Another Perspective on Palin

I read an interesting article trying to explain the left-wing reaction to Sarah Palin. It is one of the best commentaries I have read to date. Sadly, I think it is accurate, not because I am sympathetic towards the former Governor, but because the article finds its critical voice in how Hillary Clinton was treated during the Democrat primaries. I also think it explains the way the McCain campaign treated the Governor as they were worried she would upstage the Senator. Power is the issue with Palin and that scares most of the left and many on the entrenched right. In order to maintain their power, Sarah must be attacked so her supporters see how foolish they are to oppose those in power.

Feeling Rich

Our power has been out for almost 2 days now. The storm dropped many trees, some over power lines. My feeling has nothing to do with electricity, but our lack of it. Thomas Edison said, "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." I was burning two oil lamps so I could read. I was also burning wood to keep warm.

This caused me to start thinking about what it costs people to light and heat their houses without electricity (that would be a significant portion of the world's population). I spent $15 on wood that will only produce 6 hours of heat. Lamp oil burns slowly, but burning 2 lamps from 5 PM until 10 PM will probably cost a bottle of oil every 3 days. I have not even considered the cost of fueling food preparation. While I have just considered the financial costs, the environmental costs are even more staggering. Can you imagine the smoke pollution from tens of thousands of cooking fires burning every day. Add to that the deforestation required to resource the daily fires and you are looking at shortages within months.

I am thankful for cheap electricity. Electricity lights our homes and keeps our forests standing. It also makes life very manageable. There is a par of me that enjoys the the lack of electricity, but I think that has more to do with my wealth than any deep moral obligation to turn off my electrical appliances. My cheep electricity gives me the option to choose power or no power. I will be sad when the power supply is returned to my home, but it will be short lived as I can once again cook, wash the big pile of clothes stacking up, and heat the house so I don't have to spend $10 each day to have 4 hours of heat in one room. I hope for cheap electricity the world over because it really is a good thing.

Frontline on Healthcare

I watched a television show called "Frontline" last night as its topic was on universal health insurance. The series runs on PBS and is notoriously left-wing in its perspective. Usually, Bill Moyers is the propagandist, but last night it was a different fellow. Sadly, the presenter's bias was easily uncovered. The US health care system was "bad" and the universal insurance systems were "good." The basic arguments presented against US insurance were as follows:

1. US administrative fees ran at 22% of cost compared to 5-8% in other systems.
2. US health insurance companies were 'for profit' the other country's' insurers were not.
3. The US spends 16% of GDP on health whereas the other spent 6-8% of GDP on health.
4. There are many medical bankruptcies in the US and none anywhere else.

All the topics are good ones to cover, but one would expect some intellectual honesty in the discussion. With each of the topics presented the dialogue seemed to come straight from the Michael Moore guide to screed. The US does this poorly, this other country does so well, why is this? The easy answer was always 'profit'.

Lets pop the profit balloon right now. First, a for profit entity only means that there are equity investors involved at the foundation of the company where year end surpluses may be given to the equity investors (dividends). In a not for profit entity, the year end surpluses are placed in reserves not earnings; there are no dividends, but it is the same thing. These left over earnings in both for and not for profit entities are used to fund future operations.

The second myth on profit is the bottom line. With an insurance industry standard of 2%-6% profit, that will not cause the problems Frontline claims. If the US spends 16% GDP on health care and theoretically the GDP is $100,000, then $16,000 is health costs and of that $320-$960 is profit, or 0.32%-0.96% of GDP is health care profit. As evil as one wants to make profit, the argument is sentimental at best because it carries no water. With profit out of the equation, US health care is 15% of GDP.

Finally, if profit were the true motive of the insurance companies, administrative fees would not be 22%. Administrative fees are the first place any good manager looks to cut costs to increase the bottom line. There must be another reason. The 'Evil of Profit' has become favored the left-wing trope when taking a moral stand.

One topic that the show did not touch upon was medical tort costs which account for 13% of the of health costs. In Germany, medical malpractice insurance is ~$1,400 per year compared to ~$140,000 in the US. The reporter was not ever curious as to why this might be. There is a reason John Edwards lives in an 18,000 square foot home, and health care is expensive in the US. If the show wanted to be fair, the case would have been made that lawyers should not make big profits off of health care in the US.

Overall, the show was incurious emotional propaganda packaged as intellectual argumentation.

Finally, A Judge Has Ruled What We All Know Is True

In the UK, (HT Tim), a judge has ruled that Climate Change Belief is a religion. From now on, I will be referring to this as the Church of CCB with its pope being Al Gore and is Chief Profit being David Suzuki. Apparently, the science is NOT settled and the only way to protect this boil from a healthy lancing is to call it a religion. As for me, I rather enjoyed the apocalyptic narrative that was being force fed to us. Every year the rhetoric became sillier with everything from earthquakes to acne being blamed on global warming. Regent College had a bit about a Lament for the Climate, my lament is for the intellectual climate.

Odds and Ends

Just some random thoughts:

Al Gore has been accused of profiting off of his Global Warming snake oil. His excuse is actually a good one! He wonders why he should not put his money where his mouth is. I agree. Now if he and the left can stop demonizing those who make money in other industries.

Today is election day in a few places. The New Jersey governors race is most interesting. I don't think the republican will win. Why? Because the polls are too tight and in a tight race in the Northeast, the republican ballot box fraudsters are far outnumbers by their democrat counterparts.

I recently read an article by a Christian who remarked that someone was over-housed. I thought the author might be Hugo Chavez, but it was not.

I'm going to vote for a Democrat assemblyman today because the incumbent Republican has been the chief money spender in Virginia for many years and our budget problems are legion (the spending grew faster than inflation and population growth over the past 8 years). I don't expect my vote to change the balance of power in the Assembly, but I hope a new finance chair will be the result.

The evil (so says Pres O!) profiteering health insurance companies make 2-6% income year over year. That's about in line with long term government bonds.

The director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic has resigned after watching an ultrasound of an abortion. Good for her.