ARGUMENT: student writers' co-operative owned by its contributors

Not a restaurant

It is commonly believed that about half of new restaurants in the U.S. fail in the first year. The failure rate among blogs and websites, which can be measured by how long they are neglected for, is probably higher.
This blog does not want to be one of these. Our mission is going to be tough to accomplish without a critical mass of writers, which will attract advertising to this site, the revenue from which we could share and attract more writers...
We've managed to attract writers from Germany, U.K., U.S., Russia, France and India. Our writers' opinions have been echoed the next day by serious commentators and some of our prediction have been proved right. Not a bad effort for some 30 posts. But we really don't want to stop. We're still looking for some good fiction writing (though we've had to turn down two pieces).
Right now our only expense is a monthly payment to Typepad. There are no student discounts.
We aren't asking for you change, but do ask you to share with us your argument.

An old debate amid violence

In the last month we have all read new reports on hundreds of rockets being fired into Sderot and Ashkelon, then on a vengeful and bloody Israeli counter-attack in Gaza and just recently on a appalling murder in a Jerusalem yeshivot.
When human lives are lost every minute, we transform them into aggregate numbers over set periods of time, but still struggle to keep track of them. How can we continue debate, when a child's life can silence any argument?
We already know that when leaders make any short-term decisions, they move further away from peace. To make a long-standing commitment to dialogue, negotiation and respect,is to have a chance to move forward.
Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Michael Walzer and Avishai Margalit, who are perhaps some of the best known intellectuals (as there isn't a common profession to them), set a wonderful example of intelligent debate on the Middle East on the pages of New York Review of Books 24 years ago.
Let's keep it going.

The few that are great

It is difficult to become a political leader, it is more difficult to be remembered as a great political leader, but it is even more difficult to step down as leader. How astonishing to see that the men, who transformed their countries and governments for many generations and who will be remembered or even venerated, can stand up from their chairs and humbly resign.
The great reformers, who resign, exhibit remarkable honesty of their intentions and their unconditional belief in freedom and peace. Power doesn't even matter to them, their truth does. Nelson Mandela refused to run for his second office in 1999 and was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. Boris Yeltsin, as controversial as his presidency may have been, followed Mandela's example later that year and relinquished his power just as Russia's growth (and oil prices) picked up. (The membership to this club is strict. Fidel Castro, by the way, cannot be admitted as he not held on to power for almost fifty years and passed it on to his brother.)
Ian Paisley isn't as saintly as Mandela or as reforming as Yeltsin (and hasn't ruled as long as Fidel). But he ended the violence in Northern Ireland by sharing power with his greatest enemy, and now he's given it up completely. The system he created will survive him - and to a great reformer nothing else matters.

Don't expect a result

Some political journalists, who are covering the Democratic Party nomination, would do much better as boxing commentators. They seem to have an obsession with a "knock-out blow" without which, as in a boxing match, the race will lose its special ingredient.
There were three wrong predictions of technical knock-outs. The first one was Iowa. Several commentators suggested that whoever won Iowa would have the inertia and the media attention to sail to nomination. But, despite taking the first hit, Hillary Clinton clenched her fists, wiped the blood and recovered admirably. The second one was Super Tuesday. This time, despite the close polls, many pundits still claimed that whoever won would be unstoppable. Although Barack Obama got a heavy right hook, he got up, shook his head and delivered another eleven spectacular rounds.
Ohio and Texas is not going to be round twelve, as some politicians and commentators have already suggested. It is true that Clinton needs to do well in order to slow Obama down, gain more media attention and boost the morale of her supporters. It is probably unwise to listen to Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, who said,

I just think that D-Day is Tuesday

because it's really not.
Associated Press estimates that Obama has secured 1,385 delegates and Clinton has 1,276. Even if Obama wins all of the 370 delegates, putting him at 1,775, Clinton, like Mike Huckabee, should still continue to fight.
The race will only be exciting when it is close (see our article on Russian elections). If Clinton doesn't manage to charm enough voters, she may be able to charm enough unpledged delegates at the Convention.

P.S. Hillary Clinton reads this magazine. Today (4 March 2008) the New York Times quotes her, saying:

You know this is a long process

She can hope it will be.

No Country for Old Men

You obviously want to go and see “No Country for Old Men”, a new film by the Coen brothers, based on a recent Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. It is rough, manly story with money, guns and desert, but not, of course, about them.
The critics have received the film warmly and it went on to win four Oscars. After watching the trailer, the reasons for watching his film multiply like bacteria in a warm, moist dish. We see Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), playing, who every other critic described as “absolute evil.” We see long, drawn-out sequences of bloodstained drug-dealers in a Texan desert. We see several murders, or whatever leads to them. But we are still hungry for reasons.
To retell the plot in a paragraph here is probably not fair, because it may cause unjust misunderstanding of the essence of the film. From a dramatic point of view, it is hardly a primitive, but rather a risky plot. Half-way through the film we realise that the main character is tied in tight bloody knot and is something less than just a pawn in somebody else’s game. However much he may resist it, Llewelyn Moss’s (Josh Brolin) life ended at the moment he finds the money-filled satchel in the desert. This film doesn’t need the necessary feature of weak films – the creation of suspense. The heavy inevitability, unpredictable as a coin toss, dawns gradually upon every character and most importantly on the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones), caught in a Kafkaesque chase, carries no pretence of trickery. It is a country for men.
It is probably the manliest film I’ve seen. Three hundred Spartans can go back to boot camp. The simple musical score appears in only one scene before the credits. This allows us to hear every unexpected shot and watch every wound bleed. Moss, cornered and desperate, never asks for help but quietly continues to survive.
In an exceptionally brilliant scene, Moss is sitting in dark room, holding a shotgun. He stares at the door behind which (we know) is Chigurh, but Moss’s eyes are frozen in tension. "Please don't do this, " say all his victims, but Moss doesn't. He is calm, even after the entire room falls into darkness, but the faster beeping of Chigurh's tracking device gradually accelerates your heart rate. The next second your heart and brain would be racing each other to calm your nerves.
The entire film, like a container of compressed air, is powerful and unavoidable. The Coens probably don’t regret taking more risks than any but few Hollywood directors. Risk watching it and you won’t regret either.

Small Numbers

In 2004 Vladimir Putin, running for the re-election as Russia's president won 71.2% of the vote. 64.3% of registered voters cast ballots, which means that 45.8% of the electorate actively supported Putin.
According to the B.B.C. Medvedev won 70.23% of the vote at a 69.65% turnout, which means that 48.92% of electorate came out to support him - a higher proportion than Putin's four years ago. In any case, Western leaders should feel very unloved compared to their Russian counterpart.

P.S. This news clip was shown on the state television channel. As Putin is about to vote (have 39 seconds of patience) an old lady runs up to him, who ignores her and then puts his hand on her shoulder. Will we ever know what the lady said? Lev Rubinshtein, a superb Russian essayist, once rightly lamented about the president's patronising attitude towards Russian people.

P.P.S.  52,031,601 people voted (or votes were counted for, you may say) for Medvedev this year compared to a Putin's 49,565,238 in 2004. A steady increase.

War and nothing but the war

The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee will hold a hearing entitled "War at Any Cost? The Total Economic Cost of the War Beyond the Federal Budget" tomorrow, 28 February.
Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001, will be testifying before the committee. Stiglitz, who co-authored a book "The Three Trillion Dollar War" (Allen Lane, also out tomorrow) with a Harvard public policy expert Prof. Linda Bilmes, has attempted to challenge the Congressional Budget Office and the Bush Administration about the costs of the Iraq War. Bilmes testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget in October 2007.
The authors point out that recent C.B.O. estimates failed to take into account future payments to injured and disable veterans, insurance and reconstruction costs and foregone output of killed soldiers. They also expose casualty statistics, which have been previously underestimated by Department of Defense, and episodes of shocking treatment of war veterans. The book comes two years after a much-discussed working paper, although, as Bilmes pointed out at her hearing, the estimates have been substantially revised upwards since then.
Answering a question at a Jewish Book Week event yesterday, Stiglitz pointed out that the U.S. government, which has essentially financed the War through borrowing, will probably afford to continue ground operations in Iraq for some time. However, it is unlikely that the War is going to bring about any of the economic benefits promised before.
An extract of the revealing book has been reproduced by The Times.

P.S. Bob Herbert writing for the New York Times today (4 March 2008) says:

The Bush administration has tried its best to conceal the horrendous costs of the war. It has bypassed the normal budgetary process, financing the war almost entirely through “emergency” appropriations that get far less scrutiny.

He discusses Stiglitz's testimony and quotes him as saying:

Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.

Anyone for change?

Patient statistics

If a drug company tests a drug, it may set up a fair experiment. It will subject a random group of patients to the treatment and another very similar, but random, group to the treatment. If a drug is good, more of those who were treated than those who were not should convalesce.
So, if we have two group of ten people, and in the treated group nine convalesce and in the untreated group one does, then we (and statistics) would safely conclude that the drug is good. But what if five of the treated convalesce and four of the untreated do? Although, the treated group has 'more' recovering patients, it has 'statistically insignificantly more' recovering patients and researcher would doubt the efficacy of the drug. Where do you draw a line?
Statistical significance works out by estimating how often the observed result would indicate a true result. For example, in the first experiment the significance level may be (you can work it out) 90%, meaning that nine times of out ten the results of the experiment would indicate that there was a real difference in recovery rates of the treated and untreated group. The second experiment will have a significance of about 10% percent, meaning nine times out of ten, there is no real difference.
This is exactly the problem with not reporting negative drug studies. Commercial medical researchers use and trust the same tools as statisticians and they don't like to report negative results. By conducting the experiment enough times (and some drug companies manage to cut corners to afford to do so), you will end up with one lucky experiment where the difference between the treated and untreated group is large enough. If you only report this experiment, you will convince researcher and the government that the drug is effective.
European Union must urgently change its legislation to force drug companies to report all trials to avoid another Prozac or Vioxx disaster. The pharmaceutical lobby does not have a case for resistance. If health authorities cannot obtain a full record of trials, they shouldn't pretend that they are protecting patients from harmful drugs.

Jamaican return

Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, has set a precedent, which may see her Christian Democratic Party soon enter into a state and, maybe, a federal coalition with the Green Party. After a poor performance in state election in Hamburg, the Free Democratic Party, a traditional ally of the C.D.U. failed to get into state parliament and in order to secure a ruling majority, the C.D.U. will need to unite with the Green Party.
A working relationship could carry over to the federal election next year and see an establishment of the "Jamaica" coalition - between C.D.U (black), F.D.P. (yellow) and the Green Party (yes) - which several serious commentators, including the Economist, saw as the best option after the last inconclusive election in 2005.
There may be some egos at stake here, but as Spiegel points out, some common ground already been found:

The idea is no longer as outlandish as it used to be. The C.D.U. has become more environmentally conscious under Merkel, while the Greens have shifted a little to the right over the last decade, signing up to painful welfare cuts when they were still in government with the Social Democrats under Gerhard Schröder.

It is difficult to share the optimism of the "phase of experimentation" and the "revival of parliamentary democracy." Coalitions help parties survive and let them rule. Compromises let parties survive and help them rule.

Buying tax

The U.K. government paid a former employee of Liechtenstein's largest bank for data on its citizens, who hold accounts in the onshore tax haven, according to a Sunday Times report (confirmed by H.M. Revenue and Customs).
Most people have realised by now that the British government is unable to keep data on its citizens safe. But it has been thought rather inconceivable that the government has lost so much important data, it would need to buy it from a criminal. Those, who got their hands on (oh) H.M.R.C. data discs a few months ago, may just find that their top customer will be a European government.
Britain is not the only government encouraging criminal data trade in Europe. Germany paid a far larger sum to, apparently, the same criminal for data on its own citizens' accounts in Lichtenstein. Some senior executives, whose houses were raided last week, have already resigned.
But what happens in more equitable, trade-unionist and tax-burdened Germany need not happen in the lightly-regulated U.K. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is already under a lot of pressure to pull back the tough new taxation rules for non-domiciled residents, who have been integral to financial development and employment in London.
Liechtenstein, like only Monaco and Andorra, is an "unco-operative tax haven", according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. By not co-operating, the O.E.C.D. says, Lichtenstein could be breaking accounting and money-laundering standards. The British government has knowingly bought a potential criminal's stolen goods from a convicted criminal for immediate gain.
Tax evasion is a serious issue, but fighting it should not cloud's the government vision of economic growth. The hundred British citizens, whose data the government has just bought, are probably all non-domiciled in the U.K. and therefore not liable to pay tax on foreign income kept away from the Albion in a Liechtenstein bank. The outrageous breach of privacy and loss of trust in the financial system and lawful procedure is going to cost the government more than the tax revenue it will recover.

P.S.  The Guardian reports today (26 February) that H.M.R.C is indeed targeting non-domiciled residents, as well as ordinary citizens, for tax evasion by purchasing the data. This doesn't seem to make much sense. The non-domiciled residents would only keep income, which they earned abroad (the bulk), in Liechtenstein (since it doesn't matter for them where to keep it as long as it is not in the U.K.) and right now they do not get taxed on it anyway. Darling proposed that they from April they pay a fixed levy and not have to declare their foreign income, essentially giving them an incentive to hide their money. He should really stick to one plan.

P.P.S. Bronwen Maddox, writing for The Times, pointed out today (27 February):

But at this point, until the German cases progress, the clearest criminal activity in Liechtenstein is on the part of the employee who sold the secrets and, arguably, on the part of the German and British governments in buying them. Tax havens have few defenders — but neither should criminal behaviour in pursuit of criminals.

Yet few commentators have made a point that by crude measures, such a data theft, big players in the O.E.C.D and the E.U. may destroy the economies of small tax havens.