Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ Links (030906)

Free Links:

• I’ve always seen near bi-partisan unanimity in Washington on what should be a controversial matter as a bad sign. Exhibit A: Sarbanes Oxley, a horrible law that was not thought through. It passed several years ago in the wake of Enron because no one wanted to be seen as a “supporter” of corporate corruption and malfeasance. The 62-2 vote in a House committee against the Dubai Ports deal is similar. The Captain is correct in assessing its potential impact: A Spoonful Of Panic Helps The Majority Go Down. When you look at the deal objectively (something I acknowledge and regret to say I did not do at first; but at least I recovered), it makes sense. From a foreign policy perspective, it makes even more sense. OpinionJournal.com (may require registration) also pitches in this morning: “What we’re watching this week is the Lilliputians on Capitol Hill tying down a Bush Administration that increasingly looks like Gulliver.” Unfortunately for the Bush Administration, it’s a largely self-inflicted wound.
• BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Google is playing Chinese Chess — In the midst of a “licensing” dispute with the government that is really a tug-of-war over what it will tell users about restricted search results, it “has decided to store search records from the site outside of China in order to prevent that government from being able to access the data without Google’s consent.” On the surface, it looks like a pretty smart move.
• Nat Comisar, the former owner of Downtown Cincinnati’s 5-stars-for-41-years Maisonette restaurant, offered his perspectives on the fate of upscale restaurants last week (HT Spacetropic). Notably absent was any mention of reopening, in the northeast suburbs or anywhere else.
• Alan Greenspan will get an $8 million advance for his memoirs — I hope the content is more interesting than the statement made by Penguin Press’s Publisher about it: “His book will be about what we can know, what we can’t know and what we should do about it.” Zzzzz.
• There is renewed talk of taxes on junk food, despite the fact, as Mark Luik notes at TCS Daily, there is little scientific support proving the health effects of reducing junk in kids’ diets. That doesn’t matter; it’s all about the money, and if left unchecked, legislators will be all too happy to create another category of “sin tax.”
• The book excerpt Sports Illustrated has published on the Barry Bonds doping saga makes it very clear that Bonds did what he did out of jealousy over the 1998 home-run record competition between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. That green-eyed monster will get you every time when you give into it. The Kirk has a nice sportswriter reax roundup. It will take years (if ever) for the credibility of baseball to recover from what Bonds and several others have inflicted on it (yes, with the see-no-evil help of the Lords of Baseball and the players’ union).
• Here is a fascinating review of progress on “microjets,” and the impact they could have on conducting business and the travel industry (HT S.O.B. Alliance member NixGuy). It’s closer than you think.
• Guaranteeing that nothing will get done on the afternoons of March 16 and 17 (or all day long on the West Coast) — CBS will offer free early-round March Madness over the Internet (HT with a longer-lasting link to S.O.B. Alliance member Interested-Participant). I hope their servers are ready.