The only conservative in Western Massachusetts - Email Eric Lindholm: ealindholm -at- msn -dot- com

 
Apres health care, le deluge

Word on Capitol Hill is that the Democrats are scrambling to find ways to pay for the $1 trillion+ that will be required to pay for health care reform. My guess is that they're going to play fast and loose with the actual cost projections until the Trojan Horse is in place. They'll justify the lowball estimate as the necessary lie to enact legislation that will rewire one-sixth of the U.S. Economy. Greater good and all that.

Social Security was once good legislation and a bargain too! But it was so good that nobody could ever cut the program. Medicare, too. Now 80% of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. Here's how those programs started small and grew expensive:

Payroll tax rates by decade:

1940: 2%
1950: 3%
1960: 6%
1970: 9.6%
1980: 12.3%
1990: 15.3%

Those rates are for employee and employer together. If you're unlucky enough to be self-employed, those rates are for you and you alone. There is zero chance that the cost of national health care will not rise in the same manner. Once we pass this bad legislation, there will be no way to unring the bell.

Update - Signs of sanity: Blue Dog Democrats rebel.
posted by Eric at 10:26 PM (1) comments

 

An epic tale of pride and ruin – Business writer Michael Lewis has a great piece in Vanity Fair on Joe Cassano who headed up AIG's Financial Products unit and started the dominoes tumbling in "The man who crashed the world." For extra background on the financial meltdown, be sure to also read Lewis' "The End."

posted by Eric at 10:43 PM (0) comments

 
The benefit of experience - Metafilter: "Insights gained via one's career." I like this one: "If you're reading from a Powerpoint slide, your audience is bored."
posted by Eric at 9:53 PM (0) comments

 
Bjartur of Summerhouses is my hero

Some time ago, I heard an NPR segment called "You must read this" about overlooked literary masterpieces. One of the books reviewed was Halldor Laxness's "Independent People." I've read a lot of books in my life, but this one easily makes the top five. I devoured it during my camping vacation. The story follows the epic struggle of Bjartur to make himself an independent man, free of debt and the influence of the Myri people. There's not a more stubborn man in literature but despite his effortless cruelty to his family, you can't help but feel for the man and his unending battle against worms, debt, reindeer, Icelandic weather, cows ("better a coffin than a cow!") and the tide of history. Very, very highly recommended.
posted by Eric at 10:26 PM (1) comments

 
Your taxes will go up

Back during the Presidential campaign, one axiom that came to light is that all of Obama's promises have an expiration date. Well, as Fred Hiatt writes in today's WashPost, Obama's pinky-swear to hold tax hikes to only the "rich" is unsustainable:

The bottom line is this: You cannot run a progressive government of the kind Obama favors by collecting only 18 percent of the gross domestic product in taxes, which has been the norm over the past 40 years. Nor can you increase the tax take to 24.5 percent of GDP -- which is what Obama proposes to be spending in 2019 -- simply by making the rich pay more.

But rather than level with the American people about this, or lay out a plan to raise the needed taxes, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are putting the spending pieces of progressive government in place and apparently counting on the tax piece to fall into place later.

All of this spending on top of unsecured spending would have been irresponsible by itself if it wasn't for the fact that the federal government has no intentions of facing the gaping entitlement spending hole we've already dug:

The CBO says that in recent months a dismal outlook has gotten even darker as projected future spending -- particularly on entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- expands much faster than expected revenue.

When you spend more than you take in, your debt grows. Federal debt held by the public peaked at 113 percent of total GDP right after World War II, when the U.S. government had to spend vast amounts to defeat Germany and Japan. Today, the debt stands at about 41 percent of GDP.

But with the government running trillion-dollar deficits and facing the Baby Boom generation beginning to retire, CBO estimates that the debt will break the previous record by 2026 and hit 200 percent of GDP by 2038.

Let's throw a public pension shortfall on top of all this for good measure. We cannot possibly borrow enough money to pay for everything and we'd need to find the Mother of all Pawnshops to accept Hawaii. Where's the money going to come from? You, my friend, and your kids and grandkids.
posted by Eric at 10:02 PM (0) comments

 
The cycle of poverty

The Sunday Washington Post magazine had a feature article titled "Family Man" about a young father who is "determined to be a loving dad and strong breadwinner." The piece has plenty of criticism for the young couple but I couldn't get past the generally laudatory theme that brave Bobby decided to take care of his family. Well, to evoke Chris Rock, that's what he's supposed to do.

Just to recap: Bobby got involved with Lori who had already had two children from two separate men. The "condom slipped" and she then had Bobby's son, Junior. The car got wrecked by a friend. They're living with the girl's father. Lori needs medication for her bipolar disorder and Bobby has rotting teeth; there's no money for either. (The kids get healthcare through the state of Maryland.) By the end of the story, we find Lori waiting tables at a restaurant while Bobby studies for his GED while working at a car wash.

But no matter what Bobby & Lori's good intentions, their poor decision-making dooms them to be forever dependent on family and then the state. First Bobby had a good construction job until:

Last September, slightly less than a year after he started working at the site (and after a conversation in which he told his boss to "stop f-in' with me"), Bobby was fired.

No unemployment compensation for you, wiseguy. Later a tax refund arrives:

His spirits pick up a few weeks later when he receives a tax refund check for $7,000. About $3,300 of that goes to pay back a loan from his grandfather and to Pete for rent. He takes Lori to Wal-Mart at 11 one night for a shopping spree. With no assurance that things are going to improve any time soon, why not splurge a little?

Lori plows through the racks of Faded Glory short sets and Hanes tees that night to find several pastel outfits for Faith and Hope and something more rugged-looking for Junior. She talks Bobby into buying a Nintendo Wii. They end up spending $800 on various items, and when they get home, Lori insists on learning how to play games on the Wii immediately. They stay up until 3 a.m. in front of the TV screen, laughing and shoving each other like small kids.

More irresponsible purchases:

Bobby tells her that earlier that day he stopped by Circuit City, which is going out of business, to pick up snacks for the kids and two DVDs for them to watch, including "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Apparently, this is not a good time to kick old habits:

Lori says she's going out more often to bars with her girlfriends after work.

He [Bobby] excuses himself to go outside and have a Marlboro Menthol.

He directs her eyes to a gold crucifix that he wears around his neck.

He stops by Applebee's for chicken tenders, and no sooner is he seated than Lori texts asking the time of his interview at the carwash.

And now the coup de grace where Bobby dreams of spending money he doesn't have for things he doesn't need and can't afford:

At 3 p.m., he drives to the carwash. He is back at the house in a half-hour, saying he got the job. One of the first things he thinks of, when he realizes he'll be bringing home a paycheck again, is buying something he saw earlier at Costco, an outdoor playset with a playhouse, slide and swings -- three swings, he points out.

The playset is called the Rainbow All-American Double Decker, and it could be his for $1,299. For that sum, he could get his rotting wisdom teeth removed. Or Lori could buy a year's supply of pills. Or Hope could start seeing a speech therapist. Still, wouldn't it be great to teach Junior to scale the climbing wall and make sand castles?

"Me and him are gonna grow up together," Bobby says.

I want to sympathize, I do, but when you give kids money they go out and buy candy. When you give money to kids who have kids, they spend it on Olive Garden and Nintendo Wii games. They're children, one and the same. Simply put, Lori's father should take 100% of their income and parcel it out to them like an allowance.
posted by Eric at 8:58 PM (2) comments

 
Back to work - Just got back from a week of camping in the Shenandoah Valley. Blogging resumes tomorrow and aren't you thrilled? Yes. Yes you are.
posted by Eric at 10:34 PM (2) comments

 
Happy Independence Day, America!
posted by Eric at 9:49 AM (3) comments

 
Adventures in socialized medicine - Buffalo, New York picks up the slack for Canada.
posted by Eric at 11:51 PM (0) comments

 
So I've been out all day...what's going on? - Sarah Palin did what? This doesn't seem to make any sense.
posted by Eric at 11:05 PM (1) comments

 
Leave well enough alone - The "cost of inaction" threat has been used to pass a lot of bad legislation.
posted by Eric at 12:55 AM (0) comments

 
Everything old is new again - The blogosphere sparkle and fade, according to Apt 11D. I've never viewed my blog as a pathway to money or another career; it's just forum to vent my political views. Also, I knew my one-man, part-time status would relegate me to a low readership. But, hey, every once in a while I get a big hit and maybe somebody out there thinks about the issues I care about. So that's good enough for me.
posted by Eric at 12:36 AM (0) comments

 
Miami looks nice - I know I should be following the news but, to be honest, I've been watching the Burn Notice marathon on USA network all day. It's like "Mission: Impossible" meets "The A-Team."
posted by Eric at 12:22 AM (1) comments

 
Crush the competition - Why does Walmart support health care reform? For the same reasons that Philip Morris supported FDA legislation of tobacco. Wake up and smell the Marlboros.
posted by Eric at 11:53 PM (0) comments

 
That's my IP - Mises Economics blog: "Centocor vs. Abbott: Biggest patent verdict ever."
posted by Eric at 11:37 PM (0) comments

 
Warmonger! - More "if Bush did this" fodder: "U.S. Marines, Afghan forces launch major military operation in Afghanistan." Dennis Kucinich, where art thou?
posted by Eric at 11:31 PM (0) comments

 
Pre-screened questioned from handpicked questioners - Minuteman: "Orchestrated when Bush did it." Obama...not so much. At least not without his teleprompter.
posted by Eric at 11:24 PM (1) comments