Looking At Medicare Administrative Costs

Are they lower? This article by the Heritage Foundation makes an interesting point. Medicare beneficiaries are by definition elderly, disabled, or patients with end-stage renal disease. Private insurance beneficiaries may include a small percentage of people in those categories, but they consist primarily of people are who under age 65 and not disabled. Naturally, Medicare beneficiaries need, on average, more ...

Repeating History

Looks like Reps. Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner want both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen lending standards for condos. Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said. In March, ...

Why Voting Doesn’t Always Give the Best Result

This article on how the International Olympic Committee picks host cities is a great way of demonstrating the problems with voting and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. In selecting a host city, the IOC, acting like a papal conclave, takes a series of votes until a candidate receives a majority. Each of the 100-plus IOC members gets one vote, and after every round ...

Now We’re In A Position To Really Accelerate

With the economy apparently not responding to the stimulus President Obama is trying to reassure the nation that everything is on track. At least that is the story of this article. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama assured the nation his recovery plan was on track Monday, scrambling to calm Americans unnerved by unemployment rates still persistently rising nearly ...

The Urgency of It All

Back when there was all that big argument about the efficacy of stimulus spending to mitigate the effects of a recession one argument is that we have to spend the money fairly quickly, at least by Washington DC standards. Otherwise there is the likelihood that the spending will occur when the recession is already over. I've also noted ...

Does the FCC Get A SWAT Team?

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cell phone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it. Neat, huh? There you are putting your baby to ...

Rummaging Through Underage Girls’ Panties

Apparently, the Supreme Court is leaning towards letting school administrators do just that. The case in question is a about a girl who was strip searched by school officials when she was 13 years old in eighth grade. The school officials were acting on a tip from another girl who had been caught with prescription strength ibuprofen. ...

Research Grants: We Need Yet More PhD’s

Recently-minted PhD Thoreau discusses the difference between research grants offered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and those backed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) thusly: NSF wants to see more Americans in grad school, because they believe that the only way to maintain America’s competitive edge is to continue to over-produce Ph.D.’s. If I do a research project with ...

Snow In DC Brings Jokes, Questions

WaPo federal beat reporter Ed O'Keefe helpfully notes that, Washington, D.C.-area federal offices will operate today under "liberal leave" or "unscheduled leave" and delayed arrival status, meaning employees who cannot make it to work can request off, or should otherwise arrive to work no more than two hours later than normal, according to the Office of Personnel Management. In addition to perennially ...

Alexandria Sex Shop Revenge for Zoning Controls

Despite my being local and getting the Sunday Washington Post delivered to my driveway, I just encountered this story about an Alexandria shop owner's renting his space to a sex shop to spit city planners on memeorandum. [caption id="attachment_32396" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Le Tache, at 210 King St. in Old Town Alexandria, has "caused a lot of buzz" with its racy displays ...

The Lies of Henry Paulson

Buried in the article that James linked in his earlier post about the loophole that essentially eliminates the executive pay limitations of the TARP program is this fun little tidbit:Lawmakers agreed to the Treasury's request that the measure apply only to executives at companies whose assets were bought by the government through auctions. In the executive-compensation tax section, a new ...

Health Care Tradeoffs (Updated)

Ezra Klein wrote an interesting post Wednesday arguing that extending life through medical intervention is expensive and that tradeoffs and rationing have to be made.  The only question, then, is how much value is placed on that extra unit of health care and who's making the valuation. The inverse of the American health care system is the British health care system. ...

Zombie Attack and Terrorist Threats

Radley Balko links to a story about a high school student, William Poole, being arrested for, as the Poole says, writing a story about zombies. Yes, zombies. A good round-up of the story can be found here. The police contend the story was much more. About how Poole wanted to start a gang called the "No Limits Soldiers" ...

States Illegally Take ‘Tens of Thousands’ off Voters Off Rolls

Responding to the implication that Democrats are trying to steal the election with fraudulent voter registration, a correspondent sent along this NYT report from yesterday's edition: States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear ...

What Caused Our Economic Crisis Video

This video, called "Burning Down the House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis" (although, oddly, set to the tune of "Money for Nothing") is apparently all the rage (at least in my wife's office). It traces the subprime crisis to the Jimmy Carter era Community Reinvestment Act. To the extent this view is correct (and I suspect, like anything else complex, ...