Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 29, 2010
"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford is one beautiful novel, a first-time effort by this author. It was published in 2009 and has been on The New York Times Bestseller Lists ever since. It is the story of a young Chinese-American growing up during World War II in Seattle, his relationships with his father and mother, a Japanese-American girlfriend, an Afro-American jazz player and best friend, his Chinese-American wife, and in his middle age, his son and daughter-in-law to be.
American society has several blemishes on its historical record. Its treatment of Native Americans was among the first, along with its exclusion of Afro-Americans from the guarantees extended to its other citizens under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Likewise is the exclusion of women as equal partners in our Democracy. The novel focuses on another American human tragedy—the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War, and the heartbreaking effects it had on so many legal citizens.
However, the novel is not about moral injustices. It is a love story pure and simple, one to bring tears to all but the most cold-hearted reader. It is a tale of a young man, maturing within the confines of a traditional Chinese home, with its adherence to familial values and honor of elders, who must make decisions on his own, often against his parents’ wishes. It is about the young man’s love of a girl whose background is an anathema to his father, and the boy’s decision to go his own way and dedicate years of waiting to his love. And it is about loyalty, loyalty to those one loves and to a Country in the midst of war, even if that country imposes unjust limitations on its citizens.
It is a terrific yarn, beautifully written and full of surprises. Don’t miss this read!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--THE LAST ECONOMIC SUPERPOWER by Joseph P. Quinlan
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 24, 2010
The Last Economic Superpower is a brand new economics book written by Joseph P. Quinlan, a Senior Fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. It reinforces the vast economic impact that the Great Recession is having on the world’s economy.
The narrative begins by analyzing the two eras of economic globalization that took place since 1870. The first, beginning during the last three decades of the 19th Century, was marked by rapid global growth, robust trade, and strong cross border flows of investment. The economic leaders at that time were the United Kingdom, Germany and France. With the onset of World War I, that era of globalization came to an end, nor would it return after the War. World War II finally brought an end to The Great Depression, but both wars did massive damage to the world’s economy, and it was not until the 1950s that the developed nations were finally getting back on their feet.
The second era of globalization had its roots in the late 1960s. At that time, the U.S. dollar acted as the world’s reserve currency. It was backed by gold, “meaning that the United States was committed to exchanging gold for dollars at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. The system worked as long as foreign claims matched the size of U.S. gold reserves. Late in the 1960s, however, the fixed exchange rate came under increasing strain. As Europe and Japan healed from the ravages of war, they made rising exports to the United States the key to their recovery, and as a result their dollar holdings gradually exceeded the U.S. stock of gold. This important shift, along with rising inflation, slowly eroded confidence in the U.S. dollar and America’s commitment to the Bretton Woods system. President Nixon capitulated in August 1971 by ‘closing the gold window,’ thereby effectively ending the Bretton Woods system.”
The new era of globalization began in the first part of the 1980s, as “the holy trinity of deregulation, privatization, and trade and investment liberalization raised world output, bolstered global trade and investment, and lifted millions out of poverty in India, China, and other developing nations.”
“As globalization blossomed over the last 25 years of the twentieth century, so did the economic superpower status of the United States . . . with the America taking the lead in designing, creating, and dominating the multilateral institutions governing the global economy. It was the United States, albeit with support from Europe and Japan, that largely set the rules of global economic engagement for the rest of the world in the last half century.” With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union a few short years later, Democracy had triumphed over communism and free-market capitalism had trumped central planning. “The world had shifted from a bipolar world to a “unipolar” world, and the United States—the world’s lone superpower—unequivocally stood above the rest.”
During the 1990s, America’s economy, one that produced steady growth, low inflation, and booming asset prices, became once again the envy of the world. As Quinlan notes “the rest of the world jumped quickly on the bandwagon. A global consensus emerged around the notion that the best way to promote growth and create prosperity was through the embrace of free-market capitalism and its central tenets. This overriding assumption helped convince many emerging markets to embrace and pursue the ‘Made in America’ brand of globalization.”
The author then proceeds to discuss the build-up of bubbles in the U.S. economy that lead to the eventual collapse of the economy of the West. His writing is full of precise economic data and references to the many other excellent economic books that have been published over the past two-plus years. It makes the point that the Great Recession threw the world’s economic axis totally off kilter, placing the economic status of the United States and its European Union allies in grave danger. With the resulting decline of the West came the rise of “the Rest.” The Emerging Market nations, notably the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now stand on an equal footing with the western economies. The United States is no longer in a dominant position. Indeed, with its huge debt problem, which is being financed for now by China, the West’s currencies are coming under increasing pressure from both China and the debt-rating agencies.
The final two chapters of the book discuss two possible future scenarios. The first foretells an end of globalization and a coming economic cold war. The second lays out the possibility of future era of economic cooperation between the West and the Rest, but one during which a new set of road rules will apply.
The Last Economic Superpower makes excellent reading for anyone interested in economics and global politics. If read along with Ian Bremmer’s excellent The End of the Free Market, it gives a whole new perspective to the future of the world’s economy.
The Last Economic Superpower is a brand new economics book written by Joseph P. Quinlan, a Senior Fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. It reinforces the vast economic impact that the Great Recession is having on the world’s economy.
The narrative begins by analyzing the two eras of economic globalization that took place since 1870. The first, beginning during the last three decades of the 19th Century, was marked by rapid global growth, robust trade, and strong cross border flows of investment. The economic leaders at that time were the United Kingdom, Germany and France. With the onset of World War I, that era of globalization came to an end, nor would it return after the War. World War II finally brought an end to The Great Depression, but both wars did massive damage to the world’s economy, and it was not until the 1950s that the developed nations were finally getting back on their feet.
The second era of globalization had its roots in the late 1960s. At that time, the U.S. dollar acted as the world’s reserve currency. It was backed by gold, “meaning that the United States was committed to exchanging gold for dollars at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. The system worked as long as foreign claims matched the size of U.S. gold reserves. Late in the 1960s, however, the fixed exchange rate came under increasing strain. As Europe and Japan healed from the ravages of war, they made rising exports to the United States the key to their recovery, and as a result their dollar holdings gradually exceeded the U.S. stock of gold. This important shift, along with rising inflation, slowly eroded confidence in the U.S. dollar and America’s commitment to the Bretton Woods system. President Nixon capitulated in August 1971 by ‘closing the gold window,’ thereby effectively ending the Bretton Woods system.”
The new era of globalization began in the first part of the 1980s, as “the holy trinity of deregulation, privatization, and trade and investment liberalization raised world output, bolstered global trade and investment, and lifted millions out of poverty in India, China, and other developing nations.”
“As globalization blossomed over the last 25 years of the twentieth century, so did the economic superpower status of the United States . . . with the America taking the lead in designing, creating, and dominating the multilateral institutions governing the global economy. It was the United States, albeit with support from Europe and Japan, that largely set the rules of global economic engagement for the rest of the world in the last half century.” With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union a few short years later, Democracy had triumphed over communism and free-market capitalism had trumped central planning. “The world had shifted from a bipolar world to a “unipolar” world, and the United States—the world’s lone superpower—unequivocally stood above the rest.”
During the 1990s, America’s economy, one that produced steady growth, low inflation, and booming asset prices, became once again the envy of the world. As Quinlan notes “the rest of the world jumped quickly on the bandwagon. A global consensus emerged around the notion that the best way to promote growth and create prosperity was through the embrace of free-market capitalism and its central tenets. This overriding assumption helped convince many emerging markets to embrace and pursue the ‘Made in America’ brand of globalization.”
The author then proceeds to discuss the build-up of bubbles in the U.S. economy that lead to the eventual collapse of the economy of the West. His writing is full of precise economic data and references to the many other excellent economic books that have been published over the past two-plus years. It makes the point that the Great Recession threw the world’s economic axis totally off kilter, placing the economic status of the United States and its European Union allies in grave danger. With the resulting decline of the West came the rise of “the Rest.” The Emerging Market nations, notably the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now stand on an equal footing with the western economies. The United States is no longer in a dominant position. Indeed, with its huge debt problem, which is being financed for now by China, the West’s currencies are coming under increasing pressure from both China and the debt-rating agencies.
The final two chapters of the book discuss two possible future scenarios. The first foretells an end of globalization and a coming economic cold war. The second lays out the possibility of future era of economic cooperation between the West and the Rest, but one during which a new set of road rules will apply.
The Last Economic Superpower makes excellent reading for anyone interested in economics and global politics. If read along with Ian Bremmer’s excellent The End of the Free Market, it gives a whole new perspective to the future of the world’s economy.
Monday, December 20, 2010
COMMENTARY--Bipartisanship--A Short-lived Mirage?
by Bill Breakstone, December 20, 2010
I caught a portion of Candy Crowley’s interview with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday morning on her CNN program “State of The Union.” McConnell announced he would vote against ratification of the New Start Treaty when the vote comes to the Senate floor later this week. He thus joins fellow Republican Senators John Kyl and Lindsey Graham in declaring they will not vote for the Treaty.
Although the Treaty was signed eight months ago, McConnell stated “rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us.” Graham said on “Face the Nation” on CBS “If you really want to have a chance of passing Start, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned.”
So the question is has bipartisanship flown out the window? It was so encouraging to see the Republican and Democratic leadership come together and agree to a compromise Tax Bill. Then “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” passed by a large majority that included a good number of Republicans. However, those few outspoken Senators who were against passage of that bill made such a noise that Senators like Graham, who previously was in favor of Start passage, now are against it. And they take that position despite the support of every living Secretary of State and former President.
As far as Senator McConnell stance is concerned, his reasoning flies in the face of reality. Was not eight months enough time for him to consider the merits of the Treaty?
Thus it looks like it’s back to business as usual in Washington. In other words, No Business!
I caught a portion of Candy Crowley’s interview with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday morning on her CNN program “State of The Union.” McConnell announced he would vote against ratification of the New Start Treaty when the vote comes to the Senate floor later this week. He thus joins fellow Republican Senators John Kyl and Lindsey Graham in declaring they will not vote for the Treaty.
Although the Treaty was signed eight months ago, McConnell stated “rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us.” Graham said on “Face the Nation” on CBS “If you really want to have a chance of passing Start, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned.”
So the question is has bipartisanship flown out the window? It was so encouraging to see the Republican and Democratic leadership come together and agree to a compromise Tax Bill. Then “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” passed by a large majority that included a good number of Republicans. However, those few outspoken Senators who were against passage of that bill made such a noise that Senators like Graham, who previously was in favor of Start passage, now are against it. And they take that position despite the support of every living Secretary of State and former President.
As far as Senator McConnell stance is concerned, his reasoning flies in the face of reality. Was not eight months enough time for him to consider the merits of the Treaty?
Thus it looks like it’s back to business as usual in Washington. In other words, No Business!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
COMMENTARY--Richard Holbrooke
by Bill Breakstone, December 15, 2010
Richard Holbrooke was as fine a diplomat as any that ever served our Nation. He may have ruffled more than a few feathers, and may not have been an Obama Poster Boy. But he was one hell of a professional. He kept his advice to himself and to those who sought them. He was discreet, he was tough as nails, he was incredibly bright, and he was true with his friendships.
Holbrooke had perhaps the most difficult job in the State Department—dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their duplicitous leaders. The leak published this morning about the Af-Pak Review due out tomorrow gives one just a brief glimpse of what Holbrooke was up against.
I noticed this morning on the bottom line during the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC that Holbrooke’s final words before his operation, spoken on the operating table, were “You’ve got to get out of Afghanistan.” He was worried sick about the future conduct of the two wars, a feeling no doubt intensified by the review process under way. He must have known he would not be there when the final decisions were going to be made by the Administration over the coming weeks. Thus his ultimate advice, aimed undoubtedly at Obama, Clinton, and the National Security team.
May Richard Holbrooke now rest in peace, assured that he had done his duty and served his Country to the best of his considerable abilities.
Richard Holbrooke was as fine a diplomat as any that ever served our Nation. He may have ruffled more than a few feathers, and may not have been an Obama Poster Boy. But he was one hell of a professional. He kept his advice to himself and to those who sought them. He was discreet, he was tough as nails, he was incredibly bright, and he was true with his friendships.
Holbrooke had perhaps the most difficult job in the State Department—dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their duplicitous leaders. The leak published this morning about the Af-Pak Review due out tomorrow gives one just a brief glimpse of what Holbrooke was up against.
I noticed this morning on the bottom line during the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC that Holbrooke’s final words before his operation, spoken on the operating table, were “You’ve got to get out of Afghanistan.” He was worried sick about the future conduct of the two wars, a feeling no doubt intensified by the review process under way. He must have known he would not be there when the final decisions were going to be made by the Administration over the coming weeks. Thus his ultimate advice, aimed undoubtedly at Obama, Clinton, and the National Security team.
May Richard Holbrooke now rest in peace, assured that he had done his duty and served his Country to the best of his considerable abilities.
Monday, December 13, 2010
SINS OF THE FATHERS
by Bill Breakstone, December 13, 2010
“The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”
EURIPIDES (484-406 BC), Phrixus
An American tragedy played out in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 11th. Bernie Madoff’s 46 year-old son, Mark, committed suicide in his SOHO apartment on the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest, with his two-year-old son sleeping in the next room. He had sent numerous E-Mails to his wife Stephanie, who was vacationing with her four-year-old daughter at Disney World in Florida, asking her to look after his son. She had called her father, who went to the apartment and found the body of Mr. Madoff.
In an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, the Madoff’s attorney, Martin Flumenbaum was quoted as saying “How ironic it is . . . to blame the very two individuals [Mark Madoff and his brother Andrew] who uncovered and reported the fraud, saving the state more than $170 million, for not uncovering it sooner. Mark and Andrew had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes and contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC immediately after their father told them he had defrauded his investment advisory clients.”
The Post went on to say that “law enforcement officials said Sunday that they had no direct contact with either of the brothers or with Bernard Madoff’s brother, Peter, in the last year, and said no charges were imminent. . . . In February, Mark Madoff’s wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal.”
The New York Times quoted Mr. Flumenbaum as stating that his client was “an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” The paper said that “charges have not been filed against any of the immediate family members, and their lawyer has said publicly that neither Mark Madoff nor his brother has ever been notified by prosecutors that they were the subjects of a criminal investigation.”
Dozens of lawsuits had been filed in recent weeks by Madoff Trustee Irving Picard. Just last Wednesday, he included the brothers as defendants in an $80 million lawsuit he brought against the London-based international arm of Madoff’s business. Mr. Picard was quoted by The Post as saying on Saturday that “This is a tragic development and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff’s family.”
Nevertheless, the Madoff Trustees wanted their pound of flesh, and they got just that and more—165 pounds all told. Tragic indeed!
Madoff’s suicide will leave many unanswered questions about the family’s involvement in the scandal. But the fact is, as noted above, there were no standing criminal charges, nor any pending. It is difficult for believers in fair play and judicial principles not to feel sympathy for the remaining family members, especially Stephanie Madoff and her two young children.
As Euripides wrote: “The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.” Indeed!
“The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”
EURIPIDES (484-406 BC), Phrixus
An American tragedy played out in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 11th. Bernie Madoff’s 46 year-old son, Mark, committed suicide in his SOHO apartment on the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest, with his two-year-old son sleeping in the next room. He had sent numerous E-Mails to his wife Stephanie, who was vacationing with her four-year-old daughter at Disney World in Florida, asking her to look after his son. She had called her father, who went to the apartment and found the body of Mr. Madoff.
In an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, the Madoff’s attorney, Martin Flumenbaum was quoted as saying “How ironic it is . . . to blame the very two individuals [Mark Madoff and his brother Andrew] who uncovered and reported the fraud, saving the state more than $170 million, for not uncovering it sooner. Mark and Andrew had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes and contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC immediately after their father told them he had defrauded his investment advisory clients.”
The Post went on to say that “law enforcement officials said Sunday that they had no direct contact with either of the brothers or with Bernard Madoff’s brother, Peter, in the last year, and said no charges were imminent. . . . In February, Mark Madoff’s wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal.”
The New York Times quoted Mr. Flumenbaum as stating that his client was “an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” The paper said that “charges have not been filed against any of the immediate family members, and their lawyer has said publicly that neither Mark Madoff nor his brother has ever been notified by prosecutors that they were the subjects of a criminal investigation.”
Dozens of lawsuits had been filed in recent weeks by Madoff Trustee Irving Picard. Just last Wednesday, he included the brothers as defendants in an $80 million lawsuit he brought against the London-based international arm of Madoff’s business. Mr. Picard was quoted by The Post as saying on Saturday that “This is a tragic development and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff’s family.”
Nevertheless, the Madoff Trustees wanted their pound of flesh, and they got just that and more—165 pounds all told. Tragic indeed!
Madoff’s suicide will leave many unanswered questions about the family’s involvement in the scandal. But the fact is, as noted above, there were no standing criminal charges, nor any pending. It is difficult for believers in fair play and judicial principles not to feel sympathy for the remaining family members, especially Stephanie Madoff and her two young children.
As Euripides wrote: “The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.” Indeed!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
POLITICAL COMMENTARY--DEMOCRATS ENDANGERING TAX COMPROMISE
by Bill Breakstone, December 8, 2010
President Obama deserves the Nation’s thanks for working with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and coming up with a compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts (“the Compromise”). Instead, he has become the target of left-wing whiners from within his own Party, who prefer to stand on principle like academics in an ivory tower while the country continues to suffer the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression. In doing so, they are endangering the welfare of over 2 million unemployed, and tax breaks that may spur the economy to renewed growth and increased hires.
The actions of these misguided Representatives and Senators mirrors those of the Republicans over the past two years—putting ideology and self-interest above the common good—and is yet another example of why the American public is so fed up with practically all politicians.
Neither the Obama Administration nor the Republican leadership was happy with everything in the “Compromise,” and both have stated so. But that’s what a compromise is all about. Both parties achieved some of their objectives and both had to back away from a few of their principles. Those Democrats that can not support their President on this should go back to their states, head for the nearest church, and beg for the Good Lord’s forgiveness.
President Obama deserves the Nation’s thanks for working with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and coming up with a compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts (“the Compromise”). Instead, he has become the target of left-wing whiners from within his own Party, who prefer to stand on principle like academics in an ivory tower while the country continues to suffer the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression. In doing so, they are endangering the welfare of over 2 million unemployed, and tax breaks that may spur the economy to renewed growth and increased hires.
The actions of these misguided Representatives and Senators mirrors those of the Republicans over the past two years—putting ideology and self-interest above the common good—and is yet another example of why the American public is so fed up with practically all politicians.
Neither the Obama Administration nor the Republican leadership was happy with everything in the “Compromise,” and both have stated so. But that’s what a compromise is all about. Both parties achieved some of their objectives and both had to back away from a few of their principles. Those Democrats that can not support their President on this should go back to their states, head for the nearest church, and beg for the Good Lord’s forgiveness.
BOOK REVIEW--"UNBROKEN" by Laura Hillenbrand
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 8, 2010
In May of 1943, a B-24 Liberator nicknamed Green Hornet took off from an airfield in Hawaii on a search and rescue mission for another bomber that had gone missing on a flight to Australia. Green Hornet was never heard from again, and despite a thorough week-long search, no trace of the lost Liberator was ever found.
The bombardier on Green Hornet was Lt. Louis Zamperini, affectionately known as “Zamp.” He and two others had miraculously survived the crash from a bomber with a reputation that caused fellow airmen to call it a flying coffin. The three Army Air Corps flyers drifted the currents for forty seven days, surviving steaming days and freezing nights, with no food or water, and virtually no rescue kit. In addition to physical exhaustion and malnutrition, the men had to deal with the constancy of circling sharks.
“Unbroken” is the story of these men’s ordeals, both raft-borne on the Pacific, and in Japanese prison camps on Pacific Islands and on the outskirts of Tokyo and northern Honshu. The brutality of the majority of the prison guards was practically indescribable, but one in particular, known as “The Bird,” was brutal beyond imagination, and his prime target for close to two years was Louie Zamperini.
Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the 2003 best-seller “Seabiscuit,” a brilliant and inspiring book about the famous race horse and the people who remained faithful to the potential of what was once a broken-down nag. She turns her attention here to another story of faith, but also of human depravity. The book was extensively researched over a seven-year period, and is filled with myriad details about Zamperini’s youth, career as an Olympic long distance runner, his difficult post-War recovery , his friends and family, as well as his fellow airmen and prisoners. As with any survival or prison story, there are descriptive stretches that seem to go on forever. However, in the end, the monumentality of the survivors’ courage, stamina and ability to withstand the harshness of life stranded at sea and the brutality of prison camp life, overrides all else.
“Unbroken” is by no means an easy or happy read. But it is a brilliantly rewarding one.
In May of 1943, a B-24 Liberator nicknamed Green Hornet took off from an airfield in Hawaii on a search and rescue mission for another bomber that had gone missing on a flight to Australia. Green Hornet was never heard from again, and despite a thorough week-long search, no trace of the lost Liberator was ever found.
The bombardier on Green Hornet was Lt. Louis Zamperini, affectionately known as “Zamp.” He and two others had miraculously survived the crash from a bomber with a reputation that caused fellow airmen to call it a flying coffin. The three Army Air Corps flyers drifted the currents for forty seven days, surviving steaming days and freezing nights, with no food or water, and virtually no rescue kit. In addition to physical exhaustion and malnutrition, the men had to deal with the constancy of circling sharks.
“Unbroken” is the story of these men’s ordeals, both raft-borne on the Pacific, and in Japanese prison camps on Pacific Islands and on the outskirts of Tokyo and northern Honshu. The brutality of the majority of the prison guards was practically indescribable, but one in particular, known as “The Bird,” was brutal beyond imagination, and his prime target for close to two years was Louie Zamperini.
Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the 2003 best-seller “Seabiscuit,” a brilliant and inspiring book about the famous race horse and the people who remained faithful to the potential of what was once a broken-down nag. She turns her attention here to another story of faith, but also of human depravity. The book was extensively researched over a seven-year period, and is filled with myriad details about Zamperini’s youth, career as an Olympic long distance runner, his difficult post-War recovery , his friends and family, as well as his fellow airmen and prisoners. As with any survival or prison story, there are descriptive stretches that seem to go on forever. However, in the end, the monumentality of the survivors’ courage, stamina and ability to withstand the harshness of life stranded at sea and the brutality of prison camp life, overrides all else.
“Unbroken” is by no means an easy or happy read. But it is a brilliantly rewarding one.
Monday, December 6, 2010
MUSIC REVIEW--THE ST. LUKES ORCHESTRA CHAMBER ENSEMBLE AT CARAMOOR--December 5, 2010
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 6, 2010
Caramoor has been celebrating the music of Mozart at its Caramoor Indoor Series in the Music Room this fall. Sunday’s concert was a dandy, and featured principals of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—oboists Stephen Taylor and James Roe; clarinetists Jon Manasse, Romie de Guise-Langlois and Pavel Vinnitsky; basset horn specialist Gerhardt Koch; bassoonists Dennis Godburn and Thomas Sefcovic; horn players Ralph J. Kelley, Patrick Pridemore, Michael Atkinson and Sarah Cyrus; and John Feeney on double bass.
By any standard, Mozart was a prolific composer, all the more so given his tragically brief lifespan. Ludwig von Kochel compiled a complete catalogue of his compositions in 1862. It listed 626 works, beginning with an Andante for Keyboard, written in 1761, and ending with the unfinished Requiem of late 1791. Of these compositions, 29 were composed as Divertimenti and Serenades. These were written as court diversions, to be performed either outside or indoors at informal gatherings, and utilized various combinations of instruments, ranging from full chamber orchestras to groupings as small as quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, or slightly larger combinations.
This concert featured wind instruments, with the exception of a double bass used as a basso continuo, and horns. The Divertimento No. 14 in B-Flat Major, K. 270 opened the program. It is a gem, in four movements, seldom performed but a pure delight. It was followed by the Serenade No. 11 in E-Flat Major, K. 375, a five-movement work featuring a rather serious Allegro Maestoso opening, two Minuets with Trios, and Adagio and concluding with a sprightly Finale (Allegro). Following the interval, the Ensemble performed the Serenade No. 10 for Winds in B-Flat Major, K.361/370a, the Gran Partita. This is one of Mozart’s finest works, composed contemporaneously with the magnificent Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364. The Serenade is a far cry from the light afternoon entertainments written for the Salzburg Court of Archbishop Collorado. It consists of 7 movements: an opening Largo which leads directly into a moderately paced Allegro Molto; an Adagio is framed by two Minuets, both with two Trio sections; the final three movements are a Romanza; a Tema con Variazioni; and the concluding Rondo (Allegro Molto). The timbre throughout is warm and rich, and the alternating slow-fast-slow-fast tempi of the movements continually engage the listener.
The performances by the St. Luke’s Ensemble were masterful, and the instrumentalists were thoroughly enjoying themselves and the music they were creating. A full house was in attendance, many listening to these less-familiar Mozart works for the first time. They showered long lasting applause on the performers, duly deserved.
Caramoor has been celebrating the music of Mozart at its Caramoor Indoor Series in the Music Room this fall. Sunday’s concert was a dandy, and featured principals of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—oboists Stephen Taylor and James Roe; clarinetists Jon Manasse, Romie de Guise-Langlois and Pavel Vinnitsky; basset horn specialist Gerhardt Koch; bassoonists Dennis Godburn and Thomas Sefcovic; horn players Ralph J. Kelley, Patrick Pridemore, Michael Atkinson and Sarah Cyrus; and John Feeney on double bass.
By any standard, Mozart was a prolific composer, all the more so given his tragically brief lifespan. Ludwig von Kochel compiled a complete catalogue of his compositions in 1862. It listed 626 works, beginning with an Andante for Keyboard, written in 1761, and ending with the unfinished Requiem of late 1791. Of these compositions, 29 were composed as Divertimenti and Serenades. These were written as court diversions, to be performed either outside or indoors at informal gatherings, and utilized various combinations of instruments, ranging from full chamber orchestras to groupings as small as quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, or slightly larger combinations.
This concert featured wind instruments, with the exception of a double bass used as a basso continuo, and horns. The Divertimento No. 14 in B-Flat Major, K. 270 opened the program. It is a gem, in four movements, seldom performed but a pure delight. It was followed by the Serenade No. 11 in E-Flat Major, K. 375, a five-movement work featuring a rather serious Allegro Maestoso opening, two Minuets with Trios, and Adagio and concluding with a sprightly Finale (Allegro). Following the interval, the Ensemble performed the Serenade No. 10 for Winds in B-Flat Major, K.361/370a, the Gran Partita. This is one of Mozart’s finest works, composed contemporaneously with the magnificent Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364. The Serenade is a far cry from the light afternoon entertainments written for the Salzburg Court of Archbishop Collorado. It consists of 7 movements: an opening Largo which leads directly into a moderately paced Allegro Molto; an Adagio is framed by two Minuets, both with two Trio sections; the final three movements are a Romanza; a Tema con Variazioni; and the concluding Rondo (Allegro Molto). The timbre throughout is warm and rich, and the alternating slow-fast-slow-fast tempi of the movements continually engage the listener.
The performances by the St. Luke’s Ensemble were masterful, and the instrumentalists were thoroughly enjoying themselves and the music they were creating. A full house was in attendance, many listening to these less-familiar Mozart works for the first time. They showered long lasting applause on the performers, duly deserved.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--"THE CONFESSION" by JOHN GRISHAM
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 30, 2010
Master storyteller John Grisham has done it again. There is a reason why this novelist brings out one bestseller after another—he finds a timely topic, then weaves a fast-paced narrative that grabs the reader’s attention immediately and won’t let go.
“The Confession” is about the death penalty, the inequities of the criminal justice system, and political corruption. It illustrates how minority defendants are discriminated against by investigators, prosecutors, judges and juries, and that such discrimination is systemic. No need here to describe the plot—let the readers enjoy the tale themselves without previews.
However, it is worth noting that this past Sunday, The New York Times ran an article by Adam Liptak about the death penalty, in particular Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to reverse his position on it. Stevens has written an article that appears in the current issue of The New York Review of Books in which he came to the conclusion “that personnel changes on the court, coupled with ‘regrettable judicial activism, had created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.”
Liptak writes: “The death penalty in the United States has never been anything but an abomination — a grotesque, uncivilized, overwhelmingly racist affront to the very idea of justice. Police and prosecutorial misconduct have been rampant, with evidence of innocence deliberately withheld from defendants being prominent among the abuses. Juries have systematically been shaped — rigged — to heighten the chances of conviction, and thus imposition of the ultimate punishment. Prosecutors and judges in death penalty cases have been overwhelmingly white and male and their behavior has often — not always, but shockingly often — been unfair, bigoted and cruel. Innocents have undoubtedly been executed. Executions have been upheld in cases in which defense lawyers slept through crucial proceedings. Alcoholic, drug-addicted and incompetent lawyers — as well as lawyers who had been suspended or otherwise disciplined for misconduct — have been assigned to indigent defendants. And it has always been the case that the death penalty machinery is fired up far more often when the victims are white.”
Justice Stevens was not alone in his opinions about the death penalty. Liptak continues: “Justice Harry Blackmun was 85 years old and near the end of his tenure on the Supreme Court when he declared in 1994 that he could no longer support the imposition of the death penalty. ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.’ Justice Blackmun vowed that he would no longer participate in a system ‘fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.’ In 1990, Justice Thurgood Marshall asserted: ‘When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery.’ Justices Blackmun and Marshall are gone, but the death penalty is still with us. It is still an abomination.”
With this background in mind, read Grisham’s book. You will not only find it thoroughly enjoyable, but highly informative on a public issue that truly needs attention.
Master storyteller John Grisham has done it again. There is a reason why this novelist brings out one bestseller after another—he finds a timely topic, then weaves a fast-paced narrative that grabs the reader’s attention immediately and won’t let go.
“The Confession” is about the death penalty, the inequities of the criminal justice system, and political corruption. It illustrates how minority defendants are discriminated against by investigators, prosecutors, judges and juries, and that such discrimination is systemic. No need here to describe the plot—let the readers enjoy the tale themselves without previews.
However, it is worth noting that this past Sunday, The New York Times ran an article by Adam Liptak about the death penalty, in particular Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to reverse his position on it. Stevens has written an article that appears in the current issue of The New York Review of Books in which he came to the conclusion “that personnel changes on the court, coupled with ‘regrettable judicial activism, had created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.”
Liptak writes: “The death penalty in the United States has never been anything but an abomination — a grotesque, uncivilized, overwhelmingly racist affront to the very idea of justice. Police and prosecutorial misconduct have been rampant, with evidence of innocence deliberately withheld from defendants being prominent among the abuses. Juries have systematically been shaped — rigged — to heighten the chances of conviction, and thus imposition of the ultimate punishment. Prosecutors and judges in death penalty cases have been overwhelmingly white and male and their behavior has often — not always, but shockingly often — been unfair, bigoted and cruel. Innocents have undoubtedly been executed. Executions have been upheld in cases in which defense lawyers slept through crucial proceedings. Alcoholic, drug-addicted and incompetent lawyers — as well as lawyers who had been suspended or otherwise disciplined for misconduct — have been assigned to indigent defendants. And it has always been the case that the death penalty machinery is fired up far more often when the victims are white.”
Justice Stevens was not alone in his opinions about the death penalty. Liptak continues: “Justice Harry Blackmun was 85 years old and near the end of his tenure on the Supreme Court when he declared in 1994 that he could no longer support the imposition of the death penalty. ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.’ Justice Blackmun vowed that he would no longer participate in a system ‘fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.’ In 1990, Justice Thurgood Marshall asserted: ‘When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery.’ Justices Blackmun and Marshall are gone, but the death penalty is still with us. It is still an abomination.”
With this background in mind, read Grisham’s book. You will not only find it thoroughly enjoyable, but highly informative on a public issue that truly needs attention.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
MUSIC REVIEW--THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC & RAFAEL FRUHBECH de BURGOS--NOVEMBER 26-27, 2010
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 28, 2010
The Spanish conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos has been a busy man in America this year. He filled in for James Levine at Tanglewood over the summer for several engagements, has assignments with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Montreal, Cincinnati and Houston later in the season, and this week took over the podium at The Philharmonic for four varied programs. On Friday night, he conducted works by Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Stravinsky.
Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla opened the program, a rousing allegro, always a crowd-pleaser. The tempo was a bit on the fast side, but the orchestra followed attentively, it’s playing superb. Next, the brilliant Greek violin virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos joined the forces for a performance on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Kavakos is as fine a fiddler performing today. His pacing in the opening Allegro Moderato was exactly that, beautifully accompanied by the conductor and orchestra. Intensity and fire picked up in the cadenza, and all brought the movement to a rousing conclusion. The lyrical second movement Canzonetta was lovingly rendered, and the fireworks returned at a much brisker tempo in the Finale. The audience broke into rapturous applause, and was rewarded by a sober, beautifully played rendition of a movement from Eugene Ysaye’s Bach-inspired Sonata for Solo Violin.
After the interval, Fruhbeck de Burgos turned to two orchestral showpieces, the first Claude Debussy’s three Nocturnes. These expositions of orchestral timbre and color were magnificently performed, assisted by the Women of the New York Choral Artists. The work was a favorite of Leonard Bernstein, but this performance was as sumptuous as I have ever heard. The program concluded with the Suite from The Firebird by Stravinsky. The pacing was just right, the orchestral playing magnificent, and the Philharmonic never sounded better. What a treasure this orchestra is, and how lucky is New York to have such fabulous ensembles as this and The Met Orchestra on its doorstep.
The Saturday matinee was one of the annual Philharmonic programs that features first chair instrumentalists performing a chamber music work. Avery Fisher Hall may not be the perfect setting for this genre, but what a pleasure to hear such consummate artists as Glenn Dichterow, Michelle Kim, Cynthia Phelps, Rebecca Young and Carter Brey play Mozart’s G Minor Quintet, K. 516, as fine a chamber work as he ever conceived. And what obvious pleasure these performers had in playing this masterpiece. It is one of Mozart’s compositions that begs the question “what if?” The first three somber and chromatic movements and the adagio introduction to the finale are all in the minor mode, and are precursors to Beethoven’s more mature chamber writings; only in the Allegro finale does the composer switch to a major tonality.
After intermission, the rather full orchestra reassembled on stage for Haydn’s Military Symphony, No. 100 in G Major. Fruhbeck de Burgos led a brisk-paced, elegant reading of this “London Symphony,” enjoying every minute of this joy of symphonic creation. The concert concluded with the Tchaikovsky Concerto. Quite a workout for both the orchestra and conductor. We New Yorkers need to see more of this fine musician in the future.
The Spanish conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos has been a busy man in America this year. He filled in for James Levine at Tanglewood over the summer for several engagements, has assignments with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Montreal, Cincinnati and Houston later in the season, and this week took over the podium at The Philharmonic for four varied programs. On Friday night, he conducted works by Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Stravinsky.
Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla opened the program, a rousing allegro, always a crowd-pleaser. The tempo was a bit on the fast side, but the orchestra followed attentively, it’s playing superb. Next, the brilliant Greek violin virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos joined the forces for a performance on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Kavakos is as fine a fiddler performing today. His pacing in the opening Allegro Moderato was exactly that, beautifully accompanied by the conductor and orchestra. Intensity and fire picked up in the cadenza, and all brought the movement to a rousing conclusion. The lyrical second movement Canzonetta was lovingly rendered, and the fireworks returned at a much brisker tempo in the Finale. The audience broke into rapturous applause, and was rewarded by a sober, beautifully played rendition of a movement from Eugene Ysaye’s Bach-inspired Sonata for Solo Violin.
After the interval, Fruhbeck de Burgos turned to two orchestral showpieces, the first Claude Debussy’s three Nocturnes. These expositions of orchestral timbre and color were magnificently performed, assisted by the Women of the New York Choral Artists. The work was a favorite of Leonard Bernstein, but this performance was as sumptuous as I have ever heard. The program concluded with the Suite from The Firebird by Stravinsky. The pacing was just right, the orchestral playing magnificent, and the Philharmonic never sounded better. What a treasure this orchestra is, and how lucky is New York to have such fabulous ensembles as this and The Met Orchestra on its doorstep.
The Saturday matinee was one of the annual Philharmonic programs that features first chair instrumentalists performing a chamber music work. Avery Fisher Hall may not be the perfect setting for this genre, but what a pleasure to hear such consummate artists as Glenn Dichterow, Michelle Kim, Cynthia Phelps, Rebecca Young and Carter Brey play Mozart’s G Minor Quintet, K. 516, as fine a chamber work as he ever conceived. And what obvious pleasure these performers had in playing this masterpiece. It is one of Mozart’s compositions that begs the question “what if?” The first three somber and chromatic movements and the adagio introduction to the finale are all in the minor mode, and are precursors to Beethoven’s more mature chamber writings; only in the Allegro finale does the composer switch to a major tonality.
After intermission, the rather full orchestra reassembled on stage for Haydn’s Military Symphony, No. 100 in G Major. Fruhbeck de Burgos led a brisk-paced, elegant reading of this “London Symphony,” enjoying every minute of this joy of symphonic creation. The concert concluded with the Tchaikovsky Concerto. Quite a workout for both the orchestra and conductor. We New Yorkers need to see more of this fine musician in the future.
BOOK REVIEW--"OBAMA'S WAR" by BOB WOODWARD
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 28, 2010
When Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Obama’s Wars,” was released for publication some six weeks ago, it was lavishly promoted with personal appearances by the author on just about every single talk show, and also accorded notoriety by some striking revelations of a personal nature of aides within both White House and Pentagon circles. I put off reading the volume as it seemed the critics and talking heads had more than amply covered its contents. I was wrong!
“Obama’s Wars” is a fascinatingly detailed account of the new president’s assumption of the Afghanistan Crisis, starting during his briefings by the Bush White House and Pentagon staff once he became a presidential candidate, through his election, inauguration, and the first 18 months of his presidency. It may be Woodward’s finest effort, though many will find the complexity of the decision-making process to be staggering. But if you’re a foreign policy buff, or just want to really understand why the Afghan War is such a frustrating challenge for policy makers, this book is for you.
On the day Obama was elected, there were 150,000 American troops in Iraq, and 38,000 in Afghanistan. One of Obama’s campaign pledges was to turn the focus from Iraq and deal with where the Islamic terrorists, both the Taliban and al Qaeda, were active, meaning Afghanistan, AND Pakistan.
The policy headache started on November 26, 2008, and it would become a migraine of the worst order. On that date, President Bush met with Gen. Douglas Lute, the war czar, for one of his last National Security Council Meetings. Lute had conducted a thorough review of the Afghan War, and the results were grim. We were headed toward failure, plain and simple. He pinpointed three reasons: (1) Afghan governance was totally inadequate; (2) the opium trade was out of control, with its resulting corruption of public officials; (3) Pakistan was harboring the Taliban, and their intelligence agency was supporting them—without Pakistan’s determination to act as our ally in rooting out al Qaeda and the Taliban, the chance of success in Afghanistan would be futile.
Thus began a 13-month policy review by the new administration and their military staff at the Pentagon and “in country.” Obama was determined to “get it right,” no matter what it would take. He proceeded in a deliberate fashion, listened to the advice of his Pentagon chiefs and his national security team, sorted through the options presented, changed his commanders in the field, fought the military tooth-in-nail, and finally, in December of 2009, endorsed a plan which was signed off on by everyone, then presented in a speech at West Point.
An additional 30,000 troops, four combat brigades would be authorized, but only three sent immediately. The option of deploying the fourth brigade would be made in December of 2010. As an added caveat to the Pentagon, it was agreed that should circumstances warrant it, and additional 10%, or 3,000 additional troops, may also be deployed. Troop presence would build until July of 2011, when a drawdown would begin, depending upon the situation on the ground.
Reports coming back from Afghanistan during the winter of 2009—2010 were discouraging, to say the least. The plan was not working. The Taliban were operating freely in almost all areas of the country. Troop training was inadequate; not even one company of American soldiers could turn over responsibility to the Afghan Army and Police. The Afghan government did not have the support of the population. Pakistan spoke highly of a joint effort, but refused to act in any meaningful way. Changes had to be made.
Things came to a head in May and June of 20010. Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair was fired on May 20th. The ground commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was fired and replaced by Gen. David Petraeus on June 23rd.; the final manpower shoe dropped on October 8, 2010, when National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones (Ret.) announced his resignation, to be replaced by Thomas E. Donilon.
Woodward completed his book in late July of 2010, and since that time, the Afghan Crisis continues to be in a state of flux. The December Review is due any week now, and it does not appear that conditions on the ground have improved in any meaningful way. Will the fourth combat brigade be deployed? Will the timetable for beginning the troop drawdown be extended? Will Special Forces and CIA forces be deployed on the ground in Pakistan? That will never be announced publically; it will be a totally covert operation.
Woodward doesn’t draw any conclusions; he and his staff just state the facts and leave future policy to the decision makers. But the reader can surmise certain options:
(1) Afghanistan is unwinnable! Al Qaeda is not there. They are in Pakistan. The Kabul government is a fraud, led by an unstable, manic-depressive who is on and off medications and subject to wild mood swings, states of paranoia, corrupt, and without the support of his people. Why did the Russians finally give up? They realized it was hopeless. Do we need to follow their example?
(2) The focus must be where al Qaeda is, and the Taliban, and that is in Pakistan. Action must be taken there. Woodward reports that such a possibility has indeed been discussed among high administration officials, but no decision has been forthcoming. The option is to tell the Pakistanis that either they will root out the extremists or we will.
(3) We have witnessed in the past 18 months numerous attempts by terrorists to inflict severe damage on our homeland. Thus far, we have dodged the bullet through a combination of intelligence gathering and sheer luck. But it’s like playing Russian roulette. Sooner or later, a bullet will be in the chamber. When the catastrophe happens, options will be taken out of the administration’s hands.
(4) Additional efforts should be directed to other al Qaeda training centers and bases being harbored elsewhere in the world, noticeably in Yemen and Somalia.
Woodward begins “Obama’s Wars” with a personal note of thanks to two of his staffers. These are his words:
“I had two of the most exceptional people assist me full-time on the reporting, writing, editing and thinking about this book: Josh Boak, a 2001 cum laude graduate of Princeton and later of the Columbia University master’s program in journalism. . . . Josh immersed himself in all the details and nuances of the Afghanistan War, the Obama administration and Washington politics. He became part of my brain—the better part. . . . there would be no book without him—not even close; Evelyn M. Duffy, who worked with me on “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006—2008, continued on this project. Thank God. At age 25, she is a wizard at everything.”
Thanks to Woodward and his young staffers, “Obama’s War” is a classic analysis of national decision-making and the awful conflict that will no doubt tear this Nation apart for the foreseeable future.
When Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Obama’s Wars,” was released for publication some six weeks ago, it was lavishly promoted with personal appearances by the author on just about every single talk show, and also accorded notoriety by some striking revelations of a personal nature of aides within both White House and Pentagon circles. I put off reading the volume as it seemed the critics and talking heads had more than amply covered its contents. I was wrong!
“Obama’s Wars” is a fascinatingly detailed account of the new president’s assumption of the Afghanistan Crisis, starting during his briefings by the Bush White House and Pentagon staff once he became a presidential candidate, through his election, inauguration, and the first 18 months of his presidency. It may be Woodward’s finest effort, though many will find the complexity of the decision-making process to be staggering. But if you’re a foreign policy buff, or just want to really understand why the Afghan War is such a frustrating challenge for policy makers, this book is for you.
On the day Obama was elected, there were 150,000 American troops in Iraq, and 38,000 in Afghanistan. One of Obama’s campaign pledges was to turn the focus from Iraq and deal with where the Islamic terrorists, both the Taliban and al Qaeda, were active, meaning Afghanistan, AND Pakistan.
The policy headache started on November 26, 2008, and it would become a migraine of the worst order. On that date, President Bush met with Gen. Douglas Lute, the war czar, for one of his last National Security Council Meetings. Lute had conducted a thorough review of the Afghan War, and the results were grim. We were headed toward failure, plain and simple. He pinpointed three reasons: (1) Afghan governance was totally inadequate; (2) the opium trade was out of control, with its resulting corruption of public officials; (3) Pakistan was harboring the Taliban, and their intelligence agency was supporting them—without Pakistan’s determination to act as our ally in rooting out al Qaeda and the Taliban, the chance of success in Afghanistan would be futile.
Thus began a 13-month policy review by the new administration and their military staff at the Pentagon and “in country.” Obama was determined to “get it right,” no matter what it would take. He proceeded in a deliberate fashion, listened to the advice of his Pentagon chiefs and his national security team, sorted through the options presented, changed his commanders in the field, fought the military tooth-in-nail, and finally, in December of 2009, endorsed a plan which was signed off on by everyone, then presented in a speech at West Point.
An additional 30,000 troops, four combat brigades would be authorized, but only three sent immediately. The option of deploying the fourth brigade would be made in December of 2010. As an added caveat to the Pentagon, it was agreed that should circumstances warrant it, and additional 10%, or 3,000 additional troops, may also be deployed. Troop presence would build until July of 2011, when a drawdown would begin, depending upon the situation on the ground.
Reports coming back from Afghanistan during the winter of 2009—2010 were discouraging, to say the least. The plan was not working. The Taliban were operating freely in almost all areas of the country. Troop training was inadequate; not even one company of American soldiers could turn over responsibility to the Afghan Army and Police. The Afghan government did not have the support of the population. Pakistan spoke highly of a joint effort, but refused to act in any meaningful way. Changes had to be made.
Things came to a head in May and June of 20010. Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair was fired on May 20th. The ground commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was fired and replaced by Gen. David Petraeus on June 23rd.; the final manpower shoe dropped on October 8, 2010, when National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones (Ret.) announced his resignation, to be replaced by Thomas E. Donilon.
Woodward completed his book in late July of 2010, and since that time, the Afghan Crisis continues to be in a state of flux. The December Review is due any week now, and it does not appear that conditions on the ground have improved in any meaningful way. Will the fourth combat brigade be deployed? Will the timetable for beginning the troop drawdown be extended? Will Special Forces and CIA forces be deployed on the ground in Pakistan? That will never be announced publically; it will be a totally covert operation.
Woodward doesn’t draw any conclusions; he and his staff just state the facts and leave future policy to the decision makers. But the reader can surmise certain options:
(1) Afghanistan is unwinnable! Al Qaeda is not there. They are in Pakistan. The Kabul government is a fraud, led by an unstable, manic-depressive who is on and off medications and subject to wild mood swings, states of paranoia, corrupt, and without the support of his people. Why did the Russians finally give up? They realized it was hopeless. Do we need to follow their example?
(2) The focus must be where al Qaeda is, and the Taliban, and that is in Pakistan. Action must be taken there. Woodward reports that such a possibility has indeed been discussed among high administration officials, but no decision has been forthcoming. The option is to tell the Pakistanis that either they will root out the extremists or we will.
(3) We have witnessed in the past 18 months numerous attempts by terrorists to inflict severe damage on our homeland. Thus far, we have dodged the bullet through a combination of intelligence gathering and sheer luck. But it’s like playing Russian roulette. Sooner or later, a bullet will be in the chamber. When the catastrophe happens, options will be taken out of the administration’s hands.
(4) Additional efforts should be directed to other al Qaeda training centers and bases being harbored elsewhere in the world, noticeably in Yemen and Somalia.
Woodward begins “Obama’s Wars” with a personal note of thanks to two of his staffers. These are his words:
“I had two of the most exceptional people assist me full-time on the reporting, writing, editing and thinking about this book: Josh Boak, a 2001 cum laude graduate of Princeton and later of the Columbia University master’s program in journalism. . . . Josh immersed himself in all the details and nuances of the Afghanistan War, the Obama administration and Washington politics. He became part of my brain—the better part. . . . there would be no book without him—not even close; Evelyn M. Duffy, who worked with me on “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006—2008, continued on this project. Thank God. At age 25, she is a wizard at everything.”
Thanks to Woodward and his young staffers, “Obama’s War” is a classic analysis of national decision-making and the awful conflict that will no doubt tear this Nation apart for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
MUSIC NOTES--BELA BARTOK'S MUSIC FOR STRINGS, PERCUSSION AND CELESTA
by Bill Breakstone, November 24, 2010
Hans Nathan was my first professor of music history in college. He was a Hungarian, born and raised in Budapest. We studied music from the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical and the Romantic Periods in our first year of classes, the fall of 1959 and the winter and spring of 1960. The emphasis was on Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. When several students asked him to touch on Rachmaninoff’s works, Dr. Nathan addressed them briefly, but offered this advice: “What you want to concentrate on among modern composers is Bela Bartok. He was the finest composer of this century. Study his music closely and in depth.”
I followed the Professor’s advice from that moment on, and have never regretted it. Last night, as I was reading Bob Woodward’s latest book, I felt the need to listen to Bartok once again. The same year I was attending classes with Dr. Nathan, Fritz Reiner, who was a student of Bartok, made a recording with his Chicago Symphony Orchestra that became one of the greatest discs of all time. It contained performances of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta; and the Hungarian Sketches. I chose the middle work, and was again swept away by the music’s originality, tonality, dissonances, instrumentation and passion.
Bartok composed the work in 1936 when he was at the height of his compositional career, that period between 1934 and 1940. It is in four movements, of which Grove’s writes: “The piece shows great originality at all levels of its construction and seamlessly integrates the broadest range of Bartok’s folk-music and art-music sources.” Musicologists describe the opening movement as a fugue; I prefer to call it a passacaglia or a chromatic fantasy. Whatever, it is a masterpiece, an example of what I refer to as the building blocks of musical composition, how composers have stood on their predecessor’s shoulders through the ages and created new music that can stand on its own, even though it owes respect and pays tribute to its heredity. The thematic content of this movement permeates the following three, eventually reappearing in its original form before the orchestral tutti that powerfully closes the work.
The Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is not as popular with audiences as Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, but is a favorite among conservatory students and professors of performance technique. The orchestration is astoundingly original, the use of the piano and celesta both magical and fascinating. And Reiner’s performance has never been matched over the 50 years since the recording was made. And as luck would have it, the RCA A&R men never did a better job of orchestral sound reproduction.
Thus, I will offer the same advice to music lovers unfamiliar with this masterpiece that Dr. Nathan offered me all those years ago: “Study this piece and all of Bartok’s well.” He was indeed the greatest composer of the 20th Century.
Hans Nathan was my first professor of music history in college. He was a Hungarian, born and raised in Budapest. We studied music from the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical and the Romantic Periods in our first year of classes, the fall of 1959 and the winter and spring of 1960. The emphasis was on Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. When several students asked him to touch on Rachmaninoff’s works, Dr. Nathan addressed them briefly, but offered this advice: “What you want to concentrate on among modern composers is Bela Bartok. He was the finest composer of this century. Study his music closely and in depth.”
I followed the Professor’s advice from that moment on, and have never regretted it. Last night, as I was reading Bob Woodward’s latest book, I felt the need to listen to Bartok once again. The same year I was attending classes with Dr. Nathan, Fritz Reiner, who was a student of Bartok, made a recording with his Chicago Symphony Orchestra that became one of the greatest discs of all time. It contained performances of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta; and the Hungarian Sketches. I chose the middle work, and was again swept away by the music’s originality, tonality, dissonances, instrumentation and passion.
Bartok composed the work in 1936 when he was at the height of his compositional career, that period between 1934 and 1940. It is in four movements, of which Grove’s writes: “The piece shows great originality at all levels of its construction and seamlessly integrates the broadest range of Bartok’s folk-music and art-music sources.” Musicologists describe the opening movement as a fugue; I prefer to call it a passacaglia or a chromatic fantasy. Whatever, it is a masterpiece, an example of what I refer to as the building blocks of musical composition, how composers have stood on their predecessor’s shoulders through the ages and created new music that can stand on its own, even though it owes respect and pays tribute to its heredity. The thematic content of this movement permeates the following three, eventually reappearing in its original form before the orchestral tutti that powerfully closes the work.
The Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is not as popular with audiences as Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, but is a favorite among conservatory students and professors of performance technique. The orchestration is astoundingly original, the use of the piano and celesta both magical and fascinating. And Reiner’s performance has never been matched over the 50 years since the recording was made. And as luck would have it, the RCA A&R men never did a better job of orchestral sound reproduction.
Thus, I will offer the same advice to music lovers unfamiliar with this masterpiece that Dr. Nathan offered me all those years ago: “Study this piece and all of Bartok’s well.” He was indeed the greatest composer of the 20th Century.
Friday, November 19, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--"WITHOUT HESITATION" by General (Ret.) Hugh Shelton
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 20, 2010
One bright, beautiful spring day in 1991, I left my office in Manhattan and took the subway three stops downtown to Chambers Street to view the homecoming parade of our troops returning from Desert Storm. Out in front of one of the brigades of the 101st Airborne Division was a tall, gangly, bespectacled Brig. General leading his troops past the reviewing stand. He was so tall he stood out like a sore thumb, and couldn’t help from being a center of attention. That General was Hugh Shelton.
Henry Hugh Shelton served as fourteenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States from 1997 to 2001. “Without Hesitation” is his autobiography, and it is a dandy. At 530-odd pages, it is a big book, and is filled with voluminous details, tales of personal adventures, and stories of heroism and dedication to the Service and the Country.
Shelton was born on January 2, 1942 in the town of Tarboro, North Carolina. He was raised just outside the tiny enclave of Speed. He attended North Carolina State University where he majored in textiles; he also enrolled in the Army ROTC program, becoming a commissioned officer upon graduation. He served two years as an Army Ranger, one of which was in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He had committed to work for a large textile company after his Army commitment was fulfilled, but found himself missing his Army commitments and comrades. After a year in textiles, it was back to the Army and a life-long career that would take him to the very top of the Nation’s military leadership.
Shelton was a natural born leader and manager of men and material assets. He led from the front, was candid and honest with superiors and subordinates, and always stood up for his troops. He never shied from making a controversial decision, even if it was “against the grain”, and his judgments were always based on a firm knowledge of the facts behind any situation. And Shelton was not the kind of general you wanted to get mad. He picked few fights throughout his life, but when he did, he was tough as nails.
What one takes away from reading this autobiography is: a sense of what leadership is all about; how huge an undertaking is the management of a military organization, be it a battalion (600 soldiers), brigade (5,000 soldiers), a division (18,000 soldiers), a corps (@75,000 soldiers), or the entire military (over 2 million soldiers).
The book contains fascinating accounts of Operation Agile Provider (Haiti), Operation Desert Fox (Iraq), the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the invasion of Afghanistan following the horrendous events of 9/11.
Shelton also provides an in-depth study of the management styles of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and of his Secretaries of Defense, William Cohen under Clinton and Donald Rumsfeld under Bush. He is scathing in his portrayal of Rumsfeld and his associates Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone and Doug Feith. But he saves his best for Senator John McCain.
Here is a brief look at the awful time he had with Team Bush:
“There are two kinds of relationships between a Chairman and a Secretary of Defense. There was the kind I had with Bill Cohen, where we worked together and protected each other’s flanks. And there was the McNamara-Rumsfeld model, based upon deception, deceit, working political agendas, and trying to get the Joint Chiefs to support an action that might not be the right thing to do for the Country but would work well for the President from a political standpoint.”
Shelton’s relationship with President Bush was another matter, one of mutual respect if not total admiration. His analysis of the former President’s performance matches that of many others—loyalty is on the one hand is an admirable virtue, but an unwavering loyalty to subordinates at the highest levels who make boneheaded decisions that damage the interests of the Nation is not the type of leadership that best serves the Country.
I owe another debt of gratitude to Charlie Rose for bringing this book to my attention. I caught the end of his interview with Shelton early one morning when watching his show on the Bloomberg Network. Thanks again Charlie for another brilliant recommendation.
One bright, beautiful spring day in 1991, I left my office in Manhattan and took the subway three stops downtown to Chambers Street to view the homecoming parade of our troops returning from Desert Storm. Out in front of one of the brigades of the 101st Airborne Division was a tall, gangly, bespectacled Brig. General leading his troops past the reviewing stand. He was so tall he stood out like a sore thumb, and couldn’t help from being a center of attention. That General was Hugh Shelton.
Henry Hugh Shelton served as fourteenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States from 1997 to 2001. “Without Hesitation” is his autobiography, and it is a dandy. At 530-odd pages, it is a big book, and is filled with voluminous details, tales of personal adventures, and stories of heroism and dedication to the Service and the Country.
Shelton was born on January 2, 1942 in the town of Tarboro, North Carolina. He was raised just outside the tiny enclave of Speed. He attended North Carolina State University where he majored in textiles; he also enrolled in the Army ROTC program, becoming a commissioned officer upon graduation. He served two years as an Army Ranger, one of which was in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He had committed to work for a large textile company after his Army commitment was fulfilled, but found himself missing his Army commitments and comrades. After a year in textiles, it was back to the Army and a life-long career that would take him to the very top of the Nation’s military leadership.
Shelton was a natural born leader and manager of men and material assets. He led from the front, was candid and honest with superiors and subordinates, and always stood up for his troops. He never shied from making a controversial decision, even if it was “against the grain”, and his judgments were always based on a firm knowledge of the facts behind any situation. And Shelton was not the kind of general you wanted to get mad. He picked few fights throughout his life, but when he did, he was tough as nails.
What one takes away from reading this autobiography is: a sense of what leadership is all about; how huge an undertaking is the management of a military organization, be it a battalion (600 soldiers), brigade (5,000 soldiers), a division (18,000 soldiers), a corps (@75,000 soldiers), or the entire military (over 2 million soldiers).
The book contains fascinating accounts of Operation Agile Provider (Haiti), Operation Desert Fox (Iraq), the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the invasion of Afghanistan following the horrendous events of 9/11.
Shelton also provides an in-depth study of the management styles of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and of his Secretaries of Defense, William Cohen under Clinton and Donald Rumsfeld under Bush. He is scathing in his portrayal of Rumsfeld and his associates Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Cambone and Doug Feith. But he saves his best for Senator John McCain.
Here is a brief look at the awful time he had with Team Bush:
“There are two kinds of relationships between a Chairman and a Secretary of Defense. There was the kind I had with Bill Cohen, where we worked together and protected each other’s flanks. And there was the McNamara-Rumsfeld model, based upon deception, deceit, working political agendas, and trying to get the Joint Chiefs to support an action that might not be the right thing to do for the Country but would work well for the President from a political standpoint.”
Shelton’s relationship with President Bush was another matter, one of mutual respect if not total admiration. His analysis of the former President’s performance matches that of many others—loyalty is on the one hand is an admirable virtue, but an unwavering loyalty to subordinates at the highest levels who make boneheaded decisions that damage the interests of the Nation is not the type of leadership that best serves the Country.
I owe another debt of gratitude to Charlie Rose for bringing this book to my attention. I caught the end of his interview with Shelton early one morning when watching his show on the Bloomberg Network. Thanks again Charlie for another brilliant recommendation.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 16, 2010
The English author John le Carre has written 22 novels, the first being Call for the Dead, published in 1961. I have read and enjoyed every one. He is one of those authors I just can’t get enough of.
His latest work is Our Kind of Hero, and has been critically acclaimed as one of his best. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it is a tremendously good read.
The story opens at a Caribbean island resort, where Oxford professor Perry Makepiece is vacationing with his long-time companion Gail Perkins. Perry is a top-flight amateur tennis player, and is introduced by the resort’s tennis pro to a mysterious Russian national named “Dima,” also a splendid player, but no match for Makepiece, who “sandbags” the two sets in a typically and gentlemanly British show of fairness and good sportsmanship. This immediately impresses Dima, and the two and Gail become intimate friends. A bit too intimate, it turns out.
For Dima is the world’s most powerful money launderer, and is near the top of the Russian mafia. However, there is big trouble in Moscow’s underworld, and Dima wants out, for both himself and his family. He confides all this with Perry, and asks the Oxford Don if he is in reality a spy. When Perry truthfully says “absolutely not,” Dima asks if he has any contacts within MI6. Dima has some state secrets that should very much interest them, and he proceeds to fill Perry in. Perry immediately realizes that Dima’s secrets are powerful stuff indeed, in that he places several highly positioned British diplomats right in the middle of the Russian Mafia’s influence. I won’t divulge any more of the storyline than that; let the reader take it from there.
The author’s characterizations are brilliantly realized, and his reserved, very English method of storytelling has always fascinated this reader, and does so here once again. Le Carre is nearing his 70th birthday, but has lost none of his narrative powers. His fans are many; then again there are readers who have never taken a liking to his style. Count me among the former. May he write many more tales such as this one, and enjoy decades more of good health and literary happiness.
The English author John le Carre has written 22 novels, the first being Call for the Dead, published in 1961. I have read and enjoyed every one. He is one of those authors I just can’t get enough of.
His latest work is Our Kind of Hero, and has been critically acclaimed as one of his best. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it is a tremendously good read.
The story opens at a Caribbean island resort, where Oxford professor Perry Makepiece is vacationing with his long-time companion Gail Perkins. Perry is a top-flight amateur tennis player, and is introduced by the resort’s tennis pro to a mysterious Russian national named “Dima,” also a splendid player, but no match for Makepiece, who “sandbags” the two sets in a typically and gentlemanly British show of fairness and good sportsmanship. This immediately impresses Dima, and the two and Gail become intimate friends. A bit too intimate, it turns out.
For Dima is the world’s most powerful money launderer, and is near the top of the Russian mafia. However, there is big trouble in Moscow’s underworld, and Dima wants out, for both himself and his family. He confides all this with Perry, and asks the Oxford Don if he is in reality a spy. When Perry truthfully says “absolutely not,” Dima asks if he has any contacts within MI6. Dima has some state secrets that should very much interest them, and he proceeds to fill Perry in. Perry immediately realizes that Dima’s secrets are powerful stuff indeed, in that he places several highly positioned British diplomats right in the middle of the Russian Mafia’s influence. I won’t divulge any more of the storyline than that; let the reader take it from there.
The author’s characterizations are brilliantly realized, and his reserved, very English method of storytelling has always fascinated this reader, and does so here once again. Le Carre is nearing his 70th birthday, but has lost none of his narrative powers. His fans are many; then again there are readers who have never taken a liking to his style. Count me among the former. May he write many more tales such as this one, and enjoy decades more of good health and literary happiness.
Monday, November 15, 2010
MUSIC REVIEW--THE KUSS QUARTET AT CARAMOOR
November 14, 2010
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone
The Berlin-based Kuss Quartet appeared at Caramoor on Sunday afternoon, November 14th. I had not previously attended a concert by this ensemble, nor had I even heard of the group except when I read the promotional material mailed me by Caramoor. The four instrumentalists hail from different countries in Europe: first violinist Jana Kuss and second violinist Oliver Willie reside in Berlin; violist William Coleman hails from England; and cellist Mikayel Hakhnazaryan is from Albania.
The program offered one of Haydn’s Op. 20 quartets, and two mature quartets by Mozart, the B-Flat Major “Hunt Quartet,” K. 458 and the D Major 1st Prussian Quartet, K. 575. This was a delectable trio of quartets, to be sure.
Haydn’s set of six Op. 20 quartets were composed around 1770; the exact dates on many of Haydn’s works are hard to pinpoint. They are not as often performed as his more mature quartets of Op. 71, 74, 76 and 77. But they are nonetheless fascinating examples of one of the great quartet composers of all ages, indeed the inventor of the form. They date from the composer’s Sturm und Drang period, and established the four-movement format that Haydn and Mozart would use from then on; Beethoven, too, used the four-movement outline up until his late quartets. The outer movements were generally of moderate to fast pace; the inner two movements consisted of an adagio and a minuet. Haydn’s biographer Tovey wrote of the C Major, No. 2 that “it a new degree of cyclic integration with its luxuriantly scored opening movement, its minor-mode Capriccio slow movement which runs on directly into the minuet, and a fugato finale alternating between light and serious moods.
The two Mozart Quartets are gems. The first is one of the six Haydn Quartets, all masterpieces of the literature. The two Prussian Quartets are less often performed, but both are gems. They date from the period of Mozart’s greatest compositional achievements: the three final symphonies, the operas Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte, the Clarinet Quintet, the G Minor and D Major String Quintets, and the heavenly B-Flat Major Piano Concert No. 27, Mozart’s finale in that format.
The performances by the Kuss Quartet provided the audience with proof of this ensembles well-earned praise from music critics worldwide, and why it has been awarded so many prizes in quartet competitions. Tempi were just right, phrasings perfect, bowing immaculate, and the playing overall heart-felt and fresh.
Enough can’t be said of the venue. The Music Room at Caramoor is just the type of setting that chamber artists and audiences dream about. It is not too large, not too tight, offers a smallish stage that does not dwarf the players, and has excellent acoustics. Add to that a rococo beauty of design and furnishings, and you have all that any music lover could wish for.
There are two remaining chamber concerts in this Caramoor Series: next Saturday, November 20th, at 8 P.M. with the Caramoor Virtuosi; and on Sunday, December 5th, at 4 P.M. with the Chamber Ensemble from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone
The Berlin-based Kuss Quartet appeared at Caramoor on Sunday afternoon, November 14th. I had not previously attended a concert by this ensemble, nor had I even heard of the group except when I read the promotional material mailed me by Caramoor. The four instrumentalists hail from different countries in Europe: first violinist Jana Kuss and second violinist Oliver Willie reside in Berlin; violist William Coleman hails from England; and cellist Mikayel Hakhnazaryan is from Albania.
The program offered one of Haydn’s Op. 20 quartets, and two mature quartets by Mozart, the B-Flat Major “Hunt Quartet,” K. 458 and the D Major 1st Prussian Quartet, K. 575. This was a delectable trio of quartets, to be sure.
Haydn’s set of six Op. 20 quartets were composed around 1770; the exact dates on many of Haydn’s works are hard to pinpoint. They are not as often performed as his more mature quartets of Op. 71, 74, 76 and 77. But they are nonetheless fascinating examples of one of the great quartet composers of all ages, indeed the inventor of the form. They date from the composer’s Sturm und Drang period, and established the four-movement format that Haydn and Mozart would use from then on; Beethoven, too, used the four-movement outline up until his late quartets. The outer movements were generally of moderate to fast pace; the inner two movements consisted of an adagio and a minuet. Haydn’s biographer Tovey wrote of the C Major, No. 2 that “it a new degree of cyclic integration with its luxuriantly scored opening movement, its minor-mode Capriccio slow movement which runs on directly into the minuet, and a fugato finale alternating between light and serious moods.
The two Mozart Quartets are gems. The first is one of the six Haydn Quartets, all masterpieces of the literature. The two Prussian Quartets are less often performed, but both are gems. They date from the period of Mozart’s greatest compositional achievements: the three final symphonies, the operas Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte, the Clarinet Quintet, the G Minor and D Major String Quintets, and the heavenly B-Flat Major Piano Concert No. 27, Mozart’s finale in that format.
The performances by the Kuss Quartet provided the audience with proof of this ensembles well-earned praise from music critics worldwide, and why it has been awarded so many prizes in quartet competitions. Tempi were just right, phrasings perfect, bowing immaculate, and the playing overall heart-felt and fresh.
Enough can’t be said of the venue. The Music Room at Caramoor is just the type of setting that chamber artists and audiences dream about. It is not too large, not too tight, offers a smallish stage that does not dwarf the players, and has excellent acoustics. Add to that a rococo beauty of design and furnishings, and you have all that any music lover could wish for.
There are two remaining chamber concerts in this Caramoor Series: next Saturday, November 20th, at 8 P.M. with the Caramoor Virtuosi; and on Sunday, December 5th, at 4 P.M. with the Chamber Ensemble from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
By Bill Breakstone, November 14, 2010
It’s extremely difficult for me to read the papers and watch the news these days without becoming very depressed. This morning’s New York Times “Week in Review” section is a good example. Being the insomniac that I am, I spent a few hours in the middle of the night pondering what’s become of our Nation, and drafted some thoughts, some of which were reinforced by several columns in the Times.
America today is a country in dire straits. The political arena is paralyzed by partisanship, not only between the parties, but also within the parties. Economically, we are as close to a dead end as anyone savvy with finance could attest to. On the fiscal side, the paralysis mentioned above precludes any action. On the monetary side, the Federal Reserve is doing its best, but that quiver of arrows is just about empty, and even Fed Chair Bernanke admits that they are treading on untested waters. Most economists will admit the Nation faces a triad of dangers: deflation; prolonged joblessness; and a Japanese-like “lost decade,” marked by sluggish growth.
This past week, the Deficit Commission co-chairs released their initial recommendations. Though they contain significant proposals, and should be debated by the full Commission, most seem politically unacceptable, and are drawing fire from all fronts. David Leonhardt’s excellent Times piece contains the following points
“The looming federal deficits are so large that they are likely to occupy much of Washington’s attention for years. Arguably, this new deficit obsession — what some are calling the Age of Austerity — began this month. The midterm elections ushered in a Republican House majority pledging to shrink government, and on Wednesday the leaders of the bipartisan panel released the outline of a deficit-cutting plan for the panel’s members to debate.”
“As a starting point, it is worth thinking about the deficit as being two different deficits. The first is the medium-term deficit, which was created by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the 2003 Medicare drug plan, the Bush tax cuts, the recession and the government’s responses, like the stimulus.”
“The medium-term deficit does not appear to pose a huge threat to the American economy. Maya MacGuinea of the New America Foundation points out that simply letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire, not just those benefiting the affluent, would nearly do the job.”
“The long-term deficit is a wholly different beast.”
“It comes from the projected growth of Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. It is the result of baby boomers’ having paid far less in taxes than they will draw in benefits. “The reason we find ourselves in this situation,” said Mr. Bowles, the former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, “is that we’ve made promises we can’t keep.”
“The solution will have to revolve around tax increases and changes to health care and Social Security. And the country cannot wait until 2030 to implement most of the changes, notes Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. If it did, the interest on the national debt could become crushingly large. Deficit cutting will probably be a regular part of politics for the next couple of decades.”
“One obvious debate will be taxes versus spending. But relying exclusively on one would be extremely difficult. An approach based only on spending would mean deep cuts to programs that many Americans consider to be the essence of government: Medicare, Social Security and the military, among others. Closing the entire deficit through taxes would require enormous tax increases, mostly because Medicare spending is expected to continue growing much faster than income. To keep up, tax rates would have to keep rising.”
“The real issues, then, are how much taxes should rise, how much spending should be cut — and what kinds of each change should take place.”
“No matter what you pick, keep in mind the potential effects on economic growth. Arguably, economic growth is the most important yardstick for any plan, because growth can do much to reduce the deficit, as it did after World War II and in the 1990s.”
“No matter what you pick, keep in mind the potential effects on economic growth. Arguably, economic growth is the most important yardstick for any plan, because growth can do much to reduce the deficit, as it did after World War II and in the 1990s.”
“This helps explain why many economists favor a version of tax reform that would lower marginal rates and close loopholes. Ordinary tax cuts have a mixed record on helping the economy; growth after the Bush tax cuts was mediocre, for example. But tax reform could save households and businesses from changing their behavior, often inefficiently, to qualify for tax breaks. The Bowles-Simpson plan suggests several reforms that would raise more tax revenue than today’s code and help close the deficit.”
“Of course, when economists say loopholes, they are including the deduction on home mortgage interest and other popular items. That’s the problem with deficit cutting: it involves painful choices, like the ones you see here and the ones in the Bowles-Simpson plan that led to last week’s outcries.”
“The government has not yet solved the deficit problem, the economist William Gale of the Brookings Institution says, because voters have not yet demanded it. They have rewarded politicians who say they are worried about the budget much more than politicians willing to make specific benefit cuts and tax increases. All of us would prefer generous benefits and low taxes.”
“ ‘Whatever the eventual solution is,’ Mr. Gale said, ‘it will probably be something that is not politically feasible now.’ ”
However, let’s hypothesize that somehow our legislators will be able to reach a compromise in the new Congress, and implement some of the Commission’s proposals. They would be a mixture of spending cuts, including entitlement programs, tax increases, and tax reform. Would we then witness the types of civil unrest we have seen happening in France, Spain, Portugal, and, now, Great Britain?
In my mind, America is too great a country to continue to flounder in this seemingly hopeless morass. History is on our side. We have faced great challenges before and overcome them. Generations of Americans have risen to the challenges we have faced over the centuries, from the Civil War to World War I to World War II, and from the numerous financial panics that have occurred from 1819 until today
It is time to start thinking “outside the box.”
American Society at present is fractured. Disparate elements are at each other’s throats, all claiming that their way is the best way, the only way. What is needed is a unifying force that will bring the Nation back together. What could that be?
The fact is that society reacts best to emergencies—an outside threat to our national security; or an internal threat to civil stability, such as the Great Depression, the civil rights movement with its resulting riots, or the Great Recession that we are now enduring. Do things have to get to the panic stage before the Nation embarks on the proper course?
What America faced after the Depression is analogous to our challenges today. Both the European Union countries and the American right are not heeding the lessons that should have been learned from the experience of the 1930s. When leadership then turned from stimulus to deficit reduction, the Nation was plunged back into economic distress. Are we about to do the same thing now? The only thing that saved us then was World War II. If the only rallying point to unify the Nation is war or extreme civil unrest, what are the practical alternatives?
If one solution is indeed war,what is going to be our next battleground? The answer that David Broder posed in a recent Washington Post op-ed was Iran, and the justification will be that country’s refusal to take the military use of its nuclear capability off the table, and the threat that position poses to Mideast peace and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. But if the United States is going to engage Iran militarily, it must first exit Iraq and Afghanistan completely. Such an exit would be exceedingly simple to justify, as neither of those allies is living up to a standard of cooperation that encourages our further involvement.
If the triggering mechanism is not war, but civil unrest, it will come in the form of the American middle class taking to the streets in riots over the elimination of safety nets for the vast majority of average citizens, and cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare for our seniors. Would such a reaction prompt the leadership of both political factions to unite?
Here is another question. It has been fifty-eight years since America turned to a military leader, in the person of Dwight D. Eisenhower, to lead the Nation in a time of trouble. Has such a time now returned?
It’s extremely difficult for me to read the papers and watch the news these days without becoming very depressed. This morning’s New York Times “Week in Review” section is a good example. Being the insomniac that I am, I spent a few hours in the middle of the night pondering what’s become of our Nation, and drafted some thoughts, some of which were reinforced by several columns in the Times.
America today is a country in dire straits. The political arena is paralyzed by partisanship, not only between the parties, but also within the parties. Economically, we are as close to a dead end as anyone savvy with finance could attest to. On the fiscal side, the paralysis mentioned above precludes any action. On the monetary side, the Federal Reserve is doing its best, but that quiver of arrows is just about empty, and even Fed Chair Bernanke admits that they are treading on untested waters. Most economists will admit the Nation faces a triad of dangers: deflation; prolonged joblessness; and a Japanese-like “lost decade,” marked by sluggish growth.
This past week, the Deficit Commission co-chairs released their initial recommendations. Though they contain significant proposals, and should be debated by the full Commission, most seem politically unacceptable, and are drawing fire from all fronts. David Leonhardt’s excellent Times piece contains the following points
“The looming federal deficits are so large that they are likely to occupy much of Washington’s attention for years. Arguably, this new deficit obsession — what some are calling the Age of Austerity — began this month. The midterm elections ushered in a Republican House majority pledging to shrink government, and on Wednesday the leaders of the bipartisan panel released the outline of a deficit-cutting plan for the panel’s members to debate.”
“As a starting point, it is worth thinking about the deficit as being two different deficits. The first is the medium-term deficit, which was created by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the 2003 Medicare drug plan, the Bush tax cuts, the recession and the government’s responses, like the stimulus.”
“The medium-term deficit does not appear to pose a huge threat to the American economy. Maya MacGuinea of the New America Foundation points out that simply letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire, not just those benefiting the affluent, would nearly do the job.”
“The long-term deficit is a wholly different beast.”
“It comes from the projected growth of Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. It is the result of baby boomers’ having paid far less in taxes than they will draw in benefits. “The reason we find ourselves in this situation,” said Mr. Bowles, the former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, “is that we’ve made promises we can’t keep.”
“The solution will have to revolve around tax increases and changes to health care and Social Security. And the country cannot wait until 2030 to implement most of the changes, notes Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. If it did, the interest on the national debt could become crushingly large. Deficit cutting will probably be a regular part of politics for the next couple of decades.”
“One obvious debate will be taxes versus spending. But relying exclusively on one would be extremely difficult. An approach based only on spending would mean deep cuts to programs that many Americans consider to be the essence of government: Medicare, Social Security and the military, among others. Closing the entire deficit through taxes would require enormous tax increases, mostly because Medicare spending is expected to continue growing much faster than income. To keep up, tax rates would have to keep rising.”
“The real issues, then, are how much taxes should rise, how much spending should be cut — and what kinds of each change should take place.”
“No matter what you pick, keep in mind the potential effects on economic growth. Arguably, economic growth is the most important yardstick for any plan, because growth can do much to reduce the deficit, as it did after World War II and in the 1990s.”
“No matter what you pick, keep in mind the potential effects on economic growth. Arguably, economic growth is the most important yardstick for any plan, because growth can do much to reduce the deficit, as it did after World War II and in the 1990s.”
“This helps explain why many economists favor a version of tax reform that would lower marginal rates and close loopholes. Ordinary tax cuts have a mixed record on helping the economy; growth after the Bush tax cuts was mediocre, for example. But tax reform could save households and businesses from changing their behavior, often inefficiently, to qualify for tax breaks. The Bowles-Simpson plan suggests several reforms that would raise more tax revenue than today’s code and help close the deficit.”
“Of course, when economists say loopholes, they are including the deduction on home mortgage interest and other popular items. That’s the problem with deficit cutting: it involves painful choices, like the ones you see here and the ones in the Bowles-Simpson plan that led to last week’s outcries.”
“The government has not yet solved the deficit problem, the economist William Gale of the Brookings Institution says, because voters have not yet demanded it. They have rewarded politicians who say they are worried about the budget much more than politicians willing to make specific benefit cuts and tax increases. All of us would prefer generous benefits and low taxes.”
“ ‘Whatever the eventual solution is,’ Mr. Gale said, ‘it will probably be something that is not politically feasible now.’ ”
However, let’s hypothesize that somehow our legislators will be able to reach a compromise in the new Congress, and implement some of the Commission’s proposals. They would be a mixture of spending cuts, including entitlement programs, tax increases, and tax reform. Would we then witness the types of civil unrest we have seen happening in France, Spain, Portugal, and, now, Great Britain?
In my mind, America is too great a country to continue to flounder in this seemingly hopeless morass. History is on our side. We have faced great challenges before and overcome them. Generations of Americans have risen to the challenges we have faced over the centuries, from the Civil War to World War I to World War II, and from the numerous financial panics that have occurred from 1819 until today
It is time to start thinking “outside the box.”
American Society at present is fractured. Disparate elements are at each other’s throats, all claiming that their way is the best way, the only way. What is needed is a unifying force that will bring the Nation back together. What could that be?
The fact is that society reacts best to emergencies—an outside threat to our national security; or an internal threat to civil stability, such as the Great Depression, the civil rights movement with its resulting riots, or the Great Recession that we are now enduring. Do things have to get to the panic stage before the Nation embarks on the proper course?
What America faced after the Depression is analogous to our challenges today. Both the European Union countries and the American right are not heeding the lessons that should have been learned from the experience of the 1930s. When leadership then turned from stimulus to deficit reduction, the Nation was plunged back into economic distress. Are we about to do the same thing now? The only thing that saved us then was World War II. If the only rallying point to unify the Nation is war or extreme civil unrest, what are the practical alternatives?
If one solution is indeed war,what is going to be our next battleground? The answer that David Broder posed in a recent Washington Post op-ed was Iran, and the justification will be that country’s refusal to take the military use of its nuclear capability off the table, and the threat that position poses to Mideast peace and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. But if the United States is going to engage Iran militarily, it must first exit Iraq and Afghanistan completely. Such an exit would be exceedingly simple to justify, as neither of those allies is living up to a standard of cooperation that encourages our further involvement.
If the triggering mechanism is not war, but civil unrest, it will come in the form of the American middle class taking to the streets in riots over the elimination of safety nets for the vast majority of average citizens, and cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare for our seniors. Would such a reaction prompt the leadership of both political factions to unite?
Here is another question. It has been fifty-eight years since America turned to a military leader, in the person of Dwight D. Eisenhower, to lead the Nation in a time of trouble. Has such a time now returned?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
MUSIC REVIEW--Andras Schiff at Carnegie Hall
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, October 27, 2010
For music lovers who appreciate the music of Robert Schumann, Carnegie Hall was the place to be last night. The brilliant Hungarian pianist offered a very interesting program devoted to Schumann’s early piano compositions in a recital that was intriguing, fascinating and, in ways, highly unusual.
There is no living pianist who I admire more than Schiff. I have known his work for over 35 years now, from the early period of his career when he mostly concentrated on Bach keyboard compositions, to stunning effect. His development as a keyboard artist expanded to include his native Slavic composers—Bartok, Smetana and Janacek, then the masterpieces of the classical literature, including Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. In 1999, Schiff toured several European cities performing some of the piano compositions of Robert Schumann, to critical acclaim. One concert was given in Zurich that May, and was recorded “live,” subsequently released on CD by ECM. The program consisted of Schumann’s Humoresque, Op. 20; the complete Novelletten, Op. 21; the Klaviersonate in f-minor, Op. 14; and the Nachtstucke, Op. 23. That recording is as fine an example of Schumann performance as one could come by, and is one of the most treasured possessions in my musical library.
Schiff has turned once again to the music of Schumann during his current North American tour, and appeared last night at Carnegie Hall for a rather long and engrossing reading of some of the composer’s piano works. The program this time included the Waldszenen, Op. 82; the Davidsbundlertanze, Op. 6; the Kinderszenen, Op. 15; the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13; and as encores, the Papillons, Op. 2; and, finally, the final movement of the Phantasie, Op. 17.
My pedagogical grandfather Ernest Hutchison wrote of Schumann, “All too often does genius encounter tragedy. Beethoven’s deafness, Schubert’s grinding poverty and early death, Chopin’s unhappy life—“an episode with no beginning and with a sorrowful end”—the blindness of Milton, the suicide of Chatterton when help was near, the broken heart of Keats—these are but a few of the historic catastrophes of art. With them we must place the insanity of Schumann, the ultimate disaster of a chequered life. Having lamed a hand and ruined his prospects as a pianist, he earned the gratitude of posterity by diverting his talents to composition. His fecund imagination gave birth to a long series of vivid works before it grew barren under the approaching decay of his mind.”
Schumann was a compositional revolutionary. He moved classical music to new frontiers, highly emotional and expressive, sometimes bound by traditional conventions of composition, other times not. The piano was his natural medium of expression. Even his lieder are written not solely for voice, but for voice and piano, and feature an equal partnership between vocal expressiveness and that of the keyboard instrument, on an equal basis.
His output for the piano is predominated by compositions that could be classified as miniatures, on the one hand, and works of a larger scale, either in sonata form, variations that combine a unity of expression that are interconnected thematically, harmonically or rythmetically; or revert to other traditional compositional forms, such as the toccata. Schiff’s program last night mainly concentrated on the former. The Waldszennen, Davidsbundlertanze, Kinderszenen and Papillion’s all represent rather unconnected musical expressions, relatively short in duration, character pieces that invoke a mood, scene, emotion, or literary reference. The two exceptions were the Symphonic Etudes and the final encore, the last movement of the Phantasie.
With the exception of the Phantasie, there exists in Schumann’s writing a wide shift in moods from the lyrical to the impulsive, from a legato style to a much more up-tempo and frenetic pace. Schiff is a master performer who is perfectly capable of balancing these opposites, but I must admit that last night he seemed more at ease with the former and less so with the later.
As I mentioned to the artist back stage, I doubt a concertgoer had ever heard a movement of the Phantasie performed as an encore, nor ever would again. This work is one of the masterpieces of the piano literature, and to offer an excerpt of it as an encore was, in the words of a famous fellow musician I chatted with before talking with Schiff, highly unusual. It would have been far more appropriate to delete one of the “miniatures,” and performed the entire Phantasie. Those reservations having been stated, the recital was an engrossing evening of music making.
For music lovers who appreciate the music of Robert Schumann, Carnegie Hall was the place to be last night. The brilliant Hungarian pianist offered a very interesting program devoted to Schumann’s early piano compositions in a recital that was intriguing, fascinating and, in ways, highly unusual.
There is no living pianist who I admire more than Schiff. I have known his work for over 35 years now, from the early period of his career when he mostly concentrated on Bach keyboard compositions, to stunning effect. His development as a keyboard artist expanded to include his native Slavic composers—Bartok, Smetana and Janacek, then the masterpieces of the classical literature, including Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. In 1999, Schiff toured several European cities performing some of the piano compositions of Robert Schumann, to critical acclaim. One concert was given in Zurich that May, and was recorded “live,” subsequently released on CD by ECM. The program consisted of Schumann’s Humoresque, Op. 20; the complete Novelletten, Op. 21; the Klaviersonate in f-minor, Op. 14; and the Nachtstucke, Op. 23. That recording is as fine an example of Schumann performance as one could come by, and is one of the most treasured possessions in my musical library.
Schiff has turned once again to the music of Schumann during his current North American tour, and appeared last night at Carnegie Hall for a rather long and engrossing reading of some of the composer’s piano works. The program this time included the Waldszenen, Op. 82; the Davidsbundlertanze, Op. 6; the Kinderszenen, Op. 15; the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13; and as encores, the Papillons, Op. 2; and, finally, the final movement of the Phantasie, Op. 17.
My pedagogical grandfather Ernest Hutchison wrote of Schumann, “All too often does genius encounter tragedy. Beethoven’s deafness, Schubert’s grinding poverty and early death, Chopin’s unhappy life—“an episode with no beginning and with a sorrowful end”—the blindness of Milton, the suicide of Chatterton when help was near, the broken heart of Keats—these are but a few of the historic catastrophes of art. With them we must place the insanity of Schumann, the ultimate disaster of a chequered life. Having lamed a hand and ruined his prospects as a pianist, he earned the gratitude of posterity by diverting his talents to composition. His fecund imagination gave birth to a long series of vivid works before it grew barren under the approaching decay of his mind.”
Schumann was a compositional revolutionary. He moved classical music to new frontiers, highly emotional and expressive, sometimes bound by traditional conventions of composition, other times not. The piano was his natural medium of expression. Even his lieder are written not solely for voice, but for voice and piano, and feature an equal partnership between vocal expressiveness and that of the keyboard instrument, on an equal basis.
His output for the piano is predominated by compositions that could be classified as miniatures, on the one hand, and works of a larger scale, either in sonata form, variations that combine a unity of expression that are interconnected thematically, harmonically or rythmetically; or revert to other traditional compositional forms, such as the toccata. Schiff’s program last night mainly concentrated on the former. The Waldszennen, Davidsbundlertanze, Kinderszenen and Papillion’s all represent rather unconnected musical expressions, relatively short in duration, character pieces that invoke a mood, scene, emotion, or literary reference. The two exceptions were the Symphonic Etudes and the final encore, the last movement of the Phantasie.
With the exception of the Phantasie, there exists in Schumann’s writing a wide shift in moods from the lyrical to the impulsive, from a legato style to a much more up-tempo and frenetic pace. Schiff is a master performer who is perfectly capable of balancing these opposites, but I must admit that last night he seemed more at ease with the former and less so with the later.
As I mentioned to the artist back stage, I doubt a concertgoer had ever heard a movement of the Phantasie performed as an encore, nor ever would again. This work is one of the masterpieces of the piano literature, and to offer an excerpt of it as an encore was, in the words of a famous fellow musician I chatted with before talking with Schiff, highly unusual. It would have been far more appropriate to delete one of the “miniatures,” and performed the entire Phantasie. Those reservations having been stated, the recital was an engrossing evening of music making.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
THANK YOU MR. OSBORNE
This week, the cable channels and print media were abuzz with news stories coming out of London reporting on the Government's new deficit reduction program. This followed somewhat less intense coverage of Britain's defense cuts on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the New York Times ran two detailed articles on the total package of spending cuts [see below]. This morning, the Times ran a very critical editorial on Britain's misguided austerity program.
I think that America owes a huge "thank you" to George Osborne for making Great Britain the economic guinea pig and allowing the country the opportunity of proving wrong all the lessons learned from the Great Depression, and documented by one economist after another. How courageous to turn economic logic on its head and disprove the lessons of history. But more importantly, we owe thanks to Osborne and Cameron that they are taking the economic gamble instead of American policymakers. Now we will all see if the "deficit hawks" have it right, or as Stiglitz and Company say below, there is absolutely nothing to gain in Britain's policy, and everything to lose.
The first Times article, written by financial reporter Landon Thomas, includes the following:
"In Britain, George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered a speech on Wednesday arguing forcefully that Britons, despite slowing growth and negligible bank lending, must accept a rise in the retirement age to 66 from 65 and $130 billion in spending cuts that would eliminate nearly 500,000 public sector jobs and hit pensioners, the poor, the military and the middle class because of what he insisted was the overwhelming need to reduce the country’s huge budget deficit.
In Ireland, devastated by a historic property crash and banking bust, the Irish government is preparing another round of spending cuts and tax increases.
Combined with what Dublin has already imposed, the cuts could add up to as much as 14 percent of Ireland’s gross domestic product, an extraordinary amount for a modern industrial country. Ireland’s budget deficit reached 32 percent of total economic output this year.
Indeed, across Europe, where the threat of a double-dip recession remains palpable, governments from Germany to Greece are slashing public outlays. But even as students and workers in France clash with the police and block fuel shipments to protest a rise in the retirement age, the debate in Europe is more on how fast to cut government spending rather than whether such reductions are the right thing to do under the circumstances.
Joseph E. Stiglitz argued that the British government’s plan was “a gamble with almost no potential upside” and that it would lead to lower growth, lower demand, lower tax revenues, a deterioration of skills among the unemployed and an even higher national debt. [Emphasis mine.]
“We cannot afford austerity,” he wrote in The Guardian.
The stiff upper lip with which Mr. Osborne delivered his call for sacrifice on Wednesday in the House of Commons reinforces that point. It is grounded in memory of Britain’s economic collapse in the 1970s, when the International Monetary Fund had to come to the rescue just as it has done recently in Greece.
Even the previous Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed substantial budget cuts before losing office in May, many of them incorporated by Mr. Osborne into his four-year spending plan.
“There is nothing fair in running huge deficits that we are not prepared to repay,” Mr. Osborne said in his speech, responding to arguments that cuts would fall hardest on the country’s poorest.
It is this institutional memory — combined with the widely accepted view that bond market demands to follow through on promised austerity plans cannot be ignored — that underpins not only Mr. Osborne’s approach but also that of his European peers.
That contrasts sharply with the United States, where White House policy makers are urging caution in reducing deficits too quickly, fearing that ending stimulus efforts before the economy is clearly on the road to recovery risks making a mistake similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s budget cutting in the middle of the Great Depression, which extended the downturn.
“In the U.S., central bank memory is ingrained in the Depression, while in the U.K. it is being bailed out by the I.M.F.,” said Michael Saunders, an economist with Citigroup in London. “That gives policy makers different sets of priorities.”
To be sure, the prospect of the once munificent British state sharply cutting benefits for children of middle-class families, making students pay much more for their schooling and cutting jobs and the pay of public sector workers has led to a backlash from the country’s labor unions.
“Today, the fight begins,” David Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, the country’s largest union, exhorted participants at a rally on Tuesday. “Hands off our public services.”
The second Times piece was written by Sarah Lyall, reporting from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Julia Werdigier contributed reporting from London. Here are some selected excerpts:
"The coalition government is gambling that the reductions in public outlays will stimulate the private sector and restart growth, rather than send the economy back into a tailspin, [Sue, the emphasis is mine, and I must comment that I have never heard anything so stupid in all my years of studying economics] as liberal economists have warned.
Britain has been bracing for the cuts for months, after Mr. Osborne announced in June the details of the so-called spending review, but Wednesday was the first time the government had set out its plans, department by department.
Mr. Osborne said that 490,000 public sector jobs would be lost over the next four years, some to attrition. At the same time, payments to the long-term unemployed who fail to seek jobs will be cut, he said, saving $11 billion a year. Additionally, he said, a new 12-month limit will be imposed on long-term jobless benefits, and measures will be taken to curb benefit fraud.
Mr. Osborne said an increase in the official retirement age to 66 from 65 would start in 2020 — four years sooner than planned — saving $8 billion a year. Britain has already said it will stop paying child benefit payments to people earning more than around $70,000 a year.
This morning's Times editorial is worth quoting in full:
BRITAIN'S AUSTERITY OVERDOSE
There is a time and a place for aggressive deficit reduction. Now is not the time, especially not in Britain. The deep spending cuts announced by Prime Minister David Cameron’s government will hobble public services, strain poor families’ budgets and weaken Britain’s influence abroad. They could suffocate a feeble recovery.
Mr. Cameron and his team appear to be driven solely by Conservative Party articles of faith. They are gambling on the improbable theory that in a period of weak consumer demand, the private sector will generate enough business activity to replace the $130 billion the government will be withdrawing from the economy over the next four and half years. We are not sure why the Liberal Democrats, the coalition’s junior partners, are going along.
On average, government departments will have to slash their spending by an average of nearly 20 percent. The National Health Service was shielded from cuts, and after a last-minute intervention by Mr. Cameron at Washington’s behest, the military budget will be cut by only 8 percent.
Most military reductions will come through sensible retrenchments like delaying the replacement of Britain’s nuclear missile submarines and drawing down British forces stationed in Germany. But they will still require significant reductions in the number of British troops available for any new major NATO operations.
Shielding the military and the health service, while essential, required cutting more recklessly elsewhere. Nearly 500,000 public jobs (out of 6 million) will be eliminated. Long-term unemployment benefits will be cut off after 12 months. Public housing tenants will pay higher rents. School construction will be cut by 60 percent.
Recession, bank rescues and short-term stimulus spending pushed Britain’s deficit up to 11.5 percent of total economic output, even higher than the United States’ 10.7 percent. Both countries will have to bring those numbers down over time. But otherwise healthy economies can afford to run fiscal deficits in times of weak private sector growth. In fact, they cannot afford not to.
Britain’s deficits did not spawn bond market panics. Interest rates remained low. That left room for a nuanced policy that relied on a reviving economy to boost tax receipts and deferred major spending cuts until a solid recovery was under way. Unfortunately, Britain’s leaders chose posture over sound economics.
I think that America owes a huge "thank you" to George Osborne for making Great Britain the economic guinea pig and allowing the country the opportunity of proving wrong all the lessons learned from the Great Depression, and documented by one economist after another. How courageous to turn economic logic on its head and disprove the lessons of history. But more importantly, we owe thanks to Osborne and Cameron that they are taking the economic gamble instead of American policymakers. Now we will all see if the "deficit hawks" have it right, or as Stiglitz and Company say below, there is absolutely nothing to gain in Britain's policy, and everything to lose.
The first Times article, written by financial reporter Landon Thomas, includes the following:
"In Britain, George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered a speech on Wednesday arguing forcefully that Britons, despite slowing growth and negligible bank lending, must accept a rise in the retirement age to 66 from 65 and $130 billion in spending cuts that would eliminate nearly 500,000 public sector jobs and hit pensioners, the poor, the military and the middle class because of what he insisted was the overwhelming need to reduce the country’s huge budget deficit.
In Ireland, devastated by a historic property crash and banking bust, the Irish government is preparing another round of spending cuts and tax increases.
Combined with what Dublin has already imposed, the cuts could add up to as much as 14 percent of Ireland’s gross domestic product, an extraordinary amount for a modern industrial country. Ireland’s budget deficit reached 32 percent of total economic output this year.
Indeed, across Europe, where the threat of a double-dip recession remains palpable, governments from Germany to Greece are slashing public outlays. But even as students and workers in France clash with the police and block fuel shipments to protest a rise in the retirement age, the debate in Europe is more on how fast to cut government spending rather than whether such reductions are the right thing to do under the circumstances.
Joseph E. Stiglitz argued that the British government’s plan was “a gamble with almost no potential upside” and that it would lead to lower growth, lower demand, lower tax revenues, a deterioration of skills among the unemployed and an even higher national debt. [Emphasis mine.]
“We cannot afford austerity,” he wrote in The Guardian.
The stiff upper lip with which Mr. Osborne delivered his call for sacrifice on Wednesday in the House of Commons reinforces that point. It is grounded in memory of Britain’s economic collapse in the 1970s, when the International Monetary Fund had to come to the rescue just as it has done recently in Greece.
Even the previous Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed substantial budget cuts before losing office in May, many of them incorporated by Mr. Osborne into his four-year spending plan.
“There is nothing fair in running huge deficits that we are not prepared to repay,” Mr. Osborne said in his speech, responding to arguments that cuts would fall hardest on the country’s poorest.
It is this institutional memory — combined with the widely accepted view that bond market demands to follow through on promised austerity plans cannot be ignored — that underpins not only Mr. Osborne’s approach but also that of his European peers.
That contrasts sharply with the United States, where White House policy makers are urging caution in reducing deficits too quickly, fearing that ending stimulus efforts before the economy is clearly on the road to recovery risks making a mistake similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s budget cutting in the middle of the Great Depression, which extended the downturn.
“In the U.S., central bank memory is ingrained in the Depression, while in the U.K. it is being bailed out by the I.M.F.,” said Michael Saunders, an economist with Citigroup in London. “That gives policy makers different sets of priorities.”
To be sure, the prospect of the once munificent British state sharply cutting benefits for children of middle-class families, making students pay much more for their schooling and cutting jobs and the pay of public sector workers has led to a backlash from the country’s labor unions.
“Today, the fight begins,” David Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, the country’s largest union, exhorted participants at a rally on Tuesday. “Hands off our public services.”
The second Times piece was written by Sarah Lyall, reporting from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Julia Werdigier contributed reporting from London. Here are some selected excerpts:
"The coalition government is gambling that the reductions in public outlays will stimulate the private sector and restart growth, rather than send the economy back into a tailspin, [Sue, the emphasis is mine, and I must comment that I have never heard anything so stupid in all my years of studying economics] as liberal economists have warned.
Britain has been bracing for the cuts for months, after Mr. Osborne announced in June the details of the so-called spending review, but Wednesday was the first time the government had set out its plans, department by department.
Mr. Osborne said that 490,000 public sector jobs would be lost over the next four years, some to attrition. At the same time, payments to the long-term unemployed who fail to seek jobs will be cut, he said, saving $11 billion a year. Additionally, he said, a new 12-month limit will be imposed on long-term jobless benefits, and measures will be taken to curb benefit fraud.
Mr. Osborne said an increase in the official retirement age to 66 from 65 would start in 2020 — four years sooner than planned — saving $8 billion a year. Britain has already said it will stop paying child benefit payments to people earning more than around $70,000 a year.
This morning's Times editorial is worth quoting in full:
BRITAIN'S AUSTERITY OVERDOSE
There is a time and a place for aggressive deficit reduction. Now is not the time, especially not in Britain. The deep spending cuts announced by Prime Minister David Cameron’s government will hobble public services, strain poor families’ budgets and weaken Britain’s influence abroad. They could suffocate a feeble recovery.
Mr. Cameron and his team appear to be driven solely by Conservative Party articles of faith. They are gambling on the improbable theory that in a period of weak consumer demand, the private sector will generate enough business activity to replace the $130 billion the government will be withdrawing from the economy over the next four and half years. We are not sure why the Liberal Democrats, the coalition’s junior partners, are going along.
On average, government departments will have to slash their spending by an average of nearly 20 percent. The National Health Service was shielded from cuts, and after a last-minute intervention by Mr. Cameron at Washington’s behest, the military budget will be cut by only 8 percent.
Most military reductions will come through sensible retrenchments like delaying the replacement of Britain’s nuclear missile submarines and drawing down British forces stationed in Germany. But they will still require significant reductions in the number of British troops available for any new major NATO operations.
Shielding the military and the health service, while essential, required cutting more recklessly elsewhere. Nearly 500,000 public jobs (out of 6 million) will be eliminated. Long-term unemployment benefits will be cut off after 12 months. Public housing tenants will pay higher rents. School construction will be cut by 60 percent.
Recession, bank rescues and short-term stimulus spending pushed Britain’s deficit up to 11.5 percent of total economic output, even higher than the United States’ 10.7 percent. Both countries will have to bring those numbers down over time. But otherwise healthy economies can afford to run fiscal deficits in times of weak private sector growth. In fact, they cannot afford not to.
Britain’s deficits did not spawn bond market panics. Interest rates remained low. That left room for a nuanced policy that relied on a reviving economy to boost tax receipts and deferred major spending cuts until a solid recovery was under way. Unfortunately, Britain’s leaders chose posture over sound economics.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--"DJIBOUTI" by Elmore Leonard
Reviewed by Janet Maslin, The New York Times,
October 10, 2010 with a post note by
Bill Breakstone
Monday, October 11th, is Elmore Leonard’s 85th birthday. It is also Columbus Day 2010, a national holiday. Coincidence? Perhaps. But this is as good a time as any to acknowledge America’s hippest, best-loved, most widely imitated crime writer as a national treasure
In honor of the occasion Mr. Leonard seems to have given himself a couple of birthday presents. First of all, he calls his 44th and latest novel “Djibouti” just because he loves the sound of that name. Second, he gives “Djibouti” Xavier LeBo, a studly 6-foot-6-inch black leading man who, at 72, has lost none of his appeal to pretty young women. And he puts Xavier on a small boat with a smart, tough and alluring younger woman, a pale-skinned blonde who also happens to be a prizewinning filmmaker.
Mr. Leonard was very taken with Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) when he met her years ago and took care to send her an early copy of this novel. “Djibouti” follows a very Bigelow-like director named Dara Barr as she heads for East Africa to make a film about pirates. Dara specializes in documentaries about tough subjects, so she has made films about Bosnian women, neo-Nazis and Hurricane Katrina. (“Dara, you nailed that hurricane,” somebody tells her.) Now she wants to find out about the very dangerous Republic of Djibouti, whose port is conveniently located near both the Gulf of Aden and the home turf of Somali pirates. Dara thinks real pirates might be great on camera.
Neither Dara, Xavier nor, apparently, Mr. Leonard is exactly sure what opportunities Djibouti will provide. In a book without a powerhouse plot but with plenty of the old familiar crackle, Mr. Leonard simply flies his principals to this exotic spot and then imagines which other opportunists might be drawn to the place. He hits pay dirt with a noisily ostentatious Texan named Billy Wynn, who can count a big boat, an elephant gun and a model named Helene among his favorite possessions. Helene, this book’s funniest character, is willing to sail around the world with Billy on the off chance that he will marry her and write her into his will.
The pirates’ paradise of this novel turns out to be a lot more civilized than it sounds. For one thing, the pirate kingpins are a gentlemanly lot, what with their European pretensions and large sums of discretionary income. Dara has the gift of charming these people while filming them covertly for possible use in her magnum opus. She gets to know the courtly Idris, whose day job as a pirate leader does nothing to diminish his skills as a debonair party host, and Ari Ahmed Sheikh Bakar, a Saudi diplomat who has done his best to anglicize his name into “Harry.” Then Dara goes back to the boat that she and Xavier have rented and tries to figure out what she has captured on camera and what, exactly, is going on.
“Xavier LeBo believed was he 10 years younger, they’d be letting good times roll all over this boat,” Mr. Leonard writes of the book’s never-say-die hero. But Xavier’s dealings with Dara are professional, at least until he goes and purchases something called horny goat weed from a local merchant. Mostly, the two engage in a nonstop debate as to what kind of film Dara ought to make. What soon becomes clear to both of them is that the idea of Somali pirates as misunderstood underdogs is not going to fly. The hijacking of a tanker filled with liquid natural gas is one good reason to think that this region is getting ready to explode.
Mr. Leonard is on familiar turf when it comes to the pirates’ punk aspirations to live large. (Xavier’s explanation of what the pirates do: “They on the sauce gettin millions for their ransom notes.”) And he’s great with eccentricities, particularly Billy’s, once Billy starts reminding Helene of the Sterling Hayden character in “Dr. Strangelove.” But “Djibouti” has links to serious business that the book can’t just take lightly. Real events, like the 2009 attack by Somali pirates on the Maersk Alabama and rescue of Captain Richard Phillips by United States Navy seals, are used to lend gravitas to the novel’s exotic setting.
Mr. Leonard also allows the shadow of terrorism to loom. He creates a character who has an Arab’s name, Jama Raisuli, but an American’s rap sheet and criminal record. And he derives most of his suspense this time from the question of how dangerous Jama will be. In a novel not otherwise overly concerned with plot, there is drama attached to whether Jama’s real name can be found. If he turns out to be a real American-born jihadi, he may be worth serious reward money from the American government. But characters in “Djibouti” who get too inquisitive about Jama’s identity have a way of winding up dead.
How does Dara’s filmmaking figure in all this? Perhaps autobiographically, since it lets Mr. Leonard regularly step back to contemplate the storytelling process. We watch Dara and Xavier talk over the material they’ve collected and the different ways they might put it together. Are they making a documentary? Should they turn it into a drama? Are there scenes they need to boost artificially or does the truth speak for itself? The 85-year-old birthday boy already has the how-to manual “10 Rules of Writing” to his credit, but he delivers a little more literary advice here by demonstrating how these filmmakers work. It’s simple: Ask the right questions. Then come up with the right answers.
A NOTE ON “DJIBOUTI” by Bill Breakstone,
October 20, 2010
My first introduction to the novels of Elmore Leonard came when my neighbor and I exchanged birthday gifts many years ago. John and I shared the same birth-date, January 27th, along with Mozart. My gift to him was a recording of two Mozart piano concerti; John’s present for me was an Elmore Leonard novel. I can’t remember which one it was, but I totally agreed with him that this writer was “hip!” That must have been twenty years ago. Of course, Leonard’s writings go back much farther than that. His first novels were all about the “Wild West,” the most famous of which was “Hombre.” Who will ever forget that movie with the young Paul Newman in the title role?
Starting with his 11th novel, Mr. Majestyk, Leonard shifted gears, focusing on crime stories, with casts of the most outrageous characters one could imagine. Two were made into movies, really bad movies—“Get Shorty” and “Be Cool.” If these two duds turn off potential Leonard readers, they are missing out on some of the most enjoyable reading in the fiction library. Among the most memorable, and laughable of these tales, are: “Freaky Deaky”; “Maximum Bob”; “Cuba Libra”; “Tishomingo Blues”; and “Mr. Paradise”.
This latest novel, “Djibouti,” is as good as any of Leonard’s previous output. As Janet Maslin writes in her review, the author is a national treasure. The book is just shy of 300 pages, but it reads like lightening. Another one you just cannot put down.
If you’ve never read any of Leonard’s novels, and it’s amazing how many readers I run into who have not, this is not a bad one to start with. Enjoy!
October 10, 2010 with a post note by
Bill Breakstone
Monday, October 11th, is Elmore Leonard’s 85th birthday. It is also Columbus Day 2010, a national holiday. Coincidence? Perhaps. But this is as good a time as any to acknowledge America’s hippest, best-loved, most widely imitated crime writer as a national treasure
In honor of the occasion Mr. Leonard seems to have given himself a couple of birthday presents. First of all, he calls his 44th and latest novel “Djibouti” just because he loves the sound of that name. Second, he gives “Djibouti” Xavier LeBo, a studly 6-foot-6-inch black leading man who, at 72, has lost none of his appeal to pretty young women. And he puts Xavier on a small boat with a smart, tough and alluring younger woman, a pale-skinned blonde who also happens to be a prizewinning filmmaker.
Mr. Leonard was very taken with Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) when he met her years ago and took care to send her an early copy of this novel. “Djibouti” follows a very Bigelow-like director named Dara Barr as she heads for East Africa to make a film about pirates. Dara specializes in documentaries about tough subjects, so she has made films about Bosnian women, neo-Nazis and Hurricane Katrina. (“Dara, you nailed that hurricane,” somebody tells her.) Now she wants to find out about the very dangerous Republic of Djibouti, whose port is conveniently located near both the Gulf of Aden and the home turf of Somali pirates. Dara thinks real pirates might be great on camera.
Neither Dara, Xavier nor, apparently, Mr. Leonard is exactly sure what opportunities Djibouti will provide. In a book without a powerhouse plot but with plenty of the old familiar crackle, Mr. Leonard simply flies his principals to this exotic spot and then imagines which other opportunists might be drawn to the place. He hits pay dirt with a noisily ostentatious Texan named Billy Wynn, who can count a big boat, an elephant gun and a model named Helene among his favorite possessions. Helene, this book’s funniest character, is willing to sail around the world with Billy on the off chance that he will marry her and write her into his will.
The pirates’ paradise of this novel turns out to be a lot more civilized than it sounds. For one thing, the pirate kingpins are a gentlemanly lot, what with their European pretensions and large sums of discretionary income. Dara has the gift of charming these people while filming them covertly for possible use in her magnum opus. She gets to know the courtly Idris, whose day job as a pirate leader does nothing to diminish his skills as a debonair party host, and Ari Ahmed Sheikh Bakar, a Saudi diplomat who has done his best to anglicize his name into “Harry.” Then Dara goes back to the boat that she and Xavier have rented and tries to figure out what she has captured on camera and what, exactly, is going on.
“Xavier LeBo believed was he 10 years younger, they’d be letting good times roll all over this boat,” Mr. Leonard writes of the book’s never-say-die hero. But Xavier’s dealings with Dara are professional, at least until he goes and purchases something called horny goat weed from a local merchant. Mostly, the two engage in a nonstop debate as to what kind of film Dara ought to make. What soon becomes clear to both of them is that the idea of Somali pirates as misunderstood underdogs is not going to fly. The hijacking of a tanker filled with liquid natural gas is one good reason to think that this region is getting ready to explode.
Mr. Leonard is on familiar turf when it comes to the pirates’ punk aspirations to live large. (Xavier’s explanation of what the pirates do: “They on the sauce gettin millions for their ransom notes.”) And he’s great with eccentricities, particularly Billy’s, once Billy starts reminding Helene of the Sterling Hayden character in “Dr. Strangelove.” But “Djibouti” has links to serious business that the book can’t just take lightly. Real events, like the 2009 attack by Somali pirates on the Maersk Alabama and rescue of Captain Richard Phillips by United States Navy seals, are used to lend gravitas to the novel’s exotic setting.
Mr. Leonard also allows the shadow of terrorism to loom. He creates a character who has an Arab’s name, Jama Raisuli, but an American’s rap sheet and criminal record. And he derives most of his suspense this time from the question of how dangerous Jama will be. In a novel not otherwise overly concerned with plot, there is drama attached to whether Jama’s real name can be found. If he turns out to be a real American-born jihadi, he may be worth serious reward money from the American government. But characters in “Djibouti” who get too inquisitive about Jama’s identity have a way of winding up dead.
How does Dara’s filmmaking figure in all this? Perhaps autobiographically, since it lets Mr. Leonard regularly step back to contemplate the storytelling process. We watch Dara and Xavier talk over the material they’ve collected and the different ways they might put it together. Are they making a documentary? Should they turn it into a drama? Are there scenes they need to boost artificially or does the truth speak for itself? The 85-year-old birthday boy already has the how-to manual “10 Rules of Writing” to his credit, but he delivers a little more literary advice here by demonstrating how these filmmakers work. It’s simple: Ask the right questions. Then come up with the right answers.
A NOTE ON “DJIBOUTI” by Bill Breakstone,
October 20, 2010
My first introduction to the novels of Elmore Leonard came when my neighbor and I exchanged birthday gifts many years ago. John and I shared the same birth-date, January 27th, along with Mozart. My gift to him was a recording of two Mozart piano concerti; John’s present for me was an Elmore Leonard novel. I can’t remember which one it was, but I totally agreed with him that this writer was “hip!” That must have been twenty years ago. Of course, Leonard’s writings go back much farther than that. His first novels were all about the “Wild West,” the most famous of which was “Hombre.” Who will ever forget that movie with the young Paul Newman in the title role?
Starting with his 11th novel, Mr. Majestyk, Leonard shifted gears, focusing on crime stories, with casts of the most outrageous characters one could imagine. Two were made into movies, really bad movies—“Get Shorty” and “Be Cool.” If these two duds turn off potential Leonard readers, they are missing out on some of the most enjoyable reading in the fiction library. Among the most memorable, and laughable of these tales, are: “Freaky Deaky”; “Maximum Bob”; “Cuba Libra”; “Tishomingo Blues”; and “Mr. Paradise”.
This latest novel, “Djibouti,” is as good as any of Leonard’s previous output. As Janet Maslin writes in her review, the author is a national treasure. The book is just shy of 300 pages, but it reads like lightening. Another one you just cannot put down.
If you’ve never read any of Leonard’s novels, and it’s amazing how many readers I run into who have not, this is not a bad one to start with. Enjoy!
Monday, October 11, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--ANSEL ADAMS IN THE NATIONAL PARKS
Edited by Andrea G. Stillman
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, October 11, 2010
I became aware of this new collection of Ansel Adams’ photographs through the newsletter published by the U. S. Forest Service’s National Parks Magazine. The famous photographer needs no introduction to anyone interested in nature or fine photography. This volume contains many images heretofore unpublished, and accompanying narratives that are pertinent to his art and his life.
Being a lover of both nature, especially the National Parks and his beloved Sierra Nevada, and photography, I could not resist pre-ordering this book a month ago. It arrived this afternoon, and I spent a good two hours perusing the first 183 pages of this 344-page volume. All the photographs are black and white, and under the supervision of the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, are superb reproductions.
On these pages are exhibited the grandeur of the natural environment, captured by one of the greatest photographers and naturalists who ever lived. Being a California native, Adams was drawn to the Sierra Nevada from a very early age, and that high country became a love of his life that lasted until his death in 1984. He had an innate sense of photographic composition, which, combined with his love of natural elements, resulted in images that were and remain unique.
Although the Sierra was closest to his heart, he travelled throughout North America and captured images of almost all our national parks and monuments. The text reveals that the skills he possessed were not only behind the lens of a camera, but equally important, in his photographic studio, where he would spend hours insuring that darkroom exposures of his negatives were just right. How I wish that I possessed original prints of those negatives. I will have to settle for several fine reproductions that I purchased from his gallery in Yosemite this past August, and now hang in one of my galleries at home.
The book is published by Little, Brown and Company, Adams’ official and only authorized publisher. I ordered it through Barnes & Noble on-line, at an amazingly affordable price of $27.00, a 33% discount from its advertised cost of $40.00. Even at that price, the volume is an astounding value, and belongs on the bookshelf of any nature lover.
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, October 11, 2010
I became aware of this new collection of Ansel Adams’ photographs through the newsletter published by the U. S. Forest Service’s National Parks Magazine. The famous photographer needs no introduction to anyone interested in nature or fine photography. This volume contains many images heretofore unpublished, and accompanying narratives that are pertinent to his art and his life.
Being a lover of both nature, especially the National Parks and his beloved Sierra Nevada, and photography, I could not resist pre-ordering this book a month ago. It arrived this afternoon, and I spent a good two hours perusing the first 183 pages of this 344-page volume. All the photographs are black and white, and under the supervision of the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, are superb reproductions.
On these pages are exhibited the grandeur of the natural environment, captured by one of the greatest photographers and naturalists who ever lived. Being a California native, Adams was drawn to the Sierra Nevada from a very early age, and that high country became a love of his life that lasted until his death in 1984. He had an innate sense of photographic composition, which, combined with his love of natural elements, resulted in images that were and remain unique.
Although the Sierra was closest to his heart, he travelled throughout North America and captured images of almost all our national parks and monuments. The text reveals that the skills he possessed were not only behind the lens of a camera, but equally important, in his photographic studio, where he would spend hours insuring that darkroom exposures of his negatives were just right. How I wish that I possessed original prints of those negatives. I will have to settle for several fine reproductions that I purchased from his gallery in Yosemite this past August, and now hang in one of my galleries at home.
The book is published by Little, Brown and Company, Adams’ official and only authorized publisher. I ordered it through Barnes & Noble on-line, at an amazingly affordable price of $27.00, a 33% discount from its advertised cost of $40.00. Even at that price, the volume is an astounding value, and belongs on the bookshelf of any nature lover.
MUSIC REVIEW--THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ENSEMBLES
Merkin Concert Hall, October 10, 2010
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone
There are several chamber music ensembles that consist of principal players who are members of our major symphony orchestras. The Boston Symphony is sponsor of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players; the Philadelphia Orchestra features several chamber ensembles, most notably the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. And the New York Philharmonic offers a series of concerts performed by its principal players, under the title New York Philharmonic Ensembles. All these ensembles offer a distinct advantage: they allow groupings of instrumentalists beyond the reach of most chamber groups.
The New York Philharmonic Ensembles are composed of principal or assistant principal players from the Orchestra. All are first class musicians and teachers, faculty members of our leading music schools. Yesterday’s concert offered a perfect example of the instrumental variety that can be achieved. The program featured three works, two completely unfamiliar and one a masterpiece of the chamber literature.
The concert began with the Chants d’arriere-saison by Bernard Andres for harp and bassoon, composed in 1995, and performed by Nancy Allen, harp, and Judith LeClair, bassoon. Andres is a little-know French composer, born in 1941. This seven movement tonal composition varies in mood among its short movements. There are dissonances, but they are few in number and very brief. The overall impression is a leisurely tone painting featuring this unusual combination of instruments, especially the dark coloration of the bassoon. Both performers are among the finest practitioners on their instruments and are principals in the Orchestra. Their performance had an effortless quality belying the difficulty of the parts.
The program continued with another rarity, the Sextet in B-flat major, Op. 271 by Carl Reinecke, written in 1905. The work is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and two horns.
Reinecke was a German composer, born in 1824. He was a composer, teacher, administrator, pianist and conductor. He was known by Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Liszt, whose daughter was later taught by Reinecke in Paris, and who spoke of ‘his beautiful, gentle legato and lyrical touch’. He was appointed as director of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1897, and transformed it into one of the most renowned teaching institutions in Europe. Among its students were Grieg, Muck, Sullivan and Weingartner. Reinecke considered it his responsibility to perpetuate the example of the Classical composers; he was very conscious of his position as a representative and guardian of tradition, and also made it his business to foster the music of the pre-Classical composers, particularly Bach.
In Leipzig, he was also the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra until 1895, when Arthur Nikisch succeeded him. As a composer, Reinecke was best known for his numerous piano compositions, representing virtually every musical form of the time and, despite being influenced by Mendelssohn’s melodic style, was stylistically nearer to Schumann.
His Sextet is a late work, and is very Brahmsian in all respects. The opening Allegro moderato is written in true sonata allegro form, and contains a majestic first theme introduced by the first horn; the second movement is a lyrical Adagio molto with an up tempo trio section, featuring a very virtuosic flute part; the finale, marked Allegro moderato, is the briefest of the three movements and is in rondo form. The Philharmonic performers were flutist Mindy Kaufman, oboist Liang Wang, clarinetist Pascual Martinez Fortesa, bassoonist Kim Laskowski, and horns Philip Myers and R. Allen Spanjer. To these ears, the Sextet was a true gem, a complete surprise given its obscurity, and yet another example of how the chamber literature is replete with so many relatively unknown masterpieces.
The concert closed with an energetic and masterly performance of Antonin Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81, performed by Michelle Kim and Hae-Young Ham, violins, Robert Rinehart, viola, Ru-Pei Yeh, cello and guest artist Eric Huebner, piano. This masterpiece of the chamber repertoire is an audience favorite, and is often performed. This reading was as fine as any I’ve ever heard, and I’ve had the pleasure of listening to the Quintet on numerous concert programs, the last one at the Aspen Music Festival several years ago when the first violinist was Sylvia Rosenberg and the pianist Anton Nell. It was a delightful afternoon of chamber music, and I look forward to the remaining four programs with great anticipation.
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone
There are several chamber music ensembles that consist of principal players who are members of our major symphony orchestras. The Boston Symphony is sponsor of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players; the Philadelphia Orchestra features several chamber ensembles, most notably the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. And the New York Philharmonic offers a series of concerts performed by its principal players, under the title New York Philharmonic Ensembles. All these ensembles offer a distinct advantage: they allow groupings of instrumentalists beyond the reach of most chamber groups.
The New York Philharmonic Ensembles are composed of principal or assistant principal players from the Orchestra. All are first class musicians and teachers, faculty members of our leading music schools. Yesterday’s concert offered a perfect example of the instrumental variety that can be achieved. The program featured three works, two completely unfamiliar and one a masterpiece of the chamber literature.
The concert began with the Chants d’arriere-saison by Bernard Andres for harp and bassoon, composed in 1995, and performed by Nancy Allen, harp, and Judith LeClair, bassoon. Andres is a little-know French composer, born in 1941. This seven movement tonal composition varies in mood among its short movements. There are dissonances, but they are few in number and very brief. The overall impression is a leisurely tone painting featuring this unusual combination of instruments, especially the dark coloration of the bassoon. Both performers are among the finest practitioners on their instruments and are principals in the Orchestra. Their performance had an effortless quality belying the difficulty of the parts.
The program continued with another rarity, the Sextet in B-flat major, Op. 271 by Carl Reinecke, written in 1905. The work is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and two horns.
Reinecke was a German composer, born in 1824. He was a composer, teacher, administrator, pianist and conductor. He was known by Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Liszt, whose daughter was later taught by Reinecke in Paris, and who spoke of ‘his beautiful, gentle legato and lyrical touch’. He was appointed as director of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1897, and transformed it into one of the most renowned teaching institutions in Europe. Among its students were Grieg, Muck, Sullivan and Weingartner. Reinecke considered it his responsibility to perpetuate the example of the Classical composers; he was very conscious of his position as a representative and guardian of tradition, and also made it his business to foster the music of the pre-Classical composers, particularly Bach.
In Leipzig, he was also the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra until 1895, when Arthur Nikisch succeeded him. As a composer, Reinecke was best known for his numerous piano compositions, representing virtually every musical form of the time and, despite being influenced by Mendelssohn’s melodic style, was stylistically nearer to Schumann.
His Sextet is a late work, and is very Brahmsian in all respects. The opening Allegro moderato is written in true sonata allegro form, and contains a majestic first theme introduced by the first horn; the second movement is a lyrical Adagio molto with an up tempo trio section, featuring a very virtuosic flute part; the finale, marked Allegro moderato, is the briefest of the three movements and is in rondo form. The Philharmonic performers were flutist Mindy Kaufman, oboist Liang Wang, clarinetist Pascual Martinez Fortesa, bassoonist Kim Laskowski, and horns Philip Myers and R. Allen Spanjer. To these ears, the Sextet was a true gem, a complete surprise given its obscurity, and yet another example of how the chamber literature is replete with so many relatively unknown masterpieces.
The concert closed with an energetic and masterly performance of Antonin Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81, performed by Michelle Kim and Hae-Young Ham, violins, Robert Rinehart, viola, Ru-Pei Yeh, cello and guest artist Eric Huebner, piano. This masterpiece of the chamber repertoire is an audience favorite, and is often performed. This reading was as fine as any I’ve ever heard, and I’ve had the pleasure of listening to the Quintet on numerous concert programs, the last one at the Aspen Music Festival several years ago when the first violinist was Sylvia Rosenberg and the pianist Anton Nell. It was a delightful afternoon of chamber music, and I look forward to the remaining four programs with great anticipation.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--"APE HOUSE" by Sara Gruen
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, October 9, 2010
There are four species of great apes in the world: all belonging to the taxonomic family Homindae: chimpanzees; bonobos; orangutans and gorillas. A fifth member of the species is the human being. These apes are our closest wild relatives. According to The Great Ape Trust, a scientific facility located in Des Moines, Iowa “all members of this family of apes share possibly more than 97% of their DNA with humans. The great apes have all been documented using tools, and communicating with amazing complexity. The great apes are found primarily in Central Africa with the exception of orangutans, which are native to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Asia. All of the great apes face serious threats and are all endangered, some critically endangered. Habit loss, climate change, infectious disease and illegal hunting for both meat and the live pet trade have combined to push these species to the brink of extinction. If we don’t act soon, we will lose our closest relatives forever.”
“If you know what a bonobo is, or can tell them apart from a chimpanzee, then you are one of a few very special people. . . . . . Chimpanzees and bonobos look very similar. But if you look closely, you’ll see that bonobos are a little smaller, with pink lips, black faces, and a very attractive hairstyle with long black hair neatly parted in the middle. The first two toes of bononbos have a little bit of webbing. While chimpanzees have low, loud voices, bonobos are very high pitched. Also, bonobo mothers have breasts that look a lot like humans.
But when you get to know bonobos, you’ll see they couldn’t be more different [than chimpanzees]. Like humans, chimpanzees have war. The males are in charge, and they can occasionally be very violent. Sometimes, they even kill each other. Bonobos do not kill each other. The females are in charge of the group and they seem to keep everyone’s temper under control with sexual activity. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or if you’re male or female—if you’re a bonobo, sex plays a big part in living together peacefully.”
Sara Gruen, author of the best-selling novel “Water for Elephants,” has written a fascinating thriller, Ape House, based upon the sub-species of great apes named bonobos. A group of eight of these apes is being studied in a facility at the University of Kansas. The conditions there are the best man can provide, and the care given them is thorough and loving. The focus of the study is the ape’s cognitive communication skills. Though their vocal chords do not allow the apes to use the human language, they actually do speak and interact, not only with each other, but humans as well.
Into this scene come other humans set on exploiting the animals for profit. The apes are kidnapped and moved to another, far less kind environment, where they become subjects for mass entertainment. A scientist from the Kansas facility and a journalist for a national magazine come to the rescue of the brood in a year-long effort to return them to a suitable scientific facility for care and further study. Sara Gruen weaves an exciting tale filled with great character development and scientific knowledge. The book is a real page turner if ever there was one. It is based on fact, and is well-documented in an interesting postlogue. The reader will cheer the rescuers on and be fascinated with the abilities of the apes. All in all, a most enjoyable read.
There are four species of great apes in the world: all belonging to the taxonomic family Homindae: chimpanzees; bonobos; orangutans and gorillas. A fifth member of the species is the human being. These apes are our closest wild relatives. According to The Great Ape Trust, a scientific facility located in Des Moines, Iowa “all members of this family of apes share possibly more than 97% of their DNA with humans. The great apes have all been documented using tools, and communicating with amazing complexity. The great apes are found primarily in Central Africa with the exception of orangutans, which are native to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Asia. All of the great apes face serious threats and are all endangered, some critically endangered. Habit loss, climate change, infectious disease and illegal hunting for both meat and the live pet trade have combined to push these species to the brink of extinction. If we don’t act soon, we will lose our closest relatives forever.”
“If you know what a bonobo is, or can tell them apart from a chimpanzee, then you are one of a few very special people. . . . . . Chimpanzees and bonobos look very similar. But if you look closely, you’ll see that bonobos are a little smaller, with pink lips, black faces, and a very attractive hairstyle with long black hair neatly parted in the middle. The first two toes of bononbos have a little bit of webbing. While chimpanzees have low, loud voices, bonobos are very high pitched. Also, bonobo mothers have breasts that look a lot like humans.
But when you get to know bonobos, you’ll see they couldn’t be more different [than chimpanzees]. Like humans, chimpanzees have war. The males are in charge, and they can occasionally be very violent. Sometimes, they even kill each other. Bonobos do not kill each other. The females are in charge of the group and they seem to keep everyone’s temper under control with sexual activity. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or if you’re male or female—if you’re a bonobo, sex plays a big part in living together peacefully.”
Sara Gruen, author of the best-selling novel “Water for Elephants,” has written a fascinating thriller, Ape House, based upon the sub-species of great apes named bonobos. A group of eight of these apes is being studied in a facility at the University of Kansas. The conditions there are the best man can provide, and the care given them is thorough and loving. The focus of the study is the ape’s cognitive communication skills. Though their vocal chords do not allow the apes to use the human language, they actually do speak and interact, not only with each other, but humans as well.
Into this scene come other humans set on exploiting the animals for profit. The apes are kidnapped and moved to another, far less kind environment, where they become subjects for mass entertainment. A scientist from the Kansas facility and a journalist for a national magazine come to the rescue of the brood in a year-long effort to return them to a suitable scientific facility for care and further study. Sara Gruen weaves an exciting tale filled with great character development and scientific knowledge. The book is a real page turner if ever there was one. It is based on fact, and is well-documented in an interesting postlogue. The reader will cheer the rescuers on and be fascinated with the abilities of the apes. All in all, a most enjoyable read.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--AFTERSHOCK by Robert Reich
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, October 2, 2010
THE AUTHOR
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, and has written twelve books. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He is also co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and provides weekly commentaries on public radio’s Marketplace, as well as appearing regularly on MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and NPR. In 2003, he was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. He holds an MBA and PhD in economics from Harvard University, where he taught for many years prior to and after his career in public service.
His most recent book, Aftershock, is both an economic and sociological treatise, brief in length but concise, penetrating and filled with, from this reviewer’s point of view, insightful commentary on our present economic malaise and some of its sources. Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert quoted from it extensively in one of his pieces early last week, and the book was reviewed yesterday in The New York Times Sunday Book Review Section, to less than outright enthusiastic support, by Sebastian Mallaby, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This review, though laudatory in part, did no justice to what I consider to be an important contribution to the present economic literature.
As his fellow colleagues in economics such as Ben Bernancke, Joseph Steiglitz, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and others have closely studied and analyzed public policy in the aftermath of the Great Depression, so has Reich. However, this author brings a fresh perspective to the table, and that is one of a sociologist.
In addition, he focuses in part on the work of Merriman Eccles, who served as Federal Reserve Board Chairman from November 1934 through April of 1948, under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. As Reich states: “While Eccles is largely forgotten today, he offered critical insight into the great pendulum of American capitalism. His analysis of the underlying economic stresses of the Great Depression is extraordinarily, even eerily, relevant to the Crash of 2008. It also offers, if not a blueprint for the future, at least a suggestion of what to expect of the coming years.”
DEALING WITH THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Merriman Eccles, a conservative banker by nature, was a reluctant adherent to Keynesian economic thought. In the aftermath of the Depression, Reich relates, “economists and the leaders of business and Wall Street sought to reassure the country that the market would correct itself automatically, and that the government’s only responsibility was to balance the federal budget.” Sound familiar? “Lower prices and interest rates, they said, would inevitably ‘lure natural new investments by men who still had money and credit and whose revived activity would produce an upswing in the economy.’ Entrepreneurs would put their money into new technologies that would lead the way to prosperity. But Eccles wondered why anyone would invest when the economy was so disabled.”
The answer, so said our conservative brethren, was that economic downturns were a natural phenomenon, part of the economic cycle, a Darwinian view that here, as in Nature, the fittest would survive and the economically strong would move on. This trend of thought harked back to the works of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who Roubini states in his excellent recent book Crisis Economics “developed a powerful theory of entrepreneurship that is often distilled down to a pair of powerful words: creative destruction. In Schumpeter’s worldview, capitalism consists of waves of innovation in prosperous times, followed by a brutal winnowing in times of depression. This winnowing is to be neither avoided nor mineralized. It is a painful but positive adjustment, whose survivors will create a new economic order.”
Reich goes on: “They further explained that we were in the lean years because we had been spendthrifts and wastrels in the roaring twenties. We had wasted what we earned instead of saving it. We had enormously inflated values. But in time we would sober up and the economy would right itself through the action of men who had been prudent and thrifty all along, who had saved their money and at the right time would reinvest it in new production. Then the famine would end.” Now keep in mind that we are here talking about the Great Depression, not the Great Recession. Yet the parallels could not be more vivid.
In any case, as Reich recounts, “Eccles thought this was nonsense.” As a leading banker in the national arena, Eccles testified before the Senate Finance Committee in February 1933, just weeks before Roosevelt was sworn in as president. “Others had advised the Committee to reduce the national debt and balance the federal budget, but Eccles had different advice. Eccles told the senators that the government had to go deeper into debt in order to offset the lack of spending by consumers and businesses. Eccles went further. He advised the senators on ways to get more money into the hands of the beleaguered middle class. He offered a precise program designed ‘to bring about by Government action, an increase of purchasing power on the part of all the people.’ ” It should be noted that this advice was given three years before John Maynard Keynes’ similar theories were first published in his famous General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
Eccles biggest and most important insight was this: the major cause of the Depression had nothing to do with excessive spending during the Roaring Twenties. It was, rather, the vast accumulation of income in the hands of the wealthiest Americans, which siphoned purchasing power away from most of the rest. “As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation’s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth.”
Without adequate financial resources, consumers had to borrow to fund purchases. The borrowing took the form of mortgage debt on homes and commercial buildings, consumer installment debt, and foreign debt. Eccles understood that this debt bubble was bound to burst. And when it did, consumer spending would shrink. And so it did. Debtors were then forced to curtail their consumption, which naturally reduced the demand for goods and services of all kinds and brought higher unemployment. Unemployment further decreased consumption, which further increased unemployment. For Eccles, widening inequality was the major culprit.
Eccles realized back in 1933, and Reich and other economists are repeating now in the wake of another severe economic downturn, that recovery will be dependant on increasing aggregate demand, and that will be impossible to accomplish without the participation of middle class Americans. The inequality that Eccles saw regarding income distribution in 1930 is being repeated today, and that inequality must be re-balanced.
DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
Reich goes on to detail the decline of middle class purchasing power over the period from roughly 1975 to the present. The New York Times Bob Herbert, in that Op-Ed piece, summarized the present plight: “Analysts have tracked the increasing share of national income that has gone to the top 1 percent of earners since the 1970s, when their share was 8 percent to 9 percent. In the 1980s, it rose to 10 percent to 14 percent. In the late-’90s, it was 15 percent to 19 percent. In 2005, it passed 21 percent. By 2007, the last year for which complete data are available, the richest 1 percent were taking more than 23 percent of all income. The richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing 130,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007. That does not leave enough spending power with the rest of the population to sustain a flourishing economy. This is a point emphasized in “Aftershock.” Mr. Reich, a former labor secretary in the Clinton administration, writes: ‘The wages of the typical American hardly increased in the three decades leading up to the Crash of 2008, considering inflation. In the 2000s, they actually dropped. A male worker earning the median wage in 2007 earned less than the median wage, adjusted for inflation, of a male worker 30 years earlier.’ A typical son, in other words, is earning less than his dad did at the same age. This is what has happened with ordinary workers as the wealth at the top has soared into the stratosphere.”
Reich continues, drawing a parallel between government action to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression and current attempts to create a sustainable recovery after the Great Recession. Government policies in the wake of the Depression led to a new economic order, including many of the programs that Marriner Eccles proposed on the eve of Roosevelt’s inauguration—social insurance, improvements in the nation’s infrastructure, and improved educational opportunities, including an expansion of public universities, all initially financed by government borrowing. They made the American middle class vastly more secure, prosperous and productive.
“The Great Recession that started at the end of 2007, however, has produced no new economic order. Instead, the government stepped in quickly with enough money to contain the downward slide. . . . . . But little was done to reduce the underlying, cumulative problem of widening inequality—Eccles’s insight into what caused the Great Depression. After the stimulus and loose money wear off, therefore, it is unlikely that growth can be sustained. . . . . . This will constitute the Great Recession’s aftershock. From it will emerge either a political backlash—against trade, immigration, foreign investment, big business, Wall Street, and government itself—or large-scale reforms that reverse the underlying trend.”
We are already witnessing the former—the Obama Administration is suffering greatly in the polls as the mid-terms approach. Incumbents have fallen by the wayside in droves, Congress may fall into the hands of the opposition party, the Tea Party movement is attracting more and more followers, there is outrage among congressmen over China’s currency manipulation, Wall Street and big business have become targets of voter anger. On the other hand, there are no signs of the type of reforms that will aid the vast majority of Americans. And the clock is ticking. Time is running out. Unemployment remains high, with little signs that it has peaked. Although American corporations are making record profits once again, GDP is stagnant at best.
The middle chapters of “Aftershock” trace economic policy from the end of the Depression and World War II, through that period Reich names The Great Prosperity, encompassing the years 1947 through 1975, and finally the three-decade long period from 1980 through the current crisis. It was during those years that economic policy was reversed through deregulation, privatization, reduced public services, reduced aid to higher education, restriction on unemployment benefits, and reduced taxes, especially for the wealthiest Americans. At the same time, income taxes were greatly increased for the less advantaged among us, sales and payroll taxes were boosted, both actions taking a bigger chunk out of the middle class and poor.
“Significantly, Washington deregulated Wall Street while insuring it against major losses, in doing so turning finance—which until then had been the servant of American industry—into its master, demanding short-term profits over long-term growth, and raking in an ever larger portion of the nation’s profit.” In essence, the basic bargain between American business on the one hand and the public welfare on the other was broken.
FROM THE GREAT PROSPERITY TO THE GREAT RECESSION
Reich rhetorically asks how the pendulum could have swung back in the opposite direction of social progress. He proposes three answers:
First, there grew a consensus that there was simply no need for government intervention. The proof lay in the great expansion of the 1980s; the long recovery of the 1990s; the wildly exuberant bull market of the era. And Reich states: “This argument is bunk. It equates the stock market with the economy, and turns a blind eye to the revocation of the basic bargain. The argument does not acknowledge the consequences for an economy when the middle class lacks the means to buy what it produces.”
Second, the reversal could be viewed as the inevitable result of declining confidence in government. “The tax revolts that thundered across America starting in the late 1970s were not so much ideological revolts against government . . . . . as against paying more taxes on incomes that had fattened. When government services consequently deteriorated and government deficits exploded, the public’s cynicism was confirmed.
Third, the more important cause of the pendulum reversal had to do with power. People with great economic power have an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game. “The rich and powerful also have substantial influence in conditioning the attitude taken by people as a whole toward rules. “They generously finance think tanks, books, media, and ads designed to persuade Americans that free markets always know best. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and other apostles of free-market dogma reiterated a simple story: The choice was between free market and big government. Government was the problem. Free markets were the solution.”
“But how could the public have been so gullible as to accept this story? After all, America had gone through a Great Depression, suffering the consequences of an unfettered market and unconstrained greed. . . . . . America had also experienced the Great Prosperity, which depended so obviously on public improvements, safety nets, and public investment. Now that the basic bargain was coming apart once again, the need for them was even greater.”
One way to understand the paradox is loss of generational memory. . . . . . . When the latest generation became adults (from around the end of the 1970s onward), all they recalled was the failure of government and the success of the market. This made them particularly susceptible to the seductive rants of the free marketeers, who wanted to blame government for the economy’s failings. Moreover, they had no clear memory of a society whose members were all in it together. They witnessed instead an economy in which, increasingly, each of us was on his own.”
Personally, this writer has an alternative explanation: government had simply over-reached. The tide turned against the Great Society because it had gone too far. Unions had become too powerful. Handouts became too many. The social net became too wide. When civil riots broke out, public revulsion set in. Then, along came “Ronnie.” The new conservatives from the South and others flocked to him and his apostles with their simplistic solutions: decrease the role of government; deregulate industry and the markets; bust the unions. And the public bought it!
The middle class struggled on. “Starting in the late 1970s, the American center honed three coping mechanisms, allowing it to behave as though it was still taking home the same share of total income as it had during the Great Prosperity, and to spend as if nothing substantially had changed.”
Number 1: Women moved into paid work in greater and greater numbers;
Number 2: Everyone started working longer hours. What families failed to get in wage increases, they made up for in work increases;
Number 3: Middle class workers drew down on savings and borrowed up to the hilt.
After exhausting the first two coping mechanisms, the only way Americans could keep consuming as before was to save less and go deeper into debt. Americans borrowed from everywhere—credit card debt exploded; student loans increased dramatically; mortgage debt increased exponentially; auto loans were easy to obtain. “And, as housing values continued to rise, homes doubled as ATMs. Consumers refinanced their homes with even larger mortgages and used their homes as collateral for additional loans. As long as housing prices continued to rise, it seemed a painless way to get money. Between 2002 and 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their houses, putting themselves ever more deeply into the hole.” All these borrowings were aided by the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, as Greenspan and the Fed did everything they could on the monetary side to prolong economic prosperity from 2000 through the onset of the Great Recession, when the credit and housing bubbles burst. When that happened, the last of the coping mechanisms disappeared.
Paul Volker thought the underlying cause of the Great Recession was that Americans had been living beyond their means. But Laura Tyson, the former chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, disagreed: “The real problem was their means hadn’t been growing.”
Reich comments: “The fundamental economic challenge ahead is to lift the means of middle-class Americans and reconstitute the basic bargain linking wages to overall improvements—providing the vast American middle class with a share of economic gains sufficient to allow them to purchase more of what the economy can produce.”
“The Great Recession accelerated the structural change in the economy that began in the late 1970s. More companies have found means of cutting their payrolls for good. Consequently, large numbers of Americans will not be rehired unless they are willing to settle for lower wages and fewer benefits. . . . . . . Nor will households be able to borrow as before. . . . . . Housing values will not regain their speculative peak for a long time, which means homeowners cannot use their homes as sources of easy money through home equity loans and refinancing deals. . . . . . . Americans are paying off, paying down, or walking away from trillions of dollars of outstanding loans—in a vast “deleveraging” of household finances that is likely to continue for years. Even as the economy returns, people won’t want to be burdened by much additional debt.”
“All this means relatively less middle-class consumption than before the Great Recession. . . . . . . Where will sufficient demand come from without a buoyant American middle class? . . . . . . Government can fill the gap for a time, but government cannot continue indefinitely to stimulate the economy with deficit spending or by printing money.”
“It should be apparent that there will be no return to ‘normal,’ because the old normal got us into our present predicament and can’t possibly get us out. So what comes next?
“Economic gains are so meager that the wealthy fight harder to maintain their share. The middle class, already burdened by high unemployment and flat or dropping wages, fights ever more furiously against any additional burdens, such as tax increases to support public schools or price increases resulting from regulations limiting carbon emissions. It’s a vicious cycle.”
The question, then, is how to move from a vicious cycle to a virtuous one—how to restore the widespread prosperity needed for growth, and how to get the growth necessary for widespread prosperity. The challenge is both economic and political. A fundamentally new economy is required—the next stage of capitalism. But how will we get there? And what will it look like when we do?”
Leaders throughout history have learned the hard way how inextricably bound together are politics and economics. Just look at what fate bestowed on many of our presidents over the past 35 years. Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid because the economy had been suffering double-digit inflation. George H. W. Bush suffered the same result when Alan Greenspan raised interest rates to ward off inflation, which also raised unemployment. As James Carville said: “It’s the economy, stupid.” George W. Bush eventually took the blame for the latest economic catastrophe, and that blame also spilled over to John McCain. “All that can be said with confidence is that jobs and the economy are almost always at the forefront of voters’ minds.”
Reich moves on to examine the source of voter dissatisfaction and anger. He concludes: “Given the chance, most members of the middle class want to join the ranks of the rich and gain all the perks that come with great wealth. The real frustration, and the final straw, will come if and when they no longer feel they have a chance because the dice are loaded against them.”
That is happening right now. Presidents Bush and Obama may have saved America, and the world, from falling off the economic cliff. However, they did so partly by favoring the rich, the powerful, and the most advantaged among us. Namely, the banks, the large corporations and Wall Street. “The giant bailout of Wall Street [and corporate America] was sold to the American people as a way to save Main Street and jobs. But it appeared to do neither. . . . . . . Little or nothing trickled down to Main Street. Small business could not get loans. Few homeowners were able to renegotiate their mortgages, and large numbers lost their homes. Wall Street lobbied successfully against a proposal to allow homeowners to declare bankruptcy rather than forfeit their homes. The proposal would have given distressed homeowners more bargaining leverage with the banks that owned their mortgages. . . . . . . The whole thing began to look like a giant insider deal.”
TWO PATHS FORWARD
Reich believes there are two alternatives available to address the diminished role and opportunities of middle-class Americans, and, in turn, the future health of the American economy. The first way forward is illustrated by the following hypothetical scenario that Reich lays out:
NOVEMBER 3, 2020
The newly formed Independence Party pulls enough votes away from both the Republican and Democratic candidates to give its own candidate, Margaret Jones, a plurality of votes, an electoral college victory, and the presidency. A significant number of Independence Party members have also taken seats away from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The platform of the Independence Party, as well as its message, is clear and uncompromising: zero tolerance of illegal immigrants; a freeze on legal immigration from Latin America, Africa, and Asia; increased tariffs on all imports; a ban on American companies moving their operations to another country or outsourcing abroad; a prohibition on foreign “sovereign wealth funds” investing in the United States. America will withdraw from the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund; end all “involvements” in foreign countries; refuse to pay any more interest on our debt to China, essentially defaulting on it; and stop trading with China unless China freely floats its currency.
Profitable companies will be prohibited from laying off workers and cutting payrolls. The federal budget must always be balanced. The Federal Reserve will be abolished.
Banks will be allowed only to take deposits and make loans. Investment banking will be prohibited. Anyone found to have engaged in insider trading, stock manipulation, or securities fraud will face imprisonment for no less than ten years.
Finally, but not least: In order for the government to balance the budget, provide for national defense, guard our borders, and pay down the national debt, all personal incomes will be capped at %500,000 per year; earnings in excess of that amount will be taxed at 100 percent. Incomes above $250,000 are to be taxed at 80 percent. The capital gains rate will be 80 percent. All net worth above $100,000 will be subject to a 2 percent annual wealth tax. Any American found to be sheltering his income in a foreign nation will be stripped of his U.S. citizenship.
In her victory speech, president-elect Jones is defiant:
“My fellow Americans: You have voted to reclaim America. Voted to take it back from big government, big business, and big finance. To take it back from the politicians who would rob us of our freedoms, from foreigners who rob us of our jobs, from the rich who have no loyalty to this nation, and from immigrants who live off our hard work. (Wild applause.) We are reclaiming America from the elites who have rigged the system to their benefit, from the money manipulators on Wall Street and the greed masters in corporate executive suites, from the influence peddlers and pork peddlers in Washington—from all the privileged and the powerful who have conspired against us. (Wild applause and cheers.) They will no longer sell Americans out to global money and pad their nests by taking away our jobs and livelihoods! (Wild applause and cheers.) This is our nation, now! (Wild applause and cheers that continue to build.) A nation of good jobs and good wages for anyone willing to work hard! Our nation! America for Americans! (Thunderous applause.)
Her opponents concession speeches are bitter. George P. Bush, the Republican candidate, is irate. “I cannot stand before you and congratulate my opponent, who based her entire campaign on fear and resentment,” he tells his supporters.
Chelsea Clinton, the Democratic candidate, is indignant. “I would very much like to offer Margaret Jones my best wishes for the future. But I have to be honest: She and the Independence Party pose a grave danger to this nation.”
Foreign leaders try to be respectful but cannot hide their anxieties. The British prime minister issues a terse statement “wishing Americans well.” The German chancellor offers “condolences,” but the German ambassador to the United States insists the chancellor’s remark has been mistranslated and is best understood as “commiserations.” The president of China appears before news cameras and says, simply, “The United States has committed a grave error.”
The presidents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable issue a joint statement warning that Margaret Jones and the Independence Party “will push America into another Great Depression.” The CEOs of the four remaining giant Wall Street firms predict economic collapse.
On November 4, the day after Election Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 50 percent in an unprecedented volume of trading. The dollar plummets 30 percent against a weighted average of other currencies. Wall Street is in a panic. Banks close. Business leaders predict economic calamity. Mainstream pollsters, pundits, and political consultants fill the airways with expressions of shock and horror. Over and over again, they ask: How could this have happened?
The second alternative Reich proposes is to face head-on the currently existing inequities and remedy them through legislative and executive actions. His specific suggestions are enumerated at the end of this review.
Reich next examines the power and influence of lobbyists, and here, here he is getting to one of the underlying systemic roots the dilemma. No one will deny the corrupting influence of money. It drove, in part, the bank rescues, and the “people” were left behind holding the bag. It funds politicians’ campaigns, who then cow tow to contributors’ interests rather than the public welfare they swore to protect. Thus, the cause of the problem is political, and that will require a political solution. If our elected officials didn’t need so much money, their vulnerability to its corrupting influence would diminish. Could the answer lie in having fewer elections at more infrequent intervals? Why do members of the House of Representatives need to face reelection every two years, while across the aisle, senators serve six year terms. It’s obscene! Why do presidents have to run for reelection every four years? It severely limits their effectiveness as leaders—they in essence have a two-year period after being elected to put their programs to work, and then spend the following two years running for reelection. Why not, as many have suggested, have a six-year term for our presidents?
Both of these changes would encounter fierce resistance from exactly those whose undue influence such changes would address, i.e., the lobbying industry itself. But it’s a fight worth taking on. Reich does not advocate anything in this regard, and that is the first fault I find with his work. The following is the second:
Reich proposes nine steps to restore the balance between middle-class opportunities and the rich and powerful—restore what he refers to as the “bargain”—that intellectual or ideological agreement giving workers a proportionate share of the fruits of economic growth. I will simply state his proposals without elaboration.
First, a reverse income tax. Instead of money being withheld from workers paychecks to pay taxes to the government, money would be added to their paychecks by the government, according to a graduated or progressive formula; second, a carbon tax; third, higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy—up to 55%--and elimination of the capital gains exemption; fourth, a reemployment system rather than an unemployment system, including wage insurance; fifth, school vouchers based on family income; sixth, college loans linked to subsequent earnings, to be repaid during the first ten years of a student’s gainful employment; seventh, Medicare for all; eighth, a sizeable increase in public goods such as transportation, public parks, recreational facilities, public museums and libraries, with free public transportation, including high speed rail; and, finally, the removal of money from politics.
Reich maintains “This is not an unrealistic agenda. It is practical and doable.”
It is said that one of the dangers of an academic life can be isolation from reality. Living in the ivory tower of academia can blur a person’s reasoning powers. If Reich thinks his nine-step program is doable, he is deceiving himself. To end such a brilliant study of our economic and political systems with these kinds of proposals is a true shame.
CONCLUSIONS
I have seldom read a book as thought-provoking as this one. I regularly read 25 pages or so before bedtime, and found myself awakening hours later and writing notes to myself about one insight or another that Reich had brought to mind. I have also found the many quandaries that the author describes to be deeply troubling, for no one seems to be addressing the underlying causes of our economic malaise. Rather, all things seem to be pointing to a breakdown in effective government, in our national leaders’ ability to overcome political rancor in order to solve our nation’s problems.
Is there a basic flaw in our political system? Our founding fathers created a lasting document over 240 years ago, our Constitution. It has served the nation well for a long, long time. However, those founders never conceived that effective leadership would be so compromised by political parties totally unwilling to cooperate and put the common good ahead of partisanship and the striving for power. In fact, the party system did not even exist at the time of the Constitutional Convention. But the Signers did bequeath to future generations the ability to modernize the document through the passage of Constitutional Amendments. It is in that direction that we must proceed. As mentioned above, the contentious effect of our party system must be corrected, and the only way this can be accomplished is to reduce party and lobbying influences; reduce the predominance of special interests, and put the reins of government back in the hands of our elected officials, allowing them to represent both their constituents and their own conscience.
THE AUTHOR
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, and has written twelve books. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He is also co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and provides weekly commentaries on public radio’s Marketplace, as well as appearing regularly on MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and NPR. In 2003, he was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. He holds an MBA and PhD in economics from Harvard University, where he taught for many years prior to and after his career in public service.
His most recent book, Aftershock, is both an economic and sociological treatise, brief in length but concise, penetrating and filled with, from this reviewer’s point of view, insightful commentary on our present economic malaise and some of its sources. Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert quoted from it extensively in one of his pieces early last week, and the book was reviewed yesterday in The New York Times Sunday Book Review Section, to less than outright enthusiastic support, by Sebastian Mallaby, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This review, though laudatory in part, did no justice to what I consider to be an important contribution to the present economic literature.
As his fellow colleagues in economics such as Ben Bernancke, Joseph Steiglitz, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and others have closely studied and analyzed public policy in the aftermath of the Great Depression, so has Reich. However, this author brings a fresh perspective to the table, and that is one of a sociologist.
In addition, he focuses in part on the work of Merriman Eccles, who served as Federal Reserve Board Chairman from November 1934 through April of 1948, under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. As Reich states: “While Eccles is largely forgotten today, he offered critical insight into the great pendulum of American capitalism. His analysis of the underlying economic stresses of the Great Depression is extraordinarily, even eerily, relevant to the Crash of 2008. It also offers, if not a blueprint for the future, at least a suggestion of what to expect of the coming years.”
DEALING WITH THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Merriman Eccles, a conservative banker by nature, was a reluctant adherent to Keynesian economic thought. In the aftermath of the Depression, Reich relates, “economists and the leaders of business and Wall Street sought to reassure the country that the market would correct itself automatically, and that the government’s only responsibility was to balance the federal budget.” Sound familiar? “Lower prices and interest rates, they said, would inevitably ‘lure natural new investments by men who still had money and credit and whose revived activity would produce an upswing in the economy.’ Entrepreneurs would put their money into new technologies that would lead the way to prosperity. But Eccles wondered why anyone would invest when the economy was so disabled.”
The answer, so said our conservative brethren, was that economic downturns were a natural phenomenon, part of the economic cycle, a Darwinian view that here, as in Nature, the fittest would survive and the economically strong would move on. This trend of thought harked back to the works of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who Roubini states in his excellent recent book Crisis Economics “developed a powerful theory of entrepreneurship that is often distilled down to a pair of powerful words: creative destruction. In Schumpeter’s worldview, capitalism consists of waves of innovation in prosperous times, followed by a brutal winnowing in times of depression. This winnowing is to be neither avoided nor mineralized. It is a painful but positive adjustment, whose survivors will create a new economic order.”
Reich goes on: “They further explained that we were in the lean years because we had been spendthrifts and wastrels in the roaring twenties. We had wasted what we earned instead of saving it. We had enormously inflated values. But in time we would sober up and the economy would right itself through the action of men who had been prudent and thrifty all along, who had saved their money and at the right time would reinvest it in new production. Then the famine would end.” Now keep in mind that we are here talking about the Great Depression, not the Great Recession. Yet the parallels could not be more vivid.
In any case, as Reich recounts, “Eccles thought this was nonsense.” As a leading banker in the national arena, Eccles testified before the Senate Finance Committee in February 1933, just weeks before Roosevelt was sworn in as president. “Others had advised the Committee to reduce the national debt and balance the federal budget, but Eccles had different advice. Eccles told the senators that the government had to go deeper into debt in order to offset the lack of spending by consumers and businesses. Eccles went further. He advised the senators on ways to get more money into the hands of the beleaguered middle class. He offered a precise program designed ‘to bring about by Government action, an increase of purchasing power on the part of all the people.’ ” It should be noted that this advice was given three years before John Maynard Keynes’ similar theories were first published in his famous General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
Eccles biggest and most important insight was this: the major cause of the Depression had nothing to do with excessive spending during the Roaring Twenties. It was, rather, the vast accumulation of income in the hands of the wealthiest Americans, which siphoned purchasing power away from most of the rest. “As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation’s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth.”
Without adequate financial resources, consumers had to borrow to fund purchases. The borrowing took the form of mortgage debt on homes and commercial buildings, consumer installment debt, and foreign debt. Eccles understood that this debt bubble was bound to burst. And when it did, consumer spending would shrink. And so it did. Debtors were then forced to curtail their consumption, which naturally reduced the demand for goods and services of all kinds and brought higher unemployment. Unemployment further decreased consumption, which further increased unemployment. For Eccles, widening inequality was the major culprit.
Eccles realized back in 1933, and Reich and other economists are repeating now in the wake of another severe economic downturn, that recovery will be dependant on increasing aggregate demand, and that will be impossible to accomplish without the participation of middle class Americans. The inequality that Eccles saw regarding income distribution in 1930 is being repeated today, and that inequality must be re-balanced.
DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
Reich goes on to detail the decline of middle class purchasing power over the period from roughly 1975 to the present. The New York Times Bob Herbert, in that Op-Ed piece, summarized the present plight: “Analysts have tracked the increasing share of national income that has gone to the top 1 percent of earners since the 1970s, when their share was 8 percent to 9 percent. In the 1980s, it rose to 10 percent to 14 percent. In the late-’90s, it was 15 percent to 19 percent. In 2005, it passed 21 percent. By 2007, the last year for which complete data are available, the richest 1 percent were taking more than 23 percent of all income. The richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing 130,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007. That does not leave enough spending power with the rest of the population to sustain a flourishing economy. This is a point emphasized in “Aftershock.” Mr. Reich, a former labor secretary in the Clinton administration, writes: ‘The wages of the typical American hardly increased in the three decades leading up to the Crash of 2008, considering inflation. In the 2000s, they actually dropped. A male worker earning the median wage in 2007 earned less than the median wage, adjusted for inflation, of a male worker 30 years earlier.’ A typical son, in other words, is earning less than his dad did at the same age. This is what has happened with ordinary workers as the wealth at the top has soared into the stratosphere.”
Reich continues, drawing a parallel between government action to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression and current attempts to create a sustainable recovery after the Great Recession. Government policies in the wake of the Depression led to a new economic order, including many of the programs that Marriner Eccles proposed on the eve of Roosevelt’s inauguration—social insurance, improvements in the nation’s infrastructure, and improved educational opportunities, including an expansion of public universities, all initially financed by government borrowing. They made the American middle class vastly more secure, prosperous and productive.
“The Great Recession that started at the end of 2007, however, has produced no new economic order. Instead, the government stepped in quickly with enough money to contain the downward slide. . . . . . But little was done to reduce the underlying, cumulative problem of widening inequality—Eccles’s insight into what caused the Great Depression. After the stimulus and loose money wear off, therefore, it is unlikely that growth can be sustained. . . . . . This will constitute the Great Recession’s aftershock. From it will emerge either a political backlash—against trade, immigration, foreign investment, big business, Wall Street, and government itself—or large-scale reforms that reverse the underlying trend.”
We are already witnessing the former—the Obama Administration is suffering greatly in the polls as the mid-terms approach. Incumbents have fallen by the wayside in droves, Congress may fall into the hands of the opposition party, the Tea Party movement is attracting more and more followers, there is outrage among congressmen over China’s currency manipulation, Wall Street and big business have become targets of voter anger. On the other hand, there are no signs of the type of reforms that will aid the vast majority of Americans. And the clock is ticking. Time is running out. Unemployment remains high, with little signs that it has peaked. Although American corporations are making record profits once again, GDP is stagnant at best.
The middle chapters of “Aftershock” trace economic policy from the end of the Depression and World War II, through that period Reich names The Great Prosperity, encompassing the years 1947 through 1975, and finally the three-decade long period from 1980 through the current crisis. It was during those years that economic policy was reversed through deregulation, privatization, reduced public services, reduced aid to higher education, restriction on unemployment benefits, and reduced taxes, especially for the wealthiest Americans. At the same time, income taxes were greatly increased for the less advantaged among us, sales and payroll taxes were boosted, both actions taking a bigger chunk out of the middle class and poor.
“Significantly, Washington deregulated Wall Street while insuring it against major losses, in doing so turning finance—which until then had been the servant of American industry—into its master, demanding short-term profits over long-term growth, and raking in an ever larger portion of the nation’s profit.” In essence, the basic bargain between American business on the one hand and the public welfare on the other was broken.
FROM THE GREAT PROSPERITY TO THE GREAT RECESSION
Reich rhetorically asks how the pendulum could have swung back in the opposite direction of social progress. He proposes three answers:
First, there grew a consensus that there was simply no need for government intervention. The proof lay in the great expansion of the 1980s; the long recovery of the 1990s; the wildly exuberant bull market of the era. And Reich states: “This argument is bunk. It equates the stock market with the economy, and turns a blind eye to the revocation of the basic bargain. The argument does not acknowledge the consequences for an economy when the middle class lacks the means to buy what it produces.”
Second, the reversal could be viewed as the inevitable result of declining confidence in government. “The tax revolts that thundered across America starting in the late 1970s were not so much ideological revolts against government . . . . . as against paying more taxes on incomes that had fattened. When government services consequently deteriorated and government deficits exploded, the public’s cynicism was confirmed.
Third, the more important cause of the pendulum reversal had to do with power. People with great economic power have an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game. “The rich and powerful also have substantial influence in conditioning the attitude taken by people as a whole toward rules. “They generously finance think tanks, books, media, and ads designed to persuade Americans that free markets always know best. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and other apostles of free-market dogma reiterated a simple story: The choice was between free market and big government. Government was the problem. Free markets were the solution.”
“But how could the public have been so gullible as to accept this story? After all, America had gone through a Great Depression, suffering the consequences of an unfettered market and unconstrained greed. . . . . . America had also experienced the Great Prosperity, which depended so obviously on public improvements, safety nets, and public investment. Now that the basic bargain was coming apart once again, the need for them was even greater.”
One way to understand the paradox is loss of generational memory. . . . . . . When the latest generation became adults (from around the end of the 1970s onward), all they recalled was the failure of government and the success of the market. This made them particularly susceptible to the seductive rants of the free marketeers, who wanted to blame government for the economy’s failings. Moreover, they had no clear memory of a society whose members were all in it together. They witnessed instead an economy in which, increasingly, each of us was on his own.”
Personally, this writer has an alternative explanation: government had simply over-reached. The tide turned against the Great Society because it had gone too far. Unions had become too powerful. Handouts became too many. The social net became too wide. When civil riots broke out, public revulsion set in. Then, along came “Ronnie.” The new conservatives from the South and others flocked to him and his apostles with their simplistic solutions: decrease the role of government; deregulate industry and the markets; bust the unions. And the public bought it!
The middle class struggled on. “Starting in the late 1970s, the American center honed three coping mechanisms, allowing it to behave as though it was still taking home the same share of total income as it had during the Great Prosperity, and to spend as if nothing substantially had changed.”
Number 1: Women moved into paid work in greater and greater numbers;
Number 2: Everyone started working longer hours. What families failed to get in wage increases, they made up for in work increases;
Number 3: Middle class workers drew down on savings and borrowed up to the hilt.
After exhausting the first two coping mechanisms, the only way Americans could keep consuming as before was to save less and go deeper into debt. Americans borrowed from everywhere—credit card debt exploded; student loans increased dramatically; mortgage debt increased exponentially; auto loans were easy to obtain. “And, as housing values continued to rise, homes doubled as ATMs. Consumers refinanced their homes with even larger mortgages and used their homes as collateral for additional loans. As long as housing prices continued to rise, it seemed a painless way to get money. Between 2002 and 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their houses, putting themselves ever more deeply into the hole.” All these borrowings were aided by the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, as Greenspan and the Fed did everything they could on the monetary side to prolong economic prosperity from 2000 through the onset of the Great Recession, when the credit and housing bubbles burst. When that happened, the last of the coping mechanisms disappeared.
Paul Volker thought the underlying cause of the Great Recession was that Americans had been living beyond their means. But Laura Tyson, the former chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, disagreed: “The real problem was their means hadn’t been growing.”
Reich comments: “The fundamental economic challenge ahead is to lift the means of middle-class Americans and reconstitute the basic bargain linking wages to overall improvements—providing the vast American middle class with a share of economic gains sufficient to allow them to purchase more of what the economy can produce.”
“The Great Recession accelerated the structural change in the economy that began in the late 1970s. More companies have found means of cutting their payrolls for good. Consequently, large numbers of Americans will not be rehired unless they are willing to settle for lower wages and fewer benefits. . . . . . . Nor will households be able to borrow as before. . . . . . Housing values will not regain their speculative peak for a long time, which means homeowners cannot use their homes as sources of easy money through home equity loans and refinancing deals. . . . . . . Americans are paying off, paying down, or walking away from trillions of dollars of outstanding loans—in a vast “deleveraging” of household finances that is likely to continue for years. Even as the economy returns, people won’t want to be burdened by much additional debt.”
“All this means relatively less middle-class consumption than before the Great Recession. . . . . . . Where will sufficient demand come from without a buoyant American middle class? . . . . . . Government can fill the gap for a time, but government cannot continue indefinitely to stimulate the economy with deficit spending or by printing money.”
“It should be apparent that there will be no return to ‘normal,’ because the old normal got us into our present predicament and can’t possibly get us out. So what comes next?
“Economic gains are so meager that the wealthy fight harder to maintain their share. The middle class, already burdened by high unemployment and flat or dropping wages, fights ever more furiously against any additional burdens, such as tax increases to support public schools or price increases resulting from regulations limiting carbon emissions. It’s a vicious cycle.”
The question, then, is how to move from a vicious cycle to a virtuous one—how to restore the widespread prosperity needed for growth, and how to get the growth necessary for widespread prosperity. The challenge is both economic and political. A fundamentally new economy is required—the next stage of capitalism. But how will we get there? And what will it look like when we do?”
Leaders throughout history have learned the hard way how inextricably bound together are politics and economics. Just look at what fate bestowed on many of our presidents over the past 35 years. Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid because the economy had been suffering double-digit inflation. George H. W. Bush suffered the same result when Alan Greenspan raised interest rates to ward off inflation, which also raised unemployment. As James Carville said: “It’s the economy, stupid.” George W. Bush eventually took the blame for the latest economic catastrophe, and that blame also spilled over to John McCain. “All that can be said with confidence is that jobs and the economy are almost always at the forefront of voters’ minds.”
Reich moves on to examine the source of voter dissatisfaction and anger. He concludes: “Given the chance, most members of the middle class want to join the ranks of the rich and gain all the perks that come with great wealth. The real frustration, and the final straw, will come if and when they no longer feel they have a chance because the dice are loaded against them.”
That is happening right now. Presidents Bush and Obama may have saved America, and the world, from falling off the economic cliff. However, they did so partly by favoring the rich, the powerful, and the most advantaged among us. Namely, the banks, the large corporations and Wall Street. “The giant bailout of Wall Street [and corporate America] was sold to the American people as a way to save Main Street and jobs. But it appeared to do neither. . . . . . . Little or nothing trickled down to Main Street. Small business could not get loans. Few homeowners were able to renegotiate their mortgages, and large numbers lost their homes. Wall Street lobbied successfully against a proposal to allow homeowners to declare bankruptcy rather than forfeit their homes. The proposal would have given distressed homeowners more bargaining leverage with the banks that owned their mortgages. . . . . . . The whole thing began to look like a giant insider deal.”
TWO PATHS FORWARD
Reich believes there are two alternatives available to address the diminished role and opportunities of middle-class Americans, and, in turn, the future health of the American economy. The first way forward is illustrated by the following hypothetical scenario that Reich lays out:
NOVEMBER 3, 2020
The newly formed Independence Party pulls enough votes away from both the Republican and Democratic candidates to give its own candidate, Margaret Jones, a plurality of votes, an electoral college victory, and the presidency. A significant number of Independence Party members have also taken seats away from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The platform of the Independence Party, as well as its message, is clear and uncompromising: zero tolerance of illegal immigrants; a freeze on legal immigration from Latin America, Africa, and Asia; increased tariffs on all imports; a ban on American companies moving their operations to another country or outsourcing abroad; a prohibition on foreign “sovereign wealth funds” investing in the United States. America will withdraw from the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund; end all “involvements” in foreign countries; refuse to pay any more interest on our debt to China, essentially defaulting on it; and stop trading with China unless China freely floats its currency.
Profitable companies will be prohibited from laying off workers and cutting payrolls. The federal budget must always be balanced. The Federal Reserve will be abolished.
Banks will be allowed only to take deposits and make loans. Investment banking will be prohibited. Anyone found to have engaged in insider trading, stock manipulation, or securities fraud will face imprisonment for no less than ten years.
Finally, but not least: In order for the government to balance the budget, provide for national defense, guard our borders, and pay down the national debt, all personal incomes will be capped at %500,000 per year; earnings in excess of that amount will be taxed at 100 percent. Incomes above $250,000 are to be taxed at 80 percent. The capital gains rate will be 80 percent. All net worth above $100,000 will be subject to a 2 percent annual wealth tax. Any American found to be sheltering his income in a foreign nation will be stripped of his U.S. citizenship.
In her victory speech, president-elect Jones is defiant:
“My fellow Americans: You have voted to reclaim America. Voted to take it back from big government, big business, and big finance. To take it back from the politicians who would rob us of our freedoms, from foreigners who rob us of our jobs, from the rich who have no loyalty to this nation, and from immigrants who live off our hard work. (Wild applause.) We are reclaiming America from the elites who have rigged the system to their benefit, from the money manipulators on Wall Street and the greed masters in corporate executive suites, from the influence peddlers and pork peddlers in Washington—from all the privileged and the powerful who have conspired against us. (Wild applause and cheers.) They will no longer sell Americans out to global money and pad their nests by taking away our jobs and livelihoods! (Wild applause and cheers.) This is our nation, now! (Wild applause and cheers that continue to build.) A nation of good jobs and good wages for anyone willing to work hard! Our nation! America for Americans! (Thunderous applause.)
Her opponents concession speeches are bitter. George P. Bush, the Republican candidate, is irate. “I cannot stand before you and congratulate my opponent, who based her entire campaign on fear and resentment,” he tells his supporters.
Chelsea Clinton, the Democratic candidate, is indignant. “I would very much like to offer Margaret Jones my best wishes for the future. But I have to be honest: She and the Independence Party pose a grave danger to this nation.”
Foreign leaders try to be respectful but cannot hide their anxieties. The British prime minister issues a terse statement “wishing Americans well.” The German chancellor offers “condolences,” but the German ambassador to the United States insists the chancellor’s remark has been mistranslated and is best understood as “commiserations.” The president of China appears before news cameras and says, simply, “The United States has committed a grave error.”
The presidents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable issue a joint statement warning that Margaret Jones and the Independence Party “will push America into another Great Depression.” The CEOs of the four remaining giant Wall Street firms predict economic collapse.
On November 4, the day after Election Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 50 percent in an unprecedented volume of trading. The dollar plummets 30 percent against a weighted average of other currencies. Wall Street is in a panic. Banks close. Business leaders predict economic calamity. Mainstream pollsters, pundits, and political consultants fill the airways with expressions of shock and horror. Over and over again, they ask: How could this have happened?
The second alternative Reich proposes is to face head-on the currently existing inequities and remedy them through legislative and executive actions. His specific suggestions are enumerated at the end of this review.
Reich next examines the power and influence of lobbyists, and here, here he is getting to one of the underlying systemic roots the dilemma. No one will deny the corrupting influence of money. It drove, in part, the bank rescues, and the “people” were left behind holding the bag. It funds politicians’ campaigns, who then cow tow to contributors’ interests rather than the public welfare they swore to protect. Thus, the cause of the problem is political, and that will require a political solution. If our elected officials didn’t need so much money, their vulnerability to its corrupting influence would diminish. Could the answer lie in having fewer elections at more infrequent intervals? Why do members of the House of Representatives need to face reelection every two years, while across the aisle, senators serve six year terms. It’s obscene! Why do presidents have to run for reelection every four years? It severely limits their effectiveness as leaders—they in essence have a two-year period after being elected to put their programs to work, and then spend the following two years running for reelection. Why not, as many have suggested, have a six-year term for our presidents?
Both of these changes would encounter fierce resistance from exactly those whose undue influence such changes would address, i.e., the lobbying industry itself. But it’s a fight worth taking on. Reich does not advocate anything in this regard, and that is the first fault I find with his work. The following is the second:
Reich proposes nine steps to restore the balance between middle-class opportunities and the rich and powerful—restore what he refers to as the “bargain”—that intellectual or ideological agreement giving workers a proportionate share of the fruits of economic growth. I will simply state his proposals without elaboration.
First, a reverse income tax. Instead of money being withheld from workers paychecks to pay taxes to the government, money would be added to their paychecks by the government, according to a graduated or progressive formula; second, a carbon tax; third, higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy—up to 55%--and elimination of the capital gains exemption; fourth, a reemployment system rather than an unemployment system, including wage insurance; fifth, school vouchers based on family income; sixth, college loans linked to subsequent earnings, to be repaid during the first ten years of a student’s gainful employment; seventh, Medicare for all; eighth, a sizeable increase in public goods such as transportation, public parks, recreational facilities, public museums and libraries, with free public transportation, including high speed rail; and, finally, the removal of money from politics.
Reich maintains “This is not an unrealistic agenda. It is practical and doable.”
It is said that one of the dangers of an academic life can be isolation from reality. Living in the ivory tower of academia can blur a person’s reasoning powers. If Reich thinks his nine-step program is doable, he is deceiving himself. To end such a brilliant study of our economic and political systems with these kinds of proposals is a true shame.
CONCLUSIONS
I have seldom read a book as thought-provoking as this one. I regularly read 25 pages or so before bedtime, and found myself awakening hours later and writing notes to myself about one insight or another that Reich had brought to mind. I have also found the many quandaries that the author describes to be deeply troubling, for no one seems to be addressing the underlying causes of our economic malaise. Rather, all things seem to be pointing to a breakdown in effective government, in our national leaders’ ability to overcome political rancor in order to solve our nation’s problems.
Is there a basic flaw in our political system? Our founding fathers created a lasting document over 240 years ago, our Constitution. It has served the nation well for a long, long time. However, those founders never conceived that effective leadership would be so compromised by political parties totally unwilling to cooperate and put the common good ahead of partisanship and the striving for power. In fact, the party system did not even exist at the time of the Constitutional Convention. But the Signers did bequeath to future generations the ability to modernize the document through the passage of Constitutional Amendments. It is in that direction that we must proceed. As mentioned above, the contentious effect of our party system must be corrected, and the only way this can be accomplished is to reduce party and lobbying influences; reduce the predominance of special interests, and put the reins of government back in the hands of our elected officials, allowing them to represent both their constituents and their own conscience.
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