Out of work, I found another job with Disneyland working the night shift from 11 pm to 7:30 am. The work was on the grim side: lots of crawling around in the dark, cleaning and fixing things, dealing with a highly anti-semitic American Indian foreman (yes, indeed), and once falling into the water while trying to scrub some green crud off a mechanical elephant in the jungle ride. Disneyland, at least then, had the ultimate in corrupt arrangements with the Teamsters Union which represented the workforce at "The Happiest Place on Earth." Disney would hire a number of college students at sub-union wages, in exchange, we got no union benefits, but STILL HAD TO PAY union dues. Talk about adding insult to injury. With the union dues, and deductions for Social Security, and state and federal income taxes, my check could barely cover my rent and gasoline. I ate a lot of Hostess Cupcakes for lunch and dinner . . . do I know how to segue or what?
Hostess Brands announced on November 16 that because it could not reach a deal with one of its unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), the company will close,
“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” said Gregory F. Rayburn, chief executive officer. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”
In addition to dozens of baking and distribution facilities around the country, Hostess Brands will sell its popular brands, including Hostess®, Drakes® and Dolly Madison®, which make iconic cake products such as Twinkies®, CupCakes, Ding Dongs®, Ho Ho’s®, Sno Balls® and Donettes®. Bread brands to be sold include Wonder®, Nature’s Pride ®, Merita®, Home Pride®, Butternut®, and Beefsteak®, among others.
The wind down means the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores throughout the United States.This, of course, is a disaster for thousands of workers, executives, and investors, and for many communities. It goes back to a theme I have laid out before about the increasing economic illiteracy in the country, and the fact that so many prominent people are far removed from the real economy. To highlight that we only need to read the statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka who blamed the closing on,
“What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor . . . . Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price.”Trumka, in effect, blames Mitt Romney for Hostess closing down. He ignores, of course, that the company had been in trouble for a couple of years and that venture capitalists, similar to Bain, had taken a chance and invested in it, and kept it running for those two years. Trumka, of course, will continue to draw his roughly $280,000/year salary.
The BCTGM also made a statement,
“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years. They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and 'restructuring specialists' walk away with untold millions of dollars.
“Throughout this long and difficult process, BCTGM members showed tremendous courage, solidarity and devotion to principle. They were well aware of the potential consequences of their actions but stood strong for dignity, justice and respect.”Trumka's rant and the BCTGM statement brought back memories of the words I heard years ago from the ILGWU man in that California parking lot. A lot of empty blather that won't pay the rent. I hope that the members enjoy their "dignity, justice, and respect" and, of course, the benefits that the taxpayers will now have to pay them.
We are seeing the consequences of the Obama war on "the rich" and the turning over of the economy to the zombies bound and determined to ruin it. We are hearing, in effect, the new Twinkies defense.
Zombies and Twinkies: the epitaph of America.
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