When you’re rich, it’s easy to forget that other people aren’t.
Climate treaty could be at hand¹
By Arthur Max, Associated PressCOPENHAGEN, Denmark – Delegates converged on the Danish capital yesterday for the grand finale of two years of sometimes bitter talks on a climate treaty, and U.N. officials calculated that pledges in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping climate change under control.
Yvo de Boer, the United Nations’ top climate official, said on the eve of the 192-nation conference that despite unusually broad concessions, both industrial countries and emerging nations now need to dig deeper.
“Time is up,” de Boer said. “Over the next two weeks governments have to deliver.”
The key issue now seems to be how to fund an international plan to combat climate change. Billions of dollars are needed almost immediately and hundreds of billions of dollars annually within a decade.
Nations also must need to commit to even larger emissions reductions, de Boer said.
BIllions needed now, and hundreds of billions annually? Why, that’s just pocket change, right?
President Obama’s decision to attend the conclusion of the two-week conference — rather than join it in its initial stages this week, as he had originally planned — is seen as a signal that an agreement is near.
More than 100 heads of state and government have said they will attend the last day or two, making Copenhagen the largest and most important summit ever held on climate.
“Never in the 17 years of climate negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together,” de Boer said. “It’s simply unprecedented.”
Some were arriving to the summit on trains splashed with a green stripe to symbolize efforts to reduce the convention’s carbon footprint. One train carried 450 U.N. officials, delegates, climate activists and journalists from Brussels and more trains were leaving from other European capitals.
Along with an estimated 15,000 delegates and at least 100 world leaders, officials expect many protesters to descend on Copenhagen for the climate conference. Authorities were beefing up security in preparation.
I wonder about us commoners, you know, the people who aren’t world leaders, te ones who won’t travel to Copenhagen on a special, green-striped train. Because, regardless of to what the “world leaders” agree, it’s going to be us commoners who have to pay for it.
Well, we went through this same stuff in the nineties, as President Bill Clinton sent Vice President Al Gore to sign the abysmal Kyoto Accords. The United States Senate, which is constitutionally required to approve all treaties, had previously voted, unanimously, 95-0, for a “sense of the Senate” resolution urging President Clinton not to sign the treaty in its then-present form. A few minor changes were made, but President Clinton knew what would happen if he submitted the Kyoto Accords to the Senate for ratification: the treaty would be overwhelmingly rejected.
When George Bush became President, he took a strange action; he “unsigned” Kyoto, withdrawing American approval for it. He should have gone ahead and submitted it to the Senate for ratification, knowing that it would be rejected.
Kyoto dies a well-deserved death, but now we face yet another oh-so-well-intentioned carbon emissions treaty. The final form is as yet unknown, but you may rest assured: it will cost uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars, and all of that money will be paid by the average citizen, in higher utility costs, in higher prices for cars and fuel and really everything out there, because virtually everything we buy gets shipped by rail or truck — frequently both — from the producer to the final point of sale. This will be an unnecessary expense, added by government, which will make every American just a little bit poorer.
Well, maybe not every American: we can count on former Vice President Gore to makie money on it somehow. And wise investors, they’ll find a way to turn a profit. There’ll even be some jobs created, for the installation of (probably foreign manufactured) carbon capture equipment. But for the vast majority of Americans, it will be just another expense added on top the price of things they buy now.
Fortunately, the Constitution requires a two-thirds super-majority in the Senate to ratify a treaty; just 34 negative votes mean that a treaty is rejected — and the Republicans have 40 seats. Regardless of what President Obama signs in Copenhagen, it will not become the law of the land.
There is a provision in international law which holds that a nation which has signed a treaty but has not yet ratified it must do nothing to undermine the treaty between signing and ratification; that could lead Americans to having to pay the extra hundreds of billions in costs called for by an unratified treaty if our 44th President does what our 42nd President did: sign the treaty, but never submit it to the Senate for ratification. Republicans should do whatever they can to press the President to submit any signed treaty to the Senate for a ratification vote promptly.
____________________________
¹ – The Philadelphia Inquirer, Monday, 7 December 2009, p. A-1
‘Tis time now for Dana to set up his straw man: “The final form is as yet unknown, but you may rest assured: it will cost uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars, and all of that money will be paid by the average citizen, in higher utility costs, in higher prices for cars and fuel and really everything out there, because virtually everything we buy gets shipped by rail or truck — frequently both — from the producer to the final point of sale.”
Dana, where is your evidence for the ‘hundreds of billions’ cost increases? Have you taken into account the savings due to lower unit prices from reduced use of fossil fuels, not only in transportation, but also in energy? Have you taken into account the positive impact that increased use of green energy sources will have on jobs associated with green energy implementation? How about reduced medical costs due to cleaner air? You apparently have little to no faith in the marketplace to adjust to cap and trade and shift to alternate energy sources. Oh ye of little faith!
Perry asked:
Well, Perry, the AP article I cited put the price at “Billions of dollars are needed almost immediately and hundreds of billions of dollars annually within a decade.” I’d say that pretty much covers it; please note that the article used the plural of hundreds of billions annually, not a hundred billion annually.
Of course there is going to be a cost, but isn’t eight years in denial of the science long enough without any substantial action, by the highest greenhouse emitting nation per capita on the globe, roughly 25% of the total by only 300 million people? That’s my question.
Denying solid science, in favor of ideology, is not the solution, rather, merely a delaying tactic, by those who refuse to attempt to take a long view into the future, by those who are insensitive about what we pass off to our heirs.
Perry wrote:
You say, “Of course there is going to be a cost” so blithely. The article cited said “hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Let’s assume that it’s only 100 billion, and not the plural. With roughly 300 million Americans, we have about 100 million families; that’s an average per family cost of $1,000 a year, for no more — and quite possibly less — than they get today.
What’s $1,000? Well, if you’re a working man making $25.00 an hour — a fairly decent wage right now — that’s a whole week’s worth of your labor, of your work, not even counting taxes, gone, shot away, simply taken by government regulations which have increased the price of everything for no tangible return. When you tell that working man that, well, my goodness, we’ve reduced the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, he’s going to say, “Great! Now, how much food does that reduced CO2 put on the table for my kids?”
Of course, not every worker gets $25 an hour; there are some people scraping by on $7.25 an hour, the minimum wage, trying to survive. Maybe that person turns down the heat, turns off all of the lights, but he still winds up using a third of a family’s average consumption; that’s a week’s worth of work for him, too.
It just seems too easy to say, “But look at the great benefits we’ll get from this program or that expenditure.” Thing is, you can’t always eat benefits, you can’t always pay your bills with some fine program. And the electric company doesn’t care that you are just scraping by, the heating oil company isn’t really concerned that times are rough: if you can’t pay for your utilities, you don’t get them!
What we’ll pass on is less prosperity in the form of higher tax burdens on just about everything we buy, all in the name of a “Theory” that is unproven at best and pure bullshit at worst. And it won’t do a damned bit of good in any event, since China and India, with their rapidly growing middle classes, will very soon become the top energy users. Short of mandating the global use of nuclear power, there’s no way you’re going to cut fossil fuel use any time soon. China has enough coal to last them hundreds of years, and you just know they intend to use it. So there little point for us in America to put all these new burdens on the economy when the Chinese have no intention of doing the same, when worldwide energy use is set to explode as prosperity expands across the globe. What will happen when everyone in India, China and elsewhere can afford a car and air conditioning? Are they going to go without just to please Al Gore and a bunch of pinhead bureaucrats in Europe?
OK, let’s say that this treaty is signed and ratified, and increased energy costs mean that people will be looking at replacing their old furnaces for something more efficient.
In 2007, the median annual household income was $50,233. According to the source above, that “median” family would be looking at having to invest 6 to 10% of their annual income — their annual income before taxes — to install a new, more efficient furnace. Just how many families can afford to do that?
oh, sure, they’ll supposedly get that back, in decreased energy costs over the live of the furnace. That’s all well and good, if you can afford to buy the new furnace! But a lot of families won’t be able to do that, a lot will, in effect, have to pay more in energy costs month to month — eventually more than the new furnace would cost — because putting together $3,000-$5,000 at one time is simply not possible for them.
I’m not poor now, but I have been poor; I remember a time when we were just plain dirt-poor. And I know what kind of financial crisis it would have cost my mother, for a lot of years, to have been stuck with the kinds of costs that so many people just airily dismiss.
In the meantime, we’ve got a trillion-dollar-plus deficit, and eventually the Chinese aren’t going to be so accommodating about financing our debt; eventually we’re going to have to pay for stuff ourselves. If the costs of this treaty are a hundred billion dollars a year, and we can’t balance our budgets now, that’ll mean another hundred billion dollars we’ll have to borrow, and more money added to the national debt. We can’t afford that, and that means that we can’t afford to just have the government somehow buy everybody a new furnace, somehow absorb the added energy costs. This treaty will mean real hardships, real costs, for the American people.
Why do hate capitalism so much, Dana, you big socialist, you? Any post decrying the movement of capital from one sphere to another during the Bush years would have felt the wrath of your free-market loving typin’ fingers. Suddenly, the poor are interesting to you? How convenient!
Like Kyoto, it will never pass the Senate however the EPA regulating CO2 is a different matter.
Dana cites hundreds of billions in costs.
Perry demands the evidence for such a statement.
Dana provides the source.
Perry then shrugs off the provision of the citation that he had just demanded and says “of course there is going to be a cost”.
And so it goes …
“Liberals are like people with stale breath talking into your face at a party. You try backing away from them or offering them gum, but then they just start whimpering” Ann Coulter
DNW, I questioned Dana’s evidence for a cost of “hundreds of billions”. Dana supplied his reference, but it is no more than loose speculation, which is not evidence. As far as your ideological insult of Liberals, look at the source, and look at the ideologue who would choose such a source! Meaningless!!!
And Dana persists in his speculation, which still is no more than speculation. So far, I just don’t accept as a fact that there will be costs in the hundreds of billions. There will also be savings by capping fossil fuel usage and moving toward energy independence with the use of alternative energy sources. Has Dana taken this into consideration? I doubt it! If there are costs, has Dana considered how we might pay for it? I doubt it! Has Dana considered that current costs can be considered as an investment for the future, which successful businesses do all the time? I doubt it!
but, we need to go to war to “kill em all” into submission though. that cost you are fine with paying.
so STFU and allow those of us willing to pay for a cleaner planet do so.
You get to kill, we get to clean.
Yet you effectively granted the point, while, of course, proceeding to ignore the argument behind its presentation.
If you wished to deny the proposition of billions to be spent, why grant that they would be, only to shrug off the cost, in the first place?
No Perry, it’s not meaningless.
It indirectly points to the fundamental lack of reciprocal need between the self-directed and directing, and epiphenomenal types with their need of the human ecology generated by unwillingly tapped victims in order to survive – to their satisfaction.
In other words your operating principle is the same old stale: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs“. Thus, the same solidarity pimping scam, based on dishonest rhetoric and the equivocal use of terms, that your political kind has run from time immemorial.
“Too weak to dig, to proud to beg”, but always plenty of energy to huckster.
I’ll give you a clear instance of this terminological abuse and huckstering. Your recent blather about spreading the risk with your mandated government insurance participation is a good one.
For you are not really “spreading risk”, or about spreading risk. If you foolishily wanted to spread risk, you would have to ensure that everyone was equally exposed say, to the same infectious disease, and that they all had the same immune systems.
What you are really about is spreading liability; about coercively shifting costs from the hale to the unhealthy in any population unfortunate enough to share a political space with you and your clients.
For we are not in fact all equally at risk for the same natural things, and some are much less at risk for most health problems across the board because of “better” heredity or self-discipline. For example, I’m not an alchoholic; are you?
Forcing a thirty year old heterosexual family man to underwrite treatment for the nihilistic denizen of a San Francisco bath house is not the spreading of risk, but the transfer of personal wealth from the worthy to the undeserving via a political scam.
This,
“
Should read,
Hope this helps …
DNW
DNW:“It ['your ideological insult of Liberals] indirectly points to the fundamental lack of reciprocal need between the self-directed and directing, and epiphenomenal types with their need of the human ecology generated by unwillingly tapped victims in order to survive – to their satisfaction.”
You have a narrow view, DNW, or should I say a selective view, that blunts your argument straight away. Apparently you do not consider the many corporations on the government dole as ‘epiphenomenal types’.
You now need to reconsider!
Further DNW:“What you are really about is spreading liability; about coercively shifting costs to the hale from the unhealthy in any population unfortunate enough to share a political space with you and your clients.”
Here you have defined insurance, if I generalize your statement. Take auto insurance, which shifts the costs from the skilled/alert driver to the unskilled/impaired driver. You are partly a function of the behavior of all the drivers in your region. Same statement can be made about life insurance, shifting premium costs from to ‘the hale from the unhealthy’
Finally, concerning your reference to a Marxist axiom: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, used by you as an attack on Liberals, I advise, again, that you give some thought to the multitudinous corporations on the public dole, then let me know your response. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of you Conservatives who incessantly throw Marx at us in an attempt to blaspheme our ideology! It’s equivalent to some who throw Hitler at you. Useless and meaningless this is, except to your Sarah Palin, tea bagger, birther, AGW denier base.
It’s not blasphemy if it’s true. Marxism has been at the core of Leftist ideology for about 150 years. During the Cold War, leftists supported the USSR, Castro’s Cuba, North Vietnam, and guys like Che Quevara, not to mention domestic spies and traitors like Alger Hiss and the Rosenburgs.
Eric, that’s total BS! You are associating extremists with Liberals; I won’t let you get away with that without commenting on YOUR extremism as expressed in YOUR ludicrous statement! Shall I now call you a Nazi?
Perry wrote:
It is? Well, to some extent, yes, because we cannot know, with absolute precision, what something will cost ten years from now. But as a source, an Associated Press article would normally be considered a good one.
You don’t accept it? Surely you must have a reason that you don’t, some reliable source which breaks the costs down in some other fashion which supports your position.
From this morning’s Allentown Morning Call:
The article quoted the people who will have to do the work, Perry, the work of doing what you think needs to be done. And they all say that it can be done, but that it can only be done at a cost. Who’s going to pay? As always, the end user of a product is going to bear the total cost of the product, whether it’s electricity consumed at home, groceries which have gone through a lengthy production process, or the concrete used in building a home.
It seems strange that you would accuse me of speculation, and then speculate yourself concerning savings in fossil fuel usage and the development of alternative energy sources.
Here’s an article,from a respected source, concerning the costs of Copenhagen: The High Costs of Copenhagen (The Wall Street Journal. The author details just what would have to be done, on the large scale, to achieve the ambitious goals of Copenhagen.
Now, there actually is a lower-cost way to approach the goal of reducing carbon emissions. Rather than putting penalties on current carbon consumption, regulations could be imposed which simply required that construction of new power plants not be fossil fuel plants. Power plants, like any other machinery, wear out, and existing ones will have to be replaced in the future. Pass the laws required to allow nuclear plants to be built again — nuclear plants being the only reliable, rather than intermittent, producers of power that don’t consume fossil fuels that can be built anywhere (hydroelectric would also meet the criteria, but they can’t be built just anywhere) — and as old plants are taken out of service they would be replaced by plants which didn’t require fossil fuels. If you remove the carbon-usage penalties, then the costs passed on to the consumer would be the normal plant reinvestment costs, rather than the artificially-generated ones from caps.
New nuclear plants would cost more than new fossil fuel plants, to be sure, but those plant reinvestment costs would still be far more tolerable than such costs imposed, on top of carbon penalties.
Obama listen to Republicans??? Not while he doesn’t have to….maybe in 2010, if and when the GOP gets their in-house together.
Perhaps a simpler way to put it, Perry, is to ask you at what point you believe the cost becomes unacceptable, in terms of costs per fsmily. Assume that the median family income is $50,000, and, in those terms, tell us at which point you believe the costs become unbearable.
If the IPCC gets its way, cap’n’tax passes, and healthscare all go into effect, what decisions won’t be made for us? All three will have a profound effect on your own personal decision making, or don’t you mind that?
These people must be against the Industrial Revolution. Maybe if we all went back to living in mud huts we could get our CO2 down to the “right” levels. Who said CO2 did anything though?
Dana, obviously we have to take into consideration the costs. Maybe you have, but I have not yet seen a careful cost analysis of attacking this global warming problem. What worries me the most is that we may have passed the point of no return, both according to the scientific projections, such that all we can do is slow the process down, and according to what we can afford. We can only do what we can afford; even that, I don’t have any idea. Whatever we do, we would need to use a progressive taxing approach, based on our skewed distribution of wealth we currently have. This is truly a daunting problem! I’ll read your piece carefully tomorrow, then comment.
Perry, you should really put down the pitcher of kool-aid and go directly to the yellow pages for your nearest psycho-analyzer. Your paranoid global warming schizophrenia should be examined as carefully as the scientist that have perpetrated this “man-made” hoax. Ludicrous? Yes Perry, it is ludicrous to claim the obvious absurdity that the warming AND cooling of the planet is a causation of man’s industrialization.*
With one series of strokes on the keyboard, Perry divulges his agenda of marxist/socialist wealth re-distribution and we don’t dare call this extremism. Folks like Perry prefer the new name progressives, as if the extreme liberal left has morphed themselves into an acceptable amoeba—when they are still parasites, feeding on human emotions, in this case under the guise of a distorted science.
(* Mount Saint Helens spewed more CO2′s and toxic waste into our atmosphere than the entire 20th century of the world’s industrial growth period. In a hundred years, the earth went through three major and measurable separate warming and cooling periods, and yet pinheads like Perry still believe man has a significant hand in this. Here’s a little hint of reality Perry, it’s the big ball of fire you have no control over.
The next time you step outside and see that bright thing in the sky, think of poor Perry in the dark for so long, he’s blinded by the light of truth—it’s the sun Perry—don’t be afraid if it warms your face until it sets in the west, along with this hoax your minions of liberalism have falsely attempted to pull over everyone’s eyes.
It must really suck to not even have a taste of reality. But then, real doctors would be out of a job without delusional paranoids like dear Perry. Record low temperatures across this nation, and yet we can all take solace that Perry’s got a warm cot in a padded room.
There are several problems with your statement apart from the fact that it is false. I’ll note a couple.
1, One of the most obvious is that in actuarial based insurance programs the risk is calculated from actuarial tables or personal histories, and the rate for participation is then set on that basis.
You wish to in essence abolish that principle; to largely decouple personal risk as defined statistically or historically, from access and price.
2nd, Participation in private insurance is neither mandated, nor is access guaranteed, despite your previous irrelevant and inaccurate vaporing and false implications concerning how anyone who owns a piece of machinery called an automobile, is mandated by law to have highway liability insurance.
Thus, you wish to introduce legal compulsion into health insurance purchases, and to expand the role of government in our daily lives by making us as you say, “a function” of a social dynamic as conceived by bureaucratic program managers mutated into political kinglets.
This is not how free men and women choose to live. And those who choose to live this way are not worthy of regard or fellowship.
Who in the world other than a termite or a Phoenician would think this kind of existence is satisfying or worthy?
Here ya go, EPA FIAT without concern for business, costs or disruptions. Just edicts from the EPA without Congress doing a thing. What do you want to call this?? It’s not FREEDOM, or Free Market. Sounds like it’s out of the USSR.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/administration-warns-command-control-regulation-emissions/
And you wonder why we fear this Maladministration.
My response is that I do not see how abuses of the tax system can be used to validate your termitic social organism philosophy.
Frankly I am pleased to see you admit you believe that your ideology can be “blasphemed”.
It reinforces the observation that for the organisms of the left, social management and control ideologies function as a religious system.
Or do you wish now to state that you in fact do repudiate the social management principle of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, and the monist materialism that underpins it and its totalitarian social presumptions?
If so, on what basis then do you claim the moral right to redistribute the costs of the voluntary dysfunction of some, on to the young and the prudent and the healthy, as if human beings are mere fungible social elements, rather than persons?
Surely there are enough deserving people who have suffered some impairment through honest misadventure or misfortune, to occupy our sympathy and concerns.
Why should I care if some crapulous troll in NZ eats himself to death, or some malicious clown in the U.S. drinks himself insensible?; much less underwrite the medical costs involved in maintaining their continued abilities to do so?
DNW, your argument is very weak!
Let me ask you then, what do these five (There are many more.) have in common: health insurance; auto insurance; homeowners insurance; life insurance; title insurance?
Answer: Insurance, “a means of guaranteeing protection or safety”
In all cases, the premiums are calculated on some sort of an actuarial basis. In all cases, the risk of loss is spread among large numbers of people, which enables insurance companies to exist and be profitable.
For three of the above list of five, insurance is mandated, otherwise you cannot legally own and drive a car, or obtain a mortgage, or buy a piece of property, therefore, mandating health insurance is nothing new.
For ideological reasons, you oppose the health insurance reform initiative, therefore you are fishing for arguments to shoot it down, rather than seeking ways for improving the system, a selfish position for a person of means who has no compassion for others unable to afford or have coverage for one valid reason or another. It’s all negative! What good is that?
So your position is not only contraindicated, it is also regressive, in seeking to perpetuate a failed health care system.
Yorkshire complains: “And you wonder why we fear this Maladministration.”
There is no such a thing as absolute freedom, otherwise utter chaos.
There is always a balance that must be sought between individuals and government, such that reasonable rules and regulations can be put in place.
This is the proper role of government, in my view. And on this particular issue and the powers of the EPA, we simply cannot sit by and permit global warming to continue unabated, when there are measures at out disposal to ameliorate the problem.
We owe it to our great, great grandchildren to act beginning now, not only due to global warming, but also due to diminishing oil availability and inflating oil prices as the world population rises and developing countries demand more.
DNW whines: “Why should I care if some crapulous troll in NZ eats himself to death, or some malicious clown in the U.S. drinks himself insensible?; much less underwrite the medical costs involved in maintaining their continued abilities to do so?”
Would Jesus care?
Sorry, but Marxism is a left wing phenomenon, so it is hardly “Ludicrous” to point out this simple fact. If you want to live in denial, go ahead, but as the saying goes, facts are stubborn things.
What you’re talking about is watered down Marxism, the notion that humans can’t handle freedom and must be coerced into doing what the government says “For their own good”. Thankfully, our country was not founded on this notion, but rather on the ideal of individual liberty and strictly limited government power.
Yes, but He healed people directly by Himself. He didn’t depend on the Roman government to do it for him.
Which assumes that there actually IS any global warming, a claim for which the hard evidence remains awfully skimpy. I’m not going to get into a panic over something that either doesn’t exist or that will have mild effects on climate at most. Unlike Al Gore, I don’t think the sky is falling.
Except you can choose to not have a car or own a house. You can’t not own yourself!
I thought I was asking a question, the answer to which was not at all obvious despite the pretense of your kind that it is.
Anyway,
1. We have already established that you are not a disciple of Jesus; so what’s it matter whether you think to ask someone else whether he would care or not?
2. The Jesus of the Gospels generally accepted those who asked for help – some like the woman of Canaan had to be persistent and humble – while repenting of their bad behaviors. He then commanded them to go and sin no more. Shall we then apply the same principle to say, homosexual AIDs cases here in the U.S.; or to your sneering but physically degenerating friend in new Zealand?
But, you know, if you really want the answer, I can probably give it to you based on quotes from the scriptures.
All you have to do in order to receive this valuable information, is to tell me why you, as one who rejects the supernaturalist underpinnings of Christian morality, and as one who is not himself a self-proclaimed disciple of or believer in the divine nature of Jesus, should require opinions on Jesus’ social views from others.
1. You will have noticed that Perry has shifted footing from previously implying that it is necessary to have automobile insurance in order to own a car, to now making it necessary in order to drive a car.
Of course that is still not precisely true. You can not only buy a vehicle and store it in your garage or barn and start it up and re-sell it and drive it around on your own property or private raods to your heart’s content, there is no Federal mandate that you have such “insurance”.
And recall too that “car insurance” represents a number of different kinds of indemnification only some of which relate to operation of the vehicle on the road; and some of which may be dispensed with even if the vehicle is operated on the public highway, such as collision coverage for your own vehicle; as opposed to PLPD covering damage done to others.
2. Being forced to protect a lender’s interest when obtaining a mortage – a loan – on a piece of property, is not the same as being forced to obtain insurance as a prerequisite for owning a house! Thus, Perry has blundered with an astonishingly stupid category error. The insurance covers the lender’s interest, and only incidentally and to the degree additionally desired or allowed by the insurance issuer, the property interest of the person issued the loan.
You don’t have to have insurance on a property you own outright in fee simple. What you do have to have is some means of saving the lender’s financial interest. No lender, no lender’s interest.
Is Perry asserting that our lives are mortaged from birth to the government and that we are obligated to cover their investment in our lives?
3. Title insurance covers a transaction. It may be required by institutional lenders when they grant a mortgage. It is not a Federal legal requirement for the ppurchase of land.
Thus, virtualy everything Perry asserts is fallacious and based on the flimsiest pretexts and shallowest of understandings none of which recognize critical and conditioning differences in kind and powers.
The monist mind at work apparently.
spending money for war is ok. cleaning up the planet is a sunk cost.
gotta love the mentality right from the beginning. You lose credibility when you don’t apply your faux financial concerns to everything accross the board. You pick and choose where certain costs impact the country good or bad. It doesn’t work like that. If you are concerned about big government, which is worse and will cost more?
Mr Viti, you seem to have forgotten that we were attacked by the Islamists, and they’d happily do so again if they get the opportunity. Defending ourselves is the first priority.
I even suggested a way for the global warming alarmists to get their way, to reduce carbon-fuel usage to generate electricity, without adding untold billions in carbon-cap penalties; I’d think that would interest you.
Perry, your mandatory insurance model fails the test of logic, because you haven’t realized who is being protected. With both auto and home insurance, you are protecting someone else: the mortgage lender, and the other person involved in the accident. You can legally hold liability-only auto insurance, to pay for the other guy’s car, and just take your chances on your own.
Health insurance, on the other hand, is there to protect you from the costs of health care. If you get sick, and the hospital winds up suing you for every penny you have, takes your house and your car and your dog to satisfy the bill, hey, that’s on you.
DNW, you are spinning now, just like any decent lawyer is wont to do, depending on the challenge.
Moreover, you are nitpicking details about the different types of insurance that are of no consequence regarding my statement that mandating insurance, whether it be Federal, State or Local, is still mandated insurance. The fact that there are subsets that have different rules and regulations, or none, is of no consequence in your attempt to refute my assertion.
I did not attempt to make the case that health insurance is identical in concept and practice to any other insurance type, nevertheless you responded as if I did. That then does not fly, DNW!
I make the point again, that there are general similarities, based on the general definition of the term ‘insurance’, and based on the existence of mandates for some insurances. Thus, your tack does not support your objection to mandated health insurance.
On the Jesus question, I note that you chose not to answer it. I assume your devotion to Christianity and Christ would empower you to speculate about what whether or not Jesus would care [for those who have fallen by the wayside], correct? But you won’t admit it! Strange!! I happen to have a high regard for the value system that Jesus represents, as I have and continue to be immersed in it, though not believing in the divinity part of his life story, therefore the question is one that I can readily answer with a ‘Yes, Jesus would care’.
I said: “There is no such a thing as absolute freedom, otherwise utter chaos. There is always a balance that must be sought between individuals and government, such that reasonable rules and regulations can be put in place.
Eric responds:“What you’re talking about is watered down Marxism, the notion that humans can’t handle freedom and must be coerced into doing what the government says “For their own good”.”
Yeah Eric, right, Marxism, coercion, …. To whose statement did you reply, Eric? Not mine! You are indeed a loose cannon who will make anything up that sounds good to you, without regard for any intellectual rigor whatsoever. This is a prime example!
Perry wrote:
Where we disagree is on the emphasis put on those competing interests. I believe that we should err on the side of individual freedom, and have a strong bias against any government regulation that isn’t necessary.
This, I suspect, is from where the “Marxism” charges stemmed. arxism is a wholly discredited notion, because it was based on poor economic theory compounded by a complete lack of understanding of psychology. Yet Herr Marx addressed something that really does touch a lot of people, the fact that capitalism produces disparate results: some people simply do better than others.
To Herr Marx, this was both terribly wrong and eventually unsustainable. And that desire continues today, with a lot of people thinking that the world is just plain unfair, because some do better than others, and that something ought to be done about it.
But until we attain the Marxist utopia — meaning: never — we will have people who are simply better than others, better in ways which produce a competitive advantage, and superior economic results. That leads to the urge to use the power of government to somehow address this inequality, but to address unequal results is to restrict freedom, the freedom to do as you wish, the freedom to succeed.
Dana misunderstands: “Perry, your mandatory insurance model fails the test of logic, because you haven’t realized who is being protected.”
Dana, I am not making the point that the insurances I listed are even close to being identical. Their similarity is that they are all insurances, and that some have aspects of a mandate associated with them, therefore having mandated health insurance is not a new concept.
Look, an aspect of my value system is that I am my brother’s keeper, another, that it takes a village to raise a child. As individuals, we do not operate in a vacuum, as there are a multitude of interdependencies that assist us all under certain circumstances, such that we are all members of a community, the well being of which depends on our individual contributions. Under certain circumstances, we are mandated to do certain things for the sake of our community, our state, our nation. I put health insurance into that category of necessary government mandates. I know this drives you folks up the wall, but not me.
Perry explains a great deal:
But to be your brother’s keeper, you must also be your brother’s supervisor; for a village to rear a child, then the village must have final authority over the child-rearing decisions, regardless of the wishes of the parents.
This is where we have our fundamental disagreement. As your brother’s keeper, you are, in the area of health insurance, trying to tell him what he must do, telling him how he must behave. You might think it irresponsible of your brother not to carry health insurance — and I’d agree with that — but you are advocating using the power of government to compel your brother to conform to your ideas of responsibility, whether he agrees or not, whether he wishes to do so or not.
I agree that your intentions are good and noble, but at some point we have to ask: are your good intentions sufficient reason to assume compulsory power over your brother’s life?
Perry wrote:
If it were necessary, wouldn’t that mean that our society would have collapsed if it had not been implemented? yet here we are, some 233 years after we declared our independence, without a government mandate for health insurance, and we have survived. Clearly, it isn’t necessary, even though you think it a greater good.
Perry doesn’t like when you point out that car insurance is voluntary while Obamacare would make health insurance mandatory. He seems to think that all government mandates are equal when they clearly are not.
Attention everyone who thinks owning a home mandates home-owner’s insurance: Breaking news! Home-owners insurance is not at all mandated for home-owners! I have owned my home since SGT Hitchcock was a kindergartener and I have never once had home-owner’s insurance. I did not violate any law, ordinance, regulation, contract, or anything else in my lack of insurance. It just so happens that my ancient house (built in the late 19th century) is and always has been uninsurable during my ownership of it.
Auto insurance is only required if you own an auto and you drive that auto on public highways and byways. If you don’t own an auto, you are not required to have auto insurance. If you own an auto but never drive it on public property, you are not required to have auto insurance.
Title insurance? What’s that? Never had that, either.
And, yes, any mandated insurance is only mandated if you do something. And merely having the audacity to “breathe in, breathe out” is not doing something. Also, mandated insurance protects someone other than the person getting the insurance. No mandated insurance protects the person getting the insurance. And all mandated insurance can be avoided by choosing not to participate in the activity that mandates insurance.
Of course, the Perrys of the world will never understand this.
John, if you were to take some equity out of your home with a lone based on your home as collateral, you would find that you would be paying the premiums for homeowners insurance, because it is a lender requirement, or mandate! You would also discover that you would have to take out a title insurance policy to protect the lender in case your property is not free and clear of liens and the like, another requirement, or mandate.
On your comment about health insurance, “not doing something”, that’s a distinction without merit. The point about mandating health insurance is about spreading risk and lowering cost. You might have noticed the enthusiasm in the Senate yesterday when the idea of extending Medicare to 55-65 year olds. That spreads risk and lowers premium costs, which is one of the merits of a Medicare for all system, ie, single payer, which is a real solution to our escalating medical costs and to our lack of universal health care coverage.
Dana said: “If it [mandatory health insurance] were necessary, wouldn’t that mean that our society would have collapsed if it had not been implemented?”
That’s just the point, Dana, that rising health costs, much greater than inflation, are contributing to our economic woes. This was not the case decades ago when health care costs were reasonable and health insurance was provided either through employers or individually by not-for-profit insurance companies, like the old versions of Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurers. Today, private insurers are for-profit, ration health care at their whim, and have monopolistic powers (not covered by anti-trust rules). Thus, for this reason and others, our system is proving itself to be unsustainable.
Anecdotally, I was in the hospital a month or so ago for three hours as an outpatient for the removal of my gall bladder laproscopically. The total bill came to about $11,000. Medicare paid 90%, I paid the other 10%. This illustrates the high cost of medical care these days, and also the merits of a single payer system like Medicare.
Sharon:“…car insurance is voluntary….”
Sharon, I don’t know about TX, but here in DE you do not get title to your car without showing proof of insurance; so here, car insurance is mandatory.
So I guess we should require any person of driving age to purchase auto insurance to spread the risk?
Even if they dont plan to drive….. sorry
Dana concludes:“This is where we have our fundamental disagreement.”
The point I would make about “being my brother’s keeper”, is that this involves my individual efforts and the government’s efforts, depending on the circumstance.
If my neighbor hits a wall (figuratively), I deem it my responsibility to offer assistance, and have. Most people do that. However, in the case of health insurance, those without insurance get medical services anyway, at the expense of those of us who have insurance in terms of higher premiums. There is nothing voluntary about it. Therefore, in response to this would be mandatory health insurance, which forces all of us to carry the load, while the risk is spread on all of us too, thus keeping costs down. It just seems like a prudent and reasonable thing to do, as all other developed nations have already done years ago.
It just so happens that for certain needs, like auto insurance, like homeowners insurance, like title insurance, it makes sense to spread the risk and lower costs with a mandatory insurance program, whether or not the mandate comes from private or public entities is inconsequential to the individual with regards to the overall end result.
In other words, a mandate in itself cannot be ruled in or out based on ideological demands. Each circumstance requires a practical analysis of the issue, in which ideology plays a role, but not the only role. For reasons already given, a health insurance mandate makes a lot of sense to me.
h. asked:“So I guess we should require any person of driving age to purchase auto insurance to spread the risk?”
No, but the car owner is required, by virtue of his/her car insurance, to provide liability insurance coverage for anyone who drives the car, as I understand it.
When my daughter was underage and with a driver’s license, I added specific language to my auto insurance: Nobody but myself is permitted to drive my car. That kept my rates lower than they would’ve been had I allowed my daughter to drive my Camaro. My rates would’ve gone through the roof with her as a driver.
Perry wrote:
You were attempting to make just that point.
However, your auto insurance “mandate” argument has been repeatedly and systematically harrowed, your categorical premisses have been individually rebutted, and your assumptions regarding legal mandates at any level, have been directly refuted.
Yet you sidestep all this and accuse others of spinning?
Why you stupidly persist with this incredibly bankrupt line of attack is best known to yourself, Perry.
You are not my brother, and we don’t live in the same village, and it doesn’t take a village to raise a child. We live on the same landmass and I tolerate you while you behave yourself and act reasonably.
In fact your parasitical and totalitarian political intentions are antagonistic to my best interests.
Vapors. I’m not interested in joining your termite kingdom and being ruled any more than I already am by unelected and unrepresentative bureaucrats. Freedom is more appelaing than inclusion in some leper’s orgy.
Emotive crap, peddled by a huckster holding the hat he asks you to toss your wallet and your freedom into. In other words according to you, it is the duty of some to produce and the task of others to consume, and it is all for “for the good of the community and the progress of all mankind, and no one is good looking unless everyone is good looking, and it takes a village to raise an imbecile, and no man is an island, and make sure you share with the flabby boy with soft hands even if he won’t work, or the guy who won’t go into the woods ’cause it’s too cold to hunt, and we are all interdependent on each and everyone else everywhere (including to the cost of our own families)even if we are really not, forever and ever Amen.”
What drives me up the wall is the idea of being legally, socially, and economically bound into a program of enabling and underwriting the dysfunction of the insistently dependent and negligent, and the notion of bearing them around on my back like some slavering overgrown papooses stuck in a state of perpetual infantilism.
What drives me up the wall is watching my inheritance of political and economic liberty being eaten away by a certain human type which has found an ecological niche in living off of and exploiting the productive, and leveraging the moral sensibilities of these productive persons against their own best interests, by adverting to a Jesus they themselves don’t believe in, and making claims of brotherhood that are nothing more than cynical rhetorical gambits.
Other than that, it’s all good ….
Yes yours. You implied that freedom doesn’t work, that people can’t handle freedom, that it results in chaos, etc. THAT is what I responded to.
PS I notice you left out the second half of my message. I wonder why?
I don’t. The Left claims virtue as their motivation, but scratch the surface and you find a bully who wants to boss people around and force them to yield to his agenda.
“Compulsory” being the operant word, which just reinforces my point above.
Eric twists:“I don’t. The Left claims virtue as their motivation, but scratch the surface and you find a bully who wants to boss people around and force them to yield to his agenda.”
Dana was talking about me, not “The Left”. So not only do you twist, you make an assumption with no evidence, another example of your making stuff up, to proselytize your extremist ideology.
I fully understand, Eric, that anyone who questions a part of the sacrosanctity of your ideology, gets put into your little box called “The Left”, and then gets pilloried by you. This is a repeating event with many of your comments.
Next Eric assumes:You implied that freedom doesn’t work, that people can’t handle freedom, that it results in chaos, etc.
No Eric, that’s your figment! I said: “There is no such a thing as absolute freedom, otherwise utter chaos.” Your implication is way off the mark, in fact, just plain wrong, another example of your ‘making stuff up’. You need to think before you speak, as I am pretty sure you have been asked to do so that by others.
Perry wrote:
Perry, you are making a blanket statement here, but you are failing to consider that there are different laws in different states. This seemed strange to me when I bought a house in the Keystone State, but in Pennsylvania the mortgage banker may not require you to pay your property taxes and homeowners’ insurance through your mortgage payment; you can make those payments independently if you wish — and some mortgage holders have gotten burned — pun intended — when a house burned down or property taxes were not paid.
Don’t assume that what you think is an obvious requirement really is.
Perry wrote:
This is a prescription for the government stepping in and mandating whatever someone thinks “makes sense.” That’s why we have a Bill of Rights, so that some things that people believe just make sense don’t get imposed willy-nilly on people who happen to disagree.
I agree that having health insurance makes good sense; I don’t agree that just because it makes good sense to me that it should be imposed on those who don’t agree.
Eric wrote:
That may be true of some, but I doubt that it’s true of most of our friends on the left. There are some who use leftist ideology as a means of seeking personal power, but most of them know that they would be just regular citizens.
It seems to me that too many of our friends on the left believe that their judgement in some of these matters — note Perry’s “it makes sense” argument — is simply so obviously correct that, for the good of society as a whole, such judgements should become government policy, imposed on everyone, for their own good.
Dana just said:“I agree that having health insurance makes good sense; I don’t agree that just because it makes good sense to me that it should be imposed on those who don’t agree.”
One size doesn’t fit all. By that I mean that, although I generally agree with you, in health care insurance I don’t, because we end up paying anyway for those who opt out of being insured. The same can be said for auto insurance, but not, for example, for life insurance. Therefore, it “makes sense” to make health care insurance and auto insurance mandatory. Of course, any law with a mandatory stipulation attached, may eventually have to pass the muster of SCOTUS.
Perry wrote:
But there is a simpler way: those who are not insured and cannot pay could forfeit as many of their assets as are required to pay for their treatment, including their homes, cars, and bank accounts; I see absolutely nothing wrong with utterly impoverishing those who choose not to carry insurance if they need medical care.
Before my great-grandmother entered the nursing home, she had already signed away her home to my parents (I don’t know if she sold it but I believe she did). She did not own her home and had lived in it rent-free for a decade. Upon entering the nursing home and living on the medicare dime, the government will suck all a person’s nominal wealth, including the person’s home, leaving nothing to be inherited. The reason I own her home now is because the deed was transferred before the fed got its claws on it.
When the fed gets involved, there is no transfer of wealth (in this case, a house valued at maybe 20k in today’s dollars) from one generation to the next. Instead, the government takes everything it can get ahold of, siphons off a huge chunk of it for its immense bureaucracy, then redistributes the rest to those who didn’t earn it. Then it says, loud and clear, “Remember next time you vote where those freebies came from.”
John is confused:“Upon entering the nursing home and living on the medicare dime, the government will suck all a person’s nominal wealth, including the person’s home, leaving nothing to be inherited.”
Your great-grandmother was on Medicaid for her care for the remainder of her life, in exchange for whatever assets she had at the time, thus, this is not the government “sucking” off her nominal wealth. What would you propose that the rules should be re Medicaid assistance?
And yes, you are lucky to have her house. What did you do to earn it, John? Suppose, instead of Medicaid (for her home care) and Medicare (for her health care), you had to bear the total expense and burden of her care? By your philosophy, you should have stepped up to do that! Be happy that you had Medicare and Medicaid to lean on in your time of need.
I’ll bet you didn’t know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Unless you are old, disabled, and/or very poor, you have no clue. Be happy that the government, in our name, is there for our needy people!
Maybe more understanding will change your attitude about the good that government can do, maybe even change your ideology!
Remember:
The issue is never the issue.
The issue is control.
No, Perry, government will never become my idol. I know whom I worship and it’ll never be government.
John, you answered none of my questions, but that’s OK, because I know what the real answers should be, though you cannot bring yourself to admit it, and you cannot bring yourself to give the government any credit, even though you are obviously the beneficiary. That, John, is your unwillingness to be honest!
Kazooskibum: You are quite right. That’s what politics and elections are all about. The Left admits that fact, the Right/Conservatives refuse to admit it, which is their lie! I had never thought of that distinction. Thanks for raising the issue.
Perry:
Kazooskibum: You are quite right. That’s what politics and elections are all about. The Left admits that fact, the Right/Conservatives refuse to admit it, which is their lie! I had never thought of that distinction. Thanks for raising the issue.
Perry, think hard about what Kaz said and think Healthcare and Medicare and when the money runs out.
Perry, you may well be a liberal, not a leftist, in which case my comment (shoe) doesn’t fit this particular case.
All the same, I stand by my comments Re: The Left. They claim to be kompassionate, but under the skin it’s all about power and control. That’s Castro’s Cuba, the old USSR, and any other Leftist/Marxist regime on the planet. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they want a world of slaves and slave drivers, and they want to be sure it’s a world where they hold the whip.
In fairness, I try to distinguish between liberals and leftists even though to some people they’re basically the same. For me, a liberal is basically a patriotic citizen with whom I just happen to disagree politically. But a leftist is a different breed of cat entirely. I do believe that for true leftists, Marxism is at the core of their beliefs and drives everything they do. Their values are alien to those of America or liberal democracy in general and their loyalty is not to either. They are about power and control, and their ideology is – there’s no other way to put it – evil and must be fought by all decent people.
Because it is the 11th of the month, I’m droppoing this in here. THIS subject is the genesis of all our problems, and unless you look at the scientific facts, the problem on this thread and any other will continue to destroy the country. Show some guts. Look further. BEYOND this brief video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9nRs8cu5Y&eurl=http://truthaction.org/thirdstage.htm
Oh, look! Blubonnet’s threadjacking once again with her certifiably insane hysteria!
John Hitchcock:
Oh, look! Blubonnet’s threadjacking once again with her certifiably insane hysteria
Kinda like this clip better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd3a189vcVc
Yep, the clip was fantastic, as in fantasy, and very beautiful. Celtic. Hearts-a-flutterin’ baby animals.
However, I came upon a brilliantly put together new documentary full of history, the military’s wars, US international policy, soldiers, video of everything from the actual 40′s on up to now. Amazing documentation. These are our architects of the present US policies, the American Neo-cons, and their document (aka PNAC), Project for the New American Century. You decide what is good or bad. It’s an investment in time and full understanding s to what they have stated to one another. Alwso fantastic. Only not as charming, because it is the mind that gets to be awakened, more so than imaginations…gardens and forests, and beautiful humans, and music. No, this is about war and military strategies, etc.
Oh, if you are worried that 911 truth is in the link below, yes, this 1.5 hour documentary is posted there. It’s on the World for 911 Truth, one of scores, this particular one site is a compilation of various other professionals and officials, from many different countries, whom have taken note of the obvious, the cartoonish explanations of the US, which defies physics, along with ample testimony from credible professionals of every category, have stated beyond a shadow of a doubt, explosives, coupled with the 9-11-01 attacks, pulverized all three towers.
However, the point of this link being brought here is more to the end result being, you’ll see examples in history, where things I’ve told you, are true. MANY things. Look at history. Mostly, all Eisenhower said, I’m saying too. Those warnings fit exactly what Eisenhower said. You be the judge.
It will no doubt be an adventure watching it, so honest objective commentary would be an extreme conversation source. Maybe John Hitchcock who so often likes to do so many pieces, could make it his piece to critique. and listen to all the controversial thought put into words by everyone, after watching it. John, I know your inconvenient set-up with your computer, prohibits that idea, unless, maybe you went to the library to view it..
Onward.
http://world911truth.org/the-new-american-century-pnac/
Hey, blu, since you’re not quite grasping the concept behind blog commentary and blog etiquette, let me try to help you out. It is considered good form to be aware of the subject header and the article being discussed and then to continue the discussion on that material. Oftentimes tangential discussions will follow in the comment thread, but they lead out of the main topic of discussion. It is acceptable to comment in the tangential discussions. But it is preferred to maintain at least one eye on the topic at hand.
It is very bad form, quite rude in fact, to place extraneous material in the comment section. And to do such repeatedly in multiple comment threads is the height of rudeness. It is very obnoxious behavior that reasonable parents work to remove from their children.
I hope this helps you, blu, in your further endeavors to become a contributing member of the blogosphere.
Well, okay. I should have known. However, since it relates to EVERYthing, I thought it appropriate. Personal perspective. Anyway, I’d be interested in hearing what you all around here meight think after viewing it.
I see you weren’t interested in friendly advice on blog etiquette or how to become a contributing member of the blogosphere, blu. Continue on as that 13-year-old testing the limits of proper decorum; that’s all you appear to be interested in, anyway. Never mind the fact you have gone well beyond those limits.
Or, to borrow from your main squeeze, Perry, if you cannot be on-topic, keep silent.
From Climate-Skeptic.com comes this father-son collaborative video where they did the research none of the big shot AGW alarmists will do: