Democrats on the Financial Crisis

(via Powerline)

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.

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.

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:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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.

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?

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.

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.

"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".

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."