Buried in the massive 1000+ page health bill are all sorts of hidden "gatchas" that are just beginning to emerge. Here is a new one - small businesses now have to report to the IRS ANY purchase over $600, whether or not it has anything at all to do with health care. This of course generates massive amount of new paperwork for small businesses, and for the IRS. And it has nothing to do with health care. Indeed, I can't see that it serves any purpose at all - just more bureaucracy.
I wonder how many in Congress knew that requirement was in there when they voted for the bill? The level of incompetence in this Congress (Democratic and Republican alike) is absolutely astounding!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Some thoughts on Obama's programs
In murder mysteries, the detective always gets around to asking the obvious motive question - who benefited from this murder? Amidst all the pre-midterm political hype from both parties, it occurs to me to ask of this administration's first two years in office - who benefited?
The administration claims to have "saved" the nation from a major depression by bailing out the banks when they were in trouble. But who seems to have really benefited? Well, the people in the banks who caused the problem in the first place all got to keep their jobs, and most got to keep their outrageous bonuses as well. But those banks still aren't lending to small businesses much, so the rest of us haven't seen much gain from this action.
The administration claims to have "saved" the big auto companies with the bailout of GM and Chrysler. But who, in the end, really got to keep their jobs ? The UAW union members, not incidentally big supporters of Democratic politicians.
The administration claims to have "saved" the jobs of lots of teachers and policemen and fireman across the country. Translation - they saved the jobs of lots of politically powerful public sector union members.
The administration is trying its best to claim that the health care bill is good for all of us. That may or may not end up being true, but it certainly was good for the insurance companies, now that all of us HAVE to buy insurance, with the government paying the bills for those who can't afford it. And it certainly was good for the bureaucracy in Washington, who get to add a huge number of new jobs and agencies. Go here to see an amazing flowchart of the new agencies added by the bill.
The rhetoric is nice, but when I look at who really seems to have been helped thus far, it seems to be mostly Washington bureaucrats and key members of the Democratic base, which may be why the rest of the country is still suffering massive unemployment and home foreclosures.
The administration claims to have "saved" the nation from a major depression by bailing out the banks when they were in trouble. But who seems to have really benefited? Well, the people in the banks who caused the problem in the first place all got to keep their jobs, and most got to keep their outrageous bonuses as well. But those banks still aren't lending to small businesses much, so the rest of us haven't seen much gain from this action.
The administration claims to have "saved" the big auto companies with the bailout of GM and Chrysler. But who, in the end, really got to keep their jobs ? The UAW union members, not incidentally big supporters of Democratic politicians.
The administration claims to have "saved" the jobs of lots of teachers and policemen and fireman across the country. Translation - they saved the jobs of lots of politically powerful public sector union members.
The administration is trying its best to claim that the health care bill is good for all of us. That may or may not end up being true, but it certainly was good for the insurance companies, now that all of us HAVE to buy insurance, with the government paying the bills for those who can't afford it. And it certainly was good for the bureaucracy in Washington, who get to add a huge number of new jobs and agencies. Go here to see an amazing flowchart of the new agencies added by the bill.
The rhetoric is nice, but when I look at who really seems to have been helped thus far, it seems to be mostly Washington bureaucrats and key members of the Democratic base, which may be why the rest of the country is still suffering massive unemployment and home foreclosures.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Recommended: The Genteel Nation
David Brooks has written another of his thought-provoking Ed pieces in the Sept 9, 2010 New York Times. It is entitled The Genteel Nation, and makes the point that I have made in past posts about how the nation's best and brightest are increasingly moving into more lucrative but essentially "non-productive" service fields like law and finance. One result is that increasingly the science and engineering skills in the nation come from immigrants, and increasingly manufacturing is moving outside the country, so increasingly we as a nation just push paper (or electrons) and don't really make anything. Brooks points out that the British Empire went through a similar shift, immediately before it began its decline as a major world power, and he wonders if the effect will be the same in this nation.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Human insignificance
The constant swirl of world news and world crises gives the impression that human events are significant, are important, are crucial. We have just spent ten days in Glacier National Park, surrounded by 10,000 foot peaks that have been created by the entire earth buckling and moving a block of mountains 60 miles East, and then shaping them with mile-thick glaciers. The forces involved are so immense that everything that humans have done since our species emerged from the trees is dwarfed by comparison. The time scale involved is so immense (the oldest rocks exposed are at least 1.6 BILLION years old) that all of human history is just a small footnote to a minor marginal note in the story of the world's history.
It is useful now and then to have these experiences, and recall again how minor, how insignificant human affairs are in the entire galactic scheme of things. It puts the yammering of tinpot politicians in Washington and Tehran and Moscow in proper perspective.
It is useful now and then to have these experiences, and recall again how minor, how insignificant human affairs are in the entire galactic scheme of things. It puts the yammering of tinpot politicians in Washington and Tehran and Moscow in proper perspective.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Recommended: Math Lessons for Locavores
Its amazing how gullible we all are. We the general public have been taken time and time again by plausible-sounding but fallacious arguments, usually completely unsupported by any credible evidence. Remember the popular advice to drink 8 glasses of water a day (the invention of a Senate staffer, it turns out)?
Stephen Budiansky has written about this in today's New York Times Op Ed page, with a piece about the current fad to "save the environment" by eating only locally-grown foods. His piece Math Lessons for Locavores points out that despite the hype, transportation costs account for only a very small part of the total energy cost of growing and preparing food. And fertilizes and agricultural chemicals account for an even smaller portion. The real energy hogs in the system, it turns out, are our own home preparation and storage energy uses (driving to the store, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens).
Stephen Budiansky has written about this in today's New York Times Op Ed page, with a piece about the current fad to "save the environment" by eating only locally-grown foods. His piece Math Lessons for Locavores points out that despite the hype, transportation costs account for only a very small part of the total energy cost of growing and preparing food. And fertilizes and agricultural chemicals account for an even smaller portion. The real energy hogs in the system, it turns out, are our own home preparation and storage energy uses (driving to the store, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens).
Recommended: U.S. deficit forecast masks true scope of problem
Reuters Online today has an interesting short piece entitled
U.S. deficit forecast masks true scope of problem. It makes the point yet again (with numbers) that Congress and the administration are doing their best to cover up and keep from the public a very serious fiscal problem, by playing the same accounting games the government has been playing for decades, under both Republicans and Democrats.
The future liabilities for Social Security and especially for Medicare are truly staggering -- $107 TRILLION as of 2009. That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt. The nation's finances are already in worse shape than Greece's finances, and we are only insulated from a Greek-style crisis by the fact that the world is still willing to loan us money at low interest by buying our Treasury bonds. That cannot continue indefinitely, and when they stop buying our bonds, or begin to demand a much higher interest rate, we will be in "deep kimshe" (translation: a world of hurt) very quickly.
I can't help but be annoyed that the Washington political elite that got us into this mess (both parties, this is not a Republican vs Democrat thing) are absolutely insulated from the effects of their bad decisions. There is absolutely no accountability for members of Congress, all of whom have their own generous pensions and health plans unaffected by the chaos their poor decisions have created for the rest of us. I can't help but be annoyed, for example, that House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank (D. Mass) is still pontificating about how Bush created the fiscal crisis, when it was he himself who blocked the Bush administration's attempts to regulate Fanny Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddi Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), the institutions that set off the whole crisis by massively buying subprime mortgages (as they were instructed to do by Congress, especially Rep. Barney Frank).
U.S. deficit forecast masks true scope of problem. It makes the point yet again (with numbers) that Congress and the administration are doing their best to cover up and keep from the public a very serious fiscal problem, by playing the same accounting games the government has been playing for decades, under both Republicans and Democrats.
The future liabilities for Social Security and especially for Medicare are truly staggering -- $107 TRILLION as of 2009. That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt. The nation's finances are already in worse shape than Greece's finances, and we are only insulated from a Greek-style crisis by the fact that the world is still willing to loan us money at low interest by buying our Treasury bonds. That cannot continue indefinitely, and when they stop buying our bonds, or begin to demand a much higher interest rate, we will be in "deep kimshe" (translation: a world of hurt) very quickly.
I can't help but be annoyed that the Washington political elite that got us into this mess (both parties, this is not a Republican vs Democrat thing) are absolutely insulated from the effects of their bad decisions. There is absolutely no accountability for members of Congress, all of whom have their own generous pensions and health plans unaffected by the chaos their poor decisions have created for the rest of us. I can't help but be annoyed, for example, that House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank (D. Mass) is still pontificating about how Bush created the fiscal crisis, when it was he himself who blocked the Bush administration's attempts to regulate Fanny Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddi Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), the institutions that set off the whole crisis by massively buying subprime mortgages (as they were instructed to do by Congress, especially Rep. Barney Frank).
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
To Bomb or Not to Bomb......
The Atlantic Monthly September 2010 issue has a lead article by Jeffrey Goldberg entitled "Israel is Getting Ready to Bomb Iran: How, Why - and What It Means." This article has sparked a vigorous debate in Washington and in the blogosphere. A good summary of recent comments and reactions can be found here.
I am impressed at the confidence with which some writers dismiss the Israeli worry about Iran's nuclear capability. We are all, of course, biased by our own experiences, and those who dismiss Israel's worries as overblown are clearly not people who ever lived through a holocaust, or under the constant threat of Hamas rockets and Hezbollah suicide bombers. I'm sure there were those in the late 1930's who thought worries about Hitler's ambitions were overblown.
I suspect that American writers and politicians, sitting safely in their comfortable offices here in America, are poorly equipped to understand either an Israeli fear of another holocaust or yet another major assault by their Arab neighbors, or the apocalyptic visions of the mullahs and their thugs in power in Tehran. We might not view a nuclear Iran as a serious threat, but their nearby neighbors certainly will so long as Iran is led by religious fanatics.
I am impressed at the confidence with which some writers dismiss the Israeli worry about Iran's nuclear capability. We are all, of course, biased by our own experiences, and those who dismiss Israel's worries as overblown are clearly not people who ever lived through a holocaust, or under the constant threat of Hamas rockets and Hezbollah suicide bombers. I'm sure there were those in the late 1930's who thought worries about Hitler's ambitions were overblown.
I suspect that American writers and politicians, sitting safely in their comfortable offices here in America, are poorly equipped to understand either an Israeli fear of another holocaust or yet another major assault by their Arab neighbors, or the apocalyptic visions of the mullahs and their thugs in power in Tehran. We might not view a nuclear Iran as a serious threat, but their nearby neighbors certainly will so long as Iran is led by religious fanatics.
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