GOP Congressman Gets to Be a [...] While Interrogating Secretary Sebllius

Thanks, ThinkProgress, for alerting me to this. Watch it and, uh, [...]:

Setting aside decorum and human decency and all that, which the GOP congressman did, he cited the Republic of Korea as an entity that "it's just like talking to..." I'm sure he knew that the Republic of Korea is South Korea, an ally of the U.S. Of course he did, and of course he'll apologize, in private channels (sure). Way to go, Congressman.

It's a Civil War, and Big Corporations Are Winning.

Who's gonna win this one? Guess...

Main Street: This is not just about Walmart. It's about every aspect of our consumer society. Target, CVS, Walgreen's, Century 21, RE/MAX, Hilton, Wyndham, Marriott, BP, Chevron, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Oracle etc., etc., etc. Big is in, little is out. If you're a mom-n-pop outfit, your days are numbered. If you're an employee of one of these gargantuan, soulless enterprises, don't look forward to much of a life unless somehow we get lucky and the government can step in on wages, which is unlikely at this point.

The few enlightened capitalists -- much like the "enlightened despots" of yesteryear -- such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros, and Costco CEO Craig Jelinek know that it's possible, even vital, to let people lower on the food chain take a larger bite of the apple, if that's not mixing metaphors. To grow a corporation, it might be wise not to destroy one's market.

But that's not what we're seeing in much of today's marketplace. We've got a general momentum going that has mega-corporations rolling over us, holding down wages and raking in huge profits while, thanks to the Supreme Court, spending tons of money to buy the best politicians they can find, who bend the body politic to the will of the moneyed interests.

It's a recipe for turning us into Argentina, and it's pretty depressing.

Note. I'll link to info that supports this view as I find them.

GOP Tries to Celebrate Mandela, and Ends Up Showing Off Its Base Base

GOP leaders from John Boehner to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Eric Cantor thought they could join the Mandela-was-a-great-leader party, but, uh, maybe not. Talking Points Memo has a good rundown. We see the emergence of a great 2014 ad campaign:

Got Hate?

Maybe Clint could have a conversation with invisible GOP racists. (They're pretty visible.)

Don't Bother to Track Down Idiots, They'll Come to You

Paul Krugman wrote an empathetic, spot-on op-ed on why we should extend unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed. He got this at the top of the comments on his piece: 

Max San Diego

A wild grizzly bear is magnificent wild hunter but if you temp him with human garbage this apex predator will quickly choose garbage over hunting and just sit next to the campground and become a beggar. Many humans are no different. Giving them easy money and food destroys any work ethic and they will choose watching TV and collecting food stamps/welfare over productive employment. Every rational person who has any experience knows this to be true. The real challenge is to somehow differentiate temporary help from life destructive dependency. Giving unemployment benefits for maybe up to six months is one thing but two years is a fool's errand that is sure to ultimately cause more harm than good. Life is a challenge and when you remove all the challenges you create grizzly bears that dumpster dive rather than run down elk and you destroy the essence of what it means to be a grizzly bear.

Mm. Kay, as Paul would say. This comment is so full of fallacies that we should call Max of San Diego brilliant instead of maximum-load dickwad. He is a dickwad, but brilliant in his sophistry.

1. A dumb animal will forgo hunting if you feed him enough so that he is never hungry.
2. If a 50-year-old man loses a $120,000 a year job and his lifestyle requires a $120,000 salary, he won't hang out next to a dumpster that gives him $30,000 a year. He'll work like hell to get a $120,000 -- or the best he can find -- a year job before his whole life blows up.
3. Max says humans are no different. See 2. They are, though, no different if the dumpster doesn't provide enough food for either of them. The man will work. The grizzly will hunt.
4. "The real challenge is to somehow differentiate temporary help from life destructive dependency." See 2.
5. And Max, see a counselor to deal with your anger issues. And stay away from grizzlies near dumpsters. They might just surprise you.

I could go on, but I won't. You get it. If you don't, you're a dickwad like Max. By the way, don't hunt him down in San Diego because there are Max's everywhere. Well, actually, not everywhere. They only represent about 20% of the population. You'll find them in studio apartments with hacked Internet accounts, and in addition to food stamps, they also get a check from Mom. But they don't hang out in their pajamas. Mom cured them of that, just before she threw them out of the house. At 36. Now, to make themselves feel better, they criticize people vaguely unlike themselves. Max is a loser. The losers he describes are people he makes up so he feels better.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Max lays around all day after he gets home from his customer-support job, and, to make himself feel better, channels Rand Paul. Saves him from having to feel empathy or something, like the way he felt before resentment took the place of what he felt before everything didn't work out.

Just to make us to feel a little better, let's look at the comment after Max's:

American in Tokyo Tokyo

A key reason for providing unemployment benefits is that people who are receiving 40% to 50% of their prior pay spend all of the money they receive. The money is spent on rent, mortgage payments, fuel, transportation, food, basic clothing, ancillary educational expenses, taxes other than income and payroll taxes and so forth. All of that spending recycles back into the economy and creates employment.

Pure Keynesianism, and that's fine. But one other reason to give aid to our unemployed is that there are no jobs for them. If there are fewer jobs than there are unemployed, then the only way people get jobs is if they're taking jobs from others who have left work, for whatever reason. This is not progress, it's only recycled misery. Yes, as Rand Paul blandly recited this morning, the long-term unemployed are less employable. It's a way to cut down on the number of people employers have to consider. It doesn't make any sense -- unless it's outright age discrimination -- but it does give employers a way to select from a group of unemployed that is larger than the pool of workers that will get hired. Again, recycled misery, something Rand Paul likes. The idea of a job squeeze means wages won't go up, and businesses, in his world view, gain from that. Wages don't go down -- Paul Krugman's famous sticky wages -- so hence the slow growth of jobs.

Krupman calls Max's and Rand Paul's method of handling stubborn unemployment "the punishment cure," an apt name for it, because they don't have any other cure for it, other than blaming the victims of this demand-side downturn. Max should hope like hell that it doesn't happen to him. Rand Paul -- and some other Max -- will be ready to cut him loose, like any other loser.

It's so great to watch a great American mind at work, watching out for his fellow Americans. Good luck, Max. You're next in Rand Paul libertarian fantasy.

Was Nelson Mandela a Communist?

Nelson Mandela, 1964

No.

Much has been made since his death -- especially among those who would gain from condemning Mandela -- of Nelson Mandela's "Communist past." I found in his "speech from the dock" in 1964 a very clear explanation of Mandela's relationship with the Communist Party. Here, in his own rather powerful words:

As far as the Communist party is concerned, and if I understand its policy correctly, it stands for the establishment of a state based on the principles of Marxism. The Communist party sought to emphasise class distinctions whilst the ANC seeks to harmonise them. This is a vital distinction.

It is true that there has often been close cooperation between the ANC and the Communist party. But cooperation is merely proof of a common goal - in this case the removal of white supremacy - and is not proof of a complete community of interests. The history of the world is full of similar examples. Perhaps the most striking is the cooperation between Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union in the fight against Hitler. Nobody but Hitler would have dared to suggest that such cooperation turned Churchill or Roosevelt into communists. Theoretical differences amongst those fighting against oppression is a luxury we cannot afford at this stage.

What is more, for many decades communists were the only political group in South Africa prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us; talk with us, live with us, and work with us. They were the only group which was prepared to work with the Africans for the attainment of political rights and a stake in society. Because of this, there are many Africans who, today, tend to equate freedom with communism. They are supported in this belief by a legislature which brands all exponents of democratic government and African freedom as communists and bans many of them (who are not communists) under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although I have never been a member of the Communist party, I myself have been imprisoned under that act.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot. Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my admiration of the structure of early African societies. The land belonged to the tribe. There were no rich or poor and there was no exploitation. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty. But this does not mean we are Marxists.

I have gained the impression that communists regard the parliamentary system of the west as reactionary. But, on the contrary, I am an admirer. The Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights are documents held in veneration by democrats throughout the world. I have great respect for British institutions, and for the country's system of justice. I regard the British parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the impartiality of its judiciary never fails to arouse my admiration. The American Congress, that country's separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouses in me similar sentiments.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east. I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism. I must leave myself free to borrow the best from the west and from the east.

Clear as day. My favorite line was "Nobody but Hitler would have dared to suggest that such cooperation turned Churchill or Roosevelt into communists."

I rarely enjoy NY Times' Bill Keller, but he apparently is well-qualified to write this thoughtful piece on Nelson Mandela and communism. I found it insightful.

Bonus fun. I found this link to a 1990 Rush Limbaugh appearance on Crossfire, stating emphatically that Nelson Mandela and his fight against apartheid wasn't about racial injustice at all. What was it? View the first 30 seconds of the video clip and find out!

Bonus non-fun. Read the Ted Cruz remarks on Mandela on his facebook page, and then read through the comments. Not pretty.

Are Risk/Reward Choices a Human Right? An American Right? A Civil Right?

Is gun ownership worth the risks? Studies say no.

Risk/reward:

 A ratio used by many investors to compare the expected returns of an investment to the amount of risk undertaken to capture these returns. This ratio is calculated mathematically by dividing the amount he or she stands to lose if the price moves in the unexpected direction (i.e. the risk) by the amount of profit the trader expects to have made when the position is closed (i.e. the reward).

In this context, I'm applying it not to investing but to choices like not getting health insurance.

The reason I'm taking a look at risk/reward is due to a comment on a blog post speaking about how a small business can now predict with some certainty what their future health-insurance costs are going to be because the ACA (Obamacare) has a regulation that sets insurance premiums by age. In other words, the law established a uniform cost-curve that all insurers must follow. (Not exactly true: It only applies to the federal marketplace. States who are running their own exchanges get to set their own regulations in this regard. But the rule generally applies.)

It turns out that this is a great feature of the ACA and will encourage more small businesses -- and large ones, as well -- to continue to offer health benefits. But what does this have to do with risk/reward? Nothing. But a commenter -- a little incoherently -- decided to take the opportunity to grouse:

Well if it is so unacceptable to be uninsured we surely don't need any mandates? It is not unacceptable since we generally are allowed to accept risk reward in our society.

My best take on that incoherent statement is that the commenter was trying to say that we don't need mandates because being insured is so attractive, and also decided to throw in that "we generally are allowed to accept risk reward in our society."

Now this harkens back to the famous "Let him die? Yeah!" sequence during the Tea-Party-sponsored Republican presidential-primary debate in 2011. The Tea Party crowd in which some loudly proclaimed that a young man without health insurance should just be allowed to die from an accident, apparently because they believe in the right to make your own risk/reward decisions. He decided to have no health insurance, and he is now entitled to die. He's not entitled to free healthcare.

Great.

Now, I know this is Ayn Rand Libertarianism 101, but it offers us a chance to look at it from the perspective of the right wing. Do citizens have the right to remain out of an insurance pool when, if they were a part of it, it would benefit an entire society (with much lower health-insurance premiums)?

Like the Tea-Party crowd, libertarians would answer with a loud "Yeah!" And this is at the core of their dislike for regulation of any kind: It's my right to do what I want. If I want to invest in gold, I'll invest in gold. If I want to drink four gallons of Pepsi a day, I'll do it. If I want to blow my head off with a Glock -- or, by accident, my wife's, or my kids', or an intruder's, or some lost old man with Alzheimer's who rang my doorbell -- then it's my right. If I want to be underinsured or uninsured, it's my right.

Americans have managed to hold onto a few of these right-to-your-own-risk/reward choices, but it's not unlimited, and a lot of risk/reward choices have in fact been removed from the public sphere without much controversy (though I wonder if we were making these choices in the current climate, we'd be successful today). Examples are everywhere. We can't own a car without proof of insurance. We can't finance a home without homeowners' insurance. This isn't my area of expertise, but I suspect there are all kinds of regulations regarding private flying and boating involving permits, training, insurance and whatnot.

So, no, there isn't any absolute right to our own risk/reward decision-making on any widespread basis here in the U.S. It's not a universal American right. It's not a civil right.


I would love to not pay a dime for healthcare. But I pay for it because I need it. We all do eventually. Why reject a system that saves us all money and makes healthcare available to more people simply because we have a right to not participate, because we have a right to take a risk and die because of it?

It makes no sense to me, none at all. It doesn't make any sense at all even as a conservative value. That's why I'm so often puzzled by this persistent, etched-in-stone, liberal/conservative divide. We should all be in favor of better, cheaper healthcare. Why aren't we?

This could never happen to me...

States Rejecting Medicaid Expansion Losing Out on Billions

A new Commonwealth Fund study that just came out speaks to the harm Republican-led states are doing to their citizens by rejecting the Medicaid expansion. That's a key perspective: It's not the states that are losing money, it's the states' own taxpayers whose federal income taxes go toward Medicaid -- in the states that have accepted the aid -- and yet get nothing in their home states. And the deprivation will grow over time. Reports Think Progress:

But since Medicaid is financed through general tax revenue, all Americans — irrespective of whether or not they live in a state participating in the expansion — will pay into the system. Consequently, Texas residents will see over $9 billion flow out of their state in 2022 to help fund the expansion in states that accept it; Georgia taxpayers will lose out on nearly $3 billion; and Florida’s rejection of the expansion will cost residents over $5 billion...

“Federal funding provides direct benefits and bolsters local economies. The opportunity to participate in the Medicaid expansion has potentially important benefits to states,” concluded the study authors. “Even states that do not value the health and health system benefits of expanding Medicaid may value the expansion as a source of funds that benefits the state economy.”

If all states expanded Medicaid, over 21 million of the poorest Americans would have access to basic health benefits by 2022.

This happens on many levels. Not only do citizens of these red states pay for -- but not benefit from -- Medicaid money, they also lose out on the economy activity generated by these billions of healthcare spending and the jobs that are created to serve it.

A hope I've always had is that, when the ramifications of these Republican choices in the red states get understood, the people will pressure these Republicans to relent and let them have access to healthcare and the revenue generated, rather than letting these politicians deprive their citizens for dubious ideological stances. Let's hope so.

To get a feeling for the broad discussion in the various states and across the nation this Commonwealth Fund study has generated, type "states rejecting medicaid" into a Google search. (Or just click this link.) The resulting links tell quite a story.

C'mon Mississippi. It's time to join the 21st century. Your citizens deserve it.