Health Care in Canada

Stronach went to U.S. for cancer treatment: report

Stronach is a Canadian MP.

This is of course a tragedy, but proves the point that if you want good health care, you have to come to the United States. Why? Because where there is profit involved, there is a need to compete to be the best. In countries with socialized medicine like Canada and Britain, the lack of profit and motivation on the part of health care providers means consistent and slow mediocrity. You need only talk to someone who lives in such a system to realize how utterly horrendous socialized medicine is for those who have to use it.

Actually, from what I have been reading, the best places in the world right now to get good, affordable medical care are in southeast Asia and parts of Latin America. This is because it is still the "Wild West" there in terms of government interference in health care. Regulations are few so doctors can charge less and still do well. In the western world, your doctor bill is almost more a reflection of HIPAA, malpractice insurance, and other regulations than it is of the actual medical care.

Pennsylvania and its immediate needs

Reform Government
* Eliminate Pension for government
* Eliminate Health Insurance for government
* Eliminate Corruption
* Reduce size of legislature and government in general.
* Appointment of Appellate Court Judges
* Real Open Records Law
* Open government
* Eliminate PHEAA
* More open Lobbying Law

Apply Capitalism
* Eliminate PHEAA
* Lease the Turnpike (use money to fix bridges)
* School Choice
* Eliminate Government subsidies for everything (PNC, Professional Sports, Comcast, etc.)
* Eliminate PA Gaming Commission
* Sell the State Stores
* Repeal and statewide smoking ban in privately owned businesses

Cospicuous Consumption or Capital Investment?

Dubai Tower Now World's Tallest Building


Eventually the oil will run out in the Middle East. Not any time real soon, of course, but almost certainly in the next 50 years. It will likely start declining in the next 30 years, maybe sooner, but as someone who has heard and read such predictions of a sudden shortage occurring in 10 years for roughly the last 30 years, I don't want to make to rash a prediction.

Here is the question though regarding the recent construction of the world's tallest building. There is something called "Dutch Disease" by economists, somewhat unfairly against the Dutch, but it applies primarily to countries that have large natural resource reserves. What appears to happen in these countries is that because so much wealth initially flows from natural resources, the economy develops around exportation of those resources at the expense of manufacturing or other productive industries. The resulting economy is therefore built on a foundation that will ultimately one day collapse through the disappearance of a limited resource.

The problem can witness right now in countries like Iran where, ironically, gasoline is relatively expensive, because so much of the refining of their oil is actually done outside of the country. Other oil wealthy countries seem to suffer the same problem of a lack of other industries because everything is focused on the oil. A roughly similar problem happened historically with Spain. It was noticed that Spain was a wealthy country that was buying up and importing from other countries in Europe and the world beyond, but that this was based primarily on the wealth being taken from Latin America, primarily in the form of gold and silver. Because of this Spain's economy moved to one dependent solely on that supply of money (which was not even produced from other capital such as farming or manufacturing). When the supply of money eventually ran out, Spain's economy collapsed because their natural resource in the form of gold and silver dried up.

The question with Dubai is this: is this building (and the other development in Dubai) really adding to the assets and capital of the country or is just conspicuous consumption. The question is who is going to be occupying those offices and apartments. If they are all solely connected to the oil wealth, than this will be an empty shell in about 50 years. If, on the other hand, Dubai hopes to become a Honk Kong or Singapore (which it can undoubtedly do with the leverage it has now) then we may see a wealthy Arab country looking toward its future.

The problem now with most if not all of these wealthy Arab countries is that they use their money to buy consumer goods and luxury housing for themselves. They do not actually produce anything but oil. This has made the owners of the oil and those closely connected to the owners wealthy, but it has resulted in a country where cheap labor has to be imported from other countries and where there are very few modern jobs in other sectors of the economy.

I realize I don't have any facts to back this up, but when is the last time you saw or heard of anything for sale manufactured in Saudi Arabia? Why are there no major stock exchanges or financial international companies in the Arab World? We all know about Arab sheiks who own luxury real estate in this country and who gamble in Monte Carlo and Vegas, but even what they own eventually will depreciate. Even real estate can become a drain on finances if it is a white elephant not generating any rental income.

I have referred to this type of conspicuous consumption in the oil-rich states as "Elvis Syndrome" because they, like Elvis, suffered from the problem of getting too much wealth too quickly with relatively little effort. Those who don't work hard enough for their money tend to spend it on extravagances that border on the tasteless and gaudy. Gold-plated everything, diamond studded dog collars, etc. Things that scream, look at me, I'm rich! The problem is that most of these items are almost worthless as soon as they are created because they could never be resold at for the same value at which they were purchased.

The question is whether building the world's tallest building is just the cherry on top of a serious investment in Dubai's future or a multi-stories Graceland without the musical heritage.

Three or Four Easy Pieces instead of an Uneasy Peace

The Partitioning of Iraq

Jim Pinkerton: Iraq War storyline has three parts

So the story is not necessarily that the Surge is working, but a de facto partitioning of Iraq has been steadily taking place and that as a result of this loosening of central authority, some of the strife between insurgents (especially the Sunnis) and the central government has disappeared. A Shi'ite civil war of sorts appears to be taking place in southern Iraq, but no one really cares.

In short, partitioning is happening whether anyone wants it or not. I believe this was the best solution to begin with and think that Pinkerton and Krauthammer do not understand why this is a much better outcome than any hope for a strong central AND democratic government. Iraq is simply not ready for that and likely never will be since it is not a nation-state and can only become a nation-state through direct coercion - the antithesis of democracy.

Hoping for democracy and a strong central government in Iraq is sort of like making a college graduate a jet pilot without any training. He might have all of the intelligence in the world, but nothing short of real training and real experience will make him capable of handling a complex and powerful machine correctly. Iraq needs to go through the same process that every other thriving democracy on the planet has undergone in order to evolve to representative government controlled by a written constitution. This has always been a multi-generational process, so don't hope for any magic in this area any time soon.

Avoiding Accountability

Retreat of the anti-war Democrats

Another good one from Pat Buchanan who, like me, was opposed to the invasion of Iraq in the first place. He is once again highlighting the hypocrisy of the democrats on this issue, who have spent much of the past several years criticizing being "misled" into voting for the war and then criticizing the way Bush has handled the war.

Now that they are in power in Congress they continue to prove that they are truly the party without ideas. This is because their basis for any vote continues to come from whatever they think will keep them in office. They voted for the war not because Bush "lied" to them (they had the same information available from which to draw their own conclusions), but because they were afraid that if the war succeeded they wouldn't be able to take credit or that their lack of support might be used to portray them negatively. So much for having principles.

Now that the democrats finally have power and have the ability to end the war or put more pressure to bring the troops back, they are still stuck with the idea of criticizing being their #1 aim and goal. Being a critic is easy because you can never fail. If they actually made decisions based on what they believe (or what they said they believed last year) then they could change current U.S. policy on the issue. Instead, they have decided that it is much safer to criticize and pretend they have no control over the situation rather than carry out their promises and risk the consequences.

They even attempted to undermine General Petraeus' credibility before his report was released this week in order to keep up the criticism without actually offering any ideas. The point isn't whether things are going good or bad to them, the point is that no matter what happens Bush's policies are wrong. One day, they may come up with their own. In the meantime they will sit back and claim that all of the wasted lives and money are Bush's fault entirely and that they are merely reluctant passengers along for the ride. It would be interesting if we could one of the dems on the spot and have them elaborate a detailed strategy, implement it, and see what happens. That is, of course, impossible, but an interesting thought.

High Speed Rail

Gas Costs Spark High-Speed Rail Interest

Amtrak booming amid bust

I'll probably have more on the specifics of these articles later - although the topic will undoubtedly come up again.

I am a big fan of high speed rail and have ridden on it in Europe and Japan. It is expensive, but much cheaper than the airlines. I'm not sure how much of a subsidy it gets from the various governments, but a guess is that both the airline and rail get a rough equivalent in subsidies which is why they are both pricey but not astronomical. In the U.S., we subsidize the roads and the air traffic control system (and bailout the airlines periodically), but the rail lines, without a subsidy, that compete with heavily subsidized forms of transportation, lose money, and so are accused of being inefficient, a relic of the past, a waste, etc.

The stats are already out there regarding how little public rail gets compared to our roads and air traffic control system, so I won't go into that here.

My thinking though is not to worsen the problem of government subsidies by giving even more taxpayer money away - this time to the railroads, but that the subsidies for the other forms of transportation should be taken away. Let the airlines pay for the air traffic control system or add it to the price of the airline ticket. Toll the interstates and make them independent commissions so that the money goes solely to funding the care and maintenance of the road instead of just another source of revenue for government to waste. I'm sure that will keep the tolls sufficiently low enough to not burden interstate commerce while lifting that expense out of the federal budget. If not, then the amount of money to support the highways must be for out of proportion for the benefit they bring.

If all of these forms of transportation were allowed to compete fairly - without government subsidies, we would see a huge turn-around in the use and profitability of passenger rail. It could likely be turned over to a private company and a private company would probably bring high speed rail to the country a lot faster and on better terms than any central planning from the government.

That said, I think the government may have a role to play in passenger rail in two major areas. The first is deregulation so that trains can travel faster in residential areas. The second is in straightening out the right of ways. I don't like the idea of government seizing private land for someone else's gain, but this would be a public need. Even then, although I'm not fond of the idea of government seizing property except for emergencies, I think the government could at least help in obtaining the rights for the right of way to avoid litigation that might be undertaken solely for the purpose of driving up costs, rather than giving people a strictly fair sum for their house. The devil will be in the details of that undertaking however.

So, in short, stop subsidizing everything with our tax dollars, give them back to us, and we will use them to determine what forms of transportation we want to take. Right now we all have to drive in cars or take planes because that still makes the most economic sense since we are already keeping those prices low with our tax dollars. Let the trains compete on equal terms and I'm sure we will see high-speed passenger rail in 10 years. At the going rate, we will either have no change or have some massive tax increase to cover a government controlled fiasco/boondoggle that will promise high-speed rail and deliver an Edsel.

And if we follow this plan and passenger rail still fails, we should let private companies take over Amtrak. They will immediately increase the amount of freight on those lines and be able to deliver freight at a much cheaper costs that trucking. This will take more trucks off the roads and decrease the amount we have to spend on maintenance of the roads.

The Cult of Global Warming

Have you ever noticed how Al Gore and the cult of Global Warming resemble a lot of other cults from our recent past. Remember the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh? He encouraged all of his followers to give up their belongings in order to achieve peace and enlightenment. He then used their belongings to purchase and travel around in several Rolls Royces.

So now we see Gore proclaiming the message of Global Warming encouraging all of us to achieve peace and happiness by abandoning our greedy and consumptive ways as he darts between his three giant houses in a Gulf Stream. It's hard for me not see the parallels.

Add to the is the overriding need for the members of the cult to threaten, belittle, and shout down anyone who dares to defy the orthodox opinion that everyone already agrees that Global Warming is definite and that it is definitely causes primarily by human activity and you have all the makings of a loyal cult following.

I still have to do a little more investigation of the matter, but I have read and seen that the so-called "Global Warming" statistics and facts all stop around the late 1990s, because the meteorological data shows a slight cooling trend.

By the way, what happened to the massive hurricane season were we supposed to have the last several years? Is the theory wrong? No. The great thing about the cult of Global Warming is that if any prediction about the weather is wrong, it is because Global Warming has so radically changed the environment that even predictions about the effects of Global Warming are no longer accurate! Pure sophistry. Unfortunately a cult based on a sophistry that has government funding and a brainwashed following can change the world.

The times is soon!

Senator Craig - part III

Ann Coulter

An good article from Ann Coulter describing in more depth the hypocrisy of the left on calling Senator Craig a hypocrite.

One of the more poignant quotes is Chris Matthews referring to Senator Craig as a "sexual deviant". Apparently being gay is a deviant sexual practice, but only if you're registered as a republican.

I'm still amazed that pleading guilty a misdemeanor - one step above a traffic ticket - is enough to be condemned for the rest of your life from ever showing your face in public again. The guy obviously has issues, but it is so amazing to watch republicans and democrats pile on to make the guy's life as horrible as possible.

If he were a democrat, we would be asked to leave his private life out of the public eye like we were asked to do with Clinton or some other such nonsense about showing tolerance. Sorry, Charlie, you in the wrong party to have anyone show you any respect or tolerance or to stay out of your private life. After all, you pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor!

In Defense of Beauty Queens

The now legendary response of Miss Teen South Carolina to the question about 1 in 5 not be able to locate the U.S. on a map has been discussed quite a lot in the past few weeks. Sure we can all slam her to feel good about ourselves. We can all engage in that monotonous pastime of trashing a stereotypical icon of Americana: in this case the gorgeous barbie-like beauty queen with the southern drawl. How post-modern! How predictable! How boring!

Let me now stand up in her defense. She was asked to give an instantaneous response to a non-pre-scripted question: something that politicians and other media types have attempted to eliminate precisely to avoid these types of problems. She wasn't given a question about solving a problem. She was essentially asked the question "Studies have shown that 1 in 5 people are complete morons" and asked to explain WHY that was without being told anything further about who took the study, who was surveyed, or anything else that might have helped her formulate a response. I will explain why this is an unfair question.

I have heard plenty of people say that a second grader could have given a better answer. The funny thing is though that I have yet to hear anyone who has criticized Miss South Carolina explain how THEY would answer the question. I can tell you how I would answer the question. The answer as to WHY is because those 1 in five individuals are (a) stupid; (b) senile; or (c) still infants. I am not however, in a beauty pageant where I am being judged on my poise, charm, and congeniality. She would have likely lost a ton of points if she had given the real answer to the question.

Herein lies the difficulty and probably why she started babbling rather than give a coherent response: the only legitimate answer is that every 1 in 5 people who were part of that survey are idiots. I have subsequently heard her carefully considered response that she has stated on morning television shows and it sounds wonderful and is also completely non-responsive to the question because there is no way to answer the question without asserting that people who cannot identify the U.S. on a map are idiots.

As an aside, I would bet you that 9 out of 10 Americans can't identify Madagascar on a map, but no one thinks that this is problem. Why not? Because finding something in the shape of a what a country looks like from outer-space on a small piece of paper is not practical in any way. The same applies to the U.S. Who cares if someone can't find it on a map. When would you need to identify the entire U.S. relative to other countries on an outline map in any useful context? There are none.

So the only argument that can be made is that even if this is not practical knowledge, people must really be asleep at the switch if they cannot locate the U.S. on a map. As someone who can identify about 90% of the world's countries with ease on an outline map of the world, I find it shocking that most people don't know what continent some countries are on, let alone how to identify anything more than Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. To me they are just as ignorant as the one in five since memorization of this type is easy if you have ever read a book or watch the TV news for more than a few days. But since none of this is really practical knowledge, we shouldn't be surprised no one really cares about finding other countries on a world map.

We really shouldn't care about finding the U.S. either. We can look down at our feet if we want to see it. Like the Stephen Wright joke goes, we all carry a scale map of the U.S. around with us wherever we go. Why do we need to identify it on a small piece of paper? We already know where we are.

Mercantilism Revisited

This is a follow-up to the questions I asked about mercantilist policies and the predictions of the Austrian School.

The rise in prediction of prices by the Austrian School appears to be correct, but because of the way most mercantilist policies operate, the inflation occurs in the value of assets (land and capital) rather than in regular commodities. This results from an artificial expansion of capital. Because the expansion of capital is usually geared toward industry rather than consumer spending, however, the inflation occurs more noticeably in specific areas rather than the economy as a whole.

The policies of loose credit eventually lead to speculation and overvaluing of assets which in turn eventually start to creep into inflation in the rest of the economy. This overvaluing of assets eventually leads to an unsustainable bubble when credit is closed off to prevent widespread inflation from occurring in the rest of the economy. This is what happened in post-Bubble Japan. This may also be what happened in post-Civil War U.S. (the Great Sag/Great Deflation - normally attributed to increased efficiency in production). This will likely happen in China as well where consumer prices are not increasing, but land and asset speculation may be out of control.

All of this cannot occur without a central bank, of course, to control the supply of money. We have seen this is the U.S. with the housing sector. Consumer prices remained steady while the price of housing increased dramatically. Then we started to feel inflationary pressure, so the central bank (the Fed) tightened credit. This led to deflation in the housing market. The question is whether nor not we will do like Japan and have the central bank pretend bad loans don't exist or if we will let those who speculated take their lumps.

If we do like Japan, as the Bush administration seems inclined, we will have a stagnant economy and deflation for the next ten years.

Mercantilism

I will have to find the article later, but China has been experiencing unprecedented growth with little inflation. There has been a recent spell of inflation over pork prices, but this seems to be an aberration result of disease and has nothing to do with general economic policies.

The argument made by the Austrian School is that mercantilism does not work. It is argued that such policies as keeping currency values low to stimulate exports and trade barriers to protect domestic markets will ultimately lead to inefficiency and inflation. I'm not entirely sure about this though and want to do more research. I do sympathize with the notion that lack of competition stifles innovation. But as far as the downside of protectionism goes, I don't think the argument is 100% accurate. For example, it could be argued that the Navigation Acts gave Britain their empire. It could also be argued that the American tariff system in the 19th century allowed the U.S. to develop its economy.

But going back to China, the Austrian School would reason that mercanitilist policy would create a glut of money in China that would result in an expansion of the money supply relative to the amount of goods available (which are themselves reduced by protectionist policies). It would seem to suggest that hyper-inflation would result almost instantaneously from mercantilist policies.

This is not the case however. With developing economies like China, such policies have not yielded any real inflation, only growth. In developed counties like Japan, the mercantilist policies have resulted in stagnation of the economy, not inflation. So in my mind, mercantlism works quite well for developing countries but causes problems once economies have developed beyond a certain point. The question though is why the prediction of inflation is not correct in place like Japan which are mercantilist and fully developed economies.

Perhaps I have been given incorrect assumptions about what the Austrian School says on such matters.

North Korea

U.S.: NKorea to Declare Nuclear Programs

Kim Gye Gwan, head of the North Korean delegation, said separately his country's willingness to cooperate was clear—in return for "political and economic compensation"—but he mentioned no dates.

My grandfather and first cousin both served in South Korea. I think that over fifty years of baby sitting should be coming to an end right about now. Instead of leaving this area to solve its own problems, this relic of a Cold War that we are no longer fighting, we are apparently now are on course to pay one country off for threatening to destroy its other half. What a great signal to send to the rest of the world.

We spend money and risk our own troops to defend South Korea. We pay North Korea off not to destroy South Korea. Many South Koreans show their gratitude for this by referring to us as occupiers and routinely protesting our presence. The vast majority of the troops in the South are South Korean forces anyway. They can take care of themselves and likely fend off any invasion. It is theoretically only the apparent threat of U.S. intervention that keeps the North at bay and apparently we still have to pay them for that indulgence.

If we are going to continue to maintain a presence in South Korea, let South Korea pay for it. If this area gets destroyed by an invasion from the North (something China will not likely allow), we will temporarily lose some cheap goods and a portion of our consumer market. But, who benefits from this the most though, you, or large MNCs? That is primarily why we stay in Korea. If we continue to pay of the defense of South Korea and subsidize North Korea with bribes for not attacking the South, we will likely be there for the next 100 years since there is no incentive for either side to change the status quo.

We shouldn't pay a dime, but we are not even likely to get the North to recognize the South or officially end the Korean War even if we do start paying this extortion money.

Corridor One

Corridor One too costly, Rendell official says

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this announcement. I was initially a big fan of the idea of expanding rail transportation to the area since I would love to see the return of good, efficient rail service to central PA. I also know that traffic congestion in the area is horrible and that the roads are too undersized and unable to expand in any conceivable way that won't cost millions of dollars.

In effect, the millions that opponents say will be wasted on expanding rail service will be saved in the short run, but ultimately 10 times that figure will likely need to be spent on expanding highways in the area to accommodate the increased population and traffic in the area. When that reaches the breaking point, then perhaps regional rail will get the boost in needs to happen. Hopefully, in the meantime, someone won't turn these into bike trails and forever close off the possibility of alternative transportation.

All that being said though, I can understand that rail advocates are disappointed by this since highways get such a huge public subsidy. Rather than make the argument that since highways are getting a wasteful subsidy, public transportation should also be given the subsidy, the energy should be placed first in tolling the highways. Make the people who use the roads pay for them and do it in such a way that the funds go solely for the roads and nothing else. Once that has been accomplished, hopefully through some form of privatization, then rail may be able to operate without any public subsidy as well. This could mean that private companies might be able to start or take over existing rail lines, hence no tax increases along with an increase in viable alternatives to cars and buses.

The argument against tolling of course is that it is a vital part of our infrastructure and economy. This is a topic for lengthy discussion on another day, but I will summarize a few points as to why this is a problem. The moral problem with subsidizing transportation, from an economic perspective, is that while some benefit from these expenses directly, in the form of cheaper transportation costs, most do not. One of the arguments goes that if the highways are tolled, all of our consumer goods will become more expensive. That is likely true, but why should we subsidize the transportation of goods any more than we should subsidize production? Should electricity or internet access be provided for free and paid for strictly out of tax revenue because it will allow all businesses to lower their costs? Why should interstate highways be given this special exemption? Why should we not subsidize rail in the same way since it reduces the cost to labor market with transporting workers and reduces the cost of shipping raw materials and goods just like our highways.

The other problem is that so long as we subsidize the transportation of goods in this manner, there is no incentive to improve efficiency in other means of transportation or to find alternatives. Telecommuting came about because of traffic jams. It might have developed earlier if business were forced to come up with creative ways to attract qualified labor over a larger geographical area without free subsidized transportation.

In addition, subsidizing public highways essentially means that we have a government owned and provided service competing with privately owned companies such as shipping and rail companies. Most people would cry bloody murder if the government set up a business to compete directly with their own, but somehow the government has been able to compete with private companies in this realm for a long time.

Again, there is much more to cover on this topic. Either way, the concept of Corridor One is likely gone for a long time.

Senator Craig - part II

Pat Buchanan

If I haven't mentioned it before, I always make sure to read Pat Buchanan's articles with an almost religious devotion - not because I agree with him that often, but because I think he has a first class analytical mind. My disagreements with his opinions are usually what should be done rather than his analysis of what is going on, which is usually, in my opinion, very accurate.

Here he has written an article that pretty much echoes what I wrote a few days ago about Senator Craig. Pointing out that the Senator has some apparent personal issues, that the leftist media is drooling all over themselves reveling in his so-called "hypocrisy", and that he is being thrown under the bus by the GOP and especially Mitt Romney.

The set answer for the GOP regarding homosexuality should be "love the sinner, hate the sin." At least that is what I thought they should be saying since I have always thought that religious conservatives derive their opposition to homosexuality from the two passages in the Old and New Testament dealing with the issue. Why they miss this obvious point leads me to two conclusions:

1) They only mention God and Bible when it suits them for general banalities and platitudes for political speeches

2) They really do have some other opposition to homosexuality that somehow trumps the religious rational.

I can understand the second point because I used to suffer from it to some degree. I was never an outright homophobe, but I'm sure I've felt the same way from time to time at being revolted at the general concept.

The first point one, of course, is just confirmation in my mind that the biggest bible-thumping politicians are usually the least familiar with the text and the least inclined to use their religious faith for guidance.

The separation of Church and State means that the State should not propound a specific religion or practices specific to that religion on the rest of us through the mechanism of the State. It doesn't mean that the individual political leader is not permitted to use their particular faith to guide their decisions. I have always suspected though that the politicians who claim piety and faith in God don't really have much of either.

So when I see someone claiming to be a man of faith like Mitt Romney throwing a fellow sinner under the bus, that convinces me that his faith is a matter of convenience and showmanship. He would show a lot more character by telling us that he had taken the time to speak with his friend and fellow Christian Senator Craig and that they have mutually decided that Senator Craig should step down from his campaign. Instead, he called the Senator's behavior "disgusting" and dropped him like a bad habit.

I would gladly have the entire Congress be homosexual and have them drop the crooks who pocket our money like Senator Stevens and Congressman Cunningham. Their behavior is the truly disgusting behavior, but no one seems to care.