JayB

I think a quick look at the percent of the private workforce that's actually covered by a defined benefit plan would go a long way towards answering this question. This also assumes that someone covered by a pension is actually forgoing better opportunities elsewhere, which is quite a stretch when you consider what kind of skill-sets you typically find in private sector workers who are hanging around for a pension. Is the 55-year old guy sitting atop of the seniority ladder and punching rivets in 747's for a living really forgoing a golden opportunity to work elsewhere for higher wages?

You still have to demonstrate that the costs of diminished labor mobility would be less than the costs of the government providing everyone with a pension benefit that exceeds those already provided by Social Security and Medicare...not to mention the costs associated with increasing the tax burden on employees and employers in a manner that's sufficient to fund the program. Not an easy feat. Once the new regs kick in and state and local governments have to account for future pension and health-care liabilities on their balance sheets (for bond issuing purposes) - which will happen soon, it will be interesting to see how receptive the public will be to tax hikes to fund other people's retirement. This will be especially true for those that retire at 55 with benefits that are far more generous than anyone in the private sector gets, after 30 years of 40 hour work-weeks. "This system would allow workers to transfer between industries and geographic regions without having to start from scratch, something that would certainly help the 'market' resolve labor supply and demand imbalances without additional government intervention." Doesn't the market address labor imbalances through either laying off workers if there are more than the business can support, or offering higher wages to attract all of the workers that they need? With respect to mobility between regions, you'd have to figure out how likely someone is to move to an entirely different region in response to a better opportunity that they are free to seek without compromising their pension, as opposed to taking a better job closer to home. Intangibles like ties to family, friends, hobbies, etc probably limit labor mobility as much or more than tangible factors like retaining a pension.

I actually don't think that you can prove that this problem is endemic to all "legacy" companies, so you'd do just as well to abandon that line of argument. With respect to the nationalizing retirement - we already have something like that called social security - and the magnitude of the liabilities there is already more than a bit problematic. Leaving that aside, you'd have to attempt to quantify what extent, if any, the availability of pensions has on labor mobility, attempt to calculate what this costs, and then make the argument that these costs are lower than those that would result from the government providing everyone with a guaranteed income in retirement over and above the costs of Social Security and Medicaid. Then you'd have to determine how to pay for it, and attempt to calculate the effect that a net increase in taxes sufficient to pay for this new program would have on economic output - and again compare this to the benefits of increased labor mobility for that subset of the private workforce that is actually covered by a defined benefit plan. The essential problem with GM is a rapidly diminishing market share, which has fallen for a number of reasons, the foremost of which is producing products that are less appealing to consumers than those made by their competitors. If this continues for long enough, you go out of business. End of story. This happens to millions of people who do not work in the auto business every year, but no one gives a shit, much less proposes fundamentally restructuring the economy on their behalf. Should the public be asked to maintain everyone's employment, even if they produce something that no one wants or needs on after the development of superior alternatives? Should the public have guaranteed employment to candlemakers after the advent of the lightbulb? To buggy-makers after the arrival of the automobile? Would the nation be better off if such laws had been enacted?

No one, much less GM, has claimed this. How would shifting their liabilities onto the public via nationalization of these liabilities amount to anything else? The only reason why I hope that domestic automakers stay in business is so that the public doesn't end up footing the bill for the labor-management co-cluster that they created for themselves. Not easy if you are selling an overpriced product with a reputation for poor quality that no one is especially interested in buying, but hopefully they find a way.

Are you talking money wages or total compensation vis-a-vis foreign automakers? All employees of foreign automakers are unionized? How does any of this absolve union leadership for their role in using strikes to force their employers into adopting the compensation/benefits package that you cite as a central reason for the dire situation that the company now finds itself in? Also, none of this addresses the question of why all long-lived industries are not suffering from this same set of problems.

I'm not waving a flag, just stating a fact. Feel free to return to your previous arguments.

"Given your free market POV, I'm sure you'd agree with me that such a single payer system would be a good idea." Single nationwide health-insurance market with the tax-benefits associated with paying for health benefits transferred to individuals rather than tethered to employers - yes. Nationalization of health-care, no. None of this would help domestic automakers, who - along with their employees - dug their own graves.

No, I don't believe you can, actually. GM self destructed due to a number of factors, the primary one being that they did not choose to produce what the market wanted to buy. Their profit margin, for example, on their SUV and light truck lines is hefty: they just stuck with these monsters long after demand for them began to decline. In addition, GM suffers more than other automakers from a poor pay in to pay out ratio for their enormous retirement/benefit plans. Ironically, this is a result of their longevity, or continued success; the longer they stay in business and more productive (per employee) they become, the more retired folks they need to cover with fewer active workers paying into the plan. GM is a poster child for doing away with corporation based retirement benefits plans and replacing them with a single nationwide plan which would level the playing field for older companies, like GM, who have tried to make good on their commitment to their retired workforce. In addition, such a nationwide plan would make our workforce much more fluid, a good thing to correct regional and industry by industry labor imbalances. Given your free market POV, I'm sure you'd agree with me that such a single payer system would be a good idea. I've read nothing credible which points to unions as the main cause of GM's demise. If your argument about longevity being the sole reason for GM's woes, why isn't every single employer that's been in existence since for 60 years or more suffering from these same problems? Are you honestly claiming that the union had no role whatsoever - via strikes or the threat thereof - in securing the pay and benefits which have rendered their labor uncompetitive? The "jobs bank," which has been paying thousands of workers full-time wages with benefits for doing nothing since the early 80's was management's idea? It's also worth noting that the reason that the American car makers favored the big gas guzzlers was that, given their cost structure, they made little or no money on sub-compacts that sell for far less than trucks and SUV's.

"But - areas where works are more vunerable, such as hotel, fatory workers, jaintors, the folks who actually work with their hands, unions are a good thing. Without collective bargining they would get screwed." Your original argument was that without Union protection we'd all revert back to late 19th century working conditions, or some variant thereof, no? This is a new argument, but what of the old one? With regards to hotel workers, factory workers, etc - there are a considerable number of these workers who have made a voluntary decision to perform these jobs for the wage that the employer offered. My sense is that these people sized up the options available to them given their geographic situation, skill-set, and education level and concluded that this was the best way for them to make a living at the present time. How, exactly, is this being screwed? If the state were either preventing them from moving, seeking employment in other fields, advancing their skills, etc - or if they were contending with a national monopoly in which all factories, hotels, etc were controlled by a single entity - then I'd agree with you. The only place where this actually happens these is under communist/socialist rule.

Can you cite an example where this has actually happened? Union representation in the private workforce has been plummeting for decades, but the laws are still on the books, no? I can cite quite a number of examples where unions have been instrumental in destroying the basis of their own employment, such as at GM. I'd also don't think that government workers should have any privileges or covered by any rules that don't apply to all private sector workers. If the rules are good enough for folks working outside the government, they should be plenty good enough for the folks working inside it. This would effectively eliminating membership for government workers, but if they have to make do with the same rules and regulations that apply to the rest of us, this should hardly be considered either unfair or a hardship that they should be granted protection from.

I agree that overpaying top management is a bad business practice, but if the board of directors, elected by the shareholders to represent their interests, voluntarily overpays the CEO - how is this the business of anyone outside of the company anymore than it would be if someone decided that you were worth less than whatever it is that your current employer decides to pay you?

Even if this is true - and I think it is only partially true, and omits the contributions that advancements in productivity brought about by the dreaded marketplace (against a constant current of opposition from guilds, unions, etc) have made towards creating a world in which it's possible for a vastly expanding population produce enough to live on without constant toil (e.g. the 8 hour work-day), etc, etc, etc, etc - this does not constitute an argument for why they are necessary or beneficial today. None of the regulations that you have cited owe their continued existence to unions, so what arguments can you make for their necessity today? If all workers would be better off under unions, how can you account for the existence of people who do not wish to belong to them, much less for the fact that the percentage of people in the private labor force has been steadily declining for decades?

Unionization has certainly done wonders for the domestic auto industry, hasn't it. The "card-check" legislation currently under consideration, that would replace secret ballot voting procedures in unionization votes with a system in which workers have to fill out cards in which they openly declare their votes should re-introduce quite a number of workers to the joys of Teamster style persuasion. "Hey there - we noticed that you checked the no box on that card yesterday...." The TSA workers are set to be unionized via a bill passing through congress as well. In short order the TSA will combine all of the efficiency of GM, with the charm of the Teamsters.

This essay might warrant a read in the meantime. Not entirely on topic, but still germane. http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_when_islam.html

More like pipettor got my hand. I'll respond when I have a bit more time.

The enlightened ones and the successful debaters amongst us will no doubt be consider this due to some behind the scenes sabotage by the imperialist US..... One wonders how many epi-cycles they will devise before they understand the obvious. Your posts might generate more traffic if the opposing point of view you frequently try to bait actually existed on this forum. Price controls lead to inflation? Revolutionary! Yaaawwwwwnnnnnnnn. Could you elaborate on the manner in which, in your view, price controls cause inflation?

Spent the day dicking around on the 3ish consolation routes in the lower photos due to the aforementioned all-day group enduro-seige TR megacluster. If we'd been able to hang around for a couple of hours longer, we could have had access to those routes as well, but we had to cut the day a bit short, so if we'd been a bit more persistent the mega-cluster wouldn't have kept us off of the routes. Now that we've been there, we may sneak out there on a weekday to score unfettered access to the better lines, or try to do a better job of determining when commercial/college/club outings will be present. We still had a good time, and it's hard to imagine a cluster of sufficient magnitude to fully thwart someone who's willing to make do with some of the shorter lines or do some bouldering.

Mega-Quote from the Dreaded NeoCon, Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation.": "In recent days, crowds of thousands have gathered throughout the Muslim world—burning European embassies, issuing threats, and even taking hostages—in protest over 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper last September. The problem is not merely that the cartoons were mildly derogatory. The furor primarily erupted over the fact that the Prophet had been depicted at all. Many Muslims consider any physical rendering of Muhammad to be an act of idolatry. And idolatry is punishable by death. Criticism of Muhammad or his teaching—which was also implicit in the cartoons—is considered blasphemy. As it turns out, blasphemy is also punishable by death. So pious Muslims have two reasons to “not accept less than a severing of the heads of those responsible,” as was recently elucidated by a preacher at the Al Omari mosque in Gaza. The religious hysteria has not been confined to the “extremists” of the Muslim world. Seventeen Arab governments issued a joint statement of protest, calling for the punishment of those responsible. Pakistan’s parliament unanimously condemned the drawings as a “vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign” that has “hurt the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world.” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while still seeking his nation’s entry into the European Union, nevertheless declared that the cartoons were an attack upon the “spiritual values” of Muslims everywhere. The leader of Lebanon’s governing Hezbollah faction observed that the whole episode could have been avoided if only the novelist Salman Rushdie had been properly slaughtered for writing “The Satanic Verses.” Let us take stock of the moral intuitions now on display in the House of Islam: On Aug. 17, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent helped collect the injured survivors of a car bombing, rushed them to a hospital and then detonated his own bomb, murdering those who were already mortally wounded as well as the doctors and nurses struggling to save their lives. Where were the cries of outrage from the Muslim world? Religious sociopaths kill innocents by the hundreds in the capitols of Europe, blow up the offices of the U.N. and the Red Cross, purposefully annihilate crowds of children gathered to collect candy from U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, kidnap journalists, behead them, and the videos of their butchery become the most popular form of pornography in the Muslim world, and no one utters a word of protest because these atrocities have been perpetrated “in defense of Islam.” But draw a picture of the Prophet, and pious mobs convulse with pious rage. One could hardly ask for a better example of religious dogmatism and its pseudo-morality eclipsing basic, human goodness. It is time we recognized—and obliged the Muslim world to recognize—that “Muslim extremism” is not extreme among Muslims. Mainstream Islam itself represents an extremist rejection of intellectual honesty, gender equality, secular politics and genuine pluralism. The truth about Islam is as politically incorrect as it is terrifying: Islam is all fringe and no center. In Islam, we confront a civilization with an arrested history. It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. The demographic trends are ominous: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow. Throughout Western Europe, Muslim immigrants show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of their host countries, and yet exploit these values to the utmost—demanding tolerance for their backwardness, their misogyny, their anti-Semitism, and the genocidal hatred that is regularly preached in their mosques. Political correctness and fears of racism have rendered many secular Europeans incapable of opposing the terrifying religious commitments of the extremists in their midst. In an effort to appease the lunatic furor arising in the Muslim world in response to the publication of the Danish cartoons, many Western leaders have offered apologies for exercising the very freedoms that are constitutive of civil society in the 21st century. The U.S. and British governments have chastised Denmark and the other countries that published the cartoons for privileging freedom of speech over religious sensitivity. It is not often that one sees the most powerful countries on Earth achieve new depths of weakness, moral exhaustion and geopolitical stupidity with a single gesture. This was appeasement at its most abject. The idea that Islam is a “peaceful religion hijacked by extremists” is a dangerous fantasy—and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so—it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms. The problem is especially acute in the Arab world. Consider: According to the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Reports, less than 2% of Arabs have access to the Internet. Arabs represent 5% of the world’s population and yet produce only 1% of the world’s books, most of them religious. In fact, Spain translates more books into Spanish each year than the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the ninth century. Our press should report on the terrifying state of discourse in the Arab press, exposing the degree to which it is a tissue of lies, conspiracy theories and exhortations to recapture the glories of the seventh century. All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the Earth. Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their coreligionists. Otherwise, we will have to win some very terrible wars in the future. It is time we realized that the endgame for civilization is not political correctness. It is not respect for the abject religious certainties of the mob. It is reason. Sam Harris is the author of “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason” (W.W. Norton). He can be reached through his website at www.samharris.org. Sam Harris responds to comments and criticism Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths. I have argued elsewhere that the ascendancy of Christian conservatism in American politics should terrify and embarrass us. I have argued that the religious dogmatism of the Jewish settlers could well be the cause of World War III. And yet, there are gradations to the evil that is done in name of God, and these gradations must be honestly observed. So let us now acknowledge the obvious: there is a direct link between the doctrine of Islam and Muslim violence. Acknowledging this link remains especially taboo among political liberals. While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing and teach it equally well. This is one of the many delusions borne of political correctness. Rather than continue to squander precious time, energy, and good will by denying the role that Islam now plays in perpetuating Muslim violence, we should urge Muslim communities, East and West, to reform the ideology of their religion. This will not be easy, as the Koran and hadith offer precious little basis for a Muslim Enlightenment, but it is necessary. The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence. Unless the world’s Muslims can find some way of expunging the metaphysics that is fast turning their religion into a cult of death, we will ultimately face the same perversely destructive behavior throughout much of the world. It should be clear that I am not speaking about a race or an ethnicity here; I am speaking about the logical consequences of specific ideas. Anyone who imagines that terrestrial concerns account for Muslim terrorism must answer questions of the following sort: Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal, and far more cynical, than any that Britain, the United States, or Israel have ever imposed upon the Muslim world. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against Chinese noncombatants? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam. This is not to say that Buddhism could not help inspire suicidal violence. It can, and it has (Japan, World War II). But this concedes absolutely nothing to the apologists for Islam. As a Buddhist, one has to work extremely hard to justify such barbarism. One need not work nearly so hard as a Muslim. If you doubt whether the comparison is valid, ask yourself where the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers are. Palestinian Christians also suffer the indignity of the Israeli occupation. This is practically a science experiment: take the same people, speaking the same language, put them in the same horrendous circumstance, but give them slightly different religious beliefs--and then watch what happens. What happens is, they behave differently. While the other major world religions have been fertile sources of intolerance, it is clear that the doctrine of Islam poses unique problems for the emergence of a global civilization. The world, from the point of view of Islam, is divided into the “House of Islam” and the “House of War,” and this latter designation should indicate how Muslims believe their differences with those who do not share their faith will be ultimately resolved. While there are undoubtedly some moderate Muslims who have decided to overlook the irrescindable militancy of their religion, Islam is undeniably a religion of conquest. The only future devout Muslims can envisage—as Muslims—is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed. The tenets of Islam simply do not admit of anything but a temporary sharing of power with the “enemies of God.” Devout Muslims can have no doubt about the reality of Paradise or about the efficacy of martyrdom as a means of getting there. Nor can they question the wisdom and reasonableness of killing people for what amount to theological grievances. In Islam, it is the moderate who is left to split hairs, because the basic thrust of the doctrine is undeniable: convert, subjugate, or kill unbelievers; kill apostates; and conquer the world. It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of devout Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is, after all, little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the September 11th hijackers may one day get their hands on nuclear weaponry. As Martin Rees, Britain’s Royal astronomer, has pointed out, there is no reason to expect that we will be any more successful at stopping nuclear proliferation, in small quantities, than we have been with respect to illegal drugs. If this is true, weapons of mass destruction will eventually be available to anyone who wants them. It seems a truism to say that there is no possible future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. "

They held the line for 72 years in the face of far more grim news from the Soviet Block and China, and have yet to concede the obvious with regards to Cuba, so conjuring up the apologetics for Hugo et al shouldn't provide them with very much in the way of a moral or intellectual challenge.

Your inhumanity knows no bounds.

Come one people, look at these sacrifices! "We've adjusted, all right. Instead of going to movies, we stay in and rent them. The rare restaurant meal is breakfast or lunch, less spendy than dinner. We had season tickets to the Boise Opera but, as much as we both love it, opera is not in the leaner, meaner Seattle budget." Surely one of you can find it in your hearts to cut $275K off of the sale price of your home to lighten their burden. We're talking *rented* movies here. NO OPERA for God's%$#*ing sake!

Exactly. I sucks that a historic confluence of low interest rates, the yen-based carry-trade, market psychology, etc have coalesced and resulted in a situation where hardworking folks that are financially prudent find themselves outbid by some folks fresh out of the Carlton Sheets seminar sporting the stated-income,neg-AM, I/O, payment-option 80/20 financing - but that's life. If someone is prepared to pay more money and/or assume more financial risk to secure the same asset - they get the asset. When it comes to owning a home, we are all entitled to jack shit, much less an affordable home in our favorite neighborhood, etc, etc, etc.

Anyone feel any sympathy for this lady? I certainly don't. -Didn't get the memo that a coastal city with a much larger population will be more expensive than a smaller city in the interior that's surrounded by an infinity land suitable for building. -Feels that owning a home that suits their tastes in their favorite neighborhood is a god given right. -Moved to a more expensive city and discovered that the higher cost of living associated with living in the neighborhood of their choosing involves certain tradeoffs. -Etc, etc, etc, "Seattle too pricey for normal people" CHRISTY L. THOMAS GUEST COLUMNIST It's been one year since my boyfriend, Tom, and I spent a lovely, long weekend in Seattle and decided to move here. As new empty-nesters, we were up for an adventure. He applied for an artsy, downtown job and got it; I'm self-employed, so I stayed in Boise long enough to sell the house and start sending out r�sum�s to build Seattle-area business. I joined him here in July. Our goal was to rent for a year, look around and buy the home where, if we're lucky, we'll grow old together. We signed a lease on a cute but rundown place in Ballard, trying not to think about the fact that, at less than half the size of our last house, it cost more than our 15-year mortgage. We told ourselves: "Well, this is a bigger city. We'll adjust the budget a bit and make it work." Every Sunday, we'd pore over the newspaper real estate sections and a Seattle map, pick a new neighborhood and visit open houses. When that got too depressing, we cut back to every other week. Houses we'd never have looked at twice sport half-million-dollar price tags. One seemingly incredible bargain actually had been condemned -- for the same price we sold our Boise property ($320,000). Real estate agents either have tried to shoehorn us into tiny condos, or clucked sympathetically and suggested moving "at least an hour out of town." I've lectured many of them about our situation: "We moved here to be part of the city. We're good citizens and interesting, productive people. We're just not, at this stage of life, willing to spend every penny on a house. We need to save something for retirement." Finally, Tom calmly proclaimed: "No more tears. No more wrecked Sundays. I'm getting up early and throwing away the real estate listings." We've adjusted, all right. Instead of going to movies, we stay in and rent them. The rare restaurant meal is breakfast or lunch, less spendy than dinner. We had season tickets to the Boise Opera but, as much as we both love it, opera is not in the leaner, meaner Seattle budget. The car insurance and health insurance went up. Our heating oil bill topped $1,500 in four months. Groceries cost more and sales tax is higher. I used to be an active volunteer on charitable boards and a member of a city commission. Here, I can't afford to be generous with my time; I have to focus on getting paid work. Few employers, including this newspaper, have bothered to respond to my queries, even for job descriptions that perfectly match my skills and experience. Novelists appear to be held in high regard, but I write speeches, textbooks, how-to manuals and such. I never thought of myself, or my assignments, as boring until now. Yes, it's been an adventure. We were so excited about getting a fresh start at midlife in such a beautiful place. Now I wonder, how could two hard-working people with good hearts and the best intentions end up feeling so ... unwelcome? You tell me. Is Seattle only for rich folks now? How do normal people manage? If we head back to Boise, are we giving up, or just being realistic? We've set an April 1 deadline to decide. Christy L. Thomas lives in Seattle.

Trip: Auburn Ice Canyon, Auburn MA - Various Date: 2/18/2007 Trip Report: Will add a bit more text of my own tomorrow, but this will suffice for now. Short story. 40 miles from Boston, commercial trip has enduro-mega-siege-TR action in full-effect on all of the best lines on in place by the time of our arrival just after 8:00AM, but there's more than enough ice to go around and we have a good time, meet nice folks, and enjoy one of the lowest drive-time, approach-time, and elevation-gain-required to reach ice outings ever. Supplemental text cross-posted from neice.com for the benefit of anyone living on the East Coast with intentions of bringing a large group into the area. "And to anyone wishing to bring large groups for the purpose of making money (private guiding), recreation (school groups, outing clubs, etc.) into the canyon, remember that this is not New Hampshire or Maine. The access to this area is more fragile than you think, especially after the emergency response to the accident a few years ago. Local crews are not equipped to handle rescues in that environment, and they would just rather not have us in there. Please keep the groups SMALL, properly equipped (um, EVERYONE needs to be wearing a helmet at ALL times), and WELL-MANAGED to avoid getting injured. If you don't agree with my opinion here, I don't care. I don't want someone else screwing this up for the rest of us who use better judgement when going into this local jewel of a resource. Amen. Meeg" The Best Lines at the End of the Canyon. The view of towards the rear of the Canyon: Some of the consolation climbs away from the best routes: Gear Notes: Long slings helpful for anchors. Outing schedule at Rhode Island Rock Gym or local college outing clubs may be useful for crowd forecasting purposes. Approach Notes: Approach beta on neice.com

I honestly don't recall responding to one of your posts, but all of the evidence suggests that international terrorists usually come from a privileged, well-educated elite with substantial connections to the West. This bears pondering in light of the argument that Islamic terrorism is a response to poverty, etc.