Flexible Reality
Saturday, March 06, 2004
The SCO Saga Continues...thanks to Microsoft??
SCO: Leaked e-mail a 'misunderstanding'Last modified: March 4, 2004, 5:09 PM PST
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
The SCO Group dismissed a leaked memo that connected Microsoft to $86 million in investments in the company, saying the author of the e-mail misunderstood the venture deal.
The SCO Group on Thursday acknowledged the authenticity of an e-mail sent Oct. 12 from Michael Anderer, CEO of Salt Lake City venture firm S2 Partners, to SCO Vice President Chris Sontag and Chief Financial Officer Robert Bench. The memo appears to be a discussion of the compensation that Anderer received for facilitating venture deals on SCO's behalf.
"Microsoft will have brought in $86 million for us including BayStar," stated the e-mail, which was posted by the Open Source Initiative on its Web site.
Eric Raymond, an open-source software and Linux luminary, added his comments to the memo: "This is the smoking gun. We now know that Microsoft raised at least $86 million for SCO, but according to the SCO conference call (on Wednesday) their cash reserves were $68.5 million. If not for Microsoft, SCO would be at least $15 million in debt today."
SCO acknowledged the memo but dismissed both the author's and Raymond's conclusions. BayStar Capital's $50 million investment in SCO wasn't due to Microsoft's participation, said Blake Stowell, a spokesman for Lindon, Utah-based SCO.
"We believe the e-mail was simply a misunderstanding of the facts by an outside consultant who was working on a specific unrelated project to the BayStar transaction, and he was told at the time of his misunderstanding," Stowell said, reading from a statement. "Contrary to the speculation of Eric Raymond, Microsoft did not orchestrate or participate in the BayStar transaction."
Stowell would not comment beyond the statement and refused to furnish a copy of the memo to CNET News.com. Anderer could not be reached for comment.
SCO has gained the ire of the open-source community and many companies that use Linux because of its claims that it retains copyrights on critical pieces of the Linux code base.
This week, SCO ratcheted up its pressure on Linux users by suing AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler, both which use Linux in their businesses. The company had prepared a complaint against Bank of America, but changed the focus of its target on Feb. 18, according to a document seen by CNET News.com.
The Open Source Initiative made the memo part of its collection of so-called Halloween documents, which are leaked memos from or about Microsoft's attempts to fight the open-source software movement. The name stems from the date on which the first memo--a leaked Microsoft paper on the open-source phenomenon published on Oct. 31, 1998--was originally released.
SCO's blanket dismissal of the leaked memo as the mistaken assumptions of an independent contractor doesn't explain several parts of the letter which seem to indicate knowledge of Microsoft's involvement in SCO's investment search, however.
For example, the memo states that Microsoft apparently wanted to use private investments in public companies to help fund SCO.
"Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there, and they would clearly rather use Baystar 'like' entities to help us get significantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions," the leaked memo stated.
SCO also is involved in suits with IBM, Red Hat and Novell regarding Unix and Linux technology. The cost of these suits and the rest of the company's SCOsource effort to derive more money from its intellectual property was $3.4 million for the company's most recent quarter.
Bob Bench, SCO's chief financial officer, said Wednesday that the company expected the legal costs "at similar levels in upcoming quarters" with increasing revenue from its SCOsource effort.
Other parts of the memo seemed to indicate that the company has been searching for patents on Novell technology to give it leverage in its lawsuit against that company.
Novell declined to comment on the memo.
Late Thursday, a Microsoft representative told CNET News.com that the company is not financially involved in the SCO-BayStar deal, saying its only financial relationship is its license of SCO's intellectual property.
"The details of this agreement have been widely reported and this is the only financial relationship Microsoft has with SCO," the representative said in an e-mail interview. Microsoft "has no financial involvement in the SCO and BayStar agreement, and (Microsoft) has no financial relationship with BayStar."
Stock Manipulators
Posted on Sat, Mar. 06, 2004A word of sympathy for Martha Stewart
By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News
Listen up. I'm only going to say this once. I feel sorry for Martha Stewart.
Yes, she's self-important and annoying. Yes, she's made thousands, maybe millions, of us feel inadequate by talking about proper ``homekeeping.'' (Hospital corners? Are you kidding me?) Yes, she's cluttered Kmart with chenille and chintz pillows, multi-striped napkin rings and toilet place mats bearing her name.
And well, she did lie to investigators who were looking into how it was she knew to sell her ImClone stock just before it tanked. (``Isn't it nice to have a broker who tells you these things?'') But jail? Going from the well-appointed house to the big house? This isn't a good thing.
I know. Just last week I was skewering Martha for expensing coffee and snacks and anything else she figured she could buy on the corporate dime. Many of you wrote to me to say I was picking on Martha only because she is a woman or because she is rich. That simply isn't true. OK, maybe a little bit because she is rich. I mean, a Hermès Birkin bag (starting price $6,000) as trial accessory? Mostly though, I was picking on Martha because she is famous. And because she's a pill.
Look at the testimony. This is a woman who apparently threatened to switch brokers because she didn't like her money manager's telephone hold music. This was a one-time billionaire who had the company pay for haircuts, a Mexican vacation and a chauffeur for antiquing trips. This was a woman who was not kind to the help.
One of you -- and you know who you are -- wrote me about the time you spotted Martha in New York at a farmers' market. She plucked an organic apple off a cart, took one bite without paying and then threw the rest on the ground. (No word as to whether the apple seller was on the jury.)
But now I worry that maybe prosecutors were also picking on Martha because she is famous and because she's a pill. It's one thing to have a columnist come after you for being a boor, but the feds? This is serious. Martha, who is 62, faces up to 20 years in jail.
...
And for what? Lying to the people who thought Martha Stewart Prison Living was more Martha's speed.
Lying is bad, yes, but hardly the worst of recent corporate shenanigans. We've entered an era in which the executive suite is starting to look like Sing-Sing. There's Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and Tyco,(and don't forget: Global Crossing, Arthur Anderson, KPMG, Imclone, Qwest, Halliburton, Merck, Ciena and Xerox: ed. . No convictions of the heavy hitters yet, though a few underlings have pleaded guilty.
These cases are record breakers, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And Martha? Martha avoided losing about $51,000 by dumping her stock before it crashed. From the looks of the allegations, the real corporate bad boys would steal that much before they got out of bed in the morning.
And they're not in jail. But Martha is on her way, locked up as a high-profile example to others contemplating corporate crime. For that, I can find a spot of sympathy. Even for Martha.
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E-mail Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or call (408) 920-5536
Friday, March 05, 2004
Administration Sets Forth a Limited View on Privacy
By ROBERT PEAR and ERIC LICHTBLAU
NY Times
Published: March 6, 2004
WASHINGTON, March 5 — In a sharp departure from its past insistence on the sanctity of medical records, the Bush administration has set forth a new, more limited view of privacy rights as it tries to force hospitals and clinics to turn over records of hundreds and perhaps thousands of abortions.
What began late last year as a fairly modest government effort to obtain records appears to have ballooned into a systematic effort in courts around the country to define the limits of medical privacy.
Health care professionals and privacy advocates say the government's position has broad implications beyond abortion. If patients have no reasonable expectation of privacy, the critics say, the government may be more aggressive in seeking records from hospitals, insurance companies and other businesses in criminal, civil and administrative cases.
The Justice Department says it needs the records to defend a new law that prohibits what opponents call partial-birth abortions. Doctors and clinics have challenged the law, saying it bars them from performing certain medically needed abortions. A spokesman for the White House, Trent D. Duffy, defended the subpoenas. The administration is "strongly committed to medical privacy," and the subpoenas are "completely consistent" with federal privacy rules, Mr. Duffy said. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Monica M. Goodling, said, "We are respecting patient privacy by having hospitals delete any information that identifies specific patients."
President Bush was elected on a platform that proclaimed support for medical privacy. In April 2001, he said he would protect "the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private." At the time, Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, said, "We are giving patients peace of mind in knowing that their medical records are confidential and their privacy is not vulnerable to intrusion."
The federal rules, adopted under a 1996 law, have touched off a quiet revolution in health care. Doctors, hospitals and drugstores routinely give "notices of privacy practices" to patients, assuring them that personal information will be protected. Privacy advocates say the administration has rolled back some safeguards adopted by President Bill Clinton, and the Justice Department says now that the 1996 law is no obstacle to its efforts to obtain abortion records. In court papers, the Justice Department says the records are needed to show that the banned procedure is almost never medically necessary and "poses serious risks."
NAFTA Revisited
December 1992The Atlantic Monthly
by Jonathan Schlefer
What Price Economic Growth?
To judge by the example of Canada, which began an experiment in free trade with the United States in 1989, the proposed U.S. free-trade agreement with Mexico is a threat to the social comity on which prosperity depends
"Free trade" is shorthand for both an ideology and a theory of the way things are supposed to work out for the best between trading partners.
...
Proponents of the (NAFTA) agreement argue that it will bring economic growth to all three countries. Opponents say that it will erode support for social-welfare programs and aggravate inequality, especially in the United States, where the gap between rich and poor has been widening ominously in recent years. Both sides could be right.
...
NAFTA will both promote the free flow of goods by eliminating tariffs over five to ten years (fifteen for a few sensitive items) and establish rules to foster the flow of investment across borders, and it seeks broadly to increase North American reliance on market forces. All three governments, (Canadiam, Mexican, and the USA) along with most economists and many business groups, share a conviction that this will strengthen the North American economies, largely by making manufacturing, financial firms, and some other services more efficient. Investors will be able to locate enterprises wherever they can operate most effectively--for example, developing advanced software in the United States and producing personal computers with less expensive labor in Mexico. Production can be planned on a broader scale, for the entire North American market, rather than in the piecemeal fashion of today, for particular countries with the hope of export. Products will become both cheaper for North American consumers and more competitive in world markets, according to Rudiger Dornbusch, of MIT, and other economists. These economists foresee few drawbacks to NAFTA.
The question is whether they are right.
...Mexico contains almost a quarter of North America's population. The EC, (EU now), is bringing poorer member countries up to Community standards with billions of dollars of development assistance and the enforcement of common environmental and workplace regulations. The EC economic and political union, if it occurs, will make policies on matters from unemployment assistance to maternity leave at least as consistent as are those of, say, Massachusetts and Alabama today. In contrast, NAFTA proposes that the United States and Canada take Mexico as is, while Mexico pays back a debt of close to $75 billion--a kind of Marshall Plan in reverse. The treaty specifically allows each nation to establish its own environmental and workplace regulations. It is an experiment tried in economics texts but never before in history.
Consider Canada
The Canadian debate over the 1989 free-trade agreement is useful to consider: it set the tone for current NAFTA disputes, and the few years since the agreement was adopted tell something about its effects, and thus what NAFTA's could be. The main issue in the 1988 Canadian elections, the agreement was supported by the Conservatives but opposed by the Liberals and the New Democratic Party--along with the Canadian Labor Congress, the Canadian Teachers Federation, the Canadian Nurses Federation, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, women's groups, anti-poverty organizations, environmental groups, and, as Ernie Lightman and Allan Irving, professors of social work at the University of Toronto, put it, "virtually every non-business interest group in the country." In the end the New Democratic Party and the Liberals split the opposition vote, and the Conservatives, with a plurality of 42 percent, won a majority in the House of Commons. The agreement was ratified, but Canadians, particularly lower-income Canadians, have remained broadly opposed to it in polls.
The concerns of Canadian critics center on erosion of the welfare state, which is much more generous in Canada than in the United States. For example, in Canada both health care and Old Age Security are universal--eligibility for the latter, unlike U.S. Social Security, is based not on work history but on age alone. The differences between Canadian and U.S. unemployment insurance are staggering. In 1988 seventy percent of unemployed Canadians received insurance covering 60 percent of their wages, while 32 percent of Americans received benefits covering 35 percent of their wages. In other words, nearly 70 percent in the United States got nothing. In both countries unions push for broad social programs (which reduce unemployed workers' incentive to break strikes), but Canadian unions represent 36 percent of employed workers (outside agriculture), while U.S. unions represent 18 percent. The whole attitude toward unions is different. Canada Year Book 1992, a more colorful if less figure-packed counterpart to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, features in its chapter on employment a photo of a miners' strike and a chart on "Unions With Largest Membership."
Canadian critics of the free-trade agreement argued that it would prompt firms to desert the country for the United States, particularly for the South, where unions are weak. The firms could thus lower their wage costs and taxes, and ship products duty-free back to Canada. The result would be Canadian job losses, pay cuts, and pressure to curtail social programs paid for by taxes. Employment loss in manufacturing, a sector that accounts for a large portion of trade with the United States, was a particular concern. Polarization between rich and poor, which has become worse in Canada (though it has not yet reached U.S. proportions), would be aggravated as middle-income wages eroded.
Mulroney responded that by strengthening the economy, the agreement would allow Canada to improve welfare programs, and he rashly promised that it would create "250,000 new jobs for young Canadians over and above current predictions." On a more sober note, J. David Richardson, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin and a consultant to the Economic Council of Canada, surveyed the various studies projecting the agreement's effects and singled out as "worst-case limits" the loss of a "minuscule 0.2 percent" of Canadian manufacturing employment. Academic economists and the staff of the Ministry of Finance looked forward to the invigorating effects of freer markets and trade and to the prospect of 250 million U.S. consumers who would be able to buy tariff-free Canadian products.
It is hard to apportion blame between the agreement and the recession (yet another candidate is the monetarism of the Bank of Canada, Ottawa's Federal Reserve), but after three and a half years, more than 15 percent of manufacturing jobs are gone. The headline on the April, 1992, Canadian Economic Observer, a government compilation, says, "More cutbacks in manufacturing push unemployment above 11 percent." The most recent figures put unemployment at 11.4 percent. The Canadian Manufacturers Association found that half the members it queried had examined the costs of operating in the United States, and of that half, three quarters had concluded that doing so would be cheaper. The press has been replete with stories of firms moving south for just that reason. The Ministry of Labor in Ontario, a major manufacturing province, found that more than half the layoffs are due to plant closings, so the production is gone for good, whereas less than a quarter of job losses in the 1982 recession had this permanent character. A senior adviser to the Finance Minister, speaking anonymously to the newsweekly Maclean's, concurred: 'The problem now is that we are losing manufacturing activity itself to the United States." This is a far cry from even the direst projections of economists.
Now they say that they were looking at the long run, that four years is too little time to judge the results, and that any manufacturing losses have been caused by the recession. That does not explain why the losses are more serious now than in 1982, or why they are so much worse in Canada than in the United States. While the volume of U.S. manufacturing actually rose 1.6 percent from 1988 to 1991, that of Canadian manufacturing fell 11.4 percent. The explanation for the faulty predictions of the Canadian free-trade models may lie in their assumptions. Economics treats unemployment as a short-run effect of recessions, and according to James Stanford, of the New School for Social Research, the Canadian free-trade models assumed full employment and a fixed volume of investment in both countries. Capital would move to more-productive activities within Canada, but corporations would not widely shut factories and import goods from lower-wage U.S. plants. In short, the assumptions built into the models ignored critics' major concerns, and thus, not surprisingly, the models' conclusions suggested that the concerns were groundless. Stanford notes that the same assumptions are built into most models that predict favorable outcomes for NAFTA.
After the agreement was signed, business leaders began raising a clamor in the press that high taxes as well as labor costs were inhibiting their competitiveness. Mickey Cohen, a former deputy finance minister, told the Toronto Financial Times that Canada faced "greater pressure to harmonize" social programs with the United States: "If we're going to compete, we have to look more like the guys we're competing with." Sure enough, there has been pressure on Canadian social programs. The most significant was on unemployment insurance, which the Mulroney government weakened in November of 1990, so that workers had to be employed longer to be eligible and received benefits for an average of thirteen weeks less. Now the portion of the unemployed who are covered has dropped from 70 percent to 58 percent. Those no longer supported by unemployment insurance get welfare from provinces and local municipalities. But these levels of government are receiving a smaller share of revenue transfers from Ottawa. Some social programs have been trimmed. For example, in 1991 federal payments to Newfoundland, a poor province, were cut by $180 million. The town of Port Aux Basques, in turn, lost $1 million from its hospital budget and laid off a third of the staff. Threats to social programs would have occurred without the free-trade agreement--federal-government budget deficits were a problem before the treaty--and in time those Canadian manufacturers that survive will no doubt improve their productivity. But events have at least partly borne out what the agreement's critics said.
The Mexican Portent
Unions in the United States are well aware of the Canadian experience as they look south toward a country with far lower wages than their own. Last year William J. Cunningham, of the AFL-CIO, told the House Committee on the Budget that 50 to 70 percent of U.S. workers will lose ground under NAFTA. "Farther up the economic ladder, the affluent minority would certainly benefit....Multinational corporations would hit the jackpot" by paying Mexican workers "a small fraction of average U.S. wages" and supplying no workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, health insurance, or "other essentials of civilized life." The environmental movement has been vocal, particularly about the maquiladora plants set up in Mexico to export to the United States. Some managers privately admit that their plants moved from the United States to evade enforcement of health and environmental laws. A statement in The Wall Street Journal that the maquilas' "very success is helping turn much of the border region into a sinkhole of abysmal living conditions and environmental degradation" has achieved celebrity. Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups say that NAFTA will bring more of the same.
Citizens' groups in Mexico have not similarly debated NAFTA. The Partido Revolucionario Institutional, a party that actually does embrace both revolutionary and institutional elements, has held power since the 1930s, and once the President of Mexico sets a priority, opposition becomes a serious political matter. In the case of NAFTA the opposition has come mainly from a left-of-center political coalition headed by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. He almost defeated Salinas in the 1988 presidential election. (He may actually have won: the government prevented public scrutiny of almost half the ballots.) Cardenas echoes his northern counterparts on NAFTA: "The exploitation of cheap labor" and "lax environmental protection" should not be "the premises upon which Mexico establishes links with the U.S., Canada, and the world economy." NAFTA will create jobs, but without political reform might not do much for wages, working conditions, or the environment. Despite an increase in foreign investment, manufacturing wages fell 25 percent in the 1980s. Collective action is risky, to put it mildly. If the leaders of a union local call a strike, they may well be ousted from their jobs, often with the cooperation of the main union federation, which is part of the PRI. And violence against organizers is not unusual.
Thus North American opposition to NAFTA (which in Canada has taken up where opposition to the U.S.-Canadian agreement left off) is centrally concerned that the treaty will free investors to roam in search of the lowest wages, weakest environmental and workplace regulations, and most-minimal taxes and other public contributions. NAFTA will, in short, free investors from political sovereignty. Governments, which at least claim to treat all people equally and to represent some common interest, will lose ground to the market, a process that, according to Maude Barlow, the chair of the Council of Canadians, an organization opposed to the agreement, means "weakest to the wall, survival of the fittest."
Advocates of NAFTA do not entirely disagree but want more reliance on market forces and less on government nonetheless. "The bulk of government policies [are] motivated not by the desire to increase overall public welfare," writes Herbert G. Grubel, an economist at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia. "Rather they are designed to provide benefits for special interest groups in order to secure their financial and voting support." If so, then perhaps the free market is a solution, and NAFTA is a step in that direction. Grubel applauds the way "increased international competition constrains the power of special interest groups."
Growth By Inequality
A curious thing is that the more carefully one considers the NAFTA debate, the less it seems that advocates and critics actually contradict each other. Those who favor the treaty say it will boost economic growth by strengthening the competitiveness of North American manufacturing and other firms in global markets. Opponents say it will threaten moderate-income wages (at least in Canada and the United States), erode social programs, and weaken the economic sovereignty of the state. It is perfectly conceivable that both predictions will be borne out. In the United States in the 1980s, according to government statistics, the growth of manufacturing productivity and of the economy as a whole was higher than it had been in the 1970s and was almost at the level of the 1950s and 1960s--yet 44 to 70 percent of the increase in income went to the richest one percent of all families (the variation depends on whether one adjusts for the declining size of families), and lower-middle-income families and the poor lost ground. Critics are saying that NAFTA will promote more of the same.
This lack of direct disagreement between advocates and critics of NAFTA reflects standard economic theory, which predicts both "gains from trade," meaning higher total income and more efficient production, and "trade adjustments," including job losses and salary cuts for some. "Trade adjustments" sounds pleasantly minor and temporary, but though economists do not like to say so out loud, their texts explicitly confirm that losses can be large and permanent.
In one report on NAFTA, the U.S. International Trade Commission concluded that "U.S. skilled workers and owners of capital services would benefit more from lower prices and thus enjoy increased real income" (these are gains from trade), but that "unskilled workers in the United States would suffer a slight decline in real income" (these are adjustments). The ITC did not say what portion of U.S. workers it considers unskilled, but according to Jeff Faux, of the Economic Policy Institute, the ITC's model, based on the 1980 census, classifies 26 million American workers as skilled and 70 million as unskilled. Moreover, the ITC's assessment of a "slight decline" depends on timing.
Standard economic theory says that wages in a given line of work converge totally and forever. (An adjustment for productivity remains: if productivity is 25 percent higher in one country, that country's income is 25 percent higher. But Mexico has, for example, auto and electronics export plants with productivity at U.S. levels.) Certainly it will take a long time for capital to move and for the changes in wage levels to occur. How long depends on judgments of investors which no one can quantify. But it could be a long way down for many Canadian and U.S. workers. There could also be substantial improvement for workers in Mexico, if political suppression of wage demands abates.
Economics leaves the debate at this impasse--a prediction of "gains" from overall growth but "adjustments" potentially harming large groups--because its most basic premises have to do only with gross income. In economic equations a dollar is a dollar, as long as it is adjusted for inflation, whether it accrues to a homeless person or a millionaire. The discipline has no means of comparing one person's additional "utility" from a dollar with another's. It can only be sure that more national income yields greater utility. Economists prefer a higher national income because, in principle, governments can redistribute it to achieve equity and leave everyone better off. Many economists advocate such redistribution, but they are the first to admit that this is a "normative" judgment quite separate from the discipline of economics itself. If NAFTA raises national income (as advocates promise) but distributes it in an inequitable fashion that governments will not remedy (as opponents believe), then the treaty poses a trade-off that economics, by its own assumptions, cannot address.
The Conditions of Well-Being
If we accept this framework, the question becomes one of means and ends. Should the end be to promote the fastest possible growth, or is some adequate level of economic activity a means to broad material well-being? In both the United States and Canada, as mentioned, the 1980s saw rapid economic growth that went predominantly to the wealthy. The result in the United States has been a widespread sense of discontent, made vivid in the specter of homeless people and the worst urban riot in decades. The result in Canada has been similar though more moderate. Certainly the end should be broad material well-being for society, and though at other times and in other places the means would be different, the United States and Canada now need greater equity. If faster growth must be sacrificed to achieve that, so be it. The matter is not so clear-cut for Mexico. It needs both substantial economic growth, which could come from investments brought by NAFTA, and a more equitable distribution of income, which requires political reform.
The framework of the question posed this way remains limited, however. Textbook economics has been so thoroughly melded into what we accept as common sense that even critics of NAFTA rarely dispute the claim that freer trade will promote economic growth. A typical example is the labor leader William Cunningham's statement that "the affluent minority would certainly benefit" and "multinational corporations would hit the jackpot." In the end, will they really? The reasoning that leads to this conclusion is based on a conception of society as a set of individuals each maximizing his or her utility. Any divergence from that situation is, in the terminology of economics, an "imperfection." Simply put, the argument is that the less individuals are hindered from maximizing their utility, the more they will do just that, and the greater will be the sum of their utility, which is the gross national product.
Suppose society is actually more than a collection of individuals. It may be that some measure of equity is in fact required for the cooperation on which long-term economic growth depends. The late Chilean economist Fernando Fajnzylber studied this relationship. (No wonder he was interested: his country both grew slowly and had an inequitable income distribution, even by Latin American standards.) In a comparison of Japan, West Germany, and the United States, Fajnzylber found that since the mid-1960s income distribution has been most equitable in Japan, second most in West Germany, and least in the United States. Japan grew the fastest, Germany the second fastest, and the United States the slowest. He noted that in level of savings as well as growth, Japan was first, Germany second, and the United States last. And by various measures (civilian research and development as a percentage of national income, productivity growth in manufacturing, and others) Japanese manufacturing was the most competitive, German the second most, and the United States' least. When economic leaders take too great a share of production and contribute too little to society, they lack the authority needed to guide patient, long-term growth.
That is a problem in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and one that NAFTA will only aggravate. As investment moves south, it will wind up in Mexico, undoubtedly providing some benefits there. Yet looking at long-term prospects, even Mexico might not do particularly well hitching itself to a North American trading bloc that is more inequitable and less farsighted than either Europe or East Asia. The culprit is not wider trade but the way NAFTA will achieve it, by allowing investors to desert countries with better wages, stronger environmental and workplace regulations, and higher taxes. The EC, to which proponents often compare NAFTA, is increasing trade through a diametrically opposite project: the strengthening of common economic sovereignty, not the undermining of what exists. That is the sort of cohesive effort North America needs.
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Copyright © 1992 by Jonathan Schlefer. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; December 1992; What Price Economic Growth?; Volume 270, No. 6; pages 113-118.
Exploiting 9-11, Badly
The Online BeatThe Nation, March 5th, 2004
by John Nichols
It should not come as a surprise to anyone who has watched American politics over the past several years that George W. Bush has begun his formal reelection campaigning by exploiting the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for political advantage. This is, after all, the president whose aides schemed on the day of the attacks to use them to get Congress to grant Bush "Fast Track" authority to negotiate a sweeping Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement. And it is the president whose political czar, Karl Rove, conspired with Republican Senate candidates in 2002 to employ 9-11 images as tools to attack the patriotism of Democrats, such as Georgia Senator Max Cleland, a decorated and disabled Vietnam veteran.
Everyone expected the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign to begin its television advertising campaign by branding Bush as the 9-11 candidate. The only surprise is that the Bush political team would, after more than two years of preparation, perform the task so gracelessly.
Was there no one in the close confines of the Bush campaign with enough awareness of the sensitivities that remain -- especially among the friends, families and colleagues of the dead -- to suggest that it might be inappropriate to produce campaign advertisements featuring images of the dead being removed from the wreckage of the World Trade Center?
By any measure, the much-heralded opening of the Bush-Cheney Version 2.0 campaign has been a disaster for the president.
The point of the sort of gauzy, flag-flapping political advertisements that the Bush campaign has begun airing was to raise the president's approval ratings after a Democratic primary season in which Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and his rivals landed some serious blows to Bush's reelection prospects. Bush aides had planned to use the advertisements and a busy schedule of appearances by the president and Vice President Dick Cheney to regain dominance of the media coverage of the 2004 campaign.
Instead, the "story" of the week in which Bush was supposed to be reintroducing himself to the voters focused on the anger of people like Kristen Breitweiser over the Bush ads. "After 3,000 people were murdered on his watch, it seems that that takes an awful lot of audacity," declared Breitweiser. "Honestly, it's in poor taste."
What a nightmare for the Bush campaign crew when New York City firefighter Tommy Fee was asked by a reporter about the ads and responded, "It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place. The image of firefighters at Ground Zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics." And Fee was not alone. Tom Ryan, a 20-year veteran with the city's Fire Department, reacted to the use of footage from a fireman's funeral in one of the ads bysaying, "As a firefighter who spent months at Ground Zero, it's deeply offensive to see the Bush campaign use these images to capitalize on the greatest American tragedy of our time."
Suddenly, family members, friends and colleagues of 9-11 victims were all over television, radio and the newspapers echoing the sentiments of Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the collapse of the Twin Towers. "It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," Gabrielle said of the use of images of the removal of the 9-11 dead for political purposes. "It's unconscionable."
By Friday, just a day after the commercials began airing in battleground states, the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows group was circulating the names of a long list of family members and firefighters who were objecting to the ads. Spouses, parents and siblings of 9-11 victims were holding press conferences in New York to call for the ads to be taken down. And the critics weren't just talking about the ads; they were making very public note of the president's failure to cooperate with the 9-11 commission that is charged with investigating how and why the attacks occurred.
The Bush campaign had tested the ads with focus groups. They knew the use of the 9-11 images was risky; but they very much wanted to begin the process of branding 9-11 as a campaign issue and they thought they could easily dismiss any criticisms as partisan bickering. What the Bush camp failed to anticipate was the speed and the intensity of the negative response to the ads.
As the firestorm built, team Bush went into immediate damage-control mode. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was dispatched to defend the ads as a reflection of America's "shared experience" during Bush's term. But Giuliani refused to say whether he would exploit 9-11 images in a similar way if he was running for office, so his did not prove to be a particularly effective defense.
The Bush campaign has been counting on Karen Hughes, one of the president's closest and most camera-friendly aides, to provide the first line of spin. She did a round of television talk shows to defend the commercials as tasteful and necessary. But, as usual, Hughes pushed the Bush line harder than was appropriate, or useful.
"I can understand why some Democrats not might want the American people to remember the great leadership and strength the president and First Lady Laura Bush brought to our country in the aftermath of (the attacks)," she grumped on "The Early Show" on CBS.
Does Hughes seriously mean to suggest that Americans have forgotten the details of September 11, 2001, or of the president's actions in the weeks and months that followed? That's a stretch. Even Hughes admitted, in the same interview, that, "September 11 was not just a distant tragedy." And what aspect of the president's "leadership" is highlighted by incorporating images of the dead being removed from Ground Zero into a campaign commercial?
More importantly, why would Hughes, an expert in the choice of words, choose to dismiss the widows, relatives and comrades of the dead as "some Democrats"? The answer speaks volumes about the thinking within the closed confines of the president's inner circle. The Bush team's view is that anyone who criticizes the president, even someone who lost a family member or colleague in the collapse of the twin towers, is automatically an anti-Bush partisan.
That's a serious miscalculation by the Bush campaign. And a surprising one. Hughes and others are allowing intense loyalty to their boss to cloud their judgement. Does this mean that the Bush team, which is made up of some of the ablest political minds that money can buy, is destined to blow this reelection campaign -- just as the able team of Bush's father blew the previous president's 1992 reelection campaign? Not necessarily; it is still a long way to Election Day and this campaign will take many unexpected turns over the next eight months. But it does suggest that the people who dressed the president up in flight-suit drag to declare the Iraq War mission accomplished last May are still off their game. In a week when they had planned to claim control of the political discourse, they lost it. Badly.
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Thursday, March 04, 2004
Social Security Scares
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: March 5, 2004
The annual report of the Social Security system's trustees reveals a system in pretty good financial shape. In fact, it would take only modest injections of money to maintain that system's current benefit levels for at least the next 75 years. Other reports, however, appear to portray a system in deep financial trouble. For example, a 2002 Treasury study, described on Tuesday in The New York Times, claims that Social Security and Medicare are $44 trillion in the red. What's the truth?
Here's a hint: while even right-wing politicians insist in public that they want to save Social Security, the ideologues shaping their views are itching for an excuse to dismantle the system. So you have to read alarming reports generated by people who work at ideologically driven institutions — a list that now, alas, includes the U.S. Treasury — with great care.
First, two words — "and Medicare" — make a huge difference. According to the Treasury study, only 16 percent of that $44 trillion shortfall comes from Social Security. Second, the supposed shortfall in both programs comes mainly from projections about the distant future; 62 percent of the combined shortfall comes after 2077.
So does the Treasury report show a looming Social Security crisis? No.
Social Security's problem, such as it is, is a matter of demography: as the population ages, the number of retirees will rise faster than the number of workers. As a result, benefit costs will rise by about 2 percent of G.D.P. over the next 30 years, and creep up slowly thereafter. By comparison, making the Bush tax cuts permanent would reduce revenue by at least 2.5 percent of G.D.P., starting now. That — combined with the fact that Social Security, unlike the rest of the federal government, is currently running a surplus — is why the Bush tax cuts are a much bigger problem for the nation's fiscal future than the Social Security shortfall.
Medicare, though often lumped in with Social Security, is a different program facing different problems. The projected rise in Medicare expenses is mainly driven not by demography, but by the rising cost of medical care, which in turn mainly reflects medical progress, which allows doctors to treat a wider range of conditions.
If this trend continues — which is by no means certain when we are considering the very long run — we may face a real long-term dilemma that involves all medical care, not just care for retirees, and is as much moral as economic. It may eventually be the case that providing all Americans with the full advantages of modern medicine will force the government to raise much more money than it now does. Yet not providing that care will mean watching poor and middle-class Americans die early or suffer a greatly reduced quality of life because they can't afford full medical treatment.
But this dilemma will be there regardless of what we do to Social Security. It's not even clear that we should try to resolve the dilemma now. I'm all for taking the long view; when the administration makes budget projections for only five years to hide known costs just a few years further out, that's an outrage. By all means, let's plan ahead. But let's set some limits. When people issue ominous warnings about the cost of Medicare after 2077, my question is, Why should fiscal decisions today reflect the possible cost of providing generations not yet born with medical treatments not yet invented?
The biggest risk now facing Social Security is political. Will those who hate the system use scare tactics and fuzzy math to bring it down?
After Alan Greenspan's call for cuts in Social Security benefits, Republican members of Congress declared that the answer is to create private retirement accounts. It's amazing that they are still peddling this snake oil; it's even more amazing that journalists continue to let them get away with it. Yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, a writer judiciously declared that "personal accounts alone won't cure Social Security's ills." I guess that's true; similarly, eating doughnuts alone won't cause you to lose weight. Why is it so hard to say clearly that privatization would worsen, not improve, Social Security's finances?
Should we consider modest reforms that reduce the expenses or widen the revenue base of Social Security? Sure. But beware of those who claim that we must destroy the system in order to save it.
Kids In Church
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A little boy was overheard praying:
"Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am."
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A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted, "Thou shall not take the covers off the neighbor's wife."
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After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."
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Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked. See those men standing by the door? They're hushers."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5, Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"
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A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife
answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"
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Submitted by Martie LNU
John Edwards Speech to Supporters: March 3rd, 2004
John and Elizabeth Edwards returned home to Raleigh, N.C. on Wednesday afternoon. Senator Edwards spoke to friends, family, campaign supporters, volunteers, and staff in the Broughton High School Gymnasium.Here is the text of Senator Edwards' speech:
"It's good to be home!
Thank you all so much for being here. I have never loved my country more than I do today. You know, the truth is, all my life, America has smiled at me and today I am smiling right back!
More than anything, I love the American people. The people I have listened to; the people I have embraced, the people who made me laugh, inspired me, inspired you. People who made me think. People who have made me reach.
And today, I see their faces. I see the faces of the men and women who worked in the mill in Robbins, North Carolina - the mill my father worked in, the mill I worked in. I can picture their faces as clear as they are in front of me right now, lint in their hair an grease on their faces, men and women who represent the best of what America is.
They went to work day after day, decade after decade in the mill because they believed that if they worked hard and did what was right, they could build a better life for themselves and their families.
I see the faces of the workers at Tower Automotive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They are wondering where do they go after the doors to their factory close? What do they do? Have they not done the right things in America? Have they not worked hard, been responsible, raised their kids? Where do they go now and will they have a president and an administration who understands their lives and who will stand up for them?
I see the faces of the young men and women that I met in Afghanistan, at night. They are proud of their country, proud of serving their country, but worried about their families back home. They are worried about what would happen when they went back.
I see the men and women at Page Belting in Concord, New Hampshire who wonder if anyone understands the struggles that they face and most Americans face every day in their lives.
And I also see the earnest, young, wise faces from central high school in Des Moines to Pomona College in California. Young people, looking desperately for inspiration - looking for someone who will lift them up, make them believe again that in our America, with their help, with their energy, and their enthusiasm, everything is possible.
Most of all I see all these faces, turning from skepticism and despair to inspiration and hope, because they believe in this country. They believe in themselves and they know that you and I together are going to change this country, and build one America that works for all of us.
It has been my greatest honor to have walked with you. From the beginning, this has never been my campaign. This has been your campaign. And I am blessed to have been a part of it. And I'm also blessed to be back here at Broughton High School with so many friends and family, members of my community.
Today I've decided to suspend my campaign for the presidency of the United States.
But I want to say a word about a man who is a friend of mine, somebody who I believe has great strength and great courage, my friend Senator John Kerry. He has fought for and will continue to fight for the things that all of us believe in: more jobs, better health care, cleaner air, cleaner water, a safer world. The truth is these are the causes of our party, the Democratic Party. They are the causes of America. And they are the reasons we will prevail, come November, and take back this country.
You know, it wasn't very long ago that all the pundits and pollsters said, by the time we get to "Super Tuesday," there won't be a John even competing much less fighting for the nomination. And we proved those pundits and pollsters wrong and we are going to prove them all wrong come November when we take back this country.
And I want to say a personal word about my friend John Kerry, who I know very well. This is a man who from the time he served this country courageously in Vietnam, and all the way through this campaign, is a man who is a fighter. I know him. I saw what we went through in November, December, and back in the summer when everyone said he didn't have a chance. But he showed the strength, resilience, and courage that he has shown his entire life when he fought for us and for our country in Vietnam. He has fought just as hard throughout this campaign.
The truth of the matter is that John Kerry has what it takes, right here in his heart, to be president of the United States. And I for one, intend to do everything in my power to make him the next president of the United States, and I ask you to join me in this cause. For our country, for our America!
Somewhere in America a little boy or little girl plays on a sandy lot. It might be in a mill village like where I played. It might be in a barrio, or on a farm, or it might be a vacant lot on a city. We want that child to have big dreams about what he or she can do, where he or she can go.
In this great country, all things should be possible for that child-- as they have been for me.
As I leave this stage today, I leave it to you to make certain that in our American, our children can prosper and dream. This cause, this challenge to change America, belongs to you. You should not step back. You should step up.
It is up to you to make certain that in our American, our children can prosper and reach and dream.
It is up to you to choose a president who will end our two Americas so that every child can have the same chance I had.
It is up to you to make sure that the 35 million Americans living in poverty are never ignored again.
It is up to you to make this generation the generation that grows up in an America that is no longer divided by race.
It is up to you to demand a campaign that is about attacking people's problems, not politicians attacking one another.
Those of you who cast your votes for me cast your votes for a new kind of politics. You wanted a positive campaign and you got one for a change.
I couldn't ask for better company today. With the love of my life by my side. To have your life blessed with four beautiful children, and family and friends, you couldn't ask for anything more.
To my staff and my supporters, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget all of your hard work and all that you did to help change your country. To everyone who gave their time, their heart, and their soul to this campaign, thank you. You deserve nothing short of a huge round of applause!
Like most Americans, in my life, I have learned two great lessons: one that there will always be heartache and struggle, and two, that people of strong will can make a difference. One lesson is sad, and the other is inspiring. And what makes us Americans is that we choose to be inspired.
We can change America so that the America I love, the America you love can be again that bright, shining star, that beacon that stirs our hearts when we hear our anthem or see our flag. We can make it so. We are greater and stronger than anything that stands between us and that destiny.
We should never settle for less than our highest aspirations in our leaders and for our country. Because we are America - where all things are possible.
And our message today is this: we want to change America and we will!
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The Chairman Sees The Future and Says Social Services Spending is The Looming Problem
Testimony of Chairman Alan GreenspanEconomic outlook and current fiscal issues
Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives
February 25, 2004
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am pleased to be here today and to offer my views on the outlook for the economy and current fiscal issues. I want to emphasize that I speak for myself and not necessarily for the Federal Reserve.
...just like Pres. Bush could appear anywhere and "speak for 'himself', and not necessarily as President of the United States
As you know, the U.S. economy appears to have made the transition from a period of subpar growth to one of more vigorous expansion. Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose briskly in the second half of last year, fueled by a sizable increase in household spending, a notable strengthening in business investment, and a sharp rebound in exports. Moreover, productivity surged, prices remained stable, and financial conditions improved further. Overall, the economy has lately made impressive gains in output and real incomes, although progress in creating jobs has been limited.
In macroeconomic terms, the US Economy appears to be expanding favorably; however in microeconomics terms the average family has increased their debt substantially, had more difficulty finding good jobs that pay a living wage, still had not recovered their losses from the steep declines in equity they held in stocks and mutual funds, paid more for health care per person than any other country in the world, and seen their share of the countries wealth decline with the addition of several million more families living in poverty, but being far out-weighed by the assention of several dozen multi-millionaires who obtained their wealth by virtue of their positions within public companies that had filed for bankruptcy.
...At the same time, increases in efficiency and a significant level of underutilized resources both onshore and offshore should help keep a lid on inflation.
This favorable short-term outlook for the U.S. economy, however, is playing out against a backdrop of growing concern about the prospects for the federal budget. As you are well aware, after having run surpluses for a brief period around the turn of the decade, the federal budget has reverted to deficit. The unified deficit swelled to $375 billion in fiscal 2003 and appears to be continuing to widen in the current fiscal year. According to the latest projections from the Administration and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if current policies remain in place, the budget will stay in deficit for some time.
In part, the recent deficits have resulted from the economic downturn in 2001 and the period of slow growth that followed, as well as the sharp declines in equity prices. The deficits also reflect a significant step-up in spending on defense and higher outlays for homeland security and many other nondefense discretionary programs. Tax reductions--some of which were intended specifically to provide stimulus to the economy--also contributed to the deterioration of the fiscal balance.
Yes, there's the rub...which of the above was MOST responsible for the deficits? The several billion dollars erased from the Treasury in tax cuts? The immoral, criminal, corporate blowups that removed hundreds of billions of dollars from the economy, the $100+ Billion spent in Iraq, or the several hundred million dollars spent on homeland security?
...
In recent years, budget debates have turned to choices offered by those advocating tax cuts and those advocating increased spending. To date, actions that would lower forthcoming deficits have received only narrow support, and many analysts are becoming increasingly concerned that, without a restoration of the budget enforcement mechanisms and the fundamental political will they signal, the inbuilt political bias in favor of red ink will once again become entrenched.
The only Administration of the past dozen to actually decrease Federal spending for "discretionary spending" expenses as a percent of GDP has been ... ah... President Clinton's.
The budget scenarios considered by the CBO in its December assessment of the long-term budget outlook offer a vivid--and sobering--illustration of the challenges we face as we prepare for the retirement of the baby-boom generation. These scenarios suggest that, under a range of reasonably plausible assumptions about spending and taxes, we could be in a situation in the decades ahead in which rapid increases in the unified budget deficit set in motion a dynamic in which large deficits result in ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years. The resulting rise in the federal debt could drain funds away from private capital formation and thus over time slow the growth of living standards.
In other words, financing the budgetary deficits slows the growth of living standards.
...Moreover, although productivity has no direct link to Medicare spending, historical experience suggests that the demand for medical services increases with real income, which over time rises in line with productivity.
Well we have witnessed the measured increase in productivity, the demand for medical services has increased several fold; but US individual personal income has been flat or declined for most of the past twenty years.
Today, federal outlays under Social Security and Medicare amount to less than 7 percent of GDP. In December, the CBO projected that these outlays would increase to 12 percent of GDP by 2030 under current law, using assumptions about the growth of health-care costs similar to the intermediate assumptions of the Medicare trustees; when spending on Medicaid is added in, the rise in the ratio is even steeper. To be sure, the rise in these outlays relative to GDP could be financed by tax increases, but the CBO results suggest that, even if other non-interest spending is constrained fairly tightly, ensuring fiscal stability would require an overall federal tax burden well above its long-term average.
Even if it rose to 20% of GDP it would still be considerably less than is currently being spent by any of the other eight major world democracies for Healthcare & Social Services spending similar in intent to these US programs.
Most experts believe that the best baseline for planning purposes is to assume that the demographic shift associated with the retirement of the baby-boom generation will be permanent--that is, it will not reverse when that cohort passes away. Indeed, so long as longevity continues to increase--and assuming no significant changes in immigration or fertility rates--the proportion of elderly in the population will only rise. If this fundamental change in the age distribution materializes, we will eventually have no choice but to make significant structural adjustments in the major retirement programs.
One change the Congress could consider as it moves forward on this critical issue is to replace the current measure of the "cost of living" that is used for many purposes with respect to both revenues and outlays with a more appropriate price index.
Another possible adjustment relates to the age at which Social Security and Medicare benefits will be provided.
The degree of uncertainty about whether future resources will be adequate to meet our current statutory obligations to the coming generations of retirees is daunting. The concern is not so much about Social Security, where benefits are tied in a mechanical fashion to retirees' wage histories and we have some useful tools for forecasting future outlays.
Ah, so current Social Security provisioning is effectively working and supportable. Glad to hear it from you Mr. Chairman.
In view of this upward ratchet in government programs and the enormous uncertainty about the upper bounds of future demands for medical care, I believe that a thorough review of our spending commitments--and at least some adjustment in those commitments--is necessary for prudent policy. I also believe that we have an obligation to those in and near retirement to honor what has been promised to them. If changes need to be made, they should be made soon enough so that future retirees have time to adjust their plans for retirement spending and to make sure that their personal resources, along with what they expect to receive from the government, will be sufficient to meet their retirement needs.
Yup...no disagreement there, and well said financial advise.
I certainly agree that the same scrutiny needs to be applied to taxes. However, tax rate increases of sufficient dimension to deal with our looming fiscal problems arguably pose significant risks to economic growth and the revenue base. The exact magnitude of such risks is very difficult to estimate, but they are of enough concern, in my judgment, to warrant aiming to close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, from the outlay side.
Oops...like Ted Kazinski's document...the discourse sounds fine, rational, ok, then all of a sudden it's the Twilight Zone !! Why not consider both income and outgo as part of a sound economic plan. Certainly not wholly from the income side; but it should be part of the plan. If wage earners can be taxed with the Alternative Minimum Tax why not corporations, businesses, trusts, high income individuals, off-shore subsidaries of US Companies with measureable deficits in their human resources portfolios, and passive investments by tax exempt entities.
The dimension of the challenge is enormous. The one certainty is that the resolution of this situation will require difficult choices and that the future performance of the economy will depend on those choices. No changes will be easy, as they all will involve lowering claims on resources or raising financial obligations. It falls on the Congress to determine how best to address the competing claims. In doing so, you will need to consider not only the distributional effects of policy change but also the broader economic effects on labor supply, retirement behavior, and private saving.
History has shown that, when faced with major challenges, elected officials have risen to the occasion. In particular, over the past twenty years or so, the prospect of large deficits has generally led to actions to narrow them. I trust that the recent deterioration in the budget outlook and the fast-approaching retirement of the baby-boom generation will be met with similar determination and effectiveness.
The Chairman was being unduly gracious with these last lines, as there has been little effective, efficient, timely, appropriate response in the past several years to this looming problem, else we would not be in this position we have been discussing the past few minutes.
(Italics added by Editor: rp)
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Roe v Wade Syllabus
SyllabusA pregnant single woman (Roe) brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life.
A licensed physician (Hallford), who had two state abortion prosecutions pending against him, was permitted to intervene. A childless married couple (the Does), the wife not being pregnant, separately attacked the laws, basing alleged injury on the future possibilities of contraceptive failure, pregnancy, unpreparedness for parenthood, and impairment of the wife's health.
A three-judge District Court, which consolidated the actions, held that Roe and Hallford, and members of their classes, had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies. Ruling that declaratory, though not injunctive, relief was warranted, the court declared the abortion statutes void as vague and overbroadly infringing those plaintiffs' Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The court ruled the Does' complaint not justiciable. Appellants directly appealed to this Court on the injunctive rulings, and appellee cross- appealed from the District Court's grant of declaratory relief to Roe and Hallford.
The key portion of the ruling advances an Individual versus State's interest framework directly related to specific segments of a trimester gestation period.
State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life- saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy.
Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term. Pp. 147-164.
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician. Pp. 163, 164.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. Pp. 163, 164.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164-165.
Abotion rates in women 15 - 44 years in the US currently ranges from 2.7% for whites to 5.7% for blacks, with over 80% of the abortions obtained by unmarried women, and over 90% are performed in the first trimester.
Adoption is Not The Answer.
Nationwide, the number of children in foster care has reached staggering proportions. There are approximately 542,000 children in foster care in the United States, and over 126,000 of these children are currently available for adoption because parental rights have been terminated. Yet, only 20 to 25 percent of foster children waiting for adoption will ever leave foster care and join an adoptive family before aging out of governmental care at age 18.
Nor are Foster Homes plentiful enough, and of sufficient quality to serve the needs of an escalating segment of the population.
The SCO v IBM Legal Tussle
Ars Technica NewsdeskPosted 03/03/2004 @ 11:53 PM, by Eric Bangeman
SCO gets 45 days to turn over offending code to IBM
Potentially buried in today's announcement of lawsuits filed by SCO against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone were some significant developments in the ongoing SCO vs. IBM court battle. The lawsuit had been bogged down in discovery, and back in December, the presiding judge gave SCO 30 days to produce the particular Linux code it claims is in violation of their copyrights. Becoming fed-up with the lack of progress in the case, the judge has now ordered SCO fully comply with IBM's discovery demands within 45 days. This means that SCO needs to cough it up:
SCO has 45 days to identify "all specific lines of code" they allege IBM put into Linux from AIX or Dynix; identify and provide "with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to; provide and identify with specificity the lines of code that SCO distributed to other parties, and this is to include "where applicable the conditions of release, to whom the code was released, the date and under what circumstances such code was released."
For its part, IBM has the same amount of time to provide some of the information requested by the SCO: "the releases of AIX and Dynix consisting of 'about 232 products' as was represented by Mr. Marriott at the February 6, 2004 hearing." Essentially, the judge is rejecting SCO's argument that they need IBM to first fork over AIX and Dynix in order to answer IBM's request. Instead, the two litigants will have to work in tandem to satisfy one another's discovery requests.
At this point, the burden is on SCO to comply in order for the case to move forward. It is a lock that the rest of the Linux world will be watching to see if SCO finally divulges the exact code that Linux allegedly copied. Continued foot-dragging on the part of SCO will provide more impetus for their opponents to vigorously contest SCO's claims - do not look for AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler to settle with SCO. At any rate, in 45 days, it will become apparent if SCO is holding four of a kind or if they have gone all-in with nothing in the hole.
By The Numbers
The Bush Administration is putting forth a defense of their record by pointing to numbers. Here are a couple of other numbers to consider.1st: The record for the most bankruptcies filed in a single year (1.57 Million) set in 2002, was reset again in 2003 with a projected 1.66 Million cases. Of these 98% were for individuals with 80% of these filing "no asset" claims; and the remaining 2% were for business bankruptcies with an average endebtedness of $1 Million each.
36%: Increase in the number of desertions from the US Army since 1999
$1.5 Billion: The average daily increase in the US National Debt during the period Jan 1, 2001 - Jan 1, 2004
100: Number of fund-raisers attended by President Bush or Vice President Chaney during 2003
90%: Percentage of American citizens who said they approved of the way George Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 26 September, 2001
53%: Percentage of American citizens who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 16 January, 2004
130: Number of countries (out of total of 191 recognized by the United Nations) with an American military presence
$100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American citizens by the end of 2003
$13 billion: Amount other countries have committed toward rebuilding Iraq (mostly in loans) as of Oct. 2003
88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes
$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to enjoy in 2003 as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes
$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001
$10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet
87%: Percentage of the counties in the United States that do not have a single abortion provider
537: In 2000, number of votes George W Bush needed to win the vote in Florida to overtake Democrat candidate Al Gore and claim the election.
166: Number of days George W Bush has spent at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, from Jan 2001 to August 2003? It works out to 17.4% of his term has been spent at Crawford.
2.6 Million: Number of "jobs lost" during the current Bush Administration
57%: Percentage of Americans who believe that the Bush administration "exaggerated pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons in order to rally support for the war".
17: In 1996, the total number of judicial nominees confirmed by the Republican-led Senate
169: From Jan. 2001 to Aug. 2003 the total number of judicial nominees confirmed by the the Republican-led Senate
3: Number of years it has taken Pres. Bush to attain the same number of judicial appointments as Pres. Clinton did during either of his four year terms.
$29,000: Sen. John Kerry's Individual Contributions as reported by Federal Election Commission
$0: Pres. George W. Bush's Individual Contributions as reported by Federal Election Commission
$200 Million: Pres. Bush's "War Chest" Goal for his re-election campaign, with $130 Million on hand as of Feb. 2004
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Truly Disgusting !!
Maestro of ChutzpahBy PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: March 2, 2004
The traditional definition of chutzpah says it's when you murder your parents, then plead for clemency because you're an orphan. Alan Greenspan has chutzpah.
Last week Mr. Greenspan warned of the dangers posed by budget deficits. But even though the main cause of deficits is plunging revenue — the federal government's tax take is now at its lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950 — he opposes any effort to restore recent revenue losses. Instead, he supports the Bush administration's plan to make its tax cuts permanent, and calls for cuts in Social Security benefits.
Yet three years ago Mr. Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, warning that otherwise the federal government would run excessive surpluses. He assured Congress that those tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits. And last year he declined to stand in the way of another round of deficit-creating tax cuts.
But wait — it gets worse.
You see, although the rest of the government is running huge deficits — and never did run much of a surplus — the Social Security system is currently taking in much more money than it spends. Thanks to those surpluses, the program is fully financed at least through 2042. The cost of securing the program's future for many decades after that would be modest — a small fraction of the revenue that will be lost if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.
And the reason Social Security is in fairly good shape is that during the 1980's the Greenspan commission persuaded Congress to increase the payroll tax, which supports the program.
The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the middle of the income distribution pay almost twice as much in payroll taxes as in income taxes. Yet people were willing to accept a regressive tax increase to sustain Social Security.
Now the joke's on them. Mr. Greenspan pushed through an increase in taxes on working Americans, generating a Social Security surplus. Then he used that surplus to argue for tax cuts that deliver very little relief to most people, but are worth a lot to those making more than $300,000 a year. And now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits.
The point, of course, is that if anyone had tried to sell this package honestly — "Let's raise taxes and cut benefits for working families so we can give big tax cuts to the rich!" — voters would have been outraged. So the class warriors of the right engaged in bait-and-switch.
There are three lessons in this tale.
First, "starving the beast" is no longer a hypothetical scenario — it's happening as we speak. For decades, conservatives have sought tax cuts, not because they're affordable, but because they aren't. Tax cuts lead to budget deficits, and deficits offer an excuse to squeeze government spending.
Second, squeezing spending doesn't mean cutting back on wasteful programs nobody wants. Social Security and Medicare are the targets because that's where the money is. We might add that ideologues on the right have never given up on their hope of doing away with Social Security altogether. If Mr. Bush wins in November, we can be sure that they will move forward on privatization — the creation of personal retirement accounts. These will be sold as a way to "save" Social Security (from a nonexistent crisis), but will, in fact, undermine its finances. And that, of course, is the point.
Finally, the right-wing corruption of our government system — the partisan takeover of institutions that are supposed to be nonpolitical — continues, and even extends to the Federal Reserve.
The Bush White House has made it clear that it will destroy the careers of scientists, budget experts, intelligence operatives and even military officers who don't toe the line. But Mr. Greenspan should have been immune to such pressures, and he should have understood that the peculiarity of his position — as an unelected official who wields immense power — carries with it an obligation to stand above the fray. By using his office to promote a partisan agenda, he has betrayed his institution, and the nation.
Marriage Jokes
Barbara Cornelio wrote:Subject: Marriage (Part I) Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules: "I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want-and I don't expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?"
His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night... whether you're here or not."
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Marriage (Part II) Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary! The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, 'Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever.'
"Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads, "Here Lies My Husband Stiff At Last.'"
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Marriage (Part III) Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you are no good in bed either," and storms out of the house. After sometime he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, "what took you so long to answer the phone?"
She says, "I was in bed." "In bed this early, doing what?" "Getting a second opinion!"
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Marriage (Part IV) A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife," Mother of Six" in spite of her objections. One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of six?"
His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready, Father of Four."
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God may have created man before woman but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.
Naughties
What is the best thing about dating a homeless woman?You can drop her off anywhere.
What is the difference between in-laws and outlaws?
Outlaws are wanted.
What should a woman say to a man she's just had sex with?
Whatever she wants. He's sleeping.
Where does virgin wool come from?
Ugly sheep.
How do you spot the blind man at a nudist colony?
It isn't hard.
How can you piss off your wife while making love?
Call her from your cell phone.
What does the bride of a Polish man get that's long and hard on her wedding night? ...
His last name.
What's the down side to a threesome?
You'll likely disappoint two women instead of just one.
How do you know you're really ugly?
Dogs close their eyes when they're humping your leg.
Why are hurricanes named after women?
Because they arrive wet and wild, then leave with your house and car.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Scientific Advisors Serve at the Pleasure of the President
Bush Replaces Advisers on Cloning, Medical IssuesFri Feb 27, 2004 11:57 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush reshuffled his advisory council on cloning and related medical issues on Friday, adding a prominent neurosurgeon known for his work on conjoined twins and two conservatives who have spoken out strongly against cloning. He replaced one of the most prominent scientists on his Council on Bioethics, cell biology expert Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California San Francisco. The Australian- born Blackburn has spoken in favor of so-called therapeutic cloning in which cloning technology is used for medical and biological research.
The new members of the panel are Dr. Benjamin Carson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a pediatric neurologist; Peter Lawler, a government professor at Berry College in George; and Diana Schaub, a political scientist at Loyola College of Maryland. A White House spokeswoman said Blackburn's and May's terms had expired. "We decided to appoint other individuals at this point with different experience and expertise," she said.
But supporters of therapeutic cloning said they were stunned by the move and said it showed the White House was not interested in hearing neutral scientific advice. "The American people deserve the right science, not right-wing ideology, on critical issues facing their health," Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, said in a statement. "By firing two of the committee's most distinguished members, the administration is choosing once again the most divisive and ideological course, instead of seeking consensus."
Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research and president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, also expressed reservations. "We are concerned with this sort of Friday night late decision to replace what we know is at least one of the stronger voices on behalf of moving the research forward and replacing her with what appear to be more ideological soulmates who would reflexively oppose this research," Perry said in a telephone interview.
Earlier this month 60 leading scientists and philosophers, including Nobel laureates, backed a Union of Concerned Scientists report that accused the Bush administration of distorting scientific advice to fit ideological goals.
The White House denied this and said it was seeking a variety of opinions on medical and scientific subjects. At issue is the future of stem cell research, which seeks to harness the body's master cells to create new tissues to treat diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer and a range of other ills. One approach would use cloning technology to try to find ways to allow tailor-made treatments based on a patient's own cells. Bush opposes this and has severely limited the use of federal funds in such research. South Korean scientists announced earlier this month they had cloned human embryos and extracted from them stem cells for this very purpose, making clear they intend to continue with the research.
EU Sanctions
EU Hits U.S. Goods with SanctionsMon Mar 1, 2004 05:14 PM ET
By Doug Palmer and Patrick Lannin
WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday slapped hundreds of millions of dollars in annual economic sanctions on U.S. jewelry, textiles, food, equipment and other exports, stepping up pressure on Washington to repeal corporate tax breaks that violate world trade rules.
The move could cost U.S. companies some $315 million this year in extra duties on exports to Europe, and $666 million in 2005, unless Congress scraps the tax breaks. It was the first time the EU has levied trade sanctions on the United States since the World Trade Organization was formed in 1995. The EU has promised to lift the sanctions as soon as the U.S. Congress passes legislation repealing the tax breaks.
President Bush, who has faced criticism from Democrats for 2.8 million lost manufacturing jobs since he took office, urged lawmakers to redirect the $50 billion in current tax breaks for exporters to "American manufacturers and other job creating-sectors of the U.S. economy." "I urge Congress to take up and pass ... legislation that reforms the tax code, removes the underlying reason for the tariffs that have been imposed today on American exports, and further advances the competitiveness of American manufacturers and job creators," he said in a statement.
The WTO, in a case dating back to the late 1990s, has repeatedly ruled the U.S. tax breaks amount to illegal export subsidies under international trade rules. "We understand why the European Union took its action. We regret it, but we understand it," Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a briefing with EU counterparts.
European External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told reporters Brussels very much hoped Congress would act quickly so it could end the sanctions "in the next few weeks." The disputed tax loopholes, valued at about $5 billion annually, benefit a wide cross-section of U.S. exporters, from Boeing, Microsoft and Caterpillar to Eastman Kodak, grain company Cargill and food processor Archer Daniels Midland Co.
EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said the EU had "no choice" but to resort to the sanctions after the United States missed a final March 1 deadline for repealing the provisions
Whatchamacallit
Virusn. [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses,
via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and
`infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they
become Trojan horses.
When these programs are executed, the
embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'.
This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a worm, a
virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is
propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their
friends (see SEX).
The virus may do nothing but propagate itself
and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after
propagating silently for a while, it starts doing things like
writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with
the display (some viruses include nice display hacks). Many nasty
viruses, written by particularly perversely minded crackers, do
irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially
among Wintel and Macintosh users; the lack of security on these
machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the
operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such
attacks).
The production of special anti-virus software has become
an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused
outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many lusers tend to blame
_everything_ that doesn't work as they had expected on virus
attacks.
Accordingly, this sense of `virus' has passed not only
into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often
incorrectly used to denote a worm or even a Trojan horse). See
phage; compare back door; see also Unix conspiracy.
Wanna guess what OS the author of this definition is using ??
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Sunday, February 29, 2004
Augustus Caesar
Note: Some pundits, (probably beginning with Eric Alterman), have taken to refering to President Bush the Younger as "C.Augustus I", or "C-Plus Augustus"; but according to history only a portion of that characterization may be fitting. Better left unsaid are any comparisons about their respective wives. "We report, you decide".Augustus
First Roman Emperor
63 B.C. - 14 C.E.
He subjected the whole wide earth to the rule of the Roman people
—The Deeds of the Divine Augustus
Emperor Augustus of Rome was born with the given name Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. He took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) in 44 B.C. after the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. In his will Caesar had adopted Octavian and made him his heir.
Octavian was a shrewd, brilliant and astute politician. Through cold, hard political calculation he able to achieve power in Rome. At the time of Caesar's assassination, Octavian had no official power. Only after he marched on Rome and forced the senate to name him consul, was he established as a power to be reckoned with.
In 43 B.C., Octavian, Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony—one of his uncle's top lieutenants) and another Roman General, Marcus Lepidus, formed the second Triumvirate to rule Rome. After taking power, the Triumvirate proscribed and slaughtered thousands of political enemies, firmly establishing their control of the Roman government.
In 40 B.C., Antony married Octavia, Octavian's sister, and later deserted her for Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. When Antony gave Roman provinces to his children by Cleopatra, Octavian declared war on Antony. In 31 B.C. the Roman Navy under Agrippa defeated the combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra, and within a year both had committed suicide.
In 27 B.C., the Roman Senate granted Octavian the name Augustus, meaning "the exalted." They also gave him the legal power to rule Rome's religious, civil and military affairs, with the Senate as an advisory body, effectively making him Emperor.
Rome achieved great glory under Octavian/Augustus. He restored peace after 100 years of civil war; maintained an honest government and a sound currency system; extended the highway system connecting Rome with its far-flung empire; developed an efficient postal service; fostered free trade among the provinces; and built many bridges, aqueducts and buildings adorned with beautiful works of art created in the classical style. Literature flourished with writers including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy all living under the emperor's patronage.
The empire expanded under Augustus with his generals subduing Spain, Gaul (now France), Panonia and Dalmatia (now parts of Hungary and Croatia). He annexed Egypt and most of southwestern Europe up to the Danube River. After his death, the people the Roman Empire worshipped Augustus as a god.
Note: And if history is any guide to the potential foibles of succession, recall that C.Augustus begat Tiberius who begat Caligula. Other pundits have suggested that the role of Livia would more aptly be played by Barbara Bush rather than by Laura Bush.
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