Category Archive

 Follow the Money: Part Two –

College Presidents Stumble

By Shlomo Maital

  The New York Times reported:  “Support for the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. eroded quickly on Wednesday, after they seemed to evade what seemed like a rather simple question during a contentious Congressional hearing: Would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews? Their lawyerly replies to that question and others during a four-hour hearing drew incredulous responses.”

      The President of Harvard, Claudine Gay, a brilliant scholar, said, I believe, that the answer is ‘context-specific’.   Same for the other two: Elizabeth Magill (Penn) and Sally Kornbluth (MIT).  

       Three extraordinarily brilliant, accomplished women.

       What the hell?

        Follow the money.

        According to a rather-ignored report by the National Association of Academics – between 2001 and 2021, Qatar gave $4.7 billion to US universities (terror washing).  It began just after 9/11.  In addition, Qatar funded establishment of US universities in Qatar.  Cornell, an Ivy League school, got $1.8 billion to set up a medical school in Qatar. Georgetown got $750 m. (govt. school), Northwestern got $600 m. for a journalism school.  The list is long:  Texas A&M ($740 m., computer science), Virginia Commonwealth ($103 m.).

        In October, the UK Daily Mail reported this:  “Top American Ivy League universities including Cornell and Harvard have received over $8 billion in the last 35 years from Arab countries, a report has revealed.  According to a report by the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Cornell University received over $1.5 billion from the Middle East.   The report, authored by Dr. Mitchell Bard, was originally released in 2021 and showed how the Ivy League school received 127 gifts totaling $1,513,778,660.”

        But wait.  Is Harvard penniless?  Desperate for the Arab money?   Harvard’s endowment is currently $51 b.   The return on it is low, 2.9% — but that is still $3 billion yearly. 

         Once, it was the case that Jewish students were disproportionately welcomed to Ivy League schools.  Some 40-50 years ago, up to 20-25% of the student body were Jews in some Ivy League schools.  This has sharply fallen in recent years, partly due to affirmative action .  But even now, Harvard is said by the Hillel Organization to be 10% Jewish.    Columbia, once 40% Jewish, is now said to be about 22.3%; and it is a hotbed of pro-Palestine protests.

         In my recent Jerusalem Report column, I noted how Qatar fed the Hamas beast with hundreds of millions of dollars – with Israel’s acquiescence and even support.  Qatar, I noted, is everybody’s sugar daddy, to keep them from assaulting this tiny super-rich nation with only 330,000 Qatari citizens, and some 2 million foreign workers.  Qatar has used its financial wealth to buy US support, Islamic support, — basically everyone.  Saudi Arabia has done the same; its US lobby is huge and has deep pockets.

          Follow the money. Universities ask, why would we risk offending a rich donor, just to take a morally-just stand?   Are you serious?  Especially when college enrollment is about to take a steep dive? [1]  Jewish donors?  Well, they are well-healed, but nowhere near the scale of Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 

          Summing up this blog and the previous one —  To understand a) rampant anti-Semitism in the US on campuses, and university leadership’s inaction; and b) the impotence of COP annual conferences to even begin to address the climate crisis,  and even c) funding for Hamas’ tunnel system, (they have no bread? Let them eat tunnels)…. follow the money.  

      The Lord of the Universe gave vast oil and gas riches to tiny Arab countries.  They are using it for self-preservation.  But it’s not doing a whole lot of good for the world. 

[1] A CNBC report notes:  “There’s a growing cohort of people who start college but then withdraw, and fewer international students are choosing to study in the U.S. More would-be undergraduates are also deciding to forgo college altogether, citing the high cost among other factors. Meanwhile, the overall population of college-age students is shrinking — a demographic trend commonly referred to as the “enrollment cliff.” The number of high school graduates will turn down in 2026 and then fall rapidly through the following decade, said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.”

 Follow the Money: Part One

Oil vs. Climate

By Shlomo Maital

      If you want to really understand world events,  here is a simple principle:  Follow the Money.   Let’s first tackle Conference Des Parties COP 28, the climate crisis conference now being held in Dubai.  Next blog will be about the antisemitism in leading US universities.

     So, let’s say you want to organize a global conference on lung cancer prevention. Hmmm.  How about having the CEO of Philip Morris, world’s leading tobacco company, to organize and chair it?  Great idea?

     So, the COP 28 conference, the latest yearly gathering on the climate crisis, is now being held in Dubai, UAE.  The chairperson and leading organizer is Sultan Ahmed Al-Jabar, who heads the UAE Abu Dhabi Oil Do., one of the world’s largest oil producers, selling 3 million bbl. daily of oil and gas hydrocarbons.   UAE has 100 billion bbl. of oil reserves. So at the current rate, it could pump oil for over 30 years.  And that is its intention.   Climate crisis?   What climate crisis/

     Sultan Al-Jabar gets very testy, if it is suggested he may have a conflict of interest.  And among the 100,000 attendants in Dubai are a huge number of oil industry lobbyists.  Phase-out oil and gas? Heaven forbid.  The last COP conference nearly foundered when a draft resolution in that direction was tabled.  And shot down fast.

        Why is COP 28 being held in Dubai?  It costs a fortune to hold one.  So – follow the money.  The oil money is causing the problem, and they get to host the conference to solve it, right? 

            Makes sense? 

  P.s.  A small fact:  Kenya has emerged as a global leader in renewable energy: almost 90% of its electricity now comes from green sources,  90%!     If Kenya can do it,  why not the rest of us?   Why is our fate in the hands of those who caused the problem in the first place?

Henry Kissinger: Relevance at Age 100

By Shlomo Maital

       Earlier this year, I wrote a blog about the amazing Henry Kissinger.  “Kudos to Henry Kissinger,” I wrote. “Next May 23 he will be 100 years old.  And his mind is still active and bright, and he is still writing books. His latest is: Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy.

        Henry Kissinger passed away the other day.  He was 100.  A full century.  And he was active to the end.  Foreign Affairs magazine noted that Kissinger was “the only American official ever to have held all of the levers of foreign-policy making—for two years he served simultaneously as national security adviser and secretary of state—he has no peers in the history of U.S. foreign relations in the superpower era.”

         For me, Kissinger is personal.  He came to his adopted country as a Jewish immigrant from Germany,  and served in the US Army.  What Kissinger taught me was the right and obligation of us seniors to fight to remain relevant.  When Kissinger no longer travelled the world, he remained relevant by writing, sharing his insights and wisdom.

      It is widely said about him that he had strategic insights and wisdom – and moral failings (because of the shady countries and leaders he did business with).  Given the proliferation of world leaders who only have moral failings, with no compensating pluses, maybe we should be more appreciative of Kissinger.

      Kissinger left the sleepy halls of Academe (Harvard) to change the world.  I took early retirement from Academe in 2001, and went out to work with startups for a decade.  Like Kissinger, I perceived the enormous gap between the theories of Academe and the practical realities of the world.

      I just turned 81.  I will try, as Henry Kissinger did, to remain relevant, by sharing in words whatever insights I’ve picked up over the years.   The historically black colleges used to have a fund-raising slogan: A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  There are lot of us senior minds – I call us ‘snow topped idea volcanoes’ – who tend to be ignored by the world.  Fight back.  Your minds, wisdom, knowledge, ideas,  must not be wasted. The world can’t afford it.

           Rest in peace, Henry.  Our appreciation for your legacy can only grow.  

US Economy Is Good, Feels Bad – Why?

By Shlomo Maital

     The US economy is in good shape.  It has emerged from the COVID crisis and inflation, with low employment, reasonable GDP growth and strong wage growth (Ask the UAW workers). 

      But people don’t see it that way.  Public opinion thinks the economy is bad.  The Univ. of Michigan consumer confidence index was at 101 in February 2020, at the outbreak of COVID.  It feel to 70 during the pandemic.   And today?  It’s down even further, at 63.  It is a vice-cession (perceived recession).  Bad vibes, good economy.

       Why?

        The New York Times “The Daily” program featured Jeanna Smialek, Times reporter who covers the Federal Reserve.  She had two key insights.

        First:   Over the past three years, consumer prices have risen by an average of 20%.  On average, everything we buy costs a fifth more.  This happened fairly quickly.  For many, wages have not gone up as much.  So objectively they are poorer —  but even if wages did go up,  it still feels like we are losers, because each dollar buys so much less.

        Second: (and related):  Gasoline.  This is a key price.  Filling a tank with 15 gallons cost $38 in Feb. 2020.   Today it costs over $50.   We fill up with gas regularly, and each time, it is a reminder how much more expensive it is, and how much we are behind. (Note: Weakened demand has caused OPEC, led by the Saudis, to consider slashing their production, to keep prices high.  Thanks, guys). 

        In economics, reality is one thing, perception is another.  And they are diverging radically these days. 

        For Democrats, is there a remedy?  Doesn’t seem so.  Numbers don’t help.  And you can’t change history – which seems to drive perceptions. 

        Presidential elections are in another 11 months.  Will these bad-times perceptions change by then?  Doubt it.  Stay tuned.

Our World Is Perfect – On Average

By Shlomo Maital

   Our world is perfect.    But – on average.

   A recent BBC report noted that “More than half the world’s population will be classed as obese or overweight by 2035 if action is not taken, the World Obesity Federation warns.  More than four billion people will be affected, with rates rising fastest among children, its report says. Low or middle-income countries in Africa and Asia are expected to see the greatest rises.  The report predicts the cost of obesity will amount to more than $4tn annually by 2035, equating to 3% of global Gross Domestic Product.”

   And at the same time the world is afflicted by obesity, it is afflicted by hunger – one person in 10 is hungry. “As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019. After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the proportion of people affected by hunger jumped in 2020 and continued to rise in 2021, to 9.8% of the world population.”

     It is like the joke about the skilled carpenter, whose shelves were always 1 cm. too long or 1 cm. too short – but on average, perfect. 

     On average, there is enough food – just that many eat too much, and many lack food. 

      The same is true with world wealth.  There is adequate wealth in the world for all.

      However — the richest 1 percent captured 54 percent of new global wealth over the past decade  — and  this has accelerated to 63 percent in the past two years. Some $42 trillion of new wealth was created between December 2019 and December 2021.  Little or none went to those who need it.

      According to a report by Longview Philanthropy:  If the global wealthiest 1 percent gave away 10 percent for a year —  they would generate $3.5 trillion over and above what already goes to charity each year. And with $3.5 trillion, we could do some pretty amazing things. Specifically, we could wipe out extreme poverty for a year and lift millions out of poverty once and for all ($258 billion), end hunger and malnutrition ($341 billion). Give everyone access to clean water and sanitation ($1.22 trillion). 

   And a lot more.

   It’s a perfect world.  On average.  Wealth, money, food – like manure, you need to spread it around for it to do good.

    And we just don’t.

 The Miracle of Life on Earth: How We Breathe

By Shlomo Maital  

      The latest Science Friday podcast features a book by Stephen Porder, Elemental, showing how life on earth – ALL life on earth – is built on five elements:  Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and phosphorus, and describes how it all evolved.

       You have to admit it – it is all truly amazing, even miraculous. 

      STEPHEN PORDER: [1]  We are in the middle of really existential environmental anxiety. Sometimes it feels like what we’re doing is so bizarre and abnormal and impossible to solve that it engenders despair.  What we can learn from the commonalities we have with other organisms that have changed the world can help us think clearly and shape a more sustainable future.

     “We’re all made of the same stuff — hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.  They play a really critical role in determining the climate and environmental conditions on the planet.

   “When organisms evolve a new way of getting these elements, they have the capacity to change the world.   The cyanobacteria– this is a story that is deep in the Earth’s past– so 2.5 billion years ago, which is about halfway through Earth’s history– and these organisms figure out evolutionarily a way to get better access to carbon.  [cyanobacteria are blue (hence the name), and get energy through photosynthesis.]

      “They evolve a new way of doing photosynthesis that is much more efficient. So they get this great energy source. They use the sunlight more efficiently.   And they also evolve a way to get access to nitrogen, which allows them to build more machinery to capture even more sunlight. And together, those two processes allow them to wildly proliferate across the planet. 

     “But as a byproduct of their chemistry, they spill a pollutant out into the atmosphere. And that pollutant is oxygen. The oxygen that we breathe, that all multicellular life depends on, it wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the cyanobacteria accidentally polluting the planet.

     “They probably caused the biggest environmental change of all time.    Cyanobacteria come along. And they’re so successful that they pump enough oxygen into the air that two things happen. One, all the organisms that are used to there being no oxygen around are all of a sudden faced with competition from organisms that are using oxygen.

    “And two, the oxygen bubbles out of the oceans and reacts with all that methane that was keeping the planet unfrozen. And we actually precipitate a global, we think, glaciation. Because the waste product of the cyanobacteria changes the global greenhouse. So it’s unintended catastrophe that follows this wild proliferation and evolutionary success, for lack of a better word.”

. . . . .

    OK, so – we get the oxygen we breathe, from cyanobacteria – but as oxygen replaces methane, we get a global frigid Ice Age – so, that’s bad.  Right?

    Not really.   Large Ice Age animals shaped humans into fierce hunters. When the climate changed and those animals increasingly died off, new land became available, and new climate patterns set the ground for the Agricultural Revolution to take place shortly after the Ice Age ended. The Agricultural Revolution was the dawn of large and settled populations and the rise of ancient civilization.

    Life on earth is truly a miracle – a tale of ups and downs.  If we in a down, there will be an eventual up.

[1]   Stephen Porder   Elemental: How Five Elements Changed Earth’s Past and Will Shape Our Future.

Running the Numbers

By Shlomo Maital  

   Economists find truth, in general, in numbers.  I am an economist. But I never did accept this axiom.  Truth lies in stories, narratives and in people.  Numbers mislead.  For example, GDP.  There is little correlation between per capita GDP and perceived wellbeing.  Bhutan, a poor country, is one of the happiest.

    Nonetheless, sometimes we need numbers to put things in perspective. So here are a few.

    * Nearly a quarter million Israelis have been forced to leave their homes, in areas bordering the North (Lebanon/Hezbollah) and the South (Gaza/Hamas), by rockets and other attacks.  This is equivalent to 9,175,000 Americans becoming immigrants in their own country.  This is more than the entire population of New York City.

   *  Some 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed in the October 7 massacre – equivalent to 44,000 Americans, or fully three-fourths of the total death count of American soldiers during the Vietnam War, well over a decade.  All this occurred during a few hours of Oct. 7.

   *  Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah have fired some 9,500 missiles, rockets and drones at Israel from Gaza and other fronts since Oct. 7.  Almost all were aimed at civilians.  One in eight (12%) misfired and landed with Gaza, killing civilians.  Iron Dome’s success rate is 95% — and David’s Sling and Arrow 3 interceptors (ballistic missiles) have also been in action and have succeeded.  

    * On Thursday, Nov. 2,  102 aid trucks entered Gaza from the Rafah crossing, with food, water, and medicine.  In one day. 

     * Some 330,000 Israelis were called up to military reserve duty, on an emergency basis.  This is about 8% of the workforce of 4.3 million, or one worker in 12.  Many volunteers are taking up the slack – particularly in agriculture, where foreign workers have left in the wake of war.

     * Israel has a population of 9 million, of whom 7 million are Jewish.  And there are about 9 million Jews abroad.   There are 1.9 billion Muslims in the world.  Millions of migrants from Muslim countries now in the West support the Palestinian cause vigorously.  According to the 2021 UK census, 3,868,133, or 6.5% of the UK population are Muslim – one person in every 15.    

     * Qatar has provided Hamas in the Gaza Strip with over $1.1 billion from 2012 to 2018, with the approval of the Israeli government.  Qatar has the world’s third-largest oil-and-gas reserves and is the world’s largest exporter of LNG (liquified natural gas).  Saudi Arabia has a fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves, or 300 billion barrels.  Much of the world’s energy supplies come from Muslim countries.

Trauma and Compassion

By Shlomo Maital  

        We Israelis have suffered a deep trauma.  The 44-minute video based on Hamas GoPro videos of horrendous atrocities has been shown to foreign leaders – but it is so terrible, it cannot be shown to us Israelis.

      Yet, this will not become post-trauma.  Here is why.

      For over 30 years, psychologist Richard Tedeschi and others have studied and documented “post traumatic growth”.   It is the positive psychological change that some individuals experience after a life crisis or traumatic event.  It doesn’t deny deep distress – believe me, ours is deep —   but rather says that adversity can yield changes in understanding ourselves, others, and the world.

      After nearly a year of deep bitter divisions within our country, over a failed government’s effort to castrate our democratic process, October 7 has brought Israelis together, to help one another and to fight our enemies.  Our foes thought we were so divided, we could be slaughtered at will.  They are learning otherwise.

       Tedeschi’s studies have shown that for many, not all, trauma leads them to know they can count on others for help; brings a sense of closeness with others; more willingness to express emotions; shapes new paths in life; brings new interests; makes us more self-reliant; and brings deeper understanding of spiritual matters, amng others.

        I believe many of us Israelis have experienced all of the above, and then some.  We have become more compassionate toward one another, while becoming more implacable toward our enemies.

         In 1967, author Chaim Potok wrote a novel, The Chosen. It was about a rabbi’s son, a genius, and the suffering he incurs because his father never talks to him, except when they are studying Talmud. 

      Why is the father so cruel?  It turns out, his father sees the son as an “ilui” (gifted genius, in Hebrew), brilliant but lacking in compassion.  The son, Danny, will suffer from not being able to talk to his dad – and in suffering, will learn compassion for others who suffer, too.  And so it is.

             We Israelis are suffering daily.  Some 240 of us, including elderly, women, children and infants,  are held underground, by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and ordinary opportunistic Gazans.  They are suffering. So are we.  And from this suffering, we are emerging as better people. 

              You do not of course need to suffer to be more compassionate, more caring.  But alas, sometimes, this is what happens.  Not always.  Sometimes.  I can attest it is happening to us.  We are emerging as stronger, more united, more compassionate Israelis.

             It’s a great pity it came to this.  And it is even worse our failed leader continues to focus on his own political survival, rather than on the people he should be leading – the worst Jewish leader in history, according to NYT columnist Tom Friedman.

Three Cheers for Unions

By Shlomo Maital

    The United Auto Workers have struck a deal with Ford, Chrysler (Stellantis) and now, tentatively, with GM.  Yes – they did good!   All three agreements involve a roughly 25 percent wage increase over the next four and a half years, plus other significant concessions.  

Here is NYT columnist Paul Krugman’s take on this

     Background:   “Some history you should know: Baby boomers like me grew up in a nation that was far less polarized economically than the one we live in today. We weren’t as much of a middle-class society as we liked to imagine, but in the 1960s we were a country in which many blue-collar workers had incomes they considered middle class, while extremes of wealth were far less than they have since become. For example, chief executives of major corporations were paid “only” 15 times as much as their average workers, compared with more than 200 times as much as their average workers now.

     “….a revelatory 1991 paper by Claudia Goldin (who just won a richly deserved Nobel) and Robert Margo showed that a relatively equal America emerged not gradually but suddenly, with an abrupt narrowing of income differentials in the 1940s — what the authors called the Great Compression. The initial compression no doubt had a lot to do with wartime economic controls. But income gaps remained narrow for decades after these controls were lifted; overall income inequality didn’t really take off again until around 1980.”

      Unions were a major cause of the improved equality.  They kept CEO salaries from their current high, outrageous levels and helped spread profits to workers, not just shareholders.

     And why are unions back, after a huge decline (only 7% of private wage-earners are union members today)?

     “Research by David Autor, Arindrajit Dube and Annie McGrew shows that a rapid recovery that has brought unemployment near to a 50-year low seems to have empowered lower-wage workers, producing an “unexpected compression” in wage gaps that has eliminated around a quarter of the rise in inequality over the previous four decades. The strong job market has probably encouraged unions to stake out more aggressive bargaining positions, a stance that so far seems to be working.”

       It is not just the auto workers that are gaining power and income.  “This apparent union victory follows on significant organized-labor wins in other industries in recent months, notably a big settlement with United Parcel Service, where the Teamsters represent more than 300,000 employees.     And maybe, just maybe, union victories in 2023 will prove to be a milestone on the way back to a less unequal nation.”

Peace Offer Was Turned Down

By Shlomo Maital

     Wars occur as a result of tragically missed opportunities.

      Writing in the New York Times, October 12,    columnist David Brooks notes that Israel made a generous peace offer to the Palestinians long ago.  It was turned down.  The result has been great suffering for the Palestinians, and now, Israelis. 

     Here is what he wrote:  “Throughout this horrible week, my mind has repeatedly flashed back to Dec. 23, 2000. That was the day the Palestinians were offered a path to having their own nation on roughly 95 percent of the land in the West Bank and 100 percent of the land in the Gaza Strip. Under that outline, Israel would also swap some of its own land to compensate the Palestinians in exchange for maintaining 80 percent of its settler presence in the West Bank.

     “The Palestinians would control, in President Bill Clinton’s formulation, Arab areas of East Jerusalem. And on the most sensitive religious sites, there would have been divided sovereignty or jurisdiction, with Palestinians controlling the Haram al-Sharif (including the Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques) and Israel controlling the Western Wall and the holy space of which it is a part. There would also be a return of many refugees into the new Palestinian state (without the right of return to Israel itself).

  “They turned it down.”

    Why?  Extreme elements of the Palestinians, widely supported, seek only the destruction of Israel.  Any deal that leaves Israel alive and kicking is to the Islamic radicals not acceptable.

      Leaving us no choice but to fight.