Optimistic or Pessimistic about America's Future

Title of a longish article in this month's Commentary magazine. The editors collected 41 essays by "leading American writers and thinkers" on the subject. I skipped thru them, only reading essays by people I had heard of before. Max Boot, David Brooks, Hugh Hewitt, William Krystal and some others.
With the exception of David Brooks, they were all optimistic. Brooks writes for the New York Times, and doubles as a talking head going up against Mark Shields on the Newshour. Not a good background. The rest of them think America can pull out of Great Depression 2.0 and go on to enjoy a second American century.
I'm all in favor.

What's up with Iraq withdrawal?

Obama has agreed to withdraw ALL US troops from Iraq, leaving only an Embassy guard. The original plan was to leave a few thousand men to train the Iraqi forces and deter an invasion from Iran. The Iranians know that we would like to stop their nuclear weapons program and do a little catchup for the embassy invasion of 20 years ago. They would think twice, maybe three times before marching into Iraq and getting in a shooting incident with the Americans. 'Cause for all they know the Americans are looking for a good excuse to bomb their nuclear program to bits.
Anyhow, the Iraqi's are on their own now. And they don't have any reliable American troops to take care of any little domestic problems, like Moctadar Al-Sadr, who might need dealing with. And once out, it will take another 9-11 to get the US to send troops back there.
Was it me, I would have bargained a little harder with the Iraqis about an acceptable status of forces agreement. But Obama doesn't listen to anyone, let alone little old me.

So what's an Infrastructure Bank?

The phrase has been floated by democrats recently, with no description of what it is. Presumably an infrastructure bank would loan money to cities and states for infrastructure projects. Roads, high speed rail, bridges, broadband, Big Dig style tunnels, maybe even electric power plants. It would get the money to loan by selling bonds on Wall St. It would be a "government sponsored entity" (GSE) like Fannie and Freddy are. As such, investors would be willing to buy its bonds cheaply because the full faith and credit of the United States stands behind them. That's how Fannie and Freddy worked. Infrastucture Bank could borrow at 3 and a skosh percent, much lower than cities and states can borrow, and loan out at 4 or 5 percent, still better than cities and states can do.
Infrastructure Bank would have a large, well paid, staff with full benefits, and members of Congress get to hand out these plum jobs to friends, relatives, and supporters. Always a good thing for incumbents.
Infrastructure Bank borrowing would not show up in the Federal deficit. It could borrow as much as it liked and not make the official deficit worse. At least not until it went broke like Fannie and Freddy did a couple of years ago. Then all of Infrastructure Bank's debts become US taxpayer debts.
Infrastructure Bank gets to say which (or whose) infrastructure projects get funded. Projects for friends and supporters get loans. Projects in political enemy's districts don't.
All in all, it's a way to run up the public debt, hand out cushy jobs to the well connected, and centralize control of infrastructure spending in Washington.
What's not to like?

UNH does a bear survey

It came in the mail, big 8x11 envelope, full of a survey about wild bears. Questions like do you see bears on your property? (yes) and should fish and game shoot them, or chase them away with noise makers. The survey was aimed at classifying responders as pro-bear, tolerant of bears or anti-bear.
Pro-bear means feeding bears.
Tolerant means bears are OK to have around but don't feed them, don't leave unlocked trashcans or dumpsters for them, and keep your distance.
Anti-bear means seeing a bear is scary and disturbing and bears ought to be relocated or shot.

It is amazing how the bears have come back. We have a lot of 'em now and I see 'em walking on town roads several times a month. Didn't used to be that way. Back in the 50's and 60's bears were extinct in these parts.

So what's up with European Banks?

BNP Paribas, a big France bank, owns 198 billion Euro's worth of Greek bonds. Which will become officially worthless real soon now. The same bank says that it has increased its capital reserves to 57 billion Euros.
So when ever BNP Paribas faces reality, they will find themselves underwater by 141 billion Euro's. Reality being that the 198 billion Euros worth of Greek bonds are really worthless.
They aren't the only European bank stupid enough to buy Greek bonds.

E-books

There is hope for the ink on paper kind. With some assistance from youngest son, I downloaded a .pdf of the latest George R.R. Martin fantasy novel and I'm reading it on my ordinary laptop. The experience isn't as nice as reading a real book, even a mere paperback. Seated in my favorite reclining chair, the laptop is heavy and hot in the lap. Page turning is awkward. And the pages are not numbered, so finding your place is problematical. So far I have avoided shutting the laptop off, for fear of loosing my place.
All in all, I'd druther have a tradition hardback.

Hitler's biggest mistake.

Which was? Hitler made a lot of big mistakes. He attacked the Russians, who were so terrified of Germany that they were never going to cause him any trouble what so ever. He failed to crush Britain. He ordered his revolutionary jet fighters to be converted into bombers. He refused von Paulus permission to withdraw from Stalingrad. He ordered the fateful counterattack at Mortain, and then refused to allow his generals to withdraw German forces from the Falaise pocket. He abandoned Rommel's army to capture in North Africa. He failed to develop nuclear weapons.
With a list like that, what's left to screw up?
His biggest mistake was to declare war on the United States. He didn't have too. He had no formal or informal agreements with Japan. At the time Germany was locked in mortal combat with the Russians and the British, he didn't need to add to his enemies list.
At the time, the week after Pearl Harbor, the infuriated Americans were about to go after Japan with every thing in the shot locker. Although the American high command and the Roosevelt administration knew that Germany was the more dangerous enemy and they wanted to "Do Germany First", public opinion might have forced a "Do Japan Now" strategy on the administration. Hitler's declaration of war solved that problem for Roosevelt.
With Hitler's declaration of war, Roosevelt was free to do what he wanted to do, namely defeat Germany before flattening Japan.