203 Comments

1. Doug:

“It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life “so we’re going to let you die”. ”

Read an article today about a grandfather in Britain who they determined had suffered a relapse in his fight against cancer, thus they proceeded to starve him to death.
…after he died, it was found that he was cancer free.
Reich is a douche.
—
Artificial knees are cheap, cost/benefit wise.
—
On Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’

Charles Darwin’s 200th Birthday

Darwinists talked of the “Grandmother Effect” wrt natural selection, namely that those well past their reproductive years still have much to contribute to the success of their kind.
—

On his 99th birthday
John Wooden

Oct 14, 2009 - 8:57 am 2. a Duoist:

Perhaps Mr. Reich and the good Archbishop would benefit from knowing that the most important freedom is the freedom to fail. Without the freedom to fail (risk), there is no freedom to succeed.

It is the optimistic risk-takers who build cultures and prosperity, not the pessimistic politicians and priests.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:00 am 3. DW:

Posts like this, W, are the reason why this is the best blog around. That and the incredible depth of those that post replies here (present company excepted).

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:00 am 4. Nullification:

Would someone please explain 6th grade science to the carbon cap and tax idiots. One word Photosynthysis.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:07 am 5. Pajamas Media » Robert Reich: America is Addicted to Fantasy:

[...] Read the entire article here. [...]

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:07 am 6. Neil Craig:

The Conservatives haven’t really moved nuch in a radical direction, though they may with the new intake of MPs after the election. What has happened is that the Unions were emasculated by Thatcher & no longer provide Labour’s base. Labour are now the party of government employees, people living on welfare & people living of government subsidy (windmillers, climate “scientist”, BBC, artists).

Reagan once said that he had won through a conspiracy of the bosses 7 the workers against the rest. Labour in Britain like Obama in America are the rest.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:08 am 7. venividivici:

If we use government to control costs there will be “less innovation” in medical technology and you should not expect to live much longer than your parents.

This dichotomy between “innovation” and “using government to control costs” strikes me as fundamentally false. There is nothing obligatory about using government to control costs. If individuals are put in charge of their own health care spending, even at the end of life, when costs are highest, their families can decide if they want to spend all of their inheritance keeping their elderly relatives alive or not. Also, potential innovators can decide if they want to “test” (under properly designed and maintained conditions, of course) their innovations on the very sick (as someone on another blog that discussed this Reich statement said, innovations in medicine don’t come from easy cases, they come from hard cases) for free.

So, allowing government to a priori insinuate itself into that transaction seems unjustified. As a practical matter, it is in there and opting out of Medicare is not allowed, but that’s a current constraint and not necessarily a permanent one.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:21 am 8. steveaz:

I have more respect for the man, Robert Reich, having read your post this morning, Richard.

Still not sure about the politician, Robert Reich.
But thanks, still.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:26 am 9. mariner:

Nullification:

Two words: spell check.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:27 am 10. joe buzz:

He went on to say that America was hopelessly addicted to fantasy; that anyone who got up on stage and reeled off the points he had made was politically dead.

Indeed a sad truth. Many folks prefer to avoid the truth in an attempt to stave off bad feelings. Only God has a plan, everybody else is flailing along somewhere therein. Being happy or finding joy where you are is a choice, be we doomed or not.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:29 am 11. baal:

Thanks for this clarification Richard. I’d also like to say that I’ll bet a republican can win by telling the truth; we have to cut spending, across the board, and yes, it’s going to hurt.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:34 am 12. Lifeofthemind:

Robert Reich has half or maybe a third of the problem solved. venividivici is correct that Reich’s assumption that only government and not the market can provide cost controls is unwarranted.

Reich sees the costs in solving problems, including the opportunity costs. For a person on the Left that is a major revelation. He does not understand how wealth is created or how that can help solve the problems. If the economy was unchained then there would be wealth to provide improved care for the elderly. The Left, including Reich, think that increasing wealth automatically increases costs, especially externalities like pollution. This does not come from Marxism, it has piggybacked on and may come from the Romantic tradition that was opposed to Capitalism.

In a soundly managed market economy government would punish corruption, competition would reduce costs and innovation would increase wealth.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:43 am 13. wws:

Reich, for all his supposed brilliance, even in that hypothetical speech could not face one of the greatest untellable truths:

Man-made global warming is a hoax and a fraud. Nothing needs to be done at all about it, since it doesn’t exist. Al Gore and all of the liberal intelligentsia were wrong and poor dumb old George Bush was right.

Yup, try saying that to a Berkely audience.

And every time he speaks Rowan Williams reminds me why the Islamization of Britain is happening at an ever faster pace.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:44 am 14. Eric:

These are not the proper dichotomies:

lower costs versus death panels; torture versus intelligence

should be:

HIGHER costs vs. death panels; torture vs. IGNORANCE

I’m not an economist, so not sure what the last one should be.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:47 am 15. arhooley:

There’s a bright side to all these truths. A capitalist society with representative democracy offers the individual unlimited opportunity. A good education and hard work will get you somewhere. Capitalism is not a zero-sum game; it creates wealth instead of simply redistributing it. Removing obstacles to personal development (obstacles placed in the name of good intentions) opens the door to good schools and a thriving economy, from which everyone can benefit.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:54 am 16. RichardB:

Whenever I have heard RR speak I always feel a bit queezy. He sounds good, but he is always speaking with presumed liberal assumptions that should be questioned first, before you believe anything he says.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:54 am 17. Mike Sheard:

It is said “A politician works for the next election, a statesman works for the next generation.” Clearly we need more statesmans who speak the truth. And I agree, they can win.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:58 am 18. Uncle Jefe:

What is it with the left wanting to get rid of our elders?
I thought that it “takes a village”??

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:04 am 19. RWE:

In 1993, in an interview on ABC news, then-Labor Secretary Reich was asked about the plight of three recent college graduates who could not find the kind of work they wanted.

The three had majored in French, Art History, and International Studies. ABC asked Reich a startlingly intelligent question, at least by TV standards: Should these students have taken courses more directly applicable to the actual workforce?

Reich response was both equally startling and definitive: “No, they should not worry about what they take in college. The companies that hire them will teach them what they need to know.”

Now, I majored in Mechanical Engineering. My work history has not necessarily reflected that schooling exactly, but college provided a theoretical basis for getting in the door. If I had majored in French, Art History, or International Studies I not only would not have gotten in the door, but I would have never thought to even knock on it. BUT that is exactly how the Federal Government works, people go through doors that normally would have not opened. And that explains how Reich got where he is.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:06 am 20. Geoffrey Britain:

“and poor dumb old George Bush was right”

Anything but that! A truth far to hard to swallow.

“Global warming can only be tackled by a carbon tax which is going to cost you a lot of money.”

Assumes no paradigm changing innovation. Nuclear power, hydrogen fuel cells and ongoing innovative improvements in battery technology and solar cells will fundamentally alter the status quo and usher in a cleaner world.

“Helping people at the bottom earn more is going to cost higher income people more money.”

Why do they need to be ‘helped’? Here’s a radical concept…they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, work hard and live within their means.

“The best way to ameliorate global poverty is to do away with farm subsidies.”

Perhaps important but the best way to reduce poverty is for poor nations to unceasingly promote the value of education and the value of free market capitalism.

Even for a country with few natural resources, human ‘capital’ sufficiently developed, leads to wealth creation. Proof: Japan.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:07 am 21. Josh:

I don’t grok his point about minimum wage, is it that he wants to cover people who don’t work, and is that in lieu of other welfare programs?

My mother is currently in the treating-old-people mode. It is very difficult for all involved. No matter where you draw the line there are ambiguities, which is why we tend to draw the line waaaay out there in favor of too much treatment.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:08 am 22. Ruebacca:

What is wrong with spending a large part of the gdp on health? There should be no impediment to a preserving life. Look at all the HIV positive people living productive lives. Look at the diabetics contributing to the world. Every human life is valuable.

The left sees people as farm animals, when you aren’t productive or paying taxes anymore its time to put you down.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:12 am 23. steveaz:

Uncle Jefe @18,
The left’s antagonism to antique literature, music and architecture is well documented in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. They “stand in the way” of the new.

One doesn’t need to be Carl Lewis to jump to the conclusion that village elders, being the fonts for societies’ histories, myths and fables, might need to fall under the new censors’ knives, along with Vivendi, Bach and Bastiat.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:15 am 24. Paul from Hamburg:

“We’re going to have to pay teachers more for quality education — costing you more — but we have to be willing to fire the turkeys despite the unions.” Reich is half-correct. We need to be able to fire bad teachers and teachers unions are part of the problem. On the other hand, like many liberals, Reich doesn’t realize that the “underpaid teachers” mantra is simply 20 years out of date. In the late 70s teachers were underpaid. By the late 80s, teacher salaries all over the country had increased dramatically. Teachers now make solidly middle class salaries and get 13+ weeks of vacation.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:19 am 25. Urban B:

U2’s “God Part II” is a love letter to John Lennon that both adores and chastises the idealist. One line in particular applies so very well to the Archbishop and to the American Left’s leadership. (Obama, Soros, Hollywood, Gore, Moore, etc…)

“I don’t believe in riches, but you should see where I live.”

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:21 am 26. John:

My blog originally published this clip. We provided a link to the full speech and noted that Reich included other controversial topics in his list of uncomfortable truths.

Reich’s broader point, that the truth is politically untenable, is nevertheless premised on the idea that these statements are the unvarnished truth as he sees it. This is in stark contrast to his recent statements on behalf of the President’s public option both on the Sunday news shows and in a video produced by far left Brave New Films. Uncomfortable truths were notably absent.

No one is questioning Reich’s intelligence, but it seems fair to call him on it when he tells the truth one moment and then slips back behind the politician’s mask and, for lack of a better word, continues dissembling to Americans about public policy now under consideration.

Broadly speaking, the Democratic Party has a history of indulging every interest group and “good idea” forcing the Republican party into the more difficult role of the parent who must say no. No, we can’t afford that. No, there will be unintended consequences if we do that. Etc.

What Reich’s clip shows is that smart Democrats know they are making empty, even foolish, promises. Apparently, that’s acceptable so long as their party continues to win elections.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:36 am 27. Blackwell:

Lots of honest, intelligent, left-leaning people are out there. Like Daniel Moynihan and Jean Kirkpatrick in the 70’s, their party is leaving them. It would be good to reach out to them. Find common causes. Make a space for them.

Even the LA times editors concluded the other day-and this is the LA Times-that the case deciding if the 2d Amendment binds the states ought to be answered “yes,” since an alternate answer is bad for all rights. They have even–gasp–criticised the school’s unions! I had to read these articles twice to be sure I had read them correctly.

There are a lot of decent people out there that trend left but want to make things better. They are begining to see that they may have more common ethical and moral grounds with people on the right than the far left. Reach out to them when possible. They are worth more than the country-clubbers in charge of the GOP.

and #6: I bet we could make better common cause with “real” unions of “real” workers against their govt counterparts. I’d take a manufacturing worker anyday over the desk bound paper pusher at the DMV. Those guys are decent people and we ought to try to take them.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:40 am 28. Thomas_L.....:

The truth makes very few friends. And you can quote me on that.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:41 am 29. Joe:

Mr. Reich can always set the example by volunteering to “die first”. If he feels so strong about that.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:42 am 30. Paul from Hamburg:

#19 RWE – An interesting anecdote. Personally, I suspect that the real key to the story is the phrase “the kind of work they wanted.” There are some undergraduate majors (philosophy, psychology, English) that really don’t teach you anything to make you employable. In many cases, majors in those fields move onto graduate school or get a job that simply requires a basic level of literacy. In contrast, majors like French or Art History could teach you marketable skills, but the market for those skills is exceedingly small. I mention this because I think the original question doesn’t place any responsibility on the college. Did any college adviser ever say to the Art History major: “Art History is fine major. We will teach you everything you need to be a museum curator. When you graduate, you will compete with 1000 other Art History majors for 25 jobs.”?

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:46 am 31. Nullification:

Mariner The error was egregious and careless, I will suspend any further submissions.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:51 am 32. dla:

Reich seems a bit of a zero-sum thinker, from the info-bites provided. I’d have to listen to the full speech before writing him off.

* A solution in Iraq is going to be tough. – But as Iraq emerges it no longer becomes a solo US effort
* Treating more sick people will mean younger people will pay more. – Only if we continue in the current model – we’re already pushing elder care technology changes
* It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life “so we’re going to let you die”. – There’s a tiny grain of truth to that buried in 100lbs of dung – that’s not the reason a Tylenol costs $5
* If we use government to control costs there will be “less innovation” in medical technology and you should not expect to live much longer than your parents. – the latter is total crap but the former is frighteningly true – so lets get off our duffs and critically examine what & why we regulate in medicine
* Global warming can only be tackled by a carbon tax which is going to cost you a lot of money. - “I will pee in your face and you will call it holy water” – Lenin
* We’re going to have to pay teachers more for quality education — costing you more — but we have to be willing to fire the turkeys despite the unions. – Only if we continue with the current failed public ed model – are we really so limited in how we approach education?
* Anyone who does an unskilled, repetitive job will lose it in the near future to outsourcing or automation. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. – One of the greatest failures in technology has been robotics – imagine the changes in society if robotics followed the same growth path as personal computers
* A minimum wage doesn’t help as much as an earned income tax credit. – Agreed. But less competition in unskilled labor would allow wages to rise. America doesn’t need to be supporting Mexico with this form of foreign aid.
* Helping people at the bottom earn more is going to cost higher income people more money. – Not even remotely true .
* Medicare will bankrupt the nation unless something is done and will impoverish the youth. – Possibly true, but historically very, very unlikely.
* The best way to ameliorate global poverty is to do away with farm subsidies. – Farm subsidies are a strategic decision to feed our own – we give the excess away during good times. Land has to be kept in production otherwise we could face mass starvation – like Russia, North Korea, China, etc. It can happen. So don’t confuse why we have farm subsidies.

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:52 am 33. Instapundit » Blog Archive » ROBERT REICH UTTERS fundamental heresy….:

[...] ROBERT REICH UTTERS fundamental heresy. [...]

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:02 am 34. Old Soldier:

I agree with dla. Most modern liberals are zero sum thinkers.

Aside from the climate nonsense, most of what Reich says is true, EXCEPT he forgets about the benefits of innovation and productivity gains.

Liberals like to forget about these things because they require freedom and often have affects they can’t control.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:04 am 35. Tcobb:

Know the truth and it shall set you free. Speak the truth, and it will probably get you indicted or crucified.

And as we are learning now, with the Statists in power, it doesn’t matter if “a thousand flowers bloom,” all it takes is one politician or powerful bureaucrat with a lawn mower to cut them all down.

Can you hear the sound of the mower getting closer?

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:05 am 36. Don Rodrigo:

“”"”"” 18. Uncle Jefe:

What is it with the left wanting to get rid of our elders?
I thought that it “takes a village”?? “”"”"”"

Actually, this isn’t a uniform belief across the spectrum of the left. There is a divide between utilitarians (Peter Singer, Zeke Emanuel, John Holdren, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, etc.) and those progressives who champion the disabled. I have heard passionate, bitter arguments between members of these two divergent progressive branches. At the moment, the utilitarians are in the ascendancy, and apparently the President and the Democratic leadership have bought into utilitarianism.

These are facts on the ideological grouns that should be aggressively exploited by the ‘right,’ because it provides excellent opportunities to 1) discredit utilitarianism (this has started to happen already), and 2) drive a wedge between different camps of progressivism. Life-affirming progressives may find that allying themselves with ‘pro-life’ forces presenting themselves as ‘anti-death culture’ activists, championing the rights of everyone from preemies to the elderly, to the profoundly disabled, could be to the benefit of their causes. Such an alliance can set aside the abortion issue for the moment in order to blunt the utilitarian ‘progressive’ model that is creeping out millions of Americans.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:05 am 37. Mad Fiddler:

The Archbishop is an idiot.

The CoE definitely is burdened with a bishopric.

Or worse – blind bishop; no see.*

At the very end of the 19th Century, physicists for many decades had been studying in fabulous detail the energy transformations involved in chemical reactions. Eventually, they turned their attention to the Sun, and considered the obvious but overlooked fact that it had been pouring out its titanic energies – of which the Earth receives only some teentsie little fraction of a percent – for uncounted millenia. Or at least that’s what the evidence of the geologic strata seemed to show.

The energy available from any chemical reaction could only account for the Sun’s output for a few thousand years. Even gravitational contraction – if it actually was responsible for the sun’s heat – couldn’t account for hundreds of millions or Billions of years of the solar furnace.

Finally, Henri Becquerel noticed some oddly-fogged photographic plates, and radioactivity provided the explanation. Physics were thrown into frenzies of re-examination of fundamental concepts, careers were nullified, others salvaged from obscurity.

Many scientists of the 20th century reported that they’d been warned during their studies by their professors that they shouldn’t expect to accomplish much more in their careers than to refine some physical constant to a few more decimal places; Science was pretty well a settled business, its nooks and crannies fully explored and all the crumbs of discovery already hoovered up.

In the United States about that period, the director of the Patent Office is supposed to have declared that no more applications would be accepted after a few more years, since everything that could be invented, had already BEEN invented.

– - – - – - – - -

* h/t to “Yes Prime Minister” BBC circa 1980’s

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:06 am 38. DEGUELLO:

FINALLY,A LIBERAL EXPLAINS THE REASON FOR OBAMA’S ELECTION.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:06 am 39. DEGUELLO:

FINALLY, ALIBERAL EXPLAINS THE REASON FOR OBAMA’S ELECTION.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:07 am 40. always right:

Did the truth speech jolt some smart people at Berkeley, finally?

Do these young-uns know (suspect) the truth all along but won’t acknowledge it?

Because it is too painful to step outside ones’ comfort zone?

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:07 am 41. Don Rodrigo:

“”"”"” 27. Blackwell:

Lots of honest, intelligent, left-leaning people are out there. Like Daniel Moynihan and Jean Kirkpatrick in the 70’s, their party is leaving them. It would be good to reach out to them. Find common causes. Make a space for them. “”"”"”

My point as well. See #36. Ways need to be found to help liberal voters understand that this is no longer the Democratic Party they had grown up with. Even with the recent reversals of fortune of the Republicans, there are still far fewer ex-Republicans than ex-Democrats. At the moment, the independent voters have been the primary beneficiaries of party-line dissafection.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:11 am 42. SShiell:

“There are some undergraduate majors (philosophy, psychology, English) that really don’t teach you anything to make you employable.”

I believe that Opportunity eclipses that notion. The problem is recognizing the opportunity when it presents itself.

I am an Environmental Program Manager. Opportunity, not education provided my entry into the environmental profession. I have a BA in History and no graduate work to speak of. I came into the environmental profession while in the US military. I found myself, a major in the Air Force, stationed in the Pentagon with no job. The aircraft I had spent a career flying (F-4 and F-111) were all going to the boneyard and my career field was rapidly shrinking. A unique opportunity presented itself in a new office being set up in the Air Force, the Deputy Assistant Secratary for the Environment as the office aviation and airspace subject matter expert. I had a choice – but with my flying days over I felt it was time to strike out into new territory. Twenty years later, after having retired from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel, I have a rewarding career in an exciting field.

Not becasue of education, but because I recognized an opportunity when it presented itself to me and took a chance – to my benefit.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:12 am 43. pel:

@ 22. Ruebacca:
> Every human life is valuable.

Every human life -is- valuable, but we are not immortal, nor should we pretend to be. That’s idolization of life.

True respect for life includes respecting it at its end, instead of believing in a fiction where life can continue forever.

> There should be no impediment to preserving life.

There should be if you’re simply delaying the inevitable and prolonging the agony. And no, it’s not a clear line. I do draw a distinction between providing medical care to fix what’s broken and attempting exorbitantly expensive heroics whose net result is marginal extension of lifespan.

At some point, medical intervention becomes a function of fraud and false hope when the body is trying to die and the intervention will not allow it.

For every story about the experimental life saving treatment that snatched someone from the jaws of death and gave them another several fruitful years, or the elderly individual whose organ transplant gave them another two decades, there are a hundred stories where it was tried and the result was six months of slipping in and out of consciousness on constant pain meds with the family running up huge medical bills and emotional refusal to accept the obvious only to have the victim die in indignity, being rolled over onto their side in a hospital bed.

I am not sure yet whether the Left’s vision of health care rationing is of pure utilitarian intent (which is wrong), or if it is in view of dignity at the end of life (which may be right). Whether the implementation achieves the goal of the latter without the former is another discussion, but it’s a cruel fiction to imply that individuals should be allowed to “throw the book” at preventing their inevitable death when it arrives.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:14 am 44. Whitehall:

Even conservative politicians resort to fantasy. Every Republican, including Sarah Palin, proclaims that the best energy policy is “all of the above.”

Sorry, that only works in a world of infinite budgets. In the real world we have to get value for our investment. For example, look at the current fad for wind farms. For the same initial investment, a nuclear power plant will produce 6 times the kilowatt-hours over its useful life. Granted that the nuke will have higher operations and maintenance costs. but it will be there when you need it.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:16 am 45. Don Rodrigo:

“”"”"” 22. Ruebacca:

What is wrong with spending a large part of the gdp on health? There should be no impediment to a preserving life. Look at all the HIV positive people living productive lives. Look at the diabetics contributing to the world. Every human life is valuable.

The left sees people as farm animals, when you aren’t productive or paying taxes anymore its time to put you down. “”"”"”"

Agreed, very good observations. I refer to this as “human husbandry,” from the old term “animal husbandry.”

The utilitarian left has a very stunted, dreary view of what constitutes productivity and human value. It’s becoming apparent to me that they also seem to resent the notion of leisure, which had been one of the hallmarks of modern civilizational progress. The idea of people who have spent 50-some years working and then spending their final years in relative leisure seems to offend utilitarian leftists. Now, the Obamas (both of them) want to take away summer from all American students. A life of toil in the service of the State, followed by the glue factory.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:21 am 46. Mad Fiddler:

In other words…

“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ”

- attributed to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:22 am 47. anton:

John,
I agree with your last point but am deeply comcerned about what they think will be the long-range impact of their actions. Do they really believe that “things will turn out OK”? Are they so self-centered and feckless that they just don’t give a hoot what happens after they pass from the scene? I mean, you can kick the can down the road but, sooner or later, the road ends. Then what?

How do these people look their children in the face and say “We are working for a better world” when they know it is a lie.

Deeply troubling.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:22 am 48. thomass:

I guess the most important point is that your not saying he endorsed any path or choices, he just threw out the choices (such as equality vs. growth)…. and while some of the edges can be debated, they are pretty close to the truth.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:29 am 49. moosecat:

I don’t know why anyone would be upset with a liberal for telling the truth. At least they are being honest. Feel free to fire away at the cheats and liars who unlike Reich are scared to tell what it would cost people to live under the left’s policies.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:31 am 50. Rob Crawford:

“What is it with the left wanting to get rid of our elders?
I thought that it “takes a village”??”

It’s hard to create Year Zero when there are people around who remember what it was like back when they were free.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:32 am 51. Poor Citizen:

I constantly hear the same things from the old “folksy” types sittin on the porch…yammering “if you work hard and get a good education” and if you have all that then there is “unlimited opportunity.” And hey, there is no place like home….no place like home…no place like home.

I wonder if any of the 15 million that are now out of a job and lost their homes…were either educated or worked hard… really wonder……..dar…

Also, I wonder if massive government business tax breaks or massive training loans ..etc etc helped…. do ya think?

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:41 am 52. ione:

In regards to #43 pel: I agree, having buried both parents after long illnesses. However, just like pro-choice people are constantly saying “that should be a matter between me, my family and my doctor”. The government should have nothing to do with it.

After that “right” over my body is established, the next argument is about money and who pays. Medicare/Medicaid is a government invention. I don’t want it or need it. The fact that it is going bankrupt is not my problem. However, forcing me to join that Ponzi scheme so it won’t go bankrupt for a while longer is my business.

As for the Arch Bishop…basically the man is overwhelmed and he just said “stop the world I want to get off”. Bless his heart he needs to retire.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:55 am 53. John Work:

“And the truth will set you free.”

Reich is probably correct that a pol telling the absolute truth (as he sees it) would never be elected.

But perhaps the real problem is that the United States has evolved into a Democracy instead of the Constitutional Republic it once was. An individual’s willingness and ability to see and accept the truth should be, like his religious beliefs, a personal matter. But in a Democracy each individual sees it as his right to make decisions that through majority rule bind his fellow citizens to his vision of the truth. As the country was originally founded, the Constitution was intended to protect the rights of the individual from the whims of his fellow citizens. Were this still the case, it wouldn’t matter how poorly educated or how disconnected from reality our fellow citizens happened to be, any more than it would matter whether they were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or held no religious beliefs (other than Islam). Throwing all the bums out or correcting our education system or conducting massive grassroots efforts to change voting demographics won’t solve this fundamental problem: Democracies always fail and always devolve into some form of tyranny. We’re worried about rearranging the furniture and cleaning house while the house itself is on fire.

Our Constitution has failed to preserve it’s original intent which was based on mostly unstated fundamental principles concerning individual freedom. If we survive the coming storm and have the chance to try again, here are some basic principles we might wish to put into the new Constitution:

1. Man, as referenced in this document, is a rational being of either sex of the species Homo Sapiens. Synonyms for man used in this document are individual and person.
2. Reason is man’s only means of dealing with his environment and his fellow man.
3. Each individual is the sole owner of his own life, which includes both body and mind.
4. No individual has any unconditional claim on the life or property of another.
5. Each individual has unrestricted ownership of physical or intellectual property that he creates by his labor or acquires by trade.
6. Transfer of ownership of physical or intellectual property is only valid based on the mutual consent of seller and buyer where there is no fraud, threat of force, or use of force.
7. Happiness, as referenced in this document, is the pursuit of rational self-interest and personal satisfaction and is an individual’s primary reason for living.
8. Each person has the right to seek his own happiness in any way that does not involve the use of fraud, threats of force, or physical force against other persons or their property.
9. No person may initiate the use of force except in self-defense. Force in this context is defined as physical assault or the threat of physical assault against another person or another person’s property.
10. Each person has the right to use reasonable and proportionate force to defend himself, his family and friends, and his property.
11. The individual does not cede the sole use of force to the central government.
12. The government’s reason for existence and its only purpose is to provide support to the individual when he is unable to fully provide for his own defense, either against external enemies or against internal criminal or civil violations of the Basic Principles of the Constitution.

With a Constitution and a legal system based on such clearly stated principles, we might be better able to productively co-exist in society. And after all, isn’t that the real purpose of having a government? Not to create a Utopia, but to create an environment where each of us is free to live the type of life we choose? Some want to reach for the stars and others just want to have a beer and watch the baseball game. And others want to do violence to the rest of us.

Can we handle the truth?

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:55 am 54. presbypoet:

For an example of where education in English is useful, my son got a job at a video game company. An important aspect was being able to look at a first cut translation from Japanese to English, and correct mistakes. The great irony for me is that girls do best at English, yet most would never be able to play games well enough to catch errors. Because it isn’t just errors in English, but places the game doesn’t work you test.

He just got back from Japan. He now speaks Japanese so well, that after four hours of Karaoke (sung in Japanese), in a Tokyo bar, his Japanese boss told him: “You have a Japanese soul”. So English and knowing a foreign language can be a useful entry to the work world.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:56 am 55. toad:

In ye olden days in a a growing economy a liberal arts degree from a rigorous program could get you in the door. Music majors were found in the computer coding departments and etc.
However the programs have been watered down, no more dead white men, and the economy is going into the tank. People with applicable degrees are having trouble finding work.

Stripped of the buzz words, the modern liberal,socialist, Marxists, rat commie, believes that robbing peter to pay paul is a viable long term economic policy.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:03 pm 56. RWE:

Paul from Hamburg #30.

Yes, indeed, that’s it, “the kind of work they wanted.”

The Art History major wanted to get a job running an art museum. The economy was so bad that there were no such jobs, they said. So she was working as a waitress.

The French major said she wanted to get a job with a bank or other firm that does a lot of business with France. But the economy was so bad that there were no such jobs. So she was working as a nanny. Based on her personal appearance, I think she could have been a multi-millionaire by the time she hit 30 if she was working as an exotic dancer. And I think a bank would hire a business admin major or a accountant and give them a Berlitz course in French.

The International Studies Major wanted a job as a U.S. Senator. And the economy was so bad that no such positions were available. He was working as a door-to-door salesman – which is probably better preparation for the U.S. Congress than a major in International Studies.

But the thing is – if fantasy is how you get elected, how does that translate into actions once you are in DC? We complain that politicians don’t do what they said they would while campainging, but the worst Presidents we have had – Carter and Obama – did exactly what they said they were going to do – admittedly the results were not impressive.

So do we want fidelity or results?

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:04 pm 57. MarkD:

I’m going to be totally honest and commend the NY DMV. There is one government agency that knows who its customers are, and has made many changes to provide better service, including being open in the evening.

I can’t think of any others, but I don’t work for the government, and try to keep my interactions to a minimum.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:12 pm 58. Marty:

A week or 2 ago there was this near riot in Detroit, people lining up to apply for some handout, and a local TV station went out to interview some of them, and Rush Limbaugh played some of their comments. One was along the lines of:

Why are you here?

To get my money.

What money?

Obamamoney!!

Where did he get it from?

I dunno… his stash? I don’t care, I’m gonna get mine.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When people complain about the govt, from either side, I just remind them that the govt are the elected politicians, they’re the experts on what it takes to get elected, and the fact that they are in Washington (or teh State capitol or city hall) means they’re mostly correct.

So, we collectively elect them, the problem isn’t with them since if it wasn’t them it would just be a similar bunch— the problem must be with us.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:17 pm 59. dan:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9BAUJ680&show_article=1&catnum=0

russia announces new policy of preemptive nuke strike, even in “local” wars.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:19 pm 60. sfalphageek:

@43
>I do draw a distinction between providing medical care to fix what’s broken and attempting exorbitantly expensive heroics whose net result is marginal extension of lifespan.

>At some point, medical intervention becomes a function of fraud and false hope when the body is trying to die and the intervention will not allow it.

“At some point?” Well that’s the hard question, isn’t it – one man’s “exorbitantly expensive heroics” is another man’s justifiable long-shot. It’s not like the human body comes with an expiration date and an x-y chart that relates additional medical expenditure to so many days or weeks of additional life.

What makes the issue hard, contrary to the belief of people who glibly assert that, in the case of [fill in the blank] both the patient and society would be better off if the patient accepted just going gentle into that good night is that in almost all cases, the “at some point” is only evident in retrospect. Its a pretty glaring example of the ecological inference fallacy, actually – just because you know that treatment is only 50%, or 25%, or 5% likely to be effective doesn’t tell you what the outcome will be when Mom has to choose between treatment x or hospice care.

For every anecdote about grandma dying in agony after expensive intervention that only prolonged her suffering for a few weeks, I can point you to one where “heroic intervention” (read, a medical long shot) made a real difference in quality and quantity of life. Where I live, we just had a man die of cancer at 46 years old, more than two plus years after he got the “a few weeks to live” speech. His longevity involved a host of expensive interventions, experimental procedures and the like before the docs finally told him he was done, and sent him home to die. Those two years gave him time to see his kids graduate high school and start college, and time with his wife and family and community he wouldn’t have had in the absence of “exorbitantly expensive heroics.”

I’m very dubious about the claim that we can save a lot of money by ending “exorbitantly expensive heroics whose net result is marginal extension of lifespan,” because what that really means is that we won’t even attempt to save people absent a track record of x% survival for a given treatment, and x is set by a unelected and unaccountable bureaucrat who may be deep under the sway of the utilitarian mindset. That means that some people, the %50, or 25%, or 5% who would have lived had they been offered the treatment, will die because a sufficient (from the point of view of our previously mentioned bureaucrat, of course) number of people who get the treatment die anyway. I can’t imagine a more unethical way to manage health care costs that doesn’t involve shooting people who break their legs.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:26 pm 61. Annoy Mouse:

As long as it is socially acceptable to ponder such cold and rational choices, let me know when it will be OK to contemplate putting a bullet in their head. That ought to crack their egg pretty well.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:35 pm 62. Robert Speirs:

Other unspeakable truths:

There is no such thing as “Peace”.

There is no such thing as “Happiness”.

There is no such thing as “Freedom”.

And to quote Nietzsche, the most horrible thought of all: “Unfree will is mythology. In reality is only weak will and strong will”.

Life is about finding the strongest and most interesting group to be a part of and supporting that group to the best of your ability, using your talents to the utmost.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:37 pm 63. Mongoose:

Wretchard, you might have fond memories of Reich, but if he is possessed of even half of the intelligence that you claim, he has exercised that intelligence in vigorously and studiously avoiding using the full extent of it. There is not one idea that he articulates that bears up under any serious intellectual, moral or spiritual scrutiny. He in his mind and soul has been thoroughly taken over by all of the vices of the intellectual left and thereby has wholly become corrupted and debased. At best he is a shallow reflection of New Dealers like Galbraith, another man who was always wrong about everything, though Reich is not possess of a tenth of Galbraith’s humor or eloquence. At worst, he is of the worse class of the traitorous intellectual left.

I would suggest that Reich is more clever, glib and prolix than intelligent in the full sense of the word, a sense which of course implies moral intelligence and spiritual self-knowledge. No truly intelligent person can so easily and eagerly embrace positivism, materialism, determinism, scientism and collectivism. The truly intelligenct know (and fear) the dangers of abstract intellectualism, particularly as it applies to power over the lives of men. They also can read a history book. Any reasonable analysis of, or even rumination on, the collectivist take on progress, history and the true nature of the world–and man in it–must firmly reject it as flawed philosophy, fractured poetry and a bestial parody of religion. That Reich cannot see this does not speak well of his intelligence. He is most firmly a Marxist, and of the most irredeemable sort. I frankly think that Reich is much more cynical (and evil) than you will allow yourself to me believe. I fear you are indulging in sentimentality here.

In any event, his ideas are monstrous and evil.

He and his ilk are the real intellectual and ideological force behind the New Left cohorts of Obama. He is no different than the academic apparatchiks of the Soviet Nomenklatura–in fact he is worse for he actually believes the monstrosities he spouts. He deserves our contempt and derision, not our respect.

What fundamentally shows all of this his assertion, dishonestly presented as a logical conclusion, that because one does not believe in his ideology, disagreeing with his conclusions make of one “addicted to fantasy. This is the worst sort of rhetorical dodge and hustle. I would suggest that it is Reich that is addicted to fantasy, not to mention narcissism, and terminally so on both counts.

He and everything he stands for must be rejected and overturned for us to survive as a nation and a civilization. He should for a time be in stocks in some public square somewhere and then made to earn an honest living for the rest of his days. He should not on a podium cheering on the Bolshevik faithful of the Democrat Party. Most certainly, he should not be allowed near a young mind or an institution of learning.

In the great intellectual history of our civilization Mr Reich is scarcely a dust mite. That we may think otherwise in this day and age merely shows how decadent we have become and how low we have fallen.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:37 pm 64. Whitehall:

Used to be that such majors were excellent preparation for obtaining the MRS degree.

A young woman with a sense of decorum, a warm heart, a love of children, and a decent body could go far in attracting a good husband with an education in French or Art History.

The real shame is that we’ve devalued being a good wife.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:39 pm 65. Geoff:

Fascinating article. I have a strange new respect for Robert Reich. Not for his politics, which I abhor, but for his honesty, which I admire. If more liberals were this honest, there would be a lot fewer liberals.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:42 pm 66. Mongoose:

Why Annoy Mouse, I do this all the time. Do you mean to say I err in my contemplations?
Am I premature here?

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:42 pm 67. Ed Butt:

The thing Reich did not address is that publicly funded healthcare becomes a bottomless pit into which monery is poured. It workes well, or did in Britain at least) as long as politicians were strong minded enough to clearly define what the public sector would pay for. That ceased to be the case about the same time the medical professsions decided to doctor people’s minds as well as their bodies. Now we have whole armies of counsellors, therapists, analysyts etc. Someone is not happy, they can get into the system and be a patient for life. Someone has good teeth but doesn’t like that one is slightly crooked? “It’s undermining my self confidence Doctor.” And the system pays. Sex change, no problem. Boob job? It will do wonders for your self esteem. Cost? Don’t worry, the system will pay

The strange thing is despite all this mollycoddling people seemed to be happier in general when they just had to cope.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:46 pm 68. ExRat:

“Even when politicians choose one road over the other, they take pains to suggest they are simultaneously proceeding down two paths.”

Hmmmm. This suggests a new discipline: quantum politics.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:49 pm 69. naturalfake:

Amazing but true!

A cartoon from 1941(!) provides the best understanding of president Obama’s philosophy of governance as well as his exact view of the medical profession.

Enter if you dare:

BARACK OBAMA’S FAIRY PALACE

http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/barack-obamas-fairy-palace

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:51 pm 70. geokstr:

“45. Don Rodrigo:
“””””” 22. Ruebacca:

What is wrong with spending a large part of the gdp on health? There should be no impediment to a preserving life. Look at all the HIV positive people living productive lives. Look at the diabetics contributing to the world. Every human life is valuable.

The left sees people as farm animals, when you aren’t productive or paying taxes anymore its time to put you down. “””””””

Although I will not be around to see it, it would be very interesting to see the progressive “utilitarians” at the end of their own lives, and how many of them opt to have their plugs pulled earlier to help the younger generations. I’ll bet they’ll be crying and screaming in fear of death more loudly than anyone else. Most of them are so wealthy they will be able to do whatever it takes to prolong their lives until the last conceivable instant.

I wonder how much it cost to keep dear ol’ Teddy breathing for a few more months so they could wheel him into the Senate chambers for this or that vote.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:53 pm 71. Mongoose:

Poor citizen:

I wonder if massive government business tax breaks

I am not sure what the construction “massive government business tax breaks” actually means, but i will take it to mean “massive federal tax breaks for businesses”.

Well, in this we can all continue to wonder, for this country has seen no such thing as “massive federal tax breaks for businesses” of an sort. Not ever.

If you think otherwise you are as poor a thinker as you are a citizen.

Still, what meager tax relief businesses have seen over the years has helped much. This is really beyond reasonable debate as the evidence is irrefutable.
High taxes lead to poverty and tyranny; low taxes lead to prosperity and liberty.

Few things could be more clear.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:54 pm 72. Ben:

Yes, he’s smart, but the blinders of liberal ideology are clear.

Liberals consider “fairness”, defined as equitable outcomes, a virtue in an of itself.

The UN’s “point system” to evaluate various quality of life statistics puts such a premium on “equitable distribution” that under the UN guidelines the US rating would improve through the simple expedient of shooting those at the high end.

Part of this is built in. In psychological tests, where one person is given money to divide 2 ways, and the second can either accept, or decline, in which case neither gets anything, people will rather have nothing than an “unfair” share, even though it’s illogical. The Liberal mindset is stuck at this level: given a range of outcomes, medical or otherwise, let’s call them 1-10 for convenience, they would prefer a standard outcome of 4 for everyone*, rather than a distribution in which the average is 7, but some people get 1’s.

*Everyone including high income/high profile liberals, that is. THEY will still get preference in any distribution. Roman Polanski is the case in point- if you’re a 19 year old white male in college, it’s rape if you didn’t have explicitly indicated permission. If you’re a famous artist, it wasn’t “rape rape”.

The real sad part is this: Under ANY system of distribution, market or otherwise, some people will get better outcomes. Rich people have better doctors, better lawyers, better access to better job opportunities, in a capitalist system. In Liberal Utopia, more popular, better connected people get these advantages. If we are stuck between Scyllia and Charybdis, I think, in the long run, it’s better to equate enhanced outcomes to wealth generation than to political influence, because political influence really is zero sum, while wealth generation is not.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:56 pm 73. Annoy Mouse:

Well Mongoose, only for the good of the children you know. They need to grow up in a world without such yukky choices and we owe it to them to make sure that, in the end, everyone is independently wealthy and live only as long as Gaia permits.

I give the man his radical views and actions and ponder when I shall have to exercise mine.

Oct 14, 2009 - 12:57 pm 74. Bart Hall (Kansas, USA):

Reich is correct about one thing: to survive, we must make choices. There is one and only one way federal politicians will be forced to make those choices … a Constitutional Amendment:

Except in times of declared war, the federal budget of these United States shall remain in balance at a level not to exceed seventeen percent of the previous year’s Gross Domestic Product. An additional three percent may be collected for the sole purpose of retiring existing national debt.

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:00 pm 75. Professor Guvinoff:

There is enough synergy between the airy claims of politicians and the nostalgia for fairy tales in the electorate to create new obstacles on the path of those who have resolved to pursue some down-to-earth accomplishment over that of some utopia.

So, one can either deplore the left and its co-opting all the corollaries to the law of gravity, or equivalently, as far as logic goes, marvel at the surplus of energy of the doers, who manage to proceed in spite of all the “man-made” burdens of the chronic illusions the left perpetuates its parasitic existence by.

The light from the shining hill is emitted only when the doers outmaneuver the brake operators. There is no end to this battle, unless the doers give up the fight, and the agents of gravity bring everything down.

Civilization is not the default state. If the faith dies, savagery comes back, simple as that!

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:03 pm 76. blackwell:

41 Yes indeed. I bet I could agree on more with Robert Reich–and count on him to honor the deal–than with the GOP’s leadership most days.

64. She still can. But the “deal” changed: two incomes beat one. And with women initiating 66% of divorces in first time marriages, and spousal and child support being what they are, a lot of men feel its more prudent to marry–if at all–someone that can work after she divorces you to live in your house while you’re in an apartment. Pity the man who married a secretary or english major She is unemployable. But the cpa, lawyer, etc is not. Especially if she’s now paid in euros. Its weird, but the more acomplished woman actually ends up being “penalized” (as they see it), by having to work or have income imputed to them, whereas the secretary does not. But from the man’s end, its economically safer to marry the more driven one. And the more driven woman always knows she can support herself.

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:09 pm 77. Poor Citizen:

To Mongoose:

duh….I think the last one was called “stimulus”….hey man, its newspaper time !!

the 90’s must have been good to you. Good Luck…

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:10 pm 78. Mongoose:

Poor Citizen: Well your last post is beyond deciphering.
(Perhaps you say more than you mean too when you say that “it’s newspaper time”?)

Nonetheless, our current “stimulus” had no business tax breaks in it.
Stealing from the productive to reward political supporters stimulates little but immorality, tyranny and dishonor.

BTW, the nation as whole did quite well in the 1990’s; so too under all but the last months of GWB. We are now facing a world depression on the “policies” of Obama.

You do not seem to be well informed in these matters.

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:19 pm 79. JMH:

Reich admits, goes to great length to point out, that the truth makes piss-poor politics, and yet he continues to favor centralized political solutions. Solutions that, by his own demonstration, are going to be hamstrung and distorted by the lies needed to get them implemented.

Which leads me to wonder for the umpteenth time, what’s wrong with these people? Perhaps Wretchard has it right – they have dysfunctional imaginations, for I suspect that the point Reich really wanted to get across was that we are addicted to fantasy and can’t move forward until we consign ourselves to a stunted existence. Once we’ve thus “perfected” ourselves by abandoning silly things such as hopes and dreams, we will finally be fit for our betters to lead us.

Good grief, what third-rate Utopians we have today. At least the Bolshies had a vision of eventual prosperity for the masses. Totally unrealistic, unworkable and the cause of immense evil and suffering, but at least it was a vision that – if it worked out – would’ve led to happiness. Their intellectual progeny of today can’t promise more than evenly apportioned misery.

Reich, true to his Leftism, wants to perfect mankind so as to make us fit for our government rather than perfect our government to make it fit for mankind. Limit the size and scope of government, limit the ability of politicians to promise this fantasy (which not just Americans, but every people ever offered it have been addicted), and you solve the problem. Just like our Founders intended. Ben Franklin >>> Robert Reich.

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:51 pm 80. Tony:

Thanks for this excellent post, Wretchard.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you sharing your unique insights, and even more, your positive attitude.

Hell, out of all possible times in man’s history, we have more means at hand to accomplish more good now than ever.

Onward and upward, ad astra per astrum, or as my Latin teacher put it, “To the stars, through bolts and bars!”

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:56 pm 81. Chris in Dallas:

Well I’m not living in fantasy land. If the government said tomorrow that all the entitlement programs (wealth transfer programs) were going to be immediately phased out along with the taxes and fees that go with them, and that I was going to have to pay my own way, I’d be cheering them on!

Wait, expecting the government to end an entitlement program is living in fantasy land isn’t it… SIGH…

Oct 14, 2009 - 1:58 pm 82. deguello:

Reich is living proof that libs are suicidal.If he gets his wish,and we start terminating seniors to effect medical savings,What’s to stop a future bankrupt government from terminating malignant ,crypto stalinist dwarves ,like himself,to save even MORE money?

Oct 14, 2009 - 2:04 pm 83. Obama: “Not talking…is ridiculous” » The Anchoress | A First Things Blog:

[...] America’s Decline is Intentional Reich: You old folks are gonna die! Belmont Club: More on That St. Therese: Goes to Prison Spruiell: Dissecting Obamacare Cato: What does State Dept not want us [...]

Oct 14, 2009 - 2:12 pm 84. Tcobb:

I think that in the future, if there is one, political historians will look back upon the 20th century as the time when the role of government took on a new and hideous form. Before, governments of whatever forms were means to an end, sometimes good and sometimes evil and often a mixture of the two.

But now, government is seen as an end in itself. Its an industry much like the heroin and cocaine cartels–its ultimate consumers are the losers. But unlike the drug cartels, its consumers have no choice about whether they want what the seller is buying. They have to pay and take it anyway. Non-consumption is not an option. It isn’t allowed.

Laws and regulations breed like maggots on road kill. There is no way anyone could ever hope to keep abreast of all the “rules” that are constantly being generated, but the guiding principle is: “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” When you learn the rules they change the game. Rent seeking behavior has jumped to a new and higher quantum level, not just quantitatively different but qualitatively different as well.

But really, the essential question is, in regard to any governmental body, the UN, the US Department of HUD, your local school board: what is this for, and does it do more harm than good, and is the good (if any) it does worth the cost? If not, its time to drive a stake into the heart of the tapeworm.

Oct 14, 2009 - 2:28 pm 85. Ted:

Ahh; truth. How refreshing.

Oct 14, 2009 - 2:42 pm 86. Belmont Club » The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes:

[...] [...]

Oct 14, 2009 - 3:06 pm 87. David R:

I think there’s a grammatical error here, or Reich spoke poorly — Richard it would be good if you could verify this was the correct transcription of this bullet: “Medicare will bankrupt the nation unless something is done and will impoverish the youth.”

That’s just a poor and confusing sentence structure that one wouldn’t expect to hear in a prepared speech. I presume it means that Medicare will ALSO impoverish the youth. Perhaps it’s only punctuation needed, but something clearly is.

Oct 14, 2009 - 3:21 pm 88. Manny C:

Ah yes, the economics 101 concept of opportunity cost.

Oct 14, 2009 - 3:23 pm 89. Poor Citizen:

Ok Mongoose:

If ya cant keep up with my typing…take notes…

attempt to teach: …take two.

90’s= prosperity=peace=democrats Clinton

2000=2008 equals military failure=economic failure=mass tax cuts for big business/oil=financial meltdown, mass unemployment=Bush=la la land=you.

2009=Obama= new leadership=economy to be restored=bright future

Now: any more questions?

Newspaper time rides again. nuff said eh?

Oct 14, 2009 - 3:31 pm 90. Dave:

There IS a renewable, ever growing ‘resource’ that liberals will never understand or avail themselves of.. it’s the creativity and ingenuity and initiative of the individual.

Liberals think in groups, with aristocratic leaders who ‘know what’s best’ and pedigreed thinkers in tanks who sort out the future (and get it all wrong).

Most of what Reich complains of can be, if not completely addressed, at least ameliorated or compensated for by individuals with unique, clever, outside the box solutions. But if you force everyone between the rails and see the public as nothing but ‘groups of groups’ then you miss the best part of humanity. And the best chance for solutions to the ‘unsolvable problems’ liberals are so stressed by…

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:03 pm 91. z:

post hoc

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:05 pm 92. Brains in formaldehyde filled jars have greater intelligence than the average leftist:

@89
increased ice cream sales=increased murder rate, ergo ice cream causes murder. nuff said eh?
/sarc for the other leftards like Poor Citizen that don’t understand the concept of correlation=/=causation(gee, why does that make me think of manbearpig?).

It is truly sad that at one point America had a relatively high density of people capable of critical thought, but that those times have past. Honestly, I wouldn’t surprised if a significant part of the “world”’s distaste for all things American stems from the fact that so many in our population show no more capacity for intelligent thinking than Poor Citizen does in post 89.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:13 pm 93. Jeff Robertson:

A statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows, we need more statesmen.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:16 pm 94. SpeakEasy:

There is no contradiction between Reich’s words and deeds. He considers himself above the common people so none of it applies to him anyway.

“It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life “so we’re going to let you die”.” – Except those politically connected.

“Global warming can only be tackled by a carbon tax which is going to cost you a lot of money.” But not me, I’m too important.

“The best way to ameliorate global poverty is to do away with farm subsidies.” This of course does not apply to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and her vineyard. We are not commoners and we enjoy our vino.

etc.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:16 pm 95. Mongoose:

Poor Citizen, now I understand you, you are a moonbat, and bth and idiot and one wholly consumed by MSM/Democrat propaganda.

90’s= prosperity=peace=democrats Clinton

Wrong, and absurdly so! It was the American rejection of the Democrats by giving the GOP their first control of both houses of congress since Eisenhower than held the line against the economic treason of the Democrat Party. Had Clinton had his way, you would have seen the same sort of disaster we are experiencing now. Granted, they barely held the line. Beyond that, it was the wave of small and mid sized firms created by the Reagan tax and regulator reforms , more or less held in line by Bush Sr., that lead to most of the real prosperity of the 1990’s. About the only thing that Clinton may be lauded for would be some small decrease in capital gains, which in any event he had to get through a GOP congress. And please spare me the nonsense of “surpluses”. What real surpluses Clinton might have come up with were due to gutting the military, and we all now know the ramifications of that. In fact, most of the so called surplus of those years were projected and therefore pure fiction. More to the point, it was Clinton that ramped up the disastrous policies surrounding the CRA, Freddie and Fannie, and push forward all the hustles with MBS’s and CDR’s.

So you are completely wrong here. This is irrefutable.

2000=2008 equals military failure=economic failure=mass tax cuts for big business/oil=financial meltdown, mass unemployment=Bush=la la land=you

This is chock-full of lies. There is not one truth here. What military failures are we talking about? Afghanistan fell in a month with what, 2 US combat deaths? Iraq was a brilliant campaign, and the armed force adapted well over a few years to a wholly different form of warfare. What are the failures here? There really were none. This is just a fiction of the MSM. That you believe them does not speak well of you.

Iraq was a brilliant campaign. a few thousand deaths. You seem completely ignorant of military history if you assert that it was failure. Merely because the Democrat controlled media tells you that they are failures, does not make them so. Nor do the murmuring down at your local Starbucks make this so. You need to learn to think for yourself. If there were problems, they were mostly cause by the filthy and traitorous Democrat Party politicizing the war. Had they not stood against America, the enemy might have not been so embolden and things would have got better sooner. You are know doubt quite young, but were you older you would remember ow the Democrats betrayed the USA and her allies back then, much like they are doing today. As for real military failure, one would have thought that Clinton would have taken the cake, but Obama is a complete disaster. He is not only undoing the advances of the prior 8 years, and those advances were considerable, he is really undoing all of the advances since 1943. He is destroying us as a super power and going around the world apologizing and humiliating America. We most likely will never get back to this level of power again. This is his actual intent and desire. He is a Marxist traitor. If you were actually concerned with military failure, you would be up in arms over all of this. But you are concerned with no such thing. So here you are not only wrong, but you are dishonorable.
So this comment is idiotic.

Economic failure? The economic boom on GWB was one of the most robust and prolonged of the post war period. Go have a look at the Dow or NASDAQ for that period. The culprit here is, again, as always, the Democrat party. This time it was their redistribution regulations in the housing section and the attendant distortions of the market that pushed us over. Bush tried to do something about it, but they would not have it. It is true that he let Paulson spook him last summer, but seriously, it is starting to look more and more like the “Oct. Surprised was actually engineered. That your precious Democrats for you: Push us into an depression to get elected. Some fiscal responsibility here. In any event, the economic problems of the nation started when the Democrats took over congress in 2006. Moreover, GWB brilliantly navigated the nation through the economic fallout of 911. Had the Democrats been in charge we would have had a real disaster. So not only can this not be laid at the foot of the Democrat.

Obama has done more damage to our economy in less than a year than all of the GOP presidents in our history combined,

So you are extremely wrong here.

As for tis:

Now: any more questions?

Newspaper time rides again. nuff said eh?

You are just making a public fool out of yourself with childish retorts like this.
You are putting your ignorance, arrogance and immaturity on display for all the world to see. Wat is pathetic is that you imgine that you have done just the opposite.

Oh, and your real problem is that you spend to much time reading newspapers. They are lying to you, and you are too foolish to see it.

The real truth is out there. Try goggling around for it.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:21 pm 96. Don Rodrigo:

OT:

Shocker:

Zelaya back in http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/honduras-to-restore-ousted-leftist-thug.html

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:22 pm 97. Papa Ray:

63. Mongoose

He and everything he stands for must be rejected and overturned for us to survive as a nation and a civilization. He should for a time be in stocks in some public square somewhere and then made to earn an honest living for the rest of his days. He should not on a podium cheering on the Bolshevik faithful of the Democrat Party. Most certainly, he should not be allowed near a young mind or an institution of learning.

Ahhh, but it is too late for him and if we don’t do something about the entire American Educatonal System it will be too late for even the latest generation.

THE POSTMODERN NARCISSISTIC DILEMMA AND THE PRISM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: OR, How to Stop Thinking and Serve the Utopian Collective

Pity the Republic.

Papa Ray
Central Texas

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:23 pm 98. SpeakEasy:

Professor Guvinoff
I read this to mean you see this as some sort of noble fight between two equally acceptable methods of survival? Except of course the “brake operators” are enslavers of the “doers.” Or isn’t slavery unacceptable anymore? I must have missed the memo.

If I misunderstood your meaning, I apologize.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:29 pm 99. sol vason:

When governments act responsibly, they try to make prudent plans for the future. Prudent plans for the future are always firmly grounded in statistics developed from what happened in the past. The more prudent a government is, the less willing it is to tolerate change and the more it insists that things be done in the future the same way they were done in the past.

When this happens, a society reaches equilibrium with its environment. Key resources are conserved and are used at the rate at which they can replenish themselves. Fierce penalties await the person who upsets the equilibrium.

When Europeans landed in the Americas in 1492 the native Americans had reached equilibrium with their environment. They were guided by simple rules that had preserved that equilibrium for 20,000 years. They lived at the edge of starvation. The Americas seemed undeveloped.

The Europeans broke all these ancient rules and created a new order. Unconstrained by a wise, powerful central government they built our modern day civilization. Unfortunately, they created a prudent, responsible, powerful government which, today, has the ability to plan the future and force everyone to obey the plan. Spectacular growth and innovation will no longer be possible. Men like Obama will lead us to equilibrium. The equilibrium in 1492 supported 25,000,000 humans. The new equilibrium in 2012 will be able to support more than that. After that there will be no growth, only prudence.

Dr Reich’s speech outlines the reasons why prudent men must be dishonest and why they must protect the equilibrium.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:33 pm 100. JFSanders031:

44.Whitehall,

There are infinite budgets. But they are only available in Free Market Capitalism. When people are free to make individual choices about their own capital then you get things like Bethlehem Steel, Edison’s Electric Co., And the greatest of them all A/C power distribution to the masses. Which in turn enabled the greatest leap of technology mankind has ever known.

89. PC, Wow! There is a sucker born every minute…
What an utter load of bull chips and wild delusion you are attempting to pass as truth. As your statements come from you perceptions they to you are truth. But they are most certainly NOT reality in any way shape or form. But hey! here is your participation trophy. So don’t feel bad that you have duped and hoodwinked.

94. Maria Shriver busted for talking with cell phone in hand while driving down a California freeway. Governator to punish and correct problem post haste per MTV or some such pablum producer. Yet, they can’t turn on the water to the farmers or pay the bills…

96. Don R., Not so fast my friend. The last line update on the link.

”
** Just this morning the UN’s Department of Political Affairs concluded that the removal of Zelaya from office was legal and justified.

UPDATE: According to my Honduran contacts– the Honduran news has not reported the story yet. Both sides would have to ratify the agreement before the decision is final.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:39 pm 101. JFSanders031:

“His main point was that the truth was untellable.”

The truth in politics as practiced today may well be “untellable”. But that should not in any way stop those that seek a more just and prosperous world from demanding just the facts and nothing but the facts from any public official with the power of life and death and more importantly the power of the purse.

I see it as a problem of choice. Man chooses to lie and in so doing perverts the system. Once the perversion occurs it feeds back into the system and is either canceled out by the truth or it amplifies until the system disintegrates and a new system is born of the parts.

(Correction to previous post: Should read “your perceptions” and “have been duped and hoodwinked”)

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:46 pm 102. Mongoose:

sol: there is nothing “prudent” about these people, and prudence never comes through dishonesty. Your moral compass is askew as is your faith in Western Civilization or the nature of mankind. Man up. Oh and stop mis-characterizing the rise of the West.

The Left only wish for power. There is no “crisis” other than those that they have artificially created. There is no need for “equilibrium”. Moreover, it is people like Reich who wish to upset the balance of the ages. They hardly are seeking “equilibrium”–quite the opposite in fact. It is their godlessness that leads them to such dark conclusions about mankind and the need for stasis. Let us not follow them down this hellhole of theirs. They wish to destroy centuries of progress, not seek some sort of “equilibrium”.

In any event, this is not “equilibrium” that you are talking about, it is a return to medieval serfdom. It is not “seeking a balance” You misuse the term here.

These are not prudent men. These are foolish and evil men. That we allow them power makes bigger fools of us.

Very soon they will be united across the West. These parasites are going to cause a conflagration. I hope the West survives.

“Equilibrium” indeed.

Oct 14, 2009 - 4:50 pm 103. Mongoose:

Papa Ray: The only solution is to gradually get out of the public education business.

Vouchers, magnet schools. Whatever. gradually defund it and force people to pay for their own children’s educations. Competition will take care of the rest.

I actually never went to public school. It was considered terrible 40 years ago, though it is impossible now. I really do think that 95% of them are incompetent. It is usre that 99% of them are Marxists. I do not think it can be fixed.

If we do not just defund them, we will have to have a bloody revolution to oust them, They are too far gone. This was all a part of the plan.

I hold out no hope for publicly funded education in this country.

Perhaps it worked once apon a time, but that time is long past.

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:00 pm 104. Annoy Mouse:

The problem is that there are a new generation of tree humping slouches that think Darwin trumps god but the state trumps Darwin. How many vegans would survive in this land without technology or in a civil conflict of meat eaters?

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:08 pm 105. Josh:

Mongoose @ 95:Iraq was a brilliant campaign,

Er, I wouldn’t say that.

Strategically, … perhaps. Tactically … negatory.

The main offensive was minimally competent, and the Iraqi regular forces quite rational in running away, who could. OTOH we were very unready for the aftermath and handled it very poorly until “the surge”, where we lucked out a bit when the Iraqi Sunnis got sick of standing in for their jihadi brethren for purely sectarian and impractical reasons. “Shock and awe” was shockingly stupid. Unprotected supply lines, was almost fatally stupid.

But leftard nostalgia for the Clinton days in which we hid under the bed while the enemy advanced and the river washed away the foundation, is beyond stupid. Even economically, Clinton let the telcos and oil companies all merge, and saw the defense companies “consolidate”. And the first bubble was Greenspan’s 1991 cheap money that lasted all through Clinton’s presidency, and fwiw popped before Clinton could blow town. And of course Clinton and the dems were all for the CRA loans that finally blew up – though I blame Wall Street, not DC, for that.

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:10 pm 106. jWarrior:

re: 72. Ben:

The real sad part is this: Under ANY system of distribution, market or otherwise, some people will get better outcomes. Rich people have better doctors, better lawyers, better access to better job opportunities, in a capitalist system. In Liberal Utopia, more popular, better connected people get these advantages. If we are stuck between Scyllia and Charybdis, I think, in the long run, it’s better to equate enhanced outcomes to wealth generation than to political influence, because political influence really is zero sum, while wealth generation is not.
Well said.
We spend our summers in Canada. My neighbors complain about their high taxes and I remind them that they have “free health care”. Most of them are so committed to this free health care that they would rather everyone get a Level 4 health care than that some “rich” person be able to buy anything better. Indeed, until just recently, private MRI clinics were illegal. Of course the politicians and their buds go to the Mayo Clinic when they have problems.
What will Canada, and the rest of the world, do when they don’t have the US to lean on anymore?

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:35 pm 107. whiskey:

Robert Reich is not speaking “truths” but rather his allegiance. Who’s side are you on? Robert Reich is not on my side.

In his address to Congress, he said the Stimulus bill would avoid paying any money for White Male employment, either engineers or constructions workers, in favor of Blacks, Hispanics, Single Mothers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6vFa4

See the man say it himself.

Politics is not that complicated. It’s not about truths, it’s about who’s side you are on.

Obama, Reich, Rangel, Pelosi, Maxine Waters, etc. are NOT ON MY SIDE. They’ve made it clear that they would prefer myself, an unconnected, not plugged-in straight White male, just “die already.” An “end to Whiteness” as Harold Myerson put it.

Blogger Steve Sailor noted that much of the Democratic Party resembles the Ottoman Empire. An elite Sultanate raised out the people from a harem kid, who killed all his siblings. Fearing a repeat of his own ascension, he raises a group of minority bureaucrats and non-Majority identity groups to rule over the people as a tax farm. With Greeks, Jews, Devshirme bureaucrats and the like ruling over an angry and impoverished Muslim people. As with all systems, from Tito’s Yugoslavia, or the Sultanate, or what have you, this system is not stable when confronted by lasting stress.

The Problem with Reich is not that he’s telling truths, he’s not telling them at all. The problem with Reich is that he’s on the side of the coalition of minorities seeking to rule the majority in alliance with “New Sultans.” The Elite SWPL yuppies who loathe most Americans for being too White and Male and Straight.

The step from Robert Reich, who feels that the majority of this nation has no call on its resources in time of economic trouble, instead various minority groups must come first (as Straight White Men are told to get to the Back of the Bus) is just a small step from Bill Ayers planning concentration camps to kill 25 million conservative White Americans.

Wretchard, not being a White Male, you probably have fond memories of Reich who clearly does not hate you for your identity as he does ordinary White men like myself.

I know Reich is my enemy and frankly wants me dead (along with every other “Joe Average” White male). Thus, I view him and everything he does in that light.

His words on “we’ll let you die” is just his general agreement that the older White population should be killed off in favor of the “hip new young” crowd of color.

Something near and dear to the hearts of the “new Sultans” Democrats since Colorado’s Richard Lamm.

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:38 pm 108. Mongoose:

Josh, Hogwash. Seriously, it was one of the most brilliant mobile armor campaigns in history. So were the subsequent MOUT, assist and covert operation. You really need to stop believing what you hear in the leftist media, or the cant from the mouths elitist “conservatives” who would not know a bullet from a hatpin.. Against what possible standard can you measure it to reach your conclusions? What historical precedent? Shock and Awe? It was a resounding success. Libya folded at once. They took a iraq in two weeks with minimal casualties as a result of that. It is an Absurd claim from any military or geopolitical outlook.

You are just regurgitating media hogwash and the nose-sniffing of the elitist, Anti-Bush NRO Nancy-boys.

You are completely wrong, particularity the “tactical” claim. It was most particularly a rousing tactical success. The screw-ups mostly came out of the civilians on the ground and at foggy bottom, and most of them were long term diplomatic people, which is to say Democrat and traitors, but I repeat myself. There really was no failure in Iraq other than what they and the media create.

If there ever is an honest telling of this period, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, et al will come out in a very positive light.

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:39 pm 109. Ted Smythe:

I appreciate your having given us a fuller account of what Reich said and the student reaction, but the major point is that he believed those to be political and economic truths. That’s the scary part. In what areas do you disagree, or is it just the way he phrased his comments?

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:52 pm 110. John:

“the major point is that he believed those to be political and economic truths. That’s the scary part.”

Exactly so. And also, that he is singing a very different tune now.

The clip deserves the attention it is getting.

Oct 14, 2009 - 5:58 pm 111. Mike Blackadder:

As much as I disagree with Reich’s judgment and worldview, a candid explanation of what he really thinks demands respect.

Having said that, after listening to his lecture, I’m left wondering whether Reich is really being totally honest or if his version of being truthful will only extend to the point of not embarrassing himself (as a fake political candidate).

Taking the topic of global warming as an example, Reich admits that legislating against CO2 emissions is going to increase the cost of living. What he perhaps does not choose to admit is the following:
-That his personal knowledge of the science supporting his AGW conviction does not exceed the material available in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.
-That this systematic tax hike, while encouraging Americans to conserve energy, will do more than cost people money. It will slow American innovation, will make the US less attractive to investors and will lead to job losses (at least in the short term).
-That we hope this extra tax revenue will be effectively funneled toward innovation in alternative energy sources, but knowing the way any government operates, the most likely outcome is that any funding will be highly inefficient (certainly not outperforming the market’s ability to pursue the best areas of innovation on their own) and will probably only result in increasing the size of government.
-That despite the pain this will cause to our economy, we can not expect it to achieve significant results in reducing global warming, since countries like China will view this development as an opportunity to gain a new competitive advantage over the United States, such that CO2 pollution will be simply transferred elsewhere (or perhaps increased further since China’s production is less technologically advanced than our own).

Oct 14, 2009 - 6:23 pm 112. Gaffe Prices:

Reich says that it will cost (you, the younger folks) more, and its going to be more expensive, but because treatment for the old is too expensive (?), “we are going to let you die”.

(at least his candor can be appreciated, arriving at this late point in things)

One economic principle that 1) is not considered by the leftist democrats, and 2) hasn’t been dealt with yet, busy as we are with death panels and the whole ethical Hiroshima that this is, and 3) this economic principle applies more to products and than to services, but still applies is this:

Economies of Scale is the economic concept whereby a product that is financed, designed, fabricated and brought into production has finally paid these opportunity costs when it has surpassed the Economies of Scale, and that means that, technically, a product is losing money all during the time its is paying off the loans that brought it from production to market, but that once those opportunity costs are covered the profit factor begins.

Think Amazon, or the VCR, which costs 2000 dollars for a time, but eventually dropped to 200 dollars (or less). Even though the price dropped, there was profit generation even as the price was lowering; those who bought it at the high price made possible the lower price later on. Amazon faced the steep climb to put the economies to scale, but had no overhead where stores were concerned, the question profit wise was whether people would prefer shopping on line instead of browsing a nice store. Ten years ago, many “economic” “experts” thought Amazon would never fly when its stock was a mere 15 dollars, but its hanging in there quite well after an economic plunge, and a subsequent recession.

In the medical field, there has been an amount of corruption of this principle, thanks to government factors, although the principle still applies.

What corruption? 1), too much billing from multiple tests, taken by doctors of patients because of fear of a lawsuit(s). 2) High malpractice insurance rates passed on to the patient/consumer/insurance. And billing that results in higher insurance premiums for the insurance holders. 3) Medicare seen as a cash cow because it manages to pay even if its running at a loss. 4) People who pay cash for medical services have been haggling lately for a lower price when bill time comes, and the doctors offices have in some or many cases accepted a lower payment.

Something is wrong and the industry has been sitting quite pretty during this time except in one respect: Doctors offices must expend time and employ personnel, just to deal with the demands of all the paperwork that is generated through the system as it is. See: PJMTV’s Dr. Peter Weiss on his Medically Incorrect to understand what I’m talking about.

The fact is that it is difficult to calculate exactly when an Economies of Scale has been reached, especially when any quality of life, or time shared with family and friends as a result of treatments can never be weighed by an accountants or bureaucrats scale. And for family and friends, only after the fact, in hindsight.

But the economic factors still apply as to the financial risks associated with Research and Development. 0bama’s slaughter of the financial markets mean that there is no desire on the part of Lending institutions right now to invest where there is much risk involved, burned as they are on the Frannie Mae, Friddie Mac stuff, and it turns out that they did not use TARP money to get those toxic assets of their books anyway. They are just sitting on the money; using it for to make their balance sheet look better.

And that is what 0bama administration is counting on because it wants to shut down every form of vision, progress, and development outside the purview of 0bamas ego.

Every time you pay your insurance premium, you are paying for the treatment currently available, but you are also paying you’re share for Research and Development. Something every other nation that “provides” health insurance is counting on, because advances in medical technology come almost from almost no other place but the United States of America.

Oct 14, 2009 - 6:36 pm 113. Mike Blackadder:

There is of course another explanation for what is lacking in Reich’s fictitious politician. Beyond any inability of real politicians to tell the electorate the whole truth there is the added difficulty that politicians do not know what they do not know.

The possibility that the politician and his administration is not competent enough to govern the ‘problem area’ has not occurred to him.

Humility is an essential component of honesty.

Oct 14, 2009 - 6:48 pm 114. bogie wheel:

“You first, bub,” should be the required first step of any new legislation … let the legislators be the guinea pigs for that law. 10-year trial. Then they can tell us how good/necessary/
inevitable/prudent it really is. That they are completely unwilling to do this sort of thing should be a big red flag to the voters. Sorry to say, not nearly enough of the voters are paying attention.

Re: near-end-of-life care … the priorities are going to differ by individuals and families as to how much to spend on health care in the declining & final years. What’s more is, people will spend more freely when they perceive that it’s not their own money being spent. (This has been discussed previously on BC with particular regard to the relationship between co-pay amounts and doctor visits.)

What this boils down to is, there will ALWAYS be tensions between people’s desires for what they consider “appropriate” amounts to be spent on that type of health care, versus insurance companies’ maintenance of the bottom line (they are businesses, after all).

But at least this system, for all its shortcomings, pushes the prioritizing on spending closer to the individual rather than away from the individual. Want a better insurance policy that will pay for more & fancier treatments? Then be prepared to pay for a better policy.

A government-controlled system is the worst possible response to the current system’s shortcomings because, in the zeal to make health care a one-size-fits-all “equal access,” “equal treatment” system, it completely steamrolls the differences between individuals and removes from them both the responsibility for and the consequences of the prioritization of their spending choices.

The standard criticism by the left of the current system is to bash the insurance companies for making an unacceptable level of profits by denying treatment to sick people. This charge is irresponsible and demagogic for at least a couple reasons. First, it plays on emotions … the tremendously strong emotional impact of being in bad health and needing care (or having a loved one in that situation), an emotional impact that will mean EVERYTHING to the individual during the time they are sick. Second, it exploits the average person’s ignorance of the big picture. The left throws the molotov and is never asked to explain: What constitutes obscene profits by a health insurance company? What is the profit margin of these companies relative to other industries? Can it be proven that the profit was made primarily by denial of treatment and/or claims, as opposed to other factors?

But back to W’s overall post, the thesis of which was Robert Reich’s claim that truth in politics is massively unwelcome and therefore unspeakable.

I really would like to know if Reich believes the “addicted to fantasy” characterization applies equally all Americans and has been true throughout American history … or whether he would acknowledge that (a) some Americans (maybe a minority, but still some) actually have a pretty hard-headed, reality-based view of life and what the government can and can’t deliver on, and therefore order their individual lives accordingly, and (b) that the unprecedented prosperity of post-WWII America was the soil in which “magical thinking” took root, which would mean this is a recent development and may well fall by the wayside should an era of prolonged scarcity or economic diminishment be upon us.

My opinion is that the most fantasy-addicted people tend to be, ahem, progressives. There is a core of the American population who can’t afford fantasy addiction, having been mugged by reality too many times. And there are squishes in the middle. There will always be squishes in the middle. That, too, seems to be one aspect of reality. Swing voters, like the poor, will always be with us.

But I don’t agree with blanket characterizations of the nation’s populace. When Arlen Specter said, during a local appearance, that the pols in DC *had* to earmark the bejesus out of every bill because everyone is looking for the handout, the score … he betrayed the mindset of a Beltway insider who has been among too many hustlers for too long. I get the same impression of Reich … too much time spent around too many fantasy-addicted elites. This may be an unfair characterization, but that’s the impression I get.

Oct 14, 2009 - 6:50 pm 115. Robert Reich describes the public option - Southern Maryland Community Forums:

[...] [...]

Oct 14, 2009 - 6:54 pm 116. bogie wheel:

OT but only a little … at least I hope I can bring this anecdote back around to the main discussion …

I just got back from a vacation in the boonies of West Virginia (though some might accuse me of being redundant), photographing fall foliage in several of the state parks. First thing this morning, I found myself driving through the tiny community of Cairo, just outside North Bend State Park. This is not *even* a one-stoplight town. There is no stoplight or even a stop sign, period. What constitutes main street is about the length of two football fields. The “town” is just a dust speck that, outside the center, dribbles out sporadically in the form of a dozen or so houses in either direction, with increasing distance between the properties the farther you get from the center.

And yet.

Drive through a place like this, or a thousand other American villages and small towns similar to it, while listening to Montgomery Gentry’s “My Town,” and I dare anyone to curl their lip at the Americans who dwell there.

It struck me, given the tenor of recent threads on BC, that should some of the darker scenarios come to pass, the bubbas of Cairo, WV (and the thousand other places similar to it) are not going to see nearly as much of an impact on their way of life as, for example, the Maureen Dowds or the Henry Louis Gateses. The “bitter clingers” don’t have far to fall; they are already dwelling close to the earth, both in terms of outlook and practical, necessary daily lifestyle. By comparison, the elites are the ones on the 110th floor of the Twin Towers ….

If “someone” has been deliberately engineering the upheaval of late … or even just taking raw and cynical advantage of the upheaval to stuff the trunk of the Bentley with as much gelt as can be got … this is not, it seems to me, a remarkably long-sighted strategy. Who suffers the most when TSHTF? The inhabitants of Cairo or the urban-dwelling, govt-dependent, fantasy-addicted constituents of the elites? Who suffers the most is where the greatest backlash will come from.

Why would any erstwhile intelligent pol effectively p*ss on his own base by setting them up for such a devastating fate? Don’t bother answering. That was a rhetorical question. Still, it is one of those things that make you go “hmmm.”

Oct 14, 2009 - 7:24 pm 117. Josh:

Mongoose @ 108: Are you talking about 1991 or 2003?

The “shock and awe” was the brilliant (not) idea of dropping big munitions outside Baghdad city limits, to show them what a big boom looks like. It was supposed to induce capitulation without fighting. It failed. Libya conceded after the entire campaign, not after the stupid fireworks demonstration.

You may forget just how awful and ugly Iraq looked until Petreus and “the surge”, which was really a change in tactics and ROE, the change in manpower was trivial. There were three years where we were looking increasingly ineffective – and this in a situation were LOOKING effective was almost more valuable than BEING effective.

The 1991 armor sweep by Schwarzkopf (sp?) was arguably well done, but the 2003 race to Baghdad was – competent. And launching the war without the 4ID that was not allowed through Turkey, was almost a killer. The whole thing was maybe a C+ to B- grade. I am a believer in most things that Rumsfeld tried, btw. I think it was mostly the senior Pentagon staff that served Bush rather poorly.

In war, good enough is a lot better than most of the alternatives, I’m not criticizing, but calling it brilliant is totally misinformed.

Oct 14, 2009 - 7:31 pm 118. ScenarioA:

“Although I may disagree with many of the public policy positions that Robert Reich takes, his point that the truth makes piss-poor politics seems valid.”

I strongly disagree. That it may seem to be valid reflects the current degenerate state of our politics and illustrates the reason why politics and politicians are held in such low esteem.

I have held public office and I fully understand the motivations to filter the truth so as to reduce the risk to carefully constructed and hard fought programs and nuanced policies. But on domestic affairs, truth telling is central to trust, and trust is essential to good governance.

On foreign affairs its different. There misdirection and deceptions are a necessary part of the game. To apply filters, shadings, misdirection, and deception in domestic politics is to treat ones own people as the enemy.

—

Mongoose@95. In my opinion, you wasted sainthood level patience on a closed mind.

Josh@105 and 117. On this issue, Mongoose@108 is entirely correct. You are dead wrong. To take only one example, “shock and awe” was used by Gen. Franks to achieve tactical surprise. It was very hard to achieve tactical surprise in that situation – two armies facing each other across the desert sand. By talking so much about the ’shock and awe’ – publicly building up the concept almost to the level of US handbook doctrine – and based on the memories from 1991, Gen. Franks led Saddam to believe that a similar ’shock and awe’ campaign would be surely precede any attack. It would be the signal for our attack. Then by attacking WITHOUT a ’shock and awe’ campaign, Gen. Franks caught the Iraqi units by surprise in the opening hours of the war. Saddam had taken the bait. With that deception Gen. Franks got inside Saddam’s OODA loop immediately and he stayed there all the way to Baghdad. A brilliant tactical campaign.

Oct 14, 2009 - 7:53 pm 119. steveaz:

Boghie @116,
You’ve hit the nail on the head again, dude. Loved your anecdotes about the invulnerability of rural America.

Now I gotta chime in…

So much of what passes for political hype is nothing but loud urban fashion. Be they in Paris, Chicago, New York or San Francisco, the folks that obsess over “second-hand smoke,” worry about “the uninsured,” and fret about the lack of “gay marriage” (BTW, I’ve never met an advocate of gay marriage that could maintain a monogamous relationship, much less entertain a single serious suitor), and tear-up cuz they saw a hawk eat a hummingbird are stuck mewling and pouting in the cities.

What does this mean? It means that they live in a maze of constant inconveniences, like traffic jams, rolling black-outs, terrorism threats, recycling laws and Bloomberg-esque scolds, but cannot muster the will to leave. Is it any wonder that they frolic in mental trivialities like postmodern fantasies about “hate crimes,” arrogate to themselves such labels as “creative classes,” and issue coded slanders for rural residents such as “rednecks” and “flyover country?”

And I haven’t even mentioned global warming yet. The urban mind is campused by such a myriad of confines, insults, fashions and frustrations, that all that’s left to it is to explode outward with an orgiastic mess of compensatory rage. The haze of wants, hurts and demands erupts inevitably into a child-like tantrum – and the MoDo’s, the Gores, the Reverend Sharptons, and the Vanity Fairs are their to amplify the children’s peals, tell them they’re right to fuss and fret but that they should stay put, and then sell them the next Gabanna hand-bag and Jimmy Chu shoes…I guess, because the kids’ll feel “better” about their plight if they own them.

It’s sad, really. And don’t think for a moment that a keen observer with a malignant interest isn’t taking notes. Men’s Health magazine now has 6 different perfume samples placed strategically among clips of chiseled abs and $280 dollar sweaters, all so that the caged urban male hominid can project an image of taut athleticism and cosmopolitan aesthetic past his overpriced apartment, maxed out credit cards and his sagging paunch. Should we wonder why it is that Al Qaida’s dirty bombs, the majority of homeland security funding and the Congressional Black Caucus’ racialist designs all target the same trapped demographic?

Can this all be mere coincidence? My hippie girlfriend tells me there’s no such thing!

Geez, you got me goin’ Boghie…I’ll stop here. Suffice it to say though, if I had a family of five, a modest savings account and an IRA, AND I lived in a rumbling, overcrowded “blue-choked” city, I’d be thinking really hard about making a clean escape. Even if it’s just to have a sanctuary ready for when the SHTF.
-Steve

Oct 14, 2009 - 8:04 pm 120. Papa Ray:

107 whiskey

“The step from Robert Reich, who feels that the majority of this nation has no call on its resources in time of economic trouble, instead various minority groups must come first (as Straight White Men are told to get to the Back of the Bus) is just a small step from Bill Ayers planning concentration camps to kill 25 million conservative White Americans.

This is the next step:

“Global New Deal”

Right after they Lock in Re-districting for democrats.

Papa Ray

Oct 14, 2009 - 8:57 pm 121. Jerry:

Nobody seems to understand Frederick Hayek and no one seems to have taken note of Naseem Taleeb.

What would happen if government stopped paying for Medicare, Medicaid, and prescriptions, and stopped legislating insurance mandates? My guess is that doctors would take whatever fees were offered or could be negotiated. Hospitals would mostly shut down and procedures would be limited to office, clinic and home. Surgery would be performed in what was left of hospitals paid for with money saved from insurance payments. Children and parents would learn a lot of medicine and administer that medicine in less crowded settings like home. Medical personnel not at the MD level would hire themselves out like cleaning crews. Folk medicine would be administered by elders in the family informed by readily available internet literature and readily available drugs that needed to find a market – like in Mexico. Research would return to university departments and remain in medical schools – funded by a capital rich country not being taken to the cleaners over medical bills.

This scenario follows the principle that if you want a garden but cannot afford to hire a gardener, then you will have to mow and rake all by yourself. You might want to make it a family task. Just think, the elders would remain useful and children would become useful. Those without families would develop support groups – like in the HIV community. Altruism is still a part of our genetic makeup, unless we decide to breed it out of our offspring.

Of course, medical care does not have to turn out in the manner I have described, but at the very least we should find a way to avoid authorizing the government to kills us when they see fit. Removing hope is removing the reason to live. Do we really want to give up hope, as well as freedom?

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:01 pm 122. Rich Reilly:

Save the money (world-wide) being unnecessarily funneled into Global Warming/Climate Change nonsense, pour it into especially promising, potentially transforming cancer research (eg LIFT and CSC). I have followed cancer research and sense there is a lot of uncoordinated spending on incrementally beneficial projects. There are researchers sitting on boards at Universities who don’t know what the person next to them is working on.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:09 pm 123. Josh:

ScenarioA – I have no recollection at all of events that match your description. I will Google for some facts later, and apologize if I find you are correct. If you have any links, please supply them.

It sounds to me like someone has constructed some kind of screwy revisionist history of what happened in 2003.

OK, a little quick Googling, … to Wikipedia … aha. “Shock and Awe” as a doctrine (as described in Wikipedia), is one thing. But what we *did* in 2003 is not that. We (or, the press?) called the dropping of pointless demonstration bombs “shock and awe”. That is what we did, and that is what failed.

OK?

Was it “brilliant” not to attack in keeping with this doctrine? Or did we? Wiki suggests it is – unclear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_Awe#Conflicting_post-war_assessments
To what extent the United States fought a campaign of shock and awe is unclear as post-war assessments are contradictory.

Again, I’m not even referring to that, but to something else entirely I clearly recall was referred to in the press by this term.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:20 pm 124. wretchard:

In what areas do you disagree, or is it just the way he phrased his comments?

Let’s try them one at a time.

Reich believed a solution in Iraq was going to be tough. He was right, but making the tough decision was in fact the key to creating a feasible solution. I never understood why anyone would think that leaving Saddam where he was served the cause of stability. He headed a Sunni dictatorship ruling over a Shi’ite majority with a rebellious Kurdish community that was suppressed at whiles with poison gas. The whole was barel contained by a hugely expensive no fly zone which leaked anyway. Strategically toppling saddam was the right thing to do, not only because it created an ally where there was a former foe, but because it potentially provided the US with the key to Iran. Whatever Baghdad’s faults it now provides another governance model for the Shi’a. As one Australian general officer put it: history had stopped with Saddam and it has started again.

Reich makes an number of points about health care which I will address as a unit.

* Treating more sick people will mean younger people will pay more.
* It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life “so we’re going to let you die”.
* If we use government to control costs there will be “less innovation” in medical technology and you should not expect to live much longer than your parents.

Robert Fogel, the 1993 Nobel in economics who argued that spending more on health care is the natural consequence of a rich and aging society. I wrote in an earlier post that “An aging but still functional society, in Fogels apparent view, would naturally demand more health care than skateboards, but for so long as they can sustainably pay for it through a well functioning market, there is no need to suppress demand. On contrary, health care will be one of the fundamental demand drivers of technology for biotechnology and other new industries way into the 21st century. In the long struggle between man versus death, humanity, having basically beaten starvation and cold, would naturally turn its efforts to fighting old age and disease.”

Fogel points out that while absolute health care costs will increase, if the economy booms over the same time and technology becomes more cost-effective the situation of the next generation may not necessarily worse. “Consequently, there is no need to suppress the demand for healthcare. Expenditures on healthcare are driven by demand, which is spurred by income and by advances in biotechnology that make health interventions increasingly effective. Just as electricity and manufacturing were the industries that stimulated the growth of the rest of the economy at the beginning of the 20th century, healthcare is the growth industry of the 21st century. It is a leading sector, which means that expenditures on healthcare will pull forward a wide array of other industries including manufacturing, education, financial services, communications, and construction.”

There are reasonable grounds for disagreeing with Robert Reich on the health care issue.

Let’s turn to “Global Warming”. He thinks that Global warming can only be tackled by a carbon tax which is going to cost you a lot of money. Now first of all it is not clear that the AGW model has been proved to the point where we can base public policy on it. The science is not settled. The models have no real predictive power. The BBC noted that the last 11 yeas have shown no temperature increases despite the predicts that they would. There is no compelling interest in throwing trillions at a model which not even be right.

Second, I don’t think the AGW people have really considered the human and environmental costs of a carbon tax. A tax will diminish global economic activity and cost Third World citizens their jobs. It will throw people out of the cities onto the land; and increase poverty which will probably drive up the birthrate. Prosperous societies not only have lower birthrates but better institutional wherewithal to manage the environment. Unless the real purpose of a carbon tax is to force people to consume less, ie be poorer, I am not convinced that a carbon tax will confer any real benefits upon the environment.

I have watched ‘environmental’ groups oppose forest plantations because they were ‘money-making’, ‘industrial’ and ‘capitalist’. But forest plantations are counterintuitively good for the natural forest, good for the environment and fill the demand for natural wood with farmed timber. They use existing road networks and keep people in cities. The right kind of industrial development can actually help the environment. For those reasons, I think the West will probably have to bribe or coerce Third World countries into accepting their carbon taxes. You have to pay people to be poor.

Reich says, “We’re going to have to pay teachers more for quality education — costing you more — but we have to
be willing to fire the turkeys despite the unions.” Paying teachers more is only part of the solution. The other part is to give parents real choices by making their tax-derived tuition money portable. The best way to make turkeys dry and blow away is to give parents the ability not to patronize their schools.

He says, “Anyone who does an unskilled, repetitive job will lose it in the near future to outsourcing or
automation. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. A minimum wage doesn’t help as much as an earned income tax credit. Helping people at the bottom earn more is going to cost higher income people more money. Medicare will bankrupt the nation unless something is done and will impoverish the youth.”

The differential between American and foreign labor at all levels will probably tend to equalize, but if all economies continue to grow, then the absolute levels of wealth can increase for everyone. Reich comes near enough to the idea when he says “the best way to ameliorate global poverty is to do away with farm subsidies”. The point is not to fear the market but to use it.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:24 pm 125. Lifeofthemind:

Change happens at an interface. Inside the traditional envelope of activity is where things are tested and reliable or at least predictable. Change is by definition “cutting edge” and therefor beyond general actuarial rationality. That is why in a healthy market economy a small number of wealthy people are willing to pay for high risk innovative treatments. The changes that they pay for either fail to work, to bad for the dead old rich guy, or result in improvements that improve service at a lower ongoing cost for everyone.

This model applies to all forms of technical innovation. Automotive engineering benefited from enthusiasts and race car fans. The internet benefited from the expenditures of sexual adventurers and foolish rich people willing to pay an outrageous amount for tobacco created the trade networks that created America. None of these innovations were justifiable as an economic good or a moral good, if the time static interests of the whole society are used to justify the expenses that individuals were willing to incur.

Reich and Zeke Emanuel evaluating whether a treatment for Grandma is rational based on what the society as a whole could do with the money misses the point. It shouldn’t be society that decides but Grandma and her family. It shouldn’t be society that pays but Grandma and her family.

Young liberals always defend seatbelt laws by pointing out that people foolish enough not to use them get injured and then “we all have to pay.” If I respond by asking “Why?” they accuse me of wanting to shut down the municipal hospitals and the Public Health Service. Then they laugh like they were remembering a particularly fun Professor. There is no connection between the existence of a public hospital and the imposition of a control over private conduct, and if there was I would prefer the freedom of private conduct and hope that if I needed it I could benefit from the freely offered charity of my neighbors. Of course the same young people who feel entitled to sit in judgement on the conduct of others will engage in every self indulgent form of risky behavior that offers itself to them. If I am driving the car you will use your seatbelt, because I told you to.

Oct 14, 2009 - 9:37 pm 126. Subotai Bahadur:

#123 Josh

I am deliberately NOT involving myself in the core issues of your discussion with ScenarioA; but I would like to offer one thought. Whenever you are having a dispute, especially on any subject that has been the center of a political controversy between TWANLOC and Patriots, anything with the letters WIKI in the title is not a safe resource to cite. Being infinitely, and untraceably editable for political effect and with no standards for accuracy it does not help either side’s case to cite it. It may be good enough for our state-controlled media [literally the source for the slanders and libels of Rush Limbaugh over his attempt to invest in the St. Louis Rams, cited by the media] but that does not protect them from the coming “Tortious interference” charges [far more serious than slander or libel http://www.lectlaw.com/def/i084.htm ] that I hope will be filed; however most reputable schools will not accept it as a resource.

This is not an attack on you or on either position in the discussion; it is an attack on what are basically sites promising reliable information and feeding people the propaganda of whoever got to it last.

Subotai Bahadur

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:50 pm 127. Bob Smith:

We’re going to have to pay teachers more for quality education

This is so unutterably stupid and wrong I don’t know where to begin.

Helping people at the bottom earn more is going to cost higher income people more money

It seems to me that’s only true if you’re stealing that money from the high income people. Why would you do that?

Oct 14, 2009 - 10:59 pm 128. RagnarD:

dla @ 32 said: “* Anyone who does an unskilled, repetitive job will lose it in the near future to outsourcing or automation. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. – One of the greatest failures in technology has been robotics – imagine the changes in society if robotics followed the same growth path as personal computers”

Uh, how do you think those chips get made? With the ultra-fine line widths? (13nm and falling) Robots are integral. Humans in the process make too much dirt for them to be anywhere near a wafer.

Be cautious when you do not know what the heck you are talking about. BTW, the idea that robots are R2D2 is just brain dead. They are more like a machine that does a boring repetitive task with more quality and accuracy than a human ever could and frees the human to do what they do best(in most cases) = think.

Otherwise, bang on post, dla.

Don Rodrigo @ 45 said (in part): “A life of toil in the service of the State, followed by the glue factory.”

Heh, reminded me what Soylent Green really was!

The drudges (not Drudge, but the dull people) think that life is pain and dreary. They are so sad. It can always be a wonder. If you have certain beliefs.

I think that Reich has some points but you have to accept his worldview and I do not. I think he is dead wrong on almost everything.

Oct 14, 2009 - 11:32 pm 129. Langley:

The original Belmont Club must have been wonderful.

I DO envy you.

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:19 am 130. ScenarioA:

Josh
No need to apologize, this is an issue which has been confused by the anti-war crowd and ignored or distorted in the media. You might recall the climate of the time. General Shinseki had given congressional testimony that we needed a far larger force than Gen Franks had put together – that to go to war with the forces available to Gen. Franks was sure to lead to disaster. The media was reporting on academic historians who were predicting that Bush would meet the same kind of defeat as that experienced by Hitler at Stalingrad. Antiwar blogs went wild with the “Baghdad = Stalingrad” meme. (A two word Bing search – “Baghdad, Stalingrad” – brings up 87,000 hits).

The term “shock and awe” applies to the air war that precedes a ground campaign – the softening up with air before committing ground troops. It was a big deal in 1991. It was talked up as a big deal in early 2003, but, Gen. Franks innovation was to start the ground campaign without a prior softening up by air. No “shock and awe” at all. Not a bit. It never happened in 2003.

The Wiki article on the subject provides a great example of why Wiki cannot be trusted. That article is confusing nonsense – at the 100% level.

Below are 3 credible sources which describe how Gen. Franks achieved tactical surprise and got inside Saddam’s OODA loop.

1. In a press briefing on April 1, 2003, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said: “General Franks — and for the benefit of our troops — wanted to protect tactical surprise. How do you protect tactical surprise when you have 250,000 troops surrounding Iraq on D-day? How do you do that? Well, you do it by the method he did it: by having the types of forces — you do it by starting the ground war first, air war second. Do you think there was tactical surprise? I think there was.

http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/dod-rumsfeldmyers-040103.htm

2. Fred Barnes, in an article entitled “How Tommy Franks won the Iraq war”, June 2, 2003 wrote: “There’s a debate over whether operational (or strategic) surprise was attained–that is, something approaching total surprise of the Pearl Harbor variety. Franks thinks it was. Even though Saddam Hussein was aware of the gradual military buildup just outside Iraq, he was led to believe an attack was weeks away at the earliest and might still be averted altogether. The strongest evidence of operational surprise is that the Iraqi army neither went on the attack nor mounted a serious defense of any region, installation, or city, Baghdad included.”

http://theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/722iittz.asp

3. In his book “American Soldier” General Franks discusses his strategy in some detail.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Soldier-General-Tommy-Franks/dp/0060731583

4. Trainor and Gordon’s unfair and distorted attacks on Gen. Franks have been used as source material in other wiki articles. In my view, they show limited comprehension of what actually went on, but even they give credit to Gen Franks for achieving surprise:
“… the idea of beginning the air war and the ground war simultaneously was an important innovation that allowed the U.S. to achieve tactical surprise and I think General Franks deserves credit for that.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june06/intel_3-17.html

Bottom line – the left blogs and the media were anticipating a Stalingrad level disaster. Instead, Gen. Franks, with roughly half the force Shinseki had claimed was needed, won a brilliant victory in the drive to Baghdad. For that, he has never been forgiven.

If I have been too strident in my language, please accept my apology. I have intended to be very clear about the facts with the issue, but certainly not to insult. I have valued our discussions.

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:26 am 131. dtmack:

Reich makes good points about the “have your cake and eat it too” lies that are necessary to succeed in politics. That works as long as it’s remotely plausible.

In the near future many of our Countrymen, probalby including myself, will be forced to go through some pretty tough times and make a lot of sacrifices. Those who are doing so now are just the vanguard.

The real question is, once the current crop of lies become implausible, what “narrative” will take their place? That’s the million dollar question, on which hangs our future destiny.

Oct 15, 2009 - 2:14 am 132. Rob:

Thanks for providing the context. Not that it makes his views any more palatable, but presenting a quote out of context is not only unfair, it’s deceptive.

Part of leadership is telling people the hard truths, that you can’t get something for nothing.

We have very few leaders in politics today.

So I agree with Reich on his point. I’ll mark it on my calendar

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:08 am 133. Doug:

An interesting time to die

I’m going to die soon, and I want my death to be a fulfilling experience, not a technological failure.

My major regrets are that I will know less about the future than I want to, particularly concerning my children and grandchildren, and that so many unanswered questions still pop into my head during my long sleepless hours at night. Why does taste change during illness? Why does pancreatic cancer have a much worse outcome than other cancers? Why can’t people have a rational discussion about assisted dying? Why can’t assisted dying be available in Britain for those who want it as a choice? And why, oh why is the BMA opposed to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia?

Surely by now our culture has developed enough humanity to provide the choice and still protect the vulnerable.

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:18 am 134. Thursday Highlights | Pseudo-Polymath:

[...] An item list for good discussions. [...]

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:56 am 135. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e89v4:

[...] An item list for good discussions. [...]

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:58 am 136. tomw:

A comment above mentioned the citizenry of the large “blue” cities, and the expected hardships they would undergo in a time of trial.

Does anyone remember New Orleans in 2005 after hurricane Katrina? Utter chaos.

Reich should be castigated regularly for his dishonesty. He uses his wit and geniality to sell his lies. What a waste of talent.

tom

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:07 am 137. blogstrop:

Noel Pearson of Cape York, Queensland, Australia, made it possible for politicians to tell the truth about indigenous people needing to take more responsibility for their own subsidised but degraded lives. Some politicians have used this to try for change, others have reverted to playing the race card or the human rights joker.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:15 am 138. Rick,Greenville,SC:

WoW!! Lots of good reading in these comments.Actual discussion going on(except for poor citizen=politically correct). This stuff must be too deep for the trolls- they seem to be staying away.I also believe that in the end, if TSHTF, the elitists, both left and right, will be the ones to disappear-a possible natural cleansing of the system? Chemotherapy of the country, to destroy the cancer,perhaps. If we can just survive the treatment. . . .

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:16 am 139. shaun:

Richard:

I find it extraordinarily hypocritical that you blather on day after day about what you perceive to be the Orwellian aspects of the Obama health-care reform plan as an Australian with as fine a government-run program as exists.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:23 am 140. Jerry:

If society becomes poorer – less opportunity to become well-to-do or middle class – then there is no point to improved education. Let’s just make the teachers poorer too, so that running society simply becomes less expensive.

Moreover, poverty can be used to improve the environment by decreasing the population. There is, of course, an inverted U-curve in which populations increase as poverty increases, but there is a drop off of population when a certain point in poverty is reached. People will find children a burden and will stop having them so they can eat. We can move the whole curve to the left(figuratively and literally) by paying people sums of money to accept sterilization. With decreased school populations, education will cost less and we can pay for our senior citizens’ health care until they hit the grave naturally. Look, we can even encourage the use of Vodka as a population control device just as they are doing in Russia today – average life span 59-62. Such a procedure will solve our Social Security problem, with fewer people reaching the age of receipt of benefits; and then we get to keep the benefits they paid into the system. We will then be in the enviable position of being able to reforest great swaths of America without forcing people into the cities, which we can slowly convert back into grasslands and forest.

There are so many ways to manipulate people to make the world a more socialized, humane environment. Let us start now with the productive middle class so that we can prevent any recidivism to reliance on wealth as a source of happiness and technological progress.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:27 am 141. 3rd Reich:

I can not believe any of you are reading this mans dribble.

50 million of we seniors deserve the $250.00 dollar government handout we will get just before Christmas.

That money is real,
not a fantasy.

The democrats would never try to buy our votes.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:49 am 142. 3rd Reich::

this is great.

the ability to change/edit our comments should be an FCC mandatory regulation.

yo..

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:55 am 143. Paul -Indiana:

Reich has expressed the basic beliefs of the group that wants to ‘improve’ your health care. Vote them out in the next election.

Oct 15, 2009 - 6:34 am 144. » Blog Archive » Quote of the day - Richard Fernandez:

[...] Richard Fernandez, October 14th, 2009 Feel free to share this with others: [...]

Oct 15, 2009 - 6:53 am 145. HEPT:

What Mr. Riech said was basically what Heinlein said in one of his books long ago, “TANSTAAFL”.
(there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch)
There is a need for medicare and other programs to ensure older American’s are not thrust into poverty at retirement and for the unfortunate disabled citizens a worse life than could be had with financial assistance.
You cannot pull down the young to support the old yet it cheapens and coarsens life to allow the poor, elderly and disabled to suffer. To not help the unfortunate still requires the young to pay to support their parents with their own money or to allow them to die.
I have no solution for the situation myself.

Oct 15, 2009 - 7:06 am 146. Josh:

ScenarioA, thank you for the clarifications. I’m glad we can discuss things here. I have no problems with any of the facts that you describe. I think, overall, the “light” force tactics imposed by Rumsfeld proved out, and we did win against all conventional forces very quickly. Not but that there were of course some glitches, and we need to see these and learn from them – as there will be more occassions to do similar things again.

But I don’t see you commenting on the events that I recall, which the press called “shock and awe” even though it had NOTHING to do with the defense college doctrine. Do you recall these events? Wait, I’ll bet there’s a Youtube on it … heck, here’s the entire search. What do you think of that?

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shock+and+awe+baghdad&search_type=&aq=0&oq=shock+and+awe

(and yes of course I do not believe much of anything on Wikipedia, but it was only indicating a general definition, which was in agreement with what was being argued to me)

Oct 15, 2009 - 7:55 am 147. Lifeofthemind:

The rule in lifesaving is never let a drowning person grab a hold on you. They will pull you under. The fact is that we are mortal, at the end we all are out of money, time , hope and life. As the end approaches people will get increasingly desperate and will demand an infinite level of support from all around them. If they were prudent, productive and lucky then they will have money, there is never enough because the end is never what is desired, to extend life and mitigate the suffering. If they were also loving and decent and lucky then they will have friends and family to comfort them and help them obtain medical and other assistance.

The best way to increase the resources available to the elderly and to their friends and family is to unchain the economy and reduce the role of government. To chain the economy and expand the government in the name of providing health care, or food or clothing or shelter, is akin to allowing the drowning person to kill the rescuer.

The bitter irony is that the Democrats in the government both use the fear that the elderly feel to push for expanded government control, first through Social Security then through Medicare and later through expanded financial regulations, and then decide that the elderly are not worth saving. What has happened is that people who spent their entire productive lives, over 60 years, expanding a system that transferred wealth from the productive members of society to the elderly with ever increasing promises of support are now seeing those benefits diverted to new constituencies, such as illegal immigrants. Unfortunately for those who supported and relied on the Social Security/Medicare system the wealth that has been diverted to these wasteful Ponzi schemes is no longer available to strengthen the economy and support the elderly.

Oct 15, 2009 - 7:56 am 148. Lifeofthemind:

Instead of calling this miracle “Loaves and Fishes” I would call it “Bait and Switch.”

*Edit said I didn’t have permission to add this to my last comment.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:04 am 149. Paul -Indiana:

Just in case it has been overlooked. That SS money was TAKEN from our paychecks. It belongs to US!!!!

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:05 am 150. Is American Histroy Safe from teachers? « VotingFemale Friends Speak!:

[...] Belmont Club » The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes [...]

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:12 am 151. bogie wheel:

Actually, Paul … the money that was taken from your paycheck went to somebody else in years past. That $250 or COLA that is “yours” is being taken from my paycheck as we speak.

As a Gen X-er, I would love to opt out of the SS system altogether. I will forfeit any claim to collect in the future (as if there would be anything anyway, ha) in exchange for the Beltway Bandits keeping their grubby paws off my paycheck, now and henceforth.

I would even go for a phased opt-out. But NOBODY wants to budge one inch on this; everybody wants 100% of what they believe is “theirs.” Guess what, folks? Reality says, not everyone can get 100% of what they want. Everyone is going to have to give up something, and that something will hurt like h*ll. The alternative is outright generational warfare … which I don’t think any of us wants to see, given how ugly that could get. Xers are screwed demographically anyway, we don’t have the numbers to push “our” agenda. This is between the Boomers and the Millenials.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:15 am 152. trangbang68:

I had the opposite experience from Bogie Wheel last week. I spent three days in Detroit. It was utterly frightening. The thin veneer of civilization is stretched so tautly that it wouldn’t take much to burst the dam. While there ,there were insufficient stimulus funds for a give away and near rioting. Detroit is a miner’s canary for social disorder as local economies cave in.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:18 am 153. AST:

I’m not sure whether I admire Reich for his brutal honesty here or despise him more for his hypocrisy. The argument that politics forces people to be dishonest is an abdication of leadership. Americans have become used to promises that are never kept, but the fault is their own, because they continue to vote for the most extravagant promisers, not the most honest.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:28 am 154. Paul -Indiana:

#151. You might be correct in that, but my money was taken and it’s owed to me. I had no choice in the matter.

Oct 15, 2009 - 9:38 am 155. Subotai Bahadur:

#133 Doug

I may have mentioned this story before, but given the times it may bear repeating. If a government controls all health care, it guarantees that at the level where it counts, even more than the “evil” private insurance companies, that the ones making the decisions on what the doctors can do or not do will view the patient as a statistic and a nuisance rather than a human being to be cared for. And their unaccountable decisions are made with absolute impunity. If a private insurance company screws over a patient, there is the option of both appeals to regulatory boards and to the court system. On a larger scale, a company that abuses its customers will soon find that it has none. A government-run health care system is protected by layers of bureaucracy from accountability, by sovereign immunity from suit, and the implied and actual threat of retaliation by other branches of the government if complaints are pressed. The patient is a distraction for the bureaucracy, to be processed as quickly and cheaply as possible, with no concern for either quality of care or their essential humanity.

The British system is long past the point where patient care is a concern.

One of my daughters spent a term in London studying as part of her degree program. She is diabetic, and while there came down with a kidney infection that threw her into diabetic ketoacidosis. Think coma. For the record, I will note that I “speak medical” having worked in ER’s before putting on a state badge, and some years of that time with a badge was spent in charge of a Maximum Security medical facility and I do understand standards of care.

She was taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in Kensington, which was near where her school’s London Centre was located. It was at the time one of the newest, if not the newest, hospital in Britain. Its catchment area is Kensington, which is by its nature includes the upper crust or those who want to be but who cannot afford the private hospitals available to the wealthy.

The care in what we would call the ER was up to standard, but then again DKA is easily diagnosed and treatable [until she got things under control, we had a lot of experience with it]. She was placed after that in the ICU for a day where she was stabilized. They wanted to observe her blood sugars, potassium, and calcium levels for a time after the ICU before releasing her, and make sure the infection was getting under control. The main problem in ER and ICU was the difficulty in finding someone who spoke English fluently. Most of the staff other than doctors were Pakistani, and there were some problems. But the actual quality of care seemed within acceptable standards.

British hospitals, even new ones, do not have private or semi-private rooms. They still have open wards like an old fashioned barracks. They had no beds in a women’s ward, lack of hospital beds being an endemic problem in any state controlled medical system. They put her in a geriatric men’s ward. Where she saw Brit medicine up close.

She was awake, aware, and oriented X 3, just weak. Next to her in the open ward was a man on a ventilator. Late in the evening, a doctor and group of flunkies came to his bed. There was only a thin curtain separating them, and she could hear what happened clearly.

The doctor told the patient that if they put him in the ICU it would probably not help him. And that there was no one to take care of him if they sent him home. So that they were going to have to turn off the ventilator, and that he would be dead within a couple of hours.

Then they did it. The man fought for his life, trying to keep them from removing the breathing tube, and trying to scream. It was in vain. They forceably removed the ventilator tube, took the machine and left. And yes, for the next hour or so the entire ward listened to him choke to death.

The chilling thing was that the Brits there took it as normal.

Across the aisle from my daughter was a man in his eighties who had broken his hip. Somehow, he had survived the two year waiting period for the surgery. Most don’t, as when someone elderly is bedridden that long they tend to throw thrombi [blood clots] that kill them. During the surgery, the anesthesiologist had let him come up too much, his gag reflex had kicked in, and he had vomited. He aspirated some of the vomitus, and had aspiration pneumonia. It is treatable, but it takes effort and resources to treat. The Brit National Health Service did not think it was worth it. So they were letting him die.

My daughter got the story from the man’s wife who was at his bedside every moment that they allowed. Late at night, my girl heard something across the aisle. The man sat up, looked her straight in the eyes, and croaked out; “I’m dying”. He then collapsed back on the bed. After no small effort, she got a nurse there. He did not die that night. He lasted until the next day.

Like most parents, I have tried with no small success to shield my kids from violence and death as they grew up. This was despite the fact of my career field. But she was my daughter and inherited more than a little of my bloodymindedness.

Brit doctors use 3rd year medical students like we use interns. Her doctor was taking a long weekend holiday, and left the student in charge. All they were doing was monitoring her serum levels, and giving her oral antibiotics [she was prescribed a 7 day course, for what we would have prescribed at least 14, which is one way the Brits save money on patient care. She had an infection relapse when she got home, but we could get her real medical care to take care of it.] So the next morning, she physically cornered the med student and left him in no doubt that if she was not given the rest of her meds to take with her and released, there would be consequences that would involve the medical student being on the recieving end of care.

They released her, no doubt with a number of comments about pushy Americans. She walked the mile or so to the London Centre, fortunately running into some friends part way there who helped her back.

Proponents of the NHS probably would like to jump in and say, “well, at least it was free.”. No bloody way. Before she went over there, to get her student visa we were required by HM government to buy a specific and expensive insurance policy to cover her over there. Since she was there less than a year, and was not a Brit subject or taxpayer covered by their NHS; that was more than fair. It was supposed to cover anything medical. After she got back, we got a bill from the Chelsea and Westminister Healthcare Trust and HM government. It was 4 figures, and in pounds. We went back and forth, and it turned out that “anything” included the ER and the ICU, but they were charging for the day and a fraction she was in the ward.

She ended up getting a sub-standard version of the same care that any indigent person would get with the same condition coming to any American ER. And this was the best that the vaunted government health care system could do, and what she saw them do to Brits makes one wonder what would have happened if she had not been an American.

And you have to wonder what has been done to the British people that they would meekly accept being murdered by their doctors. It is worse now. They have the “Liverpool Plan” that now makes what happened to Terry Schiavo the norm for an appreciable fraction of hospitalized Brit elderly, except they are not in a coma as they are starved.

This is Wretchard’s house. Every time I tell the story of what happened to my daughter, I really want to use words that break the informal code of conduct here. Let it suffice to say, that those feelings transfer to those who would bring that abomination to our shores and impose it on us. Americans do not lightly let their families be murdered by bureaucrats.

#139 Shaun

I will grant that the Australian system is better than the Brits. A not uncommon situation in all things. But that does not mean that it is as good as it should be.

I have an online acquaintance at another blog who is an Aussie. His wife had a specific complication post surgery during her recovery. I will not go into the details, but I am familiar with the necessary course of treatment. It includes an ICU, immediately. And in this country, it would have been so. They had to wait almost a week to find an ICU bed. Fortunately, she made it. She could have died in a matter of minutes at any time during the wait. As an American, I see Australia as being closer to what happened to my daughter in Britain than to acceptable medical care.

In our small town, we have a hospital that to be honest has a terrible reputation based on it acting like it was government run. The money goes to Admin and luxuries for the paper pushers, rather than patient care. Yet, it is literally light years ahead of the best and newest Brit hospitals in staffing, technology, and quality of treatment. I see no reason to destroy what we have already to please the totalitarians of the Left.

Subotai Bahadur

Oct 15, 2009 - 9:45 am 156. elby:

That it benefits politicians to promise pie-in-the-sky and avoid hard choices is a given. What this country has been missing for 40 years is an independent media to call them on it. Leftists get a pass, while conservatives are raked over the coals, when hard choices are made. Just now, it was announced that there would be no cost of living increase for social security recipients. Because this happened undera leftist administration, not much will be made of it. Had it happened under a certain previous president who shall not be named, the shrieking would have been deafening.

This unbalance has severely distorted politics and governance. The Republicans behave like Dhimmies, afraid to step out of lines drawn by the cabal of leftists in the media, Hollywood, academia and the vast numberless beauracracy in DC. They can play in their little playpen, but are severely restricted in what they can accomplish or even say.

By the way, good news, half a million people lost their jobs last month.

Oct 15, 2009 - 9:46 am 157. bogie wheel:

trangbang –

I read about that. They ran out of applications and the people still waiting in line for the apps (supposedly to receive $3K in stimulus $)went berserk.

Going along with Robert Reich’s characterization of the fantasy-addicted, let’s acknowledge that there are at least three parties taking hits off the fantasy bong:

1. Those who believe that they “can” and/or “deserve to” get something for nothing or next to nothing (that “something” being taken via coercion from their neighbor).
2. Those who make (note, I did not say “earn”) a living administering the handouts to Group #1.
3. Those who make a living dreaming up the theories and/or passing the laws executed by Group #2.

There you have it, a parasite trifecta.

The U.S. government has roughly 17.7 million FT or PT employees. The 50 states have roughly 5.1 million FT or PT employees. I have no figures for county & city employees, but let’s just round off the figures on the low end and say that government employees in the United States number approx. 23 million, out of a total population of 281 million. That’s 8.2% of the population, or roughly 1 in every 12 people in the U.S.

That’s right. Americans are so gob-smackingly, droolingly stupid and incompetent that we need 1 of every 12 of us to hector, nanny, coerce and spoon-feed the remaining 11, lest society utterly implode and the sky start bleeding from all the gob-smacking, drooling stupidity from sea to shining sea.

OR … you could say that it’s the persistent habit of being hectored, nannied, coerced & spoon-fed that eventually produces a mindset of gob-smacking, drooling stupidity. As a local radio host says, “Liberalism *always* produces the exact opposite of its stated intention.” Thus, the system supposedly set up to prevent citizen idiocy and societal implosion ends up producing precisely that.

I damn near weep when I think of the wealth, productivity and human potential that has been squandered by this system for the past two-plus generations. America is Gulliver, tied down by Lilliputians. Sadder still, the Lilliputians are us, too. We have done this to ourselves. We are still doing this to ourselves, and we will continue to waste our prosperity and our human capital until … until …

I don’t know how to finish that sentence.

God help those few remaining productive folks in Detroit.

Oct 15, 2009 - 9:51 am 158. tanstaafl:

Although I may disagree with many of the public policy positions that Robert Reich takes…

Like this one ?

Robert Reich: Obama Economic Advisor, January 2009

Talking about all the jobs (haha) that will be created under infrastructure spending plans…

“I am concerned that these jobs not go to…white male construction workers.”

Reich strikes me as much of an ideologue and social engineer as John Holdren and George Soros.

Oct 15, 2009 - 10:00 am 159. bogie wheel:

Paul @ 154 –

Believe me, I definitely get the “no choice” part, being in the same boat myself.

What I’m trying to say (and I may not have expressed it very well before) is, what was taken from you is gone. Spent. The “it” that was taken from you does not exist anymore. You cannot get back what doesn’t exist anymore.

Yes, that is a direct result of politicians making promises they knew they could not keep, in the course of trolling for votes to increase their own power and line their own pockets. D*mn them all to h*ll for that.

But the critical question is, what to do now?

Paying “it” to you now necessitates taking yet more “it” from someone else, either in the form of direct taxation or government borrowing. Did the 2-year-old kid playing with his toy cars on the kitchen floor take “it” from you? Of course not. Then why should that 2-year old be the one to have to re-pay “it” to you? Because that is what is happening, and what will continue to happen. It is, in a word, unsustainable.

It is also unjust.

The Great American Ponzi Scheme.

Yes, it stinks.

A *LOT* of people are owed a lot of $$ they will never collect on, because the Ponzi scheme only remunerates the handful at the top. In the case of SS, that would be those who collected first from the system, from its inception until about now. Now, the cuts and defaults and broken promises are going to start cascading, and everyone who has been paying in but not collecting is SOL.

Oct 15, 2009 - 10:08 am 160. tanstaafl:

Robert Reich writes on his blog, January 2009:

The Stimulus: How to Create Jobs Without Them All Going to Skilled Professionals and White Male Construction Workers

The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools. And it will kick-start alternative, non-fossil based sources of energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and so on); new health-care information systems; and universal broadband Internet access.

It’s a two-fer: lots of new jobs, and investments in the nation’s future productivity.

How’s that stimulus thing working out, Bobby ?

Most of the “new jobs” that have been “created” thus far with stimulus spending are, reportedly, government jobs.

Look for the valve on this administration’s slush fund, aka the Porkulus, to really open up next year prior to 2010 elections.

Oct 15, 2009 - 10:23 am 161. dan:

Reich is a capital-S Socialist. I listen to him 3 or 4 times a week during his NPR Marketplace commentary. There is no problem, according to him, that cannot be corrected by more state intervention. But since Socialism is only tangentially about economics and the objective economic conditions are what they so famously are, it actually gains him a novel kind of credit to Stop Lying for 10 minutes and just state the obvious. Besides, it’s not as though anyone will ever Hold him to these comments anyway.

Everyone asking for a handout or for something they did not earn or inherit knows what they are doing – everyone. Why do they do it? Because they are assholes. The End.

Oct 15, 2009 - 10:50 am 162. RWE:

Wretchard #124: “It is a leading sector, which means that expenditures on healthcare will pull forward a wide array of other industries including manufacturing, education, financial services, communications, and construction.”

Note that there seems to be no concern over the health care used for breast augmentation, plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons, sex changes, etc. And yet, under the arguments advanced by the Left such elective surgeries must reduce the care available for everyone, because it is their usual “zero sum game.” Recently a public health care advocate in Canada decried the increasing number of doctors going into private practice there because “It does not add capability; it takes away from the health care available for everyone.” The possibillity that those Canadian doctors and nurses might just get disgusted and quit to take up growing rudabagas instead does not occur to her.

The health care debate is not about health care at all. It is about who pays for it. They cannot explain why some people get it for free, or nearly so, and others have to pay the whole bill.

But I think it only a matter of time once a public option is established in the U.S. before people start decrying the “wasted” health care spent on such elective procedures, even if the paitent pays for every dime. Imagine them trying to explain to someone waiting a year or more for a hip operation why the 19 year old girl next door got in to have a boob job on a week’s notice.

Oct 15, 2009 - 11:07 am 163. bvw:

I agree with whiskey that these are not truths, rather it is a pledge of allegiance.

I agree with dla on his points, and would go further — the truth is closer to the opposite position on every one of Reich’s claims.

I agree with old_soldier that the core of Reich’s “truth” is the world view of life as zero-sum.

Life is not zero sum. I thought Maxwell demonstrated that with his laws of entropy? Entropy being a different formulation of “zero sum”. I mean by inference — if the physical world is in thrall wholly to entropy, there could be no life. Life is anti-entropic. One iconic reference of this is “The Cornucopia of Liberty”.

Oct 15, 2009 - 11:10 am 164. bogie wheel:

Everyone asking for a handout or for something they did not earn or inherit knows what they are doing – everyone. Why do they do it? Because they are assholes. The End.

dan –

it’s even worse than that. The sense of entitlement is so deep and pervasive that when the goodies are not delivered, increasingly, the reaction is rage.

Not, “oh, well, it was a freebie anyway, I don’t lose anything if I don’t get it,” but “d*mmit, how dare you not give it to me!” (nevermind that I did not work or it or earn it in any way, shape, or form)

Witness what happens when the freebies are a hoax:

http://tiny.cc/ZS1oH

It’s the innocent third party, in this case the coat store, that gets trashed.

The entitlement mentality is bad enough. When denial of the freebie results in destructive rage, I would say we have a genuinely psychotic segment of the population. Psychotic in the sense of, they don’t understand the reality of the relationship between cause & results, the severing of that relationship having been subsidized by the government for 40+ years.

They don’t know they are a**holes, they don’t care they are a**holes, and they will crack your skull if you get in their way. I believe that would make these ones worse than a**holes.

Oct 15, 2009 - 11:18 am 165. Lifeofthemind:

Subotai Bahadur,
Thank you for the story. I hope your little girl is well now.

elby,
Methinks the real unemployment rate is around 20%. The government only counts people who are getting unemployment. If you are working a part time job or if you have been out of work for over one year and the unemployment stops then you are no longer counted. Did you see the report that NY State stopped payments to an unemployed lawyer who had stated on her blog that she was making $1.30/month in revenue from her blog ads?

bogie wheel,
Good work. The 2009 Statistical Abstract says that in 2006 there were 5,128,000 State workers and 14,199,00 local government employees, rounded to the nearest thousand for each. Read it and weep and note the trends, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0443.pdf.

tanstaafl,
Correct, the Stimulus is really the trillion dollar slush fund.

A truly honest politician would walk into a room full of retirees and tell them the truth.

There are three groups of people in America.

1) Those in this room who voted to give their wealth to other people who had retired over the last 60 years.

2) Those who voted to set up the system that gave them the money, who have already received it and are now dead.

3) Those who are now working or who are going to work in the future. You expect that third group to send you their money because you sent your money to someone else. They may not want to do that.

The money that the people in this room are expecting to get from the government is not your money. Forget that idea, it simply is not true. Your money was already spent on other people. That is the system that you and the people you sent your money to voted for.

Given that you are asking the workers of the future to support a life expectancy, standard of living and level of medical care vastly greater than that which would have been available to people when this Ponzi scheme was set up 70 years ago and given that doing so will condemn those future workers and their children to a lower standard of living and life expectancy and given that if you and those you sent your money to had instead supported a smaller role for government and increased investment in the productive economy then both you and the future generations would not be facing these financial constraints you are asking a lot, indeed to much, of the future and something must change.

We can unbundle ourselves of this burden and do so humanely over a 20 year period. We must begin.

Oct 15, 2009 - 11:49 am 166. Mad Fiddler:

Memories come back to haunt me of my own voice speaking the words “This country has gone insane.”

From more than thirty years ago.

The pathology of psychosis has reached crisis stage, having fully taken hold of the patient. The probability of slicing through a main artery and ex-sanguinating on the carpet, or flinging heedlessly out a top-floor window is approaching parity with scarfing down a BGH-laced, grease-saturated cheeseburger or remembering to wash down the day’s thorazine with the liquid from the water pitcher NOT the urinal.

More and more the question is not whether or even when the collapse will come, but “Will anything good survive?”

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:07 pm 167. Armeggedon Rex:

Doug #133

I’m very sorry to hear of your misfortune. BC will be less rich for the lack of your comments. I didn’t know you were in the U.K. You have my condolences for having to deal with the medical system there. I urge you to not give up all hope until you are absolutely certain. A middle-aged co-worker of mine was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three years ago. A biopsy supposedly confirmed the initial diagnosis. He went into surgery to have as much of the cancer removed as possible in order to lengthen his life. When they had him open on the table, the quick tissue sample examinations performed did not reveal the widespread cancer they were expecting. The diagnosis and initial biopsy results turned out to be wrong. He’s still alive and in possession of his pancreas so far as I know. It may have been a miracle, and I know his case is far from the norm, but I urge you to seek out at least a couple additional opinions.

I know a medical person who helped ease the way of her father, who died from complications related to late stage prostate cancer. Thank God, the coroner didn’t enquire into the cause of death being the cancer or from the opiates he was taking for pain relief. The amount of opiates he was taking by the time he passed would have immediately killed an elephant that wasn’t acclimated to such dosages. When he died it was a blessing and relief for everyone, but to him most of all. I pray you have access to all the serious pain medication you may desire. If you don’t mind the down sides of becoming addicted to opiates, there’s no reason to be in pain.

All I can say is that I don’t intend to end my life in agony due to the malpractice or lack of practice of some medical Pharisee. When I’m sure it’s time for me to go, hopefully many years from now, I’ll say my farewells, retire to some out of the way scenic spot and eat a 12-gauge shotgun slug.

I wish you a less violent end, but I intend to reserve that decision and action to myself alone. The medical person who eased her father on his way feels needlessly guilty to this day. Anyone who wouldn’t feel at least a bit guilty about taking a life, even at the end, and to ease severe pain, shouldn’t have such power. I don’t want anyone feeling guilt over my passing, so I’ll take matters into my own hands.

My body, my choice!

I’ve heard that somewhere before…

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:13 pm 168. Lifeofthemind:

Gov’t civilian workers for 2006 in millions Fed 3+, State 5+, Local 14+ Almost 23 million out of fewer than 145 million employed. Much worse now, fewer employed out of government and more in. Numbers from Statistical Abstract

Armageddon Rex,
Doug was quoting a British Dr, he provided the link.

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:15 pm 169. olde fogey:

Doug @133

I’m glad you raised this point. I cannot understand why our culture now says it is correct to kill an unborn person whose potential is unknown but not to permit those aging or ill who choose to die quickly and inexpensively to do so.

I’m fortunate that my religious beliefs do not hinder such an action. I just hope I don’t get a mental disease that will not permit me to act on that decision myself. I’ve asked two very dear friends to bring me my 357 upon request if I’m personally unable to do it.

I hope no reader has to hold your mother’s hand while she begs to die for days upon end. That can test both your faith and your love.

Oct 15, 2009 - 12:20 pm 170. Lifeofthemind:

Wretchard,
Clean up on aisle #170.

Oct 15, 2009 - 1:15 pm 171. Seth Poole:

During WWII, in Germany, German soldiers who had been very seriously wounded or perhaps burned, beyond repair, beyond the capability of living a normal life, beyond the ability of the medical state of the art at the time, were simply put to death. By the German government. Is this where we’re headed as well?

Oct 15, 2009 - 1:19 pm 172. tanstaafl:

I read snippets of Dr. Zeke Emanuel’s, Rahm’s brother and an Obama advisor, “principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions” writing about how we’re gonna need to focus the medical resources on the (worthwhile) 15-40 age group, or develop some bureaucratic standard for QALY (quality adjusted life years) and, largely as a function of how fricking old you are, have bureaucrats give you a score and determine what medical procedures you can have… and I want to throw up.

Any allusion in any context that Robert Reich makes about we’re gonna let ya die elicits the same reaction.

These people are socialists and eugenicists and I don’t want them making policy on my planet.

Oct 15, 2009 - 2:01 pm 173. An Average American:

The fundamental difference between the libertarian and the statist, between the tyrant and the free man, is not whether everything has a cost and that choices have to be made … it’s about who gets to make the choice for whom.

The libertarian believes individuals, responsible for their own choices, make better choices for themselves and as a result of all the individual choices, and the need for an unfettered market to appeal to those choices, things are better for society as a whole.

The statist believes individuals cannot be trusted to make these decisions, so the nanny-state must make those choices on behalf of it’s subjects, regardless of their wishes.

Which philosophy seems more consistent with, “the land of the free”?

Oct 15, 2009 - 2:03 pm 174. Fletcher Christian:

#170 myth buster -

Presumably, then, you agree with the relatively recent decision of the Irish courts (under orders from the Pope) to make a 19-year-old girl take to term a foetus that had no brain, and to send her to jail when she decided to have the inhuman parasitic growth she was carrying removed in England.

Letting a celibate priest make your decisions about reproduction for you is, and always has been and always will be, a very bad idea.

Oct 15, 2009 - 2:36 pm 175. Tuduri:

#68

“Even when politicians choose one road over the other, they take pains to suggest they are simultaneously proceeding down two paths.”

[Hmmmm. This suggests a new discipline: quantum politics.]

In a political experiment:Two paths in quantum politics..only to the un-observer or unobservant! Let’s not be “unobservant”. Put all the Pols under the microscope.

Oct 15, 2009 - 2:54 pm 176. Lolwhat:

@175
“Presumably, then, you agree with the relatively recent decision of the Irish courts (under orders from the Pope) to make a 19-year-old girl take to term a foetus that had no brain, and to send her to jail when she decided to have the inhuman parasitic growth she was carrying removed in England.”

I can’t seem to find any report on what you’re discussing. IOW(and an internet meme), links or it didn’t happen.

I will provide a return link about a man that has lived a normal life despite having a mere fraction of a normal brain. Your comment is a perfect example of the mindset of progressives. If someone deviates from your vision of a perfect Aryan race, they immediately become an “inhuman parasitic growth”.

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/the_man_with_almost_no_brain.php

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:00 pm 177. Subotai Bahadur:

#172 Seth Poole

In short, yes. Unless you have political, social, or economic connections to sufficiently important people amongst TWANLOC. After all, it would not do to have them under the same laws that the rest of the serfs are under. Otherwise, there would be no reason or reward to being part of the Nomenklatura. There are any number of Democrats that I could easily see dressed in black uniforms, knee high boots, and carrying riding crops; walking down the line of hospital beds flicking the crop one way or another sorting the patients by their fates.

There is a very limited amount of sarcasm there. Think of the humorless, Leftist, ideologue, wanna-be Nuon Chea’s running the country now, and see if you can conceive of them refusing such duty. Can’t, can you? Can you see an ounce of human compassion in their eyes for any mere individual, or for any group not properly subservient or who has not paid them off?

Subotai Bahadur

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:09 pm 178. myth buster:

I believe that it should be legal to surgically remove a dead fetus, just as it is legal to amputate a gangrenous limb. No one is harmed, since the fetus is already dead, but decaying flesh presents a clear and present danger to the mother.

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:35 pm 179. Fletcher Christian:

Lolwhat; I was wrong in detail. She actually won her legal case (which should never have been started) and she was actually 17. Personally, I would take the opinion of a qualified doctor over that of a priest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6618911.stm

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:45 pm 180. ScenarioA:

Josh@146 – I see two issues here. I focused on the reality of the brilliant campaign which resulted from the successful deception of Saddam and his generals.

You focused on the confusion in the reporting on the war as you remember it. Your questions are still unanswered. Why the continuing disinformation in the media? Was it ignorance on the part of the reporters? Confusion? Laziness? Malice?

General Franks and his superiors in the Pentagon explained the strategy very early on. I posted a link to a briefing by Gen. Myers on April 1, 2003 where he explained why the ’shock and awe’ campaign never happened. So, we can dismiss ignorance and confusion as explanations after April 1. Then we can ask, were they ALL too lazy to report on briefings by the top Generals? If we assume not, then it seems to me that by a process of elimination we have an explanation.

It has been said that truth is the first casualty in war. Given our experience of 8 years of raw hatred and malice from the left and its sycophants in the main stream media toward everything associated with the Bush Administration, we probably should not be surprised that a mythology about the Iraq war has taken hold in our culture – a mythology which is the nearly exact opposite of the truth.

Oct 15, 2009 - 3:50 pm 181. truepeers:

Personally, I would take the opinion of a qualified doctor over that of a priest

-a rather crude prejudice; if the question is ethics, as it is here, just why should a doctor’s qualifications outrank the priest? Of course, any given priest or doctor can be an ethical idiot, but on the whole are Catholic priests better at ethics than doctors? If you don’t realize that religion is a form of ethics and of anthropology, a way of remembering the origin of the human in the founding event of language, then you probably can’t answer the question well.

Oct 15, 2009 - 4:01 pm 182. Bear:

Mongoose: it is starting to look more and more like the “Oct. Surprised was actually engineered.

something I believed since it happened based on observations in the hedge fund community.

Oct 15, 2009 - 4:06 pm 183. rab:

Doug-

I have always looked for your comments on this (wonderful) blog. Your comments have always been cogent along with links to interesting complimentary subjects. I am completely in sync with your philosophy and at the same surprised you live in the UK.

I wish I was your neighbor and I could help you in this difficult time. I will be there quite soon myself.

RAB

Oct 15, 2009 - 4:07 pm 184. blert:

Doug @133

I sure hope that your link is to a third party…

And that your time is not yet.

rab seems to think that you reside in the UK…

I thought that you were in the Islands.

Oct 15, 2009 - 4:24 pm 185. presbypoet:

OT for anyone in Bay Area

Earthquake alert.
Perhaps in honor of the 20th anniversary of Loma Prieta, a section of the Calaveras Fault which has been quiet northeast of San Jose for decades had two moderate quakes in the past week. You can see them on the USGS site.

If these are foreshocks, they could indicate a possible magnitude 6+ earthquake. In 1984, a 6.2 hit on this fault, near Morgan Hill, 30 miles south of San Jose. That area was not heavily populated. Quakes on the fault have moved from south to north for the past 30 years.

This portion of the fault runs along Interstate 680, and Pleasonton, and is responsible for thousand foot high hills to the west. It is much closer to populated areas.

A quick Bay area geology lesson. The beautiful hills and bay are caused by the interaction of the many earthquake faults that interact. The bay is caused by two faults pulling apart an area between the San Andreas, and Hayward faults. The land falls, and the water fills. The hills of the east result from the Hayward fault pushing east, and the Calaveras pushing west. A similar interaction in Southern California produces the mountains north of Los Angeles.

The USGS will never say anything, because they are afraid of getting burned if they give a warning, and nothing happens. Just make sure you have water, batteries, and know how to shut off the gas line. Don’t expect government help for at least 72 hours.

Oct 15, 2009 - 4:33 pm 186. Bear:

Subotai Bahadur, Thank you for your story.

Thank you as well Wretchard. I enjoy your writing.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:42 pm 187. zhombre:

My thanks too to Wretchard and all who post here, even the trolls. A Belmont Club thread always makes for fascinating reading.

Oct 15, 2009 - 5:53 pm 188. Jason S:

Ah, that pesky law of physics: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And here I was thinking that the New Democrats had found a fountain of youth that actually costs less than what we are paying now. That they had found a way to insure “50 million” more people, at less cost, and all without degrading the quality of our care. Silly me.

Oct 15, 2009 - 6:23 pm 189. Whitehall:

This section of the Hayward fault is overdue for release but identifiable fore-shocks are rare. Current building codes do a darn good job of preventing almost all structural damage on a percentage basis. Still, some structures will fail with a major shake.

Oct 15, 2009 - 6:44 pm 190. presbypoet:

This is not the Hayward, but another fault. Hayward has been creeping, this section of the Calaveras, miles east of the Hayward has been locked, with no earthquakes. So for it to start having earthquakes in these locations may be significant. Just a reminder to be prepared. I just made sure I had plenty of fresh batteries.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:14 pm 191. Doug:

167. Armeggedon Rex:
Appreciate the sentiments, but I should have been more clear in making obvious that I was quoting the words of the woman who wrote the article, not relating my own situation.

No reason why I should assume everyone will read every linked article, since I don’t.
Sorry!

Thanks for the cleanup, Lifeof!

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:44 pm 192. Mad Fiddler:

189.Whitehall,

How long have you been living in Nova Scotia? I’m just asking because you seem to think a majority of the buildings in the Bay Area have actually been brought into compliance with “current building codes.”

The entire time I was living in the Bay Area, lots of overpasses, bridges, and municipal buildings were being retro-fitted, but tens of thousands were simply waiting. There were lots of elementary schools that had been sold by their districts because it was too expensive to retrofit them. The structures were deemed unfit for educating children, but the laws allowed them to be re-cast as “arts galleries” or “adult self-actualization centers.”

In 1998 when I took CERT training from the local fire department, the first thing out of the trainer’s mouth was this:

“Seismologists who’ve been studying the Bay Area geologic history tell us we’re 100 percent likely to have a Mag 7 quake sometime in the next thirty years. Could be tonight, could be twenty years from now. At any moment, between San Jose and Oakland there are no more than 200 emergency staff on duty trained to paramedic level – that’s counting police, fire, rescue, ambulance, sheriffs, everything – serving a population of about two million. In the event of a Magnitude 7 quake, we calculate there will be about 20,000 major injuries in the first three minutes. It is likely there will be wide-spread disruption to transportation, fire, and medical facilities. Expect to be on your own for up to two full weeks.”

Sure got our attention in that class.

Oct 15, 2009 - 8:59 pm 193. presbypoet:

To tie earthquakes back to the theme. In 1989, in the World Series earthquake, the bay bridge failed. Today, one day short of twenty years since, this critical facility, which after the earthquake was determined to almost certain to fail in a major quake, still is in the midst of a retrofit. Completion still years in the future.

Almost all the leaders in the Bay Area are democrats. They were more concerned with how the bridge would look, than getting it fixed in a timely manner.

The earthquake fault i posted on, the Calaveras; this section is critical because the pipeline that brings water from Yosemite Park, to serve two million people, crosses this section of the fault. For years they have known there are problems. Finally they are getting started. There is more concern about endangered species and making sure they are not damaged, than making sure two million people get water.

If the term “soft story” is unfamiliar to you, just wait. The next big earthquake that hits, they will kill people. This is where a building has an open first floor, with a second story over. Long open spans, unless reinforced break, and the second floor falls, crushing the first floor and those in it. Lots of cities don’t even know what structures may fail. Let alone do something to fix them.

That is the problem. A focuses on process, not product. Democrats love it. We will pay a price. So this goes deeper than Reich saying his “truths”. The truth is; Liberal democrats don’t know how to do things. The Bay Area proves that. The combination of public employee unions controlling councils that are supposed to negotiate with them, anti-business attitudes, it is amazing the Bay Area survives.

Oct 15, 2009 - 9:49 pm 194. Smoking Frog:

#72 Ben

The difference between (1) “4 for everyone” and (2) “average is 7, but some people get 1’s” is not only a difference of distribution. Where N = number of people, the cost of (1) is 4N, while the cost of (2) is 7N.

If you spend 4N, the maximum number of people that can average 7 is 57% of N. In that case, the other 43% get nothing.

Oct 16, 2009 - 5:42 am 195. seanmahair:

Hey Robert, ” It’s too expensive to treat older people at the end of their life “so we’re going to let you die”. You’re older than most of us, you go first.

Oct 16, 2009 - 8:37 am 196. tanstaafl:

The truth is; Liberal democrats don’t know how to do things.

I’ll second that.

Real things, practical things, logical things, useful things.

Things that don’t spring out of a control based, theoretical, micro-managerial, manipulative mindset.

Fortunately, there are forces operating that serve, again and again, to remind us that so called progressivism cum Marxism will and must inevitably fail.

My ways are not
your ways.
Your feeble plans
don’t constrain Me.

Oct 16, 2009 - 8:59 am 197. Cybergeezer:

Obama’s plan for you; MORE WELFARE:
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/16/morning-bell-obamacare-puts-you-on-welfare/

Oct 16, 2009 - 9:55 am 198. Doug:

192. Mad Fiddler: sez,
“the laws allowed them to be re-cast as “arts galleries” or “adult self-actualization centers.” ”
—
For once, the Pols have done something right!
The quake would improve the population by selective culling.

Oct 16, 2009 - 10:06 am 199. tomw:

185. presbypoet: OT Calaveras Fault

Does this mean those that own homes in the hills west of Dublin are likely to suffer hugely from a ‘6.2′ or equivalent temblor occurring more northerly on the Calaveras?
I watched as the bulldozers scraped and shoved tons of dirt around on the ‘higher up’ areas of those hills. Where there had been a spring that was filling a horse trough, there was now tens or hundreds of feet of compacted earth atop the former spring. I have no idea if the spring was piped and led off to a drain, or left to make mud pies. But then, in the early 1990’s, McMansions were erected on this dirt. I do not think the owners were made aware of all the earthmoving that took place to create the flat areas for the foundations. I knew the I would not buy anything erected there as there was literally nothing holding the hillside in place.
Should be ‘interesting’ to say the least.
tom

Oct 16, 2009 - 10:19 am 200. Doug:

“House built on a rock foundation,
it will stand…”
– Harry Belafonte

Obama Holds Fundraiser in San Francisco– Massive Tea Party Breaks Out

Painting the White House Red — Obama FOX-Basher Anita Dunn Praises Mao Tse-Tung (Video)

Oct 16, 2009 - 10:27 am 201. Charles:

July 2004: Obama makes keynote speech at the Democratic convention and is hailed as the future of the party.

October 2004: Congressman Barney Frank [D-MA] speaks as a witness to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his belief that the people of the United States should be able to elect a president of their choosing, even if that candidate is not a natural-born citizen.

In these comments, Frank all but names Obama and describes our current situation to the letter. Here is the audio clip of his remarks.

BARNEY FRANK – “I believe in the right of the voters to choose as they wish”

This 2004 article in the Kenyan East African Standard begins

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

Oct 16, 2009 - 10:35 am 202. Mad Fiddler:

200.Doug, Thanks for the link, which in turn leads to this link to mainfo.blogspot.com

The “mast-head” of the site is a highly inspiring photo of the 9-12 gathering in D.C. which gives a sense of the scale of that event better than any other image or comment I’ve found.

Today’s entry goes into a lot of detail about Obama’s participation in the imminent United Nations conference on climate change scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lord Monckton, much-abused scientist debunker of AGW fakery, expresses deep concern that the treaty sets up the mechanisms of a de-facto world government, and the nations all seem eager to bow down and yield up their sovereignty.

Our Magnificent Nobel Lariat is expected to be chief among the genuflecting turds signing away our rights as citizens to the pervert lying murdering pimps that run the United Nations.

Let us all exercise our Constitutional Rights to the maximum extent possible while they still exist, so that those who would sell us for a bag of shekels might give a moment’s pause.

Oct 16, 2009 - 11:16 am 203. presbypoet:

TOMW 199

New construction is supposed to have a soils geologist tell what must be done. Engineered fills are generally safe. The problem is California hills are not there because they are strong, they are dirt piles pushed up because of seismic forces. That is why so many hills in California have landslide problems. So that “hill” may be a potential focus of some future uplift. So did they really know what they had? An interesting view for someone driving south of San Jose, near where the San Andreas crosses 101, is a solitary hill that looks magnificent. Until you look closely, and see it is full of landslides, a sandpile being pushed up, at the brink of failure. Sign of the strength of the forces moving Los Angeles toward San Francisco. The song from “Sound of music” can be sung of California. “The hills are alive.”

That given, I would like to see the development’s EIR. It should have indicated expected seismic forces as part of the EIR, and required mitigation measures for the development. Said mitigations should have been included in the long conditions of approval from whatever jurisdiction approved the development. Planning and building departments were supposed to make sure they were done.

Any development within a mile or two of Interstate 680 is subject to severe shaking. The valley 680 runs in was produced by the earthquake fault. It makes an easy smooth path. Easy to develop. Until the crash of an 6.5 to 6.9 earthquake. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to repair the 580 & 680 interchange when it falls. But it is too big to fail.

Urban planning is interesting. The more I understand it, the more i realize it is the most insidious example of the liberal mind set. Most people do not realize a major amount of the increase in housing prices in California and other Liberal states, result from government intervention.

You try to control what you don’t understand, and wonder why you have problems.

Oct 16, 2009 - 2:33 pm

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