Quote of the Day
Don't bother about genius.
Don't worry about being clever.
Trust to hard work,
perseverance
and determination.
Sir Frederick Treves
Buy American? Yes...
And Buy Foreign Goods and Services, Too
My Dad usually doesn't try to influence my purchase decisions, with one exception: when it came to cars, he wanted me to buy American. (In fact, over my adult life, I've owned 4 cars: new ones from Ford and GM and 2 used ones from GM.) I did so primarily for utilitarian reasons: I purchase a car primarily for transportation, not to impress ladies or other guys; I also liked the fact that I could get the cars serviced almost anywhere and more easily. Of course, I've had my fair share of relevant reliability problems and how many dealers run their service departments with business hours (no evenings, weekends or holidays). For example, in my current GM car, all four of my power windows went out separately after warranty expiration (i.e., the windows would slowly sink into the car door, and there is no manual override in the design). I think the last time it happened I noticed on a Thursday and called up the service department, and they said they could schedule me in early next Wednesday morning. (Of course, I would have to negotiate with my employer or client for the time off.) I had a simple question: weather reports showed rain over the coming weekend. What am I supposed to do? The service department agent had a 2-word response: "Duct tape." Ah, yes: the ubiquitous solution for any American guy: duct tape.
Ironically, Wal-Mart, a major importer of Chinese-produced goods, 25 years ago ran a widely publicized "buy American" campaign, insourcing nearly a quarter billion sales from international vendors. In fact, demagogues, especially Democrats, have used this protectionist concept for generations including FDR's 1933 "Buy American Act" up to the disgraceful American-made restrictions in the infamous 2009 $862B stimulus act. I should point out that Republican Party (at least for the first few generations of its history, including Lincoln) and ancestor groups (Federalists--especially Alexander Hamilton, National Republicans and Whigs) were pro-tariff, a form of protectionism. Early in their history, the Democrats opposed tariffs, fearing trade wars and higher prices at the expense of their discretionary income.
Any reader of this blog knows I'm staunchly pro-market, so you would know that I am against protectionism, whatever form (e.g., imported car quotas, crop subsidies (e.g., corn and sugar), administrative costs (e.g., environmental policies, laws against American-produced genetically-modified food products, etc.), etc.) [See here for other examples.] Why? If you are all but guaranteed a monopoly on your goods and services (including, of course, the federal government), you have less incentive to innovate, cut costs, and other factors which make your goods and services globally competitive.
There are two things that inspired me to write this little rant. First, John Stossel, who is easily my favorite Fox News contributor, had an excellent related pithy column called "The Stupidity of 'Buy American'". [I love the irony of Stossel's quoting Henderson from the Hoover Institute. Hoover, of course, famously raised tariffs in the aftermath of the 1929 market crash. FDR criticized Hoover's protectionist policies (which was good) for worsening the Depression (yup, Hoover was FDR's "four years of failed policies") but then enacted a flurry of his own protectionist policies, which I regard as hypocritical in concept.] John Stossel was motivated to write his piece after his former employer, ABC News, ran a series on 'Buy American'.
The second thing was a recent episode of David E. Kelley's quirky legal drama, "Harry's Law". (I used to like a prior series, "Boston Legal", an inspired pairing of Spader and Shatner, which unfortunately near or at the end of its run had a surreal "we are the ones we've bee waiting for" celebration of Obama's election, with a lead character flying out to Colorado just so she could cast a vote "that counted" in a close battleground state.) Kathy Bates plays the lead character former patent attorney turned defense attorney Harriet Korn whom made her disgusted feelings towards social conservatives well known in an earlier episode.
In this episode, Bates is driving her Mercedes van through an Ohio county which apparently passed an ordinance against operating a foreign-produced car, and she is pulled over and arrested. Bates at one point notes she is a gun-toting Republican whom makes it clear they have no right to trample on her freedom of choosing what car she drives. The storyline eventually discloses that this county has a major employer of American-made tires. Foreign cars don't run on American-made tires (why this tire factory can't manufacture tires for foreign makes manufactured in the US is not clear...) The young attorney facing off against Harry goes into a self-evident protectionist rant of "jobs! jobs! jobs!" (not, of course, the company which profits at the expense of the American consumer, money that could be spent for other goods and services), and you really don't hear Ms. Korn argue the law of comparative advantage, we don't hear any discussion of the fact that the US Constitution mandates a free trade zone among the American states, or the fact that protectionist policies typically result in trade wars that affect the lives of many American workers in companies (or farms), which sell internationally as well as domestically. Protectionists pursue policies which lower our collective standard of living.
Sunday Talk Soup and Michele Bachmann
Meet the Press was dismal today, with the economically illiterate Debbie Wasserman-Schultz putting on a marathon of typically unchallenged, memorized Democratic Party sound bites and talking points. I may later go through her transcript like I recently did after David Plouffe's appearance.
Michele Bachmann's appearance was better; she did have her own talking points (I'm just wondering--has she ever given a speech where she hasn't mentioned her many children and foster children she's raised? There's nothing wrong with that; I have a lot of respect for parents of large families--I was raised in one.) Bachmann often does respond to a question after she gets her talking points out of the way. Gregory, for instance, was trying to get her to argue that the Penn State kerfuffle deserves a federal response. Gregory seemed to justify this line of questioning by pointing out that steroids came under Congress also. It could be his real attempt was to undermine her position on the Tenth Amendment (i.e., states rights). (I personally thought the steroids investigation was more about political grandstanding and did not favor it. I disagree with the use of designer steroids except under explicit authorized medical guidance, and I think sports have a right to regulate any such practice.)
I will simply point out here that as far as I know, there was one alleged attempt by a former coach, Sandusky, in 2002 to perform or attempt to perform a sexual act of a minor in a Penn State building. There is no evidence that Penn State condoned Sandusky's behavior. The issue that got Coach Paterno and the university president Dr. Graham Spanier fired was ultimate (but not personal) accountability for others whom did not report the allegation to authorities in a timely manner. Two other individuals (Curley and Schultz) were indicted for failing to report. Now most states would have required the original witness (i.e., McQueary) to directly report to authorities. Pennsylvania is one of the few states where it's simply enough to report an incident to a higher authority in the organization whom then refers the matter to law enforcement. It looks like the Pennsylvania legislature is already moving towards closing this loophole. I don't see why the federal government should get involved, unless somehow we're talking about a scandal crossing state borders.
Second, Michele Bachmann found herself once again talking about waterboarding. There was the predictable polemical point of McCain, whom was tortured as a North Vietnamese P.O.W., against waterboarding. I want to point out that McCain was not a high-value target (other than the fact he was the son of a high-ranking admiral); he did not have knowledge of anything beyond his current mission. My understanding is the waterboarding treatment was only administered to a very small number of high-value targets under a limited standard protocol. Keep in mind whatever knowledge KSM or other high value targets had had a short shelf life
I was not impressed by Bachmann's raising Dick Cheney's approval or claims regarding the effectiveness of waterboarding. I do think that when you're dealing with a stateless group which is not a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, you have to be flexible and not limited to a few enumerated authorized procedures, which can be gamed by the targets. I think this is a legitimate criticism of Obama's policy.
I don't know what happened to the 3 subjects to waterboarding: was the technique overused? Was it used in an arbitrary, unproductive fashion? Did it constitute "torture"? Certainly if traditional forms of waterboarding were deployed, there would be torture, but in a weakened variation often used to train our own armed forces?
If I was Michele Bachmann, I would simply say that the CIA should have authorization to use techniques not falling under the Geneva standard of torture.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Foreigner, "Say You Will"
