Letters
Letters Harold Who? Reading Arthur Schlesinger's review of the biography of Harold Laski ["Left Out," November] reminded me of hearing him when I was a senior at Amherst, in the years 1932-33. A...
...If that experience is gained before the person becomes a reporter, there is not a conflict of interest problem...
...If you've dealt with any government agency recently, you know that the percentage of incompetency is considerably more than the one half of one percent that Mr...
...So stop throwing around phrases like "somewhere around a third of federal employees are of marginal or worse quality...
...Postmaster: Send change of address to The Washington Monthly, Box 587, Mount Morris IL, 61054...
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...In November's "Tilting at Windmills," you made the point that journalists should have some government experience...
...And as for Ford delivering natural gas cars in 1995, you say that "Compared to gasoline, natural gas costs only 70 cents a gallon...
...By contrast, 33.5 percent were rated Fully Successful while 66 percent earned Highly Successful or Outstanding...
...The average American would rather go to the dentist than into a car showroom...
...The laws of thermodynamics hold...
...Adam Frix Columbus, Ohio Overdrive Your November "Tilting at Windmills" piece on haggling for cars missed some nastier aspects of that horrible milieu...
...Tobias and the civil service unions admit...
...Laski, discussing Hitler and Mussolini, then saw in Germany a swing to the left that he thought would oust Hitler, and by uniting Russia and Germany, make half of Europe communist...
...You neglect to mention, possibly out of ignorance, the other very necessary part of the equation: that while the price of a gallon of natural gas is only 7/10ths that of gasoline, the same gallon of natural gas only produces 5/10ths the energy of the gallon of gasoline...
...In other issues you have often argued against the "revolving door" process through which people with government experience go into corporate or lobbying jobs...
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...At the very least, a polluting electric power plant is spewing a very measurable extra quality of pollutants into the air as each of these GM electric cars is plugged in and recharging...
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...Stuart A. Ross Irvine, CA Charles Peters replies: The preceding two letters charge my batteries because they are about the two keys to making government work—which this issue of the Monthly is dedicated to saying can and must be done—that most people are completely unaware of...
...Perhaps reporters would be unlikely to write critical pieces about the persons who befriended them while they were in government service...
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...Office of Personnel Management for 1990 show that of the 1.1 million fulltime permanent federal employees in the General Schedule, only .5 percent were evaluated at an Unacceptable or Marginally Acceptable level...
...So, even where the experience poses a danger of conflict, I favor having the experience and having the public know about it so that the public can judge whether the conflict is harmful...
...For Canadian and foreign subscriptions, add $7 for surface delivery...
...Therefore, a tank of natural gas will take you fewer miles than that same tank filled with gasoline...
...And, you might think, on the face of it, that dealers would dislike the discounts trumpeted by the makers because they could cut into their profits...
...This is the perfect example of what happens when someone (usually a politician) without even a rudimentary training in basic physics takes a technical issue and tries to force it on others...
...Please clarify...
...If it is of the David Gergen/Strobe Talbott variety, the pluses and the minuses are visible for us all to see...
...A paragraph in my book First Rough Draft, which recounted this speech, might explain why Laski is forgotten today: "One who visited Amherst to talk of the larger world was Harold Laski, the London School of Economics professor whose influence was immense on a generation or more of British as well as Asian and African students...
...There is no free lunch...
...if you don't have valid numbers to prove it...
...For reprint rights for all or part of an article call Carey lones at (202) 462-0128...
...When is government experience bad, and when is it good...
...The contrast between the increasing prosperity in Russia, said Laski, and increasing poverty in other countries would force those others to reconsider the bases of their own economic and political institutions...
...Robert M. Tobias National President, National Treasury Employees Union Washington, DC Which Doors Revolve...
...But isn't that included in the MSRP...
...ISSN 0043-0633...
...Chalmers M. Roberts Bethesda, MD Fed Excellence Facts prove your comments on civil service employees to be nothing but unfounded fed-bashing ["Tilting at Windmills," October...
...Your views need some explanation...
...Without further explanation, you seem to be saying only that government experience is good for your friends and bad for your enemies, which is not a very useful distinction...
...Send correspondence concerning subscriptions, undelivered copies, and changes of address to Box 587, Mount Morris IL, 61054...
...To do this, experience inside government would obviously help...
...They actually like the discounts because they discourage buyers from haggling any further, even if those discounts were merely reductions from an originally inflated premium asked of suckers...
...The car is using energy as it's being driven...
...Second class postage paid at Mechanicsburg, PA...
...Printed in U.S.A...
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...Or maybe you are saying that some government experience is good but too much is bad, which is not much more helpful...
...England, as well as the rest of Europe, save France and Scandinavia, he went on, would pass through a form of facism...
...I asked about this and was told that it was "our profit...
...In addition, studies from the Congressional Budget Office have shown federal sector productivity increasing at a faster rate than comparable private sector productivity...
...Reprints of articles are available to individuals or schools at $2.00 each (prepaid...
...Unnatural Gas You mention that a pet cause of your is the "non-polluting car" ["Tilting at Windmills," December], Just what is a non-polluting car...
...You'd be wrong...
...Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...NW, Washington, DC 20009 (202) 462-0128...
...In other words, natural gas costs more per mile to use than gasoline...
...where is that energy coming from...
...This is why a firm foundation in the basic sciences (typically biology, chemistry, and physics) is necessary for everyone in all walks of life, even those with a strong yearning to become—or already are—journalists or politicians...
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...First, government won 7 work unless we attract better people at all levels, from the bottom of the civil service to the top of the cabinet...
...Second, the press has to understand the government well enough to report intelligently, to alert the public to what's really working and what's not...
...Here in California, when demand was more in line with supply (the industry currently has 25-30 percent world overcapacity), dealers would write huge markups—$2-3,000— onto the price sticker, over and above the MSRP, for example on the VW Rabbit/Golf, then a $1012,000 car...
...Not from me," I said...
...John Jose Los Altos, CA The Washington Monthly Editor In Chief Charles Peters Publisher Mary T. Beiro Editors Jon Meacham, David Segal Contributing Editors Jonathan Alter, Thomas N. Bethell, Tom Bethell, Taylor Branch, Matthew Cooper, Gregg Easterbrook, James Fallows, Christopher Georges, Paul Glastris, Mickey Kaus, Phil Keisling, Michael Kinsley, Nicholas Lemann, Suzannah Lessard, Arthur Levine, Timothy Noah, Joseph Nocera, Leonard Reed, John Rothchild, Jonathan Rowe, Walter Shapiro, Scott Shuger, Steven Waldman Editorial Advisory Board James David Barber, Edgar Cahn, David Halberstam, Murray Kempton, Richard Reeves, Hugh Sidey Assistant to the Editor Pam Matthews Production Manager Carey Jones Advertising Director Seth Engel Interns Gavin Bowie, Leslie Caldwell, Alan Greenblatt, Adam Marcus, Halle Shilling, Ryan Walsh Proofers Gladys Banta, Elise Berkman, John Kalajian, Linda Mcintyre, Jack Shellenberger, Valerie Worthington Subscription rates: U.S...
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Vol. 26 • January 1994 • No. 1
