Taxpayers on the Hook for Public Pensions

From WSJ (July 6, 2009, Andrew Biggs):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124683573382697889.html

[E]conomists Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua Rauh calculate that, even prior to the market collapse, public pensions were actually short by nearly $2 trillion. That's nearly $87,000 per plan participant. With employee benefits guaranteed by law and sometimes even by state constitutions, it's likely these gargantuan shortfalls will have to be borne by unsuspecting taxpayers.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Palm Beach Post Gets it Right

Congratulations to the Palm Beach Post for doing the right thing. Its headline on July 5, 2009: "No bailout for Madoff's investors." Full opinion here:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2009/07/05/a22a_thought_0705.html

Back in the day, we would call this journalistic integrity. Hope the Wall Street Journal gets a copy.

Movie Recommendation: Au Revoir Les Enfants

I just watched Au Revoir Les Enfants, a 1987 docu-drama about a Catholic boys' school in Nazi-occupied France. Many WWII films are melodramatic or make the war into a typical American tale where the good guys win.

In contrast, Au Revoir Les Enfants avoids all melodrama. Its beauty comes from its stunning realism of the war and its victims. Au revoir gains a lasting imprint in the viewer's psyche because of its understated simplicity. I recommend the film. (4 out of 5 stars)

Bonus: if you haven't seen the Hobart Shakespeareans (2004), you are missing out. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. The documentary follows an elementary school teacher and his class of inner-city, immigrant students as they learn Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and other famous authors. Special appearance by Sir Ian McKellen.

Wisdom

Robert Haas, from the WSJ, 06/27/09:

In his 1980 Nobel acceptance speech, [Czeslaw] Milosz said something similar: "Those who are alive receive a mandate from those who are silent forever. They can fulfill their duties only by trying to reconstruct precisely things as they were, and by wresting the past from fictions and legends."

Happy 4th of July

A high school teacher once call me a rabblerouser. Jim Hightower's 4th of July article reminded of my former teacher's unintentional compliment:

http://www.alternet.org/story/141055/this_july_4th%2C_rebel_and_agitate_for_change

Agitators created America, and it's their feisty spirit and outright rebelliousness that we celebrate on our national holiday.

Website Promotes Government Transparency

This is a great website that promotes government transparency:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/

Here is the link to what I call the "Madoff Investors' Bailout Bill":

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2798

When May a Judge Take Away a Citizen's Passport?

An interesting court decision was handed down by an Israeli judge in February 2009:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097217.html

Sometimes, I think about whether America should have mandatory military service. Perhaps if more Americans served in the military and were at risk for deployment, our government would use the military option less. At the same time, the development of unmanned "killer" drones seems to be making war less risky, less human, and more one-sided.

As for Yaniv David Harel's case, I don't know how I would have ruled. The judge may not have adequately considered that fact that Mr. Harel wasn't goofing off when he requested the second extension:

He [Mr. Harel] offered to volunteer as a doctor in the medical corps and serve in the standing army, the same way some conscripts are sent to university by the army and then serve a longer time than regular inductees...[After the Israeli military refused,] Harel decided to finish medical school at Columbia University in New York.

I hope everything works out for Mr. Harel.