Beware the Ides of March...
Quote of the Day
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
George Orwell
On the Blessings of Immigration
On Parental Rights and Healthcare
Against Crony Unionist Abuse
My Greatest Hits: March 2014
Troll Stomping
What we need is less government micromanagement of the healthcare sector, which exacerbates sector inflation, and restoration of a functional free market. We need to see more senior citizen skin in the game and less unsustainable "all you care to use" health services bundling.
You 'free market' is just a way to starve out everyone except the rich and the few slaves they need to serve them
Wrong, lady. Supermarkets, WalMart, etc. don't make money by selling exclusively to the 1%; they sell at prices lower-income people can afford. Everything we take for granted today--running toilets, electricity, computers, etc.--were unavailable to even wealthy people until recent history. Did you know the government during the Depression used to manipulate markets to guarantee good/high prices for farm goods? That it was illegal to sell at a lower price even if the farmer was more efficient than his competition and could sell more at lower prices? Who do you think benefits from this? Maybe the less efficient farmers and their bankers, not the consumers. The same thing happens all across planned economies. In healthcare, there are many ways to cut costs without government meddling--increased utilization of nurse-practitioners, no-paperwork concierge services, allow more groups to self-insure, pooling and/or marketing across state lines, eliminate special-interest benefit mandates. I could go on and on. Government gets in the way of innovations leading to lower prices, greater competition and consumer convenience, more products and services.
Facebook Corner
(Illinois Policy Institute). Should you need a prescription to buy cold medicine? State Sen. Dave Koehler thinks so, and he has introduced a bill that would require just that for medicines you’ve always been allowed to buy over the counter.
Do we really want doctors tied up writing prescriptions every winter? That'll really contain healthcare costs... We'll have pushers on every corner peddling Sudafed's...This is the kind of pushing-on-a-string insanity that happens when legislators have too much time on their hands.
One more stupid politician
"Stupid politician" is redundant.
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| Courtesy of the original artist via the Independent Institute |
(Illinois Policy Institute). A new bill proposed in Illinois would allow arbitrators to impose “minimum staffing requirements” on local fire departments. While this might seem like a minor, technical matter, it has the potential to impose major costs on taxpayers, as elected officials from communities such as Rockford and Oak Lawn are warning in a video from the Illinois Municipal League.Why would the people empower unaccountable bureaucrats in this way? Bottom line is this unduly ties the hands of municipal government to control costs and burdens the taxpayer at the expense of crony unionists...
(Tom Woods). It's probably just a coincidence, but I find the people who scream the loudest for tolerance, and who implicitly condemn everyone who isn't them, are in their personal lives the most hateful and petty people I know.
Hypocritical "progressives" whom believe only their self-serving politically correct rhetoric is tolerable? Whom believe in diversity, except for contrary ideas? Whom believe in the scrutiny of everyone's behavior than their own? No kidding...
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| Via Drudge Report |
(Illinois Policy Institute). Chicago continued its decline when two of the city’s sister governments suffered another round of credit downgrades. Moody’s =downgraded both Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District. Chicago is on the hook for more than $63 billion in long-term debt, pension and retiree health insurance shortfalls. That’s more than $23,000 in debt for each and every Chicagoan.
I had the misfortunate of working for both entities separately as a contractor/subcontractor while I lived in Illinois, not for the leadership, but with lower-level IT managers, whom couldn't manage failing projects. For example, in one case, the contract called for installing an older release of enterprise software which would need an expensive upgrade within 2 years to accommodate vendor support contracts. I was told to keep my mouth shut when I objected, and I demanded off the project. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so I'm not surprised at all.
(Cato Institute). "The Board’s changes are intended to make the SAT more fair. In practice, they seem likely to make it less useful. And as its usefulness diminishes, so will the number of colleges using it."
This is more of the same redistribution of outcomes madness. Possibly because of a background in test development and validation, I prided myself on my ability to write items with good discriminating characteristics (i.e., better students answered correctly while less able students got them wrong). It was remarkable how my college students would cluster in a stable ranking across tests. When I factored in curves for grade distributions, I was more likely to loss out questions students uniformly missed. I didn't see exams as self-esteem encounters. Actual student reactions ranged from "this was my first real college test" to calling them virtual lobotomies... (Of course, there was the infamous "beer test" as in how many beers it took to forget them...)
(Citizens Against Government Waste). A bipartisan unemployment extension deal was reached earlier this week, and the legislation contained language spear-headed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Senator Coburn’s provision ends unemployment insurance payments to any individual whose adjusted gross
income in the preceding year was $1 million or more.
Eight million illegal immigrants, including visa overstays, are working in, non-agriculture, American jobs, by using false, or stolen SS numbers. Only 7% of the over 7 million employers are using E-Verify. E-Verify has a 99.71% accuracy rate (per recent Congressional testimony) ... only 0.043% of employers (3,000) were audited for I-9 compliance in 2012. With each passing day, more illegal immigrants are on the way, taking our work. Using SS mismatches, DHS knows where these illegal immigrants are working. Enforce our existing laws against illegal immigration. Cost of Federal Unemployment Compensation Extensions (CBO):
FY2007 37 FY2008 47 FY2009 120 FY2010 162 FY2011 126 FY2012 96 FY2013 72 = $660 Billion .
All hard-working residents pay taxes. Stop worshiping the growth-crippling anti-competitive State bureaucracy and embrace the win-win contribution of economic liberty....
Political Cartoon
Even jackasses don't like drinking the Koolaid!
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| Courtesy of the original artists via Illinois Policy Institute |
Bonnie Tyler, "It's a Heartache". I would love to hear Rod Stewart do a duet with Tyler, maybe throw Joe Cocker into the mix...
