On Goldstone's Op-Ed

Some thoughts from John Dugard, law professor at the University of Pretoria and former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory on Goldstone's Op-Ed.

Health Care in Hawaii

Did you know that Hawaii mandates that that all employers provide a rather generous health care package to any employee working more than 20 hours a week? Here's a NY Times story on it. And here's what's bizarre. Generally costs for products in Hawaii are much higher than the mainland. But not for health care. Their premiums are among the lowest in the nation. Their annual medicare expenses per capita are far and away the lowest in the nation.

Quality? Apparently it's wonderful. Even Rush Limbaugh has glowing praise. Probably when he spoke he didn't realize the legal mandates regarding care.

West Coast Customs

…man never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a truer sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits… - Wilhelm von Humboldt writing in The Limits of State Action

I don't watch a lot of TV, but this last weekend I watched a bit of a show called West Coast Customs and found myself annoyed.

If you don't know it's a show on Discovery about a custom auto shop that does amazing things. I'm watching an episode and supremely impressed with the work being done. It's a lot of Mexicans doing the amazing work. Maybe some are illegals. I don't know. But then there's the owner who basically walks around and complains. "Is the work done yet? Why not?" kind of thing. In one scene he says something like "Yeah, I thought I'd come in here since the guys are working through the night to get this extremely important and urgent job done. You know, sort of as motivation." So he's there whining and complaining as if he's helping while the Mexicans are doing the actual work, which is like amazing artistry.

OK, so the CEO is annoying. That's not surprising. He's there to make money, etc. Fine. So then it's a commercial break. Here's the commercial. It's a lot of images of this CEO doing this idiot finger thing. As if he is the one responsible. As if the success of the shop is largely due to the fact that he comes in occasionally and complains about the work not being done. As if he brings some sort of important attitude. I never saw him do a bit of real work on the show.

It's not that I have a problem with him being successful. But who is really the impressive one here? Is it Ryan Friedlinghause with his finger signs and tattoos? Or is it these Mexican workers who put together these amazing creations? Are we supposed to be impressed because Ryan provided the capital needed to purchase some equipment? We return to the show and it's a car for the lead singer of Korn. The Mexicans work all weekend and Ryan delivers the car. The Korn singer is falling all over himself. "Ryan you are amazing. Thank you so much. I owe you such a debt of gratitude."

Yeah, it's a good thing Ryan walks around showing off his tattoos. He's self made as you can see. Did it all by himself. He's got that three fingers up thing. Where would we be without him?

I'm sure Ryan does important things. It's not like he's irrelevant to the success of West Coast Customs. Apparently his grandfather gave him some money. He probably took risks, worked pretty hard, and now he's wealthy and that's great. But there's just an imbalance in terms of the way credit is given. He is not self made. He is indebted to many hard working and creative people that are all around him.

It's the same in the rest of corporate America. Here's the latest Ford Mustang. A beautiful car. Who did that? Who made that? If you check Wikipedia they say it's a guy named Doug Gafka. Doug Gafka was the design director. I don't know Doug Gafka, but I have serious doubts that he designed this. What he probably did was he looked at various designs that were created by others. He contributed to the selection of the final design. That's an important role of course and he deserves some credit. But who designed it? Who took the clay and shaped it? Who laid out the sheet metal in the CAD tool? In the case of the Ford Mustang maybe you could track that down. But I think in a lot of cases, more so with less prominent creations, the credit goes to the CEO or the Program Manager. It's not that they don't do important things. In many cases they do (though in many they probably don't). But it seems that the laborer, the one that actually did the creating, he's not really recognized. He should be.

The Bogus Freedom Index From Heritage

In defense of neoliberalism I've often seen conservatives put forward something from the Heritage Foundation, which is a Koch brother's financed conservative think tank. They have something they call an Index of Economic Freedom. Presumably the more free, the more neoliberal.

Before looking at it I think it's useful to first consider what you would expect from it. I think you expect two things. Number 1 you expect crappy countries to be ranked low regardless of the real economic freedom. Heritage is made up of ideologues. They advocate on behalf of neoliberalism, which means policies that are for the benefit of the Koch brothers. Putting forward a poor country as an example for others to emulate doesn't reflect well on neoliberalism. So there's pressure to pretend that a poor country is socialist rather than neoliberal no matter what it really is.

The second thing you expect is that states on the US enemies list would be ranked low. Iran is bad, so it's un-free. Same for Libya, N Korea, Venezuela, Cuba. On the other hand US client states would tend to be pushed higher. So Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, etc.

So let's take a look. Of course I looked at it before offering these expectations, but you can see that it does follow those expectations to some degree. Do these rankings make any sense? I don't think so.

What is the opposite of neoliberalism, assuming neoliberalism is economic freedom? Socialism or communism. What states do you think of when you think of socialism? For me it's Western Europe. So Sweden, France, Norway, Belgium. It happens I was in Belgium a year and a half ago. The people I worked with complained that the welfare state is so extensive and taxes so high that there's no incentive to work.

Where is Belgium ranked? 32 out of 179. Pretty high. Sweden is 22, France 64, Norway 30. Socialist states have high economic freedom.

Really the United States is another case. Enormous regulations on trading, labor, product development. Half of our health care expenditures come via government. We have welfare. We have publicly subsidized high tech. An enormous defense sector. Starting a business isn't easy. My brother tried to start a used car business but quit after dealing with all the red tape. We're in the top 10 most economically free countries in the world supposedly.

I've argued that Haiti is a good example of the effects of neoliberalism. Unlike the United States where the Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25/hr, in Haiti it's closer to $5/day. Low tariffs, limited labor rights, non-existent government spending. Very free, right? Heritage puts them at 133. How is this possible?

Let's take a closer look at their analysis on Haiti. The first problem is "Business Freedom." Haiti has an "inadequate regulatory framework." Inadequate regulations? So the more regulated the more free? I thought Heritage hated all that red tape and regulations. Suddenly up is down. Regulation is freedom.

Next is trade freedom. They have inefficient state run administration at the sea ports, says Heritage. OK, so what would be the solution to that problem? Bigger government? Is that what Heritage regards as more economic freedom? Bigger government?

Heritage is close to right on taxes. Haiti's taxes are good and low. On government spending they rock. Crushing the world average. Way less government spending. Heritage says they are at the mean in terms of monetary freedom.

On financial freedom Heritage complains that regulations on banking remain poor. Huh? I thought limited regulation was a good thing. They complain of weak enforcement of property rights. Wouldn't we need bigger government for that? They talk of corruption and bribes. Are they suggesting more government involvement to prevent bribes?

I agree with the criticisms of Haiti's economic situation. Haitians elected a progressive President to resolve these issues. He was ousted by an American backed coup in order to impose neoliberalism. Heritage wants to pretend Haiti is not neoliberalism. You got what you want in Haiti Mr Koch and Heritage. Now you need to own up to it.

Goldstone Backtracking

Richard Goldstone is backing away from the findings of the report he issued. This is a bit surprising. Many reports were written, including those by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Goldstone's report is pretty consistent with them. If the conclusions are not that radical why would Goldstone distance himself from it?

Goldstone has been subjected to an intense vilification campaign. Alan Dershowitz called him an evil, evil man and a traitor to the Jewish people. He's been told he's guilty of a blood libel. Apparently Jews in South Africa prevented him from participating in his grandson's Bar Mitzvah.

But here's the biggest factor in my view. The Human Rights Council is recommending follow up on the status of war crimes investigations at the International Court of Justice. The basis for the criminal allegations is primarily the Goldstone Report. So the pressure is on to undermine it. I imagine the pressure on Goldstone is intense. If no action was taken as a result of the report's findings I suppose there wouldn't be much to see here.

For some commentary on Goldstone's about face go here.

Feynman on What You Know

Perhaps I should grant that Darf and HP do have maybe a minor decent point in that I sometimes sound like I'm brimming with confidence when in fact the evidence at my disposal does not quite rise to the level I need. I should probably try to couch my rhetoric with qualifications. In my defense I think sometimes that goes without saying. I present an argument forcefully not because it actually reflects the confidence level I have but because it's an effort to goad a response. On the other hand sometimes the confidence I'm expressing is real. I genuinely am confident and I shouldn't be.

Not that Darf and HP get anything right of importance right. :) Here's Richard Feynman on the topic.

Would You Be Better Off In Europe?

An interesting article here. Here's a few excerpts.

Take Zurich and Chicago. One looks good and the other, broken down. If America has such a famously high GDP per capita and Chicago is one of America's crown jewels, maybe there is something wrong with using GDP per capita as an index of social well-being...

If I get a raise, I might be worse off. I might widen the gap in income with others around me. Who cares? Well, by doing this, I might be spreading poverty, which, like everything, is relative. I might make my public space more of a hellhole than before...

People at the libertarian Cato Institute love to scoff: "Oh, our poor in America are so well off in GDP per capita." Go ahead. Argue. I'll let you win. But I dare the Cato types, when the argument is over, to go outside and walk around some Chicago neighborhoods...

Even in 2008, precisely because of "globalization," Germany had a serious shortage of people able to fill high-skill, high-paying jobs, especially engineers. In the United States, engineers complain they can't find work; many of them just end up in sales. In the union-free, lower-cost United States, we don't create the kind of jobs engineers can do. Germany's problem? It has too many such jobs. It's our whole globalization thesis turned upside down...

In 2005, the real hourly wage for production workers in America was approximately 8 percent lower than it was in 1973, while our national output (productivity) per hour is 55 percent higher. So it's dubious whether most Americans have gained even a penny in purchasing power since 1989.

Also, here's a fun tool for contrasting what life would be like for you in comparison to another country.