By Jon Sanders
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Suffice for it to say that American "liberals" have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
For example, when civil-rights activist and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who is black, can argue that Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is white, is more qualified for president than Sen. Barack Obama, who is black, on the basis that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, who is white, is "as black as Obama," and this entire exercise in race equivocation is taken by his audience as a compelling argument in favor of a candidate for president – well, this was already bizarre enough before Young made his crack about Clinton (Bill, that is) probably having "gone with" (in the beyond-intern sense) "more black women than Obama." At that point a marker was laid down in American racial-politics silliness.
One hopes it was the nadir, the point of terminal battiness beyond which things can do nothing but improve. But so far every time it seems we've finally reached the bottom, we haven't.
So even if this isn't race-silliness rock bottom, what are we to make of the idea of the black man who isn't blacker than the white wife of the white man who's "gone with" some black women? This notion seems to be a (pardon the expression) whitewashing of the old anti-miscegenation "one-drop rule" such that now one rumored tryst makes a white person black, an idea that is then imbued with transitive properties.
It seems so, but is that actually the case? Would Young also have joked that the Duke lacrosse players accused in the infamous hoax were "as black as" Obama, or nearly so, given that they had hired a black stripper? Because last year, Duke visiting professor and author Timothy B. Tyson wrote in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., that "regardless of the truth of the most serious charges," the "spirit of the lynch mob" had lived in the house of the notorious party – that being "rich white boys hiring black 'exotic dancers'," the lacrosse players were upholding a "racial caste system" just like when "white men kept black concubines and mistresses and raped black women at will."
No, surely not — no one would say the lacrosse players were "as black as" Obama, let alone that Clinton harbored "the spirit of the lynch mob." Instead, a shifting standard seems to be operative, which must have mutated out of the Left's racial politics over the past few decades, which is derided by the well-known term "the race card." As we all know, nothing can trump the race card, which is usually just fine to liberals playing games with other people's lives and careers, but what to do when their political opponents hold it?
Initially that proved no problem. A black person who wasn't a political liberal was simply disqualified from being black. Feminists adopted the same practice to disqualify conservative women.
This approach colored American liberals' view of diversity — race, gender, etc. as proxies for political liberalism — which they began enforcing across the nation everywhere they held power. Anyone who opposed the quota mentality this approach fostered was accused of racism, sexism, ad nauseam (that is, hit with the respective trump cards). It was tidily done, disposing of their criticisms without even having to touch on the challenge that diversity ought to include diverse ideas.
It worked until this campaign season. Both parties field arrays of candidates exhibiting their approaches to diversity. Republican candidates differ on the proper roles of government, differ widely in religious belief (frontrunners include a Catholic, a Mormon, and a Baptist), but they all happen to be white men. Democrats have nearly indistinguishable philosophies of government but are a mix of races and genders.
Of the Democrat frontrunners, Obama holds the race card, Clinton the gender card, while John Edwards is left trying to play a class card. Supporters of each are struggling against the new reality that the favored old disqualification tack doesn't work, since they're all liberals. Trying to navigate this awkward political reality without dashing the diversity canards has led to moments of high comedy: Young arguing for Clinton being "as black as Obama," Michelle Obama touting her husband as a better candidate for women than Clinton because he's "a man comfortable with strong women in his life," and John Edwards' supporters touting him as potentially the "first woman president."
A revelation of Edwards' bona fides as a black woman seems inevitable. In the meantime, suffice for it to say that American liberals have some very strange ideas about race and gender.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Death and Whoopi's Taxes
Goldberg begs to differ with Warren Buffet.
Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 10:00 a.m.
We don't normally look to Tinsel Town liberals for insights on U.S. tax policy, but Whoopi Goldberg's comments on the estate tax last week deserve more attention.
During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's "The View," which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?" (Watch the video here.)
Back in 2001, before President Bush signed estate tax reform into law, the death duty topped off at 55% on estates worth more than $3 million. Today the top federal rate is 45% with an exemption of $2 million, and under current law the rate falls to zero in 2010. In 2011, however, the death tax is resurrected, with the top rate restored to 55% and the exemption set at $1 million.
When another co-host, Joy Behar, responded to Ms. Goldberg's remarks by asserting, "Only people with a lot of money say that," Ms. Goldberg shot back, "No, I don't think so. . . . It doesn't matter if you have or don't have money. Once you paid your taxes, it should be a done deal. You shouldn't have to pay twice."
Ms. Goldberg has her political facts down. It's not just "people with a lot of money" who oppose confiscatory estate taxes. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have made a crusade of urging Congress to keep the death tax, even as he shelters much of his own wealth from that tax by giving to charity. However, according to polls, some 70% of voters favor a full repeal. And many, like Ms. Goldberg apparently, do so on moral grounds. Death as a taxable event and double taxation offend the average American's sense of fairness.
Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 10:00 a.m.
We don't normally look to Tinsel Town liberals for insights on U.S. tax policy, but Whoopi Goldberg's comments on the estate tax last week deserve more attention.
During a discussion of Republican Presidential candidates on ABC's "The View," which the comedian co-hosts, Ms. Goldberg said, "I'd like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That's what I want. I don't want to get taxed just because I died." The studio audience started applauding, but she wasn't done. "I just don't think it's right," she continued. "If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax. Why should I have to pay it again because I died?" (Watch the video here.)
Back in 2001, before President Bush signed estate tax reform into law, the death duty topped off at 55% on estates worth more than $3 million. Today the top federal rate is 45% with an exemption of $2 million, and under current law the rate falls to zero in 2010. In 2011, however, the death tax is resurrected, with the top rate restored to 55% and the exemption set at $1 million.
When another co-host, Joy Behar, responded to Ms. Goldberg's remarks by asserting, "Only people with a lot of money say that," Ms. Goldberg shot back, "No, I don't think so. . . . It doesn't matter if you have or don't have money. Once you paid your taxes, it should be a done deal. You shouldn't have to pay twice."
Ms. Goldberg has her political facts down. It's not just "people with a lot of money" who oppose confiscatory estate taxes. Billionaires like Warren Buffett have made a crusade of urging Congress to keep the death tax, even as he shelters much of his own wealth from that tax by giving to charity. However, according to polls, some 70% of voters favor a full repeal. And many, like Ms. Goldberg apparently, do so on moral grounds. Death as a taxable event and double taxation offend the average American's sense of fairness.
The NIE Fantasy
The intelligence community failed to anticipate the Cuban Missile Crisis.
By Bret Stephens
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:01 a.m.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a submarine base there. . . . Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it."
--Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, Sept. 19, 1962
Twenty-five days after this NIE was published, a U-2 spy plane photographed a Soviet ballistic missile site in Cuba, and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. It's possible the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program will not prove as misjudged or as damaging as the 1962 estimate. But don't bet on it.
At the heart of last week's NIE is the "high confidence" judgment that Tehran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003, "primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work." Prior to that, however, the NIE states, also with "high confidence," that "Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons." Left to a footnote is the explanation that "by 'nuclear weapons program' we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. . . . we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
Let's unpack this.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed that Iran had an undeclared uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and an undeclared heavy water facility at Arak--both previously unknown to the pros of the U.S. intelligence community. Since then, the administration has labored to persuade the international community that all these facilities have no conceivable purpose other than a military one. Those efforts paid off in three successive U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment because it was "concerned by the proliferation risks" it posed.
Along comes the NIE to instantly undo four years of diplomacy, using a semantic sleight-of-hand to suggest some kind of distinction can be drawn between Iran's bid to master the nuclear fuel cycle and its efforts to build nuclear weapons. How credible is this distinction?
In "Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy" (1996), MIT's Owen Cote notes that "The recipe [for designing a weapon] is very simple. . . . Nor are the ingredients, other than plutonium or HEU [highly enriched uranium], hard to obtain. For a gun weapon, the gun barrel could be ordered from any machine shop, as could a tungsten tamper machined to any specifications the customer desired. The high-explosive charge for firing the bullet could also be fashioned by anyone with access to and some experience handling TNT, or other conventional, chemical explosives" (my emphasis).
In other words, Iran didn't abandon its nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, it went public with it. It's certainly plausible Tehran may have suspended one aspect of the program--the aspect that is the least technically challenging and that, if exposed, would offer smoking-gun proof of ill intent. Then again, why does the NIE have next to nothing to say about Iran's efforts to produce plutonium at the Arak facility, which is of the same weapons-producing type as Israel's Dimona and North Korea's Yongbyon reactors? And why the silence on Iran's ongoing and acknowledged testing of ballistic missiles of ever-longer range, the development of which only makes sense as a vehicle to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?
Equally disingenuous is the NIE's assessment that Iran's purported decision to halt its weapons program is an indication that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach"--an interesting statement, given that Iran's quest for "peaceful" nuclear energy makes no economic sense. But the NIE's real purpose becomes clear in the next sentence, when it states that Iran's behavior "suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige and goals for regional influence in other ways, might--if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible--prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program."
This is a policy prescription, not an intelligence assessment. Nonetheless, it is worth recalling that if Iran did have an active weaponization program prior to 2003, as the NIE claims, it means that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was lying when he said that "weapons of mass destruction have never been our objective." Mr. Khatami is just the kind of "moderate" that advocates of engagement with Iran see as a credible negotiating partner. If he's not to be trusted, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Then again, when it comes to the issue of trust, it isn't just Mr. Ahmadinejad we need to worry about. It has been widely pointed out that the conclusions of this NIE flatly contradict those of a 2005 NIE on the same subject, calling the entire process into question. Less discussed is why the administration chose to release a shoddy document that does maximum political damage to it and to key U.S. allies, particularly France, the U.K. and Israel.
The likely answer is that the administration calculated that any effort by them to suppress or tweak the NIE would surely leak, leading to accusations of "politicizing intelligence." But that only means that we now have an "intelligence community" that acts as an authority unto itself, and cannot be trusted to obey its political masters, much less keep a secret. The administration's tacit acquiescence in this state of affairs may prove even more damaging than its wishful thinking on Iran.
For years it has been a staple of fever swamp politics to believe the U.S. government is in the grip of shadowy powers using "intelligence" as a tool of control. With the publication of this NIE, that is no longer a fantasy.
By Bret Stephens
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:01 a.m.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a submarine base there. . . . Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it."
--Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, Sept. 19, 1962
Twenty-five days after this NIE was published, a U-2 spy plane photographed a Soviet ballistic missile site in Cuba, and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. It's possible the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program will not prove as misjudged or as damaging as the 1962 estimate. But don't bet on it.
At the heart of last week's NIE is the "high confidence" judgment that Tehran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003, "primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work." Prior to that, however, the NIE states, also with "high confidence," that "Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons." Left to a footnote is the explanation that "by 'nuclear weapons program' we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. . . . we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
Let's unpack this.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed that Iran had an undeclared uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and an undeclared heavy water facility at Arak--both previously unknown to the pros of the U.S. intelligence community. Since then, the administration has labored to persuade the international community that all these facilities have no conceivable purpose other than a military one. Those efforts paid off in three successive U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment because it was "concerned by the proliferation risks" it posed.
Along comes the NIE to instantly undo four years of diplomacy, using a semantic sleight-of-hand to suggest some kind of distinction can be drawn between Iran's bid to master the nuclear fuel cycle and its efforts to build nuclear weapons. How credible is this distinction?
In "Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy" (1996), MIT's Owen Cote notes that "The recipe [for designing a weapon] is very simple. . . . Nor are the ingredients, other than plutonium or HEU [highly enriched uranium], hard to obtain. For a gun weapon, the gun barrel could be ordered from any machine shop, as could a tungsten tamper machined to any specifications the customer desired. The high-explosive charge for firing the bullet could also be fashioned by anyone with access to and some experience handling TNT, or other conventional, chemical explosives" (my emphasis).
In other words, Iran didn't abandon its nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, it went public with it. It's certainly plausible Tehran may have suspended one aspect of the program--the aspect that is the least technically challenging and that, if exposed, would offer smoking-gun proof of ill intent. Then again, why does the NIE have next to nothing to say about Iran's efforts to produce plutonium at the Arak facility, which is of the same weapons-producing type as Israel's Dimona and North Korea's Yongbyon reactors? And why the silence on Iran's ongoing and acknowledged testing of ballistic missiles of ever-longer range, the development of which only makes sense as a vehicle to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?
Equally disingenuous is the NIE's assessment that Iran's purported decision to halt its weapons program is an indication that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach"--an interesting statement, given that Iran's quest for "peaceful" nuclear energy makes no economic sense. But the NIE's real purpose becomes clear in the next sentence, when it states that Iran's behavior "suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige and goals for regional influence in other ways, might--if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible--prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program."
This is a policy prescription, not an intelligence assessment. Nonetheless, it is worth recalling that if Iran did have an active weaponization program prior to 2003, as the NIE claims, it means that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was lying when he said that "weapons of mass destruction have never been our objective." Mr. Khatami is just the kind of "moderate" that advocates of engagement with Iran see as a credible negotiating partner. If he's not to be trusted, is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Then again, when it comes to the issue of trust, it isn't just Mr. Ahmadinejad we need to worry about. It has been widely pointed out that the conclusions of this NIE flatly contradict those of a 2005 NIE on the same subject, calling the entire process into question. Less discussed is why the administration chose to release a shoddy document that does maximum political damage to it and to key U.S. allies, particularly France, the U.K. and Israel.
The likely answer is that the administration calculated that any effort by them to suppress or tweak the NIE would surely leak, leading to accusations of "politicizing intelligence." But that only means that we now have an "intelligence community" that acts as an authority unto itself, and cannot be trusted to obey its political masters, much less keep a secret. The administration's tacit acquiescence in this state of affairs may prove even more damaging than its wishful thinking on Iran.
For years it has been a staple of fever swamp politics to believe the U.S. government is in the grip of shadowy powers using "intelligence" as a tool of control. With the publication of this NIE, that is no longer a fantasy.
Hugo Chavez Democrats' Systematic Removal of Conservatives
By Lisa De Pasquale
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
In Godless Ann Coulter wrote, “Liberals are perennially enraged that Republicans are allowed to talk back.” As such, this has spawned “Hugo Chavez Democrats” that make it their life’s work to get conservatives blacklisted from the media. The Left’s perpetual whining is usually funny, but not so much when the spineless surrender to them. Last month Daily Kos turned their attention to columnist Rachel Marsden. Marsden wrote a column for the Toronto Sun and appears frequently on Fox News and CNN. Daily Kos objected to her recent column on waterboarding and this joke Marsden made on CNN:
I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called “hypoxic training” — swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn’t call it torture, just an exercise in “mental toughness.” So think of it this way — terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.
Daily Kos posted contact information for Marsden’s Toronto Sun editor and encouraged people to get her column removed from the newspaper. “pale cold” wrote:
But we don’t have to sit and take it. Speak up! All Canadian Kossacks can write a letter. If any American Kossacks want to vent, hey, please! Make the Toronto Sun aware of how abhorrent and completely UNCANADIAN they are for publishing such tripe. If they don’t want to live in a country with morals and humanitarian ethics? They know where the door is. I suspect that the rest of Canada won’t lose any sleep in their absence.
Perhaps we should scrap waterboarding and force terrorists to read page after page of incoherent rants from the Daily Kos e-mail monkeys. It gets results: Toronto Sun editor Lou Clancy folded in just a few hours. After a two-year relationship the Toronto Sun dropped Marsden’s weekly column.
As most conservatives would, Marsden is wearing the Daily Kos’s campaign against her as a badge of honor. Marsden responded on her website, “Attention terrorists and Islamofascists: You can now read the Toronto Sun without having your delicate sensibilities offended, as my weekly column is no longer with Sun Media… Best of luck to any principled conservatives who remain.”
However, the knee-jerk outrage toward conservatives isn’t limited to “Kossacks” who get perverted self-satisfaction from firing off angry e-mails. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically sent the CEO of Clear Channel an extended, letterhead version of a Kossack e-mail. In addition to Senator Reid, 41 other Senators also signed the letter. The letter backfired on the 42 “Hugo Chavez Democrats” in the Senate. People don’t remember their baseless accusation, but rather Rush’s genius and rebel spirit in the face of the fanatical Left. As we all do remember, Rush auctioned the letter on eBay and donated the winning bid of more than $2 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.
Like Rush, Rachel Marsden turned the attempts to silence her as an opportunity to help a good cause. Marsden created a cheeky t-shirt with the phrase “CIA Center for Aquatic Excellence Waterboarding Team.” All proceeds ($500+ so far) will be donated to the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. Marsden told me, “Liberals are just projecting when they think that attacks actually cripple conservatives. They only serve to spark new ideas and push us in new entrepreneurial directions.”
In fact, Marsden inspired me to embrace my entrepreneurial spirit and create “Muhammad the Teddy Bear” – the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite infidel or apostate. (Long live capitalism!)
Aside from the Left’s knee-jerk reaction to whatever it deems over the line, they also make knee-jerk pronunciations before a conservative even opens his or her mouth. ESPN announced they were bringing in Rush Limbaugh for a short segment on their NFL Sunday Countdown and every two-bit sports reporter had an opinion on how Limbaugh was undoing the 13th and 19th Amendments. Limbaugh hadn’t even made his infamous comments about the media’s coverage of quarterback Donovan McNabb and sports reporters were already shocked and offended. Apparently, the separation between sports and politics is more sacred to the Left than the “separation between church and state.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports reporter Mike Tierney wrote, “So, in adding this blowhard to the cast, ESPN has done more than further blur the line between entertainment people and sports commentators. Never has someone making the transition alienated a sizable portion of the audience before uttering the first multisyllabic word.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote, “It is a touchdown at the old-boy network when ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh for pregame blabber about pro football. It is an extra point when the media think nothing of this event. They both should be penalized for roughing the past.” (Yes, as I recall there was nary a peep from the mainstream media about ESPN hiring their most popular critic.)
In early September 2003, Colorado’s Gazette sports reporter David Ramsey wrote, “Hiring Mr. Right Wing to talk about football is wrong.” He posited, “Imagine the outcry if ESPN had hired a liberal icon, say Al Franken. Conservatives, who dominate TV and radio, would howl with anger, and Bill O'Reilly, who resides in his oh-so narrow no-spin zone, would demand a congressional investigation.”
Yes, imagine the outrage! Oh wait, that quietly happened a few months ago and conservatives didn’t make a peep. This season Keith Olbermann began making weekly appearances on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” No protesting in the streets. No calls for congressional investigations. Not even any token media reports of angry reactions from conservatives.
Like Limbaugh, Olbermann started in sports reporting and later moved into political punditry. Olbermann’s a pompous jerk, but who cares if his parent company hires him to talk about football for five minutes? Perhaps Olbermann will say something offensive on “Football Night in America” and awaken the conservative beast. However, the difference between conservatives and the “Hugo Chavez Democrats” is that conservatives aren’t offended by the mere presence of those with whom they disagree. Whether it’s Ann Coulter, Rachel Marsden or Rush Limbaugh, the Left will always be more infuriated with their existence and success than by what they actually say.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
In Godless Ann Coulter wrote, “Liberals are perennially enraged that Republicans are allowed to talk back.” As such, this has spawned “Hugo Chavez Democrats” that make it their life’s work to get conservatives blacklisted from the media. The Left’s perpetual whining is usually funny, but not so much when the spineless surrender to them. Last month Daily Kos turned their attention to columnist Rachel Marsden. Marsden wrote a column for the Toronto Sun and appears frequently on Fox News and CNN. Daily Kos objected to her recent column on waterboarding and this joke Marsden made on CNN:
I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called “hypoxic training” — swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn’t call it torture, just an exercise in “mental toughness.” So think of it this way — terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.
Daily Kos posted contact information for Marsden’s Toronto Sun editor and encouraged people to get her column removed from the newspaper. “pale cold” wrote:
But we don’t have to sit and take it. Speak up! All Canadian Kossacks can write a letter. If any American Kossacks want to vent, hey, please! Make the Toronto Sun aware of how abhorrent and completely UNCANADIAN they are for publishing such tripe. If they don’t want to live in a country with morals and humanitarian ethics? They know where the door is. I suspect that the rest of Canada won’t lose any sleep in their absence.
Perhaps we should scrap waterboarding and force terrorists to read page after page of incoherent rants from the Daily Kos e-mail monkeys. It gets results: Toronto Sun editor Lou Clancy folded in just a few hours. After a two-year relationship the Toronto Sun dropped Marsden’s weekly column.
As most conservatives would, Marsden is wearing the Daily Kos’s campaign against her as a badge of honor. Marsden responded on her website, “Attention terrorists and Islamofascists: You can now read the Toronto Sun without having your delicate sensibilities offended, as my weekly column is no longer with Sun Media… Best of luck to any principled conservatives who remain.”
However, the knee-jerk outrage toward conservatives isn’t limited to “Kossacks” who get perverted self-satisfaction from firing off angry e-mails. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically sent the CEO of Clear Channel an extended, letterhead version of a Kossack e-mail. In addition to Senator Reid, 41 other Senators also signed the letter. The letter backfired on the 42 “Hugo Chavez Democrats” in the Senate. People don’t remember their baseless accusation, but rather Rush’s genius and rebel spirit in the face of the fanatical Left. As we all do remember, Rush auctioned the letter on eBay and donated the winning bid of more than $2 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.
Like Rush, Rachel Marsden turned the attempts to silence her as an opportunity to help a good cause. Marsden created a cheeky t-shirt with the phrase “CIA Center for Aquatic Excellence Waterboarding Team.” All proceeds ($500+ so far) will be donated to the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. Marsden told me, “Liberals are just projecting when they think that attacks actually cripple conservatives. They only serve to spark new ideas and push us in new entrepreneurial directions.”
In fact, Marsden inspired me to embrace my entrepreneurial spirit and create “Muhammad the Teddy Bear” – the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite infidel or apostate. (Long live capitalism!)
Aside from the Left’s knee-jerk reaction to whatever it deems over the line, they also make knee-jerk pronunciations before a conservative even opens his or her mouth. ESPN announced they were bringing in Rush Limbaugh for a short segment on their NFL Sunday Countdown and every two-bit sports reporter had an opinion on how Limbaugh was undoing the 13th and 19th Amendments. Limbaugh hadn’t even made his infamous comments about the media’s coverage of quarterback Donovan McNabb and sports reporters were already shocked and offended. Apparently, the separation between sports and politics is more sacred to the Left than the “separation between church and state.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports reporter Mike Tierney wrote, “So, in adding this blowhard to the cast, ESPN has done more than further blur the line between entertainment people and sports commentators. Never has someone making the transition alienated a sizable portion of the audience before uttering the first multisyllabic word.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote, “It is a touchdown at the old-boy network when ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh for pregame blabber about pro football. It is an extra point when the media think nothing of this event. They both should be penalized for roughing the past.” (Yes, as I recall there was nary a peep from the mainstream media about ESPN hiring their most popular critic.)
In early September 2003, Colorado’s Gazette sports reporter David Ramsey wrote, “Hiring Mr. Right Wing to talk about football is wrong.” He posited, “Imagine the outcry if ESPN had hired a liberal icon, say Al Franken. Conservatives, who dominate TV and radio, would howl with anger, and Bill O'Reilly, who resides in his oh-so narrow no-spin zone, would demand a congressional investigation.”
Yes, imagine the outrage! Oh wait, that quietly happened a few months ago and conservatives didn’t make a peep. This season Keith Olbermann began making weekly appearances on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” No protesting in the streets. No calls for congressional investigations. Not even any token media reports of angry reactions from conservatives.
Like Limbaugh, Olbermann started in sports reporting and later moved into political punditry. Olbermann’s a pompous jerk, but who cares if his parent company hires him to talk about football for five minutes? Perhaps Olbermann will say something offensive on “Football Night in America” and awaken the conservative beast. However, the difference between conservatives and the “Hugo Chavez Democrats” is that conservatives aren’t offended by the mere presence of those with whom they disagree. Whether it’s Ann Coulter, Rachel Marsden or Rush Limbaugh, the Left will always be more infuriated with their existence and success than by what they actually say.
At Last!
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Giving Tanks
Across Europe, thinkers are promoting free-market ideals.
Wall Street Journal
Monday, December 10, 2007 12:01 a.m.
LONDON--The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other free-market Washington think tanks are known to many Americans. What isn't generally understood is that there has been an explosion of free-market think tanks around the world that are increasingly challenging the conventional view that government is the solution to society's problems.
Last week the Stockholm Network, an umbrella organization for European free-market think tanks, held its first annual award ceremonies to honor the groups that have been most effective in informing policy makers and the general public about policies like school choice, portable pensions and decentralized approaches to delivering health care. The Wall Street Journal was a co-sponsor, in line with its adherence to an editorial philosophy of "free markets and free people."
In 1997, the Stockholm Network had five members; it now boasts more than 130 affiliated groups, stretching from Iceland to Armenia. In Bulgaria, the Center for Market Economics has played a major role in building support for the country's adoption of a 10% flat-rate income tax, effective Jan. 1. "Watch Bulgaria," says Steve Masty, an economic development specialist based in London. "The intellectual light bulbs that have been switched on there are now having real-world results."
More than one guest at the Stockholm Network dinner commented that several countries in Europe that escaped the Soviet bloc less than two decades ago are now pursuing reforms that would be regarded as too radical for Western European electorates. In Slovakia, the introduction of a profit-based health system has led to the entry of two private health-insurance companies that have helped drop the state share of the health-care market to 65% from 80% in just two years.
Some of the think tank presidents attending the dinner have suffered more than criticism for their work. Prof. Atilla Yayla, the president of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, gave a speech last year in which he stated that the single-party secular rule imposed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s "appears backward rather than progressive." He said he found it difficult to explain to visitors to Turkey why statues and pictures of Ataturk appear in almost every public space.
Mr. Yayla was viciously attacked in the media and subjected to criminal prosecution for his comments. Now teaching on a yearlong sabbatical in England, he plans to return to Turkey to continue his fight for a truly liberal society that represents a third way between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed secularism. He has more than 500 Turkish academics and intellectuals on his mailing list.
While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn't mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic.
The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. "In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity," he told me. "Clearly, the government-led efforts aren't doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment."
John Blundell, president of Britain's Institute for Economic Affairs, says an increasing emphasis on promoting liberty in developing nations and among immigrants from those nations is appropriate. At IEA's annual conference for up-and-coming free-market scholars in October, white men were a distinct minority of the 100 students attending. The children of Indian and Chinese immigrants won almost half of the prizes and honorable mentions in IEA's annual student essay contest.
The original inspiration for much of the worldwide growth in free-market ideas was a slender volume written by F.A. Hayek, obscure professor at the London School of Economics, in 1944. As World War II was winding down and postwar planning for growing welfare states was under way, Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," made a powerful case that the collectivist ideas then gaining ground would almost inevitably lead to a loss of liberty in all its forms.
Hayek also made a positive case that the venerable ideas expounded by thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke, who promoted limited government and the rule of law, could prove a powerful antidote to socialism. Hayek urged proponents of liberty to build on the example of socialists, who built a network of theorists and philosophers that later helped them gain political power. He called for a "a truly liberal radicalism (in the European meaning of that term) . . . which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."
A few years after publication of "The Road to Serfdom," a young entrepreneur named Anthony Fisher met with Hayek and started IEA. It spent 20 years building the case for a freer society until its ally, Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister in 1979.
While the Stockholm Network dinner was held in a celebratory mood, several speakers reminded the audience illiberal notions like protectionism are making a comeback in many countries, and that global warming has become a pretext for those advocating draconian limits on economic growth.
Such wrongheaded ideas are also on the march in America. Everyone seems focused on which party will control the White House and Congress after next November's election. But regardless of who wins, real changes in the public-policy landscape are likely to come only if those who hold political power also have won the battle for their ideas. That's why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the 2008 election, advocates on both the left and right are also pouring money into think tanks. They are preparing for the day when those ideas can be taken off the shelf and put to the test.
Wall Street Journal
Monday, December 10, 2007 12:01 a.m.
LONDON--The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other free-market Washington think tanks are known to many Americans. What isn't generally understood is that there has been an explosion of free-market think tanks around the world that are increasingly challenging the conventional view that government is the solution to society's problems.
Last week the Stockholm Network, an umbrella organization for European free-market think tanks, held its first annual award ceremonies to honor the groups that have been most effective in informing policy makers and the general public about policies like school choice, portable pensions and decentralized approaches to delivering health care. The Wall Street Journal was a co-sponsor, in line with its adherence to an editorial philosophy of "free markets and free people."
In 1997, the Stockholm Network had five members; it now boasts more than 130 affiliated groups, stretching from Iceland to Armenia. In Bulgaria, the Center for Market Economics has played a major role in building support for the country's adoption of a 10% flat-rate income tax, effective Jan. 1. "Watch Bulgaria," says Steve Masty, an economic development specialist based in London. "The intellectual light bulbs that have been switched on there are now having real-world results."
More than one guest at the Stockholm Network dinner commented that several countries in Europe that escaped the Soviet bloc less than two decades ago are now pursuing reforms that would be regarded as too radical for Western European electorates. In Slovakia, the introduction of a profit-based health system has led to the entry of two private health-insurance companies that have helped drop the state share of the health-care market to 65% from 80% in just two years.
Some of the think tank presidents attending the dinner have suffered more than criticism for their work. Prof. Atilla Yayla, the president of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, gave a speech last year in which he stated that the single-party secular rule imposed by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s "appears backward rather than progressive." He said he found it difficult to explain to visitors to Turkey why statues and pictures of Ataturk appear in almost every public space.
Mr. Yayla was viciously attacked in the media and subjected to criminal prosecution for his comments. Now teaching on a yearlong sabbatical in England, he plans to return to Turkey to continue his fight for a truly liberal society that represents a third way between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed secularism. He has more than 500 Turkish academics and intellectuals on his mailing list.
While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn't mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic.
The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. "In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity," he told me. "Clearly, the government-led efforts aren't doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment."
John Blundell, president of Britain's Institute for Economic Affairs, says an increasing emphasis on promoting liberty in developing nations and among immigrants from those nations is appropriate. At IEA's annual conference for up-and-coming free-market scholars in October, white men were a distinct minority of the 100 students attending. The children of Indian and Chinese immigrants won almost half of the prizes and honorable mentions in IEA's annual student essay contest.
The original inspiration for much of the worldwide growth in free-market ideas was a slender volume written by F.A. Hayek, obscure professor at the London School of Economics, in 1944. As World War II was winding down and postwar planning for growing welfare states was under way, Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," made a powerful case that the collectivist ideas then gaining ground would almost inevitably lead to a loss of liberty in all its forms.
Hayek also made a positive case that the venerable ideas expounded by thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke, who promoted limited government and the rule of law, could prove a powerful antidote to socialism. Hayek urged proponents of liberty to build on the example of socialists, who built a network of theorists and philosophers that later helped them gain political power. He called for a "a truly liberal radicalism (in the European meaning of that term) . . . which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."
A few years after publication of "The Road to Serfdom," a young entrepreneur named Anthony Fisher met with Hayek and started IEA. It spent 20 years building the case for a freer society until its ally, Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister in 1979.
While the Stockholm Network dinner was held in a celebratory mood, several speakers reminded the audience illiberal notions like protectionism are making a comeback in many countries, and that global warming has become a pretext for those advocating draconian limits on economic growth.
Such wrongheaded ideas are also on the march in America. Everyone seems focused on which party will control the White House and Congress after next November's election. But regardless of who wins, real changes in the public-policy landscape are likely to come only if those who hold political power also have won the battle for their ideas. That's why, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the 2008 election, advocates on both the left and right are also pouring money into think tanks. They are preparing for the day when those ideas can be taken off the shelf and put to the test.
Bank on an Improved Economy
By Donald Lambro
Monday, December 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- It will probably come as a shock to most people, even to those who follow the economy, that mortgage applications rose last month as a result of declining interest rates.
In the midst of the hysterical media-fed notion that a tidal wave of subprime-loan foreclosures was going to plunge the country into a recession, the fact is that the economy is still growing and Americans are still buying homes.
The torrid pace of recent years has slackened, but homes are being sold, banks are lending money and most Americans -- even those saddled with subprime mortgages -- are paying their mortgages on time.
Not everybody realizes this, however. The Washington Post, in a story about the administration's mortgage-relief plan, reported last week that, "Lending, which had boomed for years, ground to a halt." That has been the myth reported ad nauseam on the nightly network news shows, and apparently it has been accepted as a God-given fact.
A few news organizations were trying to counter this fear-fed foofaraw last week. Here's what the Bloomberg financial news service said last Wednesday: "Mortgage applications in the U.S. jumped last week by the most in more than three years," according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, "led by a surge in refinancing as long-term interest rates dropped to two-year lows."
That doesn't sound like the mortgage business has ground to a halt or even slowed to a crawl. The American dream of owning a home still lives, banks are willing to finance that dream and the housing market has not shut down.
Indeed, to put all of this in sharper perspective, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported late last month that 95 percent of all mortgages are being paid on time, and 85 percent of all subprime mortgages are being paid punctually as well.
"America's financial system is secure. Let's focus on helping families in trouble, not on remaking the system in a way that would close doors we've spent decades trying to open," the MBA said in a series of ads it ran to insert some overlooked facts into the debate about the housing markets.
The administration took that sensible advice last week as it put together a voluntary plan to expand what many mortgage lenders are already doing: allowing homeowners with adjustable-rate, subprime mortgages to continue paying an introductory rate for a few more years before the higher-percentage rate kicks in.
This makes sense on the theory that it is better for the lending industry to extend the terms for its paying customers than for the banks to have a mountain of foreclosures on their hands in an unsettled housing market. This is perfectly consistent with the free market where businesses can and do change the terms of their contracts for their own self-preservation and for the benefit of their customers, in response to shifting economic conditions.
President Bush's plan is merely an extension of the housing industry's preliminary, voluntary response in an effort to halt the growing fears wreaking havoc with our financial markets and, potentially, with the economy at large.
The administration harbored political motivations as well. No one wants to head into the 2008 elections with thousands of home foreclosures roiling the economy, which would hand the Democrats a deadly issue to use against the Republicans.
As for the larger economy in all of this subprime-credit turmoil, well, it is still growing, despite forecasts of its decline. U.S. manufacturing expanded last month as a result of increased orders. The Institute for Supply Management, an industry trade group, said its manufacturing index was at 50.8 last month. An index below 50 points suggests contraction.
"Manufacturing continued to grow during November, a trend that is now in its 10th month," ISM reported.
A survey of the Business Roundtable's top corporate executives found that they expected sales, capital investment and job hiring to remain at current levels and even improve over the coming months.
Other signs suggest that the economy is weathering its housing troubles. The Labor Department said that worker productivity continued to rise, thus lowering business unit costs, which should help lower inflation, which should help the Fed to cut interest rates again.
The news on the jobs front was encouraging, too. A report from ADP Employer Services, which tracks hiring, said businesses last month added 189,000 jobs to their payrolls, triple the number forecast by economists.
Meantime, oil prices have fallen, the stock market was sending signals of a year-end rally, U.S. exports were growing at a healthy pace and fixed-mortgage rates were dropping, a sign that homebuyers will begin to come back to the market next year.
The central economic signs, contrary to the doom and gloomers, are fundamentally sound. As financier J.P. Morgan once said, "Anyone who bets against the American economy will lose."
Monday, December 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- It will probably come as a shock to most people, even to those who follow the economy, that mortgage applications rose last month as a result of declining interest rates.
In the midst of the hysterical media-fed notion that a tidal wave of subprime-loan foreclosures was going to plunge the country into a recession, the fact is that the economy is still growing and Americans are still buying homes.
The torrid pace of recent years has slackened, but homes are being sold, banks are lending money and most Americans -- even those saddled with subprime mortgages -- are paying their mortgages on time.
Not everybody realizes this, however. The Washington Post, in a story about the administration's mortgage-relief plan, reported last week that, "Lending, which had boomed for years, ground to a halt." That has been the myth reported ad nauseam on the nightly network news shows, and apparently it has been accepted as a God-given fact.
A few news organizations were trying to counter this fear-fed foofaraw last week. Here's what the Bloomberg financial news service said last Wednesday: "Mortgage applications in the U.S. jumped last week by the most in more than three years," according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, "led by a surge in refinancing as long-term interest rates dropped to two-year lows."
That doesn't sound like the mortgage business has ground to a halt or even slowed to a crawl. The American dream of owning a home still lives, banks are willing to finance that dream and the housing market has not shut down.
Indeed, to put all of this in sharper perspective, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported late last month that 95 percent of all mortgages are being paid on time, and 85 percent of all subprime mortgages are being paid punctually as well.
"America's financial system is secure. Let's focus on helping families in trouble, not on remaking the system in a way that would close doors we've spent decades trying to open," the MBA said in a series of ads it ran to insert some overlooked facts into the debate about the housing markets.
The administration took that sensible advice last week as it put together a voluntary plan to expand what many mortgage lenders are already doing: allowing homeowners with adjustable-rate, subprime mortgages to continue paying an introductory rate for a few more years before the higher-percentage rate kicks in.
This makes sense on the theory that it is better for the lending industry to extend the terms for its paying customers than for the banks to have a mountain of foreclosures on their hands in an unsettled housing market. This is perfectly consistent with the free market where businesses can and do change the terms of their contracts for their own self-preservation and for the benefit of their customers, in response to shifting economic conditions.
President Bush's plan is merely an extension of the housing industry's preliminary, voluntary response in an effort to halt the growing fears wreaking havoc with our financial markets and, potentially, with the economy at large.
The administration harbored political motivations as well. No one wants to head into the 2008 elections with thousands of home foreclosures roiling the economy, which would hand the Democrats a deadly issue to use against the Republicans.
As for the larger economy in all of this subprime-credit turmoil, well, it is still growing, despite forecasts of its decline. U.S. manufacturing expanded last month as a result of increased orders. The Institute for Supply Management, an industry trade group, said its manufacturing index was at 50.8 last month. An index below 50 points suggests contraction.
"Manufacturing continued to grow during November, a trend that is now in its 10th month," ISM reported.
A survey of the Business Roundtable's top corporate executives found that they expected sales, capital investment and job hiring to remain at current levels and even improve over the coming months.
Other signs suggest that the economy is weathering its housing troubles. The Labor Department said that worker productivity continued to rise, thus lowering business unit costs, which should help lower inflation, which should help the Fed to cut interest rates again.
The news on the jobs front was encouraging, too. A report from ADP Employer Services, which tracks hiring, said businesses last month added 189,000 jobs to their payrolls, triple the number forecast by economists.
Meantime, oil prices have fallen, the stock market was sending signals of a year-end rally, U.S. exports were growing at a healthy pace and fixed-mortgage rates were dropping, a sign that homebuyers will begin to come back to the market next year.
The central economic signs, contrary to the doom and gloomers, are fundamentally sound. As financier J.P. Morgan once said, "Anyone who bets against the American economy will lose."
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