Three Beasts
The Arizona Daily Star today features yet another Rob O'Dell article regarding the cloth shenanigans that choke Tucson's downtown and economic development. Readers were shocked (NOT!) to learn that the Fourth Ave. underpass will dramatically exceed (about 50%) all prior cost projections. Even better, officials apparently knew about the cost overruns for years but never bothered to disclose it. It is predictable that this week the city will announce the additional stuffing of funds into the burgeoning coffers of the Downtown Tucson Partnership. CEO Glenn Lyons is proving to be a Clothmeister of Larry Hecker proportions. These guys never met a million they didn't love. As above, so below, and the Cloth distinguishes the three beasts of greed (DTP, Rio Nuevo), corruption (Lot 175, Rio Nuevo), and incompetence (TREO, Rio Nuevo).The tea party crowd could point to local greed, corruption, and incompetence and apply it to the current health care debate. They could assert that a federal program or universal health care would "clothify" the nation's medical care. Conservatives enjoy films like "1984" or "Brave New World" and have deep skepticism regarding government. Progressives see films like "The Corporation" or "The Smartest Guys in the Room" and have deep skepticism regarding corporations. The news is bad, for both are correct as amply demonstrated by the perfect storm created during the Bush Administration. The storm produced unbridled bestiality in an unconscionable orgy of gluttony and reckless abandon. AIG made Enron look like a cheap date.
Those working to create a world that works for everyone face the beasts of greed, corruption, and incompetence. Faith in the free market is as folly as faith in government. Unchecked, NEITHER WORK. That's what we must learn. We need a health care system that works and the current one is decaying. Cost disease alone puts it on a downward spiral that can tank the entire country. The nation faces a huge challenge this fall as it debates this situation. We would be smart to address the beasts, in particular greed and corruption(fraud), and apply the best minds possible to craft a system which, while it may not slay the beasts, at least places some chains around their ankles. That would be far more productive than insultingly stupid images of "death panels" and trains taking grandma to an Auschwitz in Montana.
posted by x4mr at 5:20 PM
9 Comments:
Your link to Baumol's cost disease, which is completely appropriate to the health care industry, suggests to me that you are fully educated in the rigors of academic discourse. Are you a professor?
You are completely correct that the bifurcation between red and blue is simplistic and stupid. Let's dismiss the obsolete ideological obsessions, recognize this is about who gets paid what, and address what policies and practices would maximize the efficiency and equity of our health care system.
I know we are in stark disagreement about Representative Giffords. It will please you to know, however, that the local cloth is on the Tucson Tea Party calender. It will be like those couple of times per blue moon that I line up with the ACLU.
Hope you are enjoying the country music.
This must be the CUNTRY MUSIC that the above commenter is referring to.
It's at least as good as any other country music that I have ever heard with the exception of Hank Sr., Steve Earle, and Emmylou Harris (first four albums.)
If X4mr could lower his IQ by at least 100 points, he too could enjoy cuntry music.
X4mr, improve your blog by 1,000 percent and ban him. He's a troll here.
Liza always has such charming things to say after Framer post a comment here.
Perhaps the two should have a beer summit.
The CEO of United Health Care makes over $700 M a year. It's typical for these executives to be paid over a half a billion a year.
Insurance companies are robbing this country blind. They use some of the money to herd the Republican sheep.
Baaaahhhh!
Anon @1:34, I really didn't think my comment was that bad given what these people are trying to do to President Obama. There isn't enough beer in the world to resolve the issues I have with these kinds of individuals. But, yes, it is sad to feel you have to react to their vitriol and lies and racism. Some days I don't bother. Other days I just wish they would all get banned from blogs where they are trolling.
However, the story about the gun at Gifford's town hall meeting has gone national. It was linked on The Huffington Post this afternoon and already has close to 4,000 comments. This is giving Giffords all kinds of positive name recognition and guess who else is mentioned in the AZ Star story? None other than Trent Humphries, the "leader of the movement."
Ah, yes, Trent Humphries takes his rightful place next to all the other whack jobs of his ilk from Arizona. Congratulations, Mr. Humphries.
Yes, and Trent Humphries also said that no one was going to hurt Giffords and he mentioned that his followers are not racist. Nice that Trent Humphries feels he can speak for all the whack jobs in the "movement" who attend these meetings and he knows for sure that absolutely none of his "followers" would hurt anyone. I sure wish I could be so sure of ANYTHING.
If Giffords is smart she will work this for all it's worth.
Liza, you know that Framer is Trent Humphries, don't you?
Mariana,
You raise a good question. We know that Framer and Trent Humphries share the same physical body, but are they really one and the same?
Framer, of course, is the much loved right wing blogger, locally famous in the Tucson blogosphere for his mimickry of the Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck et al talking points. Many consider these to be original ideas and credit him for representing conservative positions. That is probably because "lefties" do not listen to Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck and wingnuts think that everything spoken by another wingnut is original. This is understandable when you consider that none of them actually say anything that is as memorable.
Trent Humphries, however, is the "leader of a movement." The movement he leads is presumably about saving America from socialism and Democrats and also finding a way for his followers to not pay any taxes. I'm not sure what else it is really about as none of these people seem to be able to articulate much of anything that you could relate to actual policy.
So, it remains to be seen if the Framer character will merge into it's physical body, the Trent Humphries character, the leader of populist movements!!
Is he to be the wingnut version of Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King? All he really lacks is the moral high ground.
Or, will he follow the lead of Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann and lead a tax revolt as they did in California in the late 70s? This has more possibilities.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how he uses his new fame.
Maybe he never recovered from losing to Vic Williams (this is supposed to be funny)
Post a Comment
<< Home