nathalie's Blog

Health care reform insurance companies can love

2008-12-02T22:59:57Z

Synopsis: Proposal for a Single Payer Partnership, funded equally by employer and employee, modeled after self-insured industries, administered by insurance companies selected through competitive bidding in the respective States.

The Proposal

The insurance industry has fought to continue the present system, because it is profitable. Employers famously complain that it's getting too expensive to provide workers with health insurance. Too many working Americans must buy insurance they can't really afford or risk losing everything because of major medical expenses. How about a plan that will protect each of these groups while providing basic health care for all Americans?
    I propose a single-payer system, call it a Single Payer Partnership, funded by equal contributions from employer and employee (á la Social Security) plus taxes most people will agree to, such as on cigarettes, whiskey and killer bullets. Each State (no Big Government threat here!) would solicit proposals from individual insurance companies or consortiums to administer that State's share of the fund; the best qualifying proposal in each State would be awarded the contract for that State--subject to review and renewal as are other government contracts--under which the winning bidder would be paid to administer the fund.
    PRESTO! Health care for everyone, administered by those most experienced in doing so. Part of the cost savings is immediate, with insurance premiums eliminated, but with the insurance industry still a major partner and thereby continuing to make money; employers will not have to foot the whole bill because employees will (gladly) contribute a fair share; and the uninsured are now included. Those already covered by Medicare and related plans--children, the elderly, the disabled, the indigent and certain low-income workers--are brought into this universal plan, along with their present health care funding (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, VA, SSI). There would be additional savings realized when everyone is under one umbrella.
    The insurance companies should welcome this plan, because it will keep them in the loop at a lesser risk to them (if in fact health insurance is as risky as they would have us believe). And there will still be a need for "gap" packages such as are now being sold to Medicare recipients as Part B -- as well as a market for new policies of life insurance for those who now can afford it!
    It is reasonable for employers, large and small, to contribute to their employees' health care, since a healthy work force benefits the employer as it benefits and advances the greater society. But no doubt the employer will write off its share of the insurance fund, and perhaps raise the price of pizza by 50 cents. We can live with that.
    The benefit to the economy, in addition to controlling out-of-bounds medical costs and freeing up more money for voluntary spending, will derive in part from increased job stability and work force quality. Many people now take jobs they don't want, or leave jobs they like, due to health insurance concerns; it will now be easier to attract and keep quality employees. On the other hand, more folks will be able to become self-employed because of the safety net, and this would lead to more jobs being available.

Existing Models

As anyone with Medicare experience knows, that plan actually works quite well. You choose your own doctor. You can choose to buy a "gap" policy, or not. You can choose your treatment. Freedom of choice is everywhere. Obviously, Medicare could be the model for a single-payer health care system.
As another model, my own present health insurance plan might be seen as a microcosm of the Single Payer Partnership proposal; it is already common in U. S. industry, and it works. Specifically:

The employer is self-insured--that is, the company maintains its own fund for payment of medical expenses for all employees, and pays a major insurance group to administer it. How blessedly simple! The employer saves money by hiring a manager instead of paying premiums to an insurance company that must pay for management and also provide a profit to its shareholders. For a $15 co-pay, I can go to whatever doctor I choose, undergo whatever procedure I choose, and if the procedure is not covered and/or I go to a doctor who has not agreed to the fee structure set by the insurance company it will still be available but will simply cost me more. I contribute to the monthly premium and have a $250 annual deductible for optional procedures--all quite manageable for the average working person.

There IS a Health Care Crisis

So long as frightened parents have to go on television to beg for money to save a child's life; so long as people with diabetes, cancer or heart disease can be denied medical insurance or be obliged to pay thousands of dollars a year in increased premiums; so long as millions of Americans drudge along in jobs they hate and/or put up with poor working conditions just to get or keep insurance, there is a crisis.
In this rich country of ours, there is no excuse for anyone going without decent medical care, yet we lag behind the rest of the industrialized world in providing for our own.

Snake oil here! Now!

2008-08-12T14:08:51Z

In an exchange about McCain’s fixation with off-shore drilling, Obama observed that, hey, if every driver got the car tuned up and its tires inflated to specification the fuel savings would be immediate, contrasted with the years before new wells could influence gasoline prices — if indeed they did more than a penny or three a gallon.

McCain promptly began a campaign to mock this as “Obama’s energy plan,” and handed out cute little pressure gauges to reporters. (Ordinary folks could get one for only $25.00 on McCain’s web site.)

But here’s what BusinessWeek.com wrote on August 1, 2008:

According to www.fueleconomy.gov, the gas savings of having a properly tuned car is 16 cents a gallon, compared with a car that’s not properly tuned. The savings from properly inflated tires versus improperly inflated tires is up to 40-cents a gallon.

Statistics vary, but more than half of the vehicles on the road today are believed, from periodic spot checking, to be under-inflated.

AAA and NASCAR agree, by the way.

Further, according to BusinessWeek.com,

The U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an "insignificant" impact on oil prices.

So it was reassuring to hear McCain endorse the idea a week or so later.

One thing for sure: McCain’s argument that if we only “Drill here! Drill now!” it will bring down the price of gasoline is, to say the least, misleading.

Ok, but let’s say it’s a reasonable argument that, assuming more oil will eventually be needed, whether or not it drives down prices, we should probably be starting now. Here’s a problem: People who seem to know what they are talking about point out (a) that we are already operating our refineries at capacity, so to accommodate more oil we will need to build more refineries; and (b) that there are millions of acres of existing oil leases that have not been drilled upon.

Currently 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves are open for leasing, while just 21 percent are closed to drilling. [U.S. Minerals Management Service, 2006]

Currently 82 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore natural gas reserves are open for leasing, while just 18 percent are closed to drilling. [U.S. Minerals Management Service, 2006]”

You could argue that it would make sense to start drilling on lands that are already available and start building more refineries, all while continuing the quest for alternative solutions — after all, we’ll have at least a decade on our hands while we wait for that oil to come in.

I remember how the Bush tax cuts for the very, very wealthy got through a distraught Congress still reeling from the attacks of 9/11 — the President took advantage of the willingness of the nation to follow him just about anywhere, and the tax cuts were passed within days.
Could it be that the oil companies (who love the idea of more leases in juicy offshore locations and gave McCain over $1 million to show that love) are hoping our present panic will help get them those leases?

All I can offer is a cautionary to Americans to pay close attention and check out the facts. Else it’s “fool me twice” time.

The bottom line on McCain

2008-07-12T14:39:50Z

    I think his mind is gone. I don’t mean that cruelly, or snidely. I mean, speaking as a “senior,” that for many of us, memories of times way past are much clearer than of recent events. I can’t learn the lyrics to new songs, but I remember every word of the lyrics learned from age 3 through high school.

    McCain has yet to offer coherent positions on the economy, energy, or health care — or in fact anything other than his military exploits -- because those things have never really mattered to him, and still don't, and he’s too late to the game. (The problem is no doubt exacerbated by the fact that he keeps changing the positions he does take.)

    This is what worries me most about McCain, and I wish to goodness journalists and commentators would have the nerve to talk about it.

Call me a heretic

2008-07-09T17:07:09Z

    Once, many years ago, I had the opportunity to compliment the wonderful Katharine Hepburn, in a backstage visit after “West Side Waltz,” on her portrayal of her character as a maverick. I said I really related to that.
    “Oh, but you know,” she said, in that slightly quavering New England voice, “it’s not always easy being a maverick!” She would know.
    In the past, I admired Sen. McCain, to the point of contributing to his campaign in 2000. It had nothing to do with his military service or POW experience. I just admired what I saw as fierce independence, and totally related to him as the maverick he seemed to be.
    Apparently John McCain has also discovered that it is not always easy being a maverick, for it seems his “maverickness” has pretty well evaporated over the course of this campaign season.
    Why do I say this? Well, consider the definitions of “maverick”:
    (1) an unorthodox or independent-minded person; (2) a person who refuses to conform to a particular party or group.
    Now consider John McCain:
    When President George W. Bush rolled out his tax cuts for the very, very wealthy at the expense of the economy (if you want to challenge me on this, line up your sources), Sen. McCain stood up in the Senate and objected:
    “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.” The maverick stood strong.
    But in this year of the 2008 Presidential election, he wants to make those very tax cuts permanent.
    John McCain, one who knows from personal experience, strongly opposed torture and led the battle for anti-torture legislation — until it came time to vote on it. Then he voted with the Bush administration against it.
    McCain won enthusiastic praise from environmentalists, including me, when he came out for pro-environment legislation. He supported, for example, the long-established ban on off-shore drilling for oil; this year he is in favor of lifting the ban.
    By the way, that won’t do anything to lower gasoline prices, my friends. The problem is not how much is still in the ground to be extracted (in 10 or more years from now when wells might be productive); the problem is that no matter how much is pumped out, China and India and other rapidly developing countries will continue to grow and consume enormous quantities of the supply, and the supply is finite.
    Someday folks will get it: there are no more dinosaurs left to die off and create new pools of fossil fuels. Some of us learned that in the fourth grade.
    McCain ran into huge problems with his party because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform. So how did he handle it? Without getting into the virtue of the legislation he had co-sponsored, it is enough to know that he has danced away from it in this election season.
    Where’s the maverick?
    McCain’s strength was that he appealed to voters as a “straight talker,” as someone who was willing to buck his party on any number of matters out of principle. He was no party-line guy, he was a truth-teller. But now we are left to wonder: Which truth?
    It is reported that during his college years at the Naval Academy “McCain had conflicts with higher-ups, and he was disinclined to obey every rule, which contributed to a low class rank (894/899) that he did not aim to improve. … McCain did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he disliked, such as math.” (Wikipedia)
    I respectfully remind the reader that we have just gone through almost eight years with a President who is disinclined to obey rules and does not aim to improve his ranking.
    It has also been reported, with disquieting frequency, that McCain has a very short temper, once described by The Arizona Republic, his hometown newspaper, as “volcanic.” In the 2000 presidential primaries members of his own party who opposed his becoming their nominee seemed interested in linking his propensity for rage to his POW experience.
    Now, the fact that he is known to swear like a sailor should worry no one in and of itself — note the analogy, after all! Even blasting away at colleagues in the Senate from time to time might not be cause for concern in a future President. But certainly we want to know what to expect in disagreements with heads of other states.
    And we absolutely don’t want a President who hits the red button first and asks questions later.
    So let me sum it up: John McCain was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam war; he flew many missions before he was shot down and captured and imprisoned, and he was kept in prison for five and a half years; during that time he endured torture.
    His military career was distinguished as far as it went, including experiences that were heroic. But why must that now be the dominant narrative of his candidacy?
    Perhaps because the John McCain we admired so much for refusing to conform to the party line is no more. He’s gone all orthodox on us. His turnabouts have not left him in fair play.
    There is nothing left of the maverick — ironically, the one John McCain who might have had a chance of winning in November.

Horseshoes and hand-grenades

2008-06-09T16:40:52Z

For awhile it appeared to just about everyone, especially us cynics, that Hillary Clinton was going to continue her improbable quest for the Democratic nomination despite the fact that she had lost the primary race.
    That's because it has appeared for a good while that, so far as the Clintons are concerned, lightning could strike, Barack could change his mind – who knows? She’s not a quitter.
    But she surprised us on Saturday.
    Hillary's speech announcing the suspension of her campaign and endorsing Obama was near perfect.
    In the beginning, in her best campaign voice, she drew her audience up to the present moment, reminding them of the many high points of her campaign, victories they had shared, and thanking them.
    There followed an acknowledgement of his victory coupled with a vigorous, almost passionate, endorsement of Obama; her remarks incorporated many of the familiar themes from his campaign, a device that served to strengthen her endorsement and very effectively show that she is on board, saying “this is our time,” even ending with “Yes, we can!” I briefly thought he might even have suggested the language when they met on Thursday, but we’ll never know.
     Finally, in the last part of her speech she laid out in detail the good reasons for her supporters to follow her, to “make history together as we write the next chapter in America's story.” She exhorted them to work for Obama’s election, and opened the door for them to step through.
    So, the Clintons’ up-to-the-end claim that delegates to the convention might find her entitled to the nomination because she had “won the popular vote” -- not a criterion for choosing the nominee, and incidentally not true – would be moot.
    On the other hand – you knew this was coming, right? – there’s the matter of some disappointed Hillary folks, most recently Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who have taken up the “she won the popular vote” cudgel to support their hope that Obama will ask Hillary Clinton to be his vice president. Still other wishful thinkers believe that because the race was so close – “almost a tie,” they say – she has earned the right to be on the ticket.
    Let me just say this about that.
    “Close” only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades, as the old saying goes.
    An election, at the end, is a zero-sum game: someone wins (because) someone else loses. Close elections are nothing new (think Florida, 2000), but the idea that coming in second should somehow entitle the loser to part of the prize is not the way it works.
    But more important, rather than fume and ferment because one of the last two Democratic candidates did not win, we would do well to understand the blessing that brought this about: It happened because there were two very qualified candidates from whom to choose. As it happened, for almost half of them Clinton was a first choice, while a little more than half preferred Obama.
    It is absolutely wrong to suggest, as some of the fiery Clinton people – and, alas, some of the pundits -- that because a voter PREFERRED one candidate over the other in the first cut, that voter doesn’t like the other at all.
    Hillary showed in her endorsement speech that she can deliver an inspired argument for electing Barack Obama the next president of the United States. In fact, I believe she can be much MORE effective a surrogate in the general election if she is NOT on the ballot, with an obvious personal stake in the outcome and possibly bringing negatives to the ticket.
    So, you folks out there – and you know who you are -- who are disappointed that Hillary didn’t win but when you get right down to it really don’t want more of the Bush policies, it’s time to take a deep breath, let go, and get on board the train with her. It’s going to be an exciting ride!

Upside-Downside

2008-05-10T15:37:04Z

As our Presidential candidates head for the finish line in November, it behooves the voter to do more than just listen to speeches or watch the ever-changing polls. It is time to think.
There’s a growing call for Clinton to quit the race because it is statistically well nigh impossible for her to win the nomination without very sharp and unacceptable tactics. But think:
Why shouldn’t she continue to the end? After all, it can’t be disputed that lightning might strike, Obama might stumble, or votes in the 6 remaining state primaries might break 90-10 in her favor. It could happen.
I think she has every right to continue in the campaign, so long as she runs an honorable race. Dishonorable might make me think again.
The upside will be that Obama gets a lot more experience surviving nastiness while all the remaining states get to vote; the downside is inevitably that every one of her attacks on Obama is recorded by the Republicans for playback in the fall – but the Clintons should be aware that Obama is not the only one who could be hurt.
Voices in the punditocracy opine loudly and often that the continuing Democratic struggle is giving McCain an advantage that might become insurmountable, totally ignoring three truths:
First, the one who is not getting attacked always rises in the polls.
Second, McCain can’t win because he is a terrible campaigner, whose entire basis for running is his military past.
And finally, the word “recession” has entered the public discourse.
John McCain? Bush policies to be continued? In the middle of a recession? I don’t think so.
Which brings me to Barack Obama.
There came a point last month when I thought I would explode; it followed a couple of days of reports that the Clinton campaign was arguing, mostly under the radar at that time, that Barack Obama “can’t win.”
I didn’t see it coming, I have to admit, though I should have. It just hit me all of a sudden: The Clintons have come to the point where they are running a racist campaign.
All of this talk that voters in states with more electoral votes, or states that voted solidly Democratic time after time in the past, or states with more voters, were somehow likely to refuse to vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton, is just so much malarkey. And so this gambit is all the Clintons have left.
Now, I don’t believe for a minute that either Clinton is a racist, but it sure looks like they think the American voter is, as they insist: “Obama can’t win. You know Obama can’t win.”
That’s code, folks. You’re supposed to understand from this that a black man cannot be elected president of the United States.
Well, let me tell you the upside in nominating Barack Obama.
All over America, not-so-blue-state governors and members of Congress are supporting Obama in droves, in many cases because they know that if Hillary Clinton is at the head of the ticket her negatives and the resulting higher Republican turnout will hurt them “down ballot,” whereas an Obama-led ticket will bring in huge numbers of new and enthusiastic voters and independents, which will inevitably help them.
The way I see it, this could bring about so many Congressional victories that even if McCain ended up winning, the Democrats would have such majorities in Congress that he wouldn't be able to do a doggone thing they don't like.
The downside? If the Clintons are proven right and in the midst of a recession, with homes foreclosing all around us, joblessness on the rise and a bloody war without end in sight, the victor is a Republican candidate who offers more of the same, racism will have prevailed.
If that happens, America will be the worse for it, and God help us.
I believe in America, though, and my faith is strong that we are all we say we are and all that we wish for the rest of the world.
So I’m rolling the dice. America, call it!

Don't be fooled!

2008-05-09T03:48:32Z

Depending on how things work out over the next couple of months, Americans could find themselves faced with a daunting choice: To vote for someone with a record of pandering and not always being honest but you hope she’s telling the truth this time, or to vote for someone with a record of pandering and a reputation for straight talk and telling the truth but you hope to goodness this time he isn’t.
The recent hullabaloo over gas prices has been enough to set a political junkie’s teeth on edge, not to mention make grown economists weep and newspaper editorial writers run out of words.
Consider this: You might have to choose between John McCain, a Republican, who says he’d like to give America a “gas tax holiday” and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat who wishes to run against him, says that’s a swell idea, and proposes that it can be paid for by sticking it to the oil companies with a “windfall profits” tax — a tricky prospect, considering it would require both houses of Congress acting to pass that legislation between now and when school lets out. Congress. The House and the Senate. One month.
If you don’t see a problem there, then ask yourself: Will George W. Bush ever sign a bill imposing a new tax on anyone, let alone the oil companies?
Barack Obama, who opposes the idea, is catching all kinds of flak from the Clintons, who claim that he is “out of touch” because he thinks saving a family $0.30 a day, or $25-30 for the whole summer, is not worth the 300,000 jobs it would cost, let alone removing $9 billion from the highway funds that are used to fix everything from potholes on I-35 to bridges over rivers and canyons.
Well, Hillary did respond to that last week. She decided to say, instead, that it would “save the American people $8 billion.” Sounds more impressive, that’s for sure. Who among us wouldn’t love to have a share of $8 billion dollars?
But, you know what? Your share of that, given the millions of Americans who pump gas and drive, would be — ta-da! About $0.30 a day.
Not so fast, some would argue: What about truck drivers, taxi drivers, long-distance commuters, and farmers? They need a lot more gasoline and thus are hurt more by skyrocketing prices. True, but the reasonable point has been made by reasonable experts that we should and could help those folks with tax credits, something that would come directly from federal funds without abandoning needed highway repairs. And wouldn’t have to be accomplished by the time school lets out.
Those weeping economists, by the way, are almost unanimous in saying that it’s most likely any tax reduction would just be consumed by the oil companies anyway, keeping prices just where they are. Because they can.
So, under the McCain/Clinton plan, instead of taking from the oil companies to give a break to the consumer, we’d be taking from the consumer to give to the oil companies. Great plan.
I’ll tell you what’s going wrong in America. It is not that we have a “red state, blue state” divide. No, the division in this country, when it comes right down to it, is between those who believe anything they are told and those who just don’t understand how they can fall for it.
I’m going to join that happy crowd that blames “the media” for a lot of what’s going on in this election season. In this case, I blame the TV media for hyping, ad nauseam, whatever story gets the most viewers even when it offers no enlightenment; the blogging media that perpetuates outrageous rumors without one scintilla of documentation, whether out of carelessness or out of bigotry or just hate for the “other”; and the print media that doesn’t find important issues important enough to spend the space.
The Founders felt so strongly about having a free press that they amended the Constitution to provide protection for it. After all, without a free press (think “Thomas Paine”), America might never have come into being.
Americans have always understood the role of the free press to be to watch and report on what their government is doing, and that the free press is essential to the survival of our democracy. When that freedom is abused by the media, in whatever form, we are being disserved and we should object.
Service is honesty; disservice is perpetuation of rumor or retelling of unexamined events.
And yet too much of our information is just that.
If the reporting we read and hear includes all the information that is relevant, and not just sound bites and what the reporters think people may think about them, then we will be better able to decide on an issue, or a President.
The great journalist Ambrose Bierce once declared that the vote, our most sacred right, is “The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."
Let us not be fools.

Toilet bowl effect and Hillary's base

2008-05-08T14:53:04Z

In 1914, two years before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, a collection of articles by the esteemed Louis D. Brandeis was published under the title, “Other People’s Money — And How the Bankers Use It.” It was a sensation.
In 1991, after a successful run on Broadway, “Other People’s Money,” a play by Jerry Sterner, became a movie featuring Danny DeVito as a ruthless liquidator of moribund businesses.
In a monologue that has since acquired almost a cult following, DeVito’s character explains to the stockholders why it would be foolhardy to try to keep their company in business when new technology was going to make it obsolete.

This company is dead. I didn't kill it. Don't blame me. It was dead when I got here. It's too late for prayers. For even if the prayers were answered and a miracle occurred, and the yen did this and the dollar did that, and the infrastructure did the other thing, we would still be dead. You know why? Fiber optics. New technologies. Obsolescence. We're dead, all right. We're just not broke. And do you know the surest way to go broke?
Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market.
Down the tubes. Slow but sure. You know, at one time there must have been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddam buggy whip you ever saw. Now, how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company?
You invested in a business, and this business is dead. Let's have the intelligence, let's have the decency to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future.

A couple of weeks back, I was complaining to a friend about a comment I’d heard on NPR to the effect that Hillary Clinton had, in the recent Pennsylvania primary, won “the core constituency of the Democratic Party” by taking more of the white, non-college-educated, working class vote than had Obama. I just didn’t see it.
Because I don’t think you can define the “core constituency” of the Democratic Party that way any longer, any more than you can claim the Republican Party base is still mostly made up of rich people.
Whoever Hillary Clinton won in Pennsylvania, the total vote for her was less than half what the most conservative estimates had projected, suggesting that the “white, working class, non-college-educated” voter either is not a certain voter for Hillary or that the proportion of such voters has shrunk — or perhaps both.
“It’s called the toilet bowl effect,” said my friend, going on to illustrate: When a toilet is flushed, a huge volume of water descends into the bowl and then whirls in an ever-shrinking vortex until it’s gone.
Hillary Clinton appears to be capturing an increasing share of a declining constituency, and Democrats would be foolish to take seriously her effort to persuade us that because she can win the “Archie Bunker” vote she must be given the nomination.
Pish and tosh, I say.
A similarly deluded member of the punditocracy reminded us last week that ever since the 1960s (and its civil rights legislation) the only Democrats to win the presidency were from Southern states and he suggested that may still be true.
I’ve got news for him: The South has gone north, so to speak.
I was born and raised to the age of 12 in the South; I have lived in New York, Ohio, and California since then, and now that I am back, I am here to tell you: This is not your father’s Old South.
My experience qualifies me to speak with some authority about Yankee directness and California subtlety; about brazenly liberal folks in San Francisco but not so in some of its suburbs; about racism in New York, in Ohio and in California while better relations now exist between black and white folks in Texas.
And I can state unequivocally that one of the best things about the South, what I think of as the “dear hearts and gentle people factor” hasn’t gone north; it’s still very much here, thank you.
So, just as the Democratic Party can take heart that the “white, less-college-educated, working class” voter has, in the last 50 years, become less white and more educated; that the “working class” of decades ago have risen in skills and expectations; they will be well advised not to focus a disproportionate share of their money and energies trying to capture an increasing share of what has become a shrinking market.

Recession? Surely not!

2008-03-25T16:04:19Z

We continue to be assured — by the President of the United States, no less, and on more than one occasion in recent weeks — that America is not in a recession. George W. Bush clearly stated, on February 26, 2008, that “We're not in a recession, I don't think we will go in a recession. We're in a slowdown, and there's a difference.”
I’d like to appeal that to the Supreme Court, if you don’t mind, and specifically to the late Justice Potter Stewart, whose most well-known observation I now paraphrase:

"I shall not today attempt further to define what I understand it to be; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

Justice Stewart was referring to pornography; I’m talking about what’s going on with our economy, something equally obscene.

For almost a year now, even the casual news consumer has been aware of a disturbing rise in the number of foreclosures, a trend that began well over two years ago, by my reckoning. By last summer it had blown up into what came to be called “the sub-prime mortgage crisis,” with the potential to take down our national economy, along with big chunks of the rest of the world.

If, in my anger, I were to digress here to place blame (hint: the bottom line is greed) I’d not get to the point of the piece, which is to offer a reality check as we move into the spring and summer and on to the election season that follows.

Fact: Gasoline prices are moving beyond affordability for ordinary folks, with no relief in sight. It was $1.59 a gallon in January 2001.

Fact: The price of gold, which always rises when an economy is sinking because investors consider it the safest place for their money, reached $1,000 an ounce last week. It was $268 in January 2001.

Fact: The value of the American dollar has dropped so low that it is no longer the universal currency it once was. That makes everything we import more expensive — the good news, perhaps, would be to put lead-painted toys out of our reach.

Fact: Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., a leading investment banker and brokerage firm, announced last week that it had insufficient funds to pay all its investors, thereby generating a minor run (shades of 1929) and a near 50% plunge in its stock value; it was finally bailed out by J. P. Morgan Chase, who purchased it for $2 a share, with the help of a short-term loan from the Federal Reserve. How did this happen? The hedge funds they had established on the basis of sub-prime mortgage holdings had tanked.

Fact: 80, 000 American jobs were lost in just January and February of this year. But last week Mr. Bush assured us that unemployment rates remain low. Anyone care to square those numbers for me?

I know one thing: A person who has exhausted unemployment benefits no longer counts as unemployed; nor does a computer programmer or engineer who has taken a job tending bar or pushing carts at Wal-Mart or flipping burgers; nor, by the way, do all those real estate agents who gave up because homes aren’t selling — along with other small business owners who have seen their incomes wither away, they are independent contractors and not even eligible for unemployment benefits.

But look! See all those ads than in high-gloss magazines and on television for luxury items — homes, vacations, cars, jewelry! See all those store shelves groaning under the weight of more stuff than we could ever consume, more choices than a sane person would welcome.

Surrounded by such affluence, you’d be tempted to think Mr. Bush is right, that things are hunky-dory, just a little slow. And that the tax cuts worked, by the way.

Except he’s wrong, and we fail to recognize that at our peril.

I’ll come back to my point: It’s time for a reality check as we move through spring and summer into the election season. We need a new direction in this country.

Like most of America I have been stunned by the incredible turnout to vote in primaries all across the country. However large or small the state, the number of voters has in some cases more than doubled from years past. Photographs of long lines at polling places, huge rallies for candidates, stories of frantic election judges running out of ballots, all told the tale:

We are really anxious to move on.

In a beloved Disney cartoon, Donald Duck and Goofy undertook to paint a fence: Goofy got to painting faster and faster and Donald Duck asked him why. “I’m trying to get the fence finished before I run out of paint,” explained Goofy.

All those folks lined up, all the enthusiasm, all the rallies, all the participation, all the attention to every bit of campaign news? We are just trying to get the thing over with before any more damage is done.

Alice in Wonderland

2008-03-22T23:00:43Z

I have the urge to scream when I hear commentators and political experts, who should know better, assert that Clinton and Obama “need to stop bickering,” that “they” are hurting the party. Comments like these don’t square with the reality as I’ve come to know it.

The Clintons are the ones doing the damage here. They have been very successful at framing the race, which isn’t hard to do if you just keep on the attack. Last week they absurdly accused Obama of “playing the race card” after Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks about his race.

It’s Alice in Wonderland time.

The only thing Obama has done to Clinton is to aggravate the heck out of her by (a) not engaging at her street-fight level, and (b) winning more states, more delegates, and more votes.

But Hillary Clinton claims that she has proven she is the most likely winner against John McCain because she won “all the big states” in the Democratic primaries.

It’s faulty reasoning; to accept this you have to believe that California, New York, Ohio and the remainder of the big blue states (Obama won Illinois) would automatically fall to the Republicans in an Obama-McCain match-up. Hard argument to make.

If Obama would only cede to Clinton the race he is winning — one in which she cannot now legitimately overtake him — all would be peaceful. Like a spoiled child, she seems determined to nag, browbeat, whine and stubbornly hold on until everyone else is exhausted and just gives in.

Some of those same misguided pundits and politicians suggest that the perfect solution is to put these two on the same ticket. I don’t think so.

Clinton has run a mean, dishonest, cynical campaign. The idea of both running together is idealistic to a fault, in my opinion. And not a good idea politically.

Nonetheless, the Clintons would have you believe they would offer Obama the vice-presidential spot, but if you trust a word they are saying you aren’t learning from history. The lying and cheating they’ve engaged in has completely alienated me, of all people.

But just for the sake of argument, imagine a Clinton/Obama ticket: That would present a near certainty that Mrs. Clinton’s high negatives throughout the country would (a) draw out more Republican voters and (b) cause not just a few Obama folks to just stay home — precisely because of the negative campaign she has run against him.

For that matter, can you imagine her choosing as VP someone who would outshine her? Or, for that matter, someone to whom she owes no favor?

Now imagine Obama/Clinton: If Hillary were the VP candidate, because of those high negatives, she would drag down the vote in the states Obama could win without her. The result would be losing many down-ballot races, so that even were Obama/Clinton to win it might well cost the Democrats important congressional seats.

Anyway, why would the guy who is in first place accept second place? Especially knowing that he would end up being part of a threesome, outnumbered by Clintons?

Finally, have you thought through what another four or eight years of Clintons in the White House would be like for the country?

I think she figures that she will by God be the nominee and devil take the hindmost; if that gives the election to McCain — who is better qualified anyway, according to her — then, so what? He likely would serve only one term and then she’ll be baa-ack!

People in the know have almost to a person acknowledged that in fact the candidates’ positions are so close on matters of substance, with differences primarily in how they would implement this or that idea, that it really has come down to which style of leader we want.

My own personal take on the choice is this:

Do we want someone who will tell us what to do, or someone who will persuade us to do it? Do we want secrecy, or transparency? Do we want calculation and triangulation, or is it time to play it straight?

And, finally, do we want another four or more years of drama with all the same old players, or do we want a fresh start?

North Korea standoff

2006-07-10T22:27:56Z

Isn't it about time to remember that the whole issue started out as one of providing energy for energy-starved North Korea? In exchange for their putting aside the kinds of nuclear facilities that could produce weapons-grade material as a byproduct, the U.S. under Clinton offered to provide alternative (light-water) reactors or the components to build them. The calculation was -- and should remain -- that a country's threat to others diminishes as its quality of life improves.

Mr. Bush, for reasons never clearly stated but apparently determined to adopt “any policy but Clinton’s,” made it clear from the get-go that he held the North Koreans below contempt, in response to which it should have been no surprise (especially in a culture where "face" is important) that the North Koreans thumbed their noses right back.

Someone who will be heard should stand up now and say, "Wait a minute. Let's just go back to talking about energy."

Woodward's aura

2006-02-05T06:15:33Z

I'd pay a hefty ransom to have a sit-down with Carl Bernstein right about now . . .

A Real Federalist

2006-02-05T05:39:23Z

The Washington Post says today, with great flourish and drama, that "Over the weekend the Post obtained a copy" of the Federalist Society's leadership directory, establishing John Roberts's connection to the group. (Apparently some are saying the good Judge is not a member; others that he can't remember if he is a member.)

Well, there's enough noise about it to raise a flag, as I did almost a week ago, when I posted this cautionary on my blog,

www.anothervoiceus.blogspot.com.

An elegant idea for Social Security

2006-02-05T05:30:45Z

Read columnist Ellen Goodman on a terrific (she calls it "elegant" and she's right!) proposal I hadn't heard about. Referring to the on-the-table permanent repeal of the estate tax, she writes:

A tax repeal on the richest 2 percent of Americans would cost $745 billion in the first 10 years. Using that money to support Social Security instead of an oligarchy would make up a third of the shortfall.

Dream on, John Danforth!

2006-02-05T05:23:18Z

A really inspiring piece in today's NYTimes by John C. Danforth should be a must-read for every person of faith — Christian and otherwise — who feels even slightly uncomfortable with the hijacking of religion by extremists in this country.

Unfortunately for John Danforth’s hopes, however, Newt Gingrich (remember him?) instituted and taught his followers to follow the Commandment for Calumny. Until we get rid of its practitioners, Danforth’s gentle proposal, hope though he might, won’t have much chance of going anywhere.