All Hail Greg Weeks

Greg puts a hammering on Chuck Schumer on Immigration reform.

Here's Schumer on meet the press:

MR. GREGORY: Senator Schumer, is immigration reform dead then?

SEN. SCHUMER: I don't think so. First, let's look at how desperately we need it. Fifteen thousand people cross our border illegally every day. Most of them take jobs from Americans. And yet, at the same time, there are certain people we need in this economy to help us grow, and we can't get them--engineers, doctors, farm workers. So the system is broken--it lets the wrong people in, excludes the wrong people--and so we need to fix it.

Now here's Greg on Schumer:

This is both inaccurate and unhelpful. "Most" illegal crossers do not take jobs away from Americans. But if Schumer believes they do, then it is not useful to say we "desperately" need them to take away those jobs. Overall, he seems to think the U.S. economy needs only a tiny fraction of the workforce that is attracted to it, which ignores demography and common sense. Which "wrong people" does he think are being let in?

In short, if Schumer is the point man for immigration reform, then it is in trouble.

Kudos, Sir!

Left and Right agree: soak the "rich"

Tyler reports on health care contingency plans from the right and left sides of the blogosphere and they have one thing in common; the rich should pay.

M. McArdle:   "eliminate the tax-deductibility of health insurance benefits for people making more than $150K a year in household income, $100K for singles."

E. Klein:  "Revenue comes from a surtax on the wealthy."

Yikes!!!!

How about increasing the supply of medical providers? How about allowing insurance companies to compete for clients across state lines? How about eliminating the tax-deductibility of health insurance benefits for ALL people? How about experimenting more with the Mayo clinic type model which is not (in my understanding anyway) a fee for service model? How about encouraging people to exercise more, eat better and stay healthy? How about tort reform?

Of course the best thing would be to somehow reduce the hysteria about access to health care. Most health care doesn't actually work, and our society wastes billions of dollars annually on the health care game. How about a subsidized national pool for catastrophic coverage insurance and the rest is up to you?

It is a very disturbing trend to see individual groups getting singled out for benefits or tax hits. Unions getting exempted from the "cadillac tax", big banks singled out to repay the TARP money that went to GM and Chrysler, the rich to pay for increased health care coverage, Nebraska getting exempted from having to pay for expansion of Medicaid in the state.  I don't think we can expect good results from continuing this method of getting agreements or financing expenditure in the long run.

How not to do statistics

Let me start by saying that i like The Painted Area blog. However, they have cooked up a stinky statistical stew that I suggest you do not eat:

We've found examining a team's rebounding margin is a quick, simple way of projecting playoff success....it was no surprise that strong rebounding is a key component to winning titles. But we found it interesting that out of the 40 teams to make the Finals in that 20-year span between '87 to '06, only four teams had a negative rebound margin for the regular season. We also found that the +1 rpg margin threshold seems to be a strong indicator if a team can win the title....Currently (stats as of 1/6/10), the Lakers (+2), Magic (+2.6), Cavs (+3.8) and Spurs (+4.1) are in good shape in the rebound margin department.

Ok, people got that? Rebound margin = playoff success and look, the best teams this year seemingly have a good margin.

Or do they?

Well folks, the league leaders in rebounding margin (as of 1/8/10) are the Memphis Grizzlies at 5.3. Interestingly the blog does not mention them as playoff contenders, but does mention the number 2 and 3 teams in the league which are the Spurs and the the Cavs. They also do not tell you that Portland and Chicago also have rebound margins higher than the LA Lakers.

Regarding the magic +1 margin as the cut off for greatness, there are 10 teams in the Association with such a mark and 6 of them are Memphis, Portland, Chicago, Detroit, Oklahoma City, and Utah. Will any of these teams win a playoff series this year? 

The other four are indeed Spurs, Cavs, Magic, and Lakers, but this test clearly has way too many false positives.

Markets in one less thing

Reuters informs us that Horse is "falling off restaurant menus" in France:

"Many people love horses and traditionally, many French people have loved them even more with a side of salad. That passion, however, has slowed to a trickle in the last couple of years as crisis-hit French consumers buy less meat and years of campaigning by animal rights groups take effect.

Consumption of horse meat has fallen 12 percent in the last two years and currently makes up less than 1 percent of all meat consumed in France, the ministry said in a report.

And while only a few years ago horse meat was relatively easy to find, now it takes more time to track it down.

"Horse is indeed a French dish, but you'd be very hard-pressed to find it in any restaurants now," said the chef at restaurant Le Central in Paris, adding: "There's so much publicity against it.""

I guess Mr. Ed can finally visit Paris, eh?

Buried in BS

People, it seems that it now takes 1000+ pages to write a piece of legislation!  

The stimulus bill? Check. 

The House's health care bill? Check. 

And now, Chris Dodd's overhaul of bank supervision bill? Check mate! It weighs in at 1100+ pages.

Is it too late to buy stock in paper, ink and printer companies?

And, does anyone beside me think it's funny that "friend of Angelo" Chris Dodd, who should probably be in jail for financial irregularities, is in charge of bank oversight reform?

YIKES!