There are windmills to tilt against.
Writing in comments to an earlier post, Our Paul presents the numbers as he sees them and links to this post decrying the Obamanon’s message of hopeful reconciliation. No, what is apparently needed is yet more scorched earth political warfare leading to the complete destruction of The Other. In order to get cracking on some of that good old fashioned “eat the rich” class warfare. People have been more successful than others, comrades – it’s time for some smart kid-driven leveling.
Our Paul has been much too generous and kind in his presence here to attribute to him the attitudes of the Corrente poster, who quite lives up to his blog’s moniker of “boldly shrill.” So I won’t, and will instead focus on the link he provided.
Although, frankly, it’s hard to know where to start. One is tempted to scoff at the self-important seriousness of those who continue to believe that Better Governance Through Electing Guys Who Think Like Us is the answer to all our economic problems, whether they be transitory or systemic. History does not favor the direction that argument is going in, but it does represent a characteristic and even charming naivet?
That’s some powerful judo, Sensei. Thanks for the lesson…
Somehow, it doesn’t seem to make me feel any better when I look at my pay stub, though.
A nice little lesson in thinking about the government and our money.
Two things to remember:
1. The government has no money. Every dime they spend comes out of our pockets.
2. The government that is big and powerful enough to give you what you want is also powerful enough to take it away.
Isn’t that about a $12 trillion economy?
I am always amused by the arguments taken up in that piece. They always seem to believe that all their premises are automatically true. It’s a curious use of logic.
As usual, I like and appreciate what you have to say, Lex! The carefully reasoned path to your conclusions is far better than the ranting left.
Your economics are right on! I always wonder about those whose purpose and desire is the redistribution of “the wealth”. It seems that “the wealth” can most accurately be described as: anybody else’s fortune. The fail to answer the question of who would foot the bill once their goals were achieved.
Perhaps it’s timely to recall the definition of a conservative: someone who has something to conserve. What happens when those who would send an even bigger tax bill to those who have, wake up to find they are getting the bill back, marked “return to sender”?
Nice surprise article from you Lex. Points are well supported and true. I noticed that several of the non-believers in the comments still need convincing. I guess that’s why we hold elections.
Read the link, Lex. Thought you debunked it rather nicely. I don’t read lefty sites much, so it was interesting to be exposed to that point of view. I love the part about how Pelosi and Reid are sellouts because they wouldn’t push impeachment. I guess the part about stubbornly denying obvious victories won against your country’s chief enemy counts as “outreach”, although I think they’re reaching out to the wrong folks in this instance.
Thanks Lex. It’s because of posts like the above that I stop by every day.
PS: Not-for-nuttin, (as we say here in Doity Joisey), but, a bunch of years ago it came to me that it was just getting too expensive to work. So, I stopped. (The blood-suckers were living better than me). I’ve been playing since . I’m trying to have “the money” run out just before I do. (Afterall, I want my chanch at being a burden).
Ouch!!!
It seems that I (Our Paul) has become a burr under the saddle for Lex.
Let me use an elbow or two to get into this room. Lex’s original post on January 7th loosely contrasted the DOD’s budget to, gasp, the “nanny’ state. It further implied that Obama was not that big a threat, if he won, the tide would come in again…
I have this problem: I am retired physician, I have spent time in a laboratory doing research work, and I have practiced medicine. The coin of my trade is data, translated into facts. Nothing is cast in stone, everything is open to question…
Lex’s original post, in my view needed a couple of comments. First, defense related spending deserved a bit of data, something we could hang our hat on. Second, there is a segment within the center left (Progressive, Liberal) community that was loosing its cool and was going to be down right partisan in its political action – they really do not buy the Obama fluff of bipartisanship. My original post is here:
http://www.neptunuslex.com/2008/01/07/making-it-stick/#comment-156154
The question that was never posed, but kind of hung out there was: Is the American public willing to support 800+ overseas bases, and was the public willing to invest between 27 to 30 cents of its tax dollar on what is not the military, but the defense-industrial complex.
Fliterman, in the January 7th thread, raised the possibility that this is may be phase changing election, the sweeping out of the old, and that Obama may provide “uncommon leadership… for our many problems have been festering and building too long without resolution.” He may be right, but I think it started in 2006, when against all predictions the Democrats (fueled by the Center-Left) swept Congress, and more important, captured a group of previously impregnable State Legislatures… The fact that the Main Street Media missed this shift can be found in this Krugman’s column… Note who was interviewed after the results were in…
http://slate.com/id/2180178
In my view, the dying embers of the fire that sparked the Reagan Presidency, the myths that sustained Newt’s Revolution, the fear mongering that fallowed 9/11, have lost their relevance. Unfortunately, what has been lost as well is what us old folks used to call Taft Republicanism, limited government, offering no tits to the industrial-military complex, willing to support the infrastructure of society…
To both the right and left Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards present major challenges. Obama with his vision thing, Clinton with the history of triangulation, Edwards with his take no prisoners in the corporation wars. But, as you approach these three candidates keep in mind that times are changing.
Obama poses a singular challenge – he attracts the uncommitted swing vote, and the young. Even vaguest sniff of a racial put down will boomerang. Comments about Edwards hair cuts will warm the home fires, but will freeze out those who are interested in policy discussion. As for Hillary, what no more than four years ago would be consider a good old boys joke, in today’s world is labeled as ignorance:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004041541_hillaryslurs29.html
Sorry Lex, the data clearly shows that during every Republican Administration the middle class lost ground, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. When you thunder class warfare to those who point out this irrefutable fact, you are using ideological talking points, blaming the victim, and disregarding the data…
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 01/09/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
OP, you’re not under my saddle at all, and I appreciate the different viewpoint you bring to these our dusty maunderings – my reply to your comment started to take on the size and weight of its own post, and so we are both promoted to the front page. Despite the fact that your favored language on “myths” continues to evoke images in my mind of motes and beams, and even if your reference to your medical career is a rather tangential – not to say logically fallacious – appeal to authority.
Howevs, most of what you write about between Hillary, Obama and Edwards – shoot, throw Krugman in there too – is inside center left (Progressive, Liberal) baseball and chiefly of interest to center left (Progressive, Liberal) partisans who will, at the end of the day, get to pick the Democratic Party candidate that will present his case to the rest of us next November. He that does so based on a policy of scorching the opposition’s earth had better be sure that such a message sounds euphonious in the ears of the vast, muddled, middle. Because usually it doesn’t – not everyone shares in the simmering rage so fashionable in center left (Progressive, Liberal) circles.
Furthermore, I sense in Krugman’s language, as well that of your Corrente poster, a hubristic breeze of inevitable triumphalism. At this point it certainly seems like the presidency is your side’s to lose. I’m merely interested in seeing whether you can once again rise to the challenge.
When you get into overseas basing and force structure though, you’re rattling around in my playground. Somewhat perversely I suppose, administrations of both flavors have over the years supported a policy of forward engagement, presence and – when it came to a rumble – foregoing the home field advantage. That comes with a cost, certainly – my point is that we are paying less of our ever growing purse for that capability than we have previously.
When you say that middle class has lost ground, it would help to point out that you’re talking relative terms. The middle class continues to do better in absolute terms year over year regardless of the party affiliation of the president as well as – and this is crucially detrimental to your argument – migrating from tier to economic tier over their lives. Not everyone breaks into the top 1%, but most everyone that’s not in the bottom quintile moves upward over their working lives.
If you argue that someone may be improving their own lot more rapidly then you improve your own, then you are talking the language of envy, my brother. It’s a deadly sin.
Obama poses a singular challenge – he attracts the uncommitted swing vote, and the young.
Yes … his camp, with the help (unwittingly or intentionally) of the media, is portraying him as the Tesla Roadster of politics.
Problem is, when you open hood, you find the anemic, smoggy, untuned engine of a 1960′s Love Bug, installed on a traditional Midwestern political-machine chassis, inside that 21st-century body.
OTOH, his only signficant primary opponent is the poster child for Best-and-Brightest-Syndrome (BABS) … the mindset that credentials and connections makes one a Messiah to the masses … which Lex has described quite well here.
When you think about it, Obama also suffers from that same syndrome … it just doesn’t show as badly.
BTW, I wonder how much my middle-class lot would have improved, had we not spent three to six trillion on Great Society programs that perpetuated poverty instead of ending it.
Thanks, lex. I wasn’t going to comment, but I got a real chuckle of your accusing Our Paul of using a “logical fallacy” when in fact you relied upon one several times in your earlier post – false dichotomy . I suppose this is a common affliction amongst binary thinking, two-position-switch, black-or-white engineers who tend to ignore the vast middle ground that an adaptive rheostat-type thinking individual easily recognizes or can envision.
To wit: Change does not mean “scorched earth, eat the rich class warfare.” Change does not invite the extreme, irrelevant, and unacceptable specters of planned economies, the German model, Marxism, or welfare states, etc. Using these emotionally packed, hot button terms in a false dichotomy of ‘either/or’ does little to add to the debate. Indeed, movement from Peoria to Pocatella is a long journey of change in the general direction of China; but that great movement and change still does not even remotely ever place one in Beijing.
More seriously, you raised many important issues – Obama, divisive politics, class warfare, comparative economic systems, conservatism, defense spending, federal budget, national debt, income distribution, taxation, Freidman economics, and some others. All are critical and important issues, worthy of serious debate – but far too many to adequately address here. Nevertheless, addressing these issues is hardly, “tilting at windmills,” especially as political and economic change becomes exigent.
While it may be true (and convenient for your argument) to say that our defense spending is near historical lows as a percentage of GDP, that metric tends to mask this ever-increasing problem. Moreover, it is untrue to state that “annual deficits decrease year over year due to increased taxable economic activity and our national debt remains within post-war historical averages.” Quite the contrary.
As is apparent in this graph, our National Debt – despite concurrent and compensating phenomenal GDP growth – has increased significantly as a percentage of GDP since the early ’80”s. Moreover, despite the temporary slight decrease in 2008′s budget deficit spending (and ignoring supplemental spending) our National debt has continued to grow – and is forecast to grow – exponentially. This trend obviously cannot continue indefinitely. And to stem the tide, much less correct it will be very painful for our country, sooner or later.
GDP growth is now decelerating. Not only will it be less able to mask our growing deficit and debt problems, revenues will naturally decline which in turn will increase deficit spending and add to our towering, 9 trillion dollar debt (A significant portion of which is held by the Chinese, who will have us by the short-hairs.) Add to that the loss of productivity and growing financial burdens of our retiring baby boomers, these problems become overwhelming and dangerous for the economic health of the country.
Our Paul is spot on with his concern for the middle class. To summarily dismiss his legitimate concern as a sin of “envy” is disappointing. I certainly have no need for envy, being fortunately long within the highest quintile of taxpayers. But I do have grave concern for the future of our hard pressed and declining middle class – not only for their welfare, but also for their enormous and essential contribution to our standard of living. Unfortunately, we all will lose with a decline of the middle class – and that decline is now in process.
Although our high productivity-fueled GDP has increased substantially, real wages for those workers responsible for that high productivity has stagnated. link In 2005, median CEO increased 25% from the prior year; the average employee had only a median wage increase of 3.1%. The gulf between CEO pay and the average worker has grown from forty-two times in 1980, to 431 times in 2005! (And many were failed CEO’s)
Fifty years ago, corporate income taxes made up a third of all federal revenues; now only an eighth – thanks to corporate welfare and offshoring. In contrast, working class families now contribute roughly half of all federal tax revenues…. While they live on increasing debt, need spouses to work to get by, pay higher gas and heating oil prices, have higher health care expenses, deplete any savings, and see many of their jobs transferred overseas.
A Pareto improvement resulting from a rising GDP does nothing to stem the growing inequality of income distribution as measured by the a Ginni Coefficient . In fact, our growing income and wealth inequality ranks much greater than Australia, Canada, and most European nations, and rivals that of many third world countries. This should be cause for concern for everyone.
History has shown that when societies get too unequal bad things happen. They either become economically inefficient or they become subject to social unrest. In many cases both happen simultaneously. The banana republics of South and Central America are a good example.
History has shown that when societies get too unequal bad things happen. They either become economically inefficient or they become subject to social unrest. In many cases both happen simultaneously.
From what I have seen in those aforementioned banana republics, in Mexico, and even here …
… that happens because the rich use their wealth to buy influence and leverage the other aspects of society (including government) with it, to get around the “deficiencies” of the free market they perceive are working against their personal interests.
In other words, they buy their way AROUND the market, instead of working within the free market …
… and the more government increases in size and scope, the more opportunities there are to “game the system” this way; i.e. increasing government involvement to counteract income inequity actually increases the opportunities for inequity!
That is, unless the government becomes so controlling that it imposes what we electronic-control designers call dominant-pole compensation — holding everybody back to the pace of the slowest among us.
In other words — equality of poverty.
I’m with our host on this … moving in the direction of greater government involvement is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE with respect to the pursuit of happiness — for everyone.
So is penalizing legal corporate behavior, through taxation or other means … keep in mind who actually pays those corporate taxes.
You and I.
Reading the above posts gives me the impression that both sides may have worthwhile arguments depending on whether we’re referring to cows or men. There’s a lot of principled statements made by the founding fathers that we’ve strayed away from and if history is any guide, it will take as long to “get back” as it did to “get here”. I get another impression that some believe we’re on the cusp of some accelerated national economic/political evolution; it only reminds me that I don’t have to be a chicken to smell chicken-$hit.
#13 Rich – “In other words, they buy their way AROUND the market, instead of working within the free market …”
Reminds me of huge no-bid contracts, congressional earmarks, and the powerful, expensive, and non-productive K Street baiters and arm twisters….hardly, free market.
There are more than 34,000 lobbyists who, from 1998 to 2004 spent $13 billion to short-circuit the free market and democratic process. Some even write the language of the laws and regulation they want. Except for the declining and meager union PAC’s, our middle class is being less represented and often is preempted from being at the table by corporate special interests and lobbyists.
In fact, Communist China has more paid influence than our own middle class. They retain for many millions, high-level law and lobbying firm, Akin Gump, and also best-known K Street lobbyist, Patton Boggs to influence my elected representatives.
The current system needs fixing.
Fliterman, you and I have so unsuccessfully plowed these fields for so long that I despair of shifting you an inch. It’s charming though, that you haven’t given up on me
For my own part, I’d prefer to characterize the objectionable lengths my argument go to as perfectly legitimate reductios ad absurdum, extensions of the point that illustrate the risks of going down a path rather than false dichotomies. But that’s just me, and YMMV.
There is room between “eating the rich” and “asking a little more from some of you”, but there are all kinds of negative consequences that come from raising the tax burden on our most productive citizens.
By the way, you can re-focus your eyes now that we’re past my point that the proportion of the federal fisc augmented by the top 1% of tax payers increased under both Reagan and Bush II. There. Better?
The problem I submit is therefore not taxation, but spending and the truth of the matter is that the appetite for more money to support “so many ideas” as Hillary said (tearfully) never quite goes away. My chief beef with W and his posse is that they cast aside fiscal conservatism for the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately brand of “compassionate conservatism” that is immediately swallowed whole and then immediately disregarded by the bureaucracy, not to mention those standing around waiting for the next benefice from Caesar.
You will say, as you have before, that the money may be found to set all things to right in defense accounts. But as I’ve pointed out previously:
When you talk about $9 trillion in debt it sounds Quite Frightening because it is a Very Large Number. But the charts we’ve both seen before show that it’s well within historical standards as compared to GDP, leaving you to argue that, well, what about Korea, and that, still, somehow this is different. Something ominous perhaps to do with China.
Well. GDP may or may not rise or fall this year by something something probably less than or equal to 3% for reasons having really very little to do with the government and much more to do with low risk premiums on market driven (and punished) structured investment vehicles tied to bundled mortgages and possible a contribution from the immutable laws of the economic cycle.
Your point on corporations makes for good red meat to the anti-business masses, but the truth of the matter – widely recognized, by the way – is that corporations don’t pay taxes, they pass them on to consumers in a market altering and not particularly efficient way.
You speak about off-shoring, and I think we’ve had that discussion of Comparative Advantage as well. But this gets tiresome, this point-by-point refutation gig.
Fundamentally – and forgive me if this sounds mean, it isn’t really meant to be – too much of your side’s political argument involves scaring people into believing that their world is about to collapse, infuriating them by insinuating that someone else somewhere might be having more fun, and telling them that the government will step in to make everything better.
I just don’t think that’s healthy, in the long run. Neither for a vibrant economy, nor for an independent electorate.
Damn, well said, that.
Too much of both sides’ political argument involves scaring people into believing that their world is about to collapse if the other side gets elected, if you ask me.
Oh, you mean you didn’t? Sorry.
Michelle — let’s reread what Lex said about the opposition — they do more than just scare you:
20th-century “liberal” approach:
1> Scare you regarding the conflicts and challenges we all face.
2> Make you envious of those who have already found solutions.
3> Offer to solve the problem FOR you.
21-st-century conservative apporach:
1> Scare you regarding the conflicts and challenges we all face.
2> Let you know that government is structurally capable of resolving only a few of these conflicts.
3> Remind you that YOU can solve a lot of these conflicts, either by yourself or by cooperating with others outside of government.
4> If elected, keep you free to solve tho problems you are better at solving, by limiting government involvement to only those areas where it is structurally capable of providing effective and efficent solutions.
Now, which approach is closer to the truth?
Michelle-
re- “Too much of both sides’ political argument involves scaring people into believing that their world is about to collapse if the other side gets elected, if you ask me. ”
I smell a non-judgemental argument…..not getting on ya but often one has to choose sides…
What you state seems to be a common truth but it ain’t. At least to those of us aged types with a memory and a little un-parsed perspective. Fliterman-types have predicted economic ruin for decades and have even had the opportunity to implement policies and failed programs to “fix” things like price controls and 55 MPH speed limits. I well remember where those policies led- double digit inflation and 16% mortgage interest rates…ask your parents. Hence, my apprehension when I all I see are policies with a socialistic bent as the ultimate and only objective….At the expense of everything else.
Now. On the other side of the coin there is security..real security. The towers coming down on 9-11 were not posssible scenarios, gloom & doom forecasts, or intell estimates but real, tangible, actual destruction brought about by an irrational enemy.
Whose gloom and doom story is more real to you? Or would you prefer NOT to know?
b2
I see what I said as a fairly common truth, at least these days. In just about all politics but particularly in U.S. politics.
One of the many things that attracts me to this blog are Lex’s occasional bouts of … sanity, with more middle-of-the-road, less partisian postings. [Said with a wink, half-joking there, just so we're clear.] But many of those on both the left and the right, at least those who inhabit the blogsphere which is my main reference point for American politics at the moment, foresee death and disaster for the country if the “other side” comes to power. I think many on those on both sides sincerely believe that. The majority of the commenters here appearing to be no exception.
So I call it as I see it, large portions of both sides seem to be about trying to scare the middle muddle as to what would happen should they vote wrong. Well, both sides can’t really have ti right, can they? Is it accurate to call it fear-mongering or is it only fear-mongering if your fears turn out to be unfounded? At any rate, nobody is really going to know for sure until after the election. And then we will only know the results based on whatever party succeeds. We will never know for sure what might have been had it went the other way at this time in history.
Either which way, I wasn’t and am not weighing in on who I think is *right”. It looks like some seem to want me to though, or thinking they already know my thinking (seeing as I am how I am such a socialist … correct me if I’m wrong, badbob, but I keep seeing that concept come up when you respond to my comments, often out of left field, from my point of view. BTW speaking of such things, I was amused to find that when I took one of those goofy online political quizes that tries to match you up based on your ‘positions’ on the issues, my top two choices were a tie between a Republican and a Democrat. My third choice was a Democrat but separated by only one point from my next choice which was a Republican) want to try to convince me ‘otherwise’. Bottom line, whatever happens in your upcoming election, one way or the other, I am sure the US will survive. Politics is cyclical, back and forth it goes to the left and the right. That being said I’m sure there is likely a ‘better’ choice, but only hindsight is 100% and sometimes even it ain’t. My comment was simply what it was, a comment on the process, not on the best man for the job. It’s not my country, not my election. I am just an interested observer. And there I stay, mates.
Well Michelle, I often come in from left field although I was a shortstop. BTW, that’s sorta Stengalese, eh?
In my own rough way I was taking a shot at Flit (can’t help mysef) and concurrently trying to make the point to you, that what appears to be fear mongering from the “right” (generally Repubs) is based on actual events, IE- 9-11, Islamo-Facism, etc., rather than fear mongering about global warming, CEO salaries, “Fairness”, more taxes etc. Taken collectively it’s enough to drive anyone to drink, American or Canadian!
Comes down to Real stuff vs. perceived or hypothetical stuff.
I figured if I could convince you, a real sharp cookie Canadian, to the logic of it, it might make sense to others- no offense intended.
Sometimes I ain’t too ‘ticulate but I mean well, well most of the time. I shoulda never commented on this thread as Lex did such a good job above and all. Sorry.
b2
B-2 – Economic ruin? I made no such prediction.
What were presented were the risks involved if economic change is not forthcoming over time.
But there will be change before economic disaster, because there has to be. The country cannot spend more than it takes in, indefinitely. Eventually, either federal spending will be reigned in to equal or below revenues, or taxes will have to be raised to cover the continued deficit spending and increasing national debt… or both. This is inevitable, regardless of who is in the White House at the time.
While painful, it is not “economic ruin.” It is called fiscal responsibility – something that the Republican Party used to pride itself.
Eventual economic ruin is easily preventable if the real risks are truly recognized, and appropriate action is taken early enough to prevent it.
No. Having lived through a number of recessions, and my parents the Great Depression, I can assure you business cycles, recessions, depressions, panics and stock market crashes are not “perceived or hypothetical.” They are real, and painful. And while perhaps inevitable, they certainly can be mitigated and delayed by more proper, federal fiscal and monetary policy, and economic leadership.
Economic crises – like major acts of terrorism – are difficult to predict with much specificity. But there are many warning signs for both if we are alert. More importantly, there are ways, means, and procedures for numerous actions to stave off these unacceptable events.
Oh, and regarding CEO compensation…. Hedge Fund managers are worse.
The top 20 pocketed an average, $657 each for the year. Worse, they get special tax breaks unavailable to the Joe Six-pack taxpayer. Link
Ah, make that $657 million each, for the year despite some producing huge losses.
Nothing like rewarding failure, eh?
Just love it Lex when you and Fliterman decide to go mano a mano. We had a bit of weather here in Rochester, and a blow boaters are prone say, got hammered. Communications down, no access to the net in the neighborhood for the past 3 days. This is a dying thread, but I am sure you have a way to spot the hit even if most others will not return. In spy novels, a legend is a false construct to deceive the opposition. Let’s give it a try.
One of the advantages of growing old is that the aches and pain can be ascribed to the Creator exacting just retribution for pubescent sins. As one reviews those halcyon days in the theater of the mind, the discerning observer will pick up the background, and contrast it with today’s scene.
Thus, many moons ago the citizens of the Republic were ruled by usury laws that clearly stated interest above X% of the prime rate was illegal. Used to be called loan-sharking, the province of poorly shaved men in wide lapel suits. Yes, Virginia, in those days there was a Santa Clause, and you could seek legal redress for exorbitant interest rates. Why, gasp, charging an interest rate of 15 to 20 % above prime would ensure a worry free period of jail time…
In the 80’s the Great Communicator put together the three-legged stool of Conservative Christians, Foreign Policy Interventionist, and Economic Expansionist that phase shifted the direction of the country. A central thesis of this coalition political movement was de-regulation, i.e. small government, or as the foot soldiers of the movement are prone to holler, gets the government off our backs…
As the banking industry was de-regulated, the credit card industry exploded. Why, you did not even have go to a bank to negotiate the usual terms of a loan (boy, am I dating myself), the credit card came in the mail, free. Depending on your zip code and address, credit lines of 5,00.00, 10,000.00 dollars became available, soon to be followed by a wham bam alligazam platinum card. A few astute observers of the scene noted that interest rates were rather high, and that the contractual relationship was written up in really small print, and that there were these things called “fees’.
Well, a few years ago the banks felt that their return on investments was not really what it should be, too many folks were filling for personal bankruptcy, a sure sign of too many bad loans. Fiscal prudence dictated firm and prompt action. Back to the well spring of de-regulation the banks went.
Two years ago the Pretender to the Great Communicator, with a flourish, signed the new banking law. It expanded and tightened the regulations on personal bankruptcy, and cough, cough, sotto voice please, increased the interest rate to 30+%, and bumped the fees for late payment.
An impartial observer would say the above represents a cautionary tale, from an historical perspective, about cutting government oversight on the banking industry. I view it as a narrative that explores the myth that government de-regulation benefits the populace. A conservative might just pass it off as mad ravings of one of those far out liberals who never quite adjusted to eating cake (whoops, that reference may be too obscure and just might label me as a Francophile).
Next time I will try a parable examining greed… Lets see, Pharisees in fine white linen clothes, a decider in a purple toga, money changers, a temple or two, a whole bunch of leprous beggars… Just might work.
Maybe a fairy story… Once in a land far away, at time long ago, there was a King much beloved by his people. One day he called in the bankers, and said, “What can I do for my peoples future?” And the boys in narrow lapelled pin striped blues and grays said, “Plastic my Lord, the future lies in Plastic”. The King, having some modest experience in B-movies, thought that was such a great line that…
Update I: As I lay on the floor, just a bucket of giggles and convulsed by my brilliance, the house engineer poured a figurative bucket of cold water over me by asking the simple question: “What if Lex never saw the movie, or fails to catch that the “plastic” line is a reference to ‘The Graduate’? Sigh, perfection in writing is such an elusive mistress…
Full Disclosure: About 50% of those folks seeking relief through bankruptcy had credit card debt directly related to health care events. About 30% of these folks had some form of health insurance, which did not cover the expenses. For most of those the dollar amount of debt was under 15,000.00 dollars.
OP, you can reassure the house engineer that while I will stumble every time on who Brittney is dating or why I should care who shot Tupac, my cultural well is full on The Graduate. I had hoped some day to be Dustin Hoffman made flesh and found Anne Bancroft quite the thing. Back in the day. I also grok Marie-Therese, for what that’s worth. Je suis franchophone moi-meme, bien que je ne suis pas toujours francophile .
But what this latest post of yours reminds me of is what I have often suspected to be true: Conservatives tend to think that liberals are (mostly) well-meaning but mistaken. Liberals think that conservatives are evil. While this might make it easier liberals to believe themselves atop the moral high ground as they forbid those things to others that they cannot make compulsory for everyone, for our part such assumptions make it difficult to carve out a common space for civilized discourse.
It may (or may not) surprise you to find that fliterman and I have only laboriously managed to find a way to routinely disagree with one other using competitive application of reason and analysis atop unchallengeable facts, without being tendentious or disagreeable. Or casting blanket aspersions. Mostly.
I will leave aside for now your unspoken presumption that it would have been better for people to shelter their assets from creditors who loaned them money in good faith, knowing that they would not or could not make good those purchases and passing those charges on to the rest of us because after all, the doctor will get paid, won’t he? And it’s not like that was emergency care, now was it, because as you know, emergency care cannot be denied patients based on their ability to pay. Not to mention that other 50% who apparently believe that paying their debts themselves is all such a dreary bother, or that companies ought not to be able to charge higher rates to those whose previous history makes lending them money – should they seek it – riskier. Because the companies, apparently, ought to have to shoulder all that risk or else they’re evil.
Now then, no story or legends, just the facts.
Quite right, emergency care cannot be denied. It was after all, the President who suggested such a solution to the uninsured folk.
But, that raises a key question: Should the poor who are often uninsured pay more than those covered by private insurance, or government programs?
Of course not, that would be really evil, said the staunch compassionate conservative, failing to see the trap that was being set by the dastardly capturer of the all powerful and strategic high ground:
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/archive/604391.html?chan=search
And then of course, this:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2007/db20071120_397008.htm?chan=search
Sorry about this Lex, twas you who brought up Emergency Rooms. I much prefer a nice story, with subtle twist to illuminate a legend. No time today for such entertainment, just enough info to get me out of this thread…
So can somebody tell me how charging uninsured patients that kind of inflated rate is fair or justified?Yes, hospitals are likley to get paid quicker when insurance pays, I can see that. So I can see the case for some price differential. But charging patients without health insurance an average of 2.5 times more for services than fees paid by health insurers, that’s just wrong.
I didn’t have sympathy for all the stories but some of them sure didn’t seem right. I don’t think hospitals should necessarily be obligated to provide interest-free loans to people, especially those who cchoose not to purchase health insurance. They’re playing russian roulette, and if you choose to play you have to be ready to pay.
But what about those whose jobs offer no insurance? What are they suppose to do?
And when nobody bothers to point out to you the small print saying that your ‘interest free’ approved way of paying can be changed by assigning the debt to someone else, I seriously doubt the enforcability of the interest provisions. But of course, how many people would actually know that or be able to afford to fight it?
And don’t talk to me about charging what the market will bear. A lot of health care isn’t exactly something you can choose to go without or not. And what was with the story about the waitress in intesive care for two days? That doesn’t qualify as emergency care?
And no, I am not saying you have to, or even should, do things “my” way. I ‘m just saying that there are pieces of your way that make no sense to me at all.
Damn it Michelle, it is after 12:00 o’clock on the East Coast, and I am trying to get out of this thread.
The first thing you have to do is carefully examine this nonsense of incriminating those folks who “chose not to buy medical insurance… no sympathy…. Russian Roulette…”
You, and to my knowledge nobody else, have been able to present a percentage figure of this putative population. You are pointing at a mythical bon vivant who has 12 to 15 thousand dollars in discretionary spending, and chooses to blow it on hedonistic pleasure rather than health insurance.
It is a distraction from the central issue, its blame the victim, it’s the classic shell game. Even if the high estimate of 1 to 5% of the non-insured population in the United States falls into this mythical hedonistic group, what are we going to do with the 95 to 99% that do not?
The central issue, the central battle for the soul of our country, is the escalating kampf between center right and center left. And the core issue: What does “Government for the People, and by the People” really mean…
It turns out there is a ton of different models on delivery of health care, and all can be examined from the view point of cost, health care outcomes, and patient satisfaction. No matter how you slice it, dice it, or spin it, the US has the most expensive health care system, has among the worst outcome measures, and really ranks low in patient satisfaction among all industrialized countries in the world…
The literature on this topic would swamp an aircraft carrier, and put even the most combative souls the sleep… I will give you only one link, on the SCHIP legislation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21health.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=f98ec523f6e60c2c&ex=1345348800&adxnnl=0&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1187885404-P5/NgKMEjGo5BkGUyxRg/w
Now then, it is from the dreadful New York Times, the bete noir of all center right folk… But, just look at the numbers. My question: What family of four, with an income level of 10% over 42,000.00, can afford a of 12 to 15,000 for health insurance?
Just between you and me, on this issue the Republican members of the Senate stood firm. There was no over-ride of President Bush’s veto, not one Republican crossed the line…
Ever sit with your child, crying beyond all your comforting measures, with a temperature of 104 degrees, and hold a rational discussion about whether the cost of an emergency room visit should be considered? Guess what, you would never do that… And guess what, neither would the great unwashed that do not have health insurance…
Stop and think, it is not only health care. Its a battle for the soul of our country, and the middle ground no longer exists… Not a single Republican in the Senate crossed the line onSCHIP, even as Republican Governors urged them to do so…
This is precisely what I’m talking about, this whole “this legislation (an expansion of a popular middle class entitlement) represents a battle for the soul of our country!”
What utterly unselfconscious, morally supercilious dribble. How wonderful it must be to always find oneself on the side of angels – and all you have to do is unthinkingly hew to the liberal orthodoxy!
The original SCHIP program covered a family of four at 200% of the poverty line, the revision would have extended such care up to 300% – $64,000. Not world beating, but certainly capable of purchasing health insurance, certainly less expensively than Our Paul chooses to do in a market system where one makes choices, shops carefully, buys what one can.
Let’s play the game of “why’s” until we find an answer or repeat ourselves: Why was the broader extension of SCHIP considered a good idea? Because while the program had initially succeeded in helping states enroll the children of otherwise uncovered, lower income workers, the number of such children was beginning to rise again.
Why was the number beginning to rise again? Mostly because as the federal government enters the health care space, employers leave the room.
Why do employers leave the room? Because health care costs, including insurance, continue to expand at a rate that triples inflation and doubles the rate of economic growth.
Why do health care costs expand at such dizzying rates? Because there are nearly no constraints on health care costs. It is very difficult to do a cost/benefit analysis when the benefit side of the ledger applies to people’s well-being. So monstrously expensive new technologies are devised that extend human life – or terminal suffering – by only a few months, states intrude on the hospital marketplace by mandating the nurse-to-patient ratio (lower, always lower) and basically because no one is spending their own money: Hospitals raise costs because they can, insurance companies pay because they must, rates rise, lower income people get the screw. Again.
The problem then is not one of health insurance cost but health care costs. Shouldn’t health care costs be driven by the market? They should, but the market effects are evermore skewed by the entry of the government. This serves to drive private insurance out of the general space and into a more restricted private room where only those who can afford elevated premiums can play. That in turn reduces the risk pool, meaning fewer participants share the risk of an individual’s catastrophic costs. This drives costs up again, more people drop out, et voila: we have a vicious cycle.
What OP is recommending through his implicit SCHIP endorsement is in effect a creeping socialization of the health care system to a government held, single-payer mold. That’s a fine policy to endorse – why not take it to the people directly? Because the American people have seen where that road takes them, and they remain unconvinced.
Government has a very poor reputation when it comes to “controlling cost.” And when they do so in the health care system, it will be made manifest not in lower prices, but in lower access – rationing. Some expensive techniques and drugs will not be available. Some services will be scheduled. Innovation will be smothered.
There is very little dignity in disease and death, there will under every system be found anecdotes that shock and enrage. But arguing from a specific calamity to a general policy – while emotionally satisfying to those who are perpetually certain that government should “do something about poor Billy down the street” – is rarely good policy. Thus you have people in Britain asked to “administer their own health care,” thus you have Canadians flocking south for elective surgeries at their own convenience rather than in a time line measured in months or years, thus you have 15,000 “dose ‘em and disregard ‘em” French elderly baking to death in their state-supported hospices when the heat goes up.
But there always remain those people who – despite all evidence everywhere else to the contrary (think: DMV) – continue to believe that government will be a better provider of services in the health care arena than can even a skewed, albeit innovative market-driven system.
Well: There are all kinds of faith.
OP, I provided a percentage figure?
Anyone else find this amusing? That I, of all people, ended up being on the wrong side of OP’s stick?
OP, my creditials, such as they are on the topic, can be found here. I’ve simply hung around Lex’s long enough that some of the stuff about people choosing not to purchase insurance has rubbed off, is all.
Heh, the link didn’t work. Guess that’s cuz I have no credentials.
Good news Michelle, it is afternoon in Rochester, NY, the temperature is crisp, and snow predicted… As Lex graced my morning with both Canada and France, I will start of with a link to an article that abstracts a study comparing “amenable death rate” (i.e. potentially preventable) among different countries (please note US vs France, England, and Canada):
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=640980
No matter what health measure you chose, try infant mortality if you wish a small depression during your AM coffee, the US ranks last or near the bottom of the world industrialized countries adverse health outcomes. Period, no argument. What has been shown by international studies, can be documented in our own country:
I think you miss-interpreted part of my previous post, I was just pointing out that your thinking is being colored by a myth, a fairy story, whose central core is that a hedonistic population is sucking big bucks out of the health care system by failing to purchase health insurance when they can afford it…
Just stop and think, if they have enough discretionary income to afford health insurance, they assuredly have enough money to pay off an emergency room bill, and assuredly they will, for if you stiff that bill your credit rating will get flushed down the toilet.
The key to understanding this mess is discretionary income. First you pay for housing, food, clothing, transportation to and from work, and your projected taxes. That is core subsistence… Guess what, core subsistence varies from state to state, and within localities in any given state. Anything left over after core subsistence is discretionary income. Because we have no universal national health service (exceptions will follow), health care costs are shouldered by the amount of discretionary spending any given individual has…
That is why about 15 states had SCHIP levels set above 2o0% poverty level, why Republican and Democratic governors pleaded for Bush to sign an extended version, and why Bush’s veto and new administrative rules are such a disaster (quoted in my previous posting).
Keep in mind that SCHIP is a Medicaid program, as such its funding is 50% State, 50% Federal, and it mandates means testing. Keep in mind that it is the individual states that set SCHIP level. Nobody questions that SCHIP improves quality of life, has long term care health effects, and has economic implications (decreased time of work by parents taking care of sick children).
Not only is it clear that government supported health care leads to improved health indices in foreign countries (by comparison to US), the same can be shown in the US.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/24/2886
Not only is the US health care outcomes worse, we pay more per capita than any other industrialized nation, and have a lower user satisfaction index than other nations. To counter these facts, Lex presents a post by a right center blogger who abstracts a news article from a British newspaper, claims Canadians are flocking south for elective surgery based on an editorial in the WSJ, which gives no numbers, and uses a catastrophic heat wave to pan the French system…
Now then, as I mentioned in my previous post, enough stuff has been written about health care, that it would sink an aircraft carrier if the paper was placed on its flight deck… How do you counter act folks who refuse to examine data, and just keep repeating talking points that are clearly false, and downright inaccurate?
You go back ten years, into the back yard of the Decider, pick a University that nobody will claim as a hot bed of liberalism, and see what their faculty has to say…
http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/node/407
A warning Michelle, the above link is to an abstract of the full paper. Should you chose to download the full paper (pdf file) be prepared to spend more than a couple of hours reading it… My suggestion is download, go selected pages to get a flavor…
I will close with two thoughts:
1) Why are we paying twice as much for medications than citizens of Canada and other countries whose health care costs are so much lower than ours?
2) Why is it that when government provides free medical care to members of the Armed Forces, and their families, it is considered a “benefit”, and not the first step to socialized medicine, as SCHIP was so facilely labeled?
You know OP, we’ve already had the infant mortality rate discussion here. I don’t think you’d as yet checked in. Bottom line up front, if it sounds too good to be true (i.e., aligns too neatly with your political preference), it probably is:
We pay more for drugs in America because drug companies – like others – have the right to make a profit off of their enormous investments in R&D. A blockbuster drug that could positively influence the quality of millions of lives may cost hundreds of millions to develop over a decade with no guarantee of pharmacological or regulatory success. Yes, drug companies make good profits – but their risks are at least commensurate with those profits and the alternative vastly reduces the incentive towards innovation. So, unless you’re satisfied that we have exactly the right number of drugs we’ll ever need and generics will see you through your declining years, it’s good to have new products in the pipeline.
Government provides “free” care to servicemen because government has a vested interest in maintaining surge medical capacity for wartime operations. That’s why dependents get “free” medical care but we pay for dental. And it’s only “free” in that it’s a form of compensation over which we have no control. Younger, healthier sailors might well choose to forgo this insurance “mandate” if they were offered the choice. Just like 10′s of millions of their young civilian compatriots do. Fortunately for us, we can order them to participate. Just like Hillary plans to do for everyone else.
This is a dying ember of a thread Lex, I will close with a couple of short comments, and give you the podium.
It strikes my rum sodden brain that at some point you have to start presenting real solutions to problems, you just can’t keep arguing that statistics, and easily verifiable observations are wrong. You would get a polite cough, cough, and a suppressed lifted eye brow if you quoted The Familily.com as the authority in infant mortality to a group of pediatric neonatologists, or to anybody with even a minimal interest in health care.
Do you not understand that the quality of medicine in the Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, England, Canada, Australia and others is equal to ours, and in selected areas superior? Are you really trying to say that neonatologists in those countries value the lives of “super preemies” less than we do? Do you not understand how much that weakens you as an observer of the scene?
Is your understanding part that of the infant mortality rate in the US is due to the use of “advanced fertility” methods? Pray tell, your fairy story teller with a tremulous voice asks: “Infant mortality is defined as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
and
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=14274
What then is contribution of the advanced fertility methods to the X deaths/1000 births?” Give me a break Lex, simple reflection and a modest pencil and paper exercise will tell you that contribution, if valid, is
OP, I do understand that other societies have discovered different ways to pay for their health care, and that the results from such methods can be “better” depending upon what metrics you choose to use. But America is not Sweden, nor are we France nor yet poor olde mother England. And in another 50 years or so, neither will most of them be, as their aging populations desperately search for a new generation upon which to burden the costs of their welfare state – a generation which they could not be bothered to create, back when it was still possible, and which they will have to import from some rather uncongenial places. After all, who had time to be a parent when they were being coddled by the state? Such a bother. Furthermore, surveys and statistics are all too often shaded as to promote policies rather than inform them. Thus we have Michael Moore singing the praises of Cuban health care, forsooth.
We value freedom of choice and innovation over here to such a degree that your sighing presumptions of statist superiority have not yet won all of us over. You cite your preferences in statistics, I cite mine in mega-trend and then – rather than rebutting each other’s points we merely glide past them to the next level of analysis in the same preferred field. When I point out that government sucks the air out of the marketplace when it competes for the risk pool you sneer that I am waving the bloody sheet of socialized medicine. Well, yes. Yes I am. And you have not answered my point.
From the macro we move on to infant mortality. What constitutes a super-preemie and whether or not one might be artificially ventilated in Los Angeles, but not Bonn. No doubt before you were rudely cut short there you had some evidence that the standards of fertility and neo-natal care are precisely the same in Europe as in the US, and that therefore my source can be impeached merely because it is not in a position to argue from authority. I’ll have to take that on faith. As one must take all such arguments.
As a medical professional you were no doubt rather comfortable doing so, but in the marketplace of ideas you have to address the argument itself. Presumably the demographic factors which cause the District of Columbia to have an infant mortality rate that is twice our national average will go away once SCHIP is extended to anyone who prefers state handouts to paying for services. Our elevated rate of at-risk teen pregnancies too. So long as we trust the Wise Government Bureaucrat behind the curtain.
There are still many of us who think that the best thing government could do for us is secure the borders, deliver the mail on time and get the hell off our backs. I don’t want to solve everyone’s problems. I don’t want you solving mine. I want to send my girls to college, save a little for retirement. Play a round of golf every now and again. Maybe buy an airplane. Spend the money that I’ve earned largely as I choose to. You may call that greedy, but after 26 years on the line I feel like I’ve done my bit.