Al's Politics

Romney: A Very Capable Big Money Corporate Guy

2012-01-08T23:00:00.001-08:00

Willard (Mitt) Romney looks like he will be the Republican candidate for President. Who is he? A lot of things, but at his core he seems to me to be a very competent big-money corporate guy. Let's take these one at a time, although in a different order.

Big money. Romney was born to a very wealthy family. All his life there has been money, big money, all around him and in his pockets.

Very capable. Romney has been able to take his money, his talents, and the connections and advantages big money gave him and create a very large fortune, somewhere around $200 million. While it is easy to make money when you've got money, Romney has gone far beyond this in his acquisition of great wealth. Romney also did an excellent job of running the Utah winter olympics and a decent job of running Massachusetts as governor -- including implementing near-universal health care. Romneycare was so successful that Obamacare mimics its key features: an individual mandate and health exchanges, although at the national level these will not kick in for another year or two.

Corporate. Romney's business experience doesn't come from making things, or servicing things, or building things; it comes from manipulating corporations. His firm bought corporations, usually with money borrowed against the firm's assets, extracted as much profit as they could, and sent them on their way. Some prospered, some failed, but Romney almost always made money either way (see 'Very Capable').

So here's the question of the year: do you want a very capable, big money, corporate guy to be President?

How Do You Judge Economic Performance?

2011-11-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

What is the right way to judge someone's economic performance? Consider the following scenarios:

A new CEO takes control of a company which is laying off workers, whose sales and profitability is dropping and whose stock price is way down. Three years later they are hiring slowly, sales and profitability are growing slowly, and the stock price has increased 50%. Is the CEO doing a good job because things are much better? Or is he doing a lousy job because the company is still worse off than a few years before the CEO took over?

A new governor takes over a U.S. state. The state is losing jobs fast, GDP is dropping, and the deficit is high. Three years later jobs are growing slowly and GDP is up 2-3%/year, but the deficit is still high. Is the governor doing a good job because things are much better? Or is he doing a lousy job because the state still isn't doing as well as a few years before the governor took over?

A new president takes over. The country is losing 750,000 jobs per month, GDP is dropping fast, the Dow is at 8,000, and the deficit is very high. There is a real possibility of complete financial collapse. Three years later the economy is adding 100,000-200,000 jobs a month, GDP is up 2-3% a year, and the Dow is around 12,000 but the deficit is still very high. The financial industry is now very profitable and in no immediate danger of collapse. Is the president doing a good job because things are much better? Or a lousy job because the country isn't doing as well as a few years before he took over?

Of course, there is such a president. His last name is Obama.

Taxes are Theft -- Not!!!!

2011-10-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Many conservatives believe that taxes are theft, particularly progressive taxes on the wealthy, because taxes are taken by force. They feel that if someone earned a lot of money that money is theirs and the government has no business taking it. This makes sense, until you realize that nobody ever got rich alone. No one. Ever.

To see this, consider an entrepreneur who has a great idea, builds a factory, produces the product, sells it all over the world and makes billions. They created the wealth, right? It's theirs, right? Why should the government get a piece?

Well, our entrepreneur used the roads to deliver product to his customers, and we all paid for the roads.

Our entrepreneur was protected from theft, vandalism, and fire by police and fire fighters that we all paid for.

Our entrepreneur need educated staff, and most of the staff hired were educated in public schools we all paid for.

Our entrepreneur undoubtedly used the internet for advertising, organizing, etc. The research that led to the internet was paid for by everyone.

This could go on for a long time, but you get the idea.

Our entrepreneur did great work and deserves a big chunk of money, but that product would never have succeeded without the infrastructure and services we all paid for. That's why it is moral and just to require our entrepreneur to pay taxes so the next entrepreneur will have roads, police protection, an educated workforce, and the other infrastructure and services we all pay for.

Thanks to Elizabeth Warren for articulating this line of reasoning.

Class Warfare!!!!

2011-09-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

President Obama had the gall to ask Americans earning over $1 million a year to pay the same tax rate as the middle class!!! Rep. Paul Fryem' immediately called it what it is: class warfare. Soon, bodies will be bleeding in the street! Imagine the horrible effects of hedge fund managers and Wall Street tycoons paying the same tax rate as firemen, engineers, and -- gasp -- teachers!!! Soon heart rending stories like these will fill the newspapers:

-- I. M. Rich was forced to sell his French castle today, a victim of class warfare. He's left with only a Chateau in France, ten mansions in the states, and a few odds and ends in Italy. "My wife will be devastated," Mr. Rich said, pushing through tears, "we spent several days there only five years ago."

-- Hedge fund manager Dewey Cheetem, now paying the same tax rate as his gardener and secretary, was forced to let go of one of his three Rolls Royces -- but managed to keep the rest of his 20 luxury automobiles, thank goodness. "Obama is a heartless ogre," Mr. Cheetum exclaimed, "the red one was my favorite, but it had to go."

-- Thousands of families, struggling to get by on barely seven figure incomes, are cutting back. One wealthy wife was observed wearing the same $20,000 gown to two completely different events!! People have shifted from private jets to the ghastly grime of mere first class. The horror!!

Not content with these body blows to the poor, defenseless, fabulously wealthy, Obama is also going after the 3.9% tax break the richest (and therefor best) Americans have enjoyed for the last decade. While we need the revenue to balance the budget, there is a better way. A tax of only 50% on the income of the poorest half of all Americans would generate the same revenue.

It's important to remember that the Ottoman Empire did not tax the rich at all! All taxes were payed by the peasants and shop keepers. America has a $15 trillion debt to pay off, wouldn't it be better if the rich were exempt from the onerous burden of paying a share of this debt, wouldn't it be better if the 'little people' took responsibility?

Obama Waxes Osama

2011-05-03T22:34:00.001-07:00

You are reading this because I've seen the Right try to pretend Obama, along with the SEALs, doesn't deserve the bulk of the credit for killing Osama bin Laden. They claim 'Bush era policies' should get the credit. However, it's no accident Obama did in two years what Bush failed to do in seven. Consider:
1. For most of his time in office, Bush focused attention and resources on Iraq, where bin Laden wasn't. For example, Bush publicly expressed disinterest in Osama as early as 2002 and disbanded the CIA bin Laden unit in 2005.
2. Since taking office, Obama has focused attention and resources on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where bin Laden was. For example, he tripled US troops in Afghanistan and vastly increased drone strikes in Pakistan.
3. Shortly after the inauguration, Obama ordered the CIA to make killing bin Laden their absolute number one, top priority in the war on al Qaeda.
4. As a result, they found Osama, President Barack Hussein Obama ordered forces under his command to kill him, and they did.

It's Time for a No-Fly Zone in Libya

2011-03-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

It has taken me quite some time, but I now believe that we should enforce a no-fly zone in Libya, ideally as part of a NATO or UN operation, but speed is probably more important than allies.

The huge wave of non-violent pro-freedom and democracy protests sweeping the Arab world is potentially a major strategic victory for America. First, the protesters may succeed in establishing democracies in many, if not most, Arab countries, a big plus for the U.S. Second, the protesters have handed al Qaeda a strategic defeat. After all, 15 years of violence never toppled a single corrupt Arab government, and non-violent protest took out two in a few months.

Unfortunately, there is a way to defeat large popular non-violent uprisings: massive deadly force. In Egypt public and (no doubt) private pressure from America helped prevent this, but we have no such influence in Libya and Gaddafi has taken this approach with a vengeance. If Gaddafi succeeds in crushing the protesters, other Arab dictators will know exactly how to stay in power. If Gaddafi falls, Arab dictators will have little choice but to bow to the aspirations of their people.

The question, of course, is how to help the protesters. The answer, of course, is to listen to them. They are quite clear on one point: they don't want boots on the ground. British special forces inserted into Libya were arrested by the protestors and sent home. On the other hand, voices within the protest movement are increasingly of one mind: take Gaddafi's air force out of the equation.

This is something we can do, and we are probably preparing. Aircraft carriers have been sent to the region. Reconnoissance planes are flying off the coast. Warships are gathering for potential 'humanitarian missions.' Allies are being consulted. NATO is meeting. UN resolutions are being drafted. Unfortunately, international consensus takes time and speed is of the essence.

In the last few days the government has driven protesters from two cities. Gaddafi's firepower is beginning to overwhelm the opposition. Establishing a no-fly zone is an act of war, which is always risky, but taking down Gaddafi's air force will certainly help, a lot, and with a bit of luck putting America's unmatched firepower in the service of the protest could trigger a government collapse. With a third corrupt Arab dictatorship down, the winds of freedom and democracy could well sweep the Arab world with little additional effort from, but lots of benefit to, America and the rest of the world.

What you can do: go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact or call 202-456-1111 and make your voice heard.

When is 51,000 more than 250,000?

2011-03-05T10:39:00.001-08:00

Lately, the pundits at FOX have been telling us Wisconsin teachers are overpaid. These teachers have an average salary of $51,000, $75,000 if you include benefits; and the FOX folks tell us this is a lot of money. Too much. Although the teachers have agreed to a 7% cut overall to help with a $3.6 billion deficit over two years, the FOX pundits say this is not enough; the teachers must give up collective bargaining and take bigger cuts.

Rewind to the debate last year over ending the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000. These same FOX pundits told us $250,000 was not that much money, hardly enough to pay a mortgage and send the kids to college! It was way too much to ask for a 3.9% tax tax increase on income over $250,000 to deal with a federal deficit of $1,400 billion.

So when is 51,000 (or 75,000) more than 250,000, 3.9 more than 7, and 3.6 billion more than 1,400 billion? When you are a FOX pundit!

Egypt thought

2011-02-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian non-violent protestors calling for freedom and democracy have driven their dictator of 30 years, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak, from power. A few months ago, nobody thought anything like this could happen.

The Egyptian protests have succeeded, so far, because the army refused to mow them down. Whenever a repressive government loses the will to butcher large numbers of its citizens, that government's days are numbered. The interesting question is "Why?" In part, of course, the military just didn't want to. In part, the officers weren't sure the conscripts who actually carry the guns would follow orders to kill thousands of their compatriots. Also, to our credit, America may have played a role.

About one third of the Egyptian military budget comes from the U.S. treasury. In addition, the Egyptian military uses American hardware. American weapons are very good, but their functioning depends on supplies and spare parts from America. If that supply chain is cut, the weapons quickly become useless. This is what happened to Iran after 1979. When Iraq invaded Iran the U.S. sided with Iraq, cut the supply lines to Iranian American-made weapons, and major Iranian weapon systems quickly became useless.

Fast forward to Egypt the last few weeks. Obama and Clinton, in public, made it crystal clear that America expected the parties involved, including the Egyptian army, to remain non-violent. I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised, if there was also some private communication with the Egyptian government and military. I think the Egyptian military was probably told, in no uncertain terms, that if the started shooting protestors the flow of American dollars and spare parts would stop.

Today is the Egyptian's day. They toppled Mubarak. I think we helped a bit. It was the right thing to do.

U.S. Federal Debt, Part III, Expenses and Income

2010-12-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

In Part I I laid out our debt problem. The short story: $13.7 trillion and growing fast. In Part II I discussed ways to give the major players incentives to eliminate the debt, reversing current incentives. In the current section, Part III, I discuss ways to reduce expenses and increase income. The ground rules are: everything gets cut and everyone pays more taxes. The scale of the problem is much too large for any other approach. I break this rule once because overall economic costs should go down significantly although government costs go up. It should be noted that most deficit reduction proposals boil down to: cut stuff I don't like and tax other people, i.e., everyone else hurts but not me. This is not serious. Serious debt reduction means cutting things you like and paying more taxes.

Note that I do not put dollar figures on these ideas. That's because I do not have the resources to make realistic estimates. However, in all cases brief reflection will show that costs will go down or income will go up, often by a lot. Now for the proposals:

Each year, eliminate all tax breaks. This will raise a lot of revenue. Allow Congress to put tax breaks back in, but only associated with tax rate increases to pay for them and only by a separate vote for each tax break. This would reduce the complexity of the tax code and, therefore, implementation costs. It would also substantially level the economic playing field and contribute to economic growth. It will probably be necessary to reduce tax rates to avoid over-taxation.

Eliminate all government subsidies except

Research and development, which the government is very good at and pays for itself handsomely (consider the Internet, which began as a government project).
Purchasing. The government buys a lot of stuff, and this can be used to boost important emerging industries. For example, it would make sense for all government buildings and military bases to be energy self-sufficient so as not to be vulnerable to attacks on the power grid. This would justify covering all buildings with solar cells and installing wind generators where appropriate. This would enhance national security directly and develop permanent domestic energy supplies.

Eliminating subsidies would substantially reduce government expenses and level the economic playing field.

Change our military grand strategy from global military domination to self-defense. While we call our military the Department of Defense, it is neither designed nor deployed to defend America -- as we discovered on 9/11/2001 when our multi-hundred billion dollar military failed totally and a few passengers on United Flight 93 provided the only effective defense [reference]. If you do not think we seek global military dominance, consider:

We can completely destroy any nation or combination of nations with our nuclear stockpile. Only Russia has similar capabilities.
We can destroy any building in the world within a few hours with our precision guided munitions, and we can do that to thousands of buildings within hours or days. No other nation has this capacity.
We can deploy hundreds of thousands of troops to the furthest reaches of the Earth, for example, Afghanistan. No other nation has this capacity.
We spend more on the military ($680 billion -1,300 trillion this year, depending on what you include) than the rest of the world combined, even though many of the other powerful militaries are our allies and America is extraordinarily easy to defend: two borders are large oceans and both neighbors are friendly, small, and weak.

Defending America is pretty easy and should be fairly cheap. Global military dominance, on the other hand, is infinitely expensive. Although we have more than doubled expenses since 9/11, we have failed to destroy tiny al Qaeda. Indeed, al Qaeda is probably stronger today than it was then. The expense of global military dominance feeds into al Qaeda's strategy, which is to trick America into spending ourselves into bankruptcy. This strategy is working very well.

Of course, global military dominance is nice to have. One can push small nations around at will and even intimidate large ones. However, it is bankrupting us. We will either abandon it gradually, under control, or we will spend ourselves into default and the system will come crashing down in a completely uncontrolled manner with disastrous consequences. Choose.

Get rid of the mercenaries. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first in which America made extensive use of mercenaries, euphemistically called 'contractors.' These are also the longest wars America has ever fought and neither is headed for decisive victory. This isn't an accident. There are many reasons mercenaries are a particularly bad choice for counter-insurgency warfare, but there is a more fundamental issue. Mercenaries don't benefit from winning, they lose their jobs. Mercenaries benefit from the longest, most drawn-out war possible. Mercenaries are also very expensive. Get rid of them.

End the war on drugs. Portugal did so and ten years later the number of heroin addicts was cut in half. Not only can whole government bureaucracies be eliminated and policing and court costs reduced, there will be hundreds of thousands fewer inmates in jail sucking up tax dollars rather than paying taxes. Legalization would put an end to funding criminals and terrorists with this illicit trade. The Taliban, al Qaeda's ally, receives substantial drug money (see Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters) and countries like Mexico and Columbia have been destabilized by drug wars. Finally, done properly, legalization can destroy the drug trade entirely using the civil court system. See How to Actually Win the War on Drugs for details.

Social Security can help a little, but not much. Unlike the federal government, social security is currently paying all its bills and has $2.7 trillion of government bonds in the bank. In 20, 30, 40 years, depending on who you believe, social security will run out of money. There are several ways to deal with this, the simplest of which is to raise the retirement age for people under 30 or 40. However, this will do nothing to help with the current fiscal crisis. Indeed, little can be done since even if social security generated a surplus again it would only replace outside debt with social security bonds. These bonds are very low interest so it would help a little. There are two ways to provide social security money to the general fund: increase income or decrease benefits. Income could be increased by raising the cap on income subject to social security taxes. If the cap were eliminated, one could even lower the tax rate on 85% of Americans as so much of America's income goes to those at the top. The other way, reducing benefits, can be done in two ways: reduce everyone's benefits -- and put millions of grandmas into poverty -- or means-test benefits so those with ample funds will get smaller social security checks. Choose.

Medicare is the exception. The American medical system is, by far, the most expensive in the world; and the results are among the worst in the industrialized world (see here for this and other supporting info). America also has, by far, the most complicated health care system and the only one in the industrial world where basic health care is profit driven. The government already pays something like 45% of all health care costs. For something close to that we should be able to provide basic health care to everyone. I suggest "Medicare for All." It's simple, people on Medicare usually like it, and we understand it. For those who want more extensive coverage, a lightly regulated for-profit sector should work fine. While this would probably increase government expenditures somewhat, if the experience of every other industrialized country is any guide, total health care costs could be radically reduced and Americans would, on average, get better health care.

Cut back the mission of government agencies. There are many, many government agencies that could have their mission cut back, but I don't know enough about them to suggest anything specific. NASA I know a bit more about, having worked there as a contractor for 30 years. NASA's current goals are very ambitious -- appropriate for a wealthy nation. However, we are no longer really a wealthy nation. We are nation mired in debt. As with the military, we need to do less, or face financial collapse. The things to drop are those that are less important for day-to-day practical life. Thus, human travel beyond Low Earth Orbit should be dropped until our finances are in order. As implemented, the human space flight program is mostly for prestige, a luxury we cannot afford at the moment. Much of the deep space science program could be dropped as well and for the same reason: they are nice, really nice, but they are not necessary and don't contribute as much to 'the general welfare' as they could. NASA should be trying to spawn space industries that will eventually pay for themselves and increase the tax base. This is exactly what happened with communication satellites and, more recently, Earth observation satellites. Further possibilities include space tourism and space solar power. Space tourism may get some very important support from Obama's new initiative to purchase flights to the International Space Station (ISS) by developing a private, commercial human launch capability. Space solar power is getting nothing, which is silly while vast sums are spent on prestige.

Tax pollution. Pollution shifts costs from those producing it to those harmed by it. For example, polluting the air and water can lower production costs, but drives up medical costs for those poisoned by the pollution. Taxing pollution provides revenue and reduces pollution, a win win. Setting the right taxation level is difficult. One approach is to identify an acceptable level of a given pollutant and, over time, raise or lower taxes until that level is reached. Ideally, pollution taxes could provide the bulk of government revenue, eliminating income tax for most.

Tax financial speculation. The capital markets in the U.S. are very well developed and provide an important function: generating funds to create and expand business. However, the financial markets are also rife with speculation that provides no benefit except to transfer money to and from the speculators. Speculation, particularly computerized speculation, also creates bubbles and other financial pathologies; sometimes on very short time scales (seconds for computerized trading). Speculation cannot be eliminated, but it can be substantially reduced by taxing it. Specifically, add a time-based tax on financial transactions. Financial assets, such as stocks, held, say, a year or more would not be subject to this tax. Financial instruments sold more quickly would be taxed more and more for shorter and shorter times between acquisition and sale, culminating in a, say, 1% tax for assets held less than one hour. A tax of this nature would cost real investors nothing, but short-term speculators that buy and sell on literally a second-to-second basis would be hit hard, and hopefully eliminated. Exceptions could be made for certain technical brokers who are simply managing a market. This tax would also generate a lot of income, possibly allowing a reduction in the income tax.

There you have it, ideas to cut federal spending and increase revenue, sometimes radically; and something radical is needed. The federal government borrowed $1.7 trillion in the last year. That's about how much we must cut expenditures and increase taxes just to avoid increasing the interest payments we must pay on our $13.7 trillion debt. We need to cut expenditures and raise taxes more than $1.7 trillion just to reduce the bleeding. Right now interest payments are about $400 billion. Over the roughly 80 year life of an average taxpayer, $32 trillion in taxes is needed just to pay the interest. What do you get for that $32 trillion? Nothing. After paying $32 trillion in taxes you still owe $13.7 trillion and your grandkids can pay another $32 trillion to get nowhere. We need to not only eliminate the deficit and stop borrowing; we need to pay down the debt. That requires serious spending reductions and tax increases.

Lots of people will tell you they are serious about the deficit and the debt, but are unwilling to cut anything they like or pay more taxes. Real fiscal control will require cutting pretty much everything and involve pretty much everyone paying more taxes. The alternative is massive financial collapse. Choose.

Protect Your Country and Save Money: Contact Your Sentator

2010-11-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads that can reach America in an hour or so. If they are launched, for whatever reason, even a simple mistake, America will be destroyed. Al Qaeda can do damage, Russia can kill most Americans in hours. Fortunately, we can substantially reduce that threat and save money at the same time.

Following in Reagan's footsteps, President Obama recently signed a new START treaty with Russia. Like the previous START treaty, this will

Substantially reduce the number of Russian warheads that can reach America.
Put American inspectors on the ground in Russia to make sure the treaty is observed.
Reduce the number of American warheads we have to pay for, leaving 1,550 -- more than enough to deter any aggressor.

This treaty is a complete no brainer. It increases America's security and saves money. Opposition is limited to those who don't understand the facts and those playing stupid political games with our survival.

To go into effect, the Senate must vote for the treaty. Contact your Senators today and urge them to do so.

U.S. Federal Debt, Part II, Incentives

2010-11-17T19:12:00.000-08:00

In Part I I laid out our debt problem. The short story: $13.7 trillion and growing fast. In that piece, I noted that all the major players: powerful people, Congress, federal managers, taxpayers, federal employees etc. all have strong incentives to increase the debt. Part II, this essay, is devoted to exploring ways to change that.

Let's start with an easy one: Congressional earmarks. For many years, each Congressman has been given a quota of money that they can spend in their district more-or-less as they please. Congressmen use these funds to get votes by giving voters stuff. Consider a new rule: earmarks are only allowed if total federal debt shrank the previous year. This would give each Congressman a powerful incentive to stop borrowing.

Now the hard one: a debt tax. This is an additional graduated tax on all income with most of the burden falling on the wealthiest (1), who are generally the most powerful and thus in a position to affect the debt. This tax is cut in half when we stop borrowing, and goes away entirely when the government has a surplus rather than a debt. The exact percentage is not critical, so long as it is too small to sink the poor and big enough to really matter to the rich. I suggest the following rates by income:

1% $0-50,000 (55% of taxpayers)
2% $50,001-100,000 (30%)
3% $100,001-150,000 (10%)
4% $150,001-200,000 (3%)
5% $200,001-250,000 (1%)
6% $250,001-500,000 (all others combined 1.5%)
7% $500,001-1,000,000
8% $1,000,001-10,000,000
10% $10,000,001-100,000,000
15% $100,000,001-1,000,000,000
20% $1,000,000,001 and above.

This would give a strong incentive to the most powerful people in the country to have the federal government stop borrowing and pay off the debt. Yet even at the highest level, total tax when combined with current income tax would still be far less than the top tax rate of the 1950s and 60s; which was 91%. If the debt tax creates too much government income, damaging the economy, then other taxes can be reduced. I prefer taking people on the bottom off the tax roles entirely but there are other sensible approaches. For example, for the vast majority of Americans -- those earning less than $250K -- reduce the current income tax by the amount of the debt tax leaving taxation levels the same.

Right now federal managers are severely punished when they do not spend all the money they are responsible for by the end of the fiscal year (October 1). This is why the government goes on a buying spree every September -- managers are desperately trying to spend all their money. Instead of punishing managers who are fiscally responsible they should get awards, their projects should keep at least some of the money, and their budgets should not be cut. Those who over-spend should be cut. This could make a very big difference.

Finally, consider rank and file government employees. Their incentive is to increase their pay, which increases government spending. There is no way around this. However, federal employees are civil servants. Civil servants have strong job protection. Before the civil service was established it was normal for a new president to fire the entire government and replace them with campaign supporters. Laws to prevent this require a RIFF (reduction in force) to fire civil servants in any significant numbers. Usually the firing is by seniority -- the youngest, least expensive employees get canned. Civil servants could be given an incentive to reduce the debt if RIFFs were only allowed when the debt is increasing. As a general rule civil servants make less than those in private industry doing the same job, but they are compensated by job security. This would make job security contingent on reducing federal debt, a powerful incentive.

There you have it, ways to give the major players significant incentives to reduce rather than increase the federal debt. There may be better ways, but these would almost certainly work. It's also safe to say that as long as the incentives stay the same, and all the incentives are to borrow more rather than pay off the debt, the debt will increase until default and disaster (see Part I for details).

Part III: reducing government size and expenditures is next. Stay tuned.

Notes:

Small states, such as New Jersey, have raised taxes on the wealthy only to see them leave the state. However, leaving the U.S. is a much bigger step than moving from New Jersey to New York, and the U.S. has low levels of taxation compared to other industrialized countries. Not only are income taxes at the top brackets generally higher elsewhere, there is often a very large VAT (Value Added Tax) on everything purchased. Thus, flight of the wealthy to avoid the tax is unlikely.

U.S. Federal Debt, Part I, The Problem

2010-11-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

Today, the Federal Government of the United State owes $13.7 trillion. In the last year alone we have borrowed $1.7 trillion (source: TreasuaryDirect) on an income of $2.1 trillion (source). Worse, we have been borrowing huge amounts of money, almost every year, since the early 1980s. No one, not even the U.S. government, can borrow this kind of cash (1) without eventually being unable to make the payments. Indeed, there is already speculation that our creditors are getting nervous about being repaid. Without a major change in course, default is inevitable. When default happens the government will no longer be able to borrow; requiring us to immediately cut expenditure and/or raise taxes by roughly $150 billion per month if it happened today, more if later. This will almost certainly mean:

Most of the U.S. military will be demobilized and all foreign bases abandoned. We will lose whatever wars we are in.
Social security checks will be substantially reduced or eliminated.
Poor and elderly people will not get medical care.
All federal research will end: NASA, National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, etc.
Most federal employees will lose their jobs.
The states and cities will lose all, or almost all, of their federal funding. Many teachers, police, firemen, etc. will lose their jobs.
All government bonds ($13.7 trillion today) will lose much of their value, throwing the economy into a deep dive, probably much worse than the Great Depression.

The borrowing must stop, and the debt must be paid off (2). It will be hard and painful, no part of the government can be spared and taxes must be raised, but the alternative is disaster.

Right now the short term interests of all the players is to increase spending and reduce taxes, hastening the catastrophe. For example:

Congressmen get votes and money by reducing taxes and giving people money (or tax breaks, which, for all practical purposes, is the same thing). They lose votes by increasing taxes and cutting off the federal money spigot.
Republicans win elections by cutting taxes and increasing military spending.
Democrats win elections by increasing social service spending.
Government managers are severely punished if they do not spend all the money allocated. I've talked to multiple mid-level government managers who proudly came in under budget their first year, and got clobbered. They all say they will never do that again.
Taxpayers do not want to pay for the government.
Government funding recipients, including everyone on social security, everyone on medicare or medicaid, everyone using a tax deduction, and all government employees, which means all military, almost all teachers, all police, almost all firemen, almost all researchers, etc., want their income to increase.

Everyone in this country has a choice: either increase your taxes and reduce the goodies you get from the government, or go off a cliff. In the near future I will lay out one approach to accomplishing this, including changing the incentives of the major players -- particularly the most powerful, which will increase revenue and reduce the size and cost of government.

However, no matter how we wiggle and shake, we owe $13.7 trillion, which means someone is going to pay at least $13.7 trillion in taxes. There is no way around this. It won't be the poor, they don't have any money. It will be the middle class, the rich, or some combination. How we allocate these taxes will determine what kind of country we are to become. Get the $13.7 trillion from the middle class and America will be a country of a few wealthy and many poor. Get the $13.7 trillion from the wealthy and the middle class has a chance to prosper and there will be fewer extremely wealthy individuals. Choose.

Footnotes:

Note that I do not use the term 'deficit.' This is because the official deficit is artificially manipulated to look much lower than it is. For example, until recently most of the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars were not included in the deficit. Also, until last year the social security trust fund loaned hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the treasury but this was not included in the deficit. A truer measure is the total debt, which is used here.
If we continue to borrow, the interest on the national debt will hit $1 trillion per year within about a decade. Regardless of the size of the interest payments, those tax dollars won't buy one gun, fund a single research project, build a single road, pay a single teacher, or fund a single social security check. The only way to stop bleeding interest is to pay off the debt.

What has the Democratic Congress Done?

2010-10-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

One can argue that this Democratic controlled Congress has done the wrong thing, but if you know the facts you sure can not argue that they haven't been hard at work. Consider this very partial list of legislation passed:

The first comprehensive health care bill ever.

Credit card reform protecting the consumer.

Financial market reform.

The largest middle-class tax cut in history.

The largest investment in green energy in history.

Making college loans more affordable.

The Cash for Clunkers program to help the auto industry.

Making it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination.

Increasing federal regulation of tobacco products.

Cracking down on waste in Pentagon weapons acquisition.

Reform of the ITAR trade regulations making US aerospace corporations more competitive.

Funding for the first private, commercial human space launchers.

Making attacks based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime.

Giving businesses tax incentives to hire unemployed workers.

Tax credits for first-time homeowners.

They also passed legislation to reverse massive job losses and forestal another Great Depression. All this in the face of literally hundreds of Republican filibusters.

If you think this work took the country in the wrong direction, if you liked where we were going before Obama became president, then vote for Republicans. They say they haven't changed and I'm sure they haven't. If you think the legislation of the last two years is headed in more-or-less the right direction, then vote for Democrats, you'll probably get more along these same lines. Otherwise, expect a hard right turn.

I would have liked more here or there, but by and large I think the Democrats have taken us in the right direction, and we should keep going.

I coach youth soccer. When the kids are playing defense I tell them: don't give up. If you don't get the ball right away, keep after it. To those angry that in two years the Democrats have not fixed all the ills they inherited, I say the same thing. Don't give up. The second thing I tell my soccer team is trust your team mates. Even if they lose the ball, keep passing to them. When times get tough, there is a tendency to turn on your friends and allies. This is a mistake. Don't be a fool, support your friends and go after your opponents. If your favorite legislation didn't pass, don't attack the people that voted for it, attack the people that voted against it.

How I'm Voting and Why

2010-10-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of most of the propositions and positions that I can vote for this November (2010) along with my choice and a little bit about why. Note that I'm not voting for the Green, Peace and Freedom, or Libertarian parties. With a few exceptions, these folks are not serious. They all had a free opportunity to send a paragraph to every single voter in California in the voter information guide. Most of them didn't bother to write more than a line or two. Serious candidates take advantage of such opportunities.

In any case, here's how I'm voting and why:

Sam Farr for representative. He mostly votes they way I want him to and he takes care of the district. Also, his opponent doesn't want the people to elect U.S. Senators, he wants the state legislatures to do that. More important, over the last two years the Democrats under President Obama have turned this country around. It's not steaming ahead very fast, but at least we are creating 50-70,000 private sector jobs a month rather than losing 750,000. I think they've done a fairly good job in the last two years and deserve another two before it's reasonable to expect great things. See Have the Democrats Delivered? for details.

Barbara Boxer for senator. I like Senator Boxer. She's smart and capable. She mostly votes the way I like. I'm not at all impressed by her opponent, who seems to be clueless as to how to win counterinsurgency wars. Also, Boxer is a big champion of President Obama's space program, which, in my personal and professional opinion, was terrific (see Obama's Brilliant Space Policy). Barbara Boxer's worked hard to get the best possible version through Congress, although it was significantly watered down by others.

Jerry Brown for governor. I remember when Brown was governor in the 1970s and I think he did a good job. He's very frugal, refusing to live in the expensive governor's mansion and renting a small apartment instead. His opponent has some promise but has two great weaknesses: 1. She's an inexperienced outsider with little knowledge of government. She didn't even bother to vote for many years. We tried an inexperienced outsider with our current governor. It hasn't worked well. I think we should try a seasoned pro who really knows the details of how state government works (and doesn't work). 2. She thinks being a CEO teaches you how to create jobs. For a company that's simple: sell product, make money, hire folk. The equivalent for government would be: raise taxes and hire people -- probably not what we want. CEOs can spend company money as they see fit, governors have to put every penny of expenditure through a legislature. CEOs can fire and hire on command, governors cannot. Government isn't a company. It doesn't work the same and it shouldn't. Government, for example, isn't about making money.

Gavin Newsom for lieutenant governor. I've been impressed by Newsom every time I've heard him speak. He also stuck his neck out on Gay Marriage. That took some guts, even in San Francisco.

Yes on Proposition 19, legalizing Marijuana. It's not really the government's business if adults take recreational drugs, prohibition didn't work for alcohol and is a disaster for other drugs, and then there is Portugal. Ten years ago Portugal decriminalized all drugs. The result: a 50% drop in the number of heroin addicts. If you're serious about really reducing drug use, see How to Actually Win the War on Drugs.

Yes on Proposition 20, take redistricting away from the legislature. Having the legislature set district boundaries is a gross conflict of interest, is used to create safe seats for incumbents, and is inconsistent with real democracy. Almost anything else would be better.

Yes on Proposition 21, vehicle license fees to pay for state parks. I like parks and I like the honesty of the proponents in saying exactly where the money is to come from.

No on Proposition 22, prohibits certain kinds of funds transfers by the legislature. I'm not too sure about this one. I'm voting against it for two weak reasons: 1. I don't understand what will really happen, and it's unwise to vote for something one doesn't understand. 2. This tries to tie the hands of the legislature to keep them from doing something. The corrupt legislators will usually find a way around these sorts of rules, and those trying to do a good job will be hindered. I see this sort of thing in the government all the time: rules are made to try to prevent bad behavior, fail in that but keep the good people from getting anything done. Better to not have the rule and live with the bad behavior, which you'll get in any case.

No on Proposition 23, suspending environmental regulation. Without air you will die in five minutes. WIthout water you will be dead in a week. Both are more important than oil or economic development. Find another way to make money. There's lots.

Yes on Proposition 24, repeals certain business tax breaks. Again, I'm not too sure about this one, but it seems to eliminate certain tax breaks used primarily by large businesses. Also, the opponents use a lot of ALL CAPS, a sign something's fishy.

Yes on Proposition 25, simple majority for the legislature to pass a budget. California has a terrible time passing a budget every year because a 2/3rds majority is required. This means a fairly small minority can hold up everything the state does. It's a mess. This legislation preserves the 2/3 requirement to increase taxes, but is otherwise a blow for majority rule and the simple ability to get stuff done.

No on Proposition 26, 2/3 vote required to increase certain fees. I'm not hard over on this one, but I like majority rule. There are times when the minority should prevail, but not at this level. 2/3 majorities for this sort of thing induce paralysis.

No on Proposition 27, eliminates the redistricting commission. This is a ploy by the legislature to continue to control their own districts so they can carve out safe ones for themselves. It's corrupt.

Debra Bowen, Democrat, for Secretary of State. She is the current secretary of state and seems to have done a good job. It turns out Republican Damon Dunn didn't bother to vote until 2009, which is a little weird for the state's chief election officer.

John Change, Democrat, for Controller. His statement was pretty good and most of his opponents, including the Republican, couldn't be bothered to write a statement (Karen Martinez, Peace and Freedom, wrote two measly lines).

Bill Lockyer, Democrat, for Treasurer. As current treasurer he apparently got through the crash without losing any money for the state -- a very good piece of work. That said the Republican Mimi Walters has a reasonably good statement.

Kamal Harris, Democrat, for Attorney General. The Republican is a strong supporter of the death penalty, which occasionally kills innocent people. Possibly quite often as dead folks don't get DNA tested to discover they are innocent, as has happened with dozens of death row inmates wrongly convicted. If you jail someone and find they are innocent, you can release them. Hard to do from the grave.

Larry Aceves for Superintendent of Public Instruction. His opponent seems to have no administrative experience.

There you have it. Now go out and vote!

The Economy, Deficit, and Republicans

2010-10-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

The Republicans are aiming to take control of Congress this November. They say they will do a better job of reducing the deficit and growing the economy. Their stated approach is to lower taxes and reduce regulation. It is reasonable to ask: What does history say?

The Republicans have controlled the executive and legislative branches simultaneously three times in the last 100 years.

The 1920s, which ended in the Great Depression.
In the 1950s, but only for two years.
And in the 2000s, which ended in the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

Is there reason to believe the Republicans have new ideas and approaches that would lead to something other than another economic collapse? They say no, they will follow exactly the same policies: tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy) and deregulation.

Before 1980 the federal government rarely ran large deficits, the exception being during relatively short wars such as World War II. Then,

Republican president Ronald Reagan asked for and received large tax cuts, which were closely followed by the largest peace time deficits in our history. These deficits continued under Republican George H. W. Bush.
Democrat Bill Clinton reversed these policies and the deficits were eliminated; handing 2000 election winner Republican George W. Bush a large surplus.
Large tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy, were passed and by the time Bush left office in January of 2009 the fiscal year deficit was estimated at $1.2 trillion.

Republican solutions led to huge deficits twice in my lifetime; so do they have a new approach, new ideas? They say no, they will follow exactly the same policies.

If you like economic collapse and huge deficits, by all means vote Republican. That's what they've delivered and they promise more of the same.

Successful Conservative Disinformation

2010-09-05T10:32:00.001-07:00

If you say something over and over again, a lot of people will think it is true. This is being used incredibly successfully by conservative media. A couple of examples:

Recent polls show that over 20% of Americans incorrectly believe President Obama is a Musliim. This is up substantially since he took office! President Obama has attended church for decades, and has been filmed leaving church with his family in DC. During the primary campaign, video clips of controversial statements by his pastor (pastors are Christian, imams are Muslim) nearly cost him the election -- yet over 20% of Americans believe he is Muslim. Incredible, but very helpful for Republicans in an election year.

The community organization Acorn was destroyed by a video, played endlessly on Fox News, seeming to show two conservative activists dressed like 1970s-exploitation-film pimp and hooker being assisted by Acorn staff in prostitution and human trafficking activities. When the California DA subpoenaed the full film, a different story emerged. First, you never see the outlandish costumes and Acorn workers in the same clip, because they were never in the same room. The outlandish costumes were used to generate footage then removed before interacting with Acorn personnel. There was one slip on the hidden camera where the 'pimp' showed his sleeve -- of a pin striped dress shirt. Footage of Acorn employees 'helping' in human trafficking turned out to be a fraud as well. In one case the Acorn employee pumped the activists for as much information as possible then maneuvered them into using Tijuana for their transmit point. As soon as the activists left the office he called his friend on the Tijuana human trafficking squad who contacted his counterpart in San Diego. Had this been a real pimp he would have gone to jail. The actual result, the Acorn employee doing exactly the right thing lost his job.

The final example has a happy ending, sort of, and points the way towards combating these lies. Again, Fox News played a heavily edited video endlessly, but this time got caught. The video was of a black government employee giving a speech to the NAACP talking about not helping a white farmer. The employee was fired that day. The next day the whole tape came out and it became clear that she was actually setting the scene for an object lesson in inter-racial harmony. In fact, she did help the white farmer and they became friends as well.

There are two lessons:

Never fire anyone because of a video you see on Fox News.

When you hear lies, counter them quickly. Otherwise they fester and we bleed.

Have the Democrats Delivered?

2010-08-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

After six years of Republican rule and two years of stalemate (the Democrats barely controlling Congress and a Republican president) the Democrats came into firm control on 20 January 2009. The country was in terrible shape:

750,000 jobs lost a month
two long running wars, one going very poorly
a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit
over $10 trillion of debt
a deep recession
an auto industry teetering on the brink
a financial system in existential crisis

It was obvious we needed to change direction and the Democrats promised to. Two years later it's ridiculous to think all our problems should be solved, but in an election year it's fair to ask if President Obama and the Democrats have made enough progress to warrant another two years control of Congress. Have the Democrats delivered, to a reasonable extent, on the promises candidate Obama made?

Iraq Candidate Obama promised to bring the troops home. The last combat troops left on schedule this August and the rest are due to return next year. Democrats delivered.

Afghanistan Candidate Obama promised to focus attention and American power on the destruction of al Qaeda, especially in Afghanistan. Obama tripled the troops on the ground and appointed General Patraeus, who turned the Iraq war around, to the Afghan command. Democrats delivered what they promised, but not what the Left wanted.

Health care Candidate Obama promised comprehensive health care for all Americans. This spring, over strenuous Republican opposition, Congress passed the first comprehensive health care bill in U.S. history, dubbed ObamaCare by the Right. While I believe this bill needs significant improvement, nonetheless Democrats delivered as promised.

Help the middle class Candidate Obama promised to focus on supporting the American middle class. To this end, the stimulus bill contained the largest middle-class tax cut in history. Much of ObamaCare supports the middle class as well. For example, adult children up to age 26 may now be on their parent's health plan (that one helps me :-) Democrats delivered, but more is needed.

Don't Ask Don't Tell Candidate Obama promised to end the military's discriminatory policy towards gays and lesbians. Legislation ending Don't Ask Don't Tell passed the the House and a key Senate committee. Democrats have partially delivered.

Nuclear Threat Obama has undertaken a number of initiatives to reduce the availability of radioactive materials and negotiated a significant reduction in the world's supply of nuclear weapons. Democrats delivered

Global Warming Candidate Obama promised to create a cap and trade system to help with Global Warming. This is stalled in the Senate. Democrats did not deliver. They can't break the Republican filibuster.

Green energy Candidate Obama promised to invest in green energy initiatives. The stimulus bill included $90 billion for solar, wind, electric car batteries, smart grid, and home weatherization -- the largest such investment in US history. Democrats delivered.

Open Government Candidate Obama promised to make government more open, in large part by putting information on the web. A number of steps have been taken in this direction. Democrats are delivering, but there's a long way to go..

Financial Reform Candidate Obama promised to reform the financial system. A sweeping financial reform bill was recently passed. Democrats delivered..

More generally the ObamaMeter web site shows that of Obama's promises 121 have been kept, 39 resulted in compromise, 22 were broken, 81 stalled, and 240 are in the works. While purists may despair, this is pretty good for the real world.

If it's important to you that politicians deliver on their promises, then it would be wise to reward those who do so by reelecting them. The Democrats have hardly been perfect in this regard, but they've been pretty good. Vote for them.

Campaign 2010

2010-08-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

The Republicans are hoping to wrest control of Congress from the Democrats this year, and they have a decent chance of succeeding. Their basic strategy is to make the election a referendum on Democratic rule. The country is hurting -- 9.5% unemployment, $1.4 trillion deficit, a weak recovery, two wars dragging on -- making this a politically sound approach.

The Democrats need to make the election not a referendum but a choice between the two parties. Their question is: do you want Republican or Democratic rule? This works because Republican rule ended just under two years ago and it was a disaster: the last month of Bush's term lost 750,000 jobs, the deficit was $1.2 trillion, the economy was in the deepest recession since World War II, the financial system was on the brink of total collapse, and the Republicans started and failed to win both of the wars that are dragging on. The Democratic story is: yes times are tough, but things have improved as a result of our rule (which is true), two years isn't enough time to turn around the mess we inherited (which is probably true), so give us two more to show we can not just make things better, but makes things good.

There is a second message the Democrats can use in some races: some Republican candidates are extremists. The Senate candidate in Nevada wants to end Social Security and Medicare, which an awful lot of Tea Party members live on. She has also hinted at turning to violence if conservatives don't win at the ballot box. Rand Paul, another Senate candidate, thinks hanging a 'Whites Only" (or for that matter "Blacks Only") sign in a public restaurant should be legal. Several candidates believe rape victims should be forced to bear their rapist's baby. These candidates will do everything they can to avoid attention to these position. The Democrat's goal is to get extreme past statements on the airwaves and try to force these candidates to restate their positions.

President Obama came up with a great image for the Democrats while in Detroit talking to auto workers: everyone knows you put the car in "D" to go forward and "R" to go backward.

Israel/Palestine

2010-06-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

As the conflict between Palestinians and Israel is in the news, I thought it would be a good time to point out some of what shapes my views, which is not the normal fare. I view the conflict as fundamentally simple: two peoples want the same land and are fighting over it.

[NOTE: if I've got any facts wrong, please correct me.]

Thought Experiment

Consider the following thought experiment. Suppose the Isreali Jews destroyed all their weapons and absolutely refused to fight at all, starting tomorrow. What would happen? My prediction: within a month or two there would be very, very few living Jews in Palestine. Why? Because many, many Palestinians hate the Jews, and for good reason. Their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents lost their land as a direct result of the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, not to mention oppression, occupation, and humiliation since then. For example, some years ago a couple Israeli reservists took a wrong turn, ended out in the wrong part of town and were killed. I saw a picture in the press of two well-dressed young Palestinians showing the photographer their blood drenched hands. They were beaming with pride and joy. Another example, Afafat's wife was once quoted as saying (paraphrased), "I get invitations to parties and events from Jewish women all the time. I refuse all of them. I hate the Jews."

Now suppose the Palestinians destroyed all their weapons and absolutely refused to fight at all, starting tomorrow. What would happen? My prediction: within a year or two there would be a Palestinian state with, more-or-less, the pre-1967 boundaries. Why? If the Israelis wanted to kill all the Palestinians they have the firepower to do it. The don't because they don't want to, either due to moral considerations or all but certain international condemnation. Furthermore, the Israelis have repeatedly traded land for peace and removed settlements. A vigorous Palestinian non-violent protest movement would, I believe, be more than sufficient to gain a Palestinian state, although not one from the river to the sea, an unlimited right of return, or control of Jerusalem. For that, only violence has a chance of success.

Why Create Israel?

Here's a story. It is supposed to be true, but I don't really know. Shortly after the 1948 war a pregnant Jewish woman was killed in a kibbutz near the Egyptian border. The tracks of the killers led straight to an Arab village in Egypt. A young Israeli officer was sent to follow the killers. It's not clear what happened, but by the next day a lot of the villagers were dead. There was a storm of condemnation for Israel in the international press. The officer went to the prime minister, Ben-Gurien, and said (paraphrased) "This is terrible. We are being portrayed as monsters." Ben Gurien said, "Not at all, this is great." The officer was aghast, "What do you mean?" Ben Gurien explained: "For two thousand years killing Jews has been easy and painless. The international press is telling the world those days are over, from now on killing Jews will be difficult and very, very painful."

The March Towards Peace

Many people despair of the Jews and Palestinians ever living peacefully side by side. These people are either ignorant of the major facts or aren't seeing the pattern. The fundamental pattern is simple: one by one Arab countries and other organizations are giving up trying to destroy Israel and making peace. Consider:

Israel was created by the U.N. in 1948. On the day it was created, five large professional Arab armies invaded the new nation. The Jews had no army, navy or air force; only a couple of terrorist/guerilla organizations and some veterans of the British Jewish Brigade that fought in World War II. Almost all knowledgeable observers believed the Jews would be wiped out, and they nearly were. Only a shipment of Czech arms enabled them to push back the Egyptian army marching up the coast. By the end of the war the Jews had defeated all five armies and established what are now called the pre-1967 borders. These borders are very hard to defend. Israel was only 17 miles wide at one point and nearly all of pre-1967 Israel is within artillery and/or rocket range of Arab land. After the war, Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt put Gaza under military rule.
In the days leading up to the 1967 war Arab leaders claimed they would destroy Israel. However, the 1967 war demolished the Arab armies, established Israel's military superiority, and gave Israel physical control of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights (high ground in Syria on 1967 borders). Israel subsequently annexed the Golan Heights. The new borders were far, far easier to defend.
By 1979 Egypt, which had done most of the fighting and dying in the Arab-Israeli wars, not only in '48 and '67 but also in '56 and '73, had had enough. They made peace with Israel. Israel evacuated the entire Sinai peninsula (an area much larger than Israel proper) and dismantled the settlements they had established there. This peace has held without major incident for over 30 years.
In 1964 the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was created to destroy Israel ("prohibit... the existence and activity" of Zionism), but not to create a Palestinian state, presumably since Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan the West Bank. It wasn't until 1974 that the PLO began calling for a Palestinian state. In any case, by 1991 the PLO had had enough and recognized Israel's right to exist in exchange for partial control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel also dismantled a number of settlements. Eventually, the PLO removed the clause in their charter calling for the destruction of Israel. The 'peace' between Israel and the PLO has been marred by frequent violence, but after the death of PLO leader Yassar Arafat this seems to have pretty much petered out. Today the PLO controls much of the West Bank and there isn't a lot of fighting, at least at the moment. This is, in part, because Israel built a very long wall between most of the West Bank and Israel and around Gaza, which seems to have mostly ended the previously frequent suicide bombing.
In 1994 Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel. This is the only peace treaty Israel signed that did not involve giving up physical control of land, although the previous peace treaty with the PLO, which did involve land, was an important precursor. As part of the treaty, Jordan gave up their claim to the West Bank. Since the peace treaty, there has been little or no violence between Israel and Jordan.
In recent years most Arab nations, which once clamored for the destruction of Israel, have indicated they might accept a permanent Jewish state within the pre-1967 borders.

Note that between Egypt, Jordan, and the PLO, most of Israel's borders are, more-or-less, at peace. Today, Israel is still at war with Lebanon (including Hezbollah), Syria, and Hamas, which controls Gaza all the way to the pre-1967 borders. After 6-7,000 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, Israel invaded Gaza with great destruction and loss of life. The frequency of rocket attacks has subsequently been greatly reduced. There was a similar fight with similar results in Lebanon (Israel invaded and controlled much of Lebanon for years). Although Hamas' charter still calls for the destruction of Israel, they are de-emphasizing it at least when speaking in English. It would be interesting to analyze Hamas' statements in Arabic to see if the same pattern holds. In any case, there are signs that Lebanaon, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas are all at some point on the path Egypt, Jordan and the PLO have already completed: giving up on the destruction of Israel as too hard and too painful, and making peace. The problem for Israel is to determine if they are really ready to give up; or will they use the territory Israel typically concedes in these deals to try, once again, to destroy the Jewish state?

I recently sang in the choir at a concert. One of the songs, a call for peace, was originally recorded by Arab and Jewish musicians. It smokes. Watch the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d_i2F2LlF8). It will be awhile, but peace is coming. Hang in there.

Want to win the war with al Qaeda? Read this book.

2010-04-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

In "An End to Al-Qaeda" Malcolm Mance tells us how to win, not fight, win, the war with al Qaeda. He thinks it can be done in 24 months. I think that might be a little optimistic, but then Mance knows a lot more about the Islamic world, al Qaeda and Islam than I do (or pretty much anyone else for that matter).

Al Qaeda is still with us almost nine years after successfully attacking the greatest power the world has ever know. American firepower has won every battle, but al Qaeda is winning the war of ideas, and the war of ideas is decisive.

Mao said “The guerilla must move among people as a fish swims in the sea.” Al Qaeda has survived and prospered because they swim in the sea of Islam, a world of over one billion people. This is possible because al Qaeda has convinced much of the Islamic world to see them as Holy Warriors defending the Faith against the infidel. They have succeeded because America has been almost completely AWOL in the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab Street, incompetent on those rare occasions it has tried anything, and, worst of all, until recently treated al Qaeda like Holy Warriors defending the Faith, and acting to confirm al Qaeda's framing of America as an evil empire out to destroy Islam.

Fortunately for us, al Qaeda is actually a criminal, heretical cult. Al Qaeda will be destroyed when they are viewed as such by the Islamic World. They are a criminal, heretical cult because they kill Muslims, kill innocents, and encourage suicide; all of which are explicitly forbidden by the Koran.

In the Sunni areas of Iraq, al Qaeda came to be viewed as criminal and suffered a terrible defeat when the local people turned against them and allied themselves with the American army. This is why the surge worked. In Afghanistan NATO is still fairly popular after over eight years of occupation in an area that hates foreign intervention because the people know how awful the Taliban/al Qaeda were when they were in power. Even with frequent annihilation of wedding parties by the US air force, many Afghans have still not turned against us. This is astounding.

Mance's approach to defeating al Qaeda is a full scale, well-funded, all-media assault on al Qaeda conducted primarily by Muslim-Americans and our Muslim allies, framing al Qaeda as what they are, a criminal, heretical cult. This will sever their connection to Islam without which they cannot survive. Mance suggests several specific policies to accomplish this. These include (from chapter 9):

Denounce al Qaeda as Heretics
Publicize al Qaeda's Atrocities
Play up former al Qaeda Members' Renunciations of the Group
Back Islamic Political Movements, particularly democratic movements
Playing up Internal Disputes
Start a Social Epidemic of Rejection
Identify the Criminality to al Qaeda's Target Audience
Make al Qaeda Answer Publicly for Killing Innocents, Particularly Children
Make the Terrorists' Community and Families Fear for the Spiritual Safety of Recruits
Make People Remember They Can't Depend on Terrorists
Reframe al Qaeda as Political Opportunists
Encourage Positive Ideological Fitna (Fitna is ideological civil war, which is occurring between former and current al Qaeda members)
Use the Same Viral Media Techniques They Do (particularly the use of YouTube)
Organize Counter-Extremist Message Swarming (drowning al Qaeda web sites with our activists)
Help Stand Up and Support De-radicalization Programs and Plans (for example, Saudi Arabia sends Imans to argue religion with captured terrorists, often converting them to more main-stream Islam and thereby getting complete and full cooperation in fighting al Qaeda)
Do No Harm and Do Know Harm

Mance also stresses the importance of killing bin Laden and other senior leadership. Cults are dependent on charismatic leaders, and al Qaeda is no different. Kill bin Laden and it will be very difficult to hold al Qaeda together. Interestingly, "One of the first acts of the Barack Obama presidency was the signing of the executive order to capture or kill bin Laden."

It is also important to reframe America, which al Qaeda has successfully labeled as an enemy of Islam. Fortunately, America effectively defended Bosnian and Kosovo Muslims against Christian Serbs, defended religious Saudi Arabia against a secular Saddam Hussein, and helped Islamic Afghan warriors defeat the Soviet Union. We need to point this out to the Islamic World loudly and often.

This reframing has been immeasurably aided by electing a President with a (non-practicing) Muslim father, who lived in Muslim Indonesia as a child, and, best of all, has the middle name "Hussein." This is a political liability in America, but the last election rocked the Muslim world's negative perception of America. Al Qaeda's view of us is incompatible with Obama becoming president. This opened a window of opportunity to reframe America in Islamic eyes. Unfortunately, a number of critical domestic issues have taken most of Obama's time and has prevented deploying him in Islamic media as much as he should be.

Many conservatives want to treat captured al Qaeda members as 'enemy combatants,' in other words, Holy Warriors Defending the Faith. Until recently, we've fought the war that way, but notice we haven't won. If we treat captured al Qaeda members as criminals, trying and convicting them like any other criminal, we send a clear message that, once accepted, means al Qaeda is beaten. Then it will just be a matter of mopping up.

There you have it, how to defeat al Qaeda. Notice that this will take a small fraction of the $700 billion we spend on the U.S. military each year which, after nine years of trying hard, has failed to win. It's not their fault. They can't. This war cannot be won by firepower and maneuver, it can only be won in the minds of Muslims. We'd better start fighting there.

New Space Policy Targets Launch

2010-03-31T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm very impressed by President Obama's visionary new commercial space policy. This policy, among other things, is directed towards developing a private, commercial human space launch industry and efficient, reliable heavy lift launch vehicles. Thus, the new policy directly addresses the key problem that limits everything we do in space: launch.

Today, transporting a pound of anything from Earth to orbit costs thousands of dollars. Worse, in fifty years of development this cost has not come down. The high cost of launch makes everything we want to do in space too expensive, be it sustained human activity on the Moon or Mars, Space Solar Power, Space Tourism, Mining the Asteroids, or Space Settlement. Launch is expensive because it is so rare, there were fewer than 100 launches last year and only a handful carried humans. Imagine the cost of a single trip by car if the whole world only took 100 car rides each year.

The new policy allocates $2 billion/year not on a mission, not on a program, but on building an industry that can eventually stand on its own without taxpayer support. How can it succeed where so many have failed?

NACA, Solaren, and SpaceShipOne.

NASA's predecessor, NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics played a huge role in developing today's robust aircraft industry. How? By using technology development, subsidies, and purchasing flights to deliver the mail. The new space policy calls on NASA to repeat this history, with launch vehicle technology development, subsidies, and purchasing flights to the International Space Station (ISS).

Solaren is a small company in California with big ideas and a contract to sell 200 megawatts of electrical power to PG&E, a major energy utility, starting in 2016. What's remarkable is that those 200 megawatts will come from space. Solaren plans to launch a huge satellite into space, collect energy from the sun, and send it wirelessly to Earth. If they or their competitors succeed we will have a vast source of extremely clean power for the next few billion years. Space power can easily supply 10% of our needs. While Solaren may need only three or four launches to meet their PG&E contract, for space solar power to supply 10% of our energy needs might require as many as 75,000 launches -- enough for economies of scale to kick in. Not surprisingly, the number one problem Solaren and others face is the cost of launch, and the President's policy is exactly what they need. Solaren, of course, may fail, but that's the beauty of building an industry not a program, Solaren has competitors.

In 2004 the privately developed SpaceShipOne flew a test pilot into space twice. On March 22, 2010 SpaceShipTwo made its first test flight. If all goes well, it will follow SpaceShipOne into space, this time with paying customers -- over 300 of whom have already deposited a total of $45 million for a ride into space. Better yet, Virgin Galactic, which will operate a fleet of SpaceShipTwos, has competitors.

SpaceShipOne flew 60 miles straight up and glided back down, a quick trip into space. To stay in space, to get into orbit, is much more difficult. This is where the President's policy comes in. It will provide technology development and subsidies to develop private launch vehicles that can service the ISS. These same vehicles could take tourists into orbit, and visit the private space station under development by Bigelow Aerospace. Unlike previous plans, which called for four or five human flights per year (all at taxpayer expense forever), the private market for humans in space is huge, 400,000 people a year if the price is around $100,000. If launch prices can be brought down to these levels, we can do everything we want to do in space. We can have permanent outposts on Mars, mine the Moon, visit the asteroids, build solar power satellites to power the world and even settle the final frontier.

The administration's new policy does many sensible things, such as using the ISS for materials and drug research, finding asteroids before they hit us, and gathering data on the environment. But the key to space is bringing down launch costs, the President seems to understand this, and the administration has crafted a sensible, intelligent policy based on private enterprise to open the heavens to us all.

Obama's Brilliant Space Policy

2010-02-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

Prologue: I want to build space settlements. I want Life to grow outward from this beautiful but tiny planet and fill the solar system. This is technically feasible but incredibly difficult (for engineers, that's the fun part).

Yesterday's space program was all about putting a very small number of people on the Moon entirely at enormous government expense. It wasn't doing much for space settlement. For space settlement, we need to put huge numbers of people in space mostly at their own expense. The key is much, much better transportation from Earth to space because today it costs thousands of dollars per pound and the failure rate is a percent or two. Yet another expensive government owned transportation system, as we were developing, can't deliver. We need better technology, a private sector human-rated launch industry so people can buy a ticket with their own money, and, above all, much higher launch volume. Today, the whole world launches less than 100 times per year. At that rate we'll never settle space.

In Paths to Space Settlement I identified three near term projects that would develop most of the technology and infrastructure necessary to settle the solar system: space tourism, space solar power, and planetary defense. President Obama's new space policy takes a big step for all three.

Much of President Obama's new space policy, about $2 billion/year, is to develop better Earth to orbit transportation and, especially, develop private sector companies to take people into orbit. After a year of ramping up, the budget provides $1.4 billion per year to help private firms develop human-rated launchers and successful companies will have a core tenant flying government astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). But the real payoff isn't flying to the ISS, it's space tourism. In “Researching the Space Tourism Market,” Crouch estimates that at $100,000/flight about 400,000 people will want to go a year. Even with a 100 person vehicle, and the largest today carries 10, that would pay for 4,000 launches a year. There are many surveys supporting traffic at similar levels and higher if the price comes down. Furthermore, Bigelow Aerospace has launched two small space hotel prototypes and plans to launch a full sized system in a couple of years, but there will be no customers without a private sector vehicle to bring them there. President Obama's new space policy may be just the ticket.

The other big potential market for launch is space solar power (SSP) -- gathering solar energy in huge satellites with wireless power transmission to Earth. For SSP to supply 1/3 of today's energy needs would require approximately 125,000 launches of a heavy lift vehicle capable of taking 500 tons to orbit (the largest vehicle today can lift perhaps 40 tons). President Obama's budget allocates almost $600 million/year to develop heavy lift launch technology. SSP development is not part of the new program, the policy's biggest deficiency, but vehicle development won't start for a few years giving SSP advocates time to make the case for SSP-related requirements.

President Obama's policy also quintuples NASA's planetary defense budget, from $4 million to $20 million. This will not only help find asteroids in time to deflect them before hitting Earth, but locate most of the larger near-earth asteroids which will tell us where the materials we need for space settlement are. For example, one of the key problems in orbital settlement development is access to sufficient materials as millions of tons of radiation shielding and structure are needed. Building an orbital settlement co-located with an asteroid solves this problem very nicely.

The new budget also ramps up to $3 billion/year to develop and demonstrate new space technology, including fuel depots, life support, and space resource utilization, which will help when the time comes to build space settlements.

President Obama's policy does a lot of other sensible things. For example, the old policy, after spending something like $100 billion to develop the ISS, planned to destroy it five years after completion and had very few plans to actually use it. The new policy extends the ISS's life and provides funds to actually use the ISS for America's benefit. The new policy also increases Earth observation funding substantially so we can understand what is happening to Earth and perhaps avoid creating serous problems.

President Obama's space policy abandons "Apollo on Steroids," the third attempt to recreate the glory of the brilliant 1960s era program by going back to the Moon and on to Mars. Apollo was great. It ended 35 years ago. Get over it. We don't need "Apollo on Steroids," we need a program that benefits the people of Earth and lets millions of us go to space on their own dime. I doubt that Obama read Paths to Space Settlement before creating his space policy, but he might as well have. Brilliant!

Real Filibusters

2010-01-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

In the recent State of the Union address, President Obama pointed out several important bills that had passed the House, but had not been voted on in the Senate. How has this happened?

In the U.S. Senate there are no hard limits on the length of debate on a bill. Senators can talk as long as they like, unless 60 out of 100 Senators vote to end debate. This allows 41 determined Senators to prevent a vote, thus preventing a bill from becoming law.

Before the 2007-2008 Congress the filibuster was rarely used, but when the Democrats won the 2006 congressional election, the Republicans started using the filibuster frequently to prevent bills from passing. Since Democrat Obama won the Presidency in 2008 and put together a 60 vote caucus in the Senate, Republicans have filibustered at an unprecedented rate so major bills can only pass if every single Democrat and Independent votes to end debate. This has significantly limited Congress' productivity. With the recent election of a 41st Republican Senator, the Republicans are in a position to prevent any bill they don't like from becoming law.

While the Republicans are definitely being obstructionist, preventing the majority from governing, the Senate leadership is making it easy for them. To prevent a vote, Republicans don't actually have to keep talking for hours or days, the Republican leadership just says they will filibuster and a 60 vote majority is required. Thus, filibustering is easy and cheap. A few words and it's done.

If the Democrats want to pass their agenda, they need to make filibustering costly, not cheap. This can be done in two ways: physically and politically.

Physically, the Democratic leadership can force the Republicans to actually filibuster, not just say they will. Make them actually stand up and talk for days. The rules say no sitting, no food, and no bathroom breaks. If they stop talking a vote can be taken. Even thought they can tag team, it's still painful and difficult.

Politically, filibusters can be made costly by broadcasting the debate on CSPAN and taking the best bits for YouTube. To talk for days you have to either repeat yourself endlessly or introduce irrelevant material, for example, reading the phone book. That won't look good on TV and can be incredibly useful in campaign ads.

If you think President Obama is intelligent and has the best interests of the country at heart, then help him get his middle-class-focussed agenda passed. Contact Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, at http://reid.senate.gov/contact/ and tell him to make the Republicans actually filibuster, not just say they will.

Republicans and Health Care

2010-01-24T19:26:00.001-08:00

Republicans have showed great party discipline in opposing health care reform. With a 41st vote in the Senate provided by Senator Elect Brown, the Democrats cannot pass health care over a Republican filibuster if this discipline holds. The leadership and many senators will oppose any health care bill as they see health care defeat as a way to hurt President Obama and help Republicans regain power. However, there may be principled Republican senators who will vote to reform health care if they believe it is good for the country.

There are a couple of major items that conservatives want in health care that I, as a card-carrying liberal, am very comfortable with. They are: tort reform to limit pain-and-suffering settlements against doctors and selling medical insurance across state lines. I don't believe these will lead to the cost benefits conservatives expect, but so what? I might be wrong and, properly implemented, neither will have a negative impact. Including them, and cleaning up some of the junk in the current bill, might be enough to get a few Republican senatorial votes.

Both California and Texas have limits on legal settlements today. It doesn't seem to save any money, but it doesn't seem to do much damage either. Limiting settlements against big companies is a bad idea, they will tend to favor profit over safety, but limiting settlements against individual doctors and other health care providers is not dangerous on any large scale as the vast majority of doctors and other health care workers care deeply about the health and welfare of their patients.

Allowing companies to sell medical insurance across state lines is no problem at all as long as the regulatory regime is taken from the state the patient lives in. The problem with inter-state insurance is that companies may move to the state with the cheapest regime, but if the rules in the patient's state apply this is is a non-issue. The additional competition will probably drive down prices, but in any case will not hurt anything. Why not include it?

If major conservative ideas are incorporated into the health care bill, it is at least possible that some Republicans will come on board. Of course, if all the Republicans are only concerned with hurting President Obama as much as possible, a real possibility, there is no hope. However, I think there are at least some Republican senators for whom country is more important than party and recognize that the present US health care system is an expensive mess in desperate need of intelligent reform.

Obama: One Year On

2010-01-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

I consider the Presidency to be a no-excuses job. If the country does well, the President did a good job. If the country does poorly, the President is lousy. By this measure Clinton was a good president, he inherited a country doing pretty well and left it in excellent shape. By contrast, Bush inherited a country in great shape -- paying down it's debt and militarily and diplomatically pre-eminent -- and left America a mess. Obama inherited that mess, but how is he doing so far?

Last year about this time I posted an article laying out where we were so that comparisons could be made [see Where We Are]. The ship of state is large and doesn't turn quickly, but after a year it's fair to start crediting or blaming Obama for what has happened.

The short answer is that the economy is better (except unemployment), our standing in the world is much better, and the military situation is better, but we are racking up debt at an amazing rate and that will sink us if not reversed.

For the long answer I've copied each of the items from last year's article that could be compared to today. Last year's text is in italic and this year's state in normal text. Note that it is often difficult to find the exact same measures as I did last year, so some of the comparisons must be treated with caution.

Economy

The federal government is $10 trillion in debt. Today is it over $12 trillion.

The projected deficit for fiscal 2009 is $1.2 trillion (not counting the stimulus package). The actual deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion. Estimated deficit for fiscal 2010 is $1.17 trillion. (NOTE: fiscal 2010 goes from 1 Oct 2009 to 30 Sept 2010).

The economy is losing half a million jobs a month, a total of three million in the last year. In November, the economy added 4,000 jobs.

Total debt, government, commercial, and personal, is about $53 trillion. Total debt is around $57 trillion.

The Dow Jones is around 8,000, down from around 14,000 a year earlier. The Dow Jones is at 10,600.

The S&P 500 is around 800, down from around 1,400 a year earlier. The S&P 500 is at 1,136

Home foreclosure filings in January 2009 totaled 274,399 [Reuters]. Banks took over 92,000 homes in December 2009

Major financial institutions have failed completely, others avoided failure only with massive government subsidies, and many more are on the brink of collapse. The major financial institutions have reduced their leverage from 30-1 to around 10-1 and seem to be much more secure, many are making money, and some have returned their bailout money with interest.

Two of the three major American car manufacturers require massive government subsidies to avoid bankruptcy. All three major American car manufacturers are alive, although GM now has the government as a majority stock holder and Chrysler was sold to Fiat.

The official unemployment rate is 7.6%. The official unemployment rate is 10%, down from 10.2% a month ago.

U.S. GDP has been down every quarter for about a year. It was down 6.8% in the last quarter of 2008. GDP increased 2.2% in the third quarter of 2009.

The economy is about as good as one might realistically hope given that it almost went off a cliff right as Obama took over. The stock market and GDP are up, employment is higher, but improving slightly, and home foreclosures are slowing. Debt, however, is very high and growing fast. If not curbed, America will go bankrupt.

Foreign Affairs

Iraq is, relatively, peaceful and arguably democratic. Unchanged.

The ruling parties in Iraq have very close ties with Iran. Iran also has very close ties with rulers in the Kurdish areas. Unchanged, but the government of Iran has lost legitimacy after rigging recent elections.

America has approximately 150,000 uniformed forces and 190,000 'contractors' (aka mercenaries) in Iraq. In December 2009 there were approximately 112,000 uniformed forces and US troops are no longer actively participating in combat operations.

The Taliban have the initiative in Afghanistan and are making major gains. The Taliban were recently reported to be clearedfrom Helman province, which is a key area. Later reports suggest that this was only partially accomplished.

The Taliban have repeatedly cut NATO supply routes through Pakistan; in one case destroying hundreds of trucks filled with supplies. In another, destroying a hundred foot long bridge. NATO is being forced to develop alternative supply routes. Such attacks have not made the news in the last six to nine months, at least that I've noticed and I look.

Major news stories say Kyrgyzstan will close the Manas air base used to support and supply NATO forces in Afghanistan. The base is still in use by the US Air Force.

The Taliban control substantial and growing swaths of territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban have lost control of substantial territories in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban leadership lives more-or-less openly in Quetta. I've seen nothing to suggest this has changed.

The Taliban just cut a deal with local government leaders to impose Sharia on the Swat in exchange for a cease fire. The Taliban were pushed out of Swat by the Pakistan army.

The Taliban just launched a successful attack in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The Taliban launched a big attack in Kabul today., all seven assailants were apparently killed.

Basically, the Taliban are kicking our butts. These are the guys that harbored al Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 attack. They are still close allies. The Taliban are hurting and may have lost the initiative. It's hard to tell the real situation though. Most important, a recent poll indicated abou 70% approval for the US effort, vs 40% a year ago. As support of the population is the key to counter-insurgency warfare, this is very good news.

The Isrealis and Hamas just ended three weeks of major fighting. Rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel have mostly stopped.

Particularly prior to Obama's election, much of the world viewed America as a country that tortures people, invades others, and pursues a largely go-it-alone, my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy. Many perceive America as a bully. Obama has turned this around to the point that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While Obama did not believe he deserved the prize, awarding it is a strong sign that America's image is on the mend. Again, this is key to winning the war with al Qaeda. This war cannot be won without world-wide support, particularly from Muslims.

America has suffered major Islamic extremist terrorist attacks in the first few months of the last two presidential administrations. That would make us due for one now. There have been two small attacks, one killing 13 American soldiers and a failed attempt to bring down an airliner, but nothing on the scale of 9/11, the Oklahoma bombing, or the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

North Korea tested their first nuclear weapon in 2006. No new tests, but no improvement either.

North Korea conducted a number of long range missile tests, including multiple simultaneous launches (important for defeating missile defense). No recent tests.

Iran has made major strides in developing the technology and infrastructure to support development of nuclear tipped missiles. Iran has continued on this path.

Bottom line, in the foreign policy arena, particularly the war with al Qaeda and their Taliban allies, the situation is much improved in most areas.

Governing Operations

The Republican and Democratic parties are bitterly divided and partisan; so much so that two Republican senators refused an invitation to watch the Super Bowl at the White House and an economic stimulus package passed with only three Republican votes in Congress. Nearly all economists, left, right and center, agree a large stimulus is needed to avert economic catastrophe. The parties are still bitterly divided, particularly over health care reform.

Government is generally viewed as grossly incompetent. Little change.

U.S. intelligence services regularly spy on American citizens, in America, communicating with others in America, without a warrant. It's not clear if this has stopped or not.

The U.S. government operates a network of out-of-country prisons specifically intended to evade the rule of law. Guantanamo being the crown jewel of the network. The network is still intact, but Guantanamo is being closed down, albeit not on schedule.

Medical

In 2008 there were almost 46 million Americans without health insurance. RWJF. America is the only industrialized country without nearly universal health care insurance. Unchanged, although reform bills have passed both houses of Congress but still need to be reconciled, voted on by Congress, and signed by the President. The primary issue is whether a compromise bill can win 50% plus one in the House and get 60 votes in the Senate to stop a certain filibuster.

Bottom line, the country is better off than it was a year ago, by a fair margin, although there are plenty of serious problems. So far so good. President Obama is doing a good, though far from perfect, job.

Obama's Present to Space Settlement

2009-12-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Recently, President Obama met with the NASA Administrator to set the direction for the human space program. The results have not been officially announced, but it is widely reported that NASA will

not finish development of a government launcher to get astronauts to the International Space Station but, instead, purchase launch services from the private sector,
develop a new heavy-lift launcher (a vehicle capable to carrying large heavy things into orbit), and
send astronauts to Near Earth Objects, among other places.

This is all pretty mainstream space 'exploration' stuff. But.

In Paths to Space Settlement I argue that there are three things we should do to bring space settlement closer to reality:

Now consider this question: what are the most important things that government could do to promote these goals?

More than anything else, space solar power needs a heavy lift launcher to deliver huge satellites to orbit where they can gather energy for Earth.
More than anything else, space tourism needs a privately owned and operated launcher to take people into orbit, which is where the International Space Station is. Bigelow Aerospace has orbited two sub-sized test vehicles and is preparing to launch the Earth's first space hotel, but there is no private vehicle to take people there. Government vehicles, of course, should not be jetting wealthy tourists around!
More than anything else, people need to pay attention to Near Earth Objects to make sure one doesn't hit us. There's nothing like sending astronauts somewhere to get attention.

In other words, probably without meaning to, President Obama is preparing to set America on course to do almost exactly what is needed for space settlement.

Merry Christmas!

Health Care Phase II

2009-12-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

If the Democrats can hold together, something resembling the current health care bills in the Senate and House will probably pass in the near future. However, from the liberal point of view, these bills have major problems. There are two ways to approach this: give up, hand the Republicans a major victory and probably control of Congress in 2010, or take what we can get and immediately start with the following mantra: "Medicare for All."

The simplest way to get what we want is to allow anyone to buy into Medicare or the federal private insurance pool at cost. This gives people the additional choice of government or private insurance with the federal government's bargaining power. What's not to like?

The law on the verge of passing provides protection from the worst insurance practices and subsidies for those who cannot afford insurance. It also mandates that preventative care is provided. All that is needed is a simple bill letting people in on what the government already does.

However, if the present bill fails, we're toast. As any good engineer knows, better is the enemy of good enough, which brings me to a great if completely tangental story.

Many years ago a former astronaut was put in charge of building a new public library. Unlike many government projects, the library was completed a few weeks ahead of schedule and slightly under budget. A newspaper reporter interviewed the astronaut and asked him how he did it. He replied "I bought a big fancy desk and put it in my office. Every day I put on a suit and tie and sat behind the desk. Every time someone came into the office with a bright idea about how to make the library better I said no."

Health reform Phase I is within our grasp. Phase II is easy to sell: why shouldn't everyone have what seniors have and like?

Don't blow it. Support the current health care bill, with all its many warts and flaws.

Better than the 'Public Option'?

2009-12-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

Instead of making our insanely complex health care system even more complicated by adding a 'Public Option,' why not just let everyone buy into Medicare or the private health care plans for federal workers at cost?

This would give us everything the 'Public Option' is supposed to do with less cost, less complexity, and without creating a new government program. Admission would probably need to be phased in so these systems don't have to absorb 30 million people in a single year (30,000,000 / 365 = 82 thousand people a day. That's a lot). Those buying in get the cost advantage of the federal government's bargaining power, and since the buy in is at cost there is no increase in federal debt.

It's simple. It's straightforward. It should work pretty well. Let's do it.

Afghanistan

2009-12-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

During the presidential campaign last year, Candidate Obama said he would focus attention and resources on the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda. President Obama has certainly delivered on that. After months of deliberation and study, in a major speech last week he presented his plan:

Send an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan within six months, this is above and beyond the 20,000 he already sent. That triples the troop levels from the day he took office. In addition, NATO has pledged an additional 7,000 troops.
Redouble the civilian effort, which is key to winning counter insurgencies; with a thinly veiled threat to work with local governments and leaders if the central government doesn't shape up. The central government, lead by Hamid Karzai, recent winner of a fraudulent election, is rife with corruption and incompetence. This is a major problem as the primary objective of counter insurgency warfare is to legitimize the government in the eyes of the people.
Work with Pakistan to stabilize that country and squeeze the Taliban and al Qaeda from both sides of the border. The Taliban came within a hundred kilometers of the Pakistan capital earlier this year, but the Pakistani army has pushed them back since. While the Pakistani army and intelligence service created the Taliban and supported them, there has been a falling out recently. The Taliban has bombed a number of army and intelligence facilities, including a recent attack that killed military officers and their children in a mosque. Similarly, while Pakistani public opinion has long opposed supporting the U.S. in the region, a spate of bombing has caused public opinion to shift significantly in our favor. It is critical to continue this trend.
Begin withdrawing U.S. troops in 18 months. What many have not noticed is that he said begin withdrawing U.S. troops, not remove all of them. There is no timeline to do more than begin to withdraw.

Obama had, basically, three options to choose from:

Withdraw more-or-less immediately. We tried that in 1989 after the Soviets were defeated. It led to the conquest of Afghanistan by the Taliban, who harbored al Qaeda, who attacked America on 9/11 leveling the World Trade Center, severely damaging the Pentagon, and killing 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil. It is little wonder he did not take this path. It's been tried, and it failed.
Continue on with minimal resources (troops and money). This was the policy of the Bush administration, which lead to a resurgence of the Taliban and a real threat to the Pakistani nuclear stockpile. Again, it's easy to see why this approach was not taken. It didn't work.
Treat Afghanistan/Pakistan as the critical point. Basic Warfare 101 says that to win one should apply "overwhelming force at the critical point." In counter-insurgency warfare firepower is not decisive, so overwhelming force requires more than just the military. For example, it should be noted that Afghanistan has been at war almost continuously for 30 years. Most of the military age men have fought much or all of their lives. Many fight for whomever currently offers them the best chance to survive and provide for their family. Simply paying Afghani government soldiers more than their Taliban counterparts would probably do more than any number of American soldiers, at far less cost. That this wasn't done long ago is a disgrace to the American war effort.

Clearly, Obama has taken the last option -- treat Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan as the critical point in the struggle with al Qaeda.

The obvious question to ask is: "if the Soviets couldn't pacify Afghanistan from right next door, why do we think we can do so from half a world away?" This is particularly important as the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan was a major contribution to the total collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later. Note the recent near-collapse of the American financial system and the massive increase in debt that could easily, if not reversed, send us off a cliff. Fortunately, there are some important differences between the Soviet and American efforts:

The Soviets did not apply classic counter insurgency principles, but parts of the American military applied them successfully in Iraq (see here for a discussion of the U.S. military's approach to counter insurgency warfare). In particular, the Afghan commander (McChrystal) and his boss, the CentCom commander (Patreaus) are major proponents of this approach, which works. The appalling fact is that, despite bringing Iraq back from the brink over the last couple of years using these classic techniques, they have not been applied in Afghanistan until now. One can only wonder why.
The Soviets almost certainly intended to permanently occupy Afghanistan, which was not popular, to put it very mildly, with the locals. President Obama made it crystal clear that America has absolutely no intention of keeping US forces in Afghanistan over the long term. It is crucial that this message be successfully communicated to the Afghan people. One seldom-discussed reason we avoided disaster in Iraq is that the Democrats won the 2006 Congressional elections on an anti-Iraq war platform. I'm fairly confident Iraqi insurgent leaders looked at those results, realized the Americans would be leaving, and chose not to get chewed up by American firepower trying to get us to do what we would now do anyway: leave. The Sunni insurgents made an alliance with us and the Mahdi Army stood down almost completely. Violence in Iraq has plummeted.
The Soviets faced an insurgency supported by a billion-dollar-a-year supply network funneling weapons and materials through Pakistan. This network, set up by a collaboration between the Reagan administration, Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson (see "Charlie Wilson's War" on DVD or read the book), and the Saudis was a key element in the Red Army's defeat, particularly the shoulder-fired Stinger missiles which ended Soviet air power freedom of action at low altitude. While the Taliban and al Qaeda have bases in Pakistan, this support is a tiny fraction of what the anti-Soviet forces received and it is under attack from American drones and Pakistani forces.

This does not mean America will succeed in Afghanistan. It does mean we have a fighting chance. Obama is very smart, he understands Islam and that part of the world far better than any previous president, he just might succeed. He has asked for 18 months to show that he can pull it off. We should give it to him.

Is SSP Competitive with Nuclear?

2009-11-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Maybe.

Peter Sage, in a talk [part one]at the TED conference and elsewhere, points out that nuclear power plants take 5-10 years and cost $4-10 billion to build, from $300 million to as much as $6 billion to decommission [ref], and $4-6 billion for fuel and operation. This does not include waste disposal. We've been building nuclear power plants for 50 years and this industry has received untold billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Now consider that

Japan recently announced a $21 billion/20 year program to build a 1 GW space solar power (SSP, aka SBSP) system. The dollar figure is a target, not an estimate.
After two years of analysis and a couple million dollars, Space Energy Inc. believes it can build a 1GW SSP system for $16 billion.
Perhaps more important, PG&E -- a major California utility -- announced a deal with Solaren Corp. to begin purchasing 200 MW of space solar power around 2016 -- seven years from now.

It appears that the most expensive nuclear plants are expected to cost about as much as the least expensive SSP systems. As many incorrectly believe that SSP is a thousand times more expensive than current systems, this is a revelation.

There are a couple of issues to consider in this comparison:

Nuclear power plant costs are well known.
SSP costs are estimates, and estimates of new space system costs are usually low.
Nuclear power plants can pay for fuel and decommissioning out of revenues.
Almost all of the costs of SSP are upfront and must be financed.

However, with nuclear power plants we have fifty years of experience telling us costs are not likely to drop very much. The SSP estimates are for the first system, and costs will almost certainly drop a great deal for the second and even more for subsequent systems. Furthermore, SSP has received very little government help, perhaps $80 million over 30 years. Nuclear received, for example, $13 billion in loan guarantees just a few years ago, and fusion research receives roughly $400 million in Department of Energy funding a year.

When considering building new energy plants, SSP looks, very roughly -- say a factor of two or three, about as good as nuclear power from a strictly financial point of view. However, SSP

is a new technology with huge growth potential.
involves no fuel, much less radioactive fuel.
produces no operational wastes.
is all but invulnerable to terrorist attack.
is generally environmentally far more friendly than nuclear.

SSP has received almost no government assistance. It could use government research and development, help allocating frequencies for power transmission, help getting land for ground antenna, and perhaps even a prize system.

If you think SSP deserves more government help, email Steven Chu, the head of the Department of Energy, at The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov and let him know.

Bottom line: SSP may be, very roughly, competitive with nuclear for new energy plants now.

A Sensible Space Program

2009-11-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

NASA's human space flight program budget for 2010 is about $10 billion (see NASA budget). The Obama administration asked a commission to look at what could be done within that budget, and the Augustine report came out with a number of options. However, only two of those options can, apparently, be accomplished for $10 billion/year -- neither of which does more than operate the International Space Station (ISS) and build a new launcher with no funded missions. No human trips to the Moon, asteroids, Mars, or anywhere else in the next decade or two. The commission then listed a number of possibilities that could be accomplished for $13 billion/year. Unfortunately, we're going bankrupt and really shouldn't increase non-essential spending.

If the human space flight program can't do much for $10 billion a year, then maybe it's time to look elsewhere for space development. We are just finishing the ISS at a total cost of something like $100 billion, so it would be silly to throw it away. Fortunately, the ISS 'only' costs about $2 billion/year, plus money to pay the Russians or American private companies to fly astronauts and equipment to and fro once the space shuttle is retired next year, say another $1 billion/year. Well utilized, the ISS could potentially produce useful biomedical research (there is at least one medication derived from ISS research that is starting trials), materials research, and technology test beds such as the recently cancelled space solar power demonstration project.

If the ISS costs $3 billion per year to operate, that leaves $7 billion/year for something else. The commission tells us this isn't enough to send a very small number of people to the Moon or Mars, so we should either reduce government expenditures or find something useful that $7 billion could do. I have proposed a $21 billion prize program to develop space solar power. This program is guaranteed to deliver at least 21 space power satellites or our money back. If successful, three years of money to not send a small number of people beyond Earth orbit may get space solar power up and running. This would have a revolutionary impact on energy and climate change problems as space solar power is very clean and available in gigantic quantities for the next few billion years.

Which do you think would benefit America, or for that matter, the world, more?

Finally, here's the kicker. A major reason NASA can't put people on the Moon or Mars with $10 billion a year is that transportation (launch) from Earth to orbit is expensive, several thousand dollars per pound. Launch is expensive because there aren't very many, fewer than 100 per year. Consider what a car would cost if the whole planet took only 100 car rides per year, total. If space solar power were successful, it would create a profitable market for many thousands of launches per year and the price would come down -- then NASA could put people on the Moon and Mars for much less than $10 billion per year.

So you don't even have to choose, you just have to be optimistic and believe that we can do pretty much anything the laws of physics allow if we really want to. America has the most capable aerospace industry in the world, some of the most dynamic entrepreneurs, and a desire for energy and a clean environment. With space solar power we have a shot, not a certainty, but a shot, at drastically reducing carbon emissions, becoming a major energy exporter, and a few years later putting people on the Moon and Mars. We just need to put $21 billion in escrow for a few years and pay it out if someone delivers on the dream. If they don't we get our money back.

Now that's a deal.

Changing My Mind on Health Care

2009-10-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

Before reading "The Healing of America" by T.R. Reid I had come to the reluctant conclusion that single-payer health care was the only way to go. Employer-based health care seemed absurd since if you really get sick, you can't work and lose your job -- and your health care.

Reid's book convinced me that employer-based health care can work, and can work very well. This is the case because it works very well in Germany, Switzerland, France and Japan. Everybody is covered, no one is denied treatment, it costs much less than in the U.S., the outcomes are very good, and people don't go bankrupt over medical bills.

Reid has a bad shoulder. He went to England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and India to treat his shoulder and compare the local health care systems (he also went to an American doctor). All these countries (except India) spend less than America, have better outcomes, and cover everyone. However, their systems are quite different. In England the government owns everything and nobody pays a dime, like our Veterans Administration. In Canada the government pays for everything, but the private sector performs the service like our Medicare and Medicaid. India is an out-of-pocket place, like Americans without insurance. Germany, France, Switzerland, and Japan have employer-based systems like most Americans. While the foreign employer-based systems have significant differences, they are all much different from ours in that:

Basic insurance is a non-profit business. In some systems insurance companies can offer supplementary coverage for a profit, but the purpose of the basic insurance business is to pay for health care, not make a profit.

The industry is heavily regulated. The price of most or all procedures is usually fixed in negotiations with the government each year. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage or refuse payment for procedures.

Costs are transparent. For example, on the wall of every French medical facility there is a list of the procedures they perform, the cost, and how much the government will reimburse. In Germany, every doctor has access to a single database with all the procedures and their prices.

If you lose your job, the government usually picks up the employer part of the premiums.

Insurance coverage is mandatory for everyone.

Administration is simple. In France, everyone has a smart card that all providers have equipment to read. In Germany there is a single database with all patient records.

There were some interesting parts to the systems. For example,

In France, you pay for medical procedures in full at the time of the service. Your insurance company must reimburse you by the end of the month.

In Germany, the insurance premium is 15% of salary, paid in part by your employer (or the government).

In Germany the wealthiest citizens are not required to have medical insurance. The reasoning is that they can afford whatever it costs regardless.

In Germany, everyone can choose from over 200 different insurance companies.

Switzerland had a U.S.-like system until the early 90's, when America rejected health care reform. Switzerland had the same problems we have now: many without coverage, skyrocketing costs, companies denying coverage, etc. Unlike America, Switzerland introduced compulsory coverage and forced the insurance companies to offer basic, well-defined coverage without profit. It works very well.

With Reid's book in mind the current health care reform movement in America has a glaring flaw: all the other employer-based systems require non-profit basic health insurance, heavily regulate prices and procedures covered, transparency and simple administration. Maybe what's coming out of Congress will work, I certainly hope so. However, experience overseas suggests that we are leaving out key components of what is known to work well.

Oh, Reid tells us one other thing. The American health care system is the laughing stock of the world. Whenever anyone criticizes the German, English, Canadian, or other system, the standard response is: our system has problems, but it's not nearly as bad as in America.

America's Economy Fails the Average Man

2009-10-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

According to Time magazine, October 26 issue, in 2008 the median male income was $46,367 but in 1972 his income was $46,956 (adjusting for inflation). In 36 years of economic development the net gain for the average Joe was negative! All of the increase in average family income came from women entering the workforce.

What's happening, of course, is that all the economic gains of the last three to four decades have accrued to the wealthiest people in this country (as a group). I believe there is a simple reason: the wealthy and powerful control the accounting system, the systems that decide who gets what. Not surprisingly, they direct all the gains to themselves -- a point Ron Paul made during the last election.

What is surprising is that the rest of America is putting up with it. The accounting system is, after all, the creation of our collective mind. Why keep a system that doesn't benefit most people? Ron Paul and I disagree about a lot, but this one thing he's got right. We need to take control of the accounting system and insure that the economic gains this country has made and is making are shared by all working people, not just a few fat cats.

The Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama

2009-10-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

What the prize says is that the world now believes that America is a force for peace, in stark contrast to the way we have been viewed since the invasion of Iraq. As the struggle with al Qaeda is, above all, a struggle for perceived moral superiority (see the US Army Marine Corp Counterinsurgency Field Manual), this is very good news indeed -- regardless of whether President Obama 'deserved' the award or not.

Medicare is Government Health Care

2009-08-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Medicare is a single-payer, government health care program. This simple fact, if known, would likely cool the jets of most of the angry anti-health care reform shouters at town hall meetings.

Many of the shouters are obviously on Medicare, but they don't seem to know that they are in a single-payer government health care system. At one of the town halls there was a sign saying "Keep the government out of my Medicare!" At another, the congresswoman asked for a show of hands: "Who's on Medicare?" Half the audience raises their hand. "Who's happy with it?" most hands stay up. "Who wants government health care?" most of the hands go down. "Do you know that Medicare is a government program?" Booing -- they don't believe it! They are dead wrong. We need to repeat one simple fact -- Medicare is government health care -- over and over and over and over until it penetrates their consciousness. This will take time.

A couple years ago I had a knock-down-drag-out argument with three of my conservative neighbors trying to convince them that members of the U.S. Navy were government employees. It didn't matter that their commander is the U.S. President. It didn't matter that weapons are bought and paychecks are cut from federal tax dollars by the U.S. Treasury. It didn't matter that the "U.S." in U.S. Navy stands for the United States Government. I couldn't convince them. In their minds government employees are lazy incompetents, but members of the military are brave, hyper-competent defenders of freedom -- how could they also be government employees? But they are.

If you don't have the critical facts right, you will come to the wrong conclusions and make poor decisions. The fact is that a huge number of Americans are on single-payer government health care programs. Those over 65 and the disabled are on Medicare. The poor are on Medicaid. These are both private-provider-government-payment, but many Americans are on government-owned healthcare: namely, the military are taken care of by doctors on a government salary and veterans can get care at government owned clinics and hospitals. For the most part, Americans in single-payer government health programs get pretty good care.

Why not the rest of us?

Health Care Falsehood

2009-08-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

A recent Wall Street Journal article claimed that "comparative effectiveness research," an important part of keeping medical costs down, is code for letting old folks die rather than treating them. In addition, many on the conservative right are claiming that government health care will result in seniors being left to die rather than receive treatment.

These are both false.

First, "comparative effectiveness research" simply means comparing the effectiveness of two or more treatments for the same condition. The drug companies hate this, and for good reason. It's quite possible that independent research along these lines will discover that the drug they just spent a half billion dollars developing is no more effective than aspirin. To get FDA approval a drug needs to be reasonably safe and more effective than a sugar pill. No test comparing effectiveness with existing treatments is required. While the drug companies save a lot of lives and relieve a lot of suffering, if cheap treatments are better than expensive treatments they'll just have to deal with it.

Claiming that government health care is meant to kill seniors is truly bizarre. Why? Because seniors are already on government health care: it's called medicare. Medicare gives us a clue as to why the attack on health care reform is so vociferous: medicare has a 3% administrative overhead; meaning that about 97% of medicare costs are for doctors, nurses, drugs, hospitals and so on and only 3% goes to paper pushers. The private insurance companies have a roughly 25% administrative overhead.

That 22% difference in overhead means that someone, somewhere is getting roughly $220 billion dollars a year (1) not for treating patients, but for unnecessary administrating. Nobody gives up that kind of money without a fight, and the insurance companies are currently spending $1.3 million per day to stop health care reform, or at least slow it down. Sure the present system costs a fortune and doesn't deliver very good results, but some folks are making boatloads of money.

Not only are the anti-reform lobbyists doing the usual stuff, but one started the 'deather' rumor that a reformed health care system would kill seniors. They have also organized masses of hecklers at congressional town halls to shout down proponents of sensible reform. This is serious money and those receiving all these wasted dollars seem to be willing to do anything to keep it going into their pockets.

Those receiving that $220 billion a year recently won a great victory -- they delayed reform for a month while Congress goes on recess. That means at least $18 billion more in their pocket, more if they can delay a few more months. The whole $220 billion a year if they can stop it.

Don't forget who's paying those billions of dollars of unnecessary overhead: you are. Let your representatives in Congress know that the current health care system is the most expensive in the world, helps drive one million Americans a year into bankruptcy, plays a roll in 18,000 deaths a year of people who can't afford treatment, and -- worst of all -- doesn't deliver a healthy America.

NOTES

(1) This is a rough figure. Assuming $2 trillion total medical costs, 50% paid by the government, 22% of the private part works out to $220 billion.

Profit and Medicine

2009-07-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

The profit motive has been, to a great degree, responsible for lifting billions of people out of poverty and into middle-class life. Yet America, with the most profit-driven health care system in the world, spends far more than any other country and outcomes, by standard measures such as longevity and infant mortality, are among the worst in the industrialized world. Why?

The profit motive leads to over-all increases in wealth only when combined with the right kind of markets. Otherwise, it simply lines the pockets of the well-to-do and powerful at the expense of everyone else. Such markets were first described by Adam Smith in his much cited but seldom read "Wealth of Nations." The conditions necessary for the profit motive to work well are:

All parties can walk away from any deal. This is often accomplished by having many providers and consumers, none of whom can control the market.
All parties are well informed.
Transactions have only minor negative effects on third parties. For example, if I buy a gallon of gas from Exxon, Exxon gets the dollar and I get to drive around, we win, but you (the unlucky third party) have to breath the fumes and get no benefit.

My hypothesis is that the profit motive doesn't work well in health care because all three of these conditions are seriously violated, at least in our system. In addition, health care has special properties that generate high levels of effort without the profit motive.

The first condition is violated in any medical emergency. You cannot walk away from a hospital in the middle of a heart attack because the one ten miles away is cheaper. If there is a patent on the drug you need for survival you must pay whatever the drug company wants to charge. The bottom line is that the medical field is not a single Adam Smithian market, it is a large collection of markets and many of them are monopolies. In monopolies, the profit motive does not have the good properties of Adam Smith's markets.

The second condition is violated in the medical insurance market. Try to get a list of the drugs your insurance company covers. You can't. Not only won't they give you a complete list, the list changes all the time both in coverage and cost. This makes comparative shopping essentially impossible, negating the advantages of the free market. Worse, many people discover, to their horror, that their insurance company can find a way not to cover them when they get sick. The companies have doctors on the payroll dedicated to denying coverage. In some cases they even have quotas (10% is popular) and get prizes for denying more coverage than their peers.

The third condition is violated by the basic structure of the market. Patients and doctors agree on treatment, and therefore cost, while the insurance companies have to pay up if they can't find a way to deny coverage; which is the case for most conditions.

There are also some pathological dynamics in the drug market, among others. The best, least expensive health care would be created by drug research that targeted vaccines and complete cures for serious, expensive diseases. However, the most money is made by drugs that can be used for pleasure (e.g., viagra or prozac) or that control -- but do not cure -- chronic conditions. For example, there are three standard drugs for multiple sclerosis (MS), each costing about $1,000 per month. None of these drugs cure MS or even reduce disability. They do reduce attacks and help people stay employed and insured. Meanwhile research into MS focuses almost entirely on a 50 year old failed attempt to disable bits of the immune system, an approach which generates a lot of revenue but has failed to cure; while research into mylin regeneration, which has some possibility of a cure, is almost ignored.

This is not because the drug companies are evil. On the contrary, they relieve human suffering on a huge scale. But when it comes time to decide where to put research and development dollars, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders to make money. Often that means choosing to develop a drug that the patient will have to take forever at great expense over a vaccine that only requires one dose per customer; remembering that either effort may fail completely and it will, at best cost, hundreds of millions of dollars to bring either drug to market. The net result is plenty of viagra and prozac, and no vaccine for malaria. Actually, the amazing thing is that the drug companies do occasionally develop vaccines even though they make little money.

It has taken a long time, but I'm coming to the conclusion that health care is one of those areas where the free market and the profit motive doesn't work. Other areas include firefighting, police work, and recruiting soldiers willing to die. Besides the theoretical arguments there is the unquestionable fact that America has the closest approximation of a free market in health care, doesn't get very good outcomes, and pays far more than anyone else.

Eliminating for-profit companies doesn't necessarily mean a single payer system, although countries like Canada and England with single payer have better outcomes than America for less money (1). There are a number of other non-profit models that might be explored. For example, France, with one of the best health care systems in the world measured by outcomes, is not a simple single payer system. I've been told it's employer based with the government paying for certain expensive diseases, such as cancer.

Eliminating the profit in many fields would also eliminate the motivation that sustains extra-ordinary effort by participants. Health care is unusual in that people will work very, very hard because they love to make sick people well. When Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine he refused to patent it. His reward was the knowledge that he cured the sick -- not unlike Jesus himself but on a much larger scale. Health care for profit has been tried. It hasn't worked very well. We need a new approach.

Notes

(1) When confronted by single payer systems that work better and cost less than our system, it's common to claim that Canadians and Brits have to wait all the time and that socialized medicine means dealing with bureaucrats not doctors. The studies I've seen suggest that Canadians and Brits don't wait any more than Americans do; I've certainly spent many hours in the emergency room and getting an appointment with my family physician takes about six weeks. Furthermore, Americans and their doctors spend a great deal of time dealing with insurance company bureaucrats. The doctors hate it, and I feel the same. One example: we used to have Health Net. My wife has MS and takes Avonex, a standard treatment. When we were on Health Net, they initially refused to cover Avonex every year for five or six years running. Every year we went to the doctors, got letters from specialists, and tried to point out to Health Net that they ended out approving the drug year after year, but only after the annual bureaucratic battle. This charade ended when we finally changed employers and insurance companies.

Dangerous Debt

2009-06-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

According to the Schwab Investing Insights, June 2009, the $10 trillion the government owes has an average maturity of 4.7 years. That means, on average, that the government must refinance $2.12 trillion in debt every year -- in addition to borrowing $1 trillion or more in new debt ($1.8 trillion this year!). This means that the US federal government must borrow, on average, over $3 trillion per year.

This is a recipie for disaster.

The End of the Space Age?

2009-02-14T14:25:00.000-08:00

The recent collision between an Iridium satellite and a dead Russian satellite created at least a thousand pieces of space debris. On that day, there were 151 more probable in orbit collisions. There is a real possibility of a slow motion chain reaction, where each collision begets several addition collisions until LEO (Low Earth Orbit) is unusable. LEO operations are already more expensive because of space debris. There is a real possibility that, if left unchecked, space debris could put an end to commercial exploitation of, at least, LEO.

If you thought that environmental concerns could be left on Earth, you were wrong.

Data: http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE51C73720090213

Where We Are

2009-02-08T10:36:00.001-08:00

The Democrats control both Congress and the White House for the first time since 1994. This follows Republican rule of the White House since 2001 and Republican control of Congress for most of that period. I believe that the Republican defeats in the last two elections are, at their core, due to poor governance. Today, America is economically, financially and militarily weaker than we were eight years ago and our standing in the world is substantially reduced. Not only is America weaker, but our enemies are stronger, in part due to oil revenues and nuclear weapon development.

The Democrats now have a chance to govern. In two years we will have a chance to judge Congress, and in four, Obama. When that time comes, I intend to look at this post to see how they've done. To first order, I believe that good governance should result in definite signs that things are turning around in two years, and some real gains in four. To make that judgement, here's my assessment of where we are right now. If you see anything wrong or missing, please let me know and, if I agree, I'll make changes.

Economy

The federal government is $10 trillion in debt.

The projected deficit for fiscal 2009 is $1.2 trillion (not counting the stimulus package).

The economy is losing half a million jobs a month, a total of three million in the last year.

Total debt, government, commercial, and personal, is about $53 trillion.

The Dow Jones is around 8,000, down from around 14,000 a year earlier.

The S&P 500 is around 800, down from around 1,400 a year earlier.

The top 5% of tax returns contained over 36% of the nation's income (2006 data).

The bottom 50% of tax returns showed a per-return, inflation adjusted increase of less than 1% between 2000 and 2006.

Home foreclosure filings in January 2009 totaled 274,399 [Reuters].

Major financial institutions have failed completely, others avoided failure only with massive government subsidies, and many more are on the brink of collapse.

Two of the three major American car manufacturers require massive government subsidies to avoid bankruptcy.

The official unemployment rate is 7.6%.

U.S. GDP has been down every quarter for about a year. It was down 6.8% in the last quarter of 2008.

Foreign Affairs

Iraq is, relatively, peaceful and arguably democratic.

The ruling parties in Iraq have very close ties with Iran. Iran also has very close ties with rulers in the Kurdish areas.

America has approximately 150,000 uniformed forces and 190,000 'contractors' (aka mercenaries) in Iraq.

The Taliban have the initiative in Afghanistan and are making major gains.

Major news stories say Kyrgyzstan will close the Manas air base used to support and supply NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban control substantial and growing swaths of territory in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taliban leadership lives more-or-less openly in Quetta.

The Taliban just cut a deal with local government leaders to impose Sharia on the Swat in exchange for a cease fire.

The Taliban just launched a successful attack in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Basically, the Taliban are kicking our butts. These are the guys that harbored al Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 attack. They are still close allies.

The Isrealis and Hamas just ended three weeks of major fighting.

America has suffered major Islamic extremist terrorist attacks in the first few months of the last two presidential administrations. That would make us due for one now.

North Korea tested their first nuclear weapon in 2006.

North Korea conducted a number of long range missile tests, including multiple simultaneous launches (important for defeating missile defense).

Iran has made major strides in developing the technology and infrastructure to support development of nuclear tipped missiles.

Governing Operations

Government is generally viewed as grossly incompetent.

U.S. intelligence services regularly spy on American citizens, in America, communicating with others in America, without a warrant.

The U.S. government operates a network of out-of-country prisons specifically intended to evade the rule of law. Guantanamo being the crown jewel of the network.

Medical

In 2008 there were almost 46 million Americans without health insurance. RWJF. America is the only industrialized country without nearly universal health care insurance.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).

The Stimulus Package and the Crash

2009-01-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Stimulus

Almost all economists will tell you we need some sort of stimulus to have a chance of getting out of the amazing economic mess we find ourselves in. The biggest controversy on the stimulus is the Republican plan to use tax cuts, and only tax cuts, as opposed to the combination of spending and tax cuts that Obama proposes. Our economy was greatly shaped by the two big tax cuts of the early 2000s and there was a $160 billion tax cut last year to stimulate the economy. We are in this mess anyway. This suggests that pure tax cuts will not be effective. It seems time to change direction.

Crash

In a previous post (It's the Debt, Stupid) I identified excessive debt as a root cause of our economic problems, and briefly noted that excessive compensation to people not doing a particularly good job may also be at fault. There is some support for this view in "The Great Crash 1929" by John Kenneth Galbraith. On page 177 he identifies excessive concentration of wealth, 1/3 of all income going to the top 5%, as a primary cause of the Great Depression. He notes that people living paycheck-to-paycheck will reliably spend all their money, whereas wealthier individuals can stop buying luxuries and investing whenever they choose; thereby creating a big drop in demand. This is, among other things, exactly what happened in the Great Depression; in part because this group lost a great deal of money in the crash. Here's the scary part, take a look at the income data at Summary of Federal Individual Income Tax Data 1980-2006. In particular, examine Table 5, Adjusted Gross Income Shares, 1980-2006. There you will see that in 1980 the top 5% of earners took in 8.46% of all personal income. By 2006 this had risen to 36.66% -- well over 1/3, the level partly responsible for the Great Depression.

This concentration of wealth confirms a prediction I heard way back in 1979. That year I read a book called "Global Reach" about the rise of transnational corporations driven solely by profit. Although it was meticulously researched, I didn't buy most of their argument. However, I remember their prediction: that America would begin to resemble a banana republic: heavily in debt, militaristic, questionable elections, and, most important for our purposes, characterized by a few very wealthy people surrounded by a sea of poor folks. A very real trend in this direction is clear from the tax data.

No one really knows what will or won't get us out of this fix short term, but long term I think we need to substantially reduce debt and flatten incomes. During one of the primary debates, Ron Paul tried to made the case that our accounting system is out of whack, excessively rewarding a small fraction of the population at the expense of everyone else; based not on productivity, but rather who controlled the accounting system. There's very little that Ron Paul and I agree on, but this is one of them.

Israel and Gaza

2009-01-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

Israel and Hamas are fighting in Gaza, again. Countless articles, editorials, and blog posts are discussing this fight, most focused on the tactical picture: what is happening today, who's to blame, who should be condemned, etc. I'd like to step back and look at the strategic picture.

In 1948, Jews and Arabs started shooting and bombing each other in Palestine/Israel. The UN, motivated by the nearly successful German attempt to kill all the Jews in Europe, had granted the Jews small bits of territory in British-administered Palestine and called the new country Israel. Although the British had controlled Palestine since 1919 and the Turks controlled it for a few centuries before that, the mostly Muslim Arabs that lived there quite reasonably considered it their land. They saw no reason that the sins of the mostly Christian Germans should be paid for with their land. The Jews, having lived for thousands of years in territory controlled by others, being severely repressed and eventually nearly wiped out, were determined to control their own country. The differences were irreconcilable so there was nothing to do but fight it out.

At the time there were about 50 million Arabs and only 100,000 Jews in Palestine, the Arabs had professional armies, the Jews had a few thousand veterans of World War II. Everyone thought the Arabs would finish the job the Nazi's started, but they were wrong. With help from Czech weapons, the Jews won the 1948 war and even captured significantly more territory than the UN granted them. Since then fighting between Israel and the Arab world has erupted periodically, with big wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973 and countless smaller conflicts.

The basic Arab strategy is to keep the conflict going (1). Israel is 300 miles long and 70 miles wide with a population of a few million. Arabs control all of North Africa and the vast majority of the Middle East with a population measured in hundreds of millions. Arab armies only have to win once and Israel will be destroyed, Israel has won again and again but cannot possibly develop the strength to occupy and control the vast Arab lands. Thus, even though Israel would be very difficult to conquer today, if the Arabs just keep the conflict going, eventually the military balance will change and Arabs will again control Palestine from the river to the sea.

Israel's strategy has been to build a crackerjack military to avoid a defeat leading to extermination and using this army to take territory they don't really need then trade it for peace. They traded the Sinai for peace with Egypt, and there's been no significant fighting for 40 years. They traded parts of the West Bank and Gaza for peace with Jordan and the PLO (2). There has been no fighting with Jordan, but peace with the PLO has not been complete. Israel even tried withdrawing from Lebanon and Gaza without a peace deal, but there is still fighting on both fronts. Nonetheless, the basic strategy is working fairly well. Although the vast majority of the Arab world, plus Iran, is still officially committed to the destruction of Israel and reclaiming the land they feel is rightfully theirs, the only immediate neighbors in that group are Lebanon (including Hezbollah), Syria, and Hamas-controlled Gaza. These have very short, easily defended borders with Israel. Furthermore, many Arab states have indicated they might agree to recognize Israel under various conditions.

There are only two ways for the Arab-Israeli conflict to end: the destruction of Israel, probably including killing or driving most of the Jews out of Palestine, or the Arab world accepting the loss of much of Palestine to Jewish control. Some advocate a democratic secular Palestine neither Jewish nor Muslim, where the rights of all citizens would be respected. One might remember, however, the Weimar Republic in Germany after World War I was a democratic country where the rights of all, including Jews, were respected and Germany had a long history of policy friendly to Jews. Nonetheless, within a couple of decades, the Jews of Europe were nearly wiped out by these same Germans. Jews would be fools indeed to willingly put their survival in the hands of others. If the Arabs want all of Palestine, they will have to fight for it.

There is a story that gets to the core of the Palestine/Israel situation. I don't know if it's true, but it's a good story nonetheless. One night shortly after the 1948 war a pregnant Jew in a kibbutz near the Egyptian border was killed. The tracks of the killers lead directly to an Arab village on the Egyptian side. A young Israeli officer was told to take his men to the village and a lot of Arabs were killed. A few days later there were outraged articles in newspapers around the world condemning Israeli atrocities in the village. The officer, distraught, went to David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister. To the officer's surprise, Ben-Gurion was happy with the newspaper coverage. The officer asked why. Ben-Gurion said that for thousands of years killing Jews had been easy, safe, and painless; and the primary purpose of Israel was to make Jew-killing difficult, dangerous, and painful. The newspapers were helping spread the word.

That's what's going on in Gaza today. Hamas considers itself a religious organization (3) with a duty to destroy Israel, which they are too weak to do at present. To keep the fight going, Hamas launches rockets into Israel, occasionally killing a Jew or two. Israel is making that activity difficult, dangerous, and painful in hopes that, like Egypt, Jordan, and the PLO before it, Hamas and the rest of the Arab world will eventually give up trying to destroy Israel. That will end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

NOTES

(1) This is why the 750,000 Palestinian refugees created in the 1948 war were never resettled anywhere in the vast Arab lands and millions of their descendants now live in crowded refugee camps. A few years earlier, in 1945 at the end of World War II, there were millions of refugees in Europe, all of whom have long since been resettled. Indeed, about 600,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands in 1948 and fled to Israel, all of which have also long since been resettled even in tiny Israel. By refusing to resettle the Palestinian refugees, the Arab elite have cultivated a large population who, quite understandably, hate Israel. This helps immensely to keep the fight going.

(2) It should be said that all of these governments, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, are fragile. They are all dictatorial, corrupt, or both and could be replaced by governments actively hostile to Israel. For example, Hamas won the last Palestinian Authority legislative election.

(3) This is important to understanding Hamas. For example, the ideal Muslim is the prophet Muhammad, and good Muslims often emulate his life. Muhammad was, among other things, a very successful warrior. At one point Muhammad made a ten year truce with his enemies. The people asked him why. He said that at the moment the enemy was too strong to defeat, but he could use the truce to build up his strength and defeat them, which is exactly what happened a few years later. This is why Israel is reluctant to negotiate a truce with Hamas.

It's the Debt, Stupid

2008-12-05T20:58:00.001-08:00

I'm beginning to believe that America, the whole country, has hit her debt limit. Consider:

The federal government owes $10.6 trillion. By contrast, the Russian government's debt is zero. That's right, zero.

The increase in federal debt over the last year was about $1.4 trillion.

Total mortgage debt is about $12 trillion.

Total credit card debt is around $1 trillion.

110 million Americans have bad credit -- that's almost half of the roughly 240 million adults in America.

Total American debt (household, business, financial and government) is $53 trillion.

All this on a $14 trillion yearly GDP.

One consequence, the American government must come up with over a trillion dollars a year to service the debt. Assuming an average 10 year term, $1 trillion is needed to pay off bonds coming due every year. Assuming 3% interest, we need $300 billion/year to pay interest. That's $1.3 trillion per year in taxes or borrowing to get -- nothing. The money has already been spent. Unless we pay down the debt, this will continue forever.

America has been living high on the hog by borrowing, and someday that borrowing will have to stop. That day appears to have come. We must live on what we earn, minus very large debt payments. That means we have to buy less. That's ok, our garages are already stuffed with expensive stuff we don't use.

There's a chart of different parts of the debt from 1957 to now at http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm. The two parts that have really taken off are financial sector debt and household debt. Financial sector debt appears to have been created by clever people lacking regulation so they could get rich on commissions. The household debt has been financed by rising home values. This allows people to borrow against their home.

Unfortunately, while rising home prices allow home owners to borrow, it doesn't help them pay off the loan. High housing prices are bad because everybody, forever, must devote a great deal of their income to keeping a roof over their head. Fortunately, prices are coming down. Before the bubble median house prices were about three times median income. Median income is about $50K, so median house prices will probably fall until they reach about $150K. They're about $200K now.

If this line of reasoning is correct, financial rescue attempts based on getting people to borrow money will fail, although perhaps not right away. The good news is that buying more stuff wasn't going to make our lives much better anyway. The bad news is that adjusting to living within our means and paying down our debt will be very painful. The millions losing their homes, jobs or both have already noticed that.

There is some reason to hope for better times. Specifically, the price of oil is almost back down to what it was before the big rise, and that will make everything cheaper. Second, the economy is strongly influenced by the President and the incoming guy is extremely intelligent.

Help Win the War on al Qaeda

2008-11-30T22:24:00.001-08:00

Here's what you can do, right now, to help win the war with al Qaeda. Contribute whatever you can to the Central Asia Institute (www.ikat.org). This is an extraordinarily effective organization that builds schools, mostly for girls, in the remote mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here's why this is critical to the war on al Qaeda and their allies, the Taliban:

Al Qaeda is dependent on the Taliban for survival. 'Talib' means 'student.' The Taliban get most of their personnel from radical, fundamentalist madrassas (a madrassa is an Islamic school). The people of the remote regions where al Qaeda and the Taliban are strong live in grinding poverty the poorest American can hardly imagine. These people are as intelligent as anyone, they know that education is critical for their children to live a better life. The Saudis provide the money for wahhabi madrassas (wahhabi is a radical, fundamentalist form of Islam) and the people send their children as there is nothing better available.

Enter Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute (CAI). As chronicled in Three Cups of Tea, Greg stumbled into a remote mountain village in Pakistan after a failed attempt to climb K2. Greg was lost, in terrible shape and almost died. The villagers nursed him back to health. He asked them what they really needed and they answered "a school." Their children were studying in the open in one of the coldest places on earth, scratching their multiplication tables in the dirt. A few years later, Greg came back with building materials, the village supplied land and labor, and the school was built (1). Since then, Greg and the CAI has helped build dozens of schools in the most remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with other projects.

The Central Asia Institute was created to fund and expand Greg's work. Greg knows the languages and cultures of the mountain people and has made the personal contacts critical to success in tribal societies. He has learned how to work with locals to deliver the projects they choose -- usually schools, especially for girls -- at incredibly low cost. For example, a primary school might cost $20,000. The costs are low because the locals donate the land, provide most of the labor, and work closely with the CAI to choose the projects. All projects must gain the blessing of the local government and religious leaders before going forward.

While our government was busy recruiting for al Qaeda by blowing up the wrong people and invading the wrong countries, the CAI was creating allies on the ground by helping villages get what they desire above all else: a good education for their children. Just one example of the depths of that desire: when the trucks carrying building materials for one project were stopped dead by a landslide many miles short, the village men carried all of the materials on their backs, by foot to the village. These are people we can be proud to serve.

Help them. Help ourselves. Contribute today.

NOTES

(1) The story is actually a little more complex. Read the book. It's excellent.

To My Indian Friends

2008-11-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sending this to all the Indians who've been kind enough to give me their email address over the years. You might find it valuable.

I want to extend my most heart-felt sympathies to you and all the people of India over the despicable attacks in Mumbai. Just as you stood with us after 9/11, I stand with you today and I'm confident the rest of the American people do as well.

I also want to warn you not to make the same mistakes we made. The strategic purpose of attacks like these is often to provoke an over-reaction that alienates potential terrorist supporters and thus strengthen the attackers (1). This is exactly what happened when 9/11 provoked the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- al Qaeda grew stronger. Five years on we are only now beginning to recover from that disastrous mistake.

It is likely that the attackers are associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Pakistani army is putting a lot of pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas. This attack is probably intended to increase tensions between India and Pakistan, ideally creating a shooting war. Then Pakistan will remove its troops from the tribal areas and send them to fight India; relieving the pressure.

President-elect Obama has pointed out that the way to win is to resolve the Kashmir problem. The Pakistani army is plenty strong enough to destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban. However, that army is trained and deployed to fight wars with India. Resolving the Kashmir problem and negotiating a permanent peace would free up Pakistani troops to regain control of their country.

While parts of the Pakistani military and ISI (2) support the Taliban and other religious extremists, the bulk of the people and the government see them as a terrible threat, particularly as the suicide attacks and instability grow. Also, the Taliban have taken considerable Pakistani territory in recent months and there is a growing awareness that Pakistan must destroy these guys. We need an alliance of America, India, peace-loving Pakistanis (the vast majority), and others to demolish these extremists. United we are invincible, divided we will fall.

The immediate reaction to the Mumbai attacks will likely be a desire for revenge and the most convenient target may be Pakistan. This would be a disaster, and would lead to even greater danger to India as the extremists grow strong. Don't do what we did. Don't lash out in the wrong direction. Don't fight for revenge. Fight to win.

NOTES

(1) The is one of the lessons of the U.S. Army - Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

(2) The ISI is the Pakistani intelligence service.

Why Barack Obama Should be President

2008-10-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

I believe Barack Obama should be our next president because:

He is brilliant. He got into the best schools on merit alone. When you listen to him it is obvious that this guy has got a lot of excellent grey stuff between his ears. The Presidency is perhaps the most intellectually demanding job on the planet; we should never accept a mediocre intellect in that office.

He is extremely knowledgeable. In his books, in 20+ debates and countless interviews he has shown a command of the facts. Without knowing the facts it is all but impossible to navigate the dangerous waters ahead.

He knows the Constitution. Obama was a professor of constitutional law, exactly what we need after eight years of blatantly unconstitutional spying, signing statements, erosion of our rights and over-reach by the executive branch.

Everybody makes more money under Democratic presidents. This was decisively documented in Unequal Democracy by Princeton economist Larry Bartels. He shows that very wealthy people do a little better under Democrats vs. Republicans, but middle and working class people do a lot better.

He made the right call on Iraq before the invasion. He said "don't". If we'd done as he said we'd be a lot better off today.

He is focused on the destruction of al Qaeda.

When the Republican's took over eight years ago our military was unbeatable, our prestige was high, the government was running a surplus, the middle and working class were making more money, and the economy was humming. Republican rule has been a disaster.

When warned in August 2001 that al Qaeda intended to attack America, possibly with airplanes, Bush did nothing. Didn't tell anyone to investigate, didn't form a task force, didn't look into it, didn't send out an alert, didn't even ask a question.

Over the last eight years the value of my 401K and IRA has gone down, down, down.

Obama has a record of crafting legislation on controversial topics so well constructed both sides support it.

He is a terrific communicator. His speeches bring me to the brink of tears. His explanations make sense and clarify complex, difficult topics.

He thinks things through. He doesn't just jump at the first solution that presents itself. He determines the facts, listens to all sides, and makes careful, considered decisions.

He is calm under pressure. Calm people make better decisions.

He is well regarded overseas. We cannot win the war with al Qaeda, deal with global warming, or fix the economy without foreign help. We need to get our reputation out of the toilet.

He is steady. America is a big country. The president can't be bouncing all over the place. He needs to take his time, make good decisions and follow through with consistency. Obama has demonstrated this on his campaign and the economic crisis.

He is a terrific executive. He's only had one major executive position -- running a campaign for president. Even his opponents admit that he has done a masterful job.

He acts, thinks, and looks like someone who can lead America well.

We need someone really good now. Barack Obama is no saint, but he is an unusually good politician. He just might be exactly what we need.

How I'm Voting and Why

2008-10-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

President: Obama. He is very smart, extremely capable, brings people together, and shares most of my deepest, most important values.

Vice President: Biden. I really wanted Hillary, but compared to Sarah Palin it's a no brainer. If she can't handle Katie Couric, how's she going to do with Vladimir Putin?

Representative: Sam Farr. He's the Democrat and the Republicans have done such a lousy job of running this country they need to be badly beaten so they make some serious changes.

State Senator: Joe Simitian. See previous.

State Assembly: Bill Monning. I heard him speak and liked him.

SC County Board of Education: Rachel Huff. Her statement is reasonable and I talked to her opponent. He didn't know his stuff. His focus was increased spending on the schools, perfectly reasonable, but he didn't know how much was being spent today. Governing well requires knowledge, as we have discovered with our current President.

Cabrillo Community College District: Susan True. I liked her spiel in the voter pamphlet. I liked Kevin McGibben too but not quite as much.

Santa Cruz School District: Ken Wagman. His spiel was decent and his opponent didn't bother with a Spanish translation.

Soquel Union School District: Kim Nadeau, Mary Glenn-Cahalen, Kathy Hees, and Cynthia Torres-Ricca. I know Kim. She's smart, capable and, based on a long telephone conversation, extremely knowledgeable, especially on finances. The others are running with her. I also really don't like the current school board. I didn't like it when they closed Capitola Elementary and I don't like their plans for Jade Street Park. Her ideas on the direction the school district should go are very close to mine: fiscal transparency, keep Jade Street a park and look into converting schools to K-8 to promote community and so hundreds of parents aren't driving their kids to school every day clogging the roads and wasting gas. She also has some ideas for increasing funding.

City of Capitola: Michael Termini and Dennis Norton. I talked to Kirby Nicol and liked a lot of what he said, but he wants to build three new hotels in Capitola and I don't really want that many more hotels in Capitola. Termini seems like a good guy and I liked an email on presidential politics he sent me. Norton wants to do a bunch of stuff I approve of, like a skateboard park. The kids love to skateboard and right now there's no good place for them to do it, so they tend to use New Brighton School which creates problems.

Soquel Creek Water District: Thomas La Hue and Bruce Daniels. They seem to understand that our water resources are finite and at their limit.

Initiatives: NO on 1A, 3, 10, 12 because they are all bonds. Bonds increase debt. The State of California already owes $60 billion and has the authority (from previous initiatives) to borrow $76 billion more. All this on an income of $100 billion. This is too much debt. There's always some worthy cause to borrow for, and if we do it every time we'll go bankrupt or at least have constant fiscal crises. Actually, note that we seem to have lots of fiscal crises!

YES on 2, farm animal welfare. The initiative seems simple and reasonable, but mostly the opposition argument in the voter pamphlet is obviously fear mongering and probably lying.

NO on 4, parental notification of minors having abortions. This is an area where government should tread lightly, and also looks like someone is just putting some hoops for young girls seeking abortion to jump through.

???? on 5, non-violent drug offenses. I like the idea of keeping drug offenders out of our overcrowded prisons, but the initiative is very complex and I'm not really sure it's better than what we have now. However, the opponents in the voter pamphlet seem to be fear mongering and possibly lying. On the other hand the presidents of the California Police Chiefs Association and District Attorneys Association are against it. For a better legal approach to recreational drugs, see http://alspolitics1.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-to-actually-win-war-on-drugs.html

NO on 6, police and law enforcement funding. It mandates major spending increases without saying where the money comes from, allows greater use of hearsay evidence in court, and putting even more people in prison. We already incarcerate about 1% of Americans, and over 3% are on parole, waiting for trial or are in prison. That's way above international standards and way too high.

NO on 7, renewable energy generation. This is a trojan horse. Among other things, there is a really terrible clause that will effectively wipe out alternative energy businesses generating less than 30 Megawatts. They won't count towards the renewable energy quotas the utilities must meet under this bill. It's also too complex to understand, which always gets a NO from me.

NO on 8, anti-gay marriage. A couple little old ladies getting married is a lot better for marriage than a couple of drunk teenagers getting married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas.

No on 9, victims rights, parole. Some of this initiative seems to be good ideas, but it's complex, mandates expenditures without providing funding, and has some legally questionable parts. However, the killer for me is in the arguments, the proponents are obviously fear mongering. They are also clearly unaware that in America people are innocent until proven guilty.

???? on 11, redistricting. This would mostly take redistricting out of the direct control of the legislature. That is definitely a good thing, but I'm not sure it's done the best way.

YES on D. Continuing the sales tax through 2017 is needed to pay some bonds the city took out while allowing the police force to be fully staffed. The large police force in Capitola is closely related to the low crime rate. Let's keep it that way.

There you have it. If you have a good reason I should change my vote, please let me know before November 4!

Comparing McCain and Obama

2008-10-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

Directly comparing McCain and Obama is difficult. They are much different men, with much different experience, and have different strengths and weaknesses. But there is one executive arena where a direct comparison can be made: both are running presidential campaigns. This provides us a direct, apples-to-apples comparison, although McCain has an advantage since this is his second campaign whereas it's the first time out for Obama.

Unfortunately for McCain, the comparison is easy and decisive: Obama has run a far, far better campaign by essentially every measure. Furthermore, Obama put his campaign together from scratch with no help from the Democratic establishment in the first year and a half, whereas McCain had the Republican party behind him until he ran out of money temporarily before the primaries.

Make no mistake, Obama has run a far better campaign. He is better organized, has more volunteers, they are more enthusiastic, he has raised far more money, he has raised money from far more people, he has registered more new voters, and he has run a strategically consistent campaign from the beginning while McCain has a new strategy every couple of days.

Although Obama is perfectly capable of going negative, he does so far less than McCain, and usually only in response to attacks. The polls say Obama won all three debates. Then there's the single most important decision of any campaign, who will be vice-president? Obama's pick for VP was boring and safe, but there's no question Biden is knowledgeable, whereas Sarah Palin clearly knows very little about national and international issues and, worse, seems to have little interest. Many intelligent, notable conservative Republicans, e.g., George Will and General Colin Powell, have called her unfit for the job.

In the one apples-to-apples comparison of executive performance we can make there is no question: Obama is better than McCain by a wide margin.

Who is Obama?

2008-10-13T19:40:00.001-07:00

Who is Obama?

An extremely intelligent yet decidedly practical man.

A professor of constitutional law.

The author of two best selling books.

The first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.

A self made man, who got where he is by his own efforts, his family having no money or influence.

A guy who made the right call on Iraq from the very beginning.

A family man.

A guy who gave up a high paying job to organize poor people in Chicago for peanuts.

A terrific speaker.

A champion of the middle class.

A steady hand in turbulent times.

A guy who can sink 3-pointers consistently.

A brilliant campaigner -- even his opponents speak with admiration of his organization, which he created from scratch.

The most successful fund raiser in modern times, without taking money from PACs or lobbyists. Most of his money comes from those with modest means.

A leader with a global strategic vision.

A counter-puncher, he rarely strikes first, but often strikes hard.

A masterful consensus builder who has repeatedly crafted controversial legislation to gather support from both sides of the debate.

A man with first hand knowledge of Islamic society, gathered on the school yards of Indonesia. This is a major benefit for the war with al Qaeda.

The guy who beat the legendary Clinton machine with the Democratic establishment behind it, and who is well ahead running against the vaunted Republican attack machine.

A man who can see all sides of an issue, and who seeks the council of those who disagree to make sure he finds the truth.

A master of the internet political campaign.

A rationalist.

But most of all, a great American and Human Being.

America has been fortunate in its leaders. George Washington didn't become King. Thomas Jefferson went ahead with the Louisiana Purchase. Abraham Lincoln, with practically no experience, kept the Union together. FDR led us through the Great Depression then defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in four short years. I don't know if Barack Obama is in their league, but he might be. I hope we have the wisdom to choose him.

McCain: memory problem or flat out lie?

2008-10-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

Watching the debate Tuesday night McCain attacked Obama for saying he'd take advantage of an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan, even without Pakistani permission. McCain said this was a reckless thing to say. Obama counter-punched pointing out that John McCain sang 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran' to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbaran. So far, just the usual. But then McCain said he was just joking around with a fellow veteran, implying that it was a private conversation someone overheard.

Problem is, a half hour later I was watching a video of McCain singing 'bomb bomb bomb ...' into a microphone with no one standing near him. Looked like a campaign event. The host of the program said he played the Beach Boys version at the start of the next couple of rallies.

Either McCain's memory slipped or he flat out lied.

Take your pick.

John McCain's judgement

2008-10-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

Watch these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rzLLaD51rY

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4478156n (starts with an ad)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4476649n (starts with an ad)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4476649n (starts with an ad)

In John McCain's judgement, this person is the best Republican, other than himself, to have their finger on the nuclear button, control a world wide military fighting two long term wars, handle a $14 trillion economy in deep trouble, oversee a $3 trillion budget, deal with a $10 trillion debt, and bring the international community and a deeply divided country together.

John McCain is 72 years old, he's had four melanomas -- the kind of skin cancer that kills -- one of which got into his lymph nodes, a very bad sign. If the Republicans win, on 20 January Sara Palin could easily be president.

Do you believe that the person in these videos can be a first-class President of the US in a few months?

Furthermore, this is all you will get. You can bet there won't be many, perhaps no, more interviews where she answers questions,
questions that might reveal something they don't want you to know. You'll just get rehearsed speech written and vetted by a campaign staff dominated by veterans of the Bush campaigns.

Obama is not the most experienced politician in Washington, but he's done 20+ debates, hundreds of interviews and been put under a microscope for almost two years -- and 18 million people voted for him to be President. Only one person voted for Sarah Palin as VP, John McCain, a man who's judgement, IMHO, is deeply flawed.

The War with al Qaeda

2008-09-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

On September 11, 2001 al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, severely damaged the Pentagon and killed almost 3,000 Americans. In the seven years since, we have waged war on al Qaeda, yet they still control territory, run training camps, launch attacks, communicate with their followers, and have even developed a large international network. We failed to destroy al Qaeda and their Taliban allies because President Bush failed to focus America's power on the task, and, IMHO, because Americans generally, including John McCain, do not understand the conflict very well (1). In particular:

al Qaeda's primary weapon is the suicide bomber. Suicide bombers are hard to stop, but also hard to recruit as motivation must be very high.

The primary motivator for al Qaeda suicide bombers is the presence of mostly Christian American soldiers on Muslim land (2). The suicide bombers believe al Qaeda's claim that America is waging war on Islam and they must defend their religion.

al Qaeda's strategy for victory is to goad America with suicide attacks into over-reacting (3). This has been fabulously successful with America getting into fights with third parties like Iraq, and spending ourselves into bankruptcy.

The invasion of Iraq was a great gift to al Qaeda. It helps recruit suicide bombers and drives America into debt as taxes were not raised to pay for it.

The current economic crisis has the potential to hand al Qaeda victory. If the American economy tanks there will be no money for our vast overseas military deployment forcing an abrupt, disastrous withdrawal.

What to Do

First, our long term strategy must be to withdraw all American troops from Muslim lands. We are so deeply embedded that this will take quite some time. Also, al Qaeda and the Taliban must be destroyed, and this will require American soldiers in Afghanistan. However, simply announcing our intention to withdraw, along with a few near-term concrete steps, will remove most of the motivation and make recruiting suicide bombers extremely difficult. Why kill yourself for something that will happen anyway?

Of course, there is a reason we have a massive military presence in the Persian Gulf (4). To understand why, ask yourself the following question: If the Persian Gulf had not a single drop of oil, how many American soldiers would be in the region? Answer: a few embassy guards, maybe. To withdraw we must eliminate, or at least severely limit, our use of oil. In the short term only conservation, basically driving less, can have much effect. In the medium term we can develop electric and hybrid plug-in cars and run them on ground solar and wind energy (5). In the long term we can completely solve our energy problems with Space Solar Power, which can deliver massive quantities of extremely clean energy to Earth for the next few billion years.

Second, we must get out of debt. The bankruptcy al Qaeda seeks for us will be caused by excessive debt. Consider that the federal government owes $10 trillion, we have $12 trillion in mortgages, $1 trillion in credit card debt, and there's auto loans, city debt, state debt, commercial debt, etc. One observer calculates the total American debt today at $53 trillion -- $175,000 for every man woman and child, and growing rapidly (6). We will either reverse this trend soon or al Qaeda will win; America will go bankrupt. So spend less than you earn, get rid of your credit cards, pay off your debts, and insist that politicians cut spending and raise taxes. We must move back from this cliff or fall off.

Third, Americans, including the elite, are woefully ignorant of the Islamic world (7). For example, the CIA suffers from a horrendous shortage of translators and none of Bush's top advisors speak Arabic. This is unfortunate as the third leg of victory is knowledge. Some sage once said 'Know thy enemy' and few truer words have been spoken. Study the islamic world, if possible learn one of the key languages then visit their web sites, get involved in the discussions, if possible visit and talk to people in person. We can only win when the suicide bombers stop volunteering, and that will only happen with overwhelming rejection of al Qaeda within the Muslim world. The government, by itself, cannot create the necessary support; but there are 300 million Americans. We can forge millions of links to the Islamic world. That's the last bit we need.

Victory cannot come from going shopping, as Bush famously told us to do after 9/11. Victory requires hard work and sacrifice, not just by the soldiers but by everyone. Get to work.

NOTES

(1) In this discussion I assume that the purpose of our military is to defend America against attack, not run the world. If what you really want is a global empire, a much different approach is needed.

(2) This is what McCain doesn't understand, as evidenced by his remarks about staying in Iraq for 100 years. As long as American soldiers stand on Muslim land there will be suicide bombers attacking the U.S.

(3) The US military's counter insurgency manual notes that sometimes one should not react to insurgent attacks. Many such attacks are not designed to do damage so much as to prompt an over-reaction that kills innocents and generates hatred of the U.S.

(4) We not only have well over a hundred thousand soldiers in Iraq, we have major military bases throughout the Persian Gulf, special forces in Iran (reportedly), trainers in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and a major naval presence in nearby waters.

(5) Nuclear plants are just al Qaeda targets, and nuclear fuel and waste make great dirty bombs. Oil, natural gas and coal could help, but they will run out fairly quickly. Furthermore, taking carbon out of the ground and releasing it into the atmosphere worsens global warming. Solar and wind are good for the lifetime of the Earth and are so spread out that they are very difficult for terrorists, or even enemy nations, to seriously damage.

(6) The median family income in the U.S. is about $50,000/year, hardly enough to pay off that $175,000 per person anytime soon.

(7) It should be noted that the Islamic world is, if anything, even more ignorant of America and the West.

Are Republicans Really Socialist?

2008-09-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

In times of crisis you often discover what people really believe, which is sometimes not what they've been saying in good times. For example, for decades the Republicans have been telling us they believe in small government and definitely not in socialism. Socialism means the government owns large pieces of the economy and that, the Republicans told us, was a no no.

Then came the current financial crisis in which the Republican administration:

Took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, giving the federal government ownership of over $5 trillion in mortgages. [reference]

Took an 80% stake in AGI, a trillion dollar insurance company. [reference]

Proposes buying $700 billion on mortgage and other securities from the private sector. [reference]

Taken together, in the past few weeks this Republican administration has moved to take over roughly $7 trillion worth of the private sector. It turns out, the Republicans are really Socialists.

Who knew?

Fighter Pilot or Commander in Chief?

2008-09-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

In combat, a fighter pilot must make split-second life-and-death decisions. It's often better to make the wrong decision fast than the right one slowly. The commander-in-chief, by contrast, almost always has plenty of time to make decisions, at least a day or two and often months. However, bad decisions don't mean disaster for one man, they mean disaster for the whole nation.

John McCain was a fighter pilot (1) and appears to make his decisions like a fighter pilot. When faced with the current financial crisis, one day he said the economy was 'fundamentally sound,' the next day said he'd fire the head of the SEC (2), he then railed against greed on Wall Street and called for a taxpayer supported entity to take over bad debt. McCain also abandoned his Republican decades-old commitment to deregulation. McCain is twisting and turning like a fighter pilot evading a missile; but with one difference, Bush actually controls the plane and McCain is getting in the way.

Obama typically makes decisions by gathering the relevant facts, consulting with top-notch people who disagree with him, thinking things through, and choosing a course of action consistent with his core beliefs and principles. For example, Obama responded to the financial crisis by noting that this is the logical consequence of Republican economic philosophy (3), taking some time to think through the issues, meeting with men like Warren Buffet, and postponing publicizing his plans to avoid causing problems for the Bush administration who, however unfortunately, are actually in control and make the decisions until January. The whole time, Obama stayed consistent with the major principles he enunciated in major economic speeches he gave months ago.

Which approach do you think will work best for a commander-in-chief?

NOTES

(1) Although apparently not a very good one. He lost three aircraft in peacetime accidents, one in a wartime accident, and one in combat.

(2) Interestingly, although the President appoints the head of the SEC, the President cannot fire him as the SEC is an independent agency.

(3) Get the government out of the way and let the markets do their thing.

Lying His Way to the White House

2008-09-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

John McCain, like Bush before him, is trying to lie (1) his way into the White House with attack ads. Sleazy attack ads can win elections, but they don't help you govern worth a damn as we have seen from the last eight disastrous years. If McCain wins, every four years we'll see another set of nasty lies followed by crummy government.

The only way to stop this is for Obama to win. Obama sticks much closer to the truth, is infinitely less nasty, and IMHO will govern much better. You can do three things:

Email, call and talk to your friends

Donate money at https://donate.barackobama.com/

Vote

NOTES

(1) I will limit myself to one example. McCain is fond of saying Obama will raise your taxes. The truth is that Obama will cut taxes for 80% of Americans, and raise them for about 1%. Futhermore, for the 60% of households that make less than $70,000/year, Obama offers tax cuts 3-25 times larger than McCain (e.g., $567 vs $19 for those under $19,000/year). See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html for details.

Cost of 'the Surge'

2008-09-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

To pull us out of a major tailspin in Iraq we sent our best counter-insurgency general and an extra five brigades. We did not send these to Afghanistan and, as a direct result, the people who actually attacked us are doing quite well. Violence is up, the Taliban operate in broad daylight an hour from Kabul, American generals are begging for more troops and warning it will soon be too late. There is a real possibility the Taliban will take over nuclear armed Pakistan. That's the cost of 'the Surge.'

Bush Adopts Obama Policies

2008-09-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

The Republicans have painted Obama as inexperienced in foreign and national security affairs and have ridiculed many of his ideas. However, the current Republican administration seems to be systematically adopting Obama's proposals. Specifically,

Obama said he would attack inside of Pakistan, if necessary without Pakistani permission, if there were actionable intelligence on bin Laden or top Taliban officials. Republicans claimed this showed Obama was irresponsible. The U.S. military recently conducted just such an attack
[reference].

Obama has proposed direct talks with Iran. The Republicans decried this as legitimizing Iran's leadership. The administration then sent a U.S. diplomat with the Europeans on a recent round of talks with Iran [reference].

Obama has long called for a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Republicans have attacked this savagely. The current administration has accepted and is currently negotiating the details of a 'time horizon' (aka timetable) for withdrawing American troops from Iraq [reference].

Obama has pushed to redirect resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, where those that attacked us are fighting. Bush just announced that he will remove about 8,000 U.S. soldiers from Iraq and send 4,500 to Afghanistan [reference].

If Obama is such a neophyte, why are Republicans adopting so many of his ideas?

A Solution to the Launch Problem? Maybe.

2008-09-05T10:39:00.001-07:00

If you want to really blow the doors off space development, read on. This might be it.

Transportation from Earth to orbit, space launch, is extremely expensive ($2K - 20K per kg) and dangerous (a few percent failure rate). This is what makes everything we do in space so ridiculously expensive. The fundamental reason for this difficulty is the extremely high temperatures, large forces, and fast decision making required to ride a tower of flame to orbital velocity (~28,000 km/hr).

Floating to Space by experimentalist John Powell lays out a solution that just might work; at a tiny fraction of the cost of alternatives. The basic idea is to use three types of lighter-than-air ships. The first travels from Earth to about 120,000 feet. Research balloons do this all the time, no problem. The second lives permanently at about 120,000 feet. Research balloons have stayed this high for long periods of time, but permanence requires on-site maintenance and Powell seems to understand more-or-less how to do this. More important, he has demonstrated some of the key capabilities in ground test. The last vehicle is a km-scale, inflatable, hypersonic flying wing that uses electric thrusters to achieve orbital velocity over a period of days. This is the hard part.

I don't know how to figure out if this works, but I intend to learn. It might be easier than many a launcher development we have already achieved. The key is that the atmosphere doesn't end at 100 km, it extends much further although it is very diffuse. The vehicle's enormous size allows aerodynamic forces generated by a diffuse atmosphere to provide lift. This lift allows very slow acceleration into orbit. Slow acceleration allows use of extremely efficient electric propulsion. Deorbit is relatively easy - pitch the vehicle up to expose its enormous cross section to atmospheric forces. This will decelerate the vehicle enough in a diffuse atmosphere that reentry heating is minor. The orbital vehicle then docks with the station at about 120,000 ft. Unlike today's rockets, there are no high temperatures, no enormous forces, and time is measured in hours not milliseconds. This just might be relatively easy to do. Maybe.

Powell's book is written for the lay public. Although he lays out the approach and the known problems, there is not enough detail to make a technical evaluation. The good news is that Powell is very open about his failures as well as his successes. He meticulously describes the dozens of balloon launches JP Aerospace, his company, has attempted with an entertaining description of the many accidents and problems. In addition, there is an entire section of the book devoted to the challenges that must be overcome. To my mind the most difficult and critical is reducing the orbital vehicle's drag -- or perhaps providing more thrust. Current materials, vehicle designs, and engines are insufficient.

America is spending nearly a billion dollars per shuttle flight. Flights after 2010, if funded, will cost two billion dollars apiece. For a fraction of one shuttle launch we could find out if Powell's vision will work. If it does, for far less than NASA's new launcher, we might well drop the cost of launch by a factor or 10 or more. Maybe much more. This would allow space solar power, lunar and martian bases, space settlement, asteroid mining and a thousand other applications to bloom. The wealth, power, and knowledge to be gained are immense.

If Powell is close to right, we need to do this. Now.

Space Solar Power and Iran: a Wild Idea

2008-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

Space solar power (SSP) could be the solution to our nuclear standoff with Iran. It's a long shot, but consider:

Iran is developing nuclear energy. Unfortunately, some of the hardest problems in developing nuclear weapons can be solved by a nuclear energy program, and there is suspicion that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb. Nuclear weapons would be useful for deterring an American attack and intimidating neighbors (1).

Attempts to convince Iran to abandon their nuclear program have thus far failed, with Iran claiming they need the electric power their program could produce. Accepting enriched fuel from Russia in place of domestic supplies was rejected; Iran pointing out that when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 America refused to supply spare parts for the Iranian's U.S.-made weapons and they don't want to be dependent on a potentially fickle great power.

What if we agreed to supply Iran with space solar power (at a price of course)? Satellites could be turned over to Iranian control eliminating foreign dependence. SSP is fairly useless as a weapon, and certainly isn't a city killer (2). Developing SSP would put America in the energy production driver's seat and would probably be a lot cheaper than war with Iran (3).

There are a lot of ways to structure the deal: Iran could suspend nuclear work while SSP development was required to meet certain milestones, Iran could continue nuclear work and agree to remove the systems when SSP power became available, or something in between. Obviously, this is a bit on the wild side, but it does indicate the sort of benefits SSP could provide internationally by providing a safe alternative to large-scale emissionless power production.

NOTES

(1) See Iran's Nuclear Program for an analysis of Iran's motives.

(2) Military lasers could be mounted on an SSP satellite but this would be a major project, is easy to detect, and could only attack relatively small targets. SSP satellites are very large, fragile, and travel in predictable orbits. Any major space power could attack them relatively easily.

(3) Depending on who you believe, the war in Iraq has cost between $500 billion and $1 trillion so far. Iran is much larger than Iraq, the terrain is much more rugged, the population is more than twice as large, and U.S. ground forces are relatively far weaker than when America invaded Iraq.

Roe v Wade and McCain

2008-08-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

If McCain becomes president, Roe v Wade is toast. McCain favors overthrowing Roe v Wade and his choice for vice president, Sarah Palin, greatly reinforces that position. Sarah Palin is against legal abortion even in cases of rape and incest (1). The next president will almost certainly nominate one or two supreme court justices, and that's all they need to overturn Roe v Wade.

If you think the government should force a pregnant rape victim to bear her rapist's child, then vote for McCain (2) and Palin. You may well get your wish.

NOTES

(1) To be fair, Palin is willing to put her body where her mouth is. Last April she had a child with Down's Syndrome. She knew in advance and could have ended the pregnancy but didn't. Interestingly she was at work three days later. The child is about four months old today.

(2) The Republican Platform is anti-legal abortion. Period. John McCain has tried, unsuccessfully, to broaden the plank to allow exceptions for rape and incest. However, if McCain wins Palin will be well positioned to succeed him as president in 4-8 years.

Do Republicans Really Make America Stronger?

2008-08-16T11:14:00.001-07:00

Russia has been a strong ally of Serbia for a long time (1). In the 1990s, Russia watched impotently as Democratic President Bill Clinton bombed Serbia into submission and dismembered Serbian-led Yugoslavia. Russia was weak, America was strong, and there was little Russia could do to help her ally.

America is an ally of Georgia (2). In the last few weeks, America has watched impotently as Russia invaded and dismembered Georgia. Seven years of Republican President George Bush's leadership weakened America (3) to the point that, at least in Georgia, Russia is stronger, and America did little to help her ally (4).

Remember this next time someone claims Republicans make America strong.

Notes

(1) In 1914 Russia went to war with Germany and Austro-Hungary to protect Serbia. Ultimately, millions of Russians were killed, the government collapsed, and Russia signed a humiliating treaty with Germany.

(2) America trained and equipped the Georgian military and pushed to integrate Georgia into NATO.

(3) Some of the ways in which America has been weakened in the last seven years include:

Most US ground forces are tied up in long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The federal government has added about $3.5 trillion of debt, and is looking at another half trillion dollars of borrowing next fiscal year.

America's moral authority has been severely weakened by reaction to the invasion of Iraq, torture of suspects -- particularly at Abu Ghraib, the legal black hole at Guantanamo, the secret prison system, and a failure to abide by our Constitution.

(4) Assistance was limited to flying 2,000 Georgian soldiers home from Iraq, which made no difference in the outcome, humanitarian aid, and talk.

Who's the Lightweight?

2008-08-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks McCain has accused Obama of being a celebrity with little or no substance. Let's examine that claim:

In 1990, Obama was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review beating out 18 other top notch Harvard students (1).

Obama gave up a high-paying corporate job to work for peanuts organizing poor people on the south side of Chicago.

Obama has written two best selling books, one about his life and another about his political philosophy (2)

Obama writes many, if not most, of his own speeches (3).

Obama grew up without much money, no powerful relatives (4), and his wife's family was strictly middle class (5).

Obama made the right call on Iraq from the very beginning (6).

Obama got into the best schools in the country, including Harvard, strictly on merit.

This is not the biography of a lightweight. This is the biography of a self-made man who succeeded through hard work and talent.

NOTES

(1) John McCain, by contrast, was fifth from the bottom in a class of over 800 at Annapolis [reference].

(2) John McCain's book "Faith of My Fathers," was co-written by Mark Salter. You can bet Salter did most of the actual writing.

(3) Both of the Republican candidates have their speeches written by others.

(4) McCain's father and grandfather were admirals, which may explain why he kept flying after losing four military aircraft in accidents -- one by flying so low he snagged power lines.

(5) McCain's second wife was worth about $100 million when he married her.

(6) I've seen video of John McCain predicting easy victory in Iraq.

And the Winner is ... Iran

2008-07-30T09:50:00.001-07:00

Lately, some are talking as if the 'surge' is winning the war in Iraq. While the surge, among other important factors (1), has definitely improved matters, let's see who is really winning and losing. To determine this, let's compare the condition of the major players before the run up to the war vs today. Here's the short story: the winners are Iran, the Kurds, the Shia, al Qaeda and Israel. The losers are America and the Sunnis.

WINNERS

Iran is by far the biggest winner, for several reasons:

Saddam Hussein was removed. Saddam's Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 killing half a million Iranians.

The current Iraqi government, far from being an enemy of Iran, is very close and friendly (2).

Iran is the center of Shia Islam, and Iraq is now controlled by Shia rather than Sunni

Iranian presence in Najaf, the Shiite spiritual center that actually controls the country, is very strong. Iran has even extended its power grid into southern Iraq [Engel 2008].

The Kurds were terribly oppressed by Saddam. Although Kurdistan became quasi-independent after the first Gulf War with American protection, Saddam was an ever present danger. Iraqi-Kurdistan was never occupied by American troops and is independent in all but name today.

The Shia have lived in Iraq for 1300 years under Sunni rule. Today the Shia control the central government and the southern oil producing regions.

al Qaeda had zero presence in Iraq before the run up to the American invasion, Saddam made sure of that (3). Today their presence is reduced from its peak but still significant. The Sunni Awakening leaders are keeping some al Qaeda fighters protected for future use against Iran and the Shia, or America if we don't leave [Engel 2008]. Also, al Qaeda's strategy is to goad America into spending ourselves into bankruptcy, and the Iraq war has added nearly a trillion dollars to our debt. Excessive debt leads to bankruptcy.

Israel suffered from suicide bombers subsidized by Saddam's Iraq. Iraq was also one of the strongest Arab countries committed to Israel's destruction. While this commitment doesn't seem to have really changed, there is no practical threat to Israel from Iraq today.

LOSERS

America before the Iraq invasion had an unbeatable military, a balanced budget, a strong economy and unparalleled support around the world.

Today our ground forces are bogged down and no longer considered invincible.

We have added almost four trillion dollars in debt, with a projected deficit of a half trillion next year, pushing us closer to bankruptcy.

The economy's financial sector is in deep trouble, thousands of people are losing their homes each week, and the dollar is falling like a stone.

We have lost most of our international support and many see America as the land of torture and illegal invasion. This is very bad as international support is critical to winning the war on al Qaeda.

The Sunnis have lost control of Iraq for the first time in 1300 years and about half of the pre-war Iraqi Sunnis are dead or have left the country. See Sunni Extermination?.

It is possible to salvage something from America's Iraq disaster. Dunkirk was a terrible defeat for the British in World War II, but most of the troops made it home even if their equipment did not. England went on to win the war, primarily by enlisting the support of America and Russia. Perhaps we can salvage something from the ashes of our disastrous Iraq adventure.

Notes

(1) Other factors reducing violence include:

Sunni Awakening, a movement that started about a year before the surge. Some Sunni tribes have, at least temporarily, allied themselves with the Americans and against al Qaeda in Iraq. This may be related to the huge losses Sunnis suffered when allied with al Qaeda in Iraq.

Muqtada al-Sadr, who wants the Americans to leave and leads the largest Shia militia, declared a truce in August 2007. This decision may be related to the surge and/or a belief the Americans will leave sometime reasonably soon. Why get chewed up by American firepower if they will leave anyway?

General Petraeus took command of US forces in Iraq. Petraeus was the guiding light for the new
US counter-insurgency field manual. One of the lessons therein: lose the moral high ground, lose the war.

(2) When the President of Iran recently visited Iraq, his visit was scheduled, he arrived in broad daylight to a red carpet, drove from the airport to the Green Zone, and traveled about with little or no security. Contrast this with how American VIPs visit Iraq. For security reasons, Americans arrive unannounced, usually at night, fly to the Green Zone in helicopters, and only travel with massive security.

(3) Saddam was our de facto ally in the war with al Qaeda, but just before the invasion Saddam allowed al Qaeda to establish a presence in Iraq. This was probably related to his strategy to make Iraq ungovernable for the U.S. [Scheuer 2008]. He also let thousands of prisoners out of jail, perhaps for the same reason.

References

[Engel 2008] "War journal: My Five Years in Iraq," Richard Engel, NBC News Middle East correspondent.

[Scheuer 2008] "Marching Toward Hell, America and Islam after Iraq," Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA bin Laden unit.

The Next Commander in Chief

2008-07-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

"You cannot kill your way out of an insurgency, you have to turn them" General Petraeus, the most successful U.S. commander in Iraq. Without the support of the Muslim world, no matter how many al Qaeda operatives we kill, they will simply be replaced. If killing were decisive, John McCain might be a good commander in chief, but it isn't. Victory requires turning the Islamic world into our friends and allies, for that we need Barak Obama.

This U.S. Military Will Surprise You: a discussion of The U.S. Army - Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual and the rather surprising lessons it has for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the struggle against al Qaeda.

Winning the War on al Qaeda.

FISA

2008-07-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

I finally found out what the almost-never stated provisions of FISA are:

1. Wiretapping of American citizens within the US requires a warrant.

2. Wiretapping foreign nationals in foreign countries does not require a warrant. This is true even if the foreign national overseas is conversing with an American in the US.

I'm not sure about foreign nationals inside the US or US citizens in foreign nations.

Leaving aside abuse, for the moment, here are the questions: Is today's FISA the right balance between fighting al Qaeda and the privacy rights guaranteed in the Constitution? If not, what is the right balance? And finally, can reasonable people disagree on the last two questions?

My answers: Probably not. I don't know (1). Yes.

Here's the presidential question: fixing FISA will require public pressure. Is this more likely to succeed with an Obama administration or a McCain administration? (hint: starts with an O)

(1) Here's a case to consider: we know al Qaeda has bases in northern Pakistan. Technically, we could monitor all the communications out of that region (or at least those passing through the US), and send them through computers looking for key words. When the computers find something suspicious, they could pass the communication to a human for analysis. This would be enormously useful, and is probably being done as we speak.

However, it's impossible to get probable cause for an entire region of the Earth, so warrants in the current legal framework don't work. How do we craft a law that allows us to go after al Qaeda in this or similar ways and that also passes Constitutional muster?

Obama and the media

2008-07-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Lately, the press is going through one of its periodic bash Obama phases (to be fair, they are bashing McCain too). Here's my take:

Iraq. The media claim Obama is reversing course because he says he'll 'refine' his position based on the unfolding situation. This is exactly what I want my president to do -- respond to changing conditions. Obama has been crystal clear from the start that he wants out of Iraq. If anything, recent events (1) suggest that 'refinement' may well mean an earlier withdrawal.

FISA. Much is made of Obama's vote for the flawed FISA bill. For the life of me, I cannot find a simple list of all of FISA's provisions. While there are some obvious problems, Obama is a constitutional lawyer with a history of supporting the little guy. Furthermore, we face a real enemy, al Qaeda, using modern communication systems and new approaches are needed. Finally, even the telecom amnesty does not include amnesty from criminal prosecution. All in all, I trust Obama's judgement that these compromises are the best we can do right now. That said, I'll give money to the ACLU to fight the worst provisions.

Some media outlets say Obama and McCain are starting to look the same. This is ridiculous. It's true that McCain is closer to Obama's positions on the environment and stem-cell research than Bush; and McCain has even proposed a pull-out date for Iraq (2013). However, McCain is very conservative and Obama is fairly liberal. Just one example, if McCain becomes president, Roe v Wade is toast.

(1) Obama has suggested a roughly 16 month withdrawal period, but that was when violence was much higher and before the Iraqi government started insisting on a timetable. It was also before a senior U.S. commander suggested that we could withdraw in 2009. Any refinement will probably mean a quicker redeployment.

Winning the War on al Qaeda

2008-06-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

On 11 September 2001 al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and severely damaged the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. This was the most successful attack on any state of the Union since the British burned Washington to the ground in the War of 1812. Although al Qaeda is a tiny organization with a vanishingly small fraction of America's power, nearly seven years later al Qaeda is alive and well, and America is severely weakened. The traditional strengths of the US military, firepower and maneuver, have failed us. The dirty war, featuring torture, secret prisons and Guantanamo has failed as well. To win this war, we need to change course. We need to understand al Qaeda and Islam and we need to apply America's power at the critical points, where victory can be achieved.

Understand al Qaeda

9/11 was not only a tactical success, killing almost 3,000, but a strategic success as well. It successfully goaded America into over-reacting, thereby losing vital support and becoming bogged down in the wrong places.

al Qaeda's strategy is to goad America into overspending ourselves into bankruptcy [Scheuer 2008]. This is succeeding. U.S. government debt ballooned $3.5 trillion to a total of about $9 trillion and counting.

The lack of major attacks on America since 9/11 means little. First, such attacks are rare, so a few years without one means nothing. Second, America is doing what al Qaeda wants - especially getting bogged down in Iraq - so there is no strategic need for attacks since such attacks are often intended to provoke an over-reaction [ U.S. Military Field Manual, page 294].

al Qaeda does a lot of recruiting on the internet using web sites to organize and communicate.

Applying Smart Power to Win

Focus on al Qaeda. Bush has responded to 9/11 by widening the war to include terror and Iraq. The result has been failure on all fronts (1). Congress should declare war on al Qaeda and ensure this war gets first choice of all resources.

Pay our bills. If we continue to rack up debt we will go bankrupt and al Qaeda will win.

Cut off the supply of men. Killing al Qaeda members doesn't do much if they can be quickly and easily replaced. To win, the world's billion plus Muslims must regard America as the good guy and al Qaeda as the bad guy. It's easy to paint al Qaeda as awful, they are. However, America looks about as bad to many Muslims. To correct this we must:

Stop attacking countries that haven't attacked us. We lose allies and waste resources.
Stop torturing people. Makes us no better than them, with predictable results.
Get American soldiers out of Muslim lands (2). Nobody likes foreign soldiers running around the country, particularly soldiers who don't speak your language, don't respect your culture and/or shoot up the place. Withdraw will also eliminate most of the suicide bomber threat as suicide attacks are characteristic of peoples occupied by armies of a different religion.
Stop bad-mouthing Islam. In a high-quality Gallop poll of Muslim attitudes towards America, the number one complaint was a lack of respect for Islam [Esposito and Mogahed]. It's difficult to get people on your side when you insult them constantly. Every time a right-wing pundit trash-talks Islam we suffer a defeat. It would help if they understood that.
Live up to our highest ideals (3). Our Constitution is our best weapon in the PR war, but we've been trashing it not using it. This war can't be won by fighting dirty.

America could also neutralize the recruiting web sites. This can't be done by bringing them down, others will simply pop up. It can be done by flooding them with American patriots. A few months ago Wired magazine featured an article about a woman who learned Arabic and started interacting on the al Qaeda-related web sites. She poses as a radical, gains their confidence, and turns them in. If we had 10,000 like her, al Qaeda's web access would be neutralized. The government could supply English-Arabic translation software, identify al Qaeda recruiting sites, provide lessons learned and tips, and the President could ask us to do it. We would respond.

Cut off the supply of money. al Qaeda is funded by a combination of drug and oil money. Eliminating drug profits can be accomplished relatively easily using the civil court system. Reducing the oil money will be hard, as we are so dependent on it. Conservation is the only immediate way to reduce oil use and prices, and price will get that done. Most of al Qaeda's money appears to come from members of the Saudi royal family and we could at least stop propping up their dictatorship. In the medium term, plug-in hybrid cars could shift about 2/3 of our auto transportation energy to electricity which can be supplied by solar, wind, coal, etc. In the long term, only Space Solar Power can supply vast quantities of energy without severe environmental problems. Nuclear power should be avoided as it provides great targets to al Qaeda and the fuel and waste are critical materials for dirty bombs.

Most of all, this war cannot be won by going shopping, as Bush famously told us after 9/11. Prepare for a lot of work, taxes, and, most of all, don't expect to win without learning a lot about Islam. Don't expect to win without making a deep connection between America and the Muslim world. Don't expect to win without becoming personally involved.

There are over a billion Muslims, and, as General David Petraeus (4) says, you cannot kill your way out of an insurgency, you must turn them. It only took 19 hijackers and a half million dollars to bring down the World Trade Center. Without the support of the vast majority of the Muslim world, it will be impossible to defend this country.

Get to work.

Notes

(1) We have failed to neutralize bin Laden. Failed to destroy al Qaeda. Terrorist attacks world wide are way up. Iraq has improved lately, but is now effectively an ally of Iran. U.S. officials sneak in and out unannounced with heavy security. The Iranian President came on a scheduled visit, was greeted with flowers and a red carpet. Drove from the airport (U.S. officials have to fly in helicopters). And traveled around with minimal or no security. More telling, Iran has extended it's electric grid into southern Iraq [Engel 2008]. This is a massive failure.

(2) Obviously, withdraw will take awhile and must be accomplished very carefully. However, it must be our strategic objective. Anything else guarantees a steady supply of dedicated manpower for al Qaeda and similar organizations.

(3) [Esposito and Mogahed], in a high quality poll, found that even Islamic radicals admired American freedom and democracy.

(4) General David Petraeus is an expert on counter-insurgency warfare and has been the most successful U.S. general in Iraq. He is responsible for the recent reductions in Iraqi violence -- by applying the principles found in the [ U.S. Army - Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual].

[Engel 2008] Richard Engel, War Journal

Esposito and Mogahed] John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think

[Scheuer 2008] Michael Scheuer, Marching Towards Hell

Obama's Actual Tax Plans

2008-06-10T10:26:00.001-07:00

McCain and others have claimed Obama plans to raise everyone's taxes. This is false. There is also a dirty little not-so-secrete about McCain's tax plans you might like to know. First, what are Obama's actual tax plans and what might they mean to you?

If you make less than $75,000/year you will probably pay less tax because Obama plans to lower taxes for these taxpayers.

If you make between $75,000-250,000 and have stocks in 401K and IRA plans, your taxes will probably stay the same.

If you make more than $250,000 your taxes will probably go up as Obama opposes extending the Bush tax cuts for these taxpayers.

If you have stock outside of tax-deferred retirement plans, your taxes might go up if you sell for a profit (realize capital gains) (1). However, stocks in 401K and IRA programs will not be affected because they are treated as ordinary income, not capital gains

Of course, not all plans come to fruition so who knows what will actually happen.

One thing that is very likely, though, is that the next Congress will have a Democratic majority. To extend the Bush tax cuts will require an act of Congress. Even if McCain wins the presidency, it's extremely unlikely he will convince Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts. Thus, regardless of who wins the White House, if you make more than $250,000/year your taxes will almost certainly go up.

Finally, Obama is committed to pay-as-you-go budgeting, meaning that he doesn't intend to borrow money every year to run the government (2). This will reduce taxes in the long run because when you borrow money you must pay back what you borrowed plus interest. Since all government income is from taxes, sooner or later taxes will be required to pay the loan off, including extra for the interest. This is why the Bush years increased our taxes in the long run. The Republicans certainly cut taxes for now, especially for Paris Hilton, but they failed to reduce expenditures and borrowed the difference (3). This saves taxes now, but requires us all to pay even more taxes later.

Obama's fiscal policies are middle-of-the-road, boring and sensible. Probably what we need.

(1) Obama may, or may not, try to increase capital gains tax. He favors an increase because it's unfair for billionaire Warren Buffet, who makes his money on capital gains and dividends, to pay a much lower tax rate (15%) than his secretary (probably 28%). However, there is some evidence that increasing capital gains taxes can, in some cases, actually decrease revenue because people make fewer trades if the tax is higher. Unlike some, Obama seems to understand that the purpose of taxes is to raise money to pay for the government.

(2) Because the government is borrowing so much money each year it will take even the most dedicated reformer years to end massive government borrowing.

(3) Total federal government debt today is about $9 trillion, meaning sooner or later we will need $9 trillion in taxes to pay it off and in the meantime we need about $400 billion in taxes every year to pay the interest.

Should America Talk to Her Enemies?

2008-05-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

When deciding whether to do something, it's useful to see how similar acts have fared in the past. Consider:

Ronald Reagan talked to Gorbachev, the head of the 'evil empire,' also known as the Soviet Union. A few years later the Soviet Union collapsed and America won the Cold War.
The Bush administration talked to Muammar al-Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, a state sponsor of terrorism. Libya subsequently gave up their nuclear weapons program, turning over documents and hardware.
General Petraeus, American commander in Iraq, talked to the Sunni insurgents who were killing American soldiers. Many of these insurgents subsequently joined the Sunni Awakening, allied with America, and drove al Qaeda in Iraq to the brink of extinction.

With all of this success, why are the Republicans so upset that Barack Obama says he'll talk with America's enemies? To score political points, of course. They are trying to attach the label 'appeaser' to Obama. Appeasement was a spectacularly unsuccessful policy followed by Britain and France before World War II where they gave territory to Hitler's Germany in exchange for false promises of peace.

The Republicans mistakenly think appeasement refers to talking, which is false. The most hysterical example is an MSNBC Hardball discussion where conservative radio talk-show host Kevin James calls Obama an appeaser (see video). When questioned, it turned out James was completely ignorant of the history of appeasement and, in fact, didn't even know what the word meant. Specifically, he didn't know that Britain and France gave Hitler half of Czechoslovakia at a conference in Munich in 1938 -- the most famous actual case of appeasement.

If you want ignorant name-callers to run the country, Kevin James and his ilk are for you. If we allow them to define our political discourse, we will lose the war with al Qaeda, because you can't win tough wars with bullshit. If you want an extremely intelligent president who has real knowledge of the peoples we must bring to our side to win (1), vote for Barack Obama.

(1) "You cannot kill your way out of an insurgency, you must turn them," David Petraeus, the most successful American commander in Iraq.

Is Space Weaponization Inevitable?

2008-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

In the May fifth issue of Space News, Gopalaswamy and Ghoshroy ask "Is Space Weaponization Inevitable?" and provide a lot of evidence that space is becoming more weaponized but never really answer the question.

The answer is no. Space is and will be weaponized to the extent that we, the people of Earth, weaponize it. We can continue on our current path, lead by China and the Bush administration, towards space war, or the space powers can sit down, determine what is verifiable, ban it, and watch each other like hawks for violations.

Had we done this a few years ago, it is quite likely China would never have tested an ASAT, because ASAT tests are very easy to detect.

Further weaponization of space is not in America's interest. We depend on our satellites more than anyone else and they are extremely vulnerable for fundamental reasons. We successfully tested ASAT weapons decades ago and modified current systems for an ASAT role in six months. America would be much better off locking in something close to the status quo than a ASAT/space weapons arms race.

There is a deeper issue driving limits on weapons and warfare. Modern weapons, including today's nuclear bombs and tomorrow's biological and nanotechnological weapons, are an existential threat to humanity. Given enough time, soon or later someone is going to make a mistake and use them. We have a choice: retire war as a human institution or face extinction. I choose life.

Iran's Nuclear Program

2008-05-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

This was originally a letter to Space News, which was published in April.

Discussing Iran's nuclear and space launch capabilities Victor Zaborskiy, Space News 24 March 2008, writes "... security guarantees from the United State, possibly including a commitment to launch a strike against Iran if Teheran's attack against Israel is presumed immanent, " emphasis added.

This is a call for war with Iran based on an assessment by a security apparatus that couldn't tell the difference between an Iraq with or without WMD -- whilst conducting daily overflights. The chance of this same apparatus getting the intelligence right on Iran's intentions should be regarded as approaching zero. Zaborskiy is a calling for war with Iran whenever the president feels like it.

We know that Iran is developing space launch, and the only difference between a launcher and a missile is the software in the guidance computer. We know Iran is developing nuclear power, and the hardest problems of nuclear weapon development can be solved developing civilian nuclear power. It is quite likely that Iran will someday develop nuclear weapons. There are at least two potential reasons:

1. They wish to launch a nuclear attack on Israel or Europe. In either case, Iran would be obliterated within days by hundreds, if not thousands, of nuclear weapons launched by the victim and America. Maybe it's just me, but this seems unlikely. Supporting a few hundred suicide bombers is one thing, committing national suicide is another.

2. They wish to deter an attack by the United States. Why would they believe America would attack them? Well, the U.S. has been openly discussing an attack on Iran for years. At one point, there were discussions of nuclear attacks on Iran to destroy underground bunkers. That is, of course, just talk. Then there is history. America overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein 1980s war of aggression against Iran, a war which killed a million people. To be fair, Iran did imprison a hundred or so U.S. diplomats for in 1979-1980.

The second option seems, at least to me, a couple of orders of magnitude more likely. After all, the Iranian government has an obligation to prevent attacks on their territory and America has demonstrated a willingness to invade Iran's neighbors based on faulty intelligence (Iraq). Iran can't possibly match America's conventional military strength. Iran probably remembers that nuclear weapons successfully deterred America from invading Cuba and the more recent change in U.S. policy towards North Korea after a single, partially successful nuclear bomb test. A few dozen nuclear tipped missiles would almost certainly prevent an American attack.

This has profound implications for U.S. policy. We'd better get it right.

Iraq Casualty Figures?

2008-05-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration claims that 'the surge,' a temporary increase in American troops in Iraq, has reduced violence substantially. The best evidence of this is monthly totals of Americans killed, which went down a great deal then increased recently (see here for data). This is the only really reliable figure, as all other monthly measures of violence are subject to a great deal of reporting error (i.e., are probably wrong).

The number of Americans killed per month is an imperfect measure because there are many things American commanders can do that affect the figure regardless of the level of Iraqi violence. The April 2008 Aerospace America, primary publication of the AIAA, America's primary professional association for aerospace workers, detailed one of them.

The article concerned problems with the US fighter aircraft fleet. The older fighters are wearing out, in part because of being used extensively in Iraq. On page 27 the article states: "Because of a concerted effort to avoid casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, strike missions have increased markedly." In other words, U.S. casualties are down, in part, not because of less Iraqi violence, but because aircraft strikes are used in place of ground action. That said, reducing American casualties is obviously a good thing.

Unfortunately, not only does this mean 'the surge' is less successful than advertised, it also means more 'collateral damage,' a term meaning killing the wrong people, because air strikes tend to be less accurate than foot soldiers. Killing the wrong people tends to make surviving relatives and friends distinctly more anti-American, which is how you lose counter-insurgency wars (see the U.S. Field Manual).

The lesson: when someone tells you their war is going well, look closely before you believe.

Will McCain fall into bin Laden's trap?

2008-04-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

Al Qaeda's strategy for winning the war is to bleed America into bankruptcy (1). The way you go bankrupt is to spend more than you earn and borrow too much money. We've been doing this.

John McCain has called for tax cuts similar to the Reagan and Bush cuts -- both of which were followed by massive deficits and played a major role in creating our $9 trillion debt. McCain also wants to stay in Iraq more-or-less indefinitely, at about $100 billion a year in borrowed money. This is exactly what bin Laden wants.

We are expending vast resources to do very little damage to him. Bin Laden's al Qaeda can't lose the Iraq war because they never invested much. At the beginning of the Iraq war, al Qaeda had one small base there (2). Even destroying al Qaeda in Iraq won't do much, because al Qaeda in Iraq is home grown and cost bin Laden nothing to create. McCain will take America deeper into bin Laden's trap, and further along the road to bankruptcy and defeat.

McCain is a military man and should understand that to win wars you need overwhelming force at the critical point. To achieve overwhelming force at the critical point you must use economy of force everywhere else. There are two critical points in the war: the Afghanistan/Pakistan border and Muslim public opinion. McCain never talks about increasing forces at the critical point and shows no indication he can mold Muslim opinion any better than Bush could. Instead, he favors applying massive force where we can't win and should be economizing: in Iraq. That's a formula for defeat.

Obama, on the other hand, has publicly called for increased forces for the fight with the Taliban and al Qaeda where they can be destroyed, their main bases. He has also called, in the latest debate, for paying off some of the national debt which will put us further from bankruptcy and defeat at the hands of al Qaeda. Obama has the right strategy. He also has a major asset due to simple luck: his name.

The Muslim world thinks very poorly of America, perhaps because we bomb them (3), kill them, occasionally torture them (4), overthrew one of their democratic governments (5) and support some of their tyrannical governments (6). The Muslim world thinks they know what America is about, but they are wrong. They have seen the dark side of American power, but I know that America can be a huge force for good (7). Electing a man named Barack Hussein Obama would rock their very incomplete impression of America to the core, and create an opportunity to change the dynamics. If combined with a foreign policy that treated the Muslim people with respect and less violence we could turn around the vital PR war we are losing so badly (8).

If you want to win the war with al Qaeda, vote for Barack Obama.

(1) "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq," Michael Scheuer. Michael Scheuer is the ex-CIA head of the bin Laden group and extremely conservative.

(2) This base was in a portion of Iraq that Saddam did not control.

(3) Attacks by American forces on Muslim people: Bombing: Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Shelling: Lebanon. Rocket attacks: Yemen and Pakistan. Misc killing: Somalia. However justified we may think these actions were, those on the receiving end may view them differently.

(4) Abu Grab

(5) In 1953 America overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran and replaced it with a dictator.

(6) Saudi Arabia and Egypt among others. BTW: of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, fifteen were Saudi and four Egyptian. This cannot possibly be a coincidence.

(7) Consider World War II and it's aftermath. There are many other examples.

(8) Contrary to Bush's assertion, they do not hate us because of our freedom. In a recent, high-quality Gallup poll of the world's Muslims, when asked what they most admired about America, even radical anti-American Muslims said "freedom and democracy." When asked what the liked least, they cited disrespect for Islam and American foreign policy in the region. See "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think," by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed.

Reverend Wright

2008-03-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

Reverend Wright is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who volunteered to give years of his life to America, in spite of growing up in pre-civil rights America, which treated him and other blacks terribly.

Recently, Barak Obama's presidential campaign was rocked by short video clips of offensive statements by his pastor, Reverend Wright, the Marine Corps veteran. Senator Obama responded by denouncing these statements and giving a very thoughtful speech on race which, I believe, has helped make America a better place. Nonetheless, the video clips of Reverend Wright make many Americans, particularly white Americans like me, extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. Although many whites attend his church and the denomination is 99% white, some accuse him of racism and anti-semitism. This article explores my take on this.

One of the objectionable videos show Reverend Wright suggesting that 9/11 was brought on by American actions, particularly foreign policy. This clip is taken from a sermon built around the phrase "America's chickens are coming home to roost" to sum up what (white) U.S. diplomat Edward Peck said in a TV interview. While right-wing pastors such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have blamed 9/11 on feminism and gay rights, Reverend Wright suggested that U.S. bombing of HIroshima, Nagasaki, and other places played a role in 9/11. It is unlikely that World War II played a role in motivating the 9/11 terrorist. However, consider the following facts:

Of the 19 hijackers, 15 were Saudi and 4 were Egyptian.
Osama bin Laden is Saudi.
The Saudi and Egyptian governments are tyrannies.
Support for Egypt and Saudi Arabia has been a pillar of American foreign policy in the region, including, but not limited to, money, weapons, and protection by American soldiers.

It seems likely that these facts are closely related. Although Reverend Wright may not be correct in his analysis, at least it is plausible that 9/11 was payback for American actions in the region, which is more than can be said for what Reverend Robertson and Falwell say.

The second really objectionable video features Reverend Wright repeatedly saying "God Damn America" for killing civilians, oppressing blacks and so forth. The language is ghastly, but Marines tend to use strong blunt language. What is not clear from the clip is that Reverend Wright is referring not to America the country, but rather to the U.S. government. The section of the sermon just before the "God Damn" bit is built around the phrase "governments lie," a sentiment most conservatives agree with whole heartedly.

Wright also understands that governments can change, consider this phrase from the same sermon: “Prior to Abraham Lincoln, the government in this country said it was legal to hold African in slavery in perpetuity…when Lincoln got in office, the government changed ... But I stop by to tell you tonight that governments change.”

“Prior to Harry Truman’s government, the military was segregated. But governments change.”

“Prior to the Civil Rights and equal accommodation laws of the government in this country, there was backed segregation by the country, legal discrimination by the government, prohibited blacks from voting by the government, you had to eat and sit in separate places by the government, you had sit in different places from white folks because the government said so, and you had to buried in a separate cemetery. It was apartheid, American style, from the cradle to the grave, all because the government backed it up.”

“But guess what? Governments change.”

For a fuller view of the sermon look here.

Reverend Wright is accused of being an anti-white racists for saying things like "rich white people run this country." Well, that's not racist, it's true. The vast majority of presidents, congressmen, CEOs, etc. etc. etc. have always been white and are usually rich. But Reverend Wright is more broad minded than his critics would let on, consider this phrase from the link above: “All colonizers are not white. Turn to your neighbors and say that oppressors come in all colors.”

We deserve to give this U.S. Marine veteran a fuller hearing. He is not the man the media is trying to cram down your throat.

Finally, Barack Obama is not Reverend Wright. Unlike Wright, Obama grew up after the civil rights movement, and in tolerant Hawaii at that. He does not share the righteous anger of those who have been deeply and unfairly oppressed, although I'm sure he's felt the sting of racism from time to time. In any case, by his words and actions Obama has proven that he can help heal the racial wounds this nation has carried for 400 years. Vote for him.

Sunni Extermination?

2008-03-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Before the US invasion of Iraq there were about 5 million Sunnis in the country. There are currently about 2-2.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan, both are Sunni states so these refugees are probably Sunni. In addition, the best available data ¹ suggest that about 500,000 Iraqis have died due to the invasion, mostly to violence. Assuming at least half of these are Sunnis, a pretty safe assumption, roughly half of all Iraqi Sunnis are either dead or have left the country.

In this context it's clear why some Sunni's are at least temporarily allying themselves with US forces, they are well on the way to being completely removed from Iraq. Allying themselves with America may be their only hope for survival ²

1. This is from a study done a year or two ago that used nation-wide interviews to determine total deaths. The data aren't that good, there are very wide error bars, but it's the best we've got. Totals based on newspaper accounts, for example, are known to be major undercounts since many war deaths are not reported in newspapers.

2. The alliance is against al Qaeda in Iraq, which are bunch of scum bags if there ever were any. Reaction to al Qaeda in Iraq's excesses is probably an additional motivation.

That 3AM Call

2008-03-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

I'd like Obama to answer it. Why? Watch the debates. The more intense things get, the calmer he gets. In many debates, when things get heated you can see McCain getting angry and Hillary getting aggressive. Angry people tend to do stupid things. Aggression is great on the soccer field, but it can get a super-power into a lot of trouble. When the s--t hits the fan, I want my president as cool as a cucumber. Obama is the guy.

How Arabs View the Iraq War

2008-03-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Winning the war on al Qaeda requires understanding and eliminating their appeal. Otherwise, they can easily recruit terrorists faster than we can kill them. Central to al Qaeda's appeal is their claim that America is waging war on Islam. Exhibit A for this claim is the war in Iraq. Thus, winning the war with al Qaeda requires, among many other things, that Americans understand how Arabs view the war in Iraq so al Qaeda's claim we can be effectively countered.

One of the best expositions of the Arab view I've seen is 'Iraq is a war-torn nation' by Faruq S. Ziada. If you want to win the war with al Qaeda, I strongly suggest you read it, whether you agree with the author or not.

A note on the war deaths figures: the figure Ziada uses appears to be the high end of a estimate made based on Iraq-wide interviews a year or two ago and extrapolated to the present. Americans are accustom to a much lower figure based on either the low end of the same study or figures based solely on newspaper reports, which are known to be a significant undercount.