Drill, baby. Drill!

In light of the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you would think that Sarah Palin and other Republicans who chanted, "Drill, baby. Drill!" during the last election are feeling a little foolish now. So where do GOP lawmakers stand on the mantra now that the devastation that drilling for oil can do to the environment is glaringly apparent?

Although some have tempered their position, others continue to staunchly defend offshore drilling. As you might expect, you could find a supporter of "Drill, baby. Drill!" in a landlocked place like Utah. Surprisingly, even a GOP legislator from Texas, which has a long Gulf coast, still supports it. It's likely a safe bet that continuing supporters of offshore drilling receive campaign funding from the oil industry.

Universal health care

I've had extensive first-hand experience with the health-care system in this country. It amazes me how we can have the finest health care and medical technology in the world, yet have it so out-of-reach of so many Americans who really need it. It's a tragedy that the cost of it is so unnecessarily high, not only on an absolute basis, but also relative to other modern countries.

I favor universal health-care. However, my reasons for doing so go beyond the moral grounds. I also think that it's the only way to fix our health care system from a political/capitalistic perspective.

It seems to me that there are four main drivers of dysfunction in our health-care system:

1. third-party payers
2. health-care fraud
3. malpractice litigation
4. pharmaceutical lobby

These factors end up working at odds with each other in the end-to-end provision of health-care. They create protected markets, drive out competition, and push the costs through the roof. They also segregate access to health-care.

In the end, I don't think it's possible to repair our current system. As long as we try to do a fix here and another there, the problems will persist. My opinion is that the only way to create a healthy (pun intended) health-care system is to totally dismantle the current system and completely rebuild it from the ground up under a completely different framework. Probably the only way to end up with a cohesive health-care system that delivers quality care to all Americans rather than only wealthy ones is under -- dare I say it -- a somewhat socialistic model.

I know, now I'm sounding like a bleeding-heart liberal. However, I think the health-care system is a unique beast. It is the only case where I am a proponent of socialism. Otherwise, I'm a big believer in free enterprise. I believe in free trade and limiting regulation on most industries. I also oppose government subsidies of goods. In fact, I believe there are ways that capitalism can be integrated into certain facets of a universal health-care system under a mostly socialistic model.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire

It's looking less and less likely that the current health care bill will be ratified by congress. This probability has some posing the question, what happens if nothing happens? They make the point that the cost of health insurance is sure to go up if we allow the status quo. Anthem's recently announced 39 percent hike to some premiums bears that out.

What they do not address is what would happen to the cost of health insurance if the health care bill were passed.

Let's take a look at that. The bill turns 94% of Americans into a captive market for the health insurance industry, adding millions of revenue streams to their coffers. When all Americans are required to buy health insurance, what incentive will the industry have to cut premiums? Proponents of the bill would answer that it sets up an insurance "exchange" to create the competitive forces that drive prices down. But we already have an insurance exchange -- it's called the free enterprise marketplace. And look how well that has done at keeping prices down.

So instead of asking what happens if nothing happens, we should be asking what happens if the bill does pass. It could be a lot worse than the status quo.

Too stupid to fail?

Today's Sunday comics had a surprising synchronicity. Although I'm sure they didn't plan it that way, This Modern World segues seamlessly into Doonesbury. Read them both (click the comic strip to zoom in) -- it's as if they were one strip today.

(Read the rest of my post below the jump)




There might just be something to this too-stupid-to-fail concept. The small banks have proven to be smarter than the big banks. These smaller players mostly avoided the risky predatory lending schemes that wrecked larger institutions. Yet it's the big banks that we bail out. I'm with Rahm -- it doesn't make sense to me either.

The Convention

Tolerance as practiced by people of faith

A 2007 study from the University of Minnesota looked at the acceptance of atheists in American society. Using new national survey data, it shows atheists are less likely to be accepted, publicly and privately, than any others from a long list of ethnic, religious, and other minority groups.

It's safe to assume that atheists are completely accepting of their fellow atheists' religious beliefs -- or, more accurately in this case, their lack thereof. That leaves only religious people with the distrust of atheists.

Atheists are so distrusted and despised by people of faith that less than half of all Americans would be willing to vote for an atheist to be their President. When faced with a laundry list of religions and ethnic minorities, almost forty percent feel that atheists do not at all agree with their vision of America (thirteen percentage points higher than the next most unagreeable group). When asked if they would disapprove if their child wanted to marry a member of this group, 47.6% disapprove of their child marrying an atheist (fourteen percentage points higher than those who would disapprove of their child marrying a Muslim, the second most disapproved group). These numbers are even higher among Americans of faith than they are in the general population.

While most religions preach tolerance and acceptance, it turns out most of their believers are anything but tolerant when it comes to atheists. Surprisingly, they're even more tolerant of people of different faiths, even though an atheist is the least likely to proselytize them.

Self-interest would dictate that a religious person would prefer to have an atheist in the Oval Office than someone of a different faith because the atheist would be the least likely to allow religious convictions to influence the decisions they make as President. Surprisingly, it turns out the atheist would be the last person they would want for their President.

Most parents would want their children to marry an intelligent spouse. Since atheists, on average, have an IQ almost six points higher than a religious person, it would seem that an atheist would be the more desirable spouse. Apparently, however, parents would prefer their child marry someone of lower intelligence over marrying an atheist.

While it's well and good to preach tolerance from the pulpit, god forbid you practice tolerance in your life.

Economic stimulus is just warming up

The Right rails against the stimulus package President Obama signed into law, citing indicators like the high unemployment rate as evidence that the stimulus did not work. Liberals cite the same indicator as evidence that the stimulus bill was inadequate and that we need another jolt of stimulus. The Left fails to recognize that over half of the funds in the $787-billion stimulus package remain to be spent when calling for a new stimulus bill. Conservatives fail to acknowledge the same when they already declare the stimulus bill a failure.

In the face of the evidence that economists have begun to recognize, there is a new consensus that sees the stimulus as a worthy step.



The truth of the matter probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. The stimulus bill has not yet had the full effect it will have had after all of the funding in it has been spent. Nonetheless, we probably do not need another stimulus bill at this time. The American people need to be patient and let the stimulus play out. Looking back in two years, they will see a substantial impact from the initial stimulus bill and decide we do not need the additional debt more stimulus would bring.

In fact, much of the benefit of the stimulus bill will not be realized until well after the last dollar is spent. The stimulus bill funded America's infrastructures with billions of dollars. Although the economy will get an immediate boost from that investment, the full return will be realized over the life of those infrastructures, which will be measured in decades. Furthermore, substantial portions of the stimulus are dedicated to emerging technologies that will require significant research and development before they become profitable sectors. But these are the sectors America will need to lead for her to continue to have a competitive economy.

America was once an agrarian society sustained economically almost entirely on agriculture. But then came the Industrial Age and America changed into an industrial society, leveraging it to become the most powerful nation in the world. When leadership in industry went offshore to Asia, America didn't lose her dominance. Instead she led the world into the Information Age and enjoyed economic prosperity from doing so.

Now America needs to leverage the stimulus package to help her lead the way into entirely new sectors where the competition is still minimal. For example, the US electrical grid gets a $3.4-billion jolt of stimulus funding. Modernizing our electrical grid will not only rebuild one of America's critical infrastructures and make her less dependent on foreign energy but it will also allow her to develop new 'smart' grid technologies that she will be able to sell to the world. Already California is the number one job-creating state for wind, solar, PV, and geothermal energy.

There are other emerging sectors that are bound to see the same long-term benefits from the stimulus package. It funds technologies like electronic health records and broadband with billions of dollars. If America turns these sectors into new markets of which she is the dominant supplier and technology leader, Americans will see returns on the stimulus funding for many years to come.