Fixing Democracy in the U.S.A.

In "Third parties don't have a chance", Bruce Bartlett provides some interesting thoughts on the (non)viability of third parties for U.S. federal elections - and a suggestion as to how to give them life:

One reform I have long favored that is more doable would be to allow third party votes to be aggregated with those on major party lines. This can be done in 10 states, according to the New Majority Education Fund (www.nmef.org). Most prominent is New York, which has long had an influential Conservative Party, Liberal Party and Right to Life Party. When a major party candidate is endorsed by one of these third parties, votes on their line are added to his vote total. This makes their endorsement valuable and gives third parties more influence without upsetting the basic electoral system.

There are, of course, other means to the same end, but Bartlett's suggestion has the benefits pretty simple, understandable, and has proved itself to at least some degree in the states Bartlett described.

And, while whining about the fact that the Supreme Court upheld campaign finance reform, Jonah Goldberg presents the suggestion that redistricting problems can be fixed by enlarging Congress:

I don't know if we should have districts of 30,000 these days. That would create a Congress of more than 8,000 representatives. But a couple thousand wouldn't be a bad way to start.

I'm all for a larger Congress, having enjoyed a much closer relationship to and understanding of my provincial and federal legislators when living in Canada. However, larger isn't always better - and any change in the number of Members of Congress should be associated with a long-overdue federal reform of redistricting - as otherwise a map of Congressional districts for the new, larger Congress is likely to look like a spilled bowl of spaghetti. I think the present emphasis should be on redistricting reform.

A side note - I like Jonah's introductory line, "everyone who understands the First Amendment was rightly having conniptions...." I don't like it because it is fair or accurate, but because it is quite the opposite. It is a little trick I have sometimes used myself - but only in debates where my opponent is not sufficiently intelligent to pick up on the underlying logical fallacy. It's a preemptive version of "when did you stop beating your wife". Within this context, whatever the merit of the campaign finance reform decision, I would venture that the five Supreme Court justices who voted for reform understand the Constitution far better than Goldberg ever will.

[Update - Dec. 21, 2003 - Lawrence Kestenbaum has provided a highly relevant caution about Bartlett's idea, and how it can result in a significant loss of choice for voters, in the comments section.]

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Recidivism

A few weeks ago I wrote about a career criminal who received an inordinately light sentence. Today, an update:

Remember my Nov. 22 column about Gregory Scarborough, the drug-addicted serial burglar who was caught, convicted and sentenced by D.C. Superior Court Judge Susan Winfield to 18 years in jail, only to have the sentence suspended and replaced with a 120-day drug treatment program? Last week, Scarborough tested positive for drugs he acquired while in jail and used while in his treatment program. Yesterday Judge Winfield imposed her original sentence of 18 years incarceration

I am reminded of the days when I practiced criminal defense, and I would obtain an astonishing break for a defendant, only to find that within a few weeks or months the defendant had blown it.

A client on a work pass called me to inform me that he had tested positive for marijana only once, but that his probation officer had scheduled a hearing over that probation violation. I obtained the probation officer's report - which showed three positive tests, and indicated that after the second test the officer had told the defendant that one more time would mean going back to jail. When I pointed this out to the defendant, he asserted "But it was only one time after that."

A client who was going to be sentenced to delayed probation on a felony, such that he would not even have a record (for a first adult offense) if he completed 18 months of probation was picked up the night before sentencing with a bag of marijuana. That was between the time I phoned him to tell him the good news about the sentence recommendation, and his actual sentencing the following afternoon. He didn't tell me about it until after the sentencing, at which time he also told me a story, later recanted, that the office who arrested him had planted the marijuana on him.

To most people, getting through a year or two without committing a stupid crime and getting arrested isn't difficult - it's the way they live their lives. And, like the criminal in Colbert's piece, no matter how big the break or how serious the consequences, some simply can't help themselves from screwing up within weeks of getting the biggest breaks of their lives.

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Civilian Deaths in Iraq

In today's Guardian, John Sloboda argues, "We must honour the dead", specifically by maintaining a civilian death toll. As you know, although by historical standards the civilian death toll is very low for a conflict of this magnitude, the Bush Administration obviously wishes to suppress that information for fear of negative publicity. Would publication of this information, with historical context so as to show how the civilian death toll compares to prior wars, hurt the military effort? Or would it hurt Bush, while actually helping the military document that it has exercised considerable restraint and care (particularly by historical standards)?

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Criminal Conduct by Adolescents

In the New York Times today, there is an editorial by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, "Separating the Killers From the Boys", which attempts to address some of the problems with juvenile justice, particularly in relation to violent offenders.

Lee Malvo, the teenager charged in the Washington-area sniper attacks, is on trial for his life in an adult court in Chesapeake, Va. Although "kids who kill" seem like a modern phenomenon, we've actually been struggling for more than a century with how to regard and treat them. Are they men or merely boys? Should it make a difference in the way we think about their punishment?

There, of course, is no easy answer to this - once the boy has been turned into a killer.

After describing the 1892 execution of an adolescent, Brumberg notes,

There were Americans who considered the execution of an adolescent to be barbaric while others hailed it as an act of justice.

More than 100 years later, both sentiments are being repeated as Lee Malvo's trial continues. One side predictably argues that he deserves special protection from capital punishment because of his dysfunctional beginnings, his vulnerability to psychological coercion and his age. The other side responds with their mantra: "A kid who kills like an adult should be punished as one." It's a rhetorical groove we've been stuck in despite the passage of a century.

Brumberg is entirely correct that the notion of "if you're old enough to do the crime, you're old enough to do the time" reflects an incomplete understanding of cognitive development. As children and adolescents fact that children lack the perspective and experience of adults, particulary at younger ages may not fully appreciate the concept of "death", and particularly in adolescence may have a false sense of immortality, give the right circumstances you can turn a child or adolescent into a soldier who will bravely advance where adults would fear to go, and who will kill more easily than a typical adult. Whatever you think of Malvo's "indoctrination" defense, the use of "child soldiers" around the world evidences quite well that pretty much any child can be turned into a killer, in many cases willing to perform atrocities that would make most adults blanche.

Brumberg comments, "boys well into their late teens have difficulty curbing their impulses, thinking through long-term consequences and — most relevant to Lee Malvo — resisting the influence of others." I would venture that most teens who manage to curb their impulses and think through their actions would find this assertion to be patronizing. While acknowledging that there are times in your life when various impulses are more difficult to control, it remains possible to obey the law - and I personally do not care for the "they can't help it" defense, based upon global observations as opposed to individual choices. Whatever the overal tendency, individuals, including adolescent boys, should be held responsible for the choices they make.

The best solution in one sense would be to try to identify children who are likely to end up in prison at the earliest possible age, and to intervene at that time. Of course, this would take political will - the will to invest resources, the will to stand up to accusations of "racism" when implementing this type of program in inner city regions, and the will to stand up to those who decry such programs as stigmatizing. Further, as there is some truth to the problem of stigmatism, and as perceptions of racism may undermine a program, and great care would have to be taken in designing and implementing such a program.

If you speak to school teachers, and they are willing to speak candidly, they will inform you that even in their lay experience they can pick out the children in their classes who are likely to become criminals no later than second or third grade, and usually in kindergarten or first grade. And they will tell you that the identifications have a high degree of accuracy. It makes sense to utilize that information, and to try to get these kids' lives turned around before they become criminals or killers. An ounce of prevention....

Until that happens (and don't hold your breath), we should recognize that it is difficult to classify adolescent offenders like children or like adults, because they aren't like either children or adults. Once we acknowledge that reality, perhaps we can stop trying to cram them into one system or the other (sometimes with slight modification of the sentencing options for adolescents tried as adults), and recognize that we should be designing from the ground up a justice system that appropriately addresses adolescent crime and potential for rehabilitation.

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... But Is It Fiscally Responsible?

Obviously, by now anybody who even occasionally reads a newspaper is familiar with the now-controvercial deal between Boeing and the USAF for the Air Force to "lease" a fleet of 100 new refueling tankers, at a cost of between $26 billion to $37 billion. As an editorial in USA Today states,

Proponents of the lease deal concluded it had a better chance of winning congressional approval than a standard purchase of tankers for at least $150 million apiece because the initial costs would be less. But the eventual price could be as much as $5.7 billion more than a purchase, according to Congress' own budget experts. That's the cost of running all federal courts for a year.

The editorial notes that, despite the costs and questions about whether new tankers are actually needed, legislation to lease them "flew through Congress" and included a provision which "specifically awarded the contract to Boeing, short-circuiting the normal bidding process"

A revised deal, after the scandal broke, called for purchasing eighty tankers and leasing twenty. Boeing fired the executive and former Pentagon employee who exercised (to put it nicely) questionable ethics when they negotiated the deal.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Washington, "a senior member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and co-chairman of the Congressional Airpower Caucus", argues in favor of the deal. (Not mentioned in his comments: the tankers are to be built in Washington in Dicks' district, and that he has received significant campaign contributions from Boeing.) Dicks argues:

Third, although the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says we need an additional $30 billion to $40 billion annually to modernize military equipment, neither the Bush administration nor the Clinton administration provided adequate levels of procurement funding. So Congress - not Boeing - developed the creative tanker-lease arrangement, now structured as a plan to lease 20 planes and purchase 80.

What has not been emphasized enough is that this is a very good deal for the government: The Air Force will pay less than any other customer for the 767 airframes. It's a guaranteed price, millions less than other nations are paying for the same planes.

The easy retorts to this are that, if the tankers truly are needed, Congress would authorize the money to purchase all 100 of the new tankers. First, it can't be that much cheaper even in the short-term to purchase 80 and lease 20. Second, it is not a good long-term deal to lease the tankers - it costs the taxpayer a lot more. In terms of Boeing providing "a good deal", when was the last time it had a customer who wanted to make an outright purchase of even 20 jets of this size, let alone 80 or 100. The government should get an excellent deal - and if the price is so great, it seems that it wouldn't have been necessary to award Boeing a "no bid" contract.

But, leaving aside issues of pork, unethical backroom deals, and even of corruption, what bothers me the most about this deal is its fiscal irresponsibility. Leasing is great if you can't afford to buy, and can even present significant tax advantages for business. Major airlines typically lease their entire fleets for a variety of reasons, including the tax deductions and their ability to shift the massive debt they would otherwise have to directly float off of their books. But when you can afford to buy, particularly when you are the tax collecter and not a taxpayer, it really makes no sense to lease.

The purpose of a lease such as this is to hide the true cost of the planes, and to shift the cost onto future budgets (and Presidents). It's a bad precedent, as if this one lease deal is followed by an increasing number of similar deals, a President can effectively float a massive invisible budget deficit - burdening future administrations with the cost of future lease payments. While such budget trickery may serve airlines well, as they hide massive debt that might otherwise deflate the value of their stock, investors are aware of this trick so nobody is really fooled. But even now, the U.S. government intentionally confuses its budget picture so as to hide the true magnitude of its present and future debts - and there are no shares of stock or class of professional investors who can give the budget even the limited "reality check" offered by the stock market.

What it boils down to for me is this: I like fiscal responsibility. I like balanced budgets. While I recognize that running a deficit is not always a bad thing - and sometimes it is the only way to afford important new infrastructure - I am not a fan of incurring debt "for the sake of incurring debt" or worse, in order to hide the debt from those who ultimately will be called upon to pay it back. From my perspective, tying the hands of future administrations by burdening them with obligations that should be paid in the present is worse than simply running an oversized deficit. If Bush and Congress are afraid of admitting the true size of the budget deficit, perhaps they should step aside and let some fiscally responsible individuals take over the financial management of our country.

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Fair Trials?

In "Justice for Hussein", Debra Saunders writes:

I would trust the producers of "Survivor" to put together a fitting trial for Saddam Hussein before I would trust the United Nations.

To start, any solon who worries about giving Hussein a "fair" trial should not be allowed near the tribunal. For such people, Hussein's trial is an opportunity to establish how fair-minded they are as jurists, rather than a chance to redress the rivers of red blood spilled in this thug's name.

Ah yes - there's no room, after all, for due process for people we already know to be guilty. And nothing could possibly be gained by demonstrating to the Arab world that we are actually interested in advancing justice and fairness, even when handling the most odious of offenders.

After yammering on for a bit about the evils of those who oppose the death penalty or favor international organizations (and along the way, admittedly, making some decent points about the bizarre trial of Milosevic), she concludes,

I want Hussein to get a fair trial -- but it won't be fair to Iraq if Hussein is allowed to turn his trial into a circus.

I see.... So while she will condemn a "solon" - that is, a "wise lawgiver" - who calls for a fair trial, apparently she does not believe it to be hypocritical when she expresses the very desire she previously condemned.

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The Problem With Outsourcing

Simply put, you can't court martial civilians. We've had some previous discussion of the problems with Bechtel - and now Halliburton is reportedly falling short in its performance of duties historically performed by members of the active service:

The Pentagon repeatedly warned contractor Halliburton-KBR that the food it served to US troops in Iraq was "dirty," as were as the kitchens it was served in, NBC News reported on Friday.

Halliburton-Kellogg Brown and Root's promises to improve "have not been followed through," according to a Pentagon report that warned "serious repercussions may result" if the contractor did not clean up.

The Pentagon reported finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq, NBC said, citing Pentagon documents.

Our troops deserve better - and if the kitchens were being operated by the military instead of by a private company they would already have it.

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A Fair Trial - Before He's Convicted

There is a growing buzz over the trial of Saddam Hussein - particularly where it should be held, and how to ensure that it is fair. But let's be blunt - the record is patent, and no matter how fair the trial Hussein is not going to be acquitted.

If Hussein were from this country, I would want to try him here under this nation's laws - or, if necessary, under the laws that existed prior to his rule (and the associated imposition by his regime of self-serving laws). If no relevant body of law could be found, due to my nation's unfortunate history, I would suggest adopting the rules of a prior international war crimes court or tribumal and applying international humanitarian law. And if somebody from another country were to suggest that he couldn't get a fair trial here, I would likely see that as condescension.

Still, I would understand the calls for a public international trial, held in a neutral setting before an independent judge (or panel of judges), where Hussein would be able to present in full his theory of the case. But, human nature being what it is, the advocates of such a trial would be well-served to avoid suggesting that my nation would be unfair, or had prejudged the case, if they wanted to actually convince me to turn Hussein over to such a court. And I would want some degree of assurance that the "trial" wouldn't end up looking like a theater of the absurd following years of delay, like that of Milosevic.

As an outsider, for many reasons, the idea of holding Hussein's trial before a neutral international tribunal "makes sense". But if the reasons presented for such a trial condescend to the Iraqi people, I expect there to be fierce Iraqi opposition to turning Hussein over to an outside court.

Thus, to no small degree, international efforts should be focused on ensuring that Hussein's trial is fair, no matter where it is held and no matter who presides over it. It would be best if this were not a redux of the trial of Ceausescu.

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The "Great Insider" Speaks....

In today's column, Bill Safire writes:

Another useful bit of information is the origin of "spider hole," a phrase used by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to describe the dugout hiding place in which the fugitive Saddam was cowering.

This is Army lingo from the Vietnam era. The Vietcong guerrillas dug "Cu Chi tunnels" often connected to what the G.I.'s called "spider holes" — space dug deep enough for the placement of a clay pot large enough to hold a crouching man, covered by a wooden plank and concealed with leaves. When an American patrol passed, the Vietcong would spring out, shooting. But the hole had its dangers; if the pot broke or cracked, the guerrilla could be attacked by poisonous spiders or snakes. Hence, "spider hole."

This is an interesting anedote, but it doesn't quite accord with my understanding. Granted, Safire was around and writing speeches for Spiro Agnew during the war years, whereas I was mostly... not born yet. But nonetheless... Let's take a look at Vietnam "Military Jargon":

Spider Hole - A descriptive and realistic expression for a soldier's foxhole.

And let's take a look at how an actual veteran uses the term:

The second most threatening area on the drop zone was the impact point, the point from which we controlled the drops, and the ideal arrival point for each drop. We had to rapidly dig out and crawl into a spider hole from which to work relatively protected from the Vietnamese who were shooting at us constantly -- snipers, mortars, artillery, rockets. We were proud of the speed with which we could dig these little holes out of that clay with our military-issue entrenching tools.

Beyond that, the "Cu Chi tunnels" were not, as Safire seemingly suggests, short tunnels connected to foxholes. They were an intricate series of tunnels, bunkers, kitchens, store rooms, dormitories, and traps, built on three underground levels starting during the resistance against the French. There were about seventy-five miles of interconnecting tunnels, which were dug into the clay earth of the region as opposed to being lined, in Safire's fanciful interpretation, with clay pottery.

But, in rattling out his editorial, Bill was probably more concerned with letting us know that he had attended a party thrown by Donald Rumsfeld than with spending a few minutes on Google to confirm that he got is lingo right.... (In case you are wondering, Safire "stuffed" himself "on lamb chops and potato pancakes".)

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A Manufacturer's Christmas Wish List

Yesterday I took on Bruce Bartlett's inane views on "tort reform" which were largely based upon a recent report from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturers Alliance. In reading the report, it is interesting to see what the manufacturers desire:

1. Lower corporate taxes;
2. Lower employee benefits costs (particularly health care costs);
3. Lower litigation costs (particularly asbestos-related litigation);
4. Lower costs for pollution abatement; and
5. Lower natural gas prices,

While I have sympathy for the manufacturers' arguments on health care costs, it should be (and isn't) noted in their report that the primary reason these costs are borne by employers in the United States is that, unlike every other western nation, we have no national health plan. Apparently, it would be heresy to suggest such a thing, so intead they propose "greater individual responsibility for coverage costs and health status" - which sounds a lot like the desire to terminate or reduce health care as an employee benefit. They also desire (in addition to a set of massive corporate tax cuts) subsidies for providing health care benefits to employees. Either way, it's a shift of cost from the employer to the individual taxpayer (or to the nation's astonishing deficit.)

It is also interesting to note that they choose to use projected data, as convenient, in order to further their arguments. (e.g., "Currently, [China] operates a parallel rate structure consisting of a 33 percent rate for state-owned domestic enterprises and an 18 percent rate for foreign-funded enterprises. However, observers are expecting the National Peoples Congress to merge the two systems under a single statutory rate of 25 percent—a figure used in this analysis." They apparently see no need to even present alternative figures - one based on reality, and one based upon their educated guesswork. They later argue, "Comparable international data do not exist to make meaningful quantitative comparisons [for double taxation of dividend income or tax treatment of foreign-source income" - and then argue that those factors magnify the U.S. tax disadvantage. Now there's some objective analysis)

In terms of tort litigation, unlike Mr. Bartlett, the manufacturers' concerns are focused primarily on asbsestos liability, although more generally they advocate elimination of joint and several liability, additional statutes of repose, and caps for punitive damages. There are good arguments for retaining or eliminating "joint and several liability", but it is not my impression from what I have seen in Michigan that such a change will have a profound impact on tort liability or the size of settlements - and unfortunately the report presents no data. The other two proposals, unsuprisingly, are aimed at reducing liability for the cases where manufacturers face the most exposure for wrongful conduct - working to the expense of the most injured plaintiffs. None of these proposals would have any effect on "frivolous litigation".

They propose federalizing class actions - it is not presently clear what effect that would have on class action litigation. It may backfire, if the federal judges who get assigned to hearing hundreds of class action lawsuits start requiring the plaintiff's lawyers and manufacturers to end their sweetheart deals, and to start delivering adequate compensation to the injured class. (Sorry - I don't think that a typical "$2 coupon off your next purchase from the defendant"-type settlement serves the injured class - even if it allows for a cheap settlement (as the defendants know most coupons will go unused) and huge attorney fees - payable, of course, in cash and not in coupons.)

For regulatory reform, they propose what sounds like a new regulatory agency (perhaps private in nature) to regulate regulations, and to provide cost-benefit reviews. There is, of course, no reason why manufacturers cannot set up such an independent body right now.

In terms of natural gas cost, beyond arguing for increased drilling of new gas reserves, they seem to be advocating government subsidy of other forms of energy.

In short, the report seems to be less a valid analysis of manufacturing costs, and more a "wish list" to President Bush for the next round of tax cuts and subsidies to be handed out to the wealthy.

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A Step Forward

Saddam Hussein is in U.S. custody, and that's a very good thing. I don't think the so-called "resistance" will fold, but I wouldn't complain at all if they were weakened and demoralized by this capture. And I hope that Hussein is quickly and publicly brought to task for his sins. (That is, no Milosovic-style multi-year delay before a year-long trial; and no secret confinements with or without a secret trial.)

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Tort Deform

One of the pet issues of certain faux-conservatives is "tort reform". They announce that there is a big problem with "frivolous lawsuits", and then typically tell us that the remedies we should impose are:

1. Damages caps;
2. Shorter limitations periods; and
3. More statutes of repose.

The problem is, none of those "remedies" are aimed at "frivolous" litigation - in fact, those particular "reforms" are directed at meritorious litigation. They're the equivalent of the "technical defenses" some people like to complain about in the field of criminal law - where a guilty criminal "gets away with it" because of an evil "loophole" in the law. Statutes of limitation and repose prevent the litigation of meritorious cases based on the passage of time. Often, the lobbying is for limitations periods which are shorter than the time in which the negligence which might give rise to litigation could reasonably be discovered. Damages caps have no effect on "frivolous" litigation, but can have catastrophic effects on people who suffer serious personal injury and are unable to recover reasonable compensation from those who caused them harm.

Yesterday, Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis published "The cost of the legal system", which is perhaps typical of the mushy-headed nonsense put forth by advocates of "tort reform". He complains that a new report from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturers Alliance indicates that U.S. manufacturing costs are the highest in the world, due to "corporate taxes, employee benefits, pollution abatement expenses and tort liability costs." This will, of course, come as a surprise to those who recognize that other nations have higher corporate taxes, offer greater employee benefits, and are intolerant of pollution - and even have similar tort laws. But let's leave that aside for a moment and assume that this industry report paints a fair and balanced picture. Bruce focuses his editorial on the following contention:

Our tort liability system is 3.2 percent more expensive. No country has a system more expensive than ours.

Actually, I'm a bit surprised that our tort liability system is only 3.2 percent more expensive on average. A principal reason that our tort liability system is so costly is that, in our system, the cost of future medical care is paid by the defendant whose negligence injured the plaintiff, whereas in other nations those costs are either non-compensible (note that Bruce includes China in this calculus - a nation not known for offering due process) or are covered by national health plans. Remove future medical costs from personal injury tort verdicts, and many will plummet in size.

Bruce next presents a classic misrepresentation of "tort reform" advocates:

This last point is reinforced by a recent study from Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, a consulting group. Last week, it estimated that U.S. tort costs climbed to $233 billion in 2002, or 2.23 percent of the gross domestic product. This is like an $809 per year tax on every American, paid in the form of higher prices for goods and services, higher insurance costs and a deterioration in living standards.

Stuff and nonsense. The tort system shifts responsibility for damages from those who suffer injury to those who caused the injury. Eliminating the tort system does not mean the elimination of a "$809 per year tax" - it means that every American will, on average, absorb $809 in damages caused by somebody else, while the person responsible for their injuries pays absolutely no price. That is, absent the tort system, there would be an additional subsidy of $809 per American per year, payable to those whose negligence or deliberate wrongful conduct injures other Americans. (The fact that "tort reform" advocates pretend otherwise serves to highlight who they actually are - business and insurance company lobbyists.)

I am reminded of Walmart's decision from a number of years back that it was more "cost-effective" to stock its high shelves in a manner that posed a risk to customers, paying off lawsuit settlements to customers who were injured or killed by falling boxes, than to improve the manner in which it secured merchandise on high shelves. Upon being presented with a memorandum documenting that this was an official company policy, an angry jury punished Walmart with a large verdict for an injured plaintiff. And, at least to some degree, Walmart improved its policy. No doubt, Bruce would find much more fault in the jury's "excessive" verdict than in the fact that Walmart was choosing to put its customers at unnecessary risk.

What's worse, even at $809 per person, the tort system grossly undercompensates injury victims. According to the Tillinghast-Towers Perrin report Bruce cites (but obviously hasn't read), the tort system returns less than 50 cents on the dollar to people it is designed to help and returning only 22 cents on the dollar to compensate for actual economic loss. Those are real costs, and are borne by tort victims. In other words, the public continues to provide a huge de facto subsidy to tort feasors.

Bruce continues,

Of course, legitimate personal injuries deserve compensation. But, less and less of each dollar awarded in tort suits actually compensates for injury. According to the Tillighast study, only 22 cents on the dollar compensate for actual economic loss. The rest went to lawyers or involved punitive damages or those for "pain and suffering" that went far beyond compensating actual loss.

So in Bruce's mind, "pain and suffering" is not a "legitimate" injury. That is, if I cut off your leg or poke out your child's eye, I should pay for the doctor bill and a prosthesis, but as you don't suffer any "legitimate" damages beyond your out-of-pocket expenses, that's where my liability should end. Am I wrong in asserting that no thinking person would agree with Bruce on that point - and that if Bruce himself were thinking, he wouldn't have presented such an absurd argument?

And I love this part - according to Bruce, we know that "tort reform" is necessary because industry-sponsored public opinion polls, driven in no small-part by nonsense such as Bruce's editorial, suggests that people "believe" it is necessary:

A poll earlier this year for the American Tort Reform Association found that 76 percent of Americans believe that their health costs are higher because of excessive medical liability lawsuits. By a two-to-one margin, people believe that lawsuits are hurting the economy and discouraging the creation of jobs.

(Bruce likes to present thoughts instead of facts - "For example, it is thought that $50 billion to $100 billion is wasted each year on unnecessary medical tests that doctors order just to protect themselves from a lawsuit". No citation, no statistics, just a "thought". When it comes to Bruce, the old saying "A penny for your thoughts" seems like a bad deal....)

Bruce, of course, makes no mention of the 1999 Institute of Medicine report which, after examining available data, estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year from medical errors in hospitals alone, making medical errors the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. The direct and indirect cost of preventablemedical error was estimated at $17 billion per year. The Tillinghast-Towers Perrin report states that medical malpractice verdicts in 2001 totaled $24.6 billion - which seems to be a significantly lower "administrative markup" over the actual cost than that the U.S. pays for gas in Iraq.

This is not an argument that there is no room for reform or improvement in the tort system. There are reforms which could be made to make the system more efficient and more affordable, as well as to improve the odds of just and reasonable verdicts. But, unfortunately, it is the rare "tort reform" advocate who has any interest in those goals, as opposed to placing additional hurdles in front of genuinely injured plaintiffs, and limiting the compensation available to those most severely injured by their patrons' wrongful conduct. And the arguments presented by "tort reform" advocates are frequently at significant odds with the facts.

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Heresy!

Some guy from across the pond, who no doubt has a funny accent, is daring to argue that "higher taxes work"....

Because of the Blair government's tax increases over the past six and a half years, British people are less poor and more healthy. In the past fortnight, two authoritative studies by independent bodies have shown that higher taxes have yielded amazing success in two key policy areas - but where were the headlines?

Should we invade?

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Niceness in Politics?

A relative once told me about his sixth grade campaign to become class president. He and another student were in close competition. When voting, my relative decided that it would not be gracious to vote for himself, and thus voted for his opponent. His opponent did not share that sentiment, and voted for himself. The opponent won - by one vote.

There's no room for graciousness in politics, it seems, if your opponent doesn't share your sensitivities. Even in junior high. (And if I were to guess at the candidates' eventual party affiliations....)

The other day I met with some political types of the Democratic persuasion who were expressing that, in today's political climate, there's no room for being "Mr. Nice Guy" - you need to back your party's candidates and go for the win, even if your party's candidate is running against a "nice person" or a personal friend. It was noted that the Republicans have been following that strategy for quite some time, while Democrats sometimes abstain from endorsing opponents to Republican incumbents - or even endorse the Republican incumbent - to the detriment of their own party's candidate.

I guess some things never change, save perhaps that after sixth grade you can only write so much off to naivete.

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You Don't Have To Be Smart To Write Editorials....

A few really, really dumb editorials:

First, we have Trevor Bothwell writing "Jennings stumps for socialism". How does Jennings evidence his socialist values?

In a nutshell, the ABC program blamed the federal government for "contributing to obesity by giving subsidies (to farmers) to create fattening food."

Now granting that Bothwell is trying to suggest that Jennings is arguing for greater government control over what we eat - a claim not evidenced in his essay - he might argue that such control would be "socialist" in nature. However, what Jennings is unquestionably doing (at least according to Bothwell) is arguing against government subsidies of the farm industry. Some people would call that an argument for capitalism - with farmers growing crops which will fetch them the best prices on the market, as opposed to those which fetch the highest subsidies. You know, with prices determined by the free market. But I guess Bothwell uses a different definition of "capitalism" than the rest of us....

But the idiotorial of the week may well be that of Rich Lowry and "The amazing American job machine". Apparently it's a good thing that good, middle class jobs are being permanently lost, and that new jobs are being created mostly with much lower wages and benefits (or no benefits at all) - because that improves our standard of living! What can you really say, beyond "They must have exceptionally low hiring standards for editors at the National Review".

(Honorable mention is given to Ann Coulter for Vegan Computer Geeks for Dean. At least Lowry was coherent....)

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IQ Tests For College?

Britain has a long history of administering standardized tests to its grammar school students (what we would call "public school"). Testing is administered at 7, 11 and 14 in maths, science and English. At age 16, students take the "O-Level" test, now officially called the "General Certificate of Seconary Education Examination" (GCSE). Over the next two years, students who are on an academic track study toward their "A Level" examinations, which play a significant role in determining which college they may attend.

In what is likely to be a controvercial suggestion, researchers suggest that it would be more accurate, and more fair, to base university admissions on IQ test results instead of A-levels. The researchers argue that IQ tests will be more fair for working class students "whose A-level results may have suffered because of poor schooling - an even chance of entering university", and that a 90-minute IQ-style test administered to a set of students two years ago "were a better predictor of success than A-levels or interviews".

Obviously, Britain has advantages for implementing such a system, including the fact that its universities enjoy enormous public funding, the history of national exams for college entry, and its relative ethnic homogeneity as compared to the United States, where a "one size fits all" national IQ test would be challenged on the basis of geographic and ethnic biases. Arguably, the United States already uses the IQ test scheme, given that portions of college aptitude tests often closely resemble portions of IQ tests - not full-spectrum IQ tests, but those portions believed most relevant to the course of study.

It is worth noting that you study for intelligence and aptitude tests, just as you can study for the "A-levels". The difference, perhaps, is that it is easier to study for the aptitude test. As companies in the U.S. have demonstrated, a focused course of study can significantly improve an applicant's scores on tests like the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, and other such tests. And there remains an economic advantage - the "working class" students who would be the intended beneficiaries of a change in the British system would be less likely to be able to afford such test preparation.

But perhaps the more interesting questions are more philosophical. For most, "success" in college means first the successful completion of a degree program, and second the achievement of good grades. Presumably the children of the wealthy, who ostensibly have an advantage on the A-levels, are completing their degree programs, so it seems reasonable to assume that the IQ test is better associated with good grades than with degree completion.

I recently spoke with a college professor about issues of intelligence and college. His experience suggested to him that college can change the way you think, and can provide you with a much greater base of information upon which to make your decisions, but it doesn't make you smarter. (That is in no way a suggestion that the "less smart" can't derive significant benefits from a college education.) He also suggested that the researchers were missing the mark - that perhaps the question they should be asking is not "how well do the students do in college", but "how well do the students do after college, and how does their performance in college correlate to real-world success?" Many of the most successful people, it seems, didn't fare all that well in college (and, in many cases, probably would score in the "average" range on IQ tests.) Many people with high IQ's and great college grades perform in a manner that some would say is "below their potential", or which others might say is more in accord with their interests than with maximizing financial or career success.

Also, while those advocating reform of the British system could benefit from looking at what works (and doesn't work) in our university system, we could benefit from examining what the British have done. Our high schools underserve a great many students - both granting diplomas to students whose skill sets are considerably below what should justify a high school diploma, and in some cases failing to offer an environment conducive to learning. The typical "reform" is to institute standardized test after standardized test in a seemingly futile quest to "raise school quality". While music and art programs are slashed, expensive sports programs are justified on the claim that they entice certain kids to stay in school (when they would otherwise drop out). In our culture of "everybody passes", it appears to be virtually impossible for a high school student who attends class on a reasonably consistent basis and takes the required examinations to fail a class.

When we hear politicians complaining that high school students are being issued "meaningless" diplomas, perhaps the problem is less with the diploma and more with our fear of being "elitist". Perhaps the kids who supposedly can only be enticed to sit through classes for the reward of being on the football team would be better served by an education which focuses on practical, vocational skills. Is it more "elitist" to pretend that everybody is college material and that everybody should go to a university - or to recognize that not everybody is university material, that not everybody wants to go to a university, and that by incorporating a significant vocational element into the last two years of high school for those who want it, we can do a great deal both to improve their preparedness for the job market upon graduation, and provide a better learning environment for the kids who anticipate pursuing higher education.

The unfortunate trend in this nation seems to be to transform the senior year of high school into a joke - something you attend because you have to, but which has no real academic significance. Perhaps tracking college-bound kids into a more academic track could reverse that unfortunate trend. It is painful to learn that the "it's cool to be dumb" culture of many high schools is now affecting colleges. Is that really the direction we want our nation's public education system to head?

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Lowering the Voting Age?

There is some discussion in Britain of lowering the voting age to sixteen. Ostensibly, this will give "young people" rights which accord with their responsibilities, and may invigorate youth interest in the political process. The cynic in me believes that, rightly or wrongly, those who back the initiative expect the younger demographic to support them in future elections.

A British commentator, Zoe Williams aptly notes:

Voting is like sex, ultimately: some people are ready at 14, some really should wait till they're 21, some people will spend their whole lives unready, and just mess everything up for all of us whenever they go near it.

She then notes the condescending language used by a proponent of the initiative, Lord Falconer - "If we want to both engage young people and make them discharge their responsibilities, there's got to be a quid pro quo of letting them see more influence in the political process."

It would be an outrage to use this language about adults in a democratic state - that our votes were in some way a reward for the responsible discharge of our, erm, responsibilities. For a government that has placed such a premium on the nebulous concept of "citizenship" to misunderstand democracy so radically - to describe voting as a privilege they bestow upon us, rather than seeing their position as a privilege we bestow upon them - is beyond appalling. And if this is indeed a register in which it's acceptable to address 16-year-olds, then how can they conceivably be old enough to vote?

(She then notes that Lord Falconer is hardly alone in treating voters as if they are stupid.)

When I lived in Canada, although the city where I lived at the time wasn't exactly a hotbed of national political activity, I attended high school with the son of a prominent politician. (His father went on to be the Governor General). When he was fifteen or sixteen I asked him once what party he supported. His response was, "What do you think? You know who my dad is."

I hungered to vote when I was a teenager, and was very surprised when I finally received that right by how disinterested my peers were in voting. I do think that, in the U.S., allowing sixteen-year-old kids to vote would significantly increase the youth vote, but perhaps not in a positive manner. That is, I can see various ideological and religious groups lobbying and organizing their young members, attempting to indoctrinate them into voting in a particular way. As polling places are often in schools, I can see entire high school classes being marched down to the gymansium to cast their votes, regardless of their level of interest or knowledge.

If somebody is going to experiment with this, I'm perfectly fine with allowing our friends on the other side of the pond to go first. If in fact it is ultimately implemented and it works for Britain, we should consider following their lead.

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Pharmaceutical Policy

As Bush signs his much ballyhooed (and much lamented) "Medicaid prescription benefit bill" into law, the cynics among us note that, like everything controvercial Bush does or proposes, it isn't scheduled to take effect until after the upcoming election, with some measures put off until 2010.

There is no question but that the bill is loaded with pork, and it contains provisions which seem designed to force up the cost of drugs, such as bans on imports, and the prohibition against Medicare using its massive buying power to negotiate favorable prices from pharmaceutical companies. Any genuine free trader would be offended by that first provision, and any fiscal conservative would be appalled by the second.

But leaving all of that aside for a moment, there are some poorly kept secrets about the pharmaceutical industry which should have been addressed as part of this Medicare bill.

First, prescription drugs - even new "wonder drugs" - aren't always all they're cracked up to be. As The Independent notes:

A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them.

Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

The article also presents some related statistics:

Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent

• Alzheimer's: 30
• Analgesics (Cox-2): 80
• Asthma: 60
• Cardiac Arrythmias: 60
• Depression (SSRI): 62
• Diabetes: 57
• Hepatits C (HCV): 47
• Incontinence: 40
• Migraine (acute): 52
• Migraine (prophylaxis): 50
• Oncology: 25
• Rheumatoid arthritis: 50
• Schizophrenia: 60

Also, much drug research and marketing is focused not on bringing patients the best and most cost-effective treatments, but is instead aimed at convincing doctors and patients to try expensive new patented medicines instead of cheap generics - or instead of somebody else's analogous medication. An appalling amount of the "drug research" investment which supposedly justifies the sky-high prices we pay for medicine is directed not at conditions for which no effective treatment is available - but instead, the lion's share of new drug research is directed at finding drugs to compete with other pharmaceutical companies' most profitable products. This can have a benefit for the consumer, as evidenced by the proliferation of antidepressants on the market, but that choice comes with a high price tag. (And the choice is diluted by the fact that pharmaceutical ads mislead customers into thinking that these "wonder drugs" will work for everybody.)

Thus, as turns out to be the case with blood pressure medications, patients have paid a small fortune for new "wonder drugs" which, as it turns out, are no more effetive than diuretics - generic medications available for pennies per dose.

There is a relatively simple solution to these problems - requiring pharmaceutical companies to test drugs not only against a particular disease or disorder, but also against competing medications. A recent Washington Post editorial suggests the following:

Two easy reforms would rectify this information deficit.

First, the government could empower NIH or an independent agency to conduct systematic comparative trials on all classes of medicines with multiple entries. The results of those trials would provide physicians with authoritative clinical practice guides to the best and most cost-effective medicines.

Second, the FDA's drug approval process could be amended to include comparative clinical trials for any new drug that a company wants to bring to the market.

The industry will complain that the additional clinical testing would drive up the cost of approving new drugs and choke off innovation.

But just the opposite would occur. The pharmaceutical industry currently spends more than 60 percent of its $34 billion research and development budget on clinical trials.

But much of that money is wasted on trials designed to benefit the marketing arms of the companies and winds up generating more noise than useful information for practicing physicians.

A new requirement that drug companies test their latest offerings against existing medicines would force them to focus their R&D budgets on truly innovative medicines and help identify the best uses for existing drugs.

That approach makes more sense than most of what Bush just signed into law.

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... Same as the Old Bush?

The old Bush, if you recall, expressed wistfully that the best outcome for Iraq would have been to replace Hussein with a somewhat more enlightened dictator, strong enough to maintain a unified nation. For the past couple of years, the new Bush has been asserting that we are going to "bring democracy" to Iraq. Some have doubted the new Bush's sincerity on this issue, while others have questioned whether democracy in a nation where the majority is likely to vote for a form of Shiite theocracy is the best outcome. Some suggest that the new Bush may be confusing elections with democracy.

But now there is a suggestion that Bush is becoming more "pragmatic" in his views of "democratization". That is, he may be looking for the dictator his father desired:

The plan Washington forced on Bremer last month abandoned the Pentagon's policy of steady progress towards democracy through an elected assembly. The new plan was more urgent, a "transfer of power" to a provisional government next July, with the hope of elections thereafter. This government would be selected from the three provinces on a local "show of hands". It would run the new Iraqi army and police force and enjoy some patronage over oil revenue and $US19 billion ($25.8 billion) of aid.

Now this plan appears also to be in disarray. After witnessing the present governing council, the White House has understandably lost faith in Iraqi assemblies, however chosen. Evidence of economic recovery means nothing when Iraqis associate US occupation with fear and lawlessness.

Iraq has only ever been held together by brute force. Washington is grudgingly accepting the view that this is unlikely to change. A new leader is needed to prevent the place becoming a global magnet for what the Arabist historian Bernard Lewis calls "new causes for anger, new dreams of fulfilment, new tools of attack"

Lyrics for GW?

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Soldier's Story

The New York Times presents a fascinating account of life on the "front lines" in Iraq, as compared to "life in a bubble" for those who are secured in the "Green Zone".

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"Conservative" Protectionism

It is interesting to observe what passes for the far left and the far right in this country, when it comes to "free trade". On the wacky left, we have the "anti-globalization" activists who stand for... well, I'm not sure what they stand for, but they're against "globalization." Another more moderate faction of the left believes that free trade can help impoverished nations develop and provide better lives for their people. The wacky "right" preaches "free trade" for U.S. exports and trade barriers for foreign imports. A more moderate faction of the right preaces self-interest - that we should use trade barriers to protect domestic industries, and to force developing nations to sell us raw materials for us to turn into manufactured goods as opposed to allowing them to develop their own manufacturing industries - moderated, of course, by third world sweatshops where labor-intensive goods can be made at a low cost. (Please don't get me wrong here - a majority of Democrats seeming falls into the category of the "selfish right" when it comes to trade issues.)

These self-interested efforts by the right can at time seem cartoonish, such as legislating that Vietnamese catfish can't be sold as "catfish" in American stores and restaurants, but simultanously (and fraudulently) claiming that Vietnamese catfish farmers were "dumping" their products at below-market prices to the detriment of domestic catfish. Whether or not Vietnamese catfish are or are not "catfish", it seems, depends upon which classification furthers the government's immediate protectionist goal.

These days, President Bush seems to waver between the wacky right and the self-interested right. Although I guess it could be argued that his wackiness is motivated by a different form of self-interest - the goal of buying votes in swing states through the imposition of illegal trade barriers. (William F. Buckley reminds those who hate the World Trade Organization that the U.S. was a leader in its creation, and, of course, "If the idea is free trade, then somebody has to have the authority to rule that you're cheating.") If you have recently heard Tom Usher complaining about the repeal of steel tariffs, consider whether his fund raising efforts and participation in a Bush Administration transition team played more of a role in the imposition of those tariffs than did actual need.

As a result of this renewed focus on trade barriers, there have been some interesting articles and editorials on the issue of U.S. agricultural subsidies. The New York Times editorialized about cotton subsidies, noting that some of the rules which permit first world agricultural subsidies are due to expire next year. It also notes that, despite those rules, the Bush Administration has nonetheless granted improper subsidies for U.S. cotton:

American cotton costs a great deal to produce by international standards. Yet even though global cotton prices were crashing from 1999 to 2002, our share of global exports grew to 40 percent, from 25 percent. That was because Washington propped up King Cotton with $12.9 billion in subsidies. We were, in effect, paying the rest of the world to buy American product rather than the cheaper cotton grown in Africa and South America. In recent arguments in its W.T.O. case, Brazil offered credible expert testimony that absent Washington's subsidies, America would have exported some 40 percent less cotton. That actually seems like a conservative estimate. Still, it illustrates the magnitude of the injustice being perpetrated against poor nations for which cotton might be the only competitive export.

Similar attention is being directed at sugar subsidies which, though legal, massively raise the price of sugar for U.S. consumers. (We don't really notice, because sugar remains cheap even at "twice the price".)

One of the problems with subsidies is that, once they take root, it is very hard to eliminate them. At the start of World War II, concerns over the supply of beeswax, used to seal munitions for overseas shipment, led to subsidies for bee farmers. Those subsidies remain in place. Jimmy Carter's family became wealthy as "gentleman farmers" growing heavily subsidized peanuts. While states collect billions of dollars from the tobacco industry's settlement of their suits over health care costs caused by smoking, we continue to subsidize tobacco farmers. It has been suggested that, had Congress taken its present approach to failing industries during the 19th Century, we would still have blacksmith shops - and that argument is compelling.

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Winning Hearts and Minds

Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns - The results, no doubt, of a cultural sensitivity class:

"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."

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Thanksgiving Photo Op?

Since Bush's visit to Iraq on Thanksgiving, although the Democrats who vie for his jof have pretty much left him alone, there has been some press coverage (particularly from overseas) and a lot of domestic discussion which criticizes his trip - some of it rather harsh. The leading criticisms seem to be:

1. His trip wasn't very "brave" because of the secret manner in which he whisked into (and quickly whisked out of) the country. (Variant: It wasn't really a visit to Iraq, because he didn't actually see anything but the interior of a military base.)


2. Bush has the time to jet in and out of Iraq, but can't find the time to go to the funeral or memorial service of even one soldier who has been killed in Iraq.


3. He grabbed a turkey centerpiece for a photo op, although the troops were served from steam trays.


4. It was yet another extraordinarily expensive media stunt, to provide footage for an election commercial.

One pundit suggests that, when confronted with this type of situation, Bush's critics should take a step back and ask themselves, "How would I react had Clinton done this?" Hm. Perhaps not the best test. Had Clinton secretly jetted to Iraq for a quick "rally the troops" moment, I have no doubt that he would have been skewered by right-wing commentators, and I personally would have likely viewed it as a media stunt.... (But then, perhaps that reality check works best with people who loved Clinton.) Okay... this much - I would not have accused Clinton of orchestrating a media stunt had he "hammed it up" with the Turkey centerpiece, so I will grant Bush (whose reputation for "hamming it up" in similar circumstances is substantial) that one on the basis of the "Clinton" test.

But even accepting the criticisms, there's cause to believe that some good can come from Bush's Thanksgiving junket. First, he again put the prestige of his office behind the U.S. efforts in Iraq, and behind obtaining a positive outcome for the people of Iraq. For those of us who believe that finding a positive resolution of this situation is necessary to stabilizing the region and not endangering future generations, that's worth something. Even Bush's ardent cynics, while sometimes posing it as a character fault - refusal to acknowledge that he has made a mistake, or to change a publicly declared course of action, for fear of being weak or less than perfect - recognize that he does tend to stick to the positions he declares. His declarations make it harder for him to orchestrate a "cut and run", even if - perhaps particularly if - the war starts to hurt him in his upcoming election campaign.

Also, the U.S. military can sustain its presence in Iraq indefinitely, even with the current casualty rate. That means that one of the leading factors in the continued success of the mission. Higher troop morale should correlate to lower U.S. casualties, and I would hope also to lower Iraqi civilian casualties. Miserable troops are more likley to make mistakes, or to otherwise act inappropriately. If Bush's trip helped boost the morale of U.S. forces in the region, that's a good result.

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There's "Making a Point", then there's what Sowell's doing....

Forgive me - I had mistakenly assumed that Sowell was done with his rants against "busybodies".

It appears that the long gas lines during the OPEC oil boycott in the 1970's were the fault of Ted Kennedy, who in the face of long lines and shortfalls called for price controls. Ronald Reagan, coming into power after the boycott ended, apparently "saved they day". While I share Sowell's skepticism of price controls, perhaps it should be acknowledged that OPEC's boycott had more to do with the price of oil and long lines at the pumps than "price controls"? Or that the notion of "price controls" was advocated previously by the horrible liberal busybody Richard Nixon - for that matter, Nixon also imposed wage controls....

So evil liberals like Ted Kennedy and Richard Nixon impose their notions of "fairness" on what Sowell believes should be a free market for human organs, oil, and farm land free of zoning restrictions. And, as it seems, this whole "busybody" thing is driven by a Nixonian passion for the poor:

When the issue is posed as "the free market" versus "compassion for the poor," which do you think is likely to win out?

Our bloated and ever-growing welfare state -- from which the poor get a very small share, by the way -- answers that question.

Perhaps somebody can explain that in a comment. The U.S. has the stingiest social welfare system in the developed world. Sowell seems to be complaining that the "welfare state" is growing because of "busybodies" who want to help the poor, but not to the benefit of the poor.

Is Sowell referencing the huge new prescription drug benefit signed into law by President Bush - a subsidy that will largely help seniors who are not poor? Is he complaining about massive new agricultural subsidies signed into law by Bush - welfare for corporate farms which, again, are not poor? Is he complaining about Bush's steel tariffs, which forced up the price of many manufactured goods in order to protect the domestic steel industry - corporate welfare at its finest? The multi-billion dollar subsidies that Bush wishes to provide to wealthy U.S. corporate interests through his proposed "energy bill"? There seems to be little doubt that this nation's corporate welfare rolls are swelling to unprecedented levels under President Bush.

So when Sowell whines about "'the free market' versus 'compassion for the poor,'" he means to condem evil "liberal busybodies" for advocating for the poor, whom Sowell acknowledges are getting less and less of the welfare pie, but that it is fine for "conservatives" to expand that welfare pie as long as the benefits are shifted to corporate interests (most of which need no subsidy in the "free market")? Free markets should only govern if we're speaking of building an industrial plant in an evil "open space" next to a poor neighborhood (a net social good, in Sowell's mind, as it not only represents the "free market" in action, it makes the neighboring housing more affordable - perhaps costing little more than one one could get for selling one's "spare kidney"), but we should wear our blinkers when it comes to noticing the enormous subsidy handed to the wealthy corporation that is building the industrial plant?

Sowell concludes,

Because of the innumerable problems caused by busybodies who devote "a most unnecessary attention" to things that would be better without them, the rest of us should devote some very necessary attention to these busybodies and their sloppy arguments.

I think, in the context of these columns, he's describing himself.

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Welcome to 1925

According to The Associated Press:

A seventh-grade social studies teacher in Presque Isle who said he was barred from teaching about non-Christian civilizations has sued his school district, claiming it violated his First Amendment right of free expression.

Perhaps he should call Clarence Darrow.

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Sowell's "Busybodies"

In recent columns, Thomas Sowell is playing the role of the curmudgeon, bitterly complaining about "busybodies" who are supposedly unduly interfering with our freedoms. His first column laments that people aren't permitted to sell their organs:

I happen to know a lady who was born with three kidneys -- and in poverty. Do you think she would have minded parting with a spare kidney, in order to have a better life for herself and her children?

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that it is extremely unlikely that the "spare kidney" would be viable, what makes Sowell think that an open market for kidneys would permit this woman's sale to provide a "better life" for her family? Particularly given his subsequent statement,

Three economists have estimated the cost of buying an organ in a free market at a price well within most people's budgets.

More to the point, kidneys are already available for sale (in some cases in violation of laws nobody seems interested in enforcing) in places like India and the Philippines, with questionable economic benefit for many of the "donors". The necessary safety net to provide for any complications to U.S.-based donors, such as providing for health insurance to cover any associated short-term and long-term complications - costs Sowell would surely want to be borne by the purchaser and not the state - would push the cost of domestic organs significantly above the cost of "imports".

Please note that compelling arguments can and have been made for creating greater social rewards for organ donation, for removing the "ick" factor which makes families uncomfortable with approving donations even where their loved ones have completed organ donor cards, and even for providing some financial return in certain situations. But, even given that reality, Sowell's analysis is uncharacteristically shallow.

In his next column, Sowell complains about regulations aimed at "preserving farmland", which apparently prevented the father of one of his readers from selling his farmland to developers. Sowell argues that this means the farmer "cannot get anywhere near the land's market value", meaning of course that he cannot get the value he would have received if the use of the land were changed. Obviously, he can sell it for the same purpose as he used it - as farmland.

Sowell argued that restrictions meant to "preserve" farmland are unnecessary as we have an agricultural surplus, and that this type of restriction constitutes an unconstitutional taking. He rails that "busybodies" have no more rights under the Constitution than anybody else:

In other words, people who want to wring their hands about farmlands or wetlands, or about some obscure toad or snake, have no more rights than people who don't care two cents about such things. It is hard for those who have presumptions of being the morally anointed to accept that, but that is what the Constitution says.

Again, I grant that there is some basis to Sowell's complaints - but there is also great merit in preserving open spaces and arable farmland, and even in preventing excess urban sprawl. It's a classic battle of the rights of the individual versus the rights of the collective. Sowell prefers a libertarian position, where it is every man for himself, whatever the long- or short-term consequence for the community or the environment. And, perhaps unaware of the costs, he ignores the burdens on local governments of providing and maintaining roads, water and power lines, fire and police services, and other support for the communities he desires to be built on what is presently farmland. Sowell may benefit from a review of the Federalist Papers, as his argument exemplifies the reasons why our Founding Fathers chose representative government over direct democracy.

Sowell also presents what I consider to be an absurd claim:

The real reason for preventing farmland from being sold to those who might build housing on it is that the people who live in that housing might not be as upscale as those already living nearby. Developers -- heaven forbid -- might build apartments or townhouses in a community where people live in single-family homes.

For many years, I would drive to Plainfield, Illinois on an annual basis. In the 1980's, after leaving the highway for Plainfield Road, this involved driving past mile after mile of cornfields. Through the 1990's much of that farmland was developed - and I don't recall seeing a single residence that could be characterized as less "upscale" than that of Plainfield. Meanwhile, the people of Plainfield faced additional pressure on their schools and public services, while likely often seeing their own home values decline in comparison to the new development.

While I will grant that sometimes farmland is acquired for the development of "manufactured home communities", and that there is often fierce local resistance to such development due to concerns about the low tax income from such development, and the high cost to area communities for policing and serving a high-density, low income population, that's the exception, not the rule. Most developers have no interest in building low income housing, as it is not where they can expect to maximize the return on their investments.They are buying the land to build what you will see if you drive down Plainfield Road - large houses on relatively small lots, designed for people who want to "live in the country" (or at least outside of the city) in a big house while also having a reasonable commute into work. Sowell has to know this.

In his third essay, which rails about "liberals" who demand that developers produce "affordable housing":

One of the staples of liberal hand-wringing is a need for "affordable housing." Last year, the standard liberal solution -- more government spending -- was proposed in a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington, in a report billed as a "new vision."

Presumably, this means that the "busybodies" of his former essay were "conservatives" - as he was then arguing that "busybodies" were trying to prevent affordable housing.

Sowell observes that there is a glut of rental units in much of the country, and that housing cost is primarily a problem "confined to a relatively few places along the east and west coasts". He goes on to complain that this would be resolved if local governments woud lift restrictions on the development of land surrounding these major urban areas.

The New York Times story refers gingerly to "many cities on the coasts, where new construction is more difficult" than in the rest of the country. To put it more bluntly, liberals have driven housing prices sky high by forbidding, restricting, and harassing the building of housing.

In turn, this has meant driving people of modest incomes out of the communities where they work. Nurses, teachers and policemen, for example, typically live far away from places like San Francisco or Silicon Valley, and have to commute long distances to and from work.

Now, granted, if you allow for completely unrestricted development, the odds are that eventually you will get a housing surplus which will result in lower rents and housing values. But it is more than fair to ask, "at what cost"?

Sowell again resorts to the thesis that if more housing is built, it will be affordable housing. (As my friends in California have pointed out, there are neighborhoods even in the population centers which are comparatively quite affordable - it's just that most people don't want to live there.) If prime open spaces and parklands are opened to developers in areas with some of the highest housing costs in the nation, Sowell asks us to presuppose that developers will prefer to take a hit in the pocketbook in order to provide low income and moderately priced housing, as opposed to building upscale developments and McMansions so as to maximize their profits. Sowell seems to believe that the market should govern land prices and uses, but that developers will ignore the market when choosing what to build on their land. It's a nice dream, but it isn't likely to be the reality.

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You Mean, There's a Long Term?

In today's Times, Bill Safire cautions us not to get too exuberant in what he sees as an amazing financial recovery for the nation, for fear of causing another bubble.

If the market keeps going up and the "wealth effect" further boosts consumer confidence, if economic figures continue to dance with Rosie Scenario, and if government mindlessly continues to stimulate with heavy domestic spending an economy that no longer needs stimulation — then all bets on the coming boom are off.

We could count on Chairman Greenspan to tighten money and resuscitate "irrational exuberance" if growth hormones race through the body politic. But as we saw in the 90's, that would not be enough to avert boom-and-bust.

Something Safire doesn't mention, but which has been a low murmer in the back of a lot of global economic discussion over the past two years, is the fall of the dollar as compared to the Euro. In today's London Guardian, Polly Tonybee observes,

Meanwhile, the euro soars to its highest level against a dollar sinking fast, due to Bush's deficits. Odd how the eurosceptic press that crowed at the euro's "weakness" now simply fails to report its steep rise. Significantly, business sees what's in the wind. The UPS Europe Business Monitor yesterday reported a majority of British businessmen now think the euro will displace the dollar as the main international currency reserve.

A majority of British businessmen, sitting in a nation which has refused to join the Euro, feels that way? Then perhaps Safire's concern should be something more than, "Will this deficit-driven 'recovery' last six months or two years?" Because an international shift to the Euro, driven by those same out-of-control deficits, will likely have a much more profound effect on our long-term economic future.

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The Winning Caption

The best suggested caption I have heard to date for this most interesting photo is: "No football? No problem!" (Thanks, Lynne.)

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Government For Sale

In today's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne speaks of The Politics of Payoff, and looks at the beneficiaries of the Bush Administration's wild spending spree.

The Post also discusses the Bush Administration's steel tariffs, noting, "Not only were the steel tariffs purely about domestic politics from the start, no one in the administration ever pretended otherwise. Their main purpose, which no one denied, was to win back some of the steel country votes the president lost in the 2000 elections."

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It's Breaking Out All Over?

In today's Washington Post, Fred Hiatt presents "The Nitty-Gritty of Democracy, which examines the treatment of an Egyptian human rights activist both by her own government and by ours:

Dr. Seif El Dawla, a psychiatrist who was in this country to receive an award from Human Rights Watch, founded the Egyptian Association Against Torture and helps run a clinic for female victims of violence, whether state-sponsored or domestic. She has battled religious intolerance as well as government repression, thus occupying the narrow space that administration officials now say must be expanded if democracy in the region is to take root.

But over the past few months, as President Mubarak's regime has refused to register her organization, she says she has sensed no support from the U.S. Embassy.

He also observes that, rather than democratizing, Morocco "seems to have made the decision to restrict liberty in the name of security".

Hiatt also writes,

In an interview last week, an administration official knowledgeable about Mideast policy acknowledged that some skepticism is to be expected. "We don't have a lot of credibility in some places," the official said. "People understandably say, for decades you haven't cared about democracy and you haven't cared about human rights. . . . Part of what we have to do, and what I hope we're beginning to do, is show people that we are serious, that we're here for the long term."

Which, perhaps, explains why we're ignoring Dr. El Dawla, and closing Iraqi media outlets in the name of security - to advance our notions of democracy and free speech.

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