Here are some great excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article this morning. I’m so frustated, I don’t even have comments on it. Just take notice of the bold areas.

Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening.

So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists and radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.

The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren’t valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.

Of course, this calculation doesn’t consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That’s a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel’s own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 665 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.

The recommendation to cut off all screening in women over 75 is equally as myopic. The committee notes that the benefits of screening “occur only several years after the actual screening test, whereas the percentage of women who survive long enough to benefit decreases with age.” It adds that “women of this age are at much greater risk for dying of other conditions that would not be affected by breast cancer screening.” In other words, grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money to reduce the chances that she dies of a leading cause of death among elderly women?

…every Democratic version of ObamaCare makes this task force an arbiter of the benefits that private insurers will be required to cover as they are converted into government contractors. What are now merely recommendations will become de facto rules, and under national health care these kinds of cost analyses will inevitably become more common as government decides where finite tax dollars are allowed to go.

More spending on “prevention” has long been the cry of health reformers, and President Obama has been especially forceful. In his health speech to Congress in September, the President made a point of emphasizing “routine checkups and preventative care, like mammograms and colonoscopies—because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.”

It turns out that there is, in fact, a reason: Screening for breast cancer will cost the government too much money, even if it saves lives.

via Mammograms Provide Preview of ObamaCare – WSJ.com.

You can pretty much say goodbye to the days of ever increasing advances with the internet. Everyday there are more and more articles about government involvement. Eventually the debate will switch from should they be involved, to which policy is best. Once that happens, you are back to the “head or gut” question.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission began to lay the groundwork for a bigger federal role in the broadband business Wednesday, outlining the hurdles the U.S. needs to overcome to improve the availability of high-speed Internet access.

The FCC identified a number of issues the government should address, including the high cost of laying new broadband lines in rural areas, a lack of airwaves for wireless Web access and ill-informed consumers.

“This focus on broadband is a reflection of a recognition that the U.S. is lagging behind,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday at the agency’s monthly meeting.

The FCC is drafting a National Broadband Plan, which will lay out ways the government can improve broadband service in the U.S. The plan is scheduled to come out in February, and it’s uncertain how many of its suggestions will ultimately be adopted. Already, some big cable and telecommunications companies are concerned the agency wants to impose rules that could undermine their business strategies and profitability.

via Bigger U.S. Role in Broadband Is Likely – WSJ.com.

Why is this such a big damn issue? No one in the public is demanding it. The government is going to tell us why we are lacking broadband?

Notice one issue they claim is the cost of laying new line in rural areas. So the rest of us who live in more populated areas have to pay for someone’s internet who decides to live out in the boonies. That’s just great. More of the majority paying for the minority. Besides, satellite already delivers this, but this is the problem when the government looks at a “problem”. It’s not that they don’t have the ability to get internet, it’s that they don’t have it by means of cables under the ground. You always get a misidentification of the problem (in this case there is no problem) when you have central planning. Satellite used to be fast only on download, and it was still dialup for the upload. Now you have it fast in both directions. This is what is called innovation. But you can’t have that. We all need it by wire.

Next is the lack of airwares for wireless. In this case, just as all cases where the government controls something, you have scarcity created by the government. If the airwaves were owned or handled by the private sector, they would be used for their best use. If people were demanding more airwaves for wireless, then it would happen. Instead politics is entering into it (PBS is not happy about it).

Next, the government falls back to it’s default position. The people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them. The people are too dumb to realize they don’t need 100mbs broadband to every house like Japan has. Who cares if Japan has 100mbs to every house. Are they better off than us overall because of it? Are we harmed by only having 20mbs, when we decide that is all we need at the cost that it’s delivered at? My 93 year old grandma shouldn’t have her phone bill raised when she doesn’t even know what the internet is.

We are told we are lagging behind. This is just like the “keep up with the Jones” mentality of the consumer. It’s not that we truly need 100mbs broad band. It’s that someone else has it. It’s not fair. Didn’t we learn our lesson over the past decade with this mentality? Again, I say, why do we think things are so different at a governmental level than they are on a personal level. If keeping up with the Jones is bad personally, it is bad governmentally.

The government is creating an illusion of lack of supply. If there was more demand and not enough supply, prices of broadband would be increasing. As we all know, broadband is constantly decreasing in prices. Thanks to the free market and technological innovation, supply is increasing faster than demand. When that happens, prices go down, as they have. So, why are we even looking at this? We’ve already established we have more supply than demand. Who is benefiting from this? Could it be some of the big businesses that bought and paid for your politicians? Could it be Big Brother? It sure in the hell isn’t you. You aren’t even demanding it.

This morning on Morning Joe, they had on NBC’s medical expert to discuss the government’s medical panel’s recommendation that women should wait till they’re 50 for mammograms, and then only get them every two years.

So the death panels are not real? This is your death panel. If government controls health care, either this task force or some other central planning board will decide these type of issues based on cost. No panel can be independent when it is funded by the government. Also, their answer has to have a question. What was the question? Who posed the questions, and why? If I tell my wife, we need to cut our coffee budget by $50 a month, she is going to look and say, “well we really don’t need to have a cup of coffee after lunch, so I’d say we only have coffee in the morning going forward. That should reduce our cost.” This is similar to how this is being decided. We only have so much money for health care (thanks to the government), so do we really need to start mammograms at 40? Is the extra cost worth the saved lives? Under government controlled health care, the value of your life will be determined by these boards, or as Sarah Palin correctly called them, death panels.

I love how this lady starts putting down the Susan G. Komen charity.  Apparently, she doesn’t know what freedom is all about. No one is forcing people to donate time and money to this charity. People who have been touched by breast cancer donate to fight breast cancer. This is what real compassion is all about. Of course, that is great until it interferes with government policy. Now, she decides to turn it into greed.

Next, she says, (paraphrasing) “This is rationing. We ration food, sleep, etc.” Yes that is true, but we ration it based on our own personal choices and needs. The government does not force rationing. We decide what foods we want based on the money we have and the need we want to fulfill. This is how the free market works, and why you don’t need a government agency telling you how often you can eat meat (oh this did happen when the government controlled the economy during WWII). Only government creates unnecessary rationing.

When talking about rationing, she says, “Let’s take money to invest in ‘new treatment tools’” OK, this is silly. Treatment only matters if you are identified first, so they don’t do you any good if you aren’t getting tested. Also, who is the government to decide where money should be invested. If there is demand for mammograms by women, then it should be up to the woman and the doctor where that money should be invested. Are we to believe that companies aren’t investing in new technologies when there are so many people touched by breast cancer and so much money flooding into fighting breast cancer? If there is a need, the market will meet it.

But to her, this is “smart health care rationing”. I’m sure the Soviets and the Chinese thought they were doing smart rationing as well when tens of millions died of starvation. The problem is you can’t have a person or group of people who aren’t party to the transaction being the decider of rationing. Rationing is done by consumers and suppliers based on needs and pricing.

You have to love how compassionate she is about it though. It only saves 1 out of 2000 she says.  I guess one person doesn’t count. Joe has a great point. If that’s your relative, you don’t care if it’s only one out of two million. Also, this is voluntary. If it saves only one in 500,000, who cares as long as people want to get mammograms and doctors are willing to provide the service. Oh wait, that’s right. It is against the public good once government takes over health care. Also, what they are saying is confusing. It isn’t one life is saved out of 2000. It is one person is identified out of 2000 to have cancer. That does not sound too bad to me. Hopefully, it will eventually be only one out of 10,000. This has to be one of the most stupid reasons for not having mammograms. “Not enough people have cancer, so we shouldn’t check.” The government doesn’t mind when the poor spends hundreds of dollars per month on the lottery when their chances are one in millions. Oh, but that benefits the government . Never mind.

Then she talks about we don’t scan for these other things till 50 like colon and prostate cancer. So what. Could that be because those don’t normally occur till 50, and because maybe men just aren’t as prudent about things like that?

Next she delves off into the sex and the breast. I have no clue what that has to do with whether it’s worth having mammograms that catch cancer early, so I’ll just skip past it before I start blushing.

As with all media, there is no question as to whether the government should even have a role or say in this. Joe Scarborough says “We’ve been able to afford these fiscally(that means government money) in the past, and we just can’t anymore.” I’m sure glad he’s a Republican. He doesn’t even understand the market and that government is creating this shortage. Nor does he realize this is a free society, and the government should have nothing to do with these decisions.

As with all consumer purchases, this is not the place for the government to be involved. It should be up to a woman and her doctor. If a woman wants to get mammograms at 40 and every year, that should be her perogative. This is what I’ve been saying in all my post. If you ask the government to give you something, you give up your liberty. Ask them to pay for your health care, and you give up your right to have  your mammogram.

So, I wonder what’s next?

Well, the scam is up, and the Democrats know it. TARP and stimulus have had no effect on creating jobs. So if government didn’t work the first time, I guess they just didn’t do enough.

The House of Representatives is pushing a bill aimed at boosting employment, a potentially risky move that underscores Democrats’ fears about the economy and jobs — including their own as they head into an election year.

Elements of such a bill could run the gamut from infrastructure spending to small-business lending to extra aid for states and the unemployed, lawmakers said. Democratic leaders haven’t determined any specifics — including the politically dicey question of how to pay for it.

The beauty of the free market is you don’t have to pay for it. Get the government the hell out of the economy, and jobs will be created. Oh, and we won’ t have to pay for it. This one line underscores the idiocy of the government. Infrastructure spending is not going to create long term jobs. It also does nothing but reduce wealth, just as all central planning of the economy does. Ask Russia. Lending to small business isn’t going to create jobs either. If the economy is a disaster thanks to government, why would small businesses borrow money. Who are they producing for? Of course the government’s solution to this disasterous credit bubble is to offer more credit. Lastly, what the hell is extra aid to states going to do for jobs. There was extra aid to states with the last stimulus bill. It did absolutely nothing. It’s just moving money from the Federal government to the state government, both of which are out of control.

Among ideas floated Tuesday by Democratic leaders were using bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and a tax on Wall Street firms’ financial transactions, such as derivatives trades.

“Hey, trust me.” says the government. We only lied to you about needing the $750 billion by the weekend to bailout Wall Street. Low and behold we have tons of the money still sitting around waiting for us to play God with.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who runs the House Democrats’ campaign effort, said lawmakers were aiming for a six-year infrastructure bill that also could include energy-related investment.

Energy related investment? You mean a GE payoff? Energy companies will invest themselves if it makes economic sense. If it doesn’t make economic sense, and the government decides to do it, that means we’ve basically had our standard of living reduced. If solar power, for example, doesn’t produce a good ROI, it doesn’t matter who is paying for it. No matter what it’s not a good ROI and in this case, the tax payer is funding this bad investment.

Mr. Van Hollen, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said lawmakers also might consider a payroll-tax holiday — a short-term break on Social Security and Medicare taxes to boost private-sector hiring. He said that might be an alternative to an employer tax credit for new hires, an idea that critics say is fraught with enforcement problems.

Hahaha. So the solution to creating jobs is a payroll-tax holiday? Social security and medicare are both bankrupt, but taking money from them is a good idea. If it’s such a good idea, and this is what is hampering the job market, let’s ditch it for good. This is just stupid. While I would love to see these taxes go, a temporary holiday isn’t going to trick an intelligent business person into hiring. If that reduction in cost is temporary, so is the position.

The White House didn’t comment on the developments. President Barack Obama announced a jobs summit for early December and the administration is likely to weigh in with its own recommendations.

Please President Obama. Give us your wise recommendations. They have benefited us so much so far.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said he hoped to bring the bill to the House floor by mid-December, giving rank-and-file lawmakers a chance to vote just before the start of the 2010 election season, when control of Congress will be up for grabs.

“Clearly, 10.2% unemployment is unacceptable and is causing great pain to literally millions of people around the country,” Mr. Hoyer said.

This is so important that we need to wait till the political season begins, so politicians can take complete advantage of the politics of it.

House lawmakers hope the Senate also will act before the end of the year. Senate leaders said late Tuesday, they planned to tackle the issue only after completing the health-care overhaul. Sparring over the jobs legislation could last for many weeks beyond that.

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka put pressure on Congress to act Tuesday when he rolled out a proposal putting heavy emphasis on government spending on infrastructure, including schools, as well as a new round of aid to states and local governments to forestall layoffs.

Let’s have a guy who never started a business and only loots business owners tell us how to create jobs. The only form of job creation the AFL-CIO knows is pummeling private businesses into the ground until they aren’t competitive, and then costing many jobs.

Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.), the House Democratic caucus chairman, said he believed House Democrats would have to offset the bill’s cost, at least in part, to answer concerns about the soaring federal budget deficit. The government is expected to run a $1.4 trillion deficit in fiscal 2010, which began on Oct. 1. Democrats are likely to delay the effective date of new taxes until the recession is over.

Another possible revenue source is taxes on Internet gaming.

Mr. Larson, who as the House Democratic caucus chairman pays close attention to rank-and-file members’ attitudes, said there was growing momentum for a tax on some Wall Street trading.

There you go. Tax Wall Street trading. That should boost the economy. Let’s tax capital that is used to fund business expansion and creation.

Leading Democrats in both chambers, including Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, have expressed reservations about a tax on financial transactions, out of concern it could drive trading offshore.

Wow, I actually can’t believe Barney Frank said this. So, he understands that this could drive trading offshore, and thus cost the government capital gains taxes, but for some reason he doesn’t see how massive business taxes and regulation drive businesses offshore.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) said he would support legislation that would further extend the jobless benefits program and boost infrastructure spending, including roads and bridges. The senator said such spending would not only create jobs but boost the efficiency of the U.S. economy. “We need to do much more, ” he said.

Hahaha, the government is going to boost the efficiency of the economy. Did I read that correctly? Also, extending jobless benefits even more. Now there is motivation to get off you butt and start working.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R., Va.), said any bill that added to the deficit wouldn’t work. “They tried that approach once and failed,” Mr. Dayspring said.

Among the ideas for unused TARP funds are direct lending to small businesses, and funding of an infrastructure bank that would provide seed money for projects.

via House Leaders Push for Jobs Bill – WSJ.com.

I guess ultimately we get what we deserve. We elect these moronic bums to represent us, so we have no one to blame but ourselves. Who cares if their ideas don’t make sense. Who cares if your family is struggling financially, you wouldn’t believe spending more and borrowing more is the fix. This is the government. It’s different.

The Government is responding to who about the supposed lack of broadband? I don’t think I have heard one complaint from anyone about lack of internet access, but supposedly there is a serious injustice going on out there. Luckily for us Captain Government is here to fix it.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service.

The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday will lay out the case for expanding broadband Internet service, outlining current obstacles to making it widely available. The agency is considering whether to force Internet providers to share their networks with rivals and raise fees charged on consumer phone bills to pay for the broader access.

The proposals, which have sparked criticism from telecommunications and cable companies, represent a reversal from the Bush Administration, when regulators cut back on government control of Internet and telephone service.The new commission, controlled by Democrats, is considering whether more government control is needed to ensure competition and more affordable Internet service.

via Feds Mull Rules, Fees to Spur Net Access – WSJ.com

I’m pretty sure the free market has done a great job expanding broadband access without government intervention. Not that long ago, I remember having dial up. Then I got cable with 400k download speeds. Then cable gave 1mb, then 2mb, then 6mb, and now Verizon has jumped in, and you can get 20mb for $60/month. Are you telling me competition isn’t working?

Also, because of competition, you have different levels of service to fit your budget. You can get DSL from Verizon for $15 month. Granted, the speed is slower than other plans, but it’s still light years ahead of dialup and fits the needs of many consumers.

So government is going to increase competition by forcing people to pay more for phone service. Does this sound like competition, or does it sound like a tax? Many people don’t even have regular phones anymore. That’s the beauty of the internet. You can ditch your old phone for a free or extremely cheap phone service. So, how is the government going to make those who use something like Skype for their phone pay increased phone rates? Are they going to force you to have a phone service like they are going to force you to have health insurance?

Democrats say that they want more affordable internet service. Are you serious? There are even free dialup services out there now. What they want is everyone to have the same exact service despite what consumers decide they need. This does not help competition, and it sure doesn’t incentivize providers to innovate and consumers to make wise decisions. This will be the beginning of the end for the internet revolution.

Well, one must ask why is the government pushing this if there doesn’t even seem to be a problem? Could it have something to do with controlling you? Maybe the smart grid? The smart grid is just one entry way for the government to step into your house. There will be more. Once everyone has broadband, it will be easy to put new monitoring and control measures in place. Think the government isn’t already spying on your internet usage?

We used to believe in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We gave up the right to life with abortion. Conscription also says you don’t have a right to your life. While we don’t have it now, there have been talks of it, whether it be a draft or mandatory “National Service”. We gave up the pursuit of happiness, because it’s not fair that your are achieving happiness while someone else isn’t. All along we’ve been giving up liberty.

We’ve replaced those rights, with the right to health care, welfare, education and now broadband. Americans better wake up. We have not cracked the code of building a righteous government, and history has shown how all societys progress from limited governments to tyranny. There is a reason civilizations never last, and we are about to find out why this one won’t either.

The latest mile marker on our road to fascism is the regulation being crafted by the administration and Barney Frank and the alternative being crafted by Chris Dodd. The two people most responsible out of politicians for the mess we are in are now the ones claiming they are going to fix it.

Both bills are intended to cover more than just companies that are engaged in financial activities. Following the administration’s lead, both provide that a company engaged in a financial activity “in whole or in part, directly or indirectly” could be subject to enhanced regulation and supervision.

The Frank bill seems intended to regulate all financial firms as though they are banks. Thus it requires financial activities to be transferred out of operating companies into a separate entity, which would then be regulated like a bank (even in its relations with its parent company).

The Dodd bill is a blunter instrument, proposing to regulate all companies that include financial activities “in whole or in part.” But almost all companies—retailers, manufacturers and service organizations—engage in some financial activities, if only to promote the sale of their products and services. If the administration’s health-care proposal has the potential to nationalize one-sixth of the economy, Messrs. Frank and Dodd are bidding to cover the rest.

“in whole or in part, directly or indirectly” and “in whole or in part” sure sound all encompassing. It would seem to me that every business is “engaged in financial activity” to a point. Add the control of government health care to this equation, and you pretty much have complete control of business.

The administration’s original legislation would give the Federal Reserve authority to regulate and supervise all large nonbank financial institutions and, if they are in danger of failing, take control of them and resolve their problems outside the bankruptcy system. The underlying notion is that the failure of one of these companies—which include bank holding companies, securities firms, insurance companies, finance companies, hedge funds and possibly others—could cause a systemic collapse.

Although the administration likes to give the impression that its proposal is limited to exceptional cases and the largest financial institutions, its draft legislation, and the Frank and Dodd bills, use very broad language to describe the triggering event for either enhanced supervision or a subsequent bailout.

Putting it bluntly, the administration’s proposal, and the House and Senate draft bills, would establish too big to fail as national policy. Whether the companies are regulated by the Fed or by a new agency, they will still have been marked as threats to economic well-being—and thus seen by creditors and investors as specially protected by the government. This will give them the same advantages enjoyed in the mortgage business by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the same result for competitors and taxpayers.

This sure sounds like welfare for the rich to me. Basically if you are lucky enough to have your business labeled “too big to fail” (I’m sure we’ll see more lobbyist pushing to have their business classified as such), then you basically do not have to worry about your actions. Take your profits while you can and things are good, and when things get bad, don’t worry about it. The American taxpayer will have to eat it. The investors and the executives reap the rewards and have all upside.

The Frank bill would explicitly authorize the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to provide financing that would restore a failed company to health. The craftier Dodd bill implies that creditors will take a hit, but then authorizes the FDIC to pay off creditors in full if that would avoid “serious adverse effects to financial stability or the United States economy.”

Moreover, under the Dodd bill, after the government has settled with its creditors, a failed company can have a public offering of its shares and return to the competitive fray. That’s good news in one sense, of course, but not for everyone; under the Dodd plan, the government is authorized to recover what it spent by taxing all financial firms—that is, firms such as bank holding companies and others involved “in whole or in part” in financial activities—with total assets of more than $10 billion.

In effect, the legislation creates moral hazard by transferring the risks and losses of a failing company from its creditors to its competitors. The protection of taxpayers may be a mirage anyway, since the FDIC is authorized to put off these collections indefinitely to avoid an “adverse effect on the financial system or economic conditions.”

via Peter J. Wallison: The Permanent TARP – WSJ.com.

This regulation amounts to “there are no losers here” policies. It’s like all the kids participating in a sporting event getting a trophy, because they are all winners. Meanwhile, they lose their sense of competition and drive. There is no downside for a company once it’s classified as too big to fail. This is a scary proposition. If they have bad management, they don’t have to worry. The government will step in, usher them back to “health” with tax payer money, and then more bad management can come in and make profits until it falls apart again. Talk about wealth distribution. I didn’t know Obama meant this when he was talking to Joe the Plumber. I should have known when he said he was for “Trickle Up Economics” instead of Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics”. Apparently with trickle up economics, the wealth that the poor and middle class have moves up to the rich that have political connections.

This morning, Ralph R. Reiland has a funny and yet disturbing description of how the UK government controls citizens via health care cost control.

In other universal health care news, the December 2009 issue of Reason magazine reports that government inspectors working for the Stoke City Council in England “warned residents to remove welcome mats and potted plants from their porches.”

With government running health care, it becomes the state’s business if someone trips over a porch plant or welcome mat, or if some numbskull runs into a hanging basket.

And what about sled riding, something more likely than a potted palm to raise hospital costs?

In a nation that can’t stomach the risk of a welcome mat, how long will people be permitted to ice skate or race cars? Will kids still be allowed to build snowmen, given the danger of frostbite and subsequent medical interventions?

So what will be the allowable winter sport in England, given the need to cut the level of red ink in health budgets? Stay inside and bake gingerbread people? Still risky. To make 30 little gingerpeople, just 2.5 inches tall, Betty Crocker says to use a full cup of packed brown sugar, 1.5 cups of dark molasses, 7 cups of flour, and 1/3 cup of shortening, plus cinnamon, allspice, cloves and ginger.

There’s also frosting — 4 more cups of sugar, powdered, plus vanilla and some raisins and chocolate chips for the faces and buttons.

That comes to 270 calories per gingerperson. Eat the whole batch (they’re small) and that’s 8,100 calories, enough to become the business of the obesity cops and the central committee’s watchers of budget busters in the health sector.

On top of fat, there’s also the gingerperson’s fuel squandering and its link to climate calamities and drowning polar bears, with ginger, cloves and cinnamon, respectively, coming from half a warming world away in India, Madagascar and Sri Lanka.

via Appendectomy? Make it a double – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

While reading this article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, it struck me that we have some lessons we should learn ourselves.

This is not to suggest an endorsement of the status quo. Cardinal Rodríguez has plenty of criticism for a system that has left so many Hondurans mired in poverty while a small number live extravagantly. He denounces the lack of equality under the law which has damaged economic mobility. “In Latin America, when you have money, you can buy justice.” Such corruption is what led to “the implosion” of political parties in Venezuela,” he says. “And in the vacuum there was this messiah, Chávez, who came. This is the danger in all our nations.”

Yet the cardinal also recognizes progress since the birth of the constitutional democracy in 1982. “Now the army is respected, because they have dedicated themselves to the constitutional role of defending the law and the borders.” The trouble, he says, is that with the advent of democracy, “the political parties took politics as an industry for enrichment. We need to change that.”

Cardinal Rodríguez sees the rule of law as an important link to development. “The key is to assure justice,” he says, “because if you don’t have legal security, you are not going to invest. Investment is very important. With investments there are more jobs for our people.”

Speaking of investors, the cardinal says, “of course they are not all saints,” and human rights must be protected. “But what should we do without those jobs?” he asks. Then he adds, “Maquilas [assembly plants] are especially important for women, because their jobs have been a source of dignity. When they earn their own money they are no longer slaves to the macho man in their lives, who often is not even their husband.”

Honduras will hold a presidential election on Nov. 29, and many hope Mr. Zelaya will soon be a bad memory. Yet the struggle for liberty, and the social justice that comes from equality under the law, will continue. Cardinal Rodríguez says he hopes the political class has learned a lesson. Amen to that.

via Mary O’Grady: The Cardinal and the Constitution – WSJ.com.

Cardinal Rodríguez mentions that because of corruption in Venezula, the populace turned to “this messiah, Chavez”. Hmm, sounds familar. Because Americans were fed up with government manipulation by Wall Street and the excesses of bad monetary and fiscal policy, we fell for the very demagogic but vague messiah, Barack Obama. Americans, in wanting to corruption removed from Washington, turned to a corrupt politician to do it. Sadly, Obama is turning out to be the most corrupt. He’s in bed with Wall Street and the Fed.

The Cardinal then goes on to explain that investors aren’t angels, but they are the ones who create the opportunities for the rest of society to participate in the economy. This participation is what brings dignity, not the government.

Social justice is usually code for socialism, but I love how the Cardinal turns it, “the social justice that comes from equality under the law”. He is right, social justice comes from equality under the law. It does not come from government coercion of one group to the benefit of another. The very act of coercion is the destroyer of “social justice”.  Good call Cardinal, and Amen to that. Let’s just hope Americans wake up and realize that the government is not our messiah, and that we should not be looking to the government to impose “social justice”.

Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal this morning about the rationing commission.

Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission “critical to our fiscal future” and “one of the most potent reforms.”

On that last score, he’s right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to “bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don’t see the faces of the people you kill.”

As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission—all 15 members appointed by the President—would have to meet certain budget targets each year. Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation. After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as GDP, plus one percentage point.

……

Worse, it makes little room for medical innovations. The commission is mandated to go after “sources of excess cost growth,” meaning treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage will boost spending. If researchers find a pricey treatment for Alzheimer’s in 2020, that might be banned because it would add new costs and bust the global budget. Or it might decide that “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” as President Obama put it in June.

In other words, the Medicare commission would come to function much like the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which rations care in England. Or a similar Washington state board created in 2003 to control costs. Its handiwork isn’t pretty.

The Washington commission, called the Health Technology Assessment, is manned by 11 bureaucrats, including a chiropractor and a “naturopath” who focuses on alternative, er, remedies like herbs and massage therapy. They consider the clinical effectiveness but above all the cost of medical procedures and technologies. If they decide something isn’t worth the money, then Olympia won’t cover it for some 750,000 Medicaid patients, public employees and prisoners.

So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a “high” efficacy but also a “high” cost.

Currently, the commission is pushing through the most restrictive payment policy in the nation for drug-eluting cardiac stents—simply because bare metal stents are cheaper, even as they result in worse outcomes. If a patient is wheeled into the operating room with chest pains in an emergency, doctors will first have to determine if he’s covered by a state plan, then the diameter of his blood vessels and his diabetic condition to decide on the appropriate stent. If they don’t, Washington will not reimburse them for “inappropriate care.”

via The Health Care Rationing Commission – WSJ.com.

Here is more of the government deciding that if not everyone can have the expensive medical procedures, then no one will.  If this is the way you encourage growth and innovation, I must have missed it in my Econ 101 class. I said this in a previous blog, and I’ll say it again. Jealousy of the rich, who have more health care options, does not help the middle class or the poor. It’s the rich who pay for the innovations at first, and once companies begin recouping their R&D cost and run out of rich people (there aren’t that many of them), then prices begin to decline bringing the new technology to the masses.

While the government would argue that these limits are only on government plans, we all know that eventually we are going to fall under a national health care plan with government health care for all. Government never stops once a program is implemented. It only gets bigger. Government programs have to grow and get more people dependent on them. They are similar in this respect to private companies, except private companies have to grow by you voluntarily deciding to use them. Government just changes it’s rules and forces you to abide by them.

In my home town, they have been talking about a Maglev train for years now. Here is an example of government waste at it’s finest.

It’s argued that a multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-fleecing Pittsburgh maglev line would make the region the epicenter for this technology across the country. Except the country needs maglev as much as it needs more debt.

In remarks last week to state lawmakers, Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute explained why expensive high-speed magnetic-levitation trains are beyond the realm of reasonable implementation.

Just ask China.

The 19-mile maglev line from Pudong Airport to downtown Shanghai rarely sees more than one out of four seats filled, says Mr. O’Toole, an expert in transportation issues. Which explains why China opted for less costly conventional high-speed trains between Shanghai and Beijing.

A $5 billion-plus proposed line between Pittsburgh International Airport and Greensburg wouldn’t fare better.

Even an optimistic projection of 28,000 round-trip passengers daily is a fraction of Pittsburgh travelers, O’Toole said. Moreover, research shows rail service to U.S. airports typically carries only 2 percent to 15 percent of air travelers, he said.

And because maglev uses vastly more energy than conventional high-speed trains, it produces that much more pollution, according to the Center for Clean Air Policy.

Economically and environmentally, Pennsylvania can’t afford to be taken for maglev’s ride.

via Maglev’s myth – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

$5 billion for an train from Greensburg to the Airport? This will do absolutely nothing to boost the economy. The $5 billion would have to be taken from the pockets of productive citizens to fund a useless train. Those people who have been robbed would have used $5 billion for purposes that would result in economic value and job creation. Instead, slime ball politicians believe their pet projects are more important.

If the Maglev was such an economic boon, the private sector would be producing it already. Instead the free market and entreprenuers would use that money for other more profitable ventures. Those ventures would create more wealth and more jobs. Central planning resulted in disaster for Soviet economies, but yet here we are, the supposed capitalist country doing the exact same thing.