The Cat Is Out Of The Bag

In my last blog I described why Republican leaders and their mouthpieces at Fox News do not want you to know just how responsible they are for the country's economic woes. Until recently they were doing a pretty good job of keeping people distracted from reality, the great foe of Republican politics. But, suddenly, the cat is out of the bag. Republicans' share of the blame for the US economy is a serious election issue. The fun part is that the debate is percolating not out of the Obama campaign or even Stephen Colbert's SuperPAC. It's coming from within the campaigns of Republicans running against Mitt Romney. And, all of a sudden, Romney, easily the candidate with the best chance in a general election, doesn't look like he's even close to being nominated. Why? Well, it turns out that Tea Party members and Evangelical Christians are just not as stupid as the mainstream Republican leadership and major donors seem to believe them to be. It also appears that it really is the economy, stupid, and trying to distract voters with things like the recent flap over birth control is not distracting Republican voters from the fact that they, like the rest of the 99%, have been screwed by their own party.

Much is being made of Mitt Romney's large, continuing income from his days at Bain Capital, a leveraged buyout  ("LBO") firm that he once headed. His Republican opponents have accused him of being a job-killing, vulture capitalist who doesn't care about the common man (i.e., Tea Party members and Evangelical Christians). In a nation where the general election will be determined by independent and swing voters looking for a centrist candidate, Romney has been forced to run further and further to the right. This gets him into more trouble since he really is not and never was a "strenuous conservative."

His opponents forced him to release his income tax returns so we can all see the extent of his ill-gotten gains. From this we know that Romney earns millions of dollars a year but pays a total Federal income tax burden of less than 14%. His adversaries are shocked. Shocked to discover unchecked capitalism in this establishment. This is giving Republican leaders, Karl Rove at Fox News and major Republican donors fits. Even some GOP biggies who are not comfortable with Romney, are urging Santorum, Gingrich, the next "flavor of the week" and their Super PAC supporters to tone it down. Why? Well, because, as discussed in my last blog, the Republicans have spent most of the last 32 years trying to make the world a happy place for the Mitt Romneys while generally screwing anyone unfortunate enough to make less than a million dollars a year.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Mitt Romney has done nothing wrong. I won't bore you with a discussion of "carried interest" and how it gets taxed as a long term capital gain. Let's just say that Romney has played by the rules and won big. How much more American can that possibly be? So, why are so many Republican leaders trying to get everyone to ignore this fact? What the Republican leaders and major donors don't want you (particularly if you are an Independent voter or a Tea Party member) to get focused on is that Romney has been playing by rules that have been largely put in place, or protected from the horrors of government regulation, by more than 30 years of Republican control over US economic and fiscal policies. If you don't like what Romney and the rest of the 1% are getting away with your recourse is to elect a President and Congressional representatives who will change the rules. Which is exactly what the people who currently control and fund the Republican party do not want to have happen. The fun started when Newt Gingrich went after Romney as a job killing vulture capitalist. Newt, a hero warrior of the Reagan Revolution who engineered the first Republican House majority in 40 years, didn't bother to mention that he was a key player setting up and preserving the tax and regulatory environment that made Romney very very rich. To make matters worse for mainstream Republicans, Rick Santorum, riding the populist wave that never quite lifts Ron Paul's boat, rolled into Michigan and started talking about how the bailouts of banks and big corporations, but not the little people like him and you, began under the Republican Administration in office before January 20, 2009! 


Now, your typical Tea Party member and most Evangelical Christians are, like the Occupy Wall Street folks, part of the 99%. They are victims of the past 32 years of Republican policies. All of a sudden they have a candidate, Santorum, who really is a "strenuous conservative" and who is committing the political sin of telling people the truth. Add to this the facts that Santorum's positions on subjects such as birth control (forget abortion, the real issue has always been womens' access to affordable birth control) and homosexuality and  family values, as demonstrated by his personal life, are, from a right wing conservative viewpoint, impeccable. this makes him a formidable opponent for Romney.


Romney is a Mormon, which is not a Christian church, according to a lot of Christians. (You have no idea how bizarre that sounds to a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, unless, of course, you are also an MOT.) Romney also managed to actually govern Massachusetts which meant compromising with Ted Kennedy-type Democrats, an unforgivable sin in a Republican primary fight. Gingrich's ties to the Washington elite, his own penchant for cashing in on his public persona and his personal hypocrisy are just too much for him to overcome. Meanwhile Ron Paul, who has been telling the truth about the Republican Party for years just doesn't seem to gain enough traction to be a serious contender. Add it all up and Santorum is the flavor of the week. Maybe even the month and, if he takes Michigan and does well on Super Tuesday, maybe all the way to the convention.


Now, here's the really fun part. Santorum is going around waking the Tea Party and Evangelical folks up to the fact that they are among the minions who have been getting economically screwed by the Republican Party for the past 32 years. Add to this the fact that Republicans, pre-Tea Party, pandered to family values voters to get nominated but, if elected, soon found more pressing matters to take care of and the situation is incredibly volatile. Every actual vote and every poll shows that a clear majority of Republican primary voters do not want Romney. That same majority would vote for a clone combining Santorum, Paul and just a hint of Gingrich (probably so we can go nuke Iran). Which just gladdens my heart. Oh, its not just the schadenfreude of Mitt Romney, a major American success story, falling into disrepute because he is a major American success story, its that Barack Obama's chances of being re-elected have never looked better. The Republicans are eating up huge amounts of media time, inches of newsprint and millions of dollars, running Obama's campaign for him.

Early in his term Obama said that he had two or perhaps three years to get the economy moving again or he would be a one term President. Today the economy is nothing to write home about but it is getting better. As Barney Frank famously said, "No one has ever been re-elected with a bumper sticker that read: It Would Have Been Worse Without Me." But most elected officials do get re-elected if most voters are better off on election day than they were when the official took office. (Reagan's famous quote, "Ask yourself: Am I better off today than I was four years ago?") So, on the economy, Obama has a shot but certainly not a slam dunk. But if the Republicans nominate Santorum, and especially if they come with an equally far right vice presidential candidate (I'm hoping for a Santorum/Bachmann ticket), Obama will win easily. 


About 40% of those who vote in November will vote for the Republican, no matter who he is. Another 40% will vote for Obama, even if we have to hold our noses while we do it. Its the 20% in the middle, voters who describe themselves as independents or as swing voters (a party member willing to vote for the other party), who will elect the next President. These people tend to be fiscally conservative but socially fall into the "live and let live" crowd. Faced with a Santorum, who, in the words of Lewis Black, "demonstrates a level of ignorance that is stunning in the 21st century," they'll vote for Obama simply because he scares them less.

For this blog I thank my most conservative friend. A wonderful drinking companion who, four years ago and to no one's surprise, was all set to vote for John McCain. But one day she turned on her TV and got a good look at Sarah Palin. And Obama got a vote he was never going to get. That's why mainstream Republicans and major Republican donors are having fits and I am really enjoying this election season. Read more!

The Little Plastic Castle On The Potomac: What Republican “Leaders” Don’t Want You (Or Their Base) To Know.

17 February 2012

Tel Aviv

Among my favorite urban myths is the one about how goldfish have no memory, so the little plastic castle is a pleasant surprise every time they circle their bowls. Perhaps the Republican Party ought to replace its elephant symbol with a goldfish. Why? Because according to any Republican leader (or Fox News host), nothing happened before January 20, 2009 (or, to be specific, nothing that is the fault of any Republican). According to the “official” GOP/Fox News line, the only President who came between Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama was Bill Clinton and no Republicans had anything to do with any legislation, regulations or court decisions that might have had any impact whatsoever on employment, housing, government budget deficits, Wall Street disasters that almost wiped out capitalism on a global scale, oil spills or the three wars in which we have been engaged for most of the last ten years. Now, I know that some of the current candidates to be the Republican nominee for President have actually broken from this party line (e.g., Rick Santorum in Michigan conceding that government bailouts were started by Bush II and that Obama was merely “following along”) but I will deal with the delightful schadenfreude I get from watching the Republicans destroy one another in my next blog.

What the so-called party leaders and most of the talking heads want you to focus on is how all of America’s economic woes are Obama's fault, except for the stuff that is still Clinton's fault.  This includes, but is not limited to, unemployment, budget deficits, wars, the Gulf oil spill, the continued failure to restore damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, sexual immorality (well, maybe that really is Clinton's fault) and, my favorite, a tax increase, now postponed by heroic Republicans in Congress until the end of 2012 (at which time Republicans will once again seize control and make the cuts permanent, at least for rich people like Mitt Romney).

Now, before you surf away or hit your delete key, it's not that I don't think there's plenty of blame to go around. Democrats, a subspecies that seems to have no exoskeleton, let alone a back bone, are just as guilty.  At no time in the past 32 years would Democrats have been unable to block Republican legislation by voting as a block or using various Senate rules. But as the only political party I know that is capable of having its caucus in a rain barrel, the Democrats consistently caved in and even supported to every tax cut and war the Republicans wanted. This being said, it is the Republicans who have taken their goldfish-style dementia to such a high level of entertainment that I can't resist at least one snarky blog on the subject.. And here is the rest of it.High on the list of things the GOP leadership would prefer not to discuss is the fact that, in the 32 years since Ronald Reagan became President, the Republicans will have held the Presidency for 20 years, the Senate for 16 years (including the two years during which Dick Cheney had to be disarmed, sobered up and hauled in from a secure, unnamed location to break or create tie votes in favor of the Republicans) and the House of Representatives for 14 years. For 12 years, 1995 through 2006, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and, for six years, all three branches of government. A substantial majority of currently sitting Federal judges plus many of the people who form what was once referred to as the "permanent government" (back when I had to write this sort of stuff for final exams) were appointed by, or first came to Washington to work for, someone named Reagan or Bush.

In 1981, a new sheriff came to town, Ronald Reagan, and with him he brought what came to be called Reaganomics and the Reagan Revolution. Whether or not you are a Reagan fan (truth be told, I enjoyed Death Valley Days), you have to concede that his Administration had the greatest impact on America, in general, and Washington, in particular, since the Roosevelt Administration. The Reagan Revolution made the USA a haven for rich people, prevented middle class incomes from ever increasing, made it open season on organized labor and eliminated enforcement of outdated regulations like the anti-trust and securities laws. In general, Reagan and his allies managed to convince too many of us that, private enterprise can always do things more efficiently and effectively than the government. To this day we hear the daily cry that small government is better than big government and the ideal would be to have no government at all (unless, of course, you are a Congressman trying to get a new bridge built in his or her district). According to this new gospel, growth would always be stimulated by cutting the unfair tax burden, particularly on rich people (oh, sorry, “job creators”) and corporations and destroyed by any tax increase, ever. (Let's not confuse our GOP friends by harping on the fact that Presdients Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all signed off on tax increases which were closely followed by an historic bull market, the creation of millions of jobs and a government budget surplus. Why ruin an election campaign with facts?)  The Reagan Revolution continued on through the Clinton and Bush II Administrations. During the second Clinton and first Bush II terms, Washington managed to either repeal or, through regulatory inaction, ignore, key pieces of New Deal legislation designed to prevent banks, insurance companies and others from speculating with depositors’ money and crashing the nation’s credit and financial systems.

Oddly enough, back in the Reagan/Bush I years, in what can fairly be described as a bipartisan effort, Congress managed to impose fiscal restraints on itself. Kind of. Sort of. Well, at least by Washington standards it was restraint. Any new spending or new tax cuts had to be revenue neutral. In other words, if you wanted to spend more money you had to either find new revenue (i.e., raise taxes) or cut some other spending. Incredibly, with Congress and the White House, divided between the parties for most of the late 80s and 90s, this worked. Kind of. Sort of. Well by Washington standards it worked. And so, by the end of the Clinton Administration the government actually ran a surplus. And, according to the Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”), that surplus was going to grow to be hundreds of billions of dollars. That was, of course, if nothing significant happened to cause a change in America's or the world's economy over the ten years beginning with 2001. Would you rely on such an assumption? The CBO warned anyone who would listen (which turned out to be Fortune's Allan Sloan and his readers but apparently this group did not include anyone holding an elected Federal office) that its estimate could not be relied on for a period much longer than it just took you to read this sentence.

And so, in 2001, we were gifted with the first round of Bush tax cuts. Even under the rosy predictions used to pass these cuts, the Federal government would start running deficits again by the end of 2010. Looking forward after 2010, the projected deficits rose into the trillions. And so, in yet another act that passes for fiscal restraint in the Capitol, Congress put a sunset provision into the tax cuts. In general, on January 1, 2011, the tax code would revert back to the rules that would have been in effect had the 2001 legislation never been enacted. Bush signed the bill into law figuring that one of two things would happen. Either a later Congress would blink first and make the tax cuts permanent or he would be out of office and his successor would be blamed for imposing a huge tax increase; which is just what the Republicans are now trying to do to Obama.

And the surplus? Well, for those of you who have no memory of the United States before January 20, 2009, Bush signed his first round of tax cuts in Spring 2001. Starting on September 11, 2001, the United States suffered its worst terrorist attack, a stock market crash and entered into wars on three fronts (Homeland Security, Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq). And so, with tax revenues falling while expenses were rising at astronomical rates, the Republicans in Congress and the White House stepped up to the plate and passed a second round of tax cuts. Where were the Democrats? They were cowering in the corner trembling in fear of not being seen as supporting our troops or of losing the next election by voting against more tax cuts. Thus, the Bush II administration, with the full support of Congress, guaranteed that the USA would have multi-trillion dollar deficits for decades to come.

Meanwhile, outside the Beltway, from 1981 until 2007 (with a couple of minor bumps in the road) Wall Street was on its greatest roll ever. Ripping up companies, sticking them back together, destroying huge numbers of jobs, and creating jobs that were either lower paying or located in China, India, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. The bottom line?  In 1980, the top 1% of Americans, when ranked by annual income, received 10% of all income. In 2007, just before the Bush Recession, this had grown to 24% and all indications are that this gap between the 1% and the 99% continues to grow. For most Americans, family income has been flat or gone down when adjusted for inflation. The most striking example of what can be best described as the Republicans’ War on The Middle Class is that roughly 75% of workers who lost their jobs in the Bush Recession and have now returned to work are working for less.

But what about the great economy we’ve had for most of the past 32 years? If things are so bad, where have all those corporate profits and personal wealth come from? Well, for Wall Street, there's globalization. It is not uncommon for a US-based corporation to earn more money outside than inside the US. (How do you think Ford avoided a bailout and bankruptcy when their US sales were not much better than Chrysler or GM?) Back at home people on Main Street were increasing the volume of what we consume. But didn’t I just tell you how most Americans have seen their incomes drop, or at least not rise, over the past 32 years? So, how can we buy more and more stuff with less cash to spend? Easy: credit. And I do mean easy credit. Give everyone 5 or 6 credit cards, give people who can’t possibly repay them home mortgages and equity-based lines of credit. Just keep extending credit to support the purchase of stuff. Need to pay off your old loans? Just get new loans. And, to keep the money flowing, take all these basically worthless IOUs and “securitize” them into investment products that not even their creators understand. Then, to top it all off, give the securitized debt a AAA rating courtesy of the rating companies who get their fees from the creators of the securities and fully insure the investment banks' risk, but not their customers', using an insurance company whose assets could not possibly cover the potential losses. Our government didn't just allow this, the government was a major player in the action.

And so, after almost 30 years of the Republicans pushing their version of free market capitalism (that’s a system under which profits are privatized for the top 1% while losses of companies deemed "too big to fail" are socialized among the rest of us), the US economy was transformed into one gigantic Ponzi scheme. And so, when the inevitable down cycle came, when the housing market collapsed and the stock market went south, when major banks and insurance companies were sinking under so much leverage that they could never work themselves out of debt, the US economy dropped into its worst recession since the 1930s. The Roosevelt Administration had tried to warn us this would would happen without the protection of New Deal legislation. The Republicans, who at one point wanted to replace Roosevelt’s picture on the dime with that of Ronald Reagan, told us that we had to root out socialism in America by eliminating all vestiges of the New Deal and managed to trigger a second great depression. The only reason why we are now slowly pulling out of a recession instead of slogging through the second great depression have been the bailouts arranged by that class traitor, Henry Paulson, Bush II Treasury Secretary and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs, followed by the Obama Administration's efforts to put a floor on our losses and try to stimulate a recovery. Americans will be paying for Republican profligacy for decades to come, except for guys like Mitt Romney. But that's another blog. Read more!

Forever Stamps or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Postal Rate Increases

Millburn, New Jersey
19 July 2010

Everyone laughed at me two years ago when I spent $820 to buy 2,000 Forever Stamps. But I'm the one laughing now.

I'd known about Forever Stamps for perhaps three years but was wary of buying them. You buy a stamp today at today's first class rate and it's good forever, no matter how high the first class rate goes. At first glance, a great hedge against one of life's certainties - postal rate increases. It's like death and taxes. Right? Since 1958, the frequency of rate increases has gone from 5 years down to less than two years (1958 was the first increase in 26 years, the current 42 cent rate will be in effect for a mere 20 months). The typical increase used to be a penny, now its at least two cents - that's a 100% increase in the amount of each increase. Given the increases in both the frequency and the amounts of postal rate hikes, Forever Stamps could be one of the greatest inflation hedges since common stocks and home ownership. And even us disabled, retired guys have better things to do than counting stamps, buying small stamps and sticking two or more stamps on every letter to use up our pre-increase stamp supply. Nevertheless, my brilliant analysis seemed to put Forever Stamps into the category of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." After all, for the inflation hedge to work you'd need to buy enough stamps to last through some number of rate increases. What if the spread of electronic communications really does force the Post Office to close it's snail mail services? Let's be real, who would go out and buy a supply of more than one year's worth of stamps? Would you? Would anyone you know, even your friend who owns the business that advertises and ships by mail? Heck no. Only some wacko would go out and do something like that just to beat some hypothetical future rate increase imposed by an agency that some people, many of whom are decidedly not wackos, think is going to disappear.

And so, on May 1, 2008, 12 days before first class rates increased from 41 to 42 cents for the first ounce, I walked into the town Post Office and officially became the town's resident wacko.I asked the clerk if he had Forever Stamps. He said he did and also, on further inquiry, said he did not sell many and could not understand why more people did not use them. Figuring there must be a catch to what seemed, to me, like a great deal, I asked if there was a limit on the number I could buy. He said the limit was whatever amount he had in stock. As it turned out he had a pack of 2,000 stamps (that's 100, 20-stamp strips). And so, I impulsively invested $820 in 2,000 Forever Stamps, knowing that in a mere 12 days my stash would increase in value all the way up to $840. The clerk gave me a look like he wasn't quite sure whether to take my credit card or push the button that brings the Postal Police in to subdue customers who go off the deep end. People waiting on line behind me gave me lots of room when I turned to leave.

Returning home in triumph, I told my Beautiful Wife what I had wrought and, without looking up from her laptop, she said, as lovingly as she could manage between the chortles, "That's nice dear, you now have something to leave the children since you will die before using up the stamps." Now I will admit to making the purchase on impulse without actually calculating my stamp usage. So, for your amusement, here's how the math worked out. Most of my monthly bills are paid electronically and most of my correspondence is by e-mail. As a result, my actual need for stamps has fallen dramatically (which, multiplied by millions of Americans, is probably why the Postal Service needs more rate increases). Being generous, let's say the Beautiful Wife and me use ten stamps a month. Since we regularly spend 4 months a year in Israel, our "US Stamp Usage Year" is only 8 months long. That's 80 stamps a year. Divide 2,000 by 80 and you have enough stamps for 25 years. Given my multiple heart conditions, to say that in 2008 I had a life expectancy of 25 years would be generous.

The next week, the Beautiful Wife was standing on line in the Post Office. The clerk who made the sale was regaling a few people with the story of how some wacko had come in the week before and bought 2,000 Forever Stamps. The Beautiful Wife, always quick to defend her loved ones, shouted out, "That wacko is my husband!" The clerk started to apologize but she cut him off saying I had lost it years before and this purchase was no surprise. She then rushed home to tell me that I had become a town celebrity.

Now, whenever I get the chance, I remind the postal clerk, and everyone else who scoffed at me, that I'm the wacko who loaded up on the Forever Stamps. Only I do it with a note of triumph in my voice. When I first bought these stamps the second person I told about my brilliant idea was my good friend, Allan Sloan, a nationally prominent financial journalist. Allan, who does this for a living, had a jolly time mocking me and pointing out that he had written almost two years earlier that Forever Stamps might be a convenience but were certainly not a better inflation hedge than money market funds, Treasury paper or CDs. Of course, what Allan and everyone else who wrote me off as a wacko overlooked is that past performance really does not predict future results. Today he, like all those people who gave me lots of room at the Post Office, my children and even my Beautiful Wife, are not scoffing quite so loudly (or, more accurately, have found other good reasons to mock me). Why? Throughout the worst financial collapse since the 1930s and a recovery that may take most of the coming decade to return us to where we were before the housing bubble burst and the banks started doing the dead cat bounce, my Forever Stamps have done nothing but increase in value. Come next January 2, when first class rates go up to 46 cents for the first ounce, the value of my remaining stamps will have increased three times, gaining more than 12% (that's an annualized return of roughly 4.4% for the 32 months from May, 2008 through December, 2010). Not exactly pre-bubble bursting day trading profits but slow, steady, reliable and not too shabby under the circumstances. How's your portfolio been doing? Read more!

On The Road In Appalachis - Part 3 - Getting There Is Half The Fun

It's one thing to say you'll be at the elementary school in McRoberts, Kentucky at 8am on Monday, November 9, 2009. Its quite another to actually get there. My first instinct was to just get in the car on November 8 and drive. But I was told that it would be better for us to fly and rent a car. Just this once, I turned out to be right (and I will be the first to admit how rare an event that is).

McRoberts is one of those places to which you cannot get from here. We had to fly on US Airways, which us northeasterners know as the successor to such stellar enterprises as Mohawk and Allegheny. The nearest serious airport to McRoberts is in Charleston, West Virginia, to which one flies from Newark by changing planes in Charlotte, North Carolina (where Naomi, Liz and I were to meet up with Ranya). From Charleston we planned to drive a rented car two hours to Whitesburg, Kentucky, the Letcher County seat, leaving us about 30 minutes southwest of McRoberts.

Why bypass McRoberts to go on to Whitesburg? Whitesburg has the only motels close to McRoberts. The crown jewel of these is the Super 8 next to the truck stop. In addition to checking into our home away from home we would be joined by Vinny Green and Debby Singer, Jewish educators from California who, in all their spare time, work on Ranya's distributions. At least, that was the plan.

There's a reason US Airways is more remembered for emergency landings in the Hudson River than on-time performance. Our flight from Newark to Charlotte went well enough given the rough weather. We even met up with Ranya as planned. But when we got to the gate for the Charleston flight we were told that it had been canceled. No reason. No warning. Just canceled. But, not to worry, US Airways has programmed its computer to automatically find alternative flights for passengers they have just stranded. I guess they got tired of doing this by hand. Our new boarding passes were printed and ready when we arrived at the gate. One small problem. We were booked on a flight the next day.

Now, while I'm sure that Charlotte is a real happening place on a Sunday night, we could not fail to reach McRoberts as scheduled. Naomi explained to a Customer Service Representative that we were on a humanitarian mission. The CSR offered us a late flight the same day that would, with only one stop, get us to Charleston around 10 pm (after the car rental counter closes). Even if we could get a car we'd get to Whitesburg after midnight. This would leave us with enough time to get four hours' sleep before driving the last leg into McRoberts. No thanks. When we were 19 or 20 road trips could be done with little to no sleep. But that was 40 years ago. Today, my traveling companions and I need things like sleep and showers to function. So, Naomi decided to rent a car and drive to Whitesburg, cutting our travel time down from over 12 hours to about 4.

Appalachia is among the poorest parts of the country but it is also among the most beautiful. Our drive from Charlotte skirted the southwestern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains and took us into the Cumberland Mountains with their closely spaced ridge lines. The narrow, wooded valleys between the mountain tops are known as hollows, pronounced "hahllers", which is a really accurate description of the topography. There are those who think that replacing coal with tourism would both preserve Appalachia's natural beauty and provide a serious number of long-term jobs for the locals (something coal long-ago ceased doing).

If you've never driven through this area, do yourself a favor and get it on your itinerary. You'll need to lower your expectations about cuisine and hotels, for now, but the scenery alone is worth the trip. Except for the strip mines opened by blowing off mountain tops, which we'll get to in Part 4. You can drive into the hahllers but be careful. Our hosts warned us that we might be met by a resident with a shotgun. Moonshine and meth labs are material to the local economy and the proprietors do not take kindly to strangers. And there are some folks who just don't care for tourists gawking at them. If they liked crowds, they'd move down out of the hahller into the valley.

After a pleasant ride in good company (I'm leaving out the gossip, to protect the guilty), we finally arrived at the Super 8 where we were joined by Vinnie and Debby. The next morning we would make our way to McRoberts.

[To Be Continued]
Read more!

On The Road In Appalachia - Part 2 - Ranya the Shoe Lady

Uncle Bernie would have loved Ranya Kelly. Ranya once described herself to me as an ordinary suburban housewife, leading an ordinary life and not making much of a contribution to the world around her when, in 1991, she went to a mall and had what I can only describe as an epiphany. Ranya noticed a dumpster filled to overflowing with hundreds of shoe boxes. The next thing she remembers is dumpster-diving for boxes of what turned out to be new shoes. Ranya asked the shoe store about the shoes and was told that, at the end of a season, the shoe store simply threw out unsold inventory. And, no, they didn't mind at all if Ranya wanted to take their overstock and give it away to poor people. And so, Ranya Kelly, suburban housewife, became Ranya the Shoe Lady.

Ranya began working to develope networks of shoe stores and organizations serving shoeless people. She also discovered that it wasn't just shoes that were being thrown out. As word of her new-found life work spread, Ranya, receiving requests for help from all over, went national. Today, the Redistribution Center, Inc., Ranya Kelly, Founder and President, gathers and distributes millions of dollars worth of food, clothing, building supplies, toys, furniture, household goods, school and office supplies and, of course, shoes (Ranya long ago abandoned all hope of ever going out of the shoe business.)

Somewhere along the line Ranya met the Jews. One of the stereotypes of the Jewish world is that we all know each other and, working through various formal and informal organizations, networks and extended families, provide for the needs of our less-fortunate brethren (while, of course, doing business without much regard for things like borders). While most sterotypes arise from mindless prejudice, this one does have some truth to it. After a couple of centuries of living in ghettoes, exiled from our homeland, we learned to provide for ourselves. The Jews have gotten pretty good at moving money, goods and services around to help one another. But it's more than that. Central to the Jewish tradition are three things - study of Torah, prayer and acts of loving kindness. The latter is ingrained in us from an early age. Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, is obligated to do tzedakah (roughly translated as, "charity"). If you've got nothing yourself, you give a penny or you provide volunteer labor. If you've got a million bucks to spare you may as well ante up now because the Federation will find you. The obligation to do good works goes beyond fellow Jews. We have obligations not just to our brethren but also to to "the stranger within our gates", which is to say anyone in need. In the United States, this tradition has led an affluent community to direct its efforts toward any number of community-based organizations, without regard to religious affiliation.

For Ranya and the Jews, it was love at first sight. She found numerous kindred spirits, to say nothing of more sources of donations and targets for distributions. She also became a sought-after speaker at conferences and synagogue programs, delivering her message that what she does can be replicated in other communities. All you need to do is ask around and be ready for some creative dumpster-diving. Having been adopted by the Jews, Ranya met Naomi Eisenberger

Naomi is the Executive Director of the Good People Fund (having held the same position with a predecessor organization). The Good People Fund raises money for small groups and people in the US and Israel who work, usually on shoe-string budgets using volunteer labor, to do some good in this world. The Fund, which is small by US charitable organization standards, works mostly with community-based organizations for whom a $10,000 grant is a major gift. Naomi's Fund also makes donor-advised gifts to organizations approved by its Board. Naomi runs the Fund out of her New Jersey home with the occasional road trip to vet potential grant recipients or get involved in projects. Naomi has known Ranya for years and both directs cash donations to the Distribution Center and connects Ranya with local groups who could use her help.

Liz recently began to volunteer to help Naomi, handling some administrative tasks and helping to edit communications. The two are kindred spirits in that they have the talent to bring together people who, working together, can make a real difference in the lives of people who could use a break. Yes, dear reader, this is going to be one more tale of my wife doing good while I show up in time to eat.

Naomi has been working with an Appalachia-based organization called Family-to-Family and, through them, was introduced to people from a community center in McRoberts, Kentucky. McRoberts was a coal company town until the 1950s when the industry began to wind down and switch from deep tunnel mining to strip mining. Today any mining in the area involves blowing off the tops of mountains, spewing debris into local streams and creating lakes of sludge from the water and solid waste left over from refining coal. This leaves places like McRoberts with few jobs but lots of polluted drinking water and the occasional flood from a sludge lake. The coal companies and the politicians they own will tell you that all of this is safe. I'm not sure than someone whose land has been covered by a sludge flood would agree.

Economically-speaking, McRoberts is poor. The per capita income is about half that of the state average. Drug abuse is rampant (this is oxycontin country). Lots of people need clothing and basic household goods. These needs only increase in the winter as kerosene heaters burn down the houses they were supposed to just heat. But McRoberts is rich in its sense of community. Rich in people willing to help each other as best they can. People in McRoberts may. like Israelis, know that things can always get worse but, like Israelis, that doesn't stop them from getting on with their lives. And that's what got them onto Naomi's radar screen.

Naomi suggested to community representatives a distribution of needed items trucked in by Ranya the Shoe Lady. Naomi knew this could be done. But Naomi's audience consisted of people who have heard lots of promises from lots of outsiders that were never fulfilled. So when this Jewish lady from New Jersey (and, trust me, this is not a common sight in McRoberts) promised that someone known as Ranya the Shoe Lady from Denver would deliver enough clothing, shoes and hosehold goods to help dozens of families, the locals were understandably skeptical. Nevertheless, they agreed to the distribution, setting a date, lining up a location and identifying volunteers to do the heavy lifting. Naomi called in some of her own regular helpers and asked Liz if we would like to help out. And that's what got me on the road to McRoberts.

[TO BE CONTINUED]
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On The Road in Appalachia - Part 1 - Remembering Uncle Bernie

Uncle Bernie died on Thanksgiving Day. Uncle Bernie was a great uncle. He was funny, compassionate, committed to human rights and the mass consumption of good food, booze and, of course, the best cigars that could be found around the globe. Bernie was a photographer both for love and for making a living. Every photograph, slide and home movie had the same artist's touch that could be found in his professional work. If you ever see a news reel from WWII of a tank rolling over the cameraman, that was probably Uncle Bernie, lying in a ditch somewhere in Italy. Or the stills from Quo Vadis, shot while Bernie was back in Italy on a Fullbright Fellowship. Once, when walking through the wooden corridors of the Larchmont Beach Club lockers, Bernie stopped and pointed out a certain corner under a certain skylight. "I always liked the light at this spot," he said. "I used to take pictures of Amy [his younger daughter] right here."

To the rest of the world, Uncle Bernie was Bernard Birnbaum, a legendary producer for CBS News. He was compassionate and cared deeply for and about not only his family and the people he worked with but also many of the people whose lives he covered. At the age of 89 his big heart finally gave up. With my cousin Debbie's permission, I missed the funeral in order not to miss my flight to Tel Aviv. This is not so unusual in our family. Uncle Bernie would sometimes miss family gatherings because he would be in Italy, India, Vietnam or a few dozen other places.

Bernie went to work for CBS in 1951 and stayed for over 40 years. He didn't just produce TV news, he was one of the people who invented it. If you're old enough to remember shows like Omnibus and Camera Three or when the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite went from 15 to 30 minutes, then you remember what I knew as Uncle Bernie's shows. You young folks may have noticed his credits on Sunday Morning. During his career he covered serious topics like political conventions, the civil rights movement, the Eichmann trial, Vatican II, the Kennedy and Oswald assassinations, the Vietnam War and most of the rest of the history of the second half of the last century. But he also produced shows in a lighter vein, like the report on the Bossa Nova craze sweeping up from Brazil to the USA. Or stories about ordinary people living their lives which came to full fruition with the series "On The Road with Charles Kuralt." Bernie was famous for thinking of what would make a story hit home and then getting it on film. Like the mother of a Boston auto rental clerk who lived in fear of the Boston Strangler or a live interview with Marina Oswald just days after the assassination. The latter made Dan Rather into a national star (and a life-long friend).

Bernie never admitted how he got Mrs. Oswald on camera but his usual technique involved a lot of charm and winning someone's trust. Or sometimes it was just reverting back to his Brooklyn roots. Like that time he set up his film crew on a Jerusalem street across the street from the courthouse where the trial of Adolph Eichmann was about to begin. A man who objected to CBS News cluttering up his sidewalk leaned out from a balcony and started yelling at Bernie, first in Hebrew and then in Yiddush. That did it. Bernie says he told the guy a few things, also in Yiddush, using some expletives that we will delete here. Not 15 minutes later, Bernie, now lighter by two cigars and $50US had rented the balcony for his camera crew. Bernie thought the shot would be better from one story up.

One of the stories Uncle Bernie told me starts with Bernie having breakfast in a bar (a number of his stories start this way). This particular breakfast took place in late November, 1963 in Dallas. Bernie was having breakfast with Fred Friendly, then head of CBS News. They were discussing how best to cover the ongoing story of JFK's assassination. The networks' national news crews were packing up to follow the story from Dallas to Washington for the funeral and the start of the Johnson Administration. But Fred and Bernie concluded that the arrest and trial of JFK's alleged assassin was also major news worthy of leaving a national crew in Dallas with the resources to broadcast live. When word got out that CBS was staying, ABC and NBC also decided to stay. And so, Lee Harvey Oswald became the first person to be assassinated on live television. And, thanks to the then-high tech device of kinescope, his was also the first assassination to be shown on instant replay.

Uncle Bernie also had some of the character traits of an absent-minded professor (this amused the children while exasperating my Aunt Ronnie). For example, there was the time Uncle Bernie sat with Liz and I in his Larchmont living room and told us that he once had the opportunity to get a real insider's take on what had really gone on in Vietnem. Bernie having breakfast in a bar in Bangkok with a four-star general. The general said to Bernie, "You know, most people don't understand that Vietnam........" I never heard the rest of the story. Uncle Bernie suddenly remembered something that needed his attention, stood up, walked up the stairs and never came back to the story.

Bernie produced numerous documentaries over the years. But the one that gets referred to most often is "Christmas in Appalachia." With Charles Kuralt in front of the camera, Bernie brought into millions of homes the horrors of crushing poverty and environmental ruin wreaked upon people living in the wake of the coal industry. Christmas in Appalachia didn't just win Bernie his first Emmy award, it also helped stir a public debate that lead to the Johnson Administration declaring a War on Poverty.

Unfortunately, that war and much of its good intentions got lost in the jungles of Vietnam. Today, over 40 years after Uncle Bernie's show was broadcast, not all that much has changed. I got a lesson in poverty and compassion in early November when I went On the Road in Appalchia with Ranya the Shoe Lady.

[To be continued.] Read more!

The Recession Is Over

Millburn, New Jersey
29 October 2009

Today, the 80th anniversary of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the US Government announced that the recession of 2008-2009 is officially over.

So, if you or anyone you know is still unemployed and about to lose benefits, owns a small business that is about to go under, has a home heading into foreclosure or can no longer afford to maintain health insurance, stop whining. or tell your friend to stop whining. Haven't you heard? The recession is over. Read more!