Boulder Jury Strikes a Blow Against Evil Insurance Co.s

If you don't think our health care system is completely warped, take you head from between your butt cheeks and read this story from today's Boulder Daily Camera

A local woman was in a car accident, and her insurance company dropped her and refused to cover her injuries because she had neglected to mention a totally unrelated trip to the emergency room that occurred before she was insured, or in the accident. To it's great credit, the jury awarded the woman $37 million in damages, 5 times what she asked for, and about 200 times what it would have cost the company to live up to its obligations.

That we even have these situations is a waste of everyone's resources. We, as a society, need to get out heads from between out butt cheeks.

The GOP called.

Somehow, I am on the Republican Party's fundraising list, which is quite hilarious in so many ways. First, no matter how much money I ever have in my life, I will never donate it to any political party, at least not based on what they are doing to this country now. In fact, I would piss on my $ and light it on fire before giving it to politicians who will use it to run ads full of lies and spreading of hatred. I have only donated to 2 political campaigns in my life, and those were the campaigns of friends who were running for local offices.

But, please don't tell the GOP what I just said, because I love getting their calls. They called yesterday, to tell me how I had to give them $200 so they could elect more Republicans to stop the "Obama/Pelosi" agenda. The conversation then went something like this:
Me: Then what is the Republican agenda, other than saying "no" to everything
Her: We are going to stop Obama.
Me: So I should help you get Republicans in power because of the great success of the first 8 years of this decade
Her: We are going to stop Obama
Me: But didn't the Republicans policies get where we are today? You want me to support more of that ( I am pretty sure I added some f-bombs in there to see how long she would go)
Her: We have to stop Obama
Me: But the Republicans fucked everything up!
Her: We have to stop Obama
(NOTE: Every "stop Obama" was stated slightly differently)

Finally, I was amused enough, and started laughing and said "You must have a really good decision tree system. You have a new way of repeating the same comeback to my objections". This just confused her completely, so I just laughed some more and said "look, I am definitely NOT giving you any money" and hung up.

Great fun, and I got a clear view of the vision that the GOP has for the country: Stop Obama, so we can go back to the good old days of the Bushies destroying the country.

Here, is what I guess their strategy is: They want to stop Obama from passing anything, particularly anything that might help the economy in the short run. Then, they will blame the Dems for not fixing everything in 2010, and hopefully, 2012. Then, they can go back to making America a great place to do business, particularly for polluters and white collar criminals, but not to live.

Yes, the Democrats suck, but the only worse is the GOP!!!!

The Supremes Kill Corporations' Tax Argument

Corporations, unlike partnerships or other forms of business, are taxed before their earnings are distributed to the owners of the company. A stockholder pays taxes on dividends they receive, or on capital gains if they sell stock, but not on the per share earnings. However, he company itself pays taxes based on its income.

Many have argued for many years that this is wrong, that the owners are being taxed double. In other words, the company pays income tax, and so does the stockholder when he receives his part of the earnings, thus the owners of corporations suffer double taxation. The argument is that corporations should be treated like a partnership for tax purposes, passing the earnings per share onto the taxable income of stockholders. I have never bought into this argument for several reasons. Primarily, corporations use the facilities that taxes pay for in this country....police, roads, courts, national defense....just like the rest of us "citizens", and since corporations have the rights of citizens, they also have the responsibilities.

The Supreme Court pretty much killed any logical argument that the "double taxation" crowd had. Since they have affirmed that corporations are citizens with the right of free speech, then they must also be citizens with the right to pay taxes. The campaign finance laws did not impede the free speech rights of individuals, just corporations. So stockholders already had the right to spend their money on campaigns. It only makes sense then, that if we are granting corporations all the rights of real people, they get to join us in paying taxes as well.

Speaking of the rights of citizens, Jon Stewart pointed out the other night that corporations now have more rights than gay Americans. They can marry (merge).

AT the risk of sounding like a 14 year old....

I find THIS STORY amusing. A magazine about Canadian history called "The Beaver" is changing it's name because it is blocked from too many internet sites.

Big Fan

After a day of watching football, I watched the indy film "Big Fan" tonight. It's a rather dark look at sports fandom, starring Patton Oswalt as a Giants fan who is so devout he puts the team ahead of ....well, you won't really believe it until you watch it. And I do recommend you watch it.

If, like me, you are a sports fan who has probably cared too much about the success of a bunch of complete strangers because they wear a certain jersey, "Big Fan" will amuse you while also making you feel extremely uncomfortable. The film is a real shot at the sports-talk radio culture. There are certainly a lot of guys who listen to this stuff all day, and have to get in their "take" (as Jim Rome would call it). In the case of "Big Fan", his take is the only high point in an otherwise dreary existence. The main character has made this sports and talk radio world the center of his life. While I have never called a sports talk show not hosted by a close friend (perhaps Budd Bailey would like to comment on that!), I couldn't help thinking I was something like this complete loser of a main character. This very afternoon, while watching football at the bar, I had a very serious, thoughtful conversation with my friend Clint about why Todd Helton should bat second for the Rockies.

This reminds me of a sketch I wrote for my old comedy group back in CT. A guy, played by yours truly, is watching the game while his girlfriend wants to talk about their relationship. She mistakes his yelling at the game as his response to her questions. His only real response to her is when she asks how he feels as the game goes to commercial. His response: "I feel like another beer". At the end of the scene, she is rushing off to call her mom, certain that they are engaged, while he celebrates a Giants win (sorry Bills fans, but had to set the scene in the NY area). One of the favorite pieces of mine that I've written....oh who am I kidding, it wrote itself!

Anyone who has ever yelled at the TV during a game should watch "Big Fan" (It is available for immediate play on Netflix). Then, maybe we should all go for a bike ride on Super Sunday!

The sad decline of the WSJ

I have been reading the WSJ since I was forced to buy it for a macroeconomics class in college. While I don't require my students to read it, I have always recommended that they do, telling them that, although the op/ed page is run by the insane, the news part of the paper is....or was....top notch. (In fact, I recently told a conservative friend of mine that WSJ doesn't need comics as long as it has the op/ed page).

Then, Rupert Murdoch bought it. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that the right wing slant of the op/ed page was creeping into the front page headlines. I stopped subscribing to it ( I can read it online for free through school), not wanting to give a man like Murdoch, who has done so much to destroy America (by having his media outlets blindly support the stupidity of the Bush administration) my money. I was not sure that my dislike of Murdoch wasn't just causing me to believe this, but today Barry Ritholtz writes about the same thing I have noticed. What a shame.

You can read Ritholtz take on the Journal HERE.

What a bad week in politics

The victory in the Mass. senate election of Scott Brown was bad for America, giving the GOP the ability to say NO to anything Congress might pass. Since the GOP has no answers to any of the world's problems, some of which they had a big hand in causing, they have taken the political strategy of making sure nothing gets passed that might actually make things better. Then, of course, they will claim the Dems are responsible for all the world's problems. Good strategy, except for the part where none of our problems gets fixed. But they could care less, as long as they can get back in power.

And now the GOP will gets some more help from the right wingers now in power on the Supreme Court. To deny corporations the opportunity to buy elections and/or politicians by using their considerable resources to advertise unfettered regarding elections was not to deny them free speech. There was no law saying corporations or their representatives could not speak on political issues. It just prevented them from using their money to be the only voices heard.

Today' NYT editorial, which you can read HERE, does a much better job of explaining the horrors we can now expect as a result of this "judicial activism"......something the conservative always said they opposed. Yet, there they were, overturning laws that have previously been upheld, and which were passed with great public support by Congress.

So, if you thing that those poor corporations aren't getting enough say in our government, well then, that has just been fixed. It is obvious based on the handling of the financial crisis that the opposite is true, and it is about to get worse. Congress has shown little enough interest in fixing problems in ways that might upset any potential corporate donors. We can now forget about any rational fix of health care or the financial system. We thought we were rid of the Bush administration, but the damage he has done with his extreme right wing court appointments will be haunting us for years. The court will carry on the Bushies work of returning this country to the robber-baron culture of 100 years ago (the good old days that conservatives talk about!).

Maybe Congress can pass a law that politicians need to wear the logos on their suits of their corporate benefactors.