This Weekend’s Unanswered Questions (072405)

Another installment in a nearly-regular series of mysteries and pseudo-mysteries (usually 3-4) this inquiring mind would like to have answers for (some links included may require free registration):

QUESTION 1: If they really must stay in New York (I think Ramallah or Tehran would be more appropriate), will the people at The United Nations at least let Donald Trump take over the project?

Trump’s idea seems hideous at first, but may actually be awesome:

WASHINGTON - The U.N. renovation project will probably cost $3 billion - more than double the United Nations’s estimate of $1.2 billion, and more than four times the $700 million the project would cost if it were being managed competently, real estate developer Donald Trump told senators here yesterday.

The best solution to the United Nations’ refurbishment woes would be for the organization to abandon its current Turtle Bay headquarters entirely and relocate to the new office towers being built at ground zero, Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump’s assessments were delivered in testimony before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on federal financial management, government information, and international security. The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma, investigates cases of waste and financial mismanagement at the federal level.

One such case, Dr. Coburn has said, is the U.N.’s plan to undertake a complete renovation of its headquarters at Turtle Bay, at a cost of $1.2 billion, 22% of which would be shouldered by American taxpayers. The renovations - set to begin in 2007 and expected to take five years - would be financed by America in the form of a $1.2 billion, 30-year loan at 5.54% interest offered last fall by the Bush administration.

As The New York Sun reported in February, the $1.2 billion price tag for the project appeared exorbitant to many New York real estate developers, including Mr. Trump.

… “Anyone who says that building renovation is more expensive than building a new building doesn’t know the business,” the developer said. “It only costs a fool more money.”

Mr. Trump said that, as a result of meetings with Secretary-General Annan and conversations with other U.N. officials, he had come to the conclusion that the world body was being “naive,” at best, in its approach to the renovations. “I’m going to predict that it will cost over $3 billion because they just don’t know” what they’re doing, Mr. Trump said of the project. “In my real opinion, it should cost around $700 million,” he added.

…. the United Nations was offered space at ground zero in 2002 and turned it down, citing an excessively taxing commute for U.N. employees living in Midtown.

(In my dreams, I’d relocate the UN to Ground Zero and make every UN employee and foreign dignitary, every single day, have to walk through a series of monuments not only to those who died in the September 11 attacks and in terroism attacks worldwide, but to the American and other coalition-of-the-willing soldiers who liberated Afghanistan and Iraq after that. Y’all don’t like it? There’s always Damascus.)

Back in the real world, if the UN must remain headquartered in the US and remodel Turtle Bay, Congress should make American-company management of the entire construction project a precondition, and limit the cost to the $700 million Trump mentioned.

QUESTION 2: How many other places have you seen this story?

Elliot Spitzer’s campaign had to return contributions because of conflict considerations (link requires paid subscription):

Documents filed Friday with the New York State Board of Elections show that New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer returned a $24,000 campaign donation that Mario J. Gabelli, chief executive of Gabelli Asset Management Inc. in Rye, N.Y., made in December 2004, according to a published report last week.

Mr. Spitzer, who is raising money to run for governor of New York, reportedly returned the money because his office and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been making inquiries into the operations of Gabelli Asset Management as part of a continuing probe into the fund industry.

Gabelli Asset Management has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with that probe.

Oops.

QUESTION 3: Why is the idea of allowing Unocal to be sold to a company 70% owned by the Chinese government still in play, while China’s intellectual-property outrages go unchecked?

From the Institution for Policy Innovation–”They’ve Got to Change Their Evil Ways?” (I’d prefer removing the question mark):

The theft of intellectual property (IP) through copyright piracy and counterfeiting is costing U.S. companies $200 billion to $250 billion a year.

Much of the stealing of computer programs, movies and music is being done in Russia and China. Since it appears the governments in those countries aren’t cracking down on thieves as aggressively as they should, it’s up to the U.S to protect its own interests — even if it has to go outside American borders to do so.

To slow IP theft in those nations, Washington should establish some adult supervision in Beijing and Moscow. At least that’s one solution Rep. Frank Wolf has in mind. The Virginia Republican has included a provision in the Commerce Department spending bill that requires Washington to open U.S. Intellectual Property Offices in those cities.

Another way to contain the pirates and counterfeiters — and to increase the pressure on governments that are looking the other way at the widespread theft of U.S. IP in their countries — would be for the Office of the United States Trade Representative to take an intellectual property rights enforcement case to the World Trade Organization.

So far, that office has yet to do so. Nor has the Office of the United States Trade Representative filled the position of chief negotiator for intellectual property enforcement. That post was created in last year’s budget and should have been filled.

Wake-up call to former Ohio Congressman and now Trade Representative Rob Portman: You’re on the job now. Get to work.