Today’s announcement of unemployment rates for March has reminded me of an issue I wrote about a few years ago concerning work ethic and income. Today, the Associated Press reported:

Unemployment zoomed to 8.5 percent last month, the highest in a quarter-century, as employers axed 663,000 more workers and pushed the nation’s jobless ranks past 13 million. The hard times were only expected to get harder — a painful 10 percent jobless rate before long.

The current rate would be even higher — 15.6 percent — if it included laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have had to settle for part-time work because they can’t do any better. That’s the highest on record for that number in figures that go back to 1994.

In my paper, which was a rudimentary exercise in academic social research, I criticized an earlier article by Barry Bluestone in which he cites 10 primary reasons for income stratification. My primary criticism was that Bluestone ignored an important factor– work ethic. You can download a copy of my paper, “The Impact of Work Ethic on Income,” here.

Today’s unemployment report reminded me of this paper, because it raises yet another important factor– the economy at large. It would be interesting to research how an economic recession affects income stratification.

According to this week’s issue of The Economist, Ecuador’s new Constitution (which it is widely presumed will be ratified at the end of September) is 444 articles long, gives state-owned companies control of the economy, gives the president the power to dismiss the legislature, guarantees a minimum wage for labor, and outlaws foreign military bases.

About that last bit concerning foreign military bases, I’m delighted. President Correa of Ecuador (described by The Economist as a, “youngish Catholic economist") may be a socialist, but at least he understands sovereignty. At least one implication of the approval of this Constitution would be that the United States would no longer be able to operate anti-drug missions from there, which is a plus. Although, there seems to be little else to get enthusiastic about. But, then, I (like almost certainly virtually every citizen in Ecuador), haven’t read all 444 articles.

This will be Ecuador’s 20th Constitution. It reminds me just how resilient (and mercifully brief) the Constitution of the United States is. We’ve been working from the same document for over 2 centuries, and have only once been faced with a serious risk of secession or collapse. Perhaps if we weren’t so fitfully busy minding the business of so many other countries around the world, they might be more inclined to examine our model, which, while flawed, has stood the test of time the way few other nations’ have.

Just before the G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan earlier this month, Edward Luttwak and Marian Tupy of the CATO Institute published an article in The Los Angeles Times, called, The Aid Africa Can’t Afford. It reminded me of my recent post about my decision to rescind my ONE Campaign declaration.

Essentially, their article confirms many of my feelings about international welfare programs, but they also suggest that many African countries would be better off if their governments were simply allowed to crumble. The corruption in these governments stems from an oligarchy of elite families using as much as 40% of foreign assistance to buy weapons. Since, as they put it, “interstate conflicts are mercifully rare, those weapons are often used to crush domestic opposition – as has been happening in Zimbabwe.” So, the reasoning goes, we should stop paying for these governments to kill their own people and let these corrupt governments collapse. It’s a tough nut to swallow upon first consideration, but set sentimentality aside for a moment.

With the vast majority of these countries’ citizens living in poverty, and the only ones with any means being the corrupt elites who developed nations are supporting, is it at all likely that the people of these African states will ever be able to develop political structures that truly reflect an attempt to meet their unique needs? How will they overcome? The Zimbabwe example couldn’t be more pertinent. They held an election, and when the ruling party didn’t win outright, they started beating up the opposition.

If other nations, including the United States, stopped meddling in the affairs of these Third World African countries, it seems likely that the only people who would suffer anew would be the corrupt oligarchy currently prolonging the suffering of millions of people across the continent. That, I can live with.

The New York Times is reporting that biodefense researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill will receive a 4.6 million dollar settlement from the United States government for deliberately destroying his reputation in the prolonged and ultimately fruitless investigation of him as a key suspect in the “Anthrax letters” case that killed and seriously harmed several people in 2001. According to Hatfill’s attorneys, the FBI leaked information to the press about Hatfill being a “person of interest” in the case, and even after it was clear he wasn’t the culprit, they failed to clear his name.

Mark Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill, said his client was pleased with the settlement.

“This case has been about how the press behaves and how the government behaves,” Mr. Grannis said. “The good news is that we still live in a country where a guy who’s been horribly abused can go to a judge and say ‘I need your help,’ and maybe it takes a while, but he gets justice.”

I’m reminded of Richard Jewell, the man whose name was leaked by the FBI as the prime suspect in the 1996 bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta. His experience was very similar, but, while he filed several lawsuits against various media outlets, he never sought civil restitution from the government. It’s a shame that anyone should have to seek this kind of justice, but encouraging that such justice can sometimes be obtained.