Thursday, December 31, 2009

More evidence that we are governed by supergeniuses

This morning the good gentlemen at Powerline direct us to some particularly egregious misuses of stimulus funds. From a list compiled by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota:

University of Minnesota - $190,464 to study sex reversal in mice:
When taxpayers were promised that economic stimulus funds would be spent only on the most critical public projects, few would have predicted that one of those projects would involve sex reversal in mice. But that's exactly what the University of Minnesota received nearly $200,000 to study.

Rodent sexuality is apparently a hot topic these days -- another ten grand went to a Dartmouth study of "sexual arousal in anesthetized female rats." And you thought "stimulus package" referred to the economy! One can be confident that these expenditures have saved or created innumerable jobs in the crucial anesthetized-and/or-transsexual-rodent sector of the American economy.

Everybody knows that old saying that legislation is like sausage; you wouldn't want to see either being made. But that's unfair to the Jimmy Deans of the world. When they make sausage, the end product tastes good. By contrast, the stuff that comes out of the Pelosi / Reid grinder leaves a foul taste in your mouth.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Blamer-in-chief humor

What did they expect?

This morning on MSNBC on Morning Joe, a group of pundits were going on and on about how terrible it was that the health care bill turned out to be one big payoff to the health insurance industry and big pharma.

But what did they expect? There is a direct correlation between size of government and corruption. As the government gets bigger and more intrusive, it becomes a much better investment for companies and industry to spend money lobbying and bribing politicians than it does to invest in other productive activities, like developing new and better products or providing better value to customers.

One of the pundits was Carl Bernstein, and he was arguing that the only solution was public financing of political campaigns. But who would then decide who gets that public financing, and how exactly will that process not get corrupted?

The best, and perhaps only way to reduce corruption and the influence of money in politics is to shrink the size of government.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Blamer-in-chief's disapproval rating climbs to 46%

Wow, even I am surprised.


Of course, Obama continued his blame-a-thon yesterday, blaming the Bush administration for the budget outlook. That was after last week's radio address, where he blamed the economic crisis entirely on the private sector.

President Bush inherited an awful economy, as well as an Afghanistan that was in such bad shape that it was being used by Al Qaeda as a base from which to launch terrorist attacks against the US. Despite these challenges, I don't recall him whining for 11 months about what a mess he was left with.

And President Obama is launching all of these attacks knowing full well that President Bush will not respond or defend himself. What leadership!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Medicare denial rates higher than private insurer's

One argument often cited in support of single payer health care or the need for a public option is the idea that health insurance companies have an incentive to reject legitimate claims because they are motivated by profit. I find that argument similar to saying that because WalMart is motivated by profit, that it has an incentive to not honor its return policy, or that Apple has an incentive to not honor IPOD warranties, or that McDonalds has an incentive to serve its customers spoiled food because it might save them a few bucks. The reason that this is not necessarily true is because profit motivated companies have an incentive to protect their reputations, and health care insurance companies are for the most part, no different.

And if the proponents of government health care are correct, then why, according to the AMA's National Health Insurer Report Card, does Medicare apparently reject claims at a higher rate than private insurers? And why did Aetna, who rejected 6.5% of its claims in 2008, in 2009 reject only 1.81% of claims in 2009? Did Aetna all of a sudden become less concerned with profits?

Friday, December 18, 2009

Super Genius in Chief pleased to be on the precipice

"From the discussions we had, it's clear that we are on the precipice of an achievement that has eluded Congresses and presidents for decades."
--President Obama, after meeting with Senate Democrats on the health care bill, Dec. 15, 2009.

MIRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY: "1: a very steep or overhanging place; 2: a hazardous situation; broadly : brink"
--Reply by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's office.

Here's another way to look at it.



Unfortunately, if this bill passes, and it does the damage to health care, the economy, and the federal budget that I expect it will, I doubt the Democrats will ever suffer any consequences, politically. In fact, once it's in place, nationalized healthcare's failures will be taken as signs that we haven't gone far enough, that the federal role must expand even further. Though the smartest politician in the history of the universe may be delighted as he dances over the cliff, it's the rest of us who will take the fall.


"Extraordinary Measures"

Last night I attended a screening of the film Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, and Keri Russell, set for release on January 22, 2010. It's a remarkable real life story of human action, pursuit of self interest, entrepreneurial skill, scientific ingenuity, and the indispensable role of profit maximizing financiers and corporate executives, and how it all comes together to produce a medical miracle. Yes, the business types were at times portrayed as unlikeable, but missing were the villainous corporations and heroic trial lawyers. And thankfully, government bureaucrats and politicians were no where to be found. See trailer below.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

My Next Congressman?

Below is a video of a remarkable speech made by Congressional Candidate Lt. Col. Allen West that is going viral.



The speech includes some pretty strong rhetoric, including talk of a "producing class vs an entitlement class" and the idea of "taking the country back" and grabbing your "bayonets". I guess he is just another one of those "teabagging rednecks", as Janeane Garofalo likes to say.

I reviewed his website (which could use some work), and it is clear that he is a fairly consistent small government conservative, except for the fact that he is in favor of nationalizing the windstorm insurance market, a proposal also known as "bailouts for beach houses". Given the geography of the district, which hugs the coast from Northern Palm Beach county down into Broward County, I guess he can be forgiven. The other thing that is striking about the website is that it includes an entire section on Israel. Again, being outspokenly pro-Israel is perhaps another pre-requisite for winning this seat. On foreign policy, he is decidedly hawkish, calling for an end to the "PC non-sense" when it comes to fighting the war on terror, while also arguing that "we must get away from occupation warfare and nation building".

He is certainly one to watch.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Joe Barton

The Congressman who sponsored the ridiculous legislation to regulate the BCS national championship made this speech on the floor of the House regarding health care. It is both hilarious and infuriating in light of his NCAA football power grab.

Among his best lines are: "we don't believe in mandates", "we believe in individual choice", "we believe in the American system of free enterprise", and "I vote for more freedom".

If you really believe these things, then why in the world are you meddling in the affairs of the NCAA? I didn't realize Congress had the authority to regulate the use of the term "National Champion". If you don't like it, then exercise some freedom and don't watch it.

House Panel: Belichick Should Have Punted

Just kidding. A House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee didn't really chastise the Patriot's coach for going for it on 4th and 2 against the Colts.

But they did just approve a bill requiring the NCAA to institute a playoff system to determine the college football champion.

What a bunch of jerks. Why can't these people just do their jobs?

Michael Steele on Harry Reid's "slaveowner" comment

Harry Reid recently compared the opponents of the health care takeover to those who opposed the end of slavery and giving women the right to vote:
When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'

Michael Steele was asked about Harry Reid's comments this morning on Morning Joe, and he said that Reid is "out of touch" and that the remarks are "unfortunate". Donny Deutsch followed up by asking Steele, "I still don't understand why the analogy that Reid made is wrong? He is just saying that any time we have 'dramatic change', that there is going to be resistance. What is wrong with what he said?"

Steele dodged the question by saying "I am not going to dignify that question with a response". Deutsch then openly mocked him for not being able to provide an answer. The video is below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Thinking of a bumper sticker I recently saw, this would have been my answer:
There was dramatic change in Cuba in 1959, was that good change? And were those who were opposed to that change, those who were "clinging" to the principles of freedom and private property and free markets, were they also just dragging their feet and getting in the way of progress? If you want to talk about progress, why don't we go down to Cuba and see what kind of "progress" you get when the government takes over the economy.

Maybe that answer is over the top, but not any more so than Reid's original analogy. In any case, Steele has got to do a better job articulating an opposing point of view.

And by the way, here is that bumper sticker:

Monday, December 7, 2009

Climate Justice in Copenhagen

Bruce Bawer is covering the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. Here's how he begins today's report:

Well, here I am at the Vatican in Rome, where thousands of pilgrims from every corner of the earth crowd St. Peter’s Square, their eyes trained on the glorious basilica within which the College of Cardinals is gathering in secret conclave to settle the all-important question: Who will stand in the shoes of the fisherman?

Oops, sorry, I got a little confused there for a second. In fact I’ve just arrived in Copenhagen. But you’ll have to excuse my mistake, because it’s already clear that being here during the next few days is going to be very much like attending some kind of massive religious gathering.

Later in the piece, Bawer admits that "doesn’t feel so much like the Vatican as it does, say, Havana or Pyongyang."

Stroll around awhile and you’ll keep encountering giant banners or posters or displays designed to ensure that the great unwashed don’t lose sight of the orthodoxy to which they’re expected to pay mindless obeisance. On the side of one church, for example, a banner three stories high proclaims that it’s “TIME FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE.” There are also endless outsized placards — inspired, I suspect, by Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric – bearing the unfortunate coinage “HOPENHAGEN.” Barfsville. I don’t remember where, if anyplace, I’ve ever seen so many huge, fancy banners. Not to mention the big, splashy, World’s Fair-style displays — among them a giant globe in City Hall Park — which certainly must be using up plenty of electricity. Wasting resources is OK, it seems, when you’re engaged in a noble struggle against wasting resources.

That last line gets at an ironic feature of the summit is that the summit has an astoundingly enormous carbon footprint--larger than all of Morocco in 2006, and presumably larger even than Al Gore's home. One London columnist notes that the summit-goers are expected to use 140 private jets and 1,200 limousines (only five of which are hybrids, due in part to Denmark's high taxes on such vehicles).

Actually the wastefulness of the summit would be ironic, except that it seems to be par for the course for global environmentalists.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

My SUV, My Self

In what seems like a parody of consumerism, Land Rover has announced a special edition of its 2010 Range Rover Sport called Autobiography. The folks at AutoBlog have the details:

Most of the appeal of the package is inside. All of the seating surfaces are covered in beautiful two-tone leather, and the Autobiography logo can be found in the wood door inserts and the embossed headrests. The exterior gets a few special touches as well, including body-colored lower door panels, an extended roof spoiler, and special 20-inch alloy wheels.

Just 250 examples of the Range Rover Sport Autobiography will be built, all in Santorini Black with the 5.0-liter supercharged V8 as standard. Pricing is listed as an imposing $88,545, but we can see that in its exclusive circle, enough Land Rover buyers will likely be willing to cough up a $14,000 premium to have their own Autobiography, even if it's only a leather, wheel, and trim package.

Pricey, but then again it's a luxury SUV that sums up one's entire life story. I wonder if there'll be an even snootier version called the Memoir.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Obama's "job-killing agenda"

We can debate financial regulation and monetary policy all day, but in the end, we have a jobs problem. Ralph R. Reiland in the Pittsburg Gazette reminds us that the jobs problem ultimately comes back to basic principles of supply and demand that every college Freshman learns in Econ 101.
The administration's economic agenda is basically a suicide mission that treats job creation like cigarettes -- something to discourage through increased regulations, more central controls and higher taxation.

He continues:
So how can Obama maintain that economic recovery and more jobs will be delivered through his administration's agenda of higher costs on business via carbon taxes, higher energy prices for consumers and employers, the cancellation of secret ballots for workers in union-organizing drives, mandated hikes in the minimum wage, higher payroll taxes on business to fund the proposed health care mandates, a new surtax of 5 points on the incomes of the nation's key job creators, a higher inheritance tax that directly drains capital from the small business sector that's creating most of the new jobs in the economy, and a 69 percent increase in the tax on capital gains, a clear disincentive to new investment and new job development?

It's either a complete lack of understanding of even the basics in freshmen economics or a refusal to accept the reality of how the world works -- a blind devotion to what's been proven to be a failed ideology, a kamikaze mission, a last-ditch effort to intentionally go down in flames as a spotless devotee of statism and collectivism.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Fear of the elites

Another great quote from Arnold Kling over at Econlog:

I have a fear of the masses that would rival David Brooks'. But I have a fear of the elites that is even stronger. Among elites there is an even larger discrepancy between knowledge and power. The political elite has too much power relative to the dispersed knowledge in society.

Read his entire post here.

Monday, November 23, 2009

"Essential benefits package" provision is the real government takeover

One of the primary elements of both the House and Senate plan is this concept of the "essential benefits package". In order for an insurance plan to qualify to be sold on the newly created health insurance exchange, the government will require that the insurance plan provide certain minimum benefits. A "benefits committee", known as the Health Benefits Advisory Council will be headed by the Surgeon General and made up "experts" appointed by the President from both inside and outside the government. The committee will make recommendations on the services that must be covered and included in the essential benefits package.

The first and most obvious comment is that if someone has a plan that does not currently include all of the benefits that the government deems essential, then the insurance provider will be forced to change the plan to provide them. This clearly violates the President's promise that no one will be required to change their existing plan.

Second of all, how in the world are costs supposed to go down if the government is requiring insurance companies to offer even more benefits? The best path toward lowering costs is to reduce the role of insurance in the health care industry and promote (or at least put on equal footing) insurance plans that have fewer benefits, but this plan does the exact opposite.

And most importantly, this element of the plan, along with guaranteed issue and community rating, is just as problematic if not more so than the "public option". The government doesn't need its own insurance company in order to control the entire industry. The "essential benefits package" mandates will represent the real government takeover.

Maybe one of the strategies all along was to put the public option out there, divert attention away from the real government takeover, and at the last minute take out the public option to get the bill passed. Then what will happen? The new mandates, along with guaranteed issue and community rating requirements, will cause premiums to skyrocket. The President will then come back to the public and say, "We gave the insurance companies a chance, but it's now clear the only way to keep them honest is with a public option". Perhaps they are not that clever, but it could end up working out that way.

[Update]

Here is an interesting white paper from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the need to design minimum benefit standards. The paper recommends "limits" on both the "degree of variation in different benefit designs" and on the "number of different plan choices". Doesn't sound very competitive, does it. It also states that:
Although minimum coverage standards are critical, it is neither necessary nor desirable to try to write the particulars of those standards into legislation. The legislation need only establish the broad parameters of the benefit standards and charge the exchange or some other federal standard-setting entity with developing the specifics. This will simplify the passage of legislation and allow the benefit standards to be updated or modified over time in accordance with advances in medical research and practice.

So, don't be specific about the "essential benefits", just give the government the power to control what must be covered so that the bill can more easily pass. Scary stuff.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Another letter to my Congressman

Here is another email I wrote to my Congressman over the weekend. Not the best piece of writing ever, but I tried to touch on some ideas about what the health insurance and health care in general might look like if the health insurance market worked the way other insurance markets work.

Dear Congressman,

You consistently argue that it is unreasonable for insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. How is that unreasonable? That is like saying it’s unreasonable for MetLife to deny life insurance to someone who is already terminally ill, or that it is unreasonable for State Farm to deny homeowners insurance to someone whose house is already on fire.

That is not how insurance works.

An insurance policy should be a private contract between an individual and the insurance company, where the insurance company agrees to provide certain coverage in the event of an unexpected and catastrophic event. Our market for health care and health insurance, however, is based on an employer provided system where coverage is guaranteed as long as you have a job, and the insurance offered is usually a low deductible, first dollar type health “insurance” plan. It’s actually not insurance, it’s a prepaid medical/tax arbitrage plan.

As a result, people have no incentive to lock into an individual plan early in life the same way people have an incentive to get life or disability insurance when they are young and before they have a medical problems. Plus, people don’t care what their health care costs because in most cases a third party is paying the bill. As a result, costs skyrocket. Think about what would happen to food prices if we had “food insurance” or the cost of an oil change if our auto policy covered routine maintenance.

Everything proposed by the House and Senate makes all of these problems WORSE. It’s not really reform, it is a takeover. And by takeover, I am not referring only to the public option. I am talking about the “essential benefits package” provisions and other mandates that give complete control of the entire industry to the government. Supporters constantly talk about the need for more competition and choice, but these provisions are explicitly designed to limit the number of plan choices and variations in plan designs.

Real reform means tax reform including income and payroll tax deductions/credits for individually purchased health care, expanded access to HSA accounts, allowing for the purchase of health care across state lines, tort reform, and a general reduction in insurance mandates and other expensive regulations. If we do these things, and we will see markets for health care and health insurance begin to finally function properly.

What would that look like? It's tough to say, but there are few things likely to happen. First of all, health insurance companies will get back in the business of providing non-cancelable catastrophic insurance rather than this prepaid medical care where they operate as an expensive middleman. Insurance companies will focus on individual customers rather than groups, and as a result, insurance companies will have an incentive to maintain their reputation in the marketplace and not arbitrarily deny claims. Allstate can’t get away with arbitrarily denying legitimate auto claims. If they did, word would get out and customers would flock to State Farm and Nationwide. That’s the way health insurance could and should work as well.

Then, the patient will replace the insurance company as the health care provider’s primary customer. As a result, health care providers will become more responsive to the patient and worry less about things like reimbursement rates and insurance company billing paperwork.

Meanwhile, consumers will have a new incentive to get coverage and lock it in. And the coverage they will tend to get would be high deductible, catastrophic type coverage. This will provide consumers with an incentive to be aware of how much they are spending on health care, putting downward pressure on costs.

Plus, these reforms have the added bonus of costing the government nothing, something that is very important considering the fact that we are currently running $200-$300 billion monthly budget deficits.


Thank you for considering my recommendations.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

"Core functions"

When discussing his financial oversight reform proposal on MSNBC, Chris Dodd stated that "the Fed must return to its core functions". Well, yes, I agree. But maybe Congress and the President should do the same.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

More on that Implicit Tax Rate

Clifford Thies has put together two remarkable graphs depicting the implicit marginal tax rate for the working poor when you take into account "the loss of means-tested benefits (e.g., cash assistance, food stamps, housing subsidies, and health insurance), and the taxes that people pay on earned income". Once you take those factors into account, "the return to working is essentially zero for those in the lower two quintiles of the income distribution."

See the graphs and read the article here.

So our approach to solving unemployment is to make it increasingly expensive to hire AND increasingly expensive to work. Not sure this is a winning formula.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Andrew Ross Sorkin's "Too Big to Fail"

This post from Arnold Kling over at Econlog prompted me to pick up the book "Too Big to Fail" by NY Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. The book is a riveting, hour-by-hour account of last Fall's financial crisis.

I am about 80% of the way through the book, and so far have the following takeaways:

1) The Fed and Treasury organized bailout of Bear Stearns (where JP Morgan purchased Bear Stearns at $2/share while the Fed guaranteed up to $30 billion in potentially bad debt) caused all kinds of confusion and false expectations about the role the government would play as other banks got into trouble. For example, once it was obvious Lehman was in trouble, many potential buyers seemed to take a wait and see approach, in part because they wanted to see if the government was going to arrange yet another "sweetheart" deal. Sorkin tells one story where a potential Lehman buyer gets off the phone with Hank Paulson and says to himself “I want the Jamie Dimon (the JP Morgan/Bear Stearns) deal”.

Then it got to the point where the Lehman buyers were not even negotiating with Lehman, but instead were negotiating directly with Treasury and the Fed. In one incredible scene, the CEO of Barclays calls Tim Geithner to express interest in buying Lehman, and to his credit, Geithner says, “Why are you calling me?” The Barclays CEO insisted that he wanted to negotiate with the government and not with Lehman.

2) Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, is incredibly smart and well intentioned, but he seemed to be way too involved in every aspect of the crisis. Arnold Kling aptly describes him as a control freak. Plus, he had this rather striking and unwavering belief that the future of the country was at stake when it came to the survival of these investment banks. Not good.

3) The book portrays Chris Cox, the SEC chairman, as clueless and incompetent, but I found his hands off approach refreshing. There is a scene where Paulson wants Cox to call the Lehman board to tell them to file bankruptcy, but Cox is reluctant to do so because he thinks that it would be completely inappropriate for a government regulator to force a company into bankruptcy. Some of us might find his position completely reasonable, but Paulson was furious and other bankers mocked him as being stupid.

I think a little more Chris Cox and lot less Hank Paulson might have been a good thing for the entire situation. Who knows, had Chris Cox been in charge, maybe his cluelessness would have left the other Wall Street firms no choice but to take action, devise a plan to save themselves, and leave the taxpayers out of it.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Stimulus!

And the top tax rate that would be required to close the 2010 deficit is...95%. Of course, that estimate includes the completely unrealistic assumption that everyone would continue to work at the same rate they do now despite the higher rates.

Read about it here.

Is it a wonder why any rational business person might think twice about taking on new payroll in this environment? Maybe the more intelligent business decision is to build up cash reserves to pay for future tax hikes.

But it's okay, because that person desperately looking for a job might be better of without one anyway, seeing how a job would make him or her ineligible for all kinds of government subsidies, and potentially face an implicit marginal tax rate of 131%!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Republicans should move from pro-business to pro-market

That is what Luigi Zingales writes in yesterday's Investor's Business Daily. Arnold Kling calls it going Jeffersonian.

Zingales's argument is based on the following premises:

1) There is a difference between being pro-business and being pro-market.
2) The Republican party is not a pro-market party right now.

He then writes:
Now the financial crisis has created significant discontent. In a survey taken last December, 60% of Americans declared themselves "angry" or "very angry" about the economic situation. If Republicans ignore this popular anger, as the party establishment did last autumn, they leave a powerful and potentially disruptive force in the hands of Democrats. The Democrats could channel popular anger into protectionism, 90% tax rates and onerous new market constraints.
In Republican hands, populism could become a strong force for positive change.

Read the whole thing. In my opinion, this is the only way forward for the GOP, and is why I think that a Romney nomination might be the real catastrophe for the GOP.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The President is "addicted to compromise"

That's according to NBC news White House correspondent Chuck Todd, citing as evidence the fact that the President seems to be more concerned with satisfying Olympia Snowe than the left wing of his party when it comes to the health care debate.

My take is that he would love to please the left wing of his party, because he is part of the left wing of his party, but the political reality is that the bill has to be something that Snowe can vote for.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Intelligent life has been discovered on Capitol Hill

Paraphrasing:
Lawrence O'Donnell: Do you have some alternative funding mechanism that you would suggest for legislation like this?

Congressman Paul Ryan: Well, I have an alternative bill.

Lawrence O'Donnell: But within the bill that the Democrats are trying to pass, I assume you people will oppose every form of "pay for" that they are using in the bill.

Congressman Paul Ryan: Why would we support a tax increase to support legislation that we absolutely do not support?

Watch the entire four minute interview here:

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Dennis Miller on President's thin skin

Dennis Miller on Bill O'Reilly last night had this great analogy:
Miller: Barack Obama has rabbit ears. It's like in baseball, you know that guy, you can get under his skin from the dugout. You can flip him out a little. He hears too much, he's got rabbit ears.

O'Reilly: So what you're saying is that the pitcher is on the mound and your going "Hey, you're a bum!" And then the pitcher is looking at you and breaks his concentration, and he throws the ball and it gets hit over the fence. That's Barack Obama, any kind of criticism and he reacts to it personally.

Miller: It's more than that. To please him you have to step up to the dugout and scream "each of your pitches is the greatest pitch I've ever seen in my life!"...or he gets rattled.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Beck is hilarious

Last week, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said Fox was not a legitimate news organization and was spreading lies.

In response, Glenn Beck installed a phone in his studio, sent the phone number by certified mail to Anita Dunn, and invited her to call at anytime to correct any errors. He has a staff member sitting next to the phone during every show waiting for the phone to ring.

Last week, Beck was provided with video showing how Anita Dunn had called Mao one of her favorite political philosophers.

On yesterday's show, Beck’s staff member manning the phone is dressed in a Mao suit and hat.

I don't care what you think of him, it's just great TV.

[Update]

And then there was this audio from Obama Manufacturing “Czar” Ron Bloom featured on Beck's show from earlier today:

Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog.

Okay, I need to research the context of this quote, because a lot of free market types might say something like “the idea that we have a free market is nonsense”, but I’m pretty sure that a free market proponent would not say that the free market is nonsense. And what is with the Mao quotes? Can we get a quote from Jefferson, Washington, or Lincoln?

Monday, October 19, 2009

Yet another breakthrough courtesy of non-embryonic stem cells

From Scientific American:

Stem cells so far have been used to mend tissues ranging from damaged hearts to collapsed tracheas. Now the multifaceted cells have proved successful at regrowing bone in humans. In the first procedure of its kind, doctors at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center replaced a 14-year-old boy's missing cheekbones—in part by repurposing stem cells from his own body.

Read the whole thing. Go to the link and scroll down for more Scientific American for more stories in this vein. The magazine doesn't hit you over the head with it, but one common thread in these stories (aside from the miraculous work of the scientists and physicians) is that they involve the use of "adult" stem cells rather than stem cells harvested from embryos.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

New Glenn Beck book "shockingly good"

In a book review over at FrontPageMag.com, David Forsmark writes this about Glenn Beck's new book "Arguing with Idiots":
It’s not just good — much of it is really, really good. Shockingly good. It reminded me of the kind of bestsellers that came out in the early 1980s, when free-market thinking made its big comeback, aided by libertarian Robert Ringer’s Restoring the American Dream on the pop-thinking level, and George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty for the more philosophical reader.

But what much of the content of Arguing really reminds me of — and don’t throw things at me — is the late, great Milton and Rose Friedman’s classic of capitalism, Free to Choose. Now, before anyone has a stroke or writes my editor in shock and disdain, I’m not saying Arguing with Idiots is in the league with the book that is one of the five most influential of my life.

However, I do think this book would have made Milton Friedman smile with approval.

He goes on:
“Universal Health Care” is one of the book’s most valuable chapters. Unlike some other segments, such as the one about the Second Amendment, Beck (and his team of writers and illustrators) does more than (very effectively) restate familiar arguments, Beck offers witty asides and on-point illustrations (both literally and figuratively) while presenting a wealth of material that will be new to even well-informed readers and veterans of the political commentary wars. Particularly terrific is a section on how innovative companies are meeting the demand for low-cost insurance and changing the paradigm on how health care is delivered. This is something the current debate is sorely lacking from free-market advocates, who too often are merely opponents of socialized medicine.


When it comes to the debate over whether or not Glenn Beck is good for the conservative movement, I am firmly on the side of "he is good for the movement." He does come across as a clown, but the reality is that he has inspired his audience to read serious books on history and political philosophy and economics. He is not a mouthpiece, he does not recite talking points, and he has broken serious news stories neglected by the mainstream media. For Beck, conservatism and the philosophy of limited government is so much more than "cut taxes", which is too often the only argument many "conservatives" are able to come up with when debating some of these issues. He constantly implores his audience to do their own homework and learn the arguments.

The review ends as follows: "This is a book filled with persuasive arguments that lots of people who argue about such things for a living have never heard. And they need to."

After watching Michael Steele get destroyed by Shep Smith on Fox News in a debate over health care reform, I am thinking that maybe someone should send him a copy of "Arguing with Idiots", so that he can avoid sounding like one himself.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

"Penn State and Ohio State did not drive Harvard out of business"

That is the argument made by Jeffey Toobin on Bill Maher's Real Time back on September 18th.

He made this point to demonstrate that the public option is really just an "option", and that public and private can co-exist without the public sector entity driving the private sector entity out of business. On the surface, this is a fairly convincing argument.

But the problem with that argument is as follows:

All of the plans being considered require insurance companies to accept customers with pre-existing conditions. The problem with that is, why would a person buy health insurance before getting sick if they could not be denied coverage once they did get sick?

To solve that problem, the President has proposed a mandate that everyone must purchase coverage. If you don't have insurance, then you will be fined. But that leads to the following question: who will decide whether or not a plan fulfills all of the requirements of the mandate?

Ultimately, those requirements will be outlined by the health care bill and enforced by some agency of the government.

We should be asking questions like, if I wanted to buy a high deductible plan (such as a $10,000 deductible) to cover only unexpected medical expenses, will that kind of plan qualify, or will it be considered a "non-qualified" plan? Will only benefit rich, low-deductible plans be considered "qualified"? And if a plan is deemed to be "non-qualified", won't that effectively force those plans off of the market? And if the Federal government has the power to force certain plans off the market, how is that not a takeover of the industry?

In summary, once they require insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions, then they must require everyone to buy insurance. Once they can mandate that everyone buy insurance, they will have to decide what kind of insurance is considered a "qualified insurance plan". Once they have that power, then they have effectively taken over the entire industry. So no, it's not "just an option".

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

An obvious point

After Obama's speech last month before Congress on health care overhaul, I asked "If it is going to be illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to someone with a pre-existing condition, then why would anyone buy insurance before getting sick. It's like requiring State Farm to insure my home after it has already burned down".

This point is now being made by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the main health care insurance lobbying group in Washington, based on findings in a study conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers. I'm not sure why a study was needed to arrive at this obvious point, but this is how Real Clear Politics describes it.
Since the legislation would ban insurance companies from denying coverage on account of poor health, many people will wait to sign up until they get sick, the industry says. And that will drive up costs for everybody else.

[Update]

Krauthammer agrees: "I think the report is obvious and intuitive."

Monday, October 12, 2009

Granholm's economic cluelessness and insights from Steve Wynn

From yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Michigan Governor made the following statement:
In Michigan, you know, we -- you spend as a consumer $1,200 to $1,600 in every vehicle, if it's a domestically made American vehicle, for health care. Now, that's not what is being spent by other -- for consumers of other products that are not -- that are from other countries, because other countries provide some assistance. There is a partnership there. The full burden of health care is not on the backs of the private sector.

So in summary, the U.S. auto industry cannot compete because in other countries, "the full burden of health care is not on the backs of the private sector."

My question to the Governor is, even if the government paid for everyone's health care, where in the world does she think the money comes from? IT HAS TO COME FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR. All government expenditures are a burden on the private sector, because it's the private sector that will ultimately have to pick up the tab.

She should be honest and admit that she is a rent-seeker who is looking for yet another taxpayer subsidy for the auto industry.

Steve Wynn, on the other hand, was the star of the show, and here are a few quotes from the CEO of Wynn Resorts:

Health care and all of -- and all that other stimulus should have been held back, and the priority should have been job creation. And the most powerful weapon and the tool that the government has for that is its tax policy.

They seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. And if the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection, they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people.
Chris, Chris, the economists have had their moment. Really, everybody who has absolutely no experience in insuring people, creating jobs, have had their moment.
Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization's history. For some reason, that simple truth has evaded everybody.

The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor, whether it's you and I, Chris, or anybody else.

The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America. And soaring rhetoric and great speeches, with or without a Teleprompter, aren't going to change the truth. And the truth is the biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle, that working middle class America has is government spending.

Good Limbaugh Interview on Today Show

JAMIE GANGEL: I hate to ruin your reputation.

RUSH: (laughing)

JAMIE GANGEL: But off camera you are polite, you are courteous, you have old-fashioned manners.

RUSH: Absolutely, Jamie.

JAMIE GANGEL: What happens when that microphone goes on?

RUSH: I am the same guy.



Thanks to NBC and Jamie Gangel for airing this even-handed interview. It's amazing what can be learned by doing some basic reporting, rather than lazily reciting some allegations that were posted on Media Matters.

Part 2 of the interview to air tomorrow.

Friday, October 9, 2009

It's okay to say that Baucus plan will add to the deficit

...according to Ramesh over at NRO.

I completely agree with Ramesh and others who say that the plan will almost certainly not be deficit neutral.

But again, isn't that besides the point? I'm sure that when Castro expropriated all of the private property in Cuba in 1959, that was also a deficit neutral government program.

Harvard Salutes Valedictorian of Class of 2013

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. At a ceremony this morning, officials at Harvard University congratulated the Valedictorian of the Class of 2013, Ted Baker, a freshman from Metuchen, N.J.

Though the honor is typically bestowed at graduation to the senior with the highest cumulative grade point average, University officials said Mr. Baker has shown "remarkable potential" since he arrived on campus early last month. "We are confident that having been recognized as the outstanding scholar in the Class of 2013, Ted will do very well on his first mid-term exams," said one official who preferred to remain anonymous. Mr. Baker reportedly intends to major in either economics or European literature. "Of course, I don't have to decide that until midway through my sophomore year," he commented. "And that's a ways off."

The school also named its salutatorian for the Class of 2013, Jamie Griffin, currently a 6th grader at St. Stanislaus Catholic School in Stockbridge . . . .

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Scarborough obliterates Max Blumenthal

There was some excellent TV this morning on Morning Joe at about 7:30AM. Joe Scarborough interviewed Max Blumenthal who made the following arguments:

1) The Republican party has been hi-jacked by extremists who are well outside the mainstream.
2) Most of the inflammatory discourse in politics comes from the right.
3) This has prevented Obama from being able to govern effectively.

Joe asks the question, "why would I, a conservative who believes in small government, support a $700 billion stimulus written by Nancy Pelosi, a cap and trade bill drafted by Henry Waxman, or the health care plan that is going to take over 1/6 of the US economy?"

Blumenthal takes the bait and tells Joe that "you wouldn't have voted for those things because you are a member of the movement that has taken over the party", i.e. the far right-wing extremist movement that Blumenthal says compares Obama to Hitler and Stalin and believes the government is setting up FEMA concentration camps. (Blumenthal even calls Scarborough juvenile and tells him that he needs to be nicer to his guests.)

Of course, anyone who has watched Joe Scarbrough for more than five seconds knows this is completely ridiculous. Scarborough was able to illustrate how opposing Obama's agenda is not in any way extreme or out of the mainstream.

Perhaps the reason the President is having such a difficult time getting his programs through is because he is the one that is operating outside of the mainstream.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Raising the Customer-Service Complaint to an Art Form

The Bard of Minneapolis, James Lileks, shares with us today an open letter to the head of a big box electronics chain. It begins:

Dear CEO of Best Buy:

You must be so proud.

To which you might well say: why, yes! But have you a specific reason in mind? I do.
And it gets better from there. Read the whole thing.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

A case of morals

The list of movie stars and other celebs expressing outrage at the arrest of Roman Polanski for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl (he was 44 at the time) and fleeing justice for three decades continues to grow.

A petition in support of Polanski organized by La Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques begins this way:


We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski's arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.
Ah yes, "a case of morals." As if he faced imprisonment for buying a bottle of wine on Sunday in a dry county, or for showing a little skin in one of his movies, or purchasing a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Rather than drugging and sodomizing an 8th grader.


Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this. The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no-one can know the effects.

Sacré bleu! Don't these américain savages realize that film festivals are international cultural events, and therefore beyond the reach of laws, much less bourgeois moralité? And don't they know that Switzerland is a neutral country? (What's that, Pierre? The age of consent in Switzerland is 16? Meaning that what Polanski did would have been a crime even in that "neutral" country? Oh, Pierre, you are clearly a censorious Puritan prude, whose mind is too small to appreciate art.)

Ahem.

The signatories to the SACD petition are mostly European figures whose names I do not recognize, but they do include such Hollywood luminaries as Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, and Jonathan Demme.

Several other big names have signed the petition in support of Polanski put forth by French journalist and Huffington Post columnist Bernard-Henri Levy. Like the SACD petition, Levy's makes much of the fact that Polanski was in Switzerland to receive an award for his cinematic achievements, as if the ability to tell actors where to stand were a legal defense to rape. He also notes, quite accurately, that Polanski has himself suffered, though he does not explain how this gave the director carte blanche to prey on a young girl.

Levy also asserts that his crime would be beyond the statute of limitations in most European countries, forgetting that (1) Polanski confessed to committing child rape in America, not Europe, and (2) Polanski fled the country to avoid his sentencing, a crime for which there is no statute of limitations.

Grotesquely, Levy calls Polanski a "martyr," which is an odd thing to call someone who has spent the last thirty years taking all possible measures to avoid having to suffer for his actions, much less his beliefs. Martyrs by definition face death rather than forsake their beliefs. If Mr. Polanski believes that forcing his 44-year-old body on a barely pubescent girl whom he had drugged was an honorable act, then he should be willing to defend his actions, and face the consequences. A martyr? More like one of the lions.

Levy's petition has been signed by Harrison Ford, Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera (who should know better); Taylor Hackford (writer/director of Ray); Jeremy Irons, Sam Mendes (American Beauty); Mike Nichols (Charlie Wilson's War, The Birdcage); Natalie Portman (Harvard class of 2003); and Steven Soderbergh (The Informant, Traffic, the Ocean's Eleven movies).

[English version of the Levy petition; French version with a more complete listing of signers].

Depressing isn't it? To lighten your mood, here's Chris Rock, summing things up nicely:




John Podhoretz has some related thoughts over at The Weekly Standard, and this Mark Steyn column on Polanski is typically informative, astute, and funny.

Congressman Grayson should stop "murdering" people immediately

From the Politico, an aide to Congressman Grayson wrote the following email to a constituent:

As you know, we do support the health care plan and feel failure to act is similar to murdering the uninsured. On the other hand, we respect differences of opinion and I will let him know how you feel.
So again, I ask Congressman Grayson to take action immediately and adopt my health insurance plan for him to use his $31 million personal fortune to buy insurance for at least four or five thousand families for the next year. And just to show how reasonable I am, I am going to allow him to keep a couple of million for him and his family. Not only will he be saving thousands of lives, his staffer will no longer be able to consider him an accessory to mass murder.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Leadership

Senenator Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committe, says he does not plan to read his committee's health care bill before he votes on it.

CNSNews.com reports that, Carper, a member of the self-proclaimed world's greatest deliberative body, explained, “I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life." Carper says he will "probably" read a summary of the bill, written in simpler language, rather than the bill itself.

The reporter goes on to explain that Sen. Jim Bunting (R-Ky) proposed an amendement that would have required the final text of each proposed bill to be available for 72 hours before the committee held its final vote. Last week committee defeated the amendment by a 13-10 vote.
Carper compared the full legislative language of the bill to credit card disclosure documents that he described as “gibberish,” meaning that “you can’t read it and really know what it says.”

When asked if Republican members of the committee should have a chance to read the full text of the bill if they believe they are capable of understanding it, Carper suggested Republicans would only pretend to understand the bill when in fact they would not understand it. “They might say that they’re reading it. They might say that they’re understanding it,” said Carper. “But that would probably be the triumph of man’s hope over experience. It’s hard stuff to understand.”

Carper said if Americans were given the chance to read the actual text of the bill he believes they would decide that it made little sense for either them—or members of Congress—to read such texts because of the difficulty in understanding them.

“I think if people had the chance to read that they’ll say you know maybe it doesn’t make much sense for either the legislators or me to read that kind of arcane language,” said Carper. “It’s just hard to decipher what it really means.”

(CNSnews.com). To sum up, Sen. Carper says that the actual language of the bill is too confusing to be understood by his fellow Democrats, Senate Republicans, or the American people. Clearly it should be passed right away!

Oddly enough, according to Politico, Sen. Carper is currently trying to push his own "moderate" health care plan. No telling if he's actually read it.

Premise of Michael Moore movie is false

Bob Burg has a great blog post about Michael Moore's new movie. He writes:
Dear Mr. Moore, please understand that government colluding with and rewarding special interests who contribute to their re-election campaigns is NOT Capitalism. With all respect, your entire premise is false. Unfortunately, most of America is going to accept your conclusion without even questioning the very false premise upon which it was based. You have a right to your opinion. But, when you have as much influence as you have, you also have a responsibility to understand what is and what isn’t, and to get your premises straight. Remember, by the very nature of having a false premise you can not reach a correct conclusion. Please check your premises.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Rep Grayson is obsessed with Republicans

Congressman Alan Grayson, the guy who said that the Republicans wanted people to "die quickly", appeared on MSNBC last night and called Republicans "knuckle dragging neanderthals" and repeatedly said that the Republicans have "nothing" and "no plan of their own".


Two points:

1) Regarding his claim that the Republicans have "nothing", he should read this, and this, and maybe this, and this. I assume he would be aware of these proposals since his colleagues wrote them, but if not, it's called Google, and maybe he should have his staff spend more doing research and less time at Kinkos having colorful signs made about how Republicans want people to "die quickly".

2) Doesn't he know that the Democrats have huge majorities in both houses of Congress? The Republicans cannot stop the Democrats from enacting Obamacare. He seems to be obsessed with Republicans, despite the fact that they will be irrelevant if the Democrats can keep everyone in line.

[Update]

I just learned that Alan Grayson is worth about $31 million. Since he claims that 4000 people a month are dying because of lack of health insurance, my suggestion is that he buy health insurance for as many of them as possible right now. If he just takes about 90% of his fortune, he could probably buy a very nice health insurance plan for 4000-5000 families for about a year.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Meyerson in Washington Post Op-Ed: Free Market Types Got it Wrong

Harold Meyerson in today's Washington Post said this:

The problem with contemporary economics, at least with the purer strain of free-market economics ... is not simply that it failed to predict the near-collapse of the world financial system last year. The problem is that it believed such a collapse could not happen.
So free market economics failed to predict, and failed to even consider the possibility of near collapse of the financial system? Actually, it's the exact opposite. There is a school of free market economics called Austrian economics, which is perhaps the "purest" strain of free market economics, that describes exactly the type of boom/bust phenomenon that our economy experienced. He could have done a simple google search for "who predicted financial crisis", and he could have found all kinds of articles and video links from "free market types" like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul. He may even want to go back and look at the rationale for awarding Friedrich von Hayek, another "free market type" the Nobel Prize in 1974. From NobelPrize.org:
"von Hayek showed how monetary expansion, accompanied by lending which exceeded the rate of voluntary saving, could lead to a misallocation of resources, particularly affecting the structure of capital. This type of business cycle theory with links to monetary expansion has fundamental features in common with the postwar monetary discussion."
I don't care so much that Meyerson agrees or disagrees with this theory, or free market economics in general. And it's true that many free market oriented economists failed to predict the financial crisis, and it's also true that the Austrian explanation of the business cycle has its critics, even among some free market economists . But nevertheless, he is clearly wrong when he says that free market economics failed to predict or even consider the financial crisis.

Meyerson even blames the practice of "mortgage securitization" on the free market. Of course, securitization of mortgage debt was something explicitly created by the government in 1970 and the government is still by far the most influential player in that market.

Maybe Meyerson needs a research assistant, or access to the Internet.

[Update]

Veronica de Rugy also has a great post on the Meyerson op-ed over at NRO. She asks "How can someone write a column on an issue he knows so little about?" One of Meyerson's arguments is that free market economists believe "that all risk could be quantified by mathematical models and that these quantifications could help us correctly price just about everything." Once again, it's the exact opposite. She points out that free market economists, specifically from the Austrian school, reject the use of mathematics in trying to model something as complex as the economy. She closes by saying:

Mr. Meyerson should read the Austrian Economists blog. Great economists such as Pete Boettke, Frederic Sautet, and Steven Horwitz make the case for freedom daily, with no math. He should also read their books and articles; all published in respected academics journals, without much math at all. And by the way, all of these economists have claimed for years that we were heading for disaster.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Making economics more intuitive

Are basic economic principles counterintuitive? Bryan Caplan over at Econlog.com says no, and that economics is just "poorly explained". To illustrate, he provides the following demonstration:

I'm going to present a few allegedly counter-intuitive economic propositions, then explain them at a 6th-grade level.

1. Counterintuitive claim: Free trade makes countries richer, even if the other countries have big advantages like cheaper labor or more advanced technology.

Intuitive version: We'd be better off if other countries gave us stuff for free. Isn't "really cheap" the next-best thing?

2. Counterintuitive claim: Strict labor market regulation is bad for workers.

Intuitive version: Employers don't like hiring people if it's hard to get rid of them. Suppose you had to marry anyone you asked out on a date!

3. Counterintuitive claim: Egalitarian socialism creates poverty... even starvation.

Intuitive version: If everyone gets the same share whether or not they work, you're asking people to work for free. People don't like working for free, especially when the work isn't very fun. (This is my response to Sumner's Great Leap Forward Challenge: "But how do we explain to school children that millions had to starve because of a policy that encouraged people to share?")

4. Counterintuitive claim: Prices are determined by supply and demand.

Intuitive version: If a good was free, consumers would want a lot, but producers wouldn't feel like making much. If the good costs trillions of dollars, producers would want to make a lot, but consumers wouldn't want to buy any. In between there's got to be a price where consumers want to buy as much as producers want to make.

Bread and Circuses Dept.

Obama to make in-person pitch for 2016 Olympics
WASHINGTON (AP)—President Barack Obama will travel to Denmark to support Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, projecting the highest-ever White House profile in lobbying for the international event.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Aim High

Man sues BofA for "1,784 billion, trillion dollars"

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dalton Chiscolm is unhappy about Bank of America's customer service -- really, really unhappy.

Chiscolm in August sued the largest U.S. bank and its board, demanding that "1,784 billion, trillion dollars" be deposited into his account the next day....

The sum also dwarfs the world's 2008 gross domestic product of $60 trillion, as estimated by the World Bank.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

More health care back and forth

A friend wrote to me: "In a free market system there is too much room for deception, as long as profit drives these companies than people will get screwed. People shouldn't have to scramble for their lives when they get sick."

My response:
In a free market system, there is actually very little room for "deception". First of all, if an insurance company violated a contract, the customer should sue. That's what our common law system is designed to take care of. Second, if the insurance company is really deceiving their customers, eventually, those customers will catch on and they will leave to go to a competitor who is providing better value, better service and has made an effort to protect its reputation by doing right by its customers. The company that is deceiving their customers will be put out of business unless they change their ways. That is market discipline. It's incredibly powerful, but has been inhibited in health care because of the government created, cartel-like system we have now.

On the other hand, when the government screws people, there is no accountability. People cannot leave and go elsewhere. People cannot opt out. The government doesn't have to make a profit, and it doesn't have to worry about attracting customers. There is no market discipline. They can just put competitors out of business by charging an artificially low price, by regulating their competitors to death, or by forcing people into their system. They can screw people over and over again without any consequences.

So it's actually the exact opposite. The more we get away from a free market system, the more people will get screwed. The more we have a truly free market system, the more insurance companies and health care providers will have to be responsive to the customer.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Someone finally asks...

...if the President wants competition, why not allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines?


Hats off to Wolf Blitzer for asking the question.

I guess that question didn't make the cut for David Gregory's interview with the President on Sunday, but this one did!
Gregory: Hate to break it to you, but doesn't look so good for your White Sox here. So I want to know who is your pick to win the World Series?

Monday, September 21, 2009

Breitbart hints that next story will be about corruption at the NEA

After skillfully exposing Acorn and the mainstream media with the launch of biggovernment.com, Andrew Breitbart writes this morning:

At the very least, filmmaker James O'Keefe and actress Hannah Giles deserve a Pulitzer Prize for their expose of deep corruption and unspeakable immorality at the ACORN housing division. But more important, I won't rest until they receive a grant to continue their partisan artistry from the National Endowment for the Arts.

That's this week's mission.

Can't wait to see what's next...

[Update]
From www.bighollywood.com:

The government involvement here is what is truly stunning. Not only did the government sponsor a conference call specifically dedicated to recruiting artists to the Obama re-election and political strategy campaign – and not only did they co-sponsor the call with Obama partisan organizations — they list lobbying organizations on their website for United We Serve (Serve.gov). As Dana Loesch of BigGovernment.com reported, ACORN is included in the “non-partisan” organizations listed by Serve.gov, among the other participants like the AARP grassroots advocacy organization (which asks you to “Be a part of a team of grassroots advocates that encourage elected officials to address the issue of health care reform…”).

All of this – particularly the government-sponsored conference call itself – is in blatant violation of the Anti-Lobbying Act (19 U.S. Code §1913), which explicitly provides: “No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation, whether before or after the introduction of any bill, measure or resolution proposing such legislation, law, ratification, policy or appropriation …”

Violation of this law, in turn, violates 31 U.S. Code §1352, which bans use of “funds appropriated by any Act [from being] expended by the recipient of a Federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement to pay any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with any Federal action …”

Sunday, September 20, 2009

What a marvelous idea!

Let's take an insane killer on a field trip to the county fair! Well, that's exactly what officials in Spokane, Washington did. No way you'll guess what happened next:

Killer escapes on trip to county fair
SPOKANE, Wash. - Authorities have put out a statewide alert for a mentally ill killer who escaped during a hospital field trip to a county fair, leading to fears that he'll become more unstable and potentially dangerous the longer he is on the loose with no medication.

Sgt. Dave Reagan of the Spokane County sheriff's office says Phillip Arnold Paul remained at large Friday and officials believe he's headed to Sunnyside, the town
where his parents live. Reagan said anyone spotting him should call 911 and not try to confront him.
Paul was committed after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside. He soaked the woman's body in gasoline to throw off search dogs and buried the remains in her flower garden. He reportedly said voices in his head told him she was a witch.
He was caught trying to escape four years later, and later knocked a deputy unconscious in the booking area following his detention.


Read the whole thing. Or don't. Regardless, until further notice you may want to put that trip to Spokane on hold.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Nadler Calls Acorn Bill Unconstitutional

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) is claiming that any bill to defund Acorn is unconstitutional because it violates the Constitution’s prohibition against Bills of Attainder.

I am not a Constitutional scholar, but I believe the prohibition against Bills of Attainder is designed to maintain separation of powers between the legislative branch and the judicial branch by preventing Congress from declaring a person or organization guilty and punishing them accordingly.

Just a couple of thoughts:

First of all, this is a spending issue, and according to the Constitution, the Congress is in charge of all spending.

Second, I don't see how taking away a subsidy is a "punishment", at least in the legal sense. Congress is not declaring Acorn guilty, and is not claiming to have any power to put anyone in prison; they are just choosing not to fund Acorn with taxpayer dollars. As far as this Congressional action goes, Acorn is free to continue to operate as long as it can raise funds from other sources.

And where was the talk about Bills of Attainders when Congress was talking about taxing AIG bonuses up to 95%, or when Congress threatens to tax "excessive" profits from the oil companies?

And Now ABC Gets On Board

Over at The Corner, the National Review staff points to this report from ABC news entitled U.S. Taxpayers Fund Empty 'Airports to Nowhere'.

CNN investigates $31 million "stimulus" project

This story may not be nearly as compelling as the James O'Keefe/Hannah Giles Acorn videos, but it may be a sign of things to come. CNN's Drew Griffin investigates why $31 million of stimulus money was allocated to two border crossing facilities that each handle an average of 22 vehicles per day. Griffin asks:
Did politics, rather than security, guide the DHS? Especially when a border town like Laredo, Texas, which sees 66,000 crossings a day, was getting not one dime of the $400 million in DHS border stimulus funds. Montana, in total, was to receive $77 million.

When questioned by CNN, the DHS initially defended the decision, but later changed its tune and suspended the plans until further review.

In business, there is a concept called Activity Based Accounting, where costs are assigned to a product or service based on the activities they require. In this case, the cost is the $31 million, and the activity is vehicles served. With twenty-two cars served per day per facility, times two facilities, these border patrol facilities will service about 16,000 vehicles per year. Assuming the facilities are good for 20 years, that means that the facilities can expect to serve approximately 320,000 vehicles over the course of their useful lives. Therefore, the cost of each vehicle served would be approximately $100/per vehicle. And, this does not include labor costs and other operating expenditures, which might easily add another $25-$50 in cost per vehicle served.

With a $700 billion stimulus bill, there are probably thousands of stories like this one. As Jon Stewart shouted to the mainstream media in his hilarious Acorn report, "Let's get to work people!"

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Time Magazine Asks "Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?"

But maybe the more appropriate question is, "is Glenn Beck bad for President Obama"? (Or better yet, "is President Obama bad for America"?)

The article is not completely terrible. Below are some excerpts where they manage to give him some credit.

This flexible narrative often contains genuinely uncomfortable truths. Some days "they" are the unconfirmed policy "czars" whom Beck fears Obama is using to subvert constitutional government — and he has some radical-sounding sound bites to back it up. Some days "they" are the network of leftist community organizers known as ACORN — and his indictment of the group is looking stronger every day.

and
He is having an impact. Along with St. Louis, Mo., blogger Jim Hoft, whose site is called Gateway Pundit, Beck pushed one of Obama's so-called czars, Van Jones, to resign during Labor Day weekend. ... On Sept. 14 the Senate overwhelmingly voted to cut off all federal funds to ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau severed its ties to the organization. This followed Beck's masterly promotion of a series of videos made by two guerrilla filmmakers who posed as a pimp and prostitute while visiting ACORN offices around the country.


Joe Scarborough accused Beck this morning of "selling anger". Well, if he means anger over the fact that Beck, a former disc jockey and self described rodeo clown, has to be the one to break one explosive story after another that the rest of the media ignores, then maybe Scarborough is right.

Jay Nordlinger sums it up

Jay Nordlinger, senior editor at National Review:

I thought Barack Obama would be a poor and troublesome president. Did I think he would yuk it up with Hugo Chávez, smirk with Daniel Ortega about the Bay of Pigs, turn his wrath on a Central American country trying to follow its constitution, denounce President Bush abroad, bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, endorse a radical Middle Eastern view of how Israel came into being, knock Western countries that try to protect Muslim girls from unwanted shrouding, invite the Iranian regime to our Fourth of July parties, stay essentially mute in the face of counterrevolution in Iran, squeeze and panic Israel, cold-shoulder the Cuban democrats in order to warm to the Cuban dictatorship, scrap missile defense in Eastern Europe, and refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama — in addition to his attempts to have government eat great portions of American society? No, I did not. You?

P.S. When President Ford, at the encouragement of Secretary Kissinger, refused to meet with Solzhenitsyn, conservatives thought this was a pretty rotten move and posture. I hope these same conservatives, and their heirs, see what President Obama’s snubbing of the Dalai Lama means today.

P.P.S. When President Obama does something — even a small something — like turn off the "news ticker" outside the American interests section in Havana, he tries to make nice with oppressors. Sometimes in life you have to choose: whether to make nice with the oppressors or with the oppressed. It’s hard to do both.

P.P.P.S. Will Obama’s moves pay off? Will Russia join arms with us against nuclearizing mullahs, or will the Cuban dictatorship reduce its tortures in the prison cells? I’m not sure the ends are really the point, with the Obama crowd at large. I think the main point may be not to upset regimes in power: and therefore show that America can "get along" with the world, unlike under that crude, narrow, swaggering, simplistic rancher from Texas.

Get along or go along.


Nordlinger is a great and faithful rememberer of those who suffer under authoritarian regimes, and writes frequently about political prisoners in places like Cuba and China. I wish someone like him had the President's ear.

And as to his primary point -- Obama's performance in office as compared even to conservatives' low expectations -- I can't help but agree. Obama's work experience (and lack thereof), voting record, and past associations showed that he was a committed liberal and not the centrist he and his supporters claimed him to be. It was clear too that in his thinking Obama would be prone to all of the left-liberal bad habits, including the tendency to see the federal government as the solution to all problems; the impulse to regard international conflict as ultimately the fault of the U.S.; and naivete about the desires of hostile nations. But I held out hope that he had enough political sense to do a little Clintonian triangulation now and then, and to get the easy calls right. Jay's litany suggests that my hope was ill-founded.

Again, it's a good thing the Obama is filled with super-geniuses, or else I'd be worried.