Iraq vs Drunk Driving

Drunk Driving causes about 16,000 deaths per year.

Installing a Breathalyzer in the cars of those convicted of DUI reduces the drunk driving fatalities by 20% [based on four states that have done it].

Making this a national law would save 3,200 lives per year.

Iraq cost less than 1,000 lives per year, at it's worst.

If your main objection to the Iraq war is the cost in lives, getting breathalysers installed in the cars of convicted drunk drivers should merit more of your time and energy by a factor of at least three.

There are valid reasons to oppose the Iraq war [a later post], but I really dislike the idea that someone opposes it out of concern for the troops. First, the troops volunteered for it and I think we should respect that. Second, I've never met a soldier or marine that was unhappy to go to Iraq. I even know a few that re-enlisted specifically to go back to Iraq - or preferred Iraq to stateside duty.

National Health Care Musings

When the cost of engaging in risky behaviors is reduced, people engage in more risky behavior. This has been shown to be true, even adjusting for previous behavior, income, education, etc, etc. This is an aspect of the "Free Rider" problem. Basically, when people get health insurance, they go sky diving more often.

So if we get universal health care in the United States, there should be some increased number of fatalities because of risky behavior.

One of the arguments for national health care is that it would make our companies more competitive by transferring the cost of health care away from to the companies and to the government, an advantage other countries currently have.

Currently in the United States, whenever there is an OSHA recordable accident the company must pay a fine roughly equal to ten times the medical cost of the accident. If this were to be changed companies would loose an incentive to prevent accidents because someone else would be picking up the tab.

http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/methods/en/takala.pdf

Using information on this site, the EU has 6.6 deaths due to occupational accidents per USA's 5.3 deaths. The USA has 6600 Occupational deaths per year.

Using an VERY spitball methodology, national American healthcare could cause about 1,000 additional Occupational deaths per year. Roughly the cost of the Iraq war at it's worst.

I tried to extend my search to find accidental death rates in the USA vs the EU, but came up empty in the 2.3 minutes I dedicated to the search.

It is not my intention to dis national health care in this post. I'm just thinking out loud. It deserves better debate. I'll dis it in another, better thought out post.

In a previos post, I said, "I support lower taxes, but I support a balanced budget even more. If there is something we need bad enough that we require the government to provide, it's valuable enough to pay for."

I think the best way to handle our long term debt load is to cut spending we don't value enough to pay for. This would be an epic congressional battle, but we can do it. First we cut the pork and obvious waste. Then we cut the least popular and least useful items on the budget. Whatever is left, we can make across the board cuts in the discretionary budget. Before making any cuts, we have a total budget deficit of about a quarter trillion dollars. We have discretionary budget of about a $1 trillion. If we cut the entire discretionary budget by 25%, we would balance the budget.

That said, to balance the budget, I think it likely that some sort of compromise would have to be reached between the political parties. We would likely have to raise taxes. The most obvious method would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire. We could also raise taxes in some other third manner.

I think narrowing the tax brackets so the taxpayer gets to the next higher marginal rate sooner is the best way to do this.

I also think it is worth raising the taxes on everyone (including the poor) by some token amount - 1% or less. My reasoning isn't that I hate the poor, or that I think those few dollars would make a difference. My reasoning is that the poor are being incentivized to ignore the political process. The poor would be more involved if a few of their ducats were going to the treasury. And if the poor were more involved, they would likely be able to influence other areas that are important to them (worker training for instance).

Such steps would fix the budget deficit. We can do it, we just have to decide to do it.


That still leaves fixing social security and other non-discretionary sinkholes... but I think I'll leave that for another time.

So I can be wrong...

I thought that Hillary would be a more formidable opponent to McCain.

My reasoning was that in an election against Hillary, the Republican base would turn out just to vote against her. In contrast, the Republican base would be more likely to stay home if Obama was on the ticket, while the African-American population would stay home. Less Evangelicals, more African-Americans - I was thinking that could flip some of the deep south states into the Democratic column.

I looked up the 2004 election results as a base line. I figured if it was remotely close I could look up more detailed demographics. Turns out, the Republicans carried the crap out of the deep south. Even against Obama, I think those states will stay Republican in the general election.

The states that were close in 2004, and with a pile of electoral votes are: Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Due to the election wackiness this year, we really don't know who matched up better in the democratic primaries in Michigan. Ohio and Pennsylvania haven't voted yet - but Clinton is polling well ahead in both contests.

I hate to admit it, but I think Senator Clinton has a better chance at beating McCain in the general election. That said, I prefer Obama to Hillary and I hope he wins anyway.

my brain is wacky when it is asleep

I dreamed I was on a farm, covered in snow, playing fetch with a dog. The dog was complaining in his retard voice that the plastic two-liter bottle I was throwing was too boring. I banged the bottle on the ground a bit and threw the bottle. The dog ran after it. The dog had trouble picking up the round plastic two liter bottle with his teeth. Once faced with that difficulty, the dog got excited and enjoyed himself.

In the distance, Blade (my fiancee's brother) was walking on a frozen pond. Blade is 17, from rural Illinois, and far more knowledgeable about cold weather than I am. I really didn't want to fuss at him to get off the unnaturally stiff water, but I did anyway. You just can't trust frozen ponds. They aren't natural.

I could hear the roll in his eyes as he complained, but agreed to get off the frozen pond. Before he managed that though, his feet flew above his head, his arms went akimbo and he landed flat on his back - crashing threw the ice and into the water.

What followed was one of those terrible slow mo instances. You command your body to move faster, but it won't go anywhere. So Blade is sloshing away making all kinds of commotion and I can't get to him.

I woke up trying to crawl against my headboard.

I shook it off and went back to sleep. Some time later, my dream picked up.

I pulled Blade out of the slush, but thought he might have a stick or piece of metal stuck in him and I should check that before I move him. Now, my brain isn't so stuck on sequential time as when I'm awake, so I went back and checked him for wounds before I pulled him out.

I started to carry him to the farm house (Strate's grandparents old farmhouse actually), and thought that it would be faster to call Kate and have her bring the truck, so instead I called her before I started to carry him.

I remembered that he shouldn't be in wet clothes in the freezing cold, so I took his clothes off and put my coat on him before I picked him up (How he was incapacitated with just his top wet, I don't know - but it was handy for the clothes exchange part).

This 'rewind' thing kept on and on. At one point I threw him in the bed of the truck, then realized that it would be better to put him in the cab, so I replayed that part in my head and threw him in the cab before I tossed him in the bed of the truck.

BTW, Kate and I don't even own a truck.

Eventually I woke up. I was sitting Indian style with the top half of my body leaning forward onto the bed. My right arm was under my head. My left arm was behind me tangled in something. The blanket was covering me.

Just to be clear, the dog wasn't retarded. In fact, any dog smart enough to talk at all must be pretty bright. I think the dog was just being a dog.

There is no point. There is no brainiac analysis here. I got up and made coffee.

Tax cuts vs balanced budget

There are three areas of the economy which production can be used. You can use it in a way that doesn’t produce any other wealth (consumption). You can use it in ways that do produce further wealth (investment). Or it can be used by the government (I’m neglecting imports and exports for simplicity).

Adding investment capital to labor makes the labor more productive. More production makes the person richer. Imagine a capital poor farmer with a sharp stick vs a capital rich farmer with a hugenormous tractor. Which one eats better, sells more rutabagas and has a 62 inch plasma?

Tax cuts allow a person more money to consume and invest. The portion they invest becomes capital in the future. This grows the economy, and is better for everyone.

There is a huge ‘but’ here. If that tax decrease is not matched by a government cut, it creates a budget deficit which is financed by selling government bonds at whatever interest rate is needed in order to finance the deficit. This need for bonds ‘crowds’ out an equal amount of investment that would have otherwise gone elsewhere – like a business startup.

In summary, a tax cuts that create budget deficits creates some amount of increased consumption and some amount of increased investment on the one hand, but reduces the amount of investment equal to the sum of the additional consumption and additional investment.

On balance, a tax cut which creates (or worsens) a budget deficit increases consumption at the expense of investment. In other words… such a move increase consumption now at the expense of even more consumption later.

The national debt is approximately 5 ½ trillion dollars now. That is how much investment has been diverted from to fund the consumption of previous generations. Imagine if instead that money had been put to use created more wealth?

I support lower taxes, but I support a balanced budget even more.

If there is something we need bad enough that we require the government to provide, it's valuable enough to pay for.

...something wonderfull...

I've been meaning to make a blog for quite some time now. I do not intend to remain on blogger permanently, but you can't beat it for the hardest step... getting started.

I am interested in politics and economics. I hope to posts on such topics often.

I pledge to myself, and any readers I eventually have, to remain positive and post at least one meaningful entry per month -- hopefully more.

For now, I'm going to explore the interface here at blogger, and see what I discover. I figure it's like surgery. Ready or not, you have to roll up your sleeves and give it a shot.