Wall Street and Health Care
Before we get to the topic of health care, as we’re all supposed to sit around this weekend, waiting for our elected members of Congress to ‘work real hard’ on a $trillion piece of legislation, the full contents of which are still largely unknown, we have a few other important issues, such as our relationship with China.
The war of words heated up anew over China’s currency policy as Premier Wen Jiabao repeatedly defended his nation’s right to do as it pleased, saying Beijing opposed “finger-pointing or taking strong measures to force” a readjustment of the yuan. And then he added the usual complaints on arms sales to Taiwan and the White House’s reception to the Dalai Lama, though on these last two don’t sweat it.
It’s just that now is hardly the time to get into a shouting match with China when it comes to the economy, and, trust me, as to the cries of protectionism from Washington, the United States is just as guilty as the next guy. For starters, think sugar.
“As if the world economy wasn’t fragile enough, politicians in the U.S. and China seem intent on fighting an old-fashioned currency war. The U.S. is more wrong than China here, and it’s important to understand why, lest the two countries send the world back to the dark age of beggar-thy-neighbor currency protectionism.
“The battle concerns China’s decision to peg its currency, the yuan, to a fixed rate of roughly 6.83 to one U.S. dollar. [Ed. It’s been at this level since mid-2008.] To hear the American political and business establishment tell it, this single price is the source of all global economic problems. The peg keeps the yuan ‘undervalued’ in this telling, fueling China’s exports and harming the U.S., Europe and everyone else. If the Chinese would only let the yuan ‘float,’ it would soar in value, China’s export advantage would fall, and the much-despised ‘imbalances’ in global trade would end….
“But numerous countries continue to peg their currencies to the dollar, and with the establishment of the euro most of Europe decided to move to a fixed-rate system. The reason isn’t to get some trade advantage against their neighbors but to gain the economic benefits of stable exchange rates – and in some cases a more stable monetary policy. A stable exchange rate eliminates a major source of uncertainty for investment decisions and trade and capital flows….
“By maintaining a fixed yuan-dollar rate, China has subcontracted much of its monetary discretion to the Fed in return for the benefits of exchange-rate stability. For more than a decade, this has served the world economy well, leading to an explosion of trade, cheaper goods for Americans that have raised U.S. living standards, and new prosperity for tens of millions of Chinese.”
Oh, there is more, and I understand the flipside, but China is sending an envoy to the U.S. in an attempt to cool things down. For now the World Bank has upped its GDP forecast for China to 9.5% this year, and the government is tightening and bringing down the loan level to slow the real estate bubble, for starters. The World Bank is saying this policy will work.
As for the latest on the Greece situation, Prime Minister Papandreou set a one-week deadline for the European Union to craft a financial aid mechanism for his country, as Germany, after first saying ‘no way,’ hinted it would be willing to support a joint European government-led and International Monetary Fund bailout. But at the end of the week, France was saying ‘no’ to any thought of IMF involvement as President Nicolas Sarkozy said there had to be just a European solution.
The German people in no way want to help Greece, while Greece requires certainty, and backup, if it is to be able to market its bonds at a reasonable rate vs. more stable Euro countries, so Papandreou wants guarantees of last-ditch support, if needed, by end of next week when there is to be a summit in Brussels.
The problem with Greece just going the IMF route is that it sends a terrible signal to the global financial community as to the strength of the entire European Union, and thus would adversely impact the euro common currency further.
When it comes to health care. I thought the Financial Times’ Clive Crook pretty well summed it up:
“Already beyond abstruse, now in the realm of surreal farce, the debate is thus becoming yet more inward-looking and unintelligible. Can language on abortion be included in a reconciliation measure? (Probably not) Can the Senate parliamentarian be overruled? (What is the Senate parliamentarian?) All that is missing is a speech in favor of the plan by Groucho Marx. Recovering voters’ respect for the outcome, even assuming the outcome is good, looks an ever more distant prospect.”
But with a vote looming on Sunday, as I go to post, what’s crazy, among the many things about this whole deal and process that are nuts, is that ObamaCare doesn’t really begin to go into effect until 2013 at the earliest, but to avoid total annihilation at the polls come November, the Democrats have to lay out some goodies before this fall and I’m not sure just what they will be (beyond parents being able to tell their children, “No! You cannot come under our health plan just because you’re under 26!”). And before you know it, it will be 2012. What’s the situation going to be for Obama’s reelection effort? Some say the Democrats will look to expand ObamaCare further before then, but it seems impossible they’d have the kinds of necessary majorities to get it through after the mid-term vote.
“One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving ‘universal health coverage.’ The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.
“There’s a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance – who, by the way, wants to be uninsured? – justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don’t’ learn even from proximate calamities.”
“Nancy Pelosi is a coward, a bully and a hypocrite – and Barack Obama is hiding behind her skirt.
“So what does that make him? Pelosi obviously can’t find enough votes in her own party for ObamaCare, so the House speaker is preparing to approve the president’s health-care bill by legislative legerdemain – that is, by not voting on it. And to hell with the Constitution.
“Not to mention President Obama’s long-abandoned vow that the health-care reform process would be ‘completely open and transparent.’
“Indeed, Pelosi has just the opposite in mind: She intends to employ an arcane bit of backroom alchemy known as ‘deem and pass,’ in which the House would vote on a few less-controversial fixes to the Senate’s health-care bill. Then, under terms of a special rule, such passage would automatically mean that the House ‘deems’ that the entire bill has been approved.
“No kidding. If they did, it would have become law long ago – and now midterm congressional elections are rapidly approaching.”
But this whole deem and pass process is so confusing that as I go to post, no one can tell you for sure just what exactly is going to take place. What is clear is that the most important piece of legislation this century could be enacted without anyone actually voting on the 2,700-page behemoth. And there isn’t a single soul in this country who knows what’s in it, let alone they’re still changing the House version as I write. Oh sure, there’s a subsidy for this group, and one for that, and another for them…and, by magic, it will still reduce the deficit because you have tax increases on the Medicare payroll tax, and another on interest, dividends, and capital gains; no adverse impact on the economy for any of this, and so on.
I’m just disgusted. Like a vast majority of Americans these days, I’m sick of Washington and our political process. I’m also sick of everyone feeling like they are entitled to this, and entitled to that, at no cost. But enough about my opinion. Peggy Noonan, in her Journal op-ed, nailed an issue near and dear to my heart. How the rest of the world is viewing this mess.
“Excuse me, but it is embarrassing – really, embarrassing to our country – that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he’s having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he’s been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America’s back and been America’s friend.
“How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid’s stuff.”
Street Bytes
–Stocks finished higher for the fifth week in six as the tepid rally continued. Frankly, come noon on Thursday and Friday, I like more than 90% of the Street happily switched off CNBC for CBS and the NCAA basketball tournament. So with one eye on the TV and the other on the quote screen, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to tell that volume on the exchanges dried up to a trickle (forgetting the fake action of the triple witch in options). And in three weeks, with Tiger back at the Masters, it will be the same thing for rounds one and two, so plan your trading accordingly. In all honesty, the first two days of March Madness are the worst for me as I try to put this column together, though otherwise I make no apologies, especially since my Wake Forest Demon Deacons actually decided to show up against Texas and won in dramatic fashion. [For those of you reading this Saturday morning or afternoon, I don’t expect a similar dramatic ending against Kentucky.]
Anyway, where the heck am I? Oh yeah. The Dow Jones tacked on 1.1% to finish the week at 10742, with the S&P up 0.9% and Nasdaq up 0.3%. All three are basically at 17-month highs. [London hit a 21-month high.]
Earlier, the Fed’s Open Market Committee got together to once again announce they would hold the line on interest rates “for an extended period,” while offering that business spending was up “significantly” and the labor market was “stabilizing,” but housing remained dead in the water, or, in some cases, with the flooding across the country this week, literally underwater.
The Fed will stop buying mortgage-backed securities as of March 31, but there is little indication rates will then move significantly higher in the short run. Bernanke and Co. are relying on private money to step in and fill the void, so longer term this could create problems.
One thing is for sure, though. While inflation may be perking up in Asia with rising food prices (India’s central bank surprised the markets with a rate rise), it remains non-existent here with February readings on producer and consumer prices coming in at -0.6% and unchanged, respectively, with the core rate up 0.1% in both cases.
I do have to note my amusement when I see an article like in the March 22/29 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek titled “Bull Market Believers: Three money managers who called the turn in March 2009 see big gains ahead; a fourth dissents.” None of the four mention geopolitical events as a potential cause for concern. It’s like all four are off in their own little worlds, totally oblivious.
Given the preceding inflation data, Treasuries were unchanged.
–So the deal on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial reform legislation is that under his proposal, the Federal Reserve gets the central role in supervising big banks and the financial system, with some kind of system for taking over failing institutions instead of choosing bankruptcy or bailout. But there is still much to do before it becomes law. First, assuming Dodd can get it through committee on a party-line vote before Congress breaks for two weeks on March 26, the bill would then need enough Republican support in the full Senate for a vote in late April, according to some, or before the summer recess. The House passed its version in December and the two would have to be reconciled. But the pace is clearly tied to the health-care bill’s passage.
Business and bank lobbying continues and no doubt any final bill will contain all manner of loopholes, and, as the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel put it, “inconsistencies and stupidities.” Just suffice it to say we have a long way to go on this one.
For now, let me just add that one of the biggest debates involves whether the Fed is strictly a “too-big-to-fail” regulator, as Chairman Ben Bernanke put it, or does it also get control over smaller banks to keep Bernanke’s favored “connection to Main Street, as well as to Wall Street.” Former chairman Paul Volcker said it would be a “grievous mistake” to hand off much of the Fed’s oversight in that it would harm the conduct of monetary policy and financial stability by limiting the Fed’s understanding of the financial system.
But others say it’s dangerous to give the Fed too many responsibilities. And what of the huge issue of oversight of derivatives? Regulators would oversee the over-the-counter market but the details are critical and we won’t know until final legislation is crafted just what they will be. And of course we still don’t know how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fit into all of this, if at all.
But I liked the musings of Roger Lowenstein, an expert on financial crises, in his op-ed for Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“(Rather) than try to make banks perfect, the main goal should be to minimize the damage when they prove imperfect. The way to do that is to limit leverage by restricting their use of debt. Leverage acts like an accelerator, magnifying and spreading losses from one borrower to another. In most meltdowns, this has played a leading role….
“(Investment) bubbles that aren’t associated with debt are far less lethal. The dot-com frenzy was easily the most flagrant episode of speculation in the last 75 years. Scores of companies with zero earnings sold stock; dozens of these initial public offerings soared in value on their first day of trading.
“By contrast, the recent real estate bull market was tame. Home prices doubled over five or six years – impressive, but nothing like the IPO stocks that doubled in a day. Yet when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, the impact was modest. The country had a mild, brief recession. Unemployment topped out at 6.3%.
“The mortgage bubble, on the other hand, was built brick by brick with debt. And it led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, with unemployment over 10%….
“There can be no going back to 30-to-1 leverage on Wall Street.
“Since much leverage today is kept off the balance sheet (via derivatives), any financial reform that doesn’t curb the use of such instruments is sorely flawed. Congress should immediately boost the amount of margin capital required to place derivative bets – the equivalent of reducing leverage.
“Protecting consumers and breaking up large banks are fine. But neither measure will prevent banks from acting stupidly again. The surest safeguard is to ensure that, when they do, they aren’t up to their necks in debt.”
–According to data compiled for Bloomberg News by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “59 of 110 fatalities attributed to sudden acceleration…occurred in vehicles other than those sold by Toyota.”
Many of the investigations that resulted from over 15,000 complaints were closed without corrective action, and NHTSA’s oft-cited conclusion was that crashes “occurred because drivers mistakenly stomped the accelerator.” Safety advocates say, however, that this policy position caused regulators not to take complaints seriously.
As for the case of James Sikes and his out of control Prius on a California freeway, last time I wrote, “Toyota has issues with how Sikes handled the car, including why he didn’t put it into neutral and coast to a stop.” Now, Toyota is flat out saying its own tests found the car’s gas pedal and backup safety system were working just fine, though for legal reasons it stopped short of saying Sikes perpetrated a hoax.
–The nationwide average price of gasoline is up to $2.80, or 88 cents above year ago levels. And according to the Wall Street Journal, over the years the Energy Information Agency’s weekly oil report has included several large errors that have impacted prices. Additionally, “A weak security system also leaves the data open to being hacked or leaked,” documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. In a nutshell, the EIA hasn’t kept up with the times and the needs of a global energy market.
Separately, OPEC agreed to hold the line on production, as you’d expect, since everyone loves today’s $80 level. Yup, Ali Naimi, Saudi oil minister, explained: “The producer is looking at this price, the consumer is looking at the price, the investor is looking at the price, and everybody is saying this is great.” Oh those daffy Saudis just crack me up.
–The median home price in California rose 11.2% in February from a year earlier, though home sales dipped for a second month. The median price rose 0.8% from January, according to MDA DataQuick. In the high-profile Southern California and San Francisco markets, the February price increases were 10% and 20%, respectively, over year ago levels.
–In other California economic news, traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s busiest complex, rose a solid 30% to 39% in terms of both imports and exports in February compared with year ago levels, though last year’s figures were the worst since 2003. Nonetheless, a good sign.
–According to the Financial Times, Merrill Lynch officials warned the SEC and the New York Federal Reserve about Lehman Brothers manipulating its books, so once again it’s about what the regulators knew and when did they know it, with the warnings supposedly going back to March 2008, six months before the September collapse. Back then, Lehman was touting its creditworthiness, boasting it was in better shape from a liquidity standpoint than rivals like Merrill.
According to New Jersey’s state attorney general and the Division of Gaming Enforcement, Macau gambling magnate Stanley Ho is associated with organized crime and has allowed the “triads” (operators of high-roller rooms) to “thrive within his casinos.” This is a big deal, and the 88-year-old billionaire, who was the only game in Macau for decades, denies the claims, though they are obviously true. I must say I’ve eaten in some of his restaurants there and didn’t see any mobsters, but I sure did in the casinos. [I found Macau’s gambling experience to be the pits.]
But if you’re wondering why New Jersey would be examining operations in Macau, it has to do with MGM Mirage’s Macau joint venture, partially owned by Stanley Ho’s daughter (also connected) and a divestment settlement with the state in which the firm agreed to sell off its 50% stake in the Borgata casino hotel in Atlantic City.
Separately, the mainland’s steel mills are facing a doubling of iron ore prices from their top supplier, Brazil’s Vale, plus there is already overcapacity in the industry, so the combination will lead to a drop in exports. There is only so much dumping an unprofitable steel mill can attempt to get away with. It has to survive, first. The only thing that would ameliorate the overcapacity in China would be further high levels of fixed asset investment.
Speaking of inflation, Guangdong province, which produces a third of China’s exports, is raising the minimum wage more than 20% because it needs to attract labor.
And Google is slated to close its business in China next month and should be announcing its plans Monday or Tuesday. A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference said Google violated the “solemn commitment” it made when it negotiated its entry into the mainland market and it violated the contract.
–Shares in Palm Inc., cratered anew on Friday as the company issued a dire forecast for future revenues. For the quarter ended Feb. 26, the company actually reported better sales than expected of its smartphones, of which I bought one a few weeks ago and finally took it out of the box the other day. It will take me another month or so to turn it on. But I just hope the company survives until I do so.
“The three guys who founded online video giant YouTube had more than an inkling they might be breaking copyright laws by posting clips of popular TV shows on their Web site – but did it anyway in their quest to grow and eventually cash out, potentially damning e-mails show.
“ ‘It’s all ‘bout da videos, yo,’ wrote co-founder Jawed Karim in an April 2005 e-mail to fellow co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. ‘We’ll be an excellent acquisition target once we’re huge.’…
“Three months later, Chen allegedly fired off an e-mail to Karim begging him to stop uploading stolen videos on the site. ‘We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.’”
Viacom has filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against YouTube over their knowingly posting the company’s material.
For his part, Chad Hurley pocketed $334 million in Google stock from YouTube’s $1.65 billion sale to Google, while Chen got $301 million and Karim $66 million.
–But here’s a heartwarming story; that is if you’re sick of the actions of some of the big banks.
The Italian city of Milan is suing UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Germany’s Depfa after a judge ruled there is sufficient evidence to try them for fraud in peddling swaps (derivatives) products for the city’s 2005 bond issue.
–In its fiscal third-quarter report, Nike announced that Tiger Woods’ absence hadn’t impacted its sales of golf equipment and apparel, which is only about 3% of revenue, anyway, nor does it expect his return will impact sales either. Overall, Nike is kicking butt as net income doubled. Simply one of the great success stories in the history of Corporate America.
–Another in the top five of American success stories, McDonald’s, is hoping to boost sales this summer by selling all soft drinks, “no matter the size,” for $1, as they look to steal business from 7-Eleven and other convenience stores. Speaking of 7-Eleven, some of their new burritos look almost edible, but I swear some of the hot dogs have been on the grill since the 1980s.
–Phillips-Van Heusen, owner of the Calvin Klein brand, acquired Tommy Hilfiger for $3 billion in cash and stock. PVH also owns Arrow and Izod.
–Sony Corp. is guaranteeing the estate of Michael Jackson $200 million (though it could prove to be far higher) for 10 albums over seven years, using previously unreleased songs and new packages of familiar oldies but goodies.
–Every time you board a Continental airplane, you’d have the message from the CEO, talking about how they still served meals at meal time, and on longer flights I kind of liked their deli sandwiches and hamburgers.
But no longer as Continental has joined the competition and will charge for food, though pretzels and nonalcoholic beverages will remain free.
Well, I can deal with this, but then Jimbo informed me the new policy also meant beer was going from $5 to $6! Noooooo!!
–Too bad, A-Rod. It seems the Yankee slugger and ex-wife Cynthia took a bath on the sale of their Coral Gables, Fla., estate. They sold the six-bedroom mansion for $8.5 million, after paying $12 million in Dec. 2004. A-Rod rents a two-bedroom Central Park West pad in Manhattan for $30,000 a month. And that’s you’re A-Rod real estate update, sports fans.
Foreign Affairs
Israel: By week’s end, the White House had pulled back from its harsh criticism of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its decision to proceed with 1,600 more housing units in the East Jerusalem Ramet Shlomo district. Israeli commentators and officials, like Netanyahu himself, say the same thing. All Israeli leaders have held that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel and anyone, Arab or Jew, can build where they want. Israel then concedes that whether or not the Palestinians get a portion of Jerusalem to call their own remains subject to negotiation.
But the problem was that amidst sensitive negotiations for the resumption of peace talks between the two parties, and with Vice President Joe Biden on the scene, the “junior” housing minister, as Israel is now calling him, announced the expansion of Ramet Shlomo at the worst possible time and it indeed humiliated the Obama administration. Netanyahu, who claimed he didn’t know the junior, really senior, minister was making the announcement, apologized for the timing but then said he agreed with the policy.
The international Quartet of Middle East peace mediators (the UN, U.S., EU and Russia) has called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, but now the Palestinians are using the excuse of the Israeli announcement to say they cannot begin any talks with the Israelis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said:
“Recalling that the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, the Quartet underscores that the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties, and condemns the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem.”
Thursday, though, a rocket fired from Gaza killed a Thai agricultural worker, the first such death in 14 months, and Israel retaliated, rightly, in blowing up suspected arms tunnels. Netanyahu is due in the States this coming week for a series of speeches. Originally, President Obama was supposed to be overseas, but now with that trip postponed, and the prime minister already slated to meet with Secretary of State Clinton, it will be interesting to see how the White House handles it. Obama should break bread with Netanyahu, but he shouldn’t back down on the settlements.
For her part, Clinton, after the initial furor of the Biden debacle died down, said, “We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close, unshakable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people, who share common values and a commitment to a democratic future for the world. But that doesn’t mean that we are going to agree. We don’t agree with our international partners on everything.”
Far-right Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered Israeli ambassadors to stop “groveling” and stand up to the nation’s critics.
In the Arab world, there is growing skepticism Obama will stand up to Israel, and where this really comes into play is in the case of Iran. U.S. General David Petraeus weighed in, calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the “root causes of instability” and “obstacles to security” in the region, which aids al-Qaeda, as well as Iran’s efforts to support terrorist proxies such as Hamas and Hizbullah. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Petraeus said:
“The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [Middle East] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world….
“A credible U.S. effort on Arab-Israeli issues that provides regional governments and populations a way to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the disputes would undercut Iran’s policy of militant ‘resistance,’” he added. [Jerusalem Post]
“We are moving inexorably toward, and perhaps have now reached, an Israeli crisis with Mr. Obama. Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.
“Mr. Netanyahu must realize he has not been banking good behavior credits with Mr. Obama but simply postponing an inevitable confrontation. The prime minister should recalibrate his approach, and soon. Israel’s deference on Palestinian issues will not help it with Mr. Obama after a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. It would be a mistake to think that further delays in such a strike will materially change the toxic political response Israel can expect from the White House. Israel’s support will come from Congress and the American people, as opinion polls show, not from the president.
“Mr. Obama is not merely heedless of America’s predominant global position. He is also embarrassed enough by it not to regret diminishing it. In fact, we have achieved pre-eminence not simply to preen our American ego, but to defend our interests and those of like-minded allies. Ceding America’s role in world affairs is not an act of becoming modesty but a dangerous signal of weakness to friends and adversaries alike. Israel may be the first ally to feel the pain.”
“The Israeli government’s capable of doing stupid, counterproductive things. Israel’s raucous democracy sometimes falls hostage to nasty splinter groups. But it remains the only country in the neighborhood where an irate electorate can vote offenders out. Does Obama honestly believe that tilting against Israel will have any positive effect on the Arab world’s moral incompetence and ingrained anti-Americanism?
“Apparently he does. The roots of this month’s diplomatic debacle lie in Cairo – where Obama preened and pandered a year ago, sugar-coating the Arab world’s self-made problems, groveling before Islamist bigotry and fatally encouraging Palestinians and their manipulators to believe that the U.S. had turned away from Israel.
“The result has been the collapse of the fragile peace process, which tumbled from direct negotiations back to grudging proximity talks (that have yet to occur).
“Israel’s on guard. Arabs are intransigent. And progress is dead. All thanks to Obama’s arrogant refusal to do his homework before his Cairo apologia.”
“A larger question concerns Mr. Obama’s quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don’t always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama’s poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends.”
“The U.S. has faced repeated insults from Israel in its refusal to give anything back for the massive support it receives from across the Atlantic. The standing of the U.S. as a mediator has been severely damaged by the inability to persuade Israel to comply with this most basic demand of a settlement freeze. What hope does this give us for further negotiations?”
Ruth R. Wisse…a professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard Univ. / Wall Street Journal
“When she is surrounded by a swirl of conversation she cannot understand, my two-year-old granddaughter turns to me expectantly: ‘What they talking about, Bubbe?’ Right now, I would have to confess to her that the hubbub over 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem defies rational explanation.
“Of the children of Abraham, the descendants of Ishmael currently occupy at least 800 times more land than descendants of Isaac. The 21 states of the Arab League routinely announce plans of building expansion. Saudi Arabia estimates that 555,000 housing units were built over the past several years. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced during a meeting in Baghdad last year that ‘Some 10,000 units will be built in each province [of Iraq] with 100 square meters per unit’ to accommodate citizens whose housing needs have not been met for a long time. Egypt has established 10 new cities since 1996….”
Ms. Wisse goes on in a similar vein. My only comment to her is, “Just what the heck does this line of reasoning have to do with the current situation?!”
My stance has been consistent over the years. Someone has to stop the tit-for-tat and it has to be Israel. Israel can bitch and moan, but on the defining settlement issue, it has to be the one to say, OK, we’re halting all new construction. [An exclusion can be made for true ‘natural growth’ but this is a complex issue and we’ll review it again some other time.]
Israel has to do more than Netanyahu’s announced moratorium, as in he must not allow the ultra-Orthodox community to dictate policy. When such a moratorium is then in place, Israel, and the United States, are in their rights to say to the Palestinians, and responsible agents of the Arab world, we’ve gone the extra mile. It’s time for serious discussion. If the Arab world then balks…fine. The topic can be put to bed, forever, and we can all go on. Israel can build to its heart’s content, Hamas can complain and try to blow them up, while Israel has more than proved it can defend itself. Israel, at least, will have taken the moral high ground.
Of course there have been serious efforts in the past and for one reason or another, such as Yassir Arafat’s stupidity, they have failed.
But all parties must know, once and for all, this is it…and it must start with Israel. If Israel’s leaders can’t see this, and if they can’t handle their extremists, with their own history of violence and assassination, that’s not our problem. And it is not written that the United States must continue to fork over $2.8 billion in military aid, especially when Israel’s technology is such that they are rocketing up the list of top arms suppliers. That’s fine. Good.
Here’s where there is one other fly in the ointment, that being Iran and its nuclear weapons program.
Secretary of State Clinton was in Moscow this week, hoping to make long-delayed progress on arms control, when Russia announced it would open Iran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr this summer.
“We have said that Iran is entitled to civil nuclear power. It is a nuclear weapons program that it is not entitled to,” said Clinton. “If it reassures the world or if its behavior has changed, then it can pursue peaceful nuclear power. In the absence of these reassurances, we think it would be premature to go forward with any project at this time.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded, “This project will be completed.” No word on whether Russia will also deliver the sophisticated S-300 anti-missile system that Israel has been dead set against as it makes any strike on the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz all the more difficult.
So this was a huge step backwards, but not unexpected given that it’s still Vladimir Putin pulling the strings, not Dmitri Medvedev. It would also seem rather obvious that Russia will not go along with any new sanctions against Iran that have teeth in them, but then we already knew that. [Putin told Clinton he’d approve a “measured” approach, “smart” sanctions.]
One other note on sanctions. France said this week there may not be anything for the Security Council to vote on until June. Remember when President Obama said last September was the final deadline?
Iraq: It’s been two weeks since the historic parliamentary elections took place but just understand, a true picture of the new parliament and its makeup is months away.
There are 325 seats and the two leading parties, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance, and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya secular coalition, are both headed for 80-90 seats; the starting point for cobbling together a majority. Ballot tallying has obviously been painfully slow with charges of fraud on all sides.
The other two sizable vote getters, however, are the Kurdish parties, and the Iraqi National Alliance; the latter a Shia Islamist coalition that includes our old friend…give it up for Moqtada al-Sadr!
So it will be semi-fascinating (given the stakes) just how it all plays out but Maliki has the better chance of cutting deals. The bottom line is the White House hope’s for stability or the U.S. will still have troops there beyond Obama’s target withdrawal date of 12/2011. Of course it also remains to be seen just how much influence Iran, and its agent, Ahmad Chalabi, will have.
Afghanistan: The government accused Iran of arming the Taliban as ten tons of weapons have been intercepted at the Iranian border in the past year. Gen. Petraeus asserted that Iran was also providing a base for al-Qaeda. Separately, the Battle for Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace, has been launched by NATO forces but this will be a very gradual, grueling affair and not one big offensive.
Pakistan: CIA Director Leon Panetta asserted that al-Qaeda is in total disarray in Pakistan and there is no reason not to believe this due to the aggressive drone policy. A top aide was killed recently; a man who participated in the planning of the suicide attack on the CIA base in December. As Panetta added, bin Laden and Zawahiri have been forced deeper and deeper into hiding. So that’s the good news.
The unsettling news is that Pakistan continues to face a major insurgency in country and it’s always in the back of your mind; when is the attack that decapitates the government?
North Korea: Kim Jong Il appears set to travel to China in a week or so as Beijing tries to convince him to return to the negotiating table, this as South Korean defense officials claim the North has increased its missile force to 1,000, or up 25% in two years.
And the senior official responsible for the disastrous currency reform plan has been executed. Pyongyang is trying to reverse the damage to the economy but to little avail. Kim desperately needs Chinese aid.
Russia: Back to the nuclear arms talks, here the United States under Obama is looking to reduce its nuclear warheads, yet all official policy from the Kremlin is about increasing their reliance on nukes, which is distressing to the U.S. defense department. So these talks are absurd.
I mean we’re talking Russia, in case Obama hasn’t gotten the picture. Rossiiskaya Gazeta is the state paper of record and the other day, Foreign Minister Lavrov told an interviewer, “I won’t say that [Russia and the United States] are enemies, but we’re not friends, either.” Then on Friday, Prime Minister Putin lectured Clinton on all manner of topics, especially trade.
But you know how I’ve written what a disaster the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are going to be? Check this out, from a report by Maria Antonova of the Moscow Times.
“Hundreds of workers at an Olimpstroi-funded construction site in Sochi have not been paid in months, with some complaining that they are going hungry after giving up their passports as collateral to get food at grocery stores.
“The scandal is the latest to hit Russia’s $13 billion effort to ready the Black Sea resort…. Residents displaced by construction for the Games have complained that they are not being adequately compensated, while environmental activists say the work is blighting the region. [Ed. this last bit will be the lead in a lot of publications in another year or so.]
One worker sent a video to a Web site that “shows the area where 240 of the workers are housed. They live in 40 mobile housing units with six bunks in each, overflowing portable toilets, and an army tent that houses a kitchen. The only shower is closed, the video shows.”
So, if you’re thinking, hey, maybe I can get a job in Sochi…you’d probably be better off homeless in Seattle.
Lastly, talk about a debacle. How about the Georgian television station that broadcast a mock half-hour report about a Russian invasion of the country. The pro-government station in Georgia aired what it called a ‘simulation’ of what a fresh invasion would look like, with the broadcast ending with a note that the events in it were not real. But there were no on-screen notes during the half-hour to alert viewers that what they were watching was not real, according to CNN.
Can you imagine? There was total panic. At least if I recall correctly, when Orson Welles did his “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast he said something about it being a dramatization up front. I mean this television broadcast used actual sound bites from Medvedev and Putin, as well as 2008 footage of Georgians fleeing the Russians. And the anchor provided “updates” that Russian forces were bombing the airport and a military base. It even reported casualties. Oh, and President Saakashvili had been assassinated. Talk about stupid.
And then to top it off, the report included bits from British and French envoys, so they were ticked off.
Turkey: Various Turkish business groups are canceling trips to the United States as a result of a House Committee passage of Armenian “genocide” resolution the other week. Prime Minister Erdogan also threatened to expel 100,000 Armenians living in Turkey if foreign parliaments continued to recognize the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago in such a fashion. Erdogan claims that of 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey, only 70,000 are citizens, so he’d be in his rights to expel them. Some 20 countries have now denounced Turkey’s World War I action.
Mexico: The drug war took the life of two American citizens in Ciudad Juarez, while last Saturday, 24 were killed in a Pacific coast state, with half dying in a single shootout between soldiers and drug traffickers. And two decapitated men were found on a scenic road packed with nightclubs in Acapulco. Five police officers were killed outside the resort area.
[I am trying to read as many reports as possible before writing of Acapulco specifically. In many instances, the stories say “Bloodshed blights Acapulco resort,” as a BBC News headline had it, but they had the five officers killed right in town when it appears they were definitely outside. It would be like saying 15 died in New York City, without specifying if it was the South Bronx, or Park Ave. in Manhattan.]
Here’s what we do know. In Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, the two Americans were most likely victims of mistaken identity, as is the FBI theory, but nonetheless 4,600 have died here in just two years.
“We realize that many of our friends believe all of these problems would go away if the United States legalized drugs. Enforcement costs would indeed fall, though at the cost of far higher addiction rates as cocaine and heroin became routinely available and their price fell dramatically. If this were a popular or at all politically realistic tradeoff, we suspect some candidate would have proposed it.
“Having encouraged the Mexicans to fight this war, the U.S. needs to assist it with as much vigor as we support Pakistan’s fight against the Taliban. As [Mexican President] Calderon has said, ‘it’s either the narcos, or the state.’ Given the barbarism of the narcos, we vote for the state.”
It would also be helpful if the druggies would lay off for even a day. How about Coke Free Sundays?
France: This is too much. In regional elections, French voters dealt President Sarkozy’s party a big blow as the Socialists cleaned up. But as big a story was the joint appearance of Sarkozy and wife Carla Bruni to cast their ballots amid stories of Carla’s infidelity. So as they are casting their ballots in a Paris school, Carla was photographed standing under a poster of Benjamin Biolay, the French singer she is rumored to be having the affair with. Oh, the late Michael Deaver of Ronald Reagan image fame would have gotten a chuckle out of this one.
Random Musings
–According to the latest Gallup tracking poll, the number of Americans who disapprove of President Obama’s overall performance is above the level who approve for the first time, 47%-46%.
“Here’s a theory about why President Obama is having a tough political time right now: He doesn’t seem all that happy being president.
“I know, it’s the world’s hardest job, and between war and the world economy collapsing, he didn’t have the first year he might have wished for. And, yes, he’s damned either way: With thousands of Americans risking their lives overseas and millions losing their jobs at home, we’d slam him if he acted carefree.
“Still, I think Americans want a president who seems, despite everything, to relish the challenge. They don’t want to have to feel grateful to him for taking on the burden.
“I started thinking about this a few weeks ago when Obama confidant David Axelrod, noting that the president always makes time for his daughters’ recitals and soccer games, told the New York Times, ‘I think that’s part of how he sustains himself through all this .’
“Really? Is the presidency something to sustain yourself through?
“He did ask for this job; we didn’t make him take it. And so it seems fair to ask: What part of it does he enjoy? Formulating rational solutions to complex problems, for sure.
“But schmoozing with foreign leaders, like President George H.W. Bush? In a column last week, Jackson Diehl pointed out that Obama’s relations with just about every counterpart are prickly. [Ed. I noted Diehl’s column in this space as well.]
“How about horse-trading or arm-twisting, like President Lyndon Johnson? George Will last week cited a recent Obama statement on the health-care bill (‘Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people’) to point out that Obama views such politics with a certain disdain.
“Putting his feet up on his desk after a long day and chewing over events with aides, like Bill Clinton? If insider accounts are to be believed, Obama would rather preside briskly over the meeting and then go up to the family quarters or out for some basketball….
“Unlike the Bush crowd, which never stopped kvetching about having to leave Texas, the Obamas and their circle spoke about the honor of service and the excitement of being in the nation’s capital.
“A year later, here’s how they came across to People Magazine:
“ ‘It was their interview of the New Year on Jan. 8 in the rose-colored library on the ground floor of the White House. President Obama spoke in such a hush about the loneliness of his decisions on war and terrorism that one could hear between his words the tick of an old lighthouse clock across the room.’
“Do Americans really want to hear the tick of the old lighthouse clock? Or would they prefer the good cheer that we associate with FDR or JFK, the jauntiness with which they took over the White House and made it theirs?
“Less lugubriousness wouldn’t necessarily buy him a health-care bill. But in the long run, Americans might find it easier to root for or with Obama if he’d show us, despite everything, that he’s happy we hired him.”
–Robert Kagan / Washington Post…a follow-up to my comments of last week that President Obama has not one close relationship with a world leader.
“If there were a way to measure administration exertion in foreign policy, the meter would show the greatest concentration of energy, beyond the war in Afghanistan, has been devoted to four endeavors: the failed first-year attempt to improve relations with Iran; the ongoing attempt to improve relations with Russia; the stalled effort to improve cooperation with China; and the effort – fruitless so far – to prove to the Arab states that the United States is willing to pressure Israel to further the peace process. Add to these the efforts to improve relations with Syria, engage Burma and everything with Af-Pak, and not much has been left for the concerns of our allies.
“This is bad enough, but compounding the problem has been the administration’s evident impatience with allies who don’t do as they are told. Europeans get spanked for a pallid commitment to NATO defense spending even as they contribute 30,000 troops to a distant war that European publics mostly don’t believe in. Japan gets spanked when its new government insists on rethinking some recent agreements. In both cases, the administration has a point, but it’s always easier to hammer allies when they misbehave than to hammer tough competitors such as Russia or China.
“The president has shown seemingly limitless patience with the Russians as they stall an arms-control deal that could have been done in December. He accepted a year of Iranian insults and refusal to negotiate before hesitantly moving toward sanctions. The administration continues to woo Syria and Burma without much sign of reciprocation in Damascus or Rangoon. Yet Obama angrily orders a near-rupture of relations with Israel for a minor infraction like the recent settlement dispute – and after the Israeli prime minister publicly apologized.
“This may be the one great innovation of Obama foreign policy. While displaying more continuity than discontinuity in his policies toward Afghanistan, Iraq and the war against terrorism, and garnering as a result considerable bipartisan support for those policies, Obama appears to be departing from a 60-year-old American grand strategy when it comes to allies. The old strategy rested on a global network of formal military and political alliances, mostly though not exclusively with fellow democracies. The idea, Averell Harriman explained in 1947, was to create ‘a balance of power preponderantly in favor of the free countries.’ Under Bill Clinton, and the two Bushes, relations with Europe and Japan, and later India, were deepened and strengthened.
“This administration pays lip-service to ‘multilateralism,’ but it is a multilateralism of accommodating autocratic rivals, not of solidifying relations with longtime democratic allies. Rather than strengthening the democratic foundation of the new ‘international architecture’ – the G-20 world – the administration’s posture is increasingly one of neutrality, at best, between allies and adversaries, and between democrats and autocrats. Israel is not the only unhappy ally, therefore; it’s just the most vulnerable.”
–To say the least, I’m not a fan of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, but in an absolutely absurd move, a Tea Party-affiliated group filed a recall petition against him because of his political philosophy and voting record, nothing more than that. It turns out the New Jersey constitution gives voters the right to recall public officials, but the U.S. Constitution has no such provision for recalling members of Congress. State law says 25% of 1.3 million registered voters are required to continue with the effort. Menendez should ignore it and hope it fizzles out.
–Follow-up to my comments last week on the equally idiotic movement among some Republicans to replace the image of Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill with Ronald Reagan.
“The proposal…is a travesty that would dishonor the nation’s bedrock principles of union, freedom and equality – and damage its historical identity. Although slandered since his death, Grant, as general and as president, stood second only to Abraham Lincoln as the vindicator of those principles in the Civil War era.
“Born to humble circumstances, Grant endured personal setbacks and terrible poverty to become the indispensable general of the Union Army. Although not himself an abolitionist, he recognized from the very start that the Civil War would cause, as he wrote, ‘the doom of slavery.’ Above all, he despised the Southern secessionists as traitors who would destroy democratic republican government, of which, Lincoln said in his first inaugural, there was no ‘better or equal hope in the world.’
“When one Union general after another proved unequal to the task of leading the army, Lincoln personally elevated Grant, who, with William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, devised the strategy of ‘hard war’ to defeat the slaveholders’ Confederacy. ‘I cannot spare this man,’ Lincoln was reported to have said of Grant after the bloody Battle of Shiloh in 1862. ‘He fights.’….
“As president, Grant was determined to achieve national reconciliation, but on the terms of the victorious North, not the defeated Confederates. He fought hard and successfully for ratification of the 15th Amendment, banning disenfranchisement on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. When recalcitrant Southern whites fought back under the white hoods and robes of the Ku Klux Klan, murdering and terrorizing blacks and their political supporters, Grant secured legislation that empowered him to unleash federal force. By 1872, the Klan was effectively dead.
“For Grant, Reconstruction always remained of paramount importance, and he remained steadfast, even when members of his own party turned their backs on the former slaves….With the political tide running heavily against him, Grant still managed to see through to enactment the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination according to race in all public accommodations….
“Grant’s presidency had its failures and blemishes. On the advice of his counselors, Grant appointed men to the Supreme Court who wound up gutting much of the legislation he himself championed. This included the 1875 civil rights law, which the court declared unconstitutional in 1883.
“Certainly, Grant’s administration was tainted by oft-remembered corruption scandals. But Grant was never seriously implicated in any of them, although emboldened Democrats and disloyal Republicans, with the help of a sensationalist press, did their best to make the president appear the villain….
“In reality, what fueled the personal defamation of Grant was contempt for his Reconstruction policies, which supposedly sacrificed a prostrate South, as one critic put it, ‘on the altar of Radicalism.’ That he accomplished as much for freed slaves as he did within the constitutional limits of the presidency was remarkable. Without question, his was the most impressive record on civil rights and equality of any president from Lincoln to Lyndon B. Johnson….
“But Grant came in for decades of disgraceful posthumous attacks that tore his reputation into tatters. Around 1900, pro-Confederate Southern historians began rewriting the history of the Civil War and cast Grant as a ‘butcher’ during the conflict and a corrupt and vindictive tyrant during his presidency. And the conventional wisdom from the left has relied on the bitter comments of snobs like Henry Adams, who slandered Grant as the avatar of the crass, benighted Gilded Age.
“Though much of the public and even some historians haven’t yet heard the news, the vindication of Ulysses S. Grant is well under way. I expect that before too long Grant will be returned to the standing he deserves – not only as the military savior of the Union but as one of the great presidents of his era, and possibly one of the greatest in all American history….
“To honor Reagan’s genuine achievements by downgrading those of Grant would deepen our chronic historical amnesia about the Civil War and Reconstruction, the central events of the first 250 years of American history, and their legacy of nationalism, freedom and equal rights. It’s hard to imagine that Ronald Reagan, whose modesty was part of his charm, would have approved of such a disgraceful act toward another president from Illinois.”
–In another Gallup survey, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated, up from 41% last year and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.
–Huge deal in the world of television for CNN to lose Christiane Amanpour to ABC, where she’ll host “This Week” beginning in August. When you travel around the world, Amanpour is an even bigger star for the network than she is to American viewers. CNN simply doesn’t have anyone with close to her star power and gravitas.
–Vietnam veteran and United States Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) is distressed over the findings I wrote of the other week on how use of antidepressants and other drugs for treating mental health issues has skyrocketed in the military, so he’s asked that the idea of rescinding the ban on alcohol in war zones be studied as a way of relieving stress.
But many in the field in Afghanistan don’t think this would be a good idea. One captain said it would be “opening the door” to potential problems, “like a guy who doesn’t drink maybe selling his, or maybe guys fight over it. I think we all love beer, but there’s a time and place for it – and it’s not here.” [Army Times]
–I have been a huge fan of Tom Hanks. Future generations of Americans will have their views of World War II shaped by his work, such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Band of Brothers,” and now “The Pacific,” the first installment of which last Sunday was terrific. Hanks and co-producer/director Steven Spielberg deserve a ton of credit for their treatments of the topic.
And so like everyone else I do not understand his statements that the war in the Pacific was one of “racism and terror,” and that while the Japanese “were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different….Does that sound familiar to what’s going on today?”
I agree with conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson who labeled Hanks’ musings as those of an “ignoramus.” Hanks’ comparisons of the Pacific theater with the current war on terror are ludicrous. For starters, ask the Chinese and South Koreans about their impressions of the Japanese during this period.
–I’m biting my tongue about the Old Bridge, New Jersey woman, Donna Simpson, who weighs over 600 pounds and wants to get to over 1,000; just understand her weekly food bill amounts to $750 a week, which some idiots are supposedly supplying her through donations.
–Lastly, there are two topics I try and avoid at all costs in writing this column, abortion and religion (though of course any discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict is linked to the latter). I think it was just once before that I felt compelled to comment on the Catholic Church, of which I am a member, and the priest/sexual abuse scandal. Last week, even though the latest iteration of the story was breaking, I chose to invoke my “24-hour rule.” “Week in Review” is not a blog in the truest sense of that word. I will not change the format to offer instantaneous, and thus often erroneous, commentary just because others pepper the Net with their views in that fashion. I will never Tweet. I’m more than busy as it is to then be slave to this convention. I am, however, working on a daily news format that I still hope to launch sometime in May, if not first week in June, but more on that as the time approaches.
But the calls for Pope Benedict XVI to, in essence, ‘come clean’ on his role in the sexual abuse scandal back in his home nation of Germany when he was archbishop are deeply troubling. At the same time, Ireland continues to be wracked by tales of a cover-up involving priests and thousands of children there. Cardinal Sean Brady was forced to apologize for his role in the scandal as part of his St. Patrick’s Day homily. Pope Benedict said he was “deeply concerned” over the cases in Ireland, which he admitted had “severely shaken” the Church.
Roman Catholic officials, in defending the pope’s handling of the topic, have asserted that abuse cases are no more prevalent in the Church than in the rest of society. German lawmakers, though, are looking at legislation that would extend the statues of limitations, currently a maximum of 20 years from adulthood for criminal cases and three years for civil cases. In the case where an abusive priest was assigned to a pastoral position about 20 years ago when Benedict was then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican has yet to offer a clear statement, at least as I go to post. Some cases in Germany involve a choir once led by the pope’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger.
There is only one way to put it…the stories are horrible and depressing. I may or may not report more next time, depending on what the pope’s letter to the Catholic Church of Ireland contains, one that is to be read at Sunday Mass there.
For now, understand I was a member of my parish council back in the 1990s, but had real problems with the Church after 9/11, literally, when I confronted our monsignor (a good man) about a priest who gave a homily on 9/12 and didn’t even mention the terror of the day before. I also questioned the priest’s presence for other reasons. Let’s just say the guy was gone shortly thereafter at a time when the scandal was coming to the forefront.
Today, I go to Mass on few occasions, like Holy Thursday. I do, however, still have faith and what is hurtful about this topic is that there is so much good that the Catholic Church has done, worldwide. And in my case, were it not for the Church, I would not have had the opportunity to touch some lives the way I have on the island of Yap in Micronesia.
It was back in the mid-1990s when I walked into the Jesuit Mission Bureau in Manhattan and announced to no one in particular, ‘I want to do something special.’ Father Bill, of whom I’ve written before, including last week, said, ‘Let’s build a church on Yap,’ as he explained the natives had lost their wooden one in a typhoon. And so we did, thanks to my funding. I have since visited Yap three times and a stone church is now in place there. It’s a long, hard trip, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever return, especially seeing as my good friend, Sister Joanne (who ironically I heard from on Friday), is retiring from her work there this November. But when I’m on my deathbed, hopefully pretty far down the road, I imagine one of my last thoughts, in weighing the good and bad of my life, will be the church on a beautiful island in the Pacific. I’m proud of it, but it’s all because of my Catholic faith and being led to the Jesuits.
Father Bill and I used to have extensive discussions on the abuse issue. We haven’t gotten together in awhile as he is now ministering to the needs of retired priests at Fordham University. But he used to tell me, seeing how distressed I was, that us Catholics had “to take the Church back.” I’m just not so sure that in my lifetime this is possible. But it won’t stop me from praying.
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces, and all the fallen.
Gold closed at $1107
Oil, $80.68
Returns for the week 3/15-3/19
Dow Jones +1.1% [10742]
S&P 500 +0.9% [1159]
S&P MidCap +0.2%
Russell 2000 -0.4%
Nasdaq +0.3% [2374]
Returns for the period 1/1/10-3/19/10
Dow Jones +3.0%
S&P 500 +4.0%
S&P MidCap +8.0%
Russell 2000 +7.8%
Nasdaq +4.6%
Bulls 46.1
Bears 21.3 [Source: Chartcraft / Investors Intelligence]
