#187 – Dick Bernard: Watching Tiger Woods

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NOTE COMMENTS at end of this post.

You don’t need to know me very well, or for very long, to know that I’ve never been a fan of golf. I once was told I swing a golf club like a baseball bat. It’s probably true. I’ve never had a lesson.
So, why did I spend all Saturday and Sunday afternoon watching the Masters at Augusta GA, or, rather, watching Tiger Woods?
Before the first swing of the Master’s I predicted that Woods would finish in the top five. I had no basis for this guess. I didn’t think he’d win and “Top five” seemed pretty good. In the end, he finished in a tie for fourth. (I didn’t put the ‘evidence’ of my prediction somewhere, like writing an e-mail to myself: now I wish I had.)
I had never really watched Woods play golf before. This was an opportunity to see how he played, but equally as interesting for me, was to see how he would be played by the assorted interests that have been following his every move, particularly in the last five months.
He really played his role perfectly.
In this society which worships competition and winners and the perfection which accompanies success, it’s hard to find anyone as competitive as Woods. He was raised by his Dad to win. And he plays to win, it seems, fair and square.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for his unwillingness to at least pretend to be happy to have finished fourth. He said, in the brief interview after the 72nd hole, that he came to the Masters to win, and he didn’t, and that wasn’t pleasing. In reality, he was reacting exactly as a highly competitive winner is supposed to react: dissatisfied with anything short of perfection. In an individual sport, which golf is, the player has only him (or her)self to blame.
And Woods wasn’t perfect. Even I could see that.
There was one green near the end of the match where he earned a very sloppy bogey. The Associated Press writer described it as “an inexplicable three-putt from 6 feet [which] ended his hopes at the 14th.” His performance looked like I would have looked on most any green, most any time I’ve been unfortunate enough to be on one. And, on occasion, he even ended up in the woods, or stuck in a sand trap.
Still, given five months absence, and returning under what had to be incredible pressure, he finished tied for fourth in one of the most prestigious golf matches in the world.
For all the piousness and clucking about Woods abundant personal failings, Tiger Woods was a gold mine for professional golf and for the media last week. Suddenly, golf terms became respectable double entendres used on-air by people in the respectable media. What appeared to be his single ad for Nike will probably net Nike a bundle, long term, and was great fodder for endless spoofs and interpretations of it by others. But the company’s who advertised on the shirts and caps of the other golfers made out like bandits too. I would suspect I was not the only fair weather fan watching the Master’s this year. Woods was a bonanza.
Much was made of the gallery at Augusta. How would they react to Woods, and he to them? Fact of the matter: they were there, and they were among the very privileged few who had the chance. They loved the spectacle, up close and personal.
Has Tiger learned his personal lesson? Who knows. He’s human, still young, constantly in the spotlight, a celebrity among celebrities. Will his marriage survive? Who knows that, as well. He and his wife are human. There will be a lot of “cost” whatever the decision is, for he, his wife, his kids…. He will stay under the klieg lights for far longer than the rest of we mere mortals.
For me, I’m happy I watched the Masters. And I’m gratified that, as awful a golfer as I am, on one or two holes last weekend I might have matched Tiger Woods!
I only wish I would have made a wager with somebody about my prediction about how he’d do in the Masters.
COMMENTS:
Will S: Like everyone else who has screwed up one way or another, Tiger Woods deserves another chance. But it isn’t the public’s to negotiate, it’s his wife.
Not many people know that Woods operates a Learning Academy near San Diego. You can find out what it’s all about on the internet. When the revelations about his personal life began to emerge, I wrote the academy and told them no matter how his personal life shakes out, he should continue the Academy and in fact I suggested he open a second one in the Twin Cities. That, apparently, is not going to happen or at least not in the foreseeable future.
Of course, he is marked for life with his own scarlet letter but his redemption, if it comes at all, will not be on the golf course but with his wife and family.
As one who has done more than his share of screwing up, I wish him well and his wife and children, as well.
Jeff P: Professional golf had two “goldmines”:
a) the publicity on Woods lead up to the Masters and his participation;
b) Phil Mickelson’s win and his heartfelt seemingly endless hug of his wife after leaving the 18th green.
In the morality play of America, Tiger played his role, but the guy in the white hat triumphed.
Bob H: You caught the essence of Tiger Woods and too much of U.S.: Win at all costs; be number one. And like the man who was interviewed who had been bilked by a fraudulent ticket for the Minnesota Twins opener, he was satisfied that he had come at least because he had seen the “fly over.”
Now whatever a “fly over” has to do with a sport and how many of hundreds of thousand or our tax dollars went to that momentary spectacle confuses and worries me. That a military connection and ignoring cost and power is related to our national malaise about winning at any cost is worth it!
Check out our nation’s priorities here:
Paul M: Good analysis – the muffed 3 putt is very rare by Tiger standards, maybe a first, he has always said he only wants to win even as a rookie when the seasoned pro (Curtis Strange) said he will get over that. Tiger and Michael Jordan represent US sports at its cutthroat best (or worst), they will step on their own wives to win/get pleasure, you prediction was spot on, you should have bet, and been a winner.

#177 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform and Taxes

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Strictly by coincidence, our appointment with the tax preparer today was at the same time President Obama was signing the Health Care Reform Act passed by Congress on Sunday evening. Preparing for the tax preparer the last few days gave me the annual up close and personal look at my own economic facts, as opposed to the abundant written, spoken and visual rhetoric surrounding tax season and health care reform. I keep records, and it is always interesting (not always fun) to review the events of the previous year. The financial documents box is my annual financial diary….
Every person and family is different, so I don’t pretend to offer us as a “typical” example.
But I would guesstimate that we are not at all unusual compared with the vast majority of ordinary middle class Americans. We are probably a little above average, but I’m not at all sure about that. Both of us worked full careers, and were fortunate to qualify for pensions.
After filing out taxes, today, we know that about 10% of our income in 2009 went to Federal taxes; another 5% to the State. It would be a real stretch to claim that this is confiscatory or unreasonable. Another percent or two paid on top of both Federal and State, or even more, would not kill us financially, and would do a whole lot of good for things like repairing potholes, and taking care of more vulnerable citizens than ourselves. It’s our dues for living in society.
Sure, I know: every time we buy something we pay additional taxes. When I had my daily cup of coffee at the local coffee house early this morning (my daily luxury) about 7% over and above the cost of that cup went to taxes on the sale. The business didn’t pay those taxes; I did.
Of course, there were taxes hidden in the remaining 93% of the cost of that cup as well – assorted taxes along the line. I can’t work myself into a tizzy about that, either. Taxes are easy to kick around, but they are what makes our society into a society that works. If a penny or two of that cup helped fund public schools, more power to….
On the health care front, we are reasonably healthy for our age, both of us on Medicare. Nonetheless, we paid out roughly $1000 a month in 2009 for assorted health expenses, from Medicare insurance itself, to long term care insurance, to out of pocket for non-reimbursed expenses. The insurance is there for the inevitable time that it will be needed, big time (most of us don’t die instantly, many need lots of help). No one likes to predict personal medical catastrophe for themselves, and hope they won’t be among the unlucky. But that’s what insurance is for, and no one should have to worry about being uncovered, particularly not in a wealthy country like our own (and compared with the rest of the world, most of us, even middle class, are wealthy – no question.)
(A few days ago, we took a friend out to dinner. She was laid off three months ago from a relatively low paying job. She gets unemployment, but she said she’s uninsured, as she can’t afford the premium for the insurance available to her. There is a cheaper alternative, apparently, but it is not accessible to her until she’s been unemployed for four months. So she’s playing the lottery, hoping she won’t have some kind of serious problem. She’s not alone. Some would say, “it’s her problem”. I’m not among them.)
In a couple hours we go to a grandson’s birthday party at a local pizza restaurant. Somebody will pay the bill there. There will be taxes, as there was with my coffee this morning.
I have no beef with taxes.
I’ll be wishing the new 10-year old a good future in this country of ours.
The Health Care Reform package just signed is not perfect, but it is a whole lot better than the alternative of keeping the status quo.

#171 – Dick Bernard: Big Dogs* out for the kill (who may unwittingly kill themselves, and us, too.)

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Last evening’s 60 Minutes on CBS had a long and very useful segment about the why’s of the Wall Street collapse, and why the Big Dogs on the Street haven’t learned their lessons. It is very worth your while to watch the segment in its entirety. It is about half an hour.
Earlier in the week, and presumably this week as well, the monolith U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been flooding the local TV airwaves with intentionally scary prime time ads against Health Care Reform legislation. The prime target is Rep. Collin Peterson, in Minnesota’s rural 7th District, a sprawling rural district that essentially covers the western third of Minnesota. Peterson is a Democrat, and apparently is viewed as a target because he is wavering on supporting health care reform.
Yesterday, I read an interesting commentary by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its campaign. Succinctly, the U.S. Chamber is not really what it portrays itself to be: a coalition of small business owners across the U.S. It’s funding comes primarily from 19 major corporations who names are not disclosed (and need not be). You can read the commentary, published on Friday, March 12, here.
The Chamber of Commerce’s railing against Health Care Reform seems absurd on its face. After all, all of these supposed “trillions of dollars” and “billions in new taxes” they allege will be spent will flow into Big Business coffers, one way or another. Capitalism will make out big time from Reform. I think the real back story here is that the Chamber fears competition, and regulation, both of which are positives for consumers, but bad if one’s sole objective is making more and more and more money. But…what do I know?
Also, yesterday, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune was a long front page article in the OpEx (Commentary) section about government subsidies to Farmers, who gets them, and why they continue, even though they are dinosaurs which basically benefit the biggest farmers the most, and generally hurt agriculture and the economy. The same Rep Collin Peterson, mentioned above, is the Chair of the House Committee that fails to rein in the subsidies. His problem: reelection. This is not an uncommon problem for legislators. “We the people” regularly kill ourselves by our own greed and stupidity. To be courageous and a lawmaker is an almost certain recipe for political death.
None of these links are uplifting, about our future, but nonetheless they are informative, and worth the time to watch and or read.
And then to act.
Knowledge is power, but only if it is used and shared.
* – My apologies to dogs, for which I have great affection. I’m talking about the occasional destructive rogues.

#131 – Dick Bernard: Merry Christmas

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UPDATE Dec. 18, 2009: We now know much more than we did three days ago. Were this a place with a union (it isn’t) I would without hesitation advise a grievance on wrongful termination. Most likely, though, our friend would never grieve: her gender, race and culture would cause her to not fight the issues.
OK. So, I don’t know all the facts. I don’t even know the story, first hand.
Whatever.
Within the last few hours my spouse, Cathy, said “guess what”. She’d just learned that her friend – let’s call her Annette – had just lost her job at a bank.
She’s been fired.
Cathy has known Annette for many years. They met when they were working part-time second jobs at the warehouse for a major national retail chain. They were the ones who first looked at and dealt with the stuff customers would soon be buying as, say, Christmas presents. Quite often it was high-end stuff. They’d make sure that what had been ordered was actually in the shipping crate and undamaged, that sort of thing. Very low wages, but it took the edge off too little income from their day jobs.
They became, and remain, very good friends.
Annette was an immigrant from an English-speaking Caribbean island, one of those desirable high-end tourist destinations. She’s black, with a still interesting accent. Oh yes, a U.S. citizen for many years. I’d guess she’s somewhere in her 50s, now. All the time I’ve known her she’s been single, divorced, with one son who often has tested her abundant sense of humor and optimism but who now seems, more or less anyway, to have weathered the storms of growing up. He lives out east somewhere, a father, divorced.
She has a particular talent, Annette does. She had an unusual ability to count, and account for, money. She did this for a long while for a big corporation downtown, barely reaching $10 an hour. The particular demands of her job didn’t allow her to continue at it. Her department was moved to a suburb, and she had no way of getting there because she didn’t have reliable transportation, and the new location wasn’t on a bus line. So she had to look for something else.
She found a position in a branch of a major bank – one of those you’ve heard about in the TARP conversations. She was good there, too. It was in a rough neighborhood. Been there several years now. She didn’t have a car, thus needed to take a bus to work. Once she was hit by a car in the crosswalk heading to the bus stop. Required after hour meetings were a problem for her. If they weren’t over by a certain time, she’d miss her bus, and have to wait for the next one. But she couldn’t leave the meetings.
As I said, her bank branch was in a rough neighborhood; the bus stop wasn’t a particularly safe place to wait. Her colleagues, including the one who called the meetings, could jump in their cars and go home. “See you tomorrow”. She had to wait.
After the bank received its TARP funds, last year, the bank cut employees hours, and only recently were the hours brought back to what they had been before the banking crisis last year. Of course, cutting back hours doesn’t mean cutting back on work – it means more work in the same hours for those remaining on the job.
As I said, Annette was talented at counting money. She has a wonderful sense of humor, and my knowledge of her was sufficient so that I know she’d be a great person to meet at the teller window – her job.
But something happened recently. I’m not sure what.
Maybe it was a new manager with different expectations. Whatever the case, Annette has just been fired. Something was mentioned about forgetting a procedure when dealing with counting out a large amount of money for a customer in $20 bills – there were no larger denomination bills available; or maybe the break room was messy and somebody blamed Annette for that. I doubt the issue is missing funds. When you’re a subordinate, you’re an easy target.
Long and short, while we’re out frantically trying to finish “Christmas shopping”, our friend is out of a job, back in her tiny apartment. Meanwhile, on my suggestion, we’ll be getting a new TV this week. The old one is a 15 year old 27″ that works just fine, and I suggested a few days ago, before I knew of the firing, that we give it to Annette. Cathy said “no”, Annette’s apartment is too tiny to accomodate it and the piece of furniture that goes with it.
It’s easy to say, about the Annette’s of our world, “tough bounce”.
Nowhere near as easy when you know the person as we have, for years.
As individuals, we can’t rescue Annette and all the Annette’s out there. It’s societies job, but “society” – the greater community in which we all live – doesn’t seem terribly interested in her sad story either. Evil Taxes, you know.
What to do?
The big bankers with Annette’s former bank will get big bonuses this Christmas. The government bailout was very helpful. Thank you very much. Some might take some time on her home island in the Caribbean.
Merry Christmas…and Happy New Year.

#125 – Dick Bernard: Blessed Debt

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Several Comments follow this post. To comment, send an e-mail to me. My e-mail address can be found on the “About” page. Short comments preferred.
A year ago, October, 2008, I worried that the American financial system, and thus my modest nest egg, was in meltdown. I have a 401(k) from work career days, and it was plummeting in value. I decided to get the floor of its rapidly diminishing principal insured by the well-respected midwest company that had managed the fund since my retirement in 2000. I also decided to leave the remaining money where it was, with the same company managing it, with no change in the general investment strategy. (This company says it applied for TARP (bailout) money, but never actually had to take any of it.)
Mine was a small drama, doubtless played out in millions of ways by millions of people in the fall of 2008. We weren’t the big bad Wall Street firms, but our nest eggs were rapidly going up in smoke, due to virtually no government oversight, and lots of greed by big players far away.
When I pulled the plug, and bought the insurance policy on the floor of my asset a year ago, its value had plummeted by well over 30% in a single twelve month period.
Today, twelve months later, its value is almost exactly the same as it was two years ago. It’s value is 133% of what it was a year earlier, and I did nothing but leave it where it was.
I am very surprised. I certainly don’t expect a similar dramatic change in the next twelve months; at the same time, I am quite a bit more comfortable that there will not be another total meltdown either IF we have learned our collective lesson.
I expect tens of millions of people have similar stories. We are a very wealthy country, after all.
My experience, plus the endless yapping about the horrendous “crushing” National Debt, which supposedly prohibits government-financed things like Health Care Reform, has caused me to start to look at what I would call our National Wealth – our collective net worth as a country, and indeed, developed world.
There are, granted, huge numbers of people in our country, let alone in the third world, who are destitute. Our wealth has come on their backs.
But if one does even a cursory study of the collective wealth of ordinary people like me, and those who are truly wealthy, we are awash in almost unbelievable wealth, and our National Debt is a very small percentage of that Wealth. If you don’t believe this, reader, do a quick mental assessment of your own personal wealth: what you would have if you liquidated everything you have which has any net value, like real estate, savings, the value of a retirement account like a 401(k), etc. And include in the value, other assets which you have which you possess but are in somebody else’s control: Medicare, your retirement fund, Social Security.
As I say, many don’t have these assets in abundance, but tens of millions, including myself, do. And I would not be considered “wealthy”, not by any stretch of that word.
If those of us with money had any kind of collective will at all, we could eliminate the debt, and live on pay as you go, easily.
So, why don’t we just eliminate the debt?
Greed helps secure the status quo: what’s mine is mine, after all. And if I had a burst of altruism and cashed out my stash, contributing everything to reduce the National Debt, my relatives and neighbors would think, with some good reason, that I was crazy. Likely they wouldn’t bail me out of my stupidity.
This is a societal problem, not an individual one to be solved by one individual at a time.
I think there is another logical and sinister factor in play. For the truly big economic players, Debt is a Blessing. You can multiply your money by charging interest on loans. “Credit” is as good as money in the bank for the lender, even considering bad debts. Think “I owe my soul to the company store” in older days parlance*.
Christmas shopping? “CHARGE or cash?” is what you hear at the cash register Cash is an undesirable option. Build up that debt.
It is the ultimate paradox: the very same business and industry that is investing hundreds of millions in ad campaigns to rage against “crushing debt” and the follies of reform (for political advantage), are the same ones lusting for even more debt (for ever more profit).
Cha Ching.
PS: I don’t know precisely what our National Wealth is. Lots of numbers are thrown around. I’ve been looking into this, and I’ve seen figures ranging as high as 24 Trillion dollars (24,000 Billion). October 19 at this space I wrote about the National Debt, then being reported as about 1 1/2 Trillion dollars (1,400 Billion), and on October 21, about the awful prospect, as conveyed by the Chamber of Commerce, that Health Care Reform might cost 300 Billion dollars.
Health Care Reform, et al, is chump change….
* – from the song Sixteen Tons, Merle Travis, 1946
COMMENTS:
Peter Barus: Good thinking. Money is all debt, as you probably know. In the early days, at least in the “West,” it was invented by gold smiths. There is an article floating around out there about how money is created by writing loans, out of nothing. The Fed lends “money” to the banks in the form of “bonds” against – well, nothing at all, really, and the banks lend ten times that amount, and the banks they lend to add their multiplier, and so on, and poof! The economy is born.
So, you might consider expanding and elaborating on your idea about debt being a blessing for the rich. It is, in fact, all they’ve really got.
Here is a pithy remark that I think comes from Brazil: “When s-it becomes of value, the poor will be born without a-sholes.”
Bruce Fisher: The basis for our financial system is money. And do you remember how money is created? It is loaned into existence (http://www.chrismartenson.com/crash course). The national debt is both a liability and an asset. it is a liability that we owe ourselves. Our financial system needs debt to create wealth. The national debt is, as you’ve mentioned, a small percentage of our national wealth. We could use our wealth as leverage to wipe out poverty and all other social ills that foster fear and insecurity that promote cruelty, isolation, disconnection that end in war and killing. You’re right, we have significant national wealth but it should be used to wipe out social ills not the national debt.
Bob Barkley: I’m with you about this issue of debt. It’s an evil that will choke and gag us all before it’s over. And here’s a little piece I wrote earlier in 2009 about this matter of debt.
Debt is playing a huge role in both our international affairs and here at home. We have generated tremendous national debt in other countries, sometimes dishonestly, so as to increase their dependency on the U.S. as a way of filtering U.S. foreign aid dollars right back to huge U.S. corporations. It’s an orchestrate and deceitful method of subsidizing these countries. In fact, Bush’s infamous “coalition of the willing” was seemingly made up largely of such beholden countries.
And we have an internal debt problem as well. At the same time that we have made bankruptcy filing more difficult, we have escalated the number and types of ways that individuals can increase their debt. We have charge cards with exaggerated debt ceilings, huge interest rates, and a person can hold many cards. Then we have no-down-payment home purchases where all you’re buying is debt – not a home. Added to this we have all sorts of efforts to encourage extension mortgages. So guess what has happened? Families in increasing numbers have charged themselves to the max and have now gone to their last possible place to get cash – extended mortgages. Foreclosures are occurring at an alarming rate.
But now this house of cards has finally collapsed. It was inevitable, and unfortunately it was also necessary. The charade must end.
All of this has further expanded the gap between the haves (the “economic royalists” if you will) and have-nots on every conceivable level. Anyone who doesn’t think we have become a class society, both here and abroad, simply isn’t paying attention. Where are the religious folks on this one – the return of usury in every corner of our existence?
Jim Fuller: A very quick and partial reply: You, like almost everyone else, think the worst is over and there will not be another such meltdown. I beg to differ. The chances of another and more complete worldwide economic collapse is not only possible, it is probable, though I won’t guess as to timing.
The high-rolling banks have all but retired from what used to be their primary business – lending to individuals and businesses. They aren’t doing it, and despite all the crap they’ve told government, they have no intention of doing it. Since the wall between commercial banking and investment houses was torn down by Bill Clinton, they have grown steadily away from what we think of as traditional banking. Playing the markets is their primary game now, and almost their sole source of wealth.
And they are again playing dangerous, extremely high-risk money games. There already have been several “instruments” invented to replace the phony mortgage packages, and the big boys are batting them around like crazy. And, inevitably, those, too, will collapse at some point because there is no underpinning of items with actual value. Government is doing no more now than it did before to stop these games.
And the next collapse must be more complete than the last one; governments won’t have the cash this time to do the massive bailouts that would be required. The assets, including taxable people, simply no longer are there.
Dick Bernard, to Jim: I, too, am a pessimist about the future. If I’m lucky, I won’t bear the consequences my grandkids will. I’m writing about the present debate. My 7-year old granddaughter, whose birthday party I’ll be attending this afternoon, will not see the promising future I could look forward to at her age, in 1947 – unless we as a society wake up really quickly.
Re Bill Clinton’s culpability, fair enough, but it might be helpful to point out that the 1999 law to which you likely refer had to be promoted and passed by the Republican House and Senate of the time. Some Republican Senator from Texas comes to mind…. Sen. Phil Gramm, wasn’t it?

#122 – Dick Bernard: Thanksgiving 2009

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Last week I had two opportunities to listen to a motivated lady, Margaret Trost, head of WhatIf? Foundation, a U.S. non-profit dedicated to the possibility that some hungry children in Haiti might have at least one good meal a week.
Margaret was inspired nearly ten years ago when she made her first trip to Haiti, and a Priest there, Fr Gerard Jean-Juste (see end of this post), answered an innocent question for her in Port-au-Prince. His dream, that the kids in his parish would have at least one good nutritious meal a week, inspired her. (See blog post on Father Gerry at May 28, 2009.)
Three years later, in Port-au-Prince, the same Fr. Jean-Juste inspired me.
Paul Miller, who brought Margaret Trost to Minnesota two weeks ago, convinced me to go to Haiti in December, 2003, and thus meet Jean-Juste and so many other advocates for justice, and victims of injustice, who in turn inspired me. Such is the way that things happen.

Margaret Trost at Northfield MN Nov. 16, 2009

Margaret Trost at Northfield MN Nov. 16, 2009


Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and for most of us, middle class and up, the lament at the end of this day will not be too little food, but the consequences of eating too much.
Then, for many, the preparations will begin for “Black Friday”, the day after Thanksgiving shopping spree, guesstimated by business to be less frantic this year than last, but still dubbed “black” because it is the day of intensified retail profit-making for the “Christmas season”: “in the black”.
In Haiti and in most other places in the world, “Black Friday” is most every day for most of the people, and has an entirely different meaning than it does here.
It is worthwhile to consider, this Thanksgiving, amidst the din of the prophets of doom saying we can’t afford health care for all in our country, to consider all that we really have, especially the 80 or so percent of the people in the U.S. who live very comfortably compared not only with the people who have less, but compared with almost anyone anywhere in the world. We are very, very wealthy.
I’ve noticed we Americans don’t like to talk about their money – their personal finances. It is one of the taboos, it seems. “None of your business….”
But if you’ve read this far, take a couple of minutes today to calculate your own personal net worth: assets minus liabilities. If you’ve read this far, you know what the terms assets and liabilities mean, in the broadest sense of the words. In addition, maybe you’re hoping to inherit something from somebody. Consider that an asset, too.
Even if you’re not sure of that inheritance windfall down the road, or building that inheritance for your kids, if you’re reading this on this screen, most likely you’re not wanting today.
With all the dooms-daying about not being able to afford to reform Health Care, our country is absolutely awash in accessible wealth. Together, we, could deal with all of the purported “crushing” national debt without making a serious dent in what we have. But it would take a collective effort. Too many of us consider it somebody else’s problem. It is our problem.
Hoarding our individual wealth will in the long run do us no good. Every one of us has a finite time on the planet. Hoarding the riches will have no enduring value to us. Sooner than later, we’ll be gone. Our financial portfolio won’t go with us. None of us really know what “heaven” is: most likely, they won’t ask for net worth, or have better subdivisions for some versus others.
Go ahead: figure out that financial net worth you currently have. Many if not most of you will be astonished at the amount. You are not atypical in our wealthy society.
Even many of “our own” have very little, but in this country, even having very little is a relative term: people in many places like Haiti depend on money coming from the “diaspora”, such as Haitians living in the States, sending back money to their families in Haiti. This is true for many countries. That’s “trickle down” economics as it works in life.
The matter, for us, is not the wealth we don’t have; rather it is the truly immense wealth we do have and guard jealously for all sorts of reasons.
We are wealthy.
Do the math.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Related comment: blog post on Fr. Frechette, October 25, 2009
Father Gerard Jean-Juste:

Father Gerard Jean-Juste at Ste. Claire, Port-au-Prince Haiti December 7, 2003

Father Gerard Jean-Juste at Ste. Claire, Port-au-Prince Haiti December 7, 2003

Father Gerard Jean-Juste died Wednesday afternoon May 27, 2009, in a Miami hospital. I had the privilege of getting to know Fr. Gerry, at least a little. He has had more than a little impact on my life.

That Father Jean-Juste’s time on earth was short was acknowledged, sadly, by all who knew him. He had been ill for a long while. So when word came that he passed away at far too young an age, 62, it wasn’t a surprise.

Gerry Jean-Juste was not a household name, except in the community of Haitians, and those of us with a passion for Haiti and its wonderful people. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune in the obituary section for May 28, made a special (and, frankly, surprising) note of his death, printing an Associated Press report that described him as “an influential Haitian Roman Catholic priest who was once jailed in Haiti for his political activities and fought for his countrymen’s rights in the United States…Jean-Juste founded the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami in the late 1970s. He returned to Haiti and spoke out against a coup in 2004 that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was arrested in 2005 on what human rights groups called politically motivated charges.”

He was one of only two in the “also noted” category of the obits.

The short obituary did not note many other facts, including his long confinement in a Port-au-Prince prison, the conditions he and his fellow prisoners endured there, and the fact that after his freedom no longer presented a “problem” for the powers that be in Haiti and the U.S., the charges against him were dropped.

I first met Fr. Jean-Juste as he said Mass at his parish, Ste. Claire in Port-au-Prince, on the morning of Sunday December 7, 2003. It was my first trip to Haiti and we had arrived less than 24 hours before. There are many memories of that Mass: most pertinent to today was his insertion into his sermon in Kreyol of a very special portion in English for we six visiting Americans. While he’s a Catholic Priest, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me calling his English text a “give ‘em hell” message. We were guests from a powerful and omni-present country, the United States, which had and has huge influence over what happens in Haiti.

His was and is a poor parish, and he wanted to remind us of the poverty we were visiting, and the wealth we came from in the U.S., just one and one half hours away, and how far too many of his people were starving. It was one of those messages one does not forget.

The following day we had an extended private visit with him, adding greatly to our knowledge of his country, its problems and its relationship with the United States.

For the remainder of the week we visited many people and saw many things, all in Port-au-Prince and environs. Less than three months after our return home, Feb. 29, 2004, the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean Bertrand-Aristide, was felled by a coup d’etat, most certainly facilitated by our own U.S. government in cooperation with France and Canada. Along with Aristide, all of his political supporters, especially opinion leaders like Jean-Juste, were at risk, and the elected government officials of Aristide’s party, Lavalas, suddenly became unemployed.

Suddenly it became unsafe to support the ousted government, particularly if you were identified as a supporter of Aristide and Lavalas. Jean-Juste’s fate was sealed.

Time passed, and in early March, 2006, we went back to Haiti, this time as part of a delegation for the noted Haitian micro-finance Fonkoze www.fonkoze.org. Our route east was via Miami, and with great thanks to a Haitian-American friend, attorney Marguerite Laurent/Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), I was able to arrange a visit with Father Jean-Juste in Miami. At the time of our visit, Jean-Juste was officially and technically still under charges in Haiti, and in Miami solely for the treatment of his Leukemia.

But it was very obvious that the authorities thought he was no danger to anyone, so long as he was away from Haiti. The day we saw him, Sunday, March 5, 2006, he was free as a bird, and in excellent form, meeting with fellow Haitians in North Miami. For one not knowing any different, it would be astonishing to learn that he was technically someone still charged with a very serious crime. Of course, he had committed no crime other than politics, and everyone knew it.

Father Gerard Jean-Juste’s time on earth is now past, and he has made a great difference as a role-model for people who care. He is now at peace. He has left his work for all of us.

My accounts of my 2003 and 2006 visits to Haiti remain archived at my website www.chez-nous.net/peace_haiti.html . In the 2003 account there are brief mentions of Ste. Claire on pages 7, 8 and 19; I did not provide an account of the meeting with Fr. Jean-Juste in the 2006 account, since it was a personal add-on to a specific pre-planned delegation.

Fr. Jean-Juste saying Mass at Ste. Claire Dec 7 2003 (both photos by Dick Bernard)

Fr. Jean-Juste saying Mass at Ste. Claire Dec 7 2003 (both photos by Dick Bernard)

#121 – Dick Bernard: The significance of 60 votes

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Saturday night the U.S. Senate voted 60-39 to avoid filibuster on the Health Care Reform Issue. Every Republican voted “no”.
The realistic expectation from here on out is that the Republican mantra will be to make sure Health Care Reform fails; indeed, that anything that the Democrats and/or President Obama wants will fail.
It’s a dangerous game because, through failure, we will all fail. We can let failure happen, or do something constructive.
Back in 1994 when Health Care Reform was debated, the vote was unanimous to avoid filibuster (“debate”). Of course, Health Care Reform died that year, and a comfortable Democrat majority (Senate 57-43 and House 258-176) became a nearly permanent minority as a result of the 1994 elections. It was not until 2006 when total Republican dominance of Congress and Senate was tamed (though barely: Senate tied, House 235-198). And not until 2009 – 10 months ago – when House, Senate and White House became Democrat for the first time in sixteen years. The new administration inherited a catastrophe.
Yes, it has been a Democrat majority for all of 10 months now. The Republicans dream of again scuttling critically needed Health Care Reform, and repeating 1994.
I think that this time the fear-mongering will not succeed, and reform will begin, though not nearly as strongly as I would like, or we need.
It was a useful and healthy exercise for the Democrats to go through the agony of fashioning a 60 vote majority last week.
It is not fun to watch sausage being made in legislation, and the exercise of coming to a reasonable consensus that led to 60 votes was very important I think.
The next votes, after seeming interminable debate, will require only a majority in both houses. There will be endless debate and posturing, but sooner or later a conference bill will be agreed on and there will be an up or down vote by the total Congress. Odds are that there will be a Health Care Reform bill, and however inadequate it will be made to appear at passage, it will be an essential and long overdue first step in saving our nations health care system and making it more accessible and less exclusionary than it has been in the past.
I have no idea what the final bill will look like.
The Republicans have cast their lot on working for failure, not reform, on this and other issues, I hope that a bright light shines on their negative efforts to obstruct necessary improvements in many areas of public policy. The residue of the last many years was truly a train wreck needing to be repaired. It is time to let the repairing begin.
And by the way, for those who might forget, the Republicans did pass an incredibly expensive Health Care bill in 1996. It was a windfall for big business and it is the looming disaster for us all; ask seniors about the infamous ‘donut hole’ in Medicare part D. Hardly anyone who follows the issues carefully would disagree that the cumulative impact of neglecting reform, and subservience to business (and profit) interests has left our entire Health Care system battered and broken.
Those who happen to have “good” coverage now, without Reform, beware. For those who don’t want reform at all because they have that “good coverage” and don’t care what happens to anyone else, think for a moment about the people around you: relatives, friends, yourself – what if you fall through the hole in the safety net? Because, of course, you can….
A PS:
Who’s running things in Washington?
Last February I made a little chart to help educate myself. Here it is:
The print is small, but if it’s Red, that means Republican control; Blue, Democrat control. Occasionally there were ties.
U.S. Governance 77-09001

#110 – Dick Bernard: $300,000,000,000

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For the last couple of weeks I’ve been subjected to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 30-second ad that solemnly (and scaringly) intones (and helpfully prints on the screen) that Health Care Reform will mean $300 billion in new health care taxes.
Oh, it’s so good to have a consumer advocate in the good ole C of C, just watching out for the little folks like you and me.
I have no means to assess whether or not the $300 billion ($1,000 per American) is accurate, or what “helpful” (to viewers) information that it leaves out, but my guess is that the $300 billion is not the extravagant expense the Chamber proclaims it to be.  The $300 billion, will, after all is said and done, be spent for goods and services…produced and provided by U.S. Chamber of Commerce companies.  No, that’s not the issue(s)
I think that the ad is on there for a major reason: The Chamber is terrorized by the possibility of competition which may cut into the far more than $300 billion which will be realized if the government is kept at bay.  “Get rid of the $300 billion, so we can rake in $400 billion from the rubes” might be a more accurate rendition.
The Chamber is also terrified of the possibility of government regulation – regulation by the people who are its customers.  Regulation is for other folks, not “free enterprise”.  Free Enterprise, after all, can regulate itself (note the Wall Street collapse, et al.)
So, the Chamber shamelessly enlists its victims to lobby in its behalf, asking us to reject $3 in favor of, say, $4.
It’s the good old “American Way”: there’s truly a sucker born every minute.
Want to see the ad?  Here’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website. #mce_temp_url# It’s right there, plus lots more.  (it’s in the health care section at the bottom of the page.)  You’re looking at the association of the biggest and most powerful businesses in the country.  (The local Junior Chamber of Commerces are another entity, not quite as rapacious, in my view.)
UPDATE: October 22, 2009
Joyce helpfully pointed out two websites that “fact check” such things as political advertising (which the Chamber of Commerce item is).  They are politfact.com/truth-o-meter and factcheck.org.  Go to the website, and you should be able to easily search references to the Chamber of Commerce and find information about the specific ad, which began to run this past summer.
The “facts” at these sites about the ad in question would not cause me to change any of the content in my post (above).  The intention of the ad is to mislead and ultimately convince the ordinary consumer of the ad to work for the cause of those who are far wealthier than the vast majority of Americans, and thus far more able to help fund the cost of Health Care Reform.  This is not an unusual strategy of the wealthy: they are numerically inferior, but have much more money at their disposal to influence others.
Harold Meyerson, in a column I noted in this mornings Minneapolis Star-Tribune, originally written for the Washington Post, makes essentially the same points I do, at least in my opinion #mce_temp_url#

#109 – Dick Bernard: $1,420,000,000,000

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The Saturday, October 17, 2009, Minneapolis Star Tribune had a front page headline: “Deficit Surges to New Record“.  The subhead helpfully fleshed out the number: “2009’s deficit soared to $1.42 trillion – more than three times the most red ink ever amassed in a single year.”  In the early part of the article – the part people read – it emphasized that this was the federal budget deficit, and it included a number I’ll comment on a bit later.
Indeed, $1.42 trillion – $1,420,000,000,000 – is a lot of red ink.
It’s also the mother’s milk of unfettered Capitalism….  Somebody, after all, got all that loose change.
And there are those inconvenient truths, like the fact that our cost of “War on a Word” since 2001 will exceed $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year #mce_temp_url# – and much of that is off-budget and relies on borrowed money from places like China.  Another excellent resource: #mce_temp_url#.  War is an unproductive use of increasingly scarce resources.
The article got me to thinking back to when my parents bought their first house.  It was in 1947.  I was seven years old; my parents were 39 and 36 respectively.  We were living out in Sykeston ND.  There were already four of us kids, and #5 was to come the following year.
I was old enough to have vivid memories of this momentous purchase.

Bernard's North House, 1947

Bernard's North House, 1947


My Dad was a school teacher, and Mom was stay at home, and the first few years they rented.  But by 1947 it seemed like they had a relatively stable work situation, and the family size was such that they needed a house.
They bought a deserted farm house that had doubled for a grain bin somewhere out in the countryside, and moved it to the north end of tiny Sykeston, ND, perching it on a foundation over a minimal basement with dirt walls.  If memory serves, their investment was $700 total.
It was the sweat equity that brought the mouse-infested place back to life.  If you look closely at the photo above, you can see a very tired looking man sitting on the stoop of the then-front door.  That would be my Dad.  Basically behind and to the right of the photographer (my mother?) would be the outhouse…no sewer or running water in those years: they had to go down to the town pump for the water supply.  No bathroom.  Minimal baths….  No garage for the one already old car.
Life went on, and expectations increased for all Americans.
Time went on and someone came up with the idea that people could borrow money and get stuff that they wanted.  Business thought this was a fine idea.  Debt is good.  It helps to promote consumption, and consumption is good.  As business took over government, slow but sure, government debt was okay too.  Who better to own than the government, especially when you could blame the politicians?
So, we sit here with this huge federal debt.  The paper helpfully pointed out that it amounts to “more than $4,700 for every man, woman and child in the United States.”
A lot of money, yes.
But comparing it against the massive consumer debt held by persons with mortgages, car loans, etc., etc., etc., etc.  it’s really pretty small change.
The calculation for the big business types now has to be: how far can they leverage this debt until we all go busted.  Sooner or later the debt becomes intolerable, even for those with a lust for profit.  The peasants need to be able to pay the bills.  If they can’t, the bubble bursts.
As noted, there are many reasons for that big federal deficit.
A bit of prudence, like my parents had to exercise back in the 1940s, would go a long way today.
Don’t expect it from the money changers in the temple that is Wall Street.

#106 – Dick Bernard: "Capitalism: A Love Story" part II

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Part I of this post appeared on October 3.
We went to Michael Moore’s new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, on Thursday afternoon.  Friday morning I sent out to my own mailing list a short message about the movie, succinctly, “See it.  Not only to learn, but to be a public witness to the reach of this film.”
In response to this e-mail, a friend wrote “Although I haven’t seen it and probably won’t, however great Michael Moore’s indictment of Capitalism might be, it [it] lacks some methodology for changing our political and economic system, it’s just another way the plutocratic dictatorship that runs our country lets us discontents and malcontents blow off steam and makes at least some of us feel we actually are accomplishing something.”
“Capitalism: A Love Story” lasts about two hours.
When we were in the theatre for the first afternoon showing, there were about 30 or so of us.  We were very attentive.  There was lots of silence when we left the film.
At the end of the film, the screen went dark, and Michael Moore gave the viewers a little advice.
You have to see the film, or find out from someone else who saw the movie, what the advice was.  That’s how important I think it is for you to actually see the movie in person, if at all possible.
And, yes, the film does mention the P word, as it appears in a bankers group report about the new “Plutonomy”.  The topic of we the “peasants” – a business term – comes up too.
I’m glad I saw the film.
See it.
Then do something about it.