​When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it marked at least the fifteenth invasion of that ill-fated land in the last 2,400 years. None of the invaders ever managed to consolidate their temporary victories, subjugate the locals or govern the country. All would-be conquerors had to live in highly guarded urban redoubts, unable to move about freely for fear of assassination. Each invader soon regretted what they did. Even though the U.S. was not seeking to conquer, subjugate or govern the country, it ran into the same obstacles, dangers and regrets.
 
Afghanistan is a land-locked, mountainous region the population of which is an agglomeration of numerous unrelated tribes and groups that have been warring with one another and with outside invaders since time immemorial. Some of them still rely on a medieval barter economy instead of money and modern banking practices. The common threads that run through all of these hostile, disparate elements are (1) a very traditional, ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, and (2) rampant corruption.
 
Since the U.S. foray into this unconquerable and ungovernable land twenty years ago, we have lost 4,100 lives, suffered 20,000 additional casualties, and frittered away more than $2 trillion, the bulk of which has been illegally diverted into the pockets of crooked politicians, drug dealers—Afghanistan is the world leader in illicit drug production—and Taliban fanatics.
 
Today there are 2,500 American and an additional number of allied troops in Afghanistan. Without the participation of the Afghan government, the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Taliban wherein the U.S. agreed to pull out our remaining troops by May 1, 2021. In return, the Taliban pledged nothing more than to “be nice.” So much for The Great Dealmaker’s negotiating prowess. The Biden administration is now hedging on the pull-out date, at a loss as to what makes the most sense to do.
 
The Taliban currently control more Afghan territory than the government. In the districts it controls, the harshest form of Sharia law has been reintroduced, making women’s lives a living hell. Girls are no longer allowed in schools; women must remain largely behind walls in their homes/prisons and wear head-to-toe burkhas; and honor killings are sanctioned.
 
If the U.S. leaves, the weak, corrupt central government will be unable to defeat the Taliban and will eventually collapse. The calamitous situation that prevailed before the U.S. invasion in 2001 will come back in full force. From a human rights standpoint, this is intolerable.
 
Moreover, the Taliban will be incapable of, and/or uninterested in, suppressing al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that used the safe harbor of Afghanistan to plan the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. This time it is not only al-Qaeda that we must worry about. It has been joined in the country by ISIS and the indigenous Haqqani Network, Islamic jihadists that will have the freedom to plan and organize new terrorist attacks on the West.
 
There are no good answers. This is one of these impossible situations that fall into the category of “damned if we do, damned if we don’t.” Staying or leaving are each highly problematic. If we leave Afghanistan, it must be done with the stated commitment to return with overwhelming force (in keeping with the Powell Doctrine) if we find that the Taliban are hosting anti-Western terrorists that we must root out and destroy.
 
The calculus will come down to which option is the least distasteful. It is a very close call.
 
Dick Hermann
March 26, 2021

The Eternal Victim is now whining that he does not get enough credit for Covid-19 vaccine development. Trump’s latest bleat from behind the gold-leaf-suffocating Mar-a-Lago is an outlandish claim that, without his brilliant leadership, there would be no vaccines for “at least 5 years.”
 
Like virtually everything that spews out of his potty-mouth, this is nonsense.
 
Although Operation Wrap Speed contributed to rapid vaccine development, let’s set the record straight:

• We knew about the full coronavirus genome sequence on January 10, 2020.
• The next day, pharmaceutical company scientists around the world began working on a vaccine. Before the end of January, both Moderna and Pfizer were working on their mRNA vaccines.
• By February 15, vaccines were in development at 29 companies.
• The Cares Act, which allocated $9.5 billion for vaccine development, became law on March 27. Operation Warp Speed was first announced on April 29.
• Pfizer, which didn’t take any money from Operation Warp Speed, began its phase 1 vaccine trials a few days later. 

​In other words, at least one vaccine already existed when Operation Warp Speed launched.
 
The Trump administration contracted to buy 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, a miniscule number given that there are 330 million Americans (255 million adults). When Pfizer offered to provide an additional 100 million doses, the Trump administration inexplicably declined the offer.
 
So much for credit where credit is due.
 
Instead of trying to manage the greatest health crisis this country has faced in more than a hundred years, President Trump fell flat, telling us not to worry, the virus will go away “like a miracle;” advocating wacko and dangerous cures like ingesting bleach; mocking common-sense science-based precautions like masks and social distancing; holding super-spreader events; and generally acting more irresponsibly and recklessly than any national leader in any other nation. He led this country to the forefront of failed nations when it came to the virus. More Americans by far contracted Covid-19, were hospitalized, and died than citizens of any other country. Once the vaccines received FDA approval, Trump’s last act as a presidential flop was to botch vaccine distribution. In all pandemic respects, the U.S. was the worst in the world.
 
Instead of acting responsibly, he spent his time lying about a “stolen election” and attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power that has been the bedrock, and one of the proudest achievements, of this country dating back more than 200 years. Nothing was more important to him—certainly not the lives, health and welfare of his citizens—than clinging to the presidency by whatever means he could find or invent.
 
Today the U.S. is number one in total vaccinations, far ahead of the rest of the world. Do you really believe that we would be in this position if Donald Trump were still in office?
 
Dick Hermann
March 19, 2021

“I am not throwin' away my shot”
--Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton

Recent polls reveal that 49 percent of Republican men say that they will not get vaccinated against Covid-19. That means that the quest for herd immunity—when a sufficient majority of the population gets vaccinated and we can mostly put the pandemic behind us—may go unrealized. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief coronavirus advisor, says that close to 90 percent of the country may need to be vaccinated in order to reach that goal. In any event, we are left with tens of millions of people who remain to be convinced that vaccination is vital.

U.S. public health and economic revival depend on the Covid-19 vaccines. The initial supply problem that the Biden administration inherited is quickly receding as a roadblock. The new administration has done a good job getting manufacturers to accelerate production. That leaves skepticism about the vaccines along with outright refusal to take them as the remaining obstacles.

​Responsible Republicans, a diminishing cohort, are worried about this. They are taking steps to launch a campaign to convince their fellow party members to get vaccinated. Frank Luntz, the dean of Republican pollsters, is putting together a focus group in an attempt to come up with persuasive messages.
 
This is unlikely to work. The only thing that could change minds and get us to where we need to be as a country would be if Donald Trump went on Fox, Newsmax and OANN and (1) urged his followers to get the shot(s), and (2) told them why it is so important. He needs to tell them that all of the vaccine studies have found that there is nothing particularly worrisome about them and that all three of the vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are safe, highly effective, keep people out of hospitals and dying, and have only minor, passing side effects.
 
Fat chance of him doing that. It was revealed recently that Donald and Melania Trump secretly received their Covid-19 vaccinations in January. Doing so clandestinely rather than in public, like Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton and their respective first ladies did, was purposeful, given Trump’s long history of flirtation with the anti-vaxxer crowd followed by his constant downplaying and politicization of the virus. Unfortunately, although Trump retains enormous influence over his cult following, he never rises to the occasion by providing a positive role model.

Persuading the hesitant, overcoming the science deniers, and converting those who think that we have already turned the corner and thus there is no need to get vaccinated are the keys to beating back the pandemic. It does not help that, at this writing, 16 Republican state governors are re-opening their states, a reckless move that will not end well. A vigorous public relations effort needs to be the highest priority of both the administration and the dwindling population of sensible Republicans, as well as healthcare providers, clergy, media and all other influencers.

If we cannot achieve herd immunity, the herd may be culled of the very folks who refuse vaccination.

​Dick Hermann
March 12, 2021

​“You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown”
--Petula Clark
 
Not anymore. American downtowns, especially those in major cities, may be about to become ghost towns. The pandemic, combined with advances in communications technology like Zoom, have made working from home not only viable, but also preferable for many employers and their employees.
 
Employers have discovered that working from home means that they don’t have to lease as much space to accommodate a workforce that only rarely, if ever, needs to show up at the office. Employees have found that they don’t have to spend hours every day commuting, saving them not only time and stress, but also money they would otherwise spend on gas, parking, bus, rail or subway fares and suitable office clothing. A recent study by the car-buying website, CoPilot, found that Northeastern Ohioans working from home gained 4.1 hours per day by not commuting during the pandemic. That’s more than 213 hours per year of time freed up for family activities, hobbies, exercise, relaxing, etc. The 2019 Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute found that the average commuter spends nearly seven full working days per year in traffic delays.
 
A major public benefit of remote work is much less air pollution due to fewer cars on the road. It’s a win-win for almost everyone involved…everyone except commercial real estate owners, public transit entities, restaurants, stores and food trucks that cater to downtown office workers, and cities that see their property and sales tax revenues declining.
 
A recent study concluded that the daytime population of downtown Washington, DC is down 95 percent during the pandemic. Roughly 90 percent of vertical office space in downtown Seattle is currently leased but empty. Downtown Indianapolis looks like ground zero after a neutron bomb was detonated: lots of buildings, but no people. Similar statements can be made about virtually every major city.
 
The Building Owners and Managers Association, the trade group representing the commercial real estate community, is approaching panic mode. Surveys of its members reveal the pessimism consuming the industry as it contemplates post-pandemic reality. A recent Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis pulse-taking of senior-level real estate executives discloses a startling level of doom and gloom: Only 41 percent of respondents were confident that the demand for physical office space would decrease only slightly. The remainder were not even that optimistic. Another recent survey of hundreds of CEOs found that almost 70% planned to cut back permanently on their office space. The rosiest prediction was that companies would move to a hybrid work environment where telework would be combined with days physically in the office.
 
A great deal of commercial space is likely to go empty post-pandemic. Owners and investors, however, will still have to pay the carrying costs—mortgage payments, real estate taxes, property insurance, utilities, etc.—but will see a dramatic reduction in rental income. A bonanza for bankruptcy attorneys will be a disaster for landlords.
 
Twenty years ago, I consulted with an early proponent of telework. My client found that (1) employee productivity rose by 15 percent, (2) morale skyrocketed, (3) turnover plummeted, and (4) it could function with 20 percent of its former square footage needs. By moving to remote work, it saved an average of $11,000 per employee per year. It never went back to the status quo ante.
 
Given the likelihood that there is going to be a ton of vacant space, how can it be repurposed, if at all? There are a great many ideas floating around, some of them deriving from the 500 shopping malls (one-third of the U.S. total) that have gone belly-up in the last decade. Other businesses that require large square-footage have moved into mall spaces: fitness centers, churches, public libraries, motor vehicle departments, theaters, museums, art galleries, indoor farms and medical clinics, as well as farmers’ markets in mall parking lots.
 
However, some of these alternative uses won’t work as well in downtowns where the vacancy square footage is more vertical than horizontal.
 
Some downtown office buildings may be suitable for redevelopment into housing because they already have the plumbing and electrical capacity that residential buildings require. K-12 and higher education may also be able to use vacant office space. While these are worthy projects, they won’t come close to filling up the tens of millions of vacant square footage that will become available post-pandemic.
 
Downtowns, where millions of Americans spent the bulk of their waking hours, will be forever changed by the pandemic. The huge cultural upheaval in the way we work will mean that the new, nowhere near as vibrant normal will result in a very different downtown scene.
 
Dick Hermann
March 5, 2021