Fox News Pontificator Megy Kelly Declares Santa Claus Was White

Fox News – Reaching a Low That Many Thought Was Impossible

The faux news channel, Fox News has always been reaching for new lows in pseudo reporting and they just may have reached a new world record.  In fact we think they have re-taken the lead for the title of worst cable news network ever from MSNBC.

On Wednesday night Megyn Kelly declared on her Fox News show that both Santa Claus and Jesus were white. Discussing a piece in Slate by Aisha Harris about a black versus white Santa, Kelly that "just because it makes you feel uncomfortable it doesn't mean it has to change." 

"You know, I've given her her due. Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change," Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?"

Okay, we’ll leave aside from now whether or not Jesus was white, after all the photographic evidence is mixed and not conclusive.  In some of the photos He looks a little dark, sort of like a Middle East native, which is what He was. But we do have this rather startling message for Ms. Kelly.

Santa Claus is a Fictional Character You Blithering Idiot

There now. doesn’t everyone feel better.

A Tale of Two Wealthy Candidates – Michael Bloomberg and Mitt Romney

One Will Use His Experience and Wealth to Build Better Cities; One will Use His Experience and Wealth to Build More Houses for Himself

While his popularity is currently very low, this Forum continues to believes that in the very near future New Yorkers will look back and marvel at how lucky they were to have had three mayoral terms from Michael Bloomberg.  As evidence of this consider what Mr. Bloomberg will do once he leaves office.

Angel Franco/The New York Times

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg with his girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor, at an Association for a Better New York event. Mr. Bloomberg’s consulting group will include many of his best-known deputies.

Michael R. Bloomberg, determined to parlay his government experience and vast fortune into a kind of global mayoralty, is creating a high-powered consulting group to help him reshape cities around the world long after he leaves office.

And who will help him and how will this be paid for?

To build the new organization, paid for out of his own pocket, the billionaire mayor is taking much of his City Hall team with him: He has already hired many of his best-known and longest-serving deputies, promising them a chance to export the policies they developed in New York to far-flung places like Louisville, Ky., and Mexico City.

And contrast all of that with what Mitt Romney has done after leaving public life.  Mitt went back to serving on corporate boards, for big bucks of course, and went back to building massive homes in every state that he wants to live in or thinks he might want to live in.  He also goes on Fox News every now and then to lament the fact that he is not President, a lametation that he and he alone has.

MSNBC Continues to Embarrass Itself – Ed Shultz Is Being Paid Big Bucks By Unions

Go Away MSNBC, You’re Not Helping

As difficult as it is to admit, it appears that MSNBC is an even worse network than Fox News, something thought impossible just a few short months ago.  But recently MSNBC has hired and then fired actor Alec Baldwin, a man who had no credentials whatsoever to host a news and affairs program.  And recently another commentator, Martin Brashir had to quit after making stupid remarks about Sarah Palin.  And the newest edition to the lineup is a young man whose only claim to fame is famous parents, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, although to be fair the young man really doesn’t like Mr. Allen and does not take his name.

Now it turns out that one of the mainstays of the network, Ed Schultz, is being paid by labor unions. 

Ed Schultz, the MSNBC host who frequently champions union causes, was paid $252,000 by union groups between 2012 and 2013, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Those payments — which came from AFL-CIO electrical workers, postal workers, and others — were designated for either "political" or "representational" activities. Union auto workers alone paid Ed Schultz Broadcasting LLC a total of $72,000 in 2012.

Gosh, anybody think of a better way to lose what little credibility MSNBC retains.  We can’t either.

Senate Republicans Use Delaying Tactics to Force Senate to Waste Hours and Days

Senate Republicans Complain Senate is Wasting Hours and Days

“Consistency is not our strong point, but then nothing really is our strong point” one Republican  Senator did not say.

Here is what life is like in Washington.

Republicans, furious that Democrats last month stripped away most of their power to filibuster presidential nominations, are using every procedural barricade available to them in the Senate’s two-century-old rule book, forcing it to run the clock as long as possible while they vote on a series of President Obama’s nominees.

Yeah, Republicans continue their decades long attack on the concept of voting;  for them voting is just not American.

Republicans Adopt Grinch as Official Party Mascot, Washington Epithets Want to Harm Backup Quarterback

And Other Short Takes on the News as Everyone Slouches Into the Holiday

Facing programs that would actually help low income and disadvantaged families, the Republican Party has officially come out against any increase in the minimum wage and extension of unemployment benefits.  They are doing this to help those people of course, not because they are mean, selfish and insensitive men and women luxuriating in great government jobs.

While this Forum generally ignores sport’s stories, it cannot help but post on the situation with the Washington Redskins Racial Epithets.  It seems the coach of that team has said he will bench the starting quarterback because that quarterback could be injured.  In other words, he is saying to the backup quarterback, “Hey, you get to play even though you might be injured or killed, but we don’t care”. 

Are Republicans dumb enough to run in 2014 and 2016 on a platform of taking health care away from the millions of people who will have health insurance as a result of ACA?  Does a frog bump his ass when he hops?

Texas Senator John Cronyn looks safe from a primary challenge from an utterly incompetent usurper from the far right.  Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran looks doomed from a primary challenge from an utterly incompetent usurper from the far right.  Mr. Cronyn looks safe because many but not all Texans have seen the real face of people like Ted Cruz.  Mississippians will have to learn the hard way.

As the health care reform process gets untangled and starts to work will the main stream media print that story?  Will Congress actually work more than 7 days in December?  Both are about equally likely.

In Virginia the losing Republican candidate for Attorney General has signaled that he might ask the state legislature to overturn the election if a recount still shows him losing.  He did not, however, express his admiration for the governing style of North Korea, so there is that positive in the whole story.

The story of the reduction in the unemployment rate is not that the rate has come down, it is that it would have been reduced far quicker if reasonable fiscal policy had been adopted.  Oh, and how does the U. S. results compare with the austerity policies of most European economies?  

There Apparently Is a War on Men – American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology Won’t Let Doctors Treat Men

What Happened to That Hippocratic Oath Thing?

Every now and then a story comes along that would not be believable were it not published in a paper like the New York Times, which is not known for its sense of humor or for making things up.  This story reports that the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology forbids the doctors that it provides accreditation for from treating men.  Really, they do.  It seems a patient waited months to get an appointment to treat his pelvic pain.

Six days before the appointment, it was canceled. The doctor, Michael Hibner, an obstetrician-gynecologist at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, had learned that members of his specialty were not allowed to treat men and that if he did so, he could lose his board certification — something that doctors need in order to work.

The rule had come from the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. On Sept. 12, it posted on its website a newly stringent and explicit statement of what its members could and could not do. Except for a few conditions, gynecologists were prohibited from treating men. Pelvic pain was not among the exceptions.

How exactly is this legal?  How exactly is it professional?  What exactly is the purpose,?  Members of this Board don’t  deserve to suffer great physical pain, and then be denied treatment but if that did happen who amongst us would be unhappy?

Did Your Holiday Vacation Start on December 12? - No

The House of Representatives Did

The people with great government jobs, jobs with a nice six figure salary and fantastic benefits, namely the members of Congress are in the process of passing a budget bill that does not renew extended unemployment benefits.  But maybe that’s because they don’t work very hard, don’t value work, and take off weeks early for the holiday vacation.

The House passed the bill just before adjourning for the year, trying to wrap up a hodgepodge of year-end issues. It passed a one-month extension of farm programs, to allow more time for lawmakers to conclude House-Senate negotiations on a broader rewrite of farm policy. The budget bill also included a temporary fix to another unrelated problem—a three-month extension of current Medicare doctor payments, which were slated to be cut by more than 20% at year's end.

Yes, the House is adjourning on December 12 for a holiday that takes place on December 25.  Maybe they are so afraid of being soft on Christmas that the feel they need to take two extra weeks to go around and wish everybody a Merry Christmas, even those who don’t celebrate the holiday.  (What, it is news to conservatives in Congress that there are people who don’t celebrate Christmas?  Yes it is.)

The Ridiculous World of E Cigarettes –

Advice to Users – Just Quit Smoking Everything, Really Just Quit

The idea that smoking was bad for one’s health has been known, well probably ever since Walter Raleigh got the idea and introduced it into England and ultimately America.  Really, what exactly can be good about inhaling smoke into one’s lungs, how is that going to help anything?

But the self indulgent personality streak that dominates many people calls for them to continue to smoke cigarettes, and for looking for a substitute.  Here is a description of the popular one.

E-cigarettes, as almost everyone must know by now, look and feel like real cigarettes and are designed to mimic the experience of smoking without the harmful consequences. They consist of a battery, an atomiser, a heating coil and a cartridge of liquids used for creating the inhaled mist which reproduces some of the effects of smoking minus the cancer-causing chemicals caused by burning tobacco. Product labelling is inexact but most contain nicotine in a solution of either propylene glycol or glycerine and water, and sometimes flavours such as vanilla and apple. The atomised mist resembles smoke when exhaled but research to date has not shown the vapour to be harmful.

Good grief, who exactly is dumb enough to stick that in their mouth?  Oh, millions of people.

And now the question of etiquette arises.  Can a person “smoke” E-cigarettes on a plane?

Heathrow has just opened the world's first airport "vaping" zone, sponsored by a manufacturer of the devices, in the Terminal 4 international departure lounge. It stressed that all forms of smoking remained forbidden elsewhere – but the move underscored the need for clarity on the matter. Is "vaping" smoking? Or not? Airlines aren't keen on the practice, not for health reasons but because they fear it could trigger disputes between passengers. Yet there is no law preventing it. One e-cigarette manufacturer, Vapestick, has gone as far as publishing guidance on how to get away with vaping during flights (the vapour is unlikely to set off the smoke alarm in the toilet).

Well if that is allowed than maybe the restrictions on bringing weapons aboard a flight should be relaxed.  And since a jury acquitted a killer in the Trayvon Martin case, it seems hard to believe that a jury would fail to acquit anyone who attacked an E-cigarette smoker sitting next to them on full flight.  Not that we are advocating that, just making an observation.

Two Big Things Happen At GM – And Both Are Good Things

A Rare Success Story in the American Economy

When calmer, rational and intelligent news reporting takes over from the current slobs who write for the media they will marvel at the tremendous success the government had in its bailout and saving of the auto industry in general and GM in particular.  The government has just sold its last remaining shares of GM stock (the reputation of Mr. Obama as a closet socialist taking a big hit.  The loss on the entire deal was about $10 billion, which sounds like a lot but as a cost of saving an entire industry, just about nothing.

The company has done spectacularly well, primarily because the government let it be run without interference.

As CEO, Akerson presided over a stunning transformation. GM has gone from nearly disappearing to 15 consecutive quarters of profitability. It expects to sell more than 10 million cars this year. It offers an electric car, the Volt, with an onboard generator that cures “range anxiety.” The 2014 Impala has been picked byConsumer Reports as best car of the year. Yes, the Impala. China is now its biggest market.

And now GM has announced that a woman will be taking over as CEO of the company.

Just a day after the U.S. Treasury Department sold the last of its interest in General Motors (GM), Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson, in a surprise to many, has announced his retirement. And the board chose Mary Barra (whom Tim Higgins profiled for Bloomberg Businessweek in June) to run the company.

So what do we know about Ms. Barra?  Well without any investigation or even knowing she existed we can say that she is highly, highly qualified for the job.  Why can we say that?  Because she is a woman, and in order for a woman to rise to the top job in GM she would have to be far more capable than any man.  That’s the only way a woman would be considered, even in this day and age.

Republican Senator and 2016 Presidential Candidate Rand Paul Wants to Increase the Misery and Depredation for the Unemployed.

Are Conservatives Really This Mean? – Apparently So

The budget negotiations to set federal spending and avoid any more shutdowns for a while are completed and awaiting approval, and one of the issues was extension of unemployment benefits.  Here is the incredible statements of Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican Senator who is actually considered a serious Presidential contender.

Democratic attempts to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million workers were a "disservice" to the unemployed, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday.

"I support unemployment benefits for the 28 weeks they're paid for," the Kentucky Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." "If you extend it beyond that, you do a disservice to these workers."

Wow, paying unemployment benefits to the long term unemployed, paying them money to put food on the table, pay the mortgage, make the car payments so they can drive to job interviews is doing them a disservice.

Rand Paul of course grew up in relative prosperity, his daddy had a great paying government job so no problems for Rand Paul.  But one can hope that after the 2016 election he will be unemployed.  And while he will not need unemployment benefits to keep the wolf from the door, maybe the experience will give him some small dose of compassion and sympathy.  We doubt it though, a man as cruel and mean as Rand Paul, a man who want to punish the unemployed rather than help them is probably immune to any attack of decency.

Just In – President Obama Shakes Hands With Cuban Leader Raul Castro and World Does Not End

Conservatives Aghast At Failure of Universe to Collapse

Whatever else can be said about the U. S. policy towards Cuba, there is one thing that everyone can agree upon.  It hasn’t worked.  The goal of U. S. policy towards this small, rather internationally insignificant island nation was to get rid of Fidel Castro and his brother.  This policy has been in place for about 50 years.  The result, the Castro’s still control the government of Cuba.

Obviously a different policy was needed decades ago, but politics prevented that form happening.  Any change in policy would have brought forth the “soft on communism” charge from politicians of both parties and both ideologies.  So nothing has changed in 50 years and the misery of the Cuban people has endured, along with the failed U. S. policy.

Of course people like John McCain, who is probably a member of a small minority that supports military action against Cuba (McCain supports military action against everyone) still support the old, failed policy.  So when Mr. Obama had the temerity to shake hands with current Cuban leader Raul Castro, this was the result.

McCain On Obama-Castro Handshake: 'Chamberlain Shook Hands With Hitler' 

Classy act John, real classy. 

The Opponents of the Agreement with Iran Exhibit Moral, Political and Intellectual Cowardice – Opposition Without Providing an Alternative

Incredibly, George Will Has the Correct Position

Let’s see, the purpose of economic sanctions against Iran was to get that nation to stop enriching uranium to the level necessary to build a nuclear weapon and to get them to the bargaining table.  Last month Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium to the level necessary to build a nuclear weapon and agreed to engage in further bargaining to reach a permanent solution.

Wow, no wonder politicians in both parties are aghast and horrified. 

Of course political points can be made by Democrats and Republicans alike in opposing the deal.  Democrats can show that they are not ‘softies’ and Republicans can continue to appease the base by being opposed to each and everything proposed by the Obama administration.  And because the media does not hold politicians accountable for their folly, these politicians can take the position of opposing the deal without offering the slightest alternative.

Really, what do they expect if sanctions are made more stringent?  Do they really think Iran will stop enriching uranium altogether, that such a position is even politically possible in Iran.  Some of course want war, some always want war particularly if the war can be fought by OPC, Other People’s Children. 

Incredibly, Washington Post columnist George Will, a man who is usually either wrong on an issue or incoherent, and sometimes both, has the right stance.  Quoting and supporting author Kenneth Pollack, he argues for containment of Iran, the same way the U. S. and its allies successfully contained the Soviet Union when it obtained nuclear capability.

The logic of nuclear deterrence has not yet failed in the 64 years since the world acquired its second nuclear power. This logic does not guarantee certainty, but, says Pollack, “the small residual doubt cannot be allowed to be determinative.” His basic point is: “Our choices are awful, but choose we must.” Containment is the least awful response to Iran’s coming nuclear capability.

The parallels to the Cold War and the issue of Iran are eerie.  In the 1950’s many people advocated that the U. S. engage in a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviets, including British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, one of whose claims to fame was winning the Nobel Peace Prize (huh?)  Looking back, does anyone think that would have been the right moral, political and military policy?  Really, anyone?

Amsterdam Hires Alcoholics to Clean the City and Pays Them in Beer

Not Beer Money, Beer

Alcoholism is a serious disease, destroying the lives of those who have it and the lives of those associated with those who have it.  How to treat and deal with alcoholics is something that has puzzled civilizations ever since grapes were fermented.  The problem has still not been solved.

So it is with some interest that one learns that the city of Amsterdam (the Netherlands, not New York) has decided to hire alcoholics to clean the city and be paid in beer.  Not just a few beers, a lot of beer.

Jasper Juinen for The New York Times

A group of alcoholics in Amsterdam are given beer during breaks from their street-cleaning job.

The program, started last year by the Rainbow Foundation, a private but mostly government-funded organization that helps the homeless, drug addicts and alcoholics get back on their feet, is so popular that there is a long waiting list of chronic alcoholics eager to join the beer-fueled cleaning teams.

And here is how life is for one participant.

“You have to look sharp,” said Mr. Schiphorst, 60, a former construction worker.

His workday begins unfailingly at 9 a.m. — with two cans of beer, a down payment on a salary paid mostly in alcohol. He gets two more cans at lunch and then another can or, if all goes smoothly, two to round off a productive day.

Does this work?  Well anecdotal evidence is positive so far.

One of the project’s most enthusiastic supporters is Fatima Elatik, district mayor of eastern Amsterdam. As a practicing Muslim who wears a head scarf, Ms. Elatik personally disapproves of alcohol but says she believes that alcoholics “cannot be just ostracized” and told to shape up. It is better, she said, to give them something to do and restrict their drinking to a limited amount of beer with no hard alcohol.

Obviously this is controversial, and it is hard to work up a lot of enthusiasm for this solution.  But it is impossible to work up enthusiasm for the other solutions, because they seem to utterly fail with the exception of maybe AA.  So okay Amsterdam, let’s see what happens. 

Fighting Over the Farm Bill – Pigs Feeding at the Trough of Government Spending

Everyone – Just Part of the Greed for Federal Dollars

The Congress is trying to pass a new Farm Bill.  This is important, nutrition assistance is authorized in the Farm Bill and without that assistance millions of Americans will suffer.  But also a part of the Farm Bill is an enormous federal handout for agriculture, a handout that is no longer needed, desirable or even appropriate.

As the proposed legislation moves through the law making process, the competing interests are fighting among themselves for the billions in federal subsidies that conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans are all wanting to hand out.

The bad blood and distrust among farming interests are now exceptional. | AP Photo

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/farm-bill-intense-lobbying-agricultural-congress-100610.html#ixzz2mWCyd65x

As House-Senate talks resume Wednesday, the bad blood among rival commodity groups is becoming an embarrassment for farm bill advocates and a threat to getting legislation through Congress this winter.

Cotton and rice recently took a shot at corn and soybeans in a letter about proposed payment limits in both bills. Corn and beans went directly after House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) last week — threatening to kill the farm bill and seek a two-year extension that would run past his tenure as chairman.

What is also happening is a so called reform in the government’s support for agriculture.  The new program would heavily subsidize crop insurance, in effect guaranteeing the farming industry a profit at the expense of the tax payer.  Now federal support for agriculture is indeed warranted, IF THIS WERE 1935!  But today the agriculture industry is very stable, very profitable and has no more need for federal support than any other industry.

So why aren’t conservatives adamant in winding down the program?  Oh, they represent districts that benefit here, and if the choice is between being re-elected and standing up for principles, well we all know how that works out.

The Great Budget Crisis Ends (Probably) With a Whimper

A Terrible Deal – But About the Best That Could be Achieved

The appetite of the Republicans to shut down the government over the deficit and federal spending has been sated by their gorging on a shutdown in October.  And now they think, possibly erroneously of course, that they have a great issue in the software problems of ACA, so they don’t really need the deficit as a campaign issue.  The result, it looks like the two parties will reach an agreement on federal spending through the next two years.

House and Senate negotiators were putting the finishing touches Sunday on what would be the first successful budget accord since 2011, when the battle over a soaring national debtfirst paralyzed Washington.

The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators’ primary target.

So what does this mean?  Well the best that can be said is that the drag of reduced government spending on the economy will not be too great, and the economy should continue to stumble towards a full recovery.  That recovery will have been much slower than it needed to be, thanks to Republicans blocking major stimulus and the Democrats designing an inadequate and ill defined stimulus.

Of course, Republicans may yet blow this, but right now it looks like a go.

The U. S. government – Not Quite as Bad As It Could Be - But  Awfully Close 

Gun Lobby Has Another Victory – 72 Year Old Alzheimer Sufferer Gunned Down

They Must Be High Fiving at the NRA

The argument for unlimited guns with no regulations is that people must be allowed to defend themselves.  Such was the case in Georgia where a gentleman with a Glock fired four shots at a 72 year old man suffering from dementia and gunned him down.

No one is sure how, in the frigid hours before dawn last Wednesday in this small north Georgia community near the Tennessee border, Mr. Westbrook ended up nearly three miles from home with a handful of other people’s mail, jiggling Joe Hendrix’s doorknob.

Mr. Hendrix, 34, stepped onto his porch with a Glock pistol in his hand and his fiancée inside on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. He fired four shots. One hit Mr. Westbrook in the chest.

And what is it that so frightened Mr. Hendrix that the had to shoot an unarmed elderly confused gentleman?

At least twice, Mr. Westbrook climbed onto the small porch, tried to open the door and rang the doorbell, Sheriff Wilson said. Dogs were barking. The police were called.

Yeah, that is surely enough cause to kill a man. And that will teach the elderly everywhere that they hv no right to suffer dementia and go wondering off threatening law abiding citizens by doing nothing threatening.   As for the gun lobby, surely they are ecstatic, it's what they believe should happen all the time.  Nobody should be able to go up on a stranger's porch and ring the doorbell without taking four shots from a Glock.

Obama Care Makes One Sick; Government Cooks the Books on Unemployment – Reporting the News as Right Wing Fantasy

Because That’s What Much of the Media Does

It turns out that honest reporting is pretty much passé these days.  Instead lazy and rather ignorant news organizations just play the ‘here’s what we think is the news, we didn’t bother to check’ card.  So in the spirit of that tradition here is the news of the day as it could be reported.

Labor Department Cheats on Unemployment

Statistics to Boost Obama

While the official report of unemployment released by the Labor Department has showed strong gains in the last three months, it turns out this is just a bogus set of numbers.  Career employees at Labor have deliberately concocted false numbers to help the popularity of President Obama.

In fact, the real numbers show that almost every American in the labor force was unemployed in November.

Mayo Clinic Finds People Are Getting Sick Because

Of Health Care Reform

While many health care professionals expect the full implementation of the ACA to result in healthier Americans, a secret report at the Mayo Clinic has determined that the health care act is a major carrier of disease.  Individuals and groups participating in Obama Care are all expected to contract horrible diseases and die.  A liberal conspiracy has managed to cover up these findings.

President Obama is Really an Iranian

A team of investigators has found that President Obama was actually born in Tehran and has been an Iranian citizen for most of his life.  The President apparently spread the false rumor that he was a Kenyan citizen in order to divert attention away from his true identity.  This explain the fact that he is a secret Muslim and is using the deal with Iran to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and destroy Israel. 

Stock Market Plunges During Obama Term

Despite the fact that the Dow and S & P reached record levels recently, revised data on stock market prices actually shows that stock prices have fallen dramatically since Mr. Obama took office.  Corporate profits, while huge and growing have been much less than they would have been had George W. Bush remained in office.  Mitt Romney has said he knew this all along and did not use it during the campaign because he felt the left leaning media would have called him an idiot.

And in other headlines in right wing fantasy media world

Hilary Clinton Determined to Have Been a Witch in Salem

In a Previous Life – Was Burned at the Stake

Joe Biden Discovered to Have a Speech Impediment, Namely

His Brain (ok, maybe this is a true one)

Harry Reid, Democrats Continue to Hold False Belief that

Majority Rule is a Part of a Democracy

Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin Elected to the

Victims Hall of Fame (ok, that could also be true)

 Look for these and other stories in your favorite right wing publication or broadcast.

Airline Defense in Supreme Court Case – We Have No Requirement to be Fair and Reasonable

Another Case of Federal Regulatory Law Protecting the Regulated

The Supreme Court of the United States rarely has time to consider the appeals of death row inmates, appeals based on inadequate counsel, on prosecutorial misconduct, on the discovery of new evidence and the like.  After all, it’s not as if lives are at stake.

But the Supreme Court has found time to determine if Northwest Airlines, now a part of Delta, was legally remiss in kicking Rabbi Ginsburg out of its frequent flier program.  It seems their unhappiness with the Rabbi was this.

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg used to fly often enough on Northwest Airlines that he achieved Platinum Elite status, the highest level. But the airline revoked his membership in its frequent flier program in June 2008, saying he had abused it by making too many complaints and by booking himself on full flights in the hope of being bumped.

Now a reasonable person might question whether or not a person is able to book travel of full flights is not the fault of the airline, but anyone who has been exposed to air travel in the U. S. knows that the airlines take no responsibility for their booking systems anyway.  So the interesting part of the case is whether or not Rabbi Ginsberg’s claims have been pre-empted by Federal law.  The airline attorney says of course they have.

Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for the airline, said Rabbi Ginsberg “seeks to impose a duty of fair dealing and reasonableness” even though “the parties to the contract have essentially given one party absolute discretion.” That duty, he said, is a state policy pre-empted by the 1978 law.

Wow, the Rabbi seeks to require the airlines to deal fairly and reasonably.  What gall!  The amazing thing is not that the airlines do not think they have a duty of fair dealing and reasonableness, but that they are willing to admit that in court.  But of course having been granted virtual monopoly status over a vital service they can do anything they want to.  Any everyone expects the Supreme Court to ratify that right.

As for the rest of the population, everyone should take heed from the experiences of Rabbi Ginsberg.  No complaints people, you have no rights, you have nothing and if you don’t like it don’t fly. 

Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post Gets It Right on the Stock Market and the Economy

Are You Listening Wall Street?

Writing on economics in the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson (no relation to Paul) has a column that should be read by every single investor, and certainly by every single right wing capitalist that thinks basic economic policy that aspires to generate growth by increasing the income of the middle class is somehow a socialist/commie plot.

Mr. Samuelson documents the rise of the stock market during the tepid economic recovery,

At the end of November, reported Wilshire Associates, stocks were up nearly 30 percent for the year, representing a gain of about $4.8 trillion. From the market’s recent low in March 9, 2009, when the economy was in a tailspin, the increase has been 180 percent, or nearly $15 trillion. If you dislike this comparison, then measure the gain since the market’s pre-recession high on Oct. 9, 2007. The increase is 21.5 percent, or $4.2 trillion.

And he correctly diagnoses the driving force behind stock price increase, the huge growth in corporate profits.

Finally, growing profits explain much of the market’s increase. In theory, stock prices reflect present and future profits, and — despite a sluggish economy — corporate profits have increased impressively. By government figures, they’re up 39 percent from their 2006 pre-recession peak. Profit margins are near record levels, about 9.6 percent of corporate revenues, noted S&P’s Howard Silverblatt. Higher profits have kept a key stock market indicator — the price-earnings ratio — well within historical norms, found a study by theMcKinsey Global Institute, the consulting company’s research arm.

But his real contribution is this.

What’s clearer is that stocks and the “real economy” of jobs and production have become disconnected — and that this cannot continue indefinitely. There are practical limits to how much companies can improve profits without stronger economic growth and higher sales. If these don’t materialize, we may discover that the market is not a bubble but a blob that goes nowhere quickly.

That’s right, unless the economy grows the long term growth of the stock market will stop.  And unless growth is restored to low and middle income Americans, whose consumption drives investment and economic growth, the economy will not grow.  And unless policies are developed and implemented that stimulate the growth in income for those groups the very investors who think they can win by making low and middle income families losers will themselves be losers.  In short, policy to continue to skew the distribution of income towards the wealthy will be a lose-lose proposition.  

Get a Few Stitches, Get Charged Thousands of Dollars – When Will the U. S. Realize the Economics of Its Health Care System Are Broken

Well Somebody Has to Make an Obscene Profit

The problems with the U. S. health care system go far beyond the problems with Health Care Reform, which presumably will be fixed as soon as those in charge realize how big systems work.  The problems with the U. S. health care system is costs, not ACA.  And ACA will do little to reduce costs, because a fee for service system is built to increase costs, not reduce them.

So no one should be surprised when the New York Times found out that a simple visit to a hospital to get some stitches costs thousands of dollars.

Chelsea Manning in St. Clair, Mich., in November. She tripped and fell in the driveway of her home, and needed six stitches for which she was billed close to $3,000.Joshua Lott for The New York Times

On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.

Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”

Here is the gross, in every way, summary.

A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to theInternational Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insuranceindustries. The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them, including California Pacific Medical Center, emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures — closing a wound with a needle and thread — typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more.

The Republican solution, a market based pricing system where consumers buy based on price is, of course, ridiculous.  No parent is going to shop around for the best price while their child needs stitches, and even if they do they cannot get pricing information anyway.

At Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Daniel Diaz, 29, a public relations executive, was billed $3,355.96 for five stitches on his finger after cutting himself while peeling an avocado. At a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., Arch Roberts Jr., 56, a former government employee, was charged more than $2,000 for three stitches after being bitten by a dog. At Mercy Hospital in Port Huron, Mich., Chelsea Manning, 22, a student, received bills for close to $3,000 for six stitches after she tripped running up a path. Insurers and patients negotiated lower prices, but those charges were a starting point.

That’s right the price is not even the price.  What is the price?  We don’t know.  Hospital keep that info confidential. 

None of this will change until the economics of the system change.  We economists know this, we just don’t know why the rest of the population doesn’t know this.  We do know that the medical profession knows this, which is why they will fight any change.