Ruminations, February 14, 2010: A dangerous New York Times? The American and Greek economies. Don't ask, don't tell.
Robert Kulak received his undergraduate degree in mathematics and economics and his graduate degree in insurance. An Air force veteran,he has consulted nationally and internationally in information systems. He has written international publications on subjects as diverse as political commentary,humor and healthcare. His articles are also regularly published on Examiner.com where he is the 'Hartford Independent Examiner.Ruminations, February 14, 2010
A dangerous New York Times
Back in June, 2006, The New York Times published a front-page story calling attention to the fact that, under a secret arrangement, foreign governments were cooperating with the United States to track al Qaeda financial transactions through SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).
President Bush and other government and non-government officials had made the case to the Timesbefore it published the story that the information gathered made the United States safer from terrorism and that disclosing these government operations to the public could compromise them. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said that he and the Times staff listened seriously to the administration and then decided to publish the information to the public — and thereby to al Qaeda.
Since al Qaeda then became aware of the SWIFT arrangements, it stands to reason that they would then use more discretion and subterfuge in executing money transfers making it more difficult to track their transactions. Furthermore, since the tracing of these transactions were secret, their public exposure could cause concern among some Europeans and perhaps thwart future cooperation.
Keller, at the time, said he found "puzzling" the government’s claim that the Times disclosure of America's financial tracking of terrorists could cause European nations to cease cooperation.
Then, in July 2006, the European Union Parliament solved Keller's puzzlement: They voted 302 to 219 to demand that the European Central Bank "explain fully the extent to which they were aware of the secret agreement" between SWIFT and the United States. Although it is clear that no American banking laws were broken, Belgium, where SWIFT is headquartered, investigated to see if any Belgian laws were violated.
Last week came the clincher. The European parliament voted 378-196 to reject the cooperative agreement. This time, it was not the Bush Administration that argued vociferously for keeping it in force but the Obama Administration.
The New York Times duly reported the vote last week but made no mention of the Times’ or Editor Bill Keller’s initial involvement in the imbroglio.
Foreign governments often operate in their own self-interest, be it political, economic or defensive; however much we may disagree with their actions, we have no control over what they do. But when our own Americans work against us, it is deplorable.
An apology from the Times would not make us safer; nor would an admission of wrong doing. Perhaps the most we can hope for is that the Times and Keller – and the rest of the media, for that matter — learn from their dangerous disclosures. But don’t bet on it.
The United States and Greece
Last week we compared the economic prospects of the United States with Poland and found the comparison showed brighter prospects for Poland. This week we’ll compare the United States with Greece.
Greece, as you may have read, is in dire straits and needs help to avoid a national economic disaster. Greece’s government has been spending at record levels and has shown no signs that it has a viable economic plan to lower its deficits and soaring debt. The only alternatives it has are to abandon the euro, revert to the drachma and devalue it (which will wreak havoc with the euro and the European Union), or to have someone (i.e., Germany and maybe France, too) come to its rescue. Whoever that savior is must insist that Greece embark on a program of fiscal austerity and amend its profligate ways; if not, the governments of Germany and France will never recover the loans with which they plan to rescue Greece. And, if a program of fiscal austerity is not implemented, everyone would be in the same position that they are today, albeit much poorer.
Here come the numbers. Greece, has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP – the total value of goods and services produced in a year), according to the World Bank, of $357 billion. It owes (the national debt) more than $400 billion. Paying off a debt that is more than 100 percent of GDP would put a severe strain on the economic growth of Greece. It is fortunate that Greece has found, in Germany and France, a “sugar daddy” with a combined GDP of $6.4 trillion.
In the United States, according to White House forecasts, the projected GDP for the year 2013 will be $16.7 trillion and the total debt owed by the United States will be $17.1 trillion. We will owe $400 billion more than we can produce during a year. It’s starting to sound like Greece. Of course, as a percentage, our debt would “only” be 102 percent of GDP as compared with Greece’s 108 percent plus. Furthermore, that White House forecasted GDP assumes that the United States economy will grow at over 17 percent over four years; doable, but last year the economy shrunk by 2.4 percent.
The rosy scenario for Greece is that there are bigger economies around that can rescue them. There is no one around big enough to rescue us.
We Americans should have sympathy for the Greeks who have had to live under a government that has put their nation in economic crisis. On the other hand, the Greeks should have sympathy for us, too.
Don’t ask, don’t tell
In his campaign and the State of the Union address, President Obama stated a conviction that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) law should be repealed. The law, a 1993 compromise between those who believe that homosexuals should be able to serve openly and those who think that open homosexuality in the military is a bad idea, states, in part:
“Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that the extraordinary responsibilities of the armed forces, the unique conditions of military service and the critical role of unit cohesion, require that the military community, while subject to civilian control, exist as a specialized society; and the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.”
Some believe that allowing homosexuals to serve openly is simply a question of civil rights and, since homosexuals have been serving – often commendably – any restriction on their service is simply homophobia.
Others have held that military society is a unique and necessary part of America and cannot function in an efficient manner if homosexuals serve openly.
How do Americans feel? A Quinnipiac University poll showed Americans in favor of homosexuals openly serving in the military by 57 percent to 36 percent but, at the same time, felt that homosexuals should face some restrictions by 54 percent to 38 percent. These numbers stand in contrast to a Military Times poll in December 2008 in which 58 percent of U.S. troops stated opposition to homosexuals serving openly (in that same poll, 10 percent of the respondents said that they would not re-enlist in that circumstance and another 14 percent would consider not re-enlisting. It should be noted that generally about 30 percent of those eligible to re-enlist do not do so.)
One of the arguments that critics of the policy have posited is that many of the objections for continuing DADT are similar to the arguments used for continuing racial segregation and opposing the integration of African Americans into the armed services and they’re right. However, as Colin Powell (who is said to be rethinking his position on DADT) testified in 1993, “skin color is a benign non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics.” Powell was right, too.
There is an aspect of military life that many who have not experienced it fail to take into consideration and that is what Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, calls “forced intimacy.” This is why the armed services provide separate facilities for heterosexual men and women: To avoid the forced intimacy that would result from sharing living quarters with a high-hormone young person of the opposite sex.
To avoid the forced intimacy that would result from homosexual and heterosexual troops sharing the same rooms, would the military take the same steps that it takes to separate heterosexual men and women? Would it require separate living arrangements for heterosexual men and women, and homosexual men and women? Would it require putting homosexual men together with other homosexual men and lesbians with other lesbians? How would these arrangements affect military discipline?
The Defense Department and Pentagon are currently engaged in determining what steps would be necessary should Congress repeal DADT. The issues include next-of-kin implications, benefits, living conditions and new definitions of sexual misconduct. Then the military must deal with the gay-marriage issue; how does the military legally respond to marriages that are legal in one state and not in another and should it recognize such marriages?
Repeal of DADT is not certain. Although Obama is committed to its repeal, opposition seems to be bi-partisan. Representative Ike Skelton (D, MO), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and John McCain (R, AZ), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, are both opposed.
DADT seems to be more complex than slogans. Let’s hope that the debate is more on substantive issues than on the emotional issues.
Obama plays well with others
At least President Obama plays well with others, is how many Americans perceive him. Obama is a skilled politician and that is a compliment. His policies are generally held in disfavor but the American people think well of him, and one of the reasons is that he is perceived as trying to work with Republicans.
Consider this: Pollster Scott Rasmussen posts a daily tracking poll. Through that poll, he calculates the percentage of people who strongly approve of the way the President is performing his role and those who strongly disapprove. Rasmussen then subtracts the disapprovers from the approvers. If the number is positive, then it’s positive for Obama: More people strongly approve of his performance than disapprove by whatever the percentage difference is. If more people disapprove of Obama’s performance, then the resultant percentage is negative.
Since July, Obama’s numbers have been consistently negative — and consistently in double digits since mid-November. Even his State of the Union address couldn’t help him; in the two days after the speech, his negatives increased by 2 percent.
Then Obama met with Congressional Republicans in Baltimore and guess what: His negatives went from -17 to -7 in two days. And they stayed in single digits for almost a week. It seems that because he had spoken with Republicans, many Americans, though somewhat skeptical of his outreach, were willing to give him the benefit of a doubt and liked him a little more.
Now he plans to meet with Republicans and Democrats on February 25 to discuss health care. Is it good politics or does he really want to pass a consensus health care bill? Both.
Good politics for Obama means that his “approvals” will increase giving him greater political capital to accomplish what he wants to do. And one of the things he wants to do is to reform health care.
Also, remember that President Ronald Reagan was able to accomplish much of his agenda while the opposition party had control of Congress. Obama may find himself is a similar situation next year: the opposition party may be in control of Congress. And if Obama hopes to accomplish anything in that environment, he has to show the American people that he plays well with others so they will support him.
Quote without comment
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in an interview on Fox News, February 9, 2010: “I think Ph.D. dissertations should be written about the relationship between [former] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, because it is a model of a relationship between the senior civilian and the senior military officer.”
A dangerous New York Times
Back in June, 2006, The New York Times published a front-page story calling attention to the fact that, under a secret arrangement, foreign governments were cooperating with the United States to track al Qaeda financial transactions through SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).
President Bush and other government and non-government officials had made the case to the Timesbefore it published the story that the information gathered made the United States safer from terrorism and that disclosing these government operations to the public could compromise them. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said that he and the Times staff listened seriously to the administration and then decided to publish the information to the public — and thereby to al Qaeda.
Since al Qaeda then became aware of the SWIFT arrangements, it stands to reason that they would then use more discretion and subterfuge in executing money transfers making it more difficult to track their transactions. Furthermore, since the tracing of these transactions were secret, their public exposure could cause concern among some Europeans and perhaps thwart future cooperation.
Keller, at the time, said he found "puzzling" the government’s claim that the Times disclosure of America's financial tracking of terrorists could cause European nations to cease cooperation.
Then, in July 2006, the European Union Parliament solved Keller's puzzlement: They voted 302 to 219 to demand that the European Central Bank "explain fully the extent to which they were aware of the secret agreement" between SWIFT and the United States. Although it is clear that no American banking laws were broken, Belgium, where SWIFT is headquartered, investigated to see if any Belgian laws were violated.
Last week came the clincher. The European parliament voted 378-196 to reject the cooperative agreement. This time, it was not the Bush Administration that argued vociferously for keeping it in force but the Obama Administration.
The New York Times duly reported the vote last week but made no mention of the Times’ or Editor Bill Keller’s initial involvement in the imbroglio.
Foreign governments often operate in their own self-interest, be it political, economic or defensive; however much we may disagree with their actions, we have no control over what they do. But when our own Americans work against us, it is deplorable.
An apology from the Times would not make us safer; nor would an admission of wrong doing. Perhaps the most we can hope for is that the Times and Keller – and the rest of the media, for that matter — learn from their dangerous disclosures. But don’t bet on it.
The United States and Greece
Last week we compared the economic prospects of the United States with Poland and found the comparison showed brighter prospects for Poland. This week we’ll compare the United States with Greece.
Greece, as you may have read, is in dire straits and needs help to avoid a national economic disaster. Greece’s government has been spending at record levels and has shown no signs that it has a viable economic plan to lower its deficits and soaring debt. The only alternatives it has are to abandon the euro, revert to the drachma and devalue it (which will wreak havoc with the euro and the European Union), or to have someone (i.e., Germany and maybe France, too) come to its rescue. Whoever that savior is must insist that Greece embark on a program of fiscal austerity and amend its profligate ways; if not, the governments of Germany and France will never recover the loans with which they plan to rescue Greece. And, if a program of fiscal austerity is not implemented, everyone would be in the same position that they are today, albeit much poorer.
Here come the numbers. Greece, has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP – the total value of goods and services produced in a year), according to the World Bank, of $357 billion. It owes (the national debt) more than $400 billion. Paying off a debt that is more than 100 percent of GDP would put a severe strain on the economic growth of Greece. It is fortunate that Greece has found, in Germany and France, a “sugar daddy” with a combined GDP of $6.4 trillion.
In the United States, according to White House forecasts, the projected GDP for the year 2013 will be $16.7 trillion and the total debt owed by the United States will be $17.1 trillion. We will owe $400 billion more than we can produce during a year. It’s starting to sound like Greece. Of course, as a percentage, our debt would “only” be 102 percent of GDP as compared with Greece’s 108 percent plus. Furthermore, that White House forecasted GDP assumes that the United States economy will grow at over 17 percent over four years; doable, but last year the economy shrunk by 2.4 percent.
The rosy scenario for Greece is that there are bigger economies around that can rescue them. There is no one around big enough to rescue us.
We Americans should have sympathy for the Greeks who have had to live under a government that has put their nation in economic crisis. On the other hand, the Greeks should have sympathy for us, too.
Don’t ask, don’t tell
In his campaign and the State of the Union address, President Obama stated a conviction that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) law should be repealed. The law, a 1993 compromise between those who believe that homosexuals should be able to serve openly and those who think that open homosexuality in the military is a bad idea, states, in part:
“Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that the extraordinary responsibilities of the armed forces, the unique conditions of military service and the critical role of unit cohesion, require that the military community, while subject to civilian control, exist as a specialized society; and the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.”
Some believe that allowing homosexuals to serve openly is simply a question of civil rights and, since homosexuals have been serving – often commendably – any restriction on their service is simply homophobia.
Others have held that military society is a unique and necessary part of America and cannot function in an efficient manner if homosexuals serve openly.
How do Americans feel? A Quinnipiac University poll showed Americans in favor of homosexuals openly serving in the military by 57 percent to 36 percent but, at the same time, felt that homosexuals should face some restrictions by 54 percent to 38 percent. These numbers stand in contrast to a Military Times poll in December 2008 in which 58 percent of U.S. troops stated opposition to homosexuals serving openly (in that same poll, 10 percent of the respondents said that they would not re-enlist in that circumstance and another 14 percent would consider not re-enlisting. It should be noted that generally about 30 percent of those eligible to re-enlist do not do so.)
One of the arguments that critics of the policy have posited is that many of the objections for continuing DADT are similar to the arguments used for continuing racial segregation and opposing the integration of African Americans into the armed services and they’re right. However, as Colin Powell (who is said to be rethinking his position on DADT) testified in 1993, “skin color is a benign non-behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics.” Powell was right, too.
There is an aspect of military life that many who have not experienced it fail to take into consideration and that is what Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, calls “forced intimacy.” This is why the armed services provide separate facilities for heterosexual men and women: To avoid the forced intimacy that would result from sharing living quarters with a high-hormone young person of the opposite sex.
To avoid the forced intimacy that would result from homosexual and heterosexual troops sharing the same rooms, would the military take the same steps that it takes to separate heterosexual men and women? Would it require separate living arrangements for heterosexual men and women, and homosexual men and women? Would it require putting homosexual men together with other homosexual men and lesbians with other lesbians? How would these arrangements affect military discipline?
The Defense Department and Pentagon are currently engaged in determining what steps would be necessary should Congress repeal DADT. The issues include next-of-kin implications, benefits, living conditions and new definitions of sexual misconduct. Then the military must deal with the gay-marriage issue; how does the military legally respond to marriages that are legal in one state and not in another and should it recognize such marriages?
Repeal of DADT is not certain. Although Obama is committed to its repeal, opposition seems to be bi-partisan. Representative Ike Skelton (D, MO), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and John McCain (R, AZ), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, are both opposed.
DADT seems to be more complex than slogans. Let’s hope that the debate is more on substantive issues than on the emotional issues.
Obama plays well with others
At least President Obama plays well with others, is how many Americans perceive him. Obama is a skilled politician and that is a compliment. His policies are generally held in disfavor but the American people think well of him, and one of the reasons is that he is perceived as trying to work with Republicans.
Consider this: Pollster Scott Rasmussen posts a daily tracking poll. Through that poll, he calculates the percentage of people who strongly approve of the way the President is performing his role and those who strongly disapprove. Rasmussen then subtracts the disapprovers from the approvers. If the number is positive, then it’s positive for Obama: More people strongly approve of his performance than disapprove by whatever the percentage difference is. If more people disapprove of Obama’s performance, then the resultant percentage is negative.
Since July, Obama’s numbers have been consistently negative — and consistently in double digits since mid-November. Even his State of the Union address couldn’t help him; in the two days after the speech, his negatives increased by 2 percent.
Then Obama met with Congressional Republicans in Baltimore and guess what: His negatives went from -17 to -7 in two days. And they stayed in single digits for almost a week. It seems that because he had spoken with Republicans, many Americans, though somewhat skeptical of his outreach, were willing to give him the benefit of a doubt and liked him a little more.
Now he plans to meet with Republicans and Democrats on February 25 to discuss health care. Is it good politics or does he really want to pass a consensus health care bill? Both.
Good politics for Obama means that his “approvals” will increase giving him greater political capital to accomplish what he wants to do. And one of the things he wants to do is to reform health care.
Also, remember that President Ronald Reagan was able to accomplish much of his agenda while the opposition party had control of Congress. Obama may find himself is a similar situation next year: the opposition party may be in control of Congress. And if Obama hopes to accomplish anything in that environment, he has to show the American people that he plays well with others so they will support him.
Quote without comment
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in an interview on Fox News, February 9, 2010: “I think Ph.D. dissertations should be written about the relationship between [former] Ambassador [to Iraq] Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, because it is a model of a relationship between the senior civilian and the senior military officer.”
Posted by Robert J. Kulak at Monday, February 15, 2010 7:48 AM 
Categories: Robert J. Kulak, New York Times, Greece
Tags: Robert J. Kulak New York Times Greece
Categories: Robert J. Kulak, New York Times, Greece
Tags: Robert J. Kulak New York Times Greece
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