what if?

Overall Derangement Syndrome

As I've mentioned many times previously, I do not categorize people into "good" and "evil" according to their politics.  Although I am some combination of libertarian/fiscal conservative/social liberal - I have friends of all dissenting stripes.  Yes, it is possible to view the world differently from yours truly, and still be a special and wonderful person.

Still, that there are some out there who are so obsessed with certain political issues they become deranged, seems impossible to deny.  I present you with this as current evidence.

Blogger Jane Hamsher, a movie producer ("Natural Born Killers") and political activist, went after Mrs. Lieberman as Sen. Lieberman was refusing to vote for a health-care reform bill that included expanding Medicare to people as young as 55. Hamsher claimed that because Mrs. Lieberman was a lobbyist and had worked for the pharmaceutical industry, she should be fired from her position as global ambassador for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity.

Hamsher says that when people run for the cure, or donate to Komen, they don't expect their money to go to someone who helps funnel funds to pharmaceutical companies that are also fighting health-care reform.

If "Huh?" is trying to escape your lips, don't fight it. Meanwhile, let's pause for a few facts, easily accessible thanks to that techno-geezer, Alexander Graham Bell:

Hadassah Lieberman is not and has never been a lobbyist. She did work for some pharmaceutical companies -- Hoffman-La Roche in New York in the 1970s before she married Lieberman, and Pfizer, also in New York, from 1982 to 1985. Later, from 1993 to 1997, she worked for Apco, a global public relations firm that represents corporations, including several drug companies.

More facts: Mrs. Lieberman is not paid in her role as global ambassador for Komen, though she does get a check for consulting work she performs under a separate agreement. According to Komen spokeswoman Pamela Stevens, Komen has never funneled money to pharmaceutical companies. Susan G. Komen grants totaling $450 million have gone to research institutions in the United States and abroad. A separate $900 million has gone to programs in communities worldwide for education, screening and treatment. An additional $50 million will go to research in the coming year.

So, why again should Hadassah Lieberman be fired?

Because Jane Hamsher says so.

Meddling in Markets

What happens when the government meddles in markets?

This.

How Cleveland aggravated its foreclosure crisis

The city of Cleveland has aggravated its vexing foreclosure problems and has lost millions in tax dollars by helping people buy homes they could not afford, a Plain Dealer investigation has found.

The city provided mostly low-income buyers with down payment loans of up to $20,000 through the federally funded Afford-A-Home program, but did little to determine whether the people could actually afford to keep their homes.

That lack of oversight persisted for years, even as hundreds of loan recipients defaulted on mortgages, many within two years, the newspaper found by analyzing property and loan records covering the period between 2000 and 2007.

For example, nearly half of 584 homes sold by the top three for-profit companies that tapped into the program over the eight years have gone into foreclosure. More than one-third of those homes have sold at sheriff's sale or sit abandoned because banks did not take them back.

..... The loss in Afford-A-Home dollars from failed purchases from Cresthaven Development Corp., Rysar Properties Inc. and Pebblebrook Properties Inc. thus far totals more than $2.3 million.

Presented with the newspaper's findings, city officials acknowledged problems with the Afford-A-Home program and ordered tighter eligibility standards for buyers and sellers.

..... The program is primarily driven by companies that buy, renovate and resell houses. The companies typically seek city approval to sell properties using Afford-A-Home loans before renovations are completed. They are responsible for sending the buyers' Afford-A-Home applications to the city.

A Plain Dealer review of more than 50 Afford-A-Home files found borrowers who, according to their applications, earned as little as $15,000 a year when the city -- and mortgage lenders -- gave them loans.

One woman, according to a letter in her file, was homeless and living in a car with her children when she got $10,000 from the city. Another couple received food stamps and were jobless when they got an Afford-A-Home loan.

Through 2004, the first-lien mortgages for Afford-A-Home buyers typically came from local banks fulfilling federal requirements to lend money in poorer neighborhoods. The loans carried low interest rates.

Hot Chutzpah

Is Earth really warming - and is it really our fault?

Possible.  But, IMHO, until we can be sure that items like this are false, we should not be full of chutzpah. 

A cataclysmic flood could have filled the Mediterranean Sea — which millions of years ago was a dry basin — like a bathtub in the space of less than two years. A new model suggests that at the flood’s peak water poured from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean basin at a rate one thousand times the flow of the Amazon River, according to calculations published in the Dec. 10 Nature.

“In an instantaneous flash, the dry Mediterranean became a normal Mediterranean like we see it today,” says lead author Daniel Garcia-Castellanos of Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Barcelona.

He and his colleagues calculate that at the height of the flood, water levels rose more than 10 meters and more than 40 centimeters of rock eroded away per day. The model also shows that 100 million cubic meters of water flowed through the channel per second, with water gushing at speeds of 100 kilometers an hour. Rather than a Niagara Falls-esque cascade from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, the team’s results imply a torrent several kilometers wide at a fairly gradual slope.

Can we really affect weather that has been around for millions of years prior to man?  Maybe.  We should not, however, be spending trillions of dollars to attempt to do so unless we have far more evidence that it's "our fault" and that we really can do something significant and meaningful about it.

Have a nice day :)

Sunday, Sunday

A very lovely one so far!

Photographic session with one of my favorite real estate families.  Then, off to see "Julie and Julia," a perfect bit of amusement for a weekend afternoon.  And, this delightful tidbit from a friend in my email pile.

Now off to editing photos!

Compensation: Then and Now

Many moons ago, conventional wisdom with work and compensation was this.  You could take a "safe" job - work for the government, for example.  But to gain that measure of safety and security, you'd give up the opportunity to make big bucks.  Conversely, if high income was your goal, you'd go into the private sector. Yet, aiming for large rewards entailed more risk.

That was then; this is now.

Bureaucracy is the real recession-proof industry.  The numbers are mind-boggling.  In 18 months, the number of federal employees making over $100K have increased 46%.  The number making over $150K has more than doubled.

It’s not as if they’ve been asked to do more with less, either.  In the first six months of the year, the federal government was adding 10,000 jobs per month, and over the recession had grown the ranks of bureaucrats by 9.8%.  The private sector, during that same period, shed 7.3 million jobs to contract 6.3%.

Here’s the fun fact of the day from USA Today:

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

Got that?  Seventeen hundred employees at DoT make $170,000 per year.  Eighteen months ago, there was one.

Huh?  Many people I know are taking large cuts in their private sector jobs - if they have any job at all.  Those with government jobs, however, are earning more and more - along with their "cradle to grave" security?   And - let's not even go to the jobs that government is protecting with your tax dollars by stepping into private industry . . . or even purchasing companies.

Markets work - if we allow them to do so.  Do you really want your tax dollars paying for all this?

Sharing

I love sharing!  But - everything has its limits.

Some people apparently do not appreciate this.

Ms. Loh, who published a memoir about mommyhood last year, is one of those writers whose husbands you have to pity. In her 2008 book, "Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!," she laments that her "salt of the earth" spouse, Mike, is too even-keeled and practical to give her the steamy loving she craves. You can guess where that was heading. This summer Ms. Loh began chronicling her divorce in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly, sharing with all and sundry that, after the thrill of a hot and heavy extramarital affair, she decided not to go to all the trouble—the "arduous home- and self-improvement project"—of falling back in love with her boring old spouse. "I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband," she wrote. Poor Mike. One would think that having a wife cat around would be enough of an assault on his manhood. But just to twist the blade she has to explain to anyone willing to pick up a magazine that his marriage failed because he couldn't cut it in the passion department.

Perhaps the most savage example of this genre is Julie Powell's recent "Cleaving." Her first book, 2005's "Julie & Julia," was something of a stunt project—Ms. Powell chronicled her attempt to work her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The book was a huge success, as we know, making her name and fortune. What to do next? Ms. Powell decided to embark on a double-stunt: apprenticing with a butcher and indulging in "rough and tumble" infidelity. "Cleaving" is an excruciating read, in no small part because of the humiliation it heaps upon her cuckolded husband. Eric Powell, to whom she has been married for years, is spared no embarrassment. By contrast, the man with whom she has a kinky and obsessive affair is identified with only a "D." For him, she is discreet.

In response to critics repulsed by her tawdry exhibitionism, Ms. Powell recently wrote she finds it odd some people don't like her penchant to "overshare." She asks: "Do you want to read a memoir by a person who undershares?" Well, frankly, yes.

What We Can't Know

A year ago, as my Russian friend Vera was staring into the abyss before ultimately succumbing to cancer, I finally saw her shed tears.  The tears were not about the fear of death - nor were they about her family.  (Though I know she loved them all beyond words.)  No, the tears were for freedom.

My friend Vera came to the United States so that she and her husband could escape tyranny.  More importantly, they came so that their children would have opportunities and choices that they could never realize.

Their dreams did indeed come true.

Vera believed, however, that it was impossible for me and our other American friends to truly understand what it was like to live without basic freedoms and protections.  "You will never be able to know what it was like," she would tell me.

Today, other Russian immigrants are astounded about what is happening to the country that rescued them.  Perhaps Vera - sadly - was correct.  I hope that we become all too aware, however, before it is too late.

Gifts for White Anglo-Saxon People

If the New York Times had a gift guide for WASPS - would you be offended?

If so - then should you be any less offended by this?

What I would like to know is who thought this was a good idea? In this year’s NYT’s Annual Holiday Gift Guide there is a section devoted to “Of Color | Stylish Gifts.” From the intro to the section.

Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities.

I had to read that twice. Because really New York Times? NYTPicker, who was the first to note the addition thinks there’s no other word for it but racist. I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far. But badly, terribly thought out, bordering on offensive, absolutely.

I think not.

Rush Revealed

There may be more than you thought to the man.

Hating Hate Crimes

The notion of hate crime is perverse to me.  How many crimes do not involve hate - in one form or another?  The criminal may hate the victim, or hate himself.  He may hate being addicted, or in dire straits, or poor or out of work.  He may hate in the "traditional" sense . . . But, what if the person he harms as he commits his crime isn't of a "protected" class?  Why should it be more serious if someone kills someone because they are Jewish or black or gay - and not if they are hated, but an athlete, or a businessman, or a celebrity or a lawyer?

Ugly as hate is, it still should not be against the law to hate someone - as long as the hate doesn't translate into criminal action.  Gregory Kane explains.

The truth is this: Supporters of "hate crimes" laws don't want to criminalize the conduct of those who commit crimes based on race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Wyoming and Texas both had murder statutes on the books that allowed the killers of Shepard and Byrd to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It's not like the murderers escaped punishment.

No, supporters of "hate crimes" laws want to criminalize certain thoughts and ideas.

Why Reject Obamacare?

This is one reason why.

A History Lesson for Harry Reid

Those who live in glass houses, etc., etc.

Majority Leader Harry Reid tarred opponents of his health care bill yesterday as the equivalent of those who opposed equal rights for women and civil rights for blacks.

In a remarkable statement on the Senate floor, Mr. Reid lambasted Republicans for wanting to "slow down" on health care. "You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," he said. "In this country there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' -- about slavery. When women wanted to vote, [they said] 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that -- the day isn't quite right. . . .'"

He wrapped up his remarks as follows: "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

Senator Reid's comments were quickly condemned. "Hyperbole. It is over the top. It reminds me of earlier people talking about Nazis," said Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News, author of "Eyes on the Prize," a definitive history of the civil rights movement.

Historians also faulted Mr. Reid's curious reference to the Senate civil rights debates of the 1960s. After all, it was Southern Democrats who mounted an 83-day filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The final vote to cut off debate saw 29 Senators in opposition, 80% of them Democrats. Among those voting to block the civil rights bill was West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who personally filibustered the bill for 14 hours. The next year he also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate, and indeed preceded Mr. Reid as his party's majority leader until he stepped down from that role in 1989.

All About Race

It appears that for some, it's always about race.  Commenting on the state of black America now that we have elected a black president, the New York Times Charles Blow asserts:

According to my analysis, even if every black person in America had stayed home on Election Day, Obama would still be president. To a large degree, Obama was elected by white people, some of whom were more able to accept him because he consciously portrayed himself as racially ambiguous.

Perhaps Barack Obama's race was only a negligible factor?  Perhaps people voted for Obama because they were disgusted with and tired of Republicans?  Perhaps the BDS had an impact?  Maybe the fact that John McCain had only lukewarm support with many Republicans contributed to Obama's success?  Possibly the selection of Sarah Palin turned off many independents - and Republicans, too?

I do not deny that race had any influence in our last election.  Of course it did.  I would contend, however, that for at least some voters, that Obama was black had a positive effect; not negative. 

Still, to me, it is sad that some seem to focus on race first, last and always.  Perhaps our president is where he is mostly unrelated to his skin color.  Perhaps his approval and disapproval ratings are mostly a result of his positions and actions on health care, the economy, our military actions and so forth.

Maybe one day, we'll see columns that don't mention whether a president is white or black, or who his/her ancestors were.  I'm afraid, however, that I will not see this in my lifetime.  Too many of us are focused and saturated with race; it is the obsession that seems incapable of dying.

Bay Blogging

Two more days of bridge to go.  Here is the view from my room when I returned last night.

 

Day By Day

Only 2.5 days of bridge left at our Fall North American Bridge Championship in San Diego.  I am having a great time, taking hundreds of photos, playing loads of bridge (sorry, no new championships added - yet) - but, I am exhausted!  I have about 35 hours of activities to fit into a 24 hour day.

My friend, Professor Keith Burgess-Jackson asked me how I can be enjoying San Diego weather when I a a cool weather girl.  Although I do love the snow and cold, moderate temps here (50's to low 70's) are assuredly palatable!

Here's a shot of two of my good friends - and elite bridge players - competing away.  It's a brutal sport, yet, we love it!

Risk and Reward

A fundamental in all markets is the "risk and reward" principle.  If you take more risk, then you may reap more rewards than normal.  At the same time, however, you take the risk that your venture will turn out poorly.  Then your fate may be far below "normal."  Conversely, if you take the safe and prudent route, riches rate not to be yours. On the other hand, you are unlikely to face obliteration.

Lately, however, we have been skewing these normal principles in our markets.  Our government steps in and "saves" companies that they deem "too big to fail".  Instead of having those who followed poor practices going out of business, they still get rewarded.  So it is, too, in some state governents.  Witness what is happening in California.

The old deal seemed fair: public employees would earn lower salaries than Americans working in the private sector, but would receive a somewhat better retirement and more days off. Now, public employees get higher average pay, far higher benefits, and many more days off and other fringe benefits. They have also obtained greatly reduced work schedules, thus limiting public services even as pay and benefits shoot ever higher. The new deal is starting to raise eyebrows, thanks to efforts by groups such as the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which publishes the $100,000 Club, a list of thousands of California government retirees with six-figure, taxpayer-guaranteed incomes. But even in these tough times, public employees continue to press city councils for retroactive pension increases, which amount to gifts of public funds for past services. Officials fear the clout that these unions, especially police and fire unions, wield on Election Day.

The story doesn’t end with the imbalance in pay and benefits. Government workers also enjoy absurd protections. The Los Angeles Times did a recent series about the city’s public school district, which doesn’t even try to fire incompetent teachers and is seldom able to get rid of those credibly accused of misconduct or abuse. Misbehaving teachers are sometimes kept from teaching, but they may spend years, even a decade, getting paid while they fight attempts to fire them. A state law referred to as the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, along with excessive privacy restrictions, likewise makes it nearly impossible to fire police officers who abuse their authority.

Ultimately, there is only one solution. Fire politicians who abuse basic principles of risk and reward.  Vote for those who promise to follow sound business practices and not abuse you, the taxpayers and the people

The No-Show

When something as incendiary as the Goldstone Report is written, you'd think that the author would have the decency to show up to debate and defend what he has alleged.

You'd be wrong.

Here is Alan Dershowitz, debating the report solo when its cowardly author stayed away.

Who Can?

The government can.

From my dad; thanks, Dad!

Ten Days

After a long flight, I found myself ensconced in a beautiful San Diego hotel overlooking the bay.  Ten days of bridge, photography, story telling - and yes, real estate and blogging as time permits!  If only I could learn to do without sleep.....

The view from my window.

The Invisible Hand

Happy Thanksgiving!  We surely have much in the world that could be much improved - yet, we have much for which we can be thankful.

I'm thankful to have my mom and dad and sister and her family all with me - even if they're far away.  I'm thankful for so many wonderful friends.  I'm thankful for the improvement in the lives of those whom I love - and I'm hopeful for others that they will see similar improvement.

I'm also thankful to live in a society where we are able to watch the miracle of the invisible hand at work.

The activities of countless people over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one -- or more likely, a few dozen -- waiting. The level of coordination that was required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.

No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan and issuing orders. No one forced people to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn't have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn't a miracle, what should we call it?

Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" -- the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy *is* planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

I am grateful for the invisible hand which works its magic.  May it always be so!

 

I Support This Message

No, I do not support a "purity list" of qualities that politicians must meet to be Republican candidates.  I support the message that such a list is divisive, polarizing and will lead to more Republican defeats - not victories.

Principles are fine. Party platforms are fine. The Contract With America was great politics. But, if the GOP tells candidates that they have to properly genuflect to an agenda or they are not welcome in the party then we shouldn’t be surprised when candidates and voters will go looking elsewhere for a party or movement that welcomes diversity of thought.

If the Republican Party is serious about becoming competitive again, the last thing it needs to do is send messages of intolerance. And that’s exactly what a “purity test” does. It blows a very loud and ugly bugle that says independent thinkers need not apply. The GOP needs to be looking for converts not heretics.

Moving Lips

Yes, the old standard.  "How do you know a politician is lying?  His lips are moving."

John Stossel on how they continue to lie to us.  And, the money quote:

Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.

Giving Thanks

Tomorrow, I will be leaving on a jet plane for San Diego.  There, I will spend 10 days with my bridge friends around the world, competing, photographing, writing stories - everything I love!

May your Thanksgiving holiday be filled with warmth and appreciation for all that is good in your life.

 

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

 

Thornton Wilder   

Private Sector? Do Not Apply!

Absolutely amazing stats.

When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15% and 19% of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet — over 90% of its prior experience was in the public sector — is remarkable.

Competition and Accountability

A most refreshing column today in the Wall Street Journal - and signed by a Democrat, too!

President Barack Obama has launched "Race to the Top," a competition that is parceling out $4.35 billion in new education funding to states that are committed to real reform. This program offers us an opportunity to finally move the ball forward.

To that end Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pushing states toward meaningful change. Mr. Duncan has even stumped for reform alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Yet the administration must continue to hang tough on two critical issues: performance standards and competition.

Already the administration is being pressured to dilute the program's requirement that states adopt performance pay for teachers and to weaken its support for charter schools. If the president does not remain firm on standards, the whole endeavor will be just another example of great rhetoric and poor reform.

Competition among the states is also vital to reform. The administration is resisting the temptation to award funds to as many states as possible. And that's good. To be effective, Race to the Top funds cannot become a democratic handout. Competition brings out the best performance. That's true in athletics and in business, and it's true in education.

Race to the Top funds will not serve their purpose if they are awarded based on good intentions and promises. Instead, the administration is right to look at results. Has a state embraced rigorous standards? Has it welcomed charter schools? Has it turned around low-performing schools and held teachers accountable?

Bravo for this acknowledgement from Harold Ford, Louis Gerstner and Eli Broad that we must recognize and reward tangible results and success.  Competition breeds the best in adults and children.  Holding people accountable for what they do heightens the chance they will deliver their best.

Let's hope that this administration heeds these words.

A Debate about Values

This past year, I heard David Brooks speak in Minneapolis.  As you can tell from his writing, Brooks is witty and smart, funny and thoughtful.  He also, as far as I'm concerned, is incredibly wrong on some issues.

When Brooks says "the health care debate is fundamentally a debate about values" - I agree with him, to some extent.  The debate does highlight what people value, what matters the most to them, and so forth.  Still, how Brooks frames the debate isn't at all what it's about.

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one.

We all have to decide what we want at this moment in history, vitality or security. We can debate this or that provision, but where we come down will depend on that moral preference. Don’t get stupefied by technical details. This debate is about values.

What is so wrong about this?  Brooks, like so very many others, frames the debate as "reform or status quo" - "this reform or no reform at all."  This is not the way it is.

A great many people who are libertarian or conservative or free marketers or however you wish to describe them agree that we need reform.  They agree that we need a method to help those who struggle mightily to get health care.  They agree that it is insane that someone must stay in a job they hate solely to get health care insurance, and they agree that how much of our current system works makes little sense.

Where they do not agree is that the bills that have been before Congress are the way to best reform.

How about we highlight this value - honesty?  How about those who support this bill at least have the decency to frame the debate as one in which those on the other side acknowledge reform is needed, but have a different system in mind?  How about we at least consider free market solutions?  How about we examine allowing individuals to purchase health insurance in any state, to be able to join larger pools to keep costs down, to actually talk about and implement tort reform?  And so on and so forth.

Yes, Mr. Brooks.  Health care reform is about values.  Some of us think that the reform which is not being discussed in Washington is one that really preserves the values that made this nation great.

This past year, I heard David Brooks speak in Minneapolis.  As you can tell from his writing, Brooks is witty and smart, funny and thoughtful.  He also, as far as I'm concerned, is incredibly wrong on some issues.

When Brooks says "the health care debate is fundamentally a debate about values" - I agree with him, to some extent.  The debate does highlight what people value, what matters the most to them, and so forth.  Still, how Brooks frames the debate isn't at all what it's about.

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one.

We all have to decide what we want at this moment in history, vitality or security. We can debate this or that provision, but where we come down will depend on that moral preference. Don’t get stupefied by technical details. This debate is about values.

What is so wrong about this?  Brooks, like so very many others, frames the debate as "reform or status quo" - "this reform or no reform at all."  This is not the way it is.

A great many people who are libertarian or conservative or free marketers or however you wish to describe them agree that we need reform.  They agree that we need a method to help those who struggle mightily to get health care.  They agree that it is insane that someone must stay in a job they hate solely to get health care insurance, and they agree that how much of our current system works makes little sense.

Where they do not agree is that the bills that have been before Congress are the way to best reform.

How about we highlight this value - honesty?  How about those who support this bill at least have the decency to frame the debate as one in which those on the other side acknowledge reform is needed, but have a different system in mind?  How about we at least consider free market solutions?  How about we examine allowing individuals to purchase health insurance in any state, to be able to join larger pools to keep costs down, to actually talk about and implement tort reform?  And so on and so forth.

Yes, Mr. Brooks.  Health care reform is about values.  Some of us think that the reform which is not being discussed in Washington is one that really preserves the values that made this nation great.

The Wal-Mart of Heart Surgery

Amazing article that I found at my friend Andrew Tobias' blog this morning.  A doctor in India is able to perform quality heart surgery at a fraction of the cost in the U.S.

In a second-floor operating room one October morning, Dr. Shetty finished sewing a new aorta onto the heart of his 11-year-old patient. The process provided an example of how he slashes costs. Four years ago, the sutures would have been bought from a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. Today they are made by a Mumbai company, Centennial Surgical Suture Ltd.

Four years ago, Dr. Shetty scrutinized his annual bill for sutures -- then $100,000 and rising by about 5% each year. He made the switch to cheaper sutures by Centennial, cutting his expenditures in half to $50,000.

"In health care you can't do one big thing and reduce the price," Dr. Shetty says. "We have to do 1,000 small things."

Even when Dr. Shetty can't find a super-low cost provider, he does the best he can.

"I Lift My Lamp"

The United States is distinct from many other nations on the planet.  Only a few people can claim that they have descended from ancestors who have been here for centuries. 

For the rest of us, we are immigrants.  Our parents or grandparents or great grandparents walked or came in ships or planes to arrive in our country.  Many came with little or nothing.  They came to escape religious persecution, or poverty - or to save their very lives.  Irrespective of the reasons, however, the ancestors of most Americans came from somewhere else.

Why then, Jeff Jacoby muses, are so many conservatives steadfastly opposed to immigrants in our nation?

The Titanic of Administrations

Suppose someone on the Titanic had warned of an iceberg ahead.  Suppose they had issued that warning in time to avoid the sheep careening into it.

People can see that iceberg, and they are telling us to steer clear.

The planned deficits will have destructive consequences for both fairness and economic growth. They will force upon our children and grandchildren the bill for our overconsumption. Federal deficits will crowd out domestic investment in physical capital, human capital, and technologies that increase potential GDP and the standard of living. Financing deficits could crowd out exports and harm our international competitiveness, as we can already see happening with the large borrowing we are doing from competitors like China.

At what point, some financial analysts ask, do rating agencies downgrade the United States? When do lenders price additional risk to federal borrowing, leading to a damaging spike in interest rates? How quickly will international investors flee the dollar for a new reserve currency? And how will the resulting higher interest rates, diminished dollar, higher inflation, and economic distress manifest itself? Given the president's recent reception in China—friendly but fruitless—these answers may come sooner than any of us would like.

Mr. Obama and his advisers say they understand these concerns, but the administration's policy choices are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg. Perhaps the most vivid example of sending the wrong message to international capital markets are the health-care reform bills—one that passed the House earlier this month and another under consideration in the Senate. Whatever their good intentions, they have too many flaws to be defensible.

Let's reform health care, but do it with a system that will not create more bone-crushing debt.  We still have time to avoid that iceberg.  President Obama should right the ship and avoid disaster.

"Let There Be Light"

A man who shines light on what it means to be an American, and on doing what one must to strive and succeed.

Born in 1975, Mebrahtom (his full name means "let there be light") grew up in an Eritrean village with no electricity and no running water. Besides poverty, Meb's parents, Russom and Awetash, feared for their family's safety because of Russom's involvement with the Eritrean Liberation Movement and because of the ongoing war with Ethiopia. Meb's father decided to flee. "He walked all the way"—60 miles—to Sudan, Meb says. Russom eventually made his way to Milan, Italy, where he worked to raise the money to bring his family out of East Africa.

On Oct. 21, 1987, a date that rolls off Meb's tongue, the family immigrated to San Diego as refugees with the help of the Red Cross and the sponsorship of Meb's half-sister, Ruth. "Dad used to wake up at 4 a.m. so we could learn English," Meb says. "He worked as a taxi driver and worked in restaurants to be able to feed the family."

Meb adds, "You start on the bottom, work hard, and your dreams will come true—and that's what happened. We have a very successful family because my parents always emphasized using the opportunity you have to the maximum: 'There are a lot of people that don't have this opportunity, so make sure you use it.' That stuck in our head."