Rand Paul's "Fuzzy Math"

Saw a message from Rand Paul today, where he asserts that he has a plan which is "so simple a Washington politician or journalist could even understand it."

To balance our budget, all we need to do is freeze federal spending today, then cut one percent of the budget each year for the next 7 years.

That's a simple plan, yes.  But maybe he hasn't checked how big our deficit is lately.  We are currently spending 40% more than we earn.  So, to put the issue in terms even an inexperienced ultra-conservative can understand:

7% < 40%

Sorry, Rand.  Ain't gonna work.

Ten Years of War and Terror

As the whole nation commemorates the tenth anniversary of 9/11, one question keeps coming to my mind.

How much revenge is enough?

We have started two wars and are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of afghans and a million iraqis.  Why don't we remember all of those innocent victims of our reaction to 9/11?

But  Leon Panetta (Secretary of Defense) has answered my question.

"we will never stop fighting them" (transcript)

Economics 101

Diane Rehm normally has well-informed guests on her show, but lately I've been noticing a trend of ignorance of fundamental laws of economics. 

For example:

"Dr. John Wennberg, if I could start with you. A great deal of capital is expended on the cost of healthcare. What is driving these costs?"

"Well, looking at it over time, it seems to me that the most important driver is the continual increase in resources devoted to healthcare, the numbers of doctors we train and put into practice, the number of hospital beds we build, particularly intensive care units and the new technologies and indeed the old technologies which keep creeping in and we're using them at greater intervals."

So according to this "expert" the increase in supply is driving up the prices.

Another example:

"The military is powering ships with fuel derived from algae-running solar-powered generators and flying jets with fuel made from an oilseed plant. The military says cutting down on oil makes our troops safer. But for now those alternative fuel sources are more expensive than traditional ones. The hope is that a customer the size of the military will create demand and drive prices down."

We are expecting that increased demand will drive prices down?!

Remedial Economics

For those of you who somehow managed to avoid even the most basic of economics lessons, here is how supply and demand works: More demand allows prices to go higher, because the goods are more scarce.  More supply allows prices to go lower, because there are plenty of goods and more competition.  Also, lower prices tend to increase demand, because goods are more affordable, and higher prices tend to decrease demand, as less buyers choose to pay the increased prices.  Aside from rare exceptions, such as Irish potatoes, these laws are as universal as laws of economics can get.

In the case of medical health prices, it is not the increasing supply which is driving prices up.  It is the increased demand which is made possible because the actual costs are hidden from the consumer.  Universal affordable healthcare means greatly increased demand, which drives prices up, and the rapid buildup of healthcare facilities is simply trying to keep up with the demand.  Drug costs are particularly high because consumers pay flat rate copays instead of the actual costs.  Some people are even advised to get an expensive prescription drug if their copay is less than the cost of the equivalent over-the-counter drug.

Having the military buy renewable fuels is sure to drive the cost up, at least in the short term, as the increased demand overwhelms the suppliers.  In the long term, the hope is the suppliers will ramp up production, and there will be opportunities to lower prices due to increased efficiencies in the manufacturing process.  This could happen, but there are no guarantees that it will.  If the raw materials, not the processing, is the major portion of the cost, increasing efficiency will not help much.  And some processes are simply more expensive than pumping oil from the ground.  We can hope for a technological breakthrough, but it doesn't always happen.  After all, fusion power has been 20 years away for 70 years now.

Grimms Märchen

I had a hard time finding a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales in German on the internet.  Project Gutenberg used to have it, because I got it there once before, but now they just have an audio book posted. 

Anyways, I found a freeware copy here (pdf or odt), and converted it to epub format.  In a small effort to give back, I have posted my conversion at archive.org.

Get it here:
http://www.archive.org/details/GrimmsMrchen

An amoral president

In church not long ago we had a discussion on morality and legality. Morality is something which comes from inside a person, based on the goodness (or badness) of their own character. Legality is imposed from the outside. What I took from the discussion is that if legality is your standard for what is moral, it is an admission that you have no morals at all.

In light of that epiphany, this interview was scary.

Matt Lauer: "Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?"

President Bush: "Because the lawyer said it was legal, said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I’m not a lawyer. And—but you got to trust the judgment of people around you. And I do."

No internal questioning about whether it is right at all. Complete amorality.

PTSD

From an interview on the film Wartorn 1861-2010.

The premier of this film was at the Pentagon. And there was a panel afterwards ... it’s a very interesting panel discussion, and it featured a Medal of Honor winner. And he looked at all the generals, and he says, "OK, some people say it’s ten percent post-traumatic stress. One of the generals says it’s 30 percent. You know, you know, and I know it’s 100 percent." Anybody who engages in warfare is scarred forever.
(Jon Alpert, co-director of Wartorn 1861-2010.)

I have nothing to add.

Stewardship economics

In Capitalism, business owners have the sovereign power of a king, and no one to give accounting to.

In Socialism, you must account for what you do, but you have no power.

If you had sovereign power, and you gave a account for the justice of what you did with that power, that would be stewardship.