April, 2010 archive
Life under the Regency 0
Bachmann trumps Blackstone, until it doesn’t:
Cuccinelli’s director of communication, Brian Gottstein, said he erred last week in stating that residents could legally refuse to provide “basic financial information, such as salary range, … if they do not feel comfortable giving out that information.”
The 2010 census, which is under way with Thursday marking national Census Day, does not include a question about household income.
However, such information is requested by the agency’s American Community Survey, which is conducted with a sample of about 250,000 U.S. households per month.
‘twould be nice to have an AG who cracked the occasional law book.
Via Not Larry Sabato.
Cost, Not Care 0
Shaun Mullen:
. . . which moment coincided with the move of hospitals and health insurance companies from a non-profit cooperative model to a for-profit one.
You young ‘uns may not remember that, once upon a time, BCBS was non-profit, as were many, if not most, hospitals. And it wasn’t called “health insurance,” it was called “hospitalization.”
Sure, they made money, but making money was not their goal. Care was their goal. Now that country club memberships for executives is their goal, care is sacrificed to it.
Choosing to wring profits from misery makes misery.
Good Work Habits 0
It’s not a good idea to drink on the job:
Asking for Trouble 0
And they got it:
Follow the link for the rest of the story.
Where Was Moody’s When the Lights Went out? 1
According to McClatchy, in the dark:
Moody’s blue-ribbon board of directors stopped receiving key information from an internal committee that was supposed to keep the board informed of risks to the company, a McClatchy investigation has found.
Read the whole thing to see how the ratings agency turned into a dating agency to help poor lost worthless lonely insecure securities find sugar daddies–and take their sugar.
The Entitlement Society 0
MarketWatch looks at how the bonus babies will give us more of the same.
Shorter version: Banks must be broken up into pieces that are small enough to fail so that banksters can be pay the price in for incompetence through losing their jobs.
Dog Bites Man Is Not News . . . 0
. . . because it’s more of the same.
So is this: Health insurance companies that don’t want to insure (anything but country club memberships for executives, that is):
The industry take on this sounds like the Peter Sellers “Pink Panther’’ routine where he sees a dog at the hotel door and asks the clerk if his dog bites. The clerk says no; the dog bites; Sellers re-questions the clerk and the clerk says, “but that is not my dog.’’
QOTD 0
Otto von Bismarck, who also said, “Politics is the art of the attainable,” via the Quotemaster:
Laws are like medicine; they generally cure an evil by a lesser or a passing evil.
Aside:
Some of my friends who are continually gnashing their teeth because Mr. Obama has not attained Perfection in Our Time(tm) need to grow up and remember this.
