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May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review Nov. 19, 2008 / 21 Mar-Cheshvan 5769

Government ‘Fixes’ Slow Recovery

By John Stossel


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Is the stock market trying to tell us something? It seems like every time Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson goes on TV, stock prices drop.


I can see why. Businesses would be reckless if they made investments that might lead to recovery when they have no idea day to day what Paulson or his successor might come up with next.


By my count, Paulson is now on his third plan for how to spend the pile of cash Congress gave him.


First he was going to buy "toxic" mortgage-based assets from banks.


A few days later, taking his lead from the Europeans, Paulson decided that some of the money should be used to buy stock in banks, both healthy and ailing. Let's put this plainly: The Treasury, on its own initiative, decided to partially nationalize the nine largest banks and many smaller ones. They would be given no choice in the matter on the logic that voluntary participation would stigmatize the participants. Direct big-business socialism had come to America.


Now Paulson says he doesn't want to buy the toxic assets from the banks.


Huh? What about the dire warnings that unless TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) was passed our very civilization was at risk? What about all those congressmen who were lambasted as know-nothings for voting against the first bailout bill?


Well, as Emily Litella used to say on "Saturday Night Live," "Never mind."


Paulson changed gears because the original plan wasn't getting banks to lend as intended. "Our assessment at this time is that this is not the most effective way to use TARP funds," Paulson said.


So last week he decided to target consumers. The consumer-credit market "is currently in distress. ... [N]ew issue activity has come to a halt," Paulson said. (Then why am I still getting credit-card offers in the mail?)


Then on Monday he scrapped that idea, too, and said he probably wouldn't do anything with the money. He'll leave the problem to the next administration.


Adding to the uncertainty is that some members of Congress want Paulson to lavish even more of your money on the Big Three auto companies beyond the $25 billion already promised. If President Bush vetoes that bailout, they say the Democrats will just do it after he leaves.


All this lurching from one plan to the next impedes recovery.


Why would a bank revalue its dubious assets to 50 cents on the dollar when Paulson might have paid 90 cents? Why would a firm renegotiate with its creditors if the Treasury might offer a better deal?


"Changing the rules in the middle of the game [has] thrown the market into a tizzy," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.


Even some congressmen are asking good questions. "Where does this stop? We started with financial services, we went from banks to insurance companies. Does it end with manufacturing? What about retail?" asked Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, ranking Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee.


The uncertainty, with all its recovery-squashing consequences, has an eerie precedent: the Great Depression. Today's problems are nowhere close to the 1930s, with its 25 percent unemployment and rapidly shrinking GDP. In one respect, however, there is a similarity: the way that Franklin Roosevelt's administration created what economic historian Robert Higgs calls "regime uncertainty." Higgs writes:


"[T]he economy remained in the Depression as late as 1940, because private investment had never recovered. ... [T]he insufficiency of private investment from 1935 through 1940 reflected a pervasive uncertainty among investors about the security of their property rights in their capital and its prospective returns. This uncertainty arose, especially, though not exclusively, from the character of federal government actions and the nature of the Roosevelt administration during the so-called Second New Deal from 1935 to 1940. ... [T]he willingness of businesspeople to invest requires a sufficiently healthy state of 'business confidence,' and the Second New Deal ravaged the requisite confidence. ... "


As usual, government's stumbling, bureaucratic "solutions" exacerbate problems that free people, allowed to pursue their own self-interest, would address on their own. We'd still suffer some tough times — it's painful when bubbles pop — but recovery comes sooner when businesses must quickly fix their own mistakes — or die. Archives

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JUST OUT FROM STOSSEL
Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel --- Why Everything You Know Is Wrong  

Stossel mines his 20/20 segments for often engaging challenges to conventional wisdom, presenting a series of "myths" and then deploying an investigative journalism shovel to unearth "truth." This results in snappy debunkings of alarmism, witch-hunts, satanic ritual abuse prosecutions and marketing hokum like the irradiated-foods panic, homeopathic medicine and the notion that bottled water beats tap. Stossel's libertarian convictions make him particularly fond of exposes of government waste and regulatory fiascoes. Sales help fund JWR.



JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.


© 2008, by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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