Who controls whom?

They may have our debt, but we have their stomachs. Even Steven?
Source: Carpe Diem Blog, Mark Perry

Capitalism vs. Socialism: again the game was not even close

The social experiment called socialism. The end results are in, again.

Selections: Crony Capitalism: From GM to Greece, the Lies Keep Growing, By George Will

Now American taxpayers also own a little bit of a small nation. They provide the U.S. contribution of 17 percent of the assets of the International Monetary Fund, which is giving Greece $39 billion (the IMF also is contributing $321 billion to a "stabilization"fund for other eurozone nations with debt problems). So the U.S. government, which would borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends under the president's 2011 budget, is borrowing to rescue Greece and others from the consequences of their borrowing.

That nation, whose GDP is below that of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, is "too big to fail," meaning too inconveniently connected to too many big banks. Bailing out Greece really rescues European banks that improvidently bought Greek bonds. . .

Time was, the European left said it spoke for horny-handed sons of toil oppressed in dark Satanic mills. But Athens' so-called "anti-government mobs" have been composed mostly of government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements. Even Greek air force pilots went on strike. The government, unable to say how many employees it has, promises to count them. It cannot fire many of them because article 103, paragraph 4 of the Greek constitution says: "Civil servants holding posts provided by law shall be permanent so long as these posts exist."

America's projected $9.7 trillion in budget deficits in this decade will drive the nation's debt to 90 percent of GDP (Greece's is 124 percent). So some people say that to avoid a Greek-style crisis, America should adopt a value-added tax (VAT). But Europe's most troubled nations -- the PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- have VATs of 20 percent, 21 percent, 20 percent, 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively. As part of its austerity penance, the Greek government is going to give itself more money by raising its VAT to 23 percent.

"Green energy" the facts

Please link this story and read.

5 myths about green energy, by Robert Bryce

Here is a selection:

Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. Even an aging natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet per day generates more than 20 times the watts per square meter of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant cranks out about 56 watts per square meter, eight times as much as is derived from solar photovoltaic installations. The real estate that wind and solar energy demand led the Nature Conservancy to issue a report last year critical of "energy sprawl," including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.

Denmark, the poster child for wind energy boosters, more than doubled its production of wind energy between 1999 and 2007. Yet data from Energinet.dk, the operator of Denmark's natural gas and electricity grids, show that carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in 2007 were at about the same level as they were back in 1990, before the country began its frenzied construction of turbines. Denmark has done a good job of keeping its overall carbon dioxide emissions flat, but that is in large part because of near-zero population growth and exorbitant energy taxes, not wind energy. And through 2017, the Danes foresee no decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.

In the new green economy, batteries are not included. Neither are many of the "rare earth" elements that are essential ingredients in most alternative energy technologies. Instead of relying on the diversity of the global oil market -- about 20 countries each produce at least 1 million barrels of crude per day -- the United States will be increasingly reliant on just one supplier, China, for elements known as lanthanides. Lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium and other rare earth elements are used in products from high-capacity batteries and hybrid-electric vehicles to wind turbines and oil refinery catalysts.

China controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements. And the Chinese government is reducing its exports of lanthanides to ensure an adequate supply for its domestic manufacturers. Politicians love to demonize oil-exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, but adopting the technologies needed to drastically cut U.S. oil consumption will dramatically increase America's dependence on China.

The social democrats’ smug vision of a perfect European Union.

Excerpts: Victor Davis Hanson, The Other European Volcano

Five years ago, the European Union’s account of itself resonated with end-of history triumphalism. In organic fashion, democratic socialism would spread eastward and southward, recivilizing the old Warsaw Pact and the Balkans through cradle-to-grave entitlements, state unionism, radical environmentalism, and utopian pacifism. No wonder that Turkey begged — and often humiliated itself in the process — to get inside this more perfect union.

Over here, we were often lectured by “progressives” that almost everything Europe did was better — subsidized mass transit, free college tuition, extended maternity leave, early retirement, and “soft-power” diplomacy. Indeed, Obama’s presidential campaign was in some senses a stealthy referendum on Europeanization. And once he was elected, his moves to raise taxes, expand government, expropriate some private industries, run up exponentially increasing deficits, subsidize environmentalism, and triangulate with enemies and allies abroad were European Union to the core.

Few wanted to listen when it was pointed out — well before the Greek meltdown — that on key questions of demography and immigration, the future of the European Union was bleak. The very idea that, in historical terms, socialism, agnosticism, pacifism, and hedonism were not only interrelated and synergistic, but also suicidal for civilization, was considered crackpot. .

The wonder of the Greek implosion was not that it came so soon, but rather — given the pan-European phenomena of early retirement, declining populations, bloated public sectors, and militant unionism — that it took so long. In some sense, the dream of the European Union — a continental democratic socialism that offered a Western liberal antithesis to the United States — is now finished. Let us count the reasons why.

Once the bureaucratic scab comes off, we are going to see many of the European Union’s raw wounds as never before. The Greek riots are instructive, as the world watches in shock as the prospective recipients of world largesse rage at their benefactors. Draping the Acropolis with the hammer-and-sickle seems an odd way to convince capitalists to bail out socialists at the beginning of the life-saving tourist season. But, then, when does any dependent either voluntarily cut back, or feel gratitude toward its patron? We may well see far more violence as the crisis spreads throughout southern Europe. An entire generation nursed on socialism as a birthright — with no direct memory of the hardship of the Depression, World War II, the postwar rebuilding, or the fault lines from left-right violence in Spain, Italy, and Greece — will very soon be “asked” to give much of it up. As the statist economy goes, so too will go much of the European posturing about state-subsidized radical environmentalism, pooh-poohing of Islamic radicalism, and holding up of the bogeyman of American imperialism. Those were always pipe-dream ideologies of an affluent and subsidized populace. They are certainly luxuries beyond the means of a far poorer, far angrier citizenry that now must live in the unkind world.

Are You Substituting Worst-Case Thinking for Reason?

A wonderful answer to the question: What should we really do?

From Cato@liberty by Jim Harper

There’s a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis. And it makes us more vulnerable to the effects of terrorism.

When someone is proposing a change, the onus should be on them to justify it over the status quo. But worst case thinking is a way of looking at the world that exaggerates the rare and unusual and gives the rare much more credence than it deserves. It isn’t really a principle; it’s a cheap trick to justify what you already believe. It lets lazy or biased people make what seem to be cogent arguments without understanding the whole issue.- Bruce Snyder

How the Europeans pushed a good bargain into a Faustian bargain

Is America next?

Selections: The bill comes due for a life of fairness at the expense of growth, By DANIEL HENNINGER, Wall Street Journal

A We're-Not-Europe Party would promise the American people to avoid and oppose any policy that makes us more like them and less like us.

For Americans, this has been a two-week cram course in what not to be if you hope to have a vibrant future. What was once an unfocused criticism of Mr. Obama and the Democrats, that they are nudging America toward a European-style social-market economy, came to awful life in the panicked, stricken faces of Europe's leadership: Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown, Papandreou. They look like that because Europe has just seen the bond-market devil. . .

The bond market is a good bargain—if you live more or less within your means. The Europeans, however, pushed a good bargain into a Faustian bargain, which the world calls a sovereign debt crisis.

In the German legend, Faust was a scholar who sold his soul to the devil many years hence in return for a life now of intellectual brilliance and physical comfort. In our version of the legend, Europe's governments told the devil that, more than anything, they wanted a life of social protection and income fairness no matter the cost. Life was good. A fortnight ago, the bond devil arrived and asked for his money.

(sound familiar?)

In the U.S., the Obama White House and the Democrats have decided to wage politics into November by positioning the Republicans as the party of obstruction, which won't vote for things the nation "needs," such as ObamaCare. Some Republicans voting against these proposals seem to understand, as do their most ardent supporters, that they are opposing such ideas and policies because the Democrats have pushed far beyond the traditional centrist comfort zone of most Americans. A Democratic Party whose current budget takes U.S. spending from a recent average of about 21% of GDP up to 25% is outside that comfort zone. It's headed toward the euro zone.

After Europe's abject humiliation, the chance is at hand for the Republicans to do some useful self-definition. They should make clear to the American people that the GOP is "The We're Not Europe Party." Their Democratic opposition could not attempt such a claim because they do not wish to.

Economic stagnation is a kind of purgatory. Once there, it's not clear how you get out. . .

The antidote to stagnation is economic growth. Not just growth, but strong growth. A 4% growth rate, which Europe will never see again, pays social dividends innumerably greater than 2.5% growth. Which path are we on?

Barack Obama would never say it is his intention to make the U.S. go stagnant by suppressing wealth creation in return for a Faustian deal on social equity. But his health system required an astonishing array of new taxes on growth industries. He is raising taxes on incomes, dividends, capital gains and interest. His energy reform requires massive taxes. His government revels in "keeping a boot on the neck" of a struggling private firm. Wall Street's business is being criminalized.

Economic stagnation arrives like a slow poison. Look at the floundering United Kingdom, whose failed prime minister, Gordon Brown, said on leaving, "I tried to make the country fairer." Maybe there's a more important goal.

The governments view capitalism

From 4-block World by Tom McMahon

Interest group liberalism. The California model

Selections: Trickle-down misery in LA, George Will

(Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa's) residence is near Wilshire Boulevard, which is named for a socialist who made and lost several fortunes before dying destitute. The life of Henry Wilshire is a cautionary tale for this city where the climate is usually Mediterranean and the fiscal climate is now Greek.

To get from downtown to the residence of the man (His Honor Antonio Villaraigosa) who, in 2005, became the first Hispanic elected mayor since 1870, you drive through a sliver of Korea. With 125,000 people packed into 2.7 of the city's 469 square miles, Koreatown is typical of this polyglot city where more than 100 languages are spoken and nothing is typical except recentness: 46 percent of the residents are foreign-born. . .

For 15 years Villaraigosa was an organizer for the Service Employees International Union and the city's teachers' union. Now he is trying to cope with, and partially undo, largesse for unionized public employees . . .

L.A. has conveniently but unrealistically assumed 8 percent annual growth of the assets of the city's pension funds. The two main funds' actual growth over the last decade have been 3.5 percent and 2.8 percent. And Villaraigosa added 5,000 people to the city's payroll in his first term.

Nationwide, government employees are most of what remains of "defined benefit" America. More than 80 percent of government workers have defined benefits—as opposed to defined-contribution—pension plans. Only about 20 percent of private-sector workers have defined-benefit plans. California's parlous condition owes much to burdensome health-care and pension promises negotiated with public employees' unions, promises that are suffocating the state's economic growth.

(Some) suggest replacing defined-benefit pensions with 401(k) accounts for new public employees. But when another product of America's immigrant culture, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, tried to do that, public employees' unions squashed the idea. (Some) say the retirement age for public employees should be raised from 55 to 65, employees should pay more than the maximum of 9 percent of their salaries for pensions, and the city should end subsidies of up to $1,200 a month for health insurance for those who retire before becoming eligible for Medicare. But even his ideas for nibbling at the edges of the fiscal problem by privatizing the zoo, the convention center, and city parking lots are opposed by the unions.

They (the public unions) are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself for ever-larger portions of wealth extracted by the taxing power from the private sector. Increasingly, government workers are the electoral base of the party of government. So Villaraigosa must live with the arithmetic of interest-group liberalism. The federal government, he says, can run deficits and print money; the state government (supposedly) must balance the budget but can push burdens down onto cities. . .

The nightmare numbers include the state's unemployment rate (12.6 percent)—it is higher than the nation's (9.9)—and the city's rate (13.5), which is higher than the state's. The city's long-term success depends on its schools, in many of which most of the children come from homes without fathers, and in some of which, Villaraigosa says, 40 percent of the children are in foster homes. He has little control over the school system and, anyway, unions oppose radical reforms. He would like to emulate the education reforms of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a recent visitor to the mayor's residence, but, holding his fingers three inches apart to suggest the thickness of the standard contract with the teachers' union, Villaraigosa calls the union "the most powerful defender of the status quo."

Why we need more free markets, and less government

From Practical Economics

The central tenant of capitalism is promoting freedom of economic choice for individuals
and the society as a whole. When millions of people are making decisions on a daily basis without
coercion, it can be said that a free market is operating. Liberty exercised by all in the free market is
what counteracts and holds in check the effects of inefficient decisions made by individuals or
small groups. In the free market the group protects against the individual. As a benefit, the well
being of the society is protected by the market because efficiencies are promoted and thus the
standard of living is enhanced.

In Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman outlined the essence of economic freedom
and the effect it has on serving everyone to positive ends.

So long as effective freedom of exchange is maintained, the central feature of the
market organization of economic activity is that it prevents one person from
interfering with another in respect of most of his activities. The consumer is
protected from coercion by the seller because of the presence of other sellers with
whom he can deal. The seller is protected from coercion by the consumer because
of other consumers to whom he can sell. The employee is protected from coercion
by the employer because other employers for whom he can work, and so on. And
the market does this impersonally and without centralized authority.

The impersonal nature of the free market creates a situation where all people are treated
equally and with the same level of dignity. As is the case many times when looking to understand
capitalism, the impersonal nature of the free market looks to be a negative strike against capitalism.
As it turns out, the free market is one if capitalism’s most shining features because it forms the
foundation that allows for the civility of humanity.

In exercising freedom of choice, individuals are sometimes faced with a consequence that
makes the market at times seem like a failure. However, evaluating the power of freedom within
such short-term and narrow applications does not shed light on capitalism’s long-term success in
providing for everyone. Friedman summed the importance of freedom in any rational analysis of
capitalism.

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom
itself. . . The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that
puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both. . . The only way that has
ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free
market. And that’s why it’s so successful to preserving individual liberty.”

War update: technology and efficiency

New Sniper Kill Record: British Sniper Kills Two Taliban Machinegunners from a Over a Mile and a Half Away

A couple of Taliban locals got to play supporting parts in establishing a new sharpshooting record in Afghanistan: 2475 meters, or 1.54 miles:

Craig Harrison’s record breaking shots felled the insurgents with consecutive bullets – even though they were 3,200ft beyond the official range of his rifle.

The Household Cavalry veteran’s kills from a distance of 8,120ft beat the previous record by 150ft.

He was using the British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.

He was so far away that the 8.59mm-calibre bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target. Scores of Taliban gunmen have fallen to the gun which has been nicknamed The Silent Assassin.

It is only designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft – just less than a mile – and capable of only ‘ harassing fire’ beyond that range.

But Corporal Harrison took his record-breaking shots after his commander and Afghan soldiers were attacked during a patrol in Helmand in November last year.

From: The Blog of Record

If we lose our American heritage, we lose America

Thoughts: David Horowitz, Hurricane West: Cornel West and American Radicalism

Rarely has our country faced a more uncertain future under more troubling circumstances. We have been attacked by an enemy who is inspired by religious hatreds and is able to strike our homeland, something no adversary has been able to accomplish in modern times. Domestically, we are facing the greatest economic collapse in a generation, and our federal government is on its way to bankruptcy. Confronting these crises, we are led by the most inexperienced, radical, and divisive president in our nation’s history, a man who has appeased our enemies and attacked our allies abroad and has authorized a government expansion at home that will create more debt in the next four years than previous presidents have since our nation began.

Barack Obama’s radical measures have prompted others to focus on the political breakdowns that characterize his administration — the disdain for bipartisanship and traditional compromise, the disregard for constitutional process, and the blunt contempt for the will of the voters who elected him. But politics is a reflection of forces that are ultimately rooted in a society’s culture, the values and attitudes that shape its consciousness. These are the crucible of a nation’s achievements and its armor against adversarial threats. A people proud of its heritage will fight for its survival; a people guilty before history will not. Hence a nation’s fate is ultimately tied to the health of its culture. Underlying the present crisis is a breakdown of our culture that has been 50 years in the making and cannot be altered by an election or two.

Iron man, Capitlaist hero?

Selections: Iron Man, capitalist hero, By KYLE SMITH, NY POST

Little did Aaron Sorkin suspect, when he wrote the lefty drama "A Few Good Men," that the only thing anyone would ever remember about it was Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessep speech, which Sorkin accidentally made more convincing than any liberal argument he ever offered: "Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. You want me on that wall — you need me on that wall. My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives."

Col. Jessup, shake hands with your 21st-century equivalent: Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark.

In "Iron Man 2," not only is Stark’s existence grotesque to a prosecutorial senator in Washington even as he protects American lives, but the movie shows how much we need Tony Stark on another crucial wall — the wall between private industry and statism. The movie is written by Justin Theroux, but ideologically it brings to mind a slightly older screenwriter — Ayn Rand.

"Iron Man" shows its mettle early on when Tony is hauled before Congress to face down a snotty senator (Garry Shandling) who demands that he surrender his rights to Iron Man technology. Tony jokes that he isn’t interested in "indentured servitude or prostitution," echoes Col. Jessup when he notes, "I’d love to leave my door open, but this ain’t Canada" and sternly informs the senator, "You want my private property. You can’t have it." He adds, "I’ve successfully privatized world peace ... what’s wrong with these assclowns?"

Stark is threatened by the only force on earth comparable to his — what Rand’s John Galt called "the unpredictable power of the arbitrary whims of hidden, ugly little bureaucrats."

"Iron Man 2" is thrillingly aware that today’s disputes about the role of government in business are as critical as Cold War arguments ever were. The film is to economics what "The Dark Knight" is to national security. . .

In "Iron Man 2," Tony Stark’s fiercely defended self-interest is very much in our interest, and it’s the lawmakers acting for "the common good" (or at least the good of whoever most commonly donates to their campaigns) who threaten peace. He vows to continue to "protect the world at the pleasure of — myself. And if there’s one thing you can count on me to do, it’s pleasure myself." Now there’s a fresh American movie hero for you: a little Jack Nicholson, a little John Galt, and a pinch of Howard Stern.

Energy independence vs. oil spills: Some common sense ideas

Selections: Deroy Murdock, Drill, Baby, Drill: For Onshore Oil and Offshore Natural Gas

Today’s mess may grease the skids for a grand compromise: a red light for new offshore oil in exchange for green lights for onshore oil production and offshore natural-gas drilling.

True, this approach would overlook plentiful oil supplies beneath U.S. oceans. “You have over four times more resources offshore,” says Dr. John Felmy, the American Petroleum Institute’s chief economist. In federal lands and waters, he says, “there are about 21 billion barrels of oil onshore, mostly in Alaska, and 86 billion barrels of oil offshore.”

Some 4 billion barrels of untapped oil rest under Montana and North Dakota. Americans use about 7.3 billion barrels annually. While the U.S. would consume this deposit alone in just seven months, many similar reserves sit beneath American soil, rather than below domestic waters.

Meanwhile, natural gas abounds, offshore and on.

“There are about 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore,” Felmy estimates. “You have 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas onshore. . . . You also have exciting, new shale gas supplies. The Marcellus shale deposits in Pennsylvania and upstate New York are huge. There could be as much as 500 trillion cubic feet in Marcellus alone.”

Americans use about 20 to 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually. Hence, Marcellus could represent a 25-year natural-gas supply. Existing offshore reserves could add 20 more years of natural gas to America’s energy menu.

Producers could also extract offshore oil via underground, land-based, horizontal drilling. Essentially, oil would be sucked to shore via pipes beneath the ocean floor, rather than through pipes in the water. This should be far less risky and far more earth-friendly than today’s drilling regime. At least with existing technology, however, this only would work to drain deposits about five to ten miles offshore, far shy of where many deposits lie, up to some 200 miles from land.

Drilling is much cheaper onshore than off. According to December 2009 Energy Department figures, from 2006 through 2008, major domestic firms spent $36.90 to locate and collect an average barrel of onshore oil. The equivalent offshore figure: $73.47 — almost precisely double.

It’s worth restating the obvious: Offshore natural gas does not spill. At worst, if a natural-gas rig exploded, the ensuing fireball might scorch a passing flock of seagulls. The only onshore impact might involve sunbathers rising from their beach towels and asking, “What the hell is that?”

Offshore drilling will not end today, nor should it. But given its catastrophic potential, plus the immediate availability of cheaper and less environmentally calamitous substitutes, perhaps the Left and Right can agree, for once, to deemphasize offshore oil while passionately embracing onshore oil and offshore natural gas.

The Left trusts college-admissions officers more than it trusts cops.

Selections: Jonah Goldberg, Is Arizona Law Still Wrong If It Works?

[I]magine you’re an American kid of Chinese ancestry. Given your SAT scores and GPA, you should be able to get into, say, the University of Michigan. But because of Michigan’s race-based policies, you’re turned down because you’re not black or Hispanic. That’s not just inconvenient, that’s a lifetime loss. You’ll never be able to go to that school. Period. Similarly, being turned down for a job you deserve because of your skin color is a real loss. Being questioned for a few minutes about your immigration status may be inconvenient, or even feel insulting. But, beyond ruining your day, you’ll be fine.

Opponents of Arizona’s law believe government officials — i.e., cops — lack the judgment to enforce Arizona’s law. But at the same time, they believe other officials can make snap judgments about who deserves a job or a superior education based on skin color.

Given this inconsistency, one has to wonder: Is the objection to the law that it won’t work, or that it will?

Immigration realities

From real clear politics

Currently, the U.S. has the highest legal immigration in the world. Every year, we allow 750,000 immigrants to enter the country legally and make them eligible for citizenship within five years. Two hundred and fifty thousand aslyees are also permitted to enter annually. Those legal immigrants have the right to work and earn a living; the asylees are eligible to work six months after applying to work. If we need more immigrants, as many think we do to expand the workforce of our graying population, then we can easily increase the number of legal immigrants.-Ed Koch, Former NYC Mayor

Sad for the wildlife or sad for BP

Selections: Why Not Feel Sorry for BP? by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.


After the BP-hired drilling rig exploded last week, the environmentalists went nuts yet again, using the occasion to flail a private corporation and wail about the plight of the "ecosystem," which somehow managed to survive and thrive after the Exxon debacle. The comparison is complicated by how much worse this event is. Eleven people died. BP market shares have been pummeled. So long as the leak persists, the company loses 5,000–10,000 barrels a day.

BP will be responsible for cleanup costs far exceeding the federal limit of $75 million. The public relations nightmare will last for a decade or more. In the end, the costs could reach $100 billion, perhaps wrecking the company and many other businesses.

It should be obvious that BP is by far the leading victim, but I've yet to see a single expression of sadness for the company and its losses. Indeed, the words of disgust for BP are beyond belief. The DailyKos sums it up: "BP: Go f*** yourselves." Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that the government intended to keep "its boot on BP’s neck."

How about reality? The incident is a tragedy for BP and all the subcontractors involved. It will probably wreck the company, a company that has long helped provide the fuel that runs everything from our cars to our industries, and keeps alive the very body of modern life. The idea that BP should be hated and denounced is preposterous; there is every reason to express great sadness for what has happened.

It is not as if BP profits by oil leaks, or that anyone reveled in the chance to dump its precious oil all over the ocean. Its own CEO has worked for years to try to prevent precisely this kind of accident, and did so not out of the desire to comply with regulations, but because it is good business practice.

In contrast to the families and others who are weeping, we might ask who is happy about the disaster: the environmentalists, with their fear mongering and hatred of modern life, and the government, which treats every capitalist producer as a bird to be oiled and plucked. The environmentalists are thrilled because they get yet another chance to wail and moan about the plight of their beloved swamps and other supposedly sensitive land. . .

The core economic issue concerning such a spill is liability. In a world of private property, if you soil someone else's property, you bear the liability. But what about a world in which government owns vast swaths, and the oceans are considered the commons of everyone? It becomes extremely difficult to assess damages.

There is also a problem with federal limits on liability. The liability for damaging people or property should be 100%. Such a system would match a company's policies to the actual risk of doing damage. Lower limits would inspire companies to be less concerned about damage to others than they should be, in the same way that a company with a bailout guarantee will be more reckless than in a free market.

But such a liability rule presumes ownership, so that owners themselves are in a position to enter into fair bargaining and there can be some objective test. There is no objective test when the oceans are collectively owned, and where the coasts are government owned. . .

Why, by the way, when every natural disaster is hailed by the Keynesian media for at least having the stimulative effect of rebuilding, is nothing like this said about the oil spill? At least in this case, losses seem to be recognized as losses.

Bi-polar ideology

I thought it was the liberals who pushed for everyone to drink bottles water because the tap water was so polluted? Hum?
I thought Massachusetts was the birthplace of freedom? Hum?
Prepare for your head to spin like a top.

The town of Concord has banned the sale of bottled drinking water in town beginning in 2011.

"We only have one planet and I just don't want to see it spoiled," said Jean Hill, who introduced the measure at Concord's Town Meeting. Hill said that New York, Illinois and Virginia, as well as more than 100 cities, have taken action to cut spending on bottled water.

The measured passed by Concord would allow the sale of refillable containers of water, which could still be sold and delivered in town. Only plastic bottles that companies cannot reuse would be banned.

"Water is something we can get from the faucet. You can't turn your faucet on and get soda," said Selectwoman Virginia McIntyre, explaining why other plastic bottles would not be banned.

Supporters say the production of plastic water bottles uses 17 million barrels of oil each year. The beverage industry opposes the measure.

"If you think about the fact that our bottles are getting smaller and if you think about the fact that our bottles are going into the recycle bins in Concord, it's a crazy policy," said Ralph Crowley of Polar Beverages.

The ban on plastic water bottle sales may be largely symbolic. Town officials aren't sure they have the power to enact the ban without approval from the state.

America or Mexica?

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees
Freedom of expression or cultural disrespect on Cinco de Mayo? By GEORGE KIRIYAMA


On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

"They said we could wear it on any other day," Daniel Galli said, "but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today."

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus.

"They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended," Dominic Maciel, Galli's friend, said.

The boys really had no choice, and went home to avoid suspension. They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride. Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."

Politics for patriots

Selections: Victor Davis Hanson, Soldier-Citizens for Congress?

Usually, a handful of ex-soldiers seek political office every election cycle. But well over 20 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are running this fall for Congress alone. Almost all are riding a wave of public anger at incumbents over a profligate government and a dishonest Wall Street — and a general feeling that the current Democratic remedy has proven as bad as, or worse than, the recent Republican disease. . .

In other words, the public is desperate for civic-minded leaders who are untainted by Washington, but who have a proven record of competent service on behalf of the nation. If they are poor or haven’t held office before — apparently so much the better.

The current combat-veteran candidates certainly aren’t the usual state legislators or congressional aides ready for career advancement. Neither are they antiwar liberals who flash their national-security credentials, nor one-issue hawks who want more defense spending. They don’t claim that their combat experience guarantees good governance per se — not after the examples of Murtha or disgraced Republican Duke Cunningham. And they aren’t retired generals used to deference and the spotlight.

So, other than a shared furor at out-of-control spending, government takeovers, and corruption, the 20 or so soldier-citizen candidates are an odd bunch. Some are officers; others are enlisted men. A surprising number were wounded in combat. The vast majority are running as Republicans and seem to have little if any money. They were not so much preselected by Republican operatives as pushed forward through grassroots and sometimes tea-party support. . .

For 30 years after 1865, almost no American could get elected to office without prior Union or Confederate Civil War service. And last century, being a World War II veteran was virtually mandatory for any congressional leader until about 1970. But Iraq and Afghanistan are seen differently from the collective sacrifice and bipartisan efforts of past wars. Our current veterans usually fought in impossible circumstances, where friend and enemy were sometimes indistinguishable. The aims and means of their mission were often questioned — with the public as against the difficult later stages of the wars as they once were for their easier beginning stages.

As a result, these veterans are not saying, “Vote for me because I fought for you,” as much as, “Vote me for because I did my duty, even if some in this country questioned why one would.” We live in a wartime of economic crisis, crushing debt, and endemic political corruption. Rules, obligations, and laws don’t seem to matter. Personal honor is an archaic, fossilized concept.

But suddenly, amid public malaise, dozens of nontraditional soldier-citizens have stepped forward out of the shadows to argue that right now in America, neither money nor incumbency matters as much as civic duty and the old idea of public service. And unlike most of us, they once put their lives on the line to prove just that.

What went wrong in America's economic rulebook?

A must read

When Other People's Money runs out by Daniel Akst, LA Times

The United States is one of the last places in the world where the excesses of capitalism can be witnessed in all their bipolar glory. Like the mad creative genius that it is, our system every now and then whips itself into such a manic froth that sooner or later it crashes, seemingly hell-bent for depression. Our recent financial crisis was one of those periodic nervous breakdowns.

What's going on in Europe today is a remake of that movie, only this time filmed by a socialist director. It's a debt crisis, just like ours. It may prove just as serious. And in its own way it is just as characteristic of the system that spawned it. If American capitalism came close to suicide in 2008, the European welfare state now seems no less bound for self-destruction, even if the process occurs in slow motion.

The similarities between the two crises — one sudden, the other still unfolding — are illuminating. Both, after all, are about excess: the excesses of capitalism on our side, and the excesses of socialism on the other. In both cases, these excesses are based on what is known among investment pros as OPM, which stands somewhat disdainfully for Other People's Money.

In America, as is our wont, the crisis was preceded by roaring growth and unbridled private consumption. The culture of thrift broke down, along with standards of behavior in boardrooms and banks. Government regulators fell down on the job too, perhaps sensing a lack of political will to take away the punchbowl while people were still having a good time. The near-meltdown we foisted on the world was the result of capitalism run riot.

In Europe's economically troubled peripheral states, the crisis comes from the slow but steady accretion of good intentions. Unlike capitalism, collectivization runs riot at a snail's pace in democracies. But there, too, culture broke down — the culture of self-sufficiency, which is always at risk in a welfare state. And just as they did here, people there spent more than they earned, even if their governments did the borrowing and spending for them. In both places, elected leaders are loath to let creditors take a bad haircut for fear of dragging the entire system down.

In both Europe and the U.S., moreover, easy money has been at the heart of the crisis. Here, Alan Greenspan and the Chinese gave us too much credit, which pumped up home prices, which led to even more borrowing. In Europe, countries such as Greece got to trade in their second-rate currencies for euros, which enabled cheaper borrowing — and that much more spending and tax evasion.

Attitudes toward lenders, who in both Europe and the U.S. seem at last to have awakened from their greedy trance, are remarkably parallel. Over here, people are mad at bankers and investors for lending us so much in the first place. And over there, anger arises because lenders are increasingly unwilling to lend at all, potentially leaving Greece and God knows who else unable to finance their deficits. It's remarkable that in both capitalism and socialism, the trouble is the same: Sooner or later you run out of OPM.

If the recent American financial crisis filled our European frenemies with delicious Schadenfreude, it now seems that it's our turn to take pleasure and say "I told you so!"

Yet just as it was premature for the Europeans to take too much satisfaction when the shoe was on the other foot, so too would it be a mistake for us to get too comfortable in the discomfort of the Eurozone.

The reason is that, federal deficits notwithstanding, at the state level our politicians too have made reckless promises to public employees in exchange for labor peace and electoral support. California and New York, to name two of the prime offenders, have for years blended budgetary profligacy with political dysfunction. Rebellious taxpayers, crushing pension obligations and a longstanding reliance on accounting tricks could bring Sacramento and Albany some American version of what Athens is suffering in Europe. Like the latter capital, the former have no domestic currency they can devalue.

Yet all is not grim. Just as the recent American crisis wasn't nearly enough to knock off capitalism, the European crisis won't finish off socialism. Ideally, each side will learn something from the other, and we'll all muddle through with our chosen hybrids, socializing some things and privatizing others in some new combination that suits our national character and history. Taking such a middle path will always seem dull, but perhaps we've all had quite enough excitement for a while.