Detailed Abstractions

Unless you were lucky enough to be traveling or otherwise unavailable on Sunday, you were likely deluged with Mr. Obama’s media storm to sell not only health care, but apparently many other items as well.

First, it should be noted that this WH is above all, extremely insecure.  The President could be seen on 5 Sunday news shows: NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Univision.   But he didn’t have time for Fox, the number one rated Sunday news show…

Regardless of the WH being extremely petty and worrying more about perceived injustices than an honest discussion with those who might disagree, what he actually said is far more serious.

When asked if a health care mandate was a tax increase on ABC’s this week, the President responded:

…”I absolutely reject that notion,” the president said….

“What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore,” said Obama. “Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance . Nobody considers that a tax increase.”…

Using flawed logic is nothing new for Presidents, but this one isn’t even close.  Hhe’s analogizing the privilege of driving with the “privilege” of being a citizen.

The difference of course as that by my very birth, I have a “right” to be a citizen, whereas driving has always remained a privilege with constraints.  You see, I can forgo auto insurance, so long as I don’t drive.  There are many ways around without a car in this day and age, but if I “choose” to drive, then constraints can be placed on me.

Health care on the other hand would be required simply because I existed and no other reason.  & If the government says, “You have to buy this” – it is a tax increase as not paying it can land you in very serious legal troubles.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, with an omnipotent sense of when health care, our fearless leader goes further:

…Obama put his support behind the idea of taxing employers that offer high-cost insurance plans.

“I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don’t make people healthier is part of the way that we’re going to bring down health care costs for everybody over the long term,” Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”…

Even ignoring the fact that this goes against his basic premise that more people need more health care, one wonders if there is anything our President doesn’t know.  So far, he’s taken over banks, car companies, told car companies with whom to merge, who to hire, who to fire, what to build… and now we find out he knows how much health care is too much.

But let’s not stop there.  Not only is our community organizer one of the smartest men in America when it comes to economics and health care, he’s also a brilliant strategist with respects to Afghanistan:

…”What I’m not also gonna do, though, is put the resource question before the strategy question,” Obama told NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.” “Until I’m satisfied that we’ve got the right strategy I’m not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there- beyond what we already have.”…

I’m not sure exactly what happens to man to think he has the answers to every single last question. Maybe it’s just arrogance and ignorance, as Hayek stated:

If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this.

Whatever the reason he believes so strongly in his ability to decide what’s best for our own good, history shows us without question where this inevitably leads.  Hayek again:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.

Let’s hope we begin to understand the value of humility before we do too much damage.

This past Friday, the 25th of June, Democrats, with 8 Republicans in the House have passed sweeping environmental regulation known as Cap and Trade.

Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape.

But the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect politically vulnerable Democrats by corralling the minimum number of votes to pass the bill, 219-212, proves that there are limits to President Barack Obama’s ability to use his popularity to push through his legislative agenda. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, while just eight Republicans crossed the aisle to back it…

Despite the numerous problems with the bill and still open questions remaining as to what the full financial impact will be on average consumers, Nobel prize winning economist, Paul Krugman is full of praise (here):

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

Which is perfectly fine.  I honestly tend to expect more out of an economist, like asking questions about cost versus benefits and the like, but I’ve gotten use to Mr. Krugman using his very large bully pulpit for his politics, and not economic principles.

As is his trademark for completely disregarding anything that fails to comport with his world view, he moved from praise directly into false logic:

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

So from the very beginning, he places everyone into two basic camps – those who voted for the legislation and those who are anti-science, treasonous bastards, how don’t understand the fundamental science behind climate change.

Instead of acknowledging the well known fact that many opponents of this legislation are not global warming deniers, he presents a false dichotomy in which there are only two sides – his side and those that don’t believe in global warming.

From this basic setup, his article flows smoothly as he defends the science behind global warming all the while pretending the strawman he is busy burning exists in real life.

As usual, outside of his partisan world, the issue is not nearly as cut and dry.  Many of the best argued positions come from people opposed to this bill have absolutely nothing to do with the science of global warming at all.  The generally tread a few main points:

1. What are the true costs of the bill to individual consumers? This question is almost impossible to ask as 300 additional pages were added to the 1000 page bill just a couple of hours before a forced vote.  None of Congress had time to read the additions prior to voting.
2. If we can detail a good cost estimate, do we fully know what benefits to expect in order to balance costs with benefits?
3. & lastly, the politics of the bill are being setup for corruption.  Instead of opening an exchange where the initial carbon offsets can be purchased through a free market system, the government will be handing out those directly to business.  They will get these carbon credits free of charge and be able to resell them on the market once that happens.  Allowing congress the ability to decide who gets free money is a system setup for corruption.

Critiques :Reason, Cato.org, and just a lot of additional BS on politics of the entire thing

Of course Mr. Krugman should know and likely does know exactly what he’s doing.  He frames the debate as a false dichotomy, only allowing two choices, then pretends to make one choice look completely stupid by comparison through the ceremonial burning of the strawman he invented.

Not terribly surprising from a columnist who was arguing in 2004 that the economy needed a housing bubble to get us moving forward again, only to completely reverse course and pretend he never did any such thing after the collapse of that market (here).

Is it really any wonder why the self proclaimed 4th branch of the government is trusted less and less everyday?