EclectEcon

"Liberals Are Traitors"

From e-zine, No Apologies ($, but it might be available in audio at that site for no charge.) [h/t to Benny and Bessy]:

Bernard Goldberg's latest book, "Crazies to the Left of me, Wimps to the Right," ultimately lacks the courage to say what needs to be said: Liberals are traitors.



Goldberg's basic thesis is that liberals have abandoned the core principles of men such as FDR and JFK, while the Republicans have lost their courage.



His assessment of Republicans is spot on.



Republicans are wimps. At least some of them are.



But on the other salient point he is wrong - fundamentally wrong. Liberals aren't just "loony" or "stupid." These are all adjectives he uses to describe the principal players in mainstream liberalism. And neither is liberalism just "becoming increasingly irrelevant," as he asserts. I wish Goldberg were right about that. I wish liberalism were irrelevant - if that were true, we wouldn't have to worry so much about what 2008 might have in store.



But liberalism's problem is much more systemic then Goldberg lets on, and his book lacks the courage to state what his evidence uncovers.



Liberals are traitors - at least the self-conscious ones are. And it is not because they hate Bush or disagree with the Iraq war. Their treason stems from their behavior - from the way they go around telling everyone that they hate Bush and disagree with the war - even to the extent that they sympathize with and give material aid to the enemy. ...



Liberal perfidy is deliberate, and it is dangerous.



It is one thing to disagree with the policies of one's government. After all, no democracy can be a democracy without the balance of a loyal opposition. However, when the rhetoric and behavior of that opposition is no longer in keeping with the principles of loyalty - when it turns to sympathy and material aid for the enemy and strident and arrogant criticism of your own government - then that opposition has turned to treason.



This is what self-conscious liberals are doing in the name of their civil rights. They have become traitors to the cause of freedom and democracy, and unless something is done about it, it won't be the enemy abroad that will be our undoing. It will be the traitors from within.

"Demand Down, but Rents Up" How Can That Be??

I started screaming (well, to myself) when I saw that headline in the Washington Post.



My first reaction was, "If rents are up, then it is the quantity demanded not demand that would go down. But as I read the article a different picture emerged.



First, the vacancy rate is up (the article refers to commercial and office space in the Washington DC area).

Commercial vacancy rates climbed in the Washington area for the fifth straight quarter, but rents rose slightly and industry experts remained upbeat.

But, of course, that doesn't mean demand or the quantity demanded is down. In fact the article later says that there has been a considerable increase in supply as much commercial and office space that had been under construction for the past several years is finally becoming available. As the supply has increased, the first signs have been the observed increased vacancy rate; rents tend to adjust more slowly. It seems possible that, if anything, demand has continued to grow but supply has grown faster. The article quotes one retailer as saying,

[W]e expect in the next nine months to see further vacancy increases based on new office deliveries. But it won't have a large impact on rents because the demand is still pretty strong throughout the market.

Second, it looks as "rents up" refers to an average of rental rates. Not all rents have continued to rise, but the rising rents for the high end of the market have more than offset the stagnant or falling rates elsewhere, thus pulling up the average. Also, the vacancy rate for the high end of the market does not appear to be rising as it is elsewhere in the market:

In building categories, Class A, the premier, most expensive office space, showed net gains in occupied space, while Class B and C buildings recorded net losses, CoStar said.



John Sikaitis, research director at Jones Lang LaSalle, a commercial real estate firm, said more tenants are flocking to Class A space, which raises rents.



"The flight to quality has brought rents up throughout the market," Sikaitis said. "Demand for quality, high-end space is greater than we've seen in past years."

Wow, did I ever get worked up by that headline; the article itself wasn't such bad economics..... and, believe it or not, I've been off caffeine nearly 100% of the time for the past two months!

Me? A Ham Sandwich? Or Maybe a Grilled Cheese?

That's what this little five-question quiz says: You Are a Ham Sandwich

You are quiet, understated, and a great comfort to all of your friends. Over time, you have proven yourself as loyal and steadfast. And you are by no means boring. You do well in any situation - from fancy to laid back. Your best friend: The Turkey Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

But then the second time through the quiz, it said I'm a grilled cheese sandwich, the mortal enemy of a ham sandwich. I guess that means I'm something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

You Are a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You are a traditional person with very simple tastes. In your opinion, the best things in life are free, easy, and fun. You totally go with the flow. And you enjoy every minute of it! Your best friend: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Ham Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

My own self-assessment is that the grilled cheese description fits me better. But then maybe there's an inner me that I need to explore more fully. 8-)
Blame this all on Rondi, who is a tuna sandwich.

Why Do People Do This?

The only explanation I can come up with is blatant anti-Semitism. From Honest Reporting [h/t to Judith},

A Palestinian youth football team from Gaza has been unable to tour the UK after falling afoul of British visa regulations as well as the continuing problems in leaving the Gaza Strip following the Hamas takeover. Writing in the UK's Independent, Mark Steel criticizes the British Foreign Office, which is his right, before launching an astonishing diatribe against Israel, based not on facts nor reason, but on overt hate and disinformation.



All Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip may encounter problems exiting crossings at Israeli and Egyptian borders, particularly following Hamas' violent takeover of the area. But since the question of visas reached the British Foreign Office, it implies that Israel did not block the footballers from traveling.



Yet, Steel suggests "that the Foreign Office has been leaned on by the Israeli government to refuse entry to the team." Since when did the Israeli government exercise any power or control over British policy? Is Steel attempting to play on classic prejudice that ascribes such mythical power and influence to Israel and its supporters?



Steel's brand of 'satire', littered with inappropriate sporting analogies and terms that British readers will be familiar with, descends into simple hatred and demonization of Israel. For Steel, "the latest incident is simply part of the process of petty vindictiveness that occupying forces often dish out. Even if there's no obvious military or political advantage to be gained, you can imagine them passing a law that no one in Gaza is allowed to hum, or on Mondays everyone has to speak in a Geordie accent."



In accordance with such nastiness, Steel states that Israel bombed the only football pitch in Gaza. He conveniently forgets to mention that the pitch in question had been used for terrorist training exercises. The field, which had also reportedly served as a missile launching pad, was empty at the time; the strike itself came in response to the continuing barrage of Qassam rocket attacks directed at Israeli towns and villages.

To What Extent Should Ignorant People Be Protected From Themselves?

Phil Miller recently linked to this story in the Mankato, Minnesota, Free Press telling of some people who visited Mankato, hoping to see pyramids and do some whale-watching. They had been duped or misled by this website, which was created by a Mankato professor, purportedly to illustrate to his students that they should not accept as truth everything they see on the internet. For me, it's just plain funny to read about the Mankato Hot Springs, the underwater world, and deep-sea fishing on the Minnesota River.



But it isn't quite so funny to people who don't know any better. From The Free Press story,

Rosaura Prada stood in tears Tuesday morning after several frustrating hours of trying to find someone to give her answers about a fake Web site that led her to Mankato.



Prada, of Edinburg, Texas, brought her mother, Maria Alcantar, of Garden City, Kan., on vacation to Mankato Monday to see the underwater city, the pyramid and maybe do some whale watching. But when they arrived at their motel, they found no one knew about these and dozens of other attractions that the Web site...

Apparently it has happened before, too. The site has existed for over a decade and has received mention in the NYtimes and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.



There were some questions about whether the disclaimer on the site is adequate, but I have to wonder why such a site should need any disclaimers at all. At some point we have to tell people that spoofs exist and they, themselves, have the responsibility to check things out more thoroughly before spending money on vacations like these. And perhaps examples like this will help illustrate the importance of paying attention in geography and science classes in grade school.



I'm thinking of starting a similar page for Clinton, Ontario. If it weren't for all the schools located here, we'd be a dying or dead community, and we could use the injections of tourism dollars into our local economy.

Advisor Quits Big-Bank Brokerage in Disgust over High Fees and Perverse Incentives

The forces of competition do not keep these institutions from essentially stealing money from their clients; the information gap is just too large. In his letter of resignation, the broker wrote,

[I]ncreasingly the firm is sending the message that making money for clients comes second to making money from clients.

The resignation letter is quoted here [h/t to BenS], where the article's author also says,

Stan [a pseudonym for the broker] admits his sales production was lower than the firm would have liked. He found it impossible to "peddle" high-fee investment products such as wrap accounts.



Even if they were of reasonable quality, he couldn't reconcile the 2.5% annual cost to his clients when "I could do it for them myself for much less."



Nor is BBB [Big-Bank Brokerage] unique. "As with every other firm on the Street, all manner of perverse incentives are in place. All manner of investment pornography is on hand to distract not just clients but advisors too."



"The most striking thing is not the pilferage of clients' wealth, but how otherwise honest and well meaning people can be seduced into doing the wrong thing by careful systems design."



The firm's compensation system "multiplies greatly the chance clients will be ill served."

Ms. Eclectic recently moved some of her retirement savings from a place that must have received training from the BBB. Her funds consistently underperformed the market indexes even though the BBB charged a very hefty management fee.

EclectEcon Listed as a Top Economics Blog

See this, which lists EclectEcon among the top 15 international economics blogs (despite using the old name for the blog, it has the correct url).

Canadian economics professor examines economics from a non-U.S.centric point of view. Objective and academically sound theories.

Overall, it's an excellent list of economics blogs, with the serious omission of The Emirates Economist, which ranks quite high in the Technorati rankings.



Update: Gabriel Mihalache's Economic Investigations also deserves mention in the top 100 economics blogs. If you run a graduate programme in economics, read his blog and simply on the basis of that make an admission offer this guy -- he already knows more than many profs.

Just Who IS the Enemy Now?

From the Telegraph back in June [h/t to Judith]:

In the Gaza Strip's Jab aliya refugee camp, Aref Suleiman was raised on Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state. Today he lies in an Israeli hospital bed, his body riddled with Palestinian bullets, his wounds tended daily by Israeli nurses.



For the 22-year-old Mr Suleiman, who was shot five times point blank by Hamas militants last month during a renewed bout of Palestinian infighting, this is not the Arab-Israeli conflict he learnt about as a child growing up in Gaza's desperate, rubbish-strewn alleys.



"Palestinians shoot me and Jews treat me," he laughs bitterly. "It was supposed to be different." ...



"The Jews are like honey, like flowers," he says theatrically. "They wash me, clean me, and change my gown every day. Even in my home, my own family wouldn't change me every day."



"Here, everything is beseder," he adds, using the Hebrew word for "okay".



For the young Israeli nurses, most from nearby communities that live in constant fear of the Palestinian rocket fire, the cultural exchange flows both ways. The Palestinian patients they treat put a human face on the conflict. Nurse and patient can even find a shred of common cause now that the Islamist Hamas movement, which has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings, is locked in a deadly power struggle with the more moderate Fatah movement.

Greywater, Interventionist Regulations, and the Market

Tom Hanna has a great post about the use of dishwater, etc., to water lawns and gardens or to flush toilets. Sounds good, right? But maybe not in California:

A lesson that environmentalists should have learned about socialism after the Iron Curtain fell is now striking a bit closer to home. Liberty frees people to solve problems, including environmental problems. Bureaucracy entrenches problems, including environmental problems. Bottom line: Capitalism is better for the environment than socialism.



Nightline ran a piece on a group calling themselves the “Greywater Guerillas.” This is a group of environmental activists doing exactly the sort of voluntary action to conserve water that conservation minded conservatives and libertarians love. They’re revamping plumbing to recycle waste water from sinks and showers to water yards and gardens and flush toilets. One of the group’s founders estimates that she saves 100 gallons of water a day.



The problem…they’re in California.



This shouldn’t be a problem, after all California is ecologically minded and constantly suffering water shortages (in spite of being right next to 1/3 of the liquid water on earth). Ah, but you see, California is also one of the most regulated places on earth. ... And, in that California, you have to have a permit to install a greywater system (the technical term for what these folks are doing). A system that passes the requirements could exceed $10,000 in costs, not including the cost of the permit. The systems they are installing start at less than $100 for a system to divert sink water for flushing toilets.



Who else has a greywater system in his home? Not Al Gore, not John Kerry….George W. Bush.

Family Physicians, Pharmacies, and Tie-In Sales

I posted last week about the shortage of primary-care physicians in both the US and Canada. Since then, Brian Ferguson has sent me an article from the NYTimes that tells how increasingly major pharmacy chains are creating in-store clinics that many people are using for primary care.

The concept has been called urgent care “lite”: Patients who are tired of waiting days to see a doctor for bronchitis, pinkeye or a sprained ankle can instead walk into a nearby drugstore and, at lower cost, with brief waits, see a doctor or a nurse and then fill a prescription on the spot.



With demand for primary care doctors surpassing the supply in many parts of the country, the number of these retail clinics in drugstores has exploded over the past two years...



Patients ... have flocked to the clinics, according to a new industry group, the Convenient Care Association.



“I think it’s great you don’t have to make an appointment. That could take weeks,” said Ezequiel Strachan, 33, who lives in Manhattan and walked into the clinic at the Duane Reade store at 50th Street and Broadway on a recent morning for treatment of a sore throat. “People here value their time a lot.”



The average waiting time for an exam at such clinics nationwide is 15 to 25 minutes, according to the Convenient Care Association.



The association estimated that 70 percent of clinic patients have health insurance and are using the clinics because of convenience. For them, costs may not be much different from those at doctors’ offices, because the same insurance co-payments apply. But uninsured patients could reap substantial savings....



New York law requires that nurse practitioners work closely with a physician, who oversees the practice but is not required to be at the clinic, and that the clinics operate as independent practices or professional corporations. In other states, the medical providers can work directly for a drugstore company, a practice that has touched off concern that the providers might place the interests of their employers above those of patients.

This looks like a classic setting for someone to be accused of engaging in illegal tie-in sales. The argument, though, would have to come from other pharmacies, alleging that having an in-store clinic ties patients to the pharmacy and blocks other pharmacies from the ability to compete fairly with those that have clinics.



But that is not what is happening. Rather, the objections are coming from medical associations, who object to the increased competition for their services (presumably the objection comes primarily in areas not suffering from a shortage of GPs). Nurse practitioners might not be as well-educated as GPs, but people are willing to take a chance with them for the sake of convenience -- short waits and no required appointments. This is an understandable reaction to the artificial shortages of GPs.

Islam: the Religion of Peace?Appeasement: the Religion of the Left?

Salim Mansur is a colleague at The University of Western Ontario. He is also a regular attendee of a group, including BenS and others every Saturday morning on the north end of London, Ontario, in which intense discussions rule the day. He is becoming increasingly well-known throughout the world as a lucid speaker and writer who happens to be a moderate Muslim. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Coalition for Democracy, which has circulated his latest column from the Trono Sun. Here are some choice excerpts:

As Islamist terrorism, however despicable, became mundane occurrence in the daily news cycle, the deafening silence of Muslims -- except for lonely voices of feeble opposition -- has given credence to growing numbers of non-Muslims that Islam is as much a religion of peace as the Klanmen's politics is an expression of multiculturalism [emphasis added].



But there is another side to this abject reality. The Muslim majority's silence is greatly compounded by the appeasement mentality in the West of the mainstream liberal-left media, politicians trolling for ethnic votes and bureaucrats running public institutions....



It is as if more diversity training for public officials, more accommodation of demands made by fundamentalist Muslims, greater willingness to self-flagellate for sins long past of western colonialism, more policing of what might be politically incorrect speech and writing about Islamists or Saudi Arabia's official cult (Wahhabism) of bigotry masquerading as a world religion, will somehow mysteriously translate into taming suicide-bombers and their masters to reciprocate kindly to the liberal-left sensibilities of people in the West.



How morally enfeebled... is the West?

Financial Markets and Ponzi Schemes

Nouriel Roubini explains why he thinks there is a very good chance the current financial situation is likely to get worse:

[T]oday any wealthy individual can take $1 million and go to a prime broker and leverage this amount three times; then the resulting $4 million ($1 equity and $3 debt) can be invested in a fund of funds that will in turn leverage these $4 millions three or four times and invest them in a hedge fund; then the hedge fund will take these funds and leverage them three or four times and buy some very junior tranche of a CDO that is itself levered nine or ten times. At the end of this credit chain, the initial $1 million of equity becomes a $100 million investment out of which $99 million is debt (leverage) and only $1 million is equity. So we got an overall leverage ratio of 100 to 1. Then, even a small 1% fall in the price of the final investment (CDO) wipes out the initial capital and creates a chain of margin calls that unravel this debt house of cards. This unraveling of a Minskian Ponzi credit scheme is exactly what is happening right now in financial markets. [emphasis added]

Furthermore, Roubini thinks the unraveling of this ponzi scheme will lead to a hard landing in the US economy:

So combine an opaque and unregulated global financial system where moderate levels of leverage by individual investors pile up into leverage ratios of 100 plus; and add to this toxic mix investments in the most uncertain, obscure, misrated, mispriced, complex, esoteric credit derivatives (CDOs of CDOs of CDOs and the entire other alphabet of credit instruments) that no investor can properly price; then you have created a financial monster that eventually leads to uncertainty, panic, market seizure, liquidity crunch, credit crunch, systemic risk and economic hard landing. The last two asset and credit bubbles in the US – the S&L real estate bubble and bust of the late 1980s and the tech stock bubble of the late 1990s – ended up in painful recessions. The latest credit and asset bubble was much bigger: housing, mortgages, credit, private equity and LBOs, credit derivatives, corporate re-leveraging. So, the current bust and de-leveraging of the financial system is likely to lead to another painful economic hard landing.

What puzzles me is this: if what Roubini says is right, why haven't others seen it, too? and if they saw it (and acted on it) then Roubini cannot be correct because the markets will already have taken it into consideration. I really don't see such a hard landing in the future. Slower growth? yes, almost certainly. A quarter or two of negative growth? quite possibly. Prolonged recession? Probably not. But I am still probably a bit more pessimistic than this:

The financial turmoil that began with the seemingly narrow meltdown in subprime mortgages is now forcing both policy makers and Wall Street analysts to scale back their expectations for growth in the overall economy.



Most economists still predict continued economic growth for the rest of the year and into 2008, but many are trimming their forecasts and warning that even their somewhat darker views could be too rosy.

For more, read the regular postings by the ever-insightful King Banaian and Bill Polley.

Ingleborough Peak

Stuart insists that when I return to the Yorkshire Dales, he will accompany me on a walk up and down Ingleborough Peak (live webcam shot here)and Whernside Peak. These peaks make up two of the famous Three Peaks Walk. The goal is to make the 24.5-mile walk up and down all three peaks in under 12 hours. Well, I walked up and down Pen-y-Ghent (the third of the three peaks) last June, so I figure if I do the other two before this coming June I'll have met some kind of criterion for having completed the three peaks in under 12 months ....



Stuart has no idea how slow I am. He may regret having made the offer and having insisted that he meant it.

Oh well. Over a year ago, Jay said that if I returned to England, he would drive me up to Scotland on his motorcycle. He was pretty chagrined when I actually showed up last April and reminded him of the offer — and he was greatly relieved when I told him I didn't really believe it was an offer (as in "offer and acceptance" in contract law). Similarly, I won't hold Stuart to his offer.

But I will try very hard to return to the Yorkshire Dales. They were absolutely spectacular.



Way off in the distance in this photo, you can just make out Pen-y-Ghent, which I walked up and down (and back to Settle) the following day.



The above photo was taken while I was walking to the small town Settle from the small town of Malham via Malham Cove (shown below):







Along the way, I passed the aptly named Rye Loaf Hill. This is another place to which I feel inexorably drawn, another must-visit when I return to the area. The photo below on the left is from the NE, and the photo on the right is from the west:







Note: because my cameras were out of commission, these photos were taken with my cell phone; not bad, eh?

Square Watermelons They Take Up Less Room in the Fridge

It's not a joke, and they've been around for nearly a decade. From the BBC via Snopes. Farmers force the watermelons to grow inside cube-shaped tempered glass containers.



The cube-shaped watermelons cost about 4 times as much to buy as the regular round ones, but I guess if space is at a premium they might be worth the extra expense --- a reasonable trade-off, given the relative factor endowments.

Anti-Semitic Site and Google

When you type "Jew" in Google's search engine, one of the first few websites that pops up right after Wikipedia is something called "Jewwatch.com" [no link on purpose] — an anti-semitic, hate-filled harangue masquerating as "scholarly, factual, informational".



You may want to add your name to the petition to remove www.jewwatch.com from Google's search engine. (If necessary, check out the site and you will understand why.)



If so, please go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23/petition.html to sign the petition.



The response from Google has been this:

If you recently used Google to search for the word "Jew," you may have seen results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by the sites in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google. We'd like to explain why you're seeing these results when you conduct this search.



A site's ranking in Google's search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query. Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted. A search for "Jew" brings up one such unexpected result.



If you use Google to search for "Judaism," "Jewish" or "Jewish people," the results are informative and relevant. So why is a search for "Jew" different? One reason is that the word "Jew" is often used in an anti-Semitic context. Jewish organizations are more likely to use the word "Jewish" when talking about members of their faith. The word has become somewhat charged linguistically, as noted on websites devoted to Jewish topics such as these:



* http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol01/vol01.174

* http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah081500.asp



Someone searching for information on Jewish people would be more likely to enter terms like "Judaism," "Jewish people," or "Jews" than the single word "Jew." In fact, prior to this incident, the word "Jew" only appeared about once in every 10 million search queries. Now it's likely that the great majority of searches on Google for "Jew" are by people who have heard about this issue and want to see the results for themselves.



The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.



We apologize for the upsetting nature of the experience you had using Google and appreciate your taking the time to inform us about it.



Sincerely,

The Google Team



p.s. You may be interested in some additional information the Anti-Defamation League has posted about this issue at http://www.adl.org/rumors/google_search_rumors.asp. In addition, we call your attention to Google's search results on this topic.

Given Google's response, I doubt if this petition will have any effect. And as someone who strongly believes in freedom of expression and competition in the marketplace for ideas, I really do have mixed feelings about this situation. In the end, I've come down on the side of trying to get rid of such hate literature, but I have some concerns about this position.

Pay-at-the-Pump

It used to be the case that many self-service gas stations charged a price for gasoline that was slightly below the price that would maximize their profits, if gasoline were the only thing they sold, because the lower prices attracted customers who then bought high mark-up items like candy, pop, beer, chips, etc. when they went inside to pay (see the comment here for example).



Now that pay-at-the-pump is so prevalent, has the pricing structure at gasoline-convenience stores changed? It is so much easier to pay for gas at the pump that I cannot imagine many people pay inside unless they want to buy something besides their gasoline or unless they pay with cash (I always prefer to pay by credit card, gladly accepting the 30-day interest-free loan provided by my bank).



To the extent that the "loss-leader" theory was correct in the olden days, that must mean it doesn't work very well any more. Pay-at-the-pump means that people just are not lured inside by the lower price of gasoline unless they pay with cash or unless they want to buy something else.



So, has gasoline pricing changed? Have gas station convenience stores begun to charge more than they would if they didn't have pay-at-the-pump? I have no way of knowing; too many other variables have changed, so it is hard to tell if the pricing practices have changed.



I do see this, though: The Mac's Milk near us still charges several cents per litre less than other off-brand stations in our area AND it has pay-at-the-pump. However, if you want a receipt, you have to go inside to get one from the cashier.



Perhaps that is just a different way of luring people inside to buy some junk food, lottery tickets, or whatever.

Is the BBC in Bed with Islamic Terrorists?

It sure looks as if they are. From the Telegraph [h/t to BenS],

Over the weekend, the BBC was forced to remove a highly offensive message about Jesus from its website... [W]hy had this message been allowed to remain there for a week, despite complaints?



Anti-Muslim comments vanish instantly. Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the BBC has refused to allow Casualty [an ER-type programme] to carry a storyline featuring a terrorist attack by a Muslim suicide bomber. The editorial guidelines department decreed that, instead, the terrorists should be animal rights extremists.



The BBC's coverage of Islamic affairs has been unsatisfactory for many years.



In its international and domestic news reporting, the corporation has consistently come across as naïve and partial, rather than sensitive and unbiased. Its reporting of Israel and Palestine, in particular, tends to underplay the hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspires Hamas and other factions, while never giving Israel the benefit of the doubt. (Disgracefully, the BBC is still refusing to publish the Balen Report, which it commissioned to investigate allegations of anti-Israel bias.)



In its coverage of British Muslims, the BBC has been inspired by two laudable aims: to treat their beliefs respectfully; and to avoid stereotyping ordinary Muslims as terrorist supporters. In the process, however, it has done two rather different things.



First, it has presented Islam on its own terms, as if only Muslims had the authority to describe their religion.



Mohammed remains an intensely controversial figure. Yet the BBC shies away from proper historical investigation of "the Prophet", as it insists on calling him.



Second, the BBC has only scratched the surface of one of the biggest news stories of the decade: the penetration of Muslim youth by Islamic supremacist groups.



Indeed, the corporation has even helped this to happen.



Again and again, it has wheeled on Islamic "moderates" who belong to hard-line sects that real moderate Muslims are desperate to stop their children joining.



It has been left to Channel 4 to conduct undercover investigations in radical mosques and to commission a 2007 GFK/NOP opinion poll revealing that almost a quarter of British Muslims believe that the Government helped stage the London bombings of July 7, 2005.



We live in a world in which, although the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim. [emphasis added]...



To ban a storyline featuring Islamic terrorists not only misrepresents reality; it is also an insult to licence-payers whose family, friends or colleagues were blown to pieces on July 7 - and not by animal rights activists.

As Richard Littlejohn writes in The Daily Mail,

"Good morning, this is the news from the BBC. A group of animal rights activists has hijacked four airliners and flown them into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington."



I'm sorry, I'll read that again. "Four members of the anti-vivisection movement have blown themselves up on the London Transport network, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more."



I don't think so. "Two doctors have attempted a suicide car bomb attack on Glasgow airport. The League Against Cruel Sports has claimed responsibility."



As the late Bill Deedes might have said: shurely shome mishtake.



But it all makes about as much sense as the BBC's decision to can an episode of Casualty which starts with a young Muslim blowing himself up in a crowded bus station - and rewrite it so that the bombing is carried out by animal rights extremists.



The Casualty plotline was rejected by the Beeb's "editorial and ethical standards" commissars, who were worried that it was stereotyping young Muslims as terrorists.



The BBC likes to boast about the gritty reality of its dramas. But if that were the case, they'd have stuck with the original script.



In real life, it's Muslims committing all the terrorist atrocities in Britain these days.



That's not to say that all Muslims are terrorists, far from it, but to pretend that the bunny liberation brigade are bombing bus stations is preposterous. ...

I would love to see a major political party advocate the abolition of the BBC. Or at the very least a major cutback in their funding.

To What Extent Should the Fed (or any other Gubmnt Agency) Bail Out the Big-Time Risk-Takers?

The opening in Tuesday's lead financial article in the NYTimes:

Wall Street thinks the Federal Reserve is running short of time.



After another day of restless anxiety in the world’s credit markets, most lenders and investors remained fearful of all but the very safest Treasury securities, and new figures showed that the rate of foreclosures in the housing market in July was almost double that of a year ago.



Analysts now say that the central bank’s move last Friday to restore confidence by encouraging banks to borrow directly from the Fed at a lower cost has had only limited impact so far and that the Fed will need to take more drastic action by cutting its benchmark interest rate soon if it fails to see more progress.

But it is clear from the article that many within the Fed see no reason to bail out those who persisted in taking risks in the sub-prime mortgage market long after many of the rest of us were pointing to the dangers lurking beneath the surface of that market.



I, for one, will be pretty concerned if the Fed does indeed prop up these markets by infusing extra liquidity into the markets and lowering interest rates. Doing so will send a signal that risks in these types are markets are asymmetrical: the investors get to keep the upside gains, but the gubmnt or central bank will be there to protect investors from the possibility of downside losses.



This kind of signal will encourage others in the future to take more risks, creating an even more fragile financial system in the future. Ben Bernanke and The Fed must resist this type of pressure and take the longer-run view. Otherwise the economy as a whole will see people taking inefficiently large amounts of risk, diverting financial capital away from less risky projects. That's fine so long as things go well, but should things not go so well, the required bail-outs will involve massive gubmnt interventions and less future reliance on markets. People will point and say, "See? Free-market capitalism doesn't work!" when in fact the crisis will have been caused by too much gubmnt intervention in the short run.



To avoid this scenario, The Fed and all those who have counted on its bailing them out, must bite the bullet now and not pump liquidity into the economy simply to bail out the risk takers. There might be other important reasons to keep the liquidity growing, but bailing out financial risk-takers now will only cause more problems in the longer run.

Why Is There a Shortage of Family Physicians?

We know why there are shortages of physicians of all types in Canada: The gubmnt banned extra-billing, thus keeping the price below the equilibrium price for all physicians, and at the same time medical schools cut back on admissions and graduations (in an ill-designed attempt to cut health-care costs) in the 1980s.



But why is there a shortage of GPs in the US? A facebook friend wrote to my son (Adam Smith Palmer) back in April,

Things aren't much better south of the border. The plethora of machines makes access readily available, but the number of exams being done has gone up exponentially as a result. That's led to imaging centers buying more machines to make sure there are absolutely no wait lists in an effort to compete with their neighbors. You can imagine what this does to insurance premiums in and of itself. ...



And what does the average American get for the high premiums? A shortage of family docs that parallels our own [in Canada].

He also wrote that when he and his family went to a large urban area for a year, they were advised to sign up immediately to get a family physician. They were put on a 6-month waiting list!



What he wrote was later laid out in an article in the WSJ referenced here [h/t to Brian Ferguson].

A "critical shortage" of primary care physicians [PCPs] in Massachusetts has led many doctors to stop accepting new patients, according to a report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Wall Street Journal reports [EE: led to? how about "resulted from"?]. According to the Journal, the lack of PCPs "threatens to undermine" the Massachusetts health insurance law, which took effect July 1 and requires all state residents to obtain coverage or face tax penalties.



The study found that 49% of internists in the state are not accepting new patients and that 95% of the 270 general practice physicians at Boston's top three teaching hospitals have stopped accepting new patients. The Journal reports that "some providers say they have no idea how they will accommodate an additional half-million patients seeking checkups and other routine care." The average wait time for Massachusetts residents who make an appointment with their PCP is more than seven weeks — a 57% increase over last year, according to the medical society.

It appears the demand has increased as a result of the health insurance law (in Massachusetts, at least) without a concomitant increase in the supply.



So why is there a shortage of GPs in the U.S., where markets are allegedly so free? I always tell my students, "You cannot say there is a shortage; you must say there is a shortage at the current price!"



My guess is that because of health insurance, specialists earn buckets of money, but GPs are much less lucratively recompensed (especially true for Medicaid cases, I'm told). If so, people might very well begin medical school intending to become family physicians, but the salary differential is so huge and raises the opportunity costs of becoming a GP so much, they are drawn into some specialty. But that still doesn't explain why the market hasn't adjusted. Why, even in Boston, is there a shortage of GPs? Are they not allowed to raise their fees? Is it not possible to find a GP who will take you on as a patient by offering to pay more? Is that an equilibrium? As the WSJ ($, no link) says,

... [P]rimary-care doctors, including internists, family physicians, and pediatricians, are in short supply across the country. Their numbers dropped 6% relative to the general population from 2001 to 2005... . The proportion of third-year internal medicine residents choosing to practice primary care fell to 20% in 2005, from 54% in 1998.



A principal reason: too little money for too much work. Median income for primary-care doctors was $162,000 in 2004.... Specialists earned a median of $297,000, with cardiologists and radiologists exceeding $400,000.

At the same time, is it possible the markets are in the process of adjusting? If so, look for compensation for GPs to rise relative to that for specialists. But if that doesn't happen, look for continued shortages of GPs (at the current relative prices) so long as health insurance and gubmnt programmes keep the compensation for GPs fixed below market-clearing prices.

Bird Optimization

A few days ago, Brian Ferguson sent me this article from the Sun-Sentinel:

For a type of Australian bird called the superb fairy-wren, ... [r]esearchers found that wren moms with little help lay larger eggs, getting their chicks started off on the right foot.



But mother wrens who have a lot of helpers around don't have to bother; they produce smaller eggs, knowing there will be plenty of birds bringing home food for the little ones.



Researchers, led by Andrew F. Russell of the University of Sheffield in England, studied these birds because they knew that some of the parents raise chicks on their own while others live in cooperative groups with lots of helpers.

The baby birds raised in the co-ops received 19% more food than those raised only by their parents. It's as if the parents in co-ops know that the younger birds will be well-fed in the co-op and hence they cut back on how much energy and food they invest in the chick while it is ovate.



Why do they do this? What are they saving their energy and food for?

The probable reason, they suggested, was that the females breeding in groups were ``reducing their own investment in reproduction to save resources for future breeding attempts.''

Brian commented when he sent me the piece that this seems like first-order maximization to him. I'm still puzzled by it though.

• Is there any risk that birds might be expelled from the co-op? If so, then I can imagine that preserving energy and body weight might be a good insurance strategy for the "superb fairy-wrens", as suggested by the researchers. But if not, why bother saving up for the future?
• How long can these birds store body weight and energy, anyway? If they save up, how long can they save it?
• If there is no risk of expulsion from the co-op, then there is no reason for these birds to buy insurance by giving birth to smaller eggs. So why else would they give birth to smaller chicks?
• Maybe it's just a standard problem with co-ops: parents know others will help feed their chicks, so they don't do as much pre-natal childcare themselves — i.e., they shirk

I like the shirking explanation. Parents can loaf a bit and relax, maybe hang out a bit more. If so, Brian's explanation in econom-ese is pretty good.

Global Warming: Growing Doubt & Increasing Skepticism

I have always felt uneasy with arguments (and especially arguers) on both sides of the global warming questions. I have a sense that people from both sides make selective use of data and examples, and I am quite put off by the ad hominem arguments that are made (particularly by those who label the questioner-skeptics as "deniers" and pawns of the carbon-based fuel industries).



This uneasiness that I have felt probably explains why I continue to encourage readers to avoid the ad hominems and to look at the arguments put forward by the questioner-skeptics with an open mind. Here and here [h/t to Cafe Hayek] are two columns from The Boston Globe that raise very important questions about global warming and the extent to which it

• (a) is or is not occurring
• (b)is caused by human burning of fossil fuels
• (c) can or should be ameliorated and
• (d) can be controlled in any sense that might be considered "cost-effective".

After reading those two items, it is difficult not to be skeptical or at least less zealous about promoting the Kyoto agreement.



And speaking of the Kyoto Accords, if you have the time, watch this scathing attack on the global warming zealots (I'm really not trying to name-call here, but that term applies to many of the people I've talked with [h/t to Judith]).



If you have an open mind, and if you must rely on appeals to authority, after watching this video and after reading the articles from The Boston Globe, at the very least you will be saying, "hmmmmm....maybe things aren't quite as they are presented by the major media when it comes to global warming..."

The Top Ten Photos of Space from Hubble

I am absolutely gob-smacked by the enormity of it all. For all ten photos, see this. This photo named number one is of the Sombrero Galaxy, which is estimated to contain 800 billion suns.

Public Toilets

Given how frequently I seem to write about toilets on this blog (for example, see here or here), it is only fitting that I share this Youtube video with you. It is a practical joke, and I am generally opposed to getting our jollies at the expense of others. But this one is funny, and I don't think I'd have been too upset had I been the, uh, butt of this joke.

Boo Weekley, my new sports hero:"I'm in it for the money"

I watched an interview with Boo Weekley, a golfer on the PGA Tour last weekend. He essentially said (sorry for the paraphrase),

I love golf and I like to play the game, but after I've done it for maybe ten or twelve years and got enough money saved up, I'm gonna retire and go home. I'd much rather be huntin' and fishin'.

It's not that I would rather be "huntin' and fishin'"; rather, it's that I enjoy the refreshing honesty of Weekley, who appears to have few pretentions. For example, see this article from a few years ago:

Wonders follow wonders in this world, few more delightful than that wrought by Thomas Brent Weekley, known as Boo because of a childhood fascination with the Yogi Bear TV cartoon character Boo-Boo.



Boo Weekley has come in from the campfire to play the 2002 PGA Tour. He's teeing it up with the city folk. He's walking where Tiger Woods walks.



Only he doesn't walk in fancy shoes. Real golf shoes hurt his feet, so Weekley plays in sneakers. Most times he ties the laces. Cotton and polyester exacerbate a skin disease on his right leg. ("Maybe got it rubbin' against my granddaddy's cow.") To abide by tour rules against players wearing shorts, he wears rain pants.

No, I'm not a golf addict. I consider it a success if I score under 100 ... for nine holes.

Great Title

Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show



I.e., contrary to the author's thesis, the conservatives told the truth. At the same time, let me argue that the Left has it all over the Right when it comes to impressario emoting.

. .

I Can Almost Believe This One

About 10 -20 times a day I receive e-mail from someone suggesting that I could become a trusted associate of theirs and keep millions of their dollars if I would just.... [at this point I hit the delete button]. But this one I got yesterday caught my eye.

Dear Friend.

I am Kojo T. Annan, the Son of the just Retired Secretary General of the United Nations, his Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan. If you have been following the events in the United Nations over the last few years, you will remember the big scandal that took place when my father Mr. Annan was forced into retirement and denied an appropriate pension. In retirement, my father will no longer be able to parlay his position into international prizes.



Your contact information was referred to me by one of my trusted contacts, whose name I am not at liberty to compromise.



I would like to approach you with regards to a profitable Business Proposal, regarding the transfer of Thirty One Million Seven Hundred Thousand ($31,700,000) U.S. Dollars into your hands. For reasons I am sure you will appreciate, I ask that you keep this communication confidential, and avoid it falling into the hands of any agents of the Ghanian's Special Services Monitoring commission that may be operating in Your area. [EE: Oops, sorry, Kojo]



You see, my Father had a lot of enemies in the diplomatic circles, who will envy his great fortune. It was they who removed him in the hope to gain access to the money that he collected from honoraria and kickbacks (practices that is quite common in the UN). [emphasis added] ...[much deleted]...



I am at your disposal to answer any questions you may like to ask,so don't hesitate to contact me via my private email address:

[email protected]. I eagerly await your reply, though I must ask you to treat this matter with great secrecy, lest you betray me and my family to the agents of the Ghanian's Special Services Monitoring commission.



Respectfully Yours,



Kojo T. Annan.

I'm an 82% Feminist

Less than Alan (87%), more than Rondi (77%):

You Are 82% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

I see this as one of those quizzes on which it is good NOT to score super high. To score high, one would have to agree with some leftist views that are contrary to libertarianism. Also, to score high, one would have to not just accept but embrace same-sex parenting, other gay rights, and abortion rights, and I'm not prepared to go that far. I think scores in the 70s and 80s are a pretty good indication of someone's support for individual freedom.

I Would Rather Be Unhealthy

I know it is good for me to eat vegetables. I have even gotten so I can tolerate some. But given this list, I will opt to be unhealthy:

5 Superstar Veggies

Artichokes

Radishes

Broccoli

Red chicory

Leeks

From this list, I don't mind broccoli at all and eat it often. But I absolutely hate radishes and can only tolerate the others. In the grand scheme of maximizing the net present value of my expected future utility (we all do this, whether we know it or not), I'd rather take a chance on being less healthy than have to eat more of those veggies.

The Guardian: Fact or Fiction?

From Stephen Pollard,

... they rejected this entirely factual and mainstream piece by him [Dr. Denis MacEoin] on antisemitism, dismissing it as exaggerated.



Who'd ever have thought that the Guardian would behave like that, eh?

And check out the comment, too. The entire episode smacks of more anti-semitism by The Guardian.

Irena Sendler -- Deserving Candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize

During the early years of WWII, Irena Sendler saved about 2500 children from being killed by the Nazis in Poland. She risked her life, she suffered imprisonment, and then after the war she worked tirelessly to help reunite the children with parents or relatives who might have survived. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and I cannot think of a more deserving person. But I'll bet she doesn't receive it: the children were Jewish. To read an excellent story of her history and her work, please see this [h/t to Judith].

Mrs. Sendler, code name "Jolanta," smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the last three months before its liquidation. She found a home for each child. Each was given a new name and a new identity as a Christian. Others were saving Jewish children, too, but many of those children were saved only in body; tragically, they disappeared from the Jewish people. Irena did all she could to ensure that "her children" would have a future as part of their own people.



Mrs. Sendler listed the name and new identity of every rescued child on thin cigarette papers or tissue paper. She hid the list in glass jars and buried them under an apple tree in her friend's backyard. Her hope was to reunite the children with their families after the war. Indeed, though most of their parents perished in the Warsaw Ghetto or in Treblinka, those children who had surviving relatives were returned to them after the war.

What a selfless heroine! Please take a few minutes to read the entire story.