Author: A.T.

There are points of disagreement between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, but much on which they — and every other Republican candidate — are united:

Our Republican friends don’t want to raise the minimum-wage (though they decry income inequality).  They want to lower taxes on the rich and their corporations and eliminate the estate tax on billionheirs (though they decry income inequality).  They oppose measures to make income-enhancing higher education more affordable (though they decry income inequality).  And they despise unions.  Look at the unfair bargaining power it gives janitors, doormen, and hotel maids!  Though, really, truly, they decry income inequality.  Which today is higher than at any time since 1929.

It’s not that they favor the wealthy, it’s that with union wages, or a higher minimum wage, those janitor,  doorman, and hotel maid jobs would be shipped over to China.  (How, exactly?)  And manufacturing jobs?  Look how unions and high wages have devastated the German economy, which trails even Greece as a basket case.   (NOT.)

One of the Republicans at the last debate said that raising the minimum wage always costs jobs — but it’s no more true than their refrain, in 2000, that “by far the vast majority” of the benefits of George W. Bush’s tax plan would go to people at “the bottom of the economic ladder.”  Bill Clinton raised the minimum wage and 23 million jobs were added during his presidency.  George W. Bush let it fall each year (in real terms, adjusted for inflation) and fewer than one million jobs were created during his presidency.

Raising the minimum wage . . . which is a sort of national collective bargaining on behalf of non-union workers carried out by the people’s representatives in Congress (when they choose to represent the people, not billionaires) . . . cuts government deficits, three ways: more payroll tax is collected; less safety-net assistance is paid out; and the economy is stimulated by more consumer demand.  (Virtually 100% of additional money in the hands of the working poor gets spent; virtually no additional money in the hands of the non-working rich gets spent — they already buy all the goods and services they want.)

Yet — like so much that would be good for almost everyone (can you say: “Put people to work renewing our national infrastructure?”) — our Republican friends block it.

In a post a year ago . . . (“The Dow just hit another all-time high.  The American Ebola death toll remains zero. Gas prices are down. Unemployment claims are down to a level not seen in 14 years” — Obama’s wrecking the country) . . . I incuded this:

OBAMACARE IS WORKING

Health care inflation hasn’t been so low in ages, even as the percentage of Americans who lack coverage has dropped dramatically.  Want to learn more?  Check out Zeke Emanuel’s just-published Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System.

One big-picture way of looking at Obamacare is that it shifts tens of billions a dollars a year from wealthy people to make health care affordable for low income people.  That’s TERRIBLE if you are wealthy, short-sighted, and selfish.  But pretty great if you’re near the bottom of the economic ladder – or if someone you care about might someday develop a preexisting condition. (Which is to say: everyone.)

There’s a lot more to like in the Act than just that — read Emanuel’s book — but for me, at least, that explains a lot.  It’s not some dubious “free lunch.”  It’s tens of billions of dollars raised largely from a 3.8% surtax on investment income above $250,000 going to improve the lives and health and security of every American and helping American manufacturers compete.

Republicans have voted more than 50 times to repeal it . . . and have spent $418 million to run 880,000 TV spots to persuade voters it’s a terrible thing.  (Akin to slavery, says Republican front-runner Ben Carson.)

In fact, it is a good thing — with room for improvement.

In particular need of improvement: our crazy and outrageous drug prices.  The Senate has actually launched a bi-partisan investigation into some of this — mirabile dictu! — led by Susan Collins and Claire McCaskill.

And the same Zeke Emanuel just penned this thoughtful piece on the connection between crazy drug prices and your tax bill and insurance bill, even if the only pill you ever take is a 2-cent ibuprofen.

YOU may not know it, but you could be on the hook to pay at least $124 this year for a drug you probably don’t take. . . .

The drug is a new class of cholesterol-lowering agents called PCSK9 inhibitors. Its cost and how we are paying for it illustrate why we all need to care about not only our own health care bills but also those of our neighbors. . . .

. . . [O]ne preliminary study found that taking the drug lowered the overall chances that a patient would experience a heart attack or stroke, or hospitalization or death from heart disease, to 1.7 percent from 3.3 percent. . . .

. . . The problem is that the companies producing these drugs — Amgen, Sanofi and Regeneron — announced that the retail price for a prescription would be more than $14,000 per patient per year. . . .

. . . [E]ven if the price came down to about $11,000 per patient per year, and only 1.1 million of the roughly 23 million middle-age Americans with high cholesterol actually took these drugs, the bill would be so high that for a typical insurance plan, “annual insurance premiums would increase by $124 for every person” [and] “taxpayers will have the additional burden of paying for similar increases in” the costs for Medicare . . . Medicaid and the Veterans Affairs department.

. . . [A]s these PCSK9 inhibitors make clear, it is not just patients’ perspectives we need to take into account. . . . Because we all pay, all Americans have to have a voice in determining value.

. . . The controversy centers on how much we should pay for each additional [quality-adjusted] year of life [QALY*]. Is it $50,000? $100,000? More? In England they have a flexible target, wherein above $45,000 per QALY drugs require an increasingly stronger case for coverage. But even if we use a much higher target in the United States — say, $150,000 — it turns out these PCSK9 inhibitors still fail the value test. The drugs would cost patients as much as $300,000 for every quality-adjusted life year they add. . . .

In the United States, government regulation is usually a solution of last resort when industry self-regulation fails. But if insurance premiums keep going up $124 per person because of a single drug, Americans may find it more appealing. . . .

Instead of eight hearings on Benghazi, maybe we can focus on finding sensible ways to negotiate drug prices . . . setting them high enough to encourage research and development, yet low enough to free up funds for stress-reducing things (most Americans are under a lot of financial stress) that could lower our heart-attack risk by even more . . . laughter — along with walking and eating smarter — being perhaps the best medicine of all.

*From Wikipedia: “The quality-adjusted life year or quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is a generic measure of disease burden, including both the quality and the quantity of life lived.[1][2] It is used in assessing the value for money of a medical intervention. One QALY equates to one year in perfect health. If an individual’s health is below this maximum, QALYs are accrued at a rate of less than 1 per year. To be dead is associated with 0 QALYs, and in some circumstances it is possible to accrue negative QALYs to reflect health states deemed ‘worse than dead’.”

My pal Jerry Rubin, the genius behind Managing Your Money, came and rescued me from computer hell.  While here, he suggested I at least occasionally write something about personal finance.

But what, after all these years, do I really know about personal finance?

So I’m handing the mike to my other genius pal, Less Antman, who works to enrich folks daily.  (I merely work to transfer their wealth to the DNC, so we can have people who “believe in” science, and stuff, leading the world.)

Herewith his just-posted Seven Steps To Financial Peace Of Mind.

Followed by a few comments on yesterday’s post:

John Seiffer: “[You say solar panels would allow you to binge on Veep even in a blackout, but] I’m sure you’re aware  most people with solar panels can’t watch Veep if the power goes out. If they’re attached to the grid (which is how it’s affordable for most) then you can’t use your solar power in an outage. It puts line workers at risk of electrocution. So until the grid is redesigned, even while generating power on the roof you won’t be able to access it.  The only work around is to install batteries which are expensive, and must be maintained.”

☞ This is why God invented the Tesla Powerwall.

Judy Lawrence:  “While everyone agrees this sounds like something Jimmy Carter would say . . .

“If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don’t.” — Jimmy Carter

. . . he didn’t.  It’s still true and a very worthy sentiment; but, people will scramble to protest that he didn’t say it.  It was evidently part of a segment on Current TV by John Folgelsang.  LOVED the Barney Frank documentary, by the way.  Well done!”

Tom Adams:  “Like Romney’s pledge of 6% unemployment, Michele Bachmann’s election promise of $2 gas came true… also under Obama!  I paid $1.92/gal yesterday.”

“If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don’t.” — Jimmy Carter

“I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we’d put in place, we’d get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower.” — then candidate Mitt Romney

With more than a year to go in his presidency, Barack Obama has got it down to 5%.

The problem of “underemployment” that this good number masks stems in no small measure from the Republicans’ unconscionable refusal to pass his American Jobs Act, despite majority support, that would have put so many Americans to work renewing our crumbling national infrastructure.

Speaking of which . . . Ted Koppel reported for CBS last Sunday morning on our fragile power grid.  A sobering 9 minutes.  We really need to fix this — no?  In the meantime, it’s one more reason to go solar, if you live someplace sunny.  In case of emergency, you’ll still be able to power up your devices.  Whether the cell towers will have juice is another question.  But satellite TV should work, so as the rest of the nation sits in darkness without refrigeration or entertainment, you can binge on Veep and 32 other recommended shows we’ve both likely missed.

Sorry for the radio silence.  My Lenovo seems to have short-circuited somehow.  Will eventually sort it out.  Maybe even soon.

In the meantime, have you seen Bridge of Spies, as suggested?  Really good, no?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Oh!  And if you like a challenge, here’s one:  Facebook told me that five of my friends have birthdays today.  Three of those five are named Josh.  What are the odds?

(Seriously: what are the odds?  Can anybody take a stab at figuring it out?  I guess you’d start here — Josh is only the 437th most popular first name in America — except that Joshua is the 38th, so adding the two together gives you about 560,000 Americans, or 1 in 600 or so.  So the chance of a second of the 5 names being Josh after the first is about 1 in 600 . . . and the chance that a third  would be Josh is 1/600th of that — so 1 in 360,000?  Six or seven times less likely than drawing 4 aces in a game of 5-card stud.  Except that a preponderance of my friends are male, so maybe the odds of my three Joshes today were more like 1 in 200,000.  But still.   Did I calculate this in vaguely the right way?)

Wish me luck in computer hell . . .

Run, don’t walk, to Bridge of Spies.  SO good!

Yesterday, I offered amazing dance clips and asked . . . does it get any better than this?

John Carroll:  “Yes, it does.  Start with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers which featured New York City Ballet’s Jacques d’Amboise, and Matt Mattox (not that well known, but an important figure in the dance world).   And The Nicholas Brothers.  Even if you do not actually like their dancing, it is impossible to deny that this sequence is definitive.  Because I have seen Singing in the Rain twice in a row at Radio City Music Hall, visited Pierre Loti’s place in Rochefort, and this features George Chakiris (“Bernardo” in West Side Story), I am confident in suggesting the opening scene of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. It is a transcendent working of cinema, dance, music and location.  And Apache Dance, Shirley MacLaine.  Certainly the origin of Balanchine’s Slaughter on 10th Avenue, the Apache Dance originated in Fin de siècle Paris, it made hip hop look like a tea dance.  There is also Christopher Walken in Pennies from Heaven, and, and, and . . .”

Doug Schneller: “Just a few days after Halloween, the Benghazi story, like Michael Myers from the eponymous movie, seemingly never dies. Although there is ample evidence that the deceptions about Benghazi are NOT being peddled by Hillary Clinton but rather those who, seemingly, wish to discredit her, nevertheless we have name brand politicians who seem to believe that a lie repeated often enough will become accepted as true.  In that vein, and in case you haven’t seen it, I commend an excellent William Saletan examination of Marco Rubio’s assertions about HRC and Benghazi.

I’m sure you’ve seen the original version, which is spectacular.  But this entirely different version (for one thing: no rain) is pretty spectacular, too.  (Thanks, Tom!)  Each under 5 minutes.

When you get another 13 minutes, here are the ten best dance-movie dance scenes of all time.

Does it get better than this?

(Hint: It does not.)

PHOTOS

Where even to start — some of these 29 are really interesting.  From the end-point of the Great Wall of China (swim around that) to an eye-widening close-up of the human tongue.  And what pugs looked like before a century of selective breeding.  And octopus eggs!

ANNUITIES

Dean Poneman: “TIAA-CREF is one of the two companies that does not pay sales incentives on annuity sales. We also do not pay commissions. It was a little disappointing that the Warren report you linked to failed to name us in that regard.”

PEEVES

It’s “less than” if you can’t count them — like water or happiness; “fewer than” if you can — like ice cubes or orgasms. Fewer rules, less regulation.  More nuance here.  (E.g., why we say “less than ten bucks” even though you can count dollars.  Also, the singular rule: “less than one” rather than “fewer than one” because one, like water or happiness, is singular.)

It’s “for-TAY” if you’re banging loudly at the piano; “fort” if your talent is playing the piano.  Both spelled “forte.”  My forte is annoying people with stuff like this — more here — a battle we seem to be losing, as some dictionaries now deem both pronunciations as acceptable, but I cling, lichen-like to the past.

Likewise, please, “none is” — none of us is a pianist; none of us has annuities in our IRAs, none of them is purple.  Right?  Not one!   More on that here.  (Some argue that none, in addition to meaning “not one,” can mean “not any.”  Are any of them purple?  No, not any of them are.)

First of all, I like you. Second (not “second of all”), I’d pretend to even if I didn’t because I’m running for office.  More here and here.

This does not “beg the question” of whether I’d be any good running for office, even though it may raise that question — and even though the battle to preserve the original sense of “beg the question” seems all but irretrievably lost.  Here.

This – is a hyphen (not a dash).  This — is a dash.

And while not a peeve, exactly, it may be helpful to know that you can make a little money in bar bets asking people to spell amplify, rarify, qualify, deify, and liquify.  Because in fact it’s rarefy and liquefy (also: putrefy and stupefy).

You would lead up to this gradually.

First, wait for your mark to consume several beers.  Next, play “fuzzy duck” with him (“I say fuzzy, you say duck”).  He has heard this one a million times and confounds you — to your feigned chagrin — by not slipping up when at last you say “duzzy.”  Now is when you spring the trap: “Well, okay, but I’ll bet you twenty bucks you can’t spell amplify, rarefy, qualify, deify, and liquefy.”

Ka-ching!

(Oh, no — wait.  In fact-checking this just now I see that civilization, like an isotope, continues to decay.  The “ify” spellings are now listed as alternates.  I give up.)

(Oh but wait, wait!  I just dictated “amplify, rarify, qualify, deify, and liquify” into my iPhone and it came out “amplify, rarefy, qualify, deify, and liquefy.”   We win!)

From a speech by FBI Director James B. Comey at the University of Chicago Law School, Oct. 23 (thanks, Mel):

Part of being clear-eyed about reality requires all of us to stare—and stare hard—at what is happening in this country this year. And to ask ourselves what’s going on.

Because something deeply disturbing is happening all across America. I have spoken of 2014 in this speech because something has changed in 2015. Far more people are being killed in America’s cities this year than in many years. And let’s be clear: far more people of color are being killed in America’s cities this year. And it’s not the cops doing the killing.

We are right to focus on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians. Those incidents can teach all of us to be better. But something much bigger is happening. Most of America’s 50 largest cities have seen an increase in homicides and shootings this year, and many of them have seen a huge increase. These are cities with little in common except being American cities—places like Chicago, Tampa, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Orlando, Cleveland, and Dallas.

In Washington, D.C., we’ve seen an increase in homicides of more than 20% in neighborhoods across the city. Baltimore, a city of 600,000 souls, is averaging more than one homicide a day—a rate higher than that of New York City, which has 13 times the people. Milwaukee’s murder rate has nearly doubled over the past year.

And who’s dying? Police chiefs say the increase is almost entirely among young men of color, at crime scenes in bad neighborhoods where multiple guns are being recovered.

That’s yet another problem that white America can drive around, but if we really believe that all lives matter, as we must, all of us have to understand what is happening. Communities of color need to demand answers. Police and civilian leaders need to demand answers. Academic researchers need to hit this hard.

What could be driving an increase in murder in some cities across all regions of the country, all at the same time? What explains this map and this calendar? Why is it happening in all of different places, all over and all of a sudden? . . .

Nobody says it on the record, nobody says it in public, but police and elected officials are quietly saying it to themselves. And they’re saying it to me, and I’m going to say it to you. And it is the one explanation that does explain the calendar and the map and that makes the most sense to me.

Maybe something in policing has changed. In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?

I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, “We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.” I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country. And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior.

Part of that behavior change is to be welcomed, as we continue to have important discussions about police conduct and de-escalation and the use of deadly force. Those are essential discussions and law enforcement will get better as a result.

But we can’t lose sight of the fact that there really are bad people standing on the street with guns. The young men dying on street corners all across this country are not committing suicide or being shot by the cops. They are being killed, police chiefs tell me, by other young men with guns.

Lives are saved when those potential killers are confronted by a strong police presence and actual, honest-to-goodness, up-close “What are you guys doing on this corner at one o’clock in the morning?” policing. All of us, civilian and law enforcement, white, black, and Latino, have an interest in that kind of policing. . . .

If what we are seeing in America this year continues, we will be back to talking about how law enforcement needs to help rescue black neighborhoods from the grip of violence. All lives matter too much for us to let that happen. We need to figure out what’s happening and deal with it now.

By the time you read this, the Republicans will have again showcased their leaders in the race to run the country and the world.

Here are five ways Republicans win:

By having the better candidates or the better policies — although in my view, the former is unusual and the latter, rare . . .

. . . or through voter suppression (examples here!) . . .

. . . or with multi-trillion-dollar whoppers (“by far the vast majority” of his proposed tax cuts, candidate George W. Bush told us, would “go to people at the bottom of the economic ladder”) . . .

. . . and via gerrymandering (how else can it be that a state like Florida, which leans Democratic in the popular vote, is overwhelmingly Republican in its legislature and its Congressional delegation?) . . .

. . . and dark money.

That last — dark money — appears to be how they unseated North Carolina Senator Kay Hagen, as suggested in Tuesday’s New York Times.  (“A New Low In Campaign Finance.”)

It seems that a dark money group raised $4.7 million to support her opponent, 98.7% of it from a single mystery donor.

Which makes a little bit of a mockery of the $2,700 limit on individual donations to a candidate, and the stringent disclosure requirements that adhere thereto.  If I give $2,700 to Kay Hagan, it’s disclosed promptly.  If someone else gives $4.6+ million to defeat her, it is not.  Hurray for the Bush-41-Bush-43-tilted Supreme Court that gave us such decisions as Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and McCutcheon (which latter raised the cap on federal contributions, never mind unlimited “dark money” contributions, from $123,000 per individual every two years to more like $5.5 million).

Still, all Democrats have to do to win is register and vote.

I have high hopes.