HIDING HEALTH CARE UNDER THE STIMULUS - Just A Minute Radio for Monday Feb. 16, 2009

            Howdy Once Again –

 

            Monday was forecast to be a bit cloudy… actually earlier forecasts called for snow – but this hasn’t been the absolute *best* year for weathercasters. In fact they’ve had a string of poor years. Problem is the weather is -- well… unpredictable. Why do we keep on trying? 

 

            Same with the stock market… or all the financial markets. Why then do we think that throwing a couple more trillion greenbacks in the hopper will do the trick?  The answer is in the word PERCEPTION or Faith… or belief in what may happen. It’s been fairly evident since Alan Greenspan admitted before a Congressional Committee that he – the long standing ex-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board [who, it is said claimed for himself the title of the world’s greatest, living economist] -- that body that is supposed to know everything about everything – possibly made a mistake in the management of interest re-discount rate between banks (whatever that is) and contributed a teensy-bit to the problems than now plague us.

 

            Oh well… no one wins in the blame game. Even historians will never get it right on who is, or was, at fault. For years we’ve heard FDR America spending its way out of the Recession… Now some people have the temerity to question that. There are folks even writing books about how wrong we were. But old legends die hard – and we tend to cling to our Teddy Bears and Fairy Tales.

 

            All that to say – it became evident there might have been a lot of highly touted people (as well as highly compensated people) arguing over the levers of power but *nobody* really knew (or knows now) just how these problems are going to work out. It’s somewhat like that ill-fated crew flying the Continental Connection flight into Buffalo – they didn’t know what they were getting into until it was too late – and disaster resulted. The plain fact is – as most experienced pilots will tell you – there’s nothing certain about ice build up, how fast or with what effect. Because there’s nothing certain about the weather… how much moisture, exactly what temperatures are encountered, or the conditions those effects will have on the aircraft as you lower gear and/or flaps. They aren’t known – but they *are* real! So the only real solution is to change equipment, change locations, go back – or don’t fly at all! That’s what they do on AF One.

 

            That’s exactly the same situation with America’s economy right now. We’re flying in conditions which have varying parameters and their effects are not accurately predictable. Our best – or put another way – most useful tool, is the market. It predicts with considerable accuracy how much milk will be needed in New York tomorrow. No government bureaucracy can do that. If you don’t want to fly in those conditions – don’t. Go back… or don’t take off.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

                        Jack

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama02-16-09.mp3

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

HIDING HEALTH CARE BEHIND STIMULUS

Just A Minute – Friday, I said we’d try to say more about health care if the stimulus plan wasn’t signed. It’s now passed the House and Senate and is being flown to the President in the West. But you should still let your Senators and Congressmen know what you think.

It generally follows what Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton didn’t get in 1994.  A year ago Daschle wrote: “… the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said.

OK – he said it – that’s what’s happened. Just remember, it’s the largest employer in the U.S. – accounting for almost 17 percent of GDP – but it treats health care like the Europeans do: a cost problem rather than a growth industry. If autos or electronics were treated the same way – we’d have no innovation – in fact it’s probably dangerous to your health – just like in Canada or Great Britain -- but Obama demanded it and it passed it in less than 24 hours, Crazy.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

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