Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (040606)

Free Links:

• I Thought This Couldn’t Happen with Nationalized Health Care — In the UK, “Nine people and five companies will be charged with conspiracy to defraud the NHS over drug prices and supply, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said.”
• Male Chauvinist Question of the Day — Now that tennis’s French Open will have equal prize money for men’s and women’s champion, does that mean the women will play best-of-five sets? Oh.
• Eric Pianka, the guy I mentioned earlier this week (second item at link) who wants to shrink the world’s population by 90%, won’t be happy about this:
  

  Because of legalized abortion and the revocation of maternity benefits to women who have a third child South Korea is facing a severe underpopulation problem and will soon spend $20 billion to combat it.

  Fearing overpopulation problems similar to China’s and not wanting to dampen economic prosperity, South Korea 40 years ago began encouraging couples to limit their number of children to two.

  The nation legalized abortion in 1973 and, in 1984, ended maternity benefits for women having a third child.

  Now, South Korea has the lowest birth rate of any of the OECD members and is having problems sustaining its economic growth. It also faces the prospect of an aging population and not having enough younger Koreans in the workforce to support them.

  National Statistical Office figures show the number of births dropped to 476,000 last year from 1 million in 1970. The nation has the world’s fastest aging population, the office said.

  The Korea Economic Institute in Washington says the current problems are the result of the population policies South Korea put into effect long ago.

  The $20 billion will go towards paying for kindergarten costs for all children and additional financial help for families with three or more children, according to a Bloomberg report.

  Another lesson in “be careful what you wish for.”

• Apple Announces Windows Boot Camp — So much for my predictive powers; I doubted that this would ever happen (third item at link). On Intel-based Macs, you will be able to start up the computer using either Windows or OSX, but not both at the same time. Coverage is here and here. Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, in a subscription-only piece, is very impressed.
• Katie Couric is leaving The Today Show to anchor the CBS Evening News. Tony Snow’s comment on his radio show yesterday that this proves that the big networks don’t take covering the news seriously any more is dead-on. This is a woman who has less experience doing real reporting than Ohio’s US Senate candidate David Smith has at living in Ohio, or at keeping promises while living here.
• This story about all patriotic clothes and flags being banned is a downer, but look at the bright side — maybe the idea of having school uniforms will catch on again, saving parents hundreds of dollars a year and teachers all kinds of time policing a dress code. Aside: What in the world are the color guards for the marching bands going to do?
• Ted Kennedy and history had a very strange convergence yesterday, according to new S.O.B. Alliance member ChuckoBlog, where he (Kennedy, not Chucko) essentially ended up equating President Bush with the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. Zheesh — We may have found Jay Bennish’s replacement.
• Sharon Stone says she wants to direct a “Basic Instinct 3” — Given how BI2 has done at the box office, she may also have to fund it.