When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won’t name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company — let’s call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I’d like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn’t serious insurance.
Now, it’s one thing if you’ve got an old beat-up car that you can’t get fixed. It’s another thing if your kid is sick, or you’ve got breast cancer.
I would laugh at him too. He called the wrong insurance company. The driver who rear ended him is responsible and therefore Obama needed to contact his insurance.
Throw in there that comparing car insurance to health insurance is meaningless since 1) You don’t have to drive and 2) You can purchase liability insurance to protect everyone else except your old beater 3) Car insurance doesn’t cover routine maintenance as a way to lower all car expenses by catching major problems before they happen.
Modern cars have very advanced systems. Charles Krauthammer has an article on the “Price of Modernity” which goes into the risks of modern systems.
Braking systems used to be simple. When you press on the brake, it compresses the brake fluid which forces the brake calipers to close. The calipers press the brake pads against a rotor. Friction stops the car. Ah…those were the days.
Back in the 90′s, we moved away from simple brakes to anti-lock brakes. Your car no monitors your speed and the rotation of your wheels. If you are moving and the wheels stop, the car automatically releases the brakes for a moment…just enough to keep them rolling. This advanced feature allows even a new driver to stop on slippery services with far less danger of losing control
Today, we have even more complications. Hybrids recapture the energy lost in braking and direct it back to the battery. These complexities all have benefits, but can have downsides as well. We need to tread very carefully in the case against Toyota. We could severely damage our ability to bring new ideas to market if the penalties against Toyota are too severe. We already have a court damaged domestic supply chain for vaccines. We don’t want to hurt our domestic auto companies any more than they have already hurt themselves.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Free Markets on February 27th, 2010
Every month the experts are surprised. It seems like the experts talk a good game, but they know less than nothing. Their fat heads get in the way of thinking clearly. It doesn’t matter if it is job numbers, banking foreclosures or climate change…the experts give themselves way more credit than they deserve. Washington D.C. is expert central. That’s why we need to keep the decision making at home.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on February 25th, 2010
The White House released their healthcare reform plans earlier this week. Today the President is sitting down with Republicans to discuss their ideas. It seems to me that the order would be reversed if he was truly interested in making accommodations.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on February 25th, 2010
The level of hypocrisy in Washington never ceases to amaze me. Check out this video of the Dems speaking out against their perceived injustice caused by Republicans trying to use reconciliation and remember that Harry Reid is now calling for the Republicans to stop crying because they are considering the same thing that he and his colleagues railed against only a couple of years ago.
The CBO is claiming that the stimulus bill created 1.4 and 3.1 million jobs. But what is missing is the number of jobs killed by the extra debt.
When the government increases the debt, they must sell bonds. When they sell bonds, investors must buy them. When money is being invested in bonds, capital for private industry dries up.
This logic is validated by the job numbers which show more government jobs while private industry is shrinking.
Another sin of commission is the true cost. Because the ARRA increased the number of government jobs, we are no on the hook for long term employment, expensive and increasing benefits and pensions.
But the do admit one thing:
Because that path cannot be observed, the new data add only limited information about ARRA’s impact. Economic output and employment in 2009 were lower than CBO had projected at the time of enactment.
In otherwords, we count the jobs added…not the jobs destroyed.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Congress on February 23rd, 2010
I stopped listening to Michael Smerconish a couple of years ago. His logic was faulty and he became boring, but most annoying of all was his self-congratulatory stance about being a moderate. During the run up to the last Presidential election, he let it be known that he supported Barack Obama. To me, you can’t be a smart Republican and support a far left candidate like Barack Obama. You must either be fooled Obama’s stage carefully crafted image or you do not hold the same values as the Republican party.
So where is Smerconish? He is both. He is not smart and he is not a Republican.
Today he announced that he has registered as an Independent, so I guess there can be no argument there. How can I say he is not smart? He claims Obama is a centrist.
I think President Obama is earnest, smart, and much more centrist than his tea party caricature suggests. Read more…
I disagree. Obama has never endorsed a single free market principal in his entire life. He believes in redistribution. He thinks the civil rights movement failed because it “court focused” and didn’t redistribute. He believes higher taxes that don’t raise revenues are good because the are “fair”. He associates with radical leftist and is giving away our hard earned money to unions. He has taken over large companies (GM and Chrysler) and has now come out with a health care plan that is so far to the left I can’t even it see it from America.
Smerconish was not only fooled in 2008. He is still holding on to the “Obama is a centrist” nonsense. Michael Smerconish is a fool.
Thank you Michael for leaving the Republican party. We have one less wishy-washy pea brain posing as a Republican. With Smerconish and Specter gone, the Republican party is a couple steps closer to giving a clear message that we are for freedom and for the individual. We don’t like statist policies or commandments sent down from Washington. We don’t believe in redistribution of wealth. We want to control our own lives. We don’t want to live and work for the benefit of the state. We believe all benefit when all are free.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Liberal Bias on February 22nd, 2010
The Prodcuer Price Index and the wholesale price index are on the rise. The Fed raised the discount rate (claiming they weren’t related). Do you believe them? I don’t.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Economics on February 19th, 2010
Our President is claiming that without the stimulus package his administration pushed through (without allowing a time for a public debate) stopped the economy from sliding into a depression.He is trying to make the case, but all I hear is “Everything that is good in this world is due to me. Everything that is bad in this world is due to George Bush and it would be worse if I didn’t fix what he messed up.”
If Obama was the captain of the Titanic, you would probably hear him blame the ship builder as they plunged into the frigid water, all the while claiming he saved millions of lives by getting the women and children into the half full life boats.
A kayaker was killed in the Brandywine River by a falling tree a couple of years ago. It was an unfortunate accident, but like so many others, lawyers have made it even worse. The man’s wife is suing the canoe company that rents the canoes. The window attorney claims that even though canoe company didn’t own the property that the tree fell from, it was still their responsibility to take care of it. Furthermore,
The suit also said that the company should have had trained medical personnel on hand at the landing site to prevent “the death of boating customers struck by a falling dead tree.”
In otherwords, people who run a business must be prepared for any crazy thing that might happen. Acts of God are now the responsibility of small business owners.
They are throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. I have been in this situation and it sucks. It is expensive, it diverts your attention from running your business and it is emotionally draining.
I hope this case gets thrown out. There should be a penalty for this sue and hope for the best approach. The root cause to this problem is judges with “empathy”. If judgment are based on emotion instead of the law, your chances of winning are never zero. Our health care system may have problems, but it is our legal system that is broken and in need of reform.
The proponents of global warming theory say there is overwhelming evidence to support their cause. It seems like their is overwhelming evidence of a lack of ethics in our scientific community. The IPCC now need to revise their claim that hurricane activity has increased (LINK). This new problem with the IPCC comes after a long string of announcements, all which lead one to be very skeptical of the whole commission. Gee…who would of thought that the U.N. could be corrupted?
It is becoming quite clear that many (not all) scientist have been blinded by massive amount of grant money spent on studying global warming. When a study supports global warming, it apparently gets fast tracked and does not go through the rigorous review process of other scientific theories. Scientist who go into a study with preconceived notions are creating bad reports and bad science.
You could blame this massive scientific failure on government, but I think it is a failure of human nature. It is to be expected. That’s why we can’t let down are guard against the consensus and shysters like Al Gore. We must start to pressure government to spend money on more worthwhile causes, or better yet, stop spending money we don’t have.
We should push forward with off shore drilling. The GOP wants to drill. The Democrats want to protect the environment. They could work together allowing drilling while not harming the environment.
Think back to the summer of 2008. Gas was over $4 per gallon and the public wanted action. The Democrats opened up the possibility of off-shore drilling and President Bush signed a law making it possible. A housing market crash soon followed (probably not unrelated) and then a deep recession. Off-shore drilling has left the radar screen.
Eventually, our economy will recover. We will need more oil when it does, and what we will find is that Interior Department has done nothing about the problem we know exists. High energy prices will be a damper on economic growth…growth that could help us pay down some of the massive debt we have piled up in the last year and half.
Off shore rigs don’t go up overnight…especially ones that built with environmental sensitivity in mind. It will be too late if we wait until gas hits $4 per gallon again.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Free Markets on February 16th, 2010
I was driving down the highway on Sunday and I thought I would occupy my mind by counting bumper stickers. What wondered was how many cars have Obama stickers and either an American flag or a yellow ribbon symbolizing support for our troops. Note: I have a flag and a yellow ribbon…but no Obama sticker.
What I found was surprising. In two hours of driving, I saw one Obama sticker, two “Support the troops” stickers and no American flags. I was surprised at the lack of public support for either.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in polls on February 16th, 2010
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