“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Spain’s governing Socialists triumphed in elections held in March 2008, giving Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a fresh mandate to pursue his agenda of sweeping social, cultural and political liberalization.

Despite a bitterly fought campaign, the outcome seemed to endorse some of Mr. Zapatero’s boldest decisions, including the withdrawal of Spain’s troops from Iraq, the granting of more autonomy to Spain’s rebellious regions, simplified divorce and the legalization of homosexual marriage.

(Read more of the excerpt.)

Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party defeated the conservative Popular Party in a rematch of the bitter contest four years ago between Mr. Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy, the head of the Popular Party. It was then that Mr. Zapatero was unexpectedly swept into power after Spaniards delivered a message of disapproval and anger to the conservative government.

(hide)

Spain Steps Into Battle With Itself on Abortion
By VICTORIA BURNETT
MADRID — One day last month, Sister María Victoria Vindel gave her 15-year-old students a shockingly graphic lecture on reproductive health: PowerPoint slides of dismembered and disfigured fetuses interspersed with biblical quotations and pictures of a grinning José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister.

“They laugh while many innocent children will die,” one of the captions read. The presentation ended with the message, “No to abortion, yes to life!”

Sister Vindel’s class at Purísima Concepción y Santa María Micaela, a parochial school in Logroño in northern Spain, is the most controversial episode yet in an increasingly contentious debate about Mr. Zapatero’s plans to ease Spain’s restrictive abortion law.

The class was described by the mother of a student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of possible repercussions for her child, and by Inmaculada Ortega, a Socialist lawmaker who spoke to several students and their parents.

The school, where Sister Vindel is headmistress, refused to comment on the slide show, which appeared to be downloaded from the Internet. The regional government, run by the opposition Popular Party, sent inspectors to the school, a Catholic institution that is financed partly by the state and partly by the parents. The government called the presentation “inappropriate” and said that it could constitute “moral aggression.”

Since he became prime minister in 2004, Mr. Zapatero has pushed an ambitious series of reforms, prying the social fabric of Spain from the centuries-old grip of the Roman Catholic Church. The Socialist government has legalized gay marriage, eased divorce law and expanded the rights of transsexuals.

(Read more of the excerpt.)

Now Mr. Zapatero has ventured onto even more incendiary social terrain, the divide over abortion; and if he was looking for a battle, he found one. As Spain celebrated Holy Week, the clergy rolled out a vigorous protest from pulpits, billboards and the hooded ranks of traditional Easter processions.

Abortion is technically a crime in Spain, though a law introduced in 1985, 10 years after Franco’s death, permits abortions under certain circumstances. In practice, however, abortions are widely available because doctors cite a mental health exception.

The current law allows terminations in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy only in cases of rape and in the first 22 weeks in cases of congenital disorder. However, a woman can abort at any time if her mental or physical health is at risk — an exception cited in about 97 percent of abortions in Spain, according to Empar Pineda, spokeswoman for the Spanish Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics.

(hide)

Spain’s Falling Prices Fuel Deflation Fears in Europe
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

VALENCIA, Spain — Faced with plunging orders, merchants across this recession-wracked country are starting to do something that many of them have never done: cut retail prices.

Prices dipped everywhere, from restaurants and fashion retailers to pharmacies and supermarkets in March. Hoping to increase sales, Fernando Maestre reduced prices by a third on the video intercoms his company makes for homes and apartment buildings. But that has not helped, so, along with many other Spanish employers, he is continuing to fire workers.

The nation’s jobless rate, already a painful 15.5 percent, could soon reach 20 percent, a troubling number for a major industrialized country. (Ya think? Later on the article also includes this stat: The jobless rate for those under 25 is at a Depression-like level of 31.8 percent, the highest among the 27 nations of the European Union. NW)

With the combination of rising unemployment and falling prices, economists fear Spain may be in the early grip of deflation, a hallmark of both the Great Depression and Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s, and a major concern since the financial crisis went global last year.

Deflation can result in a downward spiral that can be difficult to reverse. As unemployment rises sharply and consumers cut spending, companies cut prices. But if sales do not pick up, then revenue can decline further, forcing more cuts in workers or wages. Mr. Maestre is already contemplating additional job and wage cuts for his 250 employees.

Nowhere is this cycle more evident than in Spain. Last month, it became the first of the 16 nations that use the euro to record a negative inflation rate. The drop, though just 0.1 percent, had not happened since the government began tracking inflation in 1961, and Spanish officials have said prices could keep dropping through the summer.

Some of the decline came as volatile food prices sank; the cost of fish fell 6.2 percent, and sugar was down 5.7 percent. But even prices in normally stable sectors like drugs and medical treatments fell 0.7 percent in March, and there were slight declines in footwear, clothing and prices for household electronics.

“Alarm bells are going off,” said Lorenzo Amor, president of the Association of Autonomous Workers, which represents small businesses and self-employed people. “Economies can recover from deceleration, but it’s harder to recover from a deflationary situation. This could be a catastrophe for the Spanish economy.”

Greg Marmalard: Remain calm! All is well!
D-Day: Ramming speed!

Update:

...Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora put the number of recovered crime weapons in the country over the past two years at nearly 29,000, according to USA Today. And figures given by ATF make clear that the agency doesn't trace nearly all of those.

According to ATF, Mexico submitted 7,743 firearms for tracing in fiscal year 2008 (which ended Oct. 1) and 3,312 guns in fiscal 2007. That adds up to a fraction of the two-year total given by Mexico's attorney general. He may be referring to a slightly different 24-month period, but that can't account for more than a part of the discrepancy. The number is growing, and already this year, Mexico has submitted more than 7,500 guns for tracing, according to ATF. But even if all those guns are added in, the total submitted for tracing since the start of fiscal 2007 doesn't come close to the 29,000 figure that Mexico says it has recovered.

The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: "3,312 in FY 2007 [and] 7,743 in FY 2008." Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell's testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico's attorney general is correct.

Even that number is too low. At our request, an ATF spokesman gave us more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.

Yo-ho and avast, there still be pirates — and why you might care

I saw an article today in the StarTribune, Miami-based Cruise Ship Attacked by Pirates off Somalia, and it reminded me of a book I read last year by John S. Burnett entitled Dangerous Waters.

It's an excellent and eye-opening read about a subject most people think has become quaint: high seas piracy. Burnett was motivated to research and write the book after his own small boat was boarded and robbed. While you won't find much in the way of masted ships flying the Jolly Roger looking for easy pickings today, the reality is that the basics of piracy in the 17th century and today are still in place: slow-moving, lightly-guarded ships loaded with valuable cargo in international waters with little controlling authority — and a large, international pool of people greedy enough, or desperate enough, that have access to fast boats and weaponry and little fear of being caught. In fact, about all that's changed is the technology. Galleons have been replaced by high-speed boats; cannons replaced with rocket-propelled grenades; cutlasses with Uzis.

While this (literally) cut-throat business has never really gone away, even in the age of high-tech navies, it is mostly invisible because it doesn't affect our lives in many noticeable ways. As Burnett points out, however, piracy today can easily lead to a serious and confounding global problem.

One of the most pirate-infested areas today is the Malacca Straits. While the location might not be as colorful-sounding as, say, the Caribbean and you might be a little vague on the geography, the Malacca Straits are a very important little body of water. They link the Indian and Pacific Oceans and are the shortest sea route between India, China and Indonesia. They are filled with shallow reefs and tiny islands and there are only narrow channels available for the nearly 1000 ships - mostly cargo ships and oil tankers - that pass through each day like slow, fat fish in a barrel. Heavy traffic in narrow confines makes for relatively easy pickings for pirates in "smash and grab" types of raids (board, loot any crew and passengers, take electronics and other valuables from the bridge and beat it to a nearby hideout or fishing village). Sometimes, however, this results in tanker or cargo crews being tied up and their ships left to plow on out of control through a highly congested area. It doesn't take much imagination to think of the effects that a grounding or sinking of a tanker in this area could have on this vital commercial thoroughfare. Here's some of what the above link about the straits has to say:

The narrowest point of this shipping lane is the Phillips Channel in the Singapore Strait, which is only 1.5 miles wide at its narrowest point. This creates a natural bottleneck, with the potential for a collision, grounding, or oil spill (in addition, piracy has historically been a regular occurrence in the Singapore Strait, but over the past 15 years has grown alarmingly). Some 400 shipping lines and 700 ports worldwide rely on the Malacca and Singapore straits to get to the Singapore port. For example, 80% of Japan's oil comes from the Middle East via the Malacca Straits. To skip the straits would force a ship to travel an extra 994 miles from the Gulf. All excess capacity of the world fleet might be absorbed, with the effect strongest for crude oil shipments and dry bulk such as coal. Closure of the Strait of Malacca would immediately raise freight rates worldwide. With Chinese oil imports from the Middle East increasing steadily, the Strait of Malacca is likely to grow in strategic importance in coming years.

Whether through criminal accident or premeditated terrorism (elements of Abu Sayaff and Al Quaida are active in this area), it may be just a matter of time before such an incident fills headlines around the world.

It's not an unknown threat to people who's business it is to be concerned with these things, Burnett's book and others (see below) does a good job of describing the efforts cargo and passenger lines, governments and military forces are making to mitigate the problem while also describing the bureaucratic, political and logistical hurdles they face.

All in all, today's news story (selected by the Strib perhaps because it was so unusual sounding) highlights an issue we often overlook. If you're intrigued by this information, Dangerous Waters is a sobering but very interesting read. You might also find the following related books suggested by Amazon of interest:

Jolly Roger With an Uzi: The Rise and Threat of Modern Piracy by Jack A. Gottschalk

Pirates Aboard!: Forty Cases of Piracy Today and What Bluewater Cruisers Can Do About It by Klaus Hympendahl

Maritime Terror: Protecting Your Vessel and Your Crew Against Piracy by Jim Gray

Ammo in short supply; Dem takeover gets blame
OGDEN -- With firearm dealers struggling to keep ammunition on their shelves, it seems the gun and ammunition business has been stimulated in a way few people expected.

The minute Barack Obama stepped into the White House, people scrambled to gun stores to buy as much ammunition as they could get their hands on. Now, there's a shortage of ammunition all over the country as demand is three times the supply.

"It's been a huge topic since the election," said Mike Casey, vice president of Smith & Edwards in Farr West.

"Ammunition is hard to come by, and the demand isn't getting smaller. Even with production increases, it is extremely difficult to get ammo."

Casey has been out of several calibers of ammunition for more than six weeks now, with no expected date of delivery.

From Jan. 1 through the end of March, 63,348 people in Utah have gotten the background check necessary for obtaining a firearm, according to data on an FBI Web site.

In the past 10 years, the state has averaged 90,000 people a year getting those background checks. If this year continues at the same rate as its first three months, Utah would have nearly met its yearly average of background checks by the end of April.

One manufacturer, Winchester, has back orders for 200 million rounds of .45-caliber bullets.

The company's machines produce 1.6 million rounds a day, which puts them more than 120 days behind.

And it's getting tougher to make your own bullets, too. Reloading supplies sell out nearly as fast as they hit stores, Spencer said.

Recently, Kent Shooters Supply received a shipment of 80 pounds of gunpowder. That amount, typically a six-month supply for the store, was sold in three days.

"It's crazy. The guy in the past who bought a pound of powder is now buying all I have on the counter," Spencer said.

Senator Warner wants to start a "discussion" about end-of-life issues
From The Virginian Pilot. Make no mistake about where this is headed: first it will be just ensuring that everyone has "information," next it will be voluntary "guidelines," and then the "guidelines" will no longer be voluntary. Translation: your friendly federal government wants to decide when to pull the plug--because it knows best

Sen. Warner calls for discussion of end-of-life treatment
By Dale Eisman
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 6, 2009
WASHINGTON

Two months into his term, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner has marched into the policy thicket that is health-care reform, urging a national discussion on the touchy question of how best to treat terminally ill people.

In a speech to hospital executives this week, Warner called for intensified efforts to educate individuals and families in advance about end-of-life care. With better information, many people would forgo expensive and almost-always-futile treatment for patients near death, he said.

Such measures account for more than one-fourth of Medicare payments and 10 to 12 percent of all health costs, studies suggest.

"We leave it to families to resolve these extraordinarily difficult decisions with little guidance," Warner said. "Other industrialized nations have dealt with the end-of-life issue. It's time we did as well."

21st Century British Healthcare (Terminally Ill Can Be Starved to Death, UK Court Rules) (featuring an assist from Monty Python)

Charlotte's Web: When the State Decides if Your Baby Shall Live or Die

An update on Charlotte Wyatt ... and the state of socialized medicine

Scottish seniors aren't dead yet: the rising cost of "free" healthcare

Update:

MORRISTOWN, Tenn. — Homeschooling is so important to Uwe Romeike that the classically trained pianist sold his beloved grand pianos to pay for moving his wife and five children from Germany to the Smoky Mountain foothills of Tennessee.

Romeike, his wife, Hannelore, and their children live in a modest duplex about 40 miles northeast of Knoxville while they seek political asylum here. They say they were persecuted for their evangelical Christian beliefs and homeschooling their children in Germany, where state school attendance is compulsory.

When the Romeikes wouldn't comply with repeated orders to send the children to school, police came to their home one October morning in 2006 and took the children, crying and upset, to school.

"We tried not to open the door, but they (police) kept ringing the doorbell for 15 or 20 minutes," Romeike said. "They called us by phone and spoke on the answering machine and said they would knock open the door if we didn't open it. So I opened it."

Stones Cry Out excerpted a story last week about German police forcibly delivering home-schooled children to the local state schools.

A Nazi-era law requiring all children to attend public school, to avoid "the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions" that could be taught by parents at home, apparently is triggering a Nazi-like response from police.

The word comes from Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit, or Network for Freedom in Education, which confirmed that children in a family in Bissingen, in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, have been forcibly hauled to a public school.

"On Friday 20 October 2006 at around 7:30 a.m. the children of a home educating family ... were brought under duress to school by police," the organization, which describes itself as politically and religiously neutral, confirmed.

A separate weblog in the United States noted the same tragedy.

Homeschoolblogger.com noted that the "three children were picked up by the police and escorted to school in Baden-Wurttemberg, with the 'promise' that it would happen again this week."

The Network for Freedom in Education, through spokesman Joerg Grosseluemern, said the Remeike family has been "home educating their children since the start of the school year, something which is legal in practically the whole of the (European Union)."

It kind of makes you wonder about a government that's afraid of what parents might teach their children...or that believes it is the rightful parent of the nation. Perhaps they've read their William Ross Wallace and know that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world," and they find that discomforting. I'm also amazed that this "Nazi-era" law is still on the books in Germany; it is all für der Kinder, no doubt.

This all reminds me of how the roots of the U.S. education system go deep into the Prussian model of the early 20th century (believe me, we got more than just "kindergarten" from this influence). I had started digging into this topic for a post a long time ago and got sidetracked; it might be time to resurrect this effort. For now, at least, we can appreciate that our money is the only thing the state forcibly takes from our homes and sends to public school.

More compelling was one judge's written opinion:

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

The ruling sent shock waves throughout the estimated 166,000 home-educators in California as well as through the California legislature and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said, "Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and, if the courts don't protect parents' rights, then, as elected officials, we will." Interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger's signing of SB777 last year may be one of the things that have led many parents to abandon the public schools. Give the Governator credit though; he may not be great at logic but he definitely knows how to count votes and probably realizes that whatever other political beliefs a homeschooling family may have, telling them that they have no right to educate their own children trumps them all.

Personally, I'm not shocked. California has long been the most overtly hostile state toward home-educators (ironically it's own school system struggles to place a certified teacher in every classroom, yet would seek to mandate it in every home-school). Similarly, Education Minnesota has no love lost for home-educators and my hunch is that they wouldn't mind if their pet DFL pupils in the Minnesota legislature were to bring them a similar bill as if it were a bright, shiny apple.

Of course, it takes a real socialist mentality to proclaim that the State is the rightful owner of your children, as I've documented before regarding events in England and Germany. The Germans, in fact, are still embracing the 1937 law instituted by a certain mustachioed megalomaniac that mandates compulsory state school educations. Seventy years later they're still enforcing it by forcibly taking kids from their homes to school in police cars or even removing children from their parents' homes and hiding them in psychiatric hospitals for evaluation.

Homeschooling in Germany is illegal with rare exceptions. The requirement to attend school has been upheld, on challenge from parents, by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Parents violating the law have most prominently included devout Christians who want to give their children a more Christian education than what is offered by the schools. Penalties against these parents have included fines (around €5,000), successful legal actions to take away the parents' custody of their children, and jail time for the parents.[1]

In a landmark legal case commenced in 2003 at the European Court of Human Rights a homeschooling parent couple argued on behalf of their children that Germany's compulsory school attendance endangered their children’s religious upbringing, promoted teaching inconsistent with their Christian faith — especially the German State's mandates relating to sex education in the schools — and contravened the declaration in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that "the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions". In September 2006 the European Court of Human Rights upheld the German ban on homeschooling, stating "parents may not refuse ...[compulsory schooling] on the basis of their convictions", and adding that the right to education "calls for regulation by the State". The European Court took the position that the plaintiffs were the children, not their parents, and declared "children are unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision for home education because of their young age.... Schools represent society, and it is in the children’s interest to become part of that society. The parents' right to educate does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience." The European Court endorsed a "carefully reasoned" decision of the German court concerning "the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."

SOURCE: CBO, White House Office of Management and Budget | The Washington Post - March 21, 2009

• President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
  
  
• President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.



• President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.



• President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.



• President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.



• President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.



• President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

The federal government exempts life and annuity benefits from taxation, but Rep. Chuck Riley, D-Hillsboro, Ore., the sponsor of the Oregon bill, H.B. 2854, has argued that conformity with federal income tax rules is too costly, and that Oregon should tax some kinds of income now excluded from federal taxable income.

If passed as written, the bill would take effect on or after Jan. 1, 2010.

H.B. 2854 was first read March 2. To pass, the bill would need approval by a three-fifths majority.

The National Association for Life Brokerage Agencies, Fairfax, Va., has put out a statement opposing the bill, noting it would tax both the death benefits and earnings on the inside build-up of life insurance and annuities.

This “unfairly targets individuals and families who have taken responsibility for their financial future by preparing for retirement and planning for unforeseen circumstances,” NAILBA says in the statement. “Any changes to the tax system must not limit or disadvantage protection and security products, but rather strengthen them.”

Two House Democrats have introduced a bill that would repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act insurance industry antitrust exemption.

The bill, H.R. 1583, the Insurance Industry Competition Act, would give the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission the authority to apply antitrust laws to anticompetitive behavior by insurance companies.

The bill would keep the McCarran-Ferguson provision that puts jurisdiction over insurance regulation in the hands of the states.

The bill was introduced by Reps. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and Peter DeFazio D-Ore.

Taylor and DeFazio have introduced similar bills in earlier Congresses. They say the controversy over bonuses paid to American International Group Inc., New York, employees highlights the need for action on the antitrust issue.

The current insurance industry antitrust exemption gave AIG a free pass to become “too big to fail,” and “now the U.S taxpayers are on the hook to bail them out or risk even further turmoil in an already fragile economy,” Taylor and DeFazio say in a statement. “This legislation would close that exemption.”

Update:

I've never been one to attend the performances of symphony orchestras, but off and on, for more than 35 years, I gave myself the gift of something even better:

I would go and sit with Paul Harvey as he broadcast his radio show.

It was music; it was thrilling. I met him in the early 1970s, when I was a young newspaper reporter in Chicago, and that's when he allowed me, for the first time, to sit silently in his studio as he did his work. Over the years, whenever I felt a need for a Paul Harvey fix, he was always welcoming, and we came to know each other well. I would sit there wordlessly and observe absolute excellence.

He would invariably be wearing a smock when I arrived -- he had been working since well before the sun came up, and the smock would cover his shirt and tie. It was the kind of smock a jeweler might wear, or a watchmaker -- it was crisply pressed, the uniform of an expert craftsman. I never asked him why he wore it, but I suspect that was the reason -- pride in craftsmanship.

He would be at the typewriter, honing his script. He was famed for his voice, but the writing itself was so beautiful -- his respect for words, his understanding of the potency of economy, his instinct for removing the superfluous. The world heard him speak, but the world never saw him write, and I think he honored both aspects of his skill equally.
...
And then the signal from the booth, and. . .

"Hello, Americans! This is Paul Harvey! Stand by. . . for news!"

And he would look down at those words that had come out of his typewriter minutes before -- some of them underlined to remind him to punch them hard -- and they became something grander than ink on paper, they became the song, the Paul Harvey symphony. He would allow me to sit right with him in the little room -- he never made me watch from behind the glass -- and there were moments, when his phrases, his word choices, were so perfect -- flawlessly written, flawlessly delivered -- that I just wanted to stand up and cheer.

But of course I never did any such thing -- in Paul Harvey's studio, if you felt a tickle in your throat you would begin to panic, because you knew that if you so much as coughed it would go out over the air into cities and towns all across the continent -- so there were never any cheers. The impulse was always there, though -- when he would drop one of those famous Paul Harvey pauses into the middle of a sentence, letting it linger, proving once again the power of pure silence, the tease of anticipation, you just wanted to applaud for his mastery of his life's work.

He probably wouldn't have thought of himself this way, but he was the ultimate singer-songwriter. He wrote the lyrics. And then he went onto his stage and performed them. The cadences that came out of his fingertips at the typewriter were designed to be translated by one voice -- his voice -- and he did it every working day for more than half a century: did it so well that he became a part of the very atmosphere, an element of the American air.

shutting down conciliation court, cutting hours and suspending prosecution of 21 types of cases, including property damage, harassment, probate, and more than 1 million traffic and parking cases a year.

That last step could interrupt a $200 million flow to local governments.

$2 TRILLION?
White House's $2.5 trillion plan draws criticism over lack of details.

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and STEPHEN LABATON, New York Times

WASHINGTON - The White House plan to rescue the nation's financial system, announced Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is far bigger than anyone predicted and envisions a far greater government role in markets and banks than at any time since the 1930s.

Administration officials committed to flood the financial system with as much as $2.5 trillion -- $350 billion of that coming from the bailout fund and the rest from private investors and the Federal Reserve, making use of its ability to print money.
...
But the initial assessment from the markets, lawmakers and economists was brutally negative, in large part because they expected more details.

Basic questions about how the various parts of the program would work -- especially those involving the unsellable mortgages that banks are holding and preventing home foreclosures -- were left for another day. Some Wall Street experts criticized the plan for relying too heavily on the same vague solutions proposed by the Bush administration.

The stock market, propped up for weeks on the expectation that Washington would finally deliver a comprehensive rescue plan, dipped almost as soon as Geithner began speaking in the morning.

It seems to me that the burden of proof ought naturally to be on the stimulus proponents to satisfy the public that their highly theoretical models are basically sound, especially for the parts of the bill that aren't tax cuts or transfer payments. Let's recall that the evidence for this kind of stimulus working in this kind of situation basically rests on a single instance (World War II)--the other two times it was tried (Japan in the 1990s and America in the 1930s) the economy basically rolled along in the doldrums for the rest of the decade.

Proponents say that that's because there wasn't enough stimulus, which is possibly true, but not really satisfying, because first, how do we know this package is enough, and second, that leaves us with a belief in the virtues of stimulus that is essentially non-falsifiable. We might as well move macroeconomic policy to the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion — in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies — while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear — leaving everyone the poorer.

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture [A younger Glenn Close would make a dynamite Dagny Taggart, IMHO. NW.] — it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."

Sderot is an Israeli town within range of Hamas rockets and the victim of the leadership policies of both the Israeli government and that of Hamas that requires a macabre calculus of acceptable losses that keeps both groups of leaders in power ... while killing Jewish civilians. Hamas knows that launching rockets on a slow but steady basis, but killing only a few at a time will maintain its political power base with the jihadis, satisfy its foreign sponsors, while not seriously exposing itself to all out countermeasures from Israel.

Simultaneously, Israel's government tacitly accepts a handful of deaths as being below the threshold of requiring dramatic and deadly response, knowing that it will be pilloried by foreign public opinion and seen as the aggressor if it does so. Ben Moshe cites JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) Report 781:

“For Hamas, the key is to keep the rocket attacks below an understood threshold and Israel's response will be tolerable, precise and produce minimal collateral (Palestinian) damage. The Hamas pattern is to fire one, two or three rockets at Sderot. Wait a few days and do it again. Injure two, three, four Israelis. Kill one or two, but not more than that - this week. Increase the range and accuracy of the rockets incrementally. Hit Ashkelon, but just once. Then wait. Hit a shopping center, but if no one is killed, the Israeli response is unlikely to threaten Hamas rule. If Israel does retaliate, the world will probably be more annoyed by the "disproportionate response" than the original rocket attack.”

As I was reading, though, something was bothering me. I was still stuck on the seemingly more limited issue of the terror involved. Who are these people who are being killed by the rockets? How do they live knowing that, only if some, unspecified number of them of them are killed and maimed, will their government be moved to do something about the terror under which they live? This dangerous and painful situation is only partially a product of the Arab/Islamist dream of annihilation of Israel. It is made possible by a combination of ruthless internal enemies (e.g. the far left peace movement), clueless dupes (e.g. Olmert, Livni, et al) and shortsighted erstwhile foreign “friends” who do not understand the reality of the threat. This motley assortment of fools and instigators hold Israel’s defense establishment, her regard for her own citizens and, indeed, her very moral, civic, ethical and intellectual integrity hostage.

...

The people of Sderot listen for the sirens all day and all night 365 days a year and all must wonder if today is the day that a rocket will come through the ceiling in a busy dining hall or a kindergarten classroom or a high school auditorium and finally be “enough” to force the government to use the power it has always had- but may not always retain- to eliminate the threat. They wait for the government to act. They pray for the rest of the world to recoil in horror. They face each day with bravery and hope. Just like the people in Jackson’s story, they are hostages.

...

Do you believe that it is about The Nakba or The Occupation or The Settlements? Do you allow yourself the fantasy that there is a way to stop the madness- a sacrifice big enough to satisfy this ravenous cult?

Then what did the innocent victims die for on 9/11- or Madrid- or London- the Darfur? This is part of the same grotesque lottery that has been going on for 1500 years. In spite of the sacrifice of the innocent victims of 9/11, it is all too easy for us to deny that we are hostages too, but those “zero beings” from the Islamist void will not be happy to delete only Israel. They have "selected" them for annihilation first but it is nothing personal, you understand, just a sacrifice to prove there is no value to human life. There is no value to anything that does not affirm the spiritual vacuum of Islamism. It is not because they worship Allah, nor is it is that they believe Mohammed was a prophet. It is that they believe that he was the only prophet, that they know the absolute truth and that it is their mission to ignore (and destroy) all evidence to the contrary. If you believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they will not rest until they destroy you too.

The Jihadists are not interested in cease-fires or peace. They are happy to tell you what they want. They want the world to live under Shari’a law. They believe that anyone that doesn’t want that is sub-human and deserves to be killed. This is nothing less than another confrontation with the evil of fascist, totalitarianism, and that is a beast whose hunger cannot be sated with souls, nor can its thirst be slaked with blood. The lottery they are holding is to determine not if you will be destroyed but when you will be destroyed. We are all citizens of Sderot — its just that most of us don’t know it yet.

87 people were brought in, tagged and released...

(Photo from WCCO slideshow.)

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Puke (Mark Sieve) and Snot (Joe Kudla)

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