Month: May 2003

A friend of mine, in reading my comments yesterday on the peace process, responded by saying that “you know, there will never really be peace in the Middle East.” (Well, close enough, anyway). And while it’s not impossible, he’s quite right in that it’s wholly implausible, at least in the near future. Their is a total lack of political will, on either side, to make any concessions at this point. And who could blame them? After the last major “initiatives” failed, the process has stalled completely.

Much of the blame has fallen to Arafat for this, though that is only partially true. He has. without a doubt, consistently failed to reign in militants during the latest uprising and violence. Granted, Sharon has provided the Palestinian leadership no real oportunity to do so, as this would require some form of reciprocation from the Israeli leadership. Not to mention Sharon also provided the spark with his visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in September, 2000. Much discussion has also laid blame on Arafat, for his unwillingness to accept less than a fair amount of land in return for permanent borders (see Slate for an excellent discussion on why the negotiations failed). If an outside government attempted to impose these kind of conditions on, say, New Jersey, I don’t think they would be accepted by the leadership there, either.

Of course, the whole situation arises from the catch-22, summed up quite nicely by Ghassan Khatib, labor minister in the Palestinian Authority, who writes on BitterLemons.org of the new “Roadmap”:

This repeats the long-standing American mistake present in both Tenet and Zinni’s attempts, and tries to mix the cause with the effect by adopting the Israeli understanding that the Israeli occupation and its atrocities are a response to Palestinian violence, while Palestinians understand their resistance to be an effect of the Israeli occupation and reoccupation, the killing of Palestinian civilians, collective punishment and other violations of Palestinian human rights.

The statement strikes to the heart of the intractability of the issue, and underscores the comment made by my friend last night. Unless a political leadership emerges, on one side, if not both, that is willing to take the risk and break the cycle, all the “roadmaps” in the world won’t make a difference.

Phew, I’m just about caught up with all my current events…

So, it appears that the old bait and switch is happening yet again in the Middle East peace situation. Now, since a Palestinian leader that has the potential to enforce a cessation of violence on that side has actually been put in place, it’s time to create a new condition for resuming peace talks.

Now, Sharon says he requires the Palenstinians to drop the “right of return” issue before mediation can begin. The moving of the goal line is, rightly so, going to earn him no sympathies with the Palestinians. This even contradicts the “supposed” road map published by the Quartet, which leaves the issue until later stages.

Why shouldn’t Abbas require a withdrawl from all settlements before he’ll agree to anything himself? And why is this buried in the article? Shouldn’t it be headline news?

Olympia Snowe’s proposal for a dividend tax exemption is one that I can support, if my choice was hers or the current President’s proposal.

My opposition to the dividend tax as initially proposed is simply that it rewards those who have already been more than adequately compensated. If we take a look at the 2002 Citigroup Proxy Statement regarding stock ownership, we find that CEO Sanford Weill owns 22,777,290 shares of stock. At $0.80 a share, he would pull in the full $18,221,832 every year tax-free. Considering his current salary, additional perks, bonuses, and stock options, he is far from living the “poor life”.

On othe other hand, I currently own 130 shares of Citigroup stock, which would net me $104 in dividends prior to taxes. Excluding taxation, I would tax home an additional $40, which might buy myself and some friends dinner at an inexpensive restaurant. In addition, most of the rest of my dividends from investments, like many other middle class wage-earners, occur in tax-exempt accounts such as IRAs and 401ks, that would not be assisted by this proposal.

Capping the exclusion at $1,000 would ensure that most individuals would receive some tax-free income, while not creating a new loophole for corporate greed (restricted stock while emptying the coffers through dividends, anyone?).

Besides which, the oft-cited-yet-wholly unlikely stimulus effect was found to be bogus, even using the GOP’s favorite method of dynamic scoring. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), responding to criticism that the deficit projections don’t accurately reflect their stimulative impact, ran a set of models to try to determine their impact. The end result–the current tax cut plan, which includes an exclusion for dividends from taxation, provided no long term benefit to the economy (in fact, they did worse, causing the 2014 deficit projection to be higher).

As it appears the pressure is on to vote for the ridiculous tax cuts currently proposed, I would like to offer an alternative suggestion.

I would suggest that, rather than spend several hundred billion dollars on a dividend-tax-reduction scheme, Congress instead focus on ensuring that higher education is truly affordable for everyone who seeks to pursue a higher education degree. While various tax credits, subsidies, and grants exist (see the IRS for more info), a cleaner, simpler system should instead replace the current tangle of tax credits and income reductions, with an expanded grant system to subsidize higher education for low-income students and their families.

Currently, anyone filing a tax return, for his/her self, spouse, or other dependent, can, if the filer does not meet any other credit criteria, claim an adjustment of up to $3,000 against gross income (through 2005). This adjustment should immediately replace all the existing tax credits and restrictions, allowing any individual to take an adjustment to gross income up to the full amount he or she paid during the given year. In addition, if both a legal guardian and a dependent paid a porportional amount, both should be allowed to deduct against gross income the amount that each paid. In addition, if a corporation or other institution provided money, the institution should also be allowed to deduct the full amount of the higher education funding provided. In the event that the amount paid (combined with other credits and adjustments) reduced taxable income a negative value, the additional loss should be allowed to be carried over to the following year, to count as an adjustment against future taxable income (much as stock losses exceeding $3,000 are allowed to carry over).

A tax credit for non-itemizers, in the amount of $500 per semester, indexed to inflation, should be made available. For those whole file itemized returns, the costs of books, supplies, and other reasonable expenses relating to educational study should be deductable. Off-campus students should be allowed to deduct any mileage encountered as part of their commute.

The existing Federal loans and grants program should be enhanced to ensure that among those students wishing to pursue higher education that live below the minimum “living wage” value for their region should receive at least 75% of their higher education expenses covered by federal grants, rather than through loans. The lower- and middle-income families should receive automatic grants, according to a tiered process, that would offset some of the growing financial burden of higher education.

Higher education is a major investment for both the individual and society, and both accrue the benefits of a well-educated population. Ensuring that the double taxation on education is eliminated should be a major goal, as well as ensuring that no individual should be denied entry on the basis of affordability. After all, the class mobility that defines America depends on this remaining true.

Francesco Sisci, in the English language Asia Times (published out of Hong Kong, according to their web site), writes that These expectations [by those seeing SARS as a vehicle for reform in China] will not necessarily be fulfilled – China can’t do what others want it to do.

I wish Sisci would have provided more detail on this statement, rather than merely highlighting it and then moving on to describing nightmare scenarios for worldwide calamity. In a related article, Sisci believes that the leadership has become preoccupied with stability to the degree that they have failed to undertake the necessary political modifications required to handle such crises as SARS, while also lamenting that too much “internal democracy” has taken root. While I take issue with this (if it were a “democracy”, after all, the electorate would exercise an oversight role that would serve as a check on the balance of power), he does go on to point out that additional external democracy, outside the Communist Party, needs to take place.

However, the source of my contention with both articles is that neither details the obstacles, from someone with a closer perspective than I, that must be overcome for the government to evolve in to a set of robust democractic institutions. I would imagine dropping the adherence to stability, while encouraging the population to become more expressive (rather than shutting down internal debate), would go a long way.

Earlier, I wrote about Japan’s response to the SARS “epidemic” and how the country’s Health ministry seems woefully unprepared (witness the Dioxin interview). There also exists a huge propensity toward construction in Japan, as I can atest to by the fact that there seemed to be no stream or river I came across in two weeks that didn’t have concrete banks. Apparently, though, the US has its own construction subsidy in the Army Corps.

The Army Corps is one of the most bizarre bureaucracies in the federal government and one of the most effective at generating work to keep itself busy. From its roots as a tiny regiment in George Washington’s army, it has grown into a public works behemoth with 35,000 employees—more than the departments of Labor, Education, and Energy combined. A third of them work on military programs that are usually uncontroversial—the recent flap over the contract to Halliburton in Iraq was an exception—but the rest focus on civil works that reflect the agency’s addictions to concrete and the control of nature. The corps has dredged and deepened America’s ports and harbors, armored and manhandled America’s rivers, and pumped sand onto America’s beaches. It has built thousands of dams, dikes, locks, levees, seawalls, and floodgates, often justified by dubious economic benefits. And in the late 1990s, under leaders who behaved like dot-com executives seeking to increase market share—”Seek Growth Opportunities” was actually one of three planks of the agency’s “Corps Vision”—the corps mission expanded to include construction of schools and sewage plants, cleanup of hazardous and radioactive waste, and massive restoration projects designed to revive ecosystems it damaged in the past. It is now overseeing an $8 billion effort to resuscitate the Florida Everglades, the largest environmental project in world history.

In a rare instance of wholehearted agreement, I find myself happy that the Bush administration is actually attempting to reign in the Army Corps (thank you, Slate). Some of these projects that have been budgeted are huge, expensive, wasteful, and destructive, tailored to narrow special intersts at the expense of local communities. Not to mention that they have both created mess, such as the Everglades, but are now involved in undoing their original creations. It is unfortunate that it has taken so long for anyone to attempt to reign them in.

I wonder if all those signs that say “God Bless America” and American flags are made in China, like nearly everything else…

Another week, and what a morning. I woke up only slightly late for a change, only to have my electric razor die in the shower before I was finished. Then, once I made it (scruffily) out to the car, I found that my gallon jug of water had ruptured on the floor of the front seat and had soaked the floor of the passenger side. After 10 minutes of rubbing with towels, I gave up and headed in to work, only slightly late. And I think I had to stop at every traffic light along the way, too…

Oh, looks like Rutgersfest last Friday was a fun time. The Daily Targum writes that the concert [was] headlined by the Massachusetts-based rock band Guster. It also featured bands Thought Breakers, King of France, Finch and Goldfinger, whose drummer took off his speedo during the show and allowed an audience member to eat a Twinkie out of his rear end. You don’t see that every day.

Oh, and finally, last night I did post the Quebec Photos.

A very poignant piece from the Christian Science Monitor of a diary of a young Iraqi girl near Baghdad from during the war.

I hope that this kind of reaction doesn’t linger for too long and that the US actually makes good on its “promises” of development and democracy.

We woke to the loud sound of the radio in Um Mohamed’s house, and she was yelling that Baghdad and Iraq was occupied by the US. The news on the radio is that Iraqis are destroying government buildings and stealing … and that Saddam Hussein and his family have fled. The fear from these robbers is even worse. What is happening to our people, stealing without thought? What will the Americans do?

What indeed will the Americans do…

I saw X-Men 2 with a few friends last night, and it lived up to expectations. It was probably as good as the first one, though there was nothing particularly new about the special effects. The moralistic nature of the story was actually both stronger than expected, and definately a lot less subtle than expected. You were basically hit over the head with it. And it served as an excellent appetizer to the main course on May 15.

It was great seeing Nathan, Ram, JT and Pete last night. I hadn’t seen them since Morimoto’s back in April or March. I can’t recall now whether it was before or after Vancouver. In any case, I bailed out of the evening early in order to catch some shut-eye before I took my car to get serviced. Which, upsettingly, didn’t happen because the Service Center didn’t have any appointments so they didn’t open. Excuse me? I called three or four weeks ago and I was told to bring it by any time between 8 and 11 today.

Oh, Thursday night I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend from my high school days that I hadn’t seen in five years or thereabouts. We decided to have a spot of tea at Cafe 52 and just hang out and talk. It was a fairly nice, definately tame conversation (neither of us are exactly the world’s greatest conversationalists. Well, I’m DEFINATELY not, and she might be, but just played it down for my sake. 🙂 ). Although I did embarass her a little bit I think.

Tonight I’m catching up with Austin, who’s coming down from Boston with Mark to see the Rutgers Glee Club concert tonight. Any minute now they should be calling, and I’ll be heading out…

God, I love this weather…