How Deep is the Deep End

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/09/dual-discipline-systems-in-tucson.html This is pretty impressive, I didn't know you could go that deep. Maybe this concept should be tried with our criminal justice system: not to the victims of crime or the taxpayers who fund the system, but, more importantly, to the misunderstood criminals themselves. Second degree murder? 4-6 years for blacks, 10-15 for whites--until whites succeed in achieving a ten-fold increase in their convictions for murder to match the rate of blacks convicted of murder. In all spheres, be it remembered, the burden is upon the white race to match black achievement, not the other way round--that would be racist.

Packer's Take

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2009/09/reading-the-mcchrystal-report.html This is a good summary and analysis of the McChrystal report and its implications. As with Iran, and Iraq, and Pakistan, in Afghanistan too the President has no good options. He cannot be seen to retreat in face of terrorism. But, if he commits to victory he faces grave costs on many levels and the distinct possibility of failure to achieve victory by 2012. A contradiction in our first premise (ie, that our withdrawal means victory for the Taliban and a consequent increase in the terrorist threat): the Taliban already have a sanctuary in the North-West Provinces of Pakistan--what does it matter if their sanctuary is enlarged to include Afghanistan, or the Pashtun part of Afghanistan?

An Old Favorite Back on His Hobbyhorse

It appears barney frank is actually trying to expand the CRA--I guess he thinks the cure for poisoning is to administer more poison. This guy is one of the lowest, most shameless scumbags in Congress. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Dems-push-expanded-Community-Reinvestment-Act-dismiss-evidence-that-CRA-contributed-to-financial-meltdown-Republicans-cite-ACORN-connection-59501737.html   And here's an analysis of Congressional failure to do due diligence on CRA efficacy: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/09/cra-does-anybody-really-want-to-know.html   The handling of the CRA by both parties sounds conspiratorial to me, the lack of any transparency or analysis seems deliberate. Perhaps the idea is to throw trillions of dollars at the poor, especially poor minorities, in order to soften them and civilize them and thereby give them an incentive to stay out of prison. But, is it even working? Is it worth the cost? How can we tell without some analysis?

Fight or Flight

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228250/spreading-wealth/stephen-spruiell
The key line here is "This is welfare for the middle class." That is Obama's goal. Once the middle class is sufficiently swaddled in a comfortable little welfare blanket, the road to socialism is cleared and paved--and the American tradition is fled.

The Tradition of Improving the Truth

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228267/does-he-lie/charles-krauthammer
Obama's guerrilla warfare form of mendacity reminds me of Clinton's moment of apotheosis: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Krauthammer here presents a quality expose of the Obama style of persuasion. He is too clever to lie outright, but deliberately misleads that part of his audience susceptible to being misled--which is the great majority of it. A far left President and a far left House leadership are the wrong people to reform our health system. Obama's rhetorical efforts cannot conceal this socialist reality.

President of the Rest of the World

BO has come up with a new justification for blanket legalization of all illegal immigrants: they have to be legal to benefit from Obamacare. This is nuts. We're already far too generous with illegal immigrants. This would certainly increase the flow of illegals and thereby increase the tax burden of citizens. We have the most generous legal immigration system in the world: why should we reward these illegals whose first act, invading our national territory without legal permission, was a crime?

Indulgences

http://www.policeoracle.com/news/40-Fanatics-Go-Free-From-Jail_20179.html

The problem is not just lax sentencing, but the fact that the legal system evolved with British citizens in mind. These terrorists are citizens of the Caliphate of their fantasies.  I believe the British will adopt harsher measures in proportion to their experience of terrorist incidents--they have only seen a single, relatively modest, incident thus far.

A Better Way

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care This article provides the best (by far) diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan for health care in America that I have yet seen. It is what the republicans ought to have attempted when they had the chance, but were never bright enough nor bold enough to leap after, and instead submitted to Bush's idiot idea to expand Medicare.

The Meaning of American "Poverty"

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjJiMDE5Y2M1OWNmNDFhMDIwNWMxYTA1Mzk5ZDkxMTk=&w=MA==

 

Welfare does not count as "income" for determining whether a household is defined as poor by the government. This greatly diminishes the relation between its definition of poverty and the reality of poverty. But, of course, the Left considers close relations with reality too painful to contemplate, much less seek out. Hence, this rather successful propaganda campaign that brays about the high "poverty" level and the need to increase welfare spending (though the poverty determination formula prevents even a tripling of welfare spending from impacting the "poverty" rate). What we have here is another number without a comprehensible meaning to the vast majority of Americans. But, who can compete for public legitimacy with the propagandizers of the Census Bureau who churn out these lies?

Another important reality rarely noted is the incentive structure the government foists upon the poor to not work too much or get married: both work and marriage reduce the various forms of welfare payments.

Leftist Bias

An interesting explanation for the left-wing opinion that racism persists in America: http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/08/david-alexander-gets-it.html HBD refers to human biodiversity, that neither individuals nor groups are equal. The second comment is also interesting and to some degree true: the elite does want to neutralize the talented poor, but it usually does this by means of assimilation into the ranks of elite service workers (accountants, lawyers, doctors, managers) rather than employing methods of crude repression.

Illegal Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/health/policy/06immighealth.html?hpw Illegal immigrants are supposedly not subsidized for low income under the Obama plan, but they can enroll in the "public option"--which is by definition subsidized. This will not only effectively legalize illegal immigrants, it will clearly encourage more to illegals to come so to avail themselves of their "legal" rights as illegals. This proposal is especially audacious (or shameless) in the current economic circumstances. Who does this guy work for? Something like this doesn't even benefit the blacks (BO's favorite recipients of nepotistic patronage), except indirectly insofar as more Mexicans may abett long-term Democratic political power.

Parasitic Contagion

http://www.slate.com/id/2227082/

This is an excellent article. It points to the fundamental divergence that the payment methodology creates between the priorities of doctors, patients, and the economy as a whole. The angioplasty example demonstrates this: doctors generally recommend angioplasties for stable chest pain because they are paid much more for that procedure than for counselling the patient to alter his lifestyle, which is just as effective--the doctor increases his income, the patient's outcome is the same, and the economy overpays for the result. This is not defensive medicine, it is offensive medicine.

 

But, I wonder about the implication that more GPs are needed to increase preventive care. Would this really have a significant impact (of course, the angioplasty scenario implies that it does in some cases at least)? And, if what this mainly entails is basic advice on a healthy lifestyle, do we really need $150/hr doctors to be the conduits of this advice? Wouldn't nurses or physician's assistants or even social workers be sufficient, especially if they had the explicit imprimatur of a physician to invoke greater authority?

 

In the end, so long as the cost-benefit trade-off is not accounted for in medical decisions, and technology continues to improve, and no one has sufficient motive to institute rationing, the medical sector's costs will continue to rise, there being no natural limit to its size and scope.

 

600,000 doctors control a sixth of the American economy--that is, 0.2% of the population controls 16% of the economy. Possibly this is a harmful concentration of power, particularly given that their profit corresponds to some degree to how much of the economy they control. Not coincidentally, they pay themselves about 3% of national income--also rather concentrated. Of course, they make almost no effort to restrain medical costs, since there are no incentives for them to do so. Shockingly, this essentially non-market system of exchange has proven to be highly inefficient and flagrantly corrupt--high costs, mostly mediocre outcomes.

A socialist system can only function at all when supported by a capitalist system. But, when the socialist sector grows too large it begins to distort the private sector with excessive tax burdens and unavoidable "economic" interactions with the socialist sector. At some point, the relentless logic of ever-greater socialization cannibalizes the private sector, that is, the private sector begins to shrink in absolute terms. In course of this process, economic growth declines and faith in capitalism follows, due to popular misunderstanding of the causal relations involved. We are now not far from this threshold--perhaps only 10 to 20 years.