We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Real news report:In Florida, an 81-year oldshuttle driver went door-to-door in an apartment complex posing as a doctor offering free breast exams. Women who have come forth so far, 32 and 36, agreed to the exam. --- Maybe they were confused, waiting for the brain transplant surgeon to arrive.
So, here's some other elder vignettes close to reality:
COUPLE in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember ..
Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. 'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.
'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'
'Sure..'
'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.
'No, I can remember it..'
'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, soas not to forget it?'
He says, 'I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'
'I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down?' she asks.
Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!'
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs.. She stares at the plate for a moment.
I’ve been a big shot in several giant corporations, several smaller ones, and a consultant on finance, business operations, HR and employee benefits to many more, aside from running my own business.
I’ve never seen a situation where excessive labor demands or behavior was not the fault of poor management. Once launched on grievance and then power seeking by labor, a downward spiral ensues. Sometimes management reforms, often not. Eventually, the business fails and all suffer.
When there are more effective competitors, that process is speeded.
Surviving US companies have met that competition by becoming more efficient in their processes or by sending manufacturing abroad for cheaper labor, or both devising better processes and sending it abroad to foreign factories or outsourcers.
US labor unions used to be very effective in developing free unions in poorer countries, as a bulwark against exploitive communist unions and to defend our prosperity in a freer world. Today, they are adamant against foreign outsourcing while refusing to become partners in US efficiencies, but have lost their position in all but government unions and similar where they can exert a monopoly granted by paid-off politicians. They do fight for fairer labor standards in free trade agreements, but mostly to impede outsourcing rather than to encourage free trade.
Free trade should not be an issue, as all benefit, us from cheaper products and focusing investments where we have a comparative advantage, foreign workers from getting a leg on the ladder to better living conditions than in rural drudgery and exploitation by local thugocrats.
We are not in the early 1900s, and shouldn’t blithely feel that eventually foreign workers will be in a better position. And we are Americans and do not believe in undue exploitation of others. We are in a faster, communicative world which does not wait decades and, further, the image of the US is more important when native populations and not just their elites are our audience and affect our own economic and national security interests.
Sheesh. Ask your parents before asking me to pay it. I have my own to pay for, shmuck. Next, they will want us to buy their cars and to pay for their car insurance.
Amusingly, such people are blind to their own greed which they project onto others. Gimme, gimme. If you gave him a free tuition, he'd want something free after that. An entitlement/freebie mindset never stops, and creates permanent infants instead of self-reliant adults. Or sociopaths, which this guy sounds like with his lack of shame and humility for asking for charity.
The founder and now "Mentor" of Bridgewater Associates - probably the world's largest hedge fund - became fascinated by markets as a young caddy. This sui generis fellow, a HBS grad, has now put his company and management principles up on the internet.
During last night’s Republican debate, all agreed on repealing ObamaCare. But only Romney mentioned that we need something to replace it and mentioned he has that plan.
To be quick out of the blocks, Romney promises to exempt all states from ObamaCare on his first day in the Oval Office, then ask Congress to repeal it.
To control federal costs, he would provide block grants to states to devise their own, closer to their publics, programs. Individuals would be able to deduct premiums from taxes, as businesses can. Preexisting conditions would not affect insurability if the individual had prior continuous coverage, a spur to taking more self-responsibility. HRAs, pretax savings accounts for healthcare, would be expanded to pay for premiums, making the cost of premiums less for taxpaying consumers, and cross-state purchases would be allowed to avoid costly state mandates. Non-medical malpractice tort awards would be capped.
These are all well and good………if one just wants band aids for a hemorrhage.
It is probably politic to avoid rousing the ire of independents via Democrat MediScare charges. But as I argued yesterday the core problem is not addressed: extensive government direction of medical care driving up costs to today’s unaffordable levels for the budget and for consumers, distorting markets, reducing individual choice and overriding individual circumstances. Thus far, only the Ryan plan addresses it.
Regardless of whom is elected president in 2012, it will be up to Congress to choose whether we continue on a government-lighter or ObamaCare model, or face up to the real drivers of healthcare costs in excessive government direction of healthcare.
Even if one forgives Romney for RomneyCare being a mistake of the past, he does not adequately learn from nor atone for it. For that matter, the other Republican presidential potentials have not even been as specific as he in what they’d do after being elected. Inadequate from all.
Romney may have strengthened his case for “inevitability”in last night’s debate by his smoothness and command of details. And something is better than nothing. However, that something is still nothing compared to the unresolved challenges we must face to retain healthcare quality and access at affordable costs, enhanced freedoms, and the resources needed to face the US other needs.
"Wall Street's Gullible Occupiers. The protesters have been sold a bill of goods. Reckless government policies, not private greed, brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis." One quote:
Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.
Read the whole thing. The government essentially forced lenders into the subprime markets and to violate their own lending standards. Naturally, they didn't want these crappy loans on their books, so they packaged them as derivatives and sold them to eager buyers worldwide (unaccountably rated triple A when any fool could see that they were below investment-grade). With that, combined with low interest rates and people using their suddenly-valuable homes as ATMs, the housing and construction debt-bubble was created and inevitably burst.
Why the world's financial geniuses didn't see it coming is beyond me. Everybody on the internet saw it coming. All bubbles burst, but this was a biggie-sized one just like the internet bubble. Based on my reading, I had shorted housing-related equities, did not buy my living quarters which I could not have afforded anyway, and made out like a bandit. It was just too easy, even for an amateur. Call me greedy.
Of course, the rest of my quite modest portfolio did horribly. Equity baskets have been a bad bet for many years now. Munis stink too. Sorry I didn't buy gold, but I always thought gold was for end-of-the-world nutjobs.
I am no economist nor do I play one on the internet, but my take on things today is that fear of government is part of what is holding back investment in the US. That, plus people freaking out about their debt - and their lower-to-zero incomes.
It is not particularly mature to blame banks who were willing to lend you money, though, even when they perhaps doubted your ability to repay it. An adult who takes on debt is supposed to be an honorable citizen who will repay that debt, or have their credit and reputation ruined for ten years or more. Employers check your credit rating.
My only debts are my student loans which were such a good deal that I am in no hurry to pay them all off, as long as my career proceeds on course. However, periodically I borrow money from my local bank or my credit cards. Small amounts - $5000-10,000 - then pay it back after a couple of months. I use that trick to keep my credit rating up to date and in good shape (I rent). One of these days, I will really use my credit card to take a good girlfriend or future spouse on a bike tour around Sicily.
Our struggle is not with Obama or Reid or Pelosi, it is with the system that they advance. A system of unrestricted power that mandates absolute dominance over all human affairs backed by an ideology that treats all human activity as political and in need of control in the name of the greater good. Getting them all out is a plus, but it's a battle, not the war.
First off, the (literal) round table format was great. As I mentioned yesterday, it gave the whole debate a 'businesslike' atmosphere, yet it was also much more 'casual' than normal, simply because they were sitting so close together. It was also cheerier, in that when someone cracked a joke, you could hear everyone laugh. Cozy, might be the word. For the record, Michele Bachmann has a delightful laugh.
And while I was wondering how they'd handle the numerous cameras required to keep everyone in front of the lens, they solved that little problem by not shooting anyone from the front. Most of the shots were offset a good angle, and then there were the you-are-there shots like this:
I thought it was terrific, and the next 'standard' debate is going to seem almost stilted in comparison. Notes are below the fold.
Today, Slovakia has the lowest average salaries in the euro zone. How am I supposed to explain to people that they are going to have to pay a higher value-added tax (VAT) so that Greeks can get pensions three times as high as the ones in Slovakia?
Hmmmmm. In the US, shrinking unions have retreated to the bastions of monopoly - schools and givernment (sp), where they wield great power to plunder the people:
Bob Samuels, the president of the union, says this effectively gives the union veto power over any online initiative that might endangers the jobs or work lives of its members. “We feel that we could stop almost any online program through this contract,” Samuels told Inside Higher Ed.
"... Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations ... The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for ... officials ... to bind the employer ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives ...
"Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people ... This obligation is paramount ... A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent ... to prevent or obstruct ... Government ... Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government ... is unthinkable and intolerable."
There have been plenty of tributes to Steve Jobs' life. The man was a visionary and radically altered the world of computing several times. He also completely changed the world of animation.
What many people miss, however, is that he was not only a great inventor and leader, but an inspirational force that could help pull us out of the current mess we are in. Rather than whining and crying and asking for more from others, Jobs set a standard which all of us should follow.
I can't tell what these stoners think because it is difficult to decipher their logic. However, their demeanor is what probably turns people off. These are not good poster children for the Democratic party (below from Gateway):
There is no perfect solution to what varying interest groups or segments of public opinion desire as reforms to US healthcare. Now that we’ve gone down the path of ObamaCare and RomneyCare, that is more evident. The question, then, is what course is more promising? The answer is less government intervention in healthcare than preceded ObamaCare or RomneyCare.
There are three core problems with either ObamaCare or RomneyCare. Each by itself raise conflicts with facts, law, and public desires. Together, they are a witches brew. Both ObamaCare and RomneyCare are based on wrong premises of government intervention and result in worsening the future of healthcare in the US.
ObamaCare and RomneyCare are premised on extending more medical care to the uninsured even beyond need or personal responsibility or affordability. They are premised on reducing or moderating our national costs of healthcare even though they fail to do so and in many ways increase costs. They are premised on the imposition of added government regulation and intervention into individual choice and circumstances even though neither science, management, competence, politics nor majority public support is up to the task nor expected to be.
But one has to go deeper than that to find the roots of the false premises of ObamaCare and RomneyCare. The roots are in government healthcare programs themselves like Medicare and Medicaid. Regardless of any good intentions or needs, they set the course of government being the solution.
Regardless of promises or embedment they have expanded beyond initial promises or need. Regardless of the good they do they have done more harm to healthcare by distorting its economics and its public perception. Regardless of cost they have increased costs to those outside these programs. Regardless of their public acceptance they have become unaffordable.
It is painful to abandon ObamaCare or RomneyCare. It is less painful to change course entirely.
From decades and certifications in health insurance I am highly critical of health insurers, and moreso as they have become more self-servingly enmeshed in government healthcare programs. That said, private insurers are more responsive to change, improvements, competition, and tailoring coverages to individual needs than any government program is capable. Further, individuals – including the poor or uneducated – are more able to discern their own needs than any government bureaucrat. Further, groups advocating types of health insurance coverage beyond the core would have to compete with more transparent facts and costs instead of canoodling with and paying off politicians.
Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed the reform of Medicare that would reverberate throughout US healthcare. It is estimated by the CBO to “totally reverse the course of recent fiscal history by lowering federal health care spending from 8% of GDP today to just 5% by 2050. If we remain on the current course, the spending would jump to 14% in that time frame.”
In effect, Ryan is asking Americans to make a historic leap of faith…. Ryan's vision of bringing the market to Medicare is the best choice in a world of poor alternatives….
Americans will no longer get more than 70% of their Medicare costs paid by the government. [Instead there would be premium subsidies, declining with means, and co-pay subsidees for the poor. –ed.] Retirees are bound to pay a much bigger share of their own medical costs. More and more seniors will choose high deductible plans, and HMO or PPO-style programs that limit choices of doctors.
Still, the rise in costs for the elderly could prove far less than the giant annual increases we're experiencing today. We've simply never seen a competitive environment like the one in the Ryan blueprint. "The Obama plan is all about price controls," says Joseph Antos, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute. "Ryan's is all about unleashing the market."
The Ryan plan has another major strength: It will stop heaping a bigger and bigger Medicare burden onto younger taxpayers. Ryan is making a bold, wrenching choice that wins because it's less painful than all the others.
The Obama re-election administration has lambasted Ryan with Democrat MediScare (even though Ryan's program would reduce government subsidies for the wealthy!) Mitt Romney tries to explain that ObamaCare exceeds RomneyCare’s ailments instead of admitting original sin. The other major Republican candidates, in this as in other areas, have not put forth anything but slogans. Perhaps that’s about all we can expect from an election season.
To avoid facing the battle during the elections, I suppose that Ryan will not be the V-P nominee. (Even though "70% Favor Individual Choice Over Government Standards for Health Insurance," there doesn't appear sufficient courage or faith in the voters for leading candidates to take the risk.) However, after 2012, we must either turn to Paul Ryan or continue our present muddle that resolves little and increases faults. I don’t know whether Ryan would be most effective in Congressional leadership or as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Whichever will depend on the size of the Republican majority and the intelligence and guts of the next president and Congress.
The first political systems, from an institutional standpoint, were monarchies. Monarchs either considered themselves gods, chosen by 'the gods', or "Chosen by God". In almost every sense, the political system was tied somehow to the spiritual beliefs of the nation.
During a college course on Democracy, my professor spent the better part of an hour and a half discussing the implications of this concept. He pointed out that God Himself chose Israel's first king, and approved of their choosing a king. I immediately raised my hand and asked "But God didn't want Israel to have a king, did He? He considered Himself their king and allowed them to have Judges which acted as their spiritual and moral guides on earth."
*Unless you live in New Hampshire or get the exciting Bloomberg Channel on your cable network.
Well, there are plenty of questions surrounding tonight's GOP debate, but one of them overrides them all.
Will the candidates soundly condemn the Washington Post's outrageous attack on Rick Perry? Will Herman Cain again play the race card by bringing it up as he did last week? While a few of the braver candidates dared to use the word "entitlements" in the last two debates, will any of them have the cheek, the gall, the moxie, the sheer effrontery to use the term "lavish government pensions" in tonight's debate? Will any of them, after having read Maggie's Farm this morning (as I'm sure they all do), call for NASA to be severely downsized? Will Rick Perry continue to endorse the slaughter of Innocent Young Girls™ (copyright Michele Bachmann Enterprises 2011) with the HPV vaccine? If he does, will Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have to pay Bachmann royalties to use her favorite copyrighted phrase in their own spittle-spewing diatribes?
So there are some of the questions surrounding tonight's debate. But, as I said, there's one little mystery that far outweighs them all:
Why the hell isn't it being aired? Or even mentioned?
Zero articles about it this morning on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, USA Today or the Washington Times. There's a big splashy pic on the Washington Examiner's home page, but the article appears to be offline.
The Washington Post, which is co-hosting the event, has an article here. The streaming link is on the page. Starts at 8 pm Eastern. There's also a TV station in New Hampshire airing it, as well as the exciting Bloomberg Channel for those of you with satellite dishes and 500 channels at the ready.
And it's taking place around this:
King Arthur could not be reached for comment.
From a technical standpoint, this looks kind of dicey. They'll have to have a cameraman straight across almost every candidate or the angles are going to make the person directly in front the camera appear like they're at the head of the table, and anyone shot at an angle is going to look like a subordinate.
And sitting down isn't what contenders usually do when they're trying to oust the usurper behind the throne. It'll make them all look subordinate to the guy in the Big House. Which, given that the Post is a liberal tabloid rag, is probably the intention.
That's also indicative as to the type of questions that will be posed. Look for the moderators to keep them fighting among themselves and thus keep them from mentioning a certain White House resident by name.
What they want is for the viewer to order the candidates in their least liked order. You least like one candidate more than the others, then move up the list to the candidate you least like the least. So you guess you'll vote for him or her, but only until they do or say something else that the MSM points out as demonstrably unlikeable, in which case you might just vote for that nice Mr. Obama, since at least you know where he stands on things.
Or, just as likely, because people don't like voting for 'lessers of evil', you just stay home.
Mission: Accomplished.
I'll report in tomorrow on this mess. There might be an unanticipated effect from having the candidates sitting, rather than standing. They might appear more 'businesslike', which, given the dire straits our economy is in, might come across as a real plus. It might give it more of a 'boardroom atmosphere'. We'll see.
What a loss to humanity it would have been if Jobs had dedicated the last 25 years of his life to figuring out how to give his billions away, instead of doing what he does best.
But, none got the well-paying job (I didn't say high-paying, you'll see), as they lacked the confidence Maggie demands to reach out for what they want.
In a 2007 graduation speech to economics undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley, Professor Sargent offered “a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches,” among them,“Many things that are desirable are not feasible,” and, “Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don’t always end up working as intended.”
Lots of very smart people suck at those social things, however. That's why they should start their own operations. I am glad that Prasher got a few bucks from his work, and, finally, a job.
Our system is founded on our inalienable right to pursue our own happiness in our own way, a right that is supposed actually to result in happiness, or at least in more happiness than if we did not enjoy such a right. When it comes to choosing a mate, we have to consider only our inclinations, and not such things as obligations to society or parents. And when the marriage no longer suits, when the immortal beloved begins to bore us in a way incompatible with the chronic ecstasy we have come to expect as the only worthwhile state for a man (or woman) to be in, we dissolve the marriage and go off in search of another potential source of undiluted and everlasting bliss.
Unfortunately, the pool of candidates has in the meantime contracted. Gone are our student days, when the field seemed so ripe for the harvest. The field has thinned out like the hair on a man’s head. It is time to advertise.
Baseball? Football? No - they are based on foreign sports. Both are quintessentially American, but neither can actually claim North American roots. Cricket, Rounders and Rugby are all British.
Volleyball? Basketball? No - both were invented here in the United States, but they are basically 20th Century pastimes.
Style and approx date, if you can, of this elegant house in Deerfield, MA. Don't say "colonial" - that was an era but is not a design style - although there is something called Colonial Revival. I am having fun learning about this.
E O Wilson 
Image stolen from SISU's
