Free Frank Warner

Don't Democrats pay their taxes unless they're nominated for public office?

I know most do. But Timothy Geithner and Tom Daschle make you wonder what's going on out there.

Frank Warner

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Update: Ha! Scrappleface has the same idea, but funnier.

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THE LIST OF DEMOCRATS WITH ETHICS PROBLEMS:

Timothy Geithner.

Tom Daschle.

Hilda Solis.

Nancy Killefer.

Bill Richardson.

Leon Panetta.

Ron Sims.

William Lynn.

Rahm Emanuel.

And then there are Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Al Franken, Rod Blagojevich, William Jefferson, Charlie Rangel, Marion Barry, John Murtha, Roland Burris.

See also: Update: Careful, Democrats, we're noticing the corruption.

As Iraq calms, American troops’ suicide rate reaches U.S. civilian suicide rate

From 128 to 143 American servicemen took their own lives last year. The numbers indicate that, for the first time since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the suicide rate among U.S. troops has matched the suicide rate of American civilians.

These 2008 military suicides -- up from 106 in 2006 and 115 in 2007 -- came at a time when violence had subsided dramatically in Iraq.

The suicide rate was between 18.1 per 100,000 and 20.2 per 100,000. (The 18.1 to 20.2 range is the result of 15 deaths that still are being investigated as possible suicides.) In the United States, civilian men of comparable ages commit suicide at a rate of 19.2 to 19.5 per 100,000 people. (The New York Times says 19.2; the Army says the 19.5.)

Military-civilian comparison. If the figures are averaged, the military suicide rate is 19.15 and the civilian suicide rate is 19.35.

Summary of averages:

U.S. troops suicide rate: 19.15 per 100,000.

U.S. civilians suicide rate: 19.35 per 100,000.

So last year, Americans in the armed forces were killing themselves about as frequently as their fellow American civilians.

Many of our troops have been under stresses that civilians can never imagine. Many of them have been away from home, in Iraq or Afghanistan, two or three times, possibly 15 months at a time.

Where those stresses have caused the kinds of emotional turmoil and family breakup that can lead to suicide, we have to do everything we can to help these veterans. For one thing, we have to recognize them for their hard and heroic work in liberating Iraq and Afghanistan.

We also might ask why civilians almost always kill themselves at a rate higher than soldiers. Perhaps the Army has lifestyle secrets that could benefit civilians.

Fitting the bias. Remember, in the earlier years of the Iraq war, major news organizations reported military suicides principally as alarming evidence that Iraq should be abandoned to tyranny and more wars. In those years, the news stories usually buried the fact that the military suicide rate was lower than the civilian rate, or failed to report it at all. Why? Possibly because Democratic news editors didn’t want readers to notice that our men in arms were more stable than their civilian peers.

This year, when troop suicides match or slightly exceed civilian suicides, we’re finally presented the military-civilian comparison up front. Why? Because this time, even after the Iraq war has been won, the numbers score a point for the old defeatist reflex, which some Democratic news editors just can’t shake.

Frank Warner

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Update: Up to 24 American soldiers committed suicide in January 2009 alone. That is six times the number of military suicides in January 2008, and more than double the military suicide rate of 2008 overall. That high rate is unlikely to continue, but it is good reason to pay closer attention to what our troops are going through.

See also: After a terrible winter [of 2009], U.S. military suicide rate drops.

Note: About 140 GIs killed themselves in 2008, about 12 a month. That was close to the civilian suicide rate for young men.

Update: Military suicides 2009:

January: 31.
February: 28.
March: 22.
April: 10.
May: 16.
June: 9.
July: 8.

Yishai of Israel writes: ‘An Open Letter to A citizen Of Gaza: I Am the Soldier Who Slept In Your Home’

You’ve got to read this. And so should each Palestinian. (I understand that many are reading it.)

Click here if you didn’t click there.

Frank Warner

Mount Redoubt eruption soon? Remember Mount St. Helens volcano

The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska could soon erupt, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The observatory’s server is down because of overwhelming interest, but its Web site has a message up saying:

“Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues.”

Mount Redoubt is more than 100 miles southwest of Anchorage. It had a “small” eruption in 1989 and 1990, disrupting air traffic for five months.

On Dec. 15, 1989, the volcano’s airborne ash knocked out all four engines of a KLM Royal Dutch Boeing 747 with 231 passengers. After a terrifying 2-mile freefall, the crew fortunately was able to re-start the engines and land safely, barely able to see through what appeared to be a “sandblasted” windshield.

Rising seismicity. Mount Redoubt’s “seismicity” has been well above background levels since Nov. 5, and reached an alarming level five days ago.

When Mount St. Helens was rumbling in Washington State in April and May of 1980, a few area residents refused to believe the U.S. Geological Service could predict an eruption. Well, it erupted May 18, 1980, and 57 people died, most prominently Harry R. Truman, the 83-year-old local innkeeper who had made a big deal on TV about how the threat was “overexaggerated.”

If you’re near Mount Redoubt, let’s have no re-doubts. Get your flashlights, dust masks and goggles. And when the USGS says run, run!

Frank Warner

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Update: Mount Redoubt erupted on March 22, 2009.

Black people finally free to seek power in Iraq

In tomorrow’s Iraqi elections, Salah al-Rekhayis is running for a seat on Basra’s provincial council.

Al-Rekhayis is black.

The Associated Press reports:

Al-Rekhayis is one of an estimated two million Iraqis who have African roots — and one of only 800 in his town. According to al-Rekhayis, his people have never been allowed to run in any Iraqi elections, or to hold important executive positions of power in either political or corporate areas of the country. Until now.

Remember, certain Americans didn’t want to free al-Rekhayis or any other Iraqi.

Al-Rekhayis says President Obama’s recent election in America inspired him to run for office. Let’s hope al-Rekhayis’ audacity of hope inspires Obama to protect Iraq’s hard-won democracy.

Frank Warner

Alice Rivlin: Vote once now on the real stimulus, vote again much later on all that other crap in the bill

Alice M. Rivlin, once President Clinton’s budget director, has noticed with alarm that the $820 billion “stimulus” bill has too little in the way of immediate stimulus, and too much in the way of mindless spending that is unlikely to help us out of the recession.

She diplomatically labels as “long-term investment” the bill’s mountain of spending measures that would not kick in for years, if ever. Rivlin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, speaks for me when she says:

“Such a long-term investment program should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package. The elements of the investment program must be carefully planned and will not create many jobs right away.”

“[The risk is that] money will be wasted because the investment elements were not carefully crafted.”

Sloppily unfocused. The Washington Post adds:

For some House Democrats, the problem is less a matter of balancing the short and long term than a shortage of focus and will on the part of the administration. Their disappointment centers on the relatively small amount devoted to long-lasting infrastructure investments in favor of spending on a long list of government programs. While each serves a purpose, the critics say, they add up to less than the sum of their parts, and fall far short of the transformative New Deal-like vision many of them had entertained.

The bill to be voted on today includes $30 billion for roads and bridges, $9 billion for public transit and $1 billion for inter-city rail -- less than 5 percent of the package’s total spending.

$500 billion waste. Again, 5 percent for quick-started projects and maybe 33 percent for dubiously designed tax cuts. That leaves $500 billion -- half a freakin’ trillion dollars -- wasted. That’s what Rivlin wants separated out.

I’d rather see a temporary tax credit giving consumers a break for buying a new car or a new refrigerator or home repairs this year. A tax credit like that would draw people out of their houses and stir economic activity.

But the $500 billion in proposed spending that Rivlin frowns on is more likely to become an unmanageable debt burden than a down payment on prosperity.

Frank Warner

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See also: Economists Cole and Ohanian on lessons of the New Deal: Today’s recovery has to include more competition, tax incentives, wiser bank regulation and better education for all.

See also: Economist Martin Feldstein: Wait a month or two to avoid ‘stimulus’ mistake.

See also: ‘Stimulus’ bill: Some economists ignore all data.

See also: The ‘stimulus’ bill looks like a bad last bet.

See also: Larry Summers rules: Stimulus must be ‘timely, targeted, temporary.’

Heat is on Obama

I don’t mind if President Obama keeps the Oval Office so hot “you could grow orchids in there.” But excuse me if I shake my head.

Frank Warner

‘Stimulus’ bill: Some economists ignore all data

This scared me.

It’s a revealing statement by John Cochrane, University of Chicago finance professor:

“Some economists tell me, ‘Yes, all our models, data, and analysis for the last 40 years say fiscal stimulus doesn’t work, but don’t you really believe it anyway?’ This is an astonishing attitude. How can a scientist ‘believe’ something different than what he or she spends a career writing and teaching? At a minimum policy-makers shouldn’t put much weight on such ‘beliefs,’ since they explicitly don’t represent expert scientific inquiry.”

It’s more of the old Democratic faith-based policy. Do nothing sensible and then pray for a miracle.

Come on, Democrats, give yourselves the best chance of success. Do this right.

Frank Warner

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See also: Alice Rivlin: Vote once now on the real stimulus, vote again much later on all that other crap in the bill.

See also: Harvard economist Robert Barro on ‘stimulus’ bill: Peacetime government spending is almost zero boost to economy.

See also: Economist Martin Feldstein: Wait a month or two to avoid ‘stimulus’ mistake.

See also: ‘Stimulus’ bill: Some economists ignore all data.

See also: The ‘stimulus’ bill looks like a bad last bet.

See also: Larry Summers rules: Stimulus must be ‘timely, targeted, temporary.’

Economist Martin Feldstein: Wait a month or two to avoid ‘stimulus’ mistake

Martin Feldstein has excellent credentials as a Harvard economist, and he is calling the current “stimulus” bill “an $800 billion mistake.”

Feldstein says even the tax cuts in the legislation are poorly designed. His alternative:

Instead, the tax changes should focus on providing incentives to households and businesses to increase current spending. Why not a temporary refundable tax credit to households that purchase cars or other major consumer durables, analogous to the investment tax credit for businesses? Or a temporary tax credit for home improvements? In that way, the same total tax reduction could produce much more spending and employment.

Postponing the scheduled increase in the tax on dividends and capital gains would raise share prices, leading to increased consumer spending and, by lowering the cost of capital, more business investment.

He also is unimpressed with the spending side of the bill, which includes an extraordinarily long and expensive list of projects, programs and bail-outs that just lay there, doing nothing for years, or doing nothing ever.

If rapid spending on things that need to be done is a criterion of choice, the plan should include higher defense outlays, including replacing and repairing supplies and equipment, needed after five years of fighting. The military can increase its level of procurement very rapidly. Yet the proposed spending plan includes less than $5 billion for defense, only about one-half of 1 percent of the total package. …

All new spending and tax changes should have explicit time limits that prevent ever-increasing additions to the national debt. Similarly, spending programs should not create political dynamics that will make them hard to end.

The problem with the current stimulus plan is not that it is too big but that it delivers too little extra employment and income for such a large fiscal deficit. It is worth taking the time to get it right.

Feldstein isn’t alone. The University of Chicago’s Gary Becker, John Cochrane and Kevin Murphy, New York University’s Thomas Sargent, Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, George Mason University’s Don Boudreaux are especially skeptical of the spending plans.

Weirdly, most of the news coverage on this monster of a debt package is focusing on whether Congress is passing it in a bipartisan manner, rather than in an economically effective manner.

The question isn’t whether the bill serves bipartisanship. The question is, considering how we’re borrowing $800 billion for it, will the bill work?

Frank Warner

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See also: Economists Cole and Ohanian on lessons of the New Deal: Today’s recovery has to include more competition, tax incentives, wiser bank regulation and better education for all.

See also: Alice Rivlin: Vote once now on the real stimulus, vote again much later on all that other crap in the bill.

See also: ‘Stimulus’ bill: Some economists ignore all data.

See also: The ‘stimulus’ bill looks like a bad last bet.

See also: Larry Summers rules: Stimulus must be ‘timely, targeted, temporary.’

No miracle: Lucky passengers want to sue US Airways for saving their lives

As I said Jan. 15 when that US Airways Airbus splashed down safely, the real miracle will be if those 150 passengers accept their good luck and don’t sue.

Well, then, there was no miracle on the Hudson.

Sensing a golden opportunity, some of the passengers have hired lawyers to cash in. US Airways saved their lives and gave them $5,000 for their lost luggage, but they want more.

Joe Hart, a salesman from Charlotte who suffered a bloody nose and bruises in the crash, told ‘USA Today’ that he “would like to be made whole for the incident”.

It is too soon after the accident to determine what emotional distress he has suffered, he said.

But he added that on a flight following the crash, he was tense, sweated and “felt every bit of turbulence.”

Oh no! Joe was tense. The plane had lost both engines and Joe was tense. Now he would like to be “made whole.”

Joe, look at your hands, your feet, your nose. Look in the mirror. You are whole, thanks to US Airways having trained pilots like Chesley Sullenberger.

If you sue, Joe, think what it means. It means you’ve punished a company for competence. It means you’ve pushed your luck too far.

Frank Warner