tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64346553863540333302024-03-04T20:10:54.011-08:00Issues And AnswersJoel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-18843713920493037962019-08-03T08:43:00.000-07:002019-08-03T08:46:54.625-07:00Making History<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>American Heritage'</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>April / May 1982</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bernard Weisberger</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;">It is hard to remember a decade when Theodore White has not been reporting on the sweep of current events in some best-selling book: </span><span class="typestyle" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;">Thunder Out of China</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"> in 1946, Fire in the Ashes (on Europe’s postwar resurgence) in 1953, and, since 1961, quadrennial narrations of our most exciting political drama, </span><span class="typestyle" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;">The Making of the President</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"> . There have also been two widely enjoyed novels, a great many articles, and an autobiography, </span><span class="typestyle" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;">In Search of History</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"> . Mr. White was completing his final “President” book when visited in his New York townhouse and lamented that he was “drowning in words” Words have been his comfort and his bread and butter since his days as an impecunious scholarship holder at the Boston Latin School and Harvard. He poured them out in a zestful, energetic stream that blended journalistic professionalism and a still-sustained excitement over his work.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Why are you ending the Making of the President series with 1980?</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">First of all, I am now the oldest man on the campaign trail and I can’t run as fast as I did twenty-five years ago. And being on the campaign trail is an obsolete thing because you’re only putting on scenarios for television. The campaign used to be “out there.” Now the playing field is a square about twenty inches wide.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But actually I announced when I began the series that I would end it in 1980. I thought that if I started with a book on the 1960 campaign and its background I’d actually have a quarter of a century of American politics on record if I went through to 1980. I was thrown off stride, as was the country, by the Nixon resignation in 1974. I simply had to do a book, <span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Breach of Faith</span> , on the first President thrown out of office, and I finished that too late for me to do the 1976 campaign. But I’ve returned to the original plan, to show twenty-five years of politics changing within the culture.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The full title of this book is <span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;">America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956-1980</span> . If the cultural change in this country in those years had been accompanied by bloodshed or insurgency, we would have called it an American revolution.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can you elaborate on that a bit?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I could pour it out for hours. We start with that great thing called civil rights—an upheaval long overdue and necessary. But no one knew that at the end of the road of liberating the black there was going to be affirmative action and goals and quotas. We couldn’t see that for every step forward we took, every reform we pushed through, we established a new government control, shoving us toward a vast centralization of American life. Then, in our efforts to give each group its share of privileges, we piled items into the national budget as if money weren’t money. Programs were passed as if they were vending machines; you put the money in and out comes the candy at the other end. Everybody’s getting his piece, but these promises stack up to more than we can fulfill, and this is partly—only partly, to be sure—why we get inflation.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Is inflation the biggest change?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It’s the most mean and corrosive factor in American life today. The speculators and the fast-buck people and hustlers are getting rich, but the average man who works for a salary is not making it any more. The Baby Ruth candy bar has shrunk to a comma; the house you used to buy in Levittown has shrunk to a cottage.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What other basic changes have there been?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The very real loss of American power. Eisenhower could send a couple of battalions of Marines to Lebanon in 1958, they were out in six weeks, and we’d pacified the Middle East. But this 1980 campaign opened on November 4, 1979, exactly one year before election day, with the seizure of American hostages in Iran, and we could do nothing but grovel to get them out. We cannot now defend all the perimeters and borders we’ve undertaken to guard.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What’s happened, speaking as a liberal, is that we have lived through a period when we liberals have been unable to distinguish between our triumphs and our failures.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Was the election of 1980, then, a reaction to liberal overreaching and subsequent failure?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was an expression of frustration at the fact that Americans no longer control their own destiny. Politics is how ordinary Americans control their lives. You vote for Franklin Roosevelt, you cure the Depression. You vote for him again, he knocks off Hitler. You vote for Ike, you get peace. Now you have the sense that no matter how you vote, it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. You can’t control where your child goes to school, you can’t control your taxes, you can’t get the hostages out of a barbarian country, you can’t control the price of hamburger. People voted against those beliefs of ours that didn’t work. In that sense an era came to an end.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">You’ve covered revolution and civil war in China, the rebirth of Europe under the Marshall Plan, and a quarter-century of U.S. politics. Is there any common thread to those stories?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’m afraid the answer has to sound like a cliché. The common thread is the druglike effect of power. Power transforms people. Some of the sweetest and most decent humans I’ve known, once they’ve got the power in their hands, become bastards, transformed in spirit and personality. Take the Chinese communists—you would have had to see them in their guerrilla days, hungry, in straw sandals, giving up their lives to fight the Japanese and the Kuomintang. Yet eventually they ate each other up, they tormented each other, they became killers. I’ve seen the same thing elsewhere. The British Labor party had wonderful people when I first knew them; now their leaders have become doctrinaire, arrogant.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">How do you deal with the problem of getting to know candidates and would-be candidates as personal friends. Doesn’t it soften your critical edge?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It’s an inescapable problem. You’ve got your choice with a candidate—either not talk to the guy at all, not knowing what his tics and tempers are like, so you write about him from the outside, or seek his friendship, and then a certain kind of empathy builds up. And mind you, anyone who becomes President is like a beauty queen who has survived fifty local contests. They’re all charming, they all want to charm you. They’re irresistible. That includes Richard Nixon. When he wanted to attract you he could. Then when it comes time to write a book like <span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Breach of Faith</span> , you have to cut his throat, and it’s tough.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’ve met people who, to this day, entrance me. Kennedy did; Jean Monnet did; Stilwell did. I was devoted to Chou En-lai, even after I realized he was a ruthless communist tyrant. He took me in when I was a free-lance kid and the only person I could interview was this shabby communist in a shabby headquarters, and he took a great deal of interest in teaching me all the ins and outs of Chinese politics. I’ll be grateful forever for the kindness, even though he turned out to be one of those who are seized by power.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It’s a problem I’ve found no solution to; I do the best I can.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Where do you draw the line between journalism and history?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Journalists are the handmaidens of history. We offer up our reportage and then, twenty years later, when time has burned off all the details, the historians say what was important and what was not. Thucydides was the first historian, but he was first of all a journalist. He says—I paraphrase from memory- “I’ve written about these battles, in most of which I’ve participated myself, and I’ve written down the speeches as I heard them, and when I was not present I have written down what I think they would have said had I been there. ”</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What other big cultural changes do you see in America?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The dissolution of communities, thanks to the auto, television, suburbia. Hubert Humphrey told me in an interview before he died that the biggest emotional problem today was loneliness. There are more lonely Americans today than ever before; old people in barracks for the aged, young people in barracks for singles.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There’s also the recrudescence of a religious thrust in American life: a number of former divinity students like Gary Hart or David Stockman in politics now, Jimmy Carter’s deeprooted Christianity, the Moral Majority. I don’t try to date it in the book, just glance at it.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span class="typestyle" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can you summarize what you’ve done in your campaign books overall?</span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer><question style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></question><answer style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f;"></answer></span><br /></span>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’ve attempted to pin episodes against the flow of history. I’ve seen so many episodes, known so many men … which are important? Can you catch that particular episode that shows what has gone before, what’s going to happen next? I’ve tried to show all of these guys scissored, trapped, squeezed by forces of history that they themselves don’t comprehend—how they were hit by these forces as they paraded across the scene, how they handled them, and how the American people made their judgment.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-72509580695706390222016-05-29T15:19:00.003-07:002016-05-29T15:20:06.518-07:00College Isn’t Always the Answer<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #535353;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Plenty of alternatives can prepare young people to enter
the workforce.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By Jeffewy J. Selingo<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">May 26, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626;">During this particularly rancorous election season, at
least one bipartisan consensus persists: More Americans, we are told, need to
earn undergraduate degrees. The political debate tends to focus on the best way
to graduate more people with less debt. But it makes little sense to send more
students to college</span><span style="color: #535353;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626;">when nearly half of new graduates are working jobs that
don’t require a bachelor’s degree, according to </span><a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci20-1.pdf"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">a 2014 report
from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York</span></a>.<span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It would be better to reconsider the entire issue. There’s
a disconnect between supply (what the education system produces) and demand
(what employers seek). Rather than trying to shuffle young people off to
college three months after they graduate from high school, policy makers should
support alternative routes to the education and training required for
high-quality jobs. Plenty of successful examples have sprung up around the
country.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Siemans and other manufacturers, for example, developed a high-school apprenticeship
program in North Carolina when they couldn’t find enough workers with advanced
skills. After completing a three-year apprenticeship, the students leave with
an associate degree and a $55,000 starting salary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">John Deere runs a similar program at Walla Walla Community
College in Washington state. Students are trained to fix million-dollar farm
equipment, which allows them to use their hands and advanced math and
mechanical skills. High-school guidance counselors, who are evaluated on the
proportion of students they send to four-year universities, may discourage such
choices.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It might also be helpful if more high-school graduates took
a “gap year” before heading off to college. Too often they pick a field of
study based on what’s familiar, with little exposure to many of the jobs that
exist today. Having high-school graduates take time to explore careers before
college—through internships or national service—gives them a sense of focus and
purpose. It likely saves money in the long run too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While not a traditional gap year, a program in Baltimore
called BridgeEdU bills itself as a reinvention of the freshman experience. It
offers college credits, internships and coaching for under $8,000.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The number of teenagers who have some sort of job while in
school has dropped to 20% in 2013 from about 45% in 1998, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Once in college, students need to combine education
with relevant work experience. Otherwise, they know little about the workplace
before they land their first full-time job after graduation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More colleges should embrace the idea of cooperative
education. At universities such as Northeastern and Drexel, students alternate
between the classroom and the job. Co-ops are part of the undergraduate
experience at these institutions, and paid work makes up anywhere from
one-third to almost half of the time a student spends in school. Co-op
education helps students develop a tolerance for ambiguity in their work, which
so many employers say today’s college graduates lack.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Many who earn a bachelor’s degree are not prepared to enter
the workforce. A new learning ecosystem is emerging outside of traditional
higher education to assist them. General Assembly offers courses on topics like
Web design, and Koru teaches practical business skills. Students can also use
free or inexpensive online courses from edX and Lynda.com to build skills that
can help them get that first job.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is no silver bullet for reducing unemployment and
reversing wage stagnation. Sending more high-school graduates to get
traditional bachelor’s degrees, free or not, isn’t the answer. Embracing some
of these locally tested ideas on a national scale would be a good start.</span><span style="font-family: "font"; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "font"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Mr.
Selingo, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, is the author of
“There Is Life After College: What Parents and Students Should Know About
Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow” (William Morrow, 2016).</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-69178179800511368962014-12-10T08:16:00.002-08:002014-12-10T08:16:52.552-08:00Jim Swink, TCU’s two-time All-American ‘Rusk Rambler,’ dies at age 78<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>By: Carlos Mendez</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Fort Worth Star Telegram</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>December 4, 2014</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In one of its best football seasons, TCU has lost one of its football legends.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Jim Swink, who as a swift, lanky East Texas teen-ager helped the Horned Frogs win the Southwest Conference championship in 1955, died Wednesday at his home in Rusk. He was 78.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Because of his swerving, evasive running style, Dr. Swink was known as “The Rusk Rambler.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Despite being an All-American running back as a junior and senior and finishing second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1955, he opted out of an NFL career. His 8.2 yards-per-carry average in 1955 led the nation and is still the school record. His 2,618 career yards rank ninth on the school list.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“He was a guy basically, with Davey O’Brien and Sammy Baugh, that put TCU on the map,” said current Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson, whose team could win a share of the Big 12 championship Saturday. “The thing about Jim Swink and others that have been in our past is they are our past, they are our history, and you have to be proud of it.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dr. Swink was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1980 and into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame in 2000. He won the Doak Walker Legends Award in 2005.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“He was one of the five best players in TCU history and should have won the Heisman,” said Dan Jenkins, a TCU alum, football historian and writer when Swink won the Walker award.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But he opted out of the NFL and went to medical school. He was drafted into the Army in 1966 and served in Vietnam as a medic, returning in 1968 as a captain with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He was an orthopedic surgeon for 35 years in Fort Worth, practicing mainly at Huguley Memorial Medical Center. In 2006 after a stroke, he returned to Rusk, where he grew up, and continued to practice.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dr. Swink told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-</span></span><span class="italic" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Telegram </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">he did not expect to win the Walker Award.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Some people have said I’ve always been a legend in my own mind,” he said. “This is a surprise. I thought my days of getting awards had come and gone.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dr. Swink led the nation in rushing in 1955 with 1,283 yards on just 157 carries, and he scored 18 touchdowns as the Horned Frogs went 9-2 and finished with a No. 5 national ranking.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over five seasons starting in 1955, TCU won or shared three Southwest Conference titles, played in three Cotton Bowls and one Bluebonnet Bowl, and posted three top-10 finishes. Its record included a victory against Syracuse and Jim Brown in 1957 as Dr. Swink, recruited by Abe Martin, helped usher in one of the most successful eras in Horned Frogs history.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Much of what we accomplished didn’t seem such a big deal at the time,” Swink told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-Telegram </span>in 2000 before his induction into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame. “It was just a part of the overall experience of getting a college education. It was also a more innocent time, and we were mostly kids from small towns who hadn’t seen much of the world. It was also the one-platoon era, where you could build a competitive program with a lot fewer people than it takes today.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">His wife, Jeannie Swink, said her husband was proud of one accomplishment more than others.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“He was most proud of being an Academic All-American,” she told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tyler Morning Telegraph</span>. “He was proud of all of his accomplishments, but he was especially proud of that.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It makes sense that academic determination kept Swink from pursuing an NFL career. Rather than put his time into becoming a pro player, the pre-med student stuck with his med-school studies and residency.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“The Bears drafted me, and it was tempting,” he told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-Telegram.</span> “George Halas used to call me up and talk for an hour. He’d say, ‘I need someone up here who doesn’t fumble the ball.’ But I just couldn’t fit it into my schedule.’</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He did try pro football for a year, signing with the Dallas Texans in 1960. But it only confirmed what he feared.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I just couldn’t do it full time,” he said. “I probably would have played longer if it were possible, but it just wouldn’t work.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Born March 14, 1936, in Sacul, he moved to Rusk at age 13 to live with Obie and Grace Walker after his mother became ill with tuberculosis. He was a standout athlete in high school and chose TCU in part because the school would let him play both football and basketball.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He never lost his allegiance to TCU football, although his health prevented him from traveling to recent games.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“He religiously followed them,” Jeannie Swink said. “He watched the Rose Bowl on television. His chair was right in front of the television, and Jim was always someone who didn’t set in one place for very long. But when TCU was playing, especially if they were playing good, he didn’t move.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dr. Swink certainly would have been watching on Saturday, when the Horned Frogs take on Iowa State with a chance to share a Big 12 title and reach the first College Football Playoff. TCU is ranked third, and the top four teams qualify.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“All those people, they all become friends,” Patterson said. “Everybody’s invested, whether they’re close to you here or far. They’re invested. His family, like anybody else, they’ve been very excited about everything that’s been going on here.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span class="tagline_contrib" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>This report includes material from the Tyler Morning Telegraph.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: 1px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 1px;">
<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/12/03/6338515/jim-swink-tcus-two-time-all-american.html?storylink=addthis#.VIDRyGA3pCc.facebook&rh=1#storylink=cpy</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: 1px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 1px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: 1px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: none; width: 1px;">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
He was an orthopedic surgeon for 35 years in Fort Worth, practicing mainly at Huguley Memorial Medical Center. In 2006 after a stroke, he returned to Rusk, where he grew up, and continued to practice.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Dr. Swink told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-Telegram </span>he did not expect to win the Walker Award.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“Some people have said I’ve always been a legend in my own mind,” he said. “This is a surprise. I thought my days of getting awards had come and gone.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Dr. Swink led the nation in rushing in 1955 with 1,283 yards on just 157 carries, and he scored 18 touchdowns as the Horned Frogs went 9-2 and finished with a No. 5 national ranking.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Over five seasons starting in 1955, TCU won or shared three Southwest Conference titles, played in three Cotton Bowls and one Bluebonnet Bowl, and posted three top-10 finishes. Its record included a victory against Syracuse and Jim Brown in 1957 as Dr. Swink, recruited by Abe Martin, helped usher in one of the most successful eras in Horned Frogs history.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“Much of what we accomplished didn’t seem such a big deal at the time,” Swink told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-Telegram </span>in 2000 before his induction into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame. “It was just a part of the overall experience of getting a college education. It was also a more innocent time, and we were mostly kids from small towns who hadn’t seen much of the world. It was also the one-platoon era, where you could build a competitive program with a lot fewer people than it takes today.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
His wife, Jeannie Swink, said her husband was proud of one accomplishment more than others.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“He was most proud of being an Academic All-American,” she told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tyler Morning Telegraph</span>. “He was proud of all of his accomplishments, but he was especially proud of that.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
It makes sense that academic determination kept Swink from pursuing an NFL career. Rather than put his time into becoming a pro player, the pre-med student stuck with his med-school studies and residency.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“The Bears drafted me, and it was tempting,” he told the <span class="italic" style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Star-Telegram.</span> “George Halas used to call me up and talk for an hour. He’d say, ‘I need someone up here who doesn’t fumble the ball.’ But I just couldn’t fit it into my schedule.’</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
He did try pro football for a year, signing with the Dallas Texans in 1960. But it only confirmed what he feared.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“I just couldn’t do it full time,” he said. “I probably would have played longer if it were possible, but it just wouldn’t work.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Born March 14, 1936, in Sacul, he moved to Rusk at age 13 to live with Obie and Grace Walker after his mother became ill with tuberculosis. He was a standout athlete in high school and chose TCU in part because the school would let him play both football and basketball.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
He never lost his allegiance to TCU football, although his health prevented him from traveling to recent games.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“He religiously followed them,” Jeannie Swink said. “He watched the Rose Bowl on television. His chair was right in front of the television, and Jim was always someone who didn’t set in one place for very long. But when TCU was playing, especially if they were playing good, he didn’t move.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Dr. Swink certainly would have been watching on Saturday, when the Horned Frogs take on Iowa State with a chance to share a Big 12 title and reach the first College Football Playoff. TCU is ranked third, and the top four teams qualify.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
“All those people, they all become friends,” Patterson said. “Everybody’s invested, whether they’re close to you here or far. They’re invested. His family, like anybody else, they’ve been very excited about everything that’s been going on here.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.4799995422363px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span class="tagline_contrib" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This report includes material from the Tyler Morning Telegraph.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; height: 1px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; width: 1px;">
<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/12/03/6338515/jim-swink-tcus-two-time-all-american.html?storylink=addthis#.VIDRyGA3pCc.facebook&rh=1#storylink=cpy</div>
<br />
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/12/03/6338515/jim-swink-tcus-two-time-all-american.html?storylink=addthis#.VIDRyGA3pCc.facebook&rh=1#storylink=cpy</div>
Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-34072729198474588062014-12-10T08:05:00.004-08:002014-12-10T08:09:08.575-08:00TCU: The Texas-Size Might of the Horned Frogs<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;"><b>How the Big 12’s Smallest School Became Texas’s Biggest Power</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;">By: Jonathan Clegg</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;">The Wall Street Journal</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;">November 6, 2014</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Whitney SSm', sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fort Worth, Texas</span></em><br />
<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When Gary Patterson took over as coach of Texas Christian University’s football team in 2000, he didn’t set out to make the school a fixture in the rankings. He sure wasn’t thinking about national championships.</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">His first priority back then: Try to establish TCU as the <em style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">second</em>-favorite college team in town.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“We’ve got all these Texas and Texas A&M and Oklahoma grads here, but these are people that love football,” Patterson said shortly after he was promoted from defensive coordinator to the Horned Frogs’ head coach. “If we can touch this community, they will put purple jerseys on and buy season tickets and come to our games.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That vision has been validated. When the sixth-ranked Horned Frogs host No. 7 Kansas State on Saturday, a matchup with implications for the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff, they will play in front of another sellout crowd, their third of the season.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But along the way, something far greater has taken place here. This tiny private school of about 10,000 students that merely wanted to be its town’s No. 2 team has become the top college-football program in the state of Texas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I’m blown away by it,” said Bill Prater, a 1950 TCU graduate and member of the booster club. “Sometimes I can’t quite believe how far we’ve come.”</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Barely 20 years ago, TCU had been so dismal for so long that even within Texas, the school had become derisively known as “TC Who?” It seemed that the Frogs were doomed to become perpetual also-rans among the now-dozen Division I college football programs that dot the state.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 1996, the scandal-prone Southwest Conference broke up, leaving TCU with a murky future. Although TCU had been a member of the SWC since 1923, it pointedly wasn’t invited to join the newly formed Big 12, which instead welcomed Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and even Baylor, a private school with a modest football history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Left out to dry, TCU was forced to join the far-flung Western Athletic Conference.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“There was incredible anger about that,” said Dan Jenkins, a Fort Worth-based sportswriter and novelist who graduated from TCU in 1953. “The general feeling was that Baylor’s football history wouldn’t make a pimple on TCU’s a—.”</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Founded in nearby Thorp Springs in 1873 as AddRan Male and Female College (after founders Addison and Randolph Clark), the school moved to Waco in 1895 before a group of Fort Worth businessmen, with help from the town’s Christian churches, finally lured the renamed Texas Christian University to its present site in 1910 with a gift of $200,000, plus the plot of land on which the campus now sits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over the course of its football history, TCU has produced two national championships, 17 conference titles and 30 All-Americans, including legends like Sammy Baugh and Davey O’Brien, the 1938 Heisman Trophy winner.</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But by the time the SWC dissolved, those achievements had long been overshadowed by a recruiting scandal in the 1980s that saw the program placed on probation. TCU mustered only five winning seasons between 1966 and 1997. A losing culture developed, producing cheers like “Two, four, six, eight! Score before we graduate!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“And this on the campus of a school that had been the first Texas team to play in the Cotton Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl,” Jenkins said. “Those dark days of the ’70s and ’80s, I’m glad I missed most of them by living in New York.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How TCU has returned to prominence is partly owed to the growth of television coverage of college football. The pursuit of TV money by schools and conferences has sparked a wave of conference membership changes in recent years. That has propelled the Frogs on a 16-year, five-conference odyssey, which culminated in an invitation to join the Big 12 in 2012—reuniting with Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor, three of their old SWC rivals.</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But it also has something to do with the singular talents of Patterson. In 13 seasons as coach, he has led TCU to 11 bowl games, including a historic Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin in 2011 that capped an undefeated season.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“To whom or what do I attribute the rise of our football program?” said university chancellor Victor Boschini Jr. “Easy answer: coach Patterson.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This season could turn out to be the finest of Patterson’s career. Having seen his team struggle to a 11-12 mark in its first two seasons in the Big 12—including a 6-12 record in conference play—Patterson ditched his favored ball-control offense in favor of a fast-break scheme designed to keep up with the conference’s turbocharged attacks. The results have been remarkable. The Frogs average 550 yards per game this season and rank third nationally in total offense, up from 345 yards and 106th overall in 2013.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Geography also has played its part. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is a rich area for high-school recruits, allowing TCU to compile top-50 recruiting classes in each of the past six years. It is also a rich area for rich donors. The school’s $164 million refurbishment of its 84-year-old Amon G. Carter Stadium, which is near completion, was entirely funded by private donations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“The whole thing, debt-free—isn’t that phenomenal?” said TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte. “We call it the Camden Yards of college football.”</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For all that, the most important foundations laid down in recent years may be those that Patterson built with the community that has come to embrace his team.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">From the start of his tenure, Patterson has focused on recruiting local players to strengthen the connection between the town and the team. Of his 273 recruits since 2000, 74 hailed from the Metroplex area. Only 48 have come from out of state</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">.</span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In his first season, he established “Bleacher Creatures,” a program in which hundreds of kids are given a TCU jersey and a chance to run onto the field with the team before the start of each home game. In 2011, defensive tackle David Johnson became the first former Bleacher Creature to play for the Horned Frogs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now, with TCU at 7-1 and poised to make a run at a playoff berth and a shot at a national championship, those efforts are paying off. Hours before last month’s sellout 82-27 win over Texas Tech, TCU’s Frog Alley was crammed with fans in purple jerseys—even if some of them admitted they didn’t really belong there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I didn’t even go to school here,” said Mandy Brown, a 2006 Texas Tech graduate who was wearing a purple TCU home jersey and matching cowboy boots. “But my family are all in Fort Worth and this is our team, you know?”</span></div>
Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-12898628700214224612014-08-04T07:06:00.000-07:002014-08-04T15:19:03.042-07:00The Grifting Wing v. The Governing Wing<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>While the Tea Party is busy lining their pockets, the rest of the Republicans are actually trying to get things done</b>.</span></span></div>
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">By Steve LaTourette</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Politico</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>August 3, 2014</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: proxima-nova, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Vocabulary.com defines a grifter as: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">A grifter is a con artist—someone who swindles people out of money through fraud. If there’s one type of person you don’t want to trust, it’s a grifter: Someone who cheats someone out of money</em>.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Historically, grifters have taken many shapes. They were the snake-oil salesmen who rolled into town promising a magical, cure-all elixir at a price. The grifter was long gone by the time people discovered the magical elixir was no more magical than water. They were the sideshow con men offering fantastic prizes in games that were rigged so that no one could actually win them. They were the Ponzi scheme operators who got rich promising fantastically high investment returns but returning nothing for those sorry investors at the bottom of the pyramid.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Over the last few years we have seen the rise of a new grifter—the political grifter. And the most important battle being waged today isn’t the one about which party controls the House or the Senate, it’s about who controls the Republican Party: the grifting wing or the governing wing.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p3Global" id="widgetMagazineGlobalSponsoredContent" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Today’s political grifters are a lot like the grifters of old—lining their pockets with the hard-earned money of working men and women be promising things in return that they know they can’t deliver.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Political grifting is a lucrative business. Groups like the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots are run by men and women who have made millions by playing on the fears and anger about the dysfunction in Washington. My former House colleague Chris Chocola is pocketing a half-million dollars a year heading the Club for Growth; same for Matt Kibbe heading up FreedomWorks (and I don’t think Kibbe’s salary includes the infamous craft beer bar that FreedomWorks donors ended up paying for). The Tea Party Patriots pay their head, Jenny Beth Martin, almost as much. These people have lined their pockets by promising that if you send them money, they will send men and women to Washington who can “fix it.” Of course, in the ultimate con, the always extreme and often amateurish candidates these groups back either end up losing to Democrats or they come to Washington and actually make the process even more dysfunctional.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Just look at what happened this past week, when hard-right House members with extensive ties to these outside groups, egged on by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, snarled up a sensible effort to pass a bill that would at least begin to address the crisis of undocumented children at the U.S.-Mexico border. It was an embarrassing display of congressional dysfunction, and it showed that the grifting wing has learned nothing from last fall’s shutdown fiasco.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The grifting wing of the party promises that you can have ideological purity—that you don’t have to compromise—and, of course, all you have to do is send them money to make it happen. The governing wing of the Republican Party knows that’s a damn lie. Our Founding Fathers set up a system of government that by its very nature excludes the possibility of one party or one ideological wing of one party getting everything it wants. Ted Cruz, who quotes the founders almost every chance he gets, ought to know this.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Even Ronald Reagan—who won in two of the biggest landslides in American history—was forced to compromise. It was President Reagan who cut deals with Democrats to extend the solvency of Social Security and put the federal budget on a sounder footing. It was Reagan who famously said that someone who votes with him 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally. Reagan’s record and rhetoric stands in marked contrast to the grifting win of the party today, even as the grifters invoke his memory in their disingenuous appeals.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The governing wing of the Republican Party understands that compromise is not the root of all evil in Washington—indeed, it is the essential ingredient in moving forward any set of conservative policies like those that Reagan fought for.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">While the grifters hold a great deal of sway over the Republican Party for now, they are not the majority—not by a long shot. As with any good Ponzi scheme, there are relatively few grifters; the challenge is exposing their scam.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p3Global" id="widgetMagazineGlobalSponsoredContent" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Exposing the grifters is exactly what is happening in the Republican Party today. Groups like the organization that I head, groups like the Chamber of Commerce, business groups and traditional Republican organizations are working to run the political snake-oil salesman out of town—or at least out of our party.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This isn’t about ideology. The Republican Party is a conservative party. This fight is about whether we will govern or continue to let the grifters profit off of the dysfunction in Washington.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Our beef isn’t with the rank and file Tea Party members, either. We understand their justifiable frustration with Washington. Our beef is with the grifters who run the organizations in Washington that are fleecing these hardworking men and women.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">We face serious challenges in this country today. America is piling up mountains of debt that threaten the long-term solvency of our country. Our economy continues to struggle to create enough jobs to keep pace with population growth. We have a broken, overly complicated tax code. We face serious, dangerous threats abroad from old enemies and new ones. If the Republican Party is going to be a part of finding solutions to these challenges—and I know it can be—then it is time for grassroots Republicans to say no to the grifters and yes to governing again.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The good news is that it appears that the grifters are running short on time. Unlike in previous election cycles, in primary after primary— from Ohio to Idaho to Kentucky to Mississippi—rank-and-file Republicans haven’t bought what the grifters are selling.</span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-size: large;">If we are to have a shot at winning the White House in 2016 and actually implementing conservative policies – rather than just fundraising off of talking about them—then this is a trend that must continue. It’s time to run the grifters out of our town.</span></div>
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Read more: <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/tea-party-grifters-109675_Page2.html#ixzz39SqqoLMc" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.25s ease; box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.25s ease;">http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/tea-party-grifters-109675_Page2.html#ixzz39SqqoLMc</a></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<footer class="author-bio" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><i><b>Steve LaTourette is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Ohio’s 14th district who now heads the Main Street Partnership.</b></i></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: proxima-nova, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b>http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/tea-party-grifters-109675.html#ixzz39NzHDw4j</b></span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: proxima-nova, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></div>
</footer><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-83714174189032350092014-04-30T07:28:00.000-07:002014-04-30T07:28:23.635-07:00Governments Grab for the Web<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By L Gordon Grovitz</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wall Street Journal </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">April 29, 2014</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Obama administration still
doesn't seem to understand the whirlwind it reaped with its decision to give up
stewardship of the open Internet. The first Internet governance conference
since that surprise March announcement was held last week. The State Department
issued a statement before the conference urging everyone to avoid the issue:
"We would discourage meeting participants from debating the reach or
limitations of state sovereignty in Internet policy."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But deciding who gets to
govern the Internet was precisely why many attendees from 80 countries came to
last week's NetMundial conference in Brazil.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The host country's leftist president, Dilma Rousseff, opened the
conference by declaring: "The participation of governments should occur
with equality so that no country has more weight than others." The Russian
representative objected to "the control of one government," calling
for the United Nations to decide "international norms and other standards
on Internet governance." Last week Vladimir Putin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>called the Internet a "CIA
project" and said "we must purposefully fight for our
interests."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Authoritarian regimes want to
control the Internet to preserve their power. "National sovereignty should
rule Internet policy and governance," the Chinese representative said.
"Each government should build its own infrastructure, undertake its own
governance and enforce its own laws." The Saudi Arabian delegate said:
"International public policy in regard to the Internet is the right of
governments and that public policy should be developed by all governments on an
equal footing."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even nominal supporters
of the existing multi-stakeholder model embraced the end of Internet
self-governance. The delegate from India declared a greater role for the
world's governments "an imperative that can't be ignored." Neelie
Kroes of the European Commission said: "The Internet is now a global
resource demanding global governance."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Philip Corwin, a U.S.
lawyer who represents Internet companies, noted that 27 of the first 30
speakers at NetMundial were from governments or U.N. agencies—at a
"meeting supposedly conceived to strengthen the private-sector-led
multi-stakeholder, consensus-based policy-making model."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The conference produced a
"consensus" document that asserts: "The respective roles and
responsibilities of stakeholders should be interpreted in a flexible manner
with reference to the issue under discussion." Carl Bildt, Sweden's
foreign minister, offered this translation: "Governments are more equal
than other stakeholders when it comes to policy."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Internet ran smoothly
for 25 years because the U.S. ensured that the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, operated without government interference.
Authoritarian regimes can censor the Internet in their own countries and jail
their bloggers, but until now had no way to get control over the root zone
filenames and addresses of the global Internet. Handing over control could
allow them to undermine the open Internet globally, including Americans' access
to U.S. websites.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some open-Internet
advocacy groups realize it is light-handed U.S. control that has allowed what
political theorists would call the "ordered liberty" of Internet
self-governance. "Part of the strength of the Internet over the last
couple of decades has been that the technical aspects have not had direct
political or government interference," Thomas Hughes of the human-rights
group Article 19 told the BBC.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Michael Daniel, special
assistant to President Obama, declared without apparent irony that "from
the U.S. perspective, NetMundial was a huge success." But it's no
accomplishment when countries that have long sought power over the Internet
embrace the U.S. invitation for them to seize it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The NetMundial conference
was politicized from the start. It was held in Brazil as a favor to President
Rousseff after she objected when news broke that the National Security Agency
had listened in on her communications. But Sweden's Mr. Bildt pointed out at
the conference that "the issue of surveillance in no way relates to the
issues of the governance of the net." He added: "I'm stressing this
point because sometimes the debate on surveillance is used as an argument to
change the governance of the net."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Under bipartisan pressure
in Washington, the Obama administration was forced to backtrack during
congressional hearings earlier this month. Officials testified they won't
necessarily stick to their original September 2015 date for giving up protection
of the Internet. Officials said the issue could be pushed to 2019 and thus
decided by the next president. Many in Congress want an up-or-down vote on
ending U.S. control of the Internet, knowing lawmakers would reject the idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">President Obama should
revoke the plan to abandon the open Internet. The ugly spectacle of countries
jockeying to control the Internet is a timely reminder of why the U.S. should
never give them the chance.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-72891789685684094682013-06-21T13:19:00.000-07:002013-06-21T13:19:24.597-07:00How Adam Smith Revived America's Oil Patch <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>By Joel Kurtzman</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><strong></strong></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>Wall Street Journal </strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><strong></strong></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>June 20, 2013</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The debut of a new truck engine rarely attracts much attention. But this spring Cummins Inc. CMI -1.17% released two new truck engines worthy of notice: They are designed to run on natural gas, not diesel. Natural gas is abundant, domestically produced, cleaner and cheaper than oil-derived diesel. It could help set America free of foreign oil.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The natural-gas-powered ISL G and ISX 12 engines are the latest sign of the country's fundamental shift in energy resources and infrastructure. Cummins built its engines without a penny of government support—a reminder that free markets can solve problems that politicians argued about for decades but failed to fix.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Natural-gas reserves are plentiful but not always easy to recover. It took an individual entrepreneur, Texan George P. Mitchell, to perfect the technology of hydraulic fracturing beginning in the 1990s that has made so much more of the gas available. And fracking, it turns out, also can be used to recover oil from formations that could not previously be tapped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fracking technology is responsible for last year's 14% increase in oil production to 8.9 million barrels per day, the largest increase ever, and a massive, five-year increase in natural gas production, to 28 billion cubic feet a day from five billion in 2008. The increased supplies of both also are responsible for a drop in oil imports and declines in carbon-dioxide emissions to 1993 levels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have no idea what Mr. Mitchell's motivations were, but I'm confident that profits were at or near the top of the list. By serving his own interests, as Adam Smith put it more than 200 years ago, he served the interests of society. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The impetus for fracking cannot be found in four decades of presidential speeches about energy independence, or in any acts of Congress. Instead, it arose from economically painful spikes in oil prices engineered beginning in the 1970s by the OPEC cartel. High prices did what they always do—they set off a hunt both for substitutes and for more supplies to take advantage of high prices. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fracking technology addresses both issues by increasing supplies of oil and of its cleaner, cheaper substitute, natural gas. These two forces—the search for substitutes and the rush to cash in on high prices—will change the nation's economy profoundly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Another crucial factor contributed to the energy revolution. Plentiful oil and natural-gas reserves exist around the world, but the U.S. is far ahead of every other country in bringing those resources out of the ground and onto the market. The reason? America is one of the few countries where an individual or company can own the resources that lie beneath the ground. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Almost everywhere else—including even the United Kingdom—the rights to minerals of all kinds, including oil and natural gas, are claimed by the government. Unless the government wants you to drill, you might as well put your tools away. As a consequence, there is much less incentive to innovate. Why bother if you can't own what you produce, or you can't profit except at a bureaucrat's sufferance?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Today, because fracking is producing oil and natural gas at record levels, others are joining Cummins in getting into the act. Companies like T. Boone Pickens's Clean Energy Fuels are laying out a network of natural-gas filling stations on major U.S. highways so that trucks, using new engines, can fuel up. New pipelines, such as the one Spectra Energy proposes to connect New York and New Jersey, are in the works, in addition to the 16,000 miles of interstate natural-gas pipelines built over the past decade. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Most energy analysts, as well as big oil companies like Exxon, expect that the U.S. will become a net energy exporter between 2020 and 2030. When that happens, the $400 billion that Americans are on target to send overseas this year to pay for oil imports will shrink, perhaps to zero. A $400 billion swing from negative to neutral, or even to positive, in the energy trade balance is something no one would have predicted even a few years ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Letting markets do their work sometimes requires an act of faith. The temptation that many people have, especially in government, is to give those forces a shove in one direction or the other. But when people are allowed to use market signals to determine where and how to mobilize their creativity, resources, energy and effort, amazing things can happen. Abundant energy for the foreseeable future is one spectacular example. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Mr. Kurtzman is the executive director of the Milken Institute's Senior Fellows Program. </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-54513677761956140572011-07-02T17:49:00.000-07:002011-07-02T17:54:15.458-07:00Why the Old Jobs Aren't Coming Back<strong><span style="font-size:130%;">By: Michael spence</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The Wall Street Journal</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">June 24, 2011</span></strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Many have expressed shock at the recent U.S. employment data. But 9.1% unemployment shouldn't be a surprise. To address the jobs challenge, we must stop pretending that this is only a difficult cyclical recovery. The root of the problem is structural.<a name="U502457628568ZBF"></a><br /><br />During the two decades before the crisis of 2008-09, the U.S. economy added 27 million jobs, primarily in government, health care, construction, retail and hospitality. This employment growth was almost all in the "nontradable" side of the economy—sectors generating goods and services that must be consumed where they are produced. But several factors will depress these sectors. Government budget woes, a likely leveling-out of the dramatic growth in health-care consumption, and a permanent reduction in domestic consumption as asset prices reset downward and debt-financed purchases are reduced, will all have effects in the short-to-medium term.<br /><br />The "tradable" side of the economy (which includes exportable goods and services) has its own set of issues. While finance, consulting, computer design and managing complex international businesses all fueled job growth for 20 years, these gains were matched by declines in the manufacturing jobs held by the middle class. The very things that propped up our tradable sectors through the export market—high growth rates in emerging economies and a more educated consumer class in those countries—have challenged middle-class U.S. employees on the job front. Emerging markets are now increasingly moving up the value chain with improved skills, and it's likely that higher-paying jobs—including design and even product development—will move abroad in ever greater numbers.<br /><br />Multinational companies have benefited from these global supply-chain opportunities and from growing emerging-economy markets, but the effects for the U.S. have been mixed. Growth may be coming back slowly, but it is not bringing jobs with it.<br /><br />A stimulus package that temporarily restores elements of precrisis demand is unlikely to generate the escape velocity needed to get out of the jobs hole. Nontradable job growth can't mask the declines in the tradable sector any more. The structural problem demands a structural answer.<br /><br />Rebuilding the employment engine requires shifts in policy and process. On the policy side, we must expand the scope of the tradable sector. A short list of steps would include investments in infrastructure and education reform that emphasizes teaching productive skills, for example in advanced manufacturing sectors. Tax reform should aim for simplification and the elimination of biases against domestic investment for our multinational firms. It should also aim to help raise savings rates so we can finance our own investment. A value-added tax with an exemption for exports would enhance competitiveness. An energy policy focused on efficiency and security would create opportunities for investment and growth.<br /><br />In terms of process, business, government and labor must identify what each has to offer and needs to help expand the tradable sector. What will it take to keep more jobs in the U.S.? We might have to accept a period of lower income growth in order to restore competitiveness.<br /><br />A useful model is Germany, which limited wage and salary growth as part of a restructuring in the period 2000-05, allowing it to compete more effectively in exports and the tradable sector than other advanced countries.<br /><br />In addition, a broad public-private investment in advanced manufacturing and in energy- efficiency technologies can advance relatively high-income, capital-intensive job creation. Government co-investment can lower the private sector's cost and expand the employability of domestic citizens in the tradable sector.<br /><br />These structural solutions won't work, of course, without a plan to restore fiscal balance. A sovereign-debt crisis will abort any recovery. Right now, however, the policy discussion oscillates between balancing the budget and supporting a fragile economic recovery—mixed with puzzlement that employment figures are disobeying the rules of a normal cyclical recovery. Having a credible five-year fiscal plan would help avoid an excessively rapid withdrawal of government expenditure and investment from the demand side of the economy.<br /><br />Can business, government, educators and labor come together to tackle the structural employment challenge head-on? Some will say that in the present political and fiscal climate, this is highly unlikely. They may be right. But it is a choice, a collective choice. We can invest in future growth and employment of an inclusive kind, or not. If we do, it will take significant shared sacrifice.<br /><br /><em>Mr. Spence, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, is the author of "The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World," out last month from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. </em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-6861809550399003062011-05-29T15:37:00.001-07:002011-05-29T15:41:56.114-07:00The Building Blocks of a GOP AgendaBY: Daniel Henninger<br /><br />The Wall Street Journal<br /><br />May 26, 2011<br /><br />Leading governors and members of Congress know them: entitlement reform, fiscal restoration and lightly taxed long-term economic growth.<br /><br />The "smart money" says Barack Obama is cruising to re-election because of Republican disarray. Pick up a paper, visit a blog, turn on the TV or radio, and reports of Republican misadventure will engulf you:<br /><br />Mitch Daniels just said no. Newt Gingrich says too much. On Tuesday, voters in New York's normally Republican congressional district 26, near Buffalo and Rochester, "shocked" the political world by electing a Democrat. The smart money now says NY-26 means that if the Republicans run on Paul Ryan's Medicare reform proposal, they risk losing the presidency.<br /><br /><a name="U502367981825SNH"></a>The smart money is often stupid.<br /><br />Standing against the tornadoes of political spin isn't easy. But if the Republicans will step back from these storms, they'll see that the GOP prospect is in better shape than they think. A clear and defensible agenda for 2012 is being assembled outside the presidential campaigns.<br /><br />One Republican analyst of the GOP's NY-26 defeat said the takeaway is: "2010 is over." This is the opposite of the truth. That 2010 vote was the American public screaming at their elected officials to stop the country from hurtling toward fiscal and economic calamity.<br /><br />They're still screaming. A Washington Post poll out yesterday buttressed this core concern: Voters across the spectrum say their prime worry is what happens if Congress expands American indebtedness beyond $14.3 trillion. In their wisdom, the people suspect what will happen won't be good. Their vote in 2010 was the basis for a genuine Republican reform movement.<br /><br />Normally when the presidential entrepreneurs take over our politics, the parties recede. This means the parties end up yoked to whatever random, variable ideas their nominee patches together. The smoke-filled room has been replaced by hot-air trial balloons.<br /><br />Something new is happening this time. Since 2009, the Republican Party's best members have been constructing the building blocks of an agenda distinct from what Barack Obama represents.<br /><br />The most significant figure in this process is not Paul Ryan but Chris Christie, New Jersey's charismatic governor.<br /><br />Before Chris Christie, nearly every Republican would bend to the conventional wisdom of doing deals with the public unions, raising taxes, and rolling debt obligations into the future. Chris Christie blew the whistle on this nonsolution. He gave the Republicans the courage to say the most basic truth in American politics: We are going broke. Chris Christie made the sources of fighting fiscal ruin popular, even cool.<br /><br />Along with Mr. Christie, Govs. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin have made fiscal restoration the cornerstone of the new Republican Party. Mitch Daniels's appeal was that he was a member of this new movement.<br /><br />Fiscal rectitude, of course, can be its own form of conventional wisdom, expressed by raising taxes to "balance" the budget. Last month, another significant Republican derided the tax-and-balance solution. The man who called this "root canal economics" is the Speaker of the House. This too is new.<br /><br />When it came to pass that John Boehner would assume the speakership, one would have thought the party was inheriting Millard Fillmore. Instead, Mr. Boehner has been using his office to lift another building block atop the GOP's restored fiscal foundation—the primacy of the private sector.<br /><br />A speech Mr. Boehner gave last month to the Economic Club of New York was an important defining statement. Mr. Boehner ran straight at what is probably the most unshakable conventional wisdom in politics: "The big myth of the current budget debate is the notion that in order to balance the budget, we have to raise taxes. The truth is we will never balance the budget and rid our children of debt unless we cut spending and have real economic growth. And we will never have real economic growth if we raise taxes on those in America who create jobs." No speaker has so categorically repudiated using taxes to bail out Washington.<br /><br />To Paul Ryan fell the job of reshaping the heaviest stone of all—entitlements. For saying the entitlement status quo is fake and false, Mr. Ryan has earned ridicule from the current president and derision from Republican pragmatists who say he's destroying the party by attempting Medicare reform.<br /><br /><a name="U502367981825VUE"></a>But without entitlement reform, these other GOP building blocks—fiscal restoration and lightly taxed long-term economic growth—are unstable. Notwithstanding the results in suburban Buffalo, an electorate that understands the danger of $14.3 trillion in debt surely can be made to understand by November 2012 the risk of many trillions more in future entitlement obligations.<br /><br />The campaigns of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman no doubt will still try to fashion a campaign from whole cloth. Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, looks for now to be closest to building out from the structure of economic reform that the Republican governors, the House speaker and the Wisconsin congressman have been creating for their party.<br /><br />This is still presidential politics. Some people will never vote for any of this, and the person atop the ticket matters. But Republicans despondent about an election 18 months off need to see they are not fighting the incumbent with nothing. A coherent opposition exists, one that fits with an electorate justifiably anxious about the future of what was once the world's most prosperous private economy.Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-35943853651877777232010-11-14T17:36:00.000-08:002010-11-14T17:39:59.882-08:00A Growth Agenda for the New CongressBy Arthur Laffer<br />The Wall Street Journal<br />November 12, 2010<br /><br />Since its cyclical zenith in December 2007, U.S. economic production has been on its worst trajectory since the Great Depression. Massive stimulus spending and unprecedented monetary easing haven't helped, and yet the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve still cling to the book of Keynes. It's an approach ill-suited to solving the growth problem that the United States has today.<br /><br />The solution can be found in the price theory section of any economics textbook. It's basic supply and demand. Employment is low because the incentives for workers to work are too small, and the incentives not to work too high. Workers' net wages are down, so the supply of labor is limited. Meanwhile, demand for labor is also down since employers consider the costs of employing new workers—wages, health care and more—to be greater today than the benefits.<br /><br />Firms choose whether to hire based on the total cost of employing workers, including all federal, state and local income taxes; all payroll, sales and property taxes; regulatory costs; record-keeping costs; the costs of maintaining health and safety standards; and the costs of insurance for health care, class action lawsuits, and workers compensation. In addition, gross wages are often inflated by the power of unions and legislative restrictions such as "buy American" provisions and the minimum wage. Gross wages also include all future benefits to workers in the form of retirement plans.<br /><br />For a worker to be attractive, that worker must be productive enough to cover all those costs plus leave room for some profit and the costs of running an enterprise. Being in business isn't easy, and today not enough workers qualify to be hired.<br /><br />But workers don't focus on how much it costs a firm to employ them. Workers care about how much they receive and can spend after taxes. For them, the question is how the wages they'd receive for working compare to what they'd receive (from the government) if they didn't work, plus the value of their leisure from not working.<br /><br />The problem is that the government has driven a massive wedge between the wages paid by firms and the wages received by workers. To make work and employment attractive again, this government wedge has to shrink. This can happen over the next two years, even with a Democratic majority in the Senate and President Obama in the White House, through the following measures:<br /><br />1) The full extension of the Bush tax cuts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives can write legislation extending all the tax cuts in perpetuity. Of particular importance for employment is keeping the highest personal income tax rate at 35%, the capital gains tax rate at 15% and the dividend tax rate at 15%, while eliminating the estate tax permanently. If the Senate blocks this legislation or Mr. Obama refuses to sign it, House Republicans should hold firm and let voters decide in 2012. (My guess is that he'll sign it or have his veto overridden.)<br /><br />2) The full repeal of ObamaCare, which allows individuals to pay only five cents for each dollar of health care. Who do you think pays the other 95 cents? As former Sen. Phil Gramm notes, if he had to pay only five cents for each dollar of groceries he bought, he would eat really well—and so would his dog. No single bill is more antithetical to growth than ObamaCare.<br /><br />Repeal could take the form of Michele Bachmann's Legislative Repeal Act, and if it is blocked in the Senate or by a veto Republicans should continue bringing it up every six months. Come 2012 the public will have a clear view of what congressional candidates stand for. The end game for U.S. prosperity is the election in 2012.<br /><br />3) The cancellation of all spending that punishes those who produce and rewards those who don't. This is really the distinction between demand-side economics and supply-side economics. Stimulus spending and quantitative easing don't make it more rewarding to work an extra hour. If the government pays people not to work and taxes people who do work, is it really so difficult to see why employment is so low?<br /><br />So the government should sell its stakes in public companies acquired via TARP, sell government-run enterprises that lose money (e.g., Amtrak and the Postal Service), end farm subsidies that pay people not to farm, cancel the rest of the stimulus and return all spending programs to their pre-stimulus levels. Congress should also continually examine spending in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it should return the duration of unemployment benefits to the standard 26 weeks, from the current 99 weeks.<br /><br />4) The enactment of stalled free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.<br /><br />These changes would spur recovery, but they are just the start. Elected officials should offer longer-term measures that voters can judge in 2012, when 33 senators—including 21 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 10 Republicans—as well as the entire House and President Obama are up for re-election.<br /><br />Beyond 2012, the ideal growth agenda would include:<br /><br />1) A true flat tax, a la Jerry Brown's proposal in 1992. Congress should replace all federal taxes (except sin taxes) with two flat-rate taxes, one on personal income and one on net business sales. The personal income tax would be on all forms of income: wage income, dividends, inheritance (as proposed by Democratic Rep. Jared Polis), and all capital gains. This tax code would remove loopholes and almost all deductions, and the static revenue rate would be around 11.5%.<br /><br />2) Price stability. Congress should revise the Federal Reserve's mandate, making it serve only the goal of price stability (and not also full employment). In addition, the Fed should follow a monetary rule, targeting either the quantity of money or the price level. There can be no prosperity without price stability.<br /><br />3) Passage of a balanced budget amendment, without raising taxes. This would prevent government from being able to balance its budget by unbalancing the budgets of its citizens. And it would force politicians to make difficult decisions about what spending is worthwhile, just like the rest of us.<br /><br /><a name="U401480839674HRF"></a>4) Finally, saving the best for last, the mother of all supply-side reforms is incentive pay for politicians (which the comedian Jackie Mason called "putting the politicians on commission"). Politicians must be held personally responsible for their actions. In business, firms align the incentives of decision makers with the incentives of shareholders to ensure that they take the best course of action. Washington must begin doing the same by creating an incentive structure that pays elected officials according to factors such as stock market performance and economic growth.<br /><br /><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;">Mr. Laffer is the chairman of Laffer Associates and co-author of "Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status" (Threshold, 2010). </span></em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-23135959647221476822010-09-06T12:42:00.000-07:002010-09-06T12:49:44.485-07:00Housing Woes Bring a New Cry: Let the Market Fall<strong>By David Streitfeld</strong><br /><strong>New York Times</strong><br /><strong>September 5, 2010</strong><br /><br />The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.<br /><br />Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live.<br /><br />As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash.<br /><br />When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve.<br /><br />“Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels,” said Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University. “If we keep trying to stimulate the market, that’s the definition of insanity.”<br /><br />The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group — important both politically and economically — will be: the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent.<br /><br />The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to default might be irresistible. That could make the market’s current malaise seem minor.<br />Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening.<br /><br />“The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,” said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.”<br />That was clear last week, when the secretary of housing and urban development, Shaun donovan, appeared to side with current homeowners, telling CNN the administration would “go everywhere we can” to make sure the slumping market recovers.<br /><br />Mr. Donovan even opened the door to another housing tax credit like the one that expired last spring, which paid first-time buyers as much as $8,000 and buyers who were moving up $6,500. The cost to taxpayers was in the neighborhood of $30 billion, much of which went to people who would have bought anyway.<br /><br />Administration press officers quickly backpedaled from Mr. Donovan’s comment, saying a revived credit was either highly unlikely or flat-out impossible. Mr. Donovan declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, a White House spokeswoman responded to questions about possible new stimulus measures by pointing to those already in the works.<br /><br />“In the weeks ahead, we will focus on successfully getting off the ground programs we have recently announced,” the spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, said.<br />Among those initiatives are $3 billion to keep the unemployed from losing their homes and a refinancing program that will try to cut the mortgage balances of owners who owe more than their property is worth. A previous program with similar goals had limited success.<br /><br />If last year’s tax credit was supposed to be a bridge over a rough patch, it ended with a glimpse of the abyss. The average home now takes more than a year to sell. Add in the homes that are foreclosed but not yet for sale and the total is greater still.<br /><br />Builders are in even worse shape. Sales of new homes are lower than in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now, unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick.<br /><br />The deteriorating circumstances have given a new voice to the “do nothing” chorus, whose members think the era of trying to buy stability while hoping the market will catch fire — called “extend and pretend” or “delay and pray” — has run its course.<br /><br />“We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,” said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.<br /><br />Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting the market fall. “Prices are still artificially high,” he said. “The government is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but can’t at $250,000.”<br /><br />A small decline in home prices might not make too much of a difference to a slack economy. But an unchecked drop of 10 percent or more might prove entirely discouraging to the millions of owners just hanging on, especially those who bought in the last few years under the impression that a turnaround had already begun.<br /><br />The government is on the hook for many of these mortgages, another reason policy makers have been aggressively seeking stability. What helped support the market last year could now cause it to crumble.<br /><br />Since 2006, the Federal Housing Administration has insured millions of low down payment loans. During the first two years, officials concede, the credit quality of the borrowers was too low.<br /><br />With little at stake and a queasy economy, buyers bailed: nearly 12 percent were delinquent after a year. Last fall, F.H.A. cash reserves fell below the Congressionally mandated minimum, and the agency had to shore up its finances.<br /><br />Government-backed loans in 2009 went to buyers with higher credit scores. Yet the percentage of first-year defaults was still 5 percent, according to data from the research firm CoreLogic.<br /><br />“These are at-risk buyers,” said Sam Khater, a CoreLogic economist. “They have very little equity, and that’s the largest predictor of default.”<br /><br />This is the risk policy makers face. “If home prices begin to fall again with any serious velocity, borrowers may stay away in such numbers that the market never recovers,” said Mr. Glaser, a consultant whose clients include the National Association of Realtors.<br /><br />Those sorts of worries have a few people from the world of finance suggesting that the administration should do much more, not less.<br /><br />Willaim H. Gross, managing director at Pimco, a giant manager of bond funds, has proposed the government refinance at lower rates millions of mortgages it owns or insures. Such a bold action, Mr. Gross said in a recent speech, would “provide a crucial stimulus of $50 to $60 billion in consumption,” as well as increase housing prices.<br /><br />The idea has gained little traction. Instead, there is a sense that, even with much more modest notions, government intervention is not the answer. The National Association of Realtors, the driving force behind the credit last year, is not calling for a new round of stimulus.<br /><br />Some members of the National Association of Home Builders say a new credit of $25,000 would raise demand but their chances of getting this through Congress are nonexistent.<br /><br />“Our members are saying that if we can’t get a very large tax credit — one that really brings people off the bench — why use our political capital at all?” said David Crowe, the chief economist for the home builders.<br /><br />That might give the Obama administration permission to take the risk of doing nothing.Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-21926074485487935372010-08-15T09:28:00.000-07:002010-08-15T09:38:44.681-07:00Obama is a Victim of Bush's Failed Promises<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By Chuck Green</span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Aurora Sentinal</span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Februrary 7, 2010</span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Barack Obama</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> is setting a record-setting number of records during his first year in office.<br /><br />Largest budget ever. Largest deficit ever. Largest number of broken promises ever. Most self-serving speeches ever. Largest number of agenda-setting failures ever. Fastest dive in popularity ever.<br /><br />Wow. Talk about change.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 17px; "><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Just one year ago, fresh from his inauguration celebrations, President Obama was flying high. After one of the nation’s most inspiring </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">political campaigns</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, the election of America ’s first black president had captured the hopes and dreams of millions. To his devout followers, it was inconceivable that a year later his administration would be gripped in self-imposed crisis.<br /><br />Of course, they don’t see it as self imposed. It’s all </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">George Bush</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">’s fault.<br /><br />George Bush, who doesn’t have a vote in Congress and who no longer occupies the </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">White House</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, is to blame for it all.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He broke Obama’s promise to put all bills on the </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">White House web site</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> for five days before signing them.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to have the </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">congressional health care</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> negotiations broadcast live on </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">C-SPAN</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to end earmarks.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to close the detention center at </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Guantanamo</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in the first year.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to make peace with direct, no pre-condition talks with America ’s most hate-filled enemies during his first year in office, ushering in a new era of global cooperation.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He broke Obama’s promise to end the hiring of former lobbyists into high </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">White House</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> jobs.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to end no-compete contracts with the government.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to disclose the names of all attendees at closed White House meetings.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise for a new era of bipartisan cooperation in all matters.<br /><br />He broke Obama’s promise to have chosen a home church to attend Sunday services with his family by Easter of last year.<br /><br />Yes, it’s all George Bush’s fault. President Obama is nothing more than a puppet in the never-ending, failed </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Bush administration</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.<br /><br />If only George Bush wasn’t still in charge, all of President Obama’s problems would be solved. His promises would have been kept, the economy would be back on track, </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Iran</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> would have stopped its work on developing a nuclear bomb and would be negotiating a peace treaty with Israel , </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">North Korea</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> would have ended its tyrannical regime, and integrity would have been restored to the federal government.<br /><br />Oh, and did I mention what it would be like if the Democrats, under the leadership of </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nancy Pelosi</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">and </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Harry Reid</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, didn’t have the heavy yoke of </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">George Bush</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> around their necks. There would be no earmarks, no closed-door drafting of bills, no increase in deficit spending, no special-interest influence (unions), no vote buying ( Nebraska , Louisiana ).<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If only George Bush wasn’t still in charge, we’d have real change by now.<br /><br />All the broken promises, all the failed legislation and delay (</span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">health care reform</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">immigration reform</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">) is not President Obama’s fault or the fault of the Democrat-controlled Congress. It’s all George Bush’s fault.<br /><br />Take for example the decision of Eric Holder, the president’s attorney general, to hold terrorists’ trials in </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">New York City</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> . Or his decision to try the Christmas Day underpants bomber as a civilian.<br /><br />Two disastrous decisions.<br /><br />Certainly those were bad judgments based on poor advice from George Bush.<br /><br />Need more proof?<br /><br />You might recall that when Scott Brown won last month’s election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts , capturing “the </span><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ted Kennedy</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> seat,” President Obama said that Brown’s victory was the result of the same voter anger that propelled Obama into office in 2008. People were still angry about George Bush and the policies of the past 10 years, and they wanted change.<br /><br />Yes, according to the president, the voter rebellion in Massachusetts last month was George Bush’s fault.<br /><br />Therefore, in retaliation, they elected a Republican to the Ted Kennedy seat, ending a half-century of domination by Democrats.<br /><br />It is all George Bush’s fault.<br /><br />Will the failed administration of George Bush ever end, and the time for hope and change ever arrive?<br /><br />Will President Obama ever accept responsibility for something — anything?</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.22em; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Chuck Green, veteran </span></i><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Colorado</span></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Denver Post, syndicates a statewide colum</span></i></span><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.22em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">n</span></em></span></p><p style="margin-top: 15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.22em; font-size: 14px; "><br /></span></p></span></div>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-57911303818849231922010-07-15T16:44:00.000-07:002010-07-15T16:47:31.753-07:00Are Overdue Reports Concealing ObamaCare Impact On Medicare?<strong>Investors.com<br />By: Peter Ferrara<br />July 6, 2010</strong><br /><br />Every year, the Annual Report of the Social Security Board of Trustees comes out between mid-April and mid-May. Now it's July, and there's no sign of this year's report. What is the Obama administration hiding?<br /><br />The annual report includes detailed information about Social Security and its financing over the next 75 years, produced by the Office of the Actuary of the Social Security Administration.<br /><br />The Congressional Budget Office reported last week in its Long Term Budget Outlook that Social Security was already running a deficit this year. According to last year's Social Security Trustees Report, that was not supposed to happen until 2015, with the trust fund to run out completely by 2037.<br /><br />With the disastrous Obama economy, the great Social Security surplus that started in the Reagan administration is gone completely.<br /><br />Every year, the federal government has been raiding the Social Security trust funds to take that annual surplus and spend it on the rest of the federal government's runaway spending, leaving the trust funds only with IOUs backed by nothing but politicians' promise to pay it back when it's needed. Now even that annual surplus is gone. How soon will the trust funds run out completely now?<br /><br />President Obama keeps telling us a fairy tale that he saved us from another Great Depression. But he is actually leading us into another Depression.<br /><br />The National Bureau of Economic Research scores the recession as officially starting in December 2007. Thirty-one months later, with unemployment still near 10% and the work force still declining, the NBER says it still cannot determine an official end to the recession.<br /><br />The longest recession since World War II previously was 16 months, with the average being 10 months. By next month, it will be twice as long as the previous postwar record since the latest recession started. The markets echoed by many pundits are now suggesting a renewed double-dip downturn may be starting, with the comprehensive Obama tax rate increases next year poised to pour napalm on this developing bonfire.<br /><br />How soon will the trust funds run out with this utter failure of 1930s-style Obamanomics?<br /><br />The implications for Social Security aren't what the Obama administration is hiding by delaying the annual trustees reports. Those annual reports also include information regarding Medicare over the next 75 years. What the administration is trying to hide are sweeping draconian cuts to Medicare resulting from the ObamaCare legislation, which the annual report will document.<br /><br />The administration is trying to delay the report until mid-August, when it's hoping the country will be on vacation and won't notice. Or maybe the delay is because the White House is trying to bludgeon the chief actuaries for Medicare and Social Security into fudging the numbers.<br /><br />Those chief actuaries are dedicated, career professionals who have worked their way up the bureaucracy over decades.<br /><br />During the Reagan administration, the congressional Democrat majorities and the New York Times made clear to us that tampering with the work of the government's career professionals, let alone the career number crunchers, would be grounds for impeachment.<br /><br />I'm not certain the rule of law applies to this administration, where the Justice Department cites "payback time" as its reason for not prosecuting Black Panther Voting Rights Act violations.<br /><br />The CBO confessed to $500 billion in Medicare cuts in the first 10 years of Obama-Care alone. Based on those calculations, the minority staff of the Senate Budget Committee estimated the Medicare cuts as $800 billion in the first 10 years of implementation and $2.9 trillion over the first 20 years of ObamaCare. Truthful annual trustees reports would further document these cuts.<br /><br />These draconian Medicare cuts are primarily how the president got his claims that ObamaCare would reduce the deficit by over $100 billion over the first 10 years, and a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. The cuts involve slashing payments to doctors and hospitals for the medical care they provide to seniors, and decimating the private option Medicare Advantage program that close to one-fourth of seniors have chosen for their coverage because it gives them a better deal.<br /><br />Such Medicare cuts would create havoc and chaos in health care for seniors. Doctors, hospitals, surgeons and specialists providing critical care to the elderly will shut down and disappear in much of the country, and others would stop serving Medicare patients. If the government is not going to pay, seniors are not going to get the medical treatment they expect.<br /><br />Yes, Medicare is more than bankrupt over the long run and needs a fundamental overhaul. But the answer is not to tell seniors their guaranteed benefits will not be cut while the government refuses to pay doctors and hospitals for their care.<br />Nor is it to decimate Medicare Advantage, which instead should be expanded to all of Medicare. Nor is it to trash Medicare and use the money for a whole new entitlement instead, which is what ObamaCare does.<br /><br /><em>Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation, general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union and a senior policy adviser on health care to the Heartland Institute.</em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-30206666874636264732010-07-14T16:49:00.000-07:002010-07-14T16:52:19.709-07:00Journalism Needs Government Help<strong>Wall Street Journal<br />By: Lee Bollinger<br />July 14, 2010</strong><br /><br /><em>Media budgets have been decimated as the Internet facilitates a communications revolution. More public funding for news-gathering is the answer.</em><br /><br />We have entered a momentous period in the history of the American press. The invention of new communications technologies—especially the Internet—is transforming the human capacity to speak, perhaps as monumentally as the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. This is facilitating the largest and fastest expansion of global economic growth in human history. Free speech and a free press are essential to a dynamic economy.<br /><br />At the same time, however, the financial viability of the U.S. press has been shaken to its core. The proliferation of communications outlets has fractured the base of advertising and readers. Newsrooms have shrunk dramatically and foreign bureaus have been decimated. My best estimate is that there are presently only a few dozen full-time foreign correspondents from the U.S. covering all of China, despite the critical importance of that nation to our future.<br /><br />Both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are undertaking studies of ways to ensure the steep economic decline faced by newspapers and broadcast news does not deprive Americans of the essential information they need as citizens. One idea under consideration is enhanced public funding for journalism.<br /> <br />The idea of public funding for the press stirs deep unease in American culture. To many it seems inconsistent with our strong commitment, embodied in the First Amendment, to having a free press capable of speaking truth to power and to all of us. This press is a kind of public trust, a fourth branch of government. Can it be trusted when the state helps pay for it? <br /><br />American journalism is not just the product of the free market, but of a hybrid system of private enterprise and public support. By the middle of the last century, daily newspapers were becoming natural monopolies in cities and communities across the country. Publishers and editors drew on the revenue to develop highly specialized expertise that enhanced coverage of economics, law, architecture, medicine, science and technology, foreign affairs and many other fields. <br /><br />Meanwhile, the broadcast news industry was deliberately designed to have private owners operating within an elaborate system of public regulation, including requirements that stations cover public issues and expand the range of voices that could be heard. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld this system in the 1969 Red Lion decision as constitutional, even though it would have been entirely possible to limit government involvement simply to auctioning off the airwaves and letting the market dictate the news. In the 1960s, our network of public broadcasting was launched with direct public grants and a mission to produce high quality journalism free of government propaganda or censorship. <br /><br />The institutions of the press we have inherited are the result of a mixed system of public and private cooperation. Trusting the market alone to provide all the news coverage we need would mean venturing into the unknown—a risky proposition with a vital public institution hanging in the balance.<br /><br />Ironically, we already depend to some extent on publicly funded foreign news media for much of our international news—especially through broadcasts of the BBC and BBC World Service on PBS and NPR. Such news comes to us courtesy of British citizens who pay a TV license fee to support the BBC and taxes to support the World Service. The reliable public funding structure, as well as a set of professional norms that protect editorial freedom, has yielded a highly respected and globally powerful journalistic institution. <br /><br />There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research. Those of us in public and private research universities care every bit as much about academic freedom as journalists care about a free press.<br /> <br />Yet—through a carefully designed system with peer review of grant-making, a strong culture of independence, and the protections afforded by the First Amendment—there have been strikingly few instances of government abuse. Indeed, the most problematic funding issues in academic research come from alliances with the corporate sector. This reinforces the point that all media systems, whether advertiser-based or governmental, come with potential editorial risks. <br /><br />To take a very current example, we trust our great newspapers to collect millions of dollars in advertising from BP while reporting without fear or favor on the company's environmental record only because of a professional culture that insulates revenue from news judgment. <br /><br />Or consider another area where we have well established mechanisms of government support for even the most oppositional views: defense counsel in our courts, where government-paid lawyers (including those in uniform military courts) will do their utmost to undermine cases brought by the government itself. Playing the role of calling our government to account is an accepted ethic of the legal profession despite the political hostility it can sometimes generate.<br /><br />We should think about American journalism as a mixed system, where the mission is to get the balance right. <br /><br />To me a key priority is to strengthen our public broadcasting role in the global arena. In today's rapidly globalizing and interconnected world, other countries are developing a strong media presence. In addition to the BBC, there is China's CCTV and Xinhua news, as well as Qatar's Al Jazeera. The U.S. government's international broadcasters, like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, were developed during the Cold War as tools of our anticommunist foreign policy. In a sign of how anachronistic our system is in a digital age, these broadcasters are legally forbidden from airing within the U.S. <br /><br />This system needs to be revised and its resources consolidated and augmented with those of NPR and PBS to create an American World Service that can compete with the BBC and other global broadcasters. The goal would be an American broadcasting system with full journalistic independence that can provide the news we need. Let's demonstrate great journalism's essential role in a free and dynamic society. <br /><br /><em>Mr. Bollinger is president of Columbia University and author of "Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century" (Oxford, 2010). </em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-28748653119053463922010-07-05T18:27:00.000-07:002010-07-05T18:34:29.157-07:00Gas Taxes Give Us a Break at the Pump<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGlZL8oRwEQwjHl5MXVACziqdYOZoYN2OAf90KnDYWGxdan-Uz9YuqEOOK0p4VK9n84qCEQiV9byDhBk7cnyOy6pAoSxMz8d6xrQ75eUcUseT-1yhtuwE79NpzLKV9teR9_q01alEDSAV_/s1600/gastax.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 227px; height: 252px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGlZL8oRwEQwjHl5MXVACziqdYOZoYN2OAf90KnDYWGxdan-Uz9YuqEOOK0p4VK9n84qCEQiV9byDhBk7cnyOy6pAoSxMz8d6xrQ75eUcUseT-1yhtuwE79NpzLKV9teR9_q01alEDSAV_/s320/gastax.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490600060649650562" /></a><br /><strong>By Dennis Cauchon<br />USA TODAY<br />July 2, 2010</strong><br /><br />When drivers hit the road in large numbers for the Fourth of July holiday, they will have something extra to celebrate — the lowest gasoline taxes since the early days of the automobile.<br /><br />Holiday drivers will pay less than ever at the pump for upkeep of the nation's roads — just $19 in gas taxes for every 1,000 miles driven, a USA TODAY analysis finds. That's a new low in inflation-adjusted dollars, half what drivers paid in 1975. <br /><br />Another measure of the trend: Americans spent just 46 cents on gas taxes for every $100 of income in the first quarter of 2010. That's the lowest rate since the government began keeping track in 1929. By comparison, Americans spent $1.18 in 1970 on gas taxes out of every $100 earned.<br /><br />Although the federal gas tax — 18.4 cents per gallon — hasn't changed since 1993, tax collections are down because today's vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas, cutting tax collections while increasing wear and tear on highways. Inflation since 1993 has eroded the value of the tax to maintain roads.<br /><br />"The gas tax isn't going to work as the user fee to finance the highway system in the 21st century," says Robert Poole, transportation policy director at the free-market Reason Foundation.<br /><br />Drivers are on track to spend $55.7 billion on federal, state and local gas taxes in 2010's first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That's down from $68.5 billion in 2000 after adjusting for inflation — even though Americans drive 7% more miles annually. <br /><br />The American Trucking Associations, motorist club AAA and others favor higher gas taxes to reduce congestion and a backlog of road repairs.<br /><br />The chance of that happening? "Outlook not good," says Jill Ingrassia, director of government relations at AAA.<br /><br />Polls show the gas tax is one of the least popular levies. Only 23% support a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike, according to a June survey by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University.<br /><br />"The money you pay at the pump doesn't always find its way to potholes," says gas tax opponent Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.<br />State and local gas taxes average 30 cents per gallon and have changed little during the recession.<br /><br />The nation's roads are increasingly financed by other taxes and borrowing. The federal stimulus plan set aside $26.7 billion for roads, most of which will be spent by year's end.Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-70300487229008071552010-07-05T14:55:00.001-07:002010-07-05T14:55:48.348-07:00Mullen: Debt, a Security Threat<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FrJ1qzG0Ewk&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FrJ1qzG0Ewk&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-29492996224895059702010-07-05T14:44:00.000-07:002010-07-05T14:48:08.634-07:00The American Conservatism of Thurgood Marshall<strong>By Juan Williams<br />The Wall Street Journal<br />July3, 2010</strong><br /><br />Was Thurgood Marshall a conservative? J. Edgar Hoover, an indisputably right-wing voice, certainly thought so: The FBI chief sent Marshall a note congratulating him on his nomination to the high court. So did Malcolm X, who branded the first black Supreme Court justice a "fool" because he didn't embrace mass protest or excuse riots. <br /><br />But at last week's confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, the reality of Marshall's record was eclipsed by the myth of the late justice as a wild-eyed, left-wing activist. Several Republican senators expressed concern that Ms. Kagan, a former Marshall clerk, might replicate his approach to applying the law.<br /><br />"Justice Marshall's judicial philosophy . . . is not what I would consider mainstream," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz). The senator depicted Marshall, who sat on the court from 1967 to 1991, as a "results oriented" justice who interpreted the law to fit his political aims and had no regard for a strict reading of the Constitution.<br /><br />Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) piled on, claiming that Marshall's record as an "activist" judge constituted a violation of a responsible jurist's oath to apply the law without political favor. Such judging, added Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), "does not comport with the proper role of a judge or judicial method."<br /><br />Thankfully, Ms. Kagan appears to have escaped any damage from these attempts to paint her as the second coming of this devilish caricature of her former mentor. But the justice's own legacy took some hits, and the truth about his record needs to be set straight before this distortion becomes fixed in the public mind.<br /><br />First, there are the hard numbers. As a lawyer, Marshall argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court and won 29. That's hardly the record of a man operating outside of the legal mainstream. Marshall's rulings on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals were never overturned by the Supreme Court, and in most of his appellate opinions he joined with the majority of what was then viewed as a conservative circuit. As solicitor general of the U.S. he lost only five of the 14 cases he argued before the Supreme Court. <br /><br />Even on the high court, Marshall always tailored his opinions to adhere to constitutional principles—not political ideology. For example, in making the case for affirmative action, Marshall did not try to discard constitutional protections for individual rights. In his dissent in the 1978 Regent of California v. Bakke affirmative action case, Marshall wrote: "It must be remembered that during most of the past 200 years, the Constitution as interpreted by this court did not prohibit the most ingenious and pervasive forms of discrimination against the Negro. Now when a state acts to remedy the effects of that legacy of discrimination, I cannot believe that this same Constitution stands as a barrier . . . "<br /><br />What's at the heart of any charge of judicial activism is Marshall's work as a lawyer. As lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1938 to 1961, Marshall won Brown v. Board of Education—the case that ended school segregation by overturning the 1896 case, Plessy v. Ferguson. His argument was that the law must be applied without any distinction based on color or class. <br /><br />The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in that 1954 decision required courage, given that segregation, either by law or in fact, had become the norm in much of the nation. If one argues that Marshall encouraged judicial "activism" by seeking to have this overturned, that means Plessy was correctly decided, and racial segregation should have been protected under the Constitution. History has long ruled that is not a winning argument.<br /><br />Marshall's fidelity to the Constitution was evident outside the court as well. He is a man who bravely stood before crowds of militant black people in the 1950s and '60s to rebut calls for black solidarity in boycotts and protest marches. "Let's stop drawing the line [between] colored and white," he told one group. "Let's draw the line on who wants democracy for all Americans." For this outlook, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad wrote a newspaper column condemning Marshall. "He is in love with the white race," Muhammad wrote.<br /><br />Ms. Kagan clerked for Marshall at the end of his time on the Supreme Court when he gave a speech saying the Constitution was "defective from the start," because it allowed slavery while denying women the right to vote. He said the Civil War and the constitutional amendments that followed had saved the Constitution and the nation. <br />That is not a rant from a crazed liberal with no regard for the rule of law. It is a clear-eyed ruling from a judge who by the measure of fellow civil rights activists, as well as fellow lawyers and judges, believed in a very conservative principle: liberty and justice for all.<br /><br /><em>Mr. Williams, a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News, is the author of several books, including "Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary" (Three Rivers Press, 2000).</em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-12840225229032904472010-02-09T17:46:00.000-08:002010-02-09T17:47:08.334-08:00Paschal High School“FORT WORTH NEEDS MORE HIGH SCHOOLS LIKE PASCHAL”<br /><br /> by Bud Kennedy, Star Telegram Writer <br /><br />PASCHAL High School, Fort Worth’s oldest, is now ranked in Newsweek as one of America’s best. Great. So how long will Fort Worth put up with having only one national-caliber high school?<br /><br />Paschal's winning academic record is remarkable. This year’s seniors on Forest Park Boulevard included 11 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. Based on advanced placement tests, Newsweek ranked PASCHAL No. 3 regionally, No. 12 in Texas and No. 200 nationally.<br /><br />Among nearby schools, only Colleyville, Heritage and Grapevine ranked higher. Carroll in Southlake is the only other local school among 804 on the list. Isn’t it time other cities and neighborhoods expected better schools?<br /><br />Money is no excuse. On average, Arlington Heights, Southwest, Western Hills and most suburban schools serve wealthier families than PASCHAL. Their children have more resources. The nine other Fort Worth high schools serve families with less money than PASCHAL. Yet those children also need the most attention – because their education and training will decide the future wealth or poverty of Fort Worth.<br /><br />Almost 20 years after a PASCHAL math teacher set out to build the district’s best Honors program, other schools are closer to competing. Arlington Heights, on the West side, had the city’s second-best SAT scores last year, although nearly 70 points behind PASCHAL. The PASCHAL Honors students – almost half the senior class - average a 1310 score!!<br /><br />Dunbar, in east Fort Worth, is second in Merit Scholar semifinalists. Western Hills in Benbrook consistently ranks high. Trimble Technical, near downtown, earned an “exemplary” state rating for a high passing rate on the state achievement test. In a more comprehensive rating last fall, Texas Monthly ranked Tech and Southwest as the district’s most effective high schools for students at all achievement levels. (PASCHAL fell to 10th of 13 and also trailed suburban schools at the same income level, including Brewer, Springtown and Haltom.)<br /><br />Yet no other city school and almost no Texas public school can come close to PASCHAL’s success rate with the very smartest students. At the recent “Radio Shack Scholars Dinner” rewarding Fort Worth’s best students citywide, close to one third were students from PASCHAL. The cheers of 389 Panthers overwhelmed any for the other 12 high schools represented at the Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibits Hall.<br /><br />PASCHAL is not one of the district’s “special interest” schools marketed to draw transfer students – formerly called “magnet” schools. It is simply a school with an academic championship history that is attractive to both transfer students and selective homebuyers. About a third of Paschal's top honor students chose to transfer from their neighborhood schools.<br /><br />John Hamilton, the 40-year math teacher who launched Paschal’s intensified program in 1984 to compete with magnet schools, is the academic version of Dunbar’s Hall of Fame boys’ basketball coach, Robert Hughes. He said Paschal’s success with high achievers is no secret. “It takes continuity,” he said this week, preparing to teach another summer of SAT preparation classes – sort of an academic summer camp for competitive scholars. “Most of all, it takes a pro-academics attitude in the building and in the entire community. What makes my day is the academic success of PASCHAL students…..Some schools don’t have the same person pushing hard year after year. You have to really value academic success. It’s the reason we have school.”<br /><br />Ultimately, that’s the reason we need to strengthen all our public schools in Fort Worth and Texas -- to teach the next generation and to build a more successful community, city, and state.<br /><br />A sociology professor at Texas A&M University has the official title of Texas’ “state demographer.” His is the loudest voice warning that Texans must improve the academic performance of all public schools now – particularly for the growing numbers of minority and low-income children. “It’s a question of what we want for the future of Texas,” Steve Murdock said by phone Friday from a conference in Austin. “It’s the difference between having a state of well-educated, productive citizens – or of less well-educated citizens. The difference statewide will be billions of dollars in socioeconomic needs, billions of dollars in total income, billions of dollars in tax revenue.” <br /><br />The future of Fort Worth and Texas depends on how well we educate all our children. This city needs more than one showcase high school.Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-12600256188195486312009-11-21T07:04:00.000-08:002009-11-21T07:15:45.178-08:00House Attacks Fed, Treasury<strong>By: Sudeep Reddy and Damian Paletta<br /><br />The Wall Street Journal <br /><br />November 20, 2009</strong><br /><br />Panel Votes for Tighter Political Rein on Central Bank; Some Call for Geithner to Quit<br /><br />WASHINGTON -- Political frustration over the rescue of Wall Street and high unemployment erupted in the House Thursday, with one committee threatening to impose tighter scrutiny on the Federal Reserve and another trading verbal insults with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.<br /><br />The House Financial Services Committee voted, 43-26, to approve a measure sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, vociferously opposed by the Fed, that would direct the congressional Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed to include decisions about interest rates and lending to individual banks. The Fed says the provision threatens its ability to make monetary policy without political interference.<br /><br />The vote was the latest blow to the central bank, which has been become a lightning rod for politicians responding to popular anger that Wall Street was bailed out while the public wasn't. The Fed faces a stinging backlash from legislators from both parties who argue that has too much power and too little oversight. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee began debating legislation that would largely remove the Fed from bank supervision over the objections of the Fed and the Obama administration.<br /><br />The Fed audit provision was added to pending legislation on financial regulation that the committee's chairman, Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, had planned to put to a vote Thursday. But he abruptly announced late in the afternoon that the bill wouldn't move ahead until after Thanksgiving. The reason: Ten members of the Congressional Black Caucus on the committee said they would oppose the bill to protest a lack of action to address the economic pain borne by their constituents. Although the economy appears to be growing again, lawmakers face increasing pressure in their districts to do more to boost growth and address an unemployment rate now at 10.2% and expected to rise.<br /><br />Glum views on the economy sparked a retreat from stocks and some commodities, as investors moved to the safety of government debt. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 93.87 points to 10332.44.<br /><br />At the Joint Economic Committee, a couple of House Republicans called for the resignation of Mr. Geithner, who, as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, played a major role in last fall's moves to prevent the collapse of the financial system. "The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job," said Rep. Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas.<br /><br />Mr. Geithner, in an unusual public display of pique, fired back. "What I can't take responsibility is for the legacy of crises you've bequeathed this country," he told Mr. Brady.<br /><br />Although several Democrats defended Mr. Geithner at the hearing, some liberal Democrats have been complaining that the Obama administration isn't doing enough to combat unemployment. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.) called on Mr. Geithner to resign this week, and said in an interview that Mr. Geithner is too close to Wall Street.<br /><br />"Quite frankly, all the gambling on Wall Street is doing nothing to put people back to work in America and rebuild our economy," the Oregon Democrat said.<br />One issue that has dogged Mr. Geithner is the rescue of American International Group Inc. last fall. A government oversight report this week charged that the New York Fed caved into demands from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other big banks and paid them in full for deals they had made with the insurer. Mr. Geithner said Thursday that the government lacked powers it needed to handle the collapse of a financial company that wasn't legally organized as a bank. "Coming into AIG we had, basically, duct tape and string," he said. The legislation pending in Congress would give the government new powers to manage such a situation.<br /><br />Mr. Geithner's job status doesn't appear to be in jeopardy and several Democrats leapt to his defense. "He was handed an awful deck of cards when he walked into the job, and he's doing the best he can," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) in an interview. "I think many Democrats share my views."<br /><br />Mr. Paul, author of a new best-seller "End the Fed," long has been a critic of the Fed. His economic views make him an outlier in Congress, but his attacks on the Fed have resonated in Congress and with the public.<br /><br />The Paul provision, and the legislation to which it is attached, would have to clear the full House and Senate before becoming law. Though many lawmakers insist they won't do anything to compromise the Fed's independence on monetary policy, the provision's momentum is substantial. It could be diluted before any bill reaches the president.<br /><br /><br />"Everybody would like to beat up on the Fed and make them the bad guy," said Rep. Melvin Watt (D., N.C.), who opposed Mr. Paul's measure. He said audits would "substantially castrate the Fed so it cannot do what it was set up to do."<br /><br />Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has crisscrossed the Capitol in recent weeks, attempting to fend off legislation that would curtail the Fed's power or independence. Lawmakers with whom he has met said he has reminded them how close the U.S. came to economic catastrophe last year and maintained that the Fed's actions were critical to bringing the economy back to growth.<br /><br />But Mr. Bernanke faced a skeptical audience. Some lawmakers told him Americans are angry and want more oversight; others said the crisis demanded a rethinking of the U.S. approach to financial regulation.<br /><br />"What he says is that at that point in time, with our economy literally ready to tip over the edge, he did a series of things he thought were absolutely necessary," said Sen. Mike Johanns, a Nebraska Republican.<br /><br />"He was trying to convey that this point in time was enormously serious, and the country was about ready to lock up from an economic standpoint. He just says, 'Look, I did what I thought I had to to keep the country going,'" he said.<br /><br />In an interview, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said it would be "a major loss to the country if the Fed were incapable of running an independent monetary policy. If you have the GAO, after the fact, offering its opinions on whether a certain monetary policy action is correct or incorrect, the active deliberations that are so critical to building a meaningful consensus at the FOMC will begin to become unhelpfully cautious."<br /><br />Mr. Paul maintained that his amendment wouldn't hinder monetary policy, but instead remove a veil of secrecy at the central bank that's unique within U.S. government. At the Fed, "there's plenty of political influence going on now -- presidential politics, influence by Goldman Sachs and the banking industry," he said. "It's all done in secret."<br /><br />Congressional auditors have been blocked from reviewing the Fed's monetary policy operations, its loans to foreign governments and direct lending to banks since 1978, when a law was passed to shield the central bank from politics. Auditors already have access to the Fed's operations outside of monetary policy, including bank supervision and the special loan facilities created to rescue specific institutions, such as AIG and Bear Stearns Cos.<br /><br />GAO audits could publicly reveal reams of information that now remain private, sometimes indefinitely. The Fed doesn't identify banks to whom it lends directly for fear of sparking a disruptive run on the bank. It has suggested that it might be willing to release that information after a lag.<br /><br />The Fed in the past has resisted calls to release information, only to relent. In the 1990s, for instance, after pressure from Congress, the Fed began releasing transcripts of its interest-rate deliberations after a five year lag. Mr. Paul's proposal would delay GAO access to Fed decisions for six months. A companion Senate measure has drawn support from about a third of that chamber.<br /><br />"If there's anything worse than a secret Federal Reserve, it's Congress controlling it," said Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina. "But I do think that there's a wide majority of Americans who want to know what the Federal Reserve is doing and to make sure that it's achieving its primary purpose, which is to protect the value of our dollar."Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-11843279534272158702009-01-05T18:42:00.000-08:002009-01-05T18:44:19.108-08:00Cars, Kabul and Banks<strong>By Thomas L Friedman<br />The New York Times<br />December 13, 2008</strong><br /><br />If there is anything I’ve learned as a reporter, it’s that when you get away from “the thing itself” — the core truth about a situation — you get into trouble. Barack Obama will have to make three mammoth decisions after he takes the oath of office — on cars, Kabul and banks — and we have to hope that he bases those decisions on the things themselves, the core truths about each. Because many people will be trying to throw fairy dust in his eyes.<br /><br />The first issue will be whether to bail out Detroit. What is the core truth about Detroit? Auto executives will tell you that it’s the credit crisis, health care, retirement costs and unions. Sure, those are real. But the core truth is that for way too long Detroit made too many cars that too many people did not want to buy. As even General Motors conceded in its apology ad last week: “At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster.” Walk through any college campus today. You don’t see a lot of Buicks.<br /> <br />Over the years, Detroit bosses kept repeating: “We have to make the cars people want.” That’s why they’re in trouble. Their job is to make the cars people don’t know they want but will buy like crazy when they see them. I would have been happy with my Sony Walkman had Apple not invented the iPod. Now I can’t live without my iPod. I didn’t know I wanted it, but Apple did. Same with my Toyota hybrid.<br /><br />The auto consultant John Casesa once noted that Detroit’s management has gone from visionaries to operators to caretakers. I would say that they have now gone from caretakers to undertakers. If they are ready to bring in some visionaries and totally restructure — inside or outside of bankruptcy — so they can make money selling cars that people will want to buy, then I say help them. I’d hate to see the Detroit auto industry go under. But if all we are doing is prolonging auto undertakers, then we have to let nature take its course.<br /><br />After Detroit, Mr. Obama will be asked to bail out Afghanistan. Watch out. The tide has turned against us there because too many Afghans don’t want to buy our politics, or, more precisely, the politics of our ally, the corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai. That is “the thing itself.” <br /><br />The main reason our Iraq bailout — a k a “the surge” — has had a positive effect is because Iraqis voted with their own guns and their own lives, taking on both Al Qaeda and pro-Iranian Shiite militants. Iraq has avoided bankruptcy for the moment — a total meltdown — because enough Iraqis wanted what we were selling: freedom from extremists. That is the thing itself, and right now I’m not seeing enough of that thing in Afghanistan. Beware of a Kabul bailout.<br /><br />But maybe the most flagrant area where we continue to avoid looking at “the thing itself” is with our banks. What we are dealing with there is the effect of a credit bubble that began in the late-1980s with the advent of global securitization — the chopping up and bundling into bonds of everything from home mortgages to student loans to airplane leases, and then selling them around the world. <br /><br />When you take this much leverage and this much globalization and this much complexity and start it in America, and then blow it up, you have a nuclear financial explosion. The deflating of this credit bubble is so wealth-destroying that even the most prudent banks have been ravaged by it.<br /><br />What to do? The smartest people I know in banking are praying that Obama’s Treasury Department will tackle “the thing itself.” That is, do a real analysis of what the major banks are worth in a worst-case scenario. Then determine, if, on that basis, they have viable, survivable equity-to-asset ratios. <br /><br />Those that do should get more government investment. Those that are close should be forced to find new investors and merge. And those not viable should be shut down and have their bad assets bought by a government-owned body (which would sell them over time) and their deposits shifted to healthy banks to make those banks even healthier. Some experts believe we still need to close 1,000 banks.<br /><br />This process will be painful, but probably by the end of a year the market will clear, investors will come in, and the surviving banks will be ready to lend to each other and you and me. The “thing itself” here is that banks still don’t want to lend because they still don’t know the true value of their own balance sheets, let alone anyone else’s. <br /><br />The market has to clear. We can do it painfully and quickly, as we did with the dot-coms, or we can be Japan and drag it out.<br /><br />So whether it's cars, Kabul or banks, we have to stop wishing for the worlds we want and start dealing with the things themselves. If Obama does, his first year will be excruciatingly painful, but he could have three years after that to be creative. If he doesn’t, I fear that cars, Kabul and banks will dog his whole presidency.Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-7759432922919106832008-11-22T05:54:00.000-08:002008-11-22T05:58:19.994-08:00The Auto Makers Are Already Bankrupt<em>Admitting the obvious is their best chance to restructure.</em><br /><strong>By Paul Ingrassia<br /><br />WSJ.com<br /><br />November 21, 2008</strong><br /><br />The moment of truth in the nation's automotive bailout debate might have come this week. As the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler begged Congress for federal aid, a Detroit radio talk-show host asked whether Michigan, as well as the car companies, should get assistance. The state is being hit by an economic hurricane, he said, just as New Orleans was hit by a natural hurricane<br /><br />Huh? Will the victimology myth never end? Hurricane Katrina was an act of God. The car crisis is an act of man. For the difference, consult the Bible. Any version will do.<br /><br />Yesterday, congressional leaders gave the car companies until Dec. 2 to come up with viable business plans and renew their request for aid. Meanwhile, it's worth examining the myths that are shaping this debate. <br /><br />One is GM's assertion that "bankruptcy is not an option." In truth, GM already has conceded that it's bankrupt -- by publicly stating it's nearly out of cash and needs emergency assistance. The company hasn't made a formal bankruptcy filing, which is no small matter. But it has declared bankruptcy everywhere else. Chrysler, at this week's Senate committee hearing, did the same.<br /><br />A second myth is that management changes in Detroit would be pointless. GM CEO Rick Wagoner said he wouldn't resign to secure federal aid for his company. This was like Louis XIV saying, "L'État c'est moi." Mr. Wagoner explained that he didn't see "what purpose would be served." Well, the same one served by the presidential election in this country three weeks ago: to bring in somebody new to try some fresh ideas to fix things.<br /><br />Mr. Wagoner has been GM's chief executive officer for eight years. Even before this year's calamity struck (the company lost $181,000 per minute in the second quarter), the company's U.S. market share, financial results and stock price had plunged precipitously.<br /><br />At Chrysler, CEO Robert Nardelli has been on the scene just a year. Before that he was at Home Depot, where he took a $210 million departure package when the board wanted him out. There's no reason to begrudge Mr. Nardelli that money. But any plan to save Chrysler will inflict great hardship on dealers, suppliers, workers and managers -- and even if Mr. Nardelli is a great executive talent, he isn't the guy to lead the clarion call for sacrifice, despite his recent offer to work for $1 a year. Symbols are important here, which is why the spectacle of the Detroit CEOs swooping into Washington on corporate jets to ask for money was so jarring.<br /><br />Ford CEO Alan Mullaly has been on the job just over two years. He seems to be making the right moves -- cutting costs, eliminating the dividend early on, revamping product plans, mortgaging assets to raise money to fund the turnaround, etc. That's why Ford, while not in great shape, is in a materially better position than the other two.<br /><br />Mr. Mullaly is the Detroit chief executive I'd keep on the job. But that still doesn't mean it's right to hand federal aid to Ford or any of the other companies without requiring a bankruptcy restructuring in return.<br /><br />Which raises the third myth: Bankruptcy means death. In fact, it means getting a second chance. Detroit's car companies point, correctly, to the cost cuts, labor concessions and other stringent measures that they've enacted in recent years. Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the United Auto Workers union, got his members to accept two-tier wages and big concessions on the health-care and retirement plans.<br /><br />Nonetheless, far too many valid contractual claims remain on the car companies' revenue streams from dealers, employees, retirees and others for these companies to survive -- even if we get a modest economic recovery soon. The companies remain saddled with cumbersome contracts with the UAW that make work rules and plant procedures a constant challenge. A bankruptcy trustee or receiver could cut through all this quickly and give the companies a fresh start.<br /><br />Myth number four is that banning executive bonuses or requiring more fuel-efficient cars will save Detroit, and are strings that should come with any federal aid. Executive pay isn't the problem in Detroit; and the companies will have to build more fuel-efficient cars to satisfy the market, not to meet mandates. These would be pseudo-strings designed to appease organized labor and the environmental lobby. Instead of saving Detroit, they'll pave the way for a bigger bailout later on.<br /><br />Finally, the fifth myth is that a merger of GM and Chrysler will propel both companies to prosperity. Some of the slide-shows making the rounds on Wall Street assume that a merged company would have a 30% market share, slightly less than the two companies now have combined. It isn't true. The elimination of duplicate brands, models and dealers would push a combined market share down to 25% or less. The revenue projections behind a potential merger seem greatly inflated. GM has massive problems of its own to address without taking on those of Chrysler, which needs a profitable, and committed, foreign buyer.<br /><br />The biggest beneficiaries of a GM-Chrysler merger would be Cerberus, the private-equity firm that owns Chrysler, and the big banks that hold billions of Chrysler bonds that they haven't been able to sell. The bonds were used in Cerberus's purchase of Chrysler from Daimler. The banks expected to sell the bonds to investors, but have been left holding billions in Chrysler debt that they'd dearly love to unload.<br /><br />Cerberus has offered to forego any profits on a sale of Chrysler, but that's phony. There won't be any profits. Just relieving Cerberus of the need to keep funding Chrysler would provide the private-equity moguls with a bonanza. As for the banks holding Chrysler bonds, didn't we already bail them out? Why should we have to do it again?<br /><br /><em>Mr. Ingrassia is a former Dow Jones executive and Detroit bureau chief for this newspaper.</em>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-37017291002058005552008-11-20T16:51:00.000-08:002008-11-20T16:55:13.479-08:00Some Positive Reactions from the Right<span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>By Dennis Prager</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><br />Townhall.com<br /><br />November 11, 2008</strong></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I spent a good part of the past year speaking and writing against the election of Barack Obama. During the last week of the campaign, my Salem Radio Network colleagues, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved, and I spoke on behalf of the McCain-Palin ticket in the Battleground states of Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />One would expect that I would be devastated at Barack Obamas election -- as devastated as liberals were at the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004. I am not -- yet. Here are some reasons why:</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />1. Republicans won the election of 2004, an election that was more important to the future of America and the world than was this election. Had Sen. John Kerry won in 2004, America would have left Iraq in defeat and Islamists would have won their greatest victory ever. Millions of young Muslims would likely have seen in Islamic jihadism humanitys future and signed up for terror; and Iraq would have degenerated into genocidal chaos. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />2. The election of a black president is good for blacks, good for whites, and therefore very good for America.<br /><br />At least at this moment -- no one can predict the future -- many more blacks feel fully American, and fewer blacks regard white America as racist than ever before. One cannot attain a higher status than the American presidency, and a black man will now occupy that position. As the Hoover Institutions Shelby Steele wrote, this is the first time in history that a majority white nation elected a black as its leader.<br /><br />Conservatives are not surprised. I have argued for decades that America is the least racist country in the world. By and large, only Americans on the right have believed, or at least had the courage to say, this. Now that fact is obvious to virtually anyone with eyes to see.<br /><br />3. The Obama victory poses a serious challenge to liberalism and to the doctrine of black victimhood.<br /><br />If fewer and fewer blacks perceive white Americans as racist, a major reason for black support for liberalism could lose its appeal to blacks. On the other hand, if liberalism continues to portray blacks as victims of white racism, more white Americans will regard liberalism as phony -- or worse, as stirring up racial tensions for political gain.<br /><br />Most whites are tired of racial tension, tired of being portrayed as racist, tired of their children being taught in college that they are either consciously or unconsciously racist, tired of lowering standards for blacks or anyone else.<br /><br />So the Obama victory puts liberals in a bind. They either acknowledge the reality of an essentially non-racist America and thereby alienate black and white liberals still committed to this proposition or they continue to play the America is racist card and alienate many whites.<br /><br />The challenge the Obama victory poses to many blacks is that they will have to abandon ascribing black problems -- such as disproportionate amounts of violent crime and the highest rate of out-of-wedlock births in America -- to racism. Fewer and fewer white Americans will tolerate being blamed for problems within black life.<br /><br />4. The Obama victory will bring clarity to Americas place in the world.<br /><br />Now that America is apparently loved again, we shall see how this plays out beyond emotional rhetoric. Will Europe contribute significantly more troops to Afghanistan? Will Germany now allow its NATO troops to shoot at Taliban fighters (thus far they have been allowed to shoot only if shot at)? Will our allies and Russia and China place the needed sanctions on Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear device? Or is Americas being loved irrelevant to how other countries behave?<br /><br />5. Conservatives will be able to show how much more decently they act when they are out of power.<br /><br />The treatment of President George W. Bush by liberals has been despicable, undeserved and unprecedented. We who oppose Barack Obamas policies will, hopefully, act in accordance with conservative values of decency. Hence my simple announcement on the day after the election: I did not vote for him. I did not want him to be president. But as of January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be my president.<br /><br />Barack Obama may have a successful presidency or a failed one. If he allows the left wing of the Democratic Party to set his agenda, it will be the latter. In the meantime, however, we can celebrate the aforementioned good of Barack<br />Obamas election and pray for him and for our beloved country.</span><br /></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-23021238182953927792008-10-30T17:25:00.000-07:002008-10-30T17:29:05.641-07:00What Independent Voters Want<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"><strong>By: John P Avlon</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"><strong>The Wall Street Journal</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"><strong>October 20, 2008</strong></span><br /><div align="center"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><em><strong>“They tend to be fiscally conservative and strong on security.”</strong></em></span></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Independent voters, once a political afterthought, are now the largest and fastest-growing segment of the American electorate.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />This shift led to the nomination of two candidates who ran against the polarizing establishments of their own parties, while preaching the need to reach across the red-state/blue-state divide. Now independent voters may determine who is elected president.<br /><br />Forty-three percent of undecided swing voters are independents and 47% are centrists, according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. Independent voters have been on the rise while the parties have been playing to a shrinking base. This is a generational change. There are now six states where independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats -- the swing states of Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire as well as New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.<br /><br />Key battleground states this year such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina each have more than one million independent voters. In California, Florida and Nevada, the number of independent voters has increased more than 300% in the past 20 years, while Democratic and Republican registration has flatlined.<br /><br />Back in 1954, only 22% of voters identified themselves as independents, according to the American National Election Survey. Fifty years later the number was nearly double. Now, two out of five Americans can't name anything they like about the Democrats, and 50% say the same about Republicans. What happened?<br /><br />As the two parties grew more ideologically polarized amid the culture conflicts of the 1960s, centrist voters felt politically homeless. First, there was realignment in the form of Reagan Democrats, and then de-alignment as centrist voters declared their independence from the far-right and the far-left. The modern independent movement kicked into high gear with Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign. Promising to balance the budget and reform the corrupt partisan system in Washington, Mr. Perot briefly led in the polls and managed to win 19% of the vote.<br /><br />Throughout the 1990s, the independent movement kept growing while Democrats and Republicans warred in Washington. Three independent governors were elected: Angus King of Maine, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut and Jesse Ventura of Minnesota. All spread the same essential reform message: independence from special interests guided by a common-sense balance of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.<br /><br />The momentum continued this decade with the election of Sen. Joe Lieberman, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and the independent-in-all-but-name California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.<br /><br />This is the new mainstream in American politics, and it's growing among younger voters. More than 40% of college undergraduates identify themselves as independents, according to a summer 2008 survey by Harvard University's Institute of Politics (IOP). "Half of young Americans do not identify with traditional party or ideological labels -- they are the new center in American politics," says John Della Volpe of IOP.<br /><br />This trend extends to 30- to 45-year-old Generation X voters as well, says the author of "X Saves the World," Jeff Gordinier: "Gen Xers tend to be pretty post-ideological and pragmatic, there is less allegiance to any one party or any one way of thinking."<br /><br />For Americans who've grown accustomed to hundreds of cable channels and unlimited choices on the Internet, politics is the last place people are expected to be satisfied with a choice between Brand A and Brand B.<br /><br />Professional partisans in Washington try to ignore this shift, perpetuating the myth that the independent movement is a chaotic grab bag. In fact, the movement has a coherent set of underlying beliefs: Independents tend to be fiscally conservative, socially progressive and strong on national security. They believe in putting patriotism over partisanship and the national interest over special interests.<br /><br />One year ago, while Republicans named terrorism as their No. 1 issue and Democrats pointed to health care, independents were already feeling the squeeze of the economy. They want a return to fiscal responsibility.<br /><br />A 2007 study of independents by the Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation showed they are not swayed by social-conservative issues. Independents were more likely than either Republicans or Democrats to agree that abortion should be legal in most (but not all) cases, and that same-sex couples should be allowed to legally form civil unions, but not to marry.<br /><br />The top targets of independents' anger are illustrative -- hypocritical politicians, pork-barrel projects and a lack of bipartisan solutions in Washington, according to a 2008 national survey of independents by TargetPoint Consulting. Then there's the Bush administration. Independents believe the current president is the worst in recent history, but there is one area of policy overlap: 66% of independent voters believe that the U.S. has an obligation to establish security in Iraq before withdrawing.<br /><br />Looking at this profile, it's easy to see why John McCain is outperforming the Republican brand. Mr. McCain's credibility with independents comes from his principled independence and record of forging bipartisan coalitions. Barack Obama's appeal to independents is rooted in his promise to transcend the left/right, black/white debates. He beat Hillary Clinton 2-1 among independents.<br /><br />Throughout the summer, independents split their support evenly between Messrs. McCain and Obama, with high approval ratings for both candidates. After the Republican convention in September, independents broke for Mr. McCain by a 15-point margin and he surged in swing state polls. But the recent financial crisis increased economic anxiety among moderates and the middle class, making the election a referendum on the Bush administration. Independents swung to Mr. Obama. Colin Powell's endorsement will validate the decision for many independents.<br /><br />The next president will inherit the oval office at a time of economic turmoil, with a combustible combination of high expectations and an angry electorate. But the next president can unite the country even in difficult times if he understands this truth: Americans are not deeply divided -- our political parties are -- and the explosive growth of independent voters is a direct reaction to this disconnect.</span><br /></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-70740660614486391972008-10-30T17:07:00.000-07:002008-10-30T17:12:54.351-07:00Plummeting Oil Prices – Iran's Options<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"><strong>By: Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli<br /><br />Middle East Media Research Institute<br /><br />October 30, 2008</strong><br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Introduction</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">At its two-hour emergency meeting in Vienna on October 24, the Organization of Oil Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to lower crude production by 1.5 million barrels/day (b/d), effective next month. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The reduction in production was OPEC's response to plummeting crude prices, which peaked at $147 a barrel last July but are now hovering in the mid-$60s a barrel, and appear to be trending downward. The lowering of production was a compromise between the price hawks of OPEC, primarily Iran and Venezuela that demanded a reduction of 2.5 million b/d, and the largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, which has refused to be drawn into a situation that runs contrary to its national and strategic interests. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>The Saudi Stand</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">For weeks, the hawks had been calling for lowering oil production to stabilize prices and perhaps even to establish a floor of $70-$100 a barrel. While the hawks' voice had reached a crescendo prior to OPEC meeting, the Saudis had deliberately kept mum on the subject of production cut.<br />There are two reasons for their deliberate silence. The minor reason has to do with the Saudis' apparent refusal to be seen as in cahoots with the likes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, two revolutionary anti-Americans whose policies are viewed as anathema by the conservative Saudis. The major reason has to do with the Saudis' perception of potential conflict with Iran, its Gulf rival. The Saudis have been concerned for several years now about Iran's growing strategic influence and designs for regional hegemony in the Gulf and in a number of Arab countries, primarily Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The sharp decline in oil prices has provided the Saudis with an opportunity to inflict pain on Iran and constrain its political ambitions for regional hegemony by keeping oil production high and oil prices down. In practical terms, the Saudi's subtle weapon against Iran is at least as potent as the U.N. and U.S. sanctions combined. An economically weaker Iran translates into an Iran that is weaker both politically and strategically, and hence less of a threat to the Gulf region. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There is one other reason which has recently emerged as a source of conflict between Shi'ite Iran and a number of Sunni countries in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia but also Egypt, Jordan and the Arab Gulf countries. These countries have been concerned about Iranian efforts to engage in large-scale proselytizing of Sunnis into Shi'ism, which is perceived by the majority of the Sunnis, particularly the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, as a false religion whose practitioners are apostates. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Implications of Lower Oil Prices</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">A recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suggested that in order for Iran to balance its budget, the price of crude oil must not fall below $95 a barrel. The equivalent figure for Saudi Arabia is $50 per barrel and for the United Arab Emirates and Qatar even lower. One should keep in mind that Iranian oil sells at a discount compared with the higher quality benchmark West Texas Intermediate. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Countries whose economies rely on the production of natural resources, such as oil, generally establish a stabilization fund for retaining windfall profits, such as when oil went over $140 a barrel, to be used in time of economic shocks, such as a sharp decline in the price of the commodity. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Iran has established such a fund to be managed by its central bank. It would appear, however, that President Ahmadinejad has dipped into the till too often, causing the departure/resignation of two consecutive governors of Iran's central bank in a little over one year. The assets of the Iranian stabilization fund are kept secret; however, a member of the Majlis (parliament) recently revealed that it has a balance of $7 billion, which would just about cover the cost of imported gasoline for one year. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The sharp decline in oil prices will limit Ahamadinejad's ability to keep his election promise to bring money to the dinner tables of Iranians. During the Iranian calendar year of March 2007-2008, Iranian oil revenues were estimated at $80 billion. If prices remain at the present level of $60 per barrel, Iran's revenues in the next calendar year will decline to $64 billion, meaning a budgetary deficit of $7-$30 billion. The U.S. and U.N. sanctions will continue to force Iran to resort to circuitous routes to buy much of its consumer and, even more, dual-use goods at a premium. The Iranian press came out recently with such headlines as "the end of the oil festival," and "the bankruptcy of OPEC." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Iran's Options</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Oil revenues comprise 80% of Iran's foreign exchange. If oil prices continue to plummet in the face of the world's worsening economic crisis - a crisis which may be just in its early stages - Iran, unlike the Arab oil-producers with hefty sovereign wealth funds to cushion their national economies, could face politically destabilizing events that could threaten the survival of the regime. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">On the economic front, Iran could resort to terminating oil subsidies and restricting the import of non-essential consumer goods to conserve foreign currency. In fact, news from Iran last week suggests that both steps are under consideration. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Iran may also seek to reintroduce a 3% value-added tax (VAT) which it was forced to suspend after shopkeepers in the politically influential bazaars closed shops in protest, arguing that the VAT would further aggravate inflation which reached 29.6% in October. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The price of oil is determined by the twin factors of economics and psychology. Economic factors are shaped by supply and demand and when demand plummets the prices quickly follow suit. But oil prices are also sensitive to psychological factors, such as perceived threats to the sources or routes of oil supply. In the latter case, Iran may seek to generate a crisis that would bring oil speculators back in droves and cause oil prices to spike. In this regard, Iran could put into action one of the following options in an attempt to both divert national discontent outward and make an economic gain at the same time: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">First, Iran could escalate the conflict in Iraq to a degree that would deny the market a supply of 1.5-2.0 million b/d of much needed Basra light crude. The Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, with his Iran-paid Mahdi Army, is a potent troublemaker to carry out such a mission in the service of Iran. Iran could use its many agents in southern Iraq to sabotage the oil pipeline that carries Iraqi oil to Um-Qasr port. In a desperate move, Iran might cause an incident with one of the U.S. naval ships patrolling Iraq's oil platforms. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Second, Iran's Revolutionary Guards could sabotage an oil tanker in the Gulf of Hormuz on some flimsy argument that the tanker has violated Iran's territorial waters. Such act would raise the political tensions to high levels and greatly increase insurance premium to suffocating levels or discourage oil tankers from transporting Gulf oil. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Third, Iran could instigate a conflict between Hizbullah and Israel that could plunge the Middle East into a new round of a military conflict that might also involve Syria (Iran's strategic ally in the area). Armed conflicts in the Middle East quickly translate into higher oil prices, with or without global recession.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><em><strong>Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is the Editor of The MEMRI Economic Blog, www.memrieconomicblog.org<br /></strong></em></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6434655386354033330.post-10889360412507310642008-10-26T10:43:00.000-07:002008-10-26T10:47:42.660-07:00Ceding the CenterBy David Brooks<br /><br />The New York Times<br /><br />October 26, 2008<br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">There are two major political parties in America, but there are at least three major political tendencies. The first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using government to maximize equality. The second is free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting government to maximize freedom.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility. This tendency began with Alexander Hamilton, who created a vibrant national economy so more people could rise and succeed. It matured with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Republicans, who created the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act to give people the tools to pursue their ambitions. It continued with Theodore Roosevelt, who busted the trusts to give more Americans a square deal.<br /><br />Members of this tradition have one foot in the conservatism of Edmund Burke. They understand how little we know or can know and how much we should rely on tradition, prudence and habit. They have an awareness of sin, of the importance of traditional virtues and stable institutions. They understand that we are not free-floating individuals but are embedded in thick social organisms.<br /><br />But members of this tradition also have a foot in the landscape of America, and share its optimism and its Lincolnian faith in personal transformation. Hamilton didn’t seek wealth for its own sake, but as a way to enhance the country’s greatness and serve the unique cause America represents in the world.<br /><br />Members of this tradition are Americanized Burkeans, or to put it another way, progressive conservatives.<br /><br />This tendency thrived in American life for a century and a half, but it went into hibernation during the 20th century because it sat crossways to that era’s great debate — the one between socialism and its enemies. But many of us hoped this Hamilton-to-Bull Moose tradition would be reborn in John McCain’s campaign.<br /><br />McCain shares the progressive conservative instinct. He has shown his sympathy with the striving immigrant and his disgust with the colluding corporatist. He has an untiring reform impulse and a devotion to national service and American exceptionalism.<br /><br />His campaign seemed the perfect vehicle to explain how this old approach applied to a new century with new problems — a century with widening inequality, declining human capital, a fraying social contract, rising entitlement debt, corporate authoritarian regimes abroad and soft corporatist collusion at home.<br /><br />In modernizing this old tradition, some of us hoped McCain would take sides in the debate now dividing the G.O.P. Some Republicans believe the G.O.P. went astray by abandoning its tax-cutting, anti-government principles. They want a return to Reagan (or at least the Reagan of their imaginations). But others want to modernize and widen the party and adapt it to new challenges. Some of us hoped that by reforming his party, which has grown so unpopular, McCain could prove that he could reform the country.<br /><br />But McCain never took sides in this debate and never articulated a governing philosophy, Hamiltonian or any other. In Sunday’s issue of The Times Magazine, Robert Draper describes the shifts in tactics that consumed the McCain campaign. The tactics varied promiscuously, but they were all about how to present McCain, not about how to describe the state of country or the needs of the voter. It was all biography, which was necessary, but it did not clearly point to a new direction for the party or the country.<br /><br />The Hamiltonian-Bull Moose tendency is the great, moderate strain in American politics. In some sense this whole campaign was a contest to see which party could reach out from its base and occupy that centrist ground. The Democratic Party did that. Senior Democrats like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Jason Furman actually created something called The Hamilton Project to lay out a Hamiltonian approach for our day.<br /><br />McCain and Republicans stayed within their lines. There was a lot of talk about earmarks. There was a good health care plan that was never fully explained. And there was Sarah Palin, who represents the old resentments and the narrow appeal of conventional Republicanism.<br /><br />As a result, Democrats now control the middle. Self-declared moderates now favor Obama by 59 to 30, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll. Suburban voters favor Obama 50 to 39. Voters over all give him a 21 point lead when it comes to better handling the economy and a 14 point lead on tax policy, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.<br /><br />McCain would be an outstanding president. In government, he has almost always had an instinct for the right cause. He has become an experienced legislative craftsman. He is stalwart against the country’s foes and cooperative with its friends. But he never escaped the straightjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservatism that is behind the times. And that’s what makes the final weeks of this campaign so unspeakably sad.</span><br /></span>Joel Rosenthalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16026911475980839068noreply@blogger.com0