An exorbitant free lunch - University of Notre Dame



Death of the Master

By Bruce Bartlett

Thursday, November 16, 2006

"And now this great master has left us. No one who has been close to him both professionally and scientifically would be able to describe the feeling that lies heavy on all of us. No words can express what he has been to us, and few of us if any will have yet resigned ourselves to the realization that from now on there is to be an impenetrable wall separating us from him, from his advice, his encouragement, his critical guidance—and that the road ahead will have to be traveled without him."

So wrote economist Joseph Schumpeter upon the death of his teacher, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk in 1914. The words apply equally well to another great master who has left us, Milton Friedman. Unquestionably the most important and influential economist of the second half of the 20th century, Friedman's work will live on for as long as the field of economics continues to be studied.

Friedman was born on July 31, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. His path toward economics began at Rutgers University, from which he graduated in 1932. There, he came under the influence of Arthur Burns, an important economist who became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under Richard Nixon. Friedman later called Burns the "guiding influence of my subsequent career."

Friedman started his graduate work at the University of Chicago, completing it at Columbia University. During World War II, he worked on tax policy at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington. Following the war, Friedman joined the economics department at the University of Chicago, where he became the dominant expositor of what came to be called the Chicago School of Economics.

The 1950s were the high point of Friedman's scientific work in economics. His main accomplishment during this period was to resurrect the role of monetary policy in the economy. At that time, economists generally followed the theories of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed that fiscal policy (taxing and spending) was government's most powerful tool for influencing growth, inflation and business cycles. In the Keynesian model, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy (credit and interest rates) was essentially passive, with little direct economic impact.

Eventually, Friedman was successful in convincing most economists that Keynes was wrong. The Friedman view became known as monetarism and was instrumental in overturning the Keynesian orthodoxy in the 1970s. But Friedman's other scientific work also contributed to this development. This would include the "permanent income hypothesis," which says that temporary changes in incomes do not affect consumer spending, only permanent changes do. Friedman also was instrumental in debunking the idea that higher inflation would lower unemployment, as the Keynesians believed. Any such effect was temporary at best, Friedman argued. In the long run, inflation raises unemployment, he said, a view proven correct in the 1970s.

In the 1960s, Friedman became more active in politics and public policy. He was an adviser to Republican presidential candidates Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Nixon in 1968. In 1966, Friedman began a regular column for Newsweek that became must-reading for free-market economists until he gave it up in the early 1980s.

Friedman's most influential publication was the slender volume, Capitalism and Freedom, based on lectures given in 1956 but not published until 1962. In that book, he put forward one of the most powerful cases for the free market ever written. Its greatest virtues were the clarity and vigor of Friedman's exposition. It had enormous impact in making free market economics respectable once again, after being falsely blamed for the Great Depression. In his Monetary History of the United States, Friedman put principal blame for that disaster on the Federal Reserve, which allowed the money stock to shrink by one third, bringing on a massive deflation.

In 1976, Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and stabilization policy. The following year, Friedman retired from active teaching and took up residence at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Although retired, he continued working until the very end. In 1980, Friedman probably achieved his greatest renown with the best-selling book and PBS television series, "Free To Choose," which explained to average people why free markets work best.

A key reason for Friedman's enormous output and influence is that he was blessed with a gifted partner, his wife Rose. A distinguished economist in her own right, she contributed heavily to her husband's thinking, most evident in their co-written memoir, Two Lucky People, published in 1998.

We mourn the death of Milton Friedman, who died in San Francisco on Nov. 16 at age 94. But we also celebrate his life and accomplishments, which will continue to provide guidance and inspiration. The master may be gone, but his work lives on.

$7.25? A Truly Bad Idea

By Donald Lambro

Monday, January 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Many, if not most, laws passed by Congress have had unintended, negative consequences, and raising the minimum wage has been one of them.

Perhaps no other so-called economic reform has been studied more than the impact of the minimum wage on poor-to-low income, unskilled, undereducated, unemployed Americans. The preponderance of these studies has shown time and again that raising the minimum wage does not live up to its promises. It doesn't create employment for those it is supposed to help; it reduces employment. It doesn't help the most vulnerable Americans, especially poor minorities; it worsens their plight.

The Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research organization, released a recent study of these unintended consequences here this week. It found that for every 10 percent increase:

-- Unemployment among minorities rose 3.9 percent.

-- Joblessness among Hispanics jumped 4.9 percent.

-- Teenage minority unemployment increased 6.6 percent.

-- Unemployment among African-American teens climbed 8.4 percent.

-- Low-skilled unemployment (among high-school dropouts) grew by 8 percent.

Dr. David Neumark, a University of California, Irvine economist, who conducted the study, said his findings supported "earlier research which found that minimum wages have the largest negative effects on low-skilled employees, such as teens and minority teens."

Nothing is more important to the economic advancement of minority youths than access to entry-level jobs, where they can develop good work habits and learn skills that can prepare them for other career opportunities during their working life.

But another recent study by James Sherk, a labor-policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, found that "Raising the minimum wage reduces many workers' job opportunities and working hours."

As the federal minimum wage has risen, the number of entry-level jobs for young, unskilled workers has fallen because the "wage hikes cause businesses to reduce the number of workers they hire and the hours they ask their employers to work."

Sherk pointed to an earlier 2004 study by Dr. Neumark that discovered "workers who initially earn near the minimum wage experience wage gains. But their hours and employment decline, and the combined effect of these changes on earned income suggest net adverse consequences for low-wage workers."

Economists estimate that "each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces employment in affected groups of workers by roughly 2 percent," Sherk said. Thus, raising the minimum to $7.25, as the Democrats propose, "would cost at least 8 percent of affected workers their jobs."

This is a very conservative estimate of its ultimate cost to some of the most vulnerable Americans among us. The Hoover Institution said that 20 percent -- or 1.6 million workers -- could lose their jobs if there are no offsetting tax cuts for small businesses that would be hit by $5 billion to $7 billion in higher employment costs.

But if people don't or won't believe the studies, the evidence they point to is all around us. Employers have found increasing ways to eliminate jobs as the minimum wage has risen with little or no effect on the services they offer. Gas stations have replaced workers with computerized, self-service pumps. Supermarkets have replaced cashiers with price scanners and self-service checkout systems. Department stores have shrunk their sales forces and consolidated cash-register checkouts, too. Airline customers now get seat selection and obtain boarding passes at computer terminals.

This job reduction trend is going to accelerate big time if the minimum wage is raised again, even with the small-business-tax-cut offsets sought in the Senate.

Small businesses create two-thirds of all new jobs in this country, but the tax cuts would not be very helpful to the millions of new start-up firms formed each year where cash flow is often problematic in the first few years for those that survive.

There are other reasons to question the value of raising the minimum wage, which has become increasingly irrelevant and misdirected in today's economy. Relatively few workers earning the minimum wage "come from poor households," Sherk's study found. Most are workers between the ages of 16 and 24 and "over three-fifths of minimum wage earners work part time.

"The average family income of a minimum wage earner is almost $50,000, and less than one in five live at or below the poverty line," he pointed out. But will a higher minimum help those who are poor or low income? Available family income statistics show that it does "raise the income of some poor families, but their net effect is to increase the portion of families that are poor and near poor," Neumark's 2004 study indicated.

The Democrats' idea of raising the minimum wage is still popular among voters, as the 2006 elections showed, but it is not targeted at the truly poor and most of those who benefit are not poor. This is an old post-Depression-era idea that will destroy entry-level jobs for people who need them most. What we really need is a clean tax-cut bill for all small businesses that will accelerate their growth and the higher-paying jobs they will create for all Americans.

3 Reasons To Stop Obsessing Over Obama's Birth Certificate

John Hawkins

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Since it is a constitutional requirement that the President be born in the United States, it's understandable that some people have been concerned about where Barack Obama was born. Furthermore, when you consider the fact that Barack Obama is a shameless liar, that he grew up in another country, and that there has been a lot of conflicting information out there, it's easy to see why so many people have become concerned about where he was born.

All that being said: Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Granted, not everyone on the Right agrees with this assessment, but nevertheless, it's so.

Of course, if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii as he says, you might have some very basic questions. For example, why hasn't he bent over backwards to dispel the notion that he may have been born elsewhere? Well, why would he at this point? He has a significant number of conservatives wasting enormous amounts of time on a side issue that can never bear any fruit and, as an added bonus, it makes them look somewhat unhinged to many Americans. When your political enemies are making fools of themselves, why stop them?

The other question that comes to mind is why are there prominent conservatives claiming Barack Obama wasn't born in Hawaii? Here's what you have to understand: conspiracies are traffic magnets. Other than sex, conspiracies are one of the best draws you're ever going to run across. While some of the people still pushing this theory just don't know any better, there are undoubtedly more than a few unscrupulous people on the Right who are beating the drum about Obama's birth certificate solely to draw traffic.

Remember the North American Union? According to much of the same crew that's pushing this birth certificate bugaboo, George Bush was going to merge America, Canada, and Mexico together. They wrote books and articles, sent out newsletters, you name it -- until George Bush left office. Then, the NAU was down the memory hole and they latched onto this issue. If people stopped buying into this, next it would be black helicopters or FEMA camps for conservatives or whatever other silliness draws traffic for these hucksters.

Now, let's talk about why this whole obsession with Obama's birth certificate is a waste of time.

1) Many people, including some experts, have claimed that the certificate of live birth released by the Obama campaign wasn't legitimate. In all fairness to them, it can be difficult to judge some of the features needed to determine the authenticity of a birth certificate over the Internet. However, the people at have seen the certificate of live birth provided from the state of Hawaii to the Obama campaign and it is genuine.

staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

So again, despite claims to the contrary, Barack Obama did provide a genuine copy of his birth certificate to the public.

2) Although Hawaii "state law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record," the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health has certified that Obama does have a legitimate birth certificate on file in Hawaii.

3) In a print copy of the 1961 Honolulu Advertiser, there's a notice that Barack Obama was born. In and of itself, this is a game, set, match conversation-ender on this subject unless people want to argue that this isn't genuine or that there was a conspiracy going all the way back to the day of Obama's birth to make him President.

Quite frankly, this evidence is as definitive as it gets. Obama has a legitimate birth certificate on file, he released a copy of it to the public, and there is a news clipping that confirms he was born in Hawaii in 1961.

The latest tactic of the Birthers is to demand that the Supreme Court rule on this issue, but I would suggest to you that if the evidence that has already been made publicly available on this issue hasn't changed someone's mind, then having the Supreme Court rule that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii wouldn't do it either.

The Level Pay Utility Option

Dave Ramsey

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Dear Dave,

Our utility company offers a level-pay option. They average out our bills over the last 24 months, and bill us a consistent amount each month based on that average. Do you think this is a good idea, or would you just pay the regular bills?

Christy

Dear Christy,

Lots of people like the idea of having a level of predictability built in to their utility bills. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this idea, as long as you have a good, steady income. You need to be aware, though, that most of these plans have a “make-up” schedule attached to them. You’ll get something back at the end of 12 months if you’ve overpaid, but you have to make up the difference if the payments come up short.

Ultimately, if evening things out from month to month makes you feel better or helps with your budgeting process, then I say go for it. You’ll still only pay for the services you use, and the utility company still gets their money, so it’s really just another path to the same destination!

- Dave

Dear Dave,

What’s the key to becoming a great salesman?

Brent

Dear Brent,

I can sum it up in one word – serving. And don’t think for a second that serving means being subservient. I’m talking about being proactive, and making an effort to ensure that customers and potential customers alike are served well. Serving means you’re excited about what you have to offer, and you believe you’ve got a great product at a great price. It means you’re determined your customer is going to have a great experience, and if you happen to hit a bump in the road you will take care of it in a way that will make them forget it ever happened.

Serving is an attitude. You have to provide goods or services in a way that makes your customers willing to trade their time or money – things that are very precious to them – to interact with you and your business. You can pressure people if you want, but that’s going to lead to a dull and frustrating life of one-shot deals. But if you serve people well, you’ll not only have clients for life but they’ll also send all of their friends your way.

If you help enough people, Brent, and make that your first order of business, you’ll never have to worry about money. That’s a different attitude, isn’t it? But I’ve got news for you – it works!

- Dave

Dear Dave,

My husband makes significantly more money in his job than I do in mine. Since he makes more, he feels he should be able to spend more. He wants to set up an account where we both put 20 percent of our income for discretionary spending. Of course, his 20 percent would be more than my 20 percent, and I feel like we should both put in the same amount. What do you think?

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

I’m sure your husband is basically a decent guy, but he’s really being selfish and immature about this situation. It’s a very bad plan. My wife is pretty gentle and forgiving, but if tried that mess at home she’d get very un-gentle in a hurry!

Think about it this way. There are lots of families out there where only one person works outside the home and generates income. Would it be fair to say that whoever brings home a paycheck is the only one who can have fun spending a little money once in a while? Of course not! When you two were married, the preacher pronounced you “as one.” That means you have one income, and that’s our income; just like it’s our house, our kids or our dogs. Marriage is not a “me” proposition, it’s always a “we” thing. And it sounds like your husband needs to be reminded of this!

- Dave

Frank Lombard’s Wish List

Mike Adams

Monday, July 06, 2009

Note: The following article contains material that about the Duke University child exploitation case. It is not suitable for all readers.

The main stream media is finally discussing the sexual preferences of Frank Lombard - the Duke University administrator accused of molesting and offering his five-year-old adopted son for sex, via the internet. Naturally, the newspapers are focusing on threats to the gay adoption movement not threats to those who are adopted by gay parents. I’d like to bring the conversation back to Frank Lombard for a moment. His potential as a child molester should have been detected by social workers and friends alike.

Just one look at Frank Lombard’s Amazon Wish List should have convinced anyone that he should not be adopting a young boy. The names and descriptions of some of Lombard’s favorites follow:

1. Dear Boys. This film is about an aging gay writer who becomes more demanding of the young men he has affairs with. They, in turn, are drawn to one another. In other words, it is a film showing a bunch of young men having sex with one another – with full frontal nudity, of course. So, why not let Frank Lombard adopt two little boys?

2. Constantine Giannaris, The Short Films. This collection of films includes one called “A Place In The Sun.” In it, a bored 35 year old Greek man falls in love with an 18 year old Albanian boy. The product description says “The two share little in common except their boredom and the only way they both know to relieve it, sex.” This film shares something in common with the first one – an older man with a proclivity for younger men. So, why not let Frank Lombard adopt two little boys?

3. Antibodies. This film deals with both pedophilia and serial murder. In fact, the film opens with a sequence in which Gabriel Engel who has raped, killed, and mutilated more than a dozen young boys, is arrested by the police. Surely, this is the kind of film any adoptive parent likes to watch. Pedophilia, rape, and mutilation Jeff Dahmer style. So, why not let Frank Lombard adopt two little boys?

4. Punish Me. In this film, Jan is a 16-year-old juvenile delinquent placed under the supervision of Elsa Seifert, his 49-year-old probation officer. As her daughter prepares to leave home, and her marriage begins to fall apart, Elsa longs for something outside of her routine. You guessed it: The teen offers to be sexually subjugated to Elsa. So she enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with the teen. What’s wrong with the adoptive parent who likes watching films of adults having sex with under-aged boys? And why not let Frank Lombard adopt two little boys?

5. Boy Crush. No need for elaboration, here. Let’s just let Frank Lombard adopt a couple of little boys!

6. Rock Haven. It’s no surprise that the gay love affair in this film is between two teenagers. Does Frank Lombard ever like to watch gay sex between people who are actually old enough to buy a beer? Let’s not ask too many questions. Just let him adopt a couple of little boys and hope he doesn’t molest them before they’re old enough to buy that first beer – or peach wine cooler or whatever their preference might be.

7. Naked Boys Singing. No red flags here. And no need to explain a complicated plot. Let’s just let Frank Lombard adopt some little boys now!

8. The Living End. This is a great film for Frank Lombard to watch given that he teaches classes on HIV/AIDS at Duke University. In this film, there is lots of gay murder and violence. Furthermore, two HIV-positive men remain sexually active after learning they are HIV-positive. Did I mention that Frank Lombard is the Associate Director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke? Here’s a good health policy: Don’t sodomize others after you learn you are HIV positive. Maybe I should teach a course on HIV/AIDS at Duke University. In the meantime, let’s let Frank Lombard adopt some little boys!

9. First Out 2. Wow, isn’t this amazing! A teacher succumbs to the seduction of one of his students. When he sees the student and his father outside of the Principal s Office the following morning, he’s overwhelmed with guilt, worry and fear for the consequences of his impulsive actions. More evidence of Frank Lombard’s obsession with inter-generational gay love. Let’s get that man a couple of little boys!

10. Boys Love. You really aren’t going to believe this one. A magazine editor sets out to profile a teen model and ends up having gay sex with him. More gay inter-generational love. Let’s give Frank Lombard some little boys!

11. Glue. Well, this one is bound to make Frank Lombard come unglued. On look at the cover of this movie makes it appear to be a piece of child pornography. And, indeed, a quick read of the product description shows its lead actor is only 15 years old. And it has a truly complicated plot line. Two guys and a girl take turns having sex with one another. But it raises some interesting questions, doesn’t it? Like: Why does Amazon sell child pornography? And, why don’t we let Frank Lombard adopt a couple of little boys?

12. The Toilers and the Wayfarers. Finally, we see that Frank Lombard has chosen a film about teenagers involved in gay prostitution. This doesn’t necessarily mean he would put his own child up for prostitution. So, let’s just give him a couple of young boys and hope for the best!

None of this article was intended to say that the adoption agency was negligent in allowing Frank Lombard to adopt two small boys. After all, they were only black children. It’s not like any good white children were put into harm’s way.

Nor was this article intended to suggest that gay men often adopt boys out of some sick sense of sexual perversion. I see gay male couples walking around with their adopted little girls all the time. Don’t you?

Health Care Reform that Puts You in Control

Terry Paulson

Monday, July 06, 2009

President Obama seems committed to pushing through his version of health care reform whether we want it or not! Like his stimulus package, Americans wonder whether he will let politicians, much less citizens, read his plan before passing it! Everybody wants health care coverage as long as someone else pays the bill—employers, rich tax payers or the government! Unfortunately, at a time President Obama is promising more, the existing government health care plans and corporate entitlement programs are proving underfunded and unaffordable. But, what can be done?

America was built on personal freedom, personal responsibility, community and resourcefulness. Our self-reliant past can be a radical steppingstone to a more workable health care system for our future. We need a system that lets you take back control of your own health care needs.

Under such a plan, fears about portability would vanish. You wouldn’t be forced to stay in a job just to keep coverage. Prices would come out of the shadows as providers and insurance companies compete for your business. Instead of depending upon politicians or employers to look out for your interests, you’d be in control! You’d pick your own policy, making your health insurance portable, flexible and permanent!

To start, get employers out of the role of paying for health insurance. Let the money now spent on your coverage come to you as added income. To help offset the tax implications, give a health care tax credit to every American taxpayer.

Just as you are required to show evidence of liability insurance when you register or renew your vehicle registration, citizens should have to show evidence of major-medical insurance coverage when they file their taxes. Major medical plans have high deductibles but protect you from the high costs associated with serious illness. With everyone having to purchase a plan and companies competing for the business, the price for such coverage would come down.

Insurance companies should be required to cover all citizens without exclusions for prior conditions. Like the successful Swiss plan, a national high-risk fund could be established that all insurance companies contribute to that protects companies from suffering heavy losses in any given year. If necessary, as with utilities, a commission could be created to keep insurance company profit and coverage parameters reasonable.

To find coverage, marketplace resources would surface to give you access to more health insurance choices, better information, and more competitive prices. You use online searches to find the best price. Why not health care insurance and care?

Don’t require insurance to pay all health care costs. You don’t use auto insurance to pay for routine maintenance or our home insurance to pay for a paint job or plumbing repair. Health care coverage should be the same. Get coverage for the health care disasters with a deductible you can afford. Pay for the other costs yourself. When it’s your money you’re spending, you find the best deal!

Now, six-out-of-seven of your health care dollars are spent by third parties without any input from you. Choice matters. Milton Friedman used to say, “No one spends other people's money as carefully as he spends his own.” Competition has already worked for elective procedures—for facelifts, breast enhancements, hair grafts—those prices keep coming down because they’re not covered. When something’s free, you waste more. You eat more at an all-you-can-eat buffet than when you pick from a menu!

To help save for those occasional medical bills, all citizens should be encouraged to set aside money in tax free, health saving accounts to be used for medical expenses not covered by insurance. They exist at the federal level and in 48 states. It’s time to add California to that list!

We don’t need doctors for all care. In some states, nurse practitioners can open clinics and provide medical diagnosis and treatment. By 2013, companies like MinuteClinic and RediClinic will be operating over 6,000 retail healthcare clinics inside stores like CVS and Wal-Mart. Such clinics will save you time and money.

To promote prevention, good health habits should pay! In Switzerland, a healthy lifestyle saves you money on premiums. People might care more about their health habits if it resulted in a higher quality of life and lower healthcare costs.

Medications are often the treatment of choice and help us avoid more expensive, invasive treatments. Medications should be covered under major medical plans, but we should avoid price controls. Controls destroy the incentives for creating new drugs. Instead, focus on using generic drugs and avoiding unnecessary medications.

Demand national tort reform and realistic caps to help control frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits that add costs as well as unnecessary tests and procedures to protect those providing care. Institute standardized forms and digitized medical records to cut down administrative costs and increase efficiency, and establish a shared database of health care best practices.

Don’t fall for the illusion of “free” health care where someone else will pay for your care. Demand real reform that gives you control of your own health care and keeps the quality high!

A Tangled Web

Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

While the recent Supreme Court decision in the New Haven firefighters' case will be welcome news to those who don't think that a gross injustice is O.K. when those on the receiving end are white, the reasoning behind the 5 to 4 decision is a painful reminder that the law is still tangled in a web of assumptions, evasions and contradictions when it comes to racial issues.

Nor have these problems been clarified with the passage of time. On the contrary, the growing complexity and murkiness of civil rights law over the years recalls the painful saying: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."

The original Civil Rights Act of 1964 was very straightforward in forbidding discrimination. But, even before that Act was passed, there were already people demanding more than equality of treatment. Some wanted equality of end results, some wanted restitution for past wrongs, and some just wanted as much as they could get.

Opponents of the Civil Rights Act said that it would lead to racial quotas and reverse discrimination. Advocates of the Act not only denied this, they wrote the language of the law in a way designed to explicitly prevent such things. But judges, over the years, have "interpreted" the Civil Rights Act to mean what its opponents said it would mean, rather than what its advocates put into the plain language of the legislation.

A key notion that has created unending mischief, from its introduction by the Supreme Court in 1971 to the current firefighters' case, is that of "disparate impact." Any employment requirement that one racial or ethnic group meets far more often than another is said to have a "disparate impact" and is considered to be evidence of racial discrimination.

In other words, if group X doesn't pass a test nearly as often as group Y, then there is something wrong with the test, according to this reasoning or lack of reasoning. This implicitly assumes that there cannot be any great difference between the two groups in the skills, talents or efforts required.

That notion is the grand dogma of our time-- an idea for which no evidence is asked or given, and an idea that no amount of contradictory evidence can change in the minds of the true believers, or in the rhetoric of ideologues and opportunists.

Trying to reconcile that dogma with the principle of equal treatment for all has led courts into feats of higher metaphysics that the Medieval Scholastics could be proud of.

The dogma survives because it is politically useful, not because it has met any test of facts. Innumerable facts against it can be found around the world and down through history.

All sorts of groups in all sorts of countries have been demonstrably better than other groups at particular things, whether economic, intellectual, political or military. This fact is so blatant that only people with great cleverness can manage to deny the obvious. That cleverness is what creates the tangled web of confusion that has plagued civil right cases for decades.

Does anybody seriously doubt that blacks usually play basketball better than whites? Does anybody seriously doubt that the leading cameras and lenses in world have long been produced by Germans and Japanese? Or that Jews have been over-represented among the top performers in various intellectual fields?

Many groups whose performances have greatly outstripped the performances of others in a particular field have often been in no position to discriminate, even when the disparities have been far greater than those between blacks and whites in the United States.

In a number of countries, powerless minorities have so outperformed the dominant majority that group preferences and quotas have been instituted to favor the majority group that has otherwise been unable to compete. This has happened in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and Fiji, among other places. Before World War II, quotas to benefit the majority were common in a number of European universities, where Jewish students outperformed others.

It is not stupidity, but ideology and politics, which allow the "disparate impact" dogma to create a tangled web of deception in even the highest levels of our legal system. The recent Supreme Court's decision in the New Haven firefighters' case was a rare example of sanity prevailing, even if only by a vote of 5 to 4.

Sarah Palin, Liberal Nerds and an Envious Spinster

Douglas MacKinnon

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

With Sarah Palin’s understandable announcement that she is resigning as Governor of Alaska, predictable and outright cruel invective oozed out of the mouths of the loathing left. Why do so many liberals have such an unhinged hatred of this woman? Why do so many alleged feminists and female members of the mainstream media openly and gleefully despise Palin?

As I have said elsewhere, for the last ten months, like the regularity of the Sun rising or setting, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times relentlessly hurled insults at Palin, this past Sunday being no exception. Why? If -- as Dowd and other attackers on the left maintain -- Palin is inconsequential, ignorant, untalented and part of the unwashed masses, why not just let her recede into history? Why the constant attacks?

As to why Vanity Fair and other liberal outlets go after her, the answer is quite simple: money. With uncounted thousands from the left who equally hate Palin, Vanity Fair and the other media outlets understand -- especially in a bad economy with declining circulation -- that there is gold to be mined from the fragile minds of those who hate. For them, this is the story that keeps giving. And as long as the uncounted haters from the left continue to froth at the mouth at the very mention of Palin, Vanity Fair, Keith Olbermann and others will feed the beast for ratings and revenue.

Fine. I get that. But why Dowd and the feminists? With regard to The New York Times columnist, I asked a female friend of mine who happens to be a psychologist, what might prompt the anger? She mentioned a host of possibilities, but settled on one theory. That being that Dowd "may be threatened or envious of Palin...or both. As an aging but still attractive woman, Dowd may resent Palin's good looks. Further, as a single woman of a certain age, she may be envious that Palin has a husband, a family and has carved out an accomplished political career."

While not a fan of psycho-babble, it does seem to be a plausible explanation.

With regard to why Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair, David Letterman, and other liberal males continually go after Palin, the answer might be as easy as they secretly lust after her while also seeing her as the "girlfriend of the quarterback" they could never get in high school. Seriously, look at the "men" who belittle Palin on a regular basis. For the most part, they fit the description of "the pencil-neck geek" from high school. Are they now trying to make Palin pay for their long-ago inadequacies? Is that why Letterman imagines her now as a "Slutty Flight Attendant?" Because she is his fantasy and rather than admit it, he strikes out at her?

As Governor Palin leaves the elected stage…for now…she appears to be doing so for entirely logical reasons. For almost a year, democrats -- local and national -- have gone after her with a vengeance with their favorite mode of attack being to file false ethics charges against her. To date (as Alaska law mandates) she has had to spend over $500,000 of her own money defending herself against these trumped-up charges. How easy it is for others not in her shoes to say “…the Governor has decided to abandon the State and her constituents before her term has concluded," when that Governor could be facing even more false ethics charges that could financially cripple her family.

How easy for those not in the arena to attack her decision to step down when they suffer zero consequences either way. Palin (along with her children and grandchild) has been vilified and smeared like no elected official in modern political history simply because she was a conservative woman on a national ticket whose traditional values petrified the liberal media and intelligentsia. The repugnant Vanity Fair article proving that the mainstream media offensive against her is still in full bore with no sign of abatement.

Other than liberal male nerds and envious spinsters, who says Sarah Palin is not allowed to take a break, catch her breath, protect her family from remorseless and revolting attacks, and make the money needed to not only pay off her legal bills, but get far enough ahead so as to have the financial freedom to choose her next path to walk? National or otherwise.

As she starts on that next path, one can only hope that she does not go far. If ever there was a time our nation needed someone with her gifts and beliefs, it is now.

Senate Slavery Apology

Walter E. Williams

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Last month, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 26 "Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans." The resolution ends with: "Disclaimer. -- Nothing in this resolution (a) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or (b) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States." That means Congress apologizes but is not going to pay reparations, as least for now.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed concerns about the disclaimer, thinking that it's an attempt to stave off reparations claims from the descendants of slaves. Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said her organization is studying the language of the resolution and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, said "putting in a disclaimer takes away from the meaning of an apology. A number of us are prepared to vote against it in its present form. There are several members of the Progressive Caucus who feel the same way."

It goes without saying that slavery was a gross violation of human rights. Justice would demand that all the perpetrators -- that includes slave owners, and African and Arab slave sellers -- make compensatory reparation payments to victims. Since slaves, slave owners and slave sellers are no longer with us, such compensation is beyond our reach and a matter to be settled in the world beyond.

Absent from the reparations debate is: Who pays? Don't say the government because the government doesn't have any money that it doesn't first take from some American. So which Americans owe black people what? Reparations advocates don't want that question asked but let's you and I.

Are the millions of Europeans, Asians, and Latin Americans who immigrated to the U.S. in the 20th century responsible for slavery and should they be forced to cough up reparations money? What about descendants of Northern whites who fought and died in the name of freeing slaves? Should they cough up reparations money for black Americans? What about non-slave-owning Southern whites, a majority of whites; should they be made to pay reparations? And, by the way, would President Obama, whose father is Kenyan and mother white, be eligible for a reparations payment?

On black people's side of the ledger, thorny issues also arise. Some blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members. But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves -- to work farms or plantations. Are descendants of these blacks eligible and deserving of reparations? There is no way that Europeans could have captured millions of Africans. They had African and Arab help. Should Congress haul representatives of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Muslim states before them and demand they compensate American blacks because of their ancestors' involvement in capturing and selling slaves?

Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged pronouncement that United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That's utter nonsense. Slavery has never had a very good record of producing wealth. Think about it. Slavery was all over the South. Buying into the reparations nonsense, you'd have to conclude that the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our country were places where slavery flourished: Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.

The Senate apology is nothing more than political theater but it could be a slick way to get the camel's nose into the tent for future reparations. If the senators are motivated by white guilt, I have the cure. About 15 years ago I wrote a "Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent" that is available here.

Insurance Is No Answer

John Stossel

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Health care "reformers" keep talking about getting us more health insurance. Then they talk about cutting costs. This is contradictory nonsense.

Insurance, whether private or a government Ponzi scheme like Medicare, means third parties pay the bills. When someone else pays, costs always go up.

Imagine if you had grocery insurance. You wouldn't care how much food cost. Why shop around? If someone else were paying 80 percent, you'd buy the most expensive cuts of meat. Prices would skyrocket.

That's what health insurance does to medical care. Patients rarely even ask what anything costs. Doctors often don't know. Often nobody even gives a damn. Patients rarely ask, "Is that MRI really necessary? Is there a cheaper place?" We consume without thinking.

By contrast, in areas of medicine where most patients pay their own way, service gets better, while prices fall.

Take plastic surgery and Lasik eye surgery: Because patients shop around and compare prices, doctors work hard to win their business. They often give customers their cell-phone numbers. Service keeps increasing, but prices don't. "In every other field of medicine, the price is going up faster than consumer prices in general," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis. "But the price of Lasik surgery, on average, has gone down by 30 percent."

This shouldn't be a surprise. What holds costs down is patients acting like consumers, looking out for themselves in a competitive market. Providers fight to win business by keeping costs down and quality up.

Yet politicians keep telling us the solution is more insurance. And they mean insurance not just for catastrophic diseases that could bankrupt us but also for routine treatments.

The politicians are so oblivious to reality that they are on course to make things worse. Obama would force every business to either give workers health insurance or pay a fine into the public system. Why is that something we should want employers to do? Premiums come out of our salaries, but insurers are accountable to our bosses, not to us.

Why not just have a free market where people can buy whatever kind of health insurance they want? Competition would then bring prices down.

Obama and his Senate allies would limit competition by requiring insurers to cover everyone for the same "fair" price. No "cherry picking," the president says. No charging healthy people less.

They call this "community rating," and it sounds fair. No more cruel "discrimination" against people who have a preexisting condition, obese people or smokers. But such simple-minded one-size-fits-all rules take from insurance companies their best price-dampening tool: Risk-based pricing encourages people to take better care of themselves, just as car-insurance companies reward good drivers. With one-size pricing your car-insurance company must give the town drunk the same deal it gives you.

Insane, but the health-insurance industry is playing along. Insurers say that if government forces everyone to have insurance, they will accept all customers regardless of preexisting illnesses.

They also offered to stop charging higher premiums to sick people. They're even giving up on gender differences.

Sen. John Kerry huffed, "The disparity between women and men in the individual insurance market is just plain wrong, and it has to change." The president of the industry trade group, Karen M. Ignagni, agreed that disparities "should be eliminated."

Give me a break.

Women pay more than men for health insurance for good reason. Despite being healthier than men, they incur higher costs because they go to doctors more often, and they take more medicine. Kerry is pandering. I don't recall him demanding that men be protected from higher life-insurance and auto-insurance premiums.

"Community rating" hides the cost of health care. It's as destructive as ordering fire insurance companies to charge identical premiums for wood frame and stone houses. Universal health insurance with "no discrimination" pricing will make health care costs rise even faster.

When politicians interfere with free markets, unintended consequences harm everyone, except the companies that lobby hard enough to protect themselves.

Is it too much to expect our rulers to understand this?

Spread Freedom? Not So Much

Jonah Goldberg

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

The Obama Doctrine is finally coming into focus.

It's been hard to glean its form because for so long it seemed the president's most obvious guiding principle was "not Bush," particularly when it came to the Iraq war. Indeed, his anti-Bush stance has led him to stubbornly refuse to say the war has been won or to admit that he was wrong to oppose the surge. In the past, this unthinking reflex has caused Obama to take some truly repugnant positions. In July of 2007, Obama said that he would order U.S. forces out of Iraq as quickly as possible, even if he knew it would lead to an Iraqi genocide. This makes Obama the first president in modern memory to have suggested that causing a genocide would be in America's national interest.

Obama himself insists that he's guided by nothing other than a cool-headed pragmatism. Indeed, Obama has a grating habit of describing any position not his own as "ideological," as if his is the only sober, practical understanding of the problems we face. Just days before he was inaugurated, he gave a speech in Baltimore in which he proclaimed, "What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels."

So ideologues -- i.e. millions of Americans who disagree with his policies on principle -- belong in a list along with bigots and dim bulbs. At home, this attitude has allowed him to dismiss opponents of socialized medicine and the government takeover of various industries as "ideologues," and critics of trillions in debt-fueled spending as small-minded cranks.

Joshua Muravchik, a scholar at Johns Hopkins University and a leading advocate of democracy promotion around the globe, demonstrates in the current issue of Commentary magazine that Obama has a similar attitude toward those who say America should advance the cause of liberty and democracy worldwide. Again and again, the administration has made it clear that spreading freedom is so much ideological foolishness. Before the inauguration, he told The Washington Post that he was concerned with "actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance." There's merit to this view in principle, though Obama seems to be thinking about "economic justice" more than a free society. But in practice, when American presidents say they don't care about democracy, tyrants rejoice.

In April, at a news conference following a meeting of the Organization of American States, Obama proclaimed, "What we showed here is that we can make progress when we're willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long." Hillary Clinton was more pithy: "Let's put ideology aside," the secretary of state said. "That is so yesterday." It's worth recalling that those old ideological debates often involved America championing democracy against those who pushed for socialism. One wonders which ideological stance Obama thinks is stale.

Obama supporter and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes that the Obama Doctrine involves restoring America's alliances and working with the international community so we can all do great things together. That's why Obama and Hillary Clinton have been so eager to apologize for America around the globe. One problem with such an approach is that it -- so far at least -- buys us nothing save the appearance of weakness. Another problem is that quite often, the international community is wrong.

Hence, according to the Obama administration, it's foolishly ideological to resist the United Nation's accommodation of tyrants and fanatics, while it is "pragmatic" to placate human rights abusers. It is ideological to show disdain for Venezuela's would-be dictator Hugo Chavez; it is "pragmatic" to stamp as "democratic" his effort to overthrow term limits. It is ideological to sustain sanctions against Burma and Sudan; it's pragmatic to revisit them, even if it disheartens human rights activists across the ideological spectrum. American exceptionalism is ideological, while seeing America as just another nation is realistic.

The past four weeks show how ideological Obama's un-ideological view really is. In response to the revolutionary protests in Iran, Obama initially favored stability and preserving the fantasy of negotiations with the Iranian clerical junta. Not "meddling" was his top priority. Over time, the rhetoric improved, but the policy remained just as cynical.

Then, events in Honduras revealed that Obama really has no problem with meddling when a left-wing agenda is advanced. Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras and a Hugo Chavez wannabe, illegally defied the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court and the Constitution in an attempt to repeal term limits (which help sustain democracy in Central America by preventing presidents-for-life). The Supreme Court ordered the military to remove Zelaya from office and expel him from the country. A member of Zelaya's own party replaced him, and elections were announced. But suddenly, Obama -- taking much the same position as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez -- thought America should join the coalition of the meddlers demanding Zelaya's return to power. In Iran, Obama was terrified to do anything that might lead to a coup to bring about democracy. In Honduras, Obama was chagrined to let stand a coup that preserved democracy.

It sure seems like Obama has an ideological problem with democracy.

Are Business Executive Overpaid and Corrupt?

Michael Medved

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

“CRIMES AGAINST HUMILITY”

In June of 2001, the giant ice sculpture that urinated premium vodka became a lurid symbol of 21st century executive excess.

This huge frozen effigy, incongruously modeled on the classical Michelangelo sculpture of the Biblical David, served as the dominant decoration in a laughably lavish birthday bash for the new wife of Dennis Kozlowski, hard-charging CEO of giant health care and electronics conglomerate Tyco. Kozlowski had first met his adored soul-mate Karen Mayo while she worked as a waitress in Ron’s Beach House, a high-end watering hole near corporate headquarters in Exeter, New Hampshire. They began keeping company while inconveniently married to others, but managed to shed spouses (and inhibitions) in time for their romantic nuptials on Antigua. A month later, the Tyco Titan planned a much splashier celebration at an exclusive private club on the Italian island of Sardinia to mark the 40th birthday of his blonde and surgically improved life-partner.

Special offer: Michael Medved's book free when you subscribe to Townhall Magazine

The party details included scores of leggy fashion models dressed as Roman “slave-girls” in skimpy tunics along with loin-cloth-clad body-builders portraying gladiators. A company employee spelled out the arrangements in advance in an obscene memo that later became infamous: “Guests arrive at the club starting at 7.15 p.m. The van pulls up to the main entrance. Two gladiators are standing next to the door, one opens the door, the other helps the guests. We have a lion or horse with a chariot for the shock value. The guests proceed through the two rooms. We have gladiators standing guard every couple feet and they are lining the way. The guests come into the pool area, the band is playing, they are dressed in elegant chic. Big ice sculpture of David, lots of shellfish and caviar at his feet. A waiter is pouring Stoli vodka into his back so it comes out his penis into a crystal glass.”

Meanwhile, “waiters are passing cocktails in chalices. They are dressed in linen togas with fig wreath on head. A full bar with fabulous linens. The pool has floating candles and flowers. We have rented fig trees with tiny lights everywhere to fill some space.” The climax came with “Elvis” on a big screen wishing Karen happy birthday before “a huge cake is brought out with the waiters in togas singing and holding the cake up for all to see. Elvis kicks it in full throttle.”

The last two details sound downright alarming, but not so frightening, perhaps, as the tab for the bacchanal: some $2 million dollars in various fees for the evening’s entertainment with a cool million paid in corporate funds. Because numerous shareholders attended the peerlessly tacky proceedings, Kozlowski and associates chose to classify it as a shareholder meeting. In a camcorder video captured on site, the fig-wreathed host proudly declared that the party would “bring out” a “Tyco core competency – the ability to party hard!”

The specifics of the birthday blow-out eventually became media obsessions, together with costly chatchkas chosen by a decorator and billed to the company in order to spruce up a corporate Manhattan apartment the Kozlowskis almost never used. The press inevitably focused on a $6,000 shower curtain in the maid’s bathroom, a $15,000 umbrella stand, and a $17,000 traveling toilette box whose contributions to the firm’s productivity or profitability remained difficult to explain.

The fun and funding both came to an end on June 17, 2005 (almost exactly four years after the shindig in Sardinia) with the conviction of Dennis Kozlowski for misappropriation of Tyco’s funds. In his second trial, prosecutors won a total of 22 counts of grand larceny for $150 million in authorized bonuses and fraud against corporate shareholders for an amount in excess of $400 million. The one time captain of industry now captains a dreary six-foot-by-ten-foot cell in the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, where he’s serving a minimum sentence of eight years, four months. To the amazement of virtually no one, his wife Karen sued for divorce less than a year after his sentence began; the marriage that had been celebrated with a Roman orgy “for the ages” actually endured barely five years. When asked in a jailhouse interview why his glamorous wife had left him, a chastened Kozlowski simply stated, “because I’m no longer a rich, powerful CEO….If I was a poor production laborer, or struggling as a reporter for a newspaper, I don’t think Karen would have had any interest in me whatsoever. I was an easy guy for a woman to fall in love with at that time when I was at the top of my game. But I did not want to admit that. My first wife told me that was what was going on and she was right.”

During Kozlowski’s headline-making trials, the press treated his melodramatic rise and fall as emblematic of the intemperate and corrupt corporate culture of an entire era. The simultaneous and spectacular collapse of fraudulent, high-flying companies like Enron and WorldCom made it easy to associate Kozlowski with those horrendously damaging scandals, even though Tyco easily survived his alleged “looting” of the company. Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers, the celebrated CEOs who received their own lengthy prison terms for masterminding the Enron and WorldCom scams, devastated literally tens of thousands of employees and shareholders, while fellow jailbird Kozlowski committed mostly “crimes against humility” (as wags commented at the time) but dealt only glancing blows to the company he served. Within a year of Kozlowski’s resignation in 2002, Tyco had returned to robust growth and profitability and today continues to provide jobs for 120,000 employees around the world. The product of a working-class Polish-American home in the gritty Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey, Kozlowski worked his way to the top by toiling for Tyco for 27 years and his decade as chairman and CEO saw the aggressive acquisition of numerous enterprises, prodigious growth in revenue, and the reliable out-performance of Wall Street expectations.

LUDICROUSLY OVERPAID PARASITES

Nevertheless, publicity for executive indulgence (even without flamboyant touches like vodka-spewing ice sculptures) always serves to reinforce the notion that corporate chieftains constitute a class of selfish, shallow, preposterously pampered and ludicrously overpaid parasites.

The public fury over multi-million dollar executive compensation packages recently reached such feverish and bilious intensity that even conservative politicians began suggesting that some of those greedy business leaders actually deserve to die. In March 2009, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa (ranking Republican on the Finance Committee) noted that the American International Group (AIG) had received some $180 billion in a series of government bailouts, but still found $165 million to pay out in bonuses to some of its top officials. In an interview with an Iowa radio station, the Senator suggested that the conspicuously well-compensated AIG brass should “follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

With no real enthusiasm for either retirement or hara-kiri, the leaders of AIG declined the chance to follow his advice while tactfully describing the Grassley remarks as “very disappointing.” Those remarks, after all, looked moderate and constructive when compared to the flat out advocacy of the death penalty for corporate greed from English professor Kurt Hochenauer of the University of Central Oklahoma in his rousing call to arms, “Let Wall Street Die”: “Let their deaths be merciless. No taxpayer bailout…should go to rescue the growing cesspool of filthy-rich, elite financial managers whose unchecked greed and false sense of entitlement has given this country its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

Meanwhile, the raging hysteria over Wall Street bonuses in the midst of economic crisis only confirmed the conviction that the most influential and admired principals of the business community had abandoned all sense of decency and decorum. Shortly after the initial round of government bailouts, the annual Gallup Poll on “Honesty and Ethics of Professions” (November, 2008) showed only 1% who rated the “honesty and ethical standards” of “business executives” as “very high” while 37% graded them as “very low” or “low.” Even such frequently suspect categories as “lawyers,” “journalists” and “bankers” scored notably better than “business executives” – not to mention widely admired professions such as “nurses,” “clergy,” “medical doctors” and “policemen.” Even before the financial meltdown, with the economy growing and the federal deficit declining, overwhelming majorities of Americans believed that top corporate honchos received far more compensation than they deserved. Some 80% of respondents polled by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times in 2006 agreed that “CEOs are overpaid.” This proposition commanded huge majorities of every component of the population – regardless of income or political affiliation.

During periods of economic hardship, corporate leaders inevitably inspire rage and resentment because they seem so powerfully isolated from the suffering that afflicts the rest of us; during years of growth and prosperity they draw comparable hostility for their “disproportionate” or showy share of national success. When the economy goes down, it’s easy – and almost irresistible – to blame business leaders. When indicators turn upward, on the other hand, those executives rarely get credit. Conventional wisdom associates economic recovery and boom times with natural cycles or the plans and programs of some popular politician. We assume that progress occurs in spite of the greed and selfishness of corporate bosses, with no real connection to their pursuit of profit.

For instance, in February of 1996, at the very core of what we now remember as the “Clinton Boom,” Newsweek ran an ominous cover story on “Corporate Killers.” The featured images showed prominent business bosses like Robert Allen of AT&T and Louis Gerstner of IBM in altered photographs designed to resemble criminal mug shots. The accusation against these “Hit Men” involved massive layoffs: “Call it ‘in your face capitalism.’ You lose your job, your ex-employer’s stock price rises, and the CEO gets a fat raise. Something is just plain wrong when stock prices keep rising on Wall Street while Main Street is littered with the bodies of workers discarded by the big companies.”

Aside from fudging the obvious if inconvenient fact that laid-off employees don’t generally “litter” their home towns by dying on the sidewalk, the Newsweek piece (by Allen Sloan) utterly ignores the context of the job losses it describes. As my friend Daniel Lapin points out in his hugely insightful book “Thou Shall Prosper,” the cover story about corporate mass murder came at the conclusion of one of the most notable periods of job growth in American economic history. “Between 1991 and 1995, the number of Americans newly employed had grown by 7.2 million,” Lapin writes. “In other words, while some companies were shedding workers, other companies were hiring workers; and far more people were being newly hired than fired. Newsweek stated that a total of 137,000 workers had lost their jobs in the companies highlighted in the story and held the story’s Corporate Killers responsible for the loss. Yet Newsweek failed to mention that the U.S. economy during that period was adding 137,000 jobs every three weeks!”

The idea that guilty businessmen (and, every once in a while, guilty businesswomen) cause all the world’s problems has become so widely-accepted that it’s infected even many of those who choose to make their lives in corporate America. Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at the College of Business at Arizona State University, noted in the Wall Street Journal (May 3, 1999) that “many of my students are deeply offended by high levels of executive pay, deplore stock options, and believe that a company’s gay-rights position is a litmus test for morality….They believe that business spawned the homeless. They take it for granted that businesses cheat and are oddly resigned to it.”

“344 to 1”

According to embittered critics of the market system, the most glaring evidence of that cheating and corruption comes from the swelling pay disparity between workers and bosses. In a strident 2007 “Green Festival” speech cheerfully titled “The Road to Corporate Fascism,” four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader declared: “The Corporate System is inherently defective, no matter how it grows, no matter where it grows. It will not just damage the environment and cheat consumers, and provide hazardous work places, etcetera, but it will cycle the gains back into the top 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 percent. When I was growing up in a factory town in Connecticut, the heads of these factories, not one of them was making more than seven times the worker wage in their factory. And I’m talking about the top guys, not the managers. Now, it’s the Fortune 500 CEO’s are making 400 to 500 times more than the average worker. The head of Wal-Mart made $11,000 an hour and hundreds of thousands of his workers were making 6, 7, 8 dollars an hour. You can see the gap growing, growing. There isn’t even a word to describe it. Calling it a ’gap’ is not enough.”

There’s no evidence at all that cutting the compensation of Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke would magically raise the wages of his 2,100,000 employees, but levelers like Ralph Nader pay far more attention to the privileges of those at the top of the corporate ladder than they do to the welfare and advancement of those at the bottom. According to the Census Bureau, median household income went up from $41,613 in 1982 (in inflation adjusted dollars) to $59,233 in 2007—a hefty increase of more than 20% and providing a significant addition of $8,620. At the same time, the earnings of the typical CEO as compared to an average U.S. worker went up from 30-to-1 (it was never the nostalgically remembered 7-to-1 recalled by Ralph Nader) all the way to 344-to-1, according to the liberal advocacy group United for a Fair Economy in a much-discussed 2007 study.

The LA Times reported that the ratio of CEO compensation to the average worker’s salary had risen even higher-- to an all-time peak of 525-to-1-- in 2000, thanks to lucrative options and a soaring stock market. Most recently, the trend has brought executive pay packages closer to the salaries of typical workers, not increased the disparity. This shrinking of the infamous pay gap actually corresponds with Forbes Magazine figures in April 2009 showing a sharp drop in chief executive compensation at the 500 biggest US companies – down 15% in 2007, and another 11% in 2008, for the first two-year, back-to-back pay hit since 2001 and 2002, even at a time when remuneration for average workers went up. (The Department of Labor reported that the national average weekly income rose 2.5% from $598 in 2007 to $613 in 2008). This doesn’t mean that beleaguered CEOs deserve the pity of the public, or that improvements for working class employees someone poached their proceeds, or that school children need to take up collections of dimes and quarters to reduce their suffering; with average pay packages of $11.4 million in 2008 (according to Forbes), these big bosses could endure even more substantive reductions in the years ahead without serious threat to their luxurious living standards.

Nevertheless, the unheralded but significant decline in executive compensation (in both absolute terms and as a multiple of the salaries of average employees) exposes one of the most irresponsible fictions about contemporary American business, giving the lie to the destructive notion that typical corporate heads bring home ever more outrageous pay packages even while the public at large (not to mention stockholders and employees) suffers the ravages of severe recession. While a few highly publicized leaders of troubled firms --- Stanley O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, Charles O. Prince of Citigroup, John J. Mack of Morgan Stanley – have walked away with gigantic rewards or settlements despite the wretched performance of their companies, researchers have begun to discern a more reasonable trend in executive compensation. Financial Week reported a major study by Equilar (the executive compensation research firm) showing the median value of performance-based bonuses for CEOs in large public firms went down in 2007 (even before the economic meltdown) from $949,249 to $772,717, a dramatic decrease of 18.6%.

More recently, Madhukar Angur, Professor of Marketing at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, examined executive compensation at top U.S. corporations and found little evidence of systemic plunder of big companies by greedy CEOs. As he wrote in Investor’s Business Daily (March 23, 2009): “Recent research, however, suggests that this abuse of corporate finances may not be as prevalent as it seems. Indeed, over 40% of the 94 U.S. corporations I have studied had CEO compensation generally based on proportionate increase or decrease in company’s net worth or paid less to CEOs despite an increase in company net worth.” Professor Angur saw this surprising tendency to cut CEO pay even when they led thriving companies as a healthy sign of an economic system swinging back to balance and shareholder control. “Given that nearly a third of the top Fortune 100 companies paid less compensation to their CEOs despite an increase in the companies’ net worth, that suggests that the threatening economy has kick-started corporate governance and other self-regulatory systems in a significant number of U.S. companies. If this trend continues, the nation will see more companies tying CEO compensation to corporate performance. The end results might be more sustainable business and renewed public trust.”

“YOU DO GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”

Critics of corporate power and CEO privilege will naturally scoff at such minor adjustments. To them, it hardly matters if the ratio of executive compensation to worker salary declines from 525-to-1 to 344-to-1 in the most recent decade: annual pay packages that top $10 million for top corporate brass still look irrational, indulgent and obscene, especially in the midst of economic hard times. The question isn’t whether the payment to big bosses will continue to soar or gradually settle back down to earth. For the general public, the biggest mystery involves how corporate board members and concerned stockholders could have ever let the compensation packages rise so high in the first place.

One savvy and respected observer from the left side of the political spectrum takes the courageous position that the breathtaking increase in CEO compensation actually makes perfect sense, given deeper changes in the American marketplace. “There’s an economic case for the stratospheric level of CEO pay which suggests shareholders- even if they had full say – would not reduce it,” writes Robert Reich, the outspoken Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton and now a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. In the Wall Street Journal (September 14, 2007) he predicted that these shareholders were “likely to let CEO pay continue to soar. That’s because of a fundamental shift in the structure of the economy over the last four decades, from oligopolistic capitalistic to super-competitive capitalism. CEO pay has risen astronomically over the interval, but so have investor returns.”

Reich perceptively compares the corporate heads of today with those who ran major companies in the 1950’s and 60’s, when even the most powerful business leader “was mostly a bureaucrat in charge of a large, high-volume production system whose rules were standardized and whose competitors were docile. It was the era of stable oligopolies, big unions, predictable markets and lackluster share performance. The CEO of a modern company is in a different situation. Oligopolies are mostly gone and entry barriers are low. Rivals are impinging all the time – threatening to lure away consumers all too willing to be lured away, and threatening to hijack investors eager to jump ship at the slightest hint of an upturn in a rival’s share price.”

He compares the shift to the much-discussed changes in the movie business. Fifty years ago, eight big studios utterly dominated the United States market, shutting out all would-be competitors and comfortably dividing the available audience among them. These secure, well-established companies became household names, signing the biggest stars to long-term, exclusive contracts and thereby limiting their competition. As Reich notes: “Clark Gable earned $100,000 a picture in the 1940’s, roughly $800,000 in present dollars. But that was when Hollywood was dominated by big-studio oligopolies. Today, Tom Hanks makes closer to $20 million per film. Movie studios – now competing intensely not only with one another but with every other form of entertainment – willingly pay these sums because they’re still small compared to the money these stars bring in and profits they generate. Today’s big companies are paying their CEOs mammoth sums for much the same reason.”

Secretary Reich cites the storied (and controversial) pay out to Lee R. Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil, who retired in 2005 with a compensation package totaling nearly $400 million, including stock, stock options and long-term compensation. “Too much?” Reich asks. “Not to Exxon’s investors, who enjoyed a 223% return over the interval, compared to the average 205% return received by shareholders of other oil companies, a premium of about $16 billion. Raymond took home just 4% of that $16 billion.”

In other words, under the circumstances, even a pay day of nearly half a billion dollars can represent a real bargain for exceptionally gifted (or lucky) CEOs. Professor Angur notes that “using company net worth as the basis of performance measures, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, is considered underpaid. Through his unique leadership style and business acumen Welch took the company’s worth from about $14 billion in 1981 to $500 billion just before retiring.”

As Robert Murphy noted at : “In our increasingly global economy, certain individuals are incredibly productive and can command incredibly high earnings as a result. Corporate executives really do perform valuable tasks, and it really does make a difference who is running the company. Once we concede that productive individuals will earn more than less productive ones, the fact that some make 364 times what others do is largely irrelevant. After all, a TV set might be 364 times more expensive than a gumball. Is that ‘unfair’ or does it merely reflect the forces of supply and demand?”

The operation of those forces naturally impels executive compensation to levels that disturb the public. In Forbes Magazine (February 19, 2009), Mark Hodak (who teaches corporate governance at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business) shared his own experience in negotiating major contracts for corporate leaders. “I would be perfectly happy living in a world where the typical CEO made no more than, say, 30 times the pay of the average worker,” he confessed. “I don’t think anyone needs more than that to be happy or secure, or deserves more than that as an expression of their value to humanity. I’m also a compensation consultant that shareholders hire to get the best executives at the lowest prices. I don’t pay more than I have to, but I often have to pay more than 30 times what the average worker makes. You do get what you pay for.”

Hodak sympathizes with the sense of outrage that afflicts lower-level employees at major companies with head honchos who earn millions. “I know it’s hard for someone making $50,000 a year to imagine that anyone can be worth 10 or a hundred times that. But they might be. How do I know? Because if I don’t pay them, someone else will. When an executive across the table tells me, ‘The guys down the street are offering $2 million a year,’ he’s not bluffing. The experienced buyer of managerial talent can see the difference between a $500,000 executive and $2 million executive as surely as a home buyer can tell the difference between a half-million-dollar home and a $2 million home.”

My former law school classmate Robert Reich— who has argued for forty years for activist government, higher tax rates and closer corporate regulation-- nonetheless recognizes that executive salaries reflect basic realities of supply and demand, rather than the back-scratching indulgence of some insider old-boy network. “The pool of proven talent is small because so few executives have been tested and succeeded,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal. “And the boards of major companies do not want to risk error. The cost of recruiting the wrong person can be very large – and readily apparent in the deteriorating value of a company’s share. Boards are willing to pay more and more for CEOs and other top executives because their rivals are paying more and more for them.”

As both a Berkeley academic and a former member of the Clinton cabinet, Reich has never been shy about deploying the power of some federal bureaucracy to achieve some worthy goal, but he shuns the idea of utilizing such a mechanism to limit compensation packages in the business world. Not even the most ambitious and audacious reformer would support the notion of forcing salaries and bonuses to match some concept of the intrinsic worth of work. As Rob Preston argues in InformationWeek (January 13, 2007): “If salaries were just about the importance or perils of the work, teachers and nurses and power plant technicians and soldiers would be pulling down the big bucks. That they’re not doesn’t mean they’re any less critical; it just means that employers could find more of them at the pay they now earn. Water is cheap because it’s abundant. Gold is expensive because it’s not. Which is the more critical commodity?”

Two weeks later, Preston continued his defense of the fundamental rationality of the employment market, when allowed to operate with minimal interference, and insisted that CEO compensation packages “are more often a function of the incontrovertible forces of supply and demand than of nepotism, negligence, incompetence, deception, fraud, or some other scheme….The fact remains that most of that compensation is dispensed in an open competitive market. If shareholders don’t like what the CEO or other top execs are pulling down, they can vote with their feet or apply direct pressure on the board of directors, as a Home Depot investor group did, leading to the recent ouster of CEO Robert Nardelli.”

Of course, Nardelli managed to leave the firm with an “exit package” totaling $210 million, but Preston insists “that was part of the price of luring him from GE, where he was a star under Jack Welch. A contract is a contract. Could Home Depot have found cheaper talent? Sure, but Nardelli was considered one of the nation’s top execs at the time. And while his arrogance may have done him in at Home Depot, he was no slouch, doubling the company’s sales and more than doubling its earnings per share during his six-year tenure, while creating 100,000 net new jobs.”

REWARDING VIRTUE

In the face of abundant evidence that providing high executive pay, and even generous bonuses, will often make solid business sense, critics of the current compensation system tend to turn their attention from the companies that write the big checks to the corporate leaders who receive them. Regardless of the impact on the corporate bottom line, the argument goes, multi-million dollar pay packages serve to corrupt and distract the very people they’re meant to benefit. Psychoanalyst Kerry J. Sulkowicz wrote in Business Week (November 20, 2006) about the “psychology of CEO pay,” urging that “we should also look at compensation’s impact on a chief’s personality and on his board relationships. Superstar pay can reinforce latent grandiose tendencies in those so predisposed.” Dr. Sulkowica cites a 2005 analysis by Washington University Law School professor Tony Paredes who theorizes that “high pay can contribute to a CEO’s overconfidence – in the face of which, board members are likely to be more deferential and less able to spot bad business decisions.”

There is a long and honorable tradition, of course, behind the widespread fear that fabulous wealth will spoil the character and shatter the integrity of those who’ve achieved it. Matthew’s Gospel (19:24) quotes the enigmatic declaration of Jesus that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” The common understanding of this famous verse suggests that the accumulation of riches makes it less likely to achieve the spirit of humility, meekness, and kindness associated by Judeo-Christian tradition with Godliness. The receipt of executive pay packages averaging more than $10 million a year can surely enhance a propensity to arrogance, a sense of entitlement, and isolation from ordinary folks who never fly in private planes, ride in limousines, receive elaborate plastic surgery, or ski at Gstaad. It’s no accident that the most celebrated of all American films, “Citizen Kane,” portrays a visionary, hard-driving executive and entrepreneur who ends his life as a bitter, lonely old man not in spite of the business empire he successfully constructed but because of it.

While there’s never a shortage of baleful examples of business leaders who disgust the world with their rapacity, ruthlessness or rudeness, it’s worth noting that the free market system generally punishes such appalling attributes rather than rewarding them. On May 19, 2009, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a richly insightful piece about the traits most reliably associated with executive success. He cited a recently completed study called “Which C.E.O. Characteristics and Abilities Matter?” by Steven Kaplan, Mark Klebanov and Morton Sorensen. They compiled detailed personality assessments of 316 corporate chiefs and linked their personal qualities to the performance of their firms. “They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.”

What counted far more as a contributor to business success was an ability to focus—the disciplined, reliable, concentrated pursuit of clearly defined goals. As Brooks reports, “the traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours. In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.’s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.”

The new study conformed closely to the conclusions from similar analysis of the ingredients for corporate success. “Good to Great,” a 2001 bestseller by Jim Collins, found that the top-performing chief executives were “humble, self-effacing, diligent and resolute souls who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again.” That same year, Murray Barrick, Michael Mount and Timothy Judge surveyed a hundred years of scientific analysis of business success. As Brooks describes it, they reported that what mattered most in scores of studies was “emotional stability, and, most of all, conscientiousness – which means being dependable, making plans and following through on them.”

While Brooks never mentions it, the characteristics he delineates as crucial for executive leadership read like traditional and old-fashioned definition of virtue. According to an abundance of authoritative analysis, the corporate system rarely honors boisterous, erratic or flamboyant behavior – or at least honors such conduct only on an occasional, short-term basis. The lasting achievements stem from discipline, consistency, reliability, and the ability to defer gratification—the same qualities that my grandmother (and everyone’s grandmother) tried to encourage in the younger generation. In the long run, self control will count more than salesmanship, and concentration more than charisma.

Anyone who has already mastered such characteristics should find an open road to business advancement. And anyone who hasn’t yet internalized these shamelessly bourgeois values most directly linked to executive command will see them implanted and encouraged as he seeks to climb the corporate ladder. If, as commonly assumed, the business system will help shape personalities, then the natural selection process should discourage anti-social, disruptive and destructive behavior and promote respectability and industriousness. Rather than molding narcissistic crooks and exploitative frauds, experience in the free market economy should promote unassuming but dedicated achievers who illustrate two of the most cherished aphorisms in “Ethics of the Fathers,” the most celebrated volume of the Talmud. There, Rabbis from nearly two thousand years ago urged their students to “say little and do much” while answering the question, “Who is mighty?” with the ringing declaration that it is “He who controls his own inclinations.”

No wonder that artistic personalities, with their emphasis on emotion and spontaneity, feel no affinity for the world of business. As Brooks concludes, “the virtues that writers tend to admire – those involving self-expression and self-exploration – are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence.”

Rabbi Daniel Lapin emphasizes the inherently virtuous aspects of business success in his book, “Thou Shall Prosper.” He writes that “deep within traditional Jewish culture lies the conviction that the only real way to achieve wealth is to attend diligently to the needs of others and conduct oneself in an honorable and trustworthy fashion…The astounding news for the Jews was that God wants humans to be wealthy because wealth follows largely righteous conduct, which is His ultimate goal for His children.”

Later, he counsels against the temptation of emphasizing a few deplorable examples—like the Bernie Madoffs of this world -- to mischaracterize an overwhelmingly benign system of productivity and mutually beneficial relationships. “Conceding the many imperfections in the system that allows humans to cooperate economically,” Lapin writes, “is not the same as discrediting the entire enterprise of business, nor is it reason to do so. Yes, there have been many business professionals who have behaved scandalously. Business is a tool of human cooperation, and like any tool, it can be misused and abused. However, you should distinguish between judging certain conduct by business professionals as unethical and judging business itself. Only humans are capable of making moral decisions, and only humans can be judged and held accountable for those decisions and for the actions that flow from them. Like a sharp scalpel that can be used for healing in the hands of a dedicated surgeon of for assault in the hands of a thug, business can bring goodness and hope to all, or it can hurt.”

In the long run, however, only one effort can insure profitability and prosperity: reliably providing to others some good or service which they need or want, and for which they are willing to pay with the fruits of their own labor. In this sense, every successful executive becomes a benefactor to his customers, as the free market system compels service to your neighbor.

In a moving account for the popular magazine Youth’s Companion in 1896, the great nineteenth century steel baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie described his excitement upon bringing home his first week’s pay for hard labor at the age of twelve. “I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week’s own earnings,” he recalled. “One dollar and twenty cents made by myself and given to me because I had been of some use in the world! No longer entirely dependent on my parents, but at last admitted to the family partnership as a contributing member and able to help them! I think this makes a man out of a boy sooner than almost anything else, and a real man, too, if there be any germ of true manhood in him. It is everything, to feel that you are useful.” (Italics added)

This sense of usefulness, of service to a larger network of people, represents a richer reward for productive business activity than even the most lavish corporate pay package.

That’s why business bashing usually falls flat when Americans have the chance to put the anti-capitalist messages in context. In the midst of presidential primaries of 2008, the widely-admired former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, (in collaboration with his wife Suzy, former editor of the Harvard Business Review) responded to a demagogic Democrat from North Carolina who said, “For the past seven years, we’ve had a President who has stood up for corporations. It’s time we had a President who stands up for you!”

“You, who?” the Welches asked. “Who are these ‘you’ people, we wonder, who aren’t part of business in some way? Sure, some portion of the population is made up of students, government employees and workers in the nonprofit sector.

“But let’s be real. The vast majority of Americans make their livelihoods from business, and not all of them are faceless, bloodless, megabonus-earning executives on Wall Street. They are the field workers of Big Oil, toiling in some of the harshest conditions on earth, from the oil sands of Canada to the high seas off the coast of Norway. They are the immunologists and oncologist of Big Pharma, hunkered down in their labs trying to find cures for AIDS and cancer.

“They are immigrants from Ecuador and Vietnam, running the restaurant around the corner or launching a high-tech venture in their garage. Our point is, corporations are not a bunch of buildings. Like all businesses, they are flesh and blood. They are human beings. And most of the time, they are human beings trying to make the world a better place for their families and employees….

“Business isn’t the enemy of people –it is people. And business doesn’t destroy hope. It creates it.”

THE HARPOONED WHALE

Which brings us back to the hopeless condition of one-time CEO Dennis Kozlowski, disgraced and imprisoned following the collapse of his high-flying career with Tyco. In his hauntingly poignant prison interview with Peter Hossli, Kozlowski continued to protest his innocence. “I think the jury got it wrong. I believe I earned those bonuses. I think I’m here simply because of the times. People lost money in the stock market in 2001 and 2002. Somebody had to be blamed for that. I became the poster boy for that. ...In some years I made a $100 million. I think having been tainted with that amount of money that the average person will say, ‘Well, he must be doing something wrong.’ That’s why I was found guilty…

“Nobody deserves $100 million,” he continued, “no matter how good you are. But most of it came from stock appreciation. Our stock doubled every year for three or four years. I was paid about a million dollars to about a million five in cash. And everything else was earned through appreciation of the stock. I could have earned $100 million or I could have earned zero in the process.”

Looking back on his obsessive pursuit of success, Kozlowski naturally regrets the lost time with his two daughters, and his single-minded commitment to the company he served for 27 years. “I wanted to have Tyco become one of the best corporations in the world. I’m a competitive person and I enjoyed having Tyco rise above its peers. And I wanted to be a CEO who led Tyco to becoming one of the most prominent companies in the world.”

After several years in his tiny jail cell in upstate New York, Kozlowski now realizes that he fell victim to the conspicuous and even reckless scale of his own prosperity, and he regrets abandoning the focused, results oriented, self-effacing style of the CEOs with the best long-term record of success. “There is a saying that the only whale that gets harpooned is the one that comes up to the surface. I should have been content with far more modest growth in the company. With staying off of the radar, or returning shareholders a very reasonable rate of return and to be a more pedestrian CEO – doing a good job and then trying to go out there and do a great job. So I don’t think there were any rewards, only penalties associated with getting on everybody’s radar and coming up to the surface.”

In other words, he appropriately regrets trading humility for hubris, corporate loyalty for faux fig wreaths. He aspired to be great rather than merely good, and in the full glare of public resentment he ended his career by losing both greatness and goodness.

Forgetting Sarah Palin

Ann Coulter

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Sarah Palin has deeply disappointed her enemies. People who hate her guts feel she's really let them down by resigning.

She's like the ex-girlfriend they're SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about -- really, it's O-ver -- but they just can't stop talking about her.

Liberal: Ha, ha ... Sarah who? She's over, she's toast, a future Trivial Pursuit answer, nothing more.

Normal person: Whatever. How about the North Korean missiles?

Liberal: Can you believe she just resigned the governorship like that? What a quitter!

Normal person: Speaking of quitting, how's work?

Liberal: Did you hear she might get a TV show? There's no way Sarah Palin's getting a TV show! No way! I can't believe stupid Sarah Palin could get her own stupid TV show now. Well, I'm sure not gonna watch it -- that's for sure!

Normal person: Have you seen all the Michael Jackson coverage on TV?

Liberal: How does she think she can run for president in 2012 if she can't finish her term as governor of a Podunk state? She's finished.

Normal person: OK, then! You won't have to vote for her.

Liberal: I was never going to vote for her! But now I'm not going to vote for her twice. And I will never watch her TV show. I am so over her.

Reporters had already written their stories on Palin's press conference -- "rambling!" "incoherent!" -- before she even stepped to the podium.

Whatever you think of Palin, her argument for resigning was the opposite of "rambling" and "incoherent."

Palin's basketball analogy couldn't have been clearer, even to prissy liberal pundits who get uncomfortable when the subject turns to sports: She decided to destroy the other team's game plan, which has been to obsessively focus on her, by resigning.

This is particularly apt here -- she's passing the ball to a fantastic right-wing lieutenant governor, who shares her principles but doesn't set off the left's neuroses.

This is better for him, better for the state, better for the conservative program and better for Palin personally, whose family is sick of all the crap. Now she can make a lot of money and promote conservatism on a national stage.

It certainly won't be held against Palin by people who don't already loathe her. (On the other hand, her approval ratings among people who think she's worse than Hitler are down to 48 percent.)

With the left frenetically filing ethics complaint after ethics complaint against Palin, costing her state millions of dollars and her personally half a million dollars, citizens of Alaska must be asking, "Can we please have our state back?"

But to read the news reports -- which actually were rambling and incoherent -- you would think Palin was speaking in tongues.

The truth is liberals are furious they won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore -- at least not with Palin's hands tied behind her back by her public office.

Something tells me Keith Olbermann isn't going to be pulling any big numbers this summer attacking Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann. I don't anticipate any sudden outbreaks of "Mitch McConnell Derangement Syndrome."

Soon we'll only hear about Keith when his creepy e-mails using his mother's death to hit on chicks start making the rounds again. (Tip to Keith: When a girl refuses to give you her phone number, her assistant's phone number or her personal e-mail address, and only gives you her assistant's e-mail address, you're not halfway in the sack.)

Bonus: If Olbermann gets canceled as a result of Palin's resignation, that will put her in a really good position for 2012.

But instead of being honest and saying, "Oh well, it was a good ride while it lasted," liberal chatterers indignantly demand: "Is this not the greatest betrayal a public servant ever committed against the people?"

On one hand, liberals are enraged at the heinousness of Mark Sanford -- whom they didn't vote for -- for not resigning and, on the other, they're enraged at Palin -- whom they also didn't vote for -- for resigning.

The peculiarly venomous hatred of Palin is driven by women of the left and their whipped consorts. All that needs to happen is for a feminist to overhear two Nation readers saying, "I hate to admit it, but Palin is kind of hot" and ...

WHAT??????????? YOU CALL THAT HOT? I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW WE'VE GOT A MEGA-SUPER HOTTIE IN DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. AND NEED I REMIND YOU AGAIN OF THE RAW SEX APPEAL OF RACHEL MADDOW?

Democrats are a party of women, and nothing drives them off their gourds like a beautiful Christian conservative. (How much money has that other beautiful born-again, Carrie Prejean, been forced to spend on lawyers to respond to liberal hysteria?)

So the motives are clear, but the money is not. Who is paying the rent for the losers filing all these frivolous complaints against Palin?

At least when Richard Mellon Scaife was funding investigations of Bill Clinton, we knew who Scaife was, he was an American citizen, and his money was accessible to U.S. tax authorities and not stashed in offshore accounts like a certain Hungarian Nazi-collaborator I can name.

How about some modern-day Scaife investigate the investigators?

Obamanomics Supporters - Cracks in the Dike

Larry Elder

Thursday, July 09, 2009

While the media stopped to cover Michael Jackson's death, several tremors rocked the foundation of something that actually affects us all -- Obamanomics.

First, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who supported the President over his Republican rival, criticized Obama's spending, saying "we can't pay for it all." Powell said: "I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them. ... One of the cautions that has to be given to the President -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

Second, a few days ago, respected British economist Tim Congdon dusted off a 2003 paper -- written pre-Obama spending -- by the Federal Reserve's senior economist. It warned of the nation's growing debt and deficit, calculating their impact on long-term interest rates. The Fed's conclusion? "A percentage point increase in the projected deficit-to-GDP ratio raises the 10-year bond rate expected to prevail five years into the future by 20 to 40 basis points. ... Similarly, a percentage point increase in the projected debt-to-GDP ratio raises future interest rates by about 4 to 5 basis points." In plain English, this means, as Congdon puts it, a "debt explosion." Applying the 2003 paper's calculations and assumptions to our debt and deficit numbers under Obama, Congdon sees the "horrifying" consequences of bank bailouts and increased public spending.

Third, billionaire/Obama supporter Warren Buffett warned of impending inflation caused by increased government spending. "A country that continuously expands its debt as a percentage of GDP," he said, "and raises much of the money abroad to finance that, at some point, it's going to inflate its way out of the burden of that debt. ... Every country that's denominated its debt in its own currency and has found itself with uncomfortable amounts of debt relative to the rest of the world, in the end they inflate. And that becomes a tax on everybody that has fixed dollar investments."

Fourth, the Obama-supporting/George W. Bush-hating/billionaire benefactor of hyper-liberal , George Soros, predicted that the administration's spending and borrowing will trigger inflation and higher interests rates. "As markets revive," he said, "fear of inflation will drive up interest rates, which will choke off recovery." (Emphasis added.)

Our country rushes ever closer to a Canadian/European economic model, where government spends a greater and greater percentage of the nation's income -- whether on education, "bailing out" private companies, "assisting" states that have imprudently run their affairs, supplying "free" health care and health insurance, or the creation of "green jobs" to battle "global warming."

President Obama and the Democratic Party's congressional supermajority represent nothing less than a grave and gathering threat to that which made America great -- free enterprise, competition, allowing people to keep as much of their own money as possible, and the assumption that people know better how and on what to spend their money than does government.

The Republicans -- who, remember, supported the first bailout, under Bush -- are only slightly better.

The first President Bush signed into law the Americans With Disabilities Act, telling private employers under what circumstances they should hire and "accommodate" those with "special challenges." Republican Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency. The second Bush signed the prescription benefits bill for seniors. And on and on it goes.

I voted against G.W. Bush the first time because he promised greater government involvement in education, health care and other aspects of our lives. So I "threw away my vote" and voted libertarian.

I voted for Bush in '04 because of 9/11. I agree with Bush's recognition that we are at war with Islamofascism and that it represents the greatest threat to civilization. I supported and still support our intervention in Iraq. But I consider it a matter of national security, not a pretext to "spread democracy."

I opposed our intervention in Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti (all under Clinton) and Lebanon (under Reagan). Military intervention is for one thing only -- national security. So while I am incredibly saddened by the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, this is no reason for our nation to send troops. If mercenaries choose to go and fight for one side or another, that is their choice. And people and organizations can and do send supplies, workers and money for humanitarian purposes.

I believe that U.S. intervention in World War I was a mistake and that the European monarchies should have been allowed to obliterate themselves. The punitive Treaty of Versailles angered the Germans and set the stage for the rise of murderous demagogue Adolf Hitler. I once offered this WWI analysis directly to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (who wrote a blurb for my second book), and he said, "There is much in what you say."

Now we have another threat to our security. It comes from within. We must fight this one with a war of ideas. The new threat is called Obamanomics.

Cap-and-Tax: Government vs. America

David Limbaugh

Friday, July 10, 2009

There is still time to stop the legislative monstrosity known as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill before the Senate approves it. But for that to happen, Americans must learn how bad it is.

Let's briefly review the basics: The bill is ostensibly designed to curb man-caused carbon emissions (presumably without outlawing breathing) to retard global warming.

Even if we accept, for purposes of argument, the assumptions of radical, hysterical leftist environmentalists that man-caused global warming will destroy the planet if evil, rich capitalists don't radically curtail their own contributions to the catastrophe, Waxman-Markey would not prevent this Armageddon.

Climate scientist Chip Knappenberger, of New Hope Environmental Services, calculates that the bill would only reduce Earth's temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree Celsius by 2100. The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman says he's found no "decent refutation of the assertion that the temperature impact would be inconsequential."

Unfortunately, the bill's negative impact on the economy would not be inconsequential. Lieberman says the bill would cause estimated job losses averaging about 1.15 million from 2012-2030, and the cumulative projected loss in gross domestic product would be almost $10 trillion by 2035. The national debt from this bill alone, disregarding the multiple bailouts, stimulus packages and health care "reform," would increase by 2035 for a family of four by 26 percent, or $115,000.

Heritage is not alone in making these claims. The far more liberal Brookings Institution estimates the bill would cost 1.8 percent of GDP in 2035 and 2.5 percent by 2050. Heritage's "Foundry" blog concludes, "Economists from liberal think tanks, conservative think tanks, and industry associations agree that Waxman-Markey will reduce income by hundreds of billions of dollars per year."

These facts are enough to make you question why people aren't threatening a sit-in in the Senate until this recklessness stops. But there are other things about the bill you should know -- just in case you have an unusually high outrage tolerance:

--As noted, the bill contains a hidden provision establishing unemployment benefits for up to three full years for workers displaced as a result of this "job creations" bill, as well as health insurance premium subsidies and $1,500 each for job search and relocation expenses -- all at taxpayers' expense.

--The American Issues Project has exposed Section 204 of the bill, called the "Building Energy Performance Labeling Program," which gives the federal government unprecedented authority over your home. AIP says the section mandates that new homes be 30 percent more energy-efficient than the current building code on the very day the law is signed. The requirement increases to 50 percent by 2014 and continues to increase until 2030.

--The program would also affect existing properties you already own. It requires states to label residential and nonresidential buildings based on their efficiency ratings and to publicize this information. This will lead to "a number of circumstances under which the states could inspect a building," such as if you want to renovate your house in a way that requires a building permit, sell your house, or change the name of the person responsible for paying its utilities. The federal commissars, in their infinite compassion with other people's money, have also set aside a fund to help homeowners retrofit their properties. Of course, there's a formula, to be administered by the bureaucratocracy. The more radically you purify your property the more "awards" you receive -- up to $12,200. Be aware, though, that further fine print requires the property owner to pay at least half of these retrofitting costs, no matter how much their "awards" from the government. I suppose this is the Marxists' nod to self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.

--The bill is so egregiously obscene that even the strong Democratic majority in the House couldn't have passed it without bribing some recalcitrant representatives -- also with our money. To buy, er, secure Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur's vote, they offered a new federal power authority, which, according to The Washington Times, is "stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states." Just swell.

--In addition to all the economic destruction the bill would cause, in the end, it is not so much about global warming as Obaman wealth redistribution. "The Foundry" says Obama's own budget "promises to raise $650 billion in revenues by selling carbon permits (which are the exact same thing as an energy tax)," only $150 billion of which will go to alternative energy production. The rest will be redistributed to people who "don't pay income taxes."

The Founding Fathers and our fathers are rolling over in their graves as this great country voluntarily abandons its dreams of equal opportunity, achievement and prosperity and sows the seeds of its own destruction.

This just cannot stand.

The Road to Economic Demoralization

Larry Kudlow

Friday, July 10, 2009

There’s no question that current government policies for taxes, spending, and regulation are causing the U.S. to lose competitiveness in the global race for capital, prosperity, and growth.

Of course, China has been moving in the direction of free-market capitalism for years. To some extent, this shows the positive benefits of America’s free-trade policies and its open-mindedness in helping nurture not only China growth, but also middle-class prosperity worldwide.

But what’s particularly galling about Obamanomics is that we may well be losing our competitive edge with Europe. While Europe is ever so slightly moving toward Reagan and Thatcher, the U.S. is shifting toward an overtaxed and overregulated model that smacks of François Mitterrand. That’s something no one should want to tolerate.

Heavy government controls at home, along with an income-leveling social policy couched in economic-recovery terms, is no way to run a railroad. At the simple stroke of a computer key, world investment flows to its most hospitable destination. That includes a reliable currency. But in President Bush’s last year and President Obama’s first, the U.S. has become a less-hospitable destination for global capital. That should worry everybody.

But let’s first look to the China story.

We know that China is already our principal banker, to the tune of nearly $1 trillion. As President Obama’s record spending and borrowing continues -- he’ll be the greatest bond salesman in American history -- our financial reliance on China grows daily. But that’s not all.

Fortune magazine recently reported that the number of U.S. companies in the world’s top 500 fell to the lowest level ever, while more Chinese firms than ever made the list. Thirty-seven Chinese companies now rank in the top 500, including nine new entries. Meanwhile, the number of U.S. firms has fallen to 140, the lowest total since Fortune began the list in 1995. This is not good.

China also surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest automaker in the first half of 2009, with June sales soaring 36.5 percent from a year earlier. The Chinese registered 6.1 million car sales for the first half of the year. That way outpaced American sales, which were only 4.8 million.

And China has no capital-gains tax. It only has a 15-to-20 percent corporate tax. The U.S., on the other hand, is raising its cap-gains tax rate to 20 percent. It’s also increasing its top personal tax rates.

In fact, the scheduled income-tax hike along with a much-discussed 4 percent health-care surtax will balloon the top U.S. tax rate all the way to 51 percent. And there’s more. In order to finance so-called health-care reform, congressional Democrats are now talking about raising the tax rate on capital gains and dividends by another 1.5 percent while installing a value-added tax (VAT) that would begin at 1.5 percent.

So top tax rates in the U.S. may edge into the mid-50 percent range. Compare that to the OECD average of only 42 percent. And when those tax-hikes kick in, the top U.S. tax rate will rank above that of France, Germany, and Italy. That can’t be good.

Incidentally, our 40 percent corporate tax rate is already almost 15 percentage points higher than the corporate rates in most of Europe.

Washington’s enormous expansion of the state-, local-, and federal-government spending share of GDP to over 40 percent -- including Bailout Nation, TARP, and takeovers in numerous industries -- is eerily reminiscent of Old Europe’s old policies. And in an ironic twist, Europe seems to be moving toward a lower-tax-and-spend-and-regulate, Ronald Reagan–type approach, while the U.S. is regressing to the failed socialist model of Old Europe. This makes no sense.

Higher tax rates undermine the incentive model of growth. At the margin, investment risk and work effort become less rewarding. On top of this, Obama’s regulatory moves toward greater government control of the economy will further drown animal spirits in a sea of red tape born of bureaucratic officialdom.

Think about this in terms of the threat to nationalize heath care, which is over 15 percent of the economy. Additionally, Washington’s cap-and-trade proposals will essentially nationalize the entire energy sector -- another 15 percent of the economy -- sending long tentacles into every nook of the economy that’s impacted by energy, which is virtually everything.

And all this comes on top of the U.S. government’s takeover of auto companies, banks, AIG, Fannie, and Freddie. Instead of Schumpeterian gales of creative destruction, we’re on the road to economic demoralization.

Here’s the clincher: Year-to-date, Dow Jones stocks are off 8 percent, while China stocks are up 71 percent. The world index is up 4 percent. Emerging markets are up 25 percent. They’re all beating us. None of this is good.

We’re going the wrong way. That’s why stock markets are not voting for the United States anymore.

An Open Letter to President Obama

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Monday, July 13, 2009

The following is an excerpt from a letter that will be sent this week to President Obama from leaders in the African-American community. Two events have precipitated the writing of this letter.

1. The President hosted a Stonewall Riot 40th anniversary celebration at the White House, when no such meeting has been afforded to African-American clergy to date.

2. The legal attempt to overthrow the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that has come out of Massachusetts last week.

All too often, both the press and politicians view the African-American community as a monolithic group that will go wherever the cultural winds blow them. This is not true. We want to express our concerns and be heard. The following letter is an attempt to encourage the president to consider our viewpoint on the redefinition of marriage.

“Dear President Obama,

“…Although you have voiced support for marriage as defined as a union between one man and one woman, we are concerned that that your campaign promise to changing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will work at cross purposes with your pro-marriage stance.

“We believe that the central domestic problem we face is the disintegration of marriage. One of the organizations we support called Marriage Savers points out that the marriage crisis is comprised of four elements:

1. A lowering of the marriage rate

• The marriage rate has plunged 50% since 1970

2. An increase in divorce

• Half of all new marriages end in divorce

3. A rise in heterosexual cohabitation

• The number of unmarried couples living together has soared 12-fold since 1960

4. A multiplication of unwed births

• Out-of wedlock births jumped from 5.3% to 39.6% from 1960-2007

“These statistics show the fragile nature of the institution of marriage today. Changing the definition of marriage will have many unintended consequences, which will hurt generations to come. If one redefines marriage, then the family is redefined. If the family is redefined then the nature of parenting must also be redefined.

“We are concerned that an attempt to recognize and adjust to one group’s sense of alienation may actually confuse future generations of children about their sexuality and blur lines of responsibility in our families. The very definitions of motherhood and fatherhood may be unnecessarily challenged in years to come.

“Same-sex marriage is not a civil right. The laws enacted by Congress during a century of struggle for equal rights for African Americans were intended to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, not on the basis of an individual’s sexual preferences or personal behavior.

“Advocates of same-sex marriage want people to think that it can peacefully coexist alongside traditional marriage. But it will create a conflict between people of faith who fervently believe in traditional marriage and the law, which says marriage includes those of the same-sex variety. Those conflicts will always be resolved in favor of same-sex marriage because there can be no ‘conscientious objectors’ to the law.

“Mr. President, you say you desire to unify the nation and to change the politics-as-usual status of Washington. We want to believe this statement. As we have looked at both your policies and recent public affirmations, each of us has asked ourselves one question, ‘Is there room enough for people like us in President Obama’s America?’

Many of the people we speak for felt that your disparaging statements during the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot were directed at them. Some of the people with ‘worn out arguments and old attitudes’ are not bigots or homophobes; they are our cultural elders, who are rightfully saying, ‘Don’t tear down a fence until you understand why it’s there.’ Recent studies show that there is a resurgence of hope about marriage among the young people of this generation. Mr. President, let’s keep hope alive…”

We also stated that the California Proposition 8 votes amending the state’s constitution to protect marriage marked the beginning of a new era in American politics. For the first time in recent history, black and Hispanic voters (predominately Christians) voted for President Obama and simultaneously voted against the Democratic power structure on this social issue. In light of this phenomenon occurring simultaneously within the black and Hispanic communities, we respectfully warned the president that hooking his political wagon too closely to the gay marriage bandwagon could precipitously erode public confidence in his administration.

If you agree with our concern about marriage, it’s time for you to start contacting both Republican and Democratic congressmen. Congress is where the battle concerning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will likely be fought. Importantly, many Republicans are shying away from this important social issue. Conversely, the Democratic Party (generally speaking) seems to be beholding to the gay marriage movement for its financial support in the last election.

Therefore, we must let each congressman know that he can be voted out of office if he moves the wrong way on this issue. Set aside Mondays to email, write or call saying, “We want you to support marriage and to protect DOMA.” Let’s make “Marriage Monday” a national movement.

The letter outlined above was signed by Niger Innis of the Congress on Racial Equality, Dr. William Owens, Sr. of Concerned African-American Pastors, Bishop Dale Bronner of Word of Faith Family Worship Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Pastor Terry Millender of Victorious Life Church in Alexandria, Virginia, and myself. If you would like to read the letter in its entirety, go to our website .

Trying to Make Sense of Nonsense

Burt Prelutsky

Monday, July 13, 2009

In case you were off on a different planet and hadn’t heard the news, Michael Jackson died. It was a tragedy. Not that this piece of human rubbish had died, but that the media, including Fox News, carried on as if it was a major loss to mankind.

This was, one, a man who had tried to turn himself, through weird chemicals and plastic surgery, into a white version of a black man and a male version of Diana Ross. Then, for good measure, he was a pedophile and a loon. But I guess if a person can moon walk, nothing else really matters. Frankly, though, his talent in dancing backwards didn’t seem like such a big deal. Unlike Ginger Rogers, who, as they used to say, could do everything Fred Astaire did, but do it backwards and in high heels, Jackson only managed to do it wearing a lady’s glove.

His death did strike home for me, though, the weekend after he died. I discovered that the $100,000-a-month mansion in which he died was just behind the home where I regularly play tennis. You would not believe the crowds that swarmed around the place, as if it was a sacred shrine. The scene would have warmed the hearts of pedophiles everywhere.

Jackson was sold to the world as Peter Pan, the little tyke who just never grew up. But, if Peter Pan had even faintly resembled this androgynous freak, Mr. and Mrs. Darling would have been brought up on charges for allowing their kids to accompany him to Never Never Land.

In a way, the entire sideshow was reminiscent of the grief displayed when Princess Di passed away in the distinguished company of an Arab playboy. But this was even worse because Lady Di was not a villainess, and these heartbroken shmoes were mainly Americans, not Brits, and could therefore vote in our elections.

Speaking of voting, there were only two surprises in the House vote for the insane Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill. The first surprise was that, in spite of Obama’s arm-twisting, 44 Democrats had a sufficient amount of nerve and integrity to oppose its passage. The other surprise was that eight Republicans voted for it. If even just four of them hadn’t sold out America along with their principles, it would have been voted down. The eight, for those of you keeping a list until the next election, were John McHugh (New York), Dave Reichart (Washington), Mark Kirk (Illinois), Mike Castle (Delaware), Mary Bono Mack (California) and, from New Jersey, Frank LoBiondo, Chris Smith and Leonard Lance.

One can’t help wondering what Obama offered to get the three Jerseyites on board. Perhaps it was the promise not to let the Justice Department go after the Mafia. All that we know for certain is that for those eight turncoats, the “R” after their name stands for Rat.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’m just being guilty of wishful thinking, but I have a hunch that while Obama is doing his best to destroy America and capitalism, the lemming-in-chief is leading the party faithful blindly off the cliff.

No matter how personally popular the president might be, and I am beginning to doubt those particular numbers, the same certainly can’t be said for his colleagues and cronies. The truth is, Pelosi and Reid are about as popular as mumps and chicken pox.

Even if the New York Times and Chris Matthews still get a tingle up their leg when they look at Obama, most Americans hate socialized medicine and cap and trade; they hate the idea of the feds being in bed with the unions and nationalizing banks and car companies; they hate the idea of dismantling our missile defense system at the very same time that Iran and North Korea are threatening us; they particularly hate the idea of our president going abroad and bad-mouthing America every chance he gets. Even Bill Clinton stopped doing that once he was past draft age and had gotten a haircut.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, those Democrats who are going along in order to get along are likely to discover next year that the voters are going to tell them in no uncertain words to move along.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download