Return to Capitalism

by William Northwall

  The different outcomes that American and German workers experience, provides an important lesson: Cutting the U.S. off from the global economy isn’t an effective way to fight income inequality. Policy makers can enhance the skills of many Americans who do not get college degrees by providing them with knowledge more suitable to working life.

  Political candidates may rile up their base with anti-trade speeches, but moving Americans toward practical job-market training could make a difference.”

  The displaced and unemployed factory workers: Workers who’ve lost jobs because their factories moved overseashavebecome a huge problem. These unemployed and the many underemployed represent a huge number of people. Time to remember what happened when massive numbers of servicemen from WWII returned home.

  The after-effects of cataclysmic WWII profoundly changed the United States in many ways; we felt the effects of the baby-boomers, many farm workers became exposed to factory life, and many got the opportunity to go to college. The GI Bill was signed into law in 1944, and the original bill ended in 1956, allowed 7.8 million of the returning 16 million vets to enter an education or a training program. Since today maybe one-third of our factory workers have lost a job to foreign countries as reflected in our horrific labor participation rate, why not institute a federal program akin to the GI Bill to allow for re-training of our under and unemployed Americans that want a job, or a better job, but aren’t capable of operating today’s complex factory machinery, or all the back-up services they require?

  The Black schools: I live in Pinellas County, St. Petersburg, Florida. State testing revealed that some of our Pinellas county school scores were about the worst in the state of Florida. These failing schools are the five in the black neighborhoods of St. Petersburg. While I don’t feel like I’m living in the deep South, St. Petersburg certainly has vestiges left from our horrific past, tracing back to the days of slavery. I believe that it is mandatory for all of us take ownership of this tragedy that has befallen some of our fellow Americans that not only dates back to reconstruction and Jim Crow, but also to the socialist experiments of the ‘60s. I’m talking here about Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) and welfare programs that encouraged men to stop working. This set off a cycle where non-working husbands lost their sense of identity in their families and left. That, in turn, absolutely devastated the black nuclear family. While rebuilding black families today, with a father in the household, training in discipline, and setting values for self-improvement, goes beyond the scope of education received in schools, education should be central in figuring a way out of the black dilemma.

  We, in St. Petersburg, need to find a way to improve our schools. A lot of the problem revolves around communicating between disagreeing parties on common language, or clearly stating what the problems are, and what are the possible solutions. To illuminate the issue of speaking with common ideas, take the current case that has been simmering for 50 years in St. Petersburg.

  We have a 50-year desegregation case where the lawyers are considering bringing in a mediator, after 4 months of tense negotiations. Plaintiffs want a more detailed plan to improve education for the 19,000 black students in Pinellas Public Schools. A mediator would take the case another step closer to federal court and mark the third time in 17 years that such a step was necessary to work through the thicket of issues in Leon W. Bradley Jr., vs Board of Public Instruction of Pinellas County. So far, negotiations have focused on superintendent Mike Gregco’s 2013 “Bridging the Gap” plan, which has six broad areas to target for improvement. The plan has grown from its original five pages to more than 30. It includes five major areas in which the district wants to close gaps between black students and their classmates. Those include graduation rates; proficiency on state exams; participation and performance in accelerated classes such as Advanced Placement; discipline; and eligibility for special educational programs. Plaintiffs say this is all propaganda to hand out at public meetings, and that it is about the district from their point of view, and not about black children. They point out that the graduation rate for black students is about 65% compared to 82% for white students. They presented the district with 30 allegations and say the system isn’t treating black children fairly in discipline cases; has failed to hire and retain black teachers; hasn’t given black children a safe place to go to school; failed to enroll more black children in magnets and other special programs; and hasn’t spent enough money to help black children catch up in reading and math. If mediation fails, there could be appointment of a special overseer who could then make recommendations to U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday.

  From a story by Cara Fitzpatrick, School Divide Unresolved

  Tampa Bay Times, 12-26-2016.

  For the black mothers trapped in the inner cities, give them school choice. For the residents, give them safe neighborhoods. And for those willing to work, give them jobs. Let community leaders rise up and lead. But above all, please let’s ensure that the kids receive the best education possible. We are all Americans first, and in this, we must be all together.

  18 - TERRORISM, WAR AND THE MILITARY

  “A primary motif of U.S. politics of late has been that Americans are in an “isolationist mood.” Though it’s never clear what that means. Last spring the Pew Research Center said about two-thirds of the country believes “we should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our own national problems.” After eight years of the Obama presidency half-in, half-out policies on terrorism and world disorder, who could blame Americans for telling pollsters they want out? And indeed, Donald Trump said, or seemed to say, essentially that during his campaign. For some, the isolationist mood means “no more nation building” or banning Muslims from entering the U.S. or opposition to “boots on the ground.” But one also finds this inside Pew’s mood music: Some 60% said that without U.S. involvement, the world would be in worse shape than it already is. …Mr. Obama, a worthy heir to the ancient Sophists, described how this works in his recent news conference: “Over the past eight years, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully executed an attack on our homeland that was directed from overseas.” Set aside the distinction with no difference to the Americans killed in San Bernardino, Orlando or Fort Hood. This is the reality: If police cars are stationed on Christmas Eve in front of hundreds of Christian churches around the U.S., we are not walled off from the World’s troubles. …A stable world of productive institutions protected by military strength was the project led by the U.S. after World War II. It came to be known as Pax Americana, or peace through global U.S. leadership. In a world, so disordered that attending church puts one’s life at risk, reinventing a Pax Americana appropriate to the 21st century is overdue.”

  Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, 12-29-2016

  Use of military force: Most certainly, all would agree that when conflict between nations occurs, the first method of resolution always must be diplomacy. But when that becomes impossible because the conflicting sides cannot reach a settlement, it then is when the generals should be called in. The resolution of conflicts should always have the final step of military action. Without such, diplomacy is toothless.

  It would be foolish for me to suggest strategy on what should be done about the world’s hot spots. That is what generals do. They plan for every contingency they can imagine, and then they plan on what resources they need to meet these contingencies, and then ask their leadership to provide as much as they possibly can. Because of long lead times to research and develop complex military equipment needed, or that which may be needed, for a conflict far off into the future, that may or may never happen, it goes without saying that predictions will be imperfect, and much money spent will hopefully never be used.

  The Commander and Chief; that is, the president of the United States, solely has the power to start and end wars. President Washington advocated for this placement of power, and it has served the country well. All the electorate can hope for is that their prayers of
not sending their sons into harm’s way without good cause will be revered and respected.

  The world military dangers: During the 2016 election,both presidential candidates were ignoring world military dangers, as discussed in an op-ed by Mark Helprin, The Wall Street Journal,4-18-16, “The Candidates Ignore Rising Military Dangers”.

  “The candidates seem unaware of the prospects for catastrophic war in the not-so-distant future, with Russia, China, and Iran racing ahead, and Europe disintegrating that doesn’t spend enough on defense or defends its borders, America blind in the Middle East, and Obama either embracing enemies or opposing them with exquisite delicacy. We’ve allowed our nuclear forces to decay, and have been undergoing disarmament. “To prevent or weather these dangers presented by Russia, China, and Iran the next Congress and administration must rearm America and insist our allies follow suit. Our nuclear deterrent must be refreshed and augmented. China must be brought into a nuclear arms-control regime. The U.S. and its allies must take a much harder line and accept greater risks to halt proliferation, starting with our greatest failure to date, Iran.” “In Europe, U.S. forces in divisional strengths must combine with similar British, French and German formations to deploy in France and Germany” to advance or retreat as governed by behavior of Russia. With “Japan, India, Vietnam and the Philippines newly armed with long-range antiaircraft and coastal-defense missiles, an American fleet at least half-again its present size, and the F-22 tactical fighter brought back from the dead, can frustrate Chinese claims to the South China Sea.” Is it too much to expect our candidates look to our horizons?”

  From Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University. Interviewed by Vito J. Racanelli, Barron’s, 12-28-15, “Where Trouble Lurks”.

  “Are you suggesting that the U.S. ought to be the world’s policeman? Somebody’s got to do it, and it better not be the Chinese or the Russians.”

  The military budget process needs an overhaul: In this age of massive federal debts, we must more wisely budget for our military. While others of the free world powers need to carry more of the load to defend themselves, we must never lose sight of the fact that our resources are limited and we therefore need to be frugal. Obviously, there will be waste, and unneeded things bought for contingency that may never be needed. It is just part of the messy and inherent nature of trying to predict the future needs. But beyond all that, the Pentagon has been running to the beat of its own drum. Thismeans, however fast it’s going, it always tries to run faster. Military group after group, probably unaware of what other groups do, propose their ideas, plans get made, and civilian experts flood in to help, and before long, a juggernaut is rolling downhill without much regard for careful, thought-out planning for the best way to confront future threats. People at the top come and go over the years, different cliques come and go, Congress speaks with many voices, and before long the country ends up with massive programs extending for years and at unbelievable costs. Maybe it’s just the nature of the beast. It wouldn’t be bad, I guess, if we ended up buying the most of the best submarines, aircraft carriers, and jet fighters; but over the years, I think most would agree that if they looked at what our military ends up with, it’snot always the best that could’ve been procured. I simply beg for senior leadership to accept that the Pentagon is just a huge buying machine, often with little strategic thought of the best way to end up with the finest hardware possible at the lowest cost possible.

  For those still around from the Vietnam War days, remember Robert McNamara’s brain-trust deciding to save money by forcing the same jet fighter on both the Air Force and the Navy’s aircraft carriers? That was the McDonnell Phantom F-4 fighter; a rocket that went best in a straight line, without a cannon or machine gun, and too specialized to be effective off a carrier. After reading Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram, I learned a lot about how the Pentagon works. Boyd, a fighter pilot of the Korean and Vietnam era, became obsessed with the physics behind the ideal fighter plane; balancing transfer of energy while diving, with the energy needed for the subsequent climb. None of the experts at the Pentagon took him seriously. He ultimately had a lot to do with the development of the F-16 fighter, the fighter pilot’s most ideal fighter ever. He also had a lot to do with the development of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt, better known as the Warthog. This was a close-in lower-speed jet combat support aircraft with a huge Gatling gun on the nose (about 35 feet long, traversing a lot of the plane, and the pilot operating this close-in fighting machine was sitting in a titanium “bathtub” for bullet protection. This amazing aircraft easily destroyed the bulk of Saddam Hussein’s tanks in the Iraq war. Each plane was very specialized, and each was less favored by the Brass than the sexier and more exotic Star Wars futuristic models of the day. Today, we have the massively expensive F-35 fighter made for all forces, unlike preceding F-22 Air Force marvel that’s already bought and operational, and maybe better. None of us civilians can have any useful knowledge on the utility and reasonableness of this kind of expenditure, but we can demand of our politicians that they hold the Pentagon’s feet-to-the-fire on efficiency and frugalness. We cannot afford to keep paying whatever they ask without careful deliberation.

  The threat of terrorism: While past paradigms on terrorism oscillated between treating terrorism as a law and order problem to be addressed by lawyers (Bill Clinton administration) and a matter of war to be addressed by the generals (George W. Bush administration), we’ve now gone through a period of failing to call it by a name and minimizing its danger (Obama administration). Today, it is generally accepted that we call this evil Radical Islamic Terrorism, and have assigned this evil to the generals.

  With the experience that democracies almost never start wars, the major possible countries to beware of, are, of course, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Beyond the obvious major powers that are potential U.S. threats, the nebulous and ideologically biased Islamic Terrorists mostly permeating regions of little or no recognizable governments, as everyone is aware, is today a major problem. Their ideology is one of death; the killing of anyone different from them, and their perverted concept of Islam. If they fulfill their goal, they die and get their reward in the afterlife. We all know this. The dilemma—if there is a dilemma—is how to confront and eliminate this scourge. The obvious solutions thus are to kill them first, wherever they are, and to deny them land and resources to build up armies. But there are nuances which maybe are not well understood by the electorate.

  The Syrian Civil War: The mess that is now Syria, and the adjacent presence of Islamic Terrorists, presents a situation that gets confused both by governments and electorates. That is, where to direct the free world’s attention first. To Syria, to the terrorist, or to both, or should we do nothing? Below, I insert in toto, what I believe to be a landmark op-ed, addressing this question. I have argued the opinion piece’s logic to several small groups and have basically been laughed out of the room, so I know that the concept presented below, is not well understood. I hope to correct the fuzzy thinking and poorly-thought-out ideas relevant to this subject, as the concept has a universal approach that goes beyond the current situation in Syria. This concept is that the major powers must try to end any civil war; not only because of the obvious carnage and death from civil wars themselves, but because the concomitant release of bad actors arising from the carnage frequently becomes as damaging as the civil war itself, and if one group of bad actors is annihilated, another may just take its place.

  So, to the Syrian civil war and the ISIS terrorists, clearly the civilized world needs to do something. But where to focus the attention? The popular call today is to annihilate ISIS one way or another, and that will have to happen, but I think it timely to consider our options carefully. What if our approach to date has been flawed? Here is a different way to look at containing terrorism, as put forth in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, 2-16-16,”Why Obama’s Middle East Policy Is Failing”,by Ken
neth M. Pollack (Brookings Institution) and Barbara E. Walter (Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego). I reproduce this op-ed in toto, because the analysis is sound and complete, and paraphrasing would only degrade the message:

  “Imagine that it is Dec. 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt goes before the Congress to request a declaration of war against…the Nazis’ SS.

  Not the Japanese—they could never occupy the U.S. Not Hitler—we don’t much like him, buthe’s not doing the killing. Not regular Wehrmacht troops, they’re following orders. Not the Nazi Party—they aren’t a direct, physical threat to the U.S. Only the SS, because they are perpetrating the genocide that is the Third Reich’s worst crime.

  Then FDR calls up Stalin and Churchill and urges them to quit worrying about German army divisions and the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s munitions factories—and focus only on the SS.

  If America had taken that approach to World War II, it would have been entirely nonsensical, yet that is, in effect, how the Obama administration is dealing with the Middle East conflagration by focusing exclusively on Islamic State.

  The murderous jihadists of Islamic State, or ISIS, are only one symptom of a much larger problem in the Middle East. By fixating on this one symptom—rather than its sources—and then trying to convince everyone else in the region to do the same, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

  In contrast, what the Russians have done makes perfect sense to the people of the Middle East. The Russians picked a side: the Shiite side of the conflict in Syria, the Assad regime, backed by Iran and Hezbollah (with the Iraqi government occasionally dragged along).