Who's Afraid of the Fiscal Cliff?

I may be coming to the conclusion that going over the so-called fiscal cliff could be the right thing to do, not for the strategic political advantage some may see, but as a reasonable, practical step toward doing the moral thing. One thing I am certain of is that the "confluence of unpleasant consequences" does not represent a cliff in any real way--more a "bump in the road" to use the president's vernacular.

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN - Were the average Republican asked for a succinct statement of his views on taxation, he or she might respond thus:

“U.S. tax rates are too high for the world we must compete in. The tax burden — federal, state, local, together — is too heavy. We need to cut tax rates to free up our private and productive sector and pull this economy out of the ditch.”

This core conviction holds the party together.

Yet today the leadership is about to abandon this conviction to sign on to higher tax rates or revenues, while the economy is nearing stall speed. Yet, two years ago, President Obama himself extended the Bush tax cuts because, he said, you do not raise taxes in a recovering economy.

Why are Republicans negotiating this capitulation?

Because they have been warned that if they do not sign on to a tax hike, they will take us all over a fiscal cliff.

If we go over, Republicans are being told, you will be responsible for tax hikes on all Americans as the Bush tax cuts expire on Jan. 1.

You will be responsible for a surge in tax rates on dividends, interest, capital gains, estates.

You will be responsible for an automatic sequester catastrophic to the national defense.

This is the pistol Obama is pointing at the GOP. This is extortion.

The Debunker asks: Should the GOP cave on tax hikes?

Republicans are being told that they either vote for something they believe to be wrong and ruinous — or get something worse. Pay the ransom, fellas, Obama is demanding, or take the blame for a second recession.

Like the Panama Canal debate that made Ronald Reagan a hero, this is a defining moment. No GOP senator who agreed to the Carter-Torrijos treaty ever made it onto a national ticket.

What are the perils for Republicans who sign on to an Obama deal? continue reading...

The First Thanksgiving

This post was originally published in 2005, and is re-presented here. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) has republished an essay from the 1950s by economist, lecturer, and writer, Sartell Prentice, Jr. about the first Thanksgiving. Three years after arriving at Plymouth Rock and enduring near starvation under the European scheme of "farming in common," the Pilgrims “set apart a day of thanksgiving.” With the plentiful harvest of 1623, Governor Bradford later noted, “Any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day.”

Here's a truffle passage from the essay that could be a case study as to why we must study natural law:

Three years of near starvation—and then decades of abundance. Was this a miracle?

Or is there a rational explanation for this sudden change in the fortunes of our Pilgrim forefathers?

Describing events that took place in the spring of 1623, Governor Bradford answers our questions, in eloquent words that should be engraved on the hearts and minds of all Americans:

All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular [private use], and in that regard trust to themselves . . . . And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that among godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing;—as if they were wiser than God.

For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, with out any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors, and victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them.

And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set among men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutual respects that should be preserved among them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition.

Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

This new policy of allowing each to “plant for his own particular” produced such a harvest that fall that Governor Bradford was able to write:

By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effect of their particular [private] planting was well seen, for all had, one way and other, pretty well to bring the year about, and some of the abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day.

Our first Thanksgiving should, therefore, be interpreted as an expression of gratitude to God, not so much for the great harvest itself, as for granting the grateful Pilgrims the perception to grasp and apply the great universal principle that produced that great harvest: Each individual is entitled to the fruits of his own labor. Property rights are, therefore, inseparable from human rights.

If man abides by this law, he will reap abundance; if he violates this law, suffering, starvation, and death will follow, as night the day.

This is the essential meaning of the two great Commandments, “Thou shalt not covet” and “Thou shalt not steal.”

Why I am Done Supporting the CCHD, and You Should Be, Too

[T]he purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment or sheer ignorance of circumstances. - Stafford Beer

It's going on three years now since the issue was first raised of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development [CCHD] directly and indirectly financing groups that work actively against Church teaching, i.e., promoting intrinsic evils.

After the matter was brought to the bishops' attention, a set of reforms, called the Review and Renewal, was put in place ostensibly to prevent this from happening. At the time, I adopted essentially a "wait and see" attitude, with some serious concerns still remaining.


Well, now we have the results of the reforms for 2011-12, and the conclusion remains the same: If you are a faithful Catholic who cares whether your stewardship dollars support causes in line with Church teaching, then keep your wallet closed when the CCHD plate comes by for the 2012-13 campaign, which will begin in many parishes this weekend before Thanksgiving.

Audit Highlights of CCHD Grants for 2011-12

Image: ReformCCHDNow

• 38% of grantees are directly involved in, or are actively involved in organizations that are directly involved in, activities contrary to Church teaching and in violation of the reformed CCHD guidelines. This is up from 21% in 2009-10 and 24% in 2010-11.
• 38% of dollars granted went to these violating organizations. The grants total $2,889,500. This is an increase of $1,026,500, or 55%, from 2010-11.
• 24% of the Catholic dioceses in the US had grantees in violation of the CCHD guidelines (including the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis).
• 51% of the violating grantees appear to be either guilty of formal cooperation with evil, or are in proximate danger of formal cooperation.

On paper, the idea of the CCHD is an elegant combination of the social justice principles of solidarity and subsidiarity being directed to address the human suffering caused by poverty and to promote human dignity. Regardless the intentions, the reality is something quite different. Human dignity is not served by supporting such causes.

When the level of undesirable unintended consequences increases after attempting to manage a system, it reveals how poorly the behavior of that system is understood. When those consequences are more than undesirable, but represent the promotion of evil, then it is probably time to shut the thing down.

I know this could very well annoy clergy who vote like militant twentysomething feminist secular humanists and other social justice-y dissident Catholic types. So be it. My message to them is the same as it was to the orthodox laity two years ago and remains today:

[T]here is nothing stopping anyone from supporting directly [those] worthy organizations that are fighting poverty on the front lines.

Additional Information

For more details on the audit's methodology and the communication of the results to the bishops, check out this in-depth interview with Michael Hichborn and Rob Gaspar of the American Life League.

Will Chairman Ryan Go To Hell? Bishop Blaire May Think So

And he may very well. After all, who here really knows his heart? But if he does, I'm sure it won't be because of the budget.

CRISIS - We interrupt the presidential campaign to raise this pressing question. Back in 1969, Bill Buckley sent my parents a hilarious book—not his, but his sister’s. Aloïse Buckley Heath was mother of ten rambunctious and inquisitive children, one of whom asked her, some 48 Octobers ago, if Tommy Major’s mother, who lived next door, would go to Hell because she planned to vote for Lyndon Johnson.

The outcome of that saga will have to wait—but a similar rumination comes to mind today. The Chairman of the House Budget Committee, vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), insists that he respects and embraces Catholic social teaching when drafting legislation. Yet, for over a year, Mr. Ryan’s budget proposal has been roundly condemned by a prominent successor to the Apostles. Since the “Ryan Budget” slows the rate of growth in taxpayer-funded social programs, Rep. Ryan has been repeatedly attacked by Bishop Steven Blaire of Stockton, California, brandishing the widely-respected brand name of the USCCB, where he chairs a committee. Bishop Blaire calls Mr. Ryan’s budget cuts (sic) “unjust and wrong” and asserts that they fail to meet “moral criteria.” His condemnation has been gleefully trumpeted by the religious left, with Georgetown University faculty members, Maureen Dowd, and Al Sharpton in the lead.

Recently, several bishops have come to the defense of Mr. Ryan—not endorsing his budget, but affirming his right as a layman to exercise the laity’s specific “charism of political leadership and decision,” as Timothy Cardinal Dolan, citing Lumen Gentium, wrote to the congressman in May 2011. Since then, Catholics both lay and clerical have fruitfully unearthed and explored the distinction between issues involving moral absolutes which bind the informed Catholic conscience, on the one hand, and the freedom of the faithful to differ on approaches to prudential issues, on the other. For Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Rep. Ryan’s ordinary, the first category addresses “intrinsic evils,” while the second comprises issues “where intrinsic evil is not involved. How best to care for the poor,” Bishop Morlino continues, “is probably the finest current example of this.” continue reading...

The Choice

I heard on the radio today that this year's presidential election has effectively been reduced to whether America will follow the principles of her own Revolution, or those of the French Revolution. Because I'm not sure the extent to which the French Revolution's ideals truly have survived even in France, I'm hesitant to jump on to that suggestion.

In reality, the image I have is more along the lines of the beginning of An American Werewolf in London:

Two American college students, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are backpacking across the Yorkshire moors. As darkness falls, they decide to stop for the night at a pub called "The Slaughtered Lamb". Jack notices a five-pointed star on the wall. When he asks about it, the pub becomes very quiet and the pubgoers start acting very strange and hostile. The pair decide to leave, but not before the others offer them pieces of advice such as "Beware the moon, lads" and "Keep to the road." Whilst conversing with each other and wondering what they meant, they wander off the road, onto the moors.

Back at the pub, the owner gets very distressed and suggests that they go after the pair. As she says this, a sinister howling is heard. The rest of the pubgoers, having barricaded the door, decline. Back out on the moors, Jack and David have also heard the howls, and they seem to be steadily getting closer.

In this telling, our choice is whether we scamper back to the road, but even if we try, it's not certain we will find it and keep from being "fundamentally transformed." Yes, the stakes may be that high.

“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy.

It is common for one party to take control and enact its ideological agenda. Ascendancy, however, occurs only when the opposition inevitably regains power and then proceeds to accept the basic premises of the preceding revolution.

Thus, Republicans railed for 20 years against the New Deal. Yet when they regained the White House in 1953, they kept the New Deal intact.

And when Nixon followed LBJ’s Great Society — liberalism’s second wave — he didn’t repeal it. He actually expanded it. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), gave teeth to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and institutionalized affirmative action — major adornments of contemporary liberalism.

Until Reagan. Ten minutes into his presidency, Reagan declares that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Having thus rhetorically rejected the very premise of the New Deal/Great Society, he sets about attacking its foundations — with radical tax reduction, major deregulation, a frontal challenge to unionism (breaking the air traffic controllers for striking illegally) and an (only partially successful) attempt at restraining government growth.

Reaganism’s ascendancy was confirmed when the other guys came to power and their leader, Bill Clinton, declared (in his 1996 State of the Union address) that “the era of big government is over” — and then abolished welfare, the centerpiece “relief” program of modern liberalism. continue reading...

Lest We Forget: Obamacare Summed Up in One Sentence [Video]

Cry all you want about the solidarity and social justice of this non-universal universal health care scheme, but at some point everyone will have to face the fact that the probability of it working anywhere near as intended is zero.



Link to video.

Now, I know this is not slavishly accurate, but it is correct in the main. And if you dispute that, consider this from Thomas Sowell:

One of the strongest talking points of those who want a government-run medical care system is that we simply cannot afford the high and rising costs of medical care under the current system.

First of all, what we can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. We will either pay those costs or not get the benefits. Moreover, if we cannot afford the quantity and quality of medical care that we want now, the government has no miraculous way of enabling us to afford it in the future.

If you think the government can lower medical costs by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse," as some Washington politicians claim, the logical question is: Why haven't they done that already?

Over the years, scandal after scandal has shown waste, fraud and abuse to be rampant in Medicare and Medicaid. Why would anyone imagine that a new government medical program will do what existing government medical programs have clearly failed to do?

If we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical drugs now, how can we afford to pay for doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical drugs, in addition to a new federal bureaucracy to administer a government-run medical system? (emphasis added)

What could possibly go wrong? Indeed.

(HHT: CV)

Going Back to That Amazing Statistic: 92.3 Percent of all the Jobs Lost During the Obama Years have been Lost by Women

It's been a couple of weeks since Mitt Romney peddled that point to counter the gender gap meme, with reasonable success. Now, while it does not demonstrate that a real "War on Women" is being waged by the Obama Administration, as Mr. Romney asserted, it is worth noting two things:

1. The statistic is real.
2. President Obama owns it.

Women have lost 92.3% of all the jobs lost since Barack Obama took office. The Administration and its allies in the media are quick to point out that that fact doesn't tell the whole story, and, in a rare moment of clarity, argue that the context does matter, at least in this case.

Yes, yes, yes:

• The recession began in early 2008, well before Obama became president.
• Recessions generally hit men first by beginning with traditional male jobs like construction, well before traditional female jobs, like teaching, are affected.
• The number of jobless men resulting from the Great Recession is 2x that of women.

*** Sidebar 1

This is one of those instances-so-rare-they-occur-as-often-as-random-mutation-and-natural-selection-leads-to-a-new-species, i.e., an admission from the left that there is such a thing as traditional male and female jobs, or even (non-derisively) "tradition," for that matter.

*** End sidebar 1

Therefore, in the proper context, that 92.3% of all the jobs lost since Barack Obama took office is nothing more than a curious numerical artifact. And only shows how big a mess he inherited from George W. Bush.

*** Sidebar 2

Of course, the Administration would prefer to play the correlation is causation game like this:

(image source: Matthias Shapiro, politicalmathblog.com)

But then that leaves them open to this:

(image source: Matthias Shapiro, politicalmathblog.com)

*** End sidebar 2

This is where the ownership question enters. Now, there are actual limits to how much a president "owns" the state of the economy. In fact, he does not deserve all the credit for when things go well, nor does he deserve all the blame when they don't go well. But consider this:

• Prior to being president, Barack Obama advocated for the very policies that led to the financial crisis that triggered the recession.
• While running for president, Barack Obama participated actively in the discussions regarding the diagnosis and the prescription for the financial crisis.
• As a US Senator, while running for president, Barack Obama voted for the TARP bail-outs.
• As president-elect and president, Barack Obama advocated for the $800 billion so-called stimulus, including, with his surrogates, making claims that the stimulus would prevent the unemployment rate from exceeding 8%.

 OK. So what?

The president claiming he inherited the financial crisis is a bit like the son who was working as a manager for the company that was augering in before the old man died and who then had the gall to complain that he inherited such a lousy company.

Nevertheless, the recession didn't start on his watch and that will allot him the benefit of the doubt with many people. What was on President Obama's watch, however, with him being the Mr. Cool, Wizard of Smart, that he's alleged (hoped?) to be, was that the recession wasn't supposed to be that deep, or certainly not that long and that deep, such that the job losses were never supposed to migrate from those traditional male jobs to traditional female jobs.

That's what. Those female job losses were never supposed to happen.

The president got the Keynesian stimulus he wanted, and he's had 3+ years to "pivot to jobs." In the context that the nation's biggest issue continues to be the economy and jobs, the women's jobless rate being so dramatically affected since Obama took office is but one way to keep that issue front and center during the campaign. And we don't need a dead-cat bounce before we look for the many ways to skin that cat.

The 2012 National Debt Road Trip

Yes, yes, yes, this representation of the national debt story is misleading/unfair/whatever.



Well. Except the last 35 seconds. It's been pointed to before about the president's economic philosophy. There. Is. No. Plan.

3 ½ Time-outs

Around the Horn Edition
(sports, culture, economy, science/tech)

Hosted by Acts of the Apostasy.

-1-

The University of Minnesota has hired Norwood Teague as its new athletic director. Mr. Teague comes to the U from Virginia Commonwealth, where he established a record of fundraising and facilities development, both of which are glaring and growing needs at Minnesota. Critics are concerned that VCU does not have a varsity football program indicates a hole in his background, but supporters are quick to point out that that should make Teague feel right at home with the Golden Gophers.

-2-

The split earlier this month of “Mike and Ike” over “creative differences” has been characterized on both the left and the right as a gay “divorce.” However, as Anderson Cooper has reported, Mike and Ike are not gay, much less “married.” Just sayin’.

-3-

As of about noon CDT…

US National Debt: $15,680,107,000,000 and counting
US National Debt to GDP: 103.67% and counting

-3 ½-

It looks like there is more hope on the horizon for the “folically challenged,” this time through stem cell therapy:

Un/Underemployment Rate Hits 50% for New College Grads

There is welcome news of sorts for Troglotykes #1 & #2, who will be both be in college this fall with academic interests that align with current employer demand. However, on average, a college degree isn't worth what it once was. Like with most everything, the value of a diploma follows supply and demand. From USA Today:

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Take into account the spiraling costs, and the easy access to student loans to cover them in the short term, and, with the earning power shrinking with declining demand when exiting college, it is easy to conclude we are blowing up another economic bubble. The question will be whether we ignore it until it pops, or have the will to try to deflate it. It also means the Troglodytrix and I likely will have to counsel against any potential changes in college majors.

From the E-mail Bag

Actually, it was a text message...

No kidding, just came up with this off the cuff.

Socialism + Obama = Sobamalism

I'm sure someone else has thought of this?

Indeed, someone has. From 2008:

Debt Limit

We are all Austrians now.



By the way, that annoying clacking you're hearing is all the Keynesians scrambling to object as to how naive this analogy is.

Are Progressives Wrong on Crime?

As I noted last week, crime has been down during the recent recession, which ought to put the lie to the notion that poverty causes crime. It is culture that leads economics, not the other way around. Richard Cohen(!) has made the same observation:

[I]t now seems fairly clear that something akin to culture and not economics is the root cause of crime. By and large everyday people do not go into a life of crime because they have been laid off or their home is worth less than their mortgage. They do something else, but whatever it is, it does not generally entail packing heat. Once this becomes an accepted truth, criminals will lose what status they still retain as victims.

...

A good deal of social policy was predicated on such an outlook. It made victims of criminals and criminals of victims (all wealth comes from theft, etc.) -- and in so doing, insulted the law-abiding poor who somehow lacked the wit to appreciate their historic plight. This ideology was mocked by Stephen Sondheim in his lyrics for the "West Side Story" song "Gee, Officer Krupke": "Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, you gotta understand, it's just our bringin' up-ke that gets us out of hand. Our mothers all are junkies, our fathers all are drunks. Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!" In other words, all the gang members were the unavoidable products of their environment.

Common sense tells you that the environment has to play a role and the truly desperate will sometimes break the law -- like Victor Hugo's impoverished Jean Valjean, who stole bread for his sister's children. But the latest crime statistics strongly suggest that bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.

In the Torchlight for May 23, 2010

Torchlight Post:

"I don't remember any of you, but I remember you in my prayers everyday"

Last week at a press conference, my mother-in-law, Pat Hall, took the opportunity to say "Thank you" to those who helped save her life while she was attending a Twins game at Target Field last month. (And I add a “thank you” for those of you who have been praying for her recovery.) When she collapsed on the main concourse during the game, she only knew her legs were giving out, until she woke up the next day in the hospital. She had a cardiac arrest that required several shocks from an AED to re-start her heart. We have heard from many connections to other people who were in the stadium that night about how quickly and professionally the swarm (is there a better word?) of volunteer paramedics, first responders, and doctors rushed to her aid. It is not an exaggeration that, if not for them and if she had been almost anywhere else, she would not have survived. The press conference at the Hennepin County Medical Center occurred during National Emergency Medical Services week, putting a spot light on the professionals and volunteers who are ready to act on our behalf at a moment's notice.

Recent Items from the News Digest:

• Because we cannot go too long without the modern economy being impugned for taking us to the brink of some epic disaster, lest we return to our inner cave dweller ways, the UN’s Environment Program is projecting the world’s oceans will run out of fish in 40 years unless the fishing industry is fundamentally restructured. This assumes, of course, that fisherman do and will behave like wildcatters instead of farmers.
• Chris O’Donnell graces the cover of the June Redbook with his children. To hear the NCIS: Los Angeles star tell it, he made the conscious decision at the age of 25 to pursue a family following his blockbuster stint as Batman’s sidekick, Robin, effectively putting his career on hold. Naysayers will claim his career was flaming out anyway. Regardless, the 13-year marriage and five children for the Catholic-raised O’Donnell and his wife, Caroline Fentress, still counts as counter-cultural in Hollywood.
• Violent and institutional reprisals against free expression offend Western sensibilities, and darn near every student in the last 40 years has seen the animated version of The Hangman. These, I think, are at the heart of "Draw Mohammed Day" on May 20th. While I understand and share the sentiment, it is the object of the activity that troubles me. I do not consider myself bound by any prohibition to draw Mohammed that some Muslims observe, just as I do not abstain from eating pork. Nevertheless, being intentionally provocative only serves to undermine solidarity. Of course, who would expect anything less from the equal opportunity offenders who flocked to the event and each imagined himself a modern day Spartacus?
• Former Oklahoma state senator and current attorney general candidate, Scott Pruitt, has pledged, if elected, to sue the federal government over the costs incurred by the state due to illegal immigration. While some claim (with a stretch) that Arizona’s recent law represents an attempt to usurp the federal government’s authority with respect to border enforcement, not to mention the whole race-baiting meme, the inability of the federal government to execute its constitutional authority regarding national border security is placing a financial burden on the individuals of the several states in the form of increased costs (moneys and access) for social services. It was only a matter of time before some of them started trying to collect on the bill.

You can find links to these stories and more here.

"In the Torchlight" is a weekly post that is part of Sunday Snippets. Sunday Snippets is a Catholic carnival that is hosted each week by RAnn at This, That and the Other Thing. This week's carnival includes, from Smaller Manhattans, a tribute by Christian LeBlanc to his wife. It echoes something I once said in front of a couple hundred people about 10 years ago, which is still true today.

Social Networks Help Recovery

From the journal Science this week:

A long-standing theory suggests that social diversity leads to economic development. By combining the United Kingdom's telephone communication records (both landline and mobile) with information on regional economic conditions, [it has been] demonstrate[d] that network diversity alone accounts for over three-quarters of the variance of a region's economic status. Although the data cannot be used to show causality, the association suggests that economic development and recovery may depend not solely on monetary stimulus but also on the development of a nation's social infrastructure.

Or culture leads economy. Duh.

Gold ATM is a Sign of the Times

From the "It had to happen sooner or later" file...

After test runs in its native Germany, Ex Oriente Lux has installed its first gold vending machine in an Abu Dhabi luxury hotel. Users can select from 10 different "Gold to Go" products offered at a price that is tied to international markets and updated six times an hour, including small bars and custom coins. (Photo credit: REUTERS/Mosab Omar)

Even in uncertain times, or perhaps particularly in them, count on an entrepreneur to try to meet people's latent needs.

The company plans to install ATMs at 200 locations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, focusing locations in "airports, hotels, shopping centers, casinos, cruise liners as well as banks and jeweler shops – locations with large attendance, an attractive environment and high security standards." I guess that means I won't see one at the corner convenience store any time soon.

I'm not a Commentator, but I Play One on TV

From the "Smugness Will Only Get You so Far" file, George Will demonstrates for Bill Maher on ABC's "This Week" that real analysis is harder than it looks:



Must...fight...urge...to...mock...the...mocker...

Newsbuster's has the data and the transcript.

In the Torchlight for May 2, 2010

Torchlight Post:

The abortion battle continues at the state level, while we wait for the court challenges to Obamacare to work themselves out. While there are no great surprises as to which states have taken action so far (all went for McCain in 2008), dozens more reportedly are now considering abortion limitations. As discouraging as the passing of Obamacare was, for multiple reasons, this is no time to stop keeping up the good fight regarding the unborn. This is the human rights issue of our times, and it will influence directly the ethics that surround neonatal care, stem cell research, cloning, human hybridization, etc. on one end of life’s cycle and long-term care, “extraordinary measures.” euthanasia, assisted living, etc. on the other--particularly if we continue our national flirtation with centralized medicine.

Recent Items from the News Digest:

• The president announced a commission to address the mushrooming national debt. A classic case of closing the barn door after the horses are gone.
• Congressional Democrats and the White House crossed Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham by pushing for immigration reform ahead of the climate change legislation he had been working diligently to bring forward. Democrats need at least one cooperative Republican senator for any legislation from here on out. As the president continues to push an aggressive agenda, it’s not yet clear where the agenda now sits.
• An online pet pampering network site has gone live. George Will among others has taken to calling the recent financial crisis, the Great Recession. Note that this pet site is not targeted at the insulated uber-rich, but at millions of Americans. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this kind of networking, but any further comparisons of this economy to the Great Depression ought to be heaped with epic scorn.
• Hawaii’s Republican Gov. Linda Lingle has until July 6th to decide on a bill establishing same sex civil unions. Hawaii was one of the first states to adopt a protection of marriage act. The civil union bill mimics the benefits granted to marriages, but does the (minimal) courtesy of not having to redefine what marriage means. Nevertheless, a rose by any other name… So far the governor is keeping it close to the vest.

"In the Torchlight" is a weekly post that is part of Sunday Snippets. Sunday Snippets is a Catholic carnival that is hosted each week by RAnn at This, That and the Other Thing. This week's carnival includes, from Dymphna's Well, a post about a new study showing that watching R-rated movies as a child increases the likelihood of underage alcohol use.

[submitted by e-mail]