Monday, April 13, 2009
Quotes of the day
The idea that we can continue to raise revenue, while shifting more of the burden onto fewer and fewer people is a pipe dream. Think of the grand scale of the government's ambitions, from fighting wars to providing universal healthcare. Are we really to believe that all this can be done via a tax increase on the top 2%? That's obviously hogwash. What's more is that top 2% is getting sharply poorer fast, given the collapse of the financial industry.--Joe Weisenthal
My preferred story, in contrast, is just that once in a century, we get a once-in-a-century economic disaster. These disasters are hard for anyone to foresee, no matter how smart he is. The trick is just to keep the rarity of such disasters in perspective, stay calm, and let things get back to normal. Sigh.--Bryan Caplan
But I’m not sure proponents of [short sales] restrictions even care about these arguments. They don’t like short-selling because it tells the truth.--Larry Ribstein
For the bottom 40% [of income tax filers], the redistribution deal is even better. In 2001, these 43 million Americans, who earn less than $30,500, made 13.5% of the nation's income but paid no income tax. Instead, they received checks from their taxpaying neighbors worth $16.3 billion. By 2005, those checks totaled $33.3 billion.--Ari Fleischer
But in an increasingly specialized society, those skills are increasingly specific,. The more skills you have, the fewer jobs there are that match them.--Megan McArdle
Remember the good old days, when economists used to write papers about how firms -- most of all public utilities -- would under-report profits, to minimize regulation and control? These days we have firms over-reporting profits to minimize regulation and control.--Tyler Cowen
The people who just want to know things because they need to make important decisions, in contrast, usually say little about their love of truth; they are too busy trying to figure stuff out. These are the "truth lovers" I most respect in the sense of trusting their efforts to be directly targeted to actually uncovering truth. Sellers, hobbyists, and do-gooders are instead more likely to pretend to seek truth while actually seeking cash or respect.--Robin Hanson
... why does Brad DeLong make up fake statistics? Is he afraid the truth won't support his orthodoxy? He claims twice -- not once, but twice! -- that it is unfair to say the New Deal was ineffective, because "unemployment did fall from 23% in 1932 to 11% in 1939." Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment as 17% in 1939.--Don Luskin
I believe that computers have taken over the world. I believe that they have in many ways ruined our children. I believe that kids used to love to go out and play. I believe that social graces are gone because manners are gone because all people do is sit around and text. I think it’s obnoxious.--Steve NicksThe wheel is also a bad idea.--Don Surber
The challenge now for [Tom] Brady is to do what Tiger Woods has done – keep his personal life private while remaining the premier player in his sport.--Jim Donaldson
Dancing with the Stars is like life itself, only stupider-looking. So you sympathize with the contestants. Because they suck in the same way we suck. Because they succeed in the same way we succeed. They work hard. And they either get it or they don't. As Lawrence Taylor goes, so may I go. So may all of us go. In dancing, as in life.--Ross McCammon
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Discuss: "Quality Care" is neither about quality nor care
JEROME GROOPMAN and PAMELA HARTZBAND write:
The Obama administration is working with Congress to mandate that all Medicare payments be tied to "quality metrics." But an analysis of this drive for better health care reveals a fundamental flaw in how quality is defined and metrics applied. In too many cases, the quality measures have been hastily adopted, only to be proven wrong and even potentially dangerous to patients.
...
How did we get here? Initially, the quality improvement initiatives focused on patient safety and public-health measures. The hospital was seen as a large factory where systems needed to be standardized to prevent avoidable errors. A shocking degree of sloppiness existed with respect to hand washing, for example, and this largely has been remedied with implementation of standardized protocols. Similarly, the risk of infection when inserting an intravenous catheter has fallen sharply since doctors and nurses now abide by guidelines. Buoyed by these successes, governmental and private insurance regulators now have overreached. They've turned clinical guidelines for complex diseases into iron-clad rules, to deleterious effect.
Maybe Congress should not even convene in times of national emergency
I mean, they are creating the national emergency:
Barney Frank who earlier started war on mark-to-market and republicans, has added a new front to his offensive: Moody's rating agency. The reason: Frank's displeasure with the possibility that Moody's will downgrade America's municipalities as this "action will raise interest rates on cities and towns making it more expensive to borrow funds for infrastructure developments." As a result Frank threatens to hold a hearing in May to explore "the unfair treatment of full faith and credit general obligation bonds."
Orwellian outcomes: universal healthcare
Tony Blankley peers into a possible future:
BCWUW4: be careful what you wish for.After first squeezing the private insurance policies by undercutting their offerings with a subsidized federal government health insurance, the government then could undercut the private insurance further by denying the insurers tax deductibility unless they complied with federal health service regulations. As only the wealthiest could afford to buy private health insurance if the cost were not deductible, private health insurance companies would be compelled to follow federal benefits and cost regulations.
At that point, almost all Americans would get their health care pursuant to federally regulated systems. Then the president would be able to begin to deliver on his twin pledges to reduce the cost of entitlements and make health care overall contribute to lower deficits.
The federal regulators could do merely what the British regulators do currently:
--Constantly reduce the compensation of doctors and all other skilled health care providers. (As domestically trained American doctors became scarcer, more not-as-well-trained foreign doctors would be needed.)
--Limit the availability of medical technology. (In Canada, patients have to wait for months for MRIs, so those who can come to America for immediate diagnostic services.)
--Ration available treatment to fit the federal budget requirements. The universal digitalized health data could be used to justify non-treatment on a cost-benefit basis. For example, hip replacement for older people may be denied because they are not likely to live long enough to justify the expense.
At that point, Americans would (too late) understand more fully what happens when health care is a right rather than a service purchased by a sturdy, free people in an unfettered free market.
Bob Dylan on President Obama
As featured in TimesOnline:
He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.
...
He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that … Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.
It's a free ride
when you've already paid:
When French foes of capitalism want to mount an effective protest, they phone Xavier Renou.As one of France's top protest consultants, Mr. Renou teaches activists how to chain themselves to trees, damage genetically modified crops and withstand police interrogations. These days, his phone is ringing off the hook, as the tumult in the global financial system has led to a boom in protests.
Despite a surge in demand for his services, Mr. Renou, 35 years old, is struggling to capitalize on the travails of capitalism. He charges students as much as €50 ($67) a head in his weekend protest course, writes books and has produced board games with left-wing themes.
Every Rose has its thorns
Steve Derion, film critic extraordinaire:
Kate Winslet's character, Rose, was one of the vilest and most disgusting characters ever to grace the silver screen. From beginning to end, she displayed nothing but character flaws and a lack of concern for everyone else around her. As the movie starts, she is a rich brat who is depressed that she has to marry an incredibly rich and handsome man because he treats her badly. Perhaps she should have taken into account his personality rather than his bank account when she accepted his proposal.
Rather than take responsibility for her own actions, stand up to her mother, and tell him to his face that she is not in love with him, she instead decides to take the easy way out and kill herself. Now, the whole world would be better had she just jumped off the back of that damn boat. Instead, our boy Leonardo DiCaprio talks her down from the ledge, and she sees him and thinks, "Ooh, cute poor boy." So then she decides to slum it for the weekend and hook up with the cute poor kid. Then, to prove her total lack of morals, she decides that she will ask Jack to "draw her" -- naked, of course.
So, while engaged to someone else (because she never had the decency to call it off), she decides to get naked for a guy she has known for all of about 24 hours. Immediately afterward it's time to consummate the hours-old relationship in the back of a car that is not theirs. Wow, that's a real "moral" Victorian woman for you! Of course, that is not enough. The ship hits the iceberg (we didn't see that one coming). By the way, she was on deck when that happened. I wonder if our lookout was too busy snooping on her and Jack to notice the iceberg. Maybe it's actually her fault the ship sinks in the first place.
Anyway, our hero Jack puts Rose on a lifeboat. Of course, being safe is not enough, so she jumps back onto the sinking ship -- a prime example of great decision-making. After it goes down, Jack is safe on a door of some sort, but he has to give up his spot to save Rose. Now Rose is on the door, and Jack is stuck in the freezing waters. So in a sense she kills Jack in a slow, frigid, painful way -- sort of like the experience I felt while watching this movie. She holds on to Jack's shivering hand, telling him, "I'll never let go, Jack, I'll never let go." Of course, after a few minutes in Arctic waters, Jack's hand is no longer shivering. Winslet, in tears, continues, "I'll never let go, Jack, I'll never let go." Around then, the lifeboat arrives, and Winslet immediately lets go, "Hey, I'm over here!" Jack sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and Ms. Winslet grabs a spot on the lifeboat. Real nice, Kate, real nice: Whatever happened to never letting go?
We then hear the rest of Winslet's life. Her fiancé loses his mind and ends up killing himself (you're two for two, Kate). However, she finds a nice man, marries him, and lives a great life. Eventually, he dies (I wonder what she did to make that happen), and we see Winslet's Rose again at age -- I don't know, let's say 126 -- with her granddaughter or whoever is on the ship trying to find the Titanic's wreckage. At the end of the film, Rose walks to the back of the ship and takes the priceless diamond necklace that she could give to her grandchildren, which would set her family up for generations, but instead she throws the freaking necklace into the ocean! Queue overplayed, overhyped and over-sung Celine Dion song (I mean, seriously, by the end she is practically screaming the lyrics -- like Celine, we get it, you have a great voice, stop assaulting us with it already).
Back to throwing the fancy necklace: She might as well have thrown three generations of her family over the side of the ship. Could she possibly be more selfish? Well, yes, she could, because then, apparently Rose dies, and we see her in heaven. For some reason, heaven is the Titanic (not exactly what I picture paradise to be). She opens up a stateroom door, and there is Leonardo's Jack waiting for her in bed. Not her actual husband, mind you, but Jack. So she is even cheating on her husband in heaven.
I rest my case. The vilest, most horrifying character in cinematic history. An Academy Award for playing the she-devil would be one of the greatest travesties in mankind's history since ... the actual Titanic.
Photo link here.
Cockroaches: the latest special-interest group advocating global warming mythology
It's not us, it's the carbon emissions. Really. (Via Megan McArdle)
Quotes of the day
Every man serves a useful purpose. A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.--Laurence Peter
From a libertarian perspective, your generosity is reflected in what you do with your own money, not in what you do with other people's money. If I give a lot of money to charity, then I am generous. If you give a smaller fraction of your money to charity, then you are less generous. But if you want to tax me in order to give my money to charity, that does not make you generous.--Arnold Kling
We are rapidly approaching an ethos of No Company Left Behind or Too Small to Fail. Neither of those concepts works particularly well in K-12 education, where social promotion and other factors have only led to grade inflation and overblown sense of self--Nick Gillespie
Think of government as a charity. From a libertarian perspective, it is a charity run by the Mafia, which will break your knuckles if you don't make your donations. It is also a badly mismanaged charity. It funnels lots of money into questionable causes, and even when the causes are good the programs that it funds tend to be very wasteful.--Arnold Kling
How much longer will Tim Geithner be able to keep ignoring this fatal flaw in his bailout plan? Or will he just decide to ban economic studies by current Harvard and Princeton professors? (Presumably, former Harvard and Princeton professors--Summers and Bernanke--will still enjoy the First Amendment.)--John Carney
Bloomberg News just announced that the SEC is talking about bringing back the Uptick Rule, which prevents people from shortselling while the stock is on its way down. I don't understand why the Commission doesn't focus on something more effective, like installing lavish statues of Mammon on trading floors so that traders can better propitiate him. --Megan McArdle
So, if I've got this clear, Mugabe's family has the Ark if the Covenant, which doesn't melt people, but does grant the power to direct cholera against political opponents?--Amanda Taub
It kind of sucks some of the gravitas out of Obama’s moral preening on Guantanamo Bay when he hires a guy who made a stoner comedy about the place.--Abe Greenwald
Obama prefers to think of himself as Lincoln but, striving for Carterdom, is lucky if he looks like Clinton on a good day.--Jules Crittenden
... this is classic Obama rhetoric: Say you're open-minded, try not to impugn your critics' motives, and then move forward with the standard demagogic approach.--Bryan Caplan
State prosecutors are supposed to be motivated by a sense of public responsibility for the interests of justice. Law firms have other motivations, and no-bid contingency-fee deals encourage lawyers with a financial stake in a case to try meritless claims or ask for exorbitant awards. That serves neither taxpayers nor justice, though in this case it sure did help [Governor Ed] Rendell's re-election campaign.--WSJ Editorial Board
In a deposition for his $10 million suit against American Apparel, Woody Allen described the clothing company's ads as "sleazy," "adolescent" and "infantile." Yes, the same Woody Allen who sleazily started an affair with his quasi-stepdaughter, who was an adolescent at the time.--Cityfile
Three things go up in recessions: church attendance, bar attendance, and movie attendance. Why those three things? They represent the three things people are looking for: meaning, connection, and relief.--Rick Warren
Larry Reed spanks Adam Nossiter
and good:
(Via Don Boudreaux)
Imagine a thief who spends an afternoon pick pocketing a sizable crowd. In a few hours, he’s nabbed thousands of dollars in cash and a bag full of credit cards. He then spends a small fortune at some jewelry stores and makes off with the loot as a suspicious citizen who recognizes him cries “Stop!”
If Nossiter were covering this little episode, the story in the Times the next day would read as follows: “A Good Samaritan yesterday gave several gem shops a big boost when he bought more diamonds than the stores usually sell in a month. The benefits of the spending binge were confirmed by no less an authority than the store owners themselves, who promise to hire more employees if the generous customer comes back regularly. An obviously disgruntled passerby attempted to interfere in the matter by shouting as the customer left, but he was told by an angry store manager to leave well enough alone. Meanwhile, economists at the nearby state university are hailing the increase in local GDP.”
Make these substitutions and you have the gist of the actual Nossiter story in the April 5 Times: The Good Samaritan is the federal government, the jewelry store is Louisiana and the passerby who tried to rain on their parade is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Oh, I almost forgot: the people in the crowd whose pockets got picked are representative of the taxpayers of America but it doesn’t matter because they’re not mentioned in Nossiter’s story anyway.
(Via Don Boudreaux)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)