Tag Archives: economics

Because There Isn’t Enough Regulation

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Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do Democrats. The vacuum Democrats abhor, though, isn’t a natural one, it’s manmade—gaps in regulation. Americans are just too stupid to manage our own lives, on our own, insist Democrats, and so Democrats demand to regulate our lives for us. For our own good, you see. And for the good of Democrats’ political power. Here are two examples.

In Houston, the Liberal city government didn’t think bathroom accommodations for those who can’t accept who they are should be a matter of negotiation between employer and employee or prospective employee.

More importantly, the Liberal city government thought religious beliefs should be a matter appropriate only to Sundays in churches and not available in the workaday world or to the men and women who operate businesses in the city.

The Liberal city government didn’t think such perks or rights should be competitive offers in free market competition among employers for labor—the way “full dental” was exactly such a competition offer in the last century. So, after having an outright city ordinance struck in court, they put the regulation to the city’s voters in full expectation of being able to ram it through, with the help of millions of dollars from outside Liberals and Democrats.

Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker, even sought to justify this regulatory overreach:

No one’s rights should be subject to a popular vote[.]

No, they shouldn’t. But the Liberal, looking to fill a regulatory vacuum, did exactly that; she put Christians’ and employees’ in general rights to a popular vote.

In San Francisco, the regulatory vacuum involved what private property owners should be allowed to do with their private property when the Liberal city government and its special interest supporters object to those uses.

In another referendum, San Frisco voters rejected the city’s efforts to limit short-term housing rental, a move made by a number of house owners to earn a few extra bucks letting a room to freely agreeing renters needing a place to stay.

[T]enants-rights organizations, a group representing landlords, a hotel workers’ union and hotel associations

all supported the limiting measure because it might compete with their interests. Freedom to compete—or even just to earn some money in an enormously expensive city—should be limited because, well, because competition must be regulated. The argument they put forward wasn’t even intended to be a serious one. Such room-letting would drive up housing costs. By reducing demand for housing, I suppose.

Both of these moves were demonstrations of how much the Left—the Progressives in government and the Democratic Party at large—abhor American citizens’ behavior being unregulated. Americans are just too dumb to handle our own affairs; every action we take has to be regulated to the last detail.

Remember these Democratic Party attempts next year.

Debates and Journalism

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Howard Kurtz, of Media Buzz, had a couple of thoughts. Which means that so do I.

[W]e’re hearing that some campaigns want to vet the moderators, approve the on-screen graphics, limit the scope of questions or decree that all candidates be asked the same questions. Sorry, but those are editorial decisions to be made by journalists.

I’ll leave aside the blatant rumor-mongering that that “we hear” opening is, and that is so demeaning to what used to be a profession of journalism.

Kurtz’ journalists “decisions” on those are driven by personal and station TV ratings, not by the purpose of the debates. On-screen graphics? The CNBC failure demonstrated that journalists can’t be trusted with them. It may be too much for the candidates to vet their own graphics, but journalists need oversight, badly.

Limit the scope of the questions? Of course. A proper debate focuses on an area—as that CNBC thing agreed in advance to do, and then they welched on their agreement. Trust journalists on this?

All candidates be asked the same questions: what is it about “debate” that’s unclear to Kurtz? How is it a debate, exactly, if all of the candidates aren’t challenged to lay out their views/policies on the same subject? If that limits the number of questions there’s time to ask, well, there’s that focus thing, again.

Then there’s this from Kurtz:

The danger for the candidates is that they will be seen as overreaching, as wary of facing challenging questions.

There’s Kurtz’ own, and deliberate, distortion. The candidates will seem overreaching and fearful of tough questioning only as journalists, including Howard Kurtz, choose to paint them that way. Wary of facing challenges? Where is that demonstrated in the push to have all the candidates asked the same question? In fact, it’ll be exactly that challenge for those candidates who are in some way unprepared for the question because they’ve not yet formulated or articulated a position on a question’s subject.

Kurtz’ piece is a clear demonstration of why the public—and the candidates—cannot trust them.

Obamacare Revisited

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I’ve written a bit about Obamacare and its front end, ObamaMart. I thought I’d revisit this with the new enrollment period just getting under way.

My test case was a 62-yr-old husband and his 61-yr-old wife in a Dallas suburb with a combined income of $83,000, not previously enrolled in an ObamaMart plan but now looking for a PPO because they like their doctor and don’t want to risk losing access to her. I just looked at the health plans; I eschewed dental. In looking at plans, ObamaMart offered to estimate my medical costs; I accepted the offer and took the middle road of a Medium (out of Low, Medium, High) level of medical expenses for both the husband and the wife.

There were only Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans available.

There were only two Bronze plans, and they were available only through a single health plan provider—so much for increased competition. These two plans had monthly premiums of $1,500 and $1,570 and deductibles of $10,000 and $13,200—that is, our nearing retirement couple had to pay all those premiums and those deductibles before either of these plans began paying even a fraction of the couple’s medical costs. For all that, ObamaMart estimated annual medical costs above $23,000.

There were only three Silver plans, again only offered by a single provider—the same one as providing those two Bronze plans. Again, so much for increased competition. These plans had premiums ranging from $1,500-$1,800 with the lower premium associated with a $10,000 deductible, the higher two with a $5,000 deductible. Those combinations, though, work out to roughly the same annual premium plus deductible cost. ObamaMart estimated total annual medical costs under these plans ranging between $21,000 and $27,000.

Gold plans, all four of them, also were offered by the same provider, and it was the same provider that offered the Silver and Bronze plans. Competition? Perish the thought. The premiums were $2,000 or more in all cases, with deductibles ranging from $3,000 with the lowest premium to $1,000 with the highest premium. Again, the annual total from premium and deductible payments were essentially identical across the plans. ObamaMart estimated annual total medical costs between $26,000 and $28,000.

There are three takeaways I see here. One is that health plan costs have not at all gone down over the three years we’ve been afflicted with Obamacare (although ObamaMart has gotten considerably better and easier to use, as far as I went. I did not explore the ease of ordering up a plan). Another is that there is none of the promised competition. Not even a Progressive would attempt to masquerade a single provider as competition. This is, though, a step toward the Progressives’ goal of single provider nation-wide. The third takeaway is the biggie: it doesn’t matter much what plan a (two-person) family might buy, their annual total medical costs with all this health plan protection doesn’t vary much. And neither do the totals of premium and deductible.

“About Time the US Made a Stand in South China Sea”

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That’s the headline of Joseph Bosco’s piece in Real Clear World, and he’s right.

However, we’ve no made such a stand, yet; all that’s happened is that a single destroyer was sailed “within 12 miles” of a Spratly island. What’s needed to truly take a stand is to sail an armed flotilla a closely as may be safely, from a navigability and maneuverability perspective, accompanied with low overflights by fighters.

This should be done with every Spratly island having PRC activity, it should be done with the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, and we should have flotillas cruising the Taiwan Strait.

As Bosco also noted, it would be beneficial if other nations—he suggested Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and ultimately all of ASEAN—participated in these sailings. However, the sailings are necessary, even if done unilaterally.

No more namby-pamby hemming and hawing.

The Obama Administration and Racism

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[Ally Financial Inc] agreed to pay borrowers at least $80 million to settle allegations of racial or ethnic discrimination….

This is the settlement that Obama’s CFPB and DoJ browbeat Ally into accepting. There’s a catch, though:

the lender is prohibited by law from collecting data on the race or ethnicity of its borrowers.

But never mind. Obama and his Executive Branch minions cried racism, and so it must exist, regardless of actual data.

Unfortunately, though, Obama isn’t alone in this sorry charade. Ally management shares shame in this tragedy: they cravenly agreed to a penalty for something they didn’t do, or at least the government persecutors had no hope of demonstrating.