Spent a couple of days in conferences with executives and CPAs from major health care providers, and several government officials serving as guest speakers (no name players though). Health care management is getting more difficult and more interesting.
I have learned a great deal but my head feels like it will explode. My presentations went well though.
Now I have four editors yelling at me to hurry up.
Rusty What seemed to be the main thing making it “more interesting”? I can fill out the “more difficult” fairly convincingly on my own, but not sure of the interesting side…..
The chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense sent Congressional Budget Office over to the pentagon to find out if they could figure out how operations and maintenance (almost $300B in 2010 with contingency spending) spending affects “readiness”.
They came out of the puzzle palace thoroughly confused.
That is because “readiness”, which at best is highly perishable, is measured against fictitious “wars”, of the most expensive nature.
The attributes of the “systems” maintained such as reliability and quality are not what the specifications say they should be, because the specifications are all waived.
And much of the O&M money is for contracted maintenance and support which is “level of effort” despite its billing as performance based.
Poor CBO came out as confused as the GAO when they go over to audit the pentagon’s “books”.
Plenty of money to be cut from things no one can understand, but the insiders.
Deficit hawks do not think about the pentagon, too hard to get lost.
American troops are dying in Afghanistan in record numbers, drone-launched missiles are killing more people in Pakistan, American aircraft are carrying out missions over Libya, terrorist detainees are facing military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, and WikiLeaker Pfc. Bradley Manning is allegedly being tortured. Despite all this grist, the antiwar movement in 2011 is a shadow of its Bush-era self. The obvious explanation for this is that there is a Democrat in the White House, and according to a new study, this simple answer is largely correct.
“The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity,” the authors write. “Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.” The difference is that Democrats abandoned the pacifist cause when one of their own decided to use force. Though such social movements routinely claim to be issue-based and nonpartisan, Democrats constituted 54 percent of the hundreds of thousands of antiwar demonstrators in January 2007 and contributed the bulk of the financial support to the umbrella antiwar group United for Peace and Justice
The next time these liberals spin a self-righteous narrative of principled opposition to a Republican president, it can be taken with a grain of salt.
Obomber is turned (may have always been a perpetual war sleeper). The tea party is bought by the military industrial PAC’s.
I do see Washington Times occasionally, it is the favorite rag of my contemporaries, retired military officers still double dipping. The DoD publlic affairs folks give it more than its due on Early Bird. Need to have the PAC talking points sent out to the serving!!
Libruls who are not connected to trust fundswith the war profits are too busy trying to survive the Wall St busted balance sheet depression and defending honest labor from the likes of Wilson and the Koches.
The Washington Times, indeed. Never a war nor a broke down weapon do they disagree with. The home of the Kagans and blither from Gaffney, Thompson and the regular perpetual war cheerleaders.
I have been an equal opportunity opponent of the perpetual war group.
ilsm – “Perhaps both you and Early Bird readers ought to read more than the Kagan cabalists.”
That’s the best excuse you can cough up for the lack of activity by the anti-war crowd?
Try reading the study referenced in the article before throwing out any phony excuses. You missed the whole point of Sammy’s comment and reference which cites the study. Typical misdirection effort.
TAKING A CHANCE POSTING SOMETHING SO LONG — ESPECIALLY MY COMMENTS FROM ANOTHER SITE — BUT THEY DON’T BAN YOU HERE LIKE THEY DO ON 2 PLUS 2 (poker site) SO HERE GOES (I’ve said it all before but I think I strung it though a little better today — strung more together anyway):
Last I heard inflation is the cheap way to pay down enormous debt — and isn’t inflation the way to “painlessly” reduce the real price of real estate; the classic way severe housing slumps (caused by burst bubbles) end?
What exactly is the big need for under 2% inflation anyway? Most of my long life until recently inflation has run between 3% and 5% a year — except for the double digit inflation of the late 70s. What’s the big harm? ****** First and foremost is inflation the cheaper and quicker way out of federal (Chinese) debt and out of our busted housing bubble (historical average time to get out I just read in one of David McWilliams’ books: 5-7 years)? Which busted bubble is threatening us with a lost decade or two. Is it or is it not; let’s get the giant positive(s, plural) established before we weigh the trade offs. Is it or isn’t it? Second, if we had an adequate safety net we would only have to worry about some retired people living a little less enjoyably versus pulling out of two economic tailspins that threaten to crash us fatally. But since as a country we never worried about adequate safety nets before why start now? We work people for less and less and less every year for the same work even as average outputs doubles (since 1968 — back when the minimum wage was $10/hr adjusted and the median wage was but 20% lower than today’s average person’s wage) and then we set them out to pasture — or should I say to sleep in the street. Minimum SS and maximum food stamps together come to about $900/mo — eat or stay indoors, your choice. […]
a casual look at the “progressive” news sites on the blog looks to me like the anti war folk are still anti war. i don’t know about the Democrats… my guess is not much different from yours: they are against it when it helps their politics and not against it when it doesn’t. kind of sad to know that Dems are just like Republicans.
self righteous now… what would you know about that?
I don’t know about it in some detail — I just know about it — I recognized it immediately as the perfect theorectical answer to all American labor’s; kind of thing you wish you had thought of yourself, seems so obvious — and mostly thereby all of America’s problems. I am too tired now to tell you what I do know: tommorow.
Where do you live, Guatamala? No joke; people reported sleeping in the street in San Francisco on that money. Takes $700/mo just to stay indoors in the poorest residence hotel (which is very poor!). $1300/mo ($300/wk) minimum to live the poorest live anyplace I am familiar with. No reason the retired have to move to the Ozarks leaving family and friends behind either — if we can pay $900/mo we can pay $1300 minimum SS. Don’t imagine Obama will ever consider this for a moment — probably doesn’t know his minimum wage is $3/hr behind LBJ’s; doesn’t even know.
Come on MG. What Trump probably knows well, and so too should you, is that a significant portion of our own One Percent club makes a significant portion of their great wealth by participating with and/or facilitating the activities of OPEC and cheap labor countries like China. Will China become the Frankenstein monster and kill its creators? Maybe, but for now too many American business interests are tied tightly to the Asian economic phenomenon. Trump is a master self promoter, but a realistic view of the global market place doesn’t seem to be his forte. Or maybe its just a part of a well thought out script.
The military industrial complex needs to stop begging the Iraqi puppets to keep the pentagon pillaging the US’ future in maintaining the ineffective occupation.
This little noticed article in Foreign Policy summarized a report written by 2 senior members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/13/the_y_article
“The report says Americans are overreacting to Islamic extremism, underinvesting in their youth, and failing to embrace the sense of competition and opportunity that made America a world power. The United States has been increasingly consumed by seeing the world through the lens of threat, while failing to understand that influence, competitiveness, and innovation are the key to advancing American interests in the modern world.”
This quote from the report summarizes the way forward:
“And yet with globalization, we seem to have developed a strange apprehension about the efficacy of our ability to apply the innovation and hard work necessary to successfully compete in a complex security and economic environment. Further, we have misunderstood interdependence as a weakness rather than recognizing it as a strength. The key to sustaining our competitive edge, at home or on the world stage, is credibility — and credibility is a difficult capital to foster. It cannot be won through intimidation and threat, it cannot be sustained through protectionism or exclusion. Credibility requires engagement, strength, and reliability — imaginatively applied through the national tools of development, diplomacy, and defense.”
With senior military leaders realizing how much the status quo is damaging our nation can our nominal political parties be educated to the reality? Courtesy Digby’s Hullaballoo
1. We (providers) need to make major investments with compressing revenue.
2. In order to manage this transition we need to spend more on human capital while being pressured to spend less on human capital.
3. PPACA declares accountable care organizations as our salvation; ACOs are poorly defined, largely untested and we really do not know if the darn things will work.
4. In four years or so we (providers) need to rearrange, integrate and re-coordinate the business and practice models of hundreds of thousands of providers, and coordinate this with insurers and government payers, based on rules that do not exist yet and best practices are evolving, all while managing day to day operations.
5. The people writing the regulations have never provided or managed clinical care (common complaint) or managed anything. They don’t “get it.”
6. Some providers and some private insurers are combining to develop interesting innovations.
7. While DHHS-CMS is pushing integration, the DOJ and the FTC are threatening providers with enforcement actions for – integration! We need clarity, especially of Stark I, II, III.
8. What works in Baltimore or Detroit metro will not work in Kalamazoo or Lima.
Here’s your completely non-economics-related little piece of the wonders of Nature for today. The bird shown is a Golden Eagle. Our Bald Eagle eats fish and other prey like birds. The eagle in the video is after mountain goats. Makes the BE look like a punk. The narrator is speaking Spanish. NancyO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7FFlFy8eM
Sammy examine U.S. troop deaths under Rumsfeld, who resisted the Surge (much touted by many rightists here BTW) until he was dragged out of office to those under Gates.
Rumsfeld was a nutcase tool of the PNAC who continually argued for expanding the war to new theatres (Syria, iran) even as we was unwilling to actually commit forces or the ungraded equipment they needed. On the other hand Gates from the very beginning was engaged in finding ways of extracting the U.S. from both, something marked most clearly when Bush went ahead and signed the Status of Forces Agreement that set deadlines for withdrawel of U.S. troops. Which considering the fucked up place that Rumsfeld and the Neo-Cons had left Iraq was maybe the best the anti-war movement could hope for.
If you don’t understand the difference between a strategy focused on disengagement after Rumsfeld with one focused on expanded involvement during Rumsfeld and how that would translate into different levels of protest I am afraid I can’t help you. Because once again you are displaying cartoon thinking.
Of course ‘nuance’ IS a FRENCH word, so it would be a little much to expect you to engage in it.
pretty much you have identified what is “wrong” with government solutions. i hear from people in the private sector that they deal with the same problems when the business is big enough to have a couple of layers of management and a head office in another state.
if you want to go down in history, if not get rich, figure out a solution.
similar to what i said to rusty. except this problem has been solved more than once. Napoleon did it until he got old (40 ish) and lazy and liked the sound of his own name. I think the U.S. solved it at least for WW2 and eventually for Korea. Some evidence that they eventually got things sort of right in Iraq… while losing the hearts and minds of the middle east, which should have been what they were trying to win.
when i saw that i was going to want to retire early i put about 90% of my income into paying off my house and building up a little reserve in the bank. of course the very poor don’t have that option, but from what i have seen they could manage their money a little better if they had help from someone who wasn’t trying to sell them stocks and bonds.
i am told i live in one of the more expensive “cities” in america. but i don’t believe it. I sure couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco.
i would only add that “protectionism” is not the order of the day. we apparently still think we live in the Smoot Hawley world. A little “protectionism” applied to American corporations who go overseas for the cheap labor might be just the medicine we need. If the corps did not own the congress.
Trade policy aside I found it interesting to learn that (some) senior military leaders are worried we are underinvesting in education and domestic development. These are the concerns usually relegated to the DFH’s who have been veal penned as Marcy Wheeler put it by the current administration. And possibly even more surprising they are going public with their concerns although with scant notice so far.
They wrote it as actively serving military officers who emphasized the views are their own and do not reflect US military or DOD or government policy. Will anybody pay attention?
How about at first more interest on gradually less debt — but when the inflation bout is over we have less debt with less interest? Works on the (overpriced but wont reduce) housing slump for sure (I know; I read it somewhere).
The shift of 15% of income share from the top tiny fraction of our labor force (“earning” 25X what they used to — should be 2X) back to where it used to be has to be accomplished anyway. The median wage growing 25% as average income grew 100% is the elephant in the room that the people in a position to do something about it — for example tell the people that it is there! — never even seem to think about; much bigger glitch than even the longest lasting recession (I call it the Great Wage Depression).
My prescription (the whole better paid labor world’s prescription) for our terminally ill labor market, sector-wide labor agreements, will return balance to the political arena as well as the labor market. What a crazy country we have right now.
DDrew, How about at first more interest on gradually less debt — but when the inflation bout is over we have less debt with less interest? I don’t see how this is going to work. If inflation goes to 10%, then Treasury rates go to 12-14% or about 7 times higher than now. Interest is at 9% of the budget now, so it goes to 63% of the budget. In addition, entitlements and government salaries are indexed to inflation (COLA) so those expenditures also increase.
Your solution depends on government revenues, and so nominal wages, keeping up with inflation. It would be very hard for my business to raise prices to cover my higher costs and I will undoubtedly lose revenues ,so I know I would have a hard time telling my employees “You know inflation was at 10% last year, so I am going to give you all a 10% raise.” I guess that is the purpose of your “sector-wide” labor agreements. From government-centric view , if you don’t get those at the same time as inflation hits (an extremely doubtful proposition), we are in a world of hurt.
HASC Majority Chairman Buck Mc Keon 29 Apr 11 in USA Today:
Talking about “Obama’s cuts” to the pentagon.
The “cuts” amount to a fraction of the growth in waste and abuse of national resources by the 30% (which are $1.6T in acquisition costs and $5.3T total owner costs) of the most expensive “acquisitions” the pentagon is mismanaging.
He cites industrial age warfare, very expensive and ineffective, in three theaters against terrorists with no army and third world economies for support.No armies to fight in any “active” theater.
Then he rolls out China, and the People’s Liberation Army looking for “war in all directions”, rusty old half aircraft carrier being refitted for the past 11 years!The PLA is no issue, if it were then Mr. Mc Keon honestly would not allow so much waste fraud and abuse in spending the 20% of US outlays that go to the national security cabal.Nor US treasure squandered in fighting terrorism.
The fearsome cuts are to a machine with no match, which spends 49% of the money on war of the entire planet.
If all these frightening things were true then Mr. Mc Keon needs to fix the waste fraud and abuse identified every year by GAO.
A state agency charged with providing housing assistance to Michigan’s poorest residents misspent millions of tax dollars in a series of blunders that left some of the neediest residents without help, according to a wide-ranging, two-year investigation by the state Office of the Auditor General.
I believe 9% interest may be on bonds sold in the past. I think we both don’t know the details here but I never heard anyone informed make a projection like that.
I don’t know what you sell but if it is fast food, highest labor user (33%), my local McDonald’s business visibly picked up after the Illinois minimum wage jumped pretty quickly from $5.15/hr to $8/hr (1956 federal level) mostly in the foreign born segment. Jump the federal minimum wage to $15/hr and the price of what would go up: housing, medicine, transportation, vacations, what? But half the country would get a raise ( to the current median wage — with only about 2%* direct inflation w/o round and round push ups). Rerouting that 15% lost income share would put the money in the hands of we who would spend it instead of look for new bubbles to inflate with it. I think you have to really appreciate how wildly underpaid the average American worker is (not your fault :-]).
Without sector-wide agreements the (30%???) inflation will never happen (on its own) in the first place. It would be spread out over a few or more years presumably. Meantime we get to cheapen the dollars we have to pay back the Chinese which may really be becoming critical after adding $4 trillion during Bush II and trillions more as we go — a potential tailspin situation. Meantime burst housing bubbles — biggest force keeping us in our current tailspin — historically only end after inflation has reduced prices that owners willingly wont: history.
save_the_rustbelt, Thanks for the link. We really need this. GAO 2011 High Risk Series Testimony: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11394t.pdf “Over the next 5 years, the Department of Defense (DOD) expects to invest over $300 billion (in fiscal year 2011 dollars) on the development and procurement of major defense acquisition programs. DOD must get better value for its weapon system spending and find ways to deliver needed capability to the warfighter for less than it has spent in the past.” In those 5 years DoD will spend nearly a trillion dollars on total acquisitions the smaller ones far less well regulated than the ones which are at high risk called “major defense acquisition programs”.
The combined waste fraud and abuse of HUD money, as well as medeicare and medicaid is tiny compared to the waste fraud and abuse in the military industry complex. The US taxpayer should be fed up, if we were not bombarded with mendacity and anxiety over everything related to war?
And maybe next time a casus belli for a multi-trillion dollar war is manufactured out of the fevered empire imaginations of power crazed oilmen nobody will listen.
Coberly, Check it out with a pro, a Chicago labor lawyer — read “Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life” by Thomas Geoghegan.
He describes the working of the typically compressive German version of sector-wide. There is also the Canadian lite version where non union firms work under whatever common contract is negotiated with union firms and I suppose all sorts of version in between. There doesn’t seem too much on the internet — I suspect because it is such a taken for granted way of economic life around the (better paid) world that it is hardly discussed.
if inflation leads to higher interest rates leads to higher interest on the debt
the higher interest is denominated in dollars that are worth less, while people and businesses are making more of them. so are you sure it isn’t a wash?
the american taxpayer is fed up because someone is always telling him about government waste fraud and abuse so he imagines that that’s where his taxes go. he doesn’t often think about what he actually gets for his money. which in the scheme of things is more than worth what he pays for it, even if some of it is wasted.
i agree with you about military spending waste… but i have to admit that if that money was not wasted i doubt i’d notice the difference. it’s just like the cost of gas. if it had always cost four dollars a gallon, that would be “what gas costs” and we’d be happy to pay for it.
the only reason you notice taxes is that you get a bill for them and you know you’d go to jail if you didn’t pay. but if there was some way to subtract the same amount of money from every transaction without telling anyone, no one would care. prices would just be “what they are,” and the economy would adjust to that.
maybe if we had “more money” (paid less taxes) we could buy more “things”… though my guess is that for the most part “things” would just cost more… but i am not at all sure those “things” wouldn’t be a form of waste far worse for us.
that said, sure, lets try to reduce wasteful government spending… but we should be focussed on exactly “what” we think is waste, and why other people disagree with us, and do we want to share the country with them… not just wandering around crying “oh the waste,” “oh, the abuse”, “oh, the evil government”
or on the other hand defending everything the government does.
I have the impression — not sure where I picked it up over time — that the overall result is inflating your way out of debt. The inflated interest is short term — the deflated debt last (forever? :-]). Anyway, what is killing the economy at the moment is the over supply of housing at prices to high to sell but nobody will back off from. Inflating our way out of that is what will work eventually — speed it up might be critical given the threat of the double tail spin.
To me the biggest problem of all is “the Disaster” — called by our detached progressive professionals the wan name of “inequality.” Shifting back the 15% of income share to the 90% is my overwhelming priority — or otherwise better tell most kids to go to work for the government at least until the unions are all gone there too.
the higher interest is denominated in dollars that are worth less, while people and businesses are making more of them. so are you sure it isn’t a wash?
The bolded words are an assumption that, in the absence of aggregate demand, I don’t think will happen.. In the case of my business, I will have considerable difficulty raising prices without hurting revenues, so I will be unable to give my employees any COLA type wage increases. So we will NOT make more money, and so tax revenues will NOT keep up with the higher interest and entitlement costs.
the value of inflation, i think, is that it tends to keep people from “holding” their money and encourages investment.
Have you ever run an investment pro forma using a 18% borrowing rate? Let’s just look at a house as an example: A $300,000 loan at 5% = $1,610 per month for 30 years. At 18% the payment is $4,521. Not going to be a lot of investing going on at 18%.
May Day, the Celtic holiday of Baltane. May poles and cross road dances. The Faeries about.
And defense budget battles:
$35B for the two newest 100000Ton very felixible platforms (budget bluster code for tying up lots of money and enduring opportunity costs elsewhere)!!
Sec Nav:
“I do think that carriers give us an incredibly flexible platform and I think that the people of Japan would agree today on the flexibility of carriers,” Mabus said.
“5. The people writing the regulations have never provided or managed clinical care (common complaint) or managed anything. They don’t “get it.””
you underestimate the ingenuity of the financial players in the system. As in all productive systems the financial players seek their percentage of the gate and seek to maintain their share at its highest possible level. Cost of health care going up. Who is it that writes legislation and regulation? You don’t truly suppose that it is legislators or regulators, do you? The details come from that creature called Lobbyist, and they represent the financial players in the game. The result is not a focus on better and more cost effective health care, but on profitability and control.
That’s a very nice sentiment from Ike, but do you really believe that if money is saved cutting back on military expenditure (which I fully agree with) that that money would in some magical way benefit the poor, “the hungry who are not fed?” Clean up of waste and mismanagement has to be systemic including both government and private sector otherwise the pot of gold is simply moved around for those in control to feed their greed.
A black president supports a revolution spear headed by al Qaeda, which targets the black mercenaries employed by the Libyan government. This is rich.
We have neocon war mongers crying rivers of tears because of unsubstantiated charges that Muammar Qaddafi, was harming some revolutionaries, while at the the very same neo con war mongers fully support Israels ethnic cleansing of Palistinians.
I wonder which would be a shorter list. Jewish peace makers, non gullible Christians, Italian war heros, or liberals protesting Obamas wars.
I live across the street from a young walnut orchard. Blue Herons hunt gophers there. It is a treat to watch them alight close by. They are amazing to watch – graceful and quick.
Some greed has less opportunity cost than other greed and waste.
Grafting for war is worse to me than the waste in HUD (medical infrastructure) expenditures, at least the HUD (medical infrastructure) money goes to housing (medical infrastructure) stock fraud as opposed to blowing things up in Afghanistan fraud.
I would rather have a better margins in housing than in bombing.
From rusty’s post at least HUD fraud makes the news.
without meaning to be unkind, i think your scenarios are “nightmare scenarios.” inflation doesn’t have to run away. i can remember inflation in the teens, and interest in the teens. i coped.
there are details that would make it harder or easier. i don’t think we can just give a hysterical response off the top of our heads and prevent any action that might solve the problem.
i am not so fond of “inflating our way out” myself. i prefer “taxing our way out” and paying our bills. i am just an old fashioned conservative that way.
Harry Shearer’s often excellent hourlong radio show Le Show had Bill Black on today talking about the massive control frauds at the heart of the financial crisis. You can download a podcast if you missed it on his site or also from the KCRW web site. http://www.harryshearer.com/ Also available for free on iTunes.
His interview with Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism was also excellent.
i can remember inflation in the teens, and interest in the teens. i coped.
Yes, if you are in some COLA-indexed job, like a government worker, or retired on SS, you will not be as affected, at least at first. However if you are not in an inflation indexed job, or dependent on financing to sell your product ie. manufacturing, construction,etc. you will suffer greatly. These are the sources of government revenues which will be unable to keep up with inflation indexed expenditures, leading to more money printing, leading to more inflation, leading to………
i prefer “taxing our way out”
Again, you are advocating taxes that you won’t have to pay, nor are you affected by jobs lost or not created, because of higher taxes.
So your policy prescriptions are biased by your standard of “what is good for coberly.” This is, what’s the word I am looking for, oh yeah, “selfish.”
you haven’t been paying attention. i pay taxes. and back when inflation was in the teens i did not have a government job. i was in the first phase of my having quit my business and gone back to school to make something of my life more useful than taking money from people. so i was not only not in an inflation indexed job, i was trying to live on money that was being inflated away. like i said, i coped. i am not given to whining about the government or the unfairness of it all.
i did work for the government during a second period of high inflationi, and i watched as government salaries went up at half the rate of inflation. so for the most part you are reporting lies and fantasies as if that was the real world experience of people you know nothing about.
and can’t remember even when they tell you, so strong is your need to believe what makes you feel better.
i prefer taxing our way out of debt for the same reason a pay my own bills. something you don’t seem to understand.
Coberly, “i am not so fond of “inflating our way out” myself. i prefer “taxing our way out” and paying our bills.”
Not when the overseas debt becomes so large it is building a vicious cycle-potential tail spin from which we may not be able to recover — we are said to be approaching that trap; ask a Republican.
Not when the economy may be stuck in doldrums for another 5-7 years if our housing over-supply/prices-stuck-too-high trap is not resolved (by inflation one way or the other — slow or fast); people have to get back to work. I’m not worried about paying back the Chinese in discounted dollars — the Chinese have been pegging the yuan artificially low to increase their exports forever. Manipulating currency is standard operational procedure for all nations.
Must be noted here that the first $4 trillion of recent deficits were Bush II tax cuts for the rich — which bankers who got the trillions from people who couldn’t even spend it used it fuel the housing bubble — all the while Republicans rashly deregulated banks so they would have no trouble at all getting all that cash out of deposits to people who could not even pay back. Whence the burst bubble forced Democrats to go more trillions into national debt to avoid a depression.
Inflation caused by shifting 15% of income share back to the lower 90 percentile earners (causing price rises from pay raises) could end up killing all three giant birds (great wage depression is number three) with one stone.
Sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier. That is some bird. The Kazakis use them for hunting not just mountain goats, but also wolves and deer. The Kazakis are no creampuffs themselves. NancyO
Yeah they don’t carry it on my local affiliate either. But it’s streamable from the KCRW site and if I miss it I just download the podcast from itunes.
Spent a couple of days in conferences with executives and CPAs from major health care providers, and several government officials serving as guest speakers (no name players though). Health care management is getting more difficult and more interesting.
I have learned a great deal but my head feels like it will explode. My presentations went well though.
Now I have four editors yelling at me to hurry up.
Rusty
What seemed to be the main thing making it “more interesting”? I can fill out the “more difficult” fairly convincingly on my own, but not sure of the interesting side…..
The chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense sent Congressional Budget Office over to the pentagon to find out if they could figure out how operations and maintenance (almost $300B in 2010 with contingency spending) spending affects “readiness”.
They came out of the puzzle palace thoroughly confused.
That is because “readiness”, which at best is highly perishable, is measured against fictitious “wars”, of the most expensive nature.
The attributes of the “systems” maintained such as reliability and quality are not what the specifications say they should be, because the specifications are all waived.
And much of the O&M money is for contracted maintenance and support which is “level of effort” despite its billing as performance based.
Poor CBO came out as confused as the GAO when they go over to audit the pentagon’s “books”.
Plenty of money to be cut from things no one can understand, but the insiders.
Deficit hawks do not think about the pentagon, too hard to get lost.
And maybe lose their PAC money.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12148/04-25-Readiness.pdf
American troops are dying in Afghanistan in record numbers, drone-launched missiles are killing more people in Pakistan, American aircraft are carrying out missions over Libya, terrorist detainees are facing military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, and WikiLeaker Pfc. Bradley Manning is allegedly being tortured. Despite all this grist, the antiwar movement in 2011 is a shadow of its Bush-era self. The obvious explanation for this is that there is a Democrat in the White House, and according to a new study, this simple answer is largely correct.
“The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity,” the authors write. “Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.”
The difference is that Democrats abandoned the pacifist cause when one of their own decided to use force. Though such social movements routinely claim to be issue-based and nonpartisan, Democrats constituted 54 percent of the hundreds of thousands of antiwar demonstrators in January 2007 and contributed the bulk of the financial support to the umbrella antiwar group United for Peace and Justice
The next time these liberals spin a self-righteous narrative of principled opposition to a Republican president, it can be taken with a grain of salt.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/23/the-peacenik-hypocrites/
sammy,
Obomber is turned (may have always been a perpetual war sleeper). The tea party is bought by the military industrial PAC’s.
I do see Washington Times occasionally, it is the favorite rag of my contemporaries, retired military officers still double dipping. The DoD publlic affairs folks give it more than its due on Early Bird. Need to have the PAC talking points sent out to the serving!!
Libruls who are not connected to trust fundswith the war profits are too busy trying to survive the Wall St busted balance sheet depression and defending honest labor from the likes of Wilson and the Koches.
The Washington Times, indeed. Never a war nor a broke down weapon do they disagree with. The home of the Kagans and blither from Gaffney, Thompson and the regular perpetual war cheerleaders.
I have been an equal opportunity opponent of the perpetual war group.
There are others.
http://www.zenhuber.blogspot.com/
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/
http://www.tomdispatch.com/ who carries Andrew Bacevich among others.
Whom I check regularly.
Salon, Huffington………………….
Perhaps both you and Early Bird readers ought to read more than the Kagan cabalists.
ilsm – “Perhaps both you and Early Bird readers ought to read more than the Kagan cabalists.”
That’s the best excuse you can cough up for the lack of activity by the anti-war crowd?
Try reading the study referenced in the article before throwing out any phony excuses.
You missed the whole point of Sammy’s comment and reference which cites the study. Typical misdirection effort.
TAKING A CHANCE POSTING SOMETHING SO LONG — ESPECIALLY MY COMMENTS FROM ANOTHER SITE — BUT THEY DON’T BAN YOU HERE LIKE THEY DO ON 2 PLUS 2 (poker site) SO HERE GOES (I’ve said it all before but I think I strung it though a little better today — strung more together anyway):
My comments on Thoma’s Economist’s View blog today: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/04/paul-krugman-the-intimidated-fed.html#tpe-action-replied-6a00d83451b33869e201538e34ff2c970b
Last I heard inflation is the cheap way to pay down enormous debt — and isn’t inflation the way to “painlessly” reduce the real price of real estate; the classic way severe housing slumps (caused by burst bubbles) end?
What exactly is the big need for under 2% inflation anyway? Most of my long life until recently inflation has run between 3% and 5% a year — except for the double digit inflation of the late 70s. What’s the big harm?
******
First and foremost is inflation the cheaper and quicker way out of federal (Chinese) debt and out of our busted housing bubble (historical average time to get out I just read in one of David McWilliams’ books: 5-7 years)? Which busted bubble is threatening us with a lost decade or two. Is it or is it not; let’s get the giant positive(s, plural) established before we weigh the trade offs.
Is it or isn’t it?
Second, if we had an adequate safety net we would only have to worry about some retired people living a little less enjoyably versus pulling out of two economic tailspins that threaten to crash us fatally. But since as a country we never worried about adequate safety nets before why start now?
We work people for less and less and less every year for the same work even as average outputs doubles (since 1968 — back when the minimum wage was $10/hr adjusted and the median wage was but 20% lower than today’s average person’s wage) and then we set them out to pasture — or should I say to sleep in the street. Minimum SS and maximum food stamps together come to about $900/mo — eat or stay indoors, your choice. […]
The Trump Trade Doctrine
Trump’s straightforward presentation is here.
The lightweights and pussies are already whining.
Sammy
only 54%?
a casual look at the “progressive” news sites on the blog looks to me like the anti war folk are still anti war. i don’t know about the Democrats… my guess is not much different from yours: they are against it when it helps their politics and not against it when it doesn’t. kind of sad to know that Dems are just like Republicans.
self righteous now… what would you know about that?
drew
you need to write us a post and explain sector wide in some detail.
meanwhile a person can live indoors and eat on 900/mo. i do it.
I don’t know about it in some detail — I just know about it — I recognized it immediately as the perfect theorectical answer to all American labor’s; kind of thing you wish you had thought of yourself, seems so obvious — and mostly thereby all of America’s problems. I am too tired now to tell you what I do know: tommorow.
Where do you live, Guatamala? No joke; people reported sleeping in the street in San Francisco on that money. Takes $700/mo just to stay indoors in the poorest residence hotel (which is very poor!). $1300/mo ($300/wk) minimum to live the poorest live anyplace I am familiar with. No reason the retired have to move to the Ozarks leaving family and friends behind either — if we can pay $900/mo we can pay $1300 minimum SS. Don’t imagine Obama will ever consider this for a moment — probably doesn’t know his minimum wage is $3/hr behind LBJ’s; doesn’t even know.
Come on MG. What Trump probably knows well, and so too should you, is that a significant portion of our own One Percent club makes a significant portion of their great wealth by participating with and/or facilitating the activities of OPEC and cheap labor countries like China. Will China become the Frankenstein monster and kill its creators? Maybe, but for now too many American business interests are tied tightly to the Asian economic phenomenon. Trump is a master self promoter, but a realistic view of the global market place doesn’t seem to be his forte. Or maybe its just a part of a well thought out script.
Leave Iraq on time!
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/30/leave_iraq_on_time_with_dignity/
The military industrial complex needs to stop begging the Iraqi puppets to keep the pentagon pillaging the US’ future in maintaining the ineffective occupation.
Is this a testosterone based argument? Is he articulating a strategy of stiffing creditors like he has done 3 times with his own lenders?
This little noticed article in Foreign Policy summarized a report written by 2 senior members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/13/the_y_article
“The report says Americans are overreacting to Islamic extremism, underinvesting in their youth, and failing to embrace the sense of competition and opportunity that made America a world power. The United States has been increasingly consumed by seeing the world through the lens of threat, while failing to understand that influence, competitiveness, and innovation are the key to advancing American interests in the modern world.”
This quote from the report summarizes the way forward:
“And yet with globalization, we seem to have developed a strange apprehension about the efficacy of our ability to apply the innovation and hard work necessary to successfully compete in a complex security and economic environment. Further, we have misunderstood interdependence as a weakness rather than recognizing it as a strength. The key to sustaining our competitive edge, at home or on the world stage, is credibility — and credibility is a difficult capital to foster. It cannot be won through intimidation and threat, it cannot be sustained through protectionism or exclusion. Credibility requires engagement, strength, and reliability — imaginatively applied through the national tools of development, diplomacy, and defense.”
With senior military leaders realizing how much the status quo is damaging our nation can our nominal political parties be educated to the reality? Courtesy Digby’s Hullaballoo
More difficult becomes “interesting” as:
1. We (providers) need to make major investments with compressing revenue.
2. In order to manage this transition we need to spend more on human capital while being pressured to spend less on human capital.
3. PPACA declares accountable care organizations as our salvation; ACOs are poorly defined, largely untested and we really do not know if the darn things will work.
4. In four years or so we (providers) need to rearrange, integrate and re-coordinate the business and practice models of hundreds of thousands of providers, and coordinate this with insurers and government payers, based on rules that do not exist yet and best practices are evolving, all while managing day to day operations.
5. The people writing the regulations have never provided or managed clinical care (common complaint) or managed anything. They don’t “get it.”
6. Some providers and some private insurers are combining to develop interesting innovations.
7. While DHHS-CMS is pushing integration, the DOJ and the FTC are threatening providers with enforcement actions for – integration! We need clarity, especially of Stark I, II, III.
8. What works in Baltimore or Detroit metro will not work in Kalamazoo or Lima.
etc.
Here’s your completely non-economics-related little piece of the wonders of Nature for today. The bird shown is a Golden Eagle. Our Bald Eagle eats fish and other prey like birds. The eagle in the video is after mountain goats. Makes the BE look like a punk. The narrator is speaking Spanish. NancyO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7FFlFy8eM
Sammy examine U.S. troop deaths under Rumsfeld, who resisted the Surge (much touted by many rightists here BTW) until he was dragged out of office to those under Gates.
Rumsfeld was a nutcase tool of the PNAC who continually argued for expanding the war to new theatres (Syria, iran) even as we was unwilling to actually commit forces or the ungraded equipment they needed. On the other hand Gates from the very beginning was engaged in finding ways of extracting the U.S. from both, something marked most clearly when Bush went ahead and signed the Status of Forces Agreement that set deadlines for withdrawel of U.S. troops. Which considering the fucked up place that Rumsfeld and the Neo-Cons had left Iraq was maybe the best the anti-war movement could hope for.
If you don’t understand the difference between a strategy focused on disengagement after Rumsfeld with one focused on expanded involvement during Rumsfeld and how that would translate into different levels of protest I am afraid I can’t help you. Because once again you are displaying cartoon thinking.
Of course ‘nuance’ IS a FRENCH word, so it would be a little much to expect you to engage in it.
rusty
pretty much you have identified what is “wrong” with government solutions. i hear from people in the private sector that they deal with the same problems when the business is big enough to have a couple of layers of management and a head office in another state.
if you want to go down in history, if not get rich, figure out a solution.
me, i can’t even herd cats.
ilsm
similar to what i said to rusty. except this problem has been solved more than once. Napoleon did it until he got old (40 ish) and lazy and liked the sound of his own name. I think the U.S. solved it at least for WW2 and eventually for Korea. Some evidence that they eventually got things sort of right in Iraq… while losing the hearts and minds of the middle east, which should have been what they were trying to win.
ddrew
when i saw that i was going to want to retire early i put about 90% of my income into paying off my house and building up a little reserve in the bank. of course the very poor don’t have that option, but from what i have seen they could manage their money a little better if they had help from someone who wasn’t trying to sell them stocks and bonds.
i am told i live in one of the more expensive “cities” in america. but i don’t believe it. I sure couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco.
amateur
i would only add that “protectionism” is not the order of the day. we apparently still think we live in the Smoot Hawley world. A little “protectionism” applied to American corporations who go overseas for the cheap labor might be just the medicine we need. If the corps did not own the congress.
coberly,
In the pentagon puzzle palace and Mc Keon’s support for them, war is peace.
What “they” got right in Iraq was buying off the Sunnis and giving the place to the Shi’a.
We will see what the rivals do with all the training and equipment they are left with.
See below from the Boston Globe.
Bruce,
Of course ‘nuance’ IS a FRENCH word, so it would be a little much to expect you to engage in it.
I do understand French: “nuance” is a french word meaning “I don’t have a coherent rebuttal.”
Ddrew
What’s the big harm?
How about inflation ——->interest rates———> interest on the debt?
Trade policy aside I found it interesting to learn that (some) senior military leaders are worried we are underinvesting in education and domestic development. These are the concerns usually relegated to the DFH’s who have been veal penned as Marcy Wheeler put it by the current administration. And possibly even more surprising they are going public with their concerns although with scant notice so far.
Here’s another link to the full report that includes a foreward and the identities of the two officers who wrote it under the psedonym “Mr. Y”, CAPT Wayne Porter, USN and Col Mark “Puck” Mykleby, USMC. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/A%20National%20Strategic%20Narrative.pdf
They wrote it as actively serving military officers who emphasized the views are their own and do not reflect US military or DOD or government policy. Will anybody pay attention?
How about at first more interest on gradually less debt — but when the inflation bout is over we have less debt with less interest? Works on the (overpriced but wont reduce) housing slump for sure (I know; I read it somewhere).
The shift of 15% of income share from the top tiny fraction of our labor force (“earning” 25X what they used to — should be 2X) back to where it used to be has to be accomplished anyway. The median wage growing 25% as average income grew 100% is the elephant in the room that the people in a position to do something about it — for example tell the people that it is there! — never even seem to think about; much bigger glitch than even the longest lasting recession (I call it the Great Wage Depression).
My prescription (the whole better paid labor world’s prescription) for our terminally ill labor market, sector-wide labor agreements, will return balance to the political arena as well as the labor market. What a crazy country we have right now.
DDrew,
How about at first more interest on gradually less debt — but when the inflation bout is over we have less debt with less interest?
I don’t see how this is going to work. If inflation goes to 10%, then Treasury rates go to 12-14% or about 7 times higher than now. Interest is at 9% of the budget now, so it goes to 63% of the budget. In addition, entitlements and government salaries are indexed to inflation (COLA) so those expenditures also increase.
Your solution depends on government revenues, and so nominal wages, keeping up with inflation. It would be very hard for my business to raise prices to cover my higher costs and I will undoubtedly lose revenues ,so I know I would have a hard time telling my employees “You know inflation was at 10% last year, so I am going to give you all a 10% raise.” I guess that is the purpose of your “sector-wide” labor agreements. From government-centric view , if you don’t get those at the same time as inflation hits (an extremely doubtful proposition), we are in a world of hurt.
HASC Majority Chairman Buck Mc Keon 29 Apr 11 in USA Today:
Talking about “Obama’s cuts” to the pentagon.
The “cuts” amount to a fraction of the growth in waste and abuse of national resources by the 30% (which are $1.6T in acquisition costs and $5.3T total owner costs) of the most expensive “acquisitions” the pentagon is mismanaging.
He cites industrial age warfare, very expensive and ineffective, in three theaters against terrorists with no army and third world economies for support. No armies to fight in any “active” theater.
Then he rolls out China, and the People’s Liberation Army looking for “war in all directions”, rusty old half aircraft carrier being refitted for the past 11 years! The PLA is no issue, if it were then Mr. Mc Keon honestly would not allow so much waste fraud and abuse in spending the 20% of US outlays that go to the national security cabal. Nor US treasure squandered in fighting terrorism.
The fearsome cuts are to a machine with no match, which spends 49% of the money on war of the entire planet.
If all these frightening things were true then Mr. Mc Keon needs to fix the waste fraud and abuse identified every year by GAO.
http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/defense-drumbeat-blog?ContentRecord_id=798b7627-1a42-4673-aee9-72cac635d1bb&ContentType_id=3656d01d-1920-44b6-a520-385c45d19f4e&Group_id=01c27866-262f-49c1-ac39-5242779de598&MonthDisplay=4&YearDisplay=2011
More next week as the Authorization fictions are posted to the HASC website.
from the Detroit Free Press today – one more reason Michigan taxpayers are fed up
Millions in housing aid for poor wasted, state audit finds
A state agency charged with providing housing assistance to Michigan’s poorest residents misspent millions of tax dollars in a series of blunders that left some of the neediest residents without help, according to a wide-ranging, two-year investigation by the state Office of the Auditor General.
I believe 9% interest may be on bonds sold in the past. I think we both don’t know the details here but I never heard anyone informed make a projection like that.
I don’t know what you sell but if it is fast food, highest labor user (33%), my local McDonald’s business visibly picked up after the Illinois minimum wage jumped pretty quickly from $5.15/hr to $8/hr (1956 federal level) mostly in the foreign born segment. Jump the federal minimum wage to $15/hr and the price of what would go up: housing, medicine, transportation, vacations, what? But half the country would get a raise ( to the current median wage — with only about 2%* direct inflation w/o round and round push ups). Rerouting that 15% lost income share would put the money in the hands of we who would spend it instead of look for new bubbles to inflate with it. I think you have to really appreciate how wildly underpaid the average American worker is (not your fault :-]).
* http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-cost-of-gdp-output-and-inflation.html
Without sector-wide agreements the (30%???) inflation will never happen (on its own) in the first place. It would be spread out over a few or more years presumably. Meantime we get to cheapen the dollars we have to pay back the Chinese which may really be becoming critical after adding $4 trillion during Bush II and trillions more as we go — a potential tailspin situation. Meantime burst housing bubbles — biggest force keeping us in our current tailspin — historically only end after inflation has reduced prices that owners willingly wont: history.
Listen to me and you will never go wrong.
save_the_rustbelt,
Thanks for the link. We really need this.
GAO 2011 High Risk Series Testimony: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11394t.pdf
“Over the next 5 years, the Department of Defense (DOD) expects to invest over $300 billion (in fiscal year 2011 dollars) on the development and procurement of major defense acquisition programs. DOD must get better value for its weapon system spending and find ways to deliver needed capability to the warfighter for less than it has spent in the past.”
In those 5 years DoD will spend nearly a trillion dollars on total acquisitions the smaller ones far less well regulated than the ones which are at high risk called “major defense acquisition programs”.
The combined waste fraud and abuse of HUD money, as well as medeicare and medicaid is tiny compared to the waste fraud and abuse in the military industry complex.
The US taxpayer should be fed up, if we were not bombarded with mendacity and anxiety over everything related to war?
And maybe next time a casus belli for a multi-trillion dollar war is manufactured out of the fevered empire imaginations of power crazed oilmen nobody will listen.
Coberly,
Check it out with a pro, a Chicago labor lawyer — read “Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life” by Thomas Geoghegan.
http://www.amazon.com/Were-You-Born-Wrong-Continent/dp/159558403X
He describes the working of the typically compressive German version of sector-wide. There is also the Canadian lite version where non union firms work under whatever common contract is negotiated with union firms and I suppose all sorts of version in between. There doesn’t seem too much on the internet — I suspect because it is such a taken for granted way of economic life around the (better paid) world that it is hardly discussed.
SAmmy
if inflation leads to higher interest rates leads to higher interest on the debt
the higher interest is denominated in dollars that are worth less, while people and businesses are making more of them. so are you sure it isn’t a wash?
the value of inflation, i think, is that it tends to keep people from “holding” their money and encourages investment.
up to a point.
ilsm
the american taxpayer is fed up because someone is always telling him about government waste fraud and abuse so he imagines that that’s where his taxes go. he doesn’t often think about what he actually gets for his money. which in the scheme of things is more than worth what he pays for it, even if some of it is wasted.
i agree with you about military spending waste… but i have to admit that if that money was not wasted i doubt i’d notice the difference. it’s just like the cost of gas. if it had always cost four dollars a gallon, that would be “what gas costs” and we’d be happy to pay for it.
the only reason you notice taxes is that you get a bill for them and you know you’d go to jail if you didn’t pay. but if there was some way to subtract the same amount of money from every transaction without telling anyone, no one would care. prices would just be “what they are,” and the economy would adjust to that.
maybe if we had “more money” (paid less taxes) we could buy more “things”… though my guess is that for the most part “things” would just cost more… but i am not at all sure those “things” wouldn’t be a form of waste far worse for us.
that said, sure, lets try to reduce wasteful government spending… but we should be focussed on exactly “what” we think is waste, and why other people disagree with us, and do we want to share the country with them… not just wandering around crying “oh the waste,” “oh, the abuse”, “oh, the evil government”
or on the other hand defending everything the government does.
or would that take the fun out of it?
I have the impression — not sure where I picked it up over time — that the overall result is inflating your way out of debt. The inflated interest is short term — the deflated debt last (forever? :-]). Anyway, what is killing the economy at the moment is the over supply of housing at prices to high to sell but nobody will back off from. Inflating our way out of that is what will work eventually — speed it up might be critical given the threat of the double tail spin.
To me the biggest problem of all is “the Disaster” — called by our detached progressive professionals the wan name of “inequality.” Shifting back the 15% of income share to the 90% is my overwhelming priority — or otherwise better tell most kids to go to work for the government at least until the unions are all gone there too.
coberly,
the higher interest is denominated in dollars that are worth less, while people and businesses are making more of them. so are you sure it isn’t a wash?
The bolded words are an assumption that, in the absence of aggregate demand, I don’t think will happen.. In the case of my business, I will have considerable difficulty raising prices without hurting revenues, so I will be unable to give my employees any COLA type wage increases. So we will NOT make more money, and so tax revenues will NOT keep up with the higher interest and entitlement costs.
the value of inflation, i think, is that it tends to keep people from “holding” their money and encourages investment.
Have you ever run an investment pro forma using a 18% borrowing rate? Let’s just look at a house as an example: A $300,000 loan at 5% = $1,610 per month for 30 years. At 18% the payment is $4,521. Not going to be a lot of investing going on at 18%.
There is no easy way out of the debt.
coberly,
Every [weapon] signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Think opportunity lost.
Can you tell me where to lend money at an 18% rate? Not counting the payday loan biz I mean.
May Day, the Celtic holiday of Baltane. May poles and cross road dances. The Faeries about.
And defense budget battles:
$35B for the two newest 100000Ton very felixible platforms (budget bluster code for tying up lots of money and enduring opportunity costs elsewhere)!!
Sec Nav:
“I do think that carriers give us an incredibly flexible platform and I think that the people of Japan would agree today on the flexibility of carriers,” Mabus said.
Why don’t the Japanese should build a few!
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/04/navy-mabus-11-carriers-about-right-043011w/
An aircraft carrier at $14B a copy is overkill.
There are no 100,000 Ton ships in the world except cruise ships, super tankers and US Navy carriers.
More about the needs for 5 or 6 trillion in super weapons as they “argue over” cutting 2 or 3% out of war spending growth over the next decade.
This week House Armed Services authorization hearings.
“5. The people writing the regulations have never provided or managed clinical care (common complaint) or managed anything. They don’t “get it.””
you underestimate the ingenuity of the financial players in the system. As in all productive systems the financial players seek their percentage of the gate and seek to maintain their share at its highest possible level. Cost of health care going up. Who is it that writes legislation and regulation? You don’t truly suppose that it is legislators or regulators, do you? The details come from that creature called Lobbyist, and they represent the financial players in the game. The result is not a focus on better and more cost effective health care, but on profitability and control.
That’s a very nice sentiment from Ike, but do you really believe that if money is saved cutting back on military expenditure (which I fully agree with) that that money would in some magical way benefit the poor, “the hungry who are not fed?” Clean up of waste and mismanagement has to be systemic including both government and private sector otherwise the pot of gold is simply moved around for those in control to feed their greed.
A black president supports a revolution spear headed by al Qaeda, which targets the black mercenaries employed by the Libyan government. This is rich.
We have neocon war mongers crying rivers of tears because of unsubstantiated charges that Muammar Qaddafi, was harming some revolutionaries, while at the the very same neo con war mongers fully support Israels ethnic cleansing of Palistinians.
I wonder which would be a shorter list. Jewish peace makers, non gullible Christians, Italian war heros, or liberals protesting Obamas wars.
Golden eagles are magnificent. I saw one once in the High Uintas. He stood on a dead sheep and postured at me. I went arround.
I felt sorry for those goats in your link, but I guess that is the cirle of life.
I live across the street from a young walnut orchard. Blue Herons hunt gophers there. It is a treat to watch them alight close by. They are amazing to watch – graceful and quick.
Jack,
Some greed has less opportunity cost than other greed and waste.
Grafting for war is worse to me than the waste in HUD (medical infrastructure) expenditures, at least the HUD (medical infrastructure) money goes to housing (medical infrastructure) stock fraud as opposed to blowing things up in Afghanistan fraud.
I would rather have a better margins in housing than in bombing.
From rusty’s post at least HUD fraud makes the news.
I googled Baltane. I guess I’ll have to build a fire in my back yard tonight and get drunk. Thanks for keeping me in touch with family traditions.
sammy
no easy way out of debt.
but paying your bills is a good place to start.
without meaning to be unkind, i think your scenarios are “nightmare scenarios.” inflation doesn’t have to run away. i can remember inflation in the teens, and interest in the teens. i coped.
there are details that would make it harder or easier. i don’t think we can just give a hysterical response off the top of our heads and prevent any action that might solve the problem.
i am not so fond of “inflating our way out” myself. i prefer “taxing our way out” and paying our bills. i am just an old fashioned conservative that way.
Harry Shearer’s often excellent hourlong radio show Le Show had Bill Black on today talking about the massive control frauds at the heart of the financial crisis. You can download a podcast if you missed it on his site or also from the KCRW web site. http://www.harryshearer.com/ Also available for free on iTunes.
His interview with Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism was also excellent.
coberly,
i can remember inflation in the teens, and interest in the teens. i coped.
Yes, if you are in some COLA-indexed job, like a government worker, or retired on SS, you will not be as affected, at least at first. However if you are not in an inflation indexed job, or dependent on financing to sell your product ie. manufacturing, construction,etc. you will suffer greatly. These are the sources of government revenues which will be unable to keep up with inflation indexed expenditures, leading to more money printing, leading to more inflation, leading to………
i prefer “taxing our way out”
Again, you are advocating taxes that you won’t have to pay, nor are you affected by jobs lost or not created, because of higher taxes.
So your policy prescriptions are biased by your standard of “what is good for coberly.” This is, what’s the word I am looking for, oh yeah, “selfish.”
There are a lot of senior military officers who think, they normally do not make general.
Think of my continuing complaints, the US has built the wrong military and has to do new things.
There are very few factories, and the ones doing military stuff are virtually worthless, welfare queens.
A common complaint against the military acquisition system is it does not develop technical solutions and does not test the bad solutions anyay.
How do you respond to the real enemy who is out to teach a new form of war one?
More militray industrial complex does not yield more safety, it does yield waste and abuse of resources…………………………..
Mid Summer’s Eve is great too. Although Shakespeare may not have been thinking about the Celtic holiday Lughnasad which is around 1 Aug.
sammy
you haven’t been paying attention. i pay taxes. and back when inflation was in the teens i did not have a government job. i was in the first phase of my having quit my business and gone back to school to make something of my life more useful than taking money from people. so i was not only not in an inflation indexed job, i was trying to live on money that was being inflated away. like i said, i coped. i am not given to whining about the government or the unfairness of it all.
i did work for the government during a second period of high inflationi, and i watched as government salaries went up at half the rate of inflation. so for the most part you are reporting lies and fantasies as if that was the real world experience of people you know nothing about.
and can’t remember even when they tell you, so strong is your need to believe what makes you feel better.
i prefer taxing our way out of debt for the same reason a pay my own bills. something you don’t seem to understand.
crsed
i am glad you notice those things. sometimes you sound like the sort of person who wouldn’t.
ilsm
jack
like i said, i agree with you. and Ike.
but there was another point i was trying to make.
ah, amateur
my local public radio station decided that harry shearer was too upsetting for us children.
Coberly,
“i am not so fond of “inflating our way out” myself. i prefer “taxing our way out” and paying our bills.”
Not when the overseas debt becomes so large it is building a vicious cycle-potential tail spin from which we may not be able to recover — we are said to be approaching that trap; ask a Republican.
Not when the economy may be stuck in doldrums for another 5-7 years if our housing over-supply/prices-stuck-too-high trap is not resolved (by inflation one way or the other — slow or fast); people have to get back to work. I’m not worried about paying back the Chinese in discounted dollars — the Chinese have been pegging the yuan artificially low to increase their exports forever. Manipulating currency is standard operational procedure for all nations.
Must be noted here that the first $4 trillion of recent deficits were Bush II tax cuts for the rich — which bankers who got the trillions from people who couldn’t even spend it used it fuel the housing bubble — all the while Republicans rashly deregulated banks so they would have no trouble at all getting all that cash out of deposits to people who could not even pay back. Whence the burst bubble forced Democrats to go more trillions into national debt to avoid a depression.
Inflation caused by shifting 15% of income share back to the lower 90 percentile earners (causing price rises from pay raises) could end up killing all three giant birds (great wage depression is number three) with one stone.
Sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier. That is some bird. The Kazakis use them for hunting not just mountain goats, but also wolves and deer. The Kazakis are no creampuffs themselves. NancyO
Yeah they don’t carry it on my local affiliate either. But it’s streamable from the KCRW site and if I miss it I just download the podcast from itunes.