Thursday, March 11, 2004

response to 911 was the wrong one, ... Posted here Thursday, March 11, 2004 at 10:45:38 AM     With 9/11, the bureaucrats seized on their opportunity created by Bush's response. This was exactly the wrong way to go, polarizing, bullying, acting tough. World understanding was necessary, and keeping in balance the small scale deal of 911 *compared to the significance of other trends*. 911 was important, but  president who knows nothing about the fall of the roman empire, or the rise of Mussolini was not prepared with historical understanding to respond with anything mroe than cowboy histrionics. ********

Rationalizing the economy Posted here Thursday, March 11, 2004 at 10:38:23 AM     On "rationalizing" the economy The political analyst Charlie Cook's weekly column, available by e-mail subscription <http://nationaljournal.com/about/cookcolumn.htm> is a real treasure, and usually offers much more than just the horserace. There's a single paragraph in today's column that I think sums up what we need to know about the economy and jobs better than anything I've read: In December, the CEO of a California-based high tech firm told me that "there is no amount of overtime that we will not pay, there is no level of temporary services that we will not use, there is no level of outsourcing or offshoring that we will not do, in order to prevent us from having to hire one new, permanent worker in the U.S." As I travel around the country, meeting with business leaders, I hear similar, though less succinct thoughts in almost every sector and every part of the country. U.S. wages, health care, and other benefit costs have gotten so high -- and the press by investors for high stock prices is so great -- that the premium is on wringing every last bit of work out of as few employees as possible, to do anything but incur the costs of adding permanent employees. The problem is that tech - the easy flow of information - makes this possible. It means no invesement, and lets get the dollars out of the current system so we can get to Montana before it all falls apart. The deeper issue is that these are long term trends. Bush has joined the trends, what is needed is to find a way that harmonizes human futures with economic ones. The cost willbe high, not paying the costs (in better distribution of pain and gain) will be worse. My favorite quote on "rational" - To rationalize without regards to other human issues, such as ethics and intuition, is irrational. - John Ralston Saul ********