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Don McNay: Powerball Jack, Michael Jackson, and Uncontrolled Wealth

2009-07-12T00:38:44Z

Stop! the love you save may be your own.
Darling, take it slow
Or some day you'll be all alone.

-Jackson Five

July 5, two days before Michael Jackson's funeral, another person died too soon.

Ginger Bragg, the 42 year old daughter of West Virginia Powerball winner Jack Whitaker, was found dead.

Foul play is not suspected but the police are doing a toxicology report.

I've written dozens of columns about Jack Whitaker and devoted part of a book to him. I wrote about Jack because he was the shining example of how mishandling money can screw up your life.

Now, I really pity him.

He won $314 million but I wouldn't trade my life for his. I don't think a street beggar's would trade lives with Jack.

Whitaker had everything and lost it.

Since Whitaker won the Powerball on Christmas Day 2002, nothing has right for him.

Jack's 17 year old granddaughter died of an overdose and one of her friends died in Jack's house. He's been arrested for drunken driving and assault. He wasted money on stupid things, like booze and strippers. He has been sued hundreds of times. His wife, who filed for divorce, wishes Jack had torn up the winning ticket.

Now Jack has lost his daughter. If Jack could trade the $314 million to get his old life back, I am sure he would.

Whitaker and Michael Jackson had a common life thread. Money didn't buy happiness. It was a major cause of their misery. Michael earned his money over a lifetime. Jack's money came in one winning ticket.

Both had the pressures of unlimited money and unlimited demands.

I advise people who win the lottery to keep it confidential. I've known several lottery winners who set up a trust or setting up a corporation to shielded their identity. No one knows they won the lottery and no one ever will.

That keeps the posse of new found "friends" away. Both Whitaker and Jackson were surrounded by people not looking out for their best interests.

Hiding his wealth was not an option for Jackson but some famous people handle money well.

I don't see Warren Buffet going on wild shopping sprees like Jackson or taking $600,000 to a strip club like Powerball Jack.

Warren Buffett has a tremendous sense of balance. He earned his money himself, over a long period of time and his closest advisers are intelligent, wealthy and grounded like he is.

They are looking for a friend, not a handout.

Micheal Jackson and Jack Whitaker needed some friends like that.

I've worked with people who receive sudden wealth, like lottery winners and people who receive injury settlements for 27 years.

The way to keep them from suffering the fate of Whitaker and Jackson is to put limits on how much money they can get at one time. Nothing else seems to work.

Unlimited amounts of anything are bad. Too much food will make you fat. Medicines can alleviate pain and ailments but too much at once can kill someone.

The same holds true with money.

Having enough money to live comfortably, support your family and contribute to the community is wonderful. Uncontrolled wealth brings on uncontrolled problems.

As the Jackson Five sang, "take it slow, or someday you'll be all alone."
Like Jack Whitaker is.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in Richmond, Kentucky.

You can follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/donmcnay

He is the author of Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You When The Lottery. You can write to Don at don@donmcnay.com or read his award winning column at www.donmcnay.com. He is a frequent guest on television and radio talk shows.

McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

Allison Rockefeller: New York Parks: Go Where The Land Is

2009-07-11T23:55:52Z

New York is a land (literally!) of extreme proportions, huge and small. Look at New York State parkland for example. No exceptions here. Second to Alaska, New York is home to the largest park in the United States, the six million-acre grandmother of all early (1892) open space, New York's awe-inspiring Adirondack Park. It's mind boggling to imagine that five of the largest National Parks in the United States could slip comfortably within the Adirondack Park boundaries, pull up the covers, and go off to sleep.

Imagine a vast area the size of Yellowstone, Everglades, Yosemite, Great Smokey Mountains and Grand Canyon, residing as parkland in upstate New York. No need to imagine, it's there. 3,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, a magnificent mountain range...sounds like an "I Love New York" commercial? You bet it is.

The interesting thing is that 90 million Americans are within a day's drive of the Adirondacks but just fewer than 100,000 New Yorkers actually live there.

And now for the microscopic: back to where the math gets crazy again for New York proportion, particularly ratio, but the other way 'round...you know, ratio of teachers to students, land per head of cattle, one kind fruit vs. another, that kind of thing.

Look at the remarkable case of Riverbank State Park, built smack on the Hudson River at 145th Street.

Constructed in 1988 atop an immense water treatment facility, Riverbank owes its existence to the design-gives-birth-to -necessity school of engineering of which Benjamin Franklin would be proud. Certainly, Franklin would have been first at the table with blueprints.

In 1988 a manmade park like Riverbank was unusual in America, really before its time; while Japan-- our greatest rival in space obsession and engineering problem solving -- had several. Today we have finally entered the era of green roofs, urban farming, and a park on the High Line! - where man-made and nature, though first dating, are beginning to walk hand-in-hand.

Be warned about Riverbank: picnic at your own risk. The Park's view is so staggering you're apt to drop your tuna fish sandwich in your cold Frappuccino as the George Washington Bridge straddles the river and the famed Hudson River Palisades hang majestically above the glistening water.

Alright, cattlemen and cows, teachers and students, apples and oranges, this math may be just as staggering: 28 to 2,000,000!...Yup, Riverbank offers up its 28 acres to 2,000,000 people annually, making it the third most visited park in New York's vast State Park system (just behind Niagara and Jones beach) 71,428 people per acre! (Of course not all come at the same time)

But Riverbank, this excellent math lesson of a park, this engineering marvel, is a gracious and expert host --absorbing its vast yearly visitors comfortably at two swimming pools, football, soccer, baseball fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, amphitheatre, gymnasiums, skating rink, a cultural center, and community garden.

2,000,000 on 28 acres?... It's New York's version of new math; math class outside. Go figure? Go visit. It's a problem you'll enjoy solving.

Riverbank is run by New York State Parks.

Mike Elk: AIG Shows Why We Need the Employee Free Choice Act

2009-07-11T23:27:18Z

At first, it might seem a bit odd that Bank of America and Citigroup paid for a conference call to coordinate a campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act. Why would Bank of America and Citigroup be so interested in hosting efforts against a measure that would allow workers to more easily join unions, since unionization has traditionally had little appeal for financial service workers? As a union organizer, I've never heard of stockbrokers wanting to unionize.

The real interest big banks have in opposing unions and the Employee Free Choice Act lies in the unions' role in preventing corporate greed.

Unions are a countervailing force against corporate greed in a market that has proven incapable of regulating itself. One example is the 2003 dismissal of New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso. CalPERS--the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's largest pension fund with assets of over $200 billion dollars--raised red flags when it discovered that Grasso was going to receive a compensation package of nearly $140 million. The compensation package was designed for him by a board of representatives from NYSE-listed companies. Since Grasso was charged with regulating these companies, such a large compensation package represented a clear conflict of interest. Under the threat of pulling their investment out of NYSE-listed companies, CalPERS and other worker-run pension funds forced Grasso to step down as NYSE chairman. That was a major victory for workers and for market accountability.

Corporate greed has gone unchecked recently in part due to the decline of the labor movement. Is it a coincidence that union membership declined dramatically from 20 percent of the private sector workforce in 1980 to just over 7 percent in 2006 while CEO pay has increased from 42 times what the average worker made in 1980 to 364 in 2006? Unions demand an economy that works for all, not just those at the top, such as AIG executives. As William Greider, author of the Soul of Capitalism, told me, "Unions are an honest broker in the economy."

Through pension and retirement funds, workers can fund companies that invest in communities and in green jobs, promote workers' rights and operate in a transparent manner; and penalize companies that don't. With over $6 trillion of workers' money in retirement plans, pension funds, profit-sharing and stock plans and union reserve funds, the money of workers' plays a large role in fueling the global economy. Through putting workers' representatives on the board of these funds, unions can make sure that "worker investments are managed in workers' best financial interests." By investing in transparent, open and financially healthy companies, unions through stockholder activism can lead the way in ending the culture of reckless corporate short-term profit-seeking, which led to the rise of subprime mortgages and credit-derivative swaps.

Unions have long sought ways to make corporate profits sustainable in the long run in order to both retain and create jobs. It is ironic that the United Auto Workers (UAW) has been unfairly scapegoated as the cause of the demise of the auto industry since, as early as 1949, they have called for the Big Three to make small, more fuel-efficient cars. In 1949, in a pamphlet entitled "A Small Car Named Desire," the UAW cautioned automakers against investing solely in big cars since some consumers would ultimately be interested in cheaper smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. In short, unions have also sought was is best for all-- not just for workers, but creating the economic conditions that will allow their companies to thrive.

As President Obama stated, "We know that strong, vibrant, growing unions can exist side by side with strong, vibrant and growing businesses. This isn't a either/or proposition between the interests of workers and the interests of shareholders. That's the old argument. The new argument is that the American economy is not and has never been a zero-sum game. When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper." Indeed, passing the Wagner Act, which allowed unions to collectively bargain for higher wages, in 1935-- during the middle of the Great Depression--was crucial to getting the economy going again.

The recent AIG scandal shows why we need an active force to protect us against the greed of Wall Street CEOs. Unions, representing the combined interests of everyday Americans, can be a valuable instrument in fighting for the interests of all, not just those at the top. By passing the Employee Free Choice Act, we would make it easier for workers to advocate for a union without facing the kind of employer intimidation that currently results in one of five workers who attempt to organize a union being fired from their job. The Employee Free Choice Act would not just protect the right of workers to join a union, but would protect us all from the corporate greed of AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup and the rest of their partners in crime.

Mary Hall: Sex, Dating & the Recession

2009-07-11T23:13:58Z

As I sit writing this article, I am listening to the radio and a commercial that makes my ears perk up. There is actually an ad on the radio promoting personal "lubricants" from a website. I had to ask my friend, do you ever recall hearing ads for these products on the radio during peak family listening times? Neither of us can recall anything quite so blatant as an "intimate" product being broadcast during early evening hours. However, we had also noticed something different at our local "big box" discount store. The store now sells a whole variety of sexual aids, including condoms, lubricants and personal massagers. Walmart offers them too. Walgreen now features a special section of their website devoted to "Sexual Wellness." Obviously, there has been a subtle shift.

Intrigued by these facts, as well as the inclusion of "coupons" for some of the above items in my recent, Los Angeles Times, I felt the need to do some investigating. So, I turned to that source of all good recession data, the trusty Google search engine. Some interesting facts turned up. It seems people are looking for some basic comforts during this time of economic crisis. And they are finding comfort in those age-old pleasures of intimacy, chocolate and wine.

As the number of laid-off American workers grows, personal ads on Craig's list are at an all time high. A recent article in Marie Claire magazine noted: "The number of personals in Craig's list's 'Casual Encounters' section jumped from 1.4 million in September 2007 to 3.1 million in September 2008. Here's an example of one Craig's list ad: 'Recession, economy got you down? ... One way I've found to ALLEVIATE this stress I'm feeling is XxXX...'" (the expletives in this post have been deleted to protect the innocent readers of HuffPost.) Another, and now famous post from website Gawker noted, "Just got laid off, now looking to get laid." It doesn't get more honest than that.

Craig's list and website personal postings are not the only way people are hooking up in this recession. Membership in online dating sites is steadily growing. eHarmony and Match.com have reported a steady increase in profits. Both sites experienced a 20 percent increase in registrations during 2008. Match.com memberships were 22 percent higher in December than during the same period last year. And eHarmony and Match.com reported especially high traffic on days when the stock market plummeted.

Online dating and personal products are now being touted as "recession proof." But it seems the biggest recession-proof consumer product is good old Hershey's chocolate. Chocoholics are coming out of the woodwork and running straight for their chocolate in large numbers.

Hershey reported fourth-quarter net income of $82.2 million, or 36 cents a share, up 51% from $54.3 million, or 24 cents a share, a year earlier. (Source: The Wall Street Journal and Hershey's annual report). Of special interest to me is the fact that at gas stations and convenience stores where people may be feeling the stress of rising gas and food prices, the lower-priced Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's chocolate bars and Kit Kat wafers are selling at a rapid rate. Forget the Truffles and the Godiva, let me have a good old Kit Kat bar!

It seems Kit Kat , a product of the Great Depression is having a resurgence. It was developed in 1935. It's the original tough economic times "comfort food." As you're reading this, are you craving chocolate right now? I know I am. And as a self-proclaimed recessionista, I love the low price point of Hershey's chocolate. Truly a cheap and cheerful treat.

And nothing goes with Recession like a good bottle of wine. Searching out great bottles of wine at economical prices has become a regular feature on my blog. There are regular wine blogs that feature weekly specials on "recession" wines priced at an affordable cost.

So where is all this leading? Quite simply people are feeling more vulnerable than ever, and one of the best ways to minimize stress and anxiety is seeking comfort in being with friends and lovers. This may be the one upside of the downturn. Perhaps we will all learn to reach out to others a bit more, rediscover simple pleasures and become more selective in our relationships. After all, no one has extra money any more to date people that they aren't "clicking" with. The recession may just prove to be one of the best ways to refine our tastes, strengthen our relationships and perhaps rediscover old friends.

Larry Diamond: Obama and Democracy in Africa

2009-07-11T23:09:55Z

In his historic speech to Ghana's parliament today, President Barack Obama put democracy and good governance at the front and center of Africa's future and America's hope for it. That is just where it needs to be. Obama could not have been more eloquent or forthright in identifying bad governance -- corruption, lawlessness, abuse of human rights, and purely superficial deference to democratic norms -- as the bane of Africa's quest for development and dignity.

Of course, the point was forcefully made from the start in Obama's choice of Ghana for his visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president. Ghana is not immune from the ills of corruption and misuse of power that plague the continent, but among the continent's sizeable countries, it has gone the furthest in achieving a reasonably liberal democracy, with repeated free and fair elections, media freedom, a pluralistic civil society, and responsible governance. And it has generated significant economic progress and significant new flows of international development assistance (and to some extent investment) as a result.

The Accra speech was historic in a number of respects. No American president has ever spoken so candidly on African soil about the real roots of Africa's development malaise, which lie in the "big man" syndrome of patronage-drenched ethnic politics, contempt for the rule of law, and wanton abuse of human rights. Perhaps only an American president whose African grandfather felt the brunt of racist European imperialism could say to Africa as frankly as Obama did that--more than half a century after decolonization--the core problem is not the colonial legacy but what Africans themselves have done and failed to do with the hopes and dreams they carried into dependence. The speech was a clarion call for Africans to assume personal and national responsibility for their own futures, and I suspect it will leave an especially deep impact on young Africans, whom Obama addressed directly and inspirationally as only he can.

This is not the first time that Obama has spoken eloquently abroad about the importance of democracy, human rights, and good governance. It formed an important, if secondary, theme of his Cairo speech last month, when, in seeking to build a new bridge of partnership and understanding with Muslims around the world, he challenged the legitimacy and sustainability of oppressive regimes, with language that resonated powerfully among Arab publics who want democratic change. It was a major element of his speech this past week to the New Economic School in Moscow. Even though that speech again had another purpose--to help "reset" the American relationship with Russia on fresh foundations of mutual respect and shared interests--it also affirmed the "universal values" of freedom of speech, press, and assembly, the rule of law and competitive elections.

In fact, the succession of messages defining to the world what his administration stands for began with his historic public speech in Prague's Hradcany Square on April 5. Mainly, that address unfolded a broad vision and commitment to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, but it began with a passionate tribute to "the courage of those who stood up and took risks to say that freedom is a right for all people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they look like."

During his campaign and in his young presidency, Obama has spoken repeatedly and passionately of how the "arc of history" bends in the long run toward freedom. But there is also an arc across these speeches that is, no doubt surprisingly to some of his Republican and conservative critics, committing his Administration to support, encourage, and work for the advance of freedom around the world. Clearly, it will not take the same moralistic and grandiose tone that George W. Bush often assumed. Nor will it be so openly confrontational; Obama has taken pains repeatedly to stress that he does not wish to "lecture" to other countries. But for these reasons, it could also prove more effective.

In the months ahead lies the next and more difficult challenge. In several prominent speeches and now most explicitly in Accra, Obama has renewed the American commitment to support democratic values and institutions around the world. In Accra, he has gone at least as far as Bush did to identify the inextricable link between sustainable development and responsible, transparent, law-based governance. Further, he has pledged to increase American assistance to the individuals, organizations, and governmental institutions that fight corruption and build good governance. It is a truism--but nevertheless true--that his historic speeches will ultimately be judged by his success in delivering on these commitments.

Some obvious steps would help to move the policy forward. First, it is going to require more money for democracy and governance assistance, and for generating the incentives for countries to institutionalize more transparent and accountable governance. This is a tough thing to do in hard economic times, but it is essential if Obama's rhetorical commitments are to be taken seriously. Direct democracy and governance assistance programs require only a small percentage of the record $49 billion just appropriated by the House for diplomacy and development. But the budgets for the National Endowment for Democracy and for democracy and governance programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development can be incrementally increased. It is a welcome development that the House voted a modest increase in assistance for one of George W. Bush's signature aid programs, the independent Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). But it is important that the relative independence of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and its innovative, incentive-based approach to encouraging good governance be preserved.

Second, Obama must name a new Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development as soon as possible. Development specialists had hoped that the early naming of a high-profile, vigorous leader would energize and symbolize an elevation of the development function within American foreign policy. Instead, USAID has been drifting, uncertain and to some extent demoralized, in the absence of a new leader and a clarified role.

Third, new allocations of development assistance to countries, in Africa and around the world, must continue to be reformed to reflect their relative levels of commitment to good governance, not just through the MCA but in the overall development assistance budget of USAID. The United States and other donor agencies in Europe and Japan, not to mention the World Bank and other international donors, still pour far too much money into the coffers of governments that are wasting and stealing the aid. One can only admire Obama's commitment to substantially increasing U.S. development assistance over time, as well as his visionary and urgently needed push at the recent G8 summit, for a new international assistance to improve food security in poor nations. But if Obama takes seriously his own message in Accra--that better governance is the key to development in Africa--then aid programs must find better ways to link the two, and to leverage the former in order to advance the latter.

Finally, the new Administration needs to designate a high-ranking official who will have overall authority to craft its strategies and coordinate its programs to support democratic development around the world. This could either take the form of "dual-hatting" an existing official at the National Security Council in this role (as was the case in the Bush Administration), or naming a new special coordinator for democracy programs. In the end, policy implementation comes down to people and lines of authority. Designating a high-level NSC official to coordinate the Administration's efforts to advance democracy and good governance would show that Obama is serious about joining with African peoples--and others around the world still mired in poverty and bad governance--to become, in his words in Accra, "partners in building the capacity for transformational change."

Nelson Montana: Obama's Health Care Reform Won't Fly: But This Will

2009-07-11T23:00:09Z

It's time to pull the plug. Call off the resuscitation team. Bring in the coroner. Health care reform is dead.

Obama gave it a good shot, but it was doomed from the start. It's better that we face it now and start fresh than to perform what would be the equivalent of taxidermy (with emphasis on the tax) and pretend it still exists.

All the talking heads will compare this to Hillary's debacle but in reality the two are nothing alike. In the case of the Clinton's, the failure was one of presentation. There isn't a person alive who can tell you what that plan entailed. If people don't understand something, they aren't going to support it. The message must be clear and if Barack Obama knows anything, he sure knows how to convey a message. Just as Ronald Reagan spoke in a simple folksy manner that clearly described his plans of action, Obama is the modern counterpart -- a hip, confident, straight up speaker who connects with the masses. Yet, he's talking less and less about health care in detail. And with good reason. He knows it's doomed.

We can get into the particulars, but I'll leave that for the TV entertainers -- you know, the loudmouths on both sides, be it Sean Hannity or Keith Olberman, who will blame the opposition as to why the failure occurred, but it's all regurgitated rhetoric. The answers are actually quite simple.

It's pretty obvious that Obama's plate is pretty full right now. I don't think anyone wants the economy, or the war, or the mending of foreign relationships or the potential threat of North Korea to take a back seat to engaging in more bickering over a health plan. And bickering there will be! No matter what plan is presented, the Republicans will try and knock it down. It doesn't matter how good it is, how much it can help the public or how cost effective, it will not get Republican support. They lost their ball and they just don't want to play. The end.

There will also be many Democrats who will vote against it because they don't want to be responsible for the outcome. And I can't blame them. The way it's going the reform is nothing but a watered down version of the H.I.P. program we had in New York. And anyone who's dealt with them will tell you; it wasn't the greatest. It attracted doctors who hadn't yet established a practice. It was overcrowded and appointment schedules were limited. The waits were endless. You get what you pay for.

What someone must have to guts to say is the dreaded "S" word. Real reform can only come from a socialized medical system, otherwise it's just another version of what already isn't working.

But here's the irony - the one thing nobody mentions. We already have it.

No, I'm not talking about Medicare or Medicaid. In this country there are clinics in every State, every area of the city, every town that provide health care on a sliding scale. All you have to do is walk in and apply. Also, in case of an emergency, there are EMERGENCY rooms in every hospital and they CAN NOT deny you care.

So in reality, we do have a form of socialized medicine and it works pretty well. Is it perfect? No. But nothing can be or will be. When costs are low, service will suffer. That will be the case under any condition and it is the case in any country where health care is provided. You see, this is where the Republicans sneak in that "we have the best care in the world" catch phrase. Sure, if you can afford it. Everyone else will have to settle. But that would be the case no matter what we concoct and it's time we dealt with it.

Raising taxes to simply slightly lower the cost of outrageously overpriced private health care insurance is weak and uninspired. Attempting to revise the entire system is akin to reinventing the wheel -- too much work and the outcome is likely to be sub-par. Instead, we should improve on what we have - walk in coverage for everyone based on income. Provide for more discount chain pharmacy's that have reduced cost prescriptions plans. Allow for refills of scripts without excessive doctor's visits. Right there, I just saved a couple of billion dollars. Now throw that back into the system and make it better. There, is your answer.

People also have to take responsibility for their own health. The saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" has never had a more literal translation. So don't ask the government to stop McDonald's from serving big portions or for Ben and Jerry to keep the chocolate chips out of the chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. And don't try and sue Phillip Morris because you were too stupid to realize that inhaling smoke into your lungs every day wasn't a good idea. It's time we grew up as a people and a nation and took some responsibility.

Will all the optimism I have for the Obama presidency, I'd hate to see this albatross become his Waterloo. Let it go, Barack. And improve on what we have. (Feel free to ask Mike Bloomberg for some advice while you're at it. He knows a thing or two about managing a business.)

Just one more thing. You're going to have to let everyone know - the public and the pundits, the cantankerous conservatives and the lily-livered liberals alike. This is a Socialist program. Call it what it is.

This doesn't mean we're headed for a Marxist regime. It just means we'll be doing what works. And it's about time. I've had this nagging pain in my side and I need to get it checked out.

Michael B. Laskoff: America's Other Swine Flu

2009-07-11T22:27:55Z

Today, if it walks on four legs and oinks then it does not have swine flu. If it's an elected official of Congress, however, then it's likely spreading something equally unappealing -- a continuing ineffectiveness and an unwillingness to own up to its own recently sordid past.

In today's New York Times, you'll find details of a congressional study -- based on the work of the inspector generals of five federal agencies -- which determined that spying on Americans did not prevent attacks. (In other words, Mr. Cheney, the useless ends did not justify the sordid means.) The article goes on to detail what sounds a lot like criminal conspiracy at the highest level. The executive branch appears to have inserted text into C.I.A. threat assessments. That's tampering. Alberto Gonzales "accidentally" misled Congress in 2007 while John Ashcroft "misunderstood" the nature of what he was authorizing the NSA to do. John Yoo's own boss at Justice was unaware of what this 'legal scholar' was actually doing. There's more, but you get the point.

What the Times fails to focus on is why "the investigation stopped short of assessing whether the wiretapping program violated the law requiring court-ordered warrants before wiretapping Americans' communications." Sadly, the answer seems obvious. The same members of Congress who failed in their Constitutional duty to provide checks and balances are in no rush to legally investigate their own passivity. And since no one oversees Congress, we get "findings" instead of convictions.

Unfortunately, this lack of accountability is like an infectious disease. When it's not checked in one area, it spreads to others, like health care, the economic recovery and the toasty environment. It's like political swine flu, and when Congress has it, we all get very sick.

Stephen Schlesinger: Obama's Internationalism: Echoes of FDR, HST and JFK

2009-07-11T22:26:30Z

President Obama gave a speech last week in Moscow that conjures up memories of our greatest foreign policy presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy. Two lines from Obama's address directly echo the themes and concerns of these three 20th century Democratic leaders.

First Obama stated: "Any world order that tries to elevate one nation or one group of people over another will inevitably fail. The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game -- progress must be shared."

And then he said: ""Now let me be clear: America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor should we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country."

His remarks are eerily reminiscent of two powerful speeches which President Franklin Roosevelt and his successor, President Harry Truman, delivered within four months of each other in 1945.

FDR said in March 1945: "We shall have to take responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict."

And Truman's remarks in June 1945: "We all have to recognize -- no matter how great our strength -- that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please. No one nation, no regional group, can, or should expect, any special privilege which harms any other nation. If any nation would keep security for itself, it must be ready and willing to share security with all. That is the price which each nation will have to pay for world peace."

Finally there are John Kennedy's comments in his talk at the University of Washington on November 16, 1961: "In short, we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient -- that we are only six percent of the world's population -- that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind -- that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity -- and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

Obama's words represent a continuation of this historic tradition of internationalism in the Democratic Party that has helped build America into the most powerful land on earth. The Obama presidency gives hope for a return to such realistic multilateral diplomacy of yore in the coming years.

Rebecca Walker: The Untouchable Michael Jackson

2009-07-11T22:13:25Z

I met Michael Jackson in 1984. We were both guests of Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg at Amblin, Spielberg's production company on the Universal film lot. Whoopi Goldberg was preparing to play Celie, the protagonist in the film version of The Color Purple, a book written by my mother, and was giving a private stand-up performance at Spielberg's request.

Michael and I sat in the front row. He was wearing his by-then trademark red bandleader jacket with epaulets and gold rope loops at the shoulder, trim black slacks, white socks, black shoes, and yes, a glove. Whoopi was hilarious, and at one point singled me out for audience participation. She asked a few questions and pulled me onstage. I gamely played along, enjoying the attention.

Why Michael approached me in a room full of superstars after the show I will never know. Perhaps because I was the youngest in the room, and at 14 didn't have a big name, a big career or a powerful company. I was a kid, easy, with few expectations. I was not old enough to demand, even silently, that he live up to anything. Perhaps he felt that with me he could be, in a sense, free.

I remember his body language. He moved slowly, like a very cool cat, hesitant, but smooth. And then, in the softest of voices, he asked how I was able to do the impromptu bit of comical business. He could never do something like that on the spot, he said. He'd be too nervous. I remember laughing and chiding him. You'd be great, Michael! I said. He shook his head and out crept a smile so open and vulnerable that I wanted to hug him, and probably would have, if he weren't Michael Jackson.

But he was, and I had no way to reach across the boundary of celebrity that put us on opposite sides of an invisible fence. Michael was, as he described himself in a song years later, untouchable. I believe that is what killed him. A human being can only live so long without the touch of another and can only breathe manufactured air for so many minutes.

We are left with music, memories and the shame of our own narcissistic voyeurism. As it was for so many of us, Michael's music was a running soundtrack for my life, a powerful influence that helped shape my identity. As a young girl, I kissed a boy furtively as Michael's song, "Rock with You," played on my cassette player. My first real boyfriend stood for hours in front of a full-length mirror in my bedroom practicing his Michael Jackson dance moves. In quieter moments, we lay on my bed listening to "She's Out of My Life" on the record player, both of us close to tears and full of reverence for Michael's heartfelt emotion.

Later, when I was old enough to go out dancing with my friends, we'd all scream when we heard the rumblings of his sultry dance groove, "Don't Stop Till You get Enough" and head to the dance floor for some serious getting down.

After college, I wrote my first memoir about growing up biracial and drew sustenance from the video for his song, "Black or White," in which Michael portrayed race as fluid; the models in the video morphed from African to Indian to Italian to Swedish to Mongolian and back again. And he told the world that love is what matters, not skin color.

But then the nose narrowed too much, and the ever-lightening skin grew hard to stomach. The lawsuits began to surface, one after another, and then the trial and the faces of the young boys with sorrowful tales of abuse. I sat transfixed before the television and trolled the Internet for sordid news. I watched, ridiculed, judged and tried to hold on to the unsullied image of the man I met. But the stage had been set. Michael's life was already one giant Rorschach. I sat on the sidelines with my popcorn, projecting hope and desire, fantasy and fear onto his increasingly frail body, waiting for the next set.

I will not forget the moment I heard Michael Jackson was dead. I was driving on an island road, with rows of sugar cane on either side. The sun was bright and yellow and hot. I pulled over onto a patch of grass, in shock and disbelief. Michael Jackson is dead? I kept asking my husband over and over. Dead? I groped to put it in context, to read the moment, to see what it meant for him, but perhaps more important, what it meant for me. A part of me was dying, I decided. The part that hoped Michael could survive the tremendous burden he carried, that I carried. The part that held the memory of his precious innocence: my precious innocence.

That night I watched one of Michael's breathtaking performances of the song "What About Us" on YouTube. In the beginning, Michael emerges from a giant earth, surrounded by children and proceeds to build the song to a feverish pitch. The lyrics ask all the right questions: "What about sunrise? What about rain? What about killing fields? Is there still time? Did you ever stop to notice, all the blood we've shed before? Did you ever stop to notice, this crying earth, this weeping shore?"

As the song soars toward the crescendo, Michael asks again and again, "What about us?" "What about us?" People in the audience scream and weep. At the end, spent, victorious and miraculous, he gathers the children, and they walk slowly back into the giant earth at the center of the stage.

Initially, I was speechless, overwhelmed by his mastery of his form and the power of his message. And then, without thinking, I turned from the computer and said out loud, "What about us? What about him?"

Because that's the real story, isn't it? It was always all about us. Who came with that level of passion and commitment on Michael's behalf? Who offered their lives to him the way he offered his to us?

But even in the question, we glimpse the conundrum. We use his death, as we used his life, as a mirror. There is no room for Michael. It is still, tragically, all about us.

Perhaps that is Michael Jackson's final song, his parting gift. We must have a bigger heart, a bigger vision.

It's not all about us.

By Rebecca Walker, for Corriere della Sera and The Root

Stephen Herrington: Healthcare and Government's Role in the Economy

2009-07-11T21:47:19Z

"The property which every man has in his own labor; as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable... To hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour is a plain violation of this most sacred property." --- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

When the discipline of economics was born, and I use the term discipline advisedly, the objective was to justify concentration of capital, emphasizing, as many of its practitioners still do, the function of capital in economic growth. Capital is vital for economic growth, but somewhere along the blood line of teachers and students of capitalism, the horse was passed by the cart.

The chicken and egg metaphor of supply and demand has not seen any of the lighted and attended classrooms of a business school in a lifetime. If there is no demand, of what use is the supply enabled by capital? Want, or even desperate need, in the market for goods and services, is not demand if the products desired are priced too high. Demand does not exist if the potential consumer's financial resources are insufficient to buy.

In the health care crisis we see a confluence of forces that have created a market that excludes a large segment of the public because of affordability. Most, if not all, others that are not excluded at the basic level, are excluded at some critical survival level for the same reason. At issue is predatory and monopolistic practices by the health industry. Prices approach the point where providers can only raise prices if they are willing to lose patients. They can lose patients only if there are some that remain that can pay more. The logical conclusion of this is that health care will not only increase in cost, but will increase faster as the base of customers is priced out of the market, a positively accelerated increasing function of time. They are willing to lose patients, and their business models seem intractable on the goal of boosting margins at the expense of lives and limbs lost.

The unsung dirge of this health care nightmare is that health care increased in pricing even while their customers paychecks did not increase. And that is the real issue. Greed has won on both sides of this formula for distress, and the greed in health care is at least become a public issue.

What is not an issue, because it can't be, is the simplest and most sensible of all motives that every businessman, from mega corporation to ice cream street vendor, practices in good faith. In the effort to keep costs down and, therefore, profits up, wages are the most obvious place to cut costs. On an individual business basis it makes perfect, unassailable sense. As a systemic phenomenon, it is a death march for an economy.

Milton Friedman's tragically flawed work led us to abandon the most sensible of all economic equations. He prognosticated that if goods were cheaper, e.g. made off-shore, then profits could rise by allowing lowering wages across the economic board. He was right in the sense that short term profits could be increased, but neglected to think it through. Before him, and before the nation whose idiot President Reagan he advised, yawned a great abyss of Milton's making. If everyone lowers wages all the time, then the economy, necessarily, shrinks.

More fundamentally, Friedman contradicts the first principle of economics, that being that economies grow through productivity when productivity is shared with the working class. They do not grow, when as in the last thirty years, all productivity is appropriated as company or personal profit and then lies fallow. And fallow it is.

Capitalists, now, have more money than ever. The M2 money supply, that money that is not committed to recurring expenses, has grown at four times the rate of M1, the money in exchange in the basic economy. The Earth is swimming in capital. So much so that all it can find to do for a return is to try and corner commodities like oil and houses. Food, thankfully, is regulated to prevent speculative bubbles. There is no productive investment to be made with all that capital because there is no market for products that fewer and fewer of us can buy.

Government can act, and has acted, in the situation where capital accumulation and compensation goes out of balance. The role of government in this process has been abrogated by relentless opposition in Congress. Republicans have opposed minimum wage increases with the most desperate and shrill terror mongering possible. And the pity for them, and their constituents, is that in doing so, they actually harm their activist supporters, the very business people whose flawed understanding of systems leads them to think that they act alone.

The markets for goods and labor are complex. To have to resort to government intervention on wages is using a club with which to sew. The natural opponents of wage deflation are labor organizations. Government can act to redress the obstacles to collective bargaining erected by the idiot Reagan, and in so doing provide sutures to the economic hemorrhaging, a little at a time, instead of clubbing business to death for business' own excess supply of short sightedness.

In a free market system, pricing of both wages and goods should be unfettered, up to the point where harm is done. See Adam Smith, above. It is the role of government to see that no harm is done.

Dr. Susan Albers: Are You a Gastrosexual? Comfort Food, Cooking & Sex

2009-07-11T21:31:00Z

According to a Canadian newspaper, there is a new word in existence that may be of interest to you. A "gastrosexual" is a man who uses cooking as a way to seduce you (www.urbandictionary.com). I don't think this is a new idea -- just a new term for it. And, they've got the data to suggest that cooking is an effective aphrodisiac. According to the Calgary Herald, an English food company, PurAsia, conducted a survey which found that people who can cook are perceived as being more attractive. Many of us could tell a story or two about being wooed (okay I'm speaking from experience) with the help of a little fettuccine and olive oil.

So why is cooking so sexy? A study by Wansink, Cheney and Chan and found that men and women differ in their perception of "comfort foods." Women label prepared, convenient foods like chips and ice cream as their favorite comfort foods. Men, on the other hand, tend to identify foods like steaks, casseroles and mashed potatoes. Why the gender difference? The authors of the study hypothesized that it is because women associate foods like casseroles and steaks with the work it takes to prepare them -- and that is not comforting.

I'm venturing to say that part of the reason cooking is so attractive is because it takes two important things -- time and effort. It may be pretty safe to assume that anyone who finds a recipe, goes to the store, buys the ingredients, chops it up, and creates it into an edible dish when going out to dinner is so much easier must have some feelings for you.

I would like to create a new spin on this word. I'm venturing to say that anything you do to show a person that you care about him or her and want to do your best to provide him/her with comfort will make you extremely attractive in their eyes. So, what might be next? A memorysexual -- people who remember important events like birthdays and anniversaries are perceived as sexier. A laundrysexual -- you are more attracted to someone when they help you with your laundry. A huggysexual -- you find your partner is better looking when they hug you. The moral of the story is: Do comforting and thoughtful things for the one you love and they will likely find you to be very attractive food or no food.

www.eatingmindfully.com

Emily Henry: Cutting Welfare for the Children of Immigrants will Devastate California

2009-07-11T21:19:35Z

Some say that the "big one" -- the earthquake that will destroy California and send it seeping into the Pacific Ocean - lies in patient dormancy beneath us, waiting for the perfect time to strike. But lately, competition for the state's imminent destruction has been fierce. With budget woes reaching a fantastical level, and problems tricking in from every corner, the matter has become not a question of if or when California will be devastated, but what or who will get there first.

One of the main contenders is yet another form of powerful movement: immigration. But the threat is different than it was when the first migrants traveled across the border to seek work in the U.S, almost a century ago. Now, the demographic shift in California due to immigration is not a threat at all, but a fact. By 2030, more than half of the population of California will be immigrants and their children.Inbound immigration is slowing, and the "immigrant stock" in America is growing from within.

And yet, instead of recognizing the major shift and accepting it as a significant part of California's future, long-outdated, irrelevant fears persist. Now, the anti-immigration movement has aimed its efforts at penalizing this growing majority of California's population in the hope it will shrink.

The Los Angeles Times reports that activists are campaigning to cut welfare payments benefiting the children of immigrants born in the U.S.

The "big one" just got closer.

If these children, who are not only American citizens, but also, inevitably, hold the key to California's future welfare, experience such a dramatic blow to their already-limited resource bank, the consequences for the entire state will be dire. Second generation immigrants carry the burden of success: they must climb the social ladder from bottom to top if they are to fill the void being left by a retiring baby-boom generation, as USC Professor Dowell Myers explains in his book "Immigrants and Boomers:"

Two of the most crucial questions in California are whether this future generation of workers will be able to replace the highly skilled baby boomers who are retiring and whether they will be able to carry the tax burdens required to support services for this large population of retirees.

In order to do so, the children of immigrants need to be socially upwardly mobile at an accelerated speed. Many must move from impoverished households and working class labor markets to professional and powerful careers. They must become the first generation in their families to not only excel at higher education, but even to complete high school. They must stride up the social ladder, because there is no time to tip-toe. The boomers are already retiring and California is in trouble.

But moving quickly requires more resources, not less. Rapid upward mobility depends on whether or not the children of immigrants are provided with social support, community connections, and the means to traverse bifurcated labor markets through educational opportunities. It also depends on whether or not they are able to maintain cultural bonds, such as language, in a process labeled "selective acculturation" by theorists Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, authors of "Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation."

The children of monolingual Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles, for example, may have little or no chance of practicing English at home or getting help with their homework, resulting in complete reliance on a public school system that is, frankly, in disarray. And because resources continue to be cut, social upward mobility is slow, especially in inner-city markets. Despite the increasing dominance of the Latino population in Los Angeles, the children of immigrants are trapped in the same cycles of low-education and poverty as their parents. Drop-out rates are high and test scores are low. Despair and resignation is deeply entrenched. Cultural bonds are weak or isolated, and alternative options for integration and definition, such as gangs, are prevalent.

In fact, breaking free of the social glue that binds second generation immigrants to the lowest rungs of the labor market has arguably become more difficult now than when the immigrant population was small enough to be an exception, rather than a rule. The children of immigrants are surrounded by opportunities to leave school early and enter long-established, working class communities. Resources, the kind of which could potentially counter-balance the negative factors of assimilation, continue to wane.

Meanwhile, economic woes are causing a few Californians to point fingers at the immigrant stock. "The great demographic transition has been poorly received because the majority population resists accepting the decline of its dominant position," writes Myers. Although the last 50 years has seen impressive levels of upward mobility for Latinos in America, including great strides into positions of power, an overwhelming number of second generation immigrants are trapped under a low glass ceiling. We can either raise the roof, or bring it down on them, and take cover as California falls apart.

Emily Henry is currently working on a series of stories about second-generation Latino immigrants in California for the Carnegie-Knight sponsored News21 project.

Steven Crandell: Is the World Getting Saner? Consider These Rational International Developments

2009-07-11T20:58:09Z

This decade began with shock and madness. The tragedy of 9/11 was followed by the declaration of war without end.

We called it the War on Terror, but in reality, it was a war against no one in particular -- and therefore against anyone.

The Iraq War continued the madness -- launched as it was to counter a threat that proved nonexistent. So many people killed. So many displaced. All for nuclear weapons that never existed. And all the while, the United States itself held thousands of the weapons of mass destruction and wanted to make more.

Yet, lately, so much seems to have changed.

Now we have a US President who sees the threat latent in the nuclear weapons that really do exist. Imagine that.

President Barack Obama wants a world without nuclear weapons. He bluntly points out the flaws in our Cold War thinking about nuclear weapons.

Once upon a time, our leaders said that we would be vulnerable without nuclear weapons. In other words: Weapons of mass destruction made us safe.

Now, of course, we know that holding on to nuclear weapons has triggered unprecedented and incredibly dangerous proliferation. North Korea and Iran are only the current manifestations of an ongoing trend. There are nine nuclear-armed nations today, not counting Iran but including Israel. By 2020, we could have 35 nations with nuclear weapons. And who knows how many terrorist groups might have them.

It's a nightmare scenario -- one that can only be stopped by a multi-lateral, phased and verifiable international agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons while clamping down on nuclear security.

As Huffpost blogger Joseph Cirincione pointed out this week, President Obama is calling for just such an internationalist approach. Obama had this to say in Moscow:

"The notion that prestige comes from holding these weapons, or that we can protect ourselves by picking and choosing which nations can have these weapons, is an illusion. In the short period since the end of the Cold War, we've already seen India, Pakistan, and North Korea conduct nuclear tests. Without a fundamental change, do any of us truly believe that the next two decades will not bring about the further spread of these nuclear weapons?"

My goodness. That's awfully rational talk coming from a US President. Pragmatic, too. Some people thought President Obama was an idealist. Perhaps at some level he is. But he does his daily work with balance, compromise and practicality. And how can you blame him? Survival is a very pragmatic goal.

Also, a sane goal. I, for example, am extremely interested in passing on the legacy of a livable planet earth to my children.

Now, check out these surprisingly heartening international news items all from the first half of this month:

Presidents Obama and Dmitri Medvedev agree in principle to renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by its deadline of December this year - setting aside some disagreements (such as missile defence) to arrive at modest cuts in the arsenals of both countries.
The G8 Summit commits to supporting Obama's "three-part strategy to curb international nuclear threats: find ways to reduce and eventually eliminate existing nuclear arsenals; strengthen the non-proliferation treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries; and to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons or materials."
The G8 endorses President Obama's call for a Nuclear Security Summit in March 2010. "The Summit would allow discussion on the nature of the threat and develop steps that can be taken together to secure vulnerable materials, combat nuclear smuggling and deter, detect, and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism," according to the White House.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Britain is also willing to reduce its arsenal. "What we need is collective action by the nuclear weapons powers to say that we are prepared to reduce our nuclear weapons, but we need assurances also that other countries will not proliferate them," he said.

To me, there is no doubt that the time is right for our President to assert the importance of working through global cooperation to achieve the mutally-desirable goal of planetary survival.

The same lesson is evident when it comes to global warming or the global economy or hunger. International cooperation, as difficult as it will be, is not a fantasy solution. It is the only solution.

Nuclear weapons present a stark example of what's at stake if we can't find a way to cooperate, if we can't find a way to let common sense hold sway. The truth is, nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities and kill civilians. Families. Like mine and yours.

The truth is, these weapons can't be managed or controlled. The story of the nuclear age emphasizes this truth.

When one nation has nuclear weapons, other nations will seek them. They will seek them from the same motivation that spurred us into the wasteful war in Iraq -- the motivation of fear. Reason and compassion both tell us to take the difficult option, the road as yet not taken, and seek international cooperation to eliminate these weapons.

The truth is, these weapons do not just destroy those people who are targeted. Eventually, they destroy the countries that wield them.

I am thankful the world seems a bit saner this week. Long may this trend continue.

Anne Hill: Facebook: Gameboy for the Over-40 Set

2009-07-11T20:45:12Z

The news that older people are the fastest growing segment of Facebook users came as a shock to many, but not to me. You see, I live with one of them.

Of course I am also one myself, as my high school and college-aged kids would hastily point out. They have been kind enough to "friend" me on Facebook, but only in an ironic way, which doesn't make them less cool in the eyes of their friends.

Besides, I'm the type of Facebook user who doesn't poke others, doesn't engage in meaningless flower-sending or zombie wars, and doesn't care what the hell Catholic saint, ancient Goddess, Shakespeare character or natural disaster I might be. So they can live with me as their Facebook friend, provided I don't post too many embarrassing baby pictures or freak out when their profile pictures look a bit unclothed.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, could be a poster child for The New (Older) Facebook. His love of social networking has resulted in warnings by the Powers That Be that he was amassing too many friends. He is on his laptop before 7 am, commenting on everyone's status updates and new photos. By the end of the day he has caught up with friends from Russia to New Zealand, learned the names of their new babies and former lovers, and stored it all in the enormous part of his brain reserved for Facebook-related information.

I say this with a certain amount of awe, because while I would like to care about my friends that much, the truth is that I do not. In fact, his Facebook habit has made me realize just how little I care about my childhood friend's daughter's new swimsuit, my high school class reunion committee's progress, or just about anything not connected with my immediate family and environment. Does this make me self-absorbed and short-sighted? Or by ignoring its relentless newsfeed am I taking a stand against the Facebook-ification of daily life?

The other night we were sitting together watching TV, and during every commercial break he reached for his iPhone, turned on Facebook, and scrolled through the new listings of people's robot names, who liked whose links, and what new comments had been added to which photos. I sat there wondering where I had seen this behavior before, but it took me another glass of wine before I could put my finger on it: He looked exactly like an 8-year-old who just got a Gameboy and won't rest until he's won all the levels of every single game he owns.

Except the Facebook game has no end. It comes with a limitless cast of characters, is part schmoozy business network, part family photo album and part reality show, and offers just enough helpful information to give every user an airtight excuse to log in whenever they feel the need.

If this were one of my kids sitting around with a Gameboy, I could make up reasonable-sounding rules such as: no Gameboy at the breakfast table, no playing till you've mowed the lawn, all hand-held machines off after 9 pm. Chances are they would even follow them most of the time.

But Facebook is now being used by a generation that grew up way before handheld video games were invented. They have no natural or developed immunity to the medium, and no reason to curtail their Facebook behavior -- it is just too damn useful, and they are adults after all.

This Facebook craze among people my own age has made some parts of my life much easier, I admit. But I never imagined it would make me nostalgic for the days of the Gameboy craze.

Jim Jaffe: Time to Talk Tax Hikes

2009-07-11T20:38:37Z

Raising America's taxes is an excellent idea.

House leaders deserve credit for beginning the debate on exactly who should pay how much more and when. Regardless of the outcome, it will make our politics slightly more honest while relieving some internal pressures on the Democratic Party.

The latter issue is raised by those on the left who are disturbed by how income has tilted toward the top in recent decades and believe the tax system should take a more aggressive role in offsetting that trend. That the revenue raised could finance programs they like or reduce record anticipated deficits is icing on the cake.

White House efforts to mend capitalism rather than end it have troubled this group, which notes that responses have been more successful in saving banks than reducing foreclosures and that executives in semi-socialized firms are still making big bucks.

So asking the rich to pay a bit more sends a reassuring signal to this group while providing a way to fund our government, which is spending quite a bit more than it is currently taking in.

Whether such a tax increase is actually included in the health package ultimately approved -- and my personal bet is that at least a sliver of it will be -- isn't terribly important. What is important is that this faction of the Democratic Party has an opportunity for a public test of something it thinks should be on the agenda.

At best, they'll win something. At worst, they'll have a clearer picture of who's unsympathetic to their views. A final benefit is that this avoids a sticky debate about taxing employer-paid health insurance premiums, a disruptive move of unpredictable benefit that they see as a dagger aimed at one of their key constituencies, union members.

Raising this issue can also start a debate about our chronic deficit issue. Few argue with the need for red ink now given the economic stresses of the moment. But fewer yet think that the deficit problem will solve itself over time. And some think America is becoming increasingly vulnerable to a potential lenders' strike. If others decide to stop loaning us money, we'd confront a real crisis.

Balancing the budget is one of those questions that's simple, but not easy. Either we spend less or bring in more. Today's debate in California suggests that waiting for the arrival of the revenue fairy or outlawing waste, fraud and abuse are faux strategies that deflect attention from the tough decisions that ultimately will be required.

When the House votes on legislation to raise taxes as part of health reform, we'll see the opening chapter of that overdue debate.