Links and Minifeatures 12 13 Wednesday

Carnival of The Capitalists Recommended: Professor Bainbridge (executive pay)



Carnival of Personal Finance



Carnival of Debt Reduction

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This week's supreme irony of life is that the same public school that calls it "Winter Festival," and utterly refuses to permit the "C-word" anywhere on campus, now wants us to buy overpriced presents through them for a fund raiser. My wife (a Catholic) is more than a little irritated, and justifiably so. I just sent it back with a note saying that I'm ill-disposed to buy Christmas presents from any place that refuses to utter the word "Christmas."



And yes, this same school has no problem with Kwanzaa or Ramadan, among other things. I could understand and I would agree if they were equally strict about leaving everybody's special agenda outside school grounds, although this spiritual humanist still wouldn't shop for Christmas presents through them. But to single one group out for special exclusions isn't even-handedness. It's discrimination, and I would be very glad to see them successfully sued for it.



And since it's less than two weeks to Christmas, one of my favorite seasonal songs, Tom Lehrer's A Christmas Carol seems somehow appropriate. (I had to scroll down to find the "Listen" link)



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A sad day. The actor who played "Young Frankenstein"'s monster has died



But I was going to make Espresso!



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Raids in 6 states may be largest ever

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday the investigation uncovered a "disturbing front" in the war against illegal immigration, in which illegal immigrants are using the identities of U.S. citizens to obtain jobs.

Right up to date on the latest thirty year old trends, Homeland Security is.

During a raid Tuesday at the Swift plant in Greeley, Colo., a frustrated Tony Garcia watched as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed inside to arrest illegal immigrants. "We need help, we need answers," he said, questioning who would take care of the children whose parents were arrested.

Who takes care of the children of anyone else who's arrested? I'm sorry the kids got caught in it, but if we're not willing to enforce our immigration laws on people with children, then illegal immigrants will, amazingly enough, treat children as a "get out of jail free" card.

Immigration officials last month informed Swift that it would remove unauthorized workers on Dec. 4, but Swift asked a federal judge to prevent agents from conducting the raid, arguing it would cause "substantial and irreparable injury" to its business.

No sympathy whatsoever. Haul those doing the hiring to jail right along with the illegals.



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Senator Wants Universal Health Care Plan



I want a cheap reliable faster than light drive. It appears that Mr. Wyden is doing about as much in a direction that will benefit his objective as I am to achieve mine. His way still amounts to "fiddle at the edges and make corporations pay." Repeat after me: Corporations never pay for anything. Their customers, and their customers customers, do.



Good basic universal health care is very easy to figure out, but politically DOA.

The group, created in 2003 by legislation sponsored by Wyden and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recommended that the government take steps to guarantee that all Americans have basic health insurance coverage by 2012.

And it gets paid for how? With what revenue? I'd like to see basic universal health in some form, but I keep coming back to that killer issue. It's one of those issues where everybody is trying to make everybody else pay for goodies accruing to them. There are names for this: "Rent seeking behavior" and "Tragedy of the commons," being two of the best known. It sounds callous to talk about money when people are suffering, but improperly done universal health care will not only cost our economy far more than the current state of affairs, but it will cause more human misery as well. When you're ready to make the hard choices that make economic sense, I'll be ready to help. Until then, go bark up some other tree.



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The Fed Hedges, Citing Housing Woes

The Fed began the year with a quarter point hike to 4.5% and followed with three additional hikes before leveling off in June--a cumulative 425 basis point tightening for the cycle in just over two years. All the while, the Fed has maintained its vigil against inflation expectations taking root and, barring a "smoking gun" (like an adverse financial event in the mortgage or auto sectors), the central bank still appeared set against a policy reversal. Yet when the Fed finally took its foot off the rate-hike pedal in August, the pause was viewed by many as a concession to bond-market participants with a more pessimistic view on the economic trajectory.

Any cuts at this point will be "too little, too late." Had they wanted to avert the problems, they wouldn't have gone so low, and would have raised rates slowly and gingerly. But the Fed is always over-reacting to events at least a year after it should have. When they talk about stopping hikes in the overnight funds rate as a "concession" to the bond markets, you know they're acting like bankers, not economists.



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Speaking of "too little, too late": The Baiji Yangtze Dolphin is with all probability extinct.



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Why they got it wrong.



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Anybody want to bet me that "dirty tricks" accusations are flying on the moonbat sites? Sen. Johnson suffers possible stroke



He is a Democrat. The governor of South Dakota, who would appoint any replacement, is Republican. Since a Republican replacement would bring the split to 50/50, Vice President Cheney would hold the deciding vote, and the Republicans retain control. I don't think the American people wold be happy, and it might set the Republicans up for more punishment at the polls.



On the other hand, the stroke does not seem bad from the reports, and "caught very early," among other verbiage, is always an encouraging phrase to hear regarding strokes. If some hypothetical Republican "dirty tricks" squad was responsible, I suspect it wouldn't have been nearly so minor. So even if Senator Johnson is out for a while, my guess at this point is that it's going to be obviously temporary, and Democrats will still control the senate, leaving us stuck with majority leader Harry Reid.