Whitcomb: Toxic Status Seeking; Finally Into the Grid! Who Runs Universities?

Sunday, January 07, 2024

Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

 

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Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

“I’ll say she was one of God’s small sculptures,

polished to  a glaze, one the wind blew off a shelf.’’

-- From “My Mother’s Funeral,’’ by Ira Sadoff (born 1945), American poet and a professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine

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Here’s the whole poem:

 

 

“January, month of empty pockets!... The tourist is ruined by his equipment before even reaching the mountain-slope; what use will they be, those deep, buttoned, leather-lined pockets? Let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead. With a diver's courage more than one woman this month plunges into some neglected chest, into wardrobes given over to darkness and camphor. The purse may be empty but one must nevertheless keep up with the spring fashions....’’

-- Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873–1954), usually just called Colette, French author

 

 

“Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.”

― Robert Benchley (1889-1945), American humor writer and comic movie actor

 

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Even in January there are days that remind you that spring is coming, and the light is different every day. Each season in  New England has reminders of other seasons.

 

 

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PHOTO: File

An American Tragedy

Police said that wanted-to-look-rich  businessman Rakesh Kamal shot to death his wife, Teena, and daughter, Arianna, and then killed himself at their 27-room mansion in Dover, Mass., the state’s richest town, on Dec. 26. (This being America, he apparently had no problem obtaining an unregistered gun.)

 

The couple, both of whom were entrepreneurs in education-sector ventures, some of which went sour, were in deep financial trouble, especially after paying about $4 million for the estate, with a $3.8 million mortgage (!) in 2019, reported The Boston Globe. (Different media have somewhat different numbers for some of the Kamals’ finances; The  Globe has done the most reporting on this so far.)_

 

As The Globe reported, the mortgage was supposed to have been repaid in full by February, 2021, but by then the Kamals still owed $3.6 million and hundreds of thousands of dollars in related real-estate costs. The Kamals, bailing hard, took out a second mortgage of about $1.5 million in 2022,  but an outfit called Wilsondale Associates foreclosed on the property in December, 2022, with the couple still owing $3 million. They were bankrupt, but they continued to live in the mansion, under some mysterious arrangement.

 

So the family was apparently under great stress – stress they put themselves into. (I also noted that Arianna, the daughter, was sent to the expensive and elite Milton Academy although the Dover-Sherborn School District is ranked among the best in the nation.)

 

Anxiously trying to keep up with the Joneses – or the Bezoses – can all too often lead to disaster in our status-obsessed nation. Chasing the American dream can end in a nightmare. Paging Jay Gatsby and gold-gilded Donald Trump.

 

Of course, most people want to live well, and the “finer things in life” are nice to have. But a craving for luxury and social status can become imprisoning, too. If you want to live a manorial lifestyle, don’t trap yourself by trying to do it on a mountain of borrowed money.

 

It’s worth reading John  Bogle’s  (1929-2019) book Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life. Mr. Bogle pioneered low-cost investing via the index funds of Vanguard Group,  which he founded. While he died a rich man (with about an $80 million estate), he could have made tens of billions. Instead, he basically gave away his Vanguard Funds to its investors, and much money to various charities.

 

He lived in a modest four-bedroom house in a Philadelphia suburb, and often commented on the corrosive effects of status-seeking and greed, and warned that many in the financial services sector took more wealth from the American economy than they created.

 

 

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In a major advance, electricity from Vineyard Wind, the ultimately  62-turbine facility south of Martha’s Vineyard, is starting to go into the New England grid -- locally created power that by the end of this year will power 400,000 homes and businesses! I realize that the major pitch for such projects is confronting the global warming caused by burning fossil fuel, but giving New England more independence from foreign and domestic gas and oil producers is also very attractive. (Many of the foreign producers work under dictatorships that are U.S. enemies.)

 

(Meanwhile, the ultimately 12-turbine South Fork Wind, south of Rhode Island, has begun sending electricity to the grid on the East End of Long Island.)

 

Perhaps this new electricity will dilute some of the opposition.

 

 

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Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, PHOTO: Harvard

Poison Ivy Again

Harvard President Claudine Gay had to resign after her history of plagiarism was uncovered following her inept responses in a congressional kangaroo court show trial about anti-Semitism on some elite campuses. The knives of right-wingers and big donors, especially from Wall Street, were out.

 

The somewhat vague thing called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’’ particularly irritates some big donors, the overwhelming majority of whom are white men. But then, identity politics in its various guises can be tedious and sometimes ridiculous.

 

I’ve noticed, by the way, that since I was in university, in the late ‘60s, a far higher percentage of new college buildings are now named after donors, especially Wall Street moguls, than in those less financial/egomaniacal times when people distinguished for public service – e.g., high government officials such as governors, cabinet officials or diplomats – got more stuff named after them than now. Everything is now a “naming opportunity’’ for those with enough millions.

 

The whole Gay crisis has been an unsettling reminder of the power of money to influence and even direct the governance of elite schools. That power is also impressive at the University of Pennsylvania. The awkward testimony of its president, Liz Magill at the same congressional hearing with Professor Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth forced her to resign. Penn, the home of the Wharton School of Business, perhaps even more than Harvard, must salute financiers.

 

But then, Ivy League universities are giant investment funds.

 

 In any event, in looking back on Professor Gay’s career, which from a scholarship point of view has been remarkably thin (she has written no full books), many are surprised that she rose as high as she did. She is said to have considerable people skills, but they weren’t apparent in the congressional hearing. She should have been more prepared to be mercilessly hectored. Since then, she has been the target of many racist attacks.

 

But in any case, it must be asked, why was she chosen as president of the nation’s most famous university in the first place? And should academic institutions take orders from grandstanding politicians and hedge funders? Is that good for intellectual freedom?

 

Ah, the joyous marriage of plagiarism and hypocrisy:

 

 

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PHOTO: File

Building More Slows Rents

Yes, building more housing slows the increase in rents, says a New York University study. Here’s some of the extract:

 

“Although ‘supply skeptics’ claim that new housing supply does not slow growth in rents, we … demonstrate that: 1) Increases in housing supply slow the growth in rents in the region; 2) In some circumstances, new construction also reduces rents or rent growth in the surrounding area; 3) The chains of moves sparked by new construction free up apartments that are then rented (or retained) by households across the income spectrum; 4) While new supply is associated with gentrification, it has not been shown to cause significant displacement of lower income households; and 5) Easing land use restrictions … generally leads to more new housing over time, but only a fraction of the new capacity created because many other factors constrain the pace of new development.’’

 

Here's the whole study:

 

Meanwhile, communities love private retirement communities, whose proliferation can raise a region’s housing costs all by themselves. They bring in property taxes, but not children to be educated in the public schools. Once more, the Baby Boomers shove others aside!

 

And owners of big houses on big lots are also much loved for bringing in tax revenue without demanding much in the way of services. Rhode Island has become a magnet for owners of such properties. It’s nice that they appreciate the state’s beauties and proximity to New York and Boston.

 

Hit this link:

 

 

Around the World

This wouldn’t happen in Arab-run countries – all of which are dictatorships with varying levels of corruption -- or maybe not during a second Trump term, either, if he, as is likely, will try to create a thieving dictatorship: Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key part of a plan by the corrupt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to limit the powers of the judiciary. His aim was to discourage bringing criminal cases against him.

 

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"Let me tell you, I'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval rating. I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man's dismal approval ratings. I'm not going to do it. Why would I?"

-- Texas Republican Congressman Troy Nehls on refusing to go along with a bipartisan border-security deal

 

Using  $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to help pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction after Putin’s horrific invasion is a great idea that the Biden administration seems to be coming around to accepting. And it would ease the way to get Republican support for the $60 billion in desperately needed military aid for Ukraine held up in the intensely political battle over military aid for wartime Ukraine and Israel and for more resources for migrant control on our southern border.

 

As  for that border, the best approach, as I have written many times before, would obviously include:

 

Hire many new Border Patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges (the GOP/QAnon rejected Biden’s request for funding for these things) and finally pass comprehensive immigration-law reform. The MAGA mob doesn’t seem to have any plausible, coherent plan, other than to rail against illegals, many of whom are hired by Republican businesspeople, such as those running “landscaping” companies,  agribusiness, meat-packing plants and so on. It’s past time to really go after those employers, but that probably won’t happen. Of course, the illegals can often be found doing jobs that most citizens don’t want to do.

 

And many House MAGAs have opposed any improvements at the border, no matter how practical, for fear that it would help Democrats. It’s all about power.

 

Meanwhile, boost economic aid for the nations from which migrants are coming because of poverty, violence, tyranny and global warming. And end economic punishments for Venezuela and Cuba. The sanctions just send us more desperate migrants.
 

Take it or leave it, here’s the Biden plan (at least he has one):

 

 

Back to Ukraine: If Putin succeeds there, his next aggressions will be against Moldova, the Baltic Republics, Poland and maybe even Finland and Norway.

 

 

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One has to be impressed by the speed, efficiency and discipline with which Japan responds to its frequent national disasters, as witness its response to the big earthquake last week. It’s a model of emergency preparedness and response for the world.

 

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PHOTO: File

Surprise? A strong majority of the British population believes that Brexit has been bad for the economy and for immigration control. Of course, Brexit was the prime vehicle to power of the entertaining con man and former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is well practiced, like his dumber but still very effective fellow demagogue, Trump, in the art of nonstop lying.

Hit this link:

Robert Whitcomb is a veteran editor and writer. Among his jobs, he has served as the finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, in Paris; as a vice president and the editorial-page editor of The Providence Journal; as an editor and writer in New York for The Wall Street Journal,  and as a writer for the Boston Herald Traveler (RIP). He has written newspaper and magazine essays and news stories for many years on a very wide range of topics for numerous publications, has edited several books and movie scripts and is the co-author of among other things, Cape Wind.


 

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