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The 7 Rules of Trust
By Shlomo Maital
I am a very frequent visitor to Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales and a colleague in 2001 – a generation ago. It is a largely reliable and up-to-date source of key information, right at your fingertips. And lately, it is being attacked by right-wing fanatics, as being ‘biased’. Meaning – it fails to support far-right insanity.
Wikipedia is a phenomenon. Wales could have leveraged it to become a billionaire. Most people would have. Instead, he has steadfastly kept it as non-profit, ad-free, and hence objective. (Note, for instance, that Google and Apple have now prevented people from uploading videos of ICE police attacks on innocent victims – lest the 47th President retaliate.
Wales has now written a book, The 7 Rules of Trust, zeroing in on a key issue, perhaps THE key issue facing humanity today – lack of trust in political systems, democracy, and leadership. We have lost trust, because it is now possible to disseminate conspiracy theories, lies, calumny, attacks, and fables, and have people who subscribe to the respective media believe them implicitly – including some of the most outrageous stupid vicious lies. (Example: The Jewish religious rite of circumcision is a cause of autism! By none other than the US Secretary of Health, no less!).
Wales writes common sense. Use the working hypothesis of trusting others, so they will trust you. It is reciprocal. Use critical thinking on everything you are told by leaders — verify and trust. Wikipedia, he argues, is a metaphor or method for restoring trust.
A colleague and I once challenged ChatGPT to find an innovate method for establishing greater trust in society. Fakepedia, it said. Establish a website where fake news is debunked and its author(s) exposed.
Jimmy? Fakepedia? In a sense, Wikipedia IS a kind of fakepedia, because it offers truth while other websites offer lurid lies.
The Politics of Hatred
By Shlomo Maital
Consider the ‘new populist politics’ now prevalent in Israel, the US, and other countries.
It is the politics of V. Not “V” for values and vision. V for vengeance, vindictiveness, vitriol, violence. It is the politics of hatred. Hate those who do not agree with you. And…worse, yet, act on that hatred.
This week, Jews everywhere are reading a key chapter in the book of Deuteronomy. And it counsels hatred (?). Remember “Amalek” (an enemy leader who attacked the Israelites from behind, on their way to the Holy Land), we are told.
UK Chief Rabbi, explains: The intent is the opposite. Remember, in order NOT to let hatred dominate your thinking and your emotions. Battle your enemies. Defeat them. And – do not hate them. This is stated clearly in this chapter of the Bible: do not hate the Edomites, do not hate the Egyptians, even though Egypt enslaved you and Edom fought you.
Some 20 years ago, Israel extracted settlers from Gaza. Members of the current Israeli government have vowed vengeance – and two decades later, seek to destroy the democratic system that led to the withdrawal from Gaza. It is driven by deep burning hatred.
The Hamas leader, imprisoned for two decades in Israel, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and killed many women and children and elderly, often brutally. The result led to a huge disaster for the people of Gaza – death and destruction. The UN Secretary General Gutierres asks Israel, ‘what did you expect?’, referring to the Hamas attack. We ask him, and supporters of Hamas – what did YOU expect? Give them expensive presents?
Now, it is time for efforts at conciliation. Not hatred. Athletes know that competing on the basis of burning hatred addles the brain and prevents it from properly strategizing and winning. Rattle you opponent, get them ‘emotional’ – and you are on your way to winning.
Same for nations. Nations with leaders who leverage hate will ruin their followers and their nations. It is happening before our eyes.
Alas.
How Big Bucks Destroy Democracy
By Shlomo Maital
In democracy, one person, one vote. That’s fair.
But in one democracy, the US, one person, with $277 million, buys massive influence and control over everyone, dismantling worthy government projects with a chain saw.
There ought to be a law, limiting big bucks influence like this. Once there was. But it was changed in 2010, creating and enabling super PAC’s. In the 2024 election cycle, there were 2,458 super PACs that raised $4,290,768,955 and spent $2,727,234,077. Over $4.3 billion. Imagine what could be done, for healthcare, education, poverty, food stamps, … with that money.
“Independent expenditure-only political action committees, better known as super PACs, are a type of political action committee (PAC). …Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are legally allowed to fundraise unlimited amounts of money from individuals or organizations for the purpose of campaign advertising.” The law was further changed, enabling a single super PAC to actively fund a massive get-out-the-vote pro-Trump campaign in swing states.” (Note: Trump won all seven).
According to Wikipedia: “Because super PACs were able to coordinate with campaigns on canvassing for the first time in 2024, Donald Trump’s campaign relied on Elon Musk’s America PAC, a super PAC, to lead his get-out-the-vote efforts in swing states. By the end of Trump’s presidential campaign, Musk had spent $277 million to elect Trump and allied Republicans, making the largest individual political donor of the 2024 election and the largest individual political donor since at least 2010 outside of candidates funding their own campaigns.”
Now, $277 million is a lot of money. But for Musk? It is one half of one per cent of his $424.7 billion personal wealth. It is not a tax-deductible expense. But what did Musk buy for that $277 million? Possibly, likely — favorable government contracts for SpaceX, and perhaps Tesla and xAI (Grok), and, for sure, the chain saw he wields in running DOGE Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk was given unparalleled power. He got it, by bucks, not by ballots.
It is claimed that many members of Trump’s billionaires Cabinet bought their way into their jobs with massive campaign contributions. NBC noted in December: “Some of the biggest pro-Trump donors of 2024 are lining up for administration jobs “.
(Spoiler: Yup. They got them). Those who didn’t cough up big bucks starred on cable TV (Fox News).
Experts note that “while political donations are a legitimate way of participating in the political life of a country and a necessary means to fund electoral campaigns and political parties, restrictions have been imposed in multiple countries. Most OECD countries limit the amounts that natural and legal persons can donate to candidates and parties. Bans on donations from certain types of donors, such as foreign individuals and entities, public entities and corporations have also been adopted in numerous countries
If you have enough money, you can help elect a President, who appoints Supreme Court Judges, who dismantle restrictions in campaign finance, who then enable people with money to buy influence – and corrupt democracy. We could have seen this coming in the US, when they scrapped the law about campaign contributions.
When will democracy return to the US? When they restore the law that nearly every self-respecting democracy has limiting big bucks’ buying power. But it’s one of those things that seems easy to corrupt, very very hard to disinfect.
Joseph Nye: Father of Soft Power
By Shlomo Maital
Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. passed away. He was 88.
Often, as a retired professor, I feel rather frustrated that Ivory Tower research and ideas fall on deaf ears. Some of this research deserves oblivion. But some could truly make a different.
Joseph Nye’s work is an example of the latter. He is the developer of the ‘soft power theory’ and according to the New York Times, an “architect of modern international relations”.
This is how Wikipedia defines soft power:
In politics (and particularly in international politics), soft power is the ability to co-opt rather than coerce (in contrast with hard power). It involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Soft power is non-coercive, using culture, political values, and foreign policies to enact change. In 2012, Joseph Nye of Harvard University explained that with soft power, “the best propaganda is not propaganda”, further explaining that during the Information Age, “credibility is the scarcest resource”.
The VDEM website asserts that today, for the first time in many decades, there are more autocratic regimes in the world than democratic ones. Autocrats believe in hard power – force, threat, coercion. Liberal democratic nations once believed in Nye’s soft power — collaboration, persuasion, dialog. Trump is in the hard power camp. The result is so far rather disastrous.
My own country disastrously, as NYT columnist Tom Friedman painfully explains, is in the hard power camp. So far, the results are terrible.
Joseph Nye’s quiet powerful voice is a strong counter-example to all those who deny that ideas have value or impact. The US did mostly practice soft power, for 80 years, after World War II, stumbling badly in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan when hard power hawks temporarily prevailed.
If there is any lesson from America’s foreign policy from 1945 to 2025, 80 years, it is the failure of hard power and the supremacy of soft. This is a lesson Israel seems hellbent on learning …at great cost.
Stuck: A Root Cause Analysis
By Shlomo Maital
Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. by Yoni Appelbaum. Feb. 2025.
In Root Cause Analysis (RCA), you keep asking questions, until you get to the bottom of the problem.
How did Trump gain a (small) majority of voters to support his crackpot ideas – now weaking havoc on America and the world?
Yoni Applebaum is deputy executive editor of The Atlantic, a leading magazine. His new book offers a root cause explanation.
The problem is costly housing, which limited mobility, which was the traditional way low-income Americans made more money.
Here is how it worked.
Under the Democrats, America off-shored its manufacturing to Southeast Asia, mainly China. This hurt the industrial heartland and manufacturing workers, in the Midwest, the South, and elsewhere.
In the past, a US worker thrown out of work picked up, packed up, and moved to where there were jobs.
But because housing became super-expensive, and hard to find (try to find a rental in Boston!), moving for this group was not an option, because while their wages would rise, they would be more than eaten up by hugely expensive housing.
Not so for the elites. A lawyer could leave Alabama, and earn fortunes in New York City, more than enough to cover the housing costs.
Hence, Americans, who once were highly mobile, are far less so today. They are stuck – Stuck in backwater places like Flint, Michigan, once a manufacturing hub, now a slum with water full of lead.
The elites (who vote Democrat) have escaped long ago. The working class are stuck and left behind.
Hello, Dems? Are you listening? Did you see the problem of housing? Did you do anything? NO?
In November 2024, you paid the piper.
Strategic Empathy Is Missing in Action, in the US and Israel: And the Price is Terrible
By Shlomo Maital
Consider ‘sympathy’ and ‘empathy’. Sympathy — you offer it to those bereaved. Empathy? Empathy is shown in how much compassion and understanding we can give to another, in our actions.
Empathy is good, right? The foundation of community and brotherhood. The glue that binds us together as human beings. “And you shall love your brothers and sisters as yourself”.
Not according to the world’s richest man. Direct quote from Elon Musk: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy – the empathy exploit.” He said this on Joe Rogan’s podcast – same podcast that refused to host candidate Kamala Harris.
Empathy is Western civilizzation’s fundamental weakness! And why? Because the United States, through AID and other organizations, helps those abroad who are poor, ill, uneducated. This is, by Musk, a weakness. It invests resources in others, who exploit our compassion, when we could be buying more $100,000 Tesla cars. This, from the person now dominating US government (and destroying it), who, as far as I know, was never elected by anyone.
LACK of empathy causes wars. Here is the analysis of MIT Professor Barry Posen: “Vladimir Putin likely viewed Russia’s strategic situation through a preventive war frame. NATO membership for Ukraine would shift the balance of power against Russia, and U.S. and NATO military cooperation with Ukraine intensified during the Joe Biden administration. These developments likely convinced Putin that he did not have much time to forestall Ukraine’s NATO membership.”
The US lacked what Posen calls “strategic empathy”. Understanding how foes feel and think.
“The United States is an enormously powerful actor in international politics. But U.S. leaders often fail to consider the knock-on effects of their own policies. U.S. foreign policymakers are always alert to how the United States’ behavior affects the confidence of its allies. They are attentive to how U.S. behavior does or does not strengthen deterrence of its potential adversaries. But U.S. leaders are often oblivious that U.S. power and behavior might feel threatening to other states.” [1]
Posen shows that Russia’s Putin for years, dating to 2014 and before, felt threatened by Ukraine’s avowed desire to be part of NATO. He felt in February 2023 that if he did not occupy Ukraine now, Ukraine would join NATO – and that would bring, by force of law, the entire military might of NATO on him. His invasion of Ukraine was predictable – with a bit of strategic empathy.
Consider Hamas’ murderous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas leader Yihya Sinwar spent 22 years in Israeli prisons. Enough time to get inside his head? And he made no bones about it. His goal was to destroy Israel. He attacked on October 7, because he saw Saudi Arabia close to normalizing its relations with Israel – and that would forever marginalize the Palestinian cause and leave the ‘occupation’ permanent. The October 7 attack led to over 50,000 Palestinians’ death. But it has delayed, maybe for years, Saudi normalization. Or maybe forever.
And Israeli intelligence? And government? That fed Qatari billions into Gaza, even when it became clear that the money was going to Hamas tunnels and weapons, not to food and water for Gazans. The total lack of strategic empathy, to understand what Posen calls the ‘preventive war’ (you go to war to keep a worse war or event from happening), was rampant. Especially in the Netanyahu government, in power since March 2009, with only a short break.
The Netanyahu government is culpable, directly, including its head, because it lacked strategic empathy. And we, the people, paid a terrible price.
The ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, wrote this some 2,500 years ago: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
On October 7, we learned that Israel neither knew the enemy, nor knew itself. Despite having imprisoned Yihya Sinwar for over two decades, we failed to learn, understand, and pay attention to his intentions –- even though he declared them openly.
And despite some 15 major operations and wars against Gaza since 1948, Israel and IDF did not come to know themselves — applying strategies that repeatedly failed, while building blindly on assumptions (the enemy is deterred) that were visibly and obviously false.
No, Elon Musk. Strategic empathy is not a weakness. The total lack of it is. And the price we pay is truly terrible.
[1] Barry Posen. Putin’s Preventive War: The 2022 Invasion of Ukraine. International Security, February 2025.
America! Open the Windows!
By Shlomo Maital
One of the most annoying things about MAGA Make America Great Again is this:
The basic premise of MAGA is, America is NOT great, at present. Understatement. Poor healthcare. Unaffordable housing. Poor schools. Wealth and income inequality. Racism. Antisemitism. Polarized paralyzed politics… just for a start.
So, how to make America great again? Place a Nazi sympathizer in charge of destroying public services. Smash alliances abroad, suck up to dictators, appoint incompetent loyalists to key positions, engage in vengeance, ….
There is another way. It is found in this new book, Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. – by Natasha Hakimi Zapata. 2025
The simple, obvious, key point – overlooked by the current Administration. Other countries, far less wealthy, have solutions to America’s problems. Right under our noses. But American exceptionalism means, that is not possible. Because .. well, just because.
Singapore (NOT a leftist socialist liberal country) has extraordinary affordable public housing. I’ve seen it first hand. Check it out, America.
Canada has national health insurance. I was born in Saskatchewan, the first province to implement it, in the 1950’s. Check it out, America. Canadians all have health insurance. So do the British – and most civilized European countries.
Estonia has income tax filing online. Fast, simple, easy. Check it out, America.
Most German public universities (and they are mostly outstanding) charge no tuition. America? Michigan has great state universities – but if you don’t live in the state, you pay $60,000 – $65,000 tuition yearly. Not including room and board.
Schools? America is not among the top scoring countries according to the PISA benchmark. Not even close. Way behind China.
Housing, healthcare, education, public services, ….things that drive our quality of life. America trails, despite high GDP per capita.
Why? Closed windows. Other countries have found wise, pragmatic solutions to key problems. The US refuses to learn from them. Costa Rica? Denmark? Learn from them? Get serious, American politicians spout.
In years of teaching managers, I taught them how to define their key operations (marketing, quality assurance, production, innovation) and benchmark which other companies did these things best, how they did them, and – learn from them, adapt and adopt. Pretty simple idea. Best practice benchmarking. Works for nations too. Yes, even for America.
Learn from others.
The most blatant stupidity is Trump’s desire to annex Canada. Why in the world would any Canadian choose to be part of a nation that is hopelessly divided politically and systematically destroying its public services? A country that blindly asserts its superiority, against all evidence, while refusing to learn from others wiser and smarter?
Natasha Hakimi Zapata’s book is MUST reading for MUSK. But don’t hold your breath.
Europe Is In (Big) Trouble
By Shlomo Maital
US trade deficit (top) EU trade deficit (bottom)
In her NYT Op-Ed today, March 10, Karen Karniol-Tambour clarifies President Trump’s murky tariff quirks.# I find the above diagrams helpful, along with her analysis and my own. The top diagram shows the US trade deficit (exports minus imports) since 1990, and the bottom one, the EU’s trade deficit, split between a large and growing surplus in its US trade, and a growing and very large deficit in its China trade. (Bottom diagram: Black is export surplus with the US; Red is import surplus with China). Source: Visual Capitalist.
Since 1990, and actually since 1970, the United States has consumed more than it produced. It does this by buying stuff abroad. To pay for it, it borrows and goes into debt. It can do this, because US money, the dollar, is the world currency and those who earn the dollars are willing to hold them or turn them into US bonds. (If you or tried this, it would not take long to go broke. When the US does it, it can print the money to enable it.) The infusion of US demand in the world economy has made Asia, specifically China, wealthy. There are 400 Chinese billionaires! In a Communist nation! But it also helped Europe. The EU sells more to the US than it buys.
Most of what the US consumes, above what it makes, is manufactured goods, mostly from China, but also, from Mexico, Vietnam, Japan and Germany.
The US gave away its manufacturing to China and the rest of the world, under Clinton, Bush, Obama…and Trump (2016-2020). Trump thinks it can return, by imposing high tariffs on imports. It will make us a fortune, he says. If it does, it means that imports remain very high. So – forget US manufacturing. If it doesn’t make a fortune, it means that imports become very expensive and import inflation, not just Chinese EV’s.
China has had 25 years to build its manufacturing supremacy. In a country that controls the economy directly. To get its manufacturing back, the US will need at least 25 years, probably more, in a free market economy, if, IF, all the right policies are put in place. But …of course, they are not. Tariffs are not the answer.
The EU is in huge trouble. For two reasons. Defense. And Economy.
Defense: The US is throwing Europe and Ukraine under the Russian bus. After years of sponging off the US $850 billion defense budget, Europe now has to defend itself. That will take large resources and a lot of time. And Russia is knocking on the door right now. The next few years will be very dangerous for Europe.
Economy: The US wants to shut down its big trade deficit with the EU. IF it does, through tariffs, it will hurt the EU economy, with Germany already in recession or nearly so. Meanwhile, the EU has a large and growing trade deficit in manufactures with China. Europe’s car industry is in desperate trouble. With technology shifting to electric vehicles, China is swamping the world with its EV’s, and Europe is way way behind. So Europe faces big challenges from BOTH the US and from China.
The economies of the US, EU, and China are roughly equal in size, and comprise 75% of world GDP. All three have big problems. China has a bloated construction, real estate and finance sector, deep in debt. US has an unpredictable president with wrong-headed ‘quick fixes’ that really are quick disasters. EU needs a rapid, smart, strategic U-turn, very unlikely in a group of 27 countries where you need unanimity to do anything – and outliers like Hungary are happy to put up roadblocks.
The US gave away its manufacturing to China, under four presidents, Democrats and Republicans. You cannot have a strong healthy growing economy without making stuff. The US stock markets are reflecting this.
Because the US consumed much more than it made, it has a heavy burden of debt, 110% of its GDP, and a trillion dollars in interest alone. And as Trump slashes taxes, the budget deficit grows and with it, US debt.
EU enjoyed trade surpluses with the US, offsetting in part its trade deficit with China. The US under Trump wants to end that.
In a EU economy already slowing, and with a Russian army on its flank, and with EU technology trailing that of the US and China, the EU is in deep hot water.
And, when 75% of the world economy is in some degree of trouble – we are all of us in hot water.
Friends: Set aside a bit more in saving. You may need it.
# “This Is Who Loses in a Trade War. Karen Karniol-Tambour, New York Times, March 10, 2025. The author is co-chief investment officer at Bridgewater, an investment management company.
How Israel Lost America
By Shlomo Maital
OK, I admit it – I’m a numbers guy. Like, an economist who says the obvious in words and numbers that are incomprehensible.
So, how about this. A February Gallup Poll shows that only 46% of Americans sympathize more with Israel than Palestinians. Among independents: 42%. Among Democrats: 21 per cent! And this, after Hamas (who are also Palestinians) murder, rape and burn Israeli civilians, including babies.
A decade ago, 62% of Americans sympathized more with Israel than with the Palestinians.
Ouch. Israel lost America.
Correction: Prime Minister Netanyahu did.
Why?
More numbers. Netanyahu has been Prime Minister of Israel from March 31, 2009 to now, March 8, 2025 (the date I am writing this) — that is 5,821 days — except for a short period, June 31 2021 – Dec. 29 2022, 564 days, less than two years, when “Yamina’ (Naftali Bennett) and “Yesh Atid” (Yair Lapid) formed the government.
Since March 31, 2009, Netanya has been in power for 90% of the time. He has 90% of the blame for the disasters that befell Israel in that time – including the dramatic loss of support among Americans. During that time, Hamas built its military forces and the network of tunnels. On Netanyahu’s watch.
OK, Trump likes Israel. For now.
To rehash an old Nixon saw: Would you buy a used car from Trump? Or a new car? Greenland? Canada? Panama?
After the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir accepted responsibility and resigned in six months. The Agranat State Judicial Investigatory Committee was formed and made sweeping recommendations.
Netanyahu doggedly blocks forming such a committee, knowing it will find him deeply complicit in the October 7 disaster. He has acted in a manner that has alienated many Democratic voters — and when President Biden supported Bibi, he lost many of his Democratic voters. Perhaps enough to lose the 2024 election.
Netanyahu got Israel Trump — and maybe, got America Trump. But he lost Israel, Americans. And much of the world.
For people who love freedom, democracy, justice, honesty, truth and humanity – a really really bad deal.
Trudeau Socks It To Trump
By Shlomo Maital
I just watched Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sock it to Trump, a week before he leaves office. “Very smart”, Trudeau described Trump – but “ very dumb” to slap 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. Dumb, because the US and Canadian economies are highly integrated, through a trade agreement negotiated by Trump himself, in his first term. This is especially true of the automobile industry; a US car exec said this 25% US tariff on Canadian imports will “blow a big hole” in the US industry.
Trudeau is retaliating with 25% tariffs on a wide range of US imports.
Let’s face it. The US has a problem. It has imported about $50 b. more in goods per month than it exported, up to 2020. Since then, that monthly deficit has doubled, to about $100 b. a month. The US now has a $1.2 annual trillion trade deficit. Only the US can live so far beyond its means – because it pays in dollars, the international money, and it can create dollars (through credit) and borrow dollars by selling bonds to foreigners, who accumulate dollars through trade surpluses (e.g. China).
The US exports $349 b. yearly to the US, and iimports $412.7 b. That is a deficit of about $63 b., or just over 5% of America’s overall deficit. Mexico exports $505.3 b. to the US, and imports $334 b. That is a US trade deficit of $171 b., or just under 15% of America’s overall trade deficit.
China and the European Union are the big ones. China’s trade surplus with the US is $295.4 b., or 25% of the total US deficit, and the EU has a $235 b. trade surplus with the US, or roughly 20%.
What do these numbers mean? The US has leveraged the fact that the dollar is the world’s currency, to live beyond its means, buy much more than it sells abroad, and borrows to pay for it. America spends more in interest on its national debt than it spends on defense — $1 trillion!
Trump has a quick fix. Tariffs. Why won’t this work? Why is it dumb? He tariffs Canada at 25%. Canada responds in the same way. So nothing changes – US exports and Canadian exports each get 25% more costly, meaning their relative prices remain the same. So all that happens, is that US exports to Canada and Canadian exports to the US both decline, because they are more expensive – but no advantage accrues to either country. Trade declines. Both countries lose. Prices go up in each country.
There is a way to deal with the fact that the US has lived far beyond its means for years. Invest in education. In infrastructure. In productivity. In modernizing factories. In becoming more efficient and competitive. That takes government investment and smart policies, and a long run policy. Biden began, with an infrastructure bill that brought semiconductor factories to the US (Trump took credit on TV for bringing Taiwan’s powerhouse TSMC to the US, but that was done under Biden).
Tonight, in his speech to Congress, Trump will blame everybody else but the US for its trade deficit. But it is the US itself that is responsible. It has fallen far behind, by building a consumption society (70% of GDP), while China built an investment economy (nearly a third of GDP).
China is an ant. America is the grasshopper. It’s pretty simple. And pretty obvious. But – expect half of Americans to buy Trump’s snake oil pitch tonight and applaud him.
It’s a shame.
TIMnovate 