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Dear Santa, Here's My Xmas List
From The Daily Capitalist.
Dear Santa:
Since you give away stuff for free, I hope you aren't a socialist and ignore my wish list during the annual potlach. By the way, it seems that the Obama Administration is way ahead of you in giving out free stuff to everyone. I hope you can catch up.
I think I've been a pretty good boy this year. I have regularly bitten my tongue in my commentary so as not to be accused of being a flamer. I don't think I've defamed anyone. And I try to write as much original material as possible to avoid being labeled a "scraper" (lifting stuff off the Net and publishing it under my own name). And, I haven't sold out my opinions for mere money. For a blogger, that's a pretty good record.
Here's my wish list. I couldn't find where to post it on Amazon, so here goes:
1. Kill The Bill
No, not the Uma Thurman thing. I'm talking about the health care "reform" bill going through Congress right now. If your magical powers extend that far, please put economic sense into our politicians' collective heads that government control over the system is not a way to "save money" or create "efficiency."
2. Put in the Fix
Instead of eliminating market forces in health care, please convince Congress to fix it by peeling back the convoluted rules and regulations that have screwed it up in the first place. Suggest these four little things we could try first that actually would work, save billions, and cover more people:
Give Medicare enrollees a voucher and the freedom to choose any health plan on the market;
Give workers control over their health care dollars with "large" health savings accounts which would allow them to purchase secure health coverage from any source;
Break up state monopolies on insurance and allow insurance companies to compete across state lines; and
Block-grant Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program to prevent massive waste and encourage states to target resources to the truly needy.
3. Turn the Sausage Makers into Sausage
I understand it's Christmas and it would be kind of negative to wish political ill fortune on someone, but, there's this especially despicable sentator, Ben Nelson, that I would like for you to arrange to catch him with a hooker or taking a bribe. Whatever you think would work, Santa. Make sure there are tapes. I have lots more names, but I'd be happy with Ben.
4. Firing Suggestions
Please arrange for Obama to fire Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Timmy Geithner, and Christina Romer.
5. Hiring Suggestions
To replace the above, how about Ron Paul at the Fed, and the following economic advisers: Walter Block, Russ Roberts, and Joseph Salerno. They are all fine economic scholars and would steer our President in the right direction.
6. Freeze Congress
Don't let Congress pass any more bills until they've all read, and discussed with the No. 5 guys, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, the best little book on economics, ever. Televise it.
7. Bring Back the Real Constitution
Please have Obama appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court. Nominees who understand natural law, and that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments actually mean something. Maybe we'd get our individual sovereignty back.
8. Make Work is No Work
Let Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid see the folly of the American American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a useless $787 billion bill that is nothing other than intergenerational theft. Someone has to pay for it and I'm afraid it will be my children, grandchildren, and ten generations of my great-grandchildren.
9. Beautiful Sunsets
Require Congress to sunset every spending law they pass. You know how they promise that a program will be very effective and that it will only cost so much? Make them prove it, say every two years. If the bill fails to cure the perceived ill, get rid of it. If the program exceeds its budget, get rid of it. It will also provide us with a handy voting guide at election time.
10. Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom
Sprinkle some free market magic dust on the economics departments of our major universities. Maybe that will help the sheep break from Keynesian orthodoxy and actually begin to think.
Thank you, Dear Santa. I'm forever hopeful.
Econophile
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Rated 5 Star *****
Who needs the news media or Broadway when the talent is all on Zero Hedge? You and Econophile are the “Situational Irony” team of the week. How bout an encore for New Year’s with the rest of the cast here? What a show. Thanks, for the entertainment!!
Who needs the news media or Broadway when the talent is all on Zero Hedge? You and econophile are the “Situational Irony” team of the week. How bout an encore for New Year’s with the rest of the cast here? What a show. Thanks, for the entertainment!!
Have a merry Christmas!
Regarding your wish list...
1. Can't help you. I'm looking forward to socialized medicine. You see, I've got an army of immortal elves on the payroll with a powerful union. I'm looking forward to dumping their health care plan on the government as soon as possible.
2. Free markets?? I was born in Greece and grew up with Western European socialism.
3. He got a $2.5 billion Medicaid bribe written right in the bill? What more do you need. Check with Tiger. One of his hookers might have something on Ben.
4. Sorry, who do you think pays the bills.
5. Ron Paul?!?! He'd take away my access to the discount window and audit Claus-Co Ltd and St. Nick Capital Management. Can't have Ms. Claus see what a mess all those CLO's and MBS tranches have made of our portfolio.
6. I got my own problems with Congress. My lawyers are all over me to get them to fix the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. You should see my liability insurance premiums!
7. I hear the Easter Bunny is into constitutional law. But don't mention my name. Don't ask, it's complicated.
8. How do you think I got the new factory financed? The elves want a new cafeteria and Ms. Claus can't stay out of Tiffany's. The stimulus bill stays. I'll be sure to leave your grandkids an extra lump of (clean) coal.
9. There are no sunsets in December at the North Pole.
10. Magic dust? That's Tinker Bell. She gave some to Ronald Reagan years ago. Peter beat her senseless. They keep her in a vault below 33 Liberty St. Good luck getting her out of there!
Ho Ho Ho,
Santa
Regarding your wish list...
1. Can't help you. I'm looking forward to socialized medicine. You see, I've got an army of elves on the payroll with a powerful union. I'm looking forward to dumping their health care plan on the government as soon as possible.
2. Free markets?? I was born in Greece and grew up with Western European socialism.
3. Ben got a $2.5 billion Medicaid bribe written right in the bill? What more do you need. Check with Tiger. One of his hookers might have something on Ben.
4. Sorry, who do you think pays the bills.
5. Ron Paul?!?! He'd take away my access to the discount window and audit Claus-Co Ltd and St. Nick Capital Management. Can't have Ms. Claus see what a mess all those CLO's and MBS tranches have made of our portfolio.
6. I got my own problems with Congress. My lawyers are all over me to get them to fix the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. You should see my liability insurance premiums!
7. I hear the Easter Bunny is into constitutional law. But don't mention my name. Don't ask, it's complicated.
8. How do you think I got the new factory financed? The elves want a new cafeteria and Ms. Claus can't stay out of Tiffany's. The stimulus bill stays. I'll be sure to leave your grandkids an extra lump of (clean) coal.
9. There are no sunsets in December at the North Pole.
10. Magic dust? That's Tinker Bell. She gave some to Ronald Reagan years ago. Peter beat her senseless. They keep her in a vault below 33 Liberty St. Good luck getting her out of there!
Ho Ho Ho,
Santa
My wish is for a communications system that tells the truth.
In addition to being upset with Macy’s almost 100 percent blackout of Christmas, its “Believe” theme apparently revolves around the famous “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” letter. As all of us know, this is one of the most famous lies in the history of American journalism, where a young girl in good faith, because of what her friends were saying, turned mistakenly to the news media to ask for the truth. She was given the politically correct, socially accepted spin, of welfare state schmooze. In other words, not the truth.
It seems to me almost preposterous that in this religious season of Christ’s Mass that commercial firms such as Macy’s would use a word such as “believe” to instead celebrate a famous lie.
I don't oppose Santa Claus, I loved this warm aspect of the season; but I applaud the parent who, when asked, told the truth.
well, books, that would make the economy look better
Dear Santa, I'd like to see Nancy Pelosi in a bikini runnning on the beach, hand n hand, with Harry Reid in a speedo.
Books
14. Send a buttmachine to all of them, and make them use it daily.
To the un-named contributor with the seven year old son. Forget the lego death star. He already is getting the one quadrillion+ derivates death star very soon. It will last him, sadly, many years before it is all used up.
My WISH LIST....
REVOLUTION
Hit the reset button....
Restructure the tax system to a small
consumtion tax only....no other taxes....
Get rid of the US joke of a government system....
To be replaced with a state by state mandated true democracy...
No more lobbyists....Replaced with a localized....manageable
internet based system by local vote....
Separate banks from the securities businesses....
New RETAIL direct access defragmented exchange...
All participants treated the same....first come first served....electronically regulated....get rid of the SEC....
All participants pay no more than 20 cents per thousand....
To be a worldwide system...RETAIL oriented....All information fact based via Wiki format....
13. Require doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals to publicly post actual prices for all goods and services so your newly empowered HSA/Voucher recipients are dealing with a real competitive market, rather than the pullulating excrescence (thanks and a hat tip to Tom Wolfe) now euphemistically referred to as the "health care system". If you are making economic proposals without having dealt with a serious and ongoing emergency health issue personally, you might not understand the full horror of what you are dealling with in the economic sense. Yes, the current system often works just fine for lots of people with good insurance, for planned treatments. However, creating the HSA-type system on the consumer side without reforming the provider side can lead to lop-sided situations that remind me of the S&L set-up: deregulate one side of a two-sided system. Some providers are in your insurance plan, some are not. Sometimes you are aware of who is involved in your treatment and glomming on to your bill without your knowledge, often not. Bills drift in for months from medical and diagnostic LLCs you never heard of for services you don't understand. Protest and suddenly your credit score takes a nose dive. No other industry that touches so many lives (except maybe GS) is so opaque and seemingly indifferent to, and immune to, real competition that might lead to cost-effectiveness benefits for the consumer.
Not real sure where you are going here, MrHonkyTonk. The system stinks, but adding regulations and eliminating the free market will make it worse. My wish to Santa would be to deregulate the system entirely, but that's not going to happen in my lifetime. We don't have a problem getting that basic requirement, food, so why is health care any different? I would argue that the problems most people experience are a result of regulations and Medicare. The four things I requested would radically restructure the system and make it more responsive to consumers through competition. The lack of opacity is the result of a butchered system where providers are desperate to get the most bucks to offset their Medicare losses.
No, you misunderstand me. I am complaining that the system we now have is NOT a free market. It lacks transparency (both pricing and quality) and real competition, without which most so-called "consumer directed" health care is a farce in which the "consumers" are thrown to the wolves.
And, of course, there are no regulations on the production and sale of food... That's why I can freely choose between raspberries sprayed with DDT, beef from mad cows, and lettuce fertilized with raw sewage.
You anti-regulationists make me sick (or, at least, you would if you got your way). Government is the only agent in the system capable of exerting sufficient force to ensure minimum standards of safety (market forces are a lagging indicator - it does no good to the parents of a child who dies of lead poisoning to know that the paint manufacturer is going to go out of business for killing their offspring).
Doctors are not required to accept Medicare patients. The fact that nearly all of them choose to do so suggests that their losses are not nearly so crippling as you think.
You forget the evil lawyers who over litigate in order to rip off the little farmers who sell us tainted food. Or do you have another take? Replace lawyers with impartial and highly competent government bureaucrats to protect us? Medicare? Most docs now refuse to take new Medicare patients. Do me a favor and read Milton Friedman's Free to Choose or Capitalism and Freedom. Learn something before you die.
Spot on!
I'm done with "market choices". I've purchased medical policies in the past where the insurance companies ended up going broke(poor risk models they said) and the state having to bail them out (taxpayers money). Meanwhile, the creditors were hounding me for payment. Health care is a essential good and needs to be highly regulated and well capitalized. Do you really want Goldman Sachs to get their hands on you HSA?
Are you asking for a system where I pay for your health care?
If you have any time left Santa, I would so appreciate it if you would drag Jim Cramer behind your sleigh for the first 1/2 of your Christmas Eve deliveries as this could prove to be a great visual from those of use watching the horizon.
You could then simply drop him off at your North Pole reindeer ranch and have him clean and prep the stables for a well deserved rest and Jimmy could cuddle up to Vixen for added warmth.
Safe travels Santa and keep up the good work!
My 7 year old, very nervously, asked me last week if I was Santa Claus. I told him, yes I was. He cried a little bit, then gathered himself together and told me what he wanted for Christmas.
So, as I really am Santa, here's what I'm going to do...
I have to tell you that I don't grant wishes. I took your list to the workshop and the elves didn't know what to make of it. They asked if a giant Nurf Gun or a Lego Death Star would do the trick? Will it?
Merry Christmas!
Santa
You make a good point -- at least it's the one I hope you were making:
WE ARE SANTA CLAUS
If we want these things we'll have to get our butts out in the workshop and make them happen.
My wish list includes instituting capital punishment for white collar crimes since the current system has no real consequences to deter bad behavoir.
Reading the comments on here just depresses me. Nothing in government operates rationally or quasi-scientifically--outocme are engineered only for the anointed ones at everyone else's expense.
I don't think Santa and Jesus working together could fix what requires a revolution to undo.
12. Follow the Laws of the America per the Founding Fathers, and as such a literal death sentence for Bernanke due to his treasonous devaluing of the monetary...
May I add my wishes:
No new bills of any kind until a Balanced Budget Bill - one that does not allowed a deficit.
No political contributions (elections paid out of tax revenue based on votes received).
No lobbying
A President, Senator or Congressman only gets elected for one 6-year term. No second term period.
I too wish for lower govt spending and no new bills, so we will have to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and drones our of Pakistan and cancel foreign aid to the biggest recipient, Israel. That should go a long way towards paying down the debt without hurting US econ...whaddya say?
Stealing is Stealing....last time I checked....
Any person rssponsible for STEALING from SAVERS
ie purposeful dilution of money....someone breaking and entering a house....
HAS TO FRY ....and all the accomplices....
No more govt. protection for those in govt. office....
THEY should be the first to go....
As THEIR main job is to protect those who serve
as the true backbone of the US....
At this very moment all SAVERS are paying a forced 100% tax
because all interest bearing accounts were eliminated in favor of debt holders and money losers....
FRY them all....
I live in a state that passes penny sales taxes that are temporary. When the time is up they spend all the tax revenue advertising replacement temporary tax bills and they keep doing it and doing it and doing it until something passes.
We don't need a sunset clause we need a cease and desist clause.
Good luck with that, Econophile.
What's next? World Peace?
Come on, Anton. It's hope and change.
Change you can believe in?
*ahem* Sorry, could not resist.
11. Please take every elected official back to the North Pole with you sans warm clothes.