Press Briefing

Jun 26, 2010

Shaping a Common Vision of Security between Russia and the United States. By Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary,

Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation. Ploughshares Fund-PIR Centre Conference. Moscow, Russia
http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/143675.htm

Do Developed and Developing Countries Compete Head to Head in High-tech? By Lawrence Edwards, Robert Z. Lawrence
NBER Working Paper No. 16105
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16105#fromrss
Concerns that (1) growth in developing countries could worsen the US terms of trade and (2) that increased US trade

with developing countries will increase US wage inequality both implicitly reflect the assumption that goods produced

in the United States and developing countries are close substitutes and that specialization is incomplete. In this

paper we show on the contrary that there are distinctive patterns of international specialization and that developed

and developing countries export fundamentally different products, especially those classified as high tech.

The Great Danes: Cultural Values and Neoliberal Reforms
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1629940
The paper examines the relationship between civic values and neoliberal reforms. It shows that countries with more

idealistic (or civic-minded) cultural attitudes also have more neoliberal economic policies. In addition, countries

with more idealistic cultural values moved most rapidly toward market reforms after 1980. In less civic-minded

cultures, rent-seeking special interest groups blocked reform, even as the superiority of the neoliberal economic

model became increasingly apparent.

Humanoid Robot Justin Learning To Fix Satellites
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/humanoid-robot-justin-learning-to-fix-satellites

Jobs and Financial Regulation Reform: A Preliminary Look
http://americanactionforum.org/files/Jobs_FinReg.pdf

DLC: Ban the Gerrymander
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=255166&kaid=450022&subid=900228

Libertarian: Rethinking jobless benefits
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38990.html

Conservatives: Halting the Explosive Growth of Welfare Entitlements
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/25/morning-bell-halting-the-explosive-growth-of-welfare-entitlements

Press Briefing

Jan 25, 2010

On BPA: Speak Up, Science & Industry -- or Forever Hold Your Peace
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1565/news_detail.asp

Obama Is Missing in Action on Gay Rights - Ted Olson is on the right side of history. When will the president step up?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325231395396708.html

Ambassador Eikenberry Receives First Honorary Degree From National Military Academy of Afghanistan
http://blogs.state.gov/ap/index.php/site/entry/eikenberry_nmaa

A Weakened U.S. Goes to the G-20 - In Toronto, summiteers will be courting China—not the U.S.—as the world's pre-eminent source of dollar financing
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325240077856192.html

Petraeus's Opportunity - His selection reassures our Afghan allies that the U.S. will not begin substantial troop reductions until the Afghans can handle the insurgents on their own
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575326862770750660.html

The Roundtable's Great Awakening - Big business discovers President Obama's 'hostile environment.'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324821751980744.html



Breakthrough in Capturing Lost Energy in Solar Cells - "Hot carrier" solar cells could be twice as efficient as today's
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/breakthrough-in-capturing-lost-energy-in-solar-cells

Why It's Safer to Drill in the 'Backyard' - Texas has had 102 oil and gas well blowouts since the start of 2006, without catastrophic consequences
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575318591702015252.html

The White House Blog - Reset with Russia Continues
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/24/reset-with-russia-continues

Repeal ObamaCare: Yes We Can
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/in-the-news/repeal-obamacare-yes-we-can

Policies of Scarcity in a Land of Plenty
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/06/23/policies-of-scarcity-in-a-land-of-plenty/

Conrad Black's Revenge - The Supreme Court reins in a vague and often abused law
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312512968461310.html

Assistant Secretary Brimmer Speaks With Students at John Cabot University. By Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organization Affairs. Rome, Italy
http://www.state.gov/p/io/rm/2010/143600.htm

No Rush to Judgment on New START
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/24/morning-bell-no-rush-to-judgment-on-new-start

Press Briefing

Jun 24, 2010

Using Comparative Effectiveness Research to Improve the Health of Priority Populations
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2010/0603_comparative_effectiveness.aspx

BIS Annual Reports 1931 to 1996
http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/archive/index.htm

War Is No Place for Libel Law - A federal court slaps down a novel claim from a Sudanese business bombed by the U.S. in 1998
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895204575320840303274372.html

A Missed Opportunity on Financial Reform - How could Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have escaped Congress's attention?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322491510468572.html

U.S. Assistance in Response to the Current Humanitarian Crisis in the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/06/143576.htm

Democrats and the McChrystal Fiasco - They politicized generals during the Bush administration and fomented distrust between civilian and military leaders
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324610902472990.html

The White House Blog - The Secret Life of White House Bees
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/23/secret-life-white-house-bees

The Family Business Revenue Act - A tax on the wealthy becomes a tax on mom and pop
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325031494469728.html

Al Gore & D Blood: Toward Sustainable Capitalism - Long-term incentives are the antidote to short-term greed
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575323112076444850.html

Volcker and Derivatives - The end game for financial reform
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575323032606552688.html

President Obama on LGBT Pride Month: Extraordinary Progress, But Hard Work Left to Do
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/23/president-obama-lgbt-pride-month-extraordinary-progress-hard-work-left-do

The Petraeus Hail Mary - Obama makes a wise choice, but the general needs more support
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325073086949444.html

How the UN Can Contribute to International Cooperation on Climate Change. By Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs. NY-Alesund Symposium, Svalbard, Norway
http://www.state.gov/g/143563.htm

Federal Presidents’s Leadership Vacuum
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/23/morning-bell-obamas-leadership-vacuum

It's Time America Had a Fat President
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11912

Press Briefing

Jun 23, 2010

Implementing the Affordable Care Act
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7vQ4KWXzMc

The "government needs to be removing itself from the private sector"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322931249166908.html

The White House Blog - The Affordable Care Act -- Benefits and Weights Being Lifted
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/22/afforadable-care-act-benefits-and-weights-being-lifted

$100,000 Is Plenty for Deposit Insurance - Raising the cap will enhance the ability of weak banks to expand their deposit base and cause trouble for the FDIC
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575319051157716956.html

America and the Middle East in a New Era
http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2010/136721.htm

Obama's Moratorium, Drilled. WSJ Editorial
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575323203174960586.html
A federal judge instructs the White House on the rule of law
WSJ, Jun 23, 2010

As legal rebukes go, it's hard to get more comprehensive than the one federal judge Martin Feldman delivered yesterday in overturning the Obama Administration's six-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a remarkably pointed 22-page ruling, the judge made clear that even Presidents aren't allowed to impose an "edict" that isn't justified by science or safety.

Oil-services companies brought the case, which is supported by the state of Louisiana, arguing that the White House ban was "arbitrary and capricious" in exceeding federal authority, and Judge Feldman agreed. He noted that even after reading Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's report on safety recommendations (which included the ban), and Mr. Salazar's memo ordering the ban, "the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium."

Quite the opposite, said the judge, "the Report makes no effort to explicitly justify the moratorium." It does "not discuss any irreparable harm that would warrant a suspension of operations" and doesn't provide a timeline for implementing proposed safety regulations. There is "no evidence" that Mr. Salazar "balanced the concern for environmental safety" with existing policy, and "no suggestion" that he "considered any alternatives." The feds couldn't even coherently define "deep water." Ouch.

As these columns have argued, the judge said that the illogic of the moratorium is that "because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger." Because this will cause "irreparable harm" to jobs and to domestic energy supplies, such a sweeping ban couldn't stand.

The judge also went out of his way to express "uneasiness" over the Administration's claim that its safety report (which recommended the ban) had been "peer reviewed" by experts. Those experts have since publicly disavowed the ban, explaining that the ban was added to the report only after they had signed off on an earlier draft. White House green czar Carol Browner dismissed their complaints, saying "No one's been deceived or misrepresented."

But Judge Feldman directly contradicted Ms. Browner, describing the report's claim of "peer review" as "factually incorrect." Moreover, the Administration's "hair-splitting explanation" of what the experts did or didn't support "abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue."

The judge's other public service was to list the environmental groups that had joined the Administration's defense against the suit. They included the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose president, Frances Beinecke, has been appointed by President Obama to his deep water drilling commission. Ms. Beinecke ought to resign.

The Administration says it will appeal, but the thorough-going nature of the judge's ruling suggests the Administration will need a much better legal and substantive case to prevail. It would do better to use the ruling as an excuse to drop its purely political ban and stop compounding the spill's damage to the people and economy of the Gulf.



Bosnia and Herzegovina: Promoting Security By Destroying Conventional Weapons
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/bosnia_herzegovina_conventional_weapons

Orszag Adieu - The 'cost curve' bent the budget director
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322850840791986.html

Geithner & Summers: Our Agenda for the G-20 - Countries should work to stabilize debt levels, enact new financial regulation, and reduce their dependence on fossil fuels
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322791729932502.html

Blowouts Will Not Always Be Prevented - We are curiously unwilling to acknowledge known risks
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322760763424460.html

Why McChrystal Has to Go - It is intolerable for military officers to mock senior political officials, including ambassadors and the vice president
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322800914018876.html

Fire McChrystal Pronto
http://progressive.org/wx062210.html

IER Statement on Court Order Overturning Obama Admin. Deepwater Drilling Ban
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/06/22/ier-statement-on-court-order-overturning-obama-admin-deepwater-drilling-ban/

The White House Blog: Building Regional Energy Innovation Cluster
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/22/building-regional-energy-innovation-clusters

Daddy Was Only a Donor - A new study paints a troubling portrait of children conceived by single mothers who chose insemination
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575306851423563346.html

China Currency 2.0: Yes, Change Really Is Coming
http://blogs.forbes.com/china/2010/06/21/china-currency-2-0-yes-change-really-is-coming/

Conservatives: Time to Dump the Afghanistan Timeline
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/22/morning-bell-time-to-dump-the-afghanistan-timeline/

Moral Hazard and China's Banks - Beijing could face its own banking crisis unless more market discipline is introduced

Moral Hazard and China's Banks. By VICTOR SHIH
Beijing could face its own banking crisis unless more market discipline is introduced.WSJ, Jun 22, 2010

Some policy makers in Beijing have taken to crowing that their economic model is superior to the West's because China didn't suffer a banking crisis. They're wrong in at least one critical respect: moral hazard. In China, just as in the West, banks and businesses have grown accustomed to gambling with other people's money on the assumption that the government will bail them out if they lose.

The key fact governing most credit and investment decisions today is that everyone believes the central bank would bail out any financial institution, large or small. The central government has consistently repaid depositors in the event of bank closures. The promise is different from, and worse than, traditional deposit insurance in that banks don't pay a premium for the benefit—it just happens.
[chiecon]

This causes ripples throughout the financial system. Depositors and investors are at ease with placing much of their savings into financial institutions because of the central bank's blanket guarantee, allowing these institutions to provide ample liquidity to firms. The guarantee also minimizes the chance of a panic, thus enforcing everyone's confidence in the system.

Two other regulations help bolster a deceptive sense of security. First, the China Banking Regulatory Commission imposes a large basket of prudential targets on all banks, including capital-adequacy ratio, debt-asset ratio and nonperforming-loan ratio requirements, as well as a long list of lending rules. Furthermore, the Communist Party sends inspectors to monitor the banking regulators.

The guarantee and intrusive regulations make the system less secure, not more. Given the ultimate backstop, profits from risky behavior can be so high that banks are willing to share some of the spoils with corrupt regulators who can help them circumvent bothersome rules. In one recent case, the vice president of the China Development Bank was convicted of receiving bribes to grant loans against regulations. In another case, a banker in southern Guangdong province bribed local police to arrest an auditor evaluating the bank branch's books.

This kind of behavior would be difficult in a system with a freer media and an independent judiciary. But China's system depends mainly on top-down monitoring, where a borrower need only elicit the help of a powerful official. As an added benefit, if the loan fails, borrowers can work with banks to roll over loans with the regulators' full blessing.

As a consequence, financial-system risks build up over time at an unknown pace. Small crises are not allowed to emerge to inform the public of accumulating systemic risks—unlike in the United States, where a growing number of small bank failures can serve as a canary in a coal mine.

The only way to avert a future crisis of confidence is to tackle moral hazard. First, the central bank's blanket guarantee should be removed from small financial institutions that engage in reckless lending. Depositors must learn to be suspicious of banks doing the bidding of ambitious local authorities.

Second, while it may be difficult to take similar steps for large banks because of systemic risks, these institutions should be required to disclose when large-scale borrowers restructure or roll over major loans. Instead of only reporting the identities of the largest borrowers overall, listed banks should disclose the identities of their largest borrowers in every province or even city so that investors can conduct their own due diligence.

Third, regulators also need to rethink the incentives their rules create. The current system of imposing target caps on nonperforming loans encourages bankers and local regulators to collude to hide them. These targets should be scrapped in favor of higher capital-adequacy ratios and much stricter restrictions on borrowers' ability to roll over loans or to convert short-term loans into long-term loans. If losses arise, banks should be encouraged to simply recognize them and move on.

China's moral hazard problem manifests itself somewhat differently from that in the West, but the end result is the same: If all financial institutions are perceived as too big to fail, while misguided regulations give a false impression of safety, plenty of bankers and investors will be happy to take advantage.

Mr. Shih is a professor of political science at Northwestern University and the author of "Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation" (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Press Briefing

Jan 22, 2010

Resolving the financial crisis: are we heeding the lessons from the Nordics?, by Claudio Borio, Bent Vale and Goetz von Peter. Bis Working Papers No 311
http://www.bis.org/publ/work311.htm

A Battle Against the Odds - How tribal leaders helped the U.S. in Iraq—and the lessons for Afghanistan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575319821523248194.html

An Update from the President on the BP Oil Spill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4ngpNcsW0

Moral Hazard and China's Banks - Beijing could face its own banking crisis unless more market discipline is introduced
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575319582177841808.html

Iran's Democratic Manifesto - Mousavi has issued a clear call for democracy, the separation of mosque and state, and a gentler foreign policy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310753382427596.html

The Sotomayor Precedent - Obama's nominee joins the Ninth Circuit, loses three times
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895204575320840247308772.html

Live Video: Secretary Clinton To Deliver Remarks Celebrating LGBT Pride Month
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/secretary_clinton_lgbt_pride_month

Colombia Speaks - But will the Federal President listen?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895204575320833372467878.html

The White House Blog - The President's Record on Border Security
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/21/presidents-record-border-security

The Antidrilling Commission - The White House choices seem to have made up their minds
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895204575320892241446242.html
 "Under my Administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. . . To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. . . I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions, and not the other way around."
            —President Obama, April 27, 2009

A Negotiated Solution for Afghanistan? - Whatever his other weaknesses, President Karzai is not about to surrender to the Taliban at the peace table
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575319263117995160.html

UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, by Elizabeth Verville, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Remarks at a High-level Meeting of the UN General Assembly, NYC
http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/143406.htm

A Visit Inside Turkey's Islamist IHH - A journalist's trip to the headquarters of the extremist group that sponsored the Mavi Marmara
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/visit-turkey-islamist-ihh

Farewell to the Shadow Shoguns
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike6/English

The Obama Speech We're Waiting For: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to get the BP treatment
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895204575320922399530274.html

Iran and the European Moment - The Continent has no more excuses not to act against Tehran
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704122904575314880833508458.html

Decks are stacked against China keeping its stake in Korea game
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100606bc.html

Can 'Pashtunistan' end the Af-Pak war?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/1/can-pashtunistan-end-the-af-pak-war/

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing - Britain's biggest wind farm companies are to be paid not to produce electricity when the wind is blowing
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7840035/Firms-paid-to-shut-down-wind-farms-when-the-wind-is-blowing.html

Press Briefing

Jan 21, 2010

Chomsky's Nightmare: Is Fascism Coming to America?
http://progressive.org/rothschild0610.html

Time to Stand Up to the National Standards Agenda
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/21/morning-bell-time-to-stand-up-to-the-national-standards-agenda

Churchill's Stogie Up In Smoke
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1549/news_detail.asp

On Eric Jaffe's The King's Best Highway - The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route that Made America
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311071004764364.html

WH Blog: President Obama Breaks Ground on 10,000th Recovery Act Road Project; Let the Summer of Recovery begin!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/18/president-obama-breaks-ground-10000th-recovery-act-road-project-let-summer-recovery-

Think Globally, Sue Locally - The plaintiffs bar goes international and focuses on trashing a corporation's image
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704002104575291101685354766.html

On the Precautionary Principle: The Gulf disaster rehabilitates a discredited idea - The 'Paralyzing' Principle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575304931124455048.html

Pakistan's Medieval Constitution - It is the only Muslim nation to explicitly define who is or is not a 'Muslim'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311043632237762.html

The China Currency Syndrome - World leaders would do better to worry less about imbalances and more about whether their own nations are pursuing policies that contribute to global prosperity
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704365204575317691493370612.html

U.S. Will Contribute Additional $60 Million to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/unrwa_refugees

ObamaCare and the Independent Vote - Voter opposition hasn't changed, and it could be decisive in November
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312610438320480.html

Ending Lobbyist Appointments to Agency Boards and Commissions
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/18/ending-lobbyist-appointments-agency-boards-and-commissions

Capital-Control Comeback - As money flows to Asia, politicians play King Canute
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312080651478488.html

Celebrex: Something to Celebrate
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1548/news_detail.asp

Federal President Weekly Address: Republicans Blocking Progress
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/19/weekly-address-republicans-blocking-progress

Conservatives: Married Fathers-America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/Married-Fathers-Americas-Greatest-Weapon-Against-Child-Poverty

Press Briefing

Jan 19, 2010

Why Pakistan Must Change Its Priorities - ISI and the Taliban
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11902

Adjustments to the Basel II market risk framework announced by the Basel Committee
http://www.bis.org/press/p100618.htm

Free eBook: Cult of the Presidency - America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power
http://www.cato.org/cult-of-the-presidency/

The Vanity Tax - The trouble with the government's new tax on indoor tanning services
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/17/the-vanity-tax

Surfing the Chinternet - What hides behind the "Great Firewall" of China?
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/surfing-chinternet

Why is the United States Always the Supplicant? Part of the answer, no doubt, is our uninhibited displays of eagerness
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-united-states-always-supplicant

US Helps Drought-Affected Niger With First Award Under the Emergency Food Security Program
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/pr100617.html

On NASA's comments to EPA Fears of Formaldehyde
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1540/news_detail.asp

Scoop: KUKA's youBot Mobile Manipulator Unveiled
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/scoop-kukas-youbot

EPA Foments Baseless Fear of Formaldehyde
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1538/news_detail.asp

Keep Your Junk Science Off My Salt
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1541/news_detail.asp

How 'Protectionist' Became An Insult - As Congress dawdles on trade agreements, the harsh results of the Smoot-Hawley tariff should not be forgotten
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296610452014710.html

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure - We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure. By TIMOTHY KNOWLES
We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life.WSJ, Jun 18, 2010

Colorado did right by its kids recently when Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law groundbreaking education reform to overhaul teacher tenure and evaluation. The bill elicited an outcry from many teachers. But the many states now considering similar measures must not be cowed by the firestorm.

As a former teacher, principal and district leader, I've devoted my life to providing children with the excellent education they deserve. And in my 23 years on the job, there are two things I've learned for certain.

First, teachers have a greater impact on student learning than any other school-based factor. Second, we will not produce excellent schools without eliminating laws and practices that guarantee teachers—regardless of their performance—jobs for life.

Nearly everyone in public education has a story that illustrates the Kafkaesque process of trying to remove a tenured teacher. Mine involves a teacher in Boston who napped each day in the back of the room while students copied from the board. Despite repeated efforts, the district failed to fire him.

Such anecdotes are reinforced by hard data. An award-winning study of Illinois school districts over an 18-year period found an average of two tenured teachers out of 95,000 were dismissed for underperformance each year. Nationally, between 0.1% and 1% of tenured teachers are dismissed annually, according to the Center for American Progress.

It's not news that students suffer when very low-performing teachers are allowed to remain in the classroom. But teachers suffer too. In a forthcoming article, my colleague Sara Ray Stoelinga of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute illustrates how teacher tenure creates perverse practices in schools across Chicago. In interviews with 40 principals, 37 admitted to using some type of harassing supervision—cajoling, pressuring or threatening—to get teachers to leave in order to circumvent the byzantine removal process mandated by the union contract. One principal plotted to remove a teacher who had trouble climbing stairs by assigning her to a fourth-floor classroom. Another reassigned a teacher who had been teaching eighth-graders for 14 years to a first-grade classroom.

This pathological status quo feeds upon itself: The more difficult it is for principals to address underperformance, the more likely they are to use informal methods to do so. This fuels labor's argument that management is capricious, strengthening their case for increased employment protection.

This cycle leads to what educators call "the dance of the lemons"—the practice of shuffling underperforming teachers from school to school. It's easier to push a teacher to a school down the street than it is to push them out of the profession.

The effect that bad teachers have on relationships among teachers and principals might be the most corrosive aspect of tenure laws. In the book "Organizing Schools for Improvement," University of Chicago researchers showed that the quality of adult relationships in a school profoundly affects student achievement. Analyzing more than a decade's worth of data from Chicago Public Schools, they found that schools where adults demonstrate a shared sense of responsibility for student learning are four times more likely to make substantial gains in reading than schools without strong professional ties. Schools where principals set high standards and involve teachers in decision making are seven times more likely to make substantial improvements in math than schools weak on such measures. But cooperative relationships are difficult to maintain when principals must use underhanded methods to remove ineffective teachers, and when bad teachers undermine staff morale.

The good news is that the majority of teachers are not interested in protecting colleagues who don't belong in the classroom. Last summer the American Federation of Teachers surveyed its members, asking: "Which of these should be the higher priority: working for professional teaching standards and good teaching, or defending the job rights of teachers who face disciplinary action?" According to Randi Weingarten, the union's president, "by a ratio of 4 to 1 (69% to 16%), AFT members chose working for professional standards and good teaching as the higher priority." She elaborated: "Teachers have zero tolerance for people who . . . demonstrate they are unfit for our profession."

The time has come to eliminate tenure. We are facing monumental challenges in our quest to provide all students with an education that will prepare them to compete in a globalized economy. By removing one of the main sources of friction between labor and management, we can focus on the substantive issues: training, evaluating and rewarding teachers to make teaching a true profession.

Mr. Knowles is the director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute.

Press Briefing

Jan 18, 2010

New START and implications for National Security Programs. By Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State. Opening Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the New START. Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/06/143261.htm

U.S. Assistance in Response to the Current Humanitarian Crisis in the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. US State Dept
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/06/143229.htm

The Trouble With Teacher Tenure - We can't make progress if bad teachers have jobs for life
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/trouble-with-teacher-tenure-we-cant.html

Good Jobs and a Level Playing Field in the Next Recovery
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/17/good-jobs-and-a-level-playing-field-next-recovery

The Gulf Spill Record - Here's the rest of the story on USA Today's "Oil spills escalated in this decade."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296584097417918.html

The White House Blog: A New Process and a New Escrow Account for Gulf Oil Spill Claims from BP
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/17/a-new-process-and-a-new-escrow-account-gulf-oil-spill-claims-bp

BP at first sounded arrogant and now is so obsequious it won't even stand up for its legal rights
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575312833964048458.html

New York and the New England Journal of Medicine. By Peter R. Orszag, Director, OMB
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/blog/10/06/17/New-York-and-the-New-England-Journal-of-Medicine/

Reforming Main Street - A trial-lawyer bonanza gets air-dropped into the financial bill
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308970937631194.html

Greenspan: U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy - Don't be fooled by today's low interest rates. The government could very quickly discover the limits of its borrowing capacity.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310962247772540.html

New York and the New England Journal of Medicine. By Peter R. Orszag, Director, OMB
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/blog/10/06/17/New-York-and-the-New-England-Journal-of-Medicine/

In Medical Malpractice Reform, States Should Shirk the Washington Way
http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/in-the-news/in-medical-malpractice-reform-states-should-shirk-the-washington-way

U.S. Treasury Department Targets Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs. Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/143265.htm

Cisneros Rewriting HUD History
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/cisneros-rewriting-hud-history.html

Missile Defense: We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way. By M Flournoy, Under Sec of Defense for Policy & A Carter, Under Sec of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics
http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2010/06/missile-defense-weve-committed-to.html

Rahming Through a Lame Duck Climate Bill?
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11904

Expert: Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/16/obama.speech.analysis/index.html

An Offer BP Couldn’t Refuse
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/17/morning-bell-an-offer-bp-couldnt-refuse

The Water Cost of Carbon Capture
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/the-water-cost-of-carbon-capture

Cisneros Rewriting HUD History

Posted by Tad DeHaven, Cato, June 17, 2010 @ 1:50 pm

In a recent speech to real estate interests, former Clinton HUD secretary Henry Cisneros preposterously claimed that the recent housing meltdown “occurred not out of a governmental push, but out of a hijacking of the homeownership process by some unscrupulous interests.”
The only criticisms Cisneros could muster for the government’s housing policies over the past 20 years were that regulations weren’t tough enough and it should have focused more on rental subsidies.

The reality is that Cisneros-era HUD regulations and policies directly contributed to the housing bubble and subsequent burst as a Cato essay on HUD scandals illustrates:

• Cisneros’s HUD pursued legal action against mortgage lenders who supposedly declined higher percentages of loans for minorities than whites. As a result of such political pressure, lenders begin lowering their lending standards.

• On Cisneros’s watch, the Community Reinvestment Act was used to pressure lenders into making more loans to moderate-income borrowers by allowing regulators to deny merger approvals for banks with low CRA ratings. The result was that banks began issuing more loans to otherwise uncreditworthy borrowers, while purchasing more CRA mortgage-backed securities. More importantly, these lax standards quickly spread to prime and subprime mortgage markets.

• The Clinton administration’s National Homeownership Strategy, prepared under Cisneros’s direction, advocated “financing strategies, fueled by creativity and resources of the public and private sectors, to help homebuyers that lack cash to buy a home or income to make the payments.” In other words, his policies encouraged the behavior that he now calls “unscrupulous.”

• Cisneros’s HUD also put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under constant pressure to facilitate more lending to “underserved” markets. It was under Cisneros’s direction that HUD agreed to allow Fannie and Freddie credit toward its “affordable housing” targets by buying subprime mortgages. Fannie and Freddie are now under government conservatorship and will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Cisneros now serves as the executive chairman of an institutional investment company focused on urban real estate. Might that explain why Cisneros is now a fan of subsidizing rental housing?
“Unscrupulous” would be a good word to describe the millions of dollars Cisneros has made in the real estate industry following his exit from government.
From the Cato essay:

In 2001, Cisneros joined the board of Fannie Mae’s biggest client: the now notorious Countrywide Financial, the company that was center stage in the subprime lending scandals of recent years. When the housing bubble was inflating, Countrywide and KB took full advantage of the liberalized lending standards fueled by Cisneros’s HUD. In addition to the money he received as a KB director, Cisneros’s company, in which he held a 65 percent stake, received $1.24 million in consulting fees from KB in 2002.
When Cisneros stepped down from Countrywide’s board in 2007, he called it a “well-managed company” and said that he had “enormous confidence” in its leadership. Clearly, those statements were baloney—Cisneros was trying to escape before the crash. Just days before his resignation, Countrywide announced a $1.2 billion loss, and reported that a third of its borrowers were late on mortgage payments. According to SEC records, Cisneros’s position at Countrywide had earned him a $360,000 salary in 2006 and $5 million in stock sales since 2001.

Missile Defense: We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way

The Way Forward on Missile Defense. By M Flournoy, Under Sec of Defense for Policy & A Carter, Under Sec of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics
We've committed to developing proven technologies, and the new START Treaty won't stand in our way.
WSJ, Jun 17, 2010

Ballistic missile defenses have matured from a Cold War idea to a real-world necessity. Threats today from ballistic missiles are real, present and growing. Iran and North Korea have extensive inventories of these weapons that threaten their neighbors. Both are working on longer-range missiles capable of posing a direct danger to the United States in the coming years. Iran's continued pursuit of an illicit nuclear program and North Korea's rash intimidation after sinking a South Korean navy ship are but the most recent reminders of the real need for effective U.S. missile defenses.

To counter Iran's ballistic missile program, President Obama announced a phased adaptive approach for European missile defense last September—a move unanimously welcomed by our NATO allies. The first phase begins next year with the deployment of radars and ship-based systems in southern Europe. Romania and Poland have agreed to host land-based defenses for the second and third phases.

A similar phased adaptive approach is being applied to missile defenses in the Middle East and East Asia. While the details of the deployments and host-country arrangements will differ by region, the common thread is significant improvement in ballistic missile defense capabilities, meant to protect our deployed forces overseas and our allies and partners.

In a departure from past approaches, we are no longer building systems anchored in one place and wedded to current threat assessments. We know that the capabilities of potential adversaries do not always progress according to intelligence assessments. Our program must adapt accordingly in the face of evolving and unpredictable threats.

We are also making continued progress in improving our ability to defend the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile attack. By the fall, the U.S. will have 30 deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, with eight more missile defense silos near completion.

The U.S. is committed to a "fly before you buy" approach supported by a rigorous and independently-monitored testing program. An essential element of that program, and a key capability for the phased adaptive approach, is the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptor. The SM-3 version deployed on Navy ships today has hit—within inches—its exact target in nine out of 10 tests. The accuracy of these tests has been confirmed in a variety of ways: by fiber-optic grids that can precisely indicate the point of impact on the target; by images taken from the interceptor in the very last moment before impact (images not available to the public for security reasons); by data from highly accurate radars and airborne sensors; and by extensive rocket sled tests and computer simulations on the ground. All these verification sources confirm that when a missile warhead was hit, it was destroyed. These results have been validated by an independent panel of experts with access to all of the classified and unclassified test data.

Missile defenses have become a topic of some discussion in the context of the Senate's consideration of the New START Treaty with Russia. The fact is that the treaty does not constrain the U.S. from testing, developing and deploying missile defenses. Nor does it prevent us from improving or expanding them. Nor does it raise the costs of doing so. We have made clear to our Russian counterparts that missile defense cooperation between us is in our mutual interest, and is not inconsistent with the need to deploy and improve our missile defense capabilities as threats arise.

U.S. ballistic missile defenses are effective, affordable and increasingly adaptable. These capabilities are critical to protecting U.S. citizens, our forces abroad, and our allies from real and growing threats.