Daily Read - 2/16/10

NPR has an interesting story on companies that find people with Asperger's Syndrome "as a potential competitive advantage."  According to these companies, some data entry and software testing jobs are "a perfect fit," and are looking for more ways to provide opportunities.  "According to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than 20 percent of the disabled population in the country has work."

"During the 1980s and ’90s only one new medical school was established," according to this NY Times article "Expecting a Surge in US Medical Schools."  Nearly two dozen medical schools "have recently opened or might open across the country...seeking to address an imbalance in American medicine that has been growing for a quarter century."

With Evan Bayh announcing he will not run for reelection, Jay Cost thinks "Susan Collins, [Ben] Nelson, and Olympia Snowe are the only true centrists left" in the Senate.  Cost adds that, due to the razor-thin 60-vote majority, Bayh was not as centrist as many think because "thanks to the legislative strategy designed by his party's leadership, he was obliged to support them as the critical vote over and over."  A sad state of affairs.

Thomas Sowell says to stop calling wealth "obscene."  "Poverty is obscene. It is poverty that needs to be reduced--and increasing a country's productivity has done that far more widely than redistributing income by targeting 'the rich.'"


Harvard law professor Elisabeth Warren argued in a WSJ opinion column that the "same Wall Street CEOs who brought the economy to its knees have spent more than a year and hundreds of millions of dollars furiously lobbying Washington." Thomas Hofler wrote a letter in response asking: "To which CEOs is she referring? Perhaps Stan O'Neal, James Cayne, Charles Prince or Richard Fuld? No, none of these folks have lobbied anyone for at least 18 months because, unlike Washington, Wall Street holds its leaders accountable." All of these CEOs are out of a job, and James Cayne, for example, lost over $1 billion of his personal money, which was in Bear Stearns stock. Many of those in DC who encouraged sloppy and reckless mortgage lending are still in Congress -- writing "reform" bills.


President Obama made some remarks on energy today, including that the US will "break ground on the first new nuclear plant in our country in three decades."  "This one plant, for example, will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a similar coal plant. That's like taking 3.5 million cars off the road."  I hope there's more to come!  Daniel Indiviglio at the Atlantic has "5 Reasons to Cheer Obama's Nuclear Ambitions."

The AP reports (via Google News) that Federal, state, and local governments are starting to sell real estate to ease their budget deficits.  Unfortunately, "Government has a history of selling real estate at an inopportune time, said Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics."  On the other hand, "Pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors are eager to scoop up properties that offer the prospect of a steady return on their investment, said Jeff Friedman, principal at Mesa West Capital LLC."

John Stossel reports that lobbying increased 5% last year.  Why?  “Even when companies are scaling back other operations, many view lobbying as a critical tool in protecting their future interests, particularly when Congress is preparing to take action on issues that could seriously affect their bottom lines,” according to Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.  When politicians make speeches about getting lobbyists out of Washington, they seem to forget that a lot of lobbying is defensive.  Larger government is likely to result in more lobbying, not less, and also a larger degree of government intervention in private business.

Some of this lobbying is done by unions, and Kevin Hassett writes in Bloomberg that "this president has been more in the tank for the labor movement than any U.S. president since World War II."  For example, "he included special restrictions on much of the economic-stimulus funds, requiring that large portions of the $787 billion be used only on projects involving unionized workers," and "cut deals with the United Auto Workers ensuring that they be the primary beneficiaries in the bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors. More recently, Congress exempted unionized workers from the 40 percent tax on high-end insurance packages in the Senate health-care bill."

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” - Benito Mussolini