A few thoughts on Obamacare – more questions than answers.

I often wonder why the Republicans chose the name "Obamacare" in their attempts to ridicule Barack Obama's "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." After all, the first half, "Obama," merely gives credit to the person who orchestrated the passage of the legislation and "care" is a benign word, even a pleasant word. Maybe they liked it better than the "Make the Rich Pay for Poor Children's Medical Treatment Act." Or maybe they thought that people hate "Obama" so much that just by saying his name it will make them angry. The bottom line is that it seems to be a lot like the phrase "Yankee Doodle," originally meant as an insult, but adopted and even embraced by the target of the taunt. Now that the new law has mostly survived, what does it mean for real-life Americans? There are many articles, like this one, that point out some things and make a few predictions, but no one seems to know the answers to two basic questions that are on my mind. What kind of insurance will ordinary Americans be able to purchase with regard to A) Quality of Care and B) Cost of Care? I'm not convinced that the new act has meaningful price controls on premiums or that the quality of care will be well-regulated. In fact, I will predict that the insurance companies will essentially take the following position: "Sure, you can have all of those new bells and whistles demanded by the Act, but you're going to need to pay for it." Here are some of those bells and whistles. And then the American public will likely not be witness to the intense behind-the-scenes lobbying that will result in 20% premium increases every year. I hope not, but I'm not optimistic. [More . . . ]

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A criminal act by Congress: cutting the budget for Legal Services

Last week I attended the annual seminar my law firm (the Simon Law Firm) puts on for the benefit of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. We've done this for almost ten years, and I'm proud to be part of a firm that has raised a total of more than $100,000 for the St. Louis office of Legal Services. What does Legal Services do for the folks it serves? The lawyers of Legal Services provide "high-quality legal assistance and equal access to justice to low-income people." Consider this:

Our lawyers provide counsel, advice and representation to clients in a variety of domestic cases including orders of protection, dissolution of marriage, modifications, paternity establishments and child custody cases. Other legal needs are addressed as well, sometimes by bringing the expertise of lawyers in other specialty practice areas like public benefits, housing or consumer.

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Does college make people smarter?

College can be thoroughly educational experience. Many people who graduate college are much smarter compared to when they entered college, but this is not true for all of those graduate. An indictment of higher education came this year with a book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, by Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. As reported by the Washington Post, the authors of this book offer these stunning conclusions: ●Gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills are either “exceedingly small or nonexistent for a larger proportion of students.” ●Thirty-six percent of students experience no significant improvement in learning (as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment) over four years of higher education.

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Bernie Sanders channels the anger of the American People

Bernie Sanders continues his fight for ordinary Americans, and this is a dramatic speech in which he makes many important points. At 4:17 for example, he talks of the backdoor bailout, in which the Federal Reserve made $16 trillion in almost no-interest loans, in secret, to big financial enterprises worldwide. If they can do this, why can't the banks make loans to legitimate small businesses who are in desperate need of loans? In the meantime, the middle class is collapsing and those who are wealthy are doing better than ever. "What is going on in America?" he asks. What it seems to be is that we are "moving toward an oligarchic form of government where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of this nation." The economic disparity is so incredibly pronounced that the 400 wealthiest individuals in America own more wealth than the bottom half of America--150,000,000 people. The top 1% of Americans own 40% of the wealth of America, whereas the bottom 60% of Americans own less than 2% of the wealth of America (min 7:33). Between 2009 and 2010, 93% of all new income created went to the top 1%. Sanders reminds us that the people at the top no longer need to settle for owning private businesses. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, those people can now own the entire United States government. (min 11:00). The six largest banks own the equivalent of 2/3 of the GDP of America, and they write half of the mortgages and underwrite 2/3 of the credit cards. The working families of America want Congress to start working for them, and not merely for those who make campaign contributions. Sanders characterizes this as a "radical idea." (min 13). What can we do? Rebuild the crumbling infrastructure, including roads, bridges, schools, railroads and many other aspects of the infrastructure. We spend $300M per year importing oil, but we need to move to energy independence, away from fossil fuels and toward wind, solar and other sustainable technologies. We shouldn't be laying off teachers, but should be hiring them. The debt is a big problem, but it was caused by unpaid wars and unwarranted tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country. Then, the greed and recklessness of Wall Street exacerbated the problem. Now, a "solution" is suggested to be "social security reform," with is a code-word for "hold onto your wallet." At min 20, Sanders also discusses the "solution" being considered to cut Medicare. At Min 22, Sanders mentions some of America's billionaires who are threatening to leave the U.S. so that they won't pay taxes. He also mentions the 18,000 American corporations located in the Cayman Islands. Sanders urges that Americans are now saying "Enough is enough."

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Why rich kids hate their parents

I'm not convinced that most rich kids hate their parents, but there are presumably some who do. I also know many non-rich kids who don't get along with their parents. Franco Lombardo says many rich kids hate their parents in his new book, "The Great White Elephant: Why Rich Kids Hate Their Parents." Lombardo bases his claim on the failure of 70% of rich families to pass their wealth-making ability onto the next generation intact. This reminds me of a proverb:

The first generation in a family makes money (goes from rags to riches); the second generation holds or keeps the money; and the third generation squanders or loses the money (and so goes back to rags).
In this report by CNBC, he gives three reasons:
First, wealthy parents don't say "no" enough. "A child grows up with a sense that they get whatever they want," Lombardo says. "When they go out into the world and the world tells them 'no," they're angry. And they resent their parents." The second cause is time. Wealthy parents are often absent parents, and the kids feel abandoned. . . . The third reason is society , , , makes fun of rich kids. So parents tell their kids at an early age to hide their wealth. When the kids grow up, they feel that a big part of their identity has to remain hidden - and they blame their parents.
These reasons make some sense to me, but I like to see some numbers quantifying this supposed hate. I'd like to know who we "know" that rich kids hate the parents any more than non-rich kids hate their parents.

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