Politics As Usual

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It's investing in t-bills at a very low rate of return, albeit with the low risk of non-repayment that all investors face.

It's not really investing when I take money from my bank account and stick it in my pocket. I'm just moving it around.

Let's ask club what he means by privatizing SS. All I'm saying is that whatever goal you want to accomplish through SS, you could probably do more efficiently if you contracted out. Unless that goal is intergenerational transfers of wealth, and even the admin for that could be privatized.

If you're going to pretend that the current alternative is investing, everything else will look good. In fact, it's an intergenerational transfer, with the promise that you will similarly get to stick it to the next generation when you're old enough to have nothing better to do than vote and play canasta.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In fact, it's an intergenerational transfer, with the promise that you will similarly get to stick it to the next generation when you're old enough to have nothing better to do than vote and play canasta.

By that point, we'd have to be sticking it to them like Robert Mugabe. That might fly in Africa, but not around here.

IF you're going to call it only an intergenerational tranfer then, yes, there's not much benefit, except some limited admin savings costs, that privatization will get you. But that's not the only debate--part of the debate is whether people should be forced to take some responsibility for their retirement savings in the form of investing themselves in a limited set of options.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
By that point, we'd have to be sticking it to them like Robert Mugabe. That might fly in Africa, but not around here.

IF you're going to call it only an intergenerational tranfer then, yes, there's not much benefit, except some limited admin savings costs, that privatization will get you. But that's not the only debate--part of the debate is whether people should be forced to take some responsibility for their retirement savings in the form of investing themselves in a limited set of options.

Didn't they recently find that for-profit (i.e., very market-driven) hospitals were less efficient than non-profit ones? I'm not convinced that changing to private admin would make things better. They'd start paying some jackass CEO an enormous amount of money and hire a bunch of over-paid useless consultants.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted on TAPPED
SOMEBODY BUY THE BUSH RESEARCH DEPARTMENT THAT LYNNE TRUSS BOOK. The latest missive from Bush-Cheney '04 attacking John Kerry's plans to combat terrorism is so patently contradicted by the examples of Kerry's writing it cites that it makes you wonder if the research department staffer who came up with this stuff is really this dense -- or if the campaign is just completely desperate to land a blow on an issue they used to own but are increasingly losing control of. Whatever the case, what's clear is that someone needs to send some copies of national best-seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation across the river, pronto.

The Bush-Cheney campaign says (all punctuation and formatting as per the original):

• In Book, Kerry Called Yasser Arafat "Statesman" And "Role Model." "Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman, while those whose only object is to disrupt society require no such 'role models.'" (Sen. John Kerry, The New War, 1997, pp. 112-113)

As you can see, though, Kerry never called Yasser Arafat a role model; he wrote that some see him as a "role model." Those scare quotes are key. They completely change the meaning of the words they surround. The scare quotes mean that Kerry is saying that some terrorist groups look up to Arafat, but that the author, Kerry, specifically contests this definition.

That is the standard meaning of the use of scare quotes as punctuation. To wit: "Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase from which you, the writer, wish to distance yourself because you consider that word or phrase to be odd or inappropriate for some reason." To quote Kerry correctly, the Bush campaign would have to have said that Kerry called Arafat a " 'role model' ." Except that level of accuracy would have made it clear that Kerry wasn't claiming the belief as his own.

As for calling Arafat a "statesman," it's clear from context -- like calling him an "outlaw" only two words before -- that Kerry isn't calling Arafat a wise and great diplomatic leader, but is using the other standard definition of the word, to refer to someone who is "actively engaged in conducting the business of a government or in shaping its policies," as my 2001 Merriam-Webster's defines it.

It's one thing to attack someone on their politics. It's quite another to deny the standard meanings of English words and punctuation practices in an effort to impute beliefs to someone that he clearly does not have.

--Garance Franke-Ruta
Posted at 03:55 PM

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Didn't they recently find that for-profit (i.e., very market-driven) hospitals were less efficient than non-profit ones?

I'd be interested in a cite. That said, I'm quite sure that health care anything is a terrible example of market forces. No one pays for anything themselves and the billing is entirely opaque.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
By that point, we'd have to be sticking it to them like Robert Mugabe. That might fly in Africa, but not around here.

Or we run a deficit, and stick it to their kids.

Once we get this cold fusion thing working, none of this is going to be a problem.

IF you're going to call it only an intergenerational transfer then, yes, there's not much benefit, except some limited admin savings costs, that privatization will get you. But that's not the only debate--part of the debate is whether people should be forced to take some responsibility for their retirement savings in the form of investing themselves in a limited set of options.

The people who are proposing this pretend it will be cheaper, because no one -- save for a few wild-eyed reactionaries in libertarian think tanks -- cares enough about instilling responsibility in the American public to pay what it would cost.

etft

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
TRUSS BOOK...

Or not


Shhhh -- don't tell DTB. -- T.S.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'd be interested in a cite. That said, I'm quite sure that health care anything is a terrible example of market forces. No one pays for anything themselves and the billing is entirely opaque.

And this differs from administering social security (as it is now, not with individual accounts) how? No one pays for anything themselves there, either.

See also growing concerns re: fund-level fees for 401(k) plans, which are individual account plans. The fees are "invisible" so no one notices. They just reduce returns by a LOT in the aggregate in the long run.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
And this differs from administering social security (as it is now, not with individual accounts) how? No one pays for anything themselves there, either.

See also growing concerns re: fund-level fees for 401(k) plans, which are individual account plans. The fees are "invisible" so no one notices. They just reduce returns by a LOT in the aggregate in the long run.

The cost savings in hospitals I doubt has to do with pure admin. It has to do with waste, overbilling, etc. If you're talking pure admin, which we are for SS, figure out whether Ross Perot or the US gov't is likely to do it better and cheaper.

As for 401(k)s, sure there are invisible fees. But I'm more hopeful of their visibility than the hidden costs taxpayers bear of administering a retirement system.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Let's ask club what he means by privatizing SS. All I'm saying is that whatever goal you want to accomplish through SS, you could probably do more efficiently if you contracted out. Unless that goal is intergenerational transfers of wealth, and even the admin for that could be privatized.

It's two fold. On the investing side, you give people some control over how their money is invested. This could be done with a portion or all of the money. You could also specify permitted investment types, which would essentially be "safe" investments. It's done all the time in other areas. If you are concerned that T-Bills are too risky, I submit that we would have far greater concerns than SS if the US Gov couldn't pay on its obligations.

On the administrative side, I would farm out the work because it can be done better and cheaper in the private sector. I don't have the stats in front of me, but Friedman has documented that $X out of each $100 goes to administration, where X is a ridiculously high number.*

*This is not a response to my conversation with Sidd. I obviously need to do some more homework on that issue before returning to it.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Didn't they recently find that for-profit (i.e., very market-driven) hospitals were less efficient than non-profit ones? I'm not convinced that changing to private admin would make things better. They'd start paying some jackass CEO an enormous amount of money and hire a bunch of over-paid useless consultants.

I doubt it. Even non-profits are market driven, they just don't make distributions. They also pay their execs huge fees as well.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub

Friedman has documented that $X out of each $100 goes to administration, where X is a ridiculously high number.*

In which program? Because I gave you the figures already. SSA has about an $9B budget for $400B in outlays. 2% isn't high even by credit card company standards.

[Atticus Grinch]

Prescription drug prices are up three times the rate of inflation since the Administration's Medicare discount subscription plan went into effect.

I think we should renegotiate with the pharma companies.

What?

Uh-oh.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
In which program? Because I gave you the figures already. SSA has about an $9B budget for $400B in outlays. 2% isn't high even by credit card company standards.

Um, weren't you (Burger) saying that private companies could do it more cheaply?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
In which program? Because I gave you the figures already. SSA has about an $9B budget for $400B in outlays. 2% isn't high even by credit card company standards.

I need to check. I know he did it for welfare, but I think he did it for SS too.