SOME ECONOMICS

Stop the mercantilists: "Mercantilism was an insidious economic theory that held Europe in its thrall in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The mercantilists decreed that a nation's economic success could be measured by its stockpile of gold and that the way to make the pile higher was to encourage exports and restrict imports. Adam Smith routed the mercantilists in Book IV of the Wealth of Nations (1776). His lesson was clear: Open markets and trade are 'goods,' not 'bads.' The war, alas, is not over. Mercantilism is back. Its adherents use new lingo and make slightly different arguments -- they hoard jobs, not gold -- but their poisonous creed is in essence the same. It is that a nation can enrich itself by boosting exports and chasing imports away. Mercantilism is behind the campaign to make the Chinese revalue their currency upward. The preposterous notion here is that America would be enriched if Chinese apparel cost a little more."

Bob Herbert, cluelessly class-conscious: "Bob Herbert is still mired in the Marxist mentality which says that what the physical laborers do constitutes the whole of any productive output -- and that anything paid to the entrepreneurs and businessmen who somehow happen along and get their mitts involved in the productive process is merely 'surplus,' i.e., stolen goods, grabbed from the laborers. But if mega-successful entrepreneurs, businessmen, capitalists in fact contribute nothing worthy of their exorbitant compensation, then companies consisting only of laboring workers would enjoy a competitive edge over those companies allegedly dubiously benefiting from the too-pricey guidance of the productive individuals who create and drive a successful company."

In defense of employment-at-will: "Over the past few decades the traditional prerogative of an employer to fire an employee 'at-will' (that is, for any reason whatsoever) has come under legal assault in the United States. Judges in nearly all fifty states have ruled in favor of employees claiming 'unjust' dismissal, forcing companies to rehire the employee or pay damages. Yet despite the emotional appeal of preventing employer 'abuses,' there are compelling reasons to fully restore the so-called 'employment-at-will' doctrine."

Fascinating article here (PDF) on the greater effectivness of private law-enforcement versus public police. Bail bondsmen are a lot better at preventing and grabbing bail-jumpers than the police are.

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ELSEWHERE

Good gal: "Janice Rogers Brown, the African-American daughter of Alabama sharecroppers who was confirmed Wednesday to the federal appeals court here, often invokes slavery in describing what she sees as the perils of liberalism. "In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery," she has warned in speeches. Society and the courts have turned away from the founders' emphasis on personal responsibility, she has argued, toward a culture of government regulation and dependency that threatens fundamental freedoms. "We no longer find slavery abhorrent," she told the conservative Federalist Society a few years ago. "We embrace it.""

I have just heard that Kevin Lamb was fired from his day job as Managing Director for the conservative Human Events magazine purely because of phone-calls from the Leftist Southern Poverty Law Centre accusing him of insufficient political correctness. He edits in his own time the online magazine Occidental Quarterly -- one of the few magazines game to mention the word "race" without going into paroxysms of condemnation about "racism". Apparently American 'conservatives' and 'liberals' are BOTH now spineless against 'anti-racist' fanatics. Details here. I don't agree with everything in the OQ but it is no nuttier than the New York Times (faint praise, I know).

The American dream lives: "A strong global economy gave 600,000 people an entree last year into a highly envied group: the world's millionaires. The annual World Wealth Report, released Thursday by Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and the Capgemini Group consulting firm, found that there were 8.3 million people worldwide with $1 million or more in financial assets at the end of 2004, up from 7.7 million a year earlier... Not surprisingly, the expansion of the millionaire class was especially strong in North America because of the solid economic growth last year in both the United States and Canada. "Significantly, North America surpassed Europe both in total high net worth individuals population and wealth for the first time since 2001... According to the latest figures, the number of high net worth individuals included 2.7 million in North America"

The Latino vote: "While Cuban Americans have historically voted Republican by wide margins, primarily because of the GOP's strong anti-communist credentials, Americans of Mexican, Central American and South American descent have been equally ardent supporters of the Democratic Party and its candidates. But that Democratic advantage is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Over the last three presidential election cycles, Latino American support for Democrats has steadily declined, from the 72% that voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 to the 53% that John Kerry received last year. Although these percentages are based on exit polling and the precise numbers are still being debated, the overall trend is beyond dispute, and a party that loses nearly a quarter of a core constituency in less than a decade is a party with cause for distress".

Another reason to control your own retirement savings: "By any standard, the pension default by United and other U.S. companies is simply outrageous. Pension funds are supposed to be set aside by companies in separate accounts so they will be there when employees retire. Instead, dishonest company officials have been commingling pension funds with other company revenues, and using them to fund current expenses, pay executive perks, and to fund corporate expansion. The PBGC reports that during the past six years, many large companies have put nothing into their pension accounts. ... The massive corporate default on pensions is fraud any way you look at it, and the corporate officials responsible should have their personal assets attached to pay off their obligations to employees, and then be put behind bars, like any other thief. Instead, courts have quietly OKed United's default on their pension guarantees."

Prager on the corruption of Amnesty: "Sometime in the 1970s, I sent a donation to Amnesty International. As soon as I heard that a group had been formed to combat torture, I knew I had to support it. Unfortunately, like almost all international and most domestic groups, the Left took over Amnesty International, and it devolved into another predictably anti-American, morally destructive organization. That devolution was most apparent years ago when Amnesty International listed the United States as a major violator of human rights because it executed murderers. The organization's inability to morally distinguish between executing murderers and executing innocent people means that Amnesty International is worse than ineffectual; the good it has done notwithstanding, it is becoming harmful to the cause of human rights".

Windschuttle has a delightful fisking of Robert Fisk. Fisk really is an amazing liar.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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