OK - so by now you've seen I'm a capitalist (despite my Wall Street background)...and generally speaking I like free markets, and am against government solutions to issues best solved by the private sector...but I have to weigh in on health care reform.
The system is broken. Prices are out of control (I know - I just cut health insurance by 35% - down to "only" $1250 per month!). Insurance companies have literally made a living out of denying claims. My answer is - consistent with (ironically) my free market principles - competition! I want the government to provide a solution to compete with private insurers, and I want competition across state lines.
And anybody - anybody at all - who is going to challenge that - what about the human cost??? Let's assume that the current administration is full of it (likely so) and it will not be "budget neutral". So what - we're going to pay extra out of our pockets for our sick brothers and sisters? Give me a break, we're still a quarter of the world's economy and by far the richest country in the world, and we can't afford a literal life and death issue for our own people? What's happened to us, are we that greedy? I'm not talking about a factory worker or store clerk, who's barely getting by...but what about those of us who have a couple of nickels to rub together?
Let's get it together here and take care of our people. Another area that I don't see being emphasized is our own ability to proactively manage our wellness - exercise, diet, sleep, stress, etc. are demonstrably linked to health and wellbeing. I don't have the numbers but I am certain that we could save tens of billions of dollars in health care just from preventive actions and proactive health management.
Let's go for a little bit of humanity here!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Dick is a Dick!
Dick Cheney - from the maker of the great movie...unvested options from his Halliburton days, who steered us into the Iraq invasion from which surprise surprise! Halliburton won billions in no-bid, cost-plus contracts...that disgusting intersection of business and government that is polluted and in my opinion literally steals from the hard work of our fighting force, who are literally sacrificing their lives! On top of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars...to subsidize a hard-on without a plan...
Same Dick is now continuing his Dickly habits, spreading fear, in this instance getting us to resist having Gitmo prisoners on US soil for fear that they will break free and do us harm...does the Dick think we are stupid??? We have the hardest core gang-bangers in maximum security, in places that have never been breached, and we can't securely contain a few Jihadists?
We are Americans - what we (used to at least) call "The Free and the Brave"!
Dick it's time you quit being a Dick, retire quietly and let historians take their view.
Same Dick is now continuing his Dickly habits, spreading fear, in this instance getting us to resist having Gitmo prisoners on US soil for fear that they will break free and do us harm...does the Dick think we are stupid??? We have the hardest core gang-bangers in maximum security, in places that have never been breached, and we can't securely contain a few Jihadists?
We are Americans - what we (used to at least) call "The Free and the Brave"!
Dick it's time you quit being a Dick, retire quietly and let historians take their view.
Mood(y) Swings
This is about the economy - not sure if everyone realizes how close to plunging over the cliff we actually came. There's a lot of anger towards Wall Street, much of it justifiable in my opinion (although the scorpion's nature is to sting - the tiger can't change it's stripes - and Wall Street feeds on markets, just the way it's wired).
There are a lot of other stakeholders in creating this crisis but there are two in particular that I feel have emerged relatively unscathed given their culpability. First are the politicians, and I'm not talking about the lack of regulation...but this disgusting quid-pro-quo between politicians and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac - whenever government and business intersect, look out!!! I fundamentally resent the revolving door between these quasi-private institutions and politicians and the links between the two. So bottom line, in my opinion, politicians used our taxpayer money to underwrite non-creditworthy mortgages, with the objectives of:
- helping people who couldn't otherwise afford it to purchase home - very noble goal (although in my cynical opinion it was done primarily to buy votes) with unintended consequences namely the triggering of the sub-prime meltdown which triggered the economic collapse
- creating a pool of blank check funds - Fannie / Freddie et al were expected to be incredibly generous political donors
- arranging a soft, cushy landing for people who were hand-picked to ensure that the pig would continue to get well fed, in other words continuation of the "win-win" political / mortgage business (but "lose-lose" for taxpayers)
Anyway forgive my diatribe, just nobody's really called them out and I'm a bit down on politicians...but the other massive culprit is the rating agencies. These f'ers were paid a lot of money to give "unbiased" ratings - but lo and behold Moody's, S&P et al were on the lam! So investors (who also have some culpability but that's for another time) who were relying on "independent" risk assessments of incredibly complicated securities were out and out lied to!
So someone from within Moody's has blown the whistle - and said that the old practices continue! And now the ex-head of compliance for Moody's is testifying...
Stay posted
There are a lot of other stakeholders in creating this crisis but there are two in particular that I feel have emerged relatively unscathed given their culpability. First are the politicians, and I'm not talking about the lack of regulation...but this disgusting quid-pro-quo between politicians and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac - whenever government and business intersect, look out!!! I fundamentally resent the revolving door between these quasi-private institutions and politicians and the links between the two. So bottom line, in my opinion, politicians used our taxpayer money to underwrite non-creditworthy mortgages, with the objectives of:
- helping people who couldn't otherwise afford it to purchase home - very noble goal (although in my cynical opinion it was done primarily to buy votes) with unintended consequences namely the triggering of the sub-prime meltdown which triggered the economic collapse
- creating a pool of blank check funds - Fannie / Freddie et al were expected to be incredibly generous political donors
- arranging a soft, cushy landing for people who were hand-picked to ensure that the pig would continue to get well fed, in other words continuation of the "win-win" political / mortgage business (but "lose-lose" for taxpayers)
Anyway forgive my diatribe, just nobody's really called them out and I'm a bit down on politicians...but the other massive culprit is the rating agencies. These f'ers were paid a lot of money to give "unbiased" ratings - but lo and behold Moody's, S&P et al were on the lam! So investors (who also have some culpability but that's for another time) who were relying on "independent" risk assessments of incredibly complicated securities were out and out lied to!
So someone from within Moody's has blown the whistle - and said that the old practices continue! And now the ex-head of compliance for Moody's is testifying...
Stay posted
Thursday, September 24, 2009
We're Not All Hawks, but...
Frankly I'm disappointed in President Obama's public head fake on Afghanistan. I am not a stereotypical hawk by any means...and although I have tremendous respect for General "Stan the Man" McChrystal - a super hard-charging Ranger and legend in the SOF community - I try to take an independent view.
It's true Afghanistan has an incredible warrior culture and a history of outfighting and outlasting empires throughout history. It's also true that the so-called "elected" officials are incredibly corrupt, and undermine the legitimacy of the government of "the good guys". Further I agree that although the Taliban are from my view distasteful to say the least, I don't recognize them as an immediate and direct threat to US interests outside of their own territory.
Having said that I strongly believe that we need to support General McChrystal and give his innovative plan a real shot. Imagine how those Marines feel "winning hearts and minds" - and can't even commit they'll be there in a couple of months! What message does that send to the locals, and who's waiting to fill that vacuum of power?
And the biggest question for me - what about the spillover into (nuclear) Pakistan, a struggling democracy? And on the other side, what about (soon-to-be-nuclear) Iran, who is directly and openly hostile to US and our interests in addition to being a highly destabilizing influence throughout the Middle East?
In my opinion - as anyone within shouting distance from me knows (starting in '91) - the invasion of Iraq and subsequent regime change was all but doomed from the start. In Afghanistan we have a shot - let's not squander it!
It's true Afghanistan has an incredible warrior culture and a history of outfighting and outlasting empires throughout history. It's also true that the so-called "elected" officials are incredibly corrupt, and undermine the legitimacy of the government of "the good guys". Further I agree that although the Taliban are from my view distasteful to say the least, I don't recognize them as an immediate and direct threat to US interests outside of their own territory.
Having said that I strongly believe that we need to support General McChrystal and give his innovative plan a real shot. Imagine how those Marines feel "winning hearts and minds" - and can't even commit they'll be there in a couple of months! What message does that send to the locals, and who's waiting to fill that vacuum of power?
And the biggest question for me - what about the spillover into (nuclear) Pakistan, a struggling democracy? And on the other side, what about (soon-to-be-nuclear) Iran, who is directly and openly hostile to US and our interests in addition to being a highly destabilizing influence throughout the Middle East?
In my opinion - as anyone within shouting distance from me knows (starting in '91) - the invasion of Iraq and subsequent regime change was all but doomed from the start. In Afghanistan we have a shot - let's not squander it!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Norman Borlaug - A Real Hero RIP
I would like to call attention to and pay tribute to Norman Borlaug, who just died at 95. He was a brilliant man from the heartland of America who revolutionized food production - in my opinion he positively transformed the world as no single person of our lifetimes has. The Wall Street Journal says that "he saved more lives than anyone who ever lived."
Norman committed his life to ending hunger. The conventional wisdom (and likely fact) several decades ago was that world population would quickly eclipse food production - and that the world would run out of food! Norman created new farming techniques that exponentially increased yields; and then spent his life in developing countries to teach the locals how to implement.
One example - he and his team arrived in South Asia during the onset of war between India and Pakistan - instead of turning right around, they worked through artillery fire etc...and in three years, Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production and within six years, India was self-sufficient in all cereals production!
It reminds me of this - "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Millions of lifetimes exist because of Norman Borlaug, a real hero.
Norman committed his life to ending hunger. The conventional wisdom (and likely fact) several decades ago was that world population would quickly eclipse food production - and that the world would run out of food! Norman created new farming techniques that exponentially increased yields; and then spent his life in developing countries to teach the locals how to implement.
One example - he and his team arrived in South Asia during the onset of war between India and Pakistan - instead of turning right around, they worked through artillery fire etc...and in three years, Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production and within six years, India was self-sufficient in all cereals production!
It reminds me of this - "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Millions of lifetimes exist because of Norman Borlaug, a real hero.
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