After one more battle over the national delegate slate -- won handily by the pro-McCain/party regular forces, though not without about an hour of tense debate, and which featured a speech by Michael that brought a broad majority of the house up and cheering -- Karl Rove is now speaking after which the convention will be over. The house is at this point only half-full. There will be a couple of meetings for the national delegates and alternate, and a state central committee meeting, but most of the hall will empty in about 30-45 minutes.

Rove's speaking skills serve to show the difference between those ready for national stage and those that are not. The people here are pleased by the comments where Democrats are criticized. His comment on Rev. Wright: "I'd be more comfortable with Sen. Obama if there was moral indignation than personal indignation." And then support for the Iraq War, which drew even more favorable applause when comparing who spoke to their enemies when. Foreign policy issues were most favorably received by the convention, though he certainly causes the Paul supporters to seethe.

Longtime convention attendees that I spoke to this morning thought this was not as well handled a convention in re the rules and the nominating slates, and there was a fair number of people unhappy with the degree to which McCain floor managers were signaling votes on every item. It's worth remembering -- a majority of these delegates were not elected at the precinct level to be McCain delegates. They supported Romney, or maybe Huckabee, or came undecided after being Guiliani or Thompson folk. Their attachment to McCain is something not that deeply felt. Thus the curiosity about Paul and attendance at his rally, and why some of those who eventually voted for McCain may have nonetheless been less than enthusiastic with the tactics employed by both the McCain managers and the party's rules.

Again, show time for us at 3pm, Mitch and Ed are up now. I have had so many people thank us for the NARN here, and let me on behalf of them all say how humbling and gratifying your support has been. You have no idea how much we appreciate your support -- heck, I'll drive through a gallbladder attack to do this!

Unless something extraordinary happens here, that's all from here and I'll return to my usual weekend blog silence. See you Monday.

Labels: AM1280, Minnesota, NARN, politics

Day Two of the MNGOP is ongoing, and so far what we've heard are speeches. Lots of them. Governor Pawlenty was here around 9am, and I only caught the last five minutes of this as I took a few minutes to chat with people outside, including one very interesting person (more on which below.) Congressional candidates Ed Matthews and Brian Davis spoke afterwards. The AM1280 the Patriot coverage started at 9 with the David Strom Show; David and Margaret are visiting with Barb Davis White right now, who expects to get up and speak to the convention later today. The feature speaker later will be Karl Rove.

This being day 2, it's a slower day today; all the rules and delegates for national have been chosen, and the rancor of yesterday has disappeared mostly. True North has impressions from other conservatives who were here yesterday, and most seem of the opinion that it didn't go very well with the spat over the rules and nominations. A lot of the reason for the rancor, in this observer's view, was that each side was underprepared for what happened. The party chose a set of rules that was meant to respond to the looseness of the Congressional District conventions and the success of the Ron Paul organizers there; these responses were encouraged and even promulgated by party regulars. However, the rules were not an overreaction. However, the rules were only handed out as delegates arrived in the morning; even with the late start of the convention, there was probably two hours for outsiders to digest and strategise. Possible, but hard, and for people less familiar with conventions probably an insuperable task.

Yesterday a woman came to the booth before we are on air, broken down by the rout of the Paul faction that was here. We spoke briefly but she wasn't able to collect her thoughts. By chance she stood behind me at the Starbucks this morning and we had a better conversation. I tried as best I could to explain some thoughts about what had happened. I encouraged her not to sacrifice her principles while finding how to participate in the process, and how to change it. She was not happy, arguing this was unfair. "This is how dictatorships happen. People are pissed."

The question is, do you think that's unfair? Does the party have an obligation to put rules out a day before? A week? What's proper notice? I think reasonable people can come to different conclusions about this, and I have sympathy for both sides. There is a learning curve each person faces when joining an organization. There is something to be said for helping new members along that learning curve; there's also something to be said for organizations moving through their workload in the manner they have found arrives at the best solutions for the organization. I try to educate new faculty on the ways of the department and university, but it's also true that they speak less, participate less their first year or two. Draw that line where you wish; I am just going to say it isn't easy.

Glen Menze is now up; this looks like the course of the day. Listen on the radio or the stream to us all day for news of the day from Rochester. I may post some impressions of the Karl Rove seat if I get back from coffee with David and Margaret, to which I'm now off.

UPDATE: Barb Davis White just gave props to Ron Paul to great applause from a majority of the delegates (some sat on their hands.) Line of the day: "I'll be done speaking in a few minutes. I'm black and I'm Jewish, I talk a lot."

Labels: Minnesota, politics

A reminder for people here at the convention who want to read this blog on their mobile phones. It's doable easily if you have an RSS reader on your phone. Use Google to find one for your model of phone, as many programs are specific to their phones. Here's the Atom feed if you want to use that. As an alternative, I've set up a quick-and-dirty site on Winksite here. Click and save this on your mobile phones if you want a feed. That should be mobi compliant.

BTW, other bloggers here and blogging include Chad, Kevin, AAA, Marty (new site) and of course Michael. If I hear others I'll put them here.

UPDATE: The Uptake has posted a video report.

Labels: blogging, housekeeping

Chad, Michael and I will be on the air at 5pm at AM 1280 the Patriot. No more blogging from here unless we're still doing things at 8pm. Thanks for being here today.

UPDATE: Show ended at 7, and the convention recessed fifteen minutes later. I will say the noise level and the hail outside was the most challenging environment for broadcast that I can remember. But great guests today, including Congressional candidates Ed Matthews and Brian Davis, and an excellent thirty minutes with Marianne Stebbins and Bill Paulson of the Ron Paul campaign, made it worth the effort.

The David Strom Show and the Northern Alliance are here 9-5 tomorrow. Hope you'll listen.

Labels: AM1280, NARN

Norm Coleman was renominated a few minutes ago in a very quick unanimous voice vote. The applause in the room is excellent and enthusiastic. A group of supporters come off the wings to stand in front of the stage. Some snips...

Referring to Obama's San Francisco comments: "We don't cling to our faith, we cherish it." (2007 rank from Club for Growth: McCain not there enough but at 94% would be top 10, Coleman #42)

Support for McCain both on the war and controlling wasteful spending.

"I've cherished the role being Minnesota's mayor in Washington."

"when the floodwaters rush into Roseau and Browns Valley, Minnesota doesn't need an ideologue in Washington, they need someone that gets things done."

He quotes Winston Churchill: If you're going through hell, keep going. This is what he thinks Republicans need to do, and how Republicans should get around to selling its message to voters. We are winning in Iraq, violence is down, al Qaeda is down and we need to recognize Gen. Petraeus as man of the year.

Change isn't always good. Sometimes change is going from Bud Grant to Les Steckel. For the DFL, change is always about taxes. "Keep your hands out of our pockets, keep your hands off our change."

"For those who want to have nationalized health care show us the Medica or the Mayo Clinic of Canada. They don't exist."

Coleman came out for deep-water off-shore drilling, which would fly in the face of his votes previously on ANWR. It's good news if he follows through. The crowd likes this. He then mentions alternative energy, that doesn't go over nearly so well.

"I'm not ready to surrender the 21st century to China."

"#7 We will secure our borders. National sovereignty ends when we don't protect our borders, period."

Speech ends after about 35 minutes. Media are off to get quotes, Michael will grab that if possible.

(Meanwhile, out back apparently a battle between McCain and Paul supporters. Someone reported to me that they saw Ms. Stebbins quite emotional in the back of the hall about forty minutes ago. Don't know if she was involved; she could be emotional because this happened.)

National Delegate lists have been announced. One-minute speeches are given. Michael has been announced a a candidate. He announces his blog and the show. He did fine, though the shine off his head was blinding. The inclusion of Marianne Stebbins on that list indicates that Ron Paul supporters have been given the opportunity to run. (Interestingly one was both on the team slate put together by party regulars and by the Paul campaign.) Stebbins uses her speech to talk about Paul, not about her own candidacy. She (strategically) goes last.

The one-minute format is not easy, and many are either afraid to say enough in case they get cut off, or don't tell you enough. One fellow, Dan(?) Williams, got it -- say the name three times, do it with energy, and get out. The mayor of St. Bonifacius, Rick Weible, is using his effort to have his city secede from Hennepin County and its taxes as a springboard for office. Quentin was up -- the betting was 30 seconds over-or-under for when he first mentions Rhodesia or Zimbabwe. I had the under, and won. The job was well done for keeping people to the one minute and we're done in 30 minutes with the speeches.

UPDATE (2pm): Attempt to take a break fails. Instead, attempts to get more voices from the Paul supporters offered but fails. The rules debate is making them try to find 2/3 votes. I am waiting for someone to make a motion to take additional nominations from the floor; and now when someone tries to do so they are being told the rules. Some Paul voters attempt to demand for a vote on additional nominations but don't get recognized by the chair. Complaints are that voters must vote for a certain number (no bullet voting) and that the nominating committee was allowed to choose who was to be on the ballot (ballots were printed with names, no blanks for write-ins.)

When the nominating committee came up to name the alternates passed, there was a good deal of shouting from Paul supporters, leading to a rebuke from the chair. Now, an attempt to bring alternates for nomination from the floor is voted down. And the speeches begin. State party chair Ron Carey comments:

“They’ve had endless points of order that were not true points of order. It was an intentional slowing of the process. ... We want the Ron Paul people to be part of the party – they are part of the party. But the game’s been played and it was won by McCain.”

Slate discussions from Duchschere now cover the battle between the Paul and McCain/state party slates. Still no announcement of results to the larger battle.

UPDATE 2: (1454) Ron Paul supporters seem to be rallying on the vote for alternates. Vote to allow additional nominations was close but ruled to fail. There was a short break, they are now considering the nomination of Sen. Norm Coleman to run for re-election. The vote has happened in a matter of minutes, and they are running his video now. I'll close this vote and post on Coleman's speech next.

Labels: Minnesota, politics

The ballots are being distributed on constitutional changes after a rather long debate and another mind-numbing credentials report which seems mostly to serve only as a reminder that the bathrooms are nearby and it's time for lunch. They've decided to have a credentials report before every major item voted, which is great for being sure the delegates who killing a lot of time here. (They've now just decided to report changes in seatings, which will greatly speed things up, thank God!)

The big battle is between the McCain and Paul people regarding the McCain campaign's use of paper signals for their supporters. There are McCain workers with earpieces walking around with hats and it appears yes and no signs. The Paul supporters believe this should be stopped. However, I have also seen and heard from other delegates that Paul supporters pass around cell phones with voting instructions. Less intrusive, I suppose, but it's the same thing. Mostly, I think the morning vote on the rules has made the Paul supporters restive and they are using the coordination of McCain supporters as a way to take out their disappointment, along with some questions on the constitutional rules.

I believe the national delegate elections are coming shortly, to be followed by the decision on endorsing for Senate. Kevin Duchschere, who is sitting two tables away here, has posted on the possibility that the endorsement of Sen. Coleman might not be unanimous. Few things ever are, and while I haven't seen the flyer Duchschere refers to, Minnesota Majority has circulated a flyer like its piece yesterday questioning Coleman's support on the Climate Security Act. It's hardly newsworthy that Coleman votes sometimes unlike hard-core conservatives, not is it surprising that more than a few of those here.

I'm now up to three on the number of former students I've seen here, all unexpected.

Labels: Minnesota, politics

Rules debates seldom seem to be important. Even when a church goes nuts over which edition of Roberts they're going to use happens, most of us don't laugh, we just shake our heads.

The vote on this was for 2/3 majority, and the rules as presented to the convention passed. That's a big deal. The chair has moved the questions very quickly from the proposed changes to the vote on the entire docket. The people who are trying to have rules changed have now started to protest that the vote went too fast, but the first major battle is won by the McCain and state party regulars.

Our frequent caller Quentin is up protesting how quickly the vote has happened, and that the majority appeared to be well-organized and given cues how to vote. He's been ruled out of order (fella, this is a convention, not Hugh's show.)

I am surprised this has gone as quickly as it has.

Labels: Minnesota, politics

The first test of the session has come, to alter the agenda to allow for nominations for national delegate to come up after lunch. Many alternates right now are sitting in the balcony waiting to come down, and there'd be a second chance for them to be seated, which they need to help with the Ron Paul slate. That was defeated indicating that the McCain-state party people have come out in force.

First credential call is going on right now. Attendance appears to be middling for delegates vs alternates. Second District had about 60% of its delegates here; 55% in the Third.

Fascinating: I'm looking at the StarTribune State Politics page. Tell me if you can find the Franken story on it before you click this. Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, credentials are passed and the balcony that held the alternates is now practically empty as they come onto the convention floor. The rules debate is beginning now, and this will probably deserve a separate post.

Delegates at this moment are filling the Mayo Civic Center this moment after a wet night in Rochester. The rain lifted in time for the Ron Paul supporters to gather for a speech by Rep. Paul at 7:30 this morning. I am absolutely no expert on estimating crowds, but I think 200-300 is a fair guess to the number there, of which a fair number were the curious rather than the Paul supporters. Even one who was there, my frequent commenter and fellow blogger bleak, was there both as favoring Paul over McCain but cautious of some of the supporters' behavior. This picture isn't taken with a wide lens, so don't judge from this alone.

UPDATE: This is a little video of the crowd, pre-speech.

State organizer Marianne Stebbins said what she wanted was a fair convention and discussed the rules as "needing to be followed". Barb Davis White, candidate for the U.S. House in CD 5, spoke to a very supportive crowd, then Rep. Paul gave a largely upbeat, encouraging speech that focused mostly on thanking his supporters and on the larger battle. If the lookers-on came to hear some bombthrowing, I think they were disappointed.

For coverage of the speech, see Bill Salisbury's report. The convention starts in a few minutes, and I will post during the day as significant news occurs.

Labels: Minnesota, politics

I've walked around the convention for several hours and the talk here is about the potential for a floor fight between Ron Paul supporters and the party regulars. There is a rally planned with Paul tomorrow morning at 7:30. One delegate said to me "I've been praying for rain;" the prayers are working as of right now, as thunder and lightning has just joined the steady rain that has been here for several hours. Go time is 9am for the convention, and most of the people I spoke with think the big action will happen right away.

Norm Coleman has been working the rooms so far tonight, visiting with delegates, taking pictures with them. I have not seen any other Federal elected officials yet. This being an uncontested endorsement, there will be a concerted effort to have that be the feel-good moment of the day tomorrow.

Compared with the Minneapolis Convention Center in 2006, the Mayo Civic Center feels a little more like a university gym converted for graduation. The Coleman and McCain campaigns have put up lots of posters and given it a somewhat more festive look, and I spotted a couple of banks of Paulsen signs.

We will be back on the air tomorrow at 5pm. I will post from the convention's media row during the day, so check back as you can for what news there may be tomorrow from here.

Labels: Minnesota, politics

Michael and I will be on AM1280 the Patriot 5-7pm for the opening of the Minnesota GOP convention at the Mayo Civic Center. We'll be here tomorrow same time, and Saturday as the usual list of the suspects of the Northern Alliance Radio Network. Streaming is available from the link.

Labels: AM1280, NARN, politics

Stanley Fish can be maddening. When I met him up here a couple months ago, I was charmed by his manner with students and interest in teaching about Dante at the mere mention of a few students around him who were studying The Inferno. We spoke at length later about academic freedom -- disagreements, sure, but a very pleasant exchange from which I certainly learned and of which I am uncertain I taught him anything at all.

So when this week's column came out, lambasting the University of Colorado's proposal to raise money for a chair of conservative thought, I was none too surprised by its view. Prof. Fish speaks to an ideal in which faculty who bring liberal activism into their classrooms should be treated like the dog who wets your carpet:

First, what does “left-leaning” mean? Does the university issue policy statements on controversial matters? Does its administration come out for gay marriage or for gun control or for reproductive rights? Does the university endorse liberal candidates, or criticize Supreme Court decisions, or contribute to Move On.org? If the answer to any of these questions were “yes,” “left-leaning” would be an accurate designation. It would also be a reason to deny the university its tax exempt status and demand that it register as a lobbyist. But of course the university does none of these things. How then does it lean left?

The answer appears a little further down in the story when it is reported that emeritus professor Ed Rozek surveyed the Boulder faculty and found that out of 825, only 23 were registered Republicans.

That is a strawman argument on two scores. First, one could hardly find a university as an institution that does engages its institutional voice for gay marriage or its fundraising arm for MoveOn. What we're talking about is that individual faculty behave that way, and encourage their students to do so. As we see below, he doesn't think they should, but then he believes that they must be honorable and so don't do it, save for a few knaves on each campus.

Then second, he simply won't believe the data on intellectual balance. The Rozek study is perhaps flawed, but you don't have to look far to find other such studies. Fish does his readers a poor service in ignoring the other data that are available.

We've been here before with Fish; from an article five years go in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (reprinted in FrontPage here):

[T]eachers should teach their subjects. They should not teach peace or war or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or anti-nationalism or any other agenda that might properly be taught by a political leader or a talk-show host. Of course they can and should teach about such topics --something very different from urging them as commitments--when they are part of the history or philosophy or literature or sociology that is being studied. The only advocacy that should go on in the classroom is the advocacy of what James Murphy has identified as the intellectual virtues, "thoroughness, perseverance, intellectual honesty", all components of the cardinal academic virtue of being "conscientious in the pursuit of truth" ("Good Students and Good Citizens," New York Times ,September 15 2003). A recent Harris poll revealed that in the public's eye teachers are the professionals most likely to tell the truth; and this means, I think, that telling the truth is what the public expects us to be doing. If you're not in the pursuit of truth business, then you should not be in the university.

I was told something very different in the 60's when I was teaching at Berkeley. In the wake of the Free Speech Movement a faculty union had been formed and I had declined to join it. Some members of the steering committee asked me why and I asked them to tell me about the union's agenda. They answered that the union would (1) work to change America's foreign policy by fighting militarism, (2) demand that automobiles be banned from the campus and that parking structures be torn down, and (3) speak out strongly in favor of student rights. In response I said (1) that if I were interested in influencing government policy I would vote for certain candidates and contribute to their campaigns, (2) that I loved automobiles and wanted even more places to park mine, and (3) that I didn't see the point of paying dues to an organization dedicated to the interests of a group of which I was not a member. How about improvements in faculty salaries, better funding for the library, and a reduction in teaching load? You, sir, I was admonished, do not belong in a university. No, they didn't know what a university was and a lot of people still don't.

And faculty unions still push the same thing today in some places. I get his point: sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. But if Fish rejects intellectual affirmative action -- which I think he's right to do -- what alternative does he offer?

Labels: higher education

The St. Cloud Times undertook a project to study state employee salaries. Their data center provides a searchable database that you can use to look anyone up, including me if you wish. (They also provide a separate database for the University of Minnesota -- when I see what my colleagues in the U's economics department who are about my age make, ugh!)

A two-part story began Sunday with a look at overtime pay to state employees, with $50 million paid in 2007 out of a $2.58 billion payroll. The public-sector unions of course claim this is due to too few public sector workers, while critics like Phil Krinkie and Craig Westover highlighted the demand for public-sector employees being driven up by greater regulation. But most interesting was the table that appeared in the print story (though not on the website that I can see) of the top 10 salaries in the state. Tops is MnSCU Chancellor James McCormack, who earns over $350,000. Second, though, was an SCSU professor who earned over $250,000; another on the faculty here was near $22ok. By comparison, Gov. Pawlenty gets $120,303 as salary for being governor.

What's up with that? The second part looks at the pay rate for teaching online courses. Here it's pretty simple: Most courses are 3 credits, and for each student in such an online class you get $195. That is not part of one's regular salary but paid on top. And, unlike teaching an extra course in the classroom, you get more, the more students who register. And, there's no limit contractually on how many of these you can do. (Teaching overloads for lecture classes are capped in the contract, and the cap is only lifted in emergency cases, largely so that opportunities are spread around a department more evenly.) Both of those two SCSU faculty in the top ten are providers of online classes.

The article identifies 10,400 seats in online courses. If we assume they were all three-credit classes, that's more than $2 million annually paid to those faculty, not peanuts on a campus with about a $140 million budget, of which about half are faculty salaries. But what doesn't get mentioned in that story is that students pay extra for the online course (between $235 and $250 per credit versus $175 for the lecture course.) They aren't just lucrative for the faculty teaching those courses. More is staying in the offices of our continuing studies program.

Hard to say what will happen with this information. It's always been public, and I don't object to the transparency of my own salary. It was part of the agreement to work here. But the scrutiny over the online courses might cause some changes there. Like many universities, ours has taken a serious approach to assessing effectiveness in teaching. One hopes that online courses, like those in our lecture halls, have evidence of student learning. If they do, I don't see why we should have concerns about who gets paid what. And if they don't, it wouldn't matter how much you pay them. You can't find a bargain in bad teaching.

Labels: higher education, Minnesota, SCSU

A NYT article on charities being taxed in Minnesota draws interest from James Joyner and Tyler Cowen. Cowen comes up with some rather interesting list of which not-for-profits should be taxed, based it appears on a public goods argument. Joyner is more circumspect:

I tend to agree that Harvard’s endowment should be tax exempt since its proceeds to go legitimate educational endeavors and are not “profit” pocketed by stakeholders. But I’m not sure the lines are particularly bright.

But non-profit or not-for-profit is simply a decision of how the excess of income over expenditures are taken by those who have a residual claim. In short, you can't take it as personal income of some form or another. But you still get to have a nice car with driver, or a fancy boardroom, or what-have-you. My colleagues Bill Luksetich and Mary Edwards and UNLV professor Tom Carroll wrote a paper examining those differences with regards to Minnesota nursing homes. Government and non-profit nursing homes spent more per resident than the for-profit ones. (I do not know if they or anyone else has found evidence on quality of care by organizational form.) Bill's done similar work with symphony orchestras and museums, too numerous for me to list here. So non-profits might make a lower amount of net benefits than for-profits (since the latter can consume those more efficiently) but non-profits do fiddle their expenses to obtain some private gains.

But that said, doesn't government do the same thing? Ever walk into the cafeteria of a Federal Reserve? The old building in Minneapolis had one that was pretty swank. Might we consider taxing those activities too?

Labels: economics, Minnesota, taxes

When you talk to people familiar with the state legislative process, a term you hear often is "the tails". This refers to the impact of a decision about this year's budget on the projected spending and taxation and surplus or deficit for the next biennium. (Projections are not provided beyond that.) It is what allows legislators to discuss the possibility of needing additional cuts in the next Legislature, or the possibility of new spending programs.

After the budget compromise of last week was announced, one thing that was said to me was that "they chopped the tails", meaning the reduction in spending (or the removal of the foreign operating corporation exemption -- the tax increase that dares not speak its name) had made a good deal of progress in reducing the size of the FY2010-11 deficit. I said to those people I would wait to see the evidence when someone released the fiscal impact report.

The report is now out from the House research staff, and the tails barely got nibbled.

You will hear that we cut out $268 million from spending in this biennium and $340 million from the next. True enough. But the additional LGA monies and the money to K-12 education take back $137 million in this biennium and $428 million in the next. The net changes are thus $131 million reduced for 2008-09 and $88 million INCREASED for 2010-11. The total reduction in the next biennium's defict is only $137 million, of which the FOC exemption removal is estimated to bring in $140 million. This is what happens when you pay for $935 million in the current deficit with $617 million in reserves and fund shifts.

Here's a summary of where the money goes and comes. Most of that additional $88 million is the impact of the transportation bill (HF 2800) that was enacted over Gov. Pawlenty's veto. Here's that bill's tracking sheet -- notice that $86 million of spending in the next biennium for that bill is not paid for by any of the tax increases the DFL enacted. At a minimum, one would have thought the Legislature that gave us that additional spending would have come up with a way to pay for it before it went back home for the year. But as well, that calculation should make it plain that the only progress made on the tails was the result of a tax increase. I know the governor's office doesn't want to call it that. I'll simply say been there, done that.

But a majority of the blame has to go to legislators who cannot even clean up their own mess after passing HF 2800. Our discussion Saturday on the Final Word with Sen. Geoff Michel and Rep. Steve Gottwalt indicated they were also concerned about the next biennium's budget. With the reserves depleted, can there be any doubt that another tax increase lies on the horizon if the current DFL majority gets a veto-proof margin in the House?

Labels: legislature, Minnesota, Pawlenty

The AP reports (h/t: Best of the Web) that inflation is now over one million percent over the last year in Zimbabwe. I think you need to consider it much worse than that. The Zimbabwe Independent last week reported on monthly rates: 355,000% in March, versus 165,000% in February:

Top government sources said the inflation figures for March had initially been projected at 406 000%, but were still being computed as the Central Statistical Office (CSO) continues to fiddle with the consumer basket.

"The CSO were instructed last month to change the consumer basket. The basket is forever changing." said one Ministry of Finance official. "It remains uncertain whether the go ahead will be given to them to release the figures."

Food and non-alcoholic beverages continued to be the major drivers of inflation in March.

...

The figures come at a time the RBZ has introduced higher denomination bearer cheques notes to counter the adverse effects of inflation.

The central bank introduced the $500 million bearer cheques for the public and the $5 billion, $25 billion, $50 billion agro-cheques for farmers. The new notes come hardly two weeks after the introduction of the $250 million bearer cheques.

"Counter the adverse effects", you say? Seems to me you're only making it worse.

So what really is the rate? In the legendary hyperinflations (1923 Germany, 1941-44 Greece, 1946 Hungary or 1993 Yugoslavia) you had prices doubling within a day, or at least every two days. The Independent article reports an economist saying Zimbabwe prices are doubling weekly. That Zimbabwean $500 million note was worth $2 US when first introduced last week, probably only $1 now. These things tend to accelerate quite rapidly however, and with elections still a month away, the record hyperinflation of Hungary is in sight.

Labels: economics

The rocketing price for corn already is hurting Americans at the grocery store and the gas pump. Now it’s going to hurt us at the multiplex, too.

Partly because of the rising price for popcorn, on Thursday Kansas City-based AMC Entertainment Inc. announced that beginning today it will increase its ticket prices from $9 to $10 for weekend show times after 4 p.m. at its five Kansas City theaters.

Also beginning today, AMC’s popcorn price will jump 25 cents nationwide.

Source. That must have a lot of people scratching their heads: If the price of corn is going up, and you sell popcorn, why do you raise BOTH the price of popcorn and the price of the movie ticket? There's been a number of books that have gotten at that question, as Steve Landsburg notes in his review of Tim Harford's Undercover Economist. But now Richard Mckenzie has titled his book Why does popcorn cost so much in the theater? Tyler Cowen points us to a trailer Mckenzie has done, which includes a tip on how to recover that $.25 on the popcorn, which adds something to the puzzle I think.

Labels: economics

Another item on the list of Legislative acts that just fry my bacon:

A measure awaiting Gov. Tim Pawlenty's signature or veto would ban drivers from texting, reading or sending electronic messages while their cars are on the road.

Pawlenty must act on the transportation measure, which also creates new restrictions on teen drivers, by June 2. He has not said whether he will sign the bill or veto it.

Under the legislation, texting while driving would become a petty misdemeanor, much like other traffic violations.

"What we really want to do is send a message that it's unacceptable," said Rep. Frank Hornstein, a Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Laborite who sponsored the measure.

"I want to really get this issue much more on the radar because people may have the reaction that I had, which is, 'People do this while they drive?' "

There are any number of things that distract my driving; my hands are not always ten and two on the wheel. About one third of the distracted driving accidents that happen are due to stuff that is outside the car, like the billboard telling me to hang up my cell phone. There is already a law in the state on careless driving. When this issue was looked at in 2002, a MN House research report found that

“Driver talking on cell phone/CB” in the department’s annual compilation of crash statistics was cited in 2000 as a contributing factor in 110 damage-only crashes, 68 personal injury crashes, and two fatal crashes. These crashes represent only a tiny fraction of all such crashes in Minnesota that year—less than 0.4 percent of all crashes in each category. These percentages, while still quite low, have been slowly rising since the department began reporting this category of crash factors.

It is hard to believe, however, that they've risen to the point where the state has another right to pull drivers over.

I heard from someone in the last hour that Gov. Pawlenty said on his radio program this morning that he was signing this bill. That would be another disappointing loss of personal freedom signed by our "goalie". I'll update this post with a link to the story when it comes over the wire if so. (UPDATE: MPR confirms.)

Labels: DFL legislature, Freedom, Minnesota

The Coen Brothers are the latest shakedown artists to get the state government to part with taxpayer dollars.

After flirting with Milwaukee, Joel and Ethan Coen will begin shooting their next film in the Twin Cities this fall.

"A Serious Man," concerning a Jewish family living in St. Louis Park, has held open casting calls for local talent and scouted locations around the area.

But the production company also explored shooting the comedy/drama in Milwaukee's suburbs, lured by Wisconsin's film subsidies, which are more generous than Minnesota's.

When the Legislature passed a measure granting $500,000 to the production, Focus Features green-lit the project within 24 hours. The film is expected to generate $6 million to $7 million for the state's economy.

Seriously, how do they know the film will generate $6-$7 million? Most of these studies use economic multipliers, like this one from Virginia, assuming an additional $1.12 of follow-on spending for each direct dollar spent. That state estimated $20 million from 15 film projects in 2002, including Gods and Generals. (Note, the economic impact doesn't depend on how good the movie is or was.)

Why stop at the Coens? If you can leverage $500k into $6 million in income (and thereby collect maybe 10% between sales and income taxes), why not pay all comers?

You remember our debate on campus here about the Empty Holsters campaign? At Tarrant County College in Texas, they made a much worse choice. FIRE reports:

On March 28, 2008, TCC student Brett Poulos e-mailed TCC South Campus President Ernest L. Thomas to describe an event he was organizing called an "Empty Holster Protest." Poulos had collaborated with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a national organization that "supports the legalization of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses." SCCC promoted a coordinated national protest for April 2008 in which students would peacefully attend class and perform other daily tasks while wearing empty holsters to signify opposition to state laws and school policies denying concealed handgun license holders the same rights on college campuses that they are granted in most other places.

In an April 10 response, Juan Garcia, Vice President for Student Development, "granted" Poulos's request to stage a protest on the South Campus, but changed the fundamental nature of the protest by banning the protesters from wearing empty holsters anywhere on the South Campus, including in the designated free speech zone. The South Campus free speech zone, according to Poulos, is an elevated, circular concrete platform about 12 feet across.

Poulos met with Garcia on April 18 and was told that TCC would take adverse action if SCCC members wore empty holsters anywhere, strayed beyond the campus's free speech zone during their holster-less protest, or even wore t-shirts advocating "violence" or displaying "offensive" material.

You can have your empty holster protest, but don't wear an empty holster? What kind of sense does that make?

The other issue in this, and the larger reason I'm posting on it, is the use of these free speech zones, which SCSU has. I had hoped that when the Code Pink protest in March had ended up having the students and their advisor apprised of the policy that both liberal and conservative students and faculty might come together and ask that this policy be eliminated, replaced by the sensible restriction to not permit the disruption of classes. So far, all we have seen is further questioning by students of the speech rights of preachers who come to campus. As the Tarrant County story makes clear though, the zones' existence permits a curtailing of free speech far greater than just a time restriction. Public expression zone policies are an invitation for censorship.

Labels: guns, higher education

Demand for silver -- the "poor man's gold" -- has accelerated so rapidly that the U.S. Mint that was producing silver dollars is now rationing them.

In March, the mint stopped taking orders for the bullion coins. Late last month, it began limiting how many coins its 13 authorized buyers world-wide are allowed to purchase.

"This came out of nowhere," says Mark Oliari, owner of Coins 'N Things Inc. in Bridgewater, Mass., one of the biggest buyers of silver eagles. With customers demanding twice as many as they did last year, Mr. Oliari would like to buy 500,000 a week. But the mint will sell him only around 100,000.

The coins have a face value of $1. But the mint sells them for the going price of silver, plus a small premium, to a handful of wholesalers, brokerage companies, precious-metals firms, coin dealers and banks. The dealers mark the coins up a bit more and sell them to the public. Currently, the coins are fetching about $19 apiece, with some sellers seeking more than $20.

Speculators are loading up on silver; I found a bag of $1000 of circulated Liberty halves on eBay for $11,600. Mint coins of course sell for more. The run on silver has moved the gold-silver ratio down to near 50:1, where it has traded north of 80:1 as recently as 2003. The historical mean ratio is around 32 (and monetary historians will tell you about the 16:1 ratio up to 1873.) Silver is a much smaller or thinner market than gold, so when people are speculating on commodities as inflation hedges, silver can outperform gold, as it has the last few years.

The last time there was a real run on silver, the Hunt brothers drove the price to $50/oz. at the end of the 1970s, owning about half of the world's supply. We're not even at $20 yet.

Meanwhile, high oil prices are moving us up on the supply curve.

Labels: economics

I'll be on KNSI's Morning Show tomorrow, 6-8 AM. Streaming audio available at that link.

I was going to post things today but had too much fun updating a syllabus instead. We academics are funny like that. Back tomorrow.

Labels: Media

The more I look at the data, the more I think my reiteration of a "short and shallow recession" might need revision. I just got around to looking at the St. Cloud data on employment, and we added 0.8% last month (not seasonally adjusted) and 1.4% year-over-year, double the rate for the state as a whole. Some of this has been a resurgence in public sector jobs but private employment has also risen 0.8%. Construction employment looks like it's stabilized, and service sector jobs seem to be marching along smartly.

So I was surprised last night to read Tom Stinson's interview with Lori Sturdevant saying we're in a "fragile position". I guess I shouldn't be, given Tom's usually downbeat manner. Statewide, the private service sector added 1.3% employment last year, but you wouldn't know it from this Q&A:

Q: How would you describe the state's economic outlook?

A: Right now, we're having a short, mild recession. The concern is, will we have a little bit of recovery, then go back down to zero growth? This one, partly because of the [federal] stimulus package, looks like it's going to be a W -- a peak this summer, followed by slow quarters thereafter.

Q: Why the backsliding?

A: It's all the usual things. It's credit, it's housing, it's oil.

We're in kind of a fragile position, if oil prices stay high. Global Insights [the state's national economic consultant] now projects oil prices at $112/barrel in this quarter, and falling to $100/barrel by 2009. [Oil was at $127/barrel on Friday.] Every $10/barrel in oil prices knocks 0.2-0.3 percent off real GDP growth in the U.S. If $120/barrel oil is where we end up, that's going to knock us back to zero in GDP growth later this year.

Every penny per gallon increase in gasoline prices costs consumers about $1 billion. When the stimulus package was passed, gasoline was roughly $3/gallon. Now, it's roughly $3.65. That means higher gas prices have burned up half of the stimulus package.

Q: What's the outlook for housing here?

A: Housing is really important for Minnesota's economy. We haven't, since the Great Depression, gone through a full year when we had housing prices decline nationally. We've just done that, and we're going to do another year of it, and maybe another year after that. We're going to have fewer houses built this year than at any year since World War II. This isn't just your normal slump. This is big time.

Typically, we have a housing slump because the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. Here, the problem is, we built too many houses. Interest rates are low. So how do you work out of this? You're not going to see a big surge, because there is no pent-up demand.

He notes, however, that tax collections are still running $135 million ahead of forecast. (This must be updated from the April report.) Despite this, our state economist is holding to a Global Insights forecast that not only pulls down the 2008 GDP forecast from its February report (1.2% growth versus 1.4% in Feb.) but also 2009 (1.7% vs. 2.2%.) The NABE forecast announced on Monday showed 1.4% growth consensus for 2008 by 2.3% for 2009. Only 56% thought the economy was in recession now, and all of those thought the recession would end either in the second or third quarter. Today's release of the FOMC minutes from 29-30 April indicate the central tendency of projections at the Federal Reserve were in the range of 0.3-1.2% for 2008 and 2.0-2.8% for 2009.

The 'W' recession that Stinson mentions here is very much a minority opinion. My colleague on the Quarterly Business Report has been more optimistic than me, and me more than Tom, and I've never been sure we're in a recession.

UPDATE: Now that I read the minutes of the FOMC meeting, and look at Fed funds futures pointing to higher interest rates before year-end, the less the 'W' makes sense. The minutes contain the note of caution on inflation from FRB Philadelphia president Charles Plosser and Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher:

Rising prices for food, energy, and other commodities; signs of higher inflation expectations; and a negative real federal funds rate raised substantial concerns about the prospects for inflation. Mr. Plosser cited the recent rapid growth of monetary aggregates as additional evidence that the economy had ample liquidity after the aggressive easing of policy to date. Mr. Fisher was concerned that an adverse feedback loop was developing by which lowering the funds rate had been pushing down the exchange value of the dollar, contributing to higher commodity and import prices, cutting real spending by businesses and households, and therefore ultimately impairing economic activity. To help prevent inflation expectations from becoming unhinged, both Messrs. Fisher and Plosser felt the Committee should put additional emphasis on its price stability goal at this point, and they believed that another reduction in the funds rate at this meeting could prove costly over the longer run.

With more recent statements by other Fed officials indicating a pause from here in interest rate cuts, I expect more Fed officials to join Fisher and Plosser through the summer.

Labels: economics, Minnesota

Janet wrote me asking if I would post on this article by David Ranson in today's WSJ. It's long been a theme of the Journal's editorial board that no matter what the top individual income tax rate is, you get the same level of tax revenue. Now I find that interesting, given that we are told the Laffer curve works by the very same people, and the Laffer curve clearly says that variations in tax rates will yield variations in tax revenue (just sometimes in the opposite direction.)

Any time I think about these marginal tax rate changes that Ranson draws on, however, I am pretty sure I can find changes in the base on which the tax is collected. When we drop the marginal tax rate, there's worry that "the government is losing money", so we need to make that tax change "revenue neutral". As the Tax Foundation points out, that is in essence giving one group a tax cut while shifting the cost of that cut onto someone else, so that Uncle Sugar stays in sweetness.

It would be great to find natural experiments where the marginal tax rate is cut and the legal definition of the tax base is unchanged. But darned if I can think of one.

UPDATE (5/21): There's a lot of criticism of Ranson from more liberal bloggers. Take for example Justin Fox's graphic. One of the problems of using the finer gradation of his graph versus Ranson's is that it makes relatively small fluctuations look like peaks and valleys. Almost certainly some of those are due to fluctuations in the tax collections through a business cycle (the progressive income tax is supposed to be an automatic stabilizer.) If you're going to draw that graph as Fox does, you would want to measure individual income tax collections at full employment, which is a highly speculative activity. CBO provides the data you could use.

Labels: economics, taxes

Joe Nathan wrote last week about graduation rates in the MnSCU schools, and he is "stunned" and "shocked" by what they tell. But his own words trip him up here:

The report shows that Minnesota ranks 5th in the nation in percentage of 2004 high school graduates who ENROLLED in a two or four year higher education institution. That figure is 65.3%. About 50% enter a Minnesota college or univeristy, with the rest going to a higher education institution outside Minnesota.

Comparable figures for North Dakota were (67.6%) and South Dakota (68.8%). Guess I would not have predicted that a higher percentage of high school graduates in those two states would go on to a college or university.

Overall we are doing pretty well in helping students enter higher education. But graduation rates are far too low.

Nationwide, only 37% of students who go to a four-year school to seek a degree actually get the degree in four years; 63% get it within six years. Why does Minnesota rank in the middle (and St. Cloud State with 19.3% in four years and 46% in six)? It has to do with who we get as students. Selective universities will get students who have both better preparation for college, and higher tuition as a motivator to get done on time. Carleton's graduation rates of 88.1% & 92.8% make a lot of sense when you consider who they bring onto campus and how much they charge for you to stay around for years 5 and 6.

Variation across states can be explained both by selectivity, demographics, and institutional features. MnSCU has made it a priority that students in any institution can easily transfer to other MnSCU institutions. But that doesn't necessarily mean the student makes that transfer seamlessly. We try to develop agreements and programs to allow students at two-year schools to move to the four-years, but it's not always the smoothest transition. And we get students who frequently take less than a full load, even after you advise them that this will slow them down. Again, because there's no penalty attached to being around for an extra year, there's little incentive for students to get done with college besides their own feelings that they need to get on with life.

I went into IPEDS and let it generate a list of 26 peer institutions (almost all within our geographic region.) These are public schools with masters programs, all of which appear to be relatively non-selective in admissions. Their six-year graduation rates for all degrees was 49%. But we are even less selective than these peers. We admitted 84.7% of those who applied to SCSU, compared to 77.7% at our peers. 41% of those we admit come to this school, compared to 45% for our peers. Their ACT scores are about the same, so it appears we're getting about the same quality student. (All data for Fall 2006 admissions.)

So I would argue that the differences that remain when we compare apples to apples are not big enough to call this some kind of emergency. Most certainly we could afford to do a better job in getting students here who want to stay, and we could do better at making sure students take the right number of credits (I have long argued for banded tuition here, so far in vain, even though four of our sister institutions have it.) But none of this is shocking or stunning. We've known it for a long time.

Labels: higher education

During this political season let's be reminded of these
wise words:

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and
independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and
should do for themselves.

Attributed to Abraham Lincoln but real author is William J.H. Boetcker.
Above is a version of the original.

Labels: Freedom

Via Mitch, the other side of a housing down-cycle:

This month more than 2,600 houses were on the market at less than $120,000 -- a 608 percent increase over the same period in 2005, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. The inventory for all price ranges increased 62 percent over 2005.

The return of the starter house is the upside of the down housing market. And buyers are taking notice.

Now this may not mean the end of the housing slump is near, or that cutting prices is a good thing. But the overhang in housing inventory has to be worked through somehow, and with starts declining relative to sales, stories like this one might be the first sign of how we are working through the housing bubble.

Labels: economics, housing, Minneapolis

Over this week I'll post thoughts on the rush to end the Legislative session. Gary has posted liveblogs of the Pawlenty and DFL leadership fly-arounds if you want the snippets. But here's my first thought.

I hate levy limits.

Not so much because there are incentives to always raise your taxes to the cap. Not that they are wrong about this, but that it's not the only reason I would oppose them. (It would be simple to amend that to say that you can raise 3.9% in the first year, by 7.8% over the two-year-ago level in the second year, etc., if that was the only problem.) And not because they are getting $60 million in return for the cap through a new LGA methadone injection. The problem is a local control issue, as St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis notes:

We have our own policies limiting the increase to growth and inflation. As a legislator, I've always believed strongly it's a local control issue... you have local elected officials, elected by members of the community and they should make those decisions.

For the very same reason I've always hated term limits. You want to keep sending the same wastrel back to Congress every two years? It's your right to do so. I dislike Rep. Oberstar's views, but it's none of my business if his district thinks he's a wonderful provider of bike trails and sends him back every two years; the most I can do is send donations to his opponents as an expression of my free speech and maybe write a letter or two to his district newspapers.

If a city wants to tax its citizens an additional 7% in a down economy and if those citizens return those city councilors and mayor back to office, they get what they want. Why the DFL and Pawlenty think they can make this decision better than the municipalities can, is beyond me.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

Arnold Kling says no macro, but includes environmental and resource economics. Macro is basically a history of economic thought course in his view. I think I'm supposed to protest this as someone who teaches macro, but I would gladly trade the intermediate macro class out for a good history of economic thought class plus a course in money and banking. Kling prefers a course in finance, but my experience with finance majors in the money and banking class is that their knowledge of financial institutions is quite sterile. Of course, I drag economic history of bubbles, the First and Second Banks of the United States, etc., into the M&B class. So maybe we're not so far off. Ten years ago our department dropped history of thought and M&B from the required courses in favor of more electives; I still am miffed about this.

I still think you need a model that says how you get the "big prices" in the economy, like the real interest rate or the price level or the real exchange rate between countries, but the principles course can do this well enough. Intermediate macro repeats that story, adds on IS-LM and AD-AS, and that's pretty much it. I argue continually that when you talk to economists my age about a policy issue, our answers almost always have some IS-LM diagram behind them, but in ten years I'll be old enough to ... teach history of economic thought.

Labels: economics

People are running out of their two-year contracts and they're coming into the stores and they want to be able to do Facebook and they want to be able to do instant messaging and they want to be able to do e-mail and they ask for those features thinking that they're going to get another flip phone and they're walking out with a (BlackBerry) Curve or a Pearl because they're the best devices for doing those kinds of activities. And so what is the defining factor? The keyboard.

Source, from the co-chair of RIM. Those of us who have had Treos for years (I'm already past the two year mark on my 700p, after two years with a 600. Though I'm thinking Blackberry next time, particularly this one, so that I can do email from overseas. Unlocked SIM cards, yes!

Labels: ingenuity

In this earlier post I talked here about my reaction to the movie, Prince Caspian. My particular fascination with the film was the incredible use of technology. It still amazes me to see what can be done with human imagination allowed to reign free. Couple this environment with the technology we have available today and one enjoys a fantastic visual journey.

Others have seen the movie and posted their comments here and here. The author of the first review thinks the film producers took a bit too much liberty from the book but his kids loved it. We both agree that we need more films like this one. The second review indicates that the Prince Caspian story was weak and the movie makes for a better tale.

Take your pick of opinions but go see the movie, and take you kids.

Labels: Heroes

This morning I attended the monthly Minnesota Republican Women (MRW) breakfast. It was a Mother's Day celebration; many members brought their daughters, granddaughters, and other relatives.

Our speaker was Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, mother of five, foster mom of 23. Anyone who has heard her speak knows how dynamic and accurate her talks are. Michele has a law degree and masters degree in tax law from William and Mary College. She focused on two topics today: taxes and energy.

In the early 1950's, families paid about 5% of their total income in taxes; today, they pay about 50%. In 1987, when Michele was getting her masters degree in tax law, she did a projection of what her son, then age 4, would have to pay to support all the government programs put in place by liberal baby boomers. 25% of her son's earnings in his highest earning years would be needed just to pay social security for boomers. This did not include taxes for medicare, state, estate, income, etc. In total, up to 85% of what her son would earn in his 30's and 40's would go to pay for boomer socialist programs. Breaking the backs of future generations is not wise.

Energy - open American resources.
OIL - We have oil but the greens have prevented us from accessing it (ANWR, 85% if America's coastline, etc.). Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst hurricanes ever yet the 40+ oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico run by American companies sustained zero damage. We know how to build these drilling platforms very well. ANWR - 1995, ANWR drilling was approved by the US Congress and President Clinton vetoed it. IF he had approved of this, we would not be funneling money to those who want to destroy us or hold us hostage. The funding for so much of the world's terrorism simply would not exist.

COAL - The Chinese are operating a new coal plant every week! Our politicians and greens prevent us from mining the coal. We can burn it cleanly, definitely cleaner than the Chinese.

NUCLEAR - Again, we can build safe plants. France produces almost 80% of its power from nuclear plants. America has not built a nuclear plant in 30 years.

NATURAL GAS - In the Dakotas.

In summary, if we used our own resources, we would have cheaper gasoline, cheaper heating fuels, and significantly decrease our reliance on those who wish they ruled us.

Today's Democrats are stonewalling any movement towards energy independence. You can say all you want about ethanol but it takes oil to produce it, it is not cost effective, and uses our tax dollars to subsidize it. Same for windmills. It's time for us to take our energy requirements responsibly.

For those of you who so want the government to solve this problem I have a few questions:
1 - When did a government ever solve anything at a reasonable price? (See taxes at beginning of this post).
2 - Instead of the government, what are you personally willing to give up to save energy? Not what you want someone else to give up, but what you will give up all by yourself? I've yet to meet anyone who is eager for the government to solve this problem say what they, individually, will give up.

For those of you who are now on the "get rid of plastics" bandwagon, here's a few more points:
1 - Plastic (and nylon and Orlon and rayon and polyester) come from oil. What fabrics do you want to give up? You can replace with hemp where legal and cotton but who will farm it?
2 - Plastic was designed to replace glass because glass broke, people got very nasty cuts; plastic was safer.
3 - Are you willing to give up your Ipod? CDs? CD carriers? Computers? Backpacks? Hi-tech athletic shoes? Synthetic athletic clothing? Cars? Cell phones? DVDs? The list is endless.

Remember it was boomers and their parents who invented this stuff. If you are unhappy with it, invent something to replace it. This requires degrees in the hard sciences, real mathematics, not degrees in social engineering areas.

We can solve problems because we are a free society. Totalitarian systems, thugs, bullies, governments that allow only one way to think don't solve problems - they control their people and blame others for everything. We are a nation of doers, problem solvers. When we get government off our backs and use our own resources, all benefit.

Michele gets it, she really does.

Labels: Michele Bachmann

Prince Caspian opened in movie theaters this weekend. It adapts for the big screen the fourth in a series of seven Narnia novels by C.S. Lewis.

The film includes all the special effects you would want: incredibly realistic talking animals, "living" creatures of all types (trees, water, etc.) . The ingenuity and creativity are simply amazing. Taking an author's words, in this case, those of C.S. Lewis, and making them come alive is a skill and talent we just assume is the norm - it's not.

The basic storyline is straightforward: Prince Caspian, the 10th in a line of Caspians, learns that his father was murdered by his uncle, the evil prince, Miraz. His tutor saves his life by helping Caspian escape from his uncle. As Caspian flees to the magic woods of Narnia, he gets hurt, uses a magic horn and unknowingly summons the four English children back to Narnia to fight the good fight because Caspian's people now have a chance to be set free from their oppressors.

This "war" movie like the blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" trilogy recognizes that it can be right to fight for truth, decency and to remove a tyrannical ruler. One hears the movie's characters debating whether or not they should make the fight; they conclude a chance for freedom is worth the risk. This movie's approach contrasts with the latest attempts by Hollywood to portray war as always wrong, especially with American civilians and soldiers as villains. These films have done very poorly at the box office. Perhaps this is because Hollywood does not understand that there are good fights and freedom must be defended, not taken for granted. Hollywood's bias showing Americans as bad guys simply doesn't go down well with us. Disney understands people will see war movies, even if fiction, when the good guys win.

C.S. Lewis, a WWI wounded soldier, truly understood the horrors of war but he also understood that tyranny was worse.

Update - May 18
First comment by someone on the left: "Comparing Caspian to an illegal invasion of Iraq. Good one!"

This is typical of people on the left. If you read the above post, there is no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, WWI, etc. yet the commenter immediately jumped from "some wars" to concluding I'm talking about Iraq. This is the same way Democrat Presidential candidate, Obama responded when he automatically assumed Bush's comments about appease-
ment were directed at Obama. Frankly, one might conclude Obama really is an appeaser or he would not have reacted so strongly or quickly. Hmmmm

The comment author also has a unique definition of "illegal" war. The US Senate, including a majority of Democrats and Senator Clinton voted to support the Iraq invasion. Subsequent reports have also documented Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda and its role in training suicide murderers. In addition the US had the support of 43 coalition nations. We may disagree about the Iraq war but there was nothing illegal about it. Just because the Democrats want to find a way to trash our president, does not make denying reality ok.

Labels: Heroes

The StarTribune announces that Minnesota lost 10,400 jobs in April. About a third of those jobs were in construction. So I went to look up the data, and the first thing I notice is that they are using the seasonally adjusted time series. When you look at the non-seasonally adjusted data, we added 24,650 jobs, including 6,319 in construction. It's worth noting two things: Easter came early, shifting some seasonal retail and leisure economic activity into March; and it was a cold, wet and snowy April. The latter would help explain the shortfall in construction versus a normal April.

That would be the demand side. The supply side is also interesting. From the STrib article:

In the past 12 months, Minnesota has added 19,000 jobs -- or an average of about 1,580 every month, noted Oriane Casale, DEED assistant director of labor market information. "We'd need to add about 2,539 jobs per month to keep up with population growth," she said. "However, there is evidence that [Minnesota's] population is growing slower that the demographer's office projected."

The unemployment rate has held almost constant over the last year, with 24,000 more workers in the labor force. So are we just not adding more workers to the labor force, or are there workers out there waiting to be employed? There have been fairly small fluctuations in the employment-population ratio. I'm still good with my call of a short and shallow recession.

Labels: economics, Minnesota

Bill Testa has a fascinating post on the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) coming into Midwestern states. The two with the most? Indiana and Michigan. I would never have guessed this.

The Business Research Center at Indiana University (BRC) has recently issued an extensive report that reviews the global environment for FDI with an emphasis on Indiana and surrounding Midwest states. According to U.S. government data as of 2005, Indiana’s economy ranks 8th in the nation and first in the region as measured by the ratio of FDI to state economic output. (Michigan also exceeds the U.S. average.) As measured by jobs, the United Kingdom and Japan were virtually tied as the number one source of FDI into Indiana, each accounting for 32,000 jobs.

Could it be that voters this November in those two states might actually look with favor on political candidates that support free trade? McCain was heckled in Michigan during the primary there in part for saying jobs that had left Michigan were not coming back. He could point out that new jobs are coming in, by the very same mechanism.

Labels: economics, politics

While I was ill, there was a story about a drug sting operation on the San Diego State University campus. Today's Chronicle of Higher Education (subscriber link) tells that the university sought law-enforcement help, which appears to have caused some to question whether the university has treated its students right.

[W]hen a freshman at San Diego State University died of a cocaine overdose last May, the campus police chief decided to pursue a full-scale investigation. In December he summoned undercover agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to pose as students and roam the campus in search of illegal drugs.

Last week San Diego County's district attorney disclosed the yearlong investigation—Operation Sudden Fall—and its outcome: 125 arrests, including 95 students. Law-enforcement officers seized $100,000 in drugs, $60,000 in cash, and four guns. University officials suspended six fraternities, as well as 33 students charged with felonies, and congratulated themselves.

"Drug use is a concern on virtually every campus in our country," the president, Stephen L. Weber, said in a written statement the day the arrests were announced. "SDSU has taken this action to confront it directly."

But such a sweeping drug investigation raises high-stakes questions. When should a university punish instead of educate? Does inviting undercover federal agents onto a campus strain an administration's relationship with its students? Will trying to solve a problem make an institution notorious for having it?

San Diego State officials have no regrets. "It's not just that we were looking at a problem of degree and seeing more drug usage than previously," Mr. Weber said in an interview with The Chronicle. "We're talking about what is at least now alleged to be drug trafficking on campus, things like loaded shotguns and semiautomatic weapons. ... That's serious business."

Weber, who was vice president of academic affairs here at SCSU in the 1980s made the mistake of signing off on my tenure, is taking heat from some students and faculty for bringing law enforcement in, with one faculty member even going so far as to say "ultimately ... they may be coming in to investigate or squelch political dissent." Our local organization of campus fraternities and sororities sent out a statement this week considering the San Diego State frats' behavior to be "not consistent" with what SCSU organizations represent.

What responsibility does a university have to its students' privacy versus its responsibility to uphold the law (and protect itself from liability should students overdose on drugs?)

Labels: higher education

Tonight we attended the 2008 Annual Dinner sponsored by the Center of the American Experiment. The keynote speaker was former US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. His 35 minute talk, given without notes, was packed with information. What follows are highlights.

China - though the last 20 years have been commercially successful, from 1900-2000 China was a nation in constant upheaval. Mao's dictatorship resulted in 30,000,000 deaths in the 1950's along with the wanton destruction of 1000s of years of Chinese culture. Today China is trying to eradicate the Tibetan culture. It is investing substantial sums in military buildup. We don't know which China will be the China of the future and we need to be prepared for all options.

Russia - because of their oil reserves. Russia is again flexing its muscle and reverting to a Czarist mindset - central control of everything. In the last election, teachers told students their grades would suffer if their parents voted the wrong way (ie, against Putin's hand-picked successor). Russia does have a few problems, though - no treaties with anyone and it doesn't like the downside of Islam.

WMDs - these simply cannot fall into the hands of rogue nations. Many of these nations operate with different logic, they value death over life. Therefore, the usual mindset used in previous historical negotiations will not work.

Iran - probably is closer to nuclear capabilities than anyone wants to admit. Ignoring this problem in the hopes that a "just in time" (JIT) understanding will protect us is naive at best and possibly very destructive. Iran has different definitions for "proliferation," and other terms related to their nuclear arsenal. Hence, they can say "yes" to the west and continue to build their nuclear arsenal.

North Korea (NK) - in essence, a nuclear criminal state. The height of its people is 6" shorter than that of South Koreans - they were the same height in the 1950's. Famines have occurred multiple times over the last 60 years. They routinely counterfeit American currency and their diplomats are often