Fiscal Cliff Shenanigans

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President Obama has repeatedly talked about imposing a “Warren Buffet Rule” for income taxes, which refers to the outrage he is said to feel that his wealthy supporter pays a lower income tax percentage than his secretary. Drilling down into the recently passed “Fiscal Cliff” bill that Mr. Obama signed into law reveals some curious aspects that don’t seem to be consistent with that position.

An article by Brad Plumer of the Washington Post gives a good start to understanding how much our elected leaders care about fair taxation. Section 322 provides a $9 billion tax break to manufacturers such as General Electric and big banks for what is called “active financing.” That section allows deferring U.S. taxes on overseas income. I’m not against helping U.S. companies be competitive in the global market. However, I recall Mitt Romney was chastised by the media for not pledging to end the provision which President Obama has now quietly signed it into law.

There are other aspects of the law that are even more curious. “Carried interest,” which is the share of profits paid to private equity and hedge fund investment managers are not taxed at the same rates as salaries. The new law will allow those payments to be taxed at a top rate of 20% for individuals earning over $400,000 or $450,000 for joint returns. If that one doesn’t bother you, how about a100 % exclusion on gains from qualified small business (QSB) stock held for at least five years. How many middle class Americans will benefit from that or have even ever heard of it? Continue reading →

Yellow Coward

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Straight Dope has a detailed discussion of how yellow became associated with cowardice. It is speculated that the source was the medieval medicine theory that the four body fluids were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Yellow bile was said to make you peevish, choleric, or irascible. The color yellow was subsequently used to mark the doors of the homes of French traitors. Victims of the Spanish inquisition had to wear yellow, and Nazis used a yellow star to designate that a person or business was Jewish. A yellow flag was used to quarantine victims of yellow fever. “Yellow journalism” dates from about 1895 and was and is used to describe news using sensational headlines and articles to inspire fear.

Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer

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Reviewed by Kathy London

overtreatedThis book by Sharon Brownee documents a frightening and infuriating American health care system. “Politicians are constantly telling us we have the best health care in the world, but that’s simply not the case. By every conceivable measure, the health of Americans lags … other developed countries.” Using both individual stories and formal studies, Brownlee shows that a third of what we spend on health care is not only wasted, it is making us sicker. Money is certainly an issue, but the suffering of patients is more striking to me.

Our current, technology-based system is a modern invention, arising after World War II. Hospitals became “factories whose products were miracles.” I include this quote because most of the book makes me want to hide from hospitals. Unneeded diagnostics and treatments expose patients to all the risks of medical care (Brownlee presents many) without the benefits. Brownlee details the “desperate need in medicine for clearer standards and better evidence of what works” and the need to end a warped financial system that “propels clinical decisions.”

Brownlee presents many stories of injured patients and of doctors who are “absolutely gob-smacked” when presented with proof of overtreatment. For example, two cardiologists brought sophisticated heart procedures to a rural hospital in California. Some local doctors felt they performed excessive procedures. Healthy patients with minor complaints were coming out disabled or dead. Brownlee follows one doctor through his decade-long effort to get someone to act: Medicare, the State, anyone. Finally the FBI investigated and their outside experts estimated half the procedures were “inappropriate”. The hospital paid a large Medicare fraud settlement, and the doctors lost their licenses. What was striking to me was the sincere shock of the errant doctors. One doctor “appeared genuinely devastated by the charges…. He wept…” Continue reading →

Actions on Parkway Next to Rocky Flats

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I haven’t posted an article that directly relates to the former Rocky Flats plant for quite some time, but there is recent news about the area where the plant was located .There have been plans to transfer a parcel of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge for a right of way to construct part of the Jefferson County Parkway near where the plant operated.  The court recently threw out law suits to stop the transfer ownership of the strip of land. The suits were based in part on “…the lack of a comprehensive environmental assessment of its impacts.”

The parkway has been vigorously opposed by people who object to the development and resulting congestion that would result. A focus many who opposed the project was plutonium contamination in the area. One article explained, “Opponents say building the road along the route currently proposed, which skirts the eastern edge of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, could turn up soil laced with dangerous levels of plutonium in the area, which was the longtime site of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

The $10 million dollar land swap for the right of way officially went through on New Year’s Eve Day. The court action to reverse a last-minute injunction was undoubtedly celebrated by the cities and governmental agencies that see the positives of completing a high-speed highway around the metropolitan area. A spokesperson for one of the environmental groups that had sued to block the transfer, “…called the closing a setback, but said his group will continue to look into ways to fight the building of the tollway.” Continue reading →

Russian Adoption Politics

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The posting last week was about Russian politicians retaliating against a U.S. law imposing human rights requirements on Russia. The Russian law, which would include banning adoptions of Russian children by Americans, is moving closer to reality. The law has been passed and Vladimir Putin has indicated he will approve it. A Reuters article by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Alissa de Carbonnel reports the law would cancel the placement of 46 Russian orphans in U.S. homes. There were 956 Russian Children adopted by Americans last year. An Associated Press article by Nataliya Vasilyeva and Mansur Mirovalev  on Yahoo reports that more than 60,000 Russian children were adopted by Americans in the past 20 years. 　

The Russian law has sparked outrage in both Russia and the U.S. because the children “…aren’t offered to foreigners until they get a certain number of (adoption) refusals from Russians…” Many of them have difficulty being adopted because they have severe health problems or disabilities. There are “…about 740,000 children without parental care in Russia…” and many live in severely overcrowded orphanages.

It would seem the willingness of Americans to adopt Russian children, especially those with disabilities, would be welcomed. However, it is more complicated than just a political spat. The new Russian law is named Dima Ykolevlaw  “…after a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke after his American adoptive father left him locked in a sweltering car.” There was another disturbing case of a Russian-born child being raped by the American pedophile adoptive father. Continue reading →

Square Meal

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A grandson asked where this expression came from. The Phrase Finder writes that a popular but incorrect origin is that the Royal Navy served meals on square wooden plates. The expression is of U.S. origin and is based on the use of the word “square” to mean proper and honest. The earliest written reference was in a November 1856 advertisement in the newspaper The Mountain Democrat for the Hope and Neptune restaurant. The ad promised a “square meal” of “oyster, chicken, and game prepared at short notice.”