Volume 5 Issue 29…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…July 26, 2002

By John Burl Smith

A love affair of epic proportions seared Atlanta, lighting up Georgia's sky by candlelight for fans at Chastain Park. Experiencing a heartburn reminiscent of Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara of Gone with the Wind fame, Alicia Keys' World Tour 2002 (7-22-02) torched Atlanta with a slow burn that will never heal. An opening act for the likes of Maxwell, after winning 5 Grammy Awards, Alicia is recognized as the brightest star on the horizon. Her growth as an entertainer is only surpassed by her explosiveness as an artist.

Tickling ivory while lavishing moonstruck fans with seductive innuendo, Alicia showed what happens when a stage and musicians are united with an amazingly talented woman. Flashing glimpses of Nate King Cole saturated with the sophistication of Lena Horne and glazed with sultry Billy Holiday soul, Alicia vamped the blues like Betsy Smith. Literally, taking her hat off to the adoring crowd to begin a solo vignette, Alicia made a familial connection through her braids. With a flick, she ignited the sold-out amphitheater with "Come on Baby Light My Fire." Then, paying homage to Donny Hathaway, she closed crooning "A Song for You."

Surrounded by a cadre of equally talented musicians and dancers, Alicia put the "E" back into entertainment. Breaking the rock concert mold, for an interlude, Alicia's cutting edge motif blended a bit of Broadway with Latin/Reggae to climax with a hip hop battle royal that showcased the versatility of her troop. Filled with screaming teens, the audience jammed to every beat without the slightest indifference to Alicia reinventing soul music.

Ending on great news for her international fans, after a stop in Houston, TX, "sassy" Alicia will go courting fan in Europe. Not since Otis Redding has Europe had an opportunity to experience the spellbinding power of a unique black American artist. For giving us a truly memorable performance, Atlanta's affection and appreciation go with Alicia as she lights Europe's fire. The DISH will provide updates, as she touches base with her fans here and abroad. John 2002

Where to go? What to do?

Sitting here lost in limbo,

With no shore in sight.

No haven to hide from the eminent storm.

This approaching tempest of fierce wind

Will surely shred my world.

On the other side lies

Brighter sun-drenched days

With calm seas of deep blue,

So cool, like liquid silk.

However, these days to come

Seem nebulous and intangible,

When the hurricane rests at the door.

If only keeping my eye on the blue sky

Could mellow this dark gray.

If only for the hours it blows

May I keep my strength.

The coarse sands shall surely pass

Leaving behind a smoother more defined soul.

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is spending some quality time this summer with his father's relatives. After two weeks, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro came to see me. When coaxed for comments, he hugged my waist and said, "I missed you grandma."

The Deltas Came to Town

At the end of the 19th Century, a battle raged among so-called black elite over the origin and solution to the gap between what slave descendants experienced and what the Constitution supposedly granted. Conceptually, Dot M. Smith's chasm analysis identified the fault line as the impact of the 3/5 Compromise codified in Article 1 Section 2. A jagged edge, this inequality cut an artificial divide represented by W. E B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Booker T. believed a few blacks and lots of whites making decisions provided the best leadership. Teaching blacks that they must prove themselves worthy before whites would accept them, Booker T. saw segregation as a step up. Conversely, Du Bois felt slavery, racism and discrimination held blacks in economic bondage and whites owed slave descendants the means to remove those impediments (reparations).

The precipice of the 21^st Century hangs over black elite like storm clouds. Demands on the progeny of Booker T. to justify re-segregating America have unmasked the hollow rhetoric of the black intelligentsia. DeKalb County, Georgia is an excellent example of the sheets coming off. A slave state, which honors its heritage, white Georgians fought school desegregation and affirmative action with Gov. George C. Wallace's fervor. Vowing "segregation forever," DeKalb was the headquarters of the KKK. Atop Stone Mountain, they burned huge crosses to terrorize blacks for miles. Though a majority black county today, the color of its officials has changed, but its policies remain the same.

Dominated by whites, the DeKalb County Commission abolished its affirmative action program in 1998. Believing it unnecessary, the Commission ordered a study to prove blacks get equal access to county contracts. To no one's surprise, white men received 83% of county contracts. Clearly DeKalb discriminates against blacks. Even though the CEO is black, and the Commission will soon have a black majority, the county has no plans to reinstate an affirmative action program to reverse and make up for past and present discrimination. Moreover, black leaders refuse to discuss the issue.

Check this out! Following a favorite rhetorical line of the black intelligentsia, "Blacks must support blacks. Blacks have to buy from blacks to develop the black community economically." Atlanta's black entrepreneurs developed several convention production companies. Last week (7/19-22/02), The Delta Sigma Theta Sorority came to the "showcase of the South" for its annual confab. However, like the National Black Arts Festival, the National Black Newspaper Publishers Association and the NAACP, the modern Madame C. J. Walkers of Deltas hired a white company to mount their show. The Deltas missed a great opportunity to lead, like Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells and the women of Nigeria in the Chevron-Texaco takeover. Hiring a black production company, which hires blacks, they would have helped keep money in the black community. Instead, the only dollars blacks received from the Delta confab were made working for the white contractor. John 2002

Disgruntled says: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says Israel is at war. Its enemies are Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. When Palestinians fight back, Israel calls them terrorists. On Monday night, an Israeli F-16, fired on an apartment complex; it was not a military installation. The blast killed and injured scores of men, women and children. Sharon called the targeted assassination a success; among the dead was a Hamas leader. Which side reigns the greater terror, the one deploying weapons of mass destruction or the other that uses the suicide bomber?

Disgruntled says: Tiger Woods failed in his bid to capture the British Open, ending his run for a grand slam this year. The week leading up to his loss was rough. White women bashed him for not talking tough about the sexist practices of Augusta National, where the Masters is played. Tiger was singled out because he is seen as black. Of mixed racial heritage, Tiger is not a civil rights activist. Women and the media did not raise this issue during the Masters or hound white golfers. Saturday's raw weather did not help Tiger, neither did the white women in and out of his bed improve things in his head.

Disgruntled feels: Bearish! Since June, investors have lost nearly $2 trillion in the stock market. Much of the credit goes to members of Congress who insured laissez-faire ruled. Business rewarded them with big campaign contributions. On golf outings, deals were concocted. After cooking the books, these crooks conned investors into taking the long view. Corporate malfeasance is a cultural crisis; it extends beyond a few bad apples. Small and average investors are understandably bearish.

Bit of History

Born in Illinois and educated at the University of Chicago, Wesley C. Mitchell was professor of economics at Columbia University in New York for many years. Founder of the National Bureau of Economics Research (NBER), one of the world's major quantitative research centers, he received honorary degrees for his research from numerous national and international universities.

Mitchell received the American Economic Association's Francis A. Walker Medal (1947). Awarded every five years to Americans that make a contribution of distinction to economics, Mitchell was honored for his business cycle research and analysis.

In 1913, Mitchell published the first of several editions of his monumental work Business Cycles, which is his analysis of commodity prices, wages, bond yields, bond prices and money for the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France over the period 1890-1911. Mitchell's Business Cycles is "an analytic description of the complicated process by which seasons of business prosperity, crisis, depression, and revival come about in the modern world."

As research director of the NBER, Mitchell inspired research on many aspects of capitalism. He published Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting (1927), which served as a standard economics textbook for many years. Mitchell co-authored his last volume on his research, Measuring Business Cycles in1946.

Mitchell saw business cycles as self-generating processes based on mutual interdependencies of causes and effects. He led the way in using empirical data and quantitative model building to analyze aggregate economic and business activity. When meaningful assumptions about the data and relationships among such variables as income, consumption, savings and investments are made, business-cycle models can help explain past economic changes, predict future changes, and serve as guideposts for policymakers. (Source: Spence, Milton H., Contemporary Economics, 1977)

News You Use

Modern economists examine numerous time series, which are chronological data covering a variety of economic activities to say something useful about current and future conditions. The three main types of times series are coincident, leading and lagging.

Moving with the economy, coincident indicators offer an approximation of current conditions. Leading indicators move ahead, so they peak and trough before the economy. Lagging indicators trail the economy.

In June 2002, the Conference Board announced the U.S. leading index rose 0.4 percent, the coincident index increased 0.1 percent, and the lagging index fell 0.2 percent. With such small changes in these indices, one could surmise the economy is more flat than on an upswing, as the Bush administration is suggesting.

Moreover, the leading index, which is composed of ten indicators, may portend a downturn. Its increase of 0.4 percent was driven by a huge increase in the real money supply and a decrease in initial claims for unemployment insurance. While initial unemployment insurance claims declined, the unemployment rate rose from 5.8% in May to 5.9% in June. In addition to the money supply and unemployment insurance claims, consumer expectations, building permits and vendor performance rose. Average weekly manufacturing hours held steady, and the other four components of the leading index were negative, i.e., stock prices, manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials, interest rate spread, and manufacturers' new orders for non-defense capital goods. All of these leading indicators seem poised to become more negative.

The coincident index increased a sluggish 0.1 percent. Its four indicators, i.e., personal income less transfer payments, industrial production, manufacturing and trade sales, and nonagricultural payrolls, rose in May. Revisions in these indices are commonplace, so the coincident index could actually be negative.

The lagging index fell 0.2 percent. Its negative indicators are commercial and industrial loans outstanding and average duration of unemployment. The two positive indicators were change in labor cost per unit of output and ratio of consumer installment credit to personal income. Ratio of manufacturing and trade inventories to sales, change in CPI for services, and average prime rate charged by banks held steady in May. Again, revisions could show this index fell by more than 0.2 percent, showing the economy is still in a recession.

Economists, given these indices and other data, could offer differing analysis of past, current and future economic activity. The most economist can say is the outlook is uncertain. http://www.conference-board.org

DISHing It Up Hot!

In mixed capitalist economies, such as the United States, confidence is paramount for spurring economic activity. In fact in the U.S., consumer spending, a measure of confidence, accounts for two-thirds of the nation's economic activity. If consumers are not confident, they tend to hold onto their money, rather than spend it. It is generally accepted that the nation's political leaders will work to keep confidence high. Given these relational assumptions, one can understand why economists worth their salt were shocked when George W. Bush proceeded to jawbone down the economy to create conditions favorable for a tax cut that disproportionately favored wealthy Americans.

When Bush assumed the office of president, the U.S. economy was barely hanging on by a thread in the wake of the Asian contagion and ensuing worldwide economic recession. Bush proceeded to unravel that thread by destroying confidence in America at home and abroad. His fiscal and foreign policies punched the economy in the gut, and the 9-11 attack delivered the knockout punch. The US economy is still staggering.

The U.S. budget was in surplus and portions of its $5 trillion debt were being retired, when Bush took his oath of office. Now, the debt is more than $6 trillion and the 2002 budget deficit is reported to be more than $165 billion. Investors have lost more than $3 trillion in the stock market since he took office, unemployment is rising and the value of the dollar is falling. In the first quarter of 2002, the U.S. trade deficit increased. Many of our trading partners and allies are upset over Bush's steel tariffs, his subsidy-laden farm bill and isolationist actions his administration has taken on a variety of issues from the International Criminal Court to Israel.

More could be written about the first MBA president, who deliberately destroyed confidence, but it is too depressing. It has been suggested that Bush needs a better economic team. However, for the sake of confidence, getting a new president has a better ring.

Mailbox: E-mails, Faxes and Phone Calls

Email www.washingtonpost.com- Two and a half months before George W. Bush sold his Harken stock, he signed a letter promising to hold onto the shares for at least six months. The "lockup" letter Bush signed on April 3, 1990 is now being compared with the account his lawyers gave securities regulators who examined the stock sale for possible insider trading.

Email: http://www.globeandmail.com Hi, Kettle! This is Pot. When George W. Bush and his aides prepared his speech on corporate ethics, he must have paused at the line calling on companies to stop giving loans to their senior officers. Surely it occurred to him to say: Hey, guys, that's funny, because I borrowed $180,000 (U.S.) from a little oil company when I sat on its board in the 1980s. Either he said it very quietly, or no one in the room noticed the contradiction. Or maybe they thought no one would find out, even though details of the loans were in the company's public filings.

Sure, the loans are small potatoes compared with, say, the $400-million WorldCom lent to ex-CEO Bernard Ebbers. Officers borrowing money from their companies is not illegal, but Bush might have looked like less of a hypocrite if his speech acknowledged his own small loans, while noting that recent abuses have revealed the dangers of this business practice.

Email www.africaservice.com On Monday, the House of Representatives by a 385-3 vote, approved a computer crime bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers and expand police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order.

The Bush administration had asked Congress to approve the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) as a way of responding to electronic intrusions, denial of service attacks and the threat of "cyber-terrorism." The CSEA had been written before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks last year, but the events spurred legislators toward Monday's near-unanimous vote.

Email unionnews@yahoogroups.com According to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, "The whole world is demanding that Israel withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories. I don't think the whole world can be wrong." Only in the United States do politicians and the media still fervently support Israel and its policies. For decades the US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid. Why? Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations.

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