MARTIN FELDSTEIN IS SMART

i was reading a special section of a recent wsj that was reviewing the first year of the obama white house. it had a broad spectrum of types of op ed types both in terms of their age, politics and area of expertise. there were i think 4 economists. one old dog, martin feldstein made what i considered an amazing if in hind site obvious observation about the health care bills in congress. both i believe prohibit insurance companies from preventing or possibly even rating a new insured based on a pre existing condition. now this seem pro consumer on its face. but, he pointed out an amazing negative arbitrage.

it would make sense for relatively healthy people to pay the penalty for not having mandatory health insurance, save on paying the premiums and if they got seriously ill, apply for health insurance at that time and the insurance company would have to take them. in this hypothetical, the individual can free ride till they get sick, then after not paying premiums for say 10 years, send the bill to the insurance company. this arbitrage would ruin the insurance industry. a point that feldstein said maybe was not an accident.

at age 70, martin is as sharp as ever.

THERE IS A GOD

i am not a religous person; most of my friends are not religous people. and yet an amazing thing happened last nite. at 6:24pm pst i got an email alert from the wsj that brown had won massachussetts. within 2 minutes i got a call from one of my best friends and several email with huge distributions saying, "there is a god". now maybe this is a beggining of an outbreak of spirituality but i think not. i think many people were getting appalled and depressed by a democratic white house and congress running roughshod over the country; remaking it in their vision, whether a majority of the people wanted it or not. and out of nowwhere comes the unlikliest of events; a guy no one has heard of nationally beating a machine picked democrat IN MASSACHUSSETTS, FOR TED KENEDYS EX SEAT. i mean its like charlston heston parting the red sea. its mind boggling. hence, the saying there must be a god. we have been miraculously delivered from the tyranny of the majority.

now what does it mean? does it mean the people of massachussetts want a social conservative senator? probably not if you include the voters who gave him the victory. i think it means people are fed up, disgusted, and scared. between the corruption of the the unilateral, behind closed doors, buy the last 3 votes healthcare bill, to the focus on copenhagan and a half in half out afghan policy, i think people are saying, heh guys, the economy is still in the shitter, unemployment is too high, deficits are out of control, the banks you bailed out (which was necessary by the way) are paying out billions in bonuses, iran is bulding nukes, china is kicking our ass, DO SOMETHING!!!!

REID WAS TELLING THE TRUTH; STILL A JERK

harry reid is being pilloried for saying that obama was advantaged by being light skinned and well spoken. he has apologized. the democrats have forgiven him. though he is getting off way easier than any conservative would have been treated.

now i think that harry and nancy (sid and nancy?) are taking the country down the drain and should be pilloried. by the way let us not forget that to pillory is to put in stocks in a public square and and throw vegatables at! however not for this. harry was telling the truth. not a wise thing in american politics. there is ample research showing that light skinned, well spoken afro americans do better than dark skinned, less well spoken afro americans. ask them. then we have that goofball vice president, joe biden who more or less said the same thing, describing obama as clean cut and well groomed i believe. and he became vp.

now maybe it is wrong. certainly as to color, as to well spoken, i beg to differ. i believe it is ok to prefer people who speak well of those who dont.

so fry harry for being a corrupt jerk as oppossed to an honest idiot.

FOX; TIME WARNER; SEN. KERRY; TOTALITARIANISM

they couldnt make this stuff up! so Fox is a privately owned company; it didnt take any tarp money. it has a contract with time warner that runs out, it expires. they think their content is valuable so they ask for more money to renew the contract. any crime so far? time warner demogogues it to their customers suggesting that a crime has been committed and that the price increase will be passed on to time warner customers. if the price of wheat goes up do the bread manufacturers take out full page adds decrying farmers and telling their customers that they are passing this on to them?

then senator kerry, you know the one with the jaw like jay leno, gets into the act and says in essence that a private company does not have the right to not renew a contract with another private company and threatens to sic the fcc on fox! wow. Fox is not the post office, a utility company, a public school. hell, they are on obamas enemies list!

now the anti-climax; time warner and fox cut a last minutes deal but why the drama and why government intervention. are we living in venezuela?