I was talking to a friend this weekend about the Anthony Weiner situation and she suggested that I read the attached article which appeared in Commentary Magazine.  It was written by her sister-in-law Kay S. Hymowitz.  I think that she makes some valid points regarding the recent streak of politicians who are having affairs.  I suggest that you read it.

On the other hand, I also heard a contrary point to the discussion. That point was that if women did not respond to the emails, pictures and approaches of these men, there would not be an affairs.  If Monica had not come onto Bill, there would not have been impeachment hearings; if the prostitutes did not answer the calls from Spitzer or Vitter, there would have not been a scandal; if Governor Sandford had not gone to Argentina, he still would  have had his family; and if the six women did not respond to Weiner, he still would be showing himself to other men at the Congressional gym. 

Of course that does not let off the men but to say that they are entirely to blame misses the point.  As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango.  So lets, place blame where it should be on  both parties and not entirely on men.

Ok, I have put out the raw meat--what are your opinions?

Here is Kay's article:

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Anthony Weiner and the National Adultery Ritual

Kay S. Hymowitz — July 2011

If the headlines seem to tell us one thing about our culture, it is that we are living in the Age of Adultery. A steady line of prominent men have taken the walk of shame across our television screens and through our magazine and newspaper pages over the past decade or so; Bill Clinton (he says it wasn’t sex, but would even he deny it was adultery?), Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, the three Johns (Edwards, Ensign, and Gosselin), Jim McGreevey, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Anthony Weiner. These are just the 30-minutes-of-fame-ers. There are plenty of other minor-league cads who got their more commonly apportioned 15 minutes—San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (said to have fathered the child of Casey Greenfield, daughter of pundit eminence Jeff Greenfield), eight-term Indiana congressman Mark Souder; no doubt by the time these words reach print, there will be others. Add them all together, and culture and politics seem like they’re all adultery, all the time.
To many observers, the problem is not so much the lapses of the men in question as the public obsession with them. Why, they ask, are the media and its consumers so preoccupied with these matters when we have so many important things to be pondering?
Why are we chattering about sex tapes and cigars when there are loose nukes and economic mayhem out there? These objections frequently come with accusations against a corporate media interested only in profit and indifferent to the public welfare. At any rate, sexual relationships are private, aren’t they?
Actually, no. In this bloggy, YouTube, and memoir-flooded era, people describe grazing the sexual buffet with little shame or embarrassment; oral, anal, threesomes, hookups, handcuffs, whips, or whatever else floats your boat. Adultery is one exception to this open-mindedness, especially when it involves powerful men in the public eye. If they cheat on their wives, those men will be facing the pursed lips and wagging fingers of Americans, and particularly women, in high moral dudgeon.
Of course, though it is a flashpoint, adultery is hardly taboo. Dating websites for cheaters appear on the Internet and no one is trying to shut them down. In fact, the most famous of them, AshleyMadison.com, cheekily urges, “Life is short. Have an affair.” As for cheating celebrities, we tend to go easy on them, probably because they exist in a different realm than the rest of us; they are more like bickering Olympian gods and goddesses than ordinary bottom-dwellers like ourselves.
But male—they are almost always male for reasons that will become clear—politicians and role models? They’re going to suffer for their adulterous ways. In fact, they will be put through what might be called the National Adultery Ritual. A politician, or in Woods’s case, a role model and a valuable corporate brand, is discovered to have betrayed his wife with another woman, or, as it frequently happens, other women. The press circles and the shame fest begins. The sinner is subjected to a veritable waterboarding of late-night TV jokes, derisive cartoons, tabloid headlines, embarrassing interviews with the mistress and other former girlfriends, analyses by psychologists on the inner demons that drove the man to such behavior, rampant speculation on the future of the bleeding marriage. Then there are the car and helicopter chases, flashing cameras, the gawkers, the plague of paparazzi locusts and microphones, and countless replaying of all of this on YouTube. A sane person might prefer a scarlet letter.
Consider the public judgment rendered on Mark Sanford, cheating husband of Jenny Sanford, father of four Sanford sons, and officially censured governor of South Carolina. The term “laughingstock” comes from the medieval tradition of clamping a malefactor in wooden leg and arm restraints in the town square where passersby could jeer and throw things at his helpless form. Sanford was the 21st-century man in the stocks.
Television hosts mocked him mercilessly. David Letterman (at the time an undisclosed adulterer, although as an entertainer more easily forgiven) tried this: “Governor Mark Sanford disappeared . . . and it turned out he was in South America. And then it turned out he was down there because he was sleeping with a woman from Argentina. Once again, foreigners taking jobs that Americans won’t do.” Keith Olbermann
Professional comics and pundits are not the only ones to enjoy debasing the sinner. When given the chance, the public eagerly joins in. After Tiger Woods’s wrongdoing came to light, amateur preachers took to YouTube. “Tiger ’n’ Whores” was one musical contribution to the golfer’s punishment; “They’re both pros at what they do,” goes one of the lines. Another preacher mocking the golfer’s dubious taste in mistresses called his video: “Tiger Woods: You Are a Man Whore!” CNN’s story about the Sanford divorce was followed by angry verbal rock-throwing from commenters: “scumbag,” “dweeb,” “dirtbag,” they scrawled. “Go crawl under a rock. Oh and keep your mouth shut because everything that comes out of it is a LIE!!!”
If details of the affair in question come to light, the public uses them to further humiliate the adulterer. Details strip the sinner of any remaining dignity by undermining his intact selfhood and effectively giving the public the ammunition to say: “We own you now!” The most dangerous moment for Bill Clinton was always the cigar and the blue dress, and not just because the latter provided legal evidence. They fleshed out our mental picture of the president during moments no one should have known about, giving each of us power over a man who knows us not at all.
The case of Sanford’s fellow “love-guv,” former New York chief executive Eliot Spitzer, who was caught consorting with prostitutes, yielded a mother lode of prurient detail with which to ridicule the malefactor: he liked rough sex, with his socks on and condom off; he was Client 9 at the Emperor’s Club; he was a “difficult customer.” New York magazine put his picture on its cover; its caption read “brain” with an arrow pointing toward his misbehaving privates. It was a nasty barb, but a pinprick compared to a cringe-inducing Vanity Fair cartoon portraying a naked female receiving money from a leering Spitzer, also naked—except for his long black socks.
This torrent of mockery is bad enough, but the adulterer must still undergo the press conference, the ritual’s climactic moment. During this weird event, the cornered sinner must confess, and he must do so in a very particular fashion. Resignation from office is optional, but grim-faced apology is not. By now everyone knows the liturgy by heart: I have disappointed those I care most deeply about, I have no one to blame but myself, I ask that you please respect the privacy of my family, etc. Sanford was ruined once he went off script; instead of asking for forgiveness from his family and his constituents, he rambled on about his soulmate.
Despite its formulaic nature, the press conference has an important purpose: specifically to convince the public of the sinner’s sincerity, and more generally to probe his character. The truth is, people are willing to forgive. They know sex can make a fool of just about anyone under the right circumstances, and they suspect that powerful men confront many temptations. But to gain public forgiveness the sinner must be really truly sorry, not just to have been caught, but to have had sex with other women. He must show he is capable of genuine remorse, something that the unalloyed villain is not. During the unfolding of the Edwards scandal, People ran an article entitled “Marriage Betrayal: When Apologies Don’t Cut It” with quotes from the press conferences of Edwards, Bill Clinton, and an assortment of cheating celebrities. The article included a poll asking readers to vote: “Who sounds most sincere?” But the editors were not simply asking for an evaluation of a performance. They were asking, “Who can be trusted?”
Spitzer’s signs of remorse were heartfelt enough that within nine months of his press conference, the ex-governor was poking his head out of his private bunker, writing a biweekly column for the online magazine Slate, and appearing on television news shows. He eventually scored his own show on CNN. How did he do it? Spitzer moved quickly to meet with the media, and he was brief and to the point. He had “begun to atone for his private failings,” he said, but he recognized his betrayal of the public. He resigned from office, giving the impression he was ready to put his ambition on hold and engage in the necessary inner struggle. His wife’s demeanor, described by the press as “ashen-faced” and “stricken,” provided a shocking display of genuine emotion in the midst of the predictable ceremony. The first sightings of the penitent ex-governor after his resignation also helped: he was spotted taking his dog for a walk, waving good-bye to his eldest daughter as she set out to school, getting in the minivan with his wife, two younger kids, and two dogs for a family weekend. His classy wife’s apparent forgiveness added to his rehabilitation. Spitzer’s case was unusual, however, because of a lucky (for him) financial crisis. Not only did this former “Sheriff of Wall Street” look prescient, but the industry’s sleaze took our attention off his.
John Edwards was the opposite of the genuine repentant. He not only refused to come clean, but also lied about the extent of his affair and his paternity of his mistress’s baby. Clinging to his ambitions, he tried a preposterous cover-up—having an aide claim to be the father—thereby figuratively doing to his staff and supporters what he had literally done to his mistress. Worse, his previously admired wife joined in the sham. According to political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, in their best-selling book Game Change, during his career people often reacted to Edwards as “a pretty boy phony”—until they saw Elizabeth, plump and four years his senior. Before the scandal, Elizabeth had lent John depth and authenticity; a handsome, successful man like the senator from North Carolina could have any beauty queen he wanted, but he had chosen a weight-struggling everywoman. But her Lady Macbeth ambition destroyed her image. “[B]ecause of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage,” Elizabeth fibbed in August 2008 on the popular liberal blog the Daily Kos, “our private matter could no longer be wholly private.” Not only was Edwards a “dirtbag,” he turned everyone around him into one as well.
Now, despite its prominence in the cultural scene, many people other than Elizabeth Edwards claim to want nothing to do with the National Adultery Ritual. These folks frequently insist that our fascination with adultery is a sign of America’s lingering Puritanism. Americans, they say, remain neurotic when it comes to matters of sex. They can’t accept it as a natural part of the human experience or recognize that sexual behavior has nothing to do with a politician’s—or golfer’s—competence at his chosen profession. Here’s the London Observer’s Johann Hari in a searing example of the genre after the publication of Elizabeth Edwards’s 2009 memoir:

And so America has finally stumbled on a political issue of real significance. No, not the trifling matters of economic collapse, global warming, or two wars. No—the issue of the day is John Edwards’ dick. Since Elizabeth Edwards published a book about the supremely trivial fact that her husband had an affair, the cable shows have been endlessly debating the “issue” once again.
Memo to America: Grow. Up.
Have you forgotten the lesson of Lewinsky so soon?
While al-Qa’ida plotted a murderous attack on the US, the twice-elected president was busy being impeached over a few bouts of consensual oral sex. It meant nothing. It was nothing. But it skewed your politics for years.
(Huffington Post, May 14, 2009)

Inevitably, Hari goes on to compare America with the “mature model” found in Europe “where politicians’ affairs are considered irrelevant,” and where no one is interested in their leaders’ “meaningless ejaculation[s]. . . . The idea a French president would be debarred from office for sleeping with somebody other than his wife is preposterous.”
Hari and his like-minded critics are right about one thing: the National Adultery Ritual is a uniquely American bourgeois exercise. But the origins of our obsession cannot be chalked up to immaturity or sexual hang-ups. No, the ritual is a tribute not to chastity but to fidelity, specifically male fidelity. Hari—a male, in case you hadn’t realized—doesn’t like it. Many men don’t. The truth is the adultery ritual is for women’s sake.
Let me explain. For reasons that neurologists and evolutionary psychologists suggest are embedded in the Y chromosome, male promiscuity and infidelity have been a stark fact of human society since, well, since the first man said, “I do.” To be sure, women have cheated on their husbands. But throughout time men have always been the less fair sex as, by all surveys, they remain today. Polygamy has been widespread, far more so than monogamy in fact, while polyandry, women with more than one husband, has been exceedingly rare. In ancient Athens married men had their way with female slaves, as did men in the antebellum South. Extracurricular sex by men was widespread enough to create the market for the world’s oldest, and probably most universal, profession. Many cultures have accepted the male predilection for prostitutes as inevitable and even as a safety valve for what Thomas Aquinas called men’s “careless lusts.” In urban ports all over the world sailors looked for domestic outsourcing for unavailable or reluctant wives. So did men about town like Samuel Pepys or 19th-century gentlemen in New York, where “working women” could be found not just in brothels, but also in the many venues where gentlemen hung out—restaurants, clubs, and theaters.
And what did Mrs. Pepys and her wifely comrades make of all of this? Funny, we never heard much about that. The humiliation of cuckolded men launched a thousand Shakespearean jokes, but the two-timed women? In most cultures, the wives of polygamous or cheating men were supposed to accept Big Love without jealousy or complaint, to treat it as so much “meaningless ejaculation.” The European approach that Hari approves of is no different really. Mark D. White, a psychologist writing on the Psychology Today website, unwittingly evokes the indifference toward wives implicit in the model; “François Mitterrand, who was president of the republic for 12 years toward the end of the 20th century, had a mistress and a love child whom everybody knew about; in fact they both marched in his funeral procession, behind his official wife. Nobody gave a merde. The centrist presidential candidate in the last presidential election openly consorts with his longtime honey, while his Catholic wife stays home with the kids. It’s the arrangement they have.” It was the arrangement they had, see?
What is unusual in the human record is not men stepping out on their wives. What is unusual is the model of faithful monogamy, a model that takes for granted the importance of women’s experience, not just men’s. Before the 18th century and outside of Western Europe, marriage was a social and economic as well as sexual arrangement; it had little to do with love and companionship, and no one much cared about whether women were fulfilled or not. But with the emergence of what sociologists and historians refer to as companionate marriage, intimacy became the marital ideal. Instead of arranged unions, the young made their own choice of mate based on shared interests and deep affection rather than on social requirements. Fidelity followed naturally, or so it was hoped, and it meant that, yes, people gave a merde.
Companionate marriage was a remarkable moral advance in social history, particularly for women. The American founders understood this. Rejecting the cynical, paternalistic arrangements of the ancien régime, they saw in the intimate, quasi-egalitarian relations between husbands and wives a reflection of democratic ideals. The model found its perfect expression in the relationship between John and Abigail Adams portrayed in the PBS series a while back. We don’t see John cavorting with prostitutes in his many months in Philadelphia away from his wife, his dear friend, though surely his fidelity was something unusual.
To be sure, the model was often little more than a nodding tribute from vice to virtue. Even in the mid-20th century, and especially outside the middle class, men strayed and women knew it. JFK’s Camelot, for instance, was a land of male sexual privilege, as Jackie Kennedy well understood. So did the reporters and aides who kept her husband’s affairs—and those of his brother, FDR, Eisenhower, and Martin Luther King Jr. among others—under wraps. It wasn’t until 1987, in response to a growing feminist sensibility as well as to an increasing female presence in the press corps, that the media headlined presidential candidate Gary Hart’s relationship with a young woman named Donna Rice and adultery became legitimate news. The rest is Clintonian history.
Far from a vestige of American prudery, then, the National Adultery Ritual is best understood as a modern protest in behalf of women against the persistence of male infidelity in an age of equality. In the early 1960s JFK could get away with it; in the 1990s WJC would not. Though he remained in office, Clinton paid a heavy price for his roguish ways. He became the second president in the nation’s history to be impeached and stayed stuck in the laughing stocks for years. His chief offense was not oral sex; it was the humiliation of his wife and daughter. People—women especially—cringed at Hillary’s embarrassment, as they would at all of what Tina Brown called the “downtrodden political wives called to genuflect before their husbands’ outsize egos.” More recently, commentators have hovered protectively over Huma Abedin, the unfortunate wife of Anthony Weiner. Abedin, it was universally agreed, was “glamorous,” “dignified,” and “intensely private,” even though the man she chose to spend her life with was combative, grandstanding, and intensely preoccupied with college coeds, dirty-talking Vegas blackjack dealers, and porn stars.
In fact, the National Adultery Ritual is an indictment of male lust for younger women. The “other” woman is almost always dewier, sexier, and a deeply bitter reminder to the middle-aged wife and her peers of their declining allure. No matter how impressive her achievements, depth, or wisdom, the wife is an aging female, the least enviable of human beings. Monica Lewinsky vs. Hillary Clinton. Rielle Hunter vs. Elizabeth Edwards. In a just world, would there be any contest? The bottle-blonde Rielle commenced her seduction by whispering to the candidate, “You’re hot”; she passed out business cards inscribed with the words—in caps, of course—“being is free. truth seeker”; she came on to every man she met; and she appeared in a photo shoot lolling on a bed revealing a naked midsection once full with Edwards’s child, now bikini-ready. That’s what men prefer? Then they must be shamed for it.
The ritual’s pro-wife rationale is the reason why debate swirls around the question of whether women should appear at press conferences with their husbands. Until recently, they generally did, probably because handlers wanted to dramatize the forgiveness they hoped the public would extend to their bosses. The pathos of Silda Spitzer may have been the final straw. The Los Angeles Times ran an article, on the front page no less, disputing the wisdom of Silda’s appearance. Is a man’s ambition more important than a woman’s dignity? the paper wondered. Ridley Scott, the honcho Hollywood producer, even designed a successful, and remarkably nuanced, television series around the dilemma aptly entitled The Good Wife. Jenny Sanford, though, may have transformed the ritual forever. Sitting tight with her girlfriends at her beach house, she left her husband to twist in the wind of media attention all by his rambling, lonesome self, and so earned the title “The Savviest Spurned Wife in History” from Time. “The cheated-upon spouses of the world have a new hero and her name is Jenny Sanford,” announced the magazine in praise of her choice. She has since filed for divorce.
A few male writers have begun to suspect the real meaning of the National Adultery Ritual. Mulling over the aftermath of the Spitzer scandal in New York, Philip Weiss waxed sympathetic about “married men tormented by their sexual needs”—a compassion he described trying, unsuccessfully, to convince Mrs. Weiss to share. Vanity Fair critic Michael Wolff speculated that the country’s interest in the topic reflects “revulsion towards middle-aged white men. . . . To the degree that, for 50 years, boomers have been expressive about their sexuality, we now have this population of middle-aged showboats helplessly dramatizing theirs.” Both men are a lot closer to understanding the moral drama behind the ritual than those who view it as the reproach of busy-body virtuecrats.
So, for all its tawdriness, our adultery obsession has its purpose. Alas, it’s unlikely to do much to stem the nation’s sorry trends in marriage. As divorce filings from wives—said to outnumber those from husbands—suggest, it’s not just men who struggle with long-term monogamy. Nor can infidelity by itself explain the fragile condition of the institution in the United States today. Still, for now and to their credit, Americans continue to believe that there is meaning in those extramarital activities.

About the Author

Kay S. Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys (Basic Books). This essay appears in slightly different form in Acculturated: 23 Savvy Writers Find Hidden Virtue in Reality TV, Chic Lit, Video Games, and Other Pillars of Pop Culture (Templeton Press), edited by Naomi Schaefer Riley and Christine Rosen.

Reverend Terry Jones Back In Dearborn

Just like the perpetual penny, the Reverend Terry Jones is back in Dearborn. Yesterday he spoke and then tried to walk to the Arab Festival. His walk was interrupted by protesters who attacked him as he made his way down the public streets wearing a bullet proof vest. 

Welcome to Dearbornistan.  In this suburban Detroit suburb known for the headquarters of Ford Motor Company, the largest group of Arabs outside the Middle East live.  Want to see what a burka looks like, go to Dearborn. Want to know what it is like to live in the Middle East, go to Dearborn.  Want to see politicians falling all over themselves to appease Muslims, go to Dearborn.

Now, as I have said previously in these blogs, Reverend Jones is not my cup of tea and I definitely do not agree with  him or his tactics. However, when one looks at the reception he has received in Dearborn, it scares me. Where has our ability to accept others gone?  Is this any different than Europe where Muslims are catered to and allowed to do things that others are not?

One of the strengths of this country has been the ability of people of varying religions to get along. It is sort of  "you have your religion, your native country, or your political beliefs and I have mine, just leave me alone and I will do the same." In this way Protestants and Catholics could live next door even though they would have been shooting each other in Ireland.  Pakistanis and Indians can live next door to each other, work together and have none of the problems that exist in their native countries.  This ability to accept the others in this country, has been unique in human history. Nowhere on earth does this occur but here.

So when I see the City of Dearborn prevent Reverend Jones from speaking--as he was last month (regardless of how anti Jones the populace might be) and see him physically attacked on the street--as he was yesterday. I am wondering if we are not losing something very special, that ability to accept others. 

On the other hand, one has to look at the combatants in this issue.  There is Christianity (which before the Reformation was very violent) and Islam which is now violent.  Now, I am sure there will be some who read this blog who will disagree with the violent issue, however, one only has to look around the world to see where violence is occurring (including 9/11) to see that Muslims have been involved in most of these actions.

Islam definitely is on the rise and its leaders are not afraid of killing, maiming, silencing,  or threatening its enemies.  Just look at the Muhammad cartoons and the world wide reaction to them including the newspapers in this country who refused to publish them in fear of reprisal. This my friends is scary.  When our freedom of speech is diminished, we all lose.

So I support Reverend Jones and his ability to speak, to tell the world what he thinks is going on and to freely walk the streets of Dearborn. I may disagree with him, his actions, or his words, but he has every right to peacefully express his opinions. If that right goes way for him, when will you or I no longer be able to express our thoughts?

Is Switzerland On The Right Track?

Most of us think of Switzerland as this quaint small country in the middle of Europe that has a secretive banking system where you can hide your money without anyone knowing it.  The reality is that the banking system is not so anonymous anymore and Switzerland is becoming a shining light in the middle of a Europe plagued with financial problems.

Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland, known as the PIIGS, have all sorts of debt problems with Germany helping to save them all.  In all of this, we hear so little about Switzerland.  So when I read this article that was posted by Personal Liberty Digest, I was impressed and thought you  might also like to read it.

Please let me know your comments, I am interested.




Is Switzerland A Role Model For Democracy?

June 16, 2011 by Daniel Zurbrügg


In Switzerland, people can challenge any decision or law with a referendum -- all it takes is for 100,000 people to sign such a referendum.
The world economy is in a very fragile state, despite the fact that world gross domestic product is growing at a rate of about 4.3 percent this year. Most of the growth comes from emerging markets like China, Brazil and India.

While these emerging nations have a lot of economic potential for the coming decades, most of them will have to deal with their own specific problems in the years ahead. What differentiates these nations from the West is they typically have much lower levels of debt; most of them have accumulated large savings surpluses. This is in sharp contrast to the West, especially Europe and the United States, where governments have accumulated large deficits by chronic overspending on social security, all sorts of subsidies and/or military and defense costs.

This is a very dangerous trend that can’t go on forever. Actually, I think we are witnessing the turning point right now and that coming years will bring huge changes to these economies. This will most likely result in a severe devaluation of their currencies and socioeconomic tensions. Remember, the euro and the U.S. dollar make up almost 80 percent of the world’s currency reserves, a percentage that will have to drop significantly in coming years.

In a world of ideal economics, these nations would address their problems by making structural adjustments to their economies, making investments that tend to increase true economic value and cutting spending on things that don’t make sense and only destroy value. However, this might be wishful thinking. One does not need to be a genius to see that the sovereign debt problem will, at least partially, be solved by a forced currency devaluation, meaning that the central banks, such as the Federal Reserve in the U.S. and the European Central bank in Europe, will continue their very expansionary monetary policies.

Despite the many advantages of democracy, there is tendency for politicians to overpromise, overspend and underdeliver in the long term. This results in huge deficits that must eventually be paid, either through higher taxes or significantly devaluing currency. In a democracy, governments eventually become too big and too powerful and spend too much money. Therefore, more and more people become directly or indirectly dependent on the government. That’s when a nation becomes a welfare state. The larger and more centralized a government becomes, the higher the risk that it will lead to a real disaster in the long run.

It is absolutely crucial that a democratic system maintain self-correcting mechanisms by keeping government size and control at reasonable levels. However, people must also be realistic about what they can expect from a government.

This is a long-term trend that can be observed in many Western countries with far-reaching consequences for people. From an investment-management point of view, currency diversification should be the key focus in coming years. It will be an almost ideal environment for precious metals and hard currencies.

In a previous article, I compared the performance of various foreign currencies against each other and against the two major currencies, the U.S. dollar and the euro. Many people say they do not understand currency markets. Keep it simple and look at foreign currencies like stock prices. The prices of currencies measure the performance of countries, just as the prices of stocks measure the performance of companies.

Looking at currency markets, especially their short-term volatility, people tend to forget about the main forces driving currencies. The chart below shows how the most common foreign currencies have performed in recent years. The best and most stable currency in the world has been the Swiss franc.




With a lot of money-printing going on in the world, it is not a surprise that the Swiss franc has kept outperforming all major currencies. The Swiss franc is, in my opinion, the strongest of all currencies. The chart below shows how much the U.S. dollar lost against the Swiss franc in the past 40 years.




In order to understand why the Swiss franc is such a strong currency, many factors need to be considered and understood.

Typically known for its famous chocolate, cheese and for being one of the world’s largest banking centers, Switzerland has much more to offer. Switzerland is a small country with a size of only 16,000 square miles. That’s only about one-quarter the size of Florida. With a population of about 8 million, it is also among the least-populated countries in Europe.

Despite being located in the heart of Europe, Switzerland is one of the very few European countries that have not become a member of the European Union. Because of that, the Swiss franc — not the euro — is Switzerland’s currency. Also, the Swiss National Bank is completely independent.



The roots of the country go back to 1291, when most of today’s territory was controlled by the Habsburg dynasty. Many people suffered under the Habsburg regime, since they didn’t have many rights and had to pay high taxes, usually in the form of agriculture goods, to their rulers. In 1291, three cantons started the Old Swiss Confederacy and began to fight for the freedom of its people and an end to the dark days of tyranny. More and more cantons joined the Confederacy.

In 1815, Switzerland’s independence was recognized by most other European countries. While the need for some centralized government was understood, Swiss people have always remained critical toward large, centralized governments. Democracy in the Swiss understanding means citizens and communities should act responsibly and take care of their own affairs.

Switzerland has also remained neutral during the world wars and kept a very large army for most of the past century. Today, about 100,000 soldiers serve in the army, which is still large, given the relatively small size of the country. The Swiss army is not and has never been a professional army; it is mandatory for Swiss men to join the army and serve the country.

I remember my days in the army. I was only 20 years old, and at that time I didn’t really like it or understand the sense of it. Only later did I start to realize what a great school of life my time in the army was, and how much it taught me about freedom and responsibility.

The events of recent years, especially the events in Europe, such as the war in former Yugoslavia or the increasing tensions among European countries, have made me realize things are a lot less stable than we would like. I think the strong sense for neutrality and freedom has remained one of the reasons Switzerland has always been so stable.

Another important factor is the kind of democratic system we have. The Swiss Parliament consists of two chambers, the Council of States and the National Council. The Federal Council, the “Bundesrat,” consists of seven members, each elected for a term of four years. What is unique about this direct democracy is that people can challenge any decision or law with a referendum — all it takes is for 100,000 people to sign such a referendum. This is a very important corrective mechanism in a democracy.

Switzerland was able to stay out of the two world wars by remaining independent. Despite the relatively large size of the Swiss army at that time, it would have been difficult to stop an enemy in case of an attack, especially from Nazi Germany. However, the Germans knew they would need to pay a very high price if they attacked Switzerland. Switzerland’s army was and is well-trained to fight and defend the country — especially in the mountains, which have hundreds of bunker systems, some so large that they look like little villages inside of mountains.

The fact that Switzerland’s infrastructure wasn’t destroyed in any of the world wars also meant the country had a competitive advantage during the rebuilding period after the war. Many large corporations established their international headquarters in Switzerland, and many have stayed here ever since. Today, the main advantages for corporations are the almost-perfect geographical location, a business-friendly tax system and the high level of internationalization in the economy. The tax system for corporations and residents is attractive no matter its level of profit or income. The European Union has called Switzerland’s low tax rates unfair, since taxes are much lower than in the European Union. How can a tax system, which encourages competition and ensures efficient use of taxpayers’ money be unfair?

This conflict with the European Union shows the fundamentally different approach Switzerland has taken. It is a country in which each canton and each community has a high degree of fiscal responsibility. It’s where people make the government, not vice versa.

I think many countries, especially large Western nations, can learn a lot from the Swiss system of democracy. Many Western nations are finding themselves in a difficult position today. The chronic overspending and wasting of tax money has resulted in a very heavy debt burden, which has become almost unbearable. Governments should always work in the best interest of their people and act diligently and responsibly when spending tax money. Governments should be lean and efficient, working for their people and not against them.

While it is in the best interest of any nation to have a social-security system that provides help to people who really need it, overextending welfare will give the wrong incentive to people who should never depend on a government to help them.





Daniel Zurbrügg is the Managing Partner of Alpine Atlantic Global Asset Management, a Swiss-based independent investment management firm. The firm provides clients with independent investment management, asset protection and family office services and is the issuer of the global investment newsletter Echo From The Alps. With a global network of partners, Alpine Atlantic's aim is to provide clients with true "turnkey" solutions for global investing. Prior to setting up Alpine Atlantic, Daniel held various positions with other banks and financial companies. Daniel is a Chartered Financial Analyst and regular guest speaker at international investment conferences.

Spending American Style

Yesterday I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about a website, dirtyspendingsecrets.com, so today I went there.  It is shocking to see the waste of money that is being spent by our government on things that are not necessary or should be the responsibility of someone other than good ole Uncle Sam.

For example, our government spent:

     $146 million on air flight upgrades for federal employees

     $3 billion to add sand to beaches

     $500,000 to Alaska Airlines to paint a salmon on one of its planes and

     $2,600,000 to train Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.

Wow, what a great country. Our employees are treated like execs and our prostitutes are trained to  drink less while on the job!  Are they not one in the same?

If this site can highlight these abuses, how many others are there, I am sure so many that it would make your head spin.  I have heard that the job training programs have NEVER been audited. Senator Tom A Coburn M.D.of Oklahoma writes in his 2011 report  entitled "Help Wanted: How Federal Job Training Programs are Failing Workers: 

 "A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report exposes a broken web of

federal job training and employment programs. Nine federal agencies spent approximately $18

billion annually to administer 47 separate employment and job training programs. Many of the

programs are duplicative, but GAO‘s most shocking revelation is that ―little is known about the

effectiveness of most programs."

Training is just one little corner in the government spending apparatus.  If this tiny area is not working and costing us billions, to say that we cannot cut spending is disingenuous  and totally irresponsible. It is time that Congress is held responsible.

I suggest that we all sign the letter on the site and write our "representatives" to get rid of these special deals and get back to governing in the best interests of the country and not special interests. Do you agree?

     

     

The ATF Has Gone Nuts

Once in a while there is a story that shows that this government really has lost its way.  Recently we have heard about the ATF allowing obvious gun runners access to illegal weapons in an effort to find Mexican  gangs is an example of what is going wrong with this country.  It only got worse when the gun shop owners call ATF and were told to sell the guns.  Someone who was paranoid might think that the government was out to frame those who sell legal firearms but that would not really happen with this administration, right?

Unfortunately we believe the current Congressional investigation is only going to scratch the surface and I doubt that we will really find out what was the original intent of the operation and how it morphed into something if not illegal, definitely immoral.  We have laws that require a citizen who wishes to purchase a firearm to go through a background check and if he is approved, then the sale can go through.  In this case, the law's intent was thrown under the bus.

I think that most law abiding citizens have no problem checking to see if the prospective buyer has a criminal record or is not psychologically stable. However, our concerns are raised when government changes the rules or makes it impossible for Joe Citizen to buy the gun he desires.

Unless the government charges those who violated the law, illegal operations will continue and without a doubt, innocent individuals will be caught up in them. My fear is that when they are charged, it will be nearly impossible for them to prove their innocence due to the fact that the power of the government will be against them.

 Although we need to find those who are shipping guns to Mexico, we cannot violate our own laws for expediant reasons.  If we do, all of our rights will be minimized, again.

Congressional report criticizes ATF gun operation

By Pete Yost June 15, 2011 1:01 pm

   WASHINGTON (AP) - Three federal firearms investigators told Congress on Wednesday that they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels in a risky U.S. law enforcement operation that went out of control.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California said leaders of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were fully aware of the details of Operation Fast and Furious, which was designed to track small-time gun buyers to major weapons traffickers along the Southwest border.

At a hearing before Issa's panel, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said "hundreds upon hundreds of weapons" destined for cartels in Mexico were purchased in Arizona gun shops.

The operation was designed to respond to criticism that the agency had focused on small-time gun arrests while major traffickers eluded prosecution.

In December, two assault rifles purchased by a now-indicted small-time buyer under scrutiny in Fast and Furious turned up at the scene of a shootout in Arizona where Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed.

"We ask that if a government official made a wrong decision that they admit their error and take responsibility for his or her actions," Robert Heyer, the slain agent's cousin, told the committee. "We hope that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is forthcoming with all information" Congress is seeking.

John Dodson, an ATF agent who feared the operation would result in deaths, told the committee that "although my instincts made me want to intervene and interdict these weapons, my supervisors directed me and my colleagues not to make any stop or arrest, but rather, to keep the straw purchaser under surveillance while allowing the guns to walk."

"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," said Dodson. "It was so mandated."

ATF agent Olindo James Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."

"We were told to just fall in line," said Casa.

ATF agent Peter Forcelli said that "when I voiced surprise and concern with this tactic ... my concerns were dismissed" by superiors.

"To allow a gun to walk is idiotic .... This was a catastrophic disaster," said Forcelli.

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White House Pressure on 1967 Borders

If  you have been following this blog on the the issue of the 1967 border lines that the Obama Administration "suggested" as the starting point of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, you know this is an important issue.  In the attached article Eli Lake from the Washington Times writes today about these negotiations and some of the background give and take between the Administration and Israel.

 

Israel must not be forced to return to the indefensible 1967 borders, even with "land swaps.".  All military studies of the issue that I have seen along with good old common sense says that a 9 mile strip of land cannot be defended in modern times.  If the past with horseback pulled carriages, maybe but not in the time of supersonic jets and even faster missiles. All of those who argue differently, either are naive or do not understand military tactics or are anti-Israel. 

 

If you disagree, as always, we are open for a discussion.

Here is the article. 

 

White House seeks Israeli agreement to negotiate on 1967 lines

Eli Lake - The Washington Times, June 13th, 2011

The White House is pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly adopt President Obama’s view that Israel’s pre-1967 borders should be the basis for future peace talks.
A senior administration official Friday told American Jewish leaders that the request for Israel to endorse the president’s peace principles was part of an effort to head off Palestinian plans to declare an independent state at the United Nations in September.
Steven Simon, the new White House National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa, said he was looking to get both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government to adopt Mr. Obama’s “principles as a basis for negotiation,” according to a recording of the call played for The Washington Times.
Mr. Obama said last month, “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” But the president has also rejected a set of U.S.-Israel understandings made during the Bush administration that tacitly accepted construction in some Jerusalem suburbs over the 1967 line.
Mr. Obama’s position would effectively reopen border negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that had been mostly settled in the last round of peace talks that ended in 2008.
The request of Mr. Netanyahu to publicly endorse those lines was made June 6 to the prime minister’s top peace negotiator, Yitzhak Molcho, at a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the National Security Council, according to an Israeli diplomat based in Jerusalem.
The diplomatic effort shows Mr. Obama is now ready to begin imposing general principles on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a tactic that until now the White House had avoided.
Mr. Simon, who served as the Clinton White House’s top counterterrorism official, said the United States had about a month to head off the Palestinian plan to declare a state during the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting set for September.
“We have a month to see if we can work something out with the Israelis and Palestinians as accepting these principles as a basis for negotiations,” he said. “If that happens we are somewhat confident that the Palestinians will drop what they intend to do in the U.N.”
Mr. Simon said Palestinians in general were supportive of the idea.
“We are working with the Israeli government to see whether they can accept these principles as a basis for negotiations,” he said.
Nonetheless, Mr. Simon said the United States would oppose a Palestinian unilateral declaration at the United Nations, regardless of whether Israel adopted the Obama principles. He also said that the Palestinian leadership was divided on whether to proceed with the unilateral declaration in September.
Palestinian leaders have long said the 1967 lines, or the de facto borders of Israel prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, should be the basis of negotiations.
But since Israel’s victory in the war, successive governments have built Jewish suburbs in and around Jerusalem. Both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed privately in 2008 talks, that most of these suburbs would remain part of Israel after a peace agreement, according to a Palestinian negotiation record first disclosed by the Al Jazeera news organization.
Last month, Mr. Obama, in a major foreign policy speech, endorsed the Palestinian position on the 1967 lines in his speech about the Arab Spring.
The New York Times reported that senior Obama administration officials were divided on whether the president should make mention of the 1967 lines in the way that he did.
The last-minute inclusion in the speech of language using the lines was a surprise to Mr. Netanyahu, who was en route to Washington when the president delivered his speech.
The tension over the 1967 lines lessened after Mr. Obama spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. He clarified that the final borders between Israel and a future state of Palestine should take into account demographic realities and facts on the ground, a clarification that brought Mr. Obama closer to his predecessor President George W. Bush.
Mr. Bush, in 2004, wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying it was “unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.”
The Israelis have long considered that letter to be the basis of a set of agreements with the Bush administration that would shield the Jewish state from criticism for building roads, housing and other developments inside the boundaries of the Jerusalem area settlements known as Maale Adumim.
Mr. Bush’s letter was written a year before Mr. Sharon became the first Israeli leader since Menachem

Secretary Gates On Defense Spending

On a post last week Gary Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly write in The Weekly Standard about Retiring Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his parting words at the University of Notre Dame Commencement and before the American Enterprise Institute.  His words scare the bloody heck out of me.  The cuts that the Defense Department have experienced in the past two years remind me of times in the Carter Administration and after WWI.  In both of those times we cut our military to a degree that it took years to again return to a posture of adequate defense material, manpower and equipment.  It appears as if we are heading the same path again.

This is ironic in that we now are involved in three active wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) and one undeclared/unannounced action in Yemen. What is our government thinking?  This should be  the time when we are increasing spending and not the opposite.

With the new Defense Secretary Panetta, the great defense cutter of the Clinton Administration, becoming the new Secretary, can things get worse?  I fear that is a great possibility.

When will we ever learn.  The best defense is a strong offense. If we are going to be the leaders of the free world, we must have a strong military.  We definitely cannot depend upon Europe or Scandinavia to defend the world.  Who is going to be there if the United States does not?  Please name one because I cannot think of any country.

This policy will only come back to haunt us.  I hope some sanity prevails before the military is completely gutted.

Here is the article. I sure do hope that I am wrong!



‘Enough’
The Weekly Standard, JUN 6, 2011, VOL. 16, NO. 36
BY GARY SCHMITT AND THOMAS DONNELLY
In the next month, after more than four decades of distinguished public service including almost five extraordinary years at the Pentagon supervising the successful surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will retire. He departs as the very model of a Washington “wise man,” having served in senior positions in two Democratic and three Republican administrations—the best the inside-the-Beltway establishment has to offer. His parting words, delivered in a series of valedictory speeches, carry the weight of his long experience and sober judgment.
Gates’s career spans a remarkable period from the Cold War to today, the events of which raised immense hopes—none more than the collapse of the Soviet Empire—and were punctuated by deep darkness—9/11 and the year 2006 in Iraq.
In his May 22 speech at the University of Notre Dame commencement, Gates summed up the classical wisdom of a conservative: “If history—and religion—teach us anything, it is that there will always be evil in the world, people bent on aggression, oppression, satisfying their greed for wealth and power and territory, or determined to impose an ideology based on the subjugation of others and the denial of liberty to men and women.”
If mankind has fallen, the United States of America still struggles to lift it up. “Since I entered government 45 years ago, I’ve shifted my views and changed my mind on a good many things as circumstances, new information, or logic dictated,” Gates allowed in a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute that developed the themes of his commencement address. “But I have yet to see evidence that would dissuade me from this fundamental belief: that America does have a special position and set of responsibilities on this planet.”
To protect and promulgate its liberties and the cause of liberty, America must be strong. “More than any other secretary of defense, I have been a strong advocate of ‘soft’ power—of the critical importance of diplomacy and development as fundamental components of our foreign policy and national security.” But, said Gates, “Make no mistake: the ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists in the 21st century, as in the 20th, is ‘hard’ power—the size, strength, and global reach of the United States military.”
This is the heart of the matter. During his service under Barack Obama, Gates has been directed to make three significant rounds of reductions in Pentagon plans and budgets. The first came in early 2009. As the Obama administration prepared to inject $800 billion in “stimulus” into the faltering U.S. economy, canvassing agencies for “shovel-ready” projects, it ordered weapons cuts that totaled about $330 billion.
In 2010, seeing the shifts in the domestic political landscape, Secretary Gates seized the initiative to wring $100 billion in “efficiencies” from defense programs, hoping he would be permitted to reinvest the money in higher priority procurements. He got to keep about three-quarters of the “savings,” but the White House took not only the remainder but another $75 billion.
The net result was that Gates transferred $78 billion from one Pentagon pot to another, but a further $100 billion was cut. The third round began on April 13, when the president announced—though he hadn’t informed Gates until the night before—that the Defense Department would contribute another $400 billion to his “deficit reduction plan.”
If brought to fruition, the Obama administration will have sliced something on the order of 15 to 20 percent out of the already overstretched military it inherited. The dollar figures don’t reflect the full extent of the damage, but the loss in power is clear: The Army and Marine Corps will return to their pre-9/11 size, and major land, sea, and air projects have been reduced, ended early, or never brought into production. And it might be worse: Secretary Gates has acidly described the defense cuts called for by the chairmen of the president’s deficit commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, as “catastrophic,” driven by budget “math, not [military] strategy.”
AEI, “those weapons and other programs considered most questionable, have not only been plucked, they have been stomped on and crushed.” The fat has been trimmed; what’s left is bone.
Gates also defined the challenge for the man nominated to be his successor, Leon Panetta, who’s been a strong director of central intelligence but who also, as a congressman in the 1990s, led the charge to reduce defense spending. “We need to be honest with the president, with the Congress, with the American people, indeed with ourselves, about what the consequences [of further defense cuts] are: that a smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.”
Gates’s warning should be a call to arms for conservatives who, in election after election, have retained the public’s trust by adhering to the principle that American military preeminence is absolutely essential if we want security at home and great-power peace abroad.
It is a platform that Republicans in Congress and those running for president, in particular, need to reaffirm. Former Minnesota governor and 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty got it precisely right when he said: “I’m not one who’s going to stand before you and say we need to cut the defense budget. .  .  . I’m not for shrinking America’s presence in the world. I’m for making sure America remains the world leader.”
Through the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bob Gates has seen the thin line that separates “too few” from “just enough.” He knows how hard it is to turn defeat into a chance for victory. When he says “enough,” conservatives—and all Americans—should listen.