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Ignorant commentators, have suggested the devastation in Japan has a positive side as now much of the country most be rebuilt thus providing jobs. In 1850 Frederic Bastiat dealt with this in the Broken Window Fallacy. In this example a shopkeeper has a window broken and Bastiat answers the comment that at least the glazier found work so something good came from the destruction. He does this by pointing out the thing that is not seen.
… Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.
In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he would have spent six francs on shoes, and would have had at the same time the enjoyment of a pair of shoes and of a window.
Now, as James B. forms a part of society, we must come to the conclusion, that, taking it altogether, and making an estimate of its enjoyments and its labours, it has lost the value of the broken window.
When we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: “Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed;” and we must assent to a maxim which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end – To break, to spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly, “destruction is not profit.” …
David Bernstein comments in Volokh.
… Sure. And instead of sending American aid, let’s follow up the earthquake with a few bombing runs over Tokyo. That will really “lift the economy.” Jeez.
Wisconsin Governor Walker’s website featured examples of the union pigs.
The $150,000 Bus Driver
In 2009, the City of Madison’s highest paid employee was a bus driver who earned $159,258, including $109,892 in overtime, guaranteed by a collective bargaining agreement. In total, seven City of Madison bus drivers made more than $100,000 per year in 2009.
“That’s the (drivers’) contract,” said Transit and Parking Commission Chairman Gary Poulson.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, 2/7/10
$150,000 Correctional Officers
Correctional Officer collective bargaining agreements allow officers a practice known as “sick leave stacking.” Officers can call in sick for a shift, receiving 8 hours of sick pay, and then are allowed to work the very next shift, earning time-and-a-half for overtime. This results in the officer receiving 2.5 times his or her rate of pay, while still only working 8 hours.
In part because of these practices, 13 correctional officers made more than $100,000 in 2009, despite earning base wages of less than $60,000 per year. The officers received an average of $66,000 in overtime pay for an average annual salary of more than $123,000 with the highest paid receiving $151,181.
Source: Department of Corrections
John Podhoretz comments on last Friday’s presser.
The White House is worried: The Libyan crisis and the general instability in the Middle East have led to spiraling gas prices. The president wanted to show the American people he knows it’s a problem.
So he staged a press conference yesterday, and he basically said he’s going to do . . . nothing.
He’s not going to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He’s not going to authorize more drilling to reduce American dependency on foreign oil because, first of all, we’re already doing more drilling — and, second of all, we can’t drill our way out of the problem. …
… This was not a good press conference for the president. It was pointless. His responses in the Q&A were endless — in transcript, one answer was 1,385 words; another, 1,114.
In their proxility and lack of clarity, his minifilibusters revealed something deeply troubling: an incapacity to formulate and execute policy in response to unforeseeable circumstances.
That glaring failure of leadership should be worrying even to those who believe he’s been a good president thus far.
Similar comments from Peter Wehner.
… The president, you see, is concerned about what’s happening in Libya. Really, he is. He’s just not willing to do anything that will alter the course of events. Not now, anyway. But don’t despair; the president is giving the appearance of doing something. Because that’s very important. Even if we don’t do anything substantial, after all, it’s important to look like you are. Because optics are everything, don’t you know? …
The president let slip his inner Tom Friedman by suggesting it would be easier to be the president of China. Ed Morrissey does the honors.
… Well, Hu Jintao is technically “President” of China at the moment, but he has a lot of other titles that make the nature of that government more clear. Among them: “Paramount Leader,” “General Secretary of the Communist Party,” and “Chairman of the Central Military Commission.” Being “president” in China isn’t the same as being President of the United States; it’s a dictatorship, or at the very mildest, the strongest position in an autocratic and thoroughly entrenched and unaccountable political system.
As such, yes, it’s easier to wield power, which was exactly Friedman’s point and why he was an idiot for making the case for enlightened despotism over representative democracy. Making power easier for government to yield was the exact outcome that our founders feared, which is why they wrote the Constitution and ratified it 222 years ago. Enlightened despotism is still despotism, and the “enlightened” part depends entirely on whether the analysts fall in or out of favor with the despot. …
… Finally, Obama might think it would be easier to be President of China, but he’d have found it impossible to become President of China. Unlike Americans, who can vote for whomever they choose, the entrenched power structure in Beijing would never have allowed an untested backbencher with no experience in executive management to have come close to the top job. Obama should be thanking his lucky stars rather than lamenting his fate.
And Michael Goodwin adds some thoughts in the NY Post.
… As shocking as the China lament is, it’s not surprising. The desire to sidestep messy reality is the thread that runs through his presidency, starting with the campaign.
As the economy melted down in the fall of 2008 and in the days after he took office, he never changed goals. He promised a health-care takeover, “investments” in education, and a commitment to weaning America off oil and coal.
Come recession and war, he has done his utmost to deliver all three. He has broken the bank and damaged the jobs machine to get them.
Under different circumstances, that dogged persistence might be a virtue. But the problems are getting worse, not better, and yet he won’t adapt. His stubborn refusal to face squarely the nation’s concerns has created a vacuum at home similar to the one abroad.
And now he confides the Oval Office’s crown of responsibility does not fit him. Much of the world shares the sentiment.
Slate article says working longer holds off the grim reaper.
… Retirement is usually seen as the severing of oneself from the work of a lifetime. Friedman, who is 60, dislikes this notion, and from his research he’s come to believe such an attitude is bad both for society and individuals. Of course, for those in miserable work situations, a departure can mean liberation. But most of the Terman males (given the attitudes of the times, far fewer of the women Termites worked) had solid, sometimes even exceptional careers. Interviews done with successful Termites in their 70s, several of them lawyers, showed a striking number continued to work part time.
For those who contemplate retirement as decades filled with leisure and relaxation, The Longevity Project serves as a warning. As Friedman says, “fun can be overrated” and stress can be unfairly maligned. Many study participants who lived vigorously into old age had highly stressful jobs. Physicist Norris Bradbury, who died at age 88, succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, overseeing the transition of the U.S. atomic weapons research lab from World War II into the Cold War. …
… One of the most striking findings of The Longevity Project is that conscientiousness is a predictor of long life. People who blow their deadlines and forget their appointments tend to find themselves making an early appointment with the grim reaper. Sorting through eight decades of data shows that the reliable, more-mature-than-their years little boys and girls identified in the 1920s became the dependable adults who were most likely to have made it into a new century. “[T]he best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness—the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person …—somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”
The benefits of a conscientious personality are obvious: These people are less likely to smoke and drink, or drive dangerously. Throughout life, conscientious people are less impulsive, and less depressed. The researchers found that the prudent died less from all causes, not just those related to dangerous habits. It appears the conscientious have higher levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin (a brain chemical boosted by antidepressants), which is linked to, the authors write, “many health-relevant processes throughout the body, including how much you eat and how well you sleep.” …