#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?

#124 – Dick Bernard: The Ice on the Pond

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In a couple of hours President Obama will deliver an important address on Afghanistan at The U.S. Military Academy at West Point NY. As is usual with these kinds of addresses, every body on every side knows everything about what is going to be said tonight, and is already, and will continue, to interpret what the address means from their viewpoint.
“The White House” knows this going in, and also knows essentially what the basically quiet “American people” are waiting to hear, and also what its long term objective is, and the President will deliver a carefully crafted and coherent message. In fact, the site of the speech, West Point, is part of the essential message: “we support our brave men and women who serve our country”. And it will be a genuine message.
I’ll watch the speech, and I’m interested in the words, but, truth be told, I’m far more interested in what is not so visible, in fact, what is not visible at all to most of us. It is what is below “the ice on the pond”.
In my neck of the woods, I have just begun to see the first ice forming on the ponds on my walking route. At this moment, it is still coming and going – the temperature has not been reliably below freezing*. Likely, permanent winter ice will happen soon and remain until sometime late in April, 2010. For about five months, we will not see water, other than the frozen shell which hides it.
Most of we citizens engage in a frustrating exercise of only watching the political “ice” from the shore. That is all we do (or are allowed to do). Only certain people are allowed out on that ice, to drill holes to ascertain how thick the ice is, etc. These people are political and media insiders, all with agendas of their own; often competing agendas. They shout out competing stories of what they see below the ice.
We spectators on the shore can see the ice. But we know little else, other than what we are told.
From my perspective, there is a lot of positive stuff going on below the apparently thickening of the ice in the war in Afghanistan (and in other arenas as well). The Obama administration is about making positive change.
Contrary to most of what I hear, I feel there are fresh ideas – fresh water – circulating under the visible ice. Every now and then little pieces of evidence surface, but I can sense that a change in direction is happening, slowly but surely.
I’ll listen to the Presidents words an hour or so from now. But mostly I’ll be watching for the usually subtle and quiet messages in the much longer term.
Positive change is happening. It just isn’t happening as fast as we would like. I’ll do what I can to help direct that change. That’s all I can do.
* – And speaking of change: I had a rule of thumb for years, here, that the first permanent snow of winter came in Thanksgiving week. This November, for the first time in memory, there was no measurable snow in this metropolitan area for the entire month. Evidence of climate change, or just nice fall weather?

#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

#118 – Annelee Woodstrom: A Reflection for Peace on Armistice (Veterans) Day

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Note: Anneliese Solch, later to become Annelee Woodstrom, grew up in the small community of Mitterteich in Adolf Hitler’s Germany.  She was 7 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933, and was drawn to the exciting things that might be available to her if she became part of the Hitler Youth.  Her parents refused her request, and they never became Nazis or supporters of Hitler.  In the below segment from her book, “War Child: Growing up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany”, Annelee recounts a conversation with her Uncle Pepp, a “Main Street” businessman in Mitterteich.  (Mitterteich then and now was just a few miles from the border of present day Czech Republic, and after the War also a few miles inside West Germany.  It’s population was about 5,000.)
After the war, in 1947, Annelee married Kenny Woodstrom of Crookston MN, one of the soldiers who liberated her town.  They were married 51 years, till his death in 1998.  They, and Annelee, today, live in Ada MN.  #mce_temp_url#.
A previous post about Annelee is found at this blog at September 20, 2009.
Annelee Woodstrom, October 31, 2009: Veterans Day is coming up, and I certainly will remember it’s function.  Wouldn’t it be much better though if we could celebrate World Peace Day?  However, according to my Uncle Pepp, our wish for peace will probably never happen during our lifetime.  Uncle Pepp’s words and thoughts sadly are as applicable to our efforts for world peace as they were when I heard them from him in 1944.
From WAR CHILD: pages 122-23:
“As I arrived at the bakery, Aunt Nanni said, “Anneliese, if you are looking for Pepp, he is in his office  he will see you.”
I knocked softly.  Uncle Pepp opened the door and motioned to the big chair.
“What can I do for you?”
“Nothing.  I came to say good-bye.”
“So good-bye it is”, Uncle Pepp mumbled.
His voice and demeanor startled me.  “If you are busy, I’ll leave.”
He pointed at the chair again.  “You just sit there, and I will tell you when you can leave.”
Resting his chin in his hands, he looked at me, pondering.  “Everybody comes and tells me, ‘I am leaving.’
So you’ll be leaving too.  You should be home with your mother, but you are out there, getting bombed and shot at just like the men.  His gaze went past me.  “They went, but most of them didn’t come back.  The ones who did come home are crippled for life in one way of another.  Tell me for what?”
He nodded.  “Oh, yes, for the 1000 Year Reich.  What a Reich it is.  It started with a few crazy men and they’ve led and lied until everyone followed into abysmal destruction of humanity.  We hollered and screamed and went with them.  Now, we drown in our own blood.  How they have channged us.”
Uncle.  He didn’t hear me, and I didn’t dare to move as he went on.  “they didn’t change us, we did that ourselves.  Now, I expect they will hold everyone accountable.  He shook his head.  “All my life I tried to do right.  Then in one minute, I ruined it all.  Just because Karl joined the party and didn’t tell me, I pushed him into this damn war.  Now he is fighting in France, doing God knows what?  Killing, fighting, or running to save himself.  he shouldn’t have joined the Nazi Party without telling me and I should have signed.  Now nothing is the same.  How he and I have changed.
I had never seen Uncle Pepp like this.  I got up and gingerly placed my hand on his shoulder.  “It wasn’t your fault!  It is the war,” I said.  They would have taken Karl anyway.  Everybody has to go to war.  I bet that after this one there won’t be any more wars because there isn’t anyone left to fight.”
He laughed bitterly.  You would think so.  We learn a lot in a lifetime, but no one in the world learns about keeping peace.  Every time there is a war, they say it is for some cause and then we will have peace forever.  The human race is the dumbest species there is.  For thousands of years legions of people have fought and maimed each other for one cause or another.  They took land from their so-called enemy.  When you look around, you see that years later they gave it back.  Never mind the corpses underneath the land the young were told to conquer.”
Uncle Pepp’s eyes bored into mine.  “You think this war is the last war?  Anneliese, don’t mind my laughing.  Some day you may have a son who will get his draft notice to fight another war…again they’ll promise you.  This is the last of all wars.  On the other side there will be a mother who will have to send her son for the same reason  to stop war.  What we have not yet learned is the simple truth.  Wars lay the seed and breed another, more horrible war than the one before.”
Uncle Pepp came close to me.  “I always told your papa you should have been his first born, but I am glad you are not.  Maybe you will make it through this war.  You will, if you are lucky and have a say about it.”  He kissed me on the forehead.  “Now go, and do come back, you hear me?”
He walked away from me and sighed.  “Tell your mama Mrs. Beer heard last night that Otto died of his wounds in Russia.  It’s not official, but a soldier who was lucky enough to be transferred out sent word to them.  Now that’s her second son who didn’t make it home.  He waved, walked out and shut the door quietly.
I sat still, thinking about what Uncle Pepp had just said.  My heart ached for Uncle Pepp because I knew he hurt.  But I knew there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.  Just like the war going on all around us, I thought.  We couldn’t do anything about that either because if you did, you were shot anyway.
POST NOTE:  At the time of this conversation with her uncle Pepp, Anneliese was about 16 years of age and assigned to work as a telegrapher in the city of Regensburg.  Her father, who had refused to join the Nazi Party, had been drafted into the German Army.  He was home for a leave near the end of 1943, then was never heard from again.  His last child never knew his father.  They believe he died a prisoner in Russia, but this has never been confirmed.

#117 – Dick Bernard: The School Board election

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I live in an affluent community.  There is no “other side of the tracks” unless one counts a few Habitat for Humanity houses not far from here, or some lower income apartments.  This is a well educated place, full of professional types.
My community is one of several who are part of our local school district.  The other communities have slightly different profiles than mine, but not that different.  We are reliably middle class.
Last Tuesday was our districts school board election.  There were 10 candidates for 4 open positions.
It has been a long time since I’ve been parent of a school age child, so public education is a way off my active day-to-day list.  But I always vote, and a week before the election I wrote a friend who I know is active in school affairs in this town, and asked if she had any recommendations.  She didn’t.  So I went about learning what I could about the candidates, picked four, and voted.  The next day I found that half of my candidates won.  Fair enough.  I had showed up.
But it seemed like a very small voter turnout, and I started to nose around.
Succinctly, this particular school district has about 55,000 registered voters.  The school district website says “The population of the district is approximately 100,000 people including the 16,650 students who attend district schools.”
On election day, about 6% – one of sixteen – of those registered voters actually cast a ballot.  The rest apparently didn’t care who made policy for the nearly 17,000 children in this districts schools.
The candidate with the largest vote got 1614 votes.  By my calculation that means about 3% – one of thirty-three registered voters – elected the candidate.
As I looked further into this matter, I came to discover that there was a concerted effort by one group to pull off what I would call a “bullet ballot” for three candidates they supported.  They leveraged the small turnout into a win for two of their people.  Even so, their candidates got very few votes, so even they were not that successful (unless one counts “winning” as the ultimate success).
Our vote this year was uncomplicated.  The only issue was the school board election.  It was a quick in and out for any voter, including the very significant percentage of eligible voters who have children of their own in these public schools.
But the vast, overwhelming majority of people did not care enough to vote, and, as disturbing, to apparently not even care enough who it is making the policy governing their children’s education.  The clear winner in this election was disengagement.
We should be ashamed.
But we won’t be….

#116 – Dick Bernard: Denying Reality

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Recently, I’ve read several articles, research based, on the truly dangerous behavior of humans:  denying reality.
The long and short: we live in a society where we believe what we want to believe…and most of us are in a position, at least for the moment, where we can get away with it.  Climate Change?  No problem.  It’s just odd weather, and the unusual drought conditions somewhere don’t affect us.  I can still buy my bananas at the store – I’ve come to like a banana a day.  Never mind that in my youth, bananas were an exotic fruit rarely if ever seen, and that went for things like oranges too.  Living an entire life in North Dakota and Minnesota, I don’t run into banana plantations with any frequency.  For me, bananas just happen, like Santa Claus.
Our self-deception goes on and on: Incredible numbers of people still believe the long-debunked fiction that Saddam Hussein was somehow behind 9-11, thus justifying a war against Iraq which destroyed that country, and has almost literally bankrupted us.
As somebody said, when confronted with the reality about one of those ubiquitous provably false e-mails that she’d published in her local church bulletin: “I’ll believe what I want to believe.”
Yes, we can get away with deceiving ourselves.  For now.
But that’s a bit like making your bedroom the middle of a never used country road.  For a while it will work, but in the end you’ll be unpleasantly dead.
Sometimes I wonder if there exists in our society some kind of collective self-loathing, a “death wish” as it were.  Common sense says that we’re flirting with disaster long-term, but we thumb our nose at it, and admire the creativity of the people who craft the lies we are expected to believe.
Recently I’ve been noticing a repetitive ad during the nightly news which reassuringly asserts that there’s 100 years worth of natural gas left in our country.  The subliminal message is “not to worry”.  It reminds me of those old cigarette ads in magazines where the doctor was confidently smoking the cigarette, or the with-it woman was enjoying her smoke, or the cowboy on the range (who later died of lung cancer)….  Ah, marketing.
So alarming percentages of us believe that climate change is not a problem, even though the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is on record that it is a serious problem.  Or that our life styles don’t need to change, even if continuing our life styles will assure no future at all for the generations beyond us.  Or that  Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, even though the very people who perpetrated that fiction years ago, later officially and publicly debunked it themselves.  The list goes on and on.
Are we fools?
The people who approved that ad about the 100 years of natural gas were speaking to people like myself who survive by natural gas as this winter begins.  I don’t know where, exactly, my natural gas comes from; all I know is that if the temperature gets below 70, the furnace comes on….
“100 years” was deemed by the marketing strategists to be a good reassuring number.
As it happens, at the same time I’ve been noticing this ad, I’ve been completing a family history of my Dad’s side of the family, which came to Quebec from France nearly 400 years ago.  I’m doing a history about the first 300 years, ending with my Dad’s birth on December 22, 1907.  (He died a dozen years ago today).
In context with that family history, 100 years is not much more than a blip of history…and I’m not delving into the hundreds of additional years of recorded human history in France.
More so than any generation in history, we can assure our future destruction.
We seem not to care….
Here’s a couple of articles I’ve seen recently on this topic: Your choice.  #mce_temp_url#; #mce_temp_url#
UPDATE: November 7, 2009
Jeff Pricco: Another good article for the deniers: #mce_temp_url#.
Just like the public is saying Obama is not delivering Change.
When the culture of leverage and debt and not facing reality in household or government finances has been three to four decades in the making…profligate spending on credit and a culture and mindset that we can have everything we want and more and not eventually pay the bills…has set in…no President or Congress (an institution I have argued is set up to defeat change) can remedy this in 6 to 12 months….
If this is not a slow painful sluggish recovery with little growth, it will not be successful.  If we opt for more fake bubble remedies that buy us prosperity on credit, we will see the mother of all depressions soon.
Carol Ashley: I think that the more one lacks self-confidence, the more one is apt to not change one’s mind in the face of evidence to the contrary.  In psychological terms it’s known as cognitive dissonance.  People are very good at adhering to their beliefs about what they think they know and justifying those beliefs.
I can go back to child-rearing and look at how parents are loathe to admit they are wrong in front of their children. There seems to be an “understanding” that admitting that one is wrong decreases their authority with their children.  In fact, children tend to often know when parents are wrong and respect for parents goes up when parents can admit when and where they are wrong.
As my nephew and I confront each other on beliefs about what we think we know, we can both attest to how difficult it is to let go of something we believed in the face of evidence to the contrary.  Dan and I are probably unusually willing to confront these things.
For myself, I am aware that i will first become defensive and then, when alone, take a closer look, and then if I find satisfactory evidence, can and often do admit I’m wrong.  But how many people even know themselves that well, much less are able to take the “loss of face,” because that is what it feels like even if it gains you respect for being able to admit the other is right?
It’s a challenge for all of us.  It’s easy to blame the far right for this, but we are all susceptible to some degree.  the far right might be more susceptible but understanding can bring compassion instead of just fighting against them which brings even greater resistance.  We need to understand the fears behind it.
On the other hand, that probably works better on a personal level than in the political real.  Maybe.
Comment back to Carol on her last paragraph: I think personal and political should be dealt with as synonyms.  As Tip O’Neill so quotably said: “All politics is local” (as in, all politics is personal!)

#115 – Dick Bernard: Learning about South Asia from a South Asian….

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Last week I was invited to one of those events that have hard and fast ground rules.  In this one, a prominent speaker speaks; the condition the listeners are asked to accept is to not breach confidentiality.  In some senses it is a very reasonable rule: a person would like some reasonable chance to be somewhat open and honest without inordinate concern of being misquoted, or quoted at all for that matter.  For the individuals privy to the information, the time can be very well spent.  Such sessions help to inform ones opinion.  These happen all the time, everywhere.
The downside is pretty obvious: only a tiny few have the opportunity to hear the insights.  At this particular gathering I was one of 22 enjoying a country club breakfast and informed comment.   (Five were women.)
Our speaker was eminently qualified: formerly (and at separate times) a very high military, and also an elected, official in his major south Asian country.  He was very well informed about south Asia, and very interesting as well.  But I’m not about to violate the rules, and tell you what his opinion was, or even what the questions were, save for the one I asked.
The questions were thoughtful, as were the answers.  In the eternal chess game that is international geopolitics there is never a black and white situation.  Behind the rhetoric is a never easy reality.
I had an opportunity to ask my question, and since it’s my question, I can bring it up, here, and then answer it myself without betraying the speakers response….
I observed that a recent poll – “our peculiar way of doing referendums on public opinion” – suggested that a distressingly large percentage of Americans, regardless of party preference, seem okay with bombing Iran.  What did our speaker think of that, I asked.  He addressed the question very well, but, as I say, I won’t tell you what his answer was.
But I can tell you what my answer – my reason for asking the question – is.
South Asia is a pretty big piece of geography.  The big countries are Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  There are several smaller entities, and of course Russia and China are generally in the neighborhood as well.
When I got home I checked my trusty almanac.  Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan together have about one-third the land area, and one-third the population of the United States.  Toss Pakistan and India into the kettle and you’re up to a U.S. size territory with four times our population.
And here we sit at home, saying “bomb, bomb Iran” when we couldn’t manage our splendid little war in the smallest of the three “hot” countries listed above.  It’s as if we look on war as some video game; that somebody out in Fargo can bomb, bomb Afghanistan with a drone, and get the bad guys to wise up and come out of their caves with their hands up.  It worked for the John Wayne crowd….
Collectively we seem not to have a clue.
I thought my time was very well spent at the session.  I only wish everybody would have the chance.  One of the big problems in our society is that there is an anointed group of “big boys” (they’re usually still boys) who play the global chess.  They are upstream from the folks I was sitting with last week, but they, too, discuss and debate theories and ideas and gain perspective.  The lucky citizen elects leaders who’ll be willing to listen; the unlucky elects leaders who only tell.  We’ve had both types in recent years.  There is a big difference.
At about the same time I was having my coffee and eggs, reports were on about President Obama saluting the caskets of the fallen as they came back from Afghanistan, and Secretary of State Clinton having frank conversations in Pakistan with journalists and students and the government.  I thought both Obama and Clinton were class acts.
To the bombs and bullets crowd, Obama and Clinton are wimpy; to the peace types, they’re war mongers.
We take what we can, and work for better.
Thank you, source who cannot be named, for the invitation!  And thanks, too, speaker who is anonymous.   You did a great job!

#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.