Why Does Health Care Cost More in the US?

While my brother the orthopedic surgeon is not going to be happy, I am really not surprised that a big part of the answer is this....

Obama Pivots - or At Least He Appears To

Lots of commentary today about the President's more confrontational approach with the Republicans.

David Brooks' column especially has generated a lot of responses.  My favorite is this one by Steve Benen, appropriately entitled "Don't Blame Charlie Brown for Learning Lucy's Lesson."  John Amato has a similar take.  I tend to agree that Obama is doing this because he has to, not because he wants to.

More From Suskind

Brad DeLong has more passages from the Suskind book.  Fascinating reading.

One point I should make - I remember when Geitner was first nominated to be Treasury Secretary that I thought it was a wrong choice.  As time has gone by, nothing has occurred to change my mind about this, and as I read these passages I feel more strongly about this than ever.

But then, I thought Rahm as chief of staff was a big mistake too.

I get the impression that the two of them combined time and time again to keep the president from trusting his instincts.  I guess I'm gonna have to read the whole book to confirm this.  But with the little I've read so far, I can understand how things have turned out the way they have.

In any case, Obama appears like putty in their hands.  Hopefully he reads the book, sees what a weakling he looks like, and grows a pair.

Agreeing to Disagree

I have learned a lot of things reading blogs, mostly ideas that I never really thought about before.  And one of them is perfectly encapsulated by this:

[T]he elite commentariat, the people whose job it is to pay attention to this crap, should be smart enough to understand that it doesn't matter one bit if people in Washington get along, and should get that whether tipandronniehavedrinksafterwork is, in fact, about the least important thing in the universe. More than that, "unity of purpose" is both an unachievable and undesirable goal. This is a democracy, people disagree about stuff. That's good, not bad.

 Emphasis mine!

Of course, the rich and powerful don't like people disagreeing with them.  The want to both exercise their power and be loved!

Class Warfare?

There has been a class war raging in this country for some time now.  Only its the upper classes that have been waging it, and the media, being comprised mainly of upper class individuals (especially since the media consolidation of the 80s and 90s), has been ignoring it.  Some casualties.

And its been successful, since the middle class is dying in America.

General Observation

When I am perusing the web for interesting stories, I find myself spending a lot of time reading blogs and columns by economists - no doubt because I think the single greatest issue affecting the greatest number of people is the country's economic policy.  The best of these blogs do a great job of placing our current situation in historical context.  I'm a firm believer that we can learn from history if we are willing to remember it.

So I found this post (ht Paul Krugman) most interesting, particularly the charts comparing the 2000s and the 1970s.  Most people think of the 1970s as a time of economic "malaise" (remember that term?), but compared to where we are now that decade was paradise.

It Doesn't Matter

As the healthcare debate showed, it doesn't matter whether the proposal embraces conservative principles, or even that it was originally championed by a nationally prominent conservative governor.  If a Democrat proposes something, Republicans will oppose it - period full stop.

Kevin Drum provides another beautiful example....

Why was there no additional stimulus?

Brad Delong copies an interesting passage from Ron Suskind's new book.  Definitely worth a look.

He Should Have Been Fired Then and There

A new book says Treasury Secretary Geitner disobeyed an order from the President at the height of the financial crisis.

Digby, as usual, has a great take on this one:

As I said, I haven't read the book although I plan to. But if this passage is correct, I don't think it excuses the President at all. What it does is paint him as somewhat weak in his early days in office, which I don't find surprising. It's reminiscent of another young president who got swept along by the existing hierarchy and approved a fateful assault called the Bay of Pigs. The question is what happened next. In Kennedy's case, he learned to be extremely skeptical of the establishment and he relied on different advisors before making such decisions in the future.

It must mean something that Tim Geithner is almost all that's left of President Obama's original economic advisers. The only logical answer is that in spite of the above anecdote the President came to depend on Geithner to the exclusion of the others --- and that is very different from how Kennedy reacted. 

Indeed, it must mean something, and that something isn't good.

The Solyndra "Scandal"

I really don't know a whole lot about this, but I do tend to think that this is a good explanation of what happened and why....

Did Obama Take His Eye Off the Ball?

I happen to think he did.

Kevin Drum, looking at this chart, thinks that things were looking better and he couldn't be faulted for shifting his focus to other things.

Perhaps.  But note that the US economy needs to produce about 200,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the growing population.  That threshhold was only crossed in April 2010, and that rate of job growth last a grand total of 2 months.

Certainly by the end of the summer of 2010, he should have recognized the problem and shifted his focus and attention back to the jobs front. Instead, he took a "stay the course" tack.  In my opinion, if he had campaigned hard on jobs in the fall of 2010, maybe the losses in last November wouldn't have been quite so bad.

I'm not a fan of the Bill Clinton, but when it comes to politics he had this right:  It's the economy stupid!

OMG - You've Had SEX???

We really are a nation of prudes.

Perhaps Presidential Speeches Don't Work

There have been a number of commentators who have made this assertion.  In his blog, Jonathan Bernstein has said this, and most recently Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress.

Of course, using Atrios as an example - pointing out that he is not "fired up and ready to go" in supporting the president - is not really fair.  Atrios is always depressed and sarcastic, and my guess is that his audience is depressed and sarcarstic as well and not really that full of Obama supporters in any event.

But why should I - a lifelong liberal Democrat - be dancing in the streets with happiness at what the President has proposed?  I myself am not at all impressed by the President's proposal.  I know some people like Paul Krugman have stated they were pleasantly surprised by the size of the bill, but frankly I'm not.  In the next day or so I will provide my own critique of what the president has proposed.  It isn't pretty.

Besides, there is nothing I am reading that indicates the Republicans are ready to compromise on anything. On the contrary....

Given past history - the penchant of the President to compromise - the likelihood is that if anything is passed, it will be a watered down version of what he has proposed which will have little if any impact.

So why should I be dancing in the streets?

OK, I'm back

And I'm going to make a concerted effort to post every day now - I promise!

Of course, this is just a promise to myself at this point, which is the easiest kind of promise to make!