Goodwill Ambassadors

I will confess to having done some fairly ill-considered things during my visits to other countries. Some I deeply regret, others made me sick, some could have killed me, but didn't. But there are some dumb things that I am proud to say I would never do. These are three of those things.


The world's largest fish market is reversing a month-old ban on tourists at its riotous early-morning auctions.

Tsukiji market in the Japanese capital Tokyo had accused tourists of flouting hygiene rules and causing disruption with flash photography. Some tourists had been caught hugging, licking and even riding the huge frozen tuna that are Tsukiji's most arresting sight, an official said.

Arthur

Health Care Follies

My favorite line in this article is:

Tauzin defended direct advertising as a means to not only educate patients about treatments but also alert them to illnesses they may not realize they have.

See, some consumers might not even have heard of certain diseases, or imagined that they might have it. In addition, many Americans need more to worry about, not less, and since the medical system is set up the way it is their primary care physician cannot be relied upon to find out of they might be ill, because there are so few primary care physicians and the system is designed to rush office visits for maximum efficiency in terms of the number of patients seen each day. Oh, and those ads for Cialis? the ones that make people want to have old-fashioned claw foot bathtubs moved out on beaches or to the edge of cliffs and somehow have them filled with nice warm water, although the nearest water supply is probably a half mile away? I guess it must work, since the ads show so many satisfied bathers, but has sitting in twin bathtubs on the edge of a cliff ever been a strong desire of yours? Me either.

Reform of the American health "industry" is on the agenda for the new Congress and new President (eleven days, and counting) and there is a huge fight shaping up over the glib spokesmodel Doctor Sanjay Gupta. Congressman John Conyers says he will be damned if he lets Gupta be put in as Surgeon General without a fight. Conyers sees Gupta as a mainstream partisan for the status quo, who has been dismissive of the concept of universal coverage, aka "single payer". Whatever faults such a system would have, and doubtless there would be many, short of starting a terrible epidemic it could not help but be vastly superior to the existing "pay to play" mess that the American medical profession has morphed into. When I was growing up my mom was surprised to see that her Doctor Anderson served powdered milk as an economy measure in their home. Can anyone imagine a doctor these days doing that? So in fifty years the medical profession has gone from middle class to something else. And the insurance companies? Oh my, what a growth opportunity that has been, eh? An entire industry that thrives through the ruthless denial of medical claims, often for frivolous reasons. I mean, what is a really sick person going to do? sue a massive corporation? Ha, right. Mostly they go somewhere and die.

What that has created is a game. Doctors raise their rates to stratospheric heights, insurance companies negotiate vigorously and they settle on a discount. How much? Try 80%. Sound impossible? It turns out that a noted University Medical Center near here has exactly that policy in place. So what happens if you come in as an uninsured? You get charged the full whack. $5,000 for a $1,000 procedure. Oh, unless you apply for a discount, permitting them to assess your assets and do a credit check. Sort of progressive gouging.

There is going to be a lot of work to do in the 111th Congress. I wish them well and I hope they are able to be as transparent as the President wishes things to be. If so, there will be some hair-raising stories that come out.

Arthur

Weekend Update - January 11th Full Moon Edition

• Two good ones from Morford this week. First, Kids, click here for images of brutal misery and pain! And then, can this year be summed up in two little words: "More Ambien"? Mark wonders if this year is the year of yes.


• An unprecedented number of Americans are questioning Israel's actions in Gaza. Could it be the rise of online progressive media telling the truth about Israel, or that the public rejects the same pundits who sold us Iraq?


• Dubya says his Dad was "almost too humble to be President." Dad says son Dubya "passed the test," then breaks out in tears. See it all here, raw and disgusting.


• We're all planning to be here when the Bush Countdown Clock runs down to zero, just to see what's going to happen. In the mean time, here's how to say goodbye to Bush in three minutes.


• Conservatives have started self-serving myths about Obama's economic plan. Here's one of those top 10 lists that explains it all.


• Should have heard of "The Mad As Hell Club" before, but this is a great essay to start with. Seems a high school English teacher in Los Angeles wants to "get rid of Henry Jimenez." They don't pay these people enough.


• Jeez, I actually got sucked into this nonsense in the 70's for a few months. Haven't heard much from them for decades. But look out, Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland.

Delusional States

I could be wrong, but my guess is that despite how proud and impressed his father is with him the odds of "Jeb" Bush ever becoming President of the United States are somewhere in the range of ten thousand to one. He is alive and over the age of 35, oh and born in the United States, so it would be LEGAL but gosh, when one talks about a tarnished brand name doesn't the Bush name just sort of rise to the top of the heap like pond scum? Can anyone think of a name that conjurs up more rancor? Ironically, I suspect that the late Saddam Hussein probably enjoys more popularity in Iraq than the Bush family does in this country.

Isn't that ironic?

Arthur

Weekend Update - January 3rd

• Sympathy for the W? Mark Morford writes, "if you're so inclined, if the temperature of your temperament is just so, if that fourth glass of $10 recession-defying wine is making you feel unusually generous, maybe, just maybe you can muster a bit of sympathy for George W. Bush." Oh brother.


• Bill O'Reilly's latest book is entitled "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity." Well, it's a fresh piece of something all right, just like Billo himself. Here's a look at The Bizarre Life and Angry Times of Bill O'Reilly.


• "There should be a great hue and cry -- a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches -- over the damage he’s done to this country." Here's that Bob Herbert column from this week that summed up George Bush's damage to our nation. It's a doozie.


• Al Franken holds a 49-vote lead over incumbant Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, pending the resolution of the absentee ballots. Franken's campaign has declined to say whether he would try to take his seat immediately if the canvassing board certifies him the winner. The GOP says it will block any attempt to seat Franken early. Go for it AL!


• Here's a "must read:" Robert Scheer writing in The Nation of "Cheney's Legacy of Deception."


• For nearly two years, Steve Kroft and 60 Minutes followed Barack Obama on the long and winding road to the White House complete with interviews, never-before-seen footage, and candid moments with Obama, his family, and his closest advisors. In case you missed it, check it out HERE.

Those Overpaid Auto Workers. Curse Them!

The bold claims that union auto workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler are being paid in excess of $70 can only be made if one adds in all of the legacy medical care and pension pledges made to retirees, and then divides that aggregate number (current wages and benefits + medical and pension payments due to retirees) and then divides it by the number of current employees. That number is smaller than the historic workforce due to a lot of "off-shoring" of manufacturing to Mexico and the closure of US plants. The net effect is that if one divides the smaller number of current employees into the pool of legacy costs, and then one fudges a bit, yes you can come up with a Big Scary Number. A lot of the impetus behind that drive to hammer that kind of bogus statistic into the public's head appears to be (a) Republicans hate unions (b) they like the idea of all three auto companies going bankrupt, so they can renege on their pledges to retirees.

The "fact check" makes a key point: the foreign auto manufacturers have, without exception, chosen to build their plants in the South where they were able to avoid unions and, importantly, receive massive tax breaks. In addition, none of those manufacturing plants has been there long enough to have too many retirees. Yet. So to compare their hourly average (about $26.50 an hour) to the big three (about $29.50 an hour) is not all that dramatic a differential. It is a bit more than a 10% differential. Since labor is less than 10% of the cost of making a car, that would mean that in terms of current wages the difference in cost basis would only be 10% of 10% = 1%. How one factors in the legacy costs is difficult to agree on. While the foreign firms have built up manufacturing structures in the US, to have a high domestic content, Detroit has built up its manufacturing in Mexico and Canada... to cut their costs. Sorting out which savings are offset by legacy costs is a complicated one, but as many have suggested, if domestic manufacturers were building more interesting cars the odds are good that they would be doing better. In the meantime domestic manufacturers are offering unprecedented discounts. All of the "Hummers" are priced to move, as perhaps the brand name most reflective of our recent "age of exuberance".

The latest talking point is that the New Deal was actually a crock, that it was a vast p.r. stunt that did not bring our country out of the depression, but which actually got in the way of the "wisdom of the marketplace" which would have made everything better again, if those darned regulators had just let them do so. I hope we are now at a point where we can recognize that an entirely unregulated financial market often morphs into a feeding frenzy for those with less than pure moral codes.

Arthur

Weekend Update - December 27th

• As we slip expectantly out of this year and into the next, we prepare our lists. Here's the first one: The 10 Greediest People of 2008.


• Uncle Bob once told me that he thought John Stossel was a blooming idiot. Now p.m. carpenter writes "The precise moment at which ABC News' John Stossel lost his mind will, I'm sure, forever remain a medical mystery. But that this "news correspondent" of libertarian hysterics has indeed lost his mind is a sadly and increasingly pronounced fact of (his) life."


• At the risk of making this Weekend Update all about "blooming idiots," let's take a look at another one. Bill Kristol. Is the year the NYT fires his sorry ass?


• A candidate for the Republican National Committee chairmanship said Friday the CD he sent committee members for Christmas -- which included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" -- was clearly intended as a joke. Well, I guess we can take a joke, right? Right?


• Bob Herbert has a New Year's Resolution, and fantastic advice for this entire country of ours: Stop Being Stupid.


• Ohmygawd this is fantastic for us history buffs: Henry Kissinger's National Security Archive of telephone conversations. For example "we can bomb the bejesus out of them all over North Vietnam." Henry the K is indeed a war criminal, just like...oh you know.


• Remember what we said about preparing those lists? Here's another one: The Top 10 Myths About Iraq.


• The annual USA/Gallup poll asking just over 1000 people whom they admire the most offers results both predictable and amazing. President-Elect Barack Obama was the runaway favorite, with 32% of respondents saying they admire him more than anyone else. What's astounding is that George Bush finished second. The best thing about this report is the picture of a little girl giving Bush the finger.