Corporations and GOP Donors Win Big in Tax Bill

and reveal how corrupt Citizens United has made the Republican Party.  If this were private business, it could be prosecuted for the giving and accepting of bribes.  But it's politics, and political donations followed by favorable tax treatment is just fine.

Link to E.J. Dionne column

5 Year's After Sandy Hook

I just don't understand.

This country suffers gun violence on such a frequent basis and nothing is being done to address it.

Yes, the Sandy Hook parents are trying to work on educating people about how to identify people at risk of doing such horrible things.  That is good.

But, you can still buy unlimited number and types of weapons in certain states in order to sell them in states where that is not legal.  And the NRA and the GOP want to allow that and concealment of such weapons anywhere including states where it that is illegal.

Why do people need weapons that can be made into machine guns with bump bump stocks?

Why do people who are terrorists, criminals, abusers and other violent people, allowed to buy guns no matter what their personal history?

Why are people allowed to buy semi-automatic weapons that they can adapt to fire faster?

Why are people allowed to buy hand-guns that they can conceal and frighten policeman to the extent that they shoot anybody they fear may have such a gun?  Even when the victim shows no move toward such a weapon.

This Congress will not do anything.  I can only wait for enlightened people to be elected.

Sunday Musings 12/10

Actually today's paper was a very quick uninspiring read.  The themes today were Hate is everywhere and very unproductive.  No one who is hated will have an incentive to listen to the hater to learn anything.  If you want to get someone to see things your way, you have to be respectful of them at all times.

Meanwhile, we have a President who asks people to hate him.  He supports a pedophile for the Senates on the grounds that a pedophile who supports me is better than someone I would have to negotiate with and try to convince  to see things my way.

So I understand all the reasons why Trump and various other people think moving the Embassy to Jerusalem is appropriate.  As much as I think we should have gotten Israel to stop building settlements on The West Bank in return for this, we didn't.  So much for the negotiator in chief being the best negotiator ever.  But I think it is causing the Palestinians to rethink what their goal should be.

They have been aiming for a Two State Solution, but frankly because of Arafat's obstinance and, after his death, general PLO ineptitude, Israel has had sufficient reason to offer nothing serious about a two state solution.  So I think the PLO should simply demand that Israel incorporate the West Bank into Israel and make the Palestinians Israeli citizens with all the rights of citizens.  To me, that is an unthinkable position for Israel to be in because the Palestinians have a much higher birth rate.  But it might force Israel to get serious about a Two State Solution because the current situation is not sustainable over the long run.

For some reason I have a number of readers that come from all over Europe in batches from a single Country.  1st, it was Russia, then Poland, then France, now it is Italy.  I frankly think it is botts from somewhere where illegal things can be gotten away with:  Russia, Kazakstan, etc.

But in case y'all are real readers and are wondering what is going on here in the U.S. with women objecting to be made 2nd class citizens who are objects of desire by men who cannot control themselves, I have the following observation to make.  Since WWII, many women have been raised from childhood to have the belief that they are equal to men in all respects.  And even women in the 1st wave who may have been raised with conflicting messages or even traditional messages, raised the next generation of women to believe they are equal to men in all respects and deserve to be treated that way and not as a sex object.  And with a President who has never understood that, and has violated many women's sense of self, women are tired of being abused and willing to go public with their disgust at what certain men have done to them.  And it does seem that some of these men would possibly have been guilty of rape if the proper steps had been taken at the time.

What is interesting is that the GOP cannot overcome their sense of war with the Democrats to deal with the undesirables in their midst.  They accuse the Democrats of tolerating all sorts of misbehavior but refuse to do anything about bad behavior within their party.

David Brooks Friday column was worth reading for a summary of just how far the GOP has fallen below any resemblance of decency in politics.

Link to "The GOP is Rotting"

Michael Gerson Sees Hope For Some Progressive Ideas

that are opposed by mostly old religious white men.

The most priceless quote is:

"And where did this urgent assertion of moral principle come from? Not from the advocates of “family values.” On the contrary, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family (now under much better management), chose to side with GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama against his highly credible accusers. “I have been dismayed and troubled,” Dobson said, “about the way he and his wife Kayla have been personally attacked by the Washington establishment.”

"It is as if Dobson set out to justify every feminist critique of the religious right. Instead of standing against injustice and exploitation — as the Christian gospel demands — Dobson sided with patriarchal oppression in the cause of political power. This is beyond hypocrisy. It is the solidarity of scary, judgmental old men. It is the ideology of white male dominance dressed up as religion."

The lesson for advocates of progressive ideas is that you have to just keep making your point and letting the generations absorb it.  And eventually, if the point has a reasonable spot in the moral landscape, societal opinion will galvanize on the point and permanent change will happen.

Link to Gerson column

Depressing Descriptions of Reality

David Brooks wrote a thought provoking column yesterday.  It was not an optimist piece particularly when you add in Thomas Egan's column today.

1st Egan's point.  We are a nation of opinionated ignorants.  That is why Donald Trump can get away with telling on average 5 lies a day.  He says it and his supporters believe it.  That leaves me speechless so I will just put in the link.

Link to "We're with Stupid"

As I have written before, we expect our leaders to lead.  My original purpose in writing this blog was to promote governing from the middle taking the best ideas from the Right, Center and Left to solve problems in the interaction of government and the citizens.  The U.S. has not moved in that direction.

And as Brooks writes, that is the fault of our government leaders in both political parties have they have obfuscated the legitimacy of the other political party's point of view to the point where large bodies of citizens believe their point of view is the only legitimate one.  Since no one is perfect, policies are complex in how they interact with the citizenry, this is a prescription for frustration and failure to move the country forward in a productive manner.

What Brook's focuses on is the roots of belief in the political parties.  The GOP has become a slave to the mantra that each person has to be free to maximize their economic condition.  The Democrats have become a slave to the mantra that each person has to be free to maximize their right to personally be treated fairly by society.  The result is a hyper focus on identity politics that has no roots in communal well being.  Political parties used to share common values respecting the roots that belonging to a community generated.  That loss of sense of community and belonging has been replaced by splintered identities.  Politicians created this situation and Brooks is not sure how we get back to that better place.

That is my take away 24 hours after reading the column.  The column is a complex thought and well worth reading.  So I will put in a link in now.

Link to Brooks Column

I can't really put a finger on how society got here.  Economic conditions (globalization and technology) certainly created stress on segments of society and a complex web of issues created a serious separation between rural and urban voters in how they prioritize their thoughts that determine how they vote.  I want to blame Mitch McConnell for saying he wanted Obama to have a failed presidency.   That goal and how he accomplished it certainly laid the foundation for where we are today, but he is a politician and that thought did not materialize out of the ether, it had to have some basis in reality that I cannot identify any more.

I long for a government that understands its responsibilities to govern well and produce a steady state of the nation.  That means agreement on certain basic goals and they compromise or experimentation at the state level to figure out the best way to get to those goals.

Who are the Great figures of History?

I really enjoy perusing the NYT Book Review.  It is a great way to provoke thoughts that get you out of the here and now.

I missed the original book review, but saw a short blurb on a new book about Michelangelo.  And I had the thought that he was certainly one of the top 10 people who ever lived.  Which started me thinking who else would be on that list.  So I started to create one in my brain, and I have come up short.

Einstein would be on the list.  Freud would be on the list, perhaps.

After that, it gets a bit jumbled up.

What are the criteria?  My 1st one is that there has to be no question that the person lived.  So that leaves out all the people in the various bibles, because I am not sure any of them really lived.  So I guess any creationists reading this will sign off now.

My 2nd criteria is the person had to have a dominating influence on much that has happened since their being alive in their discipline.

My 3rd criteria is what they did has to stand head and shoulders above what others did.

So after Michelangelo, Einstein and Freud, where can you go?

It does seem like Thomas Jefferson would deserve some consideration, but what in the documents that founded the U.S. were ideas that were his alone?  What about the reliance on the Magna Carta and who was responsible for that? I don't think it was any one person.

And while there were other U.S. politicians responsible for the great ideas that form U.S. Democratic ideals, I don't think any of them individually rise up to the level of the 3 have already named.

Similarly, the great composers get all mixed up in my mind and while collectively Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky belong on the list, I cannot say a single one of them does.

On the Evil side, Karl Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Napoleon might belong on the list, but I am reluctant to put them on it.  And if they are not on it, how can Churchill, FDR or Lincoln be on it.

Since it was the writing of books that started this, what about author's.  I know there is a generation of Americans who might put Herman Hesse on this list, but he doesn't have the permanent stature that I was thinking of when I started this.

Then there are sports, but other than Michael Jordan, few star athletes are global or will persist for generations.  If this list were limited to Americans, I would put Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan on it.

So I am 7 short of my desired number and for the moment I will leave it at Michelangelo, Einstein and Freud.  If you have any candidates, leave them in the comments section.

P.S. one week later.  I would put Leonardo da Vinci on this list.  So we are up to four.

And Bill Gates/Steve Jobs would merit consideration as a duo.  Although while they had vision, they obviously had to hire a lot of people to create the products that changed the world.

P.S.S.  Benjamin Franklin definitely belongs on the list.  Discovery of Electricity, creation of the Post Office, and many other things.

P.S.S.S  I will now add Aristotle and Sir Isaac Newton.

So the list now consists of Aristotle, Sir Isaac Newton, Michaelangelo, Lenonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein and Freud.  And my son who was visiting as I wrote this put forth Confucious.  I do believe he is worthy,  so now we have 8.   My son thought I was being too critical about Evil people and said I should consider Ghenkis kahn but after reading about him I deem him not up to the high standards of this list.

Democrat's Need to Ignore the Hillary Blasts

Democrats need to look forward.  They need an economic message that rewards work, encourages work, and offers hope that the world will be a better place.  That is what motivates voters to go to the polls and vote for a person.  Let King Donald waste his time and energy on the past, but Democrats should not get drawn into his trap.  People want a positive campaign.

What did or did not happen in 2015 - 2016 is done and past unless laws were broken and that is for the Justice system to figure out.  Candidates and people already elected need to focus on making government work for the people and come with policies that will help that message and reality.

How I Went from Supporting the GOP to being a straight Ticket Democratic Voter

First, how I was/am a Conservative. I respect the need for the military and honor and support veterans. I respect and honor 1st responders. I believe in individual liberty and freedom of the press and religion. I do not want tax rates to make the U.S. uncompetitive on a global basis, but I want a balanced budget when the economy is near full employment. That is the time to pay down your debt, so you have dry powder to counteract recessions, when there is a need to borrow to support deficit spending.

I voted for Ronald Reagan twice and George Bush Senior. I have voted for every Democratic candidate for President since. Why?

I felt that the gap between the rich and the poor was growing too big. I felt that the poor were not getting the education or health care they needed. I felt that the deficit spending from supply side economics was inappropriate and only the Democrats believe in a balanced government fiscal status.

More recently, I can add to that list of reasons the I am a Conservative Liberal or Centrist. While I still believe all those things in the 1st paragraph, I also believe in Universal Health Insurance because without it, we all pay for everybody through our health insurance. That is because the Reagan Administration passed a law requiring hospitals to serve anybody who shows up regardless of whether they had health insurance or not. The hospitals had to recover those costs somewhere and did so by charging those with health insurance more. And because the Health Insurance Companies must be profitable, they charge policyholders higher premiums to cover the uninsured. ObamaCare was designed by the GOP focused Heritage Foundation as an alternative to a Single Payer Plan. ObamaCare is the GOP solution to the problem of the uninsured, but the GOP has no current policy that will solve the problem of the uninsured. How could I ever vote for them?

I also believe in Science. CO2 in the atmosphere traps solar energy heating the atmosphere. That was proven in 1852 long before anyone could create a false conspiracy, which is what the climate deniers claim. Scientists have replicated that test repeatedly over the last 165 years and no one has disproved it. A good chemistry teacher could do it in a High School Chemistry lab. We have to start to reduce carbon emissions. Cap & Trade was a GOP idea on how to use the market to manage down carbon emissions, but now the GOP disowns it. How could I ever vote for them if I care about trying to keep sea levels constant? If the ice all melts, sea levels will rise somewhere between 20′ and 100′. I don’t know how they estimate that so I don’t know how high an elevation my descendent’s should live. I am currently 35′ above sea level, but my access road to higher ground is only 20″ above sea level.

Finally, while I respect what the police do for us all, I also want the police to respect people of all races. People with darker shades of skin pigment should not fear being stopped by the police. Yet, numerous African American men have been murdered by policeman who do not suffer any consequences for their actions. If I was an African American, I would most certainly move to somewhere I felt safe and I would not carry a gun, even legally, because as we saw in Minnesota, that can get you killed by a policeman, who fears for their safety just because they do. Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter.

Which brings me to sensible gun control. Hunters do not need semi-automatic weapons. Police should not have to fear people possessing concealed pistols. The GOP is a prisoner of the NRA. As someone who has been repeatedly appalled by the gun carnage in the USA where 38,000 people died last year from gun violence, I want sensible gun control, but I know the NRA GOP will not allow that to happen if they have political power. How can I vote for them if they believe that?

Thomas Friedman Outlines How Trump is Dangerous to all Man Kind

I couldn't say it better.

Link to Friedman "Connect the Dots" and it is not Russia related

Sound Economic Policy at Full Employment

I am tired of ranting, although if Congress decides to go back to an assault on Health Insurance, I will be writing Congresspeople about my views of that.

Today, I thought I would state something that I learned in Economic 45 years ago.  When an economy is at full employment you do not need deficit spending, you need a budget surplus to pay down the debt you ran up during the period of higher unemployment.  Yet, the U.S. still has a $500 billion or so budget deficit.  I would say most of that is probably defense spending for the War on Terror, that has never been given a dime of current funding by the Congress.  Yet, that is only 2.5% of GDP which is about what the gross (real growth plus inflation) growth rate has been.

It would be better with unemployment below 5% and baby boomers retiring by the millions every year if we were currently in a budget surplus paying down our debt which is roughly 100% of GDP.

But what does this GOP Congress want to do?  Cut taxes, but not spending.  They are dressing up tax cuts as tax reform, but there is no reform if you don't change the structure of tax expenditures (tax breaks for special interests), and there is no sign that the GOP wants net tax changes to = changes in spending.  The GOP Congress wants to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

How irresponsible can they be?  Apparently, very irresponsible.

The one thing I thought I could count on the GOP for was responsible stewardship of the economy.  Instead, we have gotten laws being written to favor wealthy campaign contributors and little else.

Meanwhile, a tax cut that benefits the wealthy in California, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts is not going to create jobs in Appalachia or the rural midwest.

Meanwhile, David Brooks has identified something I have felt but did not have adequate words to message.  He does.  Trump's success in the election was not Russian influence but rather his creation of an American myth. Make America Great Again.  The Democrats had no answer for that and still do not.  That is there challenge heading into 2018 and 2020.

Link to Brook's column on the importance of Myths

The Trump Thing That Drives Us Bonkers

RSL came into the living room last Friday and stated that the thing that Trump does that drives her nuts more than anything else is his trivial bullying.  I had to agree with her.  If it was just Conservative policies being implemented, I might be upset but it wouldn't effect my inner being the way it does.  After all, I went through 8 years of Bush II and never hated him the way I do Trump.   Bush II policies, which I didn't agree with in certain key ways, did not cause me to rant and vent anger in a manner like this in an effort to restore my inner calm.

Michael Gerson's column today identifies the Trump behavior that generates this difference and postulates that it is destroying the GOP.  It is the Trump preference for bullying and postulating falsehoods that ignore facts and truths.  He says it better than I ever could, but it will take time to see if it is really destroying the GOP.  This is the GOP that supports Mitch McConnell's and Ted Cruz's lies and deceit about the effect GOP policies will have on real people.

Anyway, here it the link.

Link to Gerson column

!@#$%^&*()

WE CANNOT RID OURSELVES OF THIS !@#$%^&*() ADMINISTRATION SOON ENOUGH.  I HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH DAMAGE THEY WILL DO TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.

FREE TRADE DOES NOT CAUSE INFERITILITY.  FREE TRADE DOES NOT CAUSE SPOUSAL ABUSE.  FREE TRADE DOES NOT CAUSE ABORTIONS.  IN FACT, ABORTIONS ARE LOWER TODAY THAN THEY HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS AND THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FREE TRADE.  IT HAS TO DO WITH ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND EDUCATION.

Real news reveals the idiots in the White House

Sunday Musings 10/15/17 or Democrats Have One Huge Hurdle

There is a long article in the NY Times today that I plowed through because I thought I should.  It discussed something I am very familiar with from my business career.  It even focused on a factory that was owned by a company I worked for when I worked for that company.  And within that article is the essence of the challenge the Democrats face.

The Democrats need an economic message that is compelling to rural workers in order to get the rural workers who do not care deeply about social issues to vote for Democrats.  And they do not have one for a simple reason.  Bill Clinton moved the Democrats to the center on economics and I supported him 100% in doing that.  But in the process the Democrats signed onto the following covenant that is central to economic policy (again what I believe is proper economic policy):  the capitalist central thought that Return on Capital is the most efficient measure by which drive an economy forward.

Now that works for you if you are employed in a way that puts your activity in an advantageous position vis a vis your competition for employment.  But within that covenant is also the assumption that labor will migrate to find employment and that labor can be retrained if their activity is not well positioned in the global competition for work.  But that involves turmoil and angst for the people whose work migrates to a lower cost pool of labor.  That turmoil and angst creates anger within the people effected.  Donald Trump captured that anger with words and is in all likelihood going to disappoint those people with his failure to make a difference for them.

But that does not mean those people will vote for Democrats unless there is a Democratic policy that they can believe in.  The conundrum for the Democrats is many of their voters believe, as do I, that capitalism is central to Democracy and we all benefit from letting our economy be driven by return on capital.  So any policy the Democrats come up has to have sufficient believability to get Trump economic voters to vote Democratic, but not upset the Democrats who believe in capitalism.

There is not much to like about Trumpism, but he did identify a real issue that neither the Democrats nor Republicans have addressed since the JFK/LBJ administration developed the Great Society.

As a free trader, I am generally supportive of lowering and leaving low all tariff barriers.  Our society benefits from free trade in myriad ways.  But if there were a way within the international trade treaty construct to tax all imports in favor of exports, I think the U.S. should pursue such a policy.  Now figuring out what that would look like takes real expertise in the specifics of trade treaties and what levels of tax/tax reduction would do to inflation/employment/factory location.

No government can direct companies to locate a factory in any specific place.  All government can do is generate a policy that will guide events in a general direction.  But those policies are what people who need employment must believe in when they decide who they will vote for.  That does not translate to sound bites and has to be conveyed in sound bites but be implemented in a sound way and have an effect by the next election (hopefully).

That is a tall order, but that is also the challenge for the Democrats if they want to be competitive in the rural vote.  Obama didn't have a message for those people after 2008 and that is why Trump won those voters despite his many faults.  Hillary Clinton was just offering the voters more of what Obama did and it didn't work for those people.  Democrats need a snappy sound bite that represents a real change in policy that will make a difference for rural employment.

Link to Link-Belt Employment Article

Thank Goodness the Yankees and Cubs Won

There will be at least 6 more days when baseball can distract me from the chaos in Washington.

And thank goodness I am golfing today, so I will not focus on today's chaos, although that will not stop me from ranting about it here.

So Trump wants to renegotiate a treaty that a bunch of Countries signed with Iran and all agree Iran is complying with.  Since it took years to get all those countries to agree to the global sanctions that took years for Iran to feel the pain and years to negotiate the treaty, why does Trump think he can get a better deal in a matter of months?  He has had 8 months to find a peace treaty between the Palestinians and the Israeli's and how is that going?  Last time I read anything, Israel was ready to build another zillion settlements on the West Bank.  Nice way to try and not anger some desperate people who just might become terrorists.

And Trump wants so badly to have his name on a Healthcare bill he is using executive orders to change it around the edges.  Thank goodness I go on Medicare in 9 months.  And thank goodness I live in NY.  The one thing about all this is that Trump doesn't seem to understand health insurance is regulated by the states and the Affordable Care Act.  He can get Congress to change the Affordable Care Act, but the states will still determine what will happen within there own state. And if NY, continues with the law it had in place before the Affordable Health Care Act, insurance companies will not be able to exclude those with pre-existing conditions and all of Trump's efforts to harm people with pre-existing conditions will wash over NY with no effect other than the fact that the end of Federal subsidies for lower middle income people will cause them to lose their health insurance because they can't afford it without the subsidy.  Of course, a lot of them voted for Trump, so maybe they don't care about Health Insurance; although what I really think is that they believed Trump would be a man of his word and give them the best health insurance ever.  Fools!!!

Well, if Trump stops the subsidies, ObamaCare will become TrumpCare because Trump is in charge now and the buck stops at his desk.  No name is permanent when it comes to HealthCare.  After all, the Heritage Foundation (Republicans) developed the concepts of ObamaCare.  George Romney (Republican) implemented those Concepts in Massachusetts.  and now it is called ObamaCare, but once Trump makes his changes, it will be TrumpCare, no doubt.

So much chaos, I ran out of anger before I got to my main point.  You may have seen Trump tossing 8 rolls of paper towels at a Puerto Rico FEMA event when Trump visited.  He thinks that solved the problem so now he can bring FEMA home.  Meanwhile, there is little water and electricity in Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico is now in the state of a 3rd World poverty ridden country and those people are American Citizens living on land governed by the USA.  Trump is either the President of the whole country or he is not and should be impeached.  Trump is a disgusting greedy narcissistic individual and the fact that he has such an impact on so many people is a stunning testimony to our failure as a nation.  If I lived in another country, I would not respect us.  Because as a Nation, we are who we elect as a President.  It may not be me, but it is we!

Off to Queens and a falafel sandwich.  I hope I play better than yesterday.

The News is Exhausting and Depressing

I suppose it all stems from two bases in global history:  (i) Greed and a hunger for power is the paramount driver for people who shape history and (ii) religion can be co-opted to support those who want to shape history in their vision.

The west has been fighting global jihad for over 20 years now.  I see us as being no closer to defeating it now than we were then.  We are perhaps safer because of vigilance, but no amount of vigilance can protect 100% of the people 100% of the time.  And the root cause of that jihad is based in faulty societies of the areas outlined in a great book about the rotten leadership wherever Islam abuts Christianity and Judaism.  It didn't have a solution and I see no solution until leaders in Africa, the Middle East and Middle Asia figure out a way to lead fair societies that treat everyone fairly.  It is a lack of fairness that creates people willing to be terrorists, although we have yet to see why the man in Las Vegas thought he was being treated unfairly.

So the NRA doesn't want bump stocks, but they still want everyone to own a semi-automatic gun.  And now I have seen people actually justifying the 2nd Amendment as a Constitutional Right to have fun with guns, not hunt or defend the country.   Well, I have fun driving 100 miles per hour in rural areas on interstate highways, but I will get a ticket if I do that.  Should I seek a Constitutional Amendment allowing that?

Meanwhile, the GOP Congress has to deal with their failure of leadership and lies to the base that the things they said would happen cannot happen because they were based upon lies.  And the reaction of the base is to elect even crazier people into office.

I saw an article today that the Christian Right will not give up on Trump because they truly believe that their religious beliefs give them a Constitutional right not have to sell products or treat people fairly if they are gay or transgender.  And they see Trump and his people, Sessions/Gorsuch as protecting those rights.  I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody who wants to be treated fairly for their beliefs would see that right as allowing them to treat others unfairly by not dealing with them in business transactions.  And it is that fundamental thought that drives these religious people to support Trump irrespective of all his other Un-Presidental actions.

Meanwhile, the GOP doesn't see income inequality and a fiscal deficit as an issue for them.  Rather they prefer to pursue policies that increase income inequality and the fiscal deficit.

It's enough to make me want to get highly intoxicated each night but I have decided alcohol is the reason I cannot lose weight, so I am cutting back on my imbibing.

The GOP is corrupted by its alliance with the NRA

The NRA is really a corrupt racket now.  All they really shill for is the gun industry.

The following two columns nail the NRA to their true being and the GOP for their failure to protect people from Domestic Terrorism.

Link to Freidman column on GOP disconnect between Islamic and Domestic Terrorism


Call to activism by Roseanne Cash

I think Johnny Cash would agree with his daughter.  Guns that can be modified to be automatic weapons do not protect anyone and do harm to many people.

Tuesday Musings on what would have been my father's 95th Birthday

My father was typical of the challenges Politicians face when figuring out how to carve out a winning coalition of voters.

His instincts were New Deal, but he was prone to believing the powerful manipulated the system to their advantage.  While I do not believe he would have voted for Donald Trump if he were alive, I don't know.  His thought process definitely deteriorated as he aged and he did see the usefulness of owning guns (Through his window, he shot woodchucks messing with his garden while sitting in his wheelchair) and in his younger days enjoyed a walk through the woods looking to harvest a deer.  I have no doubt that my younger father would have seen in the idiocy in allowing people to own automatic and semi-automatic weapons of mass destruction.

And exactly why isn't what happened in Las Vegas terrorism?  Is it because the perpetrator was a white guy who was not a Muslim.  Since when did terrorism become only a Muslim thing.  Anybody who commits random acts of death causing violence is a terrorist!!!

David Brooks really highlights the problems politicians face.

"The Trump story is that good honest Americans are being screwed by aliens. Regular Americans are being oppressed by a snobbish elite that rigs the game in its favor. White Americans are being invaded by immigrants who take their wealth and divide their culture. Normal Americans are threatened by an Islamic radicalism that murders their children."

"This is a tribal story. The tribe needs a strong warrior in a hostile world. We need to build walls to keep out illegals, erect barriers to hold off foreign threats, wage endless war on the globalist elites".

"Somebody is going to have to arise to point out that this is a deeply wrong and un-American story. The whole point of America is that we are not a tribe. We are a universal nation, founded on universal principles, attracting talented people from across the globe, active across the world on behalf of all people who seek democracy and dignity."

"The core American idea is not the fortress, it’s the frontier. First, we thrived by exploring a physical frontier during the migration west, and now we explore technological, scientific, social and human frontiers. The core American attitude has been looking hopefully to the future, not looking resentfully toward some receding greatness."

But that is a complicated message in today's sound bite world.  But is one that Democrat's need to co-opt to bury the GOP in the mess of lies they are caught in.   Link to another Krugman column calling out GOP Lies

"The Republican Party is supposed to be the party that stokes dynamism by giving everybody the chance to venture out into the frontier of their own choosing — with education reform that encourages lifelong learning, with entitlement reform that spends less on the affluent elderly and more on the enterprising young families, with regulatory reform that breaks monopolies and rules that hamper start-ups, with tax reform that creates a fair playing field, with immigration reform that welcomes the skilled and the hungry."

"It may be dormant, but this striving American dream is still lurking in every heart. It’s waiting for somebody who has the guts to say no to tribe, yes to universal nation, no to fences, yes to the frontier, no to closed, and yes to the open future, no to the fear-driven homogeneity of the old continent and yes to the diverse hopefulness of the new one."

Link to today's Brooks Column

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

That is a quote from JFK curtesy of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the NASCAR driver.

And David Brooks was very insightful this morning.

Link to Brooks Column on Culture War


All I know is the Democrats need to find their own path through this mine field to connect with some of the people on the other side.  That will involve respect for people who make the effort and not demanding complete partisan alignment when they have to deviate to be true to that respect.

Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter

You would think this would not be a controversial issue.  Yet, for some reason, it generates considerable excitement in some circles.

I understand why the African American community cares about this.  Numerous young and middle aged black men have been killed by police officers.  Police officers should be there to serve and protect the community from criminal activities, not putting fear into the lives of the community that if  the wrong policeman shows up, the individual will wind up dead.  And then, after these events, the community finds the policeman innocent of breaking any law or police rules.  This is not right.  Innocent black people are killed by police action and there is no punishment.

Is there any wonder that athletes of the same age would care about this issue deeply, particularly when some have had similar interactions with the police.

At the same time, the police deserve our respect and our protection.  They put their lives at risk every day, deal with the worst elements of our communities, and are the target for deranged individuals who take advantage of lax gun laws to arm themselves with powerful weapons and gun for men/women in Blue who are from every ethnicity the U.S. has to offer. Many of the policeman killed in Dallas were African American.  Many of the policeman who have not been convicted for acts against African American young men are African American.

This is clearly a complicated issue that involves where do you draw the line on freedom to access guns, should we take the profits out of illegal drugs by decriminalizing them, and how does society address the fear that so many acts of violence has created.  This is vastly more complicated than showing any specific form of respect for the National Anthem.

Except for our President.  Who once again has shown he has no ability to reach beyond his base and be a President for all people.

Link to the most thoughtful piece on this issue

Sam Francis The Best Crystal Ball No One Ever Heard Of

Well, David Brooks did know about him.  Sam Francis died in 2005.  He was also a racist, he flat out thought white people have a superior intellect than people of all other ethnicity.  But his thoughts predicted the issues that drove the election of Donald Trump.

1.  Globalization was destroying US manufacturing employment in Middle America.

2.  Politicians did not understand that fact.

3.  "His third insight was that politics was no longer about left versus right. Instead, a series of smaller conflicts — religious versus secular, nationalist versus globalist, white versus nonwhite — were all merging into a larger polarity, ruling class versus Middle America."


This is the challenge for Democratic candidates.  How to find policies that will address these issues while maintaining policies that the winners from globalization can support.

Sorry for the change in font.  I am not sure how I did that, but I like the larger font.

Link to David Brooks column

This is the Mess that US Politicians Have to Navigate

Worth Reading, but has no answers

Trump's Effect on the Population

I was going to write something else, but Trumpmania interfered.  And really, there was no real news generated by Mr. Trump this week.  He hasn't offered any specifics, he hasn't signed any bills, he is only working within the authority of Executive Privilege and tormenting the rest of us as usual.

Bret Stephens explains why Donald Trump is tormenting his hard right supporters now.  They now join those of us who believe ourselves to be reasonable people in our torment.  Meanwhile, and this will not be in the link, the smoke that I believe is created by the fire that will reveal the facts of how Trump violates the Emoluments Clause and forms the basis of an impeachable offense continues to get thicker.

Link to Stephens column

And I know how Dana Milbank feels.  I have gained, and cannot summon the energy to lose, 10 lbs since the Election.  It cannot be good for my health.

Dana Milbank on how Trump has given him high blood pressure

All I can do is hope that somehow the Democrats win control of the House and can start impeachment proceedings on the Emoluments Clause.  I don't care that we will then have a President Pence.  At least, we will have a divided government that might produce some policies that do some good for people.  What that might look like was going to be the subject of today's writing, but will have to wait for another day.

Sunday Musings 9/10 Irma Inspired

There really isn't much one can contemplate politically.  The one thing that is true is that Trump's unpredictability means you don't really know how things will transpire all the time.  Unlike myself, one who craves predictability in all aspects of my life, Trump seems to thrive on chaos as it allows him to carve out control over what effects him.

No matter how awful the policies that Trump wants to pursue, you have to look objectively at what caused people to vote for him.  The following link is a peek into that world.  It doesn't have an answer for winning an election, for that you need people on the ground focused on speaking with voters, listening to their concerns and finding policies that will speak to their needs while remaining within reasonable levels of taxation and running a balanced budget.

Link to "Trump Fever Never Breaks"

And as for Donald Trump, all I can hope for that the storm surge causes great harm to Mar del Lago and that causes Trump to change his mind about global warming.  But I will not hold my breath waiting for that.

As for Irma, I find it interesting that more recent arrivals have hunkered down for various reasons that I know sound prudent to themselves, but I was struck by the arrival of a long time resident in NY after the long drive from Florida. He was 90 years old, had been through other hurricanes and said he never wanted to do that again.  Also, my high school friend Paul has been very silent on Facebook. He has lived in Florida for 41 years.  The more recent arrivals have done everything they can to be prudent and secure, but are staying put.  I hope they all come through this unharmed.

And back at the ranch, we will see if Schumer's power politics actually help people.  I think the answer to that is in the hands of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.  Trump has decided that he has to actually pass laws to help people.  Will McConnell and Ryan agree with that?  Time will tell.

No One is Writing Much & Immigration Makes America Great

One result of Donald Trump's complete focus on himself is that most critics cannot keep up their criticism because everything has already been said while he continues to suck up the news cycle on himself.  That is certainly true of this blog.

And now that I know State sponsored Russian hackers are all over the internet, I am starting to wonder if the clicks on this blog from Russia are real readers or simply the hackers looking for a new path to muck up the U.S. election cycle.  The will be no fake news here I can assure you.

Ross Douthat, a conservative pundit, had an interesting review of two conservative books, one that has gotten a fair bit of press by Senator Jeff Flake, and one by someone I have never heard of, but the book is on the best seller list.  His review is damning of both books and highlights how the only thing the GOP, of all factions, can agree on is "cutting the social safety net to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy" and that such a policy is not a winning policy with the electorate and is not responsive to the real issues of the day.  This was an interesting read and the link is below.

Link to Douthat column


Yesterday, or Friday, Bret Stephens, one of RedStateVT's favorite columnists, came out in favor of Dreamers.  He is surprisingly liberal on immigration issues, which I agree with, but so far he hasn't convinced RedStateVT.  I will send him this column and see what response I get.

Bret Stephens on how immigration makes America Great

Thomas Friedman on how immigration makes America Great

If you look at a map of Houston devastation you see a pattern that looks like the path of a river.  But many of the flooded homes were no where near a creek, river or any other flowing water.  Rather it was the normal undulation of the land.  The water that came down on the high ground flowed to the low ground, where drainage was already overwhelmed by 50" of rain there.  If that happened here where I live, we'd be F*c*ed because our front door is the low point of a small valley.  And while we are on the 2nd floor, our cars are in the basement.  Basically, no matter where you live, if you get 50" of rain non-stop in 4 days, you are f*c*ed.  And the Flood Insurance Fund is not actuarially sound, like so many other government programs.  I wish we had rational politicians who could discuss these issues from a focus on what are the facts and what are the range of solutions.

And lastly, why is Donald Trump threatening South Korea's trade pact with us.  Does he want South Korea to align itself with China and North Korea?  And for that matter, does he want Mexico to align itself more with China.  He can be bleeping idiot sometimes (or perhaps most of the time).

That is all, I have to go walk the dog.

Where can There Be Compromise on Health Care

Legislatively, we are at an impasse on this topic, while many voters are agitating for a solution.   The Tea Party no doubt, while basically non-vocal at this stage, want a return to what we had before Heritage Foundation/Romney/ObamaCare while Progressives want a Single Payer Plan.  Neither is likely to see this Congress pass anything that will make them happy.  Which means they will be unhappy.

It would have been nice to see Congress really working on a solution that would solve the real source of unhappiness with HF/R/ObamaCare:  the high cost of health insurance and high deductibles. Unfortunately, high deductibles are the only way insurance companies can control the cost and if you reduce the deductibles, you will increase the cost, and vice versa.

A Michael Strain, who I believe is an economist on faculty somewhere, wrote a column for Bloomberg News on a possible path to bridging this impasse and bringing some real relief to the mass of voters on this issue.

HIs idea is the following:  Republicans need to acknowledge that universal coverage is the right goal, but it has to be affordable to both households and the government.   This means there has to be a carrot to get young people to buy insurance and there must be coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.  There must also be subsidies to make insurance affordable.

Democrats will need to acknowledge that catastrophic health insurance is health insurance and that to reduce this economic conundrum between premiums and deductibles, you need to bring some choice into the equation.  His idea is that preventive care and other forms of routine care, be the responsibility of the policyholders to pay. This is essentially what is already happening with the high deductibles.  The trick is to figure out a way to get make the total package affordable to the working poor and those with pre-existing conditions who end up in a high risk pool.

I would add to this, that long term care for elderly and long-term disabled, be separated from Medicaid so that there is a clear picture of what is basically a very different problem from what the cost of providing Health Care to the working poor.

The author's basic premise is that people need insurance for protection against Catastrophic health developments, but insurance cannot pay for all routine care, for those with money, and be affordable when some people will abuse that coverage.  That is where the Progressives must compromise in return for the acknowledgement that Universal Coverage will be obtained in the form of affordable catastrophic health insurance.

The trick of course will be what is the dollar value of catastrophic coverage for each income level.  A working middle class family will struggle with a value of $5,000 while an upper middle class person might be comfortable with a $25,000 value.  As a retired person, pre-Medicare, I don't think I would be comfortable with anything much greater than the $7,000 my current health insurance has as a max-out-of-pocket.  And that insurance is costing me almost $500 a month for myself.

Anyway, I ran this by RedStateVT and he saw merit in it.  I see merit in it.  Will politician's?  The author is not betting on it anytime soon.

Afghanistan & David Brook's Channels this blog

All I can say is after 15 years of military action not working to produce a successful nation, something has to be done about the broken state of Afghanistan.   And, yes, Pakistan, another basically failed nation, has to be part of the solution.  You can't fix Afghanistan if the Pakistani's don't control their own state, and groups like the Taliban are allowed to operate like a baby ISIS.  The Taliban flow back and forth across the border like Americans and Canadians cross their border.  And until Pakistan controls their border, there will be no military solution in Afghanistan.

So, Trump is right that their has to be a successful military in Afghanistan to fight the many radical Islamic groups that operate there and in Pakistan, and Pakistan needs to be part of the solution, but they also have to solve their issues.  Remember, Osama Bin Ladin hid in Pakistan for many years before being found.  And Pakistan sent terrorists to India.  I don't know if the Taliban can be a responsible negotiating partner, I am not sure they are interested in governing a country in a manner acceptable to the West and India/China.  But I am quite sure that we cannot defeat the Taliban as long as they can run back to Pakistan and regroup.  And that is the state of that part of the world today.

I am a part of Indivisible Westchester, but I am not as liberal as many who are in that organization.  Long time readers know I am open to the argument that market forces have a role in managing society.  What I am not open to is what I read about in this week's NYT book review.  James Buchanan, who won a Nobel Prize for his advocacy of the role for market forces as the most efficient form of managing society, also advocated a dark state of monied people doing what they can behind the scenes to prevent the democratic process from taking their wealth.  He was obviously prescient as that is pretty much what has developed in the U.S. with Supreme Court decisions by Justices who have undoubtedly read him and met with him.

In today's column, David Brooks advocates why moderation and listening to both sides of the traditional socialist/market force debate is necessary for society to move forward in a balance manner.  We are a long way from there today and there is no clear path for American politics to move from its current partisan path to a more moderate path.

Link to Brook's column on Moderates

Attn: Democrats, Trump Campaign Had an Economic Agenda & Other Musings

I will get to the Headline later on, but 1st I bring you an optimistic note.  Gail Collins column today says at least we won't have to take down any statues of Trump.  All we will have to do is figure out a way to get them off a lot of signs and buildings.

Meanwhile, Bret Stephens, who I know RedStateVT likes a lot, is now in, and may have been in longer, the Impeach Trump Now camp.  Strangely, Netanyahu, needed 3 days to come out against Nazi revivalists chanting the "Jews will not replace us".

Link to Bret Stephens, Impeach Trump Now column

I, like Bret Stephens, never believed Trump had the character to be President.  Trump doesn't have the character to lead a public company or any other bureaucratic organization.  His temperament is only suited to a family office or some similar personality driven/accommodating environment like a TV show.

But, apparently in all that Trumpian rhetoric there was an economic message that spoke to voters who have not been winners in the globalization economy of the last 30 years.  And within that message, there are issues that the Democrats need to think about and decide what policies they want to promote.

I can offer some suggestions to contemplate:  higher minimum wages that reflect age and cost of living; a border VAT tax on imports (if it complies with Trade Agreements), revenue neutral tax reform, a public health insurance option for people with pre-existing conditions, enhanced HSA allowances so people without earned income can contribute, streamlining regulations so they are simplified but retain effectiveness, and comprehensive compassionate immigration reform.


Good Explanation of Trump's Campaign Economic Agenda

What the H*ll is Going on in the U.S.A.

I have a lot of foreign readers and I know that is what you are asking.  It is also what my mind is asking and I have taken a lot of time to think about this before putting fingers to the keyboard.

The only answer is really what did you think a prominent promoter of the birther movement would really believe.  Trump is a racist for some reason and he believes in his heart that racists deserve respect for their views.  And he believes the alt-right view that there is an alt-left violent extremist movement.  While I will acknowledge that criminal acts occurred during the Inauguration demonstration, the fact is that was a small minority of the many thousands who have demonstrated against Trump on multiple occasions without any criminal acts.  In contrast, what are we to make of people who march at night with torches (a favorite KKK activity), throw their hands in the air with Heil Hitler salutes, and believe in white supremacy.

All you have to do is look at the historical horrors of Slavery, Apartheid, Nazi Germany, and Russia in repeated ways to know white people are not a superior race to any other race.  Human beings are all the same.  We can be honorable loving people or we can be horrible.  Asian cultures have had multiple genocides.  Africa has corruption, rampant criminality, and smaller genocides.  The Islamic world is full of examples of innocents being slaughtered in the name of religious piety.

The alt-right wants to return to a culture where white people reign supreme over other people.  They have no other goal, and Donald Trump believes in that goal for some reason.  That is why Trump was a birther during the Obama Administration.  That is why he was unfit to be President and I for one cannot fathom how any respectable Republican could justify putting this man in the White House so they could have a conservative Supreme Court and pass tax cuts for the wealthy.

This is a nightmare.  It is exhausting for those of us who live with this b*llsh*t every single day of the week.  And I don't understand how any respectable human being could work for this man. Anyone who does has a questionable character.

So my foreign readers, I know each of you has your own challenges in this area.  The world is a pretty f*cking ugly place right now because government has failed in the Islamic world, migrants are causing stress in the Western world, and people are fed up with this and listening to Alt-right candidates all over the place.  We need a global decency movement that can still deal with authoritarian thugs.

Why a Market Based Health Care System Will Not Work

If RedStateVT reads this he might have a different angle, but today's musing comes from the NYT Business pages where I found a really good summary of why Health Care Policy is complicated and why a public option is necessary for a well functioning individual market for health insurance.

I am backing off a Universal Single Payer Plan for the moment, not because I don't believe that to be a worthy objective, but because I think we need an intermediate step from HeritageFoundation/Romney/ObamaCare, which is for better or worse our starting point.  You have to recognize that most Americans are insured through their employers with insurance policies issued by shareholder owned companies.  These companies employ a lot of people.

But what is the key complaint about ObamaCare?  It is the high deductibles and high policy premiums.  One path to controlling that would be to get the high cost patients into a public option, but would that cause Medicare costs and premiums to rise significantly?  That would be a major problem for many elderly.

So the short answer is I don't know for sure but what I do know is the Ronald Reagan era government with a GOP majority in Congress passed a law mandating that hospitals care for anyone who shows up at their doors.  This is also what the Hippocratic Oath calls for and so we have a 2000+ year old societal agreement that Dr's care for anyone who needs help.  Now the only real question/issue is how do we as a society pay for it.

The GOP likes to believe that market based systems will control this expense, so at it's core, there is a segment of the GOP that acknowledges that Health Care is right and we do not want people dying in the streets because of a lack of access to health care.

The article today lays out why Externalities, a lack of knowledge by consumers, the necessity for health insurance to protect against catastrophic loss, the fact that the presence of insurance leads to overconsumption of medical care, and the risk of adverse selection in a pure market based system make reform a very complicated proposition and one that needs a lot of thought.  Something in short supply in Congress and the White House these days.

Link to "Why Health Care Policy Is So Hard"

This is really worth reading.  I hope Congresspeople do because they have to come up with something better.

Wow, Thursday 7/27 has my Head Shaking

There is much to write about, and I hope I can be succinct.

1st, the skinny repeal plan will probably be my health insurance nightmare for 7 months if it passes.  Why, because if you remove the requirement that everybody get health insurance, you have what NY had before Obamacare.  Insurance companies must cover anybody who applies for health insurance.  And if people wait until they are sick to sign up for health insurance, insurance companies get screwed.  So they raise premiums to cover that risk.  I was paying $1500 a month for health insurance in 2012 for 1 person.  Now I pay roughly $700 a month on an equivalent basis including deductibles. So if the Senate passes the Skinny Repeal, they will be raising the costs for everybody in the individual market by probably at least 100%.  But we cannot be sure because all the GOP Senate Leadership wants is to pass something so they can negotiate with the House, and who knows what will happen in that process.  The House bill maintained an incentive for the uninsured to not be uninsured.  I am stunned by the lack of normal process in both the House and the Senate as they attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare and effects 18% of the economy.

2nd Ross Douthat is responsible for the Wow.  He lays out a comprehensive logic for the impeachment of President Trump, all revolving around his "management" of Attorney General Sessions.  "If it were any other President suddenly behaving this erratically and irrationally, we'd be talking about mental incapacity, speculating about strokes, considering 25th Amendment remedies"  You have to read the column.

Link to Douthat column

I'll stop there.

This weeks's most outrageous Trump act:  Politicizing the Boy Scouts as purveyor of Trump Values.

P.S. 7/28  Charles Krauthammer also wants to impeach Trump (almost, he'd go there if the House started a process)

Link to Krauthammer column

Why Russia Matters - Follow the Money

I always enjoy finding I have written something before a pundit columnist writes about it.  It is not that I think they read this blog, it is just enough encouragement that I do have some original value when I write.  So thank you Ruth Marcus for discussing the concept of outrage overload.

The New Republic came earlier this week and one article was a very long cataloging of how Trump's Manhattan properties have been used by Russian mobsters to launder money, conduct other nefarious activities and in general help to enrich Donald Trump.  Trump was on the proverbial financial ropes in the early 1990's when individual wealthy Russians started buying his condominiums.  These sales helped make his condominium business succeed and that success, along with the Russian mob's continued buying of these condominiums, morphed into Trump licensing his name so that the Real Estate business provided an annuity income to him.  It doesn't take too much extrapolation to see the possibility that the Russian mob through their condominium ownership in the U.S. is responsible for much of Donald Trump's income.

So without the benefit of Trump's Tax Returns which might reveal a path to unraveling this relationship, we are left only with the possibility that the Special Prosecutor will unravel this mess with the powers that they have.  I saw something that suggested they can get the IRS to give them the tax returns.  And of course, Trump always signals the path to follow because he is compelled to be a bully.  This week he tweeted, and his lawyers went on TV stating, telling Bob Mueller, that Trump's finances are out-of-bounds, and not part of Mueller's charge of what to investigate.  Go Bob Go.  At least key members of the GOP spoke publicly saying Trump is wrong about the mandate of the Special Prosecutor and Bob Mueller can go wherever he wants to with his investigation.

As I have stated from the get-go, I believe Donald Trump is using the office of the Presidency to enrich himself in a manner that is certainly unethical and almost certainly in violation of the Emoluments Clause, so I believe all this will be the path to impeaching this poor example of humanity.  I just don't know what it will take to get the House GOP to allow this to come to a vote and get 30 to 40 members of the House GOP to agree with the Democrats that Impeachment is warranted.  Perhaps a Trump firing of Bob Mueller will get them moving.

So why do the Russians like Donald Trump?  At this point, I believe it is one of two possibilities.

1.  Trump is in financial cahoots explicitly with certain Russian individuals through the Condominium Business and the Russians think they can influence him in important ways.  As an example, we have cut off supplying arms to Syrian Rebels who have been fighting both Assad and Al Qaeda and ISIS.  These are obviously the good rebels and you wonder why Trump would agree to stop supplying them with arms.  The only possible answer is Russia wanted this.

2.  Trump is a naive simpleton who thinks anybody who is rich and buys his properties is an OK person.  He cannot contemplate that money laundering is bad, the sources of such money bad, or that free wheeling criminal activity based within property he developed is bad.  He loves being rich so badly that he is blind to how anybody else got rich and sees no evil in their wealth.   In this case, the Russians are well aware of his simpleness and know how to manipulate him.  The result is the same as the 1st path, it is just that this alone is probably not a criminal activity by Trump or his company, it simply shows unethical the collective enterprise is.

Either path can explain why Trump's people took so many meetings with the Russians during the campaign.  What I cannot explain is why Jeff Sessions had so many meetings with the Russians.  I thought he was a believer in Ronald Reagan's view of Russia that you have to Trust, but Verify everything with them.

And now to the overload this week.  Politically D.C. is in a chaotic place because Trump is a terrible manager.  He has no concept of political process.  The examples this week are too numerous for me to go into.  So I will provide a link to a column that goes through the White House portion of this chaos.  For the Congressional chaos you will have to read past issues of newspapers, if you didn't already.

Link to Column about chaos in Trump Administration


Meanwhile, what is wrong with Poland?  Why are they ending the Independent Judiciary?  Is Poland going to return to a Dictatorship?  I have enough trouble keeping up with things in the U.S.  Poland was my favorite investment when I was an Emerging Market Portfolio Manager and at one time, I was so comfortable with their direction, that my portfolio was the single largest holder of their US $ bonds.

Sunday Musing July 9 2017

Whoa, there was a lot to think about in today's NYT op-ed section.  I will have to email RedStateVT one of them because I don't think he reads this blog anymore and I know he is not blogging anymore. It is a piece on what has become of conservatism written by a Conservative.  I found it fascinating for its insight into what is necessary to win elections and have sufficient support to enact policies.  Trump won the election but didn't campaign on the GOP policies that they want to enact and now they cannot implement them because democracy does work, albeit in a very messy manner.  In this author's mind one problem the GOP has is that they won the tax issue in the 1980's and cutting services further undercuts this issue for the GOP today.  So he thinks Conservatives need to find a positive message to unify around.

I don't take a great deal of comfort in that so I will go to my Indivisible Meeting today.

Link to "Can Conservatives Find Their Way"

I would like to point out that Democrat's need to find that positive message as well.  Donald Trump won the election because he gave a sufficient number of voters in a sufficient number of states hope.

This is exacerbated by the rise of Consumerism which has a distasteful side effect of something I know RedStateVT and I agree on.  The rise of the Kardashian culture.  A fashion columnist  highlights the similarity between consumerism and politics today.  Trump mastered that.

Link to Politics as a Consumer Decision

And finally a writer discusses the interaction of class and racial identity when it comes to personal decisions and certain realities that are confused in the political discussion as well as in the lowest personal level of navigating society.

Link to "Who Do We Think of as Poor"

This author has some fascinating facts that the GOP needs to ponder as they develop policies for their rural voters

"It’s tempting to say I thought anyone who worked couldn’t be poor. That’s naïve. Real wages for the two-thirds of Americans without a four-year degree have dropped since 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile the cost of a degree has roughly doubled over the past three decades. Today, half of American jobs pay about $37,000 or less each year, a quarter pay about $23,000 or less, and a family of four qualifies for SNAP at $32,000 or less. No wonder just over half of all SNAP families work, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. In America, “real” poverty is not about a lack of work, but a lack of compensation."

"It’s also tempting to say I balked at food stamps because of the culture in which I was raised: rural, white and working class, in a state that went to Donald Trump. Most poor families I knew as a kid avoided food stamps; they believed in bootstraps, not getting help. But to say this was only about independence is to claim an innocence I didn’t entirely possess."

"The truth is there was a shameful idea woven into my conceit of self-reliance, something so ingrained in American culture I’d never thought to say it out loud: I didn’t really think I was supposed to get food stamps because I was white."

"Having an implicit belief that poverty didn’t really happen to white people did me more harm than good, and nearly prevented me from seeking help I needed. It also ignored reality. While it’s true that blacks and latinos disproportionately live in poverty, if you analyze who gets food stamps, they are most likely to be white."

The author goes on to highlight "that urban poverty is dominated by people of color while rural poverty is dominated by white people."  But most people in the media who cover poverty are urban and college educated.  This skews their coverage in certain ways that focus the poverty issue as a problem of color and while I know the Democrats don't see it that way, it has an effect on voters.

"Covering poverty as if it is predominantly a black issue is a problem. It’s a problem because it can suggest that black suffering is a natural fact rather than a manufactured problem we should correct. It’s a problem because it fosters resentment against communities of color from economically struggling whites, who have some reason to feel their hardship is played down. And this all creates a political problem: the obliteration of the common ground that being poor can help illuminate across racial lines."

Politics is a bloody complicated process as every voter has a different mix of issues that will drive their voting decision.  It is the politician's and political parties task to discern which mix of issues will gain them sufficient support to govern and implement policies.  I believe this is something that both the Democrats and Republicans have lost sight of and that is why we have a President Trump.  The Electoral College matters and Congress matters.  

As much as I hate to say it because the Electoral College gave us both Bush II and Trump, the founder father's of this country really believed in the power of collective majorities made up of individuals and that is what they empowered in the Electoral College and Congress.

Lots to think about in today's paper.

P.S.  Somewhere in the last few days I read an article on Legislative District Reform.  It basically promoted the idea that a certain number of Legislators be elected on a wider basis than the gerrymandered districts that promote partisanship.  In many states that would force certain politicians to focus on the middle of the political spectrum more than they do now.  The article has a path to create this process, but I don't recall it.  Since what I am really feeling sorry about in all these articles today is the decline in the class of professional politicians who focus on the middle, I think this idea might have merit.

Who Knew, US Gun Laws Fuel Illegal Immigration

I just finished reading a book about the flood of undocumented children that presented themselves to Border Police in the summer of 2014.  These children would still be coming except the U.S.A. under Presidents of both parties have convinced Mexico to prevent them from transversing Mexico to arrive at the U.S. border.

There is much to be heartfelt about the story of these teenagers who really just want a safe place to live, grow up and be useful citizens to the country in which they reside.  But the really awful thing is how U.S. policies promoted by Conservatives have a direct link to creating the environment that forces these children to have to make a life or death decisions and both paths are high risk.

For the most part, illicit drugs are illegal in the U.S.  Many of these drugs are produced in South America.  While the Mexican cartels have been leading traffickers of these drugs, this activity has now been muscled into by gangs further south in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  So it is U.S. demand for illegal drugs that fuels criminal activity in these countries.

These gangs are violent and they have ready access to weapons sold in the U.S.  The U.S. has no effective controls on gun purchases thanks to the N.R.A. convincing any number of states to allow unlimited purchases of these weapons by a single individual.  And the N.R.A. also has killed any effective control of automatic weapons.  If these gangs can smuggle drugs into the U.S., they can smuggle guns the other way.  And boy do they ever.  They are violent and unafraid of any police in their country because they have more money and guns than the police do.

Because there are rival gangs, the gangs suffer losses and need new recruits.  They try to force children to join them and if the children don't agree to, they are intimidated and frequently killed for daring to say No.  So the children have a stark choice: (i) stay and be killed or (ii) flee to the U.S.,  be potentially harmed or turned around along the way in Mexico, and if they make it to the U.S., face a hostile government that wants to send them home to be killed or become a gang member.

And these gangs have an impact on life in the U.S.  The gangs from those countries have outposts in the U.S.  Barrio18 &MS-13 have been shooting up certain towns in Long Island the same way they do in their native countries.  Trying to intimidate kids into joining them or killing them if they say no.

Now I will admit that is the U.S. demand for these drugs that provide the money that causes all this.  But the War on Drugs was started by Richard Nixon and is now almost 50 years old.  Might it be time to start discussing legalization and treatment for addictions?  I think so, but not with Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General.  He thinks all drug users should be thrown in jail.  Even Chris Christie thinks that is nuts.

But the U.S. has to do something about the availability of guns in bulk purchases.  There are reasonable regulations that would do nothing to harm the average American's ability to buy another weapon while protecting society from madmen and criminals.

The Potential For A Real Health Insurance Debate

This might be a bit dense for some readers.  If I had anything to say about my concerns about President Trump on the world stage, I would.  But literally what can you possibly say about this incompetent individual.  He is incapable of developing policies or of having a vision for an end goal and how to get there in a political process.  Yes, he won the election, but he didn't have a real set of policies or buy-in from his governing support to implement them.  The import tax was the only real thing that would have helped him help his supporters eventually, but Walmart has killed it before it even got to the point of being debated.

Anyway, after reading this morning's paper, I have a vision of what a real health insurance debate between the Democrats and Republicans would look like if the GOP would leave tax cuts out of the equation and simply focus on trying to build a consensus that the people could vote on through the 2018 and 2020 election.

What the Democrats are moving towards is Universal coverage through a Single Payer Plan.  It might require some increase in taxes, but most of that would be netted against what is currently being paid by employers and individuals in their group insurance plans so the net increase would potentially not be very much.  The Democrats need to do some work with the people who really know this type of  data and figure out just what this math would really look like.

One key to the Democrat's argument is the need to separate in the voter's minds what the cost of Medicaid is to cover people under 65 from the cost of Medicaid for people over 65, who for the most part are people with dementia in long term care.  I think most voters want Medicaid to pay for that long term care since most voters do not want death panels and know they cannot take care of demented granny in their home.

I paid $130,000 to cover long term care for my wife and myself.  The issuing company is so unsure that that was sufficient that they stopped issuing further policies even with that steep upfront cost.  I don't believe that 98% of Americans can afford long term care policies, so something needs to be done about insuring this catastrophic cost and yes, it needs to be means tested somehow; perhaps as it is currently through the spend down process to meet Medicaid requirements.

Now what would a real GOP plan look like.  Well, we know ObamaCare was originally designed by the Heritage Foundation to be the GOP alternative to a Single Payer Plan and keep the private insurance industry involved in controlling costs. But the private insurance industry was not successful at controlling costs before ObamaCare nor is it within ObamaCare.  Now interestingly, somehow Medicare Advantage Plans which are basically privately insurance HMO's within Medicare have seemingly been able to perhaps control costs somehow for the elderly.  But these HMO's are subsidized by Medicare directly so we don't have a clear picture of the real effectiveness in controlling costs.  But Medicare Advantage Plans are supported by the GOP as the fix for Medicare and are basically ObamaCare for the elderly.  So Paul Ryan supports ObamaCare's design for people over 65, but not for people under 65.  No wonder the GOP is having an internal fight to repeal Obamacare, their only preferred replacement is the ObamaCare construct.

What prompted this blog was an op-ed by the Features Editor at Reason Magazine.  This is a libertarian magazine.  I have never heard of it, but the Chicago Tribune named it as one of the 50 best magazines about 10 years ago.

The writer offers a set of principles that the GOP needs to use as guidance for their solution to the fact that the Heritage Foundation design for ObamaCare has certain aspects that are unworkable in the minds of the GOP.

For starters, he says no universal coverage.  Otherwise, the GOP would end up negotiating on the Democrat's terms.  That is a non-starter for him.  It also offers up a very stark political campaign between the GOP and the Democrat's if they go down this path.  I would like to see an election campaign on that issue, as a supporter of Universal Coverage.

The 2nd principle is unification, not fragmentation.  But what is unification, if not a single payer plan.  He didn't touch upon that point.  Our current system is fragmented between Medicare, Medicaid, the private employer paid market, and the private individual paid market.  The result is that people view health insurance as a means of prepaying for health care, not as insurance from catastrophic risk.  And the primary cause of this view by people is the reliance upon employer paid health insurance which is promoted by the tax deductibility for employers and zero taxable income for employees for the value of health insurance.  No politician, be they Ted Cruz or Elizabeth Warren, wants to change that tax subsidy because it is an entitlement enjoyed by a huge percent of the working age electorate.  That can be changed only as part of a huge overhaul of the entire health insurance scheme.

The 3rd principle is separate heath insurance from health care.  Insurance is a financial product to protect against catastrophic risk.  People need insurance because they do not want to worry about financial ruin from a catastrophic medical condition.  What the GOP needs to focus on is making routine health care affordable through supply side innovations as well as demand side reforms.  He is a little vague exactly what needs to be done here and whether it would be effective, but this is after all exactly where Obama/Romney/HeritageFoundation Care has failed.

His 4th and final principle is that government assistance always be focused on the poorest and the sickest.  Now it is focused on "subsidizing workers with six-figure salaries and wealthy retirees, while sidelining the poor and sick in Medicaid, a system in which many doctors will not participate in because of low reimbursement rates.

So, what would his system look like:  Expanded Health Savings Accounts, a broad comprehensive system for catastrophic health insurance, cessation of the tax subsidy for employer paid health insurance (making it income to the employees), means testing Medicare, and other things that no one has thought of yet.

It is the last point that convinces me that a Universal Single Payer Plan is the answer.  Hospitals and Doctors will not be government employees.  Leaving capitalism at work.  No doubt, the wealthy will get concierge service, but everybody else will be fine too.  After all, if people need to think of things that no one has thought of yet, when health care is a basic human need and there are literally millions of people thinking about this issue, what great insight can be found?  That is not to say someone could not think of something new, but since many countries have moved in the direction of a Single Payer Plan, a case can be made that somewhere within that construct, there is the best design to minimize the % of GDP that is spent on health care.

And I would separate long term care from that cost calculation.  That is not health care, it is resident care for people who cannot take care of themselves. I would call it specialized subsidized housing for the elderly.