Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Obama stash

A client of mine tried to pay his bill with this:

He said that he used to support the President but was now "scared to death of all of the spending."

I politely informed him that his problems with the administration had nothing to do with spending. His real problem is that he is a right-wing racist extremist who believes the President was not born in the United States.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The hilarious Mark Styen

From Mark Steyn on today's Rush Limbaugh program, commenting on that Frank Rich column:
Frank Rich attributed opposition to the health care reform to us angry white male's homophobia. That's right, the reason we object to this multi-trillion dollar spending and unconstitutional power grab is because we are uncomfortable with Barney Frank's gayness. That's the argument being advanced by the NY Times.

I am anxiously waiting to hear from David Brooks and Peggy Noonan on how harmful Frank Rich is to the Democrats and how "he has long appeared to be insane".

Obama: Opposition to health care was pure politics

In an interview on Monday with the Today Show's Matt Lauer, the President argued that opposition to his Health Care legislation was pure politics.
I think that the Republican Party made a calculated decision, a political decision, that they would not support whatever we did.
Well, I give him credit for not perpetuating the racism/extremism narrative. But it does contradict some of what he said after the health care summit last month, when he acknowledged that there were "legitimate philosophical differences" between Republicans and Democrats.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Learn from compassionate liberals for only $50,000 per year

Here’s a story to keep in mind the next time you are hit up for your alma mater’s annual fundraising drive. This morning the Boston Globe reports that the number of colleges in the Boston area that charge over $50,000 in tuition, room, board, and mandatory fees is expected to double in the 2010-2011 this year.

Tufts, Boston University, Boston College, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Babson reached the $50,000 milestone in 2009-2010. Next fall they’ll be joined by Harvard, MIT, Wellesley, Brandeis, Brown, Dartmouth, and Holy Cross. And this is not just a northeastern phenomenon – according to a story published last November in the Chronicle of Higher Education, schools all over the country charge at least $50,000 per year, including Georgetown, George Washington, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, Tulane and University of Southern California — 58 schools in all. In the 2008-2009 school year the number was 5.


Many of these schools no doubt have generous financial aid programs to lower the cost for some students. But these elite institutions pride themselves on being impeccably liberal, more compassionate, kinder, and gentler than for-profit corporations, who are assumed to be rapaciously money-grubbing. And yet these educators have no problem raising their prices more quickly and to a greater extent than IBM or Apple or AT&T would ever dream.


What makes this all the more galling is that these universities have some of the largest endowments in the country. And this is even after those endowments took a big hit in the recession, in one case (Harvard) as large as 30%. (The decreases were due in part to the colleges’ reckless investment strategies, which were similar to the ones for which private investment firms have been excoriated). In other words, while their tuition goes through the roof, these schools are sitting on a heck of a lot of cash.


Here are endowments of some of the $50k schools as of the end of FY 2009, ranked according to a 2010 study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.


1. Harvard $25.7 billion

4. M.I.T. $8 billion

8. Columbia $5.9 billion

9. Northwestern $5.4 billion

11. U of Chicago $5.1 billion

17. Washington University in St. Louis $4 billion

18. Cornell $4 billion

21. Vanderbilt, $2.8 billion

22. Dartmouth $2.8 billion

23. U.S.C. $2.7 billion

24. N.Y.U $2.1 billion

26. Brown $2 billion

40. Boston College $1.34 billion

44. Wellesley $1.26 billion

49. Tufts $1.1 billion

50. Smith $1.1 billion

65. Boston University $892 million


Which raises the question: why give your charitable donation to a wealthy university, when there are so many worthy organizations that are in much greater need?


(via Newsalert and Instapundit)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Nice movie reference, Mr. President

Earlier this week, President Obama told the 55% of Americans who oppose his health care bill, and the 62% who want the GOP to continue to fight against the bill, to "bring it on".

I wonder if this was just a tounge-in-cheek reference to the 2000 movie "Bring It On" starring Kirsten Dunst. You know, the cheerleading mini-epic that spawned four straight-to-DVD sequels, as well as the gymnastics spinoff "Stick It" starring academy award winner Jeff Bridges. If you haven't seen "Bring It On", just turn on ABC Family any Sunday afternoon and it will probably be on.

If I am wrong, and it was not a clever reference to the movie "Bring It On", I would have to assume that he's just a complete jerk.

More on that over at NRO.

Like I said...

...Reaganesque?

Read more here.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Unindexed

From the Reconciliation bill's list of revenue provisions:
Unearned Income Medicare Contribution on 3.8% on investment income for taxpayers with AGI in excess of $200K/$250K (unindexed).
Definition of unindexed: sooner or later, everyone pays.

The "ensuring value for premium payments" provision

In the health care bill, there is a provision called “ENSURING VALUE FOR PREMIUM PAYMENTS”, which requires plans in the individual and small group market to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services. According to the website PatientPowerNow.org:
Depending on how actuarial value is calculated, HSA-qualified plans (those with high deductibles) may become illegal. This is especially true if the calculation does not include contributions to an HSA.
But I thought if I liked my plan that I would be able to keep it?

In addition, the bill requires that new private plans exclude preventive services from deductibles. So even if I am lucky enough to keep my high deductible plan, I can only keep it until the moment I have to change insurance plans, at which time I will be forced to buy one of the more expensive, government approved plans.

Let freedom ring!

[Update]
Don't you just love this idea that a politician is capable of "ensuring value" based on a mathematical formula. The applications for this idea are endless.

Monday, March 22, 2010

The "most powerful woman in American History"

In this interview, ABC News' Diane Sawyer asks Nancy Pelosi for her reaction to being called the "most powerful woman in American History" by the Economist magazine.

I agree, she is very powerful, in a King George III kind of way.

I need to find the transcript, but I am sure Diane Sawyer also asked Pelosi what she thought about her 11% favorability rating.

Reaganesque

There is a story about Margaret Thatcher at a Conservative Party meeting in the late 1970’s, where she allegedly reached into her briefcase, took out a copy of Friedrich von Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty, and exclaimed "This, is what we believe", and banged the book down on the table.

To borrow that quote, this, is what we believe:

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Health care reform reduces the deficit?

Imagine a guy named Sam who has $100K in credit card debt. To make matters worse, that debt keeps growing every year because his take home pay is $50,000/yr, but his living expenses are $60,000/year.

After consulting with a debt counselor, he decides that the best way to get back on track is to do the following: 1) work an extra 5 hours per week, which will earn him an additional $5K per year and 2) cut his expenses by $5K per year. These changes will balance his budget.

After working the extra hours for about a week, Sam decides to treat himself to a new car that will cost him $9K per year. So his income is now $55K, and his expenses are $64K.

When Sam's debt counselor asks him why in the world he purchased that new car, he simply argues, "Well, my deficit was $10K, but now it's only $9K. I've reduced the deficit!"

This is the logic being used by anyone who says that the $940 billion plus spending package also known as the health care bill will reduce the deficit. The credit card debt represents our nation's existing debt and unfunded liabilities, the extra hours are the new taxes, the reduction in expenses represents the Medicare cuts being used not to shore up Medicare but to pay for the new spending, and the new car is Obamacare.

Friday, March 19, 2010

I don't want to hear from Tom Delay, this is his fault

Tom Delay was on Bill Bennett's Morning in America this morning, guest hosted by Rick Santorum and Kathryn Lopez.

Now for my rant. The reason this bill is about to pass is because of the overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress. And the reason we have overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress is because of people like Tom Delay. His attempt to buy a “permanent majority” by expanding government is why we are here. We are all paying the price the many hours he spent on the Phillip Morris corporate jet and all of those Redskin games he watched from a luxury box sitting next to Jack Abramoff.

He should just be quiet.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Removing the middleman

The Obama administration apparently wants to take over the student loan market, and they want to do it as part of the health care plan. The Washington Post explains:
Under the proposed legislation, the Federal Family Education Loan program that includes private lenders would end on July 1 and all federal loans would be issued through the government.
Granted, the government already controls the student loan market and takes on the default risk of most of these loans, so by eliminating these private companies that originate and service the loans, there will be some savings. That is precisely the argument that the administration is making:
Obama administration officials have argued that the change would amount to nothing more than removing the middlemen from transactions that allowed lenders to pocket billions of dollars in profit at the expense of taxpayers.
In other words, if the government is going to subsidize, control and regulate the entire market for student loans, why waste money on these private sector companies who are profiting from these taxpayer subsidies? Why not just remove the middleman?

This is an excellent demonstration of how the proposed health care bill can eventually lead to a single payer system. That's because the health care industry under Obamacare will look very much like the student loan market - it will be federally controlled, heavily subsidized, and private companies (in this case health insurance companies) will act as middlemen who profit from taxpayer subsidies.

Once premiums continue to rise, and the government's fiscal situation continues to deteriorate, perhaps to the point of a genuine fiscal emergency, the government can simply propose: "If we just cut out the middleman - those greedy, profit-seeking insurance companies - look at how much money we can save!" And voila, we have a single payer system.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

"That's No Angry Mob, That's My Mom"

Got to love the title of this new book from Michael Graham. So apparently I'm not the only one whose mother is DVR'ing episodes of the Glenn Beck show and devouring books on Austrian economics and the founding fathers.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Closing arguments

Paul Ryan, the de-facto leader of the opposition to the President's health care reform, made his closing arguments today. Below is an excerpt:
Even though it’s not single-payer, and even without the so-called “public option,” this is still a government takeover of health care – and here’s why we keep saying that.

The entire architecture is designed to give the federal government control over what kind of insurance is available for patients, how much health care is enough, and which treatments are worth paying for.

This plan assumes that everything is connected to everything else. You can guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions only if you have healthy people in the insurance pool to spread costs; and you can only do that by requiring everyone to buy health insurance; and you can do that only if you subsidize people; and once you start handing out subsidies, you have to impose artificial limits that further inflate the true costs and further strip decision-making power from patients and doctors.

It creates a Health Insurance Rate Authority, a Washington-controlled price-setting board. This will usurp State governments’ role in regulating insurance and premiums, and will further smother the normal market forces that would otherwise encourage innovation and cost-saving efficiencies.

It empowers Washington to decide what kind of insurance will be available. The proposal gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services and a new Health Benefits Advisory Committee – an unelected group of Federal bureaucrats – unprecedented Washington-centered power to create and change the requirements for “acceptable coverage.”

It gives the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force new powers to further limit patient choice, allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to unilaterally deny payment for prevention services contrary to Task Force recommendations.

It empowers a “comparative effectiveness board,” created by last year’s “stimulus” bill, that will restrict providers’ decisions about what treatments are best for their patients.
Case closed as far as I'm concerned. Watch the whole thing here.

The incoherent David Brooks

Last week, David Brooks scolded those of us who are too blind to see that the President is and has always been a "center-left pragmatic reformer". In supporting this claim, Brooks points to Obama's books, speeches, and even his "on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure". That's right, speeches, words, and sentence structure make him a pragmatic reformer. Brooks even calls the President "courageous" on the issue of education reform because of a speech he made about failing schools. I guess the speech is supposed to help us ignore the fact that the President chose not to save the DC voucher program, a program which actually does save kids from failing schools.

And then yesterday on Meet the Press, Brooks called the President a "riverboat gambler", who is betting his entire Presidency on this health care reform.

So, according to Brooks, the President is a "riverboat gambling pragmatic reformer".

What? It sounds contradictory to me, but maybe I'm just not smart enough to decipher this Presidency the way David Brooks has.

Friday, March 12, 2010

"Beer wars" movie is pro-market

Just watched the documentary "Beer Wars". I was expecting it to be movie about the history, personalities, and business-side of the micro-brew industry, which it was. But what I was surprised to discover was that it was also a movie with a powerful free-market message.

The fimmaker Anat Baron explores the question of why the beer industry has been so heavily dominated by a few key players - Anheiser-Busch, Miller and Coors - despite the fact that their product just isn't very good. Yes, great marketing is a big part of the equation, but she also comes to the conclusion that outdated, prohibition era federal regulations have created high barriers to entry, making it very difficult for smaller brewers to compete. Specifically, she points to the "three tier system", which requires that the brewer, distributor, and retailer all be separate, making it illegal for brewers to sell directly to retailers and consumers. Baron even visits Washington only to find an army of beer industry lobbyists urging Congress to keep the "three tier system" in place because it has served consumers so well. Near the end of the film, she concludes: "Big business combined with government is a dangerous brew."

Not that the news is all bad. The movie is also a celebration of how the craft brew industry has been able to expand so rapidly over the last 25 years despite these obstacles, primarily because of one thing - consumers like their product. Reason TV calls the micro-brew phenomenon a "beer revolution".

See the movie trailer below:

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Just a coincidence

Here's an interesting statistic. According to Planned Parenthood's Annual Report for 2007-2008 (the most recent one available on their website), here are the stats for abortions provided by the organization compared to the number of adoption referrals

2006
abortions: 289,750
adoption referals: 2,410
2007
abortions: 305,310
adoption referrals: 4,912

That's a ratio of roughly 81 to 1 over the two-year period. Adoption referrals are just 1.2% of the total.

And people say Planned Parenthood is a pro-abortion organization!

(via Mere Comments)

Monday, March 8, 2010

Bill Whittle on the nanny state

This video essay from PJTV's Bill Whittle about the nanny state is definitely worth watching. It includes these two gems:

When Han Solo made the kessle run in 12 parsecs, no doubt some bureacrat was there to say that the kessle run should never ben done in under 18 parsecs, as it's wasteful of fuel and desctructive to wormholes. Wasn't the entire point of the Star Wars saga the right to make it a free galaxy. What's the point of a free galaxy, if you can't make the kessle run in 12 parsecs?
and
The reason the first three Star Wars movies were so terrific and the second three sucked so bad is actually very simple. The first three were about rebels shooting guns and driving fast and speaking with American accents. The second three were about politicians, discussing treaties, holding court, and speaking with British accents.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

I have seen the future and it is totally cool

This is awesome. It will remain awesome unless and until I become the parent of a teenager. Then it will become scary, unsafe, and entirely out of the question.


The Martin Aircraft Company has created its own jetpack for public use, and the units are apparently for sale to anyone who can pass the company's own internal training sessions. That's right, this sucker is classified as an Ultralight and therefore requires no FAA pilot's license. What's more, Martin says the Jetpack costs the same as a high-end car or motorcycle. Sign us up!


…. With 600-pounds of thrust, Martin claims its Jetpack can accommodate pilots up to 280 pounds. The five gallons of fuel carried onboard are enough to get you 31.5 miles in any single direction... as the crow flies, as they say. Plus, just imagine how lovely everything will look at the Jetpack's 8,000-foot ceiling.


Zoom over to Autoblog for more

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Our health care system's "original sin"

Holman Jenkins explains that the tax code is at the root of the problems with our health care system:
Let us flip back to an epic series of Senate Finance hearings in 1992. They represented a remarkable meeting of minds across a broad swath of health-care wonks and economists (not interest groups) that the original sin was the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance from taxable income—imposed carelessly by the IRS in 1943 so defense contractors could compete for workers without transgressing Roosevelt-era wage and price controls.

Everybody knows this turned "insurance" into something else. Call it prepaid health care, as Milton Friedman did. Call it a giant tax Laundromat for the nation's private health spending.

It became a massive subsidy to third-party payment, an incentive to channel every ache and pain through an "insurance" bureaucracy. It became an incentive for the most economically competent Americans—the secure, high-earning employees of corporate America—to overspend on health care, treating it as a free good.

What a surprise that the medical-industrial complex reorganized itself in light of this central driver. Nobody was looking for price tags so price tags disappeared, as did any competition on price, and any clarity on price versus value. VoilĂ .

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

David Horowitz goes to UMass

David Horowitz audits a politics course at the University of Massachusetts:
I had previously suggested in my writings and lectures on universities that professors who use their classrooms as platforms for their political agendas represent a small but significant minority, which I have estimated to be about ten percent of a given faculty. The other ninety percent are scholars who are professional and observe the guidelines on academic freedom which enjoin faculty from presenting students with “ready-made conclusions” on controversial matters. Or so I thought. After auditing Professor Goldman’s course I will have to revise that judgment.

Read the whole thing.