Oct 11, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Amity Shlaes on the connection between altruism and a weak dollar policy:[A weakening of the dollar] does not come out of the Bush administration's typical culture of strength and growth. Rather, it represents a surrender to what we can call the tyranny of the weak.
Consider the logic inherent in the communique's 'flexibility' section, and in the minds of many of its supporters. America is growing faster than Europe. It is growing faster than Japan. It is growing intemperately. America's greed has generated a current account deficit with a single country, China, that is the largest such gap ever. What's more, America is too productive. And that productivity is, at least right now, causing the American economy to generate too few jobs at home.
In short, the challenge is not to make the other countries grow faster. It is to slow America to a pace that puts it in step with its weaker peers, Europe and Japan. You start by putting pressure on the dollar with a few remarks about the acceptability of flexible rates.You also press the Chinese to strengthen their currency. A weaker dollar then makes shopping abroad more expensive; the economy slows nicely. [NY Sun]
Oct 9, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The Kremlin's support for the certain victor in Chechnya's presidential elections held yesterday has brought the blood-stained republic to the brink of a new civil war, according to Russian intelligence officers. The poll, which has been widely described as a sham, was showcased by President Vladimir Putin as evidence to the outside world that life in the war-torn republic is returning to normal under Moscow's stewardship....
[Kadyrov's] two leading rivals were forced out of the race. Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a deputy in the Russian parliament, said he pulled out to take a job in the Kremlin. Malik Saidullayev, a millionaire businessman, was disqualified by the electoral commission. He said the Kremlin had resorted to cancelling his candidature after efforts to cajole him into stepping aside voluntarily failed....
One Russian commander said: "He's using us as his pocket army to settle scores with rivals. I don't want to be a mercenary for that thug." If the Russians are unhappy with the man expected to be the new president, most Chechen civilians are doubly so. Human rights groups have documented cases of his men carrying out murder, torture and kidnapping. [Telegraph]
Oct 9, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
R. Emmett Tyrell in Thursday's New York Sun:When the Los Angeles Times got its groping story, the editors ran it on the front page. When they had a story involving rape charges against Mr. Clinton, they buried the story in the back of the paper. Of course, the rape charge against Mr. Clinton was different from most of the groping charges against Mr. Schwarzenegger. It had a source willing to be identified. Her name was Juanita Broaddrick, and unlike Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Clinton has neither apologized nor admitted.
Oct 8, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Related Reading:
California's Recall Election: Dangerous Democracy at Work by John Lewis (September 24, 2003)
The California recall election is an example of democracy at work, and that is precisely its danger.
California's Real Problem by Thomas Sowell (September 18, 2003)
California demonstrates liberal fundamentalism at its purest: Protect parasites and law-breakers -- and attack those who are producing.
Vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger by Thomas Sowell (September 7, 2003)
There is no need to try to compare Arnold Schwarzenegger with the founding fathers. The California voters' choice will be between him and a couple of hack politicians like Governor Gray Davis and Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante.
Oct 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Here's James Taranto Tuesday:"Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs," reports the Baltimore Sun.
This "study," however, turns out to be pure propaganda.... The "untrue positions" the survey measured are these: "Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks." "Weapons of mass destruction have already been found in Iraq." "World opinion favored the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."
Here are some demonstrable untruths the survey didn't ask its subjects about: President Bush said Iraq posed an "imminent" threat. Bush claimed Iraq had bought uranium from Niger. America's intervention in Iraq was unilateral.
Would not a fair survey have included examples of the misperceptions on both sides?
Oct 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA -- Amid rising medical costs, changing health care benefits and renewed claims that the number of so-called uninsured Americans is increasing, Americans would be much better off if they were left alone to cover their own health care. That's what Richard Ralston, executive director of a California-based organization recently wrote in an op-ed. Though it's hardly a typical argument -- most health care policy analysts widely accept the notion of government intervention in medicine -- Ralston's viewpoint is rooted in the facts and the law."The wealthiest government employees or corporate executives who receive health care insurance as a part of their compensation package receive this benefit on a tax-free basis," Ralston, who runs Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM), explained in a recent op-ed. "Anyone who pays their own health insurance premiums or medical bills must struggle to wring these payments from income that is fully taxed. This practice is unfair and it inflates the cost of health care for everyone," Ralston wrote. His op-eds have been published in the Orange County (Calif.) Register and the Washington Times.
The proper solution, he argued, is an idea whose time has come -- and is unfortunately, set to expire: expand unrestricted tax-free medical savings accounts (MSAs). "MSAs cover most routine medical expenses and make health care affordable. Were MSAs made available to every American, the tax burden of supporting huge government health care expenditures would be alleviated," Ralston concluded. He noted: "Very restricted MSA's exist today, but the legislation creating them will expire at the end of 2003."
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, (AFCM), founded in 1993, publishes a consumer's guide and tutorial to MSAs on its Web site and it is the nation's only educational organization based on individual rights, personal responsibility and free market ideas in medicine.
