Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Wednesday 05.23.2012
Why America Should Declare Bankruptcy Now
By Peter Schiff - TheFiscalTimes.com
If the U.S. government were a private company being audited by standard practices, it would be considered much further in the red than official national debt figures show. It would, in fact, be shut down and its key executive prosecuted for fraud.
The national debt is $15 trillion. Let me try to put that huge number in perspective.
All federal tax revenue in 2011 was $2.2 trillion — less than one sixth of the total national debt. The $15 trillion debt amounts to $133,000 per taxpayer. The richest person in America, Bill Gates, has a total net worth of $59 billion. If he donated every dime to the U.S. Treasury in order to pay down the national debt, he couldn't even retire one half of one percent of the debt. Put another way, he could pay two months' of interest.
The Dollar Oil Price Threat Will Hurry Gold's Role in the System
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
There was much more to Hilary Clinton's China and India trip than meets the eye. It was an acid test of the power of the U.S. to press its political will upon the world. The issue at hand was the U.S. trying to halt sales of Iranian oil worldwide and to offer India the same amount of oil from other sources. Supplies from Saudi Arabia to replace Iranian oil were already in the market place. The halting of the Iranian oil from the market would have lost 3 million barrels a day, but it seems Saudi oil capacity has added that much.
Dollar Index Reaches 20-Month High Before EU Summit Today
By Masaki Kondo and Mariko Ishikawa - Bloomberg.com
The Dollar Index (DXY) reached a 20-month high before European Union leaders meet today amid concern Greece will exit the euro bloc, boosting demand for the U.S. currency as a haven.
The 17-nation euro was 0.2 percent from a four-month low as elections loom in Greece on June 17 that may determine whether the nation stays in the currency union. The yen held a two-day drop after Japan posted a wider-than-estimated trade deficit and before the nation's central bank concludes a meeting today.
The Economy, the Fed, Gold, and Gold Shares
BY GEORGE KARAHALIOS - FinancialSense.com
To clarify where we stand, I think the gold shares might have made THE cyclical low last Wednesday. This conclusion is predicated on a number of factors: the valuation of gold shares relative to gold hasn't been this cheap since the 2008 deleveraging crisis, pessimism among gold equity holders reached a crescendo often marked by bear market bottoms, and the macro roadmap that I foresee which should ignite gold to resume both its cyclical and secular bull markets. While I haven't been particularly accurate over the past year in regards to gold or gold shares, every day of investing is a new day and it's important to recognize a circumstance for what it is, not for what it might have been.
A Global New Deal
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – Recent political developments, including the defeat of incumbent governments in France and Greece, suggest that the public's tolerance for economic policies that do not reduce unemployment has collapsed. Indeed, given the alarming economic and employment situation in many countries today, with no prospect of recovery on the horizon, further political turmoil is likely unless policymakers change course accordingly.
The economic crisis has wiped out more than 50 million jobs after years of weak, job-poor growth and increasing inequality in the world's rich countries. Since 2007, employment rates have risen in only six of the 36 advanced economies, while youth unemployment has increased in a large majority of both established and emerging markets.
EU commission to outline plans for political union
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - The European Commission has said it will soon bring forward plans for an economic and political union it says is necessary for the creation of debt-mutualising eurobonds - one of the most controversial proposed solutions to the current eurozone crisis.
"We need to reflect what kind of European union would be required to deepen economic and political integration, for instance so that joint issuance of debt would make sense for all member states sharing the single currency," economics commissioner Olli Rehn told MEPs on Tuesday (22 May).
OECD fears euro woe to snap brittle world recovery
By Leigh Thomas
(Reuters) - The United States and Japan are leading a fragile developed world recovery that could be blown off course if Europe fails to contain the damage from its problem debtor states, the OECD said on Tuesday.
It urged euro zone leaders to embrace all options for tackling the crisis, potentially including common bonds to go with the common currency.
In its twice-yearly economic outlook, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecast that global growth would ease to 3.4 percent this year from 3.6 percent in 2011, before accelerating to 4.2 percent in 2013, in line with its last estimates from late November.
War-Gaming Greek Euro Exit
Shows Hazards In 46-Hour Weekend
By Jana Randow and Gabi Thesing - Bloomberg.com
Greece may have only a 46-hour window of opportunity should it need to plot a route out of the euro.
That's how much time the country's leaders would probably have to enact any departure from the single currency while global markets are largely closed, from the end of trading in New York on a Friday to Monday's market opening in Wellington, New Zealand, based on a synthesis of euro-exit scenarios from 21 economists, analysts and academics.
The Euro Awaits Its Verdict
By Peter Boone, Simon Johnson - Project-Syndicate.org
WASHINGTON, DC – The creation of the euro just over a decade ago was a courageous and unique experiment. Today, the outcome – whether the euro will survive, and whether the Europeans are right to keep it – is very much in doubt. But, if the eurozone does survive, it promises great advantages for member countries – and perhaps for the world.
The euro is an ultra-fixed currency among members: participating countries locked themselves into an initial exchange rate vis-à-vis their pre-existing currencies and then threw the keys into the long grass. Nowadays, an increasing number of Europeans are combing that grass, quietly looking for those keys.
Merkel Faces Hollande Pleas
To Shed Taboos At 18th Crisis Summit
By James G. Neuger - Bloomberg.com
A plea to shed "taboos" may put German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a corner today as she digs in against joint debt sales to counter Europe's financial crisis.
Merkel, the dominant figure in more than two years of crisis-fighting, heads to a Brussels summit unable to stifle calls for measures she opposes, including euro bonds, the use of European money to recapitalize banks, a bigger rescue fund and extra time for debt-swamped countries to cut spending.
German bank tables plan for parallel Greek euro
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Germany's financial giant Deutsche Bank has floated the idea of a "geuro" - a parallel currency allowing Greece to devaluate while staying in the eurozone if an anti-bail-out government takes over in Athens.
If left-wing radicals win the 17 June elections in Greece and stick to their promise of scrapping the €130 billion bail-out and its austerity requirements, Greece could still stay in the eurozone without financial aid if it introduced a parallel currency, says a Deutsche Bank study published on Monday (21 May).
World Bank Says Asia Must Watch Inflation As Expansion Slows
By Karl Lester M. Yap and Michael Heath - Bloomberg.com
The World Bank said policy makers in Asia's emerging economies must guard against inflation risks and be prepared to reverse policy easing, even as slowing growth in China and Europe's sovereign-debt turmoil hurt exports.
Growth in developing East Asia, which excludes Japan and India, will probably ease to 7.6 percent this year from 8.2 percent in 2011, the Washington-based lender said in a report today. In November, the forecast for 2012 was 7.8 percent. The region's reliance on European demand and Chinese commodities consumption make it vulnerable to slowdowns in those markets, the World Bank said.
Japan's fiscal death is a warning to the West Fitch Ratings has downgraded Japan two notches to A+, citing a surge in public debt since the Lehman crisis and the lack of any plan to restore fiscal probity.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Key indicators are deteriorating on almost every front, raising concerns that the world's third largest economy is running aground after two "Lost Decades".
Japan's debt has jumped by 61 percentage points of GDP since 2008, compared to eight points for the AAA bloc. Public debt is expected to reach 239pc of GDP this year, uncharted levels for a major economy in peace-time. `Net debt' – subtracting Japan's vast holdings of foreign bonds – is nearer 137pc but this is rising at an even steeper trajectory.
China Warns Australia to Choose "Godfather" - China or U.S.
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
It is rare in diplomatic circles for governments to speak bluntly, particularly in the Orient, where manners are highly prized.
The exceptions to this rule are retired military officers, who are often able to voice sentiments too impolitic for other channels.
One of the more startling pronouncements in this vein occurred last week when Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and "Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China. (It) depends on who is more powerful, and based on the strategic environment." Noting the rising importance of China as an export market Song added that Australia depended on exporting iron ore to China "to feed itself," but "Frankly, it has not done well politically."
JPMorgan's Losses Become Tool In Dodd-Frank Rules Debate
By Phil Mattingly and Silla Brush - Bloomberg.com
U.S. lawmakers and regulators are seizing on the more than $2 billion in losses disclosed byJPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) to bolster their positions in the nearly two-year-old debate over Wall Street's rules.
The Senate Banking Committee was the flash point for the debate yesterday, as Democrats and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission used the losses to argue for the strict implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act rules, including a ban on proprietary trading by banks. That argument may shift to lawmakers and regulators pushing to go beyond President Barack Obama's financial regulatory overhaul.
JPMorgan's Senior Officers' Addiction
to Gambling on Derivatives
BY WILLIAM K BLACK PHD - FinancialSense.com
JPMorgan's flacks and apologists have, unintentionally, exposed the fact that their cover story – hedging gone bad – is false. JPMorgan runs the world's largest gambling operation in financial derivatives. The New York Times reported the key facts, but not the analytics, in an article entitled "Discord at Key JPMorgan Unit is Faulted in Loss." The analytics suggest that the latest JPMorgan cover story – it was JPMorgan's "Achilles the heel" (based in the UK) who caused the loss – is misleading.
Obama Administration Walks Volcker Rule Tightrope
By BRIAN BEUTLER - TalkingPointsMemo.com
The Obama administration will likely tighten rules to prevent federally insured banks from speculating with their money after financial giant JP Morgan lost billions of dollars — and continues to hemorrhage — on a risky bet intended to pad the firm's profits.
The acknowledgment by a senior administration official Monday threatens to reopen a protracted fight between Wall Street allies and the White House over imposing new rules on big financial companies in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
SEC Focusing On JPMorgan's Disclosure Of Risk Models
By Steven Sloan and Dawn Kopecki - Bloomberg.com
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said the agency is "very focused" on determining whether JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) appropriately disclosed changes it made during the first quarter to a complex risk calculation.
"We are very focused on the accuracy and timeliness of that disclosure," she said yesterday during an appearance before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington.
Keiser Report: Scatological Finance (E291)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss naked short selling by Goldman Sachs and piling on JP Morgan all while being hounded by a Fox News helicopter. In the second half of the show Max talks to Francine McKenna of reTheAuditors.com about Jamie Dimon, London whales and MF Global.
Congress staring over edge of 'fiscal cliff' Lawmakers face budget dilemma
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
For Congress, the outlines of the pending fiscal crisis are clear: Don't do a thing, and watch the economy slip into a double-dip recession early next year. Or cancel the looming tax increases and spending cuts, watch the deficit rise, and push the government ever closer to a European-style debt crisis.
That decision was put in stark terms Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, which in a new analysis said the economy will plunge into a recession early next year if Congress lets taxes rise and spending be cut, as called for under the law.
Glass-Steageall would not have prevented 2008 Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis
BY ANDREW ROSS SORKIN - NYTimes.com
Call it the Glass-Steagall myth.
Since JPMorgan Chase announced its surprise $2 billion, and growing, trading loss there have been renewed calls from economists, pundits and politicians to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that prevented commercial banks from participating in investment banking activities.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, sent an e-mail to thousands of her constituents, pressing to bring back the law, which she said, "stopped investment banks from gambling away people's life savings for decades — until Wall Street successfully lobbied to have it repealed in 1999."
California Man Commits Suicide Before Foreclosure
By LYNEKA LITTLE - ABCnews.com
"The engine is smoking like a chimney," Norman Rousseau told his wife after working on an RV that was expected to be home for the couple after they were evicted from their house in Newbury Park, Calif.
Those would be the last words Oriane Rousseau heard from her husband, who shot himself May 15, days before the couple were scheduled to be evicted after a long battle over their mortgage held by Wells Fargo.
Modest Proposals for Financial Reform:
Abolish Mortgage-Backed Securities
Dr. Manhattan - TheAtlantic.com
....Abolish Mortgage-Backed Securities (and Offspring)
CDOs and credit default swaps don't kill financial systems, mortgages kill financial systems.
There has been altogether too much opproprium directed at CDOs, credit default swaps and other structuring techniques that spread financial contagion, and not enough directed at the underlying collateral. The record seems to be, however, that Dick Pratt was correct when he called the mortgage "the neutron bomb of financial products."
Billion Dollar Bait & Switch:
States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
by Paul Kiel and Cora Currier - ProPublica.org
States have diverted $974 million from this year's landmark mortgage settlement to pay down budget deficits or fund programs unrelated to the foreclosure crisis, according to a ProPublica analysis. That's nearly forty percent of the $2.5 billion in penalties paid to the states under the agreement.
The settlement, between five of the country's biggest banks and an alliance of almost all states and the federal government, resolved allegations that the banks deceived homeowners and broke laws when pursuing foreclosure. One part of the settlement is the cash coming to states; the deal urged states to use that money on programs related to the crisis, but it didn't require them to.
Where Are the Foreclosure Deal Millions Going in Your State?
by Paul Kiel, Lena Groeger and Cora Currier - ProPublica.org
As part of the mortgage settlement finalized in April, 2012, the five biggest banks agreed to pay $2.5 billion to 49 states and the District of Columbia. ProPublica contacted every state to determine whether the money will be going to consumer-focused efforts related to the settlement or not. See below for a breakdown of each state's share. This graphic will be updated periodically as more states announce their allocations.
Big Lies in Politics
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run.
Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.
Facebook Analysts Who Shunned Herd Now Look Like Heroes
By Inyoung Hwang and Danielle Kucera - Bloomberg.com
Analysts who broke away from the herd and told investors to avoid Facebook Inc. (FB), the biggest initial public offering ever by a technology company, are looking like heroes after the stock plunged.
The social networking site lost 19 percent through yesterday to $34.03 after opening at $42 on May 18. That's consistent with warnings from Richard Greenfield of BTIG LLC and Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group LLC, who says the stock will slip as low as $30. It left five firms with bullish calls predicting an average rally of 36 percent and one, Tom Forte of Telsey Advisory Group, saying shares may rise 47 percent to $50.
The Facebook Fallacy For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web.
By Michael Wolff - TechnologyReview.com
Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.
Given its vast cash reserves and the glacial pace of business reckonings, that will sound hyperbolic. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.
At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, valuation of around $100 billion, and the bulk of its business in traditional display advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of the fallacy.
Zucked! Regulators to Review Morgan Stanley Facebook Allegations
Reuters - CNBC.com
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's chairman said on Tuesday that regulators plan to review allegations that Morgan Stanley shared negative news before Facebook's initial public offering with institutional investors.
"The allegations, if true, are a matter of regulatory concern" to FINRA and SEC, Ketchum told Reuters.
How Facebook could destroy the U.S. economy Too-big-to-fail mentality replays the dot-com bubble
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Facebook just joined a "troubled club," warns the Economist. Now it's just another "endangered public company."
Yes, endangered. The number of public companies has declined 37% since 1997. The number of IPOs has dropped from 311 annually before 2000 to 99 the past decade. Meanwhile, the smart CEOs and the Super Rich are "going private," to avoid government red tape restricting capitalism.
Wall Street struggles to find Facebook's worth
By Rodrigo Campos
(Reuters) - In its three days of trading, Facebook's stock has dropped 18 percent from its $38 issue price. For the thousands of investors that bought at the IPO, that's bad enough, but one analysis of itsearnings prospects suggests it could get a lot worse - more like $10 a share.
Setting aside the hype and the cultural phenomenon that is the online networking site, Facebook Inc would be fairly priced at $9.59, according to the smattering of Wall Street estimates analyzed and modeled by Thomson Reuters StarMine.
Do You Care? I Don't
By William Murchison - PatriotPost.us
All the Facebook tabulation of recent days -- whatever it may have meant to Mark Zuckerberg and his brokers -- brought to certain others in the great extended American community a certain sense of relief. It is not essential -- a matter of destiny -- some of us now know, to buy into the whole Facebook thing or for that matter even a sliver of it. We can safely ignore the whole thing. That is what we have learned by reading about Facebook. I have, anyway.
A story over the weekend put the number of "seniors" who use Facebook at no more than a third. I cannot say what the reporter meant by "seniors." My uninformed guess would be that he meant people who remember the Kennedy assassination. This takes care, I think I can safely say, of the great majority of folk who might expect to communicate with me by means of Zuckerberg's miracle.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Ratchets Ups the Birther Probe
Sheriff Joe Arpaio Sends 'Threats Unit' Investigator To Hawaii To Escalate Birther Probe
By NICK R. MARTIN - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Not to be outdone by the Arizona secretary of state's recent flirtation with birtherism, Sheriff Joe Arpaio escalated his probe into President Obama's birth certificate this week by dispatching a deputy from his "threats unit" to Hawaii.
Both the Arizona Republic and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported deputy Brian Mackiewcz traveled with Arpaio's volunteer posse member Michael Zullo on Monday to try to get an official confirmation that Hawaii has the president's birth certificate on file.
Emails Show How Hawaii Stiffed Arizona
Secretary Of State's Birther Investigation
By NICK R. MARTIN - TalkingPointsMemo.com
One of the more amusing things revealed last week when Arizona's secretary of state came out as birther curious was that Hawaii officials just simply don't believe he's qualified to investigate Barack Obama's birth certificate.
Sure, Ken Bennett says he's the man in charge of deciding whether President Obama is eligible to be on Arizona's ballot in November, but the response from people in Hawaii's government has been: Prove it. In essence, they're giving Bennett a taste of his own medicine, making him jump through a series of hoops to prove he has the legal authority to investigate the matter, much the same way the birthers have made Hawaii prove time and time again that the president is indeed a natural born citizen of the United States.
In Race For Better Cell Service,
Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
By Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day, ProPublica.org
In the spring of 2008, AT&T was racing to roll out a new cell phone network to deliver music, video and online games at faster speeds.
The network, known as 3G, was crucial to the company's fortunes. AT&T's cell service had been criticized by customers for its propensity to drop calls, a problem compounded when the company became the sole carrier for the iPhone.
Jay Guilford was a tiny but vital cog in the carrier's plans.
IBM Outlaws Siri, Worried She Has Loose Lips
By Robert McMillan - Wired.com
If you work for IBM, you can bring your iPhone to work, but forget about using the phone's voice-activated digital assistant. Siri isn't welcome on Big Blue's networks.
The reason? Siri ships everything you say to her to a big data center in Maiden, North Carolina. And the story of what really happens to all of your Siri-launched searches, e-mail messages and inappropriate jokes is a bit of a black box.
New Fuel Injection System
to make Petrol Engines as Efficient as Hybrids
By Brian Westenhaus - OilPrice.com
Delphi is developing an engine fuel injection technology that could improve the fuel economy of gas-powered cars by 50 percent, potentially rivalling the performance of hybrid vehicles at less cost. Their test engine based on the technology is similar in some ways to a highly efficient diesel engine, but runs on gasoline.
Delphi's approach, called gasoline-direct-injection compression ignition combines a collection of engine-operating strategies that make use of advanced fuel injection and air intake and exhaust controls, many of which are available on advanced engines today.
SpaceX In Orbit – Successful Launch of Falcon 9 Rocket
By Jason Paur - Wired.com
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The second time's the charm for SpaceX. This morning at 3:44 a.m. EDT the company's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. After a faulty valve led to an aborted launch on Saturday, today's successful flight marks the third of the Falcon 9 rocket, the second flight of the Dragon capsule, and the first flight for a commercial spacecraft bound for the International Space Station (ISS).
Darpa, Venter Launch Assembly Line for Genetic Engineering
By Katie Drummond - Wired.com
The military-industrial complex just got a little bit livelier. Quite literally.
That's because Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, has kicked off a program designed to take the conventions of manufacturing and apply them to living cells. Think of it like an assembly line, but one that would churn out modified biological matter — man-made organisms — instead of cars or computer parts.
Revisit the late 60s... In an Echo of Vietnam Protests,
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Throw Back Medals
During the Chicago NATO Protests
Lucy Steigerwald - Reason.com
Via The Guardian, here's April 23, 1971 where hundreds of classic hippie-looking folks who were once fighting in Vietnam threw back their medals from that war and did things like call those medals "a bunch of bullshit." One said, "I got a purple heart here and I hope I get another one fighting these motherf---ers."
And here is Sunday in Chicago where a more diverse group (at least, there were multiple ladies, though a few mothers apparently joined in the '71 protest in honor of their deceased sons) of around 50 veterans who repeated that symbolic gesture. They threw their medals earned in Afghanistan and Iraq back in the general direction of NATO. Some apologized to the people of those countries as they did so. One said "I don't want any part of this anymore. I chose human life over war, militarism and imperialism."
War Veterans Protest, Throw Their Medals at NATO Summit!
May 20, 2012 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nearly 50 U.S. military veterans at an anti-NATO rally in Chicago threw their service medals into the street on Sunday, an action they said symbolized their rejection of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Scientists Studying the Link between Fracking
and Recent Earthquakes in Texas
By Climate Progress - OilPrice.com
Scientists from two Texas universities are looking into a pair of recent earthquakes near the Texas-Louisiana border for clues to whether they were related to underground injection of oil and gas drilling waste produced in the course of hydraulic fracturing or fracking.
One of the scientists studying the two recent Texas quakes was on a team that concluded a swarm of earthquakes near Dallas in 2008 and 2009 were related to the disposal of drilling wastes, according to E&E's Energy Wire.
Cliff Frohlich, a research scientist at the University of Texas who studied those Dallas area quakes, did not rule out a similar conclusion in the recent east Texas quakes.
"It's possible they were natural," he said. "It's possible they were man-made."
Iran and IAEA Reportedly Close to Agreement
By MICHAEL BROOKS - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency are close to signing an agreement according to IAEA head Yukiya Amano.
Mr. Amano told reporters that an agreement that would pave the way for a more thorough international investigation of the Iranian nuclear program would be signed "quite soon."
Amano's comments came shortly after returning to his organization's headquarters in Vienna, after holding talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Tehran over the weekend.
The Nixon Option for Iran?
By William H. Luers, Thomas R. Pickering - Project-Syndicate.org
WASHINGTON, DC – Rearranging the deck chairs would not have saved the Titanic. Nor did the endless debates on the shape of the table in the Vietnam negotiations advance the effort to end that malign conflict. Nevertheless, many American presidents have successfully redesigned talks with adversaries in bold new ways to strengthen national security without war. Such boldness is now needed in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt negotiated personally with Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov to open diplomatic relations between the two countries. Dwight D. Eisenhower invited Nikita Khrushchev to the United States in 1959 to open the eyes of the first Soviet leader ever to visit America. The bilateral US-China talks in Warsaw in the 1960's were fruitless until Richard M. Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger opened a different, more direct discussion through the auspices of Pakistan.
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