Government Ownership is Dangerous

Russia's embargo on gas shipments through Ukraine demonstrate the danger of a state-owned enterprise, namely that the enterprise will be used to further a national rather than business interest. No sane private business would disrupt its customers over a dispute with one of them. A private business would be extremely reluctant to cut off its revenues in that way. A state-owned business has the luxury, especially when the business involves a vital energy resource, of forgoing receipts in favor of state interests.

Russia is playing a very good hand in an energy scarce era as a way of recapturing its previous glory, not just the Soviet Union but also the Empire of Czarist Russia. Russians have always had a high opinion of their nation and culture; it's no surprise to me that they seek recognition of that fact. If their gas monopoly loses revenue because of the embargo, the sacrifice is tolerable and for a good cause. Don't expect Russians to behave as capitalists, expect them to behave as Russians.

Private owners are unwilling to take those losses unless they have no other choice. These days globalization has weakened the leverage national governments can exercise over private capital. Certainly that's the case in the US of A where government regulation of or influence over enterprise is anathema. Unlike government-owned enterprise, market forces and profit will prevent private enterprise from slavishly serving state interests or posing any threat to society.

*cough*

Yolanda King

Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King, died yesterday. No doubt God needed to balance the karma of the afterlife on the day Jerry Falwell died.

L'Iraq n'est pas le Viêt Nam

The New York Times reports on drug and (mainly) alcohol abuse in the military:

A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”

While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.

[...]

Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said.

[...]

But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.

“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”

Gee, I wonder why soldiers would do all that? Muliple rotations to a war zone where every civilian is a possible enemy. Ever decreasing down time between deployments. Always training for the next rotation. Equipment shortages. Seeing your friends die in a country where everyone hates you. A war that goes on and on. Stop loss. Imagine having all that in your life. Drink, drugs and the oblivion of suicide may be a perfectly rational response.

This war has given me a whole new perspective on my service in Vietnam. It was a big deal at the time but the real danger, the mind-numbing dehumanization only lasted for a year(and I even dodged some of that). My entire Army career was 18 months total. (I was in the Individual Ready Reserve for a few years but unlike these days, IRR was never called up.) My Vietnam legacy has lasted a lifetime but that's mostly in my head. I don't have to dodge bullets and stay hyper alert for those moments of chaos and terror that will change the world forever. Hell, I was done at 24. I'm not a43 year old reservist with a job or business trying hold together some semblence of a normal life for a family that could be left totally on its own. This generation of soldiers and Marines has it far worse than I did. They are now the longest serving American combat troops since the Civil War.

In Vietnam we drowned our fears in alcohol and drugs. I see no reason to be surprised that this generation is doing the same thing under far more destructive circumstances.

Walter Reed, Inc

The company that maintains (or not) Walter Reed Hospital:

IAP is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, an asset-management firm chaired by former Treasury secretary John W. Snow. The company is headed by two former high-ranking executives of KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root. Al Neffgen, IAP's chief executive, was chief operating officer for a KBR division before joining IAP in 2004. IAP's president, Dave Swindle, is a former KBR vice president.

Dan Swindle? KBR?

Oh the irony! The irony!

I Hereby Announce...

St. John McCain announced yesterday that he will run for president. However, he will not formally announce until April so we will have to live in suspense for a few more weeks.

In keeping with the spirit of St. John's statement, I feel that it is only proper that I announce now that at some point in the future, I will consider and perhaps futher contemplate declaring my inclination to pursue a line of thought that may precipitate a pronouncement on some topic to be determined at an appropriate time as defined by criteria that are relevant in the circumstances.