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Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision / World is watching as Iraq war tests U.S. mettle / Islamo-fascist terror could trigger a brutal Western response / Media Intimidation / Europe's Fellow Travelers / The Ideology of Defeatism / Someone at the New York Times knows who the REAL enemy is / The Real Body Count / Driven to Aliya / Israel's Biggest Mistake / Deja vu / Massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon / Annan jets off for a Nasrallah crowning? / Counterterrorism Cooperation with Pakistan / International Law and the Nation-State at the U.N. / Triumphant Iran's Next Moves / Ned Lamont: Henry Wallace with a Website / France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon / Condi gets a lesson in French and U.N. credibility / A desperate new manhunt for the Senate's masked spender / Asbestos: Another court cracks down on the legal scam / Pre-Emptive Surveillance / The public sector pension burden poses a test of political wills / More firms are going private -- no surprise given today's culture of over-regulation / Malaria's Toll / Seoul must not revert to its softly-softly approach / How Sri Lanka's government can win the war / Time to retool U.S.-Taiwan military affairs / World War II continues to haunt Japan / Intellectual diversity not welcome / Open Letter to Günter Grass / Photojournalism in Crisis / Is IPCC AR4 an Advocacy Document? / Article entitled “Climatology Between Science and Politics” / Plant diversity- Another Climate Metric / Near-normal Atlantic hurricane season / Politicized Science Produces Bad Public Policy / On WHO’s call to have all clinical trials registered / Performance of Official and Unofficial Genetically Modified Cotton / LY038, QPM, high lysine level corn / Articles in Spanish
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's articles (free of charge, sometimes
registration needed):
Politics/Economy/Society
- Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision, by Adam Liptak, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/19/washington/19ruling.html
Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday.
They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions.
-
World is watching as
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn20.html
- Moment of Truth: Islamo-fascist terror could trigger a brutal Western response. by Ralph Peters
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/moment_of_truth_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm
- Media Intimidation, by Joel Mowbray
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23933
How terrorists control the medium and the message
-
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23915
Paving the road to Eurabia takes a lot of hard work
- The Ideology of Defeatism, by William R. Hawkins
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23948
Do the American people have the will to fight the terror threat?
- Confronting the Post-9/11 World. By David Forsmark
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23954
Someone at the New York Times knows who the REAL enemy is
- The Real Body Count, by Larry Schweikart
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23950
Why can’t they tell us the most important number of all?
- Driven to Aliya, by Hilary Krieger
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23944
UK Jews say anti-Semitism chief
factor in their decision to move to
-
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23925
Since
- Deja vu, by Judith Apter Klinghoffer
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/29322.html
Massive bombing of the entire
nation of
-
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjVlZjMzNGY4OGMxOGUwNWM2MjQwZjAyYjVjZjM4M2M=
Annan jets off for a Nasrallah crowning?
-
Three Steps to Improve Counterterrorism Cooperation with
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/wm1197.cfm
Recent terrorist plots demonstrate
the need for more effective engagement with
-
International Law and the Nation-State at the U.N.: A Guide for
http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/bg1961.cfm
Sovereignty is not some abstract concept that can or should be redefined by an indeterminate and inchoate “international community.” It is the right of the American people, and of all peoples, to govern themselves in accordance with their own institutions and by their own consent. It is the basis of our right to make law for ourselves.
- Triumphant Iran's Next Moves, by Peter Brookes
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed081606a.cfm
Ignore
- Ned Lamont: Henry Wallace with a Website. By Barry Casselman
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/henry_wallace_with_a_website.html
-
With doublespeaking
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=153613
Education/Culture/Media
- The Diversity Double Standard. By George Leef
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23935
Intellectual diversity not welcome
- An Open Letter to Günter Grass, by Daniel Johnson
http://www.nysun.com/article/38082
- A Nation Betrayed: Open Letter to Günter Grass Part II, by Daniel Johnson
http://www.nysun.com/article/38185
- Photojournalism in Crisis. By David D. Perlmutter
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003019475
Amid the controversy over certain
pictures from
Science/Health
-
Comparing the Performance of Official and Unofficial Genetically
Modified Cotton in
http://www.agbioforum.org/v8n1/v8n1a01-morse.htm
Results suggest that the official Bt varieties (MECH 12 and MECH 162) significantly outperform the unofficial varieties in terms of gross margin. However, unofficial, locally produced Bt hybrids can also perform significantly better than non-Bt hybrids, although second-generation (F2) Bt seed appears to have no yield advantage compared to non-Bt hybrids but can save on insecticide use. The paper explores some of the implications of this ranking.
- All about Anna Salleh's beat up, and questions she should have asked Associate Professor Jack Heinemann. By David Tribe
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-about-anna-sallehs-beat-up-and.html
LY038, QPM, high lysine level corn
Technology
FRIENDSTER IS RECEIVING $10 million from investors
hoping to revive the social-networking firm.
* * *
Online gambling companies are seeking out new
markets after the demise of BetOnSports in the
* * *
Telstra said it expects to pay dividends of 28
Australian cents a share for the fiscal year to June 2007 but can't provide an
outlook on the payment for the following year because of regulatory
uncertainty.
* * *
N.R. Narayana Murthy
stepped down as chairman of Infosys after 25 years at
the helm of the company he co-founded with six other software engineers.
* * *
As
* * *
RadioShack said Claire Babrowski,
its president and chief operating officer, will leave the company after she was
passed over for the chief executive post.
* * *
EchoStar suffered legal setbacks that
could force the satellite-TV firm to pay big damages and deactivate digital
video recorders.
* * *
Microsoft fell far short of its goal to buy back up
to $20 billion of its shares, but analysts attributed the results to investors'
belief that the stock will climb higher.
* * *
• Verizon Considers Bid
for Landlines
• Quattrone May Avoid
Third Trial
• McAfee Gets Subpoena
>>>>>>>>>>> You can request these
articles at no charge. Call Jorge Mata at any time to ask.
Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In Spanish: Normas surrealistas para librar una
guerra, por Victor Davis
Hanson
http://www.libertaddigital.com/opiniones/opi_desa_32925.html
-
Nunca nos darán tregua con las treguas, por Thomas Sowell
http://www.libertaddigital.com/opiniones/opi_desa_32912.html
-
Sonría, por favor. Por Rafael Rubio
http://www.libertaddigital.com/opiniones/opi_desa_32919.html
Sanidad cubana y Castro
-
Comentario sobre BBVA's "Estudio sobre la
Conciencia y Conducta Medioambiental en España". Por Alberto Illán Oviedo
http://www.juandemariana.org/comentario/797/
- La
complicidad de la ONU con Hezbolá, por Julia Weller
http://libertaddigital.com/php3/opi_desa.php3?cpn=32892
============================
Wall Street Journal
(excerpts)
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Condi gets a lesson in French and U.N. credibility.
Senate's Most
Wanted
A desperate new manhunt for the Senate's masked
spender.
Unbundling
Asbestos
Another court cracks down on the legal scam.
COMMENTARY
JAMES Q.
WILSON
Pre-Emptive Surveillance
To connect the dots, you must first discern them.
E.J. MCMAHON
Public Pension Price Tag
The public sector pension burden poses a test of
political wills.
MAURICE R.
GREENBERG
Regulation, Yes.
Strangulation, No.
More firms are going private -- no surprise given
today's culture of over-regulation.
JASON L.
RILEY
Malaria's Toll
A hedge-fund manager turns his outrage over malaria
fatalities into an obsession.
OPINION
Let Them Eat
Rice
How
DAN
BLUMENTHAL AND GARY SCHMITT
'A Strange Calculus'
Time to retool U.S.-Taiwan military affairs.
GEORGE F.
WILL
World War II continues to haunt
Copyright © 2006 Dow
Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
--------------------------------------
Most U.N. resolutions
don't have the shelf-life of a gallon of milk, which isn't always a bad thing.
But in the case of Resolution 1701 -- the cease-fire agreement for
On Thursday, Jacques
Chirac confirmed a Le Monde report that his government was prepared to offer
only some 200 combat engineers (in addition to the 200 French troops already in
Lebanon) to what is supposed to be the resolution's centerpiece: A 15,000-man
U.N. force that will help the Lebanese army patrol their southern border and
ensure that Hezbollah will no longer use the area as a staging ground for
future attacks against Israel.
Given that the French
contingent was supposed to be at the vanguard of this enhanced force, it's
unclear whether other nations will be willing to chip in with troops of their
own. All of this after the French used the promise of a robust, French-led
international force to get the
Then there is the
delicate matter of disarming Hezbollah. Although the terrorist militia is so
far abiding by the cease-fire, its leader Hassan Nasrallah made a televised statement last week insisting it
was the "wrong time" to discuss disarmament. "Who will defend
The answer, presumably,
is the Lebanese Army. By the terms of the 1989 Taif
Accord that ended Lebanon's civil war, all domestic Lebanese militias should
have long since disarmed or been folded into the regular army. U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1559 of 2004 makes the same demand, as does 1701.
But the U.N. resolutions
are dismayingly vague about just who, other than Hezbollah itself, is supposed
to do the disarming. "I don't think there is an expectation that this
[U.N.] force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told USA Today last week. "You have to have a plan, first
of all, for the disarmament of a militia, and then the hope is that some people
lay down their arms voluntarily."
That's some
"hope" on Secretary Rice's part. Emile Lahoud,
the pro-Syrian Lebanese President who is nominally commander-in-chief of the
army, has described the notion of disarming Hezbollah as
"disgraceful": "How can they ask us to disarm while the blood of
the martyrs is still warm?" Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad
Siniora has been less explicit but little better. The
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that he has entered
into negotiations with Mr. Nasrallah to arrange a
modus vivendi between Lebanese troops and Hezbollah
fighters still operating in the south of
Resolution 1701 also
calls for an arms embargo on Hezbollah, although it specifies no penalties for
those who break it. Anyone who has visited the remote, unguarded and unmarked
hinterland between
All of this explains
--------------------------------------
Senate's Most Wanted
There's a desperate new manhunt across the country, and the
suspects are no less than 91 Members of the world's greatest deliberative body.
One of these Senators has a big secret, and we should all have some fun as the
foes of government pork try to run the mystery politician to ground.
Here's the forensic background: In April, Oklahoma Senator Tom
Coburn introduced legislation that would set-up a database to track an
estimated $1 trillion in federal grants, earmarks, contracts and loans.
Americans would be able to perform Google-like
searches to track how their tax dollars are spent -- or frittered away, as the
case might be. Twenty-nine Senators have co-sponsored the bill, and it's a
testament to how concerned some are about
Yet most Senators clearly have no desire to shine a light on
their spending practices, and at least one -- perhaps more -- has placed a
"secret" hold on the legislation. Normally the architects of these
holds are exposed within a few legislative days, but with Congress on recess
the masked spender has so far evaded capture and public scrutiny.
Porkbusters, a grassroots outfit that
fights government waste, found this untransparent
move to stymie government transparency a bit rich, and last week launched a
campaign to unveil the blocker's identity. It has asked its members to call on
their Senators to disavow the hold, and the responses are trickling in. The
group, which is tracking the results on its Web site (www.porkbusters.org), still has the pictures
of 91 Senators under its "Suspect" list. The nine Senators who have
denied placing the hold are now listed as "In the Clear"; they are
Senator Coburn, Barack Obama,
Mary Landrieu, David Vitter, John McCain, Ron Wyden, Richard Shelby, Jim Inhofe
and Jeff Sessions.
If Congress insists on spending like there's no tomorrow, at
least the Members could let the voters see what they're spending it on by
passing Senator Coburn's reform. Will the real secret Senator please stand up?
--------------------------------------
Unbundling
Asbestos
Anything that causes the
asbestos bar to pull its hair out is usually a step in the right direction. So
judging by the meltdown in
The
The
The
In his concurring
opinion, Judge Stephen Markman also noted the opinion
would "advance the interests of the most seriously ill asbestos plaintiffs
whose interests have not always been well served by the present system."
This was the judge's polite way of referring to the lawyers' practice of using
sick people to "leverage" (his word) settlements for the non-sick. In
particular, asbestos attorneys often agree to discount payouts to mesothelioma or other cancer victims so long as the
defendant company also agrees to settle and pay its other, often frivolous,
claims.
The three dissenting
judges were close to apoplectic in their criticism of the order, and they've
since been joined by
That takes some nerve,
since their willingness to file bogus suits is what clogged the courts in the
first place. Asbestos litigation began as a way to address a legitimate wrong,
but it spun out of control when judges showed they were willing to wave just
about any claim through, regardless of merit. The tort bar then set up what
became essentially a lawsuit-filing industry, complete with phony diagnoses by
quick-buck doctors and screening companies who worked for the very lawyers
bringing the suits. More than one grand jury is now looking into this racket.
Our own guess is that if
the
--------------------------------------
Pre-Emptive
Surveillance
By
JAMES Q. WILSON
Federal district court
judge Anna Diggs Taylor has ruled that the warrantless
interception of telephone and Internet calls between a foreign agent and
American persons is illegal and unconstitutional. It is possible that she is
right about the illegality, but she is almost surely wrong that it is
unconstitutional. The government has appealed this decision to the Sixth
Circuit. No one can say what it will decide, although other appeals courts have
tolerated such surveillance. Ultimately the Supreme Court will have to decide
the matter.
The constitutional
arguments against the surveillance are unpersuasive. A Washington Post
editorial dismissed them as "throat clearing." Judge Davis refers to
the free speech provision of the First Amendment but fails to explain how
listening to a conversation or reading email abridges anyone's right to speak.
Taken literally, a constitutional ban on intercepts would make it impossible to
overhear the mafia plotting murder or business executives fixing prices.
Of course, the ACLU and
the other organizations that brought the suit are not criminal conspirators.
But for their claims to be taken seriously they must show that they were
materially harmed. This is because the Constitution only allows actual cases or
controversies, not hypothetical or imaginary ones, to be heard in court. To
meet that test, plaintiffs must show that they are the actual victims of a
direct and palpable harm. Without that rule, judges would be issuing advisory
opinions on what the law may mean, not in settling concrete disputes. Citing no
factual evidence, Judge Taylor says that these organizations do have standing.
She also says that the
surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment. But that
provision only bans "unreasonable searches and seizures," not all searches
and seizures. Customs agents have the right to search, without a
warrant, you and your luggage (including your PC) when you enter this country.
The Border Patrol can stop and search recent arrivals here when they are miles
from the border. The Supreme Court has authorized customs officers to open
incoming international mail without a warrant. It is not clear how a phone call
or email originating overseas deserves more protection than clothing, the
contents of a computer, or international mail. The Supreme Court has upheld all
of these exceptions to constitutional limits on searches.
What is most striking
about Judge Davis's decision is that she nowhere discusses the approval of warrantless searches by other and higher federal courts. In
1980, the Court of Appeals for the fourth circuit held (U.S. v. Truong Dinh Hung) that "the Executive need
not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance."
That is because a "uniform warrant requirement" would "unduly
frustrate" the discharge of the president's foreign policy duties. It
would "delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats" by
requiring the judges instantly to make decisions about rapidly evolving events.
In 2002 the FISA review
court itself held (In Re: Sealed Case) that the president "did have
inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to
obtain foreign intelligence information." The Supreme Court has never
spoken on this matter, but it is astonishing that Judge Davis never discusses
the FISA and appellate court decisions that bear directly on this question.
It is possible that the
surveillance violates the FISA law. That statute allows the
government to tap the communications between foreign powers provided that there
is "no substantial likelihood" that these communications will involve
a "
This statute, written in
1978, was aimed at dealing with foreign governments that wished us harm, but it
preceded our experience with modern terrorists. Now we know that our cities can
be attacked at any time in ways that cause thousands of deaths. Listening in on
possible overseas terrorists who are talking to Americans is designed to find
out who may attack us, when and how. Such eavesdropping is done to discover who
is a terrorist. It is impossible to have "probable cause" to justify
hearing such calls, and therefore impossible to obtain in a timely manner a
FISA warrant.
No one outside the
National Security Agency knows the details of our surveillance of
communications between an American and a person living overseas, but there can
be little doubt that it is intended not to bring criminal charges but to learn
who is a terrorist before he has a chance to act. The surveillance is designed
to provide investigatory leads, not prosecutions. These leads are, I suspect,
sudden, ephemeral and suggestive. It is hard to imagine that, in this country's
efforts to connect the dots, that our government
should not be allowed to discover the dots.
The government argues
that the president has independent constitutional authority to engage in warrantless searches across national boundaries and that
this power was strengthened by a law, the Authorization for Use of Military
Force (AUMF), that entitles him to use "all necessary and appropriate
force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned,
authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on
September 11, 2001." The AUMF does not mention surveillance. But then it
does not mention detaining terrorists, either, and yet the Supreme Court (in Hamdi) held this detention is a "fundamental
and accepted incident to war." If detention, though not mentioned, is
legal, is surveillance, which is not mentioned, also legal? That is a bullet
the Supreme Court will have to bite. In my view, the war against terrorism
requires both surveillance and detention as well as
armed conflict.
But suppose that neither
the president's constitutional powers nor the AUMF justify an exception to the
FISA rule. Congress can correct this problem by amending FISA to create an
authorization for warrantless surveillance that is
directed at people living overseas, even if they communicate with someone
living here, provided that this cannot lead immediately to criminal
prosecution. If the surveillance produces leads as to who is a terrorist, then
a FISA warrant can be obtained to authorize acquiring supportive evidence.
The war on terror is
underway. It will last through my lifetime and that of my children.
Mr.
Wilson, who has taught at Harvard, UCLA and Pepperdine,
is the author, with John J. DiIulio, of
"American Government" (Houghton Mifflin, 10th ed., 2005).
--------------------------------------
Public
Pension Price Tag
By
E.J. MCMAHON
The recent enactment of
sweeping changes in federal laws governing private pension plans, the issuance
of a scathing auditors' report on the collapse of San Diego's pension fund, and
the disclosure of potential shortfalls in New York City's pension funds all
point to what should be the nation's next big target for financial reform.
Because their size and complexity offer such a wide field for abuse, state and
local retirement systems pose a significant moral hazard -- threatening the
long-term fiscal stability of many of their sponsors.
[chart
removed http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/ED-AE625A_mcmah_20060820194550.gif]
In determining a
system's necessary funding levels, a crucial consideration is the discount rate
applied to future obligations: The lower the rate, the larger the contributions
required to maintain "fully funded" status. Private plans are required
to discount their liabilities based on corporate bond rates -- which are
usually lower than these plans' projected returns on investments.
Public funds, however,
are allowed to discount their long-term liabilities based on the assumed annual
rate of return on their assets -- which, for most public funds, is pegged at an
optimistic 8% or more. In other words, the risk premium in the investment
target is compounded in the liability estimate. (This accounting twist also
explains how politicians can claim, with straight faces, that
pension obligation bonds are a nifty arbitrage play.)
If the liabilities of
public pension funds were valued on the same basis as private funds -- using,
for example, the 30-year municipal bond rate as the discount rate -- funding
requirements would be dramatically higher. Estimates of the
nation's real public pension funding shortfall range from an added $500 billion
for state retirement systems to at least $1 trillion for all public systems.
The 8% rate of return
assumption, while shared by some major corporate plans, is certainly open to
question. But public pension fund managers are in a pickle: If assumed returns
were reduced, even "fully funded" systems like New York's would find
themselves tens of billions in the hole -- as shown by alternative calculations
buried in financial reports for Gotham's retirement
systems. And so, in the name of protecting taxpayers from having to pay higher
contributions in the short term, funds expose them to more volatility and risk
over the long term.
Public pension funds
used to be run on more of an insurance model, heavily reliant on fixed-income
securities. But over the past 40 years, the vast expansion of government at
every level has vastly expanded the pool of public pension liabilities. This leads
to a vicious cycle: As the employee head count rises and unions lobby for
bigger pension entitlements, funds feel pressure to pursue riskier investments
with higher returns -- which explains their increasing reliance on stocks, as
shown in the nearby chart. But when returns exceed expectations, as in the boom
market of the 1990s, politicians and fund trustees feel irresistible pressure
to raise benefits again.
Meanwhile, their
increased presence in the equity markets has turned public pension funds and their
managers, like
In reforming private
sector pensions, Congress and President Bush were motivated largely by a desire
to provide greater financial security for current and future retirees
threatened by corporate bankruptcies. The public sector is different:
Governments can't go out of business, and their retired employees are in no
danger of being left high and dry. Guaranteed under state laws and
constitutional provisions -- that is, by the taxpayers -- public pensions are
far more secure and more generous than those offered by private-sector plans.
The overriding concern
of public pension reform should be to reduce the taxpayers' exposure to
accounting and financial risk -- now and in the future. Here are four essential
steps towards that goal:
• Shift
to defined contribution plans for all future workers. In short, stop
the bleeding. Because traditional defined-benefit plans rely on contributions
from younger employees to finance the benefits of long-term workers, this shift
is in no way a quick fix for under-funded systems. But the alternative --
maintaining defined benefit plans, but with lower benefits for the newly hired
-- is worse. As long as an open DB plan exists, it will be a target for
political and financial manipulation.
• Immediately recognize and fund
the full cost of any benefit increase. The ability to amortize benefit
increases over decades is one reason why politicians and unions have been able
to sell pension sweeteners as a free lunch. Closing this window would be a
disincentive for future giveaways.
• Expand
financial reports to include alternative funding assumptions. Simply
requiring public funds to adhere to the same financial standards as private
funds sounds tempting but it would be extremely disruptive, sharply increasing
volatility and boosting contribution requirements. Following the lead of
• Gradually
lower the required rate of return -- and invest accordingly. Over the
long term, this is an essential step for reducing the taxpayers' collective
risk. It also would reveal the true economic costs of current benefits.
Fraught with financial
complexity, the growing public sector pension burden fundamentally poses a test
of political wills. Although benefits for their current members are legally
untouchable, union leaders derive substantial power from the existing system
and will battle any attempt to change it -- as they did in beating back Arnold
Schwarzenegger's attempt last year to establish a 401(k) plan in California.
Today, improved accounting practices can at least force elected officials to
face up to the price tag of their rash promises. In the future, they must turn
from union lapdogs to taxpayer watchdogs.
Mr. McMahon is director
of the Empire Center for New York State Policy and a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute.
--------------------------------------
Regulation, Yes. Strangulation, No.
By
MAURICE R. GREENBERG
Three words describe the
prevailing sentiment in today's business environment -- private is beautiful.
Increasingly, major
Why? To
a large degree, because the cost of government regulations has become
unbearable. HCA, the largest hospital operator, recently announced a
record $21 billion deal to take itself private. Among reasons cited by the company's founder, Thomas Frist, for departing the NYSE: the untenable cost of
complying with Sarbanes-Oxley. The recent trend of major companies going
(or planning to go) private -- Hertz, Toys "R" Us, Kinder Morgan, Albertson's,
Univision -- is not coincidental. And that's only
half the tale. While corporations are retreating from our public capital
marketplace, exchanges in the rest of the world are thriving at our expense. Of
the 25 largest IPOs worldwide in 2005, only one took
place in the
Credit the culture of
over-regulation that has now infused
This is not to say
regulation isn't necessary. Quite the opposite. But it
must be enlightened regulation -- the type that enables public markets to
remain fair, reliable and profitable. Clearly the marketplace is trying to tell
the
None of these recent
trends are in the national interest. Those making the laws governing corporate
In today's environment,
the mere threat of an embarrassing lawsuit or the public release of potentially
damaging charges -- regardless of veracity -- can throw management off its game
for months, even years. As a result, CEOs of public corporations are losing
their appetite for risk. They've grown hesitant to explore new ventures, new
terrain. The answer, of course, is balance. Congress must fashion a regulatory
scheme that demands transparency and fairness without stifling free enterprise
and innovation. If corporations continue to shun our public equity markets,
this era of heightened regulatory activity will ultimately be regarded as a
failure. That is why policymakers must reform the system now according to the
following principle: Enlightened regulation, yes. Strangulation,
no.
Mr. Greenberg, former
chairman and CEO of AIG, is chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co.
--------------------------------------
Malaria's
Toll
By
JASON L. RILEY
Each year, malaria afflicts
a half-billion people (roughly the population of
But we do know that
malarial mosquitoes are attracted to the tropical climes of sub-Saharan
The economist William
Easterly calculates that medicine that would prevent half of all malaria deaths
costs only $0.12 a dose, and bed nets that would severely limit new cases cost
a mere $4 apiece. "Preventing five million child deaths over the next ten
years would cost just three dollars for each new mother," he writes in his
book "The White Man's Burden."
Mr. Easterly argues that
the tragic incompetence of the Western foreign aid industry -- $2.3 trillion
spent, over five decades, but little forward advance -- stems from its overly
bureaucratic approach to problem-solving. Agencies like the World Health
Organization, the Global Fund and the World Bank traditionally have been
staffed by well-meaning "planners," to use his term, who see
"poverty as a technical engineering problem that [their] answers will
solve."
What these organizations
really need, says Mr. Easterly, are more of what he calls "searchers,"
or people who understand that "poverty is a complicated tangle of
political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors."
Where planners raise high expectations but take no responsibility for meeting
them, searchers prefer to work case-by-case, using trial and error to tailor
solutions to individual problems, fully aware that most remedies must be
homegrown.
Lance Laifer, a hedge-fund manager in
Mr. Laifer
turned his outrage into something of an obsession. He began researching malaria
intensely; and he also ran some numbers. Bed nets, medications, insecticide,
swamp drainage, etc., came to less than $10,000 for a typical African village
of 1,000 people. "That's a doable number," Mr. Laifer
concluded.
And then he picked up
the phone, turning to friends and associates who help him organize an annual
fundraiser to fight cancer. "I basically had a group of people that I know
have very big hearts in this area, specifically in dealing with children,"
he says. "So I called them and said, 'What do you know about malaria and
how many people are dying from it?'"
That was the starting
point. Where it will end is anyone's guess. Inside of a year, and working with
George Ayittey of the Free Africa Foundation, Mr. Laifer's efforts have spawned five "malaria-free
zones" in
Mr. Laifer
says a future focus will also be DDT, the pesticide used by Americans and
Europeans in the 1940s to win domestic fights against malarial mosquitoes.
Indoor spraying of DDT is by far the cheapest and most effective way to control
the disease. One
Yet Rachel
Carson-inspired environmentalists have convinced many public health agencies
that the chemical is dangerous. African nations, fearful that lucrative
European and
Mr. Laifer's
been unable to spray DDT in any of his malaria-free zones. "It's the best
thing in our arsenal," he says. "We have a prodigious supply, it's
cheap and we know it works. Our world leaders need to legalize DDT, and people
in
No one, least of all Mr.
Laifer, is under the illusion that these initiatives
can rid
"All sorts of
approaches need to be tried and we need feedback," says Roger Bate of
Africa Fighting Malaria, a group working with Mr. Laifer
to raise awareness about the effectiveness of DDT. "I like the private
sector being involved. It can come in and show results in a malarial location
and force [aid agencies] to actually deliver on their promises. What Lance can
do is raise awareness and hopefully anger in the
But Mr. Bate says the
reality is that economic development is the only sure-fire anti-malaria
strategy. "We eradicated malaria in
Which
is why sub-Saharan
Mr. Riley is a member of
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
--------------------------------------
Let
Them Eat Rice
Here's a brain teaser:
Last week, news reports said that
Averting a human disaster, it says. Strong storms flooded the Korean peninsula last month, intensifying hunger in the N
