January 2012

Common Sense Fact of the Day: Only 5 Countries Have Pension Systems That Can Survive (Hint: Not the USA)

by Lee Doren on October 28, 2010

in Economy, Employment, Labor

This issue keeps showing up over the Internet, so it makes it an easy story to address: Most government pension programs are unsustainable. As I’ve mentioned recently, the French in particular don’t want to accept the economic reality of their government pension system, and have shut down their country as a result. However, it is now being reported that there are only five countries whose pension systems can survive (No, the United States didn’t make the list).

Ignoring the moral issue against the government providing pension benefits, basic arithmetic is all that is necessary to explain why these pensions will result in long-term bankruptcy for any country.

For example, if young citizens pay into a government program to pay retirees, yet simultaneously older citizens demand longer vacation time, fewer work hours, prevention against employment termination and a young retirement age, eventually all the revenues coming into the program will not pay all the beneficiaries.   To exacerbate the problem, these programs often create the terrible result of increasing unemployment for the young people who need to fund the system.

It would be one thing if the politicians were responsible with the money, but Public Choice Theory explains why that is unlikely to happen. Bureaucrats simply fund projects with revenue generated from the pension plans, rather than holding the money in trust. The result is that the politicians get elected for the projects they vote to fund, and over time there is no more pension to pay retirees.

The great irony is that the politicians themselves often retire with gold-star pensions before their constituents realize their own pensions are insolvent.  Sadly, the French will soon learn that throwing a nationwide tantrum won’t change the economic reality.

Great Letter in Today’s Wall Street Journal

by Kathryn Ciano on October 28, 2010

in Economy, Zeitgeist

This is such an excellent point. There is some virtue in the idea of moderation — conservation, “living simply” so that others may “simply live.”

Yet it is because of modern man’s excess that we are doing so well as a species. It is because we use too much that we are forced to keep innovating, trading, and communicating.

Had modern man’s ravenous hunger for bread not won out over his conservationist instincts, mold would never have grown in Alexander Fleming’s fridge and we would still succumb to the diseases now virtually eviscerated thanks to penicillin.

It may be reactionary to swallow up resources simply because we can. But we are modern men, and this is what characterizes our species. Indeed, we are Americans, and it is because we prefer ever-more that we remain among the most innovative people on earth.

In today’s WSJ, letter-writer Gerald P. Hanner makes this point beautifully:

They Were Tough, but Where Are They Now?

It may be the case, as anthropologist Peter McAllister claims, that modern man is a shadow of his former self (“Visualizer: ‘Manthropology’: How Modern Man Stacks Up Against the Ancients,” Review, Oct. 23), but I’m skeptical. I’ll accept on faith the claim that ancient runners were faster, ancient poets recalled poetry better and ancient soldiers endured greater hardships. The ancients had to excel in those areas—or die. Natural selection is a marvelous way of allowing the top talent to bubble to the top of the heap.

However, comparing humans to Neanderthals in the area of brute strength is invidious. Neanderthals were another species. Humans aren’t able to beat an adult chimpanzee at arm wrestling, let alone an orangutan or gorilla. The great apes are physically much stronger and their skeletal structures much more robust than humans. Yet we survive and live to longer ages than the great apes—and the Neanderthals are long gone.

Gerald P. Hanner

Papillion, Neb.

An Alcohol-Caffeine Ban Won’t Work

by Michelle Minton on October 28, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

The genie is out of the bottle.

Mixing energy drinks and distilled spirits has become a popular trend in the U.S., particularly, among college age students. However, a few isolated incidents in which alcohol-energy drinks (AEDs) were implicated in the alcohol poisoning of some students, has prompted the FDA to consider a ban on the sale of AEDs while others are calling for a ban on all mixing of alcohol and caffeine (no more rum and Cokes). In particular, the drink Four Loko has become the focal point of those calling for a ban.  But removing the drinks from the market will not stop people from drinking alcohol and caffeine together. But that is just one of many problems with the proposal to ban AEDs.

First, the research that draws a link between alcoholic energy drinks and health risks is limited and dubious. Second, a ban will not stop people from mixing alcohol and caffeine at home and the results of that could be worse than a pre-mixed AED which states the amount of caffeine and alcohol on the can. Third, even if risks are associated with the consumption of alcohol and caffeine it should be up to the individual to make that decision, not a government agency.

Research: Under the Influence

The mix of caffeine and “stimulants” with alcohol supposedly allows imbibers to achieve intoxication while maintaining energy levels that allow them to continue partying long into the night. Those pushing for a ban on AEDs argue that stimulants mask the effects of liquor on drinkers who then continue to consume alcohol putting them at risk for alcohol poisoning, physical harm, and victimization. However, most of the research cited by the anti-AED camp is the product a small number of university studies, wherein participants were surveyed on the internet or upon exiting nightclubs and asked to report on their drinking behavior and its effects. The problem with these surveys, as Baylen Linnekin noted in his paper, is that they do not differentiate between pre-mixed AEDs:

The most widely cited study in the war on AEDs, an Internet-based survey of college students conducted by researchers at Wake Forest University, has nothing to do with pre-mixed AEDs targeted by the FDA’s current action. Instead, the study examined the consumption of any “alcohol mixed with energy drinks.” The study methodology does not mention pre-mixed AEDs in any way, making it impossible to distinguish between pre-mixed drinks and the consumption of cocktails…

Still, the distinction between the known (AEDs) and the unknown (self-mixed energy drink cocktails) seems not to matter to Mary Claire O’Brien, primary author of the Wake Forest study… She told the anti-alcohol Marin Institute in 2008 that she would “like the federal government to immediately ban all alcoholic energy drinks and the adding of caffeine to all alcoholic beverages.” Such a ban would not only eliminate the AED market, it would also threaten a host of venerable traditional cocktails that contain caffeine, including Irish coffee and rum and Coke. [Emphasis added.]

It Says So on the Can:

The fact of the matter is that the alcohol and stimulant contents of Four Loko and other AEDs are printed right on the can for anyone to read. This makes it easier to determine the amount of alcohol one is consuming over time. However, if consumers mix the drinks themselves, they are more likely to imbibe greater amounts of alcohol accidentally. When compared ounce for ounce to the popular cocktail known as a Jägerbomb (a shot of Jägermeister and a can of red bull) the Four Loko actually has less alcohol per ounce.

Jägerbombs per ounce: Alcohol= 35% abv Caffeine = 8.24 milligrams

Four Loko per ounce: Alcohol= 18% abv Caffeine= 5.7 milligrams

For reference, the average domestic beer in the U.S. will be served in a 12-16.5 ounce serving and have between 4 percent and 6 percent abv.

The likelihood of over-consumption of alcohol and caffeine is more likely when the drinks are mixed at home because, unlike the pre-mixed canned drinks, the alcohol content is more difficult to calculate.

Caffeine is Not the Problem:

The issue with Four Loko is not that combining caffeine and alcohol is dangerous, as most anti-AED folks claim. The problem is that a few of the people choosing to drink Four Loko and other pre-mixed alcoholic energy drinks are behaving in a manner that is dangerously irresponsible.

While the product is not inherently dangerous, it does contain a large quantity of alcohol per can, about as much as four light beers. However, if a person drinks one can over the course of an hour or two the average person would experience no serious effects beyond mild intoxication. But that is not what we are talking about. A small group of college students are pounding back many cans of Four Loko over a short period of times (less than a couple of hours), knowing that it contains a high amount of alcohol per can.

There is nothing new in this. College students have been hazing and partying for decades. Their irresponsible behavior is no justification for banning a product that the majority of consumers use responsibly.  It is understandable that reporters, parents, and drinkers themselves want to blame their over-consumption and the resulting behavior on the drink itself; It’s easier to blame an uncontrollable outside force than to face the responsibility and consequences of bad decisions.  However, Four Loko and other AEDs are just the latest implement in age-old story of young adults acting dumb, taking risks and screwing up; this year it’s Four Loko, next year it might be water.

For a thorough look at FDA involvement in the alcohol-energy drink market I highly recommend reading Baylen Linnekin’s complete study: Extreme Refreshment Crackdown:
The FDA’s Misguided Campaign Against Alcohol Energy Drinks.

Obama Pumps More Money into “High-Speed Rail” Boondoggles

by Marc Scribner on October 28, 2010 · 1 comment

in Mobility, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

The Department of Transportation announced today that another $2.4 billion is being doled out to high-speed rail projects around the country. This is on top of the $8 billion these projects received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, aka “the stimulus package”). These are the first dollars being spent on the proposed $600 billion 17,000-mile high-speed rail network (yes, that works out to $35.3 million per mile of track).

In addition to the wasteful spending, another galling aspect of these projects is that most do not even meet the requirements of the common definitions of “high-speed rail.” The European Union, for example, defines high-speed rail on upgraded track to be those lines where vehicles can travel in excess of 120 miles per hour, with a 160-mile-per-hour minimum for vehicles traveling on new track. Of the nine regions/corridors receiving funding, only two meet these criteria. (The DOT’s own definition is 110 mph, which most of the proposed projects conveniently claim as their eventual maximum speed.)

See the table below (compiled from DOT’s HSIPR Program project summaries):

Project Region/CorridorFundingTrue HSR?
California Corridors$901,574,000Yes
Tampa-Orlando-Miami$808,000,000Yes
Omaha-Iowa City-Chicago$230,000,000No
Northeast Region$198,000,000No
Pontiac-Detroit-Chicago$161,000,000No
Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond-Washington, D.C.$68,000,000No
Minneapolis/St. Paul-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago$43,700,000No
Eugene-Portland-Seattle-Vancouver$38,719,000No
Kansas City-St. Louis-Chicago$4,000,000No

 

The takeaway message here is that more than 30 percent of funds were allocated to “high-speed” rail projects that in reality are not even considered “high-speed” by international standards. (USA! USA!)

Earlier this month, Cato’s Randal “The Antiplanner” O’Toole wrote an article published in USA Today that threw cold water on some of the bigger, more obnoxious lies and half-truths being peddled by high-speed rail backers:

At an inflation-adjusted cost of about $450 billion paid out of highway user fees, the Interstate Highway System, to which high-speed rail is sometimes compared, provides more than 4,000 miles of passenger travel for every American, miles that Americans were not traveling before the system was built. By comparison, a $600 billion expenditure on high-speed rail will provide, at best, around 300 miles of travel per person.

More to the point, most of that travel will not be new travel, but merely a substitute for driving, flying, or other existing forms of travel. The California High-Speed Rail Authority predicts that 98% of its customers will shift from driving or flying. Florida predicts that 96% of the people using its high-speed train will switch from driving.

Almost no new travel means almost no transformative effect. Few people will use high-speed rail or urban rail transit to access new markets, resources, or jobs. Merely substituting rail for other modes will be extremely expensive.

Amtrak brags that its high-speed Acela between Boston and Washington covers its operating costs, though not its capital costs. It does so, however, only by collecting fares of about 75 cents per passenger mile. By comparison, airline fares average only 13 cents a passenger mile, and intercity buses (which, Amtrak doesn’t want you to know, carry about three times as many passengers between Boston and Washington as the Acela) are even less expensive.

Furthermore, given that only 8 percent of American workers are employed in central city downtowns, the likely beneficiaries will be wealthy, white-collar workers.

Sen. Grassley’s Selective Crusade Against Conflicts of Interest

by Greg Conko on October 28, 2010

in Culture, Health and Illness, Nanny State, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Zeitgeist

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) has been on a tear lately, badgering the Food and Drug Administration about whether it’s doing enough to crack down on financial conflicts of interest among doctors who participate in clinical trials to test new medicines.  Grassley suggests that the payment of consulting fees to doctors could create a “potential bias that may compromise the reliability of data” generated to support the approval of drugs and medical devices.

While collaborative arrangements between medical products manufacturers and academic researchers has in fact been a huge boon for medical progress during the past half century or so, and financial connections are not the only source of relevant bias, it’s not entirely unreasonable to be alert to possible conflicts of interest.  What’s hypocritical about Grassley’s crusade is that he only seems to be concerned about financial conflicts of interest when they’re used to condemn products he doesn’t happen to like.

Take, for example, Grassley’s partnership with Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen and their joint campaign against the GSK diabetes drug Avandia.  There’s been a fair amount of news over the past couple of years describing the controversy over Avandia (see here, here, and here for examples).  The drug appears to work wonders for the treatment of Type II diabetes, but research conducted by Dr. Nissen indicates that it also leads to a significant elevated risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke.  Nissen was a key source for a February 2010 Senate Finance Committee report condemning Avandia, which was instigated by Grassley, and both men think that Avandia should be pulled from the market.  They would have gotten away with it too, except that lots of patients actually taking the drug have decided that the huge health benefits associated with controlling their diabetes far outweigh the higher cardiac risk.  They demanded to have continued access to the drug.  So, last month, FDA decided to keep Avandia on the market, but place heavy restrictions on its use.  Nissen said that “more than 99 percent of Avandia use in the U.S. will disappear” because of the restrictions.

So, where’s the hypocricy?  It turns out that Nissen just happens to be one of the investigators on a study purporting to show that Avandia’s closest competitor, Takeda Pharmaceutical’s drug Actos, is superior to Avandia because it doesn’t increase cardiac risk.  And, as it turns out, Takeda provided $25,000 in funding to Nissen’s Cleveland Clinic team to conduct the Actos study.  As my 5-year-old son, who is newly taken with episodes of the classic cartoon Scooby-Doo, might say … “Ruh-Roh!”  The golden boy, upon whose research Grassley’s crusade against Avandia has been built, has taken funding from a GSK competitor to conduct research that boosts Actos over Avandia.  Can you say “conflict of interest”, boys and girls?

Now, just to be clear, I want to explain that Steven Nissen is a highly regarded scientist, and there appears to be no good reason to believe his research on Avandia or Actos has actually been biased by the funding from Takeda.  (Although the kind of meta-analysis Nissen used to study Avandia has inherent methodological weaknesses that make the findings suspect.  But that’s an argument for another day.)  So, it’s not entirely inappropriate for either the FDA or Charles Grassley to listen to what Nissen has to say.  But, for someone like Chuck Grassley who’s been riding a hobby horse against financial conflicts of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, the arrangement ought to have come under a bit more scrutiny.

CBO: Obamacare Discourages Work

by Hans Bader on October 28, 2010 · 1 comment

in Economy, Employment, Healthcare, Regulation

Even the Congressional Budget Office, which allowed supporters of Obamacare to hide its costs through gimmicks and dodges, admitted last “Friday that Obamacare includes work disincentives likely to shrink the amount of labor used in the economy.”  For example, it effectively creates a 35,618 percent marginal tax rate for one hypothetical 62-year-old whose income rises by $22, by triggering the sudden loss of $7,836 in government tax credits (as Ted Frank explains below).

As a newspaper columnist notes,

The new health law will give some older households without access to employer care a big incentive not to earn too much. That’s because earning more than 400% of the poverty level would make them ineligible for subsidies that may be well in excess of $10,000 for couples.  Consider this example of a single individual age 62 in a high-cost area and no access to employer care. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform Subsidy Calculator … [a]t 400% of the poverty level, or $46,000, an individual would get $7,830 in premium subsidies.  And at 401% of the poverty level, an individual would get no government support.

Or, as legal commentator Ted Frank notes, under Obamacare,

[A] 62-year-old in a high-cost area earning $46,000 a year without health insurance is entitled to a $7,836 government tax credit. Leaving aside how our strapped government can afford that, here’s what’s interesting: if the same person makes a mistake and earns an extra $22 in income, he loses the entire $7,836 credit. (The cutoff, according to Kaiser, is between $46,021 and $46,022.) That’s a 35,618% marginal tax rate. Indeed, the problem is so severe that our 62-year-old subject will have more take-home pay if he earns $46,000 than if he earns $55,000. And even at lower income levels, there is as much as a 16% surcharge on income at the margin.

This penalty for working and earning more is the result of really lousy drafting on the part of the authors of Obamacare. They could easily have avoided this problem by gradually phasing out the premium subsidies and tax credits, the way the tax code gradually phases out personal exemptions and itemized deductions for people who make well over $100,000 a year.  But they were too arrogant to learn anything from existing provisions that worked.

As noted earlier, the healthcare law imposes many middle-class tax increases, such as on cosmetic surgery and medical devices, and it increases taxes in future years on investors.  Obamacare will also reduce lifesaving medical innovation, break many campaign promises, and increase state budget deficits. It is driving up health insurance premiums, and it imposes restrictions that failed when tried at the state level. It ignores advice from doctors and federal experts, and lessons from countries with universal health care, about how to reduce costs.

Morning Media Summary

by Lee Doren on October 28, 2010

in Economy, Energy, Environment, Legal, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Tech:

Are texting and Facebook worse for teens than TV?:
“Which raises an interesting question: Is Facebook really worse for teenagers’ brains than the mindless reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch” that their parents consumed growing up”

China dethrones US, makes World’s fastest supercomputer:
“China has replaced United States as the maker of the world’s fastest supercomputer.”

Silver Tail Systems Receives Strategic Investment from CIA’s Venture Capital Arm:
“Silver Tail Systems, a provider of fraud prevention solutions for Web sites, received solid validation of its products and business model this week. The company has entered into a strategic investment and development agreement with In-Q-Tel (IQT), the not-for-profit, venture capital arm of the CIA.”

Sweet bypass for student finger scanner:
“But a litany of fingerprint scanners have fallen victim to bypass methods, many of which are explained publicly in detail on the internet. The hacks could potentially be used by students to make replicas of their own fingerprints, or lift those of others from imprints left on the reader.”

Google now second-largest ISP, carries 6.4% of Internet traffic:
“Google is now the second-largest carrier of Internet traffic, according to data released this week by Arbor Networks. But should corporate network managers care about this news?”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

(Silly) Hyundai makes green commercial by not driving its car:
“If your car was that energy efficient, you would be able to drive it in the commercial. Sooo maybe your new challenge should be, “How can we create an advertising campaign that makes our product look good instead of pointing out the fact that it contributes to our environment’s slow demise?””

Insurance / Gambling:

States Struggle to Deal With New Gambling Loophole:
“A new form of gambling that combines online betting with brick-n-mortar casinos has been sweeping the nation, and states are struggling to keep up with the legal implications of this hybrid.”

Health / Safety:

Concerns over bedbugs and other pests still have New Yorkers crawling away from public spaces:
“Add to those pests the stink bug, smelly little things that emit a stench when stepped on. They seek shelter in homes during cooler months for warmth.”

Scientists Find ‘Liberal Gene’:
“Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults’ political leanings.”

Bedbug prompts community college to shut down:
“A student who showed up for class with what is believed to be a bedbug on his clothing prompted the closure today of Community College of Allegheny County’s North Campus in McCandless, sending 3,500 students as well as employees home for the rest of the week.”

Economics:

Number of German jobless hits 18-year low:
“The number of people looking for a job in Germany has fallen to below the three-million mark, Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday. Unemployment now stands at a seasonally adjusted 7.5 percent. ”

Mercatus Center Financial Markets Working Group Wins Templeton Freedom Award:
“Congratulations to the Mercatus Center for its recent recognition with a Templeton Freedom Award for its Financial Markets Working Group (of which I am one of many affiliated scholars). Mercatus won for “Special Achievement by a University-based Center.” From the award announcement:”

The Biden-ism of the Day: Every Great Idea in the past 200-Plus Years Has Required Government to Succeed:
“Joe Biden is like a squirrel on water skis — he never stops being entertaining:.”

Little Willingness to Cut Back Among Those Who Get Government Benefits:
“Of those who do receive government money, just 34% are at least somewhat willing to cut some of their own benefits to reduce the size of the federal budget, with 14% who say they are Very Willing to do so. But 63% are not willing to consider any benefit reductions, including 33% who are Not At All Willing.”

Fed Gears Up for Stimulus:
“The Federal Reserve is close to embarking on another round of monetary stimulus next week, against the backdrop of a weak economy and low inflation—and despite doubts about the wisdom and efficacy of the policy among economists and some of the Fed’s own decision makers.”

Dollar printing feeding China inflation: minister:
“Rampant issuance of dollars by the United States is saddling China with “imported inflation”, Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming was quoted as saying by state media on Wednesday.”

Barack Obama’s dumb ‘Daily Show’ Jon Stewart appearance and the President’s diminishing brand:
“Obama’s handlers were supposed to be smarter than this. They were supposed to use his celebrity strategically to advance his agenda. Instead, they’ve been indiscriminate, carpet-bombing Americans with the man they elected rather than launching communications smart weapons.”

Jon Stewart, President Obama debate on ‘The Daily Show’:
“Chief executive sparred with chief fake-news comedian over the velocity of change Wednesday evening, separated only by a desk designed like a slice of the Capitol dome — and by a gap in perception over the accomplishments of the Obama administration in its first 21 months.”
Elizabeth Warren’s plan to prevent another financial meltdown: crowdsourcing:
“Elizabeth Warren, America’s working-class warrior who Time Magazine-dubbed “Sherriff of Wall Street,” has revealed her strategy
for preventing another catastrophic financial meltdown — the former Harvard Law professor is going to put out an open call to working class America for tips.”

Legal:

Taking a break from suing states, Obama’s Justice Department wins hundreds of awards from itself:
“They involved included employees honored for distinguished service, lifetime service, exceptional service, cooperative service, excellence in legal advice, information technology, management, handling of legislation, appeals services, asset forfeiture, fraud fighting, legal services, dispute resolution and for being a good new employee.”

Boxer faces ethics complaint for telling teachers to send students to work for campaign:
“In a close election race against former Hewlett-Packard executive
Carly Fiorina, California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer is facing new ethics complaints over asking teachers to send their students to work for her campaign.”

Labor:

Watchdog Warns SEIU Contract for Nevada Voting Machines Poses ‘Fraud’ Concern:
“A conservative watchdog group is calling on Nevada officials to intervene to ensure SEIU workers who operate one county’s voting machines don’t skew the results to boost their endorsed candidate, Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid. ”

Transportation/ Land Use:

Eminent Domain Shenanigans:
“Five years ago, in the landmark property rights case of Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court upheld the forced transfer of land from various homeowners by finding that “economic development” qualifies as a public purpose for purposes of satisfying the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. In doing so, however, the Court reaffirmed that the government may not “take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit.””

Supreme Court Case May Wipe Out Vaccine Industry

by Michael Fumento on October 27, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness

Back when Congress knew how to pass good legislation, in this case in the mid-1980s, it took most cases involving vaccine liability out of the normal court system and put them in a special vaccine court where science and medicine would rule instead of the whims of scientifically and medically ignorant juries.

That’s because vaccine companies were going the way of the woolly mammoth, in part because it’s just not a very profitable business and in great part because they were awash in over $3.5 billion of lawsuits claiming little more than the post hoc fallacy of “Before the person was vaccinated her or she was fine and since the vaccination he or she became sick.” Seriously.

Even as it dramatically cut spurious claims, it helped persons who really had suffered from adverse reactions both by cutting litigation costs and by taking them outside of “roulette wheel” justice wherein a case might net a reward of millions while a virtually identical one would be rejected entirely.

But as I write at Forbes.com, this system itself is now endangered by a Supreme Court case in which the plaintiffs are claiming that having lost their case in Vaccine Court that rather than appeal within that system they should be able to try the case in state or federal court. And Congress did allow for some such exceptions.

But no, not this one. It’s very clear from the history of what led up to the statute that Congress did not want cases such as these to bypass the system. Why? In part as one court found, it could to a great extent destroy that very system. I provide other arguments. If we lose this system many, many children will not get their vaccines until something else is instituted. And many will die.

Increase in American Corruption May Have Been Understated

by Hans Bader on October 27, 2010

in Bailout Watch, Economy, International, Legal, Politics as Usual, Property Rights, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Earlier, I wrote about how America had slipped to a historic low on the Global Corruption Index, becoming more corrupt.  In retrospect, I think the decline in America’s ratings may even be understated. For example, Obama’s firing of an inspector general who uncovered fraud by an Obama crony wasn’t mentioned in coverage of the corruption rankings, which were just released by Transparency International. The politicized bailouts over the last couple years were barely mentioned.

In the Index, America ranked well below countries like Denmark and New Zealand, which came in first place; Canada, which came in 6th; and Barbados, which came in 17th.  All of those countries were rated less corrupt than the U.S.  Somalia came in last, rated as the most corrupt nation on Earth.

Afternoon Links: October 27, 2010

by Nicole Ciandella on October 27, 2010

in Zeitgeist

1. Everyone’s glad that the police now have a suspect in custody for the murder of American University professor Sue Marcum. But how do you feel about the fact that police tracked him down using D.C.’s license-plate recognition sensors?

2. Don’t use drugs not approved by the FDA! Unless, or course, you’re the state of Arizona and you’re executing someone. Then it’s okay.

3. The Hells Angels are suing Alexander McQueen over jewelry, purses, and dresses designed by the fashion house that feature a winged-skull pattern. As everyone knows, members of the Hells Angels are the only people allowed to wear winged skulls.

4. Look, it’s another good-looking Hollywood actor with HuffPo blogging privileges calling for stricter government regulations.

5. Why should tea-partiers be bringing bottles of Madeira to rallies?

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