The Israel Issue

Once again the U.S. is trying to get a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.  Israel was granted statehood by the League of Nations (which became the U.N.) after World War II which saw the death of more than half the Jewish population of the world.  The general region referred to as the Palestine was under British rule at the time.  The Palestine has been under many rules, but never has had self rule.  Israel had been the home of the Jewish people since the time of Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and of Islam, more than 4,000 years ago.  The word Israel is in almost every Jewish prayer. The Jews believe that the land was given to their people by G-d.

The 1948 agreement gave statehood to Israel with the boundaries limiting it to about 8,000 square miles.  Israel is surrounded by Arab countries which have approximately 8.6 million square miles (1000 times the size of Israel) in 21 countries with a current population of more than 360 million Arabs.  Israel has a current Jewish population of 5.3 million about the same number as those who reside in the U.S. The number of countries with majority Muslim populations including non-Arab countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Indonesia, is 47.

When Israel was recognized as a state so were several other countries in the world and in the region.  Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Iraq were some of the newly formed and recognized countries created during that time as were Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, to name a few.  Boundary lines were also moved after World War I in other countries like Hungary, Poland, Germany and Romania and for the entire Middle East after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, in 2011, the world has watched the "Arab Spring."  Arabs in Northern African countries are revolting against their dictators who have ruled them almost since many of the nations were first created.  The Arabs claim that after all these years they want democracy and freedom from oppression.  But these same young, brave freedom fighters do not want the same for their own women nor for the Jewish people.

It isn’t enough that this ancient people who have done so much for the world in science, philosophy, art, and literature should be restricted to a mere 8,000 square miles of what had been arid waste land, the reborn Arabs do not want Israel to exist, at all.

And yet, seeing all this some in America side with the Arabs.  These people consider the Arabs the underdogs because 63 years ago some Arabs living in Israel were displaced.  At the same time Jews living in what became Jordan were also displaced.  But they cannot see Israel as the underdog even though it has one 68th the number of people and one 1000th the land mass that the Arabs do.


Some people feel that the Jews should not have a homeland because no country should be religion-oriented. They must concede that Muslims have 47 countries.  They say that is wrong too.  They must be reminded that the Jews are not only a religion, they are also a people, a nationality like Arabs or Italians or Mexicans.  And like all the other nationalities, they deserve a homeland, Israel.  The Arab people have 21 homelands, why can’t the Israelites have one the size of New Jersey?

So what is the solution to their situation?  Our President and their Prime Minister said it differently, but clearly.  Israel must go back to its pre 1967 borders plus swaps to ensure Israeli security.  The swaps would be that Israel keeps East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967 after all the surrounding Arab nations attacked Israel and were soundly defeated by this small struggling nation.  In exchange the Israelis would return the West Bank and all the Israeli settlements there which now accommodate 300,000 Israelis. (They have already returned the Sinai to Egypt and the Gaza to Palestine as prior peace gestures.)   Under this plan, Israel with its 6.5 million people (including 1.2 million Arabs) would have 8000 square miles while 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza would have 10,000 square miles or twice as much space per person than Israel would have. 

The land in the West bank and homes for 300,000 would be given to the Palestinians who could house the descendants of those Arabs displaced from Israel in the late 1940s. These “refugees” have been mostly kept in refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries for the past 63 years.  Refugees, not welcomed and integrated into their new home’s society, for 63 years!

This agreement would end the problem.  Everyone involved knows that this is the deal.  But the Palestinians are a divided camp.  The residents of Gaza given their independence by Israel voted in Hamas to lead them.  Hamas is a terrorist organization whose goal is the elimination of the Israeli state.  They have now formed a coalition with Fatah, the governing power of the West Bank.  Even if Fatah wants to accept this deal, their partner can’t and at the same time say that Israel cannot exist.

I think that it’s high time that we realize who the true underdog is in this drama.  It is Israel, the little country,  one tenth of one percent the size of its hostile neighbors.

If the Arab states said that they would not longer use any weapons to attack others or even to defend themselves, there would be peace in the Middle East.  If Israel said that it would disarm completely and not fight even to defend itself, it would be destroyed in days.

Now who’s the underdog?

A Simple Income Tax

There is much discussion now about reducing the $14 trillion accumulated federal budget deficit and to begin by attacking the $1.5 trillion annual deficit.  There has been much huffing and puffing, with the Republicans trying to make it seem that they are forcing the President and his party to cut our debt by threatening to not increase the nation’s debt ceiling which would cause financial markets to collapse and probably lead to a worldwide recession.  The Republicans claim that they must do this now because it has been kicked down the road for too many years.

The deficit issue was dealt with by President Clinton in the 90s.  We were on track to have a $2 trillion surplus by now.  The deficit was caused by Bush II who got us into two costly and unnecessary wars while drastically cutting taxes, especially for the rich, his base.  The result was an economic disaster of epic or even biblical proportions.  His tax cuts did not add jobs to the economy but did make our richest much richer.

The tax cuts that Bush put in place were scheduled to expire this year but were extended for two years in a deal the President made with Congress.  These cuts cost us hundreds of billions a year in lost revenue.  Our two wars add another $200 billion a year and our more than 700 military bases around the world, cost us another $600 billion.  When all defense related costs are added in such as CIA military operations, VA benefits, State Department related costs, the total defense cost is more than One trillion dollars each year. While Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid  account for 40% of our budget, the cost of these safety net programs is paid from special trust funds that come from payroll taxes paid by past and current employees and their employers.  Their cost, therefore, does not affect our budget deficit, at all.

It is clear that the major budget cuts must come from defense spending which has been supplemented by vastly increased expenditures in our intelligence community since 9/11.  Fraud and waste in government programs as well as foreign aid, farm subsidies and tax breaks for large oil companies must be dramatically reduced.  But spending cuts are not enough.  The tax code must be changed to not only generate more revenue, but to also be simpler, fairer and less cumbersome.

I propose a very simple federal income tax for individuals.  It would be designed for one purpose - to collect revenue for needed government functions.  It would no longer be used to encourage or discourage behavior.  It would be as Senator John McCain described it - the redistribution of wealth.  That is what taxes are supposed to be.

Under my plan all income would be counted and combined for a single total.  So the salary, interest, dividends, capital gains, Social Security benefit payments, pensions and luxury voluntary fringe benefits (like optional Cadillac health plans or take home cars) would all be added together for each individual or family return.  There would be only a standard deduction, around $15,000 for an individual, $30,000 for a family.  There would be no other deductions.  The total net income, which would not include mandatory payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare, would then be taxed using only four or five tax brackets.

 As an example imagine that there is a couple that earned $50,000 in net salary, $20,000 in Social Security benefit payments, $10,000 in interest and $5,000 in capital gains.  The total is $85,000.  The couple would deduct $30,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $55,000.  The first $50,000 could be at a 10%  tax rate or, in this case, $5,000.  The remaining $5,000 of net income would be taxed at 15% or, in this case, $750.  The total tax would be $5,750 or 6.7% of their gross income.

As another example, imagine there is a couple who earned $200,000 in salary and $300,000 in capital gains and received a free executive car for their personal use worth $10,000 in gas and depreciation.  Their total would be $510,000 (unless they opted out of the free car).  Using the standard deduction, they would net $480,000.  The first $50,000 would be at 10%.  The second $50,000 (from $50,001-$100,000) would be taxed at 15%.  The next $150,000 would be taxed at 20% and the remaining $230,000 (net income over $250,000) would be taxed 25%.  (Incomes over $1 million could be taxed at 30%.)  So in this case, the couple would owe $5,000+$7,500+$30,000+$57,500 = $100,000 in taxes. That equals a 20.8% tax on their gross income. 

The taxes owed could be figured and reported in a matter of minutes.  There would be no loopholes and there would be no attempt to use the code to encourage larger families by giving deductions for each child; to get renters to buy homes; to reimburse some of the cost of college tuition; to deduct some excess medical costs; to support the use of green energy; to provide earned income credit or making-work-pay credits.  It would be simple, easy, clear, fair and would raise our revenues by more than $200 billion a year by getting the very rich to pay more than their current average of about 15% and would tax more people who now don't  pay any tax at all. 

The only real loser in this plan is the income tax preparer.  People in this profession would have to focus on corporate taxes including for the self-employed who would still have business-related deductions and a tax code which is very complex and should also be streamlined.

There you have it.  My answer to the budget crisis.  Stay tuned for my plan to save Social Security and Medicare.

    

Numbers Count, Size Matters

One effect of our de-emphasis on math in this country is that we have stopped thinking with numbers, preferring descriptive adjectives that are more forgiving and less intimidating.  Instead of saying that it is 3,280 feet high, we say that it was very tall.  Instead of saying that the car was 183 inches long, we say that it is a compact. Instead of being told that our cholesterol is 150 or 205, we are told that it is normal and we accept that.

We now see this happening in the media.  San Francisco’s major daily has been moving away from numbers on every front.  First it was the stock market results.  All stocks traded on the New York or American stock exchange had always been listed daily showing their most recent prices as well as past highs and lows.  This was then abbreviated to showing only the major stocks. And now there are just a few highlights.  They then contracted out their entire business section to gain further distance from the tyranny of numbers.  They still use numbers to describe the weather but that also has been contracted out to a national service that seems to think that the San Francisco airport is in downtown San Francisco, especially for rainfall totals.

It turns out that somehow rainfall totals for San Francisco have always been contentious not to mention inaccurate.  There always seems to be a bias toward understating rainfall totals in order to prolong the illusion of a drought. In the mid 90s, as we were drowning in heavy rainfall, the media kept insisting that the drought was still with us.  (It ended the career of a respected investigative reporter when a she persisted to report the drought even as record high totals were being witnessed.)  This year, it took the State until the beginning of May to announce an end to the drought even though our totals for this year are as high as 150% of normal and our reservoirs are overflowing.  This year San Francisco is on track to have had a record rainfall year, but you don’t hear much talk about it. Some people, apparently, have something to gain by keeping the “D” word constantly in play.

Our same daily paper also has told its very small band of news reporters to refrain from using numbers in their reports.  (Sports reporters are exempt from this so far, but who knows?  They might have to start reporting just who won and who lost without using the actual scores.) Perhaps they want to avoid making factual errors or maybe they want to soften the effect hard numbers might have on their readers. 

But numbers have their place, especially when describing finite objects. Numbers help us make more precise evaluations so that we can make the best choices.  Sometimes a bigger number is better, but I find that, more often than not, size matters and smaller could very well be better.

We have seen this repeatedly with American fashion:  Remember when women’s shoulder pads that made them look like linebackers in uniform? Until recently men wore jackets that were several sizes too large. We are still designing and producing men’s shorts and bathing suits that are so long that they appear to be attempting to conceal as much as possible while making the wearer look as unappealing as he can be.  They cannot be described as “shorts” and should be referred to as “mediums” or “knee-lows.” There were times when men’s ties were clearly much too wide and suit jackets had lapels that were grossly oversized.  Now we have a craze among some to wear pants many sizes too large so that they settle much too low and leave the wearers looking clown-like in their baggy length.

And as mentioned in an earlier column, watches have gotten too big since Rolex underwater watches got popular in the 60s.

And, of course, there is the debate about our national budget crisis with no one providing the actual numbers to make the choices clearer.  No one mentions that though Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid take up a sizable part of our $3.5 trillion annual budget, all the money comes from separate trust funds and their costs do not add to our budget deficit and won’t for at least 15-25 years.  No one mentions that the biggest item is defense at more than $800 billion a year funding two unnecessary wars and staffing more than 700 bases oversees to protect the citizens of other countries from possible attack from a Soviet Union that no longer exists and a North Korea, which can barely feed its own people.

But what most concerns me at this moment is the size of American family cars and the public’s unawareness of the vast variations.  What American car companies call a compact car is what I consider a large car, but I use actual numbers to describe their differences. 

Family cars sold in America range in size from about 147 inches for the Mini Cooper to about 223 for the Cadillac Escalante.  That’s a 76 inch or 6.3 foot difference.  And like Goldilocks, I think that some are too small but many are too large and some are just right.  I believe that a small car should be around 165 inches long - about the size of a VW beetle, VW Golf, Honda Fit, Mini Coachman (the new four-door), the Audi A3, etc.  The next size still acceptable and roomier is around 175-180 inches long and is found in cars like the BMW 1 and 3 series, the Audi A4, the VW Jetta, Mercedes C class, Volvo 50, etc.

I think that the largest size should be no more than 190 inches.  There are many examples of this size as well.

The only problem is that America car companies are not producing quality small cars.  American buyers and car makers seem to not really see the problem. The large cars and SUVs many of us are driving are not only gas guzzlers and a danger to more reasonably sized vehicles, they are also much more difficult and less fun to drive than smaller cars.  And they are easier to park.

Yes, Chevy and Ford do have some smaller cars, but who wants them?  Who even knows what they are?  The Chevy has the Aveo and the Cruze. The former is 170 inches and the latter is 180.  Ford has the Fiesta at 174 inches and the Focus at 178. How do they compare with the smaller European cars named above?  

I strongly believe that the American car producers should begin the process, as they did in the early 60’s, of building high quality, attractive, and exciting, cars that also have great fuel economy and are small but roomy.  After the great VW Beetle invasion of the early 60’s, American car companies began making small and appealing cars.  There was the Pontiac Tempest/Lemans, the Chevy Corvair, the Oldsmobile Cutlass, the Buick Skylark, the Rambler Metropolitan, the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valient, and the Dodge Lancer, to name a few.

But each one of these models either grew significantly in size or disappeared.  The Tempest/Lemans grew in every way to become the mighty G.T.O by 1964.  The Corvair was killed single-handedly by a young upstart named Nader. The Skylark, Valient, Lancer, and Falcon grew a little and then disappeared. The Metropolitan, which started in the 50s and was as cute as cute can be, just disappeared.

The American car industry decided to go the other way.  Instead of making excellent small cars, they decided that they would make high-powered, large cars.  Then they realized they could take cheap pick-up trucks, doll them up with more seats and a covered truck bed, call them S.U.V.s and people would be willing to spend big bucks for them choosing comfort, imagined safety and size over small and economic cars.

The Japanese and Europeans jumped in to fill our small-car gap.

I would like to see a small, elegant, attractive and economical model for each of the six car lines:  a 165 inch Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford and Lincoln as well as a 175-180 inch model in each line and maybe one top-of-the-line model of no more than 190 inches for the premium lines using their old premium names: Cadillac Eldorado or Fleetwood , Buick Roadmaster,  Chrysler Imperial and Lincoln Continental. The small Chevy could be called the Monza.

I have not included Dodge in this list because I think that it should and will be discontinued as a car line and become, like Jeep and GMC, a truck line.

I think in order for this reduced-size car plan to succeed, Americans must become more number conscious. 

But if we as a people are to become more number conscious, we must become more attentive to our everyday events and much more accurate in our descriptions.  This is not a bad thing.  It is nice to pay attention and to be able to clearly and precisely describe objects or events.

Numbers really do count and size really does matter, even if we are not aware of it.