Entries Tagged 'Government Sucks' ↓

 Dan Roentsch shared this video from reason.tv today, about asserting your rights to refuse consent for a police search.

I find myself incredibly (using that word in it’s true meaning) frustrated with the excessively large portion of my countrymen who believe that broad search powers are warranted "if you’ve got nothing to hide".  As mentioned in the video, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’re not helping the police by allowing them to search you or your property.  I wish that more folks could remember what Pastor Martin Neimöller had to say on a similar topic.

With the humility of one who recognizes when he stands on the shoulders of giants, I will borrow his words and form to illustrate what I perceive to be the danger of mindless consent.

First they searched the Arabs,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an Arab.

Then they searched everyone for bombs,
and I didn’t refuse consent because I wasn’t a terrorist.

Then they searched everyone’s data for religion,
and I didn’t refuse consent because it wasn’t a crime to be atheist.

Then they searched everyone’s data for financial irregularities,
and I didn’t refuse consent because I can still use cash to pay for my vices.

Then they changed the law
and their searches were evidence before I could refuse consent.

I have to admit that I’ve fallen out of touch with the state of the healthcare debate going on in Congress, and the votes. I found it so difficult to get past rhetoric and to facts, that it feels like I’ve been left entirely out of the debate. I’d love to discuss the merits, but it seems that everyone’s so set on passage or failure that discussion is only to determine who you feel sorrier for.

Plenty of the people I’ve spoken to think that healthcare is a human right. None have been able to answer my question about the extent of the obligation. Edge cases usually open for debate might be abortion or cosmetic surgery, and things like growth hormone treatments for kids who are destined to be short.

If healthcare is a universal human right, and I’m leaning towards thinking that it’s not, to what extent? I’ll forego the cases I mentioned above, and consider them certainly subordinate in terms of influencing my beliefs. I’m open to discussing first-aid and community-clinic level healthcare. Fell off your bike and broke your arm? Got a cold? Have a more dire symptom which may be something eminently treatable? I could buy into treating those as something considered to be a right.

If you need a triple bypass, it’s probably the consequence of lifestyle choices. If it’s your right to get a $50,000 operation, wasn’t it your responsibility to society to make good lifestyle choices? You have a right to both eat Big Macs and get someone else to pay for your choices?

Calling them “death panels” is a great way to demonize people who decide where the limits are, but someone’s got to make the decision. Rights must be balanced in some ways with responsibilities. There are limited resources available for healthcare. Even if the limit is now humongous, there’s only so much to go around. We can only pay with the money we have, and if healthcare becomes 100% of the economy, then nobody’s doing anything else.

If not, and there are a million people with something for which there’s a million dollar cure, we’ve got to spend a trillion dollars. What money will be left over for antibiotics when someone gets the measles because his neighbor refused to have his kids vaccinated?

If money gets in the way of the discussion, let’s instead consider that a cure for breast cancer can be made from the bark of a particular tree found only in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez decides to seize control of these trees and holds them “hostage”. Are we obliged to go to war to kidnap the trees for humanity’s sake? Even if there’s only 1, it’s 10,000 years old, doesn’t seed, and might die if cuttings are taken, or if we might foolishly attempt to relocate the entire thing? If we do try, and the tree dies during its extraordinary rendition, has someone committed a crime against humanity? If so, what if it can only cure one person?

There are obviously limits.

All I’m asking for is a discussion about what reasonable limits might be, and we can at least find out if there’s a place to compromise. After all, nobody wants even the best healthcare to be free if the system will collapse upon itself.

Got any ideas for a reasonable starting point?

When you take some time to think about the mortgage crisis that’s helped turn our markets to mud, it seems to come down to overpaying for things without a well-reasoned calculation of risk.

Until about a month ago, I lived in Greenwich Village in New York, and walked by New York University’s buildings each day. According to the College Board, the costs for a student who lives on campus total $51,982 a year.

Assuming no increase in costs, that’s $207,928 for an undergraduate degree.

Somehow, they report that the average indebtedness at graduation is $33,637. I presume that they’re referring to the debt load that the student carries. What won’t show up in that figure is the amount of home equity borrowed against by parents to pay the expected family contribution.

In any event, someone’s coming up with $200k. There are many reasons why self-selection would dictate that the median household income of students at NYU would be higher than the $50,233 American average, but even if the average is twice that, after taxes and living expenses for the rest of the family, they’re not coming up with $52k out of pocket, unless they’ve been extraordinarily diligent in saving.

While undoubtedly there are a number of students who will work at high-paying jobs coming right out of school, most of their classmates won’t. Parents won’t always make rational decisions, putting something like the pride of having a child at Princeton above economic sense. If they’ve got the money, it’s none of my concern. If they don’t… who bears the consequences?

Imagine graduating college with $100,000 in debt, at 21 years of age. Assume that the graduate may have a child 10 years later. If a parent’s education isn’t paid off by the birth of his child, when will the cycle end? That’s $833 per month, every month, for 10 years, before considering interest. Twice that for a couple.

How do we get some sanity here?

Making more money available isn’t the answer. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to send everyone to college. Maybe we should treat education loans more like standard unsecured credit, or make education loan decisions based upon likely ability to repay given not just credit history, but school transcripts and historical economic success of similar loan applicants.

Of course, that idea dies an early death at the hands of those who think it unfair to the economically disadvantaged. So… what do we do? And how do we not screw ourselves with subprime education lending?

Are the people losing their houses now paying their student loans? Are they going to be any time soon?