Archive for December, 2009
President Obama’s Medicare Malady: Jobs, Debt, Inflation…
Saturday, December 19th, 2009MaxedOutMama writes of his disconnect from reality:
The inescapable reality is that Social Security and Medicare will rise far faster than employment taxes. These are pay as you go programs – every dollar not covered by employment taxes is a dollar that must be borrowed by Treasury THAT year.
Therefore neither anything the Democrats are suggesting will help, nor is the GOP currently addressing the underlying problem.
We are going to raise taxes. We cannot raise corporate taxes, therefore we are going to raise taxes on individuals. (The reason we cannot raise corporate taxes or capital gains taxes is that doing so will cut investment and jobs – we need those jobs to employ the working age population.)
Because individual incomes are rather limited, we should address current tax-exempt revenue (not capital gains) streams such as bonds and retirement funds. It should be obvious that wealthier retirees will have to pay more relatively; we cannot expect a much smaller relative working population to cover the costs for a much higher relative retired population. In 2010 the retirees are 21.6% of the working age population. In 2020 the retirees are 28% of the working age population.
IMO the GOP will regain some power, but does not currently have the confidence of the general population sufficient to broker a new broad compromise. Either the Democrats will develop into that party (after the current leadership fails utterly and falls in an internal insurrection) or a new party will emerge.
We can greatly ease the demographic transition by following high growth policies that will generate more jobs, but that is not sufficient to cover these costs.
Like the good Mama, I, too believe that Obama and the Left have killed progressivism for a generation.
Added: Just remember, if people had jobs, they could afford to buy health care.
Also, rich people run out of money, too, or, they stop earning purposefully.
Is Larry Summers Doing For America What He Did For Harvard?
Friday, December 18th, 2009Bloomberg is reporting this troubling information:
As vanishing credit spurred the government-led rescue of dozens of financial institutions, Harvard was so strapped for cash that it asked Massachusetts for fast-track approval to borrow $2.5 billion. Almost $500 million was used within days to exit agreements known as interest-rate swaps that Harvard had entered to finance expansion in Allston, across the Charles River from its main campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The swaps, which assumed that interest rates would rise, proved so toxic that the 373-year-old institution agreed to pay banks a total of almost $1 billion to terminate them. Most of the wrong-way bets were made in 2004, when Lawrence Summers, now President Barack Obama’s economic adviser, led the university. Cranes were recently removed from the construction site of a $1 billion science center that was to be the expansion’s centerpiece, a reminder of Summers’s ambition. The school suspended work on the building last week.
“For nonprofits, this is going to be written up as a case study of what not to do,” said Mark Williams, a finance professor at Boston University, who specializes in risk management and has studied Harvard’s finances. “Harvard throws itself out as a beacon of what to do in higher learning. Clearly, there have been major missteps.”
And here’s the conclusion:
Pennsylvania State Auditor General Jack Wagner said Nov. 18 that the state should ban local governments from entering into derivative contracts tied to bond issues, a practice he termed “gambling” with taxpayer funds.
Harvard might have considered it a conservative step to lock in rates when they were low, said Shapiro, the New Jersey- based swap adviser.
“You can be very big and very rich and very smart and still get things wrong,” Shapiro said.
We’re supposed to accept that this same guy along with Bernacke and a very few “smart people” will make things better for the economy.
Why The Health Care Bill Is Scary
Friday, December 18th, 2009Senate Republicans have had health care plans. They also have the only two medical doctors in the Senate. The docs discuss why the health care bill is “scary”:
The bill is here.
Dr. Coburn says in his Wall Street Journal op-ed:
I recently suggested that seniors will die sooner if Congress actually implements the Medicare cuts in the health-care bill put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. My colleagues who defend the bill—none of whom have practiced medicine—predictably dismissed my concern as a scare tactic. They are wrong. Every American, not just seniors, should know that the rationing provisions in the Reid bill will not only reduce their quality of life, but their life spans as well.
My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine: Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues, and patients die prematurely. Even if the public option is eliminated from the bill, these onerous rationing provisions will remain intact.
For instance, the Reid bill (in sections 3403 and 2021) explicitly empowers Medicare to deny treatment based on cost. An Independent Medicare Advisory Board created by the bill—composed of permanent, unelected and, therefore, unaccountable members—will greatly expand the rationing practices that already occur in the program. Medicare, for example, has limited cancer patients’ access to Epogen, a costly but vital drug that stimulates red blood cell production. It has limited the use of virtual, and safer, colonoscopies due to cost concerns. And Medicare refuses medical claims at twice the rate of the largest private insurers.
This isn’t too far off Sarah Palin’s much reviled Death Panels. It also has the added benefit of being true. Interestingly, Howard Dean, also a physician, is not happy with the bill, but for other reasons. He at least knows enough that the bill won’t benefit actual patients. That is the point of this bill, right?
And another thing, this op-ed by David Brooks is why moderates should never run anything. Mind you, this is the guy still in love with President Obama. [Yes, it's wretch-inducing. Sorry.] He says:
So what’s my verdict? I have to confess, I flip-flop week to week and day to day. It’s a guess. Does this put us on a path toward the real reform, or does it head us down a valley in which real reform will be less likely?
If I were a senator forced to vote today, I’d vote no. If you pass a health care bill without systemic incentives reform, you set up a political vortex in which the few good parts of the bill will get stripped out and the expensive and wasteful parts will be entrenched.
So today, he’d vote no. Tomorrow? If he were a Senator, he’d have been bought already. It takes amazingly little access to buy a reporter. Ugh. And earlier in his piece he says:
Fourth, you can’t centrally regulate 17 percent of the U.S. economy without a raft of unintended consequences.
Fifth, it will slow innovation. Government regulators don’t do well with disruptive new technologies.
And yet, he’d consider voting for this stinker? See, big government is by definition, scary government. That’s the principle.
Individuals do it better. They protect their own self interests better. The government always, always, always makes things worse–slower, less responsive, punitive, heartless. And health care needs to be quick, responsive, compassionate and kind. That’s why this bill is scary. It will hurt people when they need help most.
Americans Do Not Want To Be Europe Lite
Thursday, December 17th, 2009It seems that Americans found their inner Alpha once again. Clyde at Patriot Room runs the numbers:
First, a majority of all registration flavors favor smaller government. Second, if a majority of “liberals” want otherwise, they must therefore be a minority of all the other groups. We know that libs self-identify at half the rate of conservatives, but these data underscore that.
Next, how about this?
“Sixty-two percent (62%) of all voters say tax cuts are a better way than more government spending to create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21% say additional stimulus spending is a more effective tool.”
You’d think Washington would listen, eh? We do not like your way of doing things. Clearly. If it were an election with those results – even 62% to 38% – it would be called the Mandate of the Ages.
The thing that bugs me is that 38% of Americans want more taxes and more services. But you know what I’m guessing? These are the people who’ve never paid a dollar in taxes and wish they had more money…and they wish you’d give it.
Bah! Get a job! Oh right. President Obama is in charge. That ain’t happenin’. No wonder they’re coming down on the side of more services.
Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats, Not Passing Obamacare Will Hurt Democrats–UPDATED
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
The Democrats did it to themselves. Not unlike President Bush’s insistence on pushing Amnesty to the fore, the Democrats have self-immolated on the pyre of health care. It didn’t have to be this way.
The Dems could have gone for bipartisan reform….and they still could, but they are damaged, no matter. They wanted to push the American people into socialism and the American people pushed back. Newsflash Dems: Most Americans don’t look longingly across the pond, like you do. Most Americans don’t pine for an idealized French life, like you do. Most Americans are happy, thank you very much, with their American life as long as they have dad gum job and the insurance company doesn’t jerk them around.
Do you get the difference?
No, you don’t. I’m glad Democrats don’t get the difference. I’m glad they overreached and revealed their squishy red center. Americans are getting a gullet full of Democrat policies only 11 months in and will put these out-of-touch neo-socialists out to pasture for a long time.
What should Republicans do, if this bill fails? They should introduce health care reform. That’s right. They should put forth the common-sense plan, again, trumpet it in news conferences, travel far and wide and show American’s, in detail, their plan. They should show Americans how the free market can solve this problem if the government gets out of the way.
Then, the Republicans should talk, every day, about how cost cutting, cutting the size of government, will be responsible. Because right now, the Democrats looks like kids in a candy store while Americans are cutting back and finally behaving responsibly financially. And the fat little, candy-eating Democrats are stealing money to buy their candy. The American people know this. They just need to see evidence. Daily evidence.
And, if by some chance, Obamacare does pass, (and I think something will) they risk what Matthew Dowd describes:
If this legislation passes, Democrats will be held accountable for any failures or problems in the system. So if Americans’ insurance premiums rise, they will blame the Democrats. If patients have to wait in line at emergency rooms, it will be seen as the Democrats’ fault. If health-care costs don’t drop, the Democrats will face the wrath of the electorate.
This legislation is a noose. That old saying hung with their own rope?
If the legislation passes, there are more quotes, more slips, more misery-inducing meat for Americans, that the Democrats won’t be able to avoid the hate of the electorate. And this will all be to show everyone that Barack Obama is manly enough to force change. Right.
It has to really rot the left’s socks that Barack Obama is exactly what the right thought he was: a guy who is solely interested in one thing: What’s good for me? And that’s what this legislation hinges on. Should Obama come to believe that the health care legislation hurts him…I bet this whole ordeal is over. Until then, this stinker, in some form, passes.
More here.
UPDATED:
Jennifer Rubin adds a note about Matt Dowd’s piece linked above:
If, as he argues, Democrats will suffer by passage of a bill that is overwhelmingly unpopular and rightly suspected to hike taxes, increase the deficit, and worsen care, then Republicans will be rewarded not hurt for helping to stop the freight train. Moreover, Dodd’s advice –”a health-care bill that draws real bipartisan support” — depends on the defeat of ObamaCare. Not until the current bill in all its horridness is killed will Democrats be willing to compromise on a more limited set of commonsense reforms.
One thing that occurred to me that if this was the logic that Matt employed while working for GW, that would explain why so many pieces of legislation were Democrat wins.
Jennifer is right. Kill the bill first. Then, as I say above, come right back around to health care.
Why Is The Governator In Copenhagen When His State’s Economy Is In The Crapper? And, “Saracuda Tougher Than Schwarzenegger”
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Politics Daily’s Matt Lewis baits the lefties at MSNBC:
Should President Obama be over in Copenhagen? If his goal is an empty, symbolic gesture, yes. If he cares about America, no. It doesn’t serve America’s interests to negotiate with 3rd world thugs and pretend that giving these regimes money will make the climate better.
The whole summit is a hypocritical farce.
Best part of the video: When the lefty brays about the 5% increase in green jobs and Matt responds that California ranks 33 in the United States in job creation.
Also, the reporter doing the questioning is so vehement in his opinion about climate change. I’m a Christian and have less blind faith. Good grief, these guys are such true believers it’s embarrassing.
Climategate: So The Raw Data WAS Manipulated
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Latest charge: The CRU cooked data from Russia, specifically and especially Siberia.Absolutely shocking:
They specifically state that lack of measurement is not the cause. If they claim the full set of Russian data does NOT support global warming, imagine how different the bright red dot over Russia would look. Again the accusation is completely believable, yet is completely unverifiable because CRU has refused to release the data. This data and code release is the subject of illegal blocking of FOIA’s is one of the keys in the Climategate emials. We need to know the list of stations used and we must have copies of the raw data.
This is a very powerful accusation, which if true could change much about the climate science debate. Many papers are based on this dataset which has the highest trend of the major ground datasets.
More here.
I’m thinking that the Russians may have been behind this info leak after all.
Tiger Woods Comes Down To Earth
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Salacious.
The topic has produced obscene interest. Different theories are put forth: Yes, Americans like to see achievers fail. Yes, people are petty, small and voyeuristic. Yes, it’s a relief for some people to focus on the travails of others rather than their own miserable existence. I think Tiger counted on Americans being just this way, since his behavior seemed rather indifferent to the inevitable consequences. I mean, the guy didn’t have one woman, he had more than you can count on fingers. Never mind the handlers, the hotel staff, etc. People talk. He knows this. He didn’t care.
Why?
My take: Tiger tired of appearing perfect. Tiger wanted to be and feel human. Tiger is rich and accomplished and entitled. Couple emptiness and feeling robbed of a normal life with money and power to fill the emptiness, add in resentment and those who will cover and coddle him and there’s a recipe for Tiger Tantra. He’s a competitive man who lived an emotionally ascetic life to serve his father’s dream. Was it Tiger’s dream? Does he even know?
Tiger Woods reminds me of Michael Jackson, actually. Child prodigies, dominant fathers, deprived of adoration, driven by discipline, cowering mothers (thus the contempt for women and simultaneous desire to screw them so the bifurcation madonna-whore thing –good mothers protect, whores are meant as sexual objects), materially indulged, in service to an image created before the age of consent, resentful, trapped. [Thinking of Britney Spears here, too.] This combination of drives can be crazy-making.
One way to take power back behind closed doors is sex. But Tiger got reckless. He is probably sick to death of serving this robotic image. It was killing him. It was a lie.
So now, he’s exposed. He is free to be more real, if he’d like to be. Michael Jackson ended up doped and dead and more than a little freaky. Britney Spears ended up doped and rehabilitated, one hopes, for the sake of her children.
Tiger Woods is now real. Flawed, human, mixed up, more than a little warped (but probably no more than anyone else who had his means) and it’s exposed.
He might as well be authentic. He has an opportunity to reevaluate everything. Does he want to be married? Does he just want to be a sexual conquistador? Does he want to golf? Does he want to be a businessman?
He can choose. The illusion, I’m guessing, is that he felt he never could. He believed that he was stuck in this life created for him, maybe to an extent by him. He could have chosen differently. He can choose differently now. He can, because of his prodigious gifts, really decide to do just about anything.
I hope he redeems himself….it would be nice for his talents to not go to waste. When I see Robert Downey Jr. act, I’m thankful that this man I don’t know decided to get his life together. He’s really good. Tiger is really good at what he does, too, but he’s more than just a robot golfer conquering titles and courses. He’s a human. It is possible to be human and great. It’s a choice like any other.
More thoughts from a sex therapist here.
President Barack Obama Is In Charge
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009The downside of being large and in charge is the in charge part. Well, the downside of being large and in charge when things go ill, is the in charge part. Otherwise, being in charge is totally fun.
When it comes to health care, things bode ill. It’s getting less fun to be in charge.
President Obama has waltzed through every permutation of the bill with the finesse of an Old Europe royal, and attempted to make it seem like he’s here and there and everywhere on the legislation. The problem with attempting to look like one is here and there and everywhere, the problem with the laws of physics is this: you are somewhere in space and time. Physical reality exists. When the bill is finished, there will be actual words on a paper, laws, that will change other physical realities, and there will also be a signature on the bottom line of this monstrosity.
President Obama will sign his name to a bill written for him. It certainly isn’t written for the American people. It’s not written for the progressive legislators (who risk being strung up by the hard left). It’s not written for the centrists (who risk, let’s put this in past tense, who risked, everything and have already probably lost everything on this bill). It’s not written for lowering costs. It’s not written for actually improving the lives of Americans.
President Obama will sign a bill where there is really only one winner: Him.
Some lefties are wising up to the President’s narcissistic ways and pushing back. Glenn Greenwald has a must-read piece [yes, you can smack me later, but it's true] about President’s Obama’s tendency to give the appearance of outside the legislative process…that he’s just waiting on Congress, but that what has happened ’til this point has been exactly what the President wants. Glenn says in Salon:
Let’s repeat that: “This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place.” Indeed it does. There are rational, practical reasons why that might be so. If you’re interested in preserving and expanding political power, then, all other things being equal, it’s better to have the pharmaceutical and health insurance industry on your side than opposed to you. Or perhaps they calculated from the start that this was the best bill they could get. The wisdom of that rationale can be debated, but depicting Obama as the impotent progressive victim here of recalcitrant, corrupt centrists is really too much to bear.
The Democrats are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize their position and their position is coming down on the side of one thing: giving a win to President Obama for its own sake. It will be the death of them all, politically, ironically enough. Even President Obama.
President Obama is in charge. No matter the outcome, this legislation is very much his. Being large and in charge has its downside.
Podcast: Why Are Milblogs Going Silent? What Is Going On With Healthcare? Hope For Dateless Men
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009John Hawkins of Right Wing News and Blake Powers, aka Laughing Wolf of Black Five and Laughing Wolf join me to discuss the plight of bloggers in the military, PTSD, the health care debacle and why Democrats are in big trouble with it and ….hope for men who want a woman.
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
