Why do we have brakes on a car?

Mary, New Hampshire
Two defining characteristics of a fascist state:

1) The industrial and business aristocracy are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. This characteristic, we note, continues to be well and happy.

2) Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. This, we note, is proceeding nicely.



Karen Garcia, New Paltz NY

Let's just call out the cult of the deficit scolds for what it is: class warfare.

They have their gold-plated knives out for the safety net of the New Deal. They're spending millions just to ensure that millions of their own fellow citizens don't ever get to collect on the great social insurance policies of the New Deal and the Great Society. The Fix the Debt campaign might be more aptly called The Fix is In -- for all but the most obscenely wealthy. Pete Peterson, and his sidekicks Simpson and Bowles, are in cahoots with our own "Democratic" president to hype their Orwellian "balanced approach." This is Newspeak for the imposition of austerity on the middle class -- combined with a few fleeting, token tax hikes on the plutocrats to make it seem like everybody's doing their "fair share."

It's an illusion. The Fix Is In.

The "tweaking" of Social Security via chained CPI is an exercise in cruel subterfuge. The average woman on Social Security received only $997 a month in 2010. If the Grand Bargain had succeeded then, her monthly income would have fallen to $933 (in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars) by age 85 and $915 by age 95.

How is this not a War Against Women? Millions of older women already are living in poverty, unable to pay their bills, putting off medical care, scrimping on food. I guess the Scrooges of the ruling class won't be happy until we switch from Fancy Feast to the Walmart brand.

The Fix Is In, unless we all band together and fix their wagon.

Meme, Chicago
"Why do we have brakes on a car?"

That was the question posed by John Reed, the chairman of Citigroup from 1984-2000, to journalist extraordinaire, Bill Moyers, when Reed and Moyers sat down in early 2012 to discuss America's feeble, flaccid and failed financial services industry.

"Why do we have brakes on a car?" Moyers queried rhetorically. "So we can stop."

"No," Reed countered. "So we can go fast."

America needs serious, high-tech, state-of-the art, ABS brakes placed on her reckless, shameless financial services industry before another AIG or Lehman or Bear Stearns decides to drive the world's economies in a "suicide rap" right off the cliff--again! Dodd-Frank, while well-intentioned and produced with earnest deliberation, is nonetheless a miserable failure. It is too expansive, too vague and too deferential to the financial industry. If only one third of the rules have been implemented to date, the problem is not with the enforcement of the rules but the rules themselves.

At the risk of torturing the metaphor, the time to put new brakes on a car is not when it is already on the road "steppin' out over the line." The time for new brakes is/was when the car was in the shop, hobbled and broken.

Instead of Dodd-Frank, let's break up the "too big to fail banks" and reinstate Glass-Steagull--on steroids.





William D, London
How many bankers went to jail as a result of the 2008 crisis?

That is why things won't change.





rturkington, Virginia
I keep thinking how, right after it all unraveled, how any politico in reach of a microphone swore that heads would roll, that they would get to the bottom of things. That immediate actions would be taken to halt the types of practices that trashed the whole economy of not just this country but other countries as well.Then wealth spoke, and like the beholden, frightened weasels they are, the politicos scurried back into line.
Inside of a month, the new headlines read that, heck, it wasn't Wall St or the bankers or the bad business practices that were the problem, nah, wasn't 'them' and to try and regulate anything would just be the most horrid thing. You see they intoned, it was not them who was the problem, nah, it was 'really' all the fault of those who bought homes they couldn't afford. Middle classers who just lived too well and dreamed too big. No mention that those they were trash-talking were the ones who worked long and hard for years to have a taste of the American Dream.The spokesmen for wealth didn't see fit to mention that their chosen scapegoats, the working class, 'were' paying their bills til the jobs were all sent overseas. To increase corporate profit. Or that while Wall St and the investor class were quickly being bailed out the middle class was dying. That lack of decent paying jobs to be had, that lack of protections for those that remained meant the ones who could least afford it were once again taking it in the shorts. Jobs, homes, savings ..gone.

Newfie, Newfoundland
The never ending growth economy is a de-facto Ponzi scheme. Nothing grows forever in a finite world. The era of growth is ending. This will be the century of contraction and limits.



William B. Hess, Edwardsville IL
The key, as it has always been, is social accountability. Until all the perpetrators and their lobbied minions in Congress are held fully accountable for their decisions and actions, nothing will change all that much.

Corporate re-chartering needs to be done in accordance with the fine work of the Tellus Institute. 21st century corporations need to include wage earners and the public as equal and permanent stakeholders. Corporate charters need to be for specific, socially beneficial purposes and of limited duration, subject to review and renewed only if they clearly serve the public good. The idiocy of unlimited growth and an obsession with short-term profits at all costs needs to be abandoned to sustainable plans for the long-term benefit of all.

As long as we embrace the notion that the central purpose of corporations is to funnel the productivity of the nation into the already-bulging coffers of a few sociopathic plutocrats, we will create disaster after disaster until we are ground into the dust of history.

What we lack is not a paucity of good ideas for change, but the political will to throttle the latest generation of international robber barons.





Tim Kane Mesa AZ

I remember, I was in 8th grade. That made me, 14 years old, sick in bed. My mother threw me the tomb "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". It's been some time, but somewhere in there, I walked through the logic of Germany's ability to re-arm itself and not face inflation during the depression. The problem I was trying to figure out why printing money created inflation in the 1920s but not in the 30s.

Here, at the age of 14 mind you, is what I walked through: A vendor cannot raise his prices if he has more supply to sell than there is demand for- especially if his competitors are in the same boat. In the Great Depression, as now, there was more supply than demand. If a widget maker raises prices, his competitor across the street will be glad to sell his widgets at the old prices. So the Germans could go ahead and borrow &/or print money in the Great Depression for rearmament and not worry about inflation.

How is it that so many buffoons of high office can't understand something so simple that a 14 year old could figure it out (meanwhile I, as of last Friday, am unemployed)?

A former co-worker once said that it's not a good idea to assume that someone did something because they are stupid. Same here. They have other motives.

In the case of our society, wealth is so concentrated, that elite gadflies in political circles, punditry, media, and so on want to dance to the tune that favors the wealthy. It's a variation of Stockholm syndrome. That or they are cruel. Or both.

Stabilization Won’t Save Us
By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

THE fiscal cliff is not really a “cliff”; the entire country won’t fall into the ocean if we hit it. Some automatic tax cuts will expire; the government will be forced to cut some expenditures. The cliff is really just a red herring.

Likewise, any last-minute deal to avoid the spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1 isn’t likely to save us from economic turmoil. It would merely let us continue the policy mistakes we’ve been making for years, allowing us only to temporarily stabilize the economy rather than address its deep, systemic failures.

Stabilization, of course, has long been the economic playbook of the United States government; it has kept interest rates low, shored up banks, purchased bad debts and printed money. But the effect is akin to treating metastatic cancer with painkillers. It has not only let deeper problems fester, but also aggravated inequality. Bankers have continued to get rich using taxpayer dollars as both fuel and backstop. And printing money tends to disproportionately benefit a certain class. The rise in asset prices made the superrich even richer, while the median family income has dropped.

Overstabilization also corrects problems that ought not to be corrected and renders the economy more fragile; and in a fragile economy, even small errors can lead to crises and plunge the entire system into chaos. That’s what happened in 2008. More than four years after that financial crisis began, nothing has been done to address its root causes.

Our goal instead should be an antifragile system — one in which mistakes don’t ricochet throughout the economy, but can instead be used to fuel growth. The key elements to such a system are decentralization of decision making and ensuring that all economic and political actors have some “skin in the game.”

Two of the biggest policy mistakes of the past decade resulted from centralized decision making. First, the Iraq war, in addition to its tragic outcomes, cost between 40 and 100 times the original estimates. The second was the 2008 crisis, which I believe resulted from an all-too-powerful Federal Reserve providing cheap money to stifle economic volatility; this, in turn, led to the accumulation of hidden risks in the economic system, which cascaded into a major blowup.

Just as we didn’t forecast these two mistakes and their impact, we’ll miss the next ones unless we confront our error-prone system. Fortunately, the solution can be bipartisan, pleasing both those who decry a large federal government and those who distrust the market.

First, in a decentralized system, errors are by nature smaller. Switzerland is one of the world’s wealthiest and most stable countries. It is also highly decentralized — with 26 cantons that are self-governing and make most of their own budgetary decisions. The absence of a central monopoly on taxation makes them compete for tax and bureaucratic efficiency. And if the Jura canton goes bankrupt, it will not destabilize the entire Swiss economy.

In decentralized systems, problems can be solved early and when they are small; stakeholders are also generally more willing to pay to solve local challenges (like fixing a bridge), which often affect them in a direct way. And when there are terrible failures in economic management — a bankrupt county, a state ill-prepared for its pension obligations — these do not necessarily bring the national economy to its knees. In fact, states and municipalities will learn from the mistakes of others, ultimately making the economy stronger.

It’s a myth that centralization and size bring “efficiency.” Centralized states are deficit-prone precisely because they tend to be gamed by lobbyists and large corporations, which increase their size in order to get the protection of bailouts. No large company should ever be bailed out; it creates a moral hazard.

Consider the difference between Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who are taught to “fail early and often,” and large corporations that leech off governments and demand bailouts when they’re in trouble on the pretext that they are too big to fail. Entrepreneurs don’t ask for bailouts, and their failures do not destabilize the economy as a whole.

Second, there must be skin in the game across the board, so that nobody can inflict harm on others without first harming himself. Bankers got rich — and are still rich — from transferring risk to taxpayers (and we still haven’t seen clawbacks of executive pay at companies that were bailed out). Likewise, Washington bureaucrats haven’t been exposed to punishment for their errors, whereas officials at the municipal level often have to face the wrath of voters (and neighbors) who are affected by their mistakes.

If we want our economy not to be merely resilient, but to flourish, we must strive for antifragility. It is the difference between something that breaks severely after a policy error, and something that thrives from such mistakes. Since we cannot stop making mistakes and prediction errors, let us make sure their impact is limited and localized, and can in the long term help ensure our prosperity and growth.

men are promiscuous, women reproduce (with) the powerful ...but that's old story, not the story!

In an bellicose age, military leaders come on top.  At first, that is.  Yet that can last awhile in a place like the US where Petreus goes against Obama's instincts with the Surge, fails, and then is appointed head of the CIA.  I include below Maureen Dowd's account of the love/fall-story of the generalissimo.   

As Lyndon Johnson said, the two things that make leaders stupid are envy and sex.

Macbeth kills a king out of envy. Egged on by an envious Iago, Othello smothers his wife out of a crazed fear of her having sex with his lieutenant.

Now another charismatic general has shattered his life and career over sex. When you’ve got a name like a Greek hero, and a nickname like a luscious fruit, isn’t hubris ripe to follow?

It’s been a steep fall for Peaches Petraeus, once the darling of Congress and journalists, Republicans and Democrats, Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley.

Washington is suffused with schadenfreude. Yet President Obama and others felt genuinely sad to see a man so controlling about integrity and image — he warned protégés that “someone is always watching” — spin out of control on integrity and image. As Shakespeare wrote in “Othello”: “Reputation, reputation, reputation.”

As a West Point cadet, David Petraeus clambered up the social ladder by winning the superintendent’s daughter; now he has been brought down by his camp followers clambering up the social ladder.

Even when he was the C.I.A. director, Petraeus’s ego was so wrapped up in being a shiny military idol that, according to The Washington Post, he recently surprised guests at a D.C. dinner when he arrived to speak wearing his medals on the lapel of his suit jacket.

His fall started as Sophocles and turned sophomoric, a mind-boggling mélange of “From Here to Eternity,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “The Real Housewives of Centcom,” and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” It features toned arms, slinky outfits, a cat fight, titillating e-mails, a military more consumed with sex than violence, a plot with more inconceivable twists than “Homeland,” and a Twitter’s-delight lexicon: an “embedded” mistress named Broadwell, a biography called “All In,” an other-other woman of Middle East ancestry who was a “social liaison” to the military, a shirtless F.B.I. agent crushing on the losing-her-shirt-to-debt Tampa socialite, a pair of generals helping the socialite’s twin sister with a custody case, and lawyers and crisis-management experts linked to Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards and the ABC show “Scandal.”

“This is The National Enquirer, ” an alarmed Senator Dianne Feinstein told Wolf Blitzer of CNN. If only it were that highbrow. Now that erotic activity is entwined with the Internet, rather than closeted in hideaway Capitol offices and Oval Office pantries, it’s even more likely to be a trip wire for history.

It is disturbing that an ethically sketchy, politically motivated F.B.I. agent could spark an incendiary federal investigation tunneling into private lives to help a woman he liked and later blow it up to hurt a president he didn’t like.

It’s also worrisome that the nation’s spymaster — who had presided in a military where adultery could result in court-martial — could not have found a more clandestine manner of talking naughty to his biographer babe than a Gmail drop box, a semiprivate file-sharing system used by terrorists, teenagers and authors.

It’s understandable that men accustomed to being away from their families and cloistered with other men in Muslim countries where drinking and blowing off steam are frowned upon might get used to cavorting on e-mail.

But Petraeus should have realized that the Chinese and Russians were snooping and sent Paula Broadwell an Enigma e-mail: “I would like your insights into the debate over COIN versus CT in Helmand Province. Our HVT kills are falling a little short of the mark. Let’s discuss.”

And Broadwell could have sent ones more like: “I’ve been reading Chapter 3 notes and the Galula theory of counterinsurgency confuses me. Hope you can clarify.”

The scandal is a good reminder that, although John McCain and Sarah Palin urge total trust and blank checks for the generals, these guys are human beings working under extremely stressful circumstances, and their judgments are not beyond reproach.

Petraeus’s Icarus flight began when he set himself above President Obama.

Accustomed to being a demigod, expert at polishing his own celebrity and swaying public opinion, Petraeus did not accept the new president’s desire to head for the nearest exit ramp on Afghanistan in 2009. The general began lobbying for a surge in private sessions with reporters and undercutting the president, who was trying to make a searingly hard call.

Petraeus rolled the younger commander in chief into going ahead with a bound-to-fail surge in Afghanistan, just as, half a century earlier, the C.I.A. had rolled Jack Kennedy into going ahead with the bound-to-fail Bay of Pigs scheme. Both missions defied logic, but the untested presidents put aside their own doubts and instincts, caving to experience.

Once in Afghanistan, Petraeus welcomed prominent conservative hawks from Washington think tanks. As Greg Jaffe wrote in The Washington Post, they were “given permanent office space at his headquarters and access to military aircraft to tour the battlefield. They provided advice to field commanders that sometimes conflicted with orders the commanders were getting from their immediate bosses.”

So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal.    

The ReaderWave has it:


Look on the bright side. Finally, even people who don't belong to the ACLU are concerned about our intrusive spy state. If the Spook-in-Chief can have his privacy invaded. so can anyone. Even congress critters. Even presidents.

Now is as good a time as any to rethink the massive Homeland Security/spy state/military shadow government, an entity so monstrous that nobody is actually in charge of it. Let's repeal the Patriot Act. Let the Pentagon budget plummet over the fiscal cliff.

I spent most of my adult life in the same town where Peaches grew up. In recent years, Cornwall on the Hudson had begun to insidiously morph into Petraeusville. Hail-the-conquering-hero parades. Petraeus picnics. Petraeus posing with starry-eyed mentees. The presentation of custom-upholstered Petraeus memorial chairs to the public library.

Then there was the dreadful day when they renamed part of the main drag after the hometown hero. What used to be Quaker Avenue (because it meandered past the historic Friends' Meeting House) is now David Petraeus Drive. Peace was exchanged for war. The centuries-old Quakers in the cemetery next door must have been spinning in their graves.

If they will now un-rename it, I don't know. The locals are still in a state of stunned disbelief. But the meeting house motto still stands: "We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world."




Mary Scott
NY

No matter the scandal, there's always someone like the FBI agent ready to wrap it around the president's neck.

But the big picture here is, of course, the war in Afghanistan. You are right to remind us, Ms. Dowd, that the scandal here is those "killed and maimed in a war that went on too long." Just tragic.



Rima Regas
Mission Viejo, CA

I'm glad you're not mincing your words on this, either, Maureen.

I will go a bit further. This isn't just about reputations anymore. Petraeus, Allen and who else? Is this how our top military brass operates?

Today, I read that letters written by Generals Petraeus and Allen were presented in a legal custody battle having to do with Ms. Kelley's sister. Another curious news item popped up. Ms. Kelley, apparently called 911, asking to have people removed from her front lawn, and claiming "diplomatic inviolability," (sic). Craziness aside, it turns out this woman may have been given the title of honorary consul. By whom? Why? Why does a general who is managing a war have the time to send thousands of emails?

I'm glad Senator Feinstein reiterated that General Petraeus will testify in front of her committee regardless of his employment status. I hope she summons Allen, too.

Whoever takes over as secretaries of Defense and CIA had better bring a broom, a very large bottle of disinfectant and a copy of their ethics textbook from college. This bizarre story reeks of one thing only: corruption.




Bosco Ho
Boston, MA

Thank you Ms Dowd. It is amazing that you have captured everything relating to this - still unraveling - mess in one column. And you didn't even use the name 'Barry' once!

Your final paragraph is especially poignant and heartfelt but I'd like to turn this statement, "a military more consumed with sex than violence," around by asking: why is it that violence is okay but consensual sex is not? Like you said, war violence kills and maims. But consensual sex, real or electronic, only exposes the foolishness or even the lonely life of a cloistered military and its groupie. Which one is worse?




Richard
Bozeman, MT

I don't want Peaches to appear before congress. This tedious fiasco wastes time in the way that Clinton wasted a rare opportunity. The press should be hounddogging the Republicans for their tax plans rather than obsessing about private email. But this story is too tasty it seems.




Henry Stites
Scottsdale, Arizona

Every kid that is killed in Afghanistan from this point on is pure murder. Frankly, I would like to pin Petraeus's medals to his forehead for pushing the surge, which accomplished nothing more than pouring more blood and gold down the toilet for no better reason than giving generals like him a place to win a fourth star. Our nation has been at war for 11 years. It is time we, as in we the people, demand our soldiers come home. There is nothing to win in Afghanistan but more heartache and pain. The generals embed cute girls with nice arms with them in their compounds to write self serving biographies and fly around in heliocopters, while the common soldiers are out getting blown up by IEDs. It makes me sick to my stomach as it should every single American who hates to see young people murdered and maimed for no better reason that an extra chapter or two about reputation, reputation, reputation.



Stu Freeman
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Finally Americans are talking about Afghanistan!




Liz Dickson
Burke, VA

This is what happens when you label everyone who dons a military uniform a hero even though it's been a voluntary force for almost 40 years and the people who sign up very specifically know or should know what they are getting into.

I think the hero term is thrown about because of the failing sense of these two wars. No easier way to bulk up support of a failed venture than to talk about the honor and heroism involved. Thrown in enormous lobbyist efforts, various medals and badges, almost unlimited monetary support, and excellent benefits - at least while you wear the uniform - and it's no wonder these wars have continued despite all evidence as to lack of effectiveness.

Yes, the emperor's clothes are now being removed from Petraeus, bit by bit. I was just commenting to my husband last night about how we never see a photo of Petraeus wearing a suit, even though he's been retired for over a year - now I hear that even in a civilian suit he sometimes wears his medals. That would have looked strange on even on TV!


tom mcmahon
millis ma

Syria is alsmost at war with Turkey, Iran still seeks nuclear weapons. The Israeli's threaten, no actually promise that Iran will never be a nuclear state. Greece austerity measures are causing social unrest with the same spreading to Spain.

The best we can do, or write and discuss is Sex, sex and spies ? The people of the United States are nuts. I mean really who cares about everyones sex lives except those unhappy with their own



John McBride
Seattle, WA

Maureen, you ask most "real" people, those of us down here, in the trenches, living from anxiety to anxiety, about the Petraeus "scandal" and we'll yawn.

This is a D.C. soap opera. Not good soap opera, but soap opera nonetheless.

I don't care.

You know what I care about? Were there warrants needed and obtained? Is the "man" Petraeus one more victim of all those Bush era laws that Congress should have revoked several years ago, if they should have passed them at all. If he committed "crime" where's the due process?

Congress wouldn't impeach Clinton for betraying Hillary right in the White House and Washington D.C. wants me to be outraged about General Petraeus. I wonder how many in the nation's elite who are rending their garments and gathering stones shouldn't be out there in the ring with the good general or better yet, instead of him.

If you're going to cite Shakespeare cite the appropriate character, Julius Caesar. Marc Antony's eulogy is apropos:

"But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men."

Ya,I know how "honourable" all of you outraged and guilt-free ruling class figureheads are.



RLW
Chicago

Thank you for reminding us that, but for Petraeus who squeezed Obama into the "surge", we would now be mostly out of Afghanistan. Unfortunately Eisenhower, who knew the hubris of generals first hand was the only president who recognized the overreach of the military and its sycophantic Congressional supporters. Hopefully whoever replaces General Allen has learned something from this mess.




cboy
nyc

What do you expect when you let heterosexual men, with their uncontrollable impulses and desires, into the military?



Paul
Nevada

Great job Maureen, you made the real point, while these people preened and pranced to polish their own status and reputation real people were dying and being maimed. Though you do caustic better than anyone in your business with a whole bunch of style and grace I will take this opportunity to be more blunt. It is sick. The nation fell over itself because some prancing organization climber shoved his fruit salad in everyones face and they all folded when they had better hands. Congressmen and journalists of all stripes gave this guy a pass when they should have been saying "where were you when the dumb idea of these two wars were being debated?" Hopefully the cult of adoration for all things military will now come to a close. It is about time. We couldn't have found a better chump to bring it down the curtain on this era than this guy.



rhdelp
Ellicott City, MD

Your final sentence says it all. It not only went on too long, but we know the additional war in Iraq was instigated by the former Commander in Chief, George Bush, was based on lies to Congress and the country and he was not held accountable for his deception.

Sending troops into Afghanistan with sub par head gear, which led to private citizens, personally opposed to war contributing funds for proper protection, was just pathetic. Insufficient armor on vehicles led to additional injuries and deaths that could have been avoided. No one in command was held responsible for that gross negligence.

Presently Veterans are faced with lost or destroyed records for their service in Iraq and Afghanistan which is causing extreme strife for many. Will anyone be capable of retrieving or be held accountable for that?

This may seem like a small issue in the scheme of things but the military failed to bury the dead in Arlington in the proper sites and treated the bodies in Delaware with total disrespect.

Allen and Patraeus chose their priorities, the incredible amount of time spent communicating with those women, while those under their command suffered is the crime. Show no mercy, let them fall on their own swords.




Rebecca
Maryland

Millions of Americans who've been hurt by the Recession are enraged by the clamorous dire warnings of budget deficits and their to-be-feared consequences, because we know full well that the groundwork for such crises was laid down by unnecessary wars and military expansion beginning in the Bush years, to say nothing of those years' deregulation and financial crime spree. Once again, the hypocrisy of the Republican Conservative machine is "All In" this scandal, absorbing our tax dollars and endangering the US as it is once again a global focus of criticism and ridicule. This scandal exposes the cult of military power and license that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, while endeavoring to shame and silence Americans who marched in protest. There is no "high achievement" in endangering the lives and future prospects of your fellow countrymen. Cut the salaries, pull the medals off, and downsize our military to refine its purpose to only the most essential defense.




ben pinczewski
new york, new york

The greatest issue of alarm here is the actions of the FBI agent. It shows just how vulnerable every citizen is if a rogue agent acting out of personal enmity or to impress or grind an axe can ruin people's lives. Imagine if this happened to a former General and head of the CIA what an agent like that could do to an ordinary citizen. E mails that do not detail illegal activity are nonetheless ransacked and made public? When the Bureau doesn't proceed fast enough he consults Congressman who get involved! Wow, talk about Big Brother.


Diana Moses
Arlington, MA

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal."

While the affair is said to have begun after Petraeus (looks Latinate, not Greek, to me) retired from the military, since he and Broadwell engaged in some sort of collaboration, in connection with her research, during his time in Afghanistan, there could still be a sense of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, it seems to me.



Dave Viens
Pacific Northwest

Anyone at that level of power dumb enough to use a g-mail draft dropbox to conduct an extra-marital affair is too dumb to be in such a position.

There are no surprises in any of this, including the predictable mess of the Afghan war.

Ahh, Afghanistan! Graveyard of empires.



boomer
Massachusetts

"the real scandal" is horrifying, and heartbreaking.

And General Allen has time for 20,000 + emails to Ms. Tampa over two years???

I have worked on Wall Street, taught in various schools, and been a full-time parent. I have NEVER had time for that kind of personal correspondence. How can these men be entrusted with so much and yet be willing to prioritize this nonsense in their workday? It's not the sex as much as the cheating on their jobs (not to mention the obvious security risks) that bothers me. We pay them, and they've been playing on the job --- to our children's peril. Shameful.



Donald Seekins
Waipahu HI

Petraeus seems to have been Patton and MacArthur rolled up into one big package. Thanks to this scandal, I trust he won't become Julius Caesar.



davidrs
Hamilton NY

Thank you for calling attention to the most important part of this 'scandal'--the prolonging of the Afghanistan conflict by Petraeus. Someone had to say it, and you did.



sdavidc9
Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut

I doubt if honor was ever all that prevalent. What was undoubtedly more prevalent than today was talk and admiration of honor, but this was the sort of talk one gets about the emperor's new clothes. The honor that was praised was in fact a carefully constructed and burnished image.



Elizabeth Bennett
Arizona

You are so right that the real scandal is that so many Americans and Afghanistan civilians have been killed and maimed. General Petraeus is no hero--his "surge" extended the war and resulted in many more deaths. His hubris and ignorance in sending compromising messages via email to his mistress is especially shocking since he was the head of the CIA. I thought everyone knew that you don't send anything by email that needs to be private, but that the head of our intelligence service either didn't know or didn't care is truly frightening.



Anetliner Netliner
Washington, DC area

I don't condone sexual harassment and I'm not a fan of adultery, but...

The FBI appears to have determined that General Petraeus did not commit any crime, nor had security been breached. His affair with Paula Broadwell was over by the time the FBI investigation had concluded. While General Petraeus committed a significant lapse of personal judgment and violated his marriage vows, he was also a tremendously capable foreign policy, defense and strategic expert whose service made America far more secure. Unless there is considerably more to this matter than has been yet revealed, I am not at all sure that he should have been required to resign.

I will reserve judgment on whether General Allen's e-mails were inappropriate, pending the outcome of that inquiry. In the interim, let's remember that General Allen has serious and important responsibilities to perform and allow him appropriate due process.

What can be said is that it's unfortunate that America's intelligence and military establishments have been turned into a reality show spectacle since November 9. I hope that this was necessary, but I have my doubts.



James. jordan
Falls Church, Va

Ms. Dowd,
This was an interesting read. I don't want to comment on the affairs because passion and infatuation are an absolute mystery to me. I was in the Navy for 24 years and have been married 53 years but at 75, I still cannot understand the mysteries of females and their strong feelings for romance. As a student of E.O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, I still remember an experiment in which females by the dilation of their pupils as the measure of excitement/interest when viewing certain pictures were a lot more passionate than males. Males just were not as excitable except when a picture of a field of grass landscape was flashed. Females had more interest in pictures of a female with baby, nude male, nude female and a landscape scene, in that order. The interests of men were the reverse. The amazing finding was that the females just had more interest in all of the pictures than the males.

Men just seem to have the need to dominate and amazingly women are attracted to the dominant males. Then there is the old Navy/Marine Corps tale that men only have a fixed amount of blood, which if used for an erection drains the blood from their brain and they become completely stupid. I think both came into play with the General.

This essay summed the moral of this story very well in the last two sentences.

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal." 4-Stars to this close.



Sandy Eggo Squat
Spring Valley, CA 91977

Advice too late for these general officers, but to others who might be contemplating an affair outside of their lawful marriage: Say it with candy, say it with flowers, but never ever, my son, say it in ink.



George Myers
New Bern, NC

Yes Maureen you hit the nail on the head. The surge in Afghanistan is the real scandal.




Christine McMorrow
Waltham, MA

Maureen is dead on with the real scandal here (no pun intended). But what concerns me most with all of these revelations that, frankly, would not make a very good movie script given the tawdriness, contrived sexual double entendres in book titles and names, and general messiness. I mean, what's the point? That people are fallible?

In addition to the very real shame of prolonged war, I wonder how these people--all of them--have so much time to spend on sexual titillation. The FBI, the generals, the socialite hanger ons. Volumes of emails, volumes of investigations, it is totally exhausting. How could Petraeus run a huge agency, and the FBI spies spend so much time and money on a pure fishing mission launched by a "friend" of friends on the very scantest of complaints?

We pay for all this, folks. We pay military salaries and the salaries of the FBI, freelancers or not.

Now wouldn't all those salaries go a long way to paying down the deficit? We have real problems these days, and all our handwringing over loose military morals isn't going to help the country and our newly engergized president start solving them.



C. Coffey
Jupiter, Fl.

Most of the comments here seem ready to defend the Director of the CIA and former Commander of both of our foreign wars with the concept of 'what's the big deal with a little adultery'?

The big deal is that many less senior officers have been court martialed out of the military, or had to resign their commissions. The other big deal is that the CIA is in the business of protecting our secrets and monitoring the activities of foreign nations in order to safeguard our national security. The Director of this agency, just like a General in the field no less, cannot have events spin out of control.

Adultery is usually a nasty business with secrets and lies to the injured spouse. This requires a great deal of attention and a life of personal clandestine behavior. The only sneaking around I want from our most secret agency's leader is against our adversaries around the world.

Finally, did I tell you that General Patreous is reported to be a Christian Fundamentalist, who has presided over Religious retreats that in many instances were mandatory for ordinary service members? See Huffington Post, and MRFF, Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Sometimes a tragedy is forthcoming and the public has the right to know about it.




Don P.
Perth Amboy, NJ

Maureen, your last paragraph is the most important message in your Op-Ed...the real scandal is that so many more American kids, our soldiers, and Afghanistan civilians were killed of maimed in a war that went on too long!

The sex scandal involving General Patraeus while shocking and disappointing is simply not worthy of all of the attention that it is being given. No crimes were committed, no security compromised, and no national secrets leaked, it was just sex!

Americans need to stop clinging to some mythical, Puritanical views on sex and end its fascination with National Enquirer type stories. We have far more important things to be concerned about.

Instead we need to be focused on what really matters. Tens of thousands of Americans in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are still without power, heat, water, sanitary facilities, adequate food, medical care, and their homes and lives have been devastated and or destroyed! Our nation needs to restore our economic vitality, create more jobs, improve public education, repair our critical infrastructure, solve our budget, tax, revenue and deficit problems, and help improve and expand our middle-class, just to name a few things we should be focused on!

Yes the real scandal is a war that has gone on too long and even worse is how poorly our Veterans are treated by our government when they return home or attempt to seek benefits they earned and deserve!



j24
CT

In the case of Jill Kelley is even more frightening. Consider that a socialite not a historian, not military advisor, not even a family member has access to a military leader to the count of thousands of emails! And, Mrs. Kelley is a super secrete special Ambassador to South Korea, given the right to special FBI backup in a catfight?

The problematic issue is that we are looking at an almost feudal system with high level courtesans possibly calling shots. The one arena thought safe from House Wives of Tampa has been self-inflected with another version of the Kardashians.

Now wonder why the assault and harassment of women in the military is tolerated.

The highest levels of our Armed Forces seem to have a groupie mentality when it comes to women,while young men and women are dying for their country under the command of the pre-occupied.




Pragmatic
San Francisco, CA

Loved your column Maureen but why are we spending so much time on a sex scandal involving consenting adults when female soldiers are being raped and afraid to complain because they have to do it 'through the chain of command'? When as much outrage is expressed about those rapes as about these infidelities, maybe, just maybe, we will have gotten our priorities straight.



Matthew
San Francisco

I'm confused why the President accepted Petraeus's resignation. Doesn't that just signal to would-be blackmailers that exposing adultery (which is probably more common that many would like to admit) is an effective tool for extorting intelligence?

From what I've read, Petraeus did not commit a crime nor did he breach security. Unless there is more to the story than what has currently been reported, it appears that the only reason for his resignation was cheating on his wife. If President Obama had rejected his resignation, he could have made clear that cheating on your spouse is a purely private matter that will not cost your job and sent the message to our enemies that knowledge of an adulterous affair is not a useful way to blackmail or extort our officials.

I'm sure the moralists among us will reply that the social shame that accompanies publicity of an affair is enough to make the blackmail effective. However, given the nature of the CIA's work, if some social clucking is sufficient reason for an intelligence officer to betray U.S. intelligence efforts, then that person probably isn't fit for the job in the first place.



Tim
Glencoe, IL

Rules to live by:

The bottom 99%: prudence, temperance, justice, courage, faith, hope, and charity.
The top 1%: greed, envy, lust, pride, wrath, gluttony, and sloth.

Do we really want to funnel ever greater power and resources to the top 1%?


anthony weishar
Fairview Park, OH

Ms. Dowd, great analysis of ego and power, society groupies, politicized military strategy, the consequences of being a not too wise demigod, and the "collateral damage."



Sajwert
NH

I paid little if any attention to Patraeus in the past, and have learned more than I could have wanted to know from your article, Maureen.

And it is far less uplifting than anything one might read in the Enquirer. The problem with touting oneself as a model for rectitude is that the spotlights that shine on you are of a higher wattage than on those who generally keep themselves in the background. so the flaws are seen more sharply.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" is probably appropriately here also.



Robert Henry Eller
Milan, Italy

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal."

Finally, a truly appropriate post-mortem to this menagerie (in every sense).

It's not the gratuitous sex. It's the needless death and destruction.

The pro-war military is still trying to prove that Vietnam was indeed a missed opportunity, when in fact it was an avoidable debacle.

Well, they've now proved what Vietnam really was twice over, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they won't admit it.

Meanwhile, those who did learn the lessons of Vietnam, Senator Kerry, General Powell, are vilified to this day.

Thanks, Ms. Dowd.




Steve Singer
Chicago

No we aren't. There's no debate. No anti-war marches fill the streets day-after-day. No teach-in's or sit-in's paralyzing college campuses. No "Stop the Draft" week.

Why? Because nobody's being drafted to fight in Afghanistan.

I'm a veteran of late-60's / early-70's civil strife on-campus and off. I remember it well, especially its scalding heat, the absolute fury boiling everywhere; pro-war; anti-war; "America, love it or leave it!"; "Amerika is devouring its children!". A bath in acid.

Nothing remotely like that in America today because nobody in that 17-28 year-old demographic group risks having their civilian-lives upended then ripped from their hands. They don't wake up in the morning facing forced imprisonment into an Army whose training cadre despises them. They won't be brutalized by that same cadre during basic and advanced MOS training then flushed into a stupid, pointless overseas conflict in which their assigned role is "cannon-fodder".

That's one difference.

Another is superb news management by the Pentagon's public-relations bureaucracy. The Pentagon learned some hard lessons about cultivating and managing public opinion from its Vietnam debacle. The sheer bloody-awfulness, utter stupidity and futility of our Afghan military misadventure isn't served to the American public the same way that Vietnam's was, front-row-center night-after-night on network television news, and at at dinner time.



Z_i_am
New Jersey

It looks to me like the military just reflects the rest of our culture; the top 1% operates by different rules from the other 99%.



Doc B
Midwest

Two words: "Acquired narcissism."

Very difficult, from what I have studied, to be waited upon hand and foot in any role or status in life, and not slowly be drawn into the trap of thinking too highly of one's own power and invulnerability and forget how to empathize with the consequences of one's actions on others.



BrandonM
nyc

What's really interesting about this article -- and the only thing that will be remembered or debated by a very few historians and academics -- is the third to last paragraph where Maureen equates the surge to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. I hope she's wrong but I suspect she's right. In another country putting such an important point so late in a column might be considered burying the lead...but not in the here and now. Our soldiers deserve to be treated better than political pawns.



SBevilacqua
Wisconsin

Thank you, Maureen. As a civilian who served at a provincial reconstruction team in a far-flung corner of Afghanistan(and as one who vociferously opposed the surge for reasons obvious to those of us with boots on the ground), once again you have hit the nail on the head. The real scandal is the hubris of a public servant who thought he could manipulate a commander in chief into sending more American men and women to their deaths whilst he played footsie with his biographer. I hope history is very unkind to General Peaches Patraeus.




JoJo
Boston, MA

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal."

I agree. I think our moral priorities are skewed. Too much emphasis on sex. Clinton gave us a surplus, prosperity and peace, but he engaged in extramarital foreplay, so he was publicly humiliated and impeached.

GW Bush ignored warnings about 9/11, started an entire trillion dollar war in Iraq that killed at least a hundred thousand people without necessity, let New Orleans drown, lost what may have been our last opportunity to avert climate change, let the economy tank, our debt balloon, unemployment skyrocket, and introduced torture into our military, but he's sexually pure, as far as we know, so he's still considered morally upright.



bklynbar
bklyn, ny

It's nice to hear that the top brass live so well in Tampa; wish we could take these party animals down a notch and give our military men and women the support that they need both overseas and for their families in the USA while they are deployed.



Star
California

I am so over these men and women in positions paid with tax dollars having no moral character. Come on, head of the United Stated of America's Central Intelligence Agency and you have extra time on your hands to some lame affair? Really now, I home school two children, keep my household in shape, pay the bills, end up exhausted by 9:00 at night, but wishing I could have an extra few hours to get more done - and I get no salary. I just hope they replace Petraeus with someone who has come up through the ranks and truly earned it.




Scott
Atlantic beach, FL

Conducting an affair with someone else's spouse requires premeditated dishonesty, a willingness to lie to those you have sworn to be truthful with, sneaking, plotting and risk taking. It also requires large amounts of time that is unaccounted for, and being a good actor, as in, "Honest, Dear. I was caught in traffic for two hours."

So, Gen. Patreaus has proved himself good at all of these things.

So remind me: why is his downfall considered a "loss" for President Obama?




jimbo
seattle

I served in the Air Force for 22 years, and retired as a colonel in 1980. Sorry if I offend your delicate sensitivities, but the military has always been about sex and alcohol. Happy hours at the Officer's Club, very frequent trips to everywhere, Officer's professional schools at Maxwell AFB, in Montgomery Alabama. Montgomery was dry in '65, but the young ladies had open access to the casual bar in the officer's club, where they could drink, dance, and meet college educated junior, middle grade, and senior officers. If your next assignment carried the risk of death, dismemberment, or prisoner status, who cared? My generation seemed to be capable of being more discreet.

When I went to Vietnam in 1966, I brought a collection of Kipling with me, because he had brilliant insight into the far East and military cultures.

Some examples:

Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
where there ain't no ten commandments, and a man can raise a thirst.
We ain't no thin red heroes nor we ain't no blackguards too,
but single men in barracks most remarkable like you.
And if our conduct isn't all your fancy paints,
Well, single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints.

There is nothing new under the sun. I don't think Petraeus should have resigned. JFK had his fun, and maybe Eisenhower did also with his beautiful Brit driver. Not all indulge, but some do. Most males are slaves to their hormones. Which is why females are superior.



C.W.
West Coast

I'm not interested in Petraeus' peccadillos but I do fault him for his arrogant insistence on the surge in Afghanistan which has been a failure. Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy and nation-building there has cost us billions of dollars and too many lives. And I agree with you, that's the real scandal. Kudos to Maureen Dowd for being one of the few journalists with enough gumption to criticize the lionized Petraeus. The rest of the media have been shamefully obsequious.




Capt. Penny
Silicon Valley

Ms Dowd,
You buried the lede, says this father of an active duty soldier. Afghanistan is not past tense, it's a continuing scandal.

The real scandal is that my son and hundreds of thousands of others will serve in Afghanistan in the next 2 years - long after we should have been gone.

My neighbor's son served a couple tours there between 2010 and 2012, returning with a clear sense of core problems that have never been resolved and never will be, including the inability of US military to grasp that some things aren't worth doing, even though they can do them.




the doctor
allentown, pa

This scandal illustrates once again that older, powerful, self-absorbed and arrogant men - once smitten - will engage in the kind of reckless behavior illustrated by our CIA Director. I can only conclude General Pertreaus, like many tragic figures before him, lived in a make-believe, third-person world and somehow came to believe he was immune from the consequences of his actions.



Stu
west mystic connecticut

Petraeus is merely the cutting edge of the military elite that we have allowed. Their arrogance and entitlement matches that of our--95 percent always re-elected--political royalty. Corruption and selective morality is typical of any ruling class.. The fix? A professional officer corps held to strict standards under a tight civilian leash. Those officers need to lead a citizen military chosen by required selective service. There's nothing like a good old-fashioned draft to keep the politicos who are so anxious to send in the troops on their toes. And maybe the American public will take more of a personal interest in their wars when it's their kiddies that get shipped out. A really engaged public will implement tight term limits and get rid of our professional political royalty.



Bruce
Pensacols

Probably by sometime Friday, more journalistic energy and resources will have been spent on this scandal than that expended in questioning the validity of the second war in Iraq. And soon after, the same could be said about Congressional questioning. There's your failure in leadership.



richard kopperdahl
new york city

Wearing his medals on his civilian suit coat is a most pathetic image, Maureen. Reminds me that during the last presidential debate, Romney's lapel flag was twice a big as Obama's.

Ike had his lady driver for comfort during WWII, Bill, his pleasures in the Oval office, FDR and JFK had pretty much, whoever they wanted but were protected by the reporters who covered them The ones who stay on the straight and narrow, Carter and Romney, we find kind of creepy when all is said and done.

Maybe we should concern ourselves less with the sexual lives of others. Seems to me we have a few really pressing things to deal with now.



retired teacher
Austin, Texas

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal. "

Thank you for reminding us of the real tragedy behind all the sordid headlines. Our military is over-delployed after two wars. It is ime for us to get out of Afghanistan. Why are we staying another two years?



CSpade
Brewster, MA

"So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians were killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That’s the real scandal."

It's more than a scandal; it's a hideous decision most government officials and the main stream media seem intent on ignoring.



Sophia
bangor, maine

The bigger they come, the harder they fall. I agree that the real scandal is how Petraeus rolled the president about the surge. Unnecessary American and Afghani deaths just so the general could get his way.

I never liked Petraeus. I'm not unhappy he's gone. I hope the President now has enough trust in himself to not be rolled again by another of these power-hungry men.

Sex and the internet. Who will be the next important man to succumb to the thrills of emails from attractive women stroking their ego? Or have they learned from this? Probably not. It's an old tune, played out on modern technology which makes it so easy and exciting. Petraeus (and Allen) certainly are not the first and will not be the last to get 'tripped up'.



Bryan Barrett
Malvern, Pa.

"That's the real scandal'; indeed. You are correct. That the misbehavior of any General Officer, who had presided over the command of a contemporary GI, while he so dishonored himself, in the full knowledge of the Code of Military Justice, is to the average veteran, astounding. That this story would coincide with the celebration of Veterans Day, which for those of us who have had the enormous privilege of serving in some small way, in whatever branch of the service, with pride and honor; if this episode of selfishness, if proven to be correct, proves to be an example of a lack of honor which is enough to consign a so called officer and a gentleman, to the lowest level of dishonor, is reprehensible.

Honor has in recent years virtually disappeared in civilian life, whether it is even referred to in passing in the service academies, or in ROTC, or in OCS, today is unknown to me, and clearly these disclosures have exposed the fact that the academies have a serious problem to rectify. The fundamental idea of honor in military service was, when I was a young man, more than a half century ago, a well understood concept. And among those with whom I served, both enlisted, and officers, was well understood.

General Petreus and General Allen have their battles to fight on the civilian and military justice levels. Should they be found guilty on charges, not yet published, I will be sad, and sincerely hope and pray that their successors will prove to be above reproach.



szel
Loiza, Puerto Rico

Poor on Shakespeare.

Macbeth did not kill his king out of envy. We don't know how to figure Iago's motives -- there are too many of them. Shakespeare wrote, but did not advocate "reputation" as the key ethical imperative and is not personally responsible for what his characters, many of them reprobates, say.

Your professors have failed you, and Congress should look into this malfeasance.



SW
Los Angeles, CA

So sad that the concepts of duty and honor seem to stop at the waist for so many of those in power. If those in the highest levels of the military and the government can't be trusted to control their own sexual urges, how can they be trusted to control the lives of those in their command and to guide the destiny of their country? To claim "these guys are human beings working under extremely stressful circumstances" seems a rather flippant excuse that tries to explain everything and yet excuses nothing. They cheated, they lied, they tried to evade responsibility for their actions all the while insisting their subordinates uphold the very virtues they mocked. But off they go into comfortable retirement, probably write still another book extolling their wisdom and virtues and all the while collect outrageous fees for speaking engagements. Alas.



Prunella
Florida

Yes, and as the war raged into overtime, the deaths, all of them senseless, the traumatic brain injuries, the amputations, and the permanent damage to our soldiers minds all mounting, so did the promotions, and the shiny medals. Therein lies the sting of these senseless wars: that's how to get your promotion and your next decoration, you keep the war raging. Bring on the peace and the opportunity for advancement and pretty ribbons withers. Hmmm...makes one wonder if there was ever a promotion used as hush-money.



molosgatos
ca

There are two major issues here that bother me. The first is that integrity seems not to matter only when it applies to marriage. What if David Petraeus' integrity failed when he was testifying before Congress or when he was paying his taxes or when he was reporting what happened in Benghazi? Why do we presume that a man who will go to such great lengths to lie to his wife and family will tell the truth in all other things?

Second, all those who wish to excuse his behavior forget that there are soldiers and civilians in the military and in the CIA who have to live by rules that Petraeus felt did not apply to him. I have known several people who also were "good" people but whose careers were nonetheless ruined because they violated the codes of conduct that some now wish to waive for Petraeus. It is unfair to the many who live by the rules to exempt him from them.



Mary Wickens
East Lansing MI

Eisenhower said beware of the military-industrial complex. While we are having these fiscal cliff discussions, maybe we should take a hard look at the value of this inflated military that thrives while soldiers and civilians are dying.




citizenk
New York

I think the officer class has always had a sense of privilege in our military. I'll never forget being re-assigned from training for almost a week to help clear a few acres of brush at my boot camp. Turns out it was for an extension of the officer's golf course.



Reid B
Takoma Park, Md

Good column, conclusion. Maybe all this foolishness will help take the shine off the machinery of our permanent warfare and point us in a more positive direction. One can only hope.



arthur
Arizona

Obama showed extremely bad judgment in appointing a military officer to head the CIA. Aside from Petraeus' personal mind-set and past attempts to subvert the Commander-in-Chief's policy in Afghanistan, the CIA should never be in the hands of the military. The CIA should be under civilian leadership as the military should be under civilian control. Petraus remained a military man with a military mind-set. Meanwhile, military intelligence had expanded dangerously during the Bush Administration, involving itself in non-military foreign affairs. We have an entrenched military-industrial complex resulting in unending wars in which our resources and treasury are depleted and our young men are dying.

While we fight in Afghanistan, the Chinese have bought the concession to a huge copper mine. While we involve ourselves militarily in Africa, the Chinese buy oil in Sudan and minerals wherever they can find them and engage in buying minds and hearts of Africans. Iraqi and Kuwaiti concessions did not go overwhelmingly to American companies. While we back the most reactionary forces in Latin America, the Chinese are signing contracts for minerals and engaging in "soft power". Meanwhile the Chinese own much of our foreign debt.

The only way to ease back on the militarization of America is to allow the "financial cliff" to become a reality. Afterwards, the Republicans dare not reinstate middle class tax cuts. But Obama doesn't have the guts.

Invisible Finger to the Middle Class

The NYT titles one of its pieces, "Wave of Evictions Leads to Homeless Crisis in Spain," and illustrates it richly with Dickensian photos.  You see, no matter how hard it is here, they have much worse over there, darn socialists!  Here are few comments from those who are much closer to the situation, here or there:

Luboman411 NY, NY

I think I found the pivotal reason why the real estate market went crazy in Spain, even compared to the real estate madness that struck countries like the U.S. prior to 2007--non-dischargeable mortgages. Of course mortgage lenders in Spain went haywire--they (erroneously) believed that they wouldn't suffer any downside because debtors would always be forced to pay every penny owed, regardless of the overall macroeconomic situation. In the U.S. mortgages are dischargeable in bankruptcy, and that risk probably led some (but not all, obviously) mortgage lenders to use some risk-management when lending out. There were still construction workers with elementary school educations who took out massive mortgages in the U.S., but at least when the economy imploded both the bank (through losses on discharged mortgages) and the underwater debtor suffered the nasty consequences of their foolish greed. That doesn't appear to be the case in Spain--the mortgage lenders are not suffering that much, but the debtors are, and cruelly, I might add.

However, something similar to Spain is happening now in the U.S.--student loans. Student loans in the U.S. are non-dischargeable. Now universities are charging immense sums for educational experiences that are, at times, not worth the inflated prices. Millions of Americans now owe huge sums. There will be a day of reckoning in the U.S. sometime soon if universities are not made to share the risk of ever-rising tuition prices.




AlberTohLoco Madrid

I'm Spanish and I love reading the New York Times, but lately you are publishing a series of articles and photographs of Spain that do not reflect the reality of life here. Here are evictions but there are also other places in Europe and America, if I were American and knew nothing of Spain and would read these articles, I would think that Spain is a country where people are starving and many people are homeless . But that's not true, people looking for food in the garbage also there is in the United States.

For Americans, the United States is the best country in the world, but I live in a country with an unemployment rate of 25% but in which people do not die at the doors of hospitals. We have a huge debt, but our social security continues to serve free.Many of the pictures I see, are from minorities or immigrants and slums, I am sure that if you go to the slums of the United States will find pictures very similar to these.

I'd love to read an article and see photos that reflect the current reality of Spain and not see sensational photos only show the worst of this country. Finally apologize for my English.This goes for all the Spanish that we are outraged seeing these images. Viva España.

rq Barcelona

Dear Alberto, you may live far away from the reality of our country. 500 evictions per day is the reality!! And two recent suicides for that.
In the other hand, billions of euros payed in taxes by us go to the rescue the banks. The same banks that backed up our corrupted governments (both from the left and the right side parties)



S Spain

I can help agreeing with AlberTohLoco. I love NYT, but in the previous months I've repeatedly felt ashamed with some pictures and skewed comments you're publishing when portraying Spanish reality. I'm a regular midclass Spaniard who had the chance to study a career thanks to public grants, and to do some internships in the US (also with public grants, even in 2012). The pictures you show do not reflect reality, since people who are unemployed receive many public and social services that do not even exist in countries such as the US. Thanks God, our system provides with Universal Health Care to all citizens and even with this crisis, and with 26% of unemployment, just a few need to find food in the garbage. The situation is sad, but you should reflect also how a country like this is tackling the crisis, and compare that with how a country like the US (with a similar Index of Human Development) is facing a less worse situation. Figures of homeless and starving people, or mothers giving birth on the street would overwhelm any European society. You don't see that here.

What you are missing (which is ashaming for NYT) is that based on a law from 1906 (!) if the bank gave a mortgage of 200.000€ in 2004, and now the family can't pay it, the bank will reevaluate the appartment. If the price now is 150.000€, the bank will evict the family, take the appartment and they will still owe 50.000€ to the bank --> That's the problem!

Please, NYT, you can do better ;)

Spanish man Madrid

The situation here in Spain is a nightmare. Politicians instead of helping are doing the contrary. They work for the millioners not for the people. They say that we have to work harder but if you try to build up a small business in Spain you will loose all your money paying stupid taxes for the local administrations. There is no plan to re-construct the economy because there has never been the will of trying to create jobs or anything similar. While people are been evicted the big companies, banks and the CEOE are making huge benefits as ever. Do es that make any sense? I made this video to show how are politicians are...




sarajane Atlanta

I was just in Spain and found so many things "made in China". Just like in the USA. Even leather goods- handbags and shoes- that Spain has been known for their quality- are now being made in China. Politics aside, how can countries keep their people employed if all money is being sent to China? This is a worldwide crisis now.



Mark Boston

Banks and the superrich are watching the situation in Europe closely. It will set the pattern for what happens here when our financial system collapses. Their goal is to expropriate the middle class and consign the large bulk of the population to serfdom. Issuing outsize mortgages to people with modest incomes at the height of the bubble was not necessarily a failure on the part of the banks, but part of a strategy aimed at expropriation after the bubble burst.



FFT Madrid

Before criticize other countries perhaps you should take a look at your own country I´m sura that If I go to the States with a camara I can´t much worst photos from homeless people and how many people was evicted from their homes in the states?¿





PK Lincoln

This sort of disaster didn't happen in Iceland because the Icelanders told the bankers to step-off.


Anna Germany

I am a bit suspicious about these series of news about Spain that have been going on for about a year to convey a rather negative view on this country. No doubt Spain is going through tough times. However, the NYT seems almost obsessed to portray a especially miserable picture of Spain. These pieces of news are extremely well crafted in doing so: the black and white pictures emphasizing the contrast between the two colors, people in melodramatic poses, the personal tone of the news with little or none objective information (no data, statistics…) The morally dubious tone of this news is especially sticking because it casts doubts over Spain’s economic recovery and therefore makes more difficult for this country to finance its debt, which on the other hand would help the banks and the economy and avoid evictions. What I am asking is that there is a political motivation behind these news, which I do not quite understand.




C.H. Italy

I have visited Andalucia, Barcelona and Madrid several times in the past few years: Scores of stalled construction projects, condemned buildings, apartments for sale or to rent at ridiculously low prices, empty apartments, and many families with no homes at all. An incredible market failure. Beyond that, an incredible human tragedy. Clearly, waiting for the invisible hand to help the economy "self-correct" is as useful as waiting for God himself to intervene. Four years later, the subprime crisis continues to claim victims, both in Spain and the U.S. Families with no home who take over empty homes are doing the right thing.



HotelAnexo Rialto Madrid

One of your photos has a woman crying in front of a Catalunya Caixa office. Catalunya Caixa is one of the savings & loan banks run by a former politician with no previous banking experience but lots of connections. It had to be bailed out by Spanish taxpayers (the second biggest bank debacle in the country) and he took a nice retirement.

Delinquent mortgages and property have already been written down significantly by the banks to comply with various rescue plans that have been implemented in Spain. What’s left is being transferred to a so-called “bad bank” (SAREB). It would make far more sense for SAREB to then write-down the balance due and refinance, or let the people stay for a reduced rent so as to take care of the property.

Mortgage rules in Spain are draconian and pre-date democracy, with the Banks able to seize a property, add lots of extra expenses, value it at half of its market value, and then pursue the debtor for the balance for the rest of their lives. Another obvious solution is to transfer more risk to the banks, and force them to accept the property as full payment on the mortgage.




Federica Fellini undefined

It is very ironic to read about the terrible situation of some Spaniards and also to read about Zara's empire in the NYT Magazine. I keep wondering why the 3rd richest man in the planet, Inditex's owner Amancio Ortega, is not showing more generosity to some of this Spaniards.... Come'on this guys is SUPER SUPER rich (richer than Warren Buffet) can he just spare some 'change' and help the homeless families? Just wondering....




Isma Adam Madrid

I live in Madrid and I saw people stealing food and begging for money on trains and in the underground. NYtimes articles are reflecting how people live here in Spain. People are starving...just turn the TV on and you will see dozen of cases every day. What matters is how to solve the problem because 25% of Spaniards have no incomes.




O Paco Bergamo

The fact that someone with a job as a mason (that in Spain means only elementary school) could get a loan to pay for a $320,000 apartment, speaks also about the level of irresponsibility in the system (banks, people, everybody went nuts). There are hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants that also were carried away into this craze. People, with 250-400K Euro debts. Many of them involved their friends and relatives to warranted the loans... Really, at the time most thought they were doing a great deal (prices were going up), the people that were not taking the bait were "idiots and losses". But it was the time were having a university degree would only buy you a 1200Euro/month salary... and being a plumber could afford you 4000Euro/month (tax free, as many paid no tax). Definitely is a drama.




SergeDudeManhattan NYC

I'm just back from Nevada and Southern Cal and I am willing to send the NYT very similar pictures I've been taking there for the last two weeks -for free. Scores of homeless people, families evicted from their homes, foreclosure notices stuck to many doors in Vegas, LA, Capistrano, Laguna, San Diego, Long Beach. Poor people gathering in community centers, lining up for a free meal, pushing their empty carts, looking for jobs in Fresno, in Bakersfield, in La Jolla. Who is the NYT trying to fool focusing on Spain when we have the same problems at home?




Ingimundur Kjarval Delhi New York

Are we heading for the same thing here in the USA, I sense we are all running out of our savings, can't keep up with property taxes, mortgage payments and daily expenses.

And I am not talking about foreclosures up to now, but whole society coming apart because people cant' keep up with their obligations any longer. Does anybody think this is going to get better in Spain anytime soon?

How many desperate people does it need to have a revolution? It seems to me this is in the end failure of democracy, nobody in charge, Obama riding the tiger like the rest of us. Here is a prediction, before long European countries will have kings and queens like in former centuries. Either that or new Mussolini's, Hitler's and Franco's.

The truth is, today we are governed by big business, it decides how society is to be and we to live, their only goal to make an other dollar. Who financed the last election? Who is in charge?not Obama, not the senate, big business is!



Ampangela Barcelona

And still more, the Government gaves to the Banks all the millions of € and the middle and low classes of the whole country had to pay for it. Either with the increased taxes or gaven up the civil servants work. 2.500.000 of civil sevants have been fired,most of the services do not receive any income. Bombers without equipment and the half of theirs companions out of work, the ones who remains working had their slaries cut off, How can to put out a fire?, the same happen with the policeman, the doctors and nurses, the teachers... Meanwhile the Government is selling Hospitals and Schools to private companies that expect to earn more money with it... This is the consequence of follow the Miton Friedman's theories.



marve279 Huelva, spain

Some comments that I am reading about this dramatic piece of news from my country really terrify me and hurt a soul. You should know about Spanish history and Spanish society to express and objective opinion about this terrible reality that is striking the working class of my country. You should know that for centuries the 15% of the population of Spain have lived on the other 85% of the people. This oligarchy has been famous for his cruelty and injustice against the major part of the population of Spain. What we are seeing today is a continuation of this historical process, what once was an oligarchy of landowners who starved to death to landless peasants, today has mutated to a merciless financial oligarchy helped by a bunch of corrupted politicians who act as an organized mafia to rob the working class. You have to know that in my country we are suffering a 26% of unemployment; more than 50% of young people do not have an opportunity to have a job. This terrible situation has been mainly promoted by the financial oligarchy and the political parties inflating an unprecedented speculative housing bubble that exploded in 2008. Do not think that most of the people who are being evicted now are a people who lived beyond their means, they are just normal working people, mainly young people who had to buy a house to live in, but a house with an inflated price. Even there are old people who are being evicted because they guaranteed their children mortgages with their own houses.


Fran BadilloSevilla (Spain/Europe)

Italy is worse that Spain. France is near of precipice. But the North Europe mass media has time only for Spain. The germans banks are worse that alls in Europe. In the 90 lend all the money for spanish bubble. Now germans need that money because are in a deep crisis. Our countries are victims of the usa crisis (remember lethman bros. and the nationalization of enterprise in your country). Now we are trying save our nation. But english banks (all nationalizated) and german banks want save himself but need a victim: Greece, Italy or Spain. Isn´t money, is a politic thing (excuse for my english, ¡viva Bruce Springsteen!)



linzt PO,NY

The whole world became Sick.The businees community, specially Financial Institutions and Corporations,are running the pollitical/socio-economic issues, here and elsewhere.Before the european union, this nonsense did not happen, today, the american style "capitalism" spreading all over with velocity, and we're going to have a very hard times. LooK! Capitalism is to please the Investors, It is reduce wages; elimination of any federal programs,is for corporations to take advantage to privitaze government assets to maximize profit and make the elite to prosper more and more,and the rest of the population ( working class, middle class) to suffer with austerity, loosing everything ,even their basic things in life (House: Education Health) All negotiations in name of PROFIT for the Investors. If every nations around the world continue insisting with this nonsense, we are going to have a very miserable world ahead. Here in america, if we continue to allowed republicans dictator our socio- economic problems we will enjoy the european crowd. Dont forget our banks made a criminal mess here and overseas too , you know!Subprime-mortgages). Dont be so naiive and critical of the europeans or other nations, because our capitalism system is very nasty for us too. wake-up and smell the coffee, life is not about shopping. The big guys are doing fantastic, and how about the rest of 98% of citizens? We work hard but, europeans too. Cultures are different, but compassion is Not.



Jean Tucson, AZ

What a revealing article! It manages to sum up what is so confounding about the financial crises in western countries, with such imagination. The polarities of this problem are lack of personal responsibility (taking out huge loans to "get ahead" or "live the good life") and what amounts to usury on the part of financial institutions by taking advantage of poorly educated people. Greed on both sides.

I feel terribly old-fashioned in not buying more, bigger, better housing (cars, vacations, etc.) every 5-10 years. Still, even as a squarely middle-class American, I am working hard simply to have the lifestyle my parents had....two cars, a bit of entertainment, a decent vacation every year. Austerity becomes self-imposed when you experience the declining standard of living in the U.S. firsthand.

I do feel for these homeless noveau rich. As much as I'd like to think my semi-frugal ways will protect me . . . . I just don't make enough money to save the hundreds of thousands necessary should inflation continue, and wages remain as stagnant (or declining) as they have been in the last 20 years.

I'm just really hoping that pension is there when I get to retirement. In the meantime, I'll refrain from buying a large, plush house in a trendy neighborhood. And I'll keep getting regular oil changes for my 2002 Toyota. And going to library. Etc.



JMB NJ

It seems the Invisible Hand also tapes eviction notices to doors. Who knew?

cruset america's next ceiling: the bamboo

kari
New York


'Schools where admission is purely through a test, like the elite public New York City high school Stuyvesant, often have large percentages of Asian-Americans. The University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles are more than half Asian. That doesn’t help them integrate effectively, to pierce what some call the bamboo ceiling in the corporate and political worlds.'




Yes, students, including Asian-Americans, benefit from diversity. But how is a student body compromised of more than 50% Asian-Americans less diverse than one of more than 50% white students? In the former case, people write alarmist articles while the latter is status quo. The idea that admitting fewer Asian-Americans into top universities such as Berkeley and UCLA would somehow be doing them a favor by helping them to 'integrate effectively' is bizarre.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 3:53 p.m.
RECOMMENDED89


hockl
WA



I'm an Asian. My children are born here and have attended only public schools. They don't speak any Asian language and learn Spanish as a foreign language. Why must they be subjected to higher admission standard than their peers just because their parents are Asians? The additional 63-point in SAT score is discriminatory when many Ivy League applicants regularly have scores north of 2200.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 12:05 p.m.
RECOMMENDED63


The Descriptionist
NY, NY



Affirmative Action was created because non-whites were being kept out of education in America. Now, it's being used to ensure that the right types of "non-whites" are represented proportionally. That alone means it is not working.




I value diversity. As an Asian American, I've pushed to hire a diverse mix of men, women and ethnicities in our workplace. But these men and women have to work together for a common company goal. And it's the only way to get different viewpoints so necessary for a corporate entity to survive. Corporate America is not really the same as Educational America.




I'm not sure if going on pure merit isn't the best way for our education system to go. Sure, children of means and resources get a better chance of going to college, but children of homes that place emphasis on education also receive the same chance.




Who gets left out really? Children of families with no emphasis on the importance of education. Walk into a home which does not value education, and no amount of Affirmative Action will make a difference.




Immigrant Asian families have proven that poverty is not an insurmountable hurdle in the pursuit of education. It's about will. Collective will, not just that of the children, but of the families as well.




Affirmative Action was needed two generations ago in order for minorities to even gain access to higher education. Perhaps the day as come to do away with it, and let's see how far we have progressed as a color blind nation.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 3:54 p.m.
RECOMMENDED54


nyugrad
nyc



As a young Asian American who immigrated to the US at 5 years old and was naturalized at 16, I am saddened that it would take a white girl's lawsuit to bring this issue to the nation's attention. I attended NYU, which has a conspicuously large population of Asian, and now work at a major corporation. I have also recruited NYU students for my company, and have heard comments from those more senior that the school is "too Asian" or that a pool of NYU resumes chosen based on merit was too Asian. To what extent will we continue to punish merit in the name of "diversity"? And who made up the rule that any given pool of students or workers chosen based on merit had to match the racial composition of the USA?

Nov. 1, 2012 at 1:31 p.m.
RECOMMENDED49


Frosty
New York



Asian Americans aren't mentioned often in the debate about affirmative action in this newspaper because they're the best argument against the policy existing in its current state. This is a group that faced extreme racial discrimination throughout their history in the United States and even had legal legislation passed against them, but has excelled despite little formal assistance from the federal government. And to be frank, this destroys the notion many of my liberal counterparts hold that previously oppressed minorities simply cannot make it without the government holding their hand.




And make no mistake that Asians are discriminated against.




http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/10/07/do-elite-private-col...




"Espenshade found that when comparing applicants with similar grades, scores, athletic qualifications, and family history for seven elite private colleges and universities: Whites were three times as likely to get fat envelopes as Asians. Hispanics were twice as likely to win admission as whites. African-Americans were at least five times as likely to be accepted as whites."




You read that right. Whites with similar qualifications are twice as likely to be accepted.




Or this:  http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-03/asian-students-college-applications/51620236/1

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-03/asian-stu...




Half Asian students purposely leave out their Asian roots in applications to avoid being discriminated against.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 12:05 p.m.
RECOMMENDED48


E. T.
NYC



I am an ABC. American born Chinese. The Chinese and Asian family, study, education and work ethic is central to our upbringing. Asians outnumbering all other ethnic groups in higher education is a MERITOCRACY. We Asians don't need affirmative action, nor have we ever. We only ever needed a fair chance. Now society wants to handicap Asians in schools like African Americans are.....handicapped in college sports?!?!

Nov. 1, 2012 at 7:19 p.m.
RECOMMENDED47


josh
pittsburgh



“I fear that if affirmative action is overthrown by the Supreme Court, our elite campuses will look like U.C.L.A. and Berkeley,” Mr. Burgarin said. “That wouldn’t be good for Asians or for anyone else.”




This guy must be kidding. Discrimination good for Asian? If philipinos want to excel, hit the books. In the last 10 years, those students ill-prepared for college had basically disappeared from UCLA and UCB campuses. The class rooms are now much more vibrant and competitive. What is not good about it? Different bar for different group? The arguement is a just as racist as separate but equal.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 11:15 a.m.
RECOMMENDED47


Roger Clegg, Center for Equal Opportunity
Falls Church, VA



As we all know and as the article makes clear, America is not a white-black country: Indeed, it's largest minority group now is Latinos, and it's fastest growing minority group is Asians. And there are many subgroups within each group: Whites, for example, typically include Arab Americans as well as European Americans; blacks include recent immigrants and African Americans whose ancestors came here hundreds of years ago; Latinos vary widely in national origin, and include those with roots in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Mexico and Central and South America; and the article discusses the many Asian subgroups. Finally, more and more Americans -- starting with our president -- can check more than one racial/ethnic box.




In a nation like ours, it is simply untenable for our laws and institutions, including our universities, to classify and sort people according to skin color and what country someone's ancestors came from, and to award preferences and disadvantages based on blood.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 11:15 a.m.
RECOMMENDED44


mtlyorel
canada



Yet another bias and one sided pro aff-action propaganda written and published to satisfy the agenda of pro-aff-action politics. If you substitute the word 'Asian-American' with "black-American', you will realize that this article would never have been dared written or published. But somehow using 'Asian-Americans' as a punching bag, racism is perfectly acceptable. The 'facts' presented in this argument are baseless and irrelevant. Just because some Asian-Americans i.e. Pacific Islanders - a catchall classification that is racist in itself - 'benefit' from admissions (really? Does this included Obama? I've never encountered a freshman class full of pacific-islanders) does not exclude the argument that qualified Asian-Am students are denied admission due to competition amongst themselves for the 20% quota. There are many rich black students from well connected and well educated families who benefit from admission to ivy league colleges - is this not discriminatory to the black students who are from economically challenged families who see their quota being given to the rich black students? And what is most offensive is the assertion and tired argument of 'we can't have 50% Asian-Am in our class since it does nothing to help them outside of classrooms and hider their ability to integrate with the outside society' would the author and NYT DARE print the same statement if he or she replaced 'Asian Am' with 'African Am'?'

Nov. 1, 2012 at 3:56 p.m.
RECOMMENDED42


thenecropolist
Hanover, NH



This quotation really bothered me.




“I fear that if affirmative action is overthrown by the Supreme Court, our elite campuses will look like U.C.L.A. and Berkeley,” Mr. Burgarin said. “That wouldn’t be good for Asians or for anyone else.”




I think the reasoning that was given by Burgarin/The Times is both unconvincing and insulting. Moreover, the fact that the article would CONCLUDE with such a statement is a real shame. I expected more from the NYT.

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:19 a.m.
RECOMMENDED39


horsham
north carolina



The "holistic admission" is a scam, designed to let the admissions office tinker their numbers behind a curtain and to avoid transparency and accountability (and to preempt lawsuits).

Nov. 1, 2012 at 6:02 p.m.
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patalcant
Massachusetts



It really does seem that the NY Times simply can't write about Affirmative Action without trotting out frankly dishonest arguments in an attempt to make Affirmative Action look like a good thing. (Certainly there are good moral/social arguments for some form of Affirmative Action, but one will never hear them at The Times, because it would involve an honest discussion.)




Nothing should be more obvious than that, for many if not most Asian groups, Affirmative Action is rightly regarded as directly counter to their interests. These are the Asian groups who, in fact, excel at the things that tend to count most for admission to our elite universities: GPA, SAT, ACT, and AP tests. Insofar as the admission process further emphasizes those features, it will directly increase the number of members of those groups admitted to elite institutions. For Affirmative Action, however, the pressure is entirely in the opposite direction: it is precisely in GPA, SAT, etc., that other minorities most severely come up short, and it is precisely the role of Affirmative Action to compensate for this shortcoming.




In fact, this group of Asians even more than whites suffer from the "holistic" process which these days implements Affirmative Action. They are even better than whites on the standard metrics. "Holistic" is, in effect, if not in intent, almost specifically anti-Asian; many whites, but relatively few of these Asians, may profit from a "holistic" admission process.




Why pretend otherwise?

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:25 a.m.
RECOMMENDED34


E
The Blue Box



Basing admissions on race instead of socioeconomic status is completely out-moded these days when there just as many wealthy blacks (read not necessarily slave descended African Americans) as there are poor Asians.

In professional orchestras, musicians audition for an open position by playing behind a curtain and never uttering a word. This way, they are only judged based upon their musical playing ability. Why can't we do something similar in colleges? Assign each applicant a number based upon their application/extracurriculars and then, in the end, have a computer give extra points for hardship or socioeconomic status. Then, set a numerical cut-off line. Race never seen. Hopefully the socioeconomic bonus points will still ensure racial diversity.

I attended college at one of those top elite colleges that had a seminar every year on their admissions process. They basically went step-by-step, point-by-point through the entire process, which assigned points to various aspects of an applicant's scores and clubs and background, which were then tallied at the end. Being from an underrepresented race or region (which included being black or a white man from the midwest) gave the applicant as many points as my 3 year science project which I spend hundreds of hours on and won me national accolades. Luck of the draw I guess.

If I wasn't jaded before, I was after.

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:26 a.m.
RECOMMENDED34


kenklark
NYC



My mom didn't want me to marry an Asian girl because she feared her grandchildren would be discriminated against. Turned out she was absolutely right.




But unlike most of the kids applying to colleges from Stuyvesant HS, who are mostly Asians of one sort or another, my daughter has reluctantly and resentfully chosen to conceal her Asian identity in college application in the long-standing tradition of American strivers who are able to "pass."




For Stuy kids without that option, the combination of anti-Asian discrimination, inside-track admission policies for the children of celebrities and alumni and vast numbers of slots reserved for athletes, chances of admission to the elite universities become slim indeed, as admission numbers prove.




These kids, the best and brightest of New York City, have learned their lessons well, and know the game is rigged against them. In light of this, it is less surprising that a few of the cheated feel no qualms about cheating a bit themselves, as reported in gleeful detail by the NYT.




Race-mongers have the answer though. The goal is to tilt the Stuyvesant admissions system to favor ethnic groups that do not perform so well on the race-blind New York specialized HS admissions test. This will help to reduce the number of uppity Asians clogging the system to better achieve fairness and diversity.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 3:53 p.m.
RECOMMENDED31


Fairytale
Washington DC



Good to see the term "Asian" used correctly.

Asia starts in Turkey, covers the entire Middle East, reaches India, and then China, the Far East, and Japan.




A Turk is "Asian"

An Iranian (or Persian) is "Asian"

A Pakistani is "Asian"

A Saudi is "Asian"

An Indian is "Asian"




and then of course,




A Chinese is "Asian"

A Vietnamese is "Asian"

etc.




In America, as a Persian, I haven't been able to say I'm "Asian" because the term has been completely mis-used to mean the Far East only. Good to see this article finally understand the boundaries of the vast continent that is "Asia." (A review of the Asian Games would also underscore the incredible diversity of the continent.)




"Asian" isn't a race - the continent has many different and diverse races. As always, a little education goes a long way.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 12:04 p.m.
RECOMMENDED31


forbetterworld
Boston, MA



Using race in college admission is a racist policy itself. Period. You can't sugarcoat it. This is social-engineering at its worst.




Biracial kids or mulltiracial kids have been checking the race box in college admission to avoid mentioning Asian even part of them are.http://www.jessewashington.com/im-not-asian.html




Is this the way we want to teach our kids about race?

Nov. 1, 2012 at 1:30 p.m.
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amanda
New York



It seems affirmative action is a way of making sure that each ethnic group has a fixed number of places for which members compete only against each other.




Groups with less focus on studying and education are freed from the need to change their culture to compete with those who value it more, since they will get guaranteed admission regardless of whether they have the same qualifications.




But how will freezing those cultural patterns in place make us more equal or reduce our racial divisions? It seems to me it will do the exact opposite.




Doesn't being productive in a modern world require that all ethnic groups be more like most Jews and Asian-Americans, and focus on being well-educated, if we are going to have a highly-skilled workforce and be competitive in the world economy?




Doesn't reserving places for relatively less competitive students encourage just the opposite?

Nov. 1, 2012 at 12:34 p.m.
RECOMMENDED30


Richard Guha
Weston, CT



This simply points up the absurdity of racial classifications. What of mixed-race people, a category which is growing towards the norm? How do we classify people who can claim multiple heritages? Do we discriminate in favor of one of their ancestors, or against another? Almost everyone in my extended family seems to be a mix, but a different mix. So, are they not related to me? How crazy have we become. I also have issues with the fact that many seem to feel pressured to self-identify with one of their ancestors, thus denying another - even our President. Can't people simply be, and be judged as individuals. If poverty or a bad school handicaps someone, then let us allow for that.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 11:44 a.m.
RECOMMENDED27


Me
California



Mr. Ron Burgarin - Berkeley admissions are done holistically and are not based simply on test scores. And your "fear" that "elite" schools would look like Berkeley or UCLA is very revealing. Berkeley is certainly on a par with your "elite" (elitist?) institutions and as far as graduate education is concerned leaves many of them in the dust. It awards a larger percentage of graduate degrees to under-represented minorities (this does not include Asians) than do all the Ivy "elites" combined. Looking like Berkeley is a thing to avoid?

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:25 a.m.
RECOMMENDED26


MB
Chicago



So those Asian students are denied admission for their own good? Nice!

Too bad they cannot take a class to learn about it.

Beyond a certain point, too many Asian students dilute the value of the degree? Because it's all about the numbers, with Asians?

And lest this argument should prove insufficient, it's useful to recall, as the article does, that they don't know whether their subgroup would win or lose if racial admissions were abolished. Are they Vietnamese or Indian? Chinese or Japanese?

Divide et impera, that's the ticket.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 3:54 p.m.
RECOMMENDED26


xship
Rochester, NY



We do have too many Asians on our elite campuses, way more than their ~4.8% share of the general population. Some people argue that we should keep a lid on the number of such faces.




We also have way TOO MANY African Americans in NBA, far more than their ~12.6% share. Why don't we impose affirmative action there as well, and do "holistic draft" every year instead? We might not have Michael Jordan playing for the Bulls, but we would have a "better integrated" NBA work force.

Nov. 2, 2012 at 9:23 a.m.
RECOMMENDED24


Eric Rooney
Tampa



Since race is something that cannot even be quantified, it should not be part of any admissions process. How can you compensate for something that is so vague? Annual household income, level of education, grades, and hometown/place of birth are real values that can be calibrated for. As the article implies, an Asian from the south side of Chicago and another from the north side of the same city may have nothing in common except their "race". Having said that, I think there is an existing and growing fear of Asians in America that is reminiscent of both the anti-Japanese and anti-Communist suspicions of the last century. Look at the campaign ads from both candidates against China and you see a lot more than nationalism, you see disdain for non-white competition.

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:18 a.m.
RECOMMENDED23


JohnB
Staten Island



I simply don't understand why discrimination in "the first half of the 20th century" should have anything to do with admission policies today. Are we honestly to believe that non-white students today are somehow mystically oppressed by events that took place long before they were born? Unless you can prove that people are being held back by discrimination that is taking place TODAY, institutionalized racial discrimination in favor of non-whites (aka, "affirmative action") should not even be considered as an option.

Nov. 2, 2012 at 12:18 a.m.
RECOMMENDED22


Andrei
New York



It is not affirmative in that it privileges certain people over others, and especially laughable given that those who it helps often moan about racism yet keep playing the race card to gain such questionable gains through dated policies such as these.

Nov. 1, 2012 at 7:19 p.m.
RECOMMENDED22


Allce
Allentown



“I fear that if affirmative action is overthrown by the Supreme Court, our elite campuses will look like U.C.L.A. and Berkeley,” Mr. Burgarin said. “That wouldn’t be good for Asians or for anyone else.”




Except for those Asian American kids who work extremely hard to try to get into these prestigious schools but was denied because the campus already have more than half Asian American students. No matter how you slice it, it's not a fair game for those kids. Forced diversity is as bad as forced segregation.