Your Iraqi Shoe Czar

The Ludwig von Mises Institute notes that the Coalition authority in Iraq has to pay all the workers at state-run enterprises—like shoe factories—in order to keep the workers off the streets.

Meanwhile, a close read of this account of a deadly riot at an Iraqi market reveals the precipitating cause to be a new market fee the local Iraqi government tried to impose.

Ah, the joys of nation-building.

Comments

[Anonymous]

“Output at state-owned companies like the shoe factory has plunged. Electricity fails sporadically, a problem that may take years to overcome, and many major roads damaged in the war need repairs.”

So why don’t they just reassign some of the shoe fatory workers to road construction instead? You’d think KBR would love the cheap labor.

[R. C. Dean]

I have the reason output has plunged doesn’t have much to do with electricity, which was always iffy.

I bet it has to do with the absence of fedayeen enforcers lounging around the joint.

[R. C. Dean]

I bet the reason output has plunged doesn’t have much to do with electricity, which was always iffy.

I bet it has to do with the absence of fedayeen enforcers lounging around the joint.