Foreign Policy, Obama’s Weakest Point

Ever since he was elected, I have considered President Obama’s weakest point of policy making to be his foreign policy. Today, we are seeing that fear becoming manifest.

He has placated the Iranians and given empty promises of attaining peace in the Middle East by appeasement of that regime’s tactic of lying about their faithless peace desires. He has given a pass to Bashar Assad’s tyranny in Syria. He has abdicated the American gains in Iraq and given our Middle Eastern allies cause to distrust us and to know for sure that he will never back up any of his promises, e.g., the “red line” about chemical weapons in Syria. (I’ll bet the Iranians and the Assad regime are still laughing about that one!)

He must admit that Iran has been hostile to U.S. interests in the Middle East. And he must also admit that Iran has done its best to frustrate the war in Iraq and that that country has proclaimed a fierce ideological war against Israel’s place as a state. President Obama’s response to these undisputable facts is to point the blame to his predecessors. 

To make matters worse, during the first summer of his presidency, he remained aloof in the vacuum of his own ideas concerning the uprising in Iran of the brave advocates of government overthrow in Iran in the form of the Green Movement. He gave that very significant uprising no moral support of any kind. Supposedly, he was hoping that his abstention from the movement would induce the Iranian government to quit producing nuclear weapons. Of course, the regime did not do anything of the kind—the centrifuges kept spinning! On top of this, the world can see Iran continuing its support of the Assad regime and Hezbollah in Beirut. (All this without significant American protest.)

President Obama has artfully isolated the chemical weapons being used to kill civilian citizens of Syria from the larger issue that the government is using all other kinds of killing devices to destroy its civil enemies. He has also isolated the nuclear bomb issue in Iran from the obvious pain that sanctions are having on the Iranian people. He absolutely refuses to see the bigger picture of what is going on in the Middle East.

All the feckless dithering President Obama is doing in the Middle East is alarming our allies in the region. Israel is rightly afraid they will have to attack Iran just to prevent being vaporized by nuclear weapons—and all this without American support. Obama’s attitude toward the situation in the Middle East has produced a feeling of abandonment among our allies in the region, i.e., Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

 
President Obama, despite his winsome ways at the podium, is not fooling anyone. Middle Easterners have taken the full measure of this president. They know he will not back up any of his promises; they know that he is desperately trying to get out of the Middle East at any cost. They are alone in the world with the most powerful force on earth sitting on its hands in helpless repose, just hoping for a miracle. WE NEED A LEADER!

What Was the Theory Behind the Affordable Care Act?

We are being saturated with information and propaganda these days about the Affordable Care Act, i.e., ObamaCare. But I, for one was not clear on exactly what was the thinking and the theoretical provisions of this recent piece of legislation that is planned to take over one sixth of our economy. For this reason, I am electing to review its essential features for my readers.

We are aware of the fact that about 47 million Americans are without health insurance. Many of those are young and healthy adults who do not want insurance. They do not seem to realize a need in that area. Nevertheless, this group does need health care from time to time; and the cost of treating them falls on hospitals and on those of us who buy insurance. Additionally, health care costs have been increasing more rapidly than the rate of inflation for many years. Everyone, both conservatives and liberals, understand this problem and seek a remedy.

The Affordable Care Act, (ACA) was designed to bring these 47 million Americans under insurance protection and to distribute health care costs throughout the population. But…how to pay for their protection—that is the question. Democrats devised a system they thought would pay the bill for health care coverage. It ran as follows:

1)      Money would be taken from Medicare and put into the funding for the ACA. $716 billion is to be taken from Medicare spending over the coming 10 years and used to fund the ACA. Concurrently with spending Medicare money on the ACA, spending reductions in Medicare reimbursement schedule for procedures will be legislatively decreased. This will mean that doctors and hospitals will receive less money for their work and for procedures that they do, which were formerly covered by Medicare.

2)      Increased money is to be raised from higher taxes charged to medical devise manufacture and to pharmaceutical and health insurance companies.

3)      Penalty money will be collected from young persons who refuse to buy insurance through ObamaCare exchanges.

4)      Increased income taxes will be levied on the wealthy, i.e., those with annual income >$200,000.

5)      Monthly premium payments from young and healthy persons will more than pay for their own care; and the overage will be used to pay for more expensive, older, and sicker people.

Democrats believe that this increasing money stream will more than pay the cost of insuring the 47 million people.  They even believe that there will be a surplus of money which can be used to decrease federal budget deficits. They believe that our country will be better off financially with ObamaCare in full operation.

Republicans do not believe that there will be nearly enough money in the kitty to pay for this program. I, personally, think that one major defect in the program will be decreasing participation in Medicare by physicians and hospitals caused by the government’s reduction of payment. I have seen doctors for decades declining Medicare payment schedules because of low payment levels. These lower ObamaCare fee schedules will aggravate that tendency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Success Obamacare?

President Obama and the  Democratic proponents of the Affordable Care Act emphasized three promises when promoting the health-care law.

1)      It will provide “universal coverage.”

2)      It will reduce costs, both to the consumer and to the nation, as a whole by decreasing the total costs of health care in America.
3)      It will not take away your current health-care plan if you want to continue with it.

Let us look at these three promises in order:

The primary promise was universal coverage. In the year that preceded the law’s passage, President Obama emphasized over and over again the number of Americans who were uninsured, which ranges from 30 million to 47 million, and explained that the nation had a moral imperative to cover those who could not find coverage on their own. One complicating factor in calculating the number of uninsured persons in America was that the recession increased the number of the uninsured by 6 million. The Congressional Budget Office in 2013, before the law was implemented, estimated that there would be 31 million uncovered Americans in 2019; that estimate does not bode well for the effectiveness of the Act in decreasing the number of uninsured people in America.

The second promise was to reduce the cost of health care, specifically the cost of premiums. Universal health care would provide greater economies of scale for insurance companies, while new regulations would keep insurance companies and doctors from getting too greedy. On numerous occasions, President Obama promised that his reforms would reduce the cost of premiums by $2,500 for a family of four.

This is not going to be the case. Using the same methodology that Obama used to come up with the $2,500 figure, health-care expert Avik Roy found that costs per family of four would increase by $7,450 by 2022. Furthermore, the cost hikes in certain states are going to be far worse, including a 41 percent increase in average premiums for Ohioans in 2014, and a 72 percent increase for Indianans. A recent Manhattan Institute analysis shows an overall average increase of 41 percent over the nation, as a whole. Whatever amount of increase there is, it’s not a $2,500 decrease.

Obamacare proponents note that higher premiums will not be felt because the law will provide subsidies to offset the increases. That’s nice, but premiums will still be higher under the new law. The subsidies only mask the impact of the premium increases for certain individuals. Others, not eligible for the subsidies, will get the double hit of paying more for insurance (which they are now required by law to purchase) and of paying higher taxes, now and in the future, to cover the costs of the subsidies to others. Those subsidies have to come from somewhere; and the obvious source of money for the subsidies is from the taxpayers.

In evaluating the money needed for implementing the ACA, we must remember that President Obama has repeatedly said the this program will be “budget neutral.” It will be nothing of the sort. The original 10-year cost of the bill was said to be around $940 billion, offset by tax hikes and spending reductions—most notably a $716 billion cut in Medicare. In 2013, the Congregational Budget Office (CBO) estimated the cost at $1.8 trillion; it is likely to be closer to $2.5 trillion by 2015. The gross costs of the Obamacare insurance subsidies alone will be $1.8 trillion over the first 10 years; in other words, the costs will be lowered for those who get the subsidies at a cost of $180 billion a year to everyone else. Meanwhile, a Government Accounting Office estimate suggests Obamacare’s guarantees could increase our long-term costs by $6.2 trillion over 75 years.

 In examining this second goal of the ACA, the Obamacare supporters have claimed loudly and clearly that the Affordable Care Act will save money in the federal budget. Their most vociferous and widely heard pundit, Paul Krugman of the New York Times editorial board has defended it primarily on this ground, i.e., it will and already has saved great amounts of money. Let us look at some of his reasoning.

Mr. Krugman says that the “affordable” part of the Affordable Care Act  was not just about subsidizing premiums. It was also supposed to be about slowing the seemingly inexorable rise in health costs. He recently indicated in his newspaper column that the law’s opponents believe that serious savings are supposed to come from things like raising the Medicare age. However, he points out that the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that such this measure would hardly save any money. Krugman has also pointed out that opponents of the bill have suggested that one way of saving money would be to take many Medicaid recipients off the program. He points out that a 2011 letter signed by hundreds of health and labor economists pointed out that “the Affordable Care Act contains essentially every cost-containment provision policy analysts have considered effective in reducing the rate of medical spending.”http://www.americanprogressaction.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/01/pdf/budgetcommitteefinal.pdf And he claims that the opinions of these many economists and health care experts have been ignored. However, a simple reading of the letter from these experts reveals that they did not address the idea of limiting Medicaid. I think we all know that the ACA certainly does not provide for taking people off the Medicaid roles. Medicaid in the days of the ACA will greatly expand. It is also an obvious feature of the ACA that the law did not even say one word about tort reform, which is needed because so much of health-care money is funneled into the pockets of lawyers.

It is true that in recent years, the rate of increase in federal spending has declined somewhat, which is a most welcome development. ObamaCare partisans tout this reduction in the rate of increased spending as evidence that ObamaCare is working. However, the actual AMOUNT of federal spending is not decreased—only the rate of increase in spending has decreased.

There is little to no evidence that ObamaCare has caused the reduction in the rate of spending increase, especially since ObamaCare has not yet been fully implemented. The administration’s own Medicare actuary attributes the recent reductions in the growth rate to the recent recession. Furthermore, when ObamaCare is actually implemented, evidence suggests that inflation will increase again. In 2014 the implementation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act is expected to accelerate health spending growth to 6.1 percent (considerably above the annual rate of inflation).

So, in summary of this second goal of the ACA, I think we can dispose of the idea of cost savings, to the individual consumer and to the government and the taxpayer.

Let’s look at the third promise of the promoters of the ACA; The third promise was that if you like your health-care plan, you can keep it. During his year of salesmanship, President Obama mentioned it nearly every time he spoke about the act, often stating it more than once in the same setting. The exact wording of the comment varied over time, but the political strategy behind the statement was clear: If you were among the 85 percent or so of Americans who already had insurance, ObamaCare would have its impact on other people, not on you.

The early indicators are not encouraging. One CBO analysis has estimated that ObamaCare will cause approximately 7 million people currently covered to lose employer-sponsored coverage. On top of that, millions of Americans who purchase insurance via the individual market are already receiving letters notifying them that their coverage is being terminated.
In summary, this law is not good for the American people. We do, indeed, need a modification of our health-care provisions. But…the ACA, as it stands, is NOT the answer.

Where Did Capitalism Come From; and Where Is It Going?

Capitalism is unquestionably the most productive economic system ever devised by human society. Even with its excesses and abuses as evidenced by the strikes and human suffering capitalism caused in 19^th Century America, still, it has produced goods and services that have been highly beneficial to society today.

To understand where this complex system of economics came from, we must first study the place where it did not originally arise and why it did not arise there. That place is China. The Zhou Dynasty in China was active from 1046 BC until its replacement by the Qin Dynasty in 256 BC. Zhou and Qin emperors ran a nation from a Confucian viewpoint that looked back into time and ancestry to find out how society should operate. Their administrative viewpoints were very similar to Western European feudalism. Administrators were chosen from family heritage lines and not from any merit of their own. These early dynasties did not provide the common people with property rights. Neither did they manifest rules of law. Laws that existed were only the capricious movements of the emperors acting on the instant impressions they had of how things should be adjudicated. They ruled over a society that was fraught with wars between competing states, and very little peace and security prevailed. In 256 BC, the Zhou emperors were replaced by Qin emperors who ruled China for only 15 years; but Qin rooted out the heredity system of government succession to a large extent and brought a system of merit into being for the first time. The Qin emperors were, however, very harsh governors; they taxed the people heavily and regulated all aspects of their existence. Their heavy-handed autocratic ways were so obnoxious to the people that they were soon replaced by the Han Dynasty. Confucianism reigned supreme in the thinking of the people and their administrators.

These early Chinese dynasties produced a nation with a bureaucracy and a functional situation where specialization and organization could coexist. These things were necessary for a stable economic system to develop and persist. But…although these things are necessary preliminaries for the development of a capitalistic economy, they are not sufficient.

The Chinese system of life did not lend itself to entrepreneurial, profit-seeking, businesses.

Western Europe, on the other hand, produced an environment with a very different system of thought. The difference was primarily the difference between Confucianism, which looked backward, and Christianity that saw things very differently and from a forward-looking perspective. Christians had the understanding that God had created a universe that was rational and, therefore, understandable. Christianity saw man as God’s image bearer and a creature with dignity, who deserved rights to property, and a stable rule of law, instead of the momentary judgments of emperors who might change decisions unpredictably. Christians came to believe that it is legitimate and desirable to understand God by looking carefully at his creation. Thus…the development of the forward-looking scientific method.

Science made it possible for people to profit from knowledge—thus…scientific thinking received an economic impetus. European society produced universities and scientists, the large majority of whom were professing Christians. To name a few: Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Copernicus, and Galileo.

Our Western way of life, including our capital-based economies, owe their existence to the Christian heritage we have received from the thinking of early Christian students and explorers of every type. Even such non-Christian 20^th Century thinkers as Alfred North Whitehead and J. Robert Oppenheimer have stressed that modern science was born out of the Christian worldview.

Today, however, we are in danger of reverting to the stultifying effects of high taxes and onerous regulations characteristic of the ancient Chinese. Many people seem to think that our Western system is “too big to fall;” but I fear that this is not the truth. Big government, high taxes, over-regulation, all threaten to shut down our successful free-enterprise system of government and economy. We need some government regulation, especially in the banking and medical areas; but this overactive government is drawing our economy and our nation into dangerous areas of discouragement, lack of motivation for gainful work, and resultant unemployment.

The capitalist system of economy is bound to produce some inequality of outcomes for the people, but as I expounded in my last blog post, this inequality and the opportunity to further and profit oneself in life is necessary for a healthy economic lifestyle.

 

 

Quit Thinking of Inequality as Something Bad

We live in an era of a leftward movement of the government. Our government and the governments of Europe seemingly move toward ever more collectivism of businesses and social services. The impetus for this kind of administrative agency-driven organization in the beginning was reasonable. But now…we must look at this movement critically; because it may not be the wisest policy conceivable.

One may look at the “American experiment” as one that during the 20^th Century strove to increase the gross domestic product and to distribute it evenly. That seemed to be the trend early in the Century. Now, however, the gap between the rich and the poor is obviously widening; and many observers have agreed that widening of the gap is rampant.

The late 19^th Century saw the weakness and danger of unbridled capitalism. Huge strikes became violent. Farmers went out of business because of opportunistic entrepreneurs who managed the markets to their advantage. Human suffering was immense. Railroads took advantage their monopoly of the money supply to buy up large tracts of land, which they sold at exorbitant profit. Society was shaken by the blatant inequality in our society. Socialism and anarchy were in the air among our people.

But…is it time to throw out the old, tried and true entrepreneurial system? Liberals are very upset at the growing inequalities in our culture.  They want EQUALITY! But…the liberal view of equality is equality of outcomes. Everyone must be equal, i.e., equal incomes, equal education, equal health care, etc., etc. Conservatives, also, long for equality; but they want equality of opportunity, not necessarily equality of outcomes. The conservative belief is that everyone should have an opportunity to better himself, to work for the profit of himself and for his family.

It is a biological fact that not everyone is born equal. We each have characteristics that outshine or that do not match up with the characteristics of others. Those differences are the things that make for social inequality in outcome. Founding Father James Madison asserted in Federalist Paper #10 that one of the most important functions of governments was to protect individuals’ unequal ability to acquire property. He saw inequality as a desirable feature of society. Inequality has allowed businesses and other enterprises to outperform other enterprises and produce better things. This has been done by the mechanism of free competition.

We have before us, bright examples of the equality-inequality argument. Since the Reagan-Thatcher administrations in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s inequality has been one of the top agenda items pursued by market-oriented policy makers and has been seen in the privatization of state-owned enterprises. This has been done in the name of economic efficiency. That effort has been fiercely resisted by the Left and is still being done by the Obama administration in its money redistribution activities. The final result of this administrative monetary/financial activity has been mixed. It seems to help our American lifestyle, e.g., in pulling our poorest out of their poverty; but sometimes, it does not help. 

The examples we have seen of failures of collectivization and redistribution attempts are very scary.  In the former USSR and China, the governments forced millions of unrelated peasants into collective farms. By breaking the link between individual effort and reward, collectivization undermined the incentives to work, leading to mass famines in Russia and China, and severely reduced agricultural productivity. In the former USSR, the 4% of land that remained privately owned accounted for almost one-quarter of total agricultural output. In China, beginning in 1978, collective farms were disbanded; and agricultural output doubled in the  space of just four years. Traditional English villages of the 18^th and early 19^th Centuries practiced communal ownership of grazing land in which the grazing land was shared by the members of the village. This system worked so badly that overgrazing and poor land management practically destroyed efficient farming. The solution was to privatize the grazing land; and with that change, farmers worked to care for the pastures and keep overgrazing down—production increased apace.

 
Excessive government regulation and taxation are driving our American system of free enterprise and competitive business into the ground. We need a government that will allow the free exercise of business, medicine, banking, etc. with less regulation. Our faltering economy and the growing numbers of Americans absent from the work force testify that an over-powerful central government is not doing a good job. Sure, we need some regulation in business, banking, and other things; but we have reached and passed the point where big government is beneficial.

Food Freaks of the World—Listen to This!

Dr. Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium, has published in the Wall Street Journal of 10/23/13 an editorial entitled “The Irrational Fear of Genetically Modified Food.” This article deserves attention from large portions of our population that is deathly afraid of genetically modified (GM) food products.

I have been impressed for years with the large numbers of Americans who make food a fetish—who spend hours reading food journals and magazines looking for the boogey man in the grocery story who is lurking there just to pounce on the unsuspecting shopper trying to cause some deadly disease from improper food intake. Genetically modified food is thought to be a deadly culprit.

What these wary food shoppers don’t seem to understand is that mankind has been genetically modifying the food chain for 10,000 years, ever since the agricultural revolution. Cross breeding and hybridization is a practice that has given us gains in food production and environmental protection that is not only harmless, but infinitely beneficial to human health and nutrition. The present day practice of GM is only that same process speeded up and more efficient.

GM wheat, decades ago, developed by researchers at the Ford Foundation, allowed third world farmers to increase their yield of food substantially, thereby improving calorie intake and general nutrition of their populations. That change in farming practice was dubbed the “green revolution,” and it not only improved nutrition in the Third World, it proved very profitable to farmers and subsistence gardeners, allowing them to focus more income on other priorities, such as educating their children.

Herbicide-tolerant GM crops have stimulated no-tillage farming, reducing soil erosion and green-house gas emissions. Insect-resistant GM crops have cut insecticide sprayings by more than 25%--and as much as seven fold in parts of India. Crops in present development now include virus-resistant cassava, a starchy root otherwise known as tapioca and nutritionally enriched rice that can help prevent blindness and early death among children. Nitrogen efficient and pest resistance crops have been developed that reduce fertilizer runoff by allowing no-till farming techniques.

All these benefits of GM crops have been developed; and not one disease or other malady has ever been identified that results from eating GM food products. Yet, the western world has been spooked by advertised dangers of these GM foods. People have consumed billions of meals containing GM foods in the 17 years since they were first commercialized, and not one problem has been documented. This comes as no surprise. Every respected scientific organization that has studied GM crops—the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and the World Health Organization—has found GM crops both safe for humans and positive for the environment.

Anyone who cares about alleviating hunger and protecting the environment should work quickly to remove the bias against GM crops—let’s get rid of this myth of dangerous GM foods.

Everyone who worries about “dangerous food” should realize that genetically modified foods contain on hormones, antibiotics, or insecticides. GM does not include the addition of any extraneous chemicals.

A Touching Scene—An Important Principle

Yesterday, Nancy and I saw a heart-touching scene in a church we attend in the inner-city slums of Cleveland. A mother and her 14-year-old Down’s Syndrome son were worshipping with us.  The boy was trying to hold up his hands in worship while a song was being sung. He did the best he could to sing the song; but he could not get the words right. Finally, fatigue got the best of him; and he lowered his hands, placed his head on his mother’s shoulder and put his arms around her waist.

When the song ended, she put her arms around him and kissed him.

There are many people who would abort a baby if they find out that he has Down’s Syndrome. That is a grave mistake. Down’s children are loving, affectionate, kind, and generous. They are an inspiration to parents who will consider loving them in return. Of course, they will never become a CEO of the Bank of America; but…Down’s children have their own contribution to make. For one thing, they bring out the very best of characteristics in their parents, i.e., love, consideration, and kindness—these characteristics are also distributed to brothers and sisters who help with their care.

God’s strength is demonstrated in weakness. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:27-31)

“Healthcare Reform?” I’ll say so! (But not for the better.)

We are probably all sick of hearing about the failure of ObamaCare; but I am constrained to continue blogging on the subject, because it is of such imminent importance to each of us. This law is the most mistaken piece of legislation to have come down the pike at us in my lifetime. It had some good intentions behind it; but its unintended consequences far outweigh its good qualities. And…I am afraid that the difficulties with the registration procedures on the internet are just the beginning of more problems down the road.

I am afraid we are headed for lost jobs, an economy increasingly made up of part-time workers, higher health spending, a decline in medical innovation and medical devise production, and more difficulty retaining desirable health insurance and care.

Past polling going back to the 1940’s have consistently indicated that Americans have believed desired a system of “national health insurance;" but they have never indicated that they would be willing to pay adequate amounts out-of-pocket money to get it.

President Obama has promised the American people that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would insure 45million uninsured people without costing middle class families one penny in new taxes; and that paying for it would not add one dime to the federal deficit. He even said that a typical family of four would save $2500 yearly in premiums before the end of his first term in office.

The Congregational Budget Office, on the other hand has calculated that by 2023, ObamaCare will have imposed over $1 trillion in new taxes. $318 billion of this amount will come from taxes aimed primarily at singles earning >$200,000 yearly and married earning >$250,000. But the remainder of the increased tax money will come in a variety of forms that will hit both middle and low income people.

When all is said and done, the folks the president assured would not see taxes go up a dime to bankroll health reform will shoulder close to 70% of ObamaCare’s tax burden.

President Obama has promised that this new law will provide health care coverage for 45 million people. But…the CBO calculates that by 2023, there will remain 31 million uninsured—a far cry from the president’s promise!

Another Obama promise: “We’ll lower premiums by up to $2500 for a typical family per year….We’ll do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States.” (June 5, 2008) But…according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Employer Health Benefits Survey, average premiums for family coverage during that period increased from $13,375/year to $16,531/year.

The President has promised that spending on health care will “not add one dime to the deficit.” However, his own Treasury Department has calculated that federal spending, as a share of GDP will rise by more than 40% by year 2085. Rising health entitlements will account for every penny of that increase!

President Obama has said, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.” (September 2, 2009) Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin has calculated that “the new reform law will raise the deficit by more than $500 billion during the 1^st 10 years and nearly$1.5 trillion in the next decade.”

President Obama has promised that “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.” (June 15, 2009) But…recently, we have seen health insurance companies one after another dropping coverage of clients because of ObamaCare’s requirements. For example:

1)   Florida Blue is dropping 300,000 policy holders.

2)   Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping 20% of its individual market customers.
3)   Kaiser Permanente of California is dropping 160,000 patients.
4)   Independence Blue Cross Philadelphia is dropping 45% of its customers.
5)   Kaiser in Ohio (where Nancy and I get our health care coverage) is going completely out of business and selling all its coverage and business to Healthspan Integrated Care. (These figures come from FOX News Special Report of 10/23/13)

Well, so much for that promise!

(Much of this blog post is a redaction of an article in The Weekly Standard of 10-21-13. The Rest is from my own experience.)

The Changed Face of Doctoring in America

Nancy and I have lived in the Cleveland, Ohio area for 2½ years in a retirement community. Over that time period, we have made 5 visits to doctors; and we have seen 4 different doctors. One visit was to an emergency room for a sore throat. The other visits were to primary care doctors to whom we went for general check-ups.

At each of those “general check-up” visits, we requested physical exams; but we were refused that service each time. The doctors only talked briefly to each of us about our present health situation and ordered lab tests. None of them ever laid a hand on us. One of the doctors charged Medicare $250 for each of us. All the other visits cost us $30 for each co-pay.

My, how things have changed!! When I was in the practice of primary care, a patient who came to me requesting a general check-up got a full physical exam including a check of vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, height, weight) a mirror exam of the larynx, an exam of the retina after dilatation of the pupils, and careful examination of the neck, chest, breasts, heart, abdomen, groin (pelvic and rectal), extremities, all lymph bearing areas, limbs and joints, and a brief neurologic exam.

A routine medical history included an interview of the present problem and review of the past history, including previous surgery, medications, illnesses, occupation, travel, recreational activities, family problems, and habits.

I am aware of the fact that laboratory tests are much better these days than they were when I was in practice (up until 7 years ago). It is possible to find a lot more disease by laboratory tests today than it was then, also. But…I still think that present day doctors miss some important things when they do not exercise their ability to find health problems by using classic tools of history and physical exam.

The Problems in America Are Just What Americans Want!

As most of you know, who read my blog post, I am no fan of President Obama. But I am having second thoughts about that attitude. I have come to the conclusion that the things I find fault with in the Obama years has less to do with President Obama, himself, and mostly to do with the Americans, themselves. I assume that Americans have voted for and obtained the things they value most. For example:

1. We Americans have expressed a value for immediate benefits in exchange for long term safety and prosperity. Our welfare state affinities have shown that.
2. We have shown that we do not mind spending money we don’t have up front without counting the cost of deficit spending down the road. As an example of this, the Office of Management and Budget for the White House in its historical tables points out of the last 73 years, our national budget has been in deficit 62 of those years. The deficit problem is getting worse and worse; and still, our politicians are screaming for more deficit money. Our national deficit is now about $17 trillion; and $6.2 trillion of that $17 trillion has been added in the past 4½ years. But we must admit that seems to be exactly what the American population wants.
3. In the field of foreign policy, American prestige is at a low point in recent history. We try to appease our enemies and abuse our allies. We do not keep our promises. Our people do not want to fight for freedom of oppressed peoples around the globe and think that bad things cannot happen to us on our homeland—we seem to think we, too, are “too big to fail.”
4. We put politicians in office who do such things as seducing the office girls. I assume that the morals of our politicians match the morals of the American peoples, ourselves. That is the kind of people we elect to office.
5. Americans live in a country that was founded on Christian principles by Christian settlers who were willing to pay heavily for freedom; but now Christian principles are derided or ignored. We give far more consideration to Islamic values in our country than we do to the principles of our Christian heritage. That is all done at the altar of “diversity.”  

I suppose all the above sounds cynical; but I don’t think it is cynicism. I think it is just the true facts about our country and its people, in general. If we would only wake up and get some backbone into our character, we could undo all the harm that is going on. But…it will take effort and work. I believe we can do it.

 

 

           

How ObamaCare Wrecks the Work Ethic

Major subsidies and regulations intended to help the poor and unemployed were changed in more than a dozen ways after 2007. Economist Casey B. Mulligan, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, has analyzed the present economic situation of the United States in his recent book, The Redistribution Recession.

He argues that many of these changes were reasonable reactions to economic events, with the intention of helping people endure the recession, but they also reduced incentives for people to work and businesses to hire. He measures the startling changes in implicit tax rates that resulted from a labyrinth of new and expanded “social safety net” programs. He also reveals how low income borrowers can expect their earnings to affect the amount that lenders will forgive in debt renegotiation. In other words, if you earn more, creditors will be less likely to negotiate your debts downward. This has acted as a massive implicit tax on earning. He explains how redistribution in the forms of subsidies, taxes and minimum-wage laws profoundly altered the path of the economy and made the recent recession one of the deepest and longest in decades.

Redistribution, or subsidies and regulations intended to help the poor, unemployed, and financially distressed, have changed in many ways since the onset of the recent financial crisis. The unemployed, for instance, can collect benefits longer and can receive bonuses, health subsidies, and tax deductions, and millions more people have became eligible for food stamps.

Professor Mulligan argues that while many of these changes were intended to help people endure economic events and boost the economy, they had the unintended consequence of deepening, if not causing, the recession. By dulling incentives for people to maintain their own living standards, redistribution created employment losses. Mulligan explains how elevated tax rates and binding minimum-wage laws reduced labor usage, consumption, and investment, and how they actually increased labor productivity. He points to entire industries that slashed payrolls while experiencing little or no decline in production or revenue, documenting the disconnect between employment and production that occurred during the recession.

This whole scenario seems to indicate that Keynesian economics is a bankrupt theory and the massive "stimulus" bill in 2009 made the economy worse, not better?

Mr. Mulligan's thesis is that, in addition to thwarting recovery with unprecedented levels of spending, the Obama administration and Congress have made unemployment much higher than it might otherwise be. To take an obvious example, Congress increased the cost of labor—and thus decreased the number of jobs—by raising the minimum wage. (In fact, it has done so three times since 2007.)

On a grander scale, Mr. Obama and his policy advisers have added to government benefits in various ways—in essence paying would-be workers for staying out of the workforce. Mr. Mulligan estimates that about half the precipitous 2007-11 decline in the labor-force-participation rate, as well as in hours worked, can be put down to such misguided generosity.

By far the biggest source of the decline in work, Mr. Mulligan says, has been much easier eligibility rules for unemployment insurance, food stamps and housing aid. When subsidies for consumer-loan forgiveness are added in, government transfers almost tripled after 2007.

The Obama administration's theory is that government-supplied benefits will lead to more consumer spending and thus stimulate the economy. Mr. Mulligan, subjecting labor statistics to detailed scrutiny, shows, on the contrary, that government "help" can in fact be counterproductive.

The annual value in average benefits for not working rose from $10,000 in 2007to $16,000 in 2009. Such increases were inversely related to changes in average hours worked. On average, Americans worked 120 fewer hours in 2009 than in 2007—the largest contraction in work effort of any recession since the Depression. Since 2009, work hours and labor-force participation have remained at record lows even though the recession officially ended in June 2009.

It should shock no one that disincentives to work—e.g., two years of unemployment-insurance benefits instead of the usual six months—have made the unemployment problem worse. Mr. Mulligan stresses that, at a certain point, relief programs create a disincentive to work.

It is not only the unemployed who are affected. People working part-time or performing jobs that might allow for extra hours (and income) are discouraged from seeking more work. They easily grasp that, by working more, they will lose benefits and face the possibility of paying more in taxes. In short, the penalty for logging an extra hour on the job can exceed the income it brings in: If you make $30,000 a year and your pay from added hours rises to $33,000, you may well lose more than $3,000—the combined effect of additional taxes paid and foregone government subsidies. There are plenty of such cases, where, for low-income Americans, the marginal tax rate—as defined by taxes paid plus benefits lost on an additional dollar of income—can exceed 100%.

The ongoing consequences of added subsidies for the unemployed in 2010-12 explain why the labor market is not even close to a full recovery four years after the recession began.

All of the above have confirmed that higher payments for not working have made labor more expensive.

In 2009, it was argued that the primary problem with the economy was a reduction in demand—i.e., a lack of consumer spending—which caused businesses to cut production and lay off workers. However, during the worst of the 2008-09 troubles, most sectors of the business community increased their use of production inputs other than labor hours. “Production inputs” includes, mainly, the use of machines to do the work of former laborers. Of course, machines do not pay taxes; neither are they consumers. As a result, the use of machines and “other production inputs” do not help the economic situation of our country.

In short, businesses drove up productivity by shedding workers. Why? "Businesses perceive labor to be more expensive than it was before the recession began," Mr. Mulligan writes. The reason for the added cost was that easier requirements for benefits—even as the government was pumping "stimulus" money into the economy—unwittingly reduced the supply of workers. As output began to rise, firms hired fewer workers. National unemployment has stayed so high for so long because of the government's policies, not in spite of them.

By the way, Mr. Mulligan doesn't challenge the claim that a surge in unemployment benefits, food stamps and other subsidies may have been desirable to prevent hunger or severe poverty for out-of-luck families or unemployable people traumatized by the recession. He simply notes that, though increasing subsidies may be compassionate in the short term, it comes with costs in the long term that eventually cause more hardship rather than less.

(This blog post was redacted from a book review by Steven Moore in the Wall Street Journal of 11/4/2012.)

 

 

           

Pope Francis Reaches out to Atheists

The Pope, spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, has struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone towards atheists and agnostics, saying that God will "forgive" them as long as they behave morally and live according to their consciences. He recently wrote this message in an Italian daily newspaper, La Republica. The Pope wrote: “The question for those who do not believe in God is to follow their own conscience. Sin, even for a non-believer, is when one goes against one's conscience.” “To listen and to follow your conscience means that you understand the difference between good and evil.” He said that the "mercy of God has no limits" and encompasses even non-believers....”  http://bit.ly/14FTIeq

The Pope's reaching out to atheists echoes a homily he delivered in May, when he said that even atheists could be welcomed into heaven. That declaration caused consternation among Vatican officials, with a spokesman later appearing to backtrack on the Pope's remarks, saying that people who do not believe in God "cannot be saved".

This message has been the theme song for liberal Protestants for years; but I never thought I would hear it from a Pope!

The trouble with the message is that if everyone, including atheists, were admitted to heaven upon physical death, then there would have been no reason for Christ to come and die on a cross—unless, of course, He particularly enjoyed being crucified. There is no place in Scripture or in classical Christian and Catholic doctrine where a clean conscience is a reason for being saved to eternal life. It is good to have a clear conscience; but Christ made it painfully clear that one’s conscience does not necessarily indicate that a person is okay with Christ and able to take advantage of His atoning sacrifice.  

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 “And there is salvation in on one else, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12. “Truly, truly, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3 “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe with your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

On the other hand, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” John 3:18 “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” Hebrews 3:18-19

Pope Frances and liberal Protestants are wrong.

Projected Weakness

From the viewpoint of an ordinary American and former military service member, I must say that I am dismayed at the apparent foolishness of our nation’s foreign policies. I have never, since the administration of Jimmy Carter, seen such ill-advised foreign policy, apparently designed to show America as a weak and impotent nation. It is the way foreign countries see us, too. Read the editorial comment printed below from a prominent French newspaper:

“I’m talking about the hesitant, timorous America that we have seen through the incredible sequence in which Secretary of State John Kerry’s wise, forceful speech was juxtaposed against Barack Obama’s strangely indecisive remarks—taking seriatim and almost simultaneously every conceivable geopolitical position. I’m talking about an America willing itself into weakness. A quiescent (i.e., sitting still) America that Mr. Putin with his astounding lecture on democratic morals published in the New York Times, has allowed himself the luxury of humiliating on her home field.” (Bernard–Henri Lévy)

That’s how foreign nations view America’s foreign policy!

The Western World has been famous for making brainless agreements with despots. Appeasement has often been the watchword ever since the foolish agreement at Munich in 1938 when British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, along with French and Italian “diplomats” ceded large parts of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in exchange for promises of no military invasion of that country. Chamberlain went home proclaiming “peace within our time!” Within a few months after that Munich agreement, Nazi armies marched into Czechoslovakia—World War II was well underway!

“So it is with many negotiations between democrats and tyrants: When there is a deal, it usually winds up being a trade between the theoretical and the tangible, the immediate concession and the long-term promise, the paper agreement and the territorial prize.” (Wall Street Journal 9/24/13 page A17)

Dealing with tyrants by appeasement methods has never worked. And today, we see President Obama saying soothing words to the American people—words that are not backed up with strength. Diplomacy without military back up is not worth the words with which it is spoken. We are seeing with our very eyes, our government transforming Bashar Assad from a war criminal and enemy of humanity (in the words of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon) into a legitimate negotiating partner. Look soon to see him presented as if he were a cooperative and responsible world leader.

We have fools for leaders and diplomats!

The New Health Care Act “Won’t Cost You A Dime.” Barack Obama

I have received notice from our health care insurance company that our monthly premium will double on January first.

I talked to the lab technician at the clinic where we go for medical care about his health care costs. In the past he had no additional premium to pay above and beyond his salary at the health clinic—he only had very nominal co-payments for every health care service he needed. Beginning on January 1^st he has to pay $500/month for his own and his family’s health care coverage.

This new health care called the Affordable Care Act was evidently supported by a majority of very foolish Americans. They were under the impression that it would be possible to pay for health care insurance for 45 million uninsured citizens without costing anyone anything! Well…there’s a fool born every minute, as the saying goes.

But now that the law goes into effect, we can rest assured that the 45 million Americans who don’t need and don’t want health insurance have that insurance—whether they want it or not.

America 200 Years From Now

It is my opinion that 200 years from now, America will be no more. Historians will be writing, “What happened? Why?” (Don’t be misled about this blog post. What I am writing will not all be bad.) Several reasons will be enumerated to explain the demise of this, the greatest republic in human history.

a)    Rampant materialism.
b)   Preoccupation with sex in all its forms—heterosexual, homosexual, pornographic.
c)    The growth of the welfare state (read free supply of bread, i.e., food stamps).
d)   Decline of the family.
e)    Decline of practical Christianity.
f)     Obsessive interest in the self to the exclusion of others.
g)    Attacks by outside barbarians (read Islamic terrorists).
h)   Preoccupation with circuses (read spectator sports).
i)     Corruption of government officials.
j)     Degraded social morals (read crime).
k)   Disinterest in voting and taking part in constructive politics and government activities.

There are few among us who will not recognize the above list. Those things were the causes of the fall of Rome. It will happen to us. Our republic has lasted so far, only about 250 years, while Rome lasted twelve hundred years. But…things are happening much more rapidly in our time due to speedy transportation and the instant effectiveness of means of communication.

It goes without saying that anyone who participates in the above listed effects is contributing to the fall of our nation. Many, although they recognize these things, go blithely along their way thinking that we live only for today and that they have no responsibility for tomorrow. After all, our society is “too big to fall,” as the saying goes.

What should we, as individual citizens, do in the face of these social problems? Our natural tendency is to wring our hands and think that we are helpless to stem the tide of social disintegration. All we do is worry. But…that’s not the right way to think. God is still active in the world. He has plans—plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future (Jer 29:11). That is not an empty promise; it is not just a trite saying that Christians are fond of reciting—God really means it; and we must remember it and believe it! So, again, what should we do while bad things are going on around us in our nation? We should continue to write petitions to our legislators. (Do not just write to those legislators with whom you already agree. Write to the ones who are standing for the things with which you disagree.) Vote. Speak out about the bad effects you see around you. Write letters to media voices. Pray fervently! Then…quit driving yourself crazy with worry. God is working to bring about his ways. He is not helpless.    

 

 

 

 

 

           

Thoughts on Abortion

The following blog post was written by Paul Manring.

I know 1 in 3 Americans have either had an abortion or were in some way responsible for one.  I know it is a heart-wrenching and traumatic decision that no one wants to go through.  It doesn’t only effect the fetus or embryo or zygote…it deeply effects those responsible for the procedure. 

 

However, even if you have been through that process, it doesn’t mean that God cannot forgive a repented person over it.  It doesn’t mean a morally right decision was made because it happened. It doesn’t mean a continued belief that abortion is not really killing a person…a person who is not quite as developed as those outside the womb.  It must be a difficult personal conversation justifying what happened when people go through that procedure. 

 

I can’t imagine the endless, shameful, conversation that goes through a person’s mind rationalizing that decision…but eventually it can get to that point where it is rationalized.  I doubt it can ever get to the point where the shame and guilt is ever removed without literally divine intervention where a belief that God has removed that guilt by the work He did on the cross.

 

But my point isn't really to sympathize with those who have gone through an abortion, although I do sympathize.  I also sympathize with those whose circumstances drove them to that decision. My point isn’t even about a God who is able to forgive that decision or to even bring religion into this context.  My point is, and hopefully will develop into, if a person really digs into the issue of abortion, it is remarkable to me that we are even having this debate.

 

I am delving into this issue through a book “the Case for Life” by Scott Klusendorf and it is a book about equipping Christians to Engage the Culture.  But forgetting the fact it is a Christian book, I am about half-way through it and have decided this is not really a religious issue by itself.  This is a social issue regardless of religious orientation.

 

I once believed pro-choicers and pro-lifers will never have the capacity to really debate this issue; pro-choicers use logical techniques in the debate (it’s my body and my right), pro-lifers use emotional techniques (a baby is being killed).  In much the same way, I realized this sort of debate was happening in the 1800’s when I visited a civil war museum in Atlanta, Georgia last spring; slaves are my property vs. slaves are equal people.  That irreconcilable debate split the nation as it does now with abortion; logic vs. emotion moved the nation into a civil war until the nation was literally “forced” to believe that slavery is wrong. 

 

Slowly, now, our nation is going in a direction that says, in some way, abortion is wrong. Over 50% of the nation agrees that abortion has some immoral implication to it.  But again, my point isn’t primarily that abortion is wrong. My point is that the ability for pro-lifers to debate logically is available…regardless of how emotional the debate may feel.  My point is that once a person compares similar, historical, societal events to the current event of abortion, it may surprise you too this debate is occurring.  My point is that one emotional barrier that could exist for a person who has been involved in an abortion, and there are 30% of us who have, may not have the ability to objectively evaluate the issue in order to close the cognitive dissonance between a decision and the reality of that decision.  My point also is to suggest there is a spiritual outlet to a loving God who can close the gap between a decision over abortion and the reality of it, thus enabling an objective look at the societal struggle with abortion.

Conservatives and Liberals—Who Are They?

 I have been reading and thinking about a subject that many have discussed without fully appreciating. This subject has to do the definition of “liberal” and “conservative,” i.e., “Democrat” and “Republican.”

 The differences between “liberal” and “conservative” have varied over the years in American parlance; and I would like to review some of the movements that have impacted these concepts.

 The origin of the Democrat Party was a part of the heritage of Thomas Jefferson, who envisioned a small government with minimal regulatory powers; his opinion was, also, that slavery was acceptable for the new United States. The attitude of small government and racial segregation maintained itself in Democrat thinking up through the recent administration of Lyndon Johnson. The southern states were solidly in favor of such a definition, and thus—the eponym, “the solid South.” The Democrats were in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. By the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Democrats has largely conceded the field to the popular movement of civil rights in America for all people, regardless of race; and that Act was passed with wide bipartisan support.

 President Johnson got the Democrats to give up the idea of racial discrimination as the move toward civil rights gained momentum; and, today, the Democrats see themselves as populists, engaging the support and standing for the rights of the majority of the people; and, especially, of disenfranchised and disempowered people groups in the country. They certainly do not believe in slavery!

 The Republican Party, on the other hand arose from the disintegration of the Whig Party during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln. The Republicans organized under the theme of abolition of slavery. They were, at that time, solidly the party of the weak and disenfranchised. Of course, now, neither party is in favor of slavery. As a matter of fact, both parties believe that they represent the interests of the large majority of the peoples. Only…they think differently about such ideas as equality, liberty, general good, etc. In the idea of equality, the Democrats think of equality as “equal outcomes;” and the Republicans think of it as “equal opportunity.”

Early on, in the 19^th Century and the early part of the 20^th Century, both Democrat and Republican parties had the same ethical goal, i.e., to produce a better American. But…they had different ideas of how to do that—and different political methods and values for which they stood. Nevertheless, that was basically what they were both trying to do. As the 20^th Century wore on, the drive for improvement of the populace gradually waned; and the goal of American society became to increase the gross domestic product and to distribute it equally. That objective, undertaken, under the philosophical auspices of the concept of pragmatism, which I alluded to in a recent blog post about William James (August 30, 2013), was the touchstone of a remarkable development. America became the most economically successful nation the world had ever seen. Concurrently, we also became the most materialistic country the world had ever seen.

Another change occurred in the doctrine and method of the American liberal. As the 20^th Century wore on, liberals began to dismiss the moral distinctives that had characterized both Democrat and Republican parties. That was the part of the liberal metamorphosis that pushed me away from that ideology. Liberals introduced and pushed for such things as no-fault divorce, making divorce easier and more frequent; elimination of prayer in school, discounting the role of Christianity in our society; the gay agenda; liberalized abortion; free sex; multinationalism; and the women’s movement. Eventually, the liberal position morphed into such things as affirmative action and all the baggage attached to the idea of diversity. Some of these things were good; but some of them produced more disappointment than benefit. All of these changes culminated in a concept of civil rights that discounted the goods of classical Christianity. For these reasons, I could no longer call myself a liberal—I began to understand my position as conservative in the modern sense.

During the early part of the 20^th Century, a decided change occurred in the definition of what might be called the liberal/conservative mystique or philosophy of the people. It all began in Europe. Prior to that time, what is now called “classical liberalism” was the rule in most countries. Classical liberals still held the ideas of small government, entrepreneurism, and a hands-off government regulatory policy. Free enterprise was the order of the day. However, in Italy, these new 20^th Century liberals changed their tune—the group encapsulated the same people, i.e., young people, university students and faculty, powerful government officials, and union members. But…their views and methods changed drastically. They became dissatisfied with social conditions as they saw them; and they were enamored with the rhetoric of Mussolini. He taught that more government control could solve their problems—eventually, he convinced most of the Italian population that a totalitarian state was what was needed. That form of government is now called Fascism; and it is wrongly attributed to “right wing politics;” that form of government was brought into power by those who called themselves liberals.

 We have a group in America, now, that are called liberals. And…their goals and methods are not so different from the Italian liberals of the late 1930’s. Today’s liberals believe that big government and take-over of business by government is the best idea. The population groups that backed Mussolini are exactly the same groups that back Barack Obama, today, i.e., university people, statists, and unions. But…I am afraid that their methods and ideas might produce the same effect as the fascism of Italy nearly a century ago. That is the fear I have; and my fear of this kind of national effect is shared by many good-thinking people. That is one reason why I am a conservative.

 All this is not to say that liberalism has no place in the thinking of the patriotic American. Today’s liberal in America stands for open-minded thinking and the embracing of new ways. Surely, we need to consider these attitudes.  

Conservatism is a form of thinking that is not to be pushed down into the trash barrel. Conservatives are not dopes who think that every new idea is bad—we, conservatives, will adopt change and improvement in the society. But…we do not like to throw things away that have served well in the past. The lessons that our nation has learned and that have succeeded in producing a great nation and economy should be preserved.

One problem we have in accomplishing this is that liberals think that we don’t have any sense. To them, we seem like bigots who deserve no consideration from those of a progressive mindset. That conclusion is borne out by good research. If you don’t think so, I would refer you to the book, The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt. It is written by a self-proclaimed liberal; and he has very well pointed out that my opinion of the liberal mind is quite accurate. He also pointed out that conservatives, in general, do not look down on liberals in a reciprocal manner. Conservatives are much better at objectively evaluating the arguments generated on the left side of the aisle.

The upstart of this kind of development I have outlined above ought to make us consider well the constructive things we can derive in learning from one another about our society and the good things we each have to offer.