On Carter on Israel, Palestine, and Apartheid

Any present or past President has got to be used to being scorned, so the hue and cry now erupting over Jimmy Carter's new book on the Israeli-Palestinian misery can't be terribly surprising for him. I haven't yet had a chance to read the book and so am not in a position to endorse or reject or somewhere-in-the-middle it. Still, some of the reaction is so clearly based on attacking Carter himself, rather than the content of his book--indeed it seems to be attacking Carter instead of attacking his arguments--and that's just plain wrong. An example.

Neal Sher's op-ed at the JTA: Global News Service of the Jewish People is a classic attempt at a hatchet job. Sher asserts (without a single example or refutation) that Carter bases his book, at least in part, on factual errors. But much more than that is the strained logic Sher uses to insinuate that Carter is a Nazi sympathizer--which is indeed exactly what he clearly implies. This is a very serious, even dangerous, implication, because exaggerated crying "wolf" over anti-Semitism results in people being likely to ignore true instances of that wretched prejudice.

In order to paint Carter as a Nazi sympathizer, Sher tells the story of the time he was working for the Office of Special Investigations, "the Justice Department's Nazi prosecution unit," on the case of a former Nazi SS officer, Martin Bartesch. (By the way, Sher would subsequently be disbarred from the District of Columbia bar for embezzling money from a Holocaust victims fund. Sher was never criminally charged, but apparently there was enough evidence to cause the DC bar to strip him of his lawyerly status.)

Sher writes that

Bartesch's family and 'supporters,' seeking special relief, launched a campaign to discredit OSI while trying to garner political support. Indeed, OSI received numerous inquiries from members of Congress who had been approached. After we explained the facts of the case, however, the matter inevitably was dropped; no one urged that Bartesch or his family be accorded any special treatment.

Sher makes no implication that these numerous members of Congress have a hidden pro-Nazi aggenda. Yet when Carter does essentially the exact same thing--merely forwarding a letter from Bartesch's daughter with a short added scribble urging OSI to allow for "humanitarian considerations"--somehow Carter is at minimum excessively naive or at most revealing some long-festering, pro-Nazi anti-Semitism.

In September 1987, after all of the gruesome details of the case had been made public and widely reported in the media, I received a letter sent by Bartesch's daughter to the former president.... I was ... taken aback by the personal, handwritten note Jimmy Carter sent to me seeking "special consideration" for this Nazi SS murderer. There on the upper-right corner of Bartesch's daughter's letter was a note to me in the former president's handwriting, and with his signature, urging that "in cases such as this, special consideration can be given to the families for humanitarian reasons."

...

As disturbing as I found Carter's plea, and although his attempted intervention has always gnawed at me, I chalked it up at the time to a certain naivete on the part of the former president. But now, in light of Carter's most recent writings and comments, I am left to wonder whether it was I who was naive simply to dismiss his knee-jerk appeal as the instinctive reaction of a well-meaning but misguided humanitarian.

...

The exposure of Carter's views on Israel and the Jewish lobby has shed a clearer light on his attempt to influence me in the Bartesch case. We know from his own confession that he has had lust in his heart. Unfortunately, he has given us ample reason to wonder what else is lurking there.

Apparently Sher wants you to believe that Carter day dreams of saluting "Sig Heil" and goose stepping through the nearest synagogue.

Sher does not say what he did in response to Carter's scribbled note on Bartesch's daughter's letter. While Sher apparently responded to the Congressional inquirers with explanations of why Bartesch's case required serious action, to which the Congress members responded with approval (or dropped the issue without response), did he reply to Carter and offer a similar explanation of OSI's position? If he did not, then doesn't that imply that at the time he didn't take Carter's interest to be serious, that perhaps he interpreted Carter as just doing a minor favor to molify a pleading woman? And if he did respond to Carter at the time, why doesn't he say so, and why doesn't he say what Carter's reaction was? Could it be that Carter accepted OSI's position once he was more fully informed--just as the Congressional interlopers did--but that Sher avoids mentioning this because that would undermine the odious view of Carter Sher is creating in this op-ed?

Either way, it seems that Sher is trying to make a racially-tinged tempest in a teapot in order to create a connection between an apparently offhanded action of Carters twenty years ago and Carter's efforts today to sway public opinion regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. And what about all those other Congress people whom Sher seems to treat as fine and decent citizens despite their initial efforts on Bartesch's case? Is Sher simply waiting for any of them to write something critical of Israel, at which time he will accuse them of having been a stooge for the former Nazi?

Sher goes on to criticize the title of Carter's book. From what Christopher Hedges recently wrote in The Nation about the controversy over the book, Carter explicitly avoids describing Israel itself as an apartheid nation, and reserves the term only for the situation in the occupied territories. Frankly, the facts speak for themselves. Numerous observers of both South Africa and the territories have described the Palestinians as enduring something similar to, some say clearly worse than, the original Apartheid. And for that matter, while the conditions of forceful oppression are largely absent, the legal structure within Israel can--if one feels like doing so--quite reasonbly be described as apartheid-like: laws forbidding inter-religious marriages, laws forbidding ownership of land by non-Jews, laws forbidding many goverment benefits to non-Jews. So yeah, the title is confrontational, but it is not misleading and as for insulting, well, if the shoe fits...

Now, I think any critiques Sher makes must be judged on their merits (and I don't see much merit to those he lists in this op-ed), but for what it's worth, I'd also like to note that he is the former Executive Director of AIPAC, a group not generally viewed as moderate on issues of Israeli-Palestinian peace. In Hedge's Nation piece, he refers to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time that Rabin had realized that real efforts towards making peace were necessary. He describes Rabin's attitude towards the Jewish leadership in the U.S. as being expressly NOT supportive of Israel as a whole, but specifically supportive of Israel's hard right.

When Rabin, who had come to despise what the occupation was doing to the citizenry of his own country, was sworn in as prime minister, the leaders of these American Jewish organizations, along with their buffoonish supporters on the Christian right, were conspicuous by their absence. On one of Rabin's first visits to Washington after he assumed office, according to one of his aides, he was informed that a group of American Jewish leaders were available to meet him. The surly old general, whose gravelly cigarette voice seemed to rise up from below his feet, curtly refused. He told his entourage he did not have time to waste on 'scumbags.'

Sher was not at AIPAC at the time of this incident (he took the helm a year or two later), so perhaps Rabin would not have considered Sher a scumbag. Since Rabin was murdered by someone who shares the hard-right politics of people like Sher, we'll never know.

Regardless, since Sher refuses to debate with Carter on the substantive issues, will he devote himself fulltime to outing other Nazi sympathizers, like Desmond Tutu?

Econ-Atrocity: The High Cost of the Holidays

Econ-Atrocity: The High Cost of the Holidays
By Helen Scharber, CPE Staff Economist
Dec. 21, 2006

Ahh, the holidays. So full of joy, laughter, good cheer… and contradictions. The holidays are all about spending time with loved ones. Or are they all about finding the perfect gift? They are a time of relaxation and spirituality. Or perhaps a time of stress and consumerism? According to a 2005 poll by the Center for a New American Dream, more than three in four Americans (78%) wished that holidays were less materialistic, yet shoppers around the country planned to spend an average of $907 on gifts this holiday season. Sixty percent of people polled anticipated spending less this year than last, but according to the National Retail Federation, holiday retail sales were forecasted to rise five percent to $457.4 billion. As Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Inc. (CCCS), observes, “It seems that consumers are trying to be more conservative with spending this year over last, but many of the best laid plans fall through when the pressures of advertisers and unrealistic holiday expectations hit a fever pitch of season overload.” The fast pace and high cost of the holidays can seem to be out of our control, but there are a number of good reasons to take the reindeer by the antlers and reign in holiday consumption.

Let’s return to this $457.4 billion holiday sales figure for a moment. According to the National Retail Federation, this was the amount of anticipated retail sales in the U.S. for November and December 2006, and it constitutes one-fifth of total sales for the year. To put this number in perspective, only 26 countries have a yearly income above the $457.4 billion mark (that means at least 166 countries are below it), and it is roughly equal to the national income of the Philippines. According to the World Bank, the additional expenditure needed to achieve universal access to safe water and sanitation is around $30 billion. The list could go on, but you get the point: Americans spend a lot of money during the holiday season.

Perhaps spending 15 times the cost of safe drinking water and sanitation for everyone in the world could be justified if it were really making people happy. And we certainly shouldn’t underestimate the cultural importance of the holiday gift exchange, or the genuine satisfaction that can come from giving a particularly thoughtful gift. Yet, as a country, we don’t seem to be getting $457.4 billion worth of happiness out of the holidays. It is cliché by now to talk about holiday stress, and newspapers and magazines often print helpful tips this time of year for dealing with it. The National Mental Health Association even has a webpage devoted to coping with the “holiday blues,” which they say can be brought on by “unrealistic expectations, over-commercialization, financial constraints” and other pressures. Thanks to credit cards, financial constraints may not exactly be binding, but then, a poll conducted by CCCS in November found that 46 percent of all respondents were still paying off debt from last holiday season.

So spending the equivalent of the Philippine’s yearly income over the holidays seems to have bought us quite a bit of extra anxiety and debt. As you might imagine, $457.4 billion worth of stuff also represents a great deal of resource use and manufacturing pollution. Furthermore, all the packaging, wrapping paper, and items made redundant by gifts create a lot of waste. According to the EPA, the amount of household garbage in the U.S. generally increases by around 25 percent in the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. And the U.S. already leads the industrialized world in municipal solid waste generation, with each average American producing twice as much waste as the average German. Apparently holiday consumption isn’t great for mental or planetary health.

Isn’t there any good news? Here’s some: plenty of people have simplified their holidays by agreeing to cut back on gift-buying, or giving “alternative” gifts like donations to charitable organizations or gifts of time. You can too. For help, refer to the “Holiday Survival Kit” linked below or to your own ideas of what the perfect holiday might include (or not include).

Social and familial expectations can be powerful reasons to stick with the high-spending status quo, but listed above are some equally compelling reasons to challenge the norm. Perhaps you’re convinced, or maybe you didn’t need convincing in the first place. Still, you might be thinking, doesn’t the country need to keep consumer spending high for the health of the economy? Aha! Another contradiction to add to the list. It would be good if everyone cut back on holiday spending, but you’re worried the economy will collapse. Don’t worry too much. Consumption patterns don’t change overnight, and if (or when) Americans do trade in their thousand-dollar holidays for low-budget affairs, the economy will adjust just as it has adjusted to structural changes throughout history. And if there seems to be a contradiction between the well-being of the country and the health of the economy, we should be asking—what’s the economy for, anyway?

Resources:

• A “Holiday Survival Kit” and tips to simplify the holidays from the Center for a New American Dream
• Coping with Stress and Depression During the Holidays – a factsheet from the National Mental Health Association

Statistics on holiday spending:

• American Research Group – 2006 Holiday Survey
• Center for a New American Dream – 2005 Holiday Poll
• Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Inc. – 2006 Holiday Poll
• National Retail Federation – 2006 Holiday Forecast

© 2006 Center for Popular Economics

Econ-Atrocities are the work of their authors and reflect their author's opinions and analyses. CPE does not necessarily endorse any particular idea expressed in these articles.

Econ-Atrocity: Can enlightened capitalism save health care?

Can enlightened capitalism save health care?
By Gerald Friedman, CPE Staff Economist
Dec. 1, 2006

A recent article in the New York Times (October 25, 2006) entitled “Hospitals Try Free Basic Care for Uninsured” raises an intriguing possibility. The Times reports how some local governments and hospitals have found that by providing primary care, supportive services, and preventive care for the uninsured they can save money by avoiding higher costs when conditions worsen down the road. Following the experience of a diabetic patient at Seton, a Roman Catholic hospital network in Texas, the Times shows how preventive care reduced “costs for the hospital” by helping the woman avoid expensive emergency room visits. By improving her health, preventive care cut her medical bills nearly in half. “The money we save,” Dr. Melissa Smith, medical director of three Seton clinics, “money that is not hemorrhaging through the I.C.U., is money we can do so much more with to help her upfront.”

We could all hope that there will be enlightened insurers who will respond to these stories. The Times is certainly hoping to promote a free-market win-win where the poor will receive care that will help them stay healthy, and health insurers and providers will increase their profits by reducing total expenditures. But this worthy goal misses the fundamental flaw of for-profit health insurance: Capitalist businesses, including America’s health insurers, are not eleemosynary institutions. They do not set out to produce useful things. Instead, they seek to create profits; any social value or use is purely coincidental. In the specific case here, our capitalist health care industry is organized to produce profits; any quality health care that it provides is a desirable, but secondary, product.

As a for-profit enterprise, our health care system has been fabulously successful; and never more so than in the last 6 years. Since 2000, profits for health insurers have risen at double-digit rates for a total increase of over 120% on revenue increases of 21 percent. “They're making boatloads of money,” said Tom Boldt, a senior health-benefits consultant quoted in Investor’s Business Daily. The health insurers have shared some of their profits with their CEOs. Average pay for the five top executives at 16 of the largest health insurers is now over $3 million a year. John Rowe of Aetna was paid $22 million in 2005; and Larry Glasscock at Anthem, was paid $25 million in 2003. Both pay packages are dwarfed by the $125 million received in 2005 by Dr. William J. McGuire of UnitedHealthGroup.

Even with these generous CEO pay packages, investors have done well. The stock price for the 17 largest health insurers has almost tripled since the beginning of 2000. Aetna stock, for example, has gone from barely $7/share to over $40/share today, giving an annual return of over 30%. Profits for companies providing health insurance have risen at the same time that more Americans are losing health insurance and a smaller share of premiums is going towards health care. This coincidence is no accident but is the result of carefully calibrated company policy to reduce coverage for sick people. Aetna, for example, has pushed up its stock while cutting its rolls to 13 million down from 21 million at the end of 1999. Despite a one-third fall in revenues, profits rose nearly eight-fold, to $934 million from $127 million. Company spokesman Fred Laberge explained that “We focused on profitable [emphasis added] growth rather than growth at any cost.” He added, “We lost a lot of membership, but we're OK with that.”

The key to increasing profitability at Aetna and in the healthcare industry in general is the ever-rising administrative burden and the 80:20 rule. The empirical generalization that 80% of health care costs are associated with 20% of the population means that you can dramatically lower costs if you can identify the sickly 20% and get them out of your insurance pool. Insurers have learned that they can achieve these dramatic cost reductions even without directly denying coverage to the sick by discouraging them from remaining in the system by harassing them with bureaucratic regulations, pointless paperwork, and by refusing coverage for particular procedures or drugs. Refusing coverage contradicts the enlightened approach recommended by the Times. But while helping people remain healthy may lower costs somewhat, getting rid of the sick is guaranteed to lower costs dramatically. By reducing expenditures, a policy of harassment probably beats one of enlightened care in the short-run; and it certainly trumps enlightened care in the long run by driving the sickly 20% out of a health plan and discouraging other sick people from joining.

That is why health insurers have been adding staff even while reducing coverage. Extra layers of bureaucracy are wasteful from a social perspective - we would prefer those resources be spent on health care rather than administration. But bureaucrats make money for health insurers; through zealous oversight and by harassing sickly clients they drive away people prone to ill health, precisely the people that no private insurer wants to insure but who most need health care. The Times is absolutely right that an enlightened policy of promoting primary and supportive care would make Americans healthier and could save money. But we will never see such a policy so long as we treat health care as a profit-center rather than a social right.

Sources:
“Hospitals Try Free Basic Care for Uninsured,” New York Times (October 24, 2006). By Erik Eckholm.

“Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” Investor’s Business Daily (October 15, 2004). By Russ Britt.

“1 in 5 Health Care Dollars Used for Insurance Paperwork,” Physicians for a National Health Program (November 10, 2005).

© 2006 Center for Popular Economics

Econ-Atrocities are the work of their authors and reflect their author's opinions and analyses. CPE does not necessarily endorse any particular idea expressed in these articles.