Category: Politics

Virginia Postrel has a cool column in the NY Times titled The Rich Get Rich and Poor Get Poorer. Or Do They? that takes apart the anti-capitalist claim about globalization ransacking the Third World. It’s not really so:

In 1970, global income distribution peaked at about $1,000 in today’s dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal’s.

The biggest change in the picture of global poverty has come from India and China, where a genuine middle class has developed.

Postrel draws from the work of brilliant economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin. His web site is worth a visit.

Story courtesy of Glenn Reynolds.

From Best of the Web, kudos to Scott Koenig:

Better Late Than Never
“The reelection campaign of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) has received campaign contributions from at least 18 donors who are either officers of Muslim foundations under investigation by the FBI, have voiced support for Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations or have made inflammatory statements about Jews,” the Washington Post reports. The Post’s Thomas Edsall notes that “local media outlets,” including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, have covered the story, but he doesn’t credit blogger Scott Koenig, who actually broke it two days ahead of the AJC.

While some bloggers do meaningful research that has a direct effect on elections, others muse about returning to an agrarian past, only to be corrected.

UPDATE: Mrs. Bennett asks if Blood is a moron, an idiot, or a wanker. Vote in the comments. (clue: agrarian life was no picnic, even if you like turnips a whole lot.)

Go to Rough&Tumble for the links that go with this story:

Layoffs on Simon staff — In a move to free up funds to counter a television advertising onslaught by Gov. Gray Davis, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon will lay off up to 30 members of his campaign staff, it was announced Wednesday night. Carla Marinucci in the San Francisco Chronicle The story is in the Los Angeles Times Dan Smith in the Sacramento Bee Dion Nissenbaum in the San Jose Mercury — 8/15/02

Simon’s not writing that check that I said he wasn’t going to write, and White House fundraising efforts on his behalf have been scaled-back or terminated. Next time, Republicans, don’t nominate the guy the Democrats want you to nominate, even if he talks like a Man of Principle on guns and abortion. Every rookie has to learn the ropes, and a statewide election is a tough venue for education.

Assemblyman Rod Wright’s AB 2240, the bill that allows men falsely named as fathers of out-of-wedlock children to escape from child support obligations imposed on them instead of on the real father, was watered down to almost nothing and passed out of Martha Escutia’s Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday (Measure allows men to contest child support)

Under the existing law, default judgments stand — even when DNA tests prove someone else is the father. Under the compromise, AB 2240 would allow a man to challenge default orders if DNA evidence proves he is not the father. But a man would have to pay support if the child had lived in the same home with him or they established a familial bond.

The bill would not provide all men with another day in court. For example, in divorce cases, husbands would be responsible for child support even if it’s later proved that the child was conceived in an extramarital affair. But the bill stops short of directing judges to automatically overturn child support orders in all cases — even when the biological father is identified. “Biology does not make a father. … In the child’s eyes, you are the father,” Alonzo said.

Wright was unhappy with being forced to cut a deal, particularly after the broader version cleared the Assembly on a 57-3 vote. But, he said, it was either accept the offer or lose the bill.

The only role that most of these non-fathers play in the lives of the children they’re forced to support is financial, and the radical feminist/Christian right coalition that opposed Wright’s bill doesn’t want that interrupted by a search for the real dad.

California law pays mothers for lying about who fathered their children still, and this is a disgrace.

Matier and Ross have the scoop (scroll down) on a weekend poll with disturbing numbers for Bill Simon:

SIMON’S SLIDE: A new poll — taken over the weekend — shows embattled Republican gubernatorial challenger Bill Simon trailing embattled Gov. Gray Davis by a whopping 17 points.

The poll has Davis 47, Simon 30; last numbers were 41/40. Davis is approaching 50% for the first time in the entire campaign, and Simon has lost 25% of his support. Simon is no Dick Riordan, and Gray’s $10M investment in getting Simon a victory in the primary has paid off handsomely. Gray’s still got $30M in the bank, compared to $5M for Simon, so expect wall-to-wall attack ads from Gray until Nov. 5, and little in the way of response from Simon, who now has to face the prospect of investing more of his personal fortune in what’s almost certainly a losing race. My guess is that he’s not that dumb, and won’t write the campaign another check.

ULLICO is a financial services company run by labor bosses that invests pension funds. Through a scheme where directors could buy shares in ULLICO at a price set annually, and a scheme to buy them back at a price vastly in excess of their true value, the bosses ripped-off the workers and their pension funds in a manner that would make an Enron director blush. The story is here: Joel Mowbray on Labor & ULLICO on National Review Online

Sure enough, the collapse of Global Crossing’s stock dragged down ULLICO’s value, nearly halving the stock price to $74. All those who sold shares between November of 2000 and May of 2001 wound up receiving double what they would have at ULLICO’s true value.

Among the union leaders who took advantage of the sweetheart deal were the following ULLICO board members: Morton Bahr, president of the Communications Workers of America; Martin Maddoloni, president of the plumbers union; William Benard, former head of the asbestos workers union; Jacob West, former head of the ironworkers union; and Douglas McCarron, president of the carpenters’ union.

The personal profiteering of union bosses coming at the expense of rank-and-file union workers is at the heart of NRWLDF’s complaint to the NLRB. The suit charges that ULLICO’s special deal to its board members violated the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 by “enriching union officials to the detriment of ordinary workers,” says Stefan Gleason, vice president of NRWLDF.

A grand jury is looking into ULLICO at the moment; indictments at 11.

The Indepundit is another great source for McKinney news:

Several Indepundit readers have been sending me the latest news on the McKinney-Majette race on a daily basis. As this site has become the ad hoc Anti-McKinney node of the Blogoshpere, I will continue to pass on this important information to my readers

It’s all there, a very comprehensive collection. In breaking news, McKinney claimed Majette is against affirmative action because she opposes reparations for slavery, and claimed that Majette’s pointing out that McKinney receives money from organizations connected to Islamist terrorism is “racial profiling”. You wouldn’t normally think that the race card would be played in a contest between two black women, but there it is, in radiant, Johnnie Cochran neon.

Ace Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini has advice for the Simon campaign:

If Simon defines a vulnerable Gray Davis well and relentlessly enough, political reality will eventually catch up with him.

Could be, but Simon better get with it — Gray’s latest round of ads attacking Simon for business fraud are pretty deadly. Simon’s basic problem is a lack of aptitude for politics. He’s not even doing the basic things he has to do to win, let alone the advanced, Machiavellian things. The man is just lame.

Link via Ben Domenech, the best White House intern since Lewinsky.

My buddy John Weidner says I’m freaking him out with my gloom and doom over the sputtering Simon campaign, and he cites a NewsMax story to the effect that a hidden USA Today poll shows Simon leading Davis by one percentage point. There’s only one problem with this poll: it was conducted before the verdict in the fraud case.

And far from being suppressed, it was reported in the NY Times (California G.O.P. Leaders Pessimistic on Top Race) when it was news:

In the last Field Poll, he trailed Mr. Davis by just seven points, half as many as he did in April. A poll conducted by Survey USA a few days before the verdict showed a statistical tie, with Mr. Simon at 46 percent and Mr. Davis at 45.

Most of the certainty about Simon’s current status comes from internal polling Simon did riight after the jury verdict, which reportedly showed a 20% drop. NewsMax is careful not to mention this polling, sticking to “published” poll results only, which makes them just as dishonest as the liberal media.

Perhaps the time has come to talk about bias in the “partisan” media so we get it all.

Bill Simon no whiz as high-tech investor

But in looking over the millionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate’s background, it turns out that his firm, William E. Simon & Sons, invested in a handful of tech companies at the height of the Internet bubble, most of which are now gasping for air.

What a sad bastard Simon is. It’s fortunate he has his faith to bolster his spirits.