Shalom Bayit

The Death of the American Empire.

2012-01-24T17:50:00.003-05:00

I have often stated in the past that the US, which currently appropriates around 40% of the worlds natural resources every year (including oil), can't keep expecting to use that much. We only have 5% of the world's population. We are therefore only entitled to 5% of the world's natural resources.

Republicans, in particular, are having a great deal of difficulty grasping this concept, calling American lifestyle of excessive consumption "non-negotiable." As this chart shows, however, not only is it negotiable, we are increasingly less able to outbid our competitors in developing nations from buying those resources.

The people in the exploited part of the world are starting to demand their fair share - and get it. We, on the other hand, don't "get it." The myth of progress is the founding philosophy of America - the future must always be better than the past. It's a myth we need to get over, quickly, because now that we make nothing of significant value, have 50 million uninsured and 40+ million un-or-under-employed, we just don't have the assets or the money to bid against rapidly developing nations for oil or anything else for that matter. And even if we did, the nations we have exploited in the past do not have to sell us their resources. They can sell to whomever they please, and the countries harboring the transnational corporations that have been exploiting them may just not be on that list, regardless of how many devalued dollars they can bring to the table. In the American idea of a "free market," an item always goes to the person with the most money. Out here in real life land, people can and do refuse to sell or buy for reasons that are purely ideological, religious, or political. Americans think money can buy anything. American dollars, increasingly, cannot.

Going from using 40% of the world's resources to using only 5% or so represents an 80% reduction in our usage of resources. Some might say that's an 80% reduction in our standard of living. It's hard to argue with that logic, since American wages and benefits are being ground down slowly but surely to match those of our exploited "trade partners." However, the chart above shows their wages and benefits are rising slightly as they begin to demand sufficient income to live in a "western" style. So maybe we'll get lucky and only have to lower our standard of living 50% or so.

That means having 50% less gasoline, for starters. When it was recently reported that the US became a net exporter of petroleum products, dumb Republicans acted as if this was a good thing.

As you can see, we have in fact increased our exports. Yeah? Ummm, no. Refining capacity has remained essentially unchanged since the 1960s and production of US crude oil went into terminal decline in the 1970s. Our population has increased by some 30 million annually, mostly due to immigration. So we have more people but the same refining capacity. In other words, our use of petroleum products should have gone up. But it hasn't.

Improvements in technology have barely increased production since the mid-2000s, as you can see. Worse, increasing production from existing wells simply depletes them faster. It doesn't make more oil actually appear. But I digress. As we saw above, use of oil in the US, Europe and Japan is declining. In Europe and Japan it is declining due to development of high-speed rail and other advanced public transportation systems, integrated from individual neighborhoods all the way to cross-continent, in Europe's case, and a similar available-to-nearly-all approach has been taken in Japan. But we KNOW that hasn't happened here in the US.

The ugly truth is that Americans are slowly but surely being priced out of the gasoline market. The US increased exports not because we had more production capacity than ever but because we had fewer people than ever able to financially afford buy the petroleum products produced in our refineries, despite having increased population.

Republicans also keep saying we need to return to "growth" - in fact, even some Democrats say that. No one is saying the obvious. There isn't going to be any growth in a country of diminishing ability to compete on the world market for natural resources (except for those we are taking by force at gunpoint). There isn't going to be any growth in a country whose business is increasingly unwelcome in the nations we have been exploiting. And there isn't going to be any growth in a country that can't outbid other nations for the resources we need to maintain our excessive consumption. China has secured petroleum contracts for decades worth of future oil production. Our current suppliers eye us with mistrust and a very public wish to rid themselves of us and our influence. And as our standard of living continues to fall toward our third world competitors, there is simply no way ordinary families can keep up the excessive consumption that would be required for "growth" in our economy. It just ain't gonna happen.

But we keep pretending things will go back to "normal" - refusing to understand that "normal" was anything but. The old "normal" was predicated on us being able to exploit other nations and take far more than our fair share of everything. That "normal" is never coming back, class. Never. Oh, sure, the US will no doubt embark on further resource wars, but it will be to no avail. The only thing that will accomplish is to bankrupt our government and make US dollars more worthless faster.

The smart thing to do would be to start acknowledging that the whole myth of progress paradigm no longer functions in a world of resource depletion and start living within our means, personally and as a nation. But that isn't going to happen, either. It's clear from all the idiocy coming from our current crop of political candidates that no one is willing to face the truth, no matter how many charts and graphs, books and articles, blogs and coffee-table conversations are out here. The people in the US are simply not interested in a 50% reduction in their excessive consumption way of life, and they'd rather collapse the economy than do it. It's that simple.

This path only has one end - the death of the American empire, with possibly the death of the republic itself as an unavoidable side effect. Greed and selfishness has killed America. We're a dead man walking. The only question now is when we will finally fall down. The sad part is that this will be a good thing for the rest of the world. With us no longer greedily sucking the life out of their exploited peoples, they will do much better. And if we were a moral people, we would be ok with everyone having their fair share. But we're not - even as more and more Americans fall into a lower and lower standard of living, Republicans are striving to make sure they stay there, with more lies about "progress" and "growth" and a return to "normal" right around the corner. After all, the 1% has theirs, they vote Republican, and that's all that matters to them. As for the rest of us, "let them eat cake."

Unfortunately, the cake is a lie.

Time for us to revolt against the usurpers, again.

2011-12-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Conversion Controversies Continue

blog by Rabbi Marc D. Angel (jewishideas.org)

Received by email Friday, December 23, 2011

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has recently rejected the applications of several Orthodox Jewish converts who have applied to live in Israel. This rejection has been reported widely in the Jewish media, and has generated much discussion--and anger, frustration, disgust. These cases are being appealed, and we hope that these converts will indeed be allowed to settle in Israel as Jews...

As long time readers of this blog and many others know, the Chief Rabbinate in Israel has the ultimate goal of de-legitimizing all Jews who are not ultra-orthodox and who do not accept ultra-orthodox authority over all Jews, and to de-legitimize all Jewish communities in the Diaspora except the few that give their express allegiance to and completely accept the authority of the ultra-orthodox faction in Israel. They began waging this war against the other sects of Judaism several years ago, and that war has not even begun to make waves in the diaspora as it should be doing. Jews in America don't realize the danger. They think the UO are a minority fringe bunch of quacks that have nothing to do with them.

...The Chief Rabbinate only accepts Orthodox conversions performed under their jurisdiction and/or with their express approval. Orthodox rabbis who refuse to bend to the will of the Chief Rabbinate are excluded from the Chief Rabbinate's "approved" list.
This policy is problematic on many levels...

This list has been in existence for several years now. Few non ultra-orthodox American Jews know about it. The long and short of it is, if you can't secure a letter of confirmation or a conversion certificate from one of these specific ultra-orthodox rabbis proving your Jewish heritage to their satisfaction or a "proper" conversion, then even orthodox American Jews are not considered Jewish by the Rabbinate in Israel. They want a document showing at least three generations of observant Jews in a woman's family before they will certify her as Jewish. Who has that after the holocaust? Very few. In cases of orthodox Jews, natural born or converts, the Rabbinate then has the authority to deny them the right of return, as has done so countless times in the past five or six years.

...1. Conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora are routinely accepted in Israel as proof of Jewishness for the purposes of the law of return. Such converts are not subject to the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. Only Orthodox converts are under the aegis of the Chief Rabbinate, so only Orthodox converts must suffer the injustices and indignities inflicted upon them by the Chief Rabbinate...

The key phrase above is "for the purpose of the law of return." Being a non ultra-orthodox Jew will get you into the country. You can make aliyah. What you can't do is get married, divorced, buried in a Jewish cemetery, or have any other right or privilege accorded to Jews in Israel because the Chief Rabbinate does not consider anyone who is not ultra-orthodox to be Jewish and they control all civil rights for Jews in Israel.

...2. Conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis are done in conformity with the requirements of halakha. For the Chief Rabbinate to deny the Jewishness of such converts is a sin of the first magnitude. It causes pain and humiliation to such converts, and thus violates 36 (some say 46) Torah commandments. It also undermines the status of Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora (and in Israel!) who refuse to comply with the most extreme, Hareidi views on conversion...

They don't see it that way, obviously. To them, they are weeding out "unfit" natural born Jews and "illegitimate" converts (i.e. all those who are not ultra-orthodox to their specifications, which are riddled with stringencies far and above halacha). And they don't care who it hurts. Their idea of racial and religious purity is their only concern.

...3. In rejecting the Jewishness of Orthodox converts, the Chief Rabbinate wittingly or unwittingly turns potential converts away from halakha. It encourages them to prefer non-Orthodox conversions, so as to avoid confrontation with the Chief Rabbinate. Moreover, if Orthodox converts were really to take the Chief Rabbinate seriously, they would feel free to violate halakha--even though they are in fact halakhically Jewish!

Ironic, isn't it? But again, the Rabbinate says to themselves, "So what if they don't follow halacha? They shouldn't be pretending to in the first place, since they aren't really Jewish."

...4. The Chief Rabbinate has itself agreed to have Orthodox converts approved by the Jewish Agency, rather than through the Chief Rabbinate. This agreement was reached so that Orthodox converts would have a means of having their Jewishness validated by a body that is familiar with the Orthodox rabbinate worldwide, and that is able to evaluate properly the credentials of the sponsoring rabbis of conversions. Now, the Chief Rabbinate is reneging on its own formal agreement with the Jewish Agency...

Because the Jewish Agency recognizes conversions and lineages of modern orthodox and "orthodox-lite" Jews, which the Rabbinate can't stand any more than they can stand Conservative Jews, not to mention Reform (which they consider to be another religion entirely. At least Conservatives give lip-service to halacha) .

...5. The policy of the Chief Rabbinate is detrimental to the interests of the State of Israel. It alienates the very people who have shown great desire to be Jewish and to live in Israel...

Can't argue with that one. I would love to have my family make aliyah, but I'm not going to subject my kids to the insanity of having to leave the country to get married, or having to go through an ultra-orthodox conversion even though they are natural born Jews just because their grandparents and parents were secular, not observant, for one example. There are few people in American Jewry who don't have such ancestors hanging about in their family tree, and the Rabbinate considers these things proof a person isn't "really" Jewish. Who wants to go through such idiocy?

...6. A person who has undergone a halakhic conversion is 100% Jewish, regardless of anything the Chief Rabbinate says or does. The halakhot of conversion must not be allowed to be held hostage to the misguided and extreme views of the Chief Rabbinate or to the Chief Rabbinate's struggle to maintain power and authority for itself...

Unfortunately, it IS being held hostage by a bunch of extremists who insist on stringencies and practices which are not, and historically have never been, normative halacha. They have all the power and authority, and that is not likely to change in light of the strange fact that moderate, liberal, conservative, and secular Jewish families don't have many children. (That's a whole other blog post in itself - Jews are hardly overpopulating the world.)

...7. A great many Jews are rightly outraged by the Chief Rabbinate's egregious sins against converts, and its blatant disregard for the best interests of converts and the State of Israel. Many see this as a rabbinic power grab, not as a righteous way of providing religious leadership...

Yes. And? Diaspora Jews have no influence at all on this process, and Israeli Jews are either apathetic or out-manned and out-gunned, so to speak.

...The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals has been outspoken on behalf of a halakhically valid, compassionate and inclusive policy relating to conversion to Judaism. We have worked with like-minded people in Israel and the diaspora to defend the honor and rights of halakhic converts. At the forefront of these battles in Israel is Rabbi Shaul Farber, who heads an organization known at Itim. He deserves our appreciation and support.

Please stand with and support the work of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals (jewishideas.org) and the work of Itim (itim.org.il), and of other like-minded organizations that fight for an intellectually vibrant, compassionate and inclusive Orthodox Judaism. Together, we can accomplish great things.

Amein, class. Let us hope that Jews in Israel are accorded the basic human rights to marry and to freedom of religious practice that the democratic government is supposed to guarantee. Otherwise, more educated, moderate, working class Jews will leave, or stay away in the first place. Israel can't afford to be intellectually and religiously dis-invested by the majority of Diaspora Jewry, or it can't survive. If they think otherwise, they are sadly mistaken. We, the reasonable center of Judaism, need to take back our government from the usurpers, or the nation will fail. It's that simple. And quite apropos for this time of year.

Shabbat Shalom and a peaceful Chanukkah to you all.

Support Occupy Wall Street!

2011-10-04T19:53:00.002-04:00

I just taped this sign to the back of my car, right in the middle of the back windshield.

REAL UNEMPLOYMENT – 22.5%
REAL INFLATION – 7% a year
REAL WAGES – Stagnant since '70s
(since CEOs only want to pay $1 an hour in places
with no wage, safety or environmental laws)
REAL VALUE OF THE DOLLAR -
Down 55% since 1985!
REAL COST OF THE ONGOING WARS?
No healthcare, no Soc. Sec., & no unempl. benefits!
WHOSE FAULT IS IT?!?
WASHINGTON & WALL STREET!!!!

Figures above straight from August 2011 charts on Shadow Government Statistics – www.shadowstats.com

There is a protest in my town, in front of the Chase Bank building. It is most active in the afternoons and evenings, and I plan to spend some time there with a copy of this sign mounted on cardboard.

I hope that you will all do the same at your nearest Occupy Wall Street protest, with this or a similar sign. Or, if you aren't near one, there are links online to give money to support those who have camped out in major cities full-time. For more information on protests in major cities, go to this website. If you are near one, please take some snacks or other food so the protesters can stay in place as long as possible.

It's time TPTB stop ignoring the 99% of us at the bottom of the wealth chart. The only way we are going to be heard is to stop pretending anyone is listening to our letters to our representatives and complaints to CEOs, because these things are clearly going straight to file 13.

Support Occupy Wall Street! We need a louder voice! Speak out!

Or, do nothing. Then don't be surprised when nothing changes.

A not so happy new year?

2011-09-26T15:57:00.001-04:00

With the new year only days away, there seems to be little to celebrate and plenty to worry about. Indefensible Israeli borders forced on us by the UN? An oil embargo when America vetoes the new division of the holy land? A currency collapse when Russia and China decide to drop US dollars as the world reserve currency? A US govt shutdown as bipartisanship tears the fabric of this country apart? (Though it's awfully tempting let it shut Congress down and keep it that way, isn't it? Bunch of slimeballs!)

Still, there are things that the government needs to do, because for-profit companies simply won't do them. It is precisely because they are not "profitable" in the capitali$tic sense, but are profitable to society, that government must impose laws on corporations to protect people from being exploited (and the earth, too) and to provide for the needs of society that should be done in a non-profit manner - and need to be done even if the cost exceeds the revenue.

For example, what will we do when there's no US govt post office? How will the poor (who can't afford internet bill-paying and can't afford gas or time off work to visit everywhere in person) get by? Do the Republicans even care? Jim Kunstler made these comments today:

...Speaking of the constitution, I'm getting a little sick of these corporate CEO knuckleheads who come on CNBC and complain that the US Postal Service is running at a loss, and therefore we should abolish it. There is actually little beyond all those post offices that holds the fabric of small town America together anymore. And anyway, delivering the mail is one of the few actual government services that is spelled out in the US constitution in no uncertain terms in Article One, Section 8. It doesn't say the postal service must run at a profit, by the way. ...Neither does the war in Afghanistan (if you don't count the drug money). Congress runs at a profit, but not in any way that the constitution provides for. Before long, a lot of people are going to want to abolish it.

I don't think even the opium profits are putting a dent in the costs of the war, much less the costs to the ordinary people as Congress continues to serve their real lords & masters and gleefully leaves the average US citizen out on the street, homeless, exploited, and left with no retirement or healthcare.

In case you hadn't heard, the Republicans are just fine with that. Some teapartiers actually cheered at the thought of the elderly and poor dying off. With Christians like these set to run the country, we should worry. If they're willing to let their fellow co-religionists rot in shantytowns and die in the street, I don't think they're going to worry much if Jews do.

Especially since, you know, we secretly control all the world's wealth and we're conspiring with the "new world order" atheists to take over all their banks and steal all their gold - and brand them with microchips called "the mark of the beast" so they can't work, buy or sell unless they're part of our evil economic system.

Yes, a great many teapartiers and republicans really think that. And there's little doubt they intend to have control of the US government, one way or another. What joy!

Not that making aliyah looks to be a better option - the probability is high that Jerusalem will end up in a bloodbath, neighborhood against neighborhood, Muslims, Christians, and Jews - and it's questionable which side some of the chereidi are really on, to boot. A four way free-for-all? Kill them all and let God sort them out? International peacekeepers, anyone? Throw in a little biological or chemical warfare for good measure (they won't use nukes because we'd toast Mecca if they did, I presume). M-A-D!

Oy.

Or is that "ouch?" Duck and cover! And L'Shana Tova!

A very sobering video.

2011-09-22T20:46:00.006-04:00

You need to watch this video. This is a report by a well-respected investment and economic analyst which basically confirms things we have worried about here for a long time: loss of the American Dollar as the world's reserve currency and the terrible hyperinflationary results that will follow in the US. We've talked about everything he discusses. And he's a very rich and influential guy. Listen to him.

Stansberry's Investment Advisory

Ignore it at your own peril.

Of course, there are some caveats. The author is a right-wing republican, so he blames "taxes on corporations" and "regulations" (meaning health, safety and environmental laws) instead of the elephant in the room: the endless wars and the military industrial complex. (And he does pitch some not-really-free booklets and pitches his investment firm at the end.)

Alternately, if you hate long videos, you can read this article posted today at Market Oracle. The title is, and I quote: Monetary System in Ruin, Signals of Systematic Collapse.

Either way, no matter what we overspent on and what has hindered living wages, the end result will be the same. It's inevitable at this point. We owe far more than what we can pay. How we got here is no longer relevant. The outcome would be the same if we did actually spend all the money on the sick and poor. The fact that we spent it on economic imperialism and warmongering is water under the bridge. The debt itself, no matter how we got here, is now itself a staggering problem.

And the effects of this are going to hit America hard. Believe it.

Look out below!

2011-09-13T16:40:00.001-04:00

I have frequently lamented about the unwillingness or inability of Jewish communities in general, and my community in particular, to adapt to the new economic realities. I have been particularly alarmed at the reduction in benefits for the unemployed that are coming down the pipeline, for obvious reasons:

[Hat tip: Shadow Govt Statistics]

Approximately 1/4 of all able-bodied adult persons who need or want a job in this county either can't find one at all or have had their hours and/or wages involuntarily reduced to less than full time status. That is the blue line at the top - real unemployment. As you have heard in several speeches and debates so far, most candidates intend to refuse to extend unemployment benefits any further, and all of the have talked about reducing the benefits that are being offered. Excluding Chereidi communities, which have a much higher poverty rate and unemployment for different reasons, most other Jewish communities are typical of the overall American workforce - meaning about 1/4 of Jewish adults are also un- or under-employed and will be negatively affected by the policies that are coming down the pipeline to eliminate or reduce benefits. What will happen to these Jewish families when their unemployment runs out?

An article last year pointed out that 43% of American workers had less than $10,000 saved for retirement. That's maybe three months of income for someone forced into early retirement who still has a mortgage - six months tops for a mortgage-free household. Again, excluding Chereidi communities, average Jewish communities are in the same boat. Most people have little to no retirement savings. So what happens to these elderly Jews when Social Security benefits are reduced?

As we all have heard ad nauseum, 50+ million people in the US have no health insurance at all, not even Medicare or Medicaid. And those on Medicare and Medicaid can expect benefit reductions also. Where are these Jewish families going to turn to for money when they need healthcare?

On August 4th, if you recall, I posted an blog article I called The Debt Crisis and Jewish Communities. I also submitted a copy of that post to a local Jewish newspaper, changing only a word or two. They declined to print it, of course, saying it needed to be "toned down" because it was too over the top, said the editor after consulting with the editorial committee. They don't want to have the conversation that I pointed out needs to be had - that we do not have resources or programs in place to take care of fellow Jews in those situations, and the need is going to continue to grow by leaps and bounds over the next several years.

Now, mind you, this same article got 5 stars from the editors at JBlog, I presume because they found it well-written, important and timely. [Granted, I have no actual idea how the editors at JBlog rate the posts submitted to them - but I don't have a perfect 5-star rating (click here and scroll down to "Shalom Bayit" to see my overall rating, which was 4.76 for 207 articles, last time I checked.)] At least the JBlog editors thought that particular article was good, as did I - which is why I submitted it to the paper.

This community, not so much.

I must confess at this point I am at a loss. I mentioned in my blog post before last that the leaders in my community just do not believe any of this is real. It seems there is no way to get my community to open their eyes and prepare for the inevitable. There are books and articles, blogs and reports galore, by authors far more famous, well-respected and educated than me. But the community is just not interested in them. No amount of data, sources, or persuasion seems adequate to the task. As I pointed out at the beginning of this year, nothing I do or say seems to make any difference here, and I'm getting tired of even trying.

Sad, but true. I have a saying at my house, when it's time to give up and move on from some misadventure. I tell the boys that I have "reached the I-don't-care portion of this program." I'm just not willing to invest any more emotion or energy into the situation - some moms say "I've had it!" instead, and perhaps literally throw down their towel. This being the internet and all, the effect isn't quite the same, I guess, but you get the idea:

You'll just have to imagine it in a wad on the floor.

9/11 then and now

2011-09-09T17:39:00.001-04:00

This was my blog entry for September 11, 2006:

Five years ago today, I slept late. The phone rang. A friend of mine told me turn on the TV. There, on the screen, was the world trade center. One of the towers was burning. My friend was telling me what had happened so far. I was in the front room - the room which would later be our bedroom after our foster son moved in, but at that time it was being used as a TV room. I was standing in the middle of the floor, talking on the phone and halfway listening to the TV, my eyes fixed on the burning figure of the first tower.

And then, there was a plane on the screen.

And my mind went in two different directions at that point. One part said, "Oh, this must be an instant replay." The other said, "Wait a minute, the first tower is still burning."

It seemed like an eternity before my brain could process this information. I could no longer hear what they were saying on the TV, because my mind was furiously trying to make 2 and 2 not equal four. But no, I had just personally witnessed a second tragedy. Another plane. Another burning tower. Now there were two.

I think I said, "Oh, my God." I can't remember what my friend said. Now I began trying to hear what they were saying on the TV. They were, of course, realizing what I was realizing. No accident. No possible accident. On purpose. Terrorism.

I probably mentally arrived at this conclusion before they did, because I follow the news from Israel. Buses and cafes full of kids and old ladies were blowing up on a regular basis there, and always that wonder in the back of your mind: when will terror come to these shores? It's only a matter of time, we always said.

That time was here.

The rest of the day, and for the next several days, I was glued to the television - as were millions of other people. And in the next weeks and months, I waiting to hear what target was hit next - the Sears tower? The Golden Gate Bridge? The Arch of St. Louis? The Space Needle of Seattle? The Statue of Liberty? The Washington Monument? Much of the nation waited with me.

And were were shown pictures on tv, also, of entire Kurdish villages in Iraq where Saddam had lobbed his missiles, test firing them onto his long time ethnic enemies. There were bloated dead bodies of women, children, the elderly, even cattle. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, obviously, and was trying to develop a missile that would fire all the way to Israel, and to Europe, and even farther. Maybe even to our shores, he hoped. And, he was hosting terrorist training camps on his land, and giving money to terrorist groups - when he wasn't busy slaughtering his own political enemies and firing more deadly chemical and biological weapons at the Kurds. A nasty guy. We should get rid of him.

So we did.

And then things went back to normal.

Now, let me tell you a parable of Y2K. Remember Y2K? A few years before the turn of the century, unix and dos programmers noticed that there was no way to enter the year 2000 into programs that had only a two digit way of calculating the year. When you put in zero-zero for the year, and tried to do basic calculations such as "how much interest has your account earned since last month," and "what amount of electricity needs to be generated today based on the average use for last month," and so on and so on, that the computers malfunctioned. After all, you can't take away 99 from 00. That's an illegal mathematical operation. The programmers were concerned. Just how many banks, utilities, stock brokerages, communications, and business computers out there only used two digits in their year calculations?

Well, class, the answer was, almost all of them.

Oops. So the programmer, my father being one, worked furiously for almost four years to update, rewrite, recompile, and re-test nearly every computer program running every major computer in the entire United States. The deadline was looming. But guess what?

They did it! Every major system was updated on time. And as a result, there was no major malfunctions in the computer backbone of our country's life. And you know what happened then?

People said there was never a problem in the first place. It was just hype.

"WHAT?" The programmers said. "We worked our butts off for years to make sure the problem was fixed and no major disruptions occurred - how can you say the problem never existed?"

For the record, there was one program of mine that I didn't replace. It was my favorite fax-modem program. In it was saved all my important faxes. And sure enough, when I tried to use it after January 1st, 2000, it kept saying I was sending a fax from the year 1739. Why that year, I'll never know. But since faxes need an accurate date/time stamp, I had to reluctantly part with my favorite program. That was my experience with Y2K, because hundreds of programmers had worked themselves countless hours to make sure nothing worse than that happened.

Fast forward to 2006. Now, we have people saying that Saddam was never a problem, terrorism isn't really a threat to us, and this whole thing is a lot of hype. They want to stop all of the hundreds and thousands of people from doing their jobs who are working their butts off to make sure the problem is fixed and no major disruptions occur.

And of course, the people who are doing this job are saying, "WHAT?"

Have we really already forgotten the bloated bodies of people gassed to death in Iraq by chemical and biological weapons? Are we not grateful that the people doing their jobs have stopped plot after plot here in the US, making sure that nothing worse happens here? Do we really think that if those people stop working, we will still be safe?

I hope not, class, because that would be incredibly stupid.

I was wrong about one thing. The time for buses and cafes full of children and old ladies blowing up here on these shores is not yet. It is not yet because of the diligence of the people working countless hours night and day to make sure it doesn't happen. Make no mistake, class, the Muslims want to blow them up. They want America to fall to pieces. They say so ever day in their news, in their children's shows, in their movies, on their radios. And the second we relax our vigilance, we are doomed.

I, being a realist, believe this will in fact happen. It's only a matter of time before bombs start going off in public places here. Even here in our town, our Temple and our Synagogue will most likely be blown to kingdom come. Why? Americans are selfish, lazy, and incredibly short-sighted. Americans think if they just be nice, everyone else will be, too. Americans have no sense of history or reality. They are stupid. So the day will come. And there will be no satisfaction when I say, "I told you so." Your stupidity endangers my children, too.

Baruch Hashem, that day is still not yet here - though they actually took time after the president's jobs speech last night to ignore the teabaggers and other republicans long enough to mention that a credible threat involving car bombs in the US at major 9/11 memorial services did in fact exist, and authorities were working furiously to defuse it.

However, my views on the war have aged along with the war. What should have been a fairly reasonable get-Hussein-and-get-out has turned into a decade long fight for natural resources in Iraq and Afghanistan that has little to nothing to do with 9/11 and a lot to do with opium profits and access to oil reserves. Yes, I do still believe that he had chemical weapons and biological weapons - it's pretty stupid to say he didn't when there is ample footage even yet of the bloated dead bodies of his Kurdish victims. Nonetheless, and I know the brave men and women fighting there in our name may not believe this, but the war has long ceased to be about security and is now solidly a trade of blood for economic imperialism.

I voted for the President Obama because as commander-in-chief of America's armed forces, he could have stopped the wars and brought all our kids home with the stroke of a pen. But he didn't. He could have ordered Guantanomo Bay closed the same way. But he didn't. (I'll leave the topic of national non-profit single payer healthcare for another day.) The military industrial complex has a life of its own, now, and the teapartiers are all for it. Such ignorance disgusts me.

Like Y2K, the results of our war on Islam, er, I mean war on terror are so minimal as to be forgotten by most people. We don't have checkpoints and internal passports. We have annoying scanners at the airport, easily avoided by not flying. That's it. That's our everyday legacy of 9/11 - TSA agents who molest little kids and grandmas so they can appear to be non-discriminatary. But we all know it's a lie. The teabaggers hate Islam with a fervor they will gladly apply to Judaism as soon as they figure out we aren't going to stop believing in the social safety net and the obligation of the government to enforce people's right to life, liberty and happiness by providing non-profit healthcare, old age pensions, unemployment, and stipends for children. As "liberals" and "progressives" we are just as evil as Muslims, in their opinion.

At some point, however, we have to acknowledge that continued cultural and economic warfare against other nations is not really in America's best interests. At this point, some ten years later, we are provoking violence against ourselves, not preventing it. The leaders, including Osama bin Laden, who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks are dead. We are waging war against people who are no threat to these shores. Our vigilant men and women of homeland security make sure of that, and our border patrol, every day. Yet we continue to antagonize people halfway around the world - not for security, but for oil and opium profits. And they have been fighting back - even on these shores, if they can.

Isn't that wonderful? The real result of all this warmongering has been - and will continue to be - an America that is a less safe place.

May the memory of those who died at the Pentagon, on the flight in Pennsylvania, and at the World Trade Center be a blessing for us and for their loved ones.

And may they no longer be used as grist for the war mill.

Facing the New Reality

2011-09-05T16:18:00.005-04:00

It turns out I don't have to write a great booklet about the economic future America faces - somebody else beat me to the punch.

Facing the new reality
by Various contributors including Sharon Astyk, Nate Hagens, Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov...

The Community Action Partnership, which is the umbrella organization of Community Action Agencies--which in turn administer the lion's share of anti-poverty programs in the US--has just come out with a report, Facing the New Reality: Preparing Poor America for Harder Times Ahead. Input for the report came from (among others) Nate Hagens, Dmitry Orlov, Sharon Astyk, Dave Room, John Michael Greer, Megan Bachman, and Richard Heinberg.

From the report:

Letter of Introduction

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The Community Action Partnership presents here an unprecedented and extraordinary report: "Facing the New Reality: Preparing Poor America for Harder Times Ahead." This report is based on the equally extraordinary premise that much of what passes for reality in "the popular narrative" is not based on reality but instead on a collective denial of a genuine reality too difficult for most Americans to fully comprehend or accept.

There are many versions of the popular narrative but it tends to include the following beliefs: the United States will fully recover from a strong but temporary recession; we have access to enough energy from coal, natural gas and nuclear power to meet our needs for decades; our economy will return to growth and keep growing for the foreseeable future; technology will solve our energy and climate problems; conventional agriculture will continue to feed our nation and much of the rest of the world; and American prosperity will solve our collective debt crisis and bring a higher standard of living to all in a promising future.

This report suggests that these beliefs are fictions that serve many special interests while deterring us from facing the real and pressing need to prepare society now for unprecedented hardship, economic turmoil, resource scarcity and greatly increasing ranks of Americans living in poverty...

What is the "New Reality"?

The phrase the "New Reality" is used in this report as shorthand for the near future, a period that we have already entered, projected out over several decades. The report factors in three global mega-trends that the report's authors believe will be the dominant drivers shaping this period. These are: resource depletion, climate change and economic turmoil. While not yet fully developed, these mega-trends will interact in ways that will profoundly affect daily life.

To put it plainly, the movers and shakers in my community simply do not believe this. At all. They are unwilling to commit a single iota of time or resources toward preparing my community for the new reality.

The first two sections of the introduction discuss resource depletion and climate change. I'll skip those here because they've been discussed ad nauseum and people are solidly in one camp or the other: deniers or realists. No amount of further blather will change their minds - only the painful results of reality will sway the deniers (and even then the deniers, who are largely evangelical right-wing Christians, are likely to claim God is punishing America - still denying that climate change is real or that they had anything whatsoever to do with it.) As for resource depletion, a lot of them claim the high prices of natural resources are some sort of evil plot that the "new world order" is using for world domination. For some reason, they can't grok the thought that you can only get so much stuff out of every hole in the ground, and there are only so many holes.

No, it's an international plot to bring America down, they believe. They can't or won't admit that they have brought themselves down with greed and extreme misuse of limited resources. They externalize all the blame, rather like spoiled 4 year olds throwing a tantrum because they ate all the lollipops in the box and it's now empty. Mommy and Daddy are just being mean!

So, let's move on to the section on economics.

...Economic Turmoil: While most agree that the global economy nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008, few acknowledge that nothing has fundamentally changed to prevent this from happening again. Recent bailouts of fragile European economies like Greece, Iceland and Portugal (like the bailouts of American financial institutions) increased the debt that first caused the defaults and likely set the stage for more economic chaos not far down the road.

Also, the bewildering array of derivatives— exotic financial instruments that create money but not real wealth, out of thin air—are now monetarily valued to far exceed the value of real goods and services on the planet. As the hard physical limits to growth begin to appear in the forms noted above, the entire growth-dependent financial system may be headed for a very hard landing. We can expect:

1. High inflation or deflation, either one further contracting the economy.

2. Scarce capital or credit for job-creating development or badly needed infrastructure projects.

3. Dramatic cuts in government services as debt liabilities grow and tax revenues shrink.

4. Growing ranks of the unemployed and families descending into poverty.

5. Possible, some experts say, inevitable, global economic collapse...

Let's take a look at these for a few minutes.

Regarding point one: In my personal opinion, we are reaching the end of the deflationary part of this cycle. Prices of housing may continue to fall due to inability of people to qualify for credit because of income stagnation, but the price of everything else is holding steady or increasing. Food has never deflated in price, actually. It has been plateaued or rising steadily even as housing and some other segments of the economy crash and burn. What will follow is the beginning of an inflation spiral. This ends in only one way - worthless paper money (and that "paper money" includes your electronic banking and direct deposit, class) and prices of everything shooting through the roof.

Again, few believe it can happen here, but there is really no other foreseeable outcome at this point. Nobody is buying US Treasuries except the Federal Reserve - an incestuous accounting practice if there ever was one. Other countries are quietly dumping their dollar reserves and buying gold, or other commodities such as land and oil futures. There is an international move to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Once that happens (and it will, eventually) nobody outside the US will accept dollars for anything and people in the US won't be able to buy imports at anything less than their entire income. That's a problem since we import most of our food, clothing and everyday household items. Even a short-term confidence crisis of the dollar would wreak havoc in main street stores everywhere, as they would not be able to come up with the ridiculously high cash payments wanted by overseas suppliers. Hope you've got a garden going.

Regarding point two: to cite just one example, streets and roads in this country are maintained and paved largely using gasoline tax dollars. More and more people being priced out of gasoline, switching to efficient cars, telecommuting and other such options means less $ in the pot. This has been going on for some time, by the way. There are bridges and overpasses in this country that are in desperate need of replacing or being structurally updated and there are simply no funds to do it. Many counties are simply letting rural roads go back to gravel. More and more toll roads will spring up. And finally, the government will have to switch to taxing you by your mileage every year instead of your gasoline. You will have to pay a big mileage fee when you renew the tags on your car every year. This will simply price people out of the market for cars even faster. Thus the money for road and bridge repairs is disappearing fast, will soon disappear even faster, and will not reappear. That's just one example out of how many government offices?

Regarding point three: The US has sold other countries and our own citizens trillions of dollars worth of bonds that will have to be paid back. And more is added to the total every day - tax revenues aren't coming anywhere near close to paying the debt load. How could it when everyone has been moved to part time mc-wally-wort jobs at low pay and no benefits? These kinds of jobs do not produce adequate tax revenue to run local and state governments, much less the federal government. As these debts mature, more and more tax dollars will have to be spent to pay them. I believe it was Larry Burkett who predicted that the US govt debt payments would equal the entire federal revenue brought in sometime in the 90s or 2000s. He was a few years off, but his prediction was not fundamentally wrong. There will be less and less money available for social services, as I pointed out in my last blog.

Point four: Since there really isn't any combination of agencies or charities out there who can realistically take up that much social need, do you really think the homeless and starving people are going to just quietly lay down and die? I wouldn't count on it. Civil unrest, to put it mildly, will follow.

And finally, the second great depression in the US will take down a lot of other countries with it - countries that get a lot of their own income from exporting stuff to the US. Nobody here will get it, or be able to buy it. A great deal of it will end up stolen, looted, or on the black market. Either way, our "free trade" partners are going to figure out fast that letting the US rape them of their self-sufficiency and steal their resources for pennies on the dollar wasn't such a great strategy after all. So much for globalization.

...For most of you, the future this report depicts is in marked contrast to the future you expect. The authors know this and understand that many of you may be very skeptical of the information and points of view expressed here. Some of you, like most Americans, may consider this report "doomer" nonsense. But it isn't, and we simply can't wait for the "popular narrative" to finally catch up with the facts.

As the New Reality advances, we have the opportunity to help recreate something wonderful that diminished during the age of abundance but will be essential during the age of scarcity: authentic community.

Peter H. Kilde
Third Vice President and Strategic Initiatives Task Force Chair
The Community Action Partnership Board of Directors

I'm not holding my breath on that, though.

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.

The Debt Crisis and Jewish Communities

2011-08-04T20:04:00.001-04:00

As I write this, the stock market has just dropped like a rock, a 500+ plunge, which is the 9th decline in the last 10 days of trading. It has been only a few days since Congress passed the debt ceiling extension. Mitch McConnell et al promised that if this extension was passed without raising taxes and with sufficient spending cuts, that everything would by hunky-dory and our problems would be on their way to being solved. Unfortunately, this fairy tale isn't fooling anybody.

Here's my analogy of the current US economy: Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street used to pay a big chunk of the household expenses in their home – when the marginal tax rate approached 90% for very high income groups, this couple gladly stepped up to the plate and supported their household, and still had plenty of luxuries in their lives. But they are no longer willing.

Also in the household are the couple's aged parents and their own children, Miss Unwed-mother, Mr. Un-or-under-employed, Miss Has-cancer, Mr. Underwater-mortgage, and Miss Still-marginally-middle-class. They have some undocumented household servants, too, who shall remain nameless. But since the 80s in particular, Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street have paid less and less of the household expenses, even putting the family into more debt and quietly dipping into grandma and grandpa's funds, mostly by hiring Uncle Warmonger to send his thugs to intimidate or “take care of” little problems with their overseas “business partners,” or to be a token show for “allies.” They made a pile of money doing this, both for themselves and Uncle Warmonger, but the grandparents and kids have benefited in no real way. In fact, thanks to Dad, the kids now get to compete for jobs with people willing to work for fifty cents an hour.

Now, Mrs. Silver-Spoon or Mr. Wall-Street could easily retire the household debt and give the family a new clean slate and a balanced budget, but they choose not to. Some would argue they have no obligation to do so. Either way, they have announced clearly that they will contribute nothing further to the mess they made. Instead, they expect their kids to take up the slack. Of course, even all five of the kids combined cannot make enough money to cover the household expenses and support grandma and grandpa, much less get out of debt. Mrs. Silver-Spoon and Mr. Wall-Street don't care. In fact, they have hired new legislators to gut all the programs that would help the grandparents and the kids.

Needless to say, this household is careening towards bankruptcy, and their accountants know it – hence the lack of confidence in US currency/treasuries and the declining stock market.

What does this mean for us, in this particular Jewish community? In the past, Jewish communities had organizations that hired their own community doctors, took care of stipends for their own elderly and unemployed, formed co-ops, utilized interest-free loan societies, provided scholarships for young people, etc. But since the “New Deal” we have stopped taking care of our own and expected government to do it. And worse, here in the 21st century, even in the face of declining government social services, JFS offices all over the country rely on other charities, especially Christian ones, to take care of our own. My community is guilty, too.

I have blogged several times in the past that the IMF or World Bank would impose austerity measures on the US eventually. Even if such are self-imposed from within, it is unlikely that the “reformers” intend to cut off Uncle Warmonger et al or protect basic human rights to life (healthcare), etc. – their priorities are just not our priorities. We need to get real about this. Complicate all that with the ongoing issues of the continuing rising costs of goods and of gasoline due to peak oil, and you have a recipe for disaster. G-d forbid we get hyperinflation. Even without that, households will increasingly sink, because they just can't swim in these waters.

“Reformers” intend for already overburdened charities to do what govt. is no longer willing or able to do. But it is not realistic to expect other charities to continue to support people who will not agree with their religious or political philosophies. As the Teapartiers and Republicans gut the govt. social safety net, the need will be overwhelming and charities will all have to pick and choose whom they will serve.

Will they still serve Jews? When push comes to shove (and it will) I fear the answer is likely to be “no.” Of course, this won't happen right away, but it will snowball quickly when it starts. They will be too busy taking care of their own.

That brings us to the next question: Is our community willing to pick up the slack and take care of our own? We have some small bit of time to plan for the future. Is our community willing to put the funds and programs in place to take care of these problems as they careen toward us? What should the Federation's role be? This is the question we have to ask ourselves now. It's a discussion we urgently need to have and we aren't having it.

American Imperialism is STILL bankrupting us.

2011-06-22T22:05:00.001-04:00

This is a stunning little article.

Think Progress
The $113 Billion Hole:
Ten Things America Gave Up This Year To Pay For The War In Afghanistan
By Zaid Jilani on Jun 18, 2011 at 6:45 pm

...Using data from the National Priorities Project, ThinkProgress calculated ten investments America could’ve afforded if it didn’t spend $113 billion — the allotment made in Fiscal Year 2011 — on the war in Afghanistan. Each one of these policy options represents an equivalent $113 billion cost:

– Provide 57.5 Million Children With Low-Income Health Care For 2011

– Provide 23 Million People With Low-Income Health Coverage In 2011

– Give 20.2 Million $5,500 Pell Grants To Students In 2011

– Provide 14.35 million Military Veterans With VA Medical Care In 2011

– Give 14.7 million Children Head Start Funding In 2011

– Give 14.26 Million Scholarships To University Students In 2011

– Employ 1.93 million Firefighters In 2011

– Hire 1.75 Million Elementary School Teachers In 2011

– Hire 1.65 Million Police Officers In 2011

– Equip 67.8 Million Households With The Ability To Use Wind Power In 2011

– Equip 25.39 Million Households With The Ability To Use Solar Photovoltaic Energy In 2011 ...

American cannot afford to give away the millions of dollars being spent on the military-industrial complex, nor can we afford to give away the lives of the national guardsmen and women who should be HERE, policing our own borders and helping our own citizens rebuild after devastating floods and storms.

We simply cannot generate enough federal taxes on mcwally-wort wages.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Americans are going to have to choose what's important to us. Either we continue attempting to steal resources from other nations at gunpoint, continue to ram unsustainable western economic imperialism down the throats of people in other countries, and continue to earn the enmity of other cultures with our high-handed arrogance...

...OR...

...we take care of our own citizen's needs.

WE CANNOT AFFORD TO DO BOTH.

And the Republicans with their Tea-partier nutcase allies intend to throw children, the disabled, seniors, the poor and the unemployed under the bus to continue with their pipe-dreams of military conquest and continual plunder of the world's resources.

Aside from the fact that it is simply unethical and immoral to continue pretending that the western materialistic consumer mentality is sustainable even for the US, much less the rest of the world, it is unethical and immoral in the extreme to leave US citizens without a functional social safety net so the delusional Robber Barons can continue to exploit people on the cheap.

All the tyrannical despots in the oppressed countries of the third world have to do is WAIT. It's a game of chicken we CAN'T WIN. We will be bankrupt and in our own lovely dysfunction of forced austerity measures before long - due to mostly to runaway military spending over the past two decades, not due to social services. We have borrowed money to fight wars, not to provide unemployment benefits and social security checks to the elderly. That's the ugly truth.

National Priorities Project
The Cost of War
Updates daily

Total Cost of Wars Since 2001:
$1,210,645,000,000

Cost of War in Iraq:
$784,309,000,000

Cost of War in Afghanistan:
$426,335,000,000

That's a total of One Trillion, Two Hundred Ten Billion, Six Hundred Forty Five Million dollars...PLUS:

The costs of physically building, maintaining and operating all 700+ military bases outside the US...PLUS:

The costs of all the equipment, armaments, etc. at all of these bases...PLUS:

The costs of paying wages and benefits to both the civilian contractors AND the American military forces stationed on those bases...PLUS:

The costs of transportation, fuel, supplies, etc. for all those people on all those bases...PLUS:

The cash/economic aid and "favors" that we PAY some nations to allow us to use the bases...PLUS:

The ill will of the various peoples around the globe who resent our presence, for very good economic and cultural reasons.

And the result of these COSTS are dead young Americans and a grand total of tens of trillions of dollars down the tubes.

WE CANNOT AFFORD IT. We never could, actually, before. But now the situation is dire. Either we take care of our own citizens or we continue to throw tens of trillions of dollars down the military-industrial complex rathole.

When will this stop? When the American people stand up and tell Congress in no uncertain terms that we do not intend to be bankrupted by American imperialism - that we want secure borders and a functional social safety net.

Until then, we will continue to be bled dry by greedy bloodsucking Robber Barons who are the only ones who benefit from the killing and the exploitation we "win" in its wake. Meanwhile, US citizens will die in poverty for lack of basic human necessities, while our tax dollars are used to buy weapons for imperial conquest.

We can't pay for both. Which do you want? Make up your mind now, because if you don't, the Robber Barons will make it up for you. And they're going to choose to enrich themselves, obviously, not take care of you or your parents and children.

America is bankrupt. And like all other bankrupt entities, American now has to decide what is important. To the powers that be, neither your life nor US soldier's lives are important. Only control of resources, profit and power are important - to them.

And to you, apparently, if you say and do nothing to change things.

facepalm

2011-06-16T22:54:00.002-04:00

Tonight I went to a meeting and one of the topics of conversation that came up was "going green." The context was a brainstorming session for new programs for a certain women's group. A person was mentioned who had participated in a "low carbon diet" team that did a book of exercises about lowing your carbon footprint. Everyone nodded and decided the concept was "overdone" in the news and community lately. So I said something to the effect that we could do a different spin on the topic and talk about peak oil.

Most of the people at the meeting had never heard of peak oil. When I briefly explained about China and India's population becoming middle class combined with declining outputs in oil fields and the fact that the price of gasoline had doubled in five years and would continue doubling, they looked blank. Then one person chimed up: "Well, I heard the local government has ordered some hybrid buses." Everyone nods and smiles and they move on to the next topic.

And I'm sitting there thinking - really? Did they order enough so that the entire metro area population could ride to and from work, school, errands and shopping? No, actually I think it was 2. Two hybrid buses for a population of about 320,000. Do they really think that's going to cut it? Apparently so.

I don't understand how they can not comprehend the seriousness of this problem.

But clearly they don't. And they don't want to hear about it. They can't imagine for one minute that they won't be able to hop in their cars and drive in 15 minutes across town to meetings like that one.

Can ANY of them afford gas when it is $7 a gallon (double what it is right now) in only five years? Or $10 a gallon a couple of years after that? I had lunch with one of the ladies earlier that day who was telling me how tightly they budgeted everything (she's basically on a fixed income, retired). When talking about budgeting for eating out she admits she can hardly afford it, but when you ask about the price of gasoline doubling again she thinks - what?

I don't know.

Does she think the problem will magically go away?

Does she not understand that when (not if) America is reduced to using only our fair share of the world's gasoline (and other resources) that the gas will be so expensive that only the Rockefellers will be able to afford it? How does she think she's going to travel around town in 5 years - with only 2 hybrid buses for what will then probably be even more people living in the city? If they buy 2 more hybrids every year (which is not in the budget, since the money for these two came from a federal grant) that will be a grand total of 12 hybrid buses for 340,000+ people.

Well, that should do it.

Tell me, somebody - what are they thinking?

I honestly can't understand it.

Living the Good Life - Simply

2011-06-14T16:37:00.001-04:00

I am reposting this article that I received via email as part of this month's "Jewish Magazine" because it 1) shows that I'm not insane (at least not entirely), and 2) admits that the West simply cannot continue with the materialism and consumption and wasteful use of natural resources, and 3) Torah is not only OK with this, but in fact God wants us to be mindful of the needs of others, and 4) a lifestyle that makes every effort to use only our fair share of the aforementioned resources will necessarily be a much more simple life.

The Jewish Magazine (by email)
Voluntary Simplicity and the Torah Life
June 211
By Heshy Friedman

David Brooks, in a New York Times OP-ED piece, observed that historians, in explaining the rise and fall of many great empires, feel that “Wealth and power lead to affluence and luxury. Affluence and luxury lead to decadence, corruption and decline.” All over the world, the global crisis which has impoverished millions of people throughout the world is being seen as payback for voracious greed, hyper-materialism, and/or capitalism without values.

It is clear that the economic path we are currently on, which has consumers obsessed with hyper-materialism and over-consumption, is leading us to destruction. It is not sustainable and is destroying the environment as well as the true values that result in a healthy and happy society. After the financial meltdown of 2008, it is becoming very obvious that we need a new economics, one that is moral and considers more than profit and growth. The world also needs a strong America to act as a stabilizing influence; the United States cannot be strong if it continues to take on more and more debt and wastes scarce resources.

Consider the fact that developed countries (US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia) with a total population of about 1 billion consume 32 times more resources such as oil and plastic than do those in developing countries with a population of 5.5 billion. Approximately 1.4 billion people live below the extreme poverty line of $1.25 per day. These people are hungry for much of the year and are also malnourished. The life expectancy of people living in the wealthier nations is 78 years; it is below 50 years in the poorer nations. Five percent of children living in these poor countries die before the age of 5; that is 27,000 children dying every single day because of poverty. In India today, 43 per cent of children younger than 5 years of age are malnourished and underweight

If the entire world were to consume as much as the developed countries do, this would be the same as if the world population increased to 72 billion. No one believes that the world can support this many people.

This is a point that Americans in particular have incredible trouble understanding. We have 5% of the world's population and use 40% of all the world's natural resources every year. Our fair share is only 5%. That means an ethical society needs to ratchet down our materialism and consumption a great deal - not just a little bit. A lot.

The Torah is replete with precepts that deal with business ethics and has had a profound effect on a countless number of people. It is interesting to see how the Torah looks at materialism. There is no doubt that the Torah would not support the view that greed is good, despite being very much in favor of productive work.

The attitude of the Torah towards wealth is quite positive. One does not have to be an ascetic and disdain owning property. The ideal system is not one in which every individual has exactly the same amount of property; the Torah recognizes that there will be poor as well as wealthy individuals. What matters is how the wealth is used and whether or not one is grateful to God for it. Wealth, peace, and/or long life should be seen as rewards from God for obeying His laws (Leviticus 26:3-13; Deuteronomy 11:13-16; Deuteronomy 25:15; Proverbs 22:4). People, however, have an obligation to use their wealth to help those that are needy. The Psalmist declares (Psalms 82:3): “do justice to the needy and the orphan; deal righteously with the poor and the impoverished; rescue the needy and the destitute and save them from the hand of the wicked.” Isaiah (1:17) also makes this very same point: “learn to do good; seek justice, aid the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

The obligation to take care of the orphan, widow, the destitute, and the stranger (one is even obligated to love the stranger) is mentioned numerous times and is a core value of the Torah. Destitute individuals will not have the ability to help the unfortunates of society.

Unfortunate, American economic policy toward the developing world does just the opposite - it CAUSES poverty, it TRAPS people in sub-living wages and unsafe working conditions, it STEALS far more than our fair share of their resources and REFUSES TO PAY a fair price either for the resources or for the damage obtaining them causes. America's economic policy is both immoral and unethical.

The acquisition of wealth through hard work is permitted and encouraged by the Torah; greed and materialism are serious problems. The tenth commandment in Exodus (20:14) states: “You shall not covet your fellow’s house. You shall not covet your fellow’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything else that belongs to your fellow.” In Deuteronomy (5:18), the wording is slightly different: “And you shall not covet your fellow’s wife, you shall not desire your fellow’s house, his field, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything else that belongs to your fellow.” Maimonides (Laws of Stealing 1:9-12) notes the difference in the wording and concludes that “desire leads to coveting and coveting leads to robbery.” Clearly, greed is not good and leads to bigger problems. After the financial meltdown which nearly caused another great depression, many of us would agree with Maimonides.

Materialism is discouraged by the Torah since it can lead one to become arrogant. In fact, the Torah (Deuteronomy 8: 11-18) describes one of its dangers. A successful individual might believe that “my power and the might of my hand has made me all this wealth.” Also, “Jeshurun [Israel] became fat and kicked … And he forsook God who made him.” (Deuteronomy 32: 15). The rebellious son described in the Torah (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21) -- who has become a threat to family and society -- is accused by his parents of being a “glutton and a drunkard.” Overindulgence in the pleasures of the world has contributed to his downfall.

And the American economy - built on the strange notion that other nations will always be required to give us what we want for unfair prices and that resources will never deplete or run out - is going to crash and burn because neither of these presumptions is true. The American economy is built on false assumptions.

And we arrogantly believe that we can force everyone to keep doing things the way we want just because....what? We'll refuse to buy from them? Other markets - big markets like China and India - are opening to the world. They don't need us anymore. We'll take what we want by force? That seems to be the operating theory of the US military industrial complex at the moment, but how long are the up and coming superpowers like China going to put up with that? Not much longer.

Agur asks the Lord not to make him poor or rich. Poverty might make him become dishonest but wealth can cause him to deny God (Proverbs 30: 7-9). Even the king was not permitted to possess too much gold and silver (Deuteronomy 17: 17). It is quite obvious what happens to both a king and country when there is an obsession on acquiring gold rather than on justice and prosperity for all. The prophet Jeremiah (9:22-23) observed that: “Let not the mighty man glory in his might; Let not the rich man glory in his riches.” What matters to the prophet is “lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

One king who was punished for flaunting his wealth was King Hezekiah. He flaunted the great wealth in his treasuries to Merodakh-Baladan, son of Baladan, the King of Babylonia. Isaiah said to Hezekiah (Isaiah 39:6): “Behold, a time is coming when everything in your palace and what your forefathers have accumulated to this day will be carried off to Babylonia; nothing shall remain, says the Lord.” Hezekiah’s sin was in taking too much pride in his worldly possessions and showing them off.

Americans believe this can't happen here. But foreigners already own huge swaths of land, important landmark buildings, and are the de facto owners of a huge percentage of our savings bonds and other monetary instruments, including stocks and bonds. They can and will exert control of their property.

Job described the way a person with means is supposed to live his/her life. Job was a person who treated all with dignity, even his servants (Job 31: 13); Job took care of the poor, the needy, the orphan and the widow (Job 31: 16-21). Job was not materialistic and he declares that he never “made gold my hope” or “rejoiced because my wealth was great” (Job 31: 24-25).

Again, America sticks stubbornly by the myth that we're the "greatest nation on earth" and the "only superpower" and that we have enough wealth to continue to run our military empire around the world to control the earth's resources. It's simply not true. We're due for a serious smackdown.

The Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Maakot 24a) states that the prophet Micah (6:8) reduced the Torah to three major principles: “What does the Lord require of you: only to do justice, to love acts of kindness, and to walk discreetly before your God.” The Talmud says that ‘walking discreetly’ before God refers to funerals and weddings; “If in matters that are generally not done in private the Torah says that one should ‘walk discreetly,’ how much more so in matters that usually call for modesty should certainly be done so.” The Talmudic sages felt that one should live a life of moderation and not be ostentatious, even when making funerals and weddings.

Instead, the Robber Barons try and convince everyone else on the planet to try and adopt our wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle so they can make more profit. It is physically and mathematically impossible for the developing world to do this, and it is immoral and unethical for the US to continue to live this way ourselves.

The Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Chullin 84a) also states: “A parent should not accustom his children to eat meat and wine.” It was felt that a luxurious lifestyle could lead one to a life of dishonesty.

And America is dishonest - extremely dishonest, especially when it comes to the trade agreements imposed on the developing world. Basically, we steal their stuff for pennies on the dollar and lobby to make sure workers in those countries DO NOT get the same wages and protections as first world workers. And then we try and erode the first world worker's wages and protections. We do everything possible to avoid paying the real costs of the products we import and we have no intention of implementing fair trade policies. Then we lie to the developing nations and tell them if they do what we say, they can become like us - knowing it's actually impossible for them to do so. But if we adopted a less wasteful, less materialistic, less consumerist lifestyle, there would be enough to go around for everyone.

A similar idea can be seen from the verse (Exodus 16:8): “When the Lord shall give you in the evening meat to eat, and in the morning bread to fill you up.” The Israelites were promised bread (manna), not meat, to fill you up. Rashi, a major medieval commentary, notes that the Torah teaches one to sate himself with simple foods such as bread and eat luxuries such as meat only occasionally. During the forty years of wandering the wilderness, the Israelites had to be satisfied with manna. They were not permitted to hoard it (it would only last for a day); each person was supposed to gather only one omer (Exodus 16). The Israelites were punished severely for grumbling about the manna and demanding meat: “Would that we were given meat to eat!” (Numbers 11). God did send forth a wind to bring the people a huge number of quails from the sea but it did not end well for the people. The place where this incident occurred and resulted in the deaths of many via a plague was called Kibroth-Hattaves (The graves of lust).

Judaism frowns on ostentation. Friedman (http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/againstosten.html) provides three reasons that Jewish law felt that living an ostentatious and showy lifestyle was condemned by Judaism: (1) It arouses the envy of others, including the enemies of the Jewish people; (2) It causes people who are poor to become ashamed of their lack of wealth; and (3) it makes people supercilious. Friedman demonstrates how many customs and laws were modified in order to avoid ostentation. For example, many funeral rituals were modified in order not to embarrass those who lacked means. The dead—from the richest to the poorest-- all had to be buried in the cheapest flaxen shrouds. Till this very day, observant Jews are supposed to bury their dead in a plain pine box.

And jealousy of American lifestyles as portrayed on TV is causing young people around the world to demand the impossible - an American lifestyle that is affordable to everyone. And when they realize we already used up the cheap and accessible resources that made that lifestyle possible, they are not going to be amused. In fact, they already aren't. Soon they will understand that America has squandered the earth's scarce resources and left them with the dredges at exorbitant costs. How are they going to view America - and Jews - then?

The ideal Jewish lifestyle is Histapkut bamuat, being content with less. Ben Zoma’s statement (Babylonian Talmud, Avot 4:1): “Who is wealthy? One who is happy with his lot” succinctly states this philosophy. The following verse in Proverbs (21:17) indicates that a life of luxury can lead to poverty: “One who loves wine and oil shall not be wealthy.” Moreover, the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Avot 5:19) states that “Whoever possesses the following three traits is of the disciples of our forefather Abraham: … a good eye [generous], a humble spirit [humility], and a modest soul.” “Modest soul” is translated as one who controls his physical desires even for things that are permitted (Shaarei Teshuva, Shaar 1:34).

In the classic medieval ethics (mussar) work, Orchos Tzadikim (Chapter 14: Jealousy), the author notes that jealousy, a trait which no person can totally escape from, comes from observing what friends own. We become envious of a friend's garment, food, house, and/or wealth and envy leads to coveting. Once a person is overpowered by coveting, he becomes capable of violating each of the Ten Commandments. This is the reason the sages of the past prayed: "let no person's jealousy rise up against me nor my jealousy upon others." Causing others to be envious of oneself is a violation of the Biblical injunction against "placing a stumbling block before the blind person." The Orchos Tzadikim advises men, women, and children not to wear very beautiful and expensive clothing and thereby arouse the envy of others. He also advises moderation with regard to food and other goods for the same reason.

Unfortunately, it's probably too late to reign in the world's envy of the American lifestyle. The only thing that will match the young people's mourning of our theft of their supposed future will be the glee with which they watch us crash and burn because of our greed and decadence.

Many books dealing with Jewish ethics (mussar) recommend histapkut bamuat as an ideal way of living a Torah life. For example, Rabbi Yechiel b. Yekusiel Anav, in his classic thirteenth-century ethics book, Ma'alos Hamiddos, describes 24 important virtues. Virtue 21 is being content with less and he advises people against extravagance. Rabbi Bachya (1255 – 1340), in his classical work on ethics, Chovos Halevavos [Duties of the Heart], devotes an entire chapter to “The Gate of Abstinence.” He makes the point that a lifestyle focused on materialism, luxuries, and overindulgence will turn a person away from God. The Torah attempts to teach the individual the importance of intellect ruling over desires; and not to make the pursuit of pleasure one’s “Torah” and religion.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir (Kagan (1838 – 1933), a very influential scholar known as the Chofetz Chaim (Kuntros Sefat Tamim 5) states:

Our sages, blessed are they, have stated that: ‘Who is wise man? One who sees the consequences of his actions.’ Therefore, a person, even if he is in a strong situation, must always understand that because of the turbulence of our times, which is prevalent because of our many sins, one should behave when it comes to personal expenditures in the middle way, according to the individual and place. And even if God has been kind to him and given him great wealth, he should not wear very expensive embroidered clothing since that will damage his soul because it brings a person to arrogance and also incites the Evil Inclination. In addition, it causes others, who do not have the means to look at him and desire to emulate him. In the end, they will borrow and not repay their loans or rob and cheat. And because of these extravagances, the expenses in our times for clothing for weddings have increased so that many of our daughters are humiliated when it comes time for them to get married. Fathers and mothers cry and wail and no one can help them.

Many Jewish communities including those in Eastern Europe and Yemen passed sumptuary laws — regulations limiting personal expenditures on religious grounds — during the last several centuries. These regulations dealt with such matters as overly flamboyant clothing, expensive foods, ornate weddings, etc. More recently, the Agudah enacted guidelines limiting the size of weddings. The Satmar Rav, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, also instituted strict wedding and sheva berachot guidelines in 2008; they already had guidelines for bar mitzvahs.

Alas, these guidelines are routinely ignored even in ultra-orthodox, chereidi and hassidic communities, much less the rest of the Jewish world. Jewish young people today have very unrealistic expectations, and their parents, grandparents, and communities have failed to disabuse them of these unsustainable notions.

Although Judaism definitely frowns on extravagance, most of the ancient Talmudic sages did not approve of asceticism (Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 10a; Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 22a; Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 11a; Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:1). The prevalent view in Judaism seems to be that asceticism is not admirable (Tamari, 2000: 231-235). In fact, there is a Talmudic view that one will be punished for not indulging in permissible pleasures (Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12).

More to the point, a less consumerist, less materialistic lifestyle only means "going without" if you are so wrapped up in material possessions and conveniences that you can't enjoy ordinary simple pleasures. It certainly doesn't mean you have to starve or have rationed food or clothing or anything ridiculous like that. It does mean you will have to pay the real costs of these items, and cheap imports will be a thing of the past. The fact that most Americans are not going to give up their luxurious standard of living willingly is not in fact relevant. The end of the false "growth forever" economic paradigm, combined with continuing debt problems and the ever-present decline of oil production vis-a-vis rising developing world demand will require these changes to be made whether anyone wants to make them or not. Meanwhile, it would be prudent for everyone to begin the process voluntarily, by cutting back consumption, buying local or at least first world products, learning household economy skills such as gardening and mending and repair, and getting out of debt, first and foremost. Then, learn to enjoy things that don't cost money. It's that simple.

While honestly-obtained wealth is not a problem, ostentation and materialism are seen as inconsistent with biblical values. Both can lead a person astray and therefore an ideal life is based on voluntary simplicity. A person who leads a relatively simple life -- albeit not ascetic – will more easily be able to live a spiritually fulfilling life.

Amein, class.

Heshy Friedman is a Professor and Director of Business Programs, Brooklyn College

If this is fiscal responsibility...

2011-06-13T17:24:00.005-04:00

...then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Las Vegas Sun Online
Sun Editorial:
A somber anniversary
At 10 years old, Bush tax cuts continue to hurt the nation’s fiscal future
Saturday, June 11, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

When President George W. Bush took office in 2001, he was handed quite the gift. The nation had been running a budget surplus, and there was talk that the federal government could be debt free by 2009.

But that wasn’t to be. Instead of using the money to pay down the deficit, Bush pushed for tax cuts, especially for the wealthy. A decade ago this past week, the first piece of the ignominious Bush tax cuts became law.

“We recognize, loud and clear, the surplus is not the government’s money,” Bush said at a bill signing ceremony. “The surplus is the people’s money. And we ought to trust them with their own money.”

Unfortunately, Americans are paying a heavy price for the Bush administration’s economic policies in the form of tremendous debt. While Bush cut taxes, he and Republicans in Congress supported more federal spending.

The Republicans didn’t see fit to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — which have cost more than $1 trillion — or much of anything else. There was no plan to increase taxes or find other ways to free up federal money to pay for those efforts. As a result, the surplus vanished, the government was back to borrowing and the deficit skyrocketed...

...The Republican leadership in Congress has laughably tried to make itself out to be fiscally responsible with its disingenuous and dangerous plans. They have even tried to blame Democrats and President Barack Obama for the nation’s economic woes, but they should look in the mirror. The GOP’s policies pushed the country into this mess.

Republicans have largely championed trickle-down economics, a theory that argues that tax breaks for the wealthy — like the Bush cuts — stimulate more investment. That is supposed to translate into more jobs and eventually more money in the average person’s pocket.

But it doesn’t work that way. The nation faced an economic downturn during Bush’s first term and it came out of it in the so-called “jobless recovery.” And his second term was marked by the Great Recession, which saw unemployment spike.

The Bush tax cuts over the last 10 years have failed, as have the Republican economic policies, which boil down to no new taxes and tax cuts for the rich...

In case you haven't noticed, both the Republicans and the Tea-Partiers have the same imperialistic military spending above and beyond all other considerations mentality still to this day - and still have no means whatsoever to pay for it except through debt. It isn't social security, unemployment benefits, or medicare/medicaid that has bankrupted this country, it is the military industrial complex, pure and simple.

So why are we still giving free security away? Why do we have bases outside of the US borders at all? If these people are our allies, they will give us space to land and refuel when they need assistance - which, of course, they should pay for to the last penny themselves. And if they want our bases on their soil for "deterrence" purposes, then again they should pay the tab - 100% in full - every month.

And it's clear that our wars of "liberation" are terribly selective - so selective, in fact, that peoples who don't happen to have natural resources coveted by the American Robber Barons need not apply. There is no possible reason for the invasion of Iraq other than to secure the oil, and there is no possible reason for the invasion of Afghanistan other than the rare earth minerals and the poppy income. That should be obvious by now. Every action the US government has taken is clearly targeted not toward "liberating" anyone from oppression but rather to "liberate" third world resources from those who would use them for the good of their own people and with a sustainable future in mind.

US foreign policy has no function except to keep third world peoples in bondage with "free trade" agreements that are in truth nothing more than a race to the bottom for wage and labour laws, safety regulations, environmental protection, and resource management. The leaders of those countries don't dare pass laws to improve their people's lot because then the Robber Barons would pack up and take their factories elsewhere. After all, there's always somebody more desperate.

American workers are finding this out the hard way. With no possible means of providing first world living wage jobs for the 40+ million people who are un-employed and under-employed (i.e. forced into part time jobs, or had their pay and benefits cut, or both), there is no possible way that income taxes will raise enough revenue to get the US out of debt and continue to pay for the US's imperialistic resource wars and military empire around the globe. It's simply not possible.

There is only one real way to solve this problem: tariffs on those products whose wage/labour, environmental, safety, etc., laws are not equivalent to first world standards (by which I mean Europe, not the US - which is in all respects except our military power no longer "first world" on any objective measure). And having done that, military spending will have to be limited only to protecting the US border and providing security only for US states and territories (unless hired by contract, as described above).

There is NO OTHER way to solve this problem. Cutting the social safety net to shreds WILL NOT bring a single person a living wage job in this country. Allowing for-profit insurance companies to drop coverage for sick people, children or students and refuse coverage for those with "pre-existing conditions" WILL NOT bring a single person a living wage job in this country, nor will allowing them to charge exorbitant rates in order to discourage the sick from purchasing a policy benefit job-seekers or society in any possible way. Continually refusing to put tariffs on cheap junk made in dangerous sweatshops WILL CERTAINLY NOT bring a single person a living wage job in this country.

What it will bring - indeed, has already brought, is our entry into the race to the bottom. And eventually, you'll see companies on American shores that have to put netting below their windows to prevent the suicides from splatting on the concrete or on the passers-by on the sidewalk below. After all, it works reasonably well in China. Only a few break through and actually crash into the ground. The rest just break their necks hitting netting. No mess, no fuss, no bother. Scoop them up and throw them away with the rest of the trash. Plenty more desperate job-seekers where those came from.

Is that the future you want? Get involved. Write your Congress-persons and volunteer for a campaign. Sitting around reading blogs will not save US citizens from having our social safety net taken away by greedy Robber Barons and military contractors. Only action counts.

It's time to get serious about reforming Congress.

2011-06-09T09:09:00.004-04:00

I received this email lately and I think it's a good springboard for discussion.

It is time. If you agree send it on. If you disagree, please delete it.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

This should, hopefully, reach more than 20 people.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.

12 years only, one of the possible options below..

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

This idea has been floated around for ages, and everyone supports it - yet somehow Congress never seems to get around to making it policy or law. Wonder why?

OK, we know why. They get wealth and influence from bribes from lobbyists and Corporate interests (overt and covert) while they're in office. None of them have enough character to give that up willingly.

2. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

Amen. A term in Congress should not qualify anyone for being a perpetual leech at the taxpayers expense.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

Right now, Congress has exempted themselves from having to participate in Social Security by making their own cushy retirement fund with terms so cushy that they would NEVER, EVER implement them for ordinary Social Security recipients. In this county, there is not supposed to be one law for the peons and a different law for the rulers.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

One, Congress should not have a separate plan for the ruling elite that is different than those available for ordinary Americans. And two, nobody should be "retiring" from Congress in the first place, since they should have a "real job" and not be perpetual burdens on society.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

Actually, I would say their pay raises must be pegged exactly to what percentage of increase they allot for Social Security cost of living increases each year. If those are the "real" figures, they should be good enough for Congress to live by, too.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

This point particularly irks me - and it should anger you, too. Congress have enacted ONLY FOR THEMSELVES a fully publicly funded single-payer healthcare system. We are denied access to this system. It's only for the elite ruling class. And this sort of situation should cause immediate pitchforks and molotov cocktails to be rained down on Congress until either WE get the same healthcare they decided was perfect for themselves, or until they are subject to the same medicare/medicaid/for-profit healthcare insurance scams that we are forced to use.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

A general proclamation of the above points of interest, this would make sure that Congress can't pass any other programs intended only for themselves as privileged elite and denied to the rest of us. Also, it would make ethics and bookkeeping and tax evasion laws that apply to the rest of us apply to congress, also. No de facto "diplomatic immunity" for them anymore.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Agreed. The American taxpayers have NO OBLIGATION to continue funding perks for Congress as if they were some kind of rarified elite class too good for the programs they stingily mete out for the rest of us.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete

You are one of my 20+. Please keep it going.

I would like to add in a few more suggestions.

One, if Congresspersons want special security details, they should have to pay for it themselves.

Two, Congresspersons should be required to send all their k-12 children to public schools.

Three, travel should be at their own expense. In this day of Skype, activist journalism by every sort of group and organization, and nearly unlimited online resources for doing "research" on various topics, nobody needs to travel to other countries for any "fact finding." The only time travel should be covered is if they are in an actual sign-on-the-dotted-line meeting with a foreign official who has authority to make such agreements. Otherwise, it's a glorified vacation and they should pay all the expenses themselves.

Four, a "zero tolerance" policy for scandals. Anyone caught in any immoral or unethical shenanigans should face automatic dismissal, period.

If all of these things were enacted, America would be a fair and equitable society as it was intended to be, instead of the obviously class-based system of perks and benefits that we have now. In this day and age, there is no place for a ruling class elitism that exempts itself from the laws passed for others. Right now, Congress is no different than Animal Farm - they are "more equal" than others and it needs to stop.

Any Congressperson who fails to vote for a Constitutional Amendment such as this one should automatically considered corrupt and voted out of office. This should be THE litmus test of the next elections - a pass/fail exam. Either they vote for this Amendment, or they're out.

Ach! My eyes!

2011-06-06T20:50:00.003-04:00

That blinding flash of the obvious! Quick, somebody hit a Republican with it.

Detroit Free Press Online
New study: You can't live on minimum wage
12:23 AM, May. 31, 2011

...The Basic Economic Security Tables for Michigan, a study that analyzes the cost of essential needs for singles and families across Michigan, found the cost of providing basic necessities -- such as shelter, food and transportation -- far exceeds minimum wage and the paychecks of people working full-time in low-paying job categories.

Among the findings:

• Single Michigan residents without children must earn $12.24 an hour to support themselves.

• A mother with two young children -- like Thomas -- needs $24.49 an hour to house, clothe and feed her children. That's three times the minimum wage...

...although the state's unemployment rate is dropping, the number of requests for food assistance is climbing because many of the new jobs being created are low-paying.

"So if you put $60 worth of gas in your car, you can't buy your kid milk," she said. "With these kinds of salaries, you can't support your kids, you can't buy them clothes, save for college, or have money on hand for a car repair."

..."How do you live on that? When I ask her, she says there aren't any jobs out there. And there aren't. We're seeing a lot of people who are working hard, but not getting very far."

So the solution is to cut social services, right? Get rid of social security, medicare and medicaid, and that will magically make wages go high enough for people to live decently, right?

Is there anyone other than a teapartier out there who is really stupid enough to believe this? (Of course, the teapartiers don't really believe it, but they claim they do - not because they do but because they just don't want to pay taxes, period, and don't care about the consequences to other people or society. They've got theirs, apparently.)

Republicans of all stripes, meanwhile, are doing their best to make sure nobody makes more than minimum wage - and many would like to get rid of the minimum wage. Those guys in third world nations are willing to work 24/7/365 for $.50 an hour - that's why they have the jobs now. CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank, and their employees don't matter to them at all - after all, there are plenty more where the first ones came from. You in the American offices should sit down and shut up.

After all, you're lucky you live in the "best nation on earth," you ungrateful brats. So shut up and find your 3rd part time no benefits minimum wage mcwally-wort job, you lazy bums. It's your own fault you can't get a living wage job. Those are for EXECUTIVES. You're just jealous. As for the old, they should just hurry up and die. They're burdens on society - like poor and minority kids. Who cares if they go hungry or don't get medical care.

(Of course, the Republicans will care when THEIR kids get sick from the diseases mutating and running rampant due to lack of public healthcare - but that's not really a major worry to them, since they don't send their kids to school with "those" types of kids anyway.)

But I digress. This is what FREE TRADE has brought to America - poverty and a society that can no longer function under the burden of wage stagnation. Republicans did this to us, so they could wallow in more luxury and not pay taxes on it. And more of this is what a Republican controlled congress and a Republican president will bring - tax breaks for the rich and increasing poverty for the former middle class who can no longer make living wages no matter how many jobs they hold at once.

Follow up: The vicious cycle caused by low wages: people who aren't paid living wages can't afford the offerings of a "service economy." It takes actual income to be able to afford to pay other people to do your chores or to partake in non-essential services, as some companies are finding out the hard way.

Variety Online
Posted: Tue., May. 31, 2011, 4:00am PT
Poverty a problem for pay TV
Study: More people can't afford services
By Tom Lowry

...Amid the euphoria, however, those execs didn't address what might happen to their bottom lines when consumers could no longer swallow those increasingly larger bills.

They may be facing that reality soon. In a foreboding new report, one analyst concludes that a major risk facing companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and AT&T is not heated competition from each other, or a fast growing outlier like Netflix, but rather poverty. "The poverty problem provides a new and sobering lens for any serious analysis of the telecom and media sectors," concluded Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. "At the low end, customers aren't just choosing between one provider and another. They're often choosing between these services and a third meal." His 96-page report, "U.S. Telecommunications and Cable & Satellite: The Poverty Problem," was released Friday and was certain to have ruined the long Memorial Day weekend for at least a few media execs...

...To underscore his premise, Moffett offered some data that would make any sales force out pushing subscriptions cringe.

• About two-thirds of American families subsist on less than the average after-tax income of $62,000 a year. "We are, sadly, a country where most Americans are below average," Moffett wrote.

• Fifty million Americans are on food stamps.

• Forty-nine million are considered "food insecure," with no confidence where the next meal is coming from.

• Forty-four million Americans now live below the poverty line.

"The picture of an America where 40% of households are essentially bereft of discretionary spending power has incredibly important implications for companies in our coverage," Moffett wrote.

And there's no end in sight of the wage stagnation, as more and more people desperately agree to work for sub-living wages.

CBS News Online
June 5, 2011
Chronic unemployment worse than Great Depression
The unemployed have, on average, remained unemployed longer than in the 1930s; Employers wary of job gaps in resumes
By Ben Tracy

...Summer job bummer: Teen unemployment 24 percent
Nearly 14 million Americans are looking for work...

...About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months - a higher percentage than during the Great Depression...

...The problem of course is the economy, but some industries, especially certain manufacturing jobs, are not ever expected to come back...

Of course, Peak Oil will make them come back, eventually. But if the Republicans have their way, it won't be before the economy of the continental US is pretty much destroyed by wage stagnation and increasing poverty. Cutting off social services isn't going to make living wages jobs magically re-appear. Only getting rid of ridiculously one-sided "free trade" agreements with steep tariffs and penalties for outsourcing will do that. That should be obvious.

The "Tax the Churches League" lives.*

2011-05-29T16:54:00.004-04:00

I'm positive I predicted this a couple of years ago in one of my "futurewatch" posts. It seems congress is now looking at reducing or eliminating the tax deduction for charitable contributions. Right now, the proposal is only for certain income brackets - but no doubt all income brackets and all types of charitable giving will eventually be eliminated from having tax exempt status.

I urge you to go to this site and sign the petition. Your congresspersons will receive a copy automatically.

Don't Let Congress Hurt American Charities

I have also predicted, and I will say it here again, that Congress and other state and local municipalities will eventually move to take property tax exempt status and sales tax exempt status away from religious and charitable institutions.

As the US continues to throw uncounted trillions away down the imperialistic military complex rathole, they will become more and more desperate for everyday operating funds.

Religious and charitable organizations will be an obvious target, especially since the percentage of Americans who belong to any organized religious or social service organization has dwindled to less than half, there will be no way to muster sufficient political will to stop this from happening.

And you're seeing it start here, with charitable giving.

* An Aside: I don't know if there really is such an organization, but it was the name of the "bad guys" in a very cute movie called "Foul Play" with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase back in the early 80s, I think. The name has always stuck with me.

We should do what they're doing.

2011-05-29T12:07:00.004-04:00

The role of the Federations in America has changed dramatically over the last hundred years. Once upon a time, Jews gave money to a local organization who served the community in various ways: to help people make aliyah; for burial societies; to supplemental income for widows, the elderly, and the unemployed; support for Israeli settlers, of course; support for those left behind in Europe; scholarships for children to go to daycamps, away camps, and trips to Israel; and often...a community doctor.

Now almost all of these things have been taken over by other entities, and people don't need the Federations to do these things for us. We can donate online to Israeli causes, to support European communities, to give scholarships to kids for camps and for college, and to help people make aliyah.

The US government has, during this time, taken over support for the elderly, the unemployed, the sick and disabled. And our communities have structured themselves around this fact - thinking, I suppose, that America would of necessity eventually become a more social democracy like the countries of Europe. It never occurred to most that the US would refuse to recognize that healthcare is a basic human right. Every other "first world" nation has - and it seemed reasonable that the US eventually would, too.

But it hasn't happened, and probably won't. Instead, American citizens are leaning towards "libertarianism," i.e. every person for themselves. The Social Contract is shredding at an alarming rate - largely because myriads of "good Christians" have decided it is no longer their job to care for the children, the poor, the elderly, the sick or the unemployed through their tax dollars. They want charities to take up those tasks - but of course, they don't intend to give the money previously collected in taxes to charity. So in reality, they intend to bring about a vicious and merciless social Darwinism - survival of the "fittest." Their definition of "fittest" are those who belong to their own families and churches. Everyone else can rot in the gutter and die for all they care. This cancerous idea is spreading like wildfire through "red" states here in America.

Enter Vermont.

Healthcare NOW! Online
Vermont governor signs universal healthcare bill
May 27, 2011

...“We gather here today to launch the first single-payer health care system in America, to do in Vermont what has taken too long — have a health care system that is the best in the world, that treats health care as a right and not a privilege, where health care follows the individual, isn’t required by an employer — that’s a huge jobs creator,” Shumlin said.

...“We’re going to hear all kinds of scare stories that this is a thoughtless experiment or that it is too bold,” said Dr. Deb Richter, a longtime advocate of a single-payer health care system. “But I would remind you that every other industrialized country is doing what we are trying to do. And they do it for far less money, they live longer and they get better-quality care.”

...“There is ample evidence that we can reduce cost growth without compromising health care quality, but it will take a new approach — we can’t simply cut provider fees,” a statement issued by Shumlin’s office said...

The Powers that Be in the for-profit healthcare and pharmaceutical industries will no doubt fight tooth and nail to make sure this initiative fails spectacularly. They have been making a fortune every year gouging the sick, taking money paid for healthcare premiums and using it for lavish salaries and perks, and profiteering off of state and federal systems designed to help the poor receive healthcare. They're making Billions-with-a-B in profit doing this and they won't give it up without a fight. I hope Vermont can defeat them, but I have serious doubts about that.

So what does this have to do with Federations, you may ask? I'm suggesting we turn back a page of history and do for our own communities what the other states and the federal government refuse to do - set up for ourselves a non-profit healthcare clinic or network of clinics in every Federation area. These clinics would be owned by the Federation and have a doctor or two, nurses and staff, and an in-house pharmacist all paid a flat salary instead of depending on the fee-for-service scam currently used by for-profit insurers. The Federation is large enough to negotiate wholesale contracts for medicines and supplies that could be distributed to the clinics at cost. And the clinic would be free for any Jewish Family who joined the Federation and paid a modest premium - say, $100 a month for a family plan, $35 for a single person, and a sliding scale for those truly unable to pay. The only other insurance they would need, theoretically, might be catastrophic care insurance, which is far less expensive than everyday health insurance. But even better, one or two national Jewish hospitals could agree to take the clinic patients who need catastrophic illness care at a negotiated modest fee - paid by the Federations, not those unable to pay. No Jewish person should be without healthcare, ever.

It's time we stopped throwing money away on for-profit healthcare, and stopped relying on government and christian charities to care for our sick and disabled. We took care of our own in the past and it's time we stepped up to the plate and did so again. It's a radical suggestion - but it's a doable one. And if we get started now, by the time the "red state" cancer spreads further, or the US is forced to adopt draconian austerity measures by the international community because of our unpayable debt, we'll have our own system in place.

Think about it, class.

Should you trust science?

2011-05-22T13:31:00.004-04:00

The wrestling match between science and religion has been a messy battleground, to say the least. But outside that arena, even out in the secular realm, science is in the process of being ignored and discredited in the public mind because, as I had posted a researcher saying in one blog some time back, the results of studies, "part like the red sea" depending on who's doing the funding. Science for sale in the medical community is even the subject of an article in this month's Scientific American Magazine.

But there are other reasons to be leery of "scientific" findings - one being that, according to a survey, most "scientists" have beliefs that are diametrically opposed to the religious worldview. Industries such as food production, medicine, and countless household products use scientists to develop their products. These beliefs held by those scientists affect how scientists do science, how regulators treat products, and how scientist/doctors treat patients.

The western capitalist movers and shakers want people to adopt a religion of scientism, a belief that science is always right. But how can it be, when scientists only "prove" what they're paid to prove and they don't believe that individual people are unique beings with inherent value? Would you trust your health, safety, environment and even your life to people with these beliefs?

Natural News Online
Readers stunned to learn that conventional scientists don't believe in mind, spirit, free will or consciousness

...People were shocked, they wrote, to discover that most conventional scientists believe human beings are mere "biological robots" with no mind, no soul, no free will and no consciousness. "Now it makes sense," one reader told us, "that the GMOs and vaccines are done in the name of science, because scientists have no respect for conscious living creatures."

...In fact, the core philosophy of "science" is a Godless, mindless, soulless, empty chasm of pointless despair utterly lacking in ethics and empathy. This is why so much destruction is unleashed upon our world in the name of "science" -- pesticides, vaccines, mercury fillings, GMOs, nuclear weapons and much more. Because it is all based on a system of belief that is devoid of meaning.

...Oppenhiemer was right: Science has become the destroyer of our world. Through its runaway genetic pollution of our planet (GMOs), the chemical contamination of our world (pharmaceuticals), the destruction of our soils (pesticides) and the very denials of our own conscious existence, science has become a diabolical, wicked mechanism of destruction that has delivered suffering, despair and death to our world.

...This denial of our consciousness, free will and even our humanity is a thread that permeates the thinking of modern science. As another example of this, Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, is on the record saying:

"You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." - The Astonishing Hypothesis (book)

...The history of "science" is replete with accounts of insanely evil madmen who carried out crimes against humanity as part of their "scientific" advancement. For example, the former Chairman of the drug company Bayer (yes, the aspirin company) was a Nazi war criminal who was convicted of crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg trials. As reported on NaturalNews.com:

Dr. Fritz ter Meer, a director of IG Farben who was directly involved in developing the nerve gas, Zyklon-B, which killed millions of Jews, was sentenced to seven years in prison but was released after four years through the intervention of Rockefeller and J.J. McCloy, then U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. An unrepentant Fritz ter Meer, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, returned to work in Bayer where he served as Chairman for more than 10 years, until 1961.

...All of these evil, even downright demonic medical experiments were done in the name of "science." And it was all made possible because science believes there is no such thing as a real, conscious human being. Therefore, murdering them (or using them for medical experiments) is of no ethical consequence.

But this belief that human beings do not have a mind, a soul, or even free will stands at odds with the core beliefs of the vast majority of human beings. Most people believe either in God or in some higher creative force that permeates our universe. Most people believe they are, themselves, conscious beings with free will. But scientists do not! They insist that there is no such thing as a "mind" and only the human BRAIN controls your actions, thoughts and words. The brain is a deterministic biochemical machine, they proclaim, and YOU do not even exist as a soul, or spirit, or reflection of God or anything resembling a conscious being.

Do you now understand how these core, distorted beliefs of the scientific community are evil in nature? They are diabolical. They deny the value of you and everyone else as a living, conscious being. This is why science offers the perfect pretext for genocidal crimes against humanity. This is why the Nazi war machine and its IG Farben chemical experiments on Jews were all carried out in the name of science. This is why "science" can give us atomic weapons, GMOs, population control vaccines, mass chemical poisoning and the rampant destruction of our world -- because science is based on an empty, mindless, soulless philosophy that denies our conscious existence.

...They put forth these dehumanizing ideas that claim we are all delusional for recognizing our own consciousness. They disparage those who believe in spirit (or God) and demonize anyone who talks of free will. These scientists are evil soulless people who attempt to strip away our humanity and convince people that life has no value because consciousness doesn't exist in the first place.

Science today has become technology without ethics...

...mathematics without understanding...

...engineering without empathy.

"Science" has become the Godless, mindless, soulless platform from which the darkest evils of our world now fester and attempt to expand their domination. GMOs, chemical pesticides, rampant over-vaccination of children, fluoride chemicals in the water, chemotherapy poisons... the list seems endless.

"Science" has found a way to measure the electrical impulses of a heart beat but is incapable of understanding what it means to have a heart in the first place. "Science" says you should abandon any belief in your own God or spirit or creative force in the universe and instead put your faith in them as if they were gods! Believe in science, they insist, but nothing else.

...While "scientists" spend their days blowing things apart in supercolliders, the real knowledge seekers of our world spend their time integrating mind, body and spirit to achieve a holistic and fully-integrated understanding of our existence.

As a civilization, we have followed these scientists too far down the path of delusion and destruction. It is time that we changed our course and sought a different path -- a path of wisdom that requires, at its outset, the simple and obvious recognition of the existence of consciousness. Even this rudimentary step in the journey toward wisdom cannot be achieved by all the sciences in the world, it seems. Virtually the entire scientific community stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything it cannot see, weigh or measure. So ideas of prayer, intuition, precognition, connection with spirit, and even empathy are considered worthless fragments of nonsense that are cast aside by the "scientific" community.

This is why science can never enhance our understanding of our existence. It has no tools to explore those things that supersede the physical universe, and it has no interest in opening the door to those spooky questions that invoke anything resembling intention, conscious creation or a higher power in the universe. Only a small fraction of actual scientists operating today are even asking questions about consciousness, mind-matter interactions or "quantum mind" effects. And those few scientists -- bless them all -- are being widely disparaged by the arrogant conventional scientists who are desperately trying to convince us all that they are our gods and there's nothing else out there.

So think about this, class. The "scientists" out there developing the medicines and products you use every day are bought and paid for by the companies who hired them - companies who expect to make a profit from their products.

Do these companies or these scientists CARE if their product kills people - when, according to "science," the world is overpopulated anyway?

Do they care if these products make people sick, messes up their hormones, causes obesity or other health problems, especially if they also happen to sell an antidote?

Do they care if these products wreck havoc on the environment, especially if it takes several years or decades for the cumulative effects to become obvious?

Do the drug manufacturers and doctors actually care about you as an unique, individual person and value your life, especially if you can't afford to pay for your care?

The answer to all of these questions is NO. They don't.

Will they ever admit their culpability? No, they won't.

Can you trust these "studies?" No, you can't.

And people are dying every day, being refused medical treatment every day, being poisoned and contaminated every day - because unregulated western-style capitalism, propelled by "science," is unethical and immoral and cares only about money, not about people.

This is where "science" is now. Long forgotten is the original goal of science, to make life better for people, to make a better world for all of us to live in. Now science is obsessed with making money, with controlling markets and forcing out unpatentable natural products, eliminating jobs for people with mechanization, and designing more efficient means of killing "enemies" - that is, anyone who refuses to implement the unethical godless western capitalism that exploits both people and resources with no thought for the people or the future.

Science has become untrustworthy. And I am inclined to agree with this author, also - science, as practiced in this day and age, has become evil. The USDA and the FDA are bought and paid for by the same greedy corporations that own the scientific studies that "prove" their products are safe and "prove" natural products aren't.

It's all bull malarky. Caveat Emptor

Where will the radioactive contamination go?

2011-04-16T18:32:00.005-04:00

In short, the contaminated water rushing into the pacific ocean from the near-meltdown in Japan will go everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

Notice the current labeled "Alaskan Current" in the top center. Where does that go?

It reaches the Northern Atlantic and visits the US and Europe, eventually. There, it will continue to infect the local fisheries, both fish farms and wild catches.

Energy Bulletin Online
Published Apr 7 2011 by Yale Environment 360, Archived Apr 12 2011
Radioactivity in the ocean: Diluted, but far from harmless
by Elizabeth Grossman

With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain...

Still, the world has never quite seen an event like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore...

“Given that the Fukushima nuclear power plant is on the ocean, and with leaks and runoff directly to the ocean, the impacts on the ocean will exceed those of Chernobyl, which was hundreds of miles from any sea,” said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist in marine chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “My biggest concern is the lack of information. We still don’t know the whole range of radioactive compounds that have been released into the ocean, nor do we know their distribution. We have a few data points from the Japanese — all close to the coast — but to understand the full impact, including for fisheries, we need broader surveys and scientific study of the area.”

...Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the resulting damage to the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, huge quantities of water have been poured on four stricken reactors to keep them cool. Thousands of tons of radioactively contaminated water have then been released from the Fukushima complex into the ocean. And even though the Japanese this week stopped a leak of highly radioactive material from the badly damaged Reactor No. 2, the water used to cool the reactor cores continues to flow into the sea. In addition, atmospheric fallout from the damaged reactors is contaminating the ocean as prevailing winds carry radioactivity out over the Pacific.

...How the radioactive materials released from the Fukushima plants will behave in the ocean will depend on their chemical properties and reactivity, explained Ted Poston, a ecotoxicologist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. government facility in Richland, Washington. If the radionuclides are in soluble form, they will behave differently than if they are absorbed into particles, said Poston...“If particulates in the water column are very small they will move with the current,” he explained. “If bigger or denser, they can settle in sediment.”

...“Cesium behaves like potassium, so would end up in all marine life,” said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland. “It certainly will have an effect.”

...“This is not an imminent health concern, but we haven’t seen the end of it,” said Theo Theofanous, professor of chemical and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara...

The problem with this radioactivity traveling in the currents is that it will mix with other heavy metals and chemical contaminants already found in sealife, and will make its way not just to our fish dinner but to all of our foods in the way of fish meal fertilizers used in vegetable and fruit production and fish meal feed given to factory farmed animals. Nor is it liable to be any safer to eat pasture-raised beef or chicken from West of the Rockies, because fallout has already been detected in those areas.

Early US reports concerning radioactive fallout on our West Coast were purposefully derived from readings taken too early to detect the main force of the fallout and are a case of purposefully whitewashing, several news sources complain.

It is certainly curious that a Google search of "radioactive fallout california" revealed nothing posted later than March 18th, a month ago - long before significant levels of fallout could have reasonably reached our coast and before the worst parts of the near-meltdown actually took place.

You have to get all the way to page 15 of the Google search to find one dated April 1st which admits that radioactive isotopes were turning up in milk produced in California (because cows ate grass and hay from the fields, of course). That was 3 weeks ago. It seems pretty clear that the government is purposefully feigning disinterest and failing to publish readings in order to not cause economic damage to California's farmers - not because there's nothing going on. There is something going on, and if you knew about it, some senator or representative might not get his check from the lobbyists promptly because you wouldn't buy radioactively contaminated products.

Short of passing a geiger counter over the produce at your local supermarket, there's no way for you to tell what is contaminated and what isn't. Radioactive particles are not visible and won't cause immediately sick-looking plants or animals. The damage caused (except in the obvious case of high-level up-close exposure, otherwise known as radiation burns) is slow-acting and long term, not necessarily immediately deadly.

And we all know the law in America - if it doesn't kill you immediately, then there's nothing government will do about it. So caveat emptor, class.

Living Wages and the besmirching of a beloved brand - Ikea.

2011-04-13T18:50:00.004-04:00

A while back I posted a comment on Orthonomics to someone who was incredulous that I would suggest that it now takes 3 adult incomes to meet an average household's expenses. Here come the statistics:

Wonkette.com
Household Income Short of $68K? Welcome To the New Poverty
by Ken Layne

...A new study proves that a family of four needs $67,920 a year (pre-tax) to survive in America. And that’s basic: no vacations, no fancy dinners...

...The median household income in the United States is $52,029 — nearly $16,000 shy of what it actually costs to keep your head above water if you’ve got a two-income two-child household.

The DC-based nonprofit Wider Opportunities For Women has been compiling the numbers for exactly what it takes to have basic economic security in this country — housing, food, transportation, child care if you have little kids, utilities, and a tiny contribution to savings for your old age — and the numbers are more than triple the ridiculous official poverty levels:

A single worker with two young children needs an annual income of $57,756, or just over $27 an hour, to attain economic stability, and a family with two working parents and two young children needs to earn $67,920 a year, or about $16 an hour per worker...And they’re still a few paychecks away from disaster at $50,000 or $60,000 a year.

...As for you single people, the government says anything beyond $10,830 means you’re not in poverty. This new study gives a more realistic number, based on the actual cost of basic shelter and food and electricity and getting to your [bleep!] job if you’re lucky enough to have a [bleep!] job: $30,012 a year.

...So we are now officially living in a country where more than 60% of households are not making enough money for a basic household — the bottom three quintiles of American household income top out at $62,000.

As I told the person in the comments section, when you add up all the baseline expenses that Americans must pay - median housing costs, median transportation costs, median food prices, etc., etc. it tallies up to more than the median household income of 2 working adult households. That means they either rack up the credit card debt to meet the shortfall, or do without essentials such as health insurance.

This is why multi-generational and multi-family living arrangements (in single family homes) are becoming more and more common - it's the only way to make ends meet.

Why? Weakened unions means American workers no longer receive living wages and reasonable benefits for their workday, even though our productivity is far above that of other nations. American companies and even overseas companies operating in America take advantage of our own weak wage and labour laws (compared to Europe's) and exploit American workers. For example:

Los Angeles Times Online
Ikea's U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers
nathaniel.popper@latimes.com

Reporting from Danville, Va.— When home furnishing giant Ikea selected this fraying blue-collar city to build its first U.S. factory, residents couldn't believe their good fortune...But three years after the massive facility opened here, excitement has waned...Workers complain of eliminated raises, a frenzied pace and mandatory overtime. Several said it's common to find out on Friday evening that they'll have to pull a weekend shift, with disciplinary action for those who can't...show up.

...The dust-up has garnered little attention in the U.S. But it's front-page news in Sweden, where much of the labor force is unionized and Ikea is a cherished institution. Per-Olaf Sjoo, the head of the Swedish union in Swedwood factories, said he was baffled by the friction in Danville. Ikea's code of conduct, known as IWAY, guarantees workers the right to organize and stipulates that all overtime be voluntary.

...Laborers in Swedwood plants in Sweden produce bookcases and tables similar to those manufactured in Danville. The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a minimum wage of about $19 an hour and a government-mandated five weeks of paid vacation. Full-time employees in Danville start at $8 an hour with 12 vacation days — eight of them on dates determined by the company.

What's more, as many as one-third of the workers at the Danville plant have been drawn from local temporary-staffing agencies. These workers receive even lower wages and no benefits, employees said...

..."It's ironic that Ikea looks on the U.S. and Danville the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico," [union organizer] Street said.

...Low prices have helped Ikea weather the economic downturn. The company made 2.7 billion euros in profit last year, up 6.1% from 2009, according to its most recent financial statements.

Still, last fall, [Ikea's American manager] eliminated regularly scheduled raises and made cuts to some pay packages in Danville. Starting pay in the packing department, for example, was reduced to $8 an hour from $9.75...The median hourly wage in the Danville area is $15.48, according to the Virginia Employment Commission...

So the median wage in the area is close, but not quite, good enough to support an American household as long as BOTH parents are making that wage. But the workers at this plant aren't. They're part of the new wave of American sweatshops - with substandard mcwally-wort wages, no benefits, and draconian hours.

With Billions-with-a-B in Euros in profit in their last reported year, Ikea can hardly say they're paying American workers less because they are losing money. They're JUST doing it ONLY because American workers don't have the same wage and labour unionized protections as their European workers. They didn't come to America because they want to get rid of higher priced European workers, either. According to the management:

[Ikea's American manager]says it chose Danville to cut shipping costs to its U.S. stores.

Shipping costs - peak oil, not European wages - are the reason for localizing production to this target market: Americans. It was about relocalization and sustainable transportation of goods. Get that, class? There's nothing wrong with European living wages as far as Ikea's Swedish managers are concerned.

Only their American partners - the Robber Barons in the US - think that.

What for-profit healthcare thinks about the poor.

2011-03-28T14:47:00.004-04:00

Here is a comment that was posted by a military physician who entered private practice. You won't believe it - but I do. I spent several years of my life training new doctor's office staff in computerized medical office management. Of course, electronic insurance billing was a big part of that process. Then electronic billing for medicare and medicaid became mandatory - my colleagues and I got a first-hand glimpse, let me tell you. This doctor is absolutely correct. Of course, not all doctors in private practice are this way - but so many are that it represents a serious failure of our healthcare system. Namely, for profit insurance companies and for-profit hospitals don't give a rat's rear end about the poor.

Healthcare Now webpage
Article entitled "No Help"
Click here to read the original article.

Timothy Shaw MD says:
November 16, 2010 at 1:34 am

Twenty years ago, upon entering private medical practice for the first time it took me about a month to realize that the United States needed “Health Care Reform.” After serving the previous fifteen years in the US Army Medical Corps, I started my first civilian medical job. I was asked to come to a hospital by another surgeon to perform an ear operation on a 3 year old boy at the same time as he would be performing an eye operation. This would save the child from two anesthetics on two different days. Since I had never worked at that hospital, and apparently in order to set me straight from the start, one of the head doctors at this hospital, came up to me in the preoperative holding area, and boldly shoved the child’s chart in my face, pointed to the child’s insurance (Medicaid (Welfare)) and shamelessly told me, “if all you are going to do, is to bring this “****” in here, then we don’t need you to come here.” The poor little guy sitting in the corner with his Mom, was smiling at us with his cute partially toothless grin, and coke-bottle glasses. He didn’t realize what one of his doctors called him because of his health insurance coverage.

Again, several months later I was called to a different hospital (one that I normally did not work at either) in the same city by an operating nurse who asked if I took Medicaid “welfare patients.” She asked me if I would come to their operating room to take a coin out of a 2 year old child’s esophagus. She informed me that their hospital doctors in my specialty did not take welfare patients and they were looking for someone to do the operation as the child had choked on a coin. “Apparently someone forgot to screen this child’s insurance before he came to the operating room.” I canceled my clinic patients and drove across town, performed an esophagoscopy and removed the coin.

Obviously, the doctors in these above scenarios did not support “the Public Option” (Medicaid).

What had happened to our Health Care System? What had changed? Where was the honor that we had in the Army Medical Corps? We treated everyone from Generals to Privates and their families with the same respect. In accordance with Geneva Conventions, we even treated enemy soldiers during the Iraq War in our Combat Support Hospitals with the same care that we treated our own.

In a significant measure the United States Private Health System had changed into “Big Business.” In some measure the humanitarian emphasis had eroded.

Although spurning the pharmaceutical industry as “conflict of interest” entities, not suitable for proper patient care, surprisingly, doctors saw no apparent conflict of interest in merging with the Health Insurance Industry. Doctors and the Health Insurance Business became so closely aligned that their DNA intertwined to form a new species. This powerful new combined-arms team became the forme fruste of our new United States Health Care Industry. Doctors armed with new found business tactics, and the Health Insurance Industry armed with the legitimacy of the Doctor’s legal authority to limit health care to patients became the de facto United States Health Care System.

The business meeting replaced the medical conference to discuss “patient care” issues. To cope with the ever burgeoning bureaucracy, more and more doctors went into administration. More doctors have their MBA’s then carry black bags and make house calls. Mergers, Acquisitions, Expansions, Contracts, Covered Lives, Marketing Strategy, Demographics, Competition Threat Forecasts, Actuarial Science, and Health Insurance became the focus of many doctors. Time was spent on avoiding insurance business risk, trying to avoid the high risk patients, finding the better payer groups, etc. Hospitals became less hospitable. Doctors began to discharge patients so rapidly, that in the mid 1980’s the majority of States passed consumer protection laws (”Drive By Delivery Laws”) to protect mothers/newborns from being discharged from the hospital too soon.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates.

Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2.2 trillion in 2007, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980. The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 45.7 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered. Spain has a constitutional law guaranteeing health care for all of its citizens. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a single payer government national health plan covering all of its citizens.

More Americans die of lack of health insurance than terrorism, homicide, drunk driving and HIV combined. Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008. Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance. American Manufacturing is down, but not American Manufacturing of poor people. In Canada, where they have a single payer government managed health insurance system, bankruptcy filings due to medical bills are precisely zero (0).

Contrary to myth, the United States does not have the world’s best health care. We’re No. 1 in health care spending, but No. 50 in life expectancy, just before Albania. In Japan, people live four years longer than Americans. Canadians live three years longer. Forty-three countries have better infant mortality rates.

Our Health Care System is unjust. It is unjust in part for some of the following reasons:

Much of the medical research in our country is supported with public tax money through the National Institute of Health Grants. At present, this benefits only those lucky enough to have “good health insurance.”

Many of our hospitals were founded by the hard work of ALL citizens, not just corporate health care institutions. In the late 1800’s Catholic nuns from St. Louis hitched their horses to wagons and rode into the North West Territories armed with a Mission Statement from God to “cure the sick, care for the poor, comfort the dying” and built our first hospitals. They built these hospitals for ALL citizens, not just the patients with “good” insurance.

Our health care system is unjust because patients of minority background get less care and inadequate care compared to white patients, based on evidence published in numerous medical studies. The same arguments which justified slavery as an institution in the 1860’s are used today to justify our current for-profit health care and health care insurance industries — “States Rights over Human Rights; we don’t want government telling us what to do; we can’t change our lifestyle and our way of life; we don’t want interference with our benefits; we don’t want you to interfere with our economy.” These statements are made notwithstanding the basic injustice perpetrated on others by our current health care system.

Our Health Care System is unjust because patients are discriminated against based on their ability to pay. Some doctors and dentists will not see “No insurance / Self Pay ” or Medicaid patients, even though their degrees were issued by publicly funded medical and dental schools.

Our Health Care System is unjust because Doctors charge different patients different prices for the same service based on their insurance or employer. If one would go to a gas station and be told that you have to pay $6 a gallon of gas but that your neighbor has to pay $3 because of who you work for — there would be civil war. But this is how health care is billed. Often the person without insurance is charged more for the same service.

It is unjust because patients do not have the liberty to pick their own doctor. Every time their employer switches health insurances as a business decision, the employees often have to switch doctors. This is an inefficient system, particularly for those with chronic diseases, such as cancer, asthma, etc.

Our healthcare system is unjust because of cost. A man showed me his mother’s hospital bill when she delivered him in 1937. For 5 days in the hospital, room, meals, nursing care and the delivery – $175. Today if you go to a clinic to get earwax removed by a doctor taking only two minutes – it costs almost twice that !!

It is unjust because, although many of the discoveries of medicine were not the work of American Medical/Insurance Industry, the discoveries are then used to create private profit for our present Health Care System. For example, when the Austrian Pathologist Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Peace Prize for his 1903 discovery of the ABO Blood Groups which made blood transfusions safe, saving billions of lives, he gave his discovery to humankind, not a patent lawyer.

Our healthcare system is unjust for the reason that people without health insurance just as likely had fathers and grandfathers who laid on the sands of Normandy and Iwo Jima, and whose sons and daughters are serving and dying in the service of our country today.

Our health system is unjust because of huge profit taking. Health insurance executives don’t worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that two large Health Care Corporation CEO’s made $121 million and $57 million respectively in the last five years. While The Medical /Insurance Industry, and Pharmaceutical industries make billions in private profits, our citizens are lining up at a county fair, in neglected health, with their teeth rotting from their heads, just to be seen once at a free medical/dental clinic set up in a barn with freshly swept farm animal stalls.

Health Care is an essential human service which should be part of a public trust, not sold as a for-profit commodity. It has the same essentiality as Clean Air, Clean Water, Roads, Rivers, Police and Fire Protection and should be afforded the stature of Public control.

I’ve often wondered why educated people and our leaders cannot see the injustice of our healthcare system. In a historical context however, it is inconceivable to think that the man who wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” could see his slaves working in his fields as he looked out his window.

To right the injustices perpetrated by the British against his countrymen, Thomas Jefferson would write the words which lent justification and strength to his fellow patriots to fight the world’s most powerful army and navy. However, Jefferson’s quill had not the power to convince his countrymen to right an injustice perpetrated by themselves against another people. This would be a conflagration for another time, another generation.

Let us encourage our congresswomen and men to have the moral courage to pass legislation long overdue, to create equality in health care. They should establish a national healthcare insurance plan as a civil right of American citizenship. Let’s abandon our current “Lobbyocracy” and create a true “Democracy.” They should forgo the influence of lobbyist’s money, and “establish justice and promote the general welfare” by creating a health care system that serves and cares for the people.

Some say that we don’t want a Canadian or British style healthcare system. I say let’s make America’s healthcare system look like the United States space program compared to Britain’s or Canada’s! If we put our nation’s collective will together — Americans can do anything. Let us create a publicly funded national health insurance plan to restore to every American their dutiful respect and “unalienable rights.”

Thomas Jefferson’s last words in the Declaration of Independence ring true today: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Timothy Shaw, M.D. F.A.C.S.
Fitchburg, Wisconsin

Health care is a basic human right, not a privilege of the wealthy. And furthermore, it is a Torah commandment to not stand by while people are dying and do nothing. The amount of money being paid to insurance executives is outrageous - and every dime of it over a reasonable salary of, say, $100,000 could have been spent on patient care. For example, in 2008 these executives made the following:

Ins. Co. & CEO With 2008 Total CEO Compensation

* Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
* Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
* Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
* Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
* Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
* U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
* Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212

Here are some 2010 financial data for various for-profit related health industries (this data comes from a chart called Executive Compensation - top 100 companies). Profit, as you might recall, is the money left over AFTER a company has paid ALL its expenses, INCLUDING research expenses. So have a look at this (by no means a complete listing of all for-profit health industry corporations):

Rank Company Stock Symbol Revenues Profits
17 Cardinal Health CAH $99,613,000,000 $1,152,000,000
18 CVS Caremark CVS $98,729,000,000 $3,696,000,000
21 UnitedHealth Group UNH $87,138,000,000 $3,822,000,000
31 WellPoint ATH $65,028,000,000 $4,746,000,000
32 Walgreen WAG $63,335,000,000 $2,006,000,000
35 Medco Health Solutions MHS $59,804,000,000 $1,280,000,000
40 Pfizer PFE $50,009,000,000 $8,635,000,000
73 Humana HUM $30,960,000,000 $1,040,000,000
75 Abbott Laboratories ABT $30,765,000,000 $5,746,000,000
77 HCA HCA $30,052,000,000 $1,054,000,000
85 Merck MRK $27,428,000,000 $12,901,000,000

Here are some excerpts from another chart at this website, called CEO Salaries 1-1000. Guess who some of the top paid 100 executives on the planet are?

3. Larry C. Glasscock.....$46,212,719.....Anthem, Inc.
44. Michael L. Smith.....$17,526,297.....Anthem, Inc.
45. David R. Frick.....$17,465,540.....Anthem, Inc.
63. Keith R. Faller.....$13,370,468.....Anthem, Inc.
87. Leonard D. Schaeffer.....$11,895,355.....WellPoint Health Networks Inc.
(whew! finally one that doesn't work for BlueCross/BlueShield.)
121. Allen F. Wise.....$10,081,451.....Coventry Health Care, Inc.
124. William W. McGuire M.D......$10,001,499.....UnitedHealth Group Inc.
130. Henry A. McKinnell.....$9,706,002.....Pfizer Inc.
140. Alan B. Miller.....$9,315,065.....Universal Health Services
142. Thomas G. Snead Jr......$9,198,684.....Anthem, Inc.
188. Thomas M. Ryan.....$7,730,066.....CVS Corporation
214. Kenneth W. Freeman.....$7,308,279.....Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
285. Howard G. Phanstiel.....$6,378,023.....PacifiCare Health Systems
301. Trevor Fetter.....$6,122,680.....Tenet Healthcare Corp.
313. Peter R. Dolan.....$5,918,500.....Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
326. Michael B. McCallister.....$5,764,377.....Humana Inc.

And so on. I guess the rest of those slackers on the list need to hit up their board of directors for a bigger salary, since they're not in the top 325 executive pay.

Now think about this: these are just the top paid executives in the firm. When you add up all the pay of all the executives, all the jr. vp's etc. ad nauseum, you end up with totals of tens or hundreds billions (and perhaps even trillions) all together to pay the executive of these corporations. And that's counted as expenses, of course. As you can see above, after spending Tens-of-Billions-with-a-B (or more) on executive compensation, most of these companies ALSO made Billions-with-a-B in profit leftover.

And you paid every dime of this out of your pocket when you paid your insurance premiums or sought medical care or had to purchase medicine or medical devices from these companies. But how did they make so much profit, you ask?

By denying coverage to other people - or maybe to you, if you're one of the ones whose request for care was denied. That's how they made all that executive pay and profit - taking in money that was paid for medical care and spending it instead on executive pay and company perks. Billions-with-a-B that YOU paid for medical care went to lavish salaries instead, and you got...nothing. And, as the good doctor above described plainly, they sneered at you and derided you while they were denying you care.

Is that just? Moral? Ethical? Is that what we want our health-care system to be? Because that's what it is right now. That's what for-profit healthcare is. Taking money from the sick and giving it to executives who don't pay a dime for their own care (it's included in their perks, of course).

No wonder the rest of the world has passed laws protecting their citizens basic human right to healthcare. It's about time we did, too.

Winsconsin Fascism - the corn pone nazis have arrived.

2011-03-11T09:23:00.007-05:00

James Kunstler is a blunt-spoken critic of urban sprawl and has written several books on the unsustainability of modern development and its uber-reliance on private automobiles, heavily subsidized by the Federal Government in the way of road maintenance and construction and tax breaks to oil companies. Peak Oil is an issue that caught his attention some years back - and the devastating economic effects that are building as the rest of the world starts insisting that the US, with 5% of the world's population, stop using 40% of the world's resources every year and be content with our fair share of oil and other resources.

That fair share represents a terrible economic disruption - what some, especially the teapartiers, imagine is a huge fall in living standards. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. Private automobiles are probably goners, yes, and sprawl will have to retract - but this can be an opportunity to turn existing cities into better, more livable places. Yes, a more European way with abundant mass transit and human scaled neighborhoods and local food markets. How terrible!

But Americans want to imagine they still have power and superiority over "other" ways of life instead of admitting that this "way" was a product of cheap oil and can't be sustained when oil is not cheap. We have used cheap oil as the basis for our food production, transportation, and industry and without it our economy is suffering and will continue to suffer as long as the particularly American style of "capitalism" - which insists on an impossible standard of perpetual growth - is held up as the ideal. In fact, it's a ponzi scheme that couldn't last and isn't going to. The solution is to remake our economy so it is relocalized and sustainable and fair to all workers, here and abroad.

Americans have turned a blind eye to peak oil and growing third world development, however, instead insisting on the myth that the "American way of life is non-negotiable." It is a ridiculous form of nationalism that simply isn't true. We don't deserve 40% of the world's resources every year and since we have destroyed our middle class by wage stagnation and union-bashing, we can't even compete with high-growth countries like China and India with far larger populations - who all want THEIR fair share of oil and of other natural resources.

But Americans, especially the GOP and teapartiers, have bought heavily into the myth that Americans somehow have some God-given right to just take what they want and who the hell cares about the other 95% of the world's people? They aren't Americans. "Capitalism" as it is defined in America has every right to force everyone else in the world to supply America's wants and needs with defacto slave labour and grossly undervalued wages and commodity prices, because we said so. And that was fine with the American public as long as they didn't realize those rules also must apply to them. It was inevitable, by the way. What goes around comes around. Now the Robber Barons are looking around and saying to themselves, who cares about the 95% of middle class Americans? They aren't us. We're special. They're not.

Morality or ethics plays no part in this drama created by Robber Barons. It is pure greed and selfishness on their part and an unwillingness on the part of average Americans to face the fact that the American economy has gone a long way down a dead-end path.

Kunstler, a well-educated secular Jew, saw this fact and predicted some years back the rise of what he calls "corn pone nazis." He frequently refers to them in his blog, worrying about what will happen when they begin to try and assert themselves.

And now they are here.

A little history lesson for you [hat tip: Investment Watch]:

On May 2nd, 1933, the day after Labor day, Nazi groups occupied union halls and labor leaders were arrested. Trade Unions were outlawed by Adolf Hitler, while collective bargaining and the right to strike was abolished. This was the beginning of a consolidation of power by the fascist regime which systematically wiped out all opposition groups, starting with unions, liberals, socialists, and communists using Himmler’s state police...

This is what the GOP and their teapartier allies intend to do, and they have, for the time being, won their first battle in Wisconsin (and hope to win another soon in Ohio), using lies and propaganda to implicate unions in the state's budget shortfall, which was 100% caused by the GOP and their sweetheart deals with their Robber Baron CEO cronies and has nothing whatsoever to do with living wages.

The Christian Science Monitor, amoung others, exposes the GOP's lies about the budget in Wisconsin:

The capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, is the scene of a standoff both deeply scary and profoundly inspiring. Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans are trying take away the right of most government workers to collectively bargain. This basic right – to negotiate with your employer on an even footing – has nothing to do with Wisconsin’s budget crisis. The crisis is largely the result of Governor Walker’s massive tax giveaways, a huge cost that he’s now trying to cover by targeting state workers...

...These citizens understand that Republicans are using budget shortfalls as a pretext for attacking an already weakened union movement in hopes of crippling their political opponent.

...Gov. Walker’s justification for restricting the rights of workers in the name of fiscal rectitude would be much more convincing if the governor had not signed three bills that cut taxes and increase the deficit by $117 million. According to a memo from the Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau, the governor did not inherit a budget deficit in need of repair. Wisconsin would have been in a far better fiscal situation without those tax cuts. But those cuts gave him a convenient excuse to go after public-sector unions.

The real goal of the Robber Barons, of course, is to reduce American working conditions to those of third world countries. Investment Watch continues:

Decimating unions has long been an objective of the rich and powerful...Every little gain for the rights of workers was hard fought and bitterly resisted by the rich and powerful...

...Over time, organized labor managed to abolish child labor all together, as well as institute an 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week, mandatory breaks, safety guidelines, grievance procedures, a minimum wage, the concept of a work free weekend, workers comp, pensions, health safeguards, and paid sick days, vacation days, and holidays. If you enjoy any of these things, thank a union member...

These worker rights increase the cost of doing business - they mean the Robber Barons can only make multi-millions in profit instead of billions (boo-hoo).

But more importantly, these laws created the strongest middle class and highest standard of living the world has ever known - and if the unions are broken, so will middle class wages and benefits be broken. Even Henry Ford knew that if workers aren't paid enough to afford a middle-class lifestyle, the economy can't work. And if the economy can't work, then there is no way for the middle class to smoothly transition to a peak-oil lifestyle and relocalized economic system.

And the Robber Barons and their GOP allies know this, too. The fact is, they don't want a thriving middle class anymore. They "get" peak oil and peak everything else. This is a finite world with finite resources, and if they have to share the wealth, then there's less for them. It's greed and selfishness, pure and simple. They want to be an elite class of Masters over the masses. (And oh, how they're laughting at the teapartiers for playing along!)

And in the case of the right wing GOP and teapartiers, their strategy is indeed corn-pone naziism straight out of Hitler's playbook laced with an American twist: racist, hateful, greedy and completely ignorant about how the social contract has to work for society to function, mixed with a largely non-existent mythos of the American West where supposedly it was every person for themselves with no help from anyone else ever. None of that is actually true, of course. Pioneers and small towns out west throughout the time of "manifest destiny" worked together and shared their resources - or else packed up and left for greener pastures when some early Robber Baron exploited them and made their life miserable. They called in the Sheriff to break the gangs of wealthy hoodlums - mostly by shooting them. Back then you could do that.

Now you can't. There is no place left to flee. That means the Robber Barons and their exploitation has to be stopped, not just fobbed off on the next hapless settler - not by force but with laws, strong laws protecting workers and making sure resources such as water and electricity (and yes, healthcare) are fairly distributed for the public good, not for profit.

The way to ensure the American Middle Class isn't forced out of existence is to not only strengthen unions here, but to spread them abroad to third world countries. We should be FOR them getting their fair share of everything, including corporate profits. That is both the Jewish and the Democratic ideal, and it is under siege by corn-pone nazis who intend to be Masters of all the the workers and resources everywhere.

The corn-pone nazis - corporate Fascists in disguise - are using a divide and conquer strategy. Don't just sit there and let it happen. Support the unions. Support the Democratic party. Support your brothers and sisters in the beleaguered trenches who are fighting to allow all of us and our children the right to not be chattle in sweatshops. If you do nothing, your wages and benefits will continue to fall. It's that simple.

Right now you have 1970s income and 2011 expenses - how much more can you take? They think you can stand a lot less wages and benefits, and they intend to make it happen. And you're letting them.

Welcome to my midlife crisis.

2011-01-16T14:13:00.004-05:00

You might have noticed that I have not been blogging very much recently. There are several reasons for this. First, most of you are aware that I have been working part time and volunteering some hours a day at the local Federation office. As of January 3rd, my official time has now been increased to half a day instead of just a couple of hours. Also, I have agreed to become the new administrative assistant for the local chapter of Hadassah, which will take an hour or so of my time a couple of afternoons each week. And I'll still be doing some mailings infrequently for the local B'nai B'rith chapter. That on top of all the other things I do that you already know, and you can see my plate is quite full. Nonetheless, my two youngest sons are staring college in the face, and I have to ask myself what I will do once they are no longer children, and worse, no longer at home. (Obviously my prayers for another child for the last 10 years have not been answered, for what I'm sure are adequate reasons.) God wants me to be doing something else - but what?

Last year I mentioned that I wanted to spend more time working on my own spirituality and my own health, and that goal did not get met. This year, I want to renew that project with an increased attention. One of the ways I intend to do this is to start a private foundation whose purpose is to raise funds for the design, construction, and maintenance of a local miqvah. It is very annoying to have to drive an hour and a half or more to either of two nearest miqva'ot. Plus, few local women are willing to invest that sort of effort into their Torah observance - perhaps a local facility would encourage more modern-lite, conservative and reform women to do so. At the very least I and my dear friend who is going to partner with me on this could offer classes on niddah, as well as other aspects of Torah homemaking, and perhaps build a more observant women's community over time. I know this is all terribly wishful thinking - just the fundraising alone may be a pipe dream - but we want to give it a shot. We intend to file non-profit incorporation papers this month. However, we have decided that after five years from now will have passed, if we have not been able to purchase land and begin construction on the facility, we will donate what funds we have collected to Jewish charities. So even if this dream comes to nothing, at least some small good may come out of it. (If you or some organization you know would like to help with seed money for the miqvah, do please let me know.)

As for blogging, I must say I am very discouraged. I no longer believe that the Jewish communities in the US are willing to take the necessary steps to combat the coming effects of peak oil, the debt and currency crisis, chronic un- and under-employment, inflation and food insecurity. A lot of the things that could have been done have not been, and though I may be wrong, I believe it is already too late - or so close to being too late it may as well be. I am too depressed following the economic issues to continue blogging about them. I don't think the communities even care. But if you or your community would like to discuss economic issues, personal finance, energy conservation or relocalizing, you may of course email me or send me a message via this blog at any time, and I will do anything I can to help you.

When I do blog, it will likely be about religious issues facing Israel and the Diaspora, as well as philosophical ponderings. I realized recently, looking back over the posts of the last couple of years, that I never finished typing up my lecture notes on Brian Greene's book Fabric of the Cosmos. So hopefully I will finish that up soon, and then choose a new book on science, religion or philosophy that we can study together. Feel free to make suggestions.

In the meantime, I sincerely hope that we all have a blessed 2011. Shalom.

The Jobs issue: an overview.

2010-12-16T10:31:00.012-05:00

[UPDATE: Of course, a new chart was released just a few hours after I originally posted this - scroll down the bottom to see the latest unemployment chart from Business Insider.]

It was amusing in an ironic, sickening sort of way, to see the CEOs interviewed on the news yesterday after meeting with Obama. To paraphrase, it was said that they "Can't" hire more people and invest some of those trillions of dollars in profit they have laying around until "demand" picks up. In other words, it's your fault you're un- or under-employed because you didn't spend enough. Never mind that you were already spending more than you actually made. Now you have to commit to spending more than you make - i.e. be in debt slavery forever - before TPTB will even think about creating more jobs. And actually, they don't intend to create more full-time living wage jobs with benefits. No, that costs money they want for themselves.

Zero Hedge Online
Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society, Following 6 Straight Months Of Full Time Job Declines
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/13/2010 16:59 -0500

...since the depression started in December 2007, America has lost 10.5 million full time jobs, offset by a 2.8 million increase in part time jobs. ...And it is not rocket science, that converting a population to part-time workers has a disastrous impact on wealth. As Stockman presented previously, discussing part-time employment "with an average wage of $20,000 a year, that is not a breadwinning job, you can't support a family on that, you can't save on that. Those jobs will not generate income that will become self-feeding into spending." Yet more and more people are forced to work part-time...

There is no evidence whatsoever that decent living-wage full-time jobs are returning to this country, and unemployment hovers at high levels because of a lack of these types of jobs.

Business Insider
Chart of the Day
Jobless Stagnation

The media continues to pretend that "seasonal" employees (such as the census workers and holiday temps) represent "improvements" and show a "recovery" is starting, no such recovery exists. There are now, overall 5 un- or under-employed people for every job opening, and those job openings are not full-time living wage jobs with benefits. They are useless mcwallywort jobs that cannot generate enough income to support a family or enough tax revenues to run state and local governments, schools, and leave enough for charitable contributions to support the poor (since government is no longer interested in doing so - after all, the war is far more important, you know).

It's also clear that male breadwinners are the big losers in the "new" economic paradigm, as companies take advantage of the fact that women have to take medical leaves for pregnancy and sick care for kids and elderly parents (and thus have lower hours worked, lower seniority earned, and lower overall lifetime wages). As men have been laid off, fired, or had their hours or pay (or both) involuntarily reduced, the number of women relative to men who are still employed has risen.

Business Insider
Chart of the Day
The Mancession continues
Thursday, October 21, 2010

...not only is the unemployment rate higher for men than women in the aftermath of the recession, but men have lost 219 jobs for every 100 lost by women since late 2007.

This trends accurately with the chart we had posted here previously showing that the US economy is quickly ratcheting back to the days of only one full-time living wage job per household. In other words, every two-income couple who both have living wage full-time jobs with benefits means a family somewhere else with none whatsoever. Recall:

Phoenix Research Institute
Gains Pains and Capital
Goodbye Benefits...Hello "Interesting" Times
December 2, 2010

Don’t they get it?

It’s truly bizarre to me that the powers that be cannot figure out WHY the average American is growing increasingly disenfranchised with how things are going.

Let’s do a quick review of the facts:

1) Food stamp usage at record highs

2) Real unemployment around 17%

3) Food and energy inflation on the rise

4) Incomes and housing prices falling

5) Wall Street bonuses at record highs

6) The Fed continuing to pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the banks while proclaiming a “recovery”

Seriously, a second grader could connect the dots here and see how this will work out (hint: BADLY)...After all, your typical American DOESN’T buy food or pay their mortgage with the profits from their day-trading; they pay with the money they earn from their JOB.

And if they can't pay their expenses from their ordinary wages, and can't or won't incur any more debt, that means "demand" as Obama's fat cat CEO friends require simply cannot exist.

While it might be a bit too early for a trendline on this next chart, I am seeing what looks like the beginning of a bumpy plateau at the bottom of the trough:

Business Insider
Chart of the Day
The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever is now really scary again
December 3rd, 2010

This situation cannot change until real manufacturing jobs return to this country (i.e. until tariffs and trade protections are restored to protect American workers from having to compete with people making $1 a day in third world backwaters with no wage laws, no labour laws to guarantee they aren't made to work 18/7, no safety or environmental laws, etc.). And TPTB don't want that. By their own admission, right there in the interviews yesterday, they admit this cushy tariff-avoidance via "free trade" arrangement has made them record profits and trillions of dollars in cash reserves. The fact that it has decimated the wage base of their supposed market apparently doesn't concern them. It should make you suspicious that it doesn't concern them. Clearly, they anticipate emerging markets in India, China, and other developing countries to take up the slack. That means they have no real interest whatsoever in making sure Americans have decent jobs.

It is nothing less than deliberate sabotage of the American Economy, an act of economic terrorism against the American People. And they're enjoying every bonus check they get from it this holiday season.

UPDATE: Business Insider
Chart of the Day
The Huge Structural Employment Hole is Going Nowhere
Dec 16th, 2010

...The reality is that, while claims are improving, the U.S. has a structural unemployment problem that isn't being addressed. There just aren't any jobs of workers who've been hit the hardest by the housing collapse, and with the way the housing market is going, there likely won't be for some time.

And that's why we're not seeing a movement in the unemployment rate...What does this mean? Simply that the structural nature of unemployment now is significantly different than during historical comparables and that moribund job creation can keep unemployment levels sticky even as claims begin to recede due to persistent long -term joblessness. As such we continue to hold our bias despite improving claims.

Again, there simply aren't any living wage full-time jobs being created in any industry that looks poised to absorb the 40+ million un- or under-employed. High unemployment is now fast becoming a permanent fixture of the US Economy, because of corporate greed and treasonous actions against the viability and sustainability of the US economy by transnational corporations. It's a war, class, and we're losing.

Sign this letter drive! Now!

2010-11-07T10:51:00.002-05:00

Hiddush for Religious Freedom and Equality has this letter campaign addressed to Netanyahu up on their website. I found this link on my Facebook wall, but you can reach it without being a member of Facebook. If you are a member, I urge you to go to Hiddush's page and affiliate yourself with this very worthy group.

Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality – strives to fulfill the promise of freedom of religion and conscience, promised in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Hiddush -Hebrew for innovation and renewal - works to raise public awareness of matters of religion and state in Israel, and rallies the support of both Israelis and world Jewry, to join together in promoting religious freedom and equality, so that Israel can achieve its full potential as a free and flourishing Jewish democracy.

The basic letter reads as follows:

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,

We live in different Jewish communities around the world, but support Israel and deeply appreciate the critical role the Jewish state plays for all Jews. Therefore we have been closely following recent developments and attempts to stomp out Jewish pluralism in Israel, under pressure to grant further monopoly over Jewish life to the ultra-Orthodox establishment.

Free, pluralistic Jewish communities are flourishing around the world, but for Jews like us, many of whom are Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Secular – Israel is becoming increasingly hostile. We are heartened to know that the overwhelming majority of Israelis share our views and values, but are disappointed to see that your cabinet and the Knesset turn their back on the Israel’s public yearning and that of the majority of world Jewry. Today’s events at the Knesset, where the Conversion bill, granting greater authorities to the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate and jeopardizing our Movements’ conversions, and at the Kotel, where a woman was arrested for carrying the Torah, are greatly disturbing to us. Our Judaism and our Rabbis are not recognized in Israel. It pains us to see the toll this treatment is taking by alienating the younger generation and many among us from Israel at a time when our solidarity is of paramount importance.

The political pressure placed on you by ultra-Orthodox parties is immense, but we urge you to stand strong and firmly reject any and all attempts toward religious theocracy in Israel. The future of Israel and its ties to World Jewry depends on your leadership to protect Jewish pluralism and democracy. For the sake of Israel and the Jewish People – don’t allow the core values of respect and equality to be traded away for short-sighted political deals. It’s time for the promise of “Freedom of Religion and Conscience”, guaranteed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, to become a reality!.

We support you in your challenge to stand up and say ‘No’ to any proposal that would harm world Jewry and religious pluralism Israel – so that Jews of the world can continue to be one nation with Israel as our spiritual homeland.

Each person can edit the letter as they see fit, so I added this paragraph:

Everyone has a basic human right to freedom of religious opinion and freedom of religious practice. It is simply historically incorrect and intellectually dishonest to claim that there is only one way to interpret Torah. The reason we will not make Aliyah is that I will not subject myself and my children to religious tyranny. My forebears fled Europe to escape religious tyranny - why would I consent to endure it now? Stand up for the rights of all Jews, regardless of sect. Driving away American Jews can hardly be an intelligent foreign policy move, either. There are lots of issues at stake here, and none of them are served well by letting the Chereidi cram their medieval opinions down modern people's throats. Intelligent, educated people simply aren't going to stand for it. And when it's clear to American Jews that they are considered "not Jewish" by the Chief Rabbinate, the future of the State of Israel is in jeopardy. How many will urge their Congressional leaders to support Israel when they figure out the State has allowed them to be rejected from having rights as Jews (marriage, burial, etc.) in what is supposedly their own real country? I certainly won't. And I'm hardly the only person with that opinion.

It will only take a minute - so act now! Let Netanyahu know that American Jews are not amused by the Chief Rabbinate's campaign to delegitimize all non-chereidi sects of Judaism. Failing to take a stand for religious freedom will simply guarantee that if you ever make Aliyah, you won't have any at all. Right now you have precious little, as the Chief Rabbinate imposes burdens of proof to establish "Jewishness" that few non-chereidi can meet, especially Americans. Don't sit idly by while Israel is taken over by extremists. Please.

Caveat Emptor

2010-11-05T08:33:00.008-04:00

As many of you may recall, my husband and I are part owners of a dairy herd in the county where his parents and grandparents lived when they first came to the state where we now live. My great-grandfather, also, owned a dairy (elsewhere, of course) and my sister and I (in our elementary years, until my great-grandfather died) used to go every summer with our grandparents when it was time for my grandfather to help his father work on the farm. My grandfather took his two week vacation to go there each summer, and my sister and I learned a lot.

Since my childhood, I have a greater understanding of what goes on not just in the dairy industry but also the cattle industry in general. Kosher slaughter is one thing, of course, but I have also studied deeper aspects of the commandments regarding food that are given to us in the Torah. We are permitted to eat animals that have a split hoof AND chew the cud. Chewing the cud means they eat their natural diet of grass and herbs and grains that grow in fields. If they don't chew the cud, they aren't kosher to eat. We are not permitted to eat predators - animals that eat other mammals. Everybody knows this.

The reason I am bringing this up right now is that our farm has a manager, who is married. The farm manager's wife recently had to travel back to New York to attend her sister's funeral. When she returned, we found out for the first time what her extended illness had actually been - Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, otherwise known as the variety of Mad Cow that humans get from eating diseased beef.

The beef is diseased because instead of "chewing the cud," standard factory farm practice is to feed the cows stuff made of other dead cows, blood from other dead cows, chicken carcasses (including the feathers), and carcasses of other animals - in short, they do not "chew the cud." They are no longer herbivores when they are raised on factory farms. Though laws were passed a decade or so ago to lessen the danger, either the factory farms have grown lax due to profit pressures from their Robber Baron owners, or the rules put in effect were inadequate in the first place. Either way, the cows have still been turned into carnivores. And it makes them diseased. Even dairy cows raised this way are diseased - their milk is full of puss and pathogens and factory farm conditions and feed is the reason that factory farm milk HAS to be pasteurized. It's disgusting. (Which is why I don't buy it at the store, either, even after it's been pasteurized. Boiled puss - yummy!)

The farm manager's sister-in-law is not the only case of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease that I am aware of, lately. I have it from a source I consider reliable that the death of a Kentucky Farm Bureau officer was also from Mad Cow, and I was told directly by someone who is in a position to know that the family was not permitted to put in his obituary the real cause of death. The paper would not publish it, and it was implied to me that the Kentucky Farm Bureau itself was involved in "convincing" the family not to publish that the man died of Mad Cow "so as not to hurt the agriculture industry." The strong-arm tactics (if used) were successful, and the family was not allowed to publicize the cause of his death.

Which is not the same as a legal gag order, fortunately for us.

So word has gotten around anyway amoung those who deal with cattle - though you will not see it in the news. Mad Cow has not gone away. The factory farms are still feeding the cows carcasses and refuse instead of grass, hay and grains. The cows are still diseased. The meat is still unsafe to eat.

Having a hecksher does not change this. The Rabbis do not care if the biblical standards are met concerning how the cows are raised. They do not even care if the cows are raised humanely. All they care about is the actual slaughter. So diseased and unsafe cow meat is given heckshers every day by the Rabbinate in America.

I am telling you, as a public service announcement, that the meat is not fit to eat that you are probably buying at the grocery store. Mad Cow is still in the system. You are being lied to by the Rabbis, the State Farm Bureau where you live, and the US government. The media has said absolutely nothing. There is no pressure on the factory farmers whatsoever to change their filthy and biblically unclean practices.

So don't eat the meat.

Really.

Don't eat it.

It could kill you by rotting your brain from the inside out, and turn you into a drooling idiot until your body systems are so fouled up from the brain damage that you die. Get that, class? Are you willing to take that chance?

You must only buy beef that is certified organic or at least certified 100% grass-fed or certified 100% vegetarian fed. This is the only way to make sure the beef you are eating actually "chewed the cud" instead of being fed carcasses and refuse. Buy from local farmers whose farms you can inspect for yourself, if at all possible.

Only consumer demand and random independent consumer group inspections of cattle farms will stop the industry from using unclean factory farming methods. And only an outcry from observant people will stop Rabbis from putting heckshers on meat that doesn't meet the definition of Kosher, because they don't "chew the cud."

Or, you can play Russian Roulette with your Cholent every week - hey, at least that makes Cholent exciting for a change. It's your choice.

Follow up: After inflation, stocks have earned you nothing.

2010-11-01T19:15:00.005-04:00

Today I ran across the wonderfully succinct explanation as to why the stock market is a scam and should be avoided. It appears in the comments section of today's post by Jim Kunstler, entitled "Now What?"

The person making the comment was responding to someone who was using hyperbole to ridicule economic analysts who have predicted the DOW will go down to about 4000. While I think that would be a bit of an over-correction (according to several charts I have posted here for you to peruse, the current value of the DOW should be somewhere between 8500 and 5500), the basic sentiment is that the "value" of the DOW is not reflecting what the companies are worth or what their earnings can support. A previous commenter joked that Kunstler had been predicting the DOW would hit 4000 "since 1812." (Neat trick, if true.)

All the DJIA average is reflecting, IMHO, is how quickly the US Dollar is losing value. (But I've only been writing about this issue since 2005.)

And when you adjust for inflation, the fact is that the stock market has not earned anyone anything in over a decade, as this comment points out.

Nyc Labrets replied to comment from Donny-Don | November 1, 2010 11:27 AM

10 years ago, today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the NYSE, was floating near the 10,000 point mark.

The DJIA today is barely above that point.

Factor in inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen in global currency markets since the year 2000, and it is clear that the Dow Jones is *already* at the 4,000 point mark.

And has been.

For years.

Which means that Kunstler's long standing prediction, (from the year 1812), was not so much a 'prediction' as it is an expression of current reality.

If you want to talk about the S&P 500, and its piddly 6.1% recent gain, since July 16th of this year, when it was all of a whopping 130 points higher than it is today...

Then fine, lets do that.

Today, as the US markets open, the S&P 500 is several *hundreds* of points *lower* than it was a decade ago.

Again, factor in a decade's worth of inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen since the year 2000, and it's clear that the S&P 500 is just as ---bleeped--- [insert expletive of your choice] as the DJIA is.

Now, from the day that President Clinton left office, had the DJIA lived up to its much touted 'Historically the Dow, like clockwork, sees an annual gain rate of 10%', (that every single Press Release that the NYSE has ever published says the DJIA has done since Day One), then today it'd be closing in at the 30,000 point mark.

Instead of it currently being @ ⅔rds of that mark, where it pathetically languishes today.

Happy All Saint's Day.

Inflation, what we call it when our money becomes worth less than what it used to be worth, has been endemic in the Dollar, particularly since WWII. Look at this chart:

If you went shopping in 1800 and bought a basket of goods, and went shopping in 1940 and bought the exact same basket of goods, you paid nearly the same price as you would have in 1800. But since the war, and especially since the Dollar went off the gold standard, the prices of everything has shot through the roof. If you bought that same basket of stuff today as you might have in 1800 or 1940, you would pay over 500% more - and "scarcity" is not the issue. There are so many widgets and what-nots available today that they practically give them all away in discount bins just to get rid of them. Is it the cost of oil? That can only account for the last few years - until then, the price of oil had been held low for decades.

After the embargo of the 70s was over, prices fell back down to near what they had been pre-WWII. It is only very recently that oil has been the cause of rising prices.

So the gains in the stock market are an illusion - people think they have made money when in fact they have LESS purchasing power than they did before they bought the stocks, especially if they have been held longer than 10 years - and that's if a 2000 basket of goods would cost the same as a 2010 basket, which of course it doesn't. The 2010 basket of goods costs more - you have to pay more Dollars because the Dollars themselves are worth less, not because the goods in the basket have inherently become more valuable, are better quality, or are more scarce.

People just don't seem to realize this - so they keep buying stocks even though in absolute terms of purchasing power the value of the stocks is less. They are poorer than they were 10 years ago, when that same amount of money would have bought far more stuff. Remember this chart?

Not much has changed since this was made. Think about it.

He's not afraid. Let's take him up on that.

2010-10-31T22:40:00.003-04:00

Not one penny.

I will not send one more penny to any chereidi organization in Israel (or anywhere else for that matter), and I urge you to do the same. And if the government lets this law pass, then not one penny, period, for anything.

Haaretz.com
Bill granting Rabbinate monopoly on conversions sparks fiery debate
Reform and Conservative leaders lash out, calling proposed law 'unfair'.
By Raphael Ahren
[hat tip: Failed Messiah]

The author of a controversial bill that would grant the Chief Rabbinate sole authority over the conversion process in Israel said this week that he has little regard for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. He also said that he won't be intimidated by threats that world Jewry would withdraw its support for Israel if his legislation passed, provoking hefty protests from opponents of the bill...

..."The only way we can [improve the current conversion system] is if conversion is done according to Orthodox halakha and not according to Reform or Conservative halakha, if there is such a thing," Rotem said, speaking in English. "If you are telling somebody that he can convert in a Reform or Conservative way and then to come to Israel and be a part of the Jewish nation you are cheating him," he added, referring to the fact that the Rabbinate will not serve those converts in the areas of weddings and divorce, and might not recognize a convert's children as Jewish. Conversions conducted by non-Orthodox movements are recognized by Israel's secular authorities but not by the Rabbinate, which is in charge of life cycle events in Israel...

..."I think it was quite clear that [Rotem's] presentation offended many, including Modern Orthodox representatives that were there," Azari told Anglo File after the meeting. "I got so many remarks from North American people sitting in the committee that feel bad about his attitude toward Reform rabbis. This meeting instilled more hate, and the only benefit that I can see is that more Jewish leaders from around the world saw the real face of Rotem's intention."

...Jerry Silverman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, questioned whether the committee members understood Rotem's true intentions. "I think it was very unnerving and very uncomfortable for people to hear that from somebody who leads such an important committee in the Knesset," he told Anglo File. "It created a sense of disappointment. It's really the first time that many of those people had a live exposure to this issue, and to MK Rotem...

...His bill "has turned significant numbers of people away from the state of Israel," added Davids, who immigrated to Israel in 2004. Rotem fought back that the hostile reactions to his proposal by the Reform and Conservative movements have caused that about-face. "I was held at gunpoint in the United States when I met with leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements, and [one person] told me: 'If you go on with this law, we will not support the state of Israel,'" Rotem said. "Don't threaten me with 'We are not going to support the state of Israel if you are going on with this law.' I am not afraid."

Got that, class? Either you conform to the Chereidi standards of the Chief Rabbinate or you're not Jewish, and non-Orthodox converts are still goyim. They will not be allowed to marry or be buried or have any status as Jews in Israel.

So, basically, if this law passes, then Israel is saying that it believes non-orthodox Jews are not Jewish. (And by "orthodox" the Chief Rabbinate is referring to standards that even most "modern" orthodox cannot meet. Recall, this same group said that any Rabbi that believes the world is older than 6000 years old is not fit to be a dayan on a bet din.) If Israel's Knesset allows this law to pass then they are saying "up yours" to all non-orthodox Jews, but especially American Jews.

So why are we supporting the state of Israel with bonds and investments, if the State of Israel agrees that most American Jews are not Jews?

Why do we tell our congresspersons to support Israel, if the State of Israel agrees that most American Jews are not Jews?

Why are we supporting charities and aliyah programs in Israel, if the State of Israel agrees that if we use them, most Americans are relegated to second class status and denied status as Jews?

Contact the Israeli Consulate in DC and make your position clear:

The Embassy of Israel in Washington DC
Address: 3514 International Drive, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20008.
Email: info@washington.mfa.gov.il.
Telephone: 202-364-5500.
Fax: 202-364-5423.

Contact the Knesset and make your position clear:

Their English Webpage

Current Knesset Members (click on each to email)

Physical Address:
Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem 91950

Telephone: 02-6753333

Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs

Telephone (Area Code 02): 6408819 / 6408822
Fax (Area Code 02): 6753173
Email Address: vdept3@knesset.gov.il

Committee Chairperson: Lia Shemtov

Committee Members:
Daniel Ben Simon Danny Danon Zeev Elkin Avraham Michaeli Yulia Shamalov Berkovich
Marina Solodkin Robert Tiviaev

Committee Staff:
Director: Dana Gordon
Senior Coordinator: Tzipi Giladi
Coordinator: Dolly Shimoni
Spokesperson: Yigal Amitai
Legal Advisor: Nira Lamay

Find other committes

If this bill passes, sell your Israel Bonds and then let the Knesset know about it - and that you are no longer willing to invest in an Israel that denies freedom of religious practice to Jews in Israel and denies Jewish status to non-orthodox Jews. and so on and so forth.

You cannot sit by and let these chereidi fanatics expel most American Jews from Judaism for refusing to live in the middle ages. That is exactly the intent of this bill - to "establish" that Reform, Conservative, Secular, Reconstructionist, and Athiest Jews are not Jews at all. It has no other purpose, and if you ignore it, you are agreeing with their objective to delegitimize all non-chereidi Jews.

It's that simple. Fight, or lose your status as a Jews. They aren't playing here, they are deadly serious. You need to make it clear that you're not going down without a fight, class. MK Rotem is not afraid to lose your money or your support.

Show him he should be.

The stock market gains of late are fake.

2010-10-31T21:30:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago I subscribed to a newsletter put out by Phoenix Research called "Gains Pains & Capital." The newsletter has blurbs of articles from their webpage - apparently they publish a new article just about every day. Their main audience is investors in the market (which I am no longer - nor do I recommend that anyone gamble their money in the stock market right now, probably not for a few more years). Nonetheless their observations are useful for people who are interested in economics and how the US's debt and economic crisis is going to play out. I've also received several interesting charts and graphs from Business Insider. Here are some excerpts from Pheonix's newsletter from the past couple of weeks, followed by a couple of the Insider charts and graphs which I think are relevant to the newsletter blurbs:

Phoenix Capital Research: Gains Pains & Capital eNewsletter Roundup

October 12, 2010
The Average American Has a Sub-Average Quality of Life

Let's take a slice of the adult American population, say, 100 people, and put them in a room.

Of these 100, nearly three quarters (73) complain of financial stress. In fact, of the ones who are divorced, 80% cited financial difficulties as the reason they split from their spouse.

It's not surprising to hear this, the official numbers tell us that roughly 9-10 of the 100 people we selected are unemployed. Of course, those are the "official" numbers. If you actually bother asking these 100 people to their faces if they've got work, you'd find 16-17 of them are unemployed, but the 6-7 extra to the official 10 listed as out of work are not counted by the Government because they've given up looking for employment.

According to the Government's official data, these people no longer exist, but they're standing there in our room, along with the rest of the folks who the Government DOES count. And they help explain how despite an official unemployment rate of 9.5%, roughly 13% of our average 100 (13 people) are currently using food stamps to buy food.

But even this number hides the real level of economic collapse in the US. All told 14 (14.3% to be exact) of our 100 average Americans are living at the poverty level. Only two countries in the OECD have higher poverty rates: Turkey and Mexico…

October 13, 2010
Are You Ready for the US Debt Spiral?

The US is now in a situation in which it must roll over TRILLIONS in old debt at the exact same time that it must issue $150-200 billion in new debt per month to finance its bloated spending deficit.

And this is coming at a time in which investors' demand for US debt is becoming shorter and shorter time span. Indeed, of our $14 trillion in debt outstanding, ONLY $550 billion of it has maturities beyond 10 years…

October 18, 2010
Are You Prepared for the US Debt Collapse?

The math does not lie... the US will either default on its debt or experience hyperinflation in the near future. BOTH of these are HORRIBLY US Dollar negative.
Those investors who don't prepare for these outcome will lose a lot... possibly everything in the coming currency collapse…

October 20, 2010
As I Write This, Stocks Are Topping... Are You Prepared for What's Next?

Once again, the US Dollar tanks and stocks explode, giving the dullards on TV a reason to prance and proclaim that stocks will never collapse again.

Never mind that all of the market's gains in the last two months have come on the back of US dollar debasement. And don't bother to question whether the US Government's policies have set the stage for a massive (as in 50%) drop in the US
Dollar in the coming years... stocks are a SCREAMING BUY shout the commentators on TV (none of whom predicted the 2008 meltdown by the way)…

October 22, 2010
The REAL Big Story for Financial Markets Today... Which No One is Talking About

You have to read between the lines on this one.

Few commentators realize what the BIG story is for the financial markets today. The BIG story is not the mortgage fraud, the corruption, or the computerized trading (although the last one dominates US stock markets' daily action).

No, the big story is the monetary actions of the massively indebted US vs. the credit cooling China.

Indeed, while Bailout Ben Bernanke and several his cronies at the Federal Reserve have been braying for additional QE and currency weakness, China has been aggressively restricting credit lending, raising interest rates, and generally making moves to cool its overheated system.

In plain terms, this is a conflict between the world's old superpower (its largest debtor nation) and its rising new superpower (its largest creditor nation)…

October 26, 2010
The Fed Wants to Unleash a BIG QE 2 Program... But CAN It?

Last Friday I wondered aloud if perhaps China and the US had struck a "backroom" deal regarding their roles in the ongoing "currency wars.

My primary reason for wondering this stemmed from a dramatic change in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's rhetoric concerning the US Dollar, combined with China's sudden decision to raise interest rates.

After all, the US had been branding China a currency manipulator and blaming it for the former's financial and economic woes for months. China, in turn, had responded by lowering the rate of its purchases of Treasuries, charging that the US Fed was damaging global balances and issuing veiled threats that it might consider the "nuclear" option of actively dumping US debt.

In this context, the sudden change in Geithner's rhetoric, combined with China's move to raise interest rates, marks a MASSIVE change in monetary posturing. It is, in a sense, a 180 on the US's part combined with an "actions speak louder than words" move on China's part...

October 27, 2010
Forget Stocks, What Happens When the Bond Bubble Bursts?

As I've stated in countless article before, the Fed is good at nothing but blowing bubbles. And while most commentators have focused predominately on the bubble occurring in stocks (if you compare where the S&P 500 is relative to economic data we are DEFINITELY in a bubble), a larger, more frightening bubble is currently brewing in bonds.

Since the 2008 Crash, investors worldwide have generally shunned equities in favor of the perceived safety of the bond market. Nowhere is this more apparent that in the retail investor market, where investors have pulled money from stock based mutual funds for 23 weeks in a row, while they're on pace to pile some $300 billion into bond funds this year (on the heels of a record $350 billion in bond fund inflows from last year).

This trend in the retail investor market is largely based on fear of stocks (two bubble and subsequent Crashes in ten years will do that) and demographics (the aging boomer population, now punished by a Federal Reserve hell-bent on keeping interest rates at zero, is ravenous for income to help them move into their delayed retirement).

…Treasuries are trading at levels not seen since the depth of the 2008 Crisis. We just had a TIPS auction close at a negative yield for the first time in history, meaning investors are willing to LOSE money just to park it with bonds that supposedly adjust for inflation (TIPS adjust based on the CPI which is nowhere near the REAL rate of inflation... see tomorrow's essay for more on this), and US corporations have ALREADY issued $217 billion in junk bonds this year, even HIGHER than last year's RECORD….

Yes, the stock market LOOKS like it's doing well - but US companies simply DO NOT have any real basis for their stock price gains. They haven't retired their debt. They haven't acquired tons of new customers. They don't have better or bigger assets. Even their supposed profit is at the expense of rehiring their workers and investing in their products and infrastructure. Look at this:

The rich are getting richer and those who actually depend on the company for their livelihood - employees and downstream (often smaller family-owned) suppliers - are getting nothing. And a lot of that profit that the fat cats aren't passing on is actually inflationary in nature. Look at this graph concerning Israel's stock market during the bout with rampant inflation in the 80s:

You see? It's all fake. Those businesses weren't really any more valuable - and neither are ours now! It's inflation in disguise. It's not real. Don't be fooled by it, class. Stocks are gambling with your money - and it's a bad, bad bet.

Out of Cordoba - and into hypocrisy.

2010-10-15T15:05:00.006-04:00

Earlier this week, Monday evening to be exact, my husband and I took two of our sons to the University to see a movie being presented (in part) by the Judaic Studies program, called "Out of Cordoba: Averroes and Maimonides in their time and ours." I didn't know anything about the film, but the subject sounded interesting. One of the producers was going to be there for a Q & A after the screening, and I always enjoy those. So we went.

The film was really, really good - until the last 20 minutes, when it suddenly and inexplicably veered into a pro-Arab Israel bashing frenzy.

Now, Jacob Bender, the guest speaker, did try and justify the film's wild swing - he claimed that the "tolerance" and "golden age" of Maimonides time was such that Maimonides would be opposed to Israel's current quest to reclaim our ancient homeland. And that America should be opposed to it, also. That was his basic purpose, apparently, for making the entire film. The historical part was just window-dressing for his political agenda.

Now, the fact that Jews (and Christians) were Dhimmis lacking in many very basic civil rights and frequently abused and persecuted was glossed over very, very lightly. The "clash of civilizations," he claimed, doesn't really exist, because "real" Islam and "real" Judaism should co-exist just like they did previously with no problems.

I take that to mean he's fine with Dhimmitude. I'm not. Nor are most people I know, Jewish or Christian.

But that's almost beside the point. The "clash of civilizations" is very real - it just has little to do with Judaism and Islam, per se.

What the "clash of civilizations" really represents is a twisted lover's triange - the fundamentalists and the secular humanists 1) hate each other, and 2) both woo the religious centrists, who aren't interested in either one of them.

The people who are truly committed to their religion (as opposed to those who pay lip-service to it but are in fact secular) don't want the fundamentalists in charge of anything. Neither do they want the secularists. The religious-in-name-only prefer the secularists, actually. So maybe it's more of a square instead of a triangle - fundamentalists and secularists in opposite corners, with committed religious moderates in between on one corner and not-really-committed religious liberals in between on the other corner.

The problem with Jacob Bender's "why can't we all just get along" position is that it fails to acknowledge that the fundamentalists and the moderates (of all religions) actually have a GOOD REASON to reject secularism which has little to do with which religion they practice.

Every place that Western Secular Culture has encroached on religious and ethnic cultures of all types, those cultures are severely degraded. It does not seem possible to adopt the supposedly "good" parts of Western Civilization without ending up with porn, promiscuity, disease, drug use, unwed mothers (or, dead pregnant girls, in Muslim countries), abortion, greed, exploitation, disrespect for traditions, and a general disdain for the value of human life whether the subject is children, the elderly, or those who refuse to willingly destroy their culture on the altar of materialism and self-centeredness.

Western Secular Culture refuses to admit it is depraved and selfish - and unsustainable. Nor is this a particularly new development.

As Jacob Bender was talking in the Q & A explaining his viewpoint, I leaned over to my husband and said, "I wonder if he realizes he's saying this while sitting on land that used to belong to the Shawnee - and that it was taken from them at swordpoint and musketpoint and nobody plans on giving it back?" The students sitting in front of me looked shocked. "Is he planning on giving his home in New York back to the Algonquin tribes?" They looked around at me with wide eyes.

And that's part of what's wrong with Western Culture. It's awfully hypocritical for America to try and tell Israel that they don't have a God-given right to their own land when America claimed a God-given "Manifest Destiny" to exterminate every Native American society and steal all their land, when no such text exists anywhere in the Bible. Anybody's Bible.

Ideas and Movements, ca 1840s

Manifest Destiny was a term used in the 1840s to justify the United States' westward expansion into such areas as Texas, Oregon, and California. There was a widely held underlying belief that Americans, the "chosen people," had a divinely inspired mission to spread the fruits of their democracy to the less fortunate (usually meaning Native Americans and other non-Europeans).

The idea of an almost religious Manifest Destiny was a common staple in the speeches and newspaper articles of the time. Most of the exponents of expansion were Democrats, but some Whigs (and later Republicans) were also supporters.

Manifest Destiny was later applied to American interests in the Caribbean and the Pacific, sharing much with the practice of imperialism.

Critics, both at that time and today, saw the Manifest Destiny rationale as a thinly veiled attempt to put an acceptable face on taking lands from other peoples. Motives were often described as well-intentioned efforts to improve the lot of backward masses, but in truth the motivators were greed and control.

So, when exactly is America planning to give back to the Native Americans everything West of the original 13 colonies? - because it's all occupied territory, according to the definition of "occupied territory" that the world applies to Israel.

Until this happens, America is a hypocrite extraordinaire - condemning as supposedly morally wrong the very actions they themselves used to acquire almost ALL their own territory. And America continues to engage in Imperialism to this day - raping smaller nations of their natural resources, exploiting volatile political situations for their own economic benefit, and refusing to bow to any authority at all, for any reason - claiming to have the high moral ground of "democracy." I don't think the Shawnee voted for the University's lands to be stolen from them and their own villages and crops burned to the ground to get them to leave the state. In fact, I'm pretty sure the remnant that remains would love to have their land back. Ditto for the Native Americans to whom Jacob Bender's New York property truly belongs.

So, put your money where your mouth is, Jacob. Give up all your conquered land. Put up or shut up.

Voting with their feet - sort of.

2010-10-13T15:41:00.005-04:00

Long time readers may recall the three articles that I wrote for the UOJ Group (and cross-posted here on my own blog) a couple of years ago describing things that are wrong in the world at large and within observant communities, and what we can do about them.

In the first article, some long term outside issues were discussed, such as globalization, peak oil, and climate change. These issues will impact observant communities whether they believe in science or not.

The second article discussed serious social problems in observant communities that are prohibiting families from adapting to the new economic realities. It describes the Rabbis rejection of secular academic education and the promotion of the idea that a "real" Jewish man should never have to have a job.

...The result among young men in these yeshivas is that they are basically unemployable, contribute little or nothing to their own financial situation – much less that of the community as a whole - and couldn’t find adequate work to support their families if they wanted to, which they don’t - having been taught that “learning” is supposed to be what they do all the time (Pirkei Avot notwithstanding). Even those who aspire to “Torah” jobs such as teaching Torah, being a rav or Rabbi, making Torah scrolls or T’fillin have no real chance. There are far more bochurim than there will ever be market-rate paying positions of these types. Some barely speak, read, or write English. They may receive a small stipend from their yeshiva or Kollel, but it is not enough to support their families. They are able-bodied young men who are a burden and a drain on the community – refusing to pull their weight, draining the resources of their parents and other relatives who feel obliged to support them and their children...

In the third article, towards the end, the issue of economic support for families in observant communities was also discussed:

Our own dysfunctional communities are going to hit globalization, peak oil, and climate change and the education crisis head on in a serious claustrophobia of circumstances. In a way, there is a chicken and egg problem here, because in order to solve the financial problems that are coming, the social problems will have to be solved. And in order to solve social problems, financial problems will have to be solved. It’s a self-perpetuating feedback loop – the worse one side gets, the other follows and in turn worsens the first side. Somehow the cycle must be broken.

To combat globalization, we need to re-localize. But in order to do this effectively, we cannot be splintered into little cults. We cannot be judgmental or intolerant of lenient practices within the halachic framework. We need diversity of practice to revitalize our ability to cope and function. Relocalizing will create vibrant and sustainable economic systems that will be able to withstand the coming trough in the business cycle. This ought to also combat one of the most nefarious side-effects of globalization: neglect of the moral and ethical obligations of employers to provide what we in western society consider decent and reasonable working conditions. We have to bring back the “social contract” – no more hiring illegal aliens and other goyim so they can be paid less and mistreated and suffer unsafe or toxic working conditions with no Sabbath or vacation or whatever. We must be accountable to each other.

Relocalizing will involve taking the following steps:

1. We must, as a community, learn how to manufacture, make, repair, restore, and produce everything we need for daily life. This means small scale, sole proprietorship “manufacturing” businesses need to be set up. We can no longer afford or rely on imports from outside our area. We can no longer afford to enrich the transnational robber barons at the expense of our own community. In practice, the young men must begin learning these skills, trades, and crafts. What ones, you ask? Look around you. What is in your house? The young men need to learn to make every single item: every bit of furniture, every ceramic dish, glassware, metalwork, pots, pans, baking sheets, metal and wood utensil, toy, game, widget and whatnot, - everything from the picture frames to the upholstery and rugs.

2. How about small appliances? Even big ones? Instead of throwing away old stuff, we’re going to have to learn to repair what we already have – or make our own new ones. This means some young men need to study electronics and repair, even metalworking.

3. And young women have a role, too: sewing clothes, curtains, tablecloths, bed sheets, plain and decorative pillows, placemats, napkins, making candles, soaps, lotions, treats, candies, pastries, hand paint pottery and knickknacks, Judaica - things they can do at home, just like their grandmothers did. All that stuff we used to buy at Wal-Mart we need to learn to make for ourselves, keeping the money in the community. The women can contract their work out to retail shops run by other women – their own small businesses co-ops.

4. Food production, besides treats and candies, is going to have to get a lot more local, too. This will be a national trend – small sustainable home victory gardens, community gardens and greenhouses, and organic family farms are going to be springing up like mushrooms, and some of them need to be ours. That means the young couples are going to have to learn sustainable and organic farming – and work together with other couples to keep the farm running. We need our own fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown on our own farms - sort of like our own kibbutzim. One of my great grandfathers owned a dairy – we need these, too. We need to make our own local cheeses and butters, ice creams, yoghurts and kefir – without the extortion racket of corrupt rabbinic supervision hovering over them all. Instead of buying unhealthy factory farmed meats from giant agribusiness firms, we need smaller herds on the small farms, even individual pairs of animals in large yards – the girl animals supply milk, the boy animals grow up to be dinners, mostly, from our own small suppliers of beef, sheep, goats, chickens and eggs - instead of big conglomerations far away. That means we need more kosher butchers and cheese-makers, too – properly trained young men.

5. On the more urban side, we’re going to have to stop the “divide and conquer.” The focus should be on family businesses just like the old days – right down to the shop/store on the first floor and the family living above, so the family isn’t paying two mortgages and two sets of utility bills each month. The wife and children are involved and contribute as their schooling and duties permit. Homes will have to be multi-generational, and extended families will be the norm, not the exception...

23. As for formal education, modern secular educational studies are going to have to receive a much greater emphasis. Those with professional career aspirations and apparent ability need to go to college or trade school and learn a professional career in a market-rate employment field – and this needs to be done without saddling the young man with interest paying student loans. For someone with true aptitude, the community needs to try and put scholarships together for tuition.

24. Only the most brilliant and astonishing students should be maintained in yeshiva or Kollel, as decided by the community at large as to how many they are willing to support.

25. Every other young man needs to be apprenticed learn a skill, trade, or craft for a small shop/store or business or small family farm, whatever his interest appears to be – starting as a teenager. [Ditto for girls.] An apprenticeship and journeyman training system, similar to that of Europe, needs to be developed that provides men employment and job skills. Some of this would be in Torah scrolls and T’fillin, of course. But mostly the skills and crafts would be in household goods, furniture, wood and metalworking, and all that...

The Powers-That-Be in Jewish Orthodoxy, however, have a complete and total disdain for those they call am-ha'aretz, people of the land - meaning those who actually work for a living. We discussed this attitude a lot in the "Decline of the West" series, too (see lower right sidebar). While many rational and intelligent writers within orthodoxy are calling for a return to more sane family values where earning a living is concerned, the Ravs are dead-set against it - primarily because of the loss of control over these people's daily lives that would result. Harry Maryles recently posted this blog on the reaction of the "gedolim" to the voices of reason:

Emes Ve-Emunah
Deceptions
blog post dated Sunday, October 10th, 2010

"Take pity on your children's souls, and do not allow this veiled deception, claiming the message is intended for the chareidi public, to deceive you and ensnare your souls in these matters, which are detached from the path of Torah and are liable choliloh to destroy efforts invested into teaching children to earnestly aspire to greatness in Torah and avodas Hashem, based on a pure hashkofoh and obeisance to gedolei haTorah."

What deception is this referring to? The idea that one can be a Ben Torah and still learn a trade or profession and then provide for his family.

If anyone has any doubt about the mindset of much of the Charedi world in Israel the above excerpt from the Dei’ah veDibur should completely erase it. This website promotes itself as the legitimate voice of the Charedi worldview. It is the above singular and narrow Hashkafa that it constantly espouses – often saying – as it did in this article – that it has been asked to express the views of ‘Gedolei Yisroel’in saying these kinds of things. And therefore the only legitimate view of Torah...

This idea that no Jewish man should "sully" himself by having to do anything all day other than sit and learn is not, of course, historically accurate Judaism. It is a recent innovation by the Chereidi who look with particular disdain on the am-ha'aretz (those who labour with their hands).

If you follow the link in the quote above, you'll find paragraphs like this one lambasting several recent articles and blogs urging married men to step up to the plate and take responsibility as husbands and fathers for their family's economic well-being.

..."Recently they [various publications] have taken their evil a step further," reads the letter, "by providing a respectable platform to those who lead the battles against kodshei Yisroel, and who made use of this platform obsequiously to convey their poison. They also lead the trend to weaken the Jewish people's most sacred walls, the botei medrash, by ennobling and praising the forces that drive members of the community to enter the job market, and glorify the working world over the halls of Torah and those who devote all their energies in the tents of Torah."

They claim that having a job will destroy, yes DESTROY, Judaism.

...No one, least of all me [Rav Harry] – wants to destroy the great Yeshivos of the world. What is needed is not that but an attitude adjustment among their Roshei Yeshiva that will recognize that sitting in learning is not for everyone. And that perhaps an American style Charedi educational system that teaches both Limudei Kodesh and Limudei Chol that has been all but condemned should be revisited as a possible alternative for many of their young people.

The weight of history is on the right side of this issue. The great Yeshivos of the past were never intended for the masses. They were intended for elite students and it was only the best and brightest with great potential in Torah learning that were recruited and accepted. The rest of the Torah world worked and supported their families – and those Yeshivos. That is the direction we should be going in – back to the future.

R. Maryles is, of course, correct. "Learning" all day was never for the common Jew - only for the best of the brightest scholars. Suggesting otherwise is an innovation that is dangerous and destructive to Jewish communities, not to mention individual families. Some men, however, are beginning to realize that a secular education and a job are not bad things.

Ynetnews feature: Haredim heading to college
As opposed to stigma, more haredim seek to join workforce, enroll in special academic program
Hagai Einav
Published: 10.07.10, 12:23

..."The way to make a dignified living – study and work," is the name of a special academic track for haredim offered by the Zefat Academic College and reflecting the new perception among haredim. The program aims to allow the ultra-Orthodox to combine Torah and academic studies in the aims of securing desirable jobs in the areas of economics, human resources, and business administration.

One haredi who embraced the change is Ariel Ashkenazi, a 36-year-old married father of three. "There is great difficulty in finding work among the haredim," he told Ynet. "In every interview I speak about my experience, which includes the successful management of workers. Yet when I'm asked about an academic degree, I understand that I have no chance. Doors would close…because I am a haredi without an academic degree."

Well, it's not exactly community self-sufficiency yet, but it's a start.

(An excerpt of the YNET article with additional Chereidi commentary also was posted at Vos Is Neas.)

It appears that more and more young men are voting with their feet - or at least thinking about it. They may not be "ready" yet to learn to live in self-sufficient communities, but at least they "get it" that money doesn't fall from the sky - unlike the Ravs who berate them for acting like responsible adults.

Follow-up: Census data confirms lost households, especially of college grads.

2010-10-13T14:56:00.006-04:00

Dr. Housing Bubble
Removing a generation of college students from purchasing homes...
18 Sep, 2010

The net worth of U.S. households fell by $1.5 trillion in the second quarter of 2010. Recent data from the Fed shows that even during the recovery, U.S. households continue to move backwards in making financial progress. Who are we really kidding here? Does this feel or have the taste of a recovery to anyone? In fact, new data now coming out from the Census shows that from 2008 to 2009 the U.S. lost 1.3 million households. That’s right, because of the economy people have had to consolidate households...

...Many young potential buyers won’t be able to buy a home because theoretically they already did with the cost of their education. The numbers don’t look pretty for recent graduates with red all over their balance sheets before they even start their professional life...

...Now I have heard some say, “well when I went to school, I walked through the snow in shoes made of paper bags and worked to pay for my tuition.” College costs have changed since that time and just like the housing bubble at its peak, even the crappiest home in the worst part of town was selling for a premium because everyone qualified for a toxic loan. As things stand today in the student loan market, that is still the case with loans covering virtually any college. And just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the government subsidizes the bulk of student loans. We even have nice old Sallie Mae.

We know student loan debt is immense. Over $829 billion in student loan debt is outstanding. The implication for housing is large. It is safe to assume that this debt isn’t with households that have paid off their mortgage long ago. These are people entering their household formation years. The average student loan debt is now the price of a brand new car...

...So right off the bat, a good portion of disposable income is going to go to servicing this debt. Unlike a bad mortgage, you can’t walk away from student loan debt. So there is a major liability already on the books for many prospective buyers. Compare this to a blue collar worker back in the 1960s with no debt purchasing a home. No need for a college degree to buy a home with one income. Today, you have this new college graduate that is probably making less on inflation adjusted terms from this blue collar worker and is unable to purchase a home without taking on more debt or combining two incomes. You have to wonder how many college graduates with large amounts of debt are unable to purchase homes because of their student loan debt? Keep in mind that 1 out of 4 Americans have a 4-year degree so this is supposedly a group that is prime for purchasing real estate...

...The decline in households is troubling and shows weaker macro trends. How many recent college graduates with massive debt unable to find jobs moved back home? This is a group that would be out getting their first apartment and creating a new household. The decline is significant and shows the real structural challenges facing our economy. It is also a reason why multi-unit commercial properties have record vacancy rates...

And the number of Americans who can afford neither mortgages or rent is growing, Dr. Housing Bubble continues:

...This is horrible news on many levels. Where are these people coming from? Many are coming from the middle class. For many in this group they were part of the 1.3 million reduction in households. This housing and debt bubble has deeper societal ramifications that are now playing out. This goes beyond stabilizing home prices but reshaping what we want out of our economy. For too long the focus has been on housing and keeping prices inflated. Yet the latest household income data shows that U.S. households now make less than $50,000. With that said, home prices should be lower to reflect what people can afford...

...We are reaching peak debt with higher education. Many are catching on that simply having a 4-year degree in any major from any school will no longer be a ticket into the middle class. In fact, even going to a good school but choosing the wrong degree may leave you with a good education but no earning potential. Try explaining that to the student loan collectors. This is only another bubble but the implications are deep for housing. Without any reforms, you have a large cohort of younger Americans that will put off home buying for many years because of other debt commitments. What will this do to future projections of housing? Just like the toxic mortgage funnel, we have new factors that change the calculus of housing for the next decade. The shrinking household number is a reflection of our massive misguided bias to home buying. Who really wins here? We already pointed out that the net worth of Americans fell by $1.5 trillion in Q2 of 2010, a supposedly good time for the economy.

It is clear that massive debt pushed by the banks is the issue here. The same too big to fail banks are also the top pushers of student loan debt (and credit card debt). It would be one thing if they pumped out their own money but they are now wards of the country and have mismanaged so many things that we are setting ourselves up for another crisis soon. That is why the student loan bubble is now converging with the housing bubble....

On the upside, it is possible that the combined incomes of multi-generational living arrangements (and co-housing arrangements with friends instead of relatives) could improve the quality of life and economic stability for everyone in the home. If approached correctly, this sort of situation can be a benefit, spreading the household expenses over more wage earners and providing more hands to perform household duties and childcare instead of having to pay someone else to do it. For centuries, millennia actually, multi-generational households have been the norm and served as a first line of defense social safety net for children and the elderly.

It is only in the past century that the adults - the Baby Boomers - have considered themselves not responsible for either the parents or their children's welfare. The "me" generation is going to have to get over itself, to say the least.

Underwater? Just wait - the tide's getting higher.

2010-10-13T14:01:00.009-04:00

The median income in the US, which is now hovering at just under $50,000 a year, is wildly insufficient to qualify for a mortgage the way housing prices have been the last 10 years or so, but especially since the mid-2000s when banks, realizing this, gave up even trying to stick to making loans to qualified people and instead gave loans to anyone who could breathe unassisted.

Granted, this was not a brilliant idea - but a lot of people have the strange impression that this whole economic mess began with a "mortgage crisis" and will go away once housing sales pick up again (presuming they ever do). The mortgage crisis is a symptom of the problem - not the problem itself. The problem itself is wage stagnation, which not only isn't going to go away - it's going to get worse.

An article was posted on the Web last week including a slideshow of 27 charts and graphs showing why housing prices will continue to fall, not rebound. Since we all just love slideshows (that was sarcasm, of course), I have excerpted a few of my personal favorite charts here for your consideration.

Business Insider
Here's Why House Prices Will Now Drop Another 20%
Gary Shilling
October 5, 2010

Last spring, many believed that not only was the housing collapse over but that a robust rebound was underway...But then a funny—or not so funny—thing happened on the way to housing recovery...

Already, Real Estate Owned by lenders due to foreclosures—perhaps the most hated term among bankers—is climbing. Estimatesare that a major share of the 7 million houses that have delinquent mortgages or are in some stage of foreclosure, as well as those yet to come, will be dumped on the market, adding to the already huge excessive inventory glut. Some 4.5 million loans are now in foreclosure or at least 90 days delinquent...

One reason housing prices simply will not be able to rise anytime soon is the sheer volume of homes that are either for sale, about to be for sale, or should be for sale but have been held back from entering the market. There just aren't enough people qualified that can buy all these properties.

As Shilling shows in this chart, less than 10% of people looking for a home can actually qualify for a mortgage. So unless the other 90% all win the lottery, they aren't going to be able to buy. Indeed, the home ownership rate amoung Americans is falling drastically as fewer and fewer people are able to buy homes.

...the homeowner rate, which spurted from its 64% norm to 69%, is now back to 66.9% in the second quarter and probably on its way back to 64%...With the negative zeal for home ownership of late and weak incomes and high unemployment deterring renting, household formation has been weak...

One reason formation of new households has been falling is because people are having to move in with their parents, children, siblings, or friends because there is simply no way they can afford to buy or rent a place of their own. Shilling's data confirms what we predicted some time ago - the return of multi-generational housing.

...Of course, homeowners thrown out of their abodes by foreclosures can continue to be separate households by renting houses and apartments, but many of those and other discouraged folks are shrinking households—and adding to vacant housing units—by doubling up with family and friends.

The Census Bureau reports that in the last two years, multi-family households jumped 11.6% ( Chart 22) while total households rose a mere 0.6%. Those aged 25-34 living with parents—many of them “boomerang kids” who have returned home—increased by 8.4% to 5.5 million. Not surprising, 43% of those were below the poverty line of $11,161 for an individual...

So with a dearth of qualified buyers and more and more units flooding the market due to job losses, income reduction (hours cut or pay cut), lack of health insurance (which drives tens of thousands of people into bankruptcy every year), and the inability of young college grads to find adequate living wage jobs to form their own households, prices of homes still have nowhere to go but down.

If you're thinking this graph looks familiar, it's because both last year and the year before similar graphs with similar trendlines were posted here. As you can see, the numbers haven't improved - projected equilibrium average home value is still trending towards less than $120,000 for a single family home. This is very much in line with the average median income of just under $50,000. At this level the average home price is at or under 3x the average annual income. That is an economically sustainable level.

...This huge and growing surplus inventory of houses will probably depress prices considerably from here, perhaps another 20% over the next several years. That would bring the total decline from the first quarter 2006 peak to 42%. This may sound like a lot, but it would return single-family house prices, corrected for general inflation and also for the tendency of houses to increase in size over time, back to the flat trend that has held since 1890...Furthermore, our forecast of another 20% fall in house prices may be conservative. Prices may well end up back on their long- term trendline, but fall below in the meanwhile. Just as they way overshot the trend on the way up, they may do so on the way down, as is often the case in cycles...

Unfortunately, most people paid far, far more than that for their homes they would like to sell (or are stuck in). They owe far more for their homes than the homes are now worth, and are desperately hoping prices will go up again so things can "get back to normal."

Bad news, class - this IS the new "normal." As median wages continue to ratchet downward (or, adjusted for inflation, stay level with the 1970s, if you prefer) as workers try and compete with "free trade" partners in third world countries that have no wage and labour laws, no worker safety laws, no environmental laws, and crooked governments who prefer cash-under-the-table to enforcement even if they did have such laws.

That's the state of housing at the moment: underwater and sinking fast. Perhaps there will be some good news in a few weeks if companies hire many extra seasonal workers - that may boost household income for several families, at least over the holiday season. After that, though, I fail to see how most people are going to find living wage jobs - there just aren't any. God help us.

Chag Sameach!

2010-09-02T16:05:00.008-04:00

First and foremost, Happy Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah coming up at sundown on Wednesday, September 8th!

I wish you an easy fast and hope that Yom Kippur, which beings at sundown on September 17th, finds you sealed for a very good year indeed.

I hope your Sukkot, September 22, finds your area with fine weather, good friends, and great food.

On Hoshanah Rabbah and Shemini Atzeres, September 29th & 30th, the water is poured and the festivals ends for a good harvest and a profitable year.

And finally, dance your heart out on Simchat Torah.

Chag Sameach and Happy High Holidays. May you be inscribed and sealed for a year of peace and good health. Shalom!

(PS - I probably won't be posting again until sometime after Sukkot. I wanted to wish everyone happy holidays, and decided to do it all in one post since the editors at Jblog hate these types of posts - I know because I get a one star rating every single time I post one! This way I just get one bad grade instead of several in a row. Clever, eh? Happy New Year!)

IMF: US Tax rates must double.

2010-08-11T15:39:00.003-04:00

As we have mentioned several times, tax revenue is wildly insufficient to cover existing and future government costs as long as we are spending half of them to fund imperialistic resource wars (in the name of "fighting terrorism," of course) and continue to give away free security in the form of foreign bases in countries all over the globe. The military industrial complex now takes up half of all the government's income, leaving nothing for social responsibilities - not to mention paying off our sky-high debt levels.

How to solve this problem? 1) raise income, and 2) lower expenses. Duh.

For raising income, only two options exist: sell of US assets, or raise taxes. You'll notice the national parks are not for sale, so that just leaves option 2, as the IMF points out below.

Bloomburg Online
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know
By Laurence Kotlikoff
Aug 10, 2010 9:00 PM ET

...Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”

But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

...To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act...

...How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?

Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.

This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck...

...Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.

And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills...

...Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on...

So not only will there not be sufficient jobs for able-bodied adults (as the trend, as we have discussed several times lately, is ratcheting down to only one living wage job per household or part-time equivalents), that single income is going to be paying a great deal more in taxes. The burden of this will fall mostly on the poor and middle class, of course, who can't escape.

This means that all US working age people will be paying Europe's 30% minimum tax rate, without getting Europe's national single-payer healthcare systems or any guaranteed basic right to housing or unemployment benefits that Europeans enjoy.

Loads of fun, I'm sure. All the crippling taxes and none of the benefits.

Yes, class, this CAN happen here. In fact, it WILL happen here - as the article points out and we ourselves have discussed many times, this train wreck has nowhere else to go. Even if the wars are stopped and all military personnel brought home TODAY we would still see a steep increase in taxes just to pay off the existing debt. There's no way out.

Somebody else noticed!

2010-08-10T13:47:00.003-04:00

Wonder when the rest of the Baby Boomers will?

This article is a gem, because it says plainly, in a mainstream publication, that unemployment is far worse than the government is admitting and that people 50 or so and older have largely given up looking for jobs because no one will hire them. If they were counted in the official unemployment figures, it would be over 10% now. When they are counted in the "shadow statistics," that is, counted by using the older (more accurate) methodology of determining unemployment, the figure is over 20% as we have seen in recent charts and graphs. And what does Washington do? Continue to pour money down the rat-hole of military imperialism while doing little or nothing for our own people who are suffering.

New York Times Online
Op-Ed Columnist
The Horror Show
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 9, 2010

The employment situation in the United States is much worse than even the dismal numbers from last week’s jobless report would indicate. The nation is facing a full-blown employment crisis and policy makers are not responding with anything like the sense of urgency that is needed...

...Government workers were walking the plank from coast to coast. About 143,000 temporary Census workers were let go, and another 48,000 government employees at the budget-strapped state and local levels lost their jobs. But the worst news, with the most ominous long-term implications, was that the reason the unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left the labor force.

With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics, they are no longer counted as unemployed...

...Even ignoring population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor force, simple arithmetic shows that the official unemployment rate would have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July, rather than — as it has — fallen to 9.5 percent.”

...“We have a large number of people who have just given up hope of finding a job,” said Mr. McMillion. He pointed out that there are record numbers — “I mean lights-out record numbers” — of long-term unemployed people who are still looking for jobs. Of the 14.6 million men and women officially counted as unemployed, nearly 45 percent have been out of work for six months or longer...

...They may be thinking about this in Washington, but they sure aren’t doing much about it. The politicians’ approach to the jobs crisis has been like passing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Millions are suffering and the entire economy is being undermined, and what are they doing? They’re appropriating more and more money for warfare while schizophrenically babbling about balancing the budget.

At some point we’re going to have to claw our way out of this denial. With 14.6 million people officially jobless, and 5.9 million who have stopped looking but say they want a job, and 8.5 million who are working part time but would like to work full time, you end up with nearly 30 million Americans who cannot find the work they want and desperately need.

We’ve got more and more people in our working-age population and fewer and fewer jobs to go around. Mr. McMillion tells us that there are now 3.4 million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago. In the last 10 years, we’ve seen the worst job creation record since 1928 to 1938.

We’re not heading toward the danger zone. We’re there. The U.S. will not remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed head-on — and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to fester. It’s wrong, and the blowback will be as destructive and intolerable as it is inevitable...

As we have discussed recently, the trend is moving back to one regular full time paying job per household. Unfortunately, people have largely set up their lives so that they cannot live on one income - primarily due to debt. But that won't change the reality, stated so clearly in this article, that there just aren't - and aren't going to be - enough living wage jobs to go around, period.

Whether anybody likes it or not is irrelevant. It will take years to rebuild a manufacturing sector and reverse the outsourcing that has already taken place, but that will not even BEGIN to happen until peak oil and other factors make long-distance transportation of goods more expensive than cheap foreign labor. Until then, Boomers and everyone else are still competing with people willing to work for pennies an hour, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week with no sabbaths, holidays, or vacations permitted (though theoretically provided).

Corporations have no loyalty to US citizens, no cares about national security, and no worry about the quality of life in American society. They only care about one thing - profit - and they aren't going to get as much of it hiring American workers who are protected by First World environmental laws, wage laws, labour laws, and safety laws. No, as long as other countries don't have or don't enforce such laws, there is no "Fair Trade," nor a level playing field. American workers lose, and that's that.

The prospects for older workers are particularly gruesome, because hiring workers over 45 or maybe 50 years of age is simply not something companies with benefits are willing to do because it would cause increases in their health insurance. Let me say this clearly class:

American workers CANNOT compete as long as US companies are saddled with health insurance costs, and every other first world nation has single payer non-profit healthcare or provides no health insurance at all as in third world nations.

Either a Medicare system has to be extended to every citizen, or health insurance will eventually disappear altogether in the US. In fact, it is already disappearing and becoming less affordable for those who are offered insurance. For more information on this topic see the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 Summary of Findings for their annual Employer Health Benefits Survey. The percentage of firms offering health insurance is down significantly from 1999-2009. And this doesn't even consider those who are now unemployed:

...several other factors may have contributed to this result as well. One is that the survey only collects information from firms that are still in business and cannot estimate the number of workers who lost coverage due to their company downsizing or closing.

The number of firms offering health insurance at all, even for full-time employees, will continue to decrease as more and more CEOs decide it's just not worth the expense and hassle. Since the US has no basic right to healthcare, more and more CEOs are simply concluding that it's not their problem anyway.

Baby Boomers are going to have to wise up to the reality of the situation - nobody is going to hire them, and if they do, they won't receive benefits. Medicare and Social Security and Unemployment insurance are nearly broke (and are actuarily already broke). They basically have only three choices:

1) give up and do without, resigning themselves to live on whatever savings they have until they are thrown out onto the street or have to move in with relatives.

2) make Aliyah or move to some other first world country that doesn't think sickness should be an opportunity for profiteering.

3) Vote out the warmongers, shutter all military activity abroad, and vote in politicians who will put people's needs ahead of wars of conquest. There simply is not enough tax money available to do both.

The only real question is, how many Boomers will be out on the street before they notice and wise up? How many Boomers have to be humiliated, stripped of everything, or die before they get a clue?

Hopefully, not too many. But the way things are going, I'm not so sure.

Grocery bills going higher - no surprise to us.

2010-08-05T13:11:00.007-04:00

Regular readers no doubt recall seeing several charts and articles indicating the continuing climb of food prices, in complete defiance of the government's obviously false claim that there is no significant inflation in the US economy. Of course, we should expect imported fruits and vegetables to continue to increase in price, as the price of oil for their transportation continues to inch upward. What is harder to explain is why a staple commodity that we ourselves export should be increasing in price at such a steep rate.

National Inflation Association
Thursday, August 5, 2010 4:08 PM
Wheat Prices Up 71% Since June
Editor, NIA News (sent by email)

On November 26th a member asked us on NIAnswers, "Besides gold and silver what is the next best investment before inflation hits?". NIA's response was, "We are most bullish on agricultural commodities. We see a huge opportunity right now in wheat. Wheat is currently down 80% from its inflation adjusted all time high from the 1970s."

NIA also wrote an article on October 30th entitled, "U.S. Inflation to Appear Next in Food and Agriculture" in which we said, "Wheat is currently down 60% from its all time nominal high set in 2008 and 80% from its inflation adjusted high set in the 1970s." We highlighted how wheat had only bounced 13% from its lows (which was much less than other commodities) and said that we expect "increased demand for wheat".

Wheat prices surged today to $8.08 per bushel up from $4.72 per bushel in June. That's a shocking price increase of 71% in less than two months. Combined with rising oil prices, Americans will begin to see massive price inflation in the months ahead in the two areas that matter most: food and energy...

The reason wheat prices fell in the first place to below living wages for independent farmers was due to massive subsidies to giant agribusiness firms - corporate welfare at the expense of family farmers and sustainable agriculture. That and the "Wal-Mart Effect," wherein giant agribusiness firms simply refuse to buy the farmer's produce at anything above a certain price to keep their own costs down, regardless of how ridiculous that price may be to the farmers. This is why more and more family farmers and independent farmers (and, in fact, many farmers who have been working under contract for corporations, too) are abandoning farming in this country, and it doesn't bode well for our continuing food supply.

So prices are continuing to rise due to decreased supply (less farmers and more bad weather), increased transportation costs, increased petrochemical costs, and one other factor - the declining value of the US dollar. Other countries are aware of the problem - but the US public seems oblivious. Their dollars buy less and less, but they don't get it. Russia, however, does.

They have no confidence in the paper currency or they wouldn't be buying gold like it's going out of style. Recall China is also increasing their position in gold and is quietly selling off their US treasury notes (and not buying much in the way of new ones). They also have no confidence in the US ability to handle our debt except by printing more and more worthless paper dollars. They're worth nothing, folks, because they're backed by nothing but the "full faith and credit of the US," meaning your tax dollars and whatever hard assets (gold, land) the Federal government controls. Tax revenue is not sufficient to pay US obligations and EVERYBODY knows it except the man on the street for some strange reason. Even a glance at a real unemployment chart ought to disabuse anyone of the notion that the US is solvent.

Tax revenues are, of course, largely based on jobs and the US has lost most of its living wage jobs - mcwallywort jobs simply do not create sufficient tax revenue to run this country. Those who do have fairly decent wages have often seen their overtime or regular hours cut back, or perhaps a reduction in their hourly wages. This means households have had decreasing income over the past two years and again there seems to be no real end in sight. Nor does this situation generate enough income for households to continue to buy the same amounts of food as they have in the past when the prices of those foodstuffs are climbing at the rate of 10%+ a year with no sign of relief for the foreseeable future.

What can a family do?

First and foremost, a budget for groceries is an absolute necessity, and cutting down on eating out is an imperative. But how can you know what to buy and what not to buy? With a spreadsheet. It's very simple. You know what products you usually buy - if you don't already save your receipts then save your next several weeks of receipts. Then make a spreadsheet with all the products you usually buy, each item and it's size or quantity as the first column. In the second column, enter the prices of these items from your receipts from the place you primarily shop for groceries. If you have more than one place you usually shop, add more columns. Make sure the prices you enter are the regular prices, not sale prices - and update the spreadsheet every week after you go to the store(s).

This will enable you to do two things. One, you can compare the prices of the item and different stores and see where it should be purchased. You might be surprised to find that some items are more expensive at one store than the other. Some things you thought were bargains may not actually be. And in some cases, it's cheaper to buy things individually rather than in bulk, especially if your budget is limited and you aren't actually going to use THAT many of something in a short amount of time.

Next, take the sale flyers from the stores to check for sale prices, and begin collecting coupons - not just from the Sunday paper, but actually go online and actively search for coupons from the manufacturer's webpages of the products you are most likely to buy. Sign up for weekly coupon emails, also, and either print them from your home computer or have them put electronically onto your store loyalty card.

Now, armed with the regular prices, sale prices, and what coupons you have available - you use the spreadsheet to plan a menu for the week. You have a set budget, of course, for each week's worth of groceries. The idea is to figure out what the cost of your shopping trip will be in advance so that it sticks to your budget.

Armed with such a menu and a shopping list from it, go shopping. You may be able to take advantage of unadvertised specials on some of the items on your list, or you may decide to substitute an unadvertised special for some item on your list that is only available at regular price - so keep a calculator with you to make sure the on-the-spot changes you make are still within your budget.

This may all seem daunting at first, but once you get your spreadsheet going it only takes a few minutes each week to check the prices against your new receipts and update them. You might even want to consider putting a "date" column into your spreadsheet so you know the last time you updated the price on something. If you don't buy that item very often, you can always call the store and see what the price is before you go - or leave a "fudge factor" in your spending plan for that week in case this year's price is way off from last year's for the infrequently purchased items. Again, use your calculator and be sure you're within your budget. It only takes a few seconds.

Of course, another thing you can do is start your own home victory garden for fresh in-season produce, and even learn to preserve the fruits and vegetables you grow yourself for the off season. That doesn't mean you never buy fresh out-of-season items, but since these are always more expensive than in-season items you will want to minimize such purchases. If you don't have a yard yourself, your shul or federation could start a community garden comprised of several small plots that families could rent each growing season, as large or small as you wanted.

A third option is to join a local CSA to obtain locally grown items straight from small farmers to cut out the middle men and get the freshest product at fair prices.

A fourth idea is to get together with some family, friends or neighbors and go in together on bulk items that you don't use a lot of in a short time. That way you all get the bulk price but nobody has to outlay the cash for the whole box/bag of items that will just sit for weeks or months.

Where wheat and other staples is concerned, we are all going to have to tighten our belts and simply pay more for what we need, or learn to do without. There is no economic indicator telling us the prices of foodstuffs are going to go down and it's a good idea to actively consider how to deal with continually rising food prices. Our communities are sadly lacking in self-sufficiency, but that doesn't mean individual households can't plan ahead.

The REAL reason govt won't extend unemployment benefits.

2010-07-09T11:03:00.006-04:00

I have been wondering what possible fit of stupidity has left Republicans thinking that the vast majority of people will somehow find jobs when they refuse to extend unemployment benefits. Even the most modest analysis shows at least 5 unemployed people for every single job opening - obviously "jobs" exist for only 20% (max) of the unemployed - and I put the term "jobs" in quotes because a job that won't pay your mortgage payment and costs of living each month is not a job. There ARE NO living wage jobs available to the vast majority of unemployed, many of which are youths 19-24.

The rest are primarily adults over age 45 (cleverly disguised in this chart by breaking the age groups differently) that companies WILL NOT hire because it would make their health insurance rates go up. Those over 55 have largely given up trying to find a job and are no longer counted as "unemployed," even though they are.

As I was pondering why the Republican party would want consumer spending to drop further, and more people to be forced out of their homes, I head a story on NPR the other day. (I will post a link as soon as I find one.) The story was about a young father who had been killed (I think) in Afghanistan who had joined the military for one express purpose - to obtain health insurance for one of his children, who had been diagnosed with CF or MS or some other terrible illness, I can't recall. None of the jobs available in the small town where he lived offered health insurance, and they didn't qualify for state aid. He had two choices - let his child die without treatment or join the military.

I used to think "A" was the preferred Republican opinion - that the poor and homeless would just die and stop being a nuisance. But I had a sudden thought while listening to that NPR story.

The real reason they refuse to implement an extension of unemployment benefits is to force people to join the military.

With even wildly patriotic conservative Christians beginning to understand that the wars we are financing are throwing Billions of dollars away at the expense of taking care of the poor and sick and elderly, recruitment cannot but go down. It is more and more apparent that the goals of these wars are to benefit the wealthy elite and continue exploiting third world nations for their resources, at gunpoint, instead of protecting American industries and developing local and regional sustainability. With more and more people realizing these things, there is no hope of sustaining recruitment if people have other alternatives.

So the Republicans are making sure people don't have other alternatives.

A draft would never pass in this day and age - this is the next best thing, using economic terrorism to enlarge "voluntary" military enlistment.

And if some get killed, well, that's ok. It means they won't need VA care when they get home, right? Everybody wins - well, all the important people win. The Robber Barons and the Military Industrial Complex win. The "non-negotiable" American way of life is kept alive a bit longer. The losers? The dead guys (and gals) and their families, the oppressed exploited third world peoples, and of course the environment - but who cares about them? They're not important. They're just serfs, after all.

That's you, class, they're thinking of when they decide to let you lose your home, your health insurance, and your life. You're a an interchangeable part to them.

And don't you forget it.

Happy 4th of July!

2010-06-29T21:37:00.004-04:00

I'm going to be taking a break for a short while. In the meantime, I hope you have a nice holiday weekend. See you in a week or so! Shalom!

Pot calls the kettle black!

2010-06-27T17:19:00.003-04:00

When I saw this I could hardly believe my eyes! Ignore the headline (which is true, of course). Rather look closely at the statement in the 3rd paragraph:

The Hill Online
Joint Chiefs chairman reiterates security threat of high debt
By Roxana Tiron - 06/24/10 07:18 PM ET

Pentagon leaders, the military services and defense contractors must work together to cut bureaucratic bloat and unnecessary programs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.

Adm. Mike Mullen also renewed his warning that the nation’s debt is the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

“I was shown the figures the other day by the comptroller of the Pentagon that said that the interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012,” Mullen said at a breakfast hosted by The Hill. “That is, noticeably, about the size of the defense budget. It is not sustainable.”

The "it" here that is not sustainable, to him, is the DEBT, NOT the defense budget! Get that? The military is griping that debt is out of control, not American imperialistic resource wars are out of control.

Like the military of every age, they have a vast amount of money and power and they don't want anything to threaten their control of things, class. In fact, the military wants to INCREASE its spending!

...Defense Secretary Robert Gates has initiated an effort to free up $100 billion over the next five years to maintain current fighting forces and to modernize weapons systems...Pentagon leaders are eyeing 2 to 3 percent real growth in the Pentagon’s budget for the areas that need it most: force structure and modernization.

Apparently being able to kill more or less every other human being on the planet is inadequate?

But wait, apparently the Boomers are beginning to get uneasy about their current and future benefits.

...House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) put the once-sacrosanct defense budget on the chopping block this week, stating that Pentagon spending cannot be excluded from deficit-reduction talks. The defense budget makes up more than half of the country’s discretionary spending...

I would have thought that with a Democrat in the Presidency and the Democrats with a majority in Congress, that this would be a no-brainer. We need butter, not guns. But the military-industrial complex isn't going to go down without a fight - maybe even a palace coup, some say. I'm not betting on that, but the budget battles between the human needs of Americans verses the imperialist Robber Barons and their military-industrial complex allies are beginning.

Which way will this battle go? Stay tuned, class.

UPDATE: Food inflation & taxes about to explode

2010-06-27T15:46:00.008-04:00

We read several predictions for 2010 and a study put out by the NIA concerning an anticipated large jump in food prices - now Business Insider is weighing in on the issue.

Business Insider
Chart of the Day: Food prices are about to explode.
Vincent Fernando, CFA and Kamelia Angelova
Jun. 17, 2010, 12:05 PM

...A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts soaring global food prices over the next decade...

...Moreover, we won't have to wait until 2020 to see the price hikes. The process is already kicking off. The report forecasts that global prices next year for many animal-related foods will be 10 - 20% higher than in 2009.

Rice is not seeing large increases because it is not particularly needed for factory farming for animal feed. Inflation alone is not the sole cause of the price increases we are seeing for food - giant agribusiness firms having stamped out most of their competition and having to rely heavily on petroleum based chemicals to grow their food are also a big part of the problem.

The price of wheat is falling because more and more people are needing to switch to gluten free diets (meaning wheat-free primarily) because of the genetic modifications that agribusiness has incorporated into the wheat, combined with the increasing load of pesticides and weed killer needed for giant monoculture operations. People's immune systems can't take these unnatural products, so more and more people are having to stop buying them.

The increase in food prices are only the first part of a one-two punch that American households are going to experience in the near future that will wreck our budgets - lets not forget America's incredible debt burden that average households will end up paying.

As we looked at in an earlier FUTUREWATCH post, America has no options other than raise taxes or sell of national parks and other assets to begin knocking down the national debt before it eats all of the tax revenue. And I haven't noticed Yosemite up for sale - have you?

Business Insider
CHART OF THE DAY: Even Without The Obama Splurge, Your Taxes Are Heading Much Higher
Gus Lubin and Kamelia Angelova
Jun. 22, 2010, 4:20 PM

...Even without recent spending, the growing cost of government benefits will result in four decades of rising taxes.Thanks to ten years of rising government costs, the taxation wake-up call will be even more painful.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, estimates a $12,636 (inflation-adjusted) tax increase will be needed just to cover entitlement costs.

Wealthy Americans should watch for the tax hikes to begin on January 1, when Obama lets tax cuts expire for people who earn more than 250,000. The rest may spend the rest of their life on the watch for value-added taxes, excise taxes, and more.

With half of all tax receipts the federal government receives going to the military, in order to keep everything else going federal taxes will have to be raised, there's no doubt about that. Most state and local government are also starting to nickel and dime people to death with fee and rate hikes of all sorts, and tax hikes are not far behind - not to mention "enthusiastic" enforcement of state and local laws that result in profitable fines. Yes, a lot of this ends up going to the National Guard, too, which is funded in part by each state - and since it is the National Guard that are largely being called up to fight for oil and other natural resources in foreign nations, that means you get to pay for wars you don't support twice - once at the federal level and again at the state level.

The military also distorts the food market - they have to eat, and the more of them there are the more food they take away from the civilian market to be shipped overseas, again driving up the cost of food even more. And, of course, you pay for it all.

The only viable way to reduce food costs is through sustainable organic victory gardens, container gardening for households without yards, community gardens and community greenhouses, and through local farmer's markets. This cuts out the expenses of transportation and middle men from your food budget, as well as providing fresher and more nutritious food for your family. It's time to take these suggestions seriously, class, because it takes a season or so to build up a good garden or greenhouse plot. Even if you've missed the spring season, it's not too late to get started. Some herbs, vegetables, beans and berries can be planted anytime the weather is warm and will produce until the first hard freeze (and some can even survive that). Fruit and nut trees can be planted this year, as well, to get a jump start on their maturity. Don't think it's too late - better late than never!

A very old fashioned hyperinflation problem.

2010-06-27T12:51:00.007-04:00

I thought this chart was interesting - it shows a different (but not possible in America in these modern times) way of collapsing a currency, namely debauching the coinage. As Roman's military-industrial complex ate up more and more of the budget, Rome did exactly what America is doing today - making the money worth less so it goes farther. It didn't save the Roman empire and it won't save the American empire, either.

Cicero was one of the great orators of the Roman Empire - but as one of the upper class he had little sympathy for the poor or elderly except when it suited him politically. Sound familiar? Notice he doesn't call for reducing the military, scaling back on their imperial activities, or putting the needs of the citizens above the needs of the military-led aristocracy. No indeed - the poor should just either go die or "get a job," never mind that there were no living wage jobs to "get." No admission whatsoever that it's the large masses of common people who really drive the economy and making their lives affordable - let's call it "trickle UP economics" - is the only real way to stabilize or improve society. Even FORD used to know that, but apparently Cicero was an early tea-partier.

Nowadays we debauch our currency not by making it out of base metals instead of precious ones, but by printing so much paper that its value drops - we call it inflation instead of debauching the currency, but its the same thing.

I guess we can't learn from history, so we're doomed to repeat it.

Less Than Zero

2010-06-25T14:18:00.006-04:00

This morning (on Friday, June 25th) there was a Q & A session at the Federation office with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Dr. John Limbert. He stopped in to give a short description of his experience with Iran (not his Iran Hostage Crisis experience, rather a short history of diplomatic relations with Iran since then). As a veteran of the Foreign Service, educator and writer for over 30 years, his knowledge is up close and personal.

The audience asked a wide variety of questions, some hostile towards diplomacy and some accepting of it. Naturally, the conversation eventually turned toward the recent 99-0 vote to impose sanctions on Iran and how that would work.

He talked a bit about banking and other such stuff, and then he said something to the effect that the price of oil was the best leverage, historically, for getting the government of Iran to "move" and that strategy had worked well in the 50s, for example. He stated that if the price of oil could be brought down to $15 a barrel, this would sufficiently cripple the government of Iran that concessions would start looking nice, but that such leverage did not exist when oil is $87 or so a barrel.

Well, class, you know I couldn't let that pass.

I raised my hand and waited patiently. Several angry commentators spoke before I got my chance, including a Holocaust survivor that was having none of that diplomatic nonsense. She complained that everyone believed Hitler was just "spouting rhetoric," too, back in the 30s. And we all know how that turned out. She said there wasn't time for all this dilly-dallying (my words, not hers) - that Iran intends to nuke Israel and hasn't kept that a secret.

Ambassador Limbert replied to her that the government of Iran did not, of course, care one whit about individual young people's lives and gladly sent them on suicidal missions, but that the government as a whole was not suicidal. It did not wish to see Iran itself embroiled in a war with the West and possibly destroyed. He said this would be the result if Iran nuked Israel, and they knew that, so she shouldn't worry.

That's when I got my turn. I decided to stick with my original concern while speaking to him, but I'll address my second concern regarding his reply to the Holocaust victim with you here in a moment.

So, when I finally got to speak, I said something to the effect that I wanted to address the earlier point about getting the price of oil back down to $15 a barrel. Oil is a fungible commodity. With all the major fields either at or past Hubbard's Peak, and China especially going ahead with modernization great guns (and also India and other countries), that it would take a catastrophic demand destruction to lower the price of oil to that level in any reasonable amount of time - and that Americans are not willing to make that kind of sacrifice, for Israel or anything. How did he think lowering the price of oil to that target was going to be accomplished?

He didn't blink an eye. He was clearly familiar with the points I had raised, and admitted that basically I was correct, that it wasn't likely this would occur, and then went on to mumble something about market forces could eventually do it. I had the distinct impression that he knew all these arguments and had hoped nobody else would ask about them, because there really was no good answer.

Worse, when you add up the first part of that discussion with the second part, it's clear that outside of a precipitous demand destruction, America HAS NO economic lever that can influence the government of Iran. We all know previous embargoes and sanctions have been ignored when it suited key players, such as China, Russia, and even some European partners who clandestinely violated the first embargo of the region during the Iran/Iraq war. In short, thanks to our oil addiction, they have America - and Israel - by the throat and the State Department knows it.

The meeting was about out of time, so I didn't press the point - other people wanted to speak. But you know as well as I do that Hubbard's Peak IS a market force, an immovable one. No more oil is being created, as as the disaster in the Gulf shows, we are pushing the far edge of our technological capabilities to get what's left. There isn't going to be much, if anything, in the way of improvements in any sort of time frame that would cripple Iran to the point of giving up their goal of nuking Israel.

Thinking that strategy will work in this day and age is a pipe dream, class.

And I have serious doubts about his reply to the Holocaust survivor, too. I don't think what he told her was true. The US is deeply in debt - so much so that the words "sovereign debt crisis" have been spoken fearlessly by some US economic analysts. And on top of that we're spending about HALF our tax dollars each year on the military industrial complex - half, class.

This cannot go on. The Baby Boomer voting block is soon going to realize that they have a choice - either fund the military or fund their own Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Benefits. Do you really think the "me generation" is going to choose guns over retirement? I'm thinking not. A taxpayer revolt is brewing, and I don't mean those teaparty nuts. They WANT the war, and they WANT to continue the astronomical military spending. Intelligent people are going to realize, however, that you can't have both and they'd just as soon not die in the street with no old age benefits or healthcare. It's only a matter of time.

And Iran knows this, too. All they have to do is wait - wait until our economy implodes one way or the other. Either the military industrial complex will suck up so many American dollars (and future dollars in the form of debt) that the economy completely collapses under it, or the Boomers and others will vote away the military. All roads lead to a vast reduction in military expenditures since there will be, one way or the other, no more funds for a global military empire, for oil or anything else for that matter.

It's a game of chicken that Iran knows it CAN win. It just has to talk nice, stall, and stall some more until the crash occurs. Whether that crash comes in the form of IMF or Wold Bank imposed austerity measures, a taxpayer revolt, or sheer economic collapse doesn't matter. The endgame is 99% inevitable now.

So Iran's best policy is to continue to do what they're doing, regardless of sanctions, because the day is fast approaching when they CAN nuke Israel and get away with it, because there won't be a "Great Satan" to retaliate.

Or, they may decide that even if the US can still retaliate, it's still worth it to nuke Israel because the US is full of liberal wusses who would not let Iran be destroyed just because she did something silly like nuke Israel. After all, liberals aren't that wild about Israel, mostly. And the oil problem would be solved for a while if Israel were out of the way, now wouldn't it?

So I think the Ambassador is wrong, on both these points. Iran will keep rolling in the dough from oil sales, either openly or under the table, and if they wait long enough they won't have to worry about the US protecting Israel or Europe anymore. The US will be dead in the water while Iran can still go forward full steam ahead. There are no sanctions that will change this reality, and Iran is fully cognizant of this fact.

Diplomacy doesn't have a chance - less than zero. There's no logical reason for them to give up their goal of the destruction of Israel.

The title of this post is taken from the book "Less than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis, probably my favorite existentialist story. If you haven't read it you won't get why it's relevant to my life personally or this situation with Iran generally, and I'm not going to take time to explain either here. So put it on your summer reading list and ponder away - Miss Gayle

2010 Inflation Report

2010-06-20T13:03:00.003-04:00

Like most of you, I have not been fooled by the "official" stats being spewed out by the US government claiming that there has not been and will not be any inflation in the past couple of years. Though these fantasy figures, which exclude most things people actually need to live on week to week, were used to deny increases in benefits to Social Security and Disability recipients, they are simply not factually correct. Anyone who has been to the grocery store in the past year and half can attest to that, without even trying hard. Prices for actual household needs such as food and medicine have continued to climb. Dropping these items from the US official calculation for "inflation" was disingenuous, to say the least. My checkbook register isn't fooled, and yours isn't either, no doubt.

Here are excerpts from the 2010 Inflation report by a group that does its own statistical analysis. You have also no doubt seen the Shadow Government Stats posted here regularly - which clearly show inflation is far, far more than the "official" figure. I will focus these excerpts on predictions for the near future regarding inflation. There are also other issues related to US inflation that we have touched on in past posts that are discussed here. I will excerpt a few of these for context. The full document can be downloaded from the National Inflation Association website.

NATIONAL INFLATION ASSOCIATION
2010 U.S. Inflation Report
www.inflation.us
June 2010

...Today, the average American’s net worth (adjusted for real inflation) is down to year 1970 levels. In terms of income, average hourly earnings in the U.S. is now at a record nominal high of $18.99; but adjusted for real inflation, hourly earnings is now about half of what it was in the early 1970s. Americans have experienced a dramatic decline in their standard of living since 1970.

During the 1970s, it was possible for American college students to pay their own tuition by working part time, without student loans or any help from their parents. (Besides paying their own tuition, many students in the 1970s could also afford their own car and apartment.) Today, college students need to get deeply into debt and have their parents help pay their tuition; students can barely afford to pay for food and beer on their own.

The mainstream media today always makes the mistake of using changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to determine whether or not the U.S. is experiencing inflation. The CPI gets reported on a monthly basis by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). NIA conservatively believes that the methodologies
used today to calculate the CPI, understate the real rate of price inflation by at least 3% to 4%.

If the CPI is to be believed, Americans today have about the same standard of living that they had 40 years ago. However, all Americans can feel their standard of living decline. The CPI today no longer accounts for the cost to maintain the same standard of living, it more or less accounts for only the cost to stay alive. Adjusted for the real rate of inflation, Americans should be receiving Social Security payments that are approximately double what they receive today.

One of the ways the BLS understates the CPI is through geometric weighting,
which provides a higher weighting to goods that are falling in price and a lower weighting to goods that are rising in price. If steak was rising in price but hamburgers were falling, the BLS will heavily weigh the CPI towards hamburgers. Maybe they are right that some Americans would substitute steak with hamburgers in order to save money, but that would mean a decline in their standard of living.

The BLS also uses hedonics to understate inflation, which account for the increased pleasure of goods. Many IMAX theaters across the country are currently charging $20 for tickets to see the new movie “Shrek Forever After”. This is an astronomical price increase for a movie ticket, but with hedonics, it’s possible the CPI won’t show any price inflation for this movie because it uses 3D technology...

...Based on the BLS’s latest CPI report, the current year-over-year U.S. price inflation rate is 2.02%. Taking into account how the CPI understates inflation, we believe the real rate of U.S. price inflation is currently 5.02% to 6.02%...

...We doubt that banks will want to keep their $1.045 trillion in excess reserves parked at the Fed for much longer earning 0.25% interest, when based on the real rate of inflation, those dollars are losing about 5% of their purchasing power on an annualized basis by sitting there. Eventually, these banks will be forced to seek a higher return than what the Fed is paying them. As these dollars get lent out and enter the money supply, they will multiply through our fractional reserve banking system, creating a huge surge of price inflation.

As price inflation begins to run out of control in the U.S., the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise the Federal Funds Rate. Most likely, when the Federal Reserve begins to raise rates, they will raise them only 1/4 or 1/2 percentage point at a time. Slow increases in interest rates will do little to stop price inflation. Interest rates will remain very inflationary until they reach a level that is higher than the real rate of price inflation.

The Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates immediately up to 5.02% to 6.02%, but by the time they actually do so, we could already have a real price inflation rate of 10% or more...

...Today, it will be more difficult to stop price inflation by raising interest rates, because our country will have to deal with rising interest payments on our national debt that will ultimately have to be monetized. In April of 2010, the U.S. paid $22.48 billion in interest payments on our national debt for an interest rate on our marketable debt of only 2.498%. Just three years earlier in April of 2007, our total marketable debt interest rate was 4.963% (almost double). We will inevitably see our marketable debt interest rate rise back up to 5%, which will cause our annual interest payments on our national debt to rise above $500 billion or 23% of projected 2010 tax receipts of $2.165 trillion.

If the U.S. reaches a point where nearly 1/4 of projected tax receipts go towards just paying the interest on our national debt, it will be a danger zone that it must do everything possible to reverse from...

...By 2014, an outbreak of inflation could cause interest rates on our debt to reach 10%, which based on our likely marketable debt at the time of about $15 trillion, would equal interest payments of $1.5 trillion or 43% of projected 2014 tax receipts of $3.455 trillion...

...Americans are already taxed to the hilt. Any additional taxes runs the risk of driving further business out of this country and generating less tax revenues. But let’s assume tax receipts do reach 19% of GDP in 2014, how on earth will our GDP grow to $18.193 trillion?

With our manufacturing base continuing to rapidly deteriorate, any increases to our GDP will likely have to come from an increase in consumer spending (consumer spending would have to rise to 75% of GDP, from its current level of 71%). Considering that the average American peaks in spending at 46 years old and the last babyboomer will turn 46 in 2010, the U.S. economy is currently positioned to experience a significant decline in consumer spending. The only way it will be possible to increase consumer spending is through massive monetary inflation with further stimulus bills and quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve...

...So basically our GDP growth since 2000 has been fueled by inflation, inflation will lead to much higher interest rates and substantially higher interest payments on our national debt, and this will occur while the government raises taxes and Americans contract consumer spending, which will lead to the government trying to create more phony GDP growth through more inflation. This is an endless cycle of doom...

...Inflation does not create jobs. Although the official U.S. unemployment rate is now 9.7%, including short-term discouraged workers who gave up looking for a job, the real unemployment rate is 16.9%. If you also include long-term discouraged workers who haven’t looked for a job in over one year, 21.7% of Americans are now unemployed...

...Obama is effectively admitting that it will be impossible to achieve a real balanced budget again. He is trying to redefine a balanced budget as to not include interest payments, when interest payments will soon rise from a minuscule percentage
of the budget outlays to the largest part of it.

If this new commission does its job, it will have to recommend to Obama that the U.S. government cut its mandatory entitlement spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as the U.S. had a cash budget deficit in 2009 from entitlement programs alone. Beginning in 2010, between 1.5 million and 2 million Americans are expected to sign up for Social Security annually, compared to only 500,000 per year last decade. Babyboomers getting ready to retire need to assume now that Social Security won’t be there and even if they receive Social Security, the dollars they receive won’t have the purchasing power they expect.

Social Security’s peg to the CPI will eventually have to be severed. Even though the CPI understates inflation, the CPI will eventually start rising rapidly and a Social Security peg to the CPI will cause a downward death spiral in the U.S. dollar. NIA believes that retirement for most Americans will soon become a thing of the past, as the Social Security ponzi scheme comes to an end...

...The best way to determine the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar is the price of gold. Despite the huge rally this year in the U.S. dollar index, the price of gold rose to a new all time nominal high on June 8th of $1,252.10 per ounce...

...The U.S. dollar became the world’s reserve currency because it was backed by gold and the U.S. had the world’s largest manufacturing base. Today, there is no reason for the U.S. dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency and the U.S. is abusing the dollar’s reserve status. China is slowly taking steps to move away from the U.S. dollar and we could soon see China begin trading oil with Saudi states using
a new basket of currencies...

...In order for the U.S. to rebuild its manufacturing base, Americans need to increase their rate of savings. After the financial crisis of late-2008/early-2009, the first instinct of Americans was to start saving and the U.S. savings rate tripled to a high in May of 2009 of 6.2%. After the U.S. government interfered in the free market with bailouts and artificial stimulus bills, the savings rate plummeted in half to 3.1% in March of 2010. 43% of Americans now have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

If the free market was allowed to function, it would persuade Americans into having a savings rate of 10% or higher. The Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates to artificially low levels is preventing Americans from increasing their rate of savings to a healthy level. 20 years ago, senior citizens were able to purchase Certificates of Deposit (CDs) and live off of the interest they collected. With just $200,000 in a CD, seniors would earn $17,000 per year in interest income. Combined with social security, they had plenty of money to live comfortably.

Today, $200,000 in a CD would only earn $600 per year in interest income and $600 today only has the purchasing power of $150 compared to 1990. This means seniors are now earning 99% less interest income on their savings compared to 20 years ago...

...So we saw the Dow Jones rally to a high...in April of 2010 of 11,257.93. The mainstream media, still as ignorant as ever, began declaring that the U.S. is in the midst of an economic recovery. There were no jobs being created, with the unemployment rate remaining steady at a multi decade high, but the media declared that rising stock prices are a leading indicator for job growth in the future.

The media also declared that there was no inflation. Despite the Federal Reserve expanding its monetary base by 133%, according to the media there was no inflation because the government’s phony CPI only showed prices up 2.02% from a year ago (near the Federal Reserve’s price inflation target of 2%). The media was simultaneously mystified by rising gold prices...

...What if maybe, just maybe, the U.S. isn’t in the midst of an economic recovery and stocks are rising only due to inflation? After all, gold is the best gauge of inflation, not the CPI index. This would certainly explain why there are no jobs being created (except for temporary census jobs that add no production to our
economy and will be paid for with more inflation)...

...The bottom line is, the media has the worst track record in the world when it comes to predicting bubbles. The media sees gold at a new all time nominal high and they call it a bubble, without realizing that gold is still only trading for about 1/2 of its all time high adjusted to the CPI and 1/4 of its all time high adjusted for the real rate of inflation. Absolutely nobody in the media talks about how we actually have a government debt bubble and a dollar bubble...

...Ironically, gold will only become a bubble if the government eliminates most of its departments, defaults on its Social Security obligations, and shrinks the military-industrial complex, along with the Federal Reserve dramatically raising interest rates. Only if these measures are taken, and taken very soon (before a very noticeable outbreak of price inflation where the world pulls the plug on the dollar), will it be possible to prevent a total collapse of our fiat currency system...

...If we had to bet one way or the other, we would bet that U.S. politicians will never have the courage to make the tough decisions needed to save the U.S. dollar. Most likely, the Federal Reserve will become the U.S. treasury buyer of last resort and monetize our national debt, unfunded liabilities, and future deficit spending. In this scenario, gold prices could literally rise to infinity and there may never be a time for Americans to exit gold...

...In our opinion, another nominal crash in stock prices is very unlikely because
Washington is already calling for an additional $200 billion stimulus package, in addition to the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed last year.

While we certainly believe there is a risk of the Dow Jones declining by another 10% nominally, any further short-term decline in stocks will only encourage the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates near zero and implement additional quantitative easing. Therefore, we believe there will be a floor under stock prices at some point, but no floor under the U.S. dollar. Our next crisis won’t be a crisis of declining stock prices, but it will instead be a currency crisis...

...If the U.S. dollar was stable like [Dave] Ramsey thinks it is, gold would still be $35 per ounce. Gold rising from $35 to above $1,200 shows us that the U.S. dollar has lost over 97% of its purchasing power in terms of gold. His recommendation
to buy CDs is completely idiotic, when short-term CDs are paying only 0.3% in interest. If you buy CDs, you are guaranteed to lose about 5% of your purchasing power each year (based on the current rate of price inflation), which is why we are so confident banks will soon start lending their $1.045 trillion in excess reserves.

In regards to owning rental properties, Ramsey needs to look back at what happened to landlords in Wiemar Germany during hyperinflation. During the years 1912-1913 in Wiemar Germany before hyperinflation occurred, the average household spent 30.2% of their monthly expenditures on rent. By the third quarter of 1923, rents fell to just 0.2% of the average household’s monthly expenditures. At the height of hyperinflation in Wiemar Germany, households were spending 91.6% of their monthly expenditures on food, making it impossible for landlords to raise rents in any meaningful way. With a piece of fruit costing more than a month’s rent, landlords saw their real rental income evaporate...

...There is currently a huge shadow inventory of homes that have been foreclosed on but held off the market as banks setup the infrastructure necessary to sell them and wait for housing demand to recover (wishful thinking). NIA believes this shadow inventory is now up to approximately 2 to 3 million homes and many of them could begin hitting the market in the second half of 2010.

As the millions of homes in the shadow inventory begin hitting the market, those who have been patiently trying to sell their home for the past 12 to 18 months without receiving an offer that is acceptable to them, will rush to lower their asking prices in order to dump their homes as quickly as possible. Currently, about 1/4 of all mortgages are underwater, but as homeowners readjust their asking prices, the underwater rate could quickly reach 1/2 of all mortgages.

We estimate that between 25% and 50% of Americans who are underwater in their mortgages, will likely choose to walk away from their homes. Combined with many adjustable-rate mortgages that are getting ready to reset, the U.S. will likely experience a second wave of mortgage defaults in the near future...

...it’s possible that Real Estate prices will soon resume their downward spiral and won’t reach a bottom until they hit a new all time inflation adjusted low.

For anyone who is still not convinced we are already experiencing annual price inflation of at least 5.02% to 6.02% in the U.S. today, look at college tuition costs, look at health insurance costs - even the government admits these costs are rising out of control each year, yet nobody in the media connects the dots and says that it’s a result of the Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation...

...Inflation gravitates towards every part of the economy at different rates and times...On October 30th, 2009, NIA published an article entitled, “U.S. Inflation to Appear Next in Food and Agriculture”. Since then, wholesale food prices have been up 6 months in a row including a 2.4% increase in March, the largest monthly increase in 26 years. Some of the startling wholesale food price increases on a year-over-year basis include, fresh and dry vegetables up 56.1%, fresh fruits and melons up 28.8%, eggs for fresh use up 33.6%, pork up 19.1%, beef and veal up 10.7% and dairy products up 9.7%. Wholesale food price increases foreshadow price increases to come later in retail stores. With unemployment as high as it is, many retailers have been reluctant to pass along food price increases to consumers, but soon they will be forced to if they want to avoid huge losses...

...Our fear is that if we experience hyperinflation in the U.S., rather than politicians dealing with the root cause (their deficit spending and the Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation), they will instead implement price controls and force retail stores to sell food at government mandated prices. As experienced in Zimbabwe, when a government implements price controls to battle hyperinflation, it always leads to empty store shelves...

...Yugoslavia financed their budget deficit by printing money and saw their prices increase by 5 quadrillion percent, making it the worst case of hyperinflation in history. Similar to Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia’s government implemented price controls which led to empty store shelves, gas stations closing, thieves robbing hospitals of scarce drugs and selling them outside the same hospitals they robbed, and the government postponing turning on heat in state apartment buildings (where most people lived). In one hospital, 87 patients died in one month from having no heat, food, or medicine...

...Eventually the U.S. government will realize that you can’t solve problems that were created by too much debt, but getting deeper into debt at a much faster rate than before. When you have an artificial boom, there needs to be a recession. By trying to avoid a necessary recession by increasing government spending through borrowing and printing money, the U.S. government is only creating a currency crisis that will lead to the destruction of the U.S. dollar...

...Total U.S. defense spending in fiscal year 2010 is expected to reach $1 trillion, about 46% of projected U.S. tax receipts, and equal to the rest of the world’s defense spending combined. The U.S. now has 700 military bases in 140 countries around the world. Our military needs to be scaled back immediately if we want to prevent hyperinflation. The inflation that will need to be created to continue funding out of control U.S. military spending, will ultimately make our country less safe as a result.

The U.S. is currently in a brief period of euphoria where the government’s monetary inflation has created the illusion of an economy recovery, without the devastating effects of massive price inflation. The mainstream media is now working in collusion with the government to help sustain the current dollar bubble for a little while longer, without creating hyperinflation. The Federal Reserve is doing everything in their power to prevent deflation by debasing the U.S. dollar, but will have no possible way of containing hyperinflation, once it arrives...

...The U.S. has gone from being on a “gold standard”, which enforced discipline on U.S. politicians and made the government live within its means, to a “debt standard”, which has allowed for unconstrained government spending and the rapid debasement of the U.S. dollar. The only way for the government to sustain our debt standard is through inflation and the worst mistake any American can make is to underestimate Bernanke’s ability to create inflation. Creating inflation is the only thing in the world Bernanke knows how to do and is good at...

...If Bernanke decides to bypass Wall Street and directly inject Main Street with inflation, Wall Street will once again find a way to profit handsomely. No matter how inflation is created, it always transfers wealth from the unprepared middle class to already rich bankers...Americans need to prepare for hyperinflation now by getting their money out of the U.S. dollar and becoming their own central bank by buying gold and silver.

That's one way. There are, of course, other things that can substitute - nails, for example, or other reasonably affordable metal items. But the biggest way is to simply make your household as debt free and self-sufficient as possible (including a victory garden), and make your community the same by organizing co-ops, barter societies, community greenhouses and gardens, and interest-free loan societies to retire everyone's for-interest debt as quickly as you can. Any group of people can band together and do this, your block, your family and friends, your shul, your book club - all it takes is some initiative on your part. And even if a big monetary crisis never materializes (and that's a big "if"), you and your community will still be far better off living within your means, debt free, and downsizing your reliance on the consumerist materialism culture made for no other reason than the enrichment of the Robber Barons and their giant corporations.

Take these warnings seriously, class. America is not some mystical holy land, we're not special, and we have not overcome the tides of history at all. Every culture declines and falls, ours is no exception. Be ready or be roadkill, class. Those are your options.

Rabbi Marc Angel on Chereidi Racism

2010-06-20T12:26:00.002-04:00

I received this as an email. It is apparently also posted as a blog entry at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals site. You may recall a few of my previous posts on this subject - here the Chereidi are using the excuse that Sephardi (darker skinned) Jews are "less religious." Previously they had claimed they were "less rigorous" in their studies - and they can apparently tell this by the color of their skin.

Hareidism, Xenophobia--and another disgrace of the Torah
by
Rabbi Marc D. Angel

As I write this blog, many thousands of Hareidim are engaged in mass demonstrations against a recent court decision in Israel. Because the Hareidim are in violation of Israeli law, some/many of them will be arrested and put in prison for short sentences.

The current outbreak is the result of a string of events, beginning with the rampant discrimination that was taking place in a Beit Yaacov (Hareidi) girls school in the town of Emmanuel. The school officials had an actual wall built in order to separate out Sephardic children, who were deemed to be a bad influence on the Ashkenazic girls. An anti-discrimination case was brought against the school, and the court ruled that the school was in violation of the law and had to eliminate all traces of discriminatory policies. The school authorities and many parents objected to this decision. A new "pirate school" was created, in order to circumvent the court's decision. A case was then brought against the "pirate school", and again the court ruled that the school was guilty of discriminatory policies. The court called for "integration" and fair treatment of all students, regardless of ethnic background. Those parents who violate the law will be imprisoned.

To the eternal shame of Torah, the Hareidi religious leadership called on the Hareidi community to protest the court's decision. They explain that the discriminatory policies are not based on ethnicity, but on "religious levels". In their view, the Sephardic girls are less religious i.e. they watch television or use computers; the Hareidim are trying to protect their own daughters from the negative influences of less "religious" girls. Those who know the situation first hand, though, can point to numerous examples of outright ethnic discrimination, hatred and xenophobia within the Hareidi world. The case in Emmanuel, however egregious, is only one example of many.

Hareidi leaders go so far as to state that it is a sanctification of God's name to be imprisoned for violating the court's order.

This is not a sanctification of God's name, but a profound desecration of God's name. The Hareidi protestors not only represent a disgrace to the Israeli system of law, but a disgrace to Torah and to God. Instead of their self-righteous justifications for ethnic discrimination, it would have been so much nobler and more religious for the Hareidi leaders to address their xenophobia straight on, and to try to work to rid the community of this ugly manifestation of social injustice.

In my own experience, I have found a general pattern within the Orthodox world, whether Ashkenazic or Sephardic. The more enclosed a community is, the more it fears or mistrusts the "outsider". The narrower the group is, the more it wants to mix only with people of "their own kind". While one might find sociological explanations for this phenomenon, it must be exposed for what it is: hatred of fellow Jews, demeaning of fellow human beings, stereotyping of those who are different or of different backgrounds.

All Jews of all shades of religiosity must loudly decry this Hareidi outburst, and must find ways of addressing the xenophobia which plagues the narrowly Orthodox communities. The Jewish people has enough problems, without needing the additional antagonisms and injustices perpetrated by one group of Jews against another group of Jews.

Our community needs more tolerance, and less xenophobia; more love and less hatred; more teachers of the righteousness and pleasantness of Torah, and less demagogues who defame Torah. This transformation cannot happen without a strong, concerted effort.

Bravo to those in Israel who have fought against the discriminatory policies in Emmanuel. Bravo to those who brought the case to court, and won a victory for justice and human dignity. Bravo to those who are trying to build a fairer, juster and more righteous society in Israel and throughout the world.

(This blog appears on the website of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, www.jewishideas.org Please visit our website for many articles of interest to those who strive for an intellectually vibrant, compassionate and inclusive Orthodox Judaism.)

Racism is just one more backward and, frankly, disgusting attitude of the Chereidi that they are indoctrinating their children to believe. Honestly, forcing the kids to go to inclusive schools won't stop this horrible belief because it is clearly taught vigorously in the homes by the children's parents. It is the parents who should be punished, and not just with a few hours in jail. The punishment should be painful, not something that will let them pretend to be martyrs for a loathsome cause - racial purity - which is particularly ridiculous given the FACT that Hebrew people were not white. The Ashkenaz white skin color comes directly from DILUTING their middle eastern genetic heritage in white catholic Europe. So in truth, the Sephardic people are a lot closer to our Hebrew ancestors than the Ashkenaz will ever be. The Ashkenaz have incorporated the racism and superiority complex of white catholic Europe into their philosophy and are now trying to pass off this paganism as "min har Sinai" Torah, which it certainly is not.

I would like to see God do to these parents what he did to Miryam when she objected to Moshe's Ethopian new wife - give them all leprosy.

Is that White enough for you?

No inflation? Really?

2010-06-10T14:45:00.006-04:00

Only if you don't need food, energy, transportation or medical care. And who needs those, right?

And a few more graphic tidbits for you this afternoon:

Privately owned businesses continue to be able to provide less and less of the nation's wage base - and with little in the way of savings, more and more people simply have less discretionary income to spend, meaning more and more small businesses will fail unless the community rallies behind them.

Equity? What equity? The banks own all the property. And then there's the underwater homeowners issue - those with negative equity. What is the real homeownership rate if we exclude all those with negative equity?

What can we do to help solve this problem? Jewish communities should try and raise funds for interest free mortgage loans, for one thing. Most people wouldn't have negative equity or be so far underwater if their house payments didn't spend the first 15 years of the loan going entirely for interest.

As it is, more and more people are losing ownership of their homes. One of two things will happen - if there are affordable rental properties in the area, they will not be affordable long because competition from the various former homeowners to rent them will drive up rental rates, eventually. Right now, renting can actually be a great bargain, since few can qualify for conventional mortgages and there are far more houses for sale than buyers for them. A lot will be rented instead of sold, where HOA rules permit.

For areas where few rentals are available and/or the price is still prohibitive given the $55,000 median wage, a lot of families will end up moving in together, either with relatives or good friends, to spread the costs of the home over more working adults. This type of co-housing arrangement can work, and more and more people will try it (some by choice, some not so much).

Ideally, the community should band together to buy distressed properties, preferably for cash, and enter into not-for-profit lease-to-own agreements (that is, no marking up the price from the home's foreclosure or sheriff's sale amount). The prospective owners should pay no interest or very low (1% or less) interest to facilitate speedy recovery of home ownership rates in your community. It is a morally commendable program to establish - not to mention increasing homeownership rates reduces crime and connects people to the community.

In this economic crisis, it is immoral to charge people interest rates they cannot afford, and to jack up the price of the properties to make a profit on homes that have been foreclosed or sold for back taxes. The good of the community needs to come before the greed of those who would continue fleecing the community where the Big Banks and Financial Robber Barons left off.

With real inflation of the things people actually need to live on every month continuing upward with no end in sight, the community needs to band together and stabilize the home ownership situation, not exacerbate it by attempting to exploit those who have lost their jobs or had their hours reduced. This should not be our way - and yet in many places, it is. We have a moral and ethical obligation to make our community sustainable, even if it means giving up some personal gain. Is that so hard to understand?

Charts courtesy of miscellaneous recent posts at Dr. Housing Bubble.

You - yes, you - are responsible for these deaths.

2010-06-08T16:19:00.003-04:00

As has been pointed out here more than once, the main reason the Robber Barons outsource their manufacturing work to China and other third world nations is for the specific purpose of avoiding wage and labour laws, including workers rights such as 8 hour days, sabbaths, holidays, and sick leave. Factories in these countries are often defacto slave pens, with the "workers" required to live on site, work 7 days a week 365 days a year, and paid only a few cents an hour - in this case, less than $1 a day.

Why? Because you - yes, you - keep buying the products produced in these conditions, because you want the "best" price. "Best" apparently meaning a fake price that doesn't reflect any sort of moral or ethical working conditions, or even safe ones for that matter. You're too cheap to pay what things really cost, so you close your eyes and ignore the way your purchases are made. After all, if you bought stuff made in First World countries where such rules are enforced it would cost "too much" - the definition of "too much" apparently being the real cost of honest, safe, environmental and living wage labour.

And then you have the nerve to gripe that your wages are down! Why? Because you're competing with these guys:

New York Times Online
After Suicides, Scrutiny of China’s Grim Factories
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: June 6, 2010

...Mr. Ma’s pay stub shows that he worked 286 hours in the month before he died, including 112 hours of overtime, about three times the legal limit. For all of that, even with extra pay for overtime, he earned the equivalent of $1 an hour.

“The factory was always abusing my brother,” the sister, Ma Liqun, said tearfully last week.

Since Mr. Ma’s death, there have been 12 other suicides or suicide attempts — eight men and four women — on two Foxconn campuses in Shenzhen, where employees live and work. The factories here, with about 400,000 employees, make products for global companies like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard...

...Sociologists and other academics see the deaths as extreme signals of a more pervasive trend: a generation of workers rejecting the regimented hardships their predecessors endured as the cheap labor army behind China’s economic miracle...

...Economists say the changes are already eroding some of China’s competitive advantages in the global economy by raising wages, the cost of production and, soon, the prices of a wide range of consumer goods that China exports.

“The factory model has run into some serious limitations,” says Huang Yasheng, a professor of management at M.I.T. and the author of “Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics.”

...Foxconn, founded by the Taiwanese industrialist Terry Gou, is a $60 billion manufacturer with a reputation for military-style efficiency that includes mapping out assembly line workers’ movements in great detail and monitoring tasks with a stopwatch.

The company is also known for the scale of its operations.

Last week, its site here, covering about a square mile, was teeming with uniformed migrant workers, filing into work at gray, low-slung factory complexes, or entering utilitarian high-rise dormitories...

...Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have already said they are looking into conditions at Foxconn — although Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, said last week that he was troubled by the suicides but that Foxconn was “not a sweatshop.”

Bull malarky. Either they're lying or they don't know the definition of sweatshop, because that's exactly what these factories are - and they knew it when they signed contracts for their production to take place there. They knew and didn't care, because they are far more interested in increasing their profits than they are interested in making sure workers everywhere have the same basic rights that they themselves INSIST on having in their cushy contracts.

The top brass and administrative layers of these companies would NEVER agree to work under such conditions, nor would they EVER agree for their children to have to go such factories to live and work. They are hypocrites, to put it mildly.

Greedy blood-sucking hypocrites, actually.

...labor rights groups, including China Labor Watch, a human rights group based in New York, say they have documented what they call the dehumanizing treatment of workers at Foxconn...

That's not enough, class - not nearly enough. Documenting it? They already knew, and so did you. Yet you buy the products anyway.

You're guilty.

Unemployment isn't going away anytime soon.

2010-06-06T20:37:00.003-04:00

Speaking of a prolonged, inescapable change in economic conditions...

This chart appears as the Chart of the Day at Business Insider.

...We've dubbed this chart the "Scariest Job Chart Ever," as it shows how the decline in employment is WAY uglier than in past recessions.

Calculated Risk has updated it with the latest numbers from this morning, and now it looks even scarier.

Why?

Check out the two red lines at the bottom. The solid one includes Census hiring, while the dotted line doesn't include it.

What's clear is that while we still have a rebound including Census hiring, we're already flattening out on the dotted line. This is a shape not seen on the other lines. suggesting that the fall is extremely deep, and the recovery is shallow.

It can hardly be otherwise, with no real prospect of living wage employment for nearly 40 million un- and under-employed people out there looking for non-existent full time jobs with benefits.

What are our ethical and moral responsibilities?

1. To take in our unemployed relatives and friends if necessary.
2. To help them find jobs or job skills (any jobs, but particularly living wage jobs).
3. If you own a business, to pay your employees living wages.
4. If you do not own a business, use your shopping dollars wisely - do not shop at businesses that exploit people and do not support the community.
5. To lend to your unemployed friends and relatives without charging interest (and to forgive the loan at the required time, whether it is paid or not).
6. To establish community cooperatives and service exchanges in order to reduce the amount of actual cash needed by people in the community to obtain vital services.
7. To give to targeted charities that help the truly unemployed or impoverished - not those that encourage or support the "willful poverty" of those who are unwilling to work, rather than unable or involuntarily unemployed.

Got it?

The flip side of the coin(s).

2010-06-06T16:28:00.006-04:00

I here excerpt for you the last article in the latest issue of Rabbi Marc Angel's organization (Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals) called Conversations, which is published quarterly. The title of the Spring 2010/5770 issue is "Orthodoxy and Diversity" and I have greatly enjoyed this and every issue published to date. Each issue consists of articles submitted by Rabbis, Educators, Pundits, Historians, and other Jewish intellectuals and the idea is to discuss Orthdox Judaism in relation to current issues and events.

Those who are familiar with my blog's posts for the last few years will recognize that the issues brought up in this particular article have been discussed here (particularly in the three articles that I wrote for and cross posted at "UOJ Group" and in the Decline of the West commentaries, lower right sidebar). Jewish culture is now so entangled with Western Culture, which is imploding at an increasingly exponential rate, that it cannot really be separated. Jewish culture has, for the last couple of hundred years or so (perhaps farther back, really) been a child of the Western mindset and suffers from the same mental diseases of that mindset which are now destroying Western Culture in general and RWMO/UO/Chereidi Judaism in particular. Far from being superior and cut off from wider Western philosophies and attitudes, Orthodox Judaism has embraced them lock, stock and barrel - albeit with Talmudic disguises.

So Mr. Landau's comments will not be new to readers here, unfortunately. Indeed, many will realize that some of his comments are in fact hopelessly naive.

Conversations
Issue 7, Spring 2010/5770
Sounds of Silence
by Pinchas Lanau
(you can email the author at landaup@netvision.net.il)

Can you point me to rabbis or other leadership figures in the Orthodox Jewish community who have spoken or written about the moral aspects of the financial crash and the economic crisis? Is there a specifically Jewish ethical and moral response to what happened relating also the prominent role of Jews, including and perhaps especially observant Jews?

Do you know of anyone who, in the period of the stock market and property manias in the 1990s and the decade that just ended, saw those developments in a moral context, as involving ethical issues for individuals and communities? Are there any Orthodox leaders who talked or wrote about the trends underway in the financial sector in the US and elsewhere, as moral and ethical issues that Orthodox/observant/Torah True Jews should have something to day about?

Yes, some of us - myself and others - did bemoan the complete lack of Judeo/Christian ethics apparent in the economic goings-on at least in the 2000s, but we were not leaders, and we were not and are not listened to by any leaders.

The answers translate as follows:

A. Even people who have a definite interest in this topic haven't seen or heard of relevant material. They, like me, want to believe that said material exists, but have no hard evidence thereof. They - we - are deliberately indulging in wishful thinking, because the alternative it too awful for us to contemplate.

B. Many people, including - or perhaps especially - rabbis and educators actually have no clear idea what ethical and moral issues are. More precisely, they have great difficulty distinguishing between legal/halakhic and moral/ethical treatments of issues...

C. Those who have addressed the topic from a moral perspective have preferred to direct their remarks to a general audience.

Like blogs, apparently.

But finding a few righteous men...

Or women!

...in Sodom will not change the basic premise of this article, which is that Orthodox Judaism, as currently conceived and practiced, is morally challenged. The ongoing financial and economic crisis is arguably not even the most severe moral challenge facing it and us. Rather, the crisis has exposed the moral bankruptcy of much of Orthodoxy - of all streams, in both Israel and the Diaspora - so sharply, that henceforth this sorry state of affairs will be difficult, if not impossible, to continue to ignore.

The crisis has exposed the existence of a widespread moral darkness within, indeed at the heart of, Orthodox Judaism. This black home expresses itself the way all such negative moral phenomena do - via silence.

...What I am looking for is moral leadership, which I define as people with the courage to tell at least the members of their flock, if not the world at large, what is wrong with what they are doing and how they can and should be doing better.

Well, class, you're not a flock, but I believe (and I think long time readers of my blog will agree) I can say with confidence that I have met this challenge.

In the best case, this leadership should be demonstrated in real time - that is, with regard to what is currently happening or likely to happen.

Check.

...This whole [macro-economic] aspect of human activity is central to the theory and practice of Judaism. If, therefore, it is now enveloped in crisis, it is impossible that Judaism has nothing to say about it, beyond theological platitudes and/or legal formulations.

[Paul Volcker said in a speech]...You might ask how {the housing/mortgage boom} went on as long as it did...Compensation practices has gotten totally out of hand and spurred financial people to aim for a lot of short-term money without worryi8ng about the eventual consequences... [Volcker's own grandson wrote to him:] "Grandpa, don't blame it on us! We were just following the orders we were getting from our bosses." The only think I [Volcker] could do was send him back an email, "I will not accept the Nurenberg excuse."

...These are bankers he is talking to. They already know all this. Precisely for that reason, Volcker lays it out for them in simple words, and then lays it in to them with a series of powerful accurate blows: Incompetents - BIFF! Liars - POW! Greedy and Irresponsible - WHAM! And the coup de grace, Conceited Fools - CRACK!

Then the switch from his audience's generalized stupidity to his own intense personal paid: his grandson decides to squander his promise and potential on the alchemy of financial engineering. Volcker is well aware that his smart grandson can and probably will (in the pre-crash world) earn millions in his chosen career, but that does not prevent [Volcker] from defining this decision - entirely correctly from a moral and a religious perspective - as [his grandson] "wasting his life."

...Do you know a rabbi of any stripe, from any stream, who stood up before, during, or at least after the crash and told his congregation of real estate or stock market speculators that they were scoundrels and probably criminals to boot? [Do you know] an Admor who told a Hassid that adopting the business practices of this bosses or colleagues was morally repugnant?

This is an area where I believe Mr. Landau is suffering from a bit of naivete. It wasn't only greedy goyim who came up with a lot of the sub-prime mortgages, derivities and other economic weapons of mass destruction - a lot of Jews (and yes, even professing Christians) were involved in creating these rip-offs. They were lauded by the industry just a few short years ago as geniuses and heros.

If you do [know such a rabbi or Admor], you have the privilege of being exposed to moral leadership. I'm looking for it, so far unsuccessfully - and if I can't find it among the rabbis, rashei yeshiva, and Admorim, I'll take it where it's available.

I wonder if that includes women writers.

John Bogle [another prominent figure in the financial sector who spoke harshly to his colleagues] is the founder of Vanguard. His [business] concept is based on the premise that investors in regular mutual funds are consistently and systematically ripped-off by their fund manager's panoply of fees.

[He wrote:] ...self-interest got out of hand. It created a bottom-line society in which success is measured in monetary terms...[and] the result is a shift from moral absolutism to moral relativism. We've moved from a society in which "there are some things that one simply does not do" to one in which "if everyone else is doing it, I can too." Business ethics and professionals were lost in the shuffle.

And here the Rabbinate is guilty, guilty, guilty of moral relativism - because many RWMO/UO/Chereidi Jews have indeed adopted the reprehensible attitudes of the Talmud described in the last post - that it is perfectly OK to screw over the government, insurance companies, and their gentile neighbors because every means, no matter how unethical or morally disgusting, is acceptable if it leads toward the end of enriching or enhancing Jews. There is no denying this attitude exists, and it motivated many, many Jews in the financial sector to engage in perfidious activities they surely KNEW were wrong - and worse, many preyed even on those of other sects of Judaism, because THEIR sect is the "only" correct one and everyone else is apikorus. Don't deny it - we all know their justifications, they don't generally even try hard to hide them.

Moral leadership demands a larger measure of courage than most people have.

Taking as stand against persons found guilty of a broad range of white-collar crimes is not considered an obvious cause belli even for Orthodox Jews who define themselves as observant and/or Torah True. Indeed, it may well be closer to hara kiri on the part of a rabbi who tries it.

Indeed, the Rabbis of such men are often the very ones excusing such activities or besmirching those who try and bring such unethical behavior to light. Those outside their fiefdom are ignored as "self-hating Jews" and "instigators."

It is not the principled stand against moral turpitude that will cause anti-Semitism, but the failure to denounce moral breakdown and thereby facilitate it continued spread. The prominence of Jews in the hated financial elite, in today's charged atmosphere, causes far more anti-Semitism than would the explicit denunciation of the ills of the financial system by Jewish religious personalities.

Amein.

We cannot agree, in principle and a fortiori, to conduct our communal life on the basis of what the reaction of [real] anti-Semites might be.

The silence of many religious leaders in the face of moral challenges stemming from the areas of business and finance reflects conflicts of interest on their part. In many cases, rabbis have an interest in the financial well-being of individuals who are prominent supporters of institutions that operate under their aegis. They are therefore compromised in their ability to address problematic aspects of the business areas in which these persons are engaged - let alone the specific business practices of those persons.

Many rabbis actually seem to believe that the means can and do justify the ends.

I believe Mr. Landau meant to say that the other way around - i.e. many Rabbis have philosophical or racist beliefs or even just cognizance of the fact of pressing financial needs in the various communities that cause them to accept that the end - a goal of Jewish financial success or security - can and does justify the means (even though they are exploitative and/or unethical), as I pointed out above and in numerous other posts.

Leadership can be complicit not by merely ignoring the issues, but by direct involvement. Obviously, in such cases there is no point in discussing moral leadership - nor do moral issues resonate with the followers.

In many cases that would be the entire community, raised in an insular educational environment and taught that all those outside their particular in-group or community are less than they. They actually do not believe it is immoral or unethical to exploit others. Until Orthodoxy comes to grip with this attitude and roundly condemns both it (and the Talmudic passages such as those in the last post) upon which they are based, nothing is going to change.

There is evidence that Orthodox Jewish society did not always feature a warped value system in which business ethics and money morality is related to second-class status, at best.

Agreed - a lot of the teachings of the UO and such like-groups are innovations, not historically accurate Jewish practice.

One of the few people who has devoted himself to writing and speaking about Jewish business ethics is Dr. Meir Tamari. Tamari is convinced that the phenomenon of religious bifurcation, in which ritualistic and theological/mystical elements of Judaism have risen to prominence, while inter-personal and, in particular, pecuniary moral and ethical practices have withered, is neither very recent - meaning post-Holocaust, nor very ancient - meaning pre-modern. He suggests that it was the demise of the kehilla as the linchpin of Jewish society that started the rot.

For those of you not familiar with that term:

From Wikipedia:
The Qahal (Hebrew: קהל) was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society, according to the masoretic text of the Bible[1]. In later centuries, Qahal was the name of the autonomous governments of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe[2]...In the 16th century, Jewish communities in southern Poland-Lithuania began to set up new qahals to administer tax collection[2]...These Polish-Lithuanian qahals quickly came to be politically autonomous bodies, with major regulatory control over Jewish communities in the region[2]...However, rich and powerful individuals gradually began to dominate qahals, abusing their position for their own benefit[2]. As a result, by the 18th century, many ordinary Jews had begun to clamour for the abolition of the institution[2]...

In short, just like their gentile neighbors, the Jews of various communities resented "church taxes" that went to corrupt and power-mongering elites who abused their authority and imposed standards that the community did not believe in - as the article goes on to say, often enforcing religious compulsion by threatening or actually carrying out a sentence of expulsion from the community. Sound familiar?

So the Kehillas were abolished, for good reasons - namely, freedom of religious practice and freedom to conscientious giving.

Landau continues:

With no fiscal autonomy - because the kehilla's taxation powers were gone - the religious leadership became entirely dependent on the few rich people available for their own financial survival and that of their families and their institutions, whither these last were yeshivot or the courts of the Hassidic leaders. That structure was inherently corrupt and served as a further spur to the process already underway, as Enlightenment ideas and values spread through Jewish population centers, of a growing estrangement and eventual mass flight of Jewish youth from their ancestral religion.

This undemocratic and unhealthy social structure has survived into the 21st century, and indeed thrived, despite the fact that today's Jewish society is completely different from that of pre-Holocaust Europe, with affluence having replaced poverty, especially in the Western Diaspora.

The existence of this social structure and its salient characteristics, including its warped moral value system, must be accepted as fact.

Yes, unfortunately it is unconscionable in this day and age for anyone to suggest that all Jews MUST donate a certain percentage of their income to their Federation, synagogue, or other local or regional Jewish groups. And therefore those who give the most will always have control of these institutions - them that hath the gold make the rules. That's a universal aphorism, unfortunately - common good be damned.

The proof Tamari cites for his hypothesis is telling because it comes from direct documentary evidence of social, religious, and economic conditions and values among Orthodox Jews over the centuries - namely the responsa literature.

...The moral rot that found such dramatic expression in the financial crisis of 2007-2009 is rooted in the collapse of those basic human values - trust, reliability, mutual confidence - without which commercial and financial activity cannot take place. It requires no great intellectual leap to see that the same values are needed in the domestic sphere to make marriage and family life work.

I would add: and community life.

The moral collapse is taking place across the board, even if the dynamics of breakdown differ between areas of human activity.

...In between the praying, the learning, the kosher sushi, and all the rest, the new generation of Orthodox youngsters participated, willingly and even enthusiastically, in the creation, design, and sale to unsuspecting "suckers" across the country and around the world those "financial weapons of mass destruction" - in Warren Buffett's telling phrase - that have inflicted massive damage on the American public and, ironically but fittingly, brought the entire Wall Street culture crashing down around them.

Most of these young people, despite (or is it because of?) their background in the world's leading yeshivot, seminaries, and other institutions of advanced Jewish study, never saw the inconsistency in this behavior.

Were they confused? Did they feel disoriented? Or were they able to live totally compartmentalized lives?

I would say a firm: NO! But Mr. Landau gives them the benefit of the doubt.

It seems that many did and continue to do just that - as a survival mechanism for religious people in a secular and hence culturally hostile world.

A couple of paragraphs down, even Mr. Landau can't help but write:

Many of them are today either amoral or immoral, although they delude themselves into believing that their religion, as they understand and practice it, makes them morally superior and provides them with a large measure of immunity to the immoral wider culture in which they move. Thus it is that there are many Orthodox Jews - from Modern to Hereidi - whose minds and hearts are already lost to Judaism.

Lost to real Judaism, yes. Lost to the RWMO/UO/Chereidi teachings that they received from their rabbis and mentors? Not hardly - they embody them, actually.

...They lean emotionally towards Gordon Gekko...whose motto is simple and direct: "greed is good" - because it get you what you want.

[Yet] the unfolding crisis has exposed the false gods once again as being unable to deliver the goods.

Unfortunately, the crash is likely to prove only the first stage of a prolonged crisis, which will impose deep and painful changes on the economy and society of America and the entire Western world.

As I've been saying for the past five years!

...But this trauma provides the opportunity for Orthodox Judaism to admit that it took the wrong turn some way back and needs to get onto a road that leads somewhere worth going. Finding our way back is the definition of teshuva, repentance. WE know that the essential first step of teshuvah is to accept and then admit that what we thought or did was wrong. That means ending the fraudulent pretense that current Orthodox theology and lifestyle are good enough, let alone idea.

Basic values that used to be commonly accepted and upheld by all Western societies can no longer be taken for granted. They are going to have to be taught, imparted, inculcated - consciously and carefully. The values governing the huge part of people's lives encompassing work, income, wealth, spending, and investment must be resuscitated and these activities rescued from the clutches of "professional experts" and then re-integrated into an overall moral framework, along with family, health, and well-being and all the other central components of our lives...

Well, it's nice to see we agree on the diagnosis and the needed medicine, but I'm not holding my breath on any of that actually happening. Western culture is in terminal decline and will fall under its own folly - just as all other cultures have fallen. Can Judaism be untwined from it? I have serious doubts.

In the meantime, every scandal and every greedy, power-mongering or immoral act done by a Jew is just going to pour more gasoline on the fire of anti-Semitism, and when it burns out of control it will be the fault of those very Rabbis and teachers who taught these yokels that they were so superior and so much more intelligent than everyone else - and that everyone else is just low-hanging fruit ready to pick.

As long as these attitudes are cherished and taught to our young people, the more damage will be done. And I'm afraid that telling this to the Ravs and Roshei Yeshivot of these young people will simply make them more determined to "uphold" their "min har Sinai, Torah way" of condescension and racism toward non-Jews and other sects of Jews. It has nowhere to go but bad, I fear.