A date which will live in infamy

Washington DC,
December 8, 1941

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

-F.D.R.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There is an ad running around here from a car dealer named suntrap Kia. In the ad, a person is asking questions to a car dealer and the dealer is only responding with turkey gobble noises. The ad then says basically that if you are tired of other dealers talking turkey to you, you should come to Suntrup Kia. The inference here being that Suntrup does not talk turkey to its customers. The ad is cutely seasonal in that it is presently around Thanksgiving.

Now, maybe I’m just a bit odd because I actually think about what an ad actually says, but I can’t help but note that to “talk turkey” means to talk honestly. That’s what I remember and that’s what thesaurus.com says. In fact, thesaurus.com (http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/talk+turkey) adds that to “talk turkey” is a synonym for “get down to brass tacks, make no bones about it, mince no words.” I would think that I would WANT a car dealer to talk turkey to me, especially when the antonyms are “devious,” “dishonest,” “indirect,” and “wily.”

This also means that what the cute little seasonal Suntrap ad is saying is that if you are tired of other dealers talking honestly and directly to you, you should come to Suntrup. The inference is then that at Suntrup, they don’t talk honestly or directly when trying to sell you a car. That is about the stupidest thing a car dealer could advertise; that they are dishonest. And if they aren’t dishonest, then they are just idiots for running an ad where they don't know what they are saying. Either way, would YOU buy a car from these guys?

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

Gas Leak

There was a natural gas leak up the street that caused the city to decide to evacuate a six block area. When we got home from work we found two messages on the answering machine. The first message was the fire department telling us we needed to evacuate. The second was also the fire department -- telling us we could come home again.

Query: Why would you call the home you ordered evacuated to tell them they could come home?

Allstate

You may recall my previous post on Geico's stupid commercial. Well, apparently stupid advertising is not limited to Geico, because Allstate does it too. More to the point, Allstate assumes you are stupid.

A recent ad showing a lot on TV has their spokesman saying you'll be surprised by how much people save by switching to Allstate; or at least that's what they want you to come away with. But what they really say (with a slightly different emphasis) is "People who*switched* from Geico to Allstate saved" some amount of money. Query: If I wasn't going to save, why would I switch? In fact, if only 1 person in the whole world saved by using Allstate over Geico and that person switched and saved $700, the they could say that people who switched to Allstate from Geico saved an average of $700. Even if everyone else saved $1000 switching from Allstate to Geico.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who saw this too. So, hey Allstate, how about telling us what the average person pays on the same average policy between you and Geico? Or would that statistic be too useful to consumers?

Disclaimer: Author insures with Erie Ins. Co.

Being number two

On NPR today, they were interviewing Gale someone who seems to have written a book. I would assume that she is a feminist based on the topic and the questions. The host asked her if now that since in almost every college the number of women outnumber the number of men and women are 50% of the work force was feminism done?

She responded by saying it had changed and then launched out with this little gem: She observed that when there are two sexes, one will always be ahead in something and one behind. When the host asked, she concluded that it was okay to be in the top two.

Now, I understand that there is a difference in just being second and having everyone assume you are not as good and therefore second. However, saying basically that it is okay to be number two because someone has to do it, sounds distinctly contrary to the position espoused by most feminists for the last 90 years and especially the last 40 years. How would they have reacted if some male pundit on some radio show when asked why there were more men in the workplace, college, politics, etc. replied, "Someone has to be number two."

CURRENT thoughts on the Healthcare Debate

The “Healthcare Debate” has been raging for several months now and appears to have no end in sight. Like many people, I’ve been mulling it over and I have some thoughts, and not the ones I expected to have.

First, let’s remind everyone that money is a zero sum game. Assume insurance is voluntary and assume you have two people in an insurance pool where assume everyone paid $500 a month in health insurance. For the purposes of this example, assume they are the only two people in the world. If Person One needs on average $700 of healthcare in a month, then Person One considers the insurance to be “worth it” But assume Person Two only needs $300 a month in healthcare. Thus for Person Two the insurance is not worth it. Ignoring for a minute any need to make a profit, the insurance company is breaking even. However, Person Two will likely opt not to be insured in this system because that is the logical choice for Two. Suddenly the insurance company is looking at a $200 per month loss. It raises the cost of insurance to $700 per month which means that One is paying what he spends. If you assume that the insurance company wanted to make any profit at all, One is better off not having insurance. If instead of just two people, there were five people, with gradated amounts of need, you still have a good chance of getting back to just One as each drops off in turn when the insurance becomes “not worth it.” If you force the insurance company to carry a loss, eventually you have no insurance company. If you force people to pay for insurance that “isn’t worth it,” they get angry.

The above is grossly over simplified but illustrates the market forces at work and also shows that where someone benefits from such a system there must be corresponding losses. Consider that most people, when young, are usually fairly healthy and have low healthcare costs. The few exceptions who need a great deal of expensive healthcare at a young age only serve to reinforce the problem above. As they age, people’s generally healthcare costs rise. Yet if we insured only the elderly and the sick, you would see astronomical premiums, and that assumes that the insurance companies would to insure at all. But if you FORCE the healthy to pay for the insurance, almost always at a higher rate then they will incur in costs, they will get angry.

I know at this point, if not sooner, someone will point out that you take out insurance to cover the unexpected large cost. No one takes out fire insurance because they hope to need it and make money on it. To some extent this is true and I will point out that I did say my example was over-simplified. However, consider that with fire insurance, the insurance company can choose not to insure a bad risk. That is often not the case with health insurance because often employer insurance ignores pre-existing conditions (the health insurance word for bad risk). And some of the new healthcare plans are talking about forcing insurance companies to insure even people with pre-existing conditions. “Gonna need $11M in treatments that might not even work, sure join the party; we’ll be happy to pay (to doctors!) for you to experiment.” The flip-side problem is of course, if these people are the ones who really need “insurance” and if they don’t have to, no insurance company in the world will take them.

At this point, I come to two conclusions. First, in a purely open system, if you let people choose to have healthcare or not depending on their own self-interest, which in humans is invariably short-sighted, they will only choose to do so once they cross the threshold of “needing it” by which I mean they get free money because their expenses exceed the cost of insurance. Second, I conclude that we aren’t in most cases, talking about insurance at all, for all we continue to use that term. Insurance is something you buy for that one-time, catastrophic, unexpected event that costs you a lot of money. If your house burns down or you total your car, these are such catastrophic events, and insurance against them works because lots of people pool money over time so that if such an emergency occurs, the party facing the hardship finds most of the expense paid by his or her “neighbors.” To some extent, “health insurance”, works like real insurance. If you need to fix a broken arm or have your tonsils out, it covers that. However, most of health insurance (and more and more this seems to be what people are talking about when they mention the concept) is not insurance at all; it’s a payment plan.

People want health “insurance” to cover routine doctor visits and long term illnesses or life-long conditions. They want to pay in so much and have these expenses covered, many of which are later in life. Further, everyone will die and usually with some healthcare complication. Everyone should go to the doctor periodically. With these things, what people mean when they say “health insurance” is some way to spread out paying for them over a longer period (often a life time) or, better yet, have someone else pay some of the costs when everything is totaled. (And we discussed at the beginning of this entry why the latter can’t work for everyone.) I think it would help the debate a lot if we admitted we are talking about a national healthcare payment plan because that shifts the paradigm of thinking.

Now there is an option for a payment plan coupled with insurance and that is the Healthcare Savings Account, but it only works if you start young and don’t get sick until you are older. The HSA has two parts. First, it has “catastrophic” coverage for any super major expenses. This had a very high deductible however. Then you have the HSA account which is similar to an IRA (meaning you can deduct what you invest in it from your pre-tax income up to a certain amount per year). The account can then be used to pay for healthcare expenses without being taxed. Generally, if you start young and invest regularly, you will accumulate money in the beginning meaning you have a dedicated reserve to pay for later costs (making it a payment plan – pay early when you don’t need to so you have the money later). The hazard is also one of the benefits of the account; it can be invested like an IRA. That means if you choose to invest with some risk, you can end up losing money. Finally, once you are 65, you can withdraw from it like it was an IRA and pay taxes then. For some reason I can’t fathom, Democrats don’t like the HSAs and keep making them more difficult. However, they are the only thing I can think of that comes close to being insurance with a payment plan.

So, now we have established that we are, to a large degree, talking about a healthcare payment plan. We also know that if left unregulated in the hands of insurance companies, only the “good risks” will be insured (which is fine if you are one of the good risks). Since age makes people a bad risk, this has obvious consequences. However, we also know we cannot have a functioning system if John (or Jane) Q Public can choose to only participate in the payment plan once s/he needs it. We also must not lose sight of two other factors: 1) It is the damn DOCTORS who make a shitload of money off healthcare. They may wear white coats, and many of them are good people, but a large percentage are greedy bastard who think their white coat gives them an entitlement. If you don’t believe me, read some NON-MALPRACTICE cases where doctors (or better yet groups of doctors who get together for investment purposes) get sued. 2) It is our CULTURE OF HEALTHCARE as a populace which is driving this mess. There is a tendency in our society to say: a) Oh no, Aunt Sally is dying; and b) Death is the absolute worst evil and must be opposed at any and all costs and extremes; which means c) good and loving children/spouses/people/doctors will try everything possible, regardless of probability of success or cost if Aunt Sally might benefit; because d) if we don’t we aren’t good loving family to her; and besides e) we don’t have to pay for it. I’m not saying as soon as Aunt Sally sneezes, she should be placed in hospice nor am I saying that everyone thinks in the above manner. However, a significant number of Americans seem to and when you are spending thousands of dollars of other people’s money on an experimental treatments with a .003 chance of success, it’s a problem. Worse, it’s a damn hard problem to criticize without looking like an insensitive number-crunching bastard. After all, how can you put a price on life (especially if the number-crunching bastard in question never knew Aunt Sally and what a wonderful person she was). Of course, those emotionally involved are not good decision makers here either; they may know aunt Sally, but it is rarely their money they spend which makes it very easy to do. The Doctors are also in a position where when they order a test, they don’t have to pay for it and might even get part of the test fee. They face a lot of pressure from families and, not wanting to look like number-crunching bastards, usually order a test, even if it is unnecessary. After all, the one big incentive they have is to not get sued by distraught family members who think the Doctor could have/should have done more. Doctors rarely get sued for running too many tests. The “Do everything possible, Doctor” method of operation is one of the major things pushing up the cost of Healthcare.

So where am I on this debate, not being a fan of doctors, insurance companies, or the wisdom of the masses? It is undeniable that healthcare has costs for our society. Even were we to insure no one and provide no medi-whatever benefits, we would have a cost. If you presume (and I say presume because I don’t want to get into another long argument about the presumption) that society benefits from having more healthy, longer-lived people in it, then you can conclude that the People, and vicariously the government of the People, has a vested interest in making it so. The analogy I draw is actually to education.

Education is something else for which we presume the polis benefits by having more and better educated citizens. It is not, strictly speaking, a fundamental human right nor is it particularly guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Education is an investment the people make in themselves, and it is an expensive one. However, having deemed education to be beneficial and worth while, the government provides every person in the country with a certain minimum education, even the abnormally expensive students. No one, to my knowledge, leads a serious attack on the concept of public education as being socialist or argues that the government should not pay (and tax) to provide it. Sure, we have arguments about how much to tax for it or whether those who opt out and go private should receive credit for the tax, but that is not the same thing.

Which brings me to: If having a healthy population is beneficial to the polis and therefore desired by the People, it should be treated exactly like public education. That probably means that I believe it should be funded by a tax, probably created by Healthcare Boards elected just like School Boards, and administered, TO A MINIMUM LEVEL, by the government though those self same Healthcare Boards. This means I probably support the government option and believe that any program without it is wasting time. Everyone should be taxed to provide these minimum services and the services should probably come through a government facility and government doctors. Likewise, just as people can opt to send their children to private schools, people should be able to opt to for care at a non-government facility for healthcare if they want to AND IF THEY CAN AFFORD TO DO SO FROM THEIR OWN POCKET. They would still be paying the Healthcare tax just as people who opt for private school still pay school tax. This covers the payment plan aspect of the debate with one small notation. The healthcare thus provided will not be an “all-possible-measures” type of care. It will provide reasonable care that reasonably has a chance to do something and always provide hospice care. If the patient wants to opt for additional care or radical treatments, they can do so at their own cost (or for free if someone’s research budget will cover them).

With the government providing certain minimum levels of healthcare (including office visits and long-term illness treating), health INSURANCE now becomes true Insurance just like fire insurance. You can opt to take it so that if you want to “go private” you can. You can also opt not to without compromising your basic care. Employers would not have to provide it (but would be paying taxes towards the government facilities in return). Even HSA’s would continue to have a place. Perhaps, insurance would cover catastrophic injury beyond basic care, perhaps it would only be in case you wanted to try a treatment not provided by the government facilities. This gets vague until you know exactly what the government clinics will provide. The best example may be Britain’s system. This is, however, all detail work and this post is concerned with broad concepts and philosophy.

I don’t LIKE my answer above, but the more I looked at it, the more I concluded that we cannot go on the way we have. Like education, basic, life-long healthcare seems to be something the government can and should provide, knowing that it will get expensive at the end for most people. Having reached that conclusion, the obvious answer seemed to be not only a public “option” but a tax-supported one that can be opted out of by those with the means and desire to do so. I can find arguments why I’m wrong – plenty of them, but they all fail on the question, “What do you have that is better?” Public education in America is far from ideal, however it is better than any other option I can see. I’m afraid I’ve come to the same view on Healthcare in spite of my loathing for Big Government. (And I’ll note that my solution would use local government like school boards as much as possible instead of national government.)

Race and Health Care

So on NPR today they were discussing the objections to Obama's Health Care Plan. One of the commentators (not callers) writes a race column for some Chicago newspaper. Admittedly, she said that there were legitimate issues which needed to be discussed, but then she went on to say that people who are so vehemently objecting to the President's health care plan are doing so because of racial issues they cannot otherwise voice. Obviously, while there may be "legitimate issues," she believes this racially motivated segment of the population constitutes a significant enough portion to be worth mentioning. THEN she says that many of those who have these racial issues with the President don't realize their issues are racial ones because they can't admit it to themselves.

I studied rhetoric and her statement, particularly the last bit, is simply a justification for ignoring opposing viewpoints. You see, if I don't like the Obama plan, then my conclusions are possibly (probably) based on racial issues and since we know those are illegitimate basis of argument, my entire objection becomes likewise irrelevant. Even if I don't know or don't think my motivations are racial, she can conclude they are because so many of us poor dumb bastards just don't know what we really think.

Talk about a fucking elitist argument. It's practically Plato. You either agree or you aren't smart enough to know to agree and thus, your opinion, which is probably based on an invalid reason deep in your subconsciousness, doesn't matter.

It's sad that some people believe this.

International Law

This post is written with a whole lot of cynical realism. It assumes that self-interest motivates more people and nations than anything else. It assumes that idealism works fine until it’s your ox being gored by the ideal, at which point in time, the ideal becomes anathema.

What is law? Think about this for a moment. Is law simply tradition? Is it an ethical system (of which there are several) or is it a divinely endorsed moral code (in which case there are maybe even more)? Does it have layers; are some laws divinely endorsed (Thou shalt not kill) while others unrelated to ethics at all (the Income Tax Code)? Is law a set of rules only? Maybe a set of rules back by the enforcement power of the sovereign? Is law a social contract for conduct in a society?

I ask because that question comes to mind every time I hear a well meaning pundit say, “international law.” Excuse me, but what is that other than a way of saying, “what I think is right?” “XYZ, the country, has done thus-and-so in violation of international law.” Really? Please show me the statute book, the codification of what sovereign nations may or may not do as passed by the International Parliament or maybe as dictated by His Imperial Majesty, Emperor of the World or maybe simply as decided by Matthew Harrison Brady (see Inherit the Wind.)? Oh wait, we don’t have those institutions. Well surely it will be enforced by the International Police and violators taken into custody by the International Sheriff and put in the International Prison while we wait to have a trial in the International Courthouse. Wait, we don’t have those either?

What do we have? Well we have treaties which are sort of like contracts you enforce with armies. We have the ability to conduct ourselves in our relationship with others, trading or not trading for example. We can try to get other nations to act as we do. Yet, none of that has the force of law. None of that meets the exactitude of law. None of that creates law.

If you really look at it, international law is a farce. It is a Weaver-esque “god-term” which sounds great, until you chip through the gold paint to realize the substance is balsa wood. A nation state may, at will, act as it chooses and if it doesn’t like the dictates of “International Law” as espoused by another, it may ignore them and laugh in their face. There is only a penalty, if whoever espouses “international law” can get enough others on their side to bring home a consequence to the “law” breaker. And if the breaker is one of the big kids… well, the same rules just do not apply.

International law is often espoused by those of the same liberal mindset who breathily talking about “human rights” over lattes and scones. They treat it as if it has an existence outside of the custom of the moment, a solidity beyond their own mind. Yet it doesn’t. As most often used, International Law springs from humanistic ideals about the inherent rights of people. The problem is that not everyone believes in those rights and when those unbelievers, those heretics to the church of International Law, act according to their beliefs, we condemn them for their violation of the law. We say law because it sounds much more serious than to say they violated what we think or even they violated our philosophy. If we say law we sound more authoritative and sure. We sound like we are espousing something that exists beyond simply our opinion. Laws, we all know, must be obeyed. Or else.

But what is the or else here? If we call our ethical system and beliefs (including the belief that we can impose our humanistic system of rights on others in spite of their rights to self-determination (which only apply when they agree with us about having it)) law, then we devalue the concept of law. Equating your opinion to law means that real law has no more force that your opinion; no more independent existence than any other though of yours. It would not have to be obeyed. Tell that to the next sheriff, policeman, or judge you meet.

If you look back at the beginning, I offered one possible definition of law as a social contract. This may be the closest to International Law. If all nations operated under the social contract as did their citizens, you might actually have something that could be considered a law. I just don’t think we are enough there to call it International Law.

Today's Headline

The BBC.com site had this little gem today: "Will British Troops Succeed in Afghanistan?"

Ah, sometimes a sense of history is awesome. Names change, but the questions remain.

Nukes

Heard yesterday that the U.S. and the Russians signed an understanding that we would each reduce our nuclear stock piles by about 1/3. Iran continues to enrich or try to enrich Uranium. North Korea has nukes and is test firing missiles. Pakistan has nukes and a leaky history about them. China and India have nukes. Great Britain has nukes as do the French.

In 1921, the great powers of that day met in Washington, D.C. for the Washington Naval Conference. That conference led to the Washington Naval Treaty which decided that Great Britain, the U.S., and Japan would build battleships in a 5-5-3 ratio respectively. It also limited the number of ships and the armaments of each ship, which, in turn, caused the scrapping of older ships and reduction in the size of a number of navies. It was designed to prevent antagonism between the two naval super powers of that day, Great Britain and the U.S. In a way, it was the START treaty of its day.

In as much as Great Britain and the U.S. had their fleets divided all over the oceans of the world whereas the Japanese only had a fleet in the Pacific, it lead directly to Japanese naval superiority in that ocean. Many historians believe that this fact was a key fact in the aggressive Japanese policy which ultimately led to Pearl Harbor and Japan's involvement in World War Two.

In 1921 we were reducing the number of battleships and, in so doing, created the greatest naval conflict the world has ever seen. Now we are playing with nuclear weapons, the least of which dwarfs any battleship in destructive power. I've read quite a bit on the monstrous effects of nuclear weapons and I'll be the first to admit, I hate the things. However, I would hate more a situation where we don't have any, but our enemies do. I am not against a reduction in the inventory, but I wish I thought our policy makers had paid a bit more attention in their history classes.