Another interesting angle from which to see the cost ineffectiveness of our health system is to look at the amount of money our government spends on health care despite the fact that it does not provide universal health coverage, as the government does in every other First World country.
Direct U.S. government (federal and state) spending on health care totaled roughly $840 billion (40% of $2.1 trillion) in 2006. See http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp#TopOfPage. Additionally, employer contributions to employee health insurance premiums are not includable in employee taxable income (even though such contributions obviously constitute compensation and thus income under IRC § 61). So the federal government loses an additional ~$131 billion per year (2006). (I do not have a citation on this but I am taking it on the authority of a chart prepared by my former tax professor). $840 billion plus $131 billion = $971 billion. This figure represents ~7.36% of U.S. GDP for 2006, which was about $13.2 trillion. By comparison, Canada spends 7.47% (69.8% of 10.7%) of its GDP on its national health system. Put another way, the U.S. government spends roughly $3,200 per person on healthcare, while the Canadian government spends about $2,990 (USD) per person on its national healthcare system.
Remember that, by all accounts, Canada has the better system. See http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_annex_en.pdf, p. 13. So we are paying for a decent universal health care system, but we aren’t getting it.
Note: this is not a true comparison of “apples to apples” because I do not include the amount of money Canada spends on tax subsidies to private employers that provide health insurance to their employees. I know they provide some such subsidy, but that it’s not nearly as generous as it is here. Anyway, my point was not to compare overall spending levels but to compare what our government spends to what a government has to spend in order to have a functional single payer system. To put it another way, my point is to highlight what we could buy with current government spending levels.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
42. Separation of Press and State
All throughout the various discussions on this blog, we've touched upon a lot of issues that to me highlight how desperately America lacks an independent, truth- and justice- driven, quasi-persecutorial media.
By indepedent, I mean from the state. Corporate ownership of media outlets doesn't bother me so much, so long as they're all forced to compete for the spotlight for their own unique bias.
I invoke truth and justice knowing full well they are abstract and subjective concepts, and do so only to point out that these should be the focus rather than entertainment or sensationalism.
Many of the messes we've gotten ourselves into over the past two decades (the only two I can remember) would probably have been avoided if we had a more politically-aware populous, spurred on by a media whose primary driver was to stick it to the powers that be and "hold their feet to the fire," as John Stewart often says.
Watching mainstream media coverage of a presidential election in France or Germany is overwhelming when you're used to American-style debates and interviews. Frankly, it's more boring then anything else, because I'm not used to politicians actually go on and on and on about the specifics of their programs and their benefits. I'm used to just listening to soundbytes.
In Germany and Britain, for example, journalists don't allow their questions to get deflected or spun. If it happens, the journalist recenters the debate and goes after blood. That they would all go dancing and drinking together in a ballroom after a debate is ludicrous.
The fact that Washington reporters so heavily rely on how their subjects favor them in order to get insider access and thus further their careers is shocking when seen from a Euro-perspective. The problem is exemplified by their obvious acquiescence in White House briefings or in interviews, or by the whole "Rapping MC Rove" White House Press Corps Dinner garbage.
If we are going to make McCain/Nader/Obama/Paul or into modern day Jesuses for their roles in turning the spotlight on where a politician gets his money and what kinds of company he keeps, then we ought to hold our journalists to the same standard.
Concretely:
- ban the White House Press Corps Dinners and other government sponsored socializing whose obvious only function is to create personal and professional bonds designed to prevent journalists from fulfilling a truly persecutorial oversight function with regards to the state
- ban gift-giving to journalists by public officials to journalists
- ban journalists from being allowed to travel in style with candidates/politicians/cabinet members at the former's expense. i.e., no riding the Straight Talk Express with John McCain. You want to cover his campaign? Rent a car and follow the damn thing. No more articles in the New York Times' Technology section about how cool the gadgets in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' command and control jet are, written by the reporter who got to fly around in it with him for a week. If necessary, create a separate media tax to subsidize journalistic expenses incurred, to be allocated by a branch wholly indepedente of the executive.
Think about the debate leading up to the Iraq War or the current coverage of the campaigns. Are we happy with that?
Are the changes proposed on this blog and the society we envision herein possible given the current framework through which we as a populace inform ourselves about our government and how we subsequently interract?
It becomes something of a chicken-or-the-egg debate. Do we have shitty superficial media coverage of important issues because the electorate doesn't really give a shit about depth and has a very short memory and attention span, or does the electorate not have the attention span or passion for in-depth coverage because we've never been given a taste for it?
I hate to get all Constitutional Fundamentalist, but given that invoking the Founders' original words seems to function pretty well if you want the American public to go along with all kinds of craziness, in closing allow me to quote ye olde First Amendment.
Once more into the breech, dear friends:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It would seem to me that a "free press" is guaranteed. The press we have right now seems to me to be anything but free.
I could do a better job on this but I have to leave work now.
By indepedent, I mean from the state. Corporate ownership of media outlets doesn't bother me so much, so long as they're all forced to compete for the spotlight for their own unique bias.
I invoke truth and justice knowing full well they are abstract and subjective concepts, and do so only to point out that these should be the focus rather than entertainment or sensationalism.
Many of the messes we've gotten ourselves into over the past two decades (the only two I can remember) would probably have been avoided if we had a more politically-aware populous, spurred on by a media whose primary driver was to stick it to the powers that be and "hold their feet to the fire," as John Stewart often says.
Watching mainstream media coverage of a presidential election in France or Germany is overwhelming when you're used to American-style debates and interviews. Frankly, it's more boring then anything else, because I'm not used to politicians actually go on and on and on about the specifics of their programs and their benefits. I'm used to just listening to soundbytes.
In Germany and Britain, for example, journalists don't allow their questions to get deflected or spun. If it happens, the journalist recenters the debate and goes after blood. That they would all go dancing and drinking together in a ballroom after a debate is ludicrous.
The fact that Washington reporters so heavily rely on how their subjects favor them in order to get insider access and thus further their careers is shocking when seen from a Euro-perspective. The problem is exemplified by their obvious acquiescence in White House briefings or in interviews, or by the whole "Rapping MC Rove" White House Press Corps Dinner garbage.
If we are going to make McCain/Nader/Obama/Paul or into modern day Jesuses for their roles in turning the spotlight on where a politician gets his money and what kinds of company he keeps, then we ought to hold our journalists to the same standard.
Concretely:
- ban the White House Press Corps Dinners and other government sponsored socializing whose obvious only function is to create personal and professional bonds designed to prevent journalists from fulfilling a truly persecutorial oversight function with regards to the state
- ban gift-giving to journalists by public officials to journalists
- ban journalists from being allowed to travel in style with candidates/politicians/cabinet members at the former's expense. i.e., no riding the Straight Talk Express with John McCain. You want to cover his campaign? Rent a car and follow the damn thing. No more articles in the New York Times' Technology section about how cool the gadgets in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' command and control jet are, written by the reporter who got to fly around in it with him for a week. If necessary, create a separate media tax to subsidize journalistic expenses incurred, to be allocated by a branch wholly indepedente of the executive.
Think about the debate leading up to the Iraq War or the current coverage of the campaigns. Are we happy with that?
Are the changes proposed on this blog and the society we envision herein possible given the current framework through which we as a populace inform ourselves about our government and how we subsequently interract?
It becomes something of a chicken-or-the-egg debate. Do we have shitty superficial media coverage of important issues because the electorate doesn't really give a shit about depth and has a very short memory and attention span, or does the electorate not have the attention span or passion for in-depth coverage because we've never been given a taste for it?
I hate to get all Constitutional Fundamentalist, but given that invoking the Founders' original words seems to function pretty well if you want the American public to go along with all kinds of craziness, in closing allow me to quote ye olde First Amendment.
Once more into the breech, dear friends:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It would seem to me that a "free press" is guaranteed. The press we have right now seems to me to be anything but free.
I could do a better job on this but I have to leave work now.
Friday, March 7, 2008
The "True" U.S. Tax Burden
"Mike H." made a great point (probably the best point in the last 40-50 years of blogging) in an earlier comment to the effect that, when comparing our tax burden to other countries, we should adjust the figure to reflect the privatized costs of healthcare.
As I said before, taxes constitute 26.8% of GDP (for 2005). See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf. Health care accounts for 16% of GDP (for 2006, and the figure is due to steeply rise in the near future). See http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp#TopOfPage. Of course, some of that medical spending is government spending, so we have to adjust this figure to avoid double counting. According to HHS, the government accounts for 40% of U.S. medical spending (in 2005, perhaps the figure is a bit lower today). Id.
So our "adjusted" tax burden as a share of GDP is 0.268 + (0.16 * (1 - 0.40)), or about 36.4%. This means our tax burden is essentially equal to Canada's "adjusted" tax burden as a share of GDP: 0.334 + (0.107 * (1 - 0.698) = 36.6%. See http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select_process.cfm?strISO3_select=ALL&strIndicator_select=nha&intYear_select=latest&fixed=indicator&language=english and http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf.
Of course we're paying all that extra money for a garbage system. See http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_annex_en.pdf p. 155. And the burden of these additional costs are mostly borne by whoever happens to need medical care, not society at large on the basis of income or wealth. Further, as Josh mentioned to me the other day, this figure understates the cost of our crappy system, because it doesn't reflect the cost of health care that is not provided because people can't afford it. Remember that 15.8% (in 2006) of our population has no health insurance and far more are "underinsured." See http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf p. 18.
Nice work, "Mike H." If anyone else thinks of other adjustments that we should make (i.e., the cost of services provided by the government in other countries that we have to pay for privately here), let me know.
As I said before, taxes constitute 26.8% of GDP (for 2005). See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf. Health care accounts for 16% of GDP (for 2006, and the figure is due to steeply rise in the near future). See http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp#TopOfPage. Of course, some of that medical spending is government spending, so we have to adjust this figure to avoid double counting. According to HHS, the government accounts for 40% of U.S. medical spending (in 2005, perhaps the figure is a bit lower today). Id.
So our "adjusted" tax burden as a share of GDP is 0.268 + (0.16 * (1 - 0.40)), or about 36.4%. This means our tax burden is essentially equal to Canada's "adjusted" tax burden as a share of GDP: 0.334 + (0.107 * (1 - 0.698) = 36.6%. See http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select_process.cfm?strISO3_select=ALL&strIndicator_select=nha&intYear_select=latest&fixed=indicator&language=english and http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf.
Of course we're paying all that extra money for a garbage system. See http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_annex_en.pdf p. 155. And the burden of these additional costs are mostly borne by whoever happens to need medical care, not society at large on the basis of income or wealth. Further, as Josh mentioned to me the other day, this figure understates the cost of our crappy system, because it doesn't reflect the cost of health care that is not provided because people can't afford it. Remember that 15.8% (in 2006) of our population has no health insurance and far more are "underinsured." See http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf p. 18.
Nice work, "Mike H." If anyone else thinks of other adjustments that we should make (i.e., the cost of services provided by the government in other countries that we have to pay for privately here), let me know.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Would Raising Taxes Lead to "Economic Collapse"?
So I spent enough time crafting this response to Mike (USMAilllini) that it’s gonna get it its own post. Below I reference a book that shows that there is no real evidence that the tax rate significantly affects economic growth or labor supply. I think that’s important enough to warrant a new post.
Proposition: "There would be an 'economic collapse' if we increased taxes as high as we suggest."
First of all, I never said people would work for the "common good." I definitely advocate allowing highly productive employees to keep part of the fruits of their productivity. As I say elsewhere on my blog, I would be willing to tolerate a, say, 5:1 ratio of richest to poorest individual. That's radically lower than the ratio now, but being able to buy 5 times as much as a "slacker" sounds like plenty of motivation to me. Think about it: that's literally five times as many Little Debbie cakes or Playstation 3 games.
I understand that you (Mike) are a highly motivated individual, and that you don't think you would work as hard if it didn't pay. But as you suggested to me yesterday, we have to step back from what we think our own reaction would be when we analyze this. Motivation is a complicated beast; it is not just a simple matter of how much money you get. Status, self-respect, and professional prestige come into play as well. Whatever it is that motivates us, the simple fact of the matter is that tax rates as a share of GDP do not have any tangible, discernible effects on economic growth rates. See "Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes" by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija, pp. 119-120. Nor do marginal tax rates have any significant effect on labor supply (almost none on male hours worked, some but not a huge effect on female hours worked). Id., p. 125. And it bears remembering that the U.S. experienced its golden days of economic growth when the top marginal income tax bracket was over 90%.
Of course people are going to work somewhat less (probably not that much less, but a little less - see above) if we significantly raise the top income tax brackets. But a.) what work we do may be more productive if we use the taxes to finance research, technological development, and generally accessible education, and b.) we work way too much now anyway. Look, for instance, at lawyers in big firms. They work long hours in exchange for gobs of money. As a result, they have some of the highest rates of alcoholism, drug use, depression, and suicide of any profession. If under my system they work 35 hours a week instead of 60, I'm fine with that. Similarly, if a few more mothers are going to drop out of the labor force to take care of their kids, I'm fine with that too.
Proposition: "There would be an 'economic collapse' if we increased taxes as high as we suggest."
First of all, I never said people would work for the "common good." I definitely advocate allowing highly productive employees to keep part of the fruits of their productivity. As I say elsewhere on my blog, I would be willing to tolerate a, say, 5:1 ratio of richest to poorest individual. That's radically lower than the ratio now, but being able to buy 5 times as much as a "slacker" sounds like plenty of motivation to me. Think about it: that's literally five times as many Little Debbie cakes or Playstation 3 games.
I understand that you (Mike) are a highly motivated individual, and that you don't think you would work as hard if it didn't pay. But as you suggested to me yesterday, we have to step back from what we think our own reaction would be when we analyze this. Motivation is a complicated beast; it is not just a simple matter of how much money you get. Status, self-respect, and professional prestige come into play as well. Whatever it is that motivates us, the simple fact of the matter is that tax rates as a share of GDP do not have any tangible, discernible effects on economic growth rates. See "Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes" by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija, pp. 119-120. Nor do marginal tax rates have any significant effect on labor supply (almost none on male hours worked, some but not a huge effect on female hours worked). Id., p. 125. And it bears remembering that the U.S. experienced its golden days of economic growth when the top marginal income tax bracket was over 90%.
Of course people are going to work somewhat less (probably not that much less, but a little less - see above) if we significantly raise the top income tax brackets. But a.) what work we do may be more productive if we use the taxes to finance research, technological development, and generally accessible education, and b.) we work way too much now anyway. Look, for instance, at lawyers in big firms. They work long hours in exchange for gobs of money. As a result, they have some of the highest rates of alcoholism, drug use, depression, and suicide of any profession. If under my system they work 35 hours a week instead of 60, I'm fine with that. Similarly, if a few more mothers are going to drop out of the labor force to take care of their kids, I'm fine with that too.
Southwest Airlines: The Savior of All Capitalism
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/06/southwest.planes/index.html
No wonder they're so cheap.The Left-Wing Looniness of Your Measured Humanitarian Peace Keeping Force
Sometime in 2004 I signed up for email updates from the Bush-Cheney Campaign. It was just to see whose candidate-to-supporter dialogue was more vacuous, Bush's or Kerry's. They were about even, but Bush got serious cred for including so many photos of him in a bomber jacket or flightsuit.
Anyways, since then I've had my name and email address sold or given to about fifty right-wing extremist organizations. They send me regular updates on threats to liberty from gays and terrorists across our great land. But an email I received today from townhall.com struck me as particularly relevant to our debate on bringing the
Here's the email:
Dear GOPUSA Family of Activists!
Please find below a special message from Townhall.com. They have some important information to share with you.
Keep up the fight,
GOPUSA.com
Dear Friends,
I am outraged and you should be too.
Our troops are being forced to withdraw not from
The most recent example is the city council of
I guess we shouldn't be shocked anymore by the Left. They can't seem to stop themselves from undermining our troops showing there utter complete disrespect for our Armed Services.
They try to hide it but they simply have nothing but contempt for our nation's military and the brave men and women who serve. Time after time, they show us just how much they distrust, dislike and outright despise our troops.
Senate Majority Leader called our troops failures and proclaimed that the 'war is lost.' Never wasting a chance to snatch defeat from the grasp of victory, Senator Reid ruled the surge a failed effort before a single additional soldier's boots had hit the ground.
On college campuses across the nation, including some of the most prestigious universities, ROTC students face a hostile anti-military environment. Many universities including
It doesn't just show a lack of support for the troops but an passionate contempt for the men and woman overseas putting their lives on the line for our freedom and safety back here at home.
As a further insult to our men and women in uniform, the City Council encouraged residents of Berkeley to impede Marine recruiters attempting to go about their work, and awarded a reserved parking spot outside the Marine recruiting station to Code Pink, the extreme-left anti-war group.
The liberal City Council and Code Pink must not be allowed to disgrace our serving men and women.
It is not enough for liberals to slander courageous Americans as war criminals any more, they are turning hateful words into un-American action! The anti-war left is proving that they do not support the troops and in fact actively engage in anti-military behavior.
We must stand together with our military to prove that the majority of Americans disapprove of the Left's shameful behavior!
Senator Jim DeMint has introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008 in the United States Senate. The legislation would rescind over $2 million previously allocated to
Click here to condemn the City Council's actions and support the Semper Fi Act of 2008, which would revoke all federal funds allocated to
These strong defenders of American values need your support in condemning
We need your help to send a message to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, academia and the city of
Townhall needs your help to defend the honor of our troops in harms way and our honorable recruiters here at home.
Because the Left consistently denigrates the service of our armed forces, we need to make it clear to the
Sincerely,
Editor-in-Chief,
Townhall.com
Two Retorts
I generally want to use this blog mostly to focus on affirmative policy suggestions rather than rebuttals of conservative views. But two factual claims came up in a class of mine today that I can't resist responding to.
I. Most poor people do not work and the U.S. is more or less a "meritocracy."
Whether the first part of this is strictly true or not depends on how exactly you define "poor." But I think it's hard to look at all the facts and say it's really true in any meaningful sense.
Most low income families in the U.S., or families making less than 200% of the federal poverty guideline (which is not regionally adjusted), do work (where a "family" is a couple or a single parent with at least one child under 18, and a "working family" is a family where each family member 15 and older either has a combined work effort of 39 weeks or more in the prior 12 months OR all family members age 15 and over each has a combined work effort of 26 to 39 weeks in the prior twelve months and one currently unemployed parent looked for work in the prior 4 weeks). 71%, in fact (9,658,195 out of 13,622,425; this means 29% of all U.S. familes are "low income") See http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/xls/WPFP_Conditions_Low-Income_Working_Families.xls Table 1.A.1a. The people who did the study obviously have an agenda (http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/) but they base their data on Census and BLS data. I think that their definitions are reasonable and their figures are legit.
Bear in mind that 200% of the poverty rate was only $38,700 for a family of four in 2005 (the poverty threshold was an unbelievably paltry $19,350 for a family of four - sounds way too low to me). See http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml. 200% of the poverty threshold is not much at all, but it's too much to qualify for Medicaid in Illinois and most other states. See http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?RecNum=3355&SubjectID=47.
On the other hand, a narrow majority of families that make less than 100% of the federal poverty threshold are not "working families" (2,825,230 out of 5,982,095, or 47% do work). See http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/xls/WPFP_Conditions_Low-Income_Working_Families.xls. But in 2004, a majority of all individuals living below the poverty line (37 million people, or about 12.5% of the population) were either children (13.5 million) or working adults (7.8 million people). See http://www.nccp.org/publications/pdf/text_672.pdf p. 3 and http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2004.pdf p. 1. And of course all of this is to say nothing of mental illness, crippling drug addiction, other medical disability, the lack of employment opportunities in economically depressed regions, simple faultless unemployability, or a whole host of other really good reasons why a poor person may not be able to work.
As to the second (implicit) part of the claim, I'd like to throw out a few more references to give some broader perspective. The U.S. has the lowest rate of social mobility (as measured by how strongly your parents income determines your own) in the First World. See http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf p. 6 Table 2. We have a very poor UN Human Poverty Index (HPI) rating compare to our peers (17th out of 19 among "highly developed" countries). See http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_table_4.pdf. We have the worst income and wealth inequality in the First World. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html and http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html. And of course we have the third to lowest tax as a share of GDP percentage of all OECD countries (a close third behind Mexico and South Korea). See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf p.1. I see these facts as part of a pretty clear story. Others may disagree.
Additional Note: While I'm pointing out things we're not very good at, I might as well round out the set:
1. We have a ridiculously high homicide rate and gun homicide rate.
2. We have the highest infant mortality rate in the First World.
3. We have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world (the entire world, that is).
Perhaps it is no coincidence that, in a addition to being a very low tax country, we have extremely low private sector unionization rates.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3342.pdf?new_window=1 p. 43, Table 2.
The figures are somewhat dated but I'm sure things haven't changed very much.
II. The U.S. is at the point on the "Laffer Curve" where lower tax rates will produce higher government revenues.
In a rare moment of clarity, George Bush Sr. called this theory "voodoo economics." Obviously, at some unbelievably extreme tax rate (say 95%), government revenues would go up if you decreased the tax rate. But we are nowhere near this point. Remember that ~$860 billion in Bush tax cuts (that went disproportionately to the very wealthy, I might add)? They have significantly decreased federal government revenues and increased gross national debt. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601121_pf.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USDebt.png; and http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm. So, no, tax cuts do not pay for themselves.
I. Most poor people do not work and the U.S. is more or less a "meritocracy."
Whether the first part of this is strictly true or not depends on how exactly you define "poor." But I think it's hard to look at all the facts and say it's really true in any meaningful sense.
Most low income families in the U.S., or families making less than 200% of the federal poverty guideline (which is not regionally adjusted), do work (where a "family" is a couple or a single parent with at least one child under 18, and a "working family" is a family where each family member 15 and older either has a combined work effort of 39 weeks or more in the prior 12 months OR all family members age 15 and over each has a combined work effort of 26 to 39 weeks in the prior twelve months and one currently unemployed parent looked for work in the prior 4 weeks). 71%, in fact (9,658,195 out of 13,622,425; this means 29% of all U.S. familes are "low income") See http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/xls/WPFP_Conditions_Low-Income_Working_Families.xls Table 1.A.1a. The people who did the study obviously have an agenda (http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/) but they base their data on Census and BLS data. I think that their definitions are reasonable and their figures are legit.
Bear in mind that 200% of the poverty rate was only $38,700 for a family of four in 2005 (the poverty threshold was an unbelievably paltry $19,350 for a family of four - sounds way too low to me). See http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml. 200% of the poverty threshold is not much at all, but it's too much to qualify for Medicaid in Illinois and most other states. See http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?RecNum=3355&SubjectID=47.
On the other hand, a narrow majority of families that make less than 100% of the federal poverty threshold are not "working families" (2,825,230 out of 5,982,095, or 47% do work). See http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/xls/WPFP_Conditions_Low-Income_Working_Families.xls. But in 2004, a majority of all individuals living below the poverty line (37 million people, or about 12.5% of the population) were either children (13.5 million) or working adults (7.8 million people). See http://www.nccp.org/publications/pdf/text_672.pdf p. 3 and http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2004.pdf p. 1. And of course all of this is to say nothing of mental illness, crippling drug addiction, other medical disability, the lack of employment opportunities in economically depressed regions, simple faultless unemployability, or a whole host of other really good reasons why a poor person may not be able to work.
As to the second (implicit) part of the claim, I'd like to throw out a few more references to give some broader perspective. The U.S. has the lowest rate of social mobility (as measured by how strongly your parents income determines your own) in the First World. See http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf p. 6 Table 2. We have a very poor UN Human Poverty Index (HPI) rating compare to our peers (17th out of 19 among "highly developed" countries). See http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_table_4.pdf. We have the worst income and wealth inequality in the First World. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html and http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html. And of course we have the third to lowest tax as a share of GDP percentage of all OECD countries (a close third behind Mexico and South Korea). See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/41/39494985.pdf p.1. I see these facts as part of a pretty clear story. Others may disagree.
Additional Note: While I'm pointing out things we're not very good at, I might as well round out the set:
1. We have a ridiculously high homicide rate and gun homicide rate.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html
Note that these figures are from the late '90's when our crime rates were historically low.2. We have the highest infant mortality rate in the First World.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
Note that we have a higher infant mortality rate than Cuba.3. We have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world (the entire world, that is).
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/28/prison.population.ap/
4. We have the highest per capital spending on health care in the world but the 37th ranked health care system in the world.http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2000/en/annex01_en.pdf
These figures are for 2000, the last time the rankings we're done. I'm sure we wouldn't be doing any better now.Perhaps it is no coincidence that, in a addition to being a very low tax country, we have extremely low private sector unionization rates.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3342.pdf?new_window=1 p. 43, Table 2.
The figures are somewhat dated but I'm sure things haven't changed very much.
II. The U.S. is at the point on the "Laffer Curve" where lower tax rates will produce higher government revenues.
In a rare moment of clarity, George Bush Sr. called this theory "voodoo economics." Obviously, at some unbelievably extreme tax rate (say 95%), government revenues would go up if you decreased the tax rate. But we are nowhere near this point. Remember that ~$860 billion in Bush tax cuts (that went disproportionately to the very wealthy, I might add)? They have significantly decreased federal government revenues and increased gross national debt. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601121_pf.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USDebt.png; and http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm. So, no, tax cuts do not pay for themselves.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Musings on the Legal System
I haven't contributed much as of yet and for that I apologize. This paragraph or two hopefully will ease people into my later posts where I become nearly intolerable.
The legal system in my mind is broken. It functions, but serves few interests outside those who use it the most, the wealthy (in civil contexts, at least). There are probably thousands of small things that could be done to rectify small points of injustice, but I'm not terribly interested in those reforms. I think that there are systemic issues that must be tackled first, otherwise we'll burn out on the small stuff.
The biggest problem in my mind is money. Those who have it, get better treatment, better lawyers, and better law. The lawmaking side should be reformed to eliminate some of this bias, but that's a topic for another day. Solely within the judicial system we can eliminate some of the worst problems with money. The first of these reforms would be to eliminate private lawyers from courtrooms.
The expense of private litigation lawyers creates a disparity in the quality of argument and the time exerted on legal thought. Pay great lawyers enough and they can conjure up some very well done (although morally reprehensible) arguments for you. This mercenary system should be replaced by public litigators (both criminal and civil) who are assigned cases on first come, first served basis with exceptions. For example, lawyers should be able to turn down cases for lack of merit, provided that the court agrees that there are no meritorious arguments available (although the plaintiff could still proceed pro se). Likewise, lawyers should have the opportunity to decline to take a certain number of these cases for personal reasons. Otherwise, some sort of conflict rule should remain to make sure that lawyers aren't invested personally in the case they receive.
Secondly, as part of the public litigator set up, lawyers' assignments should be rotated from plaintiff to defendant (or prosecutor to defendant in criminal cases). This measure would help to eliminate structural biases in the way clients are represented. No more hardened attorneys who have ceased to see all sides of an issue. I am most familiar with this problem in the criminal setting, but I imagine that civil attorneys that only represent certain industries or advocacy-based groups have similar problems with tunnel-vision.
Other problems I'd like to propose for discussion are the following:
undoing the complexity of the law (and thus making lawyers less necessary);
challenging the individual bias in legal thought by including
communities and other group interests as actionable;
eliminating the adversarial nature of our legal system in favor of other ways of resolving differences;
making all of the judiciary accountable through elections and perhaps
impeachment processes.
Finally, I would like to suggest that criminal law in particular needs attention. As a post mentioned earlier, we have more people in prisons here than any other western industrialized country. Two changes which I will quickly propose and then leave on the table are to eliminate prisons except for the most heinous crimes and the eventual elimination of a distinct criminal system.
Punishment has little use in a utilitarian sense (a philosophy to which I do not ascribe). It neither efficiently prevents future wrongdoing nor deters others from similar conduct. My main concern, however, is with its moral implications. For most actions which we label "crime," I would prefer restoration for the victim (or society if no individual person or persons are harmed), rehabilitation of the criminal, and a program where the criminal would assist in the elimination of similar behaviors. This last point is important. Whether the causes of crime are psychological, environmental (like poverty), or otherwise attributable, those who do not commit them are less likely to understand how to prevent them without input and assistance.
As to the elimination of the criminal system, as such, I see very little reason why a system that is not based on punishment, but on restoration and rehabilitation, would need rules that are distinct from what we term civil law. Perhaps others do, though, and I would love to hear why.
The legal system in my mind is broken. It functions, but serves few interests outside those who use it the most, the wealthy (in civil contexts, at least). There are probably thousands of small things that could be done to rectify small points of injustice, but I'm not terribly interested in those reforms. I think that there are systemic issues that must be tackled first, otherwise we'll burn out on the small stuff.
The biggest problem in my mind is money. Those who have it, get better treatment, better lawyers, and better law. The lawmaking side should be reformed to eliminate some of this bias, but that's a topic for another day. Solely within the judicial system we can eliminate some of the worst problems with money. The first of these reforms would be to eliminate private lawyers from courtrooms.
The expense of private litigation lawyers creates a disparity in the quality of argument and the time exerted on legal thought. Pay great lawyers enough and they can conjure up some very well done (although morally reprehensible) arguments for you. This mercenary system should be replaced by public litigators (both criminal and civil) who are assigned cases on first come, first served basis with exceptions. For example, lawyers should be able to turn down cases for lack of merit, provided that the court agrees that there are no meritorious arguments available (although the plaintiff could still proceed pro se). Likewise, lawyers should have the opportunity to decline to take a certain number of these cases for personal reasons. Otherwise, some sort of conflict rule should remain to make sure that lawyers aren't invested personally in the case they receive.
Secondly, as part of the public litigator set up, lawyers' assignments should be rotated from plaintiff to defendant (or prosecutor to defendant in criminal cases). This measure would help to eliminate structural biases in the way clients are represented. No more hardened attorneys who have ceased to see all sides of an issue. I am most familiar with this problem in the criminal setting, but I imagine that civil attorneys that only represent certain industries or advocacy-based groups have similar problems with tunnel-vision.
Other problems I'd like to propose for discussion are the following:
undoing the complexity of the law (and thus making lawyers less necessary);
challenging the individual bias in legal thought by including
communities and other group interests as actionable;
eliminating the adversarial nature of our legal system in favor of other ways of resolving differences;
making all of the judiciary accountable through elections and perhaps
impeachment processes.
Finally, I would like to suggest that criminal law in particular needs attention. As a post mentioned earlier, we have more people in prisons here than any other western industrialized country. Two changes which I will quickly propose and then leave on the table are to eliminate prisons except for the most heinous crimes and the eventual elimination of a distinct criminal system.
Punishment has little use in a utilitarian sense (a philosophy to which I do not ascribe). It neither efficiently prevents future wrongdoing nor deters others from similar conduct. My main concern, however, is with its moral implications. For most actions which we label "crime," I would prefer restoration for the victim (or society if no individual person or persons are harmed), rehabilitation of the criminal, and a program where the criminal would assist in the elimination of similar behaviors. This last point is important. Whether the causes of crime are psychological, environmental (like poverty), or otherwise attributable, those who do not commit them are less likely to understand how to prevent them without input and assistance.
As to the elimination of the criminal system, as such, I see very little reason why a system that is not based on punishment, but on restoration and rehabilitation, would need rules that are distinct from what we term civil law. Perhaps others do, though, and I would love to hear why.
An Open Invitation to People Who Are Wrong
This blog has turned into an agreement-fest. We need some radical leftists and right-wingers to disagree with us. I plead with you all to roam the Earth to find people who disagree to read and comment.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Chavez and the FARC
What do you guys think of all this nonsense in Venezuela/Colombia/Ecuador?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/03/ecuador.colombia/index.html?eref=rss_world
As a measured sympathizer (with some significant misgivings) of Chavez, I find this development troubling. His actions seem to represent more than a mere technical assertion of Ecuador's terriorial integrity; they seem to amount to substantive, if implicit, support for the FARC. Now the FARC has been classified as a terrorist organization by the EU (in addition to the U.S. and Colombia) and has been accused of "flagrant disregard for lives of civilians" by Human Rights Watch. And of course it funds its activities through kindappings, cocaine production and trafficking, and extortion. So I'm not sure the FARC is really anything besides a (very powerful) organized crime syndicate with a token ideological agenda.
Anyway, my guess is that this, from Venezuela's point of view, is a case of "the enemy of my enemy's friend is my friend." But supporting paramilitary groups that try to advance compatible ideologies through highly objectionable methods is something that the U.S. has been rightly and roundly criticized for (say, for example, supporting fascist death squads in Latin America or anti-communist terrorists in Cuba). I don't think the analysis changes for left-wing groups that resort to terroristic tactics. Your ideological goals may be commendable but if you indiscriminantly attack civilians or engage in international drug trafficking to advance these goals, you should not enjoy the support of sensible leftists. Besides, I have to question the sincerity of anyone's socialist convictions who condones extorting, kidnapping, and killing civilians.
Anyway my guess is that this is probably all posturing, and it will fizzle out in time. But Chavez should probably exercise more discretion in terms of who he associates with, and he shouldn't go out of his way to provoke a military response from the U.S. That could jeopardize his highly laudable domestic agenda.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/03/ecuador.colombia/index.html?eref=rss_world
As a measured sympathizer (with some significant misgivings) of Chavez, I find this development troubling. His actions seem to represent more than a mere technical assertion of Ecuador's terriorial integrity; they seem to amount to substantive, if implicit, support for the FARC. Now the FARC has been classified as a terrorist organization by the EU (in addition to the U.S. and Colombia) and has been accused of "flagrant disregard for lives of civilians" by Human Rights Watch. And of course it funds its activities through kindappings, cocaine production and trafficking, and extortion. So I'm not sure the FARC is really anything besides a (very powerful) organized crime syndicate with a token ideological agenda.
Anyway, my guess is that this, from Venezuela's point of view, is a case of "the enemy of my enemy's friend is my friend." But supporting paramilitary groups that try to advance compatible ideologies through highly objectionable methods is something that the U.S. has been rightly and roundly criticized for (say, for example, supporting fascist death squads in Latin America or anti-communist terrorists in Cuba). I don't think the analysis changes for left-wing groups that resort to terroristic tactics. Your ideological goals may be commendable but if you indiscriminantly attack civilians or engage in international drug trafficking to advance these goals, you should not enjoy the support of sensible leftists. Besides, I have to question the sincerity of anyone's socialist convictions who condones extorting, kidnapping, and killing civilians.
Anyway my guess is that this is probably all posturing, and it will fizzle out in time. But Chavez should probably exercise more discretion in terms of who he associates with, and he shouldn't go out of his way to provoke a military response from the U.S. That could jeopardize his highly laudable domestic agenda.
How Many Militaries Does One Man Need?
Try this one on for size, Internet Populace: we need to get rid of the gaping divisions between the branches of the armed forces.
First of all, there are all kinds of redundant systems we can probably live without. I don't know that we really need air force helicopters and navy helicopters and army helicopters and marine helicopters; air force special forces and navy special forces and army special forces and aquatic mammal special forces (http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/navy/a/navydolphin.htm).
Now, I get that specialization is a good thing, let's us do all sorts of fancy killing where meat and potatoes killing won't cut it, but there is no way that Navy Seals aren't learning a lot of the same things that Airborne Rangers are picking up. Don't they all have their own training bases? Is there any way we can't throw all these guys into a lecture hall, consolidate all the different Advanced Knife Kills: Negotiating the Brachial Plexus subsections? How negatively will increasing class size affect our U.S. News & World Report rankings of national special ops forces? And can't we make up that difference with a higher percent participation in alumni donations?
How swollen is military spending with redundant projects? Is there seriously any doubt in anyone's mind that the air force and the navy both have extremely expensive projects in development for a next generation fighter plane? And is there any doubt that those planes are not the same? And probably couldn't be serviced with the same parts? And probably one takes unleaded and the other takes premium? If you're out there, then you've got a more generous soul than yours truly, because I just assume that we've got billions of dollars being flushed down nearly identical but incompatible toilets.
And these redundancies aren't doing us any favors on the business end of the business either, I can't imagine. How many lieutenants do you need to navigate to get an inter-branch mission rolling? How many different requisition forms? I seem to vaguely recall stories have of there being problems at one point because different branches operated on different radio frequencies or something equally trivial. This game of military telephone can't be making life any easier.
Which brings me (sort of) to the problem of inter-branch competition. I like to imagine a world where all the people in the U.S. armed forces see themselves as being on the same side. As it is, you can't raise the air force's budget without raising the navy's budget, which means that the army will hold it's breath until it passes out unless it gets a bump also, and now here we are again, the marines locked in the bathroom and refusing to come out because they always knew we loved the others best.
This is no way to raise a family.
First of all, there are all kinds of redundant systems we can probably live without. I don't know that we really need air force helicopters and navy helicopters and army helicopters and marine helicopters; air force special forces and navy special forces and army special forces and aquatic mammal special forces (http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/navy/a/navydolphin.htm).
Now, I get that specialization is a good thing, let's us do all sorts of fancy killing where meat and potatoes killing won't cut it, but there is no way that Navy Seals aren't learning a lot of the same things that Airborne Rangers are picking up. Don't they all have their own training bases? Is there any way we can't throw all these guys into a lecture hall, consolidate all the different Advanced Knife Kills: Negotiating the Brachial Plexus subsections? How negatively will increasing class size affect our U.S. News & World Report rankings of national special ops forces? And can't we make up that difference with a higher percent participation in alumni donations?
How swollen is military spending with redundant projects? Is there seriously any doubt in anyone's mind that the air force and the navy both have extremely expensive projects in development for a next generation fighter plane? And is there any doubt that those planes are not the same? And probably couldn't be serviced with the same parts? And probably one takes unleaded and the other takes premium? If you're out there, then you've got a more generous soul than yours truly, because I just assume that we've got billions of dollars being flushed down nearly identical but incompatible toilets.
And these redundancies aren't doing us any favors on the business end of the business either, I can't imagine. How many lieutenants do you need to navigate to get an inter-branch mission rolling? How many different requisition forms? I seem to vaguely recall stories have of there being problems at one point because different branches operated on different radio frequencies or something equally trivial. This game of military telephone can't be making life any easier.
Which brings me (sort of) to the problem of inter-branch competition. I like to imagine a world where all the people in the U.S. armed forces see themselves as being on the same side. As it is, you can't raise the air force's budget without raising the navy's budget, which means that the army will hold it's breath until it passes out unless it gets a bump also, and now here we are again, the marines locked in the bathroom and refusing to come out because they always knew we loved the others best.
This is no way to raise a family.
"Checkpoint Cool"
You guys should check out Chris' blog. He has some interesting things to say about gentrification in Berlin. Although he usually posts in German, he provides an English translation of each post below it.
http://www.checkpointcool.blogspot.com/
http://www.checkpointcool.blogspot.com/
Monday, March 3, 2008
Meditations on the Stealth Fighter-Bomber
Poking through the exhausting backlog of posts and comments, I noticed Thesis 13 of the February 15th post and felt compelled to say something about the F117-A Stealth Fighter-Bomber. This is an impulse that also springs up in when confronted by statements about the relevance of dogfighting in modern warfare or by the sight of many heads bowed in silent grief, such as found at your standard funeral or Gallagher show.
It strikes me that spending a lot of resources on $122 million stealth fighter-bombers that apparently have been equipped with the cutting-edge ability to explode midair entirely without the assistance of the enemy (http://www.cnn.com/US/9709/14/f117.crash.update/) may not be the most effective use of our tax dollars. I would be amenable to alternative applications of billions of dollars, for example effective personal body armor for our stone-age infantry who still rely on actual enemy bullets in order to be destroyed. I will also concede that there might be room in the education budget for another billion dollars or so, but after that we're going to have to start employing more teachers or something, and I'm not going down THAT primrose path thank you very much.
And the F117-A Stealth Fighter-Grenade is not the only way the military has been shoving the metaphorical pennies our nation has given it as its metaphorical allowance deep up its metaphorical nose. There is also:
1) missile defense (I will say nothing more about this one);
2) the destroyer (when was the last time we needed a destroyer? Aircraft carrier, alright. Submarine nuclear platforms? Mmmmm.... fine, I'll even give you that one, but destroyers? As far as I can tell, destroyers serve the important military purpose of providing targets for explosive-packed speedboats driven by men with extremely optimistic expectations from the afterlife.);
3) the Stryker personnel vehicle (sales pitch: "Like the Bradley, but way more vulnerable! And more expensive! Act now to get your free flame decal!");
4) and the $640 military toilet seat (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DA153EF935A25751C1A961948260).
Oh, and also the needless expense of maintaining a military capable of fighting a two-front war. That too.
See, a two-front war isn't really going to be a problem for a sensible country. As my police-officer friend said in defense of small clip-capacity on his service weapon, "if I need more than eight bullets, I'm screwed anyway and I probably did something wrong to get that way." If we find ourselves in a two-front war, is there any way we didn't have it coming? I don't see Europe AND Asia reaching the point of physical violence without some serious shit-stirring on our part, in which case we get what we get.
I can think of two applications of U.S. military might. One is peace-keeping/nation-building. As the three-ring circus in Iraq has demonstrated, peace-keeping/nation-building calls for a somewhat different skill set than war-making. For one thing, it requires a different set of rules of engagement. A knowledge of local customs and ethnic politics is also helpful, as is the ability to speak the local language, provided it doesn't require employing homosexuals.
The second use of our military is killing people. For that, I'd go with an expanded special forces program. Heck, since we wouldn't have to have so many people, we might even be able to pay them something competitive with Blackwater salaries.
Oh, but that wasn't the point I started this to make. The point I started this to make was in rebuttal to a comment to that post way back when, expressing concern for our economically vulnerable military-industrial complex and their beleaguered R&D personnel. And what about the myriad technological breakthroughs we civilians enjoy as a result of military spending? Where would we be without the internet, you ask? Well, you smug, internet people, I ask you, why not simply modify our work orders? Rather than
Dear Secret Underground Laboratory:
Please develop a computer-to-computer communication system for military use.
Love,
The Pentagon
xoxo
try something like:
Dear Secret Underground Laboratory:
Please develop a computer-to-computer communication system for civilian use.
Love,
The Pentagon
xoxo
I see no reason why we can't simply spend those billions of dollars we're currently spending on self-opening stealth pinatas on non-military research and development ("all you double-dome engineers, your next assignment is to get me 500 miles a gallon. And the biological weapons division is hereby assigned to curing male pattern baldness.").
So, in conclusion: peace-keeping forces to address peace-keeping situations, highly trained killing forces to deal with killing situations. Spontaneously-combusting stealth fighter-bombers to deal with fireworks situations.
It strikes me that spending a lot of resources on $122 million stealth fighter-bombers that apparently have been equipped with the cutting-edge ability to explode midair entirely without the assistance of the enemy (http://www.cnn.com/US/9709/14/f117.crash.update/) may not be the most effective use of our tax dollars. I would be amenable to alternative applications of billions of dollars, for example effective personal body armor for our stone-age infantry who still rely on actual enemy bullets in order to be destroyed. I will also concede that there might be room in the education budget for another billion dollars or so, but after that we're going to have to start employing more teachers or something, and I'm not going down THAT primrose path thank you very much.
And the F117-A Stealth Fighter-Grenade is not the only way the military has been shoving the metaphorical pennies our nation has given it as its metaphorical allowance deep up its metaphorical nose. There is also:
1) missile defense (I will say nothing more about this one);
2) the destroyer (when was the last time we needed a destroyer? Aircraft carrier, alright. Submarine nuclear platforms? Mmmmm.... fine, I'll even give you that one, but destroyers? As far as I can tell, destroyers serve the important military purpose of providing targets for explosive-packed speedboats driven by men with extremely optimistic expectations from the afterlife.);
3) the Stryker personnel vehicle (sales pitch: "Like the Bradley, but way more vulnerable! And more expensive! Act now to get your free flame decal!");
4) and the $640 military toilet seat (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DA153EF935A25751C1A961948260).
Oh, and also the needless expense of maintaining a military capable of fighting a two-front war. That too.
See, a two-front war isn't really going to be a problem for a sensible country. As my police-officer friend said in defense of small clip-capacity on his service weapon, "if I need more than eight bullets, I'm screwed anyway and I probably did something wrong to get that way." If we find ourselves in a two-front war, is there any way we didn't have it coming? I don't see Europe AND Asia reaching the point of physical violence without some serious shit-stirring on our part, in which case we get what we get.
I can think of two applications of U.S. military might. One is peace-keeping/nation-building. As the three-ring circus in Iraq has demonstrated, peace-keeping/nation-building calls for a somewhat different skill set than war-making. For one thing, it requires a different set of rules of engagement. A knowledge of local customs and ethnic politics is also helpful, as is the ability to speak the local language, provided it doesn't require employing homosexuals.
The second use of our military is killing people. For that, I'd go with an expanded special forces program. Heck, since we wouldn't have to have so many people, we might even be able to pay them something competitive with Blackwater salaries.
Oh, but that wasn't the point I started this to make. The point I started this to make was in rebuttal to a comment to that post way back when, expressing concern for our economically vulnerable military-industrial complex and their beleaguered R&D personnel. And what about the myriad technological breakthroughs we civilians enjoy as a result of military spending? Where would we be without the internet, you ask? Well, you smug, internet people, I ask you, why not simply modify our work orders? Rather than
Dear Secret Underground Laboratory:
Please develop a computer-to-computer communication system for military use.
Love,
The Pentagon
xoxo
try something like:
Dear Secret Underground Laboratory:
Please develop a computer-to-computer communication system for civilian use.
Love,
The Pentagon
xoxo
I see no reason why we can't simply spend those billions of dollars we're currently spending on self-opening stealth pinatas on non-military research and development ("all you double-dome engineers, your next assignment is to get me 500 miles a gallon. And the biological weapons division is hereby assigned to curing male pattern baldness.").
So, in conclusion: peace-keeping forces to address peace-keeping situations, highly trained killing forces to deal with killing situations. Spontaneously-combusting stealth fighter-bombers to deal with fireworks situations.
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