SavvySugar

Smart debt, dumb debt -- there is a difference

liliblu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:55:58 -0800

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, March 11, 2010

Because we never face up to how much we need government to do, there is a pathetic quality to our discussion of big deficits.
It's a debate also characterized by a politically convenient amnesia. Just a decade ago, we were running surpluses so big that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, worried about what would happen once our national debt was liquidated. We had this problem well in hand until we started waging wars and cutting taxes at the same time.
What would a rational approach to the budget look like? It would begin by accepting that running deficits at a time of high unemployment is a good thing. We would celebrate the fact that the world's governments were far wiser in this downturn than their counterparts were during the Great Depression.
It is a hugely underrated achievement of international cooperation that the world's 20 leading economic powers pumped trillions of dollars into the global economy to prevent collapse. Catastrophe was averted, and growth, although sluggish, has resumed.
True, unemployment in our country is still too high. But the lesson here is not that President Obama's economic stimulus failed but that it was too small to do all that was needed. Those who would repeal stimulus spending -- the bright idea of the House Republican Study Committee -- would take us backward.
Yet no one should doubt that we must put our long-term fiscal house in order. The discussion should not be confined to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We need to ask a basic question: What do we want government to do, and, yes, how much will taxes have to go up so we can pay our bills?
Like it or not, government must grow in the coming decades because the private economy will not offer the same security it once did through employer-provided health and pension plans.
On health care, the status quo means that more Americans will find themselves without insurance because an ever-growing number of employers simply won't be able to afford the expense. This is unsustainable. Enacting health reform now will allow us to plan how government can take on these costs gradually.
As for retirement security, most Americans know their private pensions will be nothing like those enjoyed by their parents or grandparents.
So reforming Medicare and Social Security can never be a simple matter of cutting spending. We have to look at the entire health-care picture and rethink our whole retirement system.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has gotten credit for doing a version of this in his "Roadmap for America's Future." He proposes to balance the budget by, among other things, turning Medicare into a voucher program and partially privatizing Social Security.
Ryan gets points for being a genuinely nice person (no small thing in our mean moment) and for saying outright what many other Republicans only mumble. But the path he suggests is exactly wrong. Weakening social insurance is the opposite of what the country needs, and it doesn't even get us to fiscal nirvana. Ryan's plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would still leave a deficit of 5 percent of gross domestic product in 2034 (partly because of the tax cuts he also proposes) and would only start shrinking after that.
Nor does our current debate address what government must do to keep our country competitive. Our schools, roads, bridges and airports are crumbling. This calls for new investments in transit and energy, in higher education, and new technologies and research. We have forgotten the Dwight Eisenhower lesson: that government investment is essential to private-sector growth.
So how should the various deficit-reduction commissions, including the one Obama created, proceed? Here are three suggestions.
First, start not with "entitlements" but with a broader assessment of what we will ask government to do over the next two generations. Be candid about priorities. This includes entitlements and what we should spend on national defense.
Second, offer a menu of the fairest and most economically efficient ways of raising the needed revenue.
Third, propose a capital budget for the federal government so debt can be used the way it's supposed to be used. Except in bad economic times, we shouldn't borrow to cover government's day-to-day costs. But government activities that enhance the prospects of future generations should be financed over time, much as successful companies use debt for long-term investments. There's smart debt and there's stupid debt. We need to recognize the difference.
ejdionne@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031002851_Comments.html

Smarter Eats: Have Meals at the Table

FitSugar — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:00:17 -0800

One way I've been eating healthier this year, is by practicing mindful eating. What I mean by that is I'm really taking the time to be aware of the food I eat. By doing so, I'm developing healthier food habits and eating in more responsible ways. I know it may sound a little zen, but it really works. Besides giving myself a meat budget and focusing on the simple act of chewing, what's really helped is eating my meals at the table.

In the past, whenever I ate at home I would cook my meal in the kitchen but eat it in front of the TV. Most of my friends are guilty of the same. Eventually, I started to realize how bad it is because the television - or laptop, book, etc. - becomes a big distraction from our food. Instead of taking the time to sit and really enjoy it, we're sort of just scarfing it down while something else takes center stage. Think about it: how many times have you watched a movie and were then amazed at the amount of popcorn you ate through the whole thing?

Eating at a table, free of distractions helps in a lot of ways. First of all, I take time to enjoy the taste of my food more, and by doing so I tend to eat a lot less. And since I am giving myself more time to eat, I also chew my food more. It may seem like a silly point, but chewing helps with digestion and makes you feel satisfied sooner. And now, I will get a little zen on you - for me sitting down at the table is a small way to respect the food you're eating. You put a lot of hard work into cooking it, now take the time to really enjoy it! Although it may sound silly that little bit of awareness has made me a better cook and more responsible eating. Ultimately, I care more about all aspects of the meal in a way I didn't before.

My challenge for you is to try and eat all of your meals, for the next seven days, at the table (your desk does not count as a table). Check back in with me and let me know how you did!

Low-tax Texas beats big-government California

Grandpa — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:10:08 -0800

Low-tax Texas beats big-government California

By: Michael Barone Senior Political Analyst March 7, 2010

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.
His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.
No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.
They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.
But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.
Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million -- all originally extracted from taxpayers -- into effective TV ads.
Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California -- almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.
Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes -- and no state income taxes -- and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California's year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent.
But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California's. But its test scores -- and with a demographically similar school population -- are higher. California's once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
In the meantime, Texas' economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs.
And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.
This was not always so. In the two decades after World War II California, with its pleasant weather, was the Golden State, a promised land, for most Americans, while Texas seemed a provincial rural backwater. Many saw postwar California's expansion of universities, freeways and water systems a model for the nation. Few experts praised Texas' low-tax, low-services government.
Now it is California's ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas' approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it's not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington. What's surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His columns appear Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.

Dita Von Teese EXCLUSIVE: Ok.co.uk gets up close and personal with the burlesque goddess

kty — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:13:05 -0800

DITA Von Teese is a busy lady.

When the famous burlesque dancer isn't performing at the Crazy Horse or dancing in a martini glass she is coming up with new routines and keeping her to-die-for figure in shape.
Ok.co.uk snatched a precious moment with the curvy beauty to find out what she's been up to recently, how she keeps fit and what she likes to wear in bed...

Hi Dita, how are you and what have you been up to recently?

I've been great! I've been spending a lot of time at my Paris apartment, taking French lessons and learning to live as a Parisienne! But now I am getting set to go back to Los Angeles to prepare for my shows at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas at The Crazy Horse Paris there.

What are your naughty wardrobe must-haves?

Great fitting lingerie. I always buy sexy bras of good quality that fit me well and give a good shape, and I always buy the string and the bikini that match. I am also obsessed with the perfect vintage fully-fashioned back-seamed stockings, so much so that I have my own brand which are made precisely as they were in the 1940s.

You obviously have an incredible (and world famous!) figure, how do you stay in shape?

I mostly do pilates on a reformer, but I also do yoga and take ballet classes. For me, variety is the key to a successful workout regime. When I get bored, I don't want to go.

What are you most comfortable wearing?

Something uncomfortable!! Ha!

Do you ever take a day off and just throw on some jeans/jogging bottoms?

Kidding aside, yes, of course I have days "off", and I do like to be physically comfortable. I don't know why everyone thinks jeans are so easy and comfy... I can get dressed more quickly and comfortably- not to mention chicly - in a pretty 50's era cotton day dress with a single zip up the back!With jeans you have to squeeze into them, button, zip, etc then you have to find a shirt to wear with it, and finally some silly socks and trainers! I grab one of my vintage dresses, one quick zip up the back, and I slip on a pair of ballet flats or easy heels, and voila, I look nice and I got dressed quickly and easily and I'm off! I hate that "I don't want anyone to think I care but look at me in my carefully-planned disheveled look" thing! I don't actually spend hours getting ready on a day-to-day basis, and I'm certainly not about spending a fortune on or making the effort with something as unappealing to me as jeans. I look silly in jeans.

What do you wear to bed?

Either a little lace slip or nothing at all. I love being nude in very fine sheets. I keep a dressing gown next to the bed and that's what I slip in and out of to wear around the house.

Who is your style inspiration at the moment (that is current)?

My modern influences are designers like John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier, and I reference things from books I have and old films I see. I definitely see other celebrities who look lovely, but my inspirations go beyond "lovely" and into eccentric, over-the-top territory!

Which staple item of clothing should every girl have in their wardrobe?

The perfect black dress that shows a bit of cleavage, but not too much of anything else. There should be one focal point. If you find the perfect dress, you can wear it over and over in different ways, with a great statement brooch, or a pair of shoes and handbag in a vibrant color, with gloves or a hat. I have a few of these perfect black dresses that I wear over and over, but no one notices it's the same dress because I wear it with different accessories.

How can girls with a tight budget achieve the ‘Dita’ look?

It's actually fairly easy because the fact is, my look is derived from not having money to buy expensive clothes. That is the reason I began collecting vintage clothes! I could see parallels between my favorite designers and vintage styles, so I would shop for vintage. Nowadays I see so many modern made clothes of all price points, I think it's become quite easy to look chic on a budget. My number one rule these days is to buy timeless, good quality pieces that I can wear year after year rather than trying to buy lots and lots of clothes. I would suggest to save up for the day you see that perfect dress that you might have considered to be too expensive. I find that it's actually more economical than snatching up piles of clothes. Whenever I do that, I end up with a bunch of things I never wear.

What’s it like being in your giant martini glass for The Bath? It looks uncomfortable!

Nothing worth doing is easy, and nothing that looks effortless actually is. I'm really only in there for about 3 minutes, and onstage, I never feel any kind of pain or discomfort anyway! I've come offstage with scrapes and cuts, but never feel it until later on.

Every girl likes to feel sexy and confidence is obviously the key, but do you have any mantras or routines that help you to feel sexy even when you’re having an ‘off’ day?

Well, like any woman, I do have off days, and I guess I just do my best to get through it and try to do something that makes me feel better, like exercising or making more of an effort with my appearance, like wearing a favourite dress. And sometimes there's nothing to do but go to bed and count on tomorrow being another day!

You’ve said the reason your style evolved was because you didn’t feel comfortable or suit the ‘normal’ look, what are your tips for girls who want to look different?

The most important thing to remember is that there can be no real definition of beauty... that old saying that beauty is "in the eye of the beholder" is the truth. Being true to yourself and using what you've got it the best way, I'm really just a girl who is enhancing what she's got, and that's it! I think there is something to be said for the women of the world that achieved glamour rather than being born a natural beauty, look at women like Marene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth etc all these women that once looked very average but managed to undergo a reinvention to become the icons we still remember today. There is no real reason that anyone can't do that with enough ambition, even if it's not for the silver screen, but for yourself, in your own movie - the one called your life!

What would you say are rules for a first date or dating rules in general?

I don't really have rules for first dates, because you never know but I do try to reveal myself to a degree, for instance I never try to dress down to make my date think I'm "normal" or anything like that! I like to make a good impression, but I don't want to make a man think I'm something I'm not. I think he ought to know right away that I like to wear this much eyeliner and this much lipstick! I think when I was younger I thought about what others thought of me from time to time, but that's out the window now. Being different and taking the road less travelled is what made me successful.

You always look incredible on stage, but do you still get nervous before a routine?

Of course I do! There's a lot to think about, and nervous energy is part of what makes a good show. When I feel too much at ease, the show usually doesn't go the way I want it to. I never relax into it. I control my nerves very well, I just do what I need to do to be in the right frame of mind, I have a few little rules to help keep it that way, mostly related to being alone to think and prepare. The cardinal rule is to not let anyone interrupt my backstage alone time.

What would you say is the difference between stripping and burlesque?

The term "Burlesque" as we know it today comes from a type of risque variety show in America that one would go to see in the 1930's and 40's, and performing striptease - stripping - is the word to describe what the burlesque performers did onstage. It's not just my opinion, it's a fact. Nowadays we use the word "burlesque" to describe this retro-styled striptease that is seeing a big revival. Without the strip, it's not burlesque, that's for certain, and the greatest burlesque star that ever lived, Gypsy Rose Lee, called herself a stripper. 'Stripper' is not a bad word, and you aren't going to hear me tell you that there is a difference between burlesque and stripping, because I think that's awfully pretentious to go on and on about how burlesque isn't really stripping - it is! Burlesque-style striptease is where the modern pole dancing type strip originated from, and essentially, we're all related. Initially, I worked in strip clubs, as did most of us that were at the forefront of the burlesque revival in the early 1990s, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I believe that those years spent on strip club stages is part of what makes me good at what I do.

What was it like performing at Crazy Horse?

I have a very high regard and respect for The Crazy Horse, it's a historic place. When I was a teenager, I saw one little picture in Playboy of these beautiful nearly nude 'toy soldiers' lined up, and I was desperate to find out more about this mysterious place. There was no internet yet, and I couldn't find out anything about it. I didn't even have the name of it, just this image that was in my head for all those years. So years later, when I was finally in paris when I was in my early 20s, I kept asking people about these naked 'toy soldiers', and I finally saw the show, and I was amazed. I went to the show every night I was in Paris, and for the next decade I would go see the show every chance I got. I also befriended a Crazy Horse historian and so I would get to see all the archives and meet former dancers. A few years ago I did a photo shoot there, which is something they never allowed, in order to preserve the mystery of the place. Little by little, I became more involved, and I became the first guest star in the history of The Crazy, so that was exciting. Everyone who was anyone went there, since 1951, and for me, just to be in that theatre to see the same stage that all these stars went, from Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, John F Kennedy, Gypsy Rose Lee, Salvador Dali, the guest list is impressive, and well, I just think it's incredible to think that there was once a time when a show like this was revered like that. It's the art of nude, the glorification of the female form, absolute perfection. There is no show like it on earth, and the history and mystery of this place is amazing. I'm a big fan, and part of my driving force in performing there was to bring attention to this amazing show, and of course I liked the challenge in creating acts for it that are both true to their history and ideals, and at the same time true to mine, which is based in American style classic burlesque, which is what originally inspired the founder to create the Crazy Horse in Paris.

How do you come up with your routines?

Ah well, coming up with the ideas isn't the problem, it's following through that is. I have lots of ideas for shows but then I have to really take some time to think about whether I want to invest the money and time into the idea. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to build one new act, and I am my own financier! Sometimes it can become frustrating because I do build all these big new elaborate shows and I will still get asked to do one of my oldest, simplest shows, like the Martini glass! And when I come up with these opulent new acts, they don't fit on some stages, or it's too expensive to ship...so there are lots of factors that come into play when making a new act.

* Crazy Horse Paris with Dita Von Teese available on DVD nowInterview by Nikki Barr.

Health Insurance Reform is still on my mind, what about everyone else?

mydiadem — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:51:38 -0800

I'm posting 2 columns from the Washington Post that kind of echoes my insistance that something must be done about healthcare in this country because its totally on my mind. My boyfriend got really sick in December and had to stay in the hospital for 4 days and eventually get a surgical biopsy. He is fine, and we are lucky that he works for a small business employer that pays 100% of his health care costs. 4 days in the hospital - 12K. Outpatient surgery $50k. He has doctor's visits and more test to be done - additional thousands. We are lucky he has such good benefits. I, on the other hand, do not. My Fortune 500 company was bought by a Fortune 50 company last year. This year we are on the new health plan for our new employer. If the same thing happened to me I would have to pay 5k out of pocket. If I want to have a baby someday I would have to pay 5k out of pocket. Basically if anything happens to me, since my insurance only covers 80% of any hospital, surgery, or such expense - I would come up to the maximum out of pocket. All while paying 60 bucks a month in premiums. Talk about a major pay decrease! Oh and if I was married my spouse couldn't be covered unless they couldn't get insurance on their own. And how long before all of you out there without the potential for high medical bills are in the same boat? This is the trend if nothing is done. Ok enough rant, the two articles now:

Abandoning health care after the Brown election, and other Washington nonsense

By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, January 22, 2010

People, let's get a grip!
Okay, so Massachusetts voters elected a hunky, unknown Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. That's no reason to ignore the result of a national general election, throw out a year's worth of hard work on a range of important issues and rush to embrace a bunch of simple-minded solutions meant to mollify an angry electorate.

Honestly, in a city that thrives on nonsense, we've heard more of it in the past few days than you normally do in a year.
One of my favorite bits of Monday morning quarterbacking is that President Obama should have put health care and Afghanistan and climate change and everything else on the back burner for the past year and insisted that he and everyone else focus exclusively on jobs, jobs, jobs. What do you call a $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased spending, a $50 billion auto industry bailout, a $1 trillion prop to the housing sector and nearly another $1 trillion in old-fashioned monetary stimulus -- chopped liver? And how exactly do you square the idea that the president and Congress should be working 24-7 to "create" jobs with that other nugget of conventional wisdom, that Americans are demanding smaller government, less spending and lower budget deficits?

Then there is the big question of what to do about health care now that the voters have allegedly turned against the president's proposal.
One reasonable-sounding idea is that the president should reduce it down to just a few of its most popular provisions, such as the one requiring that insurance companies be barred from refusing to cover people with preexisting conditions or charging them sky-high premiums.
The problem with that, of course, is that if you don't require everyone to buy insurance, then there will be lots of people who will wait to buy their policies until they get sick and then demand coverage at the "community" rate. That's a great way to drive up premiums, which in turn will drive even more healthy people to drop coverage, which will raise premiums even further.
To prevent this kind of debilitating "insurance spiral," you could add one more feature -- a mandate requiring everyone to buy at least a basic insurance package. Unfortunately, there are lots of low-income households for which the newly mandated premiums could eat up as much as a half of after-tax income, which hardly seems fair. So you'd probably want to make sure that there's enough competition among insurers to keep premiums down, which is what those government-supervised exchanges are all about. And you'd want to have some subsidies to limit the financial hit to low-income families. To pay for the subsidies, you'd either have to raise taxes or cut spending in other areas.
And that, basically, is the outline of Obama's health plan, just as it was Clinton's health plan and the Nixon plan before that. In fact, if you want a health-care system that's universal and affordable and based on a competitive market of private insurers and health-care providers, that's pretty much where you have to start. There is no simple solution to this puzzle.
Of course, there are plenty of details that we can talk about -- how comprehensive the basic insurance plan should be, how the insurance exchanges should be structured, how big the subsidies should be and what combination of taxes and spending cuts should be used to pay for them. In fact, we've had a rather vigorous debate on those issues for more than a year now, which ought to put the lie to another piece of nonsense put forth by the Republicans -- namely that health reform has been "rushed" through Congress without any input from them or the public.
Instead of moving to take back the health-care issue, however, President Obama on Thursday seemed more interested in changing the subject, launching another broadside against the big Wall Street banks
In the populist imagination, the root of the recent financial crisis was the decision in the 1990s to allow commercial banks, which take deposits and make loans, to get into the riskier but more lucrative investment banking business, where firms underwrite and trade securities on behalf of their customers and themselves. For months, liberals have been pushing to reinstate the old rules to separate the two activities. And for months, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has pushed back, arguing that many of the banks that got in trouble did so the old-fashioned way, by making stupid loans, while many of the institutions that contributed most to the crisis -- Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG -- weren't in commercial banking at all.
However, Obama suddenly reversed course and embraced the populist critique, demanding that commercial banks give up their risky investment activities. In truth, the new rules probably would not do much to reduce the chance of another crisis, or another bailout. The president's motives seemed less substantive than they were political, allowing him to shift from defense to offense and put Republicans in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the Wall Street status quo.
This is a leadership moment for the president. It is a chance to show he can respond to setbacks not by running for cover or resorting to political gamesmanship, but by calmly and confidently reasserting his control over his party and the public debate.

You Have No Idea What Health CostsIf You Did, You Might Just Want Real Reform
By Ezra KleinWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, September 20, 2009

The most important health-care document released this week was not Sen. Max Baucus's Healthy Future Act. It was the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 Employer Benefits Survey.
While the proposal by Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, outlines a direction for policy, the survey, which polls employers about health benefits to assemble a detailed look at the actual cost of health care, fits it squarely in our pocketbooks.
The truth is we all pay, and much more than we recognize, for health care.
For many, it's among the largest investments we'll make, on par, even, with the money we spend on a house or tuck away for retirement. But while it's easy to track our stock portfolios as they tank along with the market, our outlay for health care is less obvious. Employers pay some, and so do individuals, and taxpayers. And some even hides behind the deficit. As such, few of us see the full picture. But to make sense of the proposals for reform, getting a grasp of the cost is critical.
The average health-care coverage for the average family now costs $13,375, according to Kaiser. Over the past decade, premiums have increased by 138 percent. And if the trend continues, by 2019 the average family plan will cost $30,083.
Three years of slightly above-average health insurance will cost a solid six figures.
Those are numbers to marvel at. Those are numbers to fear. But they are not the numbers that loom in the minds of most Americans. And therein lies the problem for health-care reform.
About 160 million Americans receive health coverage through their employers. In general, the employer picks up 73 percent of the tab. This seems like a good deal. In reality, that money comes out of wages.
As Ezekiel Emanuel, who advises Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag on health-care policy, has pointed out, health-care premiums have risen by 300 percent over the past 30 years (and that's after adjusting for inflation). Corporate profit per employee has soared by 200 percent. Hourly earnings for workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen. The wage increases have been consumed by health-care costs.
Another 80 million Americans are on public plans, mainly Medicare and Medicaid. Those costs are paid by taxpayers. And about 46 million Americans are uninsured. The costs for their care are shifted to the insured: This raises premiums for the average family by $1,100 each year, according to an analysis by Ben Furnas and Peter Harbage of the Center for American Progress.
Imagine if people who touched a hot stove felt only a small fraction of the pain from the burn. That's pretty much what's happening in our health-care system. It hurts enough that we would prefer it to stop, but the urgency is lost.
That's the dilemma for Washington wonks trying to fix this mess: They look at the numbers and see health-care costs crushing our economy, overwhelming our government, swallowing our wages. But the public isn't feeling it. Virtually no one cuts a $13,375 check for health care. Most pay 27 percent of it, or even less. The surest way to cut health-care spending would be to make people shoulder more of the burden directly, as opposed to hiding it in taxes and lost wages. But that's about as popular as a puppy pot roast.
Thinking Long-Term
Health-care reform concentrates on the people in acute distress: the uninsured and the underinsured and the poor few who've been left to the cruel chaos of the individual or small-group insurance markets. The public insurance option -- if it comes to pass -- would be open to only these groups, and the bill's hefty price tag is almost entirely devoted to helping them afford coverage. But what about the rest of us?
The problem for the White House has been that the proposed health reform policies meant to help the average American aren't specific. They're not a cash transfer or a new insurance card. These are the "curve benders," policies meant to cut long-term health-care costs. The problem is they're abstract, speculative and, at times, even unpopular.
The White House's favorite curve bender is called "comparative effectiveness review" -- a fancy way of saying "evidence." Study after study has shown that we waste an incredible amount of money on medical interventions that just don't work. If we can figure out which ones those are, we can stop using them and save money by not buying what we don't need. That may work. But the evidence will take a long time to amass, and we don't yet know what it will show. What if it finds that some brand-new and incredibly expensive treatments are wildly effective? That could raise spending. Industry stakeholders, however, had little interest in waiting around to find out: They made such a fuss that Congress quickly inserted a provision promising that the government wouldn't use any of this evidence in deciding what Medicare and Medicaid would cover. Because God forbid government programs rely on evidence.
The favorite proposal of liberals is the public insurance option. If the public plan were open to all Americans and partnered with Medicare, it could negotiate deep discounts with health-care providers. The Lewin Group, a health industry consultancy firm, and the Commonwealth Fund, a liberal-leaning health-care advocacy organization, have both estimated that this sort of plan could save the average American 20 to 30 percent on premiums.
Of course, providers don't much like the sound of that because they would see 20 to 30 percent less revenue. And insurers don't much like the sound of that because they could not compete with that sort of buying power. Republicans and centrist Democrats have banded together to weaken the public plan and maybe even remove it altogether. President Obama now promises that the public plan would be open only to the uninsured and wouldn't offer any advantages over private insurers. It won't, in other words, be allowed to save people money.
Conservatives favor the idea of taxing health-care benefits and popularizing "high-deductible health plans." In short, if people have to pay more for health care, they'll use less of it. This is true, but as you might expect, quite unpopular. The Finance Committee's bill would tax insurers who offer high-cost plans, but we'll see whether that survives once people realize it would raise the price of their insurance.
'Reform' = Wonky Tweaks
If Americans felt the full burden of health-care costs, they'd likely be clamoring for all these policies, and maybe more. They'd want transformational change. But they don't feel those costs, and so they're resistant to change. Obama continually promises that most Americans will notice no changes in their existing coverage, and all the bills reflect that vow. So what's left? How do you reform a system you cannot change?
You ask the wonks. People often complain about the length of bills. But you don't need many pages to explain a public plan, or set up a death panel (kidding!). Rather, the bulk of these bills amount to hundreds of small tweaks and fixes that make this corner of the health-care system a smidge more user-friendly, or that transaction a tad faster. Rather than saving hundreds of billions of dollars with a single dramatic intervention that transforms the system, they provide for the accretion of modest savings and small efficiencies.
For instance, despite all the fire over the co-op plan, it gets two pages in the Finance Committee's bill. Pages 75 to 110 are all devoted to delivery system changes that are meant to make the system a bit more efficient but that no one has ever heard of. "Value-based purchasing" alone gets six pages in the bill. The "National Pilot Program on Payment Bundling" gets another five.
Melinda Beeuwkes Buntin, a researcher at the Rand Corporation, and David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard, recently estimated the savings that could be attained by "modernizing" the system over the next 10 years. The changes they examined weren't dramatic. Replacing paper records with computerized files, making it easier for people to comparison-shop across insurers, "bundling" payments for the treatment of a single illness rather than shelling out separately for each doctor visit -- that sort of thing. Added up, they equaled a startling $2 trillion over 10 years. That's a lot of money for policies that have received virtually no attention in the debate.
And yet, this is the quiet promise of health-care reform. The grand theories might fail. They often do. But making the system a bit better, a bit quicker and a bit more agile -- we can do that. And until the stove gets hot enough, it may be all we can do.

Obama to Party: Don’t ‘Run for the Hills’

Tulipe — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:32:22 -0800

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: January 27, 2010

WASHINGTON - President Obama vowed Wednesday night not to give up on his ambitious legislative agenda, using his first State of the Union address to chastise Republicans for working in lock-step against him and to warn Democrats to stiffen their political spines.

Mr. Obama appealed for an end to the “tired old battles” that have divided the country and stalled his efforts on Capitol Hill. He promised to focus intently on the issue of most immediate concern to the nation, jobs. And with his top priority, a health care overhaul, delayed in the wake of the recent Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, he offered a pointed message to both parties.

“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,” Mr. Obama said in his nationally televised speech. “And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town - a supermajority - then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.”

The speech, Mr. Obama’s third to a joint session of Congress, comes at a particularly rocky point in his presidency, with many Americans - including some fellow Democrats - complaining that the president has lost sight of the priorities of ordinary people. And Mr. Obama acknowledged their doubts, conceding that some of his political setbacks “were deserved,” a striking admission for any president.

His tone was colloquial, even relaxed; at one point he joked that the bank bailout was “about as popular as root canal.” But at the same time Mr. Obama struck a defensive note, reminding the nation yet again that he inherited a mountain of problems and insisting that, one year after he took office, “the worst of the storm has passed.”

At a time when many Americans are concerned, even angry, about the economy and about the performance of government more generally, Mr. Obama sought to restore public confidence in his administration and to persuade Americans that he is directing his attention more fully to the economy. While he did not offer any sweeping new agenda or far-reaching legislative program, he put forth a handful of new initiatives, including plans to provide small businesses with tax breaks and better access to bank loans.

After refusing to set a timetable for the repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military’s policy barring openly gay men and lesbians from serving, he vowed to work with Congress this year to repeal it. He called for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, his predecessor’s signature education law. In a nod to the growing political and economic pressure to begin reining in the budget deficit, he proposed a freeze on a portion of the domestic budget.

Mr. Obama campaigned on a promise to change the culture of Washington and to make government transparent. But on Wednesday night, he suggested that he believed he had not done enough, and spoke of a “credibility gap” that must be closed by curbing the outsized influence of lobbyists. “We have to recognize that we face more than a deficit of dollars right now,” he said.

Reprising a line he used in last year’s address to Congress, he said, “We face a deficit of trust - deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years.”

He called for new rules requiring lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with Congress or with his administration. And, in a rare flash of open confrontation between the White House and the Supreme Court, Mr. Obama declared that a recent court ruling would “open the floodgates for special interests,” and perhaps foreign companies, to exert more influence in political campaigns. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., breaking with decorum at such events, shook his head and appeared to mouth the words, “No, it’s not true.”

Republicans said they welcomed the president’s partial freeze on domestic spending. But they warned against what they regard as the president’s big government agenda. In delivering his party’s response, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia, a newly elected Republican, declared, “The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level.”

But rather than retreat from his ambitious agenda, Mr. Obama sought Wednesday to repackage it, by explaining how his top priorities - the health measure, tough new regulations on banks, energy legislation - fit into his broader initiative to put the economy on sounder footing for the long run.

On health care, Mr. Obama did not chart a specific path forward for Congress. Rather, he appealed to lawmakers to “take another look at the plan we’ve proposed” once temperatures cool after the Republican win in the Massachusetts Senate race. He added, “Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let’s find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people.”

Still, after a year of working to get health care passed, Mr. Obama said his No. 1 issue is now the economy and jobs. “Jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010,” Mr. Obama said, adding “People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help.”

To that end, the president renewed his call for Congress to pass a jobs bill that would spur investment in green jobs and clean energy, though he did not offer specifics of what it would cost. He proposed investment tax cuts that would put more cash in the pockets of small business owners and a new program that would take $30 billion from the fund used to bail out troubled banks and automakers, and redirect it toward an initiative to encourage community banks to lend to small businesses.

He set a goal of doubling exports over the next five years - an increase that he said would support two million jobs. And, as he pledged to do earlier in the week, Mr. Obama also outlined a series of proposals intended to help the middle class, including new tax credits for child care and a cap on student loan payments for recent graduates.

And Mr. Obama offered a very public show of confidence in one of the architects of his economic plan: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, whose close identification with Wall Street has made him a focus of some of the populist anger directed at the White House. When Mr. Obama strode into the chamber of the House of Representatives to deliver the address, he stopped to face Mr. Geithner, who had just spent the day getting grilled on Capitol Hill and put both hands encouragingly on the secretary’s shoulders.

Strikingly, for a president who is prosecuting two wars and trying to protect the country against the threat of a terrorist attack, Mr. Obama spent only nine minutes in an address that lasted more than an hour on foreign policy. He renewed one of the most popular promises of his campaign for election, to bring the troops home for Iraq, saying “Make no mistake - this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.”

But he devoted only one paragraph to a far less popular decision, escalating the troop levels in Afghanistan. “There will be difficult days ahead,” Mr. Obama said. “But I am confident we will succeed.”

As have presidents before him, Mr. Obama grappled with how to describe the state of the union. In the end, he settled on the formulation that many of his predecessors have used, with a twist: “Despite our hardships, our union is strong.”

Chain Strap Bags

frugalfashion22 — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:57:04 -0800

We’ve all seen the classic Chanel chain strap bags, but if you don’t have the budget for that coveted handbag staple, there are tons of options out there for a whole lot less. This trend has been popping up a lot lately. You can either wear it over your shoulder or slung across your body for a more casual look. It’s a welcomed break from your boring old handbags!

The inspiration:

The “Quilted Bow Shoulder Bag” from Forever 21 has the quilted pattern, much like the Chanel, but it’s only $17.80 at www.forever21.com. I love the pink with black piping (but that’s only because I love all things pink!) But it does come in a basic black and also in white. The chain straps can be tucked into the bag to create an instant clutch. It’s versatile and a fabulous bargain:

Rachel Roy has been doing an amazing low priced collection at Macy’s and this “Lucky Charm Flap Shoulder Bag” is proof that she’s on the right track. In addition to the strap, she has added a triple set of chains to the ornamental clasp which gives it a cool and edgy look. The light grey is easy to wear both day and night but it also comes in basic black. It’s at Macy's and www.macys.com for $69:

Studs have been seen just about everywhere this season. This bag by Sondra Roberts at www.lorisshoes.com is no exception. Every square inch is filled with silver studs. It’s very rock and roll! The tassel clasp is just an added bonus. Available in purple, white, black, and taupe, $68:

The “Chain Strap Pleated Mini Bag” by Junior Drake is probably one of my favorites (maybe that’s why I’ve already placed my order!). The blue leather is very unique and the cute bow and woven strap are oh-so-stylish. It’s the size of a small wristlet, big enough to carry your essentials for a night out. It will look effortlessly chic slung across your body. Find it at Nordstrom and www.nordstrom.com for $48:

Chain Strap Bags

frugalfashion22 — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:53:14 -0800

The inspiration:

The “Quilted Bow Shoulder Bag” from Forever 21 has the quilted pattern, much like the Chanel, but it’s only $17.80. I love the pink with black piping (but that’s only because I love all things pink!) But it does come in a basic black and also in white. The chain straps can be tucked into the bag to create an instant clutch. It’s versatile and a fabulous bargain:

Rachel Roy has been doing an amazing low priced collection at Macy’s and this “Lucky Charm Flap Shoulder Bag” is proof that she’s on the right track. In addition to the strap, she has added a triple set of chains to the ornamental clasp which gives it a cool and edgy look. The light grey is easy to wear both day and night but it also comes in basic black. It’s at Macy’s for $69:

Studs have been seen just about everywhere this season. This bag by Sondra Roberts at www.lorisshoes.com is no exception. Every square inch is filled with silver studs. It’s very rock and roll! The tassel clasp is just an added bonus. Available in purple, white, black, and taupe, $68:

The “Chain Strap Pleated Mini Bag” by Junior Drake is probably one of my favorites (maybe that’s why I’ve already placed my order!). The blue leather is very unique and the cute bow and woven strap are oh-so-stylish. It’s the size of a small wristlet, big enough to carry your essentials for a night out. It will look effortlessly chic slung across your body. Find it at Nordstrom for $48:

Merry Christmas ! :D

yirong — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:03:47 -0800

HOHOHOHO !
is christmas !
well ; ytd went to countdown ; meet andrew chee & Co at 9 plus around at Raffles city .
when reach ; went to buy present as thy suddenly have the exchange of present thingy ;
saw Michelle ; Melvin . haas
i bought the fruit tart from fruit paradise .!
present btw 5 to 10 bucks .
zhiqi & JL bought out of the budget !
everyone wants Zhiqi ! LOLS .
the exchanging was funny ; thn went down to orchard ;
bought the sprays & start playing around
practically @ somerset ; everyone is playing around with the spray .
dont care if thy know each other ; just spray & shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ! haas !
the whole night was fun ! Really fun !
met basketball guys with wanxian and phoebe ! haaa .
the night was young

everyone down in orchard road ; wishing everyone Merry Christmas ;
regardless if you know them not ; just Wish & get sprayed .
everyone seems to be a Big family ; having fun & giving blessing
is just so lovely

day 1 without you ;
missing you badly ; how are you there ?
did you wear enough clothing to keep yourself warm ?
are you ok there ? these are running through my mind
ILOVEYOU & IMISSYOU

*screwed (Can't upload photo )
writen on : 25dec'09
2:06pm

the most expensive christmas present ! (ignore Mel's face !)

THe Group photo !

An interesting read: Treasury Inc.: The Shadow National Debt

Grandpa — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:45:43 -0700

Treasury Inc.: The Shadow National Debt

J.W. Verret, guest-blogging • October 20, 2009 2:31 am

(SPOILER…This post describes how most of the NATIONAL DEBT and BUDGET DEFICIT is being FRAUDULENTLY HIDDEN by the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION)

It has been a rare opportunity to share with this forum my new paper, Treasury Inc.: How the Bailout Reshapes Corporate Theory and Practice, forthcoming with the Yale Journal on Regulation and available here. This week we have enjoyed a rigorous discussion about the implications of the government as a shareholder in the financial services and automotive industries.

As I expected from the Volokh community, the comments have offered a rigorous intellectual contribution to my work, and for many of the commentators I recommend reading the full paper for answers to their insightful questions. For this post, I will shift to the implications of Treasury Inc. for the federal budget, the subject of an in-process paper forthcoming with the Louisiana Law Review that will also be the focus of my comments at this years Federalist Society National Lawyer’s Convention.

Government deficits and debt have captured national attention in the last few months owing to their role in the venomous debate over health care reform. Our nation’s debt is officially $11 trillion. Yet the Obama Administration’s deceptive accounting practices for its ownership in the automotive and financial sectors hide a big slice of the real national debt and annual budget deficit. Vice President Cheney quipped that deficits don’t matter. Who knew that President Obama and Vice President Cheney had so much in common?

When Peter Orszag ran the Congressional Budget Office, he fought the Bush administration over consolidating Fannie and Freddie’s debt into the national budget. His position was that two principles of government accounting require consolidation. Principle one, we control these companies; principle two, we guarantee their debt. For more, take a look at, after I testified on this issue here, this press release from the Congressional House Oversight Committee about how I discovered the problem described in this post.

Orszag has been noticeably silent since joining the Obama Administration. Omitting appropriate liabilities from our government’s books is deceptive, allows us to borrow more than we should and feeds our habit for deficit spending.

The administration disputes its control of TARP companies. Yet the government tells GM what kind of cars to build and GM and Citigroup which directors to elect. It tells Fannie and Freddie which mortgages to subsidize. Secretary Geithner affirms that we stand behind the banks, which means we stand behind their debt as well. Budget consolidation principle one, check. Principle two, check.

This doesn’t mean we should consolidate debt of all companies taking TARP money, and government accounting principles aren’t fully prepared for this unique situation. Since the government is acting like a private investor by purchasing common stock, private financial accounting principles also provide useful guidance.

The first useful rule in financial accounting is that consolidation of debt is appropriate where a parent company controls another company by owning a majority of its stock. This covers GM at 60% Treasury ownership, AIG at 85%, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at 100%. The second rule is that even if a shareholder has less than 50% ownership, if the equity and non-equity position of the parent combined make it the beneficiary of most of the company’s future profits, consolidation will also be appropriate. This should clearly cover Citigroup, with 34% government ownership (purchased with $40 billion of TARP money) and an additional $301 billion in outstanding guarantees from Treasury.

Look only at the outstanding debt of these five TARP companies (out of over 600 of them). Citigroup has $1.8 trillion in debt; AIG, $807 billion; Fannie and Freddie, $5.2 trillion; and GM, $10 billion. This means the Administration is hiding $7.8 trillion of the national debt. (As a comparison, Bernie Madoff hid $50 billion in other people’s money and is reviled as the crook of the century. The current administration, by the way, is hiding $7.8 trillion of the nation’s debt.)

The Obama administration predicts annual budget deficits of $1.75 trillion this year, $1.1 trillion next year and similar amounts going forward. Now, let’s consider adding $7.8 trillion to the national debt. Amounts added to the national debt should be added over time (in accounting jargon, amortized) into the annual budget deficit. Over 10 years, that’s an extra $780 billion each year. This means the annual budget deficit would increase by roughly 80%.

Sure, one day we may be able to sell off our government’s equity interests in TARP companies, and eventually remove them from our nation’s balance sheets. That would be great, and fiscal hawks would be happy to buy the champagne (nothing but Cristal, with a toast from special guest P Diddy) for such a celebration.

Until then, let’s remember that accounting statements for governmental bodies and private companies alike are intended to portray accurate pictures of those organizations at a certain point in time, reflecting the uncertainty of the future and the likelihood that significant owners (or residual credit holders) of most of a firms assets are likely to stand behind that firms debts, for no other reason that it is in their self interest. Particularly when a shareholder stands as both a creditor AND an unchecked regulator of the company in which they hold shares.

When the U.K. recently recognized in its budget the debt from its two bank bailouts, its national debt doubled overnight. Warnings later emerged that the U.K.’s Triple-A bond rating may be in jeopardy, unprecedented for a modern Western nation.

If we properly accounted for our debt and deficit, we might be in the same situation. A downgrade of U.S. debt may even be beneficial, a sign that we’ve hit rock bottom and need to recover from this deficit addiction. Credit warnings would result in a diminished appetite for Treasury bonds, force the Treasury Department to borrow at higher interest rates and curb its habit for runaway spending.

Administrations are short-lived. In three or seven years President Obama and his staff will retire to the benefits of speaking fees, consulting contracts and cable news appearances. But the debt remains, and it is a legacy by which our children will rightly judge us. If we permit this administration to use accounting wizardry to hide our debts, we should not be surprised when we are judged harshly.

The full faith and credit of the U.S. is not a depthless well, and the administration’s current budget policies risk turning Treasury bonds into the ultimate subprime loan. Future generations could be saddled with inflation, increased taxes and interest payments on Treasury bonds that take up an ever-increasing share of the federal budget. It’s time for this administration to bring transparency to the federal budget process by accounting for TARP holdings properly.

http://volokh.com/2009/10/20/treasury-inc-the-shadow-national-debt/