Saturday, July 25, 2009

A Case Study in Socialism

I received this as an e-mail the other day and have been researching to determine if it was factual or not. Snopes says it is not, but many bloggers are using it around the country.

"As the late Adrian Rogers said, 'you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.'

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.--------------------------------------------

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that."


Let’s look at this study in detail not caring if Texas Tech was really the location and whether or not the professor made the study.

First, let us go back to the USSR in it’s hay day and some of the factors involved in it’s demise.

Central planning. Not one of he multi-year plans produced in accordance with the plan.

The guns and butter programs never worked and the citizens were miserable. Alcoholism was prevalent in the military as well as in society in general. During the first part of every month, the military got all of the raw materials used in manufacturing. The last part of the month was reserved for the “butter” for the people. People never got their "butter".

When Soviet citizens were allowed a small portion of land to use for themselves—a victory garden of sorts—they could use this produce as they wanted. The black market thrived as a system of barter developed to ease the suffering of the people.

In order to vent the system while keeping the lid on the pressure cooker, the black market was allowed to prevent general mass uprisings as some goods became available through this unofficial system. People worked for themselves and for their families--let us call that capitalism. The only way socialsim worked was when there was capitalism to fall back on to pick up the slack.

Some blog entrees argued that the average grade everyone receives must be a “C” therefore the story is false. Another entry says it is false because socialism is about collective ownership.

Idiots. The professor can determine what the grade will be based on his arbitrary determination. I had a class in physiology while a sophomore at Utah State. I was in the mid 95 percentile on every test and lab and ended up getting a B. When I went in to complain about my end of class grade, his explanation was that he looked for a point in which there was a clear divide after totaling up all the scores for the quarter. In front of me were several scores in which only one person got that total score. With my total score, there were four of us. He therefore determined that since we began a “new grouping” we received a B and not an A for the 5 hour course.

I use this only as an example of what a professor decides, then grades are what they are and one has no choice other than to reluctantly accept them. For example, if the determination is made that 90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc. then that is how the grades are determined.

Collective ownership comes into play when all scores are totaled and then divided by the number of students in the class. The class is then given the grade, not the individual based on his personal achievement. By the way, I hated pass/fail classes in college. I wanted to graduate with a 3.0 or better and ended up with a 2.98. The 5-hour B in physiology and/or 15 hours pass/fail for student teaching killed my opportunity.

Bottom line is: when there is no incentive, people do not perform at their best—it is that simple. This can be argued, but in the end, results tell the story.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Health Care

As a retired Air Force Colonel, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. When I see the Constitution in peril and our way of life threatened, it is incumbent upon me and all other officers and NCOs to speak up and be heard.

I decided to begin this BLOG with the hope that it may serve as a rallying point and enable veterans to come together and discuss issues. Consensus is not as important as discussion, but I don’t want it to be simply idle chatter. To be productive it must have a focus on what WE can do. MOAA and other organizations are doing an great job with legislation that concern the military, but there is no organization which focuses on what is going on in the current political arena and how we might unite to influence those decisions.

The current debate is on national health care so let’s begin there and see where it takes us. There are a few recently published articles I want to bring to your attention.

HEALTH WIN = DISASTER FOR DEMSBy DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN Published in the New York Post on July 21, 2009

If the Democrats obey President Obama's command and pass a health-care bill by the August recess, they'll be committing partisan suicide.Obama's insistence that we completely remake our health-care system -- and do it two weeks after the first bill was marked up in the first committee -- is too arrogant by half. It smacks of the kind of overreaching of FDR's second term in 1937, when, after his landslide win in 1936, he tried to pack the Supreme Court to reverse its anti-New Deal rulings.

Americans are increasingly turning against Obama's program. A Washington Post poll has the plan's public approval below 50 percent; Rasmussen has it trailing 46-49. For Obama to ride roughshod over Americans' rising concerns about a matter so intimate will be too much. What's the rush? they'll ask. The bill isn't even slated to take effect until next year. You passed the stimulus package, they'll note, in a similar rush during the administration's first week -- only to see it fall flat. Now Obama aides are claiming the package was never intended to have much effect this year!


How, voters will ask, can we cover 50 million more people without any new doctors or nurses? The answer is to ration health care, with the government deciding who'll get hip and knee replacements, heart-bypass surgery and other medical treatments. And what does rationing mean? It means that the elderly will be denied care that they can now get whenever they want. The Obama plan effectively repeals Medicare, putting a Federal Health Board between the elderly and their doctors. This board will instruct public and private insurance carriers on what procedures are to be approved, at what cost and for what patients. The bulk of this rationing will fall on the elderly. We'll have to revisit the idea that the elderly have, in the words of former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, "a duty to die." The more word gets out about what the bill contemplates, the firmer opposition will grow. That's why Obama wants to push it through now, while he retains some popularity. And if the bill passes? The howls of protest from the elderly the first time they're denied care will be something to behold. It will become evident that the health-care resources being denied to the elderly are going instead to immigrants -- legal and not. The anger will be enormous and instant. Most Americans aren't sick and don't use medical facilities often. But the elderly constantly stay in touch with their doctors and medical providers. The curtailment of that access will become immediately apparent -- and in more than enough time for the 2010 elections. Some votes live on and on. People remember senators' votes on the Kuwait war resolution. President Bill Clinton chose Vice President Al Gore for the 1992 ticket largely based on Gore's vote in favor of the invasion. It sent a signal that Gore and he were a "new kind of Democrat." This health-care vote is similarly consequential; it will linger for years.

Another from Glen Beck is:

Well, here we are standing on the precipice of government‑run healthcare. inally all of the 80 bajillion people, which is an accurate number, 80 bajillion. We counted last time. Well, we had ACORN count for us. They are uninsured in America and they are all going to be covered. Critics will say, where are you going to get the money for all this? We can't afford this. Oh, isn't it just like those people? Sure, it's costly, $1.5 trillion even after Nancy Pelosi's millionaire tax. They are not even going to miss the money being gone. But there's still a one before the point that we have to come up with somehow, some way. Riddle me this, Batman, what's more costly? Mortgaging a trillion dollars we don't have or leaving innocent, cute, cuddly children without eyelids uninsured? I don't know about you, but I lose sleep at night knowing that there are a gazillions of ‑‑ we had ACORN count, gazillions of children in this world who lie in bed with their eyes wide open, dust particles and lint just falling there on their eyelidless eyes as they dream of getting healthcare to be able to pay for new eyelids. But no. No, the big rich industrialist doesn't want them to have eyelids. If only kids like these had government healthcare, you know, like they do in the U.K. Do you see any eyeless children in the U.K.? No. Sweden? Have you seen Abba? They have got eyelids, you bet. Don't look directly at any of our American bands, no. No lids. And if they do have lids, it's because they made enough money to go over to Sweden and get an eyelid transplant. Same kind of thing happened to 22‑year‑old Gary Reinbach. He didn't have lids ‑‑ well, he had lids, but he drank too many adult beverages and he was in dire need of a liver transplant. Okay, so he had some adult beverages. He was making a choice. Unfortunately for Gary under his universal healthcare plan, he didn't qualify for a liver donor under the strict national healthcare service rules. "We've got to be strict. We've got to be able to have enough money for those eyeless kids ‑‑ well, not eyeless. They get eyes if they are eyeless, but they get eyes and eyelids." Anyway, Gary was an alcoholic. Those bums. According to his family, he was desperately trying to get better, and a few weeks earlier he had checked into Alcoholics Anonymous. Unfortunately that wasn't proof enough for the powers that be, you know, the people that Charlie Rangel talks to in the elevator. They refused treatment for Gary and he died. He was 22 years old. 22. He had an addiction. He died. Now we can take his eyelids off of his dead body and give them to children in this grand universal healthcare scheme. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for government healthcare. All the caring, all the loving that's going on. They just want to give you healthcare coverage. That's all. It has nothing to do with power, control over people. No, no, no, no. It's about you. They love you. They loved Gary. The doctors, it's said by me, that they held him and they wept with him as he died. They just, they couldn't understand why some wouldn't let him die, why some would say, "Hey, he was 22." Okay, maybe I don't want to give him my liver, but is there anybody else out there that wants to give him liver? You know what I mean? How about a cow? Can we try to stitch in a cow liver for the guy? What do you say we give him a roll? He's 22 years old. What do you say? No? How is it that we just don't care? He started drinking when he was 13. You don't want to give him a liver? Do you know what he went through as a child? Do you know what his childhood was like? Oh, my gosh. Do you know what his parents were like? "No, I have no idea what his parents were like, either, and I don't really care." Isn't that what we're all supposed to do? We're supposed to talk like this? He had a bad childhood, and his whole childhood he laid awake at night because dust was coming from the ceiling. He didn't have any eyelids. They love you. It's about you. It's about your healthcare... unless you are the main cause of your health problem and you can't prove that you're going to get better. Like me, I'm an alcoholic. All alcoholics will tell you, once you hit recovery, you'll never, ever drink again. You're done. I could work at a ‑‑ I could be a taste tester at Jack Daniels. I could prove it today. In fact, I might. Oh, and this administration might make me want to. If you can't prove you are going to get better, well, they have to kill you. But hey, at least you didn't have to make a copay for that last hospital visit.

Finally

TriCare for Life is threatened. You remember the health care we were promised when we retired when the all volunteer military was put into effect in the 1970s? Well this is what’s going on now:

To: All Military Retirees:

This is a "Heads Up" on a battle we are facing now and down the road with the new Administration. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already drafted proposed legislation that would basically reduce our TRICARE for Life benefits to a system whereby we pay deductibles and co-pays up to $6,301 the first year for you and your spouse, with future years being indexed to increase with inflation.

What can we do? The article below, obtained from an Air Force Association and written by BG Bob Clements, best describes what we can do. Please read it and check the links for CBO language and do what Bob says-Send this email to every Military Retiree you know and write and email your Congressman often. For those of you that might have voted for "Change", you should do it more than often!

TRICARE FOR LIFE'S FUTURE....

TRICARE For Life was instituted to correct the broken promise that military retirees would receive free healthcare coverage for life and it covers the Medicare co-pay. Now a heavy assault has begun on Veterans'/Retirees' benefits to pay for other programs our President promised during the campaign. And it is a high priority of his administration. The one item of most interest to Retired Military is in Article 189. If approved by Congress the first assault wave would hit in 2011 and would hit hard. It would initiate cost sharing to require retirees to pay the first $525 of medical cost and 50% of the next $4,725 for a first year cost of $2,888 per person. It would be indexed to increase with inflation. A reason given for this action (for PR effect) is "overuse" by Retirees.

For those of you who are covered by TFL you will want to pay attention (Below) to what BG Bob Clements has surfaced about the future of TFL. In any case, on page 189 of the Congressional Budget Office report, see the note below on how to get to that spot, there is a strong recommendation to eventually eliminate the program as it is too expensive.

Just another move to slight those of us who dedicated much of our adult lives to the defense of our country. Strongly recommend that you contact your elected officials and register your strong opposition to the elimination of the TFL program.

Heads-up from BG Bob Clements,USAF Ret(P38 Bob) The following has been added to the Congressional Budget Office Web Site

www.cbo.gov/
a. Budget, Options, Volume 1: Health Care
(www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9925)
1. click on PDF
2. do a search for TFL

Now here it is folks and I will guarantee if you sit around on your behind and do nothing about it as they bring these options forward this coming year, you will lose one of the best healthcare benefits that the Medicare eligible retired military have. It is short of the promises made that we fought so hard for back in the late 90s and early 2000s but it is still the best healthcare program that anyone in the United States has, bar none.

People who are professionals always look for the channel of least resistance when it comes to cutting money out of the Federal and DOD budget. I can tell you this straight on, military retirees are one of those channels of least resistance noted for sitting around, doing nothing, and waiting for ole Joe to do it for them. You had better wake up. Your medical benefits are prime target. If you lose them, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Let me repeat that ... you have nobody to blame but yourself.

The way to secure your benefits is to write to your members of Congress and to keep writing and writing and writing.....ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH!!

Keep repeating the above statement until you are blue in the face. Now I'm going to make one more statement to all of you younger people out there who are not yet eligible for TRICARE for Life.

HEALTH CARE WILL EVENTUALLY BECOME THE DOMINATING FACTOR IN YOUR LIFE.
Remember that . . . . it will impact you big time with the utmost in cruelty unless you are fortunate enough to die from a heart attack or get run over by a truck.

The service organizations will put up a fight, but, they will need your help and can't do it by themselves. I hope this makes it clear as to what you can expect if you do nothing. To show you how stupid these professionals can be at times just read the data on the noted sites closely. You will see that in spite of the MTFs (Military Treatment Facility) need to get patients back to keep their doctors busy and the hospitals from going to clinic status, these people from OMB would employ a means to keep retirees from using MTF facilities by charging them a fee for services. How dumb can you get. Even if you are an Obama fan, and believe that changeth cometh, TFL option from OMB will not go away. They need the money they spend on you for other programs for people who produce nothing but votes to keep their boss in office. If you know of anyone who is Retired Military, please forward this on to them. Remember- TFL is an "Earned Benefit" that's been granted by a previous Congress.



So, what is at stake? The answer is simple and direct: "Access to services". Obama care will severely restrict our access to the best health care in the world. It will be rationed. Through rationing government will enter into each of our lives and control what we do, how we live and how we think.

If you believe this is the proper role of government do nothing. If you believe this is intrusive and exceeds the Constitutional mandate then contact your Senator or Congressman using the following:



https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm