Three Game Changers

Two are in sports; one in international news.

Germany Punishes Spain
No, this is not an economic austerity news story; the shocking news that comes from Europe this week concerns the Champions League, the continental soccer club championship.  In the first leg of home-and-home semifinal matches this week, the broad expectation of a Spanish Classico final (in England) between Real Madrid and Barcelona was disrupted by German teams.  Bayern Munich, last year's Champions League runners-up (defeated by Chelsea, I must remind the reader), defeated the presumptive favorite Barcelona by 4-0, and, just as shocking (maybe more), Borussia Dortmund whipped Real Madrid, 4-1, all four goals being scored by Robert Lewandowski.  In its long history of European leadership, Real Madrid had never suffered such a one-man drubbing.

Still, although it's a tall order for the Spanish clubs to come back and reverse these deficits in the rematch games at home, it is not impossible.  Barcelona, in particular, is so explosive on offense that one can't count out Messi & Co. It just shows a part of the appeal of sporting events, the possibility of surprise.

Lightning Strikes Thunder
The NBA's Eastern Conference playoffs are all about the Miami Heat, and the unlikely possibility that some team might stop them, or at least slow them down.  The Western Conference, on the other hand, is fairly wide open.  The Oklahoma City Thunder have the best record and top seed, and they have shown playoff capability last year, but they are hardly overwhelming favorites, not when the San Antonio Spurs are potential Conference final opponents and  in both good form and reasonably good health, and there are other teams with strong competitive claims, like Denver, Memphis, the L.A. Clippers, and even the Lakers (though they are less threatening without Kobe Bryant).

As for the Thunder, their prospects just took a dramatic downturn last night when their high-scoring playmaker Russell Westbrook tore up his knee yesterday.  They seem likely to make it past the Houston Rockets to the second round, but the Clippers/Grizzlies survivor would be a tough opponent for them without Westbrook.  His injury  reminds me of the injury the Bulls suffered last year when Derrick Rose went out in the first game of the playoffs, the result being an even more dramatic loss than I predicted. The Bulls, still without Rose a year later, are battling on heroically and seem likely to pull off their first-round series against the Nets, but the Heat loom in the next round.
Meanwhile, the Spurs' chances have risen.  They now have Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili back and Tim Duncan healthy, and that combination has acres of proven playoff success. I like their chances to win the West now, and I like them better than any other Western opponent against Miami.

Then, There Was Syria...
The alleged game-changing event (or events) happened some weeks ago.  There is evidence of attack with sarin gas which killed a few people in Damascus and/or Aleppo, evidence that has been detected in autopsy. Who did it, and why, are far from clear--possibly a test to see if it could be done without drawing a strong reaction from the West.  President Obama is proceeding carefully, though he has now gone public with the allegation, and he has repeated his warning that use of chemical weapons is a "game-changer". 

For all that, I'm not sure the game really has changed, though.  It has been, and it remains, getting the Russians, Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad's key ally, to abandon their support for him and help arrange his ouster. It may give Obama a new, persuasive piece to play in the game, though. Another part of the strategy is and has been lining up two nations bordering Syria, Turkey and Israel, to help enforce UN sanctions and a potential no-fly policy (if the proper international support can be mustered), and the allegations of use of outlawed weapons will certainly make their support more likely. 

I am and remain an advocate of strong action to both overturn Assad--through a variety of means short of direct US military intervention--and to purge the rebel forces of Islamic extremists.

Rigor Mortis for the Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher's death was long overdue:  I lived in the same area of SE London that she did back in 2001-2003; she was already reportedly suffering from dementia, and there were no public sightings of her during that whole period.  Needless to say, she didn't get better.

For that matter, she'd already withdrawn from public life by that point for at least a decade, after the public political assassination she suffered from her party in 1990, when the Conservatives threw her under the bus in favor of John Major.  Her popularity had never been all that strong outside her party, and her uncompromising stances had finally turned enough of her supporters off. 

In her prime--basically, the 1980's--she was extremely powerful and effective in the British government, as influential as anyone since World War II in shaping the society. The shadow of her government's influence was visible influence on Major's government, on Tony Blair's (the triangulation after the Thatcher revolution, just as Bill Clinton's was to Ronald Reagan's), and now on David Cameron's:  Thatcherism with a human face.

I exaggerate, but only a little.  Whether you liked her politics or not, you had to respect her ruthlessness.  Margaret Thatcher stood out among all politicians of this age, of either gender, for cold-blooded competence.  Of women leaders, she is not unique in that characteristic--I think of Indira Gandhi of India, and of Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka--but she was a tough cookie by any standard.  Clear examples were her stance with regard to the IRA and in the British Army's occupation of Northern Ireland, and the manner in which she conducted the war against Argentina for the Falklands.

What were her politics all about?  The radical opposition to the ideas and practice of social democracy.  It's something often found in the petit bourgeoisie, which describes her upbringing as a grocer's daughter.  She formed her opinions early and maintained them forever--you could take her or leave her, but there was no levering her.  Not even a bomb planted a floor underneath her hotel room in Brighton could shake her will. She was all about breaking the unions; her shibboleth, the equivalent of Reagan's PATCO strike breaking of the air-traffic controllers, was the coal miners' union and their persistent striking.  She basically wrote the book on privatizing, on dis-empowering rebellious local governments, on putting down the rebellions of the masses upset with things like austerity, unemployment, and denial of government services.  And we (meaning, the governments)--in Britain, and in the US--have been riffing off her playbook, more or less, ever since. 

She will get the national heroic treatment for her funeral--Westminster Abbey, royal family, etc. As well she should:  she was the leading nationalist/imperial British politician of the postwar period, as well (since Churchill, anyway).  The Malvinas Putdown was one of the few successful pro-colonial events of the last 70 years.  There is something to be said for her intervention rescuing Britain from a drain-swirling malaise:  at least it's still clinging to the side of the bowl, and she might deserve some of the credit for that.

I need to mention the movie made of her life in late 2011, Iron Lady.  I refer you also to my comments made then; I didn't like the movie all that much, as I felt it dwelt too much on her later dementia and really touched much too lightly on the reality of her governance.  Ronald Reagan was just a quick dance memory; Gorbachev and the Berlin Wall didn't even come into it, let alone the domestic strife prevalent throughout her term.  This is not to criticize at all her portrayal by Meryl Streep, which was brilliant and thoroughly deserved the Oscar that she received. 

I think that the real story of her administration and her time is yet to come, one that should be told by people who were inside the government (or maybe in the opposition), who saw both her strengths and weaknesses, and how they played out in the country, during and after her government,  and who could do justice to the complexity of the policy issues she tackled.  It was something she never did, nor could she ever, as she was too much at the heart of it, without any objective viewpoint of it all.

CSI: Boston - the Conclusion

This is a story that just won't quit, and one that no storywriter could come up with. 

As I predicted, the visual evidence produced the identity of the alleged perpetrators very quickly, then after a short commercial break (and a few false leads:  the New York Post canard, the convenience story robbery red herring), came the exciting final half-hour of the show.  For some reason--were they "made" as the wanted suspects?--they (allegedly) killed an M.I.T. security officer sitting in his car.  This brought down the storm; the senior (alleged) evildoer Tamerlan was dramatically brought down and taken out, but young Dzokhar escaped.

Then came a day of intense drama, the area on lockdown, teams of officers going door to door to find him. The search proved fruitless and the Governor came out and told everyone they could come out.  Within minutes, it seemed, young Tsarnaev was spotted by an alert citizen just outside the zone of the house-to-house search, hiding in a boat.

Now comes the real drama of the movie--and we know it will be a movie, maybe several of them--as Tsarnaev huddled in the boat, bleeding severely.  The flashbacks--how did he get into this? Why did he ever agree to it?  Should he go out in a hail of bullets or face the music?  Punctuated by the occasional flashbomb to distract him and bring us back to the story.

Yes, he was at least partially responsible for several deaths, injuries to many, inconvenience to millions.  Yes, the malice of the style of the attack--going after the families watching the game, non-competitive finishers four hours into the race, loading the bombs with b-b's, ball bearings, and nails--undermines the empathy we might otherwise feel for the 19-year-old "good guy" (as those who knew him described him).

Still, it's not a simple story at all.  Flashback to Chechen in the 1990's.  After the fall of the Soviet Union this region of Russia proper, a perennial headache with its Islamic majority and rebellious warrior tradition, wanted out.  The Russians, stung by the collapse of the weak coalition of formerly Soviet Republics, were having none of it.  The repression was horrendous--both to the Chechens and to the Russians.  Think of the US Civil War if it were just South Carolina that seceded.   The postwar governance has been equally repugnant to both:  to Russians, duty in the Chechen capital is literally "menacing"*.  The Chechen suppression has its side effects leaking into neighboring areas, into Moscow itself--it's a wound that won't heal.

Why did this blood feud end up coming to our shores? This is one of the big questions we will seek.  The Tsarnaevs were granted asylum by the US; the younger one recently became a citizen, and his older brother might have done so, except that the Russians tracked down his suspicious behavior and their inquiries put a hold on the process.   Maybe this was Tamerlan's motive--some kind of paranoid response to frustrated ambition?

The next episode for Tsarnaev will be the "Law and Order" one.  The over-under on Dzokhar is 25-to-life.  The Feds will dangle the threat of a death sentence if they need to, but I don't think they must.  He will be willing to cooperate, I think, having seen all too clearly how serious of a fix he's got himself into.  As a public real-life crime drama, this far exceeds O.J. for both importance and interest level.  It's not 9/11, but I would compare it to the Patty Hearst/Symbionese Liberation Army story of the '70's for its complexity and multiple story lines.  

More broadly, Sen. Charles Grassley crassly tried to bring this story into the immigration legislation game, which is still in its early innings; his ploy has been coldly rejected by most.  Instead, it only points out how important it is to evaluate prospective immigrants (and do it better!)  Next will be the tie-in to the gun reform issue; how did they get their guns?  Of course, the counter will be that, however they got the guns, it was the bombs, which caused the greatest damage ("guns don't kill people--pressure cookers kill people"), and they used nothing that needed anything more than a couple of visits to the hardware, grocery, and toy supply stores.

Finally, there are the stories of Boston, of Watertown, of the state of Massachusetts, of the participants in the Marathon and their families, of the many victims from all walks of life and their perspectives about the incident drama.  We must give them all our support in dealing with this brief, but traumatic, experience and its enduring consequences.

*A Russian-speaking colleague gave me the translation of the literal meaning of the Russian word "grozhny", which is also the name of the Chechen capital. The Russians have spent lavishly to rebuild the city after destroying it and purging any rebellious citizens, which is one reason why the Tsarnaevs grew up mostly in nearby Dagestan.

I'm with Gabby

Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona Congresswoman who was shot by a typical gun nut who had no difficulty buying an automatic pistol with a large magazine despite being recognizably, dangerously insane, stood by President Obama after the pathetic Senate vote not to include a sensible provision to expand background checks for gun purchases, and she told off the Senators in very strong terms.   Her editorial in the Times opened an offensive against the offenders; she accused them of cowardice, covered them with shame, and asked her readers to hold them responsible.

Let's review the facts, and the names.  The amendment had 54 votes in favor, 46 against; it didn't pass because the rule applied for the bill in the Senate required amendments to receive 60 votes.  50 Democrats and 4 Republicans voted for it; 42 Republicans and 4 Democrats against. The amendment would have had 55 votes, but Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeing the certain outcome, voted against so that he could introduce a motion to reconsider at some point.

I think Reid is on the right track:  those who voted against included some who appear fearful of retribution from the NRA in the next election. Giffords is calling on us to make those political hacks more afraid of the retribution of Americans, who in opinion polls overwhelmingly supported the provision.

So, let's name names, beginning with those who deserve praise.  These are the Republicans who bucked the trend and voted in favor:  Susan Collins of  Maine, Mark Kirk of  Illinois, John McCain of Arizona, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who was a co-sponsor of the legislation, along with Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  I give them full credit and pledge some "immunity" in the next election--if they don't do anything too stupid, I will not contribute to their opponents.

I also want to credit a few others who might have caved, due to a sense that their states would not support their backing sensible gun reform, but did not:   Independent Angus King of Maine; Tim Johnson of  South Dakota,  Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. Along with Manchin, they've also earned my backing- - at least for the short-term--by choosing to do the right thing.

Now, the hit list:  at the head of it are the four Democratic Senators who voted against the amendment:  Mark Begich of Alaska, Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and most shamefully, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.  The first three have re-election battles coming up in 2014 and perhaps have reason to be fearful of consequences, though I question the accuracy of their judgment.  Heitkamp, though, just won election, with a lot of support of national Democrats, and her betrayal is particularly noticeable.  I would say something similar of Begich, who has sought support from national Democrats, and should get none in the future.  The other two are corporate tools from whom I expected nothing.   To be fair, their votes would not have been enough to pass the amendment, but they gave cover to Republicans who also knew better.

Apart from Heitkamp, the other woman who should've known better was Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.  Yes, she's a Republican, and no moderate, but this is more a test of common-sense and courage than of ideology.  She failed it; I thought she was a little smarter. Most of the Republican votes were what we should expect, whether their reasons were libertarian, corporatist (serving the gun manufacturers), or simple Obama-hater (he's for it, so I must be against it). For the record, two other women of the 20 Senators voted against the provision:  Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.   Still, that's 16 for it, and 4 against; once again, the women showed more sense in the Congressional food fight.

In a previous post, I suggested that it would be justice for those who vote against background checks to be the victims of deranged gun-wielders with their arms purchased legally under the radar.  Although I still feel that emotionally about it, I would suggest non-violent bulls-eyes for Pryor, Begich, Heitkamp, Ayotte, and Baucus as suitable targets for political campaigns to pressure reconsideration for this foul legislative outcome.   Five vote changes, plus Byrd's, would allow this to be reversed and put the spotlight on the House.  This vote let Boehner and the House of Orange off way too easily.  Public opinion has shifted, and those who would block sensible gun reform in both houses of Congress should feel our fury.

CSI: Boston

Naturally, we can only condemn in the strongest possible terms the people responsible for the bombs in Boston on Monday.  The design of the attack was cruel and cowardly, suitable only for terrorizing. The attackers will be caught, and while the justice imposed on them will be severe, it will not be nearly as bad as what they deserve.

Why do I feel so strongly they will be caught?  Two or three things.  First, while I would not call the US a "police state", it is a very well-policed one.  We have an over-abundance of police at all levels (the Federal ones a bit less visible).  This kind of stuff is now firmly, deeply ingrained in our national culture:  the number of shows about law'n'order generally, and Crime Scene Investigation in particular, has mushroomed beyond all reasonable bounds.  In the specific case of Boston, recall the recent movies "The Town" and "The Departed", which had the multiplicity of cops of all kinds as a theme in each.  All of these are very eager to put to work their detective skills and criminal forensics capabilities.  Any physical evidence at the scene will be collected, documented, analyzed, and correlated.

Then, there's the fact that the plotters, no doubt in order to create the greatest shock on the public psyche, chose to set off the bombs in one of the most public, most camera-covered places imaginable.  There were dozens, if not hundreds, of cameras trained on the area at all times. Whatever precautions those who set the bombs in place may have taken, there will be a variety of still and action shots taken of them, from a variety of angles.  Their 'tells' will be spotted, and the descriptions of those most visible will be produced.  We can then hope that tracking down that person/those folks will lead to all the cell membership and it will be broken. 

This is a good thing, that a public place should be so heavily covered with cameras.  It is important to make a clear distinction between the public spaces, subject at all times to closed-circuit monitoring with review by any and all agencies, and private spaces, in which privacy must be possible and any monitoring is under the control of the right private individuals. The inside of my house is off-limits to the snoops; the outside, too, though I am responsible for anything that comes out of my property into the public space.  My car is private on my property, but not when it's out on the public thoroughfares. My computer is private, but what I put out there is not. These are rules that our public agencies, our courts, and our journalists, need to respect.

No, No, No. Korea

We have listened to the North Koreans' bluster and paranoia before. We have seen them break promises and agreements.  We have seen them attack undefended outposts.  Of course, we saw them open hostilities during the Cold War (starting the Korean War), and we saw them capture a US Navy ship and imprison and torture the seamen (the U.S.S. Pueblo, in the 1960's).  We have seen them starve their own people to have food for the military, and we have seen them hand the dictatorial reign from father to son, twice, like monarchical dynasties of the past.

So why is this time any different, and what will we do this time to change the pattern? I think that the young dictator Kim Jung-on, unproven and with an unknown level of loyalty within the all-important military, has initiated an escalation in the usual level of provocative blather for domestic consumption; if that is true, then this little noise bump will pass without much serious consequence.  On the other hand, if North Korea believes its back is against the wall because of external pressures, or because the noise and provocation doesn't convince the military leaders of young Kim's serious intent, violence could emerge in several possible forms.

The relatively minor ones we have seen before, and some have already been probed:  North Korea captures visitors, kicks others out, closes lines of communication, shells undefended hamlets, and now, symbolic but new and ominous, announces that the armistice which ended hostilities sixty years ago has ceased to be in effect.  In doing so, the North Koreans made reference to some military maneuvers conducted by South Korea and the US, ones that are not violations of any agreements but which North Korea chose to interpret as hostile.

The worst-case scenarios all involve one fairly unfortunate fact:  Seoul, one of the largest cities in the world and one of the most economically significant, is vulnerably close to the border.  It is hardly beyond belief that Pyongyang could find a way to deliver a nuclear weapon close enough to South Korea's capital to cause huge damage, and it is undeniably true that artillery could set the city ablaze.

The core of the problem:  looking at South Korea in isolation, Seoul looks like the eye of a seated, praying monk. The sense of calm this suggests betrays the fact that harm lies just overhead.  

North Korea thus has the ability to treat their enemy's capital as a hostage and extracts ransom though implied threats to cause it harm.  As for the threats to rain down destruction on the US, even on Japan, I would discount them.  If North Korea should ever launch a missile with a trajectory headed for us, one of our outlying territories, or one of our allies--it is easy to establish the trajectory of a missile very quickly--we have anti-missile missiles close at hand to destroy that thing, and the retribution would be swift, inevitable, and permanent (but not without some harm to our friends in South Korea).

The West--and that includes South Korea--has been restrained in its response to North Korea's threats.  New Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama have limited their direct comments to asking Pyongyang to knock it off, while offering direct talks--something North Korea often, but not always, has sought.

The more subtle, and more significant, gambit of the US is a renewed approach to China, asking the Chinese to restrain their overexuberant ally.  China has a new set of leaders, too, just installed in the last couple of months, and their language suggests a little less inclination to defend North Korea no matter what, a little more to rein it in, and a lot more interest in the well-being of South Korea, which has become a major trading partner.

Looking at North Korea in the long-run, there are really only three outcomes:
1)  China tires of the Kim dynasty and puts in place a regime more likely to follow China's directives;
2) China tires of the Kim dynasty and allows the North Korean rule to fall and reunification to happen, similar to what happened with the Soviet Union and East Germany at the end of the Cold War; or
3) Hostilities break out, North Korea causes incalculable damage but is utterly ruined and its Communist government ended.

Of the three, 2) would be the best outcome for Korea and for most of the world, but 1) is by far the most likely.  So, the real questions are whether China decides to move sooner or later to end this disastrous regime, and what influence the rest of the world may have upon them to do that.

About the Chained CPI on the FICA

My friend Norman Goldman (normangoldman.com - podcasts only $5 a month, $50 a year) points out that Social Security is not an entitlement but a Federal insurance program (the notation on your paycheck for it is usually "FICA"= Federal Insurance Contribution Act, which mandated payroll deductions to support the program*).  I will take heed and stop thinking that all participants are "entitled" to the current level of benefits, for the current level of contributions.  A lot of people do tend to think that way, I will admit.

Anyway, this peculiar little bone that President Obama has offered to the would-be austere Republican Congresspeople seems to cause a lot of confusion on all sides.  Some point out that this is a "cut", which is going to rob "seniors" of their benefits that they have purchased; others are saying that this is needed to balance our budget, or to preserve the program for the "millennials" (officially, those born 1987-2006) who will be inheriting the benefits after the devastation that will be caused by the boomers' retirement tsunami.  Many have argued that Obama has negotiated badly, giving up something for nothing. Is this a betrayal, or a sop?  Is it a major concession to the Republicans, or to whom?

I would like to suggest that the facts are as follows:  Social Security does not add to the deficit--today--it runs a surplus.  It will run a deficit in the future unless something is changed, but it is a very manageable problem which has several possible solutions; deficit financing of the program during the peak period of its stress (roughly 2025-2045) would be one of the less desirable ones, but hardly impossible--then it gets better for the program.  People today gain much more from the program than they put in, on average.  Seniors will not be penalized all that much from the proposed change, as it will cause a small change in the annual rate of increase of benefits.  That change will have a cumulative effect; over a long period of time it will end up saving a huge amount of money.  It would mean that the young people will have a secure retirement benefit, but one that will have considerably less value (as compared to today, in real purchasing power). On the benefit side for the young, it would allow the program to maintain the current retirement age (67, with full benefits), which I think is a good idea, regardless of the arguments of those who argue that life expectancy for retirees has lengthened.  Their implied conclusion--that we should therefore force people to retire later--is contrary to my point of view that progress means improving quality of life.

Politically, it is a risky move for Obama--yes, he has peed on the third rail of US politics--but he is in a good position to take that risk.  He is taking the long-term view, which is entirely appropriate and somewhat novel, so I have to approve of the concept.  It does not do much to change the current budgetary dilemma by itself, but if it gets the Republicans thinking "deal" as opposed to their usual starting and ending position of "no deal", it could be an effective ploy.  I don't think many Democrats will vote for it in isolation, but as part of a larger agreement they could vote for it, once they understand that the effect on current retirees and near-retirees will be minimal.


*Also known as "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance"-- OASDI.