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Foothills View, August 13, 1981, Page 5 The events of a week ago nnay qrove historic; no less so the outcome of Mr. Reagan’s all-out stand against the air-traffic control lers’ illegal strike. Some background information. 'Title V, Section 7311, Paragraph 3 of the U.S. Code is written in jphn-Jane-gyp English. I.e. it is incapable of misunderstanding. It s^ys: “An individual may not ajccept or hold a position in the Government of the United States or he government of the District of Qolumbia if he participates in a strike or asserts the right to strike aigainst the government of the Qfnited States or the government of tfie District of Columbia.’’ First ^endment nuts could find a Jroblem here on the question of free speech. But not on the matter qf striking. It is, quite simply, illegal. Now the negotiations that led to the strike were themselves of questionable legality. What you had was a union (the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organiza tion) negotiating with a representa tive of the executive (the Civil Aeronautics Board), demanding among other things that the controllers be lifted out of the civil service. It is of questionable legality that the CAB should even have agreed to discuss the matter with PATCO, since in order to grant the union’s demand a special bill would need to be passed by Congress; and the CAB is hardly in a position to bind Congress, a point a few dozen senators have heatedly made. The union, by the way, began asking for $73,000 per year, reducing this demand to $60,000. That is the pay of a Cabinet officer. but even then there is the difference that PATCO asked for a 32-hour week, so you add approx imately 20 percent to the figure in terms of hourly compensation. But the economic issues are not as important as the others. The Justice Department (as of this writing) has taken exemplary action. When negotiations broke off at 2:30 a.m. on Monday, lawyers went to a judge and by 4:35 a.m., two and one half hours before the scheduled strike, had a temporary restraining order. During the crisis of last June, the union had sought to get a district court judge to lift a standing injunction that dates back a dozen years against the union when it threatened to strike. Judge Thomas Platt denied the petition on June 18 in decisive language: William F. Buckley, Jr.’s THE GHT “Strikes by federal employees are substantially more than merely unfair labor practices; they are crimes.’’ Crimes? Correct. Under 18 U.S.C. 1918 an illegal striker can be given one year and one day in jail, or a $10,000 fine. In 1978 the postal workers threatened to strike. In an excess of zeal, 126 of them actually walked out before the last-minute settlement. They were fired. And, a cursory examination of the record suggests, not rehired. In this action President Carter’s Justice Depart ment was more decisive than President Nixon’s in 1970—when the Postal Workers Union, under threat of a strike, pretty well achieved its objectives. Prosecution under the Criminal Code would of course take time. But detention for contemp of court can be effected instantly. The Justice Department plans also to move to decertify PATCO. The reasoning here is straightforward. Unions are entitled to special protections provided by specific law. But a violation by a union of the United States Code makes it organizationally deliquent and its civil protections derivatively inope rative. Decertification has the advantage of stripping the union’s contumacious spokesmen of their authority. It has the disadvantage of leaving the government without spokesmen through whom to address the union members direct ly- The problem of civil order is the great unresolved problem of demo cracy. No one has contrived to find out, in Great Britain, how to get the unions to obey the law. In Canada, at this moment, the Post Office workers are on strike. The Cana dian Broadcasting Corp. is off the air (technicians on strike). There is no police service in Halifax. New York City has been a sanctuary for illegal strikes for over a decade. Even the police and the firemen have struck there, and of course the transit Union strikes on leap years and other commemorative occa sions. Nobody goes to jail except in the festive sense in which, oh, H.L. Menchen and Thoreau and Martin Luther King went to jail. All those laws stipulating that illegal strikers must make good the damage done are matters for general hilarity. When New York’s teachers went on strike, the damage, if any, was difficult to measure; still, they did not with impunity. t$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$S CIVIL DEFENSE - EXCITING NEWS MONEY TALK$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Professional Timing Services, edited by Larry Williams of Missoula, Mont., does not think any gold rally will last. “The most important point I can make about the gold market is that once any commodity bull market breaks and does not come back, it’s all over, and all over for years to come. As the savage selling hits the bull move, it saps all the strength and it just doesn’t come back. Notice soybeans in 1973; cattle in 1974; sugar in 1962; etc. Once they are broken, it takes years to come back and that’s where gold is today.” ’The Granville Market Letter of Holly Hill, Fla., says, “There was no support at 980 on the Dow, or at 960 and neither will there be support at 931. The market would not put these kinds of signals together for a decline in the Dow of less than 100 points. A bear market implies declines of several hundred points. You don’t buy anything in bear market. That is a situation that Wall Street can never cope with. They have to recommend something for buying. But I say sell all stocks, the same advice I gave on Jan. 6, when the Dow closed at 1004.69. The technical indicators do not suggest that a buy sigpial is even on the distant horizon. Money Magazine features a stoi y on how to beat the stock market. According to author David Dreman in his article, “A Market Beating System That’s Batting 809,” you start by looking for the price/earnings ratio of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones industrial average in Monday’s Wall Street Journal (recently 6.5). “The columns of stock market quotations in the financial pages of your newspaper provide a similar ratio for each of nearly 3,000 stocks. These individual price/earnings ratios may be higher or lower than the Dow Jones P/E. The comparison can be the key clue to use in beating the market. If you buy sound stocks with P/E ratios lower than the Dow, you will substantially raise your chance of making money. Studies going back to 1937 show that portfolios of stocks with low P/E ratios stocks that the market seem to feel have the worst prospects have far outperformed portfolios with high P/E ratios. In the 21 years from 1957 through 1977, low P/E stocks came out on top 17 times, a batting average of 809. So stay away from stocks that your instincts — or popular opinion as the next winner. Concentrate on finding low P/E ratios. Edward Orr; Common Sense, says people have been misled into believing that inflation has been cured. Inflation has been postponed and concealed, says Orr. Instead of monetizing our debt, thus causing more inflation. Fed Chairman Volcker has jacked up interest so high that the public has bought the debt. This is not causing an increase in inflation. But Volcker cannot keep these high interest rates up forever. Wh^ these rates do come down, probably this fall or in 1982, inflation will resume with a bang and the prices of gold and silver will soar. He advises against selling your gold and silver to buy into the stock market. (Box 39880. Phoenix, AZ 85069, $115) If twd parties, instead of being a bank and an individud, were an individual and an individual, they could not innate the circulating medium by a loan transaction, fw the simple reason that the lender could not lend what he didn t have, as banks can do... Only commercial banks and trust companies can lend money which they manufacture by lending it. Professor Irving Fisher, Yale University, in his book, "100°h Money Before the “CBS Reports — The Defense of the Unit ed States” series had com pleted its 5-day run (June 14-18), The Wall Street Journal ran an uplifting story on the back page of the second section pertaining to Civil Defense (6/17/81) While the placement was regretable (few that we talked to saw it), the fact that the story was presented at all is most encouraging. According to the nearly half-page article, Frank Wil liams, the president of the American Civil Defense As sociation, blames misleading publicity in the ’60s and ’70s for the waning interest in preparing for nuclear at tack. “We suffer from a number of convenient, well-nurtured delusions,” Williams says. “One of these is that civil defense is provocative; its sister contradictory delusion is that civil defense is use less.” But that is changing, says the Journal article. Recent studies indicate that casual ties from a nuclear war — which, it is estimated, could run as high as 60% of the US population under current conditions — could be reduc ed to 10% if better protect ion measures were adopted. In the Kansas City area, a move is already under way to raise funds that would be used to convert limestone caverns into nuclear shel ters. Around the country, a dozen firms offer document- preservation vaults for com panies concerned about pre serving vital records through a nuclear attack or other catastrophe. Elsewhere, a complex of underground warehouses and manufacturing plants is being expanded. Nine of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks have underground emer gency quarters, where rec ords are updated daily. And several major corporations are also taking steps to improve the chances that their equipment and facili ties would survive nuclear bombs. drive from Manhattan. Space for a 3-story building — which is girded with steel and reinforced concrete was chiseled from granite. The subterranean office includes executive living quarters, a control room and a computer that contains the data bank for AT&T’s entire system. Other floors have a kitchen, a month’s supply of food for 100 people, sleeping quarters and emergency generators. Similar dugouts exist at Fairview, Kan., and at Rockdale, Ga. As a net work, AT&T says, these facilities mean that it would take more than one nuclear bomb to paralyze the nat ion’s telephone system. Boeing Co. has also taken more interest in nuclear- protection measures recent ly. The Seattle-based air craft manufacturer is exper imenting with protecting its equipment by packing sand and crushable materials a- round it. As encouraging as those efforts are to civil defense planners, they hastily point out that too many business es still aren’t prepared for emergencies of any kind, much less nuclear war. Advocates of stepped-up preparation say that even those companies that have emergency-preparedness of ficials on the payroll are reluctant to budget funds for nuclear protection. A change in attitude is expect ed as more companies get serious about the problem. It is the so-called under ground movement that ap parently has civil defense TUhat jjouit conscience says is mo/ie impo/itant than uihat yout neighbc/is say. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., for example, has specially protected thou sands of miles of its coaxial cables and has established emergency centers for each of its 7 regions. Important communications cables have been routed to bypass major cities that might be targets of nuclear attack. The nerve center for AT&T’s defense system is buried 40 feet below ground in a rural area outside Netcong, N.J., an hour’s planners most excited. Although many of the companies that are estab lishing subterranean facili ties are doing so to reduce energy and storage expens es, officials believe that in dustry may come to regard the underground locations as valuable protection for their employees and equip ment in the case of nuclear attack or other emergencies. While this is but a ‘drop in the bucket’ compared to what is needed, it shows that some important people take seriously the possibility of nuclear war. The Digest has long main tained that a strong civil defense program would do more to deter attack than nearly anything else our government could do. There are two positive steps individuals can take: (1) Write the President and encourage him to launch a national program promoting development of a strong civil defense. At the moment. even though called for in the Republican Platform, the CD issue has been pushed far back into the corner, protect your family and bus iness from a nuclear war or any other type of natural disaster. any other type of natural disaster. You can buUd a shelter, store food, clothing and wat er, encourage your friends to do the same. There are many individual activities that could prove beneficial should any type of disaster occur, whether man-made or natural. As we noted in our Digest of 6/17/81, many who watched the “CBS Reports” series may have come away with the feeling that “aU is lost.” That’s simply not true. If AT&T, General Electric, IBM, Boeing, the Federal Reserve Banks, MGM, Pizza Hut, Cessna, Citicorp, Mob il, and others see the need for protecting their compan ies through underground storage, etc., then some body, somewhere obviously feels protection from being wiped out is not only feasible but absolutely necessary. We can succeed. Pressure the President; prepare for yourself. Information on how to do all of the above . may be obtained from the NWS Research Bureau, Box 1144, Coos Bay, OR 97420; Five Star Distributing, Box 4727, Carson, CA 90749; Privacy Publications, Box 338, Bullard, TX 75757. Write your Congressman and urge him to press for development of long-range cruise missiles, development of an effective anti-ballistic missile (ABM), a national educational campaign via TV and the print media. Let’s face it! Once we put our minds to it, there is no country in the world that can whip the US! We need but to start. TELLING IT LIKE IT IS France Hie Election aa Moscow’s hopes; It is clear from the attitude oi the Soviet Union that Moscow hopes that Iran will either fragment or go Marxist because Moscow, in common with a number of other countries, has something to fear from a wave of fundamentalism sweeping through large sect ions of its population. The current line from Radio Moscow is that the American agents are trying to cause trouble in Iran as they have been in Afghanistan and that at any time Moscow will be only too glad to assist, ‘should the people request such assistance.’ That the Soviet Union has not interfered with Iran is given as ‘proof that the Soviet Union does not do such things. Only wicked ‘enemies of the people’ do things like that. -Daily News Digest, BoxSSm Phoenix, AZ 85069 Israel, Taiwan and South Africa: These three countries are threatened by political isolation, and the Israelis note that although the United States pledged its undying support to Taiwan, it nevertheless de-recognized the Free Chinese in favour of Communist China. Taiwan is anxious to have as many friends as possible and has close ties with both Saudi Arabia and South Africa, as both countries are, like Taiwan, fighting against communism. According to intelligence reports, these three threatened countries have been cooperat ing to develop the nuclear weapon technology which will enable them to mount an effective deterrent force. South Africa is the supplier of weapon grade uranium and it is believed that scientists from Taiwan and Israel have been working secretly in South Africa. Israel is commonly held to possess about 20 nuclear weapons and is believed to be assisting Taiwan in the development of a delivery system. US policy is to try and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons but critics of America claim that by creating uncertainty among certain nations as to what future American policy may be, it is in fact creating the conditions in which more nuclear technolo gy is developed. It is no secret that Saudi Arabia regards the ‘Israeli issue’ as being of ‘prime secondary importance, in that’ no Arab can afford to ignore it, but that the main issue is the threat of international communism Timeless Tidbits — Intelligence Digest^ 17 Rodney Bd., Cheltenham, Glos. GL50IHX, U.K, Trucks and You The marijuana users have now gotten so young they call the stuff “potty. ” — Tom Anderson ☆ ☆ ☆ If you must make ene mies, make lazy ones. The Federal Highway Ad ministration spent $2^,000 to study “Motorists Attitud es Toward Large Trucks.” Justifying the expenditure, the agency wrote, in part: “Rau’ely were questions re lating to social perception, cognition or affect ever ad dressed. The cognitive or mentally evaluative dimen sion of such vehicular inter actions or potential interact ions was lost in error vari ance or not considered at all in formulations of aen^y- namic disturbance functions and driver performance fac tors.” Understand? You don’t mind being taxed for that, do you? We feel that it was not won so much as lost. Presi dent Discard d’Estaing mounted a lukewarm imper ial campaign equating him self and French nationhood instead of talking about the needs and desires of the individual frenchman. So cialists certainly filled that gap. They promised every thing and their posters throughout the country said “Make the rich pay for the others”, a direct and blatant appeal. It has long been rumoured that Discard d’Es taing expects within a few years to be the first elected President of the European Community. He was elected in France by the center- Right but his every act has been toward Socialism and the Left. One can easily see that Mitterand’s Socialist election was a direct out- gO'owth of Discard’s first act seven years ago: he reduced the voting age to 18 and allowed the free universities of France to fill and overflow with non-studying, non-pay ing young people to be indoctrinated and politicised by their socialist and com munist professors and youth organizations. Domestically despite the gloom and doom, we see very little change. The promises to nationalize the banks and major industries, etc. will fade, we feel, quite soon. After all, France has been a socialist nation since long before the war. Its socialist laws and welfare are beyond comprehension, and have nearly destroyed France’s pride and culture. The sad part is that just when the world is beginning to recognize the total failure of Socialism everywhere, France, the cultural center of the world, sends a declar ed Socialist to the Elysee Palace. But there is danger to the world because of these French elections. Our con cern is that while France goes back to work with relief thinking that not much has happened, renewed hope, streng^th and vitality will accrue to the European Community (once known as the European Economic Community — meaning Eur opean Socialist State). The EEC working diligently in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg will be regulat ing, legislating and organiz ing to erase the sovereignty of France and the other members of the Socialist Internationale, heretofore centered in Europe — but spreading globally and fast. I; S /I ) : ; I.
The Foothills View (Boiling Springs, N.C.)
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Aug. 13, 1981, edition 1
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