BillstronBlog

We just got home from the 20 week sonogram (aka ultrasound), and the big news is that we’re having a girl. Most of our family thought that we would wait to find out the gender. We love springing big news like this on people when they’re least expecting it. As usual, my sister had the best response, but, again, only the dog could hear exactly what she said.

I never thought that I would want to know the gender before birth. I always said that I wanted it to be a surprise. I told a friend, who is also pregnant, and she said, “well it’s a surprise anyway, you just get the surprise early.” Of course! I’m embarrassed that I never thought of it that way. That pretty much made up my mind for me, and I’m really glad we found out because it seems so real now.

I just can’t get over how terrifying it is that we’re having a girl. What the hell do I know about raising a girl. I wonder if she’ll like working on stuff. I wonder if she’ll want to ride motorcycles. I wonder if she’ll… I wonder if I’ll screw her up. Thank God I’ll have some help.

Hillary Clinton has been talking up her ability to be “ready on day one” for months now. I have never quite understood how she was ready. First Lady is not equal to President and neither is carpet bagging Senator. How exactly is she ready on day one. Then she tells us the stories. She personally knew Benazir Bhutto. She brought together the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. She scrambled from a helicopter to a bunker under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia. Oh, Mrs. Clinton, you’re right, you will be ready on day one…

Not so fast. It seems that the trip to Bosnia didn’t quite happen the way she remembered — no sniper fire, no rushing. In fact, she was met on the tarmac by a little girl. Well maybe she saved the little girl from a sniper round… Uh, no! She just lied misspoke about the event.

Maybe that is how she will be “ready on day one.” She’ll be ready to lie just like that last couple of snakes we’ve had in the oval office. If you know of another way she’ll be ready, I’d love to hear it.

First Read’s Coverage of the Story

First Read’s, Word of the Day: ‘Misspoke’

I’m no economist, but the recent jaw flapping by the two Democratic candidates against free trade, i.e. NAFTA, is ridiculous. Free trade is not bad for our economy. In fact, economist squarely agree that free trade is good for the economy, and quotes by the chief economist, Ben Bernanke, extolling free trade are easy to find by putting “bernanke free trade” into a google search. Here are some selected quotes from his 2004 speech at Duke University:

One proposition commands almost unanimous assent within the economics community. That proposition is that free trade among nations promotes economic prosperity.
Trade creates jobs in the United States by expanding the potential market for U.S. goods and services.
Moreover, the savings that consumers enjoy because of the availability of lower-cost imports effectively increase household purchasing power, extra income that can be spent on other goods and services, including those produced domestically.
In the long run, avoiding economic isolationism and maintaining economic dynamism will pay big dividends for everybody.

To be sure, free trade does displace some workers, and this is a tragic shame. But the actual number of displaced workers is drastically over hyped. Another quote from Bernanke’s 2004 speech:

Only slightly more than 2 percent of gross job losses are the result of import competition.An analysis by Goldman-Sachs (2003) estimated that U.S producers shifted between 300,000 and 500,000 jobs abroad during the past three years, an average of between 100,000 and 167,000 jobs per year since 2000.

The unsexy and difficult solution to this problem is to help these displaced workers find new jobs. M.E. Markes from Forbes magazine had this to say in Why Do They Say these Things?:

It is equally true that free trade will always create winners and losers. And we should be paying far more attention to the disruptions in the lives of the losers, rather than railing against the free trade agreements themselves.

Closing our borders would destroy our economy. Does anyone remember the Cold War? Arguably, the collapse of the USSR was caused by a sluggish protectionist economy that drug living conditions, morale, and Socialism down with it. Russia is still living with these economic sins.
So, back to Clinton-Obama, come on guys! Get real! Barack, you’re smart, you went to Harvard, and Hillary, your husband signed NAFTA. You guys know that free-trade isn’t evil. You are just pandering for votes and offering false hope to the poor folks effected by the depressed Ohio economy. R. Karlgaard in Stand Up, Free-Trade Democrats! on the Forbes Blog had this to say:

Silicon Valley Democrats are free traders.
Smoot Hawley-style protectionism would be a disaster, a cancer. Free-trade Democrats need to see this.

And this too say in Trade Protectionism In the iPod Era:

One of the great threats to the American and global economies is trade protectionism.
I hope politically progressive CEOs like Steve Jobs step up and stop the protectionist drift of their party.

Democrats — Karlgaard and I are speaking to you! Don’t let your bleeding hearts destroy our economy.