Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

I really should read my own blog.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

T R E 4 5 O N

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

You are here: Home / 2016 / Archives for May 2016

Archives for May 2016

Open Thread: Pro-HRC Argument from the Opposition

by | 212 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

As the novelty value of President Comments-Section-Made-Flesh fades, the not-actually-brain-damaged Conservatives are beginning to see reason. Josh Barro, for instance:

In investing, risk requires compensation. Investors will expect a higher return from a risky bet, and — conversely — will pay for certainty. It’s why you pay double-digit rates on your credit cards, while the federal government can borrow for next to nothing.

Let’s apply this analysis to the election. A Hillary Clinton presidency is the safe bet. She offers, more or less, an extension of the Obama presidency. You might think that that’s a bad return, but at least you know almost exactly what it is.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a wild card. Who the hell knows what he would do if elected?…

Because the distribution of possible Trump-presidency outcomes is wide, you’d have to expect him to be a better president than Clinton on average in order for him to merely be equally as good a pick as Clinton. That is, if Trump were a stock, then you’d be demanding a risk premium to buy him.

In fact, Trump calls for a huge risk premium because, while he probably wouldn’t be a disastrous president, the low-probability disasters that he might cause would be immensely costly. Some of them involve nuclear weapons and global mass deaths. Pricing those risks in properly should push his share price comfortably below Clinton’s, even if you think she is very bad…

Maybe President Trump would default on the national debt. Maybe Chinese officials wouldn’t love Trump’s insult-comic shtick as much as New York Republican primary voters do, and he’d manage to blow up a minor diplomatic incident into a nuclear war. Maybe he’d dissolve the military alliances that have helped keep Europe out of war for 70 years. Or maybe he’d just go ahead and nuke Europe.

I don’t think that these outcomes are terribly likely. I think Trump is probably sensible enough not to fire a nuclear weapon at Europe. But if he won’t rule it out himself, then why should I?…

People are failing to price in the small risk that a Trump presidency could cause us to lose everything we value, and that scares the hell out of me.

So you can share this with your “But HILLARY… “ social media acquaintances: Don’t think of it as voting for That Woman; think of it as voting against Risky Investment Trump.

Open Thread: Pro-HRC Argument from the OppositionPost + Comments (212)

Open Thread: Bill Kristol, Maintaining His Spotless Record

by | 299 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Today, Mark Halperin and John Heilborn are ON IT, at Bloomberg Politics:

Two Republicans intimately familiar with Bill Kristol’s efforts to recruit an independent presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have told Bloomberg Politics that the person Kristol has in mind is David French — whose name the editor of the Weekly Standard floated in the current issue of the magazine.

French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children…

Shortly after Kristol fired off that provocative missive on Sunday, he left for Israel and has been avoiding the press, speaking only through a series of tweets taunting Trump for responding to Kristol’s Sunday tweet. Speculation had centered on 2012 Republican nominee Romney, freshman Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, and other current and former state and federal office-holders…

“The mountains have labored, and brought forth a mouse. But did it have to be a wall-eyed mouse in a clown suit?”

Open Thread: Bill Kristol, Maintaining His Spotless RecordPost + Comments (299)

How to Help

by | 31 Comments

This post is in: 

700 more refugees drowned.

And good people wonder what to do.

You can give money, of course. But a lot of people can’t afford to give much. Maybe you’d like to help more, or more directly. In that case, as the former foster mom of four South Sudanese refugees, a.k.a., “Lost Boys,” and former manager of a couple of Boston-based refugee microenterprise programs, I have a suggestion: give your time and skills.

Find a local immigrant or refugee group—or simply an individual or family–and spend a few hours a week or month helping them get health care, enroll their kids in school, learn English (or whatever the main language is in your locale), get into college, find jobs, start businesses.

If you’ve got a skill to share, such as carpentry, auto mechanics, sewing, or gardening, find refugees who are similarly inclined and work with them to develop their skills and employability.

If you’re part of a profession, such as programming, law, medicine, accounting, or engineering, help a young person enter your field.

Please note that some groups of refugees, like the Iraqis, tend to be highly educated; and also some individuals from other groups. There are often credential and other barriers to their practicing their profession in their new country, but you can help them navigate the system and figure out alternatives.

Even if you think you don’t have anything to teach, I promise you you have. Immigrants and refugees often need help in areas native-born people take for granted, including things like how to how to be a wise consumer or apply for a job (both offline and online). Just show up and ask what’s needed.

The rewards of this kind of volunteering are rich, and the ROI is as high as any I know of. You typically help not only the person(s) themselves, but their extended family here and at home. (Because of remittances and also communication of information and strategies.) You also build a lot of cross-cultural appreciation and understanding, as the pic of a couple of 3-footers showing some 6.5-footers how to play Twister attests. (The 3-footers are my niece and nephew, who are somewhat bigger now).

To find a group, Google “YOUR TOWN refugee assistance.” Or, contact your local community college or religious organizations for leads. If you can’t find your niche email me and I’ll be happy to help.

twister 3

How to HelpPost + Comments (31)

Brown’s Statement

by | 445 Comments

This post is in: ,

shrill

Not sure how much impact this will have on the race in California, but Jerry Brown has weighed in:

On Tuesday, June 7, I have decided to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton because I believe this is the only path forward to win the presidency and stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump.

I have closely watched the primaries and am deeply impressed with how well Bernie Sanders has done. He has driven home the message that the top one percent has unfairly captured way too much of America’s wealth, leaving the majority of people far behind. In 1992, I attempted a similar campaign.

For her part, Hillary Clinton has convincingly made the case that she knows how to get things done and has the tenacity and skill to advance the Democratic agenda. Voters have responded by giving her approximately 3 million more votes – and hundreds more delegates – than Sanders. If Clinton were to win only 10 percent of the remaining delegates – wildly improbable – she would still exceed the number needed for the nomination. In other words, Clinton’s lead is insurmountable and Democrats have shown – by millions of votes – that they want her as their nominee.

But there is more at stake than mere numbers. The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has called climate change a “hoax” and said he will tear up the Paris Climate Agreement. He has promised to deport millions of immigrants and ominously suggested that other countries may need the nuclear bomb. He has also pledged to pack the Supreme Court with only those who please the extreme right.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Our country faces an existential threat from climate change and the spread of nuclear weapons. A new cold war is on the horizon. This is no time for Democrats to keep fighting each other. The general election has already begun. Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as Secretary of State, has a firm grasp of the issues and will be prepared to lead our country on day one.

Next January, I want to be sure that it is Hillary Clinton who takes the oath of office, not Donald Trump.

With respect,

Jerry Brown

Meanwhile, the last sane man, Paul Krugman, fights on:

This is my fifth presidential campaign as a New York Times columnist, so I’ve watched a lot of election coverage, and I came into this cycle prepared for the worst. Or so I thought.

But I was wrong. So far, election commentary has been even worse than I imagined it would be. It’s not just the focus on the horse race at the expense of substance; much of the horse-race coverage has been bang-your-head-on-the-desk awful, too. I know this isn’t scientific, but based on conversations I’ve had recently, many people — smart people, who read newspapers and try to keep track of events — have been given a fundamentally wrong impression of the current state of play.

And when I say a “wrong impression,” I don’t mean that I disagree with other people’s takes. I mean that people aren’t being properly informed about the basic arithmetic of the situation.

Now, I’m not a political scientist or polling expert, nor do I even try to play one on TV. But I am fairly numerate, and I assiduously follow real experts like The Times’s Nate Cohn. And they’ve taught me some basic rules that I keep seeing violated.

First, at a certain point you have to stop reporting about the race for a party’s nomination as if it’s mainly about narrative and “momentum.” That may be true at an early stage, when candidates are competing for credibility and dollars. Eventually, however, it all becomes a simple, concrete matter of delegate counts.

That’s why Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee; she locked it up over a month ago with her big Mid-Atlantic wins, leaving Bernie Sanders no way to overtake her without gigantic, implausible landslides — winning two-thirds of the vote! — in states with large nonwhite populations, which have supported Mrs. Clinton by huge margins throughout the campaign.

And no, saying that the race is effectively over isn’t somehow aiding a nefarious plot to shut it down by prematurely declaring victory. Nate Silver recently summed it up: “Clinton ‘strategy’ is to persuade more ‘people’ to ‘vote’ for her, hence producing ‘majority’ of ‘delegates.’” You may think those people chose the wrong candidate, but choose her they did.

I feel his pain. I miss Shrillblog.

Brown’s StatementPost + Comments (445)

Ceci Ne Sont Pas Des Lunettes*

by | 75 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Calling all Sokals!

I know this is a case of chasing easy marks, but still, I laughed.

Two teenagers visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and they came away…underwhelmed:

The teenagers, Kevin Nguyen, 16, and TJ Khayatan, 17, both of San Jose, had been left scratching their heads at the simplicity of some of the museum’s exhibits, including two stuffed animals on a blanket.

“Is this really what you call art?” Kevin said in an interview over the weekend.

TJ added, “We looked at it and we were like, ‘This is pretty easy. We could make this ourselves.’ ”

Self-portrait_as_the_Allegory_of_Painting_(La_Pittura)_-_Artemisia_Gentileschi

Cue the long-standing first reaction to a Pollack:  “My five year old could do better!”

Nguyen and Khayatan, however, did the hard thing: put their ambition to the test.  Theirs was no instant success:

Inspired during their visit on May 21, they experimented with putting a jacket on the floor and then a baseball cap, but neither drew attention.

Like any driven artist, the two persisted, until, the breakthrough!

Kevin then placed his Burberry glasses on the floor beneath a placard describing the theme of the gallery. He said neither he nor TJ did anything to influence museum visitors, such as standing around and looking at the glasses.

The linked article has a picture of what came next…;-)

Not that the creators could fully appreciate their success. One does have to sacrifice for art:

Within about three minutes, people appeared to be viewing their handiwork as bona fide art, though Kevin said that without his glasses, he could not see what was happening too well.

Give SFMOMA credit, though, for a sense of humor about the matter:

Screen Shot 2016-05-31 at 1.19.05 PM

That would be a reference to this, I believe (as does the NY Times…)

Anyway — good times!  And nothing to do with the ferret headed weasel (a sphinx for our times!), the senator from the north country, nor the lady whose nomination must not be acknowledged.  So I guess this makes it another politics free open-thread.  Have at it.

*Well.  Actually…they are, in exactly the sense that Magritte argued that his pipe was not.

Image: Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, between 1638 and 1639.

Ceci Ne Sont Pas Des Lunettes*Post + Comments (75)

Sign o’ the Times (Open Thread)

by | 177 Comments

This post is in: ,

The Lizard Shape-Shifters Anti-Defamation League will be in touch, hackers!

Today is our 19th anniversary, and the mister and I are wandering around Southwest FL in search of exotic birds to spy upon. Nice weather for it, if a bit on the warm side.

Hope your reentry into the commercial activities today was painless (if applicable). Open thread!

Sign o’ the Times (Open Thread)Post + Comments (177)

Risk adjustment limitations

by | 6 Comments

This post is in: 

Risk adjustment on Exchange is supposed to minimize the cherry picking incentive of insurers to only try to cover healthy people.  Insurers with healthy populations pay net transfer payments to insurers with comparatively unhealthy populations.  However there are significant problems with counting on risk adjustment to solve all problems.  The biggest issue is the use of average premiums to calculate the size of the transfer payment.  This can be functionally decent for Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP where there is a very narrow pricing band for services.  However on Exchange, there is a wide spread of provider pricing.

Let’s assume that we need to take care of a serious case of itch elbowitis and that IE is a recognized risk adjustment disease category.  On Monday, a surgeon can treat itchy elbowitis with a full cure.  The patient has insurance through the Exchange with a low cost narrow network so they have the surgery done at a suburban community hospital.  The total bundle of care has a contracted rate of $8,000.  On Tuesday, the same surgeon does the same surgery with no complications at the same hospital.  The patient this time has a broad network, high cost insurance policy.  The total bundle of care has a contract rate of $12,000.  The average incremental cost of treating the condition is $10,000.

I’m going to make several massive simplifying assumptions (we don’t need to look at average premium level in the risk pool nor demographic versus medical risk).

Let’s assume that itchy elbowitis creates a $10,000 transfer credit.  The low cost insurer pays out more than the cost of their treatment regime for any itchy elbowitis obligation while the high cost insurer receives less than the cost of their treatment regime.

This is primarily a problem for the high cost insurer as they are attracting a less healthy risk pool than the low cost/narrow network insurers.  They are getting some compensating side payments in to balance some of the books on treatment but the side payments are not large enough.  This means their premiums need to rise at a faster rate than the general premium increase in a given market.  Over the long run, I am having a hard time seeing how a high cost, broad network insurer stays on Exchange even with risk adjustment when there is a  wide variance in accepted contracted rates for common procedures.

Risk adjustment has other issues (partial year credits is the big one) but as a policy side, as long as there is wide variance in provider payments for similar procedures, the market will converge to a common price point.  And given the subsidy structure, that price point will be Medicare plus a little bit in most regions where there is a competitive insurance market.

 

Risk adjustment limitationsPost + Comments (6)