We the People vs. We the Public Sector Unions

Illinois is providing a real world example of the role of government in favoring certain citizens over the rest of We the People.

New Details on Illinois Pension Plan has the update on the nation's largest unfunded pension liabilities for public sector pension benefits:

"New details emerged Friday about a proposal to overhaul Illinois's public-employee retirement system, hardening opposition from public-sector unions and drawing criticism from some conservatives for not going far enough.

Democratic and Republican leaders agreed earlier in the week on a plan to repair the Illinois pension system—widely regarded as the most troubled among U.S. states, falling nearly $100 billion short of what is needed to meet promised benefits.

            

Newly released details show the state would save about $160 billion in part by replacing a 3% cost-of-living increase for public-sector retirees with a more complex system tied to years of service and the consumer-price index. The deal also would raise the retirement age for employees 45 years old and younger under a tiered system and would introduce the option of a defined-contribution plan for a slice of employees hired before 2011.

The agreement would require the state to make actuarially sound contributions—the lack of which has been a driving reason for the deep funding problems—and employees could take the state to court if it falls short on future payments. The deal would also reduce the contribution state workers, teachers and other employees make to the retirement system by 1% of their salaries, according to a summary of the agreement.

Since the financial crisis, states have been cutting retirement benefits for current and former workers and reducing what they offer new hires. Illinois has been deadlocked for more than two years on how to overhaul the state pension system to ensure it remains solvent over the long term. Wednesday's agreement was the first one backed by House and Senate leaders from both parties and Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat.

Still, passage isn't assured as lawmakers gather to vote on the issue Tuesday. Labor unions argue the legislation uses state workers to bail out a pension system the state has shortchanged for years. They plan to sue the state if the legislation passes, arguing benefits are protected by the state constitution.

Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the state's second-largest teacher union, called the proposal a "grotesque taking of the lifetime savings of public employees."

At the same time, the Illinois Policy Institute, which advocates for free-market principles, said the legislation doesn't go far enough to fix the state's problems and would put pension payments ahead of education spending and public safety.

Legislative leaders were working Friday to build support for the latest agreement ahead of next week's vote.

A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan. a Democrat, said the plan takes the steps needed to stabilize the pension system and that organized labor hasn't been helpful in working toward that goal."

Summing Up

As always, what's happening in Illinois comes down to elected officials representing the special interests of political supporters as opposed to the best interests of all of We the People.

Most citizens are covered by 401(k) retirement plans today or aren't covered at all, except for Social Security.

But that's not the case for public employees, and especially those public sector employees represented by public sector unions. Paying for those promised benefits isn't considered by either politicians or union officials to be their responsibility.

To them, that's a financial burden the "be seen but not heard" future taxpayers must bear, and with no input or questions asked.

So here's the real deal: The duly elected representatives of all of We the People and their allies, the public sector union officials, have combined over the years to scratch each others' backs at the expense of the rest of We the People in Illinois (and throughout America's cities and states, Chicago and Detroit and San Jose and so on included).

But the union and political bosses didn't bother to submit their overly generous and not-so-openly negotiated bargain to We the People for a ratification vote. They simply granted the right to receive future retirement benefits without asking We the People to agree to provide them.

Of course, it's not just happening in Illinois: the underfunded pension bill is coming due all across America, and the unions are holding hard and fast to their simplistic view that "union membership has its privileges" ---- that taxpayers should just shut up and pay up.

So why not simply let the taxpayers as a whole vote on whether to raise their own taxes or reduce the promised benefits for public sector employees?

Besides, isn't that the American way? No, it isn't, at least not according to too many politicians and union leaders.

Sadly, the Illinois way has been all about government knows best politicians and their union allies deciding what to force the taxpayers to do.

In simple and stark language, they're saying to hell with what the rest of We the People would choose to do with our hard earned money.

Future taxpayers, beware.

At least that's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

First, the IRS .... Now, the FTC .... Piano Teachers, Beware!

Government knows best is everywhere. No, it's not just the ObamaCare brigade that wants to think for and act to protect us poor helpless and ignorant We the People.

As yet another example of out-of-control and misguided government, now the federal regulators at the FTC want to protect us from price gouging private sector individual piano teachers. Yes, piano teachers.

Are you fed up with all this government knows best crap yet?

Well, if not, please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the "threats" of private piano teachers in America today, at least as defined by our modern day, out-of-control, heavy handed government knows best crazies in Washington --- our 'public servants,' in other words.

Piano Sonata in FTC Minor has the incredible but true story, and it's a crazy one. Sadly, it's becoming more representative of the current government bureaucracy acting as the unwanted protector of We the People from what it considers to be other dangerous "fringe" elements of We the People:

"Teddy Roosevelt busted Standard Oil. The Obama administration? It's making the world safe from rapacious piano teachers.

Every month, it seems, brings a new story of this presidency leveling the intimidating powers of the federal government against some law-abiding citizen. Now comes a terrifying tale of how the Federal Trade Commission, a governmental Goliath, crushes an average David—because it can.

In March of this year, a small nonprofit in Cincinnati—the Music Teachers National Association—received a letter from the FTC. The agency was investigating whether the association was engaged in, uh, anticompetitive practices.

            

                        

This was bizarre, given that the MTNA has existed since 1876 solely to advance the cause of music study and support music teachers. The 501(c)(3) has about 22,000 members, nearly 90% of them piano teachers, including many women who earn a modest living giving lessons in their homes. The group promotes music study and competitions and helps train teachers. 

                      X in Your Value Your Change Short position

The association's sin, according to the feds, rested in its code of ethics. The code lays out ideals for members to follow—a commitment to students, colleagues, society. Tucked into this worthy document was a provision calling on teachers to respect their colleagues' studios, and not actively recruit students from other teachers.

That's a common enough provision among professional organizations (doctors, lawyers), yet the FTC avers that the suggestion that Miss Sally not poach students from Miss Lucy was an attempt to raise prices for piano lessons. Given that the average lesson runs around $30 an hour, and that some devoted teachers still give lessons for $5 a pop, this is patently absurd.

MTNA Executive Director Gary Ingle, who has been at the organization 17 years—and who agreed to talk when I reached out about this case—said that he and the group's attorneys immediately flew to Washington to talk to federal investigators. They explained that this provision had been in the group's code for years, and that it was purely aspirational. The association has never enforced its code, and no member has been removed as a result of it.

The FTC didn't care. Nor did it blink when the MTNA pointed out that the agency has no real authority over nonprofits (it is largely limited to going after sham organizations) and that Congress has never acted on the FTA's requests for more control over 501(c)3 groups. Nor was the agency moved by the group's offer to immediately excise the provision. The investigation would continue.

With a dozen employees and a $2 million budget, the group doesn't have "the resources to fight the federal government," Mr. Ingle says. The board immediately removed the provision from its code, but the MTNA staff still had to devote months compiling thousands of documents demanded by the agency, some going back 20 years: reports, the organization's magazines, everything Mr. Ingle had ever written that touched on the code. Mr. Ingle estimates he has spent "hundreds upon hundreds" of hours since March complying with this federal colonoscopy.

This October, MTNA signed a consent decree—its contents as ludicrous as the investigation. The association did not have to admit or deny guilt. It must, however, read a statement out loud at every future national MTNA event warning members against talking about prices or recruitment. It must send this statement to all 22,000 members and post it on its website. It must contact all of its 500-plus affiliates and get them to sign a compliance statement.

The association must also develop a sweeping antitrust compliance program that will require annual training of its state presidents on the potential crimes of robber-baron piano teachers. It must submit regular reports to the FTC and appoint an antitrust compliance officer. (The FTC wanted the officer to be an attorney, but Mr. Ingle explained that this would "break the bank," so the agency—how gracious—is allowing him to fill the post.) And it must comply with most of this for the next 20 years.

The MTNA is not yet free of fear; the FTC has still to approve the consent decree. An FTC spokesman told me the agency does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations. The organization to this day has no idea how it became a target, nor will it ever because the FTC doesn't have to provide it.

While this abuse of power has received no national attention, it has riled the music community. Brian Majeski, the editor of the journal Music Trades, lambasted the FTC in a December editorial, noting that "a consumer watchdog that sees piano teachers as a threat either has too much time on its hands, or badly misplaced priorities."

That might be too kind. Whether it is the IRS targeting conservatives, the Justice Department hounding Gibson Guitar, or the EPA conducting an armed raid on an Alaskan mine—this administration has a tendency toward abuse of power. That's how antitrust laws created to tackle megamonopolies end up being used to hound and hammer a nonprofit devoted to piano teachers."

Summing Up

The above editorial is appropriately subtitled 'Music teachers, beware. The feds are onto you. Better not try to raise the price of your lessons.' 

It's just one more example of government run amok.

Had enough yet of this government knows best version of bureaucratic modern day America in which we live? Well, I sure have.

Each passing day it seems that the values of self reliance, individual freedoms and responsibilities in a market based economy and society are becoming mere relics of the American past.

I say that We the People, on our own, without government always getting in the way, can help our fellow Americans who are in need of help, and that we can and will do so without harming those of our fellow Americans who are, on their own, perfectly capable and willing of fending for themselves.

Such as private sector individual piano teachers.

Thanks. Bob.

Thanksgiving ... An Exceptional Holiday for an Exceptional Nation

Happy Thanksgiving.

Two editorials appear in the Wall Street Journal each Thanksgiving and have each year since 1961.

Both remind me of what it means to be an American.

We truly live in an exceptional and freedom loving nation with opportunities and responsibilities for all.

The first editorial recaps what the Pilgrims and the Plymouth Colony faced in 1620.

The second deals with the challenges facing Americans in 1961, the year I graduated from high school and began college.

Today, of course, we face new and more big challenges, but that's just life in a self governing, hard working, courageous, diverse and freedom loving society of equals.

The Desolate Wilderness has this to say:

"Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton , keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford , sometime governor thereof:

 

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

                                  

                        

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

 

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

 

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

 

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

 

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."

 

And the Fair Land says this about life in America in 1961:

 

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

 

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

                                 

                        

                  

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

 

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

 

For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.

 

His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.

 

How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places—only to find those men as frail as any others.

 

So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?

 

Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.

 

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

 

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

 

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land."

 

Summing Up

 

American Exceptionalism is real.

 

To be an American is to be an optimist.

 

And a grateful one at that.

 

And as it is, so it has ever been, and ever it shall be.

 

That's my take.

 

Happy Thanksgiving. Bob.

 

 

Breaking News ... Illinois Legislative Leaders Reach a Deal on State Pension Overhaul

Although the details are unknown, Illinois politicians have reached a preliminary deal to solve the nation's biggest public sector pension fund shortfall, estimated to be circa $100 billion.

We'll eagerly await further information due later this week or early next week about next Tuesday's vote.

Illinois Legislative Leaders Reach Deal on State Pension Overhaul says this:

"Illinois legislative leaders reached a deal Wednesday on a plan to overhaul the state retirement system, potentially ending a stalemate over how to address the worst pension crisis among U.S. states.

 

Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, confirmed an agreement was reached between Democrat and Republican leaders at a morning meeting. She declined to release details of the plan, saying the leaders need to brief House and Senate members who are expected to vote on the plan Tuesday.

Ms. Phelon said challenges still remain in lining up the votes to pass the agreement.

 

Illinois legislators for more than two years have debated whether to address long-term pension costs by cutting benefits for state employees, teachers and retirees. In the meantime, the state has seen its credit rating drop to the lowest among U.S. states, driven by concerns over its deeply underfunded pension system.

 

A deal that cuts state pension benefits could face a court challenge from organized labor, arguing benefits are protected under the state constitution."

 

Summing Up

 

Stay tuned.

 

And Happy Thanksgiving, too!

 

Thanks. Bob.

The Meaning of "Executive Management" .... ObamaCare, Rock Stars and Getting the Job Done

We've all heard President Obama's words. We've seen and listened to his speeches.

And now we know how he manages. He doesn't.

Of course, he had no previous management experience prior to his entering his current position as Chief Executive of the United States. It's on the job training in real time and front and center for all to see.

So how's it going five years into the experiment with presidential management, or perhaps better said, the lack thereof?

An Executive Without Energy captures Obama's lack of management capability and continuous effort to duck responsibility for the current ObamaCare fiasco as follows:

"The Affordable Care Act . . . is President Obama's signature legislative achievement, and the trail of responsibility for its botched rollout ends at the Oval Office.

Over the past century, we have come to see the presidency as the principal source of the legislative agenda that Congress considers, and we tend to regard the enactment of the president's program as the key test of his efficacy. In the process, we have played down the importance of presidential management. The travails of the Affordable Care Act have reminded us that this understanding of the presidency is distorted—and reflects a neglectful reading of the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton, in defending the presidency that the proposed Constitution would establish, remarked that "the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration." The Federalist's co-author famously saw "energy in the executive" as a leading characteristic of good government, in large part because such energy is "essential to the steady administration of the laws." Section 3 of Article II of the Constitution states: The president "shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

The occupant of the office is rightly (and revealingly) called the chief executive.

In the early days of the Republic and for much of its history, executing and administering the law mostly involved enforcement. With the rise of the administrative state, a step prior to enforcement became essential. This involved translating Congress's will into terms specific enough to be workable and providing the means of administration. The chief executive's role expanded correspondingly to include ultimate responsibility for regulations and for the administrative activities of an increasingly complex executive branch beyond the White House.

No president, of course, can possibly do all this directly. As chief executive, his core task is to establish managerial arrangements that transmit his priorities to subordinates and ensure the flow of accurate and timely information up the chain of command, all the way to him if necessary.

Every experienced manager knows that, left to its own devices, the system will not always behave this way. The agents acting on the president's behalf may have their own priorities and may not deem it in their interest to share information with superiors, especially if the news is bad. So the president must lean against these perverse tendencies, not only by demanding regular and detailed progress reports but also by establishing a zone of safety and encouragement for truth-tellers. The president's subordinates at every level must be on notice that candor will be rewarded and the failure to transmit vital information will be punished.

In recent weeks, it has become clear that President Obama failed to institute such arrangements. He rejected excellent advice from many quarters to appoint an overall project manager, reporting directly to the White House, who was a skilled executive with experience implementing complex information systems. The day-to-day links between the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services frayed, and responsibility for the website shifted four times before ending up in the hands of a midlevel bureaucrat at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who lacked the authority to crack heads and break logjams.

Although there were dozens of contractors, there was no prime contractor, a role for which CMS was ill-suited but filled by default.

Making matters worse was a tension between politics and administration. The emerging narrative suggests that key regulatory decisions were delayed to avoid giving Republicans potent lines of attack before the 2012 election. Technology experts contend that crucial parameters were specified too late to permit adequate design and testing, and they are incredulous that testing of the overall system did not begin until just weeks before the launch.

The American people are losing what little confidence they retained in the capacity of the national government to act effectively, and the president's standing as a competent manager of his own government has eroded badly. Unless President Obama can restore confidence in the government and in his leadership, the people may well hold the rest of his ambitious agenda at arm's length."

Summing Up

Our current American system of all politics, all the time, is totally inconsistent with sound management and a system of governance embracing personal freedoms and individual responsibilities.

Government knows best is all about politics and elections and harms the very people it purports to help. Look at Europe.

Elections are all about popularity and not about competency. Look at Obama And Romney as an example.

So now we have ObamaCare and in excess of $100 trillion in unfunded national debt of all kinds (inclusive of Social Security and Medicare unfunded obligations), and my guess is we'll be watching it grow for a very long time to come. Until the fit hits the shan, whenever that happens, and which someday it most certainly will.

Living within our means, personal responsibility and self reliance are rapidly becoming relics of the past, and I regret that very much.

We oldsters haven't done a very good job of leaving behind the right kind of America for future generations.

Let's hope that somehow they are smarter than we have been.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Education and Charter Schools and Choice and Unions and Results

Charter schools are popular with parents.

They are not popular with teachers unions.

What results do charter schools bring to the society at large?

Teachers Unions vs. Charter Schools contributes some interesting and relevant facts to the discussion:

"The Beginning With Children charter school in New York City announced that it will close next year because operating under union work rules has made it impossible to provide students with a decent education.

 

"Because the school converted from a traditional district school to a charter school in 2001, the board was bound by the [United Federation of Teachers] contract with the Department of Education," reports the New York Post. In a letter to parents notifying them of the decision, the board wrote, "We had to carry many of the burdens of being a DOE school, but we could not enjoy the benefits and flexibilities that charter status normally allows."

 

To understand how union work rules can impact the quality of a school, consider this passage from Steven Brill's "Class Warfare," in which he compares the teachers' contracts at Harlem Success Academy, a high-performing charter school in New York City, and a traditional public school that share the same building space and teach kids from the same socio-economic background.

 

"The Harlem Success teachers' contract drives home the idea that the school is about the children, not the grown-ups. It is one page, allows them to be fired at will, and defines their responsibilities no more specifically than that they must help the school achieve its mission. Harlem Success teachers are paid about 5 to 10 percent more than union teachers on the other side of the building who have their levels of experience.

 

"The union contract in place on the public school side of the building is 167 pages. Most of it is about job protection and what teachers can and cannot be asked to do during the 6 hours and 57.5 minutes (8:30 to about 3:25, with 50 minutes off for lunch) of their 179-day work year."

 

In 2010, 29 percent of the students at the traditional public school were reading and writing at grade level, and 34 percent were performing at grade level in math. At the charter school, the corresponding numbers were 86 percent and 94 percent."

 

Summing Up

 

Facts are stubborn things.

 

So are teachers unions.

 

Government knows best "progressive" leaders support teachers unions.

 

That simply means that kids, their parents and taxpayers in general are the enemies of both teachers unions and "progressive" government officials.

 

Such is life in modern day America.

 

Thanks. Bob.

Questions for the President About ObamaCare, Government Knows Best and Consumer Fraud

ObamaCare Questions Nobody Asked is worth quoting at length:

" 'If we had to do it all over again . . . there would have been a whole lot more questions that were asked," President Obama told NBC last week.

 

In this now-famous TV interview, Mr. Obama was referring to his health-care rollout, but there are plenty of other questions somebody should have asked. Here are a few: During the 2008 primary race, Mr. Obama, you rejected Hillary Clinton's proposed individual mandate. You said if health insurance were a good deal, nobody would have to be forced to buy it.

                                     

OK, anybody can change his mind, but why implement the mandate in a way that forces many people to buy insurance at inflated prices (a bad deal) in order to subsidize others? Isn't a universal principle of good governance that subsidies should be funded openly and honestly with tax dollars rather than disguised taxes on disfavored individuals?

 

At your 2010 health-care summit, you dismissed what you called "house insurance"—cheap, high-deductible policies that protect people from serious illness or injury but otherwise leave them to fund routine medical care out of pocket. How do you reconcile this with your oft-stated promise that people can keep their existing insurance?

 

More important, how do you reconcile it with the fact that virtually all progress on cost control in the past 20 years has come from cost-sharing to make users more sensitive to the price and value of the care they consume? Are we just going to throw this progress away?

 

Your ObamaCare program is supposed to be financed with the mandate-cum-tax on the young plus Medicare cuts, but the mandate is weak and Congress won't deliver the Medicare cuts. Haven't you created another unfunded government program destined to be starved for money in the future as the reality of our fiscal situation begins to bite?

 

You tout the Affordable Care Act as a triumph over special interests, but the stock prices of the insurance industry have enjoyed a huge run-up. Isn't this because your program, boiled down, just throws more tax dollars at an unreformed health-care system that every analyst, including you, says spends resources inefficiently?

 

You cite RomneyCare as a model, but RomneyCare was enacted by a GOP governor and Democratic legislature with overwhelming public support. Wouldn't there be greater buy-in now from the public if your plan actually had been bipartisan, not to mention greater buy-in from the opposition party, aka Republicans, who are certain to become a governing party at some point in the future and responsible for carrying ObamaCare forward?

 

Your Affordable Care Act is a nice break with precedent in one way—it reserves its visible subsidies for the poor. Shouldn't we apply this excellent principle to Medicare and the giant tax benefit for employer-provided insurance? Isn't our problem that too many middle-class Americans are programmed to treat health care as a free lunch?

 

You and many Democrats secretly favor a single-payer system, so why didn't you run on a single-payer system? Why didn't John Kerry or Al Gore? Wouldn't it be a patriotic act to put the idea in front of the American people even if they reject it? This at least would clear the air and let us proceed with sensible, limited reforms aimed at improving incentives. . . .

 

Big, diverse, rambunctious societies have a lot of virtues, but one of them is not high levels of what economists call "social trust." This quality, noticeably absent in America, allows small, wealthy, homogenous societies to run giant redistributive schemes without intolerable levels of chiseling or taxpayers feeling like suckers.

 

Your feelings are hurt because the press is dwelling on those left worse off by ObamaCare, but the Affordable Care Act, in truth, makes care more affordable only for some and then only by shifting the cost to others. For society as a whole, health care will only consume a bigger share of national income—an additional $10 trillion in the next eight years, according to the Medicare actuary. The chances of health care becoming more affordable are nil and whether the act will even improve the health of the uninsured is doubtful. Your Federal Trade Commission exists to punish consumer fraud. Shouldn't you turn yourself in?"

 

Summing Up

 

So will the President ever be asked any of these questions by the mainstream media?

 

Of course not.

 

But that doesn't mean they're not important ones for We the People to ponder.

 

That's my take.

 

Thanks. Bob.

Energy Independence, Prosperity and ObamaCare ... Why Big Government Knows Best Programs Hurt We the People ... Europe's Energy Example

Hard working and self reliant free people do wonderful and innovative things to enhance their quality of life and the lives of future generations --- aka their offspring --- over time.

What's made America great is the simple fact that future generations have benefited greatly as a result of the innovations and hard work of their predecessors while operating in a free market.

While I realize that what I believe doesn't conform to the principles and beliefs of government knows best ideology and current government dependency programs, that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

In fact, one person armed with the truth always constitutes a majority, at least when freedom rules.

And freedom does still rule in the good old U.S.A.

But not Europe.

So what does this have to do with our citizens' future assured prosperity, our nation's energy independence, market pricing, the Keystone Pipeline, fracking and natural gas availability, and so forth?

And what lessons does Europe have to share with us, albeit unintentionally?

Germany Reinvents the Energy Crisis is instructive in this regard:

"ObamaCare isn't the only policy train wreck in progress. Like Mao urging peasants to melt down their pots, pans and farm tools to turn China into a steel-producing superpower overnight, Germany dished out subsidies to encourage homeowners and farmers to install solar panels and windmills and sell energy back to the power company at inflated prices. Success—Germany now gets 25% of its power from renewables—has turned out to be a disaster.

 

As Germans rush to grab this easy money, carbon dioxide output has risen, not fallen, because money-strapped utilities have switched to burning cheap American coal to provide the necessary standby power when wind and sun fail.

 

Because the sun and wind are intermittent and the power grid is poorly arranged to accommodate them, brownouts and blackouts threaten this winter.

 

Because the bills are paid by households and businesses, electricity rates are triple those in the United States. An immediate panic is jobs, as prized industries head to the U.S. for cheaper energy unleashed by the shale revolution. Europe's top energy official now speaks frankly of the "deindustrialization in Germany."

 

In Britain, where policy has been nearly as generous to renewables, "It's fine being very, very green, but not if you're interested in manufacturing," complains a prominent CEO.

            

                        

Wind turbines stand behind a solar power park near Werder, Germany.                     

 

Democracy's great virtue is that it doesn't follow schemes off a cliff, but the normal adjustment mechanisms are hampered by the fact that Europe's energy disaster implicates the entire political spectrum. . . .

 

It's tempting to assume Europe's politicians were praying in the church of global warming. But more important is their subscription to resource-depletion ideology, which convinced them they'd picked a political winner because rising fossil fuel prices were guaranteed to make green energy look cheap in comparison.

 

"When more people consume oil and coal, the price will go up, but when more people consume renewable energy, the price of it will go down," explained Ms. Merkel's top energy adviser.

 

We have here an idea seemingly impervious to experience and part of the mental baggage of every politician likely to get elected in our world. "It is absolutely certain that [fossil energy] demand will go up a lot faster than supply. It's just a fact," President Obama explained in 2011. The U.S. "cannot afford to bet our long-term prosperity on a resource that will eventually run out."

 

Mr. Obama mentioned shale exactly once in his speech—and only to say shale would run out too.

 

If all this were true, Europe wouldn't be in its present fix. Here's the real truth: The shale revolution is less revolutionary than it seems. It has shocked settled misconceptions only because it happened under the noses of Americans, in populated areas where the casual assumption was that "resources" would long ago have been dug out and carted away.

 

In fact, the world's store of fossil hydrocarbons is truly vast, including almost unimaginable quantities of methane hydrates. The challenge is the technological and economic one of getting access to a given resource at an affordable price—a challenge ever since men used rags to soak up oil from natural seeps. For 150 years, the price of a barrel of oil has fluctuated between $10 and $100 (in 2011 dollars), a range that has been sufficient to call forth new reserves and feedstocks when needed to maintain hydrocarbons as a source of competitively priced energy.

 

Europe's energy crisis is a lot like ours of 40 years ago—self-inflicted. Europe's dream was untenable the minute energy prices began falling in a major trade competitor like the United States. The big question now is how far will the political upheaval go when an entire elite is implicated in an unsatisfactory energy experiment, which inevitably has become wrapped up in public disappointment with another failed elite project, the European Union itself."

 

Summing Up

 

Government knows best?

 

Are you kidding me?

No way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

And that's all we  need to know about the chances that ObamaCare will help solve the medical care issues of ordinary Americans.

 

It's exactly like Europe's political "solution" to its energy needs.

 

Meanwhile, in the good old U.S.A., the approval of the Keystone Pipeline needs to happen --- and sooner rather than later.

 

And the plain fact is that ObamaCare will be an ongoing disaster, even after the website has been fixed.

 

That's my take.

 

Thanks. Bob.

ObamaCare = Adverse Selection = Unaffordable

Obama Care is officially named the Affordable Care Act.

As with many things in politics, what has been called a horse is actually a chicken.

And so it is with the Alice In Wonderland naming of the nation's new health care law.

The technical term for this screwing of the healthy and the youngsters in order to finance health care benefits for the sick and the oldsters is adverse selection.

The common meaning of the term adverse selection is that those who are in need of health care will sign up and those who aren't won't sign up. Hence, what's called affordable is sure to be unaffordable for America's taxpayers.

Obama Care's Bigger Problem describes the next part of the ObamaCare train wreck in just a few well chosen words:

"The problem with the ObamaCare rollout is not simply that so many people have been unable to sign up on the online exchanges. The much bigger problem is that even those people who have signed up are not in the demographic groups that proponents of the law are targeting.

"Insurers say the early buyers of health coverage on the nation's troubled new websites are older than expected so far, raising early concerns about the economics of the insurance marketplaces," according to The Wall Street Journal. "If the trend continues, an older, more expensive set of customers could drive up prices for everyone, the insurers say, by forcing them to spread their costs around."

The economic term for this is adverse selection. The people who stand to gain the most—the sick and the elderly—will enroll. Many of the rest will put it off, thereby starving the program of funds needed to pay for the sick and elderly who rack up most of the bills.

"One of the fundamental flaws of the Affordable Care Act is that, despite its name, it makes health insurance more expensive," writes Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute. "In the average state, Obamacare will increase underlying premiums by 41 percent. As we have long expected, the steepest hikes will be imposed on the healthy, the young, and the male. And Obamacare's taxpayer-funded subsidies will primarily benefit those nearing retirement—people who, unlike the young, have had their whole lives to save for their health-care needs."

The media coverage is full of reports from people who are having trouble using the exchanges, or are only now realizing that they can't keep the insurance they have, as President Obama promised. But while some of those problems are temporary and fixable, adverse selection presents a much larger challenge for the White House."

Summing Up

And so it goes in the free spending, government misled, debt ridden, and truly unaffordable land of Oz.

Generational theft continues unabated.

Thanks. Bob.