Really? You mean a patchwork quilt of non-standardized, for-profit health insurance plans has created a healthcare system that could not possibly mobilize enough general practice doctors to assist in the event of a real national emergency like, say, nuclear meltdown?
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Interesting Background Piece
If you're wondering about the mechanics behind the budget talks, this is a prety good expose of how the two sides are viewing each other.
Cannon Fodder
Illustrating the point I made earlier, Michael Gerson of the WaPo points out that Obama has the GOP cornered: damned if they do, damned if they don't
Time to make a prediction: The government will shut down promptly at 5PM Friday afternoon. Miraculously, a budget deal will be reached just in time for the evening news on Sunday, but late enough that the Sunday talk shows will feature waves of Teabaggers crowing.
Words of Wisdom
Interesting article up at Minyanville:
From Jesse's Café Américain:We now have an economy in which five banks control over 50 percent of the entire banking industry, four or five corporations own most of the mainstream media, and the top one percent of families hold a greater share of the nation's wealth than any time since 1930. This sort of concentration of wealth and power is a classic setup for the failure of a democratic republic and the stifling of organic economic growth.A systematic plan to create the illusion of stability and provide no-risk profits to the mega-Wall Street banks was implemented in early 2009 and continues today. The plan was developed by Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and the CEOs of the Wall Street banking syndicate. The plan has been enabled by the FASB, SEC, IRS, FDIC and politicians in Washington DC. This master plan has funneled hundreds of billions from taxpayers to the banks that created the greatest financial collapse in world history. The authorities had a choice. This country has bankruptcy laws. The criminally negligent Wall Street banks could have been liquidated in an orderly bankruptcy. Their good assets could have been sold off to banks that did not take their extreme greed-based risks. Bondholders and stockholders would have been wiped out. Today, we would have a balanced banking system, with no "too big to fail" institutions. Instead, the years of placing their cronies within governmental agencies and buying off politicians paid big dividends for Wall Street. Their return on investment has been fantastic.
Go read the entire thing. It's a treatise on how we got here, with visual aids.
Words To Live By, Words To Regret
"At a time when the economy is still coming out of an extraordinarily deep recession, it would be inexcusable -- given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to numbers between the two parties -- that we can't get this done," Obama said last night at the White House.
Obama has played this budget debacle exactly right, in my opinion, and it's paying huge dividends for Democrats across the nation. He has come off as statesman-like and put no political capital on the line here.
Conservative pundits have been screeching like seagulls about how Obama needs to be more involved, how it's wrong of him to go off to fundraisers for 2012 while the nation faces a crisis, yadayadayada.
First, one wonders where these asshats were during the 6 1/2 years that Bush spent down in Crawford through things like Katrina, but I digress.
The Constitution is pretty clear about the delineation of budget responsibilities: it falls to Congress. What the conservative tactics tell me is, Pelosi and Reid have been playing hardball, drawing lines in the sand and refusing to commit to anything beyond them.
Those lines must be pretty fair ones, too, for moderates or we'd hear a lot of complaining about how entrenched the Dems are being, how special interests are playing fast and loose with the budget and so on. Too, we'd hear that the sides are very far apart. Obama has made a particular point of noting the narrow gap between the two sides.
Clearly, conservatives feel they can get a better deal from Obama. To his credit, he's refused to upend his Congressional leadership.
Contrast Obama with this:
Boehner 'No daylight' between tea party and me:
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Republican Political Strategy
Shorter Boener:
The President is NOT supposed to show leadership on the budget, you idiot. He made his proposal weeks ago. Now it's up to Congress, which actually HAS the Constitutional mandate....heh heh...mandate...Republicans...the Constitutional mandate to pass a budget!
Isn't It Ironic, Dontcha Think?
Offered without comment, because the judge says it better than I could.
Thrown Under His Own Bus
So that now raises the number of TV networks Beck has been tossed off to two, along with some 81* radio stations
Take the hint, dipstick. You're tired, your audience is old and retarded, and you are now officially irrelevant.
* possible exaggeration
Crossing Fingers
I want to wish Brian Ferry a speedy recovery. I hope you're not heading to Avalon too soon.
Yes, This Is How You Respect Your Elders
There's a really nice analysis of Paul Ryan's Folly at Time.com:
So you're asking people who have no money to buy private insurance with funds that would normally go towards food, clothing or shelter.
Yea, that'll work...
Democracy Inaction
If in a year when your governor is spitting in your face, your taxes are about to skyrocket while you get less for your money, you're still this apathetic, then you deserve what you're about to get.
Admittedly, it's a lot higher than the norm, but still...
A Life Sentence
...to jury duty.
This I can get behind. It's a responsibility, and you takes your chances, to be sure. I bet she's the first to whine about her taxes, too.
Tax Cuts For The Rich On The Backs Of The Dying
Jonathan Chait uncovers the real secret behind Ryan's Dope:
Ryan doesn't mention the tax cuts, of course, because they unravel the entire rationale for his proposal. Americans overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan understands he can only make his plan acceptable if those cuts are seen as necessary to save the programs.
And certainly some level of cutting is necessary. But Ryan's level of cutting goes far beyond what's needed to preserve those programs, and it does so in order to clear room for a very large, regressive tax cut. He is making a choice -- not just cut Medicare to save Medicare, but also to cut Medicare in order to cut taxes for the rich.
Ryan does not want to debate that choice, but he ought to be forced to do so.
How Is The Deposition Of Mubarak Like September 11?
Twice in a decade now, hitherto neglected non-state actors have seemingly come from nowhere to fundamentally alter both America's perception of the Middle East and the history of the region itself. Unfortunately, Americans were too mesmerised by the spectre of their own power to see such things coming.
At this juncture, as Americans ponder their future relationship with the Arab world, they might do well to consider the ideas of an important, but neglected theorist of political power, John Howard Yoder. He offered the sound insight that state power (whether 'soft', 'smart' or 'hard') is not equivalent to real power and that he who wields the sword is not the source of agency or creativity in history.
I Can't Say This Often Enough
These people are bat-shit fucking insane
I watched that documentary, which is done in an even-handed way, although it tips its hand to the conclusions the film-maker drew.
But Teabaggers...there's no compromise. There's only elimination.
One Positive Out Of Ryan's Dope....
It's going to keep the White House in Democratic hands, and quite possibly give us the House back!
I can't imagine the Republicans, who are all about sacrificing the national good for a power grab, are going to do this lightly.
But they appear to be.
Ventura Highway
Anybody remember Jesse "The Governor" Ventura?
He ran as a maverick, an independent who would clean up Minnesota's fiscal house and cut through the bureaucracy.
A former Navy SEAL and professional wrestler, he became the most unlikely governor in recent memory. He had strong streaks of libertarian thought, and made for a coloful candidate.
And a lousy governor, as it turned out. He was practically run out of state on a rail.
Here's the problem with voting out of anger: you make bad choices, and worse decisions.
The One-Percent Solution
According to President Obama, Congressional Republicans and his office are less than one percent away from a temporary budget deal.
I have an idea.
In order to bridge the gap between the Republicans budget axe and Obama's budget scalpel, how about we shut the wars in Afghanistan and Libya down, and the occupation in Iraq?
You know, it doesn't have to be a troop pullout. We can simply have a "peace holiday:" a short-term cessation of all military activities. Let the troops enjoy the sunshine, soak up local culture, and mingle amongst the citizens of those nations.
We'll save bookoo money on munitions, fuel, reconaissance. All of that will go towards funding important things like feeding the hungry back here at home, helping someone find a job, keeping our borders secure, cleaning up the environment ahead of the busy summer travel season, and Social Security checks flowing.
After all, the cynical timing-- after Social Security checks for April had been sent and cashed-- surely did not play into the Republicans strategy, did it?
That should more than close the gap between both sides and allow time for the rest of us to ridicule the Republican budget proposal for 2012 sufficiently that they tuck their tales between the candyass cheeks and suck it up as the losers they are.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Um...HOLY SHIT! PANIC!
OK, panic is premature, but you know...worry?
Well, I mean, it's not like we couldn't have forseen this, say, back in the 1970s (*koffkoffJIMMYCARTERkoffkoff*)
Budget Follies, Part 2
OK, here's the nub of the GOP plan that really starts the humour ball rolling:
In the Ryan proposal, some of the biggest changes would occur in Medicare, the health program for the elderly and disabled, and Medicaid, the health program for the poor. Medicare in 2022 would be converted into a "premium support" system, meaning beneficiaries would choose from an array of private insurance plans, with government helping pay the premium.
Remember those Teabagger rallies against healthcare reform? The ones with the signs "Keep Government Out Of My Medicare"?
Yea, there it is: Ryan's plan will quasi-privatize healthcare for seniors, while raising their premiums. In case you don't have an elderly relative, Medicare is a separate payment made by the Social Security Administration into the medicare system, separate from your Social Security check. At the end of the year, you may have to pay taxes on this amount (admittedly, pretty small).
No HMO in their right mind is going to accept the Medicare premium against a policy. This means that your premiums will go up, flat out. For someone on a fixed income that's forcing a choice between healthcare and eating.
Of course, most Republicans only know wealthy seniors who can afford this, but I digress...
Too, the aged population of Medicare almost guarantees that premiums for non-seniors will skyrocket too, as the insured pool suddenly gets much older and more important, much sicker. Remember....fixed income...choices...not every senior eats so healthy or can afford a healthclub membership.
Except the wealthy Republican seniors, but I digress...
So you're basically seeing the dismantling of Medicare, the most efficient, cheapest and most effective health insurance in the country.
And it's run by the government!
Memo To The GOP
Since you're considering tax hikes, you might want to listen to this man, who helped oversee the largest expansion of an economy in world history, mostly from following his own advice.
MEMO
To: Koch Bros.
From: Actor212
RE: Buying Practices
When I buy a scientist, I make sure he stays bought.
There's been some amazing denial going on in the right wing blogosphere over this incident.
Budget Follies, Part 3
OK, this made me chuckle:
The GOP budget would also overhaul the tax code, setting the top individual and corporate rates at 25% rather than 35%. The changes would be revenue-neutral, since the budget would eliminate a series of tax breaks. But even some Republicans say it's unrealistic to try to balance the budget without some increases in revenue.
GASP! Raise taxes? Say it ain't so, Joe!
I'm curious to see how the Republicans will herd cats after this announcement.
Here's the thing: why not just cap the loopholes and forget about lowering the top tax rate which is already lower than any top tax rates since the income tax was instituted?
Budget Fiasco, Part I
I mentioned yesterday that I'd wait until today to ridicule the GOP budget proposal.
OK, first up: it promises a balanced budget by the fiscal year 2015.
Four years? Really? With two, now three wars? And a recession that refuses to go away, just because you go "Boogityboogitytaxcuts!"
How...naive. You'd almost think they hadn't run the country for most of the last decade!
Playing Into Obama's Hands
To me, this is sweet music if I'm in charge of the re-election campaign.
True, there's more than a year to go before the primaries really heat up, and six months before we'll really see the GOP field take shape.
But...
That's at least six months for the President to have a clear shot to communicate uninterrupted with the American people, to host a dialogue about his Presidency and to, more important, collect campaign funds.
Six months. You might as well give him four more years now.
The Wrong Answer
While I can certainly appreciate Eric Holder's position betwixt a rock and a hard place, my fellow alumnus has come to the wrong conclusion.
In short, damn Congress, sir! New York City needs this trial.
This is not about protecting the citizens of New York City, as the cowardly mayor, Mike Bloomberg thinks. He's not form New York anyway, and shame on you for listening to the advice of a Red Sox fan. And the members of Congress who railed against bringing terrorists to the Big Apple to stand trial are even more cowardly, for they could give a rat's ass about the security of our city. If they did, they wouldn't make cuts to programs so vital to our citizenry.
We New Yorkers are a tough breed, as you know, Mr. Holder. If a manhole cover explodes, as they do so frequently (thanks again, Republicans!), we shrug our shoulders and "call it in the air". When a truck backfires, it's the tourists, the commuters and the fresh-off-the-bus-from-Podunk yokels who flinch. New Yorkers are the ones turning up their iPods.
We survived September 11, most of us. Some of us got pretty scared. Some of us even suffered psychological damage. Most of us are suffering some physical ailments, too. The air was pretty crappy for a very long time around our city.
We. Need. This.
We need to see the face of the man who caused all this. We need to hear his voice. We need to know that he's in our prisons, in the drab and dreary confines of the tall grey buildings where we keep people like him.
Not on some Caribbean island, I don't care how austere the surroundings.
He needs to suffer a New York winter. He needs to look out of his cell, if he can, and see the drab grey sky of a snowstorm. He needs to hear the guards, the born and bred NYC Corrections officers, growl and sneer at him. He needs the occasional "accidental" elbow to the head as he's cuffed for court.
We need to know that he knows exactly how hated he is. There's the nub of it. New Yorkers need him to feel the rage he's stirred up, the damage he's done to the cause of billions of peaceful Muslims worldwide.
If for no other reason alone, you cannot hold this trial in the insulated confines of Guatanamo Bay under the auspices of the heavily disciplined command of the Marine guards who will be individually selected for their ability to keep their cool under the circumstances.
For he needs to experience this. And we need to know that he has. We need to see twelve of our own sat in a jury box, glaring at him yet giving him the full benefit of the law in order to give him the freedom of a fair trial, just as our Constitution promises. We need to see a local judge, a man or woman anyone of us could be put in front of, preside over a trial that will be both angry and fair.
If you remove the emotional element of the trial, if you put this in the hands of the Judge Advocate General corps which slants the verdict in the favor of the United States, if in anyway this trial can be spun as a sham, then New Yorkers will never heal. We'll always have in the back of our heads that this was a set-up.
You know how paranoid we New Yorkers can be.
Just as heartland Americans don't want us "librul" East Coasters dictating how to live their lives, so do we not want those yahoos telling us we need to be protected. We face tougher commutes than they'll face whitewater rafting trips or hunting parties. We can handle it.
This is literally a no-brainer, Mr. Holder. We as Americans have the right to face our defendants as much as the defendant has the right to face his accusers. If he is found guilty, as I have no doubt he should be based on the evidence we've seen in public, then the outpouring of relief will be welcome to a city that's struggled even to this day to try to come up with some appropriate way of getting past this tragedy.
And if he is found innocent, as bitter as that pill might be to swallow, at least we'll be able to mourn as one, in person, and not view the proceedings from the sterile confines of a courtroom in the Caribbean and lose something even in the mourning.
And there are eight million of us accusing him. Please, rethink this. We need this. We lost much that day, from 3,000 souls to two landmark buildings to our very innocence and swagger. It would be wrong not to do everything you can to help us heal.
Message: "You My Bitch"
It's about time Obama started using the symbol of the White House to his advantage.
I dare Boener to bridle at the summons.
Oh Fercrissake!
This...annoys me:
An individual's responses to census questions are confidential, but one of President Obama's answers on the 10-question form adds more fodder to the ongoing conversation about how America sees itself.
After media inquiries, the White House confirmed that Obama checked only the racial box that says: "Black, African Am., or Negro," the Associated Press reported.
Obama could have checked more than one racial box, given that his father was an African from Kenya and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. He could have checked "white" as well, or even "some other race" and written in "multiracial."
Yea, he could have. So what?
If he self-identifies as primarily black, who am I to argue with him? Hell, as far as I'm concerned, he can self-identify as Eskimo and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
Technically, he may be multiracial. So am I, if you go back far enough (NatGeo has it about 50,000 years, based on deep analysis of my DNA). My ancestors stalked game on the plains of Africa, just like nearly everyone else on this rotten hellhole of a planet that we've managed to screw beyond belief.
But he's in an unique position of being able to legitimately choose what identity he wants. 50-50. Half African American, half Caucasian.
In the old days, under any number of laws on the books in any number of states, this would automatically classify him as "Negro" (or worse). That was the default, as his blood wasn't pure enough to be white.
We still see remnants of that discrimination, albeit uncodified, in society at large.
Ask yourself this: which community has been more welcoming of the election of a black man as President: the white American community or the black American community?
Can we really blame him for identifying with the people who threw open their arms as opposed to folding them up? Does anyone believe that this man in his life has not seen the same acceptance/rejection theme time and time again?
When Teabaggers accept that a man born of a Kenyan father, raised in an Indonesian household (among others), but a natural born American can be a legitimate President, and look past the color of his skin to the content of his heart, then we can have this discussion.
Until then, leave the nice man alone, please.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Really? It's Come Down To This?
McDonald's will step up where other corporations have refused to?
One hopes there's at least a little shame in Corporate America...
Sen. Dan Hated
So lemme get this straight: throwing unions out of Wisconsin is so important, you'll risk your political career AND your "good" name to try?
You must really hate the middle class, Sen. Kapanke.
I Filled My Tank This Weekend
Now, I don't drive a gas-sipper, but I'm not upset with the 25 mpg I get in my little family-size sedan.
For only the second time in my life, I paid more than $50 for a tank of gas. It looks like that won't be the last time, either.
This Is Welcome News For Me
According to genetic testing, I am at a substantially increased risk for Alzheimer's. I am a bit concerned about that, especially as I age and find my memory is not as...what's the word again? Oh yea, sharp...as it once was.
So I'm relieved by some of the progress I've been seeing.
Nice Call!
My erstwhile co-blogger, Truculent & Unreliable, pointed out in comments here last week that the medical profession was suffering from an exodus of primary care physicians because HMOs would reimburse specialists at better rates because of all the tests they'd have to perform.
If that's the case, then under healthcare reform, we should see an influx of primary care physicians, right?
I'm Actually Looking Forward To Tomorrow
I figure there will be plenty to ridicule and to get angry at in the GOP budget proposal. That's, you know, only a few months late to begin with. Day late, dollar short, I'm guessing. The real fun starts after Obama vetoes the bill, if it survives the Senate.
Good Luck With That, Mr. President
President Obama on Monday kicked off his reelection campaign with a quiet video posting rather than the usual hoopla.
In addition to the video, titled "It Begins With Us," the Obama campaign sent an e-mail to supporters announcing the drive for 2012. The announcement had been expected and was signaled in reports throughout the weekend.
Obama pledged to focus on his job, but will pick up the tempo of campaigning this month with several fundraisers. The campaign is hoping to raise a record $1 billion.
Or roughly twice what it spent in 2008. When it had the fervor of a religious revival and the mantle of destiny.
With all due respect, Mr. President, it's going to be hard to drum up that kind of enthusiasm amongst even your ardent defenders, like myself. You know your campaign is in trouble when the best rationale you have to seek our money is "Keep me in office to keep them from their agenda."
Your second term shouldn't be about playing defense. Yes, you made some significant progressive moves in your first term, healthcare reform being the most obvious example. But you also capitulated to a corporatocracy that really doesn't give a rat's ass who's in power, so long as they remain there.
In truth, that's who runs this country, from the Oval Office to the Congress to the SCOTUS (anyone remember Citizen's United?) The people who adopted you early, your earliest fighters from the primaries, they looked to you for hope and change. The millions and millions who sent you $5 or $10 or $25, the people who are hurting the worst right now in the depths of this recession-that-technically-isn't, they looked to you for help and protection.
War was declared on we the people decades ago, Mr. President. Bill Clinton saw that, and saw that it was getting out of hand, that the nation needs its citizens whole and working. You do too. The difference is, he would have done something more than HAMPer us.
Trillions for banks. Nothing for Americans except a tax cut that no one even noticed and a healthcare reform bill that, if it survives, won't even kick in for another three years. Ahead of it, HMOs are gouging rates and doctors are overbilling all in the name of the rainy days to come.
When do we get to fight this class war back? When do we get to untie our hands and instead of being beaten, slapped and punched, maul those who harm us daily, with no regrets, without honor or loyalty to the nation that bestowed upon them the very gifts that our soldiers, We The People, have fought so hard for over the centuries?
When do you champion us? I'll give to your campaign. I may even contribute the same significant amounts I did in 2008. But it won't be with joy in my heart and hope for the kind of change we can believe in.
It'll be because I don't want a Mormon and a Moron running this nation.
You'll just have to settle. Like we have.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
The Free Market Case Against Capitalism
Theoretically, laissez-faire capitalism predicts that the actions of self-interested individuals, on the whole, will benefit society. The balancing act any society has to commit to is to ensure that the community standards are upheld while people pursue their greed (itself a moral value that is antithetical to any society).
There are very few political systems that allow for the existence of capitalism. Certainly, democracy's attempt to "form a more perfect union" is diametrically opposite of the goals of capitalism, which is to destabilize and unbalance society as much as possible.
Still, capitalism does work in the framework of a society if it is kept reined in. Democracy can exist with capitalism, even thrive if, as with religion, the two are kept separate.
That crucial distinction is starting to fray.
Now, we may find capitalism itself has come unglued. Comes Rana Foroohar of Time magazine:
It is, ironically, the excellent economy that's hampering job creation. The excellent economy in terms of Wall Street.
There's no getting around the fact that any rational person is going to engage in behavior that provides them with the best opportunity to create the most comfortable life for themselves. It's why Alex Rodriguez makes almost as much as a player for the Yankees than the entire Kansas City Royals baseball team.
It's why every kid on the farms of Indiana or the streets of the inner city plays basketball, for that one shot to make it to the NBA and earn bookoo bucks.
And it's why its ridiculous to whine about athletes when quants (those mathematicians who create these complex instruments that no one can explain without using higher mathematics), who do even less for Main Street America than any high-priced athlete, make fortunes while not creating a single job.
I mean, at least A-Rod puts fannies in the seats and that means you need a stadium and ushers and peanut vendors and security guards and ticket takers, all jobs for people like you and me.
Indeed one could make the case that the job of a quant is to destroy jobs by betting on inefficiencies in the markets that hurt individual companies as well as individual investors. They suck money out of the economy and hide it in complicated financial instrument that can lose value faster than a banana can rot.
You'll notice that the free market still works for the community as a whole but the community itself has changed. Wall Street has wholly divorced itself from America, just as the rise of multinational corporations have guaranteed that "American" companies are no long American.
Wall Street has about as much fealty to Main Street as you have to the colony of mosquitoes forming on a puddle in your backyard. You come to view them as at best a nuisance and at worst an enemy.
I worry about the future of this country. Can you blame a kid who's really good at math for going in and making as much money as he can without risking a dime out of his pocket?
There are very few political systems that allow for the existence of capitalism. Certainly, democracy's attempt to "form a more perfect union" is diametrically opposite of the goals of capitalism, which is to destabilize and unbalance society as much as possible.
Still, capitalism does work in the framework of a society if it is kept reined in. Democracy can exist with capitalism, even thrive if, as with religion, the two are kept separate.
That crucial distinction is starting to fray.
Now, we may find capitalism itself has come unglued. Comes Rana Foroohar of Time magazine:
A new study from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo.–based nonprofit that researches and funds entrepreneurship, has found that over the past several decades, the growth in size and importance of the financial sector has run in tandem with lower — not higher — rates of new-business formation. In the 1980s, when Wall Street really took off, the number of new firms created fell, and in the 1990s, it plateaued and has been stagnant ever since. Basically, the facts show the opposite of what Wall Street would have us believe. A number of factors explain that, but one of the most important, argue the study's authors, is that the financial sector is sucking talent and entrepreneurial energy from more socially beneficial sectors of the economy.In other words, distilling these paragraphs to their essence, it's not the poor economy that's responsible for the slow creation of jobs.
You can see it in the graduating classes of the country's top universities. Harvard graduates, for example, enter financial occupations at a far higher rate now than they did in the 1970s. It's a trend that accelerated markedly in the past decade, as the computerization of finance made the profession both more lucrative and more intellectually stimulating (one can now think about the 12th dimension rather than just golf). The proportion of graduates from MIT, for example, who went to Wall Street rose from 18% in 2003 to 25% in 2006.
The problem is that these are the types of people most likely to start the sort of dynamic, job-creating new companies that we need. No wonder economists like Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps speculate that the financialization of the U.S. and subsequent dampening of entrepreneurship may be at the heart of our long-term productivity slowdown (average productivity rates have been lower in the decades since the 1970s than in those before).
Whatever the corporate titans lobbying in Washington say, statistics show that it's new companies, not old, that grow the economy. Some 40% of U.S. GDP this year will come from firms that didn't exist in the 1980s. And nearly all the new jobs in the U.S. are created by firms less than five years old. "The political emphasis shouldn't be on making big firms work," says Kauffman Foundation head Carl Schramm, "but on helping new ones take root."
It is, ironically, the excellent economy that's hampering job creation. The excellent economy in terms of Wall Street.
There's no getting around the fact that any rational person is going to engage in behavior that provides them with the best opportunity to create the most comfortable life for themselves. It's why Alex Rodriguez makes almost as much as a player for the Yankees than the entire Kansas City Royals baseball team.
It's why every kid on the farms of Indiana or the streets of the inner city plays basketball, for that one shot to make it to the NBA and earn bookoo bucks.
And it's why its ridiculous to whine about athletes when quants (those mathematicians who create these complex instruments that no one can explain without using higher mathematics), who do even less for Main Street America than any high-priced athlete, make fortunes while not creating a single job.
I mean, at least A-Rod puts fannies in the seats and that means you need a stadium and ushers and peanut vendors and security guards and ticket takers, all jobs for people like you and me.
Indeed one could make the case that the job of a quant is to destroy jobs by betting on inefficiencies in the markets that hurt individual companies as well as individual investors. They suck money out of the economy and hide it in complicated financial instrument that can lose value faster than a banana can rot.
You'll notice that the free market still works for the community as a whole but the community itself has changed. Wall Street has wholly divorced itself from America, just as the rise of multinational corporations have guaranteed that "American" companies are no long American.
Wall Street has about as much fealty to Main Street as you have to the colony of mosquitoes forming on a puddle in your backyard. You come to view them as at best a nuisance and at worst an enemy.
I worry about the future of this country. Can you blame a kid who's really good at math for going in and making as much money as he can without risking a dime out of his pocket?
Friday, April 01, 2011
That Word. I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means
Spokespeople for Gov. Paul LePage have said all along that the timing of the administration's decision to remove a 36-foot mural in the Department of Labor was unfortunate.
I think the word you're looking for is "bastardly".
Note To Stephen Moore
Instead of lecturing Americans, why don't you lecture the fat rat bastards who sent those manufacturing jobs overseas in the name of short-term profits, you naked greedy attention-whore?
Joe Stiglitz Gets It Right (On)
Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.
Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.
Nobody Asked Me, But...
1) OK, so if the MSM is sooooooooooooooooooo liberal, then why isn't this documentary, both fair and balanced and completely factual, airing on MSNBC or CNN or one of the networks (sans FOX)? This is the scariest program you will see on your TV. Ever. And I wish that was an April Fools' joke, but it's not.
2) How scary is it? The comments section over at LinkTV is overrun with RightWingWelfare sucking squirrels trying to distract from the program, which never happens unless there's truth involved.
3) By now, you undoubtedly know the Bronx Zoo's Egyptian King Cobra, which had escaped earlier this week, has been recaptured safely for all concerned. I discovered this week that my cat, @ThumbPerDaCat, had been trying to lure @BronxZoosCobra over to our apartment over Twitter, presumably to eat him. I don't think the little feller has any idea just how long twenty feet is.
4) Give a split second's pity to John Boener. OK, long enough! Interesting that the Teabaggers have to use homophobia like it's ketchup.
5) Yet another reason America is a savage nation. I'll bet there's at least one Death Row inmate who has been executed with exoneration locked away in a prosecutor's filing cabinet. "We just gave prosecutors permission to kill," indeed!
6) The big problem with standardized testing is that teachers will teach to the test, instead of teaching the class what it needs to know.
7) You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Scott Brown may be positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2016 here.
8) Disgusting. Nothing more to say.
9) This is not an April Fool's Day joke. Sadly.
10) Neither is this. Happily.
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