All that is valuable in human society
depends upon the opportunity for
development accorded the individual.
Albert Einstein
ObamaCare Fact of the Day
You know how mathematically-challenged partisans claim, with a straight face, that ObamaCare will "reduce" the deficit (with the gimmicky loss-leader of six years of expenses against a decade of taxes--not that ObamaCare will be suspended for 4 years in its second decade, and so on). From Heritage:
The Senate Budget Committee Republican staff released a report revealing that, over the next 75 years, Obamacare will add an additional $17 trillion in unfunded obligations—i.e., the benefits promised by the federal government that haven’t yet been paid for.
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| Courtesy of Heritage |
Among physicians reporting a pay cut, four in 10 blame Obamacare and 48 percent of all doctors believed their income would drop again in 2013 as a result of the health reform law .Dissatisfaction was blamed on less one-on-one time with patients, longer hours, and dealing with Medicare, Medicaid, and government regulations.US Faces the Demographic Cliff
I wanted to have kids... I was very cute when I was in third grade; my teacher called Lisa and me her "girl and boy dolls". I had a schoolboy crush on Lisa, but it was unrequited; I still have her Valentine's Day card in my trunk. Like in my favorite Elton John song, I wonder what my kids would have looked like: would they inherit my double-jointed thumbs?; I would have loved them, even if they ended up looking a little bit like me. I remember walking home from UWM one day, a little boy pointed me out to his mom and said, "Is he a daddy?" His mother seemed a little embarrassed and said that I probably was.
Bloomberg Thinks the Appetite for US Debt is "Infinite"
It seems that even a billionaire can forget the virtues of the private sector after 11 years in government. This clip is bad enough:
“We are spending money we don’t have,” Mr. Bloomberg explained. “It’s not like your household. In your household, people are saying, ‘Oh, you can’t spend money you don’t have.’ That is true for your household because nobody is going to lend you an infinite amount of money. When it comes to the United States federal government, people do seem willing to lend us an infinite amount of money. … Our debt is so big and so many people own it that it’s preposterous to think that they would stop selling us more. It’s the old story: If you owe the bank $50,000, you got a problem. If you owe the bank $50 million, they got a problem. And that’s a problem for the lenders. They can’t stop lending us more money.”That's not true. It's true that the dollar has rallied given the euro's cascading issues and Japan's desperate attempt to jump-start its export economy by inflating its currency. But many countries have been diversifying into hard currencies (gold and silver). China has also been diversifying its trading partners and is less dependent on the US import market.And China and Japan, our two biggest international holders of Treasury notes are not upsizing their holdings. In a sense, Bloomberg is correct: China can't liquidate all its holdings in the short term without killing bond prices, which is counterproductive. Granted, the Fed's purchase of Treasury notes is picking up a lot of slack. The problem is that as the debt grows, so does its service. And Obama has not made it clear that debt service is the first bill paid when he accused the GOP of pushing the government into default over the debt limit. A lot of investors worry about a devaluation of the dollar, which would cut the value of existing Treasury notes. If foreign investors think their holdings are at risk, they will pare, not add to their positions. The problem is fewer and fewer believe that a $17T debt, never mind over $80T in unfunded liabilities, will ever be repaid when we can't even clear $3T in revenues a year. We have gone, in my lifetime, from the biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor nation. Nations are trading directly without using the dollar as the world reserve currency. The IMF wants to switch to a currency bundle of which the dollar is only one component. I rather doubt we'll encounter hyperinflation in a tepid growth economy, but I think it's entirely possible we will revisit stagflation and need to resort to high interest rates to break the back of inflation.
The second thing I really dislike in Bloomberg's interview is that he is dismissive to the idea there is waste in government; he basically argues one person's program is another person's waste. This is absolutely ludicrous--it's like arguing there's a purpose for the government to upkeep vacant properties, duplicate functionality, pay for RoboSquirrel or a Bridge to Nowhere, to bail out banks, to take taxpayer losses on Solyndra and failing public projects, for billions in Medicaid/Medicare fraud, etc.
After 4 Years, the Senate Gives Birth to a "Budget":
Thumbs DOWN!
This is little more than a state of denial. Let's start out by noting the little savings would be used to offset sequestration cuts, which is a step in the wrong direction; their target deficit would barely reach Bush's worst deficit. They barely touched Medicaid funding. About 3/4 of the cuts come out of discretionary defense funding which is roughly 20% of all spending. They would use a chunk of their savings to finance another $100B Keynesian spending binge.They seem willing to expunge the unpopular ObamaCare medical device tax and the Keystone pipeline project got a symbolic boost. I'm a little confused by an Internet sales tax applicable to a purchaser's home state: how does this impact federal revenues? This seems like a state protectionist policy, a bad idea. There's very little from this nonsense of a redemptive nature.
Mainstream Media Slowly But Surely
Getting the Message on Medicare Funding
I've heard a couple of more mainstream sources, in particular, David Gregory of Meet the Press posted a statistic (from a progressive source, of course), pointing out a fact I've published multiple times in the blog: today's recipients receive $3 in benefits for every $1 in taxes or premiums paid in. David Gregory, of course, is easily bait-and-switched by snake oil salesmen quickly reminding us of "savings" from reducing Medicare Advantage's subsidies (I don't like federal subsidies as a matter of principle, but this is an apples and oranges, anti-private sector agenda comparison.) Goodwin quotes:
- Medicare Advantage enrollees had 33% more doctor visits (presumably representing more primary care), yet experienced 18% fewer hospital days and 10% fewer hospital admissions than conventional Medicare patients.
- They had 27% fewer emergency room visits, 13% fewer avoidable admissions and 42% fewer readmissions.)
and cuts on already below-market prices. Come, now: the Congress has invariably voted "doc fixes" from automatic cuts in the 1990's in the hopes providers could find cost saving; they know it will be harder for government program participants to find care, a willing provider, if payments are too low.
David Gregory's eyes glaze over at the first mention of progressive talking points. Cato's Michael Cannon points out to the anti-competitive progressive healthcare monopolists that private insurance is far superior and efficient and as to the predictable red herring of profits: "According to the Congressional Budget Office, profits account for less than 3 percent of private health insurance premiums. CMS further estimates that it made $10.4 billion in improper payments in the fee-for-service Medicare program in 2008." Chris Edwards and Michael Cannon write a very good overview here at the Cato Downsizing website.
When you're a frustrated cardiologist, seeing 90% of patients dying waiting for an organ transplant, what do you do? Devote your career to the development of technologies aimed at regenerating usable organs. What I find particularly fascinating as a creative problem solver is how sometimes they have used highly adaptable stem cells, which seem to know what to do without scientist micromanagement, or use the body's existing capability to generate skin cells as an alternative to the technical difficulties of growing skin in a lab.
Republican Congressman Seeks To Bring
Virtual Lawmaker Experience To Congress
I would be lying if I said I hadn't previously thought about Congressman Pearce's proposal about being able to telecommute, particularly when dealing with health issues (e.g., stroke recovery; Gabby Giffords , etc.) But everyday? Perish the idea of Chuck Schumer delivering a filibuster in his skivvies! More seriously, I don't think this works as standard operating procedure; to give a simple example, consider the logistics of intelligence briefings. I just don't think the political process works without the human touch.
Proliferation of SWAT Raids, Etc.:
Whatever Happened to America?
I have written in the past about SWAT raids (e.g., the war on drugs) done on wrong, uncorroborated or obsolete addresses, with sleeping children awakening to weapons pointed at them, family pets killed, etc.
Political Cartoon
Not to worry: as I recall zombies snack on brains--which are in short supply at the White House and Fed....Now as to zombie banks, they're more interested in the Fed Reserve's and Obama's back pockets...I, of course, think of the Uncle Sam character as the Fed running out of policy gimmicks to fight off the impact of two decades of easy money policies coming home to roost. But if the reader is not familiar with context, the cartoonist is mocking Obama's out-of-touch insistence in a recent ABC interview that the debt is in control. Just one example: debt service increases with new debt. The Fed has been monetizing much new debt and returning interest income to the feds. Sooner or later the Fed will have to sell bonds, e.g., to reduce the money supply if inflation starts to heat up. The Treasury will have to offer higher interest to find buyers, and existing bond prices will drop. Debt service costs will explode, exacerbating the deficit and crowding out spending for other government programs, both domestic and defense.
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| Courtesy of Jerry Holbert and Townhall |
Backstreet Boys, "As Long As You Love Me"
