The View from Right Field

#MedicareForAll – How It Will Really Work

While New Zealand has been in the news for other reasons lately, a hearing before the health select committee of the New Zealand Parliament last week should be of interest to those who think “Medicare for All,” or some other form of government-run single-payer health plan, is the answer to our problems with health care.

At the hearing, women with advanced breast cancer asked for pressure to be brought on Pharmac, the government-run drug-buying agency, to fully fund two additional drugs for breast cancer, Kadcyla and Palbociclib (also known as Ibrance).

The pleas of the women were very moving.  One of the women said that Ibrance was a “game-changer” in other countries for conditions like hers.  She asked why women in New Zealand had to travel to Malaysia or move to England or Australia to get access to cheaper life-extending drugs.  Another woman said that she was alive only because she had paid for the drug herself.  “This would … be impossible if I had to rely on Pharmac.” 

Jacinda Ardern Gets It Right

In the New Zealand parliament today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got it right with respect to how to respond to the murderer and terrorist who killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday.  This is from the New Zealand Herald:

“Ardern told Parliament the Australian man accused of carrying out the atrocity was seeking notoriety.

‘That is why you will never hear me mention his name.  He is a terrorist.  He is a criminal.  He is an extremist.  But he will, when I speak, be nameless. 

The Problem with Models

In her Notebook column in Saturday’s Financial Times,¹ Gillian Tett notes that auto loans, including “subprime” auto loans, have risen sharply over the past year.  In addition, the number of delinquent car loans, especially in the subprime category, are rising, too.  In fact, a million more Americans are delinquent on their car loans now than in 2010.

In trying to come up with a reason for the increase, which has apparently left some observers baffled, Ms. Tett says:

“But there is yet another possible explanation: consumer behavior might be shifting and, in the process, upending economists’ projections about default, as subprime mortgages did a decade ago.”

Ms. Tett notes that economists missed the subprime mortgage collapse because, inter alia, their models assumed consumers would default on the loans in a particular way: first, credit cards; second, auto loans; and last, mortgages.  But that wasn’t what happened.  People defaulted on the mortgages first.  Ms. Tett suggests this was because it was more acceptable to default on a mortgage but people needed their credit cards to live.  I would say it slightly differently: People started defaulting on their mortgages first because they realized that, in many states, it took a long time for people to get evicted from their house, while the effects of defaulting on their credit card or auto loan were more immediate.

Warren Buffet Says Don’t Invest in States Like Illinois

Warren Buffet is one of the Democrats’ favorite billionaires.  Mr. Buffet was a big fan of Barack Obama.  When President Obama was in office, Mr. Buffet argued that taxes on the wealthy were too low and complained that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary.

I wonder, however, if Illinois’s new Democratic governor, a billionaire himself, feels quite so friendly to Mr. Buffet these days.  According to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal today:

“In a Feb. 25 interview on CNBC, Mr. Buffett warned investors to avoid states with large unfunded pension liabilities. He said he couldn’t be sure how such states would try to bring in more revenue – whether by raising corporate taxes, personal income taxes, or a combination. But he had no doubt the taxes are coming.

A Tragedy in Christchurch

You can find my most recent post on my other blog, “A Different New Zealand,” here.

If 2016 Was the “Presidential Election from He**,” What Will 2020 Be?

Actually, the question may be “Isn’t 2020 That Way Already?”  It seems pretty clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee – if he decides to run, but back to that in a moment.  First, the Democrats.

The Democratic contest seems to be a race to see who can get as close as possible to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who would, based on publicity levels in the MSM, have the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination wrapped up by now if not for a group of old white men in Philadelphia in 1787 who set the minimum age for president at 35.¹  On the other hand, we wouldn’t have Ms. AOC to kick us around if those same old white men had set the same age, i.e., 30, for the House of Representatives as they did for the Senate.² 

A Few Comments on Where We Are Going With Our Defense Policy

An article in last week’s Economist, “Bringing out the big guns,” described the shift in direction that is taking place in the U.S. military as it “prepares for life after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”  Some of the changes are good and necessary.  Others are more questionable.  Let me quote some sections from the article and then comment on them.

“In January 2018 the Trump administration published its National Defence Strategy (NDS).  Officials lamented that nearly two decades of whack-a-mole against insurgents and jihadists had eroded the country’s military edge, resulting in exhausted and under-trained units armed for the wrong enemy.  So the NDS decreed that America would henceforth focus on ‘long-term, strategic competition between nations’ – namely, China and Russia.”

If the military was “exhausted and under-trained,” it was because it wasn’t big enough and was not given enough money for the task(s) it was being asked to do under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.  It is understandable that the military can be stretched for some period of time.  Emergencies happen and the military has to respond.  But to be stretched for almost two decades is a choice – a choice to not properly fund the military.  And to continually ask the people in the military to do more than they should have to do because you don’t want to spend more money on defense is wrong.

Foreign Policy After Trump: A Return to Normal or Is There a New Normal?

Commentators left, right, and center are explaining, and complaining, about why Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, failed to reach an agreement.  Cutting through all of the commentary, the main reason is because President Trump is himself.  Maybe an agreement could have been reached if President Trump did things differently, in terms of preparation, etc.  But complaining about President Trump being himself is silly, at least at this point.  He is what he is.  He is not going to change, no matter how much some of us might wish it.

And things are going to continue as they have been.  For example, in January, I asked if we were bugging out of Afghanistan because of what President Trump said then, but now it appears we are staying.  Similarly, in December, President Trump said we were leaving Syria (which is why Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned), but now it looks like we may be keeping some troops there, after all. 

With President Trump, there are times when we don’t know, from one day to the next, what our policies are.  And we have almost two years to go.  Of course, while some people see that as a long time, others look at it and say we can elect a new president in less than two years – and then everything will be fine again. 

What’s More Important: Stormy Daniels or Nuclear Powers Fighting a War?

While official Washington and its media are focused on Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress yesterday that Donald Trump is a liar and racist and was deeply involved in efforts to pay hush money to Story Daniels, on the other side of the world, two countries that have nuclear weapons are fighting a near-war against each other.  India is bombing Pakistan, and Pakistan is fighting back.

I remember, in 1998, when Pakistan finally developed a nuclear bomb.  India already had one, but now the two of them, countries which had fought each other four times in the prior 50 years, both had nuclear weapons.

Will Trump Reach a Real Agreement With China? More Importantly, Can Pandas Fly?

Donald Trump has delayed the March 1 deadline for increasing tariffs on Chinese imports, saying that he expects the details of a final deal between the U.S. and China will be worked out at a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, to be held at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  One question, of course, is what any such agreement would provide.  Would it just cover China agreeing to buy more stuff from the United States or would it really change the way the Chinese economy works?

The Economist, in a leader in its current issue (“Can pandas fly?”¹), encourages President Xi to, inter alia, limit the state’s role in allocating capital and temper China’s industrial policy.  The Economist says that “[a] more economically liberal China would end up richer and make fewer enemies.” 

But this misunderstands President Xi’s priorities – and the priorities of his predecessors.  Thirty years ago, Deng Xiaoping crushed the protesters in Tiananmen Square because maintaining control was worth putting his economic reforms on hold for a time.  It is the same with President Xi.  Growth is nice, but political control is more important.
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¹ “Can pandas fly?” was the title of the leader in the print edition of The Economist.

When Donald Meets Kim [Jong Un]

As Donald Trump heads for his second meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank and State Department official in both the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations (as well as serving in the Treasury Department under Ronald Reagan), wrote in The Wall Street Journal on “How to Negotiate With Kim Jong Un.”  Here are the five steps Mr. Zoellick suggests:

“The first step must be to address the danger of warfare on the Korean Peninsula. … The North Korean army is too big.  Negotiators must reduce both its size and its capacity for surprise attack.  The goal should be to equalize the North and South Korean militaries at smaller levels.

The 1992 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which helped end the Cold War in Europe, offers examples of terms.

Guns, Laws, and Aurora, Illinois

I have written before about guns and gun control (see here, here, and here).  I don’t need to repeat what I said in those posts.  I just wanted to comment on Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s vow, after the shootings in Aurora, Illinois, to tighten Illinois’s gun laws.  The only problem with the Governor’s promise is that Illinois’s laws already prohibited the alleged shooter from buying or owning a gun.  The problem in the Aurora shootings wasn’t that we didn’t have the right laws; it was that we weren’t enforcing the laws we had.

In my post on Friday about Governor Pritzker’s proposed budget, I said that it’s not how much government spends, it’s how much government accomplishes.  In this case, it’s much the same.  It’s not what laws government passes that counts.  It’s how many laws of those laws government actually enforces.

What’s Going to Happen In Venezuela?

Venezuela is starving.  Literally.  Aid is on its borders, but President Nicholas Maduro is refusing to let it in because the aid has been organized by opposition leader Juan Guaido (and countries supporting him).  Already, at least four people have been killed and hundreds injured, reportedly by Venezuelan security forces, including militia. 

What happens next?  Obviously, nobody knows, but 2019 is the 30th anniversary of two possible outcomes.  The first is Tiananmen Square.  In 1989, people in China were starting to demonstrate for more rights and liberties.  The protests reached a peak in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in early June.  The Army faced off with the protesters.  The Army won because it was willing to shoot the protesters until they disbanded and left.  Deng Xiaoping was willing to put his economic reforms on hold to maintain political power.

Republicans in Illinois: What’s an Irrelevant Minority to Do?

Yesterday I wrote about Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s proposed budget for Illinois.  The question for today is: what should the Republicans do in response to Governor Pritzker’s proposal?  It’s an interesting question because there are so few of them.  In the Senate, there are 40 Democrats and 19 Republicans.  Generally, it takes 30 votes to pass a bill in the Senate, so they are irrelevant there.  In order to override a governor’s veto or pass a bill at certain times, you need a “supermajority,” which is 36 votes in the Senate.  Irrelevant again.

The situation is much the same in the House, where there are 74 Democrats and just 44 Republicans.  It takes 60 votes to pass a bill.  Irrelevant.  And 71 votes is a supermajority.  Once again, irrelevant – if House Speaker Michael Madigan really wants to. 

Illinois’s New Governor – Kicking It Down the Road, Just Like Everybody Else

Illinois’s new governor, J.B. Pritzker, presented his proposed budget to the legislature this week.  The budget raises taxes, increases spending, and kicks the pension can down the road, which means he gets one out of three right.  If you’re batting, that’s pretty good.  If you’re fielding, it’s terrible.

Governor Pritzker understands Illinois has to raise taxes.  After years, if not decades, of spending more than we taxed, Illinois has to catch up.  Governor Pritzker, however, focuses his tax increases on smokers, dopers (i.e., legalized marijuana), gamblers, and insurance companies.  Which means he’s not being serious. 

I understand he wants a constitutional amendment to allow a progressive income tax, but that’s not going to happen for three years or more, so while we wait, Governor Pritzker’s only idea is to increase miscellaneous taxes all over the place; as I said, on smokers, dopers, gamblers, and insurance companies.

When Is Baseball Going to Start?

Pitchers and catchers have reported and the other guys are there, too, but it still doesn’t seem like baseball has started.  Instead of baseball, reports from Arizona and comments from Cubs fans here are about Joe Ricketts’s emails, the Cubs's new television network (both that the Cubs won’t be on “free” TV and the politics of their new network partner), Addison Russell’s domestic abuse problems, and more.  I’m getting tired of it.  I read the sports pages to have some small part of my life that isn’t politics and money.  I read the front pages for the rest of life.

Also, I’m getting tired of the complaints people have.  First, the fact the Cubs won’t be on “free TV”.  Unless you consider a cable TV bill of $85 per month (or more) to be “free TV,” more than half of Cubs games haven’t been on free TV for a long time.  Also, if you really think the Cubs having their own network is so bad that you want to switch teams, then you should have switched years ago.  Because the Cubs (especially Crane Kenney) have been talking about this for years.  This is not new news.

Declaring a “National Emergency” to Build a Wall Is a Terrible Idea

President Trump has apparently decided to sign the budget bill and then declare a “national emergency” to build a wall on the border with Mexico.  I’ll be brief: This is an absolutely terrible idea.  Presidential power once stretched never returns to its prior limits.  A national emergency that lets President Trump build a wall, will let his successor do other things.  Even if you approve of the former, you may not approve of the latter.  And even if courts or Congress stop President Trump from doing this,¹ the mere fact that President Trump tried to use emergency powers in this way will be a precedent for future presidents to use their emergency powers in other ways.  This is a really bad idea.
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¹ It could be an interesting question as to who would have “standing” to challenge President Trump’s order in the courts.

Bryce Harper, Salary Caps, and the New @Cubs TV Network

With Spring Training having started and Bryce Harper and Manny Machado both remaining unsigned, players are grumbling and fans are wondering.  A few thoughts:

Bryce Harper is a Scott Boras client, and Scott Boras clients don’t sign early.  Greg Maddux was a Scott Boras client, and when he signed with the Cubs in 2004, he signed the day before pitchers and catchers were to report.  Now that might have been because Maddux was hoping to sign with somebody else, or it might have been Scott Boras.  I don’t know.  Still, the situation with Bryce Harper this year is getting to be ridiculous.

What one needs to understand about baseball free agents is that they are not like free agents in, for example, basketball.  First, the salary structures in basketball and baseball are different, but more on that later.  Second, you can’t be sure one free agent is going to turn a team around in baseball.  There are free agents in basketball that can just about guarantee the team will make the playoffs.  It’s not that way in baseball.

Is Elizabeth Warren a Native American or an American Indian?

The answer, of course, is neither, as even Elizabeth Warren says now.  But what I found interesting about the Texas Bar registration card Senator Warren filled out in 1986 is not that she claimed be a race that she isn’t, but that she got the name wrong, at least to today’s standards.  Because she didn’t write “Native American.”  She wrote “American Indian.”  Which is I believe is now considered inappropriate and not sufficiently “woke.”¹

And which is yet another reason why it is so tiring to talk about issues today.  Not only do you have to get the answers right, you have to only use the most up-to-date terms when doing so.
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¹ I think that is the proper word, but I am not sure.  Because I definitely would not be considered sufficiently “woke.”

Will Illinois Ever Really Deal With Its Unfunded Pension Liability?

As Illinois’s new governor and old legislative leaders start to grapple with Illinois’s problems, the first question is what are they going to do about Illinois’s pension debt.  Except, of course, that is not the first question they are going to deal with because it’s hard and they want to do fun stuff first.

Some people say that Illinois’s unfunded pension debt really isn’t really that big of a problem.  They argue that Illinois might not have enough money set aside to pay all of the pensions it owes, but that’s only a problem if Illinois shuts down.  As long as Illinois stays around, and keeps making contributions to its pension funds, there will always be enough money to pay the amounts owed to retirees that year.  Which is probably true.  It’s just that that’s not the kind of system we are supposed to have.  Because that’s not a funded pension plan.  In effect, it’s a pay-as-you-go pension system.  Which is a legitimate form of pension system.  Under a pay-as-you-go pension system, you don’t set aside money for pension payments in the future.  Instead, each year the government pays for the pensions for its retired workers, or for its senior citizens, out of the current revenues it has at the time.  Lots of countries have pension systems like that.¹  And it would be what Illinois would, in effect, have if it doesn’t do something about its unfunded pension liability.