Politics

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pistol-packing-protester-causes-worry-about-obamas-safety/article1248726/ I'm all for the right to peaceably carry weapons, but I really have to say that taking a gun to a protest is in bad form. I'm also concerned that this person is literally up in arms about healthcare reform. Why does he feel so passionately about it that he feels he needs to imply that there's some tyrants who need to be killed for the sake of liberty?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul Bowing to GOP pressure, Obama is now signaling its willingness to drop the government run healthcare option entirely, purusing health insurance cooperatives. Needless to say I'm not too happy about this. Here I was hoping for a substantive change in healthcare which could potentially lead to a cheaper healthcare system for all Americans. Instead we're just getting more of the same. I can't imagine this will reflect very well on Obama's popularity either. With total control of the White House and Congress, Democrats are now capitulating to the Republicans. They've been given the chan…

Medicare is a single-payer system, albeit not a universal one. Thus it is relevant to the debate as to whether the US should consider a universal single-payer system. Yes, Medicare is not doing well. Not well at all. This graph from the conservative Heritage Foundation illustrates the problem nicely: So navigator is correct (about Medicare, not Medicaid). Medicare spending is set to increase enormously over time, to unsustainable levels. If that's the case, why would we consider a universal single-payer system? Wouldn't it suffer from the same explosive growth in costs? You might notice that Medicare's explosive growth doesn't match the prev…

Recently, an unintentionally hilarious editorial in Investor's Business Daily about the supposed "death panels" of "socialized medicine" included the following quote: The sentence has since been removed, though not before setting off a snark bomb in the liberal blogosphere. TalkingPointsMemo decided to ask Hawking himself about it, who responded by email with a decline to interview but saying, I bring this up not merely to make fun IBD or the Palinesque fearmongering about "death panels" (although obviously I'm not above that), but as a jumping off point for discussion using this high-profile and illustrative case. The point here is not that the NHS …

Apparently the "Clunkers for Cash" program has been used as an example of how the Federal Government can't do anything right, with it running out of money so fast. I get that the program has been "unexpectedly popular" but what I don't understand is, they budgeted 3 billion dollars to run 3 months, but are they running out because of the demand, or because of unanticipated costs? Everything I hear tells me that they basically budgeted the program for $3b to move x cars over n months, but the only real way to claim it has "failed" is if the $3b has been spent to move far less than x cars - the factor of 'n months' seems to be just a factor of working unexpectedly well…

Interesting op/ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today by John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, which runs a chain of natural-oriented grocery stores around the country. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html?mod=googlenews_wsj He mentions several suggestions for overhauling the industry that would be an alternative to the Obamacare or single-payer approaches, costing less and focusing more on cost reform and less on universal coverage, which he denies is either a right or a necessity (I agree, though I am willing to spend SOME to cover more, but not at a cost of a trillion dollar deficit for the forseeable future). L…

Apparently Dick Cheney is writing his memoirs and plans to blame everything on Bush. By everything I mean all the mistakes that were made. By mistakes I mean not pardoning Scooter and not being tougher on Iraq and more secretive and stubborn towards the American people. Doh! I guess there is some value in having him talking, at least. What do you all think? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/08/cheney-unloads-on-bush-.html

Simple question. If you're opposed to the current pair of bills (one in the House, one in the Senate) before the US congress on health care reform, are you opposed to health care reform in general? Or can you be in favor of reform but opposed to these bills? What is your opinion? I ask because some of the threads around here, and some of the discourse I see out in the media, seem to equate the two. In my opinion you can be opposed to these specific bills but still be in favor of reform.

Hi I'm Tom, I receieved a google alert about a federal reserve article on this site which led me to another site to post. You people are all geeks, I was a stoner and used to attend your chess clubs in high school 35 years ago and win every game. Alright, I have a question for you, this is completly different then my usual post. But you are unusual! Just kidding, I hope you know that! Thomas D. Dowling http://www.tomdavidd.com/blog/ tomdavidd@gmail.com August 06, 2009 Here's a chart put together of our country's Gross National Product vs. our Total National Debt over the past 15 years. There is one slight problem with this chart. The current National Debt nu…

As unemployment figures have grown, critics of the administrations stimulus policy have acquired more headway. This comes right at the moment when we're considering vast spending on health care; a fact that is clearly not lost on political Washington. An interesting article talking about Obama's plans for encouraging people to be patient on this issue: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102465.html?hpid=moreheadlines I think he's correct, and most of the criticism is political in nature and not based around better ideas and solutions. I think it's also inaccurate and misleading for conservatives to point at the 8…

Given the recent discussion about plans failing or working (L vs R), Do you guys think if Obama's plans work out, that the whole left vs right thing will die down as well? This whole conversion from Bush to Obama has really kicked up the parties drive to make everything politic. I am pretty sure if Obama bought a dog, there would be a political story attached. Say a white poodle, would be seen as "Obama brings white slave to white house!" joke of course. Also have we sort of brought this upon ourselves with the vindictive behaviours (Atleast I can say I attributed to it) with the attacks on Bush. Even though I do find there is slight difference because his action…

I've always been a little bit peeved by complaints about the American "two-party tyranny." For one, people seem to forget how chaotic multi-party democracies, like Israel's or India's, can be. No one party ever wins an outright majority and so is forced to assemble impromptu coalitions which can take months and inevitably give disproportionate power to small fringe and local parties that can undo governments by withholding their few votes. Our two parties are essentially pre-packaged coalitions that can take power and govern much more reliably and with greater accountability. And secondly, no third party ever seemed really serious to me about putting forward a broad, nat…

I can't remember if I posted this before, but the story's been updated so it's a good chance to refresh it and/or post it for the first time. (It's Friday the 13th, so I figure I'll cover both my bases to be sure!) This is just one honkin' bizarre story, and one of those crazy things that usually gets a "Florida" tag on FARK (probably did -- I haven't been by there in ages). Stories like this just seem to bake and simmer in the hot Florida sun, what can I say. Anyway, not too many months ago a new law was passed in Miami that increased the buffer distance (2500 ft) that convicted sex offenders have to maintain between their place of residence and any schools, park…

u9rtlL4nq3c These libertarianesque retro Republicans who are trying to move beyond the "moral majority" are pretty damn awesome. Rand Paul and Peter Schiff. I am obliged to hate them for various reasons (well not really), but I think they're pretty sweet.

The two most often cited problems in health care in the US are: 1) Not everyone is covered all of the time. 2) Costs are too high. US House and Senate Democrats are hard at work preparing bills that they say will reform the industry and solve the above two problems. Unfortunately they appear to only address the first one, and that only at staggering expense. The House bill calls for a law that will require all Americans to purchase health care. The cost of that healthcare is not addressed in any way, but it requires Americans to buy it or they have to pay a fine. No, really. It actually does this. Which is why the measure costs -- get this -- $615 billio…

I watched quite a bit of cable news for the first time in ages yesterday (in the midst of traveling), and the top story was that two of Obama's top economic advisers (including Geithner) had "left the door open" for a middle class tax hike. This despite Obama's resounding and oft-repeated promise that he would not raise taxes on those households making less than $250,000/year. The general conclusion was that Geithner was simply being realistic: in order to afford a public option in healthcare, taxes will need to be raised. Perhaps this is why Obama is opposed to a single-payer healthcare system. It would undoubtably require a tax hike on middle-class Americans, …

Jon Stewart vs. Bill Kristol is like oil meeting water. Stewart tore into this Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece, and the argument between them was pretty strange and interesting: http://www.hulu.com/embed/ZkZpH6uXyKo0OPK8VqQA-Q/1085 Stewart was talking to Kristol about healthcare, and asked: The discussion continues... Kristol was caught between a desire not to insult the military healthcare system (which is a government-run single-payer healthcare system) and claiming it's first-class while trying to argue that the government wouldn't do a good job at running a healthcare system. I think that's one of the best arguments for single-payer healthcare I've eve…

This was a pretty interesting Krugman article: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/ It's short and to the point: for-profit health insurance systems don't work. To turn a profit they need to minimize the number of claims they accept. To do that they need to deny care. However, they're in the business of providing care. Worse, there's administrative costs associated in deciding which claims to accept and looking for loopholes which would allow them to deny care. This means that for-profit insurers actually spend more money to provide less care (because in the end this saves them money). As Krugman puts it: …

Have you guys been following the story about the situation with the Cambridge professor who was arrested trying to break into his own home, and reacted by accusing the police of racial profiling? That story in itself was not one that I thought noteworthy enough to discuss here, but when the President weighed in on it it suddenly got a lot more interesting in terms of political discussion. (There's a link below that can help catch people up if they missed this.) I cringed when I saw the President say that the police acted "stupidly", but I also noticed that he said that the officer in question had a respectable history. He was trying to be fair, but he really blew …

This guy I was talking to today, regular Limbaugh listener, keeps trying to tell me that some of the proposed legislation has 'hidden' items that are akin to Gestapo tactics, trying to force people to make personal lifestyle changes to improve their lives or be penalized monetarily. I was wondering if anybody knew of this. I found a trace of it on a blog but could not nail it down. I tried to tell him that I didn't think ANY politician would subscribe to such a thing but he insisted that that is what he had heard. Total Limbaugh Quackery or legit discussion? Has anybody heard anything about this? (Not like I am worried about anything.)

Cey_sqA6PfY Try counting all the shutters opening and closing.

I have a dream, where every man, woman, and child shall walk into any clinic and be CURED! Long before it becomes an uncontrollable problem that drains our system of precious resources! I have a dream of EFFICIENCY and EQUALITY and precisionlike performance of the machine that is our WORLD! I have a dream, that the ignorant shall be educated, that questions will be answered, and that lives will be improved, productivity will be restored, rather than being satisfied with the status quo of mediocrity that is our health system TODAY! I have a dream, of being at the FOREFRONT of healthcare in our world today, and NOT the selfish, elitist shadow republic of archa…

Almost like folks have been reading SFN! http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090326/pl_politico/20526 I'm afraid this didn't get much support from the President, though: My color commentary: "Oof, that's gotta hurt!"

This is good, right? Seems that way to me. One of the financial companies that got a huge bailout is about to report a big profit in the same quarter that it paid back $10 billion in TARP loans from the taxpayer. Apparently they're on track for their most profitable year ever, and their share price is up 73% from where it crashed to. To me this seems to be not only a sign of recovery, but also a sign that our compromise system of governance, neither socialism nor pure capitalism, can continue to drive our society forward. I imagine opposition comments will come in along the lines of "well of course they turned a profit -- they got bailed out". But at the tim…

For those of you who are wondering about the significance of something being OVER 9000, I invite you to read the Encyclopedia Dramatica article about the OVER 9000 meme. http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJX:DJI Despite the teabagging and worries about high unemployment the DJIA has slowly slogged uphill, reaching 9000 again for the first time since the beginning of the year. I'm not saying the Dow knows all but in general this is good news.