NYT sees only three options for increasing Medicare/aid costs

Apparantly:

The Democrats do not say, in any detail, how they would slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid or what they think about the main policy options: rationing care, raising taxes, cutting payments to providers or requiring beneficiaries to pay more.

Robert Pear thinks the only options are: reducing the quality of care, not providing care at all or increasing the cost of care. The question of tackling costs of the actual treatments and drug aren't a policy option. It would be relatively easy to abandon government granted patent monopolies and would drive costs down dramatically. However, I guess this isn't a main policy option due to either the powers of the lobbies or the fallacy that innovation requires patent protection. To be sure, innovation in an inefficent private market requirse patent protection. Innovation in a public enterprise require no patent protection.

Why care about Pandas, Tigers, Wolves and Whales?

Conversation on biodiversity from a forum, I raised the point that why do we care about rare wolves when there is suffering live stock around? A reply:

do you understand the value of variety, understand that a concrete desert cannot produce the kind of human stock a mountain full of wildlife & massive variety of life can ? The wolf is a teacher for strong humans & a hunter of weak humans. This is something to be respected & valued more than any gold or possession.

I understand the value of variety. Key noun 'I'.

These are value terms, everyone can have opinions and everyone's opinion is equally valid. When opinions on what to do in an area collide we fall back on political philosophy where I personally favour true democratic principles. Usually it boils down to the majority wanting to preserve biodiversity, say not mining an area. And an elite minority (corporations) that want to exploit the social environment for private profit.

But I would like a more concrete answer to justify preservation of biodiversity. The keystone species being wiped out causing massive effects to our planet is a good argument. Arguments that appeal to value terms, inheritantly subjective, are not. Why should one preserve the endangered Panda? I think they're beautiful and majestic creatures. But this is a subjective opinion. Why do we spend so many resources targeting preservation of, what seems to me entirely arbitrary animals, when those resources could be used to resolve suffering of live stock? I feel the same about these campaigns against Whale trolling. Whales are free range meat, they only suffer during capture. They indeed suffer absolutely horribly for the hours it takes these huge creates to die.

However, this pales in comparison to live stock. I just don't understand what the difference is. A cow or a chicken or a sheep, to me, is just as wonderful as a whale. I don't justify an animals worth by its rarity, otherwise there should be no such things as human rights because we are so numerous. Who cares if millions die? We bread well, there's plenty of us. I judge them by a formation of a nervous system. And to me it seems quite absurd that we care about wolves, tigers and panadas when other animals with equally well formed nervous systems are suffering. It just doesn't even compare.

Notes on Kosovo

Written 30/07/2008, seemed relevant for anyone doing google searcehs :-p

As I see it, it's a pissing match between Russia and the US. EU will remain more docile worried about the gas from Russia, although the UK will probably stick harder with the US for i) traditonal reasons 'strong relatinoship' ii) The Livthinkenyo murder and the associated expulsions of Russian diplomats.

Putin doesn't care about Serb/Slav protection or historical links. The slav brothers have been used as a pretext to get involved in foreign conflict since WW1. What he most cares about is pwning Bush and establishing firmly that he can challenge US hegemony and reversing the embarrassment of having the Russian brokered peace agreement, after 1999 bombing, being largely walked over by NATO. He wants to send hte diplomatic message that you cannot treat Russia like that, when we agree to contractal terms, you must stick by them. Furthermore, there's the minor stuff of Russia being hypocrtical of Checnia if it supported independence and Spain for the same reason, they have their own independent movement.

I read this article by an international lawyer, was quite interesting saying that the only legal method of independence is partition. The UN holds Kosovo on Trust, this does not entitle it legally to give it away to a new soverign. Holding a country on Trust is not a legal method of annexation of terrirtory so no good title passes. The only legal way, is a 85% 15% split, where Serbia retains control of the majority Serb areas (15%) and Kosovo the rest. I also read in other aticles, that de facto, Serbia is already in control of the Serb areas of Kosvo where Kosovo does not try and exercise authority.

In sum, main obstacales to independence

• Increasing tension between US and Russia.
• Dosile EU, effectively hooked on Russian gas.
• Concern for Kosovar-serbs (10%, 200,000)
• Lack of strong economy or muscular legal institutions (corruption, lack of energy)
• Serbian insecurity that an independent Kosovo will lead to a rise in ultra-nationalist elements.
• Political mis-mangement in Serbia, should be telling the public they want to keep 10-15% of Kosovo that is full of Serbs.
• Minor concerns about multi-ethnicity being compromised
• Jurisprudential questions of the legality of Kosovian independence.

Some rough numbers on Northern Rock

The Government has bailed out Northern Rock by supplying them with £25bn loans. This is corporate welfare at the worst I can think of. A few rough numbers.

• 29.5 million tax payers in 2006-07.
• Each individual tax payer will loan £847.50 to the Rock.
• A rough estimate is the loans value to around £1bn subsidy outright. That is £33.90 each tax payer has given the rock.

Jan 5th Economist faking stats

[1968] ended with almost 60% of Americans voting for either Richard Nixon or George Wallace, a Southern segregationist [40 year itch, p39 in pdf edition]

In the 1968 Presidential Election 56.9% of those who voted, voted for Nixon and Wallace. According to the US Census there were around 116 million eligible to vote. 41.6 million voted for Nixon and Wallace. That's near 36% of eligible Americans voting for Nixon/Wallace or 20% of Americans.

In the words of Dean Baker, it would have been useful to inform the readers of this information.

Gaza Violence

Astounding quote by Shlomo Dror today

"It's unacceptable that people in Sderot are living in fear every day and people in Gaza are living life as usual."

Life as usual, living in an open prison. Thought experiment: how about we swap the two sides?

The Pursuit of Profit

Whenever I read critique's of corporate power, I always see Ford vs. Dodge get a mention. That is the case that famously decided that a corporation has no goal but the pathological pursuit of profit for shareholders. In the case Mr. Ford wanted to give his workforce a bonus, the shareholders filed suit and won. Thus the common critique from the left is radical judicial activism has caused this psychopathic pursuit for profit. [find citations] and this is a core principle of Anglo-American corporate law.

Indeed it is a core principle, however there are also plenty of other legal obligations a corporation has. The genesis of the Tort of negligence is an example of that. Companies have a duty of care to make sure their products do not harm consumers (Donohogue v Stevenson), they also have innumerable obligations under environmental law. However these are less often followed, despite them having the same normative force as the decision in Ford vs. US. The main reason why the normative force does not result in substantive changes is due to the lack of enforcement, which is a structural problem of capitalist societies. i.e. powerful groups can enforce their legal rights, the right to exploit the environment for profit. They have white shoe and magic circle law firms for that. However, the majority cannot enforce their environmental rights due to lack of either standing in court lack of funds or under staffed and overworked enforcement bodies. However, it does also seem to be as Friedman said, a core of human nature - to profit. Well, human nature of elites and power centers.

Ford vs Dodge is not the reason we live under corporations pathological pursuit of power, that argument seems to me to reverse the chronology and ignore the rest of the innumerable legal obligations corporations are under and hugely overstate the importance of a single case. Corporations are required by law to peruse profit, but that's irrelevant, they're also required to follow environmental regulations and they rarely do. The problem is not Ford, the problem is formal equality necessarily leading to substantive inequality. A critique that usually holds accurate for all of law.