Ben’s Blog

It’s very hard to get unbiased information on how we’re doing in Iraq. The Republicans and Democrats aren’t going to be honest about the situation, and most of the media are just as bad.

I was glad to see this post on the Freakonomics blog today. Levitt summarizes a logical analysis of “the surge” by an MIT economist. To summarize it even further, the surge is making a difference in some areas, but it doesn’t seem to be making a long term difference.

The author’s main evidence on that front is the price of Iraqi government-issued bonds. If the government collapses the bonds won’t get paid. At the moment, the financial markets aren’t giving the government much of a chance based on the price of the bonds. Of course, financial markets do occasionally get things wrong, but they’re right more often than not.

Levitt also makes some interesting observations about academia at the end of the post.

Today was the worst single day for US stock markets since 9/17/2001, the first day the markets were open after 9/11. The S&P 500 was down 3.47% at the end of the day. The Dow was down 3.29%. The mutual funds I have money in dropped 3.21% on average. The Chinese markets dropped 9% today after setting an all-time high yesterday. Investors got worried that the value of both Chinese and US stocks were inflated. They probably were, though I could have done with a less violent correction. The biggest gainer today was Radio Shack of all companies. Their stock went up 11.94% after they announced profits were up 65% in the last quarter.

In much better news, Mississippi landed a Toyota plant today. They were also considering Arkansas and Tennessee. The jobs the plant will create, both directly and indirectly, are greatly needed. Manufacturing jobs have been leaving Mississippi in droves over the past decade or so. The plant should employ around 2,000 people, and another 2,000 jobs will be created in related industries. It will be built in Blue Springs, which is about 10 miles up highway 78 from Tupelo. It should become operational in 2009.

I assumed the Toyota plant coming to Mississippi was mostly a regional news item, but Google News currently lists 486 articles from all over the world. Impressive.

Earlier this week, just about every media outlet covered a report that says the US has a high death rate among newborns. That seemed fishy to me, but I accepted it as the truth and went on with my day. Today I ran up on this. Someone has spent quite a bit of time debunking the report. Essentially, it comes down to a difference in how countries report births. As far as I’m concerned, the statistics are basically useless until all countries report births the same way.

King Abdullah II of Jordan gave a speech at Ole Miss yesterday, and I was able to make it. I got there about ten minutes before noon, and there were already over 100 people in line. By the time they opened the doors at around 12:15, the line had grown to around 300 or so. The Ford Center only has room for around 700. The Secret Service had two metal detectors setup in the lobby of the Ford Center, and everyone had to go through them on their way in.

After I got through the metal detector, I saw a student from my class. As it turns out he’s from Jordan. I suspect he got to meet the king. I’ll have to ask him on Monday. We talked for a minute, and I was in my seat by 12:30pm.

The king wasn’t supposed to speak until 2pm, so luckily I had brought a book. I would have brought my Treo, but they had specifically asked people not to bring PDAs or cell phones. However, I saw several people using their cell phones inside the Ford Center. Unenforced rules really bug me. The room was full by about 1pm. I assume that means you would have had to be in line by around 12:30 to get in. I’m curious if they turned anyone away. I suspect they did. People were sitting in the aisles for McCain’s speech. I imagine the fire marshal wasn’t too thrilled.

There was a lot of media there. There were no less than half a dozen video cameras and three times as many photographers. There were about a dozen Secret Service agents stationed by all the doors, near the stage, and in the balconies. There were a few Jordanian security guys too. There was zero security for John McCain’s speech last year.
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His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, will be speaking tomorrow at Ole Miss. The speech is open to the public and will be broadcast live on the Ole Miss web site. His speech is part of a series hosted by the Trent Lott Leadership Institute. Last year Senator John McCain came to Ole Miss as part of the series.

King Abdullah is a fan of Star Trek and made a cameo appearance on Star Trek: Voyager in 1995 while he was still a prince.

King Abdullah is fairly progressive as far as Middle Eastern monarchs go. However, he has been criticized for restricting free speech in his country. According to Wikipedia, Abdullah has made it illegal to publically disagree with him. It is punishable by up to 3 years in prison and a $7,000 fine. I hope there will a Q&A session after the speech like there was with McCain. If there is, I have no doubt this will come up.

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The Second World War is an excellent overview of World War II written by Sir John Keegan, a renowned British military historian. It is 608 pages long, and was published in 1989 by Penguin Books.
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