File under: suckers...

Doug Henwood made this point on his radio show the other day but...

 

Have you noticed how many "Liberal" organizations are sending out emails to their activists saying... "help stand up to the health insurance companies!"

 

Hate to break it to you but you're standing up for them....

 

No public option.....require everyone to buy from insurance companies... a $3,800 penalty in the Baucus plan if you don't.  Subsidies only for incomes up to $66,000 (some bills go as high as $88,000). 

 

The funny thing is conservatives truly think that Obama is going to put an end to private insurance.

 

Anyone who is actually paying attention knows that he is solidifying the private insurers hold on the American health care market.

 

It ain't going to be pretty... 

 

sigh....

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

posting will (hopefully) be light...

As I have an economics test on Tuesday that I have to study for.

 

I'm assuming there will be an inverse relation between blog posts and grade?

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Interview with Dean Baker

090815 001 by Jim Nichols  
Download now or listen on posterous

Dean Baker interview.mp3 (23774 KB)

As I watched the August shout-down-a-thon that we called a debate on health care I struggled with the question of how I could add more substance to a political culture that has turned to irrational fear, empty slogans, and anger.  

 

When I attended one of the health care forums I was discussing health care reform with about 5 people who opposed reform. 

 

At one point, one of the gentlemen, who was quite exasperated said, "you have a response to everything I say."  It struck me odd at the time, as I thought the goal of our discussion was to flesh out the health care crisis we face and how we move forward.  I realized he wasn't even listening to me. 

 

But in hindsight I realized that wasn't why he was there... he didn't feel like his voice was being heard.  His anger and frustration came from the fact that he didn't feel like he was being heard on something he felt was very important.  So I wasn't really listening to him either... I was talking policy but I wasn't taking the time to discuss the core of his issue--which in some ways was more about the process and his place in it than it was about health care. 

 

From that, I decided I wanted to find something I could do to add more substance to the political debate--something beyond the blurbs and talking points.  Plus its good to step away from the computer screen and actually be human for a while--we are social animals after all.   

 

So i've decided to walk away from the computer from time to time and go grab a cup of coffee with folks who are adding substance to issues we face in the 21st Cent.

 

When I attended netroots nation I also had the opportunity to sit down with the Economist Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

 

I possibly picked the loudest location in the entire conference center to record the interview... sorry about that.

 

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

New technology to curb voter fraud...

Via Financial Times:

 

Pret­-A­-Voter targets fraud 

Scientists in Britain and Luxembourg are developing an electronic voting system that could plug security loopholes and curb the potential for electoral fraud.

 

The encrypted Pret-A-Voter (PaV) prototype will be easy to use, cheap to run and “more secure than anything available at the moment”, said James Heather of the University of Surrey, one of the specialists working on the project.

 

Mr Heather said it could be implemented anywhere in the world. “If recent elections in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Russia and Iran had used our system, there would have been no potential for fraud,” he told an audience at the British Science Festival in Guildford on Thursday.

Under PaV, a vote is cast on an encrypted sheet of paper in a polling station. After voters tick off their preferences they divide the perforated voting sheet in half.

The left hand strip, which lists the candidates’ names in random order – which differs on each ballot – is discarded.

The right hand strip, which contains the voting marks, is read electronically and the votes registered on computer. The paper is also used as a receipt, so that voters can track their ballot online. Since the voting information is encrypted, it can only be interpreted by specialist electoral staff.

The software-independent technology guarantees the accuracy of the count and helps to remove bias that can occur under coercion.

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols

Markets crave predictability

Via Financial Times:

 

We need a world financial court with specialist judges

High-level financial crime is showing increasing disrespect for national boundaries too and can be just as overwhelming for a local judge.

We need to ensure that: (i) courts stay up-to-date with global financial market developments, (ii) judges have the requisite competence to unravel facts and apply laws that often pre-date and did not anticipate current practices (or that were too hastily drafted in response to political pressure) and (iii) the risk of a wrong decision contributing to systemic risk in a global, highly interconnected marketplace is mitigated.

Widespread usage of master agreements across geographical, cultural and language divides promotes legal certainty and huge cost efficiencies. But it could also amplify any mistake that a court makes in deciding a term’s proper meaning. As a result, the market may have a greater interest in the outcome of a particular case than two private parties who are litigating it.

Recognising this wider market interest is important. That is why we may need a mix of judges with legal training and experience, on the one hand, and lay experts, on the other.

We need judges that have not only common law training, but also judges with knowledge of civil code and Islamic finance concepts who collectively represent broad linguistic capability as well.

There is another challenge: to capture the collective experience of banking and legal architects who built the industry and understand the key issues.

Some have shown signs of wanting to “give back” and could be recruited to play a senior gate-keeping role as judges to preserve their legacy.

The current reliance on national tribunals of general jurisdiction and ad hoc arbitration is unsatisfactory. It is too decentralised, too inefficient and expensive and, perhaps most importantly, it is failing to produce a settled, authoritative body of law or the predictability that the markets crave and on which financial stability depends.

Do we need a world financial court? And if so, where would we put it? London and New York are obvious choices. Perhaps The Hague, a city which bills itself as “the legal capital of the world”, where it would be possible to leverage off a tradition of international court support and a pool of highly-trained and multi-lingual staff.

Think about it. We have special courts for everything from family law to tax. World trade benefits from the existence of the WTO tribunal and the dedicated bar that it has nurtured. International financial market law is no less global or systemically relevant than international trade law.

Some say that creating a truly world court is too ambitious, that it would take a long time to set up and we can’t wait. Maybe. However, if that is the case, we should roll up our sleeves, not put all our eggs in the regulatory basket, and start focused training for our judges on derivatives. Right away.

 

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The Bush Tax Cuts Cost 2 and a Half Times as Much as the House Democrats' Health Care Proposal

Citizens for Tax Justice:

Newly revised estimates from Citizens for Tax Justice show that the Bush tax cuts cost almost $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were first enacted (2001-2010). Preliminary estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show that the House Democrats' health care reform legislation is projected to cost $1 trillion over the decade after it would be enacted (2010-2019).
 
And yet, many of the lawmakers who argue that the health care reform legislation is "too costly" are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts. Their own voting record demonstrates that health care reform is not a matter of costs, but a matter of priorities.

 Read the new report from Citizens for Tax Justice

These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose the House health care legislation and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn't demonstrate much concern about costs

Economist Brad Delong has pointed out that the Bush Tax Cuts weren't tax cuts.The Bush Tax--Well, They Aren't Cuts, They Never Were, They Were Just Shifts of the Tax Burden from Us to Our Descendants

Its important to remember that the Democrats have been the fiscally responsible wing of the two party system.  The Bush Tax Cuts, refusing to pay for the Iraq war with tax increases, putting in place an unfunded medicare perscription drug benifit plan that subsidized drug company profits at the expense of taxpayer dollars.

Economist Uwe E. Reinhardt recently reflected on 2003 health care reform debates and noted this very point--Democrats are much more fiscally responsible than Republicans in approaching reforms that american citizens are calling for, "American citizens — especially older ones — might keep this backdrop in mind as they behold and comment on the current administration’s and Congress’s travails to place the proposed health reforms of ’09 on a fiscally more responsible footing than was the M.M.A. ’03."  He digs into the options to fund health care and some of the hypocrisies of those who oppose funding health care reform.

Posted via web from Jim Nichols

The post anniversary weekend post

The wife and I had a great anniversary trip to Disney World.  It was nice to take a step away from the political world.  Nobody was ranting and raving about the black soviet spy we have occupying the White House talking to our school kids.  The sky was not falling.  Everyone seemed pretty happy.

 

Catching up on the news this morning it looks like the public option has is still off the table for Obama.  Though disappointing its not shocking.  I will @JimN2010 likely be running as an independent if this happens and will not be volunteering for the Obama campaign's re-election effort.  Though I wasn't someone who thought he was necessarily progressive and believed him to be a center-right Democrat I assumed that the broken health care system and Democrats history over the past few decades of being more fiscally responsible would mean that a public option would be in the bill.

 

The old mantra was:  If you like the Iraq War, thank a Democrat

It looks like i'll be adding:   If you like subsidizing private insurance company profits at the expense of quality care, thank a Democrat.

 

Not as short and sweet but still in the same ball park.

 

Do the math, 30% of the base of opposition to health care reform don't think Obama was born in this country.  These are the same folks that think he's a soviet spy pushing marxism.  On top of that you have another 20% or so who oppose it for philosophical reason...  they are teenthers who think that social security and medicare shouldn't exist either.  If Obama caves because 30% of the opposition have no clue what they are talking about and the other 20% want to use a political system set up for an agrarian society then the Democrats truly have learned nothing over the past two decades.

 

Go figure....

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The Black President can't talk to students about staying in school?

Ummm...

I really have no clue what to say about this bru-ha-ha. (how does one spell bru ha ha?)

I just saw a guy on tv talking about why he opposes Obama speaking to his kid about staying in school and taking personal responsibility for their own education.  This guy... he hemmed and hawed.   It seemed from his response that the president being black was the reason...  that was my gut instinct having grown up in the south and seen out and out unabashed racism.

I'm sure others think Obama shouldn't speak because he's a communist sent by the soviets or something.  Or whatever other reason they come up with. But this guy... its cause Obama is black.  Sorry i'm not political correct for pointing that out.

The flatearth society at it again...  

Posted via web from Jim Nichols

Economist Brad Delong on long term deficit...

Deficit

If global investors lose confidence in governments tomorrow, then we have a huge crisis--and they are right to lose confidence. If global investors do not lose confidence, then we are fine--and those crying "the sky is falling" are wrong and will lose money--as long as we don't let fear of a loss of confidence panic us into prematurely cutting the government deficits that are maintaining demand.

The right policy, therefore, is (a) big deficits now, and (b) big automatic tax increases enacted now to take effect in the future if we then fail to grow our way out of the debt.

But are we smart enough to enact such policies? Certainly not with today's Republican Party.

Posted via web from Jim Nichols

How we push the flatearth society out of the Republican Party...

Party realignment has been due for a while in my opinion. The Republican Party is worthless now that it has 30% or so of its base, especially in the south, are card carrying members of the flatearth society (here and here also here and here).
 
Maybe this showdown between the progressive caucus and Obama ends with no bill, and a split of the Democratic Party. 

 

In the end this might be a good thing...   a party that brings in bought and sold business party politicians and a 2nd party that brings in semi-bought and sold business party politicians who also want progressive reforms in this country so as to help the vast majority of struggling Americans.
 
Maybe this break in the party and no health care reform is the best of all possible worlds?
 
I'll have to chew on that one.... but for now I say let Obama burn on this one--no public option? no bill....

Posted via email from Jim Nichols