A War Criminal Writes a Book

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What happened to Obama?

One of the most erudite appraisals of the past couple years. From the NYT (read the whole thing, but I'll borrow liberally):

... Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:

“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out. And it didn’t work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again.” A story isn’t a policy. But that simple narrative — and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it — would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn’t tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit — a deficit that didn’t exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.

What happened in 2008 was clear evidence to anyone paying attention that Bush de-regulation and Laffer economics was a complete failure. Despite ultra-low taxes and deficit spending we never really recovered from the 2000-01 recession. Job growth sucked, wages stagnated, deficits soared. The fall of 2008 was the crowning blow to allowing markets to self- govern. The election of 2008, IMO, represented the starkest differences in worldviews of any elction in my memory, yet now I cannot imagine how a McCain presidency would be substantively different than the one we have now. Wars, tax cuts, anemic stimulus, lack of accountability for the banksters, even more wealth concentration... this is an effectively Republican administration.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

The Democrats tell us that government can solve our problems, yet our current president signs on to defeatist appeasement from the GOP, a party that has always rejoiced in the failure of government. WTF? To paraphrase the Rude Pundit, Obama could never have been elected as a Republican, so if he is a Democrat, if he believes in government, he should start acting like it.

When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.

Maybe it's because Obama is not a child of the civil rights movement, is not progeny of slaves, but if blasted with a firehose or chased by a K-9 force, I could only imagine Obama apologizing for not getting out of the way fast enough. Maybe unfair, but my truthful thought.

Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue. The president tells us he prefers a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction, one that weds “revenue enhancements” (a weak way of describing popular taxes on the rich and big corporations that are evading them) with “entitlement cuts” (an equally poor choice of words that implies that people who’ve worked their whole lives are looking for handouts.) But the law he just signed includes only the cuts. This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling.

[snip]

Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

Double ouch. I'll refrain from psycho-analysis, but... ya.

The average voter is far more worried about jobs than about the deficit, which few were talking about while Bush and the Republican Congress were running it up. The conventional wisdom is that Americans hate government, and if you ask the question in the abstract, people will certainly give you an earful about what government does wrong. But if you give them the choice between cutting the deficit and putting Americans back to work, it isn’t even close.

And I'll add that the average borrower of US debt is little worried about our deficit-- given the record lows in US Treasury interest rates. If our lenders are concerned, as S&P ratings would have us believe, then why do they keep buying our debt?

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

And then we get true class war. I'll add that FDR's New deal likely saved us from bloodshed and eventual communism, ala a Bolshevik-type revolution in 1930's America. This next collapse in the US economy is occurring in a nation angry and fully armed. read the whole NYT piece, or better yet, forward it to the President.

FDR: "I welcome their hatred"

No compromises, no "hoping that they'll do the right thing." No 12-dimensional chess.

When presidents were presidents and not faux Jedi Masters.

Stockman: The case against the bank bailouts

White Sox Rant

Adam Dunn sucks, but he didn't lose this game, Ozzie did. This is a management issue. A guy has 96 strikeouts in 227 at-bats, so when do you sit him down? I have no doubt that at one time Adam Dunn was a good hitter, I see the stats, I hear the legend, but this guy on the 2011 White Sox is not the Adam Dunn on the back of his bubble gum card. Sure, he's wearing #32 and his uniform says "Dunn", but we're halfway thought the season and he has 7 home runs. Seven. So, no, he's not going to hit 40 home runs this season. I could live with the 200 strikeouts every year, if he hit 35 or 40 home runs.

Word is Dunn is a "great clubhouse guy", then leave him in the clubhouse. He's a nice guy who strikes out a lot at the plate. So is Gavin Floyd, put him in to DH. Today's game against the Nationals is a case in point of how Ozzie does not know how to manage. In the eighth inning, Sox down by one run and Dunn is due up, after having struck out three times already today against righti pitching. The Nationals bring in lefty Sean Burnett just to pitch to Dunn who has waht 2 hits against against lefties all year, and has not ever gotten a hit against Burnett in 5 lifetime appearances. What are the chances Dunn will get a hit now? 0.0005%? The cameras pan over to Ozzie who is looking down at his scorecard (presumably, but it could have been iPad Scrabble, who knows) with his $2 Walgreen reading glasses. He-e--elloooo, Ozzie.... how about a pinch hitter, the game's on the line here, buddy.

No pinch hitter, three pitches, three strikes. Dunn is done, takes the collar the the umpteenth time this year. Oh-ferfour with 4 strikeouts. It's not Adam Dunn's fault. Sit him down, send him to Charlotte to work on stuff. Something. But losing games by giving away outs is insanity.

Where the rich are keeping their money

The next time your broker or 401(k) adviser tries to talk you into aggressively investing your retirement, consider the results of the latest Merrill Lynch- Gap Gemini survey of high net worth individuals:

The core of the rich portfolio is surprisingly conservative. The wealthy have, on average, 43% of their holdings in low-risk assets. That's 29% bonds and a thumping 14% in cash. So much for the idea that the more you have, the more risk you can take. (It matters, of course, that the rich are typically much older than the rest of us, and are therefore more likely to be risk-averse for that reason.)

They still only have 33% of their money in equities — a slow climb back from the 25% lows seen at the end of 2008. Ominously, while that 33% figure does not seem very high, it nonetheless equals the levels seen just before the crash. And the rich told surveys that they are planning to ramp up their equity holdings pretty substantially this year.

Real estate makes up 15% of the average allocation and gold and other alternative investments are down to 5%. The lesson learned 3 years ago is that real estate can be a risky investment (although housing is probably near a generational low price now at the moment), and for most small investors this has entailed a disproportionately large percentage of savings, even to the point that most of us are leveraged with a mortgage.

Your job is the best place to earn income-- learn a skill that is valued by society-- investments should be primarily for wealth preservation. Three lessons: 1) cash is an allocation, 2) not everyone should necessarily own a house, and 3) everyone is trying to sell you something, even your 401(k) adviser.

Jon Stewart was correct about Fox News

Fox News has spent the past week defending itself against the claims of Jon Stewart who

Bill Gross and Bill Clinton: we need more stimulus!

With economic pain lingering and our leaders flailing about looking for solutions, two stalwarts from the financial and political worlds have chimed in. Bill Gross, founder of PIMCO, one of the premier bond mangers-- and notably stationed in California well away from Wall Street-- has called for Congress to increase direct federal spending to stimulate employment by investing in our ailing and archaic infrastructure.

Likewise, former President Bill Clinton has laid out a 14-point plan to bring smart jobs and increase energy efficiency with direct federal spending. The only question I have is why so little of this has been done to date. A crushing deflationary recession and increasing needs for fuel, food and functional jobs... this is a screaming call for stimulative Keynesian spending.

Clearly the increase in Federal Reserve liquidity alone has not increased jobs and we need direct federal spending on a massive scale. We learned this lesson in the 1930's and 40's, the last deflationary cycle that didn't end until Europe, Japan and the US put everyone back to work killing each other. It would be nice if we had learned that lesson well enough to obviate another world war. If Obama doesn't do something very soon to get unemployment below 8.5% his legacy will be of a one-term president who was elected with a mandate for change from a devoted and vibrant base, and instead he squandered his presidency on the status quo appealing to the tired tropes of endless war and wall street fat cats.

Obama could have been Marcus Aurelius and instead he chose to be Vitellius; could have been FDR, but opted alternatively to serve GWB's third term. It's really unbelieveable to me.

[One note: Bill Gross at PIMCO has been short Treasuries, so he's talking his book in wanting more deficit spending... but that doesn't make him wrong.]

Why academics tend to be Democrats

Jason Rosenhouse discusses the simple reasons that academics tend to be liberal and eschew the Republican Party for its "war on expertise":

The power brokers in the Republican party are primarily Wall Street barons and other members of the super rich. On domestic policy they care almost exclusively about redistributing wealth upwards and in creating an entirely unregulated
environment for corporations. The flip side is that anything that might benefit
poor or middle class people they oppose. That is why they will fight tooth and
nail to oppose the tiniest tax increase on millionaires, but will then turn
around and accuse schoolteachers (!!) of being greedy. It is why they openly
despise the public schools, and propose ludicrous, unworkable tax schemesthat
overwhelmingly benefit the super rich. It's why they are so horrified by the
idea that the health care system might be reformed to make it possible for
millions of uninsured to obtain insurance. (It's certainly not that they had a
better idea for reforming the system. And notice that when they controlled both
Congress and the Presidency from 2000-2006, they never even mentioned the health care crisis. As far as they are concerned, forty million people without health
insurance simply isn't a problem.)

The trouble is that if they actually said any of this clearly and publicly then no
one would vote for them. So instead they throw around incendiary decoy issues.
Behind closed doors they are perfectly happy to laugh at evangelical Christians,
but in public they will toss them a little red meat, say by appointing a crazy
judge or by cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood. (After all, it's mostly poor
women who are hurt by such cuts, and who cares about them?) Or they produce an
endless string of boogeymen only they can protect us from. (It's the gays! It's
the Muslims! It's the illegal immigrants!)

On the issues where they openly defy the scientific consensus, it is easy to see
why they do so. The sorts of things we would do combat global warming might hurt
certain corporate interests, so they have to oppose global warming. Evolution is
quite correctly seen as menacing to religious belief, which means they must
oppose it too. The power brokers couldn't care less about science education or
whether homosexual couples are given the benefits of civil marriage, but their
religious supporters do, so they pretend to care when speaking publicly.

They tend to have success with these approaches first because there is a very large
moron vote in this country (the technical term is “low-information voters”) that
is easily scared and doesn't actually know anything about anything. But they are
also successful because on these issues they are largely telling people what
they want to hear. If liberals were selling the message that you can eat ice
cream all day long without getting fat, then all the right-wing think tanks in
the world would not be able to defeat them. It's just that, on the issues where
science and politics tend to meet, the right-wingers are defending the more
pleasant position. Liberals are the ones saying our way of life is
unsustainable, conservatives are saying we can just keep doing what we're doing.
Liberals are the ones saying that we evolved from lower orders of animals,
conservatives are saying the local preacher understands these subjects better
than the eggheads. Liberals are saying that gay couples should have the same
rights as straight ones, conservatives are saying homosexuality is icky and
unnatural. In each case they are affirming what large segments of the population
already want to believe.

[Emphases mine] There was a time not too long ago that Republicans could be intellectually honest and not kow-tow to the extreme right-wing. Bill Buckley dressing down the John Birchers comes to mind, something that would never happen today. Rather, we have Newt ostracized because he got lax on message discipline and stated the facts about the unworkability of Paul Ryan's fantasy Medicare fix.

Remember when Nixon signed the EPA into existence? Something else that would never happen today. The GOP has moved into the farthest corner of silliness and the power brokers are laughing all the way to the bank. But the corollary effect is that the Democratic Party, while marginally better, has also moved further toward silliness. After all, they only need to appease enough of the middle to get re-elected while still remaining loyal to the plutocrats, therefore we still have "health reform" written by insurance companies, endless wars that enrich defense contractors, and bailouts that protect Wall Street bonuses while we tear apart our social safety nets-- and there are no checks on the power (Why that is is another issue, but see Jon Stewart's interview with Chris Wallace for a clue.).

Jon Stewart on Fox

Chris Wallace interviews the Daily Show host.

In his sternest moment, Stewart refers to the misinformed Fox viewers, which is the main point-- indeed, the only point-- of this entire discussion about the media. Representative government is the only political system that relies on a well-informed populace, and the fourth estate has a well-defined part in the drama. If you are not educating the viewers then you are either entertaining or propagandizing. Period. Those are the only 3 choices. Next time you watch the evening news, MSNBC, CNN or FOX ask yourself:

Am I being educated, entertained or propagandized?

And before the false equivalence comes down, look at the chyron in the lower left corner of Fox News to see what they purport to be doing.

NEJM: Dutch experience shows limits of competition in health care

From New England Journal of Medicine:

Discussions about U.S. health care reform are often parochial, with scant attention paid to other countries' experiences. It is thus surprising that in the ongoing debate over Medicare, some U.S. commentators have turned to the Netherlands as a model of regulated competition among private insurance companies.1 The Dutch experience is particularly relevant given the proposal by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to eliminate traditional Medicare and instead provide beneficiaries with vouchers to purchase private insurance. (The Republican majority in the House passed the Ryan plan as part of the 2012 budget resolution, but it was defeated in the Senate.)

It is easy to understand why Dutch health care — which does rely on regulated private insurance — would appeal to advocates of Medicare vouchers. Indeed, U.S. ideas about managed competition helped to shape health care reform in the Netherlands.2 But careful examination of the Dutch experience shows that insurance competition has not produced the expected benefits and in fact has created new problems, calling into question the merits of this reform model and its suitability for Medicare.

[snip]

The myth that competition has been key to cost containment in the Netherlands has obscured a crucial reality. Health care systems in Europe, Canada, Japan, and beyond, all of which spend much less than the United States on medical services, rely on regulation of prices, coordinated payment, budgets, and in some cases limits on selected expensive medical technologies, to contain health care spending.5 Systemwide regulation of spending, rather than competition among insurers, is the key to controlling health care costs. The Netherlands, after all, spent much less on medical care than the United States with virtually universal insurance coverage long before it began experimenting with managed competition in 2006.

The Dutch experience provides a cautionary tale about the place of private insurance competition in health care reform. The Dutch reforms have fallen far short of expectations — a reminder that policy intentions should not be confused with outcomes and that managed competition is hardly a panacea. The idea that the Dutch reforms provide a successful model for U.S. Medicare to emulate is bizarre. The Dutch case in fact underscores the pitfalls of the casual use (and misuse) of international experience in U.S. health care reform debates.5 Before we learn from other countries' experiences with medical care, we first need to learn about them.

Mulch-a-Matic will destroy it

The Bifurcation of society: Chumps and Hustlers

The Cunning Realist has a story from TAC pointing out that we have become a nation of Chumps and Hustlers:

The world is becoming much more of this hustlers game. The conservative folk, who survive by playing it straight, see rules change and bend before their eyes....

The old and unworldly had the worst of it. Many were driven to begging, many to suicide. The young and quick-witted did well. Overnight they became free, rich, and independent. It was a situation in which mental inertia and reliance on past experience were punished by starvation and death, but rapid appraisal of new situations and speed of reaction were rewarded with sudden, vast riches. -Sebastian Haffner on the early 20's Weimar economy in Defying Hitler

Another story from Marketwatch outlines a scam where unscrupulous real estate agents convince sellers to take a loss on their property in a sale to a pre-arranged buyer with the agent and buyer splitting the profits. Illegal? Unethical? Who cares? It's the wild West and the honest folk lose their life's savings.

What we are slouching toward is not the result of true conservatism, it is the result of a decade where the grifters wrote the rules and carried away or destroyed the wealth that had taken three generations to build. We lack the vigilance needed to protect our cherished institutions and now they are in shambles.

Congress cannot or will not appoint the necessary watchdogs because their corporate paymasters dictate otherwise, yet these same Congressmen have ample time to exhibit their genitalia on social media and airport bathrooms. We fight unnecessary wars and ignore the health, welfare and education of our own people; we operate out of irrational fear of Islamic terror while the real threat is from financial terrorists within our own borders and institutions.

I'm a firm believer that the complex dynamic system will correct eventually, but I am absolutely amazed at how much pain the common citizen is willing to endure in order to protect a status quo that is lining the pockets of charlatans at the expense of working folks. When the bureaucrats scream "We're broke", we readily entertain the elimination of Medicare and health care for each other yet allow the military-industrial complex and the banking industry to wallow in unregulated and unfettered greed.

If you're not the hustler, then you must be the...

Greenwald: Weiner and repressed titillation

From Glenn Greenwald:

Yes, Anthony Weiner lied -- about something that is absolutely nobody's business but his and his wife's. If you're not his wife, you have absolutely no legitimate reason to want to know about -- let alone pass judgment on -- what he does in his private sexual life with other consenting adults. Particularly repellent is the pretense of speaking out on behalf of his wife, as though anyone knows what her perspectives on such matters are or what their relationship entails. The only reason to want to wallow in the details of Anthony Weiner's sex life is because of the voyeuristic titillation it provides: a deeply repressed culture celebrates when it finds cause to be able to talk about penises and naked pictures and oral sex while hiding behind some noble pretext. On some level, I find the behavior of the obviously loathsome Andrew Breitbart preferable; at least he's honest about his motive: he hates Democrats and liberals and wants sadistically to destroy them however he can. It's the empty, barren, purse-lipped busybodies who cannot stay out of other adults' private and sexual lives -- while pretending to be elevated -- that are the truly odious villains here.

In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf argues that the private consensual sexual activities of politicians are none of our business, and in reply, Megan McArdle insists that "society has [an] interest in whether people keep their vows" in marriage and thus it's a good thing "to use a few of our precious news hours to say, 'Hey, not okay'!" Except McArdle has absolutely no idea what vows Weiner and his wife have made to each other, and she shouldn't know, because it's none of her business, despite her eagerness to learn about it and publicly condemn it. Even if she had any idea of what she was talking about -- and she plainly doesn't -- nothing is less relevant than Megan McArdle's views of the arrangement Anthony Weiner and his wife have for their marriage and whether each partner is adhering to that arrangement. That a journalist at The Atlantic wants to talk about this, and dig into the details, and issue judgments about it, says all one needs to know about our press corps.

Yes, this is really none of our business and I agree that investigative journalists could use their time better looking into more important matters, but I disagree that this is only about voyeuristic titillation. The Republicans, such as Rep Cantor, who have asked for Weiner's resignation are more correct than the few Democrats who have downplayed Weiner's shenanigans. The GOP has fallen into the crevice of political dialog where they have taken the side that all government is bad and Anthony Weiner can be used as yet one more example of the decrepitude of the institution of Congress. The Democrats are the ones who have always made the case that federalization of things such as health care, bank regulation and retirement Social Security can make for better society, so when their members are wanking their... er.. members on Twitter instead of ironing out solutions to our economic and social ills, it is especially poignant. If government is so necessary, then for chrissakes let's take it seriously.

Sure, Sen. John Ensign was screwing his best friend's wife and paying hush money, but he's a Republican and isn't that expected? Sure, Sen. David Vitter was prancing around in diapers in probably illegal (uninvestigated) trysts with prostitutes. Sure, Sen. Larry Craig was getting his balls washed by male consorts in airport bathrooms until he was arrested. But these guys have never made a pretense that government is anything but counterproductive and have always maintained that all federal employees are bums. Hasn't the GOP always been the party of taking it to us without even the courtesy of a reach around? And what could be more emblematic of that than such lewd behavior, all worse than Weiner's by the way?

While I may agree with Greenwald that engaging in titillation is a distraction, I would say that Democratic voters should be aware that behavior such as Weiner's only emboldens Republican voters in their belief that government is unnecessary and evil. We are in the midst of a fundamental discussion of what and how much of our lives we should entrust to government.

I happen to believe that the federal government should be, needs to be, recruited to manage and regulate and ensure our well-being on various important issues, and therefore I hold Democrats, who are elected to serve the people by forming a more perfect government, to a higher standard. I don't need to see pictures of Weiner's dick, but I can say that New York voters need to speak against their Representative's behavior... by not re-electing him. We need individuals in Congress who are awake and paying attention in order to counter-act the fixed number of cynical clowns who will always be there to represent their corporate overlords.

Is there an epidemic of mental illness? UPDATE

Marcia Angell, MD, the often critic of the pharmaceutical industry, has reviewed three books that address the status of psychiatry. From the New York Review of Books:

It seems that Americans are in the midst of a raging epidemic of
mental illness, at least as judged by the increase in the numbers treated for
it. The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify
for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)
increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007—from one in 184
Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling—a
thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the
leading cause of disability in children, well ahead of physical disabilities
like cerebral palsy or Down syndrome, for which the federal programs were
created.

Read the whole article. Our society is medicated beyond belief and the efficacy and long term effects of these psychoactive drugs are suspect, especially in children. The conflicts of interests among doctors, patients and industry is examined.

____________________________
UPDATE

Part two of the 2-part article:

At the very least, we need to stop thinking of psychoactive drugs as the
best, and often the only, treatment for mental illness or emotional distress.
Both psychotherapy and exercise have been shown to be as effective as drugs for
depression, and their effects are longer-lasting, but unfortunately, there is no
industry to push these alternatives and Americans have come to believe that
pills must be more potent. More research is needed to study alternatives to
psychoactive drugs, and the results should be included in medical
education.

In particular, we need to rethink the care of troubled children. Here
the problem is often troubled families in troubled circumstances. Treatment
directed at these environmental conditions—such as one-on-one tutoring to help
parents cope or after-school centers for the children—should be studied and
compared with drug treatment. In the long run, such alternatives would probably
be less expensive. Our reliance on psychoactive drugs, seemingly for all of
life’s discontents, tends to close off other options. In view of the risks and
questionable long-term effectiveness of drugs, we need to do better. Above all,
we should remember the time-honored medical dictum: first, do no harm (primum
non nocere).

So much of medicine is unscientific-- one of the glaring disappointments I've always had with the profession-- but few things are less scientific or more reckless than treating kids with antipsychotics.

Firms to halt health insurance coverage

From Marketwatch:

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

The survey of 1,300 employers says those who are keenly aware of the health-reform measure probably are more likely to consider an alternative to employer-sponsored plans, with 50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch.

My comment: This is not a bad thing, employer-based health insurance is an anachronistic inefficiency left over from the wage-control era of the last century. It was bound to be destroyed with the next deflationary cycle in the employment market-- which is now. This will allow individuals more mobility and choice, and my prediction is that it's one step closer Medicare-for-all basic national health insurance which can be supplemented by private policies.

Rosalyn Yalow, Dead at 89

One of the first female Nobel Laureates, revered alumna of the University of Illinois at Urbana, discoverer of the radioimmunoassay among other things. From the NYT:

World War II and the draft were creating academic opportunities for women; to her delight, Dr. Yalow was awarded a teaching assistantship at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. She tore up her steno books and headed to Champaign-Urbana, becoming the first woman to join the engineering school’s faculty in 24 years.

Dr. Yalow received her doctorate in nuclear physics in 1945, and went to teach at Hunter College the following year. When she could not find a research position, she volunteered to work in a medical lab at Columbia University, where she was introduced to the new field of radiotherapy. She moved to the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, now the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as a part-time researcher in 1947 and began working full time in 1950. That same year, she began her 22-year collaboration with Dr. Berson.

In their work on radioimmunoassay, Dr. Yalow and Dr. Berson used radioactive tracers to measure hormones that were otherwise difficult or impossible to detect because they occur in extremely low concentrations. They went on to use the test to measure concentrations of vitamins, viruses and other substances in the body.

I remember passing her portrait at the Illini Union on the many nights I spent there studying. An inspiration.

A Guide to the Good Life, by William Irvine

The author, a philosophy professor, appropriately subtitles his book The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.This is unlike any book I've read and presents philosophy in an entirely practical way. 

 Sure, we've all read the standard Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, but Irvine begins by putting the study of philosophy into context. The ancient Greeks were the very first members of Western Civilization to have been afforded the luxury of time to actually think about the big questions of existence, happiness and metaphysics. As such they sat down and codified the nature of the human condition and it's relationship with the natural and the divine. Irvine points out that a leap occurred in human understanding in the 6th century BCE and over the intervening centuries philosophers had every intention of solving the mystery of why we were here and what makes us happy and fulfilled. To me, they were like the Google and Apple engineers of their day.

Various systems, or schools, were developed: the Stoics, Aristotle's Academy, the Cynics, the Epicureans, etc. They competed for followers by presenting true philosophies for living and not just presenting ivory tower psychobabble. Irvine concentrates on the Stoics and points out that the goal of this system was to eliminate or mitigate negative emotions, only in the modern vernacular has stoicism (small S) come to mean the elimination of all emotion. In jargon-free prose, Irvine presents a readable synopsis of philosophy and puts it into a context that makes it real.

There have been several famous Stoics, including Zeno, Epictetus, Cicero, Seneca and the Roman leader Marcus Aurelius. The Greek schools fell out of favor for various reasons as Christianity rose to political prominence in the first centuries after Christ.

Irvine says that humans are programmed to seek pleasure and this is a constantly increasing urge that saps our enjoyment of the world. He terms this adaptive hedonism: that no matter how comfortable or pleasurable our lives become, we soon adapt and need more, more, more. Without breaking this cycle of ever-increasing hedonism, we become miserable. Buddhists would call this attachment. Irvine presents psychological techniques developed by the first Stoics that are designed to increase our satisfaction with our current situation.

The first technique is negative visualization. The ancients would instruct their students to visualize, or imagine, the very worst case scenario or outcome. No matter how gruesome or disturbing, we should picture losing everything: our family, our job, our home, our health. This prepares us for the absolute worst and when these negative situations do not materialize, we gain more satisfaction and gratitude for the things we have. I would note that this is anathema to the usual teaching of modern Western society which instructs us to think positive! and avoid negative thoughts. Irvine points out that this attitude only increases our desire for more, and decreases our enjoyment of what we have.

Irvine admits that negative visualization seems counter-intuitive, but such active techniques are important especially in kids who can become jaded as they compete for the latest trendy consumer items or experiences. Just as a near-death catastrophe, such as a car accident or illness, can temporarily jolt someone out of their jadedness and put things into a cleaner perspective, negative visualization can do the same thing-- only it's actually more effective because it is done regularly, consciously and with discipline.

The Stoics also advocate a program of voluntary discomfort, such as fasting or wearing too little clothing in the cold, or making other physical sacrifices-- a practice which is done by many if not most religions in some manner...think hair-shirts and self-flagellation.  The Stoics taught that such practices, if done properly (and self-flagellation may not be considered a proper technique), have positive consequences on levels of happiness and satisfaction in life, and it also prepares us for the times when such sacrifices are necessary. As such, we become more confident that we could withstand hard times, if they ever were to come our way, thus increasing our joy and satisfaction in our current relatively plentiful situation.

Irvine also points out the power of self-deprecation (wisdom), self-denial (humility), concentrating only on factors that we can truly control (very few as it turns out), and eschewing worry about things we cannot change. The ultimate goal of the practice of Stoicism is to increase tranquility in our lives ... and to increase joy. Some individuals have natural tendencies toward Stoicism, while others would fight these techniques and view them as counter-productive or silly. Irvine points out that most, if not all, of Stoicism can be perfectly consistent with other religions and can easily be incorporated into Christianity, Buddhism and other faiths.

Personally, I tend toward many of the Stoic ideals already, and always have. Reading this book was refreshing... to know that some of my crazy behaviors have actually been codified by ancient philosophers and that more modern psychological techniques describe some of my behaviors; negative visualization does not lead to pessimism, and has been invaluable to me in my job. Irvine gives examples of meditations and practices that follow this philosophy-- and it is a way to live your life. True happiness does come from living within your means, knowing your limitations and practicing self-control, and as Irvine says, the most amazing-- truly amazing-- thing is that sometimes out of the blue a burst of unrestrained joy will come when you least expect it.

My review has not done the book justice. Irvine is a gifted writer and philosopher and this book gets my highest recommendation.

Stand-Up: Long Story Short, with Colin Quinn

Funny. If you have HBO on Demand, watch it... if not then rent it.

Preview

Documentary: Inside Job, Director Charles Ferguson

An excellent documentary on the 2008 financial meltdown that brought down the world economy. It exhaustively outlines all the factors involved: the massive compensation packages, the lousy debt ratings, malicious financial engineering, lax regulation, outright theft and massive conflict of interest. Anyone who thinks the system is now okay is delusional.

One exchange:

Charles Ferguson interviewing John Campbell, Chairman Harvard Economics Department:

CHARLES FERGUSON: Does Harvard require disclosures of financial conflict of
interest in publications?
JOHN CAMPBELL: Um, not to my knowledge.

CHARLES FERGUSON: Do you require people to report the compensation they’ve
received from outside activities?
JOHN CAMPBELL: No.
CHARLES FERGUSON: Don't you think that's a problem?
JOHN CAMPBELL: I don't see why.
CHARLES FERGUSON: Martin Feldstein being on the board of AIG; Laura Tyson going
on the board of Morgan Stanley; uh, Larry Summers making 10 million dollars a year
consulting to financial services firms; irrelevant.
JOHN CAMPBELL: Hm, ye-, well – yeah; basically irrelevant.


CHARLES FERGUSON: A medical researcher writes an article, saying: to treat this
disease, you should prescribe this drug. It turns out Doctor makes 80 percent of
personal income from manufacturer of this drug. Does not bother you.
JOHN CAMPBELL: I think, uh, it's certainly important to disclose the, um – the, um. Well, I think that's also a little different from cases that we are talking about
here. Because, um – um –

Yeah, right. Whatever faults the medical profession may have, we have not sold our soul for a house in the Hamptons. Ferguson interviews many of the big players and provides lengthy clips of poignant moments. The entire movie is well-done, if you can stomach it.

Catholics make stuff up...

Jerry Coyne gets theological:

The Assumption—the Catholic “truth” that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven—was proclaimed an official dogma of the Church by Pope Pius XII in his Munificentissimus Deus on November 1, 1950. This was announced ex cathedra, so it’s an irrefutable truth coming directly from God. The Pope said:

For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

{snip}

Now the Bible says exactly nothing about Mary’s death or fate. As the Catholic Encyclopedia states, “Regarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady’s death, nothing certain is known.” The doctrine of the Assumption was made up centuries after the supposed death of Jesus. As usual, this fabrication rested on dubious interpretation of the Bible, Church “tradition” (i.e., stuff that Church fathers made up), and “reason” (i.e., theological “logic”).

Coyne reviews the dubious "evidence" used to corroborate this belief: spurious passages from Psalms and Revelation, and letters from various saints from the 5th century CE. Not convinced yet?

Finally, to Pope Pius, Mary’s assumption must be true simply because it makes sense:

Among the scholastic theologians there have not been lacking those who, wishing to inquire more profoundly into divinely revealed truths and desirous of showing the harmony that exists between what is termed the theological demonstration and the Catholic faith, have always considered it worthy of note that this privilege of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption is in wonderful accord with those divine truths given us in Holy Scripture.

When they go on to explain this point, they adduce various proofs to throw light on this privilege of Mary. As the first element of these demonstrations, they insist upon the fact that, out of filial love for his mother, Jesus Christ has willed that she be assumed into heaven. They base the strength of their proofs on the incomparable dignity of her divine motherhood and of all those prerogatives which follow from it. These include her exalted holiness, entirely surpassing the sanctity of all men and of the angels, the intimate union of Mary with her Son, and the affection of preeminent love which the Son has for his most worthy Mother.

That’s about all the “evidence” for a bedrock doctrine of Catholic faith. In fact, it’s considered such a solid truth that if you deny it or scoff at it, you’ll go to hell!

The presentation of "evidence" for the Assumption tries to mimic empiricism. I always find it interesting when various religions try to give a veneer of respectability to their beliefs by presenting “evidence” that their mythologies are real. They torture logic and reason and call their fantasies logical and reasonable. I would have more respect for them if they’d just just chalked it up to an article of faith and moved on. Instead their leaders say with a straight face that the Assumption makes sense.

Good stuff, read the whole post.

Who exactly is Anti-American?

From Glenn Greenwald, presented without comment:

Obama's call for a peace deal ultimately "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps" is not even arguably a change from past American policy. Though he's the first President to publicly call for such an outcome, that's been the working premise of American policy for decades. It's controversial in one sense -- it unduly rewards Israel for its illegal seizures of land by suggesting they should be able to permanently keep West Bank settlements (the "land swap" aspect of the formula) -- but it does not remotely constitute a step in an anti-Israel direction.

[snip]

The Right Wing Noise Machine all but accused Obama of trying to destroy Israel, with the GOP's leading presidential candidates condemning the President for the crime of "disrespecting" and "throwing Israel under the bus," Glenn Beck denouncing him for "betraying Israel," and Matt Drudge exploiting ignorance to screech in headlines that "Obama Sides With Palestinians." Meanwhile, a former AIPAC spokesman demanded that Obama take a renewed public pledge of devotion to Israel, and circulated to the media statements of condemnation from numerous "pro-Israel" Democrats in Congress. The neoconservative Israel-devotees at The Washington Post editorialized against Obama and predictably blamed him for the resulting tension with Netanyahu, siding (as usual) with this foreign government over their own. And a Reuters article this morning claims that "some prominent Jewish Americans are rethinking their support for President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid" due to that speech...

[snip]

Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress - having been invited by House Republicans -- and David Frum :

I think a better question is whether the ovation will be longer and more enthusiastic than those accorded American Presidents. It is ironic indeed that the same GOP members who will stand and cheer wildly for this foreign leader in conflict with their own country's President are typically the first to scream "unpatriotic!" accusations at others.

Read the whole thing.

Why the GOP will lose the health care debate

From NPR:

"Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty."

But Hatch's opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.

But it's actually worse than this. Republicans in the House have voted to basically repeal Medicare and make it a voucher system. Who pays when seniors exercise their "liberty" to eschew health insurance either out of necessity or desire? If the Republicans want to trust liberty-- I mean really trust it-- then they would repeal the EMTALA statutes signed by Reagan that require hospitals and physicians to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.

Only the most naive don't know how this is supposed to work: The result will be that healthy seniors will get insurance, with the GOP's overlords in the insurance industry taking their prodigious cut, and the sick who cannot afford coverage will just get treated for free in the emergency departments. Win-win for the plutocrats.

The fact is that the Republicans fetish for the language of "liberty" is all bullshit. Their desire for true liberty is as synthetic as Newt's Catholicism, John Ensign's family values and Arnold's marriage.

Fox News as performance art, right?

Ginandtacos:

Conservatives enthusiastically argue that all news networks are equally biased and therefore any one is as good as the others. This is of course nothing but a defense mechanism, and an understandable one at that. We all watch what flatters our own ideological predispositions, but surely any sentient person watching Fox knows, on a very deep and basic level, that he is watching not actual news but performance artists doing their impression of news. Right? I mean, throw me a bone here. Tell me that people who watch this are self aware enough to realize that it's essentially entertainment programming. They don't actually watch this network and think "I'm watchin' the news! I'm learnin' important stuff!" do they?

Florida State University whores itself out

FSU has taken money from the Kochs and ceded academic freedom in return, all for $1.5 million:

A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.

A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."

Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they've funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.

PZ Myers is diplomatic when he says:

If I were a faculty member who found my choice of colleagues dictated by Koch (or Soros, or Gates, or any similar filthy rich dilettante), I'd be a bit peevish, and I don't think the golden candidate would get much respect from his peers. On the other hand, if I were applying for a job and was rejected because I didn't fit the ideology of the Koch brothers, I'd feel darned good and also be well satisfied that I wasn't going to be affiliated with such a cheap brothel university.

On the third hand, if I were a graduate of the econ department of FSU, I'd be extremely embarrassed about my degree at this point.

Peevish? This is criminal, or should be. FSU alumni and faculty should be incensed, a labor strike and withholding of alumni contributions is certainly in order.

Pitzer College in California Adds Major in Secularism

From the NYT:

Starting this fall, Pitzer College, a small liberal arts institution in Southern California, will inaugurate a department of secular studies. Professors from other departments, including history, philosophy, religion, science and sociology, will teach courses like “God, Darwin and Design in America,” “Anxiety in the Age of Reason” and “Bible as Literature.”

When I was at the University of Chicago, we called this curriculum "Liberal Arts", otherwise known as "How to think", but maybe the concept is due for a new name and a new approach.

What we can learn from economists

Greg Mankiw wants answers: “After more than a quarter-century as a professional economist, I have a confession to make: There is a lot I don’t know about the economy. Indeed, the area of economics where I have devoted most of my energy and attention — the ups and downs of the business cycle — is where I find myself most often confronting important questions without obvious answers…”

Barry Ritholtz gives them to him: "Let’s put aside the fundamental error of classical economics — that Humans are rational, self-interested, profit maximizing creatures. They are clearly not; Humans are actually irrational social animals with flawed cognitive apparatus. Frequently emotional, occasionally self-destructive, often times erratic, humans only rarely exhibit the traits that economics ascribe to them. If the study of economics begins with such a shaky foundation, is it any wonder they get so much wrong?"

Lesson: listen to economists at your own peril.

The Perils of False Certainty

Jason Rosenhouse at Evolutionblog has an excellent post on doubt.

I find it galling that it always seems to be atheists who get lectured about false certainty, or who get likened to religious fundamentalists in their dogmatism. Unless the intention is to say that fundamentalists meticulously sift the evidence to assess the balance of probabilities, and then hold their conclusions tentatively pending the arrival of new evidence, the comparison is completely inapt.

On the other hand, I see considerably less criticism of statements like this: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” That's from Pope John Paul II. It takes some serious audacity for the Pope, who claims to be able to speak infallibly at least some of the time, and who heads an organization that claims to be in a privileged position to interpret the scriptures, to scold others about false absolutes.

David Koch, professional Douchebag

I'm no big war cheerleader and I classify the killing of Osama bin Laden as necessary but not sufficient for justice to be done. As an act of war I have no problem with killing an unarmed terrorist, it's his own damn fault that he didn't have the wherewithal to be armed. One more dead asshole who had it coming. And who gets credit? Who cares, but yes the entire community of intelligence and covert services, including two presidential administrations, deserve credit.

Bring on David Koch, billionaire dickhead and gadfly, who gives no credit to the current president:

"...all that Obama did was say 'yea' or 'nay,' we’re going to take him out or not. I don’t think he contributed much at all. He just made the decision, it was obvious where the guy is. He was one of the worst terrorists organizing attacks on the United States. I mean, no president in his right mind would not approve that decision to go eliminate him. So he’s getting a lot of recognition and his polls have jumped up, but his decision was the easiest of them all. The real hard work was done by the intelligence and the SEALs."

I don’t think he contributed much at all. How does he know? So before the anemones even have a chance to eat through bin Laden's dermis, Koch is dismissing the decision-making surrounding the event. You could be sure that if the mission had failed, Koch would have been the first to pin all responsibility on Obama.

It's official: The White Sox are unwatchable

I've come to expect a bad outcome as the White Sox find a new way to lose most every night. If it's not bad baserunning, then it's sloppy fielding or atrocious relief pitching. Tonight was the final blow, whereby i swear off watching them until they can show some skill. A struggling Francisco Liriano of the Minnesota Twins faced a struggling Edwin Jackson on a cold night at US Cellular.

Not only did the White Sox hitters fail to help out Jackson's excellent one-run, 8-inning performance, but the White Sox failed to get even a hit. Yet another new way to lose, this time 1-0.

Kenny Williams (at right) should be beyond panicking at this point. He has spent more than most teams in major league baseball and is not only failing, but failing miserably. He's paid too much for his center fielder, his designated hitter and his left fielder. The bullpen, for lack of a better term, sucks, and Jake Peavy is still out.

The bright side: I'll have more time in the evenings to get other constructive things done.