Texas
Posted by Peter
Using an expensive education to ramble about Economics, Politics and English Beer
Two Princeton University economists claim that job outsourcing increased
productivity and real wages for low-skilled U.S. workers.
Princeton professors Gene Grossman and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg debated that salaries for the least-skilled blue collar jobs had been increasing since 1997 as outsourcing pushed productivity....The Princeton economists say that critics tended to gloss over the productivity benefits that come with offshoring labor.
The uninsured in the lowest quartile of the distribution of total expenditures spend more on housing, food at home, alcohol and tobacco, and education than do the insured.
In contrast, households in the top quartile of the distribution of total
expenditures spend more on transportation and furniture and appliances than do
comparable insured households.These results are consistent with the idea that poor uninsured households face higher housing prices than do poor insured households.
"I spend a lot of time with my Friesians and they definitely 'moo' with a Somerset drawl," [Llyod Green, a farmer from southwest England] said, referring to the breed of dairy cow he owns.Despite what appears to be a growing - albeit far from overwhelming - scientific consensus on this issue, me thinks Lloyd has had one too many pints...
Pubs in Scotland risk going out of business due to a smoking ban that has led to a 10 percent drop in drinks sales, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) has said.
U.S. involvement in Iraq has been incredibly successful and developments there have been "nothing short of a miracle," Sen. James Inhofe said Monday.I don't even know where to begin...
As I have noted before, if Democrats were hitting Republicans from the right on national security, the GOP would be in far deeper trouble.So the American public wants us to commit 500,000 more troops to Iraq, stay there indefinitely, bomb Iran, and pretty much make a mess out of the Middle East? Last time I checked, this wasn't exactly the case.
Last week in the Weekly Standard, the apparent inventor of the phrase, Stephen Schwartz, dismissed those who'd be offended by "Islamofascism" as "primitive Muslims." That should tell you all you need to know about those who use the term. I confess to using it, if ironically, in a recent piece, and here in Dearborn I learned precisely why you and I shouldn't. The people it infuriates aren't primitive. They're the moderate, pro-American, well-integrated Muslims who form one of the greatest bulwarks against Al Qaeda that the U.S. possesses, and they see the term as draining their Americanness away.Dearborn is of course home to America's "largest and oldest Muslim community in the U.S." Read the whole thing!
For his pro-life supporter base, President George W. Bush stepped into one of the biggest political landmines of his Presidential career today with his approval of over the counter status for the abortion-causing morning after pill Plan B.Let the intra-Republican party bloodletting begin...
It is not easy to deal analytically with arguments that are based on religion or
emotion rather than on pragmatic considerations. Given the number of spontaneous
(not to mention deliberate) abortions and the fact that in vitro fertilization,
which produces excess embryos, is lawful, it is a little mysterious what exactly
is objectionable about using some of these excess embryos, which would otherwise
either be destroyed or stored indefinitely with dim prospects of ever being used
to produce more in vitro children, unless the objector opposes all
nonspontaneous abortion. And that is an opposition founded on religious belief.
Is there anyone in the country who can say honestly, in their heart of hearts, that when that moment of fear hit them after the recent reports out of London, they said to themselves, "God, I'm glad we're in Iraq"?Josh Marshall stating the obvious: Our invasion of Iraq has made us more - not less - vulnerable to terrorism.
Never mind the fact that economic growth averaged only 3% during the
Reagan-Bush41 period and only 2.6% under Bush43. Yes, it was that 3.7% growth
during the Clinton years that kept the overall average near 3.5%.
Connecticut has lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs in the last six years, many replaced by retail and service jobs which pay less and have reduced healthcare and pension benefits. Today, the middle class is getting squeezed and most people living in poverty or near poverty are employed but not earning enough to get by. Many of our high-skill jobs are being sent overseas, drawn by low wages and no benefits.
I support strictly-enforced fair trade policies which level the playing field, requiring that American products have the same access to Chinese markets that Chinese products have to American markets. I would support only reciprocal trade agreements which include strong labor and environmental standards.
So Lamont seems to think the U.S. economy is suffering and the primary reason is competition from poor workers in China.
This rhetoric scares me. Wages, benefits, and labor and environmental standards are primarily a function of the level of economic development. Complaining about poor countries low wages and benefits is essentially blaming the poor for being poor.
But there's an alternative: persuading the American public that there's a different and more effective way to fight radical jihadism, one that relies more on economic engagement and public diplomacy and less on mid-20th century notions of fighting wars against uniformed armies. Unfortunately, most Dems don't know how to do this, and their prescriptions end up sounding mushy and unconvincing. In fact, they often sound like they don't really believe their own rhetoric.Kevin Drum on what the Dems need to do regain the American public's confidence on national security.
I know it's easy to say and harder to do, but: for the good of the country and the good of the party, someone better figure out how to do this. My guess is that the messengers of withdrawal from Iraq will end up getting shot (or at least winged) unless they pair up that message with a truly persuasive and inspiring plan for fighting the overall war in a better and more winnable way. The first Dem to do this is the frontrunner for 2008.
the data doesn’t seem to support the idea that lower taxes are associated with faster growth rates. In fact, the opposite is true, especially for the fastest growing states. One way to interpret this is to conclude that taxes are actually below their optimal rates, and therefore, at the margin, the government is actually more efficient than individuals at converting its spending into growth. Society needs a certain amount of public goods (infrastructure, public health, confronting the Canadian menace, etc.) for businesses to thrive, and perhaps we currently have too little provision of public goods rather than too much.
"There's no plan - we are constantly reacting," said a senior American military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have absolutely no idea what we're going to do."Things in Iraq just keep going from bad to worse. And to think that Bush continues to argue that if he had to do it all over again he still would have invaded...
When our top commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, tells a Senate Committee, as he did yesterday, that ''the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it,'' it means that three years of efforts to democratize Iraq are not working. That means ''staying the course'' is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B — how we might disengage with the least damage possible.First it was George Will. Next came David Broder. And now Tom Friedman has joined the chorus of voices calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. As Kevin Drum notes, all three are "cautious, centrist, establishment liberals who have long hoped for success in Iraq." That all three have now thrown in the towel is evidence of a fundamental shift in "moderate" opinion on the war. What's more, as a recent Gallup poll of U.S. public opinion on Iraq demonstrates, Will, Broder, and Friedman's change of heart essentially mirrors the American people's changing attitudes toward the war. I hope Repubs have a lot of "cut and run" stickers because pretty soon they're going to have to start affixing them on the entire country!
The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy.William Patey, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad, on the liklihood of civil war in Iraq. Despite all this, Patey thinks that any premature withdrawal would make the situation worse. So let me get this straight. Patey thinks there's probably going to be a civil war yet continues to maintain that the most prudent course for the U.S. and UK would be to make sure we're right in the middle of it? Given the terrible news that keeps coming out of Iraq, I'd argue exactly the opposite.
Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq - a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself and is an ally in the war on terror - must remain in doubt.
The point is that history and economics have their own logic. A military mission that fails to yield a victory does not always presage disaster. Today, virtually no one argues that we should have continued fighting the North Koreans or the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.Translation: Getting out of North Korea and Vietnam was the right thing to do. Getting out of Iraq is also the right thing to do.
Can we think about the costs of carrying on, without an end in sight, against Hezbollah and the insurgents in Iraq?
"An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"Richard N. Haass, President Bush's first-term State Department policy planning director exploding Bush's claim that the fighting in Lebanon and Iraq represents "a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region."