Mixed Market Moderate

Why Politicans Move to the Center

2010-11-13T17:07:00.000-05:00

The Tea Party was able to get some its favorite candidates into office, but tea partiers may be in for a shock as political realities cause many of those newly elected politicians to moderate their views. Why? Because extreme solutions, while sometimes attractive, are rarely possible or popular. Eliminating Medicare and Medicaid, for instance, seems appealing in that it would decease government budgets and lower taxes. However, costs to society (not to mention the politician's carer) due to increases in health care costs, not to mention human suffering, makes this option untenable.
Republicans and democrats also have this occur when elected into office. A cynical response would be that politicians will simply promise anything to get elected. This may be true in some cases. But often, idealism falls to pragmatism when faced with the actual consequences of a proposed action. Only bad leaders ignore the cost of a decision then make the bad decision simply because he told the People that he would do a thing at an earlier time when the decision may have sounded like a good idea. Pres. Obama may have receivd the Nobel Peace Prize,but notice that the wars did not end because of practical realities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes, even a good idea may be executed at the wrong time, and some would argue that the newly passed health care act is an example of trying to do a good thing (provide health care options) at the wrong time (during a crippled economy).
These shifts occur in part because the ideologies of the parties are too broad to covet the diverse economies, peoples, and needs of the nation. Evangelical Christians and Mormons may be deemed as conservative religious centers, but neither groups is either homogeneous in its political leanings or have the same concerns. African Americans and the LGBT community may both vote democrat, but oppose each other in some areas, such as gay marriage, regardless of party affiliation. Somehow, we try to express through two party platforms the myriad opinions of 50 states and hundreds of millions of people. It doesn't work, and so politicians try to keep everyone happy by trading in ideological purity for a better chance of getting something done.

Lawyer Joke

2010-03-28T02:03:00.000-04:00

An old man was on his death bed. He wanted badly to take some of his money with him. He called his priest, his doctor and his lawyer to his bedside. “Here’s $30,000 cash to be held by each of you. I trust you to put this in my coffin when I die so I can take all my money with me.”

At the funeral, each man put an envelope in the coffin. Riding away in a limousine, the priest suddenly broke into tears and confessed, “I had only put $20,000 into the envelope because I needed $10,000 for a new baptistery.”

“Well, since we’re confiding in each other,” said the doctor, “I only put $10,000 in the envelope because we needed a new machine at the hospital which cost $20,000.”

The lawyer was aghast. “I’m ashamed of both of you,” he exclaimed. “I want it known that when I put my envelope in that coffin, it held my personal check for the full $30,000.”
http://www.lawyer-jokes.us/

2010-03-24T11:40:00.003-04:00

Realized in a team meeting today that the health indicators we were working on will change dramatically because of the health care bill.

Pragmatic Libertarians

2010-03-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

A recent article featured on the New York Times website explains what constitutes a pragmatic libertarian. I have referred to myself as a "moderate libertarian" and I think this article explains what my political views are, more or less.

Here's the link:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/pragmatic-libertarians/?hp

Healthcare bill passes, so we are all saved right? Right?

2010-03-22T00:20:00.000-04:00

The House passed the controversial health care bill today. Heralded by Democrats and demonized by Republicans, the year-long debate leading up to this vote has exposed the deep divide between conservative and liberal thought in America. For example, I personally know several people who adamantly believe that government-run health care is unconstitutional, which is in line with a strict constructionist view of the constitution. On the other hand, liberals state that the bill will help to overhaul a broken insurance system while saving money in the long-run.
While medical insurance coverage for the less fortunate is a laudable goal, the bill goes too far while at the same time not going far enough. To me, the danger is that the bill may force insurance companies to ramp up their premiums because they can no longer deny applications by those with preexisting conditions or deny coverage to certain individuals. The extra costs and higher risks will force people, especially employers (who will be required to provide medical insurance under certain conditions) to pay higher premiums.
The doomsday scenario is that we will end up paying astronomically high premiums without the benefit of true universal coverage for which the French pay such high taxes. Many employers will continue to simply not hire new employees because of the high cost involved with the required medical insurance they would have to provide to new employees. Add to that that politicians debated a bill they hadn't read (~~10,000~~ 2000 pages is a long read) and I am deeply concerned that such an important bill can be passed with so little understanding of its actual contents. Remember death panels? Made up by people who never read the bill. The concern over abortion funding? Apparently not in the bill, but caused a brouhaha anyway that led to several democrats switching their votes in the 11th hour.
So is this a good bill? It has been passed with the best of intentions,and with the knowledge that the current health care system is broken, especially concerning the price, availability,and efficacy of medical insurance. But I do not think the champions of this bill have thought through the economic ramifications and how the bill will effect employers, premium payers, taxpayers, and the health care industry itself. Also, I think the democrats have underrated populist movements like the Tea Party as well as the overall Libertarian leanings of many Americans on the right and the left who oppose expanding an already unwieldy and, especially at the moment, distrusted government. In short, I hope the democrats know what they are getting into, and have really thought through what they are preparing to sign into law.

2010-01-01T22:14:00.000-05:00

How Performance-Based Pay for Teachers Might Hurt Public Education

2010-01-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

Many believe that determining salary on performance will incentivize superior teachers to stay in the profession while pushing out inferior teachers. However, the problem is that the methods used to determine performance are not accurate and may not be beneficial. For instance, if performance is based on the standardized test scores, the unintended consequence will be that all teachers will try to avoid classrooms that have students with lower than average test scores. So poor schools with limited resources, who presently offer salary increases as an incentive to work in a challenging environment, will lose their ability to recruit teachers. In the same vein, test scores do not measure the skill or effectiveness of the teacher but only the ability of the students to complete one test. As such, the incentive is to "teach to the test" rather than teach the students what they need to know in a given subject.
The difficulty is that the product a teacher creates, knowledge, does not produce a value that can be easily quantified. Test scores do not show the improvement caused by an effective teacher's presence. Continued education requirements may not impart any real skills useful in the classroom. Performance reviews may show how well a teacher completes a checklist of objectives, but still does not show the impact, positive or negative, that a teacher has on students in the classroom. Until a method is devised that can show a teacher's impact on his or students, then performance-based pay for teachers will be counterproductive.

2009-11-16T01:20:00.000-05:00

Walking through the protests in front of the Iranian embassy in London, summer 2009.

2009-11-16T01:13:00.000-05:00

I found these statues near the National Mall.