With Realism and Restraint, by Doug Bandow
The Korea Times, May 1, 2009
North Korea demonstrates the limits of President Barack Obama's more accommodating diplomacy.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea engages in perpetual brinkmanship. Last winter the tortuous negotiations over the North Korea's nuclear program crashed if not burned over verification procedures for Pyongyang's official nuclear declaration.
The Obama administration hopes to rejuvenate the six-party talks, but the way forward is uncertain after the North's recent missile launch.
In fact, the effort was much ado about nothing. The botched effort suggests that the DPRK poses less than a formidable military threat. Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, snickered: "On the idea of proliferation, would you buy from somebody that had failed three times in a row and never been successful?"
However, as a step designed to win international attention the test was far more successful, creating the usual public frenzy in Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington. The U.S. denounced the launch as illegal and went to the United Nations for redress.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon complained that the action was "not conducive to efforts to promote dialogue, regional peace and stability," as if those were North Korea's objectives.
China and Russia exhibited their usual reluctance to crack down on the North. With Beijing's call for "calm" and "restraint," the Security Council approved a resolution insisting on little more than enforcement of previously approved sanctions.
What should Washington do?
The Obama administration needs to realistically assess the conundrum that is North Korea. We should downplay any expectations of changing North Korea.
America should step back and let others take the lead in dealing with Pyongyang. A desperately poor, isolated state with an antiquated military, the DPRK poses far greater problems for its neighbors than for America.
Only South Korea is within reach of the North's army — a good reason for the U.S. to withdraw its troops, since they are not needed to safeguard the Republic of Korea. (Seoul enjoys a vast economic, technological, population, and diplomatic edge over the North.)
Japan along with the ROK is vulnerable to North Korean missiles. China and the South both fear a violent DPRK collapse and refugee flood. Beijing also suffers from the nightmare of spreading nuclear proliferation, which could result in Japan developing nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, Washington and North Korea's neighbors have only bad options. It would be wonderful to create a democratic, humane DPRK. It is more important to avoid a new Korean war and cap any North Korean nuclear arsenal.
Thus, the Obama administration should focus its efforts on halting any further North Korean nuclear developments.
Unfortunately, convincing Pyongyang to yield its small atomic arsenal will require a geopolitical miracle. However, Pyongyang can do little with a small cache of nuclear weapons: attacking the U.S. would be suicidal, and Kim prefers his virgins in the here and now.
In contrast, the North could do enormous damage with a large and growing stockpile of nuclear materiel, including underwriting widespread proliferation.
To the extent the DPRK has been willing to comply with its promises — both in accepting the Clinton-era Agreed Framework and the later accord negotiated with the Bush administration — it has been to freeze its existing program. Future negotiations should focus on the same end.
For the same reason the U.S. must not get sidetracked by the North's missile program. As one American official anonymously declared: "We are not going to … let them distract us from the goal, which is denuclearization."
While the prospect of North Korea possessing advanced missile technology is unsettling, nuclear proliferation is the more important game.
Finally, Washington needs to concentrate on changing the negotiating dynamic with North Korea before negotiating with Pyongyang. For years the DPRK has used brinkmanship to win concessions. The U.S., ROK, and other friendly states need to reverse this reward structure.
First, they should respond to the North's provocations with bored contempt rather than excited fear. Calling an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council sent precisely the wrong message to Pyongyang.
Second, rather than publicly whining about North Korea's actions, friendly nations should quietly inform Pyongyang that they will offer no benefits while it is ratcheting up tensions.
If the DPRK responds positively, however, Washington should offer diplomatic recognition and the end of trade sanctions, small concessions in areas where punitive policies have manifestly failed; South Korea should move back toward the "Sunshine Policy."
The prospect of a peace treaty with America, full normalization of political and economic relations with the U.S., expanded trade with and aid from South Korea and Japan, and full participation in international institutions might beckon Pyongyang forward.
North Korea will long be with us. The Obama administration must recognize that any success will come only slowly, painfully, and incrementally, and as a result of a limited agenda realistically implemented.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Will Obama send a left-wing Scalia to the High Court?
Succeeding Souter. WSJ Editorial
Will Obama send a left-wing Scalia to the High Court?
WSJ, May 2, 2009
With Justice David Souter's announced retirement, a Democratic President will replace a Republican appointee to the Supreme Court. Normally, this would be a chance to alter the ideological balance of a closely divided Court. Justice Souter's replacement is unlikely to do that, but who President Obama does choose will tell us whether Mr. Obama's early move to the left on domestic issues is mirrored in his judicial picks.
Justice Souter was a relatively unknown jurist from New Hampshire who'd served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston for only three months before being selected by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. President Bush was presented with the rare chance to replace a retiring liberal giant in Justice William Brennan and create a new center-right majority.
But after the Robert Bork brawl three years earlier, Mr. Bush chose to look for a conservative with no paper trail that could trigger another confirmation fight. At the urging of his chief of staff, John Sununu, and New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, he settled on Judge Souter, who'd written no books, no appellate court opinions and one law review article. He was confirmed, 90-9.
In short order, Justice Souter was distancing himself from conservatives on the High Court. Most famously, he joined the 6-3 majority in the 1992 Casey ruling upholding Roe v. Wade. While he advertised himself as a believer in stare decisis, or Supreme Court precedent, Justice Souter nearly always found a way to join 5-4 majorities that overturned precedents he disliked. His nomination was a lost opportunity and one of President Bush's biggest failures -- and the precedent is one reason Republicans revolted against George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers.
Don't expect President Obama to return the favor. Justice Souter, who is 69, is likely to be replaced by a much younger version of himself, even if it turns out to be a black, Hispanic or female version. The reported shortlist includes Elena Kagan, the former Harvard Law School dean and current Solicitor General; Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor; Kathleen Sullivan, a professor and former dean of Stanford Law School; and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Let's just say that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are in no danger of finding themselves with a new ally on the Court anytime soon.
Judge Sotomayor would be the High Court's first Hispanic justice and allow Mr. Obama to reward the Latino voters who helped elect him. The fact that she was appointed to the federal bench by the first President Bush could also be used to combat complaints that she's too liberal. But Judge Sotomayor's record deserves scrutiny, not least because she was part of a three-judge panel that declined to address the Constitutional issues at stake in the Ricci workplace discrimination case now before the Supreme Court; some speculate that she didn't want to reveal her views on such a controversial issue.
If Mr. Obama wants a centrist heavyweight, he could turn to Jose Cabranes, a Puerto Rican immigrant named to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton in 1994. But Democrats and liberal activists, who haven't had a Supreme Court pick since Justice Stephen Breyer 15 years ago, will be looking for a left-wing Antonin Scalia, a jurist who can forcefully articulate reliably liberal positions.
Elections matter. And right now President Obama may have the personal popularity and Senate votes to confirm almost anyone he wants. But Republicans still have an obligation to scrutinize his nominees, and that includes finding out whether they share the President's view that judges should consider more than just the facts of a case and the applicable law.
"We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenaged mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old," Mr. Obama said in 2007. "And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges." It's hard to imagine a more expansive view of a judge's role than that one.
Yet given everything else Mr. Obama wants to accomplish this year, he may not also want to risk a battle over a notably liberal Supreme Court nominee. Republicans might take some comfort in that, but not too much. Justice John Paul Stevens is pushing 90. This is unlikely to be Mr. Obama's only nomination.
Will Obama send a left-wing Scalia to the High Court?
WSJ, May 2, 2009
With Justice David Souter's announced retirement, a Democratic President will replace a Republican appointee to the Supreme Court. Normally, this would be a chance to alter the ideological balance of a closely divided Court. Justice Souter's replacement is unlikely to do that, but who President Obama does choose will tell us whether Mr. Obama's early move to the left on domestic issues is mirrored in his judicial picks.
Justice Souter was a relatively unknown jurist from New Hampshire who'd served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston for only three months before being selected by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. President Bush was presented with the rare chance to replace a retiring liberal giant in Justice William Brennan and create a new center-right majority.
But after the Robert Bork brawl three years earlier, Mr. Bush chose to look for a conservative with no paper trail that could trigger another confirmation fight. At the urging of his chief of staff, John Sununu, and New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, he settled on Judge Souter, who'd written no books, no appellate court opinions and one law review article. He was confirmed, 90-9.
In short order, Justice Souter was distancing himself from conservatives on the High Court. Most famously, he joined the 6-3 majority in the 1992 Casey ruling upholding Roe v. Wade. While he advertised himself as a believer in stare decisis, or Supreme Court precedent, Justice Souter nearly always found a way to join 5-4 majorities that overturned precedents he disliked. His nomination was a lost opportunity and one of President Bush's biggest failures -- and the precedent is one reason Republicans revolted against George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers.
Don't expect President Obama to return the favor. Justice Souter, who is 69, is likely to be replaced by a much younger version of himself, even if it turns out to be a black, Hispanic or female version. The reported shortlist includes Elena Kagan, the former Harvard Law School dean and current Solicitor General; Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor; Kathleen Sullivan, a professor and former dean of Stanford Law School; and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Let's just say that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are in no danger of finding themselves with a new ally on the Court anytime soon.
Judge Sotomayor would be the High Court's first Hispanic justice and allow Mr. Obama to reward the Latino voters who helped elect him. The fact that she was appointed to the federal bench by the first President Bush could also be used to combat complaints that she's too liberal. But Judge Sotomayor's record deserves scrutiny, not least because she was part of a three-judge panel that declined to address the Constitutional issues at stake in the Ricci workplace discrimination case now before the Supreme Court; some speculate that she didn't want to reveal her views on such a controversial issue.
If Mr. Obama wants a centrist heavyweight, he could turn to Jose Cabranes, a Puerto Rican immigrant named to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton in 1994. But Democrats and liberal activists, who haven't had a Supreme Court pick since Justice Stephen Breyer 15 years ago, will be looking for a left-wing Antonin Scalia, a jurist who can forcefully articulate reliably liberal positions.
Elections matter. And right now President Obama may have the personal popularity and Senate votes to confirm almost anyone he wants. But Republicans still have an obligation to scrutinize his nominees, and that includes finding out whether they share the President's view that judges should consider more than just the facts of a case and the applicable law.
"We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenaged mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old," Mr. Obama said in 2007. "And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges." It's hard to imagine a more expansive view of a judge's role than that one.
Yet given everything else Mr. Obama wants to accomplish this year, he may not also want to risk a battle over a notably liberal Supreme Court nominee. Republicans might take some comfort in that, but not too much. Justice John Paul Stevens is pushing 90. This is unlikely to be Mr. Obama's only nomination.
WaPo: More Souters
More Souters. WaPo Editorial
The qualities President Obama should seek in filling the shoes of a fine justice
WaPo, Saturday, May 2, 2009
FOR YEARS, the rallying cry in conservative legal circles has been "No More Souters," by which activists meant no more "stealth" Supreme Court nominees whose jurisprudence differed from what the president who appointed them had expected. With Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter announcing his intention to retire after 19 years, a good guide for President Obama might be "More Souters" -- but not in the sense that we want stealth nominees. Justice Souter has turned out to be not only smart and thoughtful -- something that could have been predicted from his confirmation testimony -- but also open-minded and free from ideological orthodoxy. That has made him anathema to the right, but a fine justice whose tenure has been marred only by his well-known aversion to our city. Another Souter would not be a bad achievement for Mr. Obama.
It's odd to realize that the retirement of a justice appointed by President George H.W. Bush and his replacement by a Democratic president will probably not shift the court significantly to the left. Instead, Mr. Obama has an opportunity of a different sort: to add to the diversity of perspectives and experiences on the high court. We do not mean that he should seek to fill in a specific blank -- a second woman, the first Hispanic -- but that he is right to weigh candidates' backgrounds along with their judicial philosophies and intellectual capabilities. Time outside the legal academy and the courtroom is an asset to justices; the best bring to the bench more than a good brain. Constitutional interpretation is not a technocratic operation. Experience in the real world -- of business, of politics, of family life -- adds to the mix. Mr. Obama touched on this yesterday when he outlined the qualities he will seek in a nominee: "someone who understands justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives."
The temptation for Republicans will be to treat Mr. Obama's pick as some Democrats -- including, sad to say, then-Sen. Obama -- treated President George W. Bush's. It is legitimate for senators to take a nominee's ideology into account and to probe it within ethical limits, but it is also important to keep in mind that elections have consequences, and that the president is, as a general matter, entitled to name justices who reflect his own understanding of the Constitution and the role of the courts. We say this having supported Mr. Bush's two nominees -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. -- as within the mainstream of conservative legal thought. Mr. Obama deserves the same degree of deference in the important choice that he will soon make.
The qualities President Obama should seek in filling the shoes of a fine justice
WaPo, Saturday, May 2, 2009
FOR YEARS, the rallying cry in conservative legal circles has been "No More Souters," by which activists meant no more "stealth" Supreme Court nominees whose jurisprudence differed from what the president who appointed them had expected. With Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter announcing his intention to retire after 19 years, a good guide for President Obama might be "More Souters" -- but not in the sense that we want stealth nominees. Justice Souter has turned out to be not only smart and thoughtful -- something that could have been predicted from his confirmation testimony -- but also open-minded and free from ideological orthodoxy. That has made him anathema to the right, but a fine justice whose tenure has been marred only by his well-known aversion to our city. Another Souter would not be a bad achievement for Mr. Obama.
It's odd to realize that the retirement of a justice appointed by President George H.W. Bush and his replacement by a Democratic president will probably not shift the court significantly to the left. Instead, Mr. Obama has an opportunity of a different sort: to add to the diversity of perspectives and experiences on the high court. We do not mean that he should seek to fill in a specific blank -- a second woman, the first Hispanic -- but that he is right to weigh candidates' backgrounds along with their judicial philosophies and intellectual capabilities. Time outside the legal academy and the courtroom is an asset to justices; the best bring to the bench more than a good brain. Constitutional interpretation is not a technocratic operation. Experience in the real world -- of business, of politics, of family life -- adds to the mix. Mr. Obama touched on this yesterday when he outlined the qualities he will seek in a nominee: "someone who understands justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives."
The temptation for Republicans will be to treat Mr. Obama's pick as some Democrats -- including, sad to say, then-Sen. Obama -- treated President George W. Bush's. It is legitimate for senators to take a nominee's ideology into account and to probe it within ethical limits, but it is also important to keep in mind that elections have consequences, and that the president is, as a general matter, entitled to name justices who reflect his own understanding of the Constitution and the role of the courts. We say this having supported Mr. Bush's two nominees -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. -- as within the mainstream of conservative legal thought. Mr. Obama deserves the same degree of deference in the important choice that he will soon make.
State Sec Clinton on World Press Freedom Day
World Press Freedom Day. By Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State
US State Dept, Washington, DC, May 1, 2009
The United States is proud to join the international community in celebrating World Press Freedom Day and the contributions that journalists make to advancing human dignity, liberty, and prosperity.
We live in a world where the free flow of information and ideas is a powerful force for progress. Independent print, broadcast, and online media outlets are more than sources of news and opinion. They also expose abuses of power, fight corruption, challenge assumptions, and provide constructive outlets for new ideas and dissent.
Freedom of the press is protected by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is a hallmark of every free society. Wherever media freedom is in jeopardy, all other human rights are also under threat. A free media is essential to democracy and it fosters transparency and accountability, both of which are prerequisites for sustained economic development.
Those who seek to abuse power and spread corruption view media freedom as a threat. Instead of supporting an open press, they attempt to control or silence independent voices. The methods they use against news organizations and journalists range from restrictive laws and regulations to censorship, violence, imprisonment, and even murder. Such tactics are not new, and cannot go unanswered.
We are especially concerned about the citizens from our own country currently under detention abroad: individuals such as Roxana Saberi in Iran, and Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea.
On behalf of President Obama, I want to affirm the United States’ strong commitment to media freedom worldwide. We will champion this cause through our diplomatic efforts and through our exchange and assistance programs. We will work in partnership with non-governmental organizations and directly with members of the media. And we will stand with those courageous men and women who face persecution for exercising and defending the right of media freedom.
US State Dept, Washington, DC, May 1, 2009
The United States is proud to join the international community in celebrating World Press Freedom Day and the contributions that journalists make to advancing human dignity, liberty, and prosperity.
We live in a world where the free flow of information and ideas is a powerful force for progress. Independent print, broadcast, and online media outlets are more than sources of news and opinion. They also expose abuses of power, fight corruption, challenge assumptions, and provide constructive outlets for new ideas and dissent.
Freedom of the press is protected by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is a hallmark of every free society. Wherever media freedom is in jeopardy, all other human rights are also under threat. A free media is essential to democracy and it fosters transparency and accountability, both of which are prerequisites for sustained economic development.
Those who seek to abuse power and spread corruption view media freedom as a threat. Instead of supporting an open press, they attempt to control or silence independent voices. The methods they use against news organizations and journalists range from restrictive laws and regulations to censorship, violence, imprisonment, and even murder. Such tactics are not new, and cannot go unanswered.
We are especially concerned about the citizens from our own country currently under detention abroad: individuals such as Roxana Saberi in Iran, and Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea.
On behalf of President Obama, I want to affirm the United States’ strong commitment to media freedom worldwide. We will champion this cause through our diplomatic efforts and through our exchange and assistance programs. We will work in partnership with non-governmental organizations and directly with members of the media. And we will stand with those courageous men and women who face persecution for exercising and defending the right of media freedom.
Friday, May 1, 2009
U.S. Department of State Delivers $5 Million in New Mine Action Aid for Afghanistan
U.S. Department of State Delivers $5 Million in New Mine Action Aid for Afghanistan
US State Dept, Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, April 30, 2009
The U.S. Department of State is responding to an international funding shortfall for mine action in Afghanistan by providing an additional $5,000,000 to six humanitarian demining groups, including five Afghan non-governmental organizations. This emergency U.S. funding will enable 34 more mine action teams to remove the threat of landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) across Afghanistan. For Fiscal Year 2009, the Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs is contributing more than $20,000,000 to mine action and conventional weapons destruction in Afghanistan.
Our implementing partners for mine clearance, Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC), Demining Agency for Afghanistan (DAFA), Mine Clearance Planning Agency (MCPA), Mine Detection Center (MDC), Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghanistan Rehabilitation (OMAR) and The HALO Trust, will receive these additional funds.
The 34 teams feature expertise in both manual and mechanical demining and explosive ordnance disposal and will clear three square kilometers of suspected hazardous areas in 19 communities. Afghan beneficiaries include a cluster of villages in Paktya province, in southeast Afghanistan, where 1,162 families living in the area have suffered 78 mine-related accidents in the last few years. These additional funds, which will ensure more than 650 mine action jobs, will safeguard the population from the threat of landmines and ERW and enable them to return to grazing their livestock and growing crops, thereby improving Afghan livelihoods.
To learn more about the U.S. Conventional Weapons Destruction Program in Afghanistan, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.
US State Dept, Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, April 30, 2009
The U.S. Department of State is responding to an international funding shortfall for mine action in Afghanistan by providing an additional $5,000,000 to six humanitarian demining groups, including five Afghan non-governmental organizations. This emergency U.S. funding will enable 34 more mine action teams to remove the threat of landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) across Afghanistan. For Fiscal Year 2009, the Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs is contributing more than $20,000,000 to mine action and conventional weapons destruction in Afghanistan.
Our implementing partners for mine clearance, Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC), Demining Agency for Afghanistan (DAFA), Mine Clearance Planning Agency (MCPA), Mine Detection Center (MDC), Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghanistan Rehabilitation (OMAR) and The HALO Trust, will receive these additional funds.
The 34 teams feature expertise in both manual and mechanical demining and explosive ordnance disposal and will clear three square kilometers of suspected hazardous areas in 19 communities. Afghan beneficiaries include a cluster of villages in Paktya province, in southeast Afghanistan, where 1,162 families living in the area have suffered 78 mine-related accidents in the last few years. These additional funds, which will ensure more than 650 mine action jobs, will safeguard the population from the threat of landmines and ERW and enable them to return to grazing their livestock and growing crops, thereby improving Afghan livelihoods.
To learn more about the U.S. Conventional Weapons Destruction Program in Afghanistan, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.
US Cooperates in Pandemic Preparedness Initiative
US Cooperates in Pandemic Preparedness Initiative
USAID, April 29, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is convening a group of civil society organizations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in a regional exercise that will kick off the implementation stage of its Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative. The three-day exercise seeks to advance global capacity to thwart a humanitarian disaster in the event of a pandemic.
As recently emphasized by outbreaks of swine flu and H5N1 avian influenza, the likelihood that an emerging infectious disease will spark a global pandemic remains a significant threat. In a pandemic, communities will need access to food, water, and care for both pandemic and non-pandemic illnesses. Through the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative, USAID is working with a group of partners including the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, U.N. agencies, host-country governments, and non-governmental organizations to develop comprehensive national plans to help ensure countries can mount an effective humanitarian response to such needs in the event of a pandemic.
With this week's exercise, these plans will be put into action for the first time. An emphasis will be placed on regional coordination and communication within the context of national plans in East Africa. In addition to helping identify gaps and what kinds of challenges may arise in a pandemic, the exercise will also allow participants to learn about cutting-edge resources designed for pandemic response in the region.
Dr. Ronald Waldman, coordinator of the USAID Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative, stressed the importance of pandemic readiness. "We don't know which disease will cause a pandemic, but considering historical evidence and epidemiological data, we know there is a likelihood that one will occur," he said. "Testing and strengthening preparedness plans through exercises like this now will help ensure communities have access to uninterrupted care for pandemic illnesses as well as other diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that will continue to affect people in the event of a pandemic. This will help reduce excess mortality and mitigate a large-scale humanitarian crisis. The investments we have made thus far are proving beneficial as there is a strong synergy among groups involved in pandemic prevention and preparedness. This will help ensure a sound response to pandemic threats such as swine flu, which is of current concern."
Exercise participants will include organizational leaders from nine countries in East Africa - Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda - who would likely lead emergency response efforts across the region during a pandemic. A review session will be conducted after the exercise in East Africa to allow participants the opportunity to reflect on lessons learned and provide feedback on strengthening pandemic preparedness. Following the review, a report will be drafted and will serve as a reference to facilitate the development and strengthening of pandemic plans. USAID plans to host similar exercises in other regions through the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative to ensure national plans are sound.
Since 2005, USAID has committed $543 million through its avian and pandemic influenza program to support pandemic prevention and preparedness across the globe. Including distribution of non-medical commodities for disease surveillance and response, this support has reached nearly 100 countries. For more on USAID's avian and pandemic influenza program, please visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/home/News/news_items/avian_influenza.html.
USAID, April 29, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is convening a group of civil society organizations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in a regional exercise that will kick off the implementation stage of its Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative. The three-day exercise seeks to advance global capacity to thwart a humanitarian disaster in the event of a pandemic.
As recently emphasized by outbreaks of swine flu and H5N1 avian influenza, the likelihood that an emerging infectious disease will spark a global pandemic remains a significant threat. In a pandemic, communities will need access to food, water, and care for both pandemic and non-pandemic illnesses. Through the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative, USAID is working with a group of partners including the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, U.N. agencies, host-country governments, and non-governmental organizations to develop comprehensive national plans to help ensure countries can mount an effective humanitarian response to such needs in the event of a pandemic.
With this week's exercise, these plans will be put into action for the first time. An emphasis will be placed on regional coordination and communication within the context of national plans in East Africa. In addition to helping identify gaps and what kinds of challenges may arise in a pandemic, the exercise will also allow participants to learn about cutting-edge resources designed for pandemic response in the region.
Dr. Ronald Waldman, coordinator of the USAID Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative, stressed the importance of pandemic readiness. "We don't know which disease will cause a pandemic, but considering historical evidence and epidemiological data, we know there is a likelihood that one will occur," he said. "Testing and strengthening preparedness plans through exercises like this now will help ensure communities have access to uninterrupted care for pandemic illnesses as well as other diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis that will continue to affect people in the event of a pandemic. This will help reduce excess mortality and mitigate a large-scale humanitarian crisis. The investments we have made thus far are proving beneficial as there is a strong synergy among groups involved in pandemic prevention and preparedness. This will help ensure a sound response to pandemic threats such as swine flu, which is of current concern."
Exercise participants will include organizational leaders from nine countries in East Africa - Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda - who would likely lead emergency response efforts across the region during a pandemic. A review session will be conducted after the exercise in East Africa to allow participants the opportunity to reflect on lessons learned and provide feedback on strengthening pandemic preparedness. Following the review, a report will be drafted and will serve as a reference to facilitate the development and strengthening of pandemic plans. USAID plans to host similar exercises in other regions through the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative to ensure national plans are sound.
Since 2005, USAID has committed $543 million through its avian and pandemic influenza program to support pandemic prevention and preparedness across the globe. Including distribution of non-medical commodities for disease surveillance and response, this support has reached nearly 100 countries. For more on USAID's avian and pandemic influenza program, please visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/home/News/news_items/avian_influenza.html.
Does a Move To Greater Internationalism Jeopardize American Free Speech Values?
Does a Move To Greater Internationalism Jeopardize American Free Speech Values? By Eugene Volokh
The Volokh conspiracy, April 7, 2009 at 6:09pm
Well, let's listen to Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, now nominated to be the Legal Advisor to the State Department, in his On American Exceptionalism, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479 (2003):
By distinctiveness, I mean that America has a distinctive rights culture, growing out of its peculiar social, political, and economic history. Because of that history, some human rights, such as the norm of nondiscrimination based on race or First Amendment protections for speech and religion, have received far greater emphasis and judicial protection in America than in Europe or Asia. So, for example, the U.S. First Amendment is far more protective than other countries' laws of hate speech, libel, commercial speech, and publication of national security information. But is this distinctive rights culture, rooted in our American tradition, fundamentally inconsistent with universal human rights values? On examination, I do not find this distinctiveness too deeply unsettling to world order. The judicial doctrine of “margin of appreciation,” familiar in European Union law, permits sufficient national variance as to promote tolerance of some measure of this kind of rights distinctiveness.
Good to hear that American free speech tradition isn't "too deeply unsettling to world order." But wait -- check out the footnote following this paragraph:
See generally Louis Henkin, Gerald L. Neuman, Diane F. Orentlicher & David W. Leebron, Human Rights 564 (1999). Admittedly, in a globalizing world, our exceptional free speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet. In my view, however, our Supreme Court can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation discussed infra Part III.C.
And what is this "transnationalist approach" that can help "moderate these conflicts" caused by American constitutional protection for "hate speech ... disseminated over the Internet"? Here are the opening paragraphs of the discussion of "the transnationalist approach" is Part III.C:
What is transnational legal process? While most legal scholars agree that most nations obey most rules of international law most of the time, they disagree dramatically as to why they do so. As I have explained elsewhere, I believe that nations obey international law for a variety of reasons: power, self-interest, liberal theories, communitarian theories, and what I call “legal process” theories. While all of these approaches contribute to compliance with international law, the most overlooked determinant of compliance is what I call “vertical process”: when international law norms are internalized into domestic legal systems through a variety of legal, political, and social channels and obeyed as domestic law. In the international realm, as in the domestic realm, most compliance with law comes from obedience, or norm-internalization, the process by which domestic legal systems incorporate international rules into domestic law or norms.
Under this view, the key to understanding whether nations will obey international law, I have argued, is transnational legal process: the process by which public and private actors -- namely, nation states, corporations, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations -- interact in a variety of fora to make, interpret, enforce, and ultimately internalize rules of international law. The key elements of this approach are interaction, interpretation, and internalization. Those seeking to create and embed certain human rights principles into international and domestic law should trigger transnational interactions, that generate legal interpretations, that can in turn be internalized into the domestic law of even resistant nation states.
In my view, “transnational legal process” is not simply an academic explanation of why nations do or do not comply with international law, but, more fundamentally, a bridging exercise between the worlds of international legal theory and practice. My time in government confirmed what I had suspected as a professor -- that too often, in the world of policymaking, those with ideas have no influence, while those with influence have no ideas. Decisionmakers react to crises, often without any theory of what they are trying to accomplish, and without time to consult academic literature, which, even when consulted, turns out to be so abstract and impenetrable that it cannot be applied to the problem at hand. On the other hand, activists too often agitate without a clear strategy regarding what pressure points they are trying to push or why they are trying to push them. Scholars have ideas, but often lack practical understanding of how to make them useful to either decisionmakers or activists.
And so it is with American exceptionalism. Like so many aspects of international relations, this phenomenon has generated a tragic triangle: Decisionmakers promote policy without theory; activists implement tactics without strategy; and scholars generate ideas without influence. If transnational legal process is to bridge this triangle, how can we use that concept to press our government to preserve its capacity for positive exceptionalism by avoiding the most negative features of American exceptionalism? Let me illustrate my approach with respect to three examples from the September 11 context: first, America and the global justice system; second, the rights of 9/11 detainees; and third, America's use of force in Iraq....
Full text at the link above.
The Volokh conspiracy, April 7, 2009 at 6:09pm
Well, let's listen to Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, now nominated to be the Legal Advisor to the State Department, in his On American Exceptionalism, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479 (2003):
By distinctiveness, I mean that America has a distinctive rights culture, growing out of its peculiar social, political, and economic history. Because of that history, some human rights, such as the norm of nondiscrimination based on race or First Amendment protections for speech and religion, have received far greater emphasis and judicial protection in America than in Europe or Asia. So, for example, the U.S. First Amendment is far more protective than other countries' laws of hate speech, libel, commercial speech, and publication of national security information. But is this distinctive rights culture, rooted in our American tradition, fundamentally inconsistent with universal human rights values? On examination, I do not find this distinctiveness too deeply unsettling to world order. The judicial doctrine of “margin of appreciation,” familiar in European Union law, permits sufficient national variance as to promote tolerance of some measure of this kind of rights distinctiveness.
Good to hear that American free speech tradition isn't "too deeply unsettling to world order." But wait -- check out the footnote following this paragraph:
See generally Louis Henkin, Gerald L. Neuman, Diane F. Orentlicher & David W. Leebron, Human Rights 564 (1999). Admittedly, in a globalizing world, our exceptional free speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet. In my view, however, our Supreme Court can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation discussed infra Part III.C.
And what is this "transnationalist approach" that can help "moderate these conflicts" caused by American constitutional protection for "hate speech ... disseminated over the Internet"? Here are the opening paragraphs of the discussion of "the transnationalist approach" is Part III.C:
What is transnational legal process? While most legal scholars agree that most nations obey most rules of international law most of the time, they disagree dramatically as to why they do so. As I have explained elsewhere, I believe that nations obey international law for a variety of reasons: power, self-interest, liberal theories, communitarian theories, and what I call “legal process” theories. While all of these approaches contribute to compliance with international law, the most overlooked determinant of compliance is what I call “vertical process”: when international law norms are internalized into domestic legal systems through a variety of legal, political, and social channels and obeyed as domestic law. In the international realm, as in the domestic realm, most compliance with law comes from obedience, or norm-internalization, the process by which domestic legal systems incorporate international rules into domestic law or norms.
Under this view, the key to understanding whether nations will obey international law, I have argued, is transnational legal process: the process by which public and private actors -- namely, nation states, corporations, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations -- interact in a variety of fora to make, interpret, enforce, and ultimately internalize rules of international law. The key elements of this approach are interaction, interpretation, and internalization. Those seeking to create and embed certain human rights principles into international and domestic law should trigger transnational interactions, that generate legal interpretations, that can in turn be internalized into the domestic law of even resistant nation states.
In my view, “transnational legal process” is not simply an academic explanation of why nations do or do not comply with international law, but, more fundamentally, a bridging exercise between the worlds of international legal theory and practice. My time in government confirmed what I had suspected as a professor -- that too often, in the world of policymaking, those with ideas have no influence, while those with influence have no ideas. Decisionmakers react to crises, often without any theory of what they are trying to accomplish, and without time to consult academic literature, which, even when consulted, turns out to be so abstract and impenetrable that it cannot be applied to the problem at hand. On the other hand, activists too often agitate without a clear strategy regarding what pressure points they are trying to push or why they are trying to push them. Scholars have ideas, but often lack practical understanding of how to make them useful to either decisionmakers or activists.
And so it is with American exceptionalism. Like so many aspects of international relations, this phenomenon has generated a tragic triangle: Decisionmakers promote policy without theory; activists implement tactics without strategy; and scholars generate ideas without influence. If transnational legal process is to bridge this triangle, how can we use that concept to press our government to preserve its capacity for positive exceptionalism by avoiding the most negative features of American exceptionalism? Let me illustrate my approach with respect to three examples from the September 11 context: first, America and the global justice system; second, the rights of 9/11 detainees; and third, America's use of force in Iraq....
Full text at the link above.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
US and India Hold the Second Meeting of the Indo-United States Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group
U.S. and India Hold the Second Meeting of the Indo-United States Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group
Energy Dept, Thursday, April 30, 2009
The United States hosted the second meeting of the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group at Idaho National Laboratory on April 28-30, 2009. This was the first meeting held by the Working Group since entry into force of the U.S.-India peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement. The agreement, signed in October 2008, aims to provide new opportunities for trade and job creation for both economies, help India meet its rapidly increasing energy needs in an environmentally responsible way, and enhance global nonproliferation efforts by bringing India closer to the nonproliferation mainstream.
With completion of the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, both governments are now working to reinvigorate technical discussions begun under the Working Group in 2006. Mr. Shane Johnson, Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, and Dr. Ravi Grover, Director of India’s Strategic & Planning Group in the Department of Atomic Energy, served as co-chairs of the meeting. They opened the dialogue by reaffirming their commitment to work collaboratively to face global economic, climate change, and energy security challenges.
Discussions focused on deepening mutual understanding of each country’s nuclear energy development plans, including light water reactors, near term reactor deployment, licensing, management of nuclear waste, research and development programs as well as international best practices. The U.S. delivered presentations on safeguards and physical protection. The Working Group will continue its efforts by developing an action plan to focus collaborative work efforts. Its next meeting is scheduled near the end of 2009 in India.
The Obama Administration is committed to the implementation of civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India and looks forward to India bringing its IAEA Safeguards Agreement into force, filing its declaration of facilities pursuant to the safeguards agreement, publicly announcing reactor park sites for U.S. companies, and enacting global standards of liability protection.
Energy Dept, Thursday, April 30, 2009
The United States hosted the second meeting of the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group at Idaho National Laboratory on April 28-30, 2009. This was the first meeting held by the Working Group since entry into force of the U.S.-India peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement. The agreement, signed in October 2008, aims to provide new opportunities for trade and job creation for both economies, help India meet its rapidly increasing energy needs in an environmentally responsible way, and enhance global nonproliferation efforts by bringing India closer to the nonproliferation mainstream.
With completion of the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, both governments are now working to reinvigorate technical discussions begun under the Working Group in 2006. Mr. Shane Johnson, Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, and Dr. Ravi Grover, Director of India’s Strategic & Planning Group in the Department of Atomic Energy, served as co-chairs of the meeting. They opened the dialogue by reaffirming their commitment to work collaboratively to face global economic, climate change, and energy security challenges.
Discussions focused on deepening mutual understanding of each country’s nuclear energy development plans, including light water reactors, near term reactor deployment, licensing, management of nuclear waste, research and development programs as well as international best practices. The U.S. delivered presentations on safeguards and physical protection. The Working Group will continue its efforts by developing an action plan to focus collaborative work efforts. Its next meeting is scheduled near the end of 2009 in India.
The Obama Administration is committed to the implementation of civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India and looks forward to India bringing its IAEA Safeguards Agreement into force, filing its declaration of facilities pursuant to the safeguards agreement, publicly announcing reactor park sites for U.S. companies, and enacting global standards of liability protection.
Obama Is a Statist, Not a Socialist
Obama Is a Statist, Not a Socialist. By Edward H. Crane
National Review (Online), April 29, 2009
Pres. Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is a thoroughgoing statist, perhaps the worst in American history. And with Wilson, FDR, and LBJ, he's got some serious competition. Republicans in Congress lack the leadership to challenge the president's audacious power grabs. More important, they lack any serious philosophical basis for doing so. The acronym RINO is an oxymoron, for the name "Republican" in fact designates someone with a commitment to nothing more than maintaining political power. The purpose of maintaining that power is to, well, maintain that power.
There is a reason sales of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are going through the roof. The book is nothing if not prescient. The "Troubled Assets Relief Program" is straight from its pages. Monday's New York Times front page suggests Atlas may be starting to shrug. "Doctor Shortage Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals," laments the headline. Hmm. Wonder why there would be a doctor shortage in the face of nationalized health care? Perhaps bright young people considering a career don't want to work for the federal bureaucracy?
Time for those conservatives serious about limited government to re-read Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. Strategically, conservatives have made three major mistakes. The first was to follow the advice of supply-side guru (and big-government Democrat) Jude Wanniski and not talk about spending cuts, much less the proper role of government. Economic growth replaced individual liberty as the rallying cry of far too many GOPers. Second, the neocons — mostly statists themselves — should never have been accepted into the fold. All they give us is a war against a country that never attacked us and schemes for "national greatness" like going to Mars. Enough. Finally, conservatives should jettison the social agenda of gay marriage, flag burning, and school prayer, and focus instead on federalism. Politics is about man's relationship to the state. That relationship, to be healthy, should be minimal.
National Review (Online), April 29, 2009
Pres. Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is a thoroughgoing statist, perhaps the worst in American history. And with Wilson, FDR, and LBJ, he's got some serious competition. Republicans in Congress lack the leadership to challenge the president's audacious power grabs. More important, they lack any serious philosophical basis for doing so. The acronym RINO is an oxymoron, for the name "Republican" in fact designates someone with a commitment to nothing more than maintaining political power. The purpose of maintaining that power is to, well, maintain that power.
There is a reason sales of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are going through the roof. The book is nothing if not prescient. The "Troubled Assets Relief Program" is straight from its pages. Monday's New York Times front page suggests Atlas may be starting to shrug. "Doctor Shortage Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals," laments the headline. Hmm. Wonder why there would be a doctor shortage in the face of nationalized health care? Perhaps bright young people considering a career don't want to work for the federal bureaucracy?
Time for those conservatives serious about limited government to re-read Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. Strategically, conservatives have made three major mistakes. The first was to follow the advice of supply-side guru (and big-government Democrat) Jude Wanniski and not talk about spending cuts, much less the proper role of government. Economic growth replaced individual liberty as the rallying cry of far too many GOPers. Second, the neocons — mostly statists themselves — should never have been accepted into the fold. All they give us is a war against a country that never attacked us and schemes for "national greatness" like going to Mars. Enough. Finally, conservatives should jettison the social agenda of gay marriage, flag burning, and school prayer, and focus instead on federalism. Politics is about man's relationship to the state. That relationship, to be healthy, should be minimal.
Nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground
Squeeze That Sponge. By Guy Chazan
Nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground. With enhanced oil recovery, companies are determined to lower that number.
WSJ, Apr 29. 2009
Often stymied in their quest for new crude, Western oil companies are squeezing more out of the reserves they already have.
Despite the engineering advances of the past century, nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground. So oil companies are raising the ante, investing billions of dollars in cutting-edge technology to increase the amount of crude they can tap.
The potential rewards are huge: Raising the average recovery rate world-wide to 50% from 35% would boost the world's recoverable oil by about 1.2 trillion barrels -- equal to the whole of today's proven reserves, the International Energy Agency says.
"It's the prize for the next half-century," says Howard Mayson, vice president for technology at British oil giant BP PLC, which relies heavily on enhanced-recovery methods. Among the processes BP uses: flooding reservoirs with polymers that expand like popcorn when they come into contact with hot rocks, thus flushing more oil out of difficult-to-reach nooks.
Read the full report at the link above.
Nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground. With enhanced oil recovery, companies are determined to lower that number.
WSJ, Apr 29. 2009
Often stymied in their quest for new crude, Western oil companies are squeezing more out of the reserves they already have.
Despite the engineering advances of the past century, nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground. So oil companies are raising the ante, investing billions of dollars in cutting-edge technology to increase the amount of crude they can tap.
The potential rewards are huge: Raising the average recovery rate world-wide to 50% from 35% would boost the world's recoverable oil by about 1.2 trillion barrels -- equal to the whole of today's proven reserves, the International Energy Agency says.
"It's the prize for the next half-century," says Howard Mayson, vice president for technology at British oil giant BP PLC, which relies heavily on enhanced-recovery methods. Among the processes BP uses: flooding reservoirs with polymers that expand like popcorn when they come into contact with hot rocks, thus flushing more oil out of difficult-to-reach nooks.
Read the full report at the link above.
Confirm Dawn Johnsen
Confirm Dawn Johnsen. WaPo Editorial
A qualified nominee to fill an important Justice Department slot is being held up by petty politics.
WaPo, Thursday, April 30, 2009
HERE ARE some facts about Dawn E. Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC): She is a graduate of Yale Law School, spent roughly five years as legal director of the abortion rights group now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, worked for the next five in the Clinton administration's OLC, has been a professor at the Indiana University School of Law since 1998 and has been an outspoken critic of the Bush Justice Department's legal justification for harsh interrogation techniques. In other words, Ms. Johnsen is undoubtedly qualified for the position, and she should be confirmed.
Ms. Johnsen's confirmation has been held up by Republicans concerned that she's an "ideologue," in the words of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). Ms. Johnsen's nomination squeaked by on a party-line vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been stalled for the past month amid filibuster threats from some Republicans.
Let's put aside, for the moment, the fact that the Justice Department under President Bush was perhaps the most politicized in a generation -- and that among the most warped sections of the Bush Justice Department was the OLC. It is nonetheless legitimate to ask whether Ms. Johnsen will behave as badly as some of her immediate predecessors.
Walter Dellinger III, Ms. Johnsen's boss during many of her years in the Clinton administration, wrote in a recent article in Politico that Ms. Johnsen's "commitment to the rule of law allowed her to put aside immediately and emphatically the confounding influences of policy preferences, political partiality and pressure from important governmental clients. . . ." Douglas Kmiec, a conservative and former Reagan OLC lawyer, cited in Legal Times several cases in which Ms. Johnsen "observed the law" even though it was at odds with her personal beliefs.
Senators concerned that Ms. Johnsen may try to contort the law to fit her beliefs can keep close tabs on her through the oversight process. This process, by the way, should be made easier by Ms. Johnsen's pledge to make public as many OLC opinions as possible. This is a welcome change from the previous administration and another reason to confirm Dawn Johnsen.
A qualified nominee to fill an important Justice Department slot is being held up by petty politics.
WaPo, Thursday, April 30, 2009
HERE ARE some facts about Dawn E. Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC): She is a graduate of Yale Law School, spent roughly five years as legal director of the abortion rights group now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, worked for the next five in the Clinton administration's OLC, has been a professor at the Indiana University School of Law since 1998 and has been an outspoken critic of the Bush Justice Department's legal justification for harsh interrogation techniques. In other words, Ms. Johnsen is undoubtedly qualified for the position, and she should be confirmed.
Ms. Johnsen's confirmation has been held up by Republicans concerned that she's an "ideologue," in the words of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). Ms. Johnsen's nomination squeaked by on a party-line vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been stalled for the past month amid filibuster threats from some Republicans.
Let's put aside, for the moment, the fact that the Justice Department under President Bush was perhaps the most politicized in a generation -- and that among the most warped sections of the Bush Justice Department was the OLC. It is nonetheless legitimate to ask whether Ms. Johnsen will behave as badly as some of her immediate predecessors.
Walter Dellinger III, Ms. Johnsen's boss during many of her years in the Clinton administration, wrote in a recent article in Politico that Ms. Johnsen's "commitment to the rule of law allowed her to put aside immediately and emphatically the confounding influences of policy preferences, political partiality and pressure from important governmental clients. . . ." Douglas Kmiec, a conservative and former Reagan OLC lawyer, cited in Legal Times several cases in which Ms. Johnsen "observed the law" even though it was at odds with her personal beliefs.
Senators concerned that Ms. Johnsen may try to contort the law to fit her beliefs can keep close tabs on her through the oversight process. This process, by the way, should be made easier by Ms. Johnsen's pledge to make public as many OLC opinions as possible. This is a welcome change from the previous administration and another reason to confirm Dawn Johnsen.
The Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism
The Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism. By Arthur C Brooks
Tea parties, 'ethical populism,' and the moral case against redistribution.
WSJ, Apr 30, 2009
There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it's not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise -- the principle at the core of American culture.
Despite President Barack Obama's early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the "tea parties" that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.
The data support the protesters' concerns. In a publication with the ironic title, "A New Era of Responsibility," the president's budget office reveals average deficits of 4.7% in the five years after this recession is over. The Congressional Budget Office predicts $9.3 trillion in new debt over the coming decade.
And what investments justify our leaving this gargantuan bill for our children and grandchildren to pay? Absurdities, in the view of many -- from bailing out General Motors and the United Auto Workers to building an environmentally friendly Frisbee golf course in Austin, Texas. On behalf of corporate welfare, political largess and powerful special interests, government spending will grow continuously in the coming years as a percentage of the economy -- as will tax collections.
Still, the tea parties are not based on the cold wonkery of budget data. They are based on an "ethical populism." The protesters are homeowners who didn't walk away from their mortgages, small business owners who don't want corporate welfare and bankers who kept their heads during the frenzy and don't need bailouts. They were the people who were doing the important things right -- and who are now watching elected politicians reward those who did the important things wrong.
Voices in the media, academia, and the government will dismiss this ethical populism as a fringe movement -- maybe even dangerous extremism. In truth, free markets, limited government, and entrepreneurship are still a majoritarian taste. In March 2009, the Pew Research Center asked people if we are better off "in a free market economy even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time." Fully 70% agreed, versus 20% who disagreed.
Free enterprise is culturally mainstream, for the moment. Asked in a Rasmussen poll conducted this month to choose the better system between capitalism and socialism, 13% of respondents over 40 chose socialism. For those under 30, this percentage rose to 33%. (Republicans were 11 times more likely to prefer capitalism than socialism; Democrats were almost evenly split between the two systems.)
The government has been abetting this trend for years by exempting an increasing number of Americans from federal taxation. My colleague Adam Lerrick showed in these pages last year that the percentage of American adults who have no federal income-tax liability will rise to 49% from 40% under Mr. Obama's tax plan. Another 11% will pay less than 5% of their income in federal income taxes and less than $1,000 in total.
To put a modern twist on the old axiom, a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart; a man who is still a socialist at 40 either has no head, or pays no taxes. Social Democrats are working to create a society where the majority are net recipients of the "sharing economy." They are fighting a culture war of attrition with economic tools. Defenders of capitalism risk getting caught flat-footed with increasingly antiquated arguments that free enterprise is a Main Street pocketbook issue. Progressives are working relentlessly to see that it is not.
Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship. They have to declare that it is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can. It's also a moral issue to lower the rewards for entrepreneurial success, and to spend what we don't have without regard for our children's future.
Enterprise defenders also have to define "fairness" as protecting merit and freedom. This is more intuitively appealing to Americans than anything involving forced redistribution. Take public attitudes toward the estate tax, which only a few (who leave estates in the millions of dollars) will ever pay, but which two-thirds of Americans believe is "not fair at all," according to a 2009 Harris poll. Millions of ordinary citizens believe it is unfair for the government to be predatory -- even if the prey are wealthy.
Political strategy aside, intellectual organizations like my own have a constructive role in the coming cultural conflict. As policymakers offer a redistributionist future to a fearful nation and a new culture war simmers, we must respond with tangible, enterprise-oriented policy alternatives. For example, it is not enough to point out that nationalized health care will make going to the doctor about as much fun as a trip to the department of motor vehicles. We need to offer specific, market-based reform solutions.
This is an exhilarating time for proponents of freedom and individual opportunity. The last several years have brought malaise, in which the "conservative" politicians in power paid little more than lip service to free enterprise. Today, as in the late 1970s, we have an administration, Congress and media-academic complex openly working to change American culture in ways that most mainstream Americans will not like. Like the Carter era, this adversity offers the first opportunity in years for true cultural renewal.
Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute.
Tea parties, 'ethical populism,' and the moral case against redistribution.
WSJ, Apr 30, 2009
There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it's not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise -- the principle at the core of American culture.
Despite President Barack Obama's early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the "tea parties" that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.
The data support the protesters' concerns. In a publication with the ironic title, "A New Era of Responsibility," the president's budget office reveals average deficits of 4.7% in the five years after this recession is over. The Congressional Budget Office predicts $9.3 trillion in new debt over the coming decade.
And what investments justify our leaving this gargantuan bill for our children and grandchildren to pay? Absurdities, in the view of many -- from bailing out General Motors and the United Auto Workers to building an environmentally friendly Frisbee golf course in Austin, Texas. On behalf of corporate welfare, political largess and powerful special interests, government spending will grow continuously in the coming years as a percentage of the economy -- as will tax collections.
Still, the tea parties are not based on the cold wonkery of budget data. They are based on an "ethical populism." The protesters are homeowners who didn't walk away from their mortgages, small business owners who don't want corporate welfare and bankers who kept their heads during the frenzy and don't need bailouts. They were the people who were doing the important things right -- and who are now watching elected politicians reward those who did the important things wrong.
Voices in the media, academia, and the government will dismiss this ethical populism as a fringe movement -- maybe even dangerous extremism. In truth, free markets, limited government, and entrepreneurship are still a majoritarian taste. In March 2009, the Pew Research Center asked people if we are better off "in a free market economy even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time." Fully 70% agreed, versus 20% who disagreed.
Free enterprise is culturally mainstream, for the moment. Asked in a Rasmussen poll conducted this month to choose the better system between capitalism and socialism, 13% of respondents over 40 chose socialism. For those under 30, this percentage rose to 33%. (Republicans were 11 times more likely to prefer capitalism than socialism; Democrats were almost evenly split between the two systems.)
The government has been abetting this trend for years by exempting an increasing number of Americans from federal taxation. My colleague Adam Lerrick showed in these pages last year that the percentage of American adults who have no federal income-tax liability will rise to 49% from 40% under Mr. Obama's tax plan. Another 11% will pay less than 5% of their income in federal income taxes and less than $1,000 in total.
To put a modern twist on the old axiom, a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart; a man who is still a socialist at 40 either has no head, or pays no taxes. Social Democrats are working to create a society where the majority are net recipients of the "sharing economy." They are fighting a culture war of attrition with economic tools. Defenders of capitalism risk getting caught flat-footed with increasingly antiquated arguments that free enterprise is a Main Street pocketbook issue. Progressives are working relentlessly to see that it is not.
Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship. They have to declare that it is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can. It's also a moral issue to lower the rewards for entrepreneurial success, and to spend what we don't have without regard for our children's future.
Enterprise defenders also have to define "fairness" as protecting merit and freedom. This is more intuitively appealing to Americans than anything involving forced redistribution. Take public attitudes toward the estate tax, which only a few (who leave estates in the millions of dollars) will ever pay, but which two-thirds of Americans believe is "not fair at all," according to a 2009 Harris poll. Millions of ordinary citizens believe it is unfair for the government to be predatory -- even if the prey are wealthy.
Political strategy aside, intellectual organizations like my own have a constructive role in the coming cultural conflict. As policymakers offer a redistributionist future to a fearful nation and a new culture war simmers, we must respond with tangible, enterprise-oriented policy alternatives. For example, it is not enough to point out that nationalized health care will make going to the doctor about as much fun as a trip to the department of motor vehicles. We need to offer specific, market-based reform solutions.
This is an exhilarating time for proponents of freedom and individual opportunity. The last several years have brought malaise, in which the "conservative" politicians in power paid little more than lip service to free enterprise. Today, as in the late 1970s, we have an administration, Congress and media-academic complex openly working to change American culture in ways that most mainstream Americans will not like. Like the Carter era, this adversity offers the first opportunity in years for true cultural renewal.
Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
An Economic Retreat from East Asia
An Economic Retreat from East Asia, by Doug Bandow
Cato, April 27, 2009.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is ever more confident, challenging U.S. naval ships in the South China Sea and the U.S. dollar in international forums. China has displaced America as the number one trading partner with leading East Asian states. And Beijing is creating a military capable of deterring if not defeating the U.S. armed forces.
How do the Obama administration and Democratic Congress respond? By retreating economically from the region. Sen. Barack Obama termed the U.S.-South Korean free trade agreement (FTA) "badly flawed" and urged the Bush administration not to even submit it for ratification. At his confirmation hearing U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the agreement "unacceptable." Although increased trade with the Republic of Korea (ROK) is "one of the biggest opportunities we have," he affirmed that the administration "will step away from that if we don't get it right." This policy is remarkable for both its economic and geostrategic folly.
Washington instead should be expanding American investment and trade opportunities in East Asia. The starting point should be to ratify the FTA with the ROK.
South Korea possesses one of the world's largest economies and is among the top dozen trading nations. Total U.S.-ROK trade ran more than $80 billion in 2008. The seventh largest merchandise trading partner of the U.S., Seoul is a major importer of aircraft, cereals, chemicals, machinery, and plastics. Even a small expansion of U.S.-ROK trade would offer a significant benefit for America's economy.
The FTA offers unusual potential because South Korea has been a notoriously closed market. Dependent on exports for its stunning economic success, the ROK is far less hospitable to other nation's exports, including from the U.S. The Korea Economic Institute reported: "Korea remains a very difficult place in which to do business."
The FTA responds by helping to open the Korean market. Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics reported: "The U.S.-Korea pact covers more trade than any other U.S. trade agreement except the North American Free Trade Agreement" and "opens up substantial new opportunities for bilateral trade and investment in goods and services."
More specifically, reports the U.S. Trade Representative:
In addition to eliminating South Korea's seven percent average tariff on industrial goods, the KORUS FTA effectively addresses a wide range of discriminatory non-tariff barriers to U.S. goods and services. It will improve regulatory procedures and due process in South Korea through the most advanced transparency obligations in any U.S. FTA to date. In addition, the Agreement contains an unprecedented package of automotive related provisions, including a unique dispute settlement mechanism that will level the playing field for U.S. automakers in this important market.
Obviously, the FTA does not eliminate all economic barriers in the ROK. Sen. Obama was one of many critics to point to continued Korean restrictions on the sale of U.S. autos and agricultural products. But the pact makes important progress. Explained Schott: "The FTA outcome on autos makes both sides better off than they would be in the absence of the bilateral deal" and "the FTA liberalization of farm trade predominantly benefits U.S. agricultural exporters."
Moreover, Seoul is in no mood to make concessions to the Obama administration. ROK President Roh Moo-hyun negotiated the treaty at some political cost. His successor, Lee Myung-bak, already has been attacked for easing restrictions on American beef imports. Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon declared simply: "There are [to be] no renegotiations or additional negotiations."
The U.S., whose share of total Korean imports has been falling, would obviously benefit from the pact. The likely increase in exports, perhaps $20 billion annually, would be particularly helpful in the midst of today's deep recession. Demand for American audiovisual, financial, and telecommunications services also likely would increase substantially. Overall, the U.S. International Trade Commission figures that American exports to South Korea would rise nearly twice as much as imports from the ROK. Since the South's per capita GDP today is well below that of the U.S., South Korean demand is likely to increase even more over the longer-term. Even more so if the two Koreas eventually reunite.
Economics is not the sum total of the issue, however. The Korean FTA is part of East Asia's great geopolitical game. A rising China is bumping up against a less dominant America; strengthening trade ties is one way for Washington to ensure continued American influence in the region.
The U.S. remains the globe's sole superpower, with the ability to project power into every region. But the PRC is engaged in a measured military build-up directed at creating armed forces capable of deterring American intervention in East Asia. Washington will find it increasingly difficult to achieve its objectives with military force.
Despite the Wall Street crash last fall, the U.S. retains the world's largest and most productive economy. And China has not escaped unscathed from the global downturn. However, Washington's economic dominance in East Asia is waning. By some measures the PRC has surpassed Japan as possessing the second largest economy.
Moreover, China's rapid economic growth has naturally led to expanded investment and trade throughout East Asia. American companies have been pushed into second and even third place in South Korea and Japan.
China's expansion is changing East Asia economic patterns. Noted Schott: "The region is the hotbed of regional trading arrangements, with a variety of pacts differing in scope and coverage." Driving this process is China's growing economic role. The impact on the ROK has been particularly significant. Observed Robert Kapp, a long-time president of the United States-China Business Council: "The growth of Korean-Chinese economic action has been even more impressive than China's expanding ties with other trade and investment partners."
Beijing is not content to rely on osmosis. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned: "China has linked its growing economic power with strong diplomatic initiatives throughout Asia. China's softer approach to the region has been dubbed a smile campaign or charm offensive, but it is more than just that -- China has injected new energy into bilateral partnerships and multilateral trade and security arrangements."
In fact, Beijing has been negotiating or discussing free trade agreements with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, among other countries. The economic and political barriers to such arrangements are obvious, but the fact that the PRC is pursuing this strategy -- and that America's three leading military allies in the region as well as another one-time ally and long-term friend, which enjoys an implicit security guarantee from Washington, view FTAs with China as a serious option -- symbolizes the challenge now facing Washington.
South Korea is not waiting for the U.S. The ROK has negotiated FTAs with the ASEAN (Southeast Asian) states and several European countries. Moreover, reports the Korea Economic Institute: "In March, Korea and the EU announced the tentative conclusion of FTA negotiations, while Korea also announced that it will commence FTA negotiations with Australia, New Zealand, and Peru. The EU deal, when completed, will be the world's largest bilateral trade agreement, eclipsing the still unapproved U.S.-Korea FTA."
Yet the U.S.-ROK FTA sits unratified in Washington. Washington's influence in East Asia is slowly ebbing. Rather than retreating quietly, the U.S. should strengthen its economic role by expanding trade and investment ties throughout the region. Washington should pursue FTAs with Japan and Taiwan. But first Congress should ratify the already-negotiated accord with South Korea.
The primary benefit of the agreement is economic. But expanding trade ties offer geopolitical advantages as well. The Bush administration may have overstated the benefits, but only slightly, when it argued: "By boosting economic ties and broadening and modernizing our longstanding alliance, it promises to become the pillar of our alliance for the next 50 years, as the Mutual Defense Treaty has been for the last 50 years." Seoul has a similar objective. Wrote Kozo Kiyota and Robert Stern of the University of Michigan: "Korean officials hope that there will be positive spillover effects from an FTA on the broader bilateral relationship."
Moving forward will require genuine statesmanship backed by political courage from the Obama administration. Failing to ratify the South Korean FTA is likely to result in permanent economic and geopolitical damage. Warned Jeffrey Schott: "The stakes -- in terms of both U.S. economic and security interests in East Asia -- are too great, and the costs too high, to reject the pact or defer a decision."
This would be a high price to pay at any time, but especially when China is rapidly expanding its influence throughout East Asia.
Cato, April 27, 2009.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is ever more confident, challenging U.S. naval ships in the South China Sea and the U.S. dollar in international forums. China has displaced America as the number one trading partner with leading East Asian states. And Beijing is creating a military capable of deterring if not defeating the U.S. armed forces.
How do the Obama administration and Democratic Congress respond? By retreating economically from the region. Sen. Barack Obama termed the U.S.-South Korean free trade agreement (FTA) "badly flawed" and urged the Bush administration not to even submit it for ratification. At his confirmation hearing U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the agreement "unacceptable." Although increased trade with the Republic of Korea (ROK) is "one of the biggest opportunities we have," he affirmed that the administration "will step away from that if we don't get it right." This policy is remarkable for both its economic and geostrategic folly.
Washington instead should be expanding American investment and trade opportunities in East Asia. The starting point should be to ratify the FTA with the ROK.
South Korea possesses one of the world's largest economies and is among the top dozen trading nations. Total U.S.-ROK trade ran more than $80 billion in 2008. The seventh largest merchandise trading partner of the U.S., Seoul is a major importer of aircraft, cereals, chemicals, machinery, and plastics. Even a small expansion of U.S.-ROK trade would offer a significant benefit for America's economy.
The FTA offers unusual potential because South Korea has been a notoriously closed market. Dependent on exports for its stunning economic success, the ROK is far less hospitable to other nation's exports, including from the U.S. The Korea Economic Institute reported: "Korea remains a very difficult place in which to do business."
The FTA responds by helping to open the Korean market. Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics reported: "The U.S.-Korea pact covers more trade than any other U.S. trade agreement except the North American Free Trade Agreement" and "opens up substantial new opportunities for bilateral trade and investment in goods and services."
More specifically, reports the U.S. Trade Representative:
In addition to eliminating South Korea's seven percent average tariff on industrial goods, the KORUS FTA effectively addresses a wide range of discriminatory non-tariff barriers to U.S. goods and services. It will improve regulatory procedures and due process in South Korea through the most advanced transparency obligations in any U.S. FTA to date. In addition, the Agreement contains an unprecedented package of automotive related provisions, including a unique dispute settlement mechanism that will level the playing field for U.S. automakers in this important market.
Obviously, the FTA does not eliminate all economic barriers in the ROK. Sen. Obama was one of many critics to point to continued Korean restrictions on the sale of U.S. autos and agricultural products. But the pact makes important progress. Explained Schott: "The FTA outcome on autos makes both sides better off than they would be in the absence of the bilateral deal" and "the FTA liberalization of farm trade predominantly benefits U.S. agricultural exporters."
Moreover, Seoul is in no mood to make concessions to the Obama administration. ROK President Roh Moo-hyun negotiated the treaty at some political cost. His successor, Lee Myung-bak, already has been attacked for easing restrictions on American beef imports. Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon declared simply: "There are [to be] no renegotiations or additional negotiations."
The U.S., whose share of total Korean imports has been falling, would obviously benefit from the pact. The likely increase in exports, perhaps $20 billion annually, would be particularly helpful in the midst of today's deep recession. Demand for American audiovisual, financial, and telecommunications services also likely would increase substantially. Overall, the U.S. International Trade Commission figures that American exports to South Korea would rise nearly twice as much as imports from the ROK. Since the South's per capita GDP today is well below that of the U.S., South Korean demand is likely to increase even more over the longer-term. Even more so if the two Koreas eventually reunite.
Economics is not the sum total of the issue, however. The Korean FTA is part of East Asia's great geopolitical game. A rising China is bumping up against a less dominant America; strengthening trade ties is one way for Washington to ensure continued American influence in the region.
The U.S. remains the globe's sole superpower, with the ability to project power into every region. But the PRC is engaged in a measured military build-up directed at creating armed forces capable of deterring American intervention in East Asia. Washington will find it increasingly difficult to achieve its objectives with military force.
Despite the Wall Street crash last fall, the U.S. retains the world's largest and most productive economy. And China has not escaped unscathed from the global downturn. However, Washington's economic dominance in East Asia is waning. By some measures the PRC has surpassed Japan as possessing the second largest economy.
Moreover, China's rapid economic growth has naturally led to expanded investment and trade throughout East Asia. American companies have been pushed into second and even third place in South Korea and Japan.
China's expansion is changing East Asia economic patterns. Noted Schott: "The region is the hotbed of regional trading arrangements, with a variety of pacts differing in scope and coverage." Driving this process is China's growing economic role. The impact on the ROK has been particularly significant. Observed Robert Kapp, a long-time president of the United States-China Business Council: "The growth of Korean-Chinese economic action has been even more impressive than China's expanding ties with other trade and investment partners."
Beijing is not content to rely on osmosis. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned: "China has linked its growing economic power with strong diplomatic initiatives throughout Asia. China's softer approach to the region has been dubbed a smile campaign or charm offensive, but it is more than just that -- China has injected new energy into bilateral partnerships and multilateral trade and security arrangements."
In fact, Beijing has been negotiating or discussing free trade agreements with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, among other countries. The economic and political barriers to such arrangements are obvious, but the fact that the PRC is pursuing this strategy -- and that America's three leading military allies in the region as well as another one-time ally and long-term friend, which enjoys an implicit security guarantee from Washington, view FTAs with China as a serious option -- symbolizes the challenge now facing Washington.
South Korea is not waiting for the U.S. The ROK has negotiated FTAs with the ASEAN (Southeast Asian) states and several European countries. Moreover, reports the Korea Economic Institute: "In March, Korea and the EU announced the tentative conclusion of FTA negotiations, while Korea also announced that it will commence FTA negotiations with Australia, New Zealand, and Peru. The EU deal, when completed, will be the world's largest bilateral trade agreement, eclipsing the still unapproved U.S.-Korea FTA."
Yet the U.S.-ROK FTA sits unratified in Washington. Washington's influence in East Asia is slowly ebbing. Rather than retreating quietly, the U.S. should strengthen its economic role by expanding trade and investment ties throughout the region. Washington should pursue FTAs with Japan and Taiwan. But first Congress should ratify the already-negotiated accord with South Korea.
The primary benefit of the agreement is economic. But expanding trade ties offer geopolitical advantages as well. The Bush administration may have overstated the benefits, but only slightly, when it argued: "By boosting economic ties and broadening and modernizing our longstanding alliance, it promises to become the pillar of our alliance for the next 50 years, as the Mutual Defense Treaty has been for the last 50 years." Seoul has a similar objective. Wrote Kozo Kiyota and Robert Stern of the University of Michigan: "Korean officials hope that there will be positive spillover effects from an FTA on the broader bilateral relationship."
Moving forward will require genuine statesmanship backed by political courage from the Obama administration. Failing to ratify the South Korean FTA is likely to result in permanent economic and geopolitical damage. Warned Jeffrey Schott: "The stakes -- in terms of both U.S. economic and security interests in East Asia -- are too great, and the costs too high, to reject the pact or defer a decision."
This would be a high price to pay at any time, but especially when China is rapidly expanding its influence throughout East Asia.
Geithner: The Fox Guarding the Henhouse?
Geithner: The Fox Guarding the Henhouse? By Larry Kudlow
The Corner, Monday, April 27, 2009
What is going on in this country? The government is about to take over GM in a plan that completely screws private bondholders and favors the unions. Get this: The GM bondholders own $27 billion and they’re getting 10 percent of the common stock in an expected exchange. And the UAW owns $10 billion of the bonds and they’re getting 40 percent of the stock. Huh? Did I miss something here? And Uncle Sam will have a controlling share of the stock with something close to 50 percent ownership. And no bankruptcy judge. So this is a political restructuring run by the White House, not a rule-of-law bankruptcy-court reorganization.
Meanwhile, top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett opened the door wide on CNN yesterday to bank nationalization and CEO firings. Unfortunately, my take that the economic stress tests are a political stalking horse for more government ownership, more government control of the banks, and more government disruption of shareholder rights and normal corporate governance looks to be coming true.
Then there’s today’s huge New York Times story about Tim Geithner. It starts on the front page and goes on and on for thousands of words. Yes, he missed early signs of the crisis. But he was altogether too cozy with the New York banks, especially Citibank — and Robert Rubin along with Sandy Weill. In fact, at one point Weill asked Geithner to be Citi’s new CEO. And Geithner joined the board of a Weill-run non-profit to help inner-city high-school students. There were numerous lunches and dinners with Rubin and Weill and other Wall Street luminaries.
With Geithner running the Treasury and the potentially criminal enterprise called TARP, is his incestuous relationship with Wall Street bigwigs a perfect example of the fox guarding the henhouse? Was he too cozy to keep a critical eye on the very institutions that blew up later?
By the way, Geithner sometimes worried about derivatives. But he also worked hard for a plan that would reduce the amount of capital banks were required to keep on hand.
You just have to wonder about this cozy relationship with a trillion dollars of TARP money at stake — essentially a second government budget for Bailout Nation run by a young guy who is in bed and under the covers with the leading bankers he’s supposed to regulate, all while the TARP inspector general is launching 20 criminal probes into how all this taxpayer money is going to be spent.
I don’t usually agree with Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz, but he talks about how mindsets can be shaped by people you associate with and that “you come to think that what’s good for Wall Street is good for America.” I know Stiglitz, Krugman, and the other lefties want to nationalize the banks, and allegedly Geithner does not. But frankly, backdoor nationalization is coming and Mr. Geithner’s independence is suspect.
No, the Times article doesn’t mention Geithner’s failure to pay back taxes until just before he was nominated for Treasury secretary. But it seems that at this point in history we need a strong, credible, and independent TARP and bank regulator.The New York Times really makes me wonder all over again about Mr. Geithner.
The Corner, Monday, April 27, 2009
What is going on in this country? The government is about to take over GM in a plan that completely screws private bondholders and favors the unions. Get this: The GM bondholders own $27 billion and they’re getting 10 percent of the common stock in an expected exchange. And the UAW owns $10 billion of the bonds and they’re getting 40 percent of the stock. Huh? Did I miss something here? And Uncle Sam will have a controlling share of the stock with something close to 50 percent ownership. And no bankruptcy judge. So this is a political restructuring run by the White House, not a rule-of-law bankruptcy-court reorganization.
Meanwhile, top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett opened the door wide on CNN yesterday to bank nationalization and CEO firings. Unfortunately, my take that the economic stress tests are a political stalking horse for more government ownership, more government control of the banks, and more government disruption of shareholder rights and normal corporate governance looks to be coming true.
Then there’s today’s huge New York Times story about Tim Geithner. It starts on the front page and goes on and on for thousands of words. Yes, he missed early signs of the crisis. But he was altogether too cozy with the New York banks, especially Citibank — and Robert Rubin along with Sandy Weill. In fact, at one point Weill asked Geithner to be Citi’s new CEO. And Geithner joined the board of a Weill-run non-profit to help inner-city high-school students. There were numerous lunches and dinners with Rubin and Weill and other Wall Street luminaries.
With Geithner running the Treasury and the potentially criminal enterprise called TARP, is his incestuous relationship with Wall Street bigwigs a perfect example of the fox guarding the henhouse? Was he too cozy to keep a critical eye on the very institutions that blew up later?
By the way, Geithner sometimes worried about derivatives. But he also worked hard for a plan that would reduce the amount of capital banks were required to keep on hand.
You just have to wonder about this cozy relationship with a trillion dollars of TARP money at stake — essentially a second government budget for Bailout Nation run by a young guy who is in bed and under the covers with the leading bankers he’s supposed to regulate, all while the TARP inspector general is launching 20 criminal probes into how all this taxpayer money is going to be spent.
I don’t usually agree with Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz, but he talks about how mindsets can be shaped by people you associate with and that “you come to think that what’s good for Wall Street is good for America.” I know Stiglitz, Krugman, and the other lefties want to nationalize the banks, and allegedly Geithner does not. But frankly, backdoor nationalization is coming and Mr. Geithner’s independence is suspect.
No, the Times article doesn’t mention Geithner’s failure to pay back taxes until just before he was nominated for Treasury secretary. But it seems that at this point in history we need a strong, credible, and independent TARP and bank regulator.The New York Times really makes me wonder all over again about Mr. Geithner.
“Never Again,” Obama Style
“Never Again,” Obama Style. By Michael Ledeen
Pajamas Media, April 27th, 2009 8:32 pm
No president in modern times has managed to conceal so much of his biography as this one. The journalists assigned to the Obama beat seem to have lost their traditional avidity for digging out the missing details. We do not have a medical report, or a college transcript from Columbia, or a notion of how well he did in Harvard Law School.
These things are not automatically significant, but they can be. Nobody thinks the president has some basic medical problem. He shows every sign of being in excellent physical condition. But so did John F. Kennedy, who turned out to have had Addison’s Disease, and was taking steroids and pain killers, which had an effect on his performance. We didn’t know it at the time. We should have.
What did Obama study? With whom? How well did he do? Obama occasionally says things that are uncharacteristic of cultured persons, as when he flubs the number of states in the U.S., or when he seems to believe that they speak “Austrian” in Vienna. Are these just occasional slips of the tongue? Or did his college and law school years show a pattern of ignorance? We’re entitled to know these things, but there is a disappointing, albeit quite predictable, lack of curiosity by the usual suspects in the media hunter/killer packs.
A great quantity of newsprint was filled with criticism of the Bushitlercheney insistence on secrecy, and rightly so. Critics, and even would-be friends of the Bush Administration, were encouraged to believe all kinds of nonsense, much of which was fueled by the administration’s famous inability to explain what it was doing, and why. In like manner, the stonewalling of basic information about Obama fuels dark suspicion about the very legitimacy of his presidency, as in the ongoing demand that he prove his constitutional qualification for the office.
Lacking the basic information, we must use the old tools. We must infer, deduce, and guess. We have to parse his words and compare them with his actions. He himself insists on this. In March, when the North Koreans launched a rocket in the teeth of multiple international warnings, Obama [1] insisted that “words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response.” He rightly insisted that mere talk wasn’t good enough, because if warnings were ignored and no price was subsequently paid, warnings would become meaningless. Without action, words mean nothing.
A joint U.S.-Europe declaration reiterated this theme, noting that North Korea was developing “the ability to threaten countries near and far with weapons of mass destruction. This action demands a response from the international community, including from the U.N. Security Council to demonstrate that its resolutions cannot be defied with impunity.”
Which brings me to his little-analyzed [2] recent speech in the Capitol on the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, a theme inevitably close to the heart and soul of our first black president. Some of it is Obama at his best, elegant, spare, right to the point. He made a point near to my heart, which is often forgotten in the history of fascism:
It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses…
Yes, fascism and Nazism came from two of the most advanced and most cultured Western societies, Italy and Germany. And the institutions of those societies were enlisted in the service of the Holocaust, with precious little protest from the most cultured and advanced individuals in those societies.
the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands…
Those words about bureaucracy, “that sustains modern life,” are a useful window into the way Obama views government. He loves government, especially his own. But he’s got the Nazi story wrong. The bureaucracy that conducted the mass murders was largely military, and the most important component was not part of the bureaucracy, or even the traditional army, but rather the SS, which was tied directly to the Fuhrer, not to the old German state.
Obama’s description of the killing process, in which the victims were processed on a mass assembly line of death, was accurate and important, but he didn’t recognize that Hitler created a new kind of state. Nazism seized power in Germany, but the Nazi state was very different from the “state of laws” that preceded it.
He then gave his version of “never again,” and it’s a very odd version indeed. First, he draws hope from the survivors of the Holocaust. Those who came to America had a higher birthrate than the Jews who were already living here, and those members of “a chosen people” who created Israel. These, he says, chose life and asserted it despite the horrors they had endured.
And then he goes on:
We find cause for hope as well in Protestant and Catholic children attending school together in Northern Ireland; in Hutus and Tutsis living side-by-side, forgiving neighbors who have done the unforgivable; in a movement to save Darfur that has thousands of high school and college chapters in 25 countries and brought 70,000 people to the Washington Mall, people of every age and faith and background and race united in common cause with suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
Those numbers can be our future, our fellow citizens of the world showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say “never again.”
So “never again” means that we learn from others how to forgive and forget, and ultimately live happily with one another. But that is not what “never again” means, at least for the generation of the Holocaust and for most of those who followed. For them, “never again” means that we will destroy the next would-be Fuhrer. In his entire speech, Obama never once mentions that the United States led a coalition of free peoples against Germany, Italy and Japan, nor does he ever discuss the obligation of sacrifice to prevent a recurrence. Indeed, his examples suggest that he doesn’t grasp the full dimensions of the struggle against evil. Northern Ireland is a totally inappropriate example (nothing remotely approaching a Holocaust took place there), the relations between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi are hardly characterized by forgiveness, even though the president of Burundi is striving mightily to achieve a peaceful modus vivendi, and as for Darfur, well, despite the tens of thousands who demonstrated on the Mall, nobody has done much of anything to stop the Khartoum regime from slaughtering the peoples of the south.
In the history of modern times, the United States has done more than anyone else, perhaps more than the rest of the world combined, to defeat evil, and we are still doing it. Yet Obama says that we must “learn from others” how to move on, forgive and forget, and live happily ever after. But these are just words, they are not policies, or even actions. And the meanings he gives to his words show that he has no real intention of doing anything to thwart evil, any more than he had any concrete actions to propose to punish North Korea.
Significantly, Barack Obama is a lot tougher on his domestic American opponents than on tyrants who threaten our values and America itself. He tells the Republicans that they’d better stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, but he doesn’t criticize Palestinians who raise their children to hate the Jews. He bows to the Saudi monarch, but humiliates the prime minister of Great Britain. He expresses astonishment that anyone can worry about a national security threat from Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, even as Chavez solidifies an alliance with Iran that brings plane loads of terror masters, weapons and explosives into our hemisphere from Tehran via Damascus, fuels terrorists and narcotics traffic, and offers military facilities to Russian warships and aircraft. He is seemingly unconcerned by radical Islam and a resurgent Communism in Latin America, even as his Department of Homeland Security fires a warning shot at veterans–the best of America–returning from the Middle East. He seeks warm relations with Iran and Syria–who are up to their necks in American blood–while warning Israel of dire consequences if she should attempt to preempt a threatened Iranian nuclear attack.
Thus far, at least, the one clear message from President Obama is that he is not prepared to fight…our international enemies. He sounds more like a psychotherapist than a national leader in these words from his Holocaust Day speech:
…we have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognize ourselves in each other, to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference, in whatever forms they may take, whether confronting those who tell lies about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur…
These words are calculated to internalize conflicts that are raging in the real world, and they are precisely the sort of words that will encourage our enemies to redouble their efforts to bring us down. For if the president of the United States will not act, who can stop them?
Pajamas Media, April 27th, 2009 8:32 pm
No president in modern times has managed to conceal so much of his biography as this one. The journalists assigned to the Obama beat seem to have lost their traditional avidity for digging out the missing details. We do not have a medical report, or a college transcript from Columbia, or a notion of how well he did in Harvard Law School.
These things are not automatically significant, but they can be. Nobody thinks the president has some basic medical problem. He shows every sign of being in excellent physical condition. But so did John F. Kennedy, who turned out to have had Addison’s Disease, and was taking steroids and pain killers, which had an effect on his performance. We didn’t know it at the time. We should have.
What did Obama study? With whom? How well did he do? Obama occasionally says things that are uncharacteristic of cultured persons, as when he flubs the number of states in the U.S., or when he seems to believe that they speak “Austrian” in Vienna. Are these just occasional slips of the tongue? Or did his college and law school years show a pattern of ignorance? We’re entitled to know these things, but there is a disappointing, albeit quite predictable, lack of curiosity by the usual suspects in the media hunter/killer packs.
A great quantity of newsprint was filled with criticism of the Bushitlercheney insistence on secrecy, and rightly so. Critics, and even would-be friends of the Bush Administration, were encouraged to believe all kinds of nonsense, much of which was fueled by the administration’s famous inability to explain what it was doing, and why. In like manner, the stonewalling of basic information about Obama fuels dark suspicion about the very legitimacy of his presidency, as in the ongoing demand that he prove his constitutional qualification for the office.
Lacking the basic information, we must use the old tools. We must infer, deduce, and guess. We have to parse his words and compare them with his actions. He himself insists on this. In March, when the North Koreans launched a rocket in the teeth of multiple international warnings, Obama [1] insisted that “words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response.” He rightly insisted that mere talk wasn’t good enough, because if warnings were ignored and no price was subsequently paid, warnings would become meaningless. Without action, words mean nothing.
A joint U.S.-Europe declaration reiterated this theme, noting that North Korea was developing “the ability to threaten countries near and far with weapons of mass destruction. This action demands a response from the international community, including from the U.N. Security Council to demonstrate that its resolutions cannot be defied with impunity.”
Which brings me to his little-analyzed [2] recent speech in the Capitol on the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, a theme inevitably close to the heart and soul of our first black president. Some of it is Obama at his best, elegant, spare, right to the point. He made a point near to my heart, which is often forgotten in the history of fascism:
It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses…
Yes, fascism and Nazism came from two of the most advanced and most cultured Western societies, Italy and Germany. And the institutions of those societies were enlisted in the service of the Holocaust, with precious little protest from the most cultured and advanced individuals in those societies.
the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands…
Those words about bureaucracy, “that sustains modern life,” are a useful window into the way Obama views government. He loves government, especially his own. But he’s got the Nazi story wrong. The bureaucracy that conducted the mass murders was largely military, and the most important component was not part of the bureaucracy, or even the traditional army, but rather the SS, which was tied directly to the Fuhrer, not to the old German state.
Obama’s description of the killing process, in which the victims were processed on a mass assembly line of death, was accurate and important, but he didn’t recognize that Hitler created a new kind of state. Nazism seized power in Germany, but the Nazi state was very different from the “state of laws” that preceded it.
He then gave his version of “never again,” and it’s a very odd version indeed. First, he draws hope from the survivors of the Holocaust. Those who came to America had a higher birthrate than the Jews who were already living here, and those members of “a chosen people” who created Israel. These, he says, chose life and asserted it despite the horrors they had endured.
And then he goes on:
We find cause for hope as well in Protestant and Catholic children attending school together in Northern Ireland; in Hutus and Tutsis living side-by-side, forgiving neighbors who have done the unforgivable; in a movement to save Darfur that has thousands of high school and college chapters in 25 countries and brought 70,000 people to the Washington Mall, people of every age and faith and background and race united in common cause with suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
Those numbers can be our future, our fellow citizens of the world showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say “never again.”
So “never again” means that we learn from others how to forgive and forget, and ultimately live happily with one another. But that is not what “never again” means, at least for the generation of the Holocaust and for most of those who followed. For them, “never again” means that we will destroy the next would-be Fuhrer. In his entire speech, Obama never once mentions that the United States led a coalition of free peoples against Germany, Italy and Japan, nor does he ever discuss the obligation of sacrifice to prevent a recurrence. Indeed, his examples suggest that he doesn’t grasp the full dimensions of the struggle against evil. Northern Ireland is a totally inappropriate example (nothing remotely approaching a Holocaust took place there), the relations between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi are hardly characterized by forgiveness, even though the president of Burundi is striving mightily to achieve a peaceful modus vivendi, and as for Darfur, well, despite the tens of thousands who demonstrated on the Mall, nobody has done much of anything to stop the Khartoum regime from slaughtering the peoples of the south.
In the history of modern times, the United States has done more than anyone else, perhaps more than the rest of the world combined, to defeat evil, and we are still doing it. Yet Obama says that we must “learn from others” how to move on, forgive and forget, and live happily ever after. But these are just words, they are not policies, or even actions. And the meanings he gives to his words show that he has no real intention of doing anything to thwart evil, any more than he had any concrete actions to propose to punish North Korea.
Significantly, Barack Obama is a lot tougher on his domestic American opponents than on tyrants who threaten our values and America itself. He tells the Republicans that they’d better stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, but he doesn’t criticize Palestinians who raise their children to hate the Jews. He bows to the Saudi monarch, but humiliates the prime minister of Great Britain. He expresses astonishment that anyone can worry about a national security threat from Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, even as Chavez solidifies an alliance with Iran that brings plane loads of terror masters, weapons and explosives into our hemisphere from Tehran via Damascus, fuels terrorists and narcotics traffic, and offers military facilities to Russian warships and aircraft. He is seemingly unconcerned by radical Islam and a resurgent Communism in Latin America, even as his Department of Homeland Security fires a warning shot at veterans–the best of America–returning from the Middle East. He seeks warm relations with Iran and Syria–who are up to their necks in American blood–while warning Israel of dire consequences if she should attempt to preempt a threatened Iranian nuclear attack.
Thus far, at least, the one clear message from President Obama is that he is not prepared to fight…our international enemies. He sounds more like a psychotherapist than a national leader in these words from his Holocaust Day speech:
…we have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognize ourselves in each other, to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference, in whatever forms they may take, whether confronting those who tell lies about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur…
These words are calculated to internalize conflicts that are raging in the real world, and they are precisely the sort of words that will encourage our enemies to redouble their efforts to bring us down. For if the president of the United States will not act, who can stop them?
Putin vs. the Truth
Putin vs. the Truth. By Orlando Figes
The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 7 · April 30, 2009
Review of:
Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia. By Jonathan Brent
Atlas & Co., 335 pp., $26.00
The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 7 · April 30, 2009
Review of:
Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia. By Jonathan Brent
Atlas & Co., 335 pp., $26.00
Vietnam is buying six Russian Kilo class submarines
A Six Pack For Vietnam
Strategy Page, April 29, 2009
Vietnam is buying six Russian Kilo class submarines, for $300 million each. The Kilos weigh 2,300 tons (surface displacement), have six torpedo tubes and a crew of 57. They are quiet, and can travel about 700 kilometers under water at a quiet speed of about five kilometers an hour. Kilos carry 18 torpedoes or SS-N-27 anti-ship missiles (with a range of 300 kilometers and launched underwater from the torpedo tubes.) The combination of quietness and cruise missiles makes Kilo very dangerous to surface ships. North Korea, China and Iran have also bought Kilos. Considering the low price, it appears that the Vietnamese boats do not have AIP (Air Independent Propulsion), which allows non-nuclear boats to stay underwater for weeks at a time.
Strategy Page, April 29, 2009
Vietnam is buying six Russian Kilo class submarines, for $300 million each. The Kilos weigh 2,300 tons (surface displacement), have six torpedo tubes and a crew of 57. They are quiet, and can travel about 700 kilometers under water at a quiet speed of about five kilometers an hour. Kilos carry 18 torpedoes or SS-N-27 anti-ship missiles (with a range of 300 kilometers and launched underwater from the torpedo tubes.) The combination of quietness and cruise missiles makes Kilo very dangerous to surface ships. North Korea, China and Iran have also bought Kilos. Considering the low price, it appears that the Vietnamese boats do not have AIP (Air Independent Propulsion), which allows non-nuclear boats to stay underwater for weeks at a time.
Pak's Ambassador: The pacification model that worked in Iraq can work in the Swat Valley
How Pakistan Is Countering the Taliban. By HUSAIN HAQQANI
The pacification model that worked in Iraq can work in the Swat Valley.
WSJ, Apr 29, 2009
The specter of extremist Taliban taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is not only a gross exaggeration, it could also lead to misguided policy prescriptions from Pakistan's allies, including our friends in Washington.
Pakistan and the international community do face serious challenges in confronting terrorists and the ideologies that sustain them. But panicked reactions of the type witnessed in the U.S. media over the last few weeks -- after the Taliban drove into Buner, a town 60 miles north of the capital Islamabad -- are not conducive to strengthening Pakistani democracy or to developing an effective counterterrorism policy for Pakistan.
Now that the Taliban have been driven out of Buner, and Pakistani forces have militarily engaged them just outside their Swat Valley stronghold, it should be clear to all that Pakistan can and will defeat the Taliban.
In the free elections that returned Pakistan to democracy in February 2008, Pakistanis overwhelmingly rejected Taliban sympathizers and advocates of extremist Islamist ideologies. But the legacy of dictatorship, including a tolerance for some militant groups, has proven tough to erase. Anti-American rhetoric and Pakistan's traditional security concerns about its neighbors have also dampened popular enthusiasm for strong military action against violent extremists, even though President Asif Zardari has repeatedly declared the war against them a war for Pakistan's soul.
Meanwhile, the change of administration in the U.S. has slowed the flow of assistance to Pakistan. Unfortunately, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to wonder if our alliance with the West is bringing any benefits at all.
Under the Musharraf dictatorship, Pakistan probably was not as quick as it needed to be to comprehend the enormity of the Taliban threat. And after last year's election of democratic leaders, our new government had an array of domestic issues to address. Mobilizing all elements of national power, particularly public opinion, against the Taliban threat took time because many Pakistanis thought the Taliban were amenable to negotiations and would keep their word.
Recent developments offer us an opportunity amid crisis. More Pakistanis are now convinced of the need to confront the extremists.
The recent spike of international concern about the threat in Pakistan seems to stem from the recent dialogue between the government of the Pashtunkhwa Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and a local movement that supported Islamic law but did not join the Taliban's violent campaign. The goal for this dialogue was twofold -- first, to restore order and stability to the Swat Valley; and second, to wedge rational elements of the religiously conservative population away from terrorists and fanatics.
The model here was the successful pacification of Fallujah in Iraq, where agreements with more moderate elements broke them away from al Qaeda nihilists. The model worked so well in Fallujah that it is now being resurrected by the American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The goal in Pakistan's Swat Valley was the same.
The dialogue in Swat resulted in an agreement that would allow for elements of Shariah to be applied to the judicial system of the Valley, as it has at other times in our nation's history. This agreement demanded that the native Taliban put down their weapons, pledge nonviolence, and accept the writ of the state. It was a local solution for what some in Pakistan viewed as a local problem.
Let me be perfectly clear here: Pakistan's civil and military leadership understands that al Qaeda and its allies are not potential negotiating partners. But, as the U.S. did in Iraq, Pakistan sought to distinguish between reconcilable and irreconcilable elements within an expanding insurgency.
The premise of the dialogue was peace. Without peace there is no agreement, and without an agreement the Pakistani government will use all power at its disposal to restore order in the Valley. We'd rather negotiate than fight. But if we have to fight we will -- and we will fight to win.
What does Pakistan need to contain this threat? In the short term we need the U.S. to share modern technology in antiterrorist engagement. Pakistan needs night-vision equipment, jammers that can knock out FM radio transmissions by the terrorists, and a larger, modernized fleet of helicopter gunships for ground support in the massive sweeps that are necessary to contain, repel and destroy the enemy.
Yet Washington has been reluctant to share this modern equipment, and to train our military in antiterrorism techniques, because of concerns that these systems could be used against India. Such concerns are misplaced. Pakistanis understand that the primary threat to our homeland today is not from our neighbor to the east but from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on our border with Afghanistan. To meet this threat, we must be provided the means to fight the terrorists while we work on resuming our composite dialogue with India.
In the long term, Pakistan's security will be predicated on Pakistan's economic viability. That is the central thrust of the Kerry-Lugar legislation currently before Congress, which would establish a 10-year, multibillion dollar commitment to Pakistan's economic and social system. It is also manifest in the Regional Opportunity Zone legislation currently before Congress that would open U.S. markets to products manufactured in Afghanistan and Pakistan's FATA region. An economically prosperous Pakistan will be less susceptible to the ideology of international terrorism -- and it will become a model to a billion Muslims across the world that Islam and modernity under democracy are not only compatible, but can thrive together.
Mr. Haqqani is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.
The pacification model that worked in Iraq can work in the Swat Valley.
WSJ, Apr 29, 2009
The specter of extremist Taliban taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is not only a gross exaggeration, it could also lead to misguided policy prescriptions from Pakistan's allies, including our friends in Washington.
Pakistan and the international community do face serious challenges in confronting terrorists and the ideologies that sustain them. But panicked reactions of the type witnessed in the U.S. media over the last few weeks -- after the Taliban drove into Buner, a town 60 miles north of the capital Islamabad -- are not conducive to strengthening Pakistani democracy or to developing an effective counterterrorism policy for Pakistan.
Now that the Taliban have been driven out of Buner, and Pakistani forces have militarily engaged them just outside their Swat Valley stronghold, it should be clear to all that Pakistan can and will defeat the Taliban.
In the free elections that returned Pakistan to democracy in February 2008, Pakistanis overwhelmingly rejected Taliban sympathizers and advocates of extremist Islamist ideologies. But the legacy of dictatorship, including a tolerance for some militant groups, has proven tough to erase. Anti-American rhetoric and Pakistan's traditional security concerns about its neighbors have also dampened popular enthusiasm for strong military action against violent extremists, even though President Asif Zardari has repeatedly declared the war against them a war for Pakistan's soul.
Meanwhile, the change of administration in the U.S. has slowed the flow of assistance to Pakistan. Unfortunately, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to wonder if our alliance with the West is bringing any benefits at all.
Under the Musharraf dictatorship, Pakistan probably was not as quick as it needed to be to comprehend the enormity of the Taliban threat. And after last year's election of democratic leaders, our new government had an array of domestic issues to address. Mobilizing all elements of national power, particularly public opinion, against the Taliban threat took time because many Pakistanis thought the Taliban were amenable to negotiations and would keep their word.
Recent developments offer us an opportunity amid crisis. More Pakistanis are now convinced of the need to confront the extremists.
The recent spike of international concern about the threat in Pakistan seems to stem from the recent dialogue between the government of the Pashtunkhwa Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and a local movement that supported Islamic law but did not join the Taliban's violent campaign. The goal for this dialogue was twofold -- first, to restore order and stability to the Swat Valley; and second, to wedge rational elements of the religiously conservative population away from terrorists and fanatics.
The model here was the successful pacification of Fallujah in Iraq, where agreements with more moderate elements broke them away from al Qaeda nihilists. The model worked so well in Fallujah that it is now being resurrected by the American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The goal in Pakistan's Swat Valley was the same.
The dialogue in Swat resulted in an agreement that would allow for elements of Shariah to be applied to the judicial system of the Valley, as it has at other times in our nation's history. This agreement demanded that the native Taliban put down their weapons, pledge nonviolence, and accept the writ of the state. It was a local solution for what some in Pakistan viewed as a local problem.
Let me be perfectly clear here: Pakistan's civil and military leadership understands that al Qaeda and its allies are not potential negotiating partners. But, as the U.S. did in Iraq, Pakistan sought to distinguish between reconcilable and irreconcilable elements within an expanding insurgency.
The premise of the dialogue was peace. Without peace there is no agreement, and without an agreement the Pakistani government will use all power at its disposal to restore order in the Valley. We'd rather negotiate than fight. But if we have to fight we will -- and we will fight to win.
What does Pakistan need to contain this threat? In the short term we need the U.S. to share modern technology in antiterrorist engagement. Pakistan needs night-vision equipment, jammers that can knock out FM radio transmissions by the terrorists, and a larger, modernized fleet of helicopter gunships for ground support in the massive sweeps that are necessary to contain, repel and destroy the enemy.
Yet Washington has been reluctant to share this modern equipment, and to train our military in antiterrorism techniques, because of concerns that these systems could be used against India. Such concerns are misplaced. Pakistanis understand that the primary threat to our homeland today is not from our neighbor to the east but from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on our border with Afghanistan. To meet this threat, we must be provided the means to fight the terrorists while we work on resuming our composite dialogue with India.
In the long term, Pakistan's security will be predicated on Pakistan's economic viability. That is the central thrust of the Kerry-Lugar legislation currently before Congress, which would establish a 10-year, multibillion dollar commitment to Pakistan's economic and social system. It is also manifest in the Regional Opportunity Zone legislation currently before Congress that would open U.S. markets to products manufactured in Afghanistan and Pakistan's FATA region. An economically prosperous Pakistan will be less susceptible to the ideology of international terrorism -- and it will become a model to a billion Muslims across the world that Islam and modernity under democracy are not only compatible, but can thrive together.
Mr. Haqqani is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.
North Korea is once again provoking an American president
No More Bribes. WaPo Editorial
North Korea is once again provoking an American president.
WaPo, Wednesday, April 29, 2009
NORTH KOREA'S campaign to win attention and favors from the Obama administration continues to escalate. Over the weekend the regime announced that it had resumed the reprocessing of plutonium for nuclear weapons at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, having previously ejected U.N. inspectors. Quite possibly the claim was false: Experts estimate that it would take months at least to restart the reprocessing facility, and up to a year to turn on the main reactor. In any case, North Korea's capacity to add to its current arsenal of half a dozen bombs is limited -- perhaps one warhead a year.
Probably that's why the regime further upped the ante by declaring that two American journalists it is holding would be put on trial. The two women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested March 17 along North Korea's border with China, most likely on the Chinese side. Working for San Francisco-based Current TV, they were investigating the issue of North Korean refugees in China -- including the underreported scandal of the trafficking of North Korean women. No doubt Pyongyang realizes that live hostages are better than a crumbling nuclear facility; it surely took note when Iran, which has received loads of attention from the new American president, put American journalist Roxana Saberi on trial this month.
While experts endlessly debate Iran's intentions, those of dictator Kim Jong Il aren't hard to figure. He would like the Obama administration to engage his regime in bilateral talks -- excluding South Korea, Japan and other U.S. partners -- and then offer it economic and political bribes in exchange for North Korea releasing the U.S. hostages and shutting down Yongbyon again. Mr. Kim has already succeeded in selling a Yongbyon closure to two U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; why not, he must reason, try for a three-peat? Unfortunately, the Obama administration's part-time envoy for North Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth, has already signaled that Pyongyang's crude strategy might work by publicly offering bilateral talks along with "incentives" and by suggesting that the six-party negotiations including U.S. allies will be downgraded.
North Korea is once again provoking an American president.
WaPo, Wednesday, April 29, 2009
NORTH KOREA'S campaign to win attention and favors from the Obama administration continues to escalate. Over the weekend the regime announced that it had resumed the reprocessing of plutonium for nuclear weapons at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, having previously ejected U.N. inspectors. Quite possibly the claim was false: Experts estimate that it would take months at least to restart the reprocessing facility, and up to a year to turn on the main reactor. In any case, North Korea's capacity to add to its current arsenal of half a dozen bombs is limited -- perhaps one warhead a year.
Probably that's why the regime further upped the ante by declaring that two American journalists it is holding would be put on trial. The two women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested March 17 along North Korea's border with China, most likely on the Chinese side. Working for San Francisco-based Current TV, they were investigating the issue of North Korean refugees in China -- including the underreported scandal of the trafficking of North Korean women. No doubt Pyongyang realizes that live hostages are better than a crumbling nuclear facility; it surely took note when Iran, which has received loads of attention from the new American president, put American journalist Roxana Saberi on trial this month.
While experts endlessly debate Iran's intentions, those of dictator Kim Jong Il aren't hard to figure. He would like the Obama administration to engage his regime in bilateral talks -- excluding South Korea, Japan and other U.S. partners -- and then offer it economic and political bribes in exchange for North Korea releasing the U.S. hostages and shutting down Yongbyon again. Mr. Kim has already succeeded in selling a Yongbyon closure to two U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; why not, he must reason, try for a three-peat? Unfortunately, the Obama administration's part-time envoy for North Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth, has already signaled that Pyongyang's crude strategy might work by publicly offering bilateral talks along with "incentives" and by suggesting that the six-party negotiations including U.S. allies will be downgraded.
The Case for Compensating Live Organ Donors
The Case for Compensating Live Organ Donors. By Jennifer Monti
CEI, April 23, 2009
Conflicting opinions on the ethics of organ donation have existed as long as organ transplantation has been medically feasible. Eligibility requirements, reason for transplant, and international organ tourism continuously resurface as difficult medical policy and ethics issues. One issue about which there is little dispute is demand for organs far exceeding the supply of donors. Demand for kidneys exceeds the current supply of deceased donor organs and altruistic donors. Approximately 73,000 people sit on the waiting list for a kidney — 18 of them will die by tomorrow and 6,000 more patients join the list every year. By 2010, over 100,000 Americans will wait for a kidney donation. A kidney transplant in the United States generally requires a five-year wait.
The development of a transparent, regulated market for live organ donation is currently prohibited by the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA), which imposes criminal penalties of up to $50,000 and five years in prison for any person who “knowingly acquire[s], receive[s], or otherwise transfer[s] any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation.”
The establishment of a transparent, public market to permit the sale of organs from live donors will transform organ procurement from a lengthy, stressful, medically damaging waiting game into a safer, more efficient, routine, life-saving process. Such a market would have both economic and moral merit; it would deliver more and better organs at less cost than alternative options, and will result in more lives saved.
A model of direct payment for organs is available in the experience of Iran, which has allowed compensation since the late 1980s. Singapore plans to introduce direct compensation in 2009. What can be learned from a study of this process and its potential role in the modern American medical landscape? The deliberate choice to rely on altruism has been unsuccessful and fails to reflect the advances that have been made in transplant techniques. Technology and success rates have improved; why has policy remained largely unchanged? The tide, however, is beginning to turn. Individual states are experimenting with indirect payment systems to increase the number of live donors.
Moral outrage ought to be directed not at the tension between markets and altruism, but at the needless loss of life as transplant waiting lists continue to grow. In that spirit, this paper offers two policy proposals to support the development of payment systems — both direct and indirect — for procurement of organs. The most expedient route to a transparent regulated market requires a repeal of section 301 of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984.
[Full study available in the link above.]
CEI, April 23, 2009
Conflicting opinions on the ethics of organ donation have existed as long as organ transplantation has been medically feasible. Eligibility requirements, reason for transplant, and international organ tourism continuously resurface as difficult medical policy and ethics issues. One issue about which there is little dispute is demand for organs far exceeding the supply of donors. Demand for kidneys exceeds the current supply of deceased donor organs and altruistic donors. Approximately 73,000 people sit on the waiting list for a kidney — 18 of them will die by tomorrow and 6,000 more patients join the list every year. By 2010, over 100,000 Americans will wait for a kidney donation. A kidney transplant in the United States generally requires a five-year wait.
The development of a transparent, regulated market for live organ donation is currently prohibited by the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA), which imposes criminal penalties of up to $50,000 and five years in prison for any person who “knowingly acquire[s], receive[s], or otherwise transfer[s] any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation.”
The establishment of a transparent, public market to permit the sale of organs from live donors will transform organ procurement from a lengthy, stressful, medically damaging waiting game into a safer, more efficient, routine, life-saving process. Such a market would have both economic and moral merit; it would deliver more and better organs at less cost than alternative options, and will result in more lives saved.
A model of direct payment for organs is available in the experience of Iran, which has allowed compensation since the late 1980s. Singapore plans to introduce direct compensation in 2009. What can be learned from a study of this process and its potential role in the modern American medical landscape? The deliberate choice to rely on altruism has been unsuccessful and fails to reflect the advances that have been made in transplant techniques. Technology and success rates have improved; why has policy remained largely unchanged? The tide, however, is beginning to turn. Individual states are experimenting with indirect payment systems to increase the number of live donors.
Moral outrage ought to be directed not at the tension between markets and altruism, but at the needless loss of life as transplant waiting lists continue to grow. In that spirit, this paper offers two policy proposals to support the development of payment systems — both direct and indirect — for procurement of organs. The most expedient route to a transparent regulated market requires a repeal of section 301 of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984.
[Full study available in the link above.]
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Moving toward Europe--but Do Americans Want to Go?
Moving toward Europe--but Do Americans Want to Go? By Michael Barone
The European model sacrifices growth in the hope of reducing economic inequality.
AEI, Tuesday, April 28, 2009
As the Obama presidency reaches the hundred-day mark, it is becoming apparent that he would like America to take on a more European cast. Increased government spending, greater government control of health care, and the implementation of a cap-and-trade system are all goals that President Obama has tried to further in his first hundred days. Yet pursuing such policies would end up hindering growth in the name of economic equality--and Americans are ambivalent about moving their country in this direction.
Ninety-nine days in, with 1,362 days to go, and we can see with some clarity the trajectory on which Barack Obama wants to take the United States. To put it in geographical terms, he wants to move us some considerable distance toward Europe.
This is apparent in the budget he has presented for the next fiscal year and its projections for the years to come. Government spending is scheduled to rise as a percentage of the economy. This will be accomplished by raising taxes and, even more, by borrowing that will double the national debt in five years and nearly triple it in 10 years. This trajectory can be altered in the future, but much of it is set in stone by the $3 trillion-plus deficit that will, give or take a few hundred billion, be produced by the budget voted this year.
Other Obama goals are less certain of achievement. He wants government to take over much of the one-seventh of the economy that is devoted to health care, but how much and by what means are still unclear. One result, common in Europe, is likely: rationing of care. Obama also wants to reshape the energy sector by imposing a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions. This will raise energy costs, particularly on the 60 percent of Americans whose electricity is produced by coal, and will provide opportunities for corporations to make profits by gaming the system. But it's not clear that it will encourage development of the one plentiful non-carbon-emitting energy source that France, for one, relies on--nuclear power.
The European model sacrifices growth in the hope of reducing economic inequality. American experience suggests that this can work, but not perhaps at an acceptable cost.
There are two decades in which economic inequality was sharply reduced. One was the 1930s. High earners made less and low earners fell down toward zero, so incomes were more equal. But the cost in lost economic growth and human misery were very high.
The other decade was the 1940s when, in the phrase of the day, there was a war on. Government controlled wages and prices, required workers to join unions, ordered industries to produce arms and mobilized 16 million Americans into the military.
But those policies seem unlikely today.
Obama has only limited plans to take over the private sector economy (he hopes cap-and-trade will produce otherwise uneconomic "green" jobs), and he has abandoned, at least for the moment, the unions' card check bill that would enroll millions of workers in unions by effectively abolishing the secret ballot in unionization elections and then having federal arbitrators impose wage levels and work rules. And he certainly has no plans to expand the military to its proportion of the population in World War II--35 million men and women.
Still, Obama may take us some distance toward the Europe whose "dynamic union" he hailed in Strasbourg, with some marginal gains in economic equality and, if Europe's experience is a guide, considerably less economic creativity and growth.
Abroad, Obama has eschewed American "arrogance" and embraced the European model of diplomatic engagement and avoidance of confrontation. He argues that if we show "persistence" in apologizing for America's past and willingness to negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and shake hands with Hugo Chavez, they will come to recognize our good will and make concessions they would otherwise refuse.
Perhaps. But one recalls that this was the European response to the genocide in its own back yard by Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and that he was brought to justice only by the force of American arms. That lesson has not been lost on Obama who, for all his rhetoric, has ordered troop increases in Afghanistan despite the refusal of Europeans to do more.
Obama and his party were brought to power by George W. Bush's perceived incompetence on Katrina and Iraq, not because of some pent-up and suddenly overwhelming demand for the Europeanization of America.
Polls show voters ambivalent about Obama's expansion of government, skeptical of global warming theories, and appreciative despite the financial crisis and recession of the efficacy of market capitalism to produce economic growth. They are also confident, as Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy were, that America is a special and unique country. Obama audaciously believes he can lead the country in a direction it's not sure it wants to go.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI.
The European model sacrifices growth in the hope of reducing economic inequality.
AEI, Tuesday, April 28, 2009
As the Obama presidency reaches the hundred-day mark, it is becoming apparent that he would like America to take on a more European cast. Increased government spending, greater government control of health care, and the implementation of a cap-and-trade system are all goals that President Obama has tried to further in his first hundred days. Yet pursuing such policies would end up hindering growth in the name of economic equality--and Americans are ambivalent about moving their country in this direction.
Ninety-nine days in, with 1,362 days to go, and we can see with some clarity the trajectory on which Barack Obama wants to take the United States. To put it in geographical terms, he wants to move us some considerable distance toward Europe.
This is apparent in the budget he has presented for the next fiscal year and its projections for the years to come. Government spending is scheduled to rise as a percentage of the economy. This will be accomplished by raising taxes and, even more, by borrowing that will double the national debt in five years and nearly triple it in 10 years. This trajectory can be altered in the future, but much of it is set in stone by the $3 trillion-plus deficit that will, give or take a few hundred billion, be produced by the budget voted this year.
Other Obama goals are less certain of achievement. He wants government to take over much of the one-seventh of the economy that is devoted to health care, but how much and by what means are still unclear. One result, common in Europe, is likely: rationing of care. Obama also wants to reshape the energy sector by imposing a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions. This will raise energy costs, particularly on the 60 percent of Americans whose electricity is produced by coal, and will provide opportunities for corporations to make profits by gaming the system. But it's not clear that it will encourage development of the one plentiful non-carbon-emitting energy source that France, for one, relies on--nuclear power.
The European model sacrifices growth in the hope of reducing economic inequality. American experience suggests that this can work, but not perhaps at an acceptable cost.
There are two decades in which economic inequality was sharply reduced. One was the 1930s. High earners made less and low earners fell down toward zero, so incomes were more equal. But the cost in lost economic growth and human misery were very high.
The other decade was the 1940s when, in the phrase of the day, there was a war on. Government controlled wages and prices, required workers to join unions, ordered industries to produce arms and mobilized 16 million Americans into the military.
But those policies seem unlikely today.
Obama has only limited plans to take over the private sector economy (he hopes cap-and-trade will produce otherwise uneconomic "green" jobs), and he has abandoned, at least for the moment, the unions' card check bill that would enroll millions of workers in unions by effectively abolishing the secret ballot in unionization elections and then having federal arbitrators impose wage levels and work rules. And he certainly has no plans to expand the military to its proportion of the population in World War II--35 million men and women.
Still, Obama may take us some distance toward the Europe whose "dynamic union" he hailed in Strasbourg, with some marginal gains in economic equality and, if Europe's experience is a guide, considerably less economic creativity and growth.
Abroad, Obama has eschewed American "arrogance" and embraced the European model of diplomatic engagement and avoidance of confrontation. He argues that if we show "persistence" in apologizing for America's past and willingness to negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and shake hands with Hugo Chavez, they will come to recognize our good will and make concessions they would otherwise refuse.
Perhaps. But one recalls that this was the European response to the genocide in its own back yard by Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and that he was brought to justice only by the force of American arms. That lesson has not been lost on Obama who, for all his rhetoric, has ordered troop increases in Afghanistan despite the refusal of Europeans to do more.
Obama and his party were brought to power by George W. Bush's perceived incompetence on Katrina and Iraq, not because of some pent-up and suddenly overwhelming demand for the Europeanization of America.
Polls show voters ambivalent about Obama's expansion of government, skeptical of global warming theories, and appreciative despite the financial crisis and recession of the efficacy of market capitalism to produce economic growth. They are also confident, as Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy were, that America is a special and unique country. Obama audaciously believes he can lead the country in a direction it's not sure it wants to go.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI.
The war on mining: Fighting back
The war on mining: Fighting back. By Silvia Santacruz
The Financial Post, April 22, 2009
Gold has become a safe haven as jittery investors move away from weakened stock markets, and currencies are threatened by inflation. But the allure of gold goes well beyond its future value or price per ounce.
The demand for the precious metal has propelled economic growth in the developing world as investment in exploration has led to significant job creation and improvements in health. Despite this, the industry is under attack by environmental NGOs, which accuse it of bringing poverty and pollution to the regions.
The war on mining is global. In 2007, Newmont CEO Richard Ness was cleared in a 21-month Indonesian criminal trial for the firm’s alleged pollution of Buyat Bay. National Geographic criticized the same operation on the grounds that mine’s benefits—$391-million in local royalties and taxes, 8,000 jobs and $3-million in welfare projects—accrue to only five of the nearest communities.
In Ecuador, NGOs sow alarm among poor communities with claims that if large-scale mining were to start near them, their rivers would be contaminated, their animals and crops would die and their children would fall ill. To prove their point, environmentalists play videos of the damage that mercury, cyanide and arsenic can cause, blithely ignoring the fact that new techniques no longer use those chemicals and cause little environmental impact.
Poverty, not the natural resources industry, is the biggest enemy of people. So what would the anti-mining activists’ success mean for the communities where they are concentrating their efforts?
In Africa and Indonesia, the world’s four largest gold producers—Barrick, Gold Fields, Newmont and Anglo-Gold Ashanti—are engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which kill thousands in the developing world every year. The industry works in partnership with nonprofits like International SOS, IFC Against AIDS, African Medical Research (AMREF) and Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, among others.
“Gold mining companies are particularly affected by the triple disease threat of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” explains Maureen Upton, a World Gold Council official, in a 2008 study. “It is difficult to think of what other industry faces a situation where in certain locations 30% of its employees are infected with a fatal disease such as HIV, or where a similar percentage is likely to be infected with malaria.”
In Ghana, AngloGold Ashanti hired a worldwide authority on insecticide resistance, Professor Richard Hunt, who found that the dominant mosquito species were completely or partially resistant to three standard insecticides but susceptible to another one not being provided by the World Health Organization. The company responded by initiating a program that reduced malaria infections by 73% in scarcely two years.
Also in Ghana, Gold Fields launched the Bowoho Ban (“Protect Yourself “) weekly radio program to educate people about HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, where AngloGold Ashanti’s workforce has an HIVinfection rate of 30%—which, while high, is still lower than South Africa’s national average of 44%—the firm hired AIDS Peer Educators who persuade mine workers and community members to undergo HIV testing and counselling. The response among mine workers during 2007-2008 was 100%, up from 40% during 2006-2007.
Newmont is fighting malaria in Indonesia by distributing bed nets, clearing larvae and talking to residents about malaria prevention. The incidence of malaria among children in the area of Newmont’s project declined from 47% in 1999 to 13% in 2000 (the project’s first year) to 1.5% in 2007.
If mining companies were to pull out in the wake of government or activist pressure, many poor rural communities in developing countries would be left with no job opportunities, hope for development or health programs. Mining companies invest in these programs to keep a healthy and productive workforce, which, in turn, benefits underdeveloped towns.
To take that away would be a crime.
Silvia Santacruz is the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writer-editor at Ecuador Mining News and a contributor to Openmarket.org.
The Financial Post, April 22, 2009
Gold has become a safe haven as jittery investors move away from weakened stock markets, and currencies are threatened by inflation. But the allure of gold goes well beyond its future value or price per ounce.
The demand for the precious metal has propelled economic growth in the developing world as investment in exploration has led to significant job creation and improvements in health. Despite this, the industry is under attack by environmental NGOs, which accuse it of bringing poverty and pollution to the regions.
The war on mining is global. In 2007, Newmont CEO Richard Ness was cleared in a 21-month Indonesian criminal trial for the firm’s alleged pollution of Buyat Bay. National Geographic criticized the same operation on the grounds that mine’s benefits—$391-million in local royalties and taxes, 8,000 jobs and $3-million in welfare projects—accrue to only five of the nearest communities.
In Ecuador, NGOs sow alarm among poor communities with claims that if large-scale mining were to start near them, their rivers would be contaminated, their animals and crops would die and their children would fall ill. To prove their point, environmentalists play videos of the damage that mercury, cyanide and arsenic can cause, blithely ignoring the fact that new techniques no longer use those chemicals and cause little environmental impact.
Poverty, not the natural resources industry, is the biggest enemy of people. So what would the anti-mining activists’ success mean for the communities where they are concentrating their efforts?
In Africa and Indonesia, the world’s four largest gold producers—Barrick, Gold Fields, Newmont and Anglo-Gold Ashanti—are engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which kill thousands in the developing world every year. The industry works in partnership with nonprofits like International SOS, IFC Against AIDS, African Medical Research (AMREF) and Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, among others.
“Gold mining companies are particularly affected by the triple disease threat of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” explains Maureen Upton, a World Gold Council official, in a 2008 study. “It is difficult to think of what other industry faces a situation where in certain locations 30% of its employees are infected with a fatal disease such as HIV, or where a similar percentage is likely to be infected with malaria.”
In Ghana, AngloGold Ashanti hired a worldwide authority on insecticide resistance, Professor Richard Hunt, who found that the dominant mosquito species were completely or partially resistant to three standard insecticides but susceptible to another one not being provided by the World Health Organization. The company responded by initiating a program that reduced malaria infections by 73% in scarcely two years.
Also in Ghana, Gold Fields launched the Bowoho Ban (“Protect Yourself “) weekly radio program to educate people about HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, where AngloGold Ashanti’s workforce has an HIVinfection rate of 30%—which, while high, is still lower than South Africa’s national average of 44%—the firm hired AIDS Peer Educators who persuade mine workers and community members to undergo HIV testing and counselling. The response among mine workers during 2007-2008 was 100%, up from 40% during 2006-2007.
Newmont is fighting malaria in Indonesia by distributing bed nets, clearing larvae and talking to residents about malaria prevention. The incidence of malaria among children in the area of Newmont’s project declined from 47% in 1999 to 13% in 2000 (the project’s first year) to 1.5% in 2007.
If mining companies were to pull out in the wake of government or activist pressure, many poor rural communities in developing countries would be left with no job opportunities, hope for development or health programs. Mining companies invest in these programs to keep a healthy and productive workforce, which, in turn, benefits underdeveloped towns.
To take that away would be a crime.
Silvia Santacruz is the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writer-editor at Ecuador Mining News and a contributor to Openmarket.org.
Robert H. Frank, A 200% Tax Even Socialists Will Hate
Robert H. Frank, A 200% Tax Even Socialists Will Hate, by Alan Reynolds
Cato at Liberty, April 27, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
In the latest issue of Forbes, Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank is pushing “A Tax Even Libertarians Can Love.” I hope he wasn’t counting on this libertarian’s support.
What he advocates is “replacing the income tax with a progressive tax on spending. …A family’s income minus its savings is its consumption, and that amount minus a large standard deduction — say, $30,000 a year for a family of four — would be its taxable consumption. …Rates would start low, perhaps 20%, then rise gradually with total consumption. …With savings tax-exempt, top marginal tax rates on consumption would have to be significantly higher than current top rates on income.”
His concept of “significantly higher” includes tax rates of 100-200% on marginal income that isn’t saved. This is about minimizing affluence, not maximizing revenues. There is ample evidence from Emmanuel Saez and others that the amount of reported income drops sharply as marginal tax rates rise above 25-30% (and even less on capital gains).
In his 2007 book, Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, Frank suggests marginal tax rates of 50% above $220,000 and rising to 200%. Since seniors (like me) commonly finance retirement from past savings, Frank’s tax scheme amounts to rapid confiscation of past savings.
For young people, Frank’s tax can’t possibly encourage savings because it discourages earning any income in the first place. Consumption is, after all, the motive for both earning and saving. The prospect of facing future consumption taxes of 50-200% would surely discourage saving much, because the rewards from invested savings (namely, future consumption) would be subjected to such prohibitive tax brackets. Under this steeply progressive tax on unsaved income, any income exempt from taxes today would be subject to brutal taxes whenever folks wanted to buy anything of value, like a car or house, or to retire on their accumulated savings.
In another April 25 piece in The New York Times, Mr. Frank shifts from promoting confiscatory taxes on consumption to defending small tweaks to the current tax regime. “The current [tax] system is much fairer than many people believe, and the president’s proposal will make it both fairer and more efficient.” That comment was aimed at the tea parties. Yet tax party protesters clearly understood, as Frank does not, that the president’s first wave of proposed tax increases come nowhere near paying for his grandiose spending plans. My estimate of last October, that Obama’s plans would add $4.3 trillion to the deficits over ten years is now looking much too generous, if not wildly optimistic.
In the New York Times piece, Frank argues that income differences are mainly a matter of luck. As he often does, Frank pretends to possess evidence about this topic that other economists have missed. He says, “economists have only begun to realize [that] pay differences often vastly overstate differences in performance.”
In his book, whenever Frank alludes to what “the evidence suggests,” his sources are usually suspect, obsolete or invisible. He claims “regulations, like cartoons are data.” He cites an unpublished master’s thesis, unidentified surveys and “casual impressions.”
Frank claims “happiness can be measured reliably” by brain waves. Explaining this better in the Economic Journal in 1997, he noted that people who say they are happy show “greater electrical activity in the left prefrontal region of the brain” which “is rich in receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, higher concentrations of which been shown independently to be correlated with positive affect.” If we accept the amount of dopamine in the brain as the gauge of happiness, however, then the happiest people are those who routinely abuse crack and meth.
In the second chapter of Falling Behind, his first graph lists a Census Bureau URL as the source for household income data from 1949 to 1979. Click on that link and you will find the data only go back to 1967. In reality, all of Frank’s income and wealth graphs actually came from Chris Hartman at inequality.org. Hartman is not an economist or statistician, but a “researcher, writer, editor, and graphic designer with experience in politics, higher education, and publishing.” Hartman’s non-facts used in Robert Frank’s first graph actually came from a 1994 book from the Economic Policy Institute, reflecting the “authors’ analysis. . . of unpublished census data.” Frank’s comparison of CEO pay with “average wages” came from Hartman’s flawed calculations for United for a Fair Economy, which were critiqued on page 131 of my textbook Income and Wealth. And Frank’s demonstrably false claim that “asset ownership has become even more heavily concentrated during recent years” is likewise from inequality.org.
In short, Professor Frank often bases his remarkably strong opinions on fragile facts.
Cato at Liberty, April 27, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
In the latest issue of Forbes, Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank is pushing “A Tax Even Libertarians Can Love.” I hope he wasn’t counting on this libertarian’s support.
What he advocates is “replacing the income tax with a progressive tax on spending. …A family’s income minus its savings is its consumption, and that amount minus a large standard deduction — say, $30,000 a year for a family of four — would be its taxable consumption. …Rates would start low, perhaps 20%, then rise gradually with total consumption. …With savings tax-exempt, top marginal tax rates on consumption would have to be significantly higher than current top rates on income.”
His concept of “significantly higher” includes tax rates of 100-200% on marginal income that isn’t saved. This is about minimizing affluence, not maximizing revenues. There is ample evidence from Emmanuel Saez and others that the amount of reported income drops sharply as marginal tax rates rise above 25-30% (and even less on capital gains).
In his 2007 book, Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, Frank suggests marginal tax rates of 50% above $220,000 and rising to 200%. Since seniors (like me) commonly finance retirement from past savings, Frank’s tax scheme amounts to rapid confiscation of past savings.
For young people, Frank’s tax can’t possibly encourage savings because it discourages earning any income in the first place. Consumption is, after all, the motive for both earning and saving. The prospect of facing future consumption taxes of 50-200% would surely discourage saving much, because the rewards from invested savings (namely, future consumption) would be subjected to such prohibitive tax brackets. Under this steeply progressive tax on unsaved income, any income exempt from taxes today would be subject to brutal taxes whenever folks wanted to buy anything of value, like a car or house, or to retire on their accumulated savings.
In another April 25 piece in The New York Times, Mr. Frank shifts from promoting confiscatory taxes on consumption to defending small tweaks to the current tax regime. “The current [tax] system is much fairer than many people believe, and the president’s proposal will make it both fairer and more efficient.” That comment was aimed at the tea parties. Yet tax party protesters clearly understood, as Frank does not, that the president’s first wave of proposed tax increases come nowhere near paying for his grandiose spending plans. My estimate of last October, that Obama’s plans would add $4.3 trillion to the deficits over ten years is now looking much too generous, if not wildly optimistic.
In the New York Times piece, Frank argues that income differences are mainly a matter of luck. As he often does, Frank pretends to possess evidence about this topic that other economists have missed. He says, “economists have only begun to realize [that] pay differences often vastly overstate differences in performance.”
In his book, whenever Frank alludes to what “the evidence suggests,” his sources are usually suspect, obsolete or invisible. He claims “regulations, like cartoons are data.” He cites an unpublished master’s thesis, unidentified surveys and “casual impressions.”
Frank claims “happiness can be measured reliably” by brain waves. Explaining this better in the Economic Journal in 1997, he noted that people who say they are happy show “greater electrical activity in the left prefrontal region of the brain” which “is rich in receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, higher concentrations of which been shown independently to be correlated with positive affect.” If we accept the amount of dopamine in the brain as the gauge of happiness, however, then the happiest people are those who routinely abuse crack and meth.
In the second chapter of Falling Behind, his first graph lists a Census Bureau URL as the source for household income data from 1949 to 1979. Click on that link and you will find the data only go back to 1967. In reality, all of Frank’s income and wealth graphs actually came from Chris Hartman at inequality.org. Hartman is not an economist or statistician, but a “researcher, writer, editor, and graphic designer with experience in politics, higher education, and publishing.” Hartman’s non-facts used in Robert Frank’s first graph actually came from a 1994 book from the Economic Policy Institute, reflecting the “authors’ analysis. . . of unpublished census data.” Frank’s comparison of CEO pay with “average wages” came from Hartman’s flawed calculations for United for a Fair Economy, which were critiqued on page 131 of my textbook Income and Wealth. And Frank’s demonstrably false claim that “asset ownership has become even more heavily concentrated during recent years” is likewise from inequality.org.
In short, Professor Frank often bases his remarkably strong opinions on fragile facts.
US Provides $5M in Emergency Support as Swine Flu Spreads
USAID Provides $5M in Emergency Support as Swine Flu Spreads
USAID, April 28, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - As concerns over the spread of swine flu grow, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced today that it is providing an additional $5 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in emergency support for efforts to detect and contain the disease in Mexico.
"Since 2005, USAID has committed $543 million to support pandemic prevention and preparedness across the globe," said Alonzo Fulgham, Acting USAID Administrator. "This additional $5 million is specifically aimed at helping to control the transmission of swine flu in Mexico, through advanced disease surveillance and control measures."
USAID is also working closely with U.N. and civil society partners to adapt and disseminate important public health messages for communities and healthcare facilities about swine flu and how to limit risks for disease transmission.
"Containing the spread of certain animal diseases, like swine flu and avian influenza, is critical to limiting the threat of a pandemic," Fulgham continued. "As demonstrated in recent days," he added, "such diseases can spread quickly, so informing the public about how to reduce risks is critical."
Swine flu is of particular concern because it is both a novel virus and spreads efficiently among humans, meeting two of three criteria for a pandemic.
On April 25, WHO declared the ongoing spread of swine flu a public health emergency of international concern. On April 27, WHO raised the level of influenza pandemic alert to Phase 4, indicating an increased likelihood of a pandemic. The increased alert level does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is inevitable. WHO sent a team of responders, including two experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to work with authorities in Mexico. The team will further investigate and characterize the virulence and transmission dynamics of the disease.
USAID is responding to the international outbreak in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To help track transmission of H1N1 in the swine population, USAID is also supporting FAO efforts to conduct animal surveillance in Mexico and other parts of Central America. USAID has also offered to provide 900,000 sets of personal protective equipment from its avian and pandemic influenza stockpile to support ongoing response efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services, WHO, and PAHO. The use of this protective equipment helps to protect first responders from contracting or spreading disease from suspected outbreak sites.
USAID has committed $543 million to support pandemic its Avian and Pandemic Influenza prevention and preparedness activities across the globe since 2005. In addition, the USAID is positioned to provide humanitarian aid to help countries requiring additional support in the event of a pandemic.
For further information on USAID's avian and pandemic influenza program, visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/home/News/news_items/avian_influenza.html.
For information on USAID's disaster assistance program, please see http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
USAID, April 28, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - As concerns over the spread of swine flu grow, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced today that it is providing an additional $5 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in emergency support for efforts to detect and contain the disease in Mexico.
"Since 2005, USAID has committed $543 million to support pandemic prevention and preparedness across the globe," said Alonzo Fulgham, Acting USAID Administrator. "This additional $5 million is specifically aimed at helping to control the transmission of swine flu in Mexico, through advanced disease surveillance and control measures."
USAID is also working closely with U.N. and civil society partners to adapt and disseminate important public health messages for communities and healthcare facilities about swine flu and how to limit risks for disease transmission.
"Containing the spread of certain animal diseases, like swine flu and avian influenza, is critical to limiting the threat of a pandemic," Fulgham continued. "As demonstrated in recent days," he added, "such diseases can spread quickly, so informing the public about how to reduce risks is critical."
Swine flu is of particular concern because it is both a novel virus and spreads efficiently among humans, meeting two of three criteria for a pandemic.
On April 25, WHO declared the ongoing spread of swine flu a public health emergency of international concern. On April 27, WHO raised the level of influenza pandemic alert to Phase 4, indicating an increased likelihood of a pandemic. The increased alert level does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is inevitable. WHO sent a team of responders, including two experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to work with authorities in Mexico. The team will further investigate and characterize the virulence and transmission dynamics of the disease.
USAID is responding to the international outbreak in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To help track transmission of H1N1 in the swine population, USAID is also supporting FAO efforts to conduct animal surveillance in Mexico and other parts of Central America. USAID has also offered to provide 900,000 sets of personal protective equipment from its avian and pandemic influenza stockpile to support ongoing response efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services, WHO, and PAHO. The use of this protective equipment helps to protect first responders from contracting or spreading disease from suspected outbreak sites.
USAID has committed $543 million to support pandemic its Avian and Pandemic Influenza prevention and preparedness activities across the globe since 2005. In addition, the USAID is positioned to provide humanitarian aid to help countries requiring additional support in the event of a pandemic.
For further information on USAID's avian and pandemic influenza program, visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/home/News/news_items/avian_influenza.html.
For information on USAID's disaster assistance program, please see http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
Long-Term Storm Predictors Post a Sorry Track Record but Vow to Improve
For Early Hurricane Forecasts, Consult a Telepath. By Carl Bialik
Long-Term Storm Predictors Post a Sorry Track Record but Vow to Improve; One Certainty Is Their Guesses Get a Lot of Press
WSJ, apr 29, 2009
If analysts did no better than predicting stock prices would equal the average of the last five years, one would hope they'd find a different career -- or at least take their work private while they refined their techniques.
That's the sorry track record of climatologists who each year predict the number of hurricanes that will threaten the Caribbean and Southeastern U.S. before the storm season begins on June 1. Yet their seasonal forecasts continue to garner headlines in the spring as reliably as groundhogs and their shadows.
In early 2005, predictions ranged from 11 to 14 tropical storms -- compared with an average of 14 in the prior five years -- with seven or eight hurricanes, compared with a five-year average of seven. The storm season instead brought Katrina, Rita and 13 other hurricanes among the 27 named storms.Numbers Guy Blog
The forecasts' flaws were evident before that big miss and have continued since then. The next two years they overshot; last year, at last, they were right in predicting a typical year. This year, most forecasters are calling for below-average activity.
"It's as if they're presenting their data in the middle of a study, before they reach their conclusions," says Robert S. Young, director of the program for the study of developed shorelines at Western Carolina University. "They should keep doing what they're doing, and they shouldn't tell anyone about it until they've figured it out."
Yet even as academics, government agencies and private industry crowd into the forecasting arena, they're bumping up against obstacles that may render accurate forecasting so far ahead of time impossible. Some forecasts are based on past years with similar patterns, but the climatology record doesn't go back far enough to lend much confidence. And it's hard to even detect these weather patterns far in advance -- even giant patterns that determine the intensity of a season. El Niño, or warming of Pacific Ocean waters, tends to suppress hurricanes; La Niña, unusually cold Pacific waters, tends to increase storm activity. Yet neither of these seasonal effects can be predicted with much reliability before the late spring.
"Until you really get into the spring and the weather patterns start to set up, it's really hard to get any kind of decent forecast as to what's going to go on in the summer and fall," says Chuck Watson, who works on forecasts of damage from hurricanes. Anytime before spring, "You might as well throw a dart."
Or hire a gibbon and a trance medium to compete with the dart thrower. That was the stunt dreamed up by reporter Bo Petersen of the Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., in 2007, after several years of more straightforward reporting of professionals' ultimately errant forecasts. The trance medium beat out Mr. Petersen, the gibbon, the dart thrower -- and the pros. This comedic contest was borne out of a serious problem, according to Mr. Petersen: "The sense we got from emergency-management people here is that the forecasts had been so wrong that they were hearing from the public, 'Why should we pay any attention to this stuff?' "
Some forecasters update their predictions once the season has begun. And those forecasts do well. But none of the major forecasts that come out before June has improved significantly on a simple prediction scheme that calls for the same number of named storms and hurricanes as the average of the five prior years. And some do much worse.
Forecasters often are open about their failings. Philip Klotzbach, who works on the Colorado State University forecast, and others post analyses of their accuracy, which is more than, say, political pundits do. And they say it's good scientific practice to publish their work in progress.
But why publish press releases and even, in some cases, hold press conferences? "Part of the reason we even do our press conference and release our data is, well, everyone else is," Mr. Watson says. He adds that research funders generally encourage the publicizing of the fruits of their grant money: "From a funding and research standpoint, you've almost got to release it," Mr. Watson says. "It's part of that game."
Even if the forecasts were dead-on, they wouldn't do emergency managers much good. The number of named tropical storms and hurricanes can have little to do with the damage they create: Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, a year of below-average storm counts. "The total number of storms is a red herring," says Joe Bastardi, chief long-range and hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather.com. "It's a joke." Many forecasts include more useful measures such as the number of storms that hit land or the accumulated cyclone energy, which quantifies total storm intensity. But news reports often focus on the more-accessible predictions of storm counts.
The industries most affected by hurricanes focus more closely on the short-term forecasting of individual storms, an endeavor with much higher accuracy.
"The insurance industry is always interested to hear the long-range hurricane predictions, but they don't directly influence what companies do," says Loretta L. Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. More important is whether the storms hit U.S. soil, she says.
Forecasters say their task is complicated by the subjectivity involved in determining which storms are named, a reflection of intensity and greater likelihood they'll make landfall. The National Hurricane Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, decides when to append a name. "I don't understand why some storms are getting named and others are not getting named," Dr. Bastardi says.
Perhaps one to two additional storms are being named each year than would have been a few decades ago, thanks to improvements in technology and climate science, according to Christopher Landsea of the hurricane center. To some climatologists, the naming standards have gotten too lax. NOAA named 13 storms in 2007, prompting a press release from the Weather Research Center in Houston saying its forecast of seven named storms was dead-on -- after subtracting the six storms it deemed unworthy of naming, because they only briefly featured the levels of wind and pressure characteristic of tropical storms.
Several forecasters question NOAA's dual role as forecaster, through its Climate Prediction Center, and as forecast arbiter, via the National Hurricane Center. The concern is that those scientists deciding whether to name storms late in the season might feel pressure to base their decision in part on how it would reflect on their colleagues' predicted counts. "In some sense, they hold the cards," James Elsner, a professor of geography at Florida State University, says of NOAA scientists.
Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal hurricane forecaster, says, "There is absolutely no conflict," pointing to the separation between the two arms of the government agency that forecast storms and name storms.
Climatologists are making a new forecast -- this time about their ability to get predictions right. "It's inevitable, with increasing computing power and an increase in the understanding of the dynamics of El Niño, that skill will climb in the long term," says Adam Lea, who works on forecasts from University College London's Hazard Research Centre. "We will get better."
[Full article w/graphs here.]
Long-Term Storm Predictors Post a Sorry Track Record but Vow to Improve; One Certainty Is Their Guesses Get a Lot of Press
WSJ, apr 29, 2009
If analysts did no better than predicting stock prices would equal the average of the last five years, one would hope they'd find a different career -- or at least take their work private while they refined their techniques.
That's the sorry track record of climatologists who each year predict the number of hurricanes that will threaten the Caribbean and Southeastern U.S. before the storm season begins on June 1. Yet their seasonal forecasts continue to garner headlines in the spring as reliably as groundhogs and their shadows.
In early 2005, predictions ranged from 11 to 14 tropical storms -- compared with an average of 14 in the prior five years -- with seven or eight hurricanes, compared with a five-year average of seven. The storm season instead brought Katrina, Rita and 13 other hurricanes among the 27 named storms.Numbers Guy Blog
The forecasts' flaws were evident before that big miss and have continued since then. The next two years they overshot; last year, at last, they were right in predicting a typical year. This year, most forecasters are calling for below-average activity.
"It's as if they're presenting their data in the middle of a study, before they reach their conclusions," says Robert S. Young, director of the program for the study of developed shorelines at Western Carolina University. "They should keep doing what they're doing, and they shouldn't tell anyone about it until they've figured it out."
Yet even as academics, government agencies and private industry crowd into the forecasting arena, they're bumping up against obstacles that may render accurate forecasting so far ahead of time impossible. Some forecasts are based on past years with similar patterns, but the climatology record doesn't go back far enough to lend much confidence. And it's hard to even detect these weather patterns far in advance -- even giant patterns that determine the intensity of a season. El Niño, or warming of Pacific Ocean waters, tends to suppress hurricanes; La Niña, unusually cold Pacific waters, tends to increase storm activity. Yet neither of these seasonal effects can be predicted with much reliability before the late spring.
"Until you really get into the spring and the weather patterns start to set up, it's really hard to get any kind of decent forecast as to what's going to go on in the summer and fall," says Chuck Watson, who works on forecasts of damage from hurricanes. Anytime before spring, "You might as well throw a dart."
Or hire a gibbon and a trance medium to compete with the dart thrower. That was the stunt dreamed up by reporter Bo Petersen of the Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., in 2007, after several years of more straightforward reporting of professionals' ultimately errant forecasts. The trance medium beat out Mr. Petersen, the gibbon, the dart thrower -- and the pros. This comedic contest was borne out of a serious problem, according to Mr. Petersen: "The sense we got from emergency-management people here is that the forecasts had been so wrong that they were hearing from the public, 'Why should we pay any attention to this stuff?' "
Some forecasters update their predictions once the season has begun. And those forecasts do well. But none of the major forecasts that come out before June has improved significantly on a simple prediction scheme that calls for the same number of named storms and hurricanes as the average of the five prior years. And some do much worse.
Forecasters often are open about their failings. Philip Klotzbach, who works on the Colorado State University forecast, and others post analyses of their accuracy, which is more than, say, political pundits do. And they say it's good scientific practice to publish their work in progress.
But why publish press releases and even, in some cases, hold press conferences? "Part of the reason we even do our press conference and release our data is, well, everyone else is," Mr. Watson says. He adds that research funders generally encourage the publicizing of the fruits of their grant money: "From a funding and research standpoint, you've almost got to release it," Mr. Watson says. "It's part of that game."
Even if the forecasts were dead-on, they wouldn't do emergency managers much good. The number of named tropical storms and hurricanes can have little to do with the damage they create: Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, a year of below-average storm counts. "The total number of storms is a red herring," says Joe Bastardi, chief long-range and hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather.com. "It's a joke." Many forecasts include more useful measures such as the number of storms that hit land or the accumulated cyclone energy, which quantifies total storm intensity. But news reports often focus on the more-accessible predictions of storm counts.
The industries most affected by hurricanes focus more closely on the short-term forecasting of individual storms, an endeavor with much higher accuracy.
"The insurance industry is always interested to hear the long-range hurricane predictions, but they don't directly influence what companies do," says Loretta L. Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. More important is whether the storms hit U.S. soil, she says.
Forecasters say their task is complicated by the subjectivity involved in determining which storms are named, a reflection of intensity and greater likelihood they'll make landfall. The National Hurricane Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, decides when to append a name. "I don't understand why some storms are getting named and others are not getting named," Dr. Bastardi says.
Perhaps one to two additional storms are being named each year than would have been a few decades ago, thanks to improvements in technology and climate science, according to Christopher Landsea of the hurricane center. To some climatologists, the naming standards have gotten too lax. NOAA named 13 storms in 2007, prompting a press release from the Weather Research Center in Houston saying its forecast of seven named storms was dead-on -- after subtracting the six storms it deemed unworthy of naming, because they only briefly featured the levels of wind and pressure characteristic of tropical storms.
Several forecasters question NOAA's dual role as forecaster, through its Climate Prediction Center, and as forecast arbiter, via the National Hurricane Center. The concern is that those scientists deciding whether to name storms late in the season might feel pressure to base their decision in part on how it would reflect on their colleagues' predicted counts. "In some sense, they hold the cards," James Elsner, a professor of geography at Florida State University, says of NOAA scientists.
Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal hurricane forecaster, says, "There is absolutely no conflict," pointing to the separation between the two arms of the government agency that forecast storms and name storms.
Climatologists are making a new forecast -- this time about their ability to get predictions right. "It's inevitable, with increasing computing power and an increase in the understanding of the dynamics of El Niño, that skill will climb in the long term," says Adam Lea, who works on forecasts from University College London's Hazard Research Centre. "We will get better."
[Full article w/graphs here.]
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