WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The UPI Think Tank Wrap-Up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events, and position statements released by various think tanks.
Employment Policy Foundation
(EPF is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research and educational foundation focused on workplace trends and policies. EPF seeks to shape U.S. employment policies by producing timely, high quality, unbiased and reliable economic analysis and commentary. EPF believes that sound employment policy requires objective research, strategic analysis and prudent forecasting.)
Amid tragedy, an opportunity to impact America's future labor and skills shortage:
Priority should be on more education and skills training for today's displaced workers.
The work force over the next 30 years will place a heavy emphasis on education and skills, and America could suffer serious consequences without enough highly skilled workers to fill available jobs, according to the Employment Policy Foundation's latest Employment Forecast report.
"While the combination of a weak economy and the September 11 tragedy have pushed the country into a recession in the near term, the nation's great challenge will be finding enough highly skilled workers to meet future demand," said EPF President Ed Potter. "Fifty-two percent of today's jobs require at least some college or post-secondary training. Thirty years from now, it will be 65 percent."
America will need to add 58 million more workers in the next 30 years to maintain its global prominence, Potter said. "Today's displaced workers should take advantage of every opportunity to increase their skills and training because they will be needed," he said. "In addition, workforce development should be a top priority of any economic stimulus program the government proposes."
The future labor force will be short about 35 million workers, Potter said. Besides more work force development, fundamental changes are needed in policy to encourage better labor force participation -- especially among older workers, to reform immigration and to increase productivity from those already in the labor force.
There are several adverse consequences for America unless the need for skills and labor are met.
-- Reduced standard of living: If the labor and skill shortage is not addressed, growth in the average standard of living could easily fall to half its historical rate. Slower improvement in the standard of living could affect some groups -- the elderly, minorities and low income families -- more than others.
-- Wage-push inflation: Scarce labor in the highest-skilled occupations could lead to national wage-push inflation. EPF estimates the average wage rates could climb between 13.9 and 20.9 percent in response to the labor and skill shortage. Higher labor costs would be transferred to consumers through higher product prices.
-- Erosion of the American industrial base. The labor and skill shortage could result in a loss of domestic, strategic production capacity. As labor costs rise, some companies will keep their product prices competitive by moving operations to foreign countries with lower wage rates. This loss of capital and jobs could hamper America's ability to maintain national security.
-- Persistent structural unemployment. Since World War II, America has moved from mass unemployment to class unemployment. Those individuals with the lowest skills increasingly have found it difficult to find stable employment. The labor shortage will fail to help the most disadvantaged workers. Even those positions that will not require a college degree will require high levels of experience and training.
EPF's latest Employment Forecast report is available on the Employment Policy Foundation website at http://www.epf.org/research/newsletters/2001/ef20011025.pdf.
The Cato Institute
Election reform threatens essence of democracy, study says
WASHINGTON -- Following the disputed presidential election of 2000, Congress is now expected to address election reform this fall. But is congressional involvement necessary?
According to a new analysis from the Cato Institute, centralizing control of elections will damage the constitutional republic by removing any sense of individual voter responsibility and hindering the process of discovery that is a vital aspect of federalism.
In "Election Reform, Federalism, and the Obligations of Voters," Cato scholar John Samples, director of Cato's Center for Representative Government, examines the 2000 election and the proposals put forward by various private commissions since then. He argues that although the Constitution allows Congress to regulate state elections, the intent of the founders was to give Congress that power only if extraordinary circumstances warranted it. Those circumstances were not present in the 2000 election, he says.
"In retrospect, the presidential election was simply a close contest dependent on a recount in one state," Samples said.
Even if Congress decides to override the states in matters of election administration, it should be careful how it does it, Samples warns.
"Election officials in the states are now eager for new federal funding for election reform. But as in other areas, a great danger exists that federal money will come with federal controls," he says. "On the whole, the states might be better off refusing money from Washington."
The funding debate also ignores the responsibilities of citizens and governments, Samples argues. States have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the ballot, but the "Motor Voter" law passed in 1994 has made it harder to verify the identity of voters seeking to register and to keep the registration rolls clean.
Individual voters must also take more responsibility, Samples says. "Fair and informed elections require citizens to meet minimal obligations, including registering and gaining knowledge about the choices offered and how to vote. Instead, we have heard much about the victimization of voters."
But by implying that all obligations are collective, such rhetoric suggests that voters are not capable of assuming the minimal obligations, he argues. "If citizens come to believe that, the Republic will be undermined."
The study is available as Policy Analysis No. 417 on the Cato Institute Web site at http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-417es.html.
Institute for Public Accuracy
(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by obtaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)
Bio-warfare, "blowback," nukes
WASHINGTON -- Susan Wright, co-author of "Preventing a Biological Arms Race" and of the forthcoming book "The Biological Warfare Problem: A Reappraisal for the 21st Century."
"As the U.S. faces the threat of biological warfare at home, calls for strengthening defenses against biological warfare are certainly justified. But there is a deep contradiction in the U.S. position. Abroad, the government -- under both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations -- has pursued a unilateralist policy that has weakened the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which bans biological and toxin weapons. This was done both directly -- by supporting BW-related activities that undermine if not violate the treaty -- and indirectly by diluting and ultimately rejecting a draft protocol designed to provide the treaty with an inspection regime."
David Gibbs, associate professor of political science at the University of Arizona and author of the article "Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Retrospect."
"The rise of bin Laden can be seen as blowback from past failed U.S. policies in Afghanistan. Not only did the CIA back the most extreme of all the Islamic groups, but new evidence suggests that U.S. officials helped provoke the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in France, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski recounts that, contrary to the official version of events, CIA aid to the mujahaddin guerrillas began six months before the invasion of Afghanistan -- with the anticipation that this would make a Soviet intervention more likely. Brzezinski boasts about his role in 'drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.' When questioned about the wisdom of supporting Islamic fundamentalism, Brzezinski offers a chilling dismissal: 'What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?'"
William Hartung, senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and author of "The New Business of War."
"Far from representing a new approach, the military actions being undertaken by the Bush administration -- engaging in massive bombing attacks, unleashing the CIA to permit assassinations of foreign leaders and arming rebel groups to pressure regimes that allegedly support terror groups -- are a collection of discredited policies from the past. The Pentagon's current allies of convenience -- the Northern Alliance -- had a dismal human rights record when they ruled Afghanistan, and many residents of Kabul fear a return of the Northern Alliance to power even more than they fear the current repressive policies of the Taliban. ... Putting a U.S. stamp of approval on brutal policies of coalition partners that will in all likelihood be carried out with U.S. arms is hardly a way to increase our popularity or our security with the people of these countries."
Harvey Wasserman, author of "The Last Energy War" and co-author of "Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation," speaking in response to a reporting the Sunday Times of London, saying that terrorists may have planned to use one of the planes on Sept. 11 "to bomb a nuclear power station."
"The planes that crashed into the WTC could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson, or Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Had those jets instead hit such reactors, an unimaginable holocaust could have occurred."
