Political Roundtable Quasar of Mayhem part III

[dobrojim]

This should be an interesting election year. Those who want the United States to become a theocratic empire (a proven failure, but endorsed by Rick Santorum and many conservatives) against those with a realistic appreciation of our national security interests. It is interesting that more theocrats oppose Obama because of his race and paranoid delusions about Islam, rather than his depressingly tepid opposition to senseless military engagements.

Republicans want more wars. Why not invade another random Islamic country? A trillion dollars wasted on an occupation of Iran, justified by questionable PR about WMD programs, obfuscating the actual intent. A picture is worth a thousand words, but I'm not sure how much a powerpoint presentation based on intel from "curveball" is worth.

Republicans fight against every effort to improve public education that doesn't ruin labor unions. Better to sacrifice another generation of kids than tolerate collective bargaining.

This whole situation would be comical if it weren't so harmful to individuals, families and the country at large.

Let's at least be honest with one another. Republicans want a theocratic empire (a proven failure) and Democrats don't. Republicans want to extract more resources from the rest of the world (they've already sucked much of America dry) for our 1% that already enjoy ~40% of our national wealth while neglecting the issues confronting 80% of our citizens.

On the flip side, President Obama has been a disappointment. Failed to jail a single Wall Street criminal, extended Bush tax cuts, etc.

Forgive me for being so blunt. We need a new paradigm for governing.

Based upon the statements they all (except Paul) have made, this is not
hyperbole. Scary. They all basically want us to go to war against Iran. They
have learned NOTHING from the last 10 years. They see war as the preferred
instrument of foreign policy.

[sfam]

If we're being honest with other, we'd all agree that the only way out of this mess is a combination of cutting spending and raising revenue. If we were really honest, we'd acknowledge that gerrymandering electoral districts has taken away a good bit of our representative democracy, as there are clear districts set up for either the democrat or republican to win. If we were also honest, without a majority vote process we'd agree that in most states your vote for president simply doesn't count. Texas will go republican whether you're a democrat or republican - NY will go democratic whether you vote or not.

Without systemic change we most likely will continue to see a lack of will to solve relatively clear problems. Both parties fundraise on the extremes, making compromise harder and harder to come to. We truly do need a new paradign for governing that is based on a systemic change in the election process.

That said, Santorum's speech was orders of magnitude better than Romney's. I just don't see him surviving Florida. He has no money and no infrastructure.

[nate33]

[Re- Regulation,

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/10/27 ... gulations/

For his critics on the right, it has become a mantra: President Obama is the most anti-business president in history. But a new study of government data finds that Obama has enacted fewer rules on business than his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

To date, the administration of George H.W. Bush holds the single-year record for government regulatory costs on business. Under the elder Bush, those costs came to $20.9 billion in today’s dollars, besting Ronald Reagan’s single-year total of $16 billion.

That same article on regulation points out that Obama's regulations, although fewer in number, have cost more.

But the real issue is Congress. They're the ones that write these laws. I'd be much more interested in a similar study comparing a Republican-led Congress versus a Democrat-led Congress. My guess is that the last 11 months of Obama have resulted in very few regulatory increases thanks to gridlock with a Republican-led Congress. It's also worth noting that the regulatory burdens of Obamacare won't hit until 2013.

[dobrojim]

^ true. But the larger point was that the GOP candidates
continue to misrepresent the situation which is a polite
way of saying they're lying. Excessive regulation is a
cannard. It's not why our economy is stalled.

on a different note - I think John Thune should now be
completely dismissed as having a valid opinion about
anything after complimenting Michele Bachmann
last night on MSNBC re the 'power of her intellect'.
nuf said.

[Zonkerbl]

The Bush administration pushed through a lot of rules in 2008 because they were afraid what a Dem pres would do with them. The most expensive rule was the ozone NAAQS, signed in March 2008, costing about $7 billion annually under Bush. The Obama administration pulled it back and reproposed it with a price tag of $60 billion. They eventually pulled that version of it though.

Twenty thousand job estimate for Keystone assumes an economy at full capacity, which we are not. In a severely depressed economy, so depressed that Keynesian multipliers are in effect, job numbers would be more in the 100,000 area. Like Obama said, Nebraska won't care how many jobs are created if there's an oil spill that contaminates their watertable.

[fugop]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... sm/250772/

"If you look at every European country that has had world domination, a world presence, from the French to the British -- 100 years ago, the sun didn't set on the British Empire," Santorum said at an appearance in Sioux City, Iowa. "If you look at that empire today -- why? Because they lost heart and faith in their heart in themselves and in their mission, who they were and what values they wanted to spread around the world. Not just for the betterment of the world, but safety and security and the benefit of their country." "We have taken up that cause," Santorum added. But now, he said, "We have a president who doesn't believe in America."

If we were actually being honest with one another, we would acknowledge that there is no need for a cut in government spending right now, and in fact, we need the opposite: more government spending. The deficit looks foreboding, but it's economically irrelevant until it starts crowding out private investment, something clearly not an issue given historically low interest rates.

Government spending is necessary to help job growth. The only question is what sort of government spending; I think we should focus on spending that has the most stimulative bang for the buck, generally infrastructure spending.

Conservatives won't have an honest conversation on this score. They hand wring about deficits and what not, purely as a dishonest obfuscatory tactic, as popper might say.

Political process stuff, from gerrymandering to corporate money, is an important conversation, but it's intractable and largely a distraction, though there's a chicken-egg problem with economic and political inequality. The question is what's changed in the last generation, to go from a relatively well functioning, formally two-party system to the mess of broken nonsense we've got in Washington today.

The answer is probably continued ideological realignment of the Republican party and their historically anomalous institutional and electoral infrastructure. In the last generation, the Democratic Party has moved to the right, and the Republican Party has moved further to the right.

[fugop]

Switching for a moment to horse race chatter, the most interesting possible outcome of the Republican primary is that each of the conservative Romney challengers picks up a few states, to the point where they deny Romney a majority of delegates going into the election.

If Paul, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, combined, have more delegates that Romney, there is going to be a vicious, ugly fight at their convention, to the point where I doubt any of those five end up with the nomination, and someone like Jeb Bush or Michael Bloomberg will emerge as a compromise candidate.

[dobrojim]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... sm/250772/

"If you look at every European country that has had world domination, a world presence, from the French to the British -- 100 years ago, the sun didn't set on the British Empire," Santorum said at an appearance in Sioux City, Iowa. "If you look at that empire today -- why? Because they lost heart and faith in their heart in themselves and in their mission, who they were and what values they wanted to spread around the world. Not just for the betterment of the world, but safety and security and the benefit of their country." "We have taken up that cause," Santorum added. But now, he said, "We have a president who doesn't believe in America."

This makes me recall what Kevin Phillips wrote on this subject about 10 year ago.

The collapse tracks closely to the loss of manufacturing and the increasing
fraction of their economies related to the financial sector. The Dutch went through
the same thing. When the bankers take over, things go down the toilet.
Finance needs to be kept down to about 10% or less of the total economy
and there needs to be a solid base of making useful stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YufAvCbfPGc


http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/20 ... alization/

Nevertheless, the extremes of financialization, together with the havoc we now know it to have wrought, represent a much more complicated historical and economic genesis, one which U.S. leaders must be obliged to confront if not fully acknowledge. Elite avarice and culpability has multiple and longstanding dimensions. It has been fifteen years since Graef Crystal, a wellknown employment compensation expert, brought out his incendiary In Search of Excess: the Overcompensation of American Executives. The data was blistering. Over the last decade, New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston has published two books - Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch - describing how the U.S. tax code, in particular, has been turned into a feeding trough for the richest one percent of Americans (especially the richest one tenth of one percent).

This is a much grander-scale disaster than anything that happened in 1929-33. Worse, it dwarfs the abuses of debt, finance and financialization that brought down previous leading world economic powers like Britain and Holland (back when New York was New Amsterdam). I will return to these little-mentioned precedents in another post this week.

But for the moment, let me underscore: the average American..

nor Rick Santorum

knows little of the dimensions of the financial sector aggrandizement and misbehavior involved. Until this is remedied, there probably will not be enough informed, focused indignation to achieve far-reaching reform in the teeth of financial sector money and influence. Equivocation will triumph. This will not displease politicians and regulators leery of offending their contributors and backers.

[popper]

Regarding our current healthcare system and the follow-on Obamacare laws we should look at a contrasting example that actually lowers the cost of care and improves efficiencies.

When Lasik (sp) surgery was introduced in the US it costs thousands of dollars for the new corrective procedure. In most instances, it was not covered by health care insurance policies. The demand for the procedure was high and the supply of trained Lasik surgeons was low -- therefore it was expensive.

Consumers paid out-of-pocket so they began to shop around for the best deal. Over the period of several years the cost of the surgery plummeted to a tenth of the original cost as more and more doctor's became qualified to perform it and consumers demanded the best deal for their money.

The free market enterprise system works if we will only give it a chance. Of course it needs sufficient regulation but the model to lower overall health care cost is to unleash competition.

[fugop]

http://hschange.org/CONTENT/862/

Whether they belong to conventional health plans with rising cost-sharing requirements or enroll in consumer-driven health plans with high deductibles and a spending account, consumers are facing more incentives to make cost-conscious decisions about medical services. Consumer-oriented approaches to health care emphasize price shopping as a tool for individual consumers to obtain better value and for the health system as a whole to curb rising costs and improve quality through increased competition. Until recently, most insured consumers have been sheltered from rising health care costs and have had few incentives to shop for the best deal. The extent to which consumers actually can become effective shoppers in the health care marketplace remains largely unexplored.

Self-pay markets in health care—those markets in which consumers largely pay out of pocket for services because of little or no insurance coverage—provide insights into how markets work when consumers must pay the total costs of services without the benefit of discounted rates negotiated by health plans or the restrictions of a provider network chosen by insuers.

Our research examines several self-pay markets in health care, focusing on one in particular-laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis (LASIK), a type of vision-correction surgery. LASIK was chosen for in-depth analysis largely because it is widely regarded as the self-pay market with the most favorable conditions for consumer shopping: it is an elective, non-urgent, simple procedure, giving consumers time and ability to shop; screening exams are not required to obtain initial price quotes, keeping the dollar and time costs of shopping reasonable; and easy entry of providers (ophthalmologists) into the market has stimulated competition and kept prices down.

While LASIK is a good procedure to evaluate for price shopping for these reasons, it is important to note that patients are rarely in a position to shop for completely elective, non-time-sensitive procedures, even if good price and quality information were available.

In addition to the in-depth look at LASIK, we've also examined other self-pay markets—in vitro fertilization (IVF), cosmetic rhinoplasty and dental crowns—to highlight how additional complexities and barriers to price and quality transparency affect consumer shopping behavior.

[popper]

http://hschange.org/CONTENT/862/

Whether they belong to conventional health plans with rising cost-sharing requirements or enroll in consumer-driven health plans with high deductibles and a spending account, consumers are facing more incentives to make cost-conscious decisions about medical services. Consumer-oriented approaches to health care emphasize price shopping as a tool for individual consumers to obtain better value and for the health system as a whole to curb rising costs and improve quality through increased competition. Until recently, most insured consumers have been sheltered from rising health care costs and have had few incentives to shop for the best deal. The extent to which consumers actually can become effective shoppers in the health care marketplace remains largely unexplored.

Self-pay markets in health care—those markets in which consumers largely pay out of pocket for services because of little or no insurance coverage—provide insights into how markets work when consumers must pay the total costs of services without the benefit of discounted rates negotiated by health plans or the restrictions of a provider network chosen by insuers.

Our research examines several self-pay markets in health care, focusing on one in particular-laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis (LASIK), a type of vision-correction surgery. LASIK was chosen for in-depth analysis largely because it is widely regarded as the self-pay market with the most favorable conditions for consumer shopping: it is an elective, non-urgent, simple procedure, giving consumers time and ability to shop; screening exams are not required to obtain initial price quotes, keeping the dollar and time costs of shopping reasonable; and easy entry of providers (ophthalmologists) into the market has stimulated competition and kept prices down.

While LASIK is a good procedure to evaluate for price shopping for these reasons, it is important to note that patients are rarely in a position to shop for completely elective, non-time-sensitive procedures, even if good price and quality information were available.

In addition to the in-depth look at LASIK, we've also examined other self-pay markets—in vitro fertilization (IVF), cosmetic rhinoplasty and dental crowns—to highlight how additional complexities and barriers to price and quality transparency affect consumer shopping behavior.

Lots of verbiage. No substance that I can discern. What's the conclusiiuon?

[pancakes3]

[image]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/382699_263551627046152_217514361649879_739147_96567119_n.jpg
[/image]

take from this what you will, but the image cuts both ways.

[fugop]

Lots of verbiage. No substance that I can discern. What's the conclusiiuon?

Don't draw conclusions about the general health care system from LASIK.

[Benjammin]

Lots of verbiage. No substance that I can discern. What's the conclusiiuon?

Don't draw conclusions about the general health care system from LASIK.

I know it's important for me to plan my heart attacks, strokes, and other catastrophic health events carefully so I know which provider offers the best service for the right price. I just can't understand why others don't follow suit.

[hands11]

I'm not so worried about Obama getting the Presidency again. What is really scary is how things are getting set up for the House and Senate.

Dems have way more seats coming up and they have people retiring which is opening up more seats. R will likely lose some seats in the house but still control it and the Dems could lose the Senate.

If we end up with a (R) house and Senate with a divided (R) house where the TPs are still running the show, this is not going to be good for the country in the short term.

The end result with Obama as President will still be good. We will get out of Afghanistan and he will still set the macro agenda. The Occupy movement will continue to give voice the 99% and the people will be taking the streets again next Spring. The Senate switching isn't as big a deal. Sure the speaker will change but it's not like you can get much done there without a clear 60 vote majority. Actually, it may even run a little more efficient if McConnell can get the TPs in line. They will have less excuse if the House and Senate are both R.

The big story would be the house. Does tan man keep his seat or lose it to a TP like Ryan and Kanter. If he does, that will really expose the (R)s. It will be up to McConnell in the Senate to save the brand. McConnell would have an easier time with tan man.

In the long term is will be ok. Those houses will most likely overreach even more which will expose their policy positions even more. Actually a lot of that is going to happen during the presidential race as Paul and Santorum talk. It would be the next election round were they would pay the price unless Obama really exposes them during this next race. But with every year that passes, demographic changes will favor the Dems as the pendulum swings back from extreme right invade everyone or nuke the middle east to politician that are more moderate/center. Rs simple do not have a crop of people that can fill that space.

Circumstance and numbers favor the (r) in the short term but their message and policies have run their course. It going to take another election or two for that to play out.

Over the next two elections, the Pres, House and Senate will turn to all Dem control even if it goes D, R, R this next cycle. Once that happens, it will stay that way for at least a few cycles.

2020-2030 should be better times.

[Zonkerbl]

OMG it fell to page 2! It's a miracle!

My facebook friends have been killing -- KILLING -- Ron Paul for being an obstetrician who has "never found it medically necessary to have an abortion." I was curious and I sat through this whole video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92OV3RbU3ek

Uh-huh -- yeah -- bring the troops home, like that. Don't give up our rights for security, nice. Predicted the housing bubble in 2002, very well done! Wait -- end the Fed? ARE YOU NUTS??????

[nate33]

No he is not nuts. The Fed gives the illusion of monetary stability, but what it really does is "kick the can" down the road every time a correction is necessary. Instead of frequent but endurable corrections, we get a 60-year boom followed by a disastrous Great Depression. We also get a lot more war because wars can be funded with borrowed money facilitated by central bank financing.

[Zonkerbl]

Yeah it's nuts. The alternative gold standard would be insanely unstable. Why do I know? Because of the 150 years of history in this country when we were on gold and silver standards, suffering repeated, severe recessions because of wild fluctuations in the value of money. Read any economic history of the United States textbook and you'll know why we're not on the gold standard anymore.

[nate33]

Do you mean the 150 years under the gold standard during which the world experienced the fastest real economic growth rate in history?

[hands11]

This super pac stuff is pretty wild. Cobert is running now. So he has Stewart on his show. You can't run and have a super pac because a candidate can't coordinate with a super pac. So they had this lawyer they keep bringing on give them the one sheet of paper then needed to sign to transfer it the super pac to Steward and all the money.

They were asking the lawyer all kinds of questions like. Does it matter if we are business partners. Nope. You just can't coordinate ads to the campaign.

Then Steward says. I'm kind of business. Can I use Steve's production people who are already doing his stuff. Lawyer - Yeep

Steven then asked Joe to leave the stage so he could talk about his plans without them coordinating but John mentioned he would be watching the show.

I love how they expose the insanity.