Frank's Musings

Trump’s tax reform strategy is based on the same contempt he has had for casino lenders, university applicants, real estate investors, and dozens of contractors on his projects. This time he is sure that the MAGA Crowd and greedy high income earners will fall for his proposed income tax reform that he promises will benefit middle class tax payers at the same time as significantly reduce the amounts of taxes due from multi-hundred millionaires. As analyzed in the 25 November 2025 NYT, tax savings by both will be a relative pittance.

His plans only reflect Trump’s distorted concept of his place in history. He won’t be remembered as a genius compromiser, though; he will only get his due as a renowned swindler

When they come together to learn about the interactions of sovereign nations, students at global affairs schools form a web of fellowship that sometimes lasts for decades. Unwittingly, their community mimics the relationships between the political states on the planet.  Both groups interweave, as in a crochet pattern,  not only their professional functions, when appropriate, but also their social, cultural, athletic, and other leisure as well as intellectual activities.  Is it normal for like-minded grad students to form continuously active  friendships, or is the study of global issues unusually bonding?

There is another anomaly that possibly characterizes graduate students at the best specialized global affairs schools: they are attracted there because of their interest in the interrelationships between nations.  Moreover, they are all also critical thinking actors in life.  Alumni associations help them preserve the dynamic of personal interactions that may have been vital to their graduate school experience.    I wish to offer some comments on the confluence of global affairs with the perspectives of students and alumni of those professional graduate schools.  Indeed, a critical result of attending one of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) is the personal contacts made with like-minded incipient and mid-career practitioners of many cross-border professions—commercial, governmental, academic, cultural, etc.

These students spend one or a few years together pursuing the knowledge of and skills for dealing with the dynamics of world-wide relations between individuals, groups, nations, alliances and organizations.  They  form a lasting bond in and between contiguous annual classes.   That is  a resource they can use to reinforce their ability to master any challenges in their careers and even to innovate advances in the human condition.  It is an important function of alumni associations, therefore, to facilitate and preserve personal contact between individual and contiguous annual classes because supporting this aspect of graduate school attendance is as important as keeping in touch with potential donors.