It’s only January 12, but this wins the award for cleverest human-rights campaign of 2011. The following comes from a petition put together by the organization CyberDissidents.org and is addressed to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah:
We would like to extend the opportunity to you to co-sponsor the First Annual Saudi Women’s Grand Prix. Many Saudi Internet activists have voiced their desire for equal rights between men and women and this initiative is a direct response to their pleas.
Saudi women from all walks of life will be invited to partake in the joys of race-car driving. We will live-stream video of this event on the Internet throughout the Middle East.
Hosting the First Annual Saudi Women’s Grand Prix in Riyadh would be a fitting symbol of Islamic tolerance and equality. Allowing women to drive in this Grand Prix will not undermine the fabric of Saudi society, but rather will be a small, incremental reform toward empowering females.
The Grand Prix can be held on March 10th to commemorate the fifteen Saudi girls who died on that day in 2002 as the Kingdom’s religious police blocked them from fleeing their burning school because they were not fully covered.
We look forward to your reply.
Don’t we all. The eclectic group of signatories includes Janet Guthrie, the first female driver in the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, and former CIA director James Woolsey. The CyberDissidents website invites you to add your name to the list.
Lately, the Saudis have been making some noise about lifting the driving ban on women. But it will surely take public displays of outside pressure to move things to the tipping point. The Freedom Agenda may be dead at the White House, but Americans’ foundational pursuit of liberty for all will not be squelched by a spell of bad policy.
I don’t see the problem here. We merely require that Citibank or AIG loan some of the billions that was loaned to them(to loan to businesses)and loan to GM. Ergo:no bailout.
He got this right: “by any reasonable accounting standard, the federal government of the United States is broke. They’re using credit card debt to pay off credit card debt. They’re constructing their own Ponzi scheme that’s going to make the subprime crisis the federal equivalent of that I think 10 or so years down the road.” Then screwed it up by begging for $$ for Minnesota. I don’t think so, Tim.
Someone might want to remind Tim that Republican inherited a surplus and ran up this deficit. It’s like an arsonist preaching fire safety.
Someone also might want to educate Tim that $1 in tax breaks for small business returns about 30 cents in year one GDP growth, about the same as continuing Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. On the other hand, $1 spent on highways returns about $1.75.
I’d say do the math, but the party of Sarah Palin clearly can’t. Which is why we’re here.
I love Abe’s version of “do the math,” which seems to be: make up some numbers and call people stupid.
Pawlenty’s right. Who’s going to bail out the United States of America when it comes time? Someone had better start thinking about that now.
P.S. The Chinese won’t – or, at least, you will wish they hadn’t.
expatriot Says:
December 8th, 2008 at 10:04 AM
Pawlenty’s right. Who’s going to bail out the United States of America when it comes time?
The free market will do the bailing out just like last time. Oops, I forgot, war is a government bail out. Sorry.
“I love Abe’s version of “do the math,” which seems to be: make up some numbers and call people stupid”– Eppur Si.
The math is the math. Here’ a source, a study from the non-partisan Moodyseconomy.com, that comes close to my numbers: They agree on the low return of corporate and income tax rate cuts ($0.29-0.30) and are pretty close on the return from infrastructure spending (I say $1.75; they say $1.59). Interestingly, expansion of the food stamps program is the single best economic use of taxpayer money, and has the added benefit of being almost instantaneous.
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/assissing-the-impact-of-the-fiscal-stimulus.pdf
People who argue based on ideology, when the facts aren’t supportive of their policy prescriptions, are stupid. The GOP has a one-size-fits-all solution to every challenge: tax cuts. A hammer is a great tool, but not for sawing wood. Some tax cuts, over some ranges, are good. Sometimes there are economically better choices. There’s a reason Obama recently claimed that a bipartisan consensus of economists believe spending — as opposed to tax cuts — is the way to stimulate the economy. It’s true.
The key to stimulation is spending. Give poor people extra money, they spend it. They have no choice. Give middle income people more money in an uncertain environment, they use a portion to pay down their credit card debt, or stick a few extra bucks in the bank, which does nothing for the short term economy. Same with corportations. Give them a tax break and they will put a portion toward paying down record debt levels, which reduced the stimulative impact of money directed to them.
That’s why economists say put money first into extending unemployment benefits and food stamp programs. That gives some time for infrastructure spending to kick in.
Abe – I will give you some credit, because your comment on the value of money delivered to the middle class – like the silly tax rebate done last spring – I think is spot on. I am not a tax cut uber alles kind of guy. However, the utility of increasing the motivation to not work amongst the poor is also a drag on all the programs that are used to assist those people in distress, and I have never seen it really costed out. The creation of a social welfare system that discourages employment is a problem.
I would love to see a flat tax because it eliminates lots of these problems with determining how the middle class (the half that is left in the middle class that actually pays any tax) should get a refund. The tax cuts I would like to see are those that relate to business formation and capital costs. These are the items that create jobs for people, and reduces the number of the real poor, while increasing tax revenues from increased number of people receiving wages.
As to infrastructure spending, it is never going to be a primer for coming out of an econmic downturn. It takes way to long for those projects to come on line, they also have the tendancy to crowd out money for other purposes. FDR got out of the depression because of WWII. His economic, and job works programs extended a downturn for a decade. And I am not a Hoover apologist either, because he screwed up big time as well. Infrastructure decisions should be guided by the localities where the infrastructure is needed. I will wait to see how much pork comes out of this public works program and how much actual infrastructure which is useful occurs as well.
And whoever wants to talk about GOP inheriting a surplus, we haven’t had a federal budget surplus since, what, the 60s? And if you want to look where the current big drain to the treasury is coming from you will need to look at the left side of the aisle – the dems own this one, whether you want to admit or not.
I always thought highly of Pawlenty.
I mistrust these theoretical “return on government spending” calculations ever since learning about them in university. Hardly an exact science.
Of course, nobody is against infrastructure spending as a matter of principle, certainly not governors (of both parties). But in the real world, not all kinds of infrastructure spending are equal, nor will the best kind be chosen by politicians, and you have diminishing returns especially if you start on the high level of a developed country.
In the 1990s I witnessed the spending spree in reunited fornmerly communist eastern Germany. They built or repaired everything from roads to communications to waste treatment. They subsidized businesses as well. As a result, the east has often a more modern infrastructure than the west. The result? People are still leaving for the west in droves because there are no jobs because there are no viable businesses to take advantage of all that cool infrastructure. A road is worth nothing if no goods and people roll over it on their way to productive employment in a free market environment. Some cities are doing ok, some lost a third of their population. It´s not that simple.
“His economic, and job works programs extended a downturn for a decade.” — JEM
Myth. The spending programs clearly reduced the severity of the downturn. The economy began tanking again only after he tried to balance the budget. But you are right that the war, and specifically, the massive government spending for the war, ultimately solved the problem. Which is why economists say Obama needs to break the bank on spending to have an impact — another $600 billion to $1 trillion.
“The creation of a social welfare system that discourages employment is a problem.”- JEM
Theoretically, at some point. Lots of people have studied this. At one point, the nonpartisan GAO reviewed over 100 studies and concluded that welfare does not significantly reduce the incentive to work. During a downturn, the name of the game is short-term stimulus and you have lots of newly unemployed and temporarily impoverished people who deserve help. One solution to your concern is to make the additional eligibility or added benefits temporary.
“And whoever wants to talk about GOP inheriting a surplus, we haven’t had a federal budget surplus since, what, the 60s?” — JEM
Don’t know what you’re getting at here. The US recorded budget surpluses in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Whitehouse.gov has historical tables, if you’re interested. You can’t possibly be arguing that America is in better fiscal shape today than it was when Bush took office, right?
Several other questionable assertions, but I don’t want to join the ranks of the unemployed.
“Hardly an exact science.”– el gordo
True, but this isn’t a close call. If you were talking about a difference of a couple of points, you might have an argument. When you have one modeled investment returning several times what an alternative promises, it’s no contest.
It’s fine to have a theory of government. It’s not fine to ignore evidence that your theory isn’t the right one, in this instance.
ABE, The way that Government accounting is done with all the off balance sheet financing such as not counting short/long term contingent liabilities(Not accounting for our expoure to Fran&Fred is an example),you can’t possibly discuss the #s with any accuracy except to say,for a fact,federal govt debt went off the richter the last 8 years.
Pawlenty is our governor. He is of marginal importance as a national candidate. If he does run for president, he will cure insomnia.
When you have one modeled investment returning several times what an alternative promises, it’s no contest.
No, a model which bears no relation to reality can produce any kind of result.
My point was: I know Europe too well to believe in the multiplier effect of government spending, on infrastructure or anything else beyond a point which all western nations reached decades ago. And I gave the biggest experiment in human history as a example: the multi-trillion reconstruction of eastern Germany. In 1991, they had everything a developed country has (e.g. educated workforce, rule of law) except good infrastructure and a booming private sector, both of which the communists had thoroughly ruined. They got the infrastructure free of charge plus massive subsidies for investment. They also got the regulatory burden, taxes and high wages the west has. In 2008 they still don´t have enough businesses to provide a living which is why the young people go west (some pockets of success excepted). That´s what happens when you raise wages and taxes ahead of productivity: the infrastructure is not productive. Had they gone the other way around, the necessary infrastructure would have paid for itself (as it did everywhere else, by and large). But that wouldn´t have employed so many consultants, politicos and bureaucrats.
That´s right, Captain America. Who wants a guy who is merely sensible and competent. Us idiots look to politicans for inspiration. I also expect my lawyer to be a wonderful singer and I will not have my brain operated on by a surgeon who doesn´t know motorcycle maintenance.
Abe, when you dissuade people to not work, i.e. the welfare reform of the 90′s, you get people going back to work because they have to. I know of no other real test of the thesis. It happened. I think I mistook your budget comment for actual federal spending, we have been in a net deficit position since the 60′s, I think I mistook your comment.
As to the depression, no sorry, most of the economists are suggesting that FDR supressed job creation for just about the entire time of the depression and that there were no statistics suggesting any increase at all from the early 30′s until the start of the war. I realize I wasn’t taught that growing up. I was taught Hoover did nothing and FDR was a shining white night. Of course an enterprising junior high teacher actually took the time to teach us what Hoover did – and how ineffective it was – and talked about what FDR did and how some of it wasn’t so great either. There was no measurable GDP increase year over year over year until the lend lease began to hit and even then it wasn’t until we started shooting ourselves that production really started up.
The latest studies on highway creation aren’t even going to give you a double digit return anymore. Most projects don’t deal with congestion relief which is about the only place real returns can be generated, because the politicians get to decide on a bunch of projects to placate the connected and powerful. The Interstate highway work was a boon – but you get to the point of diminishing returns. There is only so many more places to pave. Am I going to defend Bush as a cost conscious president, absolutely not. It is the part of him I dislike the most, he never saw fit to veto any of the pork until after 2006 when the GOP lost control of congress.
Another aspect that’s seldom mentioned concerning government programs is that they don’t differentiate between differing entities. Anybody that’s been around rural America realizes that there are farmers who are effective at what they do. Others get up at eleven, play whist all afternoon, and drink beer from happy hour to closing time. It makes no sense for the government to lavish subsidies on both groups. The less enthusiastic should be in another line of work. This goes for every kind of business. When times are good, anybody can make money. Economic downturns have the benefit of culling out the non-competitors. That’s capitalism. And the unforgiving part of it shouldn’t be negated by government largesse.