Water Wars

Water is becoming a key security issue in the Middle East and a potential source of bitter discord. Israel and its Arab neighbors already are water-stressed economies.

After a five-year drought, the region is headed toward a water calamity that could overwhelm all peace efforts. The Jordan River now has large sections reduced to a trickle. The Sea of Galilee is at its lowest point ever. The surface area of the Dead Sea has shrunk by a third. Iraq’s ancient marshes are now marked by large swaths of stalks and caked mud. In northern Syria, more than 160 villages in two years from 2007 to 2009 have run dry of water and been deserted by residents. In Gaza, 150,000 Palestinians have no access to tap water. In Israel, the pumps at the Sea of Galilee, its largest reservoir, are exposed above the water level, rendering pumping impossible.

The same holds true for many pumping stations across America’s lakes and rivers. Not only are they running low, but what water and fish remains is polluted with high levels of mercury. The U.S. Geological Survey’s test of fish pulled from 291 streams from 1998 to 2005 found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury. The study found 27 percent of the fish had mercury levels above the level Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for human consumption. Previous research has found levels of concern in ocean and lake fish. Mercury is a neurotoxin especially dangerous to development in infants and fetuses.

I swam in the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and the River Jordan on several occasions since the early ’60s and enjoyed their refreshing history-soaked waters ─ and did so again this week. Watching the waters at the cradle of Western Civilization and the Tibetan plateau that feeds the cradle of Eastern Civilization gradually disappear before our very eyes as we blindly and idly stand by as the world drowns itself in more wars and sorrow is not only unbelievable ─ but a self-inflicted human calamity. The potential regional and global devastation a water shortage in these seas and rivers can cause is nothing short of Armageddon.

Pigs Get Fat and Hogs Get Slaughtered

The Senate hearings into Goldman Sachs financial shenanigans highlight how greedy bankers can get slaughtered if there is political will.

America’s bankers ─ the chefs who cooked the global financial meltdown, a dog’s breakfast of thousands of failed companies, millions unemployed and retirees penniless without health care in their wake ─ rewarded themselves with multi-million dollar caviar and champagne-laden golden parachutes and bonuses while taxpayers and their children and grandchildren pick up the tab. They obviously forgot what happened to Marie Antoinette, who had her head guillotined like a sausage because she said of the starving masses who didn’t have bread, “Let them eat cake.”

China is clipping the wings of its high-flying earners in financial institutions to prevent a widening income gap that can trigger social unrest. A concept the Obama administration toyed with and then dropped and appointed a salary czar to address. The Ministry of Finance issued a circular in April 2009 asking state-owned banks, insurers and securities firms to cut pre-tax income by at least 10 percent for top executives from 2007 salaries if the companies were more profitable in 2008 and by 20 percent if company profits declined. The ministry also announced a salary cap for financial services executives.

“The salary reduction is aimed to maintain social equality, protect rights and interests of the nation and shareholders and improve corporate governance,” the ministry said. Why isn’t America doing the same? Governments do need to rebalance the relationship between the state and the markets to create a fairer, more equal distribution of rewards. China did the right thing.

All American bankers have to do is apologize for their mistakes, get their bonuses and go back to business as usual.

“We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,” said Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, issuing an apology for its role in the financial crisis amid public anger over its record bonuses in 2009.

Wall Street’s utter disconnect from the rest of the world was laid bare for all to see when Blankfein was quoted as saying he’s doing “God’s work” at a Chinese business conference in New York. He went on to say that “everybody should be happy” that he and his peers are on track to take home billions in bonuses. People are happy, but not about the bonuses. They are happy to see Goldman Sachs charged with fraud and its greedy executives grilled.