Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

.
Question 1

Bob Herbert, though jumping around quite a bit, basically addressed only three problems = infrastructure, poverty/education, and the cost of war (including both the human cost and what economists would call the “opportunity cost” of not employing the same resources on other pressing problems). The question = has Bob Herbert even addressed all of the important problems facing our nation including any which should probably have made the Top Three, if not No. 2 or even No. 1???

Answer 1

Please read the rest of this quiz and the suggested answers.

********************
[Questions 2-7 deal with six of the 24 issues for which we have launched Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns, each of which six (though not all 24) in the opinion of Yours Truly are more important than at least one of Bob Herbert’s Top 3. (No inference should be drawn from the order in which they appear regarding the relative importance that Yours Truly would attach to them.)]
********************

Question 2

Should bringing thorium fission on line ASAP have made the Top Three because it, inter alia, (A) produces no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminates the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminates the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt?

Answer 2

Of course!!!

LFTR’s (Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure, (2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled, (3) thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste, and (4) thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.

And there is no need for the world to continue polluting the atmosphere with carbon AS ALL OTHER CARBON-EMISSION PROGRAMS (e.g., Kyoto, cap-and-trade, etc., etc.) WILL DO!!!

With regard to the last point, each of our participants has always recognized that many, if not most, of the world’s nations will refuse to halt carbon pollution unless the solution is cheaper than any alternative and each of us has always admitted that we would not favor invading militarily other countries -- such as China to prevent it from bringing on line one new monster-sized coal-fired electric-generation plant every week.

The only reason why America turned away from thorium following the successful 18-month continuous demonstration project in the 1960's at the U.S. Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN which proved the feasibility of thorium/fission reactors, is that (as mentioned above) THORIUM IS INCAPABLE OF EXPLODING!!!

Question 3

Should 1968 Executive Order 11387 be revived in order to halt the export of American jobs, to reduce if not eliminate American unemployment and to increase the standard of living of American workers?

Answer 3

1968 Executive Order 11387 established the Office of Foreign Direct Investments that mandatorily restricted American foreign investments from 1/1/1968 through 1/29/1974 pursuant to Commerce Department Regulations implementing the Executive Order.

Though promulgated by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson at the beginning of his last year in office, it was continued by Republican President Richard Nixon for his first 5 years in office.

[An erudite 1969 legal analysis of that OFDI Program appears in Duke Law School’s Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 47-63, and is available on-line at http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol34/iss1.]

Although the objective of the 1968 Executive Order was to reduce the deficit in America’s foreign balance of payments, additional benefits would flow from a similar Executive Order today --

(1) the retention of more American capital in the U.S. would mean that the additional capital would have to be invested in domestic projects that would employ more American workers, thereby reducing or eliminating American unemployment; and

(2) the resulting increase in the ratio of capital employed per American worker would cause the real income of American workers to rise once more.

It is time we took action to stop pitting American workers against the world’s poorest laborers, especially those who are not even protected by their own governments with regard to workplace-safety rules,

Question 4

Should U.S.-based multinational corporations be able to capture virtually all of their worldwide profits from exporting American jobs in tax-haven subsidiaries, typically non-resident Singapore corporations?

Answer 4

Of course not.

Question 5

Since as we have studied several times in the past, contrary to conventional wisdom the 2008-201? economic meltdown was caused by Congress permitting the U.S.-based multinational companies to pull the $5 TRillion of profits from exporting American jobs that had piled up in their tax-haven subs, to be repatriated from the tax-haven subs to the U.S. parents at a one-time special rate of 5.25% (vs. the normal U.S. corporate tax rate of 35%) because the tax-haven subs immediately forced the CHUMP American companies that had NOT exported American jobs to repay the $5 TRillion that had been loaned to them by the tax-haven subs of the American companies that had exported American jobs, and the resulting $5 TRillion reduction in the American payrolls and American capital expenditures of the CHUMP American Companies would have caused the 2008-201? economic meltdown whether or not there had ever been any sub-prime mortgages!!! SO SINCE ANOTHER $5 TRILLION OF PROFITS FROM EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS HAS PILED UP SINCE 2008 IN THE TAX-HAVEN SUBSIDIARIES, ARE WE WILLING TO PERMIT CONGRESS TO PRODUCE ANOTHER $5 TRILLION REDUCTION IN THE AMERICAN PAYROLLS AND AMERICAN CAPITAL EXPENDITURES OF THE CHUMP AMERICAN COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT EXPORTED AMERICAN JOBS, AS HAS BEEN PROPOSED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SIMPSON-BOWLES COMMISSION, MITT ROMNEY DURING HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, AND (INCESSANTLY) BY THE FOX BUSINESS NETWORK?

Answer 5

Unfortunately, it would appear that America will have to suffer ANOTHER ECONOMIC MELTDOWN from ANOTHER $5 TRillion reduction in American payrolls and American capital expenditures -- before its decision makers realize the true cause of the 2008-201? meltdown.

Question 6

Should America go to war, if necessary, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons since failing to do so will probably result in 50% of the world’s 7 billion population becoming unsustainable virtually overnight?

Answer 6

Virtually all of the world’s agricultural fertilizers come from petrochemicals.

According to http://www.cia.gov, approximately 50% of the world’s oil & gas production comes from the Persian Gulf or downwind from the Persian Gulf.

Turkey, Egypt and the Gulf State Six (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) have each announced their intention to go nuclear immediately if Iran goes nuclear

[Obviously, they have no more faith in the so-called American Nuclear Umbrella than French President Charles de Gaulle who, in 1966, pulled France out of NATO and developed French nuclear weapons because he believed American would never go to war to protect France from a Soviet invasion.]

The constant threats of nuclear annihilation from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomenei suggest that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, he will start a nuclear war in no time flat.

And the rest of the world will be engulfed in wars to determine which 50% of the world’s population continues to eat!!!

Question 7

Should America do whatever is necessary to prevent Al Qaeda and its affiliates from executing the fatwā of their Spiritual Leader, Osama bin Laden, to nuke 10 million Americans (about which the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote a famous book about how to deal with that fatwā but whose recommendations have been ignored) -- especially since now that Osama is dead, his fatwā can NOT be revoked?

Answer 7

This reminds me of the end of the 1968 Harvard-Yale football game in which Harvard scored a touchdown with no time left on the clock to pull within 2 points, 29-27.

And during the ensuing time-out, a deafening chant went up from the Harvard fans -- "Should we go for 1 and a loss, or 2 and a tie???!!!”

However, that vignette has a purpose!!!

Because, we shouldn’t be stupid about how to prevent Osama’s followers from nuking 10 million Americans.

As Bob Herbert argues, fighting constant wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates may be ill advised.

And, as we discussed at our 2/6/2013 meeting on John Brennan’s nomination to head the CIA and our 7/10/2013 meeting to discuss “The Thistle and The Drone” by Akbar Ahmed [the Ibn Khaldun Chairman of Islamic Studies at American U in Washington DC, the first Distinguished Chair of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, the former Pakistani-Government Administrator of South Waziristan (the tribal area often called the most dangerous place on earth), and the former Pakistani Ambassador to the United Kingdom] --

droning Al Qaeda leaders may be counter-productive.

In any event, the real answer has to be intelligence, both human and electronic.

And we should probably be discussing how much privacy we are willing to surrender to electronic surveillance in order to prevent 10 million Americans from being nuked.

And the extent to which we are willing to engage in “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as those approved by the European Court of Human Rights (to which 47 European countries are subject) in litigation between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republican Army.

********************
[Back to issues on which we have yet to focus, but which are (or at least might be) more important than Bob Herbert’s Top 3.]
********************

Question 8

Is the American media the bedrock cause of all of America’s problems? What can be done to replace the media “talking heads” who are “regurgitatators” with real “thinkers” since the American education system (K-12, university and grad school) is only designed to produce “regurgitators” rather than “thinkers”?

Answer 8

Yours Truly’s answers = yes and I don’t know.

But I’d be interested in everyone else’s ideas.

Question 9

Should the nearly-universal movement beginning in the 1980’s of American corporations that offer any retirement benefits, AWAY FROM traditional pension plans TO Sec. 401(k) plans have made Bob Herbert’s Top 3?

Answer 9

Absolutely!!!

Question 10

What is a traditional pension plan?

Answer 10

After retiring, each worker receives from his employer a monthly payment based on her/his years of service and final compensation (usually an average of the last 3-4 years).

Question 11

What is a Sec. 401(k) plan?

Answer 11

Each worker is permitted to make a contribution into an individual account based on a percentage of the worker’s income, subject to a maximum annual contribution of $18,000 as of 2015.

The contributions are deductible for federal income tax purposes (but not for social-security tax) and the income earned on the funds is also not subject to income tax.

Employers may or may not match employee contributions, sometimes dollar-for-dollar and sometimes less.

Withdrawals are subject to income tax and, in addition, early withdrawals before retirement age are subject to penalties.

[This summary does not cover so-called Roth IRA’s.]

Question 12

Even when employers offer to match (often at less than dollar-for-dollar) employee contributions to Sec. 401(k) plans, how miserable are the employee participation rates?

Answer 12

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 55% of the American workforce has employers which are willing to contribute to their Sec. 401(k) plans, and 31% of those who do have willing employers, do NOT participate.

So only 38% of the American workforce has Sec. 401(k) plans.

Question 13

How much more miserable are the participation rates for low-level workers than high-level?

Answer 13

There does not seem to be much information on this.

But intuitively, it would seem that low-level workers are less able to set aside any of their income in the face of paying for their current necessities.

And beginning in 2006, Congress absolved employers from the consequences of their failure to ensure low-level workers are adequately covered (please see Q&A-14) -- implying that the participation rate of low-level workers has been very miserable indeed!!!

Question 14

Did Congress pass the so-called Pension Protection Act of 2006 which protected corporations from the prohibition of offering tax-exempt plans that benefit disproportionately high-wage employees (typically the corporate officers), if the tax-exempt plans comprise Sec. 401(k) plans that provide for automatic enrollment subject to opting out (vs. “opt in” plans) even when all of the low-wage employees do in fact opt out?

Answer 14

A feature of the tax law from time immemorial had been that tax-exempt retirement plans are NOT permitted to benefit disproportionately high-wage employees (typically the corporate officers).

However, studies showed that low-wage workers were more likely to participate in Sec. 401(k) plans in which contributions were matched by employers, if they were automatically enrolled subject to opting out (vs. so-called “opt in” plans).

So Congress enacted the so-called Pension Protection Act of 2006 that provided that the prohibition against tax-exempt retirement plans benefitting disproportionately high-wage employees would NOT apply to so-called “opt out” Sec. 401(k) plans.

Accordingly, employer-provided Sec. 401(k) plans are now permitted to benefit ONLY high-wage employees such as corporate officers.

Question 15

Who bears the risk that employees will continue to live longer than their predecessors -- With traditional pension plans? With Sec. 401(k) plans?

Answer 15

With traditional pension plans, the employers.

With Sec. 401(k) plans, the employees.

Question 16

If, as expected, American workers who begin to retire in the next few years do NOT have anything at all saved for retirement, or have an inadequate amount saved, or face the dire prospect that they will “outlive their savings” -- THEN IN ORDER TO BE HUMANE, WILL THE 5 STATES THAT CURRENTLY PERMIT ASSISTED SUICIDE FOR TERMINAL ILLNESSES CAUSING GREAT PAIN, HAVE TO EXPAND THEIR CRITERIA TO INCLUDE THE ORIENTAL HONOR TRADITION THAT ONE MUST COMMIT SUICIDE WHEN S/HE BECOMES A BURDEN TO OTHERS?

Answer 16

Yes, obviously -- in order to be humane!!!

But will the traditional opponents of assisted suicide permit this???

Question 17

Are Sec. 401(k) plans just one more example of the inability of the American media to think?

Answer 17

What do you think???