Speaking without One Voice

The Supreme Court (Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission) seemed to open the Pandora’s box by declaring that corporations and unions are “persons” entitled to First Amendment rights to free speech, allowing virtually unlimited spending to support back-door campaigning under guise of so-call political action committees (PACs, and the really big ones are called super-PACs). True, candidates cannot directly solicit campaign contributions through these PACs without running afoul of limitations placed on candidates, and the question is still unresolved as to whether the underlying institutions and donors can be compelled to be disclosed, but Citizens United seems to tilt the political powerbase in the United States toward the well-heeled elites able to support such massive funding requirements… at the expense of the average voter.

Indeed, this fear seems to have become a reality, and catchy slogans and simplistic solutions – generally involving not taxing the rich and eliminating watchdog regulations from peering into and regulating their businesses (from environment to financial matters) – have become de rigueur of late. The vast majority of these super-PACs have found entry to the Republican side of the equation (although unions and liberal billionaires have had a few of their own in support of Democratic candidates and issues): “[A]s 2012 approaches, the [conservative] groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the official Republican Party apparatus.” New York Times, October 24^th.

Unfortunately for party planners, trying to stress a more unified voice even as Republican candidates slice and dice each other up in debates and in their own campaign rhetoric, the sheer size of some of these well-funded super-PACs has created voices with almost as much force as a more centralized Republican message. Without actually be required to identify their underlying support, to average voters, these do seem like official policy releases by the Republican Party itself, even if their messages have not been approved or even indirectly sanctioned by the party.

For example, “[a]t a time when the Republican presidential primary race has featured increasingly tough stances against illegal immigration, the independent groups have begun an aggressive program of outreach to Hispanics, hoping to offset Democratic gains among a critical voting bloc… Such heightened coordination is the latest development in the growing role of the outside groups, which operate free of many of the legal restrictions that govern the official parties… Like the party committees they are rapidly coming to eclipse, the independent groups are financed by some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors and operated by some of its most respected operatives and strategists. But thanks to the Citizens United decision, the independent groups can raise money in unlimited amounts and with negligible overhead. Much of the money will be spent through not-for-profit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

“Most of the groups answer only to a few dozen deep-pocketed donors, rather than the elected officials who oversee traditional party efforts. Yet if they lack some of the accountability imposed on the parties by campaign finance regulations and the ballot box, the groups also represent a marked shift from earlier generations of conservative-leaning groups, many of which were advocates for particular industries or policies or sought a shift in the ideological balance of their party.” NY Times.

Party leaders also realize how much money can be saved by letting these PACs dominate the media, a fact that has the media salivating at the potential advertising spend. So to the extent that efforts can be coordinated, the GOP is more than happy to share: “One major innovation this election cycle will be the outsourcing of the Republican Party’s voter list, its most valuable asset but one that is enormously expensive to keep current. In August, the Republican National Committee signed a contract to let the Data Trust, a new outside group run by the committee’s former chief of staff, manage the database… Data Trust will be allowed to swap the list with other outside groups, which can use money raised outside federal contribution limits to update it. Under current law, the improved list can then be used by the Republican National Committee, potentially saving the party millions of dollars.

“But the plan — and the broader implications of outsourcing so much traditional party work — has also riled some Republicans, who say it weakens the party as an institution. ‘Every time we empower independent third-party groups to do what the party is supposed to be doing, it diminishes the value of the brand and what the party represents,’ said Gary Emineth, a former chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, who fought against the Data Trust agreement.” NY Times. For candidates with differing agendas, however, maintaining what they believe in when contradicted by massive PAC campaigns with a different message is almost impossible. They seem out-of-step with the sweeping tides. And since the overwhelming money is coming from the nation’s most conservative contributors, the very notion of a moderate Republican candidate appears to be nothing more than an unsustainable wish.

Healthy debate among conservatives, moderates and liberals is the American way, but increasingly the voices of a few have been deemed to be more important than the open balance that made America the greatest democracy of them all. But if you really want to see what happens when that balance is no longer possible, take a good hard look at the impasses that mark the most polarized and dysfunctional House of Representatives since the Civil War. We should be striving for free and open debate without giving all the trump cards to our nation’s richest, and often most opinionated, elites, whether Republicans or Democrats. What happened to Middle America? Or is this just one more sign of the erosion and collapse of our middle class?

I’m Peter Dekom, and freedom is a precious commodity that can vaporize by taking it for granted.

E-gypt Us!

The Arab Spring provided a miracle of voices that tripped up the hardline rule of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, among the list of Middle Eastern absolute rulers toppled or severely threatened by populist movements. Cairo’s Tahrir Square (above) was the media’s focal point for mass demonstrations and confrontations that led to Mubarak’s ouster and ultimate incarceration. Today, another storm is brewing in Tahrir Square, one that joins once-incompatible factions into a series of protests against the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that stepped in on an presumably interim basis to govern a country in transition.

And those protests, like the ones that ousted Mubarak at the beginning of this year, are turning violent: “[R]umors ran rampant that police officers from the much detested Ministry of Interior were gathering at various entrances to the square… Up a side street to the west, in the direction of the Interior Ministry, bouts of rock throwing and tear gas firing continued. There were numerous reports of badly wounded protesters, including at least two who had lost eyes after being hit in the face with rubber bullets.” Huffington Post, November 19^th. With parliamentary elections looming, wasn’t this supposed to be simply a peaceful, transitional military government?

Ahhhh… There’s a little piece of history that maybe needs retelling. Since 1952, Egypt has been ruled strictly by persons who have come from the military elite. “On 23 July 1952, the [a rebel group from within Egypt’s military called the] Free Officers commenced the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 with a coup d'état to depose King Farouk. [Major-General Muhammad] Naguib was appointed, first as Commander-in-Chief of Army, in order to keep the armed forces firmly behind the junior officers' coup. In September, Naguib was appointed Prime Minister of Egypt and a member of the Royal Regent Council, with Nasser serving in the background as Minister of the Interior [, becoming the nation’s first president in 1953]…

“Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (…15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib …which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of modernization, and socialist reform in Egypt together with a profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism, including a short-lived union with Syria.” Wikipedia.

Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, a graduate of Cairo’s Royal Military Academy was also a member of the Free Officer’s Movement, and also rose through the ranks, eventually leaving for higher office: “During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed Minister of State in 1954. In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then Vice President and member of the Presidential Council in 1964. He was reappointed as Vice President again in December 1969.” Wikipedia. Hosni Mubarak also rose through the ranks, becoming Commander of the Air Force, before becoming Sadat’s vice-president in 1975. When the latter was assassinated in 1981, Mubarak took over and reigned until his fall this year. All military, all the time.

The Egyptian military accepted that Mubarak was a sacrificial lamb that needed to go, but under the guise of settling the chaos of transition pending the creation of a permanent civilian rule, SCAF was created to run the country… and keep the military elite in charge. While the nascent voices in the movement to topple Mubarak were primarily secular modernists, more religiously based groups from the radical and strict traditionalist Muslim Salafists to the more moderate (believe it or not) Muslim Brotherhood, have joined the movement (and maybe overwhelmed it) to determine Egypt’s future … and perhaps push it into a more religiously-based form of government. Note: there is no civilian government right now, and even though parliamentary elections (which were postponed from this past September) are scheduled for November 28^th (with a runoff to take place on December 5^th), the presidential election is not slated until 2013. Hmmmmm….

So on November 18^th, “Tens of thousands of people poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the site of the original protest movement that brought down Egypt's dictator in February, to express their disaffection with the military council that has governed the country since… Back in February, protestors -- largely secular and civic minded, but with a healthy contribution of religious Muslims -- had joined hands with a compliant Army to demand the ouster of an autocratic president.

“Now, Tahrir was dominated by bearded Muslims in traditional garb, many of them members of a strict religious community known as Salafists, who had come to protest that very same Army, and call for the restoration of a presidency. (The far better known Muslim Brotherhood, also in Tahrir in force, advocates a more moderate vision of Islam's role in government.)

“The decision by the Brotherhood and several Salafist groups to take part in [the November 18^th] ‘day of unity’ against the Army's rule had forced the hand of liberals and the young revolutionaries, many of whom have been apprehensive about joining forces with the Salafists, but equally wary of ceding to them any remaining political momentum, or the symbolic power of Tahrir… ‘The secularists and the Islamists are one hand,’ an elderly Islamist in a green full length gown said cheerfully, echoing a common refrain from the days of the revolution, when it was frequently said that the people and the Army were ‘one hand’ -- joined in a common purpose.” Huffington Post, November 18^th. And as we have seen above, on November 19^th, the violence escalated.

Wanna bet at exactly how the military is going to maintain its grip on this desert nation? Think they will truly relinquish control to a completely separate, more powerful and autonomous civilian government that is not generated from or beholden to the military? Yeah, right…. And here’s the bigger question for us: is the West willing to accept a democratically elected, anti-Western Islamist state or is a continuation of a military dictatorship the kind of dramatic hypocrisy we have supported for years our preference?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the more stuff changes, sometimes things really just won’t.

Creatin’ Jobs

With 25 million Americans unemployed or under-employed, exactly how do you “create jobs”? Some think if you lower taxes for rich folks, they will run out and hire people with the extra money. Funny, politicians have tried this before, and oddly, the impact on jobs consistently has been … virtually nothing. They didn’t get rich by randomly hiring whenever they got more money without actually figuring out what those new hires would actually make or serve that someone would be willing to pay for. Rich folks may be the nation’s big employers, but their tax rate has no correlation to job-creation.

Others say that we need to create a stable environment in which jobs can grow in a more predictable marketplace, most importantly by cutting the massive government deficits and bringing our debt in line with our ability to pay as we go. There is some truth to folks being more likely to make expansion decisions in a stable environment, but to get that kind of stability, the government has to spend less. And since what most of the government money actually goes to is labor, even the labor necessary to build military hardware, by definition, if the government is directed to spend less, massive layoffs are a necessary result. Just like the 300,000 civil servants who just got notice under the new Greek austerity program. Hmmmm. But the kind of government stimulus needed to create those jobs is so far below the trillion and a half dollars needed to make a dent than any politician has suggested… that there won’t be much of difference under any such plan.

So what creates jobs? The government can hire people if it chooses to, whether as civil servants or to work the government infrastructure projects that typified the New Deal hires during the Great Depression. Companies tend to hire for only reason only: to satisfy consumers (or businesses if they are in the B-2-B space, but it usually ends up with either the government or consumers at the bottom of the demand curve anyway). In the absence of demand, you have to be mentally ill to start staffing up and making stuff hoping someone might show up to buy it! So with consumer confidence at a general all-time low and government cutting its spending, guess what? There is not only very little sustainable demand right now, but it seems as if the demand that does exist will fall even more when the government forces those layoffs, and those laid off start spending even less. Hmmm.

Longer term investing in our future does pay dividends and create jobs: building infrastructure, supporting cutting-edge research and education our youth for a competitive future. Spending money on military programs and social benefits is just spending money, most certainly not an investment. Guess what we’re doing?!

Government regulation, say some candidates, is killing jobs. Maybe, but the tough answer is that even the most restrictive clean air regulations don’t have that much impact on the employment picture. “Even with all the attention on hiring, the government’s ability to create jobs is pretty dispiriting, no matter who is in charge. The most popular types of jobs programs involve state tax breaks or subsidies that seek to seduce a company from one state to another. While this can mean good news for ‘business-friendly’ states like Texas, such policies don’t add to overall employment so much as they just shuffle jobs around. This helps explain Rick Perry’s claim that more than one million jobs were created under his watch in Texas while the rest of the country lost more than two million.

“The federal government does something similar when it decides, for instance, to regulate oil drillers and subsidize windmill makers. Such a policy might help the environment but it just moves jobs from one sector to another without adding any. And while both Perry and Mitt Romney propose that further oil and gas drilling in the U.S. will transform the jobs picture, only 30,000 Americans work in oil and gas extraction, and about another 125,000 in support occupations. With more than 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, it’s unlikely that any changes in that part of the energy sector would make a real dent.” New York Times, November 3^rd.

Name me a candidate who will tell you either that the government will create the needed jobs or that we are just going to have to wait until the economy sort all this out. Oh, there aren’t any. They just want to say anything to get elected. Cutting the budget may be terrific for future generations (who may be suffering from under-employment because part of that cut hammered away at the education they needed to compete with the rest of the world), but it will have a very opposite result from job creation.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s time that the American electorate came to grips with the reality that not one single viable candidate on either side of the aisle has proposed anything significant that will materially alter our unemployment picture any time soon.

Is Healthcare an Appealing Subject?

With 26 Republican-led states challenging the constitutionality of “Obamacare,” it seems that the United States Supreme Court is about take on one of the most important judicial reviews in the history of those currently sitting on that distinguished bench. But whether or not individual judges believe that the underlying policies are sound or not, the federal appellate process has, for the most part, sustained the legislation: “After a year and a half of legal skirmishing, President Obama's embattled healthcare law has arrived at the Supreme Court riding a surprising winning streak and carrying a constitutional stamp of approval from prominent conservative judges.

“Only three of the 12 appellate judges who have reviewed the law have decided it is unconstitutional to require all Americans to have health insurance. Not a single appeals court judge has said the entire law must be tossed out, the position advocated by Florida and 25 other Republican states leading the legal assault.” Los Angeles Times, November 12^th. Only the US appellate court in Atlanta has struck down significant portions of the statute.

Arguments that the Congress has violated the rights of states to make such legislative decisions under the 10^th Amendment have pretty much fallen on deaf ears, even among conservative judges. “The string of appellate victories may not predict how the Supreme Court will decide the case. But some legal observers believe the recent decisions lay out a road map for preserving the law that may appeal even to some of the Supreme Court's more conservative members… ‘They show that smart, principled conservatives can decide this is within the broad reach of Congress' power, even if they might think it is bad policy,’ said Richard Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who was a clerk to former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.” LA Times.

In fact, pundits are predicting that the Supreme Court may just follow suit: past cases decided by Bush-appointed Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito have suggested that “judges should be wary of second-guessing political decisions. On the other hand, legal experts believe Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, usually the court’s swing vote on close cases, could vote for the challengers based on his strong commitment to federalism [states’ rights]. Justice Clarence Thomas is thought to be a firm vote against the law…

“The appellate decisions have done little to calm the partisan passions aroused by the healthcare law. Not since the 1930s has the Supreme Court faced such a distinctly partisan challenge over national regulation. The court's four liberals, all Democratic appointees, will almost certainly uphold the law. The outcome depends on its five Republican appointees, conservatives who cherish the idea that the Constitution puts limits on federal power that the court is duty-bound to enforce.” LA Times.

While the judicial system struggles with whether Obamacare is constitutional, many Americans are feeling the weight when lower income combines with serious illness. A new report released by The Commonwealth Fund, a private organization dedicated to improving healthcare access for lower income people in the United States was based on a fairly broad sampling. “Seeking to learn more about the experiences of sicker adults around the world, the group surveyed more than 18,000 adults who were in fair or poor health, had recently been hospitalized, and had had major surgery or a serious illness in the past year. The group looked at adults in 11 high-income countries where patients with complex care needs typically account for a disproportionate share of national health spending.”

“The findings: U.S. patients with complex care needs were much more likely than those in 10 other high-income countries to forgo needed treatment because of costs, according to the survey. Americans are also more likely to struggle with medical debt. In fact, 27% of the Americans surveyed were unable to pay or encountered serious problems paying medical bills in the past year, compared with between 1% and 14% of adults elsewhere. In the U.S., 42% reported not visiting a doctor, filling a prescription, or getting recommended care because of cost issues -- at least twice the rate of every other country but Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.

“Indeed, Americans spend more on healthcare than any other country: $7,960 per person in 2009, the latest figure available. Norway came in a distant second at $5,352, according to data cited by The Commonwealth Fund…. A big problem is the number of uninsured -- 50 million. Those folks typically get their health care in emergency rooms, which drives up costs for themselves, as well as for the hospitals and doctors that ultimately care for them.” DailyFinance.com, November 11^th.

When Europeans or Canadians lose their jobs, the blow is cushioned by the healthcare safety net that provides free medical care. When Americans lose their jobs, if they cannot afford to pay for continued coverage, they fall into a healthcare abyss. The continued sluggish economy reeling from unemployment and under-employment plus the increasing reliance on “contract employees” who are not accorded benefits suggest that even under the administration’s legislation, a whole lot of Americans will remain without coverage. But without the mandates of the new law – which also eliminates lifetime benefits caps and the right of insurance carriers to cancel or fail to issue policies because of pre-existing conditions starting in 2014 – the situation for a growing number of Americans is likely to get a whole lot worse.

Whether we are a society that cares about those unable to afford benefits accorded to better paid individuals is actually the hidden question behind the Supreme Court challenge. “‘There is an unevenness in health care in the U.S., compared to other countries,’ says Elise Gould, director of health policy research with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. ‘We have the best care in the world, but it really depends on who you are.’” DailyFinance.com I guess that means we really don’t have the best health care in the world… for most of us.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder what ever happened to that notion of Judeo-Christian charity and kindness to our neighbors that so many preach but seem unable to practice?

Another Turkey Expected for Thanksgiving

Republican leadership has vowed to block any genuine compromise suggested by the Democratic administration on major issues, pledging to bring down this president at all costs, and the Obama administration, elected based on an appearance of leadership and oratorical skills, has truly failed to explain the issues clearly to the American people and has most certainly failed to inspire or lead. As the days tick away towards the Thanksgiving deadline from the so-called budget-reducing Congressional “Supercommittee,” they are apparently deadlocked, weaseling and squirming to avoid making big decisions as their empowering statute has mandated. The only product of this ineffectual body is likely to be a more uniform downgrade of U.S. debt instruments by the world’s leading credit agencies, which will trigger a host of undesirables, such as higher interest demands on our bonds to a further tightening of credit across the board.

If it weren’t for Europe’s failure to grasp the consequences of letting failing countries slide into riot-inducing austerity programs and outright despair, we’d be the center of attention from the global financial community. The statute that gave birth to this “we can’t decide so you do it” Congressional buck-passing Supercommittee forces an automatic, preset $1.2 billion reduction if they fail to state otherwise by November 23^rd. A pile of Congresspeople are already having second thoughts about reducing our super-bloated military budget in this pre-set, and are creating legislation to reduce that impact.

Others are simply trying to get the controversial revenue-generating alterations – such as increasing taxes on people who earn more than $1 million a year – out of the purview of this committee and into “something after the 2012 elections” instead: “Under this approach, the panel would decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in details next year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline for the panel itself to reach an agreement. That would put off painful political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction stretched into the election year… ‘There could be a two-step process that would hopefully give us pro-growth tax reform,’ Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the top Republican on the panel, said [October 13^th] on the CNN program ‘State of the Union.’” New York Times, November 13^th.

But bitter partisanship seems to signal a complete inability of our Congress to deal with vital issues until after the election… and if the election does not provide a filibuster-proof majority from one party or the other – with a president from the same party to sign the legislation – even after the election and into the foreseeable future. “[M]embers of the congressional ‘supercommittee’ appear increasingly pessimistic about the odds of forging a debt-reduction deal, despite a new offer by Republicans to raise taxes [or at least reform loopholes in exchange for other rate reductions]… The public debate has grown more divisive since both sides laid out their latest offers last week. Negotiators, already under attack from the left, are facing fresh pressure from the anti-tax right. And charges of betrayal are expected to intensify [as the] House returns from a week-long break, fueling concerns that a deal could emerge from the supercommittee only to die in the House or the Senate.” Washington Post, November 13^th.

Is the debate entirely without hope? Well, you be the judge. Here is the state of “progress” though this rather rancid attempt at accommodation: “Mathematically, the gap between the two sides on the supercommittee has narrowed. Republicans have offered a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction package that would cut spending by about $750 billion over the next decade while raising about $500 billion in revenue, including about $300 billion in new taxes. Democrats have offered to trim borrowing by $2 trillion, with that sum equally divided between spending cuts and tax increases.

“[Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the supercommittee’s GOP co-chairman] acknowledged that the committee is considering punting some of the hardest details of tax reform into next year, a move that would keep the deficit debate alive through the 2012 election season. In recent days, negotiations have focused almost exclusively on the tax issue, with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), both supercommittee members, struggling to reach consensus on how much new revenue could be generated through an overhaul of the tax code and how to force their committees to achieve that goal.” The Post.

What’s the administration’s position on all this? “President Obama called the Democratic and Republican leaders of the supercommittee from Air Force One on his way out of town … for an extended trip to Hawaii and Asia, and he has continued to urge action in his remarks on the road…. Obama has stopped short of issuing a blanket veto threat if the committee tries to undo the severe cuts that would take effect in 2013 if an agreement is not reached. Obama has simply said that Congress ‘must not shirk its responsibilities’ and, in a news conference from Hawaii, said he would not comment on the potential for a veto…

“‘It’s going to take a few more years to meet the challenges that have been a decade in the making. And I think the American people understand that,’ Obama told donors at the Aulani Disney Resort. ‘What they don’t understand is leaders who refuse to take action. They don’t understand a Congress that can’t seem to move with a sense of urgency about the problems that America is facing.’” Washington Post, November 15^th. It sure is hard for Americans, who believe with much justification that ours is a great and functioning democracy that has endured through the centuries, that the system still has serious flaws and on occasion just plain doesn’t work.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is amazing that our Congress is so out of touch with the frustrations and anger of their constituency – evidenced by abominable approval ratings – that they really cannot change enough to do their jobs and bring this nation some relief at a time we need it most.

On Personhood

The Supreme Court believes that unions and corporations are “persons” entitled to First Amendment protection, freely to use their vast coffers to buy political advertising without significant limitations (Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission). Mississippi voters had an opportunity to define a “person” as a fertilized egg through the November 8^th election based on Initiative 26: “Should the term ‘person’ be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?” While the measure was defeated, there is a growing movement to support this backhanded attack on the famous 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that has been the anathema of those who follow the pro- life school of thought.

With highly qualified support from Mississippi’s outgoing Republican Governor Hayley Barbour as well as both of the replacement nominees, Republican and Democratic, this vote is the tip of a growing conservative social movement to end abortions, and in the case of the Mississippi initiative had it passed, with absolutely no exceptions – including rape, incest and extreme deformity. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, once a pro-abortion supporter, believes there is indeed a place for a new constitutional definition of “person” that could include a fertilized human egg.

The consequences for such a definition – from opening up the HOV lanes to not-so-obviously pregnant women to the possibility of manslaughter trials for women who drink after or during intercourse (not mention conspiracy to the men who may have poured the drink) resulting in the death of fertilized eggs – are interesting if not a little disturbing. Additionally, such a statute, if enacted and upheld by the United States Supreme Court, “would likely have the effect of outlawing abortion and, if you believe opponents, all kinds of other unintended consequences, such as criminalizing abortion and possibly restricting birth control and in-vitro fertilization. It could even criminalize a pregnant cancer patient’s chemotherapy, if you believe opponents.” Washington Post, November 7^th. What makes this notion even more troubling is that more often than not, a fertilized human egg doesn’t even become a viable human embryo.

Reijo Pera is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the medical school and the director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education at Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine tells us: “‘In mice, about 80 to 90 percent of embryos develop to the blastocyst stage. In humans, it's about 30 percent… In addition, about one in 100 mouse embryos are chromosomally abnormal, versus about seven out of 10 human embryos.…’… [A] blastocyst, which typically occurs within five to six days after fertilization. A blastocyst is usually an indication of a healthy embryo.” ScienceDaily.com, October 3, 2010.

Governor Barbour voted for the measure but admitted the choice wasn’t an easy one: “‘I struggled with it,’ Barbour acknowledged in an [AP] interview. ‘Some very strongly pro-life people have raised questions about the ambiguity and about the actual consequences – whether there are unforeseen, unintended consequences. And I’ll have to say that I have heard those concerns and they give me some pause.’” Washington Post. Well, this wasn’t the first such initiative to go before the voters – a similar ballot measure lost twice in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 – and it won’t be the last. This battle shows absolutely no signs of abating and represents just one more issue that continues to polarize this nation. What are your thoughts?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I admit I have big issues with people telling me and my family how to deal with our most personal moments.

Unsafe Levels of Particulate Matter

If China has an Achilles heel, it would negative flow from a combination of unsustainable levels of pollution often exacerbated by officials who are economically incented (i) to look the other way and (ii) are still focused on growth without a concomitant emphasis on environmental standards. That vast bodies of river, lake and underground water sources are filled with life-threatening effluents is no secret, and that China’s cities, most notably her capital, Beijing, have some of the least breathable air on earth is common knowledge. It’s not that top Chinese officials don’t care; the problem is just so huge and the impact of imposing the kind of serious environmental controls is so expensive and will severely slow economic growth that Chinese officials are also trying to figure exactly how to moderate an environment that might just start killing people by the millions in the not-too-distant future.

I was in Seoul, Korea a few months ago, and they complained about air pollution that was eating the paint finishes from their building and cars, creating increasing vile air quality. I asked why they weren’t more restrictive on their pollution requirements, and they just shrugged, telling me that most of that pollution was blow-over from China. Pollution is never confined to the nation that creates it.

“It’s long been said that China was adding one new coal power plant per week to its grid. But the real news is worse: China is completing two new coal plants per week… If China’s carbon usage keeps pace with its economic growth, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions will reach 8 gigatons a year by 2030, which is equal to the entire world’s CO2 production today… That power is being used to drive an enormous manufacturing expansion. China has increased steel production from 140 million tons in 2000 to 419 million tons in 2006, the authors report. Even more recent numbers from the International Iron and Steel Institute show China’s production leading the world at 489 million tons, more than double Japan and the US combined. That steel is getting used quickly too. In 1999, Chinese consumers bought 1.2 million cars. That number had increased 600% by 2006, when 7.2 million cars were sold.” Wired, February 2008.

Statistics are hard to come by, but water pollution appears to mirror the degradation in China’s atmosphere: “China’s government [in February 2010] unveiled its most detailed survey ever of the pollution plaguing the country, revealing that water pollution in 2007 was more than twice as severe as was shown in official figures that had long omitted agricultural waste… Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a nonprofit research group in Beijing, said that government planners had estimated that the country’s rivers and lakes could handle only 7.4 million tons a year of chemical oxygen demand [the general standard of measuring water pollution]. The scale and significance of agricultural effluent was seldom recognized in previous government planning, which focused on bringing down mainly industrial emissions to around 7 million tons a year from 13.8 million tons, said Mr. Ma, a leading expert on water pollution in China.

“The new total of more than 30 million tons suggests a much bigger problem. ‘We believed we needed to cut our emissions in half, but today’s data means a lot more work needs to be done,’ Mr. Ma said.” New York Times, February 9, 2010. To China’s credit, top leaders are reconfiguring their manufacturing sector to adjust for environmental needs, encouraging new industries that actually create technologies to reduce emissions and cleanse the environment and are imposing increasing strict controls on the use of cars and trucks in major cities.

But a new controversy has arisen, most recently in Beijing (pictured above), as party leaders and industrial kingpins seem to be enjoying expensive air filtration systems in their offices, homes and even their cars to protect them from the obvious foul air outside. That Beijing chooses to measure particulate emissions that are more reflective of the desert sands that are blown across the land into the city – 10 micrometers – versus the more realistic measurement – 2.5 micrometers which are reflective of coal fires and carbon-based vehicle emissions used by the American Embassy in Beijing to measure danger levels – is most telling. “But when pressed, those same officials acknowledge that their pollution metrics willfully ignore the smaller particles, much of them generated by car and truck exhaust. In fact, the American Embassy’s monitor has become an unwelcome intrusion into China’s domestic affairs, according to a diplomatic cable released this year by WikiLeaks, which said a Foreign Ministry official had requested that the Americans stop publicizing the data.” NY Times, November 4^th. Those Embassy readings have increasingly indicated unsafe levels of particulate matter in the air.

“Officials in Beijing, however, are apparently not quite ready to embrace [the more accurate measurements]. In response to criticism over the heavy smog of recent weeks, a spokesman for the city’s environmental protection bureau, Du Shaozhong, assured the public that they should feel secure in the government’s own readings, which termed the city’s air ‘slightly polluted’ even as the embassy monitor found it so hazardous that it exceeded measurable levels. ‘China’s air quality should not be judged from data released by foreign embassies in Beijing,’ he said.” NY Times.

The companies that make the pollution control equipment used by political leaders are proud to advertise that fact, but there is growing resentment among the general populace over this apparent hypocrisy: “But in China, where resentment of the high and mighty is on the rise, news of the company’s advertising campaign is stirring a maelstrom of criticism. ‘They don’t have to eat gutter oil or drink poisoned milk powder and now they’re protected from filthy air,’ said one posting on Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblog service. ‘This shows their indifference to the lives of ordinary people.’” NY Times. Will China solve this problem? Any nation that has sustained growth at the level China has generated in the last decade pretty much means that China can do just about anything it sets its collective mind to do. It has the money and the technological know-how not only to conquer the problem but to implement the next generation of pollution controls… which believe me, they will sell to the rest of the world and dominate the market.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when you think about some of the problems we have in common with China, you have to shudder.

Kleptocracy

It is the way of so much of the developing world. The practice literally provided the fertile soil for Islamists to enlist “soldiers of God” to wreak havoc against Israel and the West and to generate a vast culture of support from the masses who once believed that their quality of life would soon mirror the images of Western lifestyle that permeated film and television… but had/have long since given up hope, needing to explain their habitual poverty as part of their path to heaven. “Kleptocracy” is that magnificent word for “government by corruption,” where harsh leaders extract untold wealth from their impoverished nations and their benefits of “leadership.”

Indeed, all any dictatorial and economically resplendent leader of a third world nation needed to do for most of the 1960s till the fall of communism in the early 1990s was declare himself and his nation to be “anti-communist” to receive vast riches and the American military aid (and resulting power) necessary to keep them. Today, the United States has reduced its support of such corrupt leaders – mostly because communism failed – but old habits die hard. Afghani President Hamid Karzai and his cronies remain among the most corrupt leaders on earth, but they were literally installed into office with the powerful efforts of the United States military.

What would you think of a president of a tiny African nation, hardly born wealthy, whose family somehow managed to purchase “a $6.5 million house in the fashionable Los Angeles enclave of Bel Air [which was traded in for a] luxurious villa overlooking the ocean in Malibu [pictured above] for $30 million... decorated ... with fedoras, jewel-encrusted apparel and music-industry awards acquired during auctions of the belongings of the pop star Michael Jackson... two Bentley automobiles... eight Ferraris, seven Rolls-Royces, four Mercedes-Benzes, two Lamborghinis, a Porsche, an Aston Martin and a Maserati... [adding] two high-performance racing boats to his fleet for $2 million... [and] a $38 million Gulfstream G-V jet.”? According to the United States Department of Justice and summarized in the Washington Post, October 30^th. The dictator’s son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (“Nguema”)], “the minister of forestry and agriculture of Equatorial Guinea, a poor African nation [with recent oil discoveries!], made all of these purchases on an annual government salary of about $81,000.” The Post.

The U.S. government, which has the right to seize the fruits of a corrupt government parked in the United States, has been investigating this rather obvious accumulation of an estimated $70 million of purloined assets for five years now... and is still investigating. Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is also still in office, and his and Nguema’s spokespeople deny any wrong-doing. Teodorin, his over-the-top-spending “other” son, has also been a gentleman whose spending habits caught the attention of watch-groups and governments alike. “[In late September], French investigators seized millions of dollars' worth of sports cars belonging to Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of the country's long-ruling dictator.” ForeignPolicy.com, October 13^th. Apparently, there are plans for a $360 million mega-yacht in the offing as well.

“This [October] — seven years after the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations exposed the Obiang family’s secret accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington and five years after nonprofit Global Witness discovered his Malibu mansion purchase — the Justice Department went to court to seize $70 million of Nguema’s assets... U.S. government lawyers said his wealth was ‘inconsistent with his salary’ and the purchases were the result of plundering the nation’s natural gas and oil reserves.” [Duh-oh!] The United States has weathered criticism for the pace of its search for assets belonging to the families of the deposed dictators of the Arab Spring, such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

“In an interview in Cairo last month, Hasham Gaafar, a senior attorney in the Egyptian prosecutor’s office, said Swiss and British authorities have been more responsive to Egypt’s request to freeze and seize assets of former president Hosni Mubarak. [But] Gaafar said U.S. officials ‘are not meeting our expectations.’... Justice Department officials are quick to note that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. created the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative just this year, assigning about five full-time attorneys to manage cases.” The Post.

Why does it take so damned long? “‘It is one thing to say someone has a lot of money and is a corrupt leader; it is another thing to prove that money resulted from the corruption,’ said [Jennifer Shasky Calvery, chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section], a criminal division veteran who first gained fame as an All-American basketball star at George Washington University... On the investigative side, the kleptocracy lawyers have access to one full-time staffer and about 10 investigators on the Department of Homeland Security’s eight-year-old foreign corrupt investigations group based in Miami, said John F. Tobon, chief of the illicit finance and proceeds-of-crime unit...The workload is increasing.

“Investigators are working about 80 foreign and domestic cases involving kleptocracy, Tobon said... Many investigations cannot get off the ground without a request for “mutual legal assistance” from the country where the graft originally occurred, said Emil van der Does de Willebois, senior financial specialist for the Stolen Foreign Asset Recovery initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations. In the case of Egypt and Tunisia, for example, the countries began searching for stolen assets only after the fall of their longtime leaders. For Equatorial Guinea, the investigation began in the United States, since Obiang has remained in power after more than three decades.” The Post. “Mommy, I want to be a dictator when I grow up.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and bottom-line, we need to accelerate such enforcement efforts... and be very sympathetic when the populations of impoverished nations are furious at American support of... and frequent inaction regarding... these kleptocratic dictators around the globe.

When Outsourcing Stays Domestic

The move to repeal so-called Obamacare is about to run into a new wall in this cost-reduction mood of both corporate and governmental America. Not only will there be tons of laid-off government workers as budget cuts are implemented to cut raging deficits and unsustainable spending habits – all of them straining the healthcare safety nets with limited alternatives for coverage – but the new pattern of going-forward labor in America is going to test healthcare and social security retirement benefits in this country like never before. Gone are the days of tenure and job security. Workers do and shall increasingly continue to change jobs with startling frequency, sometimes of their own volition, but more likely because their “contracts” have expired. Welcome to the world of short-term outsourcing.

Fearful of the benefits that attached to traditional employment, companies and governments have discovered that they can sidestep seniority, medical leave, vacation time, healthcare insurance and pension benefits simply by entering into short-term contracts with workers to perform specified tasks (often looking a lot like what a regular employee should be doing) for short and clearly defined time periods. If these “contractors” do a good job, they might be offered another short-term contract… and so on and so on. There’s less in the way of training and accountability, but something’s gotta give. And these contract workers they really don’t have to be accorded full-time employment with full government/company benefits.

For some workers, mostly commitment-phobic younger ones who still enjoy their autonomy, this structure is ideal. Some even form little companies that can perform such tasks for various “employers,” and generate enough to pay for their own benefits. For small companies, the ability to outsource functionality actually provides them with sufficient competitive advantage to “act big, but remain small,” providing flexibility as customer demand vacillates and as changing technology and expertise requires a constantly-changing set of skilled vendors. For others, it is nothing more than a cheaper way to maintain a large bureaucracy.

New outsourcing services have sprung up as clearing houses and payroll services to provide such short term workers. And as long as the economy holds nothing but staggering unemployment statistics for the foreseeable future, it seems that this new work pattern is going to be the single most important change in how Americans work for a very long time. Where governments have discovered this cost-savings structure, the middlemen (outsourcing agencies) have done well with their cut, the governments are think they are saving money… but the workers and those who use their services… well… not so great.

The November 6^th New York Times examined the cost savings at a state run veterans home, where contract nursing assistants are engaged at half the wage rates of their full-time counterparts: “Now, the state wants to dismiss 170 nursing assistants on the public payroll at the [one particular] veterans home and replace them with more contract workers like [contract assistant nurse Ginny] Townsend [who makes about half the rate of her fellow “employed” assistants], prompting a legal dispute and much personal anguish… The legal battle highlights the potential pitfalls in such decisions. Outsourcing, usually intended to ease strained public budgets, tends to most directly affect people like Ms. Townsend and her co-workers. But there can be other drawbacks. The quality of services provided by contract workers, for example, may not be as consistent as that of experienced government employees. And taxpayers can end up paying for the cuts in more indirect ways.

“What governments save in salaries and benefits often ‘ends up on the government books through all sorts of programs,’ said Paul C. Light, a professor at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, referring to unemployment insurance, Medicaid and other public assistance for workers earning low incomes… Outsourcing becomes more popular during tough economic times as states and municipalities transfer the operations of facilities like prisons, school cafeterias and sanitation departments to private contractors. Governors or legislatures in Arizona, Louisiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have all proposed reviews of state agencies in search of opportunities to privatize operations.”

With pressure on unions to let go of their powerbase in government services, the outcry is having limited effect: “Union leaders denounce the efforts to roll back years of negotiated wages and benefits. The public sector gave ‘people a chance to buy a home and send their kids to college,’ said Eileen Kirlin, executive vice president of the public services division of the Services Employees International Union. When contractors take over and pay lower wages, ‘we’re just driving everybody down.’” NY Times. But governments just don’t have the money to continue past practices: “With state budgets under pressure, Michigan says it can no longer afford the relatively high wages of the public workers, which range from $15 to $20 an hour, along with health and retirement benefits. According to Salary.com, certified nursing assistants in private long-term care facilities in the area earn a median salary of just over $25,000 a year, or about $12.25 an hour.” NY Times.

The cost to us all is what economists have been predicting is the big “reset” from this recession: the erosion of the American middle class. And while outsourcing may be viewed as a necessity for cash-strapped states and municipalities, it also provides convenient savings for those at the top of the economic pile. What we are seeing in countries like Greece – an austerity program that is slashing at a standard of living that was implemented through unsustainable debt – is also happening in this country, albeit at a drastically lower level and often well-beneath the macro-economic radar. But the middle class is contracting significantly in this country, and what we will be like in future years is unlikely to reflect the halcyon days of American global economic hegemony.

I’m Peter Dekom, and change can be very unsettling.