Category Archives: Commentary

The Financial Crisis–Part I

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There are those who advocate there weren’t enough regulations (read Barney Frank) to prevent the financial meltdown in 2008.   My contention is that the crisis began with numerous government regulations that encouraged home ownership for people who couldn’t afford homes. The regulators decided encouraging wasn’t a strong enough approach and began demanding that lenders make loans to people who couldn’t afford to repay them.  Greedy speculators noticed opportunities for profits by creating packages of  “subprime” (read “risky”) loans and selling them to other speculators.  The real estate bubble grew because of the artificial increase in demand. The collapse probably began when the first home couldn’t sell for the original purchase price.

The march to the crisis began when the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was signed by President Carter in 1977.  That Act was the beginning of numerous actions by the government to encourage, or force, home loan agencies to make loans to borrowers in low income neighborhoods.  The intent was to open up the American Dream of home ownership to people who couldn’t previously convince their bankers they could repay the loans.  The Act was reinforced during the Clinton era by imposing penalties on loan agencies that didn’t meet requirements for loans in inner cities.  The CATO Institute warned in 1993 that the changes would be costly to the economy, and the warning was studiously ignored.

The push to make home ownership available to everyone continued into 2000.  The Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were directed to devote a significant percentage of their lending to support “affordable housing.” Fannie Mae announced in 2001 it had a goal to finance $500 billion in CRA loans by 2010.  The Federal Reserve joined the party by lowering interest rates, which encouraged new borrowers to initiate loans and others to refinance their loans and use the proceeds to buy new luxury items.

There have been charges that racism is involved in deciding who is given home loans.  A Princeton study confirms the validity of that charge.  African-Americans were more likely to be offered subprime loans compared to whites who had similar financial backgrounds.

Records of Past Climate Change

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The Supreme Court in 2007 declared that carbon dioxide and other “heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that endanger public health and welfare.” That ruling set the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in motion to establish regulations to control the gases. A New York Times article quoted the EPA as saying the science supporting the endangerment finding “compelling and overwhelming.” They proposed a law under the Clean Air Act to regulate “heat-trapping gases” (which includes methane, nitrous oxide, and hydroflurocarbons in addition to carbon dioxide). It is odd that the EPA has a paper that presents a solid argument that much of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the result of natural conditions separate from the activities of man. The paper first observes that the climate of the earth has changed throughout history preceding and following the arrival of man. Various scientific studies show that temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have been higher than present levels for about two-thirds of the last 400 million years. The causes of climate change are listed as:

  • Changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt affect the amount of sunlight received on the surface of the planet
  • Changes in the intensity of the sun is an obvious cause of changes in temperature, and the NASA believes reduced solar activity was the cause of the “Little Ice Age” from the 1400s to 1700s
  • Volcanic aerosols block sunlight; the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia in 1815 lowered global temperatures by as much as five degrees Fahrenheit and caused 1816 to be “the year without a summer in New England 1816
  • Volcanic eruptions release carbon dioxide

I find the most interesting part of the paper to be a discussion under the bullet titled “Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.” “The heating or cooling of the Earth’s surface can cause changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. For example, when global temperatures become warmer, carbon dioxide is released from the oceans. When changes in the Earth’s orbit trigger a warm (or interglacial) period, increasing concentrations may amplify the warming by enhancing the greenhouse effect. When temperatures become cooler, CO2 enters the ocean and contributes to additional cooling. During at least the last 650,000 years…during warm interglacial periods CO2 levels have been high and during cool glacial periods, CO2 levels have been low.” (Emphasis added) It is thus quite clear that those who blame changes in temperature on changes in carbon dioxide concentrations have ignored that the reverse is true.

I often read that Arctic sea ice coverage is continuing to shrink. I frequently look at the National Snow and Ice Data Center graphs of Arctic sea ice extent, and it is true that current coverage is less than the 1979-2000 average. However, the 2011 data is virtually tracking the 2007 levels (The amounts in April 2011 were higher than April 2007, but June 2011 levels are slightly lower than June 2007). How is it possible for no ice loss since 2007 translate to “continuing to shrink?” Current news reports are once again talking about severe and hot weather are being caused by global warming. The EPA paper describing the causes of past climate change would say that man has little influence on what may or may not happen.

Church Ranch and Rocky Flats Part I

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I recently met with Charles (Charlie) Church McKay to discuss his family’s history and  relationship with Rocky Flats. He was quite candid in discussing some of the past conflicts between his family and the Rocky Flats bureaucrats. He told me that Len Ackand’s book, “Making a Real Killing” is an excellent source of information, and he traded me a copy of that for a copy of my book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked” (free on this web site or at Amazon as either a paperback or Kindle).  He also gave me a compendium titled, “Snapshots of History, Church Ranch and the Church Ranch Family.” That compendium and the summary history of his family on the Church Ranch web site on the heritage link were the sources for this posting. I intend to focus on the family history in this posting, and will detail some of the conflicts with Rocky Flats in Part II.

George Henry Church and Sarah Henderson Miller were married in 1861 in Iowa and departed for Colorado in what they called their honeymoon in a wagon pulled by an ox team. They began this venture despite the fact that most people who had attempted to make the trip with signs such as “Pikes Peak or Bust” had eventually turned around after making a new sign that said something such as “Busted.” Some Indians offered to buy Sarah for nine ponies and $100, and Sarah told George, “You will never have a better offer and better close the sale.” (To give an idea of what $100 was worth in those days, there is mention of buying half a bushel of potatoes and five dozen eggs for fifteen cents.)  A man arrived who told them the Indians weren’t joking, and the discussions ended. The Churches made it to Denver in nine weeks, and Sarah estimated the population at 3,000 to 4,000. They travelled on into the mountains to buy several mining claims. The mining didn’t work out, so they returned to Iowa, bought 50 head of cattle, and made the return trip to homestead. They eventually homesteaded in Jefferson County three and a half miles from the nearest neighbor, and eventually owned land where Rocky Flats was built after the Atomic Energy Commission offered the Church family a low price “under the threat of condemnation.”

The first mention of “Rocky Flat” or “Rocky Flats” I located was in an article titled “Snow Storm of 1913 at Church’s Ranch” by Marcus Church. The storm must have been one of those epic upslope storms where all the moisture is the air is dropped as snow on the Front Range. There was 3 1/2 to 4 feet of snow at the Church ranch, and up to 7 feet in Golden. Snow and wind continued off and on until a “Chinook” warm wind finally began melting some of the drifts on January 3rd. The ranchers battled to keep the horses and cattle dug out of the drifts, watered, and fed.

The Churches were ardent entrepreneurs, and had several firsts in the settlement and development of Colorado. George was the first farmer in to successfully harvest a crop of winter wheat, although he recognized early that farming would be much more successful with irrigation. He constructed a ditch from the mouth of Coal Creek Canyon and built the first irrigation reservoir, Church’s Upper Lake,  in 1870-1871 and Church’s Lower Lake a bit later. A contract was made with Golden and Ralston Creek Ditch Company to acquire rights of way and extend the ditch to cover the Church lands. The ditch takes water from Clear Creek and continues to operate today. Water rights were of premium importance when the system was being built and began to operate. An article in the compendium titled “George Henry Church” describes how his decision to build the first irrigation ditches and lakes “…brought enmity of neighbors on Coal Creek, from which he drew the water supply. So high ran the felling that it resulted in threats on his life and it seemed at times that serious trouble would ensue.”

The innovation and ventures didn’t end there. The Churches were the first to bring Hereford cattle to Colorado, built and operated a stage coach stop, and mined gravel. (The gravel business would eventually create significant conflict with Rocky Flats, but that will be covered in Part II.) As is the case for most families, there were also tragedies and failures. Perry Church, younger brother of Marcus, died at the age of 29. The Great Depression hit the family hard, and they were forced to sell 3,000 acres of Front Range properties, including much of the irrigated land. They were able to hold on to about 4,000 acres, which included part of what would become the site of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. The Churches were hard working and independent people, and they were forced to begin dealing with a bureaucracy that strives to make certain all the rules imposed by the bureaucracy are followed. As a self-described “part time libertarian,” it isn’t difficult to judge which side I would take.

Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge

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There was a recent article in the Denver Post announcing the opening of a new visitor center at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I have mixed feelings about that announcement. I’m pleased that the Arsenal was able to open that facility, but I would be more pleased if I would hear there is staff and money to develop a similar facility at the Rocky Flats site. There is some irony that the Rocky Mountain Arsenal refuge has opened, because Rocky Flats workers often had to listen to stories about the Arsenal when they told someone they worked at Rocky Flats. I recently told a man I had retired from Rocky Flats, and he told me about armed guards showing up when he was a child playing in a field near the Arsenal. For those who are confused, Rocky Flats was west of Denver and made components for nuclear weapons for the Department of Energy and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was 10 miles east of downtown Denver and was a chemical weapons plant managed by U.S. Army.

There undoubtedly will be similarities between the Rocky Mountain Arsenal refuge and what hopefully becomes available at the Rocky Flats site. I don’t know whether the Aresenal was pressured to put up signs warning that the area had been used for manufacture and storage of various chemical warfare agents, but there was and is controversy about the planned refuge for Rocky Flats. The first link on a July 2007 press release from the Fish and Wildlife Service is “Rocky Flats Signage,” which explains in detail that public use was a controversial issue in preparation of plans for the refuge. The document explains, “…due to the site’s former use as a nuclear weapons production facility and the contamination that resulted from that use, many members of the public expressed concern regarding the cleanup of the site and the safety of future visitors. Based on the best currently available scientific data and unequivocal determinations by the EPA and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), that the extensive cleanup program resulted in a landscape that is safe for refuge workers and visitors, (the plan) provides for future public use of the site…”

The health risk of “low levels” of plutonium is what creates the controversy. The term “low levels” is in quotes because I’ve been taken to task for using the term with the admonition that all levels create health risks. As I explain in Chapter 25 of my book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” (available free on this site and at Amazon as a paperback or as a Kindle version)  the entire earth is contaminated with plutonium and every person has many billions to trillions of plutonium atoms in their bodies resulting from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. There are posts in the archives of this site dated January 18 and 25 that discuss the controversy. People worked in the industrial area of Rocky Flats for years, decades in many cases, and generally their health is as good as people who never worked there. (Some would argue with me about that statement, but I’m going to let them make their own arguments.) My belief is that a visit to areas outside the closed former industrial area won’t create a health risk to my family if I’m ever able to invite them to go there with me. I hope to recreate there early and often. Those who disagree can elect to not visit.

 

Persecution of Mideast Religious Minorities

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I closed the blog posted on May 11th about the Mideast unrest with a comment that those who support a dictator will suffer when the dictator loses. That may be true, but recent news events show that others are taking advantage of the turmoil to attack people practicing a religion they won’t tolerate. I can’t begin to catalog all of the different ethnic and religious factions that have suffered for centuries because of religious intolerance by others, but the Coptic Christians in Egypt are facing organized attacks from Salafi, ultraconservative Muslims, and Muslim Brotherhood extremists since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. One recent incident involved 12 Coptics killed, over 200 wounded, and a church set on fire. Crowds of Muslims were marching and shouting Islamic chants and Osama bin Laden’s name. There is concern that the attacks are intensifying, that moderate Muslims may be increasingly involved, and there are warnings that the overall situation may degrade into a civil war.

Christianity was the dominant religion in Egypt in the fourth to sixth centuries. The language was Coptic, which was based on the Greek alphabet with an additional six to seven characters. The Muslims conquered Egypt in 639 AD, but the population remained mostly Christian. There were gradual conversions to Islam over the next several centuries until Egypt became a mostly Muslin country by the end of the 12th century. It is estimated that 5-10 percent of Egyptians are currently Christians, and the extremists seem to be unwilling to rest until that percentage reaches zero.

It is difficult to sort through and gain much of an understanding about what is happening in the Mideast, or where things are going from here. The Muslim Brotherhood was illegal but tolerated under Mubarak in Egypt, but is now legal and is gaining support. The protests and government crackdown in Bahrain has inflamed tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. The Wall Street Journal reported that the kingdom has blamed Iran for much of the unrest and invited troops from Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.  The Libyan civil war remains in the news, although it certainly doesn’t seem certain what will happen in that country should Moammar Gadhafi be ousted. Yemen has a well-organized branch of al Qaeda. President Saleh has supported counter-terrorism forces, and the Obama administration has supported negotiations guided by Saudi Arabia. The protest movements in Syria and Iran seem to have been quieted by violent suppression and mass arrests.  It remains difficult for me to cheer on the protestors, although Tunisia does have a chance to become a democracy. The transitional government is preparing for elections in July to install and assembly to draft a constitution and election laws. I remain skeptical that either democratic governments or freedom of religion will be the outcome in other countries. Let’s hope I write a posting someday celebrating that I was wrong.

What Happens When a Dictatorship Ends?

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The events in the Mideast and the television images of thousands of people demonstrating and demanding changes are bringing back memories of my teenage years and watching the evening news as Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba. Batista was a corrupt and oppressive dictator, and Castro was considered to be a liberator. There were celebrations in the streets of Havana when Batista fled, and I recall that the American news media declared it to be a victory for freedom. It wasn’t long before “Che” Guevara (the darling of young people who wear T shirts proclaiming their admiration) was holding televised show trials in an outdoor sports stadium and ordering the execution of hundreds of former government officials and sympathizers.

Another example was when the Shah of Iran was forced from power by the Ayatollah Khomeini after President Carter appealed to the Shah not to destroy the plane carrying the Ayatollah and his supporters. Carter assured the Shah that the United States would not stand by and let him fall, but the opposite happened. The new leadership began arresting, imprisoning, torturing, and executing people who had supported the Shah, repeating the actions by the Shah’s secret police. Carter gave the Shah asylum in the United States to seek medical treatment, the Iranians took over the U.S. embassy, held the people from the embassy hostage, watched Carter lose reelection, and have become a threat to the region and the world.

I should also mention an example where the end of a dictatorship resulted in a more democratic government, and the remarkable example of what happened in Spain when Francisco Franco died is the first (and maybe only example) to come to mind. Franco’s Fascists won the Spanish Civil War against the Stalinist Communists and an agglomeration of allies, perhaps because the Stalinists spent as much time fighting their allies as Franco’s forces. The war and the aftermath was brutal and bloody, and Franco was an oppressive ruler.  He designated Prince Juan Carlos to become monarch after his death, and Carlos began a transition to a parliamentary monarchy within a couple of days of Franco’s death. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia preside over a democratic government that has the support of most Spaniards. Of course the country is currently in financial crises, but that seems to be a common problem.

That brings us back to the Mideast. The Egyptian dictator Hosoni Mubarak has been forced out and President Obama has hailed that outcome, which brings to mind a similar reaction from John F. Kennedy when Castro expelled Batista.  The unrest in Egypt had begun when the price of food and fuel inflated, and poor Egyptians could barely afford to survive before that inflation.  The protests ended the needed income from tourism (perhaps temporarily).  Prices of food and fuel haven’t been reduced, and the economy was disrupted by the protests. The military is now in control, as it has always been. I wish the best for the Egyptian people and others who are risking their lives to protest in favor of freedom. However, if the brief history of other examples of the end of dictatorships here is an indication, there is a one chance in three that the outcome will be favorable. The lesson most obvious from history is that those who support a dictator will suffer if the dictator loses.