A provocative column by Thomas Friedman in the N. Y. Times of April 22 deals with the
economic damage to the United States by our failing educational system. He quantifies the loss of GDP in the multi billions. The fault he says lies with our schools, teachers, principals and administrators. I would trace it to what happened to the child before entering school.
Education begins in the home. How a child will learn in school, his attitude toward attending, his respect or lack thereof for his teachers will have been molded by his parents and peers in his pre-school years. If a child has been raised in a broken, or single parent home; if the parents have little education of their own; if they struggle for economic survival and have little time or interest to devote to stimulating a desire to learn, the child will have no incentive to accept the limits on freedom that come with compulsory schooling. If the street culture in which he grows up denigrates nerds and learning, his need for acceptance will lead him to do the same. School will be a nuisance to be suffered because of the truant officer; a prison from which to escape at the earliest possible moment. If he can't keep up, frustration will lead him into disruptive, anti-social behavior. That child will be on a course to failure. How can we turn that widely prevalent situation around?
If learning begins in the home, during the pre-school years, can we change the attitudes in the home? That will require involving the parents, by innovative means. It will require incentives---monetary, home care assistance, and participation by community leaders and role models. Above all it will need us to accept the goal as worth the effort, and demand volunteer public service from many of us.
Are we up to it?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
WHO IS FOR THE NATION?
The Old World and the New now have one thing in common---a fetid financial failure.
And as we try to construct a life boat, a vessel that will keep us afloat until we come up with a solution, the people who most need to cooperate if they are to survive, are putting perceived self interest before the common good. That is a guarantee that we will all sink.
The international banking system is no longer made up of individual nation central banks.
Ours is a global, interwoven and interdependent system. Failure in one country triggers decline and possible collapse in others. The capital structure of a single nation’s banks now includes stockholders and investments from many other nations.
The United States is coming out of an era of unilateralism, based on hubris that our economic power compels other nations to dance to our tune. The change in our fortunes
has given the others the confidence that they can play their own music, and they are!
So we can’t expect them to follow our prescription for the malady that affects us all.
Which means the cure must begin here. Teamwork, for the good of all, is now more important than pushing parochial interests for the good of a political party.
What can we make of the Republican party determined to say no to everything Obama is trying to do? Are TEA PARTY protests against taxes a substitute for policy? Will the economy recover if more jobs are lost, unemployment checks stop coming, food stamps are cancelled, more homes are foreclosed? If we abolish ALL taxes on people earning more that $250,000 per year will their savings trickle down to create more jobs, rescue failing companies, keep people in their homes, and restore health to sick banks?
To the party that prides itself as the party of Lincoln I say Come On, get off your
sore loser backside and come up with positive ideas to help the nation recover. Compete on the field of ideas, not fear and rancor. The country needs you as partners in progress.
GET WITH IT.
And as we try to construct a life boat, a vessel that will keep us afloat until we come up with a solution, the people who most need to cooperate if they are to survive, are putting perceived self interest before the common good. That is a guarantee that we will all sink.
The international banking system is no longer made up of individual nation central banks.
Ours is a global, interwoven and interdependent system. Failure in one country triggers decline and possible collapse in others. The capital structure of a single nation’s banks now includes stockholders and investments from many other nations.
The United States is coming out of an era of unilateralism, based on hubris that our economic power compels other nations to dance to our tune. The change in our fortunes
has given the others the confidence that they can play their own music, and they are!
So we can’t expect them to follow our prescription for the malady that affects us all.
Which means the cure must begin here. Teamwork, for the good of all, is now more important than pushing parochial interests for the good of a political party.
What can we make of the Republican party determined to say no to everything Obama is trying to do? Are TEA PARTY protests against taxes a substitute for policy? Will the economy recover if more jobs are lost, unemployment checks stop coming, food stamps are cancelled, more homes are foreclosed? If we abolish ALL taxes on people earning more that $250,000 per year will their savings trickle down to create more jobs, rescue failing companies, keep people in their homes, and restore health to sick banks?
To the party that prides itself as the party of Lincoln I say Come On, get off your
sore loser backside and come up with positive ideas to help the nation recover. Compete on the field of ideas, not fear and rancor. The country needs you as partners in progress.
GET WITH IT.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Welcome to the New World dis-ORDER
Our President and first lady acquitted themselves famously at the G-20 and subsequent meetings. To the diplomats of the world they were such a refreshing change, they were treated as Rock Stars.
The same cannot be said of the policy initiatives the President put on the table.
He asked for the other countries, the EU, Russia, China and India in particular, to open their treasuries and spend enough to stimulate their economies in significant
scale. The US can't bail out the world as it once could. We are no longer in a commanding position to lead the world to our will, and our faltering economy can't exert enough leverage to have a dominant impact on that of the others. The best he came away with was a non-enforceable commitment (read that intention) to contribute a trillion plus to the IMF for aid to underdeveloped countries.
This is not to diminish the value, to our influence and international image, of the
close personal relationships the President was able to forge with the other world leaders. The office now enjoys new respect abroad. Obama's obvious intellect and open mindedness has made him a force to be reckoned with.
The outcome on the foreign policy front was negligible. The rest of the world never approved of our Iraq venture. They did initially support our action in Afghanistan. When we diverted from there to Iraq, we lost them. They are not coming back to help--once burned.....
We have shed the pariah image. Hopefully that will open a path to cooperative efforts to revive the economy. I call it a good beginning.
The same cannot be said of the policy initiatives the President put on the table.
He asked for the other countries, the EU, Russia, China and India in particular, to open their treasuries and spend enough to stimulate their economies in significant
scale. The US can't bail out the world as it once could. We are no longer in a commanding position to lead the world to our will, and our faltering economy can't exert enough leverage to have a dominant impact on that of the others. The best he came away with was a non-enforceable commitment (read that intention) to contribute a trillion plus to the IMF for aid to underdeveloped countries.
This is not to diminish the value, to our influence and international image, of the
close personal relationships the President was able to forge with the other world leaders. The office now enjoys new respect abroad. Obama's obvious intellect and open mindedness has made him a force to be reckoned with.
The outcome on the foreign policy front was negligible. The rest of the world never approved of our Iraq venture. They did initially support our action in Afghanistan. When we diverted from there to Iraq, we lost them. They are not coming back to help--once burned.....
We have shed the pariah image. Hopefully that will open a path to cooperative efforts to revive the economy. I call it a good beginning.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Through the looking glass
The American public has pulled an Alice and stepped through the looking glass into an upside-down world of morality and justice. Unaware, and insidiously we have accepted, and rewarded, criminal behavior if it is of grand scale, while continuing draconian punishment of criminals if their offense is of minor scope, affecting only a few.
Examples: AIG , Merrill, Goldman Sachs, Countrywide Bank, etc. The financial whiz kids at those firms devised financial instruments based on inflated valuations, false appraisals, and in complete avoidance of sound risk management principles. These were marketed to investors, banks, pension funds, foundations, etc,
without recourse. The purchasers were induced by AIG, which sold them Credit Default
Swaps. Those guaranteed face value reimbursement if the investment lost value, usually as a result of default by the borrowers.
For reasons already known, the investments lost most of their value, damaging the capital structures of the banks which had purchased huge amounts, exposing AIG to claims far beyond their capacity to pay. Failure to pay the claims could result in bankruptcies and collapse of the entire banking and credit structure of the nation.
The whiz kids who designed and marketed those toxic assets and credit default swaps should be punished for the fraud they committed and the enormous losses they caused. RIGHT? Almost half the world's paper wealth has disappeared. Instead they have received enormous bonuses as an inducement to stick around and unravel the chaos they caused and identify the co-conspirators (so they can receive bonuses?)
and victims, before they take off for a luxurious European vacation. But a poor, laid off worker, who in desperation snatches a purse or sells a joint, faces 10 or more years in prison.
The moral is "if you are a big enough scoundrel and thief you will be rewarded beyond your dreams. Just don't be small scale in your plundering."
Examples: AIG , Merrill, Goldman Sachs, Countrywide Bank, etc. The financial whiz kids at those firms devised financial instruments based on inflated valuations, false appraisals, and in complete avoidance of sound risk management principles. These were marketed to investors, banks, pension funds, foundations, etc,
without recourse. The purchasers were induced by AIG, which sold them Credit Default
Swaps. Those guaranteed face value reimbursement if the investment lost value, usually as a result of default by the borrowers.
For reasons already known, the investments lost most of their value, damaging the capital structures of the banks which had purchased huge amounts, exposing AIG to claims far beyond their capacity to pay. Failure to pay the claims could result in bankruptcies and collapse of the entire banking and credit structure of the nation.
The whiz kids who designed and marketed those toxic assets and credit default swaps should be punished for the fraud they committed and the enormous losses they caused. RIGHT? Almost half the world's paper wealth has disappeared. Instead they have received enormous bonuses as an inducement to stick around and unravel the chaos they caused and identify the co-conspirators (so they can receive bonuses?)
and victims, before they take off for a luxurious European vacation. But a poor, laid off worker, who in desperation snatches a purse or sells a joint, faces 10 or more years in prison.
The moral is "if you are a big enough scoundrel and thief you will be rewarded beyond your dreams. Just don't be small scale in your plundering."
Friday, March 20, 2009
A doleful anniversary
Today marks the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, a day on which the U.S. abandoned
all reason and went to war to break Iraq as it was, and make it over into a western style Jeffersonian democracy. We now own it and are stuck with it. We now recognize our illusions and are groping to salvage a trace of positive outcome in a morass of conflicting interests among the Iraqui ethnicities.
We forgot the lessons of all wars. War STINKS. It makes heroes out of kids by tearing their bodies to shreds, and depriving them of their future, and the future they could give to their families, community, and nation. It turns them into legal killers and dulls their souls against the horrors around them so they are forever
scarred in body and mind. And for what? Are there any winners in war? Certainly not humankind, or the dead and maimed,the children deprived of fathers and mothers, parents deprived of a son or daughter, wives and husbands left bereaved and devastated. Yes, there are victors, but no winners. We honor the heroes, but the fact that we do so testifies to our failure of statecraft, and as "intelligent" creatures. Victory is never worth the noble lives it took to gain it!
And now, on to AFGHANISTAN where we once again
forget the lesson of war to our peril.
all reason and went to war to break Iraq as it was, and make it over into a western style Jeffersonian democracy. We now own it and are stuck with it. We now recognize our illusions and are groping to salvage a trace of positive outcome in a morass of conflicting interests among the Iraqui ethnicities.
We forgot the lessons of all wars. War STINKS. It makes heroes out of kids by tearing their bodies to shreds, and depriving them of their future, and the future they could give to their families, community, and nation. It turns them into legal killers and dulls their souls against the horrors around them so they are forever
scarred in body and mind. And for what? Are there any winners in war? Certainly not humankind, or the dead and maimed,the children deprived of fathers and mothers, parents deprived of a son or daughter, wives and husbands left bereaved and devastated. Yes, there are victors, but no winners. We honor the heroes, but the fact that we do so testifies to our failure of statecraft, and as "intelligent" creatures. Victory is never worth the noble lives it took to gain it!
And now, on to AFGHANISTAN where we once again
forget the lesson of war to our peril.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The more things change.........
As a tireless worker and supporter of the Obama campaign I expected that he, unlike all the previous candidates elected, would keep his campaign promises to change the way Washington does business, and to eliminate pork from the bloated federal budget.
I saw him as the outsider, a knight in shining armor, mounted on a white charger, slaying the dragon of corruption in congress.
By accepting a congressional budget containing an estimated $7.7 billion in pork, he has turned from knight to page, mounted on a donkey, carrying the baggage of the corrupt congress. His justification for the turnabout is that he has to bribe congress so that his next huge bailout request will get a favorable reception.
That is a delusion. Having successfully rolled the President this time, when the next bailout bill comes to them, congress will demand another bribe in the form of even more pork.
In this case even the appearance didn't change.
I believe that the President underestimates the support the majority of our citizens would give him for a firm position on a pork free budget. The $7.7b would save a lot of homes from foreclosure, repair a great many run down schools, raise teacher salaries, reduce class sizes in the early school years, and perform many other tasks which are vital to our economic recovery.
With sadness I contemplate ending my support of the President.
I saw him as the outsider, a knight in shining armor, mounted on a white charger, slaying the dragon of corruption in congress.
By accepting a congressional budget containing an estimated $7.7 billion in pork, he has turned from knight to page, mounted on a donkey, carrying the baggage of the corrupt congress. His justification for the turnabout is that he has to bribe congress so that his next huge bailout request will get a favorable reception.
That is a delusion. Having successfully rolled the President this time, when the next bailout bill comes to them, congress will demand another bribe in the form of even more pork.
In this case even the appearance didn't change.
I believe that the President underestimates the support the majority of our citizens would give him for a firm position on a pork free budget. The $7.7b would save a lot of homes from foreclosure, repair a great many run down schools, raise teacher salaries, reduce class sizes in the early school years, and perform many other tasks which are vital to our economic recovery.
With sadness I contemplate ending my support of the President.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
KILLING THE GOLDEN GOOSE
Getting ourselves out of the recession-depression we are in will require major sacrifices from all segments of society. But from the debates in the Senate, it appears that the Repubs would prefer to solve it on the backs of the middle class and blue collar workers, leaving the financial wizards who created the mess untouched, and bonus richer.
We can't reverse globalization, or undo outsourcing. Manufacturing will always find the lowest cost venue, which is now in the heavily populated Asian region. To attempt to compete against a national policy of "development at any price", as in Asia, we would need to create a permanent underclass of American workers. In our consumption based economy that would be a solution worse than the problem.
Our strengths that made us the 20th century world leader were innovation by well educated individuals, entrepreneurship, a work ethic, high workplace productivity, and the drive to leave the world a better place for our offspring. That was easy when large parts of the world consisted of Third World countries. They were our market, not our competition.
By permitting our educational system to decline, starving it for funds, and treating teachers as useful baby-sitters, we have frittered away our relative advantage. Products and services that were exclusively ours are now available in Asia. To make them here we import engineers and designers from there. Yet Congress is wrangling over a stimulus package from which they eliminated aid funds for education and funds for hard pressed states, whose own deficits make it necessary to reduce support for education at all levels.
How can we, average Joe or Jane, get through the swamp of partisan politics, to inform our Congress that enough is enough with neglect of education?
We can't reverse globalization, or undo outsourcing. Manufacturing will always find the lowest cost venue, which is now in the heavily populated Asian region. To attempt to compete against a national policy of "development at any price", as in Asia, we would need to create a permanent underclass of American workers. In our consumption based economy that would be a solution worse than the problem.
Our strengths that made us the 20th century world leader were innovation by well educated individuals, entrepreneurship, a work ethic, high workplace productivity, and the drive to leave the world a better place for our offspring. That was easy when large parts of the world consisted of Third World countries. They were our market, not our competition.
By permitting our educational system to decline, starving it for funds, and treating teachers as useful baby-sitters, we have frittered away our relative advantage. Products and services that were exclusively ours are now available in Asia. To make them here we import engineers and designers from there. Yet Congress is wrangling over a stimulus package from which they eliminated aid funds for education and funds for hard pressed states, whose own deficits make it necessary to reduce support for education at all levels.
How can we, average Joe or Jane, get through the swamp of partisan politics, to inform our Congress that enough is enough with neglect of education?
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