The new pseudo-pro-security/anti-free-trade/incensed-about-outsourcing alliance (that we predicted a few days ago) appears to be self-organizing right now.
Like a superhero in the comix of old, the blogosphere now has the task of getting out information fast enough to defeat the movement before it solidifies.
UPDATE: And, indeed, the future may be right here right now if we only lower trade barriers and practice that which (some always angrily accuse us of) preaching.
Victor Davis Hanson (sounding like Edward R. Murrow reporting from London) puts it like this:
...the question now is an existential one: Can the United States...rebuild the most important country in the heart of the Middle East, after 30 years of utter oppression, three wars, and an Orwellian, totalitarian dictator warping of the minds of the populace? And can anyone navigate between a Zarqawi, a Sadr, and the Sunni rejectionists, much less the legions of Iranian agents, Saudi millionaires, and Syrian provocateurs who each day live to destroy what's going on in Iraq?
The fate of a much wider war hinges on the answers to these questions, since it would be hard to imagine that bin Laden could continue be much of a force with a secure and democratic Iraq, anchoring ongoing liberalization in the Gulf, Lebanon, and Egypt, and threatening by example Iran and Syria. By the same token, it would be hard to see how we could stop jihadism from spreading when an army that is doing everything possible still could not stop Islamic fascism from taking over the ancestral home of the ancient caliphate.
Can-do Americans courageously go about their duty in Iraq -- mostly unafraid that a culture of 2,000 years, the reality of geography, the sheer forces of language and religion, the propaganda of the state-run Arab media, and the cynicism of the liberal West are all stacked against them. Iraq may not have started out as the pivotal front in the war between democracy and fascism, but it has surely evolved into that. After visiting the country, I think we can and will win, but just as importantly, unlike in 2003-4, there does not seem to be much of anything we should be doing there that in fact we are not.
UPDATE II: Via Glenn Reynolds, Counterterrorism Blog reports this was a long-feared nightmare scenario that didn't happen. (On this see also "long-awaited Iraq Civil War.")
Across Iraq today, people walked through quiet streets to attend weekly prayer service at neighborhood mosques. Traffic was light because of a rare daytime curfew that the government had put in place to try to prevent worshippers from attending Friday Prayers, out of fear that imams would incite more violence. The groups that did gather appeared to do so in a largely peaceful manner, though.
"The last straw." I have wondered for some time now whether this refers to the same object talked about in the expression "the straw that broke the camel's back."
Fortunately there's Dasha H., who sends us this translation:
Tomas Klvana says the criticism of numerous Western politicians, and most recently the UN, of the US Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorists is unjustified.
"None of the critics who talk of violations of human rights at the prison have actually been there. It can't be ruled out that methods which the Americans don't use in their own country are used there. At a time in which nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction are on the increase, the answers to moral questions are not simple. Guantanamo is part of the war against terrorism, a war which the Americans are not fighting just for themselves, but for all those who are threatened by terrorism."
Kinda feels like someone's illegal radio just got hold of a Voice of America broadcast, and EconoPundit has the privilege of passing the word along to everyone else!
To me it seems increasingly like a trap... you know, let them get in front of the cameras and angrily show off all the things they don't know about how the ports really operate.
Similar to the delicate matter of oursourcing and "increasing" foreign ownership, no?
I'm no expert on port security, but the little I do know suggests this issue will turn into the Democrats' winner for upcoming midterm elections and perhaps even the later presidential election itself.
And as far as I can tell the buyout doesn't even do anything to help out the capital account, since what's being traded are assets already owned offshore. This is a dismal commentary on the world competitiveness of American enterprise.
...many of the 9/11 hijackers transited through the UAE, and a significant amount of al-Qaeda cash came through UAE-based accounts. If they run their own country's borders so poorly, why would we trust them to run ours? The White House needs to deep-six this deal, or cancel the contracts and re-bid them. Putting our ports in the hands of Arab authoritarians isn't just putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, it's tantamount to cooking him eggs for breakfast every morning and bringing him KFC for supper every night.
But the problem seems to be the fox has already been put in charge of the henhouse, and getting him out may involve decades of major international lawsuits. The War on Terror may just have been turned into a matter not for military action or criminal justice but rather civil litigation.
UPDATE III: Prediction: loose alliances between the opponents of outsourcing, "Portgate" critics, and proposers of new regulations like this will solidify into a new anti-trade movement; by next year at this time America's participation in expanded world trade will be in serious doubt, and the long-dreaded final plunge of the dollar may actually take place.
UPDATE IV: Finally I'm not alone in noticing this isn't a sale of US assets.
The Hugh Hewett Lawrence O'Donnell interview is like a delightful butterscotch drop that just keeps melting and melting in your mouth for so much longer than you'd expect.
So O'Donnell talked to a dozen lawyers all of whom assumeed Cheney was too drunk to talk to the police, but actually the person who made the suggestion was an alcoholic not a lawyer, and actually it was O'Donnell who subsequently suggested the story to the lawyers, and O'Donnell's entire family are lawyers (every one of them) but maybe it is okay to assume the lawyer story is a lie because he (Lawrence O'Donnell) won't reveal any of the names (not even in private confidence off the record), but no he did talk not to a dozen lawyers but rather maybe five or six (and one was his brother after all), but since no names will be named (not even for very private confirmation of the story) it is okay to assume it is a lie after all. And also, he (Lawrence O'Donnell) has never taken a drink in his life, not even a beer at lunch.
To the extent he's not just talking about obvious possibilites, Bernanke's first report is positive indeed.
I've been looking for a narrow "Lucas-supply" window -- a small (and temporary) gap between anticipated cost and price inflation that encourages hiring because of anticipated profitablility increases. So far I've had it on good authority energy price shocks aren't being passed on to consumers, but if Bernanke is really worried about inflation it may indicate there's hope for the scenario just outlined.
UPDATE: In different terms, check out today's Fed release on production and capacity utilization. Look at this diagram accompanying the release: There's still idle capacity kicking about. Firms feel good about putting it to use if, simply put, they anticipate earning more dollars if they do so. Whenever they're confidently passing along cost increases (along with, oh, a few "extra" points just in case!) it's a good indication they're anticipating increased profitability.
I posted this image over the weekend. An astute reader pointed out the diagram is in error.
Treasury reports budget deficits/surpluses with reversed signs each month; the convention doesn't hold for press releases, so any appending of data to the time series they make available must be done with an eye to signs.
Here's the corrected plot. And (ahem!) what do we learn from it? The answer is, there's absolutely nothing special about last January's numbers! Sorry.
Here, isolated so you can see it clearly, is the menacing scowl on Dick Cheney's lips in the Chicago Tribune photograph chosen by the editors to accompany the hunting accident story.
UPDATE II: Thus the loyal opposition, thru its unwise choice of topics about which to get angry, enables the education (thru bumper stickers like this one) of a whole new generation of uninitiated younger voters:
So Bruce: when are you coming to Chicago to sign some of these things?
UPDATE: Implications and commentary as well as what appears to be a full frontal mugshot (suitable for enlargement and target practice) can be found here.
On the surface, this records how representatives sent by over fifty dictatorships (and one or two semi-democracies) decided to demand a new deal from the democratic world: so-called "freedom of expression," they were going to demand, must not be used as a pretext to "defame religions."
But as you read about the various meetings: In early December, the group's first delegation of Danish Muslims flew to Cairo, where they met with the grand mufti, Muhammad Sayid Tantawy, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League..."After that, there was a certain response," Mr. Akkari said, adding that the Cairo government and the Arab League both summoned the Danish ambassador to Egypt for talks.
Mr. Akkari denies that the group had meant to misinform, but concedes that there were misunderstandings along the way.
Please remember Western Civilization as we know it had three chances to absorb the ancient Greek fascination with absolute Truth and pure meaning (of, for example, words). First was Alexander's conquests, which imposed Greek culture on the Jews. Second was Rome's wholesale adaptation of Greek intellectual life. Third, finally, was Christianity's very painful decision, thru neo-Platonism, to reject the parts of Judaism still clinging to that poetic pre-Alexander world, the world in which words had multiple meanings and the only genuinely absolute truth was monotheism itself.
Islamic civilization studied the Greeks, but it was never conquered by them. And this, I suspect, is why we and they have different ideas about what constitutes "Truth."
UPDATE: Dasha H. sends links and discussion relating all this to immigration policy. Even for strictly European immigration, the cartoon jihad will exert profound influences on policy for years to come.
Imagine how much more restrictive, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic US policy would have become if (a) the early antiwar Stalinist peace movement attracted not hundreds but hundreds of thousands to march under its banner, and (b) if it was clearly and obviously demonstrable that the overwhelming majority of Jews were actively receiving orders from foreign political entities?
Precisely those things that constituted smear and slander against the Jews in the United States of the 1920s and 30s is now obvious and demonstrable fact for Middle Eastern immigrants here and in Europe. Only political correctness prevents one's saying so out loud.
To put the matter in different words: debate over the rectitude of the Internal Security Acto of 1950 often boiled down to whether or not the American Communist Party was (or was not) an independent, free-thinking entity. There is no similar debate over whether the politically active European (and in some cases American) Mosques are independent or free-thinking.
UPDATE: More here. The communists are winning. (That's a metaphore you dummkopf.)
Via Rantings of a Sand Monkey we have those insensitive cartoons printed in a matter-of-fact fashion by a major Egyptian newspaper LAST OCTOBER during Ramadan:
As details like these emerge, it looks like relatively efficient/competitive low-administrative-cost trade arrangements may increasingly be replaced by high-cost, inefficient, politically-based ones.
Look to Hugo Chavez to be investigating exports of dairy products -- probably high cost and inefficient ones -- to the Middle East. And as Denmark seeks other markets (remember the world is a big place) look for short-term bargains in Danish dairy.
Milton Friedman's economic analysis of (racial) discrimination never gained any traction in the United States, but because it applies equally to other forms of discrimination in the context of global trade, it should be remembered at this juncture. The buyer who discriminates -- whether such discrimination is racial, political, or religious -- only adds the service of his prejudice to the total cost of doing business. All other things being equal the nondiscriminating competitor will have lower costs and, for this reason, more business volume.
UPDATE: And as the New York Times earnestly lays out the root causes of international Islamic rage, I absentmindedly recall the talking head sociologists of the late 1980's who explained what "wilding" was all about.
As this story unfolds it brings to mind a number of closely associated ideas -- rent seeking behavior, predator-prey cycles, and the increasingly-important ability to recognize the difference between productive and appropriative behavior.
And as well it brings to mind the simple image of a small, 19-employee web-based entrepreurial enterprise potentially snuffed out of existence by large, well-funded elements of the Modern American Liberal Political Establishment.
UPDATE: Regarding the rent-seeking behavior and predator-prey cycle we have this via Capital Research:
In a 2001 consumer protection lawsuit, a San Francisco judge ordered credit card company Providian to pay $105 million, supposedly to benefit card holders charged excessive fees and penalties. But not all the cash reached customers. Recently $5.9 million was awarded to 16 advocacy groups, including foundations run by left-wing trial lawyers. The taxpayer-funded Employment Law Center, which sues on behalf of employees and illegal aliens, and fights anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives, received $400,000. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which opposed a California constitutional amendment outlawing racial preferences in state government, received $600,000. The money reached these advocacy groups through misuse of a legal doctrine known as cy pres, which directs court awards to a related "charity" when they can't reach intended recipients. But in this case the judge let Lieff Cabraser law firm divert cy pres donations to the Employment Law Center and the Lawyers' Committee. It turns out these groups previously had helped the law firm sue employers, and the Lawyer's Committee had been headed for many years by the law firm's own partner, Richard Seymour.
UPDATE: Also via Capital Research here are the Law Center's foundation grants for 1993-2000. Many of these are relatively small, but please remember the small businesses sued by the Law Center have no public or foundation support whatsoever:
Fannie Mae Foundation $20,000 2000
Ford Motor Company Fund $10,000 2000
Fannie Mae Foundation $50,000 1998
Fannie Mae Foundation $25,000 1998
American Express Foundation $5,000 1998
Fannie Mae Foundation $2,500 1998
Fannie Mae Foundation $25,000 1997
American Express Foundation $5,000 1996
Rockwell International Corporation Trust $1,250 1996
BT Foundation $1,000 1996
Ford Motor Company Fund $1,000 1996
AT&T Foundation $10,000 1995
American Express Foundation $5,000 1995
General Mills Foundation $5,000 1995
BT Foundation $2,500 1995
Pharmacia Foundation $1,500 1995
Ford Motor Company Fund $1,000 1995
Wheelabrator Technologies Charitable Foundation $5,000 1994
American Express Foundation $5,000 1994
General Mills Foundation $5,000 1994
ABC Foundation $3,500 1994
Rockwell International Corporation Trust $1,500 1994
Ford Motor Company Fund $1,000 1994
McKesson Foundation Inc. $1,500 1993
UPDATE III: Information above relates to the nonprofit aspects of this organization's status. As for its nonpartisan nature, consider this little exerpt from its statement on federal response to Katrina:
For too many Americans, Katrina provided their first look at the face of poverty and race in this country. The storm and its devastating aftermath forced Americans to witness firsthand a deadly combination of racism, racial disparities, racial insensitivity, poverty, and governmental incompetence. The Lawyers’ Committee acknowledges that the chaos and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina were unprecedented in its broad scale. However, the Lawyers' Committee believes that racism and racial insensitivity exacerbated these already stressful circumstances. Foremost, the racial "criminal stereotyping" generated unjustified fear and played a role in FEMA's slow and inadequate response to the survivors of the storm.
Never let those facts interfere with a good story...
While driving back to the office I heard some NPR expert explaining why the current employment figures only look good because so many job seekers have gotten discouraged and dropped out of the labor market.
Here's BLS series LNS13327707, seasonally adjusted total unemployed plus discouraged workers as a percent of civilian labor force plus discouraged workers. Don't be confused here. This is what the unemployment rate would look like if we included discouraged workers in the calculation: I guess I could be missing something, but the BLS inclusive-of-discourage-worker-effect seems to be going down, not up.
UPDATE II: And by the way, just listen to some of the angry comments coming out of Gaza and elsewhere. They are anticipating a world with Iranian nuclear missiles, a world in which a Middle Eastern nation can threaten to blow a European nation off the face of the map for publishing offensive cartoons.
Four years ago, he was an economics professor who had never held a government job outside his local school board. On Wednesday, he was to walk into an office that has been Alan Greenspan's for almost two decades, cross a red-and-navy Oriental rug and take his place behind Greenspan's desk. From there, Bernanke is supposed to keep the American economy running smoothly.
Yeah, and everyone here at Roosevelt University's Economics 321 (where we use his and Andrew Able's great intermediate macro text) is cheering for him!
