4A - Thursday, March 15, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 413 E. Huron St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104 tothedaily@umich.edu KARL STAMPFL IMRAN SYED JEFFREY BLOOMER EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Banking on the future The value of increasing taxes for a better quality of life omerica bank announced last week that it will move its headquarters to Dallas. It was lured there by booming com- mercial opportunities and nonexistent corporate income taxes. Comerica, founded in Detroit almost 160 years ago, is just the latest in a string of corporations fleeing Michigan's stagnant econo- my. With its name plastered on the Detroit Tigers's downtown sta- dium and branches across Michigan, Comerica's decision to move south was a fiscal - and a psychological - blow to the state. It hurt a lot." - Nine-year-old Angelica Santiago, who was finally rescued after having her hand stuck in the cash slot of an ATM for more than three hours, as reported yesterday by CNN. 4 a rr RIAA: The music mafia Comerica's move recently garnered the attention of the The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which attributed the reloca- tion to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposed tax increases. The editorial sarcastically claims that Granholm "rewarded" support- ers with $1 billion in additional taxes - as if Michigan voters expected a prize and were sorely disappointed. Michigan's economic situation domi- nated the 2006 gubernatorial election, and Republican candidate Dick Devos's tax- slashing mentality was soundly rebuked by the voters. Although tax increases are never popular, voters understand the dif- ficult decisions Granholm is forced to make and recognize that if they want the state to spend on services, that money has to come from somewhere. In order to close the state's $860 million budget deficit, Granholm has proposed a 2 percent tax on the broad category of servic- es. She has floated increasing taxes on liquor and cigarettes and will soon announce a reformed business tax.Many critics yearn for the supposed golden days of former Republi- can Gov. John Engler. But they conveniently overlook the fact that his tax cuts, in large part, led to the severe structural budget cri- sis our state is experiencing today. Engler drastically reduced Michigan's general fund and Granholm inherited the problem, which multiplied exponentially when the technological boom of the 1990s slowed. Engler's cuts left Michigan unpre- pared to absorb the sudden punch; it's fool- ish to pretend that this is all Granholm's fault simply because she is the one currently in office. Republicans are now demanding Granholm slash business taxes, but she is responsible for running a government, not just an economy. The Republican controlled state Senate is preparing to fight an increase in corporate income tax, hoping to attract businesses now. Granholm is taking the less politically advantageous route of ensuring that basic public services can be provided in 2007 and investing in education, which is the only path to a knowledge-based economy and prosperity in the future. Of course, the future of Michigan is dependent on the economy, but in times of recession, it is even more important that the government be able to fund its welfare and social security programs. Despite warn- ings from Wall Street that Michigan's credit rating will be downgraded, Granholm is refusing to run the government like a profit- seeking corporation, and for this she should be commended. Michigan residents must look at taxes in terms of relative cost and benefit. There are services, like education, that the state can and must provide. According to the Detroit Free Press, the proposed service tax increase would cost a family of four with a income of $57,300 about $65 per year, slightly more than $5 dollars per month - hardly the backbreaker Republicans are ranting about. Comerica will not be the last company to leave Michigan, and this will not be the last criticism heard from out-of-state pun- dits who rarely look back beyond a couple of years even while commenting on problems that span decades. For the good of the pub- lic, Granholm is trying to strike a balance between a good business environment and a good living environment. That's something we can all live with. At the core of our perceptions of the mafia lie greed, the pursuit of profit and the bullying of the weak and innocent. But if that is our definition, then the insidiousness of people like Al Capone or Lucky Luciano pale in comparison to the ethics of our corporate royalty. The mere fact that certain corporations - and organizations that are morally no' different than mem-I bers of the mafial consider themselves '. legitimate clearly demonstrates the hypocrisy. J The Recording JARED Industry Associa- GOLDBERG tion of America has ------ thus devolved from a fairly innocu- ous organization to the latest incarna- tion of the mob. The advent of the mp3 music file and the proliferation of high- speed Internet brought the RIAA onto the scene nearly 10 years ago. Napster, the first peer-to-peer file-sharing ser- vice, was also the first victim. Dozens of similar programs were developed - Kazaa and LimeWire among them. Millions of people around the world were drawn into file-sharing. Using the courts, the RIAA has tried to force file-sharing sites back into Pandora's box. Much like the mafia, the RIAA decided intimidation was the best policy. Employing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 - itself a stricter manifestation of the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty - the RIAA has sued thousands and is plan- ning to sue many more. No one has been immune to the law- suits. Children, the elderly, college stu- dents and even dead people are among the RIAA's victims. Larry Scantle- bury - the defendant in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury and a former-Ypsilanti resident - died before his case was heard. Instead of dropping the lawsuit, the RIAA asked for a 60-day stay so his family could mourn before they were deposed. In another case, Cassi Hunt, a stu- dent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contacted a representa- tive of the RIAA, choosing as most of the thousands facing lawsuits to settle before going to court. Settlements have reached into the thousands. There have even been cases of RIAA representa- tives suggesting that students drop out of college in order to pay back debts. But the true injustice lies with statu- tory penalties that the RIAA is pursuing. It seeks between $750 to $150,000 in compensation per song. A typical song on iTunes costs less than$1. Seekingthat much in damages - a potential profit thousands of times the value of the song - is not morally justifiable. It is black- mail, plain and simple. Federal Judge David Trager from Brooklyn also sees a problem. In UMG v. Lindor, Judge Trag- er allowed the defendant to claim that the penalties demandedbytheRIAA are "unconstitutionally excessive." In a lawsuit against Russian file- sharing website allofmp3.com, the RIAA asked for $1.65 trillion, an amount greater than Russia's gross domestic product. The company that owns allofmp3.com claims it pays roy- alties to the Russian collection agency for copyrights and since allofmp3.com is not located in America, the RIAA has no grounds for alawsuit. Further, if the RIAA was looking for suitable com- pensation, it should sue the collection agency, not allofmp3.com. All of this clearly demonstrates the unhealthy greed and the pathological obsession with file sharing of the RIAA. - - - Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar's 2003 documentary, "The Corpora- tion," psychoanalyzed corporations as if they were people, noting that they have the same legal rights as people. If we were to characterize the RIAA as a person, it would be a cross between Robert Duvall's character in "The God- father," Charles Dickens's Scrooge and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. I would never argue for anyone to break the law. However, I submit that in this case, the laws violate a consum- er's right to fair use and infringes upon the very property rights that make America free and democratic. Jared Goldberg can be reached at jaredgo@umich.edu. a a SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU Libby verdict lets more istration claims relating to Niger, the White House resorted to a criminal smear campaign senior offenders off the hook to prevent its knowingly falsified information on Iraq from becoming further debunked. The TO THE DAILY: willingness of Vice President Cheney to leak In a column last month, Daily columnist both the name of a covert CIA operative and John Stiglich assailed Special Prosecutor Pat- the contents of the 2002 National Intelligence rick Fitzgerald and the American public in Estimate in response to Wilson's op-ed piece his blathering critique of the American legal lends insight into the ruthless tactics of the system (Law and Order, 02/14/07). He wrote, Bush White House. "The Scooter Libby case held even greater The administration's insistence on silenc- promise for liberal America when it was first ing its political opponents has created a lethal being investigated by Special Prosecutor Pat- combination of executive abuses at home and rick Fitzgerald ... Fitzgerald realized that (Joe) unilateralism abroad. Dispatching Scooter Wilson was not protected by federal statute Libby to discredit Joe Wilson through unlaw- as a CIA analyst, but he couldn't end a three- ful means is but one piece of a larger pattern year investigation without indicting anyone, of power grabs, which includes presidential so he indicted Libby over a he-said, she-said signing statements designed to ignore the will squabble with 'Meet the Press' moderator of Congress, illegal detention of prisoners at Tim Russert." Instead of an accurate critique Guantanamo Bay and unconstitutional tele- of Fitzgerald's methods, the column was an phone surveillance. irresponsible, sophomoric political punch that In each of these examples, the administra- ignored the facts of the Libby case, and much tion'has been rebuked and forced to change worse, the motivations for and consequences course by Congress, the American people of his crimes. or courts. The White House was rebuked Libby's perjurious testimony is representa- again when the jury delivered a guilty verdict tive of the arrogance and deception that has against Libby. Contrary to Stiglich's claim, the long characterized the Bush administration. We unfortunate aspect of the Libby trial is not that have all witnessed the tragic cost of the manip- his name will be tarnished - it is that the trial ulation of intelligence leading to the war in Iraq masks the criminality of more senior members - the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers and of the Bush administration, namely Cheney hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, $400 and Karl Rove. billion and the loss of American moral leader- Hopefully history will judge Libby in a simi- ship. But beyond the unmitigated disaster he larvein as Albert B. Fall, former President War- helped create in Iraq, Libby's lies symbolize ren Harding's corrupt secretary of the interior the zealotry of the Bush administration and its during the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s insatiable demand for executive power. - a symbol of a dishonest and disgraced White When Joe Wilson, a diplomat praised for House. standing up to Saddam Hussein in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, wrote his op-ed Robert Lupton in The New York Times criticizing admin- LSA senior JACK DOEHRING e) b, LLQ7 A S 0 OF SCREC FORREST DUNBAR Putin: The planet's corrupt savior 0 Over the course of last year, Rus- sian President Vladimir Putin suf- fered a storm of well-deserved criticism in the Western media. The unresolved murders of journalists and ex-spies, human rights abuses in Chechnya, rampant corruption and continuing consolidation of authori- tarian power in the Kremlin have combined to make Putin's regime one of the greatest failures of the "Third Wave" of democratization. So much promise; so little achieved. But let's give some credit where credit is due. Putin has probably done more to help the cause of envi- ronmentalists and those pushing for alternative energy than anyone else in the world. No, it was not through bold stances on international agree- ments or a strict adherence to domes- tic environmental codes that Putin achieved this laudable distinction. He did it the way he usually does: incompetence and highhandedness. As is increasingly noticed in Europe, Putin's Russia has been per- fectly willing to use gas as a weapon. Recent gas "slap downs" (as News- week calls them), have targeted Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania and Georgia. At the same time, the Krem- lin-backed oiland gas behemoth Gaz- prom has been gobbling up pipelines and refineries, forcing competitors from the Russian oil fields. The story of Yukos, the Russian oil firm that was systematically dismantledby the state while its owner was shipped off to a Siberian prison, is just the most prominent of these cases. All of this has served to put an understandable chill in Western investment in Rus- sian oil projects. In a December 2006 leader pro- file entitled "Don't Mess With Rus- sia," The Economist asserts: "In the early part of the decade new produc- tion from the former Soviet Union accounted for most of the growth in the world's supply of oil and gas." Western companies moved into Sibe- ria, and in mutually beneficial part- nerships with locals, began to tap the massive reserves the USSR had never had the technical expertise or market incentive to develop. "But when Mr. Putin began his campaign to take control of Russia's resources," the article continues, "that growth stalled, just as China's demand for energy was taking off. The present high prices for oil and gas are the result." These high prices have in turnhad a large impact on public opinion in America.Thelasttwoyearshaveseen a remarkable convergence: belatedly following the European lead, Ameri- cans began to see alternative energy and energy conservation not as some fringe environmental issue but as a key component of both short- and long-term economic health. And just as oil prices opened minds to a post-fossil fuel economy, so too they weakened old prejudices on wider environmental issues. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" could not have come out at a better time. The hot summer, skyrocketing gas prices and a dire long-term energy outlook made Americans - even Republicans - unusually open to his arguments about global climate change. Even President Bush, the number one oil maninthe country, has begun to come around. In his 2006 State of the Union address, the president rasped, with alook ofintense discom- fort on his face, "America is addicted to oil." As Jon Stewart observed at the time, it was "actually harder for him to say it, than for us to do it." Much of this newfound sentiment can be traced to Western pocket- books, where Russia's energy policy and the subsequent price increase has had the biggest influence. The continuingsuccess of hybrids likethe Toyota Prius is based as much on eco- nomic necessity as environmentalist connections to Gaia. Many consum- ers can expect to recoup their initial investment within a relatively short time period, especially if oil prices rise again. To be sure, Bush's Middle East pol- icy also played a role in the recent oil spike - including speculation over a possible attack on Iran - but in terms of long-term price increases, Russia's mismanagement of its own reserves is more significant. There are still huge deposits of oil and gas beneath the Russian tundra; most of them are likely to remain there because West- ern oil companies shy away from con- tinued investment. So once more, let us thank Putin: He has bravely sacri- ficed Russia'sinternationalreputation and long-term economic prospects, all to wake up the West to the need to move beyond fossil fuels - even if he did not intend to. Forrest Dunbar is an English teacher living in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, near the Russian border. THE HE SAYS MORE OF THE E SAYS SUN'S UV RAYS ARE FLOOD, PASSING THROUGH THE 4LL EARTH'S OZONE THAN HSIDE BEFORE. BUT I SAY IT'SAN OPPORTUNITY FOR ME TO GET A KILLER TAN THIS SUMMER! a ERIN RUSSELL I WIMPLETON'S BLOG: I'M SICK OF HEARING AL "I GOT AN OSCAR" GORE NAG ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING. IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL / IF THE GLACIERS MELT, LET'S LC POLAR BEARS ARE POSITIVES JUST GOING TO HAVE TO THE EARTH SUCK IT UP AND LEARN I SAY V TO SWIM BETTER. GET FREE PRO I a a