Here's an update to the story that Larry Summers turned down Bibi Netanyahu's offer to be the Israeli equivalent of the Chairman of the Fed. From YNetNews back on June 18th:
Netanyahu has also approached Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Shalom Bernanke, 60, who will be ending his term soon after eight years in office. Bernanke, a Jew, has an Israeli connection as well: Stanley Fischer [Israel's retiring American citizen central banker] was his thesis advisor at MIT.
This would be different from the Israeli government's approach to Summers, who is currently a private citizen (although always on short lists for important jobs). Bernanke was (and is) one of the three or four most powerful figures in the United States government. Bernanke has huge power both as a central banker and a financial regulator. Is it too much to ask foreign governments to have the good grace to wait until the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is out of power before approaching him with lucrative offers?
Of course, none of this is fully confirmed, but it's interesting that nobody in America was terribly interested in the propriety of all this back then. In Israel, however, the public has a more nationalistic view. The Wall Street Journal [link fixed] has now taken up the Summers-Bernanke story:
Of course, none of this is fully confirmed, but it's interesting that nobody in America was terribly interested in the propriety of all this back then. In Israel, however, the public has a more nationalistic view. The Wall Street Journal [link fixed] has now taken up the Summers-Bernanke story:
The approach has stoked domestic ire against Mr. Netanyahu for allegedly overlooking qualified Israeli candidates.
How about Bernie Madoff?
ReplyDeleteHe's offering them escape and refuge.
ReplyDeleteWhy won't they take Barbara Boxer?
ReplyDeleteAmong other things, wouldn't that be a violation of the Tenth Commandment? "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant..."
ReplyDeleteOr is there a Shabbat-elevator-style technical workaround for this?
We need a rabbi.
Israel is the Fifty First State of USA.
ReplyDeleteThe Bank of Israel is a policy position in a foreign government. If a US citizen takes such a position, a State Department review of the status of that person's citizenship status would be in order. However, a review does not necessarily mean loss of US citizenship.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this means all hell is going to break lose.Time for Ben to catch one last helicopter to safety?
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteIn an earlier post on this, you posed the question, "...isn't it kind of, uh, inappropriate for U.S. citizens to assume massively important jobs in foreign governments?"
Apparently a new citizen can have his citizenship revoked for just this (http://www.newcitizen.us/losing.html):
"2. Holding A Policy Level Position In A Foreign Country
If you become an elected official or hold a policy-level position (like an ambassador, cabinet minister, or any high level administrative position where you make government policy) in your native country or a foreign country, you run the risk of losing your US citizenship. On the other hand, if you hold a non-policy level job like working in your native country’s embassy or working for your native country’s government in an advisory or purely administrative capacity, you run little risk of jeopardizing your US citizenship. For further information, see the State Department’s circular: ADVICE ABOUT POSSIBLE LOSS OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND SEEKING PUBLIC OFFICE IN A FOREIGN STATE."
I would assume that our laws would place the same restriction on US born citizens as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_B._MacDonald
ReplyDeleteMacDonald has particularly been accused by other academics of academic fraud, saying that he has promoted anti-Semitic propaganda under the guise of what he says is a legitimate and academic search for truth.[26] He has also been accused of misrepresenting the sources he uses in that regard. Fenris State University professor Dr. Barry Mehler cited for example a quote from a 1969 dissertation by Sheldon Morris Neuringer titled American Jewry and United States immigration policy, 1881-1953 where MacDonald surmised that when Neuringer noted Jewish opposition in 1921 and 1924 to the anti-immigration legislation at the time was due more to it having the “taint of discrimination and anti-Semitism” as opposed to how it would limit Jewish immigration, MacDonald wrote, “…Jewish opposition to the 1921 and 1924 legislation was motivated less by a desire for higher levels of Jewish immigration than by opposition to the implicit theory that America should be dominated by individuals with northern and western European ancestry.” “It seems to me Mr. MacDonald is misrepresenting Mr. Neuringer in this case and I posted my query hoping that a historian familiar with the literature might have a judgment on MacDonald's use of the historical data,” Mehler wrote, citing other examples.[27]
Reviewing MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents in 2000, Zev Garber writes that MacDonald works from the assumption that the dual Torah is the blueprint of the eventual Jewish dominion over the world, and that he sees contemporary antisemitism, the Holocaust, and attacks against Israel as "provoked by Jews themselves." Garber concludes that MacDonald's "rambling who-is-who-isn't roundup of Jews responsible for the 'Jewish Problem' borders on the irrational and is conducive to misrepresentation."[28]
In 2001, David Lieberman, a Holocaust researcher at Brandeis University, wrote a paper entitled Scholarship as an Exercise in Rhetorical Strategy: A Case Study of Kevin MacDonald's Research Techniques, where he noted how one of MacDonald’s sources, author Jaff Schatz, objected to how MacDonald used his writings to further his premise that Jewish self-identity validates anti-Semitic sentiments and actions. “At issue, however, is not the quality of Schatz's research, but MacDonald's use of it, a discussion that relies less on topical expertise than on a willingness to conduct close comparative readings," Lieberman wrote.[29]
Lieberman has also written that MacDonald even dishonestly made up lines from the work of British Holocaust denier David Irving. Citing Irving's Uprising which was published in 1981 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hungary's failed anti-Communist revolution in 1956, MacDonald asserted in the Culture of Critique, "The domination of the Hungarian communist Jewish bureaucracy thus appears to have had overtones of sexual and reproductive domination of gentiles in which Jewish males were able to have disproportionate sexual access to gentile females." Lieberman, who also noted that MacDonald is not a historian, debunked those assertions, concluding, "(T)he passage offers not a shred of evidence that, as MacDonald would have it, "Jewish males enjoyed disproportionate sexual access to gentile females."[30]
Steve Sailer comments on the issue of offering jobs in Israel to American professors like Bernanke, Summers and others. He suspects a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. He is wrong: it is a stated objective of the Jewish State and Zionism to bring all Jews to Israel, starting if possible by the leaders. Why should we in Israel lose our best brains to America and not the reverse? A quarter of Computer Sciences professors in America and yordim - Israelis. In fact here are more Israeli scientists in America than here. We want them back badly and we want all the American Jews too. Has Mr Sailer any objections?
ReplyDeleteBernanke? Does he own stock in Israel's housing developers?
ReplyDeleteJ wrote:
ReplyDeleteA quarter of Computer Sciences professors in America and yordim - Israelis. In fact here are more Israeli scientists in America than here. We want them back badly and we want all the American Jews too.
Can Israeli academic institutions offer academic jobs to every computer science Ph.D. graduate they produce? As for American Jews, most of us don't want to live in Israel. It wouldn't change my mind if Bernanke or Summers moved there. Maybe some of the Israeli expats feel the same way and just prefer living in the U.S. or Europe. For secular Jews who don't like kowtowing to the ultra-Orthodox in matters of family law and burial, Israel isn't completely palatable.
FYI, looks like that second link also goes to the same YNetNews article - not to WSJ.
ReplyDeleteRegarding losing your citizenship, the relevant statute (8 USC 1481) states:
ReplyDeleteA person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality:
....
4(B) accepting, serving in, or performing the duties of any office, post, or employment under the government of a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after attaining the age of eighteen years for which office, post, or employment an oath, affirmation, or declaration of allegiance is required; ...
So there are (at least) two elements here:
1. You have to INTEND to give up your US citizenship.
and
2. The office has to require an oath of allegiance to the foreign government.
I'm pretty sure that neither of these would be true in this case (even if Israel had such an oath requirement they would waive it if they wanted someone badly enough).
As far as having the "good grace" to wait, it's well known Bernanke's term is expiring and someone like him is in high demand. Chances are if they had waited until he was out of office, he would have already been recruited by someone else. Who gets to determine these unwritten rules of "good grace" anyway? I've read Amy Vanderbilt and she doesn't mention any rules of etiquette concerning such offers.
K
O/T
ReplyDeleteHere (http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/90244/eastbound-downs-spectacular-final-season) Grantland gives grudging approval to Eastbound and Down for iStevey, who/whom reasons.
Not sure if you've seen it Steve, but I think you'd appreciate it, especially season 2.
"Israel is the Fifty First State of USA."
ReplyDeleteExcept the 15th Amendement does not apply there.
the public has a more nationalistic view
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit surprising since every Jew supposedly has the right to live in Israel, and presumably to Israeli citizenship. All that could be seen as just a formality. In addition, I believe Israel allows dual citizenship. So where's the problem? Just make Bernanke -- or whomever -- a citizen of Israel.
Shaloom said: Israel is the Fifty First State of USA.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon said: No, then they'd only have two senators.
Of course this begs the question - who were these guys working for in the first place. Are these appointments payback for services rendered to the Jewish people? What group of people has benefited the most from our debt bobbles?
ReplyDeleteSummers put a stake in the heart of the Glass-Steagall Act that gave us the housing debt bubble. And Bernanke is creating the greatest money debt bobble known to mankind. (Greenspan must be jealous.)
Clearly Netanyahu views himself as the leader of all the Jews in the world. Without question he views these men as members of the greater Jewish state. Why else would he attempt to make these appointments?
p.s. Of course this is not reported news in the MSM - what an embarrassment for US Jews. They will NOT report on themselves.
Foreign Expert said...
ReplyDeleteWhy won't they take Barbara Boxer?
________________________
:) Thanks for my serious case of the chuckles.
Gawd, I wish someone would take her out of my state, for good. She and Maxine Waters are the Dumb Duo.
Not that anyone cares about the Constitution, but Article 1, Section 9 says: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
ReplyDeleteThe Founders wanted office holders who were loyal to the U.S. In today's world, however, among the ruling class, being loyal to the U.S. is the mark of a benighted yahoo.
FWIW, the FT has a story on the backdrop of the search for the new head of the Bank of Israel. Short version, Netanyahu wants someone to rein in the QE before inflation destroys his coalition. He was looking everywhere for an inflation hawk or anything like that, hence the offer to Summers and others.
ReplyDeleteI'll add that most nations now treat citizenship as a joke. Because it is. Globalization means elites and the dirt poor transit the world looking for work, money, and opportunity. Among the dirt poor, they become welfare refugees on the dole supported by the White middle class. For the elites, they are without loyalty or ties to any one country and live wherever there is a job opening that is good for their career or money making opportunity.
As a practical matter, citizenship in all but a few nations: Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, is about as worthless as membership in "Raider Nation" and the like. It means the taxing authorities can grab your money, but you get nothing in return, no loyalty, no protection, no favor over non-citizens.
Heck the FT today had the demands of the SPD for membership in Merkel's coalition: instant citizenship for all refugees (who will vote SPD and massive wealth transfers) and no limits on dual citizenship (immigrants now have to choose: German or something else, not both).
Being a citizen is a sucker's move. Outside a few countries. Heck most countries are just places on the map -- no real borders, no favoring of citizens, and other stuff. That's done, permanent, unchangeable.
And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
ReplyDeleteSo you can't hold a Federal office and a foreign office at the same time. It says nothing about holding them sequentially.
The US was assisted in its early days by numerous foreign officers - French, German, Polish, etc. and no one say anything wrong about it.
K
Just more machinations of the NOT(Cathedral)= #Neo-Synagogue.
ReplyDeleteIt can’t be easy finding someone who would make a good banker in Israel. Are they hard up for good medical researches too?
ReplyDeleteCentral bank managing, and banking and managing in general, are technical jobs and not elected political positions. Headhunting for executive jobs does not take into account the nationality of the candidates. Each corporation wants the best. Israel wants and experienced and good money manager available and Americans are among the best. But we are not fixed on Americans, among the candidates shortlisted was Mario Blejer, Argentine's former Minister of Economy. In the end it was decided to promote from inside.
ReplyDelete> Why else would he attempt to make these appointments
ReplyDeleteBecause American Jews are easier for him to manipulate, than are native speakers of Hebrew
Netanyahu is not an elected official with a fixed term; Israeli Prime Minsters can be dumped at any time by a majority vote in Knesset. PM's are quite conscious of the need to keep the electorate happy in the economy department.
Central bank managing, and banking and managing in general, are technical jobs and not elected political positions. Headhunting for executive jobs does not take into account the nationality of the candidates. Each corporation wants the best. Israel wants and experienced and good money manager available and Americans are among the best. But we are not fixed on Americans, among the candidates shortlisted was Mario Blejer, Argentine's former Minister of Economy. In the end it was decided to promote from inside.
ReplyDeleteYour story might have some plausibility if these guys were competent, but there's no evidence that they are. Summers, Greenspan, Rubin, et al have been in command of top positions while the economy has been going down the drain for decades. Despite their incompetence, they've been consistently promoted into higher positions. Mario Blejer, I'm sure you're aware, is Jewish. Argentina has a reputation for economic and financial incompetence and mismanagement.
Bernanke isn't a member of the government. The Fed is private. And even where Alan Greenspan once lied and implied it was a part of the government, he was honest enough when he said it stood apart and above all other agencies of the government.
ReplyDelete"Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter.
"Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter.
the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter." ~ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec07/greenspan_09-18.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-federal-reserve
A white who says all the Jews of the world are part of a global nation is an "ANTI-SEMITE!!!"
ReplyDeleteA Jew who says it is a Zionist.
It's a great relief to read that the vaunted combined brain power of world Jewry has now debunked two whole sentences in Kevin MacDonald's work. 2 sentences in 14 years is impressive. At this rate, they should have the whole thing wrapped up in a few million years.
ReplyDeleteAs a practical matter, citizenship in all but a few nations: Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, is about as worthless as membership in "Raider Nation" and the like. It means the taxing authorities can grab your money, but you get nothing in return, no loyalty, no protection, no favor over non-citizens.
ReplyDeleteBut not Israel, right?
It really is a compulsion with you, isn't it? You just can't help yourself. There's no way to cajole, bribe, or force you to be honest.
OCD Hasbara.
>> As for American Jews, most of us don't want to live in Israel
ReplyDeleteYou are not worshipped here. Your actual record of Zionist accomplishment is..... below-average.
Your skill levels are low. Too many "Middle East Studies" graduates; not a bunch of engineers like the Russkies. You cannot show me a moshavnik, or a welding-contractor on the new offshore gas rigs, that would prefer an AngloJew worker above a Thailander.
Texas-based Noble Energy (our gas-field partners) doesn't even bother recruiting at places like NYU or Brandeis. Why? Because the human material coming out of there is poor quality.
>> Bernanke isn't a member of the government. The Fed is private
ReplyDeleteThe bank is privately owned. But the Board of Governors is a federal agency.