Stop the bailout in the Senate

The Senate has scheduled a vote for Wednesday night at 7:30 pm on the bailout package. Now is the time to call your Senators and tell them not to support the bailout. Instructions on how to find your Senators and what to say are in my previous post.

Action: Stop Congress from giving away your money

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. The bar exam is over, though it's still 10 days away from results.

This morning I urge you to take three minutes (literally only three minutes) out of your day to stop this insane $700 billion dollar bailout.

1) Call your Representative. You can look them up here. Be polite and tell them (a) your name and that you are a constituent, (b) ask if they have a position on the bailout, and (c) urge them to vote against it.

Fun bonus game: If they don't have a position, ask out of curiosity how many people have called them supporting the bailout. When they give the answer (my Senator had received a total of ten calls in favor), ask them why they don't have a position when their constituents overwhelmingly oppose the plan. Kindly let them know you'll be calling back to check on the position as it develops.

2) Call each of your two Senators. You can look them up here. Do all the same things you did for your Representative.

All told, each call will probably take less than a minute of your day and with luck, you can stop one of the worst pieces of legislation in recent memory from getting shoved down our throats.

Report back in the comments if you have the time.

UPDATE: According to Politico, the vote is currently 228 Nay, 205 Yes. However, the vote is being held open for the moment, so call again to tell your Representative to vote against it.

UPDATE 2: We have won! 228 against, 205 for!

UPDATE 3: The roll call vote results are here. Be sure to call your Representative to either congratulate or criticize.

What would you ask a famous economist?

Tyler Cowen, economist, cultural omnivore, and proprietor of Marginal Revolution, has written a new book called "Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist." As an incentive for people to pre-order the book, he has offered to create a personalized podcast for anyone that pre-orders before Thursday, July 26th.

I'm planning on taking him up on the offer and wondered what you would ask a famous economist?

Kenyan Economics Expert: "Stop the Foreign Aid!"

Spiegel International has an interview with Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati about foreign aid. They seem shocked that his main plea is for foreign governments to stop sending aid.

SPIEGEL:Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

Foreign aid money is an inefficient transfer of tax dollars from the middle class in developed countries to the corrupt governments of developing countries and seldom (if ever) results in an improvement to the underlying problem in the developing country. In fact, in the case of food aid, it leads to even more famines.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...

SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...

Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

Like with domestic welfare, a hand up is what's needed, not a hand out. NGOs like KickStart and their MoneyMaker irrigation pumps provide actual poor people with the tools they need to get out of poverty. Traditional foreign aid is just money being sent from bureaucrats to other bureaucrats who stash it away in offshore accounts.