Ramblings in a State of Insanity
politics
Counter-Cyclical Thinking
0Federal Government spending should, in theory, be counter-cyclical. Thus:
- When the economy is in recession, the government should become the employer “of last resort” and invest in large capital projects that employ a large number of idle hands for a later greater good (Hoover Dam, National Parks, Eisenhower Interstate System, etc.) The business cycle is low so the government payout system is high to put a floor under economic distress.
- When the economy is in growth, and the government is taking in bigger tax receipts and people are employed in (typically better paying) private sector jobs. The government then uses the bigger tax receipts to pay down the debt run up while the economy was in recession and cuts the programs enacted when the government needed to put people to work.
However, we don’t do this. What we have been doing the last three decades is:
- Spending when the economy is low and then complaining that we are spending when the economy is low but demanding the government cough up cash when the economy is low.
- Spending even more when the economy is in growth.
- Complain we are in deep deficit and refuse to spend (while spending) when the economy is in recession again.
As someone who is a student of history and looks favorably on Keynesian economics I am not certain what else to do when the economy goes in to a tailspin other than letting people who end up out of work starve. The government putting up big ticket projects and hiring armies of people puts a floor under the economy. I am not a huge fan of governmental bankruptcy either — see: Greece — but our punditocracy beholden to their twin masters, the 24-hour news cycle and 24/7/365 campaign for reelection, are driven to spend and spend and spend on local projects to ensure people love them while spewing platitudes about “cutting spending” and “cutting government waste.” Thus the spending only gets worse during up-cycles when we have money because, hey, the government has money!
So it’s bad. I don’t have any answers — and I have not heard any suggestions — about what else to do except have the government spend when the economy is bad. The real conversation to have is what to do when the government is awash in tax receipts and that’s a conversation we never seem to have.
Meanwhile, I offer exhibit A: 111 Lawmakers Block Recovery While Taking Credit For Its Success. This is a two-party thing, honestly. The Republicans are simply making spectacles of this worrying trend right now, but it has often been the Democrats in the past. No one even tries any more.
(This was a babble. It has been one of those days.)
Even Ron Paul Gets Tea Party Challengers
0Just like everyone else in Maryland we’re in the middle of the Big Dig. Our crazy neighbors have been up since 5:30am digging out so they’ve done the bulk of the work. But before Big Digging, I was reading the news and found…
Even Ron Paul cannot escape “Tea Party” challengers. This is a jump the shark moment but here is what boggles me:
John Gay, Paul’s third opponent, said he has attended several Tea Parties and related meetings. Both Wall, a machine supervisor, and Graney, a former small-business owner, have helped organize local rallies.
Tea Party associations aside, many of the challengers’ criticisms echo concerns of Paul’s past opponents: that he is too focused on his national ambitions; that his views are too extreme; that he doesn’t support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that he votes “no” on everything, including federal aid for his district after Hurricane Ike.
So… he’s a “conservative” whose main beef with Ron Paul is that he:
A. Tries to get out a conservative message
B. Stands on his principles about government spending even if it means no bonus money for his district
C. Doesn’t believe in spending gobs of cash on military entitlements and foreign entanglements
To condense this particular “tea party” message slightly, the “tea party” is against government spending for everyone but themselves, federal government meddling in private lives (anti-gay, pro-drug war, pro-life, etc.), running up even huger government deficits and always being at war with Eastasia (literally).
Is this the new conservative message?
There’s no way Paul will be defeated by any of these challengers but even I have to blink in surprise at the level of crazy. Say what you want about Ron Paul and his views (many which I find pretty crazy) but he’s a guy with a position, stands on his position, and puts his money where his mouth is consistently. I have respect for a man who wears his crazy on his sleeve and wears it proudly. These Tea Party challengers are just incoherent and sad.
SOTU 2010
0The speech went on, and on, and on. If you played a drinking game you died of blood alcohol poisoning by the 45-minute mark. It was… a State of the Union speech. Our Union has a State: Screwed. We are screwed.
It did have a few flashing moments of Obama Rhetorical Smackdown amidst all the droning blah. I was shocked at the occasional ad-libbed jokes and the scathing sarcasm pointed at both the Republicans and the Democrats. The best came at the very end:
“Remember this – I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.”
“Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation.”
… and the chambers of the House and Senate, both parties, were silent.
The text of the entire speech is here. It has good points. Obama is one hell of a writer and he surrounds himself with fantastic writers. I will always give him that.
I felt bad for the Virginia Govenor Guy who followed afterward who was Inoffensively Virginian. The SotU was so long no one was around when he got his 15 minute shot and his remarks so bland all I remember is “mumblemumblemumble.” Who picks who goes after Obama? Is it a shortest straw deal? “OH you picked the shortest straw YOU get to try to go after that dude. Good luck with that!”
Obama’s Communications Problem
0I sympathized with President Obama. It’s difficult to get very complex, technical subjects across to a huge mass of people in a soundbyte. I had this precise problem yesterday. I have run into a roadblock of mammoth proportions and sent out an email describing the issue in some detail and got… total silence. I paged people wondering what was going on, since it’s a pretty bad showstopper, and the answer was:
“It sounds bad but I don’t understand!”
The meeting request got more traction when I simplified down from a lengthy, technically complex issue down to: “What you want will not work. Networking BAD. Here are the options. Discuss.”
President Obama needs to learn how to take the issue from A to “system is broke.” One of his many virtues I do deeply respect and like about him is his ability to hoover up unbelievable amounts of information, synthesize it all, and spit out a decision. What he cannot do is explain the hows and the whys without the technical jargon. Either he must learn this skill fast or he must hire people (like Plouffe) who are gifted in helping him put those words in his mouth. I know he’s a brilliant writer — Dreams of My Father is a fantastic read — but that doesn’t mean he can explain complex subjects on the fly to people who, for example, believe somehow that the world of Avatar is real and need antidepressants to get over the end of the movie. He has that engineer brain; the engineer brain loves details. Most people don’t live in engineer space, and the engineer-human being communications gap is vast.
The stimulus was too small but a good idea. Some to a huge tax cut. Some to keep teachers employed. Like sending your kids to public school? Stimulus. Enjoy having cops in your neighborhood? Stimulus. It kept states from completely going under and turning off the lights. Because the number is so vast and the information was communicated poorly it looks like it was “wasted.” Not true. But the communication mechanism has been terrible.
The Health Care Reform Bill sounds like a horrible Frankenstein mishmash of what is or what isn’t. No one understands what it is or why anyone would want it. People are full of apprehension on the unknown. How hard would it be to say: “You know those rising costs of your employer-based health insurance? You see how much it has risen year over year? Maybe you don’t realize it but it is costing much more. In a few years, you won’t receive your insurance benefit any more. Or if you do get it, you won’t be able to afford it. Your kids won’t be able to go to the doctor when they get sick. Better hope no one gets an ear infection!” But instead it is nothing but sausage making on display.
Going into the State of the Union I want one thing for 2010: the White House to learn how to communicate with the American public. Even smart people need clarity from time to time. Learn to communicate the hows and the whys clearly, concisely, and simply. Learn fast because time is always running out.
Citizens United
1Who says the Right doesn’t dabble in a little Judicial Activism once in a while?
Citizens United vs. the FEC was a little, very narrow case about the right to broadcast a political documentary about Hillary Clinton on PPV right before a major set of primaries. While granted the Government’s argument against Citizens United was horrible, somehow the airing of that little documentary got turned into “If we do not allow the Corporations to be treated like people and have no independent spending limits on campaigns the government will clamp down on political bloggers and take away their Freedom of Speech!”
Having read the opinion (thank you SCOTUS Blog) I am left with a deep sense of buh. The judicial overreach is breathtaking. The logic eludes me. The Supreme Court did not overturn McCain-Feingold, but the Tillman Act of 1907 and opened the floodgates to flat out shameless purchasing of politicians by Corporations. For a SCOTUS that claims to be Constitutional Constructionists who Dislike Judicial Overreach, overturning a full century of precident gives way to the Big Lie. They are Constitutional Constructionists when it comes to poor people but highly Activist when it comes to rich people. The Roberts Court has never met a Corporation it didn’t want to vigorously hump.
Why bother with lobbyists when the Corporations can simply outright purchase a few politicians shamelessly? If Goldman Sachs, looking at its enormous profits for the year, decides they want to own the NY Attorney General, what stops them from writing a check for a couple of hundred million, using it to “inform” the voters what they want in a slick marketing campaign, taking the tax writeoff for the Capital Expediture, and then getting the NY Attorney General Brought To You By Goldman Sachs? In a way it’s cheaper than the current system of lobbyists and bribes but in the Great Recession do we want to put our Good Lobbyists out of work? Think of the unemployment numbers!
This is being spun as “good for the Middle Class” but I don’t see it unless it is the Elite Rich People Who Can Now Inform The Poor Dumb People of the United States What Is Good For Them. Perhaps the Smart Elite People can inform me who is a Dumb Engineer in the Upper Middle Class why this is Good for Me and I will say, “Thank you here is my credit card can I have another?” I don’t see how this is good for anyone except a handful of CEOs. The clock is being turned back to around 1870.
“And you know,” I say as I scratch a spot behind my ear, “this all comes at a time when the People love and adore Big Corporations like GM and AIG and General Electric and the Banks… as our Saviors and Masters…”
Obama promised a “forceful response” but he knows he has nothing — except maybe sign interesting and creative disclosure laws, which, sadly, will never happen because the Democrats in Congress are whiny, spineless, ball-less wimps who have their own Corporate Sponsors. If I was in Congress I would be writing the legistlation for Endorsement Laws. Sports stars do endorsements and disclose their sponsors. So should politicians. They should look like NASCAR:
“Mitch McConnell — brought to you by the fine people at ExxonMobil.”
Every time a politician on screen or in print they must disclose their corporate master. Corporate money paid for them. Corporations owned them. They should disclose their employer because it sure isn’t the People of the United States of America. Tell us the true owner!
But it won’t happen because the Democrats have nothing between the legs.
Anyway, in the wake of Citizens United, I have decided to form an LLC to purchase local politicians. Since I can now dump unlimited independent money into an election and say anything I want under the moniker of Free Speech I have decided to buy the Howard County Comptroller and claim the Republican in the race eats babies. Who is with me? Everyone is getting a politician this year — it is the Must Have Purchase of 2010!
The Notional Filibuster
0My favorite headline from yesterday was: “Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate.”
I hate the notional filibuster.
The filibuster is not part of the Constitution. It’s a sneaky part of the parliamentary ruleset of the Senate originally argued against by, of all people, Aaron Burr*. It showed up in 1806 as a sort of nebulous theoretical threat and then sprang into being, first in 1837, and then in full force by Henry Clay** in the argument over the Second Bank of the United States*** but he was forced to sit down and shut up so all was well. It was sort of a threat to kill off debate that was rarely enacted because it made the enactor look like a petulant child. And so until Woodrow Wilson the filibuster was a rule that people thought very hard about and never used.
Then during Wilson we added cloture votes to end a filibuster because otherwise if one actually started it would drag on for weeks. And cloture was sort of stupid, but it allowed limiting the filibuster unless people wanted to filibuster — which, during the Civil Rights Movement, they rather did. But even then, old white men had to stand up before the Senate and read out of the phone book for hours on end and press for a cloture vote of 3/5ths of the Senate to move on to voting. Everything came to a halt. It was fun!
Now we have this ridiculousness where old white men don’t even have read out of the phone book. No long nights of standing there being stupid, no spectacles on TV, no anything. The opposition party can just yell “filibuster!” on literally anything and everything and it doesn’t hold up the business of the Senate. It randomly kills off whatever the business on the table was — and it makes no difference what the business was. Now we all hold hands and pretend someone is reading out of the phone book while everyone goes to lunch.
I am all for the filibuster in theory. If someone, personally, desperately wants to stop a bill and go down in history as a big Hater like Strom Thurmond vs. Civil Rights, then they should be allowed. I will stand aside and Vanna White for them. I am all for people making a big, stupid spectacle of themselves. But this nonsense has no consequence and no accountability. A Minority Party can back door their way around the Constitution and block all forward movement on legislation — and in the Great Law of Unintended Consequences, this means both parties can pull this trick, forever, unless they hold a Supermajority which is, indeed, quite rare. The minority of the country can hold the majority of the country hostage nullifying the meaning of elections and taking away the Will of the People.
This has got to stop. It is killing US Democracy. Elections have consequences and the consequence should not be “nyahh.”
It matters little if you are left or right or up or down, if you’re fascist or commie. Your will, your tribe, will now forever be thwarted by the other guy who will sit in the corner, pout, and say ‘Don’t wanna’ until they get what they want which will, of course, be nothing. There’s a reason why the US system is a Winner Take All system. Cobbling together the will of a majority if the different cliques and groups and viewpoints is hard. And once you get there, with a sustainable majority, then you are representing millions of people who live in millions of niches but enough of them have gotten together to agree on a set of things and there’s the dudes, theoretically representing that opinion. A collection of those who do not agree with the rest of the program can now hold the country hostage in perpetuity. There is no escape.
And the hard-core Fox News watching GOP who are cheering this on? It will be swapped soon enough and then the Democrats will sit in the corner and cross their arms and go ‘Don’t wanna’ and oh there shall be upon the land the Whining.
Also, meanwhile, in lieu of the new SCOTUS announcement where corporations can dump unlimited cash into campaigns, Goldman Sachs has announced its bid for the Presidency. Why bother with the middleman?
* That right there is something to recommend either for the filibuster or against it, depending on how you feel about Aaron Burr.
** And now you have to ask yourself how you feel about Henry Clay. Henry Clay was a punk.
*** Ha ha ha. Filibusters. Over big banks killing economy, driving huge unemployment and taking huge bonuses. Ha ha ha. Mrfl. Sniff. My heart, it gladdens. It’s like nothing changes.
And so.
0I don’t have much to say about Coakley vs. Brown. She was a pathetically terrible candidate who refused to campaign and spelled “Massachusetts” wrong in a campaign ad and referred to Curt Shilling as a “Yankees fan.” He was a good looking white man with a pickup truck. The Congressional Democrats have shown an incredible lack of balls dealing with the banks and therein lies the Great Problem. People are pissed off. They are sick of multi-gazillion dollar bonuses in a time of 20% actual unemployment. Why haven’t the banks been ripped to shreds? Why do they keep getting cash? Why does AIG keep getting pumped full of money? Screw you, boring lady who will not shake hands and will give no answers.
Not much to see here. Just move on.
What concerns me is that despite still having the largest Congressional majority since 1923 the Democrats may be completely unable to govern. They have an 18 vote majority plus or minus a Lieberman. I’m not thinking about the Health Care Reform bill which may now be dead. I’m thinking of the actual Great Recession that is going on for everyone but people in high tech or medicine and stuff that really ought to be done. I’m thinking about any kind of banking reform at all, no matter how tepid and pathetic. I share the frustration with the Massachusetts voters. Coakley was an entitled weenie who didn’t seem to care and Brown pretended to be “fresh” and “new.” People want anyone, anyone at all, with some sort of answer. They want a MAN who is a FIGHTER who will STAND UP for REAL AMERICANS against the other REAL AMERICANS who are SCREWING THEM. Thus and so on and so forth.
What happens now? Despite the Democrats having this ridiculous overwhelming advantage in both Houses of Congress, the GOP will filibuster everything to kill everything off. Military spending bills, the budget, judges, Congressional appointments, you name it. They will bring the Federal Government to a screaming halt. They will do it with great glee. I say, make them do it on C-SPAN. I want to watch old white men reading out of the phone book at 3am. It will give me something to do when I cannot sleep. It’s a great piece of theater.
But the Democrats, who seem married to this vague notion of bipartisanship when the other side refuses to play any game, won’t even call them on the carpet on that and make them go through with their Parlimentary procedure. No, the Democrats will just fold up their tent and go into their corners and cry whenever the GOP whispers “filibuster.”
Someone fetch the tissues.
Maybe this will be the wakeup call to the Democrats to grow a spine but then maybe catalytic converters, fully filtered, will start growing on trees.
President Obama, meet me at camera three.
What the hell are you doing? You are an urban black dude. These are old white Southern guys. They aren’t going to give you an inch. You can win 2012 without the South so screw them. You have a ridiculous advantage. Why are you playing nice? No one is afraid of you, man. There’s no fear except this weird vague fear from the Far Right of “the mysterious scary Other who is going to do mysterious scary things to us because we are crazy tinfoilhatters.” Until there is political fear, you are toast, man. With jam.
Do something. Because otherwise, you are not just toast. You’re burnt toast.
Entertaining Links
02 years ago
I am a little too ill to post much today (stupid migraines grrrr) so I will share a few extremely entertaining links on people pushing back against Security Theater ™.
First, a great post from the American Scene: Air Safety in the Ugly Aggregate.
I pulled the same data that Nate did, and get the same aggregate totals for his ten-year period. But dividing those numbers out to the level of the individual passenger makes no sense to the managers responsible for maintaining the system. Nobody cares what your odds of being a victim are. What matters to the security principals is the risk of one catastrophic failure in the entire system during their tenure.
Say you are the Secretary of Homeland Security, and you plan to serve for four years before getting the hell out and working on Wall Street. There will be almost 3 million enplanements during your tenure. Aircraft for which you are nominally responsible will fly almost 30 billion miles. If we must do the Nickelodeon Numerology game, it would take light about 43 hours to go that far in space! Using Nate’s estimate of one terrorist per 11.5 billion miles flown, you can expect about 2 1/2 incidents on your watch. Look busy!
And, from the Register, Trouse-bomb clown attacks — how much should we laugh:
First: It is completely impossible to prevent terrorists from attacking airliners.
Second: This does not matter. There is no need for greater efforts on security.
Third: A terrorist set fire to his own trousers, suffering eyewateringly painful burns to what Australian cricket commentators sometimes refer to as the “groinal area”, and nobody seems to be laughing. What’s wrong with us?
I am very pleased to see the security community starting to get some real airing of risks vs. reality vs. political theater. The commentary is better than anything I can write.
Last Comments on Terrorism
0This is it. I swear. A couple of round-up of points lurking in my head from reading essays from people smarter than me:
A. The point of terrorism is to create terror. Killing people generates terror… but so does the threat of killing people. When a threat can clear an airport and tie it up for two days, why bother with the real thing?
B. Because people massively overreact to the threat of terrorism, it is cost effective to set a terrorist up to fail. Actual terrorism, like the recent hit on the CIA post in Afghanistan, is expensive and incredibly risky. Getting caught means giving up vast time and resources.* Imagine the time spent getting a mole so close to CIA agents that the mole could bypass even basic security. Amazing.
However, slapping some explosives into some guy’s underwear is cheap. They don’t have to work. The guy just has to get caught to bait the US into an overreaction.
Besides, actually setting off the explosives is not a desired result because we tend to bomb people. But an overreaction to a failed and ludicrous attempt? Gold.
C. All these technological devices and security measures and pat-downs and random searches don’t work when the terrorist wants to get caught. That’s the entire point of terrorism! Drug mules have a different model of hack from terrorists since they want to get through undetected. Terrorists want to be detected! That’s the entire point of terrorism!
Terrorism doesn’t work when no one notices. Just something to think about next time you’re stuck in line at the airport.
D. America must return to being the Land of the Bold and the Home of the Free. I want to punch every person who screams about Government in their Medicare but is okay with strip searches of children in airports**. It’s time for the US to give the entire edifice the mocking it richly deserves. Reality happens. People are idiots. People do stupid and sometimes horrible things. We deal with it, grow up, and move on. I would rather be Proud than be dragged to their level.
And that’s it! I’m done. At least until something else stupid happens.
* One of the many reasons we see very, very, very little actual terrorism unlike in the rest of the world is that the US is protected by an enormous moat. It is expensive and difficult to get agents into the US instead of, say, 20 miles down the road. Of course it can be done and it /has/ been done, which is one of the reasons we are so crazy, but it’s very rare.
** You know who you are. You are on notice.
A Terrorist Does Not Have To Set Off The Bomb
02 years ago
More boring Crotch-Bomber stuff. Once it’s out of my system I will move on to other things. I promise!
The terrorist does not have to set off a bomb.
All a terrorist has to do is create terror.
The Crotch-Bomber was spectacularly successful if not, in hindsight, bizarrely stupid. He managed to throw the TSA into a complete tizzy, send the US Government off into spasms of hysteria, have the President of the United States have to “do something fast” and, best of all, get us to care about terrorists in general again and Al-Qaeda in specific. New, enormous investments will be placed in dubious technological equipment (because technology solves all problems). Everyone will be trained to Worship the Machine because the Machine Keeps Us Safe from Terrorists. Our society becomes less Free. We give up more freedoms and rights and dignities to feel “safe.” We profile people who might look dark skinned or might be naggingly Muslim again.
These sort of things don’t seem to happen when the US economy is at its peak but down at the trough where little disruptions in the infrastructure have giant ripples. Almost as if someone watches the news and says, “Let’s do this. It seems like a great time.” Disrupt a weak economy by making people more afraid to fly? Spectacular!
Until the US Government, and the TSA in particular, understands they need to model their security against real threats that generate terror and stop trying to stop every threat in the history of time as it flows forward and backward, they will never stop people trying to smuggle non-functioning bombs in their crotch. Threat Modeling is not just for software systems! It’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Figure out what the threats are and stop the threats. Define the threats, define the objectives of the threats, and secure against those problems. Don’t spend loads of money on new technological devices and inconvenience millions and millions of people. Not only will security at airports become far more efficient but the entire system will become safer. Fight the threat, not the dream. Stop securing against yesterday’s pathetic attack. Stop being afraid! Come on, folks. Real engineering, please. No more faith-based security.
That no one will put up with a terrorist action on an airplane any more makes us far more safer than any technological gadgets or buckets of money we toss into the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is a big money pit that spends money on garbage with no clear mandate, management, or budget oversight. Now they want to buy more toys. Say no. Go for the low-tech solution: If you would jump on a guy trying to light his crotch on fire, raise your hand. Give everyone kindles, because they double as bludgeoning devices.
I say, scrap the machines down to reasonable search, remove the tantalizing target of the security lines through optimization, stop looking at people’s shoes, give up the worthless but intrusive random searches of senior citizens and give all stewardesses some serious martial arts training. Or tasers. Would you light your crotch on fire if that nice lady who just gave you a Coke could rip your arms off? Or taser you in the face?
What’s the threat? Someone waving a gun/bomb/knife around on board. What’s the solution? Strengthen the doors on the cockpits and teach cabin crew to kick ass.
LASIK
2Several years ago I went and got my eyes fried with lasers. I hated glasses and had worn contacts since the 7th grade. I spent some time in college with glasses but the moment I could ditch them I could, and the moment I had the cash in hand to get my eyes fried, I did.
Overall, it was a pleasant experience. I sifted through several different offices offering the procedure. I called the one that had a good reputation and was offering a promotional price. I made an appointment to get my eyes checked. The office was neat, clean and offered a state of the art pod coffee machine. Once I qualified for the procedure, I went and had it done. My eyes didn’t heal right the first time so the office gave me a second round of zaps at no charge. I have had 20/20 vision ever since. I am extremely pleased. I paid largely in cash and financed the rest.
LASIK is the great anomaly of the American Health Care system.
* The procedure, once extremely expensive, is now relatively reasonable because the price of the procedure has amortized over time.
* Prices are well-known and customers can shop based on reputation and price.
* LASIK treatment is subject to open, competitive market pressures.
* No insurers were called or consulted. No one was billed except the doctor to me.
* No insurers dictated which LASIK center I could go to, nor did they have to pre-approve the procedure.
* I paid in cash.
Like electronics, the price of LASIK has fallen and normalized. You can walk into the office, give them money, and get the procedure. It is subject to open market pressures. The pricing on LASIK works and the quality has skyrockted.
Let’s look at my current CT Scan. I have had real problems with my chest (left side) recently. The doctor ordered a CT scan because he was worried about what he saw on the X-Rays. Still is, in fact. However:
* I have no idea how much the CT scan cost but I’m sure I will be billed some random and obscene amount of money.
* The insurer would not allow me to get it at the time the doctor ordered the test.
* The doctor had to get on the phone and give justification to the insurer for ordering the test, causing me to wait 5 days.
* I was not allowed to go to the radiologist my doctor recommended and had a working relationship with.
* Instead I was sent to an office across town that was, to put it mildly, “hinky” and “filthy.” But it was either that or no test because the insurer demanded I see this other doctor.
Reality is this — save the interesting outliers like LASIK, US health care is not subject to market pressures, no one knows how much they actually pay for any of it, the prices for procedures are just made up fictions, and because people (hospitals, doctors, specialists, etc) can make up whatever price they want, the prices for procedures are ridiculously expensive. Hey, if I could charge “a million billion bazillion dollars” for a 15 minute procedure, I would, too!
Anyone who claims that the system is a free market system is selling you something.
Take a look at this post on the WaPo about prices in the US health system. We flat-out spend too much money on health care because consumers are completely divorced from pricing systems. I wonder how much something as simple and straight forward as price discovery on procedures and making those prices public by region and state would change the game.
But of course all we’re talking about is health insurance when we should be talking about health care.
NY-23
0I am totally fascinated by the NY-23 mess of an election.
The Obama Administration took the Congressman from the NY-23 District (R) to be Secretary of the Army and left the seat open. The New York Constitution sproing into effect and thus the NY-23 District (R) was forced to hold a special election. The GOP put up a regular GOP candidate (Scozzafava) who was on the county council and the Democrats put up a sacrificial lamb (Owens). The District had gone Republican since pretty much the founding of the country so the election was put down as “Safe R” and we all moved on with our lives — ie, arguing if Chris Christie in the NJ-GOV race is fat or not.
And then the District got carpetbagged.
Scozzafava turned out to be everything the New New NEW John Birch Society does not want representing anyone in the US Congress: (1) female and (2) possibly having air between her and extreme right-wing views. When Hoffman (Conservative Party — hates the fags, the blacks, the browns, the wimmins, Barack Obama, taxes and the Government except when the Government is giving him free money) showed up he brought the entire Clown Parade with him. Now everyone — FOX News, Sarah “Tabloid Queen” Palin, idiots on Facebook, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty — all had something to say about that obscure NY-23rd District.
This guy, Dan Hoffman, isn’t from the NY-23rd District. In an interview with a local paper, he complained that the questions were not provided before-hand (they were). He has no idea what the local issues for the district he would be representing are and has admitted to not caring the slightest. He’s being held up as the great head of a revolt against the “Party Establishment.” (Air quotes, air quotes!) He’s not: Hoffman is bankrolled by the Establishment far more than Scozzafava ever was. He is a twinkie: he looks like he has substance but in reality he is made of 100% Twinkie Food Product.
Scozzafava quit on Saturday after being tarred as being not “conservative enough” and endorsed the sacrificial lamb Democrat. Likeliest that will happen: her supporters will just stay home and not vote because only crazy people vote in off-year special elections anyway, so if your candidate quits, why bother? So one asks: does the Washington Carpetbagger Crew win or do they lose because people from small, quiet districts don’t like being used and write in Mickey Mouse? We shall see.
And what the hell does an election in an obscure District in New York State mean? Why does anyone care? My guess: success here will shove the Neo-Bircher into even more “purity” purges in other districts in 2010 and push the right wing even more right and leave the last of the moderates out in the cold. They may have some success in 2010 but it will be overturning Rs with Neo-Birchers, not tossing out Ds with Neo-Birchers. I don’t see too many D-R flops with this tactic. The D in NY-23 never had the slightest chance to begin with, so there’s no contest here between the R and the D. It was always the R and the Crazy, and Crazy won.
I am picking up the sticky but undeniable whiff of the Goldwater-Johnson Presidential Race of 1964. Which, in the end is good for my guy. I guess. But I don’t relish living through that.
Obama’s Peace Prize
0I don’t have anything much to add to the Internet Sturm und Drang* about Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize except:
Take that, Moon! Now that Barack Obama has bombed your ass we’re gonna have World Peace! We saw you staring down at us being all moony and shining down and being full once a month and now we’ve gone and taken you out! You think you can take us on? No way! Now we’re united against one great enemy: THE MOON!
You might have the Tycho Monolith that monitors mankind’s progress to the stars but we have Barack Friggin’ Obama!
USA! USA! USA!
Peace out.
* I used the term Sturm und Drang in a status meeting today to describe my week and I was roundly mocked. No one gets Goethe references in technical meetings.
Basic Human Rights
4This morning before work I clicked on a link that took me to some commentary on NBC that went along with polling on the health care debate. I was not expecting it to be a video, but it was. (This was found on Chuck Todd’s twitter stream this morning.)
I largely ignored it until it came to the last guy who was white male skinny WASP type listed as a “Financial Analyst.” And what he said struck me. He’s not in favor of Health Care Reform because:
A. He doesn’t believe that health care is a basic human right.
B. It’s a “hand out” to “poor people” instead of a “hand up.”
C. Poor people can “go other places like to the Red Cross.”
Other than being incorrect on all three points, I was just floored by the comment that “basic health care is not a human right.” Where does this view come from? It’s not Christian (or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or…) It’s not liberal. It’s not even conservative. It’s just… selfishness for selfishness sake. From a purely conservative viewpoint, making health care a basic human right helps:
- People who are less afraid for their health work harder, create new business and generate more wealth;
- Families because healthy people stay together as a coherent unit and those with less financial strain hold together better;
- Communities because healthy people contribute more locally and are less of a strain on the local community’s economy including the local religious community;
- Local economies because fewer sick people move less sick around, more people go to work, productivity increases;
- Macro-economy because sick uninsured people are a drain on economic resources, spread disease, go to hospital emergency rooms anyway, push up prices all over the place, and reduce work.
We won’t even talk about the liberal viewpoint (everyone should have a right to see a doctor regardless of financial means) or religious viewpoint (Man should give up a little to help fellow Man to reduce suffering). From a purely conservative viewpoint of keeping up the status quo and generating wealth, calling basic health care as a “hand out” is bewildering. It seems to me that the “monied” class would want healthy people to generate them money!
Then I thought about that guy, the guy who played a pure classism card, who clearly believes that financial analysts who can afford $20K a year at a private University should be the only people allowed to see a doctor in the United States. Let’s say he’s — A. White, B. Male, and C. In the banking sector. Reading the statistics from the recession, the people getting laid off most are: A. White, B. Male, and C. In the banking sector. Should he lose his job, and should he not be able to find another one, should his COBRA (given to him by that socialist Teddy Kennedy) run out and he get sick, should we tell Mr. Douchebag that he shouldn’t get hand out and he should go to the Red Cross? My answer: Yes. And him. In particular.
I don’t know where to start with people like this except label them as douchebags. It’s okay to… what, if they can’t afford $100K or $200K in tuition then they should all die in the street? Die of tuberculosis? What precisely do they want?
The problem with the health care debate is that we’re letting these people a place at the table. I know it’s a democracy and everyone gets to have their voices heard but if we can’t even start at the point of basic human decency and agree that all human beings have a right to have a basic alleviation of suffering through simple modern medicine, then where do we go?
I’m not exactly thrilled with the sausage making in Congress and I don’t have huge amounts of hope for whatever legislation will end up being passed, but for God’s sake people. Look at yourself in a mirror.
Corporate Chutes and Ladders
3Found on Andrew Sullivan’s Blog over on the Atlantic:
It starts with this Lovely Misogynistic Rant from Jack Welch about how there is no such thing as a “work-life balance” and mostly full of how women are stupid. (Hidden under a paywall for the most part but Andrew Sullivan quotes the good parts.)
Sullivan posts a big rebuttal to this nonsense at: Corporate Chutes and Ladders.
Basically what it comes down to is: if you are female, and you step off the corporate ladder for one second for any reason you will never in your lifetime have any capacity to lead big organizations. Because obviously you are weak. It’s up to the Big Strong MEN! Of course, if a man steps off the corporate ladder for any moment then it’s all good…
Gah.
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