The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

Matthew
O’Brien of The Atlantic updates
us on the depressing prospects for the long term unemployed: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Here
is the data for the long-term unemployment situation in the US.

It
equals 4.6 million people as of March 2013, down from 6.7 million in April, 2010.
That is a big improvement, but O’Brien says that today, there are two labor markets with different dynamics. One is
the market for people who have been out of work for less than six months, and
the second is the market for people who have been out of work longer.

The
less-than six month unemployed marketplace is working normally, while the over-six
month unemployed market is dysfunctional. O’Brien discusses recent research by
Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, and William
Dickens, a professor of economics at Northeastern University.

They
analyzed Beveridge curves
to see who the recovery is leaving behind. A Beveridge curve shows the
relationship between job openings and unemployment.

What
Ghayad and Dickens found is that the Beveridge curves are normal across all
ages, industries, and education levels, as long as you haven’t been out
of work for more than six months. In other words, it doesn’t matter
whether you’re young or old, blue-collar or white-collar, or a high school or
college grad: The only thing that
matters is how long you’ve been out of work.

Ghayad
sent out 4800 fictitious resumes to 600 job openings. He varied how long the
fictitious people had been out of work, how often they’d switched jobs, and
whether they had any industry experience. The mocked-up resumes were all male,
all had randomly-selected (and racially ambiguous) names, and all had similar
education backgrounds. The question was which of them would get
callbacks. The chart below shows the results of his experiment:  

The
chart below shows the percentage of the time that an unemployed person gets
called back for a job interview based on how
long they have been out of work: As you can see, people with relevant
industry experience (red) who had been out of work for six months or longer got called
back less than people without relevant experience (blue) who’d been out of work
a shorter period. 

So,
if you’ve been out of work for less than six months, you may get called back even without experience. But if you’ve
been out of work for six months, experience no longer matters. There was only a
2.12 percentage point difference in callback rates for the long-term unemployed
with or without industry experience, compared to a 7.13 and 8.95 percentage
point difference respectively for the short-and-medium-term unemployed.

The
penalty for long-term unemployment is worse than other issues. As you can see in
the chart below, job churn, another red flag for employers, does not hurt an
out-of-work person to the same extent as the duration of unemployment. The
chart below divides the phony resumes
into those who switched jobs a lot vs. those who rarely moved. Applicants
who had gone through five to six jobs but had relevant experience were still
more likely to get called back than those who’d gone through three to four jobs
but didn’t have industry experience.

Ghayad’s
field study shows employers
discriminate against the long-term unemployed. Firms even ignored
resumes from people who’d been out of work for longer than six months when they had better credentials.
So, more jobs-training may not help the long-term unemployed all that much.

A
stronger economy may only help some years in the future, when the supply and
demand for labor is in greater equilibrium than today.  

Our
society needs to wake up to the reality that once you’ve been out of work for
six months, there’s little you can do to find work, regardless of how strong
the rest of your resume is. After all, employers hardly look at it. 

The
worst possible outcome for all of us
is if the long-term unemployed become
unemployable. That has major sociocultural implications and it permanently
reduces our productive capacity. 

What’s
horrible is that both political parties recognize the problem, but that only
one side seems to want to do anything about it.


Mr. Obama has proposed large-scale infrastructure projects which could put some
Americans to work. He has proposed large-scale job training efforts to get
Americans the skills they need to be employable. Republicans
blocked them both. 

The Wrongologist has written that our political stalemate will begin 
to break down by 2020, which is when the demographics turn: 

• Demographic
  projections by the Census Bureau show that at by 2020, the US will be
  older than ever: People over 64 will have grow by 7.2% to 28% of the
  population compared with 21% now.

• The white majority will decline
  to about 60% from 68% now.

• People of working age (18-64)
  will decline by ~15% to 61.8% from 76.7%.

Unless we deal with
the long-term unemployment problem before 2020, the young underemployed and the long-term
unemployed may coalesce around a view that the system must be changed.
They might join together to start a new political movement. It may not
look like the Occupy movement or the Tea Party movement, but it will be
informed by both.

Remember, 2020 is
only two presidential elections from today.

Obviously the private sector won’t or can’t
solve the long-term unemployment problem. If they wanted to, or could, we wouldn’t
be talking about it here.

Republicans continue to propose cutting
taxes and then cutting government spending. They say that these policies will
magically create jobs.

Let that sink in. Then
let’s elect people who really want to solve the problem.

 

What’s
Wrong today:

Going to
college these days brings with it the potential of a lifetime of massive student
debt. Sadly debts can accumulate over time in a variety of ways. Fortunately, the debt relief offered by debtconsolidation.co can be very useful to people in this position.

The Federal Reserve
Bank of New York has a recent analysis of individual credit data by Donghoon Lee. It
shows that student loans are the only category of household debt that continued
to rise during the Great Recession. At the end of 2012, student loans amounted
to $966 billion, more than credit card debt, auto loans, or home equity lines
of credit.

That amount has
increased from $390 billion at the end of 2005. During the same time frame, the
number of borrowers has increased from 24.8 million to 38.8 million debtors. The
chart below is from Lee
(2013):

(HELOC on the above
means Home Equity Line of Credit)

Lee also found that
17.5% of the student loans are currently delinquent. That equals $169 billion that might need to be written off.
But an additional 44% of loans are not yet even scheduled for repayment,
because the borrowers are still in school, or have graduated but have deferrals
that postpone regular payments.

We should remember
that by law, student loan debt is treated differently than other kinds of
consumer debt. Among the differences:  

• Student loan debt is not dissolved
  in bankruptcy

• Student loan debt cannot be
  refinanced (even if a new lender offers lower rates or better terms)

• Student loan lenders can garnish
  Social Security benefits without a court order

These “enhancements”
were passed in successive versions of the Higher Education Act over the past 15
years. The fact that the banking industry lobbied for the ability to garnish SS
benefits tells you they expected high losses on student debt. 

The Wrongologist reported about a year ago that 40% of delinquent
student loan debt was held by people over 40, while 4.8% of total delinquencies
were held by people over 60. Delinquencies continue to rise sharply: In 2005,
people under 30 accounted for 4.5% of delinquencies. Today they account for 8.9%, a growth of 198%! The over 60 cohort’s delinquencies
increased by 184% and delinquencies in the 50-59 group grew by 165% over the
same 7 year period.

What has caused the
rapid growth in student debt? The economy is part of the answer; parents cannot
borrow as much against their homes to support college costs. Unemployment is
causing more people to go to college or stay in school and pursue an advanced degree.
But the biggest problem is tuition costs growing much faster than the rest of
the economy:

(Source: Partners for Prosperity)

For-Profit
institutions continue to be bad actors in the student loan arena and thus
require close scrutiny regarding student debt. The New York Times quotes Sen. Harkin (D-IW) Chair of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, saying that for-profit colleges are an important subset of the student loan debt problem because they teach
only about 10% of students but receive 25% of the federal loan aid.

So, we have growing
costs, fewer employment prospects for college grads 5 1/2 years after the end of the Great Recession than were available in the past, and massive student debt that
cannot be discharged in bankruptcy hanging over the heads of recent graduates.

What’s the plan,
Congress?

In the 20th
century, no other institution could say that it had a greater ability to raise
people out of poverty or, to have contributed more to the development of a
robust American middle class than higher education. And yet in this century, Democrats and Republicans alike treat
higher education like a marginalized child.

For nearly 30 years, medical
care and higher education costs have risen at roughly the same rate. Since the
Clinton administration, Americans agree with the idea that health care is a
national policy concern that warrants serious public consideration.

Yet we fail to give
higher education the same degree of attention, notwithstanding the rising costs to
students, families, and now finally, to the US government.

This paucity of policy is
an insult beyond the injury it is inflicting on future graduates.

 

What
does this mean for tax reform?

It means
it’s going to be nearly impossible to simplify the tax code. Lobbyists representing pretty much the entire
economy are well entrenched and prepared to defend a dense thicket of
interlocking interests to protect loopholes, credits and other tax favors.
Their ability to influence the outcome is both wide and deep.

In other Tax Day news, Gallup reported
today on a new
poll of public perceptions of their tax burden:

Gallup wants to paint a picture about
how public opinion has changed, stating that the percent who view their tax
burden as fair is the “lowest since 2001”.

True. But the real story is that
public perceptions haven’t fluctuated much in the last 10-15 years.  The
Bush tax cuts improved people’s attitudes about their taxes and attitudes have not changed much since then.

We need to change the perceptions about taxes by
promoting the idea that taxes provide benefits that we all use every day. Every tax cut bill now has the
word “relief” in it. Taxes are not just costs, or a “burden” from which we need
“relief”.

The anti-tax crusaders use two ideas
to drive home their view about lower taxes:

First is government
dysfunction.  Conservatives run for office with the message: Government
is the problem, it’s broken, let’s cut your taxes and shrink it.  If they
win, they naturally work to ensure that their prophecy is fulfilled. 
Fomenting dysfunction is a highly effective strategy practiced by those who
want to cut taxes and shrink government.  When the public sector works
well, it has more fans and that’s the last thing the tax cutters want. So they
try to starve it.

Second is the long-term
stagnation in personal income.  We all say something like “given the
stagnation in pretax income over the last decade and a half, we can’t raise taxes on middle-class households.” 

Mr. Obama bought this idea, pledging not to raise taxes on households below $250,000,
meaning that the bottom 98% is off limits!

His thinking is based on the (correct)
assessment that since income growth has bypassed middle and low-income families
on its way to the top of the income brackets, the middle class now needs to be
protected from tax increases while those who’ve received the lion’s share of
the growth have to pay more of their “fair share.” 

This contributed to making 82% of the Bush tax cuts permanent during the
fiscal cliff deal, a move
that will make it much harder to raise the revenues we will need in coming
years.

So today, pro-tax increase arguments
are largely based on “fairness”. But this approach is limited.  People
have to believe that their money will be spent smartly on the services they
want and need, and that the private sector either won’t provide (public goods,
infrastructure, pollution abatement, innovative investments) or will do so
less affordably (retirement security, public education). 

President Obama’s has a bad take on
taxes.  He articulates, better than anyone recently in high office, the
“we’re-in-this-together” theme, along with great analyses of how and why we
need an amply funded, efficient government sector.  His health care plan is
evidence that he gets this, as are his words regarding investing in clean
energy, infrastructure, safety-nets, productivity-enhancing innovations, and
education.

But his tax policy falls far
short of his agenda.  His agenda cannot be accomplished solely by taxing households
above $400,000 (the top 1.5%) while permanently keeping the Bush tax cuts. We
need to raise corporate taxes.

So, there is a ton of political work
to be done. But how will we do it?

If voters can understand that the cash that US corporations and the wealthy “invest” in
campaign contributions is provided by the rest of us through tax
loopholes, then they will understand the importance
of severing these links.

100% public
financing of campaigns would not cost the public any more than what we pay now via loopholes; the
only difference would be that the voters would retain the political power they now
“voluntarily” give up without a fight.

We have given the
plutocrats veto power over who can realistically run for public office and as a result, we have
gotten the tax code they want, not the tax code we need.  

 

Tomorrow is tax day…

The Wrongologist in April:

Congress: The tax code is too complicated!

Mr. Obama steps on past gains for the middle class:

GOP willing to talk about Mr. Obama’s budget:

Congress must list these people as their dependents:

GOP: We used to love her, but that’s all over now

What’s Really,
Really Wrong Today: 

The
Wrongologist has always disagreed with the idea that democracy was too
important to leave to the voters. Until now.

From Public
Shaming:

What’s Wrong Today:

Recent economic news brings three more depressing facts about the jobs market.

First, the Economic
Populist reports that The
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) February (it is lagged by a month) JOLTS report, or Job
Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows there are 3.1 unemployed per job opening, compared with 1.8 per opening at the start of the
recession in December, 2007. Job openings increased 8.7% from January to a
total of 3,925,000.  

While job
openings have increased 80% from July 2009, they still remain 15% below
pre-recession levels of 4.7 million: 

Actual
hires increased 2.8% to 4,418 million and hiring has only increased 22%
since June 2009. Below is the graph of the official unemployed per job opening.
 There were 12.03 million unemployed in February 2013.

And people could be unemployed for a long time. It could take 10-15 years to bring
the available workforce and the demand for workers back to an equilibrium
similar to what it was prior to 2007.

Second, according
to the Wall Street Journal, 284,000
Americans with college degrees were working minimum wage jobs last year, which
is 70% more college grads
working for the minimum wage than there were 10 years ago.


Nearly half of the college graduates in the class of 2010 are working in jobs
that don’t require a bachelor’s degree and 38% have jobs that don’t even require
a high school diploma, according to a January report from the Center for
College Affordability and Productivity.


The New York Fed reports that student loan debt has tripled over
the last eight years to $966 billion.  That is a 70% increase in borrowers
and a 70% increase in debt held by each.  Student loan debt is now the
second largest consumer debt, trailing only residential mortgages and student debt is not discharged
through bankruptcy.

It used to
be college was affordable as well as the ticket to a stable career.  That
dream has been replaced by profit centers making money by selling dreams to
unemployable teenagers.  Worse, for many, despite having fresh skills
straight out of school, they still cannot get a job.

Third, the March employment reports show that the
Employment Ratio (EMratio) and the Labor Force Participation rate (LFrate) again
haven’t improved. If fact, the EMratio is where it was in January 1984
while the LFrate is where it was in January 1979.

But let’s
start with a few definitions from
the BLS:

The labor force participation
rate is the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population
that is in the labor force. Who is in the civilian non-institutional population? Persons 16 years and older residing in the
50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions and
who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

The employment-population ratio represents the percentage
of the civilian non-institutional population that is employed. The civilian
labor force consists of all persons classified as employed or
unemployed.

Here is a graph of both through
February 2013:

Bill
McBride  of Calculated Risk unpacks some of the detail behind
the overall rates:

• There
  is a big decline in the LFrate for those in the 16 to 19 age group, due mostly to
  higher enrollment rates by these groups in school. This could be encouraging news
  for the future, but these kids are building more student loan debt as described
  above and their jobs could still be low wage.

• We
  are experiencing a slow decline in participation for those in their key working
  years (25 to 54). They are back to where they were in January 1984. As these
  are our most productive citizens, that is very disturbing. See the graph below:

• The
  55 and overs have increased their participation. This is probably a combination
  of financial need (not good news) and more workers staying healthy.

We have come to the end of excuses
for the last half decade of bad employment news. Congress and the White House
have no answers and apparently, no will to try to find any answers.

This
economy has been called the knowledge
economy. Maybe so. It is an economy organized to benefit a coalition of politicians and financial elites. In
the new economy, the only members of the working classes with good jobs are the
knowledge worker technocrats that serve both.

However,
the majority of workers are skilled and low-skilled service workers.

Robert Reich
divides service workers into “routine producers” and “in-person
servers.” Since service workers own and leverage less capital (or less knowledge),
their ability to create surplus value and thereby demand high wages is
intrinsically less than that of knowledge workers.

This has created a massive structural
tension, as society tries to establish a way to maintain the wages (or standard
of living) of the service workers in an economy where the value they produce and
income they can generate by their labor is capped.

This
is the economy every student and every worker must understand if they are to
navigate it to their benefit.

There are many
companies, big and small, that repeatedly post the same exact jobs. They interview
for those jobs, choose not to fill them, and re post them. This goes along with
the STEM and H-1 visa gaming of the “no qualified Americans,”
“we need a tax break to hire,” game.

We
grew up in a society where merit was rewarded and performance was measured by
getting ahead in a corporation, where expanding the middle class was preferable
to steepening the climb up the ladder.  

We now
inhabit a different world. Not simply one where the historical warnings of
Jefferson and Eisenhower (banks, corporate hegemony) have come to pass, but one
with automated toll booths, self-checkout in the retail store, faux job
postings.

In our world,
one in six Americans live in poverty.  The number of Americans living in
poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.


In our world, 20% of all children are living in poverty.  Incredibly, a
higher percentage of children are living in poverty in America today than was
the case back in 1975.

We inhabit
a world where dis-empowerment of the individual and dis-empowerment (or
co-option) of the lower and middle economic classes are the rule of the day.

If we taxed politicians
based on stupidity, we might solve the deficit problem.

 

 

Martin
Luther King was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968. We neither celebrate the day of his birth or death, so its difficult to remember the exact date of his death.

On that day 45 years
ago, the Wrongologist was tasked by our government with leading a nuclear
missile base in Germany. Our company’s racial composition was about 45%
African-American, 45% White and 10% all others principally, Hispanic. Since a missile base is a fairly
technical shop, most of the people were quite intelligent, had some college and
most were not draftees; most had been in the military for at least 5 years. It
was the Vietnam era and we were in a rural part of Germany.

When the
news of his death broke, the military brass thought that remote bases like ours
were likely to see violence, but we had none. It was grim and sullen, but not at
all violent, only painful for most of us.

This all
came to mind while watching “MLK: The Assassination Tapes”, a Smithsonian
Channel presentation. A little known fact is that all of the events of that day
were caught on film, tape and audio. They were compiled into this film produced
by Tom Jennings, who repeats the goals and methods of his earlier “The
Lost JFK Tapes: The Assassination” which ran in 2009 on the National
Geographic Channel.

While this
ground has been covered in other documentaries, there is an immediacy here. It
feels like you are part of the event, you experience those days as they
happened, probably for the first time. The film lasts only about 47 minutes; so
much had to be left out, such as the fate of the convicted killer James Earl
Ray. That doesn’t come across as a failing, however, but as focus. There are
plenty of places to go to learn more.

The film
is definitely worth watching. You don’t need to subscribe to the Smithsonian
Channel, it can be viewed here.
See it.

Most have
seen the iconic photo of Jesse Jackson and others standing on the balcony of
the Lorraine Motel, pointing in the direction of the gunfire. The motel is now
a museum dedicated to the civil rights movement. Dr. King had gone to Memphis to
support a strike by sanitation workers to achieve pay equity with white workers
and to improve working conditions. The strike started in February and had gotten
progressively violent over the period of 8 weeks.

One of
MLK’s most remarkable speeches, the “I’ve seen the promised land” speech, was
given in Memphis on April 3d, about 22 hours before he was killed. It is
reprised here with chilling effect, as you realize Dr. King clearly had a premonition of his death.

In “At Canaan’s Edge,” the last volume of
his “America in the King Years” trilogy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor
Branch wrote that King’s last words that day were to a musician who was to play
at a meeting on the night of April 4th in Memphis: “Make sure you
play ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand,’” King requested. “Play it real pretty.”

It was Dr.
King’s favorite song, and he often invited gospel singer Mahalia Jackson to
sing it at civil rights rallies to inspire the crowds. Here is the first verse:

Precious
Lord, take my hand
Lead me on,
Let me stand.
I’m tired, I am weak I am worn.
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light.
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.

Interestingly, it was also sung at LBJ’s funeral by Leontyne Price in 1973.

MLK’s assassination
sparked a paroxysm of violence as riots broke out across the nation in the
aftermath of his murder. Just two months after Dr. King was killed, Bobby
Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Lyndon Johnson, the incumbent
president was forced from the race, despite being elected by a landslide in
1964. College campuses were seething with demonstrations. There were violent
confrontations between police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic National
Convention, a significant third-party presidential run by George Wallace and
ultimately, the election of Richard Nixon, which effectively ended the New Deal
coalition that had dominated domestic politics for 35 years.

A year to
the day before he was murdered, Dr. King spoke out against the Vietnam War at
Riverside Church in New York City. Though some liberals had warned him that
protesting the war could dilute the civil rights movement, Dr. King saw the
link between a struggle for freedom at home and our long, costly war overseas.

He called
the US government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He urged
citizens to “move past indecision to action” and warned his fellow Americans:

45 years after
his death, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. remain valid.

Once again
we need to act.

The
challenges are different, but the message still resonates.

 

What’s
Wrong Today:

We
went to war with North Korea in the 1950’s. We say that we won that war, but in
the 60 years since we signed the ceasefire agreement, there have been many violations,
incursions, threats and deaths among the parties.  Over the years, we got used to the North Koreans being
awful, just not awful enough to merit a major military response.

They
never leave our radar, but we never
consider North Korea a primary threat, much less an existential threat, like we
have Iran.

This
view continues, despite North Korea abandoning the armistice treaty, closing
the border to the joint manufacturing zone, suggesting that foreign diplomats
leave the country for their safety and rolling missiles on to launch pads, all
in the past month.

Yet in
recent years, North Korea has shown a willingness to follow its rhetoric with
actual violence. In March 2010, it sunk
the South Korean ship Cheonan,
killing 46 sailors. That November, Pyongyang attacked
the island of Yeonpyeongdo during a US-South Korea military exercise.

Still,
we remain focused on Iran. As Julian Hattem wrote in The
Atlantic, we treat North Korea as an afterthought:

It’s partly a matter of
geography. Most experts agree that North Korea’s rockets cannot
reach the American mainland. And even if they could, there’s a lot of time
and distance for early warning and for the military to shoot them down. Little
to fear, right?

Wrong! Do you know the Single-Shot-Kill Probability (SSKP) of an Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) with a conventional warhead? Its way less than 50%. So unless we use nuclear-tipped ABMs, (SSKP >80%), half of the missiles could get through.

All the while,
we make fun of Kim Jong Un. When
Kim welcomed Dennis Rodman to North Korea in February we thought, Kim Jong Un
is a Dennis Rodman fan, how out of touch he is. We laugh when a map behind Kim
shows that Austin, TX is a ballistic missile target, along with LA and New
York.

Our allies in the
region don’t treat the North Korea so lightly. South Korean and Japanese
citizens tend to view North Korea as an existential threat, as we might if Kim
was sitting in Mexico City or Ottawa.

Iran, meanwhile, is a
Muslim nation and it is easier to stoke American fears with Muslim fanaticism
than North Asian nationalism. Iran brings in the Israel factor. We might not be
directly in Iran’s neighborhood, but Israel is, and the particular dynamics of
the US-Israel relationship and Israel’s oft-stated
willingness to preemptively strike Iranian nuclear sites makes that threat seem
most urgent.

There is also the
fear that Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon would inspire Saudi Arabia and
other countries in the neighborhood to also seek them.

In Asia, South Korea
and Japan accept the United States’ nuclear umbrella as a safeguard
against the North; countries in the Middle East are less willing to rely on us
to protect them from Iran.

However, North Korea
has been almost a constant threat to South Korea and tangentially, to Japan.
When tyrants die, their legacy usually dies with them but we are on to Kim 3.0 and we are seeing the same behavior.

The threat
is palpable. North Korea has thousands of artillery guns and many millions of
shells, some of which are chemically tipped. Their artillery
along DMZ are capable of hitting Seoul. It only takes a artillery round 56
seconds to get there. North Korea’s missiles can reach all of Japan and South
Korea, and they have at least a few nuclear tipped missiles, in addition to their
chemical and conventional missiles.

When the UN,
at our behest, places sanctions on North Korea, Mr. Kim threatens us with pre-emptive
nuclear war, knowing full well that we have little desire for a war with a
nuclear armed nation.

The threat
posed by Iran is different. Iran has fewer artillery pieces, a smaller missile
force, an outdated air force and no nuclear weapons currently. So Iran has less
to threaten us or our allies with than does North Korea.

So, when the
UN places sanctions on Iran at our behest, when “someone” attacks their nuclear
facilities with cyber weapons and when “someone” kills their nuclear scientists,
Iranians can make only vague threats since they do not yet have a means of
retaliation.

This should lead us to treat Iran and North
Korea very differently.

The
North Korean regime isn’t an ordinary regime. Ordinary people don’t threaten
pre-emptive nuclear strikes. They could try to hold South Korea hostage with the
few nukes they have. We would not have sufficient reaction time to prevent
Seoul from falling in that event. The standoff would be North Korea holding the
cities hostage with nukes while we try to create a credible alternative threat.

What
would we do then? There would be no easy answer to that riddle.

And
what about China?  China could get involved as they did in the
1950’s. If China believed North Korea might fall in retaliation for their hostile
acts against South Korea or Japan, China would see North Korea becoming a US
proxy state right on their border, something they would work hard to avoid.

Returning to
Iran’s existential threat: When Iran threatens the United State and Israel, it’s
mostly with hot air.

But Israel won’t tolerate Iran working on a nuclear program, so they’re
obviously the biggest threat facing the world today. At least among politicians
in Washington and that may be all that matters.

Iran has a
boatload of work to do before it is a partner of peaceful nations. But, the “let’s
invade now!” case has not been made. Iran is not launching their
nonexistent nukes with their non-existent ICBM’s any minute now just because they’re
religion makes ‘em crazy.

Iran isn’t
even the craziest country on their street, much less in the world.

That would
be North Korea. Give it your full attention.

Things
could get hot there very soon and what our response will be is far from clear.

 

What’
s Wrong Today:

Enjoy
the Final Four this weekend.

Here are a few cartoons for your
enjoyment.

Mr.
Obama’s 5% Pay cut:

Mr. Kim’s temptation:

Our priorities are all wrong:

What REALLY went down at Rutgers:

Missing Roger Ebert:

What will it take to get our vets what they need?

What’s
Wrong Today:

We are leaving Afghanistan in 2014.
The costs and complexity of that task is now becoming clear. We will spend more
than $6 billion to pull out, says UK’s The Guardian:

Some
estimates are higher. The job is to salvage and reuse as much of the $26
billion of equipment on the ground that we can, particularly in this time of
budget deficits. The US military says it plans to level any bases not handed
over to Afghan forces and fly out, drive out or scrap the weapons, equipment
and tens of thousands of Humvees and expensive MRAPs (mine-resistant
ambush-protected vehicles) it has shipped in since 2001.

The
plan is to ship out as much equipment as possible by while making sure the nearly
70,000 US soldiers still in Afghanistan are not left short of the equipment
they still need. By August, the equipment exodus will be in full swing, with US
sending about 1,500 military vehicles and 1,000 containers per month out of Afghanistan.

About
two-thirds of that cargo is expected to move through Pakistan. In July, Pakistan re-opened its
highways to NATO supply trucks after the routes had been closed for
several months in response to the US killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in an attack
on a border post in November, 2011.

When
the US left Iraq, equipment was trucked to Kuwait where it was cleaned, packed and shipped out. But Afghanistan has no coastline, no stable, US-friendly
neighbors and a vulnerable road network, making the job more dangerous, expensive
and complicated. Colonel Mark Paget of the 401st Army Field Support
Brigade: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The
Wall Street Journal reported that the US tested the Pakistan
overland route used for the past decade to bring goods into Afghanistan in
reverse, by sending a trial load of military hardware through Pakistan and on to
the port of Karachi. The shipment, which included more than 70 containers and
20 military vehicles, was a early test of the plan to bring home our military
gear via Pakistan.

But,
as Jim White reported at Empty Wheel, although the first shipment of 20 trucks made it
through, we now know that subsequently, a convoy of
five trucks on the exit route was attacked and destroyed.

From
the AFP via the
Express Tribune:

The vehicles and their contents were a total loss. Looks
like the Taliban will have no problem stopping the steady, even flow of goods
that Colonel Paget says is critical. Nothing
can pile up equipment like a low cost, low tech attack. We will have to do a
better job protecting these convoys, or else use the more expensive alternatives of
air freight or the Northern Distribution Network, (NDN) a route through
Central Asia to the Baltic and Black Sea ports. The NDN may be more expensive
than the route through Pakistan, but it isn’t exposed to attacks by the Taliban.

Perhaps
the military will allow a certain number of the convoys to be
burned by militants in Pakistan as a cost of doing business. Perhaps the
military will respond by hardening the convoys with troops, Humvees and MRAPS
like those they are trying to send home. Or, perhaps they would just be happier
ordering new stuff rather than using refurbished old stuff.

The
moral of the story: It’s clearly easier to get in than to get out of
Afghanistan.

Moral
#2: Apparently, the Taliban can drink the Pentagon’s milkshake whenever they want.