Blandford MSA proposals
If anyone has a critique of these I will forward them to the Healthre list whence it came CHeers, Ken Hanly In my approach to universal health care, www.his.com/robertb/hlthplan.htm I require that there be a mandatory MSA for workers in the same sense as Social Security is mandatory. Some have questioned this mandatory requirement. In looking over the writeup I noticed that I do not explain why I feel that it is a requirement that the MSA be mandatory; so here is an explanation. I would appreciate any comments from the list as to why the MSA should or should not be mandatory. Bob Blandford Alexandria, VA - Why MSA Feature Should be Mandatory The MSA needs to be mandatory because it is desired that the voucher + MSA, together with strongly regulated catastrophic insurance, as much as possible take the place of comprehensive insurance, whether private, medicare, or medicaid. If the MSA is not mandatory, employers will be much more tempted to grant comprehensive insurance as a benefit to their employees, in order that the employees need not draw down their voucher. On the other hand, if the MSA is mandatory, most employers and employees will feel that comprehensive insurance is not necessary. Employers in that case, if they decide to provide any health benefit, will be inclined to contribute extra money to the employees with the proviso that it go into the MSA. It is important that comprehensive insurance not dominate; if it did, then the health market would be suppressed, because third party payments would continue to distort the market. If many employers, especially employers of the middle and upper-middle classes, offered comprehensive insurance; then that paradigm would be seen to be standard and desirable. So advocates for the poor would continue to argue that the poor also should have comprehensive insurance. If, on the other hand, the middle-class get MSA-support from their employers; then the Federal government will be urged to give the same benefit to the poor; enhancing the market. Also, these middle-class people are the ones who will seek out the lowest prices and thus make the market. They also are the people who will make the best use of the information sent back from the federal government to those who use the voucher and MSA to pay bills, thus enhancing market efficiency. (This information feedback is a feature of my approach). I do discuss in the existing writeup that a mandatory MSA is not as radical as it may seem in light of the fact that taxes for Social Security and medicare are mandatory and progressive, and that it is mandatory to pay the taxes which support medicaid. So mandatory MSA is less confiscatory than many other taxes; at least the money goes exclusively for the good of the taxed person. Of course the general, progressive taxes nonetheless pay for the lifetime voucher, yearly use-or-lose voucher, and strongly rationed safety net which are features of my approach. --
Re: McCloskey Post-Autism
Title: Re: [PEN-L:30109] McCloskey Post-Autism Greetings Economists, JD got back to me quickly about my remarks on 'Autistic Economics'. He plans on replying to my economic thoughts later, but first JD writes, JD Though I say below that autistic economics is bad economics, I don't think autism is bad in any moral sense. The latter is only bad in the sense that it's bad _for them_ if some people are unable to survive in society by their own efforts rather than being treated all the time by parents and/or experts of one sort or another. A hard-core individual with autism cannot survive without a lot of help, continuous help. Doyle, I agree this is not a moral issue. When I talk bigotry I mean the social structure that reinforces oppressive structures. The prejudicial thinking process that cannot bend and accept reality. Moral thinking gets us nowhere in regard to understanding what happens to disabled people. However you drift here toward a stereo type about disability. You focus upon the need for support a disability requires, and forget in saying that none of us in this system can survive with a lot of continuous help. The image you conjure is that an able bodied person can be turned out into the world naked (without substantial attachment to their society) and survive. I have a car to drive to work that major industries produce, and a bus to work that I do not drive. None of that would I have without the current economic system. Keep that in mind when you start talking about the tremendous support a disability requires. Your comment stigmatizes the support system disabled people have in relation to the support system able bodied people use and equally depend upon for their survival. Louis Proyect often writes about the devastating consequences of dependence upon petroleum products. Are any of us any different in dependence upon the global energy regime? JD, Autistic economics is not an anti-disabled phrase as much as the application of a general term (autistic) to two separate phenomena, a brand of economics (also called Boubakism) and a kind of neuro-biological disorder. Doyle, This elides where the term came from to apply to economics, i.e. a French fashion to attack the exclusive use of mathematics as a means of analyzing economics as being like autism syndrome. The phrase, 'Autistic Economics', was characterized in the capitalist press: The New Statesman 21 January 2002 The Storming of the Accountants David Boyle ... Called post-autistic economics - autistic is intended to imply an obsessive preoccupation with numbers... The phrase post-autistic has a touch of Gallic cruelty about it... Doyle ...as a typical cruel French remark upon economic theory (see below my references to the concept that Autism represents 'obsession'). No one can seriously suggest in some reasonable fashion the phrase, Autistic Economics, was invented independent of comparison to Autistic people. That is absurd. But returning to the pejorative content of the label or phrase, especially if the global press has made the point publicly, I find it incredibly hard to understand how you would not see the obvious connection. The formula is clear enough, that a form of economic theory is comparable to syndromes associated with Autism. I.e. the problem with this economics is the same problem one encounters with a disabled person who are Autistic. In essence relying upon stereotype to create a negative condemnation of a trend or fashion in economics. JD, Perhaps we should invent the category sociopathic economics to refer to the empirically-oriented version of Chicago economics. After all, the DSM-IV, the diagnostic bible of psychologists, has more disorders than simply those on the autistic spectrum. Doyle, Well if you shift how you label this problem with that sort of economics by going to the DSM-IV for other ways of labeling something 'sociopathic' you end up doing what I am saying is common practice, that is using disability as a means of tarring and stigmatizing a political opponent. In other words I know something is 'bad' if it clearly relates to a human disability. That is a political problem for the disabled community (54 million people in the U.S.). On the one hand everyone by habitual practice and communal approval reaches into the grab bag of anti-disabled babble for labels to show what we mean when we reject some other position. On the other hand is Autism really appropriate way to think about this problem? For example if we look at the recent Scientific American article: Scientific American, June 2002 article Savant Syndrome, Darold A. Treffert and Gregory L. Wallace, pages 74 through 85. Especially page 82 subsection Looking to the Left Hemisphere. Although Specialists Today are better able to characterize the talents of savants, no overarching theory can describe exactly how or why savants do what they do. The most powerful explanation suggests that some injury to the left brain causes the right
Emergency contraception
[Dear friends and colleagues, please forward the following very usual information by Katha Pollitt and Jennifer Baumgardner on EC (emergency contraception) to all...but especially young people. Many thanks, Diane] Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 11:15:53 -0400 From: Katha Pollitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Emergency contraception : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], marilyn hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], Susan Bordo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : : An Open Letter About Emergency Contraception by Katha Pollitt and Jennifer Baumgardner The one thing that activists on every side of the abortion debate agree on is that we should reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. There are 3 million unintended pregnancies each year in the United States; around 1.4 million of them end in abortion. Yet the best tool for reducing unwanted pregnancies has only been used by 2 percent of all adult women in the United States and only 11 percent of us know enough about it to be able to use it. No, we aren't talking about abstinence--we mean something that works! The tool is EC, which stands for Emergency Contraception (and is also known as the Morning After Pill). For thirty years, doctors have dispensed EC off label in the form of a handful of daily birth control pills. Meanwhile, many women have taken matters into their own hands by popping a handful themselves after one of those nights--you know, when the condom broke or the diaphragm slipped or for whatever reason you had unprotected sex. Preven (on the market since 1998) and Plan B (approved in 1999), the dedicated forms of EC, operate essentially as a higher-dose version of the Pill, compressed into two tablets. The first dose is taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex, the second pill is taken 12 hours later. EC is at least 75 percent effective in preventing an unwanted pregnancy after sex by interrupting ovulation, fertilization, and implantation of the egg. If you are sexually active, or even if you're not right now, you should have a dose of EC on hand. It's less anxiety-producing than waiting around to see if you miss your period; much easier, cheaper and more pleasant than having to arrange for a surgical abortion if you end up pregnant and don't want to be. These websites will help you find an EC provider in your area: www.backupyourbirthcontrol.org www.not-2-late.com ec.princeton.edu/providers/index.html Don't wait until you're in a crisis. Your doctor may not be able to see you in time, and other doctors may not want to deal with walk-ins. Many clinics and doctor's offices are closed on weekends and holidays--the most likely times for unprotected sex. If you live in a rural area, the logistical difficulties--finding the doctor, finding the pharmacy that stocks EC--are compounded. Plan ahead! Forward this information to anyone you think may not know about backing up her birth control and print out the info in this e-mail if you want to organize as part of the EC campaign (or do your own thing and let us know about it). Let's make sure we have access to our own hard-won sexual and reproductive freedom! Seven Things You Need to Know About Emergency Contraception #167; EC is easy. A woman takes a dose of EC within 72 hours of unprotected sex, followed by a second dose 12 hours later. #167; EC is legal. #167; EC is safe. It is FDA-approved and supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Women's Association #167; EC is not an abortion. The two pills you take are not RU-486, the abortion pill, which can be taken up to nine weeks into a pregnancy. EC does not work if you are already pregnant and will not harm a developing fetus. Anti-choicers who call EC the abortion pill or chemical abortion also believe birth control pills, IUDs and contraceptive injections are abortions. #167; EC works. It is at least 75 percent effective in preventing an unwanted pregnancy after sex, but before either fertilization or implantation. According to the FDA, EC pills are not effective if the woman is pregnant; they act primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation, and/or by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova (thereby inhibiting fertilization), and/or altering the endometrium (thereby inhibiting implantation). #167; EC has a long shelf life. You can keep your EC on hand for two years, according to the FDA. #167; EC is for women who use birth control. You should back up your birth control by keeping a dose of EC in your medicine cabinet or purse. What You Can Do to Help Forward this e-mail to everyone you know. Post it on lists,
10th Value Theory Conference, CFP
CALL FOR PAPERS 10th ANNUAL MINI-CONFERENCE ON VALUE THEORY Crowne Plaza Manhattan Hotel, February 21-23, 2003 This year we celebrate an important milestone the tenth annual mini-conference of the International Working Group on Value Theory (IWGVT). In the face of an increasingly hostile intellectual and political environment during the last decade, the IWGVT has established itself as a force for academic freedom and critical pluralism within economics, including within radical economics. We invite you to participate. The mini-conference will take place within the Eastern Economic Association (EEA) conference, at the Crowne Plaza Manhattan Hotel, 1605 Broadway, New York City, from February 21 to 23, 2003. The mini-conference will have three main foci: * We celebrate our 10th year. * We strongly encourage graduate students to present papers and participate. * In light of the recent global plunge in share prices, we especially welcome papers that assess the current state and possible future trajectories of the world economy. Other papers consonant with the IWGVTs aims and policies are also welcome. To foster pluralistic and critical dialogue, papers should conform to the IWGVT scholarship guidelines. Our aims, and full instructions on paper submissions including our scholarship guidelines, are discussed in the full version of the Call (attached as a Word document). Abstracts of individual papers are welcome from September 10th onwards. The final deadline for abstracts is November 1, 2002. The final deadline for completed papers is January 20, 2003. Final acceptance is conditional on papers being provided by this deadline. To contact us: For further information, e-mail us ([EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]), or consult our website at www.greenwich.ac.uk/~fa03/iwgvt , which also contains past papers. '03 IWGVT Call.doc Description: MS-Word document
Re: Blandford MSA proposals
Ok. I looked at the Blanford proposal. It is not really worth spending much time on. Single payer (say the Canadian system) is so obviously better. I'll just make a few points. 1) The system he suggests still relies heavily on private insurers. In the U.S. about 30% (almost 1 in 3) health care dollars is spent on administrative costs caused by insured requirements, plus (secondarily) the insurance premium (the difference between dollars paid to insurers and paid out for medical care). 2) He proposes a false dilemma - that paying large amounts for the severely ill does not allow enough for the mythical average person. The Canadian example cotradicts this. Severely ill people in Canada have pretty extensive treatment. Yet people in good health still get their regular checkups paid for , along with repairs to occasional broken leg, treatment of really severe flu and such. One can imangine paying so much for the severely ill that nothing is left for less severe cases. But it is a mental excercise only; there is no evidence that is actually happening in the U.S. or in Canada. 3) Canada is able to use single payer leverage to negotiate lower prices for pharmecueticals. A MSA account system would do nothing to solve the problem of the U.S. paying more for drugs than anyone else in the world. I'm not going to go any further. Debating this kind of personal proposal is a distraction from the real struggle. My energy right is going towards trying to see that Oregon passes measure 23 this November (our own state single payer iniative). I would also be willing to debate against the MSA proposal officially supported by the AMA; this MSA proposal has real political muscle behind it and is worth spending some energy to oppose. ken hanly wrote: If anyone has a critique of these I will forward them to the Healthre list whence it came CHeers, Ken Hanly In my approach to universal health care, www.his.com/robertb/hlthplan.htm I require that there be a mandatory MSA for workers in the same sense as Social Security is mandatory. Some have questioned this mandatory requirement. In looking over the writeup I noticed that I do not explain why I feel that it is a requirement that the MSA be mandatory; so here is an explanation. I would appreciate any comments from the list as to why the MSA should or should not be mandatory. Bob Blandford Alexandria, VA - Why MSA Feature Should be Mandatory The MSA needs to be mandatory because it is desired that the voucher + MSA, together with strongly regulated catastrophic insurance, as much as possible take the place of comprehensive insurance, whether private, medicare, or medicaid. If the MSA is not mandatory, employers will be much more tempted to grant comprehensive insurance as a benefit to their employees, in order that the employees need not draw down their voucher. On the other hand, if the MSA is mandatory, most employers and employees will feel that comprehensive insurance is not necessary. Employers in that case, if they decide to provide any health benefit, will be inclined to contribute extra money to the employees with the proviso that it go into the MSA. It is important that comprehensive insurance not dominate; if it did, then the health market would be suppressed, because third party payments would continue to distort the market. If many employers, especially employers of the middle and upper-middle classes, offered comprehensive insurance; then that paradigm would be seen to be standard and desirable. So advocates for the poor would continue to argue that the poor also should have comprehensive insurance. If, on the other hand, the middle-class get MSA-support from their employers; then the Federal government will be urged to give the same benefit to the poor; enhancing the market. Also, these middle-class people are the ones who will seek out the lowest prices and thus make the market. They also are the people who will make the best use of the information sent back from the federal government to those who use the voucher and MSA to pay bills, thus enhancing market efficiency. (This information feedback is a feature of my approach). I do discuss in the existing writeup that a mandatory MSA is not as radical as it may seem in light of the fact that taxes for Social Security and medicare are mandatory and progressive, and that it is mandatory to pay the taxes which support medicaid. So mandatory MSA is less confiscatory than many other taxes; at least the money goes exclusively for the good of the taxed person. Of course the general, progressive taxes nonetheless pay for the lifetime voucher, yearly use-or-lose voucher, and strongly rationed safety net which are features of my approach. --
Re: Indian questions hi-tech agriculture
What is this supposed drought resistant farming in the US model. There are certain practices that can conserve water etc. but I have never heard of a system that is immune from droughts. As the article shows the US (and parts of Canada) are experiencing some of the worst drought conditions ever. The article says nothing about what these methods are. Where are the documents where the US makes any such claims? The most that can be done is to alleviate drought conditions to some extent. Plains farming has always been Next Year Country. That is a favorite term of Saskachewan farmers for their country. Years of drought, hoppers, disease, but there is always next year. Stoicism and government support are what make Canadian prairie farming drought resistant. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 5:26 AM Subject: [PEN-L:30024] Indian questions hi-tech agriculture INDIAN FOOD AND TRADE ANALYST QUESTIONS U.S PRECISION FARMING AND EFFICACY OF THE AMERICAN MODEL OF FARMING DEVINDER SHARMA: There isn't a time when an educated Indian doesn't search for answers from America --- the dream land for the problems that crop up time and again back home. Whether it is hunger, sustainable agriculture, kick-starting industrial growth, food habits, music, and of course the successful model of economic growth, India must follow the Americans. No wonder, the intelligentsia, the economists and the scientists are always desperate for opportunities to travel and return with a bag full of answers to our multitude of problems. The solutions to India's raging drought --- some call it the worst in recent memory --- which haunts and ravages 12 States, too rests in the way America has managed its crop lands. After all, the United States has put together a drought-mitigation strategy, which has been touted as something that India needs to follow immediately. With hi-tech transformation, American agriculture, we all believe, has become insulated from the vagaries of drought. They apply laser, information technology and huge machines to crop farm land. They use satellite data, electronics and now genetic engineering for what is popularly called precision farming. For Indian agriculture, with its fragmented land holdings, subsistence farming methods, poor productivity and the exploitation of the natural resource base as a consequence have cast serious doubts over the sustainability and viability of the farms. The only escape for the country, we are invariably told by agricultural scientists, is to follow the American model. Such an approach will provide an impeccable drought proofing. And it is primarily for this reason, corporate agriculture is being pushed as the way out from the crisis that afflicts Indian agriculture. By a strange coincidence, America too is faced at present with its worst drought since the days of the great dust bowl of the 1930s. As many as 26 of the 50 American States are reeling under a severe drought, with exceptional drought conditions --- the worst level of drought measured --- prevailing in thirteen states, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. Such is the crop damage that like the drastic reduction expected in rice production this year in India, the U.S. wheat production is anticipated to fall to its lowest levels in nearly 30 years. There couldn't have therefore been a better time to study America's drought coping mechanisms and suggest its replication in a poor developing country like India and for that matter in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It comes as a rude shock. The American agriculture that we all studied in the universities and appreciated has crumbled with one year of severe drought. The drought proofing that we heard so much about the American agriculture appears to be a big farce. It is a known fact that Indian agriculture falters because of its complete dependence on monsoons. But with the kind of industrialization that took place in American agriculture, and with the amount of investments made, we were always told that the U.S. agriculture is not dependent upon rains. Precision farming is the most-efficient farming method that needs to be adopted on a mass scale. At first impression, news reports appearing in the American media looks like emanating from a drought-stricken village in India's hinterland. Till of course you see the dateline. You continue to read in utter disbelief. About 100 desperate farmers and rural residents praying for rain at the St. Patrick parish church in Grand Rapids, Ohio. With hands clasped and eyes cast downward, they seek divine intervention. None of us have control over whether it is going to rain or not, said Sister Christine Pratt, rural life director for the Catholic Diocese of nearby Toledo told Reuters, the wire agency. But the people are praying for
Re: Re: Indian questions hi-tech agriculture
He may mean the proliferation of tube wells, which has brought up a bunch of arsenic laced water in Bangladesh. Other than that, I would draw a blank. On Sun, Sep 08, 2002 at 01:56:11PM -0700, ken hanly wrote: What is this supposed drought resistant farming in the US model. There are certain practices that can conserve water etc. but I have never heard of a system that is immune from droughts. As the article shows the US (and parts of Canada) are experiencing some of the worst drought conditions ever. The article says nothing about what these methods are. Where are the documents where the US makes any such claims? The most that can be done is to alleviate drought conditions to some extent. Plains farming has always been Next Year Country. That is a favorite term of Saskachewan farmers for their country. Years of drought, hoppers, disease, but there is always next year. Stoicism and government support are what make Canadian prairie farming drought resistant. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 5:26 AM Subject: [PEN-L:30024] Indian questions hi-tech agriculture INDIAN FOOD AND TRADE ANALYST QUESTIONS U.S PRECISION FARMING AND EFFICACY OF THE AMERICAN MODEL OF FARMING DEVINDER SHARMA: There isn't a time when an educated Indian doesn't search for answers from America --- the dream land for the problems that crop up time and again back home. Whether it is hunger, sustainable agriculture, kick-starting industrial growth, food habits, music, and of course the successful model of economic growth, India must follow the Americans. No wonder, the intelligentsia, the economists and the scientists are always desperate for opportunities to travel and return with a bag full of answers to our multitude of problems. The solutions to India's raging drought --- some call it the worst in recent memory --- which haunts and ravages 12 States, too rests in the way America has managed its crop lands. After all, the United States has put together a drought-mitigation strategy, which has been touted as something that India needs to follow immediately. With hi-tech transformation, American agriculture, we all believe, has become insulated from the vagaries of drought. They apply laser, information technology and huge machines to crop farm land. They use satellite data, electronics and now genetic engineering for what is popularly called precision farming. For Indian agriculture, with its fragmented land holdings, subsistence farming methods, poor productivity and the exploitation of the natural resource base as a consequence have cast serious doubts over the sustainability and viability of the farms. The only escape for the country, we are invariably told by agricultural scientists, is to follow the American model. Such an approach will provide an impeccable drought proofing. And it is primarily for this reason, corporate agriculture is being pushed as the way out from the crisis that afflicts Indian agriculture. By a strange coincidence, America too is faced at present with its worst drought since the days of the great dust bowl of the 1930s. As many as 26 of the 50 American States are reeling under a severe drought, with exceptional drought conditions --- the worst level of drought measured --- prevailing in thirteen states, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. Such is the crop damage that like the drastic reduction expected in rice production this year in India, the U.S. wheat production is anticipated to fall to its lowest levels in nearly 30 years. There couldn't have therefore been a better time to study America's drought coping mechanisms and suggest its replication in a poor developing country like India and for that matter in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. It comes as a rude shock. The American agriculture that we all studied in the universities and appreciated has crumbled with one year of severe drought. The drought proofing that we heard so much about the American agriculture appears to be a big farce. It is a known fact that Indian agriculture falters because of its complete dependence on monsoons. But with the kind of industrialization that took place in American agriculture, and with the amount of investments made, we were always told that the U.S. agriculture is not dependent upon rains. Precision farming is the most-efficient farming method that needs to be adopted on a mass scale. At first impression, news reports appearing in the American media looks like emanating from a drought-stricken village in India's hinterland. Till of course you see the dateline. You continue to read in utter disbelief. About 100 desperate farmers and rural residents praying for rain at the St. Patrick parish church in Grand
(no subject)
SIGNOFF PEN-L
FW: Duke University Receives Grant to Limit Copyright Expansion
Duke University Receives Grant to Limit Copyright Expansion An anonymous donor has given $1 million to the Duke University Law School to fund efforts to find the correct balance of copyrighted material and that which is available in the public domain. The money will fund a new center that will consider laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and their impact on access to creative work. An official at Duke said the balance between the rights of intellectual property owners and the public domain has in recent years shifted in favor of copyright owners, to the detriment of having a rich culture and an innovative society. CNET, 4 September 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956637.html
Re: FW: Duke University Receives Grant to Limit Copyright Expansion
This is excellent news. I assume that Duke was chosen because James Boyle teaches there. On Mon, Sep 09, 2002 at 09:55:18AM +1200, Bill Rosenberg wrote: Duke University Receives Grant to Limit Copyright Expansion An anonymous donor has given $1 million to the Duke University Law School to fund efforts to find the correct balance of copyrighted material and that which is available in the public domain. The money will fund a new center that will consider laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and their impact on access to creative work. An official at Duke said the balance between the rights of intellectual property owners and the public domain has in recent years shifted in favor of copyright owners, to the detriment of having a rich culture and an innovative society. CNET, 4 September 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1023-956637.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
NC on Iraq
Drain the swamp and there will be no more mosquitoes By attacking Iraq, the US will invite a new wave of terrorist attacks Noam Chomsky Monday September 9, 2002 The Guardian September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the US government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That's all to the good. It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of future atrocities. It may be comforting to pretend that our enemies hate our freedoms, as President Bush stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons. The president is not the first to ask: Why do they hate us? In a staff discussion 44 years ago, President Eisenhower described the campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world], not by the governments but by the people. His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is opposing political or economic progress because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region. Post-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same reasons hold today, compounded with resentment over specific policies. Strikingly, that is even true of privileged, western-oriented sectors in the region. To cite just one recent example: in the August 1 issue of Far Eastern Economic Review, the internationally recognised regional specialist Ahmed Rashid writes that in Pakistan there is growing anger that US support is allowing [Musharraf's] military regime to delay the promise of democracy. Today we do ourselves few favours by choosing to believe that they hate us and hate our freedoms. On the contrary, these are attitudes of people who like Americans and admire much about the US, including its freedoms. What they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to which they too aspire. For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden - for example, about US support for corrupt and brutal regimes, or about the US invasion of Saudi Arabia - have a certain resonance, even among those who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger and frustration, terrorist bands hope to draw support and recruits. We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a terrorist regime. In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet official US definitions of terrorism - that is, when Americans apply the term to enemies. In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington wrote in 1999: While the US regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue states,' in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower ... the single greatest external threat to their societies. Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that, on September 11, for the first time, a western country was subjected on home soil to a horrendous terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of western power. The attack goes far beyond what's sometimes called the retail terror of the IRA, FLN or Red Brigades. The September 11 terrorism elicited harsh condemnation throughout the world and an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims. But with qualifications. An international Gallup poll in late September found little support for a military attack by the US in Afghanistan. In Latin America, the region with the most experience of US intervention, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama. The current campaign of hatred in the Arab world is, of course, also fuelled by US policies toward Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US has provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh military occupation, now in its 35th year. One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to stop refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls for recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in peace and security, including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied territories (perhaps with minor and mutual border adjustments). In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has strengthened Saddam Hussein while leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis - perhaps more people than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history, military analysts John and Karl Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1999. Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have far less credibility than when President Bush Sr was welcoming Saddam as an ally and a trading partner after he had committed his worst brutalities - as in Halabja, where Iraq attacked Kurds with poison gas in 1988. At the time, the murderer Saddam was more dangerous than he is today. As for a US attack against Iraq, no one, including Donald Rumsfeld, can realistically guess
EU vs. the Swiss
EU threat to Swiss tax haven secrecy Charlotte Denny Monday September 9, 2002 The Guardian Switzerland is facing the threat of financial sanctions from the European Union unless it lifts the secrecy cloaking its financial system. Finance ministers, enraged at the refusal to hand over information about EU citizens suspected of tax evasion, agreed this weekend to explore penalties to break the deadlock. People's patience is starting to wear thin, said one British official. There is a determination that this is a serious issue which needs to be addressed. Although Switzerland insists banking secrecy is an ethical principle, it has agreed to hand over information on EU citizens suspected of money laundering or other criminal offences. It refuses to extend this cooperation to tax evasion, which it regards as a civil matter. The Swiss view seems to be that tax evasion is not a crime, but this is our tax and these are our citizens, said the British official. Britain, France, Spain and Germany back tough action if the Swiss continue to hold out. Among the options being con sidered by the European commission is a ban on Swiss citizens investing in the EU. Switzerland has become increasingly isolated on the issue of banking secrecy as the big economies tightened the screws on offshore centres after September 11. Berne now faces the prospect of sanctions from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as the EU. Failure to agree a deal over exchange of information with the Swiss is holding up Europe's new savings regime. The EU has drafted a bill that would require its 15 member states automatically to share information on non-resident savings by the end of this decade. Some EU member states have said they would give up their own banking secrecy only if Switzerland and five other financial centres outside the EU - the United States, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Monaco - were to do the same. The EU hopes for a solution before the end of the year and is therefore running out of time. No date has been set for the next meeting between the commission and Switzerland.
The reluctant imperialists
The reluctant imperialists By Gerard Baker Financial Times, September 8 2002 It must be one of the cruel jokes history plays on the world from time to time that the one good consequence of September 11 was also the quickest to dissipate. Events a year ago produced waves of sympathy for America. Much of it poured forth from predictable sources, albeit in unfamiliar garb - the Queen ordered the guards at Buckingham Palace to play the The Star-Spangled Banner; Nato members invoked Article V in the name of collective defence. But plenty came, too, from some unlikely places. When Iranian mullahs, French editorialists and Chinese Communist party officials rush to express support for Americans, you know something large has happened in international relations. Sadly, the post-mortems on Americaphobia proved premature. The old curse twitched back to life during the initial prosecution of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, as civilian casualties and the treatment of captives unsettled allies. Within months, George W. Bush's axis of evil speech and his support for Israeli suppression of Palestinian violence had nursed it back to full health. Now, with the growing threat of war against Iraq and a new stridency in Washington foreign policy generally, anti-Americanism is as robust as ever. It is important here to disentangle the new from the old. It has been the lot of the world's sole superpower to find itself the object of an odd mixture of fear and contempt for years. If anti-Americanism was in vogue during the perilous years of the cold war, when the US stood as the only reliable bulwark against tyranny, we should not be surprised that it has flourished in an era when there is no such obvious threat. The current resentment also stems from a newer but equally silly dislike of US economic power: the dominance of American companies and products in the world and the pervasive sense of cultural conformity they impose. Silly, because the tautology of free markets is that products (and indeed markets) succeed because people like them. No one ever forced a Frenchman to eat a Big Mac. No Arab leader ever ordered the haunting call of the muezzin to be replaced by the siren squeal of Britney Spears. The prosaic truth is that America is a big, successful economy that exports its success around the world by satisfying the demands of consumers. The bigger and more serious objection to American power today is that, thanks to a combination of post-September 11 insecurity and unrivalled military might, the US is about to embark on a new age of imperial adventurism. The focus, of course, is confrontation with Iraq. But more troubling still, even for some reliable friends of America, is the sense that this may be only phase one of the new global strategy. Indeed what many critics fear is not US failure in Iraq but success attended by bold plans for regime change to roll back unfriendly governments everywhere. This may be too pessimistic a view. It reckons without the aspirations, ideals and plain common sense of the American people. It is worth remembering amid the hysteria that the US is, and has proved itself for a couple of centuries, a reliable democracy and a reluctant imperialist. It is far from clear, for instance, that support for a strategy of reshaping the world is widely shared in the US. So far the most gung-ho proponents of a new realism on Iraq, the Middle East and beyond ranges from Richard Perle on the far right to, well, to Paul Wolfowitz on the far right. The self-reinforcing creed of the neo-conservatives flourished in the shadowy counsels of the Pentagon and the National Security Council for months. But it has not fared too well in the less forgiving light of public discourse in recent weeks. Critics now include old-fashioned isolationists such as Patrick Buchanan and Dick Armey, diplomatist-pragmatists such as Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, former military types such as Chuck Hagel and General Norman Schwarzkopf. And that is just inside the Republican party. There is a range of contrary views out there beyond the American Enterprise Institute and the Weekly Standard; and polls suggest public support for military interventionism is waning fast. It is also worth remembering, amid all the talk of fundamental divides between the US and the rest of the world, that Mr Bush was awarded the 2000 election after a tie. If 286 votes in Florida had been counted the other way, Mr Wolfo- witz and Mr Perle would have been peddling their views in discussions far removed from the Situation Room. Convincing the US public of the need for action is tough, even when that action is not pre- emptive. History suggests Americans do not like to act alone. The enduring genius of America's founders was that it can be devilishly hard for a president to get his way for controversial measures. In 1990, faced with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a crystal-clear breach of international law by a member of the United Nations, it
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Re: EU vs. the Swiss
Some EU member states have said they would give up their own banking secrecy only if Switzerland and five other financial centres outside the EU - the United States, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Monaco - were to do the same. How is the US like these places? And how are they different from offshore, tax-havens like the Caymans, Bermuda, etc? Anyone?
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