How Well Did I Predict the Future? Ten Political and Economic Predictions for Year 2012

12/27/2012
A year ago I made ten predictions in economics and politics. How did I do? I'm disappointed--six out of ten correct. This is good enough to win in investing but I expected better. I give myself a grade of passing. Please see the links analyzing the results below.

12/31/2011
Each of these predictions will be graded a year from now as correct or incorrect. No hedging is allowed. I will grade the list next year as 60 percent, passing; 70 percent, fair; 80 percent, good; and 90 percent excellent. You may or may not like the predicted outcomes. This is how I read the trends.

1. California will pass a ballot measure that raises taxes. CORRECT: prop 31 passed
2. White flight out of California will accelerate. CORRECT link 1 2 3
3.  Liberals will decry corporate control of politics, but neither Barack Obama nor the Republican nominee will seek public financing for the 2012 general election, in order to avoid fundraising limits. CORRECT
4. Inflation will rise over 2011 levels. No, the economy slowed.
5. Obama's health care bill will be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. No, shockingly SCOTUS ruled that Obamacare is a tax and therefore legal..
6. Participation in food stamps and long term unemployment will decrease only slightly, by one percent or less. CORRECT Food stamp participation continues to skyrocket. link 1 2 3
7. A rating agency will further downgrade U.S. debt. CORRECT link
8. The House of Representatives will remain in Republican hands. CORRECT
9. The Republicans will capture the Senate.No. The Republican turnout was poor.
10. Gold will go down to $1400 per ounce. No. Gold is up again!

Pleasure in Imperial Rome

British academic Ray Laurence wrote Roman Passions, A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome (Continuum, London, 2009) to fill a void. Historians and researchers had not yet looked deeply into Roman pleasures. This book examines in detail the enjoyment of country villas, the baths, sex, dining, music and dance, violent entertainment, and art.

Laurence debunks many longstanding myths about Roman society, for example, the myth of orgies. Sex was, for the most part, private. Roman eating could be outlandish but only for the rich. If one was rich one's diet was quite varied and sophisticated, based on contrasting flavors and a fish paste. Laurence connected the culture of consumption, which peaked in the first century CE, to economic growth and a building boom. "Cores from the Greenland ice cap reveal a peak in atmospheric pollution in antiquity occurring about 2,000 years ago, in other words, from the beginning of the first century CE" (P. 161). This level of production needed to produce these levels of atmospheric pollution was not seen again until the industrial revolution in the early 19th century (ibid.). And the Romans built and polluted with a much smaller population!

Laurence could be talking about 19th century Britain or our own times in America when he tells us that the Roman empire "was the first global economy with cheap products (such as wine) being produced in the provinces for consumption in the capital" (ibid.) The better we understand what went on in ancient Rome, the better we understand our behavior in 21st century America. Since we know what happened to Rome and why, we may have a glimpse on what our future holds as well.

The book is heavily footnoted by a well-known antiquities scholar but is not dense--it flows easily and is lots of fun to read.

Striking Parallels in History

Perhaps a future historian might write the following about the United States: "America's very overseas successes from WWII to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began to create internal tensions as presidents amassed too much power and prestige at the expense of Congress, poor Americans lost their houses and fell into debt, the old European and Asian allies became resentful, immigration policy became illogicical, and a government system developed to rule itself was strained by having to manage nation-building."

Here is what professor Gregory S. Aldrete wrote about Imperial Rome (The Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2004).
"Rome's very overseas success, however, began to create internal tensions as individual generals amassed too much power and prestige, poor Romans lost their farms and fell into debt, the old Italian allies and half-citizens became resentful, and a government system developed to rule a city was strained by having to manage an empire" (P. 8).

Aldrete's analysis applies to us as well as Imperial Rome and is somewhat chilling, yes? We can have an empire OR we can have prosperity and freedom, but we cannot have both.

Lincoln--The Movie

I rarely watch new movies, unmoved by the current excesses of sex and violence that seem to be matched to the tastes of Caligula, but finally, Hollywood has released a movie that is as engaging and intellectually stimulating as the writings of Winston Churchill or Edmund Morris. That movie is Lincoln.

I knew the movie would be good but was worried about how it would portray the war and all its gore. I was relieved to find that the fighting was de-emphasized. Even Lincoln's assassination at Ford's theater was only announced rather than acted out on screen. The war's violence did not haunt me. Instead, hours after viewing the film, I still felt inspired by Lincoln's leadership, his decision-making process, and his greatness of character.

I must give credit to Dr. Jane who invited me to go with her and her mother who saw the movie first and knew it would be perfect for me. Dr. Jane bought our tickets for the price of a glass of wine--a bargain I couldn't refuse. As a history teacher I was well aware of what the movie would be about-- a screen play based on Team of Rivals: The political Genius of Abraham Lincoln-- and how Lincoln sought after his cabinet's counsel, managed the great egos of the men involved, and, against the odds, defeated the Confederate armies and passed the Thirteenth Amendment barring slavery. For a specific description see David Wolfford's wonderful review here.

I hope my fellow movie goers will forgive me for whispering excitedly in Dr. Jane's ear, "There's William Seward." "Goodness, it's Edwin Stanton". "It's radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens". "That little guy is Confederate Vice President Stephens." "Do you recognize Robert E. Lee on horseback?" The actors looked uncannily like their namesakes pictured in the history books. The actors also portrayed their characters' personalities accurately. Seward was confident and full of himself. Stanton was serious in purpose and impetuous. Lincoln and Grant were both rough-hewn and honest.

The movie revolved around the political maneuvering in passing the Thirteenth Amendment. It was quite entertaining watching the anti-Amendment Democrats get bribed (with political patronage), bullied, cajoled, or persuaded to vote for the Amendment. Interwoven with the political fight over the Amendment were the themes of prosecution of the war and prospects for a negotiated peace--these factors determined whether the Thirteenth Amendment would pass on schedule.

This movie is about personal and political relationships--Lincoln's relationships with his wife and children, his cabinet, his party, the opposition party, slaves and freedmen, the voters, and the public. It is a successful movie because people can be fascinating if you let them be, and Lincoln does.

Caesar's Legion--The Military of Imperial Rome Lives

Vercingetorix and Caesar

The western Roman Empire has been gone for close to 1700 years, but authors continue to release excellent books about the period. Stephen Dando-Collins' Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome can be found in paperback for a song. Dando-Collin's book (Wiley, 2002) takes us on an exciting historical journey through the end of the Roman Republic and Julius Caesar's dictatorship to the fall of Byzantine. However, the book concentrates on the forming of the 10th Legion under Caesar in Spain, Caesar's battles in Gaul, his invasion of Britain, the civil war against Pompei in which Caesar came close to losing, the next civil war in which Octavian was victorious, and the actions of the 10th in Judea, especially the destruction of Jerusalem.

Dando-Collins vividly describes army life--what it was like to be a Roman infantry soldier from 40 BCE to 100 CE: the technology of the weapons, the arms worn and carried, the uniform, the discipline endured, the recruitment procedures, and especially, what the battles looked and felt like if you were there.

Once the javelin struck anything, the weight of the shaft caused it to bend like a hockey stick where staff and head joined. With its aerodynamic qualities destroyed, it couldn't be effectively thrown back. And if it lodged in a shield, it became extremely difficult to remove, as the Helvetii [invading warriors from the area that is today Switzerland] now found.What was worse, in their case, with their shields overlapping, javelins were going through several at a time, pinning them together. With members of the [Helvetii] phalanx downed and others struggling with tangled shields, their formation was broken by the these initial volleys. Caesar gave another order. His flag dropped, and the trumpets of the first line sounded the "Charge." With a roar, the front-line [Roman] legionaries charged down the hill with drawn swords. After repeated attempts to free their shields, many Helvetii threw them away, leaving them virtually defenseless (pp. 18-19).

Another sample of Dando-Collins' eloquent and striking narrative, a description of the surrender of an enemy Gallic leader follows:

Without a word, Vercingetorix removed his sword belt and handed it to Caesar. Caesar accepted the sword, then passed it on to one of his staff. Vercingetorix removed his helmet, with its distinctive Gallic crest, and passed it over. Then his armor, richly decorated with gold and silver--attendants helped him out of it, and then this, too, he presented to Caesar, who in turn passed it to subordinates. Then Vercingetorix sat himself at Caesar's feet. There, in silence, he watched as his hungry, dejected troops came out of Alesia in a long stream with heads hung low, and piled their weapons and armor before the conquering Romans and were then led away into slavery. Finally, Vercingetorix, too, was bound with chains and taken away. (P. 60).

Through its focal point, the history of the 10th Legion, the book closely reviews the major political events of the Empire from Caesar's ascension to the rise of Vespasian. Dando-Collins takes the side of the Romans in the first Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE--not surprising since Josephus, not the Talmud was the author's major source in this section. The Jewish freedom fighters are portrayed as foolish zealots, locked in a bloody internecine conflict when not fighting the Romans. Roman general Titus is portrayed by Dando-Collins as quite reasonable, giving the Jews holding out in Jerusalem plenty of opportunities to surrender with reasonable terms. Unfortunately, the revolt in Judea led to the destruction of the Temple, a tragedy still mourned by Jews today. Many of the survivors were sold into slavery, and Dando-Collins does not mention the thousands of Jewish prisoners that were exposed to wild beasts for the entertainment of the Roman masses (Laurence, P. 135). The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem may have been a disaster for Titus as well and not just the Jews. Roman historian Suetonius quotes a feverish Titus as confessing that he was punished with death for committing only one sin. Perhaps his disregard of Roman law, entering the Temple and Holy of Holies, and destroying the edifice was that one sin.

Dando-Collins has written other books of Roman and most recently, Hawaiian history, but Caesar's Legion is a good place to start for those unacquainted with the author and wanting to explore what life was like as a Roman soldier.

Bibliography
Laurence, Ray. Roman Passions; A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome.  Continuum UK, London, 2009.
Suetonious. The Twelve Caesars. Tr. Robert Graves, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1975.

Work Ethic and Literacy Lacking in Many Young Adults

Mike Spinrad in his classroom

The Wall Street Journal surveyed leaders from American manufacturing companies in Unemployment Paradox: Why so many jobs go unfilled (link here). Part of the problem is due to a skills shortage in science, technology, engineering, and math.

But considerable evidence suggests that many employers would be happy just to find job applicants who have the sort of “soft” skills that used to be almost taken for granted. In a 2012 survey by Manpower Group, nearly 20% of employers cited a lack of soft skills as a key reason they couldn’t hire needed employees. “Interpersonal skills and enthusiasm/motivation” were among the most commonly cited as lacking. Employers also mention poor command of English. A survey in April of human-resources professionals compared the skills gap between older workers and younger workers. More than half of the organizations surveyed reported that simple grammar and spelling were the top “basic” skills among older workers that are not readily present among younger workers....That survey also found that “professionalism” or “work ethic” is the top “applied” skill that younger workers lack. A separate survey published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that manufacturers were finding it harder to find punctual, reliable workers today than in 2007, despite today’s higher unemployment.

It is important for educators to emphasize the above "soft" skills as well as science and math. All high school teachers must insist on proper grammar, spelling, and syntax in both oral and written communications, presentations, and papers. I feel that teachers, in an effort to appear "hip" and engaging, do their students a disservice when they allow street talk, slang and email abbreviations in the classroom.

I am heartened that my high school administration is vigorously enforcing truancy and tardiness rules. Students should be allowed to fail once in a while (see "secret to success" article) and succeed only after expending considerable effort, developing grit and perseverance. Parents need to help their children develop these character traits. In a New York Times interview (link here), scholar Arthur Levine says:

This is a generation that was not allowed to skin their knees. They got awards and applause for everything they did, even if it was being the most improved, or the best trombone player born April 5. So it makes sense that they think very highly of their abilities, and expect to go on getting awards and applause.

Instead of letting their kids experience the real world, many parents advocate for their children even when they are away at college. It's time to give these young men and women more guidance in academic English and punctuality and less help in running the rest of their lives.

Introduce Marxism with a Short Skit In World History or Economics Class

I have used this short skit successfully in World History (in the study of the industrial revolution), and American Government and Economics. Feel free to copy and use it, and please let me know how the lesson went. The teacher may wish to prepare a short presentation comparing laissez-faire capitalism to Marxism and examine the vocabulary words (below) before doing the skit. The teacher may do the skit alone or have students perform it. Enjoy!

- Mike

Mike Spinrad, San Marin High School, Novato, California

Karl Marx Encounters Capitalist

Scene:  London 1850

Marx:  My backside hurts from boils, probably because I’ve already sat and read in the public library for six hours today. Who’s coming to greet me?

William Pound: It’s me, William Pound.

Marx: Ah yes. Pound, I called you to discuss your ridiculous beliefs about factory owners. Why don’t you understand that every time a factory produces something, workers are exploited?

William Pound: The workers trade their labor for pay. It’s a free exchange where both owner and worker agree, without coercion, to engage in a contract. What could be wrong with that?

Marx: The workers are paid poorly and working conditions are bad. The workers are nothing more than slaves, wage slaves.

William Pound: Working conditions have been improving for years, thanks to recent laws passed by Parliament and the power of unions. Additionally, not all factory owners treat their employees poorly.  Don’t you think a worker has mastery over his own fate and can move, working wherever he pleases?

Marx: I am a determinist. I do not believe in free will. It’s an economic system, not individuals that determine history. As it has been said, the system makes people act the way they do.

William Pound: What nonsense are you saying? An economic system produced the ambition of Napoleon and genius of the Duke of Wellington? People, not systems make choices in their lives and create history.

Marx: You sound like my Jewish grandfather. He thought that people have choices too. I’m glad I was baptized as a young child and that you’re not Jewish.

William Pound: Karl, you’re a vicious anti-Semite as well as the originator of catchy but superficial ideas. Naturally, no one wants to be against workers earning a good living. Few common people care about liberty, however, until it’s gone. Just how do you propose the change to socialism will occur?

Marx: I believe that the capitalist system will destroy itself by producing enough disgruntled workers. These workers will take over and replace capitalism with a socialist paradise. We won’t need liberty in this socialist paradise.

________________________________________________________

Name ______________________

Define the following words and answer the questions:

Liberty

Determinist

Exploited

Anti-Semite

Coercion

_____________________________________________________________

What is more important to you, liberty or equality of outcome? Why?

Do you believe in determinism or free will?  Why?

The Left's View of Thanksgiving--A Rational Response

Robert Jensen's No Thanks for Thanksgiving (link here) twists and falsifies history. Let's look at what really happened.

Jensen: "But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin -- the genocide of indigenous people..."

Most Native American deaths in the Americas were due to disease. Smallpox killed biologically unprepared indigenous people much more efficiently than Spanish conquistadors, destroying 90 percent of those infected, and most of its victims never saw a white man.

Englishmen had less use for natives than the Spanish. The English were not interested in gaining gold from the Indians. Instead the English and Native Americans competed for land. Sometimes, as in the cases of the Pilgrims and the Quakers in Pennsylvania, both sides cooperated, but most of the time, the two sides descended into armed conflict.

Jensen: But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders.

The Powhatan Indians started the war against the English in Massachusetts, massacring women and children. The English responded with "Irish tactics," using the same scorched earth policy that successfully broke the Irish resistance. What's more, infectious disease took a great toll on the tribes, and total war and disease was responsible for pretty much wiping them out. Disgraceful, terrible, but not genocide.

Jensen: The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.

Jensen fails to account for disease in his statistics, and the Indians of the Great Plains killed a fair share of white civilians as well, fighting bravely against the U.S. army with stone-age technology, and then later, with rifles (bye, bye, General Custer).

The Native Americans were doomed by European diseases and the sheer numbers of land-hungry English colonists and, later, American citizens. The cooperation between natives and whites during the Pilgrims' first winter shows how things could have been and should be celebrated in the holiday of Thanksgiving.

Times Puff Piece on New Chinese Dictator

The NYT (Never Yell Truth; Nikita, Yuriy, Trotsky; New Yankee Tragedy--you pick ), honoring their philosophy, "All the Leftist Propaganda News Fit to Print," found time in between working for the Obama reelection campaign to publish an obsequious piece analyzing the background of the new Chinese dictator. In the Times November 3, 2012 article, Close Army Ties of China’s New Leader Could Test the U.S (link here), reporter Jane Perlez catches the readers interest with new Communist Party leader's Xi Jinping's Mexico City criticism of American policy:

“There are a few foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our country,” Mr. Xi said, according to a tape broadcast on Hong Kong television.  “China does not export revolution, hunger, poverty nor does China cause you any headaches. Just what else do you want?”

Oh, I can think of a few things: Quit supporting the murderous and terrorist regimes in North Korea and Iran. Stop building up your military and threatening U.S. allies. Let your currency float instead of violating trade regulations. But Perlez's article never challenges Xi's ludicrous statements. Instead, the article suggests that America is in decline and China is ascendant.

The Chinese military’s new buoyancy comes as America’s allies across Asia — Japan, South Korea, Australia and other friends, particularly Singapore and India — worry whether the United States has the money, and the will, to enhance its military presence in Asia, as President Obama has promised.  

The above may be true, but the Times' does not interview anyone critical of the Chinese regime. The last time I checked the New York Times was not affiliated with China's People's Daily. I'm having difficulty figuring out the difference between them.

China does not show the American public it's aggressive policy, the speech made in Mexico City and the leadership's real feelings. Instead, we are told to play with panda bears and enjoy inexpensive Chinese goods. The People's Daily editorializes, China’s Communist Paper Calls for Closer U.S. Ties Under Xi (link here). "China and the U.S. should deepen cooperation and become more interdependent, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper said in a commentary today, signaling that new leader Xi Jinping may seek closer ties."

On whose terms?

25 Years Later: What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?

Diane Ravitch/Picture from Stanford.edu

Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn assessed high school seniors' grasp of American history and literature in their classic book, What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know, released in 1987. The conclusions of What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know may be more relevant today than they were 25 years ago. Ravitch and Finn write about the amount of information available to the average teenager. Today's students are even more bombarded with information--from computers and cell phones--nonexistent in 1987.

But can they make sense of what they see and hear? Do they have the perspective to separate what is important from what is trivial? What is durable from what is ephemeral? Can they interpret the significance of the day's news? Are they able to discern patterns of trends and events? Are they capable of introspection? Can they relate their experiences to universal themes that have been explored by great writers through the ages? These are only a few of the potential benefits of the study of history and literature (P.202).

Ravitch and Finn found that students scored poorly in their understanding of history and literature. Things are worse now. Students, especially boys, read less today than they did in the 1980s, and their corresponding amount of knowledge has shrunk further. (See my blog, How Boys Can Do Better in School.)

Thus the answer to all of Ravitch and Finn's questions above would be an emphatic "no!" Only the elite, perhaps the top 20 percent of graduating California high school seniors can separate the wheat from the chafe and put their experience in a larger context and make sense of the world around them. I find these kids in our Advanced Placement (college-level) program.

What to Do

Since students today come to class with less background knowledge and a smaller vocabulary than their cohort of 25 years ago, teachers must assume that they are less capable. Below are words used for one of my lessons on industrialization. These words and phrases are difficult for my average high school sophomores. They have trouble understanding what the words mean. When these words are mastered we can better place the terms into historical context.

• wages docked
• consent
• figuring out the number of hours on the job--6AM to 7PM
• the sick fund
• dismissal
• deference
• untrue allegations
• wage advances

Once we have mastered literacy concerns the history itself may be understood. So literacy becomes a part of most lessons. I ask the students to define vocabulary. "What does this mean?" and I put vocabulary words on tests. Secondly, most students need assistance understanding most high school World and U.S. History textbooks. They cannot decipher textbooks on their own, so teacher summaries and read-alouds, pair-share, and teacher-monitored jigsaws of reading materials are essential.

Third, Ravitch and Finn write about the need to include chronology in history lessons, giving the curriculum more meaning by putting it into context with other historical facts they may (we hope) know. This is even more important today. I enjoy creating parallel timelines that show world and American history in sequence. Most male students are interested in transportation, Stephenson's Rocket to the Model T, weaponry, the musket to the M-16, and technology, the typewriter to the PC, so add those categories on your timelines.

Adults Acting Like Adults

Ravitch and Finn are squarely against "romantic" practices such as letting adolescents learn what they want to learn--the view that naturalness is good and schools should provide freedom where children can develop naturally. (See my blog Educational Ideologies and Applications here.) Instead, Ravitch and Finn concede that children do not

...naturally gravitate to academic subjects or spontaneously immerse themselves in the lore of their civilization. Children are often not the best judges of what they need to do and know. In general, we believe that children learn pretty much what the important adults in their lives make a point in seeing that they learn: in school, at home, and through a myriad of other means (P. 203).

A lot is at stake. "Failure to make this cultural knowledge part of every child's inheritance serves to reinforce invidious social class distinctions (P. 235)." In other words, those who favor social justice and equality should demand that all children learn America's historical canon.

Age and Happiness

Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.

Psychology professor Sonya Lyubmirsky, in an interview, states that older people generally tend to be happier. She says:

The relationship between age and happiness is complex. Studies have found that older people generally tend to be happier than younger ones. A 22-year study of healthy veterans revealed that well-being increased over the course of these men’s lives, peaked at age 65, and did not start significantly declining until age 75. People tend to move toward more positive trait profiles as they age, becoming lower in neuroticism [negative emotions such as hate, anger, and jealousy--MS], for example, as they approach middle age. This may be because older people are better able to resist social pressures and pursue goals for more self-endorsed reasons, the result of a normative maturational process. Older people have also been found to be emotionally wiser.

The Economist looks at the data differently, showing that well-being (a slightly different descriptor and dependent variable than happiness) follows a U-shape pattern.

The U-Bend

 The Economist notes the U-bend's

effect on happiness is significant—about half as much, from the nadir of middle age to the elderly peak, as that of unemployment. It appears all over the world. David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, and Mr Oswald looked at the figures for 72 countries. The nadir varies among countries—Ukrainians, at the top of the range, are at their most miserable at 62, and Swiss, at the bottom, at 35—but in the great majority of countries people are at their unhappiest in their 40s and early 50s. The global average is 46. The U-bend shows up in studies not just of global well-being but also of hedonic or emotional well-being. One paper, published this year by Arthur Stone, Joseph Schwartz and Joan Broderick of Stony Brook University, and Angus Deaton of Princeton, breaks well-being down into positive and negative feelings and looks at how the experience of those emotions varies through life. Enjoyment and happiness dip in middle age, then pick up; stress rises during the early 20s, then falls sharply; worry peaks in middle age, and falls sharply thereafter; anger declines throughout life; sadness rises slightly in middle age, and falls thereafter. Turn the question upside down, and the pattern still appears. When the British Labour Force Survey asks people whether they are depressed, the U-bend becomes an arc, peaking at 46.

Speculations

So why do we see the U-bend? The Economist rules out external factors such as caring for teenage children and wealth effects and argues that internal factors must be at work. Aware of their own approaching death and more accepting of their failings, older people are more emotionally stable and less prone to quarreling, but I find this explanation wanting. It should lead to an upward curve from youth and not the U-bend.

Perhaps a psychological mechanism is at work. Those in the prime of life, childbearing years, are blessed with the most energy, ambition, and libido, all of which wane by the late 40s and early 50s. At this age one is at the peak of his career, the last hurrah, but can see his powers starting to wane. It's too early to accept one's lot without resentment and sadness about what might have been and since it's all downhill from here, one worries about the future. Ironically, ten years later one sees less to fret about, and well-being rises.

Alternatively, a biological and Darwinian mechanism may increase feel-good neurotransmitters such as dopamine by the early 50s and beyond, perhaps to ensure better grand-parenting and tribal leadership.

Obama and the Jewish Vote

An AJC poll shows 65 percent of Jews nationwide support Obama, 24 percent support Romney, and 10 percent are undecided. (I assume a rounding error accounts for the missing one percent.)

The poll, conducted Sept. 6-17 among 1,040 Jewish voters nationwide, found Obama doing better than Romney among Jews of all religious backgrounds with the exception of the Orthodox, who favored the Republican nominee. Taking into account the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, the poll's overall finding regarding the state of the Jewish vote is similar to other recent polling from Gallup and elsewhere. Another recent poll by the AJC of registered Jewish voters in Florida found 69 percent supporting Obama and 25 percent for Romney.

 These statistics matter in Florida, a must-win highly Jewish state. I doubt whether Obama polls at 69 percent in Florida now, after his highly-watched trouncing October 3rd. Still, he will win the majority of the Jewish vote. What I find most fascinating is how his Jewish support has changed since Obama's first term. Here is the Jewish voting record for 88 years of U.S. presidential elections ( from the Jewish Virtual Library, link here):

Election Year	Candidates	Jewish Vote*	Total Vote*		Election Year	Candidates	Jewish Vote*	Total Vote*
2008	McCain (R)	22	46		1960	Nixon (R)	18	50
	Obama (D)	78	52			Kennedy (D)	82	50
2004	Bush (R)	24	51		1956	Eisenhower (R)	40	57
	Kerry (D)	76	48			Stevenson (D)	60	42
2000	Bush (R)	19	48		1952	Eisenhower (R)	36	55
	Gore (D)	79	48			Stevenson (D)	64	44
1996	Dole (R)	16	41		1948	Dewey (R)	10	45
	Clinton (D)	78	49			Truman (D)	75	50
	Perot (I)	3	8			Wallace (Progressive)	15	2
1992	Bush (R)	11	37		1944	Dewey (R)	10	46
	Clinton (D)	80	43			Roosevelt (D)	90	53
1988	Bush (R)	35	53		1940	Wilkie (R)	10	45
	Dukakis (D)	64	46			Roosevelt (D)	90	55
1984	Reagan (R)	31	59		1936	Landon (R)	15	37
	Mondale (D)	67	41			Roosevelt (D)	85	61
1980	Reagan (R)	39	51		1932	Hoover (R)	18	40
	Carter (D)	45	41			Roosevelt (D)	82	57
1976	Ford (R)	27	48		1928	Hoover (R)	28	58
	Carter (D)	71	50			Smith (D)	72	41
1972	Nixon (R)	35	61		1924	Coolidge (R)	27	54
	McGovern (D)	65	38			Davis (D)	51	29
1968	Nixon (R)	17	43		1920	Harding (R)	43	60
	Humphrey (D)	81	43			Cox (D)	19	34
	Wallace (I)	2	14			Debs (Socialist)	38	3
1964	Goldwater (R)	10	38
	Johnson (D)	90	61

Jews have voted heavily Democratic for generations. As much as 80 to 90 percent of the Jewish vote goes to popular Democratic candidates. However, Obama is probably not going to win the 78 percent of the Jewish vote that went for him in the 2008 election. Most likely he will win about 72 percent of the Jewish vote, a significant decline. (I am taking the AJC poll numbers and giving Obama seven percent out of the ten percent currently undecided.) One must go back 34 years, to the days of the Reagan juggernaut to find Jewish voters supporting the Democratic candidate so weakly. Why?

An increasingly high number of Jews are voting against Obama for the same reason that roughly half the electorate is voting against Obama--the bad economy. Most Jews like his unfailingly liberal views on health care, energy and social policies. The high unemployment rate and low level of GDP growth trumps those issues. The magic of the 2008 election is gone, and negative campaigning is back.

Secondly, Obama's support of Israel seems more tenuous than it really is, mostly because of his poor relations with Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu. (See my previous comments on that here.)

At this point Obama can't do much to heal the economy, but if he loses Florida in the election, he may wish that he met in late September with Netanyahu instead of snubbing him.

Update October 8, 2012: Mitt Romney, in a foreign policy speech, keyed in on the Obama-Netanyahu split. He said, "The relationship between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel, for example -- our closest ally in the region -- has suffered great strains. The president explicitly stated that his goal was to put "daylight" between the United States and Israel, and he succeeded. This is a dangerous situation that has set back the hope of peace in the Middle East and emboldened our mutual adversaries, especially Iran."

Moderate and conservative Jews may agree.

Has the Democratic Party Lost its Soul?

Tolstoy plays chess.

The New York Times, a strong advocate of President Obama and the Democratic party, stunned liberals with its article Clinton Tells Russia That Sanctions Will Soon End (P.3, September 9, 2012).

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Saturday that the United States would soon lift cold-war-era trade sanctions on Russia, but she did not address human rights legislation in Congress that has so far stalled passage, infuriated the Kremlin and become an unexpected issue in the American presidential race.

In a nutshell, the article states that the Obama administration would like to grant Russia normal trade status, but evil Republicans in Congress support legislation that punishes Russian officials for human rights violations.

I'm being sarcastic of course. Congressional support for human rights legislation is bipartisan, and liberals were not stunned by Obama's attempt to normalize trade relations with Russia. Few cared that Russia supports Syria's dictatorship and, along with China, prevents the world community from doing anything. Few cared that Russia capitalizes from the embargo on Iran, giving the mullahs a way to run around otherwise crippling sanctions. Few cared that Putin suppresses civil liberties in his own country, denying free speech and right to peaceful assembly, and increasing corruption in both government and business. The Russian government is even refusing humanitarian aid from the United States, terminating all programs by the United States Agency for International Development (as described in With Aid Cutoff, Kremlin Recalibrates).

A high ranking Democrat criticizes Russian policy as not working but still says “I do think this president and the secretary of state and vice president have been effective and engaged in pushing back and in building a multilateral coalition, in engaging in areas of the world where we've been able to lead.” 

Pure gobbledygook! Well, you can't have it both ways. It seems that the Carter Doctrine--letting human rights guide foreign policy--is dead. We are back to a policy of realpolitik that is closer to 1970s detente than the more usual musings of the American left; that is, caring for the downtrodden and encouraging liberal democratic reforms. Obama has morphed into Richard Nixon. Obama's "reset" with Russia is complete. If you think the leadership of the Democratic Party has lost its soul now, wait until after the election when Obama has promised Russia's Medvedev that he will have more "flexibility" in working together on arms control and other concerns.

I Don't Know My Right From My Left

The following is a guest post from my colleague, classics scholar and philosopher, and accomplished musician (Sly Stone, Grateful Dead), Steve Schuster.

As I grow older, many things , that I once felt were simple, now seem to grow more complex. One of the political concepts I felt I understood as a younger person was summarized by the terms "right" and "left." As I learn more of the world, I find the terms less and less meaningful. I discover the terms are being consciously used to obfuscate clarity and to trigger "knee jerk" emotional reactions. Once one realizes that one is being manipulated, it becomes important to defuse the mechanisms used to perform the manipulation by understanding the process.

Trying to find a consensus for the meanings of "right " and "left" mirrors the difficulty in nailing down a consensus about the processes these simple terms supposedly represent. Before trying to analyze the implied meanings of our terms, it is worth trying to understand how and why we, and the holders of political power, use them.

Manichaeism pervades our public (and private) thought process. It is the nature of our physical brain process to reduce complex questions to bipolar simplicity to expedite finding solutions. However, the number of bipolar decisions we use to make up our perceptual models is dependent on our interest, our intellectual curiosity, and our training. We are trained to think in state run schools and many of us appear to be intentionally badly trained so that we use only very simplified and crude components in our political reasoning.

We are constantly presented with complex ethical situations interpreted in black and white, good and bad. Greys are not presented as options. There are pragmatic reasons that make this simple dualistic view of the world valuable to those in power. Those in power, in a democracy, must control public opinion in order to continue to hold legal power. Using dualistic concepts and terms makes a consolidation of opinions easier. It can create an illusion of a consensus where more accurate, more careful reasoning might present a multiplicity of opinions and choices that would be much more difficult to forge into a unified power bloc. By dividing all questions into only two possible answers, there will always appear to be a majority and a minority answer, rather than a number of nonaligned opinions. Thus , there can always be the illusion of a consensus in a pluralistic society, no matter how fragmented the true feelings of the citizens may be. "Right and left" are shorthand terms for polarizing the possible answers to all political questions. Unfortunately most problems are so complex that breaking everything into two opposing forces merely prevents a real understanding, much less a real solution.

Many of us believe that we can escape extreme distortions of right or left positions by finding a "middle/moderate" position. However, a reasonable position may bear no relationship to either of the polar views presented by the government and the media. It is as though one were offered the option of living in either Los Angeles or New York. Professing a desire to keep to the middle ground would suggest living in Omaha, while one's natural inclinations might suggest San Francisco or Atlanta to be a better personal choice. If the polar ends of the decision are presented only as L.A. or N.Y. C., the attractive options of S.F. or Atlanta are not presented as middle ground.

Since the forces and choices of political alignment are so complex, no one can long embody an unambiguous right or left position. An extreme position in either direction seems to take one full circle. Stalin, for example, seems a paradigm of the most extreme right and left. Recent reports of the attempted coup in the Soviet Union labeled those espousing continued socialized ownership as the "right" wing, and those promoting privatization as "left."

The complexity of government makes a pure, unconflicted right or left position impossible to define, much less hold. Many seem to feel that a belief in the paramount importance of "the rights of property" precludes a support of the rights of the individual. It is odd that the same "right " which espouses freedom of the marketplace appears more likely to support constraints on the freedoms of speech, religion, and the press. A current anomaly of the Left concerns the recent attempts at gun control. Here the left appears ready to concede the individual's rights hitherto guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Another example of an anomaly is the relationship of the right and left with the military. While privatization of the military (or police) is a dream of only the most extreme right, a strong military, (which is after all an extreme of both common ownership and government control) is frequently claimed as a characteristic of the right. This espousal of a strong military also necessitates an intense redistribution of wealth by the government, from the many (taxpayers) to the few (large industrialists). This entrance of the government into the economic lives of the community is oddly not often objected to by the right. On the other hand we might also remember that the Vietnam "conflict" was conceived and pursued by the "liberal" segment of the government. "Liberal" Kennedy escalated Eisenhower's modest involvement. Lyndon Johnson, whose "Great Society" domestic economic policies were seen as socialist by the right , happily destroyed Viet Nam with the help of his Harvard "left" think tank, before Nixon continued the slaughter with his Harvard "right" think tank.

Realizing that while "right and left" do represent some sort of shorthand for generalizing predictable answers to carefully framed questions, nailing down the true characters of these amorphous terms still remains difficult or impossible. The innumerable anomalies created by the division of complex political thought into "right and left" renders the bipolar model functionally unsupportable. As the terms become less and less intellectually justifiable, the emotional intent of the terminology becomes clearer. Let us try to revolt against the prejudgments created by both the media's and our own internalized use of these terms .

Lower College Costs--Take More Classes

Fay Vincent, in a short and sweet WSJ article, Tuition Solution: A Three-Year Degree, describes how universities and students can work together to graduate in 75 percent of the time, incurring only 75 percent of the tuition.

Steve Pavlina, in his blog, describes pushing even harder, graduating in only three semesters by taking 30 to 40 units per semester. Now that's time management!

However, one does not need to have superhuman abilities to pass a lot of classes in a semester. Please read the Pavlina blog. Additionally, a student I know very well compiled the following record in his last two years at a prestigious military college:

• Fall 2010: Passed 23 units out of 26 attempted
• Spring 2011: Passed 27 units out of 30 attempted
• Summer 2011: Passed 9 units out of 9 attempted (online classes at alma mater and actual classes at University of California, Berkeley)
• Fall 11: Passed 29 units out of 29 attempted (finishing all classwork)
• Spring 12: Passed 12 units out of 12 attempted (student teaching)

This motivated young man wanted to double-major and just got better and better at managing his time. He gave up unnecessary activities and distractions (like Facebook) and graduated with honors. You can do it too.

How Parents Can Help Students Succeed in School--Four Interventions

Many years ago, as a student teacher in an urban high school, I asked a parent for help in teaching an unengaged and out of control teenager. The parent responded that it was my job and not her's to teach the child. While that unhelpful suggestion may be technically true, parents can do much more to ensure their child's success.

Outlining the major concepts of his book, Our Schools and Our Future, Chester Finn wrote in 1991:

“…we need to integrate parents far more directly and intimately into the work of formal education. This is commonly assumed to be the toughest nut of all to crack, and it may well be. Nor am I referring only to what happens in school. Parents are the single most important influence in the 91 percent of children's lives spent outside school. They aren't the only influence on what happens during that time, of course, but they are much the strongest. Engaging parents in choosing the school is part of the solution. Parent participation in education governance is another. Explicit parent education programs are another….Parent-teacher-student contracts may be yet another. Much more imaginative use can also be made of technology to assist the school to reach the home and vice versa."

So close to twenty years later, have we used the most potent force in education—parents? We have not. Parents do not participate enough in supporting education. I am a father of five as well as a high school teacher. I have seen what parents can do from both sides of the fence. Here are four interventions that are comparably easy to implement.

1. Turn off the television
Television reduces school performance. The tube takes time away from educational activities, and it doesn’t matter what programs are watched. Television also serves as a narcoleptic and makes kids fat. The research linking television watching to increased mortality rates is also quite scary. And this just out on Depression should make you want to throw the television out the window. I do not have a television in my house.

2. Limit cell phone usage.
Turn off your kids’ cell phones at the dinner table and make your home a sanctuary from social media. If you don't think that intervention alone will make a positive difference in your family's life, read Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation linked here. See also Daily Media Use Among Children and Teens Up Dramatically from Five Years Ago here.

3. Read.
If parents enjoy books and reading it increases the chances that the kids will too. Kids need background knowledge to succeed in school and reading provides it. I became a good student simply by imitating my father who read his history books on weekends. Active learning, through books, is usually superior to the passive learning of video. We must use our imagination when reading, even somewhat with picture books. A study entitled, Scholarly Culture and Education Success, "based on twenty years' worth of data, found that 'children growing up in homes with many books get 3 years more schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents' education, occupation, and class'" (Friedman and Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011, P.127)

4. Talk about political issues and school assignments at the dinner table.
My August 16, 2010 post described how dinnertime debates opened up a world of ideas for me. My brother is an award-winning concierge and my sister is a university professor. These dinnertime discussions exposed us to the issues of the day.

Andreas Schleicher, the head of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), said that his organization interviewed three to five thousand parents of fifteen-year-olds his organization tested in sixteen different countries.

There was a clear connection between parental involvement in their children's education and their PISA scores. Those young people whose parents were involved with their education--doing as little as asking them everyday "How was school?" or "What did you do in school today?"--or read books to them clearly performed better on the PISA test than those whose parents were not involved. (Friedman and Mandelbaum, P.126)

Parents can lay the ground work for their children's academic success.

I've Got One--How About You? Looking at Personality

Gordon Allport

  A long time ago, when I was a psychology grad student, mainstream research in personality theory was based on Gordon Allport's studies on traits, the enduring dispositions we use in everyday life to describe people. Later researchers reduced thousands of descriptors to five large domains, nicknamed the "Big Five". University of California psychiatrist Samuel Barondes in Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality (FT Press, 2012) shows how to use the Five Factor Model of Personality, ie., the Big Five in thoroughly describing a person's essence.

People can demonstrate high to low levels of each of the Big Five domains. Having high or low scores in itself does not make you more or less psychologically fit.

• Extraversion: gregariousness, love of attention and excitement, assertiveness, and expression of positive emotions. Barondes uses Bill Clinton as an example of an American president high in extraversion and Barack Obama as a president low in it.
• Agreeableness: wanting to help one's group, cooperativeness, warmth, kindness. My first grade teacher was high in agreeableness. She was a well-loved by all her students, and I would do anything to win her smile. Many successful business executives, on the other hand, are low in agreeableness.
• Conscientiousness: reliable, trustworthy, organized, punctual. My father would make a dinner reservation a month in advance, confirm a day before, and show up within two minutes of the set time. Always. Jazz musicians, especially the amateurs, are low in conscientiousness and notorious for forgetting about the gig, leaving important instruments behind, drinking, and showing up improperly dressed.
• Neuroticism: feels and displays negative emotions, dysthymic, anxious, insecure. Barondes reminds us that Sigmund Freud was spurred on to success partly because of his struggles with insecurity and anxiety. But who wants to be around someone that spouts negativity all the time?
• Openness: imaginative, curious, artistic, creative. Some people enjoy the consistency of doing the same thing, day after day. Others are more daring, crave novelty, and are willing to put up with the frustrations and exhaustion connected with creative work.

Find out where you stand on the Big Five by taking a computer test created by Dr. John A. Johnson, Professor of Psychology, Penn State University. The link is here. Take the longer (300-item) version here.

(Full disclosure: I took the short test and was scored as average in everything except conscientiousness, where I was rated high. This may not be so bad. University of California, Riverside professor Howard Friedman analyzed the longitudinal data of Lewis Terman's gifted children, and found that high conscientiousness was correlated with longevity. See the meta analysis abstract here.)

There are a lot of combinations of the Big Five. If I simplify scores and assess people as either high, medium, or low in each Big Five domain, I have fifteen possible combinations and the math operation 15! equals about 307 billion possibilities. Most combinations of the Big Five are a good fit to our society, adding to a glorious rainbow of human personality. However, Barondes calls some troublesome characteristics the "Top Ten." These personality disorders can also be described through scoring on the Big Five. For example, a schizoid (extremely detached and unemotional) personality can be described as very low extraversion and a schizotypal (discomfort in relationships and eccentric behavior) can be described as low extraversion, low agreeableness, high neuroticism and high openness.

In summary, Barondes describes his techniques for examining personality:

1. Remember our common humanity and the way personalities develop.
2. Make a Big Five profile and notice what stands out.
3. Look for potentially troublesome patterns.
4. Make a moral assessment using universal and cultural standards.
5. Listen to the person's story and relate it to what you observe.
6. Integrate what you've found (P. 147).

Famous social psychologist Philip Zimbardo and fellow Stanford professor John Boyd examine personality from a philosophical perspective in The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time that will Change Your Life (Free Press, 2008). Rather than describing personality by traits, Zimbardo and Boyd look at a person's time perspective, whether she is past, present, or future-oriented in describing why people behave the way they do. Zimbardo has created two inventories, The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) (downloadable here)and the Transcendental-future Time Perspective Inventory (TFTPI) that measure

six time perspectives: two past, two present, and two future. These time perspectives are called the:

• Past-negative
• Past-positive
• present-fatalistic
• Present-hedonistic
• Future
• Transcendental-future (P.52)

People tend to be oriented towards either the past, present or future. Attitudes toward the past may be either positive or negative. Those captivated by the present may be hedonistic or fatalistic, and those planning for the future, the high-achievers among us, may never enjoy life in the here and now. Lastly, those scoring high in transcendental-future look forward to the rewards of the afterlife.
(Full disclosure: I scored high in past-positive and future.)

Studies show that the Big Five domains tend to remain stable over adulthood. Zimbardo, however, shows how one can change his ZTPI score, loosening up and enjoying being in the moment if one is too future-oriented or planning more if one is too much of a present-hedonist.

The book ends quite poetically:

Your time matters to you and, in the end, is all that matters. Time is all that you have. You might as well spend it seeking happiness and purpose--whatever they mean to you (P. 319).