Maggie's Farm

The US Chamber of Commerce says (more here) that the term capitalism is misunderstood, as just 57% in its poll support capitalism.

“We need to do a better job of explaining the economic system in the United States and how it is working,” Anderson said in an interview. “We have been looking at anecdotal information that there was a misunderstanding of capitalism.”

Au contraire says the survey’s results of the peasants. Seventy percent support free enterprise and free markets.

Americans know the difference between the two as capitalism has increasingly come to be practiced.

Charles Derber, a sociologist at Boston College, says the results show the public’s unhappiness with the ties between “big business and big government,” exemplified by the multi- billion dollar bailout of banks in 2008.

“When people say they are down on capitalism, they mean they are down on corporate capitalism,” Derber, author of books including, “People Before Profit,” said in an interview. “They see capitalism as it exists here as anything but a free market.”

With bigger and bigger Big Government comes those, pardon the expression, capitalizing on getting their way or piece of the pelf, whether business, union, tax-exempts, state and local governments, etc.

Free enterprise and free markets, in contrast, indeed may we remind freedom itself, work best with a more limited government.

Now, that isn’t to say complete laissez faire, as there is sometimes some need for enforcement of rules of play to encourage competition, not stifle it.

In addition to the findings on capitalism, the Chamber’s poll found that 43 percent of those surveyed said the Obama administration’s policies are making the economy worse compared with 23 percent believing it is making it better.

“There is a major trust deficit,” Lombardo [the pollster] said.

The US Chamber knows the difference between free enterprise and capitalism as it has too often come to be practiced. Increasingly, Americans do. It’s the difference between freedom and fascism.

Perhaps some corporate, union, tax-exempts, state and local governments, etc. HQs need visits from a Tea Party, not just the federal government and its minions of bigger. It takes two to tango.

Homework: Michael Barone, Goldberg.

I fingered about 1000-words of witty repartee on the pageant, but -- and it's true -- my touch-typing and my other reflexes hit a big delete before I finished. So, if you want to, at least, see what you missed, and not hear a horny wise-guy, you'll have to go to this luscious link. There's also about 150 photos for your menu. My advice: pick one from each column and enjoy the Hooters smorgasbord. Watch the pageant and special features until you go blind, or find a new side of your special other.

The below is from the memory images indelibly on the inside of my eyelids. 

Believe me, a connoisseur, it's far better than the skinnies at the Victoria Secret TV show. And, no veils to hide behind, just all teenie bikinis.

One-hundred were chosen from the 4,000 Hooter girls in 26-countries. Of the hundred, 3 were A-cups, 10 B-cups, and 10 C-cups. Do the math, and if you can keep your mind and imagination from wandering, that leaves 67 --er, 77 -- with a D, who will have to do detention with the teacher. Any PhDs out there to volunteer? Flowers instead of ivy.

The field of dreams was cut to ten, two A-cups, two B-cups, and six Ds for detention, maybe a spanking.  The choice of the four who escape discipline reflects the over-the-hill two cougars among the judges, trying to cut the competition in the wee-drunk hours perhaps.

Five dark hair and five blondes, so diversity rules. Speaking of which, my vote is for equal opportunity, so my id tips for tall, D, Black, LeAngela Davis. (OK, political types, she is probably named after a communist, but I'm willing to be her comrade for this cause.)

Then there were five (and 95 winners at the stage door to provide a shoulder and a Jag to console). An IQ test in bikinis: don't bother listening to the girls, just look interested. (best advice="don't eat yellow snow"; best talent="pour beer and hoola-hoop at same time" -- bet someone will lick the spill)

A special insight. The girls use "butt-glue" to keep their bitty bikini bottom from creeping up and going Indian to wipe them out.

And, my favorite commisar, and the judges', Miss World Hooter, goes to looking great globally, LeAngela Davis. From Columbus, Ohio. I didn't know there was so much booty buried there (though I dug up a golden C there one business trip, probably a groovy grannie by now). Go exploring and dig it.

Here she is:

I haven't been in a Hooters for lunch in about 15 years. Tomorrow, I'm taking my 5-year old chick-magnet Gavin, former champion breast-feeder, to a special lunch.

BTW, last years winner took her support to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I bet they saluted in every way.

Driving home from errands, I listened to Rush. He said, “Liberalism is socialism is marxism.”  OK, I get that Rush makes his points with rhetorical flourish. And, I get that rhetorical flourish can serve the purpose of arousal.

What I, also, get is that excess in speech or action will most often be counter-productive in persuading most of those on the fence as well as those fewer of contrary views who may be open-minded.

What I, further, get is that excess in speech or action will most often harm oneself in keeping an even keel and integrity of purpose. The feedback loop polarizes oneself, thus becoming less focused and effective, even if self-satisfying to rant, and may even harm one’s meaningful relationships.

The Democrat-run Democracy Corps does some very worthwhile polling. Its latest, 55% of likely voters find ‘Socialist’ an accurate label of Obama. It is, and I’m surprised that more do not think so. “Socialist” is a flexible term in usage, but is recognized as redistributive, at best, and needing or leading to oppressive measures, either at worst or inherent. That is Obama, even if of the imbued ‘60s variety of either idealism or confusion or avoidance about harsh realities.

“Marxism” is more discrete in meaning, not even making more than a feeble nod toward individual liberties.  Marxism, also, is so convoluted in its logic and practice as to have lost any claim to worth, except among the truly loony or self-servingly authoritarian. Professed believers in marxism or self-labelers as marxist expose themselves as so far outside acceptable in the US that only a very few tenure-protected academics might or a very few self-destructive wackos. 

Rush's point is harmed by going too far, unnecessarily, in demonizing Obama. He is dangerous, purposeful, redistributive to the harm of productive, and critical of the US' values and value to the harm of our security and that of allies. Neither, as Rush says, is Obama purposely damaging the US; he really thinks he's not and is improving it by his lights. Obama is, in a sense, worse than a manipulator. Obama is a true believer who marches himself and others forward in blind self-polarization.

But, he's not a marxist, just imbued with the infantile socialism and leftist world view he was and is immersed in, and that is protected from penetration by his chosen similars.

So, I think that Rush went too far, unnecessarily.

Similarly, no far worse, is depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache or such, and such visual demonization. Aside from not true, it cheapens oneself, cheapens truly worse fiends and acts, and is a turn-off that chases away those who otherwise might listen.

If you can’t make a decent argument from facts, and the facts are bad enough about Obama, then become better prepared, but don’t do yourself in and your purpose. Don't be self-polarized, so as to lose sight of the means and ends.

Don’t get mad, get even. Our democracy provides plenty of opportunities to do so sanely and constructively.

Below is the translation from the Chinese government's first-ever White Paper on the Internet in China. Part Three of the six-part document is titled "Guaranteeing Citizens' Freedom of Speech on the Internet."

China Internet watcher Rebecca MacKinnon reports:

I've heard from several journalists and policy analysts (not people based in China, for whom such cognitive dissonance is normal) who at first glance thought they were reading The Onion or some kind of parody site. How, people asked me, can a government that so blatantly censors the Internet claim with a straight face to be protecting and upholding freedom of speech on the Internet? The answer of course is that China's netizens are free to do everything... except for the things they're not free to do.  The list of the latter, outlined in the next section titled Protecting Internet Security is long, vague, and subject to considerable interpretation:

...The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting the safe flow of Internet information, actively guides people to manage websites in accordance with the law and use the Internet in a wholesome and correct way. The Decision of the National People's Congress Standing Committee on Guarding Internet Security, Regulations on Telecommunications of the People's Republic of China and Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services stipulate that no organization or individual may produce, duplicate, announce or disseminate information having the following contents: being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor and interests; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability; disseminating obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, brutality and terror or abetting crime; humiliating or slandering others, trespassing on the lawful rights and interests of others; and other contents forbidden by laws and administrative regulations.

Other than that, people are totally free. What's more, the use of the Internet by the people to "supervise" public officials is praised. As long as - in the process of said supervision - state power is not subverted, "state honor" is not jeopardized, nobody is humiliated or slandered, and no "rumors" are spread. The rise of Twitter-like microblogging services is even praised. (Twitter itself is blocked by the "great firewall," though tens of thousands of Chinese Internet users are believed to access it anyway through third-party clients and circumvention tools).

Rebecca MacKinnon is a must read for those who try to keep up on China’s increasing censorship of the Internet.

The Hill, chronicler of doings in the US Capital, left a word out of its report that the “Senate bill to repeal health reform lacks backing from GOP leaders”, the missing word being “yet.”

The report makes clear that the GOP leadership “support repealing the Democrats' health care law and then replacing it with alternatives that lower costs while improving access.”

However, the political question is when to do that, and the reality question is whether it can be done.

Politically, it would probably be useless now. But, all GOPers should anyway sign on to the proposed legislation now to repeal ObamaCare.  It’s already clear that the repeal legislation is going no where under current Democrat majorities in the Congress. To allow the liberal media and politicians to use some GOP leaders’ hesitation in order to denigrate and divide Republicans is as unfavorable to the GOP 2010 chances as being forthright may also turn off a few waverers. But, those wavering who might be influenced are from those usually voting Democrat anyway, and many are likely to return to old habits anyway in the 2010 elections. The polled majority still favor repeal now, 60-36%. So, all GOPers should endorse repeal legislation, now.

Last February, my op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “No GOP Ideas?: Try These 10” summarized a 2-week earlier blog post of mine, “Republican Health Care Plan? 10-Steps, Post-2010.”  The op-ed emphasized that the 10 could and should be dealt with each as separate legislation, with no harm to the others, instead of in a multi-thousand page omnibus bill that no one understands and that contains much dangerous as the Democrats rammed through Congress.

The blog post, also, pointed out that for 2010 electoral purposes and for reality of getting passed,

Congressional Democrats and the liberal media would use a Republican alternative as an opportunity to shred Republicans as uncaring or not doing enough to meet their visions, and delusions, that there is a magic bullet that solves all real and purported problems.

However, after 2010, there is still a problem, as I wrote:

Washington is still Washington, regardless of party, and lobbies would again kick into high gear to tilt to their own narrow advantage Republican proposals.  Enough Republicans, like Democrat politicians, would be swayed, and Republicans as a whole would be tarred and Republicans’ most energetic base be turned off by smarmy politics as usual in Washington.

That’s why I proposed the 10 discrete improvements, after the 2010 elections, that could be acceptable across the political spectrum, except by those die-hard for universal medical care or  die-hard for no-government-in-healthcare.  You can see the 10 at either of the links above, to the op-ed in condensed form, or more broadly in the blog post.

So, GOP leadership is being political and cagey.  Only Obama and Congressional Democrats are hoisted by their own petard, and I say let them swing.

FYI, last year there was a Republican counter-proposal to ObamaCare, scored by the CBO, that actually reduced federal deficits and average medical premiums. That’s $2.5-trillion not spent by the Democrats to put us all and future generations in smothering debt, and preserve the high quality and access to medical care that over 80% enjoy. The major difference from ObamaCare: the CBO said it would increase coverage for about 3 million Americans, versus for 26 million supposedly with improved coverage under ObamaCare. There may be more we may choose to do, affordably, some of which is in the 10 I propose, but there is clearly no excuse for reducing the quality and access to care of the other 80+%, and of succeeding generations’ medical and fiscal health.

The New York Times' report on a study by some Harvard students tortures the facts and the reader with root omissions.

I posted a Comment to the NYTs report, as follows (cut-and-pasted from the "preview" that awaits the NYTs to decide whether to publish it or not):

I just read the Harvard students' report. It is carefully done. BUT, it rests upon several false assertions, not enumerated in the study: First, it fails to mention that the term \"waterboarding\" originated in 2004. Second, it asserts that the history of the technique of interrogation is coterminus with \"torture\" outlawed by preceding laws, conventions and directives. The former applications of let's call it water torture were more severe in duration, application and laxer in supervision and frequency. And, one must remember that the US used it in only three cases upon trained high-value resistors to interrogation who, then, revealed valuable, life-saving intelligence, to no lasting ill-effects upon their health. Even President Obama's executive order banning \"waterboarding\" implicitly excludes our civilian CIA when necessary and authorized. The named major newspapers often, usually indeed, made the same sensationalist errors as the Harvard students, but insofar as they explained the technique or added correct adjectives and adverbs should not be faulted. -- The author of this article about the Harvard students' study, BTW, doesn't provide either a link to the study, for readers to examine it, nor does he even attempt to provide needed context, instead writing his and the students' assertions as legitimate in itself.

If you want to weigh in, go to the Comment link above or to the NYTs report link. Of course, be succinct, informed, and direct to matters of fact. 

For over twenty years, I’ve been a scrupulous, multi-credentialed independent health care consultant and broker. I and others who actually know anything from the experienced, practical and studied perspective have warned that the medical loss ratios built into ObamaCare are dangerous to the quality and costs of medical insurance.

Medical loss ratio measures the percentage of premiums paid out in claims and for quality improvement. Just paying out more on claims does not reduce costs nor improve quality. Duh!

I wrote about this last April, that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) said that ObamaCare’s medical loss ratios were within 5% of nationalizing the health insurance industry, so the Congressional Democrats who rammed ObamaCare through kept the medical loss ratios just below the 90% at which the multi-trillion dollar costs of outright nationalization would have to be counted by the CBO. What we got is a sham, nationalization masquerading – bad enough – as a highly regulated utility.

The CBO and the American Academy of Actuaries both pointed out that medical loss ratios are both misleading and can easily be contradictory to restraining costs or improving quality. This is particularly so when the formula is drawn too narrowly or ignorantly. Politicians' soundbites and regulator rampagers fit those categories of malpractice.

The largest insurance companies were at least half-way in bed with ObamaCare, looking to their own preservation, but now both they and brokers and the public are impregnated with a problem baby.

As during the HillaryCare debates, health care consultants and brokers are in the lead in trying to get sense into the examining room. We are virtually the only organized groups really fighting to keep government quackery away from your health. Sure, our already low commissions are in play, but so is your ability to have knowledgeable, independent guidance through the thickets of medical insurance and coverage.

The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, the National Association of Health Underwriters, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors  have joined to plead to state insurance commissioners and medical insurance companies:

But “we fear the adoption of a narrow and static definition will adversely impact spending on certain important health plan activities,” the groups say.

In many cases, moves to reduce costs improve quality, and moves to improve quality reduce costs, the groups say.

“The definition of ‘activities that improve health care quality’ should be crafted in a way that recognizes this,” the groups say.

Activities now shut out of the definition include utilization review, fraud prevention activities, and network management, and those activities “are essential to maintaining and improving the quality of health care that clients of our members receive on a daily basis,” the producer groups say.

“Our members know firsthand that less utilization review, fraud prevention, and network development means lower quality health care for their clients – in addition to higher costs,” the groups say.

But, hey, ObamaCare is not really about reducing costs or improving quality; it’s primarily about grossly enlarging government and its control of the economy and our lives.

If you care to weigh in on drawing the formula for medical loss ratios in ObamaCare to be more reasonable, you can write to Ethan Sonnichsen, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (the umbrella for the states' insurance commissioners) Director of Government Relations at his email  esonnich@naic.org .

Oh Yeah: This Mass. pre-experience of ObamaCare should help increase the medical loss ratio, pay large claims for those who dip in to coverage then stop paying premiums.

The number of people who appear to be gaming the state’s health insurance system by purchasing coverage only when they are sick quadrupled from 2006 to 2008, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday from the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.

The result is that insured residents of Massachusetts wind up paying more for health care, according to the report. …