Consequences II

The new health insurance reform law, the one that was designed to cover more people and reduce the cost of health insurance is going to do neither. Oh more people may be insured because they will be forced to buy health insurance whether they want it or not because our beatified, beneficent, bureaucratic federal overlords know what is best for everyone. Or a working parents children will be covered until the children are 26 (note the operative word in the sentence).
More than anything, though, what tells us that congress and the president haven't the slightest idea what they're talking about when it comes to prices, costs and accounting is summed up exquisitely here by Megan McArdle. It seems the people with their hands on the tap of the federal fisc wouldn't pass Accounting I:

Here's the story: one of the provisions in the new health care law forces companies to treat the current subsidies for retiree health benefits as taxable income. This strikes me as dumb policy; there's not much point in giving someone a subsidy, and then taxing it back, unless you just like doing extra paperwork. And since the total cost of the subsidy, and any implied tax subsidy, is still less than we pay for an average Medicare Part D beneficiary, we may simply be encouraging companies to dump their retiree benefits and put everyone into Part D, costing us taxpayers extra money.
But this is neither here nor there, because Congress already did it. And now a bunch of companies with generous retiree drug benefits have announced that they are taking large charges to reflect the cost of the change in the tax law.
Henry Waxman thinks that's mean, and he's summoning the heads of those companies to Washington to explain themselves. It's not clear what they're supposed to explain. What they did is required by GAAP. And I've watched congressional hearings. There's no chance that four CEO's are going to explain the accounting code to the fine folks in Congress; explaining how to boil water would challenge the format.

Related: Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek has a wager he'd like to make with some muckety-mucks over the actual cost of the stuff they've been shoveling.

Public v Private & the Yoke of Unions

I had lunch today with a builder who is a client of ours. We were discussing the current state of affairs apropos the recession, healthcare and "stimulus" spending. He let me in on something I didn't know. The new health insurance reform law requires firms with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance. Bad idea, but fine, what the hell, that part I knew.
What I didn't know was that if you are a construction firm and you have more than five employees, you must offer them health insurance benefits. Which is just a terrible idea.
We were also discussing that any stimulus finds going to public works (those shovel ready jobs you've heard about), workers must be paid "prevailing wage." (See here and here). Which basically means that the work must go to union labor. Which inflates wages, slows development, reduces productivity and keeps unemployment higher than it otherwise would be if the work went through competitive bidding (not that that is apolitical or without problems, but it's better). I will post later why unemployment hasn't improved appreciably.
But the thrust of this post is the following clip I caught on reason.tv:



So while the federal, state and local government are hemorrhaging money, they are: increasing their staffs; increasing payrolls and associated expenses; increasing debt and future obligations; increasing the current and future cost of borrowing; crowding out further private investment and real economic growth. Good job, fellas.

Santorum Redux

For all of you who thought you'd never experience the thrill of watching Rick Santorum lose another election I have good news.

The idiot is pondering a run for president.

Watching someone get his ass kicked in a primary certainly isn't as much fun as in a general, but for the sheer schadenfreude, I'll take what I can get.

Worst Movies Ever

I was watching a perfectly fine documentary on History International about April 1865 and the close of the American Civil War when, during a commercial I flip around and end up on one of the worst movies ever made, right during the scene that hurtles the movie from improbably imbecilic down towards the depths rancidity. I mean, of course, Live Free or Die Hard and the scene featuring perpetually cursed hero cop John McClane, a tractor trailer, a section of highway and a Harrier Jump Jet. I can't find the scene on youtube (I guess because they have to draw the line somewhere) and words just can't do it justice but its horribleness must be seen to be believed. I just can't in good faith recommend anyone to see it.
So this got me thinking of some of my favorite worst movies, and in no particular order...

Big Trouble in Little China--a favorite on VHS when I was 13 or 14. I saw this again not so long ago. I knew it was bad when I was a kid, but I had no idea it was this awful. Kurt Russell at least seems to know he's in a terrible movie and appears just to have fun with it. Mr. Russell will show up again.

Rambo movies--First Blood kind of kicked ass. No sequels should ever have been made. I haven't actually seen any of the sequels in their entirety, but I think I'm on solid ground here. We will see Mr. Stallone some more.

Rocky III, IV, V and Rocky Balboa--OK, so I haven't seen Rocky Balboa, but I did see the others. The first Rocky is an all-timer, and the second doesn't suck. The rest do. I can't see there being any appreciable improvement.

Red Dawn--I absolutely loved this movie when I saw it on Prism as a kid. Then I hadn't seen it for over twenty years. Again, through the magic of cable and programmers desperately needing to fill time, I saw this again recently. One of the ways to stick your landing on this list is for the movie to laugh haughtily as it zooms past improbability. Like John McClane facing down a Marine in a jet with a truck. The US is invaded by a consortium of rogue states including Cuba(!). These ne'er do wells infiltrate all the way into Michigan(!) and then get thwarted by earnest, pubescent, poorly acted patriots. NORAD failed us, but the senior class held us together.

Roadhouse--Yes, there is a network of bouncers who, like the A-Team, can be called to rescue your bar from summer-toothed local goons who act at the behest of an improbably wealthy overlord who likes breaking things. The bouncers call themselves "coolers." This movie has all of the senseless fighting of a Clint Eastwood orangutan movie, but without the nuance. My brother loved it because Dalton was a philosophy major. I bet you didn't know there was a sequel (straight to video, of course).

Smokin' Aces--I've always liked Jeremy Piven. Take PCU as the period piece it's meant to be and he's an OK actor. He has truly come into his own as Ari Gold on Entourage. It was on the heels of my enjoying that show that I looked forward to Smokin' Aces. About a year ago it was on HBO. Ryan Reynolds is today's Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Patrick Swayze rolled into one, but without the pecs. In the penultimate scene which takes place in a hotel hallway he reads some lines. A slightly better dramatic effect would have been to have a production assisstant read directly from the script, it was so terribly done. Ray Liotta really doesn't seem to care at all about the fact that he's in a movie. The best part is the use of a .50 caliber rifle in a hit attempt--a .50 caliber rifle that, at times, has no recoil. Andy Garcia is in this movie. Sometimes he has an accent, sometimes he doesn't, but it doesn't matter because he's Andy Garcia. Jeremy Piven is in the movie, but plays a strung-out magician turned FBI informant against the mob. Just let that last clause marinate in your head for a bit.

Tango and Cash--Just. Fucking. Awful. Even at the time I first saw it (yes there was a second viewing, to verify the awfulness) I knew it was terrible. Teri Hatcher was kind of cute when this movie was made, and it didn't help. Laughable Improbability Moment: Stallone plays the smart cop.

This Movie--I think it's called Deadly Prey, I don't know because I'm dumber for having watched it. I haven't seen it. I won't see it. I've only recently seen the trailer. It's odd that I've never seen or heard of this movie before--one of my buddies growing up had a sick movie collection. His dad rented everything and copied it (two VCRs with 2X2 cables). His dad rented and copied stuff he never had any intention of watching, but we watched just about all of it. Never heard of this one. You just have to love the guy hitting another guy with his own arm after it's cut off.

This is a spur of the moment list and certainly not exhaustive or complete. I know I've missed some doozies and I retain the right to add to it from time to time. Thoughts, comments, additions &c are welcome.

Also, sequels have never been made to Caddyshack or the Blues Brothers. Period.

Threats

Regarding obnoxious behavior, if you threaten an elected official with anything other that not voting for him in the next election, you're an asshole.

This One's Not My Fault

I'm really trying to leave Paul Krugman behind me. I really am.

But then he goes and writes something beyond the pale, even for him:

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.

As Greg Pollowitz writes at National Review, just google "Kill George Bush" and see what you come up with.

Also, I stumbled upon this article recently. It appears the little Paul is more like John with his own little Yoko pulling his strings (or a Jonah Goldberg put it: "It seems fair to say that in the battle for Paul Krugman's brain, his wife is winning.") And the names they gave their cats. Yeeesh.

All right. That's it. I'm really hoping this is it. I almost don't think he could write anything dumber than what he wrote, and I seriously doubt there could be anything more preening and yet explanatory of his thinking, behavior and distortions all at the same time.

That Noise You Hear is Me Banging My Head...

The only thing I like less than Bill O'Reilly is walking into my garage, taking my shoes off and pounding my toes with a hammer.
And that's a close race.
Anywho, I saw this:



And I kind of actually like Congressman Weiner. I disagree with him politically, but he debates well and honestly (usually). But he's wrong on this one and the horse's ass is correct. If you refuse to buy your own insurance you will be subject to sanction by the IRS. The actual penalties will be laid out by administrative action--hell, most of the nuts and bolts of this and most other modern legislation is meted out administratively.

If you were to disregard the law you would probably open yourself up to wage garnishment or liens against real property, but it will be the IRS who will be in charge and Conressman Weiner should have admitted as much.