Yemen again.

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If one adopts the currently fashionable socio-economic explanation for Islamist radicalism, then Yemen’s current problems are explained by its poverty and lack of effective government.[1] It has few natural resources (water and oil are both in short supply) and is a made-up country plastered over a tribal reality. It provided the setting for Al Qaeda Classic to bomb the U.S.S Cole in 2000; it provided the haven from which Anwar al-Awliki ran his propaganda operations from 2004 to 2011; and “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” set up shop in 2009.

Most Yemenis are Sunni Muslims, but a minority are Shi’a Muslims. Among the latter are the Zaydis of northern Yemen. The Zaydis, in turn, are led by the al-Houthi family. It has been simpler for Westerners to describe the group as “Houthis.” Back in the 1990s, the al Houthi family, like many other people, fell out with the one-time ruler of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh. This led to a low level insurgency among the Houthis during the first decade of the 21st Century. It is entirely possible that Shi’ite Iran has been providing some aid to the Houthis in the same way that they provide aid to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to the Assad government in Syria.[2]

On top of this, in 2002 the United States opened a Yemen front in its Global War on Terror. It sent Special Forces troops to train the army of Yemen. About 100 drone strikes have killed perhaps 900 militants, but also a bunch of civilians.[3] This has created something of a problem in logic for the Houthis. On the one hand, the Houthis hate Al Qaeda because they’re Sunnis. On the other hand, the Houthis hate the United States because Americans are infidels and they also blow up things in Yemen. A problem in logic is not always a problem in reality. The Houthis adopted an eclectic “a plague on both your houses” approach.

Then came the “Arab Spring” in 2011. The Houthis joined a bunch of Sunnis tribes in the south to force Saleh out of power. Saleh’s “vice president,” Abed Hadi, took over as “president.”[4] Saleh may have hoped to return to power once things quieted down: his son commanded the Republican Guard and could topple Hadi at any time. Hadi solved this problem by disbanding the Republican Guard. Then fighting between the houthis, the Sunni tribes and the government soon started up again. In early 2015, the Houthis seized the capital city, Sana’a.

It will be difficult to do anything about this mess. Education and economic development sound good in speeches, but take time and local co-operation. As Homer Simpson said when told of a 48 hour waiting period to buy a gun, “But I’m angry now.” Saleh may have been scheming with the Houthis in hopes of getting back into power. Old Middle-East hands are probably muttering “so what else is new?” Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is roping-up support for intervention in Yemen to toss the Houthis out on their ear. Until they do, the local al Qaeda franchise is portraying itself as the only effective Sunni response to the Shi’ite power grab. Finally, there is the ISIS dimension.[5] Since the end of 2014 ISIS has been making connections with Islamist groups in Libya, where the chaotic situation differs little from that in Yemen or Syria. Yemen is likely to be next on the list. Eventually, Washington may start to see merits in a return to effective tyranny in place of anarchy. Doubtless, many American allies will heave a sigh of relief.

[1] “Yemen’s descent into chaos,” The Week, 6 March 2015.

[2] You can see why the Saudis think that Iran is a real problem. Benjamin Netanyahu is a loud voice insisting on a strong stand against Iran’s nuclear program, but he likely isn’t the only—or most important—one.

[3] Opponents of the Saleh regime purport to believe that it identified its own political opponents to the Americans as Islamist militants in need of attack. See: Phoenix Program.

[4] These terms are part of the farce that Yemen is in anyway a Western-style country.

[5] Benoit Faucon and Matt Bradley, “Islamic State Co-Opted Radicals in Libya,” WSJ, 18 February 2015.

Long-Term Trends 1.

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The United States faces one long-term problem in how to support its existing entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid) and other discretionary spending as the “Baby Boom” takes up the rocking chair. A growing economy will more easily support these programs without drastic tax increases or spending cuts. A second long-term problem is that the national debt accumulated by many years of deficit spending has reached 75 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is primed to go higher. This alarms some people more than other people.

President Obama is committed to stabilizing the national debt as a share of GDP at around 73 percent of GDP between now and 2025. This will a lot easier with a growing economy than with a lame one. So, how to foster growth?

As the US economy emerges from the “Great Recession” its long-term future will be determined in part by the absolute number of workers employed and the productivity-per-worker.[1] According to some measures, the US economy is in trouble in these areas.

The “labor participation rate” (the share of the population in work or looking for work) However, between 1950 and 2000, the participation of men in the labor force fell from almost 90 percent to about 70 percent. Over the same period, women’s participation rose from about 30 percent to about 60 percent. Then over-all rate fell from 66 percent (2007) to 62.9 percent (2014). The conventional explanation is that the prolonged recession dumped people into despair. Still, it is worth considering a couple of other possible factors. For one thing, the recession also coincided with the early stages of the “baby boom” taking retirement. If so, then there is a limited chance of luring them back into the labor force. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a 62.0 percent participation rate by 2019. For another thing, the decline may reflect a cultural preference for parents to spend more time with young children in the absence of compelling incentives to try to work.

The Obama administration has proposed ways to get as much participation as possible out of the labor force that remains.[2] Increasing the labor force is one element of this strategy. The Obama administration has proposed increasing immigration in order to expand the labor force and offering expanded maternity leave in order to keep women in the labor force. Other measures would include a $500 tax “credit” for working couples. This could be used to off-set child-care and commuting costs. Perhaps that will lure stay-at-home Moms and Dads into the labor force. A separate proposal increases the child-care tax credit. A third measure would offer the Earned Income Tax Credit to workers without children. This proposal tries to draw more single men into the job market.

Increasing productivity is more of a problem. Productivity increased by about 1.3 percent/year from 1973 to 1981; by about 1.7 percent/year between 1981 and 1990; by about 2.1 percent/year between 1990 and 2000; and by about 2.7 percent/year between 2001 and 2007. Productivity gains had already begun to slow by 2004, even before the “Great Recession.” Since 2007, productivity has increased on an average of 1.3 percent per year.[3]

A bunch of these proposals have also been advanced in the past by Republicans like Rob Portman and Paul Ryan. (See: “RomneyCare.”) It will be interesting to see if the Republicans know how to take “Yes” for an answer.

[1] Greg Ip, “Economy’s Supply Side Sputters,” WSJ, 19 February 2015.

[2] Nick Timiraos, “Obama Sees 20 Rocky Years as Boomers Retire,” WSJ, 20 February 2015.

[3] There is an obvious problem with how Greg Ip slices up the periods. A full–decade average for 2001 to 2010 would both reduce the gains from 2001 to 2007 and would increase the numbers for 2007-2010.

Future Election Demographics.

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So, America is on its way to becoming a “majority minority” country: within several decades non-whites will out-number whites. These have been traditional constituencies of the Democratic Party. Moreover, women are more likely to vote Democratic than are men. In short, the Democrats think they have the future all sewn-up. “Swimmin’ pools, movie stars,…”[1]

“Not so fast!” say a bunch of political demographers.[2] For one thing, the Democrats still have to get through the 2016 election. In 2012 President Obama won re-election while receiving only 39 percent of the white vote. No one expects future Democratic candidates to do this badly. However, the President carried white voters in northern states, while losing them hand-over-fist in the South. Can future Democratic candidates count on the same level of support in the North? Hillary Clinton, for example, lost these states to Obama during the 2008 primaries. She may be the front-running candidate for the nomination in 2016, but lots of people don’t like her. A serious “Anyone But Clinton” campaign could sink her. Moreover, it isn’t yet clear that Democrats can count on breaking back into the South. A passel of—white–Democratic candidates didn’t do any better in the South in 2014 than did the President in 2012. The Democrats have alienated many white Southerners (of both sexes) by their embrace of gun control, gay marriage, affirmative action, and internationalism over nationalism.

Democratic victory appears to rely on getting the vote out among young people and non-whites. These are weak reeds for a number of reasons. College-educated whites and African-Americans make up two pillars of the current Democratic Party. However, North Carolina Senate candidate Kay Hagan pulled more college-educated white voters than did President Obama. What this suggests is that being a college-educated white person doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party has a lock on you if you don’t like the candidate. Democrats are going to have to do some thinking about why this might be.

Fitful turn-out for elections is another issue. Indeed, the prospect that they will turn out to vote may fire up a Republican base concerned about the division between the “makers” and the “takers.” Furthermore, Republican Congressional districts are white and rural or suburban. Minority votes don’t decide anything in these constituencies. In 2014, Hispanic-Mexican votes were not enough to shift control of the House or the Senate.[3]

However, in 2016, a Republican presidential candidate will have to pull some Hispanic-Mexican voters to win the White House. So, Republicans have a small and closing window during which to figure out what is their policy toward the issues that concern Hispanic voters. (Failing that, they will have another four years to figure it out–and work on their golf handicaps). Immigration reform is probably only one of their concerns. Republicans doubling down on repression isn’t a realistic long-term policy. Democrats betting that social and economic conservatism will not have any appeal to Hispanics isn’t a realistic long-term policy either.

The thing is, millions of Hispanics already vote Republican. Democrats—often Eastern liberals with all sorts of nominally progressive opinions—don’t actually distinguish between African-Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. They’re just “minorities” who should be loyal to Democrats. What they anticipate is that “minority” concerns will mean “African-American” concerns. It isn’t likely to shake-out that way.

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwzaxUF0k18

[2] Nate Cohn, “G.O.P.’s Path to the Presidency, Tight but Real,” NYT, 10 November 2014.

[3] Nate Cohn, “Why House Republicans Can Ignore Latinos (for Now),” NYT, 21 October 2014.

Climate of Fear XIV.

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In November 2014, China and the United States reached a bi-lateral non-treaty agreement on reducing carbon emissions. President Obama committed the United States to cut carbon emission by 26-28 percent below the level of 2005 by 2025.[1] President Xi Jinping committed China to reach peak carbon emissions by or before 2030. In addition, China agreed to raise its nuclear, wind, and solar energy generation to about 20 percent of the total by 2030.

The Sino-American agreement prompted diplomats negotiating the draft framework for a new international climate-change agreement to change their own approach.[2] They adopted the idea of allowing each country to commit to reducing carbon emissions without specifying how or by how much they will do so. Countries are supposed to announce during March 2015 how much they will cut emissions after 2020. No one thinks they will set ambitious targets. All 196 nations will agree to sign the new agreement in Paris in November and December 2015.

 

All well and good. What are some of the key problems for which people should be looking during 2015?

Currently, China gets about 10 percent of its energy from non-carbon sources. Experts seem to believe that China will need to deploy an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of “zero emission generation capacity” to get to 20 percent non-carbon energy-generation by 2030. This is more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today. If China is going to massively expand its non-carbon energy generation just to get to 20 percent of the total, then that suggests that China will also massively expand its carbon energy generation at the same time.

The Obama Administration is pressing for a non-treaty agreement because of the doubts it could pass the Senate. However, a non-treaty is non-binding on all of the signatories. Furthermore, China has always resisted international monitoring of its economy.[3] This could end up like the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) “outlawing war.”

Reducing the amount of coal burned will have effects on several societies as well as on the environment. As of 2012, China got 81 percent of its electricity generation from coal; India got 71 percent; Australia got 69 percent; Indonesia got 48 percent; Germany got 44 percent; the UK got 39 percent; and the US got 38 percent. Shifting some of these countries off coal-burning will require heavy investment in new technologies. There is no sign that any cheap alternative to fossil fuels is at hand. Then coal is an important export for some counties. In 2013 Indonesia exported 426 million tons of coal; Australia 336 million tons; Russia 141 million tons; and the US 107 million tons. Dissuading countries from burning coal for energy will have an effect on the incomes of these countries. If coal turns out to be too dug- in[4] to be abandoned, then attention will have to turn to “clean coal” technologies, and to emissions capture and storage.

In the absence of serious commitments to substantially reduce carbon emissions, climate scientists now believe that it will be impossible to hold back some of the effects of climate change. Glaciers will melt, sea levels will rise, and problems with drought and harvests will increase.

[1] In June 2014, EPA proposed guidelines for existing power plants that would reduce emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

[2] Coral Davenport, “With Compromises, a Global Accord to Fight Climate Change Is in Sight,” NYT, 10 December 2014; William Mauldin, “Coal Clouds Talks on Climate,” WSJ, 13-14 December 2014.

[3] “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”—attributed to Sam Goldwyn.

[4] HA! Is joke.

The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives.

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In the 19th Century, a lot of Norwegians migrated to places like Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas to make a living as farmers. Tough, hard-working, close-mouthed, decent people. Norman Borlaug (1914-2009) fit the stereotype. He grew up during the Depression, worked his way through the University of Minnesota to get a BA in forestry (1937). Along the way he got interested in plant diseases, so he went on and got a Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics (1942).

Borlaug spent most of the Second World War on research work for DuPont down in Wilmington. In 1944 his old Ph.D. adviser recruited him to work on improving wheat harvests in Mexico. Borlaug spent sixteen years in Mexico developing disease-resistant strains of wheat. Along the way he had to overcome resistance from incompetent, lazy, or anti-foreign bureaucrats. He also had to persuade farmers to try something new when they were both wedded to tradition and fearful that a failed experiment would leave them to starve. He persevered. The seeds developed by Borlaug both yielded high returns of grain and resisted disease. A bunch of his developments were impossible in theory, but possible in practice. (So much for Rene Descartes.) Largely as a result of Borlaug’s work, the yield of Mexican wheat rose five-fold between 1950 and 2000. Mexico went from being a wheat-importer in the 1940s to being a wheat-exporter by the 1960s while feeding a much larger population.

In the early 1960s developing countries all over the world were struggling with rapid population growth. (See: The Population Bomb.) How were they to feed their people? Agricultural scientists in India and Pakistan got their governments to call in Borlaug. Borlaug had to overcome all the same difficulties that he had encountered in Mexico, with the added problem that India and Pakistan were at war with each other for part of the time. He persevered. As a result of Borlaug’s work, the yield of Indian and Pakistani wheat quadrupled between 1960 and 2000. Other countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa then copied the Borlaug seeds. Then Asian governments applied his basic approach to producing high-yield, disease resistant rice instead of wheat. The huge increase in food production in countries that once faced the certainty of mass-death from famine has come to be called the “Green Revolution.”

In 1970 Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize. When the committee called Borlaug at home to inform him, his wife said that he had already gone to work. It was 4:00 AM.

Later on, from 1984 on, Borlaug taught at Texas A&M University.[1]

Critics have found much to dislike in the effects of Borlaug’s work. They denounce the shift from subsistence farming to single-crop agriculture because it makes people dependent on the capitalist market. They denounce the reliance on scientifically-bred seeds and fertilizers and tractors and irrigation systems because it creates profits for American corporations. They dislike genetically-modified foods because it seems unnatural.

Borlaug replied that “They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things”

Borlaug was a tough, hard-working, close-mouthed, decent man. It has been estimated that about a billion people didn’t starve to death because of his work.

[1] The “A&M” stands for “Agricultural and Mechanical.”   Once upon a time, we had a different vision of education.

American Union, stay away from me uh.

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The percentage of American workers belonging to a union peaked in 1954 at almost 35%, almost all of them in the private-sector.[1] Today, only about 7% of private-sector workers belong to a union. How this came to be is a complex story.

On the one hand, private-sector union membership soon began a steady decline that continues into the 2010s. The 1970s marked an important watershed. First, beginning in the 1970s foreign competitors exerted steady pressure on American producers. Japanese and German cars, steel, and electronics, and Asian textiles all penetrated the American market to an unprecedented degree. Second, companies were racked by strikes that disrupted production and forced up wages: there were 381 major strikes in 1970 and 187 major strikes in 1980. These hard-pressed companies responded by cutting costs, including the high labor costs of unions.

Beginning in the 1980s, companies moved production from pro-union Northeastern and Mid-Western states to anti-union Southern states; or they began the process of off-shoring their production in low-wage Asian countries. High-wage unionized labor got left behind as the non-union jobs created elsewhere paid lower wages. In a sense, unions priced themselves out of jobs.

Then foreign competition combined with new technology to just eliminate many other jobs in previously unionized industries. Between 1974 and 1999 employment in the American steel industry fell from 521,000 people to 153,000 people.[2] The experience of the United Auto Workers has been even more disastrous than that of the United Steel Workers. Many jobs were lost to foreign competition. When foreign companies did build auto plants in the United States, they located them in Southern states. Union membership fell from a peak of 1.5 million in 1979 to 540,000 in 2006 to 390,000 in 2010. Overall, private-sector employers got what they wanted: a lower-cost, more flexible, less disruptive work force.[3] Employers in other industries have worked hard to keep out unions to avoid the fate of cars and steel.

Another key factor is the corporate mismanagement shown by the massive bureaucracies of the car companies and their incompetent response to the “oil shocks” of the 1970s.

However, American businesses have created a lot of good jobs in the high-tech industries at the same time that jobs were disappearing from the low-tech sector. Unions have failed to unionize these sectors. The reasons for this failure are complex. In essence, most of the workers have non-traditional concerns or are educated people who don’t want yet another boss.

In contrast, public sector union membership grew steadily. Today, 31% of federal workers, 35% of state workers and 46% of local workers belong to unions. Moreover, the numbers of people employed by state and local government rose from 4 million workers in 1950 to 16.6 million in 2009. In 2009 there were more people in public sector unions (7.9 million) than in private sector unions (7.4 million). Even the good news is bad news. To prevent the disruption of basic services, governments granted good pay and promised generous pensions. They didn’t ask if future generations would be able to support their promises. It isn’t clear that those pension promises can actually be made good.[4] Another disaster looms for unions.

[1] The absolute number belonging to a union peaked in 1979 at an estimated 21.0 million.

[2] However, what is true in America is true in every other steel-producing nation. Over the last quarter of the 20th century, the world steel industry cut its work force by more than 1.5 million people. Some countries were hit harder even than the United States: Japan was down from 459,000 to 208,000; Germany was down from 232,000 to 78,000; Britain was down from 197,000 to 31,000; Brazil was down from 118,000 to 59,000.

[3] There were only 11 major strikes in 2010. That is a 97% drop from the 1970 peak.

[4] See the many articles by Mary Williams Walsh in the NYT over the past decade.

Does Paul Krugman eat lunch alone?

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Paul Krugman[1] (1953- ) is one of the smartest guys alive. He got a BA in Economics from Yale (1974) and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. (1977). He taught at M.I.T. from 1979 to 2000, then moved to Princeton. He has won both the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal (1991) and the Nobel Prize in Economics (2008). He is a prolific author and a columnist for the New York Times.

Krugman presents himself as a scald to “politicians and pundits who solemnly repeat the conventional wisdom that sounds tough-minded and realistic.” He argues that “some of those seemingly tough-minded positions are actually ways to dodge the truly hard issues.” He cites “Bowles-Simpsonism”[2] as an example of this problem. Elite discourse is diverted from the immediate problem of high unemployment by obsessing over how to pay for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid in the distant future.

His latest target is efforts to “divert our national discourse about inequality into a discussion of alleged problems with education.”[3] Krugman argues that “soaring inequality isn’t about education; it’s about power.” The conventional wisdom holds that rapid technological change has divided the labor force into those who have adapted (and reaped the rewards) and those who have not (and have suffered the losses). (See: Inequality )

The evidence doesn’t support the contention that “educational failings are at the root of still-weak job creation, stagnating wages, and rising inequality.” First, there’s no sign of high demand for skilled-workers, so the “skills gap” argument doesn’t hold water. Second, the inflation-adjusted incomes of highly-educated people have stayed flat for almost twenty years, so the differentiated income argument doesn’t hold water either.

Krugman sees something different happening. Corporate profits are up without the rate of return on investment having risen. He sees this as a sign of monopoly power. Companies are just squeezing consumers, rather than letting competition drive down prices. Furthermore, incomes are rising sharply for people with “strategic positions” in corporations and Wall Street.

He recommends redistribution through higher taxes on corporations and the rich, spending on programs to help working families, raising the minimum wage, and support for organizing labor to bargain effectively with employers.

There’s a lot to like in Krugman’s arguments. His assault on the inadequate Obama stimulus bill certainly proved correct. However, for someone with such extraordinary intellectual fire-power at his disposal, it’s odd that he doesn’t have more effect. Writing for the NYT is preaching to the converted. It is, perhaps, revealing that he called the British Labour Party leader Gordon Brown “more impressive than any US politician.” Brown is a brilliant man with sadly deficient political skills. The far less capable Tony Blair maneuvered Brown into delaying his claims to the prime ministership for years; then Brown put his foot in his mouth once he had the job. Krugman has explained his own absence from government by saying that he’s “temperamentally unsuited for that kind of role. You have to be very good at people skills, biting your tongue when people say silly things.”

It’s hard to persuade people if they turn down the volume when you start to talk.

[1] Curiously, Krugman’s middle name is Robin. His first wife’s name was Robin Bergman. His second wife’s name is Robin Weiss. This starts to sound a little like Lyndon Johnson.

[2] Krugman does not exactly attack the Commission’s Report itself, so much as a movement that makes use of the report. Erskine Bowles punched back effectively in a letter to the WSJ, 11 February 2015.

[3] Paul Krugman, “Knowledge Isn’t Power,” NYT, 23 February 2015.

The Islamic Brigades 1.

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Why do young Muslim men go to fight in foreign wars? The “Afghan Arabs” were a feature of the resistance to the Soviet Union, then of Al Qaeda’s attack on the United States. Arabs went to fight in Chechnya in small numbers, and now in Syria in larger numbers.[1] What draws or drives these young people to take up arms for a non-national cause?

There is a sensitive discussion of one case in the New York Times.[2] Islam Yaken (1993- ) grew up in a middle-class family in Cairo. Conservatism and modernity co-existed in his family. His mother and sisters wear the veil, yet his parents sent him to a French-language private school, and then on to university. Like many young American men of his age, Yaken fell in love with body-building. He got “ripped” by any standard. He imagined himself as a future fitness instructor. Yet he had not abandoned religious faith.[3]

Obstacles barred his path. For one thing, the conservative cast of contemporary Islam disparages physical pleasure.[4] Both sex and body-building are physical pleasures. Yaken Islam desired women, even talking of emigrating to find a career and a “hot” girlfriend.[5] For another thing, in Egypt or America, it is hard to turn personal training into a decent livelihood. Yaken failed to break into an established gym, and had to make-do with private lessons in smaller gyms.

Leaving Egypt for greener pastures entered his mind.[6] Go where? Make a start how? The answers seemed impossible. A return to the conservative religious values in which he had been raised also entered his mind. Like the 17th Century English Protestant writer John Bunyan, he excoriated himself for “sins” that others would hardly notice. He grew a beard. Still Shaitan tormented him—in the form of girls in Levis and ballet flats.

In early 2012, when Islam Yaken was 19 years old, the Muslim Brotherhood came out in the open as a result of the fall of the Mubarak regime. After years of repression by the Sadat and Mubarrak governments, the Brotherhood had survived. Apparently, they had triumphed over their enemies. Their intransigent defense of strict conservative religious doctrines—something to believe in when secular society offered nothing to believe in—may have seemed like an explanation. They were in full throat. Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Yacoub preached before huge crowds of followers in a Cairo mosque. Yaken Islam became a follower. Religious commitment did nothing to assuage the terrors that haunted him. If anything, they worsened.

In July 2013 the Egyptian military regime re-asserted itself. A heavy hand fell on the Muslim Brotherhood. By August 2013 Yaken Islam had decided for jihad in Syria. He went to Turkey, then crossed the border to join the ISIS fighters. For a year-and-a-half he has been a soldier, physical training instructor, media personality for ISIS. He has found “a life free of [sins].., a greater cause, an Islamic state.”

He was young, foolish, sexually frustrated, living in a puritanical society with little economic growth or political freedom. All true, but not everyone seeks the easy path. There is a lot of will-power and striving in a six-pack.

[1] For example, there are at least 600 Egyptians fighting with ISIS, probably many more than that.

[2] Mona El-Naggar, “From Cairo Private School to Syria’s Killing Fields,” NYT, 19 February 2015.

[3] He used a mat in his room both for prayer and for crunches.

[4] “Suppose a young man falls in love with a girl in college. He doesn’t touch her or talk to her or send her messages. He doesn’t even look at her. That’s still fornication!”—Sheikh Muhammad Yacoub, video imam.

[5] The attitude toward women is not so different from that of many American men of his age (regardless of generation).

[6] Apparently this is common talk among young people. If it ever starts, the tide of Egyptian boat people will vastly out-number the Libyan one.

Ukraine1.

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I’ve been reluctant to write about the Ukraine. I find myself totally out of step with opinion. I don’t like Vladimir Putin[1], but I think that someone should try to make a fair case for understanding his actions.[2]

For one thing, if you look at maps of Ukraine, you see that Crimea and the two eastern “oblasts” (administrative districts) of Donetsk and Luhansk are predominantly Russian-speaking: 77.0%, 74.9%, and 68.8%. In the referendum on independence from the Soviet Union the south-eastern “oblasts” all voted for independence like the rest of Ukraine, but the opposition vote was much higher than elsewhere and so was the abstention rate. In the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections, Viktor Yanukovich’s Russian-oriented “Party of Regions” carried a huge swath of south-eastern Ukraine. The Yulia Timoshenko bloc had carried a huge swath of western and central Ukraine. In the presidential elections of 2010, Yanukovich narrowly defeated Yulia Timoshenko by mobilizing the same pro-Russian electoral base in the south-east.

The opposition to the Yanukovich government’s decision to halt the process of integration with the European Community (EU) centered in the west and center of the country. These regions had voted for Timoshenko in the 2010. In contrast, there were few demonstrations or protests in the southeast. Only five protests were identified for the two eastern “oblasts” and Crimea combined. In contrast, there were large pro-Russian protests in the two eastern “oblasts,” Crimea, and elsewhere in the southeast. Finally, supporters of the “Euro-Maidan” protests seized control of local governments in western and central Ukraine, but never even made a stab at it in Crimea or the two eastern “oblasts.”

According to “polling data by [the German polling agency] GfK taken from 4-18 March [2014] in all regions of Ukraine (including Crimea), 48% of Ukrainians support[ed] the change in power while 34% oppose[ed]. In the Eastern and Southern regions the revolution is supported by 20% of the population, whereas 57% or more of the population in the rest of the country supports the change in government. Also, only 2% of those polled said they fully or partially trusted former president Viktor Yanukovych.”[3] So, while Yanukovich was widely unpopular, a clear majority of people in the southeast opposed the revolution in Kiev.

Crimea has been annexed to Russia; the continuing “insurgency” in eastern Ukraine is limited to the two eastern “oblasts” where real opposition to the Kiev revolution was very strong for ethno-cultural reasons.

Is it possible that Vladimir Putin is doggedly[4] pursuing very limited aims with regard to Ukraine? His aims at the moment appear to be to take control of the two eastern-most “oblasts.” Will he desire to push beyond this to open a land bridge to Crimea? Would he wish to take all of the territory that voted for pro-Russian parties? Would he settle for a Ukraine “neutralized” as was Austria[5] during the Cold War? It’s hard to know unless someone asks him.

[1] As Joseph Joffe said on NPR: “he’s a nasty son-of-a-bitch.”

[2] “I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but evidence for the prosecution and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English. It is un-American; it is French.”—Mark Twain, “About the Jews.”

[3] Wikipedia. Reference misplaced.

[4] Putin isn’t much inclined to turn loose of something once he has engaged with it. Russians are still fighting in Chechnya in an insurgency that has gone on in fits and starts since 1994.

[5] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_State_Treaty

Inequality 3.

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In November 2014 the voters completed their long swing from creating a Democratic majority in Congress and the White House in the 2008 elections to creating a Republican majority in Congress. President Obama has little chance of getting any legislation through Congress between now and the end of his term in 2016. Instead, in recent months the president has sought to shape the terms of debate in future elections.[1]

The latest component in this effort came out on 19 February 2015, with the release of the annual “Economic Report of the President.”[2] The document restates President Obama’s “middle-class economics” prescriptions.

The report adopts a “historical” approach.[3] The years from 1948 to 1973 were the “Age of Shared Growth.” Operating in an almost competition-free global environment and making good use of technological innovations, productivity rose sharply and inequality remained at the comparatively low levels achieved during the Depression and New Deal. Incomes doubled over the course of this quarter century. The report assigns an important role to the power of unions and to a sense of community on the part of corporate leaders. This golden age gave way to a second period, from 1973 to 1995, which the report labels the “Age of Expanded Participation.” During these years, productivity growth slowed down and a rising share of income went to those with more education. Families made up for the short-fall in their desired incomes by having both mothers and fathers work. This silver age gave way to a third period, from 1995 to the present, which the report calls the “Age of Productivity Recovery.” In this period, computer and internet technology boosted productivity out of its doldrums, but the benefits flowed to those with more education even more than before. The Great Recession came at the end of this age of lead. During the recession, women entered the labor force in smaller numbers and men just dropped out of it in larger numbers than at any time in human memory. Baby Boomers aging-out of the labor force will only compound the strains.

The President wants to take this moment to urge his “middle class economics.” In practice, this means more spending on education and on infrastructure; rapid completion of trade deals with Europe and the countries of the Pacific region; carrying out immigration reform; reforming the tax on business; and cutting taxes on “modest” incomes while raising taxes on high incomes. He thinks that these measures will increase productivity.

The president faces push-back. Democrats hate free trade because it ships low-skill/low-educations jobs overseas[4], harming the interests of the sort of people who used to make up much of the Democratic base. Republicans oppose higher taxes on high incomes because they shift money from investment toward consumption, harming the interests of the sort of people who still make up much of the Republican base.

There’s a lot to like in the report. Education and infrastructure need improvement; more trade deals are better than fewer; and immigration reform needs to go through. There’s also a lot to argue with. Tax “cuts” on low income groups just pay them to stay the same, when they need to change; higher taxes reduce investment when we need a lot.

Will Hillary Clinton feel bound by this report? Will Republicans take it seriously?

[1] One can’t help but suspect that experience has taught him that the Democratic Party in general is not deeply committed to his own vision of a just society.

[2] John Harwood, “Economic Report From Obama Focuses on Income Inequality,” NYT, 20 February 2015.

[3] There is a lot to quibble with in the report’s historical sophistication.

[4] In fact, a lot of American jobs were lost to China, rather than to NAFTA, which created American jobs.