SOME ECONOMICS

"Unfair" dismissals help the unemployed: "First, less employment protection will mean more hiring and more firing and, hence, more job churning. For those with jobs, this may not sound like a particularly enticing prospect. But for the unemployed, it matters a lot. The flip side of greater certainty that those with jobs will remain employed is greater certainty that the unemployed will remain unemployed. With decreased hiring, those without work are likely to remain jobless for longer. Indeed, cross-country evidence shows a robust relationship between employment protection and higher long-term unemployment. Making hiring and firing easier will help spread the burden of unemployment across the workforce. Since we know that the worst results of unemployment come from the de-skilling and depressing effect of prolonged joblessness, this provides a powerful equity argument for reform. Moreover, this also yields an important efficiency argument: if adverse macroeconomic shocks cause long-term unemployment to rise, it can take decades for the economy to recover.... Research by Olivier Blanchard and Justin Wolfers finds that countries with less strict firing laws recover more robustly following adverse economic shocks. Those who benefit most from a rapid recovery are the most disadvantaged in Australian society".

Economics at work on births: "Tough child support laws may dissuade men from becoming unwed fathers, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Washington and Columbia University found that states with the most stringent child support laws and strict enforcement have up to 20 percent fewer unwed births. Child support laws' power to prevent single parenthood is an unintended consequence of a policy designed to help children and cut public welfare costs, the researchers said Friday. "Often the unintended effects are bad, so it's refreshing to see that," said lead study author Robert Plotnick, University of Washington professor of public affairs. "Women living in states that do a better job of enforcing child support are less likely to become an unwed mother."

The names of Smoot and Hawley will live in infamy: "Only a few economic historians are likely to notice June 17 marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill.... the same kind of thinking that led to the Hawley-Smoot tariffs is still alive and well -- and in full youthful vigor -- in the media and in politics today. At the heart of past and present arguments for restricting imports that compete with American-made products is the notion these imports cost American jobs.... If 9 percent unemployment was troublesome in 1930, when the Hawley-Smoot tariff was passed, it was nothing compared to the 16 percent unemployment the next year and the 25 percent unemployment two years after that. The annual U.S. unemployment rate never got back down to 9 percent again during the entire decade of the 1930s. American industry as a whole operated at a loss for two consecutive years. Farmers, who had strongly supported the Hawley-Smoot tariffs, saw their own exports cut by two-thirds as other countries retaliated against U.S. tariffs by restricting imports of American industrial and agricultural products. The economists' appeal had warned of "retaliatory tariffs" setting off a wave of international trade restrictions that would hurt all countries economically. After everything these economists had warned of came to pass, tariffs began to be reduced. But throughout the 1930s they remained above the pre-Hawley-Smoot levels -- and so did unemployment".

*****************************

ELSEWHERE

That pesky IQ again: "People with bigger brains are smarter than their smaller-brained counterparts, according to a study conducted by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher published in the journal "Intelligence." The study, published on line June 16, could settle a long-standing scientific debate about the relationship between brain size and intelligence. Ever since German anatomist and physiologist Frederick Tiedmann wrote in 1836 that there exists "an indisputable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man," scientists have been searching for biological evidence to prove his claim. "For all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related," said lead researcher Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D., an industrial and organizational psychologist who specializes in the study of intelligence and other predictors of job performance".

EU falling apart: "The EU summit to agree a budget collapsed last night amid some of the most bitter recriminations ever seen between European leaders, with Jacques Chirac denouncing the British position as pathetic and tragic, and Tony Blair describing the French defence of agricultural subsidies as bizarre."

The sick man is Europe: "That Europe as an entity is sick and the European Union as an institution is in disorder cannot be denied. But no remedies currently being discussed can possibly remedy matters. What ought to depress partisans of European unity in the aftermath of the rejection of its proposed constitution by France and the Netherlands is not so much the foundering of this ridiculous document as the response of the leadership to the crisis, especially in France and Germany. Jacques Chirac reacted by appointing as prime minister Dominque de Villepin, a frivolous playboy who has never been elected to anything and is best known for his view that Napoleon should have won the Battle of Waterloo and continued to rule Europe.... Europe, which grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, before the EU got going, has slowly lost pace since Brussels took over its direction and imposed convergence. It is now stagnant".

Gitmo: "The general leading the force to free the captive enemy from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, and inflict a humiliating defeat on the United States is so-called "civil rights" and "Constitutional" attorney Michael Ratner. It was Ratner who led the way in recruiting elite lawyers to defend the enemy combatants being interrogated at Gitmo. But Ratner is a long-time leader of two pro-Communist and anti-American organizations who have for decades have lent aid and comfort to America's enemies in the Cold War and beyond. Michael Ratner is a lawyer who began his legal career in the late 1960s at the National Lawyers Guild, a Soviet created front group which still embraces its Communist heritage"

Race card out, class card in! "Mr. Cosby is black, so charging him with the vice of racism would not work too well. It could carry no punch with which to silence what he suggested, namely, that black parents can and ought to straighten up their parental acts. Had his words been spoken by some prominent white commentator, that ploy would still have been appealing to the modern liberal establishment. Call the messenger a racist and thus squash the truth about what parents can and should do for their kids. But what to do now, when a prominent black figure delivers this piece of sensible insight? How can it be squelched, neutralized so we can keep going to government to answers? Come to the rescue The New York Times .... The problem with Bill Cosby isn't that he is white -- no, it's that he belongs to the upper black classes. The class card, thus, takes the place of the race card."

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

**************************

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"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************