Louis Caldera, the director of the White House military office, is the dumbest man in the United States today. Somehow, in the deep recesses of his brain, he thought that the best way to get a photo-op of an F-16, air force one, and the statue of liberty, was to fly these planes into New York City.
Has this guy ever heard of Photoshop?
What bugs me even more, is all the people that heard about this idea before it took shape and signed off on this. How did those conversations even go? "Uh, hi, yeah, sooooooo we want to fly a 747 into the New York City area, cool?"
But in all seriousness, from a psychological standpoint, what a horrible and traumatic thing to do to people after what happened in then not so distant past. I'm not one to ring the 9/11 bell, but this is a particularly cruel example of what sheer incompetence can produce when given enough time and money. Could you imagine if they decided to do a photo-op over Pearl Harbor in the 1950s?
Lets hope that the White House (Ahem, Mr. Obama) uses some balls here and fires this guy before he risks losing the state of New York in the next election.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"Terrorist" Defined 10:31 PM
So maybe I'm way off base, but it has always been my understanding that the word "terrorist" was reserved for a person who hopes to achieve the destruction of an ideology/religion/government through indiscriminate killing. This is why people like Osama Bin Laden qualify as a terrorist; they hate the idea of democracy and hope to bring it down through random acts of violence.
Terrorists are not people that want money and other tangible goods in exchange for the safe return of hostages, or the disarming of a bomb, etc, etc, etc. This is why when someone robs a bank, we don't refer to them as "terrorists," rather, "bank robbers."
So why in the world does Bill O'reilly and many other members of the fox news channel continue to refer to these Somali pirates as terrorists? After all, they attack boats looking for money and goods to steal, and take hostages if they feel they can get a ransom. There's no ideological war here, or some sort of desire to undo the West - they just want cold hard cash.
So please, for the love of God, stop calling these people terrorists. Not every criminal born outside of the US is a terrorist. Let's not drag the "war on terror" into every single current event. Frankly it just makes you sound stupid.
Terrorists are not people that want money and other tangible goods in exchange for the safe return of hostages, or the disarming of a bomb, etc, etc, etc. This is why when someone robs a bank, we don't refer to them as "terrorists," rather, "bank robbers."
So why in the world does Bill O'reilly and many other members of the fox news channel continue to refer to these Somali pirates as terrorists? After all, they attack boats looking for money and goods to steal, and take hostages if they feel they can get a ransom. There's no ideological war here, or some sort of desire to undo the West - they just want cold hard cash.
So please, for the love of God, stop calling these people terrorists. Not every criminal born outside of the US is a terrorist. Let's not drag the "war on terror" into every single current event. Frankly it just makes you sound stupid.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Solutions? 8:35 PM
So we've got tea party protests going on all over the country today, the largest of which is being lead by none other than Sean Hannity live right now. Now I'm all for protesting for something you believe in, that's how change starts and can make the biggest impression. Though I must say that these protests confuse me for the following reasons:
1) The Republicans are running it. If citizens had issue with how the government spends money that's one thing, but when you've got Joe the Plumber (I guess he gets 15 +1 minute of fame) on Fox news and people waving signs saying things like "read my lipstick" it's kind of clear that this has little to do with government spending outrage and more to do with sour grape Republicans still upset over the November election.
2) Everyone is holding a sign with a different message. Some people are upset over how money is being spent, others are upset about the illusion that their taxes are going up, and still others are upset over bailouts. What is it? is it all those things? Then why wasn't there so much protest back months ago when the first bailout plan came out? If this is truly about how money is spent, then the past two presidents are responsible, not just Obama.
3) No one is protesting the financial institutions that got us to this place. Where are the signs chastising Wall Street for the carelessness that undoubtedly brought us to where we are today? Has it been so long that we've all forgotten about the auto execs flying in on private jets to Washington? Or all the losses hidden away in derivatives by investment bankers? Here we've got people who have lost health insurance and their retirement funds to the Madoffs of the world and they're out protesting a president that wants to improve access to affordable healthcare and improve benefits for the underserved.
4) Months later we still have no solution from the Republicans. Here they are promoting the hell out of these protests but they have yet to promote ANY alternative solution. Hell, even the Republican governors that refused to take bailout money did a 180.
5) The metaphor is terrible. The Boston tea party was all about taxation without representation. First off, 95% of those protesters are paying LESS in taxes than they have over the past 8 years. Second, these citizens ARE represented; just not by the people they want representing them. I'm hard pressed not to believe that if it was GW Bush lowering their taxes and passing another bailout that this situation would be completely reversed, with Fox hailing the President's financial prowess and the democrats taking to the streets.
Essentially this "protest" has nothing to do with money, it's all politics. The Republicans have been dying to do something, anything, to make the Democrats look bad since Obama's election. And the reason that these protests won't have any impact is because nobody buys the phony outrage. I mean, they don't want new taxes, they don't want the government to spend any more money, they don't want to give Wall Street any money, they don't want people to get bonuses, and they don't want America to pull out of Iraq. What exactly DO they want?
1) The Republicans are running it. If citizens had issue with how the government spends money that's one thing, but when you've got Joe the Plumber (I guess he gets 15 +1 minute of fame) on Fox news and people waving signs saying things like "read my lipstick" it's kind of clear that this has little to do with government spending outrage and more to do with sour grape Republicans still upset over the November election.
2) Everyone is holding a sign with a different message. Some people are upset over how money is being spent, others are upset about the illusion that their taxes are going up, and still others are upset over bailouts. What is it? is it all those things? Then why wasn't there so much protest back months ago when the first bailout plan came out? If this is truly about how money is spent, then the past two presidents are responsible, not just Obama.
3) No one is protesting the financial institutions that got us to this place. Where are the signs chastising Wall Street for the carelessness that undoubtedly brought us to where we are today? Has it been so long that we've all forgotten about the auto execs flying in on private jets to Washington? Or all the losses hidden away in derivatives by investment bankers? Here we've got people who have lost health insurance and their retirement funds to the Madoffs of the world and they're out protesting a president that wants to improve access to affordable healthcare and improve benefits for the underserved.
4) Months later we still have no solution from the Republicans. Here they are promoting the hell out of these protests but they have yet to promote ANY alternative solution. Hell, even the Republican governors that refused to take bailout money did a 180.
5) The metaphor is terrible. The Boston tea party was all about taxation without representation. First off, 95% of those protesters are paying LESS in taxes than they have over the past 8 years. Second, these citizens ARE represented; just not by the people they want representing them. I'm hard pressed not to believe that if it was GW Bush lowering their taxes and passing another bailout that this situation would be completely reversed, with Fox hailing the President's financial prowess and the democrats taking to the streets.
Essentially this "protest" has nothing to do with money, it's all politics. The Republicans have been dying to do something, anything, to make the Democrats look bad since Obama's election. And the reason that these protests won't have any impact is because nobody buys the phony outrage. I mean, they don't want new taxes, they don't want the government to spend any more money, they don't want to give Wall Street any money, they don't want people to get bonuses, and they don't want America to pull out of Iraq. What exactly DO they want?
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Why Health Insurance Fails 1:22 PM
It's not really a challenge to see why health insurance companies are part of the problem of healthcare today. You only have to look at the business model to understand why the average patient deals with the day-by-day hassles.
So as I understand it, an insurance company is like a big pot of money that we all pay a little into. If one of us gets sick, we can take more money out of that pot than we put in with the understanding that the odds of everyone getting ill at the same time are slim. Then, whatever money is in the pot at any given time, the insurance company is free to use to turn a profit. Of course with a little help from Smith's invisible hand, insurance companies should vie for our business and this creates competition that drives down the cost of premiums.
This system doesn't work for a lot of reasons:
1) Competition is pretty much non-existent. When we start work many of our businesses have a single health insurer they use and we don't have great options if we opt out, especially if we have a pre-existing condition.
2) Health insurance companies vary from state to state. This means that competition is artificially restricted to where we live at any given point.
3) The insurance companies are for profit. A company's profit is higher the less money it pays out.
The first two reasons aren't that hard to overcome. Insurance can certainly be untethered from businesses and state. But it's that last point that's the killer, the less money an insurance company pays out, the more profit it gets to keep. This point bears repeating. The less an insurance company pays out to sick people, the more it gets to put in its pockets. I feel like if I pulled any one person off the street and told them about this great new idea where they give me a couple hundred bucks every month, and then when they want it back they have to fill out some forms, wait 8 to 10 weeks and they may or may not get it back I would get punched. But this is exactly the crap that we've accepted when it comes to our health.
I know that a lot of you are saying, "but Chris, what kind of heartless cold bastard would exploit people's health for gain?" And I'm sure there are those companies that explicitly try to screw their customers, but I can only speculate so I won't go into it. The real money lies in the unconscious things these companies do that end up benefiting them in the end. One such thing is the dreaded customer service representative.
We've all encountered this beast before. Our cable goes on the fritz and the next thing you know you're listening to the stylings of Kenny G waiting for someone on the other end to lead you through a series of confusing, convoluted steps to regain your TV. The conversation, though, inevitably ends with the need for a "service visit" that requires a week of waiting. Of course when the cable company shows up they say that your cable box is broken and you'll need to fax in a copy of the original form with the repair receipt before you will be reimbursed for a new box, and so on and so on and so on.
This system is so unruly that newspaper articles have cropped up called "the fixer" and all they do is report on and attempt to fix the boondoggles that customer service reps create. Yet if you find yourself needing a kidney transplant, this might become your life or death reality. Now imagine you have a few months to live, but someone on the other end of the insurance company never got a fax from your doctor and you're claim is denied. Unfortunately this is a reality every day in this country, and these insurance companies have no incentive to fix the problem, because lets face it, a kidney transplant is expensive. If you die while the insurance company was busy pushing paper, that’s a couple hundred thousand extra in their pocket.
And this is reality. We get a job, have to put up with the one insurer our company uses, and then have to deal with a company that has zero incentive to pay for expensive procedures. Even if we wanted to buy our own plan outside of work chances are the costs for a family plan is so prohibitive that we don't even attempt.
It's my thinking that the best would be a shift to non-profit companies. Rather than each state having a hodge podge of insurance companies, I think we'd all be better off with 4 or 5 non-profit companies in charge of that big pot of money. This would eliminate that temptation to deny healthcare to turn a profit. And if one of the 4 or 5 companies was terrible at their job we could always switch. Because there's no profit involved there's no benefit in price fixing. With little emphasis on gain, these companies could focus on streamlining medical records and billing, as well as study patient safety. The hope would be that non for profit companies would attract young talent interested in improving healthcare rather than business school grads looking for unlimited profit. We could get college grads excited about the work by offering loan forgiveness for employment and effort and improving healthcare.
Would this system work? I would hope so, but I'm sure there are a million economists lined up to tell me how this is a terrible plan. But hey, lets face it, we need to start generating new solutions, because what we've got now stinks
So as I understand it, an insurance company is like a big pot of money that we all pay a little into. If one of us gets sick, we can take more money out of that pot than we put in with the understanding that the odds of everyone getting ill at the same time are slim. Then, whatever money is in the pot at any given time, the insurance company is free to use to turn a profit. Of course with a little help from Smith's invisible hand, insurance companies should vie for our business and this creates competition that drives down the cost of premiums.
This system doesn't work for a lot of reasons:
1) Competition is pretty much non-existent. When we start work many of our businesses have a single health insurer they use and we don't have great options if we opt out, especially if we have a pre-existing condition.
2) Health insurance companies vary from state to state. This means that competition is artificially restricted to where we live at any given point.
3) The insurance companies are for profit. A company's profit is higher the less money it pays out.
The first two reasons aren't that hard to overcome. Insurance can certainly be untethered from businesses and state. But it's that last point that's the killer, the less money an insurance company pays out, the more profit it gets to keep. This point bears repeating. The less an insurance company pays out to sick people, the more it gets to put in its pockets. I feel like if I pulled any one person off the street and told them about this great new idea where they give me a couple hundred bucks every month, and then when they want it back they have to fill out some forms, wait 8 to 10 weeks and they may or may not get it back I would get punched. But this is exactly the crap that we've accepted when it comes to our health.
I know that a lot of you are saying, "but Chris, what kind of heartless cold bastard would exploit people's health for gain?" And I'm sure there are those companies that explicitly try to screw their customers, but I can only speculate so I won't go into it. The real money lies in the unconscious things these companies do that end up benefiting them in the end. One such thing is the dreaded customer service representative.
We've all encountered this beast before. Our cable goes on the fritz and the next thing you know you're listening to the stylings of Kenny G waiting for someone on the other end to lead you through a series of confusing, convoluted steps to regain your TV. The conversation, though, inevitably ends with the need for a "service visit" that requires a week of waiting. Of course when the cable company shows up they say that your cable box is broken and you'll need to fax in a copy of the original form with the repair receipt before you will be reimbursed for a new box, and so on and so on and so on.
This system is so unruly that newspaper articles have cropped up called "the fixer" and all they do is report on and attempt to fix the boondoggles that customer service reps create. Yet if you find yourself needing a kidney transplant, this might become your life or death reality. Now imagine you have a few months to live, but someone on the other end of the insurance company never got a fax from your doctor and you're claim is denied. Unfortunately this is a reality every day in this country, and these insurance companies have no incentive to fix the problem, because lets face it, a kidney transplant is expensive. If you die while the insurance company was busy pushing paper, that’s a couple hundred thousand extra in their pocket.
And this is reality. We get a job, have to put up with the one insurer our company uses, and then have to deal with a company that has zero incentive to pay for expensive procedures. Even if we wanted to buy our own plan outside of work chances are the costs for a family plan is so prohibitive that we don't even attempt.
It's my thinking that the best would be a shift to non-profit companies. Rather than each state having a hodge podge of insurance companies, I think we'd all be better off with 4 or 5 non-profit companies in charge of that big pot of money. This would eliminate that temptation to deny healthcare to turn a profit. And if one of the 4 or 5 companies was terrible at their job we could always switch. Because there's no profit involved there's no benefit in price fixing. With little emphasis on gain, these companies could focus on streamlining medical records and billing, as well as study patient safety. The hope would be that non for profit companies would attract young talent interested in improving healthcare rather than business school grads looking for unlimited profit. We could get college grads excited about the work by offering loan forgiveness for employment and effort and improving healthcare.
Would this system work? I would hope so, but I'm sure there are a million economists lined up to tell me how this is a terrible plan. But hey, lets face it, we need to start generating new solutions, because what we've got now stinks