Thanks to my cardiologist

Today I saw my cardiologist for the sign-off on my heart surgery (see I’m back!, Getting sick is only for the rich or the well-insured, and Modern Medicine and Let Them Eat Cake Politicians).

I told her that I didn’t know whether to be mad or glad.  Mad because of all I went through for the open heart surgery and all the side effects that went with it.  Glad because of what the surgery had repaired.

Between the latest EKG results and what she heard with her stethoscope she was very pleased.  Her delight made me very optimistic for continued improvement.

P.S.  I know that she may well read this, but I still want her to know that her optimism was very contagious.

There never can be a free market in health care

I submitted the following comment to David Brooks “The Trump Elite. Like the Old Elite, but Worse”, New York Times, 2014-03-24, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opinion/the-trump-elite-like-the-old-elite-but-worse.html?comments#permid=21912241. (Warning, my comment is buried among several others.)

There never can be a "free market" in health care.  Sure the sellers are free to leave the market, but few of the buyers are free to leave the market.

Let's hope it doesn't happen to you, but suppose you are in a car crash on a rural road.  First responders find you unconscious and decide to send you to a big city hospital rather than the nearest small town hospital.  Depending on the severity of your injuries, they call an ambulance (very expensive) or a helicopter (really expensive).  Oh yes, there is no free market in either because there are not many sellers of either, not many being only one.

There can be a free market in insurance providers, but how free a market is there when only five or six providers in your market?

Good companies benefit from good regulations

The New York Times had an article on a small group of business in Toledo that thought less regulation would help their businesses.

See “The President Changed. So Has Small Businesses’ Confidence”, Landon Thomas Jr, 2107-03-12
2017-03-14'

Many people fail to realize that government makes businesses run more smoothly because it levels the playing field by keeping other businesses honest.  Government is the force that reduces externalities.

Does a quality restaurant want to compete with a sloppy restaurant that has unsanitary conditions, pays extremely low wages, and just dumps its garbage anywhere.  Food inspections have saved lots of lives and protected other restaurants from unfair competition.

Does a trucking company that follows safety laws want to compete with a company that overworks its drivers who are encouraged to speed.

Does a quality manufacturer want to compete with a manufacturer who cuts costs by avoiding a lot of safety practices?

Does a food processor want to face a law suit from a person who has a really bad reaction because the company didn’t follow government labelling regulation?

Does any company want to do business with a bank that doesn’t keep a government-mandated reserves?  It has happened over and over again that people and companies have lost a great deal of money when a bank went belly-up.  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has certainly reduced the losses of many a company.

If a government didn’t enforce certain standards of safety and fiduciary responsibility, would more businesses be looking at costly law suits?  By showing that they were making every effort to follow the regulations, wouldn’t they blunt these suits, especially if they kept good compliance records.

And well-run companies will also pay less insurance than their slap-dash competitors.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot patents and copyrights.  Boy, lots of companies would be screaming bloody murder if their intellectual property wasn’t protected by government registration.

Hunting with the wrong license

My wife left our cabin early today to visit a friend.  Before she had gone ten miles a buck jumped out in front of her in a well-shaded place.  Her car hit it in the hindquarters.  Once she came to a stop she looked for the deer for some time but never found it.

Did it survive?  If not, will a hunter find it before the wolves or carrion eaters such as crows and eagles?

The damage to her car seems minimal, only a cracked headlight, one we just had replaced.

I told her to call our insurance company as soon as possible.  Also when the adjuster comes to make sure he checks for frame damage.  When I hit a bear in 2014, the adjuster only looked at body damage.  A few years later a mechanic found significant mechanical damage.

I love taxes and regulations!

Printed in the Reader Weekly, 2013-10-31 and found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/10/31/2364_party_of_one-3.

I submitted it as follows; I did remove from this copy the missing section in last week's Reader Weekly.

Well, not all that much.  What I like is all the benefits that taxes and regulations bring me and many other people.

Like many, I find paying taxes a chore.  I have to set aside money twice a year for property taxes.  I have to keep lots of records and fill out detailed forms to calculate how much federal and state income tax I owe.  And because I don’t have withholding on all of my income, I have to estimate these taxes quarterly and pay a portion of the presumed shortfall.

A few years ago I had a sore chest, extreme sweating, and nausea.  Was this a heart attack?  Don’t hesitate; call 9-1-1!  Within five minutes a fire truck with four fire fighters/emergency medical technicians arrived.  Without going into all the details, I was hospitalized but it was determined that I did not have a heart attack.  My taxes, your taxes, and the taxes of many others paid for this quick response.

Was this an entitlement?

One of the ER doctors I saw lived in our house a few years before we bought it.  He was a graduate of the UMD medical school.  State taxes paid some of the cost of operating UMD.  Would there be as many doctors and nurses if they or their parents had to pay the full cost of their education, starting with elementary school?

Is this an entitlement?

Keep in mind George Washington’s farewell address, which contained among much other ignored advice:

“[I]t is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant…”

Most of us drive regularly on streets and our commerce depends on the roads.  They cost a lot more than the streets of George Washington’s time.  And city streets like George Washington rode his horse on still existed in my lifetime.  See “11 Traveled Dirt Streets to Be Hard Surfaced at No Cost to Property”, Kansas City Star, 1944-04-06.

Are hard-surfaced streets an entitlement?

Red lights are a bothersome regulation.  Why should I wait while somebody comes by on the cross street?  Well, when I’m driving on the cross street, I appreciate that the other traffic will stop periodically so that I may drive into the intersection safely.

Requiring auto insurance is a bothersome regulation.  But it sure is nice when another person is at fault for banging my car that their insurance will pay for the damage.  I think it was in Michigan that a driver came out from a parking lot and put a dent in the side of our car.  He didn’t stop, and so I made a U-turn and followed him a block or two before he stopped.  We pleasantly exchanged information and we went on our way.  But after a few blocks we saw his insurance agency.  We stopped in and related the incident.  Oh, but he buys the insurance and cancels within a week or so.  Off we went to the police station and told our story again.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody followed these “burdensome” regulations?

Among my allergies is quaternium-15, an ingredient in many lotions.  Imagine my surprise when a hypoallergenic lotion contained quaternium-15.  If regulations didn’t require a list of ingredients, would I wind up having an allergic reaction and not know why?

My wife has to stay away from soy lecithin.  Dark chocolate is a healthy treat.  Many dark chocolate bars contain soy lecithin.  If regulations didn’t require the labeling of ingredients, what would happen to her if she ingested soy lecithin unknowingly?

When all the nutrition information was mandated on foods, I pooh poohed it.  Come on, you know a candy bar has lots of calories; so stay away from candy bars if you have a weight problem.  I recently had a colonoscopy and was told not to take iron before the procedure.  Chocolate was one of the OK foods.  But, dark chocolate contains 6 to 35 percent of the daily value of iron.  If I had that much iron would it have changed the diagnosis?  I stayed away from chocolate and I had a negative result.  Without the regulated nutritional information I might have had a false positive result.

Many corporations regard regulations against air and water pollution as burdensome and anti-free market.  Many studies have shown that many of the chemicals in our environment are causing brain impairment in children and that they don’t perform well in school.  Oh, poor school performance is not caused by pollution, it’s the “greedy teachers’ unions”!

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. supposedly said he liked taxes, “They buy civilization.”  I would add without regulation, we would not have civilization.

Business-friendly is often people-unfriendly

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, is famous for his desk sign: "Open for business".  But somehow, his attitude seems to be more "closed for people".  Wisconsin has already severely curtailed the rights of government workers to organize and bargain.

The explosion at the West fertilizer plant in Texas was definitely people-unfriendly.  It was indirectly caused by a state government that likes to consider itself business-friendly, that is, low taxes and few regulations.

"It's rare for Texas to require insurance for any kind of hazardous activity.  We have very little oversight of hazardous activities and even less regulation."
Randy C. Roberts, one of the plaintiff lawyers, quoted in "Texas plant that blew up carried only $1M policy", Christopher Sherman, Associated Press, Duluth News Tribune and others, 2013-05-04 and 2013-05-05

Because of the explosion, the company will likely file for bankruptcy.  An ounce of prevention is worth millions of failure?

Where does Texas rank in taxes, regulation, and business-friendly indicators?

For taxes, Texas is sixth lowest, with 7.9%; New York is highest with 12.8%. See http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/02/state-local-tax-burden/1937757/

Surprisingly, Freedom in the 50 States ranks Texas 24th for "regulatory freedom".  Freedom in the 50 States is a web page of the Mercator Institute of George Mason University.  Most of its rankings seem to be predicated on the freedom of businesses to reduce costs to the detriment of people and the freedom of people to make themselves nuisances to other people.

Default Social Security but not China?

A company was founded that used bonds for its financing rather than stocks.  It issued bonds for various lengths of time: short term to smooth cash flow, medium term for starting new projects, and long term for capital improvements such as office buildings and factories.

When it began hiring a large number of people, it started a retirement and disability insurance fund for its employees.  It paid half of the premiums and collected the other half from the employees.  All the premiums purchased short-term bonds of the company.  Essentially, the company used the premiums to smooth its cash flow.

This went on for several decades.  Some employees never collected because they died before retirement.  Others collected for a few decades after retirement.  Few complained about the arrangement.

Then the company hired a new CEO.  He looked at the retirement fund and decided that instead of paying interest on the bonds of the fund, he could use that money to increase his own salary.  He also found a loophole in the decades-old contracts that allowed him to not pay the principle on the bonds.  He could apply it to his own salary.

There was a big hue and cry from current retirees about having their retirement checks reduced, but the votes of the bonds were controlled by the company, not the retirees.

Meanwhile,the holders of the higher interest bonds, the big banks and the foreign governments, including China, were assured that the company would meet its regular interest payments and pay the bonds in full on maturity.

A start on getting back to 1940 budget levels

If we want 1940 government budget levels, then we will have to give up many government services that we take for granted.  Let's start with our well-equipped, modern police forces and consider what they would have in 1940.

First, we have to get rid of the computers and all the services that they provide.  If we start with patrol cars and assume a department has 20 cars, that is easily 60 thousand dollars saved.

Next, we have to toss out the radios and go back to call boxes.

Modern cars have many costly features that were only luxury add-ons in the 1940.  We should revert to manual transmissions, take away power steering and power brakes, remove air conditioning, windshield washers, side view mirrors, turn signals, backup lights, electronic locks, air bags, and seat belts.  I must have missed a few other things that were only wished for in 1940 that are standard in any car now.

We could also reduce the number of police cars and put more officers on foot patrol.

My gosh, these "efficiencies" could save hundreds of thousands of dollars for any medium size city.

The downside is that police departments effectiveness would go down because they lack many of the modern tools.

But, the great upside is that our taxes would go way down.  Now, if we could only get insurance companies to charge us 1940 premiums for theft insurance.

Is this why large corporations don't like Federal healthcare?

How many employees of large companies would like to move to smaller companies or start their own businesses?  How many don't because they don't want to lose their "benefits", that is, health care insurance?

What happens if more employees feel free to start their own companies.  Would they be competitors of their former employers, either directly or indirectly?  If indirectly, would that be doing something that outdates what their former employers did?

Maybe large corporations don't like Federal healthcare because of perceived tax costs or because of increased power of the Federal government, power which would compete with or restrict their ability to do damn well what they please.

In other words, anything that reduces corporate power reduces the power of the oligarchy, the oligarchy that Publius warned about in Federalist No. 57 (see "When did we go wrong").

Of course I should get more from Social Security than I put in

Many who dislike the idea of Social Security are complaining that recipients are receiving more than they put in. Of course I should get more from Social Security than I put in.

Of course, it is debatable how much more I should get.

OK, why should I get more? Isn't that a bit greedy?

No more greedy than anybody who buys government bonds. They expect payment of interest as well as principal. Since by law Social Security funds are supposed to go into government bonds, then there should be more money available in Social Security than was originally put in.

Social Security is an insurance program, but the reverse of health, house, or auto insurance. In the latter case, the fortunate never get any of their money back. In the case of Social Security or any other pension plan, the fortunate get more than their share back. The less fortunate died before collecting all that they put in.

The real argument should be what should have been paid all along. Some of the past increases bore no reality to the cost of living of many retirees. This is a discussion that would take hundreds of paragraphs more.

P.S. My father's father died before he collected his first Social Security check.  My mother died at 65, and, as far as I know, never collected Social Security.

Real values from a real conservative

I enjoy reading David Brooks columns in the New York Times because he often makes sense out of all the conflicting ideas. He is conservative in the non-ideological sense; he doesn't take automatic positions because those are the currently popular "conservative" "values". He looks at ideas from several perspectives; he weighs the good and bad of proposals both now and on a longer time scale.

A good example is his column "The Values Question", New York Times, 2009-11-24.

The values in question are caring for the vulnerable in our society. If we care for the vulnerable, then we may not have resources to invest in other things we as a society want. On the other hand, do we want to live in a society that does not care for the vulnerable?

To me, this is real conservatism, even compassionate conservatism.

His apostasies from "true conservatism" include that to pay for the costs of some of these programs "the Democrats have admirably agreed to raise taxes."

Paying another generation's way goes both ways

"Making the young pay for health care", Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 2009-11-03, claims that the young are footing the bill for the health care of the old.

I would not call this a conservative argument against health care, but a simplistic view of transactions. It reduces all transactions to a willing buyer and a willing seller with no side effects (externalities). Very few transactions fit this description.

Most transactions have ripple effects that move through a community and even through an entire society. If I trade a vehicle in for a newer vehicle, an unknown seller now has a buyer for an unwanted car and an unknown buyer has a vehicle that he or she can afford. If I buy a new vehicle, I have indirectly created jobs for those who build vehicles.

Michael Gerson implies that the young are getting a raw deal because they are paying for the health care of older people who get sick more often. But he ignores many major benefits the young get from older people. Who paid for the roads, the bridges, the public buildings, the schools, and on and on that the young enjoy today? It would be impossible for the young to pay for these because they didn't have the money to do so or weren't even born yet.

How often have you heard a senior grouse about paying taxes for schools because he or she doesn't have children in school? But if seniors and other adults don't pay for schools, how are young people going to get an education to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, and on and on to provide services for older people?

So many transactions are of the "pass it on" variety. Many people don't expect tit for tat for small courtesies. Rather than accepting payment for helping a stranger, they request that the helped person pass it on by helping somebody else another time.

This is the actual situation of inter-generational payments. The old pay for the education of the young; the young pay for the health care of the old.

Besides, taking care of the elderly sets an example for future generations when the young become the elderly. Child to parent: I'm going to treat you just like you treated Grandma.

Today is "Tax Freedom Day", why am I not applauding?

According to a story in CNNMoney republished on Yahoo Finance today is Tax Freedom Day, the day when the average American has earned enough to pay all of his or her local, state, and federal taxes.

Well, I don't like paying taxes either, but I don't like paying insurance premiums, car repair bills, and many, many other bills. So where is Insurance Premium Freedom Day, when the average American has earned enough to pay all the premiums for life insurance, mortgage insurance, house insurance, auto insurance, and here's the biggie, health insurance? And none of these have deductions according to charitable donations, dependent exemptions, or variable rates according to type of income, like dividends or capital gains.

"Tax Freedom Day" is another misdirection that treats taxes as something imposed by a non-representative government to support an idle noble class and foreign wars.

Maybe we should create a non-tax state for those who want to abolish taxes. Oh, we can't do that, they'll never get representation in the Federal Government because they won't pay taxes for the salaries of Senators and Representatives. If volunteers serve, won't that be a tax on the volunteers? If the citizens of the non-tax state take up a collection to pay these salaries, won't it be a tax on those who want representation?

As I've said before, you will always pay taxes, it's just a question of to whom.

Personal service?

I received email this morning supposedly from the agency for the insurance company with whom we have our house insurance. It starts out

"Dear Melvyn,

Thank you for being" an xxx "customer."

It ends with

"Sincerely,"
yyy "Agency"

The from address of the email is yyy Agency

That doesn't seem very personal to me.

When I clicked "Download pictures" on the message, a picture of the agent did appear. I also put the cursor over "Contact me" and saw that it was the agent's personal email address on the insurance company's server.

It's amazing how "easy" it is to tailor messages, but it takes a bit more effort to make them truly personal. Effort costs money, and...

BTW, I don't plan to contact the agent. We'll let our insurance stand as it is.