Archives for September, 2006
Needed: Broad-based Coalition to Fight for Ag Reform
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A Financial Times article today points out how difficult U.S. reform of its agricultural programs will be with the collapse of the WTO’s Doha Round. The 2002 Farm Bill expires in 2007, and bringing farm subsidy programs in line with WTO obligations has been a major impetus for reform. Now, without that pressure, prospects are dimming for substantive changes. In fact, farm supporters are calling for an extension of the 2002 legislation instead of a new bill.
Some reformers, like Cal Dooley, president Food Products Association (and soon to be head of the Grocery Manufacturers Association under a merger plan) has said that “a coalition including environmentalists, anti-subsidy development charities such as Oxfam and neglected farmers in areas such as horticulture, wine and livestock would need to come together to effect change.”
CEI has the small beginnings of such a coalition on the U.S. sugar program, the Sugar Reform Alliance, which consists of nonprofit groups of differing ideologies.
New study shows promise, but not cure
A new study just
published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows mixed results in dealing
with Type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes – the most severe type of
diabetes that requires close monitoring of blood sugar, multiple insulin
injections during the day, and a careful balancing of food.
In the study islets, which are cells
in the pancreas that produce insulin, were transplanted into 36 patients with
Type 1 diabetes. Results showed that the
transplanted cells provided insulin independence for up to two years for some
patients, but a majority needed insulin again at two years. The islets also
helped in controlling blood sugar levels.
The cells are taken from the pancreas of dead donors, and in
2001 only 400 were available, while there are 2 million people with juvenile
diabetes. Thus, researchers are
looking to the potential of stem cell research.
Ring fingers and sports potential
All that stuff written about early
admission college programs being discriminatory, here’s a
new wrinkle on possible “early admission” to sports programs. It seem that girls or women whose ring
fingers are longer than their index fingers are much more likely to be good in
sports.
The new report said that measuring early on the ratio of
those fingers “could help identify talented individuals at a
pre-competitive stage.”
Just think – new tests for junior high sports teams. It’s not how well you play the game; it’s
whether your finger ratios fill the bill.
As a shortie, I know I hung from door jambs hoping to
stretch enough to make the 9th grade basketball team. Now you’re likely to find girls pulling on
their ring fingers to make the sports cut.
Life’s not fair. Maybe I’ll find a way to file a discrimination suit.
Is Mozart anti-Muslim?
The Deutsche Oper in Berlin on Monday cancelled a production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” because of fears of inciting Muslim protesters to violence. There was a lot of Sturm und Drang as a result. Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germans shouldn’t “bow to fears of Islamic violence.”
If you’re puzzled—no, it’s not the opera itself that’s a perceived problem (whew!). The avant-garde production of the opera includes Idomeneo—the lead character—pulling the bloody heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha from a sack. That’s not a scene in the libretto, but was the brainchild of the enfant terrible director, Hans Neuenfels.
The opera company isn’t worried, seemingly, about violent pagans, Christians, or Buddhists causing problems—though their deities or prophets are also treated ignominiously in the production. Though “Jerry Springer: The Opera” and its broadcast by the BBC did have a lot of Christians non-violently protesting the depiction of Jesus in diapers and saying: “Actually, I am a bit gay.” And, of course, Madonna’s recent crucifixion act caused a bit of a stir.
Maybe some of Mozart’s other operas in the future could present problems if ethnic tensions build up. After all, there is a pasha in “The Abduction from the Seraglio” that’s treated with contempt. In “The Magic Flute” the evil Moor Monostatos gets his comeuppance. And, of course, outside the world of opera, Shakespeare is always under fire for his depiction of Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.”
The Deutsche Oper’s action has been condemned by those who believe in free speech, as it seems to be capitulating to those who would repress free artistic expression. All that free expression is fine—let people buy tickets or not to see another deconstructionist “Director’s Opera.” For me, I’ll put my money on Mozart straight, without Neuenfels’ additions.
Of Mice and Men
A new study shows that mice that drink moderate amounts of wine everyday suffer from less memory loss and brain cell death. A huge body of evidence has shown that moderate alcohol consumption helps keep people heart-healthy, and CEI had sued for that positive information to appear on alcoholic beverage labels. Now moderate drinking seems to “slow Alzheimer’s-like diseases.”
The happy mice were given Cabernet Sauvignon wine (really!), ethanol, or plain water— their equivalent of two glasses a day. The ones who did best on mazes were the red wine drinkers. Maybe they thought some Zinfandel was at the end of it.
Haymarket Laugh Riot
I don’t know how on in the world I end up on some loony email lists, but they’re at least good for the occasional chuckle. For instance, today I got a sales pitch from the far-left book outfit Haymarket Books, proudly hawking the Noam Chomsky book a copy of which Venezuela’s anti-American strongman Hugo Chavez waved at the United Nations last week.
“SPECIAL OFFER: Get Hegemony or Survival before Amazon can ship it and our exclusive Arundhati Roy DVD (not on Amazon)…Buy Hegemony or Survival with the DVD and receive both the book and DVD for just $25 ($6 off) — use coupon code CHOMSKY at checkout.”
A decidedly un-capitalistic sale!
No “Grounds” for Antitrust Charges against Starbucks
As often happens to successful ventures, Starbucks now faces critics who challenge the company’s leasing contracts, which specify competitors may not occupy the same building. But that’s a sensible business practice for any expanding firm, and there’s always the building next door available to those rivals, anyway. The company is also being attacked for buying out rivals or building nearby stores, as if competition itself were objectionable.
These critics allege that a firm employs “predatory” tactics to drive rivals out of business, snatch their customer base, and amass a larger market share—and charge monopoly prices after achieving all this. As aspiring rivals surface, the now-monopolist merely cuts price again. Yet when has anyone ever seen Starbucks cut its prices? There’s still plenty of room for lower-cost competitors—and even comparable chains, as any Caribou Coffee patron can tell you.
Let consumers vote with their dollars. Note that the complainants are competitors—rival coffee companies—not consumers, who queue outside the doors at many Starbucks outlets. Antitrust opportunism, like that of these challengers, has become silly. We’re talking about coffee grounds; there’s no monopoly—or even possibility of one—here. There are plenty of substitutes for Starbucks’ coffee. We all can buy our own grounds at the grocery store. And the competitors who don’t sell out can undercut Starbucks by selling their coffee for less.
This suit is entirely about protectionism for competitors, nothing more. But nothing is surprising when it comes to the frivolous application of antitrust law, where “monopolies” have been detected in “intense mints,” “jarred pickles,” and “premium” ice cream.
Real predatory behavior isn’t even sustainable, and markets deal with it adequately without governement involvement. Starbucks doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Any predator’s behavior would not go unnoticed by its upstream suppliers and downstream business customers who stand to lose from the predator’s monopolization and reduced wholesale purchases. These suppliers can discipline retailers by taking their business elsewhere—for example, to other coffee chains.
As economist George Reisman has noted, predators invite rivals and speculators to form endless numbers of small competing companies for the sole purpose of slashing the product’s price, forcing the predator to match or react, while shorting the predator’s stock.
The aim of every competitive business is to eliminate rivals and gain as many customers as possible. Starbucks is doing it by voluntary competition; these challengers are trying to use the force of law. As this case shows, abuses of antitrust to secure protection from competition are far more likely to occur than successful predatory pricing itself.
Incorrect correction of a correction
Wouldn’t you think that a reader’s letter correcting factual
errors in a newspaper article wouldn’t be edited to delete the principal
correction? Well, that’s not necessarily
the case, as my letter
today in the Washington Post’s Health Section shows.
Seems the Post last week ran Q’s
and A’s on the E. coli 0157:H7 outbreaks related to spinach. Unfortunately for consumers, it gave some
incorrect information, namely:
“Since 1995, there have been 19 outbreaks of food-borne
illness caused by E. coli 0157: H7. All have involved lettuce or leafy greens.”
In correcting that, my original letter said: “According to
the Centers for Disease Control a major source of transmission is ground beef, and outbreaks
have occurred from consumption of unpasteurized apple juice and milk, sprouts,
salami, lettuce, contact with cattle, as well as waterborne transmission.”
But the phrase I’ve highlighted was deleted.
It’s puzzling why that change was made – wouldn’t consumers
want to know that fresh produce isn’t the only source of contamination? In the
meantime, don’t believe everything you read in the Washington Post . . . even
when it’s corrected.
“Until some of these scientists are dead.”
Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York City, became a darling of the left by claiming that the Bush Administration tried to censor or suppress his personal opinions on global warming public policy questions. (If they did, they did a poor job.) But Dr. Hansen has quite a record of trying to suppress the expression of opposing views. This summer he refused to testify before a House committee hearing on the grounds that the committee had invited a scientist (Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville) who made the mistake of not conforming his views to Dr. Hansen’s. On a television debate broadcast on October 24th, Dr. Hansen complained that one of the five panelists held views that he considers objectionable. He also told the Associated Press in a story published Sept. 24th that “Some of this noise won’t stop until some of these scientists are dead,” referring to scientists skeptical of the claims of global warming alarmism. It is hard not to conclude that underneath his mild Midwestern appearance, Dr. Hansen is an old-fashioned Stalinist at heart. Anyone who disagrees with him must be intimidated into conformity or silence.
It is also worth noting how far out of the mainstream are Dr. Hansen’s own opinions. He recently speculated that sea levels could rise twenty feet per century for the next four centuries. The Third Assessment Report of the U. N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, representing the consensus of scientists with expertise in the field, estimates that continued global warming could cause sea levels to rise up to twenty inches in the next century. This is not meant as a criticism. Scientists far outside whatever the consensus of the moment happens to be often turn out to be right. Dr. Hansen should keep that in mind the next time he tries to shut up someone who disagrees with him.
The New York Times Gets Chemical Plant Security Wrong
Why do liberals always assume that the solution to every
problem is regulation and yet more regulation? That’s the thrust of an
editorial in today’s New York Times that whines: “Congress still has done
nothing to protect Americans from a terrorist attack on chemical plants.” It assumes that Congress has some magical
answer to the issue members refuse to employ because of chemical industry lobbying. It also wrongly claims that nothing has been
done to protect these plants.
Consider the evidence first. All the answers that Congress has considered largely involve growing the
federal bureaucracy with needless paperwork and meddling in production
processes of which they have no knowledge. Indeed, the chemical plant security issue has mostly been used as an
excuse for environmental activists and their allies in Congress to push an environmental
agenda to reduce or eliminate the use of chemicals. It’s not surprising that Greenpeace—which has
advocated banning the chlorine that is necessary to kill dangerous pathogens in
our water supply—leads the effort to push for such “security” legislation. For more information on this angle see CEI’s paper on the topic.
The New York Times has either been fooled by this pretense
or it shares Greenpeace’s dangerous convictions. Their editorial simply parrots the need to
force companies to “replace” dangerous chemicals—based on the naïve assumption
the replacement products will necessarily be safer. But would using “alternative” disinfectants
that are not as effective at killing cholera, dysentery, and other diseases
really be that much safer?
Ironically, when Congress has acted on the issue in the
1990s, it took environmental activists’ advice that actually increased terrorist
risks by publishing sensitive data that terrorists could use to select targets
and plan attack strategies. Back then,
many environmentalists and others on the left didn’t think security was much of
a concern when they advocated these laws.
On the second point, the New York Times’ claim that nothing
is being done belies the fact that that Homeland Security has been working with
managers at chemical plants and other facilities under existing laws and
regulations—which grant more than sufficient power to help shore up
security. Indeed, there are laws
requiring emergency planning at the state and local levels as well as laws
requiring plants to engage in emergency planning. Recent proposals would simply have created a
duplicative planning structures rather than use the ones we already have in
place. What is the point of that? More regulations to navigate won’t
necessarily make that process easier and they could easily make it worse—as the
bureaucratic and political inertia during Hurricane Katrina so cleared
demonstrated.
And then there is the dramatic claim in the editorial that
exemptions for water treatment facilities in pending legislation mean that
“millions of Americans could needlessly be put at risk of an attack on a
chlorine tank.” Did the New York Times forget
that shortly after the 2001 attacks, Congress passed a security bill to address
water treatment plants? Probably not—it
seems that no matter how many laws we pass it’s never enough for the New York
Times and its friends on the left.
Perverse Incentives
Government is often said to be bedeviled by “unintended
consequences.” That doesn’t mean that
the consequences cannot be foreseen. Two
great examples present themselves this week. First, in Boiling Springs Lake, North Carolina, the endangered red
cockaded woodpecker has been spotted. As
a result, local land-owners have been rushing
for the chainsaws to protect their property investments:
The [Federal Fish and Wildlife Service] issued a map marking
15 active woodpecker “clusters,” and announced it was working on a new one that
could potentially designate whole neighborhoods of this town in southeastern
North Carolina as protected habitat, subject to more-stringent building
restrictions.Hoping to beat the mapmakers, landowners swarmed City Hall
to apply for lot-clearing permits. Treeless land, after all, would not need to
be set aside for woodpeckers. Since February, the city has issued 368 logging
permits, a vast majority without accompanying building permits.The results can be seen all over town. Along the roadsides,
scattered brown bark is all that is left of pine stands. Mayor Joan Kinney has
watched with dismay as waterfront lots across from her home on Big Lake have
been stripped down to sandy wasteland.
Meanwhile, in Fairfax County, Virginia, county officials
wanted to save money by cutting government-owned cars from their fleet that are
driven fewer than 4500 miles annually. The result?
From homeless-outreach workers to zoning inspectors, Fairfax
employees are driving hundreds of vehicles across the county — or are swapping
cars with those who drive more — simply to run up the odometers. They know
that if they don’t use their cars, they could lose them.
(Hat tip: Knowledge
Problem)
Government: creating more problems than it solves since 3000
BC.
‘Net Neutrality’ for Credit Cards?
An op-ed
I wrote for last Sunday’s Washington Times
talked about the battle over the interchange fees that banks and credit card
companies charge to retailers. The retailers, including some big chains, are
whining about the fees they have to pay and want the government to step in to
control how much the card companies charge them. This is another example of the
phenomenon described in CEI Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow Tim Carney’s book The
Big Ripoff, in which businesses lobby for big government when it favors
their bottom line. And given the experience in Australia when the government
imposed price controls on retailer fees, American consumers certainly will be
ripped off if the government gives in to retailer demands.
What the retailers are asking for is sort of a “net
neutrality” regime for credit cards. The credit card companies, on the retailer
side, would be considered a “common carrier.” However, as with “net neutrality”
for the Internet, this would leave consumers paying the full costs for
improvement and innovations in the system.
Rachel Carson Lied, Millions Died
We were all happy to see the World Health Organization
finally take steps to embrace wider anti-malarial
deployment of DDT, but our friend Steve Milloy reminds us it’s hardly a moment to
break out the champagne:
Overlooked in all the hoopla over the announcement,
however, is the terrible toll in human lives (tens of millions dead — mostly
pregnant women and children under the age of 5), illness (billions sickened)
and poverty (more than $1 trillion dollars in lost GDP in sub-Saharan Africa alone) caused by the tragic, decades-long ban.
Much of this human catastrophe was preventable, so why
did it happen? Who is responsible? Should the individuals and activist groups
who caused the DDT ban be held accountable in some way?
Yes, Steve, they
should.
The Bureau is Exactly 37.1973% Incompetent
You really have to give it to the U.S. Census Bureau. Even when they prove they’re pathologically unable to keep track of important computer equipment containing potentially sensitive data on millions of Americans, they’re still able to produce exact data on how many they’ve lost: 672.
Lockyer: SUVs Don’t Kill People, Car Companies Kill People
California’s attorney
general has sued carmakers DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Ford and
subsidiaries of Honda, Nissan and Toyota for global
warming impacts on the state. Interesting that the state isn’t trying to
hold individual car owners – the ones who actually drive and produce the
emissions at issue – liable for the alleged damage.
This suit seems rather reminiscent of the lawsuits first filed
by U.S. cities against gun
manufacturers in the late 1990s. Critics at the time pointed out, of
course, that it’s the people who actually shoot the guns who should be held
liable for any damage caused by them. Congress was sufficiently alarmed by the
prospects, however, to pass the Protection
of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shielding firearms manufacturers from such
extended liability claims. Perhaps the House and Senate should put their heads together
on a Freedom to Traffic in Automobiles Act.
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