Another one bites the dust

When you lose Bob Herbert...

Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there’s a catch. It’s not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans.

(italics, ours)

Possibly too late but more and more people are coming around to the inescapable conclusion that Obamacare, because of how it’s rigged, will most certainly entail rationing.

A shovel-ready union rally coming to a town near you

Well, well, well… Look who came to town a couple of days ago looking for work.

The national head of the AFL-CIO came to San Diego yesterday to push for more funding for federal jobs programs and to throw his support behind a City Hall effort to ensure that workers on government infrastructure projects be hired locally.

Richard Trumka, a former coal miner who was elected to head the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in September, said that even though the economy appears to be recovering from the recession, the job market still looks “pretty grim” and will require more government action to help put people back to work.

“Local jobs are the key to everything,” he told a crowd of around 250 union activists at a rally at the south lawn adjoining the San Diego Convention Center. Most were wearing red T-shirts bearing the words “Local Jobs.”

Dear Big Labor, kiss our lily white suburban ass. Hundreds of union construction workers who are currently out of work could’ve been gainfully employed at this very moment if it wasn’t for your obstinacy.

Just over a year ago Gaylord Entertainment of Nashville, Tenn., finally threw in the towel and scrapped plans to build a $1 billion hotel-convention center complex on Chula Vista’s waterfront just south of San Diego. Gaylord, knowing that union wages would drive up the cost of the project tried to negotiate with the city and the unions a ratio of union/non-union jobs. Gaylord felt that the most equitable ratio was a 50/50 split. Big Labor told Gaylord no dice. It was all or nothing, take it or leave it. 100% union jobs or no deal.

As a result, 250 unemployed union workers turned out for a rally outside San Diego’s own convention center pleaing for more of your tax dollars to build stuff that may or may not be needed or wanted.

We’re wondering if the irony of the rally location was found on any of these people.

It is precisely because of situations like this (combined with our long memory) that we despise Big Labor.

We waited 7 years for that?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday revisited central goals that have eluded him his entire governorship as he proposed a new jobs program and warned of another painful budget year in his final State of the State address to the Legislature.

The governor also proposed a constitutional amendment that would require the state to spend more on higher education than it does on prisons every year.

Sigh.

Those were the big ideas of how Governor Schwarzenegger was going to get California back on its feet. A training program funded by god-knows-what because we are broke to the tune of $20 billion and growing and a bizarre constitutional amendment that would neither reduce crime nor necessarily improve the quality of higher education which is not even the level of education that needs the most help in this state.

Look, nothing is going to improve the situation in this state right now until we get the CALPERS pension situation under control. We’re blogging on the fly and don’t have any good numbers in front of us but when the state employees union set their current pension agreement with the state back at the height of the tech boom in 1999, they tied benefits to some truly outrageous stock market expectations for the decades to come. We are hamstrung by the defined benefits that the stock market has not been able to cover and this situation will get even worse as time goes on.

There are some other, smaller things we can do though, to help put a dent in labor’s influence in Sacramento. A ballot initiative is afoot to make it illegal to use taxpayer money, deducted from the paychecks of state employees, for political purposes.

Steve Poizner, who is running for governor, is backing the initiative. W.C. Varones describes Poizner thusly, “…a long-time undistinguished moderate politician running for governor as a born-again reformist-populist-conservative…” We couldn’t help but think that describes Schwarzenegger but in reverse.

Anyway, get ye over to W.C.’s place for details on that and another fine idea regarding our legislature. Hint: it works just fine in Texas.

P.S. And while we’re on the subject of ballots and elections, swing by K.T.’s joint, who has a few words on the upcoming special election in Massachusetts on Jan. 19th to find a replacement for Ted Kennedy’s vacated Senate seat.

Perspective

Was the last 10 years really as sucky as we think it was or that we were told it was?

Still, most economic models suggest that the fundamental source of growth is new ideas, which enable us to produce more from a given set of resources. To the extent that the rest of the world becomes wealthier, there’s more innovation, as my colleague and co-blogger Alex Tabarrok, professor of economics at George Mason University, argued recently. China, for instance, is moving toward the research frontier in areas such as solar power, scientific instruments, engineering and nanoscience, all of which can benefit the United States. Unlike the situation of just a few decades ago, a genius born in Mumbai now stands a good chance of becoming a notable scientist, whether at home or abroad.

We tend to focus on big events like wars or big atrocious events like 9-11 but linked article argues that globally-speaking the Oh-Nos weren’t too shabby.

We blog, you decide.

The ends one will need to go to escape Obamacare

So, it’s supposed to be about equality and equal access, right?

That would explain why the longshoremen’s union is exempt from the excise tax on the “Cadillac plans” and also the survival of full Medicare Advantage benefits in Florida to the exclusion of everywhere else.

Equality of Obamacare is also illustrated by the fact that we will all be chipping in for Nebraska’s share of Medicare… forever. And let’s not forget about religious equality in Obamacare. The amish are exempt altogether from Obamacare.

“There is a religious exemption in the bill,” said Roseanne Placey, spokeswoman with the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance, “which would apply to them, since they believe the religious duty of communities is to provide for one another when they are sick.”

Caring for each other through personal and/or private philanthropic means? What a concept.

But expect this massive statist incursion into our lives to choke-off even more of the self-reliant charitable spirit that is a manifestation of American exceptionalism.

After all, the government’s got it all covered, right?

Still coverin' after all these years

Chris Dodd: bye.


WaPo article reporting on Dodd’s retirement duly notes his “faltering poll numbers” but waits until the very last paragraph to (oh, by the way) mention Dodd’s scandalous involvement with Countrywide Financial.

The L.A. Times by comparison is a yellow rag by jumping on the Countrywide gravy train half-way through their Dodd retires article.

Community organizer update

Do you remember the voter intimidation case involving two night stick-wielding Black Panthers at a Philly voting location during the Presidential election of ’08?

These would be the same two Black Panthers of whom career Justice Department lawyers spent months putting together their case which included an affidavit from a prominent 60s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as, "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.

These two Black Panthers are to be totally confused with the Black Panthers that completely blew off a court summons that was issued based on the strength of the DoJ case.

And these two Black Panthers are also to be confused with the Black Panthers whose case against them was inexplicably dropped by politically-appointed higher-ups in the DoJ led by that miserable hack who is currently running the show there – an action by which the Civil Rights Commission, a group so ideologically splintered they couldn’t organize a rock fight, has been rebuffed in a near-unanimous effort to seek an official explanation for Justice’s action.

Do you remember those guys, now?

Well, we’re happy to report that heads are finally beginning to roll regarding this complete travesty.

The veteran Justice Department voting rights section chief who recommended going forward on a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party after they disrupted a Pennsylvania polling place in last year's elections has been removed from his post and transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina.

What? The man who okayed the investigation is the one getting whacked?

And the reassignment to South Caroling is no insignificant legal matter as far as the Blank Panther case goes because Coates who was willing to testify to the Civil Rights Commission but denied from doing so by his DoJ superiors is forbidden from giving testimony according to 42 USC Sec. 1975 which limits the Commission’s subpoena power to within 100 miles of where the witness lives or does business.

Now, that’s just outstanding. As far as politicizing political appointees and completely undermining the concept of justice this is all blue ribbon-worthy.

Of course, we’re sure that the irony of an administration that is descendant of the efforts of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s would work so callously and dismissively to subvert and make a mockery of those very hard-fought efforts is not lost on you all, dear readers.

And what is so puzzling to us is why? Why expend the political capital on a couple of bullies… a couple of community organizers? Guess (political) blood is thicker than water afterall.

Obamacare myths and contradictions

The big argument in favor of Obamacare: while the legislation is flawed it has to be passed as it will improve on the existing healthcare system and just like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid it will get better and better over time. For legislation that will nationalize 1/6th of the economy and will most certainly dictate the terms and quality of your health care, how’s that for a closer?

Unfortunately, the aged-like-fine-wine conjecture is not extended to medical innovations. In the mind of the statist, a horrendously expensive and inefficient bureaucracy’s start-up costs must be ignored because the bureaucracy will most certainly wind up even more horrendously expensive and inefficient.

However, medical innovations that may be prohibitively expensive when first brought to market must be banned or rationed because of that expense, ignoring the fact that, if effective, capital will flow to fund further development of that technology in order to bring the costs down thus making it more affordable across the board.

Recall there was a time when polio vaccine was prohibitively expensive. How would you like a world where that vaccine was rationed, or worse, never allowed to come to market. The statist mindset, however, is not pliable enough to understand the rationalities of market forces and that is why Obamacare will be a complete disaster.


We purchased a 42” plasma hi-def television 5 yrs. ago for $4200. Just this past July, we purchased a state-of-technology LCD which represented a simultaneous leap in technology and quality as well as energy efficiency for $1800 (and if we we’re more “shoppers” than “buyers”, we probably could’ve got an even better deal).. So, in a span of 5 short years we purchased a technically superior and more environmentally friendly product for nearly 60% less. And one sees the same dynamic in computers and cell phones, as well.

Technological innovation happens.


Unfortunately, as we pointed out above, the statist mindset doesn’t believe the same market dynamic exists with medical innovation when it most certainly does.

When Obamacare proponents start talking about the morality of equality with respect to healthcare what they are talking about is expensive treatments that may be available to only a certain segment of the population and they will trot out this curious breed of individuals called “bioethists” to make the claim that rationing is the just and right thing to do.

Here’s some light cast upon the subject by bioethicist, Daniel Callahan:

"Cutting the use of technology will seem wrong—even immoral—to many."

Notice the reverse psychology that is implied. His going-in position is that rationing is desirable and that fact may confound you knaves out there in fly-over country, bless your hearts.

And this remains one of the most curious elements of the healthcare debate: Obamacare proponents will raise holy hell if anyone even suggests “death panels” or “rationing” and then in the very next breath will, straight-faced, tell us that rationed care is actually a desirable standard operating practice for your personal health.

Crappy healthcare for all!

Going back to the Terry Schiavo atrocity, we are finding the term “bioethist” to be the most ironic of terms in the most un-funny of ways.

B-Daddy has an excellent piece on medical technology innovation and advancement and rationing in Obamacare plus some more wisdom from Callahan that we encourage everyone to read, here.

Quote of the day...

... and some not-so-random thoughts

"People are receptive to this message of anti-corporate imperialism," Thompson says. "But they're receptive to it precisely because of a big corporation's brilliant marketing machine."

Is the irony of preaching anti-corporate imperialism from Hollywood’s seat of power of cultural-corporate imperialism lost on directors like "Avatar’s" James Cameron? Maybe. Maybe not.

We haven’t decided on whether or not to go and see “Avatar” but whether we do or not won’t be informed by any political slant the movie may have.

If politics guided our music listening, a scarce collection of CDs, err, iPod selections it would be. Some Kinks, some Rush, maybe some George Harrison and that would be about it. No Dylan, no open border lefties like Calexico and certainly no straight-up commies like Rage Against the Machine… which is having its own bout with irony as we have heard/seen their music tied-in with a Tea Party video.

After the Presidential innauguration last January, we joked with an ultra-liberal friend of ours when would be the best time to perform a bumper sticker swap.

It just seems that politics in pop culture or on the back of a car tends to be amorphous enough to be used by either side given the context and some message-tweaking.

Nope. The biggest thing “Avatar” has going against it at this point is actually having to submit ourselves to the abjectly dehumanizing experience of going to the multi-plex.

It's mostly like, boring chemistry stuff...

...so we'll keep it short.

With all the resources, technology and efforts going into the practice of mining rare earths, elements critical to components in green technology (think: batteries), but which remains a practice that is ruinous to the environment and all but locked up by the Chi-comms, one might think those same arduous efforts might better be applied to something that clearly has more tangible benefit to society… like brewing beer.

KT has been doing some yeoman’s work on the subject of rare earths, here.

And we had some thoughts, ourselves, on rare earths and the current market viability of green technology, here.

New year, same garbage. (UPDATED)

Because nothing says “we’re proud of what’s in this bill" like pre-dawn and Christmas Eve votes, completely opaque “negotiations” and multi-hundred million dollar payoffs.

But it’s a new year and now that the House and Senate healthcare bills will need to be reconciled, maybe those conference committee negotiations will be televised live on C-SPAN just like the President promised, right?

Not quite.

Despite their claims to the contrary, the way that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have handled the healthcare bill has been anything but transparent. And, if the left-wing blogosphere is to be believed, the two congressional leaders intend to keep the deliberations secret as they try to merge the House and Senate versions of the legislation into something that will pass both chambers.

Legislation this important to the American people can’t be held up by anything as icky as parliamentary procedure, can it? The talking points going out will be that this method will remove the roadblocks set up by obstructionist Republicans when the reality is that House Democrats, like Bart Stupak, he of the anti-abortion Stupak amendment are just as nettlesome, if not more.

Every single feature in this bill and particularly every step along the legislative process path has convinced us this bill has nothing to do with improving healthcare but rather with passing something… anything for the sake of checking off “healthcare reform” on the presidential to-do list.

There’s no real reform in this bill. The net effect of Obamacare will be the increased subsidization of a flawed healthcare system that, over the years, will be dragged further downward under its own weight.

Features like the public option, if they are not in the final version that winds up on the President’s desk for signature, will worm its way into the system over the years via incrementalism.

Or as Paul Krugman would put it, Obamacare like any other great social safety net program we have instituted would just get better over time.

Just like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, eh, Krugman?


(UPDATE #1): Welcome to the struggle, C-SPAN...

When President Barack Obama was campaigning for the job in 2008, he vowed that he would bring greater transparency to government—especially when it comes to health care reform legislation:

We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.

Now C-SPAN is asking precisely for that. Its CEO, Brain Lamb, has sent a letter to House and Senate leaders, requesting that his network be permitted to broadcast the final negotiations, as the two chambers work out the differences between each body's version of the legislation:

As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.

The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of these sessions LIVE and in their entirety. We will also, as we willingly do each day, provide C-SPAN’s multi-camera coverage to any interested member of the Capitol Hill broadcast pool.

Yawn.

This plea for transparency would’ve been helpful when Congress returned to work in September after it’s summer break not now when the bill is mashed-up bag of fait accompli. Thanks for the timely and courageous hold-their-feet-to-the-fire request, C-SPAN.