Some Things to Think About

While Barack Obama has been busy apologizing for American hegemony, cutting back on our military, precipitously withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, forfeiting hard earned success, Vladimir Putin has been busy trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again.  Here are just a few things to think about.

• Russia invaded Crimea merely days after the Obama administration announced massive cuts to our military, taking our troop strength to its lowest levels since 1940.
• President Obama was firmer and more decisive in his condemnation of George Zimmerman and Cambridge police than Russia.  He clearly spoke in more personally empathic terms with respect to Trayvon Martin than the Ukrainian people.
• Obama has been harsher toward Netanyahu with respect to its settlements.  Remember, Obama called for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders.
• We are in a place that is completely analogous to the position we were in with Jimmy Carter in 1979.  Then, the Russian bear was annexing Afghanistan and the mullahs in Tehran were defying the US.  Today, the Russian bear is attempting to annex the Ukraine and the mullahs are still defying the US, pushing forward with their nuclear program.
• One of my progressive friends accused me of not learning from history.  Really?  Does Germany and the Sudentenland ring any bells for anyone?
• Barack Obama is steeped in anti-colonialist history.  Rather than American exceptionalism, that is the lens through which he views the world.   Well, Mr. Obama, if you don't like colonialism, shield your eyes from your friend Vladimir.  You ain't seen nothin' yet.

The Russian threat to the Ukraine should not have been a surprise.  Putin has been lusting after it for years.  And just as with Iran, Obama kept silent for days while the crisis escalated.  Instead of being a champion for freedom, the integrity of nations, and international order, Obama delivered a statement that was written in pure bureaucratese, vowing only to "consult with our allies" and "communicate developments."   Just the consequences a thug fears.   Worse, his crack foreign policy team of John Kerry, Susan Rice and Samantha Power were caught more flat footed than Carter was when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  At least this time, they had the good manners to invade AFTER the Olympics.   

The mainstream media will never tie the loose ends.  As with Jimmy Carter, the Russian invasion is the result of persistent naivete in a Democratic administration.  This crisis, along with the Benghazi tragedy, is a direct result of the statecraft of Hillary Clinton.  Her Republican opponents should not forget to remind the voters.

Spouting Off

Not sufficiently occupied with Middle East peace, the economy, Obamacare, the Iranian nuclear program, Barack Obama had to weigh in on another matter of utmost importance to him-- pro football.

"I would not let my son play pro football," inveighed Obama, addressing the risk of head injury, and following the orchestrated propaganda of the New York Times.  First, let's put a couple of factual points to rest.  First, Obama does not have a son.  Second, only adults play pro football and Obama would be powerless to stop his theoretical son from playing.

This is not the first time President Obama has used his theoretical son to make a point.  Just like his "composite girlfriend" that showed up in his autobiography,  Obama has used a fictitious son once before--in the Trayvon Martin case, claiming that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.  And, as in the Martin case, is opining in a place where he doesn't engage in weighing any of the facts.  He just spouts, and he is now spouting the liberal line against football.

I find it interesting whom Obama uses this fictitious son to identify with.  While it is tragic that Martin lost his life in the altercation with Zimmerman, Trayvon was no choirboy.   He was suspended from school multiple times and had other issues.  I wonder if President Obama would have permitted one of his daughters to date Trayvon.  But in his public statements, he positively identifies with Trayvon.

But now, he uses his theoretical son to push against football, and the implication is that it would be OK for his son to be hanging around pointlessly rather than play ball.  Forget that pro football players have had to demonstrate great discipline and training to achieve what they have to achieve.  Forget that a football field is someplace where race is absolutely no factor whatsoever in getting ahead, and, in fact, is a profession where people of color have gone from dirt poor to unimaginably rich in a few years.  Forget that the Chicago Public School coaches were in a panic last year during the teachers' strike because they were afraid that without the structure of football, they would lose hundreds of boys to gangs.  None of this matters to Obama.  He is compelled to comment on a matter over which he has no control, using a son that does not exist to advance the progressive vendetta against the sport, a topic which I will flesh out more fully in a later post.

When you take his comments together, it is clear that Obama would be not troubled by a son that is an aimless, in-and-out of trouble youth, but would be troubled if his aspirations were to work hard, train hard, and sacrifice to make it up the ladder to the NFL.

So,  you would not let your son play in the NFL?  Fair enough.  I would not let my son become a pot smoking community organizer, either.

So Long 2013

What a remarkable year it has been.  For me, personally, it has been a year of profound changes.  My oldest graduated from college and landed a great first job, stopping that cash outflow.  New passions and friendships were ignited and reconnected.  My new and revitalized passions included an increased zeal for the game of golf, culminating in a trip to Pinehurst, North Carolina, one of golf's great Meccas for a wonderful 3 day trip in November. And, alas, the year was not without great pain as I lost my longtime friend, hiking partner and mentor Jim Hopper in June.  Jim introduced me to the economics department at the University of Chicago, helped me greatly throughout my career, and encouraged my writing and my intellectual growth throughout my life.  I was honored to deliver one of his eulogies and I shall miss him greatly.

I have taken a short sabbatical from blogging and one of my New Year resolutions is to resume on a more frequent basis and there is not a better way than to resume by my annual year end summary of the best and worst of 2013.  Interestingly, the main character of both my favorite film and book of the year this year is a strong, independent woman.

Best Film
Gravity.  While it was considered by many to be overrated, and contained some factual flaws, Gravity was my favorite film of 2013.  Both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney put forward outstanding performances and the special effects were outstanding.  I am a sucker for survival movies and I thought that Bullock's character was well developed.  Other strong contenders were the comedy The Way, Way Back, Blue Jasmine and Inside Llewyn Davis.  I confess, however, that I missed The Butler and 12 Years a Slave.

Best in Fiction

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver.  Again, this novel was basically a survival story involving an independent woman.  But this was a fictionalized account of real survival of a single mom during the Great Depression.  The story revolved around the life of the woman depicted in the famous photograph, "Migrant Mother."  The uneasy intersection of the lives of the photographer and her subject was well developed and the strain of the life of this woman as she fought to survive and care for her children made for riveting reading.  Mary Coin was a close call as a choice as I also loved Canada by Richard Ford and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walker.

Best in Nonfiction
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. Many people disregard Taleb as not academically rigorous enough and arrogant and there is some truth to both charges, but I found Antifragile to be interesting and full of little anecdotes that caused you to pause and think a little differently.   The real message of Taleb's book is that sometimes unforeseen events occur which, on the surface, appear to be disastrous, but often turn out to be positive in the long run.  This is not necessarily a new concept, but Taleb says it in an interesting way.

Best Album
I thought this year was a little thin.  Last year, we had The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and Mumford & Sons.  In a weak field, I liked Night Visions by Imagine Dragons followed by a dark horse selection of Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars.

Best Live Concert
Bob Seger.  Hands down, Seger was the best.  It was with great dismay that I looked around at the crowd, and thought, "This is supposed to be a ROCK concert, not an Englebert Humperdink concert.  What are all these old people doing here?"  But Seger delivered.  Unlike some of the other old rockers that have lost a step or two or several octaves, Seger put forward an outstanding performance.  Being grey and dumpy didn't slow him down a bit as he belted out versions of "Hollywood Nights," "Against the Wind," "Like a Rock," and "Turn the Page" that were indistinguishable from albums that are over 30 years old.  And his warmup act was Joe Walsh, who, by himself, was phenomenally entertaining.

Most Interesting Figure
Pope Francis.  Within a couple of months Pope Francis both gave me hope for a renewed Catholic Church by his humility and his de-emphasizing sexuality as a centerpiece of morality of the church.  I also saw his willingness to begin to start to loosen centralized authority as a positive development.  But then he undermined his standing by his frontal attack on the "tyranny of markets" and capitalism with no corresponding criticism of the tyranny of the state.   He appeared to fully understand Christian humility but then failed utterly to understand how capitalism has lifted millions of people out of miserable and hopeless poverty worldwide.

So I am back, hopefully with some interesting things to say from time to time and I will endeavor to blog more frequently, even if they are just short and random thoughts.

A Fine Mess

In the complicated, kaliedoscopic Middle East, it is easy to make a misstep which carries unintended consequences.  The war in Iraq, for instance, appeared to be a straightforward proposition: a brutal dictator who routinely threatened our interests, violated terms of the cease fire of the Gulf War of 1990-91, and looked like he was marching down the path of acquiring WMD in a post 9/11 world.  We were faced with a threat, had a strategic interest, and the backing of our closest ally, Great Britain.  It turned out to be a messy, costly, and complicated affair, and while we removed one dictator, we enabled another tyrannical regime, Iran, to expand its influence.

Fast forward nearly a decade and we have yet another showdown with another brutal secular dictator.  And we are on the brink of pulling the trigger on yet another unforeseen set of consequences, and this time with even thinner support.  Yes, the Assad regime is brutally attempting to hold on to power.  Yes, he used WMD on his own people.  Yes, the world needs to understand that the use of WMD cannot go unpunished.  But I submit that the Obama administration has now maneuvered itself into a position where a good decision is no longer available.

Let's look at where the game board sits.  We have no UN Security Council Resolution, and no NATO support.  Russia (remember the "reset"?) is obstructing us and our closest historical ally, Great Britain has said nyet.  For all the self righteous chest thumping of Obama during his campaign against Bush, he has placed us in a position of being more out there alone on an issue than Bush ever was.  Obama finally caved last week and sought Congressional support, which he didn't bother to do before his infamous "lead from behind" intervention in Libya.  Now, there is even controversy over the death toll in the Syrian WMD attack, with independent groups claiming that the Obama administration is grossly inflating the number.

Obama failed to lead early in the Syrian civil war, before the rebels turned jihadist.  Now, as in Egypt, there are no good guys to choose from.  Do you really want to weaken the Assad regime so that Syria turns into a Muslim extremist led state (assuming Mr. Holder lets us use the term "Muslim extremist").  Do we want to risk strengthening Assad by launching a pinprick limited attack that he quickly rebounds from?  What if Syria, Iran, or Hezbollah attacks Israel?  What if Syria attacks us here?

It is hard not to feel a little schadenfreude over this.  The self righteous Obama administration has only the support of France (or as one pundit put it, the "coalition of the invisible").  Syria has not directly threatened us or our allies.  A limited attack will have no appreciable effect.  A larger attack risks toppling Assad and paving the way for the jihadists.  In other words, there are no good decisions on the table.

This box is a direct result of a president with limited experience and no leadership skills.  The Syrian situation was foreseeable and even predictable.  But Obama failed to build and cultivate close strategic alliances.  He made a "red line" pronouncement that he is now stuck with.  Then, he made matters worse by stopping in midflight to get Congressional approval.  Building a coalition with the international community and getting Congressional support are crucial.

And, as a side note, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, is on record saying that Assad is a reformer.  On top of the Benghazi debacle, this wrongheaded assertion should derail her candidacy.  But the MSM refuses to hold her accountable.

Syria.  Libya.  Iraq.  Iran.  Egypt.  Is there any place that the Obama foreign policy is winning?

Governments and Women

Rather than write about the sequester (which is much ado about not much), I thought I'd comment on some items that came up over the past couple of weeks on how governments treat women, and how they manage to muck things up.

Let's start with Iran.   It turns out that even the mullahs are figuring out that a key to prosperity is population growth (contrary to the claims of the eco-statists like Paul Ehrlich).  With an aging population, you need young, productive workers to support us aging folks in their dotage and Iran is beginning to suffer the same demographic issues that are plaguing Japan, Russia, and Europe.

As someone with some background in economics, I believe that people do respond to financial incentives.  And I applaud the mullahs in this regard.  They apparently have set up a series of financial incentives to induce women to have more babies, including generous time off, and a gold coin upon the birth of a child.  Maybe the mullahs are catching on a bit.

I'm not sure financial incentives alone will be sufficient to do the trick, however.  Iranian women are, in my view, among the most stunning in the world, with their dark brown eyes and hair and beautiful olive skin.  Yet, the mullahs keep them wrapped up in what amounts to black plastic hefty bags and make their brothers accompany them on trips outside their homes.  Somebody needs the explain to the mullahs what actually causes babies and that these measures are a structural impediment to, ahem, spontaneous baby generation.  If you really want more babies, boys, loosen your collars a bit.   Maybe start by introducing a more fashionable burka (see above).

But not to be outdone, public policy choices here in the good old USA toward women also appear to be somewhat schizophrenic.  Our own government is hell bent on providing women with free birth control (with the indomitable Sandra Fluke as its leading advocate), and we have heard the hew and cry of the Republican War on Women.

But while the liberals want government to provide free birth control to women, it is simultaneously launching a campaign to curtail the right of a woman to possess and carry a firearm for self protection.  Intruders and rapists will have less to fear from women if the Left is able to curtail 2nd Amendment rights.  Taken together, these policies on birth control and guns make a powerful statement about what our government intends to permit women to be empowered to do.

Oh, and by the way, it turns out that spousal coverage is being dropped by many companies because of Obamacare mandates.  So Obama's claim that "if you like your coverage, you can keep it," apparently will not be true for many women covered on their husband's policies.

Absurd government policies toward women appear to be something we have in common with Iran.  If women are to be truly free, independent, and fully empowered, the mullahs and the American Left don't quite get it yet.

Miscellany

I have to start off this week's post by patting myself on the back for correctly calling this year's Grammy winner for the second year in a row.  Mumford & Sons, a terrific new band that has reignited a genre took the honors with its album, Babel.

My second correct judgment came in my assessment that the correct analysis of Washington DC is to view DC as an alcoholic or drug abuser in denial.  Sure enough, Nancy Pelosi made my case for me by arguing that "It's almost a false argument that Washington has a spending problem?"   Huh?   Every hear that kind of talk from an alcoholic?   "I don't have a drinking problem," they proudly announce.  Yeah, well, this is the third time this month you left your car parked your car up on the lawn.

I won't bore you with a full critique of the State of the Union speech.  It contained its expected litany of Big Government solutions to all our problems and conveniently forgot to mention that we don't have anything left on our tab for Big Government solutions.

But I have to pick out a couple of egregious items.

First is Obama's newfound support of manufacturing.  And he proposes to help manufacturers by creating manufacturing hubs (yet another project from the Bureau of Central Planning).  But before we launch off on that escapade, let's take stock of what the Obama Administration has done for manufacturers so far.  He has raised taxes, particularly on Sub-S corporations.  He has inflicted Obamacare on them.  The EPA has unleashed a torrent of new rules on them.  His energy policies (and fiscal policies) have increased energy costs for them.  The Department of Labor (with its unconstitutionally appointed members) has empowered unions, with the most outrageous example of its attack on Boeing for attempting to open a plant in nonunion South Carolina.   Dodd Frank has incrementally made financing more difficult.  I have a simpler solution than manufacturing hubs.  How about just stop inflicting the tax and regulatory torture?

The second knee slapper was Obama's criticism of "sequestration."  True, it is a blunt instrument and arises out of a complete lack of discipline and ability to responsibly budget.  But President Obama forgets that sequestration was HIS idea.  The saner and more responsible approach was Bowles-Simpson, which he kicked to the curb.

I could go on, but I won't.  The true nature of the severity of the division in our politics became very apparent to me on Tuesday night.  I am fortunate to have some very bright and very well educated friends on both ends of the political spectrum.  During the State of the Union, emails clogged my inbox.   My liberal friends are still swooning over the Obama mystique.  "Visionary," "intellectually substantive," "strong agenda," were some of the comments I received.  My conservative friends had things to say like, "every time he speaks, I throw up a little in my mouth," or "is utterly contemptuous of the restraints the Constitution places on him."  It's interesting that equally educated people can see things in such markedly different ways.

Sadly, however, the opposition is in a shambles.  I note that two groups of which I am a member- the Republican Party and the Catholic Church are in complete disarray.   Both are sorely lacking in young, vibrant, competent leadership.  There is hope for the Republicans in Marco Rubio.   We'll see about the Catholic Church.  I am hoping they will use this transition to truly revitalize the Vatican.

You'll Never Hear About It

I have a bold prediction.

The Republicans lost in '08 to Barack Obama, in part because of the war in Iraq.  We all know the controversy and arguments around the decision to oust Saddam Hussein, and the failure to adequately plan for a post-Hussein Iraq undoubtedly cost American lives.

Ultimately, however, I believe that Barack Obama's domestic policies will ultimately lead to more premature American deaths than George Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

These deaths will arise out of at least two areas.  First, there will be deaths that arise out of  Obamacare.  I have been reading more about the U.K.'s experience with nationalized healthcare.  While  we have not gone that route yet (the true liberals would like to take us there), we have taken the first step, and President Obama's former head of Medicare, Donald Berwick, famously announced that the U.S. health system was "trapped in the darkness of private enterprise."  This gives you a hint of where they ultimately would like to take us.  Great Britain's death rate after major surgeries is four times what it is here.  And a recent study showed that care was so poor at hospitals administered out of the mid Staffordshire trust that hundreds have died.  The "death pathways" (yes, Sarah Palin was right to be concerned) misdiagnose people regularly leading to even more deaths.

It is true that we aren't on the UK system yet, but the law of supply and demand dictates that putting more people in the system without increasing the number of doctors and facilities will increase treatment delay, and some number of delays will have fatal consequences.  Doctors here at Mt. Sinai (which serves mostly Medicare and Medicaid patients) are deeply concerned over whether that hospital will be able to remain open after Obamacare reimbursement levels are cut.  Some of those people will defer treatment.

So much for compassion.

The other  policy decision that  will lead to more American deaths is in CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards.  CAFE standards are known to cause at least 2,000 deaths and 20,000 injuries per year, and that number has been confirmed by several independent sources, including the National Academy of Sciences and the NHTSA.  This is simple physics.  To meet the mileage requirements, cars must be made out of lighter materials.  These materials do not stand up as well in high speed collisions.  President Obama recently mandated that these standards be gradually raised to 54.5 MPG by 2025.  Hundreds more highway deaths will result, even though CAFE standards have not shown to be effective in lowering fuel consumption.

You will never hear about it.  You will never read about it.  It will be dark, insidious and silent.  But I predict that the cumulative effect of Obama's domestic policies on mortality in just these two areas over time will eclipse American deaths resulting from the invasion of Iraq.

Bet on it.