Archive for June, 2009

I don’t get it. I thought Mr. Obama and his administration were for the ‘common man’ and the protection of individual rights. If so, why, in the last two weeks, has he come out in favor for authoritative rulers? A week ago, he was against “meddling” in the affairs of Iran’s elections, worried about upsetting the tyrants that have been spreading fear and misery all over the Middle East. And now, he comes out in favor of the recently ex-president of Honduras, saying that he, Mr. Obama, will not recognize the new government of Honduras.

Yes, on the face of it, it does look like the president was removed by the army in a coup. But, in reality, the president was ignoring the constitution and attempting to strengthen his control over the people of Honduras. From what I understand, this wannabe dictator, Mr. Zelaya, wanted to throw out the constitution because it didn’t fit with his plans. The Supreme Court of Honduras ruled that he was violating the constitution and ordered the army to detain him and then swore in the head of the congress as interim president. Sounds like the army was actually defending the people’s constitution and Mr. Zelaya was attempting to produce yet another Latin American dictatorship.

I’m becoming increasingly concerned Mr. Obama doesn’t know right from wrong. For a better read on the current events in Honduras, I would recommend Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s article.

There is so much amp’ed up discussion concerning the uninsured that I thought it might be nice to actually look at the numbers.  For everyone’s reference, you can find the numbers at the US Census website.  For you lazy people, here is the link to the actual 2007 report that looks at this issue.

Before we get too far into the numbers, I think we should step back and look at a little history.  We currently have many government officials clucking like headless chickens of the upcoming catastrophe in healthcare and the growing base of uninsured.  According to the Census Bureau, for at least the last 20 years, they have estimated that 15% of the US population is without health insurance.  About 14% in 1988, 16% in 1993, 16% in 1998, 15% in 2003, and 15% in 2007.  Hmmm, it really looks like an out-of-control freight train, huh?

They also are freaking out about more and more having issues affording insurance because of the runaway costs.  This is kinda true.  In the 1970′s, healthcare represented 7% of US GDP.  It was expected to reach over 20% of GDP by 2000.  It made it to 15%.  Close, but no cigar.  Now, some will say that if we were to adopt a more European system (i.e. government run) we wouldn’t have the spiraling out of control cost increases.  Sorry, but the numbers don’t jive with that reasoning.  Austria, France, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Iceland, and Japan all experienced about the same growth as a percent of GDP as the US.  It appears that the type of healthcare system has little impact on the amount spent.  I would bet the introduction of Viagra has a bigger impact than private versus public structures.

Now, let’s get to the number stated by the politicians as the number of suffering individuals desperately striving for healthcare insurance yet continued to be suppressed by the evil doings of the private sector.  45.6 million people are estimated to be in the US without health insurance or about 15% of the population.  But many academics estimate that the census over counts by 2.5 million due to some poor assumptions they make with regards to how questions are answered.  Adjust for that and you get 42.1 million.  Within the census, they count the number of non-citizens without insurance at 10 million.  That makes the number closer to 32 million.  About 17.6 million make more than $50,000 in adjusted gross income, indicating to me that they have chosen to use their money in another way (their prerogative).  We are now at 14.4 million or 5% of the population.  Another 1 million are American Indians, taking us to 13.4 million.

Included in that 13.4 million are some individuals that are between jobs and decided to “roll the dice” rather than take cobra.  That number was estimated to be another 2-4 million (some amount of that could have been counted already in the above adjustments).  Let’s take 1.5 million out, leaving us with 12 million.  That’s less than 4% of the population.  4%.  Really, 4%.

And we elected individuals that think it wise to change the system for all 100% in order to help 4%.  I think it was Jefferson that said, “there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule.”

Please read this letter to the editor by Andrew Klavan.

Not sure if any of you have spent time reading up on the New Haven, Conn firefighter discrimination lawsuit, but you should.  Here is the article that does a nice job summarizing the issue. 

Very briefly, it’s about a group of white and hispanic firefighters that sat for an exam for promotion, passed, and then saw the test results thrown out because no african-americans passed, therefore deeming the test invalid and biased.  It’s a great case of groups fighting for equal outcomes rather than individuals working for equal opportunities and productive outcomes.

Of course, I haven’t seen the test but I find it really hard to believe that a well structured test to differentiate those that know what to do in case of a fire from those that don’t would also be a great tool to determine if someone is black, white, brown, cream-colored, etc.  And to be clear, to have the exam written in english and to presume that individuals can read the exam should not constitute distinguishing traits of applicants.

What I find even more horrifying is the idea that a lot of money was spent on people that most likely know little of firefighting to develop a fair and balanced exam.  And that the test was then presented to the municipal government (more individuals that know little if anything about firefighting) to make sure it wouldn’t cause political problems.

When your house or apartment is on fire, are you, the one that ultimately pays for the firefighting service, more concerned that those that arrive on the scene equally represent the national demographics or would you rather have them capable of doing their job?

With General Motors filing for bankruptcy today and our esteem federal government taking operational control (has our government ever been successful at turning a real profit?), I thought it timely that the Wall Street Journal would find  someone that has experience in a government’s running of a car company.  In this article,  Lt. Gen Pacepa, once a Soviet bloc car czar, describes his experiences and lack of successes.  Enjoy!

Oh, and remember that under the new union agreement (you know, the one that gives the UAW about 17% of the new GM while the more secure bond holders get much less), GM is not allowed to import from their global factories the more fuel efficient small cars made for non-US markets.  Bravo to the union for struggling along with us and our environment.