Social Order? There’s No App for That
Social Order? There’s No App for That
Art Carden
Forbes
Economics studies unintended consequences. People pursue their own interests, however they choose to define them. Under the right conditions, as Frederic Bastiat reminds us, “Paris gets fed.”
Profits and losses have told Apple, for example, that iPhones and iPads are a pretty good idea. In hindsight, it also seems obvious that FedEx was a pretty good idea, too. But who would have planned it? And indeed, if we take seriously the apocryphal story saying that FedEx founder Fred Smith received a C or something on the paper in which he outlined the idea during his undergraduate studies at Yale, should we think that a benevolent planner would have given the green light for such a radical idea?
Indeed, who would have greenlighted Microsoft? The Macintosh? the iPod? Big problems emerge when you give people veto power over others’ decisions. In his book Applied Economics, Thomas Sowell recounts an example in which a bureaucrat in India prohibits the importation of face creams because he doesn’t want poor Indian women “wasting” their money on such fripperies peddled by multinational corporations when they should be buying food. After reading passages like that, I get a deep sense of sadness at the world we have lost at the margin. Somewhere, someone’s life was made a little worse by a bureaucrat who thought he knew better than she did what was good for her.
Read the full article
Art Carden
Forbes
Economics studies unintended consequences. People pursue their own interests, however they choose to define them. Under the right conditions, as Frederic Bastiat reminds us, “Paris gets fed.”
Profits and losses have told Apple, for example, that iPhones and iPads are a pretty good idea. In hindsight, it also seems obvious that FedEx was a pretty good idea, too. But who would have planned it? And indeed, if we take seriously the apocryphal story saying that FedEx founder Fred Smith received a C or something on the paper in which he outlined the idea during his undergraduate studies at Yale, should we think that a benevolent planner would have given the green light for such a radical idea?
Indeed, who would have greenlighted Microsoft? The Macintosh? the iPod? Big problems emerge when you give people veto power over others’ decisions. In his book Applied Economics, Thomas Sowell recounts an example in which a bureaucrat in India prohibits the importation of face creams because he doesn’t want poor Indian women “wasting” their money on such fripperies peddled by multinational corporations when they should be buying food. After reading passages like that, I get a deep sense of sadness at the world we have lost at the margin. Somewhere, someone’s life was made a little worse by a bureaucrat who thought he knew better than she did what was good for her.
Read the full article
Capitalism and the Wall Street Protesters
Capitalism and the Wall Street Protesters
Dominick T. Armentano
With at least 12 compulsory years in public schools, one would think that most of the twenty-something Wall Street protesters would have some understanding of capitalism, its actual history, and its accomplishments. Well, maybe not. One can only wonder what passes for economic education these days.
So what is capitalism? Free market capitalism is based on the individual right to own and freely trade property. It permits owners of property (land, labor, capital, etc.) to enter (or exit) any contract on mutually agreeable terms. It gives entrepreneurs the freedom to start any business (without government permission) and to borrow money and develop products for consumers. It permits land owners to rent (or sell) their property for any peaceful purpose. It gives adult workers the liberty to lease their services to any business at any agreeable wage and to terminate that agreement at will; employers would have the same right.
Dominick T. Armentano
With at least 12 compulsory years in public schools, one would think that most of the twenty-something Wall Street protesters would have some understanding of capitalism, its actual history, and its accomplishments. Well, maybe not. One can only wonder what passes for economic education these days.
So what is capitalism? Free market capitalism is based on the individual right to own and freely trade property. It permits owners of property (land, labor, capital, etc.) to enter (or exit) any contract on mutually agreeable terms. It gives entrepreneurs the freedom to start any business (without government permission) and to borrow money and develop products for consumers. It permits land owners to rent (or sell) their property for any peaceful purpose. It gives adult workers the liberty to lease their services to any business at any agreeable wage and to terminate that agreement at will; employers would have the same right.
The Mexican Drug Cartel Threat in Central America
By Karen Hooper
Guatemalan President-elect Otto Perez Molina told Mexican newspaper El Universal on Nov. 9 that he plans to engage drug cartels in a “full frontal assault” when he takes office in 2012. The former general said he will use Guatemala’s elite military forces, known as Los Kaibiles, to take on the drug cartels in a strategy similar to that of the Mexican government; he has asked for U.S. assistance in this struggle.
The statements signal a shifting political landscape in already violent Central America. The region is experiencing increasing levels of crime and the prospect of heightened competition from Mexican drug cartels in its territory. The institutional weakness and security vulnerabilities of Guatemala and other Central American states mean that combating these trends will require significant help, most likely from the United States.
Guatemalan President-elect Otto Perez Molina told Mexican newspaper El Universal on Nov. 9 that he plans to engage drug cartels in a “full frontal assault” when he takes office in 2012. The former general said he will use Guatemala’s elite military forces, known as Los Kaibiles, to take on the drug cartels in a strategy similar to that of the Mexican government; he has asked for U.S. assistance in this struggle.
The statements signal a shifting political landscape in already violent Central America. The region is experiencing increasing levels of crime and the prospect of heightened competition from Mexican drug cartels in its territory. The institutional weakness and security vulnerabilities of Guatemala and other Central American states mean that combating these trends will require significant help, most likely from the United States.
Obama's Indefensible Pipeline Punt
Obama's Indefensible Pipeline Punt
Obama’s delaying consideration of the Keystone XL pipeline is what is called a spherically perfect decision, because no matter from which angle you look at it, it looks perfectly the same: wrong.
It’s Europe’s Economic Growth, Stupid
It’s Europe’s Economic Growth, Stupid
European policymakers are clinging to the forlorn hope that the eurozone crisis can readily be defused by putting in place national unity governments in Greece and Italy.
Don’t Ditch Taiwan
Don’t Ditch Taiwan
Would selling out a democratic ally help America’s economy? Don’t count on it.
The Hubris of Attacking Syria
The Hubris of Attacking Syria
The U.S. government once believed in peace. Today, hardly a day goes by without someone proposing that Washington bomb, invade or occupy another nation. Matthew Brodsky targets Syria.Not that Brodsky is alone. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has yet to find a war he doesn’t want to start, also has been beating the war drums against Damascus.
War is not just another policy option, an alternative to increasing foreign aid or imposing sanctions. It means sacrificing the lives of one’s citizens, wasting untold resources, unleashing death and destruction on other peoples, wrecking foreign societies, and triggering an unpredictable cascade of unintended and sometimes catastrophic consequences. Wars almost always turn out more costly than expected for everyone.
In short, there are more than enough reasons to make war a last resort to safeguard vital interests, not a first resort to advance lesser objectives.
Why attack Syria? Damascus is a nasty actor in the region but poses no threat to America. Although Brodsky complains that Syria obstructs U.S. objectives “with impunity,” that provides no case for war. After all, Washington’s foreign-policy goals are infinite: there is virtually no nation which does not interfere with one or another American of foreign-policy design. The U.S. often objects when another country merely decides to act in its own interest.
In the case of Syria, the strongest argument for military action is a shameless bootstrap: The Bush administration invaded Iraq, Syria’s neighbor, sparking a devastating civil war and destabilizing the region. Washington now is upset that Damascus has responded in kind, failing to halt bad actors entering—and perhaps encouraging them to enter—Iraq. It is extraordinary hubris: Washington goes to war with Iraq, thereby threatening Syria. Leading American analysts suggest launching a preventive war against Damascus. When Syria seeks to protect itself by undermining the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Washington declares that to be another justification for going to war with Syria.
It was a bad enough argument when American forces were battling Iraqi insurgents. It is a bizarre argument to make when American forces are out of combat and slated to return home.
Another claim is that Washington should take out Syria because it is an ally of Iran. But if the United States isn’t willing to bomb Tehran, why should it bomb Tehran’s ally? Iran is another nasty actor, but that doesn’t warrant Washington starting a regional conflict. Washington can ill afford to attack every nation that interferes with the über-hawk dream of maintaining American hegemony everywhere, forever.
Some in Washington have been reduced to arguing that the United States should bomb countries today because, if it does not, they may develop weapons to deter Washington from bombing them tomorrow. Of course, this is one of the most important reasons that pariah states desire nuclear weapons: doing so is the only sure way to forestall attack by Washington. The allied attack on Libya makes it unlikely that any dictator ever again will be credulous enough to yield up any WMDs.
The humanitarian argument for bombing Damascus is particularly weak. Some three thousand Syrians have died in months of protests against the Assad regime. That’s a tragedy, but a modest casualty toll in a world awash in violence.
Humanitarian intervention once was touted as necessary to stop genocide. Now it is proposed as a measure to stop the sort of limited conflicts which dot the globe. If three thousand deaths warrant war, then there no longer is any meaningful standard against making war everywhere, all the time. In countries like India, Nigeria and Pakistan, deadly conflict between varying religious and ethnic groups is common. Equally appropriate for intervention are Bahrain and Belarus, Burma and Congo, Cuba and Iran, North Korea and Russia, Sri Lanka and Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Indeed, Libya demonstrates how claims of humanitarian intervention are routinely misused. There was no evidence that Muammar Qaddafi, though a thug, planned civilian massacres in Benghazi. He had recaptured other cities and murdered no civilians; his rabid rhetoric regarding Benghazi was directed at armed rebels.
Moreover, the allies caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Libyans by prolonging a low-tech civil war in which the fighting was the greatest killer of civilians. The United States and NATO wanted to achieve regime change on the cheap, not humanitarian rescue. Nor is it clear that the conflict is really over as different armed factions vie for power.
Of course, Brodsky is right to wish for “an end to the violence, the fall of the Assad regime and the creation of conditions for a stable democratic system that protects the rights of the Christian, Kurdish and Alawite minorities.” However, what evidence is there that Washington can guarantee these results? In fact, Washington would have no control over the outcome of an attack on Syria.
Brodsky bizarrely points to the Obama administration’s past failures as reason to roll the die yet again: “Perhaps more compelling is that as autumn turns to winter, the result of U.S. engagement in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has so far empowered the Muslim Brotherhood in countries relatively friendly to Washington.” So if the United States doesn’t oust Assad, he worries, the administration will have no gains from the Arab Spring.
That’s 1,000 olives, please
By Gillian Tett
Even in the ‘unimaginable’ scenario of a eurozone break-up, it would be less messy than in the USSR in 1991 when barter became the norm
illustration of olives and purse
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a Soviet 10-rouble note, tucked into an old notebook. Gazing at the crumpled piece of paper, with the iconic face of Lenin, invoked a frisson – particularly given all that is now happening in the eurozone.
Back in the late 1980s, I lived in the former Soviet Union as a PhD student, where I received a (pretty generous) monthly stipend of Rbs430. As I collected notes each month, I never questioned whether that paper would always be “money”; to me it seemed self-evident that this money had value and could be spent anywhere across the USSR. The Soviet Union – and its monetary union – seemed to be permanent.
Even in the ‘unimaginable’ scenario of a eurozone break-up, it would be less messy than in the USSR in 1991 when barter became the norm
illustration of olives and purse
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a Soviet 10-rouble note, tucked into an old notebook. Gazing at the crumpled piece of paper, with the iconic face of Lenin, invoked a frisson – particularly given all that is now happening in the eurozone.
Back in the late 1980s, I lived in the former Soviet Union as a PhD student, where I received a (pretty generous) monthly stipend of Rbs430. As I collected notes each month, I never questioned whether that paper would always be “money”; to me it seemed self-evident that this money had value and could be spent anywhere across the USSR. The Soviet Union – and its monetary union – seemed to be permanent.
Cali to Business: Get Out!
Firms are fleeing the state’s senseless regulations and confiscatory taxes.
Last year, a medical-technology firm called Numira Biosciences, founded in 2005 in Irvine, California, packed its bags and moved to Salt Lake City. The relocation, CEO Michael Beeuwsaert told the Orange County Register, was partly about the Utah destination’s pleasant quality of life and talented workforce. But there was a big “push factor,” too: California’s steepening taxes and ever-thickening snarl of government regulations. “The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had,” Beeuwsaert said. “In Salt Lake City at my first networking event I met the mayor and the president of the Utah Senate, and they asked what they could do to help me. No [elected official] ever asked me that in California.”California has long been among America’s most extensive taxers and regulators of business. But at the same time, the state had assets that seemed to offset its economic disincentives: a famously sunny climate, a world-class public university system that produced a talented local workforce, sturdy infrastructure that often made doing business easier, and a history of innovative companies.
No more. As California has transformed into a relentlessly antibusiness state, those redeeming characteristics haven’t been enough to keep firms from leaving. Relocation experts say that the number of companies exiting the state for greener pastures has exploded. In surveys, executives regularly call California one of the country’s most toxic business environments and one of the least likely places to open or expand a new company. Many firms still headquartered in California have forsaken expansion there. Reeling from the burst housing bubble and currently suffering an unemployment rate of 12 percent—nearly 3 points above the national level—California can’t afford to remain on this path.
There Are No Longer Any Excuses For Obamanomics
There Are No Longer Any Excuses For Obamanomics
Image by AFP via @daylife
Instead, unemployment has been stuck at 9% or above for the longest period since the Great Depression. Unemployment for blacks has remained over 15% for over 2 years, with Hispanic unemployment stuck well into double digits over that time as well. Teenage unemployment has persisted at nearly 25%, with black teenage unemployment still nearly 40%.
The U6 unemployment rate, reflecting all of the unemployed still wanting work and the underemployed who can’t get full time work, is still 16.2%. That includes an army of the unemployed or underemployed of over 26 million Americans. And that still doesn’t fully count the millions of Americans who have given up and dropped out of the work force altogether.
On September 13 came the Census Bureau report fleshing out the full meaning of no economic recovery under Obama. Median family income has fallen all the way back to 1996 levels. The Wall Street Journal further reported on September 14, “Earnings of the typical man who works full time year round fell, and are lower—adjusted for inflation—than in 1978.”
The poverty rate climbed to 15.1%, higher than in the late 1960s when the War on Poverty was getting underway, $16 trillion ago. The child poverty rate climbed to 22%, nearly a quarter of all American children. The total number of Americans in poverty is higher than at any time in the over 50 years that the Census Bureau has been tallying it. Moreover, the number of Americans ages 25-34 living with their parents has soared by 25%.
Yes, I know NBER declared the recession technically over in June, 2009, still the longest recession on record since the Depression. But the point is next month will be 4 years since the recession started, and there is still no sustained real recovery. Or as economist John Lott has emphasized, Obamanomics has produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression.
Obama apologists can’t continue to blame the depths of the previous recession, and they can’t because the historical record makes plain that the worse the recession, the stronger the recovery. Based on that historical record, we should be completing the second year of a booming economy by now.
In the second year of the Reagan recovery, real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in 50 years. In the first two years of that recovery, 7.6 million new jobs were created, on the way to 20 million jobs created during the first 7 years. Presently, we are still 6 million jobs below the peak before the last recession, four years ago.
The chief excuse of the Obama apologists is “this time is different,” citing the book of that title, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. But the theme of that book is exactly the opposite of what it is cited for here – that “this time is different” is never true.
The apologists cite the book to argue that what we have suffered this time was not just a recession, but a financial crisis, and the data in the book shows, they argue, that recovery from a financial crisis takes a lot longer than recovery from a recession.
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Wannabe Homebuyers Get No Encouragement From Fed: Caroline Baum
About Caroline Baum
Like most observers of the business cycle, I have been thinking a lot about housing, the small sector of the U.S. economy with the big footprint. Housing started the ball rolling -- both uphill and down, you might say -- and because of the overwhelming number of bad loans, underwater mortgages and foreclosed properties, it still can’t get up off the ground.
Specifically, I’ve been wondering to what extent the presumed incentives for buying a home -- super-low mortgage rates and discounted prices, down by one-third nationwide from their 2006 peak -- are being neutralized by the Federal Reserve’s tell-it-all communications policy.
Yes, there can be too much of a good thing.
Like most observers of the business cycle, I have been thinking a lot about housing, the small sector of the U.S. economy with the big footprint. Housing started the ball rolling -- both uphill and down, you might say -- and because of the overwhelming number of bad loans, underwater mortgages and foreclosed properties, it still can’t get up off the ground.
Specifically, I’ve been wondering to what extent the presumed incentives for buying a home -- super-low mortgage rates and discounted prices, down by one-third nationwide from their 2006 peak -- are being neutralized by the Federal Reserve’s tell-it-all communications policy.
Are Republicans ready to look past his transgressions?
Are Republicans ready to look past his transgressions?
By FRED BARNES
Before you dismiss Newt Gingrich for having too much “baggage” to win the Republican presidential nomination, much less the presidency, consider this:
In 1980, when Ronald Reagan emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee, President Carter’s advisers were thrilled. They’d done extensive opposition research. By pointing to what Reagan had said in speeches, radio commentaries, newspaper columns, and conversations, they assumed it would be easy to characterize him as a right-wing extremist. And enough voters would reject him and reelect Carter.
They were wrong. It wasn’t that voters ignored Reagan’s offbeat comments. They just didn’t think eccentric statements he’d made over the years were important. Bigger things were at stake, like Soviet aggression and a stagnant economy. And Reagan had better answers than Carter.
Jim Bennett
They were wrong. It wasn’t that voters ignored Reagan’s offbeat comments. They just didn’t think eccentric statements he’d made over the years were important. Bigger things were at stake, like Soviet aggression and a stagnant economy. And Reagan had better answers than Carter.
Why E.U. collapse is more likely than the fall of the euro
Why E.U. collapse is more likely than the fall of the euro
The question is not: Who will be next? That’s easy. (Spain’s Socialist government will be pulverized in this weekend’s elections.) The real question is: When will the Jenga tower topple?
Is there no limit to Congress’s power?
Is there no limit to Congress’s power?
It’s the Obamacare, Stupid
By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
We are just past the halfway point between the last congressional election and the next one, and the conventional wisdom is that the upcoming election will be all about the economy. Elections during the Obama presidency, we are continually assured, are not about profligate federal spending, federal arrogance and irresponsibility, our colossal national debt, the consolidation of power and money at the expense of liberty, or the legislation that best encapsulates all of these: Obamacare.
The Democrats in general and Obama in particular know that if this next election is about profligate spending, the ensuing debt, or Obamacare, they will lose. If it’s about America’s place in the world, they aren’t apt to fare much better. But, while none of these things is likely to change much anytime soon, the economy can change. At the least, it could potentially have a brief uptick between, say, August and November of next year.
And even if the economy doesn’t change, Obama can certainly attempt to redirect the blame. Listen to him on the stump. Is he trying to make this an election about spending, debt, and Obamacare? Or is he trying to make it about the economy? Is he singing the praises of his signature legislative achievement, or is he blaming the woes of the middle class on (in his skewed version of events) a do-nothing Republican Congress whose members are more concerned with protecting the rich and saving their own seats than in taking action to improve the lives of everyday Americans?
We are just past the halfway point between the last congressional election and the next one, and the conventional wisdom is that the upcoming election will be all about the economy. Elections during the Obama presidency, we are continually assured, are not about profligate federal spending, federal arrogance and irresponsibility, our colossal national debt, the consolidation of power and money at the expense of liberty, or the legislation that best encapsulates all of these: Obamacare.
The Democrats in general and Obama in particular know that if this next election is about profligate spending, the ensuing debt, or Obamacare, they will lose. If it’s about America’s place in the world, they aren’t apt to fare much better. But, while none of these things is likely to change much anytime soon, the economy can change. At the least, it could potentially have a brief uptick between, say, August and November of next year.
And even if the economy doesn’t change, Obama can certainly attempt to redirect the blame. Listen to him on the stump. Is he trying to make this an election about spending, debt, and Obamacare? Or is he trying to make it about the economy? Is he singing the praises of his signature legislative achievement, or is he blaming the woes of the middle class on (in his skewed version of events) a do-nothing Republican Congress whose members are more concerned with protecting the rich and saving their own seats than in taking action to improve the lives of everyday Americans?
Romney Two-Way Race Now Four-Way Republican Dead Heat in Iowa Q. By John McCormick
Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in a dead heat as the top choices for Iowans likely to attend the Jan. 3 Republican presidential caucuses.
A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away.
Economic issues such as jobs, taxes and government spending are driving voter sentiment, rather than such social issues as abortion and gay marriage, the poll finds. Only about a quarter of likely caucus-goers say social or constitutional issues are more important to them, compared with 71 percent who say fiscal concerns.
The poll reflects the race’s fluidity, with 60 percent of respondents saying they still could be persuaded to back someone other than their top choice, and 10 percent undecided. Paul’s support is more solidified than his rivals, while Cain’s is softer. All of the major contenders have issue challenges to address.
A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away.
Economic issues such as jobs, taxes and government spending are driving voter sentiment, rather than such social issues as abortion and gay marriage, the poll finds. Only about a quarter of likely caucus-goers say social or constitutional issues are more important to them, compared with 71 percent who say fiscal concerns.
The poll reflects the race’s fluidity, with 60 percent of respondents saying they still could be persuaded to back someone other than their top choice, and 10 percent undecided. Paul’s support is more solidified than his rivals, while Cain’s is softer. All of the major contenders have issue challenges to address.
Spain Votes as Polls Show Crisis Handing Rajoy Landslide Q By Angeline Benoit and Emma Ross-Thomas
Spaniards may be set to hand opposition leader Mariano Rajoy the biggest majority in almost three decades as the risk of Spain becoming the next nation overwhelmed by Europe’s debt crisis bolsters support for his People’s Party.
Voting started at 9 a.m. in mainland Spain as polls showed Rajoy may win as many as 198 of the 350 seats in Parliament, the largest majority any Spanish government has secured since 1982. The campaign, focused on the stagnating economy and 23 percent jobless rate, ended on Nov. 18 with borrowing costs near records. That prompted Rajoy, 56, to say he hopes Spain won’t need a bailout before the new government takes over in December.
Voting started at 9 a.m. in mainland Spain as polls showed Rajoy may win as many as 198 of the 350 seats in Parliament, the largest majority any Spanish government has secured since 1982. The campaign, focused on the stagnating economy and 23 percent jobless rate, ended on Nov. 18 with borrowing costs near records. That prompted Rajoy, 56, to say he hopes Spain won’t need a bailout before the new government takes over in December.
Harvard’s Walkout Students Misunderstand Economics: Amity Shlaes By Amity Shlaes
What’s wrong with Ec 10? The dozens of Harvard University undergrads who walked out of the school’s famous introductory economics course this month think they know.
The students’ general criticism is that Ec 10, in which some 700 students are enrolled, “espouses a specific -- and limited -- view of economics.” Their specific criticisms are that economics as taught in this class, formally called Economics 10, failed to prevent the financial crisis and does nothing to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
They’d like a more diverse intro course that includes exposure to more progressive economic frameworks.
“I’m someone who lives below the poverty line, my family’s extremely poor. And having a class like this that promotes gaining at the expense of millions of people disturbs me and bothers me at my core,” freshman Amanda Bradley told National Public Radio.
The students’ general criticism is that Ec 10, in which some 700 students are enrolled, “espouses a specific -- and limited -- view of economics.” Their specific criticisms are that economics as taught in this class, formally called Economics 10, failed to prevent the financial crisis and does nothing to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
They’d like a more diverse intro course that includes exposure to more progressive economic frameworks.
“I’m someone who lives below the poverty line, my family’s extremely poor. And having a class like this that promotes gaining at the expense of millions of people disturbs me and bothers me at my core,” freshman Amanda Bradley told National Public Radio.
Expectations Dim for a U.S. Supercommittee Deal Q. By Laura Litvan and Kathleen Hunter
Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the deficit-cutting supercommittee said they’re still aiming for a last-ditch agreement even as one of the panel’s leaders voiced doubts about an accord by a Nov. 23 deadline.
The supercommittee faces a “daunting challenge” as its 12 members seek to bridge gulfs over taxes and spending, Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the Republican co- chairman, said today. Time is running out for a plan to carve at least $1.2 trillion out of the federal budget, he said.
The panel has been deadlocked over income-tax increases, with Democrats seeking tax increases on high earners while Republicans push for extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Another sticking point is Republican calls for cuts, over Democrats’ opposition, in entitlement programs such as Medicare.
‘Nobody wants to give up hope,” Hensarling said on the “Fox News Sunday” Program. “Reality is, to some extent, starting to overtake hope.”
The supercommittee faces a “daunting challenge” as its 12 members seek to bridge gulfs over taxes and spending, Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the Republican co- chairman, said today. Time is running out for a plan to carve at least $1.2 trillion out of the federal budget, he said.
The panel has been deadlocked over income-tax increases, with Democrats seeking tax increases on high earners while Republicans push for extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Another sticking point is Republican calls for cuts, over Democrats’ opposition, in entitlement programs such as Medicare.
‘Nobody wants to give up hope,” Hensarling said on the “Fox News Sunday” Program. “Reality is, to some extent, starting to overtake hope.”
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Mexico Sours on Drug War
by Ted Galen Carpenter
When Mexico's new president Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against the country's powerful drug cartels in December 2006, his strategy enjoyed widespread domestic support. But his confrontational approach has not gone as planned. At least forty-four thousand — and according to at least one estimate, perhaps as many as fifty-two thousand — people have perished in the upsurge of violence over the past five years. That unpleasant reality has gradually caused major segments of Mexico's population and, perhaps even more important, key Mexican political leaders to become disenchanted with the drug war.
There were signs of growing discontent as far back as late 2008. Rubén Aguilar, the president's former director of communications, stunned his one-time boss and other members of the governing National Action Party (PAN) when he proposed opening negotiations with the cartels, essentially allowing them to conduct their business in exchange for a commitment to halt the kidnappings, torture and gruesome murders. Aguilar was even willing to go so far as to consider wholesale legalization of drugs. "We are not going to eliminate narco-trafficking," he stated in an interview with a Mexican newspaper, but "we can diminish the violence with which it seeks to enhance its operating spaces." At a minimum, he predicted, negotiations would likely lead to less destructive "rules of the game" among the competing cartels.
When Mexico's new president Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against the country's powerful drug cartels in December 2006, his strategy enjoyed widespread domestic support. But his confrontational approach has not gone as planned. At least forty-four thousand — and according to at least one estimate, perhaps as many as fifty-two thousand — people have perished in the upsurge of violence over the past five years. That unpleasant reality has gradually caused major segments of Mexico's population and, perhaps even more important, key Mexican political leaders to become disenchanted with the drug war.
There were signs of growing discontent as far back as late 2008. Rubén Aguilar, the president's former director of communications, stunned his one-time boss and other members of the governing National Action Party (PAN) when he proposed opening negotiations with the cartels, essentially allowing them to conduct their business in exchange for a commitment to halt the kidnappings, torture and gruesome murders. Aguilar was even willing to go so far as to consider wholesale legalization of drugs. "We are not going to eliminate narco-trafficking," he stated in an interview with a Mexican newspaper, but "we can diminish the violence with which it seeks to enhance its operating spaces." At a minimum, he predicted, negotiations would likely lead to less destructive "rules of the game" among the competing cartels.
Beware the Balanced Approach
by Michael D. Tanner
There is an old story of a man who offers a woman a million dollars to sleep with him. When she agrees, he offers her $20 for the same thing. "What do you think I am?" the woman asks indignantly.
"We've already established that," the man replies. "Now we are just haggling over price."
Republican members of the debt-reduction supercommittee now find themselves in the same position as the woman in the story. Having agreed to give up their "no new taxes" stance, they are left with nothing to do but haggle over the final price.
There is an old story of a man who offers a woman a million dollars to sleep with him. When she agrees, he offers her $20 for the same thing. "What do you think I am?" the woman asks indignantly.
"We've already established that," the man replies. "Now we are just haggling over price."
Republican members of the debt-reduction supercommittee now find themselves in the same position as the woman in the story. Having agreed to give up their "no new taxes" stance, they are left with nothing to do but haggle over the final price.
US Prosecutors Seeking to Prevent Dirty Secrets of Drug War From Surfacing in Cartel Leader's Case. Posted by Bill Conroy -
US Government Using National Security to Conceal Evidence, Attorneys for Narco-Trafficker Zambada Niebla Claim
The criminal case of accused Sinaloa drug organization leader Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla is straying even further into the path of a cover-up under the guise of national security, if pleadings filed by his attorneys are to be believed.
Lawyers for the alleged Mexican narco-trafficker, son of one of the top figures in the Sinaloa “cartel,” recently filed a motion asking the court to block U.S. prosecutors’ efforts to exclude the defense from discussions with the judge over the treatment of evidence deemed classified material. Zambada Niebla’s attorneys contend they must be part of those discussions since the supposed classified material goes to the heart of their client's claims in the case.
The information the US government is seeking to withhold from Zambada Niebla’s attorneys, they believe, is likely related to a key figure in the case, an informant, Mexican attorney Humberto Loya Castro, who served as an intermediary between the Sinaloa Cartel leadership and US government agents seeking to obtain information on rival narco-trafficking organizations.
From the motion filed late last month by Zambada Niebla’s attorneys:
The criminal case of accused Sinaloa drug organization leader Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla is straying even further into the path of a cover-up under the guise of national security, if pleadings filed by his attorneys are to be believed.
Lawyers for the alleged Mexican narco-trafficker, son of one of the top figures in the Sinaloa “cartel,” recently filed a motion asking the court to block U.S. prosecutors’ efforts to exclude the defense from discussions with the judge over the treatment of evidence deemed classified material. Zambada Niebla’s attorneys contend they must be part of those discussions since the supposed classified material goes to the heart of their client's claims in the case.
The information the US government is seeking to withhold from Zambada Niebla’s attorneys, they believe, is likely related to a key figure in the case, an informant, Mexican attorney Humberto Loya Castro, who served as an intermediary between the Sinaloa Cartel leadership and US government agents seeking to obtain information on rival narco-trafficking organizations.
From the motion filed late last month by Zambada Niebla’s attorneys:
The government has announced its intention to make an ex parte submission [involving only the judge and prosecutors, excluding defense attorneys] to the Court concerning classified discovery issues. …
The defense believes that Humberto Loya Castro had access to the information that the [US] government now seeks to withhold throughout his many years of cooperation with the United States government and that high-ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel also had access to such information through Mr. Loya [Castro].
Mr. Zambada Niebla is alleged in the indictment to be a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel. We believe that the information [the US government is seeking to cloak under national security] is material to the defense in that it may … contain information pertaining to agreements between agents of the United States government and the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel as well as policy arrangements between the United States government and the Mexican government pertaining to special treatment that was to be afforded to high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel. Thus, Mr. Zambada Niebla’s counsel should be granted high-level security clearances to review the sensitive information.
Freedom: The New and Future Experiment
And I suffer from it terribly.
Glossophobia aside, I’m going to press on today anyway because what I want to talk to you about is very important. Maybe more so now than ever.
The title of my speech is “Freedom: The New and Future Experiment.”
This topic is particularly timely right now because, as you well know, a revolution of sorts is today under way in a place that used to be comfortable calling itself, proudly and with a straight face, “The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.” Try asking any thinking individual who happened to be born within the United States borders today to claim that title without arousing a disquieting feeling of tragic irony. You might hear the words, but you’ll notice they are delivered with an empty conviction, with some embarrassment, a shame, almost, for remembering what was lost.
But before addressing the New and Future Experiment, let’s take a look at the Old and Moribund Experiment: Statism.
More Questions Emerge as the Debt Crisis Continues
Dow down again — 134 points. Oil back below $100.
We’re back in the USA after 5 months in Europe. What a delight it was to be Europe. It’s always a pleasure to watch something fall apart.
How far apart the Old World will fall, we don’t know. But it looks as though big chunks of the continent must be cut adrift…or the whole of it will sink.
Sometimes things come together. Sometimes they fall apart. You make money, generally, when they come together. When they fall apart, it’s harder. Because everyone begins to ask questions.
In a boom, question marks disappear. In a bust, they come back.
“What’s this stock really worth?” people want to know.
“Who’s on the other side of the trade?” they ask.
“When the check comes back marked ‘insufficient funds,’ who are they referring to, us…or them?”
The bond holders want to know if the Euro-feds are going to bail them out…the Euro feds want to know if the Chinese are going to bail them out…and the taxpayers want to know how long their pension checks will keep coming.
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