Nothing drives me more crazy than people who still believe in Adam & Eve, and not in evolution, and want to not teach evolution in their schools.
Now comes a summary of a civilization in India, Nepal, Pakistan that arose 5,200 years ago, which is only 800 years after Adam & Eve in Mesopotamia. This population was very sophisticated and had plumbing, agriculture and cities. If the Bible were the sole truth about early life, there would be mention of this other civilization. Since there is not, we can only conclude that evolution is yet proved to be correct again.
Who Knew Link
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Book Review: The Best Care Possible by Ira Byock
As I look for a position in the non-profit world helping with Health Care, I continue to learn through my informal study of health care expenses and wonder how I can contribute to helping find a path to affordable health care for all.
There is no lack of focus on this issue down in the trenches of the existing heath care system I have come to learn and I recommend reading this book to see how end of life care can be both humane, extend life a little or lot through modern medical knowledge and have its costs better controlled.
The book is recommending exactly what did not happen in the case of mother which resulted in $400,000 of wasted expenditures on end of life care and illustrates a process by which it would have been decided that my mother should have had her DNR request honored while someone else could have recovered and lived a longer useful life. No death panels are required at any level, only families and doctors making caring decisions about issues that cannot be avoided.
The book shows that not all expensive end of life treatments are wasted funds. There can be successful treatments that allow people to live productive lives for a reasonable period of time. There are also less expensive treatments that improve the quality of life for people who are on some path toward near term death.
The key thing the book advocates is breaking free from notion that everyone who is acutely ill needs to be treated for a comprehensive manner so the current point of care can "cure" the individual of everything. That is what the acute care system is designed to do and it works for people in car accidents and other things that happen to younger people. It even works for the elderly in the right circumstances. What it does not work for is when a person is dying and the only reasonable thing to do is make the person comfortable. That is when an incredible amount of money is wasted.
To get there, hospitals need to look at the best practices on cost controls that are out there. Some hospitals are well along in learning how Palliative Care works while others have not even started. For example, the book cites a Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care study that found UVLA spends an average of $93,482 for the last 2 years of an individual's life while the Mayo Clinic spends $53,432 for the equivalent population. Does anyone think the Mayo Clinic provides inadequate care?
Hospice care is an important part of the cost control solution but Medicare policies need to be changed to allow more flexibility in the use of hospice care.
The one thing the book emphasizes over and over again is people will make the best decisions for themselves if they are given full information, their feelings are well understood, and they are allowed to be cared for at home, if possible. Most people want to die at home. Most people die in the hospital or a nursing home. Why? Because 50% of men and 75% of women over age 75 are living alone and have no care giver to go home to and the system is not set up to pay for reduced cost maintenance care.
This book was an eye opener for me and is written in a manner that easily kept me wanting to read more. I recommend it highly.
There is no lack of focus on this issue down in the trenches of the existing heath care system I have come to learn and I recommend reading this book to see how end of life care can be both humane, extend life a little or lot through modern medical knowledge and have its costs better controlled.
The book is recommending exactly what did not happen in the case of mother which resulted in $400,000 of wasted expenditures on end of life care and illustrates a process by which it would have been decided that my mother should have had her DNR request honored while someone else could have recovered and lived a longer useful life. No death panels are required at any level, only families and doctors making caring decisions about issues that cannot be avoided.
The book shows that not all expensive end of life treatments are wasted funds. There can be successful treatments that allow people to live productive lives for a reasonable period of time. There are also less expensive treatments that improve the quality of life for people who are on some path toward near term death.
The key thing the book advocates is breaking free from notion that everyone who is acutely ill needs to be treated for a comprehensive manner so the current point of care can "cure" the individual of everything. That is what the acute care system is designed to do and it works for people in car accidents and other things that happen to younger people. It even works for the elderly in the right circumstances. What it does not work for is when a person is dying and the only reasonable thing to do is make the person comfortable. That is when an incredible amount of money is wasted.
To get there, hospitals need to look at the best practices on cost controls that are out there. Some hospitals are well along in learning how Palliative Care works while others have not even started. For example, the book cites a Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care study that found UVLA spends an average of $93,482 for the last 2 years of an individual's life while the Mayo Clinic spends $53,432 for the equivalent population. Does anyone think the Mayo Clinic provides inadequate care?
Hospice care is an important part of the cost control solution but Medicare policies need to be changed to allow more flexibility in the use of hospice care.
The one thing the book emphasizes over and over again is people will make the best decisions for themselves if they are given full information, their feelings are well understood, and they are allowed to be cared for at home, if possible. Most people want to die at home. Most people die in the hospital or a nursing home. Why? Because 50% of men and 75% of women over age 75 are living alone and have no care giver to go home to and the system is not set up to pay for reduced cost maintenance care.
This book was an eye opener for me and is written in a manner that easily kept me wanting to read more. I recommend it highly.
Tuesday Musings
A special edition of musings which are typically on Sunday.
A story today in the New York Times highlights that people who no longer get Unemployment checks have a financial hardship. Well that is the point of unemployment checks and welfare checks having an end date. To make you realize any income is better than no income and figure out a way to earn an income. When unemployment checks end, you apply for welfare. When welfare ends, I don't know what happens, but ever since the Clinton Administration reformed welfare with a GOP led Congress almost 20 years ago (ah, the benefits of working together in Congress), the number of people on welfare has been in decline.
A story bemoaning the decline in competition in local TV news as small market stations combine news rooms to remain profitable. How much creative news occurs in a small market? How much investigative reporting is done by TV local news anywhere? What happens to news dissemination if the broadcast of news is not profitable? There will be no dissemination of news. By the way, this is apparently happening in BTV. This is not a problem worthy of a front page.
Sally Krawcheck agrees with me for banks on compensation but fails to extend it to the corporate world.
Joe Nocera column on Sally K's idea
David Brooks on the philosophical political debate that is going on but not being discussed because it doesn't fit into sound bites on the campaign trail and neither liberals nor conservatives want to debate it. The column makes the case that the government has a traditional role in paying for infrastructure to facilitate commerce that improves economic well being and provides the tax revenue to pay for it. It also makes the case that expanding the social safety net has to have limitations. However, it does not address the issue that if you are going to limit the social safety net, you have to campaign on that point so the voters understand exactly what is going to happen and can make a conscious decision.
It also does not address the need to pay for the War on Terror, which has been 100% borrowed, by raising revenues or campaigning explicitly on the point that we are going to cut entitlements to pay for the War on Terror. I, for one, do not want to see entitlements cut to pay for Borrowed War on Terror.
David Brooks on Alexander Hamilton's views applied to today
And lastly, an article that appeared on the need for pension plans to reduce their assumed rate of return and fund the pensions appropriately. Well, neither the public nor the private sector can be accused of managing this one appropriately and it is time for them to get real. How are investments going to produce the assumed return of 7% or 8% over the next 10 years? They are not going to generate those returns and it is time to get realistic with this and manage it accordingly. What will happen is unfunded liabilities will become apparent and either pension expense will go up or pensions will have to be negotiated down. Both happen in the private sector when pension expense reduces earnings causing declines in share prices and in extreme cases reduces pensions when a company goes into bankruptcy. However, the public sector does not have the bankruptcy option. It must be done either politically through an honest open process (see Wisconsin & Ohio for a failure to openly campaign on their plans) and or through the yet to be seen or tested bankruptcy of a state. We are seeing bankruptcy at the city level and pensions are being reduced. Welcome to capitalism municipal employees. This is why workers need to be active participants in understanding the competitiveness of their employer and working with them to maintain competitiveness.
A story today in the New York Times highlights that people who no longer get Unemployment checks have a financial hardship. Well that is the point of unemployment checks and welfare checks having an end date. To make you realize any income is better than no income and figure out a way to earn an income. When unemployment checks end, you apply for welfare. When welfare ends, I don't know what happens, but ever since the Clinton Administration reformed welfare with a GOP led Congress almost 20 years ago (ah, the benefits of working together in Congress), the number of people on welfare has been in decline.
A story bemoaning the decline in competition in local TV news as small market stations combine news rooms to remain profitable. How much creative news occurs in a small market? How much investigative reporting is done by TV local news anywhere? What happens to news dissemination if the broadcast of news is not profitable? There will be no dissemination of news. By the way, this is apparently happening in BTV. This is not a problem worthy of a front page.
Sally Krawcheck agrees with me for banks on compensation but fails to extend it to the corporate world.
Joe Nocera column on Sally K's idea
David Brooks on the philosophical political debate that is going on but not being discussed because it doesn't fit into sound bites on the campaign trail and neither liberals nor conservatives want to debate it. The column makes the case that the government has a traditional role in paying for infrastructure to facilitate commerce that improves economic well being and provides the tax revenue to pay for it. It also makes the case that expanding the social safety net has to have limitations. However, it does not address the issue that if you are going to limit the social safety net, you have to campaign on that point so the voters understand exactly what is going to happen and can make a conscious decision.
It also does not address the need to pay for the War on Terror, which has been 100% borrowed, by raising revenues or campaigning explicitly on the point that we are going to cut entitlements to pay for the War on Terror. I, for one, do not want to see entitlements cut to pay for Borrowed War on Terror.
David Brooks on Alexander Hamilton's views applied to today
And lastly, an article that appeared on the need for pension plans to reduce their assumed rate of return and fund the pensions appropriately. Well, neither the public nor the private sector can be accused of managing this one appropriately and it is time for them to get real. How are investments going to produce the assumed return of 7% or 8% over the next 10 years? They are not going to generate those returns and it is time to get realistic with this and manage it accordingly. What will happen is unfunded liabilities will become apparent and either pension expense will go up or pensions will have to be negotiated down. Both happen in the private sector when pension expense reduces earnings causing declines in share prices and in extreme cases reduces pensions when a company goes into bankruptcy. However, the public sector does not have the bankruptcy option. It must be done either politically through an honest open process (see Wisconsin & Ohio for a failure to openly campaign on their plans) and or through the yet to be seen or tested bankruptcy of a state. We are seeing bankruptcy at the city level and pensions are being reduced. Welcome to capitalism municipal employees. This is why workers need to be active participants in understanding the competitiveness of their employer and working with them to maintain competitiveness.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Today's Musings
No heavy lifting today as I am saving that capacity to write the next blog on a book I just read.
But for today, a few comments on the Sunday paper.
Thomas Friedman is as frustrated as I am that President Obama has not seized the moral high ground on the reality of the fiscal debate by promoting the Simpson-Bowles Plan from the day it was issued. Of course, he being the professional pundit, he says it more eloquently than I ever have.
Friedman's Column
Also, the Times highlighted some of the arguments for the Supreme Court to allow state laws that basically ban what is allowed by the Citizens United decision at the Federal Level. Montana instituted bans on mining companies giving money anonymously to state candidates because the mining companies stacked the legislature and courts with people favorable to the mining companies point of view. The result was pollution and other nefarious mining practices that the vast majority of state citizens did not want. I have visited Anaconda, Montana and seen the tailings hill. I cannot imagine what poison flowed from this enormous mound into the stream that flows from that area into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers eventually. Those river waters are used as drinking and irrigation water in many states.
Another dive into the J.P. Morgan derivatives trade discusses the trade from the other side and leaves me confused as to who is long and who is short CDX.IG.9.10. I thought I knew what was what before reading this article, and perhaps it is the journalist who is confused, but whatever, my take away is this type of index should be traded on an exchange with daily exchange of cash collateral for MTM changes. There is no value in hiding such positions on a big bank balance sheet where it is non-material until it is suddenly material.
Finally, there is a detailed explanation of how criminals defraud the IRS by filing fake tax returns. The reason the government cannot seem to stop this and it continues to grow now consuming billions of dollars is the rush to pay tax refunds. A little delay to verify tax filing information through comparisons of physical addresses, email verifications if the physical address has changed, bank account information etc would seem appropriate to prevent such fraud from happening. Yes, that is not exactly what the internet age is suppose to be all about, but it is reality that the internet age has facilitated criminal activity that could not have been anticipated by the vast majority of people.
Now onto Health Care again when I am done relaxing this holiday weekend.
But for today, a few comments on the Sunday paper.
Thomas Friedman is as frustrated as I am that President Obama has not seized the moral high ground on the reality of the fiscal debate by promoting the Simpson-Bowles Plan from the day it was issued. Of course, he being the professional pundit, he says it more eloquently than I ever have.
Friedman's Column
Also, the Times highlighted some of the arguments for the Supreme Court to allow state laws that basically ban what is allowed by the Citizens United decision at the Federal Level. Montana instituted bans on mining companies giving money anonymously to state candidates because the mining companies stacked the legislature and courts with people favorable to the mining companies point of view. The result was pollution and other nefarious mining practices that the vast majority of state citizens did not want. I have visited Anaconda, Montana and seen the tailings hill. I cannot imagine what poison flowed from this enormous mound into the stream that flows from that area into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers eventually. Those river waters are used as drinking and irrigation water in many states.
Another dive into the J.P. Morgan derivatives trade discusses the trade from the other side and leaves me confused as to who is long and who is short CDX.IG.9.10. I thought I knew what was what before reading this article, and perhaps it is the journalist who is confused, but whatever, my take away is this type of index should be traded on an exchange with daily exchange of cash collateral for MTM changes. There is no value in hiding such positions on a big bank balance sheet where it is non-material until it is suddenly material.
Finally, there is a detailed explanation of how criminals defraud the IRS by filing fake tax returns. The reason the government cannot seem to stop this and it continues to grow now consuming billions of dollars is the rush to pay tax refunds. A little delay to verify tax filing information through comparisons of physical addresses, email verifications if the physical address has changed, bank account information etc would seem appropriate to prevent such fraud from happening. Yes, that is not exactly what the internet age is suppose to be all about, but it is reality that the internet age has facilitated criminal activity that could not have been anticipated by the vast majority of people.
Now onto Health Care again when I am done relaxing this holiday weekend.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Greed is a ugly motivation
I know that is going to sound strange coming from a University of Chicago graduate who was schooled in the benefits that accrue to society from profit maximization. They are in no particular order, higher productivity, higher standards of living for all, a stronger national defense because there are more tax revenues and a better functioning democracy because all benefit from having some of their views expressed in policy, if not most of their views expressed in policy.
However, I look at: (i) J.P. Morgan's trading debacle, (ii) the implosion of an uncountable number of Ponzi schemes and (iii) ruinous financial policies that began with tax cuts for all and ended with a real estate collapse that hurt anyone who owned financial or housing assets; and what do I see, greed is an ugly motivator because it results in excesses that harm innocent bystanders to the activity.
Now I am not advocating blinding regulation to prevent all this from happening. The only thing that should be regulated is anything that is too important to be allowed to fail from a societal standpoint. My candidates for such status are (i) the financial system because the allocation of credit must operate smoothly and without panic in the deposit base, (ii) health care because access to health care is a societal obligation under the laws of the Hippocratic Oath (and if Republicans do not want to pay for this in some manner, the medical system must have the obligation to treat anyone without regard to their ability to pay removed as a legal obligation), and (iii) utilities, because competition makes no sense when there is a concentrated need for capital outlays and it is an essential service.
I do not want to suggest that government can regulate greed out of our system. That is not possible in a capitalist system and only works in the theoretical world of communes. I believe in capitalism and the incentives it provides. However, greed needs to be self-regulated by individuals within society. If one earns something, save it for the rainy day that almost everyone eventually faces.
What brought the urge to write about this was thinking about the Facebook IPO. The investment bankers probably got paid more if the IPO price is higher. Certainly, selling shareholders got more and they are the investment banker's clients. But most certainly, the $38.00 price for FB was too high by a lot. It was something like 100x to 150x earnings, but unless you saw the offering documents, you can't be sure; any price above 10x earnings is assuming growth and obviously 100+x is a lot of growth that may or may not be justified. But there can be no doubt that greed was behind this excessive valuation.
The J.P.Morgan CDS trade is no doubt motivated by greed. The CIO got paid $15 mm last year. That means her direct reports made at least $5 mm and the Whale made at least $1mm. Did they let their greed for continued compensation like that cloud their judgement. Almost certainly, they did.
I have seen many times excessive bonuses result in excessive risk being taken and the cost is rarely born by those who are paid the excessive bonus. Certainly, there may be costs to those individuals when the excessive risk comes home to roost, but they are still better off and may be remarkably better off. But, when the excessive risk comes home to roost, shareholders are not better off, clients may not be better off and there are almost certainly other innocents that are harmed.
In the current political debate, the focus is on having those who earn these excessive compensations pay their fair share of taxes. While I support that, that will not be sufficient to root out the incentive to take excessive risk for excessive compensation. Boards of Directors and Senior Managements are going to have to discuss this and decide for themselves that clients are first, shareholders are next in the value game and staff are third. If staff are going to be paid millions of dollars, it should be in the form of continuing skin in the game so their wealth is at risk if there is excessive risk. That means all compensation above $500,000 should be in delayed as at risk compensation. No instant millionaire status for anyone except someone who has the talent for someone without shareholders to pay them or develops a new product and earns that money through the value creation chain.
I am not optimistic this will happen. The Board of Directors of Chesapeake Energy just had their compensation cut. Now they will get $100,000 cash and $250,000 in equity for their 10 days of service. Before they got $125,000 more in cash, the stock and full use of Chesapeake's company owned airplanes. If they are getting paid like that, where is the incentive for them to control company compensation? The people who recommend they get paid that much are the people the Board determines the compensation of. It is a circular world and I am not sure how to break it.
However, I look at: (i) J.P. Morgan's trading debacle, (ii) the implosion of an uncountable number of Ponzi schemes and (iii) ruinous financial policies that began with tax cuts for all and ended with a real estate collapse that hurt anyone who owned financial or housing assets; and what do I see, greed is an ugly motivator because it results in excesses that harm innocent bystanders to the activity.
Now I am not advocating blinding regulation to prevent all this from happening. The only thing that should be regulated is anything that is too important to be allowed to fail from a societal standpoint. My candidates for such status are (i) the financial system because the allocation of credit must operate smoothly and without panic in the deposit base, (ii) health care because access to health care is a societal obligation under the laws of the Hippocratic Oath (and if Republicans do not want to pay for this in some manner, the medical system must have the obligation to treat anyone without regard to their ability to pay removed as a legal obligation), and (iii) utilities, because competition makes no sense when there is a concentrated need for capital outlays and it is an essential service.
I do not want to suggest that government can regulate greed out of our system. That is not possible in a capitalist system and only works in the theoretical world of communes. I believe in capitalism and the incentives it provides. However, greed needs to be self-regulated by individuals within society. If one earns something, save it for the rainy day that almost everyone eventually faces.
What brought the urge to write about this was thinking about the Facebook IPO. The investment bankers probably got paid more if the IPO price is higher. Certainly, selling shareholders got more and they are the investment banker's clients. But most certainly, the $38.00 price for FB was too high by a lot. It was something like 100x to 150x earnings, but unless you saw the offering documents, you can't be sure; any price above 10x earnings is assuming growth and obviously 100+x is a lot of growth that may or may not be justified. But there can be no doubt that greed was behind this excessive valuation.
The J.P.Morgan CDS trade is no doubt motivated by greed. The CIO got paid $15 mm last year. That means her direct reports made at least $5 mm and the Whale made at least $1mm. Did they let their greed for continued compensation like that cloud their judgement. Almost certainly, they did.
I have seen many times excessive bonuses result in excessive risk being taken and the cost is rarely born by those who are paid the excessive bonus. Certainly, there may be costs to those individuals when the excessive risk comes home to roost, but they are still better off and may be remarkably better off. But, when the excessive risk comes home to roost, shareholders are not better off, clients may not be better off and there are almost certainly other innocents that are harmed.
In the current political debate, the focus is on having those who earn these excessive compensations pay their fair share of taxes. While I support that, that will not be sufficient to root out the incentive to take excessive risk for excessive compensation. Boards of Directors and Senior Managements are going to have to discuss this and decide for themselves that clients are first, shareholders are next in the value game and staff are third. If staff are going to be paid millions of dollars, it should be in the form of continuing skin in the game so their wealth is at risk if there is excessive risk. That means all compensation above $500,000 should be in delayed as at risk compensation. No instant millionaire status for anyone except someone who has the talent for someone without shareholders to pay them or develops a new product and earns that money through the value creation chain.
I am not optimistic this will happen. The Board of Directors of Chesapeake Energy just had their compensation cut. Now they will get $100,000 cash and $250,000 in equity for their 10 days of service. Before they got $125,000 more in cash, the stock and full use of Chesapeake's company owned airplanes. If they are getting paid like that, where is the incentive for them to control company compensation? The people who recommend they get paid that much are the people the Board determines the compensation of. It is a circular world and I am not sure how to break it.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
JP Morgan & VaR
For those of you who do not know, VaR is Value at Risk and a measure of daily market risk in a position. JPM's risk management system was working according to theory when it measured the risk in the position that has cost the firm $2.0 bn already and much more in stock market value and reputation.
The VaR in the position according to press reports was $178 mm. But VaR assumes that reversion to the mean happens eventually and one cannot always hold a position until that happens. And that is what stress tests are supposed to measure. However, there has been no release to the public as what the expected loss in a stress scenario was. And what we do know is that the position started to lose between $150mm and $200 mm a day for 10 to 15 business days resulting in the MTM loss passing through the income statement. So while VaR was working, someone forgot that the stomach to hold the position until mean reversion happened might not be present and MTM losses might become real losses. In fact, we don't know what JPM has done with the positions so they may still recover the loss or lose more on it.
What quantitative risk managers forget is common sense. A position may be too large for the market to absorb if reversed. Therefore, limits have to take into account the time it takes to unwind a position and the loss that might occur over that time period. VaR is daily measure and is fatally flawed when only used on a daily basis.
I know that JPM knows this stuff and the real mystery is why they did not apply it in this instance. I presume Jamie is working to make sure this does not happen again.
The VaR in the position according to press reports was $178 mm. But VaR assumes that reversion to the mean happens eventually and one cannot always hold a position until that happens. And that is what stress tests are supposed to measure. However, there has been no release to the public as what the expected loss in a stress scenario was. And what we do know is that the position started to lose between $150mm and $200 mm a day for 10 to 15 business days resulting in the MTM loss passing through the income statement. So while VaR was working, someone forgot that the stomach to hold the position until mean reversion happened might not be present and MTM losses might become real losses. In fact, we don't know what JPM has done with the positions so they may still recover the loss or lose more on it.
What quantitative risk managers forget is common sense. A position may be too large for the market to absorb if reversed. Therefore, limits have to take into account the time it takes to unwind a position and the loss that might occur over that time period. VaR is daily measure and is fatally flawed when only used on a daily basis.
I know that JPM knows this stuff and the real mystery is why they did not apply it in this instance. I presume Jamie is working to make sure this does not happen again.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
You Cannot Make This Stuff Up
Paul Ryan said today that we have to cut food stamp and cancer screening expenditures to get people out of poverty. So if I am a poor woman, I have to starve and not be screened for cancer so I can get out of poverty because I will get a job that some businessman is going to create in my ghetto with his tax cuts.
What is there to be afraid of?
There has been vigorous debate since Mr. Obama said he supported marriage rights for non-hetersexuals. Like the President's previous position, I have thought that Civil Unions achieved the same purpose, but then we got married by a Justice of the Peace (who happened to believe in ghosts) in the basement of Chicago City Hall. Other than a marriage certificate being issued for that, we could be existing in a civil union.
Anyway, a year or so ago, I decided if gay/lesbians wanted to be married, what difference does it make to me and it generally makes these people happy. So let it happen.
The primary two arguments presented on the News Hour last night against this were: (i) this will encourage young people to become gay or lesbian and (ii) it is a threat to the institution of marriage.
I could not believe my ears that this drivel was coming out of the mouth of somebody representing a church. Young people do not choose to be hetersexual or gay/lesbian. It just happens. So it must be genetically based. How does denying GLBT's the right to marry have any effect on the propensity of any individual to be GLBT? How does allowing them to do so harm the institution of marriage? It seems to me to enhance it since it is so important to these individuals that they want it more than almost anything else in social policy. That is showing respect for the institution of marriage.
And just to repeat, our Declaration of Independence does say: "All men are created equal". When they wrote that they met men and women without regard to sexual preference. If they did not mean that, they would have put in some exceptions, which they did not except for slave's. And that is certainly seen universally as a sorry exception from a pious point of view. How one can believe that denying slave's rights is wrong and then deny a GLBT from marrying is beyond me.
Let's discuss some real issues such as why doesn't the GOP want to raise revenues to repay the debt incurred to fight the war on terror.
Anyway, a year or so ago, I decided if gay/lesbians wanted to be married, what difference does it make to me and it generally makes these people happy. So let it happen.
The primary two arguments presented on the News Hour last night against this were: (i) this will encourage young people to become gay or lesbian and (ii) it is a threat to the institution of marriage.
I could not believe my ears that this drivel was coming out of the mouth of somebody representing a church. Young people do not choose to be hetersexual or gay/lesbian. It just happens. So it must be genetically based. How does denying GLBT's the right to marry have any effect on the propensity of any individual to be GLBT? How does allowing them to do so harm the institution of marriage? It seems to me to enhance it since it is so important to these individuals that they want it more than almost anything else in social policy. That is showing respect for the institution of marriage.
And just to repeat, our Declaration of Independence does say: "All men are created equal". When they wrote that they met men and women without regard to sexual preference. If they did not mean that, they would have put in some exceptions, which they did not except for slave's. And that is certainly seen universally as a sorry exception from a pious point of view. How one can believe that denying slave's rights is wrong and then deny a GLBT from marrying is beyond me.
Let's discuss some real issues such as why doesn't the GOP want to raise revenues to repay the debt incurred to fight the war on terror.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Chen Guangcheng
I am sorry the U.S. let Mr Chen leave the embassy, but you cannot hold him against his will. And I am glad that apparently the PRC will now let Mr. Chen and his family leave the country.
What I was most impressed by during this news cycle was how naive Mr. Chen appears to be. His goals are noble, but if you are under house arrest and you sneak away to the U.S. embassy, what do you expect the Communist Government, that does not know how to deal with any opposition, to do. They will use whatever they have to blackmail you back so they can control you.
Why would Mr. Chen ever think he would have more negotiating power within China then he would have as a resident of the U.S. Embassy? He should have stayed put in the Embassy.
What I was most impressed by during this news cycle was how naive Mr. Chen appears to be. His goals are noble, but if you are under house arrest and you sneak away to the U.S. embassy, what do you expect the Communist Government, that does not know how to deal with any opposition, to do. They will use whatever they have to blackmail you back so they can control you.
Why would Mr. Chen ever think he would have more negotiating power within China then he would have as a resident of the U.S. Embassy? He should have stayed put in the Embassy.
I cannot resist quoting this comment
The GOP campaign theme. Put us back into power so we can use the same policies that took the nation from record growth and surpluses to the greatest recession since the depression in just eight years--and now these policies will pull the country out of the nose dive faster than Obama's policies.
I don't know who I am rephrasing here but it is priceless.
I don't know who I am rephrasing here but it is priceless.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Just When I Thought the News Cycle was Slow
along comes some Republican actions that deserve comment.
1st, to Mitt Romney's credit he tried to hire a foreign policy advisor that worked in the Bush II administration and happened to be gay. Now that person has had to resign because the social conservatives could not stand a gay individual having a prominent position in the GOP campaign because they might advance gay rights. Are "All people created equal" or not? Apparently, social conservatives in the GOP do not believe in The Declaration of Independence.
2nd, the GOP PAC's are trying to SWIFT Boat President Obama by saying he is overstating his case on the killing of Osama Bin Ladan. Fortunately, it has been well documented that the President overruled both the Secretary of Defense and the VP to order the raid. If the raid had been a disaster for the U.S., there is no doubt that failure would have been a call by the GOP to take over national defense in this election because the President was directly responsible for the failure of the mission. The GOP cannot have it both ways. Democratic success must be buried and only failure promoted.
Then I found a commentary saying the President's policies have not improved the economy. Wait, the stock market is near 2007 levels. Interest rates are low. Something like 50% of the fiscal stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. What would the GOP have done? Spend 100% of the fiscal stimulus on tax cuts. That would not have been as effective because I know I would have simply saved more money (and not spent it) because that is what I did with the tax cut I did get. Every other high earner would have done likewise. Fiscal stimulus requires spending.
Of course, these are the guys that have so successfully ruined John Kerry's military record that a Google search cannot give you any sign of what is true. These are also the people who believe that you can balance the budget by cutting entitlements and not raising revenue. These are the people who believe Health Insurance Exchanges amount to a government takeover of health care. These are the people who believe that CO2 does not raise the earth's temperature. In fact, these are the people who seem to believe that only they have an ownership of truth and everything else is false.
One can only hope the voters see through this in sufficient numbers.
1st, to Mitt Romney's credit he tried to hire a foreign policy advisor that worked in the Bush II administration and happened to be gay. Now that person has had to resign because the social conservatives could not stand a gay individual having a prominent position in the GOP campaign because they might advance gay rights. Are "All people created equal" or not? Apparently, social conservatives in the GOP do not believe in The Declaration of Independence.
2nd, the GOP PAC's are trying to SWIFT Boat President Obama by saying he is overstating his case on the killing of Osama Bin Ladan. Fortunately, it has been well documented that the President overruled both the Secretary of Defense and the VP to order the raid. If the raid had been a disaster for the U.S., there is no doubt that failure would have been a call by the GOP to take over national defense in this election because the President was directly responsible for the failure of the mission. The GOP cannot have it both ways. Democratic success must be buried and only failure promoted.
Then I found a commentary saying the President's policies have not improved the economy. Wait, the stock market is near 2007 levels. Interest rates are low. Something like 50% of the fiscal stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. What would the GOP have done? Spend 100% of the fiscal stimulus on tax cuts. That would not have been as effective because I know I would have simply saved more money (and not spent it) because that is what I did with the tax cut I did get. Every other high earner would have done likewise. Fiscal stimulus requires spending.
Of course, these are the guys that have so successfully ruined John Kerry's military record that a Google search cannot give you any sign of what is true. These are also the people who believe that you can balance the budget by cutting entitlements and not raising revenue. These are the people who believe Health Insurance Exchanges amount to a government takeover of health care. These are the people who believe that CO2 does not raise the earth's temperature. In fact, these are the people who seem to believe that only they have an ownership of truth and everything else is false.
One can only hope the voters see through this in sufficient numbers.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Clouds
There is a story today that the skeptics of global climate change who are actual scientists are now acknowledging that man is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere and that is causing the earth to warm. However, they are saying we don't need to do anything because this warming will change the cloud cover over the equator and send more of the warmth into outer space.
Somehow the prospect of creating deserts at the equator when those rain forests are the engine of oxygen production does not seem like a vision that we should aim for.
Perhaps it is time for humans to start to find some economic incentives to control green house gases.
After all, Cap & Trade was a conservative invention championed by Republican politicians originally. For that matter, Health Insurance Exchanges were a conservative invention championed by Republican politicians in Utah initially. Why is it the GOP opposes any idea of theirs that the Democrats agree to?
Somehow the prospect of creating deserts at the equator when those rain forests are the engine of oxygen production does not seem like a vision that we should aim for.
Perhaps it is time for humans to start to find some economic incentives to control green house gases.
After all, Cap & Trade was a conservative invention championed by Republican politicians originally. For that matter, Health Insurance Exchanges were a conservative invention championed by Republican politicians in Utah initially. Why is it the GOP opposes any idea of theirs that the Democrats agree to?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I wish I had won the mega millions so I could offset some of this absolutely astounding money flowing from people who have been so successful that they can give millions to political candidates with the only desired return a maintenance of their lower taxes.
As if the SuperPac donations for Newt and Rick were not amazing enough, now the embattled Wisconsin governor is getting mm's and hundred of k's from a few people and now has $25 mm in the bank for the next election. Then the money is used on shrill TV ad's and all real debate on the issues is transferred to sound bites and phony tag lines, if not outright lies.
It's enough to make me want to move to Windhoek, but I am not sure they have modern medical treatments there. And it is a bit far from our family.
As if the SuperPac donations for Newt and Rick were not amazing enough, now the embattled Wisconsin governor is getting mm's and hundred of k's from a few people and now has $25 mm in the bank for the next election. Then the money is used on shrill TV ad's and all real debate on the issues is transferred to sound bites and phony tag lines, if not outright lies.
It's enough to make me want to move to Windhoek, but I am not sure they have modern medical treatments there. And it is a bit far from our family.
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