I had a lot on this earlier today, but for now, two points.

First, there are measurement problems in calculating it that would tend to make you think that it’s not as bad as you might think. But read the previous post for that.

That said, something I wrote last year (first item at link; also see Comments 1 thru 4 at the post that follow) is worth repeating:

….. this number is more troubling than it first seems. That’s because ….. it includes money put into retirement plans such as IRAs and 401(k) plans as positives. Since hundreds of billions of dollars go into those plans every years, that means people are negatively saving (i.e., borrowing) more than what they’re saving for retirement. This would not appear to be sustainable unless everybody decides that retirement is not necessary.

Let’s say, for example, that the savings rate really is the minus 1% reported earlier this week (I’ll talk about the measurement problems on Monday). If the typical family is putting 5% of what they make into savings, investments, retirement plans, and the like, that must mean they are engaging in net borrowing in the rest of their lives to the tune of 6% to arrive at the minus 1% net. Additionally, since retirement savings is supposed to be locked up (i.e., generally inaccessible for living expenses), only amounts put into savings accounts and the like are truly accessible for emergencies, and it would appear that the typical family doesn’t have a lot of that.

I don’t think the very real measurement problems that will be noted Monday make up for the long-term seriousness of situation just described.

You can do something about your own personal or family savings rate by signing up for CYMnow.com. CYMnow will enable you to create a spending plan and a specific roadmap for debt elimination WITHOUT having to became a detail-level bookkeeper. Very cool stuff.

Also coming very soon: weekly money-saving tips only available to subscribers.

No one can afford to do individually what the country is doing as a whole collectively by not saving. Turn it around by subscribing to CYMnow.com.

Note: This post is a copy of yesterday’s identical post (there are also 8 comments at the previous post that are worth a look-see). This was done because carrying a post across days changes its URL, and because the topic is too important to let yesterday’s Super Bowl drown it out. For that same reason, this post will also be kept at or near the top most of Monday.

___________________________________

Holy Cross College Professor Jerry Lembcke’s 1999 column, “We Are What We Remember” (HTML link), was originally published in the April edition of Holy Cross Magazine (original PDF of the entire magazine is here; Lembcke’s column is on Page 74).

Lembcke’s core claim is that “the image of the spat-upon veteran is mythical …..” This is a narrative that at least two Greater Cincinnati-area bloggers appear to have fallen for hook, line, and sinker (here and here; BizzyBlog’s “debunk of the debunkers” post from Feb. 4 is here; be sure to read the Updates and the comments). Apparently others around the country have also been taken in.

Lembcke’s fallback position is that:

But while I cannot prove the negative, I can prove the positive: I can show what did happen during those years and that that historical record makes it highly unlikely that the alleged acts of spitting occurred in the number and manner that is now widely believed.

There’s a teeny tiny problem with Lembcke’s claim. As Former Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Bill Sloat notes at his Daily Bellwether blog, Jerry Lembcke’s “search for evidence” apparently overlooked a couple of contrary items that were very close by — so close that he would not even have had to leave his easy chair after reading the article he wrote. That’s because Lembcke is debunked in the VERY SAME issue of the VERY SAME Holy Cross Magazine — not once, but twice, by two separate Holy Cross alumni who served in Vietnam!

The first alumni vet is Jim McDougald ‘51. The second is Steve Bowen ‘65. The story, along with its individual portrayals, covers Pages 18-31 of the original publication. Extracts with the two spitting stories are these:

(Page 29 of original) For Jim MacDougald, who traveled not once but twice from Delaware to Da Nang, who served in Korea and then Vietnam, and who was spit on when he returned from the war, every veteran must find his own way. Surviving the war is not the final chapter.

(Page 26 of original) Bowen says the protesters seemed shallow to him, after a year of dealing with clear-cut life and death situations. He remembers arriving back in Los Angeles and seeing a woman in a miniskirt. He says he was feeling tan, fit and tough in his uniform with his shooting badges and medals. She gave him a smile and he approached her. When he got close, she spit on the front of his shirt, he says.

“She was so good looking, I just laughed,” he says.

Here’s what is remarkable to me about these two reports: how matter-of-fact the descriptions of the spitting incidents are. I see both as situations where the targets, MacDougald and Bowen, are basically saying “it happened, and it’s no big deal” — in the sense that it appears to have been a typical experience many, if not most, Vietnam vets and soldiers at the time recognized they were likely to have to endure at some point. And this can’t be emphasized enough — it probably wasn’t ever going to be a big deal to men like MacDougald and Bowen, but it sure as heck has become a big deal in the big picutre now, and only because of the attempt to, in effect, call them and any other Vietnam-era vet who was spat upon a liar, and exaggerator, or a rare exception.

No amount of after-the-fact Lembcke qualifiers can be put onto MacDougald’s and Bowen’s stories; each of the incidents described took place on their returning from the war.

There would appear to be no reason why two gentlemen over a quarter-century removed from their war experience would just make up renditions of spitting incidents for the heck of it for the benefit of their alumni publication. The same goes for the dozens, if not hundreds, of bloggers and commenters who have posted on their own experiences in the past few days. The same would hold for the roughly 1,000 vets who related their experience to columnist and author Bob Greene in the late 1980s.

I’ll leave to others to analyze (or is it “spittle-ize”?) why it’s sooooo important for the Jim Lembckes of the world to cling tightly to beliefs that are so demonstrably untrue. Just rest assured that the “spat-upon myth” is no myth. It happened, it happened often enough to matter, and no amount of historical revisionism will ever change that. Jerry Lembcke and his naive holdouts should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

__________________________________

UPDATE: Bill Sloat at the Daily Bellwether follows up with a post on CBS’s 1971 story about Delmar Pickett, a returning vet who, according to Vanderbilt’s story archive extract (also HT to Jawa Report, who had this link up yesterday), “tells of being spit on in Seattle.” It’s “funny” how Lembcke et al haven’t addressed this.

UPDATE 2: Not surprisingly, though perhaps not as often, it’s happening again today –

Perhaps if I were more arrogant and intolerant, I’d have beat the living crap out of the punk anarchist who spit at me and other that called me murderer and baby killer while my kids stood by in horror at the outbursts.

UPDATE 3: Of course, Lembcke will say this guy’s lying too, but here is what commenter Gordo had to say at this execrable post of Bill Arkin from last week (do a find on the browser page for “gordo” and you’ll go right to it):

When my grandfather came home from WWI he got a parade and a job. When my father came back from WWII, after over two years of heavy combat in the south pacific, he got a parade, open arms, many thanks, and the GI bill. When my brother landed in San Francisco airport after two tours in Vietnam (four days earlier he was in a major firefight and lost part of his squad) and two Purple Hearts, he got spit on and ostracized.

….. The Arkin brigade most likely supports pulling out our troops now without taking any responsibility for the carnage that would ensue. It happened once before – Fonda, Kerry and the Democrats ended our chapter and never took responsibility for horrors that took place after we left. Just ask the 3,000,000 Vietnamese and Cambodians who suffered. Oh, I forgot, you can’t ask them because they are dead.

Thanks, Matt.

I’ll delegate dealing with the reported problem to the Wall Street Journal editorialists at OpinionJournal.com, who also had other choice words Saturday for those who won’t accept the fact that the economy is in pretty good shape at the moment, and has done pretty well for several years.

In the process, you’ll also notice that the OpJ writers caught the insufferable bias and ignorance of one of BizzyBlog’s favorite targets, the Associated Press’s Martin Crutsinger (three of many previous BizzyBlog takedowns are here, here, and here):

So moving right along, this week’s bad news is said to be the U.S. “savings rate,” which according to the official measure was “negative” for a whole calendar year for the first time “since the Great Depression,” as Martin Crutsinger of the Associated Press helpfully put it. Hooverville, here we come!

As a statistic, however, the official “savings rate” is nearly as useless a guide to prosperity as the trade deficit. In the government accounts, what is called the savings rate is literally income less consumption. But the government defines income too narrowly and consumption broadly. For example, “income” doesn’t measure capital gains (whether realized or not), the rising value of your home, or even increases in your retirement accounts.

Think about how you calculate your own personal “savings rate.” Do you merely add up what you make in salary in a year minus what you spend? Or do you sneak a peak at whether your IRA increased in value, or check the sale price your neighbor got on his home to figure out what you might be able to get for yours? By any normal definition, “savings” should include your increase in total assets–in other words, your gains in overall wealth.

For our part, these columns long ago began to watch a far more instructive figure known as “household net worth.” That number, released by the Federal Reserve, includes all assets (tangible and financial) held by individuals less their liabilities (mortgage and other debt). At the end of last year’s third quarter, U.S. household net worth had climbed to $54.1 trillion. That was an increase of more than $3 trillion over the previous four quarters. Rest assured, that’s a much higher figure than during “the Great Depression,” AP notwithstanding.

I’m not as sunny as the OpJ folks are about net worth justifying completely waving off the question of whether Americans are saving enough (just watch net worth plummet if the globlarmists or high-taxers ever get their way), but ignoring net worth and the statistical problems inherent in how the goverment calculates the savings rate is pretty negligent — that is, if your purpose is to inform readers and not merely preach to them.

The editorial wraps by discussing things we really should be worrying about when it comes to the economy:

There are two genuine clouds on the horizon–namely, inflation risk and political risk. Inflation remains somewhat higher than is comfortable, and we still expect the Fed will consider further interest-rate hikes if today’s weak dollar and soaring commodity prices lead to a jump in the official inflation indicators later this year. As for politics, the Democrats now running Congress explicitly reject the tax cuts and freer trade that have helped to propel the current prosperity. If history is any guide, sooner or later this is a recipe for trouble.

This writer hopes that if you hosted a party last night for watching last night’s Super Bowl (am I allowed to write that? Okay.) Super Bowl on a big-screen TV, that the TV screen involved was 55 inches or less.

If the screen was bigger, you may be guilty of copyright infringement.

Parker at Viking Spirit has asked that I post the following, and I am of course glad to:

Nick Clooney to speak at Lakota West High School

Contact: Parker Novak, (513) 410-1144
parker.novak@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WEST CHESTER, OH – (January 29th, 2007) Nick Clooney, nationally known
newscaster and father of movie star George Clooney, along with Homa Yavar,
co-chair of the Greater Cincinnati Advocates for Darfur, will speak at 10
A.M. on Wednesday, Feb. 7th at Lakota West High School.

The Darfur region of Sudan continues to be the scene of brutalities against
civilians committed by the Janjaweed militia with the support of the
Sudanese government. Clooney and Yavar will speak about the situation in
Darfur and what role the students can play.

You would think the Associated Press would catch on to the fact that not identifying the party of a politician caught engaged in wrongdoing like this guy in Wise, VA, is the same as identifying him or her as a Democrat. Large Bill confirms the obvious.

That would be the ability to focus on a topic important to you that few others are covering at all, and that almost no one is covering comprehensively. It’s an indulgence yours truly is not in a position to exercise at the moment, but someday the ability to consistently follow and report on a story like the Kelo-New London holdouts will hopefully return.

One such issue of passion at Wizblog is the alleged essentially proven claim that the Chinese government is harvesting organs from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, and in many cases killing them in the process. The relative inattention to this by the rest of the world is particularly troubling.

His latest conclusion:

What we do know is that China has now admitted that they do indeed harvest organs for sale and transplant from prisoners. We also know that the regime has mercilessly persecuted Falun Gong practitioners for at least the last eight years, and has imprisoned them, often without charges or notification of their families, by the tens of thousands during that time. All of which makes their denials that Falun Gong members are among the victims of organ harvesting rather difficult to take seriously.

It’s absurd to think that China is deserving of full-fledged recognition as a member of the civilized world while this practice continues.

Wizblog is clearly the place to check into periodically if you want to know the latest on this issue.

From the Associated Press (HT FYI Report):

Consumer Reports has declared McDonald’s coffee the winner of a taste test against three rivals, including coffeehouse giant Starbucks.

After sampling four leading brewed coffees for its March issue, the magazine said McDonald’s premium roast coffee bested competing cups from Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, the world’s largest specialty coffee retailer.

The tastings were led by a professional tester, and included staffers from Consumer Reports’ food-testing division, spokeswoman Heather Joy Thompson said.

Ooh, the fireworks over this one will be fun to watch.

___________________________

UPDATE: Best Related Headline — “BREW-HA-HA!“

It’s been done by a 17-year-old student at the Mississippi Institute of Mathematics and Science, and appears likely to be of great help in the fight against cystic fibrosis, cancer, and AIDS:

Madhavi Gavini is one of the quieter students at this prestigious boarding school. “She doesn’t stand up and raise her hand and answer questions,” science teacher Gil Katzenstein observes. “She actually likes to ask questions; questions about things she doesn’t know. She’s a student in the best sense: someone who’s interested in learning and doing.”

It was that thirst for knowledge that drove Madhavi to search for a way to help a friend with cystic fibrosis. “I found out that most people who have CF die of pseudomonas infections,” she recalls, “so I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.” She was 14 at the time. “I guess the thought that a 14-year-old can’t really do much to help, didn’t really occur to me,” she says with a shrug.

Pseudomonas bacteria — in addition to killing people with cystic fibrosis — can cause deadly secondary infections in people with immune-suppressing conditions such as AIDS, cancer and severe burns. This opportunistic pathogen forms a thick, protective layer around itself, making it nearly impossible for antibiotics to penetrate and destroy it.

To find a way through the bacterium’s shield, the young scientist turned to Ayurvedic medicine. Madhavi, who was born in India, spent a great deal of time watching her grandparents, who were practitioners of the traditional Indian healing techniques. “I grew up learning a lot of that,” she recalls. “They’ve used it so much that I know it has some effect. They wouldn’t have used it for centuries if it didn’t. So I decided to try that approach, and it worked.”

With an herb book from her grandparents as her guide, Madhavi sampled common grocery store and green houseplants, such as cinnamon, ginger and aloe. She obtained a strain of pseudomonas bacteria from the local university and began subjecting the germs to various plant extracts.

One of the common tropical plant extracts penetrated the bacterium’s protective layer. Next, Madhavi isolated the specific molecule in the extract that was able to inhibit bacterial growth. She found that the molecule was heat resistant, and resistant to pressure. “It kills the cell,” she explains, “by preventing the transcription of the genes involved in energy, metabolism, adaptation, membrane transport, and toxin secretion.”

he young scientist has several ideas about how her discovery might be applied. One is as an inhaler. “A lot of people have chronic lung infections,” she observes. “It’s one of the most commonly infected sites. So an inhaler would be able to directly deliver this drug to the lungs.” She is also considering the possibility of an antiseptic spray for open wounds and severe burns.

Her work has already earned her several national awards, including top honors at the 2006 Intel Science and Engineering Fair and the Siemens Westinghouse Competition.

While Madhavi could become a millionaire by patenting her work, she has something else in mind: making it openly available. She points out, “If I were going to patent this, the rights would have to be sold to a pharmaceutical company, and that would greatly increase the cost of the drug once it’s developed. So to prevent that from happening, by publishing it, the information becomes readily available and any company that wants to manufacture it, would be able to. So the price would be much lower due to competition and the people who need it most will have access to it.”

She suspects there are many more alternative cures waiting, perhaps in plain sight, to be found. Teacher Gil Katzenstein is confident that if anyone can find them, it’s Madhavi Gavini.