Links and Minifeatures 2009 04 01 (Wednesday)

Yes, it is April 1st, but as much as I wish these were all jokes, most of them are not.

Free the Job Creators

I always take the wisdom of crowds with a large grain of salt, because in all too many instances the crowd doesn't know what they're talking about (look at Obama's election rimshot), but in this case, the wisdom the crowd is spouting is the same as the experts.

Government Gone Wild

But all of this is just a pipe dream. Government spending does not cause a net increase in jobs over the long run; it costs jobs. Every dollar the government spends is either taxed or borrowed from the private sector, which means it "crowds out" private sector job creation. And because government spending is less efficient than private sector spending, the economy actually grows more slowly in the long run as the government gets bigger.

A New Era of Govt-Controlled Business?

The big bankers say they are profitable. And with an upward-sloping Treasury yield curve and some market-to-market accounting reform coming from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the outlook for banks should be getting better, not worse. So why is the Treasury jamming more TARP money down bankers' throats, especially after announcing a new plan to use private capital to clean up bank balance sheets and solve the toxic-asset problem?

It kinda sounds like the Treasury doesn't want to let go of its new uber-regulator status.

As for Detroit, the carmakers should have been in bankruptcy months ago. And it is a bankruptcy court that should have fired GM's Wagoner and his board. Along with some serious pain for bondholders, bankruptcy would have broken the high-cost labor contracts with the UAW as well as carmaker contracts with dealers across the country. That's what bankruptcy courts are for. They're part of the free-market capitalist system.

Continuity We Shouldn't Believe In - Moral Hazard and the Geithner Bailout Plan

Ironically, the moral hazard created by the Geithner plan is similar to the incentivizing of risky mortgage investments by the government's backing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which played a major role in causing the financial crisis in the first place, as economists Peter Wallison and Charles Calomiris describe in this paper. Wallison deserves some credit for warning about this danger back in 2005.

One reason why you should take the wisdom of crowds with a large grain of salt: Freeman Dyson: The Civil Heretic

Dyson says he doesn't want his legacy to be defined by climate change, but his dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only thing we can really be sure of is that much of what we expect to happen won't come to pass. In "Infinite in All Directions," he writes that nature's laws "make the universe as interesting as possible." This also happens to be a fine description of Dyson's own relationship to science. In the words of Avishai Margalit, a philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study, "He's a consistent reminder of another possibility." When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the "enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories," these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.

This man ranks right up there with the greatest geniuses of all time. Nobody since Leonardo da Vinci has contributed so much to so many areas of science - and it's gotten a lot harder since da Vinci.

Read the whole thing.

President Obama means well. Iran doesn't.

But misleading analysis easily follows: Europeans and Americans who are adamantly opposed to the use of force (or economy-crushing sanctions) naturally start to see "pragmatists" where they don't exist. Khamenei calls the United States "Satan Incarnate" and President Obama responds with a verse about brotherhood from the Persian Sufi poet Saadi. To respond otherwise would be to act like Bush. (Note to the White House: Revolutionary clerics don't appreciate Sufism, with its ecumenical call for brotherhood. They harass and suppress it.)

Did the NYT spike an ACORN story to benefit Obama?

Is that what happened here? The Times may claim that they didn't have enough corroboration to run the story. That didn't stop them from running a despicable hit piece on John McCain alleging a sexual affair between the Senator and a lobbyist, one which they eventually had to retract after getting sued by Vicki Iseman. They sent reporters to Wasilla to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin, but somehow neglected to cover her exoneration on ethics charges, as The Bulletin notes.

Unlike with the Iseman non-story, in which the Times used two disgruntled and unnamed former aides, The Bulletin has a public witness testifying under oath about the Paper of Record's political machinations. The Times has given a non-response response. I'd call this a clear loss for the Times, and further proof of its descent into political hackery -- this time covering up corruption in high political circles for its own policy preferences.

Original story here: 'New York Times' Spiked Obama Donor Story

I'd say the thing speaks for itself.

he EEOC: "The Fox Guarding the Henhouse"

The EEOC has a much worse record of labor and civil-rights violations than most corporations and agencies with a similar-size workforce.

The EEOC was found guilty of systematic, illegal, reverse discrimination (discrimination against white males) in Jurgens v. Thomas, 29 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1561, 1982 WL 409 (N.D.Tex.1982). When he was head of the EEOC, Clarence Thomas tried but apparently failed to end the reverse discrimination that went on in the agency.

The EEOC also has had a lot of sexual harassment lawsuits against it (and I am talking about real sexual harassment, not weak claims based on a couple of off-color jokes, the sort of trivial thing the EEOC itself might unsuccessfully sue a private employer over).See, e.g., Spain v. Gallegos, 26 F.3d 439 (3rd Cir.1994).

So much for government being superior to corporate america. Or anyone else.

Race and the 2008 Election: What the Exit Polls Showed

Those who said race was an important factor voted 55 percent to 44 percent in favor of Obama.

via Instapundit

Future Present

Our archeologist, while rummaging among the ruins of our fallen civilization, met a ghost from the long dead race of Americans. The wraith boasted much about what we had been as a people.

Stop worrying about the warranty on your car: