My reading of books has fallen off a bit lately. I was getting too far behind on the various magazines that come my way. Last Friday the December issue of Forbes came in the mail so I thought I would try to tackle it before it became old news. It is not a small publication. There were 136 pages plus the front and back covers for the magazine.

Now, of course, quite a few pages are advertising, but there is a significant amount of reading, much of which I find to be thought provoking and in this case, I got as far as page eleven.

Steve Forbes is the current Editor-in-Chief. He is of the third generation of Forbes family members associated with the Forbes magazine. The founder, B. C. Forbes was Steve’s grandfather. Steve’s father was Malcolm S. Forbes.

Some of you readers may remember Malcolm as the flamboyant, business leader and owner/publisher of the magazine, a multi-millionaire (400 million to 1 billion) with an opulent lifestyle that included art collecting, notably Fabregé imperial Easter Eggs and oriental paintings, but also a collector of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and real estate in several countries. Elizabeth Taylor was a close friend of Malcolm. Just before he died, he held a party for about 1,000 guests in Tangier, Morocco, flying all the guests there for the celebration.

Steve took over the business after his father’s death in 1990. He became involved in politics and attempted runs for U.S. Presidency in 1996 and 2000, albeit without success. Steve ordinarily has some comments in the early part of the magazine.

In December, there were two briefs on page eleven. The first item was some advice to the nation’s educational system, namely, deploring the lack of knowledge our young people seem to have about the United States Government, that is, a lack of what was called civics in my senior high school class schedule. He compared what he thought was deficient now with what immigrants are required to know to become Naturalized Citizens of the U.S.

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As of 2020, every prospective Naturalized Citizen needs to answer correctly 12 questions of 20 questions taken from a list of 128 questions that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has formed. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a pocket size handbook of the 128 questions with the correct answers (except for some specific answers such as the names of their home states’ senators and their representative to Congress.) The test seems to be much harder than the old test that was taken from a list of just 100 questions.

I think I probably could pass the test, but there are certainly questions that I probably would not have been able to answer had I not just gone through the entire list of 128. For example: What amendment gives citizenship to all born in the U.S.? or What amendment assigns powers to the states if not listed specifically as a power of the federal government? or Why did we enter the Persian Gulf War? (Answers: 14th, 10th, To force Iraqis out of Kuwait.)

Another question was: Who does a U.S. Senator represent? (The answer given was “citizens of their state” which may be debatable as the Senator may represent those in the state even if they are not citizens, such as those with “green cards.”)

Steve Forbes closes his comments with: “The civics test for naturalization should be made a core course in our schools.” I believe that is an oversimplification – there is so much more that would be beneficial for all of us to know than what would come from just the 128 made-up questions.

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The other half of page 11 of the December issue talks about the large increase in the national debt created by the pandemic. In order to pay that debt, Steve suggests that the money could be raised by issuing 100 year treasury bonds with a coupon of a fairly low interest rate, maybe 2%.

It is Steve’s contention that there would be a good market for those bonds at a real, guaranteed rate especially in the current atmosphere of what is nearly 0% interest rates. He also points out that there are already several countries (Austria, Ireland, Belgium and Mexico) who already are issuing such 100 year bonds. “To secure presidential support, these bonds could be dubbed Biden bonds.”

His last comment sounds like the flyer that was put out the other day that we could name the vaccine being developed for COVID as Trump’s Vaccine. Of course, that was a little late when the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson announced it would start administering the vaccine there before the U.S. gets into the vaccine business — so maybe it should be called the Boris vaccine.

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In the process of researching for this column, I learned that the prime minister of the United Kingdom has a much longer official name than I had known. He is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The “de Pfeffel” is apparently from a connection to royalty albeit by way of some German ancestors. Further, I learned that Boris was actually born here in the United States. His parents, though, were English. His father at the time of his birth was taking classes at Columbia University. I think that qualifies as an: Oh, Fiddlesticks!

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!