JayB

That "DISCLOSE" act was quite a beauty. "As former commissioners on the Federal Election Commission with almost 75 years of combined experience, we believe that the bill proposed on April 30 by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen to "blunt" the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC is unnecessary, partially duplicative of existing law, and severely burdensome to the right to engage in political speech and advocacy. Moreover, the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act, or Disclose Act, abandons the longstanding policy of treating unions and businesses equally, suggesting partisan motives that undermine respect for campaign finance laws. At least one of us served on the FEC at all times from its inception in 1975 through August 2008. We are well aware of the practical difficulties involved in enforcing the overly complex Federal Election Campaign Act and the problems posed by additional laws that curtail the ability of Americans to participate in the political process. As we noted in our amicus brief supporting Citizens United, the FEC now has regulations for 33 types of contributions and speech and 71 different types of speakers. Regardless of the abstract merit of the various arguments for and against limits on political contributions and spending, this very complexity raises serious concerns about whether the law can be enforced consistent with the First Amendment. Those regulatory burdens often fall hardest not on large-scale players in the political world but on spontaneous grass-roots movements, upstart, low-budget campaigns, and unwitting volunteers. Violating the law by engaging in forbidden political speech can land you in a federal prison, a very un-American notion. The Disclose Act exacerbates many of these problems and is a blatant attempt by its sponsors to do indirectly, through excessively onerous regulatory requirements, what the Supreme Court told Congress it cannot do directly—restrict political speech. Perhaps the most striking thing about the Disclose Act is that, while the Supreme Court overturned limits on spending by both corporations and unions, Disclose seeks to reimpose them only on corporations. The FEC must constantly fight to overcome the perception that the law is merely a partisan tool of dominant political interests. Failure to maintain an evenhanded approach towards unions and corporations threatens public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system. For example, while the Disclose Act prohibits any corporation with a federal contract of $50,000 or more from making independent expenditures or electioneering communications, no such prohibition applies to unions. This $50,000 trigger is so low it would exclude thousands of corporations from engaging in constitutionally protected political speech, the very core of the First Amendment. Yet public employee unions negotiate directly with the government for benefits many times the value of contracts that would trigger the corporate ban. This prohibition is supposedly needed to address concerns that government contractors might use the political process to steer contracts their way; but unions have exactly the same conflict of interest. So do other recipients of federal funds, such as nonprofit organizations that receive federal grants and earmarks. Yet there is no ban on their independent political expenditures." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244772070710374.html?KEYWORDS=disclose+act If what democrats *really* wanted was disclosure of all political contributions they could have tabled a bill one paragraph long. That clearly wasn't the case. "Politics" A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." ~Ambrose Bierce.

IMO the amount of money that corporations, unions, and interest groups spend in an effort to influence the outcome of elections is dwarfed by the amount of money that politicians have control over and spend for the same purposes. Promising to increase the wages and benefits of public sector employees doesn't count as political spending? Think that there are no political calculations that influence millitary procurements, earmarks, or entitlement spending? Moreover, what incentive do those who currently hold office have to construct campaign spending rules that aren't biased in their favor? Think all groups that run afoul of whatever spending rules get constructed will be subjected to the same level of legal scrutiny irrespective of which party is in power?

1. Logical consequence of the health care reform bill that you championed. Dramatically increase coverage without increasing price transparency or competition and...voila. Plenty more where that came from. Budget accordingly. 2. Why leave food, clothing, and shelter to the private market? Is high speed internet a more significant human need than food? 3. You are confusing things that actually measure clinical efficacy with things that don't. Neither life expectancy nor infant mortality have any meaningful connection with clinical efficacy or value for money when comparing advanced countries. Life expectancy stats are confounded by factors that doctors and hospitals can't do anything about, and international infant mortality stats are rendered meaningless by vastly different standards for what counts as a live birth. A severely underweight premie or a baby that dies for whatever reason within 24 hours or less counts as an infant death in the US, but most other health systems take those as mulligans. The stats that you are relying upon also fail to account for morbidity. You can live to a ripe old age with an untold variety of injuries and illnesses that make your life suck quite a bit more than it would have otherwise, and they'll never register anywhere on an international statistical record.

I've yet to see tax-deductible fly-fishing junkets advertised to engineers. Nor have I ever seen engineers conferences hosted at the Awahnee. The entire bio/medical industrial complex is a triumph of soft living and the power of welfare spending; not a surprise they fight cost discipline so fiercely. BECAUSE IT NEVER OCCURS THAT WAY EVER IN REAL LIFE Hell, Toyota is a prime example of state partnership and heavy subsidies. I struggle to think of any major industry that isn't supported by government subsidies; movement across borders is currently more of a whose willing to subsidize more effort. I'm sure you're a fun of the unsustainable race to the bottom, I'm not. 1. Talk to the folks who control the budgets for buying the stuff that engineers make. Or head to Vegas for an industry convention. My best friend is a sales manager for a lighting controls company, and spends quite a bit of time and the company's money taking people who aren't MD's out to dinner, etc because they control the purse strings. I'm not quite sure what your beef with me is on this point, though, because I'm fairly certain I'd take the liberalization of the entire medical economy far further than you would be prepared to. 2. It's clear that the people getting the subsidies are better off than they would be otherwise. That's never been a matter of contention. The question is whether it's a good deal for the people who are having money taken out of their pockets to fund the subsidies. Iowa is clearly vastly better off as a result of the gargantuan agricultural subsidies it gets. It's far from clear that the rest of the country is better off forking over billions of dollars that they could have used for a gazillion other purposes for ethanol and high fructose corn syrup. It's also far from clear that the torrent of subsidized crops spewing onto the global market are a good thing for the rest of the world. The fact that all major industries are subsidized to one degree or another doesn't mean that subsidies are either necessary or beneficial. There are a gazillion sectors of the economy that are either too small or too dynamic to make it worth their while to look for handouts from the government, or for legislators to rig the game in their favor - and the dynamic, specialized patterns of production and exchange that they engage in constitute the vast majority of all economic activity and drive most of the innovation and growth in developed economies. Taking money from businesses that have figured out to sell things for more than they cost to make, and handing it over to companies that can no longer do so is like hooking up an IV from a thousand newborns to a giant, 98 year-old Keith Richards in order to keep his bloated, supperating carcas out of the graveyard for another day. Great for Keith, not so great for the newborns or the society they'll inhabit in the future. GM = 98-year-old Keith Richards. Have a listen: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi

Yes - the only things standing between us and our future as the next Somalia are a gaggle of tariffs and the subsidies we slosh on corn ethanol, high fructose corn syrup, and the Davis Bacon act.

BTW Carl, What is it about the state of affairs that results when the distribution of production and rewards are determined only by people deciding for themselves what to buy, from whom, and at what price that you dislike so intensely?

Ahh, the regressive chimes in "I got mine, fuck you" as normal Rather pathetic to see someone gleefully wishing Americas competitiveness down the shitter in the name of efficiency; but then your screed against GM earlier (and your rather obvious ignorance of the shape of the American auto market and it's competitors in 1970) shows again religion triumphs fact in 2010 America. Better than squandering hundreds of billions of dollars of direct subsidies or foregone consumption or investment propping up grotesquely inefficient private businesses that could only survive by stifling competition. I could care less whether something is made by unionized employees or a the members of a communist vegan yoga commune - as long as no one is forced to buy their stuff or financially penalized for not buying their stuff. The irony here is that its the very fact that their "friends" were able to "protect" the big three from effective competition for so long that rendered them so vulnerable in so many ways once the Japanese managed to get their cars into the market. There has never been anything stopping anyone who is a cheerleader for the Big Three from tangibly supporting by purchasing one of their vehicles. On the west coast, more than anywhere else in the country, that's rare event. In fact, the more someone out here is in favor of protectionism and handouts for GM, etc, the less likely they are to actually own a car made by them. I don't think we disagree on the AMA, etc all that much but are you talking about ending public support for all tertiary education, including subsidized loans, making all student loan interest non-deductible, or just training expenses for MD's, dentists, and attorneys? What about accountants, engineers, etc? Just trying to figure out if this is a general argument against subsidizing all professional training or just for MDs'.

You are clueless. How many miles of fiber-optics do you need to lay down before you have a market large enough to make a buck? Are you going to start in your neighborhood like a boat builder would? How many parallel communication networks do you want to force real competition? is that really the way you define "efficiency"? Tell us. How many miles of fiber optic cable do you need to lay down before you have a market large enough to make a buck? How many variables is that contingent on, exactly? Do tell. I have no idea how many parallel communications networks are necessary to create real competition. My best guess is that the number is larger than one. Again - tell us what the optimal number of competitors is and what set of variables influence the number over time. While you're at it - how about the average price per gig under the optimal pricing scheme. Along similar lines - how many bicycle manufacturers are necessary to create optimal competition? How about dental sealant wholesalers? Brands of ice cream? How many independent farmers growing the same crop? Clearly if we organized them into a single national collective.....

It'd be much better to fire all unionized ferry workers and replace them with equally capable people who are willing to do the same jobs at a much lower cost. that is blatantly false. Paying employees non-living wages isn't sustainable. We can now see all around us the results of 30 years pushing for the bottom labor costs: communities falling apart, middle class disappearing, etc .. Who's manning the commercial fishing fleet, amigo? How about the cruise-ships? Are the risks and complexities associated with either less demanding than driving a ferry back and forth across the Puget Sound? How do they manage to staff their fleets?

There's no more effective means of creating an oligopoly that stifles competition than bribing the government to rig the game on behalf of a few well connected players. You are not answering to the fact that Telecoms have a huge entry cost to do business, which as I said already once, make these not really amenable to market competition, i.e. they are natural monopolies. Until you learn to answer to the point there is little reason to try engaging you in a rational discussion. Ignoring what you can't answer isn't good enough. There is a huge cost of entry in *any* capital intensive industry. What specifically makes entering the telecom business more daunting than starting a company that makes supertankers or delivers cell phone service?

1) If I couldn't wave a magic wand and immediately fire all unionized ferry employees and replace them, then I'd give the folks who aren't doing any useful work the option of taking unpaid leave or vacation time. Alternatively, I'd allow any unionized ferry workers who wanted to share the pain with their brethren to show their solidarity by donating shifts to them to offset the lost pay. Or they could quit and try their luck in the private sector. Efficient use of taxpayer money > a guaranteed income for ferry workers. 2. Yes, and no reason to stop at medicine.

It'd be much better to fire all unionized ferry workers and replace them with equally capable people who are willing to do the same jobs at a much lower cost. But that's only if you think that the ferry service should have...providing ferry services as efficiently as possible with the public money it spends as its central aim. If that priority is commingled with providing a comfortable living to as many unionized workers as possible at the public's expense, then the way things are currently being run is fine. Ditto for Metro, etc. Why staff with part-time employees on a regular time basis when you can stuff senior employee's schedules with enough OT in the last three years to give them a permanent boost to their publicly financed pensions.

No argument regarding rural issues. But you haven't addressed the market failure in U.S. cities where it is easier to provide access. And your assumption that high speed internet is only applicable to entertainment and not commerce and academics is false. The issue is why are we paying such high rates for lousy service in the US compared to the rest of the world where there is comprehensive planning, and lo and behold, solvent communications companies making a profit. My claim wasn't that the internet has value for entertainment only, but that whatever people value it for - they should bear the cost of providing it for themselves. I met a radiologist in Wyoming who makes a lot of money reading x-rays remotely a few years ago. Evidently that takes quite a bit of bandwith. I'm not sure how much the guy made, but it was probably enough make it worth his while to set it up on his own dime. Which is the essential point. If there's a high economic value associated with having a superfast internet connection at place X, as opposed to an imaginary one, then the people who stand to make money at place X will fork over the cost. Which is why I suspect that data transmission to and from, say, oil platforms isn't an issue awaiting public resolution. I'd be astonished to learn that there's no amount of money sufficient to secure superfast internet to either a private home or a business that wants it and is prepared to pay for it. I'm sure that there are plenty of homeowners and business that would much prefer to transfer the cost of generating the broadband capacity they'd like to exploit onto someone else, but that's not quite the same thing.

These guys don't have enough to do at the moment. Let's send them out to the King County's rural hinterlands with a spool of fiber-optic cable.... http://www.kirotv.com/news/25320520/detail.html

Much of this can be attributed to other countries actually developing and implementing a national plan - what a concept. Yea, yea, we have a lot of land area here but even when you do a city by city comparision the results are the same. Similar to the hodge-podge cell tower system and standards we have here, compared to other countries where cell towers are on one standard and you don't have seperate phone companies planting their own and duplicative towers. It's not clear to me what compelling national interest is served by insuring that everyone, everywhere has super-high speed broadband connections. What are the concrete benefits of such a plan, and what are the costs, and why should the public foot the bill from them instead of the people who are sad because it takes an extra 10 minutes to stream the Youtube video that their Aunt Judy forwarded to them? The whole concept reminds me of the "Underpants Gnome" episode of South Park. "Stage 1 = steal underpants. Stage 2: . Stage 3 = Profits!" Moreover - why should city dwellers be forced to subsidize the extension of broadband services to rural or suburban households? Rural households already pay far less per square foot of housing, have lower tax assessments, benefit from massive transport subsidies, etc, etc, etc. If you want the rural life - fine. Sounds appealing to me in many ways - but be prepared to pay extra for some things in exchange for the big yard, like broadband. Buy a dish and quit whining or STFU and relocate. No free lunch.

There's no more effective means of creating an oligopoly that stifles competition than bribing the government to rig the game on behalf of a few well connected players.

Yes - the same entrenched public-private cartel that objected to the use of answering machines on the grounds that users were adding a "foreign device," to the line, that insured long distance rates remained prohibitively expensive, mandated that customers lease phones directly from them, etc, etc, etc, for decades was on track to radically improve and transform telecommunications technology while exponentially reducing costs. Haha.

Local cable companies operate as government sanctioned cartels within Local Franchising Areas - no? The reason they can offer you crappy service at high prices year after year and stay in business is because regulations insure that they're largely exempted from effective competition , not because there's too much of it. Whenever you have someone in the private sector making notoriously crappy products or providing bad service year in and year out that mysteriously stays in business and/or preserves their market share, you've almost always got a private business using the government to insulate themselves from competition. Exhibit A: GM, Ford, and Chrysler - all of which should have been wiped off of the map 40 years ago, and would have if it weren't for the fact that they were able to hide behind a dense thicket of tarriffs, subsidies, and other impediments to competition.

Regressive Alert! Regressive Alert! This time they've infiltrated the union ranks!!!!!!!! "Bachtel IS a liar. That is hardly a matter of interpretation. He lies in this article, and he's lied elsewhere about other things. The man is flat-out dishonest. In this particular instance - the one I cited - he claims that he in contract negotiations is looking for "every conceivable efficiency". This is flat out false. A lie. Union leadership specifically is fighting against allowing part-time Operators to work beyond certain limitations that create an artificial demand for overtime. The audit has called for such efficiencies, and the union (past and present) continues to fight for artificial demand for overtime, primarly for more senior full-time bus drivers. To claim that he has assigned people to find "every conceivable inefficiency" is a bald-faced lie. He is interested in keeping at least some aspects of work assignments INEFFICIENT, in order to pad the wages of senior full-time operators even when part-time Operators are willing, available, and capable of filling hours at straight time. This isn't something that's a matter of opinion or open to interpretation - it's established fact. I'd be happy to cite the specific contract language and audit recommendations (and in fact have done so on my own blog) to back that up if you like. Regrettably, Bachtel's ineptitude - and dishonesty - cloud the legitimate points that he makes, and harm the entire membership while aiding our opponents in helping turn public opinion against Operators during this vital contract negotiation period. — jeffw66seattle" http://crosscut.com/2010/10/05/metro-transit/20229/Metro-drivers--wages-have-barely-kept-up-with-inflation/

so....your prediction is drugs and madness will be out of style soon? No - but hopefully droning, nasal, atonal pseudo-folk will be long dead and subject to a trillion nested fatwas condemning anyone who resurrects it to a thousand eternities of everlasting torment at the hands of Slayer bootlegs played on a gajillion-Watt stage amp....

Could be wrong. Never got the whole Dylan thing either, and there's still evidently plenty of people listening to his music. I think most of his audience will be gone, via death by aging, in 20 years but who knows...

Definitely simpler. Whether or that also means better largely comes down to a political value judgment, which probably depends on whether you think that the state has a legitimate and compelling interest in putting out fires in structures that the owners don't consider worth paying to protect - at least beyond what's necessary to try to save whoever might be trapped in them. Given the current state of affairs, I'd be happy to compromise with a required fee that's proportionate to the value of the structure being protected and the cost/complexity of responding to an actual fire in it.

I don't like Diego Maradona's poltics, but it's clear that the man could play soccer. I can understand why people paid attention to him at the time, way back when, but I think his appeal is mostly sentimental at this point and his readership dwindle at roughly the same pace as his original readership dies off. Ditto for Ginsberg, et al. "I'm with you Carl, on the clearance rack at Half-Price books..."

Don't have anything in particular against the guy but never understood the adulation. To each his own...

As long as you don't have to buy what they're selling as a condition of existing, and the same statutes that apply to breach of contract in other domains apply - I am a big fan of insurance, when it's actually only insurance and not just a pre-payment mechanism for funding some kind of routine consumption. Cheap way to protect against black-swan(ish) events.