Updated: ‘Fannie Med’ On The March

Democrats, Fascism, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism, Uncategorized

Cato’s Michael F. Cannon on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s latest bright idea: “President Obama and his congressional allies want to create yet another government-run health insurance program (call it Fannie Med) to cover yet another segment of the American public (the non-elderly non-poor).

The whole idea that Fannie Med would be an ‘option’ is a ruse.

Like the three ‘public options’ we’ve already got – Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – Fannie Med would drag down the quality of care for publicly and privately insured patients alike. Yet despite offering an inferior product, Fannie Med would still drive private insurers out of business because it would exploit implicit and explicit government subsidies. Pretty soon, Fannie Med will be the only game in town – just ask its architect, Jacob Hacker.

Now the question before us is, ‘Should we allow states to opt out of Fannie Med?’ It seems a good idea: if Fannie Med turns out to be a nightmare, states could avoid it.

But the state opt-out proposal is a ruse within a ruse.

Taxpayers in every state will have to subsidize Fannie Med, either implicitly or explicitly. What state official will say, ‘I don’t care if my constituents are subsidizing Fannie Med, I’m not going to let my constituents get their money back’? State officials are obsessed with maximizing their share of federal dollars. Voters will crucify officials who opt out. Fannie Med supporters know that. They’re counting on it.

A state opt-out provision does not make Fannie Med any more moderate. It is not a concession. It is merely the latest entreaty from the Spider to the Fly.” [End excerpt]

And this from Tom DiLorenzo:

“The only sensible approach to healthcare ‘reform’ would be massive privatization of America’s socialized hospitals, combined with deregulation of the medical professions to introduce more competition, and deregulation of the health-insurance industry. Free-market competition would produce medical ‘miracles’ the likes of which have never been seen, while dramatically lowering the cost of healthcare, just as it has done in every other industry where it is allowed to exist to any large degree.

This is not likely to happen in the United States, which at the moment seems hell-bent on descending into the abyss of socialism. Once some states begin seceding from the new American fascialistic state, however, there will be opportunities to restore healthcare freedom within them.”

Update (Oct. 28): To the erroneous comment below from “Moonbat”: The market NOW in its knee-capped state still delivering abundance and plenty. The consumer/citizen is obvious to what comes as a seemingly effortless result of the Invisible Hand. So good ideas do not win out; ditto liberty.

Milton Friedman spoke about mankind’s oblivion to the abundance of the market with great clarity.

“The aggregated wisdom of men acting freely in the market place accounts for the cornucopia Americans take for granted. This abundance does not preclude affordable health insurance. For six dollars a day, the baying Boobus can purchase pretty comprehensive coverage, no deductibles or screening for pre-existing conditions. The average immoral dolt, however, prefers to spend the meager sum on a six-pack and hope that others will be coerced into covering his care.”

Update II: War President (EIGHT MORE)

Barack Obama, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Republicans, War

When it comes to the wastrel wars the US is waging, there are few difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. If cleavages do exist, they are a matter of degree; John Kerry favors “a modest increase in U.S. troops”; The Other John is for a “huge surge.” You’d think that the always-opportunistic Republicans would see an opportunity to open up a lead by forging a new foreign policy. For as their economic fortunes have turned, so too have the American people turned against the wars in a big way.

But when Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity speak of a strong national defense, they are down with the party that wants to linger in places where Americans are unwanted (sometimes called nation-building): The Democrats.

Yesterday, there was a “bloodbath in Baghdad”: “Two car bombs turned Baghdad into a killing field on Sunday October 25th, claiming the lives of at least 155 people and injuring hundreds more.”

Today, reports the AP, Kabul was the scene of a helicopter crash that killed 14 Americans — 11 troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents, “in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years.”

So far BO, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has sustained Bush’s efforts in both theaters, while giving a good deal of thought to accelerating them.

Update I (Oct. 27): AP: As OB dithers—but not in the way the colossal Dick Cheney meant it—“Eight [more] American troops were killed in two separate insurgent attacks Tuesday in southern Afghanistan”:

The military issued a statement saying the deaths occurred during “multiple, complex” bomb strikes. It said several troops were wounded and evacuated to a nearby medical facility, but gave no other details.

Capt. Adam Weece, a spokesman for American forces in the south, said both attacks occurred in Kandahar province. In Washington, a U.S. defense official said at least one was followed by an intense firefight with insurgents who attacked after an initial bomb went off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

The deaths bring to 55 the total number of American troops killed in October in Afghanistan.

Update II: Matthew Hoh, “a former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq,” writes the WaPo, has become “the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.”

I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.

[SNIP]

Whereas a Republican administration would have opted to smear this principled fellow—as it did Scott Ritter, the 12-year Marine Corps and gulf-war veteran who opposed the rabid attack on Iraq—the Obama overlords have tried to co-opt him; bribe him with career inducements. U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry “offered him a job on his senior embassy staff.” Richard C. Holbrooke, “the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan, … asked Hoh to join his team in Washington.”

“Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later:

many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. … the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

Ritter rising.

Update III: Dollar Doubts

Business, Capitalism, Debt, Economy, Free Markets, Socialism, The State, Uncategorized

“[D]iscussion on the greenback is heating up,” notes Peter Schiff. “And while real insight on the topic is hard to find, the debate centers on the battle between two conventional opinions—both of which are wrong.”

“The first camp, which is generally supportive of government intervention in the economy, argues that dollar’s decline is a positive for both the economy and the stock market. The second camp, which tends to fall on the more conservative end of the political spectrum, views the dollar’s decline as a problem but feels that tough talk and slightly higher interest rates are all that is needed to restore ‘King Dollar’ to its throne.”

“First of all, a weak dollar is no better for Americans than a lower paying job is for a worker. And although I would prefer that the dollar remain strong, I know that currency values are a function of supply and demand, not wishful thinking. The past years of reckless monetary and fiscal policy have created conditions that must push the dollar down. Vastly expanded debt levels and monetary expansion have created a greater supply of dollars, while poor investment performance and diminished industrial capacity have lessened the demand for dollars.

The regrettable truth is that while the weak dollar will help rebalance the global economy, it is not a panacea for the U.S. The fall is no more worthy of celebration than a student celebrating falling grades on his report card. If the dollar does not recover eventually, Americans will suffer diminished living standards. To avoid this we must make difficult reforms now. If we continue our current policies, we run the risk of a complete dollar collapse. Far from helping to solve our problems, this would be a true nightmare scenario.”

More.

I am not as confident as Mr. Schiff that the dollar can be rehabilitated. The country is moving away from markets and toward the central control of the economy and the rearranging of the income curve. What with the daily growth of debt and unfunded liabilities, I hate to be cynical, but could Mr. Schiff’s optimism have anything to do with his political aspirations?

Update I (Oct. 26): Involvement in politics invariably means convincing the masses that there is a panacea to what are intractable problems. Politics are about peddling hope against all hope. Pollyanna sentiments notwithstanding—comments about waving the wand of liberty to dissolve $60 trillion in growing government liabilities are worse than useless.

If the trend in public and political sensibilities was toward liberty—decentralization and deregulation—I’d say hope is warranted.

On the theme of cynicism—and when all else fails—perhaps the Pollyannas among us can adopt the tack taken in this WSJ article; debt can hasten recovery:

“[H]ousehold debt, including mortgage debt, [is] at about $13.7 trillion, or 125% of annual after-tax income…. the U.S. government … is building up debt as fast as households are shedding it. Net U.S. government debt could reach 85% of annual economic output by 2014, up from about 58% now, according to the International Monetary Fund.”

The impetus is in the direction of serfdom.

Update II (Oct. 27): The Economist: “America needs a weak dollar to help revive its economy and reorient it towards exports and away from consumer spending.”

Would that it will. However, a weak dollar is a symptom of all these things it’s supposed to cure; it’s not a cause of over-consumption and under production.

Update III: À la Zimbabwe (and via Bloomberg): “Forty years ago, the U.S. government said the $100 bill would be the highest-denomination note. With the Federal Reserve now trying to print its way out of the financial crisis, it may be time to revisit that decision.

Reinstating $10,000 or $100,000 notes — which existed in limited fashion years ago — won’t cut it. In today’s, ‘Brother, can you spare a trillion dollars?’ economy, we need to think bigger — a $1 million bill may be in order.”

'Blah Blah Aleikum Islam'

Britain, Free Speech, Islam, The West

The young thug flexing his Muslim muscle in this YouTube clip on the streets of London should not be the object of your contempt. He is true to himself. The society that hothouses this vile creature with his veiled threats to snuff out the life of anti-Islam activist Geert Wilders—that country deserves your scorn.

Today that self-immolating society is Britain; tomorrow it’ll be the US. We’re nearly there.

In the hoodlum’s words (via Brenda Walker of VDARE.COM):

We’re here to protest against this man, Geert Wilders, who insulted the message of Mohamed, [blah blah aleikum Islam]. We’re here to give him a message that, like he’s doing his interview today holed up, he’ll remain holed up, because he obviously knows that in Islam, the punishment for the one who insults the prophet is capital punishment. And he should take lessons from people like Theo Van Gogh and others who faced the punishment. So obviously we’re here to warn him and remind him that he’s going to remain holed up as long as he insults Islam and Muslims.

Interviewer: Is that going to be construed a threat, what you just said?

Well, obviously I’m saying, I’m not saying that I’m personally am going to carry out, but, he needs to know that there are Muslims in every corner of the earth, and these people they all have the love for the message of Mohamed [blah blah aleikum Islam]. And in the message of Mohamed he said, ‘the one who insults any of the prophets, kill him.’ That is a capital punishment. Not necessarily that personally I’m going to carry it out, but he should be warned that, you know, of the consequences of it.” [VDARE.COM note: Transcript here, the “blah blah” being the transcriber’s substitute for whatever the fellow is saying when he’s not speaking English.] [ilana’s note: he’s blessing the “prophet.”]

This phenomenon is disturbing for what it says of Britain’s dhimmi culture; not about the bum who should be deported to a sandy place. Speaking and publishing under the threat of injury or death: this is one of the defining libertarian issues of our times. A society that allows into its midst a sizable contingent whose members, as a matter of creed, threaten to kill countrymen guilty of speech they deem offensive—that society is sick. It will not survive.

More in “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block.”

And see for yourself how utterly safe this so-and-so feels in issuing veiled threats against the peaceful Dutch activist.