From The Becker-Posner Blog, an essay by Richard Posner, Senior Lecturer in Law
.... economist-columnist Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times this past Friday (July 29), entitled "French Family Values," brings into focus important issues of immigration policy, and, more fundamentally, of the different economic and cultural models of the United States and Western Europe. .... Krugman's column does not mention Europe's Muslims, but in defense of the French (more broadly, the European) model, argues that the French have made a good trade -- their average incomes are significantly lower than those of Americans, but they work a good deal less. ... Western Europeans work fewer hours per week, take much longer vacations, and retire earlier. In effect they trade material goods for leisure, a trade that Krugman regards as a sign of high civilization. ....
Krugman's failure to relate the European model to Europe's Muslim problem is telling. To point to the upside of Europe's social model without mentioning the most serious downside is to provide bad advice to our own policymakers. The assimilation of immigrants by the United States, compared to the inability of the European nations to assimilate them -- with potentially catastrophic results for those nations -- is not unrelated to the differences between economic regulation in the United States and Europe. Because the U.S. does not have a generous safety net -- because it is still a nation in which the risk of economic failure is significant -- it tends to attract immigrants who have values conducive to upward economic mobility, including a willingness to conform to the customs and attitudes of their new country. And because the U.S. does not have employment laws that discourage new hiring or restrict labor mobility (geographical or occupational), immigrants can compete for jobs on terms of substantial equality with the existing population. Given the highly competitive character of the U.S. economy, in contrast to the economies of Europe, employers cannot afford to discriminate against able workers merely because they are foreign and perhaps do not yet have a good command of English. By the second generation, most immigrant families are fully assimilated, whatever their religious beliefs or ethnic origins.
In contrast, even in a country such as France that has a declared policy of requiring all immigrants to assimilate, immigrants from alien cultures, such as that of the Islamic world, tend to be marginalized and isolated, even in the second and later generations. .... The European preference for leisure, also supposedly cultural, rests on policy, specifically the employment laws. So too in all likelihood is the difficulty European nations have in assimilating immigrants. The less fluid, less competitive, less market-oriented, and indeed less materialistic (the only color important to businessmen is green) a national economy is, the less opportunity it will provide to alien entrants.
Advocates of the European model point to the pockets of poverty in the United States, but may not realize that poverty cannot be abolished without recourse to measures that produce the social pathologies that we observe in Europe. Social mobility implies the opportunity to fail. If society protects jobs, the employment opportunities of ambitious newcomers are reduced and they may end up at the embittered margin of society. Thus, it is not poverty that breeds extremism; it is social policies intended in part to eradicate poverty that do so, by obstructing exit from minority subcultures. If Muslims in European societies do not feel a part of those societies because public policy does not enable them to compete for the jobs held by non-Muslims -- if instead, excluded from identifying with the culture of the nation in which they reside they perforce identify with the worldwide Muslim culture -- some of them are bound to adopt the extremist views that are common in that culture. The resulting danger to Europe and to the world is not offset by long vacations.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/03/2005 08:17 ||
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Donât think of this as a book review; I havenât read it. Think of it as a teaser trailer â like a preview in the movies.
My wife and I read Bernard Goldbergâs book Bias last year. It made the case for there only being two types of folks, in the eyes of the media â regular folks and conservatives. The best example of this that I remember is when Senators are walking into the Senate for a televised event, we hear (in sonorous tones), âThatâs so-and-so, the conservative Senator from wherever.â But when Kennedy or Kerry walk in, they are announced as âThe senior (or junior) Senator from Massachusetts.â Not âthe very liberalâ, or even âthe liberalâ Senator, just plain âSenatorâ! I think Mr. Goldberg was on to something in that book!
My wife just finished reading Mr. Goldbergâs new book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up American (and Al Franken is #37). I looked through it this morning before breakfast. He starts off with several general categories, like America Bashers, Hollywood Blowhards, TV Schlockmeisters â News Division, and White Collar Thugs. Then we get into the specifics of the list. My wife observed, not all are liberals â but most are. Another observation from Mrs. Bobby - Kerry isn't in the top 100; he hasn't done anything!
As I scanned through the book, there are several names I did not recognize, and the author may spend a few paragraphs explaining his/her significance. For #90 however, Michael Jackson, there is little explanation: âIF I HAVE TO EXPLAIN it to you, you shouldnât be reading this book.â Number 95 â Courtney Love â âHOâ. Iâm not a big fan of Ms. Love. Iâll have to think about it, some.
A few other highlights - #91: Barbara Streisand; #72 Ward Churchill (perhaps the author explains why Ward is so far down his list); #65 Oliver Stone; #52 Markos Moulitsas (I didnât even know who he was until Rantburg); #45 Ken Lay (Enron); #20 Howard Dean; #19 George Soros; #18 Al Gore; #14 Mary Mapes; #12 Dan Rather (the author used to work for Dan â he is prominent in the Bias book); #11 Noam Chomsky (another learning experience for me at the âBurg); #6 Jimmy Carter; #4 âAmerican Pioneerâ Jesse Jackson; #3 Ted Kennedy; and #1 âa full-page picture and with a single quote â âThey are possibly the dumbest people on the planetâ (speaking of his fellow Americans) yes, the one and only Michael Moore.
Looks like a good book.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/03/2005 12:54 ||
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#1
I am currently reading this and it is a really good reference on whos who on the leftand right.
Where are they? Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the supermen of the civil rights establishment â able to leap tall buildings in a single bound to get in front of a picket line. When victim politics calls, the demagogic duo leap into patented action: March. Boycott. Shakedown. Repeat.
But the raging reverends are nowhere to be found as a scandal involving the liberal radio network Air America and a Bronx, N.Y.-based inner city charity for poor children brews. Why the silence? It's all about the Benjamins, as they say.
First, a summary of the financial fiasco that the liberal media won't touch: The New York City Department of Investigation has been probing allegations that officials of the nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and one of its affiliates, Pathways for Youth, approved "significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies." The charities receive large portions of their budgets from local, state and federal government grants. At the center of the controversy is Evan Montvel Cohen, the disgraced former chairman of Air America, who was in charge of the liberal radio network at the same time he was serving as Gloria Wise's director of development.
The New York Sun's David Lombino reported this week that Cohen received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and Air America during his tenure, according to Gloria Wise executive committee President Jeannette Graves. Graves alleges that Cohen funneled $613,000 to himself and Air America without her authorization or knowledge. Other loans were approved by the Gloria Wise executive committee when Cohen claimed he needed money to cover medical expenses for himself and his father. As a result of an ongoing investigation, the city canceled its contracts with both Gloria Wise and Pathways in June â causing a near-shutdown of services to poor minority kids, Alzheimer's patients, and other underprivileged clients until other nonprofit agencies were brought in to take over the old management.
Air America's ever-evolving statements about the controversy have raised more questions than they've answered. After radio industry blogger Brian Maloney (radioequalizer.blogspot.com) called attention to the probe last week, the liberal radio network initially shrugged off corporate responsibility by asserting that its current management, Piquant LLC, "had no involvement whatsoever" with the funds and was "not being investigated." A follow-up statement then revealed that Air America "agreed months ago to fully compensate" Gloria Wise for the loan (despite having "no involvement" with it). Yesterday, Air America host Al Franken acknowledged that Piquant had conducted an internal probe of the matter before the city got involved â and, according to the city, failed to tell authorities about it.
If a conservative radio network had been entangled in a scam to steal from black children to line the pockets of wealthy white con artists, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would already be staging hunger strikes in protest. But both have hefty political and financial stakes in Air America's success â and the big mouths aren't about to badmouth their friends.
Air America's flagship New York City station is housed on Park Avenue at WLIB-AM, owned by Inner City Broadcasting. The company shunted aside its black-themed talk format at WLIB to accommodate Air America. In return, Air America made room for a few minority radio hosts and also entered into lucrative lease management agreements with Inner City Broadcasting, which owns and operates 17 radio stations in five markets. The co-founder of Inner City Broadcasting is New York media mogul Percy Sutton, best known as Malcolm X's lawyer and former Manhattan borough council president. Sutton helped bail Sharpton out after Sharpton was ordered to pay former Dutchess County prosecutor Steven Pagones over the Tawana Brawley race hoax. Sutton also raised and donated money for Sharpton's 2004 presidential bid. Sharpton still broadcasts a Sunday radio show on WLIB. Sutton and Jackson are longtime friends and partners. Sutton served as Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign finance chairman. Jackson has lobbied on Sutton's behalf. Sutton sits on Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund. As original investors, Jackson and his wife reportedly hold more than 23,000 shares in Inner City Broadcasting.
Now you know why there will be no boycotts at Air America headquarters over the possible bilking of poor Bronx children. Race hustlers care about only one color: green.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 09:05 ||
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#1
AAR gets its best ratings when they deviate from network programming. How could they possibly notice if there was a boycott? ;)
#3
I thought Gore launched a TV network recently. I can just imagine the excitement it will generate...that's if anybody can find it on their TV's. ZZZZZzzzzzz....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
