As reported by Marketwatch, inflation in Malaysia hit 7.7% annualized. The most recent US inflation rate is about 5% annualized, although many say the Consumer Price Index in the US understates inflation.
If inflation rises to the point where ordinary folks can't afford food, starvation and political instability will result. Countries' central banks can increase prevailing interest rates to fight inflation, but that also slows economic growth by making it more expensive to borrow money to invest in businesses.
As an extreme example, Zimbabwe's is experiencing runaway inflation at tens of thousand of percentage points, mainly thanks to Robert Mugabe's incompetence.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Europe Has an Economics Lesson for Obama
Henry Olsen, writing for the notoriously right wing Wall Street Journal, says that Europe's reasonably successful embrace of market-based reforms offers an economics lesson for Barack Obama. Olsen is a Vice President at the even more notorious American Enterprise Institute. It is telling, therefore, that he also says that
They have also come to the recognition that the task of center-left governments is to minimize the negative externalities of market action while using government to more equitably distribute the resulting economic gains. These progressives believe in reforming and guiding, not restricting or reviling, the private sector.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Marketwatch: A study of beer
(Reporters ask Joris Pattyn, a judge for beer competitions, to taste a Budweiser.)
(Pattyn sniffs. He shakes his head slightly and raises his eyebrows.)
(He drinks. He doesn't look too happy.)
(He looks at the camera and shrugs slightly.)
"That's a beer for students getting drunk at the low, low end. It will take hours, but eventually, it will happen."
UK House of Commons report: immigration has damaged community relations in parts of England
The BBC has a story on a House of Commons report that highlights some of the cultural and fiscal stresses that increased immigration creates for native Britons.
Rapid immigration has damaged community relations in parts of England, a report by the Commons communities and local government committee says.
In three areas with high immigration - Peterborough, Burnley, and Barking and Dagenham - community cohesion is among the lowest in the country, the MPs say.
The report said there was "significant public anxiety" over issues such as pressure on public services.
Ministers said action was being taken to minimise the impact of immigration.
'Flawed data'
In their report, Community Cohesion and Migration, the MPs say many migrants make "significant contributions" to local communities - working in the NHS or other public services.
But it said there was "significant public anxiety" in some areas about immigration, which it warned "cannot simply be dismissed as expressions of racist or xenophobic sentiments".
Some concerns arose from "practical concerns" - such as overcrowded accommodation and pressure on public services - such as sharp rises in the numbers of primary school children who do not speak English well.
In the three areas visited, community cohesion - measured by how many people believe those from different backgrounds get along - is among the lowest in England, the report said.
It said public services were under pressure because government funding was being based on "flawed population data".
The committee criticised plans for a levy on migrants' normal visa fees to help fund public services like policing which it said were likely to generate "very little" money.
Press reports suggest it could be only £15m, something the committee says would be "a drop in the ocean".
'Additional pressures'
Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "We do think it is right that newcomers are asked to pay a little bit more for public services.
"Actually we propose that the fund should raise tens of millions of pounds every year.
"This vital cash will allow us to channel money quickly to public services wherever there is a short term pressure from migration."
But the committee said it might be unfair, as not all immigrants would pay into the fund. EU citizens and anyone moving within the UK would not have to pay.
Instead the government should "immediately establish a contingency fund capable of responding effectively to the additional pressures which may be put on local government services from migration".
'Negative conclusion'
The Local Government Association has repeatedly called for a £250m contingency fund to be made available for under-pressure councils.
But Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, of the Institute of Public Policy Research, said he was disappointed by the committee's "negative conclusion".
"We're risking turning everything that migrants do into a problem and forgetting that they are dynamically contributing to the local economy and to the country because they are working and paying taxes," he said.
He said only better population figures and a funding system that could respond quickly would "solve the challenges".
For the Conservatives, shadow minister Baroness Warsi said the report was an "indictment" of the problems caused by the government's "failure to control the numbers of migrants coming into this country" and by their "inability to know where migrants are living and to fund local authorities accordingly".
The Conservatives say it shows annual limits on economic migration are needed to ensure communities and public services can cope.
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the government was already taking action to manage migration to "maximise the benefits and minimise the impacts".
These included a £50m "cohesion fund" to support councils and extra funding to help manage the "transitional impacts" of migration - such as £10m as for schools experiencing increases in pupil numbers.
Rapid immigration has damaged community relations in parts of England, a report by the Commons communities and local government committee says.
In three areas with high immigration - Peterborough, Burnley, and Barking and Dagenham - community cohesion is among the lowest in the country, the MPs say.
The report said there was "significant public anxiety" over issues such as pressure on public services.
Ministers said action was being taken to minimise the impact of immigration.
'Flawed data'
In their report, Community Cohesion and Migration, the MPs say many migrants make "significant contributions" to local communities - working in the NHS or other public services.
But it said there was "significant public anxiety" in some areas about immigration, which it warned "cannot simply be dismissed as expressions of racist or xenophobic sentiments".
Some concerns arose from "practical concerns" - such as overcrowded accommodation and pressure on public services - such as sharp rises in the numbers of primary school children who do not speak English well.
In the three areas visited, community cohesion - measured by how many people believe those from different backgrounds get along - is among the lowest in England, the report said.
It said public services were under pressure because government funding was being based on "flawed population data".
The committee criticised plans for a levy on migrants' normal visa fees to help fund public services like policing which it said were likely to generate "very little" money.
Press reports suggest it could be only £15m, something the committee says would be "a drop in the ocean".
'Additional pressures'
Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: "We do think it is right that newcomers are asked to pay a little bit more for public services.
"Actually we propose that the fund should raise tens of millions of pounds every year.
"This vital cash will allow us to channel money quickly to public services wherever there is a short term pressure from migration."
But the committee said it might be unfair, as not all immigrants would pay into the fund. EU citizens and anyone moving within the UK would not have to pay.
Instead the government should "immediately establish a contingency fund capable of responding effectively to the additional pressures which may be put on local government services from migration".
'Negative conclusion'
The Local Government Association has repeatedly called for a £250m contingency fund to be made available for under-pressure councils.
But Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, of the Institute of Public Policy Research, said he was disappointed by the committee's "negative conclusion".
"We're risking turning everything that migrants do into a problem and forgetting that they are dynamically contributing to the local economy and to the country because they are working and paying taxes," he said.
He said only better population figures and a funding system that could respond quickly would "solve the challenges".
For the Conservatives, shadow minister Baroness Warsi said the report was an "indictment" of the problems caused by the government's "failure to control the numbers of migrants coming into this country" and by their "inability to know where migrants are living and to fund local authorities accordingly".
The Conservatives say it shows annual limits on economic migration are needed to ensure communities and public services can cope.
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the government was already taking action to manage migration to "maximise the benefits and minimise the impacts".
These included a £50m "cohesion fund" to support councils and extra funding to help manage the "transitional impacts" of migration - such as £10m as for schools experiencing increases in pupil numbers.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
American universities and alumni associations are prostituing themselves to predatory credit card issuers
Actually, it's worse: universities and alumni associations are prostituting their own students. Businessweek has the story. An excerpt:
The article contains a very telling quote:
In Singapore, for example, credit is much more tightly controlled. There is a legal income minimum before someone can be issued a credit card. Commuting long distances in enormous vehicles is the American way, but is completely unsustainable. Is it the same with such easy access to credit?
Schools or alumni groups inclined to curtail their relationships with credit-card issuers may pay a price. That's what happened at Washington State University last year. The alumni group had a contract with MBNA from 1997 to 2007 under which it provided the card company with student contact data. The bank was allowed to conduct at least four direct mailings a year, three telemarketing campaigns, and five on-campus marketing events. On top of payments for alumni accounts, the contract promised the group $3 a year for each student account and 0.4% of all sales charged to student cards. The association stood to earn annual bonuses of $50,000 to $100,000, depending on the number of new accounts opened and the average outstanding balance held on the high-interest cards: The more debt, the more the alumni group stood to gain.
All told, the contract guaranteed the Washington State Alumni Assn. $5 million over 10 years, or $500,000 per year. That's no small amount for a nonprofit whose 2006 revenues totaled $2.4 million.
In 2006, however, state legislators in Washington began grumbling about credit-card marketing to college students. "We realized that this thing was littered with potential issues," says Jud Preece, the alumni association's marketing director. "We were being compensated for student accounts. It could be damaging to the university as a whole."
When it came time to discuss renewing the deal, the group told MBNA's owner, BofA, to remove students from the contract and stopped providing any information on undergrads. Credit-card marketing on campus ended, and the alumni association stopped receiving compensation for student accounts. A new five-year contract assures Washington State alumni only $1.6 million, or $320,000 per year--a 36% cut.
As with all specific contracts, BofA declined to discuss its relationship with Washington State. But two former bank executives say that the contracts become much less valuable without undergraduates. "Banks want the students," says Kerry Policy, who worked on college deals as an assistant vice-president at MBNA from 1998 to 2005. "People usually hold on to their first credit card for a long time."
The article contains a very telling quote:
Penn State's alumni association views the affinity card as a legitimate service and means of raising revenue, says Executive Director Roger Williams. "Credit is not a bad thing," he says. "In fact, you can make an argument that the American way of life is predicated on the generous use of credit."
In Singapore, for example, credit is much more tightly controlled. There is a legal income minimum before someone can be issued a credit card. Commuting long distances in enormous vehicles is the American way, but is completely unsustainable. Is it the same with such easy access to credit?
Others disagree. Creola Johnson, a law professor at Ohio State University who has studied campus credit cards, says: "It is unethical for schools to allow a sophisticated industry to have access to their students, [many of whom] have graduated from high school without any financial education or literacy....The playing field is grossly uneven." Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a liberal nonprofit in Washington, faults schools and alumni groups for failing to use their clout to gain better terms on cards for students. "The agreements allow for special access to undergraduate info and repeated contact to undergrads that may not be good for their well-being," he says.
Craft an immigratino policy based on respect
Leslie Gutterman, a senior rabbi in Providence, connects the experiences of immigrants to those of Jewish Americans in an article in the Providence Journal.
THERE IS A VERY SMALL photograph of my paternal grandfather hanging in my study. It is only one inch both in its height and width. The picture is attached to “Certificate of Citizenship Petition #74446” which states that Jacob Gutterman, age 32, is Polish.
Truth to tell, Jews at that time may have dwelled within the borders of Poland but they were not allowed to be of Poland. They dwelled in small, isolated villages (shtetls) removed from the mainstream of Polish civic and cultural life. Their future was not bright, though who would have predicted that most of the Jews of Poland would be murdered by the Nazis?
Jacob and Ida Gutterman, along with his brothers and their wives, chose the path of immigration that led to U.S. citizenship. Grandpa’s brother Abram stayed in New York City, where he opened the first Jewish mortuary in Manhattan, still known to this day as “Gutterman Funeral Home,” although the business was sold to a conglomerate long ago.
Jacob and his brother Henry moved to Detroit, where Grandpa resumed his livelihood as a tailor. My dad, aunt and uncle were born in a neighborhood whose nearby synagogue and kosher butcher shop were frequented by those who had been my grandparents’ neighbors in the old country.
Grandma and Grandpa never became truly Americanized. They spoke Yiddish at home. My dad (tenderhearted and gentle even as a youngster) was their only child who would answer in their mother tongue rather than English. A family amusement was getting Grandma Gutterman to pronounce correctly the name of the 1939 Republican presidential candidate as Wendell Wilkie and not as she inevitably did — Vendell Vilkie. Dad decided to become a dentist rather than a doctor, so that he could more quickly earn the money needed to put his brother Meyer through medical school.
Such an American story has been rewritten many times with varying ethnic scripts. However, the saga of Jewish immigration has not always been so sanguine. There have also been sorrowful chapters of forced emigration.
In 1940, the population of Warsaw numbered 1.2 million people. By the fall of that year, the Jews of that city were walled into a 3.5-square-mile area. Their numbers were almost one-third of the city’s population because the Nazis forced so many Jews to move into this constricted space. Thirty percent of Warsaw’s population now lived in less than 3 percent of the available space in Warsaw. No wonder that 830,000 men, women and children would soon die of hunger. Some 300,000 Jews were taken to Treblinka on their way to Auschwitz. The remainder were killed, captured or deported when the Germans leveled the city.
Jews have also experienced illegal immigration. Many have read Leon Uris’ novel Exodus. Its main character was played by Paul Newman in the movie version. He was modeled after Yossi Harvel, who died in Tel Aviv this past April at 90.
When he was only 28, Havel became involved in the clandestine effort to smuggle Jews from Europe into Palestine. He ran four ships that held more than 24,000 illegal immigrants into Palestine. The country was then limited by the British white paper of 1939 to 75,000 Jews, only a fraction of those trying to escape from the Nazis. The most famous of Havel’s ships was renamed Exodus 1947. It never made it to its destination.
The sight of British forces boarding the dilapidated ship, killing three and injuring hundreds in a violent clash, was seen as a dramatic symbol of injustice. The ship’s passenger list included 4,553 people (655 of them youngsters) who were mostly Holocaust survivors. Sadly, the British delivered them to an old Nazi SS Camp near Hamburg after the refugees went on a hunger strike for more than three weeks in the sweltering heat of summer.
As it turned out, a special committee of the United Nations was in Palestine at the time. Witnessing this spectacle influenced its decision to support the creation of the State of Israel.
One has to be careful in making facile historical comparisons, but it seems a fair conclusion that there have been, and still are, many unfair, unjust laws and protocols about how to deal with illegal immigration.
In many ways, the Catholic Church has pointed the way to thinking about the thorny issue of illegal immigration in a humane way. Pope Benedict reminded a large audience on “World Day of Migrants and Refugees” that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees when they fled Herod. Benedict emphasized the church’s teaching that every human being is of infinite value by virtue of being created in God’s image. He also reminded his listeners of the Catholic priority of keeping families together. American bishops have lobbied for the family to remain as a single unit. There are immigration restrictions on the books that work against this goal. Thus Cardinal Sean O’Malley stated that “the immigration policy we need in the U.S. must be based on the cornerstone of respect for the dignity of every human person.”
Such a theological stance is politically consequential. As Michael Sean Winter observed, “The pope’s pro-family stance is extremely resonant with Latino voters, many of whom come from families with mixed legal status: A wife with a green card and an undocumented husband, for example, or undocumented parents with citizen children.”
The raid on a factory in New Bedford that tore immigrant families asunder repulsed many at the time. Instead of identifying foreigners with a criminal class intent on threatening the underpinnings of the American economy, let us, at least, keep in mind that we are usually dealing with someone’s mother, father, brother or sister. How would we want another country to treat our own kin regardless of their immigration status? Let us begin a conversation in the public square about the kind of laws that at the very least would ensure a treatment of immigrants that is worthy of America’s best traditions.
On July 25, 1867, a young woman of Sephardic Jewish ancestry signed the visitor’s book at the Touro Synagogue, in Newport. President George Washington many years before had sent a letter to her Great-Uncle Moses Seixas, addressed to the Newport Congregation. It contained this sentence: “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens . . . .”
Emma Lazarus became famous because of her sonnet, which was put on a plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The poem has the title “The New Colossus:”
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,/With conquering links astride from land to land, /Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand/ A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/ Is the imprisoned lightening, and her name/ Mother of Exiles. From her beacon — hand/ Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command/The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. /‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she/ With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, /Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, /The wretched refuge of your teeming shore. /Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. /I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’ ”
This famous lamp is still lifted aloft along with the aspiration of those who yearn to live in America, who hope that the light of liberty will illumine their path to citizenship as it once did for my grandparents.
Leslie Y. Gutterman is senior rabbi of Temple Beth-El, Providence.
THERE IS A VERY SMALL photograph of my paternal grandfather hanging in my study. It is only one inch both in its height and width. The picture is attached to “Certificate of Citizenship Petition #74446” which states that Jacob Gutterman, age 32, is Polish.
Truth to tell, Jews at that time may have dwelled within the borders of Poland but they were not allowed to be of Poland. They dwelled in small, isolated villages (shtetls) removed from the mainstream of Polish civic and cultural life. Their future was not bright, though who would have predicted that most of the Jews of Poland would be murdered by the Nazis?
Jacob and Ida Gutterman, along with his brothers and their wives, chose the path of immigration that led to U.S. citizenship. Grandpa’s brother Abram stayed in New York City, where he opened the first Jewish mortuary in Manhattan, still known to this day as “Gutterman Funeral Home,” although the business was sold to a conglomerate long ago.
Jacob and his brother Henry moved to Detroit, where Grandpa resumed his livelihood as a tailor. My dad, aunt and uncle were born in a neighborhood whose nearby synagogue and kosher butcher shop were frequented by those who had been my grandparents’ neighbors in the old country.
Grandma and Grandpa never became truly Americanized. They spoke Yiddish at home. My dad (tenderhearted and gentle even as a youngster) was their only child who would answer in their mother tongue rather than English. A family amusement was getting Grandma Gutterman to pronounce correctly the name of the 1939 Republican presidential candidate as Wendell Wilkie and not as she inevitably did — Vendell Vilkie. Dad decided to become a dentist rather than a doctor, so that he could more quickly earn the money needed to put his brother Meyer through medical school.
Such an American story has been rewritten many times with varying ethnic scripts. However, the saga of Jewish immigration has not always been so sanguine. There have also been sorrowful chapters of forced emigration.
In 1940, the population of Warsaw numbered 1.2 million people. By the fall of that year, the Jews of that city were walled into a 3.5-square-mile area. Their numbers were almost one-third of the city’s population because the Nazis forced so many Jews to move into this constricted space. Thirty percent of Warsaw’s population now lived in less than 3 percent of the available space in Warsaw. No wonder that 830,000 men, women and children would soon die of hunger. Some 300,000 Jews were taken to Treblinka on their way to Auschwitz. The remainder were killed, captured or deported when the Germans leveled the city.
Jews have also experienced illegal immigration. Many have read Leon Uris’ novel Exodus. Its main character was played by Paul Newman in the movie version. He was modeled after Yossi Harvel, who died in Tel Aviv this past April at 90.
When he was only 28, Havel became involved in the clandestine effort to smuggle Jews from Europe into Palestine. He ran four ships that held more than 24,000 illegal immigrants into Palestine. The country was then limited by the British white paper of 1939 to 75,000 Jews, only a fraction of those trying to escape from the Nazis. The most famous of Havel’s ships was renamed Exodus 1947. It never made it to its destination.
The sight of British forces boarding the dilapidated ship, killing three and injuring hundreds in a violent clash, was seen as a dramatic symbol of injustice. The ship’s passenger list included 4,553 people (655 of them youngsters) who were mostly Holocaust survivors. Sadly, the British delivered them to an old Nazi SS Camp near Hamburg after the refugees went on a hunger strike for more than three weeks in the sweltering heat of summer.
As it turned out, a special committee of the United Nations was in Palestine at the time. Witnessing this spectacle influenced its decision to support the creation of the State of Israel.
One has to be careful in making facile historical comparisons, but it seems a fair conclusion that there have been, and still are, many unfair, unjust laws and protocols about how to deal with illegal immigration.
In many ways, the Catholic Church has pointed the way to thinking about the thorny issue of illegal immigration in a humane way. Pope Benedict reminded a large audience on “World Day of Migrants and Refugees” that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees when they fled Herod. Benedict emphasized the church’s teaching that every human being is of infinite value by virtue of being created in God’s image. He also reminded his listeners of the Catholic priority of keeping families together. American bishops have lobbied for the family to remain as a single unit. There are immigration restrictions on the books that work against this goal. Thus Cardinal Sean O’Malley stated that “the immigration policy we need in the U.S. must be based on the cornerstone of respect for the dignity of every human person.”
Such a theological stance is politically consequential. As Michael Sean Winter observed, “The pope’s pro-family stance is extremely resonant with Latino voters, many of whom come from families with mixed legal status: A wife with a green card and an undocumented husband, for example, or undocumented parents with citizen children.”
The raid on a factory in New Bedford that tore immigrant families asunder repulsed many at the time. Instead of identifying foreigners with a criminal class intent on threatening the underpinnings of the American economy, let us, at least, keep in mind that we are usually dealing with someone’s mother, father, brother or sister. How would we want another country to treat our own kin regardless of their immigration status? Let us begin a conversation in the public square about the kind of laws that at the very least would ensure a treatment of immigrants that is worthy of America’s best traditions.
On July 25, 1867, a young woman of Sephardic Jewish ancestry signed the visitor’s book at the Touro Synagogue, in Newport. President George Washington many years before had sent a letter to her Great-Uncle Moses Seixas, addressed to the Newport Congregation. It contained this sentence: “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens . . . .”
Emma Lazarus became famous because of her sonnet, which was put on a plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The poem has the title “The New Colossus:”
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,/With conquering links astride from land to land, /Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand/ A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/ Is the imprisoned lightening, and her name/ Mother of Exiles. From her beacon — hand/ Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command/The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. /‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she/ With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, /Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, /The wretched refuge of your teeming shore. /Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. /I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’ ”
This famous lamp is still lifted aloft along with the aspiration of those who yearn to live in America, who hope that the light of liberty will illumine their path to citizenship as it once did for my grandparents.
Leslie Y. Gutterman is senior rabbi of Temple Beth-El, Providence.
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