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For example a broken link
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Contact me at rjensen@trinity.edu if
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Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the September 14, 2018 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/Tidbits091418.htm
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl
In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $20 trillion for the first time
---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history
Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE
State Income Taxes Ranked From Highest to Lowest
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-income-tax-rate-rankings-by-state-2018-2
The Federal budget for 2017 ---
http://ritholtz.com/2018/04/federal-budget-2017/
Jensen Comment
Note that even before the 2018 corporate tax cuts the corporate income tax has
been a shrinking part of the Federal budget of the most recent decades. I've
long been an advocate of replacing it with a VAT tax but liberals and
conservatives alike hate that idea.
Medicare and Medicaid are the least sustainable entitlements predicted for the future.
Interest on government debt is a huge worry since foreign interests (think China and the oil-rich nations of the Middle East) own so much of it with the threat that one day these large investors will stop rolling over their investments in USA debt.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the booked
obligation of $20+ trillion) ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2016/05/25/spring-2016-to-whom-does-the-us-government-owe-money-n2168161?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The US Debt Clock in Real Time ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
In 2018 Foreigners (think Asia and the
Middle East) May Be Losing Interest in USA Treasuries ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-12/lackluster-u-s-bond-auctions-add-to-worries-of-foreign-pullback
Remember the Jane Fonda Movie called "Rollover" ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(film)
One worry is that nations holding trillions of dollars invested in USA debt are
dependent upon sales of oil and gas to sustain those investments.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the
unbooked obligation of $100+ trillion and unknown more in contracted
entitlements) ---
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/economy/entitlement-benefits/
The biggest worry of the entitlements obligations is enormous obligation for the
future under the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are now deemed totally
unsustainable ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
How Americans Get Health Insurance ---
http://ritholtz.com/2017/08/americans-get-health-insurance/
This is an interesting 2017 graph of the USA's trading partner performances
---
http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/trade.png
It's easy to get distracted my big amounts, but look at the imbalances of trade
with nations like Japan, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Switzerland. Add to this
what we spend helping to defend nations like Japan, Canada, Germany, and Italy?
The
enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi
13 of the (alleged) most famous last words in
history ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/famous-last-words-in-history-2017-10
Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from
2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here
The Best Advice from 2018's Celebrity
Commencement Speakers ---
https://moneyish.com/heart/the-best-advice-from-2018s-celebrity-commencement-speakers/
Countries With the Highest Household
Wealth on Average ---
http://ritholtz.com/2018/07/countries-highest-household-wealth/
California Evidence: What Happens
When States Decide to Really, Really Soak the Rich With Taxes ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2018/07/06/millionaires-flee-california-after-tax-hike/#34aa8f514189
Jensen Comment
This overlooks other tactics taken by the rich. For example, portfolios of very
people are heavy into tax exempt bonds which may have to be municipal bonds
issued in the state of residence in order to be exempt from state income taxes.
More commonly, rich people invest for capital gains that are not taxed until
realized (think common stocks and art work). Really rich people use off shore
tax havens that reduce both federal and state taxes. In other words it's very
difficult to soak the rich with taxes if they are astute enough to defer or
avoid those taxes. And sometimes they move to more tax-friendly states like the
nine states states that have no general state income tax ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax
However, it appears that only a small proportion of really rich folks in
California headed for Nevada, Texas, Florida, or some other state having no
income tax. In part this is due to the many magnets that hold people to their
long-time homes such as nearness to family and close friends and jobs.
More important is the impact of high taxes that prevent many wealthy people from
moving/retiring into California. California also has another barrier to
inflows --- the astronomical price of real estate. You have to be really,
really, really rich to consider buying even a modest home in San Francisco or
other parts of the Silicon Valley. When high real estate prices combine with
high upper tax rates you really don't need to build a physical wall at the
border to keep rich people from moving into a state like California. And
some rich folks don't like the fact that la la land politicians control all
branches of government in cities, counties, and the entire la la state of
California.
Eight Science Quotations from Commencement
Speeches
https://todayinsci.com/QuotationsCategories/C_Cat/Commencement-Quotations.htm
Sometimes the grass is greener on
the other side because it's been fertilized with more bullshit.
Anonomous
The Lucretius Problem is a mental defect where
we assume the worst case event that has happened is the worst case event that
can happen ---
https://www.fs.blog/2015/04/lucretius-problem/
The worst form of inequality is to try to make
unequal things equal.
Aristotle
The Economic Ignorance of Bernie Sanders ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/09/the-economic-ignorance-of-bernie-sanders
How many times have we heard ‘free
tuition,’ ‘free health care,’ and free you-name-it? If a particular good or
service is truly free, we can have as much of it as we want without the
sacrifice of other goods or services. Take a ‘free’ library; is it really free?
The answer is no. Had the library not been built, that $50 million could have
purchased something else. That something else sacrificed is the cost of the
library. While users of the library might pay a zero price, zero price and free
are not one and the same. So when politicians talk about providing something
free, ask them to identify the beneficent Santa Claus or tooth fairy.
Walter Williams
Every great cause begins as a movement,
becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal
sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of
miseries.
Winston Churchill
Shoot for the space in between,
because that's where the real mystery lies.
Vera Rubin
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/28/remebering-vera-rubin/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f053a9c4e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f053a9c4e2-234390133
Only those who
will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot
There
is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
In honor of his centennial, the Top 10 Feynman
quotations ---
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/top-10-richard-feynman-quotations
Thomas Sowell (controversial
conservative black economist) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
The 30 Best Thomas Sowell Quotes ---
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/the-30-best-thomas-sowell-quotes/
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley
Even conversations
that are not politically correct.
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Why, we grow rusty and you
catch us at the very point of decadence --- by this time tomorrow we may have
forgotten everything we ever knew. That's a thought isn't it? We'd be back to
where we started --- improvising.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Act I)
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth,
Historic Home Run Hitter
What's sad is to witness what Syria has become because nobody gave up earlier.
And "because they're
nonstate actors, it's hard for us to get the satisfaction of [Gen.] MacArthur
and the [Japanese] Emperor [Hirohito] meeting and the war officially being
over," Obama observed, referencing the end of World War II.
We must be willing to get rid of the
life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
If everyone is thinking alike, then
somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton
And many writers have imagined for themselves
republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in
reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live
that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin
rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all
times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If you don't know where you're going, you might
not get there.
Yogi
Berra
Happiness is like a butterfly: the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to
other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David
Thoreau
You can get a lot farther with a smile and a
gun than you can with just a smile.
Al Capone
The New York Times reporter who called Melania
Trump a “hooker” turns out to be Carl Bernstein’s son ---
https://spectator.org/carl-bernsteins-son-calls-first-lady-a-hooker/
Foreign collusion in US elections did not
start with Trump — it is as American as apple pie ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/foreign-collusion-is-as-american-as-apple-pie-2018-8
Russia Offers Sanctuary for 15000 Christian
White South African Farmers ---
https://russian-faith.com/news/russia-offers-sanctuary-15000-christian-white-south-african-farmers-n1698
Microsoft is requiring its suppliers to
provide paid parental leave ---
https://qz.com/work/1375126/microsoft-suppliers-must-offer-workers-paid-parental-leave/
Jensen Comment
Why is this much easier for Microsoft than Tesla?
Hint: Think of where lithium and cobalt suppliers are located?
Research Shows Mysterious attacks on US
embassy staffers in Cuba, China came from microwave weapon ---
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/mysterious_attacks_on_us_embassy_staffers_in_cuba_china_came_from_microwave_weapon.html
The Atlantic: One million Muslims are
being held right now in Chinese internment camps, according to estimates cited
by the UN and U.S. officials ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/china-pathologizing-uighur-muslims-mental-illness/568525/
Viking Cruise Lines bans children, says their
clients want kid-free vacations ---
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/08/27/viking-cruise-lines-bans-children-says-their-clients-want-kid-free-vacations
Jensen Question
Would this be legal in the USA when we do have "senior living" residence
complexes?
Betsy DeVos’ Critics Botch Basic Facts About
New Title IX Rules ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/30/title-ix-rules-betsy-devos-rape-victim
The Atlantic:Reining In the Excesses of Title
IX ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/title-ix-reforms-are-overdue/569215/
Identity Politics ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics
End of History Author Francis Fukuyama
Thinks Leftist Identity Politics Helped Create Trump ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/31/francis-fukuyama-identity-politics-trump
Alexa ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet
Does Amazon' Alexa have a liberal bias?
http://ritholtz.com/2018/09/does-alexa-have-a-liberal-bias/
What would socialist Americal look like?
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/03/what-would-a-socialist-america-look-like-219626
Why did Cuba abandon its
socialist/communist dream of equality for everybody?
The Guardian: This was the egalitarian dream of Cuba in the 1960s: For
years in Cuba, jobs as varied as farm workers and doctors only had a difference
in their wages of the equivalent of a few US dollars a month.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba
Jensen Comment
Only now is Cuba backtracking from its egalitarian dream by uncapping wages and
legalizing profits while liberals in the USA want to return again to the 1960s
Cuban dream.
But is Denmark socialist? …Denmark doesn’t at
all fit the classic definition of socialism, which involves government ownership
of the means of production. It is, instead, social-democratic: a market economy
where the downsides of capitalism are mitigated by government action, including
a very strong social safety net. …The simple fact is that there is far more
misery in America than there needs to be. Every other advanced country has
universal health care and a much stronger social safety net than we do.
Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/opinion/something-not-rotten-in-denmark.html
Jensen Comment
What Krugman does not mention is that Denmark is mostly a homogeneous (white)
nation of less than 6 million people. It's much more difficult and expensive to
afford and maintain a similar safety net with over 300 million highly diverse
people located on top of a very porous border with thousands trying to sneak in
daily to enjoy the safety nets.
Welfare Leads to Slower Growth in the Nordic
Nations ---
https://mises.org/wire/paul-krugman-learns-wrong-lesson-denmark
The Swedish Welfare State Leads to Poor
Immigrant Assimilation ---
https://mises.org/wire/swedish-welfare-state-leads-poor-immigrant-assimilation
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif
said Sunday that the Iranian government has worked closely with billionaire
George Soros' Open Society Foundations (OSF) organization ---
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/251472
Does Soros have a long-range goal of annihilating Israel?
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said
former President Barack Obama should have followed through on his infamous "red
line" warning to Syria, and the United States "paid a price" as a result of
Obama's inaction ---
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/09/03/john-kerry-us-paid-price-not-enforcing-obamas-red-line-syria
Jensen Question
Wasn't John Carry Obama's Secretary of State at the time? What was Kerry's role
in the "inaction?"
“This Is Unfortunate”: The Starr Report,
Celebrating Its 20th Anniversary, Was the Prologue to the Trump Age ---
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/the-starr-report-20th-anniversary-trump-age?mbid=nl_th_5b8f0ab9e96ff00cfa95377c&spMailingID=14189097&spUserID=MjYxODM4NjEwMzYzS0&spJobID=1480313245&spReportId=MTQ4MDMxMzI0NQS2
Watch the Colin Kaepernick Nike Ad That Will
Run During the NFL Season Opener ---
Click Here
Kaspernick's "Cops are Pigs" socks are not featured in the ad.
A group of Jacksonville Jaguars players did
consider participating in a protest during the national anthem in support of San
Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, at least until Kaepernick wore socks
with pictures of pigs dressed as police officers ---
http://www.espn.com/blog/jacksonville-jaguars/post/_/id/19870/jaguars-players-considered-protest-but-pig-socks-derailed-plans
Police union tells officers to return their
Miami Dolphins tickets for refunds ---
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-reg-police-union-dolphins-tickets-20180811-story.html
LeBron James and Serena Williams have shown
their support for Nike's polarising Colin Kaepernick ad campaign ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/lebron-james-serena-williams-support-nike-colin-kaepernick-campaign-2018-9
Will they also support a promotion for six pairs of free "Cops are Pigs" socks
with each new pair of Nike tennis shoes if stores should promote such a deal?
Colin Kaepernick, who has nearly 1.3 million
followers on Instagram and 755,000 Twitter followers, deleted and then
apologized Tuesday for a social media post that trivialized the deadly floods in
the Houston area, much of Texas and Oklahoma ---
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/12957887/colin-kaepernick-apologizes-insensitive-houston-flooding-post
Did he ever apologize for claiming "Cops are Pigs?"
Colin Kaepernick Is GQ's 2017 Citizen of the Year
---
The currency of the world's 7th biggest
economy, India, is plummeting, and it could get worse from here ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/indian-rupee-exchange-rate-hits-record-low-2018-9
South Africa leads in mining, food
production and critical infrastructure, such as power production and
railroading, in southern Africa. But it's going the same way as Zimbabwe,
spelling disaster for the entire southern part of Africa ---
Walter Williams
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2018/09/05/south-africa-question-n2514783?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&bcid=1ac475c339607f066dc6f5f27e89ce7b
Jensen Comment
There's still time since most of the worries (other than a change in the
constitution allowing confiscation of land for no compensation) are not yet
happening on a major scale. But the risk of instability and race war in South
Africa is very high. This compounds the current problem of a disastrous drought.
Russia Offers Sanctuary for 15000 Christian
White South African Farmers ---
https://russian-faith.com/news/russia-offers-sanctuary-15000-christian-white-south-african-farmers-n1698
Source in Bob Woodward's New Book About Trump
White House Claims He Was Misquoted ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2018/09/04/source-in-bob-woodwards-new-book-about-trump-white-house-claims-he-was-misquoted-n2515727?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&bcid=1ac475c339607f066dc6f5f27e89ce7b
Deconstruction --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction
Unbecoming Example Set by a Professional Athlete
Mets third baseman Todd Frazier fooled
an umpire into believing he secured an out in foul territory using a ball he
found in the stands ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/todd-frazier-fools-umpire-fake-ball-2018-9
Jensen Comment
This may be a good video clip to use in an ethics class
Labour has failed to investigate more than 200
anti-Semitism complaints against Jeremy Corbyn ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/200-anti-semitism-complaints-against-jeremy-corbyn-left-sitting-in-a-folder-2018-9
The Woodward Book Comes for Jim Mattis ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/mattis-woodward-trump/569350/
A veteran Washington journalist describes the defense secretary
as avoiding confrontation and showing respect. But the rest of the book may have
blown up that strategy.
Vox: Trump’s White House says wages are
rising more than liberals think: The
White House is probably right ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/6/17823072/trump-cea-wages
Illinois is better off bankrupt ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/illinois-is-better-off-bankrupt-3
Kleiman: Low-End Regressivity ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/09/kleiman-.html
Not Satire: Academic research "shows
milk is a symbol of and tool for white (and male) dominance and superiority" ---
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3229995
Jensen Question
Should we protest by replacing a child's diet with caffeine-free BLACK coffee?
A Boston police captain's son, who authorities
called a "committed soldier" of the Islamic State group, was sentenced to 20
years in prison on Wednesday for plotting to use assault rifles and homemade
bombs to kill Americans on a college campus ---
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/09/05/boston-police-captains-son-faces-20-years-for-terror-plot.html
Governments Default on Debt More than You
Think ---
https://mises.org/wire/governments-default-debt-more-you-think
Nazis Were
Not Marxists, but They Were Socialists ---
https://mises.org/wire/nazis-were-not-marxists-they-were-socialists
Cryptocurrency ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency
Risks and returns of cryptocurrencies
---
https://voxeu.org/article/risks-and-returns-cryptocurrencies
Secular Stagnation Theory ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_stagnation_theory
Don’t Get Into a Knife Fight with Larry Summers ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/09/dont-get-knife-fight-larry-summers.html
Larry Summers is not happy with Joseph Stiglitz’s piece
The Myth of Secular Stagnation
Government Medical Research Spending Favors Women
---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/08/government-medical-research-spending-favors-women.html
The Atlantic: The Divided Legacy of
Lyndon B. Johnson ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-complicated-legacy-of-lyndon-johnson/569068/
New York Times opinion writer and economist
Paul Krugman predicted early Wednesday morning that the stock market will
“never” recover from Donald Trump’s presidential victory, only to be proven
spectacularly wrong in less than a day. Instead of collapsing, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average surged to an all-time high shortly before the closing bell.
https://dailycaller.com/2016/11/09/paul-krugman-says-markets-will-never-recover-from-trump-dow-hits-record-high/
NYT: The Empty Storefronts of New York ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/06/nyregion/nyc-storefront-vacancy.html
Cryptocurrency ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency
A glimpse into the dark underbelly of
cryptocurrency markets ---
https://medium.com/@nic__carter/a-glimpse-into-the-dark-underbelly-of-cryptocurrency-markets-d1690b761eaf
Medical school cancels honor society because
whites and Asians were earning better grades than blacks and Latinos ---
https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/medical-school/
Harvard Professor: Merit-based admissions
"reproduce inequality" ---
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11281
Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a Northern Irish astrophysicist
who discovered radio pulsars in 1967, when she was a graduate student at the
University of Cambridge, was snubbed when her male collaborators received the
Nobel Prize in physics in 1974 for that work. She was recently awarded a Special
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her discovery, and has announced
that she’s donating the nearly $3 million award to fund female, underrepresented
minority and refugee students become physics researchers, BBC News reported ---
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45425872
In Sweden, Europe’s Drift to the Right
Continues ---
https://mises.org/wire/sweden-europe’s-drift-right-continues
Aided by the fallout of Europe’s refugee crisis and a wave of violent crime, the Sweden Democrats have amplified their nationalistic message. While issues like education, healthcare, climate change, and taxes played a central role in the election, the Sweden Democrats kept immigration in the spotlight, arguing that the high influx of migrants endangered the future of the country’s welfare state. Jimmie Ĺkesson, the party’s well-coiffed leader, called for halting virtually all immigration, restricting family reunification, speeding up deportations, and cracking down on the recent crime wave, which has been partly linked to immigrant gangs. Such rhetoric broke political taboos in Sweden.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/sweden-democrats/569743/
The
enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi
Overdevelopment: How the West Was Lost
---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/how-the-west-was-lost/569365/
The Most Honest Book About Climate Change Yet
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/william-vollmann-carbon-ideologies/568309/
Sleeping With the Enemy
Many lawmakers and aides who crafted
financial regulations after the 2008 crisis now work for Wall Street ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/many-lawmakers-and-aids-who-crafted-financial-regulations-after-the-2008-crisis-now-work-for-wall-street/2018/09/07/50f63a1e-b075-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?utm_term=.dc79e282a0fd
Look closely at the party affiliations of those who went to Wall
Street for big bucks
Empty Seats Plague NFL Stadiums in Week One of
Season ---
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/empty-seats-plague-nfl-stadiums-in-week-one-of-season-video/
Sunday night TV football (Paciers
vs. Bears) was also down
https://tvline.com/2018/09/10/sunday-night-football-opener-packers-bears-2018/
China is reportedly burning bibles and making
Christians renounce their faith to ensure total loyalty to the Communist Party
---
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-burning-bibles-to-make-everyone-loyal-to-communist-party-report-2018-9
How to Prosecute the Anonymous NYT Op-ed
Writer ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/erichreimer/2018/09/12/how-to-prosecute-the-anonymous-nyt-oped-writer-n2517922?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&bcid=1ac475c339607f066dc6f5f27e89ce7b
Puerto Rico's Recovery After Hurricane Maria:
Who is Responsible? ---
http://www.choices.edu/teaching-news-lesson/puerto-ricos-recovery-hurricane-maria-responsible/
Obama Endorses Medicare for All ($3-$5
Trillion Per Year in Taxes) ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/09/07/obama-endorses-medicare-for-all
The Great Cryptocurrency Crash of 2018 ---
https://mises.org/power-market/great-cryptocurrency-crash-2018
Social Security, food stamps, and other
programs kept 44 million people out of poverty last year ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/12/17850426/census-poverty-income-2017-trump
Who says that public sector accounting is more transparent than private sector
accounting?
Why is public employee disability claim data
being kept secret? ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/why-is-public-employee-disability-claim-data-being-kept-secret
The Atlantic: "Medicare for All" is a Fantasy
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/medicare-for-all-is-a-fantasy/568957/
. . .
To understand why medical care in the U.S. is so obscenely expensive, look first to Medicare’s role in propping up underperforming hospitals, which invariably warp the way they practice medicine to capture as much Medicare reimbursement money as they can. The conceit of Medicare for All is that by centralizing health expenditures in a single agency, or at least in a vastly expanded public-insurance program, the government will be in a position to dictate terms to these greedy hospitals. The trouble is that hospitals wield a great deal of power in democratic politics, not least because they employ large numbers of awfully sympathetic people. There are the generously-compensated hotshot doctors, yes, but of course many of them are people who might never recoup the enormous investment, in tuition and in foregone opportunities, they’ve made in their training. And that’s not to speak of the legions of nurses, orderlies, custodians, and others who make hospitals hum with life. It is one thing to say you’re going to leverage Medicare for All’s big population of beneficiaries to slash overall health expenditures. It is quite another to be the lawmaker who will be accused, fairly or otherwise, of voting for mass layoffs of blue-collar workers who have devoted their lives to helping others.
Just about every maddening aspect of how Medicare reimburses hospitals began as an earnest attempt to solve some discrete problem. The sum total of these supposed solutions has left us with an awful mess. Medicare for All is, to my mind, a Year Zero fantasy—it’s all about wiping the slate clean and starting over again, with institutions borrowed from some supposedly more enlightened society. But there is no such thing as Year Zero in a democracy, whether capitalist or socialist. The history of how we got to our present shambles will continue to shape, and deform, our health sector.
Instead of indulging the Year Zero fantasy, we ought to focus insurance subsidies on those who need them most and, just as importantly, shift from provider policies that do little more than shield hospitals from much-needed competition to ensuring that all Americans have the emergency and safety-net services they need. This will likely mean a heavier government hand when it comes to delivering emergency care and a lighter touch with respect to elective-care services, where more vigorous competition could redound to the benefit of the highest-performing hospitals while, over time, helping to contain costs. And how would we get politically powerful medical providers to acquiesce? It’s simple: Warn them that if they don’t, they’ll soon wind up with Medicare for All.
Jensen Comment
Naive voters eager to bring on "Medicare for All" probably don't know a whole
lot about Medicare itself today. Firstly, they are probably not aware that
Medicare provides only 80% of the funding for patients and that all claims
processing are outsourced to for-profit business firms. Medicare is not a
government operation in terms of claims processing, services provided by
for-profit doctors and hospitals, and medication manufacture and dispensing.
"Medicare-for-All" would be an enormous boon for the business sector at the
unbelievable expense to taxpayers.
Secondly, when Bernie Sanders asserts that Medicare for All would only cost $32 trillion in the first ten years he's being very vague about medical coverage. For example, currently Medicare pays nothing toward long-term nursing care. Nursing care patients have to first consume all of their savings/wealth and then, if necessary, go on Medicaid. Sanders is vague as to whether patients on Medicare-for-All rather than Medicaid would only get 80% coverage of their medical bills. He's even more vague on whether they would get medication coverage that requires Medicare patients currently to pay extra for limited Medicare D coverage. For example, I'm currently in the infamous "donut hole" where my Medicare D pays almost nothing for my current prescriptions.
My point is that if Sanders adds to Medicare for All the coverage on 100% of medical bills, long-term nursing care, and all medication costs the cost of Medicare is more likely to jump to over $60 trillion rather than the puny $30+ trillion that Bernie Sanders is bandying about.
Medicare for All is a political gimmick rather than intended reality.
GALLUP: These are the most and least biased news outlets in the US,
according to Americans ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-biased-news-outlets-in-america-cnn-fox-nytimes-2018-8
Outcomes vary somewhat for Republicans Versus Democrats
+31 PBS News (least biased in spite of what I think is an obviously biased Judy Woodruff who is offset somewhat by frequent conservative guest David Brooks from the New York Times)
+23 Associated Press (right or left angles depend heavily upon individual reporters)
+12 NPR (public funding means having to include a few conservative segments)
+10 The Wall Street Journal (once accused of being two newspapers --- the opinion page versus the rest of the newspaper)
+05 Tie between USA Today and CBS News
+04 ABC News
-07 Tie between The Washington Post and NBC News
-11 The New York Times (where David Brooks is overwhelmed)
-11 Vox
-22 Mother Jones
-27 CNN
-32 HuffPost
-37 MSNBC
-51 Tie between Brietbart and Fox News
Jensen Comment
The leading newspapers (based on circulation subscriptions) without TV programs
are more apt to be respected the most by college graduates, especially those
with advanced degrees. These leading newspapers are propped up heavily by
billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdock, and Carlos Slim. We should be
grateful that these billionaires enable those newspapers to pay the salaries of
so many reporters around the world in an era where revenues from advertising are
falling off.
Of course all news outlets rely heavily on the Associated Press reporters. The news outlets cherry pick what AP stories they publish or broadcast.
Newspapers of large USA cities are apt to be more biased than the newspapers included in the above Gallup survey, newspapers like the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, etc. However, Newspapers like the Chicago Tribune are great for muckraking fraud investigations (think of the wonderful city hall crime investigations records of the Chicago Tribune and Detroit Free Press in this regard).
How to Mislead With Statistics
How median household income has changed (allegedly very little)
https://apnews.com/bfac20c7cdf14719ac03d750d8fdffbc/US-household-incomes-grew-in-2017,-yet-inequality-worsens
But Much depends on how "household income" is defined
Vox: Trump’s White House says wages are
rising more than liberals think: The
White House is probably right ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/6/17823072/trump-cea-wages
Bob Jensen's
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
Bob
Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals
Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:
Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Current and past editions of my
newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud
conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
· With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
· With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
· With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
· With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen
What went
wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most
Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW:
1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox)
that probably will never be solved
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/