Opinion
Wednesday, June 23,1993 The Battalion Page 5
2
4
9
1
2
3
3
1
5
3
2
3
13
1
lows. Thetf
:ing in half
i Downs art
f age. Wai
eak and fl«
;. Last sum
ant compk
ject on the
renditions;
an affect on
in this are;
sive clays i:
jsed many
orced slaos
mevenly. I
round crau
:he Down's
, the old po:
lecline evii
uildingitse!
to the exp;'
i to build or
:h as the on
i new sport
on campus,
and swim-
Nash, thed
is a tragedv
i unique pis
h he admit
llegiateleve
las hurt re-
Nash said
won't shed
; comes
wns havea;
heir useful-
plex willli;
and racque
ight room®
nditioned.
swimming
g the toprifl
n the natior
w gym will
^leasing, sot
e of the old:
Many pat
ie sweatbo;
ive more tin
gym facilil!
ents and fact
; to workotii
ie keeps nev 1
ving the traf
have come
n for the ne"
lilt the Rudd
itorium,Gtt
n with mud
lents andfe;
people hops-
■ some way'
and that
it went don'
ool has deci-
e area when'
gymnasium
, yet anothet
school
i will begor:
e new.
-
live in, bn
supposed ti
ikes and ha:
r>ver the par
i I condemn
even I havi
turn down ;
t to loot ant
, thoughts
s won the SI J
excuse to 8
s glad that 1 ;
d Graf will'
mg.
that?
tm
d.
;s yelled at 11
:e, but yon 1
r level. The)
lotions. But 5 '
p, because f
y are willinf
r "My should
ampras said
k with theh 1
1993 NEWPORT
FESTIVAL
"x conTt cake ip we i^tue pre^idenIt op rwe
UNUfED ^TATE*... we ^TILL ^AXOpWOklE UPS
CUNInIinJsSWAM FROH 'NAPPY ^
The Battalion Editorial Board
Jason Loughman, editor in chief
Mark Evans, managing editor
Stephanie Pattillo, city editor Kyle Burnett, sports editor
Dave Thomas, night news editor Anas Ben-Musa, Aggielife editor
Mack Harrison, morning news editor Billy Moran, photo editor
EniTORlAI
The Battalion
100 years at
Texas A&M
Checks and balances
Banking reform makes sense
The Truth in Savings Act, which
took effect Monday, promises to be
a boon to those who don't know the
difference between compounded
and non-compounded interest or
what "investable balance" means.
The world of finance is already
arcane enough for most people
without the confusing array of
terms and conveptions that only
bankers and finance majors
seem to be familiar with.
Government man
dates regarding spe
cific business prac
tices are not al
ways something
to be desired. But
when an industry
such as banking
uses misleading
and confusing ad
vertising and termi
nology to make an ex
tra few bucks off of those
of its customers with the
smallest accounts, it's time for the
law to step in.
Holders of small accounts do not
have the leverage with banks to ne
gotiate the more favorable terms
that those with larger accounts often
enjoy. That's capitalism.
But when those same small-ac
count customers are deliberately
misled, that's unfair.
Now, the Truth in Savings Act re
quires that banks provide clear and
complete information on the terms
of checking and savings accounts.
"Free" checking must now be tru
ly frqe, without hidden charges or
minimum balances.
The act also introduces the annu
al percentage yield, or APY, as a
standard measure of interest rates.
No longer will potential cus
tomers have to compare accounts
based on different methods
of computing interest,
such as interest com
pounded daily or in
terest based on the
lowest daily bal
ance each month.
Banks will
have to express
the amount of in
terest in terms of
APY so that all ac
counts can be com
pared by the same yard
stick.
The new law stands to benefit
college students, who typically
maintain accounts with low bal
ances and shop for new accounts
when they arrive at school. This
holds especially true in Texas,
which has some of the least favor
able terms for checking and savings
account holders anywhere.
It's just a shame that the banking
industry had to be forced out of de
ceptive tactics by the government.
Legalization, not criminalization
Crime rate shows drug prohibition doesn't help poor
D rug legalization recently came
up in a conversation and, as
usual, I found myself the lone
advocate of legalization. One argu
ment struck me as novel: I was told
that with legalization "we would
have poor people jumping off of roofs
everywhere." Of course, this state
ment was intentionally hyperbolic,
but I suspect that we are to under
stand that the poor would be sub
stantially harmed by legalization.
The remark, chock full of implicit
assumptions, disintegrates upon in
spection. The statement implies that
current drug laws protect the poor.
They do not.
Crack is readily available in inner-city neighborhoods,
costing between five and ten dollars a vial. In general, the
inflation-adjusted costs of prohibited drugs have remained
roughly constant while the purity, and hence the potency,
of these drugs has dramatically increased.
In fact, it is the illegality of prohibited drugs that increas
es potency, thus endangering more people. During Ameri
ca's first ignoble experiment in drug prohibition, aptly
called "Prohibition," average alcohol potency increased ten
times the pre-Prohibition level. Why? Because of economic
incentives. It is more profitable to run more potent drugs
to be cut at the end of the distribution chain. More potent
drugs cost less to hide, transport and distribute. And if you
are caught with a pound of, say, marijuana, the legal sanc
tion is the same whatever its potency.
And so it should hardly be surprising that the average
level of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, has in
creased eight times between 1974-84. The average purity of
a gram of cocaine has increased five times, from 12 percent
to 60 percent between 1980-88. Crack is simply a more po
tent, smokable form of cocaine. Likewise, heroin's average
purity increased a remarkable 56 percent over the three
year period of 1983-86. Now a more potent form of heroin
known as "black tar" is becoming common. "Black tar" is
to heroin what crack is to cocaine, and both illustrate the in
exorable evolution of evermore potent forms of drugs dri
ven by drug prohibition.
As the potency of prohibited drugs increases, so does the
probability of over-dosage. A minor error in "cutting" po
tent drugs by distributors and users could result in numer
ous deaths, or turn what would have been an innocuous
high into completely uncontrolled behavior, neither of
which are especially beneficial to the welfare of the poor.
Under drug prohibition, the market price of illegal drugs
is much higher than it might otherwise be. This is not be
cause of monopolization of the drug trade, though that has
certainly been attempted by drug cartels. The high price of
illegal drugs represents a risk premium. The premium off
sets the risks of detection and the probable costs of legal
sanctions. This risk is borne by drug dealers in differing
degrees at all levels of drug production and distribution.
Another risk derives from the peculiar organization of
the drug trade. Because the drug trade is illegal, those en
gaged in the trade cannot rely upon contracts with recourse
to the courts for enforcement to organize their market
structure. They rely instead upon violent enforcement: im
mediate retaliation for breaking promises, shoot outs over
territory, killing informants and cheats. The same was true
for Prohibition, which ran concurrently with one of the two
great crime waves of our century. The second great crime
wave continues apace.
And as it is predominantly the poor that are engaged in
this trade, particularly at the street level, they are bearing
these risks and costs, as are poor neighborhoods.
The toll taken upon the poor by the current drug hyste
ria defies calculation. The poor are already easily capable
of obtaining a dose of crack and go leaping off of buildings.
But they don't. The attitude that the poor will go leaping
off buildings if drugs are legal is deeply paternalistic: poor
people are just too stupid, they need to be controlled.
The poor are also free to watch their children shot up in
the cross fire of drug gangs. They are free to populate our
prison system, which has the highest level of incarceration
in the world and has somehow managed to incarcerate
more blacks per hundred thousand people than South
Africa has. Thanks almost entirely to the drug war, more
black males are now in prison than in college.
The multi-billion dollar law enforcement blitz ($12 bil
lion, fiscal year 1992) against illegal drugs has been a colos
sal failure. It has sucked away funds that could have been
used to combat real crime. Who suffers the most? We all
do to some degree, some more than others. The rich can
buy alarm systems, private police and wall themselves in.
The poor pay with less police protection, rampant street vi
olence, prison terms and drug od's. If anyone is getting
hurt by the current regime, it is the poor. Legalize drugs.
Dickerson is a sophomore economics major
MATT
DICKERSON
Columnist
■ " JL—. ^ if r* U—
-A « <i 'f A* C0 M-
— /-v
Ha*/c.e<, /W /
People are killing each other over there? It's just the news
I f any of y'all
out there in
reader-land are
anything like I
am, you've prob
ably been to an
academic gather
ing, a dinner or
perhaps even a
party where
someone brought
up an internation
al crisis of which
you were so ill-in
formed you actu
ally feared speak
ing and allowing
your ignorance to be known.
1 realize, of course, this is unlikely to
occur during lunch at Sbisa or tea-time
at the Chicken, but regardless of the
setting, the "dumb look" in response to
conversation is never "in."
The way most of America deals with
this problem is to hook up a mental I.V.
to CNN after coming home from work,
but students, weary from learning new
stuff all day, seem less likely to fully
absorb the news.
No big deal. It's just the news. Dan
Rather and Ted Koppel are all too of
ten time-killers for that late afternoon
beer and growling stomach. Room
mates discuss dinner plans during the
broadcast and it's not even annoying
because it's just the news. People make
phone calls — so what? It's not "Sein
feld" or anything. It's just the news.
Even if you manage to pay attention
to what's going on, you're only getting
a four- minute sound bite on a 1500-
year war — hardly enough information
to make one adequately knowledge
able. Does it really matter? After all, it's
just the news.
Because of this problem, I decided to
access the wealth of expertise on cam
pus and get the lowdown on a specific
international atrocity, the recent events
in the former Yugoslavia.
Through an interview with Dr.
Stjepan Mestrovic, a sociologist raised
in Croatia, and information supplied
by Dr. Steve Pejovich, a political econo
mist from Serbia, I was able to under
stand the Croatian/ Bosnian plight and
the Serbian drive for dominance and
learn enough about the war in Bosnia
to develop confidence in conversation.
There are four main regions in
volved: Serbia (Orthodox Christian),
Croatia (Catholic), Bosnia (Muslim and
Serbian ) and Kosovo (primarily Mus
lim with a few Serbians). Serbia, which
retained all of Yugoslavia's weaponry,
decided to expand its boundaries to in
clude Croatia and Bosnia, already 30
and 70 percent Serbian respectively.
Many Muslims were raped and slaugh
tered along the way.
These same Bosnian Muslims are
fleeing their homeland into neighbor
ing Croatia to avoid almost certain exe
cution. Since Croatians are Catholic,
however, they really aren't too thrilled
with the enormous influx of Muslims.
This is causing considerable social
problems. Moreover, both groups have
the still bigger problem of Serbia,
which in addition to age-old border
disputes, continues to hate Croatia for
collaborating with the Nazis in WWI1.
Under the Nazis, the Croatians were
responsible for the deaths of almost a
million Serbians. However, under the
leadership of Milan Nedic, the Serbian
Nazi Regime committed similar mass
homicides.
So now we know why the Serbians
are so intent and ruthless. And why
aren't we — the West, the UN — doing
anything about it? First, the Serbians
have hated Muslims with a vengeance
since the Battle of Kosovo. Kosovo is a
very small state, and was part of Serbia
until Turkey, which is Muslim, took it
over in 1389.
The Serbians have held this grudge
against Muslims for over 600 years,
and Kosovo continues to be in danger
as the anniversary of the battle, June
28, approaches. The anger against
Croatia stems from "Nazi coopera
tion." Also, Serbia claims that fear of
encroachment by Muslims and Croat
ians drives its killing machine.
Because the actions of the Serbians
clearly violate UN regulations, the UN
sent troops from France and Britain to
Bosnia, where they were most unwel
come. In addition to providing a few
useless troops, the West has imposed
economic sanctions and an arms em
bargo. This does nothing but prevent
the Bosnians from defending them
selves.
Dr. Mestrovic stated to me frankly
the difficulty in isolating a "good guy"
or a "bad guy" in this situation, or even
determining a right or wrong, but I
found sympathy for the defenseless
victims quite easily. We mustn't forget,
however, that today's oppressors may
be tomorrow's victims in the same war.
Does this make them right, or is it "just
the breaks"? Unfortunately, while the
West shrugs its shoulders over this
philosophical question regarding
Bosnians, Serbians and Croatians,
thousands upon thousands of people
are being tortured, raped and executed.
But it's just the news.
Stanford is a graduate philosophy student
Editorials cwpeorina in The Battalion reflet
the views or the editorial board. They | do
not necessarikr reflect the opinions of other
Battalion stair members, the Texas A&M
student bodv, regents, administration,
faculty or staff.
Columns, guest columns, and Mail Call
items express the opinions of the authors.
The Battalion encourages letters to the
editor and will print as many as space
allows in the Mail Call section. Letters
must be 300 words or less and include the
author's name, class, and phone number.
Contact the editor or managing editor for
information on submitting guest columns.
We reserve the right to edit letters and
guest columns for length, style, and
accuracy.
Letters should be addressed to:
The Battalion - Mail CgR
01 3 Reed McDonald /Mail stop 1111
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 7/843
FRANK
STANFORD
Columnist