Author: bill

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Revisiting Deciphering the Mystery of the Benghazi Attack

Awhile back I wrote a post, Deciphering the Mystery of the Benghazi Attack, because I got annoyed with Ambassador Rice’s explanation that the Benghazi Attack was the result of a  “spontaneous protest gone bad”. My bull shit detector had gone off so I decided to take a stab at deciphering the event using the currently available information in the news. Now that the State Department has released a more comprehensive account of the night in their Background Briefing on Libya, I can say that I got several things wrong. In that post I attempted to guess at the real events and motives and my guess at the location of the safe house(annex) was wrong. Unfortunately for the Obama Administration, the press and I are still puzzled by the attack and the odd reactions by the Executive Branch, State Department, and the Intelligence community. It seems as if the intelligence reforms instituted after the 9-11 terrorist attack have failed. The flopping around by these three groups with the facts of the Benghazi attack remind me of a fish out of water. It is still a better policy to say too little than to say too much and thought a fool.

Here is some of the information I gleaned from the background briefing and some new questions to ponder.

  1. There were no demonstrations preceding the attack so the initial intelligence report that night described a terrorist attack. So where did the “spontaneous protest gone bad” explanation come from? What foreign policy considerations are so important that our government fed the public false information?
  2. The attackers brought diesel to set fire to the consulate. Fire is a crime of passion.
  3. The safe haven in the villa, Building C, was not protected from fire and smoke. Huh?! Fire is one of the oldest and simplest forms of attack. I suspect the attackers wanted to burn the consulate and the killing of  the Ambassador and Sean Smith was collateral damage from the fire. Who would have thought we were so unprepared? I would have thought gas masks or SCBA’s would be part of a minimum security preparation. Obviously there was not a lot of attention spent on egress from the “safe haven” during a fire or a room with its own air supply. In this case the “safe haven” became a death trap. Gas masks, SCBA’s, and a little advanced preparation does not cost a lot of money. This was just plain stupid!
  4. The “safe house” or otherwise known as the annex, was about two kilometers from the consulate and it came under mortar attack. Either the attackers knew the location of the annex or they followed the car escaping from the consulate with another car containing people, guns, munitions, and a mortar. The attackers seem to be pretty well equipped and prepared to take the battle to the enemy.

Here is a marked up map of the consulate and my guesses of the location of the various buildings.

us_benghazi_consulate

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The Gaffe that Joe Biden Did Not Say But Should Have

I was hoping that Joe Biden would say something about the Benghazi Attack like, “We screwed up, the buck stops here, and we are going to fix it”. This would have been easy for Joe and the country would be grateful. I think a lot of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans would hold the the Obama administration in much higher esteem if they took ownership for the mistakes made in Benghazi attack. It was a mistake and it is fixable. I am really uncomfortable with this Administration’s handling of the intelligence information. Either the the intelligence community botched the analysis and told the Administration the attack was due to the movie or the Administration knew it was a terrorist attack and chose to portray it differently for political reasons. Neither of these answers give me a warm, fuzzy feeling that we are prepared for the next major terrorist attack.

Instead Joe attempted to throw the intelligence community under the bus. The reports from different sources say the intelligence community knew this was a terrorist attack shortly after the attack started. If the Vice President’s assertion that they received bad intelligence is a lie, this affair is going to get very messy for the Administration. The intelligence community has a long history of playing this political game and protecting their turf. Good luck, Joe, with the next four years! It is time for this Administration to start emptying the political swamp surrounding the Benghazi attack.

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Norway Has Advice For Ohio

Here is an article my favorite podcast, Planet Money, had on Norway Has Advice For Libya. This advice is appropriate for any state that is looking at expanding drilling such as Ohio.

Perhaps, even more amazing is what the Norwegians decided to do with the money they made off the oil. Initially, they decided that the citizens of Norway wouldn’t see any of it. They choose not to spend it on schools, roads or sports stadiums. Instead, in the beginning, they reinvested almost all the money they got back into the developing the oil industry ”” into drilling new wells, doing new explorations and developing new technologies.

Today all that money is in a savings fund called the Government Pension Fund Global, and the Norwegian government only gets to spend the interest that fund makes. The size of the fund right now is about $547 billion dollars.

Tom Blumer wrote a related article on Watchdog.org, Blumer: Kasich’s tax could affect OH job growth. It looks like if Ohio can develop the oil well service business, Ohio unemployment problems in south eastern Ohio could dramatically improve for many years. If Ohio can develop  a viable long term industry, Ohio might be able to put together a trust fund like they have in Texas that provides capital improvements on state universities and slows down the growth in college tuition expenses.

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Romney: People Don’t Die For Lack Of Insurance

This is an interesting Romney quote from Kaiser Health News and NPR‘s Shots blog. I could guess at the narrative, health insurance equals health care. I was curious whether this article would discuss the “cash” customer and personal responsibility, too. Here is the part of the article I wanted to keep since it links to the law that requires hospitals to treat people show show up with bona fide emergencies.

What he said last month was that if people need emergency care, they can always go to a hospital and get it. And that’s true. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requires hospitals to treat people who show up with bona fide emergencies, or women in, as the name suggests, active labor. But it doesn’t require them to provide that care for free. They can, and usually do, try to collect from even uninsured patients, often at fees well above those negotiated by insurance companies.

Here is an article on BusinessInsider that discusses what to do when “What To Do When Your Doctor Goes The Cash-Only Route”.

It is hard for me to imagine people receiving adequate health care if they do not have an emergency fund at least the size of their deductible and yet here is a blurb posted by John Goodman on the Health Policy Blog saying a quarter of Americans are woefully prepared for even a minor medical crisis.

Almost a quarter of Americans have less than $100 in their emergency savings fund, according to a recent TNS survey for CashNetUSA. Of the 1,000 participants surveyed, a staggering 22.8 percent reported that if they needed to cover an emergency expense within one day, they would have less than $100 available.

Both males and females reported similar savings patterns, however, 55 percent of Americans with children under the age of 18 reported having less than $800 in emergency savings compared to 42 percent of those without.

One of the most cost effective ways to improve your health is through regular exercise and a better diet. Changing your eating habits is not easy and exercise is sometimes painful but it is a whole lot better than having to go to the doctor. I can fix some of the common sources of health problems. I try to remind myself that at my age most people go to hospitals to die. If I do my part on the health problems I can control and I get lucky on the health problems out of my control, I plan to put that last visit off for quite awhile.

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Calculating Average Credit Card Debt per Household

Recently I was puzzled by a debt service chart included in a presentation by Abby Joseph Cohen. The data for her graph comes from the Household Debt Service report produced by the Federal Reserve. My problem is reconciling the data with my belief that the average family is under a greater debt burden than is represented by the data. Although credit card debt is a small portion of the consumer debt, it is the most attractive debt to pay off as soon as possible.

Credit card debt is described by the Federal Reserve as revolving debt. The latest number from the Federal Reserve Consumer Credit report is 815.4 billion dollars. The Census Bureau’s Quickfacts says the number of households in the US is 114.2 million. When we divide these two numbers together, we get the average credit card debt per household is $7,140.

If we take the average credit card debt and plug it into Bankrate.com’s minimum payment calculator we get a minimum payment of $178.50 or $2,140 per year. For those who are curious this plan results in $10,133.07 in interest payments and 308 months(25 years) to pay off the balance. If we divide the annual minimum payment amount by the BEA nominal disposable personal income per capita, $37,976, we get 5.6% debt burden. This debt burden is a little higher than the 4.95% debt service burden reported by the Federal Reserve. Hmm… if debt service payments is a good indicator of financial pain for the “average” household then I would have to agree with Abby that with debt service at 1990’s levels, the households are not suffering from making their payments. Here is where I have a problem with Ms. Cohen’s analysis. My numbers imply that the consumer is making minimum payments on high interest loans. This is typically the sign of either a financially “dumb” consumer or a consumer who is maxed out. Neither situation will lead to sustainable consumer spending. With low inflation and wage growth the smart consumer should pay down credit card debt.

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Obama’s Re-Election Case Rests On 5 Phony Claims – Investors.com

Although I understand that the primary objective of the Obama campaign is getting re-elected, it will make it difficult to discuss the source of the problems facing the country. If we are not focusing our discussion on the source of our problems and its fixes, we will inevitably repeat the same mistakes.

What did cause the economic crisis? The housing bubble. And that, in turn, was the result of a determined federal effort to boost homeownership by, among other things, pressuring banks to lower lending standards.

Obama’s Re-Election Case Rests On 5 Phony Claims – Investors.com

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Obama’s claim that the Bush tax cuts helped cause the economic crisis – The Washington Post

Here is an excellent post from Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post that provides background for the cause of 2008 financial crisis.

It is time for the Obama campaign to retire this talking point, no matter how much it seems to resonate with voters. The financial crisis of 2008 stemmed from a variety of complex factors, in particular the bubble in housing prices and the rise of exotic financial instruments. Deregulation was certainly an important factor, but as the government commission concluded, the blame for that lies across administrations, not just in the last Republican one.

In any case, the Bush tax cuts belong at the bottom of the list ”” if at all. Moreover, it is rather strange for the campaign to cite as its source an article that, according to the author, does not support this assertion.

Obama’s claim that the Bush tax cuts helped cause the economic crisis – The Washington Post

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Trickle Down Government

If the Romney’s staff had a list of zingers for the debate, I suspect that “trickle down government” had to be on the list. It sounded remarkably fresh but familiar so I decided to look it up. “CrushingQuiet” said in the comments,

George H.W. Bush first used "trickle down government" in the ’92 debates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg9qB_BIjWY&feature=related

I have not found the source for George H. W. Bush. Here is the video clip of Romney explaining the context of “trickle down government”, Romney coins trickle down government » The Right Scoop.

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Romney May Be the End of the Line for the Republican Establishment – Rasmussen Reports™

This is a great piece by Rasmussen. Follow the link to read the rest. For both political parties this election is the end of the line for politics as usual.

The Republican base is looking for someone like a 21st century Ronald Reagan, who will display his faith in the American people. The Washington Republicans are more comfortable with politicians like George W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Though the establishment has dominated the party since Reagan left the White House, the 2012 election could well be the end of the line.

If Romney loses in November, the Republican base will no longer buy the electability argument for an establishment candidate. From the view of the base, the elites will have given away an eminently winnable election. Someone new, from outside of Washington, will be the party’s nominee in 2016.

If Romney wins and does nothing to change the status quo, the economy will falter. He will end up as the second straight one-term president, and the nation will desperately be searching for an authentic outsider in 2016.

If he wins the White House, the only way for Romney to succeed will be to side with the nation’s voters and throw out the club in Washington. That will be great news for the country but bad news for political insiders on both sides of the partisan aisle.

Romney May Be the End of the Line for the Republican Establishment – Rasmussen Reportsâ„¢