Trump: Pope Francis "Disgraceful"

Donald Trump indicated that "For a religious leader to question a person;s faith is disgraceful", this in response to Pope Francis saying that "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian", according to the New York Times. "I only say that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that.

Trump further stated that "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope will have only wished that Donald Trump had been president", Trump said. "Because that would not have happened."

Trump also discussed what he believes is the "tremendous" crime happening in Mexico with drugs "pouring" through the border.

"It's not coming from us, it's coming from the other side," he said.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump seems to see something everyone else doesn't. Or vice vera. Because almost everyone I know understands that it is the tremendous appetite for cheap, illegal drugs (demand) that is driving the illegal importation and smuggling of drugs into the U.S. Only in Donald Trump's fantasy land do the cartel's "push" drugs into the U.S., as opposed to the users "pulling" drugs into the country.

But then we always knew that only Mr. Trump sees the world as he does. Although, it seems that many people are being converted to his distorted world view.

American Employer-Provided Healthcare Insurance

Last night, in the sixth Democratic Presidential debate, Hillary stated that she was in favor of keeping the "American Way" in healthcare. That is a code for employer-provided healthcare insurance. She stated that America had done it that way since the 1940's.

Specifically what she said is this:

And we are not England. We are not France. We inherited a system that was set up during World War II; 170 million Americans get health insurance right now through their employers.

So let's talk about this. Because Secretary Clinton implies that the system we have was "designed" specifically for the American economy. There is nothing further from the truth.

Healthcare costs were minor in the early 1900's. People paid cash for what little healthcare they needed. But there was a group of Americans who wanted some kind of protection because of their meager pay: teachers.

While its origins can be traced back to 1929, when a group of Dallas teachers contracted with a hospital to cover inpatient services for a fixed annual premium, the link between employment and private health insurance was strengthened by three key government decisions in the 1940s and 1950s. First, during World War II the War Labor Board ruled that wage and price controls did not apply to fringe benefits such as health insurance, leading many employers to institute ESI (Employer Sponsored Insurance). Second, in the late 1940s the National Labor Relations Board ruled that health insurance and other employee benefit plans were subject to collective bargaining. Third, in 1954 the Internal Revenue Service decreed that health insurance premiums paid by employers were exempt from income taxation.

The first decision, by the War Labor Board, was made totally in isolation and without much consideration of the impact. It was during the middle of the war. Wages were fixed. Control of what plants and cities critical workers chose could not be done by offering premium pay, so the War Labor Board decided that ESI could be a bargaining chip to hire workers. No thought at all about the long term impacts.

The second decision by the NLRB was done in a time of far higher unionization. And it was a mistake (in my opinion). Because it touched off the competition amongst unions that ultimately brought the disgust many Americans have today for unions: the appearance that unions cared more about getting anything they could than working.

And the IRS decision simply made it economically beneficial for companies to offer ESI, in a time where healthcare costs were low because many Americans didn't use all that many healthcare services.

So there was nothing designed or planned about it.

The quote above is taken from Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance and Health Reform . It has a bunch of interesting information about the economics of ESI. Including this:

Since economists typically assume that workers pay for health benefits through reductions in wages, why do workers choose to purchase insurance through their employers rather than on the individual market? The answer is that there are significant savings associated with ESI. First, there are substantial economies of scale when purchasing insurance through a group. Second, the problem of adverse selection (sicker individuals being more likely to sign up for coverage) is reduced in an employer-sponsored group, since a large group is likely to have something approaching the population average level of risk. Third, the fact that health insurance premiums are not subject to income taxation effectively reduces the price of insurance purchased through the employer.

Interesting:

1. Economies of scale. Gee, if the federal government, or a single insurer, was handling healthcare costs for everyone, would they have the best economy of scale?
2. Adverse selection. If the whole population is in the group, adverse selection is eliminated by definition.
3. Taxation. It's already tax-free, isn't it?

Universal health coverage, single payer, whatever you call it, seems to fit the same economic advantages that ESI does, and in spades. Maybe it boils down to whether you believe in continuing to support the Healthcare Insurance Industry.

But the fact that Congress prevents the Federal Government from negotiating the price of drugs for Medicare is just a tip-off that those Pharma donations really do buy something. And perhaps it is time we separated capitalism from healthcare. Sure, you might be willing to pay every penny you got to be better, but why should you?

I went to Medical School for a bunch of reasons, not one of which was to get rich. There are a class of medical students and physicians that do so, but maybe they don't belong in medicine. There are lots of bright young men and women trying to become doctors and nurses and PA's and NP's. Maybe they should have a chance, for reasons not related to money.

Oh, and the argument that we have done it this way since the 1940's, so it's good enough for me?

Bullshit!

What Vision For America?

Anyone who has met me can probably guess which way I would tend to vote. I am that vocal. And yet, last night in the Democratic debate, I heard two different visions for America. They seemed very much in contrast to me. And I know which one I would like to see be implemented in the future.

I am the son of an FDR liberal mother and a flapper grandmother. My father was killed when I was six months old during an Air Force Mission, and my grandfather was killed when I was 10 by a patient's .38 (he was a psychiatrist). Perhaps as a reactionary young man, and certainly as a result of the failed Iranian hostage rescue, I voted for Reagan in 1980, and thought I was conservative throughout my 30's. But I came to realize that I was only a fiscal conservative, and, perhaps true to my upbringing, a social liberal. And so, in my late 50's, I have come to see politics somewhat the same but also very different from my mother and grandmother.

They were products of the Great Depression, WW II, and Ike. Republican Failure, Democratic Rescue, Democratic Triumph, Republican Main Street.

If you study a bit of history, you will read of Hoovervilles: the cardboard shanty towns that the then homeless built in reaction to President Hoover's economic policies. FDR did a lot more than simply saying "All you have to fear is fear itself", and WW II provided the economic stimulus that ended the Great Depression. But it was a popular General who became a Republican President that brought true economic prosperity to many Americans. A Republican President who today would be regarded as a Socialist. For FDR was "That Socialist in the White House" and Ike continued and built on (in his own style) the economic policies remaining from the the previous decade. (Poor Ike would be banished from the party, or forced to recant, in today's climate.)

But today is different. Or is it?

In some ways it is very different. By the 50's America had a near monopoly on foreign trade, because a good deal of the world was still in recovery from WW II. No Japan or China or Europe to compete with for selling manufactured goods. Americans were proud of their accomplishments, and most (at least in the white world) where fully participating in a society that was much more economically equal.

Americans had a choice too, then. Sit back on their triumphs. Do their jobs, come home to their houses, enjoy life. After all, American Life had been paid for in blood. And yet they didn't. Remember the iron lung? Polio? That was conquered. Go to the moon in a decade? Done. Transistor? Invented. Digital computer? From one in world in the 40's to one in every company in the 60's.

America had the choice to sit back and incrementally improve. It didn't. Perhaps the ideological race with Communism was the reason. Perhaps not. But it didn't.

Perhaps I just hear in black in white. But last night, in the sixth democratic debate, I heard a clear choice. Strike out in a new direction, the way we should go. We haven't been there before, but we should. Or, make small, steady improvements, that we know we can make. That we know we can handle.

That's what I heard. And I know which way I want America to go. I want America in 2016 to strike out the way America did in 1940. In 1950. In 1960. The way Americans have always gone. Blazing a new trail, towards a better, newer, richer country. That is the American Way!

Who Would I Vote For Today?

Since the primary election day is less than a month away in Texas, and early voting starts in just 12 days, I suppose it is time to start thinking about who to vote for. Anyone who knows me knows that I believe that the election cycle is way too long, with the results that vast sums of money are spent and wasted. Yet, it is what it is, and so I should start to make my decision.

Much has been made of the current state of American security. The San Bernardino shooting has instilled a great deal of fear in Americans, needlessly I believe, since the risk of being killed in a terrorist shooting in America is lower than being killed by lightning. Yet, many of the candidates are interested in showing their resolve by talking of putting boots on the ground against ISIS or Al Qaida or the terrorist de jour.

Then there is the blowhard with the comb over, who insists that America doesn't win anymore. I think he means that America isn't great anymore.

I just finished three months on a project in Wilmington, DE and I decided to drive back to Austin. Periodically I like to head out on the roads in America to visit it again. My mom was a school teacher and every summer we spent 2-6 weeks driving around the country, first from Texas to Iowa to revisit the family farm, and then somewhere interesting. So it was good to be traveling down some wide, straight, beautiful American road.

There was a lot to see that reminded me how great America is. Such as the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna river, itself just one of several bridges in parallel crossing that river. Or the I-40 bridge crossing the Mississippi in Memphis, also one of several running in parallel. Another was the port of Baltimore, where huge cranes were loading and unloading ships in the port. Or the four bores of the McHenry tunnel I dove into just prior to reaching the port of Baltimore.

As I drove through Knoxville, TN the signs for Oak Ridge reminded me of the technological and economic effort that were invested in the creation of the atomic bomb. Over and over Americans have created innovative technology that has influenced history, and anyone who thinks that America doesn't continue to do so is sadly mistaken. America does have real problems that we need to overcome. While driving back and forth between Philadelphia and Wilmington, I saw bridge overpasses scabrous with rust. Back home in Austin, my apartment is less than a mile from a section of I-35 that frequently has homeless transients traveling north or south.

But the effort by politicians to tap into the frustration over our problems by saying that America never wins is wrong. It's just like that effort to distract people by waging a foreign war. It's frequently done and harmful.

Concentrating on bread and circuses, or foreign wars, or wars in general, instead of economics, is dangerous.

Those victorious battles in which only men are killed without causing any other damage weakens the enemy little if the pay of the men he has lost remains and is sufficient to attract other men. An army of one hundred thousand well-paid men is an army a million strong, for an army to which men are attracted for pay cannot be destroyed: it is then up to the soldiers to defend themselves bravely; it is they who have most to lose for there will be no lack of replacements determined to face the perils of war. It is therefore wealth which upholds the honour of armies. The hero who wins battles, captures towns, acquires glory and is soon exhausted is not the conqueror. The historian who limits himself to relating the wonders of military feats does little to inform posterity of the issues of decisive events in wars if he keeps it in ignorance of the state of the fundamental forces and of the politics of the nations the history of which he writes; for it is in the constant affluence of a country's taxpayers, not in patriotic virtues that the permanent power of the state is to be found.

F. Quesnay, Maximes generales du governement economique d'un royaume agricole et notes sur ces maximes, xxvi, 1758

And so, it appears to me, that all the talk about social issues, security, crime, etc. is important but secondary, to the issues of economics and wealth, and I hear little talk except from Bernie Sanders. Oh, the Republicans talk about tax policy, but that is really about helping the 1%. (Along with the talk about abolishing the IRS, returning to the gold standard, abolishing the estate tax, etc.) The only candidate willing to talk about wealth inequality is Sanders. All the candidates pay lip service to the economic problems of the middle class, but it sounds to me just pro forma.

Is Sanders electable? Can anyone who has called himself a socialist be elected president in the U.S.? Will we get the chance to find out?