I don't know where HCR is ultimately going to end up, but it's useful to consider why a basically simply problem is being addressed with an incredibly complicated solution. It's because (and maybe I've forgotten a few):
1) Everyone should keep their existing coverage.
2) Health insurance and Pharma profits are preserved
3) A mostly arbitrary total price tag, and deficit neutrality
4) An individual mandate which requires people to enroll themselves in a program instead of just having the gov. send them an insurance card and a bill and/or tax
5) The obsession with complicated means-testing formulas for any subsidies.
It really doesn't have to be so complicated.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
People Like Empty Parks
This provides some justification for my mildly anti-urban-park bent. Often when people support parks what they're supporting is an empty lot with some grass and trees which isn't really meant to be used be humans. There's nothing necessarily wrong with adding a bit of pastoral into an urban setting, but it often isn't really the best use of land either. I'm all for playgrounds, performance spaces, playing fields for sports, places with lots of benches and tables, etc... but tend to be less than supportive of prettified empty lots.
As for the other patterns of preferences at the link, I think they suggest that people don't have a good understanding of tradeoffs that must be made in order to achieve desirable walkability.
As for the other patterns of preferences at the link, I think they suggest that people don't have a good understanding of tradeoffs that must be made in order to achieve desirable walkability.
Screwed Up Incentives
For whatever reason, banks aren't doing very well with foreclosure sales. It could be because they're just the servicer and don't have any big interest in recovering the debt, or it could be they're just overwhelmed and don't have enough appropriately trained employees to handle it. In any case, what we see is a great willingness to lose lots of money in foreclosure sales but not a similar willingness to lose that money by lowering principal amounts so that people might have a chance to stay in their homes (recognizing, of course, that plenty of foreclosures are on investment properties).
Pissing Off Liberals
I agree that pissing off liberals is the main point of global warming denialism, combined with a general need for liberals to be wrong about anything. Still, one thing I've never quite understood is to the extent that they actually believe or claim to believe that it's all some liberal conspiracy, just what is it do they think we have to gain from it? What's the point of our little conspiracy?
Professional Backscratching
Yes, liberal economists should stop backing conservatives just because they think they're smart.
Meanwhile
I don't even know which war is the other war anymore.
They're still sucking on it, Little Tommy Friedman!!
BAGHDAD — A series of devastating car bombings rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 121 people and wounding hundreds more, according to preliminary accounts by witnesses, the police and hospital officials.
They're still sucking on it, Little Tommy Friedman!!
Monday, December 07, 2009
Or We Could Improve Our Water Systems?
I get really annoyed when people suggest it's oh so hard to come up with quick infrastructure projects. It isn't.
More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
How About Some Supertrains?
Or at least repairing some of those supertrain bridges?
Washington (CNN) – President Obama will propose using $200 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to support creating jobs, White House officials confirmed Monda
The president, in an economic speech before the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, will argue that the money would be well spent by funding projects to build bridges and roads, weatherize homes, and provide other assistance for small businesses as well as the unemployed.
Negotiating
Since all the dirty hippies decided that the public option was what mattered, it was probably inevitable that it would go (I don't know this, I'm hopefully mostly kidding). Pissing off the hippies is what "moderates" do, and as most of them don't have a clue about policy anyway, if the hippies are for it then they know it must be bad.
Along those lines, dirty fucking hippies like digby shouldn't they think lowering the Medicare age is a good idea, because if so it won't happen.
Next time there's a major piece of legislation, I hope "The Left" can organize around supporting all the stuff they actually don't like and rejecting all the stuff that they actually do. We might just trick the "moderates" that way.
...adding, in practice I think any "compromise" which will make liberals sort of happy will just be a shiny object which will be pulled away at the last second.
Along those lines, dirty fucking hippies like digby shouldn't they think lowering the Medicare age is a good idea, because if so it won't happen.
Next time there's a major piece of legislation, I hope "The Left" can organize around supporting all the stuff they actually don't like and rejecting all the stuff that they actually do. We might just trick the "moderates" that way.
...adding, in practice I think any "compromise" which will make liberals sort of happy will just be a shiny object which will be pulled away at the last second.
Pool Boy Journlism
I do not know why elite journalism wants to elevate and showcase its worst elements.
At Least We Covered The Bonuses
I find it weird that some see these losses as somehow "small."
That's about what the annual federal food stamp program costs, though expenditure per food stamp recipient is a bit less than it is for the banksters.
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42 billion of the $370 billion it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report.
That's about what the annual federal food stamp program costs, though expenditure per food stamp recipient is a bit less than it is for the banksters.
EPA
A tax or a well administered cap and trade program would be superior (and more favored by business) to EPA regulation, which is presumably why the EPA is now going to threaten to regulate the hell out of carbon emissions.
The Obama administration will formally declare Monday that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public's health and welfare, a move that lays the groundwork for an economy-wide carbon cap even if Congress fails to enact climate legislation, sources familiar with the process said.
"What Is Left Of True America"
I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I really detest people claiming a particular pile of rubble is somehow The Genuine Slice Of Americana That The Rest Of Us Do Not Have Access to.
Forks is purer than that. Forks has its own natural enchantments. Forks is what is left of true America. It is America without Starbucks, America without Disney and without superficiality.
Forks is all that is right with America set in beautiful landscapes of rock, tree and moss. And that is why Forks should be visited.
So Quit
The whole firm should be put on government pay scales.
Five senior executives at American International Group told the bailed-out insurer last week they may quit if their compensation was cut significantly by the U.S. pay czar, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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