December 17th, 2009 Ramblings

I have some random thoughts.

First about the nonsense going on in Copenhagen I can only laugh except that we may end up borrowing money from China in order to GIVE them money as a "developing nation". The Climategate emails bear directly on the data that the UN uses to make their dire predictions on which this conference is based. There are other databases to be sure, but since ALL of them are avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests to open up their databases and methodologies used to "massage" the data, I can only assume they are suspect as well. When you hide from transparency, which is paramount in science, you have something to hide. We have also found out the last couple of days that Russian scientists have definitely proven some serious monkey business with the East Anglia data, which the IPCC uses as their database and for their models. 75% of the Russian temperature and meteorological station data was left out of the data stream during the period of time that man is being accused of causing a global rise in temperatures. If you leave out data from the cooler regions of the globe……you will make the global temperatures appear warmer during the periods you want. It would seem these scientists have made the data fit a pre-determined outcome. You have to ask the question though, why? Why are they doing this? There is the money aspect of course. Al Gore has increased his personal wealth from $2 million to over $100 million in the 8 years he has been the shrill sounding alarmist in chief. GE is set themselves up to make huge money by getting gobs of taxpayer subsidies for many of its businesses, and for its new business to trade in carbon credits. Lower level scientists were chasing government research grant money. Since the Clinton administration nobody could receive a government research grant if it was to do research into natural forces and not man causing global warming. If you want to publish and do research, you had to play ball. But that doesn't answer the bigger question. WHY?????? If you have been watching the violent protests in Copenhagen by the far leftists you can see why in their signs. By the way, those on the right side of the political spectrum were accused of fomenting potential violence at town halls and tea parties. We were the VICTIMS of violence, but didn't perpetrate any acts that I can remember, except the one guy who bit a finger after a union thug took a swing at him. But you look at the G-20 meetings, protests wherever Bush appeared, in Copenhagen, etc and you see nothing but violence. This is just an interesting note on hypocrisy. Now back to the signs. You see all the slogans and they are about "stop capitalism", or some sort of anti-capitalism slogan on those signs. The elites gathered there gave Hugo Chavez a rousing ovation and thunderous applause as he railed against capitalism. Environmentalist have been manufacturing catastrophes just around the corner for decades now. Rachel Carson got the ball rolling with "Silent Spring" and they haven't stopped since. Although there was no scientific foundation for anything she alleged in her book, we eliminated pesticides regardless because of the impending disaster. The result is that the Sub-Saharan African continent suffers from rampant malaria that decimates their population and the west will not supply them with what they need to combat it because we are helping them be environmentally conscious. The great fraud known as Ehrlich's Population bomb came and went. We have more food now than we did when he wrote that nonsense. Obama's science czar was a disciple of Ehrlich's and they wrote a book together in the 80's discussing forced sterilization, and other means of population control. Both of these guys are now ardent global warming advocates. Both were in the global cooling camp in the 70's before it shifted to global warming. All of these made up catastrophes gave their proponents bully pulpit that to fix these problems the free market must be restrained and controlled by the government, citizens must live an egalitarian existence, etc. That is the desire, to reign in capitalism, and for most at the UN to accomplish a transfer of wealth from the West to the rest of the world.

Healthcare reform is next. The bill in the Senate will cause most people with health insurance to see an increase in premiums. The figures from the CBO estimate $1700 for an individual plan, and $3400 for a family plan of 4. Why are your premiums going to go up? To start the government will make insurance companies provide plans that are one size fits all. You will also be paying for the federal regulations that determine how much more an insurance company can charge for a plan based on age. So the young will have to pay more to compensate for those who are older. There is also a "mandate" for all Americans to buy health insurance. There is a penalty if you don't buy it. Most young people who don't have insurance now will pay the penalty because it is cheaper than health insurance. They can do this because now they can't be denied insurance and charged additional for a pre-existing condition. Frankly nobody who buys their own health insurance should buy a plan until they are sick. By creating this situation, you force those who buy insurance to pay more, so they can pay for those who don't buy until they get sick. The taxes to pay for subsidies and Medicaid are on medical devices, employers, and health insurance companies. All of these cause higher premiums, or less pay.

Medicare is cut by $500 billion dollars over a decade meaning doctors who are already not reimbursed enough for their services by Medicare will be further reduced. Most doctors will stop seeing Medicare patients. Many doctors will retire and fewer young people will get into medicine. The bill has an increase in Medicaid. Taxes will pay for the federal half of that bill. The states will have to raise taxes to pay for their portion of the increased Medicaid rolls. The state costs and the tax increases to fund them are not in the bill. Those are stealth costs and taxes that aren't being discussed.

And of course there are the subsidies. They are based on your pay. What will happen? Not much for those who make too much to get a subsidy. But how about those who get some sort of subsidy. It will be in their best interest not to get pay raises that take them out of the subsidized range. Their pay raise will COST them money. The company will be only too happy to not give them a raise to a point, or even REDUCE their pay if it makes them qualify for a bigger subsidy. In some cases it will be in their best interest because the loss in pay will be less than the subsidy they receive. A huge negative incentive if ever there was one. And guess what else will happen. This will cause a loss in tax revenues. Great thinking! So lets recap things. Most people will see an increase in premiums. The Medicare actuary says it bends the cost curve UP, not down as is being advertised. You will have fewer choices in healthcare plans and will have to pay for things to be covered that you will NEVER use, because the plans are one size fits all. Medicare becomes a heavily rationed system because you are stealing money from it to pay for the healthcare of those in society who have made horrible choices in life. The legislation will add to the deficit once it is fully implemented (the first ten years have 6 years of benefits paid for with 10 years of taxes and Medicare cuts. This is the ONLY way it is deficit neutral.) We spend 250 billion dollars a year paid for with 50 billion a year in Medicare cuts and 200 billion a year in taxes. How does this fix healthcare again? The last thing I will say is that those on the left seem to believe that the government won't ration care if they are handling healthcare and that is their desire for a federal takeover of our healthcare system. There are an infinite number of real-world examples with healthcare and other similar programs to prove this to be a patently false belief.

The son of stimulus that was just passed is pretty laughable. Over half of it goes to extended unemployment benefits and healthcare. These may be notable things to do but they don't create jobs. You will hear someone make the laughable assertion that you give the unemployed money, they spend it, and that creates jobs by their spending demand. This omits a very important fact. The money you are GIVING to the unemployed was TAKEN from someone else who no longer can spend it. You aren't creating any additional demand by giving them money; you are merely changing who is spending the same money. The bulk of what's left in son of stimulus, like daddy stimulus goes to infrastructure projects. These do not create permanent jobs. They create jobs the number of which depends directly on the level of government spending. In order for them to be "permanent", you have to make the level of additional spending permanent also. As soon as you reduce your spending back to the pre-stimulus levels all those jobs go POOF. When you REDUCE your discretionary spending further because you have to pay back all of your debt you generated from "stimulus", you eliminate even more jobs. If you greatly raise taxes to try and pay back that debt instead you obviously create an economic contraction, otherwise known as a recession. Printing money to pay the debt will cause the US to be another Weimer Republic, or a banana republic. What little money we have gotten back from TARP will now be used to spend money in a way that will not create any permanent jobs instead of paying back on the debt. Our elected officials are idiots.

Finally we have the all the polls. EVERY major poll shows the country hates the healthcare reform congress is doing. They aren't against healthcare reform, but they are against the bill in congress which is reform in name only. All the polls show people believe the bill will make their personal healthcare costs higher, and make the quality of their care go down. I concur. Almost all polls now show the President below 50% in approval. There is another poll that shows 46% of Americans want President Bush back. This wouldn't be a startling poll if we were talking about Reagan. But we are talking about a guy whose approval rating when he left office was in the TWENTIES! And the last poll I saw showed that Republicans were looked on favorably by 28% of country and unfavorably by 43%. Democrats are seen favorably by 35% and unfavorably by 45%. Then there is the Tea Party. They are looked on favorably by 41% and unfavorably by 23%. This poll was done by NBC and the WSJ and it has leaned left in most of its polling compared to Gallup, Rasmussen, and Quinnipiac which had Obama going under 50% 2 or 3 weeks ago. This is despite the main stream media's attempt to demonize the tea party movement. VERY interesting!

Climategate thoughts

So while the UN and most (not all) world leaders plan to attend the Copenhagen climate talks aimed at trying to reduce the global CO2 emissions, there is a huge debate brewing about the honesty in those pushing for these changes and their methods. Most media don't understand or know enough to be able to raise valid questions, even those who are skeptical. I am an Engineer with additional training in Six Sigma statistical methodologies so I have a little more knowledge on the scientific method as well as good and bad studies than the average person. Here are some questions to always have in your head when you read something.

1. What is the data or study that demonstrates a CAUSAL link between the increase in CO2 at current levels and a rise in Temperature? How was this link demonstrated and how was it validated?
   
2. What is the data or study that demonstrated a CAUSAL link between the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the amounts believed to be introduced by man? How was that link demonstrated and how was it validated?
   

   
    

   You will constantly hear people discussing ice caps melting, glaciers melting, etc as PROOF of manmade (or as it has become known Anthropogenic) Global Warming. Sorry, but an icecap melting is only proof of higher temperatures in the area of the melting. It does not tie the rise in temperature to a rise in CO2, or to man's production of CO2.
   

So facts to keep in your mind also:

1. CO2 has a logarithmic effect on temperature (natural logarithm, e). This means at very low levels of concentration it has a large effect on temperature but as the amounts in concentration rise, the effect decreases. At some point it has virtually or measurably no effect. On the graph above the "X" axis is CO2 and the "y" axis is Temperature. You can see if no CO2 is present in the atmosphere the planet would be much much colder than now. Adding just a small amount of CO2 gives a rapid increase in global temperature, but as you keep adding CO2, the amount needed to get the same temperature change grows….exponentially. This makes sense and keeps our climate from making large changes for changes in CO2. It would also tend to make it very hard to "overheat" the atmosphere.
   
   

1. There is about 10 times the amount of CO2 stored in bodies of water on the globe than exist in the atmosphere. The amount stored depends on the temperature of the water. If water temps increase, the release stored CO2, and when they cool the will absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere. Gases dissolved in liquids act differently than solids. Also, if the climate warms, more NATURAL CO2 is released to the atmosphere as a result of this principle, albeit there is a lag because of the time it takes for water circulation to equalize, etc. This could be quite a problem except for #1 above. I mean otherwise man-made CO2 would cause a rise in temperature, that would in turn cause an eventual release of stored CO2 in the oceans, which would cause more heating, which would cause more CO2 release…..etc. Good thing that whole natural log thing is in effect, or else we would have a runaway positive feedback loop built into the natural model of the atmosphere. Any external (outside our atmosphere, think the sun) heating event would in effect cause this runaway feedback loop to begin and the only way to stop it would be another external event that would cause cooling. Of course then you run the risk of cooling too much and the opposite effect would occur. We are in the part of the curve that is relatively flat so changes in CO2 don't affect the temperature demonstrably.
   
2. The planet has had periods that have been WARMER than we are now. Keep in mind when someone says "record breaking temperature" they are talking about the period of the last 160 years or so, when we had a way to keep temperature records because temperature measurement was somewhat accurate. Prior to the 1850's there weren't any recorded temperatures to speak of. There was a period about 9000 years ago that was much warmer. This was at the beginning of civilization when mankind began building permanent communities instead of being nomadic. A 2^nd period is called the Mediaeval Warming Period which lasted from about 800 AD to 1300 AD. To determine temperature prior to accurate thermometers scientists look at tree rings. They can also get an idea of CO2 concentrations over time by pulling ice cores from the Antarctic. According to these sources the climate was warmer and had more CO2 than now. Aren't sure about tree rings then we have anecdotal evidence. Consider the following bits. It was warm enough in England to grow vineyards suitable to make wine (think Spain, south of France, Italy, Napa, Australia, etc). It isn't possible to do that now. This was the period of Viking conquest and settlement of Greenland and Iceland. Greenland wasn't one huge glacier covered land mass as it is now. Those who fret about AGW citing the melting that has exposed settlements that have not been seen for a thousand years as proof of AGW don't want you to make the next logical conclusion. That conclusion is "hey it was warm enough 1000 years ago in those areas for man to LIVE and grow food"!
   
3. The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change is a committee that is not charged with being the referee on these matters or to determine if global warming is man-made. Its charter assumes that global warming is man-made and is tasked with determining the effects and coming up with solutions globally. Everything they do is from the viewpoint that man is causing global warming.
   

So climategate as it has come to be called exposes some of the shenanigans of the top "minds" in the pro-AGW camp. East Anglia University Climate Research Unit is a central repository of data for the climate and global warming. Their temperature records are the ones used by the IPCC and the rest of that community when discussing the historical record and future estimations. What are the points that have come out from these leaked emails and records?

1. The historical temperature records these guys have developed are the result of some adjustments based on the point of origin, etc and a means to come up with data from tree rings. It would appear that some attempts were made with this data to minimize previous warm periods, exaggerate the current heating, and hide the leveling off and cooling that has occurred the past decade. Also, the raw data they used to come up with these temperature adjustments and the methodologies have been thrown out. Nothing remains but the smoothed data. Anyone who works in science or engineering knows this is a HUGE no-no. The "infamous" hockey stick graph used by the IPCC and most of the pro-AGW crowd uses this data. The guy who came up with, Michael Mann from Penn State is referenced in many of these emails.
   
2. Repeated refusals by these scientists to answer Freedom of Information requests for data and methodologies for their studies, almost all funded with public funds. Threats amongst these scientists to stonewall, or delete files if stonewalling didn't work (see #1 above). Michael Mann finally had to turn his data over 3 years ago after a threat of contempt of congress was levied on him for his Hockey stick graph. His research project that produced that data was funded by US tax dollars. Once the data and methodology were available, it was decried because his statistical methods were incorrect. It was so bad that the IPCC didn't reference it in its last report. Some information that was described as "lost" in answer to some FOIA requests showed up in the data that was posted online. Oops!
   
3. The emails detail their campaign to bully peer review journals to keep them from publishing the work of skeptics of AGW. These come in the form of threats to those journals, or in the case of the IPCC reports, changing the criteria that allow scientific studies to be included. If you actually go through an IPCC report you will find pro-AGW studies that haven't been peer-reviewed included, and many skeptical studies, which WERE peer reviewed, that debunk those conclusions omitted.
   
4. The private frustration with these scientists of their math models not being able to account for the current cooling period we are in. These models were not very good to begin with especially the most apocalyptic in their future predictions. They cannot be validated by historical data. They only "track" for very small periods of time where CO2 and temperature meet their expectations. If you put in the data beginning at 1900, which is prior to any meaningful man-made CO2 production, and let the models run for a hundred years you will get an answer out that is a couple of degrees higher than in reality. When the change over a decade is less than a degree, that is quite a lot of error. But their models are completely frustrated by the fact we aren't warming now, and we should be.
   
5. Their trepidation that the tree ring data, corrected using their methodologies, to generate the historical temperature record is in jeopardy. Why you may ask? It would seem actual temperatures when they are accurately measured don't match with tree rings for the same time periods. This puts in doubt the historical record they have generated. The record they have generated works to make the last 150 years and the heating therein look more pronounced.
   
6. Annotations to their many computer codes where alterations were made to insert tricks are plainly spelled out.
   

Here are my conclusions on all of these things. First the only way that the pro-AGW scientists have to try and answer my 1^st two questions is with their climate models. That is the only way they can create a causal relationship with manmade CO2, CO2 increases in the atmosphere and a rise in temperature globally is with a computer model. As I said before they were garbage when you try to validate over a large period of time with variation in CO2 and temperature. Pro-AGW scientists have always validated their models using time periods that are conducive to a good result. But even that trick doesn't work with temperatures from the past 10 or 11 years. They should have gone UP, but went down. These guys can't figure it out. That only emphasizes how much their models are garbage and not reality. Also we see a pattern of trying to eliminate other points of view through what can only be described as bully tactics. We know that they have manipulated the historical temperature record to make heating look more prominent the last 80 years, to minimize other previously existing warm periods, and to minimize the current cooling period. They have refused to turn over their data and methodology to scrutiny, threatened to destroy it rather than turn it over, or has already destroyed data. When someone doesn't want you to see their work, but only the finished product most would conclude that something isn't right. However in the case of these guys most people to this point have bought everything they say as the gospel truth.

Discussion about Healthcare reform from Domestic examples

I have wanted to say more about Healthcare reform, but I want to look at it from a bit of different perspective here. I am not going to look at the current legislation options per se, but look at how reform has worked here in this country for the states that have tried it (Maine, Mass, and Tenn). You can debate the various details of our current healthcare bills and all the back and forth about what is in there and what isn't. But what will happen 10 to 20 years down the road….or what will even happen 5 years down the road. Does the rubber meet the road when all the hype is gone and you are left with the day to day machinations of the bureaucracy created?

Let's explore some US States first starting with Maine. Maine created what is called Dirigocare, implemented in 2003. It was to provide insurance to people who couldn't afford it and for small businesses with 50 people or less. Based on income you could get subsidies anywhere from 30% to 80% of plan cost and you had 3 options for deductibles. At the time it was estimated that Maine had 100,000 people without health insurance. The program was to be funded via a 1 time grant of 53 million (seed money…..sound familiar?), premiums from individuals and businesses, Medicaid payments, and a controversial calculation called the Savings Offset Payment, or SOP. This SOP was a calculation based on the savings to insurance companies from the existence of Dirigo health that they would not realize without it. This savings was then CHARGED to the insurance companies to offset the costs of Dirigocare. The claim of the proponents was that 31,000 uninsured people would sign up by the first year and by 5 years everyone without insurance would be covered. So what has happened? Only 9,000 people signed up for the plan in the first year. Only about 2000 of those didn't have insurance before. The rest dumped their insurance for the subsidized plan instead. Only 2.5% of small business owners, who were eligible to enroll, used the insurance plan. The cost to employers was too expensive for the rest to buy in. The most controversial part was the SOP though. The governor originally claimed the program saved 137 MILLION dollars (sounds like the same people calculating jobs saved or created…LOL) in its first year. NOBODY believed that claim since only 1600 people were insured who weren't insured previously. They finally settled on a savings of $43 million but that was challenged in court. Seems 40 million were from a cap on an increase of costs regulated by the State of Maine. $3 million was the savings from uncompensated care savings (this would be the costs that are passed onto us for people who get healthcare but don't pay the bill and those costs are passed onto us.) However the calculation used to get the 40 million is controversial. It was based on a complex formula. The thing about it, they used that formula for the state of New Hampshire as a check. Since it didn't have Dirigocare, the savings from the formula should be zero. However it wasn't. New Hampshire had a savings of tens of millions of dollars themselves. Hmmmmm….something smells fishy here. Nonetheless, Maine ran with the savings and charged a tax of 2.4% on all insurance companies. This cost those paying their own insurance an extra $200 a year and when the insurance companies jacked up premiums, they put a note about the increase being due to the SOP for Dirigo. And so a controversy was born. The state needed to greatly inflate the "savings" so it could tax insurance companies enough to cover the cost of the program. The program is still in existence. It is still only covering a small fraction of the uninsured about 3%. The rest of the enrollees are taking advantage of subsidies to get cheaper insurance. The state abandoned the SOP since it had a lot of legal problems. They now levy a 2.2% tax on all insurance companies every year without calculating savings (which were a fraction in reality of what was touted). It is the only way to pay for the subsidies, which are only a fraction of what they were going to be with full enrollment. What tax levy would they use if they had 100% participation instead of 3%? Premiums of Dirigocare have gone up 4 times faster than the state employee health plan. It has also damaged private insurance in the state. This plan is considered a failure by most people. There are a lot of similarities to what is in the various plans being generated by Democrats in the House and the Senate.

So how about Massachusetts and Romneycare? Well one BIG item in Romneycare that wasn't in Dirigocare is the stipulation that you MUST purchase insurance or pay a fine. Well….that sounds familiar. The theory is that forcing everyone into the system means premiums will go down even with the added regulations on what "adequate" coverage is, not turning down pre-existing conditions, and not dropping coverage for anything other than fraud. So what is in Romneycare besides an insurance mandate? It created an insurance exchange for individuals without health insurance who work for small companies, self-employed, or not working. It administers the "public option" called Commonwealth Care for people who don't qualify for Medicaid, but make less than 3 times the poverty level. They are 4 private insurance plan options to choose from and subsidies provided based on income level. It expanded eligibility for SCHIP and Medicaid. It also incorporates tax penalties to companies with 10 or more employees who don't offer to pay a "fair share" of healthcare insurance premiums for their employees and don't offer pre-tax payroll deductions for health insurance. Finally it has a tax penalty of half the lowest available premium for any individual who doesn't provide proof of health insurance on their income tax return. The insurance had to meet acceptable criteria also. Funding for Romneycare came from existing Medicaid funding in place, a fund of about 700 million per year from income taxes, and taxes on medical care providers. So what have been the results since it was implemented in 2006? Well the Boston Globe has written a pretty bad evaluation of the plan. The Boston Globe is a New York Times newspaper so it can't be called a "conservative mouthpiece hitjob". The percentage of uninsured in Massachusetts prior to Romneycare was about 6% of the population. The state is claiming today that the number of uninsured is 2.6%. That statistic isn't without controversy. That number was obtained by a phone survey. Not really known as being extremely accurate method of collecting data, especially if the person answering fears giving the truth will mean he will be fined by the government. Analysis of income returns leads you to believe the rate is closer to 5%. How about insurance premiums? The theory is that if everyone has insurance premiums will go down. Well the data is in and it would appear since its implementation insurance premiums have risen about 12% on average per year versus a national rate of 6%. They now have the honor of having the highest insurance premiums in the country. Oops! Funding for Commonwealth Care is facing shortfalls and the state is looking at additional taxes to provide funding. Oops again! Much has been made about wait times in the healthcare system since Romneycare implementation. Wait times for most care is twice the national average. Finally, the Boston Globe also reported that Romneycare was driving business to neighboring states. OUCH! Let's summarize the effects of Romneycare. About 1.5% of the state has insurance that didn't have it before. Insurance premiums are rising at twice the national average. Money is running out for insurance subsidies so additional taxes will have to be raised. You must wait longer than anyone else in the country for care. And you are losing businesses. You don't need a degree from Harvard to figure out this thing isn't working like it was advertised.

And now we get to Tennessee and Tenncare. Tenncare was an attempt to change Medicaid from a fee for services methodology, to a managed care system like an HMO. There were going to be savings, or so they thought, by doing this. The savings they thought would allow them to cover more people who were uninsured with the same money. So the Federal Government granted them a waiver on Medicaid eligibility for 5 years, from 1994 to 1999, when Ned Ray McWhorter was Governor ("affectionately" known as Boss Hogg by those of us from Tennessee). So they shifted 800,000 people from standard Medicaid coverage to a managed care company and opened up Medicaid eligibility for another 500,000 people. In the first year of implementation 400,000 additional people signed up and enrollment was closed in 1995 to everyone, but those without insurance and pre-existing conditions. They received a waiver from HHS until 2002, when a new program called Tenncare II (the Wrath of Khan). This program greatly tightened the eligibility for the program with a tighter income requirement and people were required to show they couldn't get insurance any other way. When Phil Bredesen became Governor in 2003 he immediately hired a consulting firm to determine the financial viability of Tenncare. They determined it wasn't viable without major changes. How did the program work out? The initial budget was 2.6 Billion in 1994 and the budget in 2005 was 8.5 Billion with the same number of people enrolled. Private insurance increased in the same time period by about 50% while Tenncare tripled in the same time period. At the start of the program people were dumping their private insurance for the cheaper Tenncare plan. This was why many tweaks to the eligibility were made throughout the program's life to try and control this. The changes that Governor Bredesen made reduced the rolls by 200,000 people and impose limits on benefits and prescription drugs for those remaining in the program. They are currently looking at tax increases to bridge a budget shortfall of about $150 million. During this waiver period the federal government has been forced to increase matching funding for Medicaid because they agreed to the waiver. In a nutshell we have another government health program where costs go out of control.

All of us have to understand that medical care involves finite resources. When you put in place a means to have unlimited demand for finite resources something is going to have to give. The government can ONLY control costs by rationing since the amount of money a citizen pays into the system has no bearing on the services they can get out. This is actually a problem with our healthcare system in general. Many business insurance plans are the HMO style with small co-pays for a visit and no deductible so there is no restriction for the demand of services, the same with Medicare and Medicaid. Before healthcare really went off the rails in this country most people had health insurance that was catastrophic coverage with an annual deductible that had to be met prior to insurance paying anything. The deductible was such that the normal family health expenditures didn't meet the deductible so your health decisions were influenced by the fact it was your own money that was being spent. Frankly I think we need to go back to that with an expansion of the medical savings accounts so people can put the money in these accounts they will need to cover those annual costs. As some people are want to do let's compare this to auto insurance. Does your auto insurance cover the costs of routine maintenance, oil changes, new tires, etc or does it just cover accidents with a deductible? But what are the illustrious leaders in Congress and the White House trying to do right now? Force all health insurance to cover EVERYTHING. How much do you think your auto insurance would be if it covered maintenance with no limits? Could you even afford it? We need to go BACK to the way health insurance used to be before all these systems via the government and union negotiated health plans came into existence in the last 15 to 20 years that gave insurance with no limits on services other than a lifetime cap on total payout. People need to have some skin in the game if you will out of their own pocket so there is a natural control on demand for services. Otherwise we will have a government determining who gets the use of finite resources, which tend to become even more finite the more the government becomes involved.

Healthcare, the FED, off term elections, etc

So I have been thinking long and hard about the Healthcare debate. The central issue I cannot come to grasp with is how does spending One Trillion dollars (100 Billion per year) is going to REDUCE the cost of healthcare. I have asked my congressman's legislative aide (he is a bluedogish Dem) that same question. After some discussion she broke down and said I know what the theory is but I can't explain it. It's complicated. Now whenever someone tells you "you wouldn't understand its complicate" I think we all know that really means "I don't understand it either, but someone else who says they are smart says it will work". Now I don't THINK he is going to vote yes on this bill, especially after the election Tuesday (discussed in more detail below) but you never know. His assistant spent 20 minutes on the phone with me, so they are listening to constituents. How much they HEAR remains to be seen. The theories are that we need to give them insurance because they are now getting healthcare in hospitals and the costs are being paid by me. I of course countered that they are going to provide heavily subsidized insurance rates to those people and I have to pay for the subsidies, so I am paying either way. She didn't have a comeback to that one. She acknowledged there were accounting tricks used to make the bills look more deficit neutral. Basically there are 6 years of benefits paid for with 10 years of taxes and revenue generation to make it look deficit neutral over 10 years. People need to understand that the CBO provides only what it is asked to provide, nothing more. They weren't asked to look at more years when the revenue minus spending will create a deficit every year once at full implementation. She talked about insurance premiums going down. I asked her "how?" New mandates and regulations on insurance policies will raise the cost of my premiums. How will this bill reduce them? She couldn't explain that either. Perhaps in all of this the biggest fraud is the cuts in Medicare. 426 billion over 10 years. This will manifest itself in payment cuts to doctors of 21% next year and deeper cuts later. Keep in mind they plan to cut payments to doctors but expect them to see the same number of patients. Now how is that going to work? Medicaid is being expanded. By the end of the decade one QUARTER of the population will be serviced by a program that was intended for poor women and children and the disabled. And with this increase in Medicaid will force states to undertake another 30-40 billion annually. So our state taxes will go up. And lets talk about tax increases why don't we. The Pelosi bill has 572 Billion in new taxes. Most of this tax burden will fall on small businesses that are organized as subchapter S or LLCs. These small businesses file their business revenue as part of their personal income to avoid double taxation (corporate taxes on their gross as a business, then personal taxes on their income as owner). So these business owners are part of the "rich" that are demonized by Obama and progressives. Much of their "wealth" is actually tied up in operating their business, but that shouldn't stop us from demonizing them anyway right? The extremely wealthy will be able to shelter their income to mostly avoid these new taxes. There are additional surcharges on businesses that don't offer health coverage (with lots of stipulations) or pay 75% of the workers premiums. All of this will eat into wages that can be paid. Fewer workers, or lower paid workers will be the choices for many. Then there is the truly unconstitutional aspect of this in my opinion……forcing everyone to buy insurance or pay an additional tax equal to 2.5% of your income if you don't buy insurance. This will be cheaper than buying insurance, but it is imposing a requirement to buy something or be penalized. This is no different than the government saying "we believe everyone should eat lots of broccoli, so you must buy 4 lbs of broccoli every month or be penalized". No different. And the Government will appoint a commissioner to determine what essential benefits every plan must carry are. This will cause premiums to skyrocket for business and individuals. Keep calling your Senators and Congressman. Every day!

Now there is word that the FED chairman had a meeting with bank CEOs today. The discussion you ask? Executive pay was the discussion. Now these bank CEOs were from banks that DIDN'T take any TARP funds. So there is no way to influence their decisions on salary……you would think so anyway. However we have already heard the Federal Reserve say they were going to make sure that banks they regulate would not be allowed to compensate executives as they see fit if in their opinion they were taking inordinate risks not in the best interest for long term stability. WOW. And how will they do this? It would seem with gangster tactics threatening audits for failure to comply. How can this be? One of the most sacrosanct principles in the Constitution that gets run roughshod over lately is the principle of private property. The Constitution protects private property in the 5^th amendment: "No person…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation". Basically that first part of the statement says the government can't dictate what to do with your property. And revenue from a company is PRIVATE PROPERTY. This entire thing reeks and of course with everything the government does, the unintended consequences will be worse than any perceived maladies they are trying to address. They will be driving our banking industry overseas. I keep hearing that we need more regulation. Besides the fact that nobody can tell me what regulations were done away with during the Bush administration, government regulations are a poor means to regulate the free market system. The BEST regulation is the success or failure of business. If you allow business that fails, to fail and do not punish with extra taxes businesses that succeed everything else will take care of itself. But we punish success in this country and prop up business (or people) who fail. But what is to stop the government from threatening to use any of its regulatory agencies as punishment for not paying its people the "proper" amount. This won't stop at banks. The regulatory thug will be different than the Fed, but the effect will be the same. Call your congressman and Senator to urge an audit of the fed to start with. And the Fed needs a lot of sunshine on it.

Off term elections were pretty substantial in my opinion. Strictly my opinion but I think it showed that if good conservative candidates run a good campaign they can win! With the way the Government has stepped up spending and the debt this year, and the fear this has caused, someone who is conservative is bound to do well. So Virginia was a huge shift from a year ago. There is no way that local issues explained a margin of victory of 19% if the way Dems have been running the state the past decade were any good. National issues obviously bled over to explain this drastic change. There is no other way to explain NJ either. Simply has to be the general way the country is being governed now. They may not say it, but many moderates in both parties have to look to the results of those 2 states and reassess their thoughts on issues. All of a sudden Harry Reid (who is very unpopular in Nevada and up for reelection in 2010) says that Healthcare in the Senate won't get voted on before the New Year. Where did that come from? Tuesday's results are where that came from. I have to admit I was disappointed with NY-23. But I thought about this today and I had already said that the Dem winning was no different than Scozzafava winning up there. They were identical candidates to me who would take nearly identical positions on issues. Scozzafava is ranked MORE liberal than 46 dems in the NY state house…….think about it. What I was puzzled about was how Scozzafava got 6% of the vote before I realized she didn't drop out before absentee voting and early voting was done. Hard to say where her supporters would have fallen had they voted the day of the election but I think it could have put Hoffman over the top. Hoffman was not a good candidate in the sense that he isn't energetic or charismatic. He is right on issues, but his personality makes him harder to elect. Very green. This was his first foray into politics really.

Why do we wish to change the status quo?

Why are so many people beginning to become politically active for the first time in their life in 2009? Why are so many seniors, middle age adults, and youth going to tea parties and protesting what is going on in Washington? Why does this website now exist? What has caused this awakening of the silent majority?

There is a battle going on and it is one of fundamental philosophical views of this country, her government, and the individual citizens and their roles relative to each other. To me there are 2 major reasons. The first is preventing the loss of our individual inalienable rights by the ever increasing power of our government. The second is a debate about the most appropriate point of governance for most issues whether the federal or local level. I think it would be helpful to visit some of the principles at work for the writing of our Constitution and the views of our founders who provided that wonderful document to us. In another matter of speaking it is a battle to retain our unique American form of government and governance versus retreating back to a more collectivist European model with fewer rights and liberties for the individual in exchange for a much larger government presence in all aspects of life ATTEMPTING to provide for those same citizens.

Our founders attempted to create a new kind of government unlike any seen before. Our founders created what they termed a representative democracy
a type of federal republic. It wasn't the first democracy in history, nor was it the first republic. Many of those types of governments had come and gone. The key to that last statement is the "gone" part. No democracy to that point in history had been able to stand the test of time. The Greeks as best we know were the first to attempt democracy. But theirs was a direct form of democracy and it was slow and burdensome. Decisions were slow to come by if some sort of consensus could be reached at all. There were many "republics" that had existed prior to the one in our country now. A republic is a form of government that does not have a monarch as the head of government, and some portion of the population has an effect on the outcome of governance. The most famous republic had been the Roman Republic. However a small number of citizens were able to participate in governance and were of the noble class. And the Roman Republic changed into the Roman Empire with a single Emperor who held sway over governance. A representative democracy is a republic in which all citizens elect representatives to participate in decision making for them. In addition we have a federal republic, where the nation is made up of several smaller states within the nation at large have their own sovereignty within the framework of the national government.

Lets go back to the humble beginnings of our great republic. So what did our founders do once we had gained our freedom from England? How did they settle on our form of government? To begin with a very important concept needs to be understood. The guiding principle to our liberty, our form of democracy and republican government, and the guiding principle of our Constitution lies in the fact that we are born with certain rights. These rights are ours as an integral part of our humanity given by our Creator. They are not GIVEN to us by government, nor can they be TAKEN away by government.

 

"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."

Thomas Jefferson

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Thomas Jefferson,
2^nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence

 

Government does not give us our rights but we can however volunteer some or even all of them to government if we desire. As our founders believed, government was a "contract" between the citizens and those who it will govern. This contract expressed how much and what freedoms would be surrendered in exchange for government instituted primarily to protect the remaining rights of her citizens. The largest right surrendered by the governed to the government is the control of a portion of our property and income allowing taxes to be collected from its citizens in order to provide safety, security, infrastructure, etc. The Constitution IS that contract. What was unique about our Constitution was the unprecedented amount of liberty and freedom retained by the citizens and the limits placed on government, especially the national government. There is a direct correlation to the freedom of the citizens and the power of that government. The more power a government has the fewer rights and freedoms the people retain and vice versa. You cannot have a lot of individual freedom and liberty while being governed by a large and very strong government. The 2 are mutually exclusive.

Our revolution to gain freedom from England was fought over many laws and taxes imposed on the citizens of the colonies without any representation. The experiences of our founders leading to the revolution with the stamp act, tea act, etc convinced them that a strong central government was dangerous to individual liberty. For those who wish to have an in-depth insight into why they believed this type of government was the best, I recommend reading the Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison (drafter of the Constitution), and John Jay. The founders wanted a government to be as small and as weak as was possible but be able to survive and prosper. The Articles of Confederation, which was the first form of government after the revolution, was a direct result of the experiences prior to the revolution with the British monarchy and the observances of the French Court and its utter disregard for the people they governed. European monarchies believed that the only rights citizens possessed were the ones they were generous enough to grant them. To this point in time it was the common belief all over Europe and beyond that rights came from government. But the Articles were a failure as there was not enough power held at the national level (the Articles in essence created 13 independent countries in a loose federation by a weak treaty. Wow sounds similar to the European Union) to govern effectively. The new nation was almost to the point of anarchy. In an attempt to guarantee maximum liberty and freedom for the individual, we had an unworkable government.

So the Constitution, creating the United States of America, provided for a form of government that concentrated more power in the national government than existed prior in the Articles. However it delineates specific powers to the national (or federal) government. It does limit those powers and gives all remaining powers not specified in the document to the states. Our government was the first experiment with a Republic that had power decentralized to the individual states. The American government was a large departure from anything that existed in Europe then and it still is to this day. We were and have always been unique when compared to governments in Europe. We are much more individualistic as a people whereas our cousins in Europe are much more collectivist. There was one more important feature of our Constitution. The rights laid out for the individual and the limits on power specified prevent the tyranny of the majority to be unleashed on the minority. In other words it prevents the majority from being able to enact legislation that would trample the natural rights of the minority.

"I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."

Thomas Jefferson

 

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

Thomas Jefferson

 

This brings us to today. I think another quote from James Madison is apropos.

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
James Madison

This has been building slowly to this moment in time most of the 20^th century in all seriousness. The early 1900's brought the progressive movement to our shores, which was a belief that government could solve all problems and that the people could not be trusted to govern themselves. These thoughts went 180 degrees from what our founders believed. Progressives were influenced by the Marxist and socialistic movement in Europe and openly embraced these collectivist theories as practiced in communism and fascism. If you read the writing of Woodrow Wilson several things will become immediately evident. He believed the Constitution was inadequate for modern times because they were more complicated. He believed more government was needed to protect the people from the likes of corporations and other elements in society. He believed that smart men from Princeton and other elite universities based on new ideas coming from European elites were needed to govern the common man as he was not able to understand the complicated modern world. He believed the Constitution needed to be a living document to allow government to accomplish its goals. This was in direct conflict with the beliefs of our founding fathers. Any growth in government power necessitated an equal reduction in liberty. This reduction in liberty came both in restrictions of the actions by her citizens as well as an increase in taxation. The increase in taxation reduces the economic freedom of the citizens regardless of who is taxed. European elites believed that it was government's job to fairly distribute the wealth of the nation. They believed sacrifices in liberty and economic freedom were necessary for the "greater good." But what is "fair" and how and by whom is it determined? Who determines what "the greater good is"? And had things REALLY become more complicated requiring a more active government to counteract that? Wilson achieved the first main goal in a "progressive" tax code that punished those who were more successful to provide more money for the government to enact its programs. It also was the first time anyone suggested that the sovereignty of the United States could be subservient to a "world order". Teddy Roosevelt also considered himself a progressive. Anti-trust was his main issue. Again it is well intentioned, but has been used as a political tool too much to destroy companies that don't "cooperate" with the government, or at the behest of a competitor who contributes to a political campaign. Roosevelt was also big on grabbing private land for public use.

FDR continued the march with Social Security and all the New Deal programs. FDR wished to do a lot more but he needed a Supreme Court that would allow him to do things which on paper would violate the Constitution. He attempted to get around this by his famous attempt to "pack the court"…..that is greatly expanding the size of the Supreme Court with appointees favorable to his positions. But FDR did enough damage with Social Security in the taxes taken from her citizens to support it over their entire lifetime. It wasn't voluntary, because it would not work if it was. However we know now that it still doesn't work because Government has completely mismanaged this program, and used it for purposes it was not designed for. It also woefully underestimated the amount of money that would be needed to keep it going. The was the first Ponzi scheme if you will. The way it was suppose to work was to be a "supplement" that would for retirement. The money paid in by a citizen would come from the money paid in over a lifetime. But we now know this was a pipe dream. The payouts to current recipients depend heavily on recent contributions, because the money contributed over the lifetime of those on social security was spent long ago. That distance between the payee and the payer gets smaller every year. This is where the term "unfunded liability" comes from. FDR and congress also introduced payroll tax withholding. Again it was not voluntary, but mandatory. Withholding makes it harder for citizens to know how much money the government is actually taking from their paychecks.

Johnson was the next person to greatly expand government with his "Great Society" with welfare, public housing, etc to fight poverty and Medicare and Medicaid to give government its first foray into healthcare. Welfare was a massive government expenditure that failed to move the needle on poverty or made it worse, and created a sub class of citizens who became dependent on the government for their existence. Medicare is another Ponzi scheme with results similar to what we see with Social Security and its cost in 1999 was TEN TIMES what it was projected to cost when passed. How could that happen with a large voluminous bill with lots of legalese in the bill. All of these programs took more money from the pockets of ordinary citizens and companies reducing once more the economic freedom of all. This made citizens more beholden to government instead of making their own choices for healthcare and taking more capital from the business community which again reduced the ability to generate economic growth.

The march continued unabated through Democrat and Republican until where we are today. Republicans and Democrats have continually grown government, adding government programs to "help" its citizens, increasing taxes or deficits and creating a large number of boom-bust cycles in the economy. I won't get into the Federal Reserve as there are others more knowledgeable on the specifics, but the creation of a national bank under once again Woodrow Wilson created an unprecedented expansion of the government into the economy by controlling the supply of money. I would recommend reading Milton Friedman's book on monetary policy and the role the Fed played in the onset of the Great Depression. The only breathing point I can think of was the period under Ronald Reagan. He eliminated regulations and cut taxes by a large amount. He was unable to reduce the size of the government but his desire was clearly there to do so. However you need a congress that is willing to do so, and reducing the size of government means reducing the influence of Congress.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

Thomas Jefferson

 

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

Thomas Jefferson

The changes above however were slow and gradual. The federal government became much more involved in daily life that had before this time been handled by the states or at the local community level in accordance with the 10^th Amendment to the Constitution. More commonly however problems were handled by the citizens themselves and their communities without the need of the government at all. There are several problems with the goals of progressives. I will not attribute the desire to pursue these goals as a malicious attempt to take over the government. I think most people who think this way do wish to improve things in the country. But it is an idealistic way of viewing government, her citizens, and the motivations that make people act the way they do. Following the ideals of our founders during the 19^th century, America had turned from a small struggling nation to arguably one of the most powerful economic powers in the world. People flocked to this country to be able to pursue a life free of government interference in their lives. We were a beacon to those who wished to escape the corrupt collectivist governments of their home countries. However the ideas permeating Europe that we had fought so hard and so long to escape starting gaining traction in this country in the intellectual elites of this country. Our intellectual elites turned their backs on the brilliant ideals our founders had come to believe in and establish with this country.

Ideally, the government is a fair arbiter and not corruptible. But that is why it is called an ideal.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
James Madison, in the Federalist #51.

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

Thomas Jefferson

 

Government in all its forms has been run by people and people are both fallible and subject to corruption. Our founder's experiences and observations were that the larger the government, the more corruption that existed which detracted from the freedom and economic liberty of her citizens. The "complications" in the lives of citizens are largely a creation of government and NOT the increasing technology or size of the government. Prior to a "progressive" tax was instituted the tax code was simple. Now it is monstrous and largely a product of corruption and influence peddling. How can you influence peddle with a flat tax that everyone must pay equally? It is the ever increasing role of government in our lives that allows lobbyists and corporations to corrupt the system. A flat tax on all corporate profits with no exceptions and government reducing its intrusion into the free market reduce the opportunities for corruption. Sufficient revenue can be raised for government operation by simple means (flat taxes) but this does not allow for social engineering (equality of outcomes), or for giving special favors to certain companies or industries. Think about it. Flat taxes and small government make the industry of lobbying ineffective and it would go away almost entirely. The people are able to deal with the increasing complexities of life without needing help from the government. Think about this. If you REALLY wanted to quickly lower the costs of healthcare, wouldn't it be easier to stop taxing the profits of healthcare providers at all levels? That would eliminate a huge cost in providing healthcare and make it easier for more companies to start up and provide additional competition.

So what has happened to awake the sleeping majority and re-awaken people's desire to stop the growth of government? I believe those who have had quiet reservations about the size of government and the debt that it was building have been shocked by the past year. Bailouts of banks, bailouts of certain industries, an economic stimulus that was little more than a means to spread political favoritism and cover up for the fiscal malfeasance of state governments have shocked citizens. I don't think people really believed we would ever get to a point we could exist as a statist utopian society as much of Europe is. I think that has changed and people who grew up admiring the country the way the founder's envisioned it are afraid if they don't speak out now, it will forever be gone. Our founders started a country that believed in the individual and that individuals could be trusted to run their own lives. They did not trust government as governments have always proven to be tyrannical in the end and a threat to liberty. Progressives however have a favorable view of government and believe it can be trusted to make lives better, and do not trust the individual to make good decisions. We have heard many people in the current administration who have made these types of statements in the past.

"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully 'ours'? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …"

Cass Sunstein, Obama czar

"If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost."
Barack Obama

"[the United States] can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..."

William Clinton

There is a stark difference in philosophy and it breaks down very simply. There are those of us (let's say conservatives or libertarians) who believe in trusting the individual to make good decisions and that government is to never be trusted as it is inherently corrupt by its design. Government is however a necessary evil in the absence of perfect people, but its size and reach should be as limited as possible. Then there are progressives who do not trust individual citizens to be able to make good decisions, and trusting the government to make the good decisions for them. The libertarian or conservative view allows for a much more freedom (economic and otherwise) but has more risk for the individual in that they must live with the consequences of their decisions and their actions. So the enjoyment of our freedoms comes with responsibility. The progressive view is that individuals should turn most decision making to the government. It is "safer" but doesn't allow much in the way of either economic or other freedoms. Choices decrease as government involvement in our lives increases. Individuals are removed from the responsibility for the results of their bad decisions as their fellow citizens will be compelled to pay for those mistakes. But as we have seen over and over again, when people are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labors and the equality of outcomes attempted by progressive thought snuffs the desire to work hard, try hard, and succeed because there is no better outcome if you try to succeed or not. Why try if it doesn't matter if you succeed or not?

To be free you must live with the consequences of bad decisions you make and must work hard to succeed. Otherwise you turn your life over to the government. It may seem safe, but you have little freedom as most decisions will be out of your control and handled by the state.