Channeling Enron

Ever wonder what happened to all the scummy-bears who did the creative accounting at Enron, Arthur Anderson, and WorldCom?  I’m guessing they must have all gotten government jobs from the stimulus money.  

Because politicians are not smart enough to think this stuff all up on their own.

If you recall, the House version of health care was scored by CBO in July at something over $1.2 trillion dollars. The director of CBO was called on the carpet for the treasonous acts of addition and subtraction.  

On Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi announced she had a new Bill with an even more robust public option,.  Miraculously this new and improved ShamWoW of a Bill was scored by CBO at less than $850 billion!  Did Jeff Skilling get paroled Tuesday?   Does CBO outsource work to Leavenworth now?

We won’t know how she managed to make the public option “more robust” while reducing its cost by 40%, because she wouldn’t show us the CBO analysis.  But she said she showed it to Senator Harry Reid, as if he were the Good Housekeeping seal.

When Harry wasn’t busy checking Nancy’s math for us, he was running his own Enron-esque shell game over in the Senate, trying to pass the first $257 billion of his own health care plan as a separate measure now, so the rest of it would stay under the $900 billion that President Obama said he would sign.  

His first Senate Bill started leaking oil when we found out the only kept it under the $900 billion ceiling by cutting physicians pay 25% and then freezing their wages for 10 years. Obviously, these brick-heads forgot who wears the rubber gloves when it’s bend-over time.

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow must have had the first appointment (“you might feel a little discomfort, Debbie”), because she rushed right back and introduced a bill to increase doctor’s pay and unfreeze the freeze – but of course her separate bill would not count towards the $900 billion cap.  I guess I can see how they think we are gullible enough to buy anything – after all we keep re-electing them.   

Next we discover that those 10-year costs from CBO are totally bogus - counting 10 years of new taxes (yes, the T-word) and only 5 years of benefits.  In order to make good on their baloney promise to keep health care reform deficit-neutral, they had to push most new benefits back to 2015 to make the numbers fit the lie.  Kenny Boy Lay would be so proud.  

This, by the way, is exactly what it was that Enron did to land everyone in jail - count multiple years of revenue and single years of expense to mask operating losses.  The sub-prime mortgage pimps did the same thing, and apparently it is the only thing Congress learned from either scandal.        

In business, we have an effective way of giving connivers, chiselers and serial half-truth tellers an opportunity to overcome their character defects.  We fire them.  And we don’t pussyfoot around about it - it is a matter of survival, as corrupt organizations inevitably fail, and fail spectacularly.

Enron was a success story for free market capitalism, not an indictment of it.  The market took care of Enron and their accomplice Arthur Anderson – they were purged with extreme prejudice.

Call it “ethic cleansing” – it happens every single day in the private sector.  But there is no such ethic cleansing in government.  All those politicians and regulators who rigged the game in Enron’s favor for a decade are still with us – only now they have seniority and run the joint. 

The best part of the Enron story is that when they came to Washington for a bailout with their too-big-to-fail sob story, President Bush said no.  Today, the government would have bought Enron; Barney Frank would be complaining about their bonuses in the daytime while Tim Geitner was paying them out at night.

 

The fools messed up energy, they messed up banking, they messed up housing, and now they have turned their sights on health care.

With a straight face, our Socialists continue to demand a public option to “keep the private system honest”, even though they have lied, cheated, and cooked the books to try to shove it down our throat.  And just who exactly will be running this new Department of Honesty – Congressman cash-in-the-freezer, or Senator wide-stance, or Governor taste-of-Argentina, or Secretary tax-cheat? 

But no amount of accounting kitty litter can disguise the stupidity of plowing ahead with the dismantling of our health care system by people who either can’t add and subtract or can’t tell the truth.  Or in the case of Congress, neither.  

These guys can’t run health care; they can’t even run a little tiny fraction of health care.  The government has had 6 months to prepare for H1N1 and it is still easier to get a Nobel Prize than a flu shot.  In a world run by rational people, that would be the end of it.  But these are not rational people, and it is only the beginning.        

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

One In A Row

President Obama’s new policy on medical marijuana brings to mind the old saying: even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in while.  That was back when you could say “blind” and “acorn” was only a single nut, not an organized mob of them.

Let’s give credit where credit is due – the President’s decision to discontinue federal prosecutions of medical use of marijuana is practical, principled, and compassionate. 

Libertarians should credit the President for recognizing the right of individuals to make their own choices in medical treatments and drug use.  That’s one in a row.

Republicans can stand behind the President for recognizing states’ rights and following the Constitutional limitations on federal government powers.  That’s one in a row.

Democrats should be thrilled that the President has finally done something that is supported by a majority of citizens.  That’s one in a row.  

You see?  Limiting government is not only easy, it brings us together. The Libertarian Party has been way ahead of the curve; fighting for the rights of individuals to make our own choices over what we put into our bodies and for what purposes.  Our stand was taken long before public opinion swung to our views.

But the President’s new policy is a victory for a principle, not for a Party; credit goes to the millions of people who have worked tirelessly for years to bring sanity to this issue – people from across the political spectrum as well as people who could care less about politics and have acted only out of compassion. 

The President’s decision will bring peace of mind to millions of American families and it costs less than nothing – it reduces federal spending on prosecution and incarceration of people who pose no threat to civil order.    

But one in a row is not enough.  A Presidential directive can be reversed by the next President; or this one if the polls shift against him. It can be ignored by federal prosecutors.  And it does nothing to confront the real imperative – comprehensive reform of our destructive drug laws.  The President took one step, now it is time for Congress to get to work and finish the job.

The consequences of drug prohibition in this nation are far worse than the consequences of drug use.  Studies continue to show that our drug laws do not reduce rates of use, abuse, or addiction.  They have created new problems of crime, gangs, corruption violence, international terrorism, and the destruction of our inner cities. They have made a difficult problem impossible, and we have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars on a fool’s errand that has now lasted decades.

Those who oppose this decision will worry that the President’s ban on medical marijuana prosecutions will lead to increased recreational drug use.   I ask them only to consider this: will you now start using drugs now as a result?  Neither will I; and neither will anyone else who has chosen not to use drugs.  And those who have chosen to abuse drugs are not deterred by laws – we all know that.  

So congratulations, President Obama, I’m behind you 100% on this one.  That’s one in row.

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

Marx, Robin Hood, and Obama

“From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.” “Take from the rich; give to the poor.” “When you spread the wealth around, it is good for everyone”. It’s not like President Obama thought this up on his own.

At least Karl Marx recognized that people have different abilities, an objective reality that American socialists today can’t seem to grasp. But at the end of his life, after observing his theories put into practice, Marx renounced them, writing “I am not a communist”. He came to realize that exclusion of private property was a fatal flaw in his theories, because self-interest, not the need of others, is what motivates humans to produce.

And everyone has heard the story of Robin Hood, but most retellings omit the crucial detail that changes the entire point of the story; the money he took from the rich was stolen from the poor in the first place. The real moral of the story is that money rightfully belongs to those who earned it – we Libertarians have been trying to tell you that all along.

That leaves President Obama and Congress to be set straight about socialism. And let’s just call it what it is. How else would you describe a tax system that takes according to ability and an entitlement scheme that distributes according to need? How is “taxing the rich” not taking from the rich? When you claim ownership of the entire planet to “save” it, is there any private property rights left to infringe upon?

How does need justify taking? This is the morality of the rapist, the looter, the con artist, the cannibal. Who taught us it was enlightened, compassionate, and progressive? Why did we listen to them? Why do we let them teach our children?

Socialism fails because it rests on a false premise; namely that people of greater ability will continue to produce for the benefit of people of lesser ability. They don’t; they quit producing, and then they leave. Look around, many already have.

Each week, over 1,000 people leave our highest-tax states and relocate to lower tax states. These are rich people - the most able and most productive citizens of states like New York, California, New Jersey, and here in Wisconsin. Our “progressive” tax system will net 7.75% of zero once they leave, and hundreds of jobs go along with them. It’s not like we weren’t warned enough times that it would happen.

The capitalists in Texas, Tennessee, and New Hampshire are quite happy to welcome them, along with the wealth and employment these refugees bring. Who is surprised that those states are outperforming us economically? Did we learn nothing from the two Germanys, two Koreas, and two Chinas? Did we think it would be different here? Did we forget know how we came to be prosperous in the first place?

When Europe turned to socialism in the late 19^th century, the United States was the beneficiary of a massive wave of immigration. Who came here? The most able, the most ambitious, the most independent, and the most honorable Europeans left there to come here. They came because we valued Liberty, industry, charity, private property, honesty, equal opportunity, faith, and profit. They rejected entitlement and sought opportunity. That’s what people of great ability do.

Men of lesser ability remained to claim their entitlements and plunged Europe into economic collapse, war, pestilence, famine, and disease; hastening the evolution of their socialist governments into their most pure and brutish totalitarian forms – communist Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Militarist Spain. It was not by accident that these regimes rose up there; the socialists were in charge. They have still not recovered.

And why now, do you suppose, that China and India are prospering? Do you think that two thousand rice farmers had a meeting one day and decided to build a toy factory instead of planting the paddies? Do you think a peasant woke up and simply guessed how to design an electric motor? How to construct a skyscraper? How to find deposits of ore buried deep underground? Did a billion Chinese people come over here to copy the secrets of American productivity? No, our most productive people went there. And can you blame them for leaving?

We drove them out. We taxed them and regulated them and told them they couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. We stopped them from drilling, mining, logging, building factories, refineries, steel mills, power plants, ships, transmission lines, railroads, and dams. We told them they were less important than a salamander.

We seized the money they earned and chided them when they complained. We deprived them of energy, materials, and labor they needed to make the things that we needed even more. We called them exploiters, imperialists, polluters, greedy, immoral; we restricted their pay and forced them to pay us more. We called their profits “excessive”, while our claims on their wealth knew no bounds.

We told them in a hundred ways they were not wanted here; and then we blamed them when they listened to us and left. We got what we wanted; they are not exploiting us any more.

Our socialist government is not just bad, it is deadly. When all the producers are chased out of this nation, we will be left with only the cannibals and parasites that lived off them, and a government that has no means to keep us alive.

That GS-9 over there at the U.S. Department of Agriculture can’t feed you. You need greedy capitalist farmers, imperialist corporatist agri-businesses, and politically incorrect truckers to have food to eat. My need didn’t put a single gallon of milk in the fridge; some unknown farmers’ desire for profits did that.

And why should he keep getting up at 4 AM when we take 46% of his earnings? Will he go back to tilling his fields by hand when we cap his energy use and shut down his tractors? No, he will quit farming and we will starve.

Even then, Tammy and Nancy and President Obama will not admit they are wrong. It is not important that they do; it is important that they are removed from power before we reach that day.

This campaign is not about gaining control over the levers of government power; it is about dismantling that machinery before it is too late. It’s about you reclaiming your Liberty from the socialists in both parties who have taken it away, bit by bit, over the past 50 years. It is about returning the greatest nation the world has ever known to greatness, so that the worlds most able come here again and we all prosper.

Vote Libertarian. Vote for Tim, Not Tammy.

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

Counting Snouts

In my speech at the AFP Town Hall Meetings in August, I used the phrase “snouts in the trough” to describe trial lawyers and malpractice insurers.  An apology is owed; no, not to them, but to all the other snouts who were not given their due.

 

When I go to see my doctor, he spends a few minutes with me reviewing my vitals, asking how I feel, and renewing my prescriptions.  If I paid him $15 cash, he could earn over $300,000 at that rate; and I would cut my cost of health care by 80%.  We would both be happy. 

 

Michael Moore, if you are reading this, that is how capitalism works: a voluntary exchange makes both parties happy and everyone else minds their own business.  But that’s not how health care works.  Oh, no.  There are a few more snouts in the trough and it is everybody else’s business.  Let’s count snouts.

 

Just in case I might sue him (aforementioned trial lawyer and malpractice snouts), he sends me for some lab work (snout), and the results go to medical records (snout), then on to billing (snout) and to someone who writes me a letter with the results (snout).  It contains some pamphlets on healthy living (snout) and a customer service response card (snout) so the clinic director can know if I am happy.   

 

The bill for the lab work is sent (snout) to my claims processor (snout), who runs it by their fraud detectors (snout) and then checks the discount (snout) and in-network status (snout).  If the claim is denied, then we repeat this loop several times (snoutis pluralis) until all the coding and paperwork is just so.  

 

Then it goes to their payable department (snout), and they send a check to the receivable clerk (snout) at the clinic, and they send me a statement (snout) showing my bill was partially paid.  My claims processor also produces an explanation of benefits (snout) that I can’t understand, and mails it (snout) to me.  Once in a while, they send me a card (snout) to see if I’m happy.  Ecstatic; thanks for asking. 

 

The claims processor then sends a bill (snout) to my Flex benefits administrator (snout) for the amount of the co-pay that my claims processor doesn’t pay.  The Flex people check my balance (snout) and send me a check (snout).  The clinic sends me another bill (snout) for the balance and I send them a check.  They process that check (snout) and send me a statement (snout) that the bill is paid.

 

Are you still with me?  Our snout count is up to 26 if the claim goes through perfectly on the first pass, which doesn’t happen very often anymore.  But remember, that is just for the lab work I didn’t need in the first place.  Now we have to process the original office visit bill.  No comment cards or healthy newsletter, so we only need to add 21 snouts; that puts us to 47.  But wait, there’s more.

 

We are self-insured at my company, so there is no obscene profit of an insurance company to factor in to our snout count.  But we do have a benefits specialist (snout), a health coach (snout), and people in HR (snout) who help me straighten out my wrongly denied claims. And we pay consultants (snout) who pay other consultants (snout) to advise us on how to set all this up in compliance with the government’s (that is a whole new trough) regulations for self-insured plans.   

 

And then of course we have accountants (snout) who count our health care beans, and a law firm on retainer (snout) to help us stay in compliance with the government (I already did them) regulators and HEPA law.  Bear in mind that those other firms with a snout in the trough also had their own accountants and lawyers and consultants and IT guys that could be added into the count - but that would be piling on.

 

And all of those snouts have to go to diversity training, and some pay union dues, and they go off to conferences where they learn the latest snout stuff, and if they work for the government they have too many holidays, vacation days, personal days, sick days, and work-at-home (yeah,, sure) days to keep track of.  So they are out there just a-snorting and a-grunting and shaking the flies off their fat muddy backs even when they are not processing my bill.

 

By my count, that’s 54 snouts in the trough, not including the government snout factory that regulates all and mandates half of this insanity.  God forbid an MD and a Ph.D. could manage to exchange $15 on our own; no, we need 54 cubicle jockeys a-heppin’ us to get it wrong.  

 

And that, my friends, is what is wrong with health care.  That is all that is wrong with health care.   

 

That is how you turn a simple $15 exchange that any two crack-heads can accomplish unaided into a $175 cluster-grunt that takes 54 people with college degrees 6 months to get completed. And we make fun of crack-heads? 

 

How about that public option/single payer idea? That just replaces my claims processor’s private sector snouts with government snouts.  And if you think the GS-8 at HHS oinks more efficiently than the Anthem contractors over there in Bangalore, then you are probably one of those crack-heads I have newfound respect for.  Plus they retire at 50, so we have to count double to pay for the pensioners.

 

Are they fixing any of this up there in Congress?  Nope.  Those guys are just vibrating in place trying to finagle a way to stick that $175 bill to somebody that doesn’t vote. When they are all done, it will be $350 and my grandkids will pay. There is not one snout coming out in any version of any Congressional reform bill.

 

These guys are all out of their minds. They had their chance this year to enact real health care reform; we get our chance again next November.

 

Vote Libertarian.  Vote for Tim, Not Tammy.

 

 

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

 

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