DISQUS

I have a related quibble in that the study Kerry is quoting indulges in the same maddening error so much of the media indulges in that more or less assumes immigrants=illegals, immigrants=Hispanics, and Hispanic=immigrant. Speaking from my own personal experience, I grew up in an immigrant ghetto and am myself a first generation American, but in my old hood -- the South Ward of Newark -- the immigrants were from Portugal, mostly legal, and we check off "Caucasian" on the census form. Move to the North Ward of Newark, and you'll find the rate of Hispanics approaches 100%, but since they are overwhelmingly Puerto Rican, not only are they not "illegals," but they aren't technically immigrants either.

The flip side of the North Ward can be found in areas like Colorado Springs or Charlotte or even, recently, New Orleans. There, as opposed to many Hispanics, all of whom are legal, you'll find very few Hispanics, nearly all of whom are likely to be illegal (and only a portion of whom are likely to be Mexican.)

Meanwhile, I personally participated in harboring an illegal immigrant for nearly a year -- my (caucasian) Canadian girlfriend.

If everyone CAN become more creative, and moreover, everyone DID become more creative, then wouldn't that suggest the marginal returns from such training would slope sharply downward as the supply of creative product grew?

I know you're not solely focused here on artisitc creativity, but taking that as an example, the trends in that arena have all been running directly counter to what you suggest. As technology has allowed the cost barriers to entry in so many artistic fields -- from filmmaking to publishing to music recording -- to drop precipitously, public demand is not nearly keeping pace with the explosion of supply. This has a depressing effect on the profits and wages artistic entrepreneurs can capture across the board. A certain cream may always rise, but marginal artist is giving way in many more areas than ever before to the unpaid amateur. I know I find a lot more enjoyment out of YouTube than I do the whole mass of 600 channels I get through digital cable.

And I'm not as sure as you are that the process of "making" carries over so neatly into the world of entrepreneurship. The first distinction I'd make is in the focus of the entrepreneur rather than the artist. It is less important to "create" than to "create that which other people NEED." Moreover, the conventional wisdom, and I'm inclined to agree with it, is that developing the great idea, the killer ap, the visionary business model...is the EASY part. Executing it, convincing others to sign on to your vision, navigating how to deliver that product or service to those who would most value it, learning from your mistakes, spotting and adapting to changes in the market -- THOSE are the hard parts.

And most of those things have to do with social dynamics, the ability to read people, to manage expectations, to play politics, the willingness to humble oneself (or to engage in blatant self-promotion) when necessary, and so on.

Some of those things can be taught. Most of them, though, are honed over time through social interraction. Which is why, though I have no philosophical objection to home-schooling, I just can't help but feel whenever I hear parents or would-be parents talking about it, that they seem to be missing what exactly what is most important about what kids learn in school. There is no class more important than recess, because the lessons you learn on the playground will take you a lot further than any curriculum, no matter what its substance.

I would say you have far more competition from robots and Chinamen than you realize. Cato gets its money from grants. Those grants largely come from foundations established and funded to exploit tax loopholes in a way the givers find appealing. Remove the loopholes, and you remove the comparative attractiveness of charitable giving. Thus, more funds would divert from foundations to other, more highly valued ends -- like, for instance, building robots and investing in China.

With all due respect, W.W., but have you considered that perhaps there might be some misalignment between your circumscribed view of what your job IS, and the actual function that your job serves in the economy?

Certainly, the group of folks that could do precisely what you do is quite small. Certainly, you have skills that could be applied to a broad range of potential projects.

But -- and again I mean no disrespect to what you do -- do you not see the irony of promoting your job in the field of "meaning manufacture" as an example of "indispensiblity" when, in fact, your employer is a non-profit organization? And but for certain vagaries of the tax code and reliance upon the kindness of certain deep-pocketed strangers, it likely would not even exist?

I'm generally not comfortable doling out advice on child-rearing, in large part because I have none myself. But since these are just hypothetical children at this point, I guess I can say that the program you describe sounds to me like a very good way to rear to future academics, but I don't see it being any more effective at inculcating future entrepreneurs than the current factory-style schooling paradigm.

Based on my own humble career in the world of business, I would opine that "creativity" is largely an in-born trait that can be alternately encouraged or quashed, but not truly "taught." And I think people of a certain romantic bent tend to overrate its importance to being a successful entrepreneur.

Again, in my own experience, many very successful entrepreneurs do quite well despite displaying no outward signs of any more than average levels of creativity. But I've yet to meet one who excelled without having mastered those more mundane skills you mention -- punctuality, the ability to navigate bureaucracy, and notable skill in social word/power games. And I say this, fully cognizant of the fact that most of my own greatest faults lie in having failed to fully master those things myself.

I don't know, dude. I think you can only really pull that if you're gay. Or a cop. Or a gay cop. Named Bruce.

So what responsibilities do you owe, in return?

Actuarial analysis is useful where variables are reasonably finite and some measure of the law of big numbers is at play. Take a look at the variance in claims outcomes in the field of malpractice, and you'll quickly just how little use actuarial analysis is on an individual risk basis. The most it can tell you appropriate aggregate premium should be, and how overall rates need to change from year to year. From that, you'll make adjustments for specialty and based on state-level data, or, in states with territorial rating, in a given territory. You might also makes individual rate adjustments based on other criteria, such as whether a person is working part time, or is new to practice coming out of medical school.

But while large medical groups often are loss- or experience-rated, whereby the insurer's statewide experience is matched up against the group's own experience to determine how much variance that group should be granted from statewide rate levels, an individual doctor's own historical experience level generally isn't considered enough of an actuarially credible factor to support substantial deviation from a standard rate.

At most, you might build some parameters into the rate structure to recognize the individual risk characteristics of an individual insured to allow for some variation around the statewide rate, so that rate can be adjusted up or down based on objective criteria — such as the absence or presence of previous losses. For instance, if a person went an extended period of time claim-free, they would earn a credit off of their rates. But if a person had a $100,000 paid claim or a $200,000 paid claim, you're going to treat those in a similar fashion.

Contributing to the futility of rating individual doctors based on their claims experience is the fact that the vast majority of doctors will be sued at some point during their careers, and most on multiple occasions. While a majority of the cases are dropped or dismissed, defense costs will be paid by means of claims against a doctor's policy. That doesn't mean that all doctors are bad, but it means that even good doctors are going to pay like they're bad doctors in the current environment.

Hence, as with all forms of insurance, the first determination to be made is whether a particular doctor, hospital or medical group represents an acceptable risk to underwrite at all.

If the only thing you have to segregate acceptable risks from unacceptable risks is a four-year medical degree, then you can bet dollars to donuts that Manny's going to get the short end of that stick.

Why isn’t there a Manny’s Stitches Joint!

Actully, various "Mannys" and his ilk DO exist in the black market. Visit certain immigrant communities, and you can find them.

But if the question is why there isn't a legally-sanctioned Manny's Stictches Joint, I'd break down the causal factors thusly:

26% -- Rent-seeking exercise of monopoly priviledge by the AMA
25% -- Legitimate concerns of policymakers about the ability of lay public to make ex ante evaluations of the minimum basic competency of doctors
9% -- Reluctance of consumers to use less thoroughly-trained medical staff
Remaining 40% -- Because NO ONE would choose to cover Manny's liability

we’re forcing people to buy catastrophic health, like we force drivers to have collision

By and large, we DON'T force drivers to have collision. We force drivers to carry third-party liability. Collision covers property damage done to your own car in an accident. Third party liability covers the property damage and bodily injury that an at-fault driver inflicts on OTHER people.

It's not a trivial distinction. The idea of requiring TPL (or personal injury protection, PIP, in no fault states) is to force the driver to internalize costs that he might otherwise be tempted to ignore. But even in the current highly regulated insurance markets, we still generally recognize that individuals ought be able to decide for themselves how to handle risks whose impact only they would bear. A lender could require that a driver carry enough collision to cover the outstanding principle on the car, but the overwhelming majority of states have no such requirement as a matter of law or regulation.

Requiring it in health insurance would represent a fundamental break from established insurance law, and would likely have a non-trivial impact on the prices health insurers could extract.

I think he's referring to "internalities," as in, people should be saved from themselves. But you may not disagree with that either, in certain circumstances.

Even if I had no preconceived opinions about socialized medicine, I'd hardly consider it a recomendation that it would help subsidize a proliferation of whiney and tuneless crackas who can't play their instruments.

But if you lose your job, you are immediately uninsured.

Well, that's not exactly true. You can continue to pay your premiums into the same group policy for up to a year under COBR coverage. And if you don't want that policy, you can always purchase another. It isn't that individual health insurance doesn't EXIST -- it's that it's granted a tax preference in the employer group setting that isn't extended to the direct individual setting.

The means of raising funds for the federal treasury and...

Social policy w/r/t home ownership
Social policy w/r/t provision of health care
Social policy w/r/t religious institutions
Social policy w/r/t charitable giving
Social policy w/r/t savings and investment patterns
Social policy w/r/t family size
Social policy w/r/t smoking, alcohol, and other vices
Social policy w/r/t (insert favorite tax code loophole here)

I may have had an even stranger Bay Area commute than yours, Nicholas. I used to live in work in Oakland and live in Alameda, and voluntarily chose to move somewhere both more expensive and further away -- Palo Alto. But at least I never really faced any traffic once you'd get over the Dumbo bridge.

Reading your post a bit more closely, you seem to be making your argument based not primarily on how benefits are currently allocated, but on the prediction that the large mass of future retirees would vote for politicians who would increase their benefits. This is certainly a threat, but I still don't see how mandatory retirement accounts would help avert it. And in any case, it makes the first part of the policy prescription entirely moot. A voting public bent on increasing benefits to the elderly would, of course, begin by undoing any legislation passed in recent years that had limited those benefits, starting with progressive indexing.

Social Security is a modest enough benefit that I can't see the moral hazard problem as a significant one. Certainly not significant enough to warrant anything like mandatory retirement accounts, which could just as easily force too MUCH savings as guard against too little. And in any case, unless you propose to have the government also manage what retirees do with the distributions from these accounts, what significant protection would they really offer? You can lead a horse to a savings account, but you can't stop him from blowing it all on Viagra once he turns 65.

Happy Birthday, old man!

Coincidentally, my own birth nuptials are overshadowed each year by Beethoven's (or, at least, what is usually given as his birthday, even though it's actually the date of his baptism and thus, almost certainly not his actual birthday.) Though I prefer to focus on the fact that I share a birthday with Milla Jovovich, and if she ever has any suggestions for a private celebration we might share, I'm all ears.

Incidentally, you also share a birthday with:

looking glass gazer Lewis Carroll,
batshit insane proto-fascist Kaiser Wilhelm II, composer Jerome Kern,
king of the slide guitar Elmore James,
America's sweetheart Donna Reed,
'guy from Ipanema' Antonio Carlos Jobim, surprisingly-NOT-gay Troy Donahue,
vegan pig-farmer James Cromwell,
egomanical casino magnate Steve Winn,
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason,
porn-face making SNL bandleader G.E. Smith, huge-jugged recovering Scientologist Mimi Rogers, comics uber-deity Frank Miller,
smarmy ESPN cast-off Keith Olbermann,
former Cincinnati Bengals wide-out Cris Collinsworth,
the least obnoxious Fonda -- Bridget, and
bisexual 'bamf'er Alan Cumming.

Now, don't you feel special?

Anytime, hermano.

Allow me to unsheath the ubergeek who lives inside me to point out that, while Wolverine's bones are made of adamantium, Captain America's shield is made of a one-of-a-kind adamantium-vibranium compound, which is even stronger and harder than true adamantium. So, the answer, theoretically, is yes.

Cheating implies breaking the rules. Sure, it happens, and sometimes it happens in big, obvious ways. But for the most part, rule-breaking is the purview of fly-by-night operators who look only to make a few bucks before cutting and running.

Empires like Wal-Mart, like Microsoft, like ExxonMobil -- they usually don't have to break the rules. Instead, they rewrite the rules to better suit them.

No, that's a pretty baseless assertion, if for no other reason than that, in those small handful of states that DO have these sorts of mandates, they don't actually apply to Wal-Mart! The federal Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974 exempts large employers (those with more than 100 employees) from state-level mandates on what benefits they can or must offer.

The Hawaii law is a special case, in that it was passed before ERISA and is considered grandfathered. But in Vermont, for instance, the law can only be applied in the small group market -- those with less than 100 employees. Thanks to the ballot initiative, California's law never had a chance to implemented. If it were, though, the provisions that sought to dictate rules to the large group plans almost certainly would have been struck down as incompatible with ERISA. There were a number of suits prepared by the Chamber of Commerce to do exactly that if the ballot question failed.

It's to try to get around these sorts of state level laws that groups like the realtors and independent contractors have been lobbying for association health plans, which would put them on the same footing as the large group ERISA plans.

But, anyway, I think the part of the issue that is widely misunderstood by the general public -- certainly by the media -- is that health benefits are not something offered IN ADDITION to salary, but rather, they are offered IN LIEU of salary. Because health benefits aren't taxed as income, the same level expenditure on labor can purchase more employee compensation by way of benefits than by way of wages. All else being equal, an employer has a strong incentive to offer health coverage instead of pay increases.

And until very recently, this worked out quite well for employers, as the 1990s were marked by flat or declining health premiums as managed care grew in popularity. The switch in emphasis has really only come over the past four or five years, when wage inflation has been flat or declining, while health inflation has skyrocketed.

What you're referring to are state laws in some places that MANDATE that benefits be offered to employees who work over a certain number of hours per week, although even where in place (Vermont and Hawaii come to mind -- California's was repealed) the laws only apply to something approximating full-time work and allow companies reasonable waiting periods (three to six months are typical) before the law kicks in. Wal-Mart has a universal vesting period for benefits for all employees nationwide. It's not an especially generous coverage, but it's typical for retail work, and the fact that it is extended to all part-time employees who pass the threshhold is actually pretty unusual for retailers. Nonetheless, as I said, about half of their employees (including the vast bulk of their part-time employees) do not take them up on the offer.

By the way, if you read the WaPo article more carefully, you'll the 600,000 figure you quoted is the number of employees who don't have COMPANY insurance. That's a very different thing from having 600,000 uninsured employees, as the bulk of those 600,000 draw their coverage from sources other than Wal-Mart. To be sure, Wal-Mart does have a significant uninsured contingent, but as in society at large, this contingent is heavily weighted toward younger, healthier employees who OPT not to pay premiums -- generally because they don't see health care as a priority and they'd rather pocket the cash.

odograph:

Wal-Mart does not have a per-hour week threshhold to achieve eligibility for health benefits. It has an aggregate hours worked threshhold. When you've worked 1,000 hours -- which works out to about six months for full-time employees and usually about two years for part-time employees -- you are fully eligible benefits.

In this respect, it offers much more than most big retailers do. And nearly half of those offered the benefits turn them down. I discuss some of the reasons why here:

http://lehmann.typepad.com/in_lehmanns_terms/2005/10/adverse_selecti.html

And this is in ADDITION to his mad marionette skillz. Clearly a renaissance man.

I always thought what The Jam Experiment mostly showed was that, after sampling 30 different jams, a customer will feel like a pig, and be in no mood whatsoever to buy yet MORE jam.