Posts from — February 2005

It would appear that they are at it again: private accounts begat personal accounts which begat Personal Security Investment Accounts.

Kevin Drum noticed Faux’s Brit Hume using this euphemism during an attempt to smear Senator Harry Reid. Hume was trying to convince people that the Clinton administration proposal to invest part of the Social Security Trust Fund in the stock market was the same as the Bush plan.

The Republicans blocked Clinton’s plan, claiming it would involve the government in the stock market, which is exactly what Bush’s mutual fund plan will do. The difference being that Clinton didn’t intend to pay huge fees. I would also note that with the market returns that people were getting under Clinton, his plan might have eliminated any problems possibly resulting in a reduction of withholding taxes on wages.

If you have a recurring problem that has always required the same medication, you can’t go to a pharmacy, buy the medicine, and get well. You have to have a doctor write a prescription, which wastes medical resources and your money. The same goes for drugs that people take for chronic illnesses, they have to be renewed, even though the drugs only stabilize the condition.

When it comes to something that requires hospitalization a lot of people have no choice at all. The hospital may be chosen by a doctor, an insurance company, or the simple fact the there is only one hospital in the area, but the patient rarely even gets asked if they have an opinion.

You can refuse treatment, if the courts and governor don’t decide to take an interest, but a second opinion is going to cost money.

The system is a mess and needs to be fixed, but a tax-exempt savings account isn’t going to make anything better, and people talking about “catastrophic policies” need to see the bill for a visit to an emergency room. It doesn’t take much to have a bill hit “catastrophic” levels.

The best current answer is to make the system more efficient by a single-payer system, like Medicare, that would simplify the business side of the health system. Only one set of codes, one set of prices, one billing form, one procedure for billing. The system would be administered by private contractors that were selected by competitive bids on a regional basis, just like Medicare.

This would eliminate the collection costs and problems of hospitals and doctors, reduce the size of billing operations, stabilize income for the medical industry, and generally reduce costs. This would also remove the cost of medical insurance from businesses, which would reduce their expenses.

If someone wants something more, they can buy additional coverage, as occurs in Europe and Canada. Medical providers would not be required to accept payments from the system, just as many don’t accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Until Bush writes something down and submits it, we don’t know what he’s going to do. Bush is selling vaporware, a simulation that can be altered until it reflects the desires of his target customer base. I have been in the computer business long enough to remember shows where the “hardware” displayed out front were empty cases with the displays powered by a much larger computer behind a curtain in the back of the booth.

At this point all that is certain is Bush’s desire to destroy Social Security, and hide the real deficit he has created.

The world will not continue to fund his “borrow and spend” policies. While Secretary Snow may, indeed, have a bad cold, he may also be avoiding a G7 meeting that will feature complaints about US economic problems.

Friday Cat Blogging [^TM Kevin Drum]

Did someone mention food?

[Edit: Actually that’s all fur, not cat. In Summer, Cal was a much slimmer, black cat.]

TV New Zealand carries this report titled: Kurds push for independence.

Kurdish self-rule is inevitable if not imminent, a Kurdish leader said after Kurds in northern Iraq voted almost unanimously for independence in an informal referendum held last weekend.

“When the right time comes it will become a reality,” said Masoud Barzani, head of one of the two main Kurdish factions which control Iraq’s northern Kurdish zone.

“Self-determination is the natural right of our people, and they have the right to express their desires.”

Of course, the Turks may not see things that way and could send several divisions across the border to emphasize their point of view that Kurds don’t really need their own country, but should be satisfied being a minority in other countries.

The Bush administration has stated that no existing weapon in the Pentagon’s arsenal is capable of destroying deeply buried targets such as underground bunkers containing chemical, biological and perhaps nuclear weapons or military command and control facilities.

Well, except for the BLU-113 Bunker Buster that was used in Gulf War I. I realize it will only penetrate 20 feet of reinforced concrete or 100 feet of dirt, but every bunker needs an entrance to the surface. If you seal the entrance whatever is in the bunker is useless.

If you would really like an idea of what a bad idea this is: the funding was removed by a Republican controlled Congress.

Not convinced? Take six spikes out to your yard with a hammer. The rule is you can only hit each spike once. Drive in the first spike, then put the tip of the second spike on the head of the first spike and drive it. Continue until you run out of spikes. Carefully dig along the side of the spikes to see how straight the spikes are.

Multiple explosions to drive the warhead deeper with each explosion, a concept by someone who has never dug in a garden. There is almost no possibility that the weapon will continue on a designed path after it enters the dirt.

Vaara talks about the Iraqi elections in a post titled Aftermath and wonders what comes next.

We know that Iraqi went to the polls, but what were they really voting for, or against? There were dozens of parties running, but most were identified only by a number, and the people on the list of candidates represented by that number were anonymous.

When the smoke clears, what happens if the parties receiving the most votes get together and decide that the foreign military has to go and sign an agreement with Iran to provide security and rebuild the Iraqi army? What if the winning party is actually a Ba’athist front calling itself party 117 which pardons Saddam and makes him President again?

We have been discussing the merits of the “overture” for so long that people haven’t bothered to look at the main body of the work. The curtain goes up in about a week, so there’s plenty of time to visit the concession stand before the performance begins.

In his new book Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, author Peter Bernstein writes that the building of the Erie Canal in the early 19th century helped shape the political, social and economic landscape of the young American republic. Robert Siegel talks to Bernstein about the building of the canal and its impact on America, east and west.

A chunk of my family history is tied to the Erie Canal, so I was interested in the segment on a personal level, but Mr. Bernstein makes a relevant political point for today.

At the beginning of the 19^th century there were two big canal projects planned: George Washington’s plan for a private canal down in Virginia and DeWitt Clinton’s public project in New York.

The Washington project went bankrupt, but Clinton’s Eire Canal was built and opened the American West to settlement, while providing the East with its products. The Eire Canal was been replaced by the New York State Barge Canal that, for most of the year, still carries barges traveling from New York City to the Great Lakes and back via the route opened by the government of New York.

The transcontinental railways were financed by grants of public lands, as were all of the big utility projects. Being awarded a monopoly for services that the public soon begins to depend on, is a license to print money. It also reduces risk for the consumers as well as the companies because of government regulation.

Ask California about electricity deregulation and the “benefits of competition”.

Airline travel deregulation was certainly beneficial – to bankruptcy attorneys. [A joke told by an airline pilot on “Car Talk”: What’s the difference between an airline pilot and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four.]

Look at how well AT&T has responded to competition. Oh yeah, businesses really know how things should be done.

This brings us to Digby’s post on Eliot Spitzer and business integrity.

Spitzer is the Attorney General of New York who has been making money for the state hand over fist prosecuting the ne’er-do-wells that the Federal government ignores. His string of prosecutions show exactly how well “voluntary” programs work.

Before anyone starts talking about allowing the market to sort things out, don’t, unless you are willing to remove all caps from lawsuits and the limited liability of corporations, because until businesses are subject to criminal and civil liability to their last penny, there is no free market. The free market is regulated by risk, and without total risk there is no free market.

Columbia
February 1, 2003

Commander:
Rick Douglas Husband, Colonel, USAF

Pilot:
William C. McCool, Commander, USN

Payload Commander:
Michael P. Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Mission Specialist:
Kalpana Chawla, PhD
David M. Brown, MD, Captain, USN
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, MD, Captain, USN

Payload Specialist:
Ilan Ramon, Colonel, Israel Air Force