Rational discourse has been suspended

I've given up all hope of rational political discourse in digital format.  Having played a silly Facebook game for years, when the election hoopla started I had 1700+ FB "friends" -- friends who seemed to be predominantly conservative.  So I thought - COOL!  We can have conversations.  Discussions.  Debates, even.

But it was not to be.  My attempts to post thought-provoking articles that debunked fake news and explained rationally why Hillary Clinton was a good candidate for president were met with contempt that typically devolved into name-calling.  It turned out that my "friends" weren't just conservative... they were rabidly, fake-news-promotingly, Obama-disparagingly, anti-liberals (the people not the ideology), conservatives.  I was like a foreign body provoking an immune system.

So I'm (mostly ;) ) done with political posting.  After listening to the following NPR 1A podcast, I'm going to try to listen more, ask questions of people with different opinions than mine, and do it face-to-face, not digitally.

Politically Speaking: Talking to Each Other with Civility

More CSM - Obama v Romney on Health Care Reform

Here's a little summary of the differences between the candidates on health care reform. It's worth it to read the underlying article and more for yourself.

My biggest concern is in the area of pre-existing conditions and denial of coverage. I was shocked a few years ago when a healthy self-employed friend who moved to another state found herself unable to purchase insurance at any price because of a minor pre-existing condition. Personally, I'd rather pay a little higher premium and have everyone covered.

• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA)
  • Obama - will continue to implement. Has offered to work with either party to improve the law.
    • Coverage is guaranteed, regardless of pre-existing conditions.
    • Insurance premiums are allowed to vary based only on a few factors and then to a limited extent (self vs. family enrollment, geography, age, and tobacco use).
  • Romney - pledges to immediately grant state waivers & work with Congress to repeal and replace (retaining GOP majority in the House and gaining majority in the Senate is required to deliver on this).
    • Guarantees coverage only for those who have maintained insurance; otherwise gives states responsibility for dealing with the uninsured.
    • Insurance premiums can be be priced on any factors, including health conditions, age and gender.
• Source of Health Coverage
  • Obama - no change for those who get coverage through their employer. Those who purchase independently will be able to shop at an online exchange. Middle/low income people who don't qualify for Medicaid may be eligible for federal subsidies.
  • Romney - tax break for people who purchase insurance independantly (not clear how he offsets this cost).
• Controlling Costs
  • Obama -
    • Establishes an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to institute cost-saving measures for Medicare
    • Provides financial incentives to provide quality care while keeping costs down
    • Hospital reimbursements to be based on quality of care as well as amount of care
    • Introduces excise tax on high-end health plans.
  • Romney - Believes state-driven solutions and allowing purchase of insurance across state lines introduces competition that will drive down costs.
• Medicare
  • Obama - addresses unsustainable growth by slowing payment growth via the IPAB; benefits are not cut back
  • Romney - fundamental overhaul of Medicare. Recipients to be given a fixed amount of money with which to buy insurance, one option being to purchase traditional Medicare (although premiums may rise). Competition among plans to hold down costs.
• Medicaid
  • Obama - expands Medicaid insurance for low-income and disabled people, although states are allowed to opt out.
  • Romney - turns federal funding into block grants to states, with annual increase in funding capped at inflation + 1% (US health care expenditure growth in 2010 was inflation + 2%; for the previous 20yrs it was inflation + 5%)
• Malpractice Reform
  • Obama - does not address
  • Romney - calls for reform; would cap noneconomic damages in litigation and provide innovation grants to state to try other reforms

CSM on Obama v. Romney

I found an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about the sharpest differences between Obama and Romney. CSM is considered a fairly unbiased news source that focuses on reporting facts, so it's worth a look. Here are some of the highlights of differences between the candidates on women's issues:

Women's Issues

• Healthcare
• Obamacare guarantees insurance coverage for women's preventive care like mammograms, prenatal care, well-woman visits, domestic-violence screening, breast-feeding supplies, and contraception.
• Romney would repeal Obamacare and leave it to individual states to decide what to cover.
• Contraception
• Obamacare requires that health insurance plans cover contraception, although religious institutions are exempted.
• Romney would repeal Obamacare and eliminate federal funding to Planned Parenthood (the nation's largest provider of reproductive health services including cancer screening; contraception accounts for 35% of their services). He supports a constitutional amendment that life begins at conception, calling into question whether access to IUDs and morning-after pills would be restricted.
• Abortion
• Obama supports a woman's right to choose abortion.
• Romney oppposes except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to life of the mother. The Republican Party goes further and opposes abortion without exceptions.
• Equal Pay
• Obama opposes wage discrimination and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act & he also supports the Paycheck Fairness Act.
• Romney has not taken a stand on this issue.
• Domestic Abuse
• Obama supports re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) plus expanded coverage for native Americans, gays, and illegal immigrants.
• Romney supports the original VAWA, but not the expansion.

Romney's Economic Advisor

Here's an interesting article about Romney's economic advisor, Glenn Hubbard.

I think it's concerning that in 2004 Hubbard (along with the chief economist at Goldman Sachs -- remember Goldman, who played such a BIG role in creating the current financial crisis?) heavily endorsed the credit derivatives market and believed it had already been "stress tested" sufficiently and couldn't do significant or lasting damage to the US economy.

Now Hubbard's position is that an across-the-board 20% tax cut won't add to the deficit (but he's vague on how it won't). Not that an economist can't make a mistake, but do you really want one who's made such a big error in judgement co-authoring your economic policy?? I don't.

Time for Some Election Fun

It's election time again and time to explore more about the candidates. Spin is not welcome. Rational discussion and facts are.

Goldman Sachs' Role in the Financial Crisis

This is an interesting 6 page piece from Rolling Stone, based on the (650 pg) report from the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations regarding the causes of the financial crisis. It focuses primarily on Goldman Sachs’ role. (If you decide to read it, the web page is actually the first page of the article, although it’s broken up by a lot of links to other things)

Kissinger on China

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal published this piece by Henry Kissinger about China. It's adapted from his new book "On China" and promises to be a good read.

What goes around, hopefully, doesn't come around.

Here is a fascinating NY Times account of Stuxnet, the computer worm that seems to have attacked and damaged some of Iran's nuclear enrichment equipment. It's got me pondering broader implications.

I knew, for example, that many US commercial, government, and military computers have been broken into by various foreign & domestic hackers. And that the US electric grid is considered vulnerable. But I hadn't really thought about how many other control facilities, say manufacturing or phone communications or air traffic control are also based on computers. And that attacks can be designed to cause lasting damage to the equipment they control - fabricators, generators, transformers, planes, etc. I hadn't really worried about cyberwar before. Now it seems a little more real.

Swarm Intelligence

This Science Friday interview with Len Fisher, author of The Perfect Swarm, blew me away. Apparently it can be proven that (in the right domain) averaging a group of people's independant opinions is more likely to produce the best decision than asking any individual expert. Did I hear that right? I may have to read the book!

Dark Flow

The mathematics are beyond my understanding, but I still find the concepts of modern physics fascinating. If I understood this recent segment of Science Friday correctly, a phenomenon called dark flow may validate string theory. Wow!

Deepwater Horizon - There Was 'Nobody in Charge'

Here's today's follow-on investigative piece from the Wall Street Journal about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It takes you through the scenario of what happened, based on accounts from the survivors, their testimony to the Coast Guard, various internal documents, etc.

Deepwater Horizon - BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster

I think the Wall Street Journal does a fabulous job of investigative reporting. Balanced. Fair. Interesting. Here's this morning's piece regarding the decisions that led up to the ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster.

As my friend commented - considering the WSJ is a mouthpiece of corporate business, it doesn't seem to have tried to whitewash BP's role or glossed over the problems. Way to go, WSJ!

Financial Crisis: Michael Lewis & 'The Big Short'

If you've listened to Financial Crisis 101, below, then you know the vocabulary: subprime mortgages, derivatives, CDOs, and CDSs (and hopefully had a good time learning it). Now... hear how some clever analysts recognized the problems with subprime mortgages/ CDOs and talked the big investment houses into creating CDSs in order to bet against them. Some of these guys even tried to warn the SEC that there was a big storm a'comin'.

Michael Lewis talks about this in his new book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" which he discusses on KQED's 'Forum' radio program. It's definitely worth a listen!

Financial Crisis 102

In this follow-on interview, with Terry Gross, Michael Greenberger explains more about the financial crisis and why it was so important to bail out AIG.

Financial Crisis 101

Two years after the financial melt-down, the US is now starting to address the problems that led up to it. The issues are complex, but not beyond our ken, and I think it's critical to understand them so we can influence government to do the right thing.

In this fascinating April 2008 interview with Terry Gross on "Fresh Air", Michael Greenberger* explains in simple terms (that even I can understand) the basis of our current financial crisis and the "shadow system" of financial derivative products. After two years, it's still the best basic explanation I've heard. See what you think.


* Michael Greenberger is a professor of law at U. Maryland and a former director of Trading and Markets at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.