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Then perhaps these statistics will interest you. (Not that I have much stake in the whole gas price debate.)

The author of the book is a physicist, not a resource economist, so it's probably be to expected that his conclusions about the future price of natural resources are wrong. People are notorious for saying silly thing when they speak outside of their area of expertise.

To summarize the views of many economists, the stone age did not end for lack of stones, and the oil age will not end for lack of oil. Eventually, other sources of energy will become sufficiently cheaper/cleaner/better, and the economy will gradually shift to them. But there's no reason to expect that the shift from oil to, say, nuclear fusion will be any more traumatic than the shift from coal to oil was a century ago.

One interesting article on the subject of oil prices, by MIT economist Morris Adelman, is here.

He has the support of the CATO Institute, a neutral, non-profit organisation fighting against the spread of junk science such as "global warming" (a single volcano belches out more SO2 than humanity has in its entire history) and "acid rain" (last time I checked, "evil" CO2 was not acidic), not to mention the hysteria about DDT, dioxins, asbestos and lead in fuel, none of which have any scientific backing but all of which are supported by eco-fascists and pro-statist left-wing biased news "sources" who want to stop the growth of the US economy becuase they're jealous and they hate our freedom.

As with many politically driven sites they seem to have a few things right but a great many others completely WRONG. They look like a confused CATO Institute

Please stop propagating junk science propagated by anti-American communists. "Pollution" is just FUD spread by the anti-Progress communo-envirofascist lobby. For a fair and balanced view of the "environment", please see Fox News - Fair And Balanced or The CATO Institute, Protecting America Against Statism.

Forget the amendments, how about something in the actual constitution itself? Something so important that the Found Fathers put it in Article I - the first Article of the US Constitution. The right of Habeas Corpus.

• The Schiller Institute Lyndon Larouche sez: 440 is evil
• George Washington Institute Spiritual Healing for George
• The Cato Institute Ayn Rand was apparently very popular in Ancient Rome...

Evidence of sentencing disparity visited on those who exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury is today stark, brutal, and incontrovertible.... Today, under the Sentencing Guidelines regime with its vast shift of power to the Executive, that disparity has widened to an incredible 500 percent. As a practical matter this means, as between two similarly situated defendants, that if the one who pleads and cooperates gets a four-year sentence, then the guideline sentence for the one who exercises his right to trial by jury and is convicted will be 20 years. Not surprisingly, such a disparity imposes an extraordinary burden on the free exercise of the right to an adjudication of guilt by one's peers. Criminal trial rates in the United States and in this District are plummeting due to the simple fact that today we punish people-- punish them severely -- simply for going to trial. It is the sheerest sophistry to pretend otherwise.

Evidence of sentencing disparity visited on those who exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury is today stark, brutal, and incontrovertible.... Today, under the Sentencing Guidelines regime with its vast shift of power to the Executive, that disparity has widened to an incredible 500 percent. As a practical matter this means, as between two similarly situated defendants, that if the one who pleads and cooperates gets a four-year sentence, then the guideline sentence for the one who exercises his right to trial by jury and is convicted will be 20 years. Not surprisingly, such a disparity imposes an extraordinary burden on the free exercise of the right to an adjudication of guilt by one's peers. Criminal trial rates in the United States and in this District are plummeting due to the simple fact that today we punish people-- punish them severely -- simply for going to trial. It is the sheerest sophistry to pretend otherwise.

Evidence of sentencing disparity visited on those who exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury is today stark, brutal, and incontrovertible.... Today, under the Sentencing Guidelines regime with its vast shift of power to the Executive, that disparity has widened to an incredible 500 percent. As a practical matter this means, as between two similarly situated defendants, that if the one who pleads and cooperates gets a four-year sentence, then the guideline sentence for the one who exercises his right to trial by jury and is convicted will be 20 years. Not surprisingly, such a disparity imposes an extraordinary burden on the free exercise of the right to an adjudication of guilt by one's peers. Criminal trial rates in the United States and in this District are plummeting due to the simple fact that today we punish people-- punish them severely -- simply for going to trial. It is the sheerest sophistry to pretend otherwise.

US Gov't provides massive farm tax relief, subsidies and tariff protection. (almost as bad as the EU)

Especially with implict subsidies like the Export-Import Bank , it's hardly the US that has clean hands here.

I can't think of a single gov't that let's it's business people engage in world trade with our trying to even out the "unfair advantages all the rest of the world gets".

Lovely sentiment, but the US is not even the least-worst offender here.

• America is actually a net benificiary of outsourced jobs (i.e., more money comes in from foreign countries outsourcing jobs to the U.S. than are lost outsourcing jobs from the U.S. to foreign contries). "In 2002, U.S. companies exported $14.8 billion worth of computer, data-processing, research, development, construction, archicetural, engineering and other IT services. During that same year, America imported $3.9 billion of those same kinds of services. So for every dollar Americans sent abroad for outsourcing, the world sent more than three dollars to the US. for 'insourcing.'"
• According to a 2003 study by the McKinsey Global Institue, every $1 spent on foreign outspurcing creates $1.12 to $1.14 of additional economic activity in the U.S.
• The vast majority of job losses due to outsourcing have been for lower skill jobs. Between 1999 and 2002, IT jobs went from 6.24 million to 5.95 million. However, during the same period of time, those requiring a relatively high level of training (i.e., an associates degree or higher) actually increased, from 3.43 million to 3.51 million.
• If you use the saner baseline of 1998 rather than the peak of the dotcom bubble, things look better still. Current IT employment levels are equal to those of 1998.
• "Domestic software, computer, and communications services accounted for a combined 4621 billion in 2003, up from $510 billion in 1999."
• Far more people loose their jobs to technology or domestic competition than outsourcing.
• The total outsourcing between 2000 and 2015 is only projected (by Forrester Research) to be 3.3 million jobs, or about 220,000 a year. This is a fairly miniscule number for an economy that employees 137 million, where an average of 350,000 million people file for unemployment every week even in strong economies, and which creates and average of 32.8 million news jobs (while eliminating 31 million, for a net annual gain of 1.8 million jobs) every year.
• Outsourced jobs tend to go to countries that emulate the United States with low taxes and deregulated economies, and the foreign companies jobs are outsourced to tend to buy American equipment and services to do the job.

Most anti-IP people on /. may think that they are libertarians...I think that The Cato Institute and The Libertarian Party will disagree with them, however. Libertarians strongly believe in intellectual property, in general (though they are usually quite reasonably against huge copyright extensions, or trivial patents).

3. Ethanol generates a lot of money for my state. Use it and I get lower taxes.

President Bush today commemorated Earth Day in Maine, where he is touting his environmental policy and highlighting his plan to restore wetlands in the United States.

"Earth Day is traditionally a day for the Left -- a celebration of government's ability to deliver the environmental goods and for threats about the parade of horribles that will descend upon us lest we rededicate ourselves to federal regulators and public land managers," writes Jerry Taylor, Cato Institute director of natural resource studies, in "Happy Earth Day? Thank Capitalism." He argues that businessmen, not bureaucrats, "deserve most of the credit for the environmental gains over the past century."

"Indeed, we wouldn't even have environmentalists in our midst were it not for capitalism," Taylor writes. "Environmental amenities, after all, are luxury goods. America -- like much of the Third World today -- had no environmental movement to speak of until living standards rose sufficiently so that we could turn our attention from simply providing for food, shelter, and a reasonable education to higher 'quality of life' issues. The richer you are, the more likely you are to be an environmentalist. And people wouldn't be rich without capitalism."

President Bush today commemorated Earth Day in Maine, where he is touting his environmental policy and highlighting his plan to restore wetlands in the United States.

"Earth Day is traditionally a day for the Left -- a celebration of government's ability to deliver the environmental goods and for threats about the parade of horribles that will descend upon us lest we rededicate ourselves to federal regulators and public land managers," writes Jerry Taylor, Cato Institute director of natural resource studies, in "Happy Earth Day? Thank Capitalism." He argues that businessmen, not bureaucrats, "deserve most of the credit for the environmental gains over the past century."

"Indeed, we wouldn't even have environmentalists in our midst were it not for capitalism," Taylor writes. "Environmental amenities, after all, are luxury goods. America -- like much of the Third World today -- had no environmental movement to speak of until living standards rose sufficiently so that we could turn our attention from simply providing for food, shelter, and a reasonable education to higher 'quality of life' issues. The richer you are, the more likely you are to be an environmentalist. And people wouldn't be rich without capitalism."

More than 30 years ago, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan described U.S. antitrust laws as a "jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance." This article from the Cato Institute by Robert Levy makes a strong case to repeal them entirely.

To me, the people whining and complaining about Microsoft were mostly those on the outside looking in, the competitors that couldn't cut it and now want Uncle Sam or Mario Monti to step in and save them from themselves.

Only when material wealth is made mostly irrelevant by technology will the idea of "whuffie" really take off.

--

All that was needed was to forbid people who'd legally bought airtime from speaking their minds during their time.

It's just a little bit of freedom, you'll never miss it- though there is a funny loophole for those people who are famous or own media companies.

"If we can't do this anymore, what can we do? We are doomed!"

I remind you: it all makes sense in hindsight, and it wasnt obvious in the past that there would be an IT boom. Just like right now, you can't accurately predict the next thing people will move to. In fact: if you could, then the market would already be 80% of the way to being saturated already.

Don't complain you can't see the next big thing... because you never can. If you can see it, well... then it isnt the next big thing.

You are quite correct. This is the reason I don't advocate economists telling us what "the next big thing" is -- it's a prediction of the future. And we all know how accurate predictions of the future turn out to be... :) (in fact, in that email to my econ. prof, I mentioned this, and he agreed wholeheartedly)

That is also the reason why I think Lou Dobbs is asking that question in vain and, quite possibly, to mislead people...

Free market economys are meant to be challenging. Its never easy. There is no easy street. Stop looking for that street, because you are just going to get frustrated.

That is certainly true. But that is also the standard capitalism advocate's cop-out. I know, because I've said the same thing before, and I still say them. I want to move beyond mere rhetoric and understand free markets better than that -- and I believe most of the people whose jobs have been offshored want that as well, being that they tend to be reasonably-intelligent college-educated people.

That's why you need to be careful how you wave the banner of "free markets." The United States is not, and has never been a true free market. The closest we've ever been to the free-market ideal was during the 1800s, when regulations were few and innovation was widespread. But even then, we had very steep tariffs in order to protect the emerging industries we were growing domestically. Economics debate is a subject which must be kept in a historical context (e.g. largely-socialist and communist nations are proven failures - look at China, Russia, and N. Korea, whereas free-market capitalism has invariably been the long-run health of the nation -- look at Chile, the U.S., and Hong Kong, and to a lesser-degree, the mixed-economy European nations)...

Today, we have a market-oriented mixed economy. Milton Friedman himself says we have a 50% socialist economy because of how much we pay in taxes (we pay approximately 50% of our incomes in taxes, and because socialism is defined as state ownership of a nation's output, and because in economics the output of a nation = the income of the nation, Friedman is, as usual, dead-on).

Regulations utterly ABOUND in the U.S.. Ever look at the banking industry? They are among the most-heavily regulated industries in the U.S., but they are by no means the only ones. Consider government safety regulations on automobiles. Consider OSHA laws. Consider laws against drugs, which lead to our long-failed War on Drugs. Consider the FDA, which prevents new drugs from getting to market as quickly as they otherwise could, and which also prevents the importation of drugs from Canada and other nations. Consider President Bush's steel tariffs. Consider Social(ist) Security, for which "The Greatest Generation" is going to rob my generation (generation X/Y) blind. Consider Medicare. And don't forget about that massive military beast we keep feeding. And so on...

You're probably a Bush II Republican, so you believe we have a free-market economy, like most Republicans. Compared to almost every other nation on Earth (Singapore and Hong Kong being the best contenders, though with China's influence, HK's free-market status is slowly declining), you are right, we do.

But don't kid yourself -- the United States is nowhere *near* the ideals of a "free mar

You can read some recent analysis of the historic municipal competition period in this cato report. Relevant quote:

"Primeaux conducted a similar study on the prices actually paid by customers of competing versus monopoly firms. He found that the impact of competition on prices was even more profound than that on costs. He attributed that difference to lower profit rates under competition. He found that competition lowered prices by 16 or 19 percent, depending on the quantity of electricity used. The average price (total sales revenue divided by quantity sold) decreased by 33 percent. Thus, the potential gains to consumers from competition, through greater internal efficiency and more favorable profit rates, appear to be substantial."

Cable is easy because - barring legislation to the contrary - any neighborhood could set up its own cable service. In the suburbs, all you need is one guy with a satellite dish in his backyard willing to share with his neighbors. In the cities, this model is particularly relevant to large apartment buildings - the owner who puts a dish on the roof can offers cable to all the tenants.

Electricity is harder, but in the past when competition was legal there was significant competition - especially on the margins between territories - that drove down prices. In El Paso for quite a while there was a duopoly - one private service and one public one. This came about because enough people got fed up with the monopoly provider that they voted to form a sort of community co-op competitor. One of the power companies shared lines with the local cable company, the other shared lines with the phone company, and if you got sick of the service from one you could call up the other and they would come out and change the meters. Prices were regulated but they competed on service and I believe had separate production facilities - you were getting your power from a different generator if you switched. I'm having trouble finding an online source on that era but it looks like texas has been trying to introduce competition throughout the state recently. Here are a couple PDF papers from an industry association on that:

Saving Money with Electric Choice (PDF)
Quote: "On January 1, 2002, about 60 percent of Texans were given the opportunity to choose their retail Electric Providers (REPs) for the first time."

legislative briefing (PDF)

Don't just talk to CEOs, talk to the CATO Institute for more pro positions. I'm sure you can find some other groups to balance their position if you need to. Don't play this as a Big evil corporation and their CEOs vs the little guy if you want an honest documentary. Of course if you just want to add to all the hype and get attention instead of informing people by all means play up the evil CEOs vs the little workers, just don't be surprised when you have no creditability.

For example, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the five states losing the most jobs between 1993 and 2000 were, in order, California, New York, Michigan, Texas and Ohio. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts also rank near the bottom, particularly when you take jobs as a percentage of population. The left-leaning EPI blames these losses chiefly on NAFTA, and perhaps that's partially the case. But aggressive tax and regulatory climates play a pretty big role, too.

Each year, CFO magazine asks financial executives to assess the business-friendliness of tax policy in their respective states, which the magazine then compiles and ranks. Ranking in the bottom 10? California, New York, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts -- the very states that seem to be bleeding jobs. The most recent unemployment figures from the Labor Department put California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan all in the bottom 10 there, too, all with unemployment rates at 7.0 percent or higher.

AT&T and the Bells created their markets and local monopolies. AT&T did not overtake competitive free markets.

Microsoft has not done well in markets that they cannot tie to their Windows monopoly.

The only way to get a monopoly in a truly free market is to create a new market.

"None, since [the U.S.] wasn't pissing on anyone's roses, except for the terrorists. Get real."
"What made the US right was that it WAS right. Not "because it was the US", but because the actions tended to be rather positive."
"Nor is it a useful solution to say we are wrong when we really are not."

This shows an incredible ignorance of the U.S. foreign policy, interference, and actions in the Middle East over the last 60 years. From oil interests to arms deals, from interference in political conflicts to opposition to neutrality in the cold war, from intervention in the Iran-Iraq war (including first siding with Iraq, then switching to side with Iran and Syria) to both Gulf wars, the U.S. has a long history of destructive intervention in the Middle East, all in the name of its own interests. Rather than list it all, why don't you just read about it. This is "made up" stuff, it's well documented, well known (except, apparently, to many U.S. citizens) history.

Even now, the U.S. has invaded Iraq in the name of world security from WMDs, despite the fact that

they had no credible evidence that there were any, as many countries pointed out (and big surprise, they didn't find any),

the U.N. weapons inspectors were doing an effective job of weapons inspections,

the U.S. basically pissed off it's allies by telling them "You're either with us or against us" and punishing them if they didn't come on side.

the U.S. has become an occupying entity without an exit strategy, exactly what Bush's own father would happen and why they didn't invade in the last Gulf war.

the U.S. is "selling" the Iraq war as part of the "war against terrorism" despite the fact that there is no link with Iraq (including Saddam Hussein) and terrorist activities, Al Quaeda, Bin Laden, or Sept. 11th (almost all of the Sept. 11th terrorists were from Saudia Arabia, who the U.S. won't be hostile with because they are "oil friends").

>"The opposite is, in fact, the case right now, where "digging in our heels" and refusing to make any changes has invited more terrorism."
"How so?"

Um, despite years of U.S. "digging in", terrorism hasn't stopped and in fact has increased against the U.S. Haven't you watched the news in the last 20 years?

"No, it is because that doing what the terrorists want is extremely wrong. "

Again, this doesn't differentiate between complying with demands (to appease the terrorist) versus stopping doing the wrong things (see above history) which happen to coincide with their demands. If you were about to eat your ham sandwich for lunch and a terrorist came up and said he'd blow you up if you didn't eat your ham sandwich, are you saying you'd actually refuse to eat it? You were going to anyway. Refusing to do something because it is a demand is just dumb, spiteful, and dangerous.

Now we come to the funny-sounding point:
"Their demands are entirely outrageous and evil-minded."

This is just classic propaganda-esque that it's hard not to laugh. It's like the "evil-doers" quotes. It makes it very apparent that whoever said it doesn't even know what "their" demands are.

Given the history lesson above, "their" demands are basically "leave us alone". They are tired of being interfered with, toyed with, subject to broken promises, and suffering from U.S. foreign policy in the region. They are quite tired of the U.S. "pissing on their roses".

Yes, this does not excuse the actions of terrorists. There is no question that their type of thinking and action needs to stop. And yes, there is unrest in the area outside of U.S. intervention, largely due to religious and cultural difference. The region needs to grow up in terms of tolerance for others. However, this does not excuse the U.S. policies and

the cost of most non-renewable resources, labor, and pollution all tend to go up over the long term.

A quick Google gave this page, search for Simon. (The rest of the article is the inverse of your position.)

Yes, oil use will have to end. But we usually find other ways when we get to such an end. (labor has gone up in cost -- which is a damn good thing!)

(Besides, pollution is a problem when industrialization starts. It then start to cost real money, so if the country isn't totally corrupt, it gets solved. Here in Sweden and West Europe, it is a much smaller problem now than a few decades ago.)

Telephone: Every heard of a public utility commission? That's the government group you have to get permission from to start a phone company. They'll be the ones telling you what services you are allowed to offer at what rates, if they allow you to do anything at all. Long-distance telephone has gotten better recently, but while deregulation efforts have started in some areas to get rid of the monopoly, in many parts of the U.S. there is only one choice for your phone company simply because the government still says so.

Electricity: Very similar to the phone monopolies, a little deregulation in some aspects, but still largely a monopoly with no choice of local carrier enforced by the government. In fact, in many places, electricity and water are provided directly by the local government.

Cable: Sorry, but if you tried to start a new local cable company, your local government would stop you. A quick Google on "cable television monopoly" reveals plenty of sources. Try the one from an attorney challenging cities ability to award a cable monopoly.

Cable TV: cities only allow one cable company to string lines. No competition. Deregulate price, and the predictable happens.

Satellite is now sufficiently mature and cheap enough to compete with cable TV. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Airlines: price deregulated, yes, but FAA restrictions remained in place, along with commerce regulations. As another poster noted, price did fall, but the regulation is still a killer.

Another poster noted that California's deregulation caused massive blackouts and increases in price. I would like to note that deregulation is not necessarily "free market." The deregulation efforts in CA were doomed from the beginning.

If you'd like to see a pretty good discussion of what happened from a free-market perspective, see: why the cost went up, and why it wasn't deregulation.

If you're in the mood for something meatier, try Borenstein and Bushnell's article in Regulation magazine, summer 2000.

Of course, that is Cato, and they are pro-free-market. But that doesn't mean that they aren't pretty bright.

Cable TV: cities only allow one cable company to string lines. No competition. Deregulate price, and the predictable happens.

Satellite is now sufficiently mature and cheap enough to compete with cable TV. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Airlines: price deregulated, yes, but FAA restrictions remained in place, along with commerce regulations. As another poster noted, price did fall, but the regulation is still a killer.

Another poster noted that California's deregulation caused massive blackouts and increases in price. I would like to note that deregulation is not necessarily "free market." The deregulation efforts in CA were doomed from the beginning.

If you'd like to see a pretty good discussion of what happened from a free-market perspective, see: why the cost went up, and why it wasn't deregulation.

If you're in the mood for something meatier, try Borenstein and Bushnell's article in Regulation magazine, summer 2000.

Of course, that is Cato, and they are pro-free-market. But that doesn't mean that they aren't pretty bright.

Cable TV: cities only allow one cable company to string lines. No competition. Deregulate price, and the predictable happens.

Satellite is now sufficiently mature and cheap enough to compete with cable TV. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Airlines: price deregulated, yes, but FAA restrictions remained in place, along with commerce regulations. As another poster noted, price did fall, but the regulation is still a killer.

Another poster noted that California's deregulation caused massive blackouts and increases in price. I would like to note that deregulation is not necessarily "free market." The deregulation efforts in CA were doomed from the beginning.

If you'd like to see a pretty good discussion of what happened from a free-market perspective, see: why the cost went up, and why it wasn't deregulation.

If you're in the mood for something meatier, try Borenstein and Bushnell's article in Regulation magazine, summer 2000.

Of course, that is Cato, and they are pro-free-market. But that doesn't mean that they aren't pretty bright.

I don't know what Dubya's camp is up to with all this space exploration/Mars stuff, but it just seems fishy to me.

First they spend (waste, IMO) billions sending probes to Mars (right after wasting millions or billions on a war) ...

Right. We need to spend more than the next twenty nations combined.

We need to spend more than we have in over fifty years to Fight Terror, a nebulous proposition at best.

We need to spend money on programs that should have died with the Cold War... and to fight who? Terrorists with a decentralized power structure?

Yeah, new trident missile submarines and fourth-generation stealth fighters are definitely necessary for that. Just like how it's necessary to destroy a house in order to get rid of a rodent.

Now that the SPAMMERS have moved from overseas to Domestic (USA) machines the lawyers can move in and hit these people hard, in the pocket book. This looks like an industry wide effort with Comcast shutting off the spigot this week. The denied loggings here, from comcast machines, dropped off significantly this past week. UUnet is still the top of the list percent wise. Now that we have them where we want them, here at home, Hit them hard.

The Cato Institute thinks the following:

"The large majority of America's nonfarm workers, about 85 percent, are employed in service-providing industries, construction, and government--sectors where import competition is minimal. To those workers, imports are an unambiguous blessing that spurs innovation, expands consumer choice, and raises real wages." Full Paper Here

Moreover, this breifing goes on to argue employment grows in proportion to imports . There's a fairly rational reason for this, if we can all stop foaming at the mouth long enough to actually think rationally: when employment grows we (consumers) have more cash to spend on goods and services. Since imports are a relatively fixed percentage of the overall economy, whenever the overall economy grows, so must imports. Why am I discussing imports if the argument is over services? Well, services are imported and exported just like goods. So, let's understand the real numbers, here:

The United States had a $64.8 billion trade (BEG ITAL) surplus in services in 2002, despite economic stagnation in Europe and Japan. Services accounted for 30 percent of all U.S. exports and 43 percent ($3.1 billion) of U.S. exports to India. Full Article Here

But, if half of our exports to India are in the form of services why are so many technical jobs going to India? Actually, there's no real evidence that's happening at all. There are two basic erroneous arguments made by the media today supporting the assumptions in this question. First, is the post hoc mistake: because the US economy is losing jobs and because after that happened India started gaining technology jobs, then India must be responsible for losses in American technology jobs. Actually, poor investments by venture capitalists and fund managers caused the loss in US jobs. The fact those losses occured coincidentally with India's technology boom is completely irrelevant.

Second, is the hasty generalization mistake: Bob Smith has just lost his job because his company opened a software development office in India, therefore all American technology jobs must be moving overseas. There just isn't enough evidence to support the generalization made by reporters. We may suspect that India is taking some portion of American jobs, but news reports by well-intentioned NPR and New York Times reporters aren't evidence that its hurting our economy.

All this panic and paranoia about jobs moving overseas doesn't even make sense when we consider the real economics of it. The "entire employment of the US" can't possibly be outsourced. Even if your argument wasn't a textbook example of the slippery slope fallacy, you'd still be wrong on an economic basis. If the USA loses a sufficient number of jobs, i.e. unemployment rises, the consumers will have less capital with which to buy foreign-made products. Domestic workers who are out of work will be willing to work for less, thus driving down the cost of locally made goods. When the cost of local goods and services drops below the cost of foreign made goods and services, then jobs will start to flow back into the USA. Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.

During the Clinton Administration monetary policy for the dollar kept our currency strong, which helped keep prices for foreign made consumer goods low. This was a good thing during that time because Asia and Europe were both in the midst of deep recessions and American consumer spending helped to bolster those economies through that trying time. The Bush Administration has since let the US Dollar sag in relation to other currencies. This has helped decrease the price of American goods and services abroad

As far as I can remember from various conversations with some japanese people the voluntary export restraint (VER) was a product of protectionism from both Japanese and American car producers and USA.

In 1981 the american car producers was struggling because off:
1. The high oil price.
2. Competition from fuel efficient smaler cars from Japan.
So Japan, affraid that the US Congress might impose trade restrictions or quotas came up with VER.
Originaly the Japanese manufacturers did not like the idea, but after a couple of months they found out that the system with quotas controlled in Japan would split the market between them (make it difficault for smaller producers to get export quotas) and prevent price competition in both Japan and USA.
American manufacturers wanted the VER as it would give them time to restructure(something that is questionable that happened) and Reagan wanted it because of pressure to protect jobs in the idustry.

Unconfirmed rumors has it that there was some pressure on Japan from USA about the VER. Something about USA protecting Japan aginst China.., trade relations and stuff like that. We probably won't know if these rumors are true until stuff gets declassified. Take it with a grain of salt.

So after the start of the VER the Japanese auto stocks rose with 50%, the export fell with 120000 units the first year and later rose as they expanded the quotas. The american manufacturers lived happy for 3-4 years.
After 1981 the Japanese maufacturers started to export higher value cars to get more for each unit. As the american manufacturers never thought about using the time to restructure and improve their production and instead spent thier time lobbying for import restrictions they did decent until Japanese manufacturers started to build factories in USA in the late eighties.

Two interesting articles on this subject:
The Japanese Automobile Cartel and The Philosophy of Trade Protectionism, Its Costs and Its Implications. Both are kind of right wing/ pro free trade for USA, but good stuff anyway.

You have enough interest to understand the justification for antitrust law, but boredom must have set in before you learned about its practical consequences. You've accepted the theoretical justification for something that has proven itself a failure time and time again.

The post you linked to presents a naive position: that antitrust law is a second rate solution to problems price controls could better solve. In theory, antitrust is a shield for consumers. In practice, it's always been a sword for class action law firms and uncompetitive rivals.

Read about antitrust's "biggest hits": Great Northern, Standard Oil, IBM. The actual result of antitrust is always antithetical to its purpose.

Um. No. Lots, possibly hundreds, of people were arrested/detained, many for more than a month, and the Justice Department refused to release their names. The exact number of people so detained isn't known, because the Justic Department refuses to report that too.

One of the U.S. citizens being held indefinitely without trial is named Jose Padilla. He was arrested in Chicago at the airport, not on a foreign battlefield! The other one is named Yaser Hamdi, and he might have been trying to kill American soldiers, but we don't really know, since he wasn't captured by U.S. forces. He was handed over to them by an Afghan warlord working with the U.S. No U.S. soldiers saw him captured and they had to take the Afghan's word for what he was doing.

I could find links to wiretap changes, but I'm feeling lazy. In any case you seem to have had a few misunderstandings of your own--ones that can easily be corrected with 5 minutes of Googling.

Just like it didn't give a shit about: 1. The Kyoto protocol, to which the Clinton administration had previously committed the US;

2. The International Criminal Court, (together with the Clinton administration) by demanding a complete US exemption from prosecution;

3. Free trade, by placing tarriffs on steel, lumber and other imports, in direct violation of NAFTA and other free trade agreements;

4. Invading Iraq, which was done without a proper UN mandate, hence the UN-bashing when the US didn't get close to getting what it wanted (no, the previous decade old resolutions were not sufficient, if they were the US wouldn't have been looking for a new resolution green-lighting the war in late 2002 and it wouldn't have got so shitty with France and the other countries in the Security Council that promised to veto any such resolution);

5. The other long-range missile treaties with Russia (originally signed in the 1970s, when it was part of the USSR), which it unilaterally scrapped almost as soon as it entered office.

And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head. Face facts, when it comes to international relations, there's a lot that the Bush administration doesn't give a shit about. Pretend all you want, but the current US government has set back US-World relationships more than any other in history. It took all the goodwill and support the World had to offer after September 11 and either pissed it away or threw it back into people's faces. Anti-US sentiment is rife, even in those countries whose governments had backed the US invasion of Iraq: In Britain 85 percent were opposed to war, In Australia it was over 80 percent and in Spain it was over 90 percent, and most of those in opposition were highly critical of Bush's motives. It turns out that they (and the rest of the World) were right to be. It's not hard to find "Bush bashing crap". The man's done a lot of crap that's worthy of bashing.

Now I whole-heartedly believe the ACLU should support gay rights including the right to have a marriage between a homosexual couple be recognized by the state. Why is it that we as a 1st-world nation still feel the need to discriminate against race, religion, and sexual preference? Why aren't we above that by now? If two homosexual individuals want to get married why the hell should we stop them? What does it really matter to us? Does it really hurt us or infringe on our rights somehow? I can't possibly see how it could. They aren't trying to convince you to become gay. They aren't trying to sell your children on the notion of growing up to be gay. I live in the rural Midwest where for some odd reason many people are against homosexual marriages. I liken the viewpoints of these individuals to that of the racist self-serving southerners from the 60s. The only thing we're lacking this time around is riots. I mean that literally.

I also support the ACLU on correcting the Pledge of Allegiance. I whole-heartedly support that action. "Why?" you might ask? Because it's current form infringes on my 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Religion. My beef with the POA can be summed up in two words: Under God. That's it. Many people upon hearing you say that will jumped at the chance to call you unpatriotic (hell nowadays they might just call you a terrorist) for wanting to change their sacred document. However there's nothing unpatriotic about asserting your Freedom of Religion rights. Hell that's actually quite "American." We are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, aren't we? Didn't our forefathers come to this land to escape religious persecution? I could have sworn I read that once. Here in the "Bible Belt" you'd most likely be assaulted if you publicly stated that the words "under God" were not part of the original POA but were added after political pressure. You would probably be stoned if you described how the Knights of Columbus campaigned to add the words "under God" to the POA in 1954. Why would others not like you stating the truth about the POA? Perhaps they feel it threatens their religious views. Perhaps they simply fear change, that is after all human nature. I sympathize with those fearful people but I can not deny that the words "under God" cross the line in the separation of church and state. Does someone else's religious beliefs negate my own?

It's been fun chatting (no, really. I enjoy these discussions!) but I need to get back to work. I mentioned earlier that I hadn't heard of any other groups that defend out rights. I stumbled across one tonight. It's the Cato Institute. I noticed that they'd submitted an Amicus Brief for the Hiibel case that SCOTUS agreed to hear. Their website is pretty good. I haven't done any other research on them yet but they *seem* to be a decent group. YMMV. Have a good one.

You can report scientific facts and still ignore other scientific facts that don't lead to the same conclusion and opinions as your own.

Besides the obvious civil liberties issues, the government does not have a good history of running networks. Just look at Amtrak.

I am calling BS on your SUV theory.

It's not a theory. All one need do is examine the history of the passenger car/light truck market in the US. Soccer moms used to buy station wagons based on passenger car chassis. Men used to by sedans. CAFE is the reason that changed. Simple as that.

The VAST MAJORITY of SUV drivers DO NOT NEED a vehicle that large.

Absolutely 100% correct. It is also true that the vast majority of SUV drivers do not want a passenger car that small.

Ever noticed how most foods and drinks are sweetened with "high fructose corn syrup", rather than the simpler "sugar", and thought it was a bit odd? I'd always just assumed that it was to disguise the ingredient, but that seemed pointless given the nutritional listing of sugar content. Apparently the resolution is that the US government mandates a price for sugar which is about twice the global one. It does not mandate such a price for corn syrup, so corn syrup is cheaper. The major manufacturer of corn syrup (Archer Daniels Midland) "donates" generously to both parties to ensure the continuation of this policy.

(ADM also runs a mammoth ethanol boondoggle based on government subsidies. Every dollar of profits earned by their corn sweetener operation costs consumers ~10$, every dollar earned by their ethanol operation costs taxpayers ~$30.) (ADM also runs a mammoth ethanol boondoggle based on government subsidies. Every dollar of profits earned by their corn sweetener operation costs consumers ~10$, every dollar earned by their ethanol operation costs taxpayers ~$30.)

I know a AC(or anyone else for that matter) is probably going to read this but this is why I think money is not the problem. A sample below.

The District spends more per pupil than almost any state in the nation, yet its students perform far below the national average on every measure of student achievement. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress found that one out of four D.C. eighth graders had basic math skills. Less than half could read.

"The methodological arsenal of modern econometrics cannot detect a single shred of evidence that immigrants have a sizeable adverse impact on the earnings and employment opportunities of natives."- George Borjas

The lack of job growth in the US, despite the looting of the Treasury for subsidies to these rich people, once again destroys the argument of "supply side" economics. After the debacle of Reagan's supply side, the last time these unemployment numbers were close to this high (excepting Bush Sr's next-closest nadir), you'd think this nonsense would be rejected

If you examine the Reagan Economic Record you'll see that Supply Side economics worked very well. During the Reagan years, real family incomes increased for all income quantiles, proving that a rising tide indeed does lift all boats.

The lack of job growth in the US, despite the looting of the Treasury for subsidies to these rich people, once again destroys the argument of "supply side" economics. After the debacle of Reagan's supply side, the last time these unemployment numbers were close to this high (excepting Bush Sr's next-closest nadir), you'd think this nonsense would be rejected

If you examine the Reagan Economic Record you'll see that Supply Side economics worked very well. During the Reagan years, real family incomes increased for all income quantiles, proving that a rising tide indeed does lift all boats.

On your first point, I'll point you to this article that attempted to examine the effects of US-imposed drug price controls on overall global drug R&D spending. Note that the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies he studied were Pfizer, Merck & Co., AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, GlaxoWellcome, Pharmacia, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, American Home Products, Eli Lilly, SmithKline Beecham, Abbott Laboratories, Bayer, and Amgen. As is obvious from looking at the list and checking company websites, the pharmaceutical business is a global one. You can also note from the article (on page 23) that many European countries, including where a number of the top pharmaceutical companies are based, have drug price controls of one kind or another. It might be more accurate to say that U.S. consumers are the target market for the lion's share of new drugs.

The conclusion of the modeling study is that U.S. adoption of price controls equal to the average of industrialized European countries would result in lowered R&D spending overall, but that the decline could range in intensity from "a very small decline to a near complete cessation of R&D activity; the latter is, of course, an absurd conclusion". In other words, we probably shouldn't place much faith in any results from his model. The question of whether U.S. price controls would significantly cut R&D expenditures, or simply shift more of the burden for R&D to other global customers is beyond his model to answer.

On your second point, you gave the URL for the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America site which contained a number of links. Not knowing exactly which article you wished to refer to, I'll simply choose the rebuttal article to this report by the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota, as they seem to clearly summarize the viewpoints of the pharmacy trade group and the opposing camp. Anyone interested in the subject should read both, hopefully with an open mind. If you would like to discuss any particular point, just let me know.

On the third point, I think your characterization of scientists is more of a caricature than a true picture. Scientists, whether publicly or privately funded, are people, who have normal human concerns and awareness of things around them. One thing basic research does is provide knowledge that makes the drug discovery phase more efficient. Discovery in finding the right compositions to pursue for new drugs is essential for making sure only the most promising approaches are followed up with more expensive development efforts and clinical trials. The pharmaceutical companies are often better suited for carrying on the later processes, but they heavily benefit from public research efforts that point them in the right direction. It's not just about total dollars spent, but also how much is saved by developing a proper scientific foundation for the search.

This also brings up the point that while the industry likes to brag about how much it costs to bring a new drug to market and how risky the prospects are for success, the truth is that the greatest development costs occur during the latest stages of product development (such as holding large clinical trials involving thousands of subjects). By the time decisions are made to hold such trials, the company must have already experienced enough success from earlier work to have a high degree of confidence in success. Most unsuccessful drugs are thus weeded out early, before huge expenditures are incurred in development. The better the basic science that is available, the more efficient this filtering process can be.

Offshoring in India took off when the Indian government gave a 100% TAX BREAK to any company that operates as an offshoring services company.

And Farmers are heavily subsidied in the US and Europe. That's fair trade, huh?

Here is an article on how outsourcing is not as bad or severe as people
claim.

Objectively, don't you think India and China need more, good jobs than
America? Also, you must admit that having a more advanced trading partner benefits
everyone! The article articulates in numbers how trade with india has increased more than jobs have been lost.

Also, isn't the point of robust competition that you need to be better than competitors? Shouldn't we be focused on finding competitive advantages rather than lamenting job losses?

Frankly I'm annoyed that programmers that should have good educations are making the same complaints that factory workers make with automation or immigration.
Automation makes our cars and TVs cheaper, so more people can have them. Immigration helps keep down the prices of farm goods. Outsourcing is just another way for a company to save a buck, which, in some way, will help the system. Whether through higher incomes for the rest of the company, higher tax revenues, greater dividends, or cheaper products, there are a multitude of ways in which every aspect of free trade helps EVERYONE.

Selfish people in any industry shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us. They shouldn't encourage politicians to restrict the natural order of the market. They should work hard, learn new skills, and stay competitive. This simple formula is the exact reason why America is a super-power!