South Korean Jet Crashes On Landing in SFO

Last night a South Korean commercial airliner crashed on landing in San Francisco, killing two teenage girls and injuring 182 others.  The crash appears to be pilot error -- apparently, he came in too low, too soon and clipped a seawall, tearing off the tail.  It's amazing how everyone but the two young girls survived, considering how charred the plane is.  Those inflatable escape slides worked very well to save so many.

I read (in one of the Freakonomics books) that Korean airlines have crashed more than other airlines due to the cultural aspects of the Korean pecking order:  copilots would not speak up to warn the captain of danger, or dare to disagree, or even to take matters into their own hands to avoid crashes.  After the third crash or so, they finally investigated and arranged for a different protocol to avoid crashes, and it seems to have worked, at least up until now.

The black boxes have been recovered and it will be interesting to see what the pilot and crew conversations reveal.

Socialism vs Capitalism: Two Real Life Illustrations

This satellite photograph of North and South Korea at night is very instructive.  It shows what socialism produces compared to what capitalism produces.  Socialism produces poverty, backwardness, starvation and oppression; capitalism produces prosperity, wealth and freedom.

I really have to laugh at the fools in the Occupy Wall Street movement.  The first snows are arriving and the temperatures are dropping, and the something-for-nothing crowd is freezing out in the open air.

Enjoy the privation and suffering, hippies.  You are experiencing first hand the fruits of socialism:  misery and want.

The Korea Free Trade Act

My friend Mike Tuggle has asked me to post a link to his article "Stop the Korea Free Trade Act."

Is Free Trade a good thing or a bad thing?  I'd like to hear opinions on both sides.  Long ago, when I took economics in college, my conservative professor said that free trade is a good thing, allowing various countries to concentrate on the goods and services at which they are most efficient.  Also, the South was pro free trade before the war between the states and the North was against it, hence the system of tariffs that so punished the Southern economy.

So why is this situation any different from that?  Mike explains at the above link.