I never expect to hear much about the benefits of the free market in the New York Review of Books. And when it's John Maynard Kenynes biographer Robert Sidelsky Skidelsky* reviewing frequent Times contributor Joseph E. Stiglitz' book Making Globalization Work ("A damning denunciation of things as they are," says Salon's Andrew Leonard), well, I expect it even less than usual. But strike>Sidelsky Skidelsky slips a surprising bit of good news into his polite-but-negative review of the book:

First, Stiglitz greatly underestimates the extent to which globalization, imperfect as it is, is helping people in poor countries. Already, it has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Stiglitz finds a world "replete with failures." Typical is his remark that although 250 million Indians have improved their standard of living "immensely" in the last two decades, 800 million haven't—a good example of his failure to give progress its due. Or: "The sad truth...is that outside of China, poverty in the developing world has increased over the past two decades." The World Bank puts it differently: "By the frugal $1 a day standard we find that there were 1.1 billion poor in 2001—about 400m fewer than 20 years previously." Stiglitz believes that the increase in poverty outside China qualifies the progress made in poverty reduction. But 400 million fewer people living in extreme poverty is a happy, not a sad, truth, whether it happens in China or anywhere else.

He also underplays the gain achieved outside China. It is true that the number of very poor outside China rose slightly. Stiglitz cites the figure of 877 million in the developing world in 2001 living on less than $1 a day, an increase of 3 percent over 1981. What he fails to mention is that the total population of these countries increased by 20 percent over this period, so that while there is a slightly higher number of very poor people in the developing world today, they represent, proportionally, a decline from 32 percent to 21 percent of the overall population.

Stiglitz also ignores the fact that the number of those living on between $1 and $2 a day rose about as much as the number of people living on under $1 a day fell. Nor does he mention the World Bank estimate that if global poverty continues to fall at the rate it did between 1981 and 2001, the reduction will almost certainly be sufficient to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015.[4] A different observer might see the glass half full rather than half empty.

Where Stiglitz accepts that progress has happened, he denies that it can be attributed to the current way globalization is occurring. His method is to show that countries that rejected the free-market mantra known as the "Washington consensus" did better than countries that followed it. For example, East Asian governments, such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, invested in industries with high growth potential, encouraged their populations to save, limited imports that undercut their agriculture and manufacturing, and (in the case of China and India) restricted short-term capital flows.

Such interventions may or may not have contributed to their "miracles." But surely much more important were the acts of domestic liberalization of the economy: for China the decollectivization of agriculture and introduction of the "household responsibility system" in the late 1970s; for India, the deregulation of much production, investment, and foreign trade in the 1990s. Above all, the "export-led growth" of East Asia depended crucially on the opening up of foreign, especially Western, markets through bilateral deals and successive rounds of tariff reductions.

Film critic extraordinaire Alan Vanneman has more on this eggheads' tango, concluding: "It’s striking that economists have such a hard time believing in the most fundamental concepts of their field."

* Thanks to reader Scott Lahti for pointing out my misspelling.

Take this as the second installment of my open-ended Opinion L.A. series to instill pride in our hometown international airport by shaming facilities in other big cities. Today's dubious honor of making Los Angeles International Airport look cutting-edge belongs to London's Heathrow Airport, which should be celebrating the beauty and efficiency of its long-awaited Terminal 5 (popularly known as "T5"). Rather, the unmitigated disaster that has been the first few days of operation at the roughly $8 billion terminal, which is expected to eventually relieve some congestion at Europe's busiest airport, prompted one British member of Parliament to dub T5 a "national humiliation." Here's an excerpt from a synopsis of the chaos by the Times of London:

The Terminal 5 luggage farrago has left 28,000 bags in temporary storage and airport staff admit it could take a week to reunite the baggage with its owners.

The scale of the problem was revealed today as Jim Fitzpatrick, the aviation minister, conceded that the grand opening of the heralded Heathrow terminal had “fallen well short of expectations”.

Before his announcement it emerged that one of the passengers to lose their bag at Terminal 5 was the foreign minister for an EU country ...

A high-tech baggage system, which was supposed to revolutionise luggage handling, has failed to work properly since Terminal 5 was opened last week. BA has cancelled hundreds of flights as 400 additional staff battle to reduce the suitcase backlog.

Contrast the situation now with the kind of hype just last week ago that preceded T5's opening. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Indeed, the Heathrow hassle has put even the famed British stiff upper lip to the test. But that may be about to change - at least in part - thanks to a big, new $8.7 billion passenger terminal opening this week after 15 years of planning, protests and environmental lawsuits. It's the most expensive airport terminal ever built, and four times the size of the old Terminal 4 used by most San Francisco passengers.

Come Thursday, Heathrow will finally open its sparkling Terminal 5. The soaring, glass and steel structure will have just one airline tenant: British Airways ...

Like the new airports in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Denver, it's likely Heathrow's new terminal will experience birthing pains; expect some glitches over the next few weeks.

Even without the London debacle, our hometown airport has news of its own to celebrate -- carriers that threatened to flee LAX last year are instead adding more flights to international destinations:

Foreign airlines are turning to LAX again despite crowded, aging terminals -- frequent-flier surveys often rank it among the nation's worst -- that have made it the bane of airlines and passengers.

While U.S. carriers are cutting back amid a slowing economy and high fuel costs, international airlines are flocking to LAX as more overseas travelers look to take advantage of the weak dollar.

Fares are likely to remain high as long as oil prices stay at their current levels, but the upswing in overseas flights could provide relief to some of the more-popular destinations in Europe, South America and Asia. And with the number of nonstop flights growing, people on international flights can look forward to reaching their destinations faster.

Eat your heart out, London -- we Angelenos will take our "crowded, aging terminals," so long as they actually work.

Fred Karger still sees hope for the Boom Boom Room, the legendary gay bar in Laguna Beach that closed last year after a 61-year run. He's rallying supporters tomorrow at the Century City headquarters of American International Group, the building's owner.

It's a long shot, but Karger -- an activist now retired from politics -- wants the Room eventually to reopen. Click here for John Keitel's film on the Boom Boom Room's place in history and efforts to save it. Featured are former Laguna Beach Mayor Robert Gentry and current Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who describes hearing loud music down the street, walking in and finding "an incredible, positive, happy group of gays and lesbians."

You can still vote for Ricardo Lara or Arturo Chavez on June 3, but it won't do you much good. Both will be on the ballot for legislative seats, as confirmed by the Secretary of State's certified list of candidates.

Once a person certifies his or her candidacy, there's no turning back -- from the ballot. But that doesn't keep the Powers That Be from enticing, or chasing, candidates out of the race. Call it the pre-election, which narrows the voters' choices even before the primary.

You recall, of course, that in the race to succeed speaker and 46th Assemblyman Fabian Nuñez, Lara was vying with labor official John Perez -- who happens to be Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's cousin -- but dropped out about the time Villaraigosa appointed him to the city Planning Commission. Arturo Chavez, an aide to state Sen. Gil Cedillo, also dropped out. Anthony York of Capitol Weekly reported that the moves followed meetings between Nuñez, Villaraigosa, and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor leader Maria Elena Durazo.

Jerome Horton dropped out of his state Senate race against Mervyn Dymally and Roderick Wright in time to keep his name off the ballot.

If the June 3 election is the Stealth Primary, what do you call the election coming up on April 8?

Next Tuesday, voters in 14 Los Angeles County cities will go to the polls to elect city council and school board members. Or they were supposed to, anyway. Our good friends in Vernon (population 90, or thereabouts) canceled their election because they just couldn't get anyone to challenge the two councilmen who are running for re-election. Of course they couldn't. The last time someone challenged an incumbent, the city cut off their power and declared their home unfit for habitation.

There are elections in some democratically run cities as well, such as Avalon, which was featured in the Times on Saturday and in the March Los Angeles Magazine. In addition to city council candidates, the ballot in the small city on Catalina includes a measure to raise a tax on admissions to city attractions from 4% to 6%.

Three cities — Culver City, Malibu and Sierra Madre — are asking voters to sustain, increase or otherwise update their utility users tax, more commonly called the phone tax. This is the same move that the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Huntington Park took on Feb. 5, for the same reasons: lawsuits and changes in federal law have called into question the application of these taxes to cell phones and other more modern communications devices, so in order to keep the taxes the cities must get the voters to ratify or change the laws.

Culver City's Measure W (pdf) would keep the rate at 11%, relatively high in the world of municipal phone taxes. It follows the lead of Pasadena, which called on voters to keep the tax at the existing rate. In Malibu, Measure D follows the Los Angeles model, lowering the tax — in this case, from 5% to 4.5% — while broadening it to new technologies. The Sierra Madre ballot has two measures: Measure U (pdf) would allow the current 6% tax to increase to up to 12%, while Measure UA would require all such revenues raised to go to police and other public safety functions. Very clever — U could be safely passed by a majority vote as a general tax, while UA, as a special tax, must get 2/3 to pass but carries the appeal of public safety.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recently passed on the chance to update the county's phone tax, and may revisit the issue in November.

To keep up to date on the region's head-spinning array of elections — April 8, June 3, November 4 and next March — check in frequently at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/elections/.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) notes that sexual assaults are frequent -- and frequently ignored -- in the military:

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq....

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist.

Writer Andrew Gumbel knows why Hillary Clinton is fighting so hard to stay in the race -- because it works. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Americans have a habit of hero-worshipping candidates, and it tends to backfire. Euro Pacific Capital President Peter Schiff argues that we need to hit bottom before we can recover from the housing crisis.

The editorial board wants better beef tracking, and more nuanced exploration of the links between race and gangs. The board praises the FCC for taking a broad view of media competition in approving the XM/Sirius merger.

Readers react to a shift in John McCain's rhetoric. L.A.'s Susan North says:

Listening to McCain's speech before the World Affairs Council made my brain hurt. In the speech, he admonished America to listen to our democratic ally nations. Would that be all those same nations that have been crying out, for months now, "Surge? Are you people nuts?"

Remember the study a few years ago that showed U.S. students thought they were much better at math and science than they really were? Internet users seem to have the same level of self-deception when it comes to spyware and other malicious programs distributed through the Net.

Slaves drivers, racists, greedy farmers, deluded business people and libertarians: The Opinion section was a real rogues’ gallery last week as the continuing history of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Stonehenge-like resurrection of a year-old David Ehrenstein piece proved, um, something about, uh... Well it proved something we already knew — Barack Obama has been very, very good to our traffic.

Thanks for reading the Los Angeles Times. Here are the winners:

1. Obama blew it, by Michael Meyers
2. Someone give Ben Bernanke a hug, by Joel Stein
3. Old Hickory's slaves, by Carl Byker
4. Obama the Magic Negro, by David Ehrenstein
5. Farm bill feeds greed, by the editorial board
6. Where the votes are, by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
7. Welcome to the right, Mr. Mamet, by Andrew Klavan 
8. Equal justice, by the editorial board
9. Obama's Lincoln moment, by Tim Rutten
10. How to get ahead in webcasting, by Jon Healey

Is the raging battle for Basra a good thing for the U.S. interests in Iraq? Or is it  a bad thing for the U.S. national interest in getting its troops out of a relatively stable Iraq as quickly as possible? It’s too soon to know, but Americans can be forgiven if they feel more confused after listening to the Orwellian statements emanating from their government.

Until last week, the Bush administration was insisting that the stunning (and real) drop in violence following last summer’s U.S. troop surge was beginning to foster Iraqi political reconciliation.

Last week, as U.S. forces were drawn into heated battles in Baghdad and launched artillery strikes into Basra, the president asserted that the resumption of full-scale warfare between the Shiite-led government and its chief Shiite rivals is a positive development, as it means that the government, led by the unpopular Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, is now strong enough to be able to crack down on the criminal elements in Basra.

So, if there is no fighting in Iraq, that’s proof that the surge is working and U.S. troops should stay to consolidate their gains. And if there is what looks a great deal like the resumption of an intra-ethnic civil war over money, power and control of territory in Baghdad as well as in Basra, then that’s proof that the surge worked, but U.S. troops should stay because there’s more to be done. Got it?

The Democratic-controlled Congress is unlikely to buy this particular piece of spin, however expertly finessed by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker. Petraeus and Crocker are scheduled to testify on April 8 and 9. Oddly, April 8 is the new deadline set by Maliki for the “criminal gangs” in Basra to turn over their “heavy and medium-sized weapons” in exchange for unspecified cash rewards. (Maliki had initially given them three days to hand over the weapons, but extended it as the Iraqi military’s effort to retake Basra flounded amid heavier-than-expected opposition.)

Congress should not wait until April 8 to begin demanding answers to the many questions raised by this bloody new turn of events. First, is it true that Maliki did not give his U.S. ally advance notice that he intended to invade Basra? If not, why not?

There are many reasons why Maliki needed to get Basra back under control. Its vital port has in fact has been under gangland management for years. British forces failed spectacularly in attempts to bring law and order to the waterfront, or to pacify the rival militias fighting turf wars over Basra. And Maliki’s political competitors in the southern Shiite belt appeared poised to do well, if not sweep, the provincial elections slated for October.

Whether Maliki sandbagged the United States into helping him make war on Basra now is an open question. President Bush said Friday he was not sure why Maliki chose this moment to try to crush the Madhi Army. That militia is controlled by Maliki’s rival, the anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr, who had been abiding by a cease-fire he declared seven months ago. Maliki’s foes say he’s using the Americans to help him wipe out his political competitors ahead of the elections. Whether or not there is any truth to such a charge, this view held by the rival Shiites now under U.S. bombardment will make Washington seem even less credible as a honest broker for Iraqi political reconcilation. Even if Maliki succeeds in cleaning up Basra with a minimum of bloodshed, the renewed internecine violence highlights the importance of planning a careful, strategic U.S. military disengagement from Iraq.

Chelsea Clinton may not actually speak to the press, but she's finally getting some. She faced two fairly controversial questions from the non-press-pass-holding hoi polloi. The first was a college kid in Indiana who had to mention Monica. From Top of the Ticket:

...some guy asked Chelsea if her mother's credibility had been injured by the infamous sexual relationship her father had with the White House intern.

"Wow," said Chelsea, "you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know, maybe 70 college campuses I've now been to.''

Then, she fired: "And I do not think that is any of your business."

The reply drew loud applause.

And today, Fox News is reporting that when asked whether her mother would make a better president than her father, Chelsea sided with Hillary:

“Well again, I don’t take anything for granted, but hopefully with Pennsylvania’s help she will be our next president, and yes, I do think she’ll be a better president,” Clinton said at a stop in Allentown, Pa.

The last time Chelsea made such a splash might have been for something she said in private, responding to her mother's claim that young people have a bad work ethic (neglecting, apparently, the hard work her own daughter was doing). Hillary publicly apologized to Chelsea. The former first daughter was famously sensitive about the press as a teen at 1600 Pennsylvania and still is today, it seems. The Bush twins are regular, if unintentional, celebutantes by comparison.

In the increasingly unlikely event that she's first daughter again, how would Chelsea behave? Would she work behind the scenes, or help First Dude Bill with domestic tasks? Or would she stick to her private life outside DC? The young Obama daughters would probably be kept behind the scenes. Probably only Meghan McCain could follow up the Bush twins for media presence and fashion sense.

*Photos of Chelsea Clinton and Meghan McCain courtesy AP.