Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Dilbert
Monday, August 23rd, 2010Primary Elections
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010Health Care Reform
Sunday, March 21st, 2010Taleb Quote
Thursday, February 25th, 2010California Death Spiral
Friday, February 19th, 2010For those of you who also read Paul Krugman’s NYT columns and blog, don’t worry too much about us over the article published here. The 39% increases seem to be part of the individual insurance market, and we’re insured through my corporation under a business policy. Since there are fewer business customers fleeing due to high insurance prices, we’re somewhat protected from this.
Nonetheless, we faced a 30% rise in our own premiums two years ago, so we’re not completely immune. Health care reform is essential — the current situation reminds me incredibly of Enron and the power outages created in California in 2001 to force the state to pay higher electric bills.
Remind me again why I’m such a strong free-market advocate?
Alan Grayson for President
Monday, February 1st, 2010I just heard about him in the Economist. Harvard educated economist/lawyer/entrepreneur who represents Central Florida in the House of Representatives. Strong backer of health care reform (his master’s thesis was on geriatric health care in the US, and he posts the number of people dying for lack of adequate health care in America on his website).
His other target is the Federal Reserve, which has acknowledged expanding its balance sheet by $1 trillion this year (“printing money”) and has been accused of keeping off balance sheet expansions of up to $9 trillion. One of Grayson’s videos on Youtube on the topic has been viewed 2 million times (here).
He’s on my radar screen.
Google is Center of the New Post-State World
Saturday, January 30th, 2010It’s a grandiose title to this post, but I can’t imagine any other way to think about it. Google has more impact in my day-to-day life than my local government. And I trust Google a whole lot more (witness the Obama vs. House Republicans encounter here – hilarious – until you realize these people rule us).
This is a report of the briefing Google gave at Davos on Friday, made by the author of “What Would Google Do?”. While I have my quibbles about the intellectual depth of the book – once you read the title, do you need to read anything more? – I’m completely behind the treatise of the book, and it makes Jeff Jarvis the perfect person to report this.
More on Scott Brown from Massachusetts
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010So, why did he win? I took a look at some of the campaign commercials. Heck, I might have voted for him based on some of these. I love the truck ad. Below the fold.
Massachusetts Vote
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010This one hurt. Ted Kennedy is spinning in his grave. And I personally felt someone’s hand on my wallet.
It’s all about Health Care. Let’s go over the impossibilities now. The House has a chance to pass the Senate version of the bill unchanged. Unfortunately, this would leave all of the Senate pork intact (and there was a lot of it, ask anyone in Nebraska). And none of the House pork would be there, so they have little reason to vote for it other than the kindness of their hearts.
The Republicans will not welcome a bipartisan solution after this victory; they smell blood in the water. They think that the next round of elections this Fall will overturn Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate if they do what they just did; running against Obamacare.
There are a lot of good reasons to dislike Obama’s Health Care plan, not least the political deals made Democrat-to-Democrat in getting the thing done, simply because individuals saw it was in their power to insist on their pound of flesh. It was ugly.
But something really needs to be done. Even if our health insurance only rises by eleven percent a year, as it did this year, we will soon see it as the biggest part of our budget. Bigger than the cost of the house we own. Bigger than anything in the business. Just compounding our current rates, not accounting for the vast change we will face when I turn 50 in three years, here is what we will have:
2010 $15,400
2011 $17,094
2012 $18,974
2013 $21,062 I turn 50 this year, so we will face a diametric increase in our rates. For simplicity, I am sticking with the 11% increases here.
2014 $23,378
2015 $25,950 This is the year medical costs of our healthy family will exceed our mortgage.
2016 $28,804
2017 $31,973
2018 $35,490
This is not a good thing, Massachusetts. Not a good thing at all.
Quote
Thursday, January 7th, 2010There is an old Ronald Reagan quote that I never quite understood. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”
I think I understand it better after reading this.
And I was liking Timothy Geithner.