The Budget Committee of the Bundestag (Parliament of Germany) approved the budget for 2024 with expenditures of about €476.8 billion, new loans worth about €39 billion and compliance with the rule of the so-called debt brake, which, with a small margin of error, prohibits spending more funds from the budget than it receives, Azernews reports, citing foreign media outlets.
Day: January 19, 2024
The shocking news that the vaunted Israeli security services were completely surprised by Hamas’ attack on Israel, even though that security establishment had obtained a detailed plan of the actual attack more than a year ago, should lead the U.S. government to question the Israeli government’s broader strategy in the Gaza war. Because the Biden administration has given the Israelis full-throated political backing for the war and the United States has provided billions of dollars annually in military aid to Israel for decades, the American government is almost a co-belligerent in it. The Biden administration, only belatedly, has started to restrain Israel from conducting the war in a manner that will either lead to a dilemma, a long-term spike in terrorist activity, or both.
The Israeli security services’ latest blunder in underestimating their opponent, as many militarily dominant countries do, is similar to the Israeli intelligence failure in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the George W. Bush administration’s ignorance of warnings about a catastrophic terrorist strike before September 2001. In the current case, even with Hamas’ detailed invasion plan in hand and warnings from a perceptive intelligence analyst that the group was conducting exercises to execute it, higher levels of the bureaucracy pooh-poohed the warning by espousing the groupthink that Hamas didn’t have the military capabilities to pull off such a daring stunt. Israel should have known better. Instead, it winked at Hamas’ rise because it acted as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in a “divide-and-conquer” strategy that allowed Israel to settle more land in the West Bank methodically.
Initially, after the horrendous Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, President Joe Biden went all-in, backing Israel’s “right to self-defense.” Biden visited Israeland even attended a war cabinet meeting to show his unlimited support. Israel interpreted the visit as signaling a U.S. blank check to take down Hamas using its usual counterproductive, disproportionate martial techniques. Israel regularly makes it a point to kill more Palestinians than the Israeli body count—as a supposed deterrent. Because the violence over land in Palestine has been ongoing for decades, the deterrent value of disproportionate violence is questionable, especially when vast numbers of Palestinians are killed after Israelis claim that they are merely trying to eliminate terrorists surgically. Historically, extreme violence against civilians makes the enemy fight harder. Even if the Israelis manage to eliminate Hamas, the mass killing of Gazans (about 24,000 as of this article) will be long remembered, as even more virulent anti-Israel groups, fueled by the resulting hatred, will likely take its place. (An example of this phenomenon is Al Qaeda in Iraq—which had formed because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq—it morphed into the more virulent ISIS, which later took over about one-third of the country.) This may be the best case for Israel; the fight against Hamas and re-occupation of Gaza could turn into a military quagmire, with continuing civilian deaths and a resurgent Hamas on steroids (similar to how the U.S. invasion and long-term occupation of Afghanistan led to a resurrected Taliban).
Hamas’ plan, as with most guerrilla and terrorist groups, was to launch a brutal attack to bait the stronger party into an over-the-top retaliation that would generate further support and resources for its cause. Benjamin Netanyahu, like Bush after 9/11, has taken their bait hook, line, and sinker.
After Biden’s initial over-the-top support for Israel, he later warned the Israelis not to make the same mistakes of overreaction that the United States did after 9/11. He has also wisely warned Israel to dampen civilian casualties and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Yet, the Israelis continue to deploy air strikes in densely populated urban areas to kill terrorists. It is a myth that such “precision” strikes can take out terrorists without harming civilians. Even if the proper target is hit, the size of the weapons being used will cause significant civilian casualties. Yet, such weapons can also miss their targets because of malfunction or lousy intelligence. The fact that the Israeli security services were blind-sided by the initial Hamas attack likely indicates their information about and assessments of Hamas may not be all that good—resulting in mistakenly hitting many civilians.
Thus, the proper way to do counterterrorism—with the goal being to eliminate more terrorists than are created in the long term—is to primarily use troops on the ground. However, that would increase Israeli casualties, causing Netanyahu trouble at home. He is already unpopular because Israel was surprised by Hamas’ attack, and his attempt to neuter the Israeli judiciary drew massive protests. But because Gazans don’t vote in Israel, cutting Israeli casualties by heavy bombing is the route Bibi is taking, even though it will likely make the terrorism problem worse in the long term. Netanyahu may even be incentivized to extend the war as long as possible. Because when it ends, he may be thrown out of office, increasing the chances of his three indictments turning into convictions. Thus, the Biden administration, after going too far in its initial support for Israel, should at least impose conditions on the massive war aid package for Israel and maybe even cut it back to induce Israel to adopt a more targeted counterterrorism military effort.
Of course, if fairy dust was spread all over Palestine and every party did the rational thing, Israel would throw off Netanyahu and deal with the root cause of the conflict. Israel has long had its state and should now return to the two-state solution to give the Palestinians one, too. Israelis and Palestinians could live in peace with mutual respect and a commercial relationship that would make both more prosperous. But this is the Middle East. Instead, Hamas’ attack has hardened Israel to undertake even more than its usual overreaction, which will likely lead sadly to further cycles of violence.
This article was also published in The National Interest
By Sushant Sareen
The badlands that form the Iran-Pakistan border have for years been notorious for smuggling, human trafficking, narcotics trade, and of course, movement of insurgents and terrorists. It is anything but a tranquil frontier because skirmishes, shallow incursions and raids, and even occasional mortar shelling are fairly routine.
But both countries have somehow managed to keep things from spiralling out of control. They have remained engaged with each other at all levels, and even set up mechanisms to not only settle the crises that routinely take place along the border but also address the terrorism issue. Until now that is.
Iran-Pakistan attacks: Tit for tat
On 16 January, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Pakistani soil against a Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist group Jaish al-Adl. This was a serious escalation on the part of Iran, one which came without warning and was seen by Pakistan as an unprovoked attack. Pakistan responded initially by downgrading diplomatic relations and calling off all bilateral visits. But on 18 January, Pakistan launched counter-strikesin Iran against alleged camps of Baloch separatists. The ball is now back in Iran’s court. Everyone is waiting and watching to see if Iran goes for round two and rises up the escalation ladder, or backs off.
Some unconfirmed reports are doing the rounds on social media of Iran emptying areas bordering Pakistan, moving troops towards the border with Pakistan, and deploying some ballistic missile batteries. In what appears to be a show of force, Iran is also holding a big air defence exercise close to the border with Pakistan. Much of this is most likely nothing more than Iran posturing, and not necessarily an indication of any kind of preparation for kinetic action. Iran is known to do such posturing on the ground—in 1998 after the Taliban killed Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif, the Iranians were all fire and fury and amassed their forces on the Afghan border and threatened war but never moved forward. Chances are this is exactly how the current exchange between Iran and Pakistan will end. Neither side wants nor can afford an open conflict. For its part, Pakistan will dial down the stridency in public discourse and make conciliatory noises. Already, both sides are making noises that suggest that they won’t push the envelope any further.
But miscalculations cannot be ruled out, in which case all bets are off. It was, perhaps, a miscalculation on the part of Iran that made it flex its muscles against Pakistan on the same day it also targeted both Iraq and Syria. Iran, most likely, saw Pakistan as a soft target, a relatively costless option. Pakistan was so embroiled in its own existential crises that it wouldn’t or couldn’t retaliate. Pakistan was already engaged on three fronts—India, Islamist insurgency coming from Afghanistan, and the domestic front against Imran Khan. Opening a fourth front with Iran was something Pakistan would avoid, or so Iran believed.
The Pakistan Army too is not really in a shape to fight a war. The former Army chief had indicated as much. Economically, the country is running on fumes and can’t afford a hot conflict. At best, Pakistan would take a few diplomatic steps which wouldn’t cost Iran anything. Targeting Jaish al-Adl terrorists in Pakistan would satisfy domestic public opinion in Iran, which had seen a spate of attacks in the last few weeks and months in the very restive Sistan-Balochistan province. The attacks were also Iran’s way of signalling that efforts to corner it and encircle it through proxies would extract a price from the countries that allowed their territory to be used against Iran.
Iran’s analysis of Pakistan’s weakness was not wrong; its assessment of Pakistan’s reaction was. The fact that Pakistan is weak, and the state is under severe economic, political, security, social, and institutional stress is precisely what made Pakistan desperate to retaliate because to not do so would mean being taken for a complete pushover, not just by Iran but also by other regional players, especially India. It was a matter of strategic survival for Pakistan to respond, not just diplomatically but also militarily, albeit in a way that didn’t provoke Iran to go berserk.
Domestically, the Pakistan Army-run hybrid regime had no option but to hit back at Iran. The Army is very unpopular and was being lampooned after the Iran attack. Its reputation, and its raison d’être as the guardian of Pakistan’s territorial and ideological frontiers was being questioned. Trolls were asking if the Pakistan Army was only good for fighting against and imprisoning Imran Khan, and is unable to protect Pakistan from a foreign power. It, therefore, also became a matter of political survival of Pakistan’s military to give an appropriate and proportionate military response, and then keep fingers crossed that things would settle after one round of tit-for-tat attacks.
If that is how things remain, Pakistan would be mighty pleased. It would restore conventional deterrence and convey a message to its neighbours (notably Afghanistan and India) that if attacked, Pakistan would not hold back and will respond in kind; and it would raise the political stock of the armed forces and restore its image in the public, even if temporarily. If Pakistan is lucky, it will be able to leverage this stand-off to demonstrate its utility to not just its benefactors in the Arab world (who have been quite tight-fisted in bailing out Pakistan in recent years) but also to the United States (US).
The fact that Pakistan will never go all the way to vex Iran is another matter. Pakistan knows that Iran has significant assets and leverages inside Pakistan, which can prove to be quite disruptive and destructive if push comes to shove. However, Pakistan will be tempted to string the US and Arab states along and milk them as much as possible. On the flip side, Pakistan, today, has downgraded its diplomatic relations with all its three neighbours—Afghanistan, India, and Iran. At a time when the regime in Pakistan is desperately trying to attract investments and project Pakistan as a hub of trade and not terrorism, the spat with Iran is a big spoiler.
For Iran, the Pakistani retaliation creates a dilemma. If Iran decides to escalate, it will open another front for itself, which is hardly a sensible thing to do now when it is so deeply involved in the widening arc of conflict in West Asia (Middle East)—the Israel-Palestine war. On the other hand, if Iran backs down, it will send a message to other players in the region that the way to contain Iran’s expanding influence is not by targeting its proxies but by targeting it directly. There is a lot of chatter that stability in the Middle East will not be possible without striking at the “head of the snake” (read Iran). By not doing anything about Pakistan’s actions deep inside Iran, it could end up tempting its adversaries to launch attacks on Iran to deter it from stirring trouble in the region through its para-state proxies. What is more, emboldened by Iran’s backing down, Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist groups will be more likely to attack Iran further.
Messy situation in the Middle East
If the tensions between Iran and Pakistan don’t boil over, then chances are that the two sides will re-engage each other after a few weeks, maybe a couple of months. But if these tensions lead to open hostilities or even a hot border, then it will add to an already messy situation in the Middle East. This will impact India because it could disrupt the energy supply routes and trade corridors between India and Arab Gulf states. Equally concerning is the fact that these tensions open up an opportunity for China to expand its diplomatic footprint in the region by playing mediator between its strategic partner Iran and its client state Pakistan. The US is in no position to play the role of an enforcer in the region. That role is up for grabs and China is quite unabashedly coveting it.
- About the author: Sushant Sareen is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
- Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.
One reason the United States spends more on health care than other countries is that we are obsessive about health insurance instead of health care.
When the British National Health Service or the Canadian Medicare system spends additional money, they spend it employing doctors, building hospitals or buying medical equipment. When the U.S. government spends more money, we give it to insurance companies.
Take Obamacare. We are currently spending $214 billion a year insuring people through Medicaid (which is mostly contracted out to private insurers) and the Obamacare exchanges. At $1,731 for every household in America, that’s a great deal of money being transferred from taxpayers to insurance companies every year.
What are we getting for all that spending? Are people getting more health care? If they are, what difference is that making?
Apparently, few people find these questions interesting. In a Google search on “Obamacare,” every article I encountered discussed health insurance, but not health care. Even at the Obama Foundation website, the focus is entirely on insurance, not care.
Doctor Visits Have Fallen
Nonetheless, one scholarly study finds there has been no overall increase in health care in the US since the enactment of Obamacare. More on that below. The number of doctor visits per capita actually fell over the last decade. That’s surprising, because our population has been aging, and older people require more health care.
Unfortunately, there is nothing particularly new here. When Obamacare was enacted, it was expected to cost close to $1 trillion over the next ten years. But there was no serious discussion of what we were going to buy with all that spending—not in Congress, not in the mainstream media, or even in the health policy community.
Econ 101 teaches that all societies face a production possibility frontier. The typical textbook example is the choice between guns (military goods) and butter (consumer goods). In our case, it is health care versus other goods and services. To have more of one, you have to have less of the other.
To have more health care, we have to have more doctors, more nurses, more hospital beds, etc. Without any increase in supply, for one group of people to get more care, some other group has to get less.
We saw a vivid illustration of that during the Covid pandemic. In order to tend to the needs of a sudden surge in Covid patients, health care providers had to delay care for the non-Covid patients.
Throwing Money at the Problem
Our experience with Obamacare is similar to our experience with every major health program Congress has passed or even considered passing. We begin with a claim of unmet needs; we decide on a large sum of money to throw at the problem; but we never ask how the money can meet unmet needs if nothing is done on the supply side.
Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor were huge programs, even when they were started in 1965. In a short period of time the number of people who lacked health insurance dropped from nearly 25 percent to under 15 percent of the population.
As a result, physician visits by low-income people increased 6.2% and surgical procedures among the elderly increased 14.7%. But since there was no increase in the ability of the system to supply medical services, these increases were offset by a decrease in care delivered to the non-poor and the non-elderly. A study in the American Journal of Public Health found that “society-wide utilization of medical care remained unchanged.”
Even though there was an increase in health care services for seniors, MIT professor Amy Finkelstein discovered that the passage of Medicare had no effect on the health of the elderly—at least as measured by mortality. The additional spending set off a bout of health care inflation for all patients, however.
What lessons did Washington politicians learn as a result of this experience? Apparently, none at all.
During the first term of the Clinton Administration, Hillary Clinton proposed a plan to reform the private health care system and insure the remaining uninsured. But although that proposal consumed thousands of pages of analysis and discussion, almost no one asked what the nation would have less of in order to have more health care.
No Overall Increase in Health Care Utilization
Under Obamacare, the number of people without health insurance fell from 15.5 percent of the population in 2010 to 7.9 percent by 2022. Yet the study cited above found that health care utilization across all of society did not increase at all. There was some shifting, as low-income patients got more care, but that care was offset by reductions elsewhere in the system. In particular, “a 3.5-percentage-point increase in the proportion of persons earning less than or equal to 138% of the federal poverty level with at least 1 office visit was offset by small, nonsignificant reductions among the rest of the population.”
You might think that prescription drugs are different. If Congress liberalizes insurance for drugs, the drug companies can supply as much as patients demand. But even in the field of pharmaceuticals, there appears to be no limit to the ability of Congress to waste taxpayer money.
When Congress created Medicare Part D to pay for drugs in 2003, it created a $15.6 trillion unfunded liability for the federal government, looking indefinitely into the future. That was more than the unfunded liability in Social Security. Yet economist Andrew Rettenmaier discovered that only 7 percent of the benefits actually bought new drugs for seniors. The other 93 percent simply transferred to government (and therefore to taxpayers) the bill for drugs the elderly or their insurers were already buying. Only one in every thirteen dollars represented a new drug purchase.
Interestingly, the help given to the small number of people who were not otherwise getting medications actually reduced Medicare’s spending, as drugs were substituted for more expensive doctor and hospital therapies. But this profit on the truly needy was overwhelmed by the cost of giving the benefit to those who didn’t need it—a cost that has created an enormous obligation for current and future taxpayers.
This article was also published in Forbes
The Pentagon launched the Minerva Research Initiative in 2008 as a “DoD-sponsored, university-based social science research initiative that focuses on areas of strategic importance to the US national security policy.” It is intended “to identify and support basic social science research issues in need of attention and to integrate those research insights into the policy-making environment.”
Since the inception of the Minerva Research Initiative program, one of the principal interests of the Pentagon has been projects that respond to the impact of climate change on stability. In addition to conducting humanitarian relief operations—which have always relied heavily on the military and are certain to increase in the future—the Pentagon is convinced that the “multiplier effect” of climate change will also increase the demand for military intervention in crisis areas.
It is not surprising, therefore, to see grants to projects for Africa and specific projects for the Sahel. Each spring, the DoD announces three-year grants that can be extended up to five years.
In his announcement of grants on February 24, 2022, Bindu Nair, the then-director of the Basic Research Office in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, stated that “the knowledge and methodologies generated from Minerva awardees have improved DoD’s ability to define sources of present and future conflict with an eye toward better understanding the political trajectories of key regions of the world.”
In FY 2021, the Minerva Research Initiative announced $28.7 million in grants to 17 university-based faculty teams to support research in social and behavioral science. Grants awarded for 2022-2024 include projects on the national security implications of climate change, U.S. relations with Russia and China, and the impact of climate change on the Sahel. Leonardo Villalon of the University of Florida received a grant as principal investigator for a project on “Social and Institutional Determinants of Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Hazards in the African Sahel.”
In his announcement of grants on May 26, 2023, David Montgomery, director of social sciences in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, stated that “leveraging the strengths of the nation’s academic research institutions helps DoD define sources of present and future conflicts, with an eye toward better understanding the social and political trajectories of key regions of the world.”
In FY 2022, MRI announced $18 million in grants to 11 university-based faculty teams. Grants awarded for 2023-2025 include projects on the Internet, the national security implications of climate change, U.S. relations with Russia and China, and the impact of climate change on social and political stability in Africa. Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan received a grant as principal investigator for a project on “Advancing Social Science Research on Demographic Shifts, Climate Change, and Political and Social Stability in Sub-Saharan Africa. And Kathy Baylis of the University of California, Santa Barbara, will be principal investigator for a project on “The Climate-Food-Urbanizations Nexus and the Precursors of Instability in Africa.”
Although social scientists have been eager to apply for, and accept, these grants, there isn’t any evidence that I am aware of that their work has been of any practical use to the military. At a conference at the University of Texas, Austin, to report on a project on climate change, it was quite clear that the conclusions were so qualified and limited in scope that they provided the military representatives with little or no guidance for future operations and they were visibly frustrated. But at a time when most non-military programs for social science research by the U.S. government has been cut back or eliminated, it remains one of the few sources of funding for social science research on Africa.
This article was published by FPIF
By Vance Ginn
The Economist recently compared Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s economic records, concluding Biden wins so far. While the article raises valid points, it excludes key details that make the findings questionable.
Ten months from now, there’s a high likelihood Biden and Trump could go head-to-head again for the presidency, especially after the results from the Iowa caucus. But voters should be informed about the effects of their policies on key issues like immigration, inflation, and wages.
Starting with a divisive bang, let’s look at each leader’s track record concerning immigration.
The Economist correctly noted that apprehensions along the southern border were much lower under Trump. They increased by the most in 12 years during the economic expansion of 2019, decreased early in the COVID-19 pandemic when people could be turned away for public health concerns, and rose again during the lockdowns.
While some may see apprehensions rising between Trump and Biden as a loss for Biden, I see it as a loss for both.
This metric is somewhat unreliable, given one person can be caught and counted multiple times, and those caught are a subset of total migrants. The truth is immigration is good for the economy, but government failures create unnecessarily complex barriers against legal immigration, contributing to the humanitarian crisis along the Mexico border today.
Neither President has pushed for what’s needed (market-based immigration reforms) both lose.
Inflation is another hot topic, especially for Biden.
The Economist hands the win to Trump, as inflation was far lower during his presidency. But can we give him the credit?
Remember, Trump pressured the Federal Reserve to reduce its interest rate target and expand its balance sheet, which was inflationary. His deficit spending skyrocketed during the lockdowns and was mostly monetized by the Federal Reserve, contributing to what was always going to be persistent inflation. Biden made this deficit spending and resulting inflation much worse.
Add in the Fed’s many questionable decisions, such as doubling its assets, cutting and maintaining a zero interest rate target for too long, and focusing too much on woke nonsense, and we can see how this was always going to be persistent inflation.
But even the Fed’s latest projections indicate it won’t hit its average inflation target of two percent until at least 2026. Likely, it will cut the current federal funds rate target range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent three times this year, keep a bloated balance sheet to finance massive budget deficits, and run record losses. If so, this inflation projection is too rosy.
Some of Trump’s policies helped stabilize prices, including his tax and regulation reductions. But he still allowed egregious spending. Biden has doubled down on red ink that has contributed to the recent 40-year-high inflation rate.
While inflation has been moderating recently under Biden, Trump gets the win. Of course, neither Presidents nor Congress control inflation, as that job is the Fed’s, but its fiscal policies influence it.
When it comes to inflation-adjusted wages, The Economist grants a tie.
Let’s consider real average weekly earnings that include hourly earnings and hours worked per week, adjusted for the chained consumer price index, which adjusts for the substitution bias and has been used for indexing federal tax brackets since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Trump’s era witnessed a robust upward trajectory of real earnings, with considerable gains by lower-income earners, thereby reducing income inequality. We must acknowledge a real wage spike in 2020 during Trump’s lockdowns, marked by the loss of 22 million jobs and various challenges. To maintain a fair analysis, I disregard this spike.
A year later, real wages demonstrated a decline under Biden. Extending the timeframe to two years later, real wages remain relatively flat to slightly increased.
To provide a contextual understanding, when we consider the trend under Trump, excluding the 2020 spike, real wages for all private workers or production and nonsupervisory workers fall below those observed during Biden. It’s worth noting, however, that these wages have been higher since 2019, albeit nearly stagnant for all private workers.
Given real earnings, I agree with The Economist that Trump and Biden are tied.
While much more can be said for each President’s policies, continuing to add context when making assessments is crucial.
I give Trump a nuanced “win” overall because his policies supported more flourishing during his first three years until the terrible mistake of the COVID lockdowns, with its huge, long-term costs. I should note that I made a strong case inside the White House for no shutdowns and less government spending but, alas, my efforts, and those by others, lost to Fauci, Birx, and Trump.
Given the improved purchasing power during his presidency, Trump receives better poll ratings than Biden after three years of their presidencies. But this win doesn’t mean that Trump’s record is best regarding these issues, protectionism, and more.
Let’s hope free-market capitalism, the best path to let people prosper, is on display this November, no matter who is on the ballot.
- About the author: Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is founder and president of Ginn Economic Consulting, LLC and an Associate Research Fellow with AIER. He is chief economist at Pelican Institute for Public Policy and senior fellow at Americans for Tax Reform. He previously served as the associate director for economic policy of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, 2019-20.
- Source: This article was published by AIER
Categories