Job Loss to Technology

Today it is pretty much accepted that technological development at an ever increasing rate has displaced and will continue to displace workers. Automation is replacing workers on the factory floor and artificial intelligence is replacing clerical, engineering, finance and management personnel. More and more mining is done by machines, assembly by robots and soon driverless vehicles will be transporting people and goods. The optimistic view is that as in the past, the new technologies will create new jobs. I’m not so optimistic. The loss of these jobs on the surface looks like something that will only affect the working classes. However, in reality, it will affect everyone. The profits will initially increase as the productivity improves but ultimately, without money in the hands of the population as a whole to spend on widgets manufactured at ever greater efficiency, profits will drop. (A teacher asked one of my ten year old grandson’s class what would they do if they had all the money in the world. To this my grandson replied that he would not want to have all the money because then people would not have money to buy the stuff they need to make the things he would want to buy.) I attended a seminar about 30 years ago headed by Edward Deming, the person who introduced statistical quality control to Japan and who, through that effort, made a significant contribution to Japans growth in the seventies and eighties. In his presentation he pointed out that automation only makes sense if there is a labor shortage or it improves quality. Across the globe today we are far from a labor shortage. The Conservative’s claim that a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy will create jobs reminds me of the mantra back not too many years ago calling for more money in the hands of “job creators”(the wealthy), as a way to create jobs. In my mind the real job creators are the customers of Wall Mart and the like, since their demand is what creates jobs. In all my experience running a manufacturing company I never had a banker or a potential investor ask what we paid for taxes but how are we going to grow our customer base and how will we differentiate our product and service. I have proposed a couple of solutions in previous posts like all workers in an enterprise sharing in its profits so that as efficiency improves so does their buying power. There is nothing sacred about the forty hour work week so also reduce hours as efficiency improves. Henry Ford, the father of the production line, recognized that it didn’t do much good to make cheap cars if the masses couldn’t afford to buy them and increased salaries on the production floor to get enough money into the hands of his employees to buy the cars they mass produced. Another post suggested instituting a universal draft and making a key function of the military, not war, but to do all the work that no one wants to do that is needed to make people’s lives better and more interesting and thus greatly reducing the amount of labor in the market, increasing the demand and raising its value. There is no question in my mind that technology will displace workers in manufacturing but significantly those in administrative, engineering and management jobs. Currently our administration is focusing on red herrings instead of the real issue. They want to renegotiate trade agreements, ignore climate change and increase coal mining just to name a few. Instead they should be working tirelessly on strategies for increasing money in the hands of the masses during a time when technology is rapidly improving efficiency and the world population is continuing to grow. To do this effectively will require cooperation with all our neighbors and not nativism and isolation. If not, we will solve the problem through massive world wars thus improving the labor market by building more weapons, increasing the size of military and loosing soldiers on the battle fields and civilians in their homes.

It Depends

A couple weeks ago I was playing golf on a nine-hole cow pasture with a few guys from the Old Man’s League. After the round we sit around for a bit and chat. Somehow we got on a subject that prompted a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War to mention an interview he saw on TV of a guy who deposed a half dozen or so German Gestapo who participated in the horrific gassing of Jews during the Second World War. The interviewer commented that he must have been “looking into the face of evil” to which he replied “no I was looking into the faces of men”. This conversation prompted me to think about another comment I heard month ago made by a conservative congressman. The topic was torture and when torture was criticized, the Congressman not only approved of it, but proclaimed that the men doing the torturing on behalf of our country are heroes. The sixths of the Ten Commandments, given to Abraham by God which all three Abrahamic religions; Jews, Christians and Muslims, subscribe to, says “thou shalt not kill”. This seems rather straight forward and unambiguous. In Wikipedia the sixth commandment is listed as using the word “kill”. However, in some Biblical sites on the Net I looked at, ”kill” becomes “murder” which opens the door to killing under many circumstances where under law, it is not defined as murder. Though In some religious groups, “thou shalt not kill” is taken as a command from the Lord. The Christian Quakers and some Sufi Muslim sects take this commandment literally. There are also other sects, including the Non-Abrahamic Jane of India, that have a prohibition against killing under any circumstances and the Jane even takes it a step further prohibiting the killing of anything. Let’s, for the sake of argument, say that the Lord really meant “murder” and killing of our fellow man under some circumstances is condoned. For instance, killing an enemy in war, wrongdoers as defined by a given society or to protect one’s family and property is acceptable in most cultures. In some cultures killing for honor, homosexuality and adultery is acceptable. Ending suffering through euthanasia is becoming more widely accepted in Western Countries. It gets more complicated because it is not the act and circumstance but who is doing the killing. A soldier on our side who kills hundreds of enemy soldiers is a hero while a soldier who kills hundreds of our soldiers is a demon. A murderer is a monster but the executioner taking the murderers life is only doing their public duty. About a month or so ago President Trump (not a fan) was being interviewed about Russia. When the interviewer brought out the fact that Putin kills, he responded something like “so do we” .The acts of our “special” units from the CIA, Special Forces or Navy Seals are heroic, whereas the same acts perpetrated by operatives from Soviet’s KGB or Germany’s Gestapo were heinous. We watched the killing of Osama Bin Laden on TV and cheered while others cried. We watched the beheadings by ISIS in horror while its followers celebrated. We rightly criticize the interference of the Russians in our politics but don’t blink an eye when Israel, through the American Israeli Political Action Committee becomes the strongest lobby in Washington with great influence on our policies as they relate to the Middle East. The Quran has an explicit prohibition against killing of innocent civilians but radical Muslim groups like ISIS somehow find within the same Book justification for doing just that. Leviticus 20:10 says “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death”. There are other sections of the Old Testament that get into more detail of punishment depending on circumstances such as was the woman a slave and was she your slave. The one I like is the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus, when seeing a woman about to be stoned for adultery, says “let you who are without sin cast the first stone” The philosophical question of whether morality is absolute or relative leads to questions about the nature of evil. Immanuel Kant, a German 18th century philosopher, argued that there is a set of moral values that apply to everyone. The examples cited above indicate that our society as a whole, obviously does not subscribe to Kant, and even the Scriptures support the notion that everything is relative.

The Second Amendment

“Amendment II A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right to bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Since the recent tragic shooting in Las Vegas and a new push from progressives to improve gun control, I am reviewing my understanding of the gun issue. One often hears comments from the Left about not needing automatic weapons, silencers or armor piercing bullets to shoot “Bambi”. The Right argues that the Constitution guarantees our right to own guns. In reality I think the pro and anti-gun control people are talking past each other and not understanding what actually is at issue. The progressives have a very naive view of gun ownership while conservatives have a more nuanced one. If one takes a careful look at the second amendment there is not even the slightest hint of hunting or even gun ownership per se. It talks about “bearing arms”. Hunters don’t “bear arms, they “carry guns”. Combatants “bear arms”. Basically the amendment says that the bearing of arms may be needed to ensure a free state and thus this right cannot be abridged. Michael Lerner, a progressive San Francisco Rabi wrote a book entitles “The Left Hand of God”. The basic premise is that there is a continuum we all stand on and at the right end of which there sits a vengeful, thunderbolt wielding God smiting sinners, while at the other end there sits a loving, gentle God, forgiving sinners and caring for the needy ( the “Sermon on the Mount” God). Our general view of the world and our politics depend on our position on this continuum which in part may be influenced by our physiology and definitely our culture. At the right end we tend to be pessimistic, thinking everyone is grabbing all they can get and if we don’t get in and stop them or grab our share we will have nothing. At this end, politically we are conservatives. At the other end we view our fellow man as, for the most part, good with a few bad apples here and there, and tend to be progressive. People on the right end of the continuum, worrying about their fellow man’s aggression, want to have a gun in the house to protect themselves. People at the left end, being optimists, tend not to feel the need for this protection and think guns are more of a danger than a protection. Let me get back to bearing arms. From the right hand side of the continuum, the country is always under threat; from the Commies in the fifties, the Godless hippies in the sixties, the Blacks always, the Hispanics at the end of the last century and since 9/11, the Muslims. The government is always in danger of being overtaken by one of these groups and even it does not fall to any of them, it may be weakened and unable to protect us from them. In this case we need to be able to arm ourselves and form militias to not only protect ourselves but our very freedom. In fact, even as we speak, there are militias arming, training and organizing for just such an event. Given this outlook, it is only rational that the “arms” need to be military grade and not hunting rifles. Armor piercing bullets, automatic weapons, silencers and more are necessary. Even the argument of restricting weapons based on government screening to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people is a threat. A corrupt government could wrongfully claim certain citizens are not mentally stable and deny them the right to guns. (The Soviet Union had mental hospitals full of dissidents put into institutions instead of jails so as not to put them on a stand and give them an opportunity to voice for their arguments) Another move to protect ourselves is to militarize our police forces, getting retired heavy military weaponry into local control. Back a couple of years ago I read about a sheriff somewhere down South creating a posse armed to the teeth to protect their community from the oncoming Muslim plight. In pictures of this posse I saw trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on their beds, all proudly flying our stars and stripes, demonstrating their patriotism. (My gut reaction at the time was to think “what kind of a patriot are you when you think your country is so weak as to not be able to protect us and you from a bunch of guys in robes riding camels and carrying automatic weapons”.) Indeed each side thinks it is patriotic. The Right displays its patriotism by wanting to protect our freedom with arms if necessary while the Left with its faith that our government and democracy is strong, resilient and, as it had in the past, able to withstand foreign assaults (War of 1812) and local insurrections (Civil War). So the real discussion should not be what guns and what regulations but how do we ensure our freedom through our institutions and ensure that our government works for us, all of us, and not only for a small portion of the population.

Supply and Demand

Following the recent hurricanes there has been discussion on the radio about “price gouging”. In an unfettered free market, there is no such things, as the market is by definition driven by “supply and demand”. Ergo the term “free”, allowing market forces to dictate price (demand) based on availability (supply). One question raised on the talk shows was whether a gas station in an area about to be devastated with long lines of cars evacuating and where there is a severe shortage of gasoline, should charge more than 10 times the pre-catastrophe price. Most callers into the shows said it was somehow wrong and profiteering. One caller with a small tree service business in New Jersey said that following the devastating storm which hit the Charleston area a few years ago, he drove his truck down there and was selling his service for up to twice the normal price. He felt he was not doing anything wrong and many callers agreed. In both cases “supply and demand” was at play. The gas station owner sold the limited supply in his hands for as much as he could get. Though he did not create a monopoly, his business indeed was a monopoly, given that there was no supply of gas elsewhere in that market. The tree guy saw a strong demand for his service and traveled to provide it. However, the tree guy as did many others saw a demand for his service and traveled to where the demand was. Certainly he incurred additional expenses in travel costs, hotels, time lost during travel just to mention a few. There is also the non-monetary cost of being away from friends and family. This, if he just wanted to maintain his profit margin, would have required a much higher price to make the trip worthwhile in an economic sense. (I know, I know, economists would tell me cost doesn’t enter into the equation when it comes to a free market except to indicate a lowest price possible.) In both cases there was a benefit to people in the devastated areas. In the case of providers traveling to the areas there may even be a level of altruism prompting the action. In the case of the gas station owner there was nothing but greed driving the action. One might argue that one was a noble act whereas not the other.

Affirmative Action

Over the years I have heard a number or reasons from opponents as to why Affirmative Action should be eliminated. Among them; “I haven’t gained from slavery, why should I have to pay a price?” The “New World” first gained its prominence as an agricultural juggernaut. At that time about 20% of the population was of African origin and most of them slaves working on the plantations in the South and in the Caribbean. The land was lush and aching to be farmed but plantation owners could not hire enough laborers to work the fields. To remedy this, they bought slaves from Africa, not because this was “cheap labor” but because it was labor desperately needed. The cost of maintaining a slave was not much lower than the cost of paid labor, if they were only able to find enough people to hire. With the capital gained from agriculture, a firm foundation for a manufacturing economy was in place and we became the great country we are now and all benefit from our position in the global economy and democracy. So not only the descendants of the plantation owners, but all, whether their ancestors arrived in this country generations ago or just got off the boat, are benefiting from our early agriculture and the efforts of the African slaves for which they were never paid. Without their sweat and tears we would not be where we are today. So yes, we are all indebted to the slaves who were instrumental in making America great. Another argument; “Other immigrant groups have been discriminated against.” Yes, not only people of African origin but others; Native Americans, Japanese, the Irish, and Jews, just to mention a few have suffered at the hand of discrimination and more recently Muslims. Women were only allowed to vote about one hundred years ago and today many are still not paid the same wage for the same work as a man. Though various sexual preference groups are becoming more accepted, they are still shunned in many ways, particularly by religious groups. I agree that many groups have suffered from discrimination, but non as much as people of African origin. We cannot make up for all the pain and suffering caused by discrimination through affirmative action. Furthermore, individuals within each group have suffered different amounts and some, depending on their location and circumstances maybe even not have suffered at all. So what is the answer? I propose that we devise a system of retribution for wages not paid and suffering due to slavery. I believe currently, where affirmative action exists, is is based strictly on race. But if we examine the population whose origin is Africa, even during the earliest days not all were slaves. There were a number of “free men” and more recently there have been immigrants from Africa arriving as professionals (nurses have been recruited in Africa to make up for a shortage in some areas) while others like the Somalis as asylum seekers. These people, though suffering from discrimination, were not ancestors of slaves from whose labor we all benefited. In fact, they also benefited from the woes of the slaves. How do you identify and make payment to ancestors of slaves who have suffered not only the loss of benefits derived from paid labor, but the destruction of culture which could help them as they assimilated into the new society. Currently there are gambling casinos built on tribal Native American Land. I believe anyone able to show an eighth of a given tribe’s blood becomes a member of the tribe and shares in the profits of the casino. The same could be done with identifying offspring of slaves though this would be more complicated because it’s not strictly based on ethnicity. Certainly recent immigrants from Africa could easily be identified and excluded. The bigger problem would be identifying the “free men”. (I saw and ancestry program on TV a couple of years ago where the musician Quincy Jones had his ancestry analyzed and it was discovered that he was not a decendant of slaves but of “free men”. We could continue with the Affirmative Action Program as it exists but have it based on retribution to descendants of slaves. This, I believe would weaken most of the arguments against it. Certainly the two I brought up. Affirmative Action

Putting Healthcare Back into Consumer’s Hands

The Right pushes the idea that under a government controlled plan, bureaucrats control an individual’s health (“death panels”) in that they make decisions as to which doctor one can see, tests one can have and medications one can take whereas under an insurance plan purchased on the free market, you make these decisions. First let me say that people working for insurance companies in the private sector are as much bureaucrats as those working in government except that the organizations they serve are motivated by profits instead of public good. In reality however, insurance company staff also decides what doctors one can see, what tests one can have and what medications one can take. So the illusion that in a private healthcare insurance plan you can decide these things is just that, an illusion. Now of coarse one can pay out of their own pocket and in either case make these decisions themselves. What putting healthcare “back in the consumer’s hands” is really meant to do is put the responsibility for making cost/benefit decisions regarding their health into the hands of consumers, some of these decisions resulting in life or death. To make any cost/benefit analysis one does not only need to understand the implications of cost, which most consumers do, but also the other element in the decision, which they don’t. What the Right is asking an average person is to decide whether the results on their health of a procedure are worth their cost? To make this analysis properly one needs to also understand medicine and for most things a casual google search is totally inadequate. Even general practitioners, doctors themselves, rely on specialists. If a cost/benefit analyses are done improperly, the action taken will not only result in less benefit but also higher cost. The more affluent among us of coarse will avail themselves of the best health plan and not face the necessity of making this analysis while the middle and lower class will. And even if they do, cost will have a very low priority. (Hopefully the very poor will still be covered by some government subsidized plan and avoid making the analysis.) As a result, the “one percent” will not only be able to buy more stuff but be healthier while they do it. A healthy nation, like a well-educated nation, is necessary for a country to prosper and compete in this global economy. Better healthcare is not only good for the majority of those benefiting from it directly but is also good for the “one percent”. Healthy people can be more productive, increasing the bottom line of a company. Most of the increase in profit going to the wealthiest (Unfortunately the gain does not trickle down). Healthier people will have more income which they can spend to buy more widgets, also increasing the bottom line. Finally, if we are ever in a major war, a healthy army will outperform a sickly one. The answer is not to put decisions relative to healthcare in the hands of the consumer but to put in place a system that will ensure that the entire population is healthy and strong and able to contribute to our society.

Who are your Other?

We all see ourselves as members of different groups, or tribes as I would like to call them, with a wide range of importance placed on the memberships. We can be a member of a family with family being only immediate family or our tribe can be an extended family. Our membership in a very local community can be a source of pride or in some cases a state (Texans take great pride in being from Texas) and of course a country (“Deutschland, Deutschland uber ales”, the Nazi’s slogan meaning Germany above all else or in our case, America First). We may be members of a religious group, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or a subset of these, Haredi, Protestant, Sunni, Jane, Mahayana or even small such as Baptist, Wahhabi, or local like Temple Emanuel, Mother Emanuel Church, Westboro Baptist, Sudbury Mosque, etc. We can see ourselves as members of broad geographic area; European, North American, Middle Eastern, African, Asian, or more locally; Northern European, Arab, Southeast Asian or finer; Irish, Russian, Moroccan, Israeli, Vietnamese. Ethnically, we can think of ourselves as Basque, Sicilian, Kurds, Tutsi, Tatar, Yakut; go even more granular; Iraqi Curds or Turkish Curds, Lipka Tatars or Crimean Tatars. We can group ourselves by Race; White, Black, Asian, or by language; Hispanic, Slavic, English, Arabic (I’m starting to run out of steam but you get the picture). Then of course we can think of ourselves most broadly as Humans or even as a part of the Earth or Universe which is how many of the indigenous peoples think of themselves. Between these various groups there are some long standing animosities ranging in degree from disrespect to murder. There has been friction between religious groups throughout history. The State of Pakistan resulted from the Muslim/Hindu turmoil in India. Conflict can exist even within religious groups. There is the Protestant/Catholic issue which has abated somewhat in recent years and the Sunni/Shiite conflict has become more bloody with the growing unrest in the Middle East. Throughout history there have always been bloody wars between nation states and conflicts in ideology as those between Capitalism and Communism lasted for almost a century and resulted in, among others, the Vietnam and Korean Wars and revolutions in Russia, China, Spain and Cuba. Ethnic differences were at the bottom of the most horrific acts; the millions of Jews were murdered by the Germans, many Armenians lost lives at the hands of the Turks and 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutu in Rwanda. On a smaller scale ethnic cleansing of Croats at the hands of Serbs in Croatia or Arabs at the Hands of Jews in Palestine caused many to lose their lives and even more to be displaced. There are even wars between families not to mention within them. In the latter part of the nineteenth century in the Ozark Mountains of West Virginia, two families, the Hatfield and McCoy, feuded for almost thirty years resulting in the death of about 15 individuals. So what is your tribe? The answer to that in part determines who you consider “the other” and your importance of the position in the tribe, the altruism or hatred toward your fellow man. Our Vice President Pence on numerous occasions describes himself as Christian, Republican and conservative and emphasized “in that order”. I found it interesting and disturbing (not being a Christian) that he didn’t mention American, given he is the VP of the United States of America or human being, given he is the de facto vice president of the World. Seeing that his prime tribe is Christians, then most likely his “other” might be non-Christians and governing according to the laws of the New Testament might be an imperative for him. I have been fortunate (or in some cases unfortunate) enough to have lived or visited more than 20 countries. I have had the opportunity not only to mix with people of different cultures, religions, races and ethnicities, but socio-economic positions from people who literally “didn’t have a pot to pee in” to people on the Forbes richest 800 list. All of this has led me to the conclusion that even with our many differences; we are much more alike than different. So what is my tribe? First by far, I think of myself as a human being (though as I am aging I am starting to think of myself as part of the earth and leaning even toward a part of the Universe), second an American and a very low third a Tatar. When asked on various forms to list my ethnicity or race, I don’t answer. I met a friend of a friend and after chatting for a while he said “oh, you’re a globalist” to which I confessed. The lives of my family members are important to as those of my countrymen but so are the lives of people in Rwanda and Nicaragua. So what are your tribes and what is the priority of your membership in them and how important are each? This will determine your “other”. Are you afraid or envious of them; or maybe just impartial to them. Do lives of those outside your tribe matter? How much? Though we are having a bit of a setback at the moment, hopefully our tribes continue to expand to include more and more people and our loyalties to tribes diminishes. Who are your Other?

More on Balance of Power

I wrote a piece entitled "Balance of Power" e few weeks ago. Here is some historical backup. U.S. and China on a Collision Course for War: Analyst History suggests that the United States and China are on a collision course for war, argues Graham Allison, director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, in the Washington Post. “Historians know that when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarms should sound: extreme danger ahead,” Allison writes. “…A major nation’s rise has disrupted the position of a dominant state 16 times over the past 500 years. In 12 of those 16 cases, the outcome was war. In the four cases that avoided violent conflict, that was possible only because of huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part of challenger and challenged.

Cutting Jobs in a Surplus Labor Market

President Trump ran as a negotiator and job creator. However, one of his first actions was to put a freeze on certain Federal jobs. The Republicans who are for smaller government are proposing to cut, if not entire agencies, their budgets. Republican governors are also reducing costs by shrinking their bureaucracies. It’s as if somehow government jobs except, of course military, police, fire, border petrol and other security positions aren’t really jobs. In their world, free market consequences for loss of federal, state and municipal jobs are somehow different from loss of manufacturing jobs which our president may be willing to go to war to protect. Neglected is the fact that money earned from labor, regardless of industry, creates the same demand, stimulates growth and increases competition for labor thus raising its price. Theirs is a promise of streamlining government by reducing their responsibilities and improving efficiency. Consequences be damned. About 50 years ago I attended a week long session conducted by Deming, the father of statistical quality control and person who is credited with Japan’s post war industrial resurgence. From this I took away three things. 1. 80% of problems are not people but system problems (my experience running a manufacturing organization is that the number should be more like 90%). 2. Don’t put up motivational posters. They only demoralize workers saying that everything would be better if only you just worked a bit harder, and excuse management from attending to real issues, the systems. 3. We need to focus on efficiency and automation during periods when there is a labor shortage. When there is a labor surplus i.e. fewer jobs, efficiency and automation only adds to the surplus. Labor statistics from 2014 show that at that time, there were a total of 150.5 million jobs in the US. 12.2 million of them were in manufacturing, considered a segment with good middle class wages; another 21.1 million in retail and wholesale and 18.1 million in leisure and hospitality. The latter two considered low paying jobs for the most part. Of our 150.5 million workers, 21.8 million are on government payrolls; 2.7 million on federal and 19.1 million on state and local. For the most part government workers are said to be “overpaid” when compared to workers with comparable skills in the private sector. This may well be, depending on your point of view, but these jobs are also considered middle class jobs. So government employs, about 14.5% of our total workforce, and they represent a significant portion of our middleclass. There is constant talk about the “shrinking middle class” while at the same time “small government” is one of the Right’s ideological talking points. From where I sit, “creating jobs” and “shrinking government”, given that we are facing not only globalization but technological advances including the development of AI, all of which are taking away jobs, are somehow at odds with each other. I know that creating jobs and eliminating inefficiencies in government are catchy slogans, but slogans are not going to retain or enlarge a vibrant middle class. It’s hard to argue against improvement but instead of reducing cost, which in most cases means reducing jobs, maybe we should focus on improving the quality of service. Unfortunately that goes against the notion that government is an evil and would not play well with the Presidents base.

Balance of Power

I don’t recall whether it was in history class or in my analyst class where I came to an understanding that today still lingers in my bones. The most dangerous times in history are those where there is an impending shift in the balance of power. This is when conflicts start. The declining party, when it senses that the shift in power is eminent, wants to move while it still is on top. The rising power, on the other hand wants to accelerate the growth of its strength, anticipating an advance by the weakening one. This principal applies not only to shifts in military might but also to economic standing. Navigating this transition without catastrophic results is a delicate and difficult matter. Today we are in such a time. It is broadly predicted that China will soon surpass the US in GDP. Indian, and in fact, Asian economies in general, are growing while globalization is lowering the economic potency of individual countries not to mention the economic impact of rapid advances in technology. Information processing is making administrative and managerial labor obsolete and robots are replacing factory workers. And who knows what chaos artificial intelligence will bring. I am not predicting doom but pointing out that to navigate these waters, we must move cautiously and with great insight and skill. On another front, there is also a demographic shift in the balance. The world is becoming more diverse and less Eurocentric and white. Vice President Pence, in his address to NATO the other day talked about our need to protect (from whom?) our common heritage, ideologies and values. Our origins as a country (if you want to discount our natives and our slaves) are indeed Western European. However, having said that, I always thought that our strength stems from being a unique conglomeration of many people and our diversity, not our Europeanism. I remember years ago eating at a hibachi table where sitting with us were two elderly couples. The table was set with chop sticks. One of the old guys called the waiter over and asked for a fork and said to his friend, he wanted to eat with an American utensil. I wanted to tell him that a fork is a European utensil and no more American than chopsticks. I decided not to because he wouldn’t understand. In his mind America is a culturally European, white, Christian nation. The birth rate in Western Europe and that of our white populations is declining and population growth is one of the prerequisites for economic grows. In fact I read about advertisements on TV in Denmark encouraging women to have more babies. Though in this country there is a modest population growth. It is primarily due to immigration and a larger birth rate among our non-European immigrant populations. In our country it is predicted that the pure white population will become a minority in a couple of decades if not sooner. (Currently if one even has only a small fraction of African blood running through their vanes, they are not considered white but black. I think if we categorized race correctly, for example: an individual whose paternal grandmother was black and the other grandmother along with both grandfathers were white, and they were categorized as white, then it will take longer before white people become a minority.) The older white people are frightened of losing their superior position and unfortunately politicians are stoking these fears hinting that the slowdown in some of their opportunities is due, not to advances in technology and shifts in market forces but to the darker population of the world. In response to these fears, over the last decade there has been a rise in xenophobia throughout the Western World including our country. When it comes to the military however, I don’t see and impending shift in the balance of power. Yes, China is building up its naval forces but we still spend more than the next 6 countries combined (we spend $596Bn/yr., China $215Bn, Saudi Arabia $87Bn and Russia $66Bn). We have the largest nuclear arsenal by far and our troops by far are more broadly distributed over the surface of this earth than any of our potential adversaries. The real danger, as I see it is the economic shift in the balance of power. The “darkening of the world”, though real, doesn’t present a threat to anyone unless one feels there is a strong advantage to being white and that is slipping away. Though there is much made of the “war between the West and Islam”, Islam poses no threat to the West. It has no economic standing and no military to speak of (though our close ally, Saudi Arabia has both). However, with the unrest in the Middle East, it makes Islam a great justification for limiting the further browning of our countries and it distracts from having to deal with real issues. So how do we navigate this transition without catastrophic results? President Trump used a brilliant strategy to win the election. The one word titles; Lying Ted, Little Marco, Un-energetic Jeb, Crooked Hillary, extremist Islamic terrorism, etc. etc. This worked because the words were repeated ad nauseam until every time we heard something from Ted, we instantly questioned whether it was a lie. He had to prove he was telling the truth instead of we proving that he was lying. These words will rouse his base but certainly they will not keep our Country great nor make the world a better and safer place to live. (He seems to be continuing this strategy with the “fake news” line). Already President Trump is starting to see the unintended consequences of governing recklessly by slogans. He envisions Jews and Israel as part of the “West”. Having stoked the Alt-Right with its Neo-Fascist tendencies, the President is starting to see through the increased anti-Semitic acts, that they don’t see eye to eye with him. Some in the Alt-Right along with the European Nationalist movements maybe now don’t see Jews as “one of us” as he does, but as “the other”. Nationalism is now on the rise in Mexico and it is not out of the question that we will be replaced by China or Russia as Mexico’s favorite friend. Then, when we have and adversary on our border, the military balance of power will indeed have started to shift. Now is the time to put sloganeering aside. It’s fine while your campaigning, but now it is ever more important for the President to be a well informed and a good, clear thinker while surrounding himself with people with demonstrated skills and to “think twice and act once” (though given the delicacy and grave danger of this sifting balance of power, maybe it should be, think ten times and act once).

1 State/2 State Solutions

In the first joint news conference with Netanyahu and President Trump, the president said that “so I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one both parties like”. In principal I’m OK with that. The only problem is that a one-state solution is impractical but I will give President Trump the benefit of a doubt. If some form of a one state solution is agreeable to both states, why not. Netanyahu on the other hand, said that he is OK with a two state solution as long as two conditions are met. “First the Palestinians must recognize a Jewish state.” What does it mean to be a Jewish state? He did not say the State of Israel. That’s pretty straight forward. I think at this point everyone recognizes the State of Israel. In this statement, is “Jewish” meant as an ethnicity or a religion? Is he calling for a theocracy or and ethnocracy where the conditions of the citizens depends on either religion or ethnicity and in either case non-Jews are second class citizens whether they are in the minority or majority. “Second, in any peace agreement, Israel retains the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River”. Does he mean that Israeli police and army will be in the new Palestinian country? I don’t know how else “security control” can be achieved. I imagine recognizing Israel as a Jewish state may be doable, given that there is a Palestine next door, Non-Jews can emigrate there. The second condition, however, in my mind sounds like an occupation. If you agree, we will let you have a name and stop building on your land unless building on your land is deemed necessary for our security. And, by the way, we will continue to occupying you. I don’t believe any responsible leader would agree to this. So I guess under these requirements there will never be a two state solution. So Israel will continue antagonizing the Palestinians, evoking unrest and building settlements in the West bank and Jerusalem and over time they will have the one Jewish state. Years ago I saw an interview of a Palestinian where the reporter asked why don’t you try a peaceful, Gandhi like approach to end the occupation? The interviewee responded that all the leaders of peaceful resistance are in Israeli jails.

Our Southern Border

I watched the press conference with President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada during which our President talked about borders needing to be secure and trade deals made more fair, saying our southern border was not secure and NAFTA not fair. I thought back to a physics principal. The greater the pressure between two sides of a barrier, the stronger the barrier needs to be. So if there is an increase in the imbalance of pressure, you have two ways to deal with the situation. You can either increase the barrier or decrease the pressures difference. This analogy can be applied to our southern border. The difference in pressure is the imbalance in the economies of the US and Mexico. The greater the difference in the living conditions the stronger the urge to migrate from the poorer to the richer country. Here too there are two solutions. Decrease the pressure by improving the living conditions in Mexico or build a stronger border. To verify the theory, during this last major economic downturn, more people left the US over the southern border than entered. President Trump chose not only to increase the barrier but to increase the pressure by reducing some advantages in trade we’ve allowed Mexico. As Mexico’s economy slips further, there will be such turmoil that we may not be able to build a wall tall enough to protect our interests. Certainly “the wall” is one solution but a better one may be to continue to improve Mexico’s economy. Turbulence in Mexico, caused by a weakened economy can bring into power a government sympathetic to a foreign interest and to stop this will take more than a wall but maybe an armed conflict. What I don’t think President Trump realizes that our foreign aid and our trade imbalances are not altruistic but serve a national interest. Raising standards of living in Third World countries creates markets for goods we can produce. Our main role in NATO is not to protect Europe but to protect ourselves. It allows a line of defense at the border of a potential enemy instead of on our border. The same can be said of our troops in South Korea and Japan. We are investing in our interest, the fact that it also helps another nation is secondary. I hope that I am wrong and the President understands this and all the bluster is to stoke his base which does not understand the nuances of international relations and everything will be fine.

The Global Christian Right

The other day I saw an article by Ivo Oliveira copied into FLIPBOARD from Politico.eu entitled “How Russia became the leader of the global Christian right”. And a bell went off in my head. In it he cites an old statement Pat Buchanan, an intellectual of the Christian Right made, praising Putin, writing “In the culture war for the future of mankind, Putin is planting Russia’s flag firmly on the side of traditional Christianity”. There has been much debate about the mystery of our President’s affinity for Russia. Certainly there is little criticism of Russia among President Trump’s constituency. Many, if not most of the followers of President Trump are rural Evangelical Fundamentalists and they may be translating “make America great again” into make America a traditional, white, Christian Country again. Russia certainly a white country, is advancing Christian Fundamentalist values, restricting homosexuality and soon banning abortion. Thus, in Putin they may see an ally. If one looks through a White Christian lens at they may want Russia, and not Western Europe or any of the other parts of the world as their dearest friend, one sees that Europe, though white, is becoming ever more secular and less white (though the Nativists are trying, with some success, to reverse both trends). Mexico nor South America, though Christian (however, Evangelicals don’t consider Catholics true Christians) are not altogether white. Asia certainly is not white. If you look at this on a global scale and if indeed there is a movement to put the Christian traditions and the white population back in control, then the “War on Radical Islamic Terrorism” makes total sense and all the moves to demonize Islam, stop immigration, and control the Muslim population makes sense. Then there is a common, global enemy to rally the world to a common cause. My question now is? Do Vladimir Putin and our President each sees himself as the head or his loyal follower, of a global Christian Right. In truth I think each may see the other only as a means to their end. We shall see.

Yes, Islam is Also an Abrahamic Religion

One of the misconceptions of Islam promoted by much of the Right and some media is that it is not one of the Abrahamic religions. After all if one is pushing for a war between Islam and the West, the more different we see Islam, the easier it is to demonize and fight its believers. First, I want again to say that I am not an expert on Islam nor am I a particularly devout Muslim though I know enough about it to recognize an intentional misrepresentation or just an innocent misunderstanding of Islam. I am not much of a reader, though I have a general interest in religions and philosophy. When I worked on my half hour ride to and from work, I would listen to lectures on religion and philosophy along with a few on economics, science, and history bought from The Teaching Company. These were university level, and in the case of religion non-theological lectures. Each course typically consisted of about 20 to 30 lectures each lasting between 30 to 45 minutes each, on cassettes (in the dark ages) and more recently on CDs and DVDs. I bought courses on each major religion, included Judaism, Christianity, Islam (given by John Esposito of the American University in Washington), Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism. I also listened to courses such as Augustine: Philosopher and Saint, The World Religions: Beliefs, Practices and Histories, Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Ancient Religions of the Americas, Religions of Sub Saharan Africa, History of the Bible, the Story of the Bible, Philosophy of Religion. Again, though I don’t consider myself and expert, I have had more than a passing interest in all religions and a familiarity with the history and faith of Islam. A while ago I watched a program on PBS “World” entitled “Three Faiths, One God”. Its main thrust was to point out the common history of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and highlight the similarities in beliefs and differences in culture. There was a diversity of speakers including a couple of Rabbis and Imams, a Catholic priest and several ministers. I find it interesting (though I was pretty much aware of most of what they spoke off) that much of the media, when speaking of Western religions, speaks of “Judeo/Christian religions”, exclude Islam, thus suggesting it is something else. We have a bookstore in a town next to ours where the exclusion shows up in spades. A few years ago, as my wife was shopping for a book, I happened to wonder into the religion and philosophy section where there were many Books and scriptures of all common religions and a few not so common ones. One could read about Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism and Zaroastroism but not a single one on Islam. When I asked a clerk where I could find anything on Islam, she said Islam is in the political section since it is not considered a religion. Recently I went into the same shop and noticed that there were no books on Islam even in the political section. Again I asked a clerk whether I could get a book on Islam, she said they do carry one but it was sold out at the moment but she could get it for me. I was a book on Islam by Glen Beck. The book store is olocated about 30 miles outside of Boston and not in the rural South. A few decades ago, my wife and I were on vacation in Tangier, Morocco. Traveling through the markets you are approached by a barrage of mostly boys and young men looking to be hired as guides. Finally we decided for the sake of peace and quiet to hire an older gentleman (he turned out to indeed be a gentleman). As we walked through various streets of Tangier whenever we ran across a printed piece of paper on the street, he would pick it up and drop it at the next trash can. After a while I asked him why he did this. He said that most printed papers have a name of a person on it and since most names have a prophet’s name as their origin, stepping on them would be disrespectful. He explained that all prophets, not only of the Koran, but also the Old Testament, are revered by Muslims and recognized as prophets of the one God. So prophets like Jesus (recognized as a most important prophet but not divine as nether was Mohamed), John, Jacob, Abraham, Moses even more obscure ones like Jeremiah and Jedidiah are revered. In fact the Name Isa, Arabic for Jesus and Musa, Arabic for Moses are not uncommon in the Arab world. A few years ago an Irish American couple, friends of ours, went to Turkey on vacation. One of the places their guide took them was a shrine to the Virgin Mary on top of a hill. Most Westerners do not realize that Islam recognizes the virgin birth of Jesus and considers Mary as a very important and saintly person in her own right. She is probably more revered by Islam than any Christian faith except Catholicism. One of the reasons for much of the misrepresentation is the fact that, unlike the Bible, the Koran is written in a poetic form and poetry requires interpretation. Meanings in poetry are not limited to words but also rely on rhyme and cadence. For this reason, a Koran written in Arabic, the language of the original, is the only recognized holly book. Most of the English translations of the Koran were written by people unsympathetic to Islam who wanted to put it into a bad light. Unfortunately, even well intended readers, depending on which translation they read, would come away with different impressions.

Radical Islamic Terrorism

I listened to President Trump address CENCOM today where he very slowly and emphatically said the words “Radical Islamic Terrorism” emphasizing that his predecessor refused to utter these seemingly sacred words. I guess, radical Wahhabi terrorism or better yet, radical Jihadi Salafi terrorism, doesn’t sound quite as scary. Last weekend I watched a Bill Mahar Show. His guest was Sam Harris who, like Bill is an Atheist and a vehement Islamophobe. They started with their usual attack on Islam (being very aggressive opponents of all organized religions and whereas Islam, presented by many as an enemy, is the easiest religion to attack). They spoke of “Radical Islamic Terrorists” and how Islam encourages the thinking that leads to their horrific behavior. During their discussion they said something to the effect that if the Mormon Church preached cruel behavior, we would call out the Mormon Church and if the church of Scientology killed people for making cartoons of L Ron Hubbard, we would speak out about the evils of Scientology. It’s interesting that they would be very focused in their criticism. In neither case did they say they would condemn the evils of Christianity but recognized that neither speaks for Christians but is a small sect within Christianity. When James Coney, Head of the Lords Liberation Army was reigning terror in Africa in the name of God, we did not read of this as being a Christian act. Or when the Westboro Baptist Church demonstrates at the burial of a gay fallen soldier, shouting all sorts of obscenities, we know that they don’t reflect Baptist dogma or any teachings of the Christian Bible. When Reverend Jones burned the Koran, it was not Christians who burned it, or even Protestants but a very small splinter of a small splinter of Christians. Why is it then that we cannot apply the same reasoning to acts of splinter groups, as horrific as they are, and not Islam? We don’t say that ISIS is a Jihadi splinter of the Salafi which in turn are sect of the Wahhabi who are Sunni Muslims not Shia. Or that Osama Bin Laden was a Wahhabi (State religion in Saudi Arabia). I guess one thing Sam Harris and Bill Mahar would say is that the terrorists do it in the name of Allah (The Arabic word for the God, the same God worshiped by Jews, Christians and Muslims). Well, James Coney and Reverend Jones along with the Westboro Baptists would say they, through their actions, are also serving God. Sam and Bill’s main agenda is to promote Atheism and attacking Islam is a cheap and easy way to get there. Others do it for various political reasons. Viewing Muslims as evil, it becomes easier to view Palestinians as evil and thus easier to accept Israel’s occupation. Or promoting fear to gain ever more power is another reason. A bunch of guys on camels with machine guns running around in the Middle East (I take some poetic license here) wouldn’t as scary as over a billion Muslims spread all over the world wanting to take it. In our “war on terror” or more specifically “radical Islamic terrorism” hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and we have spent over a trillion dollars.

Beam Me up Scottie

A couple of hundred years ago man could not imagine technologies we take for granted today. Flying was not even a dream (I know, I know, Michelangelo), nor cloning or transistors not to mention nuclear power. As then, there will be things in the future we cannot even ponder today. Today, watching the snow fall and longing for sunshine and palm trees, I pondered. A few months ago I read somewhere that a Nobel Laureate had claimed to have teleported some object. I dreamt about not having to go to and from an airport and then waiting in long lines followed by sitting in a cramped space. I thought about the possibility of teleporting a person as a means of travel. Today it is accepted that everything, including every part of our bodies is made up of atomic and subatomic particles. Over the years we have developed x-rays to allow us to see our organs and advanced imaging techniques enabling a peek into our brain. Computing power is growing unbelievably and “big data” makes complex analysis practical. We have mapped the human genome and are looking at the structure of the brain with ever greater magnification. How far away are we from being able to map the position of every particle and every bundle of energy in a human body? If we can map a body, why not then, using a pile of subatomic elements, assemble them in precisely the some order shown on the map and voila, the same person with the same genetic makeup, history and memories. The map could be transmitted to a faraway place and the person assembled (that sounds like cloning which we can crudely do now). OK we now have the person at the landing cite. You can say that, from the moment the mapping ended and the file created, these are now two different people, since the original is continuing to change while the other is assembled to the point in time of the cessation of the mapping. So having built the person in the new location, we now have two different people, the original at the destination and a new person at the point of departure. What to do with the person wanting to travel? It could be that there is some sort of a mechanism that starts to disassemble the original as the teleported one is constructed. What happens if the assembly fails? I guess we still have the map. But what if the error was in the mapping? What about the ethics of human cloning? Well it stopped snowing and I can get back to earth and worry about shoveling.

Shedding Light on Some Misinformation about Islam

For political expediency there is much false information disseminated by the Right to stoke fear. Unfortunately for Muslims they have become the center of this fear mongering. I come from a Muslim family, and would like to make an attempt at correcting some, by no means all, of this misinformation. I am not a theologian, far from it as a matter of fact, nor am I a particularly religious person but, my “dog tags” identified me a Muslim, so I have a “dog in this fight”. Listed is some of the misinformation: 1. Head covering (Hijab) is a Muslim thing 2. Islam is a patriarchal religion 3. Muslims wear beards Below is an old family photograph showing my paternal grandfather, his wife, my grandmother on the left and seated prominently in the center of the picture her mother, my great-grandmother. Standing behind them are a niece and nephew who lived with them at the time of the photo. My grandfather was Imam of a Muslim Tatar community in Minsk Belarus. Tatars have been living in the area of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus since the late thirteen hundreds and, though culturally eastern European, have maintained Islam as their Religion. 4. If we don’t proactively stop it, Sharia Law will be implemented throughout the country. Muslim Tatars have lived in this Christian region for hundreds of years there is still no Sharia law.

You will notice the women are not wearing hijabs which are part of Arab culture. There is no requirement for head covering in the Koran except for the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) wives. In fact I saw a news clip on CNN I believe, that featured a story about the head of one of the former Soviet Republics which has an 80% Muslim population wanting to ban the hijab because he is against Arabification of his country. The Arab culture tends to be quite patriarchal. In a similar photograph from the Middle East the man would be sitting in the middle. However, some Muslims live in matriarchal societies. The obvious head of this family pictured above is the wife’s mother. (My wife, who is of a similar background, shows me a picture of her mother’s family with her grandfather sitting in the middle.) Though my grandfather has a beard, the young man standing in the back, also Muslim does not. More Misinformation: 5. Muslim men cannot marry non-Muslim women. (I think I heard it on a Sean Hannity radio program) There is no prohibition against marrying “people of the Book” (Christians and Jews) though I am not sure that applies to none Abrahamic beliefs also. My father married my mother, a Catholic, with his father’s blessing. Leslie Hazelton, a Jewish academician and student of Islam, in her book “The First Muslim”, a book on the historic Mohamed, writes about his two Jewish wives. In fact my understanding is that if one marries a person of another faith, there is a prohibition against forcing her to adopt Islam. I watched a TED Talk by journalist Mustafa Akyol entitles “Faith Versus Tradition in Islam” Where he highlighted some of the cultural (particularly bad) customs attributed to Islam. 6. Female circumcision is a North African custom practiced by backward people in the region both Muslim and non-Muslim, 7. Likewise “honor killing” is practiced by Muslims, Christians and nonbelievers in parts of Asia and Africa. 8. Separating women from men. Mustafa Akyol pointed out that while on the pilgrimage to Mecca, during the holiest and most ancient ceremony dating back to the beginning of Islam, he noticed women were not separated from men. He suggested that the separation of the sexes was likely to be a custom picked up from Persia. I think its origin may have been Jewish. A few decades ago I attended an Orthodox Jewish wedding and during most of the ceremony and reception men were separated from women. Islam is a progression of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Many of the customs practiced by Jews and Christians of the region were adopted by Muslims. 9. Burkinies. There is a requirement for modesty in Islam for both men and women, though modesty, I don’t believe is defined. Amish ladies dress very modestly by western standards as do Jewish Orthodox women, wearing long skirts and covering their arms and heads. In fact there was a clip on the news about two women (I believe they were members of parliament) who were not allowed into the Knesset, (Israeli Parliament) because their skirts were too short. A while ago I a saw a program on PBS featuring a Chechen folk dance group that toured Western Europe. The dancers were mostly in their early teens. When not on stage, they were dressed as any European teens with girls wearing miniskirts or shorts. Were it not for the cupped hands in prayer before the performances, based on what we see on TV, one would never think of them as Muslim. The above are just a few examples of information circulated about Islam and Muslims. Many people are uninformed because until recently, with the exception of the “Black Muslim” movement of the 6os, Islam had not been in the limelight and with such a small population in this country, a majority of people never met a Muslim. Many believe all Muslims are Arab but Arabs make up only a small portion of the world Muslim population. (There are even Arab Christians) There are Muslim communities all over the world made up of every race and almost every ethnicity. However, many are also intentionally misinformed for political reasons. Hopefully the above will help to form a bit truer picture of Islam and Muslims.