Disqus - Latest Comments for Dave_Schuler

Re: Look at These Charts: The 'Recovery' Is Not a Recovery - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic

Dave_Schuler — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:31:36 -0000

You might want to look at personal consumption expenditures which to my eye are not explained by an aggregate demand explanation for the persistent declines in income, industrial production, and employment.

Re: You Will Be Assimilated - Megan McArdle - National - The Atlantic

Dave_Schuler — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:37:14 -0000

France has been suppressing its linguistic minorities for a couple of centuries. It still does so.

Re: You Will Be Assimilated - Megan McArdle - National - The Atlantic

Dave_Schuler — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:26:37 -0000

As far as I'm concerned, America has just about the perfect immigration policy: benign neglect.

But, then, you would. Isn't it possible that America has the best immigration policy for America, Germany for Germany, and France for France? Our nationhood isn't based on ethnicity; theirs is. Even if their ethnicity is phony ethnicity that didn't exist a century ago.

Re: The Administration Puts More Pressue on Insurers - Business - The Atlantic

Dave_Schuler — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:35:09 -0000

Sorry, steveinch, that would be nice but the health insurance business just doesn't work that way. For one thing for the majority of those insured under employer-supported plans the employers are self-insuring and use insurance companies to administer the plans. The insurance companies in general are paid a fixed percent of claims paid. That's just the way the industry works.

Re: No Good Answers on Public Pensions - Business - The Atlantic

Dave_Schuler — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:25:55 -0000

Megan, an adjustment would make raising the SSRA more acceptable. Currently, there are, broadly speaking, two groups of Social Security recipients: those on disability and those receiving payments because they're over the SSRA.

Add a third category. Those of a certain age, say, sixty who work at certain jobs for periods of time would be eligible for benefits before those who work in other areas. Then raise the SSRA to 70. Or higher as time goes by.

Re: The West Must Come to Terms With a Strong Russia: Rossijskaya Gazeta, Russia

Dave_Schuler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:17:32 -0000

Wake me when there is a strong Russia. What there is now is an assertive Russia, a feeble country resting on its oil and gas reserves and nuclear weapons.

Re: Political Compass

Dave_Schuler — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:17:48 -0000

Economic Left/Right: .05
Social Libertarian/Authorian: -.05

Party Matching:

1. Constitution
2. Libertarian
3. Democratic

I'm not a congenial fit for either of the major parties but am closer to the Democratic than to the Republican, something I figured out for myself a long time ago.

I think that the Political Compass is most useful on a gross level. The farther you are from the center, the more ideological you are in one way or another.

Re: An Economist Speaks

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:38:02 -0000

And here’s what I say now. The Fed didn’t pull us back from the edge of the economic abyss. We fell into the abyss. We’re still falling. The economy wasn’t saved, the banks were saved.

Were the banks saved or were the bankers saved? From the numbers of banks who still have "toxic assets" on their books and are believed to be insolvent, I'd say the latter.

Re: Switzerland Escapes America’s Fangs: Tribune De Geneve, Switzerland

Dave_Schuler — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:38:00 -0000

Tax evasion isn't a crime in Switzerland. That's the underlying problem in this story. The Swiss generally demur on giving info on tax evaders, proof or not, because they don't consider tax evasion a crime.

Re: THE U.S. CONSTITUTION NEEDS AMENDING – AND FAST

Dave_Schuler — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:43:10 -0000

As has been suggested above the purpose of the Senate is to represent states equally. The situation that's being complained about isn't a corruption of the design it is the design.

Let me propose two significantly simpler solutions for those who believe there is a problem.

First, we could abolish the Senate. If the Senate is to become a body that is numerically representative, it's redundant. Get rid of it.

Another alternative would be to amend the Constitution to

1) provide a fixed constituency size for Congressional districts (this would cause the size of the House to rise over time) and

2) require the legislature of any state whose Congressional delegation had reached some threshold size to divide the state into two (or more) new states. Each of the successor states would have its own House delegation and two Senate seats.

Re: Quote of The Day: Why Even Fiery Town Hall Meetings Are A Positive Thing

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:59:45 -0000

They make the radicals of the 60's look like pikers when it comes to cognitive dissonance against the establishment.

Heck, they are the radicals of the 60's.

Re: Required Foreign Policy Reading

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:56:56 -0000

Thank you, Joe.

Re: Quote of The Day: Why Even Fiery Town Hall Meetings Are A Positive Thing

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:08:40 -0000

It is absolutely NOT necessary to give the minority a greater voice than they actually have by holding these stupid town hall meetings. Make them have a million wild idiot march in Washington or something. They can’t and you all know it.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the townhall meetings. They're intended to provide a figleaf for politicians who are planning to implement an overhaul of the healthcare system over their constituents' objections.

My own view is that they should abandon the townhall meetings and be willing to take their rewards or licks at the polls. My guess is that they'll be re-elected come what may.

Although stranger things have happened. For example, chairman of House Ways and Means Dan Rostenkowski was defeated by a Republican unknown without experience, credentials, budget, or even much in the way of wits. He was darn near lynched by his own overwhelmingly Democratic constituents.

Re: The Art Of Stealing The Other Guy’s Property

Dave_Schuler — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:17:40 -0000

I think you're giving Mr. Shapira far too much credit, Jerry. He's claiming a right to much, much more than is covered by copyright or under the laws and conventions against plagiarism. He's claiming to own the ideas contained in the material. The complaint about Gawker isn't that it quoted without citation but that it used the ideas.

The ideas and knowledge don't belong to the author. They are not covered by copyright. Authors who don't want their ideas replayed and reused should stop writing now.

Books, poems, stories, articles, and so on may be copyrighted and those rights belong to the author. The ideas in the books, poems, stories, articles, and so on go into the public domain. Authors who claim otherwise are pirates.

Re: Single Payer Healthcare Would Be Better (Guest Voice)

Dave_Schuler — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:54:59 -0000

I think you're making a mistaken assumption. You can have both a single payer system and a fee for services system. They aren't in conflict. The German healthcare system is such a system.

If you're saying that a single payer system would enable some other compensation system, well and good. But Jim doesn't make that argument.

Re: Single Payer Healthcare Would Be Better (Guest Voice)

Dave_Schuler — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:20:51 -0000

Jim, you've made a good case that fee for services is at the root of the rising costs in healthcare. And you've argued that a single payer approach would be better. I agree with both of those statements. However, you haven't connected the two. If costs are rising because of too many procedures, how would a single payer system which pays for procedures correct that?

My own view is that the dog in the manger is that our cost base is just too high and that's one of the reasons solutions which are working adequately elsewhere are impractical here.

Re: Betting on Global Warming

Dave_Schuler — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:35:12 -0000

Most important is the question of whether the means are suited to the ends. So far that hasn't been the case. The steps taken in Europe haven't done a thing to slow human-caused climate change. They have, however, employed lots of bureaucrats and given a leg up to a handful of preferred companies. The steps taken in Europe have been much along the same lines as Waxman-Markey.

However pure your motives if what you propose to do about the situation isn't effective I don't think you're a lot better than the guy who thinks the whole idea is bunk and resists doing anything at all.

Re: Obama’s Trip To Russia: Success, Failure Or In Between?

Dave_Schuler — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:45:05 -0000

I think that "victory" and "failure" are too narrow a yardstick for diplomatic overtures of this sort. I would add "useful" or "not useful" to the mix.

To the specific complaint (nuclear arms reduction) in general I support nuclear arms reduction. In the specific I don't honestly know whether the deal announced was prudent or not. However, ratifying a treaty requires the concurrence of 2/3's of the Senate. Achieving that would take 100% of the Senate Democrats + 7 Republicans. I strongly suspect that means the matter will be decided on merits rather than on the basis of partisan politics.

If it's a good deal, it will be passed. If not, it will be yet another case of an American president getting ahead of himself.

I think the visit was useful. Russia has had a consistent foreign policy over the last 200 years and if President Obama has an open mind he's gotten a taste of what he has in store in dealing with Russia. Useful.

Re: US Health-care Reforms: Cut Expensive Procedures/Prescriptions

Dave_Schuler — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:38:51 -0000

The 46 million uninsured figure (from the Census Bureau) includes all in the United States without health insurance including non-citizens, both legal and illegal, those who elect not to have insurance although they can afford it, and those who qualify for some sort of insurance but have never applied for it.

In the interests of intellectual honesty I think we need to tailor our statistics to what we're proposing. If we don't plan to insure all comers including illegal immigrants, we should reduce our claims of the number of uninsured commensurately. If we do plan to insure all comers, I think we need to explain how we plan to finance it.

Re: Count Your Blessings

Dave_Schuler — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:33:55 -0000

Missouri's provision that any move by the state to increase revenues must be approved for a direct popular vote definitely has its advantages. For non-Missourians note that it doesn't mean that the state is unable to increase revenues. It means that people must be convinced that raising revenues is a good idea. That places elected officials in the position of selling their plans to the electorate. I think it's a good thing.

Re: Canadian ‘Health-Care Socialism’: When Will Americans Learn?

Dave_Schuler — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:34:11 -0000

Lots of people living in other countries don't understand our unique problems, either. For example, the United States is the only country in the world that shares a 1,500 mile land border with a country that has a per capita GDP a third (or less) its own. The 46 million statistic you frequently see for the number of uninsured is from the Census Bureau. When you examine it more closely you see that it includes both citizen and non-citizen uninsured and that the non-citizen category doesn't distinguish non-citizens by status. It includes both legal and illegal immigrants. The problem of the uninsured in the United States is disproportionately in just six states and those states all have high proportions of illegal immigrants.

I'm not arguing against healthcare reform or even against a single payer system. I've favored a single payer system here for thirty years. However, our immigration problem and healthcare system problem are twins. They can't be solved independently. If we introduce a system of universal coverage, we must close our borders. If we don't close our borders, there's no way to control the costs of a system of universal coverage.

Re: A Few Critical Questions on Iran

Dave_Schuler — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:48:12 -0000

Diplomacy has been lacking for so long with Iran that it was never going to turn magically productive overnight, no matter who is in charge.

Over the period of the last thirty years every American administration, Republican or Democratic, has made diplomatic overtures to the Tehran government. Reagan. George H. W. Bush. Clinton. George W. Bush. And now Obama.

There have been two constants. No American administration has offered security assurances to the Iranian regime and every overture has been rebuffed.

Whether we should offer security assurances to the mullahs is an interesting and, I think, unobvious question. It's a genuinely repellent, oppressive, and harmful regime, destabilizing to its region and antithetical to the best things that Americans believe in. It is, unfortunately, in control of the country. If we're going to negotiate with the mullahs we've got to offer them something they want that they can't get without negotiating something away that we want. It's not clear to me what we can or will offer that they'll find appealing enough to give up anything.

Re: Healthcare Reform With Rabbits and Hats

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:41:48 -0000

Another thing to keep your eye out for is all cost increases starting immediately, undefined cost savings in the unspecified future.

Re: Can Barack Obama’s “Global Populism” Work?

Dave_Schuler — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:23:04 -0000

At this point President Obama's break with the past is largely rhetorical. Actually, the continuity he's maintained with the policies of his predecessor is quite remarkable. He's doubled down on Afghanistan, the number of troops in Iraq is the same as it was when Bush was president, and the reductions there are the same as those that were negotiated under Bush. Guantanamo's still operating. Yes, he's made a break with the Bush policy of 2002. Bush broke with that policy in 2005.

The real test will be when (some would say if) he begins to take action. How will those he's courting react?

Re: Reflections on Obama’s Cairo Speech

Dave_Schuler — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 08:59:59 -0000

Michael, would it make any difference in your reaction to the speech if you recognize that in the Arabic speaking world they're only be presented with an edited version of the speech? Check out the coverage in the Arabic language press, reported at TMV. Gone are any defense of democracy or women's rights. Gone is the insistence on Palestinians abandoning violence. Gone the need to avoid stereotyping America if they want to avoid being stereotyped themselves. Gone is anything that challenges them.

In the official, expurgated edition, President Obama demanded that Israelis abandon settlements in the Palestinian territories.

This is thin gruel for any honest reconciliation.