• Capitalism.
• Is economics a science?
• Guest: Joe Madison - The Black Eagle. Next week he and Thom and others are on a trip to Darfur.
• Guest: Christopher Coyne. After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy.
• Guest: Dr. Lewis Mehl Madrona. "Narrative Medicine". Health care.
• Guest: Karen Ackerman, ACLU.
• Guest: Terry McAuliffe, super delegate, ex DNC chairman, chairman of Hillary's campaign.
• Tomorrow's primaries, caucuses.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Monday 03 March '08 National show

• Article: A Genocide Foretold.
• Article: Scorched-Earth Strategy Returns to Darfur.
• Movie: The Devil Came on Horseback.
• Thom is traveling to Darfur next week. He will be on air Monday. The he is flying to Zurich to meet Joe Madison, Rusty Humphries, other hosts, Ellen Ratner. They will fly to Nairobi, stay at the airport, then get on an ancient Russian cargo plane, with a rope sea for a seat belt, in the hold.
• Tomorrow's primaries.
• Clip:
  [Warren Buffett]: "I would say by any common sense definition, we are in a recession. And..."

  [Quick]: "You would?"

  [Warren Buffett]: "Yeah, we wouldn't--we haven't had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth, but I will tell you that, on balance, most people's situation, certainly their net worth has been heading south now for a considerable period of time. And if you owned a house, and you had an 80 percent mortgage on it, and so you had 20 percent equity a year ago, you might not have any equity now. And millions of people are in positions somewhat similar to that, and people would--people that own municipal bonds feel poorer today than they did a few months ago."
  Warren Buffett Answers Your Emails on Squawk Box.

• Thom's Buzzflash Independent Thinker Book Review of the month is "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" by Ha-Joon Chang.
• Hamilton, Tench Cox. Jefferson did not agree. Infant industries. Hamilton's list. Toyota. Lexus.
• Bumper Music: Magic, Pilot.
• Hamilton's plan:

  I. Protecting duties.

  Protective duties, or duties on those foreign articles which are the rivals of the domestic ones, intended to be encouraged. [B]y enhancing the charges on foreign articles, they enable the national manufacturers to undersell all their foreign competitors.

  II. Prohibitions of rival articles or duties equivalent to prohibitions.

  Considering a monopoly of the domestic market to its own manufacturers as the reigning policy of manufacturing nations, a similar policy on the part of the United States in every proper instance, is dictated, it might almost be said, by the principles of distributive justice; certainly by the duty of endeavoring to secure to their own citizens a reciprocity of advantages.

  III. Prohibitions of the exportation of the materials of manufactures.

  The desire of securing a cheap and plentiful supply for the national workmen, and, where the article is either peculiar to the country, or of peculiar quality there, the jealousy of enabling foreign workmen to rival those of the nation, with its own materials, are the leading motives to this species of regulation. …

  IV. Pecuniary bounties [industry direct financial subsidies].

  This has been found one of the most efficacious means of encouraging manufactures, and it is in some views, the best. Though it has not yet been practiced upon by the government of the United States (unless the allowances on the exportation of dried and pickled fish and salted meat could be considered as a bounty) and though it is less favored by public opinion than some other modes. Its advantages, are these -- It is a species of encouragement more positive and direct than any other, and for that very reason, has a more immediate tendency to stimulate and uphold new enterprises, increasing the chances of profit, and diminishing the risks of loss, in the first attempts.

  V. Premiums [incentives for production, innovation, or quality].

  These are of a nature allied to bounties, though distinguishable from them, in some important features. Bounties are applicable to the whole quantity of an article produced, or manufactured, or exported, and involve a correspondent expense.

  Premiums serve to reward some particular excellence or superiority, some extraordinary exertion or skill, and are dispensed only in a small number of cases. But their effect is to stimulate general effort. Contrived so as to be both honorary and lucrative, they address themselves to different passions; touching the chords as well of emulation as of interest. They are accordingly a very economical mean of exciting the enterprise of a whole community.

  VI. The exemption of the materials of manufactures [raw materials] from duty [import tariffs].

  The policy of that exemption as a general rule, particularly in reference to new establishments, is obvious. It can hardly ever be advisable to add the obstructions of fiscal burdens to the difficulties which naturally embarrass a new manufacture; … exemptions of this kind in the United States, is to be derived from the practice, as far as their necessities have permitted, of those nations whom we are to meet as competitors in our own and in foreign markets.

  VIII. The encouragement of new inventions and discoveries [patents and copyrights].

  The encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at home, and of the introduction into the United States of such as may have been made in other countries; particularly those, which relate to machinery.

  This is among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids, which can be given to manufactures. The usual means of that encouragement are pecuniary rewards, and, for a time, exclusive privileges. The first must be employed, according to the occasion, and the utility of the invention, or discovery: For the last, so far as respects "authors and inventors'' provision has been made by law.

  IX. Judicious regulations for the inspection of manufactured commodities [regulation and inspection].

  This is not among the least important of the means, by which the prosperity of manufactures may be promoted. It is indeed in many cases one of the most essential. Contributing to prevent frauds upon consumers at home and exporters to foreign countries--to improvement quality and preserve the character of the national manufactures, it cannot fail to aid the expeditious and advantageous sale of them, and to serve as a guard against successful competition from other quarters.

  The reputation of the flour and lumber of some states, and of the potash of others has been established by an attention to this point. And the like good name might be procured for those articles, wheresoever produced, by a judicious and uniform system of inspection; throughout the ports of the United States. A like system might also be extended with advantage to other commodities.

  X. The facilitating of pecuniary remittances from place to place [a stable currency and banking system].

  The facilitating of pecuniary remittances from place to place is a point of considerable moment to trade in general, and to manufactures in particular; by rendering more easy the purchase of raw materials and provisions and the payment for manufactured supplies. …

  XI. The facilitating of the transportation of commodities [transportation infrastructure].

  Improvements favoring this object intimately concern all the domestic interests of a community; but they may without impropriety be mentioned as having an important relation to manufactures. There is perhaps scarcely any thing, which has been better calculated to assist the manufactures of Great Britain, than the ameliorations of the public roads of that kingdom, and the great progress which has been of late made in opening canals. Of the former, the United States stand much in need; and for the latter they present uncommon facilities. …

• James asked Thom if economics is a science. Thom's reply...
  

  No. Not in my opinion. Economics is not a science. There are some fundamentals of economics that you can quantify and you can say, you know, 'yes, when you do this this is what happens'. But because economic policy is so intertwined with social policy and political policy, the economics of, the Libertarian economics of the Sudan, for example, or the kleptocratic, actually, economic politics of the Northern Sudan versus the social democratic or socialist economics of Sweden, versus the semi libertarian economics of the United States, I mean all of them actually operate by different rules. And they operate by different rules in part because they have different infrastructure, they have different natural resource bases, they have different social assumptions, social economies, and so to say, "oh yeah, Milton Friedman's got it all figured out", or "John Meynard Keynes has got it all figured out", or any any of them, to say that I think is a terrible mistake. James, excellent question. In my humble opinion, and I sat next to Paul Krugman, we did a panel together, you know, Paul, forgive me, but in my opinion economics is not a science. It is part art, mostly art, and part science.

• Bumper Music: The Way Life's Meant to Be, ELO.
• Guest: Joe Madison - The Black Eagle. Next week he and Thom and others are on a trip to Darfur. Hot spots in Southern Sudan. Congressman Donald Payne just came back from where they are going. He anticipates there may be war breaking out. New York Times story. The country is large, landlocked. Inaccessibility. Millions of refugees, fled or enslaved, coming back to nothing for referendum. Sacks of hope. They can't go back to their land because of land mines. Oil. Chinese. A new war would make Darfur look like a walk in the park. A Chinese dam would eliminate Nubian culture. The Sudan has over 400 pre-Egyptian pyramids. They will go to Juba, hopefully to the border of Darfur. Obama mentioned it in the last debate.
• Bumper Music: Talk to me, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac.
• Thom will do Monday's show before setting off for Sudan. Tuesday's guest host will be Sam Seder, Wednesday and Thursday Laura Flanders. Thom hopes to do the show live from Southern Sudan on Friday by satellite phone. Carl Wolfson will be in the Portland studio. On Monday and Tuesday while Thom is flying back, Peter B. Collins will be doing the show live from the Take Back America conference.
• Article: How To Buy a Gun In Darfur.
• Clip:
  "It's a bloodthirsty religion that's practiced over there by a bunch of throwbacks, and we're to kill 'em." Michael Savage.
• Thom Hartmann is traveling to Darfur next week. Years ago on a trip to Uganda, Dick Gregory told Thom that if you got something as good as Democracy, you wouldn't have have to shove it down people's throats with the barrel of a gun; they'd steal it. Thom is uncomfortable about doing the trip trough a religious organization, but everyone else has left.
• Guest: Christopher Coyne. After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy - Does exporting democracy hurt more than it helps? Associate professor at West Virginia. He, Thom and Ron Paul agree on the diagnosis. Trade. Tariffs.
• Bumper Music: George W. Told The Nation, Tom Paxton.
• Article: Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican, John Gray.
• Article: A Day in the Life of a True Conservative.
• Bumper Music: Democracy, Dan Fogelberg.
• There is a problem with a paper thin majority, and shaky seats in red areas. We need a landslide, voting is not enough.
• Article: One-way street?.
  "When Takao Kitabata stood in front of 130 businessmen in January to talk about the changing environment facing Japanese companies, he could hardly have imagined the uproar his words would provoke.

  As the top bureaucrat at the ministry of economy, trade and industry, Mr Kitabata was presenting his thoughts on the need for Japanese companies to adjust to far-reaching changes in the global economy. But his comments that companies should be able to choose their shareholders - a breed he described as "fickle, irresponsible and greedy" - are still reverberating in investment circles and raising concerns about a shift towards insularity and protectionism in Japan.

  "
• Bumper Music: Rich Man's War, Steve Earle.
• Movie: Devil Came on Horseback about Darfur.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. Joe Madison. New York Times article. The Devil Came on Horseback. Rusty Humphries who is going on the trip to Darfur is a hard core conservative; there will be a mix. Ellen was in a coup d'etat in Philippines. Paulson talk, help for homeowners making progress. A reporter asked Bush about $4 gas and he expressed surprise, the national economic director said $3.60 is predicted. Secretary Gates, NATO troops, wants more in Afghanistan, April 2-4 summit. Ohio incident where Obama staffer Austan Goolsbee told Canadian Consul General Georges Rioux to take NAFTA criticism with a pinch of salt.
• Article: U.S. Health Care Gets Boost From Charity.
• Guest: Dr. Lewis Mehl Madrona. He's appearing tonight at the New Renaissance Book Store 7-8:30. Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine, Canada. Native American. Author of "Coyote Medicine", "Coyote Healing", "Coyote Wisdom", and now "Narrative Medicine: the Use of History and Story in the Healing Process". He taught and/or practiced psychiatry, family and emergency medicine all over the United States. He invited Thom to a healing ceremony, originally. Remote Area Medical on 60 Minutes. They set up in countries, temporary. People in the USA drove from miles around. American vs. Canadian health care. Nobody worries about payment.
• Bumper Music: Selling the Drama, Live (video).
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Bush Says He Lets Red Phone Go Straight to Voicemail.
• Recession, depression.
• Bumper Music: We Can't Make It Here Any More, James McMurtry.
• Guest: Karen Ackerman, ACLU. Election...candidates' records on economic issues. If McCain were to become president, what would the average American see as time went on? More of the same Bush economic policies, income inequality growing. Democrat's can't get 60 in Senate, we need to make Republican filibuster. We need to vote more progressive senators in.
• Bumper Music: Give Me Some Truth, John Lennon.
• Guest: Terry McAuliffe, super delegate, ex DNC chairman, chairman of Hillary's campaign. Tomorrow. He thinks Hillary will win, so they will move on to Pennsylvania. Bill did not win until June, Kerry March 10. They aren't thinking about possible vice presidents yet. His book, "What A Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals".