Monday's interesting reads - 6/9/08

"Europe Fears a Post-Bush Unilateralism, This Time on Trade" by Eduardo Porter for the NY Times (HT: Club for Growth)"

"The Democrats’ vocal hostility to trade is starting to scare many of America’s best friends. As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have bashed China and a variety of free trade agreements, allies who have been yearning for an end to President Bush’s in-your-face unilateralism are worried that a Democratic president may be just as undiplomatic, and unreasonable, when it comes to economic protectionism...

Most economists agree that trade plays a small role in the deteriorating fortunes of less educated American workers. But as their wages have sagged, their pensions have shrunk and their health insurance has disappeared, trade has become the scapegoat. Politicians, especially but not solely from the Democratic Party, have been eager to capitalize on those anxieties...

Before this country stumbles into a trade war, all political leaders would benefit from a careful examination of how other wealthy democracies have found ways to cushion economic blows on the most vulnerable and make trade more palatable to their workers.

More generous social policies are a far better choice than protectionism."

I've never understood how Obama reconciles his attacks on Bush's unilateralism, saying he will restore the harm he created through his foreign policies, with his own economic unilateralism of pulling our of trade agreements. On another note, I hope that a broader safety net isn't the price we have to pay for free trade.

"A Different Consensus" WSJ weekend editorial:

"Scarcity is a core economic concept, though politicians and even many economists prefer to ignore it. There isn't an unlimited amount of money to be spent on every problem, so choices have to be made. The question addressed by the Copenhagen Consensus Center is what investments would do the most good for the most people. The center's blue-ribbon panel of economists, including five Nobel laureates, weighed more than 40 proposals to improve the world by spending a total of $75 billion over the next four years.

What would do the most good most economically? Supplements of vitamin A and zinc for malnourished children.

Number two? A successful outcome to the Doha Round of global free-trade talks. (Someone please tell Barack Obama.)

Global warming mitigation? It ranked 30th, or last, right behind global warming mitigation research and development. (Someone please tell John McCain.) The nearby table lists other rankings.

"It's true that trade doesn't immediately save lives," explains Bjorn Lomborg, the political scientist who heads the Copenhagen Consensus Center. "But it's proven that when people have more money" – as tends to be the case when trade barriers fall – "they improve their health, their education and so on." The resulting prosperity reduces such problems as malnutrition and disease, while improving education. All three of those ranked high on the priority list."

"Milton Friedman Opposed a Pareto Improvement" by Bryan Caplan:

"One of Milton Friedman's most famous lines: "You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state." He said it in a 1999 ISIL interview, and I've heard it quoted dozens of times...

Actually, I think Friedman's wrong. Yes, the U.S. welfare state pays more than most people on earth earn. But once immigrants arrive here, few of them want to settle for a welfare check; they want to earn some real money. In fact, once you realize that the welfare state is primarily about helping the old, not the poor, it turns out that immigration may be the only way for aging countries to sustain their welfare states."

I agree. I don't immigrants are here for welfare, or else you'd be hearing people talk about cracking down on illegal immigration by cracking down on welfare. Instead, we're cracking down on illegal immigration by cracking down on jobs. In fact, I've often heard the media say something to the effect of "If we take away the jobs, we take away the incentive for them to come."

"Charter Schools' Big Experiment" by Jay Mathews for The Washington Post (HT: RealClearPolitics):

"The back-channel scrambling for personnel, a departure from the more orderly hiring methods of traditional school systems, bothers some. [Leigh] Dingerson [education team leader for the Center for Community Change] faults Louisiana authorities for allowing charters to pour into New Orleans after the hurricane with "no coordinated vision or plan for how the system they were building would serve children well and equitably." "

This is the problem with people who don't trust markets. They think that there always needs to be a plan for things like this. What happened is that after Katrina, most of the public school system was wiped out, so they decided to let in chartered schools. The article quoted Dingerson earlier as saying "Louisiana school authorities have 'opened a flea market of entrepreneurial opportunism that is dismantling the institution of public education in New Orleans.'" She's right -- public education was being dismantled in favor of a system that gives more choice and costs less. The result was serious competition for teachers, which is the purpose of the quote above. But situation like this are exactly where market-imposed order are best. If the power to impose the order is given to politicians, school boards, teachers unions, or the like, the result would be a school system no different from any other failing school system in the country.

"What GIs deserve" Boston Globe editorial (HT: RealClearPolitics):

"The House bill is a window on how concentrated wealth has become at the top of the scale: a small minority of rich Americans making a fractional contribution can provide enough cash to finance the entire $52 billion (over 10 years) program. Does Bush really think they will miss a .47 percent surtax on income after their first $500,000?

Such stinginess didn't afflict Franklin Roosevelt, who in signing the original GI bill in 1944 said, "It gives emphatic notice to the men and women in our armed forces that the American people do not intend to let them down."

It's hardly too much to ask."

I hate this argument, because it isn't really an argument at all. It's the typical "the rich don't need all that extra money, they probably won't give it away on their own, so let's pass a bill to take it from them." My argument against this bill is still the same. If we need additional recruits, let's find a way to increase the compensation of all enlisted soldiers that increases enlistments. If we don't need more civilians signing up for the military, what's the point of the bill?

"Paradoxical presidential politics" by Star Parker for Townhall:

"Who can question that the success and prosperity of this country -- with its vast cast of individuals who have changed the world through creativity and innovation, with our long list of Nobel Prize winners -- is due to freedom?

And yet, Obama's prescription for the many challenges we face today, whether it is health care, education, or global competition, is increased government planning and control. Here is a man who now stands where no "expert" could have predicted, yet wants to tether our nation's future to the mind games of the same kinds of "experts", rather than letting what truly drives America's unique success -- free individuals and free markets -- work. A paradox."