Feb 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun's Adam Daifallah notes how America's bureaucrats treat pro-freedom, Western-oriented Arabs:
Whenever these rare leaders happen upon the scene America bends over backward to throw sticks in their wheels.... Most amazing about [Palestinian banker Issam] Abu Issa's plight is how eerily it parallels that of another well-known Arab democracy advocate: Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi. Mr. Chalabi was also a successful banker. He was also an outspoken opponent of an Arab dictator, Saddam Hussein. And his bank was also seized....America's approach is to hang them out to dry. Mr. Abu Issa can't even enter the country, and Mr. Chalabi is right now fending for himself in Baghdad amidst a sea of Islamist- and Gulf-state supported politicians posturing for power in post-war Iraq. America is refusing to take sides in post-war Iraqi politics.... Two conclusions can be drawn from these cases. First, if you're an Arab who believes in democracy, you had better think twice about a career in banking. Second, and certainly more sadly, America won't be there standing by your side in times of need.
Feb 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Mark Steyn on who the real dogmatists are:
Say what you like about us right-wing war mongers, but after Sept. 11 we abandoned our long-cherished theories of realpolitik--find your local strongman and shovel millions of dollars at him--as inadequate, and indeed part of the problem. Sentimental liberal internationalism--everything has to be done through the U.N., no matter how stinkingly corrupt and ineffectual it is--is just as inadequate to the challenges of the age. Yet Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean and the rest of the left cling to it like a security blanket. Ask them anything about foreign policy, and they sing like the Von Trapp children, "We need to get the U.N. in there." As Sam Goldwyn said, "I'm sick of the old cliches. Bring me some new cliches." [Sun Times]
Feb 19, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
George Will, though a defender of the welfare state, at least understands why protectionism is wrongheaded:
[T]he prize for the pithiest nonsense went to Hastert: "An economy suffers when jobs disappear."
So the economy suffered when automobiles caused the disappearance of the jobs of most blacksmiths, buggy makers, operators of livery stables, etc.? The economy did not seem to be suffering in 1999, when 33 million jobs were wiped out--by an economic dynamism that created 35.7 million jobs. How many of the 4,500 U.S jobs that IBM is planning to create this year will be made possible by sending 3,000 jobs overseas?
Hastert's ideal economy, where jobs do not disappear, existed almost everywhere for almost everyone through almost all of human history. In, say, 12th-century France, the ox behind which a man plowed a field changed, but otherwise the plowman was doing what generations of his ancestors had done and what generations of his descendants would do....
The disappearance of whole categories of jobs can be desirable for reasons other than economic rationality.... John L. Lewis, the firebreathing leader of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960, once said that he hoped to see the day when no man would make his living by going underground.
Feb 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
This from an article titled "Student Accused of Blackface Use" in the online student newspaper of Syracuse University (thanks, James Taranto):
Just after midnight on Saturday morning, the Department of Public Safety received a report that a student was wandering around Watson Residence Hall with his face painted a dark color, according to a Public Safety report....The student told officers that the face paint was camouflage -- not blackface -- and that he was actually on his way to rob a house, Hall said. "As far as we know, this was all a misunderstanding," Sheaffer said. [Daily Orange]
Feb 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The nature of the benefits a company offers should not be a political issue at all, but the distortions of the Democrats' attacks on Wal-Mart are still worth noting:
Some Democrats, like Mr. Miller, want to focus on what Wal-Mart costs America. Mr. Miller seems to imagine that if the company didn't exist, its workers would all be earning salaries comfortable enough to live without government subsidies. But it's also possible that the workers would be out of work entirely.
Mr. Kerry himself, while campaigning in New Hampshire on October 10, 2003, said, "I think Wal-Mart's health care practices are unconscionable, and the way they treat employees is not fair." But the same Associated Press dispatch that reported that comment also quoted a Wal-Mart spokeswoman as saying that more than 90% of the company's 1.4 million employees have health insurance, 50% through the company and the rest through spouses and other sources. The spokeswoman told the AP that of those participating in the Wal-Mart health plan,40% had no medical insurance when they were hired: "These are people who would've fallen through the cracks." [NY Sun]
Feb 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Bruce Bartlett explains why big business supported the recent expansion of Medicare:
[T]he recently enacted Medicare drug benefit, which the Bush administration rammed through Congress with unprecedented pressure... will cost trillions of dollars. A key reason for the high cost is that it applies to all the elderly, including those who already have drug coverage from their employers or private insurance. It would have cost a fraction as much to aid only those without drug coverage.
The incredibly more expensive option was chosen exclusively to benefit big businesses. The universal option justified the inclusion of large business subsidies in the legislation in order to keep companies from simply dropping their retiree drug coverage and dumping it all on the taxpayer....
A February 3 report in the Wall Street Journal noted that an automotive parts manufacturer, Delphi, expects to reduce its future retiree health-care costs by $500 million as a result of the drug legislation. And it has only 14,000 retirees and dependents to cover. Much bigger companies such as General Motors and Lucent Technologies will save vastly more. The former has 440,000 retirees and dependents to cover, and the latter has 240,000.
I predict that when the federal government starts mailing checks for tens of millions of dollars to big corporations to subsidize them for keeping health coverage they have already promised their retirees, the excrement will hit the fan. [NY Sun]
And if you want to see just how right he is, get a load of the incredibly venal response from the National Association of Manufacturers.