Government Spending

We've often heard folks in government and the media rail against the outlandish government spending since 2008 and therefore a huge rise in government's size and role. Has the size of our government really grown considerably? Paul Krugman demurs in this enlightening post. It's got pretty charts! 

Bottom line, its the recession and its effects.

A Holiday Message

From Ricky Gervais: A Holiday Message: Why I’m An Atheist. A fantastic read.

If you find the title of the article above provocative, this is from his website:

I wish WSJ hadn't stuck that title on it. "A Holiday Message" sounds unnecessarily provocative. It wasn't meant to be. They asked me to write an essay and one of the topics was 'Why I'm an Atheist'. It was just a personal account to be honest. Just for the record, I'm not an atheist solely because of my brother saying, "do you believe in God?" and my mum getting worried. That was simply the catalyst that made me question years of just accepting things that adults had fed me. That's what kids do. They learn from adults. And they accept it. That's why I believed in Santa Clause till I was 8 too. If that myth was constantly reinforced a lot of people would believe that into and throughout adulthood as well. It would also be acceptable. But then people who believed in the easter bunny would kill some of the people who believed in Santa then the Toothy Farians would kick off and there would be lots of wars. It's a good job we don't believe such rubbish after about 8 years old isn't it? 

Misinformation

The following were some of the findings from a survey conducted by The Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

For each topic, the news source with the lowest level of misinformation among its daily consumers was as follows:  

• most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus legislation saved or created only a few jobs or caused job losses: MSNBC, 65% misinformed 
• among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law, more think it will increase the deficit: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 38% 
• the bank bailout legislation (TARP) was passed and signed into law under Pres. Obama: MSNBC, 38% 
• the US economy is getting worse: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 34% 
• the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts: MSNBC, 34% 
• the bailout of GM and Chrysler occurred under President Obama only: MSNBC, 32% 
• since January 2009 the respondent’s federal income taxes have actually gone up: MSNBC, 27% 
• it is unclear whether Obama was born in the US—or, Obama was not born in the US: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 24% 
• when TARP came up for a vote, Democrats were opposed or divided: Fox News, 21% 
• when TARP came up for a vote, most Republicans opposed it: CNN, 28% 
• it was proven that the US Chamber of Commerce was spending foreign money to back Republicans: Fox News, 23% 
• most scientists think climate change is not occurring or views are divided evenly: MSNBC and public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), both 20% 

There are some interesting nuggets to be gleaned:

1. CPB (the umbrella organization for NPR and PBS) and MSNBC seem to get the best grades as far as informing their viewers correctly. But sadly, it is nothing to boast about because
2. folks who watch network news are generally misinformed. The lowest misinformed figure is 20%. That means, at least 1 in 5 people don't know the facts even when watching the best network for information on it. That's pretty bad!
3. And here's the whopper! The lowest misinformation among news networks about the effect of the stimulus is from MSNBC and even there 65% were misinformed. That means, two-thirds of folks think that the stimulus was a waste while watching the most accurate network on this topic. Astounding! 

Here is another gem from the study:

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that: 

• ƒmost economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely) 
• most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points) 
• the economy is getting worse (26 points) 
• most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points) 
• the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points) 
• their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
• the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points) 
• when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) 
• and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

This is not very surprising to me. Unfortunately, I must be in the minority when it comes to folks who voted this past election. These are all very pertinent beliefs upon which votes were cast.

I spent the early years of my life in India. As recently as 2009, the literacy rate was only 66% in India. Whereas the literacy rate in the USA is 99%. When the same old corrupt politicians were elected into office over and over again in India, I used to think that, if only more folks could read and write, they couldn't be fooled and true democracy would prevail. But clearly, literacy has nothing to do with it.

Cost Evaluation

How does one fairly evaluate cost for a service provided? Using common sense analysis, (i.e. very rudimentary, unscientific and non-academic) one can include these three factors for compensation:

1. Materials
2. Effort
3. Overhead

Perhaps there are others but these seem to capture the primary ones. Consider a medical procedure like pain medication offered for back pain that I went through recently. 

Materials would include the medicines (numbing, steroid etc.) pumped in, the injections used, cotton, gauze and other miscellaneous items. It could also include the wear-and-tear on the chair that one sits (for 45 minutes for a 5 minute procedure) in the waiting room and the pre-op room, the operation table, any magazine one reads etc. You get the idea. 

Effort would be the primary factor. It would include time alloted for the procedure, skill needed by the Doctor and the actual effort used to provide numbing and pain medication. It would also include time spent talking to the patient about history, recommendations and answer questions. Of course, since pain medication is administered to your spine, it involves major expertise so a premium can be applied for it. 

Finally, overhead would include every one assisting the Doctor in the procedure including the scheduling folks, the nurses, billing folks etc. 

In my case, the actual procedure took 10 minutes and consultation took 10 minutes for the Doctor. What would be a fair cost for this service? I just found out that it is more than $1200 for a single visit! I cannot comprehend how someone can bill an amount so high for a service that is fairly common. 

We know for a fact that insurance companies do their own analysis and set a price cap for a procedure like this. Certainly, they don't want to be over-billed. But their basis would mostly be on the norm (what everyone charges) and not on a proper cost analysis. Who sets the price? I suspect that both the medical community and insurance companies collude in this. Keeping the price high forces folks to buy insurance. And the medical community enjoys a big payday as well. All these efforts at catching insurance fraud and setting price caps are more to catch the unbelievably greedy. Not your average greedy.

Clearly the healthcare system is broken all the way around. We have all heard about the greedy practices by insurance companies when fulfilling claims. But while that is irrefutably true, it is also clear that the insurance safety net is being abused in setting costs. I just thought I'd ramble about it a bit. 

In this day and age

That's a term that is used commonly in this day and age :). Perhaps it has been used in any day and age. Often it is used with a sense of dismay. For instance, "I can't believe that in this day and age we don't have a reliable cure for herniated disc!" Sometimes it is used with a sense of contentment as in "I am lucky to live in this day and age when I can contact anyone from practically anywhere via cell phones." Probably folks who lived in Europe during the "Black Death" years or any catastrophic period in World's history would use this term simply as "I can't believe I ended up living in this day and age!" Perhaps not. Most, unfortunately, probably didn't know anything better.

What I find particularly interesting about that term is that it can be applied to anything and everything. Almost always when used with a sense of dismay we are probably being unfair. When someone boasts and demands we should feel lucky to live in this day and age we can always find something that ails us and bemoan that folks in the future might have a cure. And of course when someone complains about this day and age we can always look backwards to a time when things weren't all that great. One is neither lucky nor unlucky to live in a particularly day and age. It is what it is.

All I can say is I can't believe my luck that I live in this day and age! :)

Starting point

I've got to start blogging somewhere someday and this is it. I've got a bunch of topics that I can talk about. But first, I should introduce myself. I lean towards a reasonable progressive philosophy. Progressive is the new less confrontational term for a liberal I suppose. I wish to qualify it as 'reasonable' not only because it sounds serious and mischievous at the same time, but also because I hold positions on certain things (like how to raise kids based on my personal upbringing) that might be considered borderline or conflicting in the liberal/progressive philosophy. But those positions are quite rare.

I don't know how often I will post here but I am an avid reader of blogs (political, sports, technology, science, personal) and find them fascinating. When blogging became a fad, I was quite amazed that folks would post their personal thoughts/feelings etc. about topics so openly for people to read. This sounds so naive now in the age of facebook, twitter etc.  I also thought, rather arrogantly, that I wouldn't find anything interesting in anybody's personal thoughts. But that is exactly what editorials in newspapers are and I love reading them, especially on sports and politics. I suppose I was thinking Joe-the-Public can't compete with traditional newspaper contributors. Boy, was I wrong! I began to notice that certain blogs (and blog authors) have a way with words and can convey their thoughts and feelings without reservation and more importantly the topic that they discussing and espousing on actually makes for interesting reading  and makes you curious and thoughtful. Any article/post that makes you think (affirmatively or otherwise) after the fact is an interesting post. 

This is not an attempt at self-evaluation. I am not looking for readers. But certainly anyone is welcome. If this is an outlet for my thoughts and is cathartic then why not?