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Cafe Hayek roundup
Citgo Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, will supply oil at 40 percent below market prices.

It will be distributed by two nonprofit organizations, Citizens Energy Corp. and the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance.

The agreement gives President Hugo Chavez's government standing as a provider of heating assistance to poor U.S. residents at a time when U.S. oil companies have been reluctant to do so and Congress has failed to expand aid in response to rising oil prices....

...Yes, the people of Venezuela are lucky to have him. He's selling oil at a 40% discount to people in a country whose per-capita income is over SIX TIMES that of Venezuela's. That's a man who really knows how to take care of the little guy.

...I write, rather, to point out that that part of the "race to the bottom" argument that says that globalization forces western governments to reduce welfare-state activities (such as taxpayer-funded health care) is inconsistent with the argument that Wal-Mart and other U.S. employers are able to pay lower wages because the government provides workers with Medicaid and other welfare-state benefits.

If this argument were true -- that is, if it were true that taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart's and other American employers' hiring of workers, thus keeping wage rates lower than otherwise -- then welfare-state measures such as Medicaid would attract employers. Countries with the most generous welfare-state benefits would be magnets for employers. Governments would then compete amongst themselves to offer ever-greater welfare-state benefits....

...Wal-Mart's critics also paint the company as a parasite on taxpayers, because 5 percent of its workers are on Medicaid. Actually that's a typical level for large retail firms, and the national average for all firms is 4 percent. Moreover, it's ironic that Wal-Mart's enemies, who are mainly progressives, should even raise this issue. In the 1990s progressives argued loudly for the reform that allowed poor Americans to keep Medicaid benefits even if they had a job. Now that this policy is helping workers at Wal-Mart, progressives shouldn't blame the company. Besides, many progressives favor a national health system. In other words, they attack Wal-Mart for having 5 percent of its workers receive health care courtesy of taxpayers when the policy that they support would increase that share to 100 percent....