When James Carville Speaks the President Should Listen

James Carville is a Democratic strategist who also serves as a CNN political contributor. As Bill Clinton’s campaign manager came up with the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He recently spoke out about what President Obama should do about the curr.ent economic problems. Here is an excerpt of a column he wrote on the topic and a video interview he conducted on the subject. (He said some silly things in that column but what I’ve included from the column is the good stuff I think worth reviewing.)

“People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic.

We are far past sending out talking points. Do not attempt to dumb it down. We cannot stand any more explanations. Have you talked to any Democratic senators lately? I have. It’s pretty damn clear they are not happy campers.

This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed…

Fire somebody. No — fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well…

Mr. President, your hinge of fate must turn. Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich. Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For God’s sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It’s not working.

Furthermore, it’s not going to work with the same team, the same strategy and the same excuses. I know economic analysts are smart — some work 17-hour days. It’s time to show them the exit. Wake up — show us you are doing something…”

United States Equals Dysfunctional Government

How sad is this? Congress voted a stop gap spending bill through next Tuesday that will keep all departments functioning. At that time they will take up another bill to extend government operations for another six weeks. Yes, we have a congress that only extends funding for the government by days or weeks. They think they are doing their job when they do these things. Meanwhile there are hearings on such things as funding for Planned Parenthood. Are there any hearings or discussions about laws that will create jobs? No!

The American people are happy with the idea that we a democratic Republic where capitalism reigns supreme. We also have a dysfunctional government where little or nothing is accomplished. One thing we do know is that the wealthiest among us earn and control most of the wealth and the rest of us are left with the crumbs.

Social Security Is Looking Like a Ponzi Scheme

Is Rick Perry correct?  Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

I pulled out the last statement that Social Security sends to each of us annually.  It lists my annual contribution all the way back to the jobs I had in college.  I listed all of those contributions in an Excel spreadsheet.  Then I calculated the future value of each year’s contribution earning 3% compound interest.

The results were wonderful for me but not for the Social Security Administration.  Based upon the results, my contributions along with interest earned, I will be withdrawing money I did not contribute ten years after my retirement. 

This assumes I am alive ten years after I have retired.  Given the fact that many seniors are now living into their eighties, and beyond, this is not an unrealistic projection.

We have a social problem.  You see I could have worked longer than 67 but no one wants to hire senior citizens.  Oh, I know, I should work at Walmart as a Greeter.  Will we have to pass laws forbidding the layoff of senior citizens that can still do their job?  Perhaps we will simply tell senior citizens the Social Security benefit is only for a maximum of ten years.  If you live longer we will not provide you with any assistance.

Then again perhaps we could tax the very wealthy to keep the system going.  I like George W. Bush’s private accounts idea.

Our national problem is that the politicians don’t like to deal with difficult problems.  They want someone else to deal with the hard stuff.

The Limits of Free Speech

We all know that yelling “Fire” in a theater is not permitted.  That would be an effort to cause panic and catastrophe.  What if you demonstrate against a speaker with the intent of disrupting his right to speak?  That was the case of a group called ‘Irvine 11.’ The group was reduced to 10. 

At a UCI(University of California Irvine) speech by the Israeli ambassador to the United States the group of pro Palestinian demonstrators made every attempt to stop the presentation.  That was an act intended to deny the ambassador his right to speak.  The jury found the accused guilty.   Will they appeal this case?  That remains to be seen.

Recall the religious group that was demonstrating at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When the Supreme Court ruled in March that an antiwar church had a constitutional right to protest outside a military funeral, California lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to ban pickets within 1,000 feet of any funeral.

These decisions by the Supreme Court, in my opinon, are incorrect.  Everyone should have the right of free assembly.  Demonstrators infringe on that right.

Why is this man Smiling?

I always smile over the remarkable quality of the scanned copies printed from my HP Photosmart printer/scanner.  However, my smile is nothing like the smile on Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker’s face.  After just eleven months on the job he will be an estimated about $25 million to $36 million richer.

Talk about mis-management.  HP specializes in it!  Look at the list of CEOs that have left that company with fortunes that the rest of us can only dream about.

CEO: Carly Fiorina  (July 19, 1999 –February 9, 2005; Chairwoman September 22, 2000–February 9, 2005). Her severance package worth about $21.4 million.  

President and CEO: Mark Hurd (CEO:April 1, 2005–August 6, 2010; Chairman:September 22, 2006–August 6, 2010). His severance package worth about $40 million.

There have been other high ranking departures as well.  It’s a good bet they all were rewarded handsomely for screwing up this marvelous company.

The return for HP?  The company is in a tail spin.  It does not seem to know what its core strengths are.  Clearly the board of directors does not know what to do to fix this giant.  Perhaps they don’t really care.

Palestinians won’t accept vote delay on UN bid

So the Palestinians will not accept a delayed vote according the Associated Press.  They will DICTATE this requirement to the U.N.? This is ridiculous.  They have no authority to tell the U.N. what it must do.  Is there an implied threat?  “Give us what we want or we will go to war.”  This entire United Nations event is simply another behavior problem.  Like Khrushchev and Arafat they think they can boss the world.

Israel, with a population of less than 8 million people, in an area the size of New Jersey must confront huge nations with money and manpower.  Other than the United States they have no one to turn to for support.  How sad our world is.

Equal Taxation for Everyone

Higher income tax on people making $1 million or more.  President Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new taxes aimed primarily at the wealthy.  House Speaker John Boehner, has said no such legislation will pass the House.

Is this fair?  Is this appropriate?  Will there be a class war?

 The answers are YES, YES and YES!

Those opposing the tax cuts say that this is the wrong time to increase taxes because those wealthy people are the job creators.  If that is accurate then where are the jobs created by the Bush tax cuts?  Look in India, China, and elsewhere.  Businesses did create jobs.  They just didn’t to it in the United States.

Let’s be honest.  Businessmen did do the right thing for their companies.  They kept their cost of goods as low as possible.  That’s the way you increase the profits.

From now on the wealthy should at least pay the same tax rates as the rest of us!  The Republicans will call it class warfare.  I call it equal sharing of the burdens of a successful society.

No Jobs Could Lead to Riots

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, has voiced concern of riots in America similar to those in Europe that have been brought on by economic conditions.  This was reported on CNN where a film clip was shown.  Mr. Bloomberg’s warning comes on the heels of some very horrifying economic news.  That news simply reinforces the suspicions that everyone has had in recent months.

First the average American family income this past year has dropped below $50,000.  Second, the official unemployment rate is currently 9.1% and has not been below 8.8% since April 2009.  Third, the number of Americans living in poverty last year reached 46.2 million people – the most in at least the last half a century.  Fourth, A record 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, have received government aid to buy food this year, according to data released by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Washington is a broken system of politicians who really are more concerned with election results than making any effort to energize this economy.  There are a variety of things that could be done to jump-start our economy but it is unlikely that any will be passed into law no matter what the president or speaker of the house says.

Large numbers of economists are now saying there is a one in three chance that the nation will fall back into a recession.  

We obviously need new leadership in Washington.  Perhaps Michael Bloomberg is the person to lead the way.  He is a very wealthy business man who has shown he understands the workings of government.  He claims no party affiliation.

I would support someone new with a different set of ideas.  Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry get out of the way!

Is Israel Over?

From Newsweek magazine

 Sep 11, 2011 11:00 AM EDT
 
Author Benny Morris

No longer the liberal, democratic, egalitarian society it once was, Israel is fighting the Arabs—and itself.

Israel is under assault. On Sept. 20 the Palestinian Authority plans to unilaterally declare statehood and go to the United Nations for recognition. This is a rejection of all efforts for a peaceful compromise. In its wake will come waves of Palestinian violence. And yet this is just the latest manifestation of an embattled Israel that is being threatened from the outside—by Muslim Arab states and societies, Egyptians storming the Israeli Embassy, a nuclear-arming Iran (with its local sidekicks, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hizbullah in Lebanon), and a besieged President Bashar al-Assad in Syria—and from the inside by domestic upheaval that led to the largest mass protests in the country’s history.

More than 50 years ago, Israel’s leaders, headed by David Ben-Gurion, believed and hoped that they were creating a social democracy, with all the requisite egalitarian accoutrements (socialized national health care, progressive income tax, child benefits, subsidized cheap housing). Ben-Gurion, who owned almost nothing and retired to a primitive hut in the Negev Desert, typified the austere lifestyle, and greatness, of the state’s founders.

This is no longer Israel. A profound, internal, existential crisis has arrived. It stems in part from the changing nature of the country, more right wing, more restrictive, far less liberal, and far less egalitarian. Many moderate Israelis fear the country is heading for ruin. Indeed, the country’s ruling class, including Benjamin Netanyahu and his predecessors Ehud Olmert (now on trial for corruption) and Ehud Barak (a former head of the Labor Party and current defense minister), live in opulence, and the feeling is that they are out of touch with reality. In Tel Aviv, where some 350,000 gathered in protest, a widespread chant, set to a popular children’s ditty, was “Bibi has three apartments, which is why we have none.”

 

Tent cities popped up as the demonstrators—20- to 45-year-olds, with a healthy contingent of older people—rallied against nonprogressive taxation, low wages, and the high cost of housing and consumer goods, which have made it nigh impossible for families to make ends meet. A full 20 percent of Israelis (and 15 percent of Israeli Jews) live under the poverty line, and the top decile of Israel’s population earns 31 percent of the country’s total net income. The lowest decile earns a mere 1.6 percent. Last year Israel was elected to membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of the world’s 32 most-developed countries. Among them, Israel ranks as one of the worst (alongside Mexico and the United States) in terms of wealth polarization.

Israel suffers from a steady brain drain, with tens of thousands of university graduates and wannabe academics moving abroad for lack of adequate positions or pay. Berlin has a community of more than 10,000 young Israelis, many of them working in the arts, who found creativity in Israel impossible. In a recent interview, one film director said that in Israel her energies were spent on making commercials and fashion trivia in order to subsist; Berlin enabled her to pursue her passion. In Tel Aviv, kindergartens charge $700 to $1,000 per child per month; in Berlin, the cost is $120; a kilo of cucumbers costs $1 in Tel Aviv, half that in Berlin.

In the 1950s, Israel was an under-developed country filled with ideologically motivated Zionists willing to sacrifice for the collective good. Today’s Israel has a burgeoning economy, driven by sophisticated and internationally competitive high-tech industries, and a population driven mainly by individuals who want the good life. They see that too much of the national pie goes both to the West Bank settlers (who tend to be religious and ultranationalist) and to the ultra-Orthodox (who contribute almost nothing to the economy and avoid mandatory military service).

Worse, this hard-core contingent is making babies at a rapid clip; they tend to have five to eight children per family, versus two to three children in secular homes. This gives them disproportionate clout in Parliament. And that translates into political power—and economic benefits. (Paradoxically, the ultra-Orthodox remain the poorest sector in Israeli Jewish society, mainly because most of them don’t work.)

The other side of the coin: Israel’s own Arab minority is emerging as a potential major problem, too. The Israeli Arab landscape is increasingly dominated by minarets and veiled women; and its leaders, identifying with their Palestinian cousins outside, vociferously call for Israel to shed its character as a “Jewish state” and give its Arab citizens collective minority rights and perhaps some form of autonomy.

Israel is a deeply troubled democracy. A democracy it still is, for its citizens—both Jewish and Arab. But Israel is no democracy when it comes to the semi-occupied 2.5 million Arabs of the West Bank and the 1.5 million semi-besieged Arabs of the Gaza Strip. And all this is now congealing.

Since the West Bank and Gaza were conquered in 1967, successive Israeli governments have failed to fully withdraw from them, either unilaterally or with a peace deal. The Arabs may have been largely at fault—in 2000 Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat turned down an Israeli offer to withdraw from 95 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip—but Israel retains its stranglehold over these people and continues to expand its settlement enterprise.

Now there looms the even greater threat of resurgent Islam, not just within Israel’s borders or the Palestinian territories, but across the region, where it is spreading like a brushfire. Many in the West have taken heart from the so-called Arab Spring, viewing the upheavals as heralds of democratic transformation. Israelis are less optimistic. The Islamist message that is coming out of Ankara, and moving to center stage in Cairo, includes a hard core of anti-Zionism usually accompanied by anti-Semitic overtones. (Egypt’s deposed president Hosni Mubarak is now denounced as a “stooge of the Zionists.” A photo of Netanyahu, dressed in an SS uniform, with a Hitler mustache, making the Nazi salute, appeared on the cover of the popular Egyptian weekly October on Aug. 28. Inside, the journal carried an article called “The New Nazis”—and it isn’t even an Islamist publication.)

Netanyahu is creating a series of bureaucratic salves for the country’s economic ills. But they will be swamped, and rendered irrelevant, in the tide of Palestinian activism and anti-Zionism that will be set off by the Palestinian statehood bid. It will then trigger shock waves around the Arab and Islamic worlds. Months ago, Ehud Barak predicted that Israel will face a “political tsunami.” Here it comes.

Morris is an Israeli historian.

What is your opinion?