Jesse Helms Was No Hero

July 12, 2008

OPINION

Jesse Helms Was No Hero

By JUAN WILLIAMS
July 12, 2008; Page A11

In death, Sen. Jesse Helms is being honored as a conservative hero. My question is why?

Yes, the six-term senator defined right-wing political stands against communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and the former Soviet Union. Yes, he blocked international treaties that limited U.S. sovereignty. And, yes, he was masterful in his use of direct mail to stir contributions to conservative causes. But "Senator No" also created an angry, scolding, close-minded face for the modern GOP, exactly opposite to the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan.

Helms did not invite people into the party; to the contrary, he seemed to delight in excluding people and played on the anxieties of rural, older Southern whites. But if the modern Republican Party is to thrive it has to get out the welcome mat for young people, specifically the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population: Hispanics and Asians, as well as younger blacks who are more likely than their elders to be politically independent.

Today's GOP needs white men with college degrees and suburban white women with education, careers and children. Helms was never comfortable with this crowd; his worldview grew out of the experiences of a Depression-era young, white man from North Carolina. And he was too comfortable with the ordered world of racial segregation he knew as a child.

To be sure, for Helms the essence of North Carolina values was keeping taxes low, and fighting against big government. That is a great message. It won him a base of support.

But that base was rural working-class voters and white suburban male voters. He rallied this base by letting everyone know he disliked Chapel Hill intellectuals -- the kind of people who protested for equal rights for blacks and challenged U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He showed no compassion for gays coming out of the closet and women who wanted abortion rights; instead choosing to make them demons threatening family values. And he made blunt use of racial politics.

The most infamous example was in his 1990 Senate campaign against Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte and a black man. Helms ran an ad that showed white hands crumpling a rejection letter while a voice announced: "You needed that job. And you were best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority."

He also played the race card in 1984, in his campaign against Jim Hunt, the former governor and a white centrist in Southern politics. He ran an ad picturing Mr. Hunt with liberal, black leader Jesse Jackson. Helms also proudly reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the U.S. Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor black civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yet, when I, a black writer, asked Helms for an interview in the middle of his 1990 campaign against Gantt, he agreed to it. It took several weeks for him to see me. And the very first thing he asked me was whether I was "going to make a race thing out of this." I told him race had to be a part of the story, which I was writing for the Washington Post, but I did not intend to make it the whole story because I wanted to get to know him.

Helms, a former journalist, walked over to the chair I was sitting in at his Raleigh office, and said his biggest concern was that people "spread all sorts of stories" about him and he wanted me to let him know about any accusations I heard about him.

Well, my reporting found the gay community in a fury about his long opposition to government funding for research on AIDS. There was his stand against the Americans with Disabilities Act, the anger in the arts community over his efforts to deny government funding to supporters of work he considered homoerotic or anti-Christian. And he also told an abortion-rights advocate that he would not allow an exception for rape in his antiabortion legislation because a rape victim could not become pregnant.

When I went back to Helms with these reports he said they were true but lacked his side of the story. He said research indicated that rape victims who went to the hospital had a procedure to prevent pregnancy. Helms said he could not believe that a woman who had been raped would not take such steps.

He also explained to me that he believed art should strengthen love and family and God. Pictures of nude gay men embracing or a crucifix in urine did not fit his understanding of real art. As for his opposition to AIDS research, Helms said his initial attitude about the disease was that it only afflicted homosexuals, and he felt their sexual behavior was the cause of the problem. He was opposed to giving rights to the disabled under the ADA, the senator said, because it was evidence of ever expanding big government interfering in business.

Helms also had an answer to charges that he played racial politics. Helms told me that he had never spoken before the NAACP in North Carolina simply because the group always endorsed Democrats so there was no political benefit to addressing their convention. But he added he regularly met with black constituents who needed individual help from their home-state senator. His opposition to affirmative action, he explained, was a matter of his belief that the best qualified people should always get the job. He did not have much to say about his opposition to the King holiday, except that he was suspicious of people who stirred up racial protests.

This was all done with a sly wink. Helms was smart enough to know he was dancing around with rationalizations, simply for political expediency. He was holding on to the past, even as his state and the nation was changing. Today, North Carolina is a state where a black man can win the Democratic primary for president.

Republican leaders in the Tar Heel State and nationally would be wise to tip their hats to Jesse Helms as a man of the distant past who lived long beyond his political era. But the greatest wisdom will be to resist any temptation to make a hero out of him. The demographic shifts sweeping America mean that the key to building a successful 21st-century GOP will be a decisive turn away from Helms's use of the politics of exclusion.

Mr. Williams is a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News.

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 7/14/2008 5:54:09 PM , 0 comments

Absence of Malice

July 14, 2008

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Absence of Malice
July 14, 2008; Page A16

A regrettable by-product of modern media proliferation is its frequent lack of restraint and good humor, especially on the Web. Tony Snow rose above such vituperation as a happy political combatant, which is one reason so many who knew him or watched him in action are now mourning his death from cancer on Saturday at age 53.

As a columnist and radio talk show host, Snow was principled but never nasty. As the host of "Fox News Sunday," he exuded good will, which made him suspect in the eyes of some on the right (and even among some of his Fox colleagues) who wanted him to be a more ferocious questioner. And as White House press secretary, he cheerfully but forcefully sparred with reporters in making the President's case on policy. No doubt because he was confident in his own convictions, he wasn't defensive about his answers. This has not been universally true during the Bush Presidency.

Above all, he took ideas and politics seriously. He was not one of those commentators, on the right and left, who say things merely to shock, sell books and grab ratings points. He did not call anyone who disagreed with him a "liar." He believed that substance mattered more than who won or lost. In this, he resembled Tim Russert, Snow's former Sunday morning competitor at NBC's "Meet the Press," who also died this summer at too young an age.

Those of us in the media often exaggerate the importance of fellow media figures, especially compared to the contributions of those in less public professions. An example of the latter is Michael DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon who also died on the weekend, at age 99, and whose innovations saved countless lives. But media celebrities do help set the tone for our political discourse, and both Tony Snow and Tim Russert set the right example.

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 7/14/2008 5:49:35 PM , 0 comments

The wrong direction

From The Economist July 5th-11th 2008

John McCain is veering off to the right—and making things too easy for Barack Obama

WHEN more than 80% of Americans tell pollsters that they think the country is on the wrong track, and when only 28% of them believe that the president is doing a good job, you don’t need a Karl Rove or a Dick Morris to tell you that the road to the White House involves steering well clear of the incumbent’s policies. So why is John McCain not doing it?

The Republican candidate has always been close to George Bush when it comes to defending two fundamental, if unpopular, points of principle—the Iraq war and free trade. But in recent months Mr McCain has slid to the right on a series of other issues, including tax cuts, offshore drilling, immigration and even torture. This manoeuvring seems insincere and short-sighted.

Sincerity is important with Mr McCain. He has been at his most attractive, especially to independents such as this newspaper, when he stands up for issues that he believes in. On the Iraq war, his position has been almost Churchillian: victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror. Declaring that he would rather lose an election than a war is paradoxically one of the Republican candidate’s most valuable electoral assets. It makes him sound like a commander-in-chief.

The same goes for Mr McCain’s support for free-trade agreements. Only a third of the country thinks these are good for America, the lowest figure, alas, in the developed world. But Mr McCain’s position has been clear, consistent and right. As with Iraq, it is his opponent, Barack Obama, who is having to track towards the centre, trying to renounce some of the crowd-pleasing claptrap he uttered in the primaries.

That this newspaper admires Mr McCain for taking positions it agrees with may seem hardly surprising. Yet he still maintains some of his allure when he takes the wrong course, but does so plainly out of principle. His support for the embargo on Cuba and his opposition to gun control at home may be wrong-headed, but they are genuine. His League of Democracies and his overheated rhetoric about Iran are misguided, but they are consistent with his political history. In a world short of conviction politicians, Mr McCain’s Straight Talk Express has its charms.

But not when the straight talker starts saying things it is very hard to imagine that he remotely believes in. It was a bad omen last year when this freewheeling western conservative in the Reagan mould went off to court the intolerant Christian right. And recently, the flip-flops have come rapidly. Once a vigorous opponent of Mr Bush’s tax cuts, he says he wants not only to continue but also to extend them. Once a champion of greenery, he has called not only for an expensive petrol-tax holiday (something Mr Obama cleverly resisted) but also for a resumption of drilling off America’s coast. Once a supporter of closing down Guantánamo Bay, he recently criticised the Supreme Court for daring to suggest that inmates deserve the right of habeas corpus. He has edged to the right on two other areas where he used to be hated by his party’s conservatives as a dangerous maverick: on torture (he won’t rule out water-boarding) and immigration reform (he says fix the border first, which will take an eternity).

It is true that America still has more conservatives than liberals. But the Republican Party has known for a long time that Mr McCain is not precisely one of them—and they still chose him anyway. Conservatives were smart enough to see that his appeal to independents and floating voters, who make up a larger proportion of the electorate than either of the two main parties, is their only hope of retaining the White House.

American elections classically involve a two-step: the candidate runs to the extreme in the primary, then back to the centre for the general. Mr Obama is doing that. Mr McCain seems to be doing precisely the opposite. It is a mistake.

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 7/6/2008 8:32:53 PM , 0 comments

America at it best

America at its best

Get article background

IT IS hard to believe after all the thrills and spills, but the real presidential race is only now beginning. In any other country, the incredible circus that has marked the past year could not have occurred. The business of choosing the main contenders for the top job would have been done behind closed doors, or with a limited franchise and a few weeks of campaigning. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, by contrast, have spent well over a year in the most testing and public circumstances imaginable—and that was just to get to the final five months.

The Republicans settled on their candidate more quickly, but theirs was still a marathon by anyone else's standards. And the end of it was surely the right result. In John McCain, the Republicans chose a man whose political courage has led him constantly to attempt to forge bipartisan deals and to speak out against the Bush administration when it went wrong. Conservatives may hate him, but even they can see that he offers the party its only realistic hope in November.

The Democratic race has been longer and nastier; but on June 3rd it too produced probably the right result (see article). Over the past 16 months, the organisational skills and the characters of the two contenders have been revealed. Mrs Clinton, surprisingly in the light of all her claimed experience, was shown up for running a less professional and nimble campaign than her untested rival. She has also displayed what some voters have perceived as a mean streak and others (not enough, though) saw as gritty determination. And she could never allay confusion about the future role of her husband.

Mr Obama has demonstrated charisma, coolness under fire and an impressive understanding of the transforming power of technology in modern politics. Beating the mighty Clinton machine is an astonishing achievement. Even greater though, is his achievement in becoming the first black presidential nominee of either political party. For a country whose past is disfigured by slavery, segregation and unequal voting rights, this is a moment to celebrate. America's history of reinventing and perfecting itself has acquired another page.

But that does not make Mr Obama the new messiah. The former law teacher has had obvious problems convincing America's middle-class voters that he understands their concerns. He has also displayed a worrying, somewhat Clintonian slipperiness on difficult issues, both trivial (whether he would wear a flag-pin) and significant (whether he would talk to rogue states). His victory, it must be noted, has been wafer-thin: in terms of delegates, a couple of hundred out of 4,500; in votes, only a few tens of thousands out of 35m. In the end, the Democrats have, very narrowly, opted for the candidate who has put together a novel coalition of blacks, young people and liberal professional sorts, rather than the candidate of their more traditional blue-collar base. How this coalition fares against the Bushless Republicans remains to be seen.

For what America's voters, and the world's fascinated spectators, have not had so far is much of a policy debate. Yes, there were bone-aching arguments between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton as to whose plan for health care would work best. And yes, Mr Obama refused to endorse Mrs Clinton's bad plan for a gas-tax holiday. But on the whole, it has been a policy-light contest for the simple reason that there was very little to choose between the two Democrats either on domestic or on foreign policy. Small wonder, then, that the Democratic race focused on character more than content.

All that has now changed. With his victory speech in Minneapolis on June 3rd, Mr Obama took the fight to Mr McCain. Though there are a fair number of things on which Mr Obama and Mr McCain, admirably, agree (a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, the immediate closure of Guantánamo and a more multilateral approach to diplomacy, to name just three), there is a lot more that they disagree over.

The choice will be starkest over Iraq. Mr McCain backed the war in the first place, and he proposes to stay the course there no matter how long it takes. Mr Obama opposed the “dumb” war from the start and has pledged to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months, though he has lately wriggled a little on this commitment. Although most Americans now think the war was a mistake, polls suggest that Mr McCain's determination to see it through may stand him in better stead with voters than Mr Obama's determination to pull out whatever the consequences, especially since the tide of war seems at last to have shifted firmly in America's favour. In general, Mr McCain will offer a much more robust approach to security issues than Mr Obama—and that may help him.

That said, the war is clearly receding as a political issue, just as concerns about recession are growing. America no longer has a Hummer economy (General Motors is considering selling off the gas guzzler). And there are clear choices about how to fix it. Mr McCain offers orthodox supply-side solutions, stressing deregulation, free trade, competitiveness and the use of market mechanisms to cure the problems in everything from health care to education to pensions. The trouble for him is that America is already a pretty deregulated place, and many voters feel that globalisation has brought them much less than was promised (and bankers a lot more). Mr Obama offers a very different vision: more spending on education and training, an expensive expansion of health care to (almost) all Americans and better benefits for the unemployed. His problem will be convincing sceptics that his sums add up, though it may well be that voters, battered by falling house prices and rising oil prices prefer not to worry too much about that.

Both candidates have their flaws and their admirable points; the doughty but sometimes cranky old warrior makes a fine contrast with the inspirational but sometimes vaporous young visionary. Voters now have those five months to study them before making up their minds (and The Economist will be doing the same). But, on the face of it, this is the most impressive choice America has had for a very long time.

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 6/13/2008 3:54:34 PM , 0 comments

Factories Turn to Refugee Workers

	June 6, 2008

After Government Crackdown,
A Texas Town Taps Burmese

CACTUS, Texas -- Eighteen months ago, a federal roundup of hundreds of undocumented Latino workers nearly crippled a giant JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant here. Today, the slaughterhouse is on the rebound, thanks to an unexpected influx of refugees from Myanmar.

Since January, the Swift plant has hired more than 200 workers from the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma. Most of the new legal hands came from a large refugee population that had been resettled in Houston, 12 hours away by car. The typical pay: $12.15 an hour, or more than double the state's minimum wage.

Other industries, from apparel to meatpacking and hospitality, are also scrambling.

For most meatpackers, relocating south of the border isn't an option. "Our jobs can't be exported. The animals are here so the jobs are here," says Dan McCausland, a director at the American Meat Institute.

So to replenish its workers, the meat industry here has tapped into a new source of foreign, legal workers: refugees.

It's hardly a panacea. Thousands of illegal workers have lost their jobs as a result of the increased federal scrutiny. But it's something. The U.S. absorbs more refugees than any other nation -- 41,279 in 2006 and 48,281 in 2007. They hail from the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states as well as from Iran and Somalia. In the past two years alone, some 20,000 refugees have arrived from Myanmar, which is ruled by a military junta. Most entered the U.S. after years of political strife and weren't victims of the country's recent deadly cyclone.

Resettlement Efforts

The State Department strives to assign these people to cities where they have relatives or job opportunities. To help give them a start, the U.S. government works with various nonprofit resettlement agencies. In Texas, they were settled mostly in big cities such as Houston and Fort Worth, far from this isolated Texas panhandle town of 2,538 -- so small that it doesn't even register on some U.S. maps, and certainly not in the minds of the Burmese refugees.

That would soon change. On Dec. 12, 2006, ICE descended on six Swift plants across the country in the largest work-site raid ever. In Cactus, federal agents arrested 297 undocumented workers during the morning shift and prompted hundreds more, who worked a later shift, to flee in fear.

"The raid almost brought this corporation to its knees," says Jack Shandley, head of human resources at Greeley, Colo.-based Swift. No charges were brought against the company, which Mr. Shandley says followed the necessary legal checks in its hiring practices.

Recruiting was especially tough at the Cactus beef plant, a sprawling complex adjacent to a run-down town in the middle of the High Plains.

The odor of cow dung hangs in the air. Cattle outnumber human residents. Housing is in short supply. Summers are sweltering, winters are frigid, tornadoes wreak havoc. The closest major city, Amarillo, is 60 miles away.

Initially, Swift tried to attract American workers who lived within a 60-mile radius of the plant. In a "war room," company officials posted maps on the walls and circled a target recruitment area that stretched from Amarillo to Liberal, Kan. It advertised on billboards, on the radio and in newspapers. It worked local job fairs and set up a recruiting station at Amarillo's unemployment office.

Despite pay that exceeds other low-skill jobs in retail and construction -- and even some teaching posts -- takers were few. American workers came and went or didn't come at all and the circle on the map ballooned. "We had to keep reaching out further and further," recalls Doug Schult, Swift's head of employee and labor relations. "Our survival was at stake."

In early 2007, the company began free bus service from Amarillo to Cactus. Somali refugees, who were already living in the area, started signing on in greater numbers. Productivity improved -- but not by enough. The plant, still operating at about half capacity, sorely missed its deported Latino hands.

Buses and Bonuses

Then last fall, Swift poached two veteran Burmese workers from competitor Tyson Foods in Amarillo. Motivated by the company's referral bonuses ranging from $650 to $1,500 per hire, the pair phoned their Burmese contacts in Houston and other cities.

"Swift asked me, 'How many people can you bring?' " recalls worker James Hlwanceu. "I told them I have more than 60 people."

On Dec. 17, Swift flew Mr. Hlwanceu and a company recruiter to Houston to gauge community interest. There, in a Burmese family's apartment, several dozen people gathered to hear about the company's pay and benefits. No English was required -- just a desire to learn by watching others. There were no long bus commutes. Workers at the Cactus plant could walk or bike to their jobs.

Three days later, a white bus emblazoned with the Swift logo pulled up to the Stone Forest Apartment complex that was home to many Burmese families. About 45 adults and children piled in, bringing few personal belongings and hundreds of sacks of rice -- the Burmese staple.

Swift had lined up dormitory-style apartments. Company staff helped the newcomers fill out paperwork at the plant, enrolled their children in schools and drove families to an Asian-owned grocery store in Dumas, about 12 miles down Interstate 287.

Some of the rookie workers had spent two decades living in bamboo huts in refugee camps in Thailand. In a weeklong training program, the Burmese learned about plant safety and company policies, with the aid of an interpreter. Then, working next to experienced Latino and African workers, they began adroitly splicing spine, bone and fat from slabs of meat.

Por Maung, a new Burmese hire, recently separated bellies from carcasses on the skinning line. Another Burmese, Joseph Hau, carved out muscle, in a different line. Mr. Hau says the work is a step up from his job in Houston. He says he used to get up before dawn and take two buses to reach a medical center where he washed dishes for $7 an hour.

Encouraged, Swift on Jan. 28 sent two more buses and three U-Hauls to Houston apartment complexes. More than twice as many people showed up as there were seats. That's when alarm bells rang in the Burmese community. "Some people had given up their apartments and didn't have a place to stay anymore," says Maung Maung Than, a leader of the Burmese Family Association in Texas.

There were other issues. Some Burmese immigrants had begun charging a fee to shuttle their countrymen from Houston, Austin and other cities to Cactus -- sometimes as high as $200 a person, according to community leaders and refugees. Swift says it was unaware of any fee scheme.

'Suddenly Uprooted'

When word first reached refugee-relief agencies that 400 Burmese had surfaced in Cactus and nearby Dumas, it didn't strike them as a good thing.

"It was somewhat alarming," says Caitriona Lyons, refugee-program coordinator for Texas. The agencies offer services such as English classes and job placement to the newcomers. In cities like Houston, the Burmese "had been getting medical screening; children were being vaccinated; they were receiving public benefits...and they were suddenly uprooted," says Ms. Lyons.

Some people in the Cactus area voiced concern about the new stress on area schools, local hospital and other services. "We haven't had to deal with different languages other than Spanish," says Mark Strobal, assistant superintendent of the school district, which enrolled more than 110 Burmese children in the first two months of the year. (The district has since hired two interpreters.)

Eventually, state resettlement officials decided to approach Swift to begin a dialogue. During a tense meeting with company executives in March, they laid out various concerns, including the refugees' living conditions.

In some of the temporary housing, "there was no heat, no bedding and no groceries for them," says Betty O'Neill, an official from Catholic Family Service Inc., a resettlement agency in Amarillo.

Rumors also spread that the refugees might carry tuberculosis. Some locals feared that Burmese children, who often coughed during winter months, might contaminate other students.

To alleviate concerns, Swift had some 180 Burmese adults screened for tuberculosis. None carried the active disease. The company also helped transport 100 children to a clinic to receive inoculations.

In a late-March meeting attended by town officials, refugee administrators and senior Swift executives, the parties outlined a plan. To help ease the refugees' transition, Swift agreed to pay the salaries of two full-time Burmese-speaking case workers, trained by resettlement agencies. It has also worked to address any lingering housing concerns: Swift's Brazilian parent, which bought the company in July 2007, approved the purchase of 50 acres of land in Dumas for affordable housing. A nonprofit builder is expected to break ground on the tract later this summer.

Inside the beef plant, production levels are approaching preraid levels. "The refugees have been a huge part of that success," says Scot Brinkley, general manager. Still, the company has halted the referral bonus program to allow time for the housing stock, schools and other services to adjust to the growing population.

Ter Htoo, his wife and five children are glad they made the journey from Fort Worth to Cactus along with 10 other families. Mr. Htoo, whose hands are calloused from trimming fat off chunks of meat, cracks a wide smile and says, through an interpreter, "It's good here. I like it."

Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com³

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 6/11/2008 3:52:13 PM , 0 comments

EU Greenhouse-Gas Emissions

EU Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
Rose 1.1% Last Year

The European Union's greenhouse-gas emissions from key industries rose 1.1% last year, despite its antipollution policies, demonstrating the difficulty in meeting international commitments to fight climate change.

Carbon-dioxide emissions reached 1.914 billion metric tons last year in the sectors covered by Europe's Emission Trading Scheme, according to an analysis of data by Oslo-based Point Carbon, a carbon market-research and consulting firm. The data released Wednesday aren't complete, because some companies' results are still trickling in, but it represents about 93% of the total, according to the EU Web site.

For the past three years, Europe has been trying to reduce emissions by imposing a market-based cap-and-trade system. Industries such as power generators, steel, cement and aluminum are supposed to cap the amount of carbon dioxide they spew. If they can't make their targets, they must buy permits to emit carbon on the open market.

By forcing companies to buy and sell the right to pollute, Europe's system is supposed to give them a financial incentive to clean up their acts. It is also supposed to provide European countries with a way to meet their commitments to the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations accord that set emissions-cutting targets for the 175 nations that ratified it for the period between this year and 2012.

Some 11,500 factories, oil refineries, steel mills and other installations are covered by the EU scheme, accounting for about half of Europe's total emissions. There is still no limit on the other half, produced by everything from cars and planes to buildings and retail outlets.

But the caps that the EU set for different industries turned out to be too high. As a result, instead of shrinking, as was originally envisioned, emissions in these industries have crept up by about 1% each year since the program began.

Europe's struggle to make its cap-and-trade program work shows just how hard it will be for the industrialized world to achieve any meaningful reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. Japan isn't faring any better: Its Kyoto targets call for it to reduce emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, but emissions are actually increasing there as well.

The issue is taking on greater importance in the U.S., the world's biggest economy and still the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas. All three leading presidential candidates say they are in favor of establishing a cap-and-trade system similar to Europe's, and the Senate is expected to consider cap-and-trade bills this summer.

Europe's cap-and-trade system has been plagued with design and implementation problems from the start. Chief among them: National governments issued too many carbon permits -- essentially a license to pollute -- to regulated industries. As a result, companies had no real incentive to revamp their factories. Regulators in Europe have tried to get the scheme back on track by forcing governments to ratchet down the number of permits they issue during the program's second phase, from 2008 to 2012.

Although the scheme has so far failed to reduce emissions, it has spawned a fast-growing market for trading carbon permits. Last year, the value of all the carbon credits traded in Europe topped $40 billion, up 55% from the previous year. Hedge funds, investment banks and brokers trade carbon permits as they would any other commodity, like gold or oil. And while the data released Wednesday might fuel pessimistic predictions about the effectiveness of the scheme in holding back emissions, financial players were bullish about what it meant for the carbon market.

Patrick Weber, a carbon trader for Allianz AG's investment-banking unit Dresdner Kleinwort in London, spent the day fielding phone calls from German utilities and industrial companies regulated by Kyoto. "We still think there will be a net shortage in carbon credits through 2012, so prices should go up from here," he said.

The price for a carbon permit for delivery in December 2008 increased 4% to €23.45 ($36.58) at the close of trading Wednesday on the European Climate Exchange, up 93 European cents from Tuesday's close at €22.52

Companies such as German utility RWE AG and steelmaker ArcelorMittal are expected to be big buyers of carbon credits in the next phase of the scheme, and an increase in carbon prices could sharply boost their cost of complying with Europe's carbon-emissions caps.

According to an analysis of the EU data by Point Carbon, the German power sector is expected to emit 310 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2008. But emissions for the sector are capped at 236 million metric tons for 2008, meaning power companies like RWE and Eon AG will have to make major cuts to their emissions or buy carbon permits on the market. In previous years, power companies had more permits than they needed because of the design flaws in the scheme.

"We see the same picture all across Europe," said Henrik Hasselknippe, analyst at Point Carbon. "The power sector will have to reduce its emissions either by switching from burning coal to natural gas, building renewable energy, or by buying massive amounts of carbon credits."

For its part, RWE expects to have annual emissions of around 140 to 147 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from 2008 to 2012, but only anticipates being given 75 to 80 million tons worth of carbon permits. To make up the shortfall, RWE says it is upgrading its power plants, urging its customers to be more energy-efficient, starting a renewable-energy subsidiary and buying 18 million metric tons worth of carbon permits from projects done in the developing world. "We have an ambitious strategy," said an RWE official.

Write to Leila Abboud at leila.abboud@wsj.com¹

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 4/6/2008 2:54:35 PM , 0 comments

Interesting

U.S. Records Surplus in January

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. federal government ran a monthly budget surplus of $17.84 billion in January, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.

Treasury's monthly budget statement shows the January surplus was 53% smaller than a surplus of $38.24 billion in January 2007.

Historically, January is a deficit month; Treasury said 34 of the last 53 Januarys had budget shortfalls. Treasury couldn't explain why a surplus occurred last month. In December 2007, the government had a surplus of $48.26 billion, which was unrevised.

Outlays were $237.38 billion during January, up 6.7% from January 2007's $222.37 billion. Government receipts in January were $255.22 billion, down 2.1% from January 2007's $260.61 billion.

The January surplus figure was bigger than the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of a surplus of $15 billion for the fourth month of fiscal year 2008, which began Oct. 1.

In the first four months of fiscal year 2008, the budget deficit totaled $87.70 billion, 108.0% bigger than the $42.17 billion deficit in the same period in fiscal year 2007. Fiscal year-to-date outlays were $949.13 billion, up 8.3% from $876.30 billion in the same period in the previous fiscal year, and revenue was $861.43 billion, 3.3% higher than $834.14 billion in the year-ago period.

January individual income tax receipts totaled $148.84 billion. Corporate taxes totaled $6.06 billion.

Last month, the government paid net interest on the federal debt of $22.78 billion. Net interest on the federal debt excludes interest paid on non-marketable government securities held by federal trust funds, such as Social Security.

The Treasury said it plans to release budget data for February on March 12.

Write to Jeff Bater at jeff.bater@dowjones.com¹

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 2/14/2008 6:22:28 AM , 0 comments

Friday the 13th came on a Wednesday this month

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 2/13/2008 8:48:10 AM , 0 comments

A Contrarian View

This was in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on 6/11/07.  Dr. Meyer spoke this afternoon at my LLI class.  I don't agree with his opinion on Wachovia, but he was very interesting.

In Warner Bros.' animated movie "Happy Feet," a penguin named Mumble hatches from his egg and starts dancing:

"Whatcha doin' there, boy?" asks his dad, Memphis.

Posted by: oldasyoufeel on 2/11/2008 6:17:31 PM , 0 comments