4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 12, 2004 OPINION 4 +rbD420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE 44'Fifty-one percent of the American people lacked information (in this election) and we want to educate and enlighten them." - Filmmaker Michael Moore on plans to make a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9/11," as reported yesterday by CNN.com. ALEXANDER HONKALA VCo Pub' c tF.- VALM " '4A1MPL'E L *POO S AF D iz, tco 0o 'v GCot t-cX 4 How to win a seat and be successful JASMINE CLAIR T II. /\E\ANiN F *4 S tudent government elections take place next week. If you are one of those ambitious indi- viduals, starved for popu- larity and desperate for as many votes possible, then you may be interested in the following my top-10 power moves for success. Follow these rules and you'll be on your way to the Michi- gan Student Assembly chambers! One: Pledge to bring a Taco Bell to campus. On those late nights when I need to make a run for the border, I have to make a 15 to 20 minute trip to a distant land just to get my hands on a crispy chalupa. Clearly this is unacceptable, and if this year's candidates truly care about the stu- dent population, they will swiftly move to sat- isfy our endless desires for crunchy tacos and seven-layer burritos - all to be charged onto our Entree Plus, of course. Two: Wear your Greek letters proudly. Don't be ashamed that your frat brothers and sisters got your new pledges drunk and forced them to have a huge orgy. This will definitely get you that popularity that you've been longing for, as students will see you as their key to happiness. If free alcohol and sex can't send young co-eds to the polls, honestly, nothing else will. Three: Put your cell phone number on all of your pieces of literature. When people see your bright pink flyers strewn all over Denison Hall, they'll have a reason to call you ... And even better, when you lose the election, you can use the leftover leaflets as a pimping tactic. Who needs a pen and paper when you've got a nice 5 x 4 complete with picture, phone number and evidence of your lameness, such as "vote for me because I have school spirit." Four: SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! I promise that this will make you lots of happy new friends. Despite popular belief, people actually love hav- ing their inboxes filled with junk mail from people that they have absolutely no desire of knowing or voting for. Clever e-mails claiming that we know each other from econ class are the greatest, espe- cially because I've never actually taken an econ class in my life. Five: Harass those voters! When you're sweep- ing the halls, pay no attention to the no solicita- tion signs because what they really mean is their vote isn't for sale because they're already voting for you. And there's nothing wrong with a friendly reminder of why they're voting for you, is there? Of course not. Six: Harass those voters some more! Don't be afraid to call anyone at two o'clock in the morn- ing. Why? Because these people are actually up and waiting for your call. You sound great over the phone, and your voice rambling on forever is like music to any sane person's ears ... especially at two in morning - in fact the earlier the better. The campus would love to receive 5 a.m.-wake up calls from your campaign, and I guarantee that they won't forget your name, whatever it is, on election day. Seven: Don't forget the power of Sexy Grandpa. Make that hike up to North Campus and into the Bursley cafeteria, where you can join forces with the campus's best chef and political spokesperson. If you can't get a high-caliber athlete to pose with you for your T-shirt picture, Sexy Grandpa is obvi- ously the next-best alternative. He'll get you votes, man. Eight: Now's a good time to start going back to class ... and actually staying awake. Face-to- name recognition is priceless. Sure, freezing your. ass off on the Diag handing out leaflets works, but nothing draws more attention than having your cell phone going off in the middle of class to a Jay-Z tune. So go ahead and brush the dust off of those books, and your shoulders for that matter, and put mommy and daddy's money to good use. The last two pieces of advice are for those extremely ambitious individuals, who not only look to gain popularity, but also hope to estab- lish change - because it's rough out here on the streets of Ann Arbor. Nine: Never, ever, ever expose your conser- vative thought. If anyone ever finds out that you voted for Bush, your MSA career is over. Described as uncompromisingly liberal, MSA is notorious for tarring and feathering mem- bers with diverse viewpoints. Representative Charles Adside III can tell you all about this. After being reamed out by Jason Mironov and Co. for merely suggesting that both sides of Proposal 2 be reviewed, he quickly learned that there is only one right way in MSA, and that's Left way. Ten: MSA touts diversity and appears to wel- come individuals from different backgrounds; however, this is all a figment of MSA's imagi- nation. There's a high turnover rate within the chambers, especially among minorities, for a simple reason: It's their way ... or their way. So if you plan to institute change, just make sure that it's popular, because within MSA, what's popular is always best, even if it makes no sense at all. Well my little grasshoppers, I've taken you as far as I can. Good luck to you all! I4 4 Clair can be reached at jclair@umich.edu Bush's crumbling currency SAM SINGER MARKET WAXTCH was a post-election The U.S. current account deficit has sur- (the equivalent of almost two-thirds of the U.S. firework display for passed the $500 billion mark, and foreign trade deficit over that period), Asian banks have Republicans waking markets are being flooded with slowly depre- created a precarious, self-fulfilling prophecy up that Wednesday morn- ciating U.S. currency. In the month of Sep- - the more capital they withdraw, the weaker ing. Stock composites across tember alone, the United States imported their remaining investment becomes. Left with the globe were sparkling $51.6 billion more goods and services than it an unsustainable currency strategy and a waning - the flares visible from exported. Despite the currency's low altitude, buck, the banks are left with two choices: weath- Wall Street to Tokyo. Here The Economist contends that if left to pure er the storm or jump ship. at home, the Dow Industri- market forces, these record-breaking trade Although the cyclical custom of refinancing als and the S&P 500 rallied, imbalances would bring the dollar's asking the strength of the ailing U.S. dollar will seem with listings rising at close price even lower. The proof, it argues, is in the tempting, currency speculators are slowly begin- to 3-to-1 margins on the NASDAQ and New York numbers. Since 2001, the greenback has seen ning to understand the concept of prolonging the Stock Exchange. Out east, the Nikkei jumped a a 30 percent dive against the euro, but only a inevitable. Riding out a currency squall only point, and the London Stock Exchange closed at 14 percent fall in general trade-weighted terms makes sense when there is land on the horizon. a two-and-a-half year high. throughout the same period. Although there is no definitive timetable for an The financial festivities came in anticipation The extra support has come from the coffers Asian banking exodus, intensified growing pains of four more years of pro-market leadership from of Asia's central banks - the same financial within these rapidly maturing economies are Washington - another term rife with economic institutions dollar optimists have leaned on to likely to discourage short-term capital outlays. stimulus packages, privatization programs and make their case for the monetary status quo. Take China, where fears of a hard landing have with any luck, tax cuts - lots of tax cuts. Indeed, According to this camp, the U.S. economy can triggered the country's first interest rate hike in with almost 18 consecutive months of the last two passively finance its current account deficit nine years, or Japan, where warnings of infla- years consumed by vigorous growth and employ- by simply waiting for capital to arrive from tion, once solely confined to the contents of eco- ment recuperation, President Bush's reputation as Asia. The conventional supposition among nomic mythology, have resurfaced in consumer a market-motivator seems to have preceded him. these idealists: In order to keep exports com- price indexes. But as the election-time smoke clears, economists petitive; budding Asian economies will seek to While growth surges are always fun for the are concerned that the two-year-long, low-interest, hold their currencies down by amassing large whole family, the Bush Administration cannot high-spending joyride American consumers have reserves of U.S. dollars. Thus, as long as the continue to fuel them at the expense of the U.S. relished may have come with a hefty price tag spirit of competitiveness subsists in Asia's currency. If the dollar nosedives, the steep short- - the stability of the dollar. export markets, there will be sustained demand term rate increase that will likely result would This past week the price of the dollar sank to for the dollar, and the U.S. can continue down be enough to wipe out the economic progress of $1.30 against the euro, a gold-medal trading low the path of least resistance - right? Wrong. Bush's first term and then some. Higher borrow- for our tumbling tender. Hardly news to currency The economies of South and East Asia are ing costs would prompt an increase in savings, traders, the dollar's recent decline places it towards not the frail, post-traumatic stress, currency-peg- and the dramatic slowdown in consumer spend- the bottom of a three-year-long foreign exchange gers they were in the late '90s. As their markets ing would herald the return of the post-Sept. 11 slide. Yet while staggering, it isn't the expansive have grown more robust, treasury departments economic lethargy that got us here in the first scope of the buck's plunge that troubles econo- throughout the continent have come to terms place. mists. More chilling is that without the financial with the many hazards of dollar-dependence. sustenance of a few central banks in Asia, the drop Most profoundly, by accumulating more than Singer can be reached at would have been a lot worse. $1 trillion in U.S. currency reserves-since 2001 singers@umich.edu LETTER TO THE EDITOR 4 'Marriage' is a heterosexual tradition that should be preserved for heterosexuals TO THE DAILY: I nm m ri , i r ren n c ti A ndrewam n r'c, people can see why white people shouldn't be allowed to use it, even though they are just people too, and all men are created equal. That word has historical meaning that would be drastically changed just because other people want to be included in it, and it would be unreasonable to ask that of the llac-r omminity Marriao nr t ldheAnled couple just as white people have the right to act black as long as they don't use the "N" word. The only problem though is that in order for me to make sure that marriage didn't change, I had to vote against homo- sexuals having their civil unions. I think most of the people who voted for Proposal 2 felt this wavsv 'wel and if the homosex- a