Book Rec: Factory Girls

I am in the middle of Factory Girls, a fascinating book about migrants in China:

Factory Girls

The book is a fantastic read. The writer, Leslie Chang, traveled to China and got to know various factory workers, all of whom migrated from small towns into large cities. She wrote about their experiences, and even seamlessly includes her own family's migration to America. The women profiled are incredible human beings, and reading about their lives should be required for every American high school and college student. What struck me most about the migrants is their desire to do anything to move up in society, including enrolling in "white collar" manners classes. Even though the migrants' wages are absolutely meager--about 50 dollars a month--they forge forward, determined to leave their mark in the city. Think Grapes of Wrath, but Chinese-style. Thanks to Jeff E. for the recommendation.

Yahoo (YHOO) Update

Here is the latest on Yahoo (YHOO):

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Yahoo-to-replace-Yang-as-CEO-apf-13601499.html

Mr. Yang is going to step down. Bostock has the easiest decision ever--Susan Decker is right there. She takes over Mr. Yang's spot, and using her position on Berkshire's board, talks to Warren Buffett about a partial sale to Microsoft. Mr. Buffett, of course, knows Bill Gates very well. Mr. Bostock can't possibly screw this up...or can he?

Louis Brandeis

A friend picked up the Brandeis train (courtesy of The Green Bag) last month. Isn't it a beaut?

Brandeis has a special place in my heart for these words:

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect, that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. (OLMSTEAD v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928))

"The right to be let alone." Such beautiful words. Too bad it's just a dissent, and therefore not legally binding.

On Prostitution

Re: sex workers, the keys to legalization seem to be as follows: 

1) criminalize excessive and unwanted solicitation, which allows the workers to avoid coercion; 

2) legalize prostitution, which requires police protection and presence for both customers and workers, furthering increasing the safety of the transaction; 

3) tax the transaction, thereby funding other services, like education as well as the police squads assigned to the "Hamsterdam" districts; 

4) require STD testing and databases of all participants before any activity; 

5) place all districts far, far away from "core" business activity, including K-12 schools; 

6) provide housing dormitories and free health care (in exchange for waiving some privacy rights in order to study physical changes or some other constructive health care purpose, and only when the workers themselves choose to see a doctor for more than the required STD-testing) to ensure that they can save their money (think military-style housing); 

6) require that at least 10% of all earnings be set aside into an irrevocable retirement fund until age 50 and put into a balanced fund; 

7) require 5% of all earnings be put into a liquid account accessible upon exiting the business; 

8) require maximum employment of 15 years (I'm not sure about this step, but the idea is that at some point, just like prison rehabilitation programs, the participants would re-enter "core" societies with marketable skills); 

9) apportion some tax revenue to the workers to decide what to do for communal purposes, allowing an indirect education into economics and politics.

Bonus: Police protection is necessary to prevent trafficking and mafia involvement--the whole point of legalization is to eliminate the underground economy; again, the idea is to shift police resources away from undercover work and targeting the informal economy into protecting consensual behavior; 

You'll notice I included social services, too, but in non-traditional forms--free housing, vocational job training, healthcare, and financial independence.  

You'll notice I want a time limit to get the women and men out of this business eventually. 

Prostitution is not something most people want to do, but it happens, it will always happen, and we must choose where we want our resources to go and whether we want a society that favors above ground or underground systems.  Re: imbalances in power, they exist in almost every single business transaction. Does anyone suggest all results of imbalanced power relationships are automatically immoral? Shouldn't the touchstone of the analysis be voluntary consent, safety for all parties, and fair pay rather than subjective criteria? In other words, shouldn't the analysis center on how to avoid using the worker as a means rather than imposing a legal structure based on subjective criteria, which will only drive the business underground? 

Blue Dog Democrats

The WSJ's November 14 letters section (A16) introduced readers to a Blue Dog Democrat, Jim Cooper. I am a registered Democrat, but am fiscally conservative, which makes me a Blue Dog Democrat.

Rep. Cooper makes the point that the federal government "is still using unaudited cash accounting despite the availability audited, accrual numbers. The federal government is the only large enterprise in the U.S. that is exempted from normal accounting rules. If you want the truth, check out the 'Financial Report of the U.S. Government' (available at http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/)."

That link leads to this one: http://www.fms.treas.gov/frsummary/index.html

A politician who isn't lying, and who's showing us where the truth is? Just doing the former would make him special in Washington, but the latter, too? Bless those Blue Dogs.

Michael Lewis on Wall St Corruption

Michael Lewis always has great stuff:

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom

My favorite parts? Here you go:

In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000...

He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. “They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,” Eisman says.

Oh, the hubris.

Poem: How do you like them apples?

It's the weekend, so not much on the economic front to report. The government might take our tax dollars to give to GM and Ford, but that potential giveaway comes next week. For now, some poetry:

http://paulgoetz101.wordpress.com/2006/11/15/federico-garcia-lorca/ [Broken link]

Same poem, different link:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/gacela-dark-death

Federico Lorca, who wrote the poem above ("Gacela of the Dark Death"), had a fascinating, but sad life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca