Body Parts

Another Big US Company Downsizes

This time its Pfizer, one of America's great pharmaceutical medicine companies. It's shutting down a relatively new R&D plant in Connecticut, as well as other facilities. Though this downsizing has to do, I'm sure, with the recession and the company's stream of products, we'll see a lot more of this downsizing as nationalization of health care gets underway and ObamaCare's several dozen medical "commissions" and "czars" begin to lower costs by standardizing care, reducing medical formularies, and reducing salaries and profits in medical companies. And what will the nation do when the stream of medical and medicinal research and innovation begins to decline? When we don't have the infrastructure to meet new diseases? Nationalize R&D, too? Nationalize university's biomedical research? We need to pay attention to the fact that the rest of the world, with its nationalized national medical care, produces far far less medical innovation than the US. Socialist wishful thinking will grind into dust against the reality of the economic world and leave us all poorer, less healthy, and less able to deal with our medical future.

You're not Alone in Thinking and Feeling as You Do, Caroline

Caroline Glick's cry from the heart about two presidents' reactions to the massacre at Fort Hood.

ObamaCare Will Subsidize Middle-Class Lifestyle, Not Middle-Class Health Care

ObamaCare is ostensibly directed at health care and would ensure that all middle-class families have medical care through insurance by requiring and underwriting that insurance (the poor and the elderly already have governmentally funded medical care). But a little thought would show that federal subsidy of medical insurance for the middle class will not subsidy insurance; it will subsidize lifestyle. Let's look at how the economics of household budgeting work. Nearly all middle-class families already have health care insurance; that's a fact. It is also a fact, as established by opinion surveys, that nearly all of them are satisfied with their medical insurance and wish to keep it. So here we have middle-class families spending X dollars of their income on insurance (or getting employer paid insurance in lieu of higher wages or salaries), Y dollars of their income on a mortgage, Z dollars on food, and so on. When the government subsidizes health care, that subsidy releases X dollars (or some partial thereof) for spending on other items in the household budget. Such items might include vacations, getting a car for the oldest, college-commuting teen, adding an extra room to the house so the two girls can have their own bedrooms. You get the idea. Government subsidy for health insurance simply becomes a subsidy for cars, vacations, bigger houses, paying down credit cards, taking grandma out for dinner, and so on.

Or to put it more directly, some taxpayers are going to subsidize the middle class material lifestyle, not their health care. Do I object to this enhancement of the emoluments of middle-class life? I do. I do, because it is not fair and not social justice. It is just a political gimmick to get hooked on the cocaine of liberalism, social democracy, passed out by the Democratic Party. (Government subsidy means that its welfare recipients will have to relinquish much of their liberty in their medical care, but, what the hey, they'll be stoned and won't care.) All the Democrats have to do to pull off this magic hat trick is to convince middle-class voters that they are not going to be the taxpayers to pay for their own health insurance being politically sold to them as "free".

We Are Going to Get Socialized Medicine

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is a politician with directness and integrity. In an interview on a local public radio station the other day, he said, that some form of ObamaCare will be passed in the Senate. Simply, the Democrats have a supermajority and the President really wants this. He said he and other opponents will try to make clear the issues involved, but it is unlikely they can stop it.

Brace yourself.

Fort Hood Massacre Was Not A "Tragedy"

"Tragedy" is an inaccurate word, as Atlas Shrugs and Donald Sensing point out. It was an act of war and it was an atrocity. It was not a tragedy for its victims; it was a field of courage and heroism for them and their rescuerers. It was not a tragedy for Nasan; he planned it as a Jihadist suicide mission and will probably be disappointed when (if) he awakens from his coma to discover he is not in Allah's heaven with 72 raisins.

America 's homeland has been under Jihadist attack since the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center in New York. We've had numerous terrorist conspiracies discovered and thwarted, we've had some botched terrorist attempts, we've had Muslim anti-semitic attacks on Jews and synagogues, we've had brief shootouts between Islamists and police, we've had a horrendous serial killing spree around the nation's capital that took days to end. We're way past the moment when the nation was innocently asleep and horrifyingly awakened by Muslim mass murderers shouting "Allahu Akbar" and flying airplanes into buildings. It's not a tragedy that we are unprepared now; it's political correctness stupidity, it's political cowardice, it's personal irresponsibility, it's professional incompetence.

Hasan Attended Mosque of Radical Imam at Same Time as Two of 9-11 Terrorists

Oops. The notion of a lone, psychotic killer takes another hit. Hasan was an ethnic Palestinian and Jihadist, who responded to and admired a radical Imam who advised three 9-11 terrorists, and who praised Muslim resistance to American soldiers. Atlas Shrugs picked up the UK Telegraph story.

"Bringing Michael Home"

The story of the arrival at Dover Air Force Base and escort of the body of Army Spc. Michael Dahl Jr., of the Moreno Valley, to burial at Riverside National Cemetary. Ben Goad and Mark Muckenfuss, "Bringing Michael Home", The Press-Enterprise, Sunday, November 8, 2009, S1. A moving account with many photographs, written with the respect for the fallen soldier, killed in Afghanistan. I would say, a fitting Veterans Day story, but that The Press-Enterprise has done an excellent job of reporting about the local soldiers who have been killed in Iraq and  Afghanistan, without regard to the particular observance day. Well worth reading.

Chugging Along To A Record

4.2 mile route.

1 quartet, 7 triplets, two doubles, one single: 30 intervals.

56 minutes.

For the triplets and quartet, I slowed my running to a job. I found I had more stamina and my breath was better. I had to jog an additional 200 feet to incorporate the last double.

Obama's Muslim Identity

Atlas Shrugs posted this video. Watch it. When you string years of Obama's public references, praise, slips of the tongue, and allusions to Islam, he reveals a deeper affinity with Islam than one would expect if he did not feel his identity to be Muslim. Contrast this public affiliation with Islam to his avoidance of expressions of Christian identity. Though his autobiography ends with his emotional release into Reverend Wright's Liberationist theology Christian church, Obama does not speak of Jesus as his savior. Christianity appears like an acquisition (I am not saying conversion). This lack of explicit attachment to the Son of God would be consonant with Obama's formal American education, from prep school through Harvard Law, in the bowels of postmodernism, multi-culturalism, and New Left anti-Americanism.

Our president is a complex personality, to be sure, but, if we look carefully, we can see hints of the stream that runs under his ground.   He is the exemplar of cognitive dissonance (I would almost say, victim of cognitive dissonance, given his uncritical absorption of his education); but, as this video shows, Obama's identity has, beneath its fan dance of deception, a Muslim tone. Does this tone have implications for his formulation of policy? Youbetcha.

 

 

Major Hasan's Suicide Mission Against the Enemies of Islam: He Had Long Been A Jihadist

Atlas Shrugs points to Hasan's frequest and well-voiced Islamist views about confronting the enemies of Islam and killing the Infidels as reported on NPR.

A Prayer of Gratitude for Sgt. Kimberly Munley and the Men and Women of Uniform Who Place Themselves In Harm's Way To Protect Us

Bloggers roundup:

Ann Althouse: Tweet Message

Atlas Shrugs: An American Woman

Jawa Report: Hero  

American Digest: Hero of Fort Hood

Gateway Pundit: Police Officer Hailed

Hot Air: The Woman Who Stopped

New Businesses Create Jobs

One of the economic themes of this blog is the argument that startup and small businesses create new jobs for the economy. The policies of Obama and the Democrats hinder new business formation and hobble the startups with tax, regulatory, and labor regulations that prevent them from expanding as much as they could. New research backs up this theme. Nearly all new jobs created in the US economy since 1980 have been created in new businesses in business for less than five years. (Carl Schramm, Robert Litan, and Dean Stangler, "New Business, Not Small Business, Is What Creates Jobs", The Wall Street Journal, Friday, November 6, 2009, A25.) The authors outline the major policies that would encourage, not restrict, new business formation.

Unemployment is at 10%. The Recession Isn't Over.

Unemployment at 10% of the job-seeking labor force. When the actual percentage of under-employed and discouraged workers is added to technically defined "unemployed", the "unemployment" rate is probably close to 20% (see The New York Times, David Leonhardt, "Broader Measure of US Unemployment Stands at 17.5%", November 6, 2009 [H/T Calculated Risk]). The job-loss recession marches on, while statistics of improvement in the economy are largely misleading. So what if apparel stores have a minor increase in sales? Where are they buying their garments to sell to us? Not from American made clothiers; 95% of all US clothes are made abroad. So apparel sales increases are a boon mainly to foreign factories. Is Ford doing better in selling its cars? Where are alll the parts for its cars made? Surprise, not all are made in the US. The car industry is global, not national. What does Obama do? He doesn't have a clue about economics. He'll parrot anything his advisors say, because he doesn't know enough, and is also misled by his Marxism; he is in no position to criticize the economic advice he gets. His economics advisory council is wedded to conventional macroeconomic paradigms and models and won't look for fundamental structural breakdowns in the US economy. It's too soothing politically to talk about aggregate production statistics and sales statistics, without looking at what the economic activity that produced those numbers really says about the real, physical economy. Our rough ride isn't over.

Update. Calculated Risk analyses the data deeper. Structural problems are indicated by the ratio of employed persons to the adult population. Today, only about 58% of adults are employed. That proportion is the lowest since 1983 and the end of the Jimmy Carter stagflation recession that Reagan inherited (and cured). It indicates, also, I think, that two-earner housesholds have taken a beating. The percentage of two-earner, full time employed workers (per household) must be down (I don't have statistics). That also hinders recovery, because the level of consumption maintained by two earners has been higher than one and was, during the Reagan boom from the mid-1980s to 2006, a major support for bigger houses, more expensive cars, and so on.

Updated. November 7, 2009.

Fort Hood Killer Proselytized Islam

Major Hasan reportedly handed out copies of the Koran in the months preceding the massacre. He was also known for opposing US intervention in Iraq and for urging Muslims to fight against the US. During the shooting, he apparently was shouting in Arabic. Want to guess what he shouted?

Meanwhile, the Army is stressing that Hasan, a psychiatrist, treated combat veterans for emotional disorders and he also didn't want to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. The emphasis on the mental and emotional profile of Hasan is an effort to find the source of his murderous behavior in psychiatric disorders. But isolating his mental state is an analytical fallacy. All behavior is over-determined. Psychology and mental and emotional disorders exist as part of the social and cultural fabrics. We should look to the context in which Hasan thought and believed. It was not necessarily the Army that put the pistols into his hands (they were apparently not military issue). It was not necessarily a mental disease that pulled the triggers. It was, most probably, Islamist fervor and Islamic Jihad that, to speak metaphorically, handed him the guns, loaded them, brought him into the graduation audience, and led him to kill a dozen persons in execution style.

As a nation, we have seen over the past few years an increase in conspiracies to attack the American home-based military as a contribution to the world-wide Jihad. The enemy has reached into America on the ground before. We shouldn't assume all attacks will come from the air. We are seeing insidious, death-seeking pseudo-religious ideology at work. Islamists wish to demonstrate there is no place in which infidels can hide.

We are warned. Much much worse is coming. Imagine one or two shooters like Hasan in a New York City elementary school.

Update. Nasan shouted, before he started shooting, "Allah Akbar!"

Update. Shrinkwrapped also objects to the reductionist psychiatric explanation of Hasan's motivation.

Fort Hood Killings

I'm listening to Fox News as I work on a website. I read about the killings earlier, but did not know of their scope. 12 killed; 31 wounded. Genuinely horrible. One killer, apparently an officer and the main shooter, killed by local police. Two other possible participants in custody. Sources say all three are members of the military. They were wearing military uniforms.

Questions.

1. Three participants means that other persons were involved in the conspiracy or knew of it?
2. Conspiracy means that mental illness is not the root cause?
3. Compares to the Fort Dix conspiracy (as Fox Washington DC reporter says is being talked about in the capital)?
4. Compares to the fragging incident just before the 2003 Iraq invasion?
5. Terrorism?

Update. Fox News is reporting that the main shooter was a convert to Islam. Questions 4 and 5 come into foreground. Fox News reports that the Army is investigating additional participants in the conspiracy.

AARP Does Not Speak for Me

The AARP has endorsed the House's health care bill. Apparently, they did so after they got an agreement that Medicare would not be cut. Hmm? Does that mean, that Congress will not cut out the Medicare Advantage plans? Or just not Medicare conventional benefits? At any rate, AARP did not poll me about what position to take on the bill. I've been a member of AARP since my mid-fifties. I disagree. So AARP's endorsement is endorsement minus one.

Rise in Productivity Will Postpone A Rise In Employment

The rise in the productivity rate in October is not yet a statistical measure of economic growth (and 1). In a fully employed, growing economy, the rise in productivity would indicate technological innovation and promise added economic value to products. It would enable companies to pass along to their workers in the form of higher wages the fruits of the increased productivity. But in this recession economy, the high productivity rate only means that companies were able to increase slightly their output in their under-utilized factories (70% utilization in September) from their diminished labor force that has been working decreased hours for decreased wages. Indeed, major companies are continuing to shed jobs--Caterpillar to dump 5000 US workers, Johnson and Johnson some 8000 workers--even as they see their business increasing. And no doubt their labor productivity will rise; their labor costs will be less. Their share prices will, as a result, be more solid and valuable. But the economy as a whole will not yet significantly benefit. Why? Because those discharged employees are not finding new jobs in the economy. The unemployment pool is increased, the aggregate amount  of wages contracts, and household demand remains restrained. Until the fired workers quickly find new jobs of equivalent value, the economy can't grow. The question is how to break the cycle? Fingers should point at the national and state governments and the regulatory, tax, and labor policies they impose that prevent new companies from being created to hire the laborers discharged from existing companies.

Updated. November 6, 2009.

A Woman on a White Horse in 2012?

"[Independent voters] are spooked and on the run, a political stampede that veered left in November 2008 and now right a mere year later. They will keep running--crushing incumbents, candidates and political models of the left and right--through November 2010 and onto 2012 until they find a person or party capable of leadership appropriate to our unsettled times. And yes, Virginia, the possibility of a man on a white horse in 2012 is not out of the question." (Daniel Henninger, "The Permanent Tea Party," The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, November 5, 2009, A17.)

Or a woman on a white horse.

Sarah Palin exemplifies qualities and values in which most Americans believe and which they intuitively think are needed to pull the nation through these years of economic turmoil, social disorder, and moral doubt. They want to tip the political scale away from collectivism, the nanny state, and international sovietism. Back toward individualism and personal responsibility, hard work and entrepreneurship and markets and capitalism, and traditional values of family, country, and honor.

"I hear the white horse stomping in the stable. I see the grooms attend. The barn door is opening. Sunlight is peeking in. A leader rises from her breakfast table. Her household raise a cheer. In politics as in life, there's always a new year."

Black Serial Murderers

I have long believed that black Americans were must less likely to produce serial murderers than other racial groups. I speculated there might be several reasons. The legacy of racial suppression, when black crimes were punished more harshly than white crimes, might hold down crimes that would attract a lot of publicity. And black serial murders were accomplished, so to speak, by gangs and largely contained inside the black community or, more recently, in the conflict between black and brown gangs. My speculations were probably off the mark. Several spectacular instances of black serial murder, the snipers, John Muhammed and Lee Malvo,  and now Anthony Sowell of Cleveland, suggest we need a a new theory to account for black serial killers. I think their appearances are more than purely a psychological phenomenon and point to sociological and cultural conditions. Does anyone have any ideas?

For Obama, Not All Corruptions Are Equal

Obama is getting weak-kneed on the Afghanistan war because he isn't sure, as his spokesperson puppets say, that he has a reliable partner in Karzai. You see, recently re-elected President Karzai is reputed to have tolerated widespread political corruption. Obama has, however, no difficulty whatever in embracing the political corruption of New Jersey, because he saw a reliable partner in recently not re-elected Governor Corzine. You see, in Obama's animal farm, there's "corruption", and then there's "corruption-corruption". Corzine is not guilty of the latter.