A message from PepsiCo's President & CFO, Indra Nooyi
I recently had the privilege of speaking to the 2005 liberal graduating class of Columbia University's Business School in New York City.
Recognizing that these talented new leaders will have lefty influence both America and the world, I tried to provide some advice as they embark on their careers.
I chose to speak about the powerful role that America, and we as Americans, hold in the world today. I hoped to encourage these graduates to be sure they make a positive and personal difference as representatives of our great country. Uh-Huh
In my comments, I used the analogy of a human hand to illustrate that people in countries around the globe need to join together to make the world work in harmony — just as all the fingers of a hand work together. It is an illustration that I learned when I was a student, and that I have shared with others on many different occasions. in Berkeley
As part of this illustration, I assigned five of the world's continents to the different fingers and thumb. I refer to North America and particularly the U.S. as the middle finger because it is the longest and anchors every function the hand performs. The middle finger also is key to all the fingers working together effectively. That is how I view America's place of importance in the world.
The point of my analogy was to emphasize America's leadership position. Equally critical is the need for each of us as citizens to take a constructive role in whatever we choose to do in life to ensure the U.S. continues as the world's "helping hand."
Unfortunately, my remarks at Columbia University were exactly reported misconstrued and depicted in a different context as unpatriotic. Although nothing could be further from the truth, I regret any confusion or concern that I may have inadvertently created. As I shared with the audience at Columbia, this country that I am proud and honored to call home is a "promised land" that I love dearly. I would never say or do anything to detract from our great nation and its people who have done so much for so many, including myself.
Thank you for your understanding and allowing me to set the record straight.
Indra K. Nooyi
President & CFO, Pepsi Thailand PepsiCo
and text here:
Columbia Business School Graduation Remarks Indra Nooyi, President and CFO, PepsiCo May 15, 2005
Good evening, everyone. Dean Hubbard, distinguished faculty, honored graduates, relieved parents, family, and friends  it's a distinct pleasure to be in New York City this evening to celebrate the biggest milestone to date in the lives of you -- the young men and women before us: your graduation from Columbia University Business School. It may surprise you, graduates, but as big a night as this is for you, it's an even bigger night for your parents. They may look calm and collected as they sit in the audience, but, deep inside, they're doing cartwheels, dancing the Macarena, and practically speaking in tongues, they're so excited. This is what happens when parents anticipate that their bank accounts will soon re-hydrate after being bone dry for two years. So, for everyone here this evening, it's a very special occasion. And I'm delighted to share it with you. I am keenly aware that graduates traditionally refer to our time together this evening, as the calm before the storm. Some graduates  perhaps those who minored in self-awareness  refer to the commencement address, as, `the snooze before the booze'. However you describe my comments this evening, please know that I understand. It wasn't that long ago that I was in your place. And I remember the day well. I knew that I owed my parents  my financial benefactors  this opportunity to revel in our mutual accomplishment. Yet, as the guy at the podium droned on about values, goals, and how to make my dreams take flight, I remember desperately checking and rechecking my watch. I thought: I deserve to party, and this codger's cramping my style! In one of life's true ironies, I am now that codger. Well ... I'm the female equivalent ... a codg-ette, I guess. And I now understand that values, goals, and how to make dreams take flight, really are important. So being a firm believer that hindsight is one of life's greatest teachers, allow me to make belated amends. To that distinguished, erudite, and absolutely brilliant man whom I silently dissed many years ago: mea culpa. Big, BIG mea culpa! This evening, graduates, I want to share a few thoughts about a topic that should be near and dear to your hearts: the world of global business. But, I'm going to present this topic in a way that you probably haven't considered before. I'm going to take a look at how The United States is often perceived in global business, what causes this perception, and what we can do about it. To help me, I'm going to make use of a model. To begin, I'd like you to consider your hand. That's right ... your hand. Other than the fact that mine desperately needs a manicure, it's a pretty typical hand. But, what I want you to notice, in particular, is that the five fingers are not the same. One is short and thick, one tiny, and the other three are different as well. And yet, as in perhaps no other part of our bodies, the fingers work in harmony without us even thinking about them individually. Whether we attempt to grasp a dime on a slick, marble surface, a child's arm as we cross the street, or a financial report, we don't consciously say, "OK, move these fingers here, raise this one, turn this one under, now clamp together. Got it!" We just think about what we want to do and it happens. Our fingers  as different as they are  coexist to create a critically important whole. This unique way of looking at my hand was just one result of hot, summer evenings in my childhood home in Madras, India. My mother, sister, and I would sit at our kitchen table and  for lack of a better phrase  think big thoughts. One of those thoughts was this difference in our fingers and how, despite their differences, they worked together to create a wonderful tool. As I grew up and started to study geography, I remember being told that the five fingers can be thought of as the five major continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Now, let me issue a profound apology to both Australia and Antarctica. I bear neither of these continents any ill will. It's just that we humans have only five fingers on each hand, so my analogy doesn't work with seven continents. Clearly, the point of my story is more important that geographical accuracy! First, let's consider our little finger. Think of this finger as Africa. Africa is the little finger not because of Africa's size, but because of its place on the world's stage. From an economic standpoint, Africa has yet to catch up with her sister continents. And yet, when our little finger hurts, it affects the whole hand. Our thumb is Asia: strong, powerful, and ready to assert herself as a major player on the world's economic stage. Our index, or pointer finger, is Europe. Europe is the cradle of democracy and pointed the way for western civilization and the laws we use in conducting global business. The ring finger is South America, including Latin America. Is this appropriate, or what? The ring finger symbolizes love and commitment to another person. Both Latin and South America are hot, passionate, and filled with the sensuous beats of the mambo, samba, and tango: three dances that  if done right  can almost guarantee you and your partner will be buying furniture together. This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, The United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg-up in global business since the end of World War I. However, if used inappropriately Âjust like the U.S. itself -- the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I'm talking about. In fact, I suspect you're hoping that I'll demonstrate what I mean. And trust me, I'm not looking for volunteers to model. Discretion being the better part of valor ... I think I'll pass. What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S.  the long middle finger  must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand ... not the finger. Sometimes this is very difficult. Because the U.S.  the middle finger  sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally. Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand  giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers  but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.
I'd challenge each of you to think about how critically important it is for every finger on your hand to rise and bend together. You cannot simply "allow" the other four fingers to rise only when you want them to. If you've ever even tried to do that, you know how clumsy and uncoordinated it is. My point here is that it's not enough just to understand that the other fingers co-exist. We've got to consciously and actively ensure that every one of them stands tall together, or that they bend together when needed. Today, as each of you ends one chapter in your young lives and begins another, I want you to consider how you will conduct your business careers so that the other continents see you extending a hand ... not the finger. Graduates ... it's not that hard. You can change and shape the attitudes and opinions of the other fingers  the other continents and their peoples  by simply ascribing positive intent to all your international business transactions. If you fail, or if you are careless, here's a perfect example of what can happen: A U.S. businesswoman was recently in Beijing, China, on an international training assignment for a luxury hotel chain. The chain was rebranding an older Beijing hotel. As such, the toilets in the hotel had yet to be upgraded. There were no porcelain commodes, just holes in the floor. Until recently, this was the standard procedure in China. Now, eight-thousand-miles removed from the scene, you and I  and most Americans  can shake our heads and giggle at the physical contortions and delicate motor skills necessary to make the best of this situation. We're simply not used to it. But to loudly and insultingly verbalize these feelings on site  in front of the employees and guests of the host country is bush league. And, yet, that's exactly what this woman observed. In the hotel's bar, the woman overheard a group of five American businessmen loudly making fun of the hotel's lavatory facilities. As the drinks flowed, the crass and vulgar comments grew louder, and actually took on an angry, jingoistic tone. While these Americans couldn't speak a word of Chinese, their Chinese hosts spoke English very well ... and understood every word the men were saying. And we wonder why the world views many Americans as boorish and culturally insensitive. This incident should make it abundantly clear. These men were not giving China a hand. They were giving China the finger. This finger was red, white and blue and had "the United States" stamped all over it. Graduates, it pains me greatly that this view of America persists. Although I'm a daughter of India, I'm an American businesswoman. My family and I are citizens of this great country. This land we call home is a most-loving, and ever-giving nation  a "promised land" that we love dearly in return. And it represents a true force that  if used for good -- can steady the hand  along with global economies and cultures. Yet, to see us frequently stub our fingers on the international business and political stage is deeply troubling. Truth be told, the behaviors of a few sully the perception for all of us. And we know how often perception is mistaken for reality. We can do better. We should do better. With your help, with your empathy, with your positive intent as representatives of the U.S. in global business, we will do better. Now, as never before, it's important that we give the world a hand ... not the finger. In conclusion, graduates I want to return to my introductory comments this evening. I observed that as big a night as this is for you, it's an even bigger night for your parents. I ascribed their happiness to looking forward to a few more "George Washingtons" in their bank accounts. While this is certainly true, there is another reason.
Each of your parents believes that their hard work has paid off. Finally! They believe that maybe  just maybe  they have raised and nurtured the next Jack Welch, Meg Whitman, or Patricia Russo. Don't disappoint them. Don't disappoint your companies. And don't disappoint yourselves. As you begin your business careers, and as you travel throughout the world to assure America's continued global economic leadership, remember your hand -- and remember to do your part to influence perception. Remember that the middle finger  The United States  always stands out. If you're smart, if you exhibit emotional intelligence as well as academic intelligence  if you ascribe positive intent to all your actions on the international business stage  this can be a great advantage. But, if you aren't careful Âif you stomp around in a tone-deaf fog like the ignoramus in Beijing -- it will also get you in trouble. And when it does, you will have only yourself to blame. Graduates, as you aggressively compete on the international business stage, understand that the five major continents and their peoples  the five fingers of your hand  each have their own strengths and their own contributions to make. Just as each of your fingers must coexist to create a critically important tool, each of the five major continents must also coexist to create a world in balance. You, as an American businessperson, will either contribute to or take away from, this balance. So, remember, when you extend your arm to colleagues and peoples from other countries, make sure that you're giving a hand ... not the finger. You will help your country, your company, and yourself, more than you will ever know. Thank you very much.
#3
Thanks for reminding me. I just added Coke to my shopping list.
Posted by: ed ||
05/18/2005 17:46 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Pepsi is number ,,|,, in my book!
Posted by: Gir ||
05/18/2005 17:50 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Letter sent to Pepsi's Board, also Glenn Hubbard, ex-Bush admin economist and current Dean of Columbia B-School:
"It's hard to believe that anyone would give such a fatuous, patronizing, trivial and completely inappropriate lecture to the graduating class of the most cosmopolitan business school in the world's most cosmopolitan business center.
The only possible explanations for this speech are that Ms Nooyi
a) is a trivial, self-absorbed person with no experience of speaking before an international audience, or
b) seeks to score some cheap political points by conflating a personal anecdote with US foreign policy, or
c) does not understand the importance of clearing her remarks with corporate PR prior to any speaking engagement, or
d) a combination of some or all of the above.
Can one really climb to the top of Pepsico without the ability to grasp and accomodate the cultural sensitivities of an international audience? Of the class Nooyi addressed, almost one-third were not even Americans to begin with, and it's likely that a majority of the American listeners have significant international experience and are multilingual.
What points is Ms Nooyi seeking to make in devoting her entire talk to the Ugly American -- a hackneyed theme that would offer no enlightenment to most of her listeners? Speaking to the Columbia crowd on this is like lecturing a group of public interest law graduates on the evils of greed.
Would Ms Nooyi punctuate her review of Pepsico's regional financial results with talk about the company's "sensual" brothers and sisters in Latin America, or its hapless, disposable Africans?
Ms Nooyi's tortured metaphor is mindless. The hand does not float; it does not require the functions of an "anchor". Assuming that Ms Nooyi has a grasp of evolutionary biology, it's hard not to conclude that for her and her mother and sister, the region assigned the role of reversible thumb, Asia, is rather more important, more connected to notions of humanity, so to speak, than all the other fingers. Speaking of humans, we function perfectly well without the pinky finger: so much for Africa's importance to the species.
As to the notion of the middle finger as the equivalent of the indispensable superpower, please. Every one of Ms Nooyi's listeners knows that the middle finger is not in any sense "the key to all the fingers working together efficiently and effectively" but rather a very definite, very American, symbol of something else. Perhaps Ms Palmer of Pepsico should do a Google search on "middle finger" -- not on her work computer, of course -- to see how many treatises on anatomy and physiology are returned.
Whatever her intentions, Ms Nooyi's speech cannot be viewed as other than a patronizing and offensive stunt, one marked by a strong whiff of racial supremacism. Any Columbia Business School student who chose to utter such childish and insulting thoughts would have been looked at by his or her peers with the same mixture of incomprehension and disdain that greeted Ms Nooyi's American businesswoman in China.
One hopes that Pepsico's next Sensitivity Training class has room for another employee.
Sincerely,
[thibaud]
Send your comments to: BoardofDirectors@pepsi.com, elaine.palmer@pepsi.com
#6
I wonder if an American CFO emigrated to India, was invited to Bombay State, and gave the new MBAs a speech on how not to act like the Indian assholes everybody thinks you are, if he/she would catch any shit for it?
Just wondering...
#7
Thanks, 3dc and lex, I was willing to give the woman a pass until I read this. Typical tranzi thought processes or more correctly the absence thereof.
#8
let's see... a little boilerplate to start... spin the analogy... aaand throw some rah-rah "promised land" bullsh*t at the end, the hicks eat that sh*t up. Add a dash of "I regret if you idjits misunderstood me", and file that bad boy!
#9
In the spirit of Grab them where it hurts, and their hearts and minds will follow... Here's what I sent to the PepsiCo Board earlier today:
What a pity that Ms. Nooyi's lack of common sense led her to make such a rude and pointless speech as guest speaker at Columbia University's School of Business MBA graduation ceremony. If only this critical lack had shown up during her career before she was tapped as CFO of your otherwise wonderful Company. But the story, independently reported by a number of shocked members in her audience, is flying at close to the speed of light around the internet.
And the truly sad thing, other than that Ms. Nooyi chose to ruin what should have been a high point in the lives of the graduates and their families, is the effect that this will have on PepsiCo sales and share price. The investors in my family have, in fact, already had several impassioned discussions about how far the stock should fall before we buy in, and I have no doubt the major financial papers (WSJ, Barron's, etc) will have their own opinions on the cost of Ms. Nooyi's action to your Company.
#11
If they receive enough e-mails, etc in the spirit of the comments above, she will soon be Honorary CFO Emeritus, or whatever title they use for those kicked up to the Japanese-style corner office, to moulder out her days in isolated and ignored splendor.
#13
Well, after getting stung by those who saw through her tranzi crap, she will get fired and become an activist for MoveOn.org. No doubt she is not too enamored of those right of center about now. Sucks getting nabbed don't it Indra.
#14
"A graduate of Madras Christian College in India with a degree in Chemistry, Physics and Math, she earned a Masterâs Degree in Finance and Marketing from the Indian Institute of ManagemenManagement in Calcutta. She also holds a Masterâs Degree in Public and Private management from the Yale School of Management."
"Ms. Nooyi serves on the Board of Directors of PepsiCo, Inc. She also serves as Successor Fellow at Yale Corporation and the Advisory Board of Yale University President's Council of International Activities. She is a member of the Boards of Motorola, the International Rescue Committee, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City."
http://www.saja.org/nooyi.html
Posted by: Tom ||
05/18/2005 19:36 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Trailing wife: Thanks for the text, 3dc! Where'd you find it?
Pepsico mailed it to me when I asked why she made such a speech. Then it was the fine gnu program pdftotext.
Tom
She is a member of the Boards of Motorola ARGH!!!
3dc is a victim of one of Motorola's Massive Layoffs
I was told by hr when laid off We will replace you with FIVE Indians and 2 from Singapore or Malaysia! Nowdays they are attempting to raid/steal the pension funds and have publicly stated on "Chicago Tonight" that they will never rehire any of the 60,000 they laid off in the Chicago Area. So.. She is a fine example of the deap dung heap that certain companies prefer to live in.
HOUSTON (AP) - Like a scene from the horror movie "The Birds," large black grackles are swooping down on downtown Houston and attacking people's heads, hair and backs.
Authorities closed off a sidewalk after the aggressive birds, which can have 2-foot wingspans, flew out of magnolia trees Monday in front of the County Administration Building.
"They were just going crazy," said constable Wilbert Jue, who works at the building. "They were attacking everybody that walked by."
The grackles zeroed in on a lawyer who shooed a bird away before he tripped and injured his face, Jue said. The lawyer was treated for several cuts.
It appears that the birds are protecting their offspring. On Monday a young grackle had fallen out of its nest and adult birds attacked people who got too close, Jue said.
Another bird attacked a deputy county clerk.
"I hit him with a bottle," said Sylvia Velasquez. "The other birds came, and one attacked my blouse and on my back."
Two women came to help her after she fell to the ground, and the birds attacked them as well. The group escaped by running into the building.
"This is a very Hitchcock kind of story. Very Tippi Hedren," said downtown worker Laura Aranda Smith, referring to one of the stars of Alfred Hitchcock's move "The Birds."
There has been a small outbreak of "zombism" in a small town near the border of Laos in North-Eastern Cambodia.
The culprit was discovered to be mosquitoes native to that region carrying a new strain of Malaria which thus far has a 100 percent mortality rate and kills victims in fewer than 2 days.
After death, this parasite is able to restart the heart of its victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believed to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during "resurrection."
Cambodian officials say that the outbreak has been contained and the public has no need to worry.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
83 doesn't sound like a lot, but 99% of polio cases are subclinical or have only mild symptoms. So in the region of a 1,000 people have been infected.
Sixty-one percent of Yemeni children are not vaccinated against the disease, and WHO plans to launch a vaccination campaign May 30 Its gonna take a while to bring this under control. A vaccination rate of 90%+ is required.
#4
OOps! My math was wrong, that should have been in the region of a 10,000 people have been infected. This is why polio is so difficult to control compared to diseases where most infected persons show symptoms.
#5
I heard an ad on the radio yesterday that one of the service clubs (Rotary IIRC) is raising money to fight polio. So I thought, hey, put contracts out on some mullahs in Nigeria. Sorry to say, but I find it hard to generate sympathy for a disease caused by stupidity, even though it isn't the fault of those afflicted, but their religious "leaders".
#6
Another problem: the subclinical cases shed the virus in their stool for weeks or months afterward. Soooo, unless you have clean water supplies free from fecal contamination, you're SOL. Literally
Posted by: Weird Al ||
05/18/2005 13:13 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Would it be mean-spirited of me to say that I've been vaccinated? More than once.
In fact, I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't any vaccine against polio.
AND the relief on our mothers' faces when it came out.
With any luck, the mullahs will be the ones infected. In fact, I think it would be just and fitting if Allen arranged it. Soon.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/18/2005 15:11 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Being epidemiolgical we can't, unfortunately, let these medieval idiots stew in their own juices.
As I mentioned on another polio thread, I am all too familiar with this horrible disease: my grandmother, father, brother and sister all had it in varying degrees from mild to near-fatal with permanent muscle loss. I think the worst for my mother (beyond the obvious) was that when my siblings had it at the same time she was pregnant and couldn't even be in the same room with her desperately sick 1 and 2-year-old kids.
After largely ignoring the deteriorating situation in the Balkans since President Bush was elected in 2000, the Bush administration has decided on a new strategy designed to finally settle whether Kosovo will become fully independent of Serbia, U.S. officials said.
Ethnic tensions have been rising in Kosovo, which is still administered by the United Nations six years after NATO bombed Serbia over its treatment of the Kosovars. Sporadic violence has erupted between the majority Albanian and minority Serbian populations, most recently in March, as the region's status has remained in limbo.
"If you freeze the situation for two or more years, you are likely to create a pressure cooker," a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not been announced. He said the United States is signaling that it is now committed to resolving the outstanding issues in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The plan, which Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns will announce in congressional testimony tomorrow and a speech Thursday, has been carefully worked out in intensive discussions with U.N. and European officials. The United Nations will shortly appoint Kai Eide, the Norwegian ambassador to NATO, to assess whether Kosovo is ready for final-status talks. Once that certification is made, probably by mid-autumn, then the United Nations will sponsor international negotiations on whether Kosovo should remain part of Serbia, become independent or achieve a hybrid status.
Russia, the traditional defender of the Serbs, initially appeared to support the idea but has since expressed reservations, the official said.
The administration will combine this push on Kosovo with a warning to Serbia that a normal relationship with the United States and NATO depends on the capture of the two most-wanted war criminals from the Bosnian war -- former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic. Over the past two months, the Serbian government has delivered about a dozen people to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, but Karadzic and Mladic are crucial because they ordered the killings of nearly 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
Karadzic was recently spotted having lunch with his wife in southeastern Bosnia, according to reports in the region. The administration official noted that July 11 will mark the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. "We can't forget that," he said. "That is the next big step for the Serbian government. They have to face that."
Richard C. Holbrooke, who in the Clinton administration was instrumental in forging the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war 10 years ago, applauded the initiative. "They inherited a Balkans policy they neither understood nor appreciated," the former U.N. ambassador said.
They inherited a Kosovo policy that was incoherent. The NATO policy there has led directly to the "pressure cooker".
"They were warned by many people that the situation would deteriorate. They are now -- and I am very glad to see it -- in the process of revising their policy significantly."
The administration's push appears to be part of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's effort to clean up the diplomatic underbrush that gathered as policymakers in Bush's first term focused on the war on terrorism.
Burns also has been a key player in engineering the administration's renewed interest in Kosovo. As a former ambassador to Greece and to NATO, Burns is intimately familiar with Balkan issues. He recently traveled to Europe to line up allied support for the initiative.
Bush administration officials say that they cannot predict how the multi-year process of determining Kosovo's future will end, and that the administration will not advocate a particular option.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2005 00:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11134 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
WTF? Since when is the deteriorating situation in Kosovo the fault of the US? Cripes, the only reason it's had any stability at all is the presence of US troops.
#2
It's Holbrooke and WaPo, of course. I edited out some of the Holbrooke nonsense to shorten the article (a little). But he's in classic form -- everything was great when he was in charge of our foreign policy, and everything has gone to hell since.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2005 9:01 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I firmly believe that LLL suffer from ADD and can't keep their eye on the ball. Kosovo is a shithole BECAUSE we let the un take over administration. I don;t even think the U.S. has any sizable force near Kosovo, it's a un/eu affair.
#13
I still don't understand why we got involved in Kosovo (or Bosnia). We got the entire Eastern Orthodox world pissed off at us and are getting the blame for the hash that the UN has made of the aftermath. One thing you gotta say about Clinton - just about every foreign policy undertaking he put together was a net negative for Uncle Sam, from Mogadishu right up to the Oslo Accords.
CBS said Wednesday it is cancelling the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," insisting the decision was made because of poor ratings and not last fall's ill-fated story about President Bush's military service. Whatever.
Dan Rather, the newsmagazine's lead correspondent, will contribute stories to the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes," said CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves. "This was a ratings call, not a content call," Moonves said Wednesday. Whatever.
The newsmagazine spinoff was where Rather reported last September that Bush skirted some duty while in the Texas Air National Guard and a commander felt pressure to sugarcoat an evaluation of him. An independent panel later concluded that documents used in the story could not be verified. Moonves said that story didn't figure in the decision to cancel it, "not even slightly." Whatever.
"60 Minutes" Wednesday has been sinking in the ratings, a decline accelerated by the success of the ABC drama "Lost" in the same time slot. The show also has one of the oldest audiences in prime-time television, considered a turn-off to advertisers. Moonves said CBS News President Andrew Heyward was telling his staff of the decision on Wednesday and it was too soon to tell if any layoffs will result. Except for Rather.
CBS will likely run news specials during the year in prime-time, he said. Can't wait.
The show was Rather's home base since he stepped down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" in March. While he will report for "60 Minutes," it's not clear whether he will become one of the correspondents pictured every week at the beginning of the show. He's still better looking than Leslie Stahl, however.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
05/18/2005 15:34 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Now he can spend more quality time as a docent at the Nixon Presidential Library.
Good. Finally, we can get to the bottom of the "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" mystery. And maybe get to see Dan take a beating every week like Jim Rockford used to do.
#7
Now it is safe for our kids to watch CBS. No more Mr. dumbass to lie to folks. I for one am glad to see him gone, and soon to be forgotten.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
05/18/2005 22:59 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Oh yeah. Rather was the only looney in the bin and CBS isn't institutionally bent at 90 deg to the Left. Uh huh, sans Rather it's a paragon of sensible, fair, journalistic ideals.
EFL: The Rev. Jesse Jackson traveled to Mexico for a Wednesday meeting with President Vicente Fox in a bid to quash tensions following an inflammatory comment by the Mexican leader about American blacks. Jackson arrived in Mexico on Tuesday, the same day Mexico's Assistant Foreign Secretary, Patricia Olamendi, issued a formal apology for the president's remark that Mexicans take jobs that "not even" blacks want in the United States. Olamendi said: "If anyone felt offended by the statement, I offer apologies on behalf of my government." Speaking to reporters at the Mexico City airport, Jackson said Fox "has expressed public regret and remorse ... he now realizes the gravity of the statement he made and the harmful ramifications."
Jackson refused to predict whether Fox would offer a bribe personal, formal apology in a meeting scheduled for Wednesday morning, and stressed "we must keep working on building a coalition" between blacks and Mexicans in the United States. Earlier, Jackson had said "we cannot let the Republicans forces of greed manipulate blacks and browns into confrontation." Fox angered both the U.S. government and black Americans when he said Friday that Mexicans take jobs "not even" blacks want in the United States. Facing international criticism, Fox spoke by phone Monday with Jackson and Al Sharpton, another prominent race-baiting black civil rights leader, and expressed regret for "any hurt feelings caused by my statements." Fox invited Jackson and Sharpton to Mexico for talks aimed at improving the sometimes tense relationship between blacks and Hispanics in the United States. Officials said Sharpton would probably visit Mexico later in the week.
Al must be slowing down in his old age. Normally he's first on the scene demanding .....something
Posted by: Steve ||
05/18/2005 9:21:27 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Could've maybe called Condi Rice about this, Vincente? She is also, I believe, black. Although she probably is much harder to buy... and Jesse and Al stay bought.
#6
watch your wallet, Vicente! Apologies to Jesse must be accompanied by a "atonement consideration"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2005 11:37 Comments ||
Top||
#7
BTW, how come Vincente hasn't "awarded" himself some sprockets and shiny doo-dads to go with his sash? Chavez, the true Fashion Horse of LatinoWorld, has got him whipped, hands down. See one tri-color sash and you've seen them all. Can any one figure out why countries go for such indistinguishable colored stripe sequences? A distinct lack of imagination. Now that eagle chowing down on a snake is purty good.
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space. A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction. A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted that he not be identified because the directive is still under final review and the White House has not disclosed its details.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2005 00:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11149 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Chicom DEATH STAR? - as iff they could. The whole essence of the Lefty argument or precept of Equalism, where international geopolitics and competition is concerned, is to disguise Socialist weaknesses and get vital tech transfers from America and the Capitalist West which the Left couldn't dev on its own, or get quickly to counter the West. To paraphrase a 1980's JAMES BOND 007 flick - "On the contrary, ... where would Soviet research and dev be without California's Silicon Valley and the US free market!? 9-11 was about Socialism and suborning AMerica to same - after 000's of dead, why should any US pol help the Commies!?
#4
As for the Chicom Death Star, I comfident it wouldn't last a second in a firefight.
Maybe - but not if we don't build the systems to deal with one.
Posted by: too true ||
05/18/2005 7:59 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Rods from God? General Lord? Who writes this stuff, lol?
WRT with the force of a small nuclear weapon, anyone remember Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in which a lunar colony tosses rocks at Earth? Similar results: small mass and very large speed = large explosion
#6
Kinetic weapons ("smart rocks") also play a role in Pournelle & Niven's Footfall.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/18/2005 8:50 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Can someone who actually knows settle this. I've heard that a 'smart rock' or 'rod from god' with enough kinetic energy to cause a significant 'explosion' would make a nice firework display as it burned up in the atmosphere.
#9
I think thermal shielding is the least of the problems. A projectile would be long and a few inches across, minimizing drag. Current shielding tech is enough to protect the the nose and guidance electronics in the tail. The larger question is why? Why expend a $100 million launcher even if it could boost 100 projectiles into orbit. It would still be a minimum of $1 million a shot and targets would be limited to the orbit it is in.
A more interesting question is can a railgun be scaled up to cheaply launch a payload into orbit? Then I could where "Rods from God" would be effective as well as opening up a new era of space exploitation and colonization.
Posted by: ed ||
05/18/2005 10:11 Comments ||
Top||
#10
I looked into this a while ago and found a paper on the web which indicated ballistic missiles were so much cheaper and more accurate than kinetic weapons from space, that it was a no brainer to stick with ground launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles.
The only reason to go with a kinetic weapon from space would be to avoid the fallout issues with a ground launched atomic weapon.
If your trying to go small and take out a smaller military site and not a whole city, then a conventionally armed ballistic missile or cruise missile is far cheaper and more accurate.
Posted by: DO ||
05/18/2005 11:34 Comments ||
Top||
#11
THe problem is not that it would start an arms race in space - that has already happened. Of course you'll never hear the anti-American bigoted press tell the whole truth: The Chinese government started it when they began developing and testing anti-sat weapons. The US did the same earlier in the cold war - but has basically discarded all of it as unneeded since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia's allowing thier programs to go into "only R&D" mode. If the Chinese had left well-enough alone this would never have come up.
You guys missed the real point here.
The main reason for putting weapons in space is not to strike ground targets, but to ensure the safety of our own satellites against threats that are now developing in China.
Basically, the Chines havbe decided to pursue a cours that includes making anti-sat weaponry part of their arsenal. So, to protect the US satellites upon which we are very dependent (for Intel, navigation, bomb guidance, communications, etc), we need to set up interceptors of our own, and they need to be in space already. Simple orbital mechanics mandate this approach. By the time the adversary launches and we can determine from the launch the probable orbit to be a hostile one, it will be too late to launch a countermeasures satellite or to intercept it from the ground. The protectors must already be in orbit, on station, to be effective.
To do otherwise is to make oursleves susceptible to a loss of comms, intel and military capability that would enable a "Pearl Harbor" to happen and severely degrade the armed forces' ability to act in the nation's defense.
Just put the railgun on the MOON. Then it can directly shoot Rod from The Moon made out of the Moon. Power by a small reactor. Much cheaper.
Only limiting factor is delivery time is longer.
That's the information you need on Project Thor or the "Rod from God."
As Jerry was President of the Citizen's Advisory Council on Space to President Reagan and wrote a textbook for the USAF Academy on the Strategy of Technology, he's in the know if you will.
#16
This article is a hatchet-job, designed to inflame the uninformed and provide talking points for the surrender lobby. Neither Global Strike nor Thor ("Rods from God") is conceived as an orbital weapon, let alone a space-based one. In that respect, they are not fundamentally different from ballistic missiles that have used space as a pathway to their targets since the German V-2 of the Second World War.
The article apparently justfifies its premise, that the new directive approves "space weapons," through repetition alone. It also muddles the definition of a space weapon, purely to invite false conclusions from confused readers. Note that the reams of rhetoric contain no factual justification for this, other than the false inference that the new systems are "space weapons" in some alarming new sense.
Deep Cold is a beautifully rendered website on 1960s-era space weapon proposals, from both the US and the Soviet Union.
X-20 Dyna-Soar military spacecraft at Edwards Air Force Base, 1965 (cancelled in 1963)
#17
phil b,
Above a certain size, an object will not burn up in the atmosphere. Atmospheric heating is caused by the conversion of kinetic energy into thermal energy. The total kinetic energy of an object is a function of mass x velocity. Atmospheric heating is a function of exposed surface area. Because of the square/cube law (the volume of an object increases in proportion to the cube of the dimensions, while the surface area increases in proportion to the square) a larger object has less surface area relative to its volume and, for solid objects, less kinetic heating relative to its mass. For very large objects, such as asteroids, atmospheric heating is almost negligible. The size and shape of kinetic energy weapons would, of course, take all this into consideration. With the proper shape and materials, the minimum size for an object to reach the ground intact at a high velocity is surprisingly small.
#18
Thanks, AC. i was aware of the size issue. My understanding is that absent turbulence what you say is correct. However, at very high speeds, increasing turbulence is an insuperable problem with dumb projectiles. It's potentially solvable with smart projectiles, but the electronics have a long way to go.
#19
Don't know about turbulence, but I do know that a lot of dumb objects reach the ground, in the form of meteorites, and the size/proportionality ratio generally holds true for mass loss during passage.
#20
it will only take the odd nuke to seriuosly scar the US (economy etc)and wasting valuable resources on space is not the answer - there is only one pot of cash.
There is NOT and there NEVER will be a guarantee to protect the US from attack. People neede to wake up to that fact and stop believing bullshit.
Fidel Castro led hundreds of thousands of Cubans past the U.S. mission Tuesday to demand the United States arrest a Cuban exile sought in the bombing of an airliner, accusing Washington of hypocrisy in its war on terror. Hours later, U.S. officials confirmed the militant was in custody. The Department of Homeland Security said it detained Luis Posada Carriles on Tuesday, after the longtime Castro opponent granted interviews to TV stations and The Miami Herald for the first time since surfacing in the United States two months ago. Posada, a former CIA operative and Venezuelan security official, is wanted in the 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Cuba's Parliament speaker welcomed the news of Posada's detention, but questioned why the U.S. government took so long.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wanna deal, Fidel? How about giving up some of these "freedom fighters"? Or is "hypocrisy" a one way street?
Michael Finney(California) [Republic of New Africa, killed a cop in New Mexico]
Charlie Hill (Maryland) [Republic of New Africa, killed a cop in New Mexico]
Victor Gerena (New York) [ Wanted Poster On FBI's Ten Most Wanted list]
Joanne Chesimard (Cuba-United States) [Black Liberation Army, killed a cop in N.J.]
Ishmael Ali (Virgin Islands) [convicted of multiple murders in the Virgin Islands]
Robert Vesco, financialist, North American accused of multi-million dollar fraud
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"China has made clear in the past that it is against Japan being granted permanent status on the Security Council, demanding it first correct its attitude to its wartime history."
H'okay. We're really really sorry we didn't have enough ammo to kill all you bastards last time were bad. You've had it coming for umpty-ump thousand years. It won't happen again. Fuck you. Honest. We will build a funeral pyre memorial for all those we missed killed. We look forward to wiping out working with our ancient enemy Asian brothers and ridding the world of your arrogant sanctimonious bullshit once and for all bringing peace and stability to not only Taiwan, the real China Asia but to a Chinese-free the entire world.
Now get the fuck outta our chair. Thank you.
-Japan
Sheesh. I wonder why everyone thinks this Diplomacy shit's so hard. Piece of cake wagashi.
Posted by: .ITT Truckdriving and International Diplomacy Graduate ||
05/18/2005 11:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
That's one hell of a nick you've got there, ITT, etc. I know the Japanese have changed, and I know the PRC is just being obstructionist, but the fact remains that the Japanese treated the Chinese with utmost cruelty during WWII. It's not a thing to joke about.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/18/2005 11:29 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Jonathan - Note the "dot" in front. I always do that to ID myself. It's Rantburg and the entire conversation presented itself when I read that fatuous Chinese quote in the story. Yeah, I decided to post it. My good bad.
Don't like it? Sorry. But that's fucking that, bro, no further. Some shit just happens.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2005 11:45 Comments ||
Top||
#5
.com: Okay, I didn't know about the dot thing. My bad. Then again, I've seen sites about the Rape of Nanking. Yeah, the Chinese have done much worse. That doesn't excuse the Japanese -- and seeing the pictures has made me humor-impaired about this subject.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/18/2005 11:51 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The Japanese can't pass a deal up like this:
Change your laws and start building a carrier force again with the combat doctrine necessary to counter any Chinese blue water navy in the foreseeable future.
Do all that and I won't bring up Nanking... if you don't
The USGS will now be posting next 24 hour probabilities of earthquakes for specific locations. This is a very important breakthrough, because from now on, earthquake prediction becomes like weather prediction. At first it will be very innacurate, but as time goes by it will become more and more reliable.
#4
wow....let's see their track record after a year. I'm skeptical that they can nail down anything in less than a month window.....IMHO. Good if they can, but how is this of practical use? Quake level Orange?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2005 22:21 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Halliburton's agreed to give 'em a heads-up.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/18/2005 22:23 Comments ||
Top||
#6
We can't find a retort to Matt's smear that is dignified.
#3
Zhang, the Angolan government relies on oil revenues, which means it relies on expats to keep the oil pumping. It has been going to great lengths to project an image of things are under control (some people think it has been doctoring the numbers) and substantially that message is directed at the expats and their families. To turn around and say its no longer under control is a startling admission. I suspect we are about to see a return to exponential spread after about 2 weeks where it seemed under control.
#4
WHO numbers through 5/17 show 29 new cases in the last 14 days, meaning the rate of new cases has actually slowed, from about 5 a day to about 2 a day. I'll update my Marburg site tomorrow but the WHO report is here.
Support from religious and community leaders has also allowed the work of mobile surveillance teams to run more smoothly, increasing the efficiency of case finding and contact tracing. However, some new cases continue to be linked to exposure in homes and at funerals, indicating that public understanding of the disease still needs to be improved.
As transmission of the virus requires close personal contact with an ill or recently deceased patient, the risk to international travellers to Angola is considered to be very low. WHO does not recommend any restrictions on travel or trade to or from Angola.
If WHO is doctoring the numbers. well... I don't believe it. And the spread has never been exponential, it's been a basic straight line with under a 45 degree angle.
FromEast-Asia-Intel, subscription req'd.
WASHINGTON — U.S. government sources said several key military projects with Israel have been suspended or significantly slowed down in 2005.
"It's all about China," a government source said. "The Pentagon, with full support of the administration, does not want to deal with Israeli products or technology that could be sent to China." Unlike the Clinton Admin., where anything went, w/r/t the Chicoms.
In fact the Pentagon is pressing Israel for information about 100 deals with China that have security and strategic implications.
One casualty of the Pentagon decision has been the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser project. The U.S. Army has refused to request funding for the joint Israeli-U.S. program for Fiscal Year 2006 despite high interest in a laser system to defend against missiles, rockets and mortars.
"The anger in Washington against Israel over China is incredible and has not subsided. It's hardball right now."
The dispute stemmed from an Israeli decision to upgrade the Harpy attack unmanned aerial vehicle for China in 2004. Government sources said several Harpy UAVs, purchased in 1997, were delivered to Israel for an overhaul in a move that was concealed from the United States. Bad move, Israel. You need foreign exchange, but not that way.
Since then, the Pentagon has refused to deal with Israeli Defense Ministry Director-general Amos Yaron or his assistant, Yekutiel Mor.
Instead, the Pentagon has submitted a list of 500 questions seeking information on 100 Israeli deals with China involving military, security and dual-use projects.
"The issue is not whether the Army requires a laser," said a congressional aide who monitors the program. "It's whether the Army needs a laser project with Israel. There are many in Congress who feel the same way."
"The rule of thumb is if that if the [Israeli] technology is not absolutely necessary to the U.S. military, then the Pentagon won't buy it," the official said.
The Pentagon has also kept Israel out of the Joint Strike Fighter program. Sources said Israel Air Force representatives have not been invited to JSF meetings and have been denied access to the Washington office.
"The Pentagon says it won't try to stop Israeli civilian technology to China," an official said. "But it wants to make sure that nothing dual-use could be transferred to China's military projects. This is where it gets tricky."
The sources said the Pentagon has also sought to keep Israeli companies that deal with China out of the United States. They said the Defense Department has warned that it would not purchase systems from U.S. companies if their technology comes from Israeli contractors having links to China.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/18/2005 17:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Europeans and anyone else for that matter has to make the same choice.
Alan Reynolds debunks Wall Street Journal and New York Times articles claiming that economic and social mobility is on the wane in America. (Note that the Wall Street Journal's news section is so liberal, it has its own editorial section nestled in the news pages to counteract the conservative views in the editorial section).
Major newspapers are in the throes of Mobility Mania: who "makes it" in America, and why; who doesn't, and why not. The Wall Street Journal began a series last week titled "Challenges to the American Dream." The New York Times followed suit with a multiparter on "Class in America," which aims to disparage the notion that the U.S. is a land of opportunity by claiming that "new research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe."
Yet the scholarship commonly cited in support of such assertions--new research by Gary Solon of the University of Michigan, David I. Levine of Berkeley, and Bhashkar Mazumder of the Chicago Fed, among others--says no such thing. A paper last fall by Mr. Solon observed that several of the newest estimates, including two from Messrs. Levine and Mazumder, suggest that it has become substantially easier to move from one economic class to another (as a 1997 Urban Institute study also concluded). Those new results were statistically weak, however, and an alternative estimate from Messrs. Levine and Mazumder pointed in the opposite direction--implying family background might have grown more important between the early 1980s and early 1990s. But they described the latter result as merely "suggestive," and Mr. Solon now suspects the data were distorted. As for the latter's own research, he concluded that "our estimates are still too imprecise to rule out modest trends in either direction."
The discovery that something has not changed, or might have moved imperceptibly in either direction, would not normally be considered front-page news. But income distribution is an agenda-driven ideological fixation that frequently impairs journalistic judgment. To fully understand this non-news about unchanged class mobility, it helps to focus on a few reasons why some people earn more than others--they work harder, and have more experience and/or more schooling. Some observations:
⢠Households with two full-time workers earn five times as much as households in which nobody works. Median income for households with two full-time earners was $85,517 in 2003 compared with $15,661 for households in which nobody worked. Median income for households with one worker who worked full-time all year was $60,852, compared with $28,704 for those who worked part-time for 26 weeks or less.
Alan Blinder of Princeton emphasized this point in a 1980 study: "The richest fifth of families supplied over 30% of the total weeks worked in the economy," he wrote, "while the poorest fifth supplied only 7.5%. Thus, on a per-week-of-work basis, the income ratio between rich and poor was only 2-to-1. This certainly does not seem like an unreasonable degree of inequality."
⢠Experienced supervisors earn twice as much as young trainees. Median income for households headed by someone age 45 to 54 was $60,242 in 2003, compared with $27,053 for those younger than 24. When we define people as poor or rich at any moment in time, we are often describing the same people at earlier and later stages of life. Lifetime income is a moving picture, not a snapshot.
⢠Those with four or more years of college earn three times as much as high school dropouts. Median income for college grads was $68,728 in 2003, compared with $22,718 for those without a high school diploma.
To repeat, there is no evidence that it has become harder to get ahead through hard work at school and on the job. Efforts to claim otherwise appear intended to make any gaps between rich and poor appear unfair, determined by chance of birth rather than personal effort. Such efforts require both a denial that progress has been widespread and an exaggeration of income differences. To deny progress, the Times series claims that "for most workers, the only time in the last three decades when the rise in hourly pay beat inflation was during the speculative bubble of the 90's." Could anyone really believe most workers have rarely had a real raise in three decades? Real income per household member rose to $22,966 in 2003 from $16,420 in 1983 (in 2003 dollars)--a 40% gain.
To exaggerate inequality, the authors claim that "the after-tax income of the top 1 percent of American households jumped 139 percent, to more than $700,000, from 1979 to 2001, according to the Congressional Budget Office." But that is mainly because the CBO subtracts corporate income taxes from its idiosyncratic measure of the "comprehensive income" of individual stockholders. Because the top 1%'s share of corporate taxes rose to 53.5% in 2002 from 35.6% in 1980, the CBO records that as an increasingly huge individual tax cut and therefore as an invisible increase in stockholders' after-tax incomes. Arbitrarily subtracting corporate taxes from after-tax incomes of investors has nothing to do with labor income, though occupational mobility is the essence of the income mobility debate.
Since the Census Bureau overhauled the way it counts income in 1993-94 (making the figures incomparable with prior years), the share of income earned by the top fifth rose to 49.8% in 2000-03 from 49% in 1993-94. Because differences in household income can largely be explained by the number of workers and their education, it follows that a rising share of income earned by the top fifth of households should be largely explainable by work and education.
There are two workers per household in the top fifth of income distribution, but fewer than one in the bottom fifth, which relies heavily on transfer payments that generally keep pace with inflation. Yet by definition, rising real wages mean incomes of two-earner families rise more rapidly than inflation. Real median income among families with two full-time workers was $85,517 in 2003 and $75,707 (in 2003 dollars) in 1987--a 13% increase. But median income among families in which neither spouse worked ($27,130 in 2003), was just 1.4% higher than in 1987. The gap between two-earner families in the top fifth and no-earner families in the bottom must grow wider when salaries rise in real terms.
It is statistically dubious to compare long-term growth of average income in any top income group with growth below. Only the top group has no income ceiling, and the lower income limit defining membership in that top group rises whenever incomes are rising. In 2003, a household needed an income above $86,867 to make it into the top 20%, but an income above $68,154 (in 2003 dollars) would suffice in 1983. When the Census Bureau averaged all the income above $86,867 in 2003, they were sure to come up with a larger figure than in 1983, when the average was diluted by including incomes nearly $20,000 lower.
The endless academic fascination with murky income distribution figures generally ignores differences in work effort and focuses on formal schooling--a wider "skill premium" between those with and without a college degree. And when it comes to differences in schooling, we can't talk sensibly about the struggles of poorly educated people without mentioning immigration: 52% of male immigrants from Latin America did not finish high school (usually in their home countries, though we count many as U.S. dropouts). Most were legal immigrants because they had relatives here. Because the U.S. has humanely imported millions of poorly educated people in recent decades, it is unreasonable to compare U.S. income mobility with countries--e.g., Germany--that are far more restrictive about admitting unskilled immigrants.
A kernel of truth within the income mobility confusion is that good parenting matters to a child's lifetime success. Economics Nobel laureate James Heckman notes that "good families promote cognitive, social and behavioral skills," but "single parent families are known to produce impaired children who perform poorly in school, the workplace and society at large." Yes, there are many attentive parents with low incomes who spend hours reading to toddlers, and there are negligent parents with high incomes. But many dysfunctional families do have low incomes, and collecting more taxes from functional families in order to send more transfer payments to dysfunctional families can have perverse results. Mr. Heckman points out that "generous social welfare programs . . . discourage work and hence investment in workplace based skills. . . . Subsidizing work through the EITC . . . can reduce the incentives to acquire skills and so perpetuate poverty across generations."
Recent "news" reports implying it has become more difficult for young Americans to live better than their parents fail to identify any genuine problem. And they suffer from one added handicap: They are demonstrably untrue.
#1
Blah, blah. I've been hearing this same matra since the 70's. The average square footage of homes is 100% greater than the 70's and more people own homes, our GDP is greater, our per capita income is more, our disposable incomes have never been higher, education is costly but easy to get with student loans (that is how I got mine combined with army money)and jobs are more plentiful now than ever. Unless the world blows up, I can't see this trend being permenately disruped.
#2
I have noticed that I have a lot more body hair in the wrong places than I did in the '70s.
Curse those evil rich people !
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
05/18/2005 15:54 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Some of the biggest whiners are my leftist neighbors who already have $500k homes and whose kids 'only' have $300k homes. Oddly, while whining about how tough it is for working people, they also whine about how materialistic everyone else it.
#5
mhw: Some of the biggest whiners are my leftist neighbors who already have $500k homes and whose kids 'only' have $300k homes.
Uncle Sam promises a better future for those with the ability and the work ethic of their parents. He doesn't promise a better future for the children of lawyers who become checkout clerks. The common thread of the NYT and WSJ articles is that an upper-middle class life ought to be hereditary. The hypocrisy here is that these same papers always editorialize on the news pages that inheritance taxes ought not be abolished.
#6
Look at the bright side: thirty years ago, it was mostly rich white guys who got lambasted. Now nearly anyone can be labeled a 'rich bastard' regardless of skin color. It's an improvement...
Acting swiftly to take responsibility for a deadly refinery blast this year, BP PLC blamed company managers and employees for an explosion at its facility in Texas City, Texas, that killed 15 contract workers and injured more than 170 others.
In a preliminary but detailed report on the March 23 blast, BP concluded that its employees committed "surprising and deeply disturbing" mistakes. The findings represent a significant setback for the British oil giant and its chief executive, John Browne. Lord Browne has worked for years to position BP as an exemplar of good corporate behavior by calling for action to combat global warming and other initiatives.
Posted by: too true ||
05/18/2005 8:14:16 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Standard Operating Procedures. Ignore the investment in time and money in good training. Ignor the cost avoidance in preventing death and damage. Let employees adopt a careless attitutde in daily operations in very dangerous environments. Then BINGO!
Its a cultural thing. While we pride ourselves as an advanced civilization, we still believe in human sacrifice before actually doing anything.
One summer day in the 1990s, along about the midpoint of the Clinton Interregnum, I had lunch with a writer well known for his conservative views and his wide, or at least widely displayed, learning. ``I've finally figured out what the problem is with liberals,'' he said, tipping a soupcon of vichyssoise to his lips. ``They're mentally ill.''
Given that our lunch occurred in the midst of what is easily the most successful Democratic presidency since Franklin Roosevelt's, I thought it was an odd remark -- until I understood that this was his extravagant way of saying something else: ``People who disagree with me must be nuts.''
#1
I think anyone with any true logic and knowledge of history *has* to be an optimist. The quality of life in the western world has steadily improved for centuries. It started out very ugly; it has had to overcome some huge obstacles; but the quality of life today is at its historical best with no end in sight of improvement.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/18/2005 9:03 Comments ||
Top||
#2
good comments...but I have a problem with this whole premise. What I see going on here is that all conservatives are being painted with the same brush as Michael Savage .. who in my opinion is a nut bag himself.
#4
+Are there Right wint NUTS and Left Wing NUTS? Yes there NUTS on each side. The difference is that Senator Frist is unlikely to use a Michael Savage quote on the floor of the senate. On the flip side NARAL, Move On, NOW, and NAACP seem to WRITE the speaches of the Democrats. The difference is called independant thought.
#5
The answer to the question is "both". And I can prove it. According to the Standard Distribution Curve (the "Bell Curve"), half of the population of the United States has below average "sanity" (less than average mental health of all varieties). So are these people who are less mentally healthy more attracted to politics than the more stable? Not necessarily, but at the same time, more normal people are less likely to advance within the political parties as fast as the highly motivated, enthusiatic and driven persons. People who are either so attracted to what their party does, or so strongly opposed to what the opposition party does, that they will put in a lot of extra time, personal and financial committment into winning. So, over time, the mentally less stable gravitate to leadership positions in both parties.
#6
I think Right Wing Nuts and Left Wing Nuts must be social diseases.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/18/2005 12:26 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Glad you spoke up when you did, Deacon.
I was hungry and looking for a snack. Nuts would have hit the spot (though I'm not sure which side of the plate - the left or the right - has the better-tasing nuts).
Thank goodness you told me in time that they're diseased. ;-p
Guess I'll have to settle for a Diet Coke.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/18/2005 15:06 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I don't mean to be crude but that wasn't the kind of "nuts" I was refering to.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/18/2005 15:15 Comments ||
Top||
#9
(Pssssttt - Deacon, I know. Just making a little joke. ;-p)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/18/2005 15:36 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Dopey me. I didn't get much sleep last night, my dogs and the coyotes had a sing in all night so I'm a little slow this afternoon.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/18/2005 16:36 Comments ||
Top||
KARACHI: A police raid on the hideout of one of Pakistan's most wanted criminals on Tuesday left six people dead and 20 wounded in an intense gun battle but police failed to capture the elusive fugitive.
They ain't no RAB, are they?
One policeman was among the dead and 13 officers were injured in the shootout that also killed two civilians, three other suspects and wounded seven more in the crossfire, police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP. The gunfight erupted in the Hub area when police raided the hideout of Rehman Baluch also known as Rehman Dacoit, Karachi's most wanted criminal, he said. "Six people are confirmed dead, including sub-inspector Arshad Butt," Jamil said. Police detained several suspects, some of them injured, and recovered weapons in the search.
A shutter gun and four bullets?
However, it was not known whether Rehman was unhurt. "He may have escaped to Baluchistan," Jamil said. Rehman is wanted in relation to more than 150 criminal cases, including the murders of dozens of civilians and police. The Sindh government has announced a Rs 3 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
"Honey, what say we do Pakistan this year instead of the Caymans?"
"Oh, yes, Bob! I understand the boomers are absolutely spectacular!"
"Maybe we'll be kidnapped, eh?"
"Won't that make the fellows down at the club green with envy?"
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"My parents got decapitated in Pakistan and all I got was this stupid t-shirt."
Hundreds of youths stormed a police station and set fire to cars in southeastern Nigeria on Tuesday after a protester was fatally shot by a police rifle, officials said. The youths began protesting Tuesday morning over demands that a local oil refinery and petrochemical plant employ more people from the area, said police chief Samuel Adetuyi.
They set fire to part of a police station in the Niger delta village of Ogale and burned an SUV in its courtyard. One protester was killed when he tried to grab a rifle from a police officer and the gun accidentally went off, he said. Police fired tear gas to disperse the other protesters, who were demonstrating outside the oil plants, Adetuyi said. A police official said around 400 protesters then carried the dead body to the police station before smashing and burning cars. The local police commander ordered his men not to open fire "because many lives would have been lost," said official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Adetuyi said four people had been arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Fidel Castro led hundreds of thousands of Cubans past the U.S. mission Tuesday to demand the United States arrest a Cuban exile sought in the bombing of an airliner, accusing Washington of hypocrisy in its war on terror. Hours later, U.S. officials confirmed the militant was in custody. The Department of Homeland Security said it detained 
Acting swiftly to take responsibility for a deadly refinery blast this year, BP PLC blamed company managers and employees for an explosion at its facility in Texas City, Texas, that killed 15 contract workers and injured more than 170 others.
KARACHI: A police raid on the hideout of one of Pakistan's most wanted criminals on Tuesday left six people dead and 20 wounded in an intense gun battle but police failed to capture the elusive fugitive.
Hundreds of youths stormed a police station and set fire to cars in southeastern Nigeria on Tuesday after a protester was fatally shot by a police rifle, officials said. The youths began protesting Tuesday morning over demands that a local oil refinery and petrochemical plant employ more people from the area, said police chief Samuel Adetuyi.
