What's in a Name?

What's happened to all the left wing Liberals in the U.S.of A? It seems that they've recently morphed into Progressives. Does this mean that we should start calling right wing Conservatives "Regressives"? Does this move suddenly render the "L-word" obsolete?

This shift in nomenclature reminds me of the situation several years ago when it became unclear how white people were to refer to their non-white American brethren. Starting with Negro, the appellation shifted from "Colored People" to "Blacks" to "People of Color" and then settled into the new politically correct name "African-Americans". The NAACP apparently said the heck with this. They have remained the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. If they want to be taken seriously, shouldn't they have to get on the bandwagon and become NAAAAP? Besides, all those"A"s look pretty impressive.

The hyphenation trend has opened up the opportunity for a veritable plethora of newly hyphenated Americans, including "Asian-Americans", "Italian-Americans", "Irish-Americans", "Plump-Americans", "Kinda Skinny-Americans", ad nauseum. By the way, why exactly did "Orientals" become "Asians"? The Orient sounds far more exotic than Asia.

Using hyphens is probably less confusing than the color codes that were becoming the norm. For example, left wingers were called "Commie Pinkos" when I was a kid. This political bloc instead now comes from "Blue" states. The right wingers now emanate from "Red" states. This is really mind boggling since the Communists used to be called "Reds". Blue Dogs are a new group that has emerged from the political womb. They are called "Blue" because they come from Blue states. Why they are called "Dogs" is beyond me.

Right wing and left wing politics seem to be ingrained in our nomenclature. According to "Ask Yahoo",..."these terms come from pre-revolutionary France... Inside the chamber where the National Assembly met, members of the Third Estate sat on the left side and members of the First Estate sat on the right. The Third Estate consisted of revolutionaries, while the First Estate were nobles. Thus, the left wing of the room was more liberal, and the right wing was more conservative."

All this leaves me pretty unsettled. For example, does our goverment expect me to see red if the level of risk of terror attack is orange?

A Clunker of a Program

Have you gotten your $4500 Cash for Clunkers rebate from the government yet? I bet you haven't.

Why?

Because you probably didn't buy a gas guzzler that qualifies. So how does it make you feel to know that you and the rest of your fellow taxpayers are subsidizing people who made the bad decision to buy one of those Clunkers. If you're like me, you think it's a blatant rip off.

Some of the defenders of this program tout the improved national fleet mileage and resulting reduction in gasoline and green house gas emissions. But even under the most optimistic assumptions, the impact is truly negligible, about the same as what the U.S. burns every 22 seconds. And this is at a cost to the taxpayers that is about seven times what "Cap and Trade" carbon permits trade for in Europe.

Proponents of this giveaway also cite the great public response to the program which is jump-starting the sales of new cars.

Sure. People will gladly accept a $4500 gift.

Auto sales that were postponed while this program was being debated and those which were planned for the future are being consummated now, making it pretty likely that sales will drop once the program expires. Additionally, there are a bunch of negative effects. One, for example, is the impact it's having on the car repair and aftermarket parts industries, which are being badly hurt by the decision to scrap the clunker cars instead of repairing them.

This program is just one more example of the government picking winners and losers. While advocates of more government intervention tout how programs like this and other "stimulants" are enhancing the economy, to me it's just the government distorting the free enterprise system.

Whether it's Cash for Clunkers, subsidies for underwater mortgage holders or any of the other government interventions implemented recently, the negative impacts often outweigh the positives.

Also, let's be real. There's no free lunch. Somebody has to pay for all this massive spending. That somebody is us, our grandchildren, or even better, now that I think about it, China.

Races I Don't Get

Are you all caught up in the excitement of the Tour de France? I've tried to follow the action, but I must be missing something really important.

Half the world seems enthralled with the Tour de France. All I see when I watch snippets of it on the tube is a group of guys riding bikes for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Nothing much seems to happen. Once in a while they have some bikes crash just to keep everyone awake, but beyond that, it's just the boys out for a cycle.

Today, for the third day in a row, the guy in first place was ahead of the second place rider by two seconds and the third place rider by six seconds. How could it be that there was absolutely no change over several hundred miles? I could gain or lose a second just riding down my driveway.

The roads they ride are frequently lined with screaming fans. I assume the spectators have been there for hours just to get a fleeting glimpse of the bikers as they peddle on. At the end of each day's event, the day's leader is chosen to come up on a platform. He gets kisses from two attractive ladies and he is allowed to wear a very special yellow jersey for a day.

I have the same lost feeling when I've watched NASCAR races. I've read it's now the most popular spectator sport in America. All I see is cars racing around and around, with huge, screaming, crowds on hand, just waiting, I assume, for a crash to occur. I think the winner sometimes drinks a cup of milk to celebrate.

America's Cup is another event that the rest of the world takes pretty seriously. All I see is several very expensive boats sailing around for days on end. I've never seen them crash. Maybe they do it at night when it's dark.

I'd probably appreciate these sports more if I were a betting man.

A Healthy Debate

Lately, President Obama has been traveling around the country proclaiming that he has the solution to the nation's health care crisis. This may or may not be true. What is certainly true is that we have a health care crisis.

We pay the most per capita of any country on earth for medical services. Yet, our system was ranked 37th best by the World Health Organization . While the results of this survey have been challenged, no matter whether we're number 37 or somewhere higher, it's clear that we're not exactly getting our money's worth when it comes to health care.

The people who have insurance have no idea what health care really costs as they are sheltered from the actual charges. The poor who have no health insurance are protected by laws that demand they be taken care of independent of their ability to pay (as long as they wait long enough before seeking care in a hospital emergency room to get really, really sick). The ones who are really shafted in our system are those who have no health insurance, but do have the ability to pay (or file for bankruptcy). They are charged outlandish fees for every procedure.

I can share one example from my own personal experience. I had an out-patient procedure to break up kidney stones. I was in the hospital for a grand total of four hours. The procedure itself took about 30 minutes. The bill was more than $56,000. Because I had insurance, I paid about $1000 and the insurance company paid about $1000. But if I didn't have insurance, I would have been on the hook for the full amount. This is insane.

I'm sure you've heard similar stories. The bottom line is that things are seriously out of whack.

I have no clue if a government run health system would be better. I suspect it would not. What is clear is that the present system which focuses on pay for services provided has exactly the wrong incentives. Instead of encouraging expensive procedures after we get sick, the system should reward doctors who keep you healthy in the first place. But if your doctor tries to provide preventive care, Medicare, today's model of a government-run health system, will not pay for it.

What a mess!

Is Bigger Better?

I just returned from several days in Las Vegas. It was my first visit in a few years. I came away with a new appreciation of just how large "large" can be.

 

First of all, the new hotels are just gigantic. I stayed at the Wynn, which has 50 floors and 2,716 rooms. This is one of the smaller hotels on The Strip. On the off chance that you care about this, 15 of the 20 largest hotels in the world are located within a two mile radius in Las Vegas.(Click here if you'd like to read the entire list).

 

The second most impressive thing for me in Las Vegas was the size of the buffets. If you have the stamina, you can stuff yourself silly. This is not new. What seemed new to me was the sheer variety of the dishes in a single buffet. Just taking a sample of each item will fill your calorie budget for the next decade. I felt like a failure after only being able to make about four or five visits to the trough.

 

The next item that attracted my attention was the height of the heels that some of the women were sporting. Rather than walk, the women seemed to be shuffling forward. I don't think they flexed their knees at all. It was if they were emulating stilt walkers. I wish I had the marketing ability of the purveyors of these instruments of torture. How they convince women to voluntarily wear these shoes is beyond my understanding. From a purely marketing perspective, it seems a close second to the world's best marketers: the religious leaders who convince their followers to happily blow themselves up.

 

However, the thing that I found most entertaining was the prominent display of boob-jobs on a number of the ladies. Having an education in science and engineering, I made a series of very careful observations. I don't know much about how they price augmentation surgery. However, I can only conclude that it must be comparatively inexpensive to super-size the implants. There is no way anyone would mistake this particular variety of anatomy for the natural form. So this must not be important to the newly endowed. It must be that it is a relative bargain to get the largest size a woman can bear without completely losing her ability to stand upright.

 

All in all it was a fun trip. Mega-buildings, lots of food, interesting shoes and enormous boobs. What more could a guy ask for?

 

Psst...Wanna Buy Some Stock?

If I wanted to buy some stock in an auto company, I could have easily done it. However, my government has decided that they should do it on my behalf.

 

Where in the Constitution does it say that this is the role of government?

 

The US auto industry is composed of domestic and foreign controlled companies. All of the auto companies, whether foreign or domestic controlled, have public stockholders located all over the world. So what difference does it really make to the average citizen (who is not a member of the United Auto Workers union) whether Chrysler or GM survives in its pre-2009 form? As long as it is profitable, cars will be designed and manufactured in the US, employing US workers. Whether the paycheck comes from Toyota, GM or some new startup really is of little consequence.

 

This seems to be OK for other industries, but not the auto industry. I just don't get it.

 

I wrote some time ago (November, 2008 and December, 2008) that the solution for the ailing US car companies was a pre-packaged bankruptcy. This is exactly what is happening with Chrysler. The ironic upshot of the present plan is that the company is actually being kept alive by the government's infusion of billions of our dollars so that it can be taken over by Fiat. Didn't someone notice that the headquarters of Fiat was located in Italy?

 

By the way, it really irked me when I heard President Obama rail about the private entities that did not go along with the government's plan in which the private entities get pennies on the dollar for their secured Chrysler debt. It seems to me that they have every right under our system to plead their case in court if they think this will result in a better outcome.

 

The bottom line is that the government is not interested in the bottom line. It is a political institution that responds to political pressures. It should exit itself from this mess as quickly as it can.

Knowing The Future

I haven't posted anything for a while.

 

But I have a good excuse: I've been pretty busy pondering the future.

 

It all started with the analysis of my genome. Last month I volunteered to participate in a program in which I gave a sample of my DNA to an organization that's amassing genomes from a broad group of people. They're comparing them to the diseases that the test subjects already have or will get. They then attempt to correlate specific genes with the probabilities of actually getting those diseases.

 

The web site www.23andme.com describes the program. It's pretty interesting, assuming that you're interested in this sort of thing.

 

The whole process starts by spitting into a tube and mailing it to their lab. After a few weeks of waiting, the results are available on their web site. You can choose to share it with others. If you'd like to see my genome, just email me and I'll tell you how.

 

One thing my genome says is that I'm unlikely to be a sprinter. They were right on: I'm definitely not a sprinter.

 

It also said I probably have blue eyes. My eyes are green, or gray, or some color that's not blue. Well, it's not perfect.

 

On the more serious topics, like what diseases you'll get, it becomes more complicated. First of all, it's all presented as probabilities, not definite proclamations. So, for example, you may find out that you have a much higher chance of getting cancer than the general population. But then you're faced with the question of what do you do about it. In some cases, you may start to think about preventive surgery to remove the potential site of the cancer. This is pretty scary stuff.

 

This naturally leads to the question of whether you really want to know what the future holds, especially if it's bleak. Isn't science wonderful?