From CBS, “60 Minutes“:

Confronted by Stahl with the fact some prominent people, including the nation’s vice president, are not convinced that global warming is man-made, Gore responds: “You’re talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. “That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off,” he tells Stahl.

That’s not quite as bad as comparing people who disagree with the climate models to Holocaust deniers, but Gore’s comments are still a bullying attempt to shout down people who disagree with him. Probably because he can’t carry the day on the basis of arguments alone…

From the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works: “U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007.”

Well-reasoned column in today’s Wall Street Journal by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), “Regulatory Rethink.” This is a compelling point:

Look closely at unifying and simplifying our regulatory structure, perhaps moving toward a single regulator. In this era of global markets and global actors, we cannot return to the older model of separate businesses with separate regulators. We must consider whether a more unified financial regulatory system could provide more efficient regulation. In our report on maintaining the competitiveness of our financial sector, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I suggested we should look closely at the system now in place in the United Kingdom. They have a single strong, effective financial regulator, focused on results and not rules, with the power to act. Such a regulator would likely have called in Bear Stearns managers and told them to improve their capital position long before the crisis arose, thus avoiding the backdoor action the Fed was forced to take.

Schumer adds a gratuitous knock against the Bush administration’s “hostility” to regulation, even though Treasury has been a consistent advocate of a single regulator for the housing-related GSEs. And the absence of any mention of Sarbanes-Oxley’s excesses jumped out at us.

Still, really good piece.

From the Austin Daily Herald, Minnesota:

In response to manufacturing industry input, Riverland Community College has developed a new certificate in the Industrial Maintenance and Mechanics (IMM) program. The Production Technician I certificate will offer a short, specialized, foundation of manufacturing education and skills that provides students the opportunity to be competitive and successful in entry-level manufacturing production jobs.

Students will take classes related to cutting and drilling machines, small tool usage, gas welding, blueprint reading and jigs and fixtures along with an introductory computer class and classes in safety and OSHA, workplace human relations, technical math and quality and productivity improvement.

Riverland’s complete news release is available here.

Austin is the home to Hormel Foods, by the way, a fine manufacturer that creates lots of wealth and jobs in that part of Minnesota.

April Fools Day is just around the corner, and with it, the application day for H1-B visas:

WASHINGTON – Oracle, Microsoft and other tech companies, joined by business leaders in New York and Washington, are making a new push for an increase in visas for skilled workers. But they conceded Thursday they face difficult odds in Congress.

Robert Hoffman, an Oracle vice president, predicted that applications for next Tuesday’s H-1B visa lottery will quickly exceed the 65,000 available slots, with winners determined by a random process that ignores market needs and economic benefits.

Last year, the 65,000 cap was reached on the first day of applications.

Under this “surreal system,” Hoffman said, a fashion model (the next Heidi Klum) will have the same chance at a visa as a tech entrepreneur (the next Andy Grove) who generates jobs.

And remember, putting H-1B visa recipients to work in the United States helps create more jobs for American workers, too.

And if visa reforms mean we have to take a few more Heidi Klums, it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make.

We’re always on guard against new laws and regulations creating unintended consequences that take a whack at manufacturers and the economy, but when Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity considers the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade scheme, he sees a lot of intended consequences. Kerpen cites the NAM-ACCF commissioned study on S. 2191, America’s Climate Security Act, which projects inflation-adjusted costs including 3 to 4 million fewer jobs, $4,022 to $6,752 in lost household income, an annual hit to GDP of between $631 billion and $669 billion, and higher energy prices — 60 percent to 144 percent higher for gasoline and 77 percent to 129 percent higher for electricity. From “Bad Times for Green Schemes“:

But these costs are not unfortunate side effects of the bill; they are intended effects. The bill’s key regulatory scheme is called “cap and trade,” which is a complicated, indirect way of levying an energy tax. Instead of charging a set amount for carbon-dioxide emissions, the government would sell a fixed number of permits, with prices set at auction and then determined by trading on Wall Street. This has all the costs of a tax, with price uncertainty and administrative costs thrown in.

Al Gore acknowledged that the House-sponsored energy tax of 1993, which he championed as vice president, contributed to Democratic congressional defeats. Yet while the cap-and-trade scheme helps hide the tax from voters, its purpose remains the same: Make energy much more expensive so that people use less of it.

Meanwhile, cap-and-trade has failed in Europe to achieve its goals, and even if successful, does anyone seriously believe such a program would do anything to curb supposed global warming?

Better to encourage the prosperity that allows the developed world to afford to address the environment, Kerpen argues.

Was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles,” but then, everybody knows that. It’s the quintessential pop culture trivia question.

Some 26 years later, a trio of high-school kids busked their own version, featuring a standing bass, a harp, and, what is that instrument? A Fender mini? Anyway, an amusing performance by The Wrong Trousers. (Not Roy Pearson’s, we hope.)

And since we’re featuring strumming small-sized string instruments, here’s a bonus link to an .mp3 of Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields doing “This Little Ukulele,” an in-studio performance at Fair Game with Faith Salie. No distortion. Because this little ukulele tells the truth.

A new analysis out by the Tax Foundation, “Tax Freedom Day® to Arrive April 23 in 2008.” Subhed: America Will Work Three Days Less to Pay Taxes in 2008 than in 2007; Stimulus Rebates Push Date of Celebration Up

The full study is here.

Since we’re citing James Pethokoukis of US News today, we appreciated his response to this bit of unnecessary glumness.

This is the most downbeat thing I read today. From the Wall Street Journal:

“We have to accept that this is no longer a nation of 4% real economic growth. This is a mature nation that no longer has a strong manufacturing base,” says Steve Leuthold, chairman of Leuthold Weeden Research in Minneapolis.

My take: The last time I heard this talk was back in the mid-’90s, right before the economy turned on the jets. Back then, the common wisdom was that the economy could grow no faster than 2.5 percent a year or so. Here is a bit from a 1996 New York Times story on the topic:

History and circumstance, in sum, have locked the United States into a level of economic growth that, measured against expectations raised by the 1996 Presidential campaign, is politically unacceptable. “It might be good for our politics if some candidates acknowledged this,” said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a Republican strategist, addressing an issue that most politicians don’t, in public.

I might buy into this theory today if it looked to me that the U.S. economy was already optimized for speed. But it clearly isn’t, not with the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, for instance, or a healthcare system that is a terrible burden on employers. Now is no time to give up on growth.

Right you are, James.

Suppose there’s always a Club of Rome constituency out there, at least among the media and think tank crowds, but the record of economic pessimism is a notoriously bad one. And the record of politicians who embrace that pessmism is even worse.

Ambassador Susan Schwab talks to James Pethokoukis of U.S. News on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Why is the Colombian agreement such a big deal for the White House? If Colombia were a state, given the size of its economy, it would just be Iowa. Take a look at Caterpillar. If you talk to Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, he will tell you that the Peru and Colombia markets combined are bigger for Caterpillar than either the Japanese market or the German market or the U.K. market. And why is that? You’ve got a lot of extractive industries in that region. But that’s real money, and that’s U.S. jobs.

If the agreement levels the playing field between the two nations, why is there so much criticism of it? Good question. Certainly not because of the substance. It was probably best expressed by [House Ways and Means Committee] Chairman [Charles] Rangel, who said, “It’s not the substance on the ground—it’s the politics in the air.” Anyone who has looked at this agreement knows that by any definition it is in the U.S. national interest. It is in our economic and commercial interest. It is in our national security interest. It is in our geopolitical interest. It is a win-win for both the U.S. and Colombia. I mean, there is no rational explanation for any member of Congress to vote “No.” This agreement is virtually identical to the Peru agreement, which was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

Along with signs of spring, once again there are signs the global trade negotiations known as the “Doha Round,” may have a chance to be wrapped up this year. That would be good, because the talks have been going on for seven years, basically focused on agriculture – which is only 7 percent of world trade. Manufactured goods account for about 2/3 of world trade and services for about 20 percent. But the negotiations on these two sectors haven’t gotten very far.

It would be great to see a sudden burst of progress, particularly from the advanced developed countries such as Brazil, China, and India. These and other advanced developing countries collect about 70 percent of all the tariffs on industrial goods in the whole world. You simply cannot see a meaningful expansion of trade without these countries making significant cuts in the tariffs they actually assess – not the theoretical “list price” tariffs that nobody charges.

But unless the cuts are significant, there is little point in wrapping up the negotiations just to get them done this year. And it is not just tariff cuts that are needed. The U.S. auto industry has a great proposal on the table for slashing hidden “non-tariff barriers” around the world. We only do one of these trade rounds every 20 years or so, and as the Chief U.S. negotiator, Ambassador Susan Schwab, put it – if you can’t get substantial new trade flows, “why bother?”

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