Flunking Out

I have often puzzled over the gulf that exists between liberals and conservatives on how they look at the issues of the day. This is never more evident than when I visit my liberal friends and in-laws who frequently treat me with the bemused tolerance one would expect for a dimwitted and slightly addled child. To maintain peace and harmony I chew on my tongue and try not to let any political comments pass my lips.

One of my theories on how liberals and conservatives can arrive at such divergent conclusions from the same set of facts supposes that we are not, in fact, using the same facts. This theory surmises that liberals read the NYT, the Daily Kos and The Huffington Post and listen to NPR, MSNBC and CBS News. Conservatives, on the other hand, read the WSJ, Bloomberg, Townhall.com and listen to Fox News. In other words, we libs and cons may NOT be operating from the same set of facts or, at least, the emphasis or interpretation of those facts.

An older theory of mine postulated that people adopted a stance early in life… either left or right and simply stuck with it. This firmly held conviction thereafter colored whatever information they received. This tied in with another theory of mine that I call “tribalism”. I postulated that people in their early years decide to which “tribe” they belong: Hippy, punk rocker, preppie, biker, geek, etc. From there onward they adopt the dress, speech, mannerisms, life style and attitudes of that tribe. Therefore, if you decide that you are an educated, hip, urbane person concerned with the environment and socially conscious, you join the liberal tribe and accept anything “liberal” and reject as downright stupid, if not corrupt, anything labeled as “conservative”. (Note to my liberal friends: Don’t get hostile here. I am just trying to figure this shit out.)

I was never all that convinced that either of those two theories sufficiently answered my questions.

Now comes a new theory to further confuse me. Daniel Klein recently published a piece in the WSJ entitled “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader”. Mr. Klein is a professor of economics at George Mason and together with Zeljka Burturovic, a Zogby researcher, conducted a December 2008 survey of 4,835 American adults. The survey asked them eight questions about basic economics. They also asked them about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative and libertarian. The researchers here were looking for incorrect answers, and only, as Professor Klein said, “A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.” The possible responses to the questions were: 1. strongly agree 2. somewhat agree 3. somewhat disagree 4. strongly disagree and 5. not sure. “Not sures” were not counted as incorrect. I will list the questions below and the correct answers at the end of this piece so you can, like, figure out if you are, like, a liberal or like, a conservative. No, like, cheating by going to, like, the end of the article.

Pick one of the above highlighted answers to the following questions:

1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.

2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.

3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.

4. Rent control leads to housing shortages.

5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

6. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.

7. Free trade leads to unemployment.

8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.

So, how did the self-identified ideological groups fare in this simple economics test? Remember, we are scoring incorrect answers here.

Very conservative: 1.30 wrong

Conservative: 1.67 wrong

Libertarian: 1.38 wrong

Moderate: 3.67 wrong

Liberal: 4.69 wrong

Progressive/very liberal: 5.26 wrong

When asked about party affiliation, those responding as Democrats averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Those responding as Republicans got 1.61 incorrect.

You can read Klein’s original article (link) to get the specific scores on the individual questions and his explanations of the correct answers.

A lot of brain cells can be destroyed trying to figure out why the most liberal among us did so poorly on a simple economics test compared to the most conservative citizens. I won’t attempt that here. Suffice it to say that the “progressive/very liberal” wing of the Democrat Party has been in charge of things for some time now and this simple test helps explain the unenlightened economic policies now coming out of Washington.

Wrong answers to questions: 1. Somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. 2. Disagree. 3. Disagree. 4. Disagree. 5. Agree. 6. Agree. 7. Agree. 8. Disagree.

Score Card

In February of 2009 I posted a piece entitled “Prognostications” in which I made a number of predictions about what Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress would do now that they had complete control. As I was driving back from our annual fly fishing expedition to central BC the other day I thought about that list and concluded it was time to see how I faired in my predictions. Hereafter, the list and the score thus far into the “Hopie-Changie” era.

· The Stimulus Package: Originally at some $870 billion, winding up with some add-ons at around $1 trillion, has failed miserably to prod the US out of recession. The “neo-Keynesians” that populate the Obama economic brain trust assured us that if this thing were not rammed through Congress immediately that unemployment would go above 8%. Well, it’s been hovering around 10% for many months and only that low because the millions of workers who are no longer even bothering to look for work are no longer counted in that calculation. 325,000 people dropped out of the “lookers” category last month. Congress recently passed an extension of unemployment compensation to 99 weeks, assuring that the unenthusiastic and disinterested will remain on the sidelines. The recession continues. The deficit? Greece here we come. According to the Heritage Foundation the US is poised to have the deficit exceed the GDP in the near future. Score: YES.

· Card Check Legislation: They made some feeble attempts at this but backed off to concentrate on the health care bill. Obama did reward the unions big time by giving them big chunks of GM and Chrysler stock when the two auto giants went tits up. Score one NO.

· Give More Money to the Auto Companies: The US government now own most of GM and the bondholders at Chrysler (these are the secured creditors in a bankruptcy) got stiffed. GM paid back part of the money, but that money came from previously borrowed government funds. So, you can’t really say they paid off the loan. They still owe some $40 billion. Score: YES

· Pass the Fairness Doctrine: They did not really have the courage to tackle this one and totally piss off the millions of listeners of conservative talk radio. Instead they dispatched Mark Lloyd, the Diversity Czar for the FCC to see if he can “back door” the thing through regulations. Score: NO.

· Restrict drilling for oil and gas: At the time of posting “Prognostications” Salazar had already cancelled leases and set aside huge swathes of the west where no drilling was allowed. Now, with the oil disaster in the Gulf every-thing is shut down. The irony is that if the regs had not forced the oil companies to drill in such deep water (a mile down) and instead were allowed to drill on land or in shallow water, this thing would have been fixed already. Score: YES

· Not allow the construction of nuclear power plants: Obama says they want to build them but they shut down the Yucca Mountain repository where they were to store the waste signaling their real intentions. Score: YES

· Enact cap and trade: It has already passed the House and is currently introduced in the Senate. Debate has been stalled with the intrusion of other matters like voting themselves a raise and fine-tuning their special medical program. Some GOP Senators will vote aye. Score: YES

· Toss money at solar and wind power: Money for these industries was included in the stimulus bill and much more to come with the cap and trade legislation. Score: YES

· Abandon missile defense and reduce US nuclear arms: Obama cut funding for missile defense programs, refused to provide funding to upgrade the US’s aging nuclear arsenal, cancelled the missile defense shield for Europe and made a lopsided deal with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Score: Big YES

· Enact restrictions on gun ownership: Hillary is trying to work something through a UN agreement. Score: NO

· Appoint “living constitution” fans to Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed and Elana Kagan has been nominated and awaiting confirmation in the Senate. She’s sure to be approved. Score: YES

· Squelch school choice: The Congress withdrew funding for the charter school program in Washington, DC, thus ending a successful program and signaling the Adminis-tration’s aversion to charter schools. Of course, the Dems are much beholding to the teacher’s unions and they hate charter schools. Obama has created a program called “Race to the top” providing certain states with substantial funding. Some states are refusing to participate as the money comes with the Feds getting too involved in local schools. BTW, the June 5^th edition of the WSJ has a great piece about Madeleine Sacker, an independent filmmaker, who has created a documentary called “The Lottery”. It’s about the thousands of Harlem kids and their parents who show up for a lottery to try and secure the few slots open at Harlem Success Academy. Surprise! The teacher’s union paid Acorn $500,000 to pretend to be parental protesters. Score: YES

· Abandon tort reform: Of course. Don’t be silly. Score: YES

· Attempt to make illegals citizens: They are trying to push “comprehensive” immigration reform, but not yet. Score: NO

· Put the government in charge of health care: You know all about that one. Score YES

Somehow I neglected to put tax increases in the Feb ’09 post. It did, however, appear in previous posts. Here’s a list of the tax increases the Democrats have enacted so far.

· $500 billion included in the Health Care bill.

· Double taxation on corporations doing business overseas.

· When the Bush tax cuts expire taxes on upper incomes will increase from 35% to 39.6%. Dividends will be taxed at 39.6% instead of 15%. The capital gains tax will increase from 15% to 20%. The inheritance tax will increase from 0% this year to 55%.

Congress is currently working on a bill to raise taxes by $43 billion on corporations and another bill to tax S-Corps (small businesses taxed as individuals). While the details of this one are as yet unclear, it appears to apply to independent operators like architects, accountants and the service industries. It sounds like it will hit them at about 15%. So much for the talk about helping small business and not taxing the little guy.

Another thing I did not anticipate is Obama’s muddled and wrong-headed foreign policy. He has offended and insulted the US’s allies, especially Israel, Poland and the UK while trying to suck up to the Muslim world. This has only confused our allies and emboldened our enemies. The combination of an isolated Israel and an aggressive Iran and Syria only make the likelihood of war in the Middle East more certain than not. He’s pushing Israel into a corner. Watch the price of oil when that one tees up.

As a new prediction (at least to blog readers) I feel the sum of Obama’s economic policies insure a double dip and protracted recession. You cannot crowd out capital with an annual deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars, raise taxes on individuals and corporations, driving jobs and businesses offshore, raise the price of energy with cap and trade taxes and expect a growing economy. They’ve got a lot of Harvard folks in the Administration, but they will need to get glass eyes installed in their navels if they expect to see where they are going.

Gaia Is Pissed

April 14^th on the run up to Earth Day, Mother Gaia or maybe Mother Nature decided to show us who is boss by blowing the top off Iceland’s unpronounceable Mt. Eyjafjallajokull. It took the glacier sitting on top with it and sent a plume of volcanic gas and ash 5 to 7 miles high. As this cloud drifted over Western Europe, 100,000 flights got cancelled during a week causing massive disruption. (Note: I found several spellings for this volcano and one explanation. “Eyja = island, fjall = mountain and “joekull = glacier. Hereafter I will just call it Eyja)

Eyja last erupted in 1821 and that event lasted a year or two depending on which account you believe. It also erupted in 920 and 1612 and on each occasion within six months the adjacent Mt. Katla, the “witch volcano”, followed suit. Katla, topped by the Myrdalsjoekull glacier is reputed to be ten times larger than Eyja and last erupted in 1918. We can easily imagine what kind of mess would result if Katla decides to blow.

Iceland is home to hundreds of volcanoes and they go off whenever Mother Nature decides to give us a lesson in humility.

In 1783 Iceland’s huge Laki volcano erupted and the cloud of ash blanketed the globe causing massive crop failures and famine worldwide during a “year without summer” and an exceptionally harsh winter. This is climate change you can believe in.

History provides other examples of volcanoes dropping temperatures. Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, for example, is said to have dropped global temperatures by 1 degree F. Mt. Tambora in Indonesia went off in 1815 killing tens of thousands in the initial blast. More importantly, it caused what has been called “volcanic winter” and resulted in the worst famine in the 19^th century in North American as well as Europe. Clearly, we have much more to fear from global cooling than global warming. Warming alarmists worry global temperatures will rise by a couple of degrees by the turn of the next century, while one of these angry mountains can change temperatures in a few seconds. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. Nor can we do anything about some unnamed and unseen asteroid presently hurtling through space aimed at Kansas. If you want to worry about climate change, give that one some thought. Can’t happen? Well, it’s happened before.

One Muslim cleric seems to have found an explanation. Mr. Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi said in a recent statement that “women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society” cause earthquakes. Since earthquakes precede and seemingly trigger volcanic eruptions, it is safe to conclude that mini-skirts and skimpy tops cause volcanoes to erupt. This theory will be put to the test on Monday. Jen McCreight, a Purdue student, has organized a “Boobquake” event with 40,000 followers so far. They will be simultaneously exposing and shaking their boobs in an effort to induce an earthquake. If Katla chooses that day to explode, burkas may replace the bare midriff look overnight. God forbid.

Meanwhile, Harry Reid, a man not to be humbled by Mother Nature, plans to introduce the Cap and Trade legislation in the Senate on April 26^th. This notwithstanding the revelations of the “ClimateGate” scandal or the confession by Phil Jones, the former head of the Climate Research Unit and main author of the UN’s IPCC report, that “there has been no statistically significant warming in the past fifteen years.” 'Why worry about facts?' say the Democrats. Let’s ram this job busting, economy-destroying piece of legislation through instead while we still have our jobs in the Senate. Makes sense. Might as well take over as much of the US economy as possible before the voters toss them out.

Done Deal

So, the Democrats, after 14 months of contentious internal wrangling, finally managed to pass their mammoth overhaul of the US health care system. Since the Republicans in the prohibitive minority, could never do anything to stop it, the problem always was to convince enough Democrats to vote for this socialist wet dream.

Making laws has often been compared to making sausage… a messy business. But, the ugly process of cramming this unpopular law through congress makes the production of links and patties positively clean and efficient by comparison. 'Sleazy' is a word that comes immediately to mind. 'Arrogant' is another.

To get it through the Senate where Democrats held a veto proof majority before the historic election of Republican Scott Brown to occupy the “Kennedy Seat”, special deals were struck with Senators to secure their votes. Mary Landrieu of LA sold her vote for the $300 million “Louisiana Purchase", and Ben Nelson sold out for the “Cornhusker Kickback” for a similar amount. Much less discussed were: “carve outs” for Mutual of Omaha and other insurers in Nebraska; $100 million for Chris Dodd (a hospital in CT) and Tom Harkin got a hospital in Iowa. Democrats in Florida, North Dakota, Montana, Vermont and Michigan all got exemptions for their states from the substantial cuts to Medicare Advantage, a popular program with seniors.

Perhaps the most predictable of the breaks was that for the UAW. They got an exemption from the new tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans. And why not? In the 2006 and 2008 election cycles the UAW gave $1.5 billion of their members dues to Democrat candidates. After giving them 50% of GM, the Democrats continue to pay them back.

To force the Senate bill through the House, Nancy Pelosi and the White House had to pull out all the stops. We don’t know all the strong-arm tactics employed to convince wavering Democrats to vote for the Senate bill that many members admitted they hated. Their constituents were telling them in no uncertain terms that a “yes” vote would insure their defeat this fall. Kim Strassel (WSJ, 3/19) wrote about the plight of Jason Altmire of PA. His story may be similar to other reluctant Dems. She likened his situation to a man being forced to walk the plank with his choice being facing the cutlasses of angry pirates behind him or sharks circling below. The sharks, of course, were the voters and the pirates organizations like MoveOn.org and SEIU who were already running negative ads against him in his district and promising to sabotage his election campaign in the fall by withholding money and running primary challengers against him. On the other hand, a “yes” vote pretty much assured he’d get his ass handed to him in the fall and have to go find a real job.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a no vote last time, got a nice ride on Air Force One, some face time with Obama, and Denny’s wife got a job working for Michelle. Jim Matheson was convinced to vote yes when his brother suddenly got appointed to a lifetime position as a Federal judge.

Surely the most cynical of the purchased “yeses” were that of Reps. Cardoza and Costa of CA. Their districts have been devastated by the decision to shut off the water to the San Joaquin Valley to protect the two inch Delta Smelt. Environmental groups had sued and a Federal judge decreed that the endangered minnow required shutting off irrigation to 1,000,000 acres of farm land, throwing 40,000 farmers and their workers into bankruptcy or onto the streets. Turning the “bread basket of America” into a dust bowl and ruining the economy of the region was not enough to sway the Obama Administration from their love of the Delta smelt. But, getting two more votes for ObamaCare? Screw the minnow! The water has been turned on.

To get the health care bill passed into law the Democrat controlled House had to pass the Senate version without changes. With any changes it would have to go back to the Senate where the election of Scott Brown had eliminated the veto proof majority. But, many Dem House members hated a number of provisions in the Senate bill, particularly language that provided for public funding of abortions. Bart Stupak (D, MI) led a group of Democrats strongly opposed this provision and threatened to provide enough votes to defeat the bill. After serious arm twisting failed to sway him, President Obama stepped in and offered Bart political cover by promising an Executive Order prohibiting public dollars for abortion. While everyone agreed that it was “not worth the paper it’s printed on”, Stupak and his small group figured it a sufficient fig leaf to vote yes for the bill.

The House decided to use “reconciliation”, a parliamentary gimmick that would require only 51 votes in the Senate, to “fix” the objectionable bits of the original Senate bill.

At the same time the Congressional Budget Office released the analysis of the bill’s impact based on a bogus collection of assumptions, double counting, Medicare cuts and tax increases. The CBO came back with the wildly implausible projection that the deficit would be slightly reduced by the bill. This flimsy piece of political cover, coupled with the Stupak cave produced sufficient Democrats to pass the bill with zero Republican votes.

Done Deal!! Pop the corks on the champagne, let the party begin! Obama gloated and continued his speechifying touting the bill even after he signed it. As the Congress packed their bags and their hangovers to head home and face their constituents, the details of what’s in this 2600 page monster started to get analyzed and its impacts calculated. Dozens of major corporations now estimate that the bill will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. (AT&T says it will be a cool $1 billion). This is only the beginning of the reality check. Those disparaged prognosticators who pegged the cost of the bill at close to $2.5 trillion will certainly be vindicated. There is no doubt that this take over of the health care system will be a killer of jobs and a massive increase to the deficit at a time when the US economy can afford neither.

As I have said before, this legislation has never been about improving health care or containing costs. On 3/20 the WSJ reprinted a 1996 piece by the late Milton Friedman. In it, the brilliant economist explains that the rapid rise in the cost of medical care has been the result of policies that separate the receiver of care from the entity that pays for it. Most people receive medical insurance from their employer (either management or union) or from Medicare and Medicaid. Since someone else is paying, there is little incentive for the users to concern themselves with cost and that encourages the overuse of services. With users unconcerned about cost, providers face no competitive pressures to reduce them. And, since the employer provided insurance is tax deductible to the company and tax free to the employee, this distortion of the market has grown over the years.

Medical Savings Accounts were created to let market forces do their magic in a small segment of the health care universe. People could set aside some tax-free savings in a HSAs to pay for routine medical expenses and purchase high deductible insurance in case of something really serious. When spending their own money, people become much more judicious. ObamaCare will eliminate this common sense approach using the gentle persuasion of the IRS.

The unchecked predations of the trial lawyers who attack health care providers for crimes real or imagined has also added greatly the rapid inflation in health care costs. This not only drives up costs directly but also results in a tremendous amount of “defensive medicine” where doctors and hospitals add tests and procedures in anticipation of lawsuits.

ObamaCare does nothing to address these factors that increase costs. In fact, it makes them worse. Provisions in the bill actually make it easier for tort lawyers to sue doctors and hospitals. Pushing more people into Medicaid will not reduce costs and it certainly won’t improve quality. Besides, debt heavy states can ill afford to have these costs fobbed off on them.

So it’s a done deal…. Against the wishes of a vast majority of the American public. The new taxes start immediately but the “benefits” won’t show up until 2014. In the meantime, we will get to find out what it really means and hire the 16,000 new IRS agents to track down and jail the scofflaws who refuse to buy health insurance. (String them up!) It is difficult not to believe that the whole purpose here is to drive private insurance and health care delivery out of business. Perhaps the Left believes that health care nirvana arrives when the US has a government run system like Canada or Great Britain. I can assure you after living in Canada for the last 15 years, that Americans are going to hate it.

Hawaiian Strolls

One of my pleasures here on Maui this winter has been a morning stroll down the beach. Rain, shine or howling trade winds I spend a happy hour, winding up at a small grocery to purchase my daily fix of the “Wall Street Journal”. I am hardly alone on these jaunts and, over the course of many weeks, have come to some conclusive observations.

1) Women’s swim suits have become considerably smaller since my life guarding days at Hamburg Town Park on Lake Erie in the late ‘50s. On the other hand, men’s suits have become significantly larger. I have been wondering if this is some previously undiscovered “Law of the Conservation of Fabric”? Men’s suits now extend to the knee and often beyond. As an added piece of coverage you often see guys wearing long sleeved tops. How can you swim wearing all that stuff? Women’s suits do not have much further to go… unless they adopt the French approach and forgo the top altogether or reduce to the Brazilian thong. Obviously, as a human ethologist I take no position on the current state of swim wear design or where the future may lead us. (I took a course in ethology in college and pulled some stomach muscles laughing at my professor, a chunky, bespeckled guy, dressed in a twig embedded sports jacket, string tie and moccasins. He was doing his imitation of the mating dance of the male prairie chicken and didn’t seem to notice when I fell out of my chair.)

I have always chosen to swim in a Speedo and although I have three with me, I am reluctant to take them out of the drawer. I did an ocean swim in one when we first arrived and as I trudged back to my towel, I felt conspicuous, as if the spectators were saying, “Funny, he doesn’t look European.” Back in the room I checked my profile and decided that at 68 maybe it was time to make some concessions to fashion and go with the sea anchor suit instead of the Speedo.

2) On my jaunts I encounter an amazing number of SUV-like strollers and people lugging incredibly young babies. Often the Humvee strollers are loaded with baby gear and the tyke slung in a carrier hanging about Mom or Dad’s neck. In mid-morning it can be pretty hot here and I wonder about these tiny persons wrapped in blankets with a cover over the stroller. It’s probably 100 degrees in there and frying the little nipper’s brain. The larger question: why take a vacation with a newborn? Even more curious is the couple vacationing with not only the newborn but also two other kids under the age of four. How much fun can that be in a hotel room? And, what will the kids remember of this trip to a tropical paradise? We would never have considered such an expedition when our kids were small. Of course, at that time we could not really afford the kids, much less a vacation to Hawaii.

3) A great number of my fellow amblers cannot seem to part with their electronic pacifiers. Cell phones, of course, either stuck in their face or holstered at the hip ready for a quick draw. You never know when you need to Google something. I passed a young woman going in the opposite direction yesterday. She was shouting into her phone. (Apparently you need to shout to be heard when talking to someone on the mainland.) Having both reversed course, we passed again 20 minutes later. She was still bleating into the phone like a motivational speaker on speed. “Same call?” I wondered.

Speed walkers and joggers all have iPod buds stuck in their ears and wear glazed, determined expressions. It must be some sort of requirement these days to have music blasting in your ears when you exercise. Perhaps it dulls the pain? Occasionally they toss me a dirty glance as they motor through the exhaust fumes of my cigar. I nod and smile in return. “Aloha.”

(Another reason not to wear an iPod while jogging--read this article. -ed.)

I am quite confident my electronically connected compatriots on the foot paths don’t notice the brilliant and varying hues of the ocean: where the coral meets the white sand or where it turns indigo at the drop off. They surely didn’t notice that the waves plunge here where the gradient is steep or break and roll further on where it’s shallow. Most likely they missed the two whales blowing and splashing just beyond that moored sailboat and I know they missed that the old gentleman pushing his wife in the wheelchair was singly softly to her. I doubt they heard the two male cardinals arguing over disputed territory in the kakui trees just beyond the Marriott. Sad really. They might as well be exercising on their treadmill in the basement.

John Adams, it is said, walked every day. He lived to be 90 years old. He died on July 4^th in 1826, the exact same day as his friend/rival, Thomas Jefferson. Apparently Jefferson’s only exercise was pleasuring female slaves. Right there I’ve got a lot to think about on a morning stroll down the beach.