Calling John Galt

Transparency and Openess – Or Not

Leading up to the 4th of July and the power of the state over the press and the people, the following exchange between Helen Thomas and Press Secretary Gibbs is insightful and disturbing.

Thomas: “How so?  By calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on.  That is shocking.”

Gibbs: “We had this discussion ad nauseam and—”

Thomas: “Of course you would, because you don’t have any answers.”

Gibss has had a very difficult time answering most and all questions posed to him.  Lets hope that this trend doesn’t continue.

You Can’t Be Surprised

By the fact that Congress is spending like crazy, on JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING…  Weren’t these overseas junckets seen as wasteful and ineffective less than two years ago?  Who would have guessed that things have changed.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

Lawmakers say that the trips are a good use of government funds because they allow members of Congress and their staff members to learn more about the world, inspect U.S. assets abroad and forge better working relationships with each other. The travel, for example, includes official visits to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Campaign Promise, Shampaign Promise

Open Dialog Regarding Facts and Truth

We are open to correcting any mistakes that we make and will do so promptly if they are identified.  We would hope that is true for all others, especially professionals within each area.

There needs to be an open discussion, especially when we are all making decisions based on the facts before us.  If those facts are wrong, then it puts in jeapordy our entire decision making process.  The above link showcases some examples of myths and “statistics” that are quoted as fact and simply aren’t:

“The history of women’s abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. . . . The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man’s right thumb. The law became commonly know as ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe.”

Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology–the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase “rule of thumb” did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.

Myths do not support arguments.

Zorza also informs readers that “between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence.” Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.

…

…the Centers for Disease Control statistician Janey Hsiao, who wrote to me that “among ED [Emergency Department] visits made by females, the percent of having physical abuse by spouse or partner is 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.01 percent in 2005.”

And the data does not support the myths.  Is domestic violence a problem?  Yes.  Is this the correct way to deal with it? Not.

Lastly, the author of this piece has been repeatedly attacked for pointing out the inaccuracies in the books and papers she has reviewed.  Her attackers are neither intellectually honest or sincere.  They are simply out to further their agenda.  Their behaviour does not create a dynamic open culture it hurts it.

Life Extension’s Impact on Inmates with Life Sentences

I am a proponent of life extension technology.  As it is well documented, our society has done a great job in extending the life of an average human being.  However, we haven’t addressed the absolute life spans.  Though, that may be changing as we find a way to extend the absolute life span of any given human being.

For the following discussion, lets assume that we are able to extend the absolute life span.

I haven’t seen any literature addressing to key questions:

1. Will these technologies be made available to prison inmates?
2. If so, how will this apply to their life sentences?

Instead of an average life span of 75 years, what if it became 200 years, 500 years, or even longer?  Bernie Madoff was just sentenced to 150 years, how would this apply to him?  Would be get out after he has served his full 150 years?  What would be the impact to inmates who are serving life sentences?

If a criminal is serving life in prison without the opportunity of parole, would they be subject to a death sentence if they weren’t given access to the live extension technologies?  Right now they have full right to medical care.  Would this be different?

Maximum sentences of 100 years or more are “understood” to be life sentences.  If an inmate were given access to life extension and not released would this change the equation of the punishment fitting the crime?

We are living in an exciting time, where death as we know it may be eliminated outside of accidents or hostility.  However, there are still massive issues to be resolved on moral and ethical grounds.

Welcome the brave new world…

Too True

From Victor Davis Hanson:

This weird “they” is what killed California, the notion that somewhere in a room a group of plutocrats sits on bags on ill-gotten gold and can be dragged out and forced to cough up bullion in tough times. Do we believe that the Big Four of Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins, and Crocker are still around, hoarding half of the state’s resources? (Rule Six: No matter how broke California becomes, there is always someone else somewhere who can and should pay for others.)

One Small Step At A Time

Maine looks to simplify its’ income taxes to 6.5% for all, except those making more than $250k, which will pay 6.85%…

Well, at least it is progress.

Dodge and Hurl

Hmmm, so Chicago politics is what we are going to see for the next four years.

Prophets or Profits?

There’s been a phrase bubbling forth that really bothers me.

“Healthcare is too important to leave in the private sector; it is immoral to make a profit on someone else’s health.”

So, now it’s immoral to make a profit where a life is concerned? Let’s examine that statement a little further, because it’s one thing to make a case for government spending on something like national security or even efficiency. But morality?

This thinking comes as a result of a pair of faulty premises, that when taken together become very dangerous to liberty. They are “Profits are immoral” and “Zero-sum wealth.” The first is an appeal to what we think is the better side of human nature, the latter an empirical observation that is misses the entire nature of trade or pricing.

For that matter, shouldn’t it also be immoral to make a profit on food? Is it now time to initiate a takeover of farms, on the basis we should ensure there is enough food for the hungry? The proponent of government-run healthcare either has to accept this as a newly-christened potential government power, or has to supply a Constitutional rationale as to why food would be any different than healthcare. If I were boxed in such a corner, I’d likely argue for scarcity: there is no need to nationalize the farms, because there is more than enough food in America. It’s that so many Americans go without health coverage that we must address the scarcity.

This line of thinking presumes there’s no relationship between the supply of a commodity and the incentive to produce it. We must ask ourselves, why is there an abundance of produce? Might it have something to do with a free market for those goods? The prices are set by the constant flux of hundreds of millions of individual consumers, who signal what they want in relation to everything else by the act of selecting their groceries. No one individual or entity sets those prices – yet the optimum amount of what was wanted gets produced.

On the flip side, we have another profession (medicine) that comes with a significant barrier to entry in the form of up-front investment. Just like a farmer can’t throw seed on someone else’s property and start reaping, the health professional must spend time and money before earning the first real paycheck. Unlike agriculture, though, there is a large insulating barrier between the consumer and the price information.

Because of the manner in which insurance (and government-paid insurance) is administered, you will very rarely find a patient who knows as much about the cost of healthcare as he knows about the price of carrots or bananas. The “shortage” isn’t in availability of care, it is in the convenience of health coverage. Most have it. A few don’t. But even that system is broken, because the price signal is dampened beyond recognition.

The only way to have “enough” of something is to let people put a value on it for you. This is the genius of eBay, that an item is worth exactly what it is worth because the price is set in comparison to all of the identical items also being sold at that time, and against the opportunity cost of what you might have done with those dollars in another auction.

Taking health to single-payer dissolves any notion of a market. One buyer means one price set – and no data about wants and needs that might inform a course correction. Do we have enough trauma doctors in this city? In this neighborhood? How many podiatrists does this county need, and how many orthodontists? You could try to allocate them based on census data, but how well would that work? The Prophet must divine an answer from a single set of data; Profits are the continuous stream of data that tell us when there is an imbalance to be addressed.

Let’s put it another way. If you want to make something disappear, put it in a basket marked “Free.” People will always avail themselves of something they think they aren’t paying for. The danger in single-payer is that in reality you aren’t paying for your MRI – just 1/300,000,000th of it. That’s a sweet deal, until you end up paying 1/300,000,000th of my hormone replacement therapy, 1/300,000,000th of her surgery, 1/300,000,000th of the kids’ braces…

Essentially, single-payer brings to final fruition the illusion that others will pay for my healthcare. Instead, we’ve created the incentive for more people to use the system than really need to do so. With a greater demand for care and no budget increase (or signal) to allocate for it, we do indeed have shortages and rationing. The profit motive – no matter how immoral you think it might seem – is the only moral means of ensuring the proper amount of care is created.

So, would you rather trust your abundance to Prophets? or Profits.

Money Raised

Thanks to RedState

Who would have guessed that the Democrats refuse to pay off their debt?  I am certainly not.  They are now using the same accounting strategies at the National level.