From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Illinois soldier was pursuing dream
By William Lamb

William David Dusenbery of Fairview Heights was 29 years old when he joined the Army in 2001 - too old, his recruiter said, to enroll in flight school and fulfill a dream of piloting the Black Hawk helicopter.

So Dusenbery settled for the next best thing, learning the intricacies of the Black Hawk's engine and propulsion system and applying himself as a helicopter mechanic with the 101st Airborne Division. Dusenbery, 30, was aboard one of the helicopters when it collided with a second one over Mosul, Iraq, Saturday, killing him and 16 others. Five passengers were wounded.

Dusenbery's father, Bill, was reluctant to talk about his son in an interview Monday, worrying that doing so would draw attention from the troops who continue to serve in Iraq.

"The story is not about him, necessarily," Bill Dusenbery said. "Yes, it seems like he's a hero because he happened, unfortunately enough, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He died in that crash, but there are 140-some-thousand families that are going through hell every morning, every time they turn on the TV set wondering if it's one of theirs.

"Those 140,000 people in the military," he added, "they're all heroes."

Dusenbery, who was known to friends and family as Dave and in Army circles as "Duse," last spoke with his family by telephone in September, his father said. But the younger Dusenbery managed to stay in touch regularly by e-mail.

"We'd usually hear from him after he'd made a trip," Bill Dusenbery said. "We knew there was something wrong when we didn't get an e-mail."

Dusenbery spent his childhood in Highland. Later, he followed his mother, Nancy Metcalf, to Rancho Cordova, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento, where he attended high school. He finished high school in Rogue River, a small city in southwestern Oregon.

After high school, Dusenbery gravitated back to Illinois. He installed himself in the Chicago suburbs, where he ran an independent business modeled after Mailboxes Etc. He married and had a daughter, now 7. Dusenbery's wife, from whom he was estranged, and his daughter now live in California.

Bill Dusenbery said his son had spoken about the dangers of serving in Iraq and said he was prepared to face them.

"He talked about it," Dusenbery said. "He prepared for it. When he talked to the Army recruiters, they told him he needed to lose some weight to get ready. He spent months in preparation so he could pass those Army physicals to get in shape. He was serious about wanting to do this."

Dusenbery said his son planned to make the military his career. In the weeks before his death, he said his son's supervisors had spoken with him about letting him train as a helicopter pilot after all.

In addition to his wife, parents and daughter, among the survivors are an 11-year-old stepdaughter and a younger brother, Joe Dusenbery, who lives in Rancho Cordova.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete as the family waited for word that Dusenbery's remains were on the way home.

"He loved doing his job and he loved the people he worked with," Bill Dusenbery said. "It's not only his family that's grieving about this. It's units like the 101st that are so close and have such a tradition. I know they're all grieving for their loss."

From the NY Times:
Support the Troops
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Yesterday's absurd conspiracy theory about the Bush administration has a way of turning into today's conventional wisdom. Remember when people were ridiculed for claiming that Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, eager to fight a war, were hyping the threat from Iraq?

Anyway, many analysts now acknowledge that the administration never had any intention of pursuing a conventionally responsible fiscal policy. Rather, its tax cuts were always intended as a way of implementing the radical strategy known as "starve the beast," which views budget deficits as a good thing, a way to squeeze government spending. Did I mention that the administration is planning another long-run tax cut next year?

Advocates of the starve-the-beast strategy tend to talk abstractly about "big government." But in fact, squeezing government spending almost always means cutting back or eliminating services people actually want (though not necessarily programs worth their cost). And since it's Veterans Day, let's talk about how the big squeeze on spending may be alienating a surprising group: the nation's soldiers.

One of George W. Bush's major campaign themes in 2000 was his promise to improve the lives of America's soldiers — and military votes were crucial to his success. But these days some of the harshest criticisms of the Bush administration come from publications aimed at a military audience.

For example, last week the magazine Army Times ran a story with the headline "An Act of `Betrayal,' " and the subtitle "In the midst of war, key family benefits face cuts." The article went on to assert that there has been "a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."

At one level, this pattern of cuts is standard operating procedure. Just about every apparent promise of financial generosity this administration has made (other than those involving tax cuts for top brackets and corporate contracts) has turned out to be nonoperational. No Child Left Behind got left behind — or at least left without funds. AmeriCorps got praised in the State of the Union address, then left high and dry in the budget that followed. New York's firefighters and policemen got a photo-op with the president, but very little money. For that matter, it's clear that New York will never see the full $20 billion it was promised for rebuilding. Why shouldn't soldiers find themselves subject to the same kind of bait and switch?

Yet one might have expected the administration to treat the military differently, if only as a matter of sheer political calculation. After all, the military needs some mollifying: the Iraq war has turned increasingly nightmarish, and deference toward the administration is visibly eroding. Even Pfc. Jessica Lynch has, to her credit, balked at playing her scripted role.

So what's going on? One answer is that once you've instilled a Scrooge mentality throughout the government, it's hard to be selective. But I also suspect that a government of, by and for the economic elite is having trouble overcoming its basic lack of empathy with the working-class men and women who make up our armed forces.

Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed by his postscript, "which, heaven forbid, is awful." Your call. But it's hard to deny the stunning insensitivity of President Bush's remarks back on July 2: "There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." Those are the words of a man who can't imagine himself or anyone close to him actually being in the line of fire.

The question is whether the military will start to feel taken for granted. Publications like Army Times are obviously going off the reservation. Retired military officers, like Gen. Anthony Zinni — formerly President Bush's envoy to the Middle East — have started to offer harsh, indeed unprintable, assessments of administration policies. If this disillusionment spreads to the rank and file, the politics of 2004 may be very different from what anyone expects.

From the NY Times:
Living on Borrowed Money
By BOB HERBERT

It's interesting that so much attention is being paid to the modest job creation numbers for October, and so little is being given to a much more significant issue that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is homing in on.

Over the past couple of decades, Mr. Edwards said last week, "the American dream of building something better" has been replaced by the reality of "just getting by."

It has become increasingly difficult to get into — or stay in — the middle class. In speeches, reports and interviews, Senator Edwards has been pointing out that despite income gains, most families have been unable to save money and are dangerously vulnerable to setbacks like job losses and illnesses.

Citing statistics from an influential recent book, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke," by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, he noted that over the past 30 years home mortgage costs have risen 70 times faster than the average father's income. So you end up with two parents working like crazy just to keep the family economically afloat.

A generation ago the average American family was able to save about 11 percent of its income. Today the average family saves nothing. How can a family possibly save when it's piling up debt like mad?

The consumer debt load for the average family has tripled in just one generation. More and more Americans are using credit cards and other forms of borrowing to bridge the difficult gap between household income and the cost of essential goods and services. And those families, already in trouble, are ruthlessly exploited by a wide range of lenders.

As Senator Edwards pointed out in a report issued by his campaign: "Credit card companies target people least able to pay and then raise interest rates when people miss a single payment after losing their job. Almost half of all Americans pay the minimum balance or less each month, running up large interest debts."

Struggling families that fall behind in their payments are like a gold mine to the credit card companies.

"Late fees," according to a study by the public policy group Demos, "have become the fastest growing source of revenue for the industry, jumping from $1.7 billion in 1996 to $7.3 billion in 2002. Late fees now average $29, and most cards have reduced the late payment grace period from 14 days to zero days. In addition to charging late fees, the major credit card companies use the first late payment as an excuse to cancel low, introductory rates — often making a zero percent card jump to between 22 and 29 percent."

With so many families living on the edge of a financial cliff, it's inevitable that a lot of them will fall off. Personal bankruptcies reached an all-time high of 1.6 million last year.

If I were a cartoonist, I'd draw a picture of a family running for their lives down the center of a highway with an enormous truck labeled "financial insolvency" speeding behind them.

The American Dream has morphed into a treacherous survival regimen in which the good life — a life that includes a home, family vacations, adequate health coverage, money to provide the kids with a solid education, and a comfortable retirement — is increasingly elusive.

Senator Edwards said he is frequently confronted on the campaign trail by middle-class voters who will say, for example: "I've got a mother who needs to go into a nursing home and I can't pay for it. And I think I'm going to have to go into bankruptcy to do it, in order to qualify for Medicaid."

Or, "I was doing fine until my husband got sick and now he needs medication that costs $300 a week. How in the world do I pay for that?"

Borrowing, whether by the federal government or individual consumers, has become the preferred (perhaps only) way to make ends meet. What's been driving this so-called red-hot economy is not the solid growth in jobs and wages that is essential for a flourishing middle class, but an orgy of refinancing and an irresponsible mixture of tax cuts and federal spending that is creating monster deficits. In short, we're mortgaging the nation's future.

On Friday the Federal Reserve reported that consumers had jacked up their borrowing in September by the largest amount since the beginning of the year. The $15.1 billion increase in consumer borrowing was 9.7 percent higher than in August, and pushed total consumer debt to $1.97 trillion.

Living on Borrowed Money
By BOB HERBERT

It's interesting that so much attention is being paid to the modest job creation numbers for October, and so little is being given to a much more significant issue that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is homing in on.

Over the past couple of decades, Mr. Edwards said last week, "the American dream of building something better" has been replaced by the reality of "just getting by."

It has become increasingly difficult to get into — or stay in — the middle class. In speeches, reports and interviews, Senator Edwards has been pointing out that despite income gains, most families have been unable to save money and are dangerously vulnerable to setbacks like job losses and illnesses.

Citing statistics from an influential recent book, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke," by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, he noted that over the past 30 years home mortgage costs have risen 70 times faster than the average father's income. So you end up with two parents working like crazy just to keep the family economically afloat.

A generation ago the average American family was able to save about 11 percent of its income. Today the average family saves nothing. How can a family possibly save when it's piling up debt like mad?

The consumer debt load for the average family has tripled in just one generation. More and more Americans are using credit cards and other forms of borrowing to bridge the difficult gap between household income and the cost of essential goods and services. And those families, already in trouble, are ruthlessly exploited by a wide range of lenders.

As Senator Edwards pointed out in a report issued by his campaign: "Credit card companies target people least able to pay and then raise interest rates when people miss a single payment after losing their job. Almost half of all Americans pay the minimum balance or less each month, running up large interest debts."

Struggling families that fall behind in their payments are like a gold mine to the credit card companies.

"Late fees," according to a study by the public policy group Demos, "have become the fastest growing source of revenue for the industry, jumping from $1.7 billion in 1996 to $7.3 billion in 2002. Late fees now average $29, and most cards have reduced the late payment grace period from 14 days to zero days. In addition to charging late fees, the major credit card companies use the first late payment as an excuse to cancel low, introductory rates — often making a zero percent card jump to between 22 and 29 percent."

With so many families living on the edge of a financial cliff, it's inevitable that a lot of them will fall off. Personal bankruptcies reached an all-time high of 1.6 million last year.

If I were a cartoonist, I'd draw a picture of a family running for their lives down the center of a highway with an enormous truck labeled "financial insolvency" speeding behind them.

The American Dream has morphed into a treacherous survival regimen in which the good life — a life that includes a home, family vacations, adequate health coverage, money to provide the kids with a solid education, and a comfortable retirement — is increasingly elusive.

Senator Edwards said he is frequently confronted on the campaign trail by middle-class voters who will say, for example: "I've got a mother who needs to go into a nursing home and I can't pay for it. And I think I'm going to have to go into bankruptcy to do it, in order to qualify for Medicaid."

Or, "I was doing fine until my husband got sick and now he needs medication that costs $300 a week. How in the world do I pay for that?"

Borrowing, whether by the federal government or individual consumers, has become the preferred (perhaps only) way to make ends meet. What's been driving this so-called red-hot economy is not the solid growth in jobs and wages that is essential for a flourishing middle class, but an orgy of refinancing and an irresponsible mixture of tax cuts and federal spending that is creating monster deficits. In short, we're mortgaging the nation's future.

On Friday the Federal Reserve reported that consumers had jacked up their borrowing in September by the largest amount since the beginning of the year. The $15.1 billion increase in consumer borrowing was 9.7 percent higher than in August, and pushed total consumer debt to $1.97 trillion.

Living on Borrowed Money
By BOB HERBERT

It's interesting that so much attention is being paid to the modest job creation numbers for October, and so little is being given to a much more significant issue that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is homing in on.

Over the past couple of decades, Mr. Edwards said last week, "the American dream of building something better" has been replaced by the reality of "just getting by."

It has become increasingly difficult to get into — or stay in — the middle class. In speeches, reports and interviews, Senator Edwards has been pointing out that despite income gains, most families have been unable to save money and are dangerously vulnerable to setbacks like job losses and illnesses.

Citing statistics from an influential recent book, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke," by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, he noted that over the past 30 years home mortgage costs have risen 70 times faster than the average father's income. So you end up with two parents working like crazy just to keep the family economically afloat.

A generation ago the average American family was able to save about 11 percent of its income. Today the average family saves nothing. How can a family possibly save when it's piling up debt like mad?

The consumer debt load for the average family has tripled in just one generation. More and more Americans are using credit cards and other forms of borrowing to bridge the difficult gap between household income and the cost of essential goods and services. And those families, already in trouble, are ruthlessly exploited by a wide range of lenders.

As Senator Edwards pointed out in a report issued by his campaign: "Credit card companies target people least able to pay and then raise interest rates when people miss a single payment after losing their job. Almost half of all Americans pay the minimum balance or less each month, running up large interest debts."

Struggling families that fall behind in their payments are like a gold mine to the credit card companies.

"Late fees," according to a study by the public policy group Demos, "have become the fastest growing source of revenue for the industry, jumping from $1.7 billion in 1996 to $7.3 billion in 2002. Late fees now average $29, and most cards have reduced the late payment grace period from 14 days to zero days. In addition to charging late fees, the major credit card companies use the first late payment as an excuse to cancel low, introductory rates — often making a zero percent card jump to between 22 and 29 percent."

With so many families living on the edge of a financial cliff, it's inevitable that a lot of them will fall off. Personal bankruptcies reached an all-time high of 1.6 million last year.

If I were a cartoonist, I'd draw a picture of a family running for their lives down the center of a highway with an enormous truck labeled "financial insolvency" speeding behind them.

The American Dream has morphed into a treacherous survival regimen in which the good life — a life that includes a home, family vacations, adequate health coverage, money to provide the kids with a solid education, and a comfortable retirement — is increasingly elusive.

Senator Edwards said he is frequently confronted on the campaign trail by middle-class voters who will say, for example: "I've got a mother who needs to go into a nursing home and I can't pay for it. And I think I'm going to have to go into bankruptcy to do it, in order to qualify for Medicaid."

Or, "I was doing fine until my husband got sick and now he needs medication that costs $300 a week. How in the world do I pay for that?"

Borrowing, whether by the federal government or individual consumers, has become the preferred (perhaps only) way to make ends meet. What's been driving this so-called red-hot economy is not the solid growth in jobs and wages that is essential for a flourishing middle class, but an orgy of refinancing and an irresponsible mixture of tax cuts and federal spending that is creating monster deficits. In short, we're mortgaging the nation's future.

On Friday the Federal Reserve reported that consumers had jacked up their borrowing in September by the largest amount since the beginning of the year. The $15.1 billion increase in consumer borrowing was 9.7 percent higher than in August, and pushed total consumer debt to $1.97 trillion.

From the NY Times:
Living on Borrowed Money
By BOB HERBERT

It's interesting that so much attention is being paid to the modest job creation numbers for October, and so little is being given to a much more significant issue that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is homing in on.

Over the past couple of decades, Mr. Edwards said last week, "the American dream of building something better" has been replaced by the reality of "just getting by."

It has become increasingly difficult to get into — or stay in — the middle class. In speeches, reports and interviews, Senator Edwards has been pointing out that despite income gains, most families have been unable to save money and are dangerously vulnerable to setbacks like job losses and illnesses.

Citing statistics from an influential recent book, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke," by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, he noted that over the past 30 years home mortgage costs have risen 70 times faster than the average father's income. So you end up with two parents working like crazy just to keep the family economically afloat.

A generation ago the average American family was able to save about 11 percent of its income. Today the average family saves nothing. How can a family possibly save when it's piling up debt like mad?

The consumer debt load for the average family has tripled in just one generation. More and more Americans are using credit cards and other forms of borrowing to bridge the difficult gap between household income and the cost of essential goods and services. And those families, already in trouble, are ruthlessly exploited by a wide range of lenders.

As Senator Edwards pointed out in a report issued by his campaign: "Credit card companies target people least able to pay and then raise interest rates when people miss a single payment after losing their job. Almost half of all Americans pay the minimum balance or less each month, running up large interest debts."

Struggling families that fall behind in their payments are like a gold mine to the credit card companies.

"Late fees," according to a study by the public policy group Demos, "have become the fastest growing source of revenue for the industry, jumping from $1.7 billion in 1996 to $7.3 billion in 2002. Late fees now average $29, and most cards have reduced the late payment grace period from 14 days to zero days. In addition to charging late fees, the major credit card companies use the first late payment as an excuse to cancel low, introductory rates — often making a zero percent card jump to between 22 and 29 percent."

With so many families living on the edge of a financial cliff, it's inevitable that a lot of them will fall off. Personal bankruptcies reached an all-time high of 1.6 million last year.

If I were a cartoonist, I'd draw a picture of a family running for their lives down the center of a highway with an enormous truck labeled "financial insolvency" speeding behind them.

The American Dream has morphed into a treacherous survival regimen in which the good life — a life that includes a home, family vacations, adequate health coverage, money to provide the kids with a solid education, and a comfortable retirement — is increasingly elusive.

Senator Edwards said he is frequently confronted on the campaign trail by middle-class voters who will say, for example: "I've got a mother who needs to go into a nursing home and I can't pay for it. And I think I'm going to have to go into bankruptcy to do it, in order to qualify for Medicaid."

Or, "I was doing fine until my husband got sick and now he needs medication that costs $300 a week. How in the world do I pay for that?"

Borrowing, whether by the federal government or individual consumers, has become the preferred (perhaps only) way to make ends meet. What's been driving this so-called red-hot economy is not the solid growth in jobs and wages that is essential for a flourishing middle class, but an orgy of refinancing and an irresponsible mixture of tax cuts and federal spending that is creating monster deficits. In short, we're mortgaging the nation's future.

On Friday the Federal Reserve reported that consumers had jacked up their borrowing in September by the largest amount since the beginning of the year. The $15.1 billion increase in consumer borrowing was 9.7 percent higher than in August, and pushed total consumer debt to $1.97 trillion.

From the NY Times:
This Can't Go On
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Academic economists often cite Stein's Law, a principle enunciated by the late Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Nixon administration. The law comes with various wordings; my favorite is: "Things that can't go on forever, don't." Believe it or not, that's a useful reminder.

For we're now led by men who think that macho posturing makes Stein's Law go away. On issues ranging from budgets to foreign policy, they insist that we can sustain the unsustainable. And when challenged to explain how, they engage in magical thinking.

The prime example I have hammered on in this column is, of course, the federal budget. Realistic budget projections say that current policies aren't remotely sustainable. For example, a month ago a joint report of the Committee for Economic Development (a business group), the bipartisan Concord Coalition and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that under current policies, federal debt would rise by $5 trillion over the next decade. And then baby boomers will start collecting benefits, and our debt will really explode.

Such explosive growth in debt can't go on forever, and it won't. Yet our current leaders and their apologists insist that the problem will magically solve itself. Last year's deficit came in slightly below forecasts, and we've had one quarter of good economic growth — see, we'll grow out of the deficit!

But we won't, and there will eventually be a day of reckoning. As Bill Gross of Pimco, the giant bond manager, says, "Sooner, perhaps later, our Asian creditors will wake up and smell the coffee." (Yes, the federal budget and the value of the dollar now depend on huge purchases of Treasury bills by the governments of Japan and China.) When they do, he predicts "higher import costs, a cutback in spending on cheap foreign goods, rising inflation, perhaps chaotic financial markets, a lower standard of living." Something to look forward to.

But the day of reckoning seems closer on a different front.

Some Americans may share the views of the Republican congressman who said that progress in Iraq was "a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." (Support the troops!)

But whether or not you think troop losses are important, there's growing evidence that our Iraq strategy is unsustainable. The immediate issue is manpower. Some politicians are calling for a bigger force in Iraq — but even our current force levels can't be maintained.

In September the Congressional Budget Office analyzed how many U.S. soldiers could be kept in Iraq without extending tours beyond one year. The conclusion was that force levels would have to start dropping rapidly about five months from now, and that the forces in Iraq and Kuwait would eventually have to shrink by almost two-thirds. As the report explains, the Pentagon can use various expedients to maintain a larger force in Iraq, but all of these expedients would threaten to undermine our military readiness.

At a broader level, the accelerating pace at which Americans are being killed and wounded and the strains of occupation duties clearly pose difficulties for recruitment in a volunteer military. And at a still broader level, public support for this war — whose original rationale has turned out to be a mirage, if not a deliberate deception — will wilt if losses go on at this rate, no matter how tough the president talks.

For sure, good things are happening in Iraq. But are we making the kind of progress that would allow us to withdraw large numbers of soldiers, and greatly reduce casualties, in the fairly near future? That's a hard case to make.

Yet we keep expecting a magic solution. We'll get European, Indian and Pakistani forces to help us! But since we went to war without international support, they're not interested. We'll bring in the Turks! But the Iraqi Governing Council itself is bitterly opposed. We'll engage in "Iraqification," creating local forces that take the place of American troops! Let's hope that works — but hope is not a plan.

Just as the federal government is in no immediate danger of running out of money, our forces in Iraq are in no danger of outright defeat. But in both cases, current policies appear to be unsustainable: we can't go on like this indefinitely. And things that can't go on forever, don't.