North Korea economics

Obama and free trade: Appease big labor

By George F. Will

Because government is inherently dangerous and often mischievous, the Constitution’s framers provided, and congressional rules have multiplied, mechanisms for blocking government action. These mechanisms can, however, also be used to force action. One is being so used in a dispute that has two remarkable facets.

President Obama is sacrificing economic growth and job creation in order to placate organized labor. And as the crisis of the welfare state deepens, he is trying to enlarge the entitlement system and exacerbate the entitlement mentality.

Forty-four Republican senators, three more than necessary to stop Senate action, have vowed to block confirmation of John Bryson, the president’s nominee to be commerce secretary, until the president submits for congressional approval the already negotiated free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The 44 are responding to this:

On May 4, the administration announced that, at last, it was ready to proceed with congressional ratification of the agreements. On May 16, however, it announced it would not send them until Congress expands an entitlement program favored by unions.

Since 1974, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) has provided 104, and then 156, weeks of myriad financial aid, partly concurrent with the 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, to people, including farmers and government workers, and firms, even whole communities, that can more or less plausibly claim to have lost their jobs or been otherwise injured because of foreign competition. Even if the injury is just the loss of unfair advantages conferred, at the expense of other Americans, by government protectionism. And even if the injury results not from imports but from outsourcing jobs. TAA benefited 50,000 people at a cost of$500 million in 2002. In 2010, it cost $975 million for 234,000 people. Its purpose is to purchase support for free-trade policies that allow Americans to benefit from foreign goods and services, and from domestic goods and services with lower prices because of competition from imports.

The perfect "citizens"

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Bananas

by Alexander Boot

Strident Darwinist propaganda has convinced most people that man is created in the image and likeness of ape. And as we’re almost equal to apes genetically, doesn’t it naturally follow that apes ought to be almost equal to us legally? Of course it does—every faddish idea is these days enshrined in law.

So one could’ve been certain that sooner or later apes would be elevated to the level of man not only de facto but also de jure. As if to atone for her tardiness in abandoning Christianity, Spain blazed the trail.

The parliament of the same country that was the first to forcibly stop communism has now passed a resolution granting human rights to apes. Specifically it has committed Spain to the dictates of the Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1994 by Princeton “philosopher” Peter Singer. The apes currently residing in Spain will henceforth enjoy the legal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of bananas. Oops, got that wrong. Freedom from torture is what it actually says.

A “United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes” is in the works. The draft states that all primates, including man, are “members of the community of equals” who aren’t to be deprived of their liberty without due process. The detention of great apes who haven’t been convicted of any crime should be permitted only in their interest or when it’s necessary to protect the public. In such cases apes must have a right of appeal to a judicial tribunal, either directly or through an advocate.

One wonders how this document’s framers see the ensuing practicalities. For instance, where trial by jury is part of due process, who would be the ape’s peers to sit in judgment? Surely they would have to be other apes. (British football supporters may be narrowly disqualified.) How would the jury follow the proceedings and communicate their verdict? How would the defendants confer with counsel? Be sworn in? Give testimony? Launch a direct appeal? And if convicted of, say, murder, how would they be punished?

As the death penalty isn’t an option in Europe, it would have to be incarceration in the same zoos in which all Spanish apes are kept already, with no due process anywhere in sight. Illogically, the Spanish resolution states that there they can remain, although the conditions must improve, presumably in line with human prisons equipped with color TVs and sports facilities.

However, it’ll become illegal to keep apes in circuses, or for the purposes of using them in TV commercials or films. Apes will thus enjoy greater protection than, say, Kate Moss or every living creature under Barnum & Bailey’s tent. And in general, apes will acquire weightier rights than humans, for ours are counterbalanced by responsibilities and theirs demonstrably aren’t. Our right to the state’s protection, for example, is contingent upon our allegiance to it. Since an ape cannot pledge such allegiance, the balance is clearly in its favor.

Let’s not forget the right to work—or rather the right not to work and draw welfare payments, which has become the cornerstone of our government’s economic policies. One has to reluctantly acknowledge that, apart from working in circuses, apes have limited employment opportunities. However, that makes them different only from some humans. Just like welfare recipients, apes could live in free housing provided by the state; they could be taken by their “carers” to the “social” once a month to collect their paycheck. Simian citizens dependent on government largesse may be just the ideal that the state craves.

If you think this is bad, consider the track record of Peter Singer, the “mind” behind the Great Ape Project. In 2001 he allowed that humans and animals can have “mutually satisfying” sexual relations because “we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes.” Therefore such sex “ceases to be an offense to our status and dignity as human beings.” Good news for some shepherds, bad news for poor Mrs. Singer.

Even in a theocracy, reality does, at times, intrude

California's Green Jihad

by Forbes

Ideas matter, particularly when colored by religious fanaticism, wreaking havoc even in the most favored of places. Take, for instance, Iran, a country blessed with a rich heritage and enormous physical and human resources, but which, thanks to its theocratic regime, is largely an economic basket case and rogue state.

Then there’s California, rich in everything from oil and food to international trade and technology, but still skimming along the bottom of the national economy. The state’s unemployment rate is now worse than Michigan’s and ahead only of neighboring Nevada.  Among the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan regions, four of the six with the highest unemployment numbers are located in the Golden State: Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. In a recent Forbes survey, California was home to six of the ten regions where the economy is poised to get worse.

One would think, given these gory details, California officials would be focused on reversing the state’s performance. But here, as in Iran, officialdom focuses more on theology than on actuality.   Of course, California’s religion rests not on conventional divinity but on a secular environmental faith that nevertheless exhibits the intrusive and unbending character of radical religion.

As with its Iranian counterpart, California’s green theology often leads to illogical economic and political decisions. California has decided, for example,  to impose a rigid regime of state-directed planning related to global warming, making a difficult approval process for new development even more onerous.  It has doubled-down on climate change as other surrounding western states — such as Nevada, Utah and Arizona — have opted out of regional greenhouse gas agreements.

The notion that a state economy — particularly one that has lost over 1.15 million jobs in the past decade — can impose draconian regulations beyond those of their more affluent neighbors, or the country, would seem almost absurd.

Californians are learning what ideological extremism can do to an economy. In the Islamic Republic, crazy theology leads to misallocating resources to support repression at home and terrorism   abroad In California  green zealots compel companies to shift their operations to states that are still interested in growing their economy — like Texas. The green regime is one reason why CEO Magazine has ranked California the worst business climate in the nation.

Some of these green policies often offer dubious benefits for the environment. For one thing, forcing California businesses to move to less energy-efficient states, or to developing countries like China, could have a negative impact overall since shifting production to Texas or China might lead to higher greenhouse gas production given California’s generally milder climate.   A depressed economy also threatens many worthy environmental programs, delaying necessary purchases of open space and forcing the closure of parks. These programs enhance life for the middle and working classes without damaging the overall econmy.

But people involved in the tangible, directly carbon-consuming parts of the economy — manufacturing, warehousing, energy and, most important, agriculture — are those who bear   the brunt of the green jihad [ ] . Farming has long been a field dominated by California, yet environmentalist pressures for cutbacks in agricultural water supplies have turned a quarter million acres of prime Central Valley farmland fallow, creating mass unemployment in many communities.

Spending as a "Core Value"

Truth, Lies, and Euros

By Samuel Gregg 

As Europe's financial crisis worsens, it's increasingly apparent that the economic woes of countries like Portugal, Spain, and Greece have resulted from more than just bad policy. With each passing day, evidence mounts that one dynamic driving the crisis is that of untruth: a disturbing European pattern of fabrication about levels of public spending and debt.

The latest proof for this thesis is the discovery by newly-elected Spanish regional and local governments of concealed debts run up by their predecessors. This contradicts claims by Spain's Socialist Finance Minister, Elena Salgado, that Spain's regions had no "hidden deficits" on their accounts. Spain's business community, however, has long complained about local governments pressuring private companies to do business with them "off the books."

One reason for such behavior is that Spain's government knows that the greater Spain's real overall-public debt, the higher will be the interest-rates demanded by financial markets and the more stringent will be the conditions attached to any "financial assistance package" (i.e., bailout) that Spain might, like Portugal and Greece, eventually need.

Unfortunately, financial sleight-of-hand in today's EU has a longer history than the present turmoil. It's characterized the entire monetary union project from the start.

In the 1990s, European governments agreed the single currency's success would depend upon countries entering the eurozone on a solid financial basis and then remaining on a firm footing. To that end, both the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) established strict criteria concerning public spending for countries admitted to the single currency.

We are doomed

The Next Step on the Road to Serfdom

Paul Krugman writes:

"But nobody is proposing that the government deny you the right to have whatever medical care you want at your own expense. We’re only talking about what medical care will be paid for by the government."

I wish that Paul were correct, but I am not convinced that he is. Chills went down my spine a few days ago when I read the following proposal from the Center for American Progress, a think tank with strong ties to the Democratic party: 

Thus we also include a failsafe mechanism that would ensure significant savings. Our failsafe would be triggered if, starting in 2020, total economywide health care expenditures grow at a rate faster than the economy. Should that happen, we would empower the IPAB [the panel of experts set up by President Obama's health care law] to extend successful reforms in Medicare and other public programs to insurance plans offered in the health care exchanges and then potentially to all health care plans,such that the target is met. This will ensure that costs are constrained across the health care sector, preventing cost-shifting and maintaining access for all.*

That is, under the likely scenario that healthcare spending keeps rising faster than GDP, the Center for American Progress would give government the power to prohibit people from buying expensive health plans with their own money. That is not my idea of progress. 
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*Source: Page 43-44 of this document. I put the crucial phrase in bold.

Social Engineering bearing fruit

The conspiracy of silence

by Robert Wenzel

Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society experiment is in full bloom and it is downright ugly. LBJ's attempt to coddle the lower classes with free money for going fatherless and even more money for mother's having more children, without husbands around, has perhaps reached the third generation of such fatherless, uncontrollable youth. The experiment has resulted in roaming bands of criminals.
In Chicago this weekend, downtown pedestrians and bicyclists faced roaming mob attacks.
The first weekend attack happened around 8:25 p.m. Saturday when a man was attacked after parking his motor scooter near the Northwestern University campus, according to CBS News in Chicago.
A few minutes after that attack, man riding his bicycle on the lakefront path at 701 N. Lake Shore Dr. was attacked by a group of teenagers, who punched and kicked him.
Three teens – Dvonte Sikes, 17, of the 7500 block of South Normal Avenue; Travolus Pickett, 17, of the 8400 block of South Dorchester avenue; and Derodte Wright, 18, of the 3500 block of South State Street – have been charged as adults with felony robbery and mob action.
Sikes’ bond was set at $250,000. Pickett’s at $300,000 and Wright’s at $200,000.
Two other 16-year-olds were also charged as juveniles and their names were not released.
Earlier this year, retailers on North Michigan Avenue reported several instances in which young people would suddenly gather inside a store and ransack the place.
Also, on Sunday morning, a male University Of Illinois-Chicago student was on a westbound No. 12 CTA bus on Roosevelt Road at Throop Street, when a group of eight to 10 men wearing white T-shirts boarded, UIC police said. One of the men hit the victim on the back of the head with a glass bottle and stole his iPad. Then the robbers got off the bus.
Police also shut down North Avenue beach on Memorial Day–officially because of the heat and huge crowds. However, police sources say, concerns about the potential for violence was behind the decision as well.

Third World America 2011

Forget "Fast Tracking to Anarchy" We've Arrived

by Janet Tavakoli

Bottom line: The country is being destroyed from within. As money grubbing politicians cut deals with cronies, including unions that lobby for minimum wage laws that make it near impossible for many, especially black youth, to find jobs, the youth are now unemployed and roaming. This is another reason Bernanke will keep pumping money. He will want to prop up these local governments, so that they can keep paying some resemblance of a police force. But Bernanke's money printing will only create price inflation, make the gangs more desperate and bold, and on top of it screw anybody that will be down the line in getting newly printed Fed funny money. THE COLLAPSE HAS BEGUN

Last summer I wrote about Arianna Huffington's latest book, Third World America: How Our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream and talked about the Great Recession, the Great Bailout, and the Great Cover-Up of financial crimes.

I also wrote that municipal financial problems spelled a lower quality of life. Downtown Chicago crime escalated, along with attacks on officers in the Chicago Police Department. An officer who spoke up about the low morale of the undermanned and rudderless police force endured official retaliation. ("Third World America: 'Fast Tracking to Anarchy")

This year, all hell has broken loose in downtown Chicago. Years of under-hiring have resulted in a police force that is unprepared for wildings and gang violence. Moreover, concealed carry in Chicago is illegal, unless one follows the Constitution.

Tourists and residents have been attacked by mobs of youths on buses, on beaches, on bicycle paths, near the shops of the Magnificent Mile, and outside their homes. Mobs of shoplifters plagued "Mug Mile" stores. The irony is that these disenfranchised youths are turning to crime -- and if justice is done, prison sentences --a gainst innocent targets. Their focus is misdirected. Participating in a peaceful five million man march -- a true show of force and power -- against elected culprits in Washington would get them better results for lasting change.

The Spring of Anarchy: "A City At War With Itself"

It is still technically spring in Chicago, and wildings have made Chicago and its beaches unsafe. Poorer neighborhoods have long been war zones. The murder rate and gang violence in Chicago has been unacceptable for years.

Yet the police force was gutted, handcuffed, and muzzled. ("In Third World America Expect to be Investigated, as Lt. John Andrews Is Being Investigated, for Speaking Up") Police officers -- some off duty and still in uniform -- have been gunned down in the streets. Their crime-fighting abilities are severely hampered by years of irrational policies and genuflecting to politically power hungry special interest groups.

Of course, we want police officers to follow proper procedures at all times, but we also want them to make fast decisions in violent chaotic circumstances, defend themselves, and get home safely to their families and friends. Local media hounds come out in force against police work. It's time they came out in favor of superior training and hiring.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with less than a month in office, has called for the arrest of all the youths involved in last weekend's mob attack that included an attack on a shopper and on two middle-aged doctors -- in separate incidents -- visiting for an oncology convention. Yet there have been ongoing incidents of wildings that didn't make the front page of local papers as did this last attack on tourists.

Same old story

Scottish Council Disgraces Britain

By Hal G.P. Colebatch 

I had to read it a couple of times when it appeared as a small item in a red-top and then check it out from several different sources on Google, including the council's own website. It appears, however, to be true: the West Dunbartonshire Council, in Scotland, is banning books produced in Israel or produced by Israeli authors, along with all other Israeli products.

To make matters worse, the council is stocking the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which has been repeatedly used since it was concocted by Czarist secret police agents provocateur in the 19th century to justify attacks on Jews.

One journalist has written:

It beggars belief that any democratically-elected municipal council in Britain can get away with such blatant racial prejudice and discrimination. The Council has no concern for the crimes and inhumanities of China, Iran, Sudan, North Korea or Zimbabwe, all of which have appalling records on human rights. Their focus is Israel, and Israel alone.

By this act, West Dunbarton has made anti-Semitism respectable and acceptable…

This is of course correct. But it strikes me that "anti-Semitism" is not strong enough a word to describe what is happening. This is not anti-Semitism of the "we've got nothing against them but we don't want them in the golf-club" variety, nor is it racism of the kind of which the British National Party is accused. It cannot be very pleasant to be a Jew living in West Dunbarton and know that one's culture and identity has, ominously, been singled out in this manner. Quite obviously, if this type of discrimination were applied to any other group, it would not attract forty column-centimeters on the inside pages of a few papers, but universal uproar and political intervention.

Juska’s “journey”

Desperate Grandmas
by Kay S. Hymowitz

Time passes, and we get old. Our faces wrinkle, our hair goes gray and MIA, our teeth yellow, our knees ache, we forget the names of people we said hello to just yesterday on the way to pick up the Geritol, and there are days when a nap sounds real nice.

At least that’s the way it’s been for most of humanity. But rumors that boomers will be joining the great biological stream turn out to have been greatly exaggerated. Boomers—especially feminist-influenced women of a certain class who are now publishing their philosophy of life after 50—will not be growing old. And it seems equally inaccurate to say that they will mature. They are going to season, as Gail Sheehy puts it in her most recent book, Sex and the Seasoned Woman. They will “develop”; they will “grow.” Sheehy and her sister scribes have come forward to tell you that today’s older women are a new breed. They’re busy, busy, busy! They go to the gym! They work in animal shelters! They travel! They get divorced! And yes (Yes! Yes!), they have orgasms!

And in their own inimitably modern, American, follow-your-bliss, self-absorbed way, they want to tell you all about it.

Not so long ago, enlightened women of the boomer generation were known for worrying about equal rights, equal pay, Roe v. Wade, Title IX, and the location of the Masters Golf Tournament. Today, not so much. As they shuffle off into their golden years, many appear to be turning inward. As the title of a catalog that arrived in my mailbox recently put it, they want “Time for Me”—time that appears to involve a lot of anti-aging formulas, herbal supplements, figure-shaping undergarments, and vibrators. Don’t get me wrong. Boomer fems continue to be enemies of the patriarchy. They still want men to do the laundry. Their tone remains defiant. But their personal is no longer very political; even their political isn’t very political. Nobody’s putting it this way, but it seems that liberation politics have become irrelevant to what is now their most pressing concern, which—depending on your emphasis—is: how to bring meaning to their dwindling years, or how to avoid being mistaken for their grandmothers.

It probably should have been clear that Second Wave feminism would be changing direction a while ago. In 1992, Gloria Steinem, who just happened to be staring at 60 at the time, published Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem. With its talk of the inner child and “authentic selves,” the book was a noticeable break from Steinem’s usual menu of feminist topics. A year later, Betty Friedan gave us The Fountain of Age, in which she proposed that we consider the years past 50 not as a time to play golf and show off pictures of the grandchildren but as “an additional stage of development,” a time of further emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. But despite Steinem’s and Friedan’s legendary history as trendsetters, no one paid much attention at the time, doubtless because boomers, who had yet to receive their AARP cards in the mail, were still in a “what, me worry?” mode.

What can go wrong ?

NJ high court: drunks can sue bars that served them

by WALTER OLSON 

Although the New Jersey legislature enacted a law in 1997 flatly barring drunk drivers from recovering damages over their own car crashes, the state’s supreme court ruled that because the law did not explicitly override the state’s dramshop (liquor-server liability) law, it would be read as having left it intact. [NJLJ, NJLRA, more]

Could be more than meets the eye

American Banks Just Increased Their Exposure To Greek And Portuguese Banks

By Gregory White

U.S. banks spent the fourth quarter of 2010 increasing their exposures to Portuguese and Greek banks, according to the latest report from the Bank for International Settlements.

Overall, claims on the eurozone fell by 3.5% in Q4 2010. Claims on Germany shrunk the most, and claims on Ireland fell the most among bailed out states.

But Greece and Portugal didn't see a similar decline to Ireland.

From the report:

Foreign claims on Greece and Portugal also declined during the period, although by much less than those on Ireland. Nearly half of the $10.3 billion (6.0%) fall in claims on residents of Greece was due to a $5.0 billion (5.8%) decrease in reporting banks’ foreign claims on the country’s non-bank private sector. By contrast, a $4.6 billion (9.3%) fall in foreign claims on the public sector of Portugal was the main driver of the $4.3 billion (1.9%) overall decline in foreign claims on that country.

And what country's banking sector actually increased its exposure to both Portugal and Ireland? The United States banking sector increased its claims on both Greek and Portuguese banks. Notably, Spain's banking sector also increased its claims on Portuguese banks significantly.

Animal farm

The Electric Car Albatross

by Eric Peters

Electric cars make sense at amusement parks and golf courses – and on the road, if the road is mostly flat, it’s nice and warm out (but not too warm) you’ve got money to waste, don’t have to go very far (especially in winter) ad don’t mind waiting a couple hours before you can go someplace else.

Otherwise, they’re marvelous.

The hype about electric cars is still years ahead of the actuality. If by actuality you mean an electric car that isn’t more compromised than Arnold’s political career. I remember covering the GM Impact/EV back in the early ’90s, almost 20 years ago. Most of the press swooned; a few Californians bought (well, leased) them. Some even liked them (that’s California for you and also because California doesn’t have winter; more on this below). The car was a money pit for GM, despite all the hoopla and the 

And today?

Cut through the farrago of Happy Talk and the real-world boondoggle’s still the same. The range of the latest electric cars is said to be better. But it is always couched in the ubiquitous marketing con, “up to.” And under ideal conditions.

Your actual mileage will vary.

Consider the Nissan Leaf. On a full charge, Nissan touts a a 100 mile range. It doesn’t tout what the range will fall to when it’s 16 degrees outside and the capacity of the Leaf’s battery declines by “up to” 20-30 percent, which it will as all batteries do when it is very cold out. Now add the additional load on the battery to power things like the heater/fan – and the lights, which you will probably need when it’s dark outside.

There are other forms of loading, too. Passengers and Stuff. Everyone knows that a gas powered car goes slower and burns more fuel the more it’s loaded down with passengers and cargo. The electric car is not immune from the same physical laws. Add a few hundred pounds of weight and it’s going to need more energy to do the same work and that means more draw on the battery, which will mean reduced range as well as reduced performance.

Summer’s not so hot, either – as far as optimizing an electric car’s range. You’ll probably want to run the air conditioning, which will draw power from the battery pack. And high heat can be as unkind to batteries as bitter cold.

So, let’s say the real-word range of a car like the Leaf is 60-ish miles under less-than ideal conditions. That is, in the real world. That might work for close-in commuting. But it could be an uncomfortably close shave if you live in the ‘burbs, 20 or 30 miles out.

At least with a gas-fueled car, you can refill the tank in a few minutes and be back on your way. But when the Leaf runs out of juice, you’re not only looking at an hour or more downtime to induce a partial charge (a full charge takes several hours) you’ll need to locate one of the special 220V charging stations the Leaf requires. This EV does not just plug into any household 110V outlet. The 220V stations is faster – if you can find one.

Just what our typical stressed-out commuter needs – right?

The Chevy Volt at least addresses that problem by carting around its own portable (and gas-fueled) generator, so that when your “up to 40 miles” range on electric power alone fizzles out, you’re not stuck. The car’s gas engine kicks on, pumps juice into the battery, which then runs the electric motor – and keeps you moving. (The Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid operates on the same principle.)

Which is lovely except it concedes that gas power is still better than electric power because without that gas engine, the Volt (and the Prius)ain’t a goin’ no damn where – not very damn far, anyhow.

All this would be kind of funny in a latter-day Pinto kind of way except for one thing: The government never forced the taxpaying public to underwrite Pinto ownership.

Electric cars like the Leaf and Volt come with luxury car MSRPs – until Uncle Sam transfers about 20 percent onto the backs of you and me. The Volt’s MSRP is $40,280. The Leaf’s MSRP is $32,780. What lunatic would pay BMW/Lexus money for either of these things? The answer, of course, is only a few (well-heeled) lunatics of the posturing “green” variety – posturing because by definition, if you can spend BMW/Lexus money on a new car, worrying about the cost of gas is an abstraction. People who really have to worry about spending an extra $10 or $20 at every fill-up don’t buy $32k-$40k new cars. If they do, that’s why they’re having to worry about the cost of fuel.

So, enter Uncle – who is very generous with other people’s money. “Buy” a new Volt or Leaf or one of the other electric Turduckens now available and he will send you a check for $2,500-$7,500 depending on the model. Nissan even advertises the actual cost of its car After Uncle ($32,780 less $7,500) to make the thing seem more appealing.

In summary: The prudent fellow who buys a $15k (and 41 MPG) Ford Fiesta pays full freight but the “green” poseur who buys the electric car that goes maybe 60 or 70 miles before it conks out gets a $2,500-$7,5000 handout at the expense of people like the prudent fellow who bought the $15k Fiesta on his own nickel.

Welcome to the funny farm.

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