Glenn Greenwald, who I admire enormously, said at one point that the discussion about Snowdon was a distraction, because the real issue was not the whistleblower but was the spying that the whistleblower disclosed. He then makes the story about the whistleblower, with four out his last five headlines, and six of his last eleven, being about Snowden.
I appreciate Snowden informing us, but I'm tired of hearing about him. Did he release the information so that we could discuss the actions of our government, or did he do it so that he could be the center of attention? So far he is succeeding mostly in the latter, and Glenn Greenwald is facilitating that.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Small Minds
A video has gone viral in which a young man pulls up to a DUI checkpoint with his driver's window open only a crack, is greeted in a friendly manner by the officer, and when the officer asks him to roll down the window he refuses to do so. The officer asks how old he is and the driver claims he is not required by law to answer, and when asked to provide an ID the driver claims that the law does not require him to do that either.
You can almost see the officer thinking, “Okay, this guy wants to play macho mas macho.” One thing leads to another and it winds up with his car being searched. This is presented as an example of "police brutality."
The young man is, of course, as dumb as a bag of hammers. What do you gain by refusing to roll down your window? You gain a pissed off policeman, of course, but I don't know many people who would regard that as a desirable objective. He claims he was “asserting his constitutional rights,” but I don’t see anything in the constitution or any of the amendments that says citizens don’t have to roll down their car windows.
And, please note, they do have to produce their driver’s license upon demand of a law enforcement officer if they are driving a car, so when he refused to do that he was not “asserting his constitutional rights,” he was just being an idiot.
But I am actually offended that this guy’s little game of pissing off the policeman is being passed off as “asserting one’s rights,” when all it is in reality is a little ego game played by a spoiled brat. No basic rights were involved here.
Rosa Parks was asserting her rights when she sat in the front of the bus, risking physical harm and perhaps her life to do so, and representing not her ego but the greater cause of human rights.
The 600 marchers who crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge and wound up badly beaten by state troopers were asserting their rights, That was not some ego game, that was part of a years-long struggle to fight for basic rights for their people, and they paid a price.
This video was posted on a liberal discussion group and more than fifty comments were unanimous in cheering the idiot for asserting his rights and condemning the police for brutality. We have become so small in our thinking in this country that we do not even know what “rights” are.
You can almost see the officer thinking, “Okay, this guy wants to play macho mas macho.” One thing leads to another and it winds up with his car being searched. This is presented as an example of "police brutality."
The young man is, of course, as dumb as a bag of hammers. What do you gain by refusing to roll down your window? You gain a pissed off policeman, of course, but I don't know many people who would regard that as a desirable objective. He claims he was “asserting his constitutional rights,” but I don’t see anything in the constitution or any of the amendments that says citizens don’t have to roll down their car windows.
And, please note, they do have to produce their driver’s license upon demand of a law enforcement officer if they are driving a car, so when he refused to do that he was not “asserting his constitutional rights,” he was just being an idiot.
But I am actually offended that this guy’s little game of pissing off the policeman is being passed off as “asserting one’s rights,” when all it is in reality is a little ego game played by a spoiled brat. No basic rights were involved here.
Rosa Parks was asserting her rights when she sat in the front of the bus, risking physical harm and perhaps her life to do so, and representing not her ego but the greater cause of human rights.
The 600 marchers who crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge and wound up badly beaten by state troopers were asserting their rights, That was not some ego game, that was part of a years-long struggle to fight for basic rights for their people, and they paid a price.
This video was posted on a liberal discussion group and more than fifty comments were unanimous in cheering the idiot for asserting his rights and condemning the police for brutality. We have become so small in our thinking in this country that we do not even know what “rights” are.
Monday, July 8, 2013
"Encouraging" Jobs Report
As usual, the media reports employment by cherry picking the best numbers from each of two different employment reports, “June adds 195,000 new jobs, unemployment 7.6%.” The latter number is from the Household Survey and it’s more modest report of 155,000 new jobs is not reported. The former number is from the Establishment Survey, which does not report an unemployment percentage.
The Establishment Survey always reports more jobs because when someone is working two part time jobs the Establishment Survey will report two jobs, while the Household Survey will report only one person working. Likewise, if a person who is already working a part time job takes on another part time job at a different company the Establishment Survey will report a new job, while the Household Survey will not report a newly employed person.
By reporting the unemployment percentage from one report and the job number from a different report, we get an overly optimistic picture of what is happening. Even worse, by not reporting on the types of jobs the picture is distorted even more badly. In June, while the number of employed persons increased by 155,000, the number of persons working part time not by choice increased by 332,000, so we actually lost 177,000 full time jobs during the month of June.
To point out just how dismal our economy is for the working class, between 2007 and this year the working age population has increased by 14 million people, but the total number of employed people has decreased by 2 million. That’s a net loss of jobs of 16 million, against a work force of 155 million, and represents a true unemployment of 10.3% in the real world.
Even worse, while total employment has decreased by 2 million during those six years, the number of persons employed in full time jobs has decreased by 5 million. So the percentage of people who are unemployed or underemployed is actually 12.3% in unmanipulated numbers.
Since employment reports today are containing unreported decreases in full time jobs and increases in part time jobs, it is going to be a very, very long time before we get employment reports that actually are as “encouraging” as the media claims this one to be.
The Establishment Survey always reports more jobs because when someone is working two part time jobs the Establishment Survey will report two jobs, while the Household Survey will report only one person working. Likewise, if a person who is already working a part time job takes on another part time job at a different company the Establishment Survey will report a new job, while the Household Survey will not report a newly employed person.
By reporting the unemployment percentage from one report and the job number from a different report, we get an overly optimistic picture of what is happening. Even worse, by not reporting on the types of jobs the picture is distorted even more badly. In June, while the number of employed persons increased by 155,000, the number of persons working part time not by choice increased by 332,000, so we actually lost 177,000 full time jobs during the month of June.
To point out just how dismal our economy is for the working class, between 2007 and this year the working age population has increased by 14 million people, but the total number of employed people has decreased by 2 million. That’s a net loss of jobs of 16 million, against a work force of 155 million, and represents a true unemployment of 10.3% in the real world.
Even worse, while total employment has decreased by 2 million during those six years, the number of persons employed in full time jobs has decreased by 5 million. So the percentage of people who are unemployed or underemployed is actually 12.3% in unmanipulated numbers.
Since employment reports today are containing unreported decreases in full time jobs and increases in part time jobs, it is going to be a very, very long time before we get employment reports that actually are as “encouraging” as the media claims this one to be.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Defining Democracy
We all know that President Obama gives awesome speeches, but it’s sometimes not altogether clear what the hell he’s talking about, and he can be pretty tactless at times. Such as when he says that, “Democracies don’t work when everybody says it’s the other person’s fault and I want 100 percent of what I want.”
He was actually being rather superior and insulting about Egypt, but it would have been easy to think he was talking about this country, where Republicans say it’s the Democrats fault, Democrats say it’s the Republicans fault, and voters 100% want a free lunch.
He also said regarding Egypt in the same speech that "our commitment to Egypt has never been around any particular individual or party, our commitment has been to a process.” That process turns out to be that if roughly 4% of a nation’s population takes to the street the Army throws the present government out of power. Democracy takes different forms in different countries, you see.
When Hamas won the elections in Palestine we were much less “committed to a process” than we have been in Egypt, so apparently we will remain committed to a process only for so long as the process produces an outcome which we find acceptable.
And in this country, when large numbers of people took to the streets during Vietnam, the Army did not throw the government out of power, it threw the people out of the streets. As I said, democracy works different ways in different countries.
He was actually being rather superior and insulting about Egypt, but it would have been easy to think he was talking about this country, where Republicans say it’s the Democrats fault, Democrats say it’s the Republicans fault, and voters 100% want a free lunch.
He also said regarding Egypt in the same speech that "our commitment to Egypt has never been around any particular individual or party, our commitment has been to a process.” That process turns out to be that if roughly 4% of a nation’s population takes to the street the Army throws the present government out of power. Democracy takes different forms in different countries, you see.
When Hamas won the elections in Palestine we were much less “committed to a process” than we have been in Egypt, so apparently we will remain committed to a process only for so long as the process produces an outcome which we find acceptable.
And in this country, when large numbers of people took to the streets during Vietnam, the Army did not throw the government out of power, it threw the people out of the streets. As I said, democracy works different ways in different countries.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Obamacare?
I have been with United Healthcare ever since my wife and I married, fifteen years ago. We have never had the slightest problem with them paying claims, even after I developed some severe health problems in 2003. In the fourteen years leading up to this one, I have probably had to contest a total of two or three decisions with them.
This year I have been fighting them tooth and nail all year; have done battle on forty or more claims on which they have denied payment. I have prevailed in every case, but it has been like pulling teeth from an angry bear. Their reasons have been transparently ridiculous, ranging from claiming not to know my Medicare status up to something having to do with the current phase of the fucking Moon.
Does this have to do with implementation of Obamacare? You decide.
This year I have been fighting them tooth and nail all year; have done battle on forty or more claims on which they have denied payment. I have prevailed in every case, but it has been like pulling teeth from an angry bear. Their reasons have been transparently ridiculous, ranging from claiming not to know my Medicare status up to something having to do with the current phase of the fucking Moon.
Does this have to do with implementation of Obamacare? You decide.
Mandate Delayed
I’m not into making predictions, mostly because it takes too long to verify their outcome, by which time the predictions have been forgotten. I much prefer to just lurk in the weeds and then say “I told you so” even if, in fact, I was merely thinking it. That makes me something of a prophet in my own mind, but... Whatever.
Anyway, I knew back when Obamacare first passed that it was going to remain popular only until it began to be implemented, at which point it was going to become very unpopular. I mean, suppose you passed a law requiring fire insurance companies to sell policies to people whose houses were actually on fire at the time. Everyone would love the idea on compassionate grounds, but once you implemented that policy it would not take long to figure out that everyone’s fire insurance had become meaningless and useless.
And so, of course, once we reach the point of implementation of this “health care reform” thing we find that, having delayed it for four years, we need to delay the employer mandate for yet another year because... Well, the reason given is that we need to simplify the rules, but that sounds a bit bogus to me. They’ve had four years to simplify the rules and they wait until the last minute to discover that the rules need simplifying?
I think somebody actually read more than the headline of the BLS report and realized that while we gained 150,000 new jobs, we also gained 400,000 part time jobs, meaning that we lost 250,000 full time jobs, and made the connection between that and Obamacare’s exemption of part time workers from the requirement for providing health insurance.
Whatever this delay means, it is hardly a testimony to the wonderfulness of Obamacare is it? You’d think that would it embarrass the administration to reveal its bias toward business interests by delaying the mandate for business but not for individuals, but this administration is not sufficiently self aware to be capable of embarrassment.
Not to mention that the revenue generated by the employer mandate was supposed to pay for the subsidies needed to support the individual mandate, so a source of funding for those health insurance subsidies is going to have to be found elsewhere. Krugman will not hesitate to advise borrowing it, of course, and the administration is not going to worry about its promise that Obamacare would be revenue neutral.
I’ve lost two of my five doctors this year. One of them, in his early fifties, quit practicing medicine altogether. The other one quit taking Medicare, so as soon as I lose my health insurance I will have to replace him.
The closer we get to this Obamacare mess, the more we find that it is just going to crash and burn. No matter how morally wonderful it may sound to do so, selling fire insurance to a person whose house is burning is simply not functionally sound. Companies being forced to sell insurance policies on which they know they are going to lose major sums of money is simply not a feasible health care solution. Neither is forcing providers to perform their services for less than it costs them to do so.
Anyway, I knew back when Obamacare first passed that it was going to remain popular only until it began to be implemented, at which point it was going to become very unpopular. I mean, suppose you passed a law requiring fire insurance companies to sell policies to people whose houses were actually on fire at the time. Everyone would love the idea on compassionate grounds, but once you implemented that policy it would not take long to figure out that everyone’s fire insurance had become meaningless and useless.
And so, of course, once we reach the point of implementation of this “health care reform” thing we find that, having delayed it for four years, we need to delay the employer mandate for yet another year because... Well, the reason given is that we need to simplify the rules, but that sounds a bit bogus to me. They’ve had four years to simplify the rules and they wait until the last minute to discover that the rules need simplifying?
I think somebody actually read more than the headline of the BLS report and realized that while we gained 150,000 new jobs, we also gained 400,000 part time jobs, meaning that we lost 250,000 full time jobs, and made the connection between that and Obamacare’s exemption of part time workers from the requirement for providing health insurance.
Whatever this delay means, it is hardly a testimony to the wonderfulness of Obamacare is it? You’d think that would it embarrass the administration to reveal its bias toward business interests by delaying the mandate for business but not for individuals, but this administration is not sufficiently self aware to be capable of embarrassment.
Not to mention that the revenue generated by the employer mandate was supposed to pay for the subsidies needed to support the individual mandate, so a source of funding for those health insurance subsidies is going to have to be found elsewhere. Krugman will not hesitate to advise borrowing it, of course, and the administration is not going to worry about its promise that Obamacare would be revenue neutral.
I’ve lost two of my five doctors this year. One of them, in his early fifties, quit practicing medicine altogether. The other one quit taking Medicare, so as soon as I lose my health insurance I will have to replace him.
The closer we get to this Obamacare mess, the more we find that it is just going to crash and burn. No matter how morally wonderful it may sound to do so, selling fire insurance to a person whose house is burning is simply not functionally sound. Companies being forced to sell insurance policies on which they know they are going to lose major sums of money is simply not a feasible health care solution. Neither is forcing providers to perform their services for less than it costs them to do so.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Medical Lottery
Doctors today practice medicine on something of a lottery system, apparently; providing services to patients without ever knowing what they will be paid for those services.
Payment is determined after the fact by the insurance company, according to the billing person at my pulmonologist’s office. Her response to my question about a bill was that I should take it up with the insurance company, and when I pointed out that I was questioning an invoice on the doctor’s letterhead her response was “I don’t know, I don’t care and I’m not going to discuss it with you” and a repeat of the instruction to take it up with the insurance company.
At issue was three office visits, all identified as “office visit, long,” and each billed at $222.00. Two of them showed a discount of $96.00, while the most recent one did not, and I was being directed to pay the full amount of $222.00. I was questioning why I did not receive the discount on the third office visit that I had received on the first two and her response was that the insurance company had instructed them to collect the full $222.00 from me. I asked if she was telling me that the discount was not actually offered by and under the control of the doctor, and she said that the insurance company dictated how much would be payable.
So I asked if she saw any reason why a customer might object to paying almost twice as much for the exact same service as previously received, and she got really pissed off at me, said that she didn’t really care what I thought, and told me again to take it up with the insurance company.
So even though it’s the doctor who owns the medical practice, and I’m the guy who chooses the doctor and can choose a different one if I want to, and I’m the one paying the doctor bill, none of us has any authority when it comes to pricing. The amount payable is strictly within the purview of the insurance company and we all submit to whatever they dictate.
Is this a great country, or what?
Payment is determined after the fact by the insurance company, according to the billing person at my pulmonologist’s office. Her response to my question about a bill was that I should take it up with the insurance company, and when I pointed out that I was questioning an invoice on the doctor’s letterhead her response was “I don’t know, I don’t care and I’m not going to discuss it with you” and a repeat of the instruction to take it up with the insurance company.
At issue was three office visits, all identified as “office visit, long,” and each billed at $222.00. Two of them showed a discount of $96.00, while the most recent one did not, and I was being directed to pay the full amount of $222.00. I was questioning why I did not receive the discount on the third office visit that I had received on the first two and her response was that the insurance company had instructed them to collect the full $222.00 from me. I asked if she was telling me that the discount was not actually offered by and under the control of the doctor, and she said that the insurance company dictated how much would be payable.
So I asked if she saw any reason why a customer might object to paying almost twice as much for the exact same service as previously received, and she got really pissed off at me, said that she didn’t really care what I thought, and told me again to take it up with the insurance company.
So even though it’s the doctor who owns the medical practice, and I’m the guy who chooses the doctor and can choose a different one if I want to, and I’m the one paying the doctor bill, none of us has any authority when it comes to pricing. The amount payable is strictly within the purview of the insurance company and we all submit to whatever they dictate.
Is this a great country, or what?
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