2 September 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
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Tuesday Links [Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 04:49P.M.
• Will Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?
• Why America’s experience in Bosnia and Iraq offers ample warning
against taking the mission too far in Afghanistan.
• Will Japan remain pacifist?
• Paul Krugman claims a victory for Big Government, which he says
“saved” the economy from an economic depression. Alan Reynolds
debunks his claim and shows why bigger government produces
only bigger and longer recessions.
• Podcast: Johan Norberg explains the causes of the financial crisis.
For more, don’t miss his new book, Financial Fiasco: How
America’s Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money
Created the Economic Crisis.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Bailouts Make Money, If You
Ignore Losses [Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 04:41P.M.
Just when you think the headlines could not get any more absurd, the
Wall Street Journal declares today that the “Bailouts Yield Returns Amid
Risk.” while yesteday’s Financial Times lets us know that the Federal
Reserve is turning a profit on its lending programs.
What is missing from these headlines is that while some loans and
investments have provided a positive return to taxpayers, the overall
programs themselves are estimated to cost the taxpayers hundreds of
billions. Overall the government has received about $30 billion in
dividends, premiums for guarantees, and interest payments: $7 billion in
TARP dividends from banks, $14 billion for the Federal Reserve from
purchases of mortgage-backed securities and other investments, and $9
from the FDIC’s bank debt guarantee program.
While $30 billion may sound like a substantial amount of money, it is
less than a tenth of the $356 billion that the Congressional Budget Office
tells us we will never see back from TARP. And the Fed’s income from
1
purchasing Fannie and Freddie securities will also amount to about a
tenth of the ultimate losses we are likely to suffer from bailing out those
entities. In regard to the FDIC’s debt guarantee program, premiums are
paid up front, making that look like income, while the guarantees will
remain outstanding for several years. Given that there is currently
almost $340 billion in FDIC guaranteed bank debt outstanding, all it
would take is a loss rate of 2.6% on that debt to wipe out any premiums
collected so far.
Before Washington starts to spend all its newfound earnings, we should
all stop and remember that these bailouts continue to leave the taxpayer
in a pretty big hole.
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Hypocrisy, The Kennedys and
the Death Tax [Americans for
Tax Reform]
SEP 01, 2009 04:35P.M.
(h/t United For Liberty)...
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Turning Our Back on Torture
[Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 04:30P.M.
NRO’s Rich Lowry just weighed in on the torture debate with some false
assumptions and already-debunked assertions. He says that the Obama
administration turned its back on “life-saving intelligence-gathering”
techniques.
In point of fact, the United States turned its back on “Enhanced
Interrogation Techniques” (EIT’s) a long time ago. American soldiers
used waterboarding to gain intelligence in the Philippines occupation
immediately after the Spanish-American War. The response? President
Roosevelt, who led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill, demanded that
the soldiers employing the “water cure” be prosecuted. American soldiers
who employed waterboarding in Vietnam were likewise court-martialed.
A previous post at NRO’s The Corner makes this clear.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
The bottom line? The Geneva Conventions apply to the modern
battlefield, asymmetric or not. The Supreme Court said so in 2006, so a
new memorandum from the OLC finding that the Geneva Conventions
do not apply is out of the question. Re-authorizing EIT’s is a legal
impossibility. While the Right tries to argue their efficacy in a partisan
fight to prevent prosecution, this is an argument limited to a political
rehabilitation, not a legal one.
Lowry also exaggerates the importance of corroborating information that
Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM) gave under EIT duress:
According to the IG report, KSM’s cooperation led to the
arrest of a truck driver in the U.S. named Iyman Faris who
was plotting attacks on New York landmarks; of a sleeper
operative in New York named Saleh Almari; of an operative
named Majid Khan who had easy entree into the U.S.; and of
two Pakistani businessmen whom KSM “planned to use to
smuggle explosives into the United States.”
“Saleh Almari” appears to be Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. I’ve written
extensively about al-Marri, who was apprehended in December, 2001,
long before KSM was in custody. Here is the indictment.
As Peter Bergen points out, Iyman Faris won’t make the terrorist all-star
list any time soon. “In 2002 he researched the feasibility of bringing
down the Brooklyn Bridge by using a blowtorch, an enterprise akin to
demolishing the Empire State Building with a firecracker.”
Bergen also sheds some light on the collars of Majid Khan and the
Parachas (the “two Pakistani businessmen”):
The Parachas are a father-and-son team; the former, arrested
in Thailand in the summer of 2003, is being held at
Guantánamo and has yet to face trial, while his son was
convicted in 2005 of providing “material support” to al
Qaeda.
Majid Khan was arrested in Pakistan only four days after
KSM was captured, suggesting that this lead came not from
interrogations but from KSM’s computers and cell phones
that were picked up when he was captured.
The only valid criticism that Lowry levels is with regard to the limitation
of the new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Task Force, but not in the
way you might think. While limiting interrogations to the techniques in
the Army Field Manual keeps brutality off the table, certain law
enforcement techniques such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma are valid and
ought to be used. Terrorist networks are more like crime syndicates than
an infantry battalion in organization; if promises of reduced sentences
can get terrorists to talk about their comrades then by all means use
them.
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2 September 2009
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AFL-CIO’s Tax on Your 401(k)
[Americans for Tax Reform]
SEP 01, 2009 03:51P.M.
This information originally appeared at www.americanshareholders.org
The Hill is reporting that “The nation’s largest labor union and some
allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that woul...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Who Will Bail Me Out of a
Mexican Jail? [Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 03:10P.M.
Greetings from the OECD Global Tax Forum in Mexico City.
Our erstwhile friends at the OECD are not very tolerant of dissent, and
this trip is a good example. First, they bullied the hotel in Cabo into
cancelling my reservation. Apparently, my mere presence would create a
disturbance to their plans for one-size-fits-all taxation. But then the
conference got moved to Mexico City because of the hurricane and the
bureaucrats did not have the ability – at least on short notice – into
coercing the new hotel into denying me the ability to get a room (not that
it would have been a big deal to register someplace else, but it is
somewhat galling that petty bureaucrats seem so intent of throwing
roadblocks in the way of the folks who pay their bloated – and tax free –
salaries).
Today, however, the OECD upped the ante. I have been hanging out in
the public lobby outside of the OECD’s conference room. This location
makes it easy to communicate with the delegates from low-tax nations.
This apparently irritates the bureaucrats, so they sent one of their
security officials to ask me to leave. I asked what right he had to make
such a request, especially since I was in a public area. He claimed that
the lobby – which also serves as the entrance to a restaurant and the
business center – was reserved for the conference. I said that was absurd
and would like to see the hotel management. Perhaps more important, I
turned to the reporter next to me and started explaining that this was a
typical example of the OECD’s reprehensible strong-arm tactics. This
flustererd the security guy and he backed down.
But I suspect that this is not the end of the story. And since I’m not
overly confident that the Mexican government respects the rule of law, I
do have visions of getting carted off to an unpleasant jail. If you don’t see
anything in this space tomorrow morning, that won’t be a good sign.
For those interested in more background on the issue, read this memo
and/or watch my videos on tax competition and tax havens.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
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Fire! Fire! Fire! [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 03:03P.M.
It’s summer again, which it means it is the time of year for the obligatory
photos of wildfires in Southern California. This particular fire, known as
the Station Fire, nearly doubled in size in the last 24 hours from 98 to
164 square miles. So far, it has burned at least 18 buildings and cost the
lives of at least two firefighters.
The fire began on the Angeles National Forest, and Congress will no
doubt respond by giving the Forest Service even more money to suppress
such fires in the future. In fact, as I show in my Cato Policy Analysis, The
Perfect Firestorm, the Forest Service has, in effect, a blank check to put
out fires.
It freely uses that blank check. It has so far spent about $14 million
fighting the Station Fire, which supposedly threatens 12,000 homes. But
it has also spent $2.5 million on Oregon’s Canal Creek Fire, which is less
than half a square mile in size and does not threaten any homes or other
structures. Better safe than sorry — as long as you have a blank check.
Southern California forests are extremely fire prone — their natural fire
regime is to completely burn over every 50 to 100 years. Building homes
in such an area might seem foolish, so naturally there have been calls for
“fire plain zoning,” similar to flood plain zoning, that would restrict such
construction.
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2 September 2009
In fact, properly designed homes and landscaping can easily withstand
such fires. Most homes destroyed by wildfires are ignited either by
burning embers landing on flammable roofs or by the radiant heat from
trees or grasses burning nearby. Building homes with nonflammable
roofs and eves, and landscaping with well-tended lawns and a minimum
of flammable trees essentially makes homes fire proof.
Most civilian deaths from wildfire take place during evacuations, not
from the fire itself. Homes that are designed to withstand wildfires are
known as “shelter-in-place” homes because the residents will be safer in
the homes than trying to evacuate.
In 2007, CBS News reported that a fire swept through two San Diego
suburbs built to shelter-in-place standards, and “not one home was even
touched by flames.” Perversely, the reporter concluded that people
should not be allowed to build to those standards because it would just
encourage them to live in fire-prone areas.
In reality, the lesson is that it would be a lot less expensive to promote
shelter-in-place construction standards and retrofitting and then simply
let the fires burn at their normal frequencies. The homes would be safe,
the forests would be “natural,” and fewer firefighters would be at risk.
Why doesn’t this happen?
Simple: money. The Forest Service gets a blank check for putting out
fires but almost no money for helping people fireproof their properties.
So it continues to spend billions on fire suppression, mainly to protect
people’s homes, when a lower-cost strategy is readily available.
Photo credit: MB Trama and DisneyKrazie on Flickr.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
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State Government Job Security
[Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 12:50P.M.
In his recent rebuttal to critics of his finding that the average federal
employee makes a lot more in salary and benefits than the average
private sector employee, my colleague Chris Edwards notes:
A final consideration is to look at a “market test” of the
adequacy of compensation in the public sector–the quit rate.
The voluntary quit rate in the federal government is just one-
third or less the quit rate in the private sector (Table 16 near
the bottom here). That is strongly suggestive of ”golden
handcuffs” in federal employment. While many federal
workers probably grumble about their jobs (as many private
sector workers do), they know that the overall package of
wages, benefits, and extreme job security (Table 18 here) is
very hard to match in the competitive private market, and so
they stay put.
Looking at that Table 16 of government employment data shows that the
“quit rate” in state and local government is similar to the federal figure,
and in some years, even lower. A Stateline.org story from this past
Thursday notes:
“In the face of unrelenting gloom, Indiana personnel director Daniel
Hackler says the recession offers a few bright spots. The state’s poor
private-sector job market – worse than the national average – has
lowered voluntary turnover and made state government the employer of
choice. Financial worries have also stanched a retirement boom that had
threatened to drain the state of much of its institutional knowledge.”
As I mentioned a couple weeks ago when the Rockefeller Institute
announced that state and local government employment has gone up
since the beginning of the recession while the private sector has bled
jobs, state government “as the employer of choice” is bad news for the
economy as government jobs are inherently parasitic.
And while we’re on the subject, I can’t help but take a shot at Stateline’s
characterization of Indiana’s employee performance review system as
“rigorous.” Having worked in Indiana’s Office of Management and
Budget, I certainly don’t recall anything “rigorous” about the state’s
management of its studs and duds (to say there was a lot more of the
latter would be an understatement). I also knew more than a few
apparent “studs” pulling in nice incomes and benefits who really
deserved pink slips instead of pay increases. But then again, most of the
these “make government run like a business” initiatives like “pay for
performance” and “performance metrics” are really just serious sounding
gimmicks that politicians employ when they don’t have the desire or
stomach to actually cut government or reduce its role in our lives.
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2 September 2009
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Solid Analysis of Michigan’s
‘Economic Development’
Bureaucracy [Cato at
Liberty‘Economic Development’
Bureaucracy]
SEP 01, 2009 11:59A.M.
Michael LaFaive at the Mackinac Center of Policy Analysis in Michigan is
doing excellent work exposing the state’s “economic development”
bureaucracy for the press release economics smokescreen that it is.
Along with his colleague James Hohman, Michael takes a thorough look
at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in a new study that
anyone interested in the issue of state subsidies to businesses should find
informative. In fact, I’d like to see other state-based organizations (as
well as the local press) conduct similar analyses of the “economic
development” bureaucracies in their back yards. I suspect the findings
will be very similar.
From the executive summary:
MEGA [Michigan Economic Growth Authority] is the
MEDC’s flagship tax credit vehicle for “creating” jobs…To
analyze MEGA’s impact in greater detail, the Mackinac
Center commissioned an analysis of the program from
Michael Hicks, a Ph.D. economist at Ball State
University…Hicks was able to find a statistical relationship
between MEGA manufacturing tax credits and county
manufacturing employment, but the relationship was
negative. Hicks reports that from 2001 to 2007, every $1
million in MEGA manufacturing tax credits awarded in a
county was associated with the loss of 95 county
manufacturing jobs. While the statistical model cannot imply
causation, it does strongly indicate that MEGA credits are not
working to improve manufacturing employment.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 2 September 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Poll of the Day [The Club for Tuesday’s Daily News [The Club
Growth] for Growth]
SEP 01, 2009 11:58A.M. SEP 01, 2009 11:20A.M.

From Rasmussen Reports [emphasis mine]:
Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republican voters say their
party’s representatives in Congress have lost touch with GOP
voters nationwide over the past several years. The latest
Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just
18% of GOP voters believe their elected officials have done a
good job representing the base.
Most Republican voters (55%) say that the average
Republican in Congress is more liberal than the
average Republican voter. Twenty-four percent (24%)
say the average Republican in Congress holds views about the
same as the average Republican voter while just 17% think
the Congressional Republicans are more conservative than
GOP voters.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
THE DAILY NEWS Club to Inform Specter Donors Of Refund - Daniel
Malloy, Pitt Post-Gazette House Democrats Plot Health Care Comeback -
Isenstadt & Kady, Politico How Market Capitalism Saved the Jewish
State - George Gilder, City Journal The Battle Over New York City’s
Worst Teachers - Steven Brill, The New Yorker What Will They Learn
For Your $50,000? - Walter Williams, IBD Labor Day and the American
Dream - William McGurn, WSJ Election Set to Fill Seat Left Vacant by
Kennedy - Abby Goodnough, NYT The Earmark Hunt is Over! Sorta... -
Jim Harper, Washington Watch WTO Sanctions U.S. Over Cotton
Subsidies - Bradley Klapper, AP The New Face of Protectionism - Daniel
Price, New York Times Cubs 3, Astros 5 - Associated Press
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
The Invisible Hand [The Club
for Growth]
SEP 01, 2009 11:03A.M.

Political Terrorism In The The invisible hand is now visible! Adam Smith would be so proud.

Heartland – Inside the Quincy

Tea Party Cell [Americans for FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Tax Reform– Inside the Quincy Milton Friedman on the

Tea Party Cell] Minimum Wage [The Club for
SEP 01, 2009 11:27A.M.
Growth]
Founding Bloggers has created this excellent expose into the radical, SEP 01, 2009 11:00A.M.
extremist, fundamentalist, political-terrorist group that is the Tea Party
movement. Having infiltrated the tea party in Quin...

5
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
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How Cap and Tax Will Hurt
Kansas [Americans for Tax
Reform]
SEP 01, 2009 10:51A.M.
In our continuing, daily, state by state, look at the financial impact of the
Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Tax Bill, we will show you the projected
losses in Gross State Product, Personal Income, and...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Obama to Seek Cap on Federal
Pay [Cato at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 10:37A.M.
USA Today reports that President Obama is seeking a cap on federal pay
raises:
President Obama urged Congress Monday to limit cost-of-
living pay raises to 2% for 1.3 million federal employees in
2010, extending an income squeeze that has hit private
workers and threatens Social Security recipients and even
401(k) investors.
…The president’s action comes when consumer prices have
fallen 2.1% in the 12 months ending in July, because of a
massive drop in energy prices. The recession has taken
an even tougher toll on private-sector wages, which
rose only 1.5% for the year ended in June — the
lowest increase since the government started
keeping track in 1980. Private-sector workers also have
been subject to widespread layoffs and furloughs.
Last week, economist Chris Edwards discussed data from the Bureau of
Economic research that revealed the large gap between the average pay
of federal employees and private workers. His call to freeze federal pay
“for a year or two” received attention and criticism, (FedSmith, GovExec,
Federal Times, Matt Yglesias, Conor Clarke) to which he has responded.
As explained on CNN earlier this year, the pay gap between federal and
private workers has been widening for some time now:
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2 September 2009
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Lots of Higher Ed Stuff [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 09:53A.M.
Probably because it’s back-to-school time, there are lots of interesting
higher education related items worth checking out today. Here are a few:
1. I have a new op-ed on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsbility
Act, the bill that we’re told will save taxpayer money but will almost
certainly cost us tens of billions. Meanwhile, the Associated
Press published a big article on “spin” about the legislation that
ignores supporters’ extremely dubious assertions about SAFRA’s
true costs — the AP repeats the supposed savings line without
question – but instead focuses on whether Pell Grant increases will
be as large as some people hope .
2. Over at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, they’re
running a three-part series that’s really a lengthy email exchange
among numerous experts, including myself, on controlling college
costs. The central question is whether more government
“transparency” requirements hold the key to containing
skyrocketing college prices, or whether what we really need is to
cut third-party payments. I think I’ve made it clear where I stand,
but if you’re not sure (or even for some reason want other
opinions) definitely take in the Pope series. Also, mark your
calendars for a debate we’ll be having on this subject right here at
Cato on October 6!
3. William McGurn has an excellent commentary in the Wall Street
Journal explaining that — shocker! — you can make a very good
living without getting a college degree.
4. I haven’t read it yet but have seen a summary, and if the summary
is accurate a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic
Research shows that colleges and universities contribute no more
to their local economies than “other forms of economic activity.”
This puts another serious hole in the highly suspect argument that
more public money for higher education is good because enriching
colleges is better for everyone.
And that’s the ivy-ensconsed news for today!
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George Will Says It’s Time to
Leave Afghanistan [Cato at
Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 08:37A.M.
Conservative columnist George Will wants out of the war in Afghanistan.
And his recommendation is getting some notice. Reports Mike Allen in
Politico:
George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, is calling
for U.S. ground troops to leave Afghanistan in his latest
column.
“[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a
comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what
can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise
missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units,
concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan,
a nation that actually matters,” Will writes.
President Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops
into Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have
mounted as the forces began confronting the Taliban more
aggressively. August saw the highest monthly death toll for
the U.S. since the invasion in 2001, the second record month
in a row.
Will’s prescription – in which he recalls Bismarck’s decision
to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870 – seems certain
to split Republicans. He is a favorite of fiscal conservatives.
The more hawkish right can be expected to attack his
conclusion as foolhardy, short-sighted and naïve, potentially
making the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attack.
The columnist’s startling recommendation surfaced on the
same day that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the
commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, sent an
assessment up his chain of command recommending what he
called “a revised implementation strategy.” In a statement,
McChrystal also called for “commitment and resolve, and
increased unity of effort.”
With a liberal Democrat having become president and made Afghanistan
his war, and George Will leading the charge, might conservative
Republicans rediscover their inner anti-war feelings?
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2 September 2009
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Author of the Private School
Spending Study Responds [Cato
at Liberty]
SEP 01, 2009 08:34A.M.
Bruce Baker, author of the study of private school spending about which
I blogged yesterday, has responded to my critique. Dr. Baker thinks I
should “learn to read.”
He takes special exception to my statement that he “makes no serious
attempt to determine the extent of the bias [in his chosen sample of
private schools], or to control for it.” Baker then points to the following
one paragraph discussion in his 51 page paper that deals with sample
bias, which I reproduce here in full [the corresponding table appears
on a later page]:
The representativeness of the sample analyzed here can be
roughly considered by comparing the pupil-teacher ratios to
known national averages. For CAS and independent schools,
the pupil-teacher ratio is similar between sample and
national (see Figure 21, later in this report). Hebrew/Jewish
day schools for which financial data were available had
somewhat smaller ratios (suggesting smaller class sizes) than
all Hebrew/Jewish day schools, indicating that the mean
estimated expenditures for this group might be high. The
differential, in the same direction, was even larger for the
small group of Catholic schools for which financial data were
available. For Montessori schools, however, ratios in the
schools for which financial data were available were higher
than for the group as a whole, suggesting that estimated
mean expenditures might be low.
Even with my admittedly imperfect reading ability, I was able to
navigate this paragraph. I did not consider it a serious attempt at dealing
with the sample’s selection bias. I still don’t. In fact, it entirely misses the
main source of bias. That bias does not stem chiefly from class size
differences, it stems from the fact that religious schools need not file
spending data with the IRS, and that the relatively few that do file IRS
Form 990 (0.5% of Catholic schools!) have a very good reason for doing
so: they’re trying harder to raise money from donors. This is not just
my own analysis, but also the analysis of a knowledgeable source within
Guidestar (the organization from which Baker obtained the data), whose
name and contact information I will share with Dr. Baker off-line if he
would like to follow-up.
Obviously, schools that are trying harder to raise non-tuition revenue are
likely to… raise more non-tuition revenue. That is the 800 pound
flaming pink chihuahua in the middle of this dataset. According to the
NCES, 80 percent of private school students are enrolled in religious
schools (see p. 7), and this sample is extremely likely to suffer upward
bias on spending by that overwhelming majority of private schools. They
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 2 September 2009

may spend the extra money on facilities, salaries, equipment, field trips,
materials, or any number of other things apart from, or in addition
to, smaller classes.

Baker’s study does not address this source of bias, and so can tell us
nothing reliable about religious schools, or private schools in general,
either nationally or in the regions it identifies. The only thing that the
study tells us with any degree of confidence is that elite independent
private schools, which make up a small share of the private education
marketplace, are expensive. An uncontroversial finding.

It is surprising to me that this seemingly obvious point was also missed

by several other scholars whose names appear in the frontmatter of the
paper. This is yet another reminder to journalists: when you get a new
and interesting paper, send it to a few other experts for
comment (embargoed if you like) before writing it up. Doing so will
usually lead to a much more interesting, and accurate, story.