Archive for the ‘health reform’ Category

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Obamacare is coming next month

Tuesday, September 24th, 2013

UPDATE: So far, as October 4, there is no evidence that anyone has enrolled in Obamacare. The one person alleged to have done so has now been shown to have been lying and the details he offered to the eager press, were phony. It appears the IT collapse is continuing.

UPDATE #2 There appears to have been 1% or less of applicants who negotiated the maze actually signed up. The web site is closed for the weekend to fix “glitches.” I still suspect it would have been better strategy to allow the October 1 rollout of this mess and focus on the debt ceiling for a potential shutdown.

UPDATE #3: Here is an informed discussion of Obamacare and the IT mess that created it.

To add insult to injury, the administration outsourced the building of this costly contraption to CGI Group, a Canadian firm. CGI, whose U.S. operations are based in Northern Virginia, “just so happened” to increase the number of H-1B visas it requested from 172 in 2011 to 299 in 2012. It seems more than a little likely that the Obamacare project gave jobs to foreigners while needlessly leaving fully dozens or perhaps even hundreds of qualified citizen IT professionals on the unemployment line.

It gets even worse. CGI was “officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry.”

Oh well.

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Alternatives to Obamacare

Friday, July 26th, 2013

As Obamacare looks more and more as though it will collapse, there are some alternatives beginning to appear. Several years ago, I suggested using the French system as a model. At the time, the French system was funded by payroll deduction, a source affected by high unemployment, and used a national negotiated fee schedule which was optional for doctors and patients. The charges had to be disclosed prior to treatment and the patient had the option of paying more for his/her choice of physician. Privately owned hospitals competed with government hospitals and patient satisfaction was the highest in Europe.

Recently the French system has run into trouble.

French taxpayers fund a state health insurer, “Assurance Maladie,” proportionally to their income, and patients get treatment even if they can’t pay for it. France spends 11% of national output on health services, compared with 17% in the U.S., and routinely outranks the U.S. in infant mortality and some other health measures.

The problem is that Assurance Maladie has been in the red since 1989. This year the annual shortfall is expected to reach €9.4 billion ($13.5 billion), and €15 billion in 2010, or roughly 10% of its budget.

This may be due to several factors. The French economy is in terrible shape with high unemployment. More of the funding for the health plan is coming from general revenues. This was not how it was supposed to work. It was payroll funded, much as the German system is, with a wider source than individual employers. This allows mobility for employees and allows employers to distribute risk among a larger pool. Germany allows other funding sources such as towns and states. I think it is still a good model for us but, with the passage of Obamacare, it will take a generation before another large reform would be viable. Obamacare must stand or fall first and I think it will fall but, as in most government programs, it takes years before the sponsors will admit defeat.

Another proposal has been made by a serious study group.

1. The government should offer every individual the same, uniform, fixed-dollar subsidy, whether used for employer-provided or individual insurance. For everyone with private health insurance, the subsidy would be realized in the form of lower taxes by way of a tax credit. The credit would be refundable, so that it would be available to individuals with no tax liability.

2. Where would the federal government get the money to fund this proposal?

We could begin with the $300 billion in tax subsidies the government already “spends” to subsidize private insurance. Add to that the money federal, state and local governments are spending on indigent care. For the remainder, the federal government could make certain tax benefits conditional on proof of insurance. For example, the $1,000 child tax credit could be made conditional on proof of insurance for a child.10 For middle-income families, a portion of the standard deduction could be made conditional on proof of insurance for adults. For lower-income families, part of the Earned Income Tax Credit could be conditioned on obtaining health coverage.

3. If the individual chose to be uninsured, the unclaimed tax relief would be sent to a safety net agency providing health care to the indigent in the community where the person lives, so that it would be available there in case he generates medical bills he cannot pay from his own resources. The result would be a system under which the uninsured as a group effectively pay for their own care, without any individual or employer mandate. By the very act of turning down the tax credit for health insurance in choosing not to insure, uninsured individuals would pay extra taxes equal to the average amount of the free care given annually to the uninsured. The subsidies for the insurance purchased by the insured would then effectively be funded by the reduction in expected free care the insured would have consumed if uninsured. [See Figures II and III.]

The paper goes on to explain the proposal The trouble is that this is another major reform and I see no chance for it in the foreseeable future.

What then is the most likely development ?

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Why Obamacare is collapsing.

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

Government is not very good at constructing software or IT systems. The FBI spent a decade with a troubled software project, then abandoned it.

Some FBI officials began raising doubts about the bureau’s attempts to create a computerized case management system as early as 2003, two years before the $170 million project was abandoned altogether, according to a confidential report to the House Appropriations Committee.

By 2004, the report found, the FBI had identified 400 problems with early versions of the troubled software — but never told the contractor. The bureau also went ahead with a $17 million testing program last December, even though it was clear by then that the software would have to be scrapped, according to the review.

The 32-page report — prepared by the House committee’s Surveys and Investigations staff and obtained by The Washington Post — indicates that the FBI passed up numerous chances to cut its losses with the doomed Virtual Case File (VCF), instead forging ahead with a system that ultimately cost taxpayers more than $100 million in wasted expenditures.

This is the history of complex government projects like this. They will not hire private companies and let them design these projects. Banks use ATM software that is far more complex and which works reliably.

Now Obamacare is the latest failure. I have been predicting this for a year. The electronic medical record software is another boondoggle. It increases workload and is not secure. Now the exchange IT systems are not ready and will not be for a decade, if ever.

“It’s the joyous, simultaneous, nonlinear equation from hell,” said Kip Piper, a former top official at HHS and OMB who is now a consultant in close contact with IT vendors. Piper said it’s no surprise that the administration has given up on certain functions given the technological complexity needed and the short time-frame.

But the long-term nature of the bad news could be good news for those who hope that the new marketplaces will launch in some form on time.

The struggles with technology and administrative complexity have not come as a recent surprise to administration officials; they’ve been negotiating them for months already. By eliminating non-essential tasks, they may be violating the letter of the health reform law, with its rigorous timetables and multiple requirements, but they may be more likely to get the core functions right.

Or wrong as the case may be.

The FBI experience is revealing:

The system was part of Trilogy, a $581 million FBI program that includes a new computer network and thousands of new high-speed personal computers for agents and analysts. VCF would have been the final major step in the upgrade, providing a modern database for storing case information and allowing agents to share and search files electronically.

Numerous outside experts and panels have criticized the FBI’s paper-based records system as outmoded and inefficient, and the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded that the shortcomings may have contributed to the failure to detect the al Qaeda plot. The Justice Department’s inspector general warned in February that the FBI’s continuing technology problems had “national security implications” and that agents were “significantly hampered” in their efforts to prevent terrorism and combat other serious crimes.

The new report, which is not scheduled for public release, reveals that “some officials involved in VCF’s development began to see problems” in early 2003, about a year after the FBI and its contractor, Science Applications International Corp., began focusing on creating the case management software.

That report is from 2005. My daughter is an FBI agent. They finally abandoned the whole thing last year and have begun from scratch.

Obamacare will not be functional by 2020. They will lie about it and fake it but the thing will be a complete mess.

Magan McArdle has more on the changes. All that is happening is that all cost control is stripped out. All that is left is the spending.

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Posted in corruption, health reform, medicine, politics, technology | 2 Comments »

Coping with Obamacare

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

The implementation of Obamacare is running into predictable problems, especially with data collection and processing. Some states, including Arizona, have agreed to participate chiefly for the Medicaid subsidy.

Brewer has said her decision was dictated by math, not ideology. The federal dollars gained through Obamacare will cover more than 300,000 Arizonans, including many elderly in nursing homes.The result of Brewer’s victory is not just more federal money for Arizona;

The Daily Beast, of course, is in favor of Republicans “learning reality” as they see it. In fact, the Medicaid subsidy stops in a few years and will leave the state at risk for all the new spending. Brewer, however, will have moved on. Many states, 24 in all, have decided not to participate. Why ? Well, It will cost a fortune.

“The National Association of State Budget Officers says Medicaid now comprises nearly one quarter of states’ entire budgets. Each one of us has served as governor in our state and knows that increased costs in one area means less money in another. America’s families know this as well since they can’t just print and borrow money when their spending goes up like the federal government does. Yet, astonishingly, more than half of ObamaCare’s newly promised health-insurance coverage was accomplished by assigning nearly 26 million more people to an already broken Medicaid program and telling governors, “Now, you find a way to help pay for it.” This will leave states with two choices, or a combination of both: either cut funding in areas such as K-12 education, public universities and colleges, veterans affairs programs, and other much-needed services; or raise sales, income or property taxes. “

For a Democrat’s opinion : Tennessee’s previous governor, Democrat Gov. Phil Bredesen, has called ObamaCare “the mother of all unfunded mandates,” estimating that it would cost Tennessee an additional $1.1 billion from 2014 to 2019, even with the federal government covering the Medicaid expansion for the first three years.

So, Arizona will get three years’ subsidy and then will have to cut benefits or raise taxes. Well done, Governor Brewer.

What are the alternatives ?

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What is a “True Conservative?”

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

We are facing a lot of major issues that seem to divide the Republican Party. There is immigration and deficits. There is the little matter of Obamacare. There is the matter of international relations with countries like Iran and Syria.

Right now we have the immigration bill that has been passed by the Senate after being written by the “Gang of 8.” This bill, like so many major pieces of legislation lately, was written in secrecy and has not been through the usual committee process. “We have to pass it to see what is in it.”

As if Obamacare were not enough, here we have another opaque and mysterious bit of legislation that is thousands of pages of incomprehensible legalese.

Jennifer Rubin weighs in with a rather beltway-oriented view. Fair enough as she writes in the Washington Post.

The immigration battle, the debate over U.S. involvement in Syria and the flap over NSA surveillance have suggested two starkly different visions of the GOP as well as two potential paths for the GOP.

The question remains whether the GOP will become the party of: Sen. Rand Paul, Ky., or Sen. Kelly Ayotte, N.H., on national security; The Gang of Eight or the Gang of Three (Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions) on immigration; Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio, or Rick Santorum on gay marriage; Broad-based appeal (e.g. Govs. Chris Christie, Gov. Scott Walker) or losing ideologues (Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Michele Bachmann). I don’t know that Angle and O’Donnell were “ideologues.” Angle, at least was an amateur, somewhat like other candidates supported by the Tea Party.

I’m not sure I agree with her choices but let’s think about it.

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Conspiracy Theories

Sunday, May 12th, 2013

Last week was a week for the conspiracy theories. First, we had Benghazi and the hearings which interviewed career State Department officers, most of whom probably vote for Democrats. The fact that they were ordered not to talk to Congressmen and denied any attempt at help when under attack, even from as close as Tripoli, invites speculation about motive. Peggy Noonan, a little unusually, hits this one out of the park.

Since it is behind a pay wall, I’ll quote a few bits.

What happened in Benghazi last Sept. 11 and 12 was terrible in every way. The genesis of the scandal? It looks to me like this:

The Obama White House sees every event as a political event. Really, every event, even an attack on a consulate and the killing of an ambassador.

Because of that, it could not tolerate the idea that the armed assault on the Benghazi consulate was a premeditated act of Islamist terrorism. That would carry a whole world of unhappy political implications, and demand certain actions. And the American presidential election was only eight weeks away. They wanted this problem to go away, or at least to bleed the meaning from it.

That sounds about right to me.

Because the White House could not tolerate the idea of Benghazi as a planned and deliberate terrorist assault, it had to be made into something else. So they said it was a spontaneous street demonstration over an anti-Muhammad YouTube video made by a nutty California con man. After all, that had happened earlier in the day, in Cairo. It sounded plausible. And maybe they believed it at first. Maybe they wanted to believe it. But the message was out: Provocative video plus primitive street Arabs equals sparky explosion. Not our fault. Blame the producer! Who was promptly jailed.

If what happened in Benghazi was not a planned and prolonged terrorist assault, if it was merely a street demonstration gone bad, the administration could not take military action to protect Americans there.

Yup. That has to be it unless someone comes up with a better rationale. Maybe one of those additionla whistle blowers who are asking to testify.

Why couldn’t the administration tolerate the idea that Benghazi was a planned terrorist event? Because they didn’t want this attack dominating the headline with an election coming. It would open the administration to criticism of its intervention in Libya. President Obama had supported overthrowing Moammar Gadhafi and put U.S. force behind the Libyan rebels. Now Libyans were killing our diplomats. Was our policy wrong? More importantly, the administration’s efforts against al Qaeda would suddenly come under scrutiny and questioning.

The military disgraced itself, as well. Why no plans for evacuation or reinforcement ?

Maybe those generals and admirals who were relieved in the weeks after Benghazi were too willing to do something when the orders were to do nothing.

On October 18, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta appeared unexpectedly at an otherwise unrelated briefing on “Efforts to Enhance the Financial Health of the Force.” News organizations and CSPAN were told beforehand there was no news value to the event and gave it scant coverage. In his brief remarks Mr. Panetta said, “Today I am very pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General David Rodriguez to succeed General Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command.”

AFRICOM was the area command that was asked for help.

The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.

General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.

The story continues that now General Rodiguez would take General Ham’s place as the head of Africom.

That sure sounds like it. However:

On Monday October 29 General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, released the following statement:

“The speculation that General Carter Ham is departing Africa Command (AFRICOM) due to events in Benghazi, Libya on 11 September 2012 is absolutely false. General Ham’s departure is part of routine succession planning that has been on going since July. He continues to serve in AFRICOM with my complete confidence.”

Well, that tells us more about Dempsey than about Ham. In 1964, as he edged into Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson repeatedly sidelined war fighters and replaced them with politicians like JCS Chairman Earle Wheeler, who spent six years presiding over the Vietnam debacle. Wheeler had no command or combat experience in WWII. He had always been a staff officer. It makes me think of Courtney Massengale, the villain of “Once an Eagle, Anton Myrer’s wonderful novel of military life. It is still required reading for military officers of all branches. I have often wondered if Myrer chose the name of his villain from the name of a popular douche at about the time he was writing the novel.

There were flag officers relieved right after Banghazi. Nothing to see here. Move along.

We will learn more about the Benghazi story and Democrats dishonor themselves by their transparent efforts to divert attention and discredit honorable officers.

The next scandal that erupted last week was the IRS auditing expose. Tea Party groups have been complaining about selective harassment by the IRS since 2009 when Obama joked about doing just that.

A BEDROCK principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose. The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends.

So it was appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a full investigation.

And that was the Washington Post !

And then we have the spectacle of the HHS Secretary asking health executives to fund Obamacare with donations.

“Nice little insurance company you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Over the past three months, Sebelius has made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and asked that they contribute whatever they can to nonprofit groups that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law, according to an HHS official and an industry person familiar with the secretary’s activities. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about private discussions.

Yes, it was all voluntary.

Young said that Sebelius did not solicit for funds directly from industries that HHS regulates, such as insurance companies and hospitals, but rather asked them to contribute in whatever way they can.

But the industry official who had knowledge of the calls but did not participate directly in them said there was a clear insinuation by the administration that the insurers should give financially to the nonprofits.

And so goes another week of Obamaworld. And I didn’t even mention “immigration reform.”

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Posted in corruption, health reform, History, middle east, military, politics, terrorism | 1 Comment »

Immigration and the Gang of Eight.

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

The Senate has served up another in Harry Reid’s menu of bills with no hearings and no amendments except those he approves. This is not how the Senate is supposed to work and is a large part of the reason that Congress has produced such bad legislation since 2008. Now, we have another massive bill which is being presented with minimal hearings and debate.

The “Gang of Eight” has written this bill and it is supposed to be fast tracked with no argument. Marco Rubio has been pressing for approval and now Paul Ryan is aboard.

In an interview last week with the Catholic television network EWTN, Ryan recalled his history at Kemp’s side and how they worked together to fight Proposition 187, a California ballot initiative that prevented non-citizens from using the state’s social services.

One reason why immigration worked in this country for 150 years was the fact that immigrants were here to work and support themselves. There was no welfare for them. Prop 187 in California was passed with 60% of the vote and even had majorities on heavily Hispanic districts. It was ruled “unconstitutional” by the California Supreme Copurt and the decline of the “Golden State” had followed. His reasoning at the time ?

“I actually campaigned with Jack Kemp against a thing called Prop 187,” Ryan told host Raymond Arroyo. He said they both worried that the proposal would burn Republicans within the immigrant community, and “make it so that Latino voters would not hear the other messages of empowerment.”

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Obama economics

Thursday, November 8th, 2012

I have digested the results of the election. I was bitterly disappointed but I have to admit that the Obama campaign did a superlative job of getting him re-elected. For other comments on the election, see the other blog where I am one of the boyz.

Today, I have see a post that is so good I have to post it here. It is by John H Cochran

I’m a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. This is a blog of news, views, and commentary, from a humorous free-market point of view. After one too many rants at the dinner table, my kids called me “the grumpy economist,” and hence this blog and its title. I’m not really grumpy by the way!

John Cochrane’s blog
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Predictions
I did a short spot on NPR’s Marketplace this morning (also here). The announced topic was what I thought would happen to economic policy after the election. Jeff Horwich, the interviewer wanted to stitch together a story about everyone is going to get together and play nice now, which seemed like a fairly pointless line to pursue. What “I would do” is now off the table, and I didn’t think it worth arguing with Jared Bernstein’s repetition of Obama campaign nostrums.

But it gave me a chance to put some thoughts together. I usually don’t predict anything, because I (like everyone else) am usually wrong. But I’ll make an exception today

Forecast in three parts: The sound and fury will be over big fights on taxes and spending. They will look like replays of the last four years and not end up accomplishing much. The big changes to our economy will be the metastatic expansion of regulation, let by ACA, Dodd-Frank, and EPA. There will be no change on our long run problems: entitlements, deficits or fundamental reform of our chaotic tax system. 4 more years, $4 trillion more debt.

Why? I think this follows inevitably from the situation: normal (AFU). Nothing has changed. The President is a Democrat, now lame duck. The congress is Republican. The Senate is asleep. Congressional Republicans think the President is a socialist. The President thinks Congressional Republicans are neanderthals. The President cannot compromise on the centerpieces of his campaign.

Result: we certainly are not going to see big legislation. Anything new will happen by executive order or by regulation.

1. Taxes and spending

The tax negotiations fell apart last summer. Why should exactly the same deal revive now? The President will not give in on raising taxes on “the rich,” and go for a revenue-neutral reform, especially after campaigning on it. The house will not give in: They will note that even the President’s rosy revenue forecast of $1 trillion in 10 years is $100 billion a year, 1/10 of our deficit. They will look across the ocean and see that every European country that has tried to balance its books by raising (marginal) taxes, especially on investment, is raising pathetic amounts of revenue and creating a double dip recession.

If you have the same situation, you have the same outcome: every January a free-for-all chaos to plug the holes for one more year. Every lobbyist comes to Washington to get his piece renewed. Occasional debt ceiling fights. No budget for 4 more years.

2. Regulation:

With no big legislation coming, the unfolding of regulation will be the big story. It is news to most Americans, but the ACA and Dodd-Frank are not regulations written in law. They are mostly authorization to write regulations. They are full of “the secretary shall write rules governing xyz” with a timetable. Most of that timetable starts today, November 7 2012. You don’t have to think the administration is a bunch of willy nilly regulators to foresee a metastatic expansion of regulation. You just have to look at the time-table of regulations already legally mandated and pending.

I fished around a little on the net. The EPA has regulations under development that by its own estimates will cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year. I’m all for clean air, but there is a question of just how clean and at how much cost. A few small examples, picked for their obviously intrusive nature, questionable cost/benefit or humorous values

Greenhouse gases. Detailed industry controls focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. They’re even going to regulate cow farts. Sorry, Farm Methane Emissions. It’s funny unless you’re a dairy farmer. Hundreds of billions
Between greenouse gases, much tighter mercury limits, and designating coal ash a “hazardous substance” like nuclear waste (I’m exaggerating, but that’s the idea), the end of coal.
Tight fracking regulations.
Much tigher ozone standards. Many cities are now way over the limit.
Cut sulfur in gas from 30 ppm to 10 ppm. EPA: $90 billion a year
Temperature standards to protect fish in powerplant cooling ponds
Tighter standards for farm dust. Farms have to submit mediation plans.
Water quality control for every body of water in the country.
Strict regulation of industrial boilers ($10-20 billion)
Formaldehyde emissions from plywood. I didn’t know Home Depot was a dangerous place to hang out.

ACA/Obamacare. The big parts are all coming in the next four years. Medicaid expansion, Exchanges, the mandate to buy insurance, the ban on charging people different amounts based on preexisting conditions, “accountable care organizations,” and most of the regulatory bodies are all coming.

Dodd Frank. For number of rules that a law commands be written this takes the cake. If you want to scare your libertarian kids on Halloween, just read from the Fed’s admirably transparent regulatory reform website. Just for fun here is a sampling of Final Rules Due in one three day period, Dec 31 – Jan 2

Expiration date for CEA exemption for swaps
Broadened leverage and risk based capital requirements
FDIC Investment grade definition
Final rule OCC credit rating alterinatives
Joint final rule Market risk capital
OCC lending limit rule compliance
Supervision of consumer debt collectors
Incorporating swaps
Clearing agency standards

I have no idea what any of this means either. I do know that hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake, and the involved industries, their lawyers and lobbyists, are furiously “helping” to write all these rules.

This is the real news. It’s baked in. Any new regulatory agendas come on top of this. And it will remake the American economy in the next four years.

The point here is not good or bad. I’m just forecasting what is going to happen — and it seems clear to me that writing, haggling over, implementing, challenging, and repairing all this regulation is going to be the main story about actual economic policy for the next four years.

With no legislation forthcoming, any new initiatives will be by new regulations, or by executive orders.

3. Deficits, entitlements, reform

I see no chance that the new government, a repeat of the old government, will make any substantial progress. I wish they would, but hope is not a forecast. Deficits will be $1 trillion per year, plus or minus due to the usual effects of any economic growth or lack of it on taxes and spending, so long as some chumbolones somewhere are willing to lend our government the money at negative real interest rates. 4 more years, $4 trillion more debt. Entitlement bomb 4 years closer.

4. Economic forecast

Slow growth. Recovery is a bit natural, no matter how much sand the government puts in the gears. So, sclerotic but positive growth is the baseline. That’s all conditional on my forecast that not much new comes out of Washington. With big tax hikes, slower growth or a double dip recession. With (in my dreams) a revenue-neutral, marginal-rate cutting dramatic simplification, or a miracle of sanity hitting our regulators, we get much more growth.

We’re still sitting on a debt bomb. Remember 2004, when a few chicken-littles were saying “there is trouble brewing, there is a huge amount of debt (mortgages) that is in danger of defaulting, and the banks are stuffed with it?” And how everyone made fun of them? That is our situation now, but it’s sovereign debt. (There’s an interesting tidbit in today’s news that Exxon and Johnson and Johnson bonds are trading with prices above / yields below US Treasuries)

Advice? If you run a business, get a lot of lawyers and lobbysists. He who writes the regulations will make a lot of money. He who does not will lose. Make sure you make the right political contributions and don’t say anything critical of those in power. You will need a discretionary waiver of something, and these rules are so huge and so vague, the regulators can do what they want with you. Don’t be the one to get “crucified” (EPA). We live in the crony-capitalist system that Luigi Zingales describes so well. Live with it. Political freedom requires economic freedom, taught us Milton Friedman. You don’t have the latter, don’t expect the former.

If you’re an investor, get out of long term nominal government debt. I have no idea who is holding 10 or 30 year treasuries at slightly negative real rates of interest, and bearing the risk of inflation and interest rate rises. Not me.

I hope I’m wrong. I really, really hope I’m wrong.

I hope he is too. But I don’t think so.

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Posted in economics, financial, health reform, politics | 1 Comment »

The debate

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

I watched the debate tonight and agree with the MSNBC folks that Romney was a big winner. Chris Matthews was beside himself. Most of the MSNBC folks agreed that Romney won. I watched with a couple of items in mind.

I was certain that Obama’s handlers were worried about him seeming irritable and thin skinned. When he was irritated, ha gave this big insincere grin. Romney probably took the advice of someone who told him to look at Obama and smile slightly. He did not do a Gore and roll his eyes or sigh.

His answers were very good and he got Solyndra in and the Medicare rebuttal of the $716 billion deduction. That seemed to shut up Obama on Medicare.

He did a good job getting the deficit into the discussion.

No mention of Bain Capital.

Romney did very well in explaining the Massachusetts “Romneycare.”

Obama missed his TelePrompTer.

Great job, I think.

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Posted in economics, health reform, politics | 2 Comments »

Romney finally strikes back

Friday, August 10th, 2012

The past week has seen an amazing series of lies by the campaign of Barack Obama. First there was the steelworker ad, accusing Romney of complicity on his wife’s death even though the steel mill closed seven years before her final, short illness. Romney’s career at Bain Capital is the centerpiece of his campaign as he is not running as a professional politician but as a businessman who knows how to get the economy going again.

Obama is obviously ignorant of business, especially of the entrepreneur type. His ignorant riff of you didn’t build that ! is an example. Then we got the Harry Reid claim that he got a phone call from a former Bain investor who told him Romney hadn’t paid taxes for ten years. There was no evidence, or even the name of the accuser, provided. It is a felony for IRS employees to disclose tax records and a Bain investor would have no reason or method for determining Romney’s tax records.

Now we have the sad story of Joe Soptic who was featured in an Obama ad, then featured using the same video in a super PAC ad this summer. Campaign law requires that campaigns and PACs have no relationship so the recent ad is a felony.

The Obama staff has denied knowing anything about the new ad but there is a conference call including Stephanie Cutter, an Obama campaign staffer, who is clearly involved in the conference call. This is a felony.

The plot thickens. A new Romey ad briefly described the fisaco., including more an Axelrod’s involvement. They will be holding campaign meetings in federal prison soon.

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