The credit card industry is a piece of work. After spending more than $100 million lobbying Congress for tougher bankruptcy rules, the industry is sending card offers to those who declared bankruptcy just before the new law went into effect this fall, The New York Times reported. The reason is that it is now harder for those people to discharge their debts, because they can’t declare bankruptcy again for another eight years, according to the law. Consumers need to be accountable for their spending, but lenders need to stop passing out credit like it was candy.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Of all the good news about Kansas’ reviving economy, this may be the best yet: Japan is getting over its mad cow fears and reopening its markets to U.S. beef this week for the first time in two years, holding out hope for a full rebound for what was a $175 million market for Kansas beef in 2003. And no Senate-imposed tariffs were necessary, thank goodness.
Of course, now that U.S. officials have convinced Japanese officials that U.S. beef is safe, they must do all they can to make sure it is safe — including, if necessary, allowing tougher testing and more specific labeling than U.S. officials have wanted to date. Then there is the Japanese public: One poll last week found 75.2 percent still unwilling to eat American beef.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Economic analysts are pointing out the elephant in Iraq’s living room: Its struggling economy won’t improve until its security improves. “Until you can walk across the street without ducking, it will be hard to get the economy back,” David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, told Associated Press. The economists also noticed that President Bush didn’t talk about Iraq’s oil situation in his speech last week about Iraq’s economy. Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that oil production would be between 3 million and 3.5 million barrels a day by the end of 2004, generating money that could finance most of the country’s reconstruction. Instead, production has hovered around 2 million barrels a day, below prewar output, according to the Brookings Institution.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It’s fair for the Bush administration to bring economic concerns to the table when it comes to global warming. But it shouldn’t walk away from the table, as it did last week at the global warming summit in Montreal. U.S. officials walked out of a round of informal talks aimed at finding ways to curb greenhouse gases.
Former President Bill Clinton added to the criticism in a speech Friday, calling the administration’s assertion that reducing greenhouse gases would hurt the U.S. economy “flat wrong.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins is a champion of reforms such as vouchers and charter schools. This week, his 11-member transition team will recommend that the marquee items on the State Board of Education’s 2006 legislative agenda be — drumroll — state-paid vouchers to private schools and the creation of more charter schools. What we wondered a month ago still applies: Why does Corkins even need a transition team?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kudos to Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for drawing attention to humanitarian disasters in Africa. Brownback returned last week from a trip to Congo, Rwanda and Kenya. He reported that more than 1,000 people a day in eastern Congo are dying from preventable causes, and he called for better coordination of foreign aid programs. Brownback has also led efforts to help end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Without such high profile advocates, it is easy for Africa’s problems to fall off our national radar screen.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
