News from the Sports Courtroom (maybe about your own case ...)

• S.F. Baseball Hero

... the end of public finance and the last "financier" ...

Theodore Dreiser, in a long – ago written novel, took the themes of finance as they were known in the day and turned them into a portrayal of the soft underbelly of some in the finance world, what with its supposed mutual back – slapping, treachery, drinking and drugging and other trafficking and vice.  Dreiser’s portrayal of the Financier was one of immoral and unduly influenced corruption, and again, vice and other wrongs of the finance world in the day.  By this portrayal his readers were shown everywhere that money is evil and should be treated as such.  The fact is, there were corruptible influences everywhere in Dreiser’s time, not just in some persons’ intrigues and ill – gotten gains.  Fast forward to the modern public financial processes in Washington, D.C., where somewhat the same attitude about the accumulation of cash to spend prevails – it is in fact an accurate assessment of public Congressional and Senatorial appropriations in the U.S. that are made without the proper revenue base do reflect these types of beliefs, and apparently that when one has money that has not been spent, the accumulation or saving of same is immoral and corrupt, reflecting the overall idea that “money is really to spend.”

The plan of the Republican Paul Ryan to erase over six trillion dollars from the federal deficit over a decade includes privatising some social welfare programs, and cutting others, including Medicare and Medicaid.  It also includes reducing federal corporate tax rates.  These are the two principal traits of this plan which is quite simple, especially since the Ryan plan does not really touch Social Security.  Medicare and Medicaid, under Mr. Ryan’s plan, would apparently be privatised, which would save approximately three trillion 2011 U.S. dollars.  When one thinks about the corporate tax relief (savings of about another three trillion,) this policy would have the effect of creating, or freeing up almost seven trillion 2011 dollars (U.S.) of income and value based upon fiscal relief.  This is a very enticing policy, as is the privatisation of Medicare and related programs through private insurance – based concerns.  Cutting government spending is hard to do, and the insurance programs would present a sea change for private carriers as the health insurance business in the U.S. would be responsible for virtually everyone seeking medical care - the young, and especially the aged.  That many older and elderly people are to be included in insurance pools along Mr. Ryan’s ideas, would affect the costs of maintaining the health insurance / health care systems we have and would also affect premiums, based upon private insurance criteria instead of federal entitlement criteria.  

There can not really be any more accounting nor financial tweaking of the Social Security system, as Mr. Ryan’s plan undoubtedly indicates, and an actually quite efficient “pay – as – you – go” private health insurance system (one much more dear monetarily than the federal system at this point,) is not in the offing as an alternative to federal health programs.  As well, the corporate tax reduction does not promise any economic identities beyond the simple possibility under improved economic climes of creating new value and income (some.)  Then, even as Mr. Ryan’s plan, or a similar plan, fulfills its promise, there would also be a propensity on the federal level, again, to spend the benefits of the tax relief, privatisations, and other efficiencies created by his plan, thus engendering an even greater deficit, and more confusion and chaos in the politics around the common sense of public policy and these matters.  Ryan’s plan to bring more discipline to public finance, due to opposition to it, and the pronouncements of its detractors, comprises a constructive and challenging solution for the interim, and for the reduction over ten years in the federal deficit, and this due to a presumed vacuousness of legislators in attempts to get behind it, promote it and have the discipline, again, to legislate and stand behind it administratively over the long – term. 

Anna Politkovskaya (anniversary.)

Anna Politkovskaya - Link to NPR program (Saturday morning, April 16, 2011.)

Link to NYT articles (Saturday morning.)

Photoportrait.