define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true); define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS', true); No Runny Eggs

No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

September 8, 2009

I’ll Take Door #3 Please

by @ 8:56. Filed under Politics - National.

Major Garrett reports that Van Jones didn’t have to fill out the infamous questionnaire that was intended to remove all surprises from one’s past life. 

In this interview, Major Garrett suggests that Jones’ “miss” was due either to a breakdown in the vetting process or that the Czars are not sufficiently high ranking to merit a vetting.  In his hypothesis, Major misses the obvious door #3.

Jones and likely the other Czars, have become Czars and avoided vetting for one simple reason; they couldn’t pass the vetting.

Is there a question in any one’s mind that if under “relationships and affiliations”, Van Jones would have said “Communist”, he would have passed muster?  Well, he might have given what we know about Obama’s own preferences but he wouldn’t have passed the public review.  

The Czars are Czars for two simple reasons:  1: they align with Obama’s own personal views and 2: Making the views public via a public vetting process would ensure that they were never accepted for the position.

September Drinking Right – 12 hours out

by @ 7:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because it is a short week. The Septermber Drinking Right will begin promptly at 1900 hours (7 pm) at Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee.

This is not a drill or a test. You are instructed to be there. Being square is not an option.

This concludes this activation of the Emergency Blogging System.

Stay on Target!

by @ 5:07. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

From the classic that is the original Star Wars movie (now Star Wars IV) during the attack on the death star:

As one of the rebellion pilots is heading to make the impossible shot that would destroy the death star Empire fighters are attacking from all directions.  The pilot loses his concentration as his head is spinning trying to keep track of the frenetic activity around him.  The leader of the attack then states his infamous line, “Stay on target!  Stay on target!”  In the end, he never gets his shot fired and is ultimately destroyed by one of the pursuing Empire fighters.

The month long Congressional recess has been an usually heady time for Conservatives.

First, after explaining to school administrators and the blogging world that we and our children “pledge allegiance to the flag” and not the president, the Obama acolytes resorted to using “in artfully worded” before redoing the “lesson plan” for Obama’s indoctrination speech to school children. 

Second, led by Worldnetdaily and Glenn Beck, Conservatives used the method that John McCain was too squeamish for and held Van Jones accountable for his extremist views, statements, actions and associates.  The result is that Van Jones has left the Obama administration “to seek other opportunities.”  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of both of these events is that neither of them had any of the D.C. Republican leadership leading them.  In fact, now now that I think about it, what was the last issue of substance that any of the D.C. Republican leadership?

Finally, Conservatives have successfully led an effort to expose the truth about the Democrat’s attempts to nationalize health care.  In town hall meetings, blogs, rallies and one on one discussions, Conservatives came armed with facts that left their opponents either lying or stumbling through things they made up.  Regardless of how many times President Obama or Democrat leadership claimed “it wasn’t in there,” the majority of Americans believe it is “in there” and they don’t like it.  The situation has degraded so far that President Obama will be addressing a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening in an attempt put the plan on some new track that could lead to success.

While the first two items clearly sent a message to the Obama administration that he was not elected to a monarchy, the final outcome of the last issue is still to be decided.

Innumerable articles have been written in the past 10 days opining on whether Obama can save the health care reform bill.  Amongst other topics, the articles discuss the pros and cons of a 60 vote Senate approval versus a reconciliation process, dropping a public option or moving to a coop and which group of Democrats are more likely to support or jump ship from President Obama.  With so many different experts and theories it’s hard to guess what scenario may play out in the coming weeks.  In fact, depending upon your own personal preference, if there isn’t an article supporting your theory, just wait another day and there likely will be one written.

Over the next few weeks the fight over health care reform will take many new turns.  Some events will likely be complete surprises.  We can certainly expect that as President Obama reengages in the fight we’ll see him hang “shiny bright objects”that are meant to distract conservatives from their focus on health care.  Whatever transpires, one thing is certain, the fight is far from over.  We can’t allow the victories of small skirmishes to lull us into any sense of accomplishment.  We must keep pressure on every Congressional representative until health reform that has any increase, or might allow any possible future increase of government intervention is dead, dead, dead.

For the next six weeks or so we need to stay focused, stay aggressive and keep the White House on the defense.  Every morning for the next six weeks you should wake up to the admonishment of Gold Five:

Food Fight!

by @ 5:03. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman and gift to bloggers world wide, now says that those of us opposing President Obama are involved in nothing more noble than a food fight:

“It’s a sad state of affairs that many in this country politically would rather start an ‘Animal House’ food fight rather than inspire kids to stay in school, to work hard, to engage parents to stay involved and to ensure that the millions of teachers that are making great sacrifices continue to be the best in the world,” Gibbs told reporters on Monday.

Really?  Holding our elected leaders to accountability is a food fight?

This is a food fight:

First we were “wee weeing”, now are creating a “food fight.”  I suppose next we’ll be accused of calling people names!

Well, to that I have this to say:

Let’s all fight to save America!

September 7, 2009

Video of the day – Uncle Jimbo’s “Obama everywhere – More cowbell”

by @ 12:05. Filed under International relations, Politics - National.

It’s been far too long since I featured one of Uncle Jimbo’s tour de forces. This time, he lays the smackdown on Obama’s UNSecurity Council meeting chairmanship. Roll tape.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUrK-hOMQw[/youtube]

DC, Beijing has a problem and it’s about to be your problem

by @ 10:52. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

(H/T – Robert Stacy McCain)

If memory serves, both Shoebox and I have pointed out the reluctance of the Chinese to continue to soak up American debt. The Daily Telegraph has the latest in the coming ChiCom shift away from the US Dollar:

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.

“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

“If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.

The Chinese are the single biggest foreign holder of US government debt, and they’re saying once again that they may well not continue to buy more. There simply are not enough buyers out there to soak up another $9+ trillion in US government debt over the next 9 years, which begs the question of whether the Fed will really flood the market with more dollars or whether the Treasury (really, Congress and the President) will do something that has never been done and default on US government debt.

In related reading, Charles K. Rowley, General Director of The Locke Institute and Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University, says that we could follow Argentina under socialist Juan Peron from the First World to the Third World. Why do I get the feeling that is precisely the ObamiNation’s goal?

Revisions/extensions (11:52 am 9/7/2009) – I know I’ve got too many blogs in the reader. As part of his look at George Friedman’s projections for the next 100 years on September 1, CDR Salamander wrote this little gem:

I agree with the last statement, but America can degrade itself though economic malpractice inline with what Argentina did to herself in the 1900s – but on a much larger scale. You cannot be the world’s greatest debtor and continue to run the world. It is unsustainable. Do not discount relative decline.

There is good relative decline; the USA % of global GDP decreases as other nations leave the 3rd to progress towards the 1st World. There is bad relative decline; the USA % of global GDP falls due to real falling national GDP and degrading internal economic factors and external competitiveness….

The only way the USA will lose its position over this century will be if we follow the Argentine model and economically destroy ourselves – something the present administration is doing very well from a debt-load POV.

Revisions/extensions (12:37 pm 9/12/2009) – Welcome to the party, fellow FMJRA devotees. Unlike RSM, this short-order cook doesn’t have a tip jar to hit, but between Shoebox and I, we do have some pretty good reading. And Smitty, I hear you on the 6-hour Mike Foxtrot shotgun sessions. If I had a tip jar, I might restart my version, but other than Rule 2, I don’t quite have the temperment to get enough hits for that to matter.

September 4, 2009

Is it 3.5 million jobs created/saved or 3.11 million jobs in all sectors lost?

by @ 12:59. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

(H/T – The Senate Republicans)

Now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has come out with the all-sector August jobs report, which shows a preliminary 216,000 job loss for August, it’s time to update the earlier private-sector-only post of 3.487 million private-sector jobs lost since the end of January. With the creation of 377,000 government jobs since the end of January, the economy has lost 3,110,000 jobs since then.

The Senate Republicans helpfully included a summary of what the Human Gaffe Machine Vice President Joe Biden (he of the three-letter J-O-B-S utterance) uttered to the Brookings Institution just yesterday:

“Analysts from Moody’s to IHS Global Insight to the Economic Policy Institute and others all estimate the Recovery Act has created or saved between 500,000 and 750,000 jobs. Matter of fact: Some notable economists suggest the number is as high as a million.”

That’s funny; even if one included only the government sector (which I believe the ObamiNation thinks is the only sector that matters), Porkulus fell short.

Friday Hot Read – Mitch Daniels’ “The Coming Reset in State Government”

by @ 12:48. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) penned a warning call on the state of the states’ finances:

For now, my state’s situation is far better than most, but it won’t stay that way if we fail to act in Indiana. At present, we are meeting our obligations, without raising taxes, and still have over $1 billion in reserve. But the dominant reality is that even assuming the official revenue projections are accurate (and they have been consistently too rosy for the past two years), the state of Indiana will have fewer dollars to work with in 2011 than it did in 2007. Most other states face similar or worse prospects.

And, unlike the aftermath of past recessions, odds are that revenues will take a long time to catch back up to their previous trend lines—if they ever do. Tax payments have fallen so far that it would require a rousing economic rally to restore them. This at a time when the Obama administration’s policies on taxes, spending and more seem designed to produce the opposite result. From 1930 to 2008, our national average annual real GDP growth rate was 3.49%. After crunching the numbers, my team has estimated that it would take GDP growth of at least twice the historical average to return state tax revenues to their previous long-term trend line by 2012.

That is in Indiana, which is weathering the storm relatively well. They still have over $1 billion in reserve, and they haven’t had to raise taxes yet. Further, they were able to get to that point from a state of near-bankruptcy 5 years ago by cutting per-capita spending by a 1.4% annual rate.

Gov. Daniels also has a warning for those who, like Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) and the Democrat-run Legislature, treated Porkulus like a lifeline:

Unlike the federal government, states cannot deny reality by borrowing without limit. The Obama administration’s “stimulus” package in effect shared the use of Uncle Sam’s printing press for two years. But after that money runs out, the states will be back where they were.

I do quibble with the notion that the federal government can deny reality by borrowing without limit. We are already at the point where there is little appetite for the existing near-100%-of-GDP federal debt. If the refinancing of said debt, to say nothing about the well-above-economic-growth $1 trillion-plus per year additions to said debt that extend as far as the eye can see, can’t be absorbed by the bond market, then we will be talking about hyper-inflation. Unlike most of the recent examples of countries that have experienced debt-caused hyperinflation (which were bailed out by the US), there is nobody left to bail us out.

September 3, 2009

Speaking of rationing – the Mandatory Schaivo edition

by @ 15:40. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

(H/T – Ed Morrissey)

It is almost as if our friends across the Atlantic are warning us of what is in store if we follow them into socialized medicine. The Daily Telegraph ran a story of how (Not-So-)Great Britain’s health-care “scrutiny” body, the inappropriately-named National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has adopted a particularily cruel end-of-life program called the Liverpool Care Pathway. I’ll let The Telegraph explain what this “last hours treatment”, now in place in nearly 1,000 British health-care facilities at the insistence of NICE, is:

Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.

They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication….

When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.

If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.

Unlike the Terri Schiavo situation, where there were conflicting interpretations of the level of care she wanted, what is missing is any decision by either the patient or a patient’s family. Considering the average person spends roughly a third of his or her life asleep, I guess one should not fall asleep in a British hospital with a sore throat.

Seriously, the story goes on to report on a letter signed by several leading British palliative-care experts calling the LCP a “national crisis”. Quoting The Telegraph’s reporting on the letter:

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,” they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients.”

Dr. Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer center in Guildford, told The Telegraph that he personally took patients off that pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time because he did what many doctors don’t – keep monitoring the patient for signs of improvement. Those signs of improvement are harder to spot when a patient is under constant sedatement according to Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London.

Another problem with sedation while dehydrating is that a patient can enter a state of semi-consciousness and confusion. I wonder how many of the 16.5% of those who died in Britain in 2007 and 2008 during a state of continuous deep sedation, twice the rate in the Netherlands, which has a policy of physician-assisted suicide, suffered that state.

Of course, not all of those in Not-So-Great Britain are doomed to such a fate. Just ask Abdel Baset ali Megrahi, who got a get-out-of-Britain-free card after serving less than 12 days per person he and his Libyan associates murdered in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Of course, he wasn’t a loyal subject of the British crown; he was a mass-murdering thug.

But of Course, There Will be Rationing

by @ 5:54. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

Every time attempt at a government run or mandated health plan has resulted in some form of rationing.  There is no exception to this rule.  The reason for this is quite simple.  Once people get something that appears to have no cost to it they will demand more and more of it.  As folks demand more and more it costs more and more to provide the service.  At some point, even the most arrogant printers of money will realize that there has to be some cap on the total costs.

Canada, England, Cuba and Massachusetts all have rationing occurring in their plans.  Rationing can take all kinds of forms; from the most blatant and obvious forms of outright denying the particular service to the less obvious like someone not answering a phone to accept an appointment. 

Since the rationing issue has been raised, those who support Obamacare have been besides themselves telling us that there will be no rationing in this plan.  As evidence, they often point to Medicare and Medicaid as shining utopian examples of everyone gettng all the health care they need without a hint of rationing.

An article from Tuesday’s USAtodayshows just how Medicaid is implementing rationing.  As a result of budget constraints the State of Louisiana has cut payments made to service providers of Medicaid by 10%.  The result?  68% of surveyed physicians will begin rationing of services to Medicaid patients.  Oh, they won’t refuse to perform a procedure that a patient needs, they’ll just quit accepting new patients, stop accepting referrals or for nearly 16%, quit seeing medicaid patients altogether. 

In a separate but related article, Bloomberg reportsthat the Obama administration’s plan to take $1.4 billion in payments from physicians who provide Medicare patients heart or cancer treatment and shift it to family practice physicians will likely result in fewer cardio and cancer physicians.

Folks, you can call it anything you want; cost shifting, benefit reduction or some other euphemism.  The fact remains that no matter what you call it, you will have to recognize it as rationing.

September 2, 2009

Is it 3.5 million jobs saved/created or 3.487 million private-sector jobs lost?

by @ 10:55. Filed under Economy.

(H/T – JammieWearingFool)

I’m sure the LeftStreamMedia will find a way to spin this little burb from CNBC saying that the economy shed 298,000 private-sector jobs in August, far greater than the 250,000 predicted. The real bad news from ADP’s historical data – there are 3,487,000 fewer private-sector jobs than there were at the end of January.

Which step in destroying private enterprise is this?

by @ 10:20. Filed under Economy, Miscellaneous, Politics - National, Taxes.

(H/T – Stephen Green)

The Hill reports that the AFL-CIO has extracted their price of making the Democratic Party a partially-owned subsidiary of them and is calling for a 0.1% tax on all stock transactions. That’s right; buy a stock, pay a tax. Sell a stock, even at a loss, pay a tax.

The stated reason, according to AFL-CIO policy director Thea Lee – “It would have two benefits, raise a lot of revenue and discourage speculative financial activity.” News flash #1 for Ms. Lee – it was “speculative financial activity” that got the various AFL-CIO pension funds to where they are. News flash #2 for Ms. Lee – that churn produced by “speculative financial activity” creates a lot of cash that is spent at the production end of the economic circle.

Stephen notes that we pay some of the highest taxes on winning stock plays on the planet. For those that held the sold stock less than a year, that profit is taxed at up to 35% (and soon to be 39.6% somewhere over 40%). Tax the losing plays as well, and almost nobody will want to invest in the stock market. Fewer people in the market equals lower stock prices, which equals lower pensions and less money available for expansion.

Trouble with a Capital “T” That Rhymes With “P” That Stands for Poll

by @ 5:39. Filed under Politics - National.

No wonder the Democrats are sounding desperate and attempting to channel Ted Kennedy. On the same day, President Obama hits a new high in disapproval according to Rasmussen’s polling and the Democrats are at the lowest level in years on the generic ballot.

Obviously, it’s way too early to make much out of this; there is no election to be held tomorrow.  However, it’s helpful to note that a year ago the situation was exactly reversed and we all know what happened last November.

If you think my post title is referring to trouble for the Democrats, it’s not.  Also noted in Rasmussen today was a poll as to what Republicans think of their Congressional representation.  55% of Republican voters believe their representative in Congress is NOT conservative enough.

I will keep sounding the alarm through next year’s elections. Don’t think that just because Democrats are in trouble that voters will just chose a “R” on the ballot. The American electorate has woken up and are looking to hold their representatives at the state and federal level accountable. If you are and “R” on the 2010 ballot you had better be in tune with your electorate. Don’t assume, know what your potential constituents believe and what they expect from you. If you can’t abide by those expectations, let someone run who can!

September 1, 2009

Housekeeping

by @ 22:02. Filed under The Blog.

Just been too busy:

– I wanted to get the audio of Paul Ryan’s Greendale townhall up, but given its massive size (82 MB and just under 1 hour of audio) and weak sound quality (which will take time to clean up), I couldn’t get that done just now.

– Meanwhile, I’ve been working with Patrick to get BadgerBlogger back online. We got it down to a site host issue, and Patrick’s host got that resolved.

– Via Hot Air Headlines, we have the idiot of the day – Robert Reich, who called for higher deficits in The Guardian. His inanity deserves a full fisking, which I won’t be able to get done tonight.

– The polls are continuing to slide on Obama. In today’s Rasmussen Presidential Daily Tracking Poll, 45% of those surveyed approved at least somewhat of Obama’s job performance (the lowest yet), while 41% strongly disapproved and 53% disapproved at least somewhat of his performance. Shoebox will have more up in the morning.

I Thought “Terrorist” was Verboten

by @ 9:01. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

Earlier this year the Obama administration eliminated several words and phrases from the English language.  “War on terror,” “enemy combatants” and finally the word “terrorism” itself was eliminated from the Obama lexicon.  According to Janet Napolitano this is the officially approved, new language:

“I did not use the word ‘terrorism,’ I referred to ‘man-caused’ disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”

Well, I guess we can all understand how emotionally charged the word “terrorism” is.  We can understand that using it does nothing but inflame a situation that might otherwise be solved by clear thinking adults. 

From BarackObama.com as part of an organizing call to flood Congressional offices with calls supporting health care reform on 9/11:

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

So now, according to President Obama’s own website, those of us (the majority of Americans) who oppose the government’s further involvement with our heath care are terrorists. 

You’re not a terrorist if you rape, brutalize and kill innocent children, but if you disagree with the President….watch out!

Another Day, Another Meme

by @ 5:05. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

As I’ve been listening to various talk radio programs I’ve heard the following new meme proffered by Obamacare supporters, at least four times in the past 48 hours:

We have to pass a government option!  2/3rds of the bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills!

The basis for this argument is found in this recent study in the American Journal of Medicine.  A snippet of the conclusion of the study is as follows:

Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income.

At first look you’d have to say “Wow!”  Can nearly 2/3rds of bankruptcies be caused by the results of medical costs?  The answer, after you look at the study and some other information is “No.”

Brett J. Skinner did a great job of deconstructing the noted study.  His article, here, noted several items that left the study’s conclusions suspect.

First, Skinner makes the logical comparison with Canada.  With the bankruptcy law very similar in the two countries, and Canada having a government provided health care system, if the studies conclusions are correct, we should expect to see significantly lower bankruptcy rates in Canada.  We don’t.  In both 2006 and 2007 Canada had a higher bankruptcy rate per population than we had in the US.

Secondly, Skinner looked at other studies done on the topic.  One of those analysis was done by the Department of Justice:

finding that medical debts accounted for only 12 percent to 13 percent of the total debts among American bankruptcy filers who cited medical debt as one of their reasons for bankruptcy.

So now your question ought to be, “Is it possible to reconcile the study with the data Skinner found or is the study a fraud?”  Thanks for asking, I think I can reconcile the two.

Going back to the original study we find Table 1 shows that the mean negative net worth (the excess of debt over assets) is not materially different between those who claimed to file bankruptcy due to medical reasons (-$44,622) and those who filed for other reasons (-$37,650).  On page 4 we see that the average, total, not just the unpaid portion of out of pocket medical costs for those that filed bankruptcy for medically bankrupted families was $17,943.  If we assume that the entire amount of out of pocket costs were left unpaid and counted in the negative net worth (it wouldn’t be but let’s use it for a moment), that would still leave a negative net worth of approximately $27,000. 

A negative net worth of $27,000 would typically not be from a home mortgage as most of those would not be allowed to borrow more than the equity.  Also, remember that the study was done in 2007 before the current melt down and reduction in home values.  A negative net worth could be partially incurred from a vehicle as most new vehicles are upside down in equity for the first year or two of ownership.  However, with the average mean income reported as only $30,000, one wouldn’t expect a whole lot of really expensive new vehicles included in the negative net worth of this sample.  A negative net worth of $27,000 likely comes from one place, credit cards or uncollateralized loans.

While the study didn’t break it out this way, it appears to me that the average person who claims they filed for bankruptcy because of medical reasons also had significant credit card debt.  I suspect, but can’t prove it with what is in the study, that the individuals who filed for medical bankruptcy didn’t file only because of the medical costs.  Likely, the medical costs were the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”  And, while medical was the straw for these people  in this instance, the straw could have been any of a number of other things i.e. a major car repair, a major home repair or any number of other unexpected items. 

It appears to me that rather than any one specific issue, like most other bankruptcies, the folks that this study looks at had a series of issues with the last one in line, for them, medical expenses, being more than they could recover from.  In their case, medical costs were just one of the issues that led them to bankruptcy.  To say medical expenses were the reason that these folks filed for bankruptcy is about as accurate as saying that the Titanic sank because it was holding too much water.

August 31, 2009

Progressive or Deceptive?

by @ 5:02. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Beck has been running show after show shining light on the roaches that President Obama has brought to the White house with him.  As a result of this activity and a statement that Beck made on another Fox show saying that President Obama “was a racist,” an ultra left group has attempted to organize a boycott of advertisers of Beck’s show. 

As a counter, there have been numerous sites that have published information about advertisers who have left Beck’s show.  The idea was to counter boycott the advertisers that had removed their advertising from Beck.

I wrote to several of the advertisers telling them of my disappointment with their bowing to an obvious minority that did not believe in free speech.  I suggested that they may want to reconsider their ad buys as there were clearly more folks watching the show than those involved in any boycott.

I got responses from all of the companies.  Nearly all of them were the generic “thank you for your letter.”  From there, most of the letters said that they hadn’t pulled any advertising from Beck’s show.  I know there’s been some confusion about who has or hasn’t actually pulled anything from Beck’s show so it’s hard to say who’s telling the truth and who’s not. 

I got one response however, that I thought was pretty novel.  Here is the response I got from Progressive Insurance:

Dear Mr. Shoebox:

Recent media reports have created the incorrect impression that Progressive pulled advertising in response to specific comments made on The Glenn Beck Show, but that is not the case. The fact is that we did not intentionally place any of our advertising on the show, so when we learned that our ad had aired, we corrected the error.

Our goal is to reach a broad range of drivers to make them aware of our products and services. We value feedback on our advertising strategy, but because auto insurance is a very competitive business, we don’t discuss everything that goes into our ad placement decisions. We’d like to thank you for taking the time to express your opinion.

(emphasis mine)

So Progressive, let me see if I got this right.  You didn’t specifically ask to have your ad run on Beck.  But, when you made your purchase of a “run of network” which gives Fox the ability to decide when to run your ads and which gives you a cheaper price per ad while still getting the higher priced shows i.e. Beck’s, you were perfectly happy allowing Fox to put your ad on Beck’s show.  However, once you found out about the controversy you immediately said “don’t run our ad on Beck!” 

Interesting.  Progressive claims they didn’t “cancel” advertising with Beck, they merely “corrected a mistake.”

I always thought it was just the political “progressives” who were unable to deal with truth and facts.  Apparently, truth is hard to come by even if your name is Progressive!

August 30, 2009

Did he say 2 million jobs created/saved or 2 million jobs lost?

by @ 22:10. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

King Banian, my favorite economics professor from St. Cloud State University, ran with the latest Office of Management and Budget projections for 2010 employment, which includes a 2010 fourth-quarter unemployment rate of 9.7%, and put together a quick-and-dirty spreadsheet (Excel 2007; those of you with Excel 2003 will either need a conversion tool from Microsoft to open or will want my Excel 2003 copy) to gauge what the projections actually mean. For those of you who can’t open Excel files, here’s a screencap of the spreadsheet:

Not only do the employment rolls drop by 1.96 million between the 4th quarter of 2008 and the 4th quarter of 2010, but the unemployment rolls increase by 4.59 million over the same 2 years. This is If you want percentage terms, employment rolls would drop 1.36%, while unemployment rolls would go up 42.96%.

That does assume that the Labor Force Participation Rate would bounce back to 66.0% from the current 65.8% and the 2009 first quarter 65.6%, which means those retiring, those without work for so long that they no longer count as “unemployed”, and others who are not part of the labor force would not increase as rapidly as the rest of the population. If the LFPR were not to bounce back as much, the employment roll drop would be even larger.

The Natives are VERY Restless!

by @ 8:17. Filed under Politics - National.

57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress

From Rasmussen Reports

If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators.

It appears that the American voter has tired of those in government who would be their masters.

If you’re concerned about the paragraph that says the number hasn’t changed since last year, read a little further and find:

Today, 70% of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62% last year.

That’s not  a good sign for the party in power.

While I’m encouraged by this poll I take it with a bit of suspicion.  Typically, what you find when you pull back the covers a bit, is that while a majority want to replace the whole Congress, they usually expect it to be the Congress except for their particular elected one.  In other words, “Mine’s fine.  It’s all you guys that have this screwed up!”  While I have that sentiment about mine, I’d be willing to toss him into the pile of chaff if everyone would agree to do the same.

August 28, 2009

Al You Ignorant Slut

by @ 9:43. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - Minnesota, Politics - National.

During one of his closed, invitation only, small group “town hall” meetings this week, Senator Al Franken made the following argument for why he insists a government option must be a part of any health care reform bill:

In case you missed it, Angry Al’s rationale is:

  1. Minnesota only allows non profits to be health insurance companies
  2. Minnesota has 90% of premiums paid go to health care
  3. All other states have only 70% to 80% of premiums go to health care
  4. Minnesota insurance is cheaper
  5. Therefore, non profit is cheaper.

While Al’s logic may follow from one point to the next, it exists in some fantasy land and not the real world.

Based on Al’s logic, if we looked at average insurance rates by state, we should expect to see Minnesota as one of, if not the cheapest state.  We would also expect to see most other states in the range of 10% to 20% higher than Minnesota.  We would expect to see state’s like Massachusetts where there is government run insurance, as the cheapest of them all.  Finally, we should expect to find that “profit” for insurance should amount to somewhere between 10% and 20% of premiums paid.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a research and advocacy group, has this study that looks at average insurance rates.  Flip down to page 9 where they compare family insurance rates by state.

In the study, rather than being one of the cheapest of states, we find Minnesota 17th most expensive, just barely out of the top third.  We also note that at $5,508, Minnesota is only5% cheaper than the national average.  Hmmm, that’s weird, shouldn’t they have been at least 10% and maybe higher?

As you look across the remainder of the study, where Al’s claims would have us expecting nearly all other plans to be 10% to 20% more expensive, we find only 11 states are at least 10% more expensive than Minnesota.  In contrast, we see that 15 states are at least 10% cheaper than Minnesota.

Al’s implied assertion that government run things are best because they run cheapest, also bites the dust.  Note that the highest cost state in Massachusetts.  Not only are they the highest cost, they are highest by a margin that would make the most dishonest loan shark blush.  Now, to be fair, this analysis was taken in the first year of Massachusetts state run plan, perhaps the rates have dramatically lessened…NOT!

Finally, another analysis done by AHIP shows where your (and my) premium dollar goes:

health dollar

Contrary to Al’s implied assertion, average profits amount to only 3% of the entire insurance premium. In fact, on average, the entire SG&A cost is 13%. Clearly, even a non profit or government plan would have administrative overhead to operate the plan so the argument that non profits are cheaper by 10% to 20% because they don’t have to make a profit is completely specious.

Earlier this week Al stated that a government option must be a part of any health reform bill:

“I’m favorable to the public option, a strong public option which will provide competition for private insurance companies.

Al’s attempting to look Senatorial by inserting “facts” to support a decision he has already made.  The problem with Al’s facts is that they are completely wrong.  Given Al’s history with SNL, the next time Al asserts that government plans are cheaper because they don’t have to make a profit, the appropriate response would be “Al, you ignorant slut!”

If You’re Not a Leftist You’re “Brain Dead”

by @ 5:31. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

On a conference call yesterday, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif, a key House liberal referred to Blue Dog Democrats who are bucking the government takeover of health care in this fashion:

“They’re for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they’re just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process.”

Isn’t that ironic?  I usually regard the Blue Dogs as the only part of the Democrat consortium that had any chance of having part of a functioning brain!  I would have guessed, based on all the polling and what not, that these folks might in fact, be doing the jobs they were elected to do.  You know, represent their constituents!

I guess by extension, if the Blue Dogs are “Brain Dead,” the constituents who agree with them would also be “Brain Dead” or worse.  The further extension is that according to Representative Stark, all of us who would rather keep the government out of our health care are also “Brain Dead.”

We’re “Brain Dead” and “Un American.”  Maybe it’s time to officially form the Zombie Reagan Nation!

Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too!

by @ 5:18. Filed under Energy, Global "Warming", Politics - National.

Do your remember all of those great arguments for support of the Waxman-Markey “let’s rush back to the 1500’s bill?”  We were going to save mother earth, we were going to increase jobs, we were going to be less dependent on foreign oil.

Not so much!

A new study done by Ensys Energy finds that rather than import less oil, if Waxman-Markey is passed, we will actually import MORE oil.  In fact, the study shows that by 2030 we would likely need to DOUBLE the amount of imported oil!

How can that be?  Simple.

If we start taxing production and processing of fossil fuels, less investment will be made into production and processing of fossil fuels.  If less investment is made, less outcome will result.  All of this is pretty much in line with the designs of the Waxman-Markey bill.  The problems comes in that there is no magical product available that can replace fossil fuels in the vast majority of it’s uses.  Thus, we dramatically reduce supply but have little reduction in demand.  Unless we actually do chose to go back to the 1500’s, we’ll need to replace the production that is no longer happening in the US.  According to the study, the shift in production looks like this:

U.S. refining throughput, a measure of productivity, could plummet by as much as 25% (4.4 million barrels per day) and investment in U.S. refining could fall by as much as $90 billion, a decline of 88 percent, by 2030, the EnSys study forecast.

Well, I guess that shoots one of the reasons for the Waxman-Markey bill.  Would you like a quick second?

According to the same study, because no magical new power source will be available, the effect of the Waxman-Markey bill will not reduce carbon emissions.  All Waxman-Markey will do is shift the carbon emissions from the US to other countries around the world.  In other words, only the NIMBY people will get anything out of Waxman-Markey.  Yeah, they’ll get something right up to the point that the US economy is hammered because we have a dramatically increasing negative trade balance because we have to import twice as much energy as we used to!  Oh, and we’ll lose a bunch of jobs too!

 

It’s Not About Me?

by @ 5:06. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

If you didn’t pick up on it during his candidacy, there are two things we now know about President Obama.  First, he is a committed leftist; no government involvement or control is too much in his view.  Second, his ego is second in size only to the deficit that his leftist policies are creating.

Within hours of his death, Democrat leadership began attempting to breath new life to the health care bill by attaching Ted Kennedy’s name to it.

“In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American,”

was the lament from Senator Robert Byrd.  And:

“Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,”

From Speaker Pelosi.

Even with the new, paid for supportive astroturf that the Democrats have been able to get into their townhalls, the public remains fully against the implementation of a government run health care program.  Rasmussen reports that while “support for the health plan has quit falling,” it is still opposed by a majority of voters.  Additionally, by greater than a 2:1 margin, “voters believe the proposed reforms would make the quality of care worse rather than better.”  It seems like a long uphill slog for passage of the bill, at least in its current form.

Ted Kennedy’s public funeral will be held Saturday morning.  We’ve learned that President Obama will deliver the eulogy.  I have one question.

With Cap and Trade likely dead for the year and his other major push health care, on the ropes, will President Obama be able to control his personal ego long enough to deliver an eulogy that actually has Ted Kennedy as the focus or will he succumb and use the event of the funeral to fan his own ego and push the health care reform bill?

Remember, never let a crisis or a highly personal and emotional event, go to waste!

August 27, 2009

Shameless promotion for a friend – Leslie Carbone’s “Slaying Slaying Leviathan”

by @ 16:22. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Leslie Carbone, who served as director of Family Tax Policy at the Family Research Council and as a speechwriter for Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, has just published “Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform”. If you’ve read her blog, you already know she is a very knowledgeable and talented writer.

Now, go and buy the book. My copy should be arriving in a few days, so if there’s light-to-nonexistent blogging and Tweeting, you’ll know what I’m reading.

Slight change in the Paul Ryan Monday listening sessions

by @ 12:30. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

If I had checked my e-mail this morning, I would have found this press release relating to the moves of all the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI, and my Congressman) Monday listening sessions earlier (and would have caught the error in the original press release for the Greendale one earlier as well – it is correct in the current schedule on Ryan’s House site):

Larger Venues Set For Paul Ryan’s Upcoming Listening Sessions

New locations for Racine, Big Bend, New Berlin and Greendale stops

All three of Congressman Paul Ryan’s Listening Sessions on Monday, August 31 have been moved to larger venues to accommodate First District residents seeking to participate in the health care debate. At the eleven listening sessions held in the previous three days, most venues have been at or above capacity, with record attendance at each stop.

The dates and times for all upcoming stops remain as previously scheduled. See below for an updated schedule – with new locations – of Congressman Paul Ryan’s Listening Sessions today and Monday:

Thursday, August 27

Rochester – 9:45-10:30 am
Municipal Hall, 203 West Main Street

Sturtevant – 11:15 am-12:15 pm
Village Hall, 2801 89th Street

Racine – 1:30-2:30 pm
Roma Lodge, 7130 Spring Street
NOTE: venue change to accommodate anticipated larger crowds (note; this was previously noted on my original post.)

Monday, August 31

Big Bend – 12:45-1:45 pm
Big Bend Elementary School, Gymnasium
W230S8695 Big Bend Drive
NOTE: venue change to accommodate anticipated larger crowds

New Berlin (Greenfield) – 2:00-3:00 pm
Whitnall High School, Auditorium
5000 S 116th Street
NOTE: The New Berlin stop has been moved to the Greenfield community to accommodate anticipated larger crowds

Greendale – 3:30-4:30 pm
Greendale High School, Auditorium
6801 Southway
NOTE: venue change to accommodate anticipated larger crowds

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