Newshoggers.com

An Embarrassing Truth

2012-06-04T00:16:59-04:00

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann used to be regulars on the talking head shows. That was before they wrote a book that questioned "both sides do it" and suggested that the Republican party had jumped the rails and become a terrorist organization. All of a sudden they were not welcome on those talking head shows - they upset the conventional wisdom - the village consensus. Well non villager MSMBC's Chris Hayes had them on Sunday morning.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Has capital spending stopped altogether?

2012-06-03T11:52:16-04:00

By John Ballard

Years of cafeteria management gave me a somewhat primitive understanding of how business works. Since I didn't climb the corporate ladder my appreciation for middle management was, I must admit, somewhat jaded. Mid-level bosses were often a pain in the ass, especially when they glossed over corporate mistakes or failed to recognize good work on the part of subordinates. And the big shots at the top, all smiles and handshakes whenever you met them, were ultimately responsible for corporate success and fully capable of boosting your ego one day and closing your store the next.

The company could close your store because before the store could open for business a lot of money had to be spent securing the land, building the store, training the staff, etc. The first meal that was served was a very expensive risk, costing somewhere in the neighborhood of several million dollars to serve. That's a lot of money to spend to serve a meal for six or eight dollars. And it takes a lot of those meals to recover those millions. And whatever part of those millions was borrowed added to the cost as interest on that debt, something called debt service. After a certain time if a store is losing money, like the bar tender telling a patron "Sorry, dude, but you've had enough" the company is obligated to close the door.

That about sums up all I know about business. Anything more is smoke. But one reality remained with me every day that I worked: you gotta put out money to make money. There are two kinds of investment (i.e. "putting out money"): operational and capital.

Operational investment is easy to understand. If you don't buy it you can't cook it. And if you don't cook it you can't sell it. And if nobody buys it you lost it. Same goes for payroll, cleaning supplies, utilities, and all the rest, even rent and taxes. Some are controllable, others are not, but all fall under the heading of operational expenses that must be met if the operation is to remain solvent.

Capital investment is also easy to understand but most people tend either to forget that it ever happened or confuse that money with operational expenses. Capital investment is the money put up to start the business. Money used to start a business is called venture capital. Once the business is up and running, further big investments are called capital investments. Confusing capital costs (which are depreciated, as opposed to operational costs, which are expensed -- but that is an accounting issue...) with operational costs is a serious mistake because without capital investment there can be no operational investments or expenses.

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Cutting to the chase, this year's elections are heavily burdened as usual with economic angst. Candidates try their best to look, dress and speak as though they were business managers. We have one whose main claim to success is his ability to acquire wealth, enough for himself and anyone who invests with him to leave their financial troubles behind. (The unspoken implication, of course, is that those who don't support him may be up the creek without a paddle if he wins the election. I think that much we can believe.)

(The rest of this post is about capital costs, not operational costs.
Hold that thought.
Operational costs are critical, but without capital investing no amount of operational excellence creates enough value to fill in when capital is needed to proceed. No matter how much money you make with one popcorn machine, if you never get any more machines you will always be limited to what one can do.)

Lost in the discussion is the difference between venture capital and equity capital. Both can be thought of as capital investments, but the difference is that the venture capital is very risky for the investor. If the venture fails, the investment is lost. In many ways it's like that old saying about throwing a party and nobody came.

Equity capital, on the other hand, is less risky.

Equity capitalists are to business what bail bondsmen are to the criminal justice system. They don't deal with new ventures. Their business is dealing with businesses that are in trouble. Whatever they put up first (posting bail) is secured by whatever assets the troubled company has. That "investment" is fairly safe. Unless someone fails the due diligence test, the worst case scenario for the equity capitalist is breaking even.

What we are witnessing in the political arena is a struggle between equity capitalists (Republicans) and venture capitalists (Democrats).

It is no mistake that Bain is NOT a venture capital outfit. They were/are not in the business of starting companies. Their specialty is making companies profitable that are in trouble. Mitt Romney is the perfect candidate to represent his party. LIke "investors" whose personal risk is limited to paper losses the GOP lays claim to all existing assets, refusing to risk anything that might be called venture capital. The terms Keynesian and Austrian are tossed around to make various positions look erudite, but in the end it all comes down to ordinary aversion to risk. And Republicans for whatever reason are at this time totally risk-averse. Like equity capitalists (or bail bondsmen) they want to know ahead of time that anything they risk will be secure -- otherwise they are ready and willing to send out bounty-hunters if necessary to protect or recover their assets.

What is being overlooked is the importance (and return on investment, by the way) of the country's infrastructure. Go back now and look at the difference between operational expenses and capital expenses. The power grid, roads, bridges, and other expensive public investments are not operational expenses, they are capital expenses. Money spent now for infrastructure (unlike emergency funds following floods, fires or tornatoes) is an investment that will be recovered over years and decades. And like an old car the day will come when it, too, will have to be replaced. But in the meantime, the returns on any national capital investment will be coming in for years.

Here are two readings for this morning that have prompted my little essay about money. One has to do with the infrastructure issue -- what I think of a the country's capital investment (categorically different from operational investments). The other is a summary of the various outcomes when whole countries "go broke." We don't have a good vocabulary to discuss issues of "sovereign debt." In may ways the term is ambiguous because there is no global benchmark for either lifestyles or currency. There is simply too much variance from top to bottom. In a world of food shortages, only in America (and some parts of the South Pacific with atypical gene pools) do we find fat poor people. And in South Asia there are people who would be considered homeless in America and have bicycles for transportation who also have cell phones. So with those images in the background, consider these two items.

►Repairing Roads Can End All Kinds of Gridlock
This is about capital investing at the national level, as opposed to operational spending.

The most important single step toward a brighter future is to repair our economy as soon as possible. And one of the surest ways to do so is a large and immediate infrastructure refurbishment program.
This path would not require Republicans to concede the merits of traditional Keynesian stimulus policy. Nor would it require them to abandon their concerns about the national debt. In short, the philosophical foundation for an agreement is already firmly in place.

If it doesn’t happen, the coming political campaign will provide a golden opportunity to learn why. At the inevitable town hall meetings, voters who are tired of gridlock should ask candidates when they think that long-overdue infrastructure repairs should begin. The only defensible answer is “Right now!” Candidates who counsel further delay should be pressed to explain why.

►When Countries Go Bankrupt

In December 2006, Britain made its final payment of $84 million on a $4.34 billion loan from the U.S. that was made all the way back in 1945. Germany wasn’t the only country to go bankrupt after WWII. This money allowed Britain to stave off its total collapse after devoting almost all its resources to the war for over half a decade.

To put this in perspective, $4.34 billion in 1945 is roughly equivalent to $140 billion today, an amount that was double the size of Britain’s economy at the time.

Had the U.S. not made this loan, the British economy would have been thrown into a tailspin, causing huge implications, not only to the UK, but also to countries around the world.

Today we see a number of nations on the verge of bankruptcy. But what does this mean for our global economy with heightened awareness of every micro-decision, and fluid capital markets that can react to virtually every whim?

To be sure, many countries have gone bankrupt in the past, and many more will default in the future. So who’s next, and what kind of problems will a nation’s insolvency cause?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you think we are past the point of more country’s going bankrupt, think again.

Most national bankruptcies are like Bernie Madoff on steroids. What once seemed like a good investment suddenly turns into a giant ponzi scheme with the working public footing the bill.

The problems become exacerbated when there are fewer people working and many more retired.

The growing crisis in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy are but the tip of a much larger iceberg.

The question then becomes a matter of how the problems are dealt with.

Do they deteriorate into something tantamount to a civil war, like what happened in Argentina? Or can they be handled in a more civil manner like Iceland?

And how do the modern communication systems we have on the Internet factor into this equation?

Social networks like Twitter and Facebook all heighten awareness, and countries close to collapse have already begun to experience a brain drain, with the most wealthy and talented moving to more stable communities.

In today’s fluid environments, people and resources can react instantly to any adversarial conditions. So if taxes go beyond a certain pain threshold, people will simply fold their tent and move elsewhere.

This second reading is a reminder that what happens in America is not unrelated to what happens in other parts of the world. I'm sorry, Virginia, Santa has a lot more on his plate than just us.

A lot of very smart people can't agree on what will happen when the Greeks leave the Euro (which looks more and more like a fairly sure outcome) or what may happen if Spain and other countries decide to follow.

The price of gas is down thanks to slowdowns in both China and Europe resulting in lower demand. Political types rattling on about Keystone have been marginalized almost to the edge of the birther crowd thanks to the fact that the US now has the biggest oil reserves in 45 years and is a net exporter of refined petroleum products.

There is also a lot to think about with the sparkle fading on the Arab Spring and the horrors unfolding in Syria.

As usual I want to end with words of optimism, but again, nothing comes to mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Addendum

George Soros gave a speech yesterday that has my Twitter feed sparkling with links. Numeerous unrelated sources, but nobody has summarized what he said in simple language. They all agree, however, that whatever it was is important and everyone is supposed to read it.

I haven't read it yet but I will tomorrow when my mind is more clear. Here is the link...

http://www.georgesoros.com/interviews-speeches/entry/remarks_at_the_festival_of_economics_trento_italy/

Chrome

2012-06-03T00:23:27-04:00

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I'm an old fart that hates change - I actually miss DOS. Fire Fox became my web browser years ago because anything was better that IE. I just made the switch to Google Chrome. It's faster but it is different and I hate different but it's really amazing how quickly I adapted to the different. And yes, you can not only import your bookmarks but yuor saved pass words as well. Check it out!

HCR -- Medicare for All? (An idea whose time has not yet come)

2012-06-01T16:16:40-04:00

By John Ballard

The Age Rating Game: Will Older Americans Pay More Under Health Reform? by Maggie Mahar at The Health Care Blog last week has drawn some sixty-five comments which together with the original essay now runs to well over ten thousand words. The usual spirited arguments play out (typically more about politics than health care) for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing.

So down toward the end someone got around to advancing the notion of Medicare for all, paid for by progressive taxes, a suggestion that has been made before and sounds like a good idea. Maggie's nuanced response is typically more than most readers bargain for, but thanks to years of attention to the issue she spells out the pros and cons in easy to understand language.

What she says is worth repeating.

Yes, progressive taxes are the best way to finance health care. Ideally, when forging reform legislation, Congress would have called for a “tax” rather than a “penalty” for those who didn’t buy insurance. But for political reasons, they were afraid to use the word “tax” during the worst recession since The Great Depression.

The problem with expanding Medicare is that it is so wasteful and inefficient. The best medical research shows that 1 in 3 Medicare dollars are squandered on ineffective treatments, unnecessary tests, and over-priced drugs and devices that are no better than the older products that they are trying to replace. Because Congress has served has Medicare’s Board of Directors for all of these years, Medicare covers what lobbyists want it to cover: expensive back surgery for low back pain that back surgeons want covered (even though medical evidence show that in most cases back surgery for this particular problem does no good) PSA testing (which then leads to pricey prostate treatments which create more risks than benefits, and save very few lives–if any) that urologists want covered. (They’re still lobbying for PSA testing even though the Preventive Services Task Force has finally come out and recommended against it.)

Drug-makers want exorbitanty expensive cancer drugs covered, even though they may give the average patient onlly an extra three weeks of poor quality life. GE and other equipment makers want certain tests and treatments covered– even when there is no evidence that we’re getting value for our dollars. Academic medical centers want Medicare to pour more money into medical education even though we really don’t (and won’t) need more specialists in most areas. We need more primary care docs and nurse practioners. Meanwhie academic medical centers are throwing billions into over-build– new wings, more marble, more hotel-like amentities.

At the same time, Medicare doesn’t cover some things that it should cover: regular eye exams, for instance, hospice care that begins before the patient’s last few days, and adequate payment for palliative care that woudl encourage hospitals to hire more palliative care teams and more medical students would go into palliative care. The vast majority of people on Medicare have some form of supplemental private insurance (MediGap or Medicare Advantage) because there is so much that Medicare doesn’t cover which older patients truly need– while simultaneouslly wasting 1/3 of Medicare’s dollars on unneeded care. This is why I think it would be foolish to expand Medicare at this time.We don’t want to throw more people into a system that needs much repair. The Affordable Care Act sets out to repair Medicare by changing how we pay for care and how it is delivered, focusing on “evidence-based medicine.” Medical science–not lobbyists– should determine what we cover. Under the ACA, the Secretary of HHS has the power to lower payments for treatments that are overvalued while raising payments for treatments that are undervalued. And she doesn’t have to go through Congress– this is huge.

In additioin, if a pilot program is successful, HHS can roll it out nation wide– without going through Congress. (In the past, Congress blocked national roll-out of successful programs because they cut into someone’s income stream.) It will take time for the ACA to reform Medicare, but I’m hopeful that, by 2020, it might make sense to talk about opening up Medicare to more people.

In the meantime, non-profit insurers like Kaiser and Peugot Sound are helping to build data bases that show which treatments work for which patients. They have also made great strides in improving primary care, and in Kaiser’s case, reducing mortallities as a result of heart disease.,

Even Aetna has done better than Medicare in some areas– figuring out that it’s better to pay for more hospice care, even though patients in hospice care live longer, their care is less expensive than (and more humane than) the care they would receive in an ICU where they are undergoing futile treatments. (Unlike Congress, Aetna’s board of directors doesn’t worry about “death panels” and is not adverse to letting people the way they choose to die.)

Finally, with good IT systems, it won’t be that hard to verify who is eligible for subsidies. The Federal government has already given 5 or 6 states the funding they need to set up these systems, and they will serve as models for the verifiying eligibility in the other states.

It now looks as if the Federal govenrment will partner with most states in running the Exchanges, and most likely the Federal government will be verifying eligibility. Pollitically, it will be difficult to cut the subsidies: they’re built into the ACA, which is the law of the land. Moreover, all of the interests in the health care industry (insurers, drug-makers, hospitals) are strongly in favor of the subsidies because the subsidies will bring them more customers. I agree that we need to try to do a better job of letting low-income and middle-income know that they will be eligibe for subsidies which are, inf act, quite generous. They also need to understand that the insurance they will be buying will be much better than the insurance that most individiuals and small groups have today–it will cover the “essential benefits” –many of which are not covered today–, and there will be no co-pays or deductibles for preventive care.

The couple earning $68,000 aren’t eligible for subsidies because, if you look at income numbers, they’re upper-middle class. They earn more than median income for two people. As a practical matter, a couple who lives in New York City on $68,000 is middle-class (not uppper-middle-class) in terms of the life-style they can afford. But a couple who lives in Winston Salem, North Carolina (where my son lives) on that amount is quite affluent. (Everything from houses to wedding cakes are extraordinarily inexpensive in Winston Salem–and it’s a nice town! )

I suspect we may need to adjust the subsidies upward in some geographic areas and also raise subsidies for older Americans in states where their premiums are triple what a younger person pays.

Most importantly, we need to stop over-paying for many products and treatments. (My guess is that ultimately Medicare will begin negotiating for discounts with Pharma and device-makers, and private insurers will then demand lower prices as well). We need to stop over-paying for some specialists’ services, stop over-paying hospitals for preventable errors and readmissions, and start paying bonuses to doctors who keep their patients out of hospitals!

Finally, funding reform through progressive taxes would have been cleaner and seemingly easier. But we never could have gotten reform through Congress if we tried to fund it solely through taxes.

As I have said from the beginning, reform will be a process not an event. Over the next 10 years we will continue to tweak and revise the ACA. One can only hope that American voters elect wise representatives–wiser that the majority who are in Congress today. We will get the government– and the health care system– that we deserve.

HCR/ FYI -- lower prices for paying cash

2012-06-01T05:19:33-04:00

By John Ballard

I've mentioned this several times but it bears repeating. Paying cash for medical procedures and tests can save lots of money. But don't expect that money-saving hint to appear like napkins in your take-out. You gotta ask.

Many hospitals and physicians are offering large discounts if patients pay in cash and don't use their health insurance, the Los Angeles Times reported.

For example, a CT scan of the abdomen costs about $2,400 for patients insured by Blue Shield of California, while the Los Alamitos (Calif.) Medical Center cash price is only $250, according to the article. Another local California hospital charges insured patients $415 for blood tests that cost only $95 in cash.

To get the discounted prices, patients would have to withhold insurance information from hospitals, noted the LA Times. But experts caution against that because cash payments don't apply to patients' annual out-of-pocket spending limits for health insurance.

However, most patients don't know about the discounted cash prices. One such patient sued Blue Shield of California last month for unfair business practices, breach of good faith and misrepresentation over her medical bills after she was charged $2,336 for a CT scan that would have cost her $1,054 in cash, according to the article.

Despite state laws requiring better price transparency, the industry still faces barriers such as competition between insurers and providers. Boosting patient awareness of low cash prices could help strengthen transparency throughout the industry and control escalating healthcare costs. A lack of price transparency costs the United States about $36 billion a year in healthcare overspending, according to a February Thomson Reuters survey.

Make a mental note -- if you don't ask you may never fid out. It's better to ask and hear "No" than to fail to ask and pay more for your failure to inquire.

Every time I put up another post like this I am reminded what a sad commentary it is on the American health care system. Caveat emptor is not a bad dictum if you're shopping for a car or even a new house. But in the name of humanity, why must we be so wary when seeking health care?

The ED Show - Outside groups will raise $1 billion for Romney

2012-05-31T20:05:48-04:00

Posted by John

Quote of the Day

2012-05-31T19:21:11-04:00

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The quote of the day comes from Margaret Carlson at Bloomberg.

The issue is not whether Romney as president will contradict the positions of Romney as candidate. Of that we can be confident. But Romney is a man with no fixed positions from which to deviate. It’s harder to accuse someone of intellectual hypocrisy when you don’t know where he stood in the first place.

That pretty well sums up Willard Mitt Romney. The only exception to this may be Foreign Policy and the military.

Romney - Bush Redux

2012-05-30T17:10:56-04:00

Commentary By Ron Beasley

A few days ago I did a post on Romney's foreign policy. If it looks familiar it should - his foreign policy advisors are mostly retreads from the Bush/Cheney administration.

Today there are a couple of new posts from people to the right of me on Romney's militaristic foreign policy. From Daniel Larison we have:

Romney’s Campaign Dislikes the Neoconservative Label, But Keeps Embracing Neoconservative Policies

The campaign is right to bristle at the neoconservative label. That’s not because the label is inaccurate. Romney’s foreign policy statements often sound as if they are drafted by Weekly Standard staff writers. Except for McCain, Romney has been campaigning as the most unapologetic adherent to neoconservative foreign policy views of any Republican nominee. Regardless of the “range of backgrounds” of his advisers, the diversity of their views is not very great.Two-thirds of them worked for George W. Bush in some capacity. The campaign bristles at the description because they understand that the neoconservative label is politically damaging. That doesn’t seem to stop Romney from giving voters every reason to believe that his foreign policy would be a neoconservative one.

The second comes from OTB's Steven Taylor:

Romney and the Military

1. Romney here appears to be saying that if he has to choose, he chooses military power over taking care of the social needs of the citizenry. Even recognizing that military power is important, this is a telling statement. It is odd, or so it seems to me, to so easily dismiss the importance of social needs and to, to use Erik’s word, sneer at the Europeans for diverting more resources to that than to military power.

2. Of course, an underlying question: how big is big enough? As Doug Mataconis noted recently, he US already spends the most in raw terms than any other country in the world. Indeed, the US spends six times was the second place country (China) spends and over 11 times what the number three county (Russia) spends. In terms of the Europe quip and Romney, it is worth noting that four of the top ten in raw spending are European countries (France, the UK, Germany, and Italy). Further, along those same lines, Doug notes:

If you add in the military budgets of the NATO and non-NATO allies in the Top 20, it amounts to more than 70% of the worldwide military spending, dwarfing the spending of nations like China, Russia, and Iran to a considerable degree. Based on sheer numbers alone, the idea that the United States isn’t spending enough on defense, a refrain one hears frequently from the hawkish wing of the GOP, is quite simply absurd.

Romney will give the wheel to the neocons again. I don't like a lot of what Obama has done but I sure don't want the Weekly Standard crew in charge again. We should all know how that worked out last time.

Names suck as matching references

2012-05-29T21:45:53-04:00

By Dave Anderson:

This has made me retch as a professional data geek:

The state [Florida] has been responsible for helping screen voters since 2006 when it launched a statewide voter registration database. The state database is supposed to check the names of registered voters against other databases, including ones that contain the names of people who have died and people who have been sent to prison.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/18/2805445/fla-to-double-check-names-on-voter.html#storylink=cpy

I'm a data geek. One of my occassional tasks is to integrate my company's data set and lists that outside parties provide to us. A priori, I know that a very large proportion of the individuals should be on both lists. I've blocked out most of tomorrow for this task as we just got a medium size list that needs to be crosswalked into our data set. I'll be working with the data geek intern (yay, I have a .25 FTE minion) to show the intern the ropes on how to work this process. We talked about the project for twenty minutes this afternoon and the intern was shocked that this is not an easy process as it is just a matter of comparing names, and names are easy.

Ahhh, to be understandably incompetent in the ways of data. Names suck as unique identifiers, here are some common problems.

Junior versus Jr. versus JR versus II
Dave versus David
David M Anderson versus DM Anderson versus David Anderson versus D Anderson
Family groupings don't neccessarily follow any coherent naming structure
Mary Louise Jones versus Mary Louise Smith Jones versus Mary Smith-Jones versus Mary L Smith Jones etc.

My name in particular is a pain in the ass because for my age cohort, it has a top-10 male name and a very common last name. Googling "David Anderson" and restricting it to Pittsburgh produces numerous other individuals before you come find anything that is non-Newshoggers related to me. My wife is a bit easier for the data geek as she has an uncommon first name. But the point is that names are a hideous identifier.

Names combined with other information can be better as unique identifiers. However, there are strong limitations on using address data such as postal address as there again are significant naming convention problems, as well as the lack of actual zip code boundaries that are not imputed. ZIP codes can commonly cross multiple municipalities and counties. Furthermore, center cities are often used as mailing addresses for multiple inner ring suburbs, for instance, I live outside of the Pittsburgh city limits, but my zip code means my mailing address is "Pittsburgh, PA". Birthday data is a bit better, assuming accurate data entry, but again, there are numerous David Anderson's born on my birthday and they live in multiple states and have jacked up my credit report more than once.

The intern's eyes were glazing over when I got to the point about propensity scoring (ie a match on first name, last name, DOB, and zip code but mismatch on middle initial and suffix is probably a valid match), wild ass guesses that need to be sent back to the outside vendor for confirmation, and unique identifiers such as Social Security number or UPIN or NPI or anything else. A match on EIN or TIN or SSN is a solid match.

The intern's ignorance is understandable as this is his first exposure to intermediate data geekery. However, Florida's decision to use name matching for anything other than a PSA mailing to remind people to brush their teeth is not defensible as understandable ignorance. It is intentional and willful incompetence by someone, either the hiring entity or the contractor and if it is the contracter, the state is guilty of neglect.

But that happens to be the entire point of this exercise, intentional neglect is useful to the Florida governing elite.

The Truth Hurts

2012-05-28T23:09:17-04:00

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Chris Hayes poked the monkey this Memorial Day weekend when he suggested that the valor and heroism of US troops was being used to justify war.

Doug Mataconis objected to the timing but really never condemded the message. Doug's post generated a really great comments thread which is worth checking out.

I am a veteran and was not at all offended by Hayes' comments. Here is my reality based comment:

I am a veteran – a Vietnam veteran and for most of that war there was a draft. But I don’t think that the draft is really relevant. When you are in combat you are fighting for one thing and one thing alone – to keep you and your buddies alive. Are you a hero when you throw yourself on a grenade? Of course you are, but you didn’t do it for country, freedom or Democracy – you did it to save the lives of your buddies. You will never form a stronger bond than you do with your fellow soldiers – that includes marriage.
Should we recognize those heroes? Of course we should but we shouldn’t forget what was on their minds as they were fighting – survival.

Radely Balko commented:

Hayes’ point is that the word “hero” connotes a noble mission. I guess I just don’t see how this is even debatable. It’s precisely the reason why we don’t call Nazi soldiers or Iraqi insurgents heroes. They too were willing to fight, kill, and die for a cause. But because we find their cause objectionable, we’d never consider calling them heroes.

IT may be the message is right but was the timing inappropriate? Emptywheel:

But move beyond the patina of insensitivity, and Chris Hayes was quite right. We need desperately to unhinge the valor of our troops from the moral squalor of our leaders. Memorial Day may be a touchy time to hear that, but it needs to be said.

It may be insensitive to say this on Memorial Day what a better time to get people's attention. Balko talks about a "noble mission". When was the last time we had one of those? Certainly not in my lifetime and I'm 66 years old . Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are certainly not wars I would consider "noble missions".

What better time to question war but the day that we remember those who died at war. I lost friends and relatives in Vietnam. They died for nothing and the administration of Lyndon Johnson knew they were going to die for nothing in 1965 but the war went on and 10s of thousands died. Is there a better day to discuss the "moral squalor of our leaders" - I think not,

Bravo Chris Hayes for going where few would dare to go. I am a veteran - a Vietnam veteran. and I was not the least bit offended .