The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Old New Politics

5.13.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 3)

FOODSTUFFS
Re: Lene Johansen's Food Fracas:

Ms. Johansen's pro-bioengineering piece drew on some spurious assumptions to justify her call for bio-engineered food products.

While it is true that increased demand in emerging nations and the divergence of arable farm land to non-food production [bio-fuel and no-grow subsidies] has caused a slight rise in food prices, the main reason for worldwide inflation is a devaluation of the dollar.

Supply and demand economics totally disregards the effect of currency in an economy. In a barter economy, classic supply and demand adequately explains market trends. But, when you introduce currency to facilitate commerce, the model changes. And it changes even further as the number of variables [different currencies] increase.

During the last major worldwide depression [the Great Depression] world currencies became next to worthless, not because there was a large shortage of products, but because the rate of exchange for currencies became unstable. The U.S. dollar remained the most stable currency during this period [even though it was removed from the gold standard] but it too became almost worthless due to the fact that bad lending practices promised more money than was actually in circulation. This is the main reason for increased prices today.

The value of a nation's currency is no longer directly tied to stockpiles of precious metals [themselves a variable commodity] but to the strength and stability of a nation's economy. The Federal Reserve, in an effort to shore up lending institutions and the stock market, dumped billions of dollars into the market at a time when the U.S. economy was unstable. While this accomplished the short term goals of increasing the solvency of the lending institutions and stimulating stock prices, it devalued the dollar even further and will cause increased long term problems.

At this time, most of the world's products and currencies are valued against the U.S. dollar. As the purchasing power of the dollar declines, so does that of most other currencies. This drives up the cost of other products such as food and petroleum. The increased costs of these products drive up the cost of other products, while reducing the amount of income that would normally be spent on other, non-essential products. This leads to failure of businesses and an increase in unemployment which further decreases the amount of disposable income available to the economy. If this cycle continues long enough, then serious consequences usually occur; famine, increased crime, social unrest and even war.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any single solution to this problem. In fact, most government efforts seem to aggravate the situation. Like a bad cold, economic illnesses sometimes have to be allowed to run their course. It is not pleasant for the person affected, but there simply is not much else to do. Given time and a lack of government interference, things will stabilize.
-- Michael Tobias
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

GESCHICHTE
Re: Michael Skaggs' letter (under "Foreign Legion Treason") in Reader Mail's Miss Teen USA:

In his letter of 12 May, Mr. Michael Skaggs leaves out a few other instances of American citizens fighting under foreign flags without incurring any loss of U.S. citizenship. The most famous of these is the American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as the Flying Tigers, who were mainly officers in the U.S. armed forces who resigned their commissions to fight under the Chinese flag against Japan. They were also joined by several hundred ground crewmen who were drawn from the ranks of the armed forces and commercial airlines. This was done with the connivance of Franklin Roosevelt but against the wishes of the chiefs of the armed services, who did not want to lose trained aircrew with a war on the horizon. Though they did not actually see combat prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were commissioned or enlisted in the Chinese air force, and were paid by the Republic of China -- a very princely sum, too -- $250 per month for wingmen, $500 per month for squadron and flight leaders, plus a bonus of $500 per confirmed Japanese plane destroyed, all to be paid in gold into U.S. accounts. This was at a time when a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps made less than $50 per month, including flight pay.

For this reason, as well as several others, the AVG met the current definition of "mercenaries" under both the revised Geneva Convention and the United Nations convention on mercenaries. Back then, though, we just called them heroes.

A considerable number of American citizens also fought for Israel during its War of Independence, principally in the nascent Israeli air force. Among these were Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin, also known as one of the company test pilots on the Bell X-1; and Marine Corps Captain Chris Magee, an ace in World War II with VMF-214, the famous "Black Sheep," whose squadron commander, Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington scored six of his 28 victories while flying with the AVG in 1942. The most important American to serve in the Israeli forces in 1948 was Colonel David "Micky" Marcus, who help organize and professionalize the staff operations of the Israel Defense Force and served as the first "Aluf" (General) in a Jewish army since the era of Herod the Great.

Since then, hundreds, perhaps thousands of American citizens have served in the IDF, and fought in Israel's wars, particularly in 1967 and 1973, when the survival of the Jewish state was believed in jeopardy. To the best of my knowledge, none of these men (and women) have ever been stripped of their American citizenship as a result of their combat service in a foreign army.
-- Stuart Koehl
Falls Church, Virginia

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Barack Obama, Economics, Business, Religion, Law, Iran, Israel, United Nations, NATO