We Won't Bury You; Americans Have Buried Themselves

Below is a comment I wrote on the Street Prophets' diary, Christ, Nessie, and teaching children to love lies.

We need to figure a way to educate our children to function in a crowded and challenging world.

I really wanted to write a facetious answer at first, but I'll play this one straight. A friend recently wrote on Facebook:

Outsourcing is outsourcing, Mitt Rmoney, not 'Offshoring'. 'Offshoring' implies the paychecks are made out to Americans. They aren't. In fact outsourcing is taking a paycheck that once went to an American, and giving away to someone else in another country.

To which I originally responded:

To which we all in Asia say "Thank you!" ;)

Naturally, he was a little miffed at that answer, so I responded:

I'm not a fan of outsourcing in general and I do sympathize with American workers, but... Outsourcing is not simply due to lower wages in other countries. In fact if I were to list all the factors that I thought contributed to the reasons why American companies outsourced jobs overseas, I'd rank lower wages compared to American wages down near the bottom of my list, especially with respect to Asian countries.

One of the factors that has helped spur on the growth of outsourcing is the fact that educational systems outside of the US are frequently superior to that of the American system. These jobs don't just go to people in other countries simply because of lower wages, they go because these other people are qualified to perform that work. They have the education, the skills, the experience to get the job done. In fact, because of the large numbers of qualified applicants, competition for jobs can be quite intense and not very easy to succeed in getting if you don't have the requisite qualifications, no matter what they are. (Here's a LinkedIn discussion in which I had to tell a younger guy how he was going to need to upgrade his language skills because, otherwise, he was going to lose out on job opportunities in which a second language is vital for getting jobs in Singapore.)

The world is crowded and challenging, and other countries are benefiting from stupid American attitudes with respect to the educational system because /we/ don't make those same mistakes. We don't have an attitude of "let's break the public school system because it offends our sensibilities." No one homeschools here. And what we do do is send our kids to enrichment classes during the evenings and weekends so that our kids can compete better, whether it's with other Asian children or American children. (I, a white American man, have a three-year-old daughter who's learning her third language - Chinese - and my wife suggested this morning that we get her into a second weekly class in that language so that she can improve faster. On a program about India that aired the same day I wrote the above comments to my friend on Facebook, there was a segment where the host interviewed some street girl, about 13 years old, in Calcutta - who spoke perfect English. He asked her what her favorite subject was, and she said physics. Why? Because it's her easiest subject. She wants to be a physicist. How many American kids would say that?)

The fault for outsourcing and a declining economic situation in America is not the rest of the world's. It is America's fault, for its backwards attitudes and lack of competitive drive in its people. I almost feel like Nikita Khrushchev now, except it's not "We will bury you!" but that Americans have buried themselves.

Good luck with that.

America's "Arrogant Ignorance"

The following appeared in the November 19th edition of the Arizona Republic. I completely agree with Dr. Michael Crow's assessment of the situation in the United States. Dr. Crow mentioned the idea of Americans resting on their laurels; in my opinion, not only is this true, but the problem is exacerbated by many Americans' believing in "American exceptionalism." I can tell you that not only do other people around the world not believe in the idea of how "exceptional" the United States is, but that they are working as hard as possible to be better than Americans in all sorts of fields: education, commerce, industry, and so forth. Too many Americans would rather be fat, stupid and lazy, then complain about why the rest of the world is passing them by and taking "their" jobs. Dr. Crow's message should be a wake-up call to Americans that they need to rethink how American society should operate before the so-called "American exceptionalism" turns permanently into "American mediocrity." The United States is already on its way there.

More than 200 people at a Peoria conference got a jolt of reality along with their caffeine from Arizona State University President Michael Crow, who said a collective "arrogant ignorance" holds the nation back.

He cited an education system that's not innovative enough, a lack of awareness or acknowledgment of global competition and lack of long-term vision.

Crow, the morning keynote speaker Thursday at the city's second annual Positive Action through Civic Engagement conference didn't mince words in his hourlong address, taking on what he called the "800-pound elephant sitting in the room."

The state of the economy.

Crow said the country needs to work toward a common goal of economic success and global competitiveness, which would help achieve other goals of social, cultural and community development.

He outlined "realistic assessments" of the United States, often forcefully, thumping the lectern on stage at the Arizona Broadway Theatre.

The ASU president said the country is resting on its laurels, which is not enough to come out of the economic morass.

"We don't understand the rise and the development of the rest of the world as competitors; we feel it but we don't understand it," he said. "We are going to have to look ourselves in the mirror, pull ourselves together as a community and literally re-think many, many things."

Crow said looking to the federal government for all the answers is not the solution. He urged the audience, comprising business, education and community leaders, to understand that the solutions to problems come from communities.

"Communities and states are the laboratories of democracy," he said. "We are the means by which solutions will be derived, new pathways will be engineered."

Crow also criticized the K-12 and higher-education systems for being "insufficiently innovative," and stifled by the "model of the past."

He said the focus should be on how K-12 schools are doing, "not compared with the school down the street or the school up in Flagstaff," but with schools internationally.

"We're not where we should be," Crow said.

He took on his peers, other research university presidents, for thinking narrowly only of the elite students and educators. They must be more inclusive to better educate the country.

"The level of arrogance among these individuals and these institutions is beyond belief," Crow said.

He spoke of the need to think big, not in the narrow prism of growth within a city or company but regionally, to compete not with Tempe or Tucson but with Singapore or Shanghai.

For that, he singled out the need to think about growth in the context of the larger Sun Corridor in Arizona, one of 10 megapolitans identified as hubs for growth because of their collective infrastructure and resources. The corridor stretching from Prescott to Tucson, across Yavapai, Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties, has a collective economy the size of Finland, Malaysia or the United Arab Emirates, he said.

To compete globally, leaders would have to take the long-term view and make decisions regionally.

Crow said it doesn't help to just focus on dealing with people who no longer have jobs and how to keep them going in the short-term with unemployment benefits. Leaders must focus on how the unemployed are being prepared for the jobs that need filled going forward.

"By being economically competitive, we can build from that the societies we want," Crow said.

The speech impressed several audience members.

AARP Arizona volunteer Virginia Correa Creager told Crow she would work to spread the word. "It's incumbent on us not to just listen to you today, not to just take notes from you today but it's incumbent upon us to reach out into the community and spread the message that you gave us today," she said.

The message of working collectively for the larger cause of economic prosperity hit home for Sandy Mendez Benson of Washington Elementary School District. She said that's something she works on at the local level, "trying to pool resources and ideas" between schools and the local businesses and community residents.

After Egypt, Who's Next?

Two weeks ago, I had posted on my Facebook wall a link to Dr. James Hamilton's blog post, Geopolitical Unrest and World Oil Markets. In that post Dr. Hamilton (of the University of California, San Diego) showed that there is a possible inverse relationship between a country's oil production and that country's political instability. Meaning, those countries with low levels of oil production were among the first to revolt, whereas countries with high oil production have shown greater stability. The implication is that the lack of petrodollars had not provided enough of a political safety net for the governments to cover their weak economies.

Hamilton's brief analysis covers (in the order of increasing oil production as a percentage of the world total) Lebanon (0.0%), Tunisia (0.1%), Yemen (0.3%), Sudan (0.6%), Egypt (0.8%), Libya (2.1%), Algeria (2.5%), Iraq (2.7%), Iran (4.9%), and Saudi Arabia (11.7%).

Now, if Hamilton's thesis is correct, then Egypt appears to be the last of the "low-hanging fruit" to have undergone political unrest. Theoretically, then, Libya and/or Algeria should be the next to revolt.

The potential problem with this analysis is that it doesn't explain all of the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa or the lack thereof. For example, Lebanon and Sudan have had long-standing government instability; that they should be undergoing problems now (such as the collapse of the government in Lebanon or the recent referendum in Sudan to split the country into two) are not terribly surprising given these countries' histories.

Likewise, I suspect that some countries that should have gone into turmoil may have had their chance but won't either because their societies are too stable (Morocco? Oman?) or because the state's security apparatus is too strong (Syria?).

What the professor also didn't mention was that Iran, which is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production, already had its instability in the Green Movement protests of June 2009 that were quashed. I'm not expecting another major uprising in Iran (a la Tahrir Square) anytime soon.

What I think the protests really point out is that standards of living matter. Even more so than a lack of democracy, the economic corruption that pervades certain countries' economies is ultimately the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. I say this with not only the Arab revolts currently going on in mind, but also the dissolution of the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe in 1989, which underwent similar revolutions for similar reasons. Republicans in the United States, who seem hell bent on trying to lower American standards of living, should take note of the potential consequences for their actions.

Shouts Banish Doubts

Shouts Banish Doubts

An interesting article on doubt and advocacy: the more one doubts, the more one advocates his or her position in an effort to convince one's self in the rightness of his or her beliefs. The case example is the tea baggers:

If confidence in one’s core tenets becomes shaky, a common response is to proselytize all the more vigorously. The apparent reason ... is that advocacy on behalf of one’s beliefs helps banish any uncomfortable lack of certainty. “Although it is natural to assume that a persistent and enthusiastic advocate of a belief is brimming with confidence ... the advocacy might in fact signal that the individual is boiling over with doubt.”

Are You Smarter Than Erick Erickson?

HT: The Bonddad Blog

What Makes Newspapers Conservative or Liberal?

Here's an interesting graph. The graph measures how conservative or liberal American newspapers are. The vertical (y) axis is an objective measure, in which...

Gentzkow and Shapiro propose to measure the slant of a particular newspaper by searching speeches entered into the Congressional Record and counting the number of times particular phrases were used by representatives of each party, mechanically identifying phrases favored by one party over the other. For example, a Democrat is more likely to use the phrase "workers rights" whereas a Republican is more likely to use the phrase "human embryos". They then counted the number of times phrases of each type appeared in a particular newspaper to construct an index of the political slant of that newspaper.

The horizontal (x) axis is a subjective measure, where readers of the Mondo Times ranked newspapers according to their own beliefs about how liberal or conservative various newspapers are. Thus, newspapers are more conservative the further to the right and the higher they are on the graph. For the most part, the two measures largely agree with each other (for example, the Washington Times is both furthest to the right and third-highest from the top).

As for why newspapers take a particular slant one way or another, this study found that the most important variable is the political orientation of the people living within the paper's market. In other words, "papers to some degree are just giving their readers what the readers want so as to maximize the newspapers' profits."

For more on this study, see Econbrowser: What Drives Media Slant?.

US Unemployment Rates - October 2009

The October US regional and state unemployment figures were released today. The figures continue to show an overall increase in the unemployment rates. A total of 30 states had their unemployment rates increase, while the numbers for 14 states decreased; eight states had no change. The number of states with double-digit unemployment rates remains at fifteen (not including Puerto Rico). Here are some of the highlights:

• Overall, the "official" national unemployment rate (U-3) increased by 0.4%, from 9.8% to 10.2% over September's number. For the past twelve months, the national rate has increased by 3.4%.
  
• For the most inclusive unemployment rate measured (U-6), the increase was 0.5%, from 17.0% to 17.5%. For the past twelve months, U-6 has increased by 4.9%. The spread between U-3 and U-6 increased from 7.2% in September to 7.3%. This is the highest level the spread between U-3 and U-6 has been since the U-6 statistics were first published in January 1994.
  
• In terms of a monthly change, the states with the largest increases were Alaska and Wyoming, both with an increase of 0.6%. Arkansas, Washington D.C., Illinois, and Mississippi all tied for the second largest increase, at 0.5%, while Connecticut, Delaware, Ohio, and South Carolina all had a 0.4% increase.
  
• On an annual basis, three states have increases over 5.0%: Michigan at 6.0% (down 0.4%), Nevada at 5.3% (down 0.6%), and Alabama at 5.2% (down 0.1%).
  
• A total of fifteen states have double-digit unemployment rates, unchanged from September (not including Puerto Rico, which has an unemployment rate of 15.6%). The state with the highest unemployment rate continues to be Michigan at 15.1%, down 0.2%. Nevada comes in second with a rate of 13.0% (down 0.3%), and Rhode Island places third with a rate of 12.9% (down 0.1%). The remaining states (in declining order) are: California (12.5%), South Carolina (12.1%), Washington D.C. (11.9%), Oregon (11.3%), Florida and Kentucky (both at 11.2%), Illinois and North Carolina (both at 11.0%), Alabama (10.9%), Ohio and Tennessee (both at 10.5%), and Georgia (10.2%).
  
• The states with the lowest unemployment rates are North Dakota (4.2%, up 0.1%), Nebraska (4.9%, unchanged), and South Dakota (5.0%, up 0.2%).
  
• The states with the lowest annual increases are North Dakota at 1.0%, Nebraska at 1.3%, Colorado, Montana and Vermont at 1.6%, South Dakota at 1.8%, and Louisiana at 1.9%.
  
• In some good news, six states and the District of Columbia had gains in terms of non-farm payroll employment (i.e., number of jobs). Those states are Texas (41,700), Michigan (38,600), California (25,700), Oklahoma (8,800), Washington D.C. (5,400), and Montana (3,200). Only Wyoming had a statistically significant decrease in the number of jobs (-2,600).
  
• For annual changes in non-farm payroll employment, the states with the biggest decreases are California (-687,700), Florida (-339,600), Texas (-307,200), Illinois (-286,300), Michigan (-262,700), Ohio (-243,200), New York (-242,500) and Georgia (-228,000). The states with the smallest decreases are South Dakota (-7,800) and Vermont (-10,700).

The PDF version of the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release can be found here.

"Surprise Us."

No kidding. From Tom Toles at The Washington Post.

"Why Don't Islamic Countries Get Rich?"

I came across this paragraph a couple weeks ago, and finally remembered to post it to the blog. The paragraph is a small part from a review published in the July 23rd edition of The Economist on Alan Beattie's book, False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World. Beattie is the world-trade editor at the Financial Times and a former economist for the Bank of England.

Turning to religion, Mr Beattie asks: “Why don’t Islamic countries get rich?” Ah, he replies, some of them do. Islam is often held up as inimical to economic progress. That is nonsense, he says. The Muslim Hausa have provided some of Nigeria’s most successful traders for centuries. “Had Max Weber lived among the Hausa”, Mr Beattie sniffs, “he might well have concluded that Muslims were good for growth and constructed his convoluted psychological theories around the tenets of Islam.” The author picks his way through religious texts, history and modern commercial practice to argue that there is no reason to draw a firm causal connection between any faith and economic progress.

Here is another review for False Economy, from Business Week, that discuss the Islamic question:

Beattie, who studied history at Oxford University and economics at Cambridge, draws on both disciplines to overturn assumptions about the evolution of the global economy. For example, the data do not support the belief that Islamic societies inherently perform worse than other nations, or for that matter that there is any correlation between religion and growth. Malaysia has both a strong Islamic identity and a modern economy. Religion is an obstacle only when development is blocked in God's name, often in self-defense by those who hold power, Beattie argues.

In looking up information about this book, I came across an old blog post at Aqoul that discusses a Financial Times article Beattie wrote on the same subject, most likely becoming part of his research for the book now published. (Unfortunately, the FT article is no longer available on the FT website.) However, the Aqoul post refers to the original study Beattie was writing about, Religion, Culture and Economic Performance by Marcus Noland at the Institute for International Economics, which was published in August 2003. In that study, Noland found that:

The results with respect to Islam do not support the notion that it is inimical to growth. On the contrary, virtually every statistically significant coefficient on Muslim population shares reported in this paper—in both cross-country and within-country statistical analyses—is positive. If anything, Islam promotes growth.

(A similar paper by Noland and Howard Pack, Islam, Globalization, and Economic Performance in the Middle East (published June 2004), came to the same conclusion.)

So, the partial answer to the question, "Why don't Islamic countries get rich?" is, "It's not Islam's fault." To answer the question more thoroughly requires a more conventional economic analysis. (I hadn't originally planned a part two, but I feel one may be necessary at this point.)

Update (8 May 2011): I think the events of recent months (the "Arab Spring" and especially the examples of Tunisia and Egypt) have shown that the problem with respect to economic growth in Muslim countries is not Islam itself, but the authoritarian control by governments over economic activity, especially when that control is used to stifle the economic activity of the average Muslim in favor of cronyism. Don't forget that the Tunisian revolution, which started the Arab Spring, started when a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire because local officials wouldn't allow him to support himself and his family by selling fruit and vegetables from a pushcart.

Business/Economics Links (16 June 2009)

Advertising is Good for You:
How restaurants get you to spend more


Angry Bear:
Context for Trade Deficit

Trade Deficits Resume Upward Climb


Crooks & Liars:
President Promises 600K New Jobs This Summer

Report: The Employed Are Hurting, Too. Meanwhile, Heritage Foundation Blames Unemployment Checks for Unemployment.


Dilbert:
"Dogbert the Pirate." ("That's a different business model." Hah!)

"Job Interview"

"Pretend you don't know that."

"Dogbert the CEO"


Econbrowser:
The Dollar as a Reserve Currency: Apres le Deluge

Do you see what I see? ("I'm still looking for, and still not seeing, the economic recovery that everybody is talking about.")

How Important Is China to World Growth?


Economist's View:
Chinese Manufacturers Accused of Predatory Pricing in India

"Cultural Authenticity and the Market" (This was slightly off the beaten track for Thoma, but if you have any interest in archeology, you might find this post of interest.)

Rogoff: Rebalancing the US-China Economic Relationship

Fed Watch: Rate Hike? ("Seriously, a rate hike in this environment? Or anytime before the end of 2009? At the moment, I just can't see it happening. That said, long rate are higher, and inflation expectations in some corners of the market are rising. What is going on?")

2009 Reith Lectures: Markets and Morals ("After my piece ran, The Times was flooded with scathing letters - mostly from economists (LAUGHTER), some from my own university. I utterly failed to understand the virtue of markets, they said, or the efficiencies of trade, or even the most elementary principles of economic rationality. Amidst the torrent of criticism, I did receive a sympathetic email from my old college Economics Professor. He understood the point I was trying to make, he wrote, but could he ask a small favor: would I mind not publicly revealing the identity of the person who had taught me Economics? (LAUGHTER)")


Robert Reich:
The Great Debt Scare: Why Has It Returned?


The Bonddad Blog:
Volcker on Recovery

Flow Of Funds Charts, Part I ("Consider the following charts from the Flow of Funds. Then ask yourself, will the consumer be able to lead us out of recession?")

Consumer Confidence Up

Is the Debt Binge Over?

More Signs of Bottoming

It's Looking Like a Jobless Recovery ("Right now there is no reason to hire -- and there won't be for awhile." This is not a surprise.)

Challenge to VoxEU: Explain Singapore

I was looking at one of the economics links I just posted, Does climate change affect economic growth? And I must say, I find this particular theory weak. The authors' summary reads:

Hot countries tend to be poorer, but debate continues over whether the temperature-income relationship is simply a happenstance association. This column uses within-country estimates to show that higher temperatures have large, negative effects on economic growth – but only in poor countries. The findings are big news for future global inequality.

Personally, I'd think that the temperature-income relationship is happenstance, especially when one looks at Southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. All of these countries are hot year-round, but that hasn't stopped any of these countries from progressing economically.

The authors wrote:

First, higher temperatures have large, negative effects on economic growth, but only in poor countries. In poor countries, we estimate that a 1ºC temperature increase in a given year reduced economic growth in that year by about 1.1 percentage points. In rich countries, changes in temperature had no discernable [sic] effect on growth.

Presumably, in hot poor countries the economy should remain poor year-in and year-out if this theory holds. Thus, a hot poor country should remain poor with little to no chance of growing economically.

But this flies in the face of the economic histories of Southeast Asian countries. Of the four countries I mentioned above, Singapore, by far, has grown the most over time, despite an average daily high temperature of 88° Fahrenheit (31° Celsius) year-round. In 1960, the nominal GDP per capita for Singapore was a mere US$427. (In comparison, the U.S.'s nominal GDP per capita in 1960 was US$2,912.) By 2008, Singapore's nominal GDP per capita had risen to US$37,597 (with the U.S.'s nominal GDP per capita being US$46,841). That's an annual growth rate over 48 years of 9.78% for Singapore and 5.96% for the U.S.

Now, granted, you won't find as strong of numbers for the other Southeast Asian nations, but if you look at the GDP per capita graphs since 1980 for Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, you will see a fairly steady upward climb in the GDPs per capita with the only exceptions being in the late 90s due to the Asian financial crisis. (One could probably make a similar case for the State of Arizona if State Domestic Product numbers were available.) These growth rates can't be explained due to moderate daily temperatures; this region has a tropical climate.

It seems to me that this theory has a limited value due to its inability to explain the economic success of countries like Singapore. The authors need to explain a case like Singapore, which went from a poor country to a rich country over the past fifty years despite the hot climate here.

Notes:
Singapore GDP Source
U.S. GDP Source

Economics Links (9 June 2009)

Angry Bear:
Untitled post on the Unemployment Report

Current Recession vs the 1980-82 Recession


Econbrowser:
DeGlobalization: Transitory or Persistent?

Not a Robust Recovery

James Pethokoukis: "An Improving Job Market"

Output, Employment and Industrial Production in the "1980-82 Recession"

More on Bank Lending Data

High Anxiety (about Interest and Inflation Rates)


Economist's View:
Too Big to be Restructured (The theme of this essay ties in very well with my post on Mikhail Gorbachev's essay from the other day, "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours.".)

Contributions to the Change in Nonfarm Payroll Employment

Shiller: Home Prices May Keep Falling

Uneven Unemployment Rates

"VAT Time?"

Bank Mergers

"Reducing Inequality: Put the Brakes on Globalization?"


Financial Times:
The ‘part-timezation’ of America


Reuters:
China influence to grow faster than most expect: Soros


Real Property Alpha:
California Home Prices in Ounces of Gold


True/Slant:
NASCAR helped GM down its path of self-destruction ("Better equipped to compete? How ironic, given NASCAR’s role in helping the auto industry race down its path of self-destruction. Major auto companies used NASCAR for years to push cars and trucks with poor fuel economy numbers. The sport, in some ways, came to symbolize America’s embrace of consumption.")


VoxEU:
Why is Japan so heavily affected by the global economic crisis? An analysis based on the Asian international input-output tables

Does climate change affect economic growth?


Washington Post:
Book Review: The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

Links for 1 June 2009

I've been debating whether to continue the Links series of posts, either in its current format (published primarily on weekdays) or in an alternative format (e.g., weekly, rotating, sans the Politics section or American politics). While I won't stop reading the various blogs and websites that I link to, the actual writing of the Links posts takes a little longer than I would like. Suggestions? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?)

Politics:
Dr George Tiller shot to death at Wichita church (By now you've probably heard about the Kansan abortion doctor who was murdered in a church Sunday. This is one of the early reports. Other links you might find of interest include Bill O'Reilly has Dr. George Tiller's blood on his well-stained hands, Operation Rescue's Randall Terry Is Sorry Tiller Didn't Get Proper Trial And Execution, and Operation Rescue Distances Itself From Roeder’s Activities On Behalf Of The Group (sorry, the blood doesn't wash off your hands that easily). )

Lindsey Graham Says Sotomayor Is Not A Racist But Should Apologize Anyway (Sometimes I think of doing an intelligence index for Republicans; say, start at 100 and then add or subtract points based on any smart or (much more likely) stupid things Republicans say publicly. If we started today, Lindsey Graham would take the Republicans down to 99 already.)

Pressing China With A Nuclear Japan?

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission.

Obama Administration Files Petition To Block Uighurs From Entering U.S., Praises Gitmo Conditions (Ridiculous!)


Economics:
What to Do Now with $50,000 Cash? ("If you have USD $50,000 in cash, what do you actually do with the money now? It is probably different by age group, but does one buy Ford at $2/share, swiss francs, some gold?")

Supply, demand, and the price of oil

Guest Blog: Japan's first trade deficit in 28 years

The View from the 23rd Century (This was a rather interesting column, looking at some of the ideas floating around in the field of growth economics and applying a Star Trek-twist to them. Some of the essay is "old" in the respect that the notion of "bits and atoms" has been talked about for a few years now. However, the basic idea of the essay is sound: growth in developed economies is strongest and can be very long lasting when it's based on knowledge ("bits"), with government legislation and spending often the key to moving the knowledge acquisition forward.)

"Incarceration as a Labor Market Outcome" (Although I've been looking at unemployment statistics for a few months now, the incorporation of incarceration rates into the analysis wass a new idea for me.)


Business:
At Harvard, Some Students Are Taking an M.B.A. Honor Oath (As an MBA who's Muslim, I find this type of oath a day late and a dollar short. I think it really speaks volumes about the lack of values inherent in Western society, especially within the business sub-culture.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Jesus (AS) in Islam (Austrolabe finally came back online after a five-month hiatus with a link to a documentary on the Muslim view about Jesus (pbuh).)

Al-Muhajiroun sent packing


Miscellaneous:
Alien reboot, a prequel, is confirmed! (The Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony, are going to make an Alien prequel.)

US Unemployment Rates - April 2009

The April US regional and state unemployment figures were recently released. The figures, overall, seem to have stabilized somewhat, even though the national unemployment rate increased by nearly one-half of one percent. Almost one-half of the states had their unemployment rates improve, while the number of states with double-digit unemployment rates remained steady, at eight. Here are some of the highlights:

• Overall, the "official" national unemployment rate (U-3) increased by 0.4%, from 8.5% to 8.9% over March's number. For the past twelve months, the national rate has increased by 3.9%.
  
• For the most inclusive unemployment rate measured (U-6), the increase was 0.2%, from 15.6% to 15.8%. For the past twelve months, U-6 has increased by 6.6%. (If there is one bit of good news with respect to U-6, it is that the spread between U-3 and U-6 decreased slightly, from 7.1% in March to 6.9% in April. This is the first time since March 2008 that this particular number has decreased.)
  
• In terms of a monthly change, the state with the largest increase was West Virginia, with an increase of 0.7%. Ohio and Rhode Island tied for the second largest increase, at 0.5%, while Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana and Puerto Rico all had a 0.4% increase.
  
• A total of twenty-one states had their monthly unemployment rates go down in April, with an additional eleven remaining unchanged. The previous month, only two states had their unemployment rates go down with three remaining unchanged.
  
• On an annual basis, four states have increases over 5.0%: Oregon at 6.4% (down 0.2%), South Carolina at 5.3% (down 0.2%), North Carolina at 5.1% (down 0.4%), and Michigan at 5.0% (unchanged).
  
• The states with the lowest annual increases are North Dakota at 1.0%, Iowa and Nebraska at 1.1%, Alaska at 1.4%, and Arkansas at 1.6%.
  
• A total of eight states have double-digit unemployment rates, unchanged from March (and not counting Puerto Rico, which has an unemployment rate of 15.4%). The state with the highest unemployment rate is Michigan (once more), at 12.9%, up 0.3%. Oregon comes in second with a rate of 12.0% (up 0.1%), and South Carolina places third with a rate of 11.5% (up 0.1%). In fourth place is Rhode Island with a rate of 11.1% (up 0.5%). In fifth place is California at 11.0% (down 0.2%); in sixth is North Carolina at 10.8% (unchanged), and in seventh is Nevada at 10.6% (up 0.2%). The newest state in the ranks of the double-digit unemployment rates is Ohio, at 10.2%, up 0.5%. Indiana, which had been among the double-digit states last month, dropped down 0.1% to 9.9%.
  
• The states with the lowest unemployment rates are North Dakota (4.0%, down 0.2%), Nebraska (4.4%, down 0.3%), Wyoming (4.5%, unchanged), South Dakota (4.8%, down 0.1%), Iowa (5.1%, down 0.1%) and Utah (5.2%, unchanged).
  
• In terms of non-farm payroll employment (i.e., number of jobs), the states with the biggest decreases since March are California (-63,700), Texas (-39,500), and Michigan (-38,400).
  
• For annual changes in non-farm payroll employment, the states with the biggest decreases are California (-706,700), Florida (-380,300), Michigan (-284,800), Ohio (-262,600) and Illinois (-255,400).

The PDF version of the Bureau of Labor Statistics press release can be found here.

Dutch to Rent Out Prison Cells

An odd story out of the Netherlands. The US should be so lucky!

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.

...

Some reprieve might come from a deal with Belgium, which is facing overpopulation in its prisons. The two countries are working out an agreement to house Belgian prisoners in Dutch prisons. Some five-hundred Belgian prisoners could be transferred to the Tilburg prison by 2010.

The Netherlands would get 30 million euros in the deal, and it will allow the closing of the prisons in Rotterdam and Veenhuizen to be postponed until 2012.

HT: Moon of Alabama

Links for 29 May 2009

Politics:
Dick Morris Thinks Convincing the Japanese to Develop Nuclear Weapons is the Solution to Dealing With North Korea (Oh, yeah, that's the ticket! Bring all of Northeast Asia into a nuclear arms race. No, thank you!)

Another Ralph Peters idea: Eventually, soldiers will need to start killing the media too (Yesterday, I linked to a post where Col. Ralph Peters suggested we should just kill all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Some people have been looking into his previous statements, and found that he's also suggested that the military kill the media as well: "Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar. ... Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media." Unthinkable now, unthinkable in the future, too, you nitwit!)

Fox News Embraces Right-Wing Theory That Obama Is Forcing GOP-Owned Car Dealerships To Close (Of course, no one seems to consider that "...all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats — not just those who are having their doors closed.” But why let facts get in the way of a good hysteria? See also TBogg's Negro president locks Republican car dealers in the trunk and Yet another intrepid Malkin 'investigative scoop' goes pffffft.)

Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique? (The answer: YES! No wonder the Obama administration is trying to keep the new photos from Abu Ghraib secret.)

Rachel Maddow Responds to Tancredo's Racist Screed

Countdown: Jesse Ventura on Torture Prosecutions and Waterboarding (Ventura on "why he thinks we haven't had any prosecutions for torture in the United States, 'Mancow' Muller's waterboarding and Sean Hannity never agreeing to go through it himself.")

How to talk to a right winger ("What was ostensibly good for Israel for 40 years will also be good for another 400 years. For 40 years we were able to deceive ourselves, to mock the world, to occupy, to oppress, to trample and to kill. So why shouldn't we continue?")

The Potential Korea Escalation


Economics:
Yield Curve

"Fermi Problems" (Fermi Problems are interesting; I've run into a few, and I know that Microsoft has used them as part of their recruiting process. Thoma mentions that "Watching someone work out a Fermi problem in real time reveals a lot about their brainpower." More specifically, what it really does, IMO, is show how one works through a problem: the assumptions made and the logic necessary to solve the problem itself. Whether the solution itself is correct is mostly irrelevant. How one comes up with the solution is what's at stake.)

Are Durable Goods Orders Bottoming? (Another sign that might indicate the recession is beginning to fade.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
A quote to remember...


Miscellaneous:
Closer: The Cutout Of Delight (Always carry an extra hand in your purse, my dear?)

Russian police find feral girl in Siberia (Astaghfirullah! Poor girl. Russian police have taken into care a 5-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said on Wednesday. ... The girl, who lived in the Eastern Siberian city of Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like an dog when police took her into care. ... "For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," a police statement said.)

Crater on Mars named for Isaac Asimov (An asteroid was already named after him, but this is still an overdue honor.)

Links for 27 May 2009

Politics:
Countdown: Worst Persons May 26, 2009 (Laura Ingraham, David Zurawik and Pete Hegseth)

Keith Olbermann Talks to Erich "Mancow" Muller About His Waterboarding Experience (At least here's a guy who puts his money where his mouth as - as opposed to the coward Sean Hannity. "I was willing to prove and ready to prove that this was a joke and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous and look I felt the effects for two days. I had chest pains. I told my wife, look I have two little kids-- we prayed. I said dear God help me. I had chest pains I was so stressed out by this.")

Going off the rails on a crazy train (TBogg on the right's reaction to the Sotomayor nomination. "My sense is that, if they really want to go after and beat up on this Sotomayer, who presented herself very well this morning, they will pay for it at the polls for years to come. Not with Hispanics, who were lost to the party dating back to the Pete Wilson days (not that the peck-sniffier elements of the right can help themselves), or with women, but with people for whom "empathy" and compassion aren't qualities to be sneered at.")

Tancredo: Sotomayor ‘Appears To Be A Racist’ (A classic case of “Pot - Kettle - Black.”)


Economics:
US and European Employment Rates

Consumer Confidence Up (I agree, at least partly, with Bonddad that consumer confidence has increased due to the change in Washington politics. But I also think economic conditions have been improving as well over the past few months and people are responding to that as well.)


Business:
Three beautiful ads for dental floss


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Quran Read-A-Long: Al-`Imran 1-9 Discuss the Quran Itself

Lā ilaha illa al-Lāh, Muhammadun rasūlu l-Lāh (The shahada inside a flowery circular badge. Beautiful.)


Miscellaneous:
PSM (A Gillette video (cartoon) about "when there's no underbrush, the tree looks taller." Their advice: use short, light strokes. "Tastefully" done according to one blog (debatable), but definitely R-rated material here.)

Whirlpool Galaxy Deep Field (Very nice pic of Messier 51, the famous Whirlpool Galaxy, and its companion galaxy NGC 5195. It's actually the detail of the smaller galaxy that makes this photo of interest for someone like me.)

Q&A: Hobbit Director Guillermo del Toro on the Future of Film (An interview with film director Guillermo del Toro over at Wired. del Toro, if you’re not familiar, directed Blade II, both Hellboy movies, and the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth - a must see movie if you’re not familiar with it. His discussion on the future of movies is interesting.)

Links for 26 May 2009

Politics:
Mapping the Fallen (Someone has done a mash-up of all the American and coalition soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan and marked both their hometowns and the place in which they died on Google Earth.)

Terror Plotter's Sick Brother: 'He Did It For Me' ("What's worse: A healthcare system where someone is so desperate, he'd blow up buildings to pay for his brother's treatment [the brother apparently has a bad liver], or an FBI that thinks nothing of setting people up so they can claim they caught some 'terrorists'?")

Andrew Breitbart says Oprah is secretly running the Obama White House (This guy is a real loon!)

The North Korean Nuclear Test

Israel's Plans For Launching A War On Iran

Obama Announces SCOTUS Pick: Sonia Sotomayor. Now Let The Games Begin! (See also Judge Sotomayor, Right-Wing Interest Groups Driven By Financial Motives In Attacking Obama’s Court Pick, and Obama To Name Sonia Sotomayor As His Supreme Court Nominee.)


Economics:
As Unemployment Claims Run Out, Many Workers Are Opting for Early Retirement


Business:
Cut your ad budget at your own risk (The advice here is frequently taught in business school and is really a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how often managers do just the opposite. The results of the study are interesting: "Almost half of Americans believe that lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession means the business must be struggling.")


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Upcoming Productions (Bin Gregory announces his future seventh, insha'allah, and writes a wonderful bit of snark about the "Muslim Plot to Take Over the World™.")

Lesson of the Death of 1st Lt. Roslyn Schulte

A school 'condemned to death' ("Why are the authorities refusing to fund France's oldest Muslim school, now facing bankruptcy?")


Miscellaneous:
Hubble Floats Free

Oslo Grand Prix: Horserse (I missed this one a couple days ago, but it's too good not to link to. Ever see a six-legged horse before? ;) )

Links for 21 May 2009

Politics:
The Colbert Report Word - I Know You Are But What Am I? (If the Republicans really want people to go against the Democrats, they'll need a name that instantly turns people off. "Chrysler?")

Why is Cable TV airing Cheney's speech opposite of President Obama's? ("They want this to be Frazier and Ali, but it's about a liar and a sadist getting free airtime to attack a president who is trying to restore the country's footing after eight years of "compassionate conservatism." Wars, death, torture, wiretapping, loyalty oaths and moles planted in every department of the government which includes the OLC (the arm of the government that the Bushies used to try and give them legal cover for the crimes they committed) are part of Cheney's legacy. Isn't this just what the country needs? To hear a man trying to repair a record of death and destruction with blood dripping from his hands.")

O’Reilly: ‘I Consider Myself A Middle Class Guy’ Even Though I Make $10 Million A Year


Economics:
Performance of the Singapore Economy in 1st Quarter 2009 and Outlook for 2009 ("The economy contracted by 14.6% on a quarter-on-quarter, seasonally adjusted annualised basis in 1Q2009, less than the 19.7% decline previously estimated.")

Asia Needs to Change Its Model (This won't happen anytime soon.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Restoring American Islamic Relations: Obama's Cairo Speech

Studying Muslim integration in Europe ("Our data indicates that Muslims are eager to contribute and play a more recognised role in advancing the best interests of their nation.")

Why don’t they ever quote this? (Heh.)


Miscellaneous:
Above Earth Fixing Hubble (This pic is almost like the NASA equivalent of "Where's Waldo?" ;) )

New 'broadband' cloaking technology simple to manufacture (This was a very interesting article: ""Instead of being reflected as normally would happen, the light flows around the object and shows up on the other side, like water flowing around a stone," Shalaev said. The research falls within a new field called transformation optics, which may usher in a host of radical advances, including cloaking; powerful "hyperlenses" resulting in microscopes 10 times more powerful than today's and able to see objects as small as DNA; computers and consumer electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information; advanced sensors; and more efficient solar collectors. ... Recent cloaking findings reported by researchers at other institutions have concentrated on a technique that camouflages features against a background. This work, which uses metamaterials, is akin to rendering bumps on a carpet invisible by allowing them to blend in with the carpet, whereas the Purdue-based work concentrates on enabling light to flow around an object.")

Links for 20 May 2009

Thank God I did this over two sessions.

Politics:
Republican Strategist Tantaros Thinks Suggesting She Undergo Waterboarding Is "Lame" (Coward.)

Countdown's Worst Person: Bill O'Reilly...New Champion For Protecting Our Privacy

Ventura's smashdown tour continues, with Yellow Elephant Kilmeade the latest victim (Sooner or later, conservatives are going to realize that going mano a mano against Jesse Ventura is not a bright idea.)

Bet Accepted (Seven reasons why Republicans have an uphill battle to control even one branch of the federal government.)

Barton: We Shouldn’t Regulate CO2 Because ‘It’s In Your Coca-Cola’ And ‘You Can’t Regulate God’ (This sort of argument strikes me as similar to what I heard druggies argue several decades ago, that because marijuana, cocaine and other drugs were "natural" (as opposed to man-made drugs like LSD) that it wasn't "harmful." Yeah, right!)

Countdown: Worst Persons May 19, 2009 (The coward Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Barton.)


Economics:
In Search of ... Hyperinflationary Expectations (Short answer: not any time soon.)

FRBSF Economic Outlook ("To me the forecast seems optimistic, but in any case, employment is unlikely to turn around until many months after output recovers. ... Let's hope the forecast is correct, or even understates the speed of recovery, but policymakers must take seriously the possibility that this forecast - as has been generally true for all the forecasts from various sources that have come before it - will have to be revised downward later.")

Math and the City ("These numerical coincidences seem to be telling us something profound. It appears that Aristotle’s metaphor of a city as a living thing is more than merely poetic. There may be deep laws of collective organization at work here, the same laws for aggregates of people and cells. ..." See also Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities?.)

Geography of a Recession (The New York Times has created an interactive map of the United States that can show you, county-by-county, what the unemployment rate is and the one-year change in unemployment.)

Japan Shrinks 15.2%


Business:
The $5-million billboard. Was it worth it?


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Quran Read-A-Long: The Cow 284-286 Complete the Second Sura

Bibles Destroyed in Afghanistan... By U.S. Military (On May 6th, I linked to a story about US Army soldiers proselytizing (masquerading as "giving gifts") in Afghanistan, with the video showing a stack of Bibles in the Dari and Pashto languages. Now, supposedly, according to an Army spokeswoman, "the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera's clip were, in fact, collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They were never distributed." Take of that what you will.)

The Uighurs: Compilation ("This is a post compiling the questionable and/or false claims that have been made about the Uighurs.")

If Chris Coleman Was a Muslim? (No kidding.)


Miscellaneous:
Sagittarius and the Central Milky Way

Rose is Rose

Hairdressers Journal: Linda Blair Special (Doesn't anyone review these sorts of images and realize just how badly they've been manipulated???)

Sci-Fi’s Top 5 Toughest Gals (#s 1, 2 and 3 I completely agree with. Four, I'm OK with; Five??? How was Scully "tough?")