4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 13, 2003 OP/ED Ulie Mt~tdiju U$U 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LOUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE "We are not walking away, we are not faltering, we are going to win this battle, and this war. - Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, deliberately using the word "war" to describe the current situation in Iraq, as reported Nov. 11 by The New York Times. Coach Carr, why did you break the picket line at Borders? f Because unions only give the false impression that capitalism . .- STEVE COTNER AND JOEL HOARD OPERATION PUSsYCAT is acceptable. pusycat@umict~edu A tale of two economists ZAC PESKOWITZ Tiu LOWER FREQUENCIE B ob Rubin ly jockeying for an unobstructed view of the fundamentalists. The ubiquitous nods of awakes in the great Rubin. A liberal whom the capitalists affirmation and the yelps of agreement cas- U n i v e r s i t y ' s can love, a filthy rich businessman whom caded upon the economist. He threw bombs Executive Residence the liberals can respect. His every word is and the crowd ate them up with glee. This before the crack of soaked in moderation. The 2001 and 2003 was a support group for prejudice. dawn. The former Trea- tax cuts undermined "the fragile political After the 1992 Democratic victory, Bob *T, sury secretary and cur- consensus that existed around fiscal disci- Rubin and Paul Krugman were both expected rent chairman of pline." This country needs to "increase the to hold high profile positions in the Clinton Citigroup extricates seriousness of purpose in the political sys- economic team. Rubin got a job heading up himself from the 1,000 tem." Decreasing Chinese subsidization of the National Economic Council and Krugman, threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets. After the yuan "probably would help some," but because of his prominent disagreements with showering and dabbling his digits in a jade the effect "is greatly overestimated." And Robert Reich, was rebuffed and spent the next finger bowl, he reclines on an original Chip- on and on and on, with the pitch-perfect two terms exiled from Washington. Rubin pendale chair, sipping guava nectar and tone of a staid and stolid banker. No bursts picked up a nuanced understanding of the reading The New York Times. Sitting stiffly of enthusiasm, no harangues of emotion or political system, recognizing how the political in his Brooks Brothers suit, he devours the rhetorical explosions. structure conspires against sound economic omelet and the paper, eager to lunge into The world that Krugman now inhabits is policy. This theme occupied a significant por- another day as a champion of finance, a a bit different. Lately, Krugman has fallen in tion of his lecture Tuesday. Krugman knows a master of the universe. with a bad crowd. The Ann Arbor activist set lot of facts about politics, but possesses no Meanwhile across town, Paul Krugman, the was out in full force last night to hear Krug- rigorous theory to understand the world that Princeton economist and New York Times man plug his new book "The Great Unravel- surrounds him. He repeated shibboleth after columnist, drags himself out of bed. After a ing" at the School of Education. This crowd shibboleth, sketching the crudest political car- night of shoveling down hashbrowns and coffee engages in the economic equivalent of skip- icatures known to man. at the Fleetwood Diner, Krugman awakes in a ping school to sniff glue: They hate free Last evening, Paul Krugman broke my daze. He spits the cigarette butts out of his trade. But this is OK, according to Krugman, heart. The intelligence and vitality of his parched mouth and tries to remember what hap- because we are now in a revolutionary economic thought have been corrupted by pened last night. Between hanging out with the moment. "The next year, politically, is going an inability to recognize that we are not liv- Residential College kids at Rendezvous Cafe to be hell on wheels ... it's going to be like ing in a revolutionary era. On my night- and that last slice of pizza from In 'n' Out, he's nothing you've seen since Bleeding Kansas." stand, I have a thin volume, "Geography a little sketchy on the details. This is a moment where political differences and Trade," by Krugman. It is a beautiful, should be subsumed in the great crusade to elegant book. It is both a daring masterpiece T he past few days have featured an oust the Bush administration from office and of economics and a chance to examine the embarrassment of riches for Univer- restore all that is good and pure in the world. crisp thought processes of an iconoclast in sity students with an interest in eco- For Krugman, the current administration minute detail. I fear that the mind that creat- nomics. Rubin spoke at the Law School is a diabolical concatenation of tax-cutting ed it no longer exists. Tuesday in front of a dignified crowd of the extremists hellbent on the obliteration of the Ann Arbor establishment. Law and Busi- welfare state, foreign policy intellectuals Peskowitz can be reached ness students crowded the aisles, desperate- with "Sharonist tendencies" and Christian atzpeskowi@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Coleman' ssalary 'S C "'ng' I'm afraid that hearing that "we all have to Hindu names" and were thus immediately suffer in these tough times" from people suspect. students burdened With too that maketexorbitant amounts of money Unfortunately, voices such as these - much debt after college rings completely hollow to my ears. here on campus as on the streets of Mumbai DHARMA FOWLER and Lahore - drown out those on both sides School of Information of the "Line of Control" who want to go TO THE DAILY: beyond the legacy of partition and ideological I was completely sickened after reading Moderate debate, reasonable divides to forge a common sense of South an article about U niversity President Mary Asian identity - those who want an India- Sue Coleman's salary, (Coleman's salary argument the keys to Creating Pakistan battle to be fought only on a cricket tops colleagues' nationwide, 11/12/03). First, positive outcomes South Asia pitch, not on the Siachen glacier (where, as I should say that I understand that the Uni- BBC correspondent Andrew Whitehead versity is but one institution acting within pointed out at a campus event this week, both a larger social system. It is probably true TO THE DAILY: armies lose more men to frostbite than to that to get the "best," the University has to It is a sad spectacle to observe the shout- enemy fire). It only requires a cursory glance pay a minimum amount to its leaders. And ing matches into which most debates on the through the editorial pages of the secular I applaud President Coleman for declining vastly complicated India-Pakistan/Hindu- press in both countries to realize that such a salary increase in response to the budget Muslim issue typically descend. One might voices of reason and moderation exist. cuts our state has faced. All of this does have expected that among the academic com- Whether these voices become powerful not lessen the anger I feel about people munity of an American college campus, far enough to influence mainstream politics in making from $475,000 to $891,000 when from the political and social confines of the years to come will determine the future of many students are struggling to figure out South Asia, things would be otherwise. Not South Asia. what it means to start their young lives so, judging from the vitriolic and often non- SUDIN BHATTACHARYA more than $40,000 in debt. sensical back and forth on these pages over Rackham Why have tuition costs outpaced infla- the past week. A viewpoint, while outlining tion at such a staggering rate? In our par- the genuine shortcomings of the Indian gov- ents' time it was conceivable that one ernment, throws in the insightful claim that aULOAB $ could actually work his or her way through denunciation of terrorism is "anti-Muslim." A YOINK AND school. Why can't we say the same today? supposed rebuttal two days later lays the With increasing numbers of people relying blame for recent religious riots in Gujarat and CENSORING "FooTLoo$E. on student loans just to get an education, beyond on a 16th-century Mughal emperor. how is this debt affecting what kinds of Then comes a reasonable argument that choices people make about what career India's wrongs should not be balanced DAIlY OPINION: WELCOME TO path they take? Can a future teacher really against those of Pakistan, but laced with theEE afford to take on a massive college debt? helpful reminder that the defense of the Indi- We need some solutions to this crisis, and an position came from writers who "had VIEWPOINT Borders not the responsible company it used to be A BY CHARLIE MURPHY As a former manager and clerk at the downtown Borders, I am in a good position to provide some of the perspective Craig Matteson's letter, Editorial unfounded, Bor- ders employees should not strike (11/11/03), finds lacking in the Daily's editorial, Bor- ders patrol (11/06/03). Although he doesn't specify which of the union's actions remind him of "the counterproductive attacks which marked union negotiations in the recent past," a look at the long-term deteri- oration of wages and working conditions at In 2003, the starting wage is $6.50 per hour with one raise a year (usually about three percent), the number of personal days has dropped to nine and profit-sharing is but a distant memory. Workers routinely take a second (or third) job to make ends meet. I doubt executive compensation packages have suffered similar erosion. By way of compari- son, Chief Executive Officer Greg Josephow- icz makes approximately $586 per hour. Regarding his call for "co-operative negotiations," Matteson might find it inter- esting that after almost a year of negotia- tions, Borders has offered the downtown workers a contract with a lower raise than it world's leading purveyor of books can't tell the difference between contempt and good- faith negotiating. Too bad no one's around to recommend a good dictionary. The most obvious change at Borders in the last several years is a philosophical one: the company has abandoned its commitment to its employees and customers in order to look better to the large institutional investors who hold the majority of the company stock. Ironically, by cutting inventory and slashing payroll, Borders is becoming less competitive in the marketplace: It fails to provide an attractive alternative to online shopping even as it becomes a pale reflec- I ~ i±1rn51~c4. V~~t %.'.? **AflSS~JSAM ~ %.%A4S.4. V'..'