“But as we barrel down the road to war with Iraq, maybe we ought to quiz our unilateralist president about why it is necessary for us to bomb, invade and occupy Iraq while North Korea gets the striped-pants treatment. Is it because North Korea has a million men under arms? Is it because Kim Jong Il never threatened to kill Bush’s father, or because he has no oil, or is not a Muslim?” – Mary McGrory, Washington Post.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Keep up the pressure on Paul K. I have known him for more than twenty years and, as I told you in an email sent a year or so ago, once regarded him as a Nobel Prize possibility. Alas, his politics and ego have become truly insufferable. Can you imagine an economist of his gifts falling back on the argument that the increasing relative compensation of CEOs has been a result of a change in the public’s willingness to tolerate inequality in income distribution? If one of his doctoral students tried this, he quick response would be, “well that is an interesting hypothesis, but how do you propose that we might submit it to testing?” Indeed, Paul is smart enough to see the obvious circularity in the whole argument. To wit: since we have more income inequality, it must follow that people are willing to tolerate inequality, and vice versa. As for Krugman’s argument that the increase in CEOs relative “take” results from the fact that they “appoint” board members, all I can say is that having served on boards of public companies for three decades and having looked at board composition from, say, the 1950s, it is demonstrably the case that boards were more “CEO picked” 40 to 50 years ago than they are now. In the “old days,” interlocking directorates and the like were the rule not the exception.”
The Dish 