Mar 27, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Emma Ritch (AP) "USC receives $1 million capitalism ethics grant from BB&T:
The University of South Carolina announced Wednesday a $1 million grant from North Carolina-based BB&T to promote the study of capitalism...
...USC will get the funds over the next couple years, said business school dean Joel Smith III, and will use the money to create a capitalism ethics class, a capitalism-focused professorship, a lecture series and a room in the business library dedicated to the works of authors that support free enterprise such as Ayn Rand.
John Allison, chairman and CEO of BB&T, said USC and the bank jointly developed the focus of the endowment. "If you look at a lot of business education programs, they do a good job of teaching people the technical part of business," Allison said. "But they don't often explain the philosophical foundations for capitalism, and anybody can make better decisions if they understand the context."
Recommended Reading:
Book Review of The Prime Movers: Traits of The Great Wealth Creators by John Allison
Over the last 250 years, the quality of life throughout the world has been transformed. Life expectancy has increased from nineteen years in 1750 to seventy years today, and practically everyone today lives better than a king in the 1700s. There has been more progress during this period than in the preceding 25,000 years. What kind of environment has made this incredible progress possible?Mar 26, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Dems rally for Kerry.Kerry, who hit the campaign trail after almost a week on vacation, was the star of a Democratic "unity" dinner in Washington where party leaders, including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, rallied the party faithful. [...] Earlier, at a rally at George Washington University, Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean pledged to put their sometimes-bitter primary fight behind them. [...] "In the end, it is Generation Dean voting for John Kerry for president of the United States that is going to send George Bush back to Texas where he belongs," Dean said
Mar 24, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance recited in public schools, a deeper, more fundamental question has not even been raised: Why are young children being pressured to make a pledge they lack the knowledge to understand and the maturity to commit themselves to?
Children do not give the Pledge careful consideration and decide, daily, to pledge allegiance to their country under God with liberty and justice for all. The Pledge is a political statement and--since 1954, when "God" was added--a religious statement. The only reason children recite the Pledge is that their educators expect them to.
The purpose of education should be to teach children the knowledge and thinking skills they need to succeed in life, not to train them in parroting political and religious ideas they can't possibly grasp.
Mar 24, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Today, the European Union's Directorate-General for Competition (DGC) imposed a €497.2 Euro ($613 million) fine against Microsoft for integrating its Windows Media Player technology into its Windows computer operating systems. According to the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism (CAC), the DCG's decision represents yet another assault on success and the rights of businessmen to their property.
"As with the United States, the European Union now claims that Microsoft's integration of new technology into its operating systems represents a coercive threat against other businessmen and the public. As different from the United States, the European Union is now demanding Microsoft disintegrate Windows and pay heavy fines," says Nicholas Provenzo, CAC chairman.
"Both the United States and the European Union are wrong," says Provenzo.
"It is not Microsoft, but the antitrust laws themselves that are the coercive threat. The antitrust laws give regulators the right to define what a product is, how it may be improved, and who may improve it," says Provenzo. "Yet a product belongs to those who create it and it is theirs to sell on the market as they see fit. EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti could never build Microsoft Windows or successfully sell it, yet he and his antitrust regulators get to decide if a great American corporation may or may not improve its products."
"Many in the US will criticize the seeming divergence between American and European Union antitrust enforcement," says Provenzo. "Yet fundamentally, both sides of the Atlantic share the same view: businessmen are serfs who must place the success of their competitors ahead of their own success. In antitrust, the European Union and United States differ only in terms of degree."
"The EU's case against Microsoft underscores the need for a fundamental reexamination and ultimate abolition of antitrust," says Provenzo. "Rather than insinuate that Microsoft's "ongoing behavior" is "illegal", Mario Monti would be better served rethinking the morality of his own agency's actions."
"Yet until businessmen themselves choose to wake up to the defects of the antitrust laws, we will continue to have great corporations like Microsoft placed under shackles for the crime of improving its own products," says Provenzo.Mar 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported yesterday: Bush administration rejects Clarke charges.Top members of the Bush administration sharply rebuffed their former counterterrorism chief Monday, calling his assertions in a new book about the White House's handling of terrorism and Iraq "deeply irresponsible" and "flat-out wrong."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Richard Clarke had engaged in a "retrospective rewriting of the history."
In his book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," published Monday, Clarke accuses the Bush administration of ignoring repeated warnings about an al Qaeda threat in 2001 and looking for an excuse to attack Iraq at the expense of battling terrorism.
InstaPundit has a number of links regarding Richard Clarke and his accusations:
From Secular Blasphemy blog: Richard Clarke: Now who was obsessed with other threats?The truth is that from a public perspective at least, Dick Clarke did not run around before 9/11 warning everybody about Bin Laden bringing about a new Pearl Harbour. He warned that computer viruses or hackers would bring about a "digital Pearl Harbour!"
From Spokane 4 Bush blog: Clarke's claims don't hold waterQ: As far as international crimes go, what's the one largest threat to U.S. citizens right now?
MR. CLARKE: I think the largest threat is obviously posed by international narcotics smuggling, which costs a number of lives and costs an enormous amount of money.
From Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard: On Richard ClarkeClarke's testimonials are, in a word, bizarre. In his own world, Clarke was the hero who warned Bush administration officials about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda ad nauseam. The Bush administration, in Clarke's world, just didn't care. In Clarke's world, eight months of Bush administration counterterrorism policy is more important than eight years of Clinton administration counterterrorism policy.
And Little Green Footballs noted this CNN American Morning transcript in which National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice defends herself and the Bush Administration against Clarke's allegations. She also notes:[W]hat's very interesting is that, of course, Dick Clarke was the counterterrorism czar in 1998 when the [African] embassies were bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar in 2000 when the Cole was bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar for a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11 were being hatched. The fact is, we needed a new strategy, and that's what we asked Dick Clarke to give us.
Mar 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
Israel's targeted killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was as justified as would be America's targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. Yassin, the founder and "spiritual leader" of a terrorist organization responsible for the murder and maiming of hundreds of innocents, got what he deserved. That heads of state from London to Paris criticized Israel's action instead of applauding it reveals, once again, their utter moral bankruptcy--and their seemingly endless willingness to appease evil. But as logic suggests and history demonstrates, appeasing evil only emboldens it, and those who fail to learn this lesson invariably become targets of evil themselves.
