HaMetziut: the Real Peace Plan

As it is explained in the program of the movement HaMetziut, we do not consider the “peace process” as the main priority of the Israeli politics. Yet, as a serious political party, HaMetziut has a clear position regarding the peace with the Palestinian people and with the Arab states.

The Israeli Right correctly points out that at present there is no Palestinian leader willing to make peace with Israel and/or being able to implement such an agreement in practice. It is also true that most of the concessions to the Palestinians, made by Israel in the last two decades, have brought nothing but more violence and suffering as to the citizens of Israel, as to the Palestinians themselves.

Yet, the Israeli Right has offered no realistic solutions for the problem, and even continues to aggravate it by the unreasonable expansion of the settlements.

The Israeli Left has been recycling the same ideas for the last twenty years: they claim that making peace with the Palestinian people and the Arab states is a question of making big enough concessions. The most extreme ones believe that with big enough concessions the peace can be achieved immediately (“Peace Now”).

The most disgusting aspect of this attitude to the peace is the attempts to disenfranchise a significant part of the Israeli population – the settlers – from their basic citizenship rights, encouraging to reduce the protection, economic assistance and freedom guaranteed by the state to all its citizens.

HaMetsiut acknowledges the Reality: the Peace, that has eluded Israel during the twenty years of the peace process, will not come now. Neither will it come tomorrow. It may take twenty more years to achieve it. Yet, we cannot wait till it comes on its own – instead of making the situation worse, Israel should help create the conditions for peace and prepare itself for various scenarios under which the peace settlement may occur.

Our position is:

- Peace cannot come now, but the status quo will eventually end. Therefore it is obligation of the Israeli government to prepare necessary groundwork for peace, and to carry out policies that lay the groundwork for the peace settlement with the Palestinian people and the Arab States.

- Israel needs real peace rather than a peace agreement. Such peace agreement can be achieved only when there is a Palestinian leader with enough authority to implement such an agreement.

- They key to the peace is fulfilling the right of the Palestinian people for the self-determination. It must be recognized that more than half of the Palestinian people live beyond the territory controlled by Israel. Thus, the Palestinian independence cannot be achieved by means of only Israel’s concessions, but requires active participation of the Arab states with significant Palestinian population (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan).

The attempts to put full responsibility for the resolution of the Palestinian problem at Israel’s feet amount to trying to wash hands of the Palestinian suffering (when such attempts come from within Israel) and to shift the focus onto Israel from other problems and conflicts in the Middle East (when such attempts come from abroad).

Israel should confront Western and Arab leaders with the fact that economically viable and nationally complete Palestinian state cannot exist within the territories consisting of the West Bank and Gaza.

- HaMetziut will propose a series of economic and political measures to be carried out within the next 10-20 years with the aim to make peace agreement more likely. This laying of Groundwork for Peace will include:

a. Restraining settlement activity

b. Encouraging economic and cultural development of the Palestinian people, as well as their economic and cultural ties with Israel.

c. Consistently promoting democratization in the Middle East with understanding that governments responsible to their people will be more willing to conclude peace agreement with Israel.

d. Supporting the transformation of the political system in Jordan with the goal that the Palestinian people living there would have proportional and fair representation in the government, and having in mind eventual re-unification of the Palestinian people living in Jordan and the West Bank.

e. Acknowledging the right of people to live in the place to which they experience significant attachment, such as a place where they were born and spent their childhood, or the place where they have spent significant part of their life. In particular, we will lobby the United Nations for extending the full citizenship rights for the descendants of the Palestinian refugees currently living in Syria and Lebanon. This is consistent with our intention to keep under Israeli control the territories in which Israeli citizens have been living for already more than one generation.

Political program

I post this in view of approaching Parliamentary elections in Israel (January 22nd, 2013). If I had a political party running for the Knesset, the following would be my likely program:

HaMetziut (“The Reality”)

1. Peace process is not the main priority

We are aware of the reality: the decades of failure in the Arab-Israeli peacemaking and the non-democratic nature of the most of the Middle Eastesrn states. Therefore we believe that the peaceful political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not possible in the nearest future. The conflict should be managed in order to i) ensure the safety of the Israeli citizens, while also ii) minimizing the casualties among the civilian population of Israel’s adversaries.

2. Personal freedom

We believe in the equality of rights for all Israeli citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, ethnic origin or geographic location.

In particular:

i) We will encourage deeper integration of the Israeli Arab citizens and the other ethnic minorities into the mainstream Israeli society to forge one common Israeli identity.

ii) All citizens should have equal rights and obligations when it comes to military service, taxation, aid to big families, etc.

iii) Although we do not intend to encourage the settlement activity, we believe that the settlers are equal citizens of the State of Israel. Therefore we will oppose any legislation intended to impose boycotts/sanctions or otherwise discriminate against this group of population, as well as against any other ethnic/religious/demographic group.

iv) We will promote civil marriage/unions as well as other measures intended to provide equal rights to all Israeli citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, ethnic origin, sexual preferences, etc.    

3. Economic Freedom

It is a duty of the State to help less fortunate of its citizens, whenever their misfortune results from poor health, lack of opportunity, accidents, advanced age or other reasons beyond their control. However, we believe that it is the obligation of young, healthy, educated and otherwise fortunate part of the society to take the economic, social, and political responsibility for the country’s well-being. We believe that the role of the State is to provide equal opportunity and “fair rules of the game” to this active part of the population, rather than to subsidize it.

 

Baywatch and protectionism (Do foreign workers steal domestic jobs?)

This article provides an interesting example of issues raised by protectionism, describing a summer guest-worker program in the US, under which young foreigners take short-term jobs in the US at the expense of higher unemployment among young Americans. A particular example given is lifeguards at swimming pools. Employers admit a number of reasons for preferring guest workers to hiring more Americans, such as cheaper labor (no need to pay high taxes), greater availability during the season, lower demands posed by the workers, and a shortage of Americans willing to work as lifeguards etc.

Protectionism here is expressed by a visa policy that restricts foreign workers from competing in the labor market. Thus, guest-worker programs are the easing of protectionism. This style of protectionism is very common and therefore often overlooked; indeed the very existence of nation-states aims at giving a group of people (the nationals of a particular state) various advantages over foreigners, particularly, in access to the domestic labor market. While many countries practice visa-free regimes for tourist visits, working invariably requires obtaining a visa. Even within the European Union employers are encouraged to prefer domestic workers.

Getting back to the situation at hand, there are four different groups of actors involved: the companies/employers, consumers of services (i.e. those who are using swimming pools), domestic workers, and foreign workers. Companies and the two types of workers are engaged via the labor market.

Economically, the outcome of hiring is most efficient if the domestic and foreign workers have equal access to the labor market so companies can employ the maximum number of workers under the most profitable conditions and provide cheaper and higher quality services to their consumers.

Socially the economically efficient outcome is not necessarily the best. One might, for example, see higher social value in ensuring maximum domestic employment while disregarding foreigners. Tightening visa requirements may force companies to put more effort in finding domestic labor, and to offer better salaries/work conditions/employment periods in order to hire a sufficient number. The downside of this outcome is that it will hit negatively at the domestic producer (i.e. the companies/swimming pools), as well as at the domestic consumer, who will have to pay a higher price for using a swimming pool, or be at greater risk of drowning due to the shortage of lifeguards, or face the closure of some pools due to their economic inefficiency or lack of lifeguards.

What I find most interesting is how this simple case raises uncomfortable questions regarding the traditional “right vs. left” political views as they exist in the US and Europe.

In particular, the moderate “left” (represented, for example, by Barack Obama and François Hollande) advocates government involvement to improve market outcomes, along with more compassion towards foreign workers (i.e. potential immigrants). Here, government interference (i.e. tightening visa rules) would improve the market outcome domestically, but hit immigrants.

Conversely, the moderate “right” (Mitt Romney and Nicholas Sarkozy) would find it hard to reconcile a pro-free-market position with its tougher views on immigration.

In this light it is not surprising that the positions of nationalists (such as Marine LePen) and Communist-like movements (Jean-Luc Melenchon) are often so similar and isolationist: the right sees protectionism as a way to hit hard against disliked immigrants, whereas the left sees protecting domestic workers as a convenient justification for striking “the rich” (i.e. the companies).

On war

Here is an article by Senator Joe Lieberman, making a case for US intervention in Syria:
"What is happening in Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe, with at least 10,000 dead, more than 1 million people displaced and horrific human rights abuses perpetrated daily, including the widespread and deliberate use of rape and other sexual violence as weapons of war."

Predictably, many of the comments following the article accuse Lieberman of  war-mongering and being a "neo-con". As I show below, there is no perfectly moral way to take a position in regard to a war, but there is one way that is clearly wrong: making one's position fit the one's biases or political preferences.

One may oppose any war and all violence. This is a highly principled, although a somewhat naive position. On the surface it also looks like a highly moral one. Yet, the morality of confronting violence with inaction is questionable, as is illustrated by the famous poem "First they came...".

One may adopt the "responsibility to protect" attitude, and always take the side of victims against the oppressors. This is a principled position as well, which perhaps culminated in the George W. Bush's "Freedom agenda". The problem is with deciding who is a victim and who is the oppressor, since one can easily transform into the other. In addition, killing in the name of protecting someone is still killing. Oppressors are no less human their victims.

One may adopt a "realistic" view and support a war when one may benefit from it economically, politically or in terms of one's own safety, while opposing it when no benefit is forthcoming. This is a cynical and cruel attitude, but it is a consistent position... and perhaps the only one that a national leader should adopt.

The attitude that one shouldn't adopt is the hypocritical one: such as supporting the military action initiated by a Democratic President, while opposing the "Republican" wars; or supporting the "resistance" by Hamas/Hezbollah, while opposing Israel's self-defense measures.

Unfortunately, the fact that the events in Syria are largely overlooked, while much smaller scale events in other places, for example in Israel, trigger worldwide protests, is a testimony to the widespread hypocricy. The same can be said about those who passionately oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while cheering the "real leadership" that President Obama has shown in ordering the raid against Osama bin Laden, in "leading from behind" the "humanitarian" strikes in Libya, and in waging the "smart war" using unmanned aerial vehicles in Pakistan and Yemen, which has taken thousands of lives.

Gay marriage vs. equal rights

The Obama's recent announcement that he now supports a "gay marriage" deserves a few comments.

1. Why Obama does it?
First and foremost, it is not a secret why such a sudden change of his position came now - in order to be re-elected in November Obama has to make maximum effort to distract voters from the economic issues. Recently he tried to tout his assassination of Bin Laden, but the attempt backfired - both due to the absurdity of the assumption that another president would not make a similar decision, as well as because of the strangeness of a Democratic president playing a tough guy, G.W.Bush-style.

2. How Romney should respond?
It would be really interesting to see how Romney responds to this announcement. He will lose a lot, if he picks this culture war fight. In my opinion, acknowledging publicly that the issue is important, but pointing out that the President is merely trying to distract the Americans from the economic problems would be the strongest answer.

3. Should there be "Gay marriage" or... equal rights?
"Gay marriage" is really an absurd combination of words, since it necessarily involves a collision between the civil rights and the religious idea of marriage. The right thing to do would be to separate completely the civil rights granted to long-term couples (homosexual and heterosexual alike) and the religious "marriage", as performed by a priest, rabbi or an imam.  This is the way how it is done in many civilized countries. French couples, for example, are quite content saying "We are not married - we are PACSés" - meaning that they prefer not to deal with religious issues. One step further would be to simply acknowledge the rights of the de-facto long-term couples - married or not.

Obama himself is perfectly aware of this, since up till recently he supported the civil unions, but not the marriage. I dare say however, that the President is now more interested in picking a fight with conservative Christians, then he is interested in the human rights.

Update:
It is now unclear what the buzz is about, since Obama has not promised to actually do anything, but only expressed his personal views. A quick internet search will convince you that Obama
i) supported the gay marriage in 1996, when running for the Illinois senate: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
ii) opposed it when running for the US senate in 2004: "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman but I detest the bashing and vilifying of gays and lesbians."
iii) and again supports it now, in 2012: “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” 

Palestinian problem is not only Israel's problem

A rare article about an important issue: Palestinian problem is not only Israel's problem - it is not only Israel's fault and it is not in Israel's power to solve it.

The reason: majority of the Palestinians do not live under Israel's control: millions of them live in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Those in Jordan constitute Jordan's indigeneous population, as originally Jordan was a part of the Brtish Mandate "Palestine" intended to be split into Jewish and Arab (i.e. Palestinian) states.
Those in Syria and Lebanon are descendants of the refugees in the second/third and even fouth generations. They are technically designated as refugees, because neither of these countries is willing to grant the citizenship rights to people who were born in it, if these people have Palestinian ancestry.

These obvious facts are largely unknown to the "international community", which continues to insist on the "two-state solution", i.e. the resolution of the Palestinian problem at Israel's expense only. Israel undoubtedly will have to leave most of the West Bank territiries that it currently controls - this will solve the guilt problem for the Israeli left... yet, it will not solve the national problem for the Palestinians.

Solving Palestinian problem requires democratization of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and larger Middle East and giving the Palestinian people the full rights in the countries where they live now. It may also require re-unification of teh Palestinians living in Jordan and the West Bank (aka East and West Germany.)

This is not likely to happen soon, since the Middle Eastern dictators have all the reasons to hold to their power... and the enlightened West has all the reasons to support these dictators by insisting on the "two-state solution" and ensuring teh continuous flow of oil.

The article quoted in the beginning out lines the Jordanian King's efforts to disfrinchise the Palestinian people in Jordan of their citizenship rights:
"King Abdullah is seeking to complete the divorce proceedings between Jordan and the Palestinians which his late father, King Hussein, began in 1988.

The separation began in July that year, a few months after the eruption of the first intifada.

King Hussein realized back then that it was not in the interest of his kingdom to maintain a linkage to the West Bank, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

His biggest fear was that the intifada would spill over into Jordan, where the Palestinian majority would rise against his monarchy. [...] 


In 2009, Amman quietly began revoking the Jordanian citizenship of thousands of Palestinians, triggering strong protests from human rights organizations and pro-Palestinian groups around the world. [...]

Talk in Israel and elsewhere about turning Jordan into a Palestinian state has also left the king worried about the future of his kingdom. That explains why he is not even prepared to receive 1,100 Palestinian refugees who have fled Syria in recent weeks, while at the same time welcoming more than 100,000 Syrians who crossed the border into Jordan.

The Jordanians have no problem absorbing tens of thousands of Iraqis, Syrians and Libyans. But when it comes to the Palestinians, it’s a completely different story. The last thing King Abdullah needs is another 500,000 Palestinians in the country. "

Romney's litmus test for intellectuals

The paradox
One of the striking paradoxes of modern democracies is that most people do not choose a candidate/party that would most closely represent their political views! Indeed, more often one simply adopts the positions of the candidate that the one supports.

I could support this thesis with many examples,but none of them would match the absurdity of the presidential campaign that has been unreveling in the US: it so happened that the Republican party is about to nominate a centrist, or perhaps even center-left, candidate (Mitt Romney) to compete with Barack Obama who, despite his class war rhethorics, has borrowed most of his successes from the book of his conservative predecessor (drone war in Pakistan, targeted assassinations, economic stimulus, auto-industry bail-out.)

Etch-a-sketch
For example, here is the criticism of Romney's "etch-a-sketch" changeable political views, aimed at rather educated audience (those with the knowledge of at least quantum mechanics.) Yet, one would think that the intellectual readers who are able to appreciate such an analogy would have worried that their views on Romney match those of some hardcore conservatives. But do they?

Of course, there is nothing new about "etch-a-sketch" (flip-flopping) attitude in politics. In particular, in the US it is a common practice for the candidates to "run to the right/left" during the Republican/Democratic primaries, and then "run towards the center" during the general election. The candidate competing against a sitting president is naturally at disadvantage, since the president usually does not have to compete in his party primaries. This, for example, allowed George Bush campaign to successfully brand his 2004 challenger John Kerry as a "flip-flopper".

Obama himself recently gave an example of this tendency of politicians to put their election campaign above the ideological integrity in his overheard comments to the Russian President.

Ironically, the most memorable example of "etch-a-sketch" comes also from Obama: the statement that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided" has generated a great applouse among the Jewish audience in the 2008 AIPAC conference, but was retracted by Obama immediately after the speech was over. 

Comparison
A few points for comparing Mitt Romney and Barack Obama:

1. Obama's signature achievement in domestic policy is his healthcare legislation. This legislation was however modeled after a similar law introduced earlier in Massachusets by Romney. In fact, the two laws were even designed by the same people!

2. As a governor of Massachusets Romney was supportive of pro-choice groups and sexual minority rights. Despite formally abandoning these positions in the primary, he has enjoyed ovewhelming support among the female voters, and has continued to be attacked for his liberal views by other Republican candidates.

3. During the primaries Romney has adopted unusually harsh stance on illegal immigration. However, Obama has a record of merely paying lip-service to immigration reform, while significantly ramping up the number of deportations.

4. Romney's views support for exerting US military power around the world will be matched by the Obama's pride of the "smart" drone war in Packistan, the targeted assassinations of Bin Laden and US citizen Anwar al-Aqlaki, and keeping open the detention camp in Guantanamo - all morally questionably undertakings of the kind which the Democrats has been outraged about since George Bush years.

5. Obama hardly can be blamed for the current economic troubles - he happened to be president at the low of the economic cycle, whsoe downward swing dates back not only to teh Bush presidency, but also to the economic growth bubble of teh Clinton years. Yet, the intellectuals will have hard time explaining why they would rather entrust the US economy to the law professor (Obama) than to the career businessmen (Romney). 
 

Inequality and economic growth

A worthy new addition to my "Theatre of the Absurd" section, coming from no one else but President Obama himself:
“In this country, broad-based prosperity has never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class,” Obama intends to say, according to the prepared text. “That’s why studies have shown that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.”

Yes, just look at Europe...
(I presume the President had in mind capitalist countries, because there is even less inequality in Cuba or North Korea.)

Is terrorism right or left?

This article tries to identify the causes of the home-grown terrorism, addressing the particular example of the recent terror attacks in Toulouse, France. It hits however an important point:
"Many French initially and secretly hoped that what happened in and around Toulouse would prove to be a repetition of the attacks in and around Oslo in 2011 – that the terrorist would turn out to be the product of the extreme right. Merah claimed to be acting in the name of fundamentalist Islam; in reality, he was the product of a bloody and deviant sect. How can a petty delinquent, a lost child of the French nation, fall prey to terrorist hatred of any variety?"

In short, we have by now witnessed equally horrifying attacks originating from the extreme right and from the extreme left. What causes the terrorism is not the part of the political spectrum that one belongs to, but how far one is ready to go in order to impress his/her views onto the others. 

Nuclear deterrence

A good analysis addressing the logical merits of the argument that Iran armed with nuclear weapons vis-a-vis Israel will make the Middle East or the World a safer place:
"But I was nervously aware that I was urging good sense about a strategic situation that was senseless, because it was premised upon the credibility of a threat of holocaust. I was careful to note my discomfort in my book: deterrence, I said, may be supported but not celebrated, because it is another term for an unprecedentedly lethal danger, which it elects to manage rather than to abolish. I was uneasy with the commonplace notion that deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union “worked,” because this was impossible to verify.

[...]

I CANNOT SAY with sufficient confidence that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would be rational or right. There is too much information that I do not possess. I worry about the costs. I do not fear that the region would go to hell, because the Arab states would rejoice in such an action. (In this matter the leader of the Sunni bloc is the Jewish state.) But I do not know that Iran in its current political configuration will be deterred, and neither does anybody else."

Kissinger on Arab Spring

Henry Kissinger on the Arab spring and the US policy (or the current lack thereof) in the Middle East:
"For more than half a century, U.S. policy in the Middle East has been guided by several core security objectives: preventing any power in the region from emerging as a hegemon; ensuring the free flow of energy resources, still vital to the operation of the world economy; and attempting to broker a durable peace between Israel and its neighbors, including a settlement with the Palestinian Arabs. In the past decade, Iran has emerged as the principal challenge to all three. A process that ends with regional governments either too weak or too anti-Western in their orientation to lend support to these outcomes, and in which U.S. partnerships are no longer welcomed, must evoke U.S. strategic concerns — regardless of the electoral mechanisms by which these governments come to power. Within the framework of these general limits, U.S. policy has significant scope for creativity in promoting humanitarian and democratic values."

What is in common between Afghanistan and Gaza?

If it were not so said, it would make an addition to my "Theatre of the Absurd" collection (JPost repeats here the information provided by LeFigaro):
"A man engaged in a shoot-out with French police on Wednesday, suspected of killing four people at a Jewish school this week, claims to be linked to al-Qaida, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaida," Gueant told journalists at the scene of the siege.

He also said the man had been in Afghanistan. "He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," Gueant said."


My comment:
Sadly, I am pretty sure that most of the readers see nothing unusual about this claim. Yet, think for a moment about the links between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Al Qaida, on the other hand, and France and Palestinian children on the other. However outraged you may be about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, you will have hard time connecting it to the events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Al Qaida without accepting some kind of "global Jihad" point of view or taking a point that all of the World's troubles are faults of Israel and the Jews.
 

Is antisemitism dead, Ms. Ashton?

Catherine Ashton unwittingly has made a very charged statement:
"Speaking in Brussels at a meeting with Palestinian youth, Ashton said that "When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what happened in Norway last year, we know what is happening in Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and other places- we remember young people and children who lose their lives," she said."

Two comments:
1. What happened in Toulouse resembles what happened in Norway - these were both deliberate attacks against children on the basis of the political convictions/religious beliefs of their parents. Syria and Gaza hardly belong to the same category - the deaths that happened there resulted from war, and even though these deaths are no less tragic, putting all four events in the same line diminishes the significance of Ms. Ashton's condemnation of the hatred that motivated attacks in Toulouse and Norway.

2. It is not clear from Ms. Ashton statements which particular deaths in Gaza she meant - those caused by the Israeli reprisals or those that result from the not infrequent explosions in the terrorist workshops, routinely located in densely populated neighborhoods, and the crude rockets launched towards Israel, which sometimes fall while still over Gaza. In general, there are many things that she did not say explicitly, while allowing her statement to fit easily with widespread anti-Israeli and antisemitic stereotypes.

3. Ashton seems to imply that attacks against Jews are somehow justified by the Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. In doing so she however risks crossing the boundary between supposedly legitimate criticism of Israel as a country, and blaming all Jews for the Israeli actions, just because most of the Israelis are Jewish. In short, her statement has clear antisemitic connotations.

It is worth contrasting Ms. Ashton's statement with the ones made by the UN Secretary General and  the US, which withheld unhelpful comparisons and stuck to mentioning only what is relevant to the case: the country where it happened and the community which was targeted:
"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Toulouse attack. In a statement released late Monday, Ban stated that he "condemns in the strongest possible terms this act of violence and expresses his sincere condolences to the victims' families and the Jewish community, as well as to the government and people of France."

The US also added its condemnation over the attack, as State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stated Monday that the US was "shocked and saddened to learn of the horrific attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. We join the Government of France in condemning this unprovoked and vicious act of violence.""

Later update:
1. Obviously, I was not the only one who found the statement discussed above antisemitically charged: Baroness Ashton has eventually apologized for it.

2. French, on the other hand, have honorably showed today that they will not justify any kind of killing.

Most prestigious professions in Israel

Impressive order of priorities:
"The Dahaf Institute survey, led by Dr. Mina Tzemah, also examined the public’s views of the status of the profession of scientist. Individuals in the medical profession were rated number one in prestige, while scientific professions were number two.

Somewhat lower were engineers, followed by teachers and military officers. The least respected profession was being a Knesset member. Teaching has risen in prestige, from 11th place in 2009 to fourth today."

Is the Palestinian problem the major Middle East problem?

Here is a coincise formulation of the point that I have made several times in this blog (here, here, and here): the Palestinian problem is being used as a way to distruct the World's attention from the far more serious problems within and among the Middle-Eastern states:
"For decades, the chattering classes have been working hard to teach us that the central issue of the region was not the Shia-Sunni conflict or the struggle for freedom by Arabs longing to rid themselves of autocratic monarchs or dictators. The belief in the centrality of the Palestinian issue was so strong that every other consideration had to be subordinated to the cause of trying to assuage the anger of the Muslim world at their plight. But in the past year, the main subjects of discussion have been the Arab Spring revolts and the debate over how best to stop the Iranian nuclear threat. The result is that the world is getting on with its business these days without obsessing about the Palestinians. Even President Obama, who had picked an annual fight with Israel, chose this year to abandon his usual attempt to pressure Israel into concessions to the Palestinians."

American support for Israel

Here are a few interesting charts from Gallup, showing how the support of the American public for Israel has varied throughout the years.

A conservative blog points out that the support is lowest in the periods when Israel has engaged in negotiations with the Palestinians, and makes the claim that the "peace process" undermines the Israel's relation with the American public.

Despite my reservations about the "peace process" as we know it, I tend to think that the reason for a higher support during the years of no peace negotiations has to do not with the hard line of the Israeli government, but with the Palestinian terrorism - the tactics which contradicts to the very basic western values (regardless of how pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli advocates justify it.) Had the Palestinians resorted to a peaceful resistance, the Israeli government would have no insensitives for a hard stance.

"Good" rich and "bad" rich

A valid point about the income of the sport superstars versus the income of the (hated) business stars:
"I confess to being a huge Lin fan. Indeed, my teenage son has been idolizing Lin’s skills and work ethic ever since Lin starred on the Harvard team. But, as an economist observing the public’s seething anger over the “one percenters,” or individuals with exceptionally high incomes, I also see a different, overlooked facet of the story.

What amazes me is the public’s blasé acceptance of the salaries of sports stars, compared to its low regard for superstars in business and finance. Half of all NBA players’ annual salaries exceed $2 million, more than five times the threshold for the top 1% of household incomes in the United States. Because long-time superstars like Kobe Bryant earn upwards of $25 million a year, the average annual NBA salary is more than $5 million. Indeed, Lin’s salary, at $800,000, is the NBA’s “minimum wage” for a second-season player. Presumably, Lin will soon be earning much more, and fans will applaud.

Yet many of these same fans would almost surely argue that CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, whose median compensation is around $10 million, are ridiculously overpaid. If a star basketball player reacts a split-second faster than his competitors, no one has a problem with his earning more for every game than five factory workers do in a year. But if, say, a financial trader or a corporate executive is paid a fortune for being a shade faster than competitors, the public suspects that he or she is undeserving or, worse, a thief."

When the facts are too obvious

I have pointed many times that the proponents of two-state solution and "peace now" are often oblivious to the very basic facts of Arab-Israeli conflict. Sometimes, however, the facts are too obvious to ignore, as Lara Friedman of the "Americans for Peace" has realized at the Arab League conference:
"If representatives of the organization that sponsored the Arab Peace Initiative cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the legitimacy of Jewish equities in Jerusalem, they should know that they discredit their own professed interest in peace. Their framing of the future of Jerusalem as a zero-sum game only makes it more likely that Israel will continue asserting its current power over East Jerusalem to hinder the vision of two states living in peace with a Jerusalem as a shared capital."

Here are some of the facts that I have written about before:
1. There is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but a larger Arab-Israeli conflict
2. The two-state solution does not solve the Palestinian problem, but only the Israeli one
3. Palestinians have more pressing concerns than the statehood
4. Solving Arab-Israeli conflict is impossible within major democratic transformation in the Arab countries (here and here)
5. Westerns powers are interested in over-emphasizing the two-state solution in order to preserve good relations with the autocratic Arab leaders  (here and here)

Collapse of socialism

Mario Draghi says outloud the thing that everyone knows, but no one has had courage to acknowledge:
"European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned beleaguered euro-zone countries that there is no escape from tough austerity measures and that the Continent's traditional social contract is obsolete, as he waded into an increasingly divisive debate over how to tackle the region's fiscal and economic troubles.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal at his downtown office here, Mr. Draghi reflected on how the region's travails were pushing Europe toward a closer union. He said Europe's vaunted social model—which places a premium on job security and generous safety nets—is "already gone," citing high youth unemployment; in Spain, it tops 50%. He urged overhauls to boost job creation for young people."
 

Krugman on welfare state

A lot of interesting information of welfare state from Paul Krugman.

Latvian identity

As it was expected, most Latvians rejected the idea of making Russian a second official language and, by implication, granting the full rights of the citizenship to 300,000 of ethnic Russians living in Latvia for at least more than 20 years (i.e. from before the collapse of USSR.)

My personal belief is that such a significant minority (nearly 1/3 of Latvia population are ethnic Russians) should be allowed to study and carry out business in their native language. In Latvia the situation is exacerbated by the fact that knowledge of Latvian language is a pre-requisite for obtaining Latvian citizenship, even for those who have been living in Latvia from before the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The argument that limiting the rights of the Latvian Russians is justified by the need for preserving the Latvian culture is refuted by the example of Israel, which has Arabic as one of its two official languages. Yet, Israel has been frequently criticized, as for its supposed mistreatment of the Arab minority, as well as for its government's insistence on preserving Israel's Jewish identity, frequently voiced in connection to the peace negotiations.

What is the difference between being able to produce a nuclear weapon and actually producing one? (None)

Although I am not surprised that the same facts can be interpreted very differently (particularly by the media), it is a point that is always worth stressing:
"If you look at the “2012 Worldwide Threat Assessment” presented on February 16 by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and compare it with the “2011 Worldwide Threat Assessment,” you find a startling development. Last year, the assessment was “we do not know whether [North Korea] has produced nuclear weapons, but we assess it has the capability to do so.” This year it is, “North Korea has produced nuclear weapons.”" [Original links preserved, emphasis mine]

Latvian identity

A country in the heart of Europe, and a member of European Union is about to reject in a popular referendum the right of the third of its population to preserve its culture and speak in the native language. We are talking about Latvia and its 26.9% minority Russian population:
"Latvians go to the polls Saturday to decide whether Russian should join Latvian as an official language of this Baltic nation, in a referendum that is inflaming ethnic tensions more than two decades after the former Soviet republic regained its independence.

Russian speakers, who make up about a third of Latvia's roughly 2 million people, say they often feel like second-class citizens in a country where many ethnic Latvians still harbor deep resentment over their country's absorption by the Soviet Union during World War II.

"We are not just visitors passing through, or strangers, or occupiers," said Vladimir Linderman, head of one of the groups backing the referendum, For the Native Language. "Our goal is to demonstrate our readiness to fully participate in the public life of Latvia, with equal rights."

The pro-Russian measure is almost certain to fail by a wide margin. But campaigning in the run-up to the referendum has fueled a sharp polarization in politics and divided society, leading to sharp debates and souring relations between Russian speakers and other Latvians.

Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis has urged people to vote "no," saying that "the status of Latvia's core values is not questionable." Politicians further to the right portray the referendum as part of a broader struggle for power by Russians intent on undermining Latvia's freedom."

My comments:
1. Arabic, alongside Hebrew, is the official language of the State of Israel, but complaints that Israel discriminates against its Arab minority seem (at least to me) to generate a lot more attention than similar abuses against Russians in Latvia.

2. The argument of the Latvian prime minister parallels the Israeli government insistence on preserving the "Jewish character" of the State of Israel in case of any possible peace agreement with the Palestinians - the statements for which this government is routinely criticized.

Marxism

As I continue reading Sylvia Nazar's "Grand Pursuit", I would like to share a couple of facts/thoughts that I have taken from the chapter on Karl Marx:

1. Capital is a product of Labor
When analysing behavior of a firm/factory in a market, modern microeconomic texts (here is a good free one) often treat the capital (K) and the labor (L) as two independent variables (meaning by the "capital" the factory equipment, the raw materials etc.) The labor and the capital are thus respectively the contributions of the workers and the factory owners to the production process, for which they are respectively rewarded by salaries and profits.

Marx's view was that the capital itself is a product of labor: for example, the factory equipment and the raw materials were also produced by workers elsewhere. Thus, the profit of the factory owners is a part of the workers salary that the owners unfairly expropriate.

This view encounters problems when trying to account for such things as technological innovation, salaries of skilled CEO's, advertizing, etc. - which also increase the firm's revenue. One way would be to include the engineers, who improved the technology, the CEO's and the advertizing specialists among the workers. This would probably save the Marxian point of view... but destroy the very class argument that the salaries of the engineers, the CEO's, and the marketing specialists are undeserved.

2. Diminishing salary
Labor market, like any market, implies equilibration of price between the labor suppliers (workers) and the labor consumers (firms). The price in this case is called "salary". Lowering salaries is problematic for obvious social reasons. There are at least two mechanisms to inexplicitly lower salary and bring in equilibrium labor supply and labor demand:

i) Not raising the nominal salary in conditions of inflation, which means that the real salary is lowered.

ii) Increasing the productivity of workers, i.e. making them produce more for the same salary. This is not necessarily achieved by forcing the workers to work harder: for example, the factory owner may install a conveyor line that would increase the productivity of the factory without the owner having to hire more workers or having to raise the nominal salaries. Thus, in Marx's view, the technological innovation necessarily leads to effective lowering of the workers salary and their standard of living - the process that must result in a Social Revolution.

Shades of gray, Nixon and the Israeli-Egyptian peace

This article is an example of inability to distinguish "shades of gray" (a topic addressed in several of my posts: here and here). The article describes President Sarkozy's re-election problem. Therefore one is struck by the following irrelevant line:
"In 1974, the French (to no avail) urged Americans to overlook Richard Nixon’s Watergate misdeeds and to concentrate instead on foreign policy successes such as the opening to China and Middle East peace talks (even though those talks were really the handiwork of the late, lamented and lamentable Anwar Sadat)."

My comments:
1. This is a popular kind of a cheap attack at Nixon (here is another example). These attacks succeed precisely because of inability to perceive that there are many nuanced views fitting between "liberal" and "conservative", as they described in respectively "conservative" and "liberal media"; or good and bad, as described in Hollywood movies.

Nixon is uniformy reviled by both extremes of the political spectrum. Yet, though he was not a "good guy", there is too much evidence against squarely describing him as a "bad guy" - I wrote here about his achievements, which define modern America more than the contributions of most other presidents.


2. There is also a curious omission in the quote paragraph - the contribution of the Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin. This betrays anti-Israeli bias, completely uncalled for in the article about President Sarkozy. Yet, as the saying goes, "It takes two to tango" - unsurprizingly this was recognized by the Nobel committee, which awarded the two men the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

In this context, degrading Nixon's contribution also means dismissing the achievements by the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who, for example, was behind the agreements that ended the 1973 Yom Kippour war, initiated by no one else, but Anwar Sadat himself.

3. The two points outlined above are a coherent part of a certain liberal stereotype. I find it therefore somewhat unsual that the article does not mention Jimmy Carter, whom left-wing extremists often credit with everything good that has ever happened in the Middle East (he did though oversee the Camp-David accords that led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace - not a small achievement!)

Economic Valentines

Economic Valentines: I am generally weary of this holiday, but these are very funny. Pay attention to the one that has to do with the game theory (remember my posts here and here?)

Has economics cured poverty?

I have just began readings Sylvia Nazar's "Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius" - the book that has been recently on many bestseller lists. What struck me from the very beginning is the emphasis from the very beginning that the development of the economics (meaning the economic theory) in the last two centuries has lifted the mankind from the poverty.

I have met this thesis previously and it seems to me rather controversial - after all, according to the World Bank most of the mankind still live in poverty (the poverty threshold is currently set at $1.25 a day, which is very different from what is considered "poverty" in the Western countries.) Ironically, most of the reviews of the book fail to notice this obvious problems, obviously assuming that it is of no interest to the rich Western audience. Indeed, even New York Times criticizes Ms. Nazar not for neglecting the rest of the World, but for being insufficiently attentive to the kinds of problems that have been experienced in the West - particularly the Great Depression and the recent economic crises.


Whether the economics can cure the poverty or whether it merely succeeds in providing high standard of living to "the more fortunate among us" (using the President's Obama language) remains to be seen.

The President's new budget

President Obama is about to submit to the Congress the new budget proposal, the key feature of which is higher taxes on "the rich":
"The president’s blueprint calls for reductions in spending on federal health programs and the military, a small raise for federal workers and more than $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations, hedge-fund managers and the wealthy, in part through the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts on annual incomes of more than $250,000.

Obama also has called for changes to the tax code that would require households earning more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes, but senior administration officials said Friday that the blueprint will provide no additional details on how such a levy would be structured."


My comments:
1. Regardless of whether one supports higher taxes or not, we are all aware that none of these tax proposals has a chance to be approved by the Congress. Hence, expect the next round of the government near-shutdowns, credit downgrade threats and so on. At best this is simple politicking, at worst - political extremism.

2. Pay attention how the language regarding the "Buffet tax" transforms as the tax creeps into the tax code: while previously it was about taxing the fortunate individuals, who make more than a million a year, now it is about households, which more often than not consist of several individuals (e.f. parents and children) with income per person much less than a million.

Not going along with the crowd...

I re-post this photo from the Facebook. Here is the comment that it came along with:
"Ordinary people. The courage to say no.

The photo was taken in Hamburg in 1936, during the celebrations for the launch of a ship. In the crowed, one person refuses to raise his arm to give the Nazi salute. The man was August Landmesser. He had already been in trouble with the authorities, having been sentenced to two years hard labour for marrying a Jewish woman.

We know little else about August Landmesser, except that he had two children. By pure chance, one of his children recognized her father in this photo when it was published in a German newspaper in 1991. How proud she must have been in that moment."

General strike in Israel

The Histadrut (the unions) has declared the general of the Israeli government workers, due to the failure of its negotiations with the Finance ministry over the status of the contract workers.

My comments:
1. I generally oppose the strikes, especially those by transportation and medical workers. My reasons are: a) such strikes hold the rest of the country hostages to the whims of a small, but vital for the country's functioning, group , and b) the overall economic damage from such strikes far exceeds the benefits to the strikers.

2. Yet, I have more sympathy for the strikers than for the participants of the "social protests". If you have been reading this blog, then you know the reason: the strikers have clearly formulated demands. In addition, their grievances are legitimate - the contract workers in Israel are a hard-working group of the population, often saddled with the families, who have few reasons to expect a change in their employment status and significant improvements in the near future. These contract workers range from the cleaners to the non-permanent university lecturers (the latter are being fired every Spring and re-hired in the Fall, so that they do not attain the right for the permanent employment benefits.)

Money, money, money...

A big piece by Washington Post about bi-partisan corruption in the United States Congress. This will probably dominate the American news for teh week to come.

On this background the decision by President Obama to start taking the money from the rich in order to help fund the class war that he is fighting against them looks like a minor hypocrisy.

"Four legs good, two legs bad!"

A few more comments in continuation on the subject of prejudice as resulting from lower cognitive ability (here and here).

1. The phenomenon in question was succinctly summarized by George Orwell in his "Animal farm" by the phrase "Four legs good, two legs bad!", intended to oppose animals and humans. (Orwell immediately points out that it posed the problem with identifying chickens as animals.)

The beauty of Orwell's animalism is that it can be applied to many settings, for example:
"Conservatives are good, liberals are bad" or "liberals are good, conservatives are bad" (By now you may realize the point that I am making - the problem is not with liberals or conservatives, but with rejecting either of the views in favor of the other one, deemed to be "correct".)

2. One thing that bothers me is the widespread view of the horrors of Fascism as a result of the conflict between the right and left ideologies. The crimes committed by Nazis and fascists have been widely popularized and resulted in most of the "western world" swinging in the direction of the left ideologies. This resulted in the strange state of affairs, when Communism and its horrors are viewed with much less aversion than the Nazi/fascist symbols, and portraits of Che Guevara and red flags are considered "cool" symbols of the social equality rather than the symbols of murder and oppression, which they are to the  hundreds of millions who suffered from the Communism.

3. I think that Communism and Fascism are the two expressions of the same phenomenon: exploiting the image of a "common enemy" to unite people behind a "leader" or a political movement. The particular choice of the enemy might be different: it may be the external powers (Such as "the Big Satan" - the US); it may be culturally different groups, such as immigrants or Muslims; it may be differing ethnic or racial groups, such as Jews, Arabs or black; it may be the people who stand apart economically - "the rich".

The excesses of such views were notably demonstrated by Nazism (anti-Jew) and Communism (anti-rich), but, as I have stated above, the latter case is being consistently overlooked.

Ordinary fascism

I have written yesterday about an article that a friend of mine posted on a social network (here). The article claims to explain the racial and anti-homosexual prejudices as the result of lower cognitive ability and general intelligence. It is also claimed that this prejudices are channeled via supporting conservative and authoritarian ideologies.

Ironically, the article itself presents an example of the phenomenon that it claims to investigate: it effectively affirms the existing among "liberal/progressive" community prejudice that the people supporting conservative ideologies or right-wing parties are less educated and less intelligent. This prejudice is particularly strong in the overwhelmingly left-wing academic communities, the members of which, by virtue of their higher level of education, consider themselves intellectually superior to the typically conservative "blue collar" public.

A few additional comments
1. The article discussed is essentially fascist in nature (or as a minimum extremely prejudiced). Indeed, one could conceivably obtain a very similar text by taking an article from a Nazi-time research journal and replacing the references to "conservative/right-wing ideologies" by "Jews/Communists/Liberal democracies", and the references to "lower cognitive abilities/intelligence" by references to "inferior race/scull shape".

2. It is quite embarassing that my friend posted such an article in a public forum, and that it is overlooked by most and even "liked" by some.

3. I admit the possibility that the article might be itself a part of another scientific experiment, similar to Milgram experiment or Standford prison experiment (or perhaps my friend is conducting such an experiment): the authors might have on purpose posted an extremely prejudiced peace of work in order to see the public reaction, and demonstrate how the prejudices similar to those, that have been historically discredited within various kinds of authoritarian/conservative ideologies, quite successfuly continue to exist under the disguise of  "liberal/progressive/left-wing" (See my other post on non-liberal and non-progressive nature of many things called "liberal" and "progressive".)

New racism

Here is what passes nowadays for "research"... Those who are not blinded by either ideology will have difficulty setting this apart from the "research" conducted by Nazi scientists and others in the similar strain:
"Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models. "

While it is to be expected that lower intellectual abilities  and inabilities to distinguish "the shades of gray"  make it more likely for individuals to adopt extremist ideologies, the claim that extremism is limited to the conservative and right-wing ideologies is precisely what is terribly wrong with modern "intellectuals".

An unbiased person has no difficulty pointing out many instances of the "liberal" and "progressive" intolerance towards different opinions, religious convictions, policies etc.

Added later:
Perhaps, my my point will be clearer, if I point out the similarity of this research with the concept of "untermensch", which has earned a rather gruesome reputation throughout the XXth century.

Parenting in US and France

Here is a good comparative analysis of parenting in US in France. If you are interested in parenting or psychology, then you will be interested in the points that this article makes about delaying gratification, self-sufficiency and parental authority.

Separation of the state and the religion

These statements put Obama fair and square together with other political leaders guided by the teaching of Jesus, notably Rick Perry and George W. Bush.
"President Obama used an appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to reaffirm his faith at a time when Republican critics have accused him of a “war on religion,” telling an audience of religious leaders that his policies are grounded in his Christian beliefs.

Obama, speaking to 3,000 people at the Washington Hilton, used passages from the Bible to make the case that his push for a more equitable economy is rooted in a long-honored value system. And he suggested that his proposal to increase taxes on wealthier Americans is consistent with the teachings of Jesus."

Unquestionably, this qualifies for my "theatre of the absurd" section.

"This is not class warfare -- It's math"

In my yesterday post I noted together the two facts that Reuters preferred to publish on separate days: the size of the planned US budget deficit for the fiscal year 2012 (about $1 trillion), and the amount of revenue that is expected from the "Buffet tax" on the millionaires:
"Revenue generated from the tax has yet to be officially calculated, but Whitehouse said it could raise $40 billion to $50 billion a year." 

                                                                   
"This is not class warfare -- It's math" - Barack Obama

Why some social movements succeed?

A behind-the-scenes alliance between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

My comments:
1. This is a smart policy on Romney's side, since, as the article correctly notes, Ron Paul's supporters are a significant and loyal group within the Republican electorate.

2. Let's give some credit to Ron Paul - he is willing to engage with those who are more likely to win the presidency, for the sake of achieving his goals. This puts him apart from the typical fringe parties which put their ideological purity above any compromise needed to implement their ideas in practice. This is how democracy works - by compromising interests of different groups.

3. Ron Paul also shows a way for social movements to actually achieve some of their goals. Recently, there have been too much excitement about the spontaneous shows of unity, such as the Arab revolutions, as well as the social movements such as the Tent City and the Occupy Wall St. In the aftermath one recognizes that the failure of these movements to achieve substantial results stems precisely from their lack of leadership and their reluctance to engage in politics. The successful examples are the Tea Party, which influences politics via many low-rank elected representatives in the US Congress, as well as the Libertarian movement, represented by a charismatic high-profile politician, such as Ron Paul. 

Win of secular right in Israel

In Likud primaries current Israeli prime minister won by a huge margin:
"With 85 percent of votes counted, Netanyahu was leading with 75 percent of votes. Rival Moshe Feiglin took 24%."

1. This is a clear triumph for the secular Israeli right. Combined with the recent Labor primary and the Labor's  rise in popularity, we may expect a serious debate during the next election election, rather than a competition between the ideological left and the religious right.

2. Note that Netanyahu has clearly moved towards the center, which accords with the pattern demonstrated by the previous right-wing prime ministers (notably Begin and Sharon):
"A boycott of the vote called by Likud activists in Judea and Samaria to protest Netanyahu’s settlement policies appeared to have succeeded, as polling stations there had an exceptionally low turnout. The organizers of the boycott expressed outrage when people loyal to Feiglin sent text messages saying that the boycott had been canceled."

About liberalism: why I use quotation marks

Article on subjectm that I am not very interested in, comes up with the following remarkable statement:
"Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-­clericalism." 

My comments:
1. The imposition of "liberal" values can be seen in the intolerant attitudes towards the evangelical Christians in the US. Another case is the attempts by "liberal" groups to impose economic and academic boycotts on Israel, whereas in Israel itself this takes a form of anti-settler sentiment. Ironically, if a liberally-minded person tries to defend the rights of evangelicals or settlers on their views (without actually agreeing with them), he/she is branded a right-winger.

2. You may have noticed that sometimes I use quotation marks to designate the terms whose linguistic usage does not agree with their literal meaning: "liberal", "progressive", "rich/poor" etc. So, for example, in the US "liberal" is used to designate Democrats, often extremely left-wing ones. Yet, for the reason outlined in the previous comment these people frequently are not liberal in the original sense of the word.

Another case when "liberals" are not really liberals is when one refers to their views on the economy. "Liberals" often advocate limiting the market freedom and discriminating against those who are more economically successful. In this contextm the people who do hold liberal economic views are referred to as "neo-liberals" (or, in an extreme case, "libertarians".) In fact, those who are called "liberals", should be really named "neo-communists" (no offence intended - simple statement of ideology.)

The subject, that goes beyond the theme of this post, is whether one can forgo the economic liberalism, but preserve the liberal freedoms in the other areas of life (freedom of speech, freedom of gatherings etc.) Marx and Lenin would certainly disagree.

Dating, War and Dr. Strangelove

I discussed recently dating from the point of view of market strategy, and also pointed out the link, where the game theory was applied to the same model. These things are more than  a joke: once upon a time the game theory was deciding the fate of the World: it was behind the American (and perhaps also Soviet) strategy during the Cold War era. 

This article discusses how game theory led to the Cold War episode, known as "Operation Gian Lance":
"Nixon's madman pose and Giant Lance were based on game theory, a branch of mathematics that uses simple calculations and rigorous logic to help understand how people make choices — like whether to surge ahead in traffic or whether to respond to a military provocation with a strike of one's own. The most famous example in the field is the Prisoner's Dilemma: If two criminal suspects are held in separate cells, should they keep mum or rat each other out? (Answer: They should keep quiet, but as self-interested actors, what they will do is betray each other and both go to jail.) In the Cold War, the "games" were much more complicated simulations of war and bargaining: Would the Soviets be more likely to attack Western Europe if we kept missiles there or if we didn't?

Kissinger had studied game theory as a young academic and strategic theorist at Harvard. In the early '60s, he was part of a group of World War II veterans who became the oracles or "whiz kids" of the nuclear age. Working at newly formed institutes and think tanks, like the RAND Corporation, they preached that the proper way to deal with the existence of nuclear weapons wasn't to act as if the situation was so grave that one couldn't even discuss using them; it was to figure out how to use them most effectively. This was the attitude mocked by Stanley Kubrik in Dr. Strangelove, in which RAND appears thinly disguised as the Bland Corporation."

Absurd face of political correctness

Loves of absurd will appreciate the opening sentence of this article:
"Richard Nixon was many things — crafty, criminal, self-pitying, vengeful, paranoid. But gay?"

Any pretense of political correctness is washed away by putting in the same row: "crafty, criminal, self-pitying, vengeful, paranoid, gay". The double irony is that Nixon, a Republican, is usually the target of the "progressive" left, which pretends to be the great supporter of sexual minorities.

Finally, the extra level of absurdity is provided by the uniform across the political spectrum vilification of Nixon by the Americans: Yes, he might have been a crook... yet, these very Americans twice elected him the president. He won 1972 election by a landslide, even though the public was already aware of the Watergate scandal. In addition, many of the Nixon's achievements as a US president are things, without which one cannot imagine modern America (for good or for bad):
- first nuclear disarmament negotiations with Soviet Union (one of the treaties concluded, Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, lasted till George W. Bush withdrew from it in 2002)
- the end of the Vietnam war,
- establishing relationship with China (imagine that once upon a time the goods "made in China" were not present in American stores)
- first true demonstration of the US commitment to Israel security during 1793 Yom Kippour war
- dealing with the economic crisis and high inflation of the early 70s and abolishing the gold standard (the former is a very contemporary topic, the latter is a favorite subject of the Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul)
- introducing first ever in the US environmental regulations
- promoting desegregation of schools and affirmative action

"How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"

Were the billionaires born rich?

Most rich people became rich by being born rich. This wisdom seems so obvious that I have never questioned it. Thus, the original goal of the little research project that I describe below was to quantify how often “poor” people become rich and whether there are any trends in time, making it more difficult to become rich in the recent decades.

The basis of the study was the Forbes billionaires list for 2011. (Note that this list is already somewhat outdated – for example, it includes Steve Jobs.) The billionaires were looked up in Wikipedia and then classified into three groups, depending on how they became rich:

i)        People who inherited the wealth from their parents/spouses/other relatives. (designated as “rich family”)

ii)       Those who came from a “poor” background, ranging from really poor to university professors or owners of a small business, such as a grocery store (“poor family”)

iii)     Those who did not inherit the wealth, but were otherwise well positioned for starting a business due to the connections of their parent, i.e. children of politicians, CEOs of companies etc. (“promising family”; Bill Gates, for example, was assigned to this category)

There is also the fourth group – those, about whom the Wikipedia does not contain enough information to classify them into one of the three categories above.

The figure below shows how the number of people in each category increases with the number of the topmost billionaires taken. For example, among the top 100 billionaires, 33 were born “rich,” 35 grew all the way from the bottom, 20 had a connected family and 12 are of unknown background. The figure does not continue beyond 281st billionaire, since the number of those, whose background is undetermined, reaches almost 20 percent and grows even faster after that.

The next figure shows a similar study for the 412 US billionaires, for whom the Wikipedia information is more complete. Still, at the end the number of those with unknown background reaches 25%.

One observes that the fractions of those coming from the “poor” and from the “rich” backgrounds are approximately the same. Those coming from the “promising families” together with the “poor” form the total number of self-made billionaires. However, the high number of “unknowns” means that the claim that most rich people were born already rich may be technically true. Nevertheless, it is not as striking as one could have expected, and one might expect that the ration of self-made rich and born rich continues to lower incomes (below the billion.)

Let us look how the US millionaires are distributed depending on their age, see the next figure. In order to smooth the fluctuations, the age was changed in the steps of 5 years.

There are no substantial differences between different categories. Most billionaires are older than 40, which in the case of the “poor” is due to the time needed to earn such a big capital, whereas in the case of the “rich” is about the time when one’s parents pass away and leave the inheritance. The small number of the extremely young billionaires are mainly those, who made their money in high-tech or internet industry, such as, for example, Mark Zuckerberg who is now 27. However, this number is statistically too small to claim that becoming rich has become easier in the recent decades.

Similarly, the decrease of the number of billionaires beyond the retirement age probably has to do more with mortality than with lower social mobility during the years when these people were young (Great Depression and World War 2.)

Dating and the game theory

A game-theoretical approach to dating (with a bit of math). Note that the model is nearly identical to the one that I used in my recent post on dating, but the author develops the strategies to much greater extent:
"Here are some ground rules (basically the same rules as on MTV’s show Next):
1. You only date one person at a time.
2. A relationship either ends with you “rejecting” or “selecting” the other person.
3. If you “reject” someone, the person is gone forever. Sorry, old flames cannot be rekindled.
4. You plan on dating some fixed number of people (N) during your lifetime.
5. As you date people, you can only tell relative rank and not true rank. This means you can tell the second person was better than the first person, but you cannot judge whether the second person is your true love. After all, there are people you have not dated yet."

Added later:
All this is not as ridiculous, as it sounds - it is the algorithm that is used by most "single and looking" people that I know, particularly by those who use the internet dating. Even though most of them don't formulate it so clearly.

My article points out that this algorithm always fails, and that there is much truth to the statement that you meet your love when you are not really looking for it (i.e. when you don't bind yourself by silly rules.) - again, this is what many people who found a partner say.

The article, that I added today, has a definition of success in dating that is different from mine. It is certainly useless in terms of finding a soulmate. But if the goal is to get married  - it is a big improvement, compared to what most people normally do.

Mankiw on stimulus spending

Addition to my "stimulus vs. austerity" collection (here, here, here, here, here, and here) - old Gregory Mankiw's article on the disadvantages of stimulus spending.

Quiz: Which part of the political spectrum do you belong to?

Please answer "yes" or "no" to the following questions:

1. If everyone owned a gun, this would make people safer, because everyone would be able to protect himself/herself.

2. Every country should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon to defend itself from aggression.

3. High taxes and government regulations harm the economy and limit our freedom.

4.The internet content should be completely free from any government sensorship and regulations.


If your answers are "yes/no/yes/no" - you are a conservative (support Romney).

If your answers are "no/yes/no/yes" - you are a "progressive" (support Obama).

If your answers are "yes/yes/yes/yes" - you are a libertarian (support Ron Paul).

If your answers are "no/no/no/no" - you are a either a communist or a fascist (support your Leader)

If you have any different combination of answers - your political views are in contradiction with your views on economy.

If you have doubts about answering "yes" or "no" to at least one of the above questions - would you like to write an article for this blog?

A comment:
Obviously, logically questions 1 and 2, as well as 3 and 4, should be answered in the same way. Libertarian and communist/fascist views are the consistent ones. The former take the personal freedom to extreme, while the latter deny any freedom at all (for the sake of the common good, of course).