This just in...

Science fails to prove the healing power of prayer. Actually, the "study" -- if it is not a complete hoax, which I suspect it is -- is flawed. What was tested was not recovery rates of "praying" versus "non-praying" patients, but rather recoveries of those being prayed for as opposed to those not being prayed for. Nobody tested whether the prayers were sincere. UPDATE: Guess it (or at least the article) isn't a hoax. In addition, the study's statistics seem to show "intercessory prayer" may be deterimental to the outcome. Go figure...

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:06 AM

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Not sure if this is good, or bad, or what...

I found this on my disk and can't find evidence I ever posted it on EconoPundit, so here it is better late than never. The immigration numbers (net undocumented immigrants -- arrivals minus leavers plus deaths) are from Pew Hispanic; the unemployment rates are standard BLS numbers. The regression says every percent decline in the US unemployment rate induces an additional 84,570 undocumented Hispanic United States residents. Hmmm...wait just a doggone econometric second here. If they're doing jobs Americans don't want, doesn't that mean that each additional net 84,570 undocumented Hispanic residents causes a 1% decline in the unemployment rate? Don't move, wait right there till I find a pencil...

Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:45 PM

"viviamo...come fosse l'eta ultima della storia..."

From the incomparable Dasha H. -- this story and this snippet of translation: Italy and Europe spent centuries tastefully and happily innovating. Today, we Europeans are afraid of novelty, we live withdrawn into the present as if we were at the end of history. In 1968, the Sorbonne was occupied by a generation that wanted to change everything. Today, a melancholic generation is pleading: 'Don't change anything!' Political leaders are suffering from this fear. The future is seen not as an opportunity but as a nightmare. This makes it impossible to propose reforms that would enable us to compete felicitously with the United States and Asia.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:57 AM

How do you say "Intifada" in Spanish?

I have the feeling we'll know the answer very soon. The problem is whether some version of these attitudes are basically pop mainstream rather than desperation fringe. I suspect some stones will the thrown today. UPDATE: Sorry to say it looks like I was right: Today, in its coverage of the reconquista, the Dallas Morning News pictured a young student named Michelle Marquez being screamed at by about 20 of her fellow students. Her offense was not being opposed to the protest under way, but joining it with an American flag in her hands. Her sentiments didn't lack ambiguity: "My heart is with the Mexican flag and with Mexico, but I'm standing on American ground and I'm Mexican=American." But she got her flags confused. Also today, as Michelle Malkin reported, "Tammy Bruce noted on FOX News this morning that American flags were burned at the LA rally and marchers also held signs of the North American continent with America x'ed out." While some demonstrators chanted amnestia, others threw rocks and bottles at the police. Maybe they're just anecdotes.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:11 AM

Try the site feed now. Finally, it works.

Don Luskin was kind enough to fix our site feed. Once again, thanks Don.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:46 AM

Poverty...

If nothing else the immigration debate is inching us toward a better understanding of recent US poverty trends. (EconoPundit has argued from its inception illegal immigration enables a massive propagandistic misuse of poverty statistics by the US left. But anyway...) So maybe it boils down to this. Look over the situation. Even if the simplistic microeconomic view is rejected in favor of the macrodynamic view, would a 3-8% wage hike for high school dropouts really make any difference?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:12 AM

Dam dam dam!! It's not fair!!

The LA Times' Ralph Vartabedian is unhappy to see the tools of environmentalist politics -- science and adept manipulation of regulatory apparatuses -- turned against those with whom he sides: After massive underground plumes of an industrial solvent were discovered in the nation's water supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency mounted a major effort in the 1990s to assess how dangerous the chemical was to human health. Following four years of study, senior EPA scientists came to an alarming conclusion: The solvent, trichloroethylene, or TCE, was as much as 40 times more likely to cause cancer than the EPA had previously believed. Note the wording: a "major effort" mounted by "senior scientists" addressing an "alarming conclusion." Heck, this is starting to sound heroic, like something out of Homer. The preliminary report in 2001 laid the groundwork for tough new standards to limit public exposure to TCE. Instead of triggering any action, however, the assessment set off a high-stakes battle between the EPA and Defense Department, which had more than 1,000 military properties nationwide polluted with TCE. By 2003, after a prolonged challenge orchestrated by the Pentagon, the EPA lost control of the issue and its TCE assessment was cast aside. As a result, any conclusion about whether millions of Americans were being contaminated by TCE was delayed indefinitely. Did you catch that? The prolonged challenge was orchestrated by the Pentagon. EPA scientists mount major efforts. But the evil Pentagon deviously "orchestrates" things. What happened with TCE is a stark illustration of a power shift that has badly damaged the EPA's ability to carry out one of its essential missions: assessing the health risks of toxic chemicals. Maybe, but couldn't a reasonable person look at these facts and conclude one branch of government is merely doing its job -- trying to keep another branch of government from unreasonably running up the taxpayers' costs, in other words? The agency's authority and its scientific stature have been eroded under a withering attack on its technical staff by the military and its contractors. Indeed, the Bush administration leadership at the EPA ultimately sided with the military. This is the really juicy stuff. It is never fair when the wrong side pursues litigation or challenges regulation. "Science" and "regulation" are viewed as ethically correct in the hands of environmentalists. When "orchestrated" by others they are mere trickery. And how exactly has the "scientific stature" of the agency been eroded? By simple challenges to its authority? After years on the defensive, the Pentagon -- with help from NASA and the Energy Department -- is taking a far tougher stand in challenging calls for environmental cleanups. It is using its formidable political leverage to demand greater proof that industrial substances cause cancer before ratcheting up costly cleanups at polluted bases. What nerve. Before spending millions of your dollars on cleanups the Pentagon is requiring proof the cleanups will improve things. The military says it is only striving to make smart decisions based on sound science and accuses the EPA of being unduly influenced by left-leaning scientists. But critics say the defense establishment has manufactured unwarranted scientific doubt, used its powerful role in the executive branch to cause delays and forced a reduction in the margins of protection that traditionally guard public health. So we ask, in conclusion, this simple question: Is turnabout fair play? To most of us it is. But a bully will always answer "no".

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:56 AM

Believe it or not...

Here's one way to take care of the more than 40 million without good health insurance. In China.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:50 AM

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

On the other hand...

When John J. Seater talks to me I listen. Regarding yesterday's simple analysis of minimum wage and immigration Professor Seater emails this comment: Your labor market analysis is too simple because it ignores the capital stock. If the labor supply changes, the marginal product of capital changes in the same direction, inducing more capital investment until the economy returns to its steady state capital/labor ratio. At that point, real wages will be back where they started. Furthermore, to the extent that any of this is foreseeable, investment won't wait until after the labor force change but will itself change in step with the changes in the labor supply. If investors could forecast the labor changes perfectly, then real wages wouldn't change at all. That's obviously unrealistic, but it also is not clear whether investors will overestimate or underestimate the change in labor, so it also is unclear what the precise path of real wages will be. Okay, let's examine this. John (I'm assuming by now we're on a first name basis) is saying we shouldn't be satisfied simple microeconomics. Basic macroeconomics -- particularly the celebrated Solow growth model -- show population growth "automatically" creates its own jobs, income, and "correct" levels of investment and capital stock. Depending on how accurately businesses and households form their expectations, investment, prices, and nominal wages may over- or undershoot their long term trend values, but these are minor problems. The important point is an advanced industrial capitalism's populations creates its own well-being. You can confirm this by running Fairmodel and counterfactually reducing one of the several exogenous population variables. Perhaps it is time we did this again.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:32 AM

That Great Iranian Oil Farce. Sorry, I meant "Bourse."

To participate in discussions of this topic you usually must enter a dark, greasy fog of angry-confused-paranoid neoMarxist-antiGlobo-apocalyptic economics. The confusion has been encouraged and prepared by two modern economic John the Baptists -- William Greider and Paul Krugman, each enraptured by his own vision of America on the brink of currency collapse. Phantasies of the upcoming Iranian Oil Exchange have generated many fevered visions of a perpetual drainage of dollars into Euros as the world competes to purchase Iranian oil. But now Milton Ezrati at the Christian Science Monitor gets the prize for finally explaining (1) exactly why the Bourse will fail and (2) exactly how the Bourse at its worst (Hey! Yo! It almost rhymes!) can induce nothing more serious than a one-time trade of a certain stock of dollars for euros, not a perpetual drain: Even if by some miracle of legal maneuvering and commercial seduction Tehran established its euro-based oil bourse, trading there would likely fail to move the dollar from its dominant position. Even a wildly successful Iranian exchange would have only a short-lived currency effect. Once traders and dealers had adjusted their transactions balances to accommodate the euro-based trading, they would have no reason for further dollar sales or euro purchases. Currency values would then stabilize at a new level. (emphasis added) Let's make sure we've got this right. The Bourse opens but accepts only euros rather than dollars. There's an initial international increased trade of dollars for euros as players gear up for participation, the Bourse opens, and from that point on oil gets bought and sold on the Bourse causing the euros to be cycled and recycled over and over again as buyer meets seller and seller meets buyer. But, you object, doesn't this give Iran the power to build its foreign exchange reserves strictly in euros rather than dollars? Actually "no", one answers, because Iran already has this power without an oil bourse! Nobody needs a fancy oil bourse to trade one currency for another on world markets after all. Hat tip: Paul Engel.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:53 AM

He that troubleth his own house...

Tony Blankley points out the most troubling aspect of the entire pheonomenon: the massive gap between elite and "ordinary" opinion: National polling data could not be more emphatic -- and has been so for decades. Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls. An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress. Yet, according to a National Journal survey of Congress, 73 percent of Republican and 77 percent of Democratic congressmen and senators say they would support guest-worker legislation. (Emphasis added) As things are going to date this can't end well. Some politician somewhere will start saying some version of what the public genuinely wants to hear on this subject -- and we will all be surprised at our inheritance.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:29 AM

Everyone needs validation and approval, no?

I just ran across a Google link to this old review. I post it now because it brings back for me how good it felt to be complimented by my small circle of expatriate New York liberal pals. Winning their approval meant a lot to me. As it means a lot to others, with other New York liberal friends, currently.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:30 AM

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

"40 Years of Lies"

Kay S. Hymowitz: Moynihan went much further than merely overthrowing familiar explanations about the cause of poverty. He also described, through pages of disquieting charts and graphs, the emergence of a "tangle of pathology," including delinquency, joblessness, school failure, crime, and fatherlessness that characterized ghetto -- or what would come to be called underclass -- behavior. Moynihan may have borrowed the term "pathology" from Kenneth Clark's The Dark Ghetto, also published that year. But as both a descendant and a scholar of what he called "the wild Irish slums" -- he had written a chapter on the poor Irish in the classic Beyond the Melting Pot -- the assistant secretary of labor was no stranger to ghetto self-destruction. He knew the dangers it posed to "the basic socializing unit" of the family. And he suspected that the risks were magnified in the case of blacks, since their "matriarchal" family had the effect of abandoning men, leaving them adrift and "alienated." Yes, I know all that, but there's just a little bit more. Moynihan -- descendant and scholar of those wild Irish slums -- had something in common with those about whom he wrote. Years ago on the other side of the world in Newfoundland, I muttered to colleagues about something -- something in those high-unemployment Newfoundland outport welfare slums that actually seemed just like my home neighborhood, West Side Chicago's Garfield Park. It took years but someone finally explained it to me. Hat tip to Paul Engel.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:52 PM

Votes for sale Chicago style...

I wonder whether these groups can put their support up for bid on Ebay?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 2:24 PM

Some basic labor economics...

There are lots of smug comments floating around the blogosphere this morning to the effect that those who oppose minimum wage legislation seem "ironically enough" to be the same people who are worried about illegal immigration's downward influence on wage rates. Hello -- there's no contradiction here. The figure above illustrates the argument. In the absence of immigration or mimimum wage legislation the equilibrium wage is w* and the employment level is L*. Enforcing a legal wage floor of w' cuts back employment to L' (creating an "effective" labor supply curve similar to the purple line)and generates unemployment of L" minus L'. In the absence of minimum wage legislation immigration lowers the equilibrium wage to w** and raises employment to L". (Not shown explicitly is higher domestic unemployment as immigrant lower-wage workers replace domestic higher-wage ones.) And the worst of both possible worlds is minimum wage accompanied by illegal immigration. If the minimum wage laws are observed (actually as likely as immigration laws being observed) unemployment becomes a whopping L"' minus L'. It is easy to worry about bad impacts of undocumented immigration and minimum wage legislation at once. Actually the question should go in the other direction: those who believe in minimum wage legislation should be the same ones opposing undocumented immigration! UPDATE: Here's Thomas Sowell on the subject: We could solve the problem of all illegal activity anywhere by legalizing it. Why use this approach only with immigration? Why should any of us pay a speeding ticket if immigration scofflaws are legalized after the fact for committing a federal crime? Most of the arguments for not enforcing our immigration laws are exercises in frivolous rhetoric and slippery sophistry, rather than serious arguments that will stand up under scrutiny. How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price. Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:52 AM

WHAT'S WRONG WITH AL GORE'S ECONOMICS?

Where to begin? I can do no better than add commentary to -- "Fisk" if you will -- Gore's editorial in today's OpinionJournal Online: Capitalism and sustainability are deeply and increasingly interrelated. After all, our economic activity is based on the use of natural and human resources. Not until we more broadly "price in" the external costs of investment decisions across all sectors will we have a sustainable economy and society. The crux of the argument is right here. Capitalism can't bring you "sustainability" but heroic social engineers like Al Gore can. The problem is in that word "sustainability." It's religion. The industrial revolution brought enormous prosperity, but it also introduced unsustainable business practices. Our current system for accounting was principally established in the 1930s by Lord Keynes and the creation of "national accounts" (the backbone of today's gross domestic product). While this system was precise in its ability to account for capital goods, it was imprecise in its ability to account for natural and human resources because it assumed them to be limitless. This, in part, explains why our current model of economic development is hard-wired to externalize as many costs as possible. Disregarding the breathtaking leap from the industrial revolution to the creation of national income accounting, it ought only be mentioned this is simply false: nothing in the national accounts assumes human and natural resources are limitless. Our "current model" of economic development (did you know we had one?) is not "wired" to externalize as many costs as possible, but businesses and individuals are. Anyone who can legally shift a cost onto someone else will do so. It is normal business practice. The sort of thing Adam Smith talked about. Externalities are costs created by industry but paid for by society. For example, pollution is an externality which is sometimes taxed by government in order to make the entity responsible "internalize" the full costs of production. Over the past century, companies have been rewarded financially for maximizing externalities in order to minimize costs. No, externalities are costs paid for by someone else -- not always by "society as a whole." Companies often shift costs onto other companies. The earliest examples using the Coase theorem had to do with upstream businesses issuing effluents which raised the costs of downstream water-using businesses. Only the doctrinaire public service technocrat sees all costs of pollution borne by the "public" and all benefits borne by the business community. This is a kind of class analysis most modern economists no longer accept. Today, the global context for business is clearly changing. "Capitalism is at a crossroads," says Stuart Hart, professor of management at Cornell University. We agree, and we think the financial markets have a significant opportunity to chart the way forward. In fact, we believe that sustainable development will be the primary driver of industrial and economic change over the next 50 years. There's that "sustainable development" thing again. Sorry. It's religion. The interests of shareholders, over time, will be best served by companies that maximize their financial performance by strategically managing their economic, social, environmental and ethical performance. This is increasingly true as we confront the limits of our ecological system to hold up under current patterns of use. "License to operate" can no longer be taken for granted by business as challenges such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, water scarcity and poverty have reached a point where civil society is demanding a response from business and government. The "polluter pays" principle is just one example of how companies can be held accountable for the full costs of doing business. Now, more than ever, factors beyond the scope of Keynes's national accounts are directly affecting a company's ability to generate revenues, manage risks, and sustain competitive advantage. There are many examples of the growing acceptance of this view. Watch out: don't those words "license to operate" sound suspiciously like something Al Gore believes all businesses should be required to buy from environmentalists like himself! And why do I suspect Al doesn't trust shareholders themselves to best judge exactly what is or isn't in the "interest of shareholders?" In the corporate sector, companies like General Electric are designing products to enable their clients to compete in a carbon-constrained world. Novo Nordisk is taking a holistic view of combating diabetes not only through treatment but also through prevention. And Whole Foods and others are addressing the demand for quality food by sourcing local and organic produce. Importantly, the business response is about making money for shareholders, not altruism. Hey -- everyone knows if you're not green you can't compete these days! Whole Foods -- where limousine liberals send their staff to get earth-friendly breakfast cereal for their kids. In the nongovernmental sector, organizations such as World Resources Institute, Transparency International, the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres) and AccountAbility are helping companies explore how best to align corporate responsibility with business strategy. Over the past five years we have seen markets begin to incorporate the external cost of carbon dioxide emissions. This is happening through pricing mechanisms (price per ton of carbon dioxide) and government-supported trading platforms such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme in Europe. Even without a regulatory framework in the U.S., voluntary markets are emerging, such as the Chicago Climate Exchange and state-level initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. These market mechanisms increasingly enable companies to calculate project returns and capital expenditures decisions with the price of carbon dioxide fully integrated. But when you look into the actual history of environmental economics, you find left-leaning activism for the most part fought a death struggle with market incentives. Only when they lost the fight did they adopt market incentives as part of their ideology. The investment community has also started to respond. For example, the Enhanced Analytics Initiative, an international collaboration between asset owners and managers, encourages investment research that considers the impact of extrafinancial issues on long-term company performance. The Equator Principles, designed to help financial institutions manage environmental and social risk in project financing, have now been adopted by 40 banks, which arrange over 75% of the world's project loans. In addition, the rise in shareholder activism and the growing debate on fiduciary responsibility, governance legislation and reporting requirements (such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the EU Business Review) indicate the mainstream incorporation of sustainability concerns. Why am I right now thinking of how doggone financially well-off Jesse Jackson has seemed to be over the past fifteen years? Exactly why does that thought just jump into my mind at this point like some little affectionate lap dog trying to get my attention? While we are seeing evidence of leading public companies adopting sustainable business practices in developed markets, there is still a long way to go to make sustainability fully integrated and therefore truly mainstream. A short-term focus still pervades both corporate and investment communities, which hinders long-term value creation. So what's the upshot? We need Al Gore to think long-term for us. Only Al sees the rain forest instead of the trees. What we really need is for Al Gore to create an earth-friendly system of business licensing! (The clue here is the phrase "value creation." Like the classical economists of old, Al Gore knows what we don't -- the difference between price and -- ready? -- VALUE.) As some have said, "We are operating the Earth like it's a business in liquidation." More mechanisms to incorporate environmental and social externalities will be needed to enable capital markets to achieve their intended purpose--to consistently allocate capital to its highest and best use for the good of the people and the planet. As others have said, you can put lipstick on her but she's still a pig. Authoritarian religion masquerading an economic theory of "sustainability" is still authoritarian religion -- and Al Gore is no economist. UPDATE: And by the way, in case you missed it, Al is suggesting he be allowed to take over the National Income Accounts and re-do the definitions in accordance with his religion (oh, sorry -- I meant his "politics"). This would be about as effective as forcing public conservation of energy by re-numbering all of society's room thermometers -- you know, so that the old "room temperature" of 72 degrees is replaced by something "too hot" -- maybe 76 degrees or so. That would do it, no?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:27 AM

Sunday, March 26, 2006

The ideology that dares not speak its name...

As you read Mickey Kaus and watch Kaus and Jim Pinkerton discuss the import of all the pro-immigration rallies, check out this background report which in large part blames illegal immigration for destroying the USW (and the standard of living of California farm workers). And by the way don't start telling me the laws need to be changed (again) because they're rigged to make union organizing more difficult. Back in the 1960's the laws were changed -- by people with such a narrow, ideological view of capitalism they couldn't imagine how capitalism's unending creative destruction would easily grow around all those carefully-constructed pro-labor 60's laws/regulations. UPDATE: On the title, see "transnational progressivism". UPDATE II: More here. I am slowing moving towards the view that undocumented immigration is a labor market "distortion" generating costs borne primarily by domestic low wage earners and their families.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:32 AM

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Why the dollar still reigns...

Brussels Journal reports: On 23 and 24 March the European Council is meeting to discuss the future of Europe's social model. The very essence of the welfare state is at stake. Europe's present social model is unable to tackle the modern challenges of globalization, and has left Europe with gigantic problems: an unsurmountable public debt, a rapidly ageing population, 19 million unemployed, and an overall youth unemployment rate of 18%. The unemployment figures may easily be doubled to account for hidden unemployment. The untold reality is that Europe's real unemployment stands at the level of the 1932 Depression. Hat tip to Paul Engel. UPDATE: More here. To skeptics like my good friend Paul H. I can only say the proof of the pudding is in the dollar. It simply hasn't collapsed yet. Nope.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:12 PM

Friday, March 24, 2006

Alle Menschen werden Bruder...

Amartya Sen reminds us democracy isn't just "Western." Well, I don't know about this. Certainly Western democracy is just Western. No? UPDATE: I think you could say I'm a little touchy on this subject. I read somewhere the Romans were just slightly more friendly to the Jews because they were fascinated by all ancient Eastern religions.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:00 AM

Thursday, March 23, 2006

The sap flows equally on both sides of the podium...

Dasha H. sends a link to this article and a translation: Dresden has made itself unpopular. Just a week ago the lovely city in Saxony sold all its municipal residences to an American investor, and is now entirely free of debt. A minority in the city council was against the move. Some tenants are now afraid for their homes, but the wave of indignation directed against the city's aldermen since the unprecedented decision was taken is not coming from home. It is Western Germany that is angry, and how", writes Robin Alexander, who looks for an explanation for the outrage. "Perhaps... West Germany is against any small initiative that doesn't fit into Eastern Germany's turbid image, any isolated and courageous attempt to strike out in new directions. Like Leipzig's campaign for the Olympic games, which people in Hamburg considered an impertinence. Or now Dresden's leap from debt, which was rejected in Dortmund, Bremen and Berlin. Setting aside for the moment all this Deutscher Provinzialismus, we notice something of economic interest: all international capital flows don't consist of Chinese manufacturers financing American imports. From time to time American investors actually purchase foreign assets. UPDATE: For those who are wondering: the title is a quote from Harvey Goldberg.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:47 AM

It's called "stagflation"...

As always, Robert Samuelson is worth reading: Guest workers would mainly legalize today's vast inflows of illegal immigrants, with the same consequence: We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking; many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate; many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished. Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162 percent. Over the same period, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty rose 3 percent and the number of blacks, 9.5 percent. What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy. But I'm afraid in this case he's not paying close attention: Business organizations understandably support guest worker programs. They like cheap labor and ignore the social consequences. What's more perplexing is why liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality, support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans. The only question is how much. Studies suggest a range "from negligible to an earnings reduction of almost 10 percent," according to the CBO. Think for a moment. Strict border enforcement and criminalization of any business' employment of undocumented immigrants would create an immediate labor shortage in many businesses in many parts of the country. If under these circumstances the wage effects turned out to be not at the 10% range of the scale but rather way over in the "negligible" part, immigration reform will disrupt major portions of the US economy without generating anything good as a tradeoff. The outcome would be a major recession with rising prices. UPDATE: And by the way this goes a long way to explaining why Samuelson's liberal "staunch opponents of poverty and inequality" support might support undocumented immigration. They've been raised on the Keynesian or New-Keynesian doctrine of slow wage adjustment, and this doctrine may be a correct one. If it is, closing the border (thereby dramatically reducing the labor supply and consumer spending) would have an impact on the US economy similar to a dramatic, sudden upward spike in oil prices combined with an independent dramatic decline in aggregate expenditure. UPDATE II: Then again, some of the opposition to reform is based on religion.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:38 AM

Looks like, uh, well, don't they call it "fascism?"...

Harold Meyerson has policy prescriptions inspired by Blinder's latest article in Foreign Affairs: My own sense (which I develop at greater length in the April issue of the American Prospect) is that nothing short of a radical reordering of our economy will suffice if we're to save our beleaguered middle-class majority. Every other advanced economy -- certainly, those of the Europeans and the Japanese -- has a conscious strategy to keep its most highly skilled jobs at home. We have none; American capitalism, dominated by our financial sector, is uniquely wedded to disaggregating companies, thwarting unionization campaigns and offshoring work in a ceaseless campaign to impress investors that it has found the cheapest labor imaginable. What's the solution, then? Here are three measures of "radical reordering:" We need to entice industry to invest at home by having the government and our public-and union-controlled pension funds upgrade the infrastructure and invest in energy efficiency and worker training. We need to unionize and upgrade the skills of the nearly 50 million private-sector workers in health care, transportation, construction, retail, restaurants and the like whose jobs can't be shipped abroad. And, if America is to survive American capitalism in the age of globalization, we need to alter the composition of our corporate boards so that employee and public representatives can limit the offshoring of our economy. Before you do anything, notice how close is the analysis to the basic right wing pre-WW II European economic critique -- we have been brought to our knees by selfish international financiers! And now consider what's being proposed. Regarding paragraph #1, precisely how are we going to "entice" public and union pension funds to lose members' retirement savings by throwing money at feel-good social change projects? Regarding paragraph #2, are we going to use unionization as a lever to control undocumented/illegal immigration? Or is the goal several large bilingual US/Mexican unions that can speak with one voice to both governments (and possibly to the States of California, Texas, etc.). And finally, regarding paragraph #3, precisely how are new employee and public representatives on corporate boards going to make offshoring less profitable? If the goal here is to control behavior and profit be damned, just raise taxes for gosh sakes. It's a much cheaper and quicker way to kill business activity.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:10 AM

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

They've found us out!

From the Washington Post. The Washington Post? Anyway: "Red Dawn? You must know it - the greatest pro-gun movie ever? I mean, they actually show the jackbooted communist thugs prying the guns from cold dead hands." Any red-blooded American conservative...knows a Red Dawn reference. For all the talk of left wing cultural political correctness, the right has such things, too (DO shop at Wal-Mart, DON'T buy gas from Citgo). But in the progressive halls of the mainstream media, such things prompt little or no recognition.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:17 PM

Monday, March 20, 2006

Dam!! That stupid market. It always wins!!!

Sam Peltzman likes explaining how extramarket regulation can be easily undone by "offsetting behavior." At legislated below-market prices for example, the public bears the cost of simply "waiting in line" for the now-scarce item. When waiting-in-line costs are added to the legislated low price of the product, the public winds up paying what the market would have produced in the absence of legislation (or so goes the argument at least). And in France, it now emerges, the benefits of ironclad job security are counterbalanced by the costs of waiting in line for those highly valued jobs: Official statistics show young French work an average of nine years in [what they call] precarite -- unpaid internships, three-month contracts and occasional stints collecting unemployment benefits -- before landing the coveted long-term contract that puts them on the protected side of the barrier. What's the lesson here? There's a certain grim realism in the Anglosphere that the Gallic world has yet to find. Passing one sweeping law or another regulating market behavior is basically a collective temper tantrum. Rioting is merely the second stage of that same tantrum. UPDATE: More from Brussels (with good links) via Instapundit: More important than universities are the so-called grandes ecoles, such as the ENA, the Ecole nationale d'administration. The ruling elite (to which Prime Minister Villepin and President Chirac belong but not, significantly, their rival, the "pro-Anglo-Saxon" Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy) consists of so-called enarques or ENA alumni. The state run grandes ecoles can only be entered after taking two years of "classes préparatoires" (or prepas). It is very difficult, and costs a fortune, to get admitted to the prepas, with the result that university is only a second choice for many students. What emerges, then, is this: European welfare socialism is supervised by an ironclad oligarchy of extremely wealthy old families.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:48 AM

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Yet Another Blogospheric Triumph!

Powerline has what seems like the smoking gun regarding Saddamite WMD's and terror training camps. This is genuine Powerline blogosphere scoop, because the document in question gains (possibly total) credibility owing to a translation provided exclusively for the Powerline blog by one of its readers.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:56 PM

New frontiers versus redistribution...

Via Bruce Bartlett, a new study on US tort costs confirms the uncomfortable reality: we spend roughly the same dollars on lawsuit activity as we do on research and development. UPDATE: A reader objects: "Uncomfortable reality" suggests there is a problem. Is there? We spend more on health care than any other country. Is that good or bad? We are rich and have to spend our money on something. If health is a luxury good, as it seems to be, spending on it should rise faster than income itself. What of it? In a similar vein, by what standard do you decide that we spend too much on lawsuit activity? We spend more than other countries. Is that because lawsuit activity is a luxury good? Maybe so. Or maybe it indicates a higher degree of property protection than in other countries so that, rather than being either a result of or unrelated to high income, our high legal spending is a cause of our relatively high income. Merely showing that we spend more or less than other countries on something tells us nothing. You have to provide some sort of standard against which to make comparisons. It also will not be sufficient to point to obvious stupidities such as the famous lawsuit against McDonalds for selling hot coffee that some dopey dame then spilled on herself. We can prove or disprove anything if we apply nothing more than the anecdote standard. EconoPundit responds: We've talked about this many times before here. The quantity of dollars we spend on lawsuits, regulation, and similar redistributive activity is determined not by our tastes and preferences but by a subtle structuring of our laws. Virtually always this structuring is carried out under the aegis of those with legal training -- the same class of individuals who profit from more rather than fewer lawsuits. One suspects the global warming and peak oil cults are responses borne out of desperation -- scientists and engineers throwing attention-getting tantrums in response to lawyers perpetually seeming to get more than their fair share. Call me old fashioned if you want to, but I don't see redistribution as contributing much in the way of increased welfare. Better to spend the bucks on research and development and make more for everyone. What am I missing? UPDATE: For those interested here is how Wm Baumol phrased the problem.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:51 PM

They're from France...

I keep looking for someone somewhere to point this out, but since nobody else seems interested I'll do it: What's happening is that privileged middle class pre-employed students are rioting to protect the job benefits and protections they will receive, under current laws, once they finally enter the work force and start enjoying their middle class lifestyle (just hate that word by the way). The above-mentioned benefits and protections are widely credited for high unemployment rates among the Muslim youth who were rioting a few short weeks ago. This is, in other words, a riot in response to policy changes proposed by those seeking to address the root causes of the previous riots. Got that? UPDATE: Graphics and comment at Powerline.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:32 AM

Friday, March 17, 2006

Just wait. You can have your brain scan in about fifteen years...

Regarding health care and the desirability of single payer, Michael Kinsley does a good job of demystifying Paul Krugman's typical intellectual bullying.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:37 AM

Their intelligence: as bad as ours?

The most charitable and literal way of reading this new interpretation from ABC News is simply that, as of 9/15/2001, Iraq was as confused and doubtful about its involvement in the 9/11 conspiracy as was/is the US public: Document dated Sept. 15, 2001 An Iraqi intelligence service document saying that their Afghani informant, who's only identified by a number, told them that the Afghani Consul Ahmed Dahastani claimed the following in front of him: That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq. That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and "bin Laden's group" agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America. That in case the Taliban and bin Laden's group turn out to be involved in "these destructive operations," the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan. That the Afghani consul heard about the issue of Iraq's relationship with "bin Laden's group" while he was in Iran.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:18 AM

A private arrangement...

How Europe went Islamist: Briefly put, the alleged plot was an arrangement between European and Arab governments according to which the Europeans, still reeling from the first acts of PLO terrorism and eager for precious Arabian oil made significantly more precious by the 1973 OPEC crisis, agreed to accept Arab "manpower" (i.e., immigrants) along with the oil. They also agreed to disseminate propaganda about the glories of Islamic civilization, provide Arab states with weaponry, side with them against Israel and generally toe the Arab line on all matters political and cultural. Hundreds of meetings and seminars were held as part of the "Euro-Arab Dialogue," and all, according to the author, were marked by European acquiescence to Arab requests. Fallaci recounts a 1977 seminar in Venice, attended by delegates from 10 Arab nations and eight European ones, concluding with a unanimous resolution calling for "the diffusion of the Arabic language" and affirming "the superiority of Arab culture." While the Arabs demanded that Europeans respect the religious, political and human rights of Arabs in the West, not a peep came from the Europeans about the absence of freedom in the Arab world, not to mention the abhorrent treatment of women and other minorities in countries like Saudi Arabia. No demand was made that Muslims should learn about the glories of western civilization as Europeans were and are expected to learn about the greatness of Islamic civilization. In other words, according to Fallaci, a substantial portion of Europe's cultural and political independence was sold off by a coalition of ex-communists and socialist politicians. Are we surprised? Fallaci isn't. In 1979, she notes, "the Italian or rather European Left had fallen in love with Khomeini just as now it has fallen in love with Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and Arafat." UPDATE: More reading via Milt Rosenberg.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:24 AM

It tastes like chicken. Raised on fish.

I thought linking to this is appropriate, since I may be North America's only econoblogger who's ever actually tasted (heck, eaten) seal flipper pie. Via Instapundit.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:30 AM

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

You can show it with a simple differential equation...

Regarding the onslaught of "new lows" in Bush approval ratings, Mickey Kaus points out the following: The drumbeat of separate, self-referencing "new low" polls may become a factor driving poll numbers even further down...If these outfits polled every week, maybe this wouldn't be a distorting factor. Any turnaround would be quickly picked up and acknowledged. I think he's missing the point here. Everyone wonders as the volatility of the poll numbers -- at, specifically, the tendency for the Bush approval rating to just "pop back" to normal levels after moderate good news from Iraq. The sort of self-referential reinforcement Kaus wonders at can only make polling results more volatile.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:44 AM

Bruce Bartlett says...

It would be nice if you actually read my book instead of just reacting to what others says about it. (Emphasis added)

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:39 AM

If you didn't know...

Arab (and, more generally, Middle Eastern) stock markets exist. Arab (and, more generally, Middle Eastern) stock markets are currently crashing. UPDATE: More here. UPDATE II: These markets, it appears, lack market makers. Is this sloppiness, naivete, or some ideological offshoot of Islamic economic theory? Whichever, it appears to be having the predictable effect of making things more volatile than would be the case otherwise. UPDATE III: And, meanwhile, market reversals have inflamed the Arab Street. UPDATE IV: I just don't get it. If you google the words "coming economic crash" you find the housing bubble, the current account deficit, the federal budget deficit, peak oil, high crude prices, the crashing dollar, and about a dozen other sources of instability that will drive the international economy right into the toilet in about two weeks according to lots of heavy breathers. Why haven't any of them noticed this very genuine stock market crash in the Middle East?

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:24 AM

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Can't have it both ways I'm afraid...

The Washington Post -- elected by none and appointed by nobody -- bravely feels the pain of several million households and declares in their name "after a quarter-century of disappointment, the struggles of Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution cannot be viewed as temporary." The editorial scolds us; Americans just don't want to discuss inequality, we're told. And just wait for future editorials, because there are proposed promising new government programs out there just waiting for us. At the same time USA Today announces: A sweeping expansion of social programs since 2000 has sparked a record increase in the number of Americans receiving federal government benefits such as college aid, food stamps and health care. A USA TODAY analysis of 25 major government programs found that enrollment increased an average of 17% in the programs from 2000 to 2005. The nation's population grew 5% during that time. (Related: Federal entitlements have changed) It was the largest five-year expansion of the federal safety net since the Great Society created programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. Spending on these social programs was $1.3 trillion in 2005, up an inflation-adjusted 22% since 2000 and accounting for more than half of federal spending. Enrollment growth was responsible for three-fourths of the spending increase, according to USA TODAY's analysis of federal enrollment and spending data. Higher benefits accounted for the rest. The MSM isn't getting its stories straight on this one.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 3:21 PM

Monday, March 13, 2006

Why are we even bothering with this?

Just let the guy go, forget about it, none of this is worth the trouble.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:52 AM

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Oops...

The incomparable Dasha H. sends this link to Die Welt's English language blog. UPDATE: Sorry, not the newspaper, just the name.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:47 PM

Beyond the Pale?

Perhaps the most profound modern example of the self-reference paradox (e.g. "This statement is false.") is European multicultural hate speech legislation. We read there now exists a German grass roots movement to ban the Koran as hate speech. Blogger discussion so far seem limited to noticing how this proves the incompatibility of hate speech legislation with multiculturalism. This is good as far as it goes. But it avoids the real issue: aren't there some cultures/religions/philosophies (e.g. Thuggeeism, Pre WW-II Japanese Bushido, Naziism) that we have historically (and probably rightly) defined as outlaw, unacceptable, beyond consideration for inclusion in multiculturality? The answer is of course "yes." That being the case, the question is simply whether Islam will, in future centuries, be remembered as just one more of these. UPDATE: No, don't tell me about all those millions in Indonesia and Turkey. The issue is not their beliefs but what their imams say. Virtually everywhere the imams are government- rather than congregation-supported. This is a simple matter of putting about 10,000 people in jail worldwide and replacing them with others whose view of Islam is compatible with their neigbors' modernity. Same as we did with the unrepentant Nazis and Japanese officer-warriors after WW II. Easy.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:22 AM

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Calling Jack Bauer...

This purported warning from an "Al-Qaeda Undercover Soldier, U.S.A." has been translated and posted by MEMRI. The warning strongly suggests there are two differently sized nuclear devices hidden somewhere in the Western United States, poised to detonate on orders from the leadership: The operations are ready to go, we are just waiting for orders from the commander in chief, Osama Ben Laden (may Allah preserve him). He will decide whether to strike or to hold. We swear by Allah that there are so many tricks and tactical maneuvers that will make your heads spin, by the grace of Allah. You will be brought to your knees, but not until you lose more loved ones and experience significant destruction. Now is the time to wake up and dust off this state of complacency and ineffectiveness to save yourselves and your loved ones from catastrophes sure to come your way. Remove war mongers from positions of power and throw them in prisons, where they belong. Rid yourselves of 'the Jewish pests' that brought nothing to you but adversity and loss of lives and wealth. They have deceived you for many years, it is time now you turn the table on them and make an example out of them. Rid yourselves of media crafters who deliberately kept you in the dark for so long and made a mockery of you before the rest of the world. Boycott NBC news and dismiss its Jewish CEO, Fred Silverman. Do the same to INC news and fire its Jewish owner, Leonard Goldstein, the same is true for CBS and its owner William Bailey. Find credible media outlets that bring nothing to you but facts. Unfortunately you won't find any in your country. Do you know why? Because your rogue State fights any media dedicated to the truth, no matter how small it is. One hopes only the venom is genuine. UPDATE: The names -- e.g. Fred Silverman the "Jewish CEO of NBC news" -- are of course silly, innacurate and/or quite out of date. Unfortunately this sloppy naivety only lends credence to the document. UPDATE II: More info and links at Michelle Malkin.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:45 PM

Buy it today...

Impostor is now #31 on the NYT Best Seller list! Can't agree with lots of the argument, but still extend best wishes to the author and to the book's continued success!

Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:11 AM

You can't always get what you want...

Rosa Brooks is upset because her side can't come up with a snappy slogan and catchy program. Anyone who (like me) sees political economy in terms of Thomas Sowell's "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions finds the Brooks dilemma thoroughly unsurprising. Those under the spell of what Sowell calls the "unconstrained" vision have consistently failed in their search for catchy slogans. Those on the other side, amazingly enough, have never had to look. The catchy slogans just seem to find them. Compare "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" for example, with "the invisible hand." No contest. Even though most people know lots more about the French Revolution than late British mercantilism, it is the slogan from the latter time and place that's gone into popular usage. The glory years of Sowell's "unconstrained" vision contributed a few slogans we still remember: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" and "workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!" might come to mind, but perhaps more pertinent are the two simple words "New Deal." But today the persistent problem for the "unconstrained" visionaries is a lack of slogans. Everyone knows there's no such thing as a free lunch. They seem less sure about whether "we can do better" because -- as we all know -- "it takes a village to raise a child."

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:18 AM

You are a child of the universe, you have a right to be here...

As billed and reported I think this new "movement" and intemporate associated commentary can easily backfire -- although the usual naive mistakes (multitutes of non-US flags for example) were reportedly absent in this case. Nationhood reduces to two and only two essential features: 1. currency, and 2. borders. Nobody has a "right" to immigrate. It is as simple as that. To start claiming a civil right to violate borders and border law is to deny the validity of the flag itself -- and regardless of how many thousands you can turn out for a 60's style feelgood demonstration there will be tens of thousands more who will organize and push back and insist "no, sorry, any nation has both a right and an obligation to control its borders." UPDATE: The data above were gathered from this report.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:16 AM

Friday, March 10, 2006

Ports Deal Part II

Does the upcoming crackdown on small-business cash-economy alleged tax cheats by now have so much momentum its cancellation is impossible? If so, this new poll suggests administration critics can turn it into the second chapter of the ports deal -- if and only if they are smart enough to start speaking out in the name of a constitutency they have historically treated with little more than contempt.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:36 AM

Thursday, March 09, 2006

It's all about the equality...

Some ideas are so obvious they are dangerous. For example: If a woman has an absolute right to avoid all financial responsibilities of raising a child by having an abortion, then doesn't her male counterpart have the absolute right to avoid all financial responsibilities by, uh well, simply not supporting the child? Now don't get me wrong, I am totally pro-child support and pro-choice. But -- yeah, the "but" always comes right here! -- isn't the latter impact on the child (deprivation) clearly less disastrous than the former impact on the fetus ("termination" -- usually by being snipped into little wiggling pieces)? UPDATE: And puhleeeeze don't start lecturing me about how much better it is to terminate a pregnancy than to let a child grow into poverty. There must be some people smart enough to make judgments like this for others, and if you're one of those, congratulations, but leave me out of it because I know I'm not smart enough. (And I suspect there are lots of successful folks with poor childhoods who would agree.)

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:47 AM

It's all about the love...

"How can someone who wants to look like a leftist in the world -- fighting against the Berlin Wall, for open borders, and for love between people -- come to Israel while they are still building their wall and hold a musical event?" Sliman Manour of the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art, told Reuters. (Emphasis added)

Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:37 AM

It's all about the oil...

In case (like me) you missed this when it first appeared: Iran needs nuclear weapons...not to attack Israel, but to support imperial expansion by conventional military means...Iran's oil exports will shrink to zero in 20 years, just at the demographic inflection point when the costs of maintaining an aged population will crush its state finances...Just outside Iran's present frontiers lie the oil resources of Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and not far away are the oil concentrations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Its neighbors are quite as alarmed as Washington about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and privately quite happy for Washington to wipe out this capability.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:17 AM

Is but can't be...

Jerry Taylor is at it again: It's certainly true that a disruption of the oil supply from the Middle East would increase the price of crude oil everywhere in the world. But just because the security of Middle Eastern oil has the characteristics of a public good for all consumers in the world does not imply that the United States has to provide that security. Oil producers will provide for their own security needs as long as the cost of doing so is less than the profit they gain from the oil trade. Given that their economies are so heavily dependent upon oil revenues, they have even more incentive than we do to worry about the security of production facilities, ports, and sea lanes. And if producing countries provide inadequate security in the eyes of consuming countries, consuming countries can pay producers to augment it. In short, whatever security our presence provides (and many analysts think that our presence actually reduces security) could be provided by other parties were the U.S. to withdraw. The fact that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait paid for 55 percent of the cost of Operation Dessert Storm suggests that keeping the Straights of Hormuz free of trouble is certainly within their means. The same argument applies to al Qaeda threats to oil production facilities. It's no surprise that the political class has convinced itself that bigger handouts to farmers and more automobile regulation constitute a "secret weapon" in the war against bin Laden. It is a surprise, however, that so many otherwise serious people are willing to believe them.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:07 AM

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

"They take the jobs Americans are unwilling to do..."

...like, for example, the job of working hard in high school.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:18 AM

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

One in twenty? Holy Cow, that's almost five percent!

Before anyone gets alarmed at numbers like these (here's a link to the actual report) he should remember how old the baby boomers are getting. Slower population growth in years past has lowed growth of "prime age" US workers. Look at this plot of current, past, and projected age 25-64 male members of the US labor force: Classic "S" curve, no? Remember this includes native born and immigrants -- documented and undocumented alike. What's the upshot? Given slow growth of the labor force, lower immigration would generate moderate-to-serious economic dislocation. One proviso: the traditional demographic picture of undocumented immigration -- prime working age males -- isn't very accurate. (Males make up only 58% of the unauthorized population.)

Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:50 PM

Yes, I get it now...

E. J. Dionne Jr. explains: Thus the shortcoming of Democratic leaders is not that they don't have a program but that they have not yet convinced opinion makers that fighting bad policies is actually constructive -- and that, between presidential elections, keeping matters from getting worse is sometimes the most positive alternative on offer. In other words: Democratic leaders have not yet convinced their colleagues in the press corps that destructive negativism is actually constructive and positive.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:56 PM

It had to happen sooner or later...

Fruhjahr fur Hitler.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:17 AM

Yes -- and how many children do you actually have?

According to Edward Hugh, demography matters.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:05 AM

Monday, March 06, 2006

It takes a village to feel your pain...

The queen of enearned emotion elevates her most serious failing to virtue.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:44 PM

Friday, March 03, 2006

Whoops!

The sort of effective sliding royalty scale I imagined in my proposed petroleum import fee has actually been in place since 1998 in the case of about 5,000 offshore oil and gas leases. But the signed documents apparently left off the "up" side of the sliding scale, costing the federal government roughly $7B in lost royalties.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:35 AM

The Nuclear Deal

Background here. Nuclear isn't my field, but I do know (a) future rates of U.S. economic growth depend on our finding more high value exports to trade with nations (like India) whose manufacturing sector has lower costs than our own, and (b) an expanding nuclear energy industry simultaneously addresses trade, global climate change, and energy concerns. Sort of shocking I can't easily find someone on the internet who can describe all the high-value nuclear-energy-related components we make here but couldn't export to India until this new Nuclear Deal came along. Twenty five years ago the most popular Atari 800 computer game/simulation was a little graphic program showing you how a nuclear plant operates. We were smarter and more knowedgable about nuclear energy then than we are now. UPDATE: This little note from India's standpoint -- critical of the deal (as negotiated I guess last July) -- suggests they gave up significant flexibility by signing.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:55 AM

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Nothing new here...

An apologist for most of what used to be wrong with U.S. academia serves up an apologia for what's currently wrong with it.

Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:20 PM

Which is more than we can say...

I just stumbled on this interesting little paper that seems to effectively address many of the peak oil cult's current concerns. Here's a little tidbit from the paper. China, as it turns out, not only uses bu