Wal-Mart Watch, an opposition group supported by unions, has sent letters to the attorneys general of Arizona and Nebraska asking them to outlaw television spots Wal-Mart is running in those states. Wal-Mart Watch claims the states can do this thanks to consumer-protection laws that require truth in advertising.

Those laws are targeted at companies' claims about the weight of a Quarter Pounder or the ingredients of a bar of soap, however, and what's at issue in respect of the Wal-Mart ads is something else. Wal-Mart is attempting to counter the attacks of its critics by presenting its case directly to the public. Wal-Mart Watch complains that the TV spots say "Wal-Mart saves the average working family $2300 per year." Wal-Mart Watch claims this is deceptive because that number comes from a Wal-Mart funded study performed by a firm called Global Insight. "This ‘fact' has been discredited," Wal-Mart Watch writes to the attorneys general, "by a leading economic research think tank, the Economic Policy Institute."

It can easily be argued, however, that EPI isn't "objective" either. Nine of its 19 board members, after all, are leaders of labor unions. One of those just happens to be Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which has been a supporter of anti-Wal-Mart efforts. Mr. Stern also serves on another board — that of Wal-Mart Watch, which he chairs.

The anti-Wal-Mart unions aren’t trying to organize Wal-Mart workers (who love their company and disdain the unions) they are trying to kill Wal-Mart because “it’s always the low price.”

Wal-Mart’s effective competition against Safeway and other heavily unionized grocers is undermining the finances of the service workers unions. This ain’t about health care for Wal-Mart workers or the environmental impact of a big box store. It’s about the growing threat to the money pouring into the union leaderships. The deal with the Democrats is obvious: you do our bidding against Wal-Mart, or we unions cut off the free phone lines and political machines you need.

So, the anti-Wal-Mart crusaders have intimidated the Democratic party. If the Democrats win the House of Representatives this November, they will be under enormous pressure to do harm to Wal-Mart. Indeed, Democrats are running up huge debts with all of the unions, with all of the groups backed by Soros, with the “net roots” of MoveOn.org and with the professional storm-troopers trained by the socialist organization ACORN.

This ain’t Hubert Humphrey Democratic’s party. It’s enough to make Joe Biden speechless. Oops, scratch that; he’s joined the jihad against Wal-Mart.

(Wal-Mart is hardly a stable friend; after Maryland’s Governor risked all to fight against anti-Wal-Mart legislation based on principle, they cut and ran out on him by relenting to Democratic pressure to expand a warehouse in Maryland. This whole battle isn’t really about Wal-Mart at all; it’s about unions using politics to steer consumers away from the store of their choice into a store the unions control.)

The NY Times two days ago in a front-page, above-the-fold article:

wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947.

The NY Times online today, presumably to be reported in tomorrow's paper (on what page?) [emphasis added]:

Perhaps the biggest surprise in today’s report was a surge in wage-and-salary income during the first half of this year. Between the fourth quarter of last year and the second quarter of 2006, it grew at an annual rate of about 7 percent, after adjusting for inflation, up from an earlier estimate of 4 percent, according to MFR, a consulting firm in New York.

As a result, wages and salaries no longer make up their smallest share of the gross domestic product since World War II. They accounted for 46.1 percent of economic output in the second quarter, down from a high of 53.6 percent in 1970 but up from 45.4 percent last year.

Total compensation — including employee health benefits, which have risen in value in recent years — equaled 57.1 percent of the economy, down from 59.8 percent in 1970. Still, compensation makes up a larger share of the economy than it did throughout the 1950’s and early 60’s, as well as during parts of the mid-1990’s and the last couple of years.

This editorial in today’s New York Times -- entitled "Downward Mobility" -- does its best to extract depressing news from the latest report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau.

...Figure 1 on page 4 of the Census Bureau report shows the trend in real median household income from 1967 to 2004. It reveals that real median household income has increased, with the expected blips and surges, over the past 38 years. But being 31 percent higher today than it was in 1967 is not very impressive. This fact means that real household income grew at an average annual rate since 1967 of much less than one percent.

But I ask: would you prefer to live in 1967 with today’s real median household income ($46,326) or live today with 1967’s real median household income ($35,379)? (These figures are expressed in 2005 dollars, by the way.)

Sure, I’m happy that I live today with today’s income – but, again, if forced to choose between living in 1967...with today’s higher income and living today with 1967’s...lower income, I wouldn’t hesitate for as much as a nano-second to choose living today with the lower income from the past.

And I suspect that most people who reflect on this choice objectively would choose as I would choose. If I’m correct, then the growth in real dollar income between 1967...and today underestimates the improvements to everyday life brought to us by economic growth during the past 30 or 40 years.

Imagine you are the world's most powerful newspaper and you have invested your credibility in yet another story line that is falling apart, crumbling as inexorably as Jayson Blair's fabrications and the flawed reporting on Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD. What to do?

If you're the New York Times and the story is the alleged gang rape of a black woman by three white Duke lacrosse players—a claim shown by mounting evidence to be almost certainly fraudulent—you tone down your rhetoric while doing your utmost to prop up a case that's been almost wholly driven by prosecutorial and police misconduct.

And by bad journalism. Worse, perhaps, than the other recent Times embarrassments. The Times still seems bent on advancing its race-sex-class ideological agenda, even at the cost of ruining the lives of three young men who it has reason to know are very probably innocent. This at a time when many other true believers in the rape charge, such as feminist law professor Susan Estrich, have at last seen through the prosecution's fog of lies and distortions.

Update 2... Slate really is on a roll! Here's another one, thanks to reader Sylvain Galineau:

...the NYT reefers a big piece on arid conditions in the Great Plains, which have left "farmers and ranchers with conditions that they compare to those of the Dust Bowl of the 1930's." It's the worst drought since … well, maybe 2003, "an extremely dry summer that … brought back memories of the 1930's Dust Bowl" (NYT, Sept. 5, 2003). Or maybe 2002, when "farmers shrug[ed] and wonder[ed] if a new Dust Bowl [would] soon be upon them" (NYT, May 3, 2002). Or 1998: "a dry spell that officials say shows signs of developing into the costliest and most devastating the region has seen since the Dust Bowl years" (NYT, Aug. 12, 1998). Or 1996: "Coming after two years of low rainfall and a number of other weather problems, the ferocity of this year's drought has slowly begun to evoke memories for some here of the Depression-era Dust Bowl" (NYT, May 20, 1996). Or 1988: "Since the spring's dry weather evolved into the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, the farm policy has been turned upside down" (NYT, July 10, 1988). Or 1982: "And when the winds come, turning the sky dark with dust and burying fence rows under shifting dunes of soil and thistle, those who are old enough remember the bleak days of the Dust Bowl." (NYT, May 14, 1982). Or 1980: "Is the nation in for a new Dust Bowl or at least a succession of scorching summers?" (NYT, July 17, 1980).

The market spoiler was in place some two years ago. At that time, we felt that the spectacular price increases could not be justified. The psychology of that time could not continue indefinitely, and indeed it has not.

At last, buoyant economy lifts incomes

NEW YORK – For the first time since 1999, Americans have seen an increase in the amount of money in their pockets.

The nation's real median income was up 1.1 percent from 2004 to 2005, reaching more than $46,000, the US Census Bureau reported Tuesday. That's about $500 more than last year.

At the same time, the poverty rate has stabilized, after ticking upward for several years.

The numbers are an indication that the benefits of the economic recovery are finally reaching some in the middle class, economists say...

Census Reports Slight Increase in ’05 Incomes

The nation’s median household income rose slightly faster than inflation last year for the first time in six years, the Census Bureau reported yesterday.

The rise, however, had little to do with bigger paychecks — in fact, both men and women earned less in 2005 than 2004. Rather, census officials said, more family members were taking jobs to make ends meet, and some people made more money from investments and other sources beyond wages.

While the economy has been strong by most statistical measures for the past several years, its benefits have not translated into improvements in the standard of living for many people.

"He apparently thinks he can read my mind. He claims that I mixed data from two surveys to write an article about job growth, even though data from only one survey appeared in the article. I used only the one survey that I cited. Please let your listeners know that I am happy to acknowledge errors that I actually make, but not those that are figments of a critic's imagination."

Last, week, Dentara Rask -- a character in CCP's Eve Online massively multiplayer online world -- pulled off an impressive stunt. He ran a classic Ponzi scheme and walked off with 700 billion ISK (in game money, and quite a lot of it). Normally, this kind of in-game bravado would generate nothing but a confuse stare from someone not deep inside the Eve universe, and little more than scandal-of-the-week titillation and subsequent yawns there. But I believe this case is more interesting than that.

I believe Dentara Rask committed fraud.

I believe he owes the IRS a lot of money...

His scheme was interesting, but unoriginal. He ran the EVE Investment Bank, in which he promised a return on deposits. And he delivered. If you got in early, he paid you your return, and most likely, you reinvested. It was, of course, just a Ponzi scheme. Investors were paid out of the capital from new investors. When the pyramid become too big to manage, he pulled back the curtain and proclaimed himself the victor. He'd amassed more than 700 billion ISK (in game cash), perhaps 10 times the previous record for a market scam. He gloated in the forums about his prowess. He basked in the glory of hatred, even posting a video confession complete with I'd-like-to-thank-the-academy antics. He took out a bounty on his own head, so people would hunt him down. The act of me writing about this plays further into the ego trip.

But there's a catch. What if he committed a real crime?

If this was a "real world" scam, few would argue that this was fraud. In the US (and we don't know where he lives) he would mostly likely be guilty of racketeering under RICO.

The first argument against the fraud case is one of substance. After all, this was imaginary money, right? Not really. Eve ISK is a fungible asset. While no regulated market exists for converting ISK into cash directly, there are markets available. CCP sells 30 day time cards for 120 million ISK. Time cards are available legally for $14 a piece. So the implied value of an ISK is roughly $2.0 × 10^11. Put another way, that 700 billion ISK is worth 5,833 time cards, or $81,666.

Poverty Rate Didn't Rise in 2005 For First Time in Five Years

Associated Press
August 29, 2006 10:52 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's poverty rate was essentially unchanged last year, the first year it hasn't increased since before President Bush took office.

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 37 million Americans were living under the poverty line last year -- about 12.6% of the population. That is down from 12.7% in 2004, but census officials said the change was statistically insignificant.

The last decline in the poverty rate was in 2000, during the Clinton administration, when it dropped to 11.3%. (Read the full report.)

The median household income -- the point at which half make more and half make less -- was $46,300, a slight increase from 2004.

However, the number of people without health insurance increased to 46.6 million in 2005. About 45.3 million people were without insurance the year before.

The official poverty level is used to decide eligibility for federal health, housing, nutrition and child-care benefits. The poverty rate -- the percentage of people living below the poverty line -- helps shape the debate on the health of the nation's economy.

The poverty report comes four years into an uneven economic recovery -- and a little more than two months before congressional midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans continue to control the House and the Senate.

High gas prices and a slowing economy could help make pocketbook issues important in some races, especially in the Midwest, where job growth has been slow or nonexistent. The U.S. added about two million nonfarm jobs in 2005, and has added nearly a million since, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But job growth has been uneven across the country.

For example, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois had fewer jobs in July than they did when Mr. Bush took office in January 2001. The nation has added 2.8 million jobs in that time, despite suffering job losses in 2001 and 2002.

Why this pastiche of negative economic statistics, culled in space and time specifically to be negative?

"The economy should be an issue," said Evelyn Brodkin, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. "But so much of that depends on who people blame for their economic situation and who they think can help them. We will learn a lot from the midterms."

The poverty report also comes 10 years after the 1996 welfare overhaul, which required millions of poor single mothers to work and which set limits on how long recipients could get monthly checks.

Poverty rates didn't skyrocket as some had feared. But they didn't drop much, either, suggesting that many of those who left welfare didn't climb out of poverty. The poverty rate was 13.7% in 1996, when about 4.4 million families received welfare payments. About 1.9 million families receive payments today.

"Most of the people who leave welfare for work are leaving for jobs that pay $7 or $8 an hour," said Joan Entmacher, vice president of the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group based in Washington. "Under the best of circumstances, they are just getting by."

And here's Smither's campaign site, and his blog. And of course, a link to make donations. I'm heading to that one right now.

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:56 PM | link  

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:57 PM | link