Political Irony

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas J Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM, in 1943.

“We’re in the business of delivering what consumers want, and to stay a little ahead of what we think they will want. We just don’t see the need of delivering that to consumers.” – Irene Esteves, Chief Financial Officer of Time Warner Cable, responding to a question about Google’s gigabit internet service in Kansas City, today.

UPDATE: Good article on why Cable and Telecom companies suck so much. The conclusion:

The fact that any Internet service provider is held in the same level of esteem by American consumers as an insurance company that required a massive taxpayer bailout and an oil company that dumped a bunch of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico is stunning. It indicates that not only are Americans dissatisfied with their current choice of broadband providers, but that they’re positively itching for an alternative that will let them tear up their monthly cable bills for good.

Or put another way, cable companies had better enjoy their regional monopolies while they can. Because if any competitor comes along that delivers a faster service at a reasonable price in the near future, then the consumer exodus from cable will be swift and permanent.

Or are they just going to keep cutting off their noses to spite their faces?

Ezra Klein sums up the current sequester situation well. Republicans have five goals/demands:

1. Reduce the deficit.
2. Cut entitlement spending.
3. Protect or increase defense spending.
4. Get rid of unnecessary deductions and loopholes in the tax code.
5. Lower tax rates.

Now, I think all of these are reasonable goals, except for the last one because it directly conflicts with the first one (unless you still believe in the fantasy of trickle-down economics).

Note that I’m not saying I agree with these goals. For example, I think US defense spending (#3) is high enough and could be reduced. And I’d clarify number two in that I think we can decrease entitlement spending without decreasing benefits (in fact, in an earlier post I made the point that we could better reduce costs by increasing entitlement spending).

Nevertheless, the White House has now told the GOP that they will agree on the first four of these. So Republicans would achieve 80% of their goals. But the Republicans don’t want that deal. Instead they will take the sequester, which only accomplishes one of their goals.

Why? Who knows. Maybe the GOP would prefer to sweep themselves into the dustbin of history, rather than ever say yes to anything from Obama.

© Tom Tomorrow

Somehow, conservatives have hoodwinked us into believing that there is some sort of financial emergency, and that in order to avoid cutting entitlements in the future, we have to… cut them now! This is nonsense.

An excellent article in The New Yorker that explains the real situation, and gives a strong hint as to why conservatives are pushing this con:

Projections show that, owing to an aging population and rising health-care costs, the Medicare Trust Fund will become insolvent in 2024 and Social Security in 2033. The image of empty coffers is a powerful one: half of all Americans aged between eighteen and twenty-nine don’t think that Social Security will exist when they retire. That’s a bizarre thing to believe about an important government program. No one ever says, “I don’t think the U.S. Army will be there when I get old” or talks about the Defense Department “going broke.” We assume that there will always be a need for the military, and that we’ll end up paying the taxes that are necessary to fund it. But, because Social Security and Medicare have always been self-supporting, it’s easy to believe that they’ll just vanish if the trust funds dry up. This isn’t the case. Relatively minor tweaks to Social Security will allow it to keep paying full benefits for many decades. And, if we wanted, we could supplement funding for both programs with general government revenue. That’s what most European countries do, and, indeed, parts of Medicare are already paid for out of general revenue. The only way that Social Security and Medicare can go “bankrupt” is if we let them.

So why are politicians obsessed with the question of solvency? Because it makes cutting entitlements seem inevitable, rather than a political choice. After all, if you’re in favor of cutting entitlements, that means you’re in favor of spending less money taking care of old people. That’s a tenable position, but it’s politically dicey—particularly for Republicans, since the elderly are among their biggest supporters. It’s far more palatable to argue that we simply have to cut benefits, because otherwise the programs will go bankrupt. That’s why when, in 2011, Paul Ryan introduced a plan to effectively replace Medicare with a voucher system he said that he was doing so in order to preserve Medicare for future generations. Hand-wringing about Medicare and Social Security going bust allows Republicans, paradoxically, to portray themselves not as opponents of entitlement spending but, rather, as its saviors.

So we get proposals to raise the eligibility age of Medicare, but that’s a false savings. Because Medicare is better at controlling medical spending than private insurance, raising the retirement age could cost almost twice as much in increased medical costs as it saves in government spending. So what they are really proposing is to lower government spending by a dollar by raising your health insurance costs by two dollars. And the lower government spending will only save you money if they cut taxes (instead of, say, throwing it at the military), and even then most of that tax cut will undoubtably go to the rich.

Only an obsession with the trust fund makes kicking people off Medicare seem like a rational approach to our health-care problems.

We should be expanding Medicare, not kicking people off of it! It is ironic that some of the same people who hoped Obamacare would be a single-payer system have accepted the con that we have to control Medicare costs by cutting benefits. Instead, we should be controlling Medicare costs by controlling medical costs. And a really good way to control medical costs is to expand Medicare.

© Joe Heller

“Sad news from the Vatican. As you know, Pope Benedict was fired a couple of weeks ago. They caught him stealing communion wafers” – David Letterman

“The big question: Who’s going to replace the Pope? Where’s the new Pope going to come from? I think they should check out Whole Foods. I’ve seen plenty of holier-than-thou people walking around that place.” – Jay Leno

“The Pope is going into retirement. He will be retiring to his sprawling ranch, the Pope-arosa.” – David Letterman

“We’re learning more about the Pope’s condition. The Vatican announced that Pope Benedict hit his head during his March 2012 trip to Mexico. In fact, right after that, the Pope said he’s sworn off spring break forever.” – Jay Leno

“Happy Presidents Day. Today we celebrate an American tradition — immigrants working on your day off.” – Craig Ferguson

“Most stores are open on Presidents Day. What better way to celebrate our presidents than by offering a sale on tires? Yes, four score and 20 years ago, our forefathers got two-for-one on steel-belted radials.” – Craig Ferguson

“You can tell how important a president was based on his monument. Lincoln was important because his monument shows him sitting in a chair looking serious. And George Washington got an even better one — a monument shaped like a giant middle finger pointed at England.” – Craig Ferguson

“People sometimes forget that George Washington was very rich, had a pony tail, and grew hemp on his farm. He was America’s original Willie Nelson.” – Craig Ferguson

“Since the brutal presidential election, there’s been a lot of soul searching going on at Fox News. I am confident that they eventually will find one.” – Stephen Colbert

“Yesterday President Obama played golf in Florida with Tiger Woods. Well, you thought Michelle got mad when Barack ate a cheeseburger. She told him, ‘No hanging out with Tiger afterwards. You come right home’.” – Jay Leno

“Actually Tiger and the President both have something in common. Both got in trouble because of their stimulus package.” – Jay Leno

“The White House’s immigration plan was leaked over the weekend, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio is already calling it ‘dead on arrival’. That incidentally is also Florida’s state motto.” – Jimmy Fallon

“A top geneticist at Stanford says human intelligence is declining. You know what that means? We are seeing Congress at its smartest and most effective right now.” – Jay Leno

“It is now legal to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. So if you are in one of them, be careful.” – Stephen Colbert