Think tanks wrap-up

WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the first of two wrap-ups for April 4.

The Reason Foundation

LOS ANGELES -- Blair's war: Beneath the arguments over Iraq, the Brits are debating a more fundamental question.

By Jesse Walker

Tony Blair can take a deep breath. The revolt within his party has hit a series of snags, represented most recently by the spectacle of Labour pol Robin Cook backtracking furiously from his earlier declaration, "I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed."

According to the London Times' latest poll, the Iraq war is supported not just by a majority of the British public, but by a majority of Labour voters: 78 percent favor their prime minister's conduct of the war. At this point, in fact, more Labourites than Tories approve of George W. Bush. All polls are suspicious, and public opinion is a fickle thing. But this is breathing room, if nothing else.

If anyone needs breathing room, it's Blair. American hawks have a rhetorical advantage, now that the organized bloodshed has formally begun: Defeating Iraq has become a matter of national pride. For Britons, though, there is not just the fear of being humiliated by Iraq, but the fear of being humiliated by the United States; English hawks and doves alike can claim to speak for their country's manhood. (It's no surprise that when some comics faked a funny film of Bush and Blair singing "Endless Love" to each other, they gave Blair the female part.)

The loudest antiwar rhetoric in the United Kingdom argues that this is America's war, and that the United Kingdom is merely being used. American corporate interests are already carving up postwar Iraq, they argue, while Britain is in line to get nada. It's a tricky path that Blair has chosen, and it will be possible to stumble badly even after the war is won.

The deeper issue here is older than the war; older, indeed, than Saddam's regime. Since the British empire dissolved, the central question of Britain's national identity -- all the more central because hardly anyone will state it openly -- is whether the former great power will now be an extension of Europe or of America.

If this is obvious today, now that the United States and the EU are so often at loggerheads, it was equally true a few years ago, while one wing of the British establishment was fighting to merge Britain into the European Union and the other wing, so quick to speak the rhetoric of national sovereignty while wearing their Euroskeptic hats, was nonetheless home to unlikely schemes for an Anglo-American union -- like 1775 all over again, but this time with the colonies on top.

You can sort most major British politicians into one category or the other. Margaret Thatcher, for example, lost her premiership in part because of her hostility to a European superstate. Yet she bowed repeatedly to U.S. foreign policy, and not merely because she shared Reagan's anti-Communism. (Indeed, the one time she had a substantial say in whether someplace would go communist, she let one of the freest patches of the globe --Hong Kong -- be absorbed by one of the planet's worst tyrannies.)

Blair, though, is harder to place; pro-Euro and pro-war, he favors both European union and a strong alliance with the United States. Like many political paradoxes, this tangle can actually be a diplomatic strength. It can also be precarious.

Another option, of course, would be to declare his independence from both Washington and Brussels. A pleasing notion for British patriots, perhaps, but not exactly a likely one. G.K. Chesterton is 67 years in the ground, and even Ray Davies keeps an apartment in New York. England may be little, but Little England doesn't look healthy at all.

And that brings us back to the original question: Which is wider, the Atlantic or the Channel? For now, metaphorically speaking, it's the ocean that's narrow. We'll see if that's still true after the war.

(Jesse Walker is an associate editor of Reason magazine.)

LOS ANGELES -- New exodus: Let Jews leave Europe for America

By Ronald Bailey

"French Jews tell of a new and threatening wave of anti-Semitism," ran the headline in the March 22 issue of The New York Times.

The Times noted: "Swastikas, slogans and physical assaults against Jews in Europe have reached a frequency not seen since the 1930s when Fascism was on the rise." There have been more than 100 anti-Semitic incidents in Paris in the first three months of 2003.

And France is not alone; during the election campaign last year, Jurgen Mollemann, deputy chairman of the Free Democrats, raised the specter of anti-Semitism by reviving the old canard that German Jews have a dual loyalty.

No doubt, the resurgence of European anti-Semitism is fueled by a growing Muslim population angered by Israel's battle against the new Palestinian intifada, but the germs of that particularly noxious infection of the European body politic have never really gone away.

Consequently, I would like to offer a modest proposal that will partially correct a historic wrong while simultaneously poking a sharp stick in the eyes of European critics of the United States -- Invite any European Jew who fears anti-Semitic persecution to immigrate here.

The historic injustice this would correct was that the United States refused to increase the immigration quota for European Jews trying to escape the Nazis, thus condemning tens of thousands if not millions to death. America should be open to all immigrants, but a cohort of highly educated European Jews would certainly be a plus for our society and our economy.

As for the morally smug European leaders: who wouldn't enjoy the spectacle of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder trying to explain why so many of their citizens are fleeing their countries?

(Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent.)

The Center for Economic and Policy Research

(CEPR's goal is to ensure that citizens have the information and analysis that allow them to act effectively in the public democratic debate on important economic and social issues that their lives, by informing them about the problems and choices they face in an accurate and understandable manner, so they are better prepared to choose among various policy options.)

WASHINGTON -- Economy sheds 108,000 jobs in March

By Dean Baker

The economy lost another 108,000 jobs in March. This follows a reported loss of 356,000 jobs in February, which was revised upward from a loss of 308,000 originally reported. This job loss figure is even more striking since the survey was conducted the week before the outbreak of the war, so large war-related job losses in the airlines and other industries are not reflected in this data.

The job loss was widely spread across industries. Manufacturing lost 36,000 jobs after losing 59,000 in February. Over the last year, manufacturing has lost 470,000 jobs, a drop of 2.8 percent. The durable goods sector has accounted for 368,000 of the jobs lost over this period, a decline of 3.7 percent. Weakness in several regional and national surveys of manufacturers indicates job loss is likely to continue for the immediate future.

Retail trade lost 43,000 jobs in March following a loss of 117,000 jobs in February. The job loss was concentrated in the restaurant industry, which lost 38,000 jobs in March and 98,000 in February.

The personal and business service sector lost 10,000 jobs following a sharp decline of 121,000 in February. The sharpest decline was in the temporary help sector, which lost 48,000 jobs. This is often viewed as an indication of the immediate strength of the labor market, since firms often seek out temporary workers before they hire on full-time staff. The health services sector added 22,000 workers, but this followed a month of zero job growth in the sector, according to revised data.

The state and local government sector lost 38,000 jobs in February, with 30,000 of the lost jobs in local education. This job loss is likely to continue as these governments are forced to make cutbacks to deal with large budget shortfalls.

The mortgage broker industry added another 3,000 jobs to cope with the refinancing boom. Jobs in this sector have increased by 69,000, or nearly 20 percent, over the last year. Construction was another big job gainer in March, adding 21,000 jobs, but this followed a reported decline of 44,000 jobs in February. Employment in the sector has been virtually flat since last April.

A large jump in hourly wages reported for February was followed by weak growth reported in March, for the quarter wages grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate, virtually identical to the 3.1 percent rate reported for the last year.

The job loss in the establishment survey is showing up in the household survey as declining labor force participation -- people stop looking for jobs -- rather than higher unemployment. The labor force participation rate fell by 0.1 percentage point, as the unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8 percent.

Since its peak in 2000, the labor force participation rate has fallen by a full percentage point. Had it remained at its 2000 level, the unemployment rate would be approximately 1.5 percentage points higher. The falloff in participation has been sharpest among African-Americans, with the overall rate for this group dropping by 2.0 percentage points.

While the overall unemployment rate for African-Americans fell slightly in March, the rate for teens rose by 3.2 percentage points to 33.4 percent, near the high since the recession began. The unemployment rate for college educated workers edged up to 3.1 percent, its highest point since the early nineties.

Other data in the household survey also indicated weakness in the labor market. The number of discouraged workers is 144,000 above its year ago level. The average and median duration of unemployment spells both remain high, with the median rising by 0.2 weeks, while the average fell by 0.6 weeks. And the percentage of unemployment attributable to people voluntarily leaving their jobs remains low.

On the whole, this report shows a picture of a very weak labor market, even as three big shoes are about to drop -- the impact of war-related cutbacks, state and local government cutbacks, and the end of the housing bubble. There is little basis for optimism about the economy's near-term prospects in this report.