In Roman history Fausta was the wife of Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor. Constantine had Fausta executed by putting her in an overheated bath and forcing her to stay there. My wife always says one of her greatest fears is being permanently locked in a steam room.
In any case, today's Fausta is an excellent blogger who makes an important point (h/t Larwyn):
>During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.
“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.
“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
When I worked in Albany for the ways and means committee in 1991 (I was a Democrat at that point) I noticed the same phenomenon. The members did not read the bills. Likewise, a perusal of Robert Caro's classic Powerbroker, which is about Robert Moses, describes how Moses repeatedly took advantage of this phenomenon to ram through laws that gave himself extraordinary powers that no one knew about until after the fact.
Rationality is a rare commodity. In the 1950s James March and Herbert Simon described managers as behaving in ways that are consistent with "bounded rationality". There are, they argued, cognitive limits on rationality. Earlier, Walter Lippmann argued that the public cannot possibly understand the political questions that it is asked to decide upon. Friedrich Hayek, the great Austrian economist, argued that because information is difficult to obtain, in the economy a simple signaling process is necessary. In a free economy that signal is price. No such signal exists in state dominated economies, which is why they are inefficient.
Supposedly, the political process is a matter of redistribution of wealth, who gets what, when and how, as Harold Lasswell put it. But a more important question is: who knows how to do it? The answer with respect to government is generally--"we don't know".
The process of political engagement is largely a smokescreen whereby special interests extract rents. This observation has been explored by economists such as Mancur Olson and George Stigler. The process of rent extraction by academic social democrats and their corporate clients has traditionally involved using the poor or working class as a ruse. De Jouvenal shows that this tactic goes back to the days of Septimius Severus and carried forward through the middle ages.
The health care plan is not a serious plan. Rather, it reflects the brokerage of corrupt special interests. How do I know this despite not having the slightest idea of what is in the plan, just like Mr. Conyers?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Citizens Against Government Waste Formats Anti-Obamanable Health Care Letter
Citizens Against Government Waste has posted an excellent formatted letter that you can e-mail to your representatives. The letter is here, and they can forward it to your representatives for you. They write:
Tell Congress: Vote NO on Obama/Pelosi/Reid Healthcare Reform!
1. Complete the form below with your information.
2. Make your letter stand out! Please take a moment to personalize the subject and text of the message on the right with your own words, if you wish.
3. Click the Next Step button to send your letter to these decision makers:
* Your Senators
* Your Representative
]
I am writing to express my strong opposition to any healthcare "reform" legislation that inflates the federal deficit and national debt even further, imposes new taxes and mandates on individuals and businesses during this economic recession, and includes a government-run plan that would ultimately crowd out the private insurance market.
With our nation facing a $1.8 trillion deficit this year and a national debt that is expected to nearly double from $11.4 trillion today to almost $21 trillion over the next 10 years, we simply can't afford a new $1 trillion-plus healthcare program.
What's more, the higher taxes and costly mandates on individuals and businesses that Congress is proposing to pay for this new program could not come at a worse time with families struggling to make ends meet and the national unemployment rate approaching double digits.
But perhaps worst of all, a government-run option that would expand the federal bureaucracy and compete with private insurance plans will only move this country down the slippery slope of a single-payer, socialized healthcare system. Such a system would restrict my choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines and erode the quality of care that my family and I receive.
A better way to expand coverage for the uninsured while preserving the high quality of healthcare we enjoy as Americans would be to enact meaningful tort reform to curb frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits that drive up costs. There are also numerous free-market proposals, such as providing tax credits for purchasing private insurance coverage, that would reduce the ranks of the uninsured.
Again, I urge you to reject any healthcare legislation that burdens taxpayers and our economy, expands the federal bureaucracy, and restricts my choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines.
Tell Congress: Vote NO on Obama/Pelosi/Reid Healthcare Reform!
1. Complete the form below with your information.
2. Make your letter stand out! Please take a moment to personalize the subject and text of the message on the right with your own words, if you wish.
3. Click the Next Step button to send your letter to these decision makers:
* Your Senators
* Your Representative
]
I am writing to express my strong opposition to any healthcare "reform" legislation that inflates the federal deficit and national debt even further, imposes new taxes and mandates on individuals and businesses during this economic recession, and includes a government-run plan that would ultimately crowd out the private insurance market.
With our nation facing a $1.8 trillion deficit this year and a national debt that is expected to nearly double from $11.4 trillion today to almost $21 trillion over the next 10 years, we simply can't afford a new $1 trillion-plus healthcare program.
What's more, the higher taxes and costly mandates on individuals and businesses that Congress is proposing to pay for this new program could not come at a worse time with families struggling to make ends meet and the national unemployment rate approaching double digits.
But perhaps worst of all, a government-run option that would expand the federal bureaucracy and compete with private insurance plans will only move this country down the slippery slope of a single-payer, socialized healthcare system. Such a system would restrict my choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines and erode the quality of care that my family and I receive.
A better way to expand coverage for the uninsured while preserving the high quality of healthcare we enjoy as Americans would be to enact meaningful tort reform to curb frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits that drive up costs. There are also numerous free-market proposals, such as providing tax credits for purchasing private insurance coverage, that would reduce the ranks of the uninsured.
Again, I urge you to reject any healthcare legislation that burdens taxpayers and our economy, expands the federal bureaucracy, and restricts my choice of doctors, treatments, and medicines.
Racist Obama Supporters Continue to Harass This Blog
Barack Obama is the most divisive, ugliest and most racist president in recent decades. His supporters continue to attack me through the comments section of this blog. I just rejected a comment that called me a "white racist pig".
The person who wrote the comment felt that because Mr. Obama is black that he ought not to be criticized and that anyone who criticizes him is a racist. That is a racist claim.
Barack Obama is a con man, a liar who pretends to help the poor but stuffs his back pockets with money and supports Wall Street.
My great grandparents were killed in southern Poland in the holocaust. My paternal great-great grandfather had his index finger chopped off by the Czar. I don't seek sympathy, and I am sick of the Democrats' bulls*it racism.
The person who wrote the comment felt that because Mr. Obama is black that he ought not to be criticized and that anyone who criticizes him is a racist. That is a racist claim.
Barack Obama is a con man, a liar who pretends to help the poor but stuffs his back pockets with money and supports Wall Street.
My great grandparents were killed in southern Poland in the holocaust. My paternal great-great grandfather had his index finger chopped off by the Czar. I don't seek sympathy, and I am sick of the Democrats' bulls*it racism.
Friday, July 24, 2009
My Interview with Paul Babiak Garners Praise
My July 23 article in the AI-CPA Career Insider has received positive feedback, according to the editor, Sukanya Mitra.
Sukanya writes:
>"I have received several reader ratings today raving about your article in yesterday’s ENL. Here’s a reader comment that I thought you’d appreciate...Thank you again for the great articles."
>>"This article was amazing, I am a safety director, who has a manager of a department that fits so perfectly into this article. This will help me deal with him.
>>"Thanks."
The article begins:
>"Dr. Paul Babiak is president of HRBackOffice and co-author with Dr. Robert D. Hare of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, an important book about psychopaths in the workplace. Within the last ten years, two series of scandals have wracked American industry. In 2001, Enron, Arthur Andersen and a familiar, contemporaneous litany led to passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Only seven years later Wall Street has been immersed in wave of derivatives-related failures. Although the scandals and failures have several causes, ethical lapses that may be addressed through improved human resource management play a role.
I interviewed Dr. Babiak via telephone at his upstate New York office.
ML: Dr. Babiak, how do you define the term psychopath?
Babiak: When one first meets psychopaths they are likeable, verbally fluent and charming. They easily build rapport and people trust them. But, underneath this façade, they’re manipulative liars. They can create multiple masks or personas that they use to maintain relationships with their victims. They are opportunistic, parasitic predators. Their opportunism has a number of motivations: money, sex and power, for example.
Read the whole thing here.
Sukanya writes:
>"I have received several reader ratings today raving about your article in yesterday’s ENL. Here’s a reader comment that I thought you’d appreciate...Thank you again for the great articles."
>>"This article was amazing, I am a safety director, who has a manager of a department that fits so perfectly into this article. This will help me deal with him.
>>"Thanks."
The article begins:
>"Dr. Paul Babiak is president of HRBackOffice and co-author with Dr. Robert D. Hare of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, an important book about psychopaths in the workplace. Within the last ten years, two series of scandals have wracked American industry. In 2001, Enron, Arthur Andersen and a familiar, contemporaneous litany led to passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Only seven years later Wall Street has been immersed in wave of derivatives-related failures. Although the scandals and failures have several causes, ethical lapses that may be addressed through improved human resource management play a role.
I interviewed Dr. Babiak via telephone at his upstate New York office.
ML: Dr. Babiak, how do you define the term psychopath?
Babiak: When one first meets psychopaths they are likeable, verbally fluent and charming. They easily build rapport and people trust them. But, underneath this façade, they’re manipulative liars. They can create multiple masks or personas that they use to maintain relationships with their victims. They are opportunistic, parasitic predators. Their opportunism has a number of motivations: money, sex and power, for example.
Read the whole thing here.
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