The best health care economist around...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/end-of-life-care-where-ethics-meet-economics/

ECU Econ Alumni Hall of Fame Member Bryan Summers from 11,000 feet, 120 mph @ 167 ft/sec!

One perspective in a neat short video.

Click on this short video for one perspective of where we are today and why...


http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/07/rebalancing_the_economy.cfm

Dan Henninger gets it right. The war on terror is over. The Second War on Terror is now guaranteed.

Keep playing Cops and Robbers with terrorists...watch what happens.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374500451334282.html

It would be difficult to overstate my anger over this business.

I may get irritated and frustrated from time to time, but seldom ever angry. This makes me very angry. When the next 911 comes down after the CIA is eviscerated, maybe then our leaders can explain how it really wasn't just a slogan or a bumper sticker after all.





From the Wall Street Journal...

"During the course of this review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation. . . . officers expressed concern that a human rights group might pursue them for activities . . . they feared that the Agency would not stand behind them." Another said, "Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this . . . [but] it has to be done."

Thanks for protecting us. Now, put these hand cuffs on and get in your cell.

Lucas defends the "Dismal Science"

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14165405

More predictions.....

It comes from both sides of the fence. Let me remind you only 9 short years ago.....remember the federal budget surpluses in fiscal years 1998-2000? The Bush Administration was projecting surpluses well past 2010 and Alan Greenspan mused what the federal government and financial markets would do when the privately held stock of public debt was repurchsed by the Treasury, one of the so-called "tyrannies of zero". Projecting budget deficits a decade into the future is total hubris and comical.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574301043095303118.html

You need to listen to this dude.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370301468452872.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Bernake stays on the job....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090825/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_bernanke

R.I.P American security and the C.I.A.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574371090019115348.html

What a concept!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360923109310680.html

Joe Jihadi has a Good day.

Here Joe Jihadi is in an artillery bombardment after dumping some mortars but manages to not get hit. Listen as the shells come in.

Joe Jihadi has a bad.

This had to hurt.

From my buddy Marshall Gramm and his blog www.equinometrics.com Watch what happens at the 2 minute mark of the video.

I've always loved classic country music.

Redd vs. Esther

Insane low altitude flight.

I never was a pilot. But somehow I can't get enough of these low altitude videos.

Redd Foxx

God help me...I love Redd Foxx.

Jackie Mason Skewers Starbuck's

Check that Spelling!

Formula 1 fun.

Greyhound racing fun

Say it ain't so Joe.

But the Chrysler bond holder theft shows that it is.

Abramovitz said it....

This is from my first book....Moses Abramovitz said this 11 years ago. It is creepy in its prescience.

Parker: What are some of the lessons of the Great Depression that seem to be forgotten today or have to be continually relearned?

Abramovitz: Well, I'd say beware of a bubble economy. Now, I think it's an immensely healthy thing that this notion that you have to beware of a bubble economy has percolated so broadly, however much people are increasing their commitment to the stock market and to real estate, they all do so uneasily because they realize this doesn't have to last. That's something which was absent toward the end of the 1920s. There, the notion became dominant, a notion that is not absent today, that we're living in a new era in which the old problems of economic fluctuations are behind us, and we have a new type of economic expansion. What they then called "profitless prosperity".

This is me now talking in 2009. If only we would have listened. Don't worry, it is going to happen again. It is just a question of time.

...and my new personal trainer.

Lookie here at my new surfing instructor.

The Best of The Funny Economist

Obama: The Grand Strategy
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 24, 2009
Unified theory of Obamaism, fifth (final?) installment:
In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.
Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.
What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.
Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid reform is supposed to decrease costs.
Obama's own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what's he up to?
He has an idea. But he dare not speak of it yet. He has only hinted. When asked in his March 24 news conference about the huge debt he's incurring, Obama spoke vaguely of "additional adjustments" that will be unfolding in future budgets.
Rarely have two more anodyne words carried such import. "Additional adjustments" equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age and a technical change in the inflation measure (indexing benefits to prices instead of wages). The proposal is brought to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.
The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.
Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.
It is estimated that a third to a half of one's lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements.
Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing. A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria.
The more acute thinkers on the left can see rationing coming, provoking Slate blogger Mickey Kaus to warn of the political danger. "Isn't it an epic mistake to try to sell Democratic health care reform on this basis? Possible sales pitch: 'Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!' . . . Is that really why the middle class will sign on to a revolutionary multitrillion-dollar shift in spending -- so the government can decide their life or health 'is not worth the price'?"
My own preference is for a highly competitive, privatized health insurance system with a government-subsidized transition to portability, breaking the absurd and ruinous link between health insurance and employment. But if you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.
Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics. Not anymore. Health-care rationing is taking its place -- which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow.
Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus's advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.
It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.

Did you see what I saw the other day?

It was in the Wall Street Journal...if took everyone who made over $500,000 and confiscated ALL their income above that $500,000 level...the government would collect a total of $1.3 trillion based on 2006 tax returns.

Don't think the collectivists are coming after you? Stick around.

Five Minutes with Jackie Mason

Now just a cotton pickin minute! It ain't no fun if you shoot back!

Can you think of a better way to get a bunch of fellers to move so quickly?

Funniest Race Call Ever!