How Not to Create a Consensus

David Sirota vents on health care. Private providers have signed on to President Obama's laudable desire to cut health care costs, pledging to cut future increases in costs to save $2 Trillion over the next ten year. The details are vague, but one would think that working together to cut costs and decrease inefficiencies would be a good thing. Especially as health care providers have opposed previous attempts at universal coverage, one would think that working together with Obama on what seems to be his primary focus, reining in health care costs, should be praised as "bipartisanship" or "cooperation" or "progress". Some do.

One official described the participation of the private sector as a "game changer" in the discussion of health care reform.
...
AARP believes the agreement of providers to slow the skyrocketing cost of health care is critical for the health reform we are all working toward.

What does Sirota think? He thinks this is proof that the health industry was planning to "pilfer $2 trillion from Americans". They are "thieves", "plotting to fleece consumers" and engage in "grotesque profiteering". He then goes on to rant against Obama for negotiating with these private interests.

Clearly, Sirota is yet another far-leftist who will never be satisfied with anything coming from private business. If they were not cooperating with Obama, surely he'd be lambasting them as negative, standing in the way of the common people, working with the party of "no", etc. But when they do cooperate with Obama, they earn no praise, instead, they prove that they are profiteering thieves.

Note to Sirota: without cost containment, there will be no affordable universal health care for Americans. This is a necessary step towards what you want. Be happy. Be an optimist. Your side is winning! Will the hard left will ever be happy? Don't think so - I'm more and more convinced that they are somehow just programmed to see the worst in everything.

Instead of supporting something that helps universal health care, he'd rather vilify private health providers. He'd rather make political points than actually help Americans.

(followup added after original posing)
Jason Rosenbaum at Huff Post also rants, bringing totally fake controversy as to when these reductions will be made. the health industry follows up with the exact same vague promises and targets from the original press conference. They clarify that they expect an instant 1.5% savings, just that, over 10 years, they target that. That seems to be the only dispute. Seems pretty reasonable - who could expect an instant 1.5% cost reduction? Maybe the health industry is backing off of the initial promise, but, eventually, they support the cost containments.

What's most clear is the attitude of the far left, they just will not be happy that they are winning concessions that will help all Americans, instead, more political points and a refusal to gracefully accept concessions (dare I call it "bipartisanship"?) from their enemies. Instead, Jason writes:

"They're liars. They're cheats. They're greedy"

Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

Looking at Pew Hispanic Center data on minority home ownership, starting in 1995 but including the recent bust, the Wall Street Journal views the glass as half-full, with the headline "Housing Boom Aided Minorities", and the lead paragraph:

Minorities in the U.S. increased their levels of homeownership at a faster clip than whites during the recent housing boom, according to a new report, and narrowed the ownership gap with the majority despite taking a bigger hit during the subsequent bust.

Homeownership among all groups rose over the last decade:

As of 2008, 48.9% of all Hispanic heads of households owned a home, up from 41.9% in 1995. During the same period, black homeownership climbed to 47.5% from 42.1%. Among Asians -- who raised their homeownership level faster than any other group -- 59.1% owned a home last year compared with 49.1% in 1995. Homeownership among whites stood at 74.9% in 2008, up from 70.5% in 1995.

The recent bad news is fairly prominent in the 5th paragraph, "Since the housing bust, however, homeownership levels for minorities have fallen more steeply than for whites..." despite a reasonable balance pverall, the article has an optimistic tone, with lots of uses of the words "climb", "jumped", etc.

Based on the exact same data, The New York Times sees the glass as half empty, with the headline "Homeownership Losses Are Greatest Among Minorities", and the lead sentence "...gains made in homeownership by African-Americans and native-born Latinos have been eroding faster in the economic downturn than those of whites.... The fourth paragraph emphasizes the declines in the past few years:

After peaking at 69 percent in 2004, the rate of homeownership for all American households declined to 67.8 percent in 2008. For African-American households, it fell to 47.5 percent in 2008 from 49.4 percent in 2004. Latinos, native and foreign-born together, had a longer period of growth, with homeownership rising until 2006, to 49.8 percent, before falling to 48.9 percent last year. Homeownership for native-born Latinos fell to 53.6 percent from a high of 56.2 percent in 2005.

The good news about the overall increase since 1995 is burned halfway down the piece in the 9th paragraph, and immediately followed by a "but" clause...

Even with the decline, the rate for all groups together remains higher than before the boom, with nearly 68 percent of American households owning homes last year, up from 64 percent in 1994.

The gaps between white and minority households remain significant...

There is no doubt in my mind that the NYT article is excessively and deliberately downbeat. They use the word decline 5 times, and fall or fell 3 times. To my mind, most people looking at the Pew data would say "gee, that's going up"

Both articles point out that minorities used sub-prime loans disproportionately to increase their home ownership.

Rewarding Foolishness

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about Ford Motors. The point is that while GM and Chrysler have been able (or are trying) to shed a lot of their debt, by either restructuring or semi-bankruptcy with President Obama as a wingman, Ford, with about the same huge debt as GM, has been responsible and is stuck with it.

So Ford is like a homeowner who planned prudently and can pay his mortgage, while his spendthrift neighbors get their mortgage reduced by some new federal program. ...

But the bottom line is that we live in a world where wisdom can be punished and where foolishness can be rewarded.

Better to be Ford than GM, but I wonder if we are rewarding foolishness too much. The more we reward foolishness, the more we will encourage foolishness.

Age Effects on Supreme Court Nominees

Brookings Institute has an interesting article on how older jurors have become less and less likely as nominees for the Supreme Court. The trend is towards younger jurors (such as Alioto and Roberts) who will serve for a long time, making "their mark". A few insightful quotes:

"gender, ethnicity and age have, from the very start of the search for Souter's replacement, placed off-limits many lawyers and judges whose colleagues regard as some of the best in their profession"

"Older judges brought experience to the table, and because life tenure is shorter for them than for younger judges, the stakes are lower in their confirmations"

"The result is a strange conversation about who should replace Souter -- one that self-consciously omits many of the judges whose work is most actively studied by those who engage day-to-day with the courts"

I'd add that younger nominees have less of a paper trail, so have simply had less time to make bad, controversial, or egregious rulings that galvanizes opposition. The opposition is always there, but without concrete examples of several bad rulings, it's hard to get the political strength to make the opposition stick. In other words, they have less dirt. But it's harder to know what you are really getting.

If the Senate were more evenly divided, and our parties were less partisan, I could see a compromise, president Obama gets to nominate a strong liberal of his choice, so long as he/she is old. With Obama's popularity high, and Democrats in strong control, I expect somebody very young, very liberal, and very controversial. But maybe Obama will surprise me - with the economy still in bad shape, he may choose to save his political capital for the more controversial aspects of the budget or health care reform. Time will tell.

Tax Loopholes or Good Policy?

Following up on his campaign promise, President Obama announced plans to change the US tax code to stop tax breaks that ship our jobs overseas. "The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries." He also called for more transparency in bank accounting in tax havens like the Caymans, to cut down on tax avoidance there. Can't argue much with that part, though it was fun to visit the Caymans shortly after The Firm was filmed and see a lot of filthy rich people, and even meet a few.

In a comment of supreme irony, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner complained of these "indefensible tax breaks and loopholes".

However, a paper by Mihir Desai, a professor at the Harvard Business School, argues that there is very limited evidence that current tax policy is a subsidy, nor does it ships jobs overseas. He argues that we should tax overseas activity less, not more. Selected quotes:

"Across Europe, firm level studies have found a positive association of foreign expansions and domestic employment"

"no negative effects on employment domestically of the decision by Italian, French
and German firms, respectively, to initiate production abroad"

"Japanese firms increasing their overseas activity increase domestic employment at rates that are three to eight percent greater than comparable purely domestic firms"

(in the USA) "10% greater foreign investment is associated with 2.6% greater domestic investment, and 10% greater foreign employee compensation is associated with 3.7% greater domestic employee compensation."

I have a few doubts, concerns and questions about the paper, for example, it could just be the more successful firms that can afford (or have the "vision") to do overseas investments, so naturally they still do better domestically, but it raises some interesting points. Chances of a rational discussion of this in the US Congress? 0.0001%.

Taliban Admits to Murder of Prisoners

In the revival of fighting in Swat, two Pakistani troops were discovered with their throats cut. Pakistan officials also claim they were mutilated. Some claim they were kidnapped and beheaded and mutilated. Let's just stick with throats cut.

"On top of that list, two security personnel were discovered with their throats slit and their bodies and faces mutilated Sunday in Swat, a security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media on the record.

The Taliban spokesman said the men were killed in revenge for the military's killing of two insurgents."

If the victims were shot or killed by shrapnel from an explosion, that would indicate they were killed "honorably" or "fairly" in action. But throats slit is generally not what happens to a soldier in fair combat. It's what happens to prisoners.

Since Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan admits to the killings, he admits that the Taliban murders captured enemies. I don't think the fact that they do this is a surprise, but one would think that blissfully admitting to it should be surprising. Let's hope his stirs up their opponents to greater determination and efforts, and alerts their supporters of what they are supporting. I'm waiting for the anti-American far left to rant about this war crime and violation of the Geneva Convention. I'm waiting to hear from the Spanish Courts.

What are the unforgivable curses?

Adam Freedman, in a Sunday New York Times op-ed piece, argues that the F and S words should not be prohibited on TV. Or, at least, that "fleeting" use should be allowed, as the Supreme Court considered in FCC vs. Fox. So my question is this: what curse words are worse than the F and S words? Maybe I'm an old codger, out of touch with society and new hi-tech developments in profanity, but I can only think of one worse curse, the one with Oedipal connotations, that includes that F word anyway.

My point is that allowing the F word on prime time TV effectively allows any language. Besides, it mainly involved celebrities like Cher, Nicole Richie and Bono. They have plenty of opportunity to express themselves, using whatever language they want, in their lyrics. So this is not limiting their speech.

(Addendum added May 4) Don't forget the song "It's Easy MMMKay" from South Park the Movie. "F--- is the worst word that you can say".