Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the April 16, 2019 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2019/Tidbits041619.htm            
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University




My Latest Web Document
Over 400 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics --
-
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

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 



 

While a move is underway to destroy the American Dream of rags to riches (by taxing away the riches) the Chinese dream is on the rise.
The Chinese Dream
How a Chinese billionaire went from making $16 a month in a factory to being one of the world's richest self-made women with an $8.3 billion real-estate empire
---

https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-self-made-woman-wu-yajun-net-worth-2019-2

Top 50 Billionaires in China ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Jensen Comment
The question for students to debate is why a supposed communist country allows so many billionaires to rise up from poverty.
That's supposed to happen in the USA where a child growing up in deep poverty (think Oprah Winfrey or Howard Shultz) became a multi-billionaires.
But is it also supposed to happen under communism? If so, why?

 

One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?

 


Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/

 

History will prove former President Donald Trump was correct about Mexico one day funding an impenetrable wall --- to keep out over 2 billion starving green immigrants seeking to enter Mexico from the north.
Bob Jensen

 

The Young Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto: Its goal is to remake our economic system — and the Democratic Party ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-young-lefts-anti-capitalist-manifesto/

 

"In Praise of Cheap Labor," by Paul Krugman, Slate, March 21, 1997 ---
https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor.html

 

Corruption in general has a deleterious effect on the readiness of economic agents to invest. In the long run, it leads to a paralysis of economic life. But very often it is not that economic agents themselves have had the bad experience of being cheated and ruined, they just know that in this country, or in this part of the economy, or this building scene, there is a high likelihood that you will get cheated and that free riders can get away with it. Here again, reputation is absolutely essential, which is why transparency is so important. Trust can only be engendered by transparency. It's no coincidence that the name of the most influential non-governmental organization dealing with corruption is Transparency International.
A Conversation with Karl Sigmund:  When Rule of Law is Not Working
https://www.edge.org/conversation/karl_sigmund-when-the-rule-of-law-is-not-working

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street and one particular U.S. Congressional Committee stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poors rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide. Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted. Momma always said: '"Sniff the chocolates first Forrest." Things generally don't pass the smell test if they came from Wall Street or from Washington DC.
Forrest Gump as quoted at http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.sport.tennis/2008-10/msg02206.html

It is not that machines are going to replace chemists. It’s that the chemists who use machines will replace those that don’t ---
Derek Lowe

Gallup: Americans Say No. 1 Problem is 'Government,' No. 2 is 'Immigration' ---
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/survey-americas-no-1-problem-government-no-2-problem-immigration

 

"If you open the borders, my God, there's a lot of poverty in this world, and you're going to have people from all over the world. And I don't think that's something that we can do at this point."
Bernie Sanders
https://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-says-he-does-not-support-open-borders-2019-4

 

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum ---

Augustus De Morgan

Prior to 1980 what was unique about the year of his birth in 1871?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/De_Morgan.html

 

 

12 inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/inspiring-martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-2017-1

 

21 oustanding Warren Buffet quotations ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-21-best-quotes-2019-2

 

The Atlantic:  The Swiftly Closing Borders of Europe ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/europe-france-italy-immigration-border/578179/

Italian Minister tells NGO Italy doesn’t want migrants: “Our ports are closed!” ---
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/italian-minister-tells-ngo-italy-doesnt-want-migrants-our-ports-are-closed/#.XB6WCZMs_Xo.twitter

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

21 of Michelle Obama's most inspiring quotes on work, success, and relationships ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obama-most-inspiring-quotes-advice-becoming-2019-1

 

19 unforgettable quotes from legendary Marine Gen. Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, who quit as Trump's defense secretary ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/general-mattiss-best-quotes-2016-11

 

Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from 2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here

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

 

Bernie Sanders’ New Campaign Advisor David Sirota Once Touted Hugo Chavez’s ‘Economic Miracle’ in Venezuela ---
http://reason.com/blog/2019/03/19/bernie-sanders-david-sirota-venezuela

 

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. 
President Barack Obama when asked if the USA of the future will be perpetually engaged in war.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-on-americans-being-resigned-to-live-in-a-perpetual-war-2016-7

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

Today, humanity fabricates 1,000 times more transistors annually than the entire world grows grains of wheat and rice combined  ---
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/12/11/energy_and_the_information_infrastructure_part_3_the_digital_engines_of_innovation_jevons_delicious_paradox_110368.html

I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. ... You get dirty and besides the pig likes it ---
George Bernard Shaw

You can get a lot farther with a smile and a gun than you can with just a smile.
Al Capone

21 quotes from self-made billionaires that will change your outlook on money ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/self-made-billionaire-quotes-that-will-change-your-outlook-on-money-2016-12

 

The Best Advice from 2018's Celebrity Commencement Speakers ---
https://moneyish.com/heart/the-best-advice-from-2018s-celebrity-commencement-speakers/

 

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Lincoln on How to Handle Criticism ---

https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/03/27/abraham-lincoln-criticism/?mc_cid=855d203b71&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

 

The Economist:  A new kind of left-wing doctrine is emerging. It is not the answer to capitalism’s problems ---
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/02/14/millennial-socialism?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2019/02/14n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/202273/n

 

The Bernie Sanders Paradox: When Socialism Grows Old ---
https://libcom.org/library/bernie-sanders-paradox-when-socialism-grows-old

 

Fed up cystic fibrosis patients are threatening to move out of Britain since the health service won't cover a $272,000 drug ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-26/they-can-t-get-their-meds-so-they-re-moving-to-scotland?cmpid=BBD022619_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=190226&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily

 

St. Louis is selling $1 homes to save parts of the city from decay, and there are more than 500 to choose from ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/st-louis-cheap-dollar-homes-2019-3
Jensen Comment
This is not a miracle cure for the homeless since buyers are obligated to perform repairs and pay property taxes as values increase

Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America ---
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracies-Delusions-Have-Overrun-America/dp/022658576X/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=thomas+konda&qid=1553708257&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull/marginalrevol-20

 

"Objective Journalism" Has Always Been a Myth ---
https://mises.org/wire/objective-journalism-has-always-been-myth

 

Vox:  Lucy Flores isn’t alone. Joe Biden’s got a long history of touching women inappropriately
The media gave Biden a pass for years. It won’t in 2020 ---
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18241598/joe-biden-lucy-flores-touching-women-media-history-explained

 

The Theory of Interest Rates ---
https://mises.org/library/theory-interest-rates

 

According to a CNN poll, 71 percent of Americans say the nation's economy is in good shape and 51 percent give Trump positive reviews for his handling of the economy."  ---
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/politics/cnn-poll-trump-economy-tech/index.html

 

Highest Percentage Of Households Reporting Income Gains Since 1966 ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2019/03/29/highest-percentage-of-households-reporting-income-gains-since-1966-n2544013?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=03/30/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Does Democracy Demand the Tolerance of the Intolerant? Karl Popper’s Paradox ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/does-democracy-demand-the-tolerance-of-the-intolerant-karl-poppers-paradox.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

 

NYT:  NY Times: The Taxman Is (Not) Coming After You ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/irs-taxes.html

That does not mean that an IRS computer cannot ask you for more money via the mail (not by email or telephone frauds).

 

 

NYT:  History of Rupert Murdoch and His Empire
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-trump.html
Billionaires own or financially control the major USA newspapers WSJ, NYT, and WaPo. It's interesting that the NYT did this story on Rupert Murdoch who own's the NYT's arch rival The Wall Street Journal. Has the NYT ever done a story on the billionaire, Carlos Slim, who saved The New York Times? Or a similar piece on billionaire Jeff Bezos who saved The Washington Post. Actually nearly all the major print newspapers in the USA would be in deep trouble if billionaires did not save some of them in terms of supporting their huge worldwide networks of reporters --- which are the most important "assets" of the news media.

Rupert Murdoch --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

Carlos Slim --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim

Jeff Bezos --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

 

 

US reportedly cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras after Trump claims countries 'set up' migrant caravans ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cuts-off-aid-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-2019-3

 

This city bans cars every Sunday—and people love it ---
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/bogota-colombia-ciclovia-bans-cars-on-roads-each-sunday/

 

Texas cities take on more pension risk than the rest of the country ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/texas-cities-take-on-more-pension-risk-than-the-rest-of-the-country

The phrase "take on more pension risk" does not mean they are necessarily in worse shape that many cities in the rest of the nation such as (icky) Chicago.

 

AOC Calls for $15 Minimum Wage at Airport Where Minimum Wage is $19 ---
https://www.hannity.com/media-room/epic-fail-aoc-calls-for-15-minimum-wage-at-airport-where-minimum-wage-is-19/
Reducing the minimum wage from $19might lead to fewer layoffs

 

Pew Research: U.S. Home to Nearly 20% (44.5 million) of World’s Migrant Population ---
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/31/pew-research-u-s-home-to-nearly-20-of-worlds-migrant-population/

 

The Hungarian government claims a suspected Islamic State terrorist who entered Europe posing as a refugee was in possession of a pre-paid debit card from the European Union, and that the EU has issued 64,000 such cards to migrants ---
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/03/31/hungary-govt-says-suspected-isis-beheader-had-pre-paid-debit-card-from-eu/

 

NY Gov. Cuomo called the failed Amazon deal the "greatest tragedy" of his tenure --- 
https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-cuomo-takes-revenge-state-board-amazon-hq2-2019-4  

 

Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted ---
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/26/18281325/ecuador-legalize-gangs
Jensen Comment
There are all sorts of definitional problems starting with what it means to "legalize gangs." Presumably gang crimes are still illegal, so the ultimate test is what happened to crime aside from gangland warring.

 

The Democratic Party Is Radicalizing ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/progressivism-making-democrats/586372/

 

The Guardian:  Great Barrier Reef suffers 89% collapse in new coral after bleaching events ---
Click Here

 

NYT:  Anthony Loyd, our outstanding war correspondent, won foreign reporter of the year for his coverage of Syria. One of his reports was an account of his sifting through the ruins of Raqqa, the stronghold of Isis. Another was reporting alongside Kurdish soldiers fighting the last battle of the caliphate.

 

A wave of Islamic countries started to stand up to China over its persecution of its Muslim minority. But then they all got spooked ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/islamic-world-stopped-calling-out-chinas-muslim-persecution-2019-4

 

Canada's Carbon Tax Disaster ---
https://mises.org/wire/albertas-regional-carbon-tax-recipe-disaster

 

Larry Summers (Obama's former economic advisor) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
by liberal economists Larry Summers and Natasha Sarin:

The Washington Post:  How Much Would a Wealth Tax Raise?  Maybe 1/8 of Democratic Party presidential candidate estimates?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/04/wealth-tax-presents-revenue-estimation-puzzle/?utm_term=.ab0f70a968a9
Jensen Comment
I think it will be even less because of all the things wealthy people can do to reduce or eliminate wealth taxes. Exhibit A is George Soros

 

Why is Chicken So Cheap ---
https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2019/4/5/the-economist-why-is-chicken-so-cheap

 

Maine Democrats want to impose a $100 million tax on one and only one company ---
Click Here
Remember that companies do not pay taxes. Taxes are passed along to customers.

 

Washington Department of Corrections Quietly Bans Book Donations to Prisoners From Nonprofits ---
https://bookriot.com/2019/04/03/book-ban-in-washington-prisons

 

Firms Are Under-Trusted ---
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2019/04/firms-are-undertrusted.html

 

Obama warns progressive lawmakers to avoid a 'circular firing squad' ahead of the 2020 election ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-warns-progressive-lawmakers-of-circular-firing-squad-2019-4

 

Thomas Craemer recently estimated that reparations would cost the country between $6 trillion and $14 trillion ---
https://news.yahoo.com/candidates-edge-toward-discussing-slavery-reparations-090000570.html
The cost explodes if you also add reparations for Native Americans.

 

Nassim Taleb’s Case (with name calling) Against Nate Silver Is Bad Math ---
http://nautil.us/blog/nassim-talebs-case-against-nate-silver-is-bad-math

 

The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn’t Go Well ---
https://www.propublica.org/article/ultrawealthy-taxes-irs-internal-revenue-service-global-high-wealth-audits

 

A California bill replaces cash bail with risk-assessment algorithms, which critics argue will perpetuate the pre-trial detention of minority and low-income defendants.---
https://psmag.com/social-justice/what-should-replace-cash-bail?omhide
And if nearly all defendants are released prior to trial guess who will be among the nost none-shows for trial

 

llegaIl Alien Who Stole $72K From Family Disappears, Because Judge Let Her KEEP Her Passport ---
http://borderpac.org/news/illegal-alien-who-stole-72k-disappears-because-judge-let-her-keep-her-passport/

 

 

What Does “Machiavellian” Really Mean?: An Animated Lesson ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/what-does-machiavellian-really-mean-an-animated-lesson.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

 

WSJ:  The robots are coming to Walmart Floor scrubbers, shelf scanners and more.
But what about the humans?

Click Here

 

A Brief History of Porn on the Internet ---
https://www.wired.com/story/brief-history-porn-internet/

 

Terrorism at GMU and the Very Long Arm of the Law ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/terrorism-at-gmu-and-the-very-long-arm-of-the-law.html

 

Most (2/3) of the roads in Sweden are privately operated ---
http://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=64

 

Vermont’s pension funding gap, explained ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/vermonts-pension-funding-gap-explained

Underfund pensions to free up cash for current spending (it's a Ponzi scheme)

 

 

Maryland’s state pension may be only 35 percent funded ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/marylands-state-pension-may-be-only-35-percent-funded
Another Ponzi scheme

 

The former president of a St. Helens-based manufacturer’s labor union who embezzled $32,000 from the union was sentenced Wednesday to five years of probation and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service ---
|https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/04/former-union-president-gets-probation-community-service-for-32000-embezzlement.html

 

All House Democrats except one signed onto a bill that would force public schools to allow biological males to join all-female sports teams, claiming that physically, there’s no difference between biological boys and girls ---
Jon Dougherty
The National Sentinel  4/11/19
Jensen Comment
If this includes showering together then a whole lot of participants (especially at K-12 levels) will withdraw from athletics, often due to parental pressures. If this includes eliminating the NCAA testosterone tests to participate at the college level then the nature of the competition change dramatically, particularly in such sports as field and track, soccer, tennis, hockey, softball, and basketball,. If there's no difference between men and women they why have separate gender-based athletic teams?  This could be the answer to cutting the cost of athletic departments in half. If there are no gender differences will there be any need in the future for Title IX?
 

Come to think of it our ignorant lawmakers have just declared there are no hormonal differences between men and women. Sounds like bad science to me! I realize that sexual orientation is not binary. But it seems to me to preserve the integrity of gender-based athletics there must be some allowance for differences in competitive advantages.

 

Ocasio-Cortez's Selective Memory on FDR's New Deal ---
https://mises.org/wire/ocasio-cortezs-selective-memory-new-deal?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=b3e8a8d3d8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-b3e8a8d3d8-228708937

 

Greenspan says economy will slow under growing entitlements  ---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/greenspan-says-economy-will-slow-under-growing-entitlements/ar-BBVSAYF?ocid=spartandhp

 

A new wave of Cubans are seeking asylum in the US after being inspired by migrant caravans. These 15 photos show what their journey is like ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/migrant-caravans-inspired-wave-of-cubans-seek-asylum-in-us-2019-4

 

Second Amendment The ACLU Defends Gun Owners' Constitutional Rights, Except for the Second Amendment Right to Own Guns ---
https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-of-gun-owner/

 

How Tesla and its doctor made sure injured employees didn’t get workers’ comp ---
https://www.revealnews.org/article/how-tesla-and-its-doctor-made-sure-injured-employees-didnt-get-workers-comp/

 

How the Invisible Hand of William Shakespeare Influenced Adam Smith
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-invisible-hand-william-shakespeare-influenced-adam-smith-180971905/

 

How Eleanor Roosevelt Revolutionized Politics ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/04/12/jill-lepore-eleanor-roosevelt-these-truths/?mc_cid=8ce7e60b93&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

 

So you can’t really describe Angela Merkel as the “climate chancellor.” ---
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-germanys-climate-activism-is-full-of-hypocrisy/a-48292725

 





 

Regressive Tax --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

 

Elizabeth Warren Proposes Regressive Tax on America's Largest Companies (hoping to raise $1 trillion in ten years)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-proposes-new-corporate-tax-11554987601
T
o the extent those 1,200 largest companies do business with the government (think military fuel purchased from Exxon to fill tankers manufactured by Boeing) this is a wash item where the government taxes itself hundreds of billions of dollars

 

Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a new 7 percent tax on “the largest, most profitable U.S. companies.” The Real Corporate Profits Tax would affect some 1,200 companies and is projected to raise $1 trillion over a decade. Warren specifically mentioned Amazon in her proposal — the company would have paid $698 million more in U.S. taxes for 2018 under Warren’s plan.

Jensen Comment
What Warren fails to mention is that this is probably the most regressive tax imaginable next to a sales tax and VAT tax.

 

What she fails to mention is that big corporations don't pay taxes. Business firms collect taxes from customers by charging higher prices. The estimated $698 million to be paid by Amazon will be collected from you and me and Amazon's other customers. The added tax on large airlines will be tacked onto air fares. The added tax on Home Depot, Kroger, GM, Exxon, and Ford will be paid by its customers by way of higher prices. For example, one of the waitresses in our nearby Polly's Pancakes is a single mom living with three children living in a mobile home heated with kerosene (commonly used for homes without basements in this very cold mountain climate). Elizabeth Warren's tax will increase the price of her kerosene (local suppliers buy from big outfits like Exxon) along with the fuel she purchases for her rusty old sedan and her electric bill from our grid powered mostly by natural gas.

 

Why do poor people and the lower middle class end up paying the lion's share of Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax? Mainly because there are so many more people that are poor or lower middle class relative to higher income people. In the USA the poor and lower middle class pay virtually no income tax, but they pay regressive taxes like sales taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes (even when renting), and the corporate taxes factored into prices of purchased goods and services.

 

This is not a tax on the super rich who invest more than they spend. It's a tax on the poor and middle classes who spend most of every penny they receive.

 

Don't get me wrong. Some big corporations will be hurt badly to the extent that imported goods are relatively cheaper when marketed by smaller companies exempted from the tax. LL Bean's prices on shoes and clothing will be more price competitive relative to Amazon, although customers who buy more from LL Bean will still be paying a premium above Amazon's prices. LL Bean customers just won't have as much selection as they did when they bought more from Amazon. Volvos will be cheaper relative to Fords made in Michigan, and if Warren's tax was greater (say 20%) Ford would really hurt because Volvo's US operations are tax exempt under her proposal.

 

The good news is that even her fellow democrats are usually opposed to regressive taxes. They prefer a 70% tax on earnings of physicians and other high income taxpayers.

 

Senator Warren has a history of proposing taxes that are unconstitutional. This is just one of those political gimmicks in her political campaign that will never come to reality. In truth she has no idea how to fund her $100+ trillion dollar spending programs for free medical care, free college, free guaranteed annual income for everybody, and African/Native American repartitions on top of all the existing safety nets like subsidized housing, food stamps, and welfare.

 

 


The full text of the Algorithmic Accountability Act at Tier 1 (bias and discrimination) ---
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019 Bill Text.pdf?utm_campaign=the_algorithm.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=71709273&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-99rh4-06SEttevQ9yueP-C2akIdzUDPPfW0laDxMKu6MYwaiOlt7l3GaWF1JFSKDNF0QqnzlcjvEBkR_mukoT813PcUw&_hsmi=71709273

 

Jensen Comment on Tiers 2 to Infinity
The most controversial aspect of products and services is, and will continue to be, the degree to which the provider is responsible for intentional or unintended misuse. Exhibit A is a making a gun or vehicle manufacturer responsible for the products use in every murder or suicide or accidental killing.

 

There are obvious limits of accountability. For example, if you made road builders responsible for every accident on their roads nobody would build roads.

 

In nearly all instances there's a gray zone regarding fraud and negligence such as when opiate drug manufacturers exploited the addictive nature of their products. Such gray zones leave legal and civil court discretions regarding intent.

 

What naive legislators want is riskless products and services to a point where banning risk leads to great societal harm. Exhibit A is where banning all chemical fertilizers and insecticides that have potential health risks (however small) leads to enormous food shortages and costs of food purchase. Exhibit B would be where the banning of all opiate drugs creates extreme suffering of patients recovering from heavy surgeries or long-term suffering from cancer or other diseases where all less risky alternatives are either ineffective or are enormously expensive.

 

When it comes to AI and other algorithmic technology really ignorant lawmakers who want riskless living and do not consider that there may be risks of better living and a better economy for all. Sometimes risks are necessary for improved living.

 

My best example that I use over and over is my wife's spine surgeon of last resort in Boston. He's willing, amongst constantly circling lawyers, to do spine surgeries that 95% or more of the spine surgeons in the USA are unwilling to perform because risks to the patient (paralysis) and risks to the surgeon (lawsuits) are so high. My wife is ever-thankful that there are a very few surgeons like this Boston surgeon who are willing to take risks to alleviate extreme pain and suffering of patients.

 

If you really want to academically debate technology consider the recent genetic experiments in China where human genes are added to brains of monkeys. If success is confirmed the excitement becomes the ability to genetically improve human intelligence and overcome disabilities in learning. Dark shadows of Hitler's quest for a master race come to mind on the negative side of this debate. Bright lights of curing mental illness, depression, and retardation come to mind on the positive side of this debate.

 

Life is truly complicated. The Algorithmic Accountability Act, especially at Tiers 2 and beyond, could do lots of good things for society in the short term and lots of bad things for the long term.

 

Will nations like Russia and China and North Korea exploit opportunities created in the passing of Algorithmic Accountability Acts in North America and the European Union?

 

There's no sustainability for laws seeking to eliminate all risks of living.

 

Riskless living is for lemmings that are happily all alike and marching toward an unforeseen cliff!

Riskless Living:  The U.K.'s Proposed Conception of Big Brother for Real (Tier 2 and beyond)

The UK proposed sweeping new regulations that would hold tech companies accountable for the spread of extremist content, misinformation, hate crimes, and dangerous material aimed at children ---
Click Here

Jensen Comment
Given the risks of lawsuits from agencies in 200+ nations of the world and billions of Internet users in the world, there is only one solution remaining --- it's time to create Big Brother as a censor all information (including photographs and artwork) passes through it being placed on the Internet. Big Brother will be protected from lawsuits. No other medium of communication can withstand the risk of trillions of dollars in lawsuits.

The question remains about censorship of information not on the Internet such as newspapers, media broadcasters, and speakers everywhere including college campuses and town halls. They too probably cannot stand up against the lawyers of the world no matter what constitutional protections are put into place.

George Orwell had it right even though the "sweeping new regulations" arrived in 2019 instead on 1984 ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
It's ironic that Orwell was a British writer when the imagined 1984 world was introduced for real in the United Kingdom in 2019.

The most controversial link in all of this is the link between a "producers" and extremist "customers" who actually commit the hate crimes. It's analogous to making the manufacturer of a gun, a car, a knife, an oil painting, a poem, porn, a telephone, a Website, or whatever that can be held accountable for the hate crime that it did actually commit itself. To be safe Big Brother will ban virtually any risk. The only good news is that lawyers will starve on the vine in Big Brother's world.

I'm glad I'm not young enough anymore witness a Big Brother society actually becomes so paranoid that it builds an fearsome Big Brother Political Correctness Wall shielding us from all risks.


 

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

 

How to Mislead with MMT Theory
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a fan of a geeky economic theory called MMT: Here's a plain-English guide to what it is and why it's interesting and can bring down national economies (think Zambia and Venezuela) ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-explained-aoc-2019-3

Jensen Comment
There are huge problems with simply printing money to pay off government debt and fund government programs ---
 

Firstly and foremost it leads to expensive entitlements that are virtually impossible to roll back such as national healthcare, guaranteed (basic) income for everybody, reparations for minorities, giving a $25,000 annual raise to every teacher, etc

Secondly, virtually all Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidency are all in a race to see who can spend the most on social programs. Virtually none are intent of spending restraints and saving the economic engine that brought the USA to greatness. This leads to "self dealing" that brought down the German Economy after World War 1 and more recently Zimbabwe and Venezuela ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe

Thirdly, it leads to fear and distrust of investors of the world who no longer trust holding any investments in a MMT nation. This could be a disaster for the USA economy and the engine that drives the USA economy.
MMT is opposed by both conservative and liberal (progressive) academic economists around the world --
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory#Criticisms

Functional Finance --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_finance

**How to Mislead With Economics
Printing Money:  What’s Wrong With Abba Lerner's Functional Finance? ---

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/opinion/whats-wrong-with-functional-finance-wonkish.html
This article may not be free much longer

Jensen Comment
Abba Lerner had in mind printing money to create money. Most nations do not create money in this manner. For example, the USA Treasury printed the greenbacks in your wallet. But the USA Treasury as a rule does not create money in the USA money supply. Commercial banks create money in the money supply. Suppose you go to the bank to get a $10,000 loan for a new swimming pool. When the bank credits your checking account for $10,000 the bank has created money. You can spend that money without ever converting it into greenbacks. You can simply write checks to the people who build your pool. Those people can in turn deposit your checks into their accounts and spend it without ever converting that $10,000 into greenbacks. But suppose the company that built your pool needed $100 in petty cash. That company could've converted $100 its checking account into $100 in greenbacks. In economics we say that the company simply has made a $100 liquidity preference decision.

My point is that the USA Treasury prints money to satisfy liquidity preferences regarding money that was created previously by commercial banks.

But commercial banks cannot go wild like Zimbabwe when creating money ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply

Quantitative easing is a controversial exception that I won't go into here ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Abba Lerner's theoretical "Functional Finance" is an entirely different way of creating money and a very risky way for governments to create money  ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_finance

 


Bloomberg:  Half of Older Americans Approaching Retirement Have Nothing Saved ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/almost-half-of-older-americans-have-zero-in-retirement-savings

Jensen Comment
Bob Jensen's Personal Finance Helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers


How to Mislead With Statistics ---
So you want to tax the rich ---
https://theconversation.com/so-you-want-to-tax-the-rich-heres-which-candidates-plan-makes-the-most-sense-111945

Jensen Comment
To be honest I like most of this article, because it correctly raises doubts about the AOC (income) and Warren (wealth) tax proposals. However, I think it oversimplifies the Sanders' (inheritance) tax proposals. Firstly, it ignores how wealthy estates can maneuver to greatly reduce Bernie Sanders' projected income from the estate tax changes. Just like high income people can maneuver to avoid the AOC income tax proposal, wealthy people can maneuver to protect themselves from estate taxes. The first and most obvious ploy is to leave the USA just like the wealthiest billionaire in the UK just moved to Monaco. The second ploy is to move the bulk of the estate into Tax-Free Foundations like the moves of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and virtually all super wealthy individuals. By the way these foundations do wonderful things that might get bogged down in politics. For example, rather than donate so much of Bill Gates' wealth to reducing diseases and improving sanitation worldwide Congress might be more inclined to divert that money domestic causes. Also Congress might be less inclined than Bill Gates to fund technology such as worm toilets that conserve water worldwide.

Thirdly, it does not take all that much of a family farm or ranch or other family business to be valued at $3.5 million. This could further strike a blow to family businesses that are the backbone historically of the USA economy. For example, families clinging to a $5 million family farm might be forced because in inheritance taxes to sell to foreign corporations.

The bottom line is that all the 2020 candidates are advocating spending $100+ trillion dollars on such newer initiatives as free healthcare, free college education, guaranteed income, $25,000 per year teacher raises (Harris), reparations for American and Native Americans, etc. in addition to maintaining or increasing existing safety nets such as food stamps, housing subsidies, and financial aid for open border immigrants. All are good causes, but none of the candidates has proposed a viable way to fund the new initiatives without destroying the economic engine of the USA. Whereas Nancy Pelosi has pleaded for setting of achievable goals none of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are listening to her.


The Democratic Party Is Radicalizing (along with radical university commencement addresses)---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/progressivism-making-democrats/586372/

Colleges recruit presidential contenders to speak -- and don't do much to make sure their talks don't turn political ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/08/colleges-recruiting-2020-presidential-candidates-commencement-speakers?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=f707f53a59-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-f707f53a59-197565045&mc_cid=f707f53a59&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Jensen Comment
Even worse these speeches are likely to be  politically correct without being academically correct. Some of these speakers make Michael Moore look a fiscal conservative. Furthermore the invitations are going out to radical democrats with fiery socialism speeches that further divide the fractured college campuses. Exhibit A is Alexandria (AOC) who is the not-so-proud winner of Pinocchio awards from The Washington Post and who lost a lot of favor among the Democratic Party by being a leader in destroying the Amazon deal favored by Democratic Party Leaders Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and other "colleagues" in New York.

College graduates in the audiences will cheer wildly when these speakers announce that every penny they owe in student loans will be forgiven, medical care will be free, and they will receive a guaranteed annual income to pursue hobbies without having to work for a living. And manna will rain down from the heavens under MMT (money printing) economics.

How to Mislead with MMT Theory
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a fan of a geeky economic theory called MMT: Here's a plain-English guide to what it is and why it's interesting and can bring down national economies (think Zambia and Venezuela) ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-explained-aoc-2019-3

Republicans lean back and smile. These radical commencement speakers do much more to re-elect Donald Trump than having Donald Trump giving commencement addresses himself (yuk!).

The problem with younger generations is that so many of them may believe false utopian promises.

Listen to Big Rock Candy Mountain' performed by Burl Ives ---
Big Rock Candy Mountain' Burl Ives


How to Mislead With Statistics
Kamala Harris’s plan to dramatically increase teacher salaries, explained
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/26/18280734/kamala-harris-2020-election-policies-teachers-salaries

Jensen Comment
The article is not misleading in terms of a case for raising teacher salaries. However, it's misleading on the funding side. Firstly it requires that states buy into the raising the money. The clinker is that many states themselves are on the edge of bankruptcy, especially those states that are already losing businesses and people due to high taxation. Exhibit A is Illinois, but there are many others ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/
Raising teacher salaries has been a priority in virtually all states every year for as long as I can remember. It's gotten much more difficult, however, since Medicaid and pension obligations are higher priorities raising teacher pay.

She also proposes raising taxes on wealthy estates. The article is misleading because it does not discuss the negatives in trying to raise billions in this manner. Firstly, some of the mega wealthy estates are usually moved into tax-free foundations that do great things such as the Bill Gates Foundation that contributes billions to world health and technology efforts for bringing electric power and sanitation to the poorest people on earth. My point here is that efforts to ban tax-free foundations ends up pitting good causes (think teacher pay, world health, world sanitation, university endowments, etc.) against one another. Personally, I don't think relatively large USA teacher pay increases takes priority over some of the neediest causes in the world.

There's a bit of robbing school districts to pay teachers in the Kamala Harris proposal. The wealthy in the USA invest over a trillion dollars in tax-exempt bonds that, in turn, fund municipalities and school districts al low interest rates on bonds that are financially risky. One reason progressives have not eliminated the so-called muni bond market is that towns and schools have become so dependent upon this massive source of funding for land and buildings in towns and school districts. The Kamala Harris proposal will sap much of the funding for schools grounds and buildings to pay teachers. Schools are already suffering from a lot of deferred maintenance and not enough classrooms to meed rising demainds.

Paying teachers more to teach in falling down buildings is not the answer.

France scrapped a wealth tax plan for millionaires because it was making so little money ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/france-scrapped-extreme-version-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-tax-plan-millionares-2019-3

Kamala Harris ignores the fact that raising the wealth tax has already been prioritized by her opponents --- mostly to pay for Medicare-for-All and Guranteed Annual Income for the Poor.

Wealth Tax --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

Even if wildly successful (which is impossible) Senator Warren's wealth tax would only pay $2.75 trillion of the $30+ trillion cost ten-year cost of Medicare-for-All
Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period from about 75,000 families, or less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/elizabeth-warren-to-propose-new-wealth-tax-economic-advisor.html
Jensen Comment
This could have all sorts of economic consequences. One is that most of those 75,000 wealthy USA families have their wealth tied up in long-term investments like real estate (think of Trump hotels, Ted Turner's ranches in Australia, Amazon's many shares owned by Jeff Bezos), etc.  Warren's Wealth tax could force liquidation of these long-term investments to pay the $2.75 trillion wealth tax. If you want your top millionaires and billionaires to move out of the USA this is a sure-fire way to wave bye bye to them and the $2.75 trillion that becomes uncollectable.
Wealthy taxpayers are probably not worried with a conservative Supreme Court.  Arguably her proposal requires an amendment to the USA Constitution because her wealth tax proposal is extremely disproportional.---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#United_States
You can read more about wealth taxes at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
 

PS
Those 75,000 wealthy taxpayers now invest in hundreds of billions in tax-exempt bonds (called municipal bonds) that underlie the building of most schools and municipal buildings in the USA. The muni bond market would nosedive if most of those 75,000 people sold their tax-exempt bonds and moved these hundreds of billions in investments off shore on their way out of the USA. That's not a cost that the naive Elizabeth Warren factored into her proposed wealth. What's the incentive for a billionaire who moved to Switzerland to continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the USA muni market?

I suspect that Kamala Harris already knows her proposals for wealth taxes and teacher pay raises would be disasters for states on the edge of bankruptcy trying to meet pension and Medicaid obligations. It's more of a ploy to raise votes in a Democratic primary race that's more and more competitive as to will spend the most taxpayer dollars.


College President Sparks Controversy by Removing Four Historical Yearbooks With Blackface Images ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/College-President-Sparks/246055?cid=db
Isn't this punishing former faculty and students who played no part in the blackface incidents?

Mizzou Fires Police Officer Over Blackface (before he was hired) ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/03/20/mizzou-fires-police-officer-over-blackface?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=ccc6735849-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ccc6735849-197565045&mc_cid=ccc6735849&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Jensen Question
How many of Mizzou's faculty and administrators outraged over blackface in history still tune into the hypocritical Jimmy Kimmel on ABC?
There's a huge double standard in the national media that the national media wink winks.

Jimmy Kimmel, while the host of Comedy Central’s “The Man Show,” dressed up more than once in blackface makeup, a bald cap and a body suit to portray former Utah Jazz basketball star Karl Malone as an inarticulate, dim-witted person who had difficulty pronouncing words correctly ---
https://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/10/jimmy-kimmel-black-face-malone-grope-man-show/
Watch a video clip --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wse5lgIDxM
This is far more degrading and insulting  than a minstrel show.

This is why blackface is offensive: A brief history ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3725301/posts

 


Roundup --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)

Questions
Who pays for multimillion settlements regarding the cancer scare of Roundup weed killer?
https://www.consumersafetywatch.com/non-hodgkin-lymphoma-roundup/?adwords&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInpnk3vap4QIVgV6GCh3_XgRsEAAYAiAAEgKnF_D_BwE

Jensen Comment
It's a bit like cigarette manufacturer settlements when customers in the future pay for past settlements. And since farmers and homeowners around the world will continue to use this product or its equivalent Roundup's legal settlements will be paid by future customers.

However, there's a huge difference relative to cigarette consumers. Farmers around the world say they will still spray Roundup or its equivalent on growing crops ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-rulings-farmers-remain-loyal-to-roundup-11553175429

This means that virtually all consumers (from meat eaters to bread lovers to vegetarians)  will pay for the legal settlements regarding Roundup. Big companies donot pay for legal settlements as long as they continue in business. Their customers pay for those settlements. Exhibit A is how asbestos settlement dollars are factored into the prices paid by customers for insulation today.

How long will the Roundup lawsuits keep piling up?
The lawsuits will be slowed down when appeals courts greatly scale back the damage awards. And lawsuits "might" eventually cease as publicity and product labels make users of Roundup more responsible for knowingly taking on risks. The link between Roundup and food consumers, to my knowledge, has never been scientifically proven. Much awaits more scientific study on this matter of food risks from Roundup use.

Suppose a link between Roundup and bread or hamburger eventually is proven. This alone does will not necessarily put an end to Roundup or its equivalent. I've pointed out previously that use of Roundup will then become a bit like the Trolley Problem in philosophy ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
The fact of the matter is that until safer herbicides become as effective as Roundup people around the world will surely pay much more for food and many people will starve due to lower crop yields providing food without Roundup use.


How dependent world economies are becoming on China
The recession in German manufacturing is worse than we thought ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/pmi-data-recession-german-manufacturing-worse-than-thought-2019-4
Chinese buyers tot he rescue

China–Latin America relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Latin_America_relations

China-Africa Relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_relations

China-European Union Relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_relations

Jensen Comment
As far as I can tell none of the 2020 presidential candidates (including Trump) are recommending anything to counteract the Chinese takeover of the world.
The Democrats are probably worse than Trump in that they want to add more taxes and regulations to USA firms trying to compete in the world with China


Add One More to My Growing List of Unintended Consequences ---
https://www.jborden.com/add-one-more-to-my-growing-list-of-unintended-consequences/

Jensen Comment
History of Unintended Consequences Dating Back to John Locke --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences#History

Examples of Unintended Consequences --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences#Examples

Jensen Examples

All those lottery winners and professional athletes who go broke

Tragedy of the Commons (think free medical care) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Unintended Externalities (called non-convexities in mathematical programming) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Price Controls in Venezuela (suddenly shelves were bare)

Imposing 70% income taxes on physicians and then wondering why there's growing shortage of them

Capitalism in communist China results in all those venture capitalist billionaires --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Income Equality in Cuba
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 

 




Health Insurance

 

Vox:  The Bernie Sanders national medical plan has lots of details about what single-payer would cover. It has less information on how to pay for it (well over $3 trillion per year and growing for more generous coverage than all other national health plans) ---
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/10/18304448/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all

. . .

Medicare, employer coverage, and these other countries show that nearly every insurance scheme we’re familiar with covers a smaller set of benefits with more out-of-pocket spending on the part of citizens. Private insurance plans often spring up to fill these gaps (in Canada, for example, vision and dental insurance is often sponsored by employers, much like in the United States).

The reason they went this way is clear: It’s cheaper to run a health plan with fewer benefits. The plan Sanders proposes has no analog among the single-payer systems that currently exist. By covering a more comprehensive set of benefits and asking no cost sharing of enrollees, it is likely to cost the government significantly more than programs other countries have adopted
 

. . .

But who pays how much more is a key question this Sanders bill doesn’t answer yet. Until there is a version that does, we can’t know whether the health system the Vermont senator envisions could actually become reality.

Jensen Comment
The Sanders plan eliminates all private-sector medical insurance companies and eliminates Medicare and Medicaid.

The good news for us retired folks is that long-term care insurance that is not covered presently under Medicare will cover us retired folks. Hooray for Bernie! I can eat, drink, and be merry on my long-term care savings.

Two things Bernie does not like to discuss is the impact on doctors and hospitals. At present many (most?) of the top physicians and hospitals refuse Medicaid patients because of caps placed on fees. Many also reject Medicare patients, but more of them are covered because of supplemental private insurance benefits that can be added to Medicare insurance. Presently Erica and I pay over $1,200 for supplemental benefits that will not be allowed under the Sanders' plan.

I think Sanders does not like to discuss caps that will be placed on physician billings and hospital rates because the medical profession would otherwise crank up an huge lobbying effort against his plan. The medical profession has only begun to fight.

Also Sanders does not like to discuss the shortage of physicians and hospital services that will arise when bringing tens of millions of people into his plan (think nearly 20 million undocumented residents that will be covered in rural areas already underserved with doctors and hospitals).

Also Sanders does not like to discuss the transition costs in creating the vast government bureaucracy that does not exist for processing medical insurance claims. At present Medicare and Medicaid outsource claims processing to the private sector. Bernie plans to kill that outsourcing sector.

Bernie Sanders: "You’re Damn Right We’re Going to Destroy Private Health Insurance" ---
Click Here
And he will limit the number of doctors by regulating what they're allowed to earn.

And Bernie plans on taxing high income earners in the USA by taking away 70% or more of what they now earn. What will be the incentive for spending years of misery to become a physician good at a craft that will be taxed to death rather than rewarded after all those years of misery?

The problem with becoming a physician is not just the cost of medical school. The problem is the ordeal --- those years of education and training needed to become masters of their crafts. The time needed varies with specialties, but you don't become a neurosurgeon without years of ordeal in training before you can bill your first paying patient. And there's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in those training years. Even worse is that there's a lot of weekly tension and risk of burn out in the years of practice that follow. Tell that to the advocates of Medicare-for-All combined with soaring taxes!

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

Ending Jensen Comment
But don't get me wrong! Erika and I will vote for Bernie Sanders since our possible expensive long-term health care not funded by Medicare will soon be free. To hell with the future economic engine of the USA. Bring on the Bernie Sanders' socialism since I'm too old to witness the chaos and economic destruction that follows in its path. Since Democrats are promising free everything why shouldn't Erika and I get in on the free everything?

Listen to Big Rock Candy Mountain' performed by Burl Ives ---
Big Rock Candy Mountain' Burl Ives

 

"But (American) virtuous feelings have been played on by some facts with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves.”
Thomas Jefferson

William J. Watkins, Jr., Winter 1999, “The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions:  Guideposts of Limited Government,” The Independent Review, Vol. III, No. 3, pp. 406-407.

PS from Bob Jensen
I'm not really going to vote for socialist Bernie Sanders (who was and still is a hard core socialist at heart). I don't want my country to crash and burn like Venezuela


Canadian doctors still make dramatically less than U.S. (and UK and German) counterparts: study ---
https://nationaCanadianlpost.com/news/canada/canadian-doctors-still-make-dramatically-less-than-u-s-counterparts-study
Canadian doctors make less than the OECD average, although they do not pay nearly as much as USA physicians for malpractice insurance, office space, and labor assistants like office nurses ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_in_Canada

. . .

Canada should not ignore the wage gap, as a sudden shortage of certain specialists in the States could trigger a drain from here, said Dr. John Haggie, president of the Canadian Medical Association. Canada saw a net loss of doctors to the U.S. in the 1990s, as provinces instituted doctor pay caps and tried to rein-in fee increases as a way to corral health costs.

But Dr. Haggie voiced no particular envy Tuesday at the statistics just published in the journal Health Affairs

Jensen Comment
I read where there are 72,000 physicians employed in the Canadian health system. The population of Canada is 37+ million spread over nearly 4 million square miles.
In the USA
Patients experience long waits (months) for doctor appointments largely due to the shortage of Canadian physicians. Delays for elective procedures such as knee and hip replacements are so long that many Canadians use their own savings to get such surgeries performed in the USA.

In the USA there are over 950,000 physicians who, on average, are the highest paid professionals in the USA..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_in_the_United_States#Demographics
Also see
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/03/08/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-paid-doctors/
The population of the USA is nearly 10 times that if Canada if you include the undocumented immigrants. USA residents are spread over roughly the same number of square miles as Canada, although the distribution is not as skewed as that of Canada is skewed toward the south.

 

Bernie Sanders: "You’re Damn Right We’re Going to Destroy Private Health Insurance" ---
Click Here
And he will limit the number of doctors by regulating what they're allowed to earn.

 




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/