The unasked question

There has been a lot of comment and commentary about the decision of Arlen Specter to switch parties. The one question I have not seen raised is why does a 79-year old man think he should continue being a senator. Doesn't the time come for the old to step aside and make way for the new? No eighty-year old is as mentally sharp as they were when they were 6o. Can anyone take a senator like the senior senator from West Virginia seriously?

The economics of the local hospital

From "Healthbeat," published by the Jasper County Hospital:

"Forty-five to forty-eight percent of our patients are Medicare; eleven to thirteen percent are Medicaid; about fifteen percent are private insurance and twenty-nine to thirty-four percent are self-pay or indigent. Our costs, not what we bill, are adequately reimbursed by Medicare and insurance. Reimbursement for providing indigent care, including Medicaid short falls, fell well below our costs to provide care."

Bush the socialist?

The Wall Street Journal has a disturbing article on the Paulson and Bernanke pressuring the Bank of American not to cancel a merger with Merrill Lynch:

In the name of containing "systemic risk," our regulators spread it. In order to keep Mr. Lewis quiet, they all but ordered him to deceive his own shareholders. And in the name of restoring financial confidence, they have so mistreated Bank of America that bank executives everywhere have concluded that neither Treasury nor the Federal Reserve can be trusted.

The political class has spent the last few months blaming bankers for everything that has gone wrong in the financial system, and no doubt many banks have earned public scorn. But Washington has been complicit every step of the way, from the Fed's easy money to the nurturing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and since last autumn with regulatory and Congressional panic that is making financial repair that much harder. The men who nearly ruined Bank of America have some explaining to do.

Mocking our betters

The American fascination with celebrity (or sellebrity, as James Twitchell calls it) fascinates me. I am pretty sure that the fascination of the rich and famous--our social betters--is rooted in our genes. How else can one explain the ease in which people for millennia have lived in hierarchical societies.

Only occasionally do politicians become important celebrities. John Kennedy is the best example, though Barack Obama seems intent on equaling him. More often celebrity goes with theatrical, athletic, or musical performance. (The gatekeepers of celebrity have been very hostile to reality shows because they provide another avenue to celebrity, and celebrity by its very nature is limited--one person's gain is at the expense of others.)

Which brings me to the current series of Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. The first and even the second seasons of the original Apprentice were entertaining, interesting, and even informative. I never understood why the goal was to win. The best outcome, it seemed to me, was to last until the late rounds and then be eliminated. At that point you would have showcased your abilities, gained useful contacts, and have a variety of options open to you. I never understood why a job with the Trump organization was a special prize. It would be interesting to learn how well the people who have been on the non-celebrity Apprentice have done, and what correlation, if any, exists between success on the show and career success.

The last regular season of the Apprentice was a parody of itself, with the losing team camping in a tents. Bad as it was, the Celebrity Apprentice has been even worse. Paradoxically, shows can become so bad that they re-emerge as good shows, and the Celebrity Apprentice may have achieved this result. Many of the celebrities, most of whom are former stars if they ever were stars at all, are exposed as nasty, egotistical, and thoroughly dislikable people. There are exceptions, but most of them were voted off early. In the last episode, Melissa Rivers, daughter of Joan Rivers, was "fired." Her exit was a temper tantrum.

Anyone who has an iota of common sense must realize that he or she will be "fired" because that is the nature of the show and Donald Trump often makes capricious decisions. Hence, a rational person would prepare for an exit when agreeing to appear on the show. It would be a wise move to have an exit statement prepared beforehand that is gracious, and to practice is so delivery is poised. Most of the people who appeared on the regular Apprentice understood this and made gracious exits.

In conclusion, it is often fun to watch people on make fools of themselves on national television, especially when these people think that they are our social betters, and this is the only reasons that the current season of the Celebrity Apprentice has been entertaining.

Anna Schwartz on the recession

From City Journal, Anna Schwartz on the current economic recession:

The credit crunch, which is the recession’s actual cause, comes only from a lack of trust, argues Schwartz. Lenders aren’t lending because they don’t know who is solvent, and they can’t know who is solvent because portfolios remain full of mortgage-backed securities and other toxic assets.

“The worst thing for a government to do, though, is to act without principles, to make ad hoc decisions, to do something one day and another thing tomorrow,” she says. The market will respond positively only after the government begins to follow a steady, predictable course. To prove her point, Schwartz points out that nothing the government has done to date has really thawed credit.

Schwartz indicts Bernanke for fighting the wrong war. Could one turn the same accusation against her? Should we worry about inflation when some believe deflation to be the real enemy? “The risk of deflation is very much exaggerated,” she answers. Inflation seems to her “unavoidable”: the Federal Reserve is creating money with little restraint, while Treasury expenditures remain far in excess of revenue. The inflation spigot is thus wide open. To beat the coming inflation, a “new Paul Volcker will be needed at the head of the Federal Reserve.”

Youtube and the democracy of the press

One of the fascinating things about youtube is that it allows anyone to be a video journalist. Here is an clever example of someone explaining the $100 million dollar budget reduction that President Obama recently proposed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt8hTayupE

A co-author from the past

Newmark's door links to an article by John Silvia, with whom I once coauthored a paper. Since then he has moved up in the world while I have not.

Same story?

From The Wall Street Journal:

Scientists have reprogrammed mature skin cells into an embryonic-like state by using proteins instead of genes, a key advance aimed at overcoming safety concerns in one of the hottest areas of biological research.

But because the cell extraction destroys the embryo, the technique has ignited much ethical controversy.

From dbtechno.com:

Scientists in the U.S. have made history as they have found a brand new, safer way to create embryonic stem cells.

There has been a great debate over the years due to safety concerns in regards to the development of embryonic stem cells, seen by many as the future of medicine.

What they have found is that by taking the cells and putting them in this protein solution, they can create their own embryonic stem cells which can be used effectively.

Is there any wonder why the public has no clue as to what the whole stem-cell debate is about?

(The safer issue--the new technique reprograms the cells using four proteins rather than four genes introduced with a virus.)

Update: Here is getreligion.org critiquing the story.

The anti-choice forces win a victory

There have been a number of opinion makers very critical of the decision by President Obama and the Congress to kill the voucher program in Washington D.C. George Will wrote about it in today's Washington Post.

As the president and his party's legislators are forcing minority children back into public schools, the doors of which would never be darkened by the president's or legislators' children, remember this: We have seen a version of this shabby act before. One reason conservatism came to power in the 1980s was that in the 1970s liberals advertised their hypocrisy by supporting forced busing of other people's children to schools the liberals' children did not attend.

This is a topic on which I want to write, but do not have the time right now. Maybe in the next month I will be able to sketch out my theory as to why the voucher program has problems attracting political support even though, based on theory and some evidence, it is a program that we should adopt if we are serious about helping the poor.

Update: The Washington Post supports vouchers!

Update 2: Reason TV has a video on the issue.

Youtube is 4

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/1540126,CST-NWS-youtube23.article

It is hard to believe that it is only four years old. It certainly has changed the face not only the Internet, but of the way we learn about the world.