Miscellany: 11/30/11

Quote of the Day

A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live.
Unknown

Blog Readership Update

Readership over November was the highest since May and sustained a pageview recovery since August.

The GOP Responds to Dem's Demagoguery on Payroll Tax Cut:
Mixed Review

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Dems think they have the GOP trapped on the extension of the payroll tax cut. Let me make my position clear: I oppose the President's "one-year' extension (in fact, expansion), which includes extending the current 2-point FICA payroll tax holiday to 3.1 points--half of the payroll tax percentage. Obama does similar tweaking on the employer match side, boosting the cost of the extension from $112B to $265B. It wants to pay for this through a job-killing permanent 3.25% surtax on millionaires. I also oppose short-term gimmicks for reasons I've discussed earlier, e.g., Friedman's permanent income hypothesis; gimmick taxes/tax cuts are usually gamed by the participants. The surtax gimmick is a de facto rewriting of the rules underlying the social security: FDR wanted to avoid mingling general revenue from dedicated payroll taxes, because he felt general revenues exposed social security to spending cut decisions. The major point I raise is the payroll tax holiday has exacerbated the unfunded entitlement liabilities, and we should not be tampering with taxes until the programs have been reformed to the point of stability. Obama and his Democratic cronies have constantly dodged long-term fixes to the Ponzi scheme entitlement problem

Speaker Boehner has made clear that class warfare tax hikes like the millionaire surtax are dead on arrival, and new government expenditures must be fully paid for. However, the Speaker and Senate Minority Leader McConnell have come out in support of extending the EXISTING payroll tax holiday (thumbs DOWN!) but pay for it and add more money for narrowing the deficit, through federal employee pay freeze extensions and reducing the federal employee payroll through attrition (thumbs UP!)

I can understand that the GOP leadership doesn't want to be seen as ceding the middle-class tax cut issue to the disingenuous Dems, once again, as usual, trying to buy their way through yet another election. I just think short-term tax cuts are bad economic policy, and my position would be to use the Dems' desire to deal with payroll taxes as the opening round of discussing long-overdue social security reform.

Bring It On: Gringrich vs. Romney

Any faithful reader to this blog can probably predict where I stand on this (if not, read my ad lib in yesterday's Political Humor feature). I will be publishing an endorsement post soon (which, with $5, will buy the winner a cup of coffee at Starbucks).

I will say this much starting out: a battle between Romney and Gingrich is indeed the survival of the fittest in this field, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, they are the brightest, most articulate politicians in the field. I have been a severe critic of the GOP strategy which seems to be replaying the Reagan election and issues one election after another; it's a little like the boy whom cried wolf: after a while it becomes so predictable, people tune it out, and you don't win many hands of poker by showing your opponents the hand you're playing while they keep theirs covered. Gingrich has done a lot of work since leaving office as Speaker on policy issues; in fact, on occasion in some of my posts, I've made reference to some of his websites, e.g., during the health care debate and discussions on assigned risk pools. I think, though, he has spread himself a little thin and probably went a little too far when he started pushing his conservative approach towards alternative energy (and filmed, in jaw-dropping fashion, a joint spot with Nancy Pelosi: hint to Romney: line up a lot of political ads with that shot.). We already have a jack-of -all-trades, master-of-none, attention deficit disorder President without prior executive experience.

Romney had a testy exchange with Bret Baier recently on Special Report. Romney is already signaling a fairly predictable strategy that I myself would have outlined: Newt Gingrich is the ultimate Washington insider, a generation on Capitol Hill, rising through the ranks. One could also raise the ethical charges leading to a historic bipartisan rebuke, the strategic blunder over the government shutdown with Clinton, the 1998 election debacle resulting in open rebellion against the Speaker's reelection and his subsequent resignation as Speaker and from Congress, and his post-Congressional lobbyist career, including reportedly $1.6-1.8M for Freddie Mac in a consulting retainer through 2008, one of the bankrupt duopoly GSE's. (He became a critic of Fannie and Freddie after his lucrative gig of up to $30K per month stopped.)

Now, I say to my fellow conservatives, what do you think it means that Clinton and the White House have had some complimentary things to say about Gringrich and some nasty things about Romney? Who do you think Obama would want to run against: an experienced business executive and former governor of a blue state whom can run as an outsider and point to a bipartisan record--or a fellow Washington insider, someone whom has made a lot of money with his Washington connections after leaving office, a Speaker whom was rebuked by the Congress,  with high negativity among moderates and independents and repeatedly losing each and every matchup poll against Obama (until a very recent Rasmussen poll, which shows a narrow Gingrich lead within the margin of error).

I think most conservatives' misgivings with Romney deal with nuanced positions; I would have this advice for Romney: you are going to be asked the same stupid questions over RomneyCare and other things. You need to react to these things--and I agree with Bill O'Reilly with this--with a sense of humor, like water off a duck's back. One of the things I always knew to do in the classroom was never to scream at students (and I've heard students do and say some incredibly rude things in class); if a student asked me the same question for a fourth time in a 15-minute time span, I answered it. For me, it was a no-brainer--I can spent 10 seconds answering the question, or three minutes yelling at a student about not paying attention. You aren't going to win any points with the other students, most of whom are probably thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I." We already have a highly defensive President. It doesn't help to be seen as impatient on Fox News, an outlet popular with conservatives because unlike every other competitor, it provides more balanced coverage.

Romney needs to take out Gingrich sooner than later. A lot of Gingrich's support is soft--the same fickle support that has been handed off  from Bachmann to Perry to Cain and now to Gingrich. (I have to admire how Gingrich, similar to how McCain survived in 2007 after his campaign imploded, stayed in the game long enough to get his turn as the non-Romney candidate.)

FactCheck has a good article out debunking the DNC's latest anti-Romney ad. Here is a key extract:

• "The DNC says Romney flip-flopped on the Wall Street bailout — when, in fact, he has consistently supported its original intent but opposed Obama’s decision to extend TARP and use its funds for other programs, including the auto bailout."
• "The DNC also claims Romney changed his position on the auto bailout. The fact is Romney consistently called for a “managed bankruptcy” similar to what was later undertaken, but he opposed the use of federal funds by both Bush and Obama."
• "The video casts Romney as a one-time supporter of Obama’s stimulus. In fact, Romney favored a smaller stimulus and opposed the “excessive borrowing” of Obama’s plan as the “wrong course.”"
• "The DNC video also portrays Romney as supporting the Obama health care plan. Not true. He has consistently defended his Massachusetts law as right for his state, but opposed imposing it on other states by federal law."
• "Similarly, the DNC claims Romney supported Obama’s education program, Race to the Top. But, again, Romney supported some of the program’s goals, but he said those kinds of issues ought to be handled at the state level, not federal."

Political Humor

"President Obama went shopping and he wandered into a book store. Rick Perry said, 'When I'm president, that will never happen. There will be no book stores.'" - Conan O'Brien

[You know what that means: Obama mustn't own an iPad or Kindle. No doubt he's hoping for Queen Elizabeth to next gift him with a custom iPad loaded with her favorite Barack Obama moments, quotes, books and speech transcripts.]


An original:

• McDonald's has outsmarted the Big Nanny San Francisco progressive local government trying to ban the sale of Happy Meals with toys by selling toys for a nominal donation by requiring purchase of a Happy Meal. Personally, I'm waiting for McDonald's to introduce the adult version of the Happy Meal. My first suggestion for the surprise inside: a picture of the White House with a moving van in front of it.

David Letterman's Top Ten Supercommittee Excuses




10 "Spent too much time picking a cool name for the committee"
9 "Got distracted by Congress' new 'Donkey Kong' machine"
8 "Wasted time trying on each other's hairpieces"
7 "When your options are to solve the national debt crisis or see the new ‘Twilight’ movie, you see the new ‘Twilight’ movie"
6 "Quit early to get in line for the Black Friday sale at Annie Sez"
5 "It's the curse of the chupacabra"
4 "We're assembling a special committee to come up with excuses"
3 "It's Robert Wagner's fault"
2 "Hey, normally it takes us twice as long to get nothing done"
1 "President Santorum will figure it out"

[4 "The meeting room was full of green kyptonite."
3 "I've been sick over the last several weeks; I'll release my medical excuse as soon as  my ObamaCare physician sees me."
2 "We had the draft of an agreement, but Barney [George W. Bush's dog] ate the papers."
1 "Everyone knows that the end of the world is 12/21/12; why worry about a 10-year budget deal?"]

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Judy Garland, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Miscellany: 11/29/11

Quote of the Day

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart
this you will build your life by, and this you will become.
James Lane Allen

The Canadian Administration is Better Than the Obama Administration

MJ Perry's excellent Carpe Diem blog noted a recent Reuters news item from Canada (my ancestral homeland predating my grandparents on both sides of the family):

Since 2008-09, the government has eliminated more than 1,800 tariff items, providing about C$435 million a year in tariff relief. Its stated goal is to make Canada a tariff-free zone for manufacturers by 2015. [The most recent cuts, part of the Conservative government's overall free trade policy] are custom duties on 70 items used by businesses in sectors such as food processing, furniture and transportation equipment, aiming to lower their costs and encourage more hiring.

There used to be a time when Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Party used to be AGAINST tariffs as fundamentally anti-consumer. That's before the unions which essentially dictate terms for their political support,  lobbied for any mercantilist/protectionist gimmick in the book in misguided attempts to protect globally uncompetitive business models featuring unsustainable compensation packages.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty knows that tariffs add to the cost of goods being sold and make higher-value products less competitive in the retail marketplace. On the other hand, we have an economic illiterate President, whom after 7% increase in Black Friday sales, is still focusing policy towards the consumer sector of the economy, all but ignoring business needs (e.g., competitive tax rates, tax simplification, reduction in regulatory burden, more trade agreements, fewer, not more employee mandates, etc.), but pompously setting business export goals...

I'm willing to swap  Treasury Department chair Tim Geithner, Fed Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, Vice President Joe Biden, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and three other clueless progressives to be named at a later date, for Flaherty....

Remembering Why We LOVE Governor Christie

I was angry this weekend listening to the spin coming out of the administration about the failure of the super committee and that ‘the president knew it was doomed for failure so he didn’t get involved. Well, then what the hell are we paying you for? ‘It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved?’ What have you been doing, exactly?... We all know what the solutions to these problems are... but we don’t have the political will to get them done... When you’re president [you have] got to get something done [in Washington]. And it’s not good enough to say, ‘Well, I’ll get it done after the election.' -- transcript of Gov Christie's remarks

What is even worse is Obama, the most radically left President in modern American history, putting on this absolutely ludicrous sham pretense that somehow he is above the fray, that he's the grownup in the room. This is a guy whom picks and chooses statistically negligible cuts so he can pay lip service to spending discipline. Federal employee compensation packages have increased while the standard of living for many American families has fallen; I recall when Obama first discussed things like freezes on employee compensation, he limited the application to political appointee positions, not the vast majority of well-compensated (six-figure) permanent positions. This deliberate misleading of the American people, where you constantly have to read the legal fine print to know the real story of what's going on, is unethical and unworthy of a legitimate President of the United States.

The reader might ask, well, the President SEEMS to be centrist--after all, he seemed to continue Bush's Iraq and Afghanistan, he cut a deal on the Bush tax cut extensions, he was for traditional marriage before he was against it, he has released some oil and gas areas for exploration, etc. Why in the world the average American would be gullible enough not to recognize one of the oldest tricks in the book--the bait and switch? He decides what the minimum he wants to do to in order to say to the American people, with a straight face, e.g., I'm working on the deficit. So while he's spending a $862B stimulus bill plus raising domestic spending by 24%, he has a $17B cut and a $100M cut; over the past 3 years, he's literally spent over $10T, and all he's managed to cut is that? And the only time he starts talking about fiscal responsibility is when he's discussing about "paying" for tax cuts--but only for those people whom already pay a disproportionately high share?

What the President is doing is hardly even-handed. The 6 Super Committee members from the Democratic side were all reliable progressives whom have NEVER voted for a REAL spending cut unless it involved the Defense Department. They know that spending cuts are deeply unpopular and their only real chance for success in next year's election is to play Good Cop to the GOP's Bad Cop. They continue to ignore $46T in unfunded entitlement liabilities and say there is no problem with social security.

The idea that the left-wing ideologues on the Super Committee would agree to austerity measures of any kind that flies in the face of the 2012 elections was laughable at the outset. Did you really believe that Obama or these leftists on the committee (acting on behalf of Obama's interests) would anger the recipients of the 60% of the budget under mandatory spending (including senior citizens)? This whole charade has ALWAYS been about how to reelect Obama--NOT closing a $1T-plus annual deficit.



Political Humor

"Well, the inside talk is that Sarah Palin is going to endorse Newt Gingrich. If you think Newt is happy, you should see Mitt Romney." - Jay Leno

[Nothing quite says 'maverick' like choosing a career politician whom became Speaker and whose last wedding reception song was 'Three Times a Lady'...


While Palin was hawking the state plane on eBay, Speaker Newt was bitching about not having enough frequent flier miles to upgrade his seat on Air Force One.  Palin tells Newt that she knows people whom can get him that upgrade all the time.]

An original:

• What's the difference between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama for President? Gingrich offers a Contract With America; Obama put a contract out on  America.

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Sarah Brightman, "Child in a Manger". I loved Brightman's version of this traditional song so much I purchased the download last year from iTunes. Any faithful readers knows I'm a huge Neil Diamond fan; Cat Stevens had a major hit a decade earlier with his version of the alternatively-written Protestant hymn, but for me, Neil's interpretation (for his first Christmas album) backed by a choir is simply glorious; I never tire of hearing it.

Instrumental



Vocal



Cat Stevens, "Morning Has Broken"



Neil Diamond

Miscellany: 11/28/11

Quote of the Day

It is a wise father that knows his own child.
William Shakespeare

The Democrats Have the Republicans
Right Where They Want Them: Right?

The Democrats think they have the GOP in a no-win situation: will the Republicans refuse to extend (even increase) the payroll tax cut extension? Even worse: will they let the Bush tax cuts for the middle class expire? All so they can "protect" the upper class tax cuts? The Democrats think, especially with saturation coverage by the liberal media on the Occupy Wall Street movement, a  populist campaign against the upper 1% will return them to the White House and control of Congress.

A few things wrong with that. First, money is fungible. Why is it that that the 75% of "unpaid for" Bush middle class tax cuts don't add to the deficit/debt but the 25% going to the people paying 40% of the income tax revenue do? And how is sustaining  the status quo in tax rates over the past 8 years a tax cut? What spending cuts are the Democrats going to make to pay for the 75% of the Bush tax cuts under their "pay as you go" spending?

Let's talk about the temporary a 2-point payroll tax cut? That money was needed to help pay for senior citizen  entitlements THIS YEAR? What spending cuts did the Dems make under pay-go to offset that cut? Did they pay for it by cutting transfer payments to seniors or providers?

But Obama wants to up that from a merely unpaid 2 points to an unpaid 3 points, despite the fact Black Friday spending was up 7% year to year. Where does this money come from?

The American people are literate. They've seen what has happened in Greece and elsewhere, that 40% of every federal dollar spent is not paid for. They know the President has yet to make any significant short-term spending cuts; they know that he has failed to endorse and/or build upon the findings of his own bipartisan deficit reduction committee. They know that Senate Democrats unanimously rejected his own budget, and the Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in 2 years. They know that the Democrats have vastly increased spending and deficits since taking control of the Congress and/or the White House. They know the President has not submitted a plan to close $46T in unfunded entitlement liabilities.

They know the spendthrift Obama and Democratic Congress' tax and spend policies are unsustainable.and when they see unrest in Europe, they know that painful decisions are coming, sooner than later. They know sooner and later the bills are coming due.

Martin Niemöller and "First They Came" Redux

This is a famous poem (there are variations) from a German Protestant minister during the Holocaust. I don't want to compare the ongoing class warfare to the Holocaust, but just food for thought as we see a misleading caricature of the top 1% of earners...

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

First they came for the top 1%
And I did not speak out because I wasn't one of those
Then they came for the small businesses
And I could not find a job
Then they came for the middle class
And I did not have enough to pay for them
Then they became poor
Just like the rest of us.

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

How The Grinch Stole Christmas: "The Who Song/Welcome Christmas" I love all the classic Christmas cartoons. I saw Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel's tale as an imaginative twist on Dickens' theme of redemption through the Christmas spirit in 'A Christmas Carol'. The Grinch resents Whoville's celebration of Christmas, which he attributes to all material aspects to the Christmas experience--presents, decorations, food, etc. He will stop the Christmas celebration by taking away from the Who all things Christmas. But it turns out the Whos's celebrate Christmas regardless:

Miscellany: 11/27/11

Quote of the Day 

The grand aim of all science is 
to cover the greatest number of empirical facts 
by logical deduction 
from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
Albert Einstein

Taking Romney to the Woodshed: Part 2

Let me start this discussion with an unlikely analogy. I'm overweight which reflects a combination of factors within my control (diet and exercise) and outside my control (e.g., genetic factors, a sluggish thyroid, etc.) The most important factors are behavioral in nature. I have always been self-conscious about going to all-you-care -to-eat buffets or restaurants. I do not doubt many, if not most overweight people eat more than is necessary, but I have eaten meals with much thinner people whom eat far more than I do. If you look at all those famous hot dog eating contests, the winner is never some 400-lb guy with a double-chin; it's quite often some short, thin person whom can eat more hot dogs in a few minutes than I've eaten in the past decade.

In fact, I can only think of once or twice over the past decade, outside of a work group scenario, where I've gone to a buffet place; I had been working late on a project near Milwaukee, I hadn't eaten dinner yet (near midnight), and there was a diner still open by the interstate.

But here's the point: for a low fixed price, you can revisit the food bar as many times as you want. I can't think of any lunch at a buffet place (e.g., pizza, Indian food, etc.) where most, if not all the people in the work group didn't make multiple trips to the bar (unfortunately, myself included). I know I ate more than I would have if I had ordered à la carte, but the price difference wasn't much. For example, in many hotels a small continental breakfast may cost up to $8, but (say) for $11, you get access to a full breakfast bar. I often rationalized doing the buffet, for example, if I was going through a long series of interviews with potential employers. Even though I was paying somewhat more, it was a higher quality breakfast, including maybe a 2 or 3-egg omelette.

Health insurance is a perversion of the general concept of insurance. Insurance is meant to spread the costs of reasonably catastrophic expenses, say, a fatal or crippling auto crash, a cancer diagnosis, etc. Auto insurance does not cover routine car operation and maintenance (gas, oil changes, tuneups, tire replacement, etc.)

Government is a big source of the problem because it provided a work around, in part to deal with another government perversion of economic policy: wage-price controls. Compensation=wages+benefits. Many if not all of benefits are tax-exempt or deferred. Instead of simply letting the supply and demand of labor relative to compensation work, government implicitly subsidized benefits--and gave unions and others an implicit incentive to shove as many ordinary expenses to the benefit side of the ledger. How do you think unions end up with health insurance packages worth over $20,000 a year, far above the national average? It's not that union members' family health conditions are that much worse.

Think if you have to call a plumber; his cost is not covered under your home insurance policy. But if a doctor's billing rate is, say $150/visit, as far as the policyholder is concerned, his real cost is any relevant co-payment (say, $10-15/visit). But imagine if the full cost of the discounted visit (say, $100/visit) came out of the patient's own pocket. Even any policyholder share of health insurance underestimates the true cost because a large portion is often subsidized in a hidden form by the employer, not to mention the fungible tax benefits.

All of this is perverse economics. Patients in a subsidized (i.e., via workplace) health insurance program only pay a fraction of costs, and there's an implicit high demand for services at an effective low cost. What's just as bad, if not worse, you have government regulators agreeing to tack on special-interest benefit mandates (you name it: mental health services, fertilization treatments, etc.)  The patently absurd recent decision to include birth control as a mandated benefit under ObamaCare just demonstrates how progressives muck up health care. Not to mention perverse policies like "no preconditions/low premium" health insurance which effectively require a company to accept a policyholder, which loses money from day one, in effect socializing their high-cost health care cost on the backs of  "good faith" policyholders and the insurer.  (Note that the hypocritical government doesn't allow homeowners to apply for flood insurance once a hurricane has been charted to their area.)

It does not fall within the mandate of government to provide health services, anymore than it should provide food, housing, utilities, etc. We should not reward people whom have failed to act virtuously on their own behalf by failing to save for a rainy day, whom as heads of households do not buy life insurance to protect their dependents, and whom indulge in bad habits (overeating, tobacco, drinking, gambling or recreational drug use, among other vices).

I do think government policy should not lead to perverse effects. Let me provide examples.  One of my best friends, an accounting professor in California was seriously dating a young woman in the 1990's; one day she was in a horrific traffic accident leaving her a quadriplegic. The state of California provides assistance, but if my friend was to marry her, the state would bleed his assets dry. The end result was it makes it almost impossible for someone under those circumstances to ever get married. A second example would be the case of a father whom abandons his family, not because he wants to, but he can't find work to provide the income his family would receive from the state afterwards. I believe government policy should be consistent with promoting our cultural ideals of marriage and family.

I think clearly a company must be able to manage its risks intelligently. Progressives act perversely by wanting to fix or cap the premiums but expose the company to ruinous losses. There are some cases where firms acting in good faith are faced with extraordinary losses (e.g., an act of God--say, a meteor collision, war, etc.) But say, for instance, if a company wasn't able to limit its exposure to high-cost individuals, it would soon find itself in bankruptcy.

My personal feeling is that if the government would reinsure insurance companies for high-risk policyholders, especially when any regulated caps  fail to cover costs, it would go a long way to overcoming the reluctance to accept these prospective policyholders. I think probably the fairest way of the government to raise the funds for catastrophic health costs is through a consumption tax.

Government has been the problem, not the solution. It subsidizes high-cost insurance benefiting people whom pay a fraction of the cost (e.g., large corporations, labor unions, government employees) whereas others end up paying health care expenses from after-tax dollars. ObamaCare (and RomneyCare) mandate the purchase of an insurance product (including implicitly the cost of government regulators, government and/or insurance company). If all I need is a routine physical, I should only have to pay the cost of the office visit--but the doctor is probably passing along some of the costs of his Medicaid/Medicare patients.

So let's review a bit: the Congress, in terms of dealing with medical costs with its programs almost 15 years ago, decides to impose price controls, imposing cuts in government price lists for services, which are significantly less than market price. We now have Congress periodically having to rollback its automatic price cuts.We have policyholders only paying for a fraction of the cost of their own insurance... if name-brand prescriptions cost little more than generics, why settle for the generic?

Now let's review Romney's discussion: he wants to talk about "individual responsibility". He says tax credits won't do it, because some people (say, for example, unemployed people) don't pay taxes to credit against. A couple of responses here: that seems to imply funding via wages; there are a number of tax revenue methods, including a VAT or sales tax, excise taxes, etc. Second, the Obama Administration is willing to cut reimbursable tax credit checks.

He then talks about freeloader middle-class people showing up  at the (very expensive but "free") emergency room vs. more cost-effective clinics. The general implication is that between jobs (or at least jobs with benefits) people decide not to buy insurance but then freeload off taxpayers and/or the insured.

First of all, I think people unnecessarily utilizing the emergency rooms is more a matter of public education; in fact, Dr. Mark J. Perry in his Carpe Diem blog regularly features news stories on the rapidly spreading, popular mini-clinics in malls and retail chains. Second, it's not clear to me why hospitals or the state cannot pursue cost recovery (e.g., after unemployed people find work).

Governor Romney, first, it is not clear to me why any particular form of insurance should be mandated. Where do we draw the line? (The case for auto insurance is different; for example, you could accidentally hit a pedestrian or cause property damage with a car.) I do think you can make a case for catastrophic health care insurance, but why force the public to pay for insurance instead of  handling health care expenses out of pocket? And why should citizens be forced to pay for state-mandated benefits which reflect special-interest groups? What we have seen is an explosion of wait times and state budget issues... When you find patients unable to find physicians and long delays to see a doctor, it's a classic example of shortages under megalomaniac progressive government. Why didn't we see the governor open up the market to non-Massachusetts providers to provide more price competition in a state with among the highest health insurance rates in the country? Why didn't we see more affordable core health insurance options, shed of gold-plated benefits?  You also need to explain why the concept of a mandate is more equal for  the state of Massachusetts.

Word Games and ObamaCare

One of the things that really irritates me is the use of inflammatory rhetoric in a misleading manner. This is not a matter of nitpicking, but of fuzzy thinking and/or red meat rhetoric. Ron Paul recently pointed out that Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain was using the phrase "socialism" to describe ObamaCare when it might be more appropriately termed "fascism"

There's a subtle difference. But Ron Paul's description can perhaps be understood in the context of this description from Wikipedia:

Fascists advocate: a state-directed, regulated economy that is dedicated to the nation; the use and primacy of regulated private property and private enterprise contingent upon service to the nation or state; the use of state enterprise where private enterprise is failing or is inefficient; and autarky.

Note that Ron Paul is not calling Obama a fascist; what he is saying is that there is a conceptual difference between the state owning major enterprises and heavy-handed crony capitalistic relationships, content with bullying companies (remember Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's "Our job is basically to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum"?), cutting deals with the pharmaceuticals and other industry segments during ObamaCare deliberations, nationalizing the college student loan market segment, and bestowing sweetheart deals on favored green energy companies while turning the EPA on more cost-effective coal power plants... We have heard Obama declare it is in our national interest to preserve the (heavily unionized) domestic auto industry, we can't afford to lose the solar energy race, we must "invest" in education, alternative energy, and  infrastructure? No concept of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" here...

What Obama is doing is literally an extension of the progressive FDR--in fact, FDR wanted to do a health deal. FDR and Obama to a large extent have been influenced more by social democrat policies in Western Europe than by (during the Cold War) the socialist regimes of East Europe and Asia.

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Arthur Fielder & the Boston Pops Medley, "Here We Come A-Caroling/O Tannenbaum/I Saw Three Ships ". I loved preparing for my high school choir Christmas concert (some of our fellow students or critics thought we sounded a little flat); in part, that's why a couple of my selections in this series have involved choirs. (Look for a version of one of my favorites from the concern "Sleigh Ride" in an upcoming selection.) Let me recommend the Christmas Time TV Youtube channel which reprises performances from TV specials, classic cartoons and movies (at least some videos are not original clips from the shows themselves, but the music is unforgettable.)

Miscellany: 11/26/11

Quote of the Day

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger but recognize the opportunity.
John F. Kennedy

Taking Romney to the Woodshed: Part 1

I believe that Romney is the most viable candidate to oppose Obama; it's quite clear that the Democrats think so, because they've been attacking him on a fairly regular basis. He has been the only candidate whom has been consistently competitive against Obama in the swing states, especially with the centrist (moderate and independent) voters. The activists/ideologues control a disproportionate influence during the caucuses and early primaries (note, for instance, Ron Paul's ability to win a few contests), and Romney has given them more than enough reason to question his bona fides with respect to conservatism--Romney has been seen by many as wishy-washy or questionable  on topics like abortion and immigration.

This commentary deals with objections I have in the past week's debate; one was a disagreement with veteran diplomat Huntsman whom suggested that he was looking to draw down our forces in Afghanistan sooner than later; Romney was sticking to standard GOP military conservative talking points (i.e., taking into account the input from operational military leaders and the danger in pulling out with an incompletely trained Afghan military). With all due respect to haws like Senators McCain and Graham, I think most American people want us to stop throwing good money after bad and propping up an unappreciative, corrupt President and his dysfunctional government. I think Obama's real motivation for building up our presence in Afghanistan had everything to do with UBL. If I was Romney, I would take on this topic by pointing out differences with Obama's decision making process (analysis paralysis, understaffing the surge operation involving a trade-off between military and political risks, deep cuts to military R&D, focus on peripheral issues like the repeal of DADT, etc.) I would point out that we should not be in the business of nation building, that 10 years of involvement in Afghanistan is long enough, but that the specific timing of an American withdrawal is a pragmatic decision which depends on the circumstances in January 2013.

The second question dealt with the exchange between Romney and Gingrich, with Romney speaking in the context of the typically anti-amnesty groupthink attacking a softer line by Gingrich whom would provide more flexibility in dealing with alien families with one or more US citizens born here (a solution which would provide more of a permanent residency versus a path to citizenship).

I'm a free marketer, and I've made it clear that I am staunchly pro-immigration. Any conservative who claims to be a free market/pro-business growth conservative but takes a hard line on immigrants is engaging in counterproductive, dysfunctional, dishonorable politics; I did not comment on the story at the time, but I strongly supported the recent recall of Russell Pearce, the chief sponsor behind Arizona's controversial immigration law, in favor of a more flexible fellow Republican, Jerry Lewis.

If I was going to take on Gingrich on the issue of immigration, I would have asked why the 1986 reform signed into law by President Reagan didn't resolve core issues and what, if anything, Gingrich did over the following decade as a GOP leader to recognize and remedy the problem.

Bill Clinton Is Living in Obama's 57th State: The State of Denial

Bill Clinton, like his fellow misleading defensive, legal hair-splitting Presidential descendant, Barack Obama, is eager to redeem his legacy join Obama is scapegoating "8 years of failed policies" (i.e., George W. Bush).  (We conservatives refer to this as putting lipstick on a pig--as if Clinton didn't already have enough lipstick on him!)

IBD has a good editorial reviewing a portion of Bill Clinton's latest boorish tome: "Despite Book's Claims, Clinton's Policies Hurt Economy". First, he tries to pretend that Bush inherited the same hand that Obama was given in 2008. This is so out of touch with reality I really shouldn't have to address it. First of all, Bush never had a honeymoon like Obama did, because many Democrats were convinced that Bush was an illegitimate President whom "stole" the election from Al "the Bore" Gore. Second, there were 50 Senate Democrats; technically the GOP hold control of the Senate because the VP (Dick Cheney) gave the Senate Republicans a tie-breaking vote--until Jeffords, a Republican Senator from Vermont, upset at Bush's agenda and priorities, reclassified himself as an independent and joined the Democratic caucus, throwing control of the Senate to the Democrats until the mid-term elections. The Democrats always had multiple votes over the minimum to filibuster any piece of legislation.

I'll also point out that the same chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, served under both Clinton and Bush, and, among other things, Democrats controlled the state regulatory authority in New York, home to Wall Street. Despite the blatant lies of partisan Democrats, regulations actually vastly increased during the Bush Administration, one of my biggest criticisms of Bush.

The second and more important point deals with the CRA, the Democrats' counterproductive policy meant to address alleged discrimination in housing loans (i.e., redlining), a frequent target of conservative criticism for exacerbating the housing bubble with largely unsecured housing loans by high-risk, lower-income borrowers without traditional collateral. I think I'll simply summarize key salient observations from the IBD editorial:

• "In 2000 that Clinton ordered Fannie and Freddie to "expand" their subprime business to meet drastic new lending quotas. Clinton at the same time authorized them to earn "goals credit" by purchasing subprime securities.
  
• "In fact, the Fed estimates half the subprime loans were at least "indirectly attributable" to the CRA."
  
• "A 2005 HUD report attributed the explosion in subprime securities between 2001 and 2004 to Clinton's higher lending goals, along with tougher CRA enforcement: 'Sometimes these [low-income and minority] borrowers are higher risk, with blemished credit histories and high debt or simply little savings for a down payment.'"

Political Humor

Some originals:

• Florida judge Donna Miller took time off one convicted prisoner's sentence for losing weight. Now we know what tips the scales of justice... Of course, prison chow hasn't been the same since Martha Stewart was released...
• A woman shopper at a southern California upscale suburb Walmart on Thanksgiving pepper-sprayed a crowd around a display of discounted video game players. She accused them of Occupying the Electronics Aisles...

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Christ Church Choir, "Mary, Did You Know?". Hands down (in my opinion), the best version of one of my favorite modern Christmas songs, originally popularized by Kenny Rogers & Wynonna Judd (see below). I first heard the song as background for a well-made short video with movie clips about Christ's life; I was so impressed I purchased the song download, and it's on heavy rotation on my iPod Shuffle. (The song is available at iTunes and other music retailers.)

A reminder: I embedded the video in question in an earlier post. The referenced video itself is free for personal use and can be downloaded here.



The Original Hit Cover

Miscellany: 11/25/11

Quote of the Day

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
Albert Einstein

Has America Become a Police State?

Remember when you finally got a respite from all the house rules when you finally got to leave the family home? You know, like Mom seemed to consider the full trash receptacle a ticking time bomb and told you to take it out NOW. The nag-meter was set on a 30-second cycle with rising volume. The trash didn't know or care it was a tie game, bottom of the ninth, the bases loaded and a full count on the batter. It wasn't that you didn't appreciate doing your fair share of the chores, and usually it was just easier to go with the flow. After all, even when you got your own apartment, you would have to do your own household chores--it's just you would have more control over the details.

For the most part, we understand even as adults there are things we have to do which we would prefer not to do--e.g., pay taxes (which we believe are incompetently spent), serve on juries, jump through hoops with doctors and health care insurers, and deal with difficult and/or incompetent clients, co-workers, vendors or bureaucrats, etc.  As someone who has done a number of gigs as a federal subcontractor, I often had to fill out--on my own time--tedious questionnaires going back for several years of your personal work and residence history (but almost nothing to do with your functional qualifications for the gig itself), and then there were the daily security things where you have through traditional airport screenings (before the digital strip searches). But talk about a hostile work environment: I once did a short gig out at Quantico (i.e., Marine Corps headquarters); I succeeded this female DBA whom freaked out and quit her first day; she saw Marines on the base carrying rifles. I was repeatedly asked before taking the gig whether I had issues with the existence of weapons on military bases!

It's not so much that we have laws, but their relative necessity and incremental cost to liberty. Just as we believe that there should be a high barrier to guard against the kind of unconscionable intergenerational theft the current Administration and/or its crony Congressional supporters have engaged in over the past 5 years, there must also be a high barrier against the erosion of liberty through stealth government scope creep and its relative cost to individual liberty. In evaluating the rationale of government expansion, in which the burden of proof must always be on the side of the bureaucrat, it is not enough for the bureaucrat to imagine a worst possible case; that rationale must be based on the preponderance of the evidence; liberty must not be held hostage to a bureaucrat's imagination used to justify his raison d'être! It must be independently validated with the same type consideration  in the judicial review of Fourth Amendment challenges. Take, for instance, the whole question of TSA scanning of footwear. How do we change the security processing for millions of people based on a single (failed) incident? Did we prohibit driving cars after the first fatal car accident?

Second, it deals with the professionalism (or lack thereof) and ethics of those in position of the public trust. Faithful readers of this blog are probably familiar with a TSA example I've written about on 1 or 2 past blog posts. I was leaving from the San Antonio airport back to the DC area. As I recall, there was some sort of an issue with my outgoing flight and I was transferred to another airline; there was some bureaucratic delay in getting the revised boarding pass, and I was already behind schedule when I discovered I also won the dubious TSA lottery for a full search. What I didn't know was that there was a code on the pass indicating I had been selected for a full search--and  these people, after completing the search, was supposed to stamp verification--which, of course, they didn't do. I had something like about 20 minutes before departure, and my gate was a decent distance away. I'm out of breath; almost all the other passengers had boarded, when the gate agent almost proudly noted that I did not have the TSA verification stamp and refused to let me board. Long story short, the TSA had no approved method of resolving this issue by phone and they would have to send someone down. I'm getting hassled by the airline, because they want to close the gate, some standby passengers are pushing the gate agents to reassign my seat (ask me what I think of those people...); eventually some short, overweight, older TSA female agent comes strolling into the area with all the urgency of a DMV customer agent or a USPS counter clerk coming off break.

She starts to do the wand search thing--in front of everyone in that cluster of gates (boy, was I lucky: I guess they were running a 2-for-the-price-of-1 special that day); of course, I'm protesting--I figured they must be keeping records on people they processed earlier, and all she had to do was cross-validate. Big mistake--because she stops the search and effectively says (I'm paraphrasing) the last search was spilled milk: if I gave her any attitude, the least of my problems was missing my flight: I'll have to return to the security entrance escorted and/or detained by airport security.

All this was unconscionable arrogance, a clear abuse of power; I was being victimized (and worse yet, threatened) because of TSA's incompetent employees didn't comply with their procedures? This had ZERO to do with any legitimate security threats.

Now I haven't really had an open discussion about this, but I predict that MOST people would probably have a dismissive attitude like, "They are just doing their job." Or  "We have to all comply with the same rules and regulations; they're seen to be working; whatever it takes to takes to keep us safe." Quite honestly, the predominant sentiment is wrong. The people making these policies are not directly accountable to the public, the process is exorbitantly expensive and seat of the pants, more reactive than proactive. There is no due diligence; almost overnight there is a novel tweak--shoes, underwear, gel bras--and new policies are almost immediately implemented; never mind, for instance, in the case of the 2004 Chechen female terrorist twin plane bombings, the women in question were detained before boarding the flight in question (with corruption a factor). Progressives have no problem with spending huge sums, on the principle of equal protection, on fruitlessly applying various screens to people whom don't fit a certain security risk profile. In fact, we use risk when we insure people for property. How much do we need to spend because risk-based sampling is viewed as "discriminatory"?

Another example of questionable judgment is the now famous pepper spraying of certain protesters at UC-Davis. Let me point out that I am not sympathetic with the communitarian Occupy Wall Street movement and related off-shoots. (The Politics of Envy, i.e., the infamous 1%, reminds me of a memorable Maryland Lottery commercial that I cited in a post over a year ago. A farmer's wife has discovered that the hen they recently acquired lays golden eggs, only.... )  I do support their equal protection right to free speech and protest, even though they are wrong on the issues. (I have at least one nephew buying into the movement's propaganda.)  The fact that the students were knowingly in violation of policy and were resisting arrest did warrant firm but humane treatment to deal with students' unauthorized occupation. What strikes me about the officer spraying pepper spray is that he is striking a pose not unlike any middle-aged head of household watering his lawn with a garden hose. I myself have not had to go through this experience, but it did seem to me that the nature and extent were disproportionate.

Where did the title of this commentary come from? A financial investment blogger, Jeffrey Tucker, posted a commentary titled "The Idea of America". I encourage the reader to read his full original essay, but let me reorganize excerpts from his piece here:

I vaguely remember when I was young that I thought of the police as servants of the people. Now their presence strikes fear in the heart, and they are everywhere, always operating under the presumption that they have total power and you and I have absolutely none...No goods or services change hands that aren’t subject to the total control of the leviathan state: legislatures, regulators, and the tax police: objecting only makes you more of a target...America has become a police state; [we have the] world’s largest prison population.

I’ll just mention two outrages that occur first to me. In the last six months, I came back to the country twice from international travel, once by plane and once by car.

The car scene shocked me. The lines were ridiculously long [with] border control agents, clad in dark glasses and boots and wearing enough weaponry to fight an invading army...When I finally got to the customs window, I was questioned not like a citizen of the country but like a likely terrorist. The agent wanted to know everything about me: home, work, where I had been and why, and whether I will stay somewhere before getting to my destination, family composition, and other matters that just creeped me out. I realized immediately that there was no question he could ask me that I could refuse to answer, and I had to do this politely.
The second time I entered the country was by plane, and there were two full rescans of bags on the way in, in addition to the passport check, and a long round of questioning... Whatever [federal agents] ordered us to do, we did, no matter how irrational. We moved here and there in locked step and total silence. One step out of line and you are guaranteed to be yelled at. At one point, an armed agent began to talk loudly and with a sense of ridicule about the clothes I was wearing, and went out of his way to make sure everyone else heard him...

As I listen to Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain, I don't hear anything substantive on Big Government when it comes to security issues. They are all running on limited government and  balanced budgets, but talk about a $600B cut over the coming decade has almost all Republicans in panic. Keep in mind defense/related spending amounts to about 20% of the federal  budget, with spending over $3.5T.  Rick Perry wants to do away with the Energy, Commerce, and Education Departments, but what about the super-conglomerate DHS? Bachmann was a champion of Patriot Act renewal including 3 controversial provisions; Gingrich seems to think we need even more policing power.

Defense Secretary Panetta is doing the Chicken Little act with the failure of recent Super Committee negotiations with half the cuts coming out of DoD. GASP! He's even putting retirement on the table; to be fair, I was hearing reform talk when I was in the service and that was several years ago. Given the fact that some can retire at half pay for the rest of their lives starting before they even turn 40 while others get zero for anything less than 20 years suggests that we need to apply the same kind of defined contribution plan system I've suggested for newer federal employees.

I personally believe that the War of Terror has been wildly exaggerated on both sides of the aisle. But to give an example, much has been made about Iran and a possible first-time nuclear weapon. Just a reminder that Russia and China own far larger stockpiles. I do not underestimate the tragedy of 9/11. We must not exaggerate the threat of international terrorism either on the domestic or international level.

A Sad Day For a University of Texas Alumnus

There are few rivalries in college football comparable to UT and Texas A&M; there is, of course, the rapidly approaching institutional rivalry of Army-Navy. You have the traditional Ohio State-Michigan, Notre Dame-USC, USC-UCLA, Florida-Florida State, and perhaps on a smaller scale Harvard-Yale.

I still fondly remember the defunct Southwest Conference. For the University of Texas, there have been 3 historical rivalries: Arkansas (which ended when the latter joined the SEC), Oklahoma, and Texas A&M.

Texas-Texas A&M is a traditional rivalry unlike almost anything else; perhaps only Army-Navy is as competitive. Army-Navy is usually one of the last regular season football games of the year, while Texas-Texas A&M is around Thanksgiving. For readers unfamiliar with A&M, it has a number of unique traditions: the twelfth man tradition (a regular student symbolically plays on a kickoff), the A&M couple kissing tradition (you kiss your partner I believe as many points as A&M has scored if and when they score), and burly male cheerleaders with crewcuts doing weird arm movement cheers while urging the football team to "gig 'em". There has also been a certain bonfire tradition.

After getting my Master's, I originally intended to join the Air Force, like my Dad, not the Navy. (When I had applied to UT, I intended to work towards my doctorate, but it turned out there was a glut of PhD mathematicians on the market, and I was unable to secure financial aid.) The recruiters were pushing me for a career as meteorologist; the way the system worked at the time there is an initial pool at graduation with an obvious emphasis on pilots. The recruiters thought I had a lock on getting an appointment, if not the first time than surely the second time a few weeks later, the reason being that I wouldn't be eligible for selection for 6 months after two consecutive passes. The point of the story is that if and when I got selected, I would be sent to Texas A&M to study meteorology there. (The funny thing is after the US Navy accepted me later that year, I was contacted by Austin Community College, which had passed on my teaching application, for an interview and also got contacted by the Air Force for my next round.)

I have two nephews with business degrees from Texas A&M, and two other nephews who are or have been engineering majors at UT (the first one graduated a couple of years back). (Having nephew Aggies isn't as bad as my sister, a Texas Women's University graduate, dating an Aggie while in school.)

The last time I went to a UT game was a home game maybe 15 years back with a couple of brothers-in-law and my middle brother, a UT graduate with an engineering degree. Somehow we ended up in a section surrounded by Aggie fans, and UT got wiped out. One of my brothers-in-law (the one who married my TWU sister) has peculiar dietary habits. It was understood my folks and the other relatives there  would not wait on us for Thanksgiving dinner, but they would keep the food warm for us. My brother-in-law wanted us to get hot dogs on the way back. (Not a chance.)  We finally get back; he got a beautiful slice of steaming turkey breast--and promptly doused it with ketchup. I LOVE turkey, and ketchup on turkey is unthinkable, pure sacrilege. Worse yet, my three beautiful nieces prefer eating turkey their dad's way....

Texas A&M is leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference (joining Arkansas, which I think joined the Southeastern Conference when the Southwest Conference dissolved).  There's been a lot of speculation about UT, also allegedly looking elsewhere (I"ve heard rumors about the Pac 10). The point is, Texas' nonconference schedule is set for the next 7 years. So yesterday's close victory over A&M at the latter's home field  looks like the last game in their rivalry for years...

I'm not happy about an unthinkable end to the rivalry. In my send-off to the Aggies, I dedicate the following special feature of  a few Aggie jokes.

Some Favorite Aggie Jokes: Special Edition
Selected Sources: #1, #2, #3, #4

Why can't Aggie farmers raise chickens?
They plant the eggs too deep.

Did you hear about the Aggie at the stop sign?
He's still there.

Did you hear about the Aggie that broke his leg raking leaves?
He fell out of the tree.

Did you hear about the Aggie who won a gold medal at the Olympics?
He was so proud of the award that he decided to get it bronzed.

Two Aggie football players were down in College Station partying. They were hootin' and hollerin' when a bartender asked them why they were celebrating. The smart one said proudly that they had just finished a jigsaw puzzle and it only took two months. "Two months!?" exclaimed the bartender. The Aggie replied, "Yeah, but the box said 4-6 years."

An Aggie was riding an elevator to his apartment when the elevator stopped and a beautiful woman got on. After the doors closed she hit the STOP button and ripped of all of her clothes throwing them in a pile on the floor. 'Make me feel like a woman', she says. The Aggie says OK rips off his clothes, throwing them on her pile of clothes. 'Alright', he said 'do the laundry.'

Three Texans go down to Mexico one night and get drunk and wake up in jail. They found out that they are to be executed for their crimes...The first one, from the Baylor School of Divinity, is strapped in the electric chair. His last words: "I believe in the almighty power of God to intervene on behalf of the innocent." They throw the switch and nothing happens and they let him go. The second one, from the University of Texas School of Law, is strapped in. His last words: "I believe in the eternal power of Justice to intervene on the part of the innocent." The switch is thrown and again nothing happens. They figure that the law is on this guy's side and let him go. The last one, a Texas Aggie Electrical Engineer, is strapped in. His final words: "Well, you'll never electrocute anybody if you don't connect those two wires." [Our Aggie Texas Governor Rick Perry must love this one...]

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Harry Simeone Chorale, "The Little Drummer Boy". This song has notably been covered by a number of rock artists, some of which I've featured in past Christmas season series. But this version was featured in an often-played album from my folks' Christmas collection and, in my view, remains the definitive version

Miscellany: 11/24/11 Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Courtesy of nirmaltv.com

Quote of the Day

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
Will Durant

What Line Do You Draw On Homeland Security?
If You Say 'Blank Check': WRONG ANSWER!

I still wonder years after the fact about some of the things I had to do at the Navy school for our nuclear sub program. NCO's and officers were taught in separate programs. These were highly structured classes in the sense, for example, that what I taught in enlisted math one day could be applied in a reactor principles class later the same day. Similarly, if I was ill and couldn't teach one day, a substitute could seamlessly fill in not knowing what material I went over the previous day, and the next day I would pick up exactly where the substitute left off.

The material, for someone with two math degrees and whom had served as a teaching assistant with responsibility for a couple of problem-solving class sections, was routine, but that wasn't enough for the Navy: before one was allowed to teach, one had to first go through a certification lecture in front of the commanding officer in charge of the relevant (NCO or officer) program. There were various things done in training for the certification lecture (including auditing sample target classes).

[As an aside, some of the instructors in the classes I audited were clueless as to what was going on in the back of class. One day I was at the back of class of this one colleague; somehow he didn't hear these 3 guys doing impressions of the Three Stooges, complete with whoops. slap waving off the tops of their heads  and hopping their desks around, exchanging locations. Unfortunately for them, my boss came by to whisk me to another activity and caught them.]

We also had to pass certain exams (with higher scores but without the benefit of attending classes), e.g., reactor principles. I think I was told that the material being covered had actually been publicly available through various academic journals and wasn't really secret; I think it was a way of disciplining oneself if and when we or the students got access to privileged materials. But even my study notes had to be stamped confidential, and I wasn't allowed to bring my notes home, say, to study for relevant exams. (In fact, we got screened on the way out--including our notebooks to see if we were leaving the facility with anything stamped "confidential".)

The point is--as an instructor, I really didn't have access to sensitive material, and I've always had a strong sense of professional ethics over and beyond my military vows and commitments. Still, not being able to study at home was a major inconvenience. I followed the rules, but I watched the guys screening materials on leaving at the end of the business day, and it would have been fairly easy to work around the searches. (For obvious reasons, I won't go into specifics.) So a couple of takeaways from  this simple example: (1) the Navy was spending a lot of resources enforcing security that wasn't very productive and (2) whatever scheme you set up, there's usually a workaround, and that's not even taking into account that human performance can vary over natural conditions (e.g., I'm tired or distracted), there are false positives (even on an innocuous level, I can't tell you how many times I've been pulled over at airport security based strictly on my ordinary belt buckle getting flagged) or mistakes made (say, for example, under conditions of long lines and the pressure of approaching flight times). Any student of human performance engineering realizes even experts make mistakes--but at a very low consistent rate.

When you take into account some $80B have been spent on safety over the past decade--and, of course, bureaucrats, looking to rationalize their existence, will point to successes in terms of, say, a few dozen people arrested and/or weapons confiscated (but the devil is in the details) Here's the point: we know the system is being periodically audited, and a significant percentage of test passengers are getting past without being flagged (worse at some airports than others); we also know occasionally weapons have been found left behind on planes (e.g., a federal agent whom forgot his weapon on the plane?)

Occasionally planes crash over and beyond acts of terrorism; if you look at the relative frequency of fatalities, say, from driving a car in a bad neighborhood, or under very bad weather conditions (say, icy roads), or when the other driver is overly tired, distracted (say, an argument with a spouse or using his cellphone), intoxicated or under the influence of recreational drugs or suffers from a physical event (e.g., a heart attack, a seizure, etc.) or vehicle condition, we are probably safer in the air with all  the risks people worry about (besides terrorism: weather conditions, pilot health condition, etc.)

How could  we mitigate the issues of auto safety? Obviously more public safety patrolling/checkpoints, more aggressive high-tech monitoring of traffic (cameras, helicopters, satellites, etc.), vehicle technology that can monitor for unsafe operation. The question is--what constitutes a reasonable trade-off? My first job as an IT professional was as a programmer/analyst in the property-casualty division of a highly-regarded insurance company. One of my colleagues was driving a huge Cadillac as a time that gas prices were up. He explained if we studies fatality statistics on the road, we would never settle for anything less than a full-size car. But there are other factors/trade-offs--like gas, parking, performance, styling, etc.

To any mother whose only child was killed in a terrorist attack or by a drunk driver, no amount of government intervention will ever be enough. What I can say, with absolute certainty, is that the huge investment in airline safety via the TSA and other bureaucracy is disproportionate to the risks involved relative to other contexts--as experts note in the embedded video below, this would be like the cost one would undertake  if we had four Times Square incidents daily. The cost to our economy is staggering: what if these excess costs, ultimately born by travelers and/or taxpayers, were spent or invested elsewhere in our economy? Do we really need federal employees engaging in legally sanctioned touching of or near private areas? Traumatizing small children or elderly people, or families going on summer vacation to Disney World? Treating fellow Americans as potential terrorists is unreasonable: it is based on paranoia, not legitimate safety concern.

There are more inexpensive ways of controlling for airline safety, something that the government did not learn from the shoe bomber (Richard Reid): observant fellow passengers. If the government is going to confiscate our money for airline safety, I would prefer to see a much smaller amount primarily spent on educating the travelers for suspicious behavior and how to report it; I also think the airline has an accountability for all sorts of safety concerns and there is some moral hazard here by responsibility being shifted to the government.

Let me throw a minor idea out there, just to make a point: maybe instead of having safety officials trying to look for contraband under a statuesque young woman's clothes, there would be hidden cameras on airline flights to monitor or filter for unusual behavior--or passengers agreed to only access certain carry-on items while on board (say, reading materials, medicine, computers, audio devices, or food) In other words, shift from the presence of materials to the access of materials.



Governor Perry and Others on Foreign Aid

Let me say first of all, as a libertarian conservative, I don't like potentially corrupting relationships using taxpayer money; I don't like entangling relationships and want to see better transparency of  costs (with a diplomatic sensitivity to unwise public disclosure).

I have a conservative's distrust of radical change and the law of unintended consequences. For example, I don't like the sum of our relationship to Pakistan to be defined by its nuclear arsenal and/or some suspected radical sympathizers in the ISI. I would much prefer the discussion with Pakistan to focus on economic liberty, with Pakistan ranking very low on the 2011 index of economic freedom. Encouraging the development of Pakistan's economy and a thriving middle class are in the long-term interests of regional stability.

Rhetoric by GOP candidates paying lip service to red meat positions, vowing to take a hard line against Pakistan's leadership, is just as irresponsible as Obama's whack-a-mole drone attacks and the way that the UBL action undermined our allies in the Pakistan leadership, causing loss of face. The last thing I would expect  from the GOP candidates is some vague approval of Obama's policy--or a misguided attempt to counterproductively take an even harder line.

Do I regret the UBL operation? Of course not. President George W. Bush made it clear back in 2001 that any government protecting UBL would bear responsibility. But let's just say I would have found some way to get Pakistani soldiers on the mission, with at least one of the helicopters captained by a high-ranking Pakistani military officer, and I would have also found a way to have the Pakistani President or military chief present at the announcement. (I'm sure Obama apologists would proceed to list 101 reasons how that wasn't realistic...)

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

Scott D. Davis, "Carol of the Bells". I heard this track for the first time while listening to my Pandora.com Christmas channel the other day...

Miscellany: 11/23/11

Quote of the Day 

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson

Jeff Jacoby's, "Giving Thanks For The 'Invisible Hand'": 
Thumbs UP!


An Excerpt:

To bring that turkey to the dining room table, for example, required the efforts of thousands of people -- the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks -- from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was packaged.

But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it...Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" -- the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many...Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure...The social order of freedom, like the wealth and the progress it makes possible, is an extraordinary gift from above.

The Jimmy Fallon/Bachmann Interview Introduction:
Why Are We Even Talking About This?

Michele Bachmann who got off to an impressive start quickly dropped  from the lead of not-Romney pack; she faded back as Rick Perry look his turn at the lead, then Herman Cain, and now Newt Gingrich. The famous Iowa straw poll win, and the latest polls I've seen from Iowa (a week ago in RealClearPolitics) have her in the single digits. After an impressive start in the debates, she has faded in the back as there is a consensus that the two best debaters are Romney and Gingrich. Campaign donors don't like to invest in marginal candidates.

But any press is good press. Michele Bachmann eagerly accepted Jimmy Fallon's NBC Late Show's invitation; Fallon follows the late night anchor Jay Leno's Tonight Show. The Roots is the house band to the Late Show. As Michele Bachmann was introduced this past Monday night, the Roots, apparently without knowledge and consent of Jimmy Fallon, played a 1985 Fishbone song "Lyin' Ass Bitch",

I don't think Bachmann recognized the song or its symbolic significance, which was clearly uncivil and intentional. Ms. Bachmann is going to milk this opportunity; the media conservatives are responding with predictable chivalrous righteous indignation, and Bachmann is playing the victim card. No doubt she will get a much-needed burst of campaign cash, maybe a small sympathetic boost in the polls.

Are we really that surprised? David Letterman, of course, is well-known for his disgraceful slutty Palin daughter "joke", but just consider a few of his other bad taste "jokes" I refused to reprint with ad lib's in my Political Humor feature because I find them more mean-spirited, not at all funny (no wonder he got passed over as Johnny Carson's replacement) :

• "When are these Republican debates going to stop? I mean, this would be the very reason to call for a dictatorship, just to put an end to these."
• "Over the weekend, a guy took a shot at the White House. They hunted him down and arrested him. He said, 'I thought I had a better shot at it than those Republican candidates.' "
  
• "I'm thinking Herman Cain doesn't get it. He brought a date to the debate."
  
• "You're here on a special night because everybody in the balcony tonight is a Herman Cain accuser."
  

Look, politics is a nasty business; character attacks have gone with the territory. It's bad enough the incumbent President has a notoriously thin skin and is highly defensive. I think the proper tactic under the circumstances is to take the higher ground and ignore it. Why should one of the highest-ranking women in Congress let a mediocre house band on a show few people watch in the first place pull her chain? And for all the unduly popular conservative talk show hosts whom talk about how unfairly conservatives are treated: let's point out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (the last time I checked) had lower approval ratings than their GOP counterparts. Life isn't fair; don't sweat the small stuff; move on. We need politicians with the testicular fortitude to do major surgery on the budget , not just a few billion here or there.

Weird Polls

When I attended the University of Texas, Austin was a much smaller city--largely by intent (i.e., quality of life issues). Needless to say, tens of thousands of resident students had a major impact on the local economy, and The Daily Texan, the campus newspaper, was a very popular advertising target--easily with enough revenue to cover the costs of publication and be distributed for free among the resident students.  Yet (in what must seem inconceivable to today's students), there was an initiative to charge the students anyway because "college students won't appreciate the newspaper unless they pay for it"...

Obviously the same model doesn't work for government, although Barack Obama has such a swelled  head we could probably sell lots of ads on it. (I can just see Warren Buffett's GEICO gecko on it...) The idea does make sense: when altogether the bottom 50% of wage earners pay literally just pennies on a dollar of taxes, while the higher earners at the margin of wages work more for government than for themselves. There is a problem here, because if you aren't actually paying the full cost of government services, what stake do you have in efficient government? We have similar moral hazard all over the place (and no better start than the sorry state of health insurance and the unsustainable ObamaCare on top of it?)

That's why, among other things, when I saw Sean Hannity interview Mitt Romney on his program a few days back, I found myself cheering when Mitt Romney said, without a bit of hesitation, that everybody has to have skin in the game. This myth that Romney is unprincipled is nonsense. Take abortion, for instance; of course, Romney was never going to get pro-life legislation through the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts legislature. But he explained that he shifted his view on public policy on abortion on a piece of legislation he vetoed which focused on the potential farming of human embryos for "spare parts". (I myself have never smoked, but I don't think it's good public policy to ban the practice.)

I had some differences with Romney in this week's debate which I'll print in a future commentary. But even happily married couples like my folks occasionally argue. However, we see a slowly surging closing of the ranks behind Romney: this week Sen. Ayotte (R-NH) and Sen. Thune (R-SD) (the latter once considered a 2012 hopeful himself) announced their endorsements; in earlier weeks, we saw coveted endorsements by former candidate Tim Pawlenty and rock star Governor Chris Christie. In the RCP polls, we've seen Romney beating Obama in New Hampshire, Florida, and Michigan and a tie in Pennsylvania; a Fox News national poll had Romney narrowly beating out Obama (CNN has him up by a bigger margin). Romney is narrowly leading in one national poll for the GOP nomination. Romney continues to lead throughout the Northeast (among the GOP contenders), Michigan, and California. In the meanwhile, Cain has virtually dropped out of the leader board nationally and in states

But Fox News--which has an annoying happen of constantly hyping oddball polls (particularly from PPP and a solitary poll showing Romney's lead in NH dropping to 2% of New Hampshire). This NH poll was constantly hyped over the prime time shows as well.  It was obvious that was an outlier poll. In fact, in the most recent 3 different polls, Romney leads Gingrich by 27 points (twice), and 17.

I'm seeing some interesting divergences: there are some showing a Dem advantage in Congress on the generic ballot by 4 or 5 points. (Rasmussen has it oscillating from 1 to 7 points GOP.) Sabado, the respected University of Virginia Director of the Center for Politics currently shows a likely net pickup of 3 seats for the GOP.

The Senate is beginning to look interesting. Congressman Mack (R-FL) has decided to challenge the incumbent Nelson, and Nelson barely leads Mack. Michigan incumbent Stabenow leads by a mere 6 points.

Political Humor



"Mitt Romney admitted in an interview, 'I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once as a wayward teenager and never did it again.' This has the makings of the lamest "Behind the Music" special yet." - Jimmy Kimmel

[President Obama brews his pown beer and has been known to smoke many cigarettes as a wayward adult and has promised his wife and doctors never to do it again. Personally I think he's saving a final cigarette for election eve next year...]

An original:

• President Obama decided to pardon his turkey Hope (not Liberty or Peace) when David Axelrod personally urged him to keep hope alive.

Musical Interlude: Nostalgic/Instrumental Christmas

I announced in yesterday's post that the Favorite Groups series is on hiatus until after New Years' (my Boston series concluded yesterday, and I will next cover Styx).

I love this time of year; I still remember leading my younger siblings in singing Christmas carols in the car as Dad and Mom drove from Otis AFB to Fall River and my maternal grandfather's house in east Fall River, only a few blocks from Rolling Rock, a 140-ton rock that never ceased to amaze me; I used to hike down there innumerable times during my visits. My late grandfather used to operate a mom-and-pop grocery at the corner of a block; his younger brother Oscar was the butcher (I think the grocery made way for a bar after my grandfather closed the business; my mom's only sibling was a priest, and Uncle Oscar never had any children.)

I think Mom has been saving up all my embarrassing childhood stories to tell my future wife. I'll never write them here (one of them involves clams--enough said). Except my Uncle Oscar never forgot what I call the 'molasses story'. I was with siblings #2 and 3 (a sister and a brother) playing in the back of the store one day and we were fascinated by this huge barrel with a spigot. We were speculating what must be in that barrel. You know how curious kids can be and it didn't take long for my siblings to start daring me to open the spigot just long enough to see what was in the barrel. You know that the oldest kid is not going to let his siblings to double-dare him and accuse him of being a chicken. So I opened the spigot, and at first it was like we were watching a car accident in progress: this thick, gooey brown liquid started oozing its way to the floor. Realizing this was beginning to cause a mess, I promptly tried to shut the spigot--but couldn't. At first my siblings were in awe at the sight of the accident. Then my brother, in a characteristic, annoying, tattletale fashion, turned to me and said, "You're in big trouble!" and then burst into the store screaming out, "Come look at the mess Ronald is making!" My grand-uncle quickly raced over, shut off the spigot and ended up cleaning the gooey mess (easier said that done: I emphasize for the kids in the audience: don't try this at home!) As a young adult, I probably visited him and Aunt Millie, whom was also a relative on my Dad's side of the family, for dinner a handful of times, and inevitably Uncle Oscar would reprise the molasses story...

Anyway, my maternal grandmother died of cancer while I was a toddler; my paternal grandfather died while my Dad was in middle school. My two surviving grandparents were amazing. My paternal grandmother was a beautiful woman with a wonderful laugh (except when she laughed hysterically at my reaction to a turnover or special-team score off my Vikings in the playoffs). I miss her... No doubt she must be highly amused with my reactions to the 2-8 Vikings this year... At least I have my 11-0 UH Cougars to cheer on. Incidentally, I've never seen a Vikings game in person. But there was an international conference in Minneapolis while I was a UWM professor, and when I went to check into the hotel staging the conference, there was a concurrent appearance there by the Vikings cheerleaders and I came within a few feet of a few of them. It was an awesome experience; I don't remember much about what happened during the conference, but the cheerleaders are etched in my mind. I also did a gig several years ago at a Baltimore suburbs client: one of the employees there happened to be a spectacular Redskins cheerleader. Life is good...

I love the embedded video below which mixes scenes from famous holiday movies, childhood photos, etc. is especially well done to the much recognized opening theme music from the Charlie Brown Christmas classic. I love all those holiday specials: the Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph, etc. For holiday movies, I've listed some of my favorites in older posts; over the past week I've seen some of the more recent classics on Hallmark and Lifetime, including "A Christmas Visitor", a well-made fantasy drama about a surviving family of three (the first-born son died in the first Gulf War and his little sister is facing a potential cancer diagnosis), and "Sundays at Tiffany's", a James Patterson fantasy that focuses on a recently engaged woman whom once had an imaginary male best friend as a young girl. Highly recommended.

Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Christmas Time Is Time"