Congressional Term Limits-52
Our Universe-51
Common Expressions Explained-50
1948 - 49
The Banking and Financial Crisis – Redux-48
The Banking and Financial Crisis-47
A Vulture’s Tale-46
California Dreamin – Or is This a Nightmare?-45
Federal Income Taxes-44
Marbury V. Madison-43
Black Swans-42
Free Speech – Free for Whom?-41
Too Much Freedom? You Bet!-40
Women’s Suffrage and Voting-39
Crime and Punishment-38
A Personal Vignette-37
Mourning Dove Tales-36
Free Enterprise vs. Big Gov.-35
Free Enterprise vs. The Welfare State-34
Do As I Say Not as I Do-33
Hurricane Katrina-32
Sen. Joe McCarthy-31
Our English Language-30
Honesty-29
The Myth of a 50/50 Country-28
Is War Worth it?-27
The Myth of Social Insecurity-26
Christians & Muslims-25
The Misunderstood Amer. Economy-24
FDR-23
Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails-22
An Offal Tale – 1854 London-21
Thomas Sowell-20
Global Warming-19
Further Thoughts on Dissimilation-18
Misused or Abused Words-17
Eric Hoffer-16
Fools, Frauds, & Fakes-15
Exercise & Weight-14
Freakonomics-13
Energy-12
Politically Incorrect Science-11
Sixth Sense-10
The Great Mortality-9
Miscellaneous Ruminations-8
The First Miracle Drug-7
Beer Consumption & Other LIA-6
Global Cooling or Warming-5
Lincoln Stories-4
Hormesis-3
Giving to Charity-2
Honorable Half-Dozen-1
Friday, May 29, 2009
CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS-52
A convincing argument can be made that congressional term limits are necessary for achieving better elective government. Despite the mantra by some people on both the political left and right that there are term limits – they are called elections, there is simply too much of an advantage for the incumbent in a congressional election. The other argument that if there were limited congressional terms then staff people would really be in charge. My response is that both presidential and congressional staffs have become grossly overgrown and should be drastically cut in the number of staff people and cost of the presidential and congressional offices.
When Abraham Lincoln became president he had one private secretary/assistant, John Nicolay. Lincoln soon added another, John Hay, whom he paid out of his own pocket until congress appropriated money for his salary. By the middle of his term Lincoln added a temporary secretary, William Stoddard. Edward Neill succeeded Stoddard when the latter became ill and was in turn succeeded by Charles Philbrick. According to the ten year census of 1860 the population of the United States was 30 ½ million (Lincoln served as president 1861-65). The current population of the country is just over 300 million. Compared to Lincoln, on a population proportional basis, the current president should have at most 50 assistants counting all of Lincoln’s assistants individually. The actual current number runs into the hundreds with a few interns, but with overwhelmingly most as paid permanent employees. Congressional staff, amanuenses, and assorted flunkies are similarly grossly bloated in numbers. And it is not as if there was inactivity during Lincoln’s presidency – America’s bloodiest war, a civil war, essentially occupied Lincoln’s entire tenure as president.
Now that I have logically and rationally presented a solid case that presidential and congressional staffs should be drastically reduced, permit me to tackle the question of term limits. By an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Amendment XXII, ratified February 27, 1951) the presidency for any single person is limited to 10 years. Why not two terms or eight years you ask? The answer is straightforward and simple. No person can be elected to the presidency for more than two terms; however, for example, if the vice-president should replace the president at any point in the first half of the president’s term then that person would be eligible to run for two more terms. Quad erat demstrandum; that could amount to as much as ten years.
Could congressional term limits be achieved? It won’t be easy and is perhaps impossible, still consider the reform now being debated in Italy. There are 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to our House of Representatives) and 322 senators for a total of 952. Contrast this to our 435 representatives and 100 senators for a total of 535. Italy has a population of circa 60 million to our 300+ million. There is broad agreement on reducing the total number to around 500 or fewer, but Italian politicians have differing opinions of how to accomplish this reduction even as the debate goes forward. A similar reduction in the number of members in the House of Commons in England where there about 200 more than we have is also being debated.
There are at least two excellent reasons to limit terms. One of them is age and another is mendacity as well as moral failings. This next may sound as if I am taking a gratuitous shot at aged people. If so then as one myself I can assure you that it is intentional. Some of our senators and representatives have been in office since the George Washington administration – well perhaps not, although it seems like it. Strum Thurmond (R–SC) was a senator until he was 100 years old – literally! He ran for re-election when he was 94 years old. In his last few years in the senate he clearly had no idea whether he was in Washington D.C. or the Land of OZ. Robert Byrd (D-WV) is 91 years old and was elected to his 9th term as senator in 2006. He has been a senator since 1959 and is now the longest serving U.S. Senator in history. He has become so infirmed that he is barely ambulatory, with help, on the senate floor. Known for his florid and rambling oratory it would not be surprising if he started expostulating in a senate speech about his near fin-de-siécle days in West Virginia. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) is 84 years old and has been a senator since 1963; the third longest serving senator behind Byrd and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who was elected in 1962. Inouye (in-no-way) was first elected as a U.S. representative from Hawaii in 1959. Surely our Republic would have been better served without these old fossils having hung around for so long.
Among the moral turpitude members of congress were pervert Mark Foley (R-FL), the married Gary Conduit (D-CA) who had an affair with the tragic Chandra Levy, and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) who was a client of a prostitution ring headed by the “D.C. Madam” despite being married with four children. The irony is that Vitter originally replaced Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) who resigned because of an adulterous affair. The pervert and liar Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) refused to resign after an encounter in a bathroom with an undercover policeman at a Minneapolis airport, but at least did not run for reelection in 2008. Then who can forget Barney Fag, I mean Barney Frank (D-MA) whose intimate friend ran a male prostitution ring out the basement of Frank’s house. Of course Barney said, like Sgt. Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes, “I know nothing” just as Rep. Frank knew nothing of the problems leading to the banking and financial institutions failures.
Worst yet are the risible and infra dignitatem brigands who, taking advantage of their positions as senators or representatives, cheat and steal from the public they are suppose to represent. There are and were many in this category on both sides of the political isle. One of my favorites is William Jefferson (D-LA) who is charged with taking several hundred thousand dollars in bribes and kickbacks. During Hurricane Katrina he was discovered to have had $90,000 in cash in his freezer in his house. After he was indicted, Jefferson won the Democrat primary for his house seat, however he lost the general election in a close race to a Republican Vietnamese-American, Anh Joseph Cao, despite the district being 2/3 black. Because Obama, naturally, carried that district overwhelmingly it is likely Jefferson would have won the general election if both the presidential and congressional elections had occurred simultaneously. Because of Hurricane Gustav the congressional election was held one month following the presidential election. After several delays by Jefferson’s defense team the trial is now scheduled for June 2, 2009.
Another favorite of mine is Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) who in 1981 was charged with corruption and perjury as a federal judge. In 1988 a Democrat controlled House of Representatives voted 413 – 3 to impeach him. A Democrat controlled Senate voted 69 – 26 to convict him and thus he was removed as a federal judge, one of only six federal judges to be removed in U.S. history. In 1992 Hastings ran for the U.S. representative from his district and won! He has won reelection to the House of Representatives ever since. Did I mention that like Jefferson he is black from a predominately black district?
Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) was not as lucky. He resigned as a U.S. Representative after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. That is what we want, honesty in our representatives.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was found guilty on all seven counts of failing to report gifts by a federal jury. One week later he lost in his bid for reelection to the senate. A few weeks later, owing to serious prosecutorial misconduct, he was acquitted of all charges by Attorney General Eric Holder. What a shame. If the acquittal had come before the election then old Ted Stevens (he is 85 years old) might have won reelection. We need people in congress who have been there since the dawn of the Republic and if they are dishonest, so much the better.
A name from the past and a more colorful character you could not find than that of James Traficant (D-OH) - he of the ill fitting wig. In 2002 he was convicted by a federal jury of taking bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, and forcing his office staff to work on his farm in Ohio and his houseboat in Washington D.C. After his conviction he was expelled from the House of Representatives and is currently serving an eight year sentence in federal prison. He is due to be released on September 2, 2009.
Remember Tony Coelho (D-CA)? He served six terms in congress and was the Democrat majority whip when he resigned from congress in 1989 owing to stories about him receiving a loan from a savings and loan executive to purchase junk bonds. Although he was never charge with a crime, one would have thought that he would not have resigned from his powerful position in congress if he had done nothing wrong.
And speaking of the Savings and Loan industry don’t forget the “Keating five”: Senators Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis Deconcini (D-AZ), Donald Riegle (D-MI), John Glenn (D-OH), and the lone Republican John McCain (R-AZ). After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in its investigation of Lincoln Savings and Charles Keating, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment." Compared to others these were not serious miscreants, nevertheless I don’t believe they should be applauded either.
In my opinion, John Murtha (D-PA) is arguably the most corrupt current member of congress. Murtha has been a member of congress for 35 years and he got off to an early start with his scrofulous behavior. When the Abscam scandal broke in 1980 one U.S. senator, Harrison Williams (D-NJ) and five congressmen (four of them Democrats) were indicted and convicted of receiving bribes and either resigned or were unceremoniously booted out of congress. Larry Pressler (R-SD) refused to take what he thought was a bribe and reported it to the FBI. Walter Cronkite called him “a hero.” Pressler modestly responded, “When was one considered a hero for refusing to take a bribe?” Considering the flagitious nature of congress I believe that Cronkite was more correct than Pressler. The FBI classified John Murtha as an unindicted co-conspirator. They just could not quite get the goods on the slippery Murtha and to ingratiate himself with the FBI, Murtha agreed to testify against two fellow Democrat congressmen.
In 2006 the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called Murtha one of the 20 most corrupt politicians in congress and in 2008 Esquire magazine, hardly a conservative bastion, called Murtha one of the ten worst congressmen. In March 2009, the Washington Post reported that a Pennsylvania defense research center regularly consulted with two "handlers" close to Murtha while it received nearly $250 million in federal funding via Murtha's earmarks. The center then channeled a significant portion of the funding to companies that were among Murtha's campaign supporters.
Murtha is one of the worst abusers of “earmarks” in congress having directed an estimated $600 million to his district in the last four years and $2 billion so far during his tenure in congress. The John Murtha Airport is a prime example. There are just three flights per day which fly only between Murtha’s home town in Pennsylvania, Johnstown, and Washington D.C. The airport gets large subsidies from the government thanks to Murtha. It is all legal, but a colossal waste of tax payer money.
More recently Murtha is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly using his position in congress to influence government contracts being directed to a company his son is part of. Previously he was accused of doing the same for his brother, Robert. If one to were to postulate that Murtha does not possess an honest bone in his body then it is likely that an anatomical examination would verify it.
What can be said about the San Francisco liberal and non-blinking Democrat Speaker-of-the-House, Nancy Pelosi other than her name in Italian means “hairy?” For one thing she is one of the wealthiest members of congress. She and her husband are worth at least $20 million with investments in real estate, a vineyard, and Apple computer stock. With her recent nervous and addlepated press conference denial of being briefed on “water-boarding” and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques previously by the CIA and accusing the CIA of mendaciously misinforming and misleading her and other members of congress the denouement of her speaker-ship seemed imminent. Enough of the Democrat leadership rallied around to rescue her from that peril, at least temporarily. Perhaps they were motivated by the old saw that you do not wound a king (or queen), you kill him (her) or suffer the same fate yourself. Being less charitable and not political, I say of Nancy, “liar, liar pantsuit on fire.” Only an extreme partisan with blinders firmly in place would believe her word against the evidence and the CIA. Certainly fellow Californian Democrat and director of the CIA, Leon Panetta did not.
It is too facile to say “They are all a bunch of crooks.” They are not. I will not argue that at any given time a majority or even a big majority of congressmen are thieves and knaves who not only make a career of feeding at the public trough, but do so dishonestly. However there are numerous exceptions. I am sure everyone could come up with a list of their own. Here are four examples only out of many others that could be cited. In the name of being “fair and balanced” there are two Democrats and two Republicans. They are politicians yes, but honest and honorable men who all left congress voluntarily before becoming infirmed and senile: J.C. Watts (R-OK) served 8 years in the House of Representatives and left congress at the age of 45; John Kasich (R-OH) served 16 years in the House of Representatives and left at the age of 49; John Breaux (D-LA) served 18 years and left the Senate at age 61; Sam Nunn (D-GA) served 24 years and left the Senate at age 58.
Term limits would certainly reduced the ranks of those old codgers, both men and women, who stay in congress unit they enter their dotage. Would term limits remedy the problem of dishonest and parasitic congressmen? I believe amelioration would be achieved if for no other reason than it usually takes a number of years for congressmen to establish a base with enough power and influence to turn public duty and service into personal graft and corruption. I would personally opt for a maximum of two terms (twelve years total) for a senator and six terms (also 12 years total) for a member of the House of Representatives – no partial additional term allowed as is the case of the president. I would even be open to changing the length of the senatorial and representative terms. With senators perhaps two five year terms would be better and with representatives how about three terms of three years each?
A reduction in the numbers of presidential cabinet offices and other federal agencies would be in order. I will go back to the comparison of the Abraham Lincoln administration. There were seven cabinet officials under Lincoln: Secretaries of State; Treasury; War; Navy; Interior; Postmaster-General; and Attorney General. Currently there are 20 cabinet members and 20 more top level departments such as the FBI, the CIA, NASA, FEMA, the FAA, and the FCC. In addition there are the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Pentagon which employs 23,000 military and civilian people and 3000 non-defense support personnel. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends $29 billion annually on medical research. The federal government has expanded exponentially in the last few decades. It is not only the industrial-military complex that President Eisenhower warned the country about in his farewell speech on January 17, 1961 that is a problem; there are all the other added and expanded federal agencies which have exploded in number and size. In my opinion it is not sufficient merely to stop the growth of the federal government in its many guises, but to reverse, that is to say to downsize, in a responsible and structured manner, this out of control colossus. In the words of the Bard of Avon, “It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
When Abraham Lincoln became president he had one private secretary/assistant, John Nicolay. Lincoln soon added another, John Hay, whom he paid out of his own pocket until congress appropriated money for his salary. By the middle of his term Lincoln added a temporary secretary, William Stoddard. Edward Neill succeeded Stoddard when the latter became ill and was in turn succeeded by Charles Philbrick. According to the ten year census of 1860 the population of the United States was 30 ½ million (Lincoln served as president 1861-65). The current population of the country is just over 300 million. Compared to Lincoln, on a population proportional basis, the current president should have at most 50 assistants counting all of Lincoln’s assistants individually. The actual current number runs into the hundreds with a few interns, but with overwhelmingly most as paid permanent employees. Congressional staff, amanuenses, and assorted flunkies are similarly grossly bloated in numbers. And it is not as if there was inactivity during Lincoln’s presidency – America’s bloodiest war, a civil war, essentially occupied Lincoln’s entire tenure as president.
Now that I have logically and rationally presented a solid case that presidential and congressional staffs should be drastically reduced, permit me to tackle the question of term limits. By an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Amendment XXII, ratified February 27, 1951) the presidency for any single person is limited to 10 years. Why not two terms or eight years you ask? The answer is straightforward and simple. No person can be elected to the presidency for more than two terms; however, for example, if the vice-president should replace the president at any point in the first half of the president’s term then that person would be eligible to run for two more terms. Quad erat demstrandum; that could amount to as much as ten years.
Could congressional term limits be achieved? It won’t be easy and is perhaps impossible, still consider the reform now being debated in Italy. There are 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to our House of Representatives) and 322 senators for a total of 952. Contrast this to our 435 representatives and 100 senators for a total of 535. Italy has a population of circa 60 million to our 300+ million. There is broad agreement on reducing the total number to around 500 or fewer, but Italian politicians have differing opinions of how to accomplish this reduction even as the debate goes forward. A similar reduction in the number of members in the House of Commons in England where there about 200 more than we have is also being debated.
There are at least two excellent reasons to limit terms. One of them is age and another is mendacity as well as moral failings. This next may sound as if I am taking a gratuitous shot at aged people. If so then as one myself I can assure you that it is intentional. Some of our senators and representatives have been in office since the George Washington administration – well perhaps not, although it seems like it. Strum Thurmond (R–SC) was a senator until he was 100 years old – literally! He ran for re-election when he was 94 years old. In his last few years in the senate he clearly had no idea whether he was in Washington D.C. or the Land of OZ. Robert Byrd (D-WV) is 91 years old and was elected to his 9th term as senator in 2006. He has been a senator since 1959 and is now the longest serving U.S. Senator in history. He has become so infirmed that he is barely ambulatory, with help, on the senate floor. Known for his florid and rambling oratory it would not be surprising if he started expostulating in a senate speech about his near fin-de-siécle days in West Virginia. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) is 84 years old and has been a senator since 1963; the third longest serving senator behind Byrd and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who was elected in 1962. Inouye (in-no-way) was first elected as a U.S. representative from Hawaii in 1959. Surely our Republic would have been better served without these old fossils having hung around for so long.
Among the moral turpitude members of congress were pervert Mark Foley (R-FL), the married Gary Conduit (D-CA) who had an affair with the tragic Chandra Levy, and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) who was a client of a prostitution ring headed by the “D.C. Madam” despite being married with four children. The irony is that Vitter originally replaced Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) who resigned because of an adulterous affair. The pervert and liar Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) refused to resign after an encounter in a bathroom with an undercover policeman at a Minneapolis airport, but at least did not run for reelection in 2008. Then who can forget Barney Fag, I mean Barney Frank (D-MA) whose intimate friend ran a male prostitution ring out the basement of Frank’s house. Of course Barney said, like Sgt. Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes, “I know nothing” just as Rep. Frank knew nothing of the problems leading to the banking and financial institutions failures.
Worst yet are the risible and infra dignitatem brigands who, taking advantage of their positions as senators or representatives, cheat and steal from the public they are suppose to represent. There are and were many in this category on both sides of the political isle. One of my favorites is William Jefferson (D-LA) who is charged with taking several hundred thousand dollars in bribes and kickbacks. During Hurricane Katrina he was discovered to have had $90,000 in cash in his freezer in his house. After he was indicted, Jefferson won the Democrat primary for his house seat, however he lost the general election in a close race to a Republican Vietnamese-American, Anh Joseph Cao, despite the district being 2/3 black. Because Obama, naturally, carried that district overwhelmingly it is likely Jefferson would have won the general election if both the presidential and congressional elections had occurred simultaneously. Because of Hurricane Gustav the congressional election was held one month following the presidential election. After several delays by Jefferson’s defense team the trial is now scheduled for June 2, 2009.
Another favorite of mine is Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) who in 1981 was charged with corruption and perjury as a federal judge. In 1988 a Democrat controlled House of Representatives voted 413 – 3 to impeach him. A Democrat controlled Senate voted 69 – 26 to convict him and thus he was removed as a federal judge, one of only six federal judges to be removed in U.S. history. In 1992 Hastings ran for the U.S. representative from his district and won! He has won reelection to the House of Representatives ever since. Did I mention that like Jefferson he is black from a predominately black district?
Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) was not as lucky. He resigned as a U.S. Representative after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. That is what we want, honesty in our representatives.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was found guilty on all seven counts of failing to report gifts by a federal jury. One week later he lost in his bid for reelection to the senate. A few weeks later, owing to serious prosecutorial misconduct, he was acquitted of all charges by Attorney General Eric Holder. What a shame. If the acquittal had come before the election then old Ted Stevens (he is 85 years old) might have won reelection. We need people in congress who have been there since the dawn of the Republic and if they are dishonest, so much the better.
A name from the past and a more colorful character you could not find than that of James Traficant (D-OH) - he of the ill fitting wig. In 2002 he was convicted by a federal jury of taking bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, and forcing his office staff to work on his farm in Ohio and his houseboat in Washington D.C. After his conviction he was expelled from the House of Representatives and is currently serving an eight year sentence in federal prison. He is due to be released on September 2, 2009.
Remember Tony Coelho (D-CA)? He served six terms in congress and was the Democrat majority whip when he resigned from congress in 1989 owing to stories about him receiving a loan from a savings and loan executive to purchase junk bonds. Although he was never charge with a crime, one would have thought that he would not have resigned from his powerful position in congress if he had done nothing wrong.
And speaking of the Savings and Loan industry don’t forget the “Keating five”: Senators Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis Deconcini (D-AZ), Donald Riegle (D-MI), John Glenn (D-OH), and the lone Republican John McCain (R-AZ). After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in its investigation of Lincoln Savings and Charles Keating, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment." Compared to others these were not serious miscreants, nevertheless I don’t believe they should be applauded either.
In my opinion, John Murtha (D-PA) is arguably the most corrupt current member of congress. Murtha has been a member of congress for 35 years and he got off to an early start with his scrofulous behavior. When the Abscam scandal broke in 1980 one U.S. senator, Harrison Williams (D-NJ) and five congressmen (four of them Democrats) were indicted and convicted of receiving bribes and either resigned or were unceremoniously booted out of congress. Larry Pressler (R-SD) refused to take what he thought was a bribe and reported it to the FBI. Walter Cronkite called him “a hero.” Pressler modestly responded, “When was one considered a hero for refusing to take a bribe?” Considering the flagitious nature of congress I believe that Cronkite was more correct than Pressler. The FBI classified John Murtha as an unindicted co-conspirator. They just could not quite get the goods on the slippery Murtha and to ingratiate himself with the FBI, Murtha agreed to testify against two fellow Democrat congressmen.
In 2006 the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called Murtha one of the 20 most corrupt politicians in congress and in 2008 Esquire magazine, hardly a conservative bastion, called Murtha one of the ten worst congressmen. In March 2009, the Washington Post reported that a Pennsylvania defense research center regularly consulted with two "handlers" close to Murtha while it received nearly $250 million in federal funding via Murtha's earmarks. The center then channeled a significant portion of the funding to companies that were among Murtha's campaign supporters.
Murtha is one of the worst abusers of “earmarks” in congress having directed an estimated $600 million to his district in the last four years and $2 billion so far during his tenure in congress. The John Murtha Airport is a prime example. There are just three flights per day which fly only between Murtha’s home town in Pennsylvania, Johnstown, and Washington D.C. The airport gets large subsidies from the government thanks to Murtha. It is all legal, but a colossal waste of tax payer money.
More recently Murtha is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly using his position in congress to influence government contracts being directed to a company his son is part of. Previously he was accused of doing the same for his brother, Robert. If one to were to postulate that Murtha does not possess an honest bone in his body then it is likely that an anatomical examination would verify it.
What can be said about the San Francisco liberal and non-blinking Democrat Speaker-of-the-House, Nancy Pelosi other than her name in Italian means “hairy?” For one thing she is one of the wealthiest members of congress. She and her husband are worth at least $20 million with investments in real estate, a vineyard, and Apple computer stock. With her recent nervous and addlepated press conference denial of being briefed on “water-boarding” and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques previously by the CIA and accusing the CIA of mendaciously misinforming and misleading her and other members of congress the denouement of her speaker-ship seemed imminent. Enough of the Democrat leadership rallied around to rescue her from that peril, at least temporarily. Perhaps they were motivated by the old saw that you do not wound a king (or queen), you kill him (her) or suffer the same fate yourself. Being less charitable and not political, I say of Nancy, “liar, liar pantsuit on fire.” Only an extreme partisan with blinders firmly in place would believe her word against the evidence and the CIA. Certainly fellow Californian Democrat and director of the CIA, Leon Panetta did not.
It is too facile to say “They are all a bunch of crooks.” They are not. I will not argue that at any given time a majority or even a big majority of congressmen are thieves and knaves who not only make a career of feeding at the public trough, but do so dishonestly. However there are numerous exceptions. I am sure everyone could come up with a list of their own. Here are four examples only out of many others that could be cited. In the name of being “fair and balanced” there are two Democrats and two Republicans. They are politicians yes, but honest and honorable men who all left congress voluntarily before becoming infirmed and senile: J.C. Watts (R-OK) served 8 years in the House of Representatives and left congress at the age of 45; John Kasich (R-OH) served 16 years in the House of Representatives and left at the age of 49; John Breaux (D-LA) served 18 years and left the Senate at age 61; Sam Nunn (D-GA) served 24 years and left the Senate at age 58.
Term limits would certainly reduced the ranks of those old codgers, both men and women, who stay in congress unit they enter their dotage. Would term limits remedy the problem of dishonest and parasitic congressmen? I believe amelioration would be achieved if for no other reason than it usually takes a number of years for congressmen to establish a base with enough power and influence to turn public duty and service into personal graft and corruption. I would personally opt for a maximum of two terms (twelve years total) for a senator and six terms (also 12 years total) for a member of the House of Representatives – no partial additional term allowed as is the case of the president. I would even be open to changing the length of the senatorial and representative terms. With senators perhaps two five year terms would be better and with representatives how about three terms of three years each?
A reduction in the numbers of presidential cabinet offices and other federal agencies would be in order. I will go back to the comparison of the Abraham Lincoln administration. There were seven cabinet officials under Lincoln: Secretaries of State; Treasury; War; Navy; Interior; Postmaster-General; and Attorney General. Currently there are 20 cabinet members and 20 more top level departments such as the FBI, the CIA, NASA, FEMA, the FAA, and the FCC. In addition there are the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Pentagon which employs 23,000 military and civilian people and 3000 non-defense support personnel. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends $29 billion annually on medical research. The federal government has expanded exponentially in the last few decades. It is not only the industrial-military complex that President Eisenhower warned the country about in his farewell speech on January 17, 1961 that is a problem; there are all the other added and expanded federal agencies which have exploded in number and size. In my opinion it is not sufficient merely to stop the growth of the federal government in its many guises, but to reverse, that is to say to downsize, in a responsible and structured manner, this out of control colossus. In the words of the Bard of Avon, “It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Our Universe-51
There is an interesting philosophical question about the universe we live in. And that question is: Was the universe built just for us? Consider the following facts with which astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists, and physicists all seem to generally agree as based on an article in the December 2008 DISCOVER magazine among other sources:
If the force of gravity were just a bit weaker, then there would have been no clustering of matter after the Big Bang and as a consequence no galaxies or stars or planets would have formed and therefore no us.
On the other hand, a beefed-up gravity would have compressed stars more tightly, making them smaller, hotter, and denser. The results would have been that these stars would have burned through their fuel in millions of years instead of billions, thereby not allowing enough time for life to have formed. Again no us.
As we all know, atoms consist of electrons, neutrons, and protons. Now if these protons were just 0.2% more massive than there are, they would be unstable and would decay into more elementary particles. In that case, atoms would not exist and again neither would we.
Stars produce energy by converting two hydrogen atoms into one helium atom. During that reaction, 0.007% of the mass of the hydrogen atoms is converted into energy as illustrated by the famous e=mc² equation of Albert Einstein. If that energy conversion percentage were as little different as 0.006% or 0.008% then untoward (in respect to us) events would have occurred. The lower number would have resulted in the universe filled only with hydrogen; the higher number would have left the universe with no hydrogen, therefore no water, no stars like our sun, and hence no us.
The early universe was delicately balanced between runaway expansion and terminal collapse. Had the universe contained a great deal more matter, additional gravity would have made it implode. If it had contained considerably less matter, it would have expanded too quickly for galaxies to have formed. In both instances, no us.
If matter in the universe had been more evenly distributed after the Big Bang, it would not have clumped together to form galaxies. Had matter been clumpier, it would have condensed into black holes. Again in either case, no us.
Atomic nuclei are bound together by the so called Strong Nuclear Force. If that force were slightly more powerful then all of the protons would have paired off and there would be no hydrogen which fuels long-lived stars. Water would not exist either, nor would any known form of life, which arguably includes us.
In 1998 two teams of astronomy researchers, observing supernovae, found that the expanding of the university is accelerating. The discovery was baffling in that just about everyone else involved in astronomy expected that the cosmic expansion, which started with the Big Bang, must be gradually slowing down, braked by the collective gravitational pull of all of the galaxies and other matter in space. However, it seems that built into the very fabric of space is some unknown form of energy. Physicists call it simply dark energy that is pushing everything apart. Many cosmologists, astronomers, and astrophysicists were skeptical at first, but follow-up observations with the Hubble Space Telescope along with independent studies of radiation left over from the time of the Big Bang, have powerfully confirmed the reality of dark energy.
What to make of all this. One could claim that God made the universe just for us. That may be satisfactory for some, but then the discussion is closed as there is nothing more to contemplate. What I want to know is how this seemingly unique situation came to pass. Postulating that God created the universe and His method is unknowable by us, however true or not that might be, does not advance the explanation in any way so let us consider a non divine hypothesis.
One theory, quite controversial, called the Multiverse Theory, is that there are many universes, as many as 10 5ºº of which ours is the one suited for carbon based life. That is an extremely large number, larger in fact than the number of dollars the U.S. government is using in the current economic bailout. Let’s see how much larger. The one dollar bill is close to 6 1/8 inches long. If laid end to end it would take approximately 962 billion to reach between earth and the sun (the mean distance of the earth from the sun is about 93 million miles). One billion is 1 followed by nine zeros. To get to 10 5ºº we need 1 followed by 500 zeros.
How many one dollar bills would it take to span the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy? Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across (a light-year is the distance light travels in one year – circa 5.88 x 10¹² miles in the vacuum of space). So it would take on the order of 6 x 10²¹ one dollar bills laid end to end. Still a bit short of the 10 5ºº number.
What about the number of one dollar bills stretching across the diameter of the known universe? The universe is estimated to be 156 billion light-years across. Therefore it would take on the order of 9.5 x 10 27 one dollar bills to span the known universe. How much of a deficit do we still have from the 10 5ºº number? The answer is approximately 10 5ºº / 10 28 = 10 472. It seems we have not made much of a dent in the 10 5ººnumber. What is the evidence there are 10 5ºº different universes? It is part of the Multiverse Theory, but is not absolutely provable.
The specific term “Multiverse” was coined in 1895 by psychologist William James. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called “alternative universes”, “quantum universes”, “interpenetrating dimensions”, parallel worlds”, “alternate realities”, “alternate timelines”, etc.
As previously stated, different universes within the Multiverse (also called the Meta-Universe) are called Parallel Universes. According to this theory each universe starts with its own Big Bang and acquires its individual physical laws as it cools and traces its own cosmic cycle. Physicists do not like the idea of a Multiverse because it lacks testability and without hard physical evidence is non-falsifiable outside the methodology of scientific investigation to confirm or disprove. Yet there is no other current satisfactory explanation of why our universe is the way it is thereby allowing us to exist.
The concept of other universes has been proposed to explain why our universe seems to be fine-tuned for conscious life as we experience it. If there were a large number (possibly infinite) of different physical laws or fundamental constants in as many universes, some of these would have laws that were suitable for stars, planets, and life to exist. The anthropic (human) principle could then be applied to conclude that we would only consciously exist in those universes which were fine-tuned for our conscious existence. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that there is life in most of those universes, this scarcity of life-supporting universes does not automatically implies intelligent design as the only explanation of our existence.
Strikingly the temperature of space is everywhere the same, just 2.7 ºC above absolute zero. How could different regions of the universe, separated by such enormous distances, all have the same temperature? In the standard version of the Big Bang theory they couldn’t. Cosmic inflation is the hypothesis that the nascent universe, just after the Big Bang, passed through a phase of exponential expansion in the very early universe. Cosmic inflation answers the classic conundrum of the Big Bang cosmology of why the universe appear flat, homogeneous, isothermal, and isotropic in accordance with the cosmological principle when one would expect, on the basis of the Big Bang, a highly curved, inhomogeneous, and non-isotropic universe.
A counter argument that life simply began and evolved to meet the physical conditions of our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet is not persuasive in that it seems more than implausible that life could come about without stars and planets, to say nothing of atoms or water molecules.
This is heavy stuff and also involves string theory which is a physically and mathematically complex concept involving up to 11 dimensions. It was co-invented by world famous professor of theoretical physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Michio Kaku. Professor Kaku has appeared on various television programs about science and is a best selling author of such books as Hyperspace, Parallel Worlds, and Physics of the Impossible.
I do not pretend to comprehend these abstruse physics and mathematics principles, yet before one dismisses them as flights of fancy the nagging question of why our universe, perhaps uniquely, is seemingly inexplicably suited for us must be confronted.
If the force of gravity were just a bit weaker, then there would have been no clustering of matter after the Big Bang and as a consequence no galaxies or stars or planets would have formed and therefore no us.
On the other hand, a beefed-up gravity would have compressed stars more tightly, making them smaller, hotter, and denser. The results would have been that these stars would have burned through their fuel in millions of years instead of billions, thereby not allowing enough time for life to have formed. Again no us.
As we all know, atoms consist of electrons, neutrons, and protons. Now if these protons were just 0.2% more massive than there are, they would be unstable and would decay into more elementary particles. In that case, atoms would not exist and again neither would we.
Stars produce energy by converting two hydrogen atoms into one helium atom. During that reaction, 0.007% of the mass of the hydrogen atoms is converted into energy as illustrated by the famous e=mc² equation of Albert Einstein. If that energy conversion percentage were as little different as 0.006% or 0.008% then untoward (in respect to us) events would have occurred. The lower number would have resulted in the universe filled only with hydrogen; the higher number would have left the universe with no hydrogen, therefore no water, no stars like our sun, and hence no us.
The early universe was delicately balanced between runaway expansion and terminal collapse. Had the universe contained a great deal more matter, additional gravity would have made it implode. If it had contained considerably less matter, it would have expanded too quickly for galaxies to have formed. In both instances, no us.
If matter in the universe had been more evenly distributed after the Big Bang, it would not have clumped together to form galaxies. Had matter been clumpier, it would have condensed into black holes. Again in either case, no us.
Atomic nuclei are bound together by the so called Strong Nuclear Force. If that force were slightly more powerful then all of the protons would have paired off and there would be no hydrogen which fuels long-lived stars. Water would not exist either, nor would any known form of life, which arguably includes us.
In 1998 two teams of astronomy researchers, observing supernovae, found that the expanding of the university is accelerating. The discovery was baffling in that just about everyone else involved in astronomy expected that the cosmic expansion, which started with the Big Bang, must be gradually slowing down, braked by the collective gravitational pull of all of the galaxies and other matter in space. However, it seems that built into the very fabric of space is some unknown form of energy. Physicists call it simply dark energy that is pushing everything apart. Many cosmologists, astronomers, and astrophysicists were skeptical at first, but follow-up observations with the Hubble Space Telescope along with independent studies of radiation left over from the time of the Big Bang, have powerfully confirmed the reality of dark energy.
What to make of all this. One could claim that God made the universe just for us. That may be satisfactory for some, but then the discussion is closed as there is nothing more to contemplate. What I want to know is how this seemingly unique situation came to pass. Postulating that God created the universe and His method is unknowable by us, however true or not that might be, does not advance the explanation in any way so let us consider a non divine hypothesis.
One theory, quite controversial, called the Multiverse Theory, is that there are many universes, as many as 10 5ºº of which ours is the one suited for carbon based life. That is an extremely large number, larger in fact than the number of dollars the U.S. government is using in the current economic bailout. Let’s see how much larger. The one dollar bill is close to 6 1/8 inches long. If laid end to end it would take approximately 962 billion to reach between earth and the sun (the mean distance of the earth from the sun is about 93 million miles). One billion is 1 followed by nine zeros. To get to 10 5ºº we need 1 followed by 500 zeros.
How many one dollar bills would it take to span the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy? Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across (a light-year is the distance light travels in one year – circa 5.88 x 10¹² miles in the vacuum of space). So it would take on the order of 6 x 10²¹ one dollar bills laid end to end. Still a bit short of the 10 5ºº number.
What about the number of one dollar bills stretching across the diameter of the known universe? The universe is estimated to be 156 billion light-years across. Therefore it would take on the order of 9.5 x 10 27 one dollar bills to span the known universe. How much of a deficit do we still have from the 10 5ºº number? The answer is approximately 10 5ºº / 10 28 = 10 472. It seems we have not made much of a dent in the 10 5ººnumber. What is the evidence there are 10 5ºº different universes? It is part of the Multiverse Theory, but is not absolutely provable.
The specific term “Multiverse” was coined in 1895 by psychologist William James. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called “alternative universes”, “quantum universes”, “interpenetrating dimensions”, parallel worlds”, “alternate realities”, “alternate timelines”, etc.
As previously stated, different universes within the Multiverse (also called the Meta-Universe) are called Parallel Universes. According to this theory each universe starts with its own Big Bang and acquires its individual physical laws as it cools and traces its own cosmic cycle. Physicists do not like the idea of a Multiverse because it lacks testability and without hard physical evidence is non-falsifiable outside the methodology of scientific investigation to confirm or disprove. Yet there is no other current satisfactory explanation of why our universe is the way it is thereby allowing us to exist.
The concept of other universes has been proposed to explain why our universe seems to be fine-tuned for conscious life as we experience it. If there were a large number (possibly infinite) of different physical laws or fundamental constants in as many universes, some of these would have laws that were suitable for stars, planets, and life to exist. The anthropic (human) principle could then be applied to conclude that we would only consciously exist in those universes which were fine-tuned for our conscious existence. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that there is life in most of those universes, this scarcity of life-supporting universes does not automatically implies intelligent design as the only explanation of our existence.
Strikingly the temperature of space is everywhere the same, just 2.7 ºC above absolute zero. How could different regions of the universe, separated by such enormous distances, all have the same temperature? In the standard version of the Big Bang theory they couldn’t. Cosmic inflation is the hypothesis that the nascent universe, just after the Big Bang, passed through a phase of exponential expansion in the very early universe. Cosmic inflation answers the classic conundrum of the Big Bang cosmology of why the universe appear flat, homogeneous, isothermal, and isotropic in accordance with the cosmological principle when one would expect, on the basis of the Big Bang, a highly curved, inhomogeneous, and non-isotropic universe.
A counter argument that life simply began and evolved to meet the physical conditions of our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet is not persuasive in that it seems more than implausible that life could come about without stars and planets, to say nothing of atoms or water molecules.
This is heavy stuff and also involves string theory which is a physically and mathematically complex concept involving up to 11 dimensions. It was co-invented by world famous professor of theoretical physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Michio Kaku. Professor Kaku has appeared on various television programs about science and is a best selling author of such books as Hyperspace, Parallel Worlds, and Physics of the Impossible.
I do not pretend to comprehend these abstruse physics and mathematics principles, yet before one dismisses them as flights of fancy the nagging question of why our universe, perhaps uniquely, is seemingly inexplicably suited for us must be confronted.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Common Expressions Explained-50
The following expressions, except as where I have indicated I have sourced the definition and etymology from my previous writings, are taken from a little 2007 book I Didn’t Know That by Karlen Evins. I hope you will find them as interesting and illuminating as I did:
A-1
More than a steak sauce, the phase itself connotes the very best, because, by definition, it was the highest rating that could be given a ship ensured by Lloyd’s of London. Lloyd’s registry of ships and shipping was categorized by letter and number (with ships rated by letter and cargo by number). “A” meant the ship itself was perfect and “1” meant the cargo was in perfect condition.
Aftermath (From my other sources)
Aftermath is commonly and erroneously used to simply mean the period following an event, usually a disaster such as a fire, hurricane, or tornado: “In the aftermath of the tornado, many people in the neighborhood are still homeless.” Television and newspaper reporters are especially guilty of misusing this word. ‘After’ means second and ‘math’ is a mowing or harvest. So an ‘aftermath’ is a second happening, usually a disaster, following and caused by the first event. The San Francisco fire was an aftermath as it was a disaster following and caused by the earthquake of 1906.
Backseat Driver
Think backseat driver and you think of one who complains or one who thinks he can see better from the rear seat than from the front of a vehicle. But the original backseat drivers weren’t complainers. Matter of fact for what they were watching, they could see better! In the days of the early fire engines there was a job for backseat drivers. Someone needed to watch the ladder as fire engines rushed to the scene. As quick turns and abrupt stops were causes for accidents, a backseat driver was as vital a part of the fire team as the firefighters themselves.
Beyond the Pale
Pale is from the Latin word palus which was a stake or boundary marker that fenced the territory under rule by a certain nation. Paling or pickets were quite common as boundary markers in Roman times. Those believed to be beyond the bounds of social or moral decency were once literally exiled beyond the pale or beyond the confines of civilization as determined by the townspeople.
Blackball
Early social clubs in England had a practice of voting for their initiates by dropping white balls or marbles into a ballot box. Those voting against a particular candidate dropped a blackball, hence the term. While the term was first coined in the late 1700s the custom dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Even our word ballot refers to voting by little balls.
Cahoots
Cahoots were quite simply little cabins or kajuetes as they were called in medieval Germany. Often known to be occupied by robbers and bandits, these little cabins became planning centers for attacks. So in reality it was the goings-on inside the cabins that became known for what the cabins themselves were called. Today we use cahoots to refer to any shady partnership or less than upright scheme.
Carte Blanche
Ask for carte blanche in France and you just might receive a white sheet of paper because translated literally that is what the term means. Custom has it that a man would trust his closest subordinates with blank sheets or correspondence cards with only his name at the bottom in order that they might use them for whatever needs they might have in a time of crisis (not much different from a blank check today).
Clean as a Whistle
You might not think of a whistle as being so clean that we would use it as a measure of cleanliness, but if you ever tried to make one from a reed (as they were made originally) then you would understand the phrase. To obtain the pure wind sound derived from a reed whistle the tube must be totally free of debris – clean and dry. So to have a thing clean as a whistle today means to have it as orderly as possible, with nothing blocking the passageways.
Crocodile Tears
Those insincere tears we have come to know as crocodile tears are quite literal in origin. For you see, a crocodile does indeed cry over its meal as it eats. But the crying has nothing to do with a croc’s sense of the situation. Instead, as a crocodile eats, his food is pressed to the top of his mouth, causing pressure against the glands known as the lachrymals. These secrete a tear-like substance that flows from his eyes. From this biological active of the reptile we draw our meaning for crocodile tears.
Curmudgeon (From my other sources)
The coinage of curmudgeon is beyond interesting; it is downright fascinating. Dr. Samuel Johnson decided to write his dictionary of the English language because he thought the language was being ‘corrupted’ (after delving deeply into the subject and being astute and intellectually honest, he rejected his original conviction and came to the conclusion that language is a living, breathing, evolving entity).
As related by Bergen Evans, while Johnson was compiling material for his dictionary he received a letter suggesting that the word curmudgeon was derived from the French coeur (heart) and méchant (evil). Either the letter was unsigned or he lost it and forgot who wrote it. The suggestion, though unsupported, was plausible and in his dictionary (1755) Johnson set it down for what it was worth: “a vitious manner of pronouncing coeur méchant, Fr. an unknown correspondent.” In his New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1775), Dr John Ash, cribbing from Johnson, but, unfortunately for him, knowing no French entered it as “from the French coeur unknown, méchant correspondent.” This is one of history’s most amusing and notorious instances of plagiarism. The antics of authors Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin were drab and colorless by comparison.
Dead as a Doornail
What is a doornail anyway? Well, I am here to tell you. A doornail is that plate or knob upon which a door’s knocker knocks! As it never moves and is pounded upon repeatedly, we assume it’s dead. Hence the reference (some things are just too easy).
Dessert
It is the French who gave us both the word and the custom of the dessert. By definition their word desservir means to “clear the table,” which originally consisted of clearing both dishes and the tablecloth to make way for the final presentation. Most often that final course was a pastry or ice cream, but in all cases it was something sweet to end the meal. It was believed at that time that the sugar in the sweet was necessary to give a rush of energy in order that all of the foods consumed during the meal could be digested.
Dressed to the Nines
No, this does not mean that on a scale of one to ten, one is dressed almost perfectly. The expression is English in origin and was (when spoken correctly), “dressed to thy’n eyes.” (quite obviously in reference to one spiffed up from head to toe). Leave it to us to make it slang, mispronounce it a bit and make it a popular expression, even though “dressed to the nines” in and of itself makes no sense!
Earmark
[We have heard about earmarks in the past couple of years from corrupt congressmen (Are there any other kind? Yes there are – corrupt congresswomen). So let’s see where this word came from.] Long ago in England farmers found it helpful to mark the ears of their cattle and pigs to prevent thievery. Matter of fact earmarks worked so well that the law decided that one caught taking an earmarked animal or altering one to make it his own should be earmarked himself (literally!) as punishment for the crime. [I guess if it was good enough for a pig……come to think about it how about earmarking (literally!) those congress people who use earmarks as a devise for political patronage to enhance their reelection odds.]
Fiasco
By definition, fiasco is a total, foolish failure, but for its origins you have to go back to the glassblowers of Italy who created beautiful bottles. The story has it that if a bottle was noted to have a flaw it was set aside and reworked into a flask (fiasco in Italian). Not as artsy, but more practical in function was the re-created piece that was salvaged.
Getting One’s Goat
It was a common practice in the early days of horse racing to place a goat in the stall with a high-strung horse to calm him before the race. The two made good roommates, but it was also common practice for an opponent to steal his competitor’s goat in order to upset his horse before the race. Many a good racehorse was ruined by someone getting his goat!
Having a Screw Loose
It’s easy enough to conjure up the image of a machine with a screw loose, but which machine originally gave us the phrase? It was the cotton gin, the advent of which caused cotton mills to multiple at an unbelievable rate in the late 1700’s. So frequent were the breakdowns of the earlier machines that loose screws were nearly always blamed for the problem. As a result the phrase was adapted by most everyone who needed to blame something or someone for just about anything. By the early 1800’s having a screw loose became the catchphrase for something gone amiss.
Influenza
The common flu has a superstitious origin. The phrase was coined in the mid 1700’s when the first outbreak of the virus was recorded in Rome. It was believed at the time that the stars influenced such evil and contagious epidemics and influenza (the Italian word for influence) became the given name for this particular one!
Kick the Bucket
This has nothing to do with a pail being kicked out from under a man being
hanged. The phrase originated in the slaughterhouses of old, where hogs were slashed and hung (by their heels) and strung by a pulley weighted with a wooden block called a bucket. (The name was borrowed from the bucket-in-the-well concept.) Often, in the last efforts of life, the slaughtered hog was known to kick the bucket, just before it gave up the ghost.
Lame Duck
The original lame duck was a member of the British Stock Exchange who couldn’t meet his liabilities on the settlement date, and thus flew off without settling his account. From that we applied the term to our political candidates who, by way of losing an election, can’t return to the flock, even though their own party has been retained. [In recent years this term has applied to presidents serving out their term when either they are not eligible for another term or have been defeated in their bid for a second term. As with his predecessors, George W. Bush has been called a lame duck president, yet with Bush and his administration so involved, for good or ill, in the current financial crisis, he has been described as a lame duck who roared.]
Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
Back in the Middle Ages when the Muslims invaded Southern Europe, suddenly pork was declared unclean and thus became a premium on the open market. Because of strict laws forbidding such, pigs were sold undercover, stashed in bags (or pokes, which some cite to credit the expression “pig in a poke”). On occasion a cat was substituted for the more expensive pig and it wasn’t until the new owner let the cat out of the bag that the scam was revealed.
Lunatic
We get the word lunatic from the same base word that gives us lunar, which, of course, means it pertains to the moon. Lunatic was coined by the early Romans in reference to the mentally insane, as a description of one they thought was moonstruck. For centuries, man has believed that full moons have an effect on behavior. The Romans simply gave it a name and we still use it today.
One Fell Swoop (From my other sources)
At one fell swoop means all at once, as everyone realizes. As pointed out by Bergen Evans, what is not as well understood is that the word “fell” in this phrase is derived not from the past tense of “fall”, but from the noun “felon.”
In Macbeth (Act IV, scene III) when news of the murder of his wife and children by Macbeth is brought to Macduff, he exclaims, “Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?” A kite is a fierce but ignoble hawk or falcon that preys on small quarry and Macduff sees the tragedy in the metaphor of a hawk striking defenseless prey.
Sour Grapes (From other sources)
The words sour grapes leave a sour taste in my mouth – not literally in a gustatory sense of course, but with the figurative ill-tasting sensation of misconstruing what it means. Inevitably this expression is used to mean someone who whines or complains when they do not receive or achieve something they feel they are entitled to.
The expression comes from one of Aesop’s fables where a fox sees some delicious appearing grapes which are out of his reach and try as he might he can not get them. In frustration and resignation he allows as how they are probably sour. The expression really means that the claimant, unable to achieve his objective, declares that the prize was not worth his time and effort.
Three Sheets to the Wind
True the origin of this one is nautical, but no, the sheets are not sails. The sheets being referred to here are the ropes attached to the corners of the sails, which are used for lowering or extending. When all three sheets (on a vessel with three sails) are loosened, the ship will rock and reel as though without course or purpose, much like a drunk would if walking about while intoxicated.
Turn a Blind Eye (From my other sources)
Admiral Horatio Nelson is credited with having said this when willfully disobeying a signal to withdraw during a naval engagement. Tales of that sort, especially when they are about national heroes like Nelson, tend to be exaggerated or entirely fictitious. That doesn't appear to be the case here though and there's very good evidence to show that Nelson was indeed the source of this phrase.
In the naval battle of Copenhagen in 1801 Nelson led the attack of the British fleet against a joint Danish/Norwegian enemy. The British fleet of the day was commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. The two men disagreed over tactics and at one point Hyde Parker sent a signal (by the use of flags) for Nelson to disengage. Nelson was convinced he could win if he persisted and that's when he 'turned a blind eye'. In their biography Life of Nelson, published just eight years later, Clarke and M'Arthur printed what they claimed to be Nelson's actual words at the time:(Putting the glass to his blind eye) "You know, Foley, I have only one eye - and I have a right to be blind sometimes... I really do not see the signal."
Verdict
The word describing a jury’s decision at the end of a trial is one that dates back to the Middle Ages. With the introduction of the jury, it was superstitiously believe that twelve men in a group would hold some mystical power in drawing a truthful conclusion. The number twelve was considered holy both in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus’ twelve apostles. It was the French who gave this body of twelve the name veir (true) and dit (said). Even in homicide cases today, a verdict cannot be obtained until all twelve on the jury reach an agreement. [The phrase for the examination of prospective jurors by the attorneys and the judge is called voir dire which is French for “too see, to speak.”]
Veto
One powerful little word is veto! With four little letters, the head of state has the power to cancel out laws passed by lower governing bodies. The word comes directly from Latin, its translation is literally “I forbid.” It was used in a political context as far back as the time of the Roman senate and has carried the same meaning both within and without political circles for hundreds of years.
Visa
Short for the Latin phrase carta visa, a visa is that official authorization that permits entry into another country. The original phrase means “papers seen”, which was the stamp of approval by those on border control, monitoring the visitors coming into and out of a foreign country.
Win, Place, or Show
Most folks know that the origin of “win, place, or show” dates back to the earliest racetracks, but most may not know that the phrase was so named because of the way in which the finishes were announced. As small boards were used to record the names of the winners of each horse race, and as these boards were so small that only the first two could be “placed” on the board, the titles “win” and “place” were soon coined. Shortly after, a second board was used to “show” the third winner and “win, “place”, or “show” became synonymous with first, second, and third.
Xmas
While some consider it disrespectful to substitute an X for the Christ part of Christmas, others know that the letter X was in fact the symbol used long ago for Christ. X represents the Greek letter chi, which is the initial letter of the Greek word for Christ. According to first century history, the early Greek Christians used the letter X to stand for Christ, much as they used the fish with the X in the tail to represent Jesus.
Zip Code
We refer to it every day, but how many of us knew [before they read this] that the ZIP stands for “Zone Improvement Program”? Okay, so you may have known that, but do you know what the five-digit code represents? Well, according to our reliable postal people, the first three digits indicate a district, usually a city, while the remaining two digits correspond with a local zone.
A-1
More than a steak sauce, the phase itself connotes the very best, because, by definition, it was the highest rating that could be given a ship ensured by Lloyd’s of London. Lloyd’s registry of ships and shipping was categorized by letter and number (with ships rated by letter and cargo by number). “A” meant the ship itself was perfect and “1” meant the cargo was in perfect condition.
Aftermath (From my other sources)
Aftermath is commonly and erroneously used to simply mean the period following an event, usually a disaster such as a fire, hurricane, or tornado: “In the aftermath of the tornado, many people in the neighborhood are still homeless.” Television and newspaper reporters are especially guilty of misusing this word. ‘After’ means second and ‘math’ is a mowing or harvest. So an ‘aftermath’ is a second happening, usually a disaster, following and caused by the first event. The San Francisco fire was an aftermath as it was a disaster following and caused by the earthquake of 1906.
Backseat Driver
Think backseat driver and you think of one who complains or one who thinks he can see better from the rear seat than from the front of a vehicle. But the original backseat drivers weren’t complainers. Matter of fact for what they were watching, they could see better! In the days of the early fire engines there was a job for backseat drivers. Someone needed to watch the ladder as fire engines rushed to the scene. As quick turns and abrupt stops were causes for accidents, a backseat driver was as vital a part of the fire team as the firefighters themselves.
Beyond the Pale
Pale is from the Latin word palus which was a stake or boundary marker that fenced the territory under rule by a certain nation. Paling or pickets were quite common as boundary markers in Roman times. Those believed to be beyond the bounds of social or moral decency were once literally exiled beyond the pale or beyond the confines of civilization as determined by the townspeople.
Blackball
Early social clubs in England had a practice of voting for their initiates by dropping white balls or marbles into a ballot box. Those voting against a particular candidate dropped a blackball, hence the term. While the term was first coined in the late 1700s the custom dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Even our word ballot refers to voting by little balls.
Cahoots
Cahoots were quite simply little cabins or kajuetes as they were called in medieval Germany. Often known to be occupied by robbers and bandits, these little cabins became planning centers for attacks. So in reality it was the goings-on inside the cabins that became known for what the cabins themselves were called. Today we use cahoots to refer to any shady partnership or less than upright scheme.
Carte Blanche
Ask for carte blanche in France and you just might receive a white sheet of paper because translated literally that is what the term means. Custom has it that a man would trust his closest subordinates with blank sheets or correspondence cards with only his name at the bottom in order that they might use them for whatever needs they might have in a time of crisis (not much different from a blank check today).
Clean as a Whistle
You might not think of a whistle as being so clean that we would use it as a measure of cleanliness, but if you ever tried to make one from a reed (as they were made originally) then you would understand the phrase. To obtain the pure wind sound derived from a reed whistle the tube must be totally free of debris – clean and dry. So to have a thing clean as a whistle today means to have it as orderly as possible, with nothing blocking the passageways.
Crocodile Tears
Those insincere tears we have come to know as crocodile tears are quite literal in origin. For you see, a crocodile does indeed cry over its meal as it eats. But the crying has nothing to do with a croc’s sense of the situation. Instead, as a crocodile eats, his food is pressed to the top of his mouth, causing pressure against the glands known as the lachrymals. These secrete a tear-like substance that flows from his eyes. From this biological active of the reptile we draw our meaning for crocodile tears.
Curmudgeon (From my other sources)
The coinage of curmudgeon is beyond interesting; it is downright fascinating. Dr. Samuel Johnson decided to write his dictionary of the English language because he thought the language was being ‘corrupted’ (after delving deeply into the subject and being astute and intellectually honest, he rejected his original conviction and came to the conclusion that language is a living, breathing, evolving entity).
As related by Bergen Evans, while Johnson was compiling material for his dictionary he received a letter suggesting that the word curmudgeon was derived from the French coeur (heart) and méchant (evil). Either the letter was unsigned or he lost it and forgot who wrote it. The suggestion, though unsupported, was plausible and in his dictionary (1755) Johnson set it down for what it was worth: “a vitious manner of pronouncing coeur méchant, Fr. an unknown correspondent.” In his New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1775), Dr John Ash, cribbing from Johnson, but, unfortunately for him, knowing no French entered it as “from the French coeur unknown, méchant correspondent.” This is one of history’s most amusing and notorious instances of plagiarism. The antics of authors Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin were drab and colorless by comparison.
Dead as a Doornail
What is a doornail anyway? Well, I am here to tell you. A doornail is that plate or knob upon which a door’s knocker knocks! As it never moves and is pounded upon repeatedly, we assume it’s dead. Hence the reference (some things are just too easy).
Dessert
It is the French who gave us both the word and the custom of the dessert. By definition their word desservir means to “clear the table,” which originally consisted of clearing both dishes and the tablecloth to make way for the final presentation. Most often that final course was a pastry or ice cream, but in all cases it was something sweet to end the meal. It was believed at that time that the sugar in the sweet was necessary to give a rush of energy in order that all of the foods consumed during the meal could be digested.
Dressed to the Nines
No, this does not mean that on a scale of one to ten, one is dressed almost perfectly. The expression is English in origin and was (when spoken correctly), “dressed to thy’n eyes.” (quite obviously in reference to one spiffed up from head to toe). Leave it to us to make it slang, mispronounce it a bit and make it a popular expression, even though “dressed to the nines” in and of itself makes no sense!
Earmark
[We have heard about earmarks in the past couple of years from corrupt congressmen (Are there any other kind? Yes there are – corrupt congresswomen). So let’s see where this word came from.] Long ago in England farmers found it helpful to mark the ears of their cattle and pigs to prevent thievery. Matter of fact earmarks worked so well that the law decided that one caught taking an earmarked animal or altering one to make it his own should be earmarked himself (literally!) as punishment for the crime. [I guess if it was good enough for a pig……come to think about it how about earmarking (literally!) those congress people who use earmarks as a devise for political patronage to enhance their reelection odds.]
Fiasco
By definition, fiasco is a total, foolish failure, but for its origins you have to go back to the glassblowers of Italy who created beautiful bottles. The story has it that if a bottle was noted to have a flaw it was set aside and reworked into a flask (fiasco in Italian). Not as artsy, but more practical in function was the re-created piece that was salvaged.
Getting One’s Goat
It was a common practice in the early days of horse racing to place a goat in the stall with a high-strung horse to calm him before the race. The two made good roommates, but it was also common practice for an opponent to steal his competitor’s goat in order to upset his horse before the race. Many a good racehorse was ruined by someone getting his goat!
Having a Screw Loose
It’s easy enough to conjure up the image of a machine with a screw loose, but which machine originally gave us the phrase? It was the cotton gin, the advent of which caused cotton mills to multiple at an unbelievable rate in the late 1700’s. So frequent were the breakdowns of the earlier machines that loose screws were nearly always blamed for the problem. As a result the phrase was adapted by most everyone who needed to blame something or someone for just about anything. By the early 1800’s having a screw loose became the catchphrase for something gone amiss.
Influenza
The common flu has a superstitious origin. The phrase was coined in the mid 1700’s when the first outbreak of the virus was recorded in Rome. It was believed at the time that the stars influenced such evil and contagious epidemics and influenza (the Italian word for influence) became the given name for this particular one!
Kick the Bucket
This has nothing to do with a pail being kicked out from under a man being
hanged. The phrase originated in the slaughterhouses of old, where hogs were slashed and hung (by their heels) and strung by a pulley weighted with a wooden block called a bucket. (The name was borrowed from the bucket-in-the-well concept.) Often, in the last efforts of life, the slaughtered hog was known to kick the bucket, just before it gave up the ghost.
Lame Duck
The original lame duck was a member of the British Stock Exchange who couldn’t meet his liabilities on the settlement date, and thus flew off without settling his account. From that we applied the term to our political candidates who, by way of losing an election, can’t return to the flock, even though their own party has been retained. [In recent years this term has applied to presidents serving out their term when either they are not eligible for another term or have been defeated in their bid for a second term. As with his predecessors, George W. Bush has been called a lame duck president, yet with Bush and his administration so involved, for good or ill, in the current financial crisis, he has been described as a lame duck who roared.]
Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
Back in the Middle Ages when the Muslims invaded Southern Europe, suddenly pork was declared unclean and thus became a premium on the open market. Because of strict laws forbidding such, pigs were sold undercover, stashed in bags (or pokes, which some cite to credit the expression “pig in a poke”). On occasion a cat was substituted for the more expensive pig and it wasn’t until the new owner let the cat out of the bag that the scam was revealed.
Lunatic
We get the word lunatic from the same base word that gives us lunar, which, of course, means it pertains to the moon. Lunatic was coined by the early Romans in reference to the mentally insane, as a description of one they thought was moonstruck. For centuries, man has believed that full moons have an effect on behavior. The Romans simply gave it a name and we still use it today.
One Fell Swoop (From my other sources)
At one fell swoop means all at once, as everyone realizes. As pointed out by Bergen Evans, what is not as well understood is that the word “fell” in this phrase is derived not from the past tense of “fall”, but from the noun “felon.”
In Macbeth (Act IV, scene III) when news of the murder of his wife and children by Macbeth is brought to Macduff, he exclaims, “Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?” A kite is a fierce but ignoble hawk or falcon that preys on small quarry and Macduff sees the tragedy in the metaphor of a hawk striking defenseless prey.
Sour Grapes (From other sources)
The words sour grapes leave a sour taste in my mouth – not literally in a gustatory sense of course, but with the figurative ill-tasting sensation of misconstruing what it means. Inevitably this expression is used to mean someone who whines or complains when they do not receive or achieve something they feel they are entitled to.
The expression comes from one of Aesop’s fables where a fox sees some delicious appearing grapes which are out of his reach and try as he might he can not get them. In frustration and resignation he allows as how they are probably sour. The expression really means that the claimant, unable to achieve his objective, declares that the prize was not worth his time and effort.
Three Sheets to the Wind
True the origin of this one is nautical, but no, the sheets are not sails. The sheets being referred to here are the ropes attached to the corners of the sails, which are used for lowering or extending. When all three sheets (on a vessel with three sails) are loosened, the ship will rock and reel as though without course or purpose, much like a drunk would if walking about while intoxicated.
Turn a Blind Eye (From my other sources)
Admiral Horatio Nelson is credited with having said this when willfully disobeying a signal to withdraw during a naval engagement. Tales of that sort, especially when they are about national heroes like Nelson, tend to be exaggerated or entirely fictitious. That doesn't appear to be the case here though and there's very good evidence to show that Nelson was indeed the source of this phrase.
In the naval battle of Copenhagen in 1801 Nelson led the attack of the British fleet against a joint Danish/Norwegian enemy. The British fleet of the day was commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. The two men disagreed over tactics and at one point Hyde Parker sent a signal (by the use of flags) for Nelson to disengage. Nelson was convinced he could win if he persisted and that's when he 'turned a blind eye'. In their biography Life of Nelson, published just eight years later, Clarke and M'Arthur printed what they claimed to be Nelson's actual words at the time:(Putting the glass to his blind eye) "You know, Foley, I have only one eye - and I have a right to be blind sometimes... I really do not see the signal."
Verdict
The word describing a jury’s decision at the end of a trial is one that dates back to the Middle Ages. With the introduction of the jury, it was superstitiously believe that twelve men in a group would hold some mystical power in drawing a truthful conclusion. The number twelve was considered holy both in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus’ twelve apostles. It was the French who gave this body of twelve the name veir (true) and dit (said). Even in homicide cases today, a verdict cannot be obtained until all twelve on the jury reach an agreement. [The phrase for the examination of prospective jurors by the attorneys and the judge is called voir dire which is French for “too see, to speak.”]
Veto
One powerful little word is veto! With four little letters, the head of state has the power to cancel out laws passed by lower governing bodies. The word comes directly from Latin, its translation is literally “I forbid.” It was used in a political context as far back as the time of the Roman senate and has carried the same meaning both within and without political circles for hundreds of years.
Visa
Short for the Latin phrase carta visa, a visa is that official authorization that permits entry into another country. The original phrase means “papers seen”, which was the stamp of approval by those on border control, monitoring the visitors coming into and out of a foreign country.
Win, Place, or Show
Most folks know that the origin of “win, place, or show” dates back to the earliest racetracks, but most may not know that the phrase was so named because of the way in which the finishes were announced. As small boards were used to record the names of the winners of each horse race, and as these boards were so small that only the first two could be “placed” on the board, the titles “win” and “place” were soon coined. Shortly after, a second board was used to “show” the third winner and “win, “place”, or “show” became synonymous with first, second, and third.
Xmas
While some consider it disrespectful to substitute an X for the Christ part of Christmas, others know that the letter X was in fact the symbol used long ago for Christ. X represents the Greek letter chi, which is the initial letter of the Greek word for Christ. According to first century history, the early Greek Christians used the letter X to stand for Christ, much as they used the fish with the X in the tail to represent Jesus.
Zip Code
We refer to it every day, but how many of us knew [before they read this] that the ZIP stands for “Zone Improvement Program”? Okay, so you may have known that, but do you know what the five-digit code represents? Well, according to our reliable postal people, the first three digits indicate a district, usually a city, while the remaining two digits correspond with a local zone.
Friday, October 24, 2008
1948 -49
The 1948 War between, first the Palestinian Arabs and Jews, then the Palestinian Jews and the Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq (Lebanon did not take part in that war) actually started in late 1947 and ended in mid 1949, although most of the fighting occurred in 1948.
Unlike the civil war in Lebanon which started in 1975 and lasted for 15 years, the Palestinian War was definitely not a Black Swan – it was building for decades (see my blog essay Black Swans for an explanation of a Black Swan). Small pitched battles and clashes between Palestinian Arabs and Jews started in the decade of the late 1900’s and continued sporadically into the 1910’s, 1920’s, 1930’s and late 1940’s.
One of the best histories of this 1948 war may be the 2008 book 1948 – A history of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris. Morris is a professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel. One might presume a certain amount of bias on the part of Professor Morris, yet I did not perceive any. For example Morris states that the Jews committed more atrocities and massacres against the Arabs than did the Arabs against the Jews. The reason for this was logical in that the Jews overran many more Arab towns, villages, and settlements than vice-versa on the order of several hundred versus a couple dozen. None-the-less this is an indication to me that Professor Morris is a historian first and an Israeli second.
In 1958 when I was working in Libya, North Africa for Mobil Oil, I met several young Palestinian men in Tripoli who said that in 1948 their families were given 24 hours to leave their homes in Palestine. All were allowed to take as much of their personal and household effects as they could with them, but they had to leave. Their hatred of Palestinian Jews in particular and all Jews in general was palpable. As a child in June 1948 Lidia witnessed Jews in Tripoli being stoned by Arab mobs in reaction to the war between the Palestinian Arabs and Jews (according to Professor Morris 13 Jews were killed in Tripoli). At that time Libya was under United Nations jurisdiction with the British police and military on the ground as the UN representatives. The British did not intervene in the mayhem for 24 hours. What could have motivated the British for their non action? The answer must lie in what happened in Palestine prior to the 1948 war. Palestine was a British mandate so that the British were charged with administering the area and providing security. The Jews wanted the British military out of Palestine and toward the end of the mandate resorted to committing act of terrorism to drive them out. Among the terrorism acts was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where civilians as well as British military personnel were killed.
In 1948 the Jewish population of Palestine was circa 750,000 and the Arab population almost twice that. The surrounding Arab countries which went to war had a combined population of about 40 million. How on earth could such a relatively small population beat a so much larger one? And make no mistake; although the Jews lost a few battles, they overwhelmingly won the war. There are rational reasons why this was so as I shall endeavor to explain later, with no little credit to Professor Morris.
In 1881 the population of Palestine was made up of approximately 450,000 Arabs – 90% Muslim and the rest Christian and 25,000 Jews. From 1882 to 1903 the first wave of Zionist settlers – some 30,000 Jews came to Palestine. Zionism is an international political movement that supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. The word Zionism was derived from Mount Zion, a mountain near Jerusalem. The Arabs were wary of these new Jewish settlers whom they regarded as inexplicable, foolish, strange infidels, and vaguely minatory. The Jews in turn thought the Arabs devious, dirty, untrustworthy, simple, and lazy. Nothing like two peoples getting off to a good start in the Holy Land. The mantra of the Zionists was, “A land without people for a people without land.” The Jewish settlers must have been blind if they did not notice there were plenty of people in the land already.
Until around 1908-09 there were few acts of violence except of the common criminal kind. In 1909, David Ben-Gurion, who would become the first president of Israel in May 1948, was waylaid by an Arab with a knife, bent on robbery. Ben-Gurion suffered a wound to his arm and an abiding suspicion of Arabs thereafter. From 1909-1914 violence increased and took on a more nationalistic fervor – that is a more Arab vs. Jew connotation. The 1st World War from 1914 to 1919 diminished the Arab-Jew confrontations as Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, which in turn was part of the Central Powers, was allied with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as concentration on the wider war was the order of the day.
On November 29, 1947 the United Nations put Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into two sovereign states – one Jewish and one Arab, to a vote. When the tally was finished, 33 UN member countries voted “yes” and 13 voted “no” with 10 abstentions. The resolution barely achieved the necessary 2/3 vote with only two votes to spare. One of the two Palestinian protagonists was jubilant and the other was angry and morose. Guess which was which. The countries voting in the affirmative were the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, the Soviet Bloc, and most of Latin America. The nays were the Arab and Muslin countries, Greece, Cuba, Chile, and India. Strangely, among the abstainers was Great Britain; perhaps motivated by allegiance to both the Arabs and the Jews. The acts of sabotage and terrorism in Palestine by the Jews against the British were still in the future so that was not a motivation to be neutral. As can well be imagined the lobbying by both the Arabs and the Jews in the months leading up to the vote was intense. Especially contested by both sides were Latin America and Asia.
North America, Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc (that was to change a few years later) were firmly in the Jewish camp while Africa, a couple of Latin American countries and of course the Middle East sided with the Palestinian Arabs.
The Civil War between the Palestinian Arabs and Jews began in earnest on November 30, 1947. The Arab world called this the First Palestine War and the Jews called it the War of Independence. The war was to have two distinct phases: The civil war which began on November 30, 1947 and ended on May 14, 1948 and a conventional war beginning when the Arab armies of the surrounding states of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan invaded Palestine on May 15, 1948 and ending with armistice agreements with the Arab countries (Egypt on February 24, 1949, Jordan on April 3, 1949, Syria on July 20, 1949. Iraq refused to enter into armistice negotiations). There were several temporary truces intermixed during this interval where both the Arab and Israeli sides tried to derive advantages.
After 5 ½ months of fighting the Palestinian Arabs, the Yishuv, as the Jewish community in Palestine called themselves, won a decisive victory. The Jewish leaders, headed by the homunculus in stature, but leviathan in achievement, David Ben-Gurion, went to Tele Aviv on May 14, 1948 and, to the roar of approval and celebration of the crowd, declared the establishment of the State of Israel. The United States immediately recognized this new state and was followed quickly by the Soviet Union.
Where did the Yishuv get its arms to fight the war? Though money (and volunteers mostly Jewish, but some non-Jews as well) poured in from various places around the world, a large percentage came from North America and Europe. Interestingly enough, initially the Skoda Arms Works in Czechoslovakia supplied much of the military hardware. The motivation for the Checks was hard currency rather than ideology. They also sold arms to the Arabs, but considerably fewer. Other sources were also utilized by Jewish arms buyers around the world. Some few hundreds of the Jewish officers and enlisted men gained military experience fighting for the British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and American armed forces during WWII.
The Israelis were highly motivated to win this war because not to do so was to risk another Holocaust. The Arab soldiers from the other countries, on the other hand, knew that if they should lose they could always go back to their home countries. There are other factors which favored the Israelis. Not only were they more highly motivated, had superior coordination of their forces, and knew the terrain better than the invading Arabs armies, but the Israelis had one objective – to win. The various Arabs countries had a variety of objectives which were seldom conductive to defeating the Jews. Three of the Arab countries which invaded Palestine were kingdoms, Abdullah in Jordan, Farouk in Egypt, and Prince Abdul al-Llah who served as regent for the underage Faisal II in Iraq. Only Syria had an elected president, the nationalist Shukri al-Quwwatli, who had led the opposition to French rule after WWII. These Arab leaders were not as rabidly anti-Israel as the current leaders of those countries today. Although they opposed the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, of greater concern for them and their military commanders was their suspicion of the other invading Arab armies whom they thought were trying to carve up Palestine to their own advantage. Then, as now, the virulently anti-Israeli “Arab street” was a major factor which had to be taken under consideration else their regimes might be overthrown. Still this mistrust and reluctant or non-existent cooperation between the various governments and armies caused a significant diminution of battle effectiveness which accrued to the advantage of the Israelis. Not that the Jews did not have some divisions within their ranks, but they were not of the same magnitude as the Arabs. At the start of the civil war the main Jewish force was called the Haganah. A much smaller and more militant group was called the Irgun Zvai Luemi (IZL), also called the Irgun. After a showdown between forces of the Haganah and the IZL in one battle where both sides fired on one another, peace was made between them and the IZL was absorbed into the Haganah, thereafter called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Before the start of the first phase of the civil war when British forces were still in Palestine, Acts of sabotage and terrorism were committed by the Irgun against the British. The Haganah opposed the wanton acts of terrorism by the Irgun including murder of British military personnel and civilians. This situation was recounted in the 1960 movie Exodus based on the book of the same name by Leon Uris.
Professor Morris stated that Arab sources claim that 900,000 to one million Palestinian Arabs were displaced from their homes in Palestine. A better estimate might be on the order of 750,000 or approximately ½ of the Arab population before the war. Was there a deliberate and formulated policy by the Jews to expel the Arabs from Palestine? This charge has been made over the years, yet there is no credible evidence to support it. What is undeniably factual is that as the war went on, the Jews, both government officials and military commanders in the field, increasingly chose to expel the Arabs from their towns and settlements by direct orders or intimidation rather than trying to subjugate and control them, but leave them in place. The thinking of the Jews on this issue turned on the considerations that Arabs left in Jewish territory might become a “Fifth Column” to surreptitiously work against the Jewish occupiers. A further factor, strongly argued by Ben-Gurion, was that after the war if a sufficient number of Arabs remained in Israel then by demographics the Jews might become a minority and could conceivably lose control of their own country through the democratic process.
The other side of this logical, but tarnished nodus is the 500,000 to 600,000 Jews who emigrated, were intimidated into leaving, or were expelled from Arab lands in the years immediately after 1948. In Yemen 43,000 Jews left; in Iraq 80,000 to 90,000 who mostly went to Israel; in Syria the number was 15,000; in Libya it was 40,000; in Morocco 60,000 out of the pre-1948 total of 300,000 with a second major wave leaving in 1961 after the death of the sultan Mohammed V such that now there are only about 4000 Jews left in the country – still the largest Jewish community in the Arab world; and lesser numbers in Iran, Algeria and Tunisia. A number of Jews in these various countries did not leave – they were killed; hundreds in Iraq, 76 or so in Aden, 13 in Libya, and dozens more in other Arab countries. Everyone knows that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees after the 1948 war. What is not so well known, in fact hardly known at all, is that a half million or so Jews were forced, one way or another, to leave their home countries in the Middle East often being required to leave their money and personal property behind. Where is the outrage from the likes of Jimmy Carter, who is oh so sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab cause, but is silent on the injustices which were done to Jewish civilians in the Middle East after 1948?
Apart from being interesting history in itself, what is the significance of familiarity with the 1948 Arab/Israeli War? Factoring in the 1967 war (the so called “Six Day War”) between Israel and the trio of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria as well as the 1973 war (The Yom Kippur War) between Israel and the duo of Egypt and Syria there are lessons to be learned and hopefully profited from. The Arab world was humiliated in 1948, again in 1967, and to a lesser extent in 1973. Given the more than 1000 years of suspicion, rivalry, and contempt between Arabs and Jews and the establishment of Israel in the middle of the Arab world along with the aforementioned wars, what is there to be surprised about at the level of animosity and bitter hatred of Muslims toward Jews today? Another lesson from the 1948 war is the jealousy, distrust, and duplicity between the various Muslim or Arab countries and also within the countries themselves with their disparate social and religious (Sunni, Shiite, Coptic, Druze, Christian, etc.) makeup. Any country such as the United States or collection of countries, such as the UN or EU, who wants to “nation build” in the Middle East, should fully understand from a historical perspective what the difficulties, not to say impossibilities are. Bring peace between the Jews and Muslims just might take a thousand years or the complete destruction of one side or the other. Certainly the ill-feelings today between the two protagonists are greater than ever since the imbroglio of 1948.
There are criticisms and petty bickering among religious groups, e.g. Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc. in the United States and elsewhere , but I do not hear of them strapping on explosive vests and blowing themselves and others to kingdom come. Can the same be said of Muslin fanatics? Of course only a small minority of Muslims does this, yet the number of Muslims who do not unqualifiedly condemn these acts is not small. And even a minuscule number of people from other religions are not bent upon such extreme violence.
Unlike the civil war in Lebanon which started in 1975 and lasted for 15 years, the Palestinian War was definitely not a Black Swan – it was building for decades (see my blog essay Black Swans for an explanation of a Black Swan). Small pitched battles and clashes between Palestinian Arabs and Jews started in the decade of the late 1900’s and continued sporadically into the 1910’s, 1920’s, 1930’s and late 1940’s.
One of the best histories of this 1948 war may be the 2008 book 1948 – A history of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris. Morris is a professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel. One might presume a certain amount of bias on the part of Professor Morris, yet I did not perceive any. For example Morris states that the Jews committed more atrocities and massacres against the Arabs than did the Arabs against the Jews. The reason for this was logical in that the Jews overran many more Arab towns, villages, and settlements than vice-versa on the order of several hundred versus a couple dozen. None-the-less this is an indication to me that Professor Morris is a historian first and an Israeli second.
In 1958 when I was working in Libya, North Africa for Mobil Oil, I met several young Palestinian men in Tripoli who said that in 1948 their families were given 24 hours to leave their homes in Palestine. All were allowed to take as much of their personal and household effects as they could with them, but they had to leave. Their hatred of Palestinian Jews in particular and all Jews in general was palpable. As a child in June 1948 Lidia witnessed Jews in Tripoli being stoned by Arab mobs in reaction to the war between the Palestinian Arabs and Jews (according to Professor Morris 13 Jews were killed in Tripoli). At that time Libya was under United Nations jurisdiction with the British police and military on the ground as the UN representatives. The British did not intervene in the mayhem for 24 hours. What could have motivated the British for their non action? The answer must lie in what happened in Palestine prior to the 1948 war. Palestine was a British mandate so that the British were charged with administering the area and providing security. The Jews wanted the British military out of Palestine and toward the end of the mandate resorted to committing act of terrorism to drive them out. Among the terrorism acts was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where civilians as well as British military personnel were killed.
In 1948 the Jewish population of Palestine was circa 750,000 and the Arab population almost twice that. The surrounding Arab countries which went to war had a combined population of about 40 million. How on earth could such a relatively small population beat a so much larger one? And make no mistake; although the Jews lost a few battles, they overwhelmingly won the war. There are rational reasons why this was so as I shall endeavor to explain later, with no little credit to Professor Morris.
In 1881 the population of Palestine was made up of approximately 450,000 Arabs – 90% Muslim and the rest Christian and 25,000 Jews. From 1882 to 1903 the first wave of Zionist settlers – some 30,000 Jews came to Palestine. Zionism is an international political movement that supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. The word Zionism was derived from Mount Zion, a mountain near Jerusalem. The Arabs were wary of these new Jewish settlers whom they regarded as inexplicable, foolish, strange infidels, and vaguely minatory. The Jews in turn thought the Arabs devious, dirty, untrustworthy, simple, and lazy. Nothing like two peoples getting off to a good start in the Holy Land. The mantra of the Zionists was, “A land without people for a people without land.” The Jewish settlers must have been blind if they did not notice there were plenty of people in the land already.
Until around 1908-09 there were few acts of violence except of the common criminal kind. In 1909, David Ben-Gurion, who would become the first president of Israel in May 1948, was waylaid by an Arab with a knife, bent on robbery. Ben-Gurion suffered a wound to his arm and an abiding suspicion of Arabs thereafter. From 1909-1914 violence increased and took on a more nationalistic fervor – that is a more Arab vs. Jew connotation. The 1st World War from 1914 to 1919 diminished the Arab-Jew confrontations as Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, which in turn was part of the Central Powers, was allied with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as concentration on the wider war was the order of the day.
On November 29, 1947 the United Nations put Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into two sovereign states – one Jewish and one Arab, to a vote. When the tally was finished, 33 UN member countries voted “yes” and 13 voted “no” with 10 abstentions. The resolution barely achieved the necessary 2/3 vote with only two votes to spare. One of the two Palestinian protagonists was jubilant and the other was angry and morose. Guess which was which. The countries voting in the affirmative were the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, the Soviet Bloc, and most of Latin America. The nays were the Arab and Muslin countries, Greece, Cuba, Chile, and India. Strangely, among the abstainers was Great Britain; perhaps motivated by allegiance to both the Arabs and the Jews. The acts of sabotage and terrorism in Palestine by the Jews against the British were still in the future so that was not a motivation to be neutral. As can well be imagined the lobbying by both the Arabs and the Jews in the months leading up to the vote was intense. Especially contested by both sides were Latin America and Asia.
North America, Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc (that was to change a few years later) were firmly in the Jewish camp while Africa, a couple of Latin American countries and of course the Middle East sided with the Palestinian Arabs.
The Civil War between the Palestinian Arabs and Jews began in earnest on November 30, 1947. The Arab world called this the First Palestine War and the Jews called it the War of Independence. The war was to have two distinct phases: The civil war which began on November 30, 1947 and ended on May 14, 1948 and a conventional war beginning when the Arab armies of the surrounding states of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan invaded Palestine on May 15, 1948 and ending with armistice agreements with the Arab countries (Egypt on February 24, 1949, Jordan on April 3, 1949, Syria on July 20, 1949. Iraq refused to enter into armistice negotiations). There were several temporary truces intermixed during this interval where both the Arab and Israeli sides tried to derive advantages.
After 5 ½ months of fighting the Palestinian Arabs, the Yishuv, as the Jewish community in Palestine called themselves, won a decisive victory. The Jewish leaders, headed by the homunculus in stature, but leviathan in achievement, David Ben-Gurion, went to Tele Aviv on May 14, 1948 and, to the roar of approval and celebration of the crowd, declared the establishment of the State of Israel. The United States immediately recognized this new state and was followed quickly by the Soviet Union.
Where did the Yishuv get its arms to fight the war? Though money (and volunteers mostly Jewish, but some non-Jews as well) poured in from various places around the world, a large percentage came from North America and Europe. Interestingly enough, initially the Skoda Arms Works in Czechoslovakia supplied much of the military hardware. The motivation for the Checks was hard currency rather than ideology. They also sold arms to the Arabs, but considerably fewer. Other sources were also utilized by Jewish arms buyers around the world. Some few hundreds of the Jewish officers and enlisted men gained military experience fighting for the British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and American armed forces during WWII.
The Israelis were highly motivated to win this war because not to do so was to risk another Holocaust. The Arab soldiers from the other countries, on the other hand, knew that if they should lose they could always go back to their home countries. There are other factors which favored the Israelis. Not only were they more highly motivated, had superior coordination of their forces, and knew the terrain better than the invading Arabs armies, but the Israelis had one objective – to win. The various Arabs countries had a variety of objectives which were seldom conductive to defeating the Jews. Three of the Arab countries which invaded Palestine were kingdoms, Abdullah in Jordan, Farouk in Egypt, and Prince Abdul al-Llah who served as regent for the underage Faisal II in Iraq. Only Syria had an elected president, the nationalist Shukri al-Quwwatli, who had led the opposition to French rule after WWII. These Arab leaders were not as rabidly anti-Israel as the current leaders of those countries today. Although they opposed the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, of greater concern for them and their military commanders was their suspicion of the other invading Arab armies whom they thought were trying to carve up Palestine to their own advantage. Then, as now, the virulently anti-Israeli “Arab street” was a major factor which had to be taken under consideration else their regimes might be overthrown. Still this mistrust and reluctant or non-existent cooperation between the various governments and armies caused a significant diminution of battle effectiveness which accrued to the advantage of the Israelis. Not that the Jews did not have some divisions within their ranks, but they were not of the same magnitude as the Arabs. At the start of the civil war the main Jewish force was called the Haganah. A much smaller and more militant group was called the Irgun Zvai Luemi (IZL), also called the Irgun. After a showdown between forces of the Haganah and the IZL in one battle where both sides fired on one another, peace was made between them and the IZL was absorbed into the Haganah, thereafter called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Before the start of the first phase of the civil war when British forces were still in Palestine, Acts of sabotage and terrorism were committed by the Irgun against the British. The Haganah opposed the wanton acts of terrorism by the Irgun including murder of British military personnel and civilians. This situation was recounted in the 1960 movie Exodus based on the book of the same name by Leon Uris.
Professor Morris stated that Arab sources claim that 900,000 to one million Palestinian Arabs were displaced from their homes in Palestine. A better estimate might be on the order of 750,000 or approximately ½ of the Arab population before the war. Was there a deliberate and formulated policy by the Jews to expel the Arabs from Palestine? This charge has been made over the years, yet there is no credible evidence to support it. What is undeniably factual is that as the war went on, the Jews, both government officials and military commanders in the field, increasingly chose to expel the Arabs from their towns and settlements by direct orders or intimidation rather than trying to subjugate and control them, but leave them in place. The thinking of the Jews on this issue turned on the considerations that Arabs left in Jewish territory might become a “Fifth Column” to surreptitiously work against the Jewish occupiers. A further factor, strongly argued by Ben-Gurion, was that after the war if a sufficient number of Arabs remained in Israel then by demographics the Jews might become a minority and could conceivably lose control of their own country through the democratic process.
The other side of this logical, but tarnished nodus is the 500,000 to 600,000 Jews who emigrated, were intimidated into leaving, or were expelled from Arab lands in the years immediately after 1948. In Yemen 43,000 Jews left; in Iraq 80,000 to 90,000 who mostly went to Israel; in Syria the number was 15,000; in Libya it was 40,000; in Morocco 60,000 out of the pre-1948 total of 300,000 with a second major wave leaving in 1961 after the death of the sultan Mohammed V such that now there are only about 4000 Jews left in the country – still the largest Jewish community in the Arab world; and lesser numbers in Iran, Algeria and Tunisia. A number of Jews in these various countries did not leave – they were killed; hundreds in Iraq, 76 or so in Aden, 13 in Libya, and dozens more in other Arab countries. Everyone knows that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees after the 1948 war. What is not so well known, in fact hardly known at all, is that a half million or so Jews were forced, one way or another, to leave their home countries in the Middle East often being required to leave their money and personal property behind. Where is the outrage from the likes of Jimmy Carter, who is oh so sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab cause, but is silent on the injustices which were done to Jewish civilians in the Middle East after 1948?
Apart from being interesting history in itself, what is the significance of familiarity with the 1948 Arab/Israeli War? Factoring in the 1967 war (the so called “Six Day War”) between Israel and the trio of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria as well as the 1973 war (The Yom Kippur War) between Israel and the duo of Egypt and Syria there are lessons to be learned and hopefully profited from. The Arab world was humiliated in 1948, again in 1967, and to a lesser extent in 1973. Given the more than 1000 years of suspicion, rivalry, and contempt between Arabs and Jews and the establishment of Israel in the middle of the Arab world along with the aforementioned wars, what is there to be surprised about at the level of animosity and bitter hatred of Muslims toward Jews today? Another lesson from the 1948 war is the jealousy, distrust, and duplicity between the various Muslim or Arab countries and also within the countries themselves with their disparate social and religious (Sunni, Shiite, Coptic, Druze, Christian, etc.) makeup. Any country such as the United States or collection of countries, such as the UN or EU, who wants to “nation build” in the Middle East, should fully understand from a historical perspective what the difficulties, not to say impossibilities are. Bring peace between the Jews and Muslims just might take a thousand years or the complete destruction of one side or the other. Certainly the ill-feelings today between the two protagonists are greater than ever since the imbroglio of 1948.
There are criticisms and petty bickering among religious groups, e.g. Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc. in the United States and elsewhere , but I do not hear of them strapping on explosive vests and blowing themselves and others to kingdom come. Can the same be said of Muslin fanatics? Of course only a small minority of Muslims does this, yet the number of Muslims who do not unqualifiedly condemn these acts is not small. And even a minuscule number of people from other religions are not bent upon such extreme violence.
Friday, September 26, 2008
THE BANKING AND FINANCIAL CRISIS - REDUX 48
In my essay, The Banking and Financial Crisis, I blamed the officials in the financial institutions and both political parties. If the impression I gave was that Democrats and Republicans should be equally blamed, then consider the following facts in contemplating who is more culpable:
In 2001, Bush’s chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government’s “implicit subsidy” of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system. Barney Frank (D-MA) denounced Mankiw, saying he had no “concern about housing.” The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “under heavy assault by the Republicans,” but these entities still had “important political allies in the Democrats.”
April 2001 – The 2002 budget request by the Bush Administration said that the size of Freddie Mac (FHLMC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA) was a “potential problem.” “Financial trouble in either could cause strong repercussions in financial markets.”
2003 – The Bush administration upgraded its warning to: “Systemic risk could spread beyond the housing sector.”
Sept. 2003 – The Bush administration pushed Congress hard to create a new federal agency to regulate and supervise FHLMC & FNMA. Barney Frank pushed back saying, “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are not in a crisis. The federal government should be doing more to get more low-income families in houses. Too many people have a sky is falling mentality which I do not see.” The legislation was blocked.
Feb. 2005 – Federal Reserve chief Allen Greenspan testified before Congress after officials at FHLMC & FNMA admitted there were accounting screw-ups: “Enabling these institutions to increase in size – and they will once this crisis, in their judgment, [has] passed, [is] placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”
April 2005 – Allen Greenspan: “If we fail to strengthen GSE [Government Sponsors of Enterprises] regulation we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis.”
April 2005 – Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY): “I think Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae over the years have done an incredible job and are an intrinsic part of making America the best housed people in the world. If you look over the last 20 or whatever years, they have done a very, very good job.”
John McCain (R-AZ) in 2006 co-sponsored a bill in the Senate: “For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae …. and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. They need to be reformed without delay.” All of the Democrats voted against this bill in committee so the Republicans, fearing they could not get it passed, did not submit it to the full senate. Obama did not weigh in on it.
During the Clinton administration, the federal government put pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low-to-moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001. Threatening lawsuits, the Federal Reserve during the Clinton administration demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage.
There is also an accounting rule used now, which was not in force during the Savings and Loan scandal that would have worsened that financial crisis and which did not cause, but has exacerbated this one. The rule is this: financial institutions are forced to value the mortgages they hold at their current value rather than their long term value or even the amount of money these mortgages generate. Financial institutions typically loan 10 times as much money as the value of their capital. Therefore, if a financial institution such as a bank or a mortgage company is forced to write down say $10 billion worth of their capital due to the short term fall of their real estate holdings then their ability to give loans will be reduced by $100 billion. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) could change this requirement immediately.
In 2001, Bush’s chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government’s “implicit subsidy” of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system. Barney Frank (D-MA) denounced Mankiw, saying he had no “concern about housing.” The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “under heavy assault by the Republicans,” but these entities still had “important political allies in the Democrats.”
April 2001 – The 2002 budget request by the Bush Administration said that the size of Freddie Mac (FHLMC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA) was a “potential problem.” “Financial trouble in either could cause strong repercussions in financial markets.”
2003 – The Bush administration upgraded its warning to: “Systemic risk could spread beyond the housing sector.”
Sept. 2003 – The Bush administration pushed Congress hard to create a new federal agency to regulate and supervise FHLMC & FNMA. Barney Frank pushed back saying, “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are not in a crisis. The federal government should be doing more to get more low-income families in houses. Too many people have a sky is falling mentality which I do not see.” The legislation was blocked.
Feb. 2005 – Federal Reserve chief Allen Greenspan testified before Congress after officials at FHLMC & FNMA admitted there were accounting screw-ups: “Enabling these institutions to increase in size – and they will once this crisis, in their judgment, [has] passed, [is] placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”
April 2005 – Allen Greenspan: “If we fail to strengthen GSE [Government Sponsors of Enterprises] regulation we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis.”
April 2005 – Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY): “I think Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae over the years have done an incredible job and are an intrinsic part of making America the best housed people in the world. If you look over the last 20 or whatever years, they have done a very, very good job.”
John McCain (R-AZ) in 2006 co-sponsored a bill in the Senate: “For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae …. and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. They need to be reformed without delay.” All of the Democrats voted against this bill in committee so the Republicans, fearing they could not get it passed, did not submit it to the full senate. Obama did not weigh in on it.
During the Clinton administration, the federal government put pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low-to-moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001. Threatening lawsuits, the Federal Reserve during the Clinton administration demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage.
There is also an accounting rule used now, which was not in force during the Savings and Loan scandal that would have worsened that financial crisis and which did not cause, but has exacerbated this one. The rule is this: financial institutions are forced to value the mortgages they hold at their current value rather than their long term value or even the amount of money these mortgages generate. Financial institutions typically loan 10 times as much money as the value of their capital. Therefore, if a financial institution such as a bank or a mortgage company is forced to write down say $10 billion worth of their capital due to the short term fall of their real estate holdings then their ability to give loans will be reduced by $100 billion. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) could change this requirement immediately.
Friday, September 19, 2008
THE BANKING AND FINANCIAL CRISIS 47
What caused the current banking and financial crisis? Who is principally to blame, what is the best way to correct it, and should there be more government intervention and regulation or less? These are complex questions where only the politically biased with their paralogistic reasoning have simple answers. Before I attempt to expound on this, a history review is in order.
Every time there is a financial crisis, to some it is a new day. In fact it is history repeating itself in a new guise. It is widely believed that when the Great Depression descended upon the country, as well as much of the world, President Hoover did nothing while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he came into office, brought the country out of the depression with massive government intervention and myriad federal programs. A review of the data does not support this belief. Hoover used the federal government to try to correct the situation without success. He actually made the economic depression worst by, among other schemes, pushing for and signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which more accurately could be called the Hoover-Smoot-Hawley Act. This Act greatly restricted imports to America to protect American producers. Of course other countries retaliated so world trade was reduced thereby further slowing economic activity.
What is the evidence that the federal programs of Roosevelt did not bring the country out of the depression? Consider: The United States unemployment rate was 16% in 1931 and 19% in 1938, after nine years of the New Deal – three under Hoover and six under Roosevelt. The unemployment rate in 1929 just prior to the stock market crash was 3.2%. There was an intensifying of the recession in 1937. The stock market went into a nosedive and by November 1937 unemployment had soared to 11 million with another 3 million working only part time. Statistics showed that the United States was lagging far behind other countries in recovering from the depression. American national income in 1937 was 86% of the 1929 high water mark while Great Britain’s was 124%. Japan’s employment figure was 75% above the 1929 number. Chile, Sweden, and Australia had economic growth rates in the range of 20% compared to the United States’ dismal -7%.
In the late 1980’s there was the Savings & Loan scandal. Then in 2000-2002 the high tech bubble burst causing the NASDAQ index to go from more than 5000 to around 1000. The early 2000’s was the era of the brigands of Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arkadelphia, et.al. Now is the time of the banking and financial institutions meltdown. Do you get the idea that these crises reoccur, but with different sectors of the economy? Does anyone want to bet this pattern will not happen in the future?
Who are the bad actors in this current climacteric of many of the banking and financial institutions? Let us start with the officials at Freddie Mac (FHLMC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA). Franklin Raines, currently an advisor to Barack Obama, was the CEO of FNMA from 1999 to 2004 when guaranteeing of mortgages and other real estate loans given without down payments and weak financial backgrounds to home buyers and investors was getting underway. Later it got even more irresponsible when paperwork was not required for many of these loan recipients. During his six year tenure at FNMA, Raines took home $90 million. Jim Johnson was CEO of FNMA before Raines and made $21 million in his shorter tenure. When he retired in 1998 he got a $600,000 per year consulting contract. This clown who also is an Obama advisor and headed Obama’s vice-presidential search committee worked at Lehman Brothers.
Another Scaramouch is the infamous Jamie Gorelick. Remember her? She was Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno. In that position Gorelick was primarily responsible for maintaining and strengthening the wall of separation between the CIA and the FBI. To say the least it did not help to prevent, if it had been possible, 9/11. In 1978 Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) was the driving force behind the passage of the Foreign Surveillance Act which set up this wall between the CIA and FBI. As with all such actions, the intent was good, but the country paid for it later. At any rate, Gorelick was appointed to the bipartisan 9/11 Commission (set up in November 2002) by then senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Daschle and the Democrats wanted Gorelick on the commission so she could not be subpoenaed to testify before the commission on her role in handicapping the FBI and CIA. In the spirit of bipartisanship the Republicans stupidly went along with Daschle.
Gorelick was vice-chairman of FNMA from 1997 to 2003 and collected $26 million during that time. All of these people were appointed by President Bill Clinton. Before Republicans start to say “see it is all the fault of the Democrats” I would opine that the current crew at FHLMC & FNMA were appointed by Bush and did not seem to be any more aware or competent than their Democrat predecessors.
There are more scoundrels. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) is the chairman of the banking committee in the senate. What did he do to try to forestall this banking problem? Nothing that I can discern. Rep. Barnett (Barney) Frank (D-MA), who strangely or maybe not is unmarried, is chairman of the Financial Services Committee. What did he do? Again the answer is nothing – in fact in both cases it is less than nothing. Dodd received more political contributions from FHLMC/FNMA than anyone in congress. Obama was third on the list of most contributions.
Carl Rove said that the Bush administration tried to get laws passed to reform the banks and financial institutions, but was stymied by the Democrats in congress and especially Frank and Dodd. While there is no reason to disbelieve Rove, the president has a bully pulpit (as expressed by Teddy Roosevelt) so he could have done what Ronald Reagan would sometimes do, that is, go over the head of congress directly to the people. Fact is that at one time even Bush bragged about how many Americans owned their homes. As it turned out, the problem was that too many of these people didn’t really own their homes; the banks did much to the chagrin of both nominal home owners and the banks. Suppose that the Bush administration and Republicans in congress had insisted that these credit institutions not allow people with bad credit history and few assets or poor income prospects to obtain mortgages. What do you think the reaction would have been from the Democrats in congress and the Main Stream Media as well? How about something along the lines of “There the Republicans, the party of the rich, go again in favoring the wealthy and discriminating against the poor.” Before the crisis occurred and especially if it had then been averted, what defense could the Republicans have used? It would have been impossible to prove that a financial crisis would have happened but for the prudent policy of the GOP.
My purpose in discussing the Great Depression was to issue a cautionary note about assuming that more government regulation and involvement in this banking and financial situation will be the denouement. It goes back to the warning by President Eisenhower at the end of his 2nd term about the military-industrial complex. Money corrupts the system such that government regulators are co-opted by the industries they are supposed to regulate. Even if there is honest regulation that does not mean the problems will be ameliorated.
The solution for this current financial mess by both major political parties as well as the overwhelming majority of Americans is for more federal government oversight and control. That has not worked well in the past so why should one expect it to work now? What then to do? Clearly at this point there has to be government intervention via financial bailouts to keep the credit and equity markets from truly collapsing. When this crisis is over and before the next one occurs, as it surely will, there should be a firm commitment by the federal government to yes, enforce existing laws by convicting greedy and culpable corporate and political knaves and prevent collusion between institutions, but to generally maintain a hands off position from private enterprises. To quote economist Walter Williams in a recent column who quoted English philosopher Herbert Spencer: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
Every time there is a financial crisis, to some it is a new day. In fact it is history repeating itself in a new guise. It is widely believed that when the Great Depression descended upon the country, as well as much of the world, President Hoover did nothing while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he came into office, brought the country out of the depression with massive government intervention and myriad federal programs. A review of the data does not support this belief. Hoover used the federal government to try to correct the situation without success. He actually made the economic depression worst by, among other schemes, pushing for and signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which more accurately could be called the Hoover-Smoot-Hawley Act. This Act greatly restricted imports to America to protect American producers. Of course other countries retaliated so world trade was reduced thereby further slowing economic activity.
What is the evidence that the federal programs of Roosevelt did not bring the country out of the depression? Consider: The United States unemployment rate was 16% in 1931 and 19% in 1938, after nine years of the New Deal – three under Hoover and six under Roosevelt. The unemployment rate in 1929 just prior to the stock market crash was 3.2%. There was an intensifying of the recession in 1937. The stock market went into a nosedive and by November 1937 unemployment had soared to 11 million with another 3 million working only part time. Statistics showed that the United States was lagging far behind other countries in recovering from the depression. American national income in 1937 was 86% of the 1929 high water mark while Great Britain’s was 124%. Japan’s employment figure was 75% above the 1929 number. Chile, Sweden, and Australia had economic growth rates in the range of 20% compared to the United States’ dismal -7%.
In the late 1980’s there was the Savings & Loan scandal. Then in 2000-2002 the high tech bubble burst causing the NASDAQ index to go from more than 5000 to around 1000. The early 2000’s was the era of the brigands of Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Arkadelphia, et.al. Now is the time of the banking and financial institutions meltdown. Do you get the idea that these crises reoccur, but with different sectors of the economy? Does anyone want to bet this pattern will not happen in the future?
Who are the bad actors in this current climacteric of many of the banking and financial institutions? Let us start with the officials at Freddie Mac (FHLMC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA). Franklin Raines, currently an advisor to Barack Obama, was the CEO of FNMA from 1999 to 2004 when guaranteeing of mortgages and other real estate loans given without down payments and weak financial backgrounds to home buyers and investors was getting underway. Later it got even more irresponsible when paperwork was not required for many of these loan recipients. During his six year tenure at FNMA, Raines took home $90 million. Jim Johnson was CEO of FNMA before Raines and made $21 million in his shorter tenure. When he retired in 1998 he got a $600,000 per year consulting contract. This clown who also is an Obama advisor and headed Obama’s vice-presidential search committee worked at Lehman Brothers.
Another Scaramouch is the infamous Jamie Gorelick. Remember her? She was Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno. In that position Gorelick was primarily responsible for maintaining and strengthening the wall of separation between the CIA and the FBI. To say the least it did not help to prevent, if it had been possible, 9/11. In 1978 Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) was the driving force behind the passage of the Foreign Surveillance Act which set up this wall between the CIA and FBI. As with all such actions, the intent was good, but the country paid for it later. At any rate, Gorelick was appointed to the bipartisan 9/11 Commission (set up in November 2002) by then senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Daschle and the Democrats wanted Gorelick on the commission so she could not be subpoenaed to testify before the commission on her role in handicapping the FBI and CIA. In the spirit of bipartisanship the Republicans stupidly went along with Daschle.
Gorelick was vice-chairman of FNMA from 1997 to 2003 and collected $26 million during that time. All of these people were appointed by President Bill Clinton. Before Republicans start to say “see it is all the fault of the Democrats” I would opine that the current crew at FHLMC & FNMA were appointed by Bush and did not seem to be any more aware or competent than their Democrat predecessors.
There are more scoundrels. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) is the chairman of the banking committee in the senate. What did he do to try to forestall this banking problem? Nothing that I can discern. Rep. Barnett (Barney) Frank (D-MA), who strangely or maybe not is unmarried, is chairman of the Financial Services Committee. What did he do? Again the answer is nothing – in fact in both cases it is less than nothing. Dodd received more political contributions from FHLMC/FNMA than anyone in congress. Obama was third on the list of most contributions.
Carl Rove said that the Bush administration tried to get laws passed to reform the banks and financial institutions, but was stymied by the Democrats in congress and especially Frank and Dodd. While there is no reason to disbelieve Rove, the president has a bully pulpit (as expressed by Teddy Roosevelt) so he could have done what Ronald Reagan would sometimes do, that is, go over the head of congress directly to the people. Fact is that at one time even Bush bragged about how many Americans owned their homes. As it turned out, the problem was that too many of these people didn’t really own their homes; the banks did much to the chagrin of both nominal home owners and the banks. Suppose that the Bush administration and Republicans in congress had insisted that these credit institutions not allow people with bad credit history and few assets or poor income prospects to obtain mortgages. What do you think the reaction would have been from the Democrats in congress and the Main Stream Media as well? How about something along the lines of “There the Republicans, the party of the rich, go again in favoring the wealthy and discriminating against the poor.” Before the crisis occurred and especially if it had then been averted, what defense could the Republicans have used? It would have been impossible to prove that a financial crisis would have happened but for the prudent policy of the GOP.
My purpose in discussing the Great Depression was to issue a cautionary note about assuming that more government regulation and involvement in this banking and financial situation will be the denouement. It goes back to the warning by President Eisenhower at the end of his 2nd term about the military-industrial complex. Money corrupts the system such that government regulators are co-opted by the industries they are supposed to regulate. Even if there is honest regulation that does not mean the problems will be ameliorated.
The solution for this current financial mess by both major political parties as well as the overwhelming majority of Americans is for more federal government oversight and control. That has not worked well in the past so why should one expect it to work now? What then to do? Clearly at this point there has to be government intervention via financial bailouts to keep the credit and equity markets from truly collapsing. When this crisis is over and before the next one occurs, as it surely will, there should be a firm commitment by the federal government to yes, enforce existing laws by convicting greedy and culpable corporate and political knaves and prevent collusion between institutions, but to generally maintain a hands off position from private enterprises. To quote economist Walter Williams in a recent column who quoted English philosopher Herbert Spencer: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
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