Calling John Galt

This is good news, as Obama loses points on Health Care, there is a better chance of defeating this boondoggle.

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, the President’s approval rating for handling health care has slipped under 50%. And for first time in our polling significantly more Americans disapprove strongly of his handling of health care reform than approve strongly, so he’s dealing with an intensity gap as well.

There are 120-million trees in a forest.

Let’s say the forest ranger comes up to you, and tells you there is a big out-of-control fire coming over the hill – and that if you follow his prescription now, you can grow or save 3-million trees.

What exactly has that person promised? Well, if he has forecast where the fire will spread before burning out, he might be able to show you how many trees the fire is likely to torch. Maybe the plan is to plant many seeds in an area protected from the flames.

A combination of those activities might well be poised to meet the demands of the promise – after all, it wasn’t a promise that we would have a net gain of 3-million trees. Just that we would grow or save 3-million trees.

So, how many trees must be standing at the end for the promise to be kept?

Answer: 3-million.

Think about it…

For decades, the US Forest Service inadvertently screwed up the nation’s forests. It wasn’t out of malice or greed, just well-intentioned idiocy.

If you’re going to manage a wildlife area, there are times you let nature take its course. Lightning strikes cause small forest fires that clear away the underbrush and create fertile ground for regrowth. If you are overzealous in preventing fires, you create conditions that allow a small fire to get way out of control.

We do controlled burns these days for that very reason, to keep a small fire from becoming everyone else’s problem. On a small scale, destruction is actually good.

Why is it the well-intentioned people in our federal government can’t leave well-enough alone with the economy? A little loss is a good thing, when it weeds out the bad or otherwise intractable. It is healthy to start over from time to time, and it’s much better for all the creatures living in that environment if only small sections get burned out at once.

Our recent economic/financial collapse has no single cause, but rather a number of contributing and enabling factors. I have a pet theory that the popularization of 401-K plans has meant a great deal of wealth for people who never would have been part of the “investing class,” but came with an Unintended Consequence: the amount of money pumped into investment circles was not matched by a proportional degree of oversight. When you own just a few shares each of 200 different companies, you’re not likely to investigate the balance sheets of any of them.

The main enabler, though, is the government. Politicians love softening the blow to the average family, and boy do we sure love to avoid discomfort. Rather than take our lumps with some bad economic news, we instead allow our representatives to patch over this ‘bubble’ with something that inevitably becomes the next bubble.

Let the bubbles break! Now we’re stuck with three or four bubbles worth of correction, and its no wonder that so many people are out of work. Yet, instead of leaving well enough alone, we’re patching yet another bubble by practicing Stimulus.

Maybe we should let the White House Economic Brain Trust intern for a summer in a National Park.

One of the most common arguments that do-gooding leftists make with regard to the healthcare debate is that medicare saves money in “administrative costs” that private companies spend in processing claims, administrating, etc. The pro-government crowd makes this case because their chief goal-economic equality for all (except congress)-doesn’t find appeal among the overwhelming majority of Americans.

Well it turns out that the admin cost case is completely bogus.

Robert Book of the Heritage Foundation makes the point that when allocated costs of other government agencies as well as medicare’s own admin costs are factored in, gov’t spending per beneficiary is actually 12% higher than private insurers, at $509 per member in 2005. Wellpoint, the largest health insurer in the country, covering 11.6% of Americans, cost $367 per member in 2008.  Assuming 3% inflation, that would put medicare costs per beneficiary 51% higher than Wellpoint’s in 2008.

In addition, it is estimated that medicare fraud runs at $60 billion a year. That’s over $1,300 a year per medicare member, or 15% of medicare spending, a higher percentage than Wellpoint spends on all admin expenses combined. Administrative expenses of private insurers, on the other hand, succeed in reducing fraud, as the incentives are in place (profit).

The actual reason for the high inflation rate of healthcare is a flawed incentive structure, exacerbated by government rules and mandates, as well as a simple fact: as technology makes the other things we consume cheaper over time, consumers choose to spend more on extending and improving their lives.

And let’s not forget another seldom mentioned fact: the U.S. subsidizes health care advances for the rest of the world. Every other advanced economy has mostly nationalized healthcare, meaning the government limits the profit potential of research advancements. Thus for many decades, the U.S. has borne a disproportionate share of R&D spending. This will certainly decline if we go down the single-payer route.

Where do you stand on open carrying of firearms?

First, I am given instructions on what to do if approached by the police. I brace myself as Nate explains.

“What’s going to happen is, they’re going to want to do a 12031(e) unloaded check,” he begins. “They’ll say they want to check your weapon. You say, ‘Are you requesting or demanding?’ If they say, ‘Demanding,’ you say, ‘I don’t consent to any warrantless searches. But I’m not going to resist.’ And then you stick your hands out, they check your weapon, and it’s done.”

With unemployment rising and now equaling the job gains over the past nine years, we are in for the long haul:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

Prepare for things to continue to be bad for quite a while.  Unemployment will pass double digits, less capital will be available in the markets, and it is anyone’s guess whether inflation or deflation will strike…

As Rahm Emmanuel said, a crises is a terrible thing to waste.  Is this an opportunity for Libertarians to gain on the political landscape?

This is not good:

It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal

Should there be political balance in our colleges and universities?  Is ideological diversity important to teaching?  According to this report, only two out of 111 professors had conservative leanings.

What impact will this have on students?

Paying twice the amount to ensure you get the healthcare you deserve.  Is it the option that is coming our way?