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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 4, 2010
/ 20 Shevat 5770
Forward to the Past
By
Paul Greenberg
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Some things still surprise. Even about politicians. Barney Frank, for example. He's just come out for disbanding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Yes, that Barney Frank. The very same. The chairman of the House Financial Committee and the moving force indeed, the uncontrollable force behind Fannie and Freddie, those terrible twins and financial tumors whose bad loans led to the meltdown of the housing market. And then to general panic as banks, insurers and investment firms followed suit.
Now this same Barney Frank has come out for putting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his old sweethearts, out of their and the taxpayers' misery. Chairman Frank needs to be told that somebody is making perfectly sane policy recommendations in his name. At last.
This isn't at all like the man. Or the rest of the Great Thinkers who for years explained how we could all borrow our way to prosperity regardless of race, color or credit-worthiness.
What a turnaround. It's as if Chris Dodd, the senator from Countrywide Financial, had come out against friendly loans for pols.
It's as if the Hon. Timothy Geithner, secretary of the Treasury and patron of Wall Street in that ascending order, were to come out for everybody paying his taxes on time. Or announce that he favored breaking up the United States of Goldman Sachs.
Secretary Geithner sounds as if he's all for Chairman Frank's one good idea a decade. Naturally he's in no hurry to carry it out. Would he favor disbanding Fannie and Freddie? "We are committed to propose a set of detailed reforms beginning this year." But: "I don't think we're going to be able to legislate that until that process can start until next year, because it's just a complicated thing to get right."
Mr. Geithner seems unable to make a clear decision unless he's in panic mode. And then it may be a bad one. The atrocious this administration can accomplish in a New York minute, the sensible takes a little longer, like forever. With this bunch, anything worth doing is worth delaying.
It's not that this administration lacks good people. It's just so easy to easy to forget that they're there. They tend to disappear from view for long periods of time. The other day, good old Paul Volcker Ronald Reagan's old chairman of the Federal Reserve suddenly turned up. Usually he's the man who isn't there. Technically, he's an economic adviser to the president. He must be the one in charge of offering good advice that's never taken.
These days Mr. Volcker, a man who learns from the past, perhaps because he was so much a part of it, wants to restrain the kind of speculation by banks-cum-investment houses that led to the financial panic the country has just sweated through. His ideal is the old Glass-Steagall Act of the New Deal, which insured the banks but only if they remained banks rather than investment houses, hedge funds, credit-default swappers or casinos by some other name.
Lest we forget, the New Deal was overflowing with ideas good and bad, sensible and wacky much as this administration is. Its history is a whole Alexandrian library of what worked and what didn't. From federal deposit insurance, which still works well, to the Resettlement Administration, which never did. (Any collectivist dream for American agriculture is doomed from conception, American farmers being American farmers.) The New Deal inaugurated both Social Security, which still works smoothly, and the NRA, a vast wage-and-price fixing scheme that only made a terrible economy worse.
But all these volumes of experience on history's shelves grow dusty as unconsulted and unemployed as so many Americans these days. Where is this administration's Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps? That is, Where are the jobs? Instead we get phony figures for jobs-created-and-saved, a highly imaginative if not downright fictive category. Plus unprecedented, and ruinous, long-term deficits that buoy the economy about as well as a 10-ton anchor. Let us return, or at least turn, to the past; that would be progress.
It would take some moxie to erect Glass-Steagall's old wall between ordinary commercial banks and huge speculative investment houses like AIG, which dared call itself an insurance firm. Just as it would take some courage to finally kill Fannie and Freddie, both of which turned out to be the evil twin in this story. Just as it took political courage for Ronald Reagan to let Paul Volcker tame inflation in the early 1980s, a painful but necessary undertaking.
But this administration is deeply infected by the most common malady of the age: a presentism that approaches every experience as unprecedented, unique, one-of-a-kind that requires action NOW! That was pretty much Timothy Geithner's excuse for bailing out AIG with billions of our tax dollars. And making the auto companies dependents of the U.S. Treasury.
It's the spirit of a feckless age: Act now, think later if at all. A crisis, to quote this president's consigliere, Rahm Emanuel, is a terrible thing to waste.
If this crew consults history at all, it is only to cherry-pick examples that favor the policies it had intended to follow all along. Instead of history guiding it, it manipulates history. As in its Fable No. 1 that Barack Obama ended the Second Great Depression in record time.
The alternative explanation for the country's continuing economic doldrums is much too prosaic, like reality itself, to be taken seriously by our intelligentsia: that the Great Obama with his magic wand only aggravated an old-style financial panic, turning an overdue recession into a severe and persistent one. But to consider that possibility would require something alien to the spirit of these times: historical perspective.
In his State of the Union address, careful listeners will have noted that the president did take his share of the blame not for his actions so much as for not explaining them as well as he should have to us simpletons out here in the country. Have you noticed? Bad judgment on the part of our intellectuals has a way of being accompanied by lofty condescension.
Paul Greenberg Archives
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