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February. In January, it was 177 killed. For 2012, the body count was 4,471 civilians killed. This week, a 
bombing in Baghdad killed four. A few days earlier, bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere killed 22. 
In December of 2011, as the last combat troops were being brought home from Iraq, President Obama 
stood at Fort Bragg and declared, "The war in Iraq will soon belong to history." That may be true, but 
it's vital that our accounting of the failures that led to this tragedy not be relegated to the past. Does 
President Bush, while painting his pictures in Texas, ever look back and assess the worst decision of 
his presidency (and that's a pretty high bar)? It seems doubtful, but that doesn't mean the rest of us 
shouldn't. No doubt there will someday, rightly, be a monument to those who bravely fought and died 
in Iraq. But for the loth anniversary, let's also build online monuments dedicated to those who 
planned and provoked and fomented the war, so we can join in the struggle of memory against 
forgetting. 
As Charles Blow's article points out this week in the New York Times - A Dangerous `New 
Normal' in College Debt — Americans are reaching a crisis point in this country's higher 
education system. With college tuition rising and state and local funding for higher education falling 
— along with median household incomes — students are taking on staggering levels of debt. And many 
can't find jobs that pay well enough to quickly pay off the debt. This has long-term implications for our 
society and our economy, as that debt begins to affect when and if young people start families or enter 
the housing market. As a consequence the student debt crisis may become a dangerous "new normal," 
according to a report this week by the nonprofit State Higher Education Executive Officers 
Association: 
"In the 'new normal,' retirement and health care costs simultaneously drive up the cost of higher 
education, and compete with education for limited public resources . The 'new normal' no longer 
expects to see a recovery of state support for higher education such as occurred repeatedly in the last 
half of the loth century. The 'new normal' expects students and their families to continue to make 
increasingly greater financial sacrifices in order to complete a postsecondary education. The 'new 
normal' expects schools and colleges to find ways of increasing productivity and absorb ever-larger 
budget cuts, while increasing degree production without, we hope, compromising quality." 
In constant dollars, state and local educational appropriations per full-time student reached their high 
in 2001, at $8,670. In 2012, those appropriations fell by nearly one third, to just $5,896. The cost of 
tuition, on the other hand, has increased dramatically. According to a September report by CNN 
Money: "Over the past decade, average annual tuition for a year of community college has risen 40 
percent to $3,122, according to the College Board, a nonprofit group that runs the SAT exam. At 
four-year public universities, the cost has risen 68 percent to $7,692 a year." 
Meanwhile, a September Census report shows, median household incomes fell by nearly 7 percent 
from 2001 to 2011. And there are now more Americans living in poverty than at any time since record-
keeping began more than half a century ago. This confluence of trends has led to higher borrowing by 
students. An analysis last month by Donghoon Lee, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New 
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York, found that "student debt is the only kind of household debt that continued to rise through the 
Great Recession" and is now the "second largest balance after mortgage debt." According to Mr. Lee, 
student loan debt is fast approaching a trillion dollars, up from less than $400 billion in 2004, and 
both the number of borrowers and the average balance per borrower have "increased by 70 percent 
between 2004 and 2012 ("7 percent per year). "A September Pew Research Center report found that "a 
record one-in-five households now owe student loan debt." 
That report also found that student loan debt as a share of household income was 24 percent for 
families in the lowest income quintile. That was at least twice the share of any other quintile. As the 
report put it, "The relative burden of student loan debt is greatest for households in the bottom fifth of 
the income spectrum, even though members of such households are less likely than those in other 
groups to attend college in the first place." 
And many of those graduates can't find work or are underemployed, and they struggle to pay back 
their own personal mountain of debt. 
A January report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity found that "about 48 
percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests 
requires less than a four-year college education." That number included 37 percent in occupations 
requiring no more than a high school diploma. For example, the report pointed out that "in 1970, 
fewer than 1 percent of taxi drivers and 2 percent of firefighters had college degrees, while now more 
than 15 percent do in both jobs." And yet, this country needs a more knowledgeable work force to be 
competitive. While the number of college graduates in America is increasing, that number is growing 
even faster in some other countries. And, as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and 
Development noted in 2011, "The U.S. is the only country where attainment levels among those just 
entering the labor market (25- to 34-year-olds) do not exceed those about to leave the labor market 
(55- to 64-year-olds)." Our national educational aspirations and the debt crisis that they're creating 
are colliding. We are on an unsustainable track. 
Last week in a New York Times - Student Debt and the Economy — the editorial points out 
that student loan debt crisis has become a drag on the economy because of the many younger 
Americans who are saddled with bankrupting payments — or credit ratings damaged by delinquency —
are in no position to buy homes, save for retirement or start businesses. The Federal Reserve Bank of 
New York recently released a study showing just why many young people are being strangled by 
student loans. It found that 43 percent of 25-year-olds had student debt in 2012, an increase from 27 
percent in 2004. Unemployment and the collapse of household income in the recession only made the 
borrowing problem worse. 
According to the new study, student debt almost tripled between 2004 and 2012, and is approaching 
$1 trillion, while the percentage of borrowers who were more than 90 days delinquent had risen to 17 
percent, from lo percent in 2004. In addition, student loan debt was the only kind of household debt 
that continued to rise through the Great Recession, and it is now the second largest after mortgage 
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debt. The student debt crisis has its roots in state cuts to higher education that began in the 19805. By 
savaging support to the public colleges and universities that educate about 70 percent of the nation's 
students, the states forced up tuition, causing students to borrow steadily more. The Federal Reserve 
study estimates that nearly i8 percent of borrowers now have student loan debts of $25,000 to 
$5o,000, and nearly 4 percent have balances greater than $ioo,000. 
Distressed borrowers who financed their educations with federal student loans can get relief through 
the federal Income-Based Repayment program, which allows them to reduce their monthly payments 
based on their income. Another program, called Pay As You Earn, is limited to people who started 
borrowing during the recession. It also allows for lower payments, and borrowers who adhere to the 
payment arrangement can have their loans forgiven after 20 years — or to years if they hold public 
service jobs. But students who have taken out private loans from banks or other institutions are often 
stuck with high interest rates, high payments and few consumer protections. For example, one federal 
analysis of student payments in 2009 found that to percent of borrowers with private loans were 
spending more than 25 percent of their incomes in monthly payments. 
Because private loans offer little flexibility, borrowers in bad straits have few options except default, 
which makes it difficult for them to get jobs or credit, or even to rent apartments. Refinancing a private 
student loan at a lower rate is rarely possible. To get a handle on the student debt problem, the federal 
government needs to provide relief programs for private loan borrowers too. The federal Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau announced last month that it was soliciting ideas from policy makers and 
others for a plan that would give private loan borrowers some relief. Such a plan, which would most 
likely involve a public-private partnership that freed up capital for refinancing, would have to be part 
of any solution to the student debt crisis. 
This week in The Washington Post, Conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer wrote this op-
ed -- 
Why we give foreign aid -- supporting the Obama Administration and in particular, 
Secretary of State John Kerry, traveling to Cairo and handing President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, a 
cool $250 million in foreign aid during the current sequestration. Remember, Morsi's Muslim 
Brotherhood is openly anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and otherwise prolifically intolerant. Just three 
years ago, Morsi called on Egyptians to nurse their children and grandchildren on hatred for Jews, 
whom he has called "the descendants of apes and pigs," But Krauthammer says that, "we should not 
cut off aid to Egypt. It's not that we must blindly support unfriendly regimes. I t is perfectly 
reasonable to cut off aid to governments that are intrinsically hostile and beyond our influence. 
Subsidizing enemies is merely stupid. But Egypt is not an enemy, certainly not yet. It may no longer 
be our strongest Arab ally, but it is still in play. The Brotherhood aims to establish an Islamist 
dictatorship. Yet it remains a considerable distance from having done so. Precisely why we should 
remain engaged. And engagement means using our economic leverage." 
As Krauthammer points out, if we're going to give foreign aid, it should be for political concessions 
— on unfettered speech, on an opposition free of repression, on alterations to the Islamist 
constitution, on open and fair elections. We give foreign aid for two reasons: (a) to support allies 
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who share our values and our interests, and (b) to extract from less-than-friendly regimes 
concessions that either bring their policies more in line with ours or strengthen competing actors 
more favorably inclined toward American objectives. That's the point of foreign aid. It's 
particularly important in countries like Egypt, whose fate is in the balance. But it will only work if 
we remain clear-eyed about why we give all that money in the first place." I applaud Krauthammer 
who in this hostile partisan environment see the trees within the forest and voice sensible policies 
whoever is in power , wherever they come from and to ever they support with it is to the advantage of 
our country and humanity itself. 
QUOTE OF THE WEEK 
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has 
nothing to lose. 
James A. Baldwin 
THIS WEEK's MUSIC 
One of the greatest R&B-dance vocal groups of my generation is The Whispers, from Los Angeles, 
California, with a consistent track record of hit records dating back to the late 1960s. The Whispers 
were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003, and were winners of the Rhythm and Blues 
Foundation's prestigious Pioneer Award in 2008. By popular vote, the group was inducted into The 
SoulMusic Hall Of Fame at 
in December 2012. I remember one magically evening 
in the early 199os at an open mike evening at R&B Live in Century City Los Angeles, when inspired 
by the music members of The Whispers who were in the audience came on stage and so blew 
everyone's mind to the point that Prince and several other major musicians also in the audience join 
them on state 
rocking the house until the end of the evening. 
The Whispers formed in 1964 in Watts, California. The original members included the twin brothers, 
Wallace "Scotty" and Walter Scott, along with Gordy Harmon, Marcus Hutson and Nicholas Caldwell. 
In 1973, Harmon was replaced by former Friends of Distinction member Leaveil Degree. Scotty Scott's 
fluid, melodic voice is featured on virtually all of their hits. The group scored many hits on the R&B 
and Billboard Hot 100 charts throughout the 197os and 1980s, and they hit #1 on the Hot Dance Club 
Play chart in 1980 with "And the Beat Goes On / "Can You Do the Boogie"/ "Out the Box". In 1987, 
they enjoyed a brief tenure in the Top 4o when "Rock Steady" a collaboration with Kenneth "Babyface" 
Edmonds became their first Top 10 success on the Hot 100 (it reached #7) while also capturing the #1 
spot on the R&B chart. 
Although they recorded mainly in Philadelphia in the early to mid 7os, most of their studio work has 
been in Los Angeles. Their most successful period was in the 198os with Solar Records (Sound Of Los 
Angeles Records), run by their manager at the time, Dick Griffey. The Whispers later founded their 
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own Black Tie record label. The group opened Game 2 of the 1989 World Series at Oakland -
Alameda County Coliseum with their rendition of the National Anthem. Marcus Hutson left the 
group in 1992 due to illness. According to the Whispers' website, when Hutson died in 2000 they 
vowed to never replace him, and now perform as a quartet. Jerry McNeil resigned his position as 
keyboardist in the later part of 1993, to spend more time with his family. And although my very 
favorite Whisper's song is — It Just Gets Better With Time - please also listen to Lady 
as 
someone once said of it, V there was ever a metaphor on how a man should treat his woman as it 
says everything said everything that a woman would want to hear.... You caressed us.... You 
romanced us.... It's almost like foreplay..." 
The Whispers — And The Beat Goes On --
The Whispers — A Song For Donny --
The Whispers — It Just Gets Better With Time --
v=B4 HotPszyA
The Whispers — Rock Steady --
The Whispers — (Olivia) Lost And Turned Out --
aillaWLwlyF I&Iist=AL94UKMTqgt9AFCNbL9Z8ED 
fn.- Q4mBzfd 
The Whispers — Lady --
The Whispers — Did You Know --
dXshdys&list=AL94UKMTqgt9AFCNbL9Z8ED 
fOQ4mBzfd 
THE WHISPERS - IN THE MOOD -MY HEART, YOUR HEART-SAY YES --
THE WHISPERS - WELCOME TO MY DREAM --
v=TY13(31tSqdM
THE WHISPERS — BUTTA --
The Whispers - Let's Go All The Way --
The Whispers — Say You (Would Love For Me Too) --
v=bJVVjkcH4i4Ww 
The Whispers - It's A Love Thing --
The Whispers - Keep On Lovin' Me --
Whispers - Chocolate Girl --
I hope that you enjoyed this week's offerings and I wish you a great week.... 
Sincerely, 
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Greg Brown 
Gregory Brown 
Chairman & CEO 
GlobalCast Panne's. LLC 
US: 
Fax: 
Sic% 
Gregory Brown 
Chairman & CEO 
GlobalCast Partners, LLC 
US: 
Fax: 
S 
mbrowr
am 
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