THEIR "OWN TWO FEET"? (Not these rugged individualists)

While at Chico State I had a colleague who made sure everyone knew how unbridled competition and "the market" had made this country great. Rugged individualism combined with hard-nosed decisions had turned America into a prosperous nation. Of course, since this was the mid-1980s, he was also a fan of President Ronald Reagan.

Anyways, one of the things that struck me was how he would speak (brag?) about the job waiting for him in the financial sector when he graduated. He always made it clear that he was ending up at the top of the job food chain because of his studious ways and his great potential. He was winning the Darwinian struggle, and was kind enough to let everyone know it. Evolution was on his side. He probably saw himself like this guy (or perhaps the Marlboro Man?).

As it turned out "Mr. Rugged Individualist" wasn't the person he thought himself to be.

First, I learned that his parents worked in the financial industry in San Francisco. This was critical because his parents had pretty much secured the job for Mr. Rugged Individualist. To be sure, I have no doubt that Mr. Rugged Individualist was smart and had to do well in the interview. He would also have to perform once on the job. But suggesting that he had made his own way in life was a stretch.

This is especially the case because I later learned that Mr. Rugged Individualist didn't have to work or borrow money while going to Chico State. His parents paid his tuition. They also paid the rent. Took care of the food too. As for me ... I had to work and borrow money throughout my years at Chico State (and beyond). So I thought to myself, "How can you be Mr. Rugged Individualist if your link in the human chain has been as a subsidized desk jockey rather than the mythical Hunter & Gatherer?"

Still, none of this disuaded Mr. Rugged Individualist from his line of thinking. According to Mr. Rugged Individualist, he had emerged at the top of our capitalist food chain on "his own." He was standing tall, on his own two feet, as it were.

I bring all of this up because of this article from Bloomberg. In it, Goldman Sachs executives suggested that they weren't really part of the mess that brought down the economy and that they stand "on our own two feet."

I smell another Mr. Rugged Individualist in the making. Here's why.

Apart from the fact that Goldman Sachs was the recipient of about $10 billion in bailout funds, it was the stupidity of former CEO, Hank Paulson, who helped wreck our economy.

As I've pointed out many times, as CEO of Goldman Sachs Mr. Paulson went to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and was given permission to raise debt levels of his industry from about 8-1 to 40-1. Why is this important? Think about it this way. If you make $10,000 a year would a bank (any bank) lend you $400,000? Let's take this one step further. Would they lend you $400,000 to gamble away in the market? Paulson pushed for - and got - permission to borrow more and more money to invest gamble in the toxic crap we now know as CDOs and CDSs. We all know how those instruments played out.

But it isn't Paulson's SEC-sanctioned stupidity alone that makes Goldman Sachs - and their industry desk jockeys - just like my Rugged Individualist colleague at Chico State. It's the fact that Goldman Sachs spokesman, Lucas van Praag, claimed that Goldman Sachs shouldn't be held to the same post-bailout standards as other financial institutions. Why? According to Mr. Praag Goldman Sachs not only paid back their TARP money but the majority of their money doesn't come from trading financial instruments like CDOs and CDSs (it accounts for about 12% of their income). Instead, Goldman Sachs makes their money from advising clients ... who they also happened to advise to make investments gamble in the CDO and CDS markets.

Got that?

Clients from Goldman Sachs, who might have gone broke were it not for the government bailout, are the primary source of Goldman's income. Not recognizing the irony (or is that hypocrisy?) of this, David Viniar, Goldman Sachs’s chief financial officer, is the one who said in an October conference call that his firm doesn’t benefit from any implicit government guarantee and that:

“We operate as an independent financial institution that stands on our own two feet.”

What are these people smoking? Seriously, this kind of thinking and behavior is sheer nonsense, bordering on the psychotic.

Think about it this way.  Goldman Sachs, who went to the SEC to secure permission to invest gamble recklessly with borrowed money, is now claiming to be an independent player because the majority of their business is with wealthy people.

This might fly except for one fact: The same wealthy people they advise didn't lose their shirts, and avoided financial collapse, only because the government bailed out their investments and saved the financial sector. If their market bets - which Goldman advised them to take - had not paid out they would have lost, big time. Goldman Sachs would've been facing a ton of lawsuits, and probably would've sunk faster than the Titanic.

Let me make this clear. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money - which our financial institutions are trying desparately to pay back, so they can pay out record bonuses - are only one component of the $1.5 trillion Bush/Obama bailout program. Another component involves trillions of dollars more in market guarantees from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Treasury Department. These guarantees are a virtual windfall for Wall Street.

Largely ignored, in part because Joe-Six Pack and the media don't understand it, is how companies like Goldman Sachs are benefitting from the additional trillions of bailout dollars made available by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. These funds weren't voted on in Congress. They were just made available to purchase, absorb, and purify the toxic garbage companies, like those Goldman Sachs invested in and then advised their clients to purchase.

With Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, saying that the total cost of the bailout could hit $23.7 trillion, these funds dwarf the TARP funds made available through Congress (again, $1.5 trillion). Without them Golman Sachs would have had gone the way of the Dodo Bird.

At the end of the day, companies like Goldman Sachs can't crow about standing on their own two feet. Not as long as their clients and their industry continue to suckle off of Treasury, FDIC, and Federal Reserve programs. As I pointed out earlier, if these companies want to claim that they stand on their own two feet they (1) need to pay back the TARP money and (2) then ask the federal government to rescind the trillions of dollars that the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Treasury Department have made available to the industry.

Without this, Goldman Sachs and the entire financial sector are no more independent than my "rugged individualist" college friend.

- Mark

GLENN BECK'S GOLD FEVER

Jon Stewart takes FOX News' Glenn Beck to task for being a paid spokesperson for companies selling gold, and then using his program to hype fears about the collapsing economy. The collapsing economy meme is necessary to get people to buy gold as a stable investment.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Beck - Not So Mellow Gold
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

- Mark

"OBAMA DOCTRINE" PRAISED BY CONSERVATIVES (and what they missed)

Apparently President Obama's Oslo speech not only swayed conservatives but, as I suggested two days ago, has set the tone for what appears to be an emerging Obama Doctrine: Peace through cooperation, Order through strength.

This, as will become clearer below, demonstrates that President Obama, like the post-war architects of 1945, has a much more sophisticated understanding of power than his predecessor, and many of his contemporaries.

While conservatives have focused on President Obama's muscular comments that "the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms" they completely ignored what President Obama said about how "global security" has been maintained. Specifically, President Obama made it clear that Pax Americana - the American Peace - was made possible because the United States openly embraced multilateral institutions.

These institutions (NATO, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, etc.) helped shape diplomacy and maintain order after World War II. As President Obama noted:

In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations -- an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize -- America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.

In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

What President Obama was telling the world, which conservatives rarely acknowledge (or simply don't understand) is that institutions and treaties matter. Put more bluntly, he was pointing out that modern diplomacy and global stability has moved beyond the simple embrace of balance of power, shifting alliances, coercion, and brute force.

This is critical because history tells us that order built on shifting alliances and simple coercion alone tend to break down, and have swallowed the world into increasingly destructive wars. Indeed, over the past 400-plus years we have seen the destruction of "global" (European) order via increasingly vicious wars. The bloody wars of religion brought on the Protestant Reformation, which reached a climax with the Thirty Years War (ending in 1648). These wars were followed by the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714).

The instability and carnage that the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) brought to the European continent was followed by the ugliness and destruction of World War I. With it the world came to realize that, as President Obama put it, "The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible ..." 

World War I, as we know, was followed by the destruction of World War II, which inspired scholars to think of both WWI and WWII as modernity's version of the Thirty Years War.

This is important to understand because President Obama is acknowledging that, over time, we have learned that patterns and expectations created by treaties have had an impact. Treaties crafted at Westphalia (1648), Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1815), Versailles (1919), and at Bretton Woods (1944) and Potsdam (1945) have helped to establish international rules, protocols, and global patterns that, in many ways, create the functional equivalent of a global constitution (for an excellent book on this, see G. John Ikenberry's After Victory).

Established patterns have created expectations that have built - as I constantly tell my international relations students - islands of order in the sea of anarchy. This doesn't mean that war can (or will) be eradicated. It only means that the proclivity toward war can be reduced. This can only happen if other nations see the institutions, and the nations that create those institutions, as legitimate.

Legitimacy today, as President Obama emphasized, comes only when responsible leaders are prepared to use force with cause. But it also comes when everyone, including the biggest actors, play by the rules established by the treaties and institutions created. As President Obama put it:

So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.

What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be?

To begin with, I believe that all nations -- strong and weak alike -- must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don't.

There's more. Much more. So do yourself a favor and read the speech (it's that good).

But make no mistake. By advocating Peace through cooperation, Order through strength, President Obama presented the world with a more responsible way of thinking about global security that, as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich put it, bordered on the "historic."

- Mark

UPDATE (11-21-12): If you want to read an excellent book on the Obama Doctrine take a look at David E. Sanger's Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (Random House, 2012). It provides a detailed look at the Obama Doctrine by outlining the president's use of coalitions when broader U.S. global interests are evident (like the intervention in Libya) and aggressive unilateralism when specific U.S. security interests are involved (the drone attacks and the killing of Osama Bin Laden). For a quick but still nuanced review of the Obama Doctrine check out Joseph S. Nye's article, "The Obama Doctrine's First Term."

Here's the link for the speech.

HEALTH CARE NOTES ...

Well, this isn't going to make things any better.

- Mark

THE NOBEL SPEECH: THE OBAMA DOCTRINE?

In my International Relations class I always introduce students to the key theories that help us understand developments over time and around the world. The goal isn't to reaffirm or convince the students of one approach over another. At present - while we must pay attention to certain truths, like the security dilemma - no one approach is superior for understanding international relations.

The idea is to get my students to see that it isn't sufficient in the modern world to say, "We are more civilized and my club is bigger than yours so we will win." The British learned this lesson by the middle of the 20th century. The French learned this lesson too. The Soviet Union learned this lesson in Afghanistan at the end of the 20th century.

At the same time, in the modern world it is not sufficient to embrace the thinking of those with bumper stickers that read, "Won't it be a Great Day When the Navy has to Hold a Bake Sale and Schools Have All the Money they Need?". There are - as President Obama noted during his speech - moments where wars are just and necessary.

The grand chessboard of global politics isn't simply a function of "kicking ass" or turning an island into a parking lot. It's not about seeing who has the most rifles, bombs, and troops. But it's also not about moralizing to the point of embracing the undertones of the Beatles' song "All You Need is Love." Understanding global politics involves knowing how to create and sustain systemic stability with both a sword and a pen. Under the American Peace, or Pax Americana, we've increasingly embraced the pen. This is something to brag about. It's not only what you do during war, but what you do after victory that counts.

Knowing when to employ aggressive strength or strategic restraint is what creates the historic tales of grand masters on the global stage. 

This is why I thoroughly enjoyed President Obama's humble but realistic Nobel Peace Prize speech. While I'm still not convinced about the fuzziness of his Afghanistan policy, it's clear that he gets it when it comes to international relations. The art of global politics involves understanding power and the responsibility that comes with that power. Crafting a policy that threads those two needles is what turns an ordinary politician into a statesman. President Obama looked like a statesman at Oslo.

Addressing the challenges that come with trying to create global security, President Obama reminded the world that more than six decades of stability had been established under an enlightened America that used it's military strength. President Obama seems to understand that if he must operate in a world that doesn't provide black and white answers he must be both a warrior and a statesman.

Embracing these contrasting and seemingly contradictory positions - as Howard Fineman told us - is what's so reassuring about President Obama. In the immortal words of F. Scott Fitzgerald:  

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

If President Obama laid the groundwork for the beginning of an Obama Doctrine, it is his embrace of a rules-based multilateralism, seasoned with this maxim from Machiavelli:

The rule of man is law. The rule of the beast is force. In order to insure the former, you must have access to the latter.

Again, while I'm not thrilled about his rationale for Afghanistan at this point, President Obama's Oslo speech suggests he knows what he's doing.

- Mark

UPDATE: For those of you who agree with my sentiments here, and enjoy reading Reinhold Niebuhr, this post from Dailykos puts my Obama Doctrine suggestion on another, more philosophical, level. For those of you unfamiliar with Niebuhr, you might know him through the serenity prayer ("God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can change, And wisdom to know the difference.").

THE IRREFUTABLE STUPIDITY OF SARAH PALIN

While there's so many real news developments going on, I just couldn't resist this. Check out this Huffington Post article from Cenk Uygur - host of The Young Turks - where he describes "The Irrefutable Stupidity of Sarah Palin."

Currently the Washington Post is taking some heat for running Sarah Palin's op-ed piece on the science behind global warming. Keep in mind that Sarah Palin's faith - and knowledge of science - did not prevent her from having Rev. Thomas Muthee pray for/with Sarah to have every form of witchcraft rebuked from her (yet, nothing was done to try and cure the stupid?).




Here's one video post (same event) that takes a little creative licence to illustrate the evil that was "rebuked" from Sarah Palin that day in the Wasilla Assembly of God. I'm not sure, but it appears that Sarah also had a pseudo exorcism performed on her too. You be the judge.

And to think, she's been invited to speak here at the Bakersfield Business Conference. It will no doubt be a sell out event. I love this town.

- Mark

UPDATE: In a Morning Joe segment Christopher Hitchens calls Sarah Palin "a disgraceful opportunist and a real moral coward."

OUR "HAMBURGER HELPER" HEALTH CARE MOMENT?

As a college student living in Chico I remember when I casually invited a female friend to dinner at my apartment. Nothing special. She was my roommate's friend too so it was just a regular dinner. As per our usual effort we made whatever we had. That night it was Hamburger Helper. Yum.

When our guest arrived I could tell immediately she was thinking something entirely different. Much different. Perhaps a ribeye steak? Ooops.

Whatever it was, it was obvious her expectations were a bit more upscale. She diplomatically told us that she had "eaten earlier" and was "not that hungry." Ouch.

This is kind of like how I feel what's been delivered by our Congress on health care over the past six months. Many of us expected much more and have had our expectations down-graded from single-payer to a public option, to a trigger, and so on ... the health care equivalent of being served Hamburger Helper.

Incredibly, if early reports on last night's health care "agreement" are any indication, we might not even get that. Like Clark Griswold at Uncle Eddie's barbecue in National Lampoon's Vacation, it's possible we might be getting Uncle Eddie's Hamburger Helper, passed off as health care reform ...



I haven't read the bill yet. So I hope I'm wrong. But the way the Democratic Party has been caving in to both the health care industry and Republican Party demands, I wouldn't be surprised to see "Uncle Eddie's Hamburger Helper" served up on our health care menu. Yum ...

Stay tuned.

- Mark

PAUL VOLCKER'S THE MAN (and Reagan Blew It)

In 1987 the Federal Reserve Board voted 3-2 to allow commercial banks to underwrite (invest in or accept some of the risk for) a limited amount of financial instruments like municipal bonds and mortgage backed securities. Underwriting bonds and securities had been a problem before the Great Depression because banks took depositor money and jumped into bigger and riskier investment schemes. As is the case today, bankers got greedy and stupid. Funny how some things never change.

Anyways, when bond markets and security investments tanked in 1929 banks who had taken bigger and bigger risks collapsed and took their depositor's money with them. There was no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) back then so ordinary depositors lost their money to the stupid deals bankers made. You know the rest of the story.

Fast forward back to the Federal Reserve's 3-2 decision in 1987 ... By allowing our FDIC-insured banks to take on the risk of underwriting securities the Federal Reserve opened the door that would eventually enable our FDIC-insured commercial banks to get involved in the financial crap (CDOs, MBS, CDS, etc.) that brought down our economy last year. This is important to know because one of two board members who voted "no" on the 3-2 Fed decision was then Chair of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker.

I provide this background because Paul Volcker once again is doing us all a favor, which will probably go unnoticed (again). Via nakedcapitalism.com we learn that while in Sussex, England Mr. Volcker gave a speech and told some of the world’s most senior financiers that their industry’s “single most important” contribution in the last 25 years has been automatic telling machines, which he said had at least proved “useful”. Imagine, telling a group of financial executives with big wallets - and even bigger egos - that their greatest gift to humanity over the past generation was ATMs. Beautiful. But he didn't end there.

Mr. Volcker then went on to tell the group - after being asked about the importance of securities - that the commercial banks could innovate all they want "but do it within a structure that doesn’t put the whole economy at risk." The real surprise here is that many in the crowd were "stunned" by his common sense approach to banking.

Mr. Volcker finished by saying the industry needed to "wake up" and that investment banks and hedge funds should be the only financial groups taking on high risk investments. He added that our governments should also be telling them "If you fail, fail. I’m not going to help you. Your stock is gone, creditors are at risk, but no one else is affected."  That this even needed to be said - and that anyone would be offended or "stunned" by the suggestion - says much about where we're at today.

And, for those of you keeping score at home, Ronald Reagan effectively fired Paul Volcker and replaced him with Alan Greenspan. You do the math.

- Mark

WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE

As promised from last night ...

Today we’ve learned that the U.S. Senate has formed a deal on health care reform. I haven’t seen what’s in the deal so I won’t comment on whether I like it or not. However, as I promised last night, I am going to present a rather quick overview that explains why we need REAL health care reform. First, the cost comparisons (links have been provided in previous posts; click on topic labels below).

ECONOMIC COST TO OUR NATION
I think one of the greatest concerns I have is what non-competition and virtual monopolies have done for private health care costs in America. Think about this: In 1970 America spent 7.2 cents of every dollar we generated on health care costs. Today we spend 17.6 cents of every dollar we earn on health care. Here are projected costs in America, starting the year 2018, if we do absolutely nothing regarding health care.

* 2018 = 20 cents of every dollar earned goes to health care.

* 2025 = 25 cents of every dollar earned goes to health care.

* 2052 = 49 cents of every dollar earned goes to health care.

Put another way, our monopolistic private system will eventually swallow our national income if we do nothing to reign in costs.

Does this have to happen? Not if we look at costs around the world, and how they achieve those costs.

COMPARATIVE COSTS
If we look elsewhere we see costs that aren’t remotely near what we spend as a nation.

* Canada   = 10 cents of every dollar earned goes to health care.

* France    = 11 cents of every franc/Euro earned …

* Germany = 10.6 cents of every mark/Euro earned …

* Japan      = 8.1 sen of every yen earned …

* UK         = 8.4 pence of every pound earned …

* Switz.    = 11 centimes out of every franc/Euro earned …

What’s worse is what we spend on administrative costs in America. The most widely accepted figures tell us that the private sector spends about 30 cents of every dollar they get in premiums on administrative costs (media, profits, bonuses, etc.). The federal government, on the other hand, spends 2 cents of their budget on administrative costs.

More recent, industry friendly, estimates point to the federal government spending 5 cents of every health care dollar on administrative costs while the private sector spends approximately 17 cents. Still, either way you slice it, health care administrative costs are at least 3 times as high in the private sector than they are in the public sector.

But, wait, it gets worse.

COMPETITIVENESS, EFFICIENCY & PERSONAL COSTS
What does health care cost our national economy in terms of competitiveness and efficiency? Think of it this way. Corporate America has to purchase health care at a price that is 30% higher than what other countries pay (see above). Want to buy a U.S. made automobile? Tack on 30% extra to cover the health care costs of each worker in America versus what Japan and Germany pay to build their automobiles.

Rising co-pays, skyrocketing premiums, denial specialists, and suddenly being dropped from coverage also work against individual security and overall economic efficiency. Simply put, when workers are forced to transfer more of what they earn to the health care industry because of the non-competitive nature of the industry workers are worse off. This not only robs consumption from other areas of the economy but it creates financial land mines for individual families beset with sudden surprises, like claim denials or being dropped from insurance rolls.

These financial land mines, in turn, have contributed to a surge in personal bankruptcies in America. More than 1.2 million bankruptcy cases are expected to be filed by the end of this year. Well over half of these are filed because of the inability to deal with the costs of catastrophic illness. Incredibly, half of catastrophic illness bankruptcies happen to families with health insurance.

Finally, while we might be able to put an accounting figure on the cost, there is no way to measure the personal and emotional costs when 44,000 Americans die from lack of health insurance in America.

Still, many on the far right will argue that quality and customer satisfaction are what separate America from the rest of the world? Let’s take a look at the claim.

NATIONAL SATISFACTION
This OECD report makes it clear that more people in the U.K., Germany, and France (among others) are happier with their overall health care system than we are here in the U.S.

Still, there’s no doubt that a good number of Americans are happy with their health care. Here’s why. What the vast majority of Americans like about their health care is really mandated and/or covered by the government. Think about the following:

* The federal government covers the elderly, our military personnel, and our military veterans through Medicare, military hospitals, and the VA.

* Private firms and employers are subsidized ($246.1 billion in 2008) by the American taxpayer so that they can provide private health insurance. Put another way, your private employer gets reimbursed by the federal government for providing “private” health insurance.

* Government regulations - and not private insurance policy - forbid private (government subsidized) employer insurance plans from discriminating against employees with pre-existing conditions.

* When we combine Medicare, our military personnel, and what the American taxpayer subsidizes for “private” sector plans we find that 60% of total health care costs are absorbed by the federal government.

* With the federal government involved in covering 60% of all national health costs one thing becomes clear: We’re already paying for a National Health program. We’re just not getting the benefits.

At the end of the day Europeans are more satisfied with their health care system than we are. And to the extent that we are happy with our health care system it’s because the federal government is managing or mandating some of the more key elements that make our nation’s health care system work. Again, we already have a national health care program. We just don’t get the benefits.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
In other areas that should make us reconsider why the Party of No opposes reform, we should ask the following questions …

* Why is it that 62.9% of physicians support a public option?

* Why is it that life expectancy is higher in Japan, the UK, Germany and Switzerland?

* Why is it that Portugal, Greece, and even Cuba have better infant mortality rates than we do?

Related to life expectancy and infant mortality rates, I have just one question: Where the hell are the “right to life” crazies in this debate? Just wondering ...

Look, when all is said and done, profit maximization is the primary motive for the private insurance industry. It’s that simple. This explains why the private insurance industry's primary techniques for holding down costs are: (1) practicing risk selection, (2) limiting services covered, (3) constraining payments to providers, (4) hiring & training claim denial specialists, and (5) shifting costs to patients. Improved health care is not in the mix. If this status quo continues we are all in big trouble.

We need national health care reform that brings real reform and real competition. A vibrant public option is supposed to do this ... just as public universities provide a "public option" to those who can’t or don’t want to attend private universities. I get this. Most of you get this. We’ll see over the next few days whether Congress gets it too.
 
- Mark

PETER PAN, DARWIN & OUR HEALTH CARE DEBATE

From time to time I've gotten into e-mail discussions about what I write in the Bakersfield Californian, what I say on radio or TV, or for what I presented in my book. Or I'll get stuff from local conservative politicos, which reminds me why living here in Bakersfield is so much fun for a Liberal like me. There's a lot of good conservative material to comment on. Usually it involves some naive assertion about how wonderful markets, Christ, or freedom are (or some variant thereof).

Then there are the self-appointed geniuses. They like to use Latin terms (poorly) and then take me down intellectual cul de sacs that make sense only if you like debating word definitions and/or their Rush Limbaugh-Glenn Beck-FOX News-fed interpretation of events. This winds up with them telling me how much smarter they are than people in academia (which includes me too). I know they're smart because conservatives tell me they are (what more proof do I need?). This usually trails into the self-styled genius confiding to me how nice it is that "a couple of intellectuals like us" can discuss the issues (being demoted and elevated to genius level in a span of 15 minutes is always fun).

Whatever the topic, it always includes statements about how great everything would be if we just let markets, Christ, freedom, etc. work their "magic."

No real knowledge of history, spirituality, nor a sense of the human condition are necessary. Research? Nah. Studying an issue? Too egg-headish. Catholics? Going to hell (something about icons). You just need to believe in their fairytopia world, where people do good because it's the right thing to do ... as long as you believe. Tax cuts for the rich? Don't worry, they won't produce deficits (this time). Seriously. At some point I expect Peter Pan to emerge. 

At the end of our exchanges I'm usually entertained with direct or indirect judgments about "moral degenerates" sucking off the system. This usually stops the discussion because a line has been drawn, and the sense of rugged individualism these geniuses attribute to themselves is beyond debate. They have won Darwin's evolutionary race to top. Just ask them. Debate over.

This, ironically, is counter intuitive when you consider that many of these Darwinian winners also claim to be Christians. When I acknowledge their evolutionary greatness and point out, just for kicks, that what they're suggesting about themselves fits in with what Darwin said about evolution they go ape (figuratively speaking, of course). The discussion is usually finished once we reach the functional equivalent of an Ayn Rand puppet show.

I discuss all of this because I got the following on the health care debate from a prominent local politico the other day.

I HAVE BEEN OPPOSED TO MEDICARE FROM THE BEGINNING. PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.

I REFUSED TO ALLOW MY MOTHER TO USE MEDICARE OR MEDI-CAL WHEN SHE HAD KIDNEY FAILURE. IT IS HERS AND MY RESPONSIBILITY AND NOT THE REST OF AMERICA. SHE HAD INSURANCE AND SHE HAD SAVED FOR A RAINY DAY.

I thought to myself, "How is it that rather than saying, 'Thank God that my family is blessed, and that we have had the good fortune to do well for ourselves' this person would rather put himself on a pedestal and wag fingers at the rest of the world?".

I know part of it has to do with him pounding his chest (like an ape?) about his personal accomplishments. So I responded with this:

Dear____________.

According to the Bible there are four causes for poverty and the conditions that make Medicare a necessity. Laziness, or what you might want to call a lack of personal responsibility, is just one of them. Look, you can't speak about "personal responsibility" if people are getting ripped off, are wrongly judged, or are thrown into a condition through no fault of their own. A man getting run over by a truck because he didn't look both ways is no different from a man run over by a drunk driver. I would like to think that I would still care. If I couldn't do anything to help I have no problem pitching in to support those who can. Or does your sense of personal responsibility say, "Let them die in a ditch"?

As well, you want to keep in mind that the party you work for has been systematically transferring wealth from one class (the middle-class) to another (America's already rich) with government support. The wealth that has been created over the previous generation is not a product of hard work and personal sacrifice alone. It's also a product of favorable legislation, especially in the financial sector. That you would confuse hard work and personal responsibility with write-offs, subsidies and favorable legislation explains much. It especially explains why republicans continue to think that more of the same is exactly what we need in order to clean up the mess Reagan started and Bush finished off.

I didn't get a response. It doesn't matter. It probably would have been incoherent and ancedotal.

Still, I think it's important that we understand what we're trying to do when it comes to this health care debate. As a result, I'm going to synopsize the numerous health care posts I have presented here into a brief overview (no more than 750 words) explaining why health care reform is absolutely necessary. No FOX News sound bites. No Glenn Beck emotional breakdowns. No Rush Limbaugh ignorance. Just simple policy points, and how health care reform will make America stronger. I'll make it interesting too.

I'll post it by this time tomorrow.

- Mark