Thursday, November 25, 2010
Post-election news: US is essentially sound and will recover
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This column, no matter how disgusted, can no longer ignore politics. People of East Midtown Manhattan, congratulating themselves of their rationality in electing all their Democratic candidates, must not forget that the angry and irrational Carl P. Paladino, while getting 11% of the Manhattan vote, still scored higher than his statewide 34% in Staten Island and Nassau.
First, the good news: American public is basically sane, as evidenced by the fact that the higher profile rabble-rousers, winners of party primaries, taking advantage of our fellow citizens' widespread anger towards self-perpetuating, selfish and useless politicians of all stripes, driven by the recession, hopelessness and joblessness, lost the elections in November, when sanity returned. Unworthy Senate candidates in Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada and California lost, while more rational others, also programless but using the slogans of constitutionality, cutting taxes and government spending, and getting rid of socialism in government, overwhelmed the Democratic House of Representatives, potentially sowing confusion. When interviewed, six leaders of the main tea party groups condemned Socialism and big government, but would not disendorse Social Security and Medicare, the most overtly socialistic programs. So there, we are bound to be governed by confusion on the Federal level, unless rational cooperation prevails.
Now the bad news: cooperation seems doomed. The worst is lack of inter-party cooperation on external affairs, something that held together both Democrats and Republicans throughout the wars of the 20th century, including the Iraq war in 2003. Now President Barack Obama has negotiated a continuation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with Russia’s President Medvedev, which was prenegotiated in the US with the Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the GOP lead senator, only to be cancelled on November 18, “because it needs more time” beyond the lame-duck season. The Administration had agreed to a quid-pro-quo $80B for modernization of the US nuclear weapons program, increased by a $44B sweetener for the next five years, bur Sen. Kyle pulled out.
The NPT program, called New Start, is the continuation of Pres. Ronald Reagan's 1970 NPT that immortalized his signature "Trust but verify" line. It opened the USSR and US nuclear manufacturing and storage facilities to inspectors, trimmed literally thousands of weapons and rockets from the arsenals of both nations, and, at the collapse of the USSR, gave Americans the opportunity to aid the safekeeping of nuclear weapons in both Russia and its former republics from weapons thieves. The treaty has 189 signatories, and five admitted weapons holders, and provides for limitation, inspection and control. India, Pakistan and Israel (unadmitted) are latecomer weapon owners, Iran has withdrawn, North Korea ditto, after transgressions. The need for early restoration of the treaty is to assure US and Russian cooperation in reduction of dangerous arms and limitation of armaments, particularly involving Iran. The mutual inspections lapsed last year and the non-ratification hurts US peace efforts and the confidence that the outside world has for US administration. The treaty, after 25 years, was extended forever, with quinquennial reaffirmations, and US had two meetings towards such action in April and May 2010, with strong indications that re-ratification would take place, until Sen. Kyl withdrew and his seven GOP co-sponsors faded, all but Sen. Richard G. Luger of Indiana. Three former republican Secretaries of State, Henry A. Kissinger, James A. Baker and Brent Scowcroft, have rallied behind President Obama, as well as current Secretary, Hillary R. Clinton, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and VP Joseph R. Biden, the point man. It is essential to close this ratification before the January invasion of the new senators, who are already clamoring for a say.
Alas, the Senate GOP Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has let it be known that his primary policy objective is to deny President Obama a second term, in 2012 .The new NPT, needed for the US as a weapon for world peace, would enhance the president, therefore ratification is denied, regardless of the interests of the US. This seems a dire forecast for the next two years, with US idly stranded in the world's waters, churning in a float of filibusters and vetoes. Already McConnell has cancelled a conference requested by the President, obviously under the principle of not wanting to be dragged into solving the nation's and world's problems, a strategy for being able to filibuster and vote down the Administration's solutions, under the flags of cutting the budget, reducing taxes, saving the Constitution and protecting us from Socialists. Maybe he should declare his secondary objective, to deny the presidential candidacy to Sarah Palin, since she is sure to lose to Obama.
Granted that President Obama overallocated time to his projects, and shortcut others. His bailouts of banks and GM have been condemned by opponents, who do not consider that jobs will not come without manufacture, and neither will the recovery from export imbalance. Since the 1950s the US industry component of the GDP has gone from 50% to 22%, of which manufacturing has dropped to 14%. Exports are down to $1,237B, vs. $2,103B imports, covering 59% of the latter.
There should be no satisfaction in the fact that UK exports figure is also bad, at 72%, India’s is 62% and Portugal’s is 61; the high exporters now are Russia at 161% ($471B), China at 126% ($1,429B), Germany at 122% ($1,448B): even Japan holds at 103% ($781B) and Canada does well at 104% ($448B). Why US survives is that we have a huge GDP, of $14,700T, and a lot of beach land to sell, and can provide agricultural products to all the big producers but Canada, and ours is a secure currency. Retaining US dollar as a stable world currency is another Obama bailout product sneered at by ungrateful Republican bankers, who made huge rake-ins of bailout money but will not concede extra taxation .In 2009 just 1% of US earners gathered in 27% of GNP; in the 1970s it was 7%. Tax records show that up to 1980s America's rich and responsible citizens at various emergency periods willingly paid up to 70% of marginal income tax, to get the US out of various ditches; only the current greedy nouveaux resist what was considered a citizenly duty. The rich did not create jobs in the Bush years, and are still hiding $1T in profits abroad, waiting for a special tax break.
McConnell's third objective, to eradicate the Obama Health Reform, should give him another pause. The insurance and medical professions consider the Act suitable for their objectives, and a new one is not worth straining at. The Obama basic scheme retains the insurance and basic private medicine schemes, and can produce the missing coverage for the citizenry. Surprise: it is less Socialist than SS and Medicare.
Actually, if reason comes back to overcome greed and fear, the two party system might get up compromises for survival, budget cures and joblessness. We are missing job i.e. manufacture opportunities in nuclear plant, renewable energy and water purification technology, for the world.
Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. He also thanks NYTimes, the Economist and internet sources.
This column, no matter how disgusted, can no longer ignore politics. People of East Midtown Manhattan, congratulating themselves of their rationality in electing all their Democratic candidates, must not forget that the angry and irrational Carl P. Paladino, while getting 11% of the Manhattan vote, still scored higher than his statewide 34% in Staten Island and Nassau.
First, the good news: American public is basically sane, as evidenced by the fact that the higher profile rabble-rousers, winners of party primaries, taking advantage of our fellow citizens' widespread anger towards self-perpetuating, selfish and useless politicians of all stripes, driven by the recession, hopelessness and joblessness, lost the elections in November, when sanity returned. Unworthy Senate candidates in Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada and California lost, while more rational others, also programless but using the slogans of constitutionality, cutting taxes and government spending, and getting rid of socialism in government, overwhelmed the Democratic House of Representatives, potentially sowing confusion. When interviewed, six leaders of the main tea party groups condemned Socialism and big government, but would not disendorse Social Security and Medicare, the most overtly socialistic programs. So there, we are bound to be governed by confusion on the Federal level, unless rational cooperation prevails.
Now the bad news: cooperation seems doomed. The worst is lack of inter-party cooperation on external affairs, something that held together both Democrats and Republicans throughout the wars of the 20th century, including the Iraq war in 2003. Now President Barack Obama has negotiated a continuation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with Russia’s President Medvedev, which was prenegotiated in the US with the Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the GOP lead senator, only to be cancelled on November 18, “because it needs more time” beyond the lame-duck season. The Administration had agreed to a quid-pro-quo $80B for modernization of the US nuclear weapons program, increased by a $44B sweetener for the next five years, bur Sen. Kyle pulled out.
The NPT program, called New Start, is the continuation of Pres. Ronald Reagan's 1970 NPT that immortalized his signature "Trust but verify" line. It opened the USSR and US nuclear manufacturing and storage facilities to inspectors, trimmed literally thousands of weapons and rockets from the arsenals of both nations, and, at the collapse of the USSR, gave Americans the opportunity to aid the safekeeping of nuclear weapons in both Russia and its former republics from weapons thieves. The treaty has 189 signatories, and five admitted weapons holders, and provides for limitation, inspection and control. India, Pakistan and Israel (unadmitted) are latecomer weapon owners, Iran has withdrawn, North Korea ditto, after transgressions. The need for early restoration of the treaty is to assure US and Russian cooperation in reduction of dangerous arms and limitation of armaments, particularly involving Iran. The mutual inspections lapsed last year and the non-ratification hurts US peace efforts and the confidence that the outside world has for US administration. The treaty, after 25 years, was extended forever, with quinquennial reaffirmations, and US had two meetings towards such action in April and May 2010, with strong indications that re-ratification would take place, until Sen. Kyl withdrew and his seven GOP co-sponsors faded, all but Sen. Richard G. Luger of Indiana. Three former republican Secretaries of State, Henry A. Kissinger, James A. Baker and Brent Scowcroft, have rallied behind President Obama, as well as current Secretary, Hillary R. Clinton, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and VP Joseph R. Biden, the point man. It is essential to close this ratification before the January invasion of the new senators, who are already clamoring for a say.
Alas, the Senate GOP Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has let it be known that his primary policy objective is to deny President Obama a second term, in 2012 .The new NPT, needed for the US as a weapon for world peace, would enhance the president, therefore ratification is denied, regardless of the interests of the US. This seems a dire forecast for the next two years, with US idly stranded in the world's waters, churning in a float of filibusters and vetoes. Already McConnell has cancelled a conference requested by the President, obviously under the principle of not wanting to be dragged into solving the nation's and world's problems, a strategy for being able to filibuster and vote down the Administration's solutions, under the flags of cutting the budget, reducing taxes, saving the Constitution and protecting us from Socialists. Maybe he should declare his secondary objective, to deny the presidential candidacy to Sarah Palin, since she is sure to lose to Obama.
Granted that President Obama overallocated time to his projects, and shortcut others. His bailouts of banks and GM have been condemned by opponents, who do not consider that jobs will not come without manufacture, and neither will the recovery from export imbalance. Since the 1950s the US industry component of the GDP has gone from 50% to 22%, of which manufacturing has dropped to 14%. Exports are down to $1,237B, vs. $2,103B imports, covering 59% of the latter.
There should be no satisfaction in the fact that UK exports figure is also bad, at 72%, India’s is 62% and Portugal’s is 61; the high exporters now are Russia at 161% ($471B), China at 126% ($1,429B), Germany at 122% ($1,448B): even Japan holds at 103% ($781B) and Canada does well at 104% ($448B). Why US survives is that we have a huge GDP, of $14,700T, and a lot of beach land to sell, and can provide agricultural products to all the big producers but Canada, and ours is a secure currency. Retaining US dollar as a stable world currency is another Obama bailout product sneered at by ungrateful Republican bankers, who made huge rake-ins of bailout money but will not concede extra taxation .In 2009 just 1% of US earners gathered in 27% of GNP; in the 1970s it was 7%. Tax records show that up to 1980s America's rich and responsible citizens at various emergency periods willingly paid up to 70% of marginal income tax, to get the US out of various ditches; only the current greedy nouveaux resist what was considered a citizenly duty. The rich did not create jobs in the Bush years, and are still hiding $1T in profits abroad, waiting for a special tax break.
McConnell's third objective, to eradicate the Obama Health Reform, should give him another pause. The insurance and medical professions consider the Act suitable for their objectives, and a new one is not worth straining at. The Obama basic scheme retains the insurance and basic private medicine schemes, and can produce the missing coverage for the citizenry. Surprise: it is less Socialist than SS and Medicare.
Actually, if reason comes back to overcome greed and fear, the two party system might get up compromises for survival, budget cures and joblessness. We are missing job i.e. manufacture opportunities in nuclear plant, renewable energy and water purification technology, for the world.
Wally Dobelis and the T&V staff wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. He also thanks NYTimes, the Economist and internet sources.
Labels: jon kyl, Medvedev, Mitch McConnell, New Start, Ronald Reagan
Thursday, November 11, 2010
More adventures in MTA bus travel
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
To continue my bus-riding in NY adventure series, let me bring you into the new Select Bus service, which is on my favorite M15 line, replacing Limited service between Houston and 125th Sts.
We had a civilized $14 tout compris lunch with friends at 34th and 3rd, and decided to take the M15 back to home country. At corner of 2nd Ave, noting a double bus stopping and people entering through all doors, we rushed to the front of the bus. The driver pointed us to two wending machines. Aha, the new system, I thought, and pulled our trusty Metro cards, and inserted. It was easy, a start button, a print button, a finish button, and I had two tickets. But the bus was gone.
Noting another bus, stopped 50 yards north, we rushed there, in time. The driver took our paper tickets and explained that we were now on a local M15, where the old Metro card system still prevails. He would accept the tickets, but in a Limited, pardon, Select bus system we should carry them. Select runs on the honor system, but the buses would be intermittently boarded by teams of inspectors, and if you have no ticket, that’s a $100 fine. Is that enough to offset the cost of inspectors? Yea, negative; you’re right, but Mayor Michel J.Bloomberg is shooting for M15 to become 20% more efficient, to take the load off the 4-5-6 Lexington Ave subway lines, stuffed to the gills. As an admirer of M15 which downtown spreads out like a tentacle, with one branch on Water Street providing the Stuyvesant Towners civilized transport to their Wall Street jobs, I am all for it, particularly because the 2nd Avenue Subway will never make it in my lifetime, budgets being shot down, and this may be the cheap alternative. So there, the bus rider takes some of it on the chin, but transportation may improve. Transfers, by the way, will be available, the Metro card recognizes Select purchases as well as ordinary ones.
Mayor Michael Bloombrg has been a transportation improvement enthusiast, first trying for “congestion pricing,” attempting to limit traffic below 86th Street to cars that pay an $8 toll (trucks $21) in his attempt to cut carbon emissions in NYC 30% by 2030. He also wanted to reinstall the trolley cars in Red Hook, and succeed in implementing the countdown traffic clocks, to limit death toll (it’s been a long time, in Europe the countdowns have been in use for years, and in Melbourne, AU a clicker of increasing beat time and sound was rushing street crossers in the 1990s, I remember. His bus priorities, bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, have been a mixed blessing, slowing down traffic, but nevertheless may be sending more people to using public transport.
In all this, the name of his Commissioner of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan comes up, prompting my reviewers to ask the usual questions. She is a Columbia Law graduate, until 2007 a SVP with Parsons-Buckerhoff project management engineering firm (14,000 employees, 150 offices world wide), so she knows a lot.
Not all changes are producing happiness. Discussing the changes with a neighbor, some of the negatives in Mayor Bloomberg’s bus schemes surfaced. For one, West-to-East bus travel has been curtailed.. Until recently we took the M104 line from Lincoln Center down Broadway and it turned and proceeded East on 42nd street, connecting people to Eastside transfers and getting people home to Tudor City. Hill, or to the UN. East on 42nd, goodbye.
More important to the Gramercy Park area, the M1 on Fifth Avenue no longer turns onto Park Avenue at 40th Street to run down PAS. This means all buses (the M1, 2, 3, 5) proceed down 5th Avenue, making a very long walk home for people who live on the Eastside. In addition, bus service all the way downtown has also been cut back or rerouted, a blow for those who like to try to avoid subways because of congestion, bad knees. etc.--and very hard on the truly handicapped. .Our area has been particularly hard hit with changes: The M7 (which went down Broadway from the Westside to Union Square, has changed to 7th Avenue--no more Eastside connection. And then there is the M6 with route changes away from Park Avenue. as well.
On a different topic, the 13th Precinct, we thank Arlene Harrison, sometimes called the Mayor of Gramercy Park, for reminding me that we have a new Commanding Officer at the 13th Precinct, Deputy Inspector Ted Berntsen.
This twenty-year veteran Police Officer made his first patrols in Greenwich Village for the 6th Precinct, earned his stripes serving the East Village-based 9th Precinct and went on to hold commands in Midtown South Precinct and most recently, the 17th Precinct. We offer the new CO and his predecessor, Deputy Inspector Timothy Beaudette, who was recently promoted and reassigned to Midtown North, our best wishes.
Wally Dobelis thanks Mary Orovan and other local bus enthusiasts for information and suggestions..
To continue my bus-riding in NY adventure series, let me bring you into the new Select Bus service, which is on my favorite M15 line, replacing Limited service between Houston and 125th Sts.
We had a civilized $14 tout compris lunch with friends at 34th and 3rd, and decided to take the M15 back to home country. At corner of 2nd Ave, noting a double bus stopping and people entering through all doors, we rushed to the front of the bus. The driver pointed us to two wending machines. Aha, the new system, I thought, and pulled our trusty Metro cards, and inserted. It was easy, a start button, a print button, a finish button, and I had two tickets. But the bus was gone.
Noting another bus, stopped 50 yards north, we rushed there, in time. The driver took our paper tickets and explained that we were now on a local M15, where the old Metro card system still prevails. He would accept the tickets, but in a Limited, pardon, Select bus system we should carry them. Select runs on the honor system, but the buses would be intermittently boarded by teams of inspectors, and if you have no ticket, that’s a $100 fine. Is that enough to offset the cost of inspectors? Yea, negative; you’re right, but Mayor Michel J.Bloomberg is shooting for M15 to become 20% more efficient, to take the load off the 4-5-6 Lexington Ave subway lines, stuffed to the gills. As an admirer of M15 which downtown spreads out like a tentacle, with one branch on Water Street providing the Stuyvesant Towners civilized transport to their Wall Street jobs, I am all for it, particularly because the 2nd Avenue Subway will never make it in my lifetime, budgets being shot down, and this may be the cheap alternative. So there, the bus rider takes some of it on the chin, but transportation may improve. Transfers, by the way, will be available, the Metro card recognizes Select purchases as well as ordinary ones.
Mayor Michael Bloombrg has been a transportation improvement enthusiast, first trying for “congestion pricing,” attempting to limit traffic below 86th Street to cars that pay an $8 toll (trucks $21) in his attempt to cut carbon emissions in NYC 30% by 2030. He also wanted to reinstall the trolley cars in Red Hook, and succeed in implementing the countdown traffic clocks, to limit death toll (it’s been a long time, in Europe the countdowns have been in use for years, and in Melbourne, AU a clicker of increasing beat time and sound was rushing street crossers in the 1990s, I remember. His bus priorities, bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, have been a mixed blessing, slowing down traffic, but nevertheless may be sending more people to using public transport.
In all this, the name of his Commissioner of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan comes up, prompting my reviewers to ask the usual questions. She is a Columbia Law graduate, until 2007 a SVP with Parsons-Buckerhoff project management engineering firm (14,000 employees, 150 offices world wide), so she knows a lot.
Not all changes are producing happiness. Discussing the changes with a neighbor, some of the negatives in Mayor Bloomberg’s bus schemes surfaced. For one, West-to-East bus travel has been curtailed.. Until recently we took the M104 line from Lincoln Center down Broadway and it turned and proceeded East on 42nd street, connecting people to Eastside transfers and getting people home to Tudor City. Hill, or to the UN. East on 42nd, goodbye.
More important to the Gramercy Park area, the M1 on Fifth Avenue no longer turns onto Park Avenue at 40th Street to run down PAS. This means all buses (the M1, 2, 3, 5) proceed down 5th Avenue, making a very long walk home for people who live on the Eastside. In addition, bus service all the way downtown has also been cut back or rerouted, a blow for those who like to try to avoid subways because of congestion, bad knees. etc.--and very hard on the truly handicapped. .Our area has been particularly hard hit with changes: The M7 (which went down Broadway from the Westside to Union Square, has changed to 7th Avenue--no more Eastside connection. And then there is the M6 with route changes away from Park Avenue. as well.
On a different topic, the 13th Precinct, we thank Arlene Harrison, sometimes called the Mayor of Gramercy Park, for reminding me that we have a new Commanding Officer at the 13th Precinct, Deputy Inspector Ted Berntsen.
This twenty-year veteran Police Officer made his first patrols in Greenwich Village for the 6th Precinct, earned his stripes serving the East Village-based 9th Precinct and went on to hold commands in Midtown South Precinct and most recently, the 17th Precinct. We offer the new CO and his predecessor, Deputy Inspector Timothy Beaudette, who was recently promoted and reassigned to Midtown North, our best wishes.
Wally Dobelis thanks Mary Orovan and other local bus enthusiasts for information and suggestions..
Labels: Mary Orovan
