RUTHFULLY YOURS

Caveat – I am not an economist, so the opinions expressed are mine based on little education, some experience and selective readings. Those with more knowledgeable than me might properly challenge my findings. My bottom line is that modest deflation and inflation, by which I mean one or two percentage points, are not reasons for concern. It is when we get rapid changes in either direction that trouble ensues, as the U.S. experienced in the 1930s with deflation and in the 1970s with inflation, and which other countries have undergone to far greater extremes.

We live in an age of technological wonderment, not dissimilar to the closing decades of the 19th Century when the fruits of the Industrial Revolution were being harvested. The European Space Agency was able to land a vehicle on a comet 300 million miles away, yet only two and a half miles wide, and which was traveling at 40,000 miles per hour. The journey began on March 2, 2004 in French Guinea when the spacecraft Rosetta lifted off on what would be a journey of 3.8 billion miles and which took more than ten years. By any measure this was an extraordinary feat.

Technology has changed our everyday lives in myriad ways, from e-books to smart phones, from home security systems to cars that drive themselves. Technology, along with the lowering of trade barriers, has allowed businesses to design products in one place and produce them somewhere else, lowering prices for consumers – a benign form of deflation that we should celebrate, despite politicians using the term to conjure images of potential catastrophes.

About a week ago John Cochrane, professor of finance at the University of Chicago, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “Who’s Afraid of a Little Deflation?” I read it, and exhaled, finally! Is it possible that we may be exiting an eighty-year period during which deflation, because of the 1930s, has been seen only as a portent of doom? During the 19th Century deflation was seen as compatible with economic growth.

“I am a United States Army general, and I lost the Global War on Terrorism,” Lieutenant-General Daniel Bolger begins his history of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; step one is admitting you have a problem. Well, I have a problem. So do my peers. And thanks to our problem, now all of America has a problem, to wit: two lost campaigns and a war gone awry.”

By this, Bolger means that United States generals, notably David Petraeus, sold short-term fixes to baffled political leaders and hatched even worse problems for the future.

Bolger’s point was lost on most reviewers, for example Andrew Bacevich in the New York Times and Mark Moyar in The Wall Street Journal. They protested that civilian leaders deserve at least some of, and perhaps the lion’s share, of the blame.

Bacevich and Moyar have no sense of humor, let alone an ear for irony. By placing the blame on the military, Bolger portrays presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama as woefully misguided. The mission was impossible from the outset. Announcing the 2007 “surge” in response to a Sunni insurgency, president Bush said that the US wanted to turn Iraq into “a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.”

The trouble, Bolger explains, is that majority rule in Iraq meant permanent war: “The stark facts on the ground still sat there, oozing pus and bile. With Saddam gone, any voting would install a Shiite majority. The Sunni wouldn’t run Iraq again. That, at the bottom, caused the insurgency. Absent the genocide of Sunni Arabs, it would keep it going.”

Bolger’s book should be rushed into Russian and Chinese editions. A substantial current of opinion in those countries, supported by some respected foreign-policy specialists, holds that the US has chosen to destabilize the region intentionally. Now that America is nearly self-sufficient in oil, it wants to interrupt oil supplies to China and others in order to assert global hegemony.

That is paranoid nonsense, but it reflects the incredulity of Russian and Chinese observers at the seeming self-destruction of America’s world role. How could the Americans be so stupid? We could, and were. Bolger’s insider explanation of the chain of blunders that led to the present situation in the region is convincing and should be circulated as an antidote to the paranoia.

Proof that America has set out to destabilize the Persian Gulf region, a well-regarded Chinese specialist argued recently before a Beijing foreign-policy seminar, is that the Islamic State is led by Sunni officers armed and funded by General David Petraeus, the US commander during the 2007-2008 “surge”. The observation is correct, to be sure: ISIS shows impressive leadership capacity and mastery of large-unit tactics involving sophisticated equipment, and it learned much of this from the Americans. But the Americans acted out of short-term political expediency rather than medium-term malevolence.

Fighting the indoctrination to hate is harder than fighting the physical battle.

As I was listening to a radio report on Palestinians in Gaza, Ramallah
and some Jerusalem neighborhoods celebrating the lethal attack on the
synagogue on Tuesday, I received an email from my son’s
state-religious school. The letter to parents and pupils provided a
refresher of security precautions and procedures, called on all staff
who have licensed weapons to carry them during the school day, and
noted prayers are being said for the wounded and for the safety of the
security forces.

In a bold font above the principal’s signature the letter stated: “We
emphasize that it is completely forbidden to take the law into your
own hands.”

I am grateful the school is reinforcing this message. I am sad that it
has to issue a call for teachers to carry arms and warn students not
to be tempted to use them.

The terror attack on the synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood
will be remembered for its brutality: two Palestinian terrorists
wielding axes, butchers’ knives and a gun slaughtering Jewish men
wrapped in prayer shawls and phylacteries deeply immersed in the
morning service.

Jihadists consciously choose to “kill themselves” in order not to die, in order to achieve immortality. The struggle is not about land, it is about God.

“Blessed be your quality weapons, the wheels of your cars, your axes and kitchen knives, because they are being used according to Allah’s will. We are the soldiers of Allah (Sultan Abu Al-Einein, Abbas Senior Advisor and Member, Fatah Central Committee, November 19, 2014).

To be sure, there was nothing subtle or coincidental about the latest Palestinian-inflicted carnage in a Jerusalem synagogue. Once again, the ritualistic attack with knives and axes was an example of crude religious sacrifice masquerading as revolutionary terror. Yet again, the Islamist perpetrators were animated by the belief that in shedding “infidel” blood “according to Allah’s will,” their homicidal mission would represent individually sacred acts of redemption.

Above all, the murderers sought to overcome their own dreaded mortality, lasciviously, by dispatching defenseless and praying Jews, to an unspeakable death.

In reality, Hamas terrorists and their many kindred Palestinian comrades in arms are not indifferent to dying. On the contrary, their mock-heroic posturing is simply pretense, a grotesque misrepresentation of core cowardice as authentic courage.

In fact, verifiable, and also unhidden, the Palestinian terrorists’ own personal fears of death are overwhelming and tangible.

These utterly primal fears are the reason they so eagerly seek a unique “death” as martyrs; that is, to best ensure that they will never “really” die. Although counter-intuitive, these Jihadists consciously choose to “kill themselves” in order not to die. More than anything else, perhaps, this strange decisional calculus now needs to be more fully understood.

How does a human being (or two) walk into a synagogue and begin hacking at worshippers who are immersed in prayer, leaving behind a trail of blood, victims, grief and horror?

The question is misplaced because no “human being” could do such a thing. It would have to be a beast in human form, a relic from primitive times before true humans became civilized. The Arab-Muslim animals that span the globe chopping, hacking and merrily decapitating – from Iraq to Jerusalem to New York to Oklahoma, and places in between and beyond – are a discredit even to the term “animal.” Most animals are not that brutal.

The real issue confronting Israel for decades and the civilized world today is what to do about the proliferation of savages who lust for blood and derive inspiration from their religious texts? One example not to follow is that of President Obama’s. In one of his more ludicrous statements in the last few months – amid a healthy competition – he decried the attack, the loss of life “on both sides (!),” and then added this gem: that the “overwhelming majority of Palestinians…want to live in peace.” Really? And based on what data was that determination made? That only tens of thousands of “Palestinians” rejoiced after the massacre, singing and dancing in the streets, distributing candies and sweets, praising the vicious slaughter and the slaughterers – and not hundreds of thousands? Polls in the PA reveal widespread support for the murder of Jews so what exactly is he talking about??

Obama seems to be as much an expert on “Palestinian” society as he is about Islam generally. His incessant protestation that ISIS distorts Islam is based on…what exactly? ISIS and sundry other radical groups seem to feel that they are fulfilling the dictates of Islam – and the few Muslims who disagree meet their fate at the business end of a machete. Actions speak louder than words. Obama’s expertise in Islam has led him to cede the Middle East to the most ruthless forces, embrace the radical Muslim Turk Erdogan as an American ally, and facilitate Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Perhaps with a nuclear weapon, Iran will be civilized, or so the thinking goes.

Little can or should be expected from Obama or from the Europeans, mired as they are in cultural deterioration, moral relativism, population decline and Muslim-inspired Jew hatred. Sweden just became the latest country to recognize “Palestine.” Sweden (!), which willfully encourages those who favor the shechita of Jews even as they themselves ban the shechita (ritual slaughter) of animals. How is that for misplaced priorities and corrupt values? And we should be clear, as the wave of recognition sweeps Europe in the coming year: any country that recognizes a “Palestine” is endorsing the mass slaughter of Jews.

Calls and campaigns against Israeli-made commodities and companies allegedly owned by Jewish businessmen, including Turkish Jews, fill Islamist newspaper pages every day.

“Moses is Moses. Jesus is Jesus. And Business is business.” — Western Ambassador in Ankara.

Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, expressed pride on Nov. 11, that “Turkey was the [world’s] loudest voice against Israel’s actions.”

“From here, I once more call on Israel and Israel’s brutal rulers: Don’t you dare considering resuming these attacks against al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the al-Aqsa Mosque, regarding … internal turmoil and tension in the Islamic world as an opportunity. Even if everyone remains silent, the government of the Republic of Turkey will not keep silent,” Davutoglu said.

“Moses is Moses, Jesus is Jesus and business is business,” a Western ambassador in Ankara said after shyly smiling at Davutoglu’s televised speech. He was right.

In a recent article in this journal, this author reminded that:

“At an international donors’ conference for Gaza in March 2009, the Turkish pledges stood at a mere $93 million. That pledge accounted for only 2.1 percent of all international pledges made at that conference.

$32 million had been collected in Turkey for Gaza for humanitarian aid. Thirty-two million dollars make 0.00004 percent of the world’s 17th biggest economy.”

Apparently, Turkey is not the only country reflecting the Islamist hypocrisy when it comes to trafficking money with the Palestinians — and Israelis.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/barack-obama-american-caudillo-113041.html#ixzz3JhiFUcmE

“The president and his supporters pretend that the Immigration and Nationality Act contains a gigantic asterisk that says, notwithstanding the elaborate legal infrastructure set out in the law and the distinctions among different categories of immigrants, the president can do whatever he wants.

No Congress would ever write the law this way. And even if it did, it wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. ”

“No one heretofore has thought this leeway could be used by a president as warrant to eviscerate an entire statutory scheme.
Again, if the reporting is accurate, the administration will announce a class of people numbering in the millions that can get work permits, Social Security numbers, and legal identification, at clear variance with the laws passed by Congress.
This isn’t prosecutorial discretion—making enforcement decisions based on limited resources—it is affirmatively expending resources not appropriated by Congress for this purpose to administer a new system.
Under the Obama precedent, future presidents can use the pretense of prosecutorial discretion to dispense with swaths of the federal code and unilaterally come up with alternatives.”

“No matter how much the president’s defenders stretch for a legal justification and for a precedent, the conclusion is unavoidable that no one has done this before. President Obama is said to want to build his legacy, and he will—as a man who is shamefully careless of his oaths and constitutional obligations. “

Never Waste a Crisis
How was the city of Medellín transformed from the murder capital of South America into a thriving urban center? Escalators.

We’ve just had an election that was in part about government competence in dealing with crises. Think ISIS, health care, Ebola. So perhaps it’s the perfect moment for a book that carries the subtitle “Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong.”

The title of the book is “The Resilience Dividend,” a phrase coined by the author, Judith Rodin, who defines it as “the capacity to bounce back from a crisis, learn from it, and achieve revitalization.” Most of the examples she offers pertain to cities and governance, though she also discusses businesses overcoming unexpected challenges. She is especially worried about the problems created by urbanization, climate change and globalization, which she sees as the “three disruptive phenomena” of the 21st century.

Ms. Rodin is president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which runs a program called 100 Resilient Cities from which she draws a number of the examples she cites. She is also a psychologist with an academic background—she was president of the University of Pennsylvania—and her professor’s tendency to overanalyze gets a little tedious. But she is a good story teller, and her stories from the United States and around the world form the heart of the book.

The most compelling of them focus on success—that is, on positive examples of how communities have responded to “disruptions” such as severe weather, a terrorist attack or a health scare. In some cases, the disruptions grew into full-blown crises; in others, they were contained before they got worse. Either way, they provide models from which others can learn.

One is the example with which Ms. Rodin begins: the transformation of the city of Medellín, Columbia, into a thriving urban center and international tourist destination. Anyone who remembers Medellín from the 1980s and 1990s, when it was the drug and murder capital of South America, will understand just how impressive that city’s reinvention is.

There are many reasons for the revival of Medellín, above all the integrated nature of the effort, which involved government, businesses and NGOs. The revival entailed a lot of creative thinking, such as that which led to the construction of giant escalators up and down a hillside slum, making it possible for residents to connect easily with the city’s public transportation system and travel safely and quickly to jobs that had previously been inaccessible. The social and economic effect of the escalators was enormous.

Russia’s military assault on Ukraine threatens the survival of an independent state and peace in Europe. Often overlooked is what the invasion—and that’s what it is even if President Obama and the Europeans are afraid to utter the “i word”—has meant for Ukrainians in lands taken by Vladimir Putin ’s forces.

In a report Thursday, the United Nations provided a bracing look behind the new Putin curtain. Life for people there is brutish and dangerous. The “cease fire” signed in early September in eastern Ukraine is a farce: In that time, 957 people have died, or about 13 every day, says the U.N.Altogether, since well-armed men in camouflage came out of nowhere in April and claimed to rule the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk on Russia’s behalf, 4,317 people have been killed and 9,921 wounded. All these lives are on the docket, if not conscience, of Russian President Putin. His spies, soldiers and media disinformers conjured a conflict in eastern Ukraine from nothing.

“New Russia,” per Moscow’s preferred phrase, is in the hands of Russian soldiers, mercenaries and local gangsters. The U.N. reports that their rule is bringing about “the total breakdown of law and order.” This is Mad Max territory of summary executions, kidnappings and torture. Monitors found evidence of three mass graves.

The situation in Crimea, which Russia claimed to annex in March, is underreported but also grim. The victims of Moscow’s satraps in the peninsula are the remaining opponents of Russian rule, primarily the Muslim Crimean Tatar minority. Their leaders have been expelled, their media outlets threatened.

The immigration order is an abuse of power that fails as a policy reform.

President Obama ’s decision to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants by his own decree is a sorry day for America’s republic. We say that even though we agree with the cause of immigration reform. But process matters to self-government—sometimes it is the only barrier to tyranny—and Mr. Obama’s policy by executive order is tearing at the fabric of national consent.

The first question to address is Mr. Obama’s legal rationale. At least he finally rolled out a memo from the experts on presidential power in the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, but it’s fair to wonder how much time he gave them. The OLC made its justification public about an hour before the speech.

The President’s rationale is “prosecutorial discretion,” but he is stretching that legal concept beyond normal understanding. The executive branch does have discretion about whom to prosecute. But this typically extends to individual cases, or to setting priorities due to limited resources such as prosecuting cocaine but not marijuana use.

Mr. Obama claims he is using his discretion to focus on such high deportation priorities as criminals, but he is going much further and is issuing an order exempting from deportation entire classes of people—as many as five million. Justice’s OLC memo claims there is no such categorical exemption, and that immigration officials can still deport someone if they want to, but the memo offers no measures by which to make that “complex judgment.” In practice it will almost never happen.
The Reagan and Bush precedents cited by the Obama lawyers are different in kind and degree. They involved far fewer people and they were intended to fulfill the policy set by Congress—not, as Mr. Obama intends, to defy Congress. That is why their actions were done with little controversy.