Miscellany: 11/13/13

Quote of the Day
All that I am, or hope to be, 
I owe to my angel mother.
Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

Image of the Day

Via LFC

He's obviously had a little too much Paul Krugman...

Chicago City Finances About To Hit Inflection Point

Courtesy of Illinois Policy Institute

Heck of a job you're doing, Mayor Dead Fish.... Dabrowski's piece (cited above) focuses on the fact that Chicago just received its second triple notch downgrade since summer as Fitch joined Moody's in rating Chicago's debt just 4 notches above junk status. The credit agencies are warning that unless the city makes substantive reforms in its chronically underfunded pension system, the city is teetering on the edge of accelerating into a financial spiral of crowding out essential operational funding. The city has already closed dozens of schools and put a hiring freeze on police recruits--and property taxes would have to more than double just to plug the pension hole, all but politically impossible. Dabrowski points out that the Illinois state legislature has only dealt with one chunk of the problem--Chicago Park District (yes, I know it well). The so-called "fix" doesn't really call for sacrifice from public sector workers (i.e., benefit givebacks) and (of course) calls for tax hikes. Dabrowski sees this, at best, as little more than a short-term patch; he doesn't explicitly spell out his policy preference, but it seems a no-brainer than new/younger employees need to migrate to a defined contribution (e.g., 403B) vs. benefit/pension system and there must be scaled-back pension/any relevant healthcare program distributions. There is just no way the city can pay up to three decades or more of benefits to retirees given the city's failure to kick up the necessary amounts on an ongoing basis. It would be in the best interests of the unions to make concessions now; taxpayers will not be happy over steep tax hikes to pay public sector retirees with better retirement benefits than they themselves have, not to mention reduced city services.

Facebook Corner

(LFC). In a real free market, how do you survive as a small business with big business competition?
Big businesses are often slow to respond to change (and worry about things like cannibalizing other lines of business), and there are often market niches where they don't see enough profit to make it worth their while. One of the things my maternal grandfather, whom owned a mom-and-pop grocer, did was form alliances with other small grocers in other territories for cross-promotion and/or pricing power. He also used to do things like home delivery service and other value-added services, like service after store hours. Quite often you realize opportunities in everyday life--for example, as a bachelor, I find it difficult to coordinate routine auto service, sign for deliveries, or fit medical appointments around work hours, especially when I commute a distance to work.

(Libertarian Republic). There's something going on in this country, and it's big! More and more people are getting turned on to liberty every day it seems. Have you noticed more people "coming out of the closet" as a libertarian?
I think for a lot of folks like me the super-majority swept into power after the 2008 election led to "progressives" running up the score on a long wishlist. We went from a national debt two-thirds of our economy to the status quo--with very little to show for it, and no chance of ever paying down on the debt, with at least $80T in Enron-like unfunded liabilities. We know this is not going to end well. It's not enough to tweak around the edges. It's time for us all to ally ourselves with anybody rejecting decades of failed "progressive" policies.

Via LFC

 There is honor among legal plunderers.

(The Milton Friedman group)."I am a libertarian with a small "l" and a Republican with a capital "R". And I am a Republican with a capital "R" on grounds of expediency, not on principle." --Milton Friedman 
Moi aussi. And I'm losing patience with those whom claim not to see a difference between the party that architects Ponzi schemes and the regulatory regime choking the economy and the outnumbered opposition. Even when it comes to war, our four bloodiest wars in the twentieth century peaked under a Democrat President.

Via LFC

 And the government would run a deficit doing it. And we could drive to wherever government roads let us.

(LFC). "By a 2-to-1 margin, more Americans believe the Affordable Care Act will make the quality of their health care worse than better...A Quinnipiac survey released Tuesday shows that only 19% of Americans believe the quality of their healthcare will improve because of the ACA" So, when this flops (as I suspect it was planned to do), will they immediately push a complete socialist health care monopoly i.e. single payer? (Teal)
 I think that's a possibility--they will try to blame "greedy" insurance companies for the high costs of guaranteed issue, community rating, and various special-interest mandates. I think, though, Harry Reid was more politically opportunistic than devious. I see no chance of ObamaCare of being a political winner for the Dems, and I don't think that most people, already opposed to the plan, will believe that nationalizing healthcare will be an improvement to the status quo. I think the Statists have lost the argument of government competence. The problem is what do you do with the people who are being subsidized under the current system? What I think could happen is spinning off federal risk pools to the states in a Medicaid-like cost/share arrangement. I am not hopeful we'll see true free market reforms like selling policies across state lines, occupational licensing reform, no-frills catastrophic plans, etc., but the true test will be what happens when young/healthy people pay the fine rather than buy overpriced plans. The government will need to shore up those plans and where will the money come from? Bottom line, I don't think the American people will elect a Dem super-majority to nationalize health care.

Bastiat Institute asked for reaction to some Salon rant against thanking military veterans on the recent federal holiday. I have little interest in reading anything published by Salon, but decided to respond to the concept in the post heading...
I don't understand why we thank people for fulfilling a contract. I rarely, if ever, got thanked for my contributions as a professor or IT consultant. Granted, I did not risk my life. As a former Air Force brat, I understand the personal sacrifices. I do admire the commitment, the sense of civic duty, but the real reward is intrinsic from a job well done; we don't require or need external validation of our effort. I would prefer that we not unduly risk blood and treasure on some politician's interventionist policy preferences.

Political Humor

Many scam artists are trying to take advantage of the problems with the Obamacare website. Experts say you can tell it's a scam site if it quickly and efficiently signs you up for healthcare. - Conan O'Brien

And offers affordable premiums.

It just came out that President Obama brings a portable security tent with him on overseas trips so that he can read classified documents. They set this tent up in his hotel room. Obama said it's a good way to avoid being spied on while he keeps track of who he has spied on. - Jimmy Fallon

I know where the NSA got the idea for this one:



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary McCoy and Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Ipod Shuffle Series

BJ Thomas, "Don't Worry, Baby". This remake of the Beach Boys' classic has lyrics tweaked to make it more of a general love song. Thomas is one of my favorite vocalists--everything from "The Eyes of a New York Woman" (my first girlfriend was from New York) to "Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love?".