Check out this excellent Cato Institute website that allows you to evaluate the voting record of each member of the past six sessions of Congress on free trade issues.
Rate Congress on free trade
Reply
Author Archives: Tom
"The sand trap from hell"
Don’t miss this entertaining José de Córdoba/W$J article on the dour legacy of golf in Communist Cuba and the attempt to revive the game to attract more tourism. Turns out that the game flagged in Cuba after Che’ Guevara kicked Fidel Castro’s ass in a big golf game shortly after Castro seized power:
In 1962, Mr. Castro lost a round of golf to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had been a caddy in his Argentine hometown before he became a guerrilla icon. Mr. Castro’s defeat may have had disastrous consequences for the sport. He had one Havana golf course turned into a military school, another into an art school. A journalist who wrote about the defeat of Cuba’s Maximum Leader, who was a notoriously bad loser, was fired the next day. [. . .]
The famous game between Messrs. Castro and Guevara took place shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to José Lorenzo Fuentes, Mr. Castro’s former personal scribe, who covered the game. Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says the match was supposed to send a friendly signal to President Kennedy. "Castro told me that the headline of the story the next day would be ‘President Castro challenges President Kennedy to a friendly game of golf,’" he says.
But the game became a competitive affair between two men who did not like to lose, says Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes, who recalls that Mr. Guevara "played with a lot of passion." Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says he felt he couldn’t lie about the game’s outcome, so he wrote a newspaper story saying Fidel had lost. Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says he lost his job the next day, eventually fell afoul of the regime and now lives in Miami.
At any rate, Raul Castro has jumped started efforts to rebuild Cuba’s golf infrastructure for tourism purposes. But it’s not going to be easy. First, there is that whole "private property is a bad thing" problem:
To make golf tourism work, Cuba, which does not recognize the right to buy and sell property, will have to permit leases of as long as 75 years for foreigners, to entice them to invest in the villas and condos on which modern golf development depends. Some believe those leases are the tip of the spear that will, over time, reinstate full property rights. [. . .]
If history is any guide, bringing back golf won’t be easy. "Cuba is the sand trap from hell," says John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, who has followed the travails of entrepreneurs trying to develop golf projects in Cuba.
On the other hand, given how the U.S. golf industry is going, maybe investing in the sand trap from hell is not looking all that bad.
Speaking of Cuba, don’t miss this Michael Stasny post (with pictures) on his recent trip to Cuba. He notes at the end of the post:
Cubans don’t have access to "world news" (no foreign newspapers, no internet, no satellite dishes), so the people I talked with were actually quite happy with their situation ("We don’t earn much, but as opposed to other countries education and health care is for free!" (translation mine)) and couldn’t see that people in developed countries who are considered as dirt poor have a way higher living standard (I didn’t have the impression that they were afraid to speak openly).
The rest of the trip I stayed on the beach in Varadero, a tourist zone that is closed for Cubans (only those who work there can enter). The hotel was really nice (Iberostar Varadero) and the service was excellent. In case you like being on the beach and food and a fast and cheap internet connection isn’t your highest priority, it’s the place to be.
Thoughts on Rusty and Pettitte
This earlier post was one of the first to express reservations regarding Rusty Hardin’s handling of Roger Clemens’ defense to the allegations contained in the Mitchell Commission Report (previous posts here) and aftermath, but my reservations are nothing compared to those of Minneapolis attorney Ron Rosenbaum:
No one can really explain the strategy followed here," says Ron Rosenbaum, a local attorney and former talk-radio host on KSTP-AM, a station that still features him all too occasionally. "It strikes me as insane." [. . .]
"There’s a difference of opinion in this town, but from the very beginning I thought this was a textbook case of how to not handle a legal situation like this," Rosenbaum says of his fellow lawyer, adding with incredulity that Hardin would allow Clemens to submit himself to a lie detector test, which the pitcher has said he would take. "At the end of the day, all you can do is recommend advice as an attorney. You can’t tell your client directly what to do."
Rosenbaum is even harder on Clemens, who he characterizes as an ego-driven "buffoon."
I know Hardin, who is a first-rate trial attorney. Thus, unlike Rosenbaum, I’m certain that Hardin has fully advised Clemens in writing of the considerable risks of the strategy that Clemens has undertaken in attempting to defend himself against alleged PED use. Nevertheless, the disastrous Clemens defense strategy to date reminds me of the best advice I used to pass along to young attorneys who I trained: "One of the most difficult, yet important, responsibilities of a good lawyer is to tell a potentially lucrative client ‘No’."
Meanwhile, Clemens’ former teammate and friend, Andy Pettitte, was widely praised across most of the mainstream media (the Chronicle’s Jerome Solomon was a notable exception) for his "honesty" in admitting during a press-conference earlier in the week to use of human growth hormone at several times in the past. Now, I’m not much of one for simplistic morality plays being applied to complex issues such as steroids or other PED use in professional sports and society. Moreover, I certainly don’t approve of the way ballplayers such as Pettitte and Clemens have been filleted publicly while Major League Baseball owners have largely received a pass on their culpability for promoting an almost pathologically competitive MLB culture that promotes use of PED’s and other drugs. Nevertheless, as this C.J. Mahaney post points out, Pettitte’s supposed adherence to his avowed Christian faith during his "confession" leaves much to be desired. Sometimes those simple morality plays aren’t quite as applicable as they first appear.
Hillary’s redemption?
It’s rare that I post on politics two days in a row (or even two times in a week, for that matter), but the meltdown of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been one of those fascinating political developments that simply begs for analysis (yesterday’s post is here).
David Berg, one of Houston’s best trial lawyers and a longtime Democratic Party supporter, provides this insightful op-ed in the Chronicle yesterday explaining why he switched from supporting Clinton to Obama and why Clinton is suffering in comparison to Obama:
I guarantee you, as the oldest living man in America who has actually attended a Hannah Montana concert, my daughter is completely colorblind. From what I have seen of her generation, and that of my grown sons’, that is the norm, not the exception. Racial politics simply won’t work; not this time ó and if all that good will seeps into the wider world ó perhaps never again.
I wish, frankly, that the Clintons, who in many ways helped make Obama’s candidacy possible, could hear firsthand how they let down so many people who cared about them and supported them through many tough years ó how by their divisive tactics they have become the people and politics they deplore.
In short, I wish they could have been there Tuesday night to understand clearly how times and mores have changed and, perhaps, to understand how important it is that a new generation be given a chance.
By the way, on more mundane topics, it appears that Clinton’s management ability is not what her supporters crack it up to be. $11,000 on pizza and $1,200 on Dunkiní Donuts?
Meanwhile, NY Times columnist David Brooks examines the new political syndrome — Obama Comedown Syndrome (a/k/a “OCS”).
Compensation through resort privileges
Check out the renovated digs for the University of Texas baseball team at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin.
Even the most defensible big-time intercollegiate sport is now funneling compensation to its players through “resort privileges.” The renovated locker room at Disch-Falk looks better than most university faculty lounges that I’ve seen.
The oversupply of golf
The numbers of Americans playing tennis regularly has dwindled dramatically over the past two decades. Now, golf is showing signs of suffering a similar fate:
Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America has been in a kind of recession.
The total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third.
The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation. [. . .]
Between 1990 and 2003, developers built more than 3,000 new golf courses in the United States, bringing the total to about 16,000. Several hundred have closed in the last few years, most of them in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina, according to the foundation.
Over the past 20 years or so, many residential real estate developers have used golf courses as magnets to attract home buyers to their developments. The developer is willing to operate the golf club at a loss while developing the subdivision because the increased profit from lot sales easily compensates for the golf club operating loss. The problem develops when the developer finishes selling lots and is ready to turnover the club either to a professional golf club management company or the residents themselves. Without a legacy of profitable operations absent the developer’s subsidy, the golf clubs often struggle financially. It’s not an easy syndrome to break.
Bashing the capitalist roaders
Does it appear to anyone else that Hillary Clinton is getting a bit desperate in attempting to salvage her campaign for the Democratic nomination? Get a load of this:
Sen. Hillary Clinton took a swipe at [investment bankers], suggesting wealthy investment bankers and hedge fund managers on Wall Street aren’t doing real ‘work.’ [. . .]
“We also have to reward work more,” Clinton told a small group of Ohio residents today. “and by that, I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives. Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million dollars, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That’s very discouraging to people.” [. . .]
The line about investment fund and hedge fund managers has been introduced into Clinton’s talking points as she campaigns across the economically struggling state of Ohio.
Investment bankers are certainly an easy target, but Clinton’s statement that they don’t do “real work” is either disingenuous or appallingly ignorant. Would Clinton say such a thing about other financial intermediaries such as real estate brokers? Investment bankers working on multi-billion dollar mergers are not all that different from real estate brokers — they are financial intermediaries who get paid a commission for helping to originate and close deals. In short, they are being paid a fee for arranging a transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller.
And believe me, for anyone who has ever seen investment bankers work a deal, it’s definitely hard work. Finding potential buyers and sellers, persuading them to become involved in a transaction, and making the deal happen amidst the myriad of risks that could undermine it is not a cakewalk. Long hours, the ability to deal with rejection, the uncertainty of the fee until the deal closes, grinding travel and pressurized work conditions are just a few of the hardships that investment bankers endure.
Inasmuch as such work is hard, it’s not for everybody. Thus, with really good investment bankers in short supply, they can command high compensation. And the good ones are well worth it. Where else will a seller or buyer find someone with a comprehensive list of direct contacts among potential parties to a transaction and extensive experience getting difficult deals closed? A principal to a transaction is simply renting those contacts and experience and, although often expensive, the investment banker is worth every penny if he or she can pull a deal together for the principal.
The foregoing is pretty basic stuff, so it’s alarming that a Senator from a state with more investment bankers than any other would engage in demagoguery over them. John Carney over at Dealbreaker sums up the irony quite well:
“Now being the First Lady for eight years and a Senator from a state in which you’ve never lived, that’s real work.”
And lest the Obama crowd get too over-confident with Clinton’s increasingly bizarre statements, get a load of this performance by Austin lawyer, former Austin mayor and current Texas state senator Kirk Watson, who has endorsed Obama:
Hope for a hog solution?
Texas’ feral hog problem has stymied many a smart scientist over the years, but it appears that the Aggies may have discovered a possible solution(H/T: Craig Malisow)
If you’re a land owner and animals such as coyotes or wild pigs are driving you hog wild, help may soon be on the way to control their numbers in a humane way – in the form of a birth control pill for animals being developed at Texas A and M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. The concept would be to get it to wild animals through baited food, researchers say. [. . .]
n Texas, feral hogs have become a severe nuisance to farmers and ranchers, and the state has an estimated 3-4 million feral hogs, by far the most in the country.
Gig’em Ags!
Looking for other lines of work
So Professor Buser, what did you plan on doing as a side occupation after your expert witness career? Judge Posner wants to know:
Buserís initial report proposed that if permitted by Allmerica to continue its market-timing trading, Emerald would have earned an annual rate of return on its investment
of 34 percent for 20 years, for a discounted present value of $150 million. That was a preposterous estimate, properly excluded by the district judge under Fed. R. Evid. 702. . . .
Buserís first report was so irresponsible as to justify the judgeís decision to exclude the second report summarily. Buser had demonstrated a willingness to abandon the norms of his profession in the interest of his client. Such a person cannot be trusted to continue as an expert witness in the case in which he has demonstrated that willingness, and perhaps not in other cases either.
Maintaining Enron myths
Ever wonder how the mainstream media maintains Enron-related myths?
In reporting on the sentencing hearing later this week in the Enron-related case of the three former UK bankers dubbed “the NatWest Three” (prior posts here), the Chronicle’s Kristen Hays observes the following:
In their plea deals, the trio admitted they committed wire fraud in a scheme with Fastow and his top lieutenant, Michael Kopper, to cheat their former London employer, Greenwich NatWest. The bank, which is now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, had a stake in a Fastow-created partnership and the three men advised their employer to sell that interest for $1 million when they knew its value had grown.
Fastow arranged for Enron to pay more than $19 million for Greenwich NatWest’s stake and divided most of the cash among himself, Kopper, the British bankers and others.
Actually, as noted in this earlier analysis of the NatWest Three plea deal, the following is what the former bankers actually pled to:
So, after years of litigation, the NatWest Three pled guilty to a single count of wire fraud. The basis of the guilty plea is that the three bankers failed to disclose to NatWest the [$250,000] option that they had taken from Fastow to purchase a portion of NatWest’s interest in Swap Sub at the time that NatWest sold that interest to Southampton [for $1 million]. Importantly, the basis of the plea deal is not that the NatWest Three knew and didn’t tell NatWest that the value of the bank’s Swap Sub interest was going to skyrocket soon after Southampton bought it as a result of Fastow completing the unwind transaction with Enron.
Read about the real NatWest Three deal.