Category Archive

Omicron: Some Good News

By Shlomo Maital   

     On this week’s Science Friday podcast, came some interesting good news about Omicron.  This variant of COVID-19 has become dominant – this week, I got an Omicron vaccine booster.  But it is far less virulent than other variants.  The reason, according to experts:  Omicron shifted its attack, from our lungs (lower respiratory system) to our noses and throats (upper respiratory).  This means, rather than kill us by ruining our lungs, Omicron makes us just uncomfortable, with stuffy noses and sore throats. 

    Why did evolution do this?  Apparently, it is easier for Omicron to evade immune reactions when it reproduces in our noses, than when it reproduces in our lungs.   And remember: It is still worth getting that booster shot.

    The experts explain:  Evolution does not have an omniscient godlike brain.  It does not purposely become more virulent or less virulent.  The virus simply wants to reproduce; and does whatever it takes.  Sometimes, that kills us.  Sometimes, it just makes us uncomfortable.  The virus doesn’t really care.  By the time it kills us, it has reproduced billions of times and spread elsewhere.  So it is kind of a dice roll.

    Interestingly, because of lockdowns, masking and distancing, influenza  (flu) has declined in the past two years.  And amazingly, influenza Type B (a variant) nearly disappeared!   But as we go back to normal, chances are flu will again be on the rise.  And COVID?  It may be with us for quite some time.

Why Democrats Fail

By Shlomo Maital

     Liberals, ‘progressives’, question why poor US voters who use public assistance still vote for Republicans who want to cut those very services. And why they support Trump, and will again vote for him in 2024. 

     Blame the Democrats.

     First, a caveat.  Though I have studied and worked in the US, I live and work in Israel. My views are those of an outsider. But sometimes, those outside the ring see it more clearly than those battling within it.  Sometimes.

      Working class people, often with high school education, are hit hard by inflation.  They fear most unemployment, and are the first to be fired.  Long-term, their jobs are threatened by automation. There are 1.53 million truck drivers employed in the US in 2022, at least.  How do they feel when they see autonomous driverless trucks tested on US roads? 

    These people have no wealth, actually negative wealth (debt exceeds assets).  They struggle to afford housing.  They lack health insurance or fear it will disappear when they lose their jobs (US health insurance is provided mostly via employers).  They face arrogance and scorn, or humiliation, on the part of the highly-educated elite.  They feel they are marginalized and without a voice.

     Republicans oppose Democrats.  And Democrats, for this long-suffering group, are the enemy.  So working class Americans will vote Republican, as a vote against the ‘ruling class’ that they see ignores or oppresses them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

     And what about the ‘progressive’ Democrats?  They invest energy in fierce opposition to Israel.  OK, we deserve a lot of it.  But – what have the progressives done, lately, that makes an iota of difference to minimum-wage workers?  By pushing Biden into a fanciful costly piece of legislation, they ensured Biden failed to pass it.  What was passed in the end was greatly watered down.

     I greatly admire the brilliant candidates Democrats choose – educated, articulate, socially conscious.  But I know they are never going to make political inroads into the working poor.  

     There are many Great Divides in US politics.  One of the most painful is the education divide – less educated (mainly Republican) vs. more educated (mainly Democrat).  This is very very dangerous.  I see no evidence the Democrats are doing anything to remedy it or bridge it.

US Federal Reserve is Sabotaging the World

By Shlomo Maital

   Warning: Boring blog about the dollar, the Fed and interest rates.

   OK.  The US Federal Reserve has done it again.  Stuck its finger in the eyes of other countries.  Raised interest rates again by 0.75%, to 4%.  Mortgage rates will climb to 7%.  Banks will see their profits soar.  The dollar will rise again against other currencies. Other foreign central banks will have to raise their interest rates too, or see money flee their country.

   So what’s the problem?  The US has inflation. The only tool they have to fight it, is interest rates, right?  The dollar is America’s money. America has the right to do whatever the heck it wishes with its money and interest rates.

   Wrong! 

   Here is why.  A bit of history.  In July 1944, at Bretton Woods, NH, Hotel Mt. Washington, the Allies convened experts (Keynes, among them) to rethink the architecture of the post WWII economy.  Keynes wanted a global Central Bank – one that would control world credit and interest rates,  to preserve the interests of all the nations of the Free World.    But the US, whose economy at the time was 75% of the world economy (ravaged by war), refused.

     The US delegate,  Harry Dexter White, said, no, we don’t want or need a world currency. The DOLLAR will be the world currency.

     And some experts innocently asked, hmmm.  But…what if US interests and non-US interests diverge? What then?  

     No answer.

     Today they are diverging.  Europe’s economy is stumbling,  Africa is hungry and struggling; Ghana, for instance, a normally well-run nation, has seen its currency collapse.  Ghana can’t afford to borrow money at interest rates that the US is driving.  The IMF has to do a bailout.  Other African nations wait in line.

     The high US interest rates have driven the US dollar very high against other currencies.  This means, imported goods priced in dollars become expensive for Europe, Africa and my country Israel. (Israel’s shekel is 3.5 to the dollar, way down from 3.15 just a while ago).  This means the US Fed is exporting its inflation to other nations, through their higher import prices.

     I have argued that killing the US economy with impossibly expensive credit is really dumb.  Don’t believe me.  Ask Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate.  Dumb!  Not only dumb but wicked. Because other nations are paying the price of a dumb US mistake.

     This is not how the leader of the free world should behave.  History will give Jerome Powell a D- grade.  He was appointed to a second four-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on May 23, 2022.  By President Biden.  A very bad mistake.   

Learning From Ophelia

By Shlomo Maital

  Columbia University Professor Jennifer Lee has written an insightful Op-Ed in today’s New York Times.  She reports on her research on Asian-American children in US schools.  Especially interesting is her story about  “Ophelia”.

     Ophelia (Vietnamese American) described herself as “not very intelligent”. She almost flunked second grade and had a straight C average through elementary and junior high school.  She failed an Advanced Placement exam.  But Ophelia’s teacher, and with her parents’ support, put her into Advanced Placement anyway. 

      Why?  Because as Asian-American, she was assumed to be highly motivated, driven,  with high potential.   Once enrolled in AP, Opelia reports, “something just clicked”.  She worked hard to prove she was indeed a good student.  And she graduated with a grade of 4.2 (4.0 is ‘perfect’).  She was accepted into a highly selective pharmacy program in college.

 Many parents are troubled by the poor schooling their kids get, both in the US and in my country, Israel.  And faced with a bureaucratic obsolete educational system, there is not much they can do. 

  But perhaps there is.  And it is simple.  Make our kids pseudo-Asian American.  Instill high expectations.  Convey that to their teachers.  Mostly to the kids.  Help them in every way to live up to that expectation. 

  Excess pressure?  Maybe.  I myself faced that growing up, as a child of immigrant parents.  In the end, it was a huge plus for me.  Jewish kids, I guess, get the same high expectation push from parents as Asian-American kids. 

 Sadly, Lee reports that “none of the white, Black or Hispanic adults we interviewed were treated similarly”.  And guess what.  This “Pygmalion” effect, as it is known, has been documented as early as 1968.  The work of Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) showed that teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. Goes for parents, too.

   Parents, I believe, can imbue their kids with high expectations and strong self-esteem.  And convey it to their teachers.  One by one, perhaps, all our kids can become “Asian-American”? 

   The dinosaurs on the conservative US Supreme Court are about to shoot down affirmative action.  What to do?  Create your own affirmative action – act to motivate, to inspire.  It’s worth a try.  And by the way – not only parents can do this.  So can grandparents.  Quietly but persistently.  Give it a shot!

At MIT summer school, I taught highly motivated Vietnamese engineers. They overcame language obstacles to excel.  I was awe-struck by them.  Why not learn from our Asian friends?  To paraphrase a famous Law:   Kids’ performances expand or contract to meet the high (or low)  bars we set for them.

Democracy: Let’s Not Take It for Granted

By Shlomo Maital   

statesman.com

  My wife and I just returned from voting, in Israel’s 5^th national election since April 9, 2019. 

     Many Israelis complain.  True, when the electorate is split 60 right/60 left, the resulting deadlock makes democracy look kind of bad.  Chances are, we may have to return to the ballot box again soon.

   But – I found the experience uplifting.  Lines of people waiting to vote, many with small children, to show them in person how democracy works.

    Yes, Israel is a flawed democracy **. (see below).  But, who isn’t?  Only one nation in 16, according to The Economist, is a full democracy  *.  And only four in 10 are ‘flawed’.  Hence, more than five nations in 10 are not democratic at all. And by population, perhaps over two-thirds of the world. (See: “Democracy Index”, The Economist Intelligence Unit).

     So if you live in a democracy, and vote freely — count your blessings.   And guard it with all your might.  Because there are many, especially those who see their (white?) majority shrinking, who would retain power by preventing those who oppose them from voting.  As we speak, Brazilian truckers are blocking roads because their candidate lost.

       On Nov. 8, there will be those in the US exercising their “First amendment rights” (‘free’ speech) who will threaten opponents outside polling booths, in the Southern US.  The US is today solidly in the ‘flawed’ category.  I know whom to blame.

      Everywhere, democracy is threatened.  Losers hate it.  Winners degrade it to maintain their control.  Only if people of good will strongly fight for the simple right to vote freely, will democracy survive.    

   *   Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and fundam\\ental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning. (6.4% of nations)

   **  Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance. (39.3% of nations)

Math: Singapore vs US

By Shlomo Maital

    “Across the U.S., the average math score for fourth-graders fell 5 points since 2019, while the score for eighth-graders dropped 8 points. In reading, average scores for both grades fell 3 points. In addition, the shares of students below the “basic” level – the lowest level of academic achievement – grew”. 

    Perhaps there is more to worry about in the US than just the fractured democracy.  Math is crucial.  Here is why.

    Just after Singapore gained independence, in 1965, founding President Lee Kwan Yew spoke to Singapore’s mothers. “Tell your kids to study math”, he counseled.  Why?  If kids took math, they could study engineering in college. If they studied engineering, Singapore would have a cadre of talented engineers. If it did, it could invite Intel and other hi-tech companies to build factories. If they did – Singapore would become wealthy.

    And it happened – just like that. The mothers came through. Singapore’s GDP per capita is $73,000 today.  Believe it or not – a little higher than that of the US!

    Why did US math scores plummet?  The blame is not solely with the COVID lockdown and ZOOM instruction. Math scores were falling even before 2020.  The US (and my country, Israel) have a basic problem in how math is taught. 

    The US is heading into a dark confrontation with Russia and China.  The real battlefield will not be defense budgets alone, but technology.  And the US, like Singapore, needs high school grads who know math well enough to study engineering.  Lots of them. 

   JFK’s decision to put a man on the moon inspired millions of young Americans to study math, in preparation for careers in science. 

    Today, as America chooses to return to the moon,  will there be sufficient talent to make it happen?

Why US Democracy is Broken to Pieces

By Shlomo Maital

(Christian science monitor)

    Fareed Zakharia, CNN, has stated clearly why US democracy is utterly broken, fractured, smashed to pieces, in his GPS program.

    Fact:   171 out of 291 Republicans up for election in the Nov. 8 mid-term support Trump’s false allegation that the 2020 election was fraudulent, ‘stolen’. (According to a careful Washington Post survey). A majority are election deniers, conspiracy theorist supporters.

     Why? 

    Only the US has a ‘primary’ system (actually, Israel also has a version of it), in which parties choose which of their candidates will appear on the ballot.  It is done, when a sliver of the total electorate – the party faithful —  vote for the candidate they favor.  This system has led Republicans to choose candidates with utterly extreme positions, vying for one another to see who can be more extreme, more “Trump” – like Marjorie Taylor Greene,   representative for Georgia’s 14th congressional district since 2021. Greene promotes far-right, white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theories, including QAnon. 

    Gerrymandering means that most of the far-right Republican candidates win election. So the real election occurs in the primaries, where a tiny handful of Republican voters make the choice.  And to win primaries, it appears, candidates like Greene take ridiculous positions that party radicals love.  It is undemocratic, because a fair majority does not really get to make the choice.  A mere handful of the crazies vote in the primaries.

     Result:  Though most elected Republicans in Congress in the past did not support the ‘stolen election’ fraud,  this may change on November 8. We may see state Republican officials refuse to authorize presidential election results in 2024, and in other ways work to disenfranchise legitimate Democratic (i.e. persons of color) voters. It is already happening in Arizona.

   You thought Trump’s massive damage to US democracy ended when he left office?  Think again. It brought the Jan. 6 insurrection.  It continues.  And it will not end well.

Let’s Each Fight Negativism

By Shlomo Maital   

     David Brooks, New York Times columnist, has drawn our attention to “a rising tide of global sadness.”  And I think we can each do something about it.

     Take Taylor Swift, songwriter and singer whose hand is on the pulse of her millions of followers.  Her newest album Midnight, Brooks notes, is not about love, but about “anxiety, restlessness, exhaustion and anger.”   A group of researchers analyzed 150,000 pog songs between 1965 and 2015, and found that the number of times the word ‘hate’ appears, lately, has risen sharply.

    And a study, Brooks says,  of 23 million headlines between 2000 and 2019 by 47 different US news outlets found they have grown significantly more negative, featuring anger, fear, disgust, sadness. 

    And between 1990 and 2019, the share of Americans who put themselves in the lowest happiness category rose by more than 50% — before COVID.

    Brooks notes this is true not only of the US, but globally.  We are seeing much unhappiness, and attendant mental illness, worldwide, especially among young people. 

     Now, it is true, the world does seem a total mess.  But let’s keep it in proportion.  Despite everything, we are better off than 50 or 100 years ago.

     What should each of us do?   Perhaps – fight back.  In our own lives, we can emphasize the positive.  Before we rise in the morning, thank the Creator for returning our soul and recount our many blessings.  Resist the global trend to see only the negative, and try to stress the positive.

     Voltaire, in Candide, mocked such optimism, satirizing it in Dr. Pangloss.  No, all is not for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.  But, a slight modification, we can try to see the very best, in this, an amazing world full of beauty, goodness and kindness.  And maybe, if enough of us try this, we can turn around those bleak stats.

Are You a “Mosquito Magnet”?

By Shlomo Maital  

  Are you a mosquito magnet?  Mosquitos are particularly attracted to you – while ignoring those around you?

  Some very close to me are such magnets.  And I,  I am not. 

  At long last, scholars have discovered why!  Mosquito magnet people have more carboxylic acids in their body odor and hence are more attractive to mosquitoes.  According to The Scientist, and reported on NPR’s Weekend Edition by Scott Simon:

    “The question of why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others—that’s the question that everybody asks you,” Leslie Vosshall, a study coauthor and neurobiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rockefeller University, tells Scientific American. “My mother, my sister, people in the street, my colleagues—everybody wants to know.”

    So Vosshall and her colleagues gathered 64 volunteers and asked each of them to wear nylon stockings around their arms for six hours to collect their unique skin odor. They then used these smell samples in a mosquito-attraction tournament: Placing two stockings into a separate traps side by side, they unleashed a swarm of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (the species that carries diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, and Zika) to see which stocking they gravitated toward. After pitting the different stockings against each other, the team came out with a winner that was about 100 times more attractive than the last place sample, The Guardian reports. The scientists repeated these experiments over three years with the same subjects, finding that the subject’s attractiveness rating remained stable over time despite fluctuations in diet or skin product usage.

  Solutions?  Hmmm.  Skin crème, disguising your carboxylic acid?  Mosquitos are pretty smart. They have millions of years of evolution under their belts.  Just wear long sleeves.

Kissinger: Age 99 & a New Book

By Shlomo Maital

The Young Kissinger

    Kudos to Henry Kissinger.  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. 

Kissinger analyzes six world leaders, whom he has known personally:

Conrad Adenauer, who brought Germany back into the community of nations by what Kissinger calls “the strategy of humility” (admit transgressions, work to try to make amends);  Charles de Gaulle (“the strategy of will”), Richard Nixon (“the strategy of equilibrium”),  Egypt’s Anwar Sadat (“strategy of transcendence”),  Singapore’s founding President Lee Kwan Yew  (“strategy of excellence”); and Margaret Thatcher (“strategy of conviction”).

      That’s it.  humility, will, equilibrium, transcendence, excellence, conviction.  I think those are the parameters against which we can judge modern leaders.  HEWECT. 

     Thinking about today’s leaders:  Do any have even one or two of those quality strategies?   Kissinger does not say so. But it emerges clearly from his book.

    Well done, Henry.  And – your next book?