Teachers open the door,
but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese Proverb
Tweet of the Day
"The more laws, the less justice." Marcus Tullius Cicero . The paperback edition of the 2014 code of federal regulations sells for $1804.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) July 28, 2014
Chart of the Day |
| Via Reason |
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| Chicago vs. median Chicago household income 71,020 via IPI |
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| Via LFC |
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| Via Being Classically Liberal |
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| Reason's version of a pro-liberty healthcare reform bumper sticker |
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| Reason's suggestion of a new, more succinct healthcare reform bumper sticker |
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| Via Right Planet |
In the interim Cicero wrote De Officiis, which would be the second book published (after the Bible). I personally think Cicero does a good job of describing modern "progressives" here: "such generosity too often engenders a passion for plundering and misappropriating property, in order to supply the means for making large gifts. We may also observe that a great many people do many things that seem to be inspired more by a spirit of ostentation than by heart-felt kindness; for such people are not really generous but are rather influenced by a sort of ambition to make a show of being open-handed. Such a pose is nearer akin to hypocrisy than to generosity or moral goodness."
And this: "The man in an administrative office, however, must make it his first care that everyone shall have what belongs to him and that private citizens suffer no invasion of their property rights by act of the state...That speech deserves unqualified condemnation, for it favoured an equal distribution of property; and what more ruinous policy than that could be conceived? For the chief purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments was that individual property rights might be secured. For, although it was by Nature's guidance that men were drawn together into cornmunities, it was in the hope of safeguarding their possessions that they sought the protection of cities."
Is there any doubt what Cicero would think of today's corrupt populist "progressive" political whores? Are we pro-liberty patriots tilting at windmills, helplessly watching America lapse into the equivalent of the Roman republic decay into a failing, corrupt fusion authoritarian/public welfare state?
More on Statistics Abuse
I tend to get into the weeds sometimes on applied statistics and research methodology. A few weeks back, I gently criticized IPI on a topic where they reported the mean (average) vs. the median income figure. A simple example will make the point: consider 3 annual pensions: $10K, $15K, $50K. The average is $25K, the median $15. The average is somewhat distorted by the large pension. Notice in the second chart above, IPI reported both figures. Did my comment influence them? Maybe not; they never acknowledged my comment. But it does give us more information. One thing this tells us is that there are some big pension numbers, probably former six-figure administrators. One of the pension reforms I've been advocating is capping pensions, not unlike social security, and/or means-testing.
Another point I've frequently mentioned are all these inequality studies that compute summary statistics at 2 points in time and draw inferences; these inferences are invalid, because there is typically movement among the quintiles. I know my income, for instance, went down during/after the 2000-2002 market correction. A lot of consulting companies went under, and perm recruiters were wary about hiring overqualified applicants they might lose as the economy improved. And my income initially fell after leaving academia (not that I was an overpaid professor; I probably ranked in the lower half for my discipline--I knew other UH grads whom got much better offers) and sharply rose by the end of the 1990's. I'm not saying I'm typical, but a number of people, say, within 15-20 years of retirement at the start of the 2008 tsunami, have struggled. (One of my feeds over the weekend looked at record SSDI claims.) The point is that summary statistics tend to wash out movements; you really need to look at longitudinal data--income shifts over time for the same people.
The reason I mention that is that Reason has a related piece on a study showing some alleviation in childhood obesity in the Philadelphia area. Is it paternalistic school menus or school physical education? Improvements in home exercise and diet? Differing mix of public school students? The timing or nature of measurements during the school year? A one-time statistical blip? I have not reviewed the specifics of the study, but what I do know of the study falls far short of proving the statistical significance of any factor, like school lunches; they aren't even tracking the same students.
The Difficulty of Selling a Free Market Message on Healthcare
There's a reason I embedded the two prospective Reason bumper stickers on healthcare reform. It's far easier to come up with a "progressive" sticker like "universal health care", "single-payer", etc. Of course, they don't have to go into details, which is the self-mocking first sticker which is a good summary of reforms, but it doesn't lend itself easily to rolling off the tip of one's tongue. Most of all will go into detail about how tax-advantaged healthcare had its birth during the wage-price control days of WWII where millions of American young men at war left a war economy shorthanded. We'll talk about how paperwork, deferred, below-market reimbursement for government health programs discourage providers, the inability of price lists to keep pace with individual market nuances, the incredible inefficiency of using insurance to cover out-of-pocket expenses or the corrupt influence of special-interest groups to socialize costs, say, of in-vitro fertilization, sex-change operations, etc.
I have a simple bumper sticker: PRIVATIZE THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR. The second bumper sticker also works (ie., INNOVATE). Why? You have government inertia everywhere: occupation cartels, interstate barriers of entry, sluggish drug approvals, arbitrary rules, e.g., 23andme's low-cost genetic testing; etc. I've had my fair share of battles with the government bureaucrats; for instance, at one agency, I was having to maintain 4 years of database archive logs, none usable over 90 days. In another case, I wanted to install Oracle's then new 10G App Server on a test server (the reason: Oracle eventually desupports older versions of its software), which did not affect the target installation process otherwise, but I was threatened if I installed it without the project manager's approval and she was on vacation. In an earlier post, I was on a project for a Chicago agency then implementing version 10.7 of Oracle's ERP suite. I had a heated discussion, pointing out Oracle had already released 11.0.x, and if we installed 10.7, the agency would have to upgrade within 2 years; it made no sense. I was told to shut up, that the contract specified 10.7. (No doubt they wanted a Phase 2 contract...) Granted, these aren't healthcare examples, but I never got this sort of pushback at private-sector clients.
The problem is that you don't have the same incentives operating in the public sector. For instance, the FDA may be anal-retentive about approvals just in case there is some unexpected problem with an approved med, and they might get hauled in front of Congressional panels to be read the riot act. It's hard to count how many people may have saved if a med was approved earlier than later. You also aren't going to see the kinds of efficiency gains, say by implementing labor-saving technology, given various union-related considerations. I've mentioned in earlier posts how my UWM office overhead lights burned out, and it took several days before someone would do a 10-minute procedure. (Of course, union contracts prohibited me from changing my own lights.) I'm not saying CYA doesn't occur, say, in some large corporations, but it's pervasive throughout government.
Innovation just isn't possible with the current federal government. I think Obama made a past reference to something like 15 different offices dealing with salmon issues. You have turf battles, duplication of effort and resources, etc. That's why when someone says "single-payer", I have to roll my eyes; I mean it takes decades to drop obsolete taxes. You don't want government in charge of your healthcare. In the private sector you have the possibility of competition; in a single-payer system, the government is its own auditor, and there is no higher authority. What could go wrong with that?
By the way, check out the Reason link: there are about 3 webpages of suggested innovative reforms, starting with health status insurance, say, for example, if you develop a high-cost condition, i.e., dealing with the preexisting conditions problem.
Dance With His 11YO Daughter
I'm probably the only one whom hasn't seen this video of McKenzie Carey, whom has mitochondria, but God bless the unlimited love of a father for his baby girl.
More Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie via Townhall |
Billy Joel, "The Stranger"
