http://wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/will-m20.shtml

George Will: a pompous defender of wealth and privilege
By David Walsh 
20 May 2010

Not to put too fine a point on it, Washington Post columnist George Will is a pompous windbag, one of the most obnoxious right-wing media figures in America, and that is saying a good deal.

Will’s longtime specialty has been the pseudo-erudite defense of wealth and privilege. In his insufferably overblown manner, he has, for example, campaigned for the abolition of the minimum wage, against the paltry $250 check sent to Social Security beneficiaries—in lieu of a cost-of-living adjustment—in 2009, and, more generally, in defense of social inequality.

Will is an ideal commentator for the nouveau riche who likes to think that his or her brute greed has something elevated about it.

Nearly every one of his pieces operates along these lines, but his May 16 column, “European Union: A coalition of irresponsibility,” is worthy of special note. It is the latest of his splenetic responses to the debt crisis in Greece and Europe.

Will begins his piece by taking note of the election results in North Rhine-Westphalia, which were unfavorable to the right-wing government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. This provides him the chance to assert that “The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, ratified Europe’s emerging system of nation-states.”

Admirer of the ancien régime that this comment makes him out to be, Will ignores the fact that more than two centuries of social convulsion and revolutionary struggle intervened before the modern European nation-state system fully emerged. As many historians have pointed out, the Peace of Westphalia sanctioned dynastic rule and envisioned a balance of power system that was fatally disrupted by the French Revolution, among other events. Efforts to restore it after Napoleon’s defeat failed, in the end, because of dramatically altered economic and social conditions.

Will’s empty reference to the Thirty Years’ War is of a piece with his general method. He—or his many editorial assistants—enjoys using “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.” The relatively brief May 16 column is peppered with irrelevant citations. William Blackstone, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James and William Dean Howells all come in for name-dropping, without anyone being the wiser for it.

The column makes no coherent sense, except as an excuse for Will to vent against his fantasized version of European social democracy, with all its dangerous social-leveling and nationality-“neutering” tendencies, and against the Greek population.

Along the way, the columnist displays a degree of unconsciousness about his own function in society that takes the breath away. He writes: “Greece represents a perverse aspiration—a society with (in the words of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan) ‘more takers than makers,’ more people taking benefits from government than there are people making goods and services that produce the social surplus that funds government.”

If one devoted some time to it, one could probably think of more useless parasites than Will and his fellow pundits, but it would take some doing. How does Will classify himself, in social terms, as a ‘maker’ or a ‘taker’? What ‘goods and services’ does he produce?

Nothing enrages the Post columnist more than popular opposition to austerity measures. In a May 13 column (“Greece and GM: Too weak to fail”) he observed that “Athens’ ‘anti-government mobs’ have been composed mostly of government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements.” Will takes low-paid Greek public service workers to task for defending their jobs and living standards, but never stops to wonder at his own boundless sense of “entitlement,” along with the rest of the American ruling elite and its mouthpieces.

Will makes millions of dollars each year, grabbing as much airtime on ABC News and column space in various publications as he can get away with, as well as lecturing to groups willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to hear him. He embodies the shameful evolution of the US media. There were honest, self-critical figures in American journalism in the early and mid-20th century who didn’t earn—inflation taken into account—a fraction of what this miserable specimen of a columnist pulls in.

In his May 16 article, Will goes on: “By socializing the consequences of Greece’s misgovernment, Europe has become the world’s leading producer of a toxic product—moral hazard.” Has Will noticed what’s been going on in America? Trillions of dollars have been placed at the disposal of the banks, socializing their bad bets, with hardly a string attached. Wall Street, for whom Will shills, in the final analysis, has looted the economy and the population, bringing about a collapse that has cost 8 million Americans their jobs.

One of the “toxic products” in overabundance at present is rubbish like this.

Will pontificates about Greece’s “dishonesty and indiscipline,” about how its “vices cannot be quarantined,” about how, unhappily, “no nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness.” Not for the first time, one has to rub one’s eyes. America’s financial elite is the world leader in corporate corruption and swindling, its governments have led the population into two disastrous wars on the basis of shameless lying, its reckless foreign policy and belligerent militarism threaten the human race. Will lives in another world.

As part of his sneering polemic against those who are supposedly conspiring against national sovereignties in Europe (“a continent of distinct and unaffectionate peoples”), Will goes on to say that “‘Europe’ has somehow become against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression.”

This is more stupidity. How did America become unified? Is the United States—a singular, not a plural—the outcome of geography or politics? The unification of the original colonies was a pre-eminently political act, bound up with a revolutionary struggle. “Unity,” in a meaningful sense, was only achieved ultimately through a protracted, bloody civil war. Moreover, the American bourgeoisie found it necessary to exterminate the indigenous population in the course of conquering the continent for itself.

The unification of Europe is indeed a political question, but not one that can be solved on a capitalist basis. The United States of Europe is a task that confronts the working class, one that will only be resolved through a new and historic struggle…but this is far beyond Mr. Will.

In another of his brilliant essays, for Newsweek this time (“The ‘Tax the Rich!’ Reflex, July 18, 2009), Will argued openly in defense of social inequality. Measures such as progressive taxation, he asserted, “reduce the role of merit in the allocation of social rewards—merit as markets measure it, in terms of value added to the economy.”

Will obviously had himself in mind. Citing the comments of another right-winger, he pointed to the “underlying inequality” beneath “income inequality,” “due to differences in IQ, energy, health, social skills, character, ambition, physical attractiveness, talent, and luck.” He had a point. With the proper amount of those qualities…added to a willingness to defend the status quo with all one’s energy, to say and write always what is pleasing to the rich, to spend one’s life as a right-wing snob and social climber… a healthy living is almost guaranteed.

*****

Great Quotes: Twain on Kentucky

"I want to be in Kentucky when the end of the world comes, because it's always 20 years behind."

*****

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/05/rand-paul-thinks-obama-is-un-american-to-be-so-mean-to-bp.html

Rand Paul Thinks Obama Is “Un-American” to Be So Mean to B.P.
by Juli Weiner
May 21, 2010

Did Rand Paul watch the news before he became the news? He has only existed—if we’re going to use the metric of mass consciousness—for like two weeks, and already, there have been so many amateur missteps. Following this week’s ace decision to problematize the Civil Rights Act, the Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate went on Good Morning America today to discuss how “un-American” this President Obama was for blaming B.P. for the oil spill. Accidents happen! It says so in the Constitution, probably.

He tells George Stephanopoulos, “What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of ‘I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of B.P.’ I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.” He adds later, “It’s always part of this blame-game society where it’s always gotta be someone’s fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen.” Stephanopoulos responds by asking Paul if he thinks B.P. is regulated enough, to which Paul replies that he doesn’t know, although there are “hundreds of pages of regulation of drilling in the ocean and I think most of that’s justified.” Hundreds of pages! That sounds pretty regulated, what with all those pages. 

*****

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237904

Beer Baron
How the founder of Sam Adams bottled lightning.
Josh Hyatt | NEWSWEEK
May 14, 2010 
From the magazine issue dated May 31, 2010

Jim Koch loves to talk about little companies that take on the Big Guys: artisanal-cheese makers who battle importers, the microdistillers who taunt liquor giants—and, most of all, the tiny microbrewer who elbows aside industry behemoths with a full-flavored beer and a well-crafted marketing pitch.

That last one is Koch himself, of course. When he launched Samuel Adams Boston Lager in 1984, there were fewer than 10 microbreweries in the U.S. Store shelves were dominated by bland beers made by Miller Brewing Co. and Anheuser-Busch. By last year the number of microbreweries (companies that make fewer than 2 million barrels a year) reached 1,500, according to the Brewers Association, accounting for about 4.3 percent of total sales. And while Sam Adams may not have been the first craft brew out there ("Apple wasn't the first company to produce a PC, either," says Koch), it is the most successful. Sales reached $415 million in 2009, making it the country's largest craft brewery. "Jim Koch was the one who led the revolution for all of the other entrepreneurs who wanted to create beers," says Gerry Hills, professor of entrepreneurship at Bradley University.

Koch (pronounced "cook") was working at the Boston Consulting Group when he began brewing suds in his kitchen. He had received three degrees from Harvard (B.A., M.B.A., J.D.), but brewing was in his blood. His father and grandfather were in the business; Koch used a recipe from his great-great-grandfather. Before long, he scraped together $240,000 and launched the company. Although he named his beer after a Boston patriot, he made it at a big brewery in Pittsburgh, which allowed him to control quality better than most small brewers. "The idea of a high-quality American beer had become a complete oxymoron," says Koch. "Coming from a brewing family, I knew that wasn't true."

He originally sold beer in unlabeled bottles from his briefcase, kept cold with a chill pack. He coaxed bartenders to try them with a 10-second pitch: "Try this new beer. It's handcrafted in small batches. You'll like the taste."

Almost from the start, he annoyed rivals large and small. He took on the big brewers directly, spending big on TV, radio, and billboards. Koch added easily readable freshness dates to his labels, and pointed out that consumers couldn't easily tell if his competitors' beers were old and stale. "Instead of sexy twins or talking animated animals, he talked about the quality of the liquid," notes Sam Calagione, who founded Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in 1995.

But Koch's tactics didn't always go down smoothly with his fellow small-batch brewers, either. He had positioned Sam Adams as a quaint Boston company, but the fact that he didn't even own a brewery irked some microbrewers. Six weeks after Koch launched Sam Adams, the brand was crowned best beer by attendees at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. Rumors quickly spread that Koch had worked the crowd unfairly, offering tickets to the event in return for votes, according to Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery. But Oliver says early jealousy has since fermented into admiration. "From day one, he was pugnacious and he ruffled feathers," recalls Oliver. "But very quietly, we've all learned a lot from him."

Koch, now 61, says he tries to follow the advice his father gave him when he was starting Sam Adams. "He told me, 'People don't drink the marketing, they drink the beer,' " Koch recalls. He still travels to Bavaria once a year to handpick the high-quality hops his company uses. "I knew I could put the best glass of beer in front of the American beer drinker," he says. "I didn't know how big the market would get, or what the challenges were, but I knew I could do that." And that's no small achievement.

*****

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-21/toyota-buys-tesla-stake-for-electric-car-tie-up-update4-.html

Toyota Buys Tesla Stake for Electric Car Tie-Up
May 21, 2010
By Alan Ohnsman

(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest automaker, is buying a $50 million stake in electric-car producer Tesla Motors Inc. as the companies seek to offer low- polluting models.

Tesla also will buy a closed Toyota joint-venture plant in California to build its Model S and other vehicles, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said yesterday. The companies plan to cooperate in developing electric cars, parts, production systems and engineering.

The deal may help Toyota compete with Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. in selling electric cars in the U.S., where regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency are pushing them to offer advanced vehicles. It may also help Toyota’s image, battered by recalls, by reviving the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant, known as Nummi, an analyst said.

“This seems like a good deal for both parties, especially Toyota, from being able to avoid the political fallout from shutting Nummi down to being able to offer a new electric vehicle with just a low initial investment cost,” said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer at auto-industry researcher Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, California.

Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, is the world’s biggest seller of hybrid autos, and Palo Alto, California-based Tesla is the only company selling U.S. highway-legal battery-powered cars. The size of Toyota’s stake in Tesla hasn’t been fixed, Musk said in an interview.

‘Infinite Possibility’

“I’ve felt an infinite possibility about Tesla’s technology,” said Akio Toyoda, chief executive officer of Toyota, founded by his grandfather. “By partnering with Tesla, my hope is that all Toyota employees will recall that ‘venture business’ spirit.”

Daimler AG, the world’s second-biggest maker of luxury vehicles, in May 2009 invested about $50 million in Tesla, which is supplying the company with battery packs for a test fleet of electric Smart minicars.

Daimler reduced its stake in Tesla to about 5 percent in July by selling a portion of the investment to Aabar Investments PJSC, the German automaker’s largest shareholder. Tesla told Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler about the Toyota partnership on May 19, Musk said.

The Toyota-Tesla partnership doesn’t impede Daimler’s cooperation with the California automaker, said Brigitte Bertram, a Daimler spokeswoman.

Nummi Purchase

The revival of Nummi, for 25 years a joint venture between Toyota and the former General Motors Corp., will create 1,000 jobs, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

Musk declined to say how much his company is spending to purchase Nummi, which was shut down in April. Tesla has hired back about 90 former Nummi workers and expects to add about 50 a month, Musk said.

Nummi, in Fremont, California, had 4,700 workers and was the only factory where employees building Toyota vehicles were represented by the United Auto Workers union.

The plant’s restart “is welcome news for the state’s economy and workers after the closing of this highly productive plant,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a statement today.

Electric-car technology has been supported by U.S. policy makers including President Barack Obama as a way to reduce the nation’s oil use and dependence on foreign energy sources. Obama set a goal of getting 1 million plug-in hybrids and electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015.

Toyota Plug-In

Toyota intends to offer a short-range electric car in the U.S. and begin retail sales of a plug-in Prius hybrid in 2012.

Toyota’s American depositary receipts, each representing two ordinary shares, rose $1.59, or 2.1 percent, to $75.59 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The regular shares fell 65 yen, or 1.9 percent, to 3,355 yen in Tokyo.

Nissan is preparing to introduce its Leaf electric hatchback in Japan and the U.S. this year. Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn has set a goal of leading sales of rechargeable vehicles, which he estimates may make up 10 percent of global auto demand by 2020, and is spending more than 500 billion yen ($5.54 billion) developing electric cars.

GM plans to introduce its Volt plug-in vehicle late this year. The car will initially be marketed to drivers in California, which requires large automakers to offer some vehicles with little or no tailpipe pollution.

Share Sale

Tesla, which hasn’t posted a profit in the six years since it was founded, is planning to raise $100 million in an initial share sale and has said it may spend the proceeds on acquisitions and for factories and equipment that may cost as much as $125 million this year.

The company was approved to receive a $465 million government loan to help produce the Model S sedan, which the company says will cost less than $50,000 after a federal tax credit.

Tesla has 2,000 reservations for the Model S and intends to begin higher-volume production in 2012, with a projected output of as many as 20,000 a year. The company has delivered about 1,000 of its $109,000 Roadster electric sports cars.

The company’s investors include Google Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and the government of Abu Dhabi.

--With assistance from Makiko Kitamura and Yuki Hagiwara in Tokyo and Chris Reiter in Berlin. Editors: Kevin Orland, Jamie Butters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kae Inoue at kinoue@bloomberg.net

*****

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559004575255903983038016.html

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
MAY 21, 2010
Masterpieces Stolen From Paris Museum
DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS 

PARIS — Five paintings valued at close to €100 million ($124 million) and including works by Picasso and Matisse were stolen from one of Paris's most prestigious museums, French authorities said.

The theft was discovered early Thursday, before Paris's Musée d'Art Moderne, located across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower, opened its doors to the public.

Police late Thursday weren't sure how the robbery was carried out but thought it could have been done by a single thief acting alone, said Christophe Girard, Paris deputy mayor in charge of culture.

They have so far collected several clues, he said: a broken padlock on a gate; a dismantled window; footage of a masked intruder caught by a surveillance camera; and five picture frames lying against a wall outside the museum.

The museum is equipped with alarm systems and surveillance cameras—equipment that was upgraded five years ago as part of a €15 million refurbishment. It was also guarded by three night wardens, said Mr. Girard.

Police examine the frames of the stolen paintings outside the Paris Museum of Modern Art on Thursday.
"People at the museum are traumatized," he said in a telephone interview. "These are such important pieces of art. It's clear that the security system was outfoxed."

The museum's alarm system had suffered technical problems in recent weeks, and a supplier had yet to deliver some replacement parts, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, said in a statement.

However, Mr. Girard said the alarm problem alone couldn't explain how a thief or a team of thieves could have broken into the museum so easily.

Four paintings—the Picasso, the Matisse, a Braque and a Léger—were stolen from one exhibition hall. The fifth, by Modigliani, was taken from another hall.

"It seems as if they knew exactly what they were looking for and knew the value of each painting," Mr. Girard said. "There were two paintings by Modigliani hung next to each other and they took the more expensive."

Police didn't rule out the possibility that the thief or thieves had accomplices within the museum, he said.

Mr. Girard said the stolen paintings were valued at a combined €92 million, according to the museum's books. The two most expensive were "Dove With Green Peas" by Pablo Picasso, valued at €25 million, and "Pastoral" by Henri Matisse, valued at an estimated €20 million, he said.

Police said it would be virtually impossible to sell the stolen paintings to museums or at art auctions because they are too well known. They said, however, that thieves sometimes try to extort money from insurance companies, which may be willing to recover stolen goods at a fraction of their value, instead of paying full compensations to museums.

The Paris mayor's office said the museum would remain closed until further notice.

Alice Farren-Bradley of the Art Loss Registry in London said the Paris theft "appears to be one of the biggest" art heists ever, considering the estimated value, the prominence of the artists and the high profile of the museum, the Associated Press reported. She also said the value of the paintings would have to be verified as museums and art dealers often value paintings differently.

French museums have suffered several thefts in recent months. Last year, a notepad with Picasso drawings, valued at an estimated $5 million, was stolen from Paris's Picasso museum, which was undergoing renovation. In December, a drawing by Edgar Degas was stolen at a museum in Marseille.