Senator DeMint, a Republican of South Carolina, had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post over the weekend arguing against legislation to impose a $10-a-tourist tax on foreign visitors to America that would be used to create an industry-controlled tourism marketing campaign. He writes: "Imagine: 'Come to America, so we can tax you at the airport!'"

There's nothing stopping hotels or theme park owners from charging higher prices and using the money to fund increased marketing. That would be a private decision. But if Washington does it, the politicians can then go extract campaign contributions from the hotel and theme park owners. The foreign tourists who would pay the tax don't vote; this would be taxation without representation.

How has government ownership of AIG affected the company's litigation strategy? One reporter asked an American securities litigation expert, Joseph Grundfest of Stanford Law School, and got the following response: "I have no idea. Go ask a Russian lawyer or a Chinese lawyer." The Am Law Litigation Daily has the details, including a quote from David Boies, one of Maurice Greenberg's lawyers who successfully fended off a suit by AIG: "A private company would never have done this," says Boies about AIG's decision to try this case. "The way you deal with other people's money is sometimes different than the way you deal with your own money."

Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" concludes: "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil."

The Bloomberg wire service, which has made Michael Bloomberg one of the richest men in the world by renting Bloomberg terminals to capitalists operating under capitalism, runs a review giving the movie three stars, for "good," and lamenting, "Too bad this one didn't make Wall Street the sole theme." Amazing.

As if Michael Moore's forthcoming "Capitalism: A Love Story" weren't enough, Oliver Stone is shooting a sequel to his 1987 movie "Wall Street," and its attitude can be captured by Mr. Stone's comment in today's New York Times article: "We wouldn't have done this movie in 2006," he said. "Things were too loose. I didn't want to glorify pigs."

What an ugly description of those participating in a system that has financed incredible prosperity and innovation and growth. Capitalists are "pigs." Maybe Mr. Stone and his investors will turn all their profits over to the government?

A nifty essay by Luigi Zingales in the new journal National Affairs is headlined "Capitalism After the Crisis":

When the government is small and relatively weak, the way to make money is to start a successful private-sector business. But the larger the size and scope of government spending, the easier it is to make money by diverting public resources. Starting a business is difficult and involves a lot of risk — but getting a government favor or contract is easier, and a much safer bet. And so in nations with large and powerful governments, the state tends to find itself at the heart of the economic system, even if that system is relatively capitalist. This tends to confound politics and economics, both in practice and in public perceptions: The larger the share of capitalists who acquire their wealth thanks to their political connections, the greater the perception that capitalism is unfair and corrupt.

The big business news of this morning is the announcement of a deal between Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom SA to create Great Britain's largest cellular phone company. One significant fact that is missing from the Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times coverage this morning is the fact that both the German and the French telecom companies have significant government ownership. The France Telecom Web site says, "At June 30, 2009, the French State owned 26.97% of France Telecom S.A.'s share capital either directly or indirectly through ERAP and 26.98% of the voting rights." The Deutsche Telekom Web site says that 14.8% of the company is owned by the federal republic of Germany and another 16.9% by the KfW Bankengruppe, a firm that is itself owned by the federal republic and the German states. So the total government ownership of Deutsche Telekom is 31.7%.

In my original post about the Obama administration's awarding of $503 million in "stimulus" funds for alternative energy projects, I wrote that the recipient of $294 million, Iberdrola SA, had executives who had donated more than $21,000 to the Obama campaign and related funds. Another $115 million in funds for windmills went to a company called First Wind, which, I noted, had owners that included D.E. Shaw and Madison Dearborn Partners. Shaw is the firm at which President Obama's chief of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, held a $5.2 million a year, one-day-a-week job, and Madison Dearborn is the firm of which Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, said, "They've been not only supporters of mine, they're friends of mine."

There's a scathing post over at the corporate blog of Vanguard, the big mutual funds company (and a big New York Times advertiser) eviscerating a recent New York Times editorial about 401K plans. From the Vanguard blog:

At one point, the editorial says that proposed 401(k) "reforms" would "shift risk that is currently borne by individuals onto corporations and the government." I'm sorry, but who exactly do they think is backing the risks borne by corporations and the government? Have we learned nothing in the last year? It's not like the shifting of risk is such that running it through corporate balance sheets or government accounts makes it disappear. Individuals are still ultimately going to bear it. The only question is which individuals.

Good point.

After trading in onion futures was banned in 1958, onion prices became more volatile, Jonathan Hoenig writes, reflecting on the move afoot now to restrict trading in energy futures.

The director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, is out with a new blog post touting the success of the "stimulus" spending package by citing two private-sector analyses:

Both Goldman Sachs and Mark Zandi of Economy.com have estimated that GDP growth in the second quarter was given a significant boost due to the Recovery Act. In particular, official estimates are that the economy contracted by an annualized rate of 1.0% in the second quarter. The Goldman and Zandi estimates suggest that the economy would instead have shrunk by 3 percent to 4 percent in the second quarter, if the Recovery Act had not been enacted.

Diageo PLC, the British company that owns Captain Morgan rum, will get $2.7 billion in tax credits and other benefits to move a rum factory to the U.S. Virgin Islands from Puerto Rico. This Los Angeles Times article, picked up by the John Stossel blog, has the details. Amazing stuff. Makes you wonder what they are drinking in Washington.

"It is ironic that lectures pour out from regulators, governments and central bankers on how incompetent bankers were, when mistakes by those same authorities were every bit as much to blame," writes Martin Jacomb in today's Financial Times, assessing the causes and potential remedies for the financial crisis. This is one of the big unsettled questions: whose fault was it?

The economics editor of the Wall Street Journal, David Wessel, has an article in today's Journal claiming as a "fact" that "'the rich' do have a lot of money, even after the bust, and raising their taxes would raise significant sums without hampering the economy."

His evidence seems to be as follows:

"The 1990s suggests we could raise more money from high-income people...and still have a strong economy," says Joel Slemrod, a University of Michigan tax economist. But the first half of the 2000s suggested the economy also can grow when their taxes are cut. And the latest recession, unlike some others, didn't coincide with any change in tax rates.

Keith Hennessey has a good run-down of the state of play on health care as Congress returns. He says the most likely scenario, which he gives a 50% chance of happening, is a "fallback" to a "much more limited" health care overhaul than what has been on the table: "This is what Democrats do when all else has failed, to make sure the President has something to sign. It's a failure path that they would unconvincingly argue is a first step toward a larger reform. This would be small compared to the big reform policy being discussed, but in any other context it would be an enormous bill."

The trailer is out for Michael Moore's upcoming movie "Capitalism: A Love Story." Opening September 23 in New York (Lincoln Plaza, Angelika) and Los Angeles.