Obamacare Disaster

Jennifer Rubin describes Obamacare as "an expensive, jobs-crippling monstrosity that is filled with unintended consequences." One of the consequences, according to Rubin (quoting an AP), is that more middle-class people will be put into Medicaid, which is already going bankrupt. She also attacks recent comments by Ezra Klein regarding Medicare Part D. I will be interested in seeing his response.

Law School Bubble

From: The Best Colleges

Glass Steagall

Joe Nocera waxes nostalgic about Glass-Steagall. I agree that it was a good law that helped kept the banking system out of trouble for 70 years. I think its repeal was the biggest cause of the financial crisis. What would it take to bring it back?

Virginia 9th Freest

My state of Virginia is ranked 9th freest in a study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. I think Virginia may be the most well situated state in the Union. Other relatively free states are in much more remote areas. New Hampshire is number 1, followed by South Dakota, Indiana and then Idaho. Virginia borders the federal behemoth of Washington, DC. As a result it can take advantage of the jobs made available by the bloated federal government while not overburdening its citizens with taxes and regulations. Maryland also borders DC but it is ranked 43rd. For government contractors, it is much more beneficial to locate in Virginia because of its lower taxes and regulations.

Yemen - Another War in the Mid-East

Even as we go broke, we are deepening our military involvement in yet another Middle Eastern country. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen - where will it end? Obama was originally a peace candidate but isn't he as big a warmonger as Bush was?

Krauthammer v Palin

Charles Krauthammer sarcastically confesses to being the longest liberal sleeper agent in history. I don't care what Rush or Mark Levin or anybody else says, I'm a big fan of Krauthammer's. Not everyone has to worship Sarah Palin. I think his remarks about her were very accurate. Just because some people unfairly attack Palin doesn't mean she's above criticism.

Should Wiener Stay in Congress

Karl Denninger makes a compelling case that Wiener should be forced out of Congress for his lies. While his actions in sending photos of himself to women are not illegal (assuming none of the women were underage), he blatantly lied about. Even worse, he falsely claimed that his account had been hacked, which is a serious crime. Continually lying and falsely alleging a crime has been committed are actions that should raise questions about one's fitness for high office. Can we trust our government officials if they are so dishonest? If they are dishonest about these personal matters can they be trusted on policy issues?

The Daily Beast points to possible ethics violations beyond the lies. Indeed, if he used a government computer or phone to engage in this activity there should be some consequences. People are often fired for misusing government or other employer's computer for such activities.

Sarah Palin's Midnight Ride

The Washington Post has a pretty fair-minded appraisal of Sarah Palin's version of Paul Revere's ride. The funny thing is even though she complained about "gotcha" questions, the only question she was asked was what did she learn that day. She should have stopped her answer after the first sentence, "We saw where Paul Revere hung out as a teenager, which was something new to learn." As the Post's fact checker says, the rest of her answer was "presented...in such a free-form manner that it left her the butt of jokes and blogosphere commentary." Both Palin and Michelle Bachman have made embarrassing mistakes about basic US history. It doesn't create a lot of confidence in either of their ability be a credible candidate.

End Medicare as We Know it?

Paul Samuelson tells us "Why we must end Medicare 'as we know it'". He makes a lot more sense to me than Krugman in his continual attacks on Ryan's medicare plans. Medicare is a major driver of skyrocketing health costs. It has to be reformed to bring healthcare costs down. Krugman points to the Canadian system as a one that is similar to Medicare but is able to control costs. Maybe but definitely something has to be done soon. Samuelson points out the failure of previous attempts to control costs by tinkering with the details of the system.

Why is Gary Johnson being excluded from a CNN debate? He's at 3% in the polls which is similar to other candidates that were invited. He seems like an interesting candidate and has an libertarian outlook that I admire. I hope CNN can be persuaded to change its mind.

Unexpected

Megan McArdle points to the unexpected lack of interested in the High Risk Health Insurance Pools, established under Obamacare. She didn't expect Obamacare to work the way it was advertised to, but even she is surprised at the pathetically small participation in these pools. It really shows how large, centrally planned systems don't work as expected in a huge and complicated industry.