Leslie Marshall Letter Dear Leslie, Earlier Tonight,

8/14/2019 Leslie Marshall Letter Dear Leslie, Earlier Tonight,

1/20

Leslie Marshall Letter

Dear Leslie,

Earlier tonight, we had a debate of sorts on your radio show. I am Momus1978,

and I object to your conduct on many levels. Chief among my grievances about yourconduct is the way in which you constantly interrupted me and tried to confuse theissue. Whether you want to admit it or not, the idea that the stimulus bill created jobswas not mine. It was the Obama Administrations.

And lets take a look at what the actual report says, shall we, Leslie? From theCBOs own report, for your examination:

According to the recipients reports, a total of 595,263 full-time-equivalent jobsmore than two-thirds of them in education were created [emphasis added] or retainedusing ARRA funds during the fourth quarter.

Note that it doesnt say jobs were saved, Leslie. It says explicitly that 595,263jobs were created. Again, not my words, the CBOs own wording in its report on theAmerican Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And note the critical qualifier at thebeginning: the recipients reports. The CBOs report of the jobs saved or created isbased in large part on the reports of stimulus fund recipients. Those reports are notindependently verified.

This is problematic for any number of reasons, not the least of which is priorprecedent where recipient reporting is concerned. Lets take a report from ABC Newson recipient reporting dated November 16, 2009:

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30jobshave been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At leastthat's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billionstimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district inArizona; the state has only eight districts.

-http://bit.ly/bCF91G

And thats no isolated incident, Leslie. The fact is that ABC was able to finddozens of such examples including this one:

For example, recovery.gov says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent inArizona's 86th congressional district in a project for the Navajo Housing authority, whichis actually located in the 1st congressional district.

-Ibid.
http://www.recovery.gov/transparency/pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=4671&AwardType=Grants%22http://www.recovery.gov/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/is-the-stimulus-working.htmlhttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs/comments/page/2/http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8942985http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/President44/http://abcnews.go.com/Business/abc-news-exclusive-obama-administration-slashed-60000-jobs/story?id=9095621http://abcnews.go.com/Business/abc-news-exclusive-obama-administration-slashed-60000-jobs/story?id=9095621http://abcnews.go.com/Business/scrutiny-obama-stimulus-jobs-mounting/story?id=9075257http://www.recovery.gov/transparency/pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=4671&AwardType=Grants%22http://www.recovery.gov/transparency/pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=4671&AwardType=Grants%22http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/is-the-stimulus-working.htmlhttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/is-the-stimulus-working.htmlhttp://www.recovery.gov/http://www.recovery.gov/http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8942985http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8942985http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs/comments/page/2/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs/comments/page/2/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs/comments/page/2/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs/comments/page/2/http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/President44/http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/President44/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/160000-per-stimulus-job-white-house-calls-that-calculator-abuse.htmlhttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/160000-per-stimulus-job-white-house-calls-that-calculator-abuse.htmlhttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs.htmlhttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/obama-administration-stimulus-directly-saved-or-created-roughly-650000-jobs.htmlhttp://abcnews.go.com/Business/scrutiny-obama-stimulus-jobs-mounting/story?id=9075257http://abcnews.go.com/Business/scrutiny-obama-stimulus-jobs-mounting/story?id=9075257http://abcnews.go.com/Business/abc-news-exclusive-obama-administration-slashed-60000-jobs/story?id=9095621http://abcnews.go.com/Business/abc-news-exclusive-obama-administration-slashed-60000-jobs/story?id=9095621


2/20

The Administration wasnt independently verifying or checking the declarations ofrecipients of the stimulus money. As Ed Pound, communications director for theRecovery Board, notes, "We report what the recipients submit to us.

Or how about this piece of reporting over at ProPublica, in which we see that the

jobs created are usually temporary as opposed to permanent and therefore do notcontribute to the economy in a long term manner:

In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, $19.7 million in stimulusfunds was spent on a program that created 2,601 jobs. But the problem is, those jobswere part of a summer employment and training program, and by the time the state wasreporting their creation to the federal government, the majority of those jobs had alreadyended. Critics say the money could have been better spent fixing the economy there,Jeremy Redmon reports.

-http://bit.ly/b4f5mD

What a wonderful irony: the federal government spent $19.7 million on a summeremployment and training program, a training program for which there were no jobsawaiting the trainees once they emerged from their chrysalis newly minted and fullytrained in whatever. Of course, the fact was that the initial round of reports in October of2009 relied entirely on the reports of companies and organizations who received thestimulus, as this story (http://bit.ly/aQRvsH) in Politico noted:

We anticipate that these reports will credit the Recovery Act with directlycreating or saving about 650,000 jobs, a senior administration official e-mailedPOLITICO Friday morning. Because these reports show that less than half of the

spending through that date created or saved about 650,000 jobs, they confirmgovernment and private forecasters estimates that overall Recovery Act spending hascreated and saved at least 1 million jobs.

Now, Leslie, Ive added the emphasis on create in its various conjugations todrive home my initial point on the show: the word was used. You can interrupt, you cantry to confound, but you cant change the historical record. The facts are what they are.The Administration represented that the stimulus was creating jobs when in fact acursory review of the numbers would have revealed (and did reveal when the mediascrutinized the data) otherwise. It was a lie.

From this we proceed to the reporting of the Associated Press, whichdocumented the following facts:

-A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money.Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees.

-A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of Obama's economicrecovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000.
http://bit.ly/aQRvsHhttp://bit.ly/aQRvsHhttp://www.ajc.com/news/millions-for-summer-work-226197.html?printArticle=yhttp://www.ajc.com/news/millions-for-summer-work-226197.html?printArticle=y


3/20

-Colorado-based Teletech Government Solutions had worked with the FederalCommunications Commission to come up with a job count for its $28.3 million contractfor call centers fielding consumer questions about conversion of televisions to receivedigital signals. The company reported creating 4,231 jobs -- the highest number listed inthe first stimulus accounting -- even though 3,000 of those workers received a paycheck

for five weeks or less.

-The Toledo, Ohio-based Koring Group also received two FCC contracts to help peoplemake the switch to digital television. The company reported hiring 26 people for each ofthe two contracts, bringing its total jobs to 54 on the government's official count.But thecompany cited the same 26 workers for both contracts, meaning the same jobs werecounted twice. The job count was further inflated because each job lasted only abouttwo months, so each worker should have counted as one-sixth of a full-time job.

-Officials at East Central Technical College in Douglas, Ga., said they now know theyshouldn't have claimed 280 stimulus jobs linked to more than $200,000 to buy three

semi-trucks and trailers for commercial driving instruction, and a modular classroom andbathroom for a health education program.

"It was an error on someone's part," said Mike Light, spokesman for the TechnicalCollege System of Georgia.

The number of jobs should be zero, Light said. The 280 count represents the number ofstudents who would benefit, he said.

-The San Joaquin, Calif., Regional Rail Commission reported creating or saving 125jobs as part of a stimulus project to lay railroad track. Because the project drew from

two pools of money, the commission reported that figure twice, bringing the total to 250.

Spokesman Thomas Reeves said the commission corrected the data Tuesday andchanged the total to 73, although the count is not corrected in the government'sofficial job tally. He said officials incorrectly added some indirect job creation to reachits initial 125 total. He said the number should not have been doubled.

And so, Leslie, you get the point. Relying on direct reporting by recipientswithout independent verification tends to produce wildly inflated jobs numbers when itcomes to jobs created or saved. You know this, because you can read. You spend a

great deal of time on the Internet in one form or another, as weve tweeted back andforth in our jousting throughout the day for several days now. It took me less thantwenty minutes to track down the articles Ive sourced so far.

But on to the next area of contention, which is the second method by which theCBO generates its projections of jobs saved or created by the stimulus funds, that ofmathematical models. Lets review what the CBOs own report has to say about themathematical models the CBO uses:


4/20

Because they emphasize the influence of aggregate demand on output in theshort run, the macroeconometric forecasting models tend to predict greater economiceffects [emphasis added] from demand-enhancing policies such as ARRA than someother types of models do.

In short, the CBO acknowledges that its mathematical models are designed tomaximize the jobs estimates. This is intellectual charlatanism at its very basest. The

CBO admits that its numbers are fudged to some degree, but then expects us to excuseit because it revealed the fudging to us of its own volition. Poppycock.

So you have two methods of gleaning the number of jobs created by stimulus,neither of which is accurate or verifiable by an independent party. Actually, theyre bothcontradicted by independent examination, as weve seen in every bit of reporting thathas contrasted the Administrations jobs statistics with actual conditions on the ground.

The jobs that were created were largely temporary. They didnt last more than

ninety days in most cases. Going forth to claim that youve created or saved 2.4 millionjobs when you know that you a.) havent created or saved 2.4 million jobs, and b.) the

jobs that you did create or save are not in existence owing to the fact that they wereshort term temporary jobs is not only disingenuous, it speaks volumes as to what thisAdministration thinks of the general publics intelligence level. Were not stupid. Wedont need you to tell us if its getting better or worse. Were living in it, with it, andthrough it.

It was a rather slick attempt on your part to try and confuse the issue byinterrupting me to say that I was confusing the American Recovery and ReinvestmentAct with the recently passed Senate jobs bill. I wasnt, and you knew it at the time. In

many respects, you, like your counterparts at Fox News and every other partisan newsmedia outlet these days, were engaging in obfuscation of the lowest form. Yourintention was not to inform your listeners or to clarify for them what is actually going onin our world. Your intention is merely to act as an amplifier for the left, much as BillOReillys intention is to act as an amplifier for the right.

Its disgusting. But whats more, its dangerous. People no longer trust theirgovernment or their media, and social institutions in this country are eroding under theweight of accumulated cynicism as a result. We cant talk to each other and have a civildebate based in actual fact. The simple truth is that you have what most ideologueshave, whether on the far right or the far left: a narrow view of the world that prohibits you

from ever seeing beyond the prism of an ideology.

The problem is that you have a position of influence from which you could do agreat service to your audience and to your country, yet you will not. You refuse to holdthe Obama Administrations feet to the fire on any number of fronts, because you likethe Obama Administration on a personal level. Their philosophy aligns with your own.


5/20


6/20

law enforcement. The FBI was warning the regulatory agencies and the TreasuryDepartment about the problem of fraud in mortgage originations during the early to midpart of the 2000s. There were thousands of documented cases of fraud in applications,either because the applicant lied about their income or because their broker lied aboutthe applicants income in order to get the mortgage approved. This was criminal

behavior.

Sources:

http://bit.ly/aUl4ch

An article by Black on the Huffington Post documenting the proliferation of mortgagefraud and the FBIs ignored warnings of such fraud.

http://bit.ly/cY5Vvq

A USA Today article to the same effect.

You may Google for further documentation to this end if you like, should you have someskepticism as to my assertions in this area.

Deregulation by itself created a problem because banks were not required todemonstrate capital reserves sufficient to back their gambles in securitized devices. Togive you an idea of how large the problem is, Ill use a trillion dollars as my basic metricfor the purposes of an illustration. Take $1 trillion, and multiply it times 1,140. Thatsthe size of the problem. $1.14 quadrillion.

The monetary value of the derivatives on the market today exceeds the entireworlds gross domestic product. Its some 76 times our own economy here in the UnitedStates. There is no escaping it. We now have securities that vastly exceed in numberand in value the underlying physical assets from which they derive.

The effect on pricing cannot be overstated. Because of speculation, we arefaced with a real effect on our markets that has no connection whatsoever to real supplyor demand. Today, some 400 million barrels of oil sit in tankers that anchored offshoreand in tank farms that are running at full capacity. The owners of the oil dont want tosell it. The futures market keeps telling them that if they sit on the supply, theyll get a

better price. Theres only one problem: eventually, they will have to unleash theirsupply, and when they do, the price will drop precipitously. This will lead to productioncuts by OPEC, which in turn will lead to shortages once the excess supply glut iscleared away. Prices will skyrocket.

All of this because we allow futures traders and speculators to have a wideleeway, even at the risk of social stability and national security. We allow them toessentially ignore and even override market forces like supply and demand. It isnt
http://bit.ly/cY5Vvqhttp://bit.ly/aUl4chhttp://bit.ly/cY5Vvqhttp://bit.ly/cY5Vvqhttp://bit.ly/aUl4chhttp://bit.ly/aUl4ch


7/20

capitalism. Its something unseemly, something malignant, and it must be excised fromour global economy like the cancer it is if we are to have stability of any sort.

Its not about profit. When the storm comes, and it will, many of thesespeculators will be burned badly in the ensuing conflagration as they and their peers

make a mad dash to unload their stored oil onto the market in order to reap a quickprofit. Theyll lose. Theyll be insolvent as a result, and they wont be able to pay backtheir obligations to banks, who in turn will find their reserves frozen in order to hedgeagainst losses, and they will be unable to lend to businesses, who will in turn be unableto sustain employment and hiring because they cannot secure short term credit. It is anasinine way to do business, yet it is our norm.

Youre so damn busy resenting the rich that you fail to see the larger picture.This isnt about exacting some pound of flesh from the rich for the sins theyvecommitted. Its about the survival of our market economies, which have producedhigher standards of living for greater amounts of people over the centuries. Its about

maintaining some semblance of order in our societies.

When the people are desperate, they are susceptible to anything or anyone thatmight be able to alleviate their suffering. True demagogues emerge in such crises, andthe cost to humanity is staggering. We are on the precipice of the greatest economiccollapse in human history. I am not employing hyperbole.

The banks received some $10 trillion in TARP funds and Federal Reserve loansand guarantees. If you look at the Federal Reserves liabilities to capital ratio, you willsee that it is some forty to one. The institution is insolvent. Bear Stearns collapsedunder the weight of a 33:1 ratio, and it damn near collapsed our entire economy when it

imploded. Now imagine, if you will, the cataclysmic effects of the Federal Reserves

potential insolvency. This is the bank of last resort. It is our Alpha and our Omega. If itis overextended, there is no higher option to appeal to.

We are functioning in an economy where the rules of market force do not apply.Absolutely nothing is driven by supply or demand in this economy. It is driven entirelyby the speculative inclinations of a select group of traders and the interests theyrepresent (compare trading volume now with trading volume before the crisis and youllsee what Im talking about).

All of this must be corrected, but it wont be under the current Administration.

The President is being advised and counseled by the very same individuals whocreated this crisis in the first place. Their interest does not lie in unraveling the tangledmorass they created. They want to try and resuscitate the beast, to make it live again,even though it will only lead to further destruction of household wealth. You haveRobert Wolf, C.E.O. of UBS Americas, who raised $1 million for Barack Obama. UBSlost $33 billion in the mortgage implosion. Robert Wolf is now advising the President onhow to fix the economy he helped to wreck. Theres Larry Summers, whose own tastefor derivatives and investment leveraging led to billions in losses for Harvards


8/20

endowment during and after his tenure as president of that institution. Theres RobertRubin, whose time at Citigroup was marred by billions in losses, and scandal uponscandal. Citigroup stole millions from its customers by skimming overpayments oncredit cards into its general fund in order to boost its executive bonus pool. A Citigroupexecutive referred to the decision to engage in such theft as a business decision, not a

legal decision. Citis ethics were so egregious that Japan actually banned Citibankfrom private banking.

Sources:

http://bit.ly/aXLARl

Documents Citis settlement with the Attorney General of California and others over thetheft of $14 million from customers.

http://bit.ly/bWzYzw

Documents the closing of Citis private banking unit in Japan at the order of Japaneseregulators who found massive improprieties in the unit.

Then theres Goldman Sachs, which sold investors on securities, and then shortsold those very securities in order to expedite their collapse. Robert Rubin got his startat Goldman Sachs before he joined the Clinton Administration. Youre selling anarrative in support of this Administration, but the reality of the matter is that thisAdministration is thoroughly corrupt and riddled with ethically challenged individuals.They dont much care about jobs creation. That much is evidenced in the cavalier way

in which theyve handled the matter of unemployment thus far.

Source:

http://bit.ly/9gSotc

Documents Goldmans short selling efforts, which eroded the position of its owninvestment clients. Gods work, indeed.

Take that additional $25 in unemployment benefits passed under the stimulus.

For starters, $25 wouldnt even fill up a gas tank during that particular time period.Additionally, it also turned out that many recipients of unemployment were denied foodassistance because the $25 turned out to be just enough to put them over the incomelimit. The Obama Administration didnt bother to vet such things. Neither did Congress.Much like the jobs statistics, or the costs of the various stimulus programs, nobodybothered to check anything. Theres an indifference in this Administration towards allthings, whether major or minor, and the consequences for ordinary people are serious.
http://bit.ly/9gSotchttp://bit.ly/9gSotchttp://bit.ly/bWzYzwhttp://bit.ly/bWzYzwhttp://bit.ly/aXLARlhttp://bit.ly/aXLARl


9/20

Source:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934

Documents the fact that the additional $25 in unemployment benefits disqualifiedordinary working class unemployed people from receiving food stamps.

Take credit card reform, for example. The Obama Administration pushed for it,Congress passed it, and the net result was that many individuals and families had theircredit lines cancelled by the banks underwriting their credit lines. They were expectedto pay up in full in an economy where fully 40% of the population was eitherunderemployed or unemployed. Additionally, many other individuals saw new feestacked on at a time when they could ill afford to pay even more to a creditor. Interestrates were raised arbitrarily and capriciously by credit card issuers seeking to beat the

deadlines imposed by the reform bill. If anything, what credit card reform revealedwasnt the already evident sleaziness of the credit card industry. Instead, it revealedjust how woefully incompetent Congress was for the task of reining in any industry. Itdemonstrated just how little thought went into the bills authorship and execution. TheObama Administration just didnt think it through. It was sloppy.

Instead of looking towards the long term, this Administration focuses with oftenlethal results on the short term. They didnt generate long term jobs. They generatetemporary jobs. They didnt bother to check the specifics on the number of reported

jobs. They didnt want to know, really.

The truly tragic fact is that this country is dying for revitalization. Over 50% of our

bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Our roads are in pitifulcondition. Our levees and dams are aging. There are infrastructure needs in thiscountry that go unaddressed, standing as monuments to decrepitude. The need isthere.

This Administration doesnt recognize the need, or it simply doesnt care toacknowledge the need. Instead, it choose to focus on high speed rail projects for whichthere are no real demand and no hope for self sustaining business. The White Housepoints to Chinas investment in such projects as proof that we are falling behind. What itneglects to mention is that China is losing money on those very projects. The demand

does not meet the supply. In Europe, high speed rail has been an utter drain on publictreasuries, for it cannot produce a return sufficient enough to break even.

It chooses to invest in green technologies, despite the lessons we might gleanfrom countries like Denmark, which has been unable to get rid of a single coal plantdespite investing massively in wind power. The truth is that the technology isnt there.Moreover, the infrastructure to deliver green power to American homes isnt anywherenear ready to implement.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934http://www.thefreelibrary.com/STIMULUS+WATCH:+$25+check+may+cost+you+food+stamps-a01611899934


10/20

Instead of investing in the projects we really need, at a time when suchinvestment could have truly benefited the economy and generated long term jobs, theAdministration chose to go for the quick fix.

Let us be honest: we spend more than any other industrialized country perstudent on education. Yet the result we receive for our investment is average at best.

We have cut teacher student ratios over the past 30 years on average, and yet testscores have declined.

We spend far more than any other industrialized country on medical care, and wereceive a result that is far from commiserate with our investment. No one wants toacknowledge that the flaws with our way of doing business are systemic. They want topretend that it stems from a lack of investment despite massive amounts of evidence tothe contrary.

In healthcare, the problem is two-fold: fee for service incentivizes overtreatment,often with the result that a patient worsens under the excess of care. Overmedication is

nothing to play around with. Drugs have serious side effects. Overtesting is nothing togamble with either. The amount of radiation a patient can be exposed to in variousscans is stunning. Yet doctors who own their own equipment in the United States aremore likely to prescribe such scanning and tests. In some cases, they are four to sixtimes as likely to prescribe such testing as their colleagues who do not own suchequipment are. Doctors in the United States are six times as likely to order bypasssurgery as their European counterparts. There is no correlation between the increasedlevel of treatment and survivability or quality of life. In short, the evidence is substantialto make the case that doctors are driving up costs and profits in order to pocket

increased revenue from a system that is based on fee for service.

Other sources:

-Levin DC, Intenzo CM, Rao VM, Frangos AJ, Parker L, Sunshine JH. Comparison ofrecent utilization trends in radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging among radiologistsand cardiologists. J Am Coll Radiol. 2005;2:821824.

The above showed the following: Among doctors who specialize in the field ofradiology, the utilization rate for this exam increased by 2% over the period 1998-2002.Among cardiologists, the rate increased by 78%. The vast bulk of this large increase

occurred in cardiologists' private offices' where they both recommend the examand collect the fees to perform the exam, rather than in hospital settings wherethey do not benefit financially from ordering these tests.

- Levin DC, Rao VM, Parker L, Frangos AJ, Sunshine JH. Ownership or leasing of MRIfacilities by non-radiologist physicians is a rapidly growing trend. J Am Coll Radiol.2008;5:105109.


11/20

Which demonstrated this trend: Between 2000 and 2005, ownership or leasing ofMRI scans by non-radiologists grew by 254%, compared with 83% amongradiologists. By 2005 in the Medicare population, nonradiologist physicians performedmore than 384,000 MRI examinations on units they owned or leased, and their share ofthe private-office MRI market had increased from 11% in 2000 to 20% in 2005. An

additional note to this might be that non-radiologist physicians are less likely toaccurately read the scans they perform, as they are non-specialists.

-http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/12/dealing-with-un.html

This notes a finding in the journal Health Affairs which demonstrated that the number ofCT scans had doubled over the prior ten years (from 1998-2008) while the number ofMRI scans tripled.

-http://bit.ly/bHFCA9

Builds on the above citation by noting that from 2000-07, the use of CT scans doubledto 69 million annually, and documents the concern that the scans, which use radiation,might lead to an increased risk of cancer.

-http://bit.ly/9idb8p

A 1983 article in the Lodi News-Sentinel documenting the findings of a ten year federalstudy which found that 25,000 Americans per year underwent unnecessary coronaryartery bypass surgery, adding $500 million to the nations annual healthcare bill.

Adjusted for inflation, this dollar amount would be vastly higher in todays dollars (almost

60% higher). The study found that those 25,000 Americans could be better treated withdrugs to reduce arterial hardening and that they would probably come out head in thelong run, in terms of health and financially by delaying bypass surgery in order to trydrug therapy.

-http://bit.ly/9GyDeb

A 2001 study that builds on and largely confirms the earlier findings of the 1983 studydocumented in the prior citation.

-http://bit.ly/bfGJfp

Preston TA: Marketing an operation: Coronary artery bypass surgery. J Holistic Med1985;7(1):8-15.

Documents the following: Improved methods have reduced the amount of timenecessary for the operation, allowing surgeons to perform five or six bypasses in a daywhile putting in less work overall. Yet fees per operation have escalated: a study of Blue
http://bit.ly/9GyDebhttp://bit.ly/bHFCA9http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/12/dealing-with-un.htmlhttp://bit.ly/bfGJfphttp://bit.ly/bfGJfphttp://bit.ly/9GyDebhttp://bit.ly/9GyDebhttp://bit.ly/bHFCA9http://bit.ly/bHFCA9http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/12/dealing-with-un.htmlhttp://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/12/dealing-with-un.html


12/20

Shield payments in the Washington, D.C., area found that allowances for coronary-bypass surgery rose by 75% from 1975 through 1978, In 1979, according to onenational survey, most of the coronary-bypass operations in the United States were doneby 677 surgeons, who averaged 137 operations that year. At 1984 prices, a surgeonperforming that number of operations would collect fees of more than $600,000. And

since most cardiac surgeons do other operations as well and receive other professionalfees, their average income might be conservatively estimated at $750,000. Thesefigures don't represent the surgeons who are in greatest demand or who charge themost; some surgeons operate three times a day, perhaps 700 times a year, usingassistants to do the opening and closing. Their incomes are in the millions.And makes note of the following as well: a patient's chances of getting the operationalso vary according to where he lives and how his medical care is financed. In theUnited States bypass surgery is performed twice as often as it is in Canada andAustralia, and more than four as often as in Western Europe, despite similardemographics and social conditions. And within the United States, patients served byprepaid physician's groups receive the operation less than half as often as those whose

doctors are paid on a fee-for-service basis. The difference in financial incentives isimpossible to ignore. Canadian surgeons are paid about $1,100 per operation --roughlyone fourth of what their U.S. counterparts make. In Europe and Australia mostphysicians receive salaries rather than piece rates. So do the surgeons andcardiologists working under prepaid plans in the United States. Would the rest ofAmerica's doctors be doing such a vast number of operations if the average fee werecut from $4,500 to $450? I doubt it.

Keep in mind that this was back in 1985. The situation has worsened in the presentday.

The Role of Regulation in Creating the Current System

The simple truth is that under President Richard Nixon, the regulations governinghealthcare began to favor HMOs, and HMOs were driven by a fee for service modelwhere denial of unnecessary care led to increased profits while fees for serviceincentivized necessary treatment. The idea was that by denying unnecessary care andincentivizing necessary care, costs could be contained and limited. Nearly 4 decadeslater, we are witnessing just how wrong this idea was and continues to be. Instead ofcontaining costs, HMOs have exploded the cost of healthcare. Combined with aMedicare system that underpays doctors and hospitals for services, thereby providingthem with an incentive to pass along the cost to holders of private insurance, and the

mandates that the uninsured must be treated if they show up to an emergency room,government regulation has produced an absolute disaster in healthcare. The best ofintentions paved the road to hell.

In Wisconsin, uninsured patients who showed up to an emergency room forcatastrophic injuries such as those sustained in car accidents were 37% more likely todie as they received 20% less care. The cost of maintaining catastrophic careinsurance is $25 a month (http://bit.ly/90t0la). Think about that for a moment. We dont


13/20

need to a huge government mandate to insure these people for emergency room care.You could make that $300 annual premium for catastrophic care tax deductible, andyouve accomplished what you need to accomplish.

The cost of insuring those 40 million Americans who are uninsured insofar as

catastrophic insurance is concerned would be a whopping $12 billion. The amount ofmoney that you save by creating favorable conditions for such insurance to bepurchased through a tax break would be staggering. Hospitals would know longer bepassing the buck for catastrophic treatment on the uninsured on to the insured.

You would reduce the passed on cost to the existing insured, and you wouldprovide emergency coverage for the uninsured in the event that they were to beinvolved in a car accident or suffer a catastrophic injury outside of work. All for awhopping $25 a month. Common sense decrees that you would do this before youwould take on an overhaul of the nations health care system that a.) requires everyoneto buy into a system that is broken, b.) maintains that broken system by maintaining fee

for service and thereby ensuring that physicians have a built in incentive to overtest,overprescribe, and overtreat their patients, and c.) virtually guarantees that health carecosts will continue to rise from their already unsustainable current levels.

The Factor of Personal Choice Amongst the Uninsured

Lets consider for a moment that a sizable portion of the 40 million people in thiscountry who are uninsured are that way by choice (http://bit.ly/9303YE). Lets take alook at what Devin Herrick of the National Center for Policy Analysis was able to find inhis study Uninsured by Choice(Ibid):

Virtually all children from low-income families are eligible for Medicaid or the

State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Yet the parents of about 7.7 millioneligible children failed to enroll them. Research by the Urban Institute found that 88percent knew about the health insurance programs for poor children, but fewerthan one-fourth had ever inquired about them.

-40 percent of those who had not inquired and 16 percent who inquired and didn't applysaid they "did not need or want" the programs.-14 percent of those who had not inquired and 38 percent who inquired and didn't applysaid they didn't want to deal with the "administrative hassles."

The issue, Leslie, is not that people are lacking insurance because they cannotafford it. It is their choice. We live in a free country. The essence of healthcare reformis that it is coercive. It mandates that individuals purchase a private product for whichthey may or may not have a real need or even a desire. Herricks paper made note ofthe following reality:

Almost one-third of the uninsured now live in households with annual incomesabove $50,000 (Ibid).
http://bit.ly/9303YEhttp://bit.ly/9303YEhttp://bit.ly/9303YE


14/20

Thats nearly 12 million people who have the money to purchase healthinsurance but choose not to for whatever reason, as it is their right to do so regardlessof what you or I may think of their decision. The reasons for their decision vary, but asHerrick so succinctly notes in his paper:

Often uninsured individuals who are young and healthy do not want to payhigh insurance rates that essentially subsidize older, wealthier (less healthy)people. Most of the uninsured realize they can obtain care if needed. Simple physicianvisits can be paid out-of-pocket.

The simple truth is that while a good many in the 18 to 34 age bracket choose toremain uninsured, their decision has nothing to do with a lack of money, as the followingquote makes clear:

A study in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Monthly Labor Review found that

uninsured consumers tended to be younger than the general population - with a greaterportion under age 25. Although not necessarily poor, their average income was lowerthan the insured. Yet, as Figure II shows, the uninsured spent about the sameportion of their income on recreation, alcohol and tobacco as did the fullyinsured, but spent less than half as much on health care. If the uninsured have unmethealth needs, they would likely shift some of this discretionary spending towardshealth care.

The bottom line is this, Leslie: to a large degree, the inability of individuals toaccess healthcare and health coverage is non-existent. Many of the 40-47 millionpeople in this country who are uninsured are that way by choice, as in the case of the

7.7 million children from low income families whose parents did not want or feel theneed to sign their child up for SCHIP coverage or the 12 million uninsured who live inhouseholds where the annual income exceeds $50,000. They are free to choose of theirown volition whether or not to seek health coverage.

Moreover, the system incentivizes their failure to seek coverage by guaranteeingthem treatment at any emergency room they show up to. They dont seek coveragebecause treatment (albeit a reduced quality of treatment) is guaranteed by law. Whatyou dont want to acknowledge is that government regulation is directly responsible forthe failures of our healthcare system as they currently exist. The answer is not moreregulation; it is instead to repeal those regulations which provide individuals a reason to

remain uninsured.

We know that the uninsured in the 18 to 34 year old age group simply choose tospend their money on items other than health insurance. They spend a similar amounton recreation, alcohol, and tobacco when compared to their fully insured counterparts.Its not that they lack the means to access healthcare coverage, Leslie, its that theychoose not to because we have built incentives into the existing system which
http://www.ncpa.org/images/1669.gifhttp://www.ncpa.org/images/1669.gifhttp://www.ncpa.org/images/1669.gif


15/20

guarantee them treatment for non-emergency illnesses and issues at emergency roomsin every city and every state.

The results are disastrous. We are now confronted with the reality that manyhospitals are closing their emergency rooms to avoid insolvency. The answer is not to

mandate a purchase of individual health coverage; it is instead to say that hospitals areno longer required to treat the uninsured when they show up at emergency rooms fornon-emergency illnesses. I guarantee you that this will be far more effective at gettingindividuals to purchase private medical coverage of some sort than a mandate whichthreatens individuals with a fine of some $750 in 2016 if they do not purchase privatehealth insurance. The reason we have what we have in this country insofar as healthcare in concerned is existing regulation which provides every incentive to individuals totake chances with their healthcare coverage. Remove the regulation, and you willremove the incentive. Provide retroactive coverage through SCHIP, and those lowincome parents who show up to the hospital or the clinic with their uninsured child canbe easily signed up and their children can be covered for services rendered.

You do not need another layer of bureaucracy, or the government acting as theenabler of health insurance companies who have been exempted from free marketcompetition for far too long. All you need is for the government to admit that it createdthe system with its deeply flawed regulations, and then to recuse itself from involvementin healthcare for the most part. This would include lifting the regulations which exemptinsurers from competition, as well as removing the incentives for the uninsured toremain uninsured, along with the repeal of regulations which favor and incentivize feefor service and therefore invite abuses of the system and patients.

In short, you dont need the massive health care reform were about to embark

upon. In point of fact, you need to go in the opposite direction. You need toacknowledge that the explosion in health care costs has been the direct product of theway Medicare and Medicaid are structured, which in turn causes hospitals andphysicians to pass the cost on to privately insured patients who are already burdenedwith the cost of those two programs insofar as they pay taxes. You need toacknowledge that requiring hospitals to treat the common cold at an emergency room isa waste of resources and energy. And you further need to acknowledge that we createdfee for service, thereby leading to massive amounts of over treatment andovermedication. Nearly every single problem that currently afflicts our healthcaresystem has its origins in government interference.

Mandating that individuals purchase healthcare insurance is tyrannical.Removing the artificial incentives for them to avoid purchasing healthcare coverage (i.e.requirements for hospitals to treat them and antitrust exemptions for health insurancecompanies which drive costs up by limiting real competition) is reasonable and entirelyappropriate. And whats more, it will work to drive down costs, increase coverage, andeliminate waste and fraud.

Government Regulation and Banking


16/20

Government regulation, Leslie, is usually the culprit where social problems andills are concerned. Our government repealed Glass Steagall, which limited severerecessions and depressions for nearly 70 years, and created conditions in our financialsector with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that led directly to the current

economic collapse. The Savings and Loan crisis of the 80s was a direct result of twolaws (Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 and theGarnSt. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982) which essentially incentivizedbad behavior and faulty accounting techniques within thrifts or savings and loanassociations. Combined with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, these two laws led to anabsolute implosion of U.S. real estate values as investors who had previously sought toavoid taxes by investing in real estate dumped their investments on the open market atprices often far under what they had initially paid. It was an absolutely monument toregulatory stupidity. Savings and loans associations, or thrifts, had never beendesigned to function as enablers of investment in real estate. Their purpose was toprovide ordinary people with a means to save in order to buy a home or a car.

In many respects, the government rightly recognized that there were problemswithin the thrift industry, but the government failed to acknowledge that the root of thoseproblems originated in a 1966 decision to limit the rates thrifts and commercial bankscould pay on savings accounts. In limiting the rates, the government essentially limitedthe appeal of thrifts to consumers. Consumers were denied access to a competitivemarket whereby they could choose between the savings options of a thrift as opposedto a commercial bank. They were denied choice so that Congress could promote anartificial notion of stability within the banking industry.

This had the effect of stifling the thrifts by limiting their growth, and it exposed

them to fluctuations within the larger market. If high interest rates and low economicgrowth limited demand for the essential service provided by a thrift (i.e. that of savingsaccounts which were designed to result in home mortgages and the purchase ofexpensive manufactured items like cars) then the thrifts would be unduly exposed to therisk of collapse, as their ability to provide higher interest on savings had been restrictedby the government in 1966. In short, the government tilted the playing field towardscommercial banks, and when high oil prices choked the U.S. economy in the late 70s,thrifts were faced with mass failures because they could not adapt to the marketconditions by raising their interest payments on savings accounts in order to attractcustomers. Thus the government came in to provide the two aforementionedderegulatory laws (Garn-St. Germain and the Depository Institutions Deregulatory Act)

neither of which would have been necessary in the first place had the government notfirst interfered in 1966 to limit the rates thrifts could pay on savings accounts.

In the end, mopping up the Savings and Loan crisis with a bailout cost U.S.taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Regardless of your ideology, if you merelylook at the facts, you will see that none of this would have occurred had the UnitedStates Congress avoided limiting the rate of interest thrifts could pay their customers onsavings. It wasnt Congresss place to intervene, and the ultimate fruit of their
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn%E2%80%93St._Germain_Depository_Institutions_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn%E2%80%93St._Germain_Depository_Institutions_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn%E2%80%93St._Germain_Depository_Institutions_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act


17/20

intervention was the implosion of the thrift industry at a cost of hundreds of billions ofdollars to the U.S. taxpayer. That money could have been used elsewhere.

Government Regulation and Retirement

We may also consider the reasons behind our shift from pensions to 401(k)s as ameans of financing our retirements. Pensions essentially were funded by a share of the

profits of a particular company. Workers kept their paychecks and didnt have to fundtheir retirements out of their take home pay.

Enter the federal government, which decided that the Studebaker Corporationsfailure to pay full pension benefits to all of its workers upon its dissolution wasrepresentative of all pension plans. Occasionally, businesses fail. This is anunavoidable economic fact. When they fail, their pensions arent likely to be fullyfunded. Its not fair, or nice, but then again, life isnt fair or nice. Nowhere is it writtenthat you are entitled to have completely fair treatment from the cradle to the grave. Bad

things happen to good people.

Over the next decade, various efforts would be overtaken by elected officials toensure an equality of outcomes in the event of a companys failure, despite the utterfutility of such a nonsensical idea. As lawmakers busied themselves with trying plug theeleven holes in the dike of pensions with their ten fingers, companies continued to failfor whatever reason. The bloviators in Washington continued doing what they could tolook as though they were doing something about the problem of company failure, and indoing so, they exposed themselves as utterly useless. No amount of legislation couldprevent a company failure and ensure a utopia where everyone got what they perceivedas their just desserts.

The end result of the decade of bloviating and pontification by pols was thepassing of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which createdsomething called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The Pension BenefitGuaranty Corporation was established to take on the obligations of pension plans whenthe company underwriting the pension had failed. However, the companies rapidlyrealized that they could jettison their pensions and the PBGC would pick up theobligations to the current pensioners. The net result of ERISA was that instead ofsaving pensions, it ensured their near extinction.

Workers were given the option of funding their retirements out of their own

paychecks not only with Social Security, but also with deductions to fund newlyestablished 401(k) accounts. The results were profound. Private financial corporationsnow had a vast new pool of capital to draw from, that of the newly minted 401(k)accounts.

Workers were now exposed to the fluctuations of the market. The market coulddrive the value of their retirement accounts up drastically, but it could also declineprecipitously and drive the value of the accounts far below the actual contributions


18/20

workers had put into them. All of this, from a law, the stated purpose of which was tosave pensions and limit worker exposure to retirement losses.

In short, Leslie, the net effect of government meddling was that a.) pensionsceased to exist for most workers, b.) workers were driven into retirement savings plans

like 401(k)s which reduced their take home pay, and c.) a good many of those savingsplans and accounts would be depreciated considerably by market downturns, many ofwhich were also the result of government interference, as in the S&L crisis and thecurrent financial crisis which originated in the repeal of Glass Steagall through theimplementation of Gramm Leach Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.Furthermore, when you factor in the systematic devaluation of the dollar by the FederalReserves constant cyclical expansions of the monetary supply, you have a situationwhere regular people are slaughtered by the efforts of a government ostensibly seekingto save them.

Sources:

http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-4100.html

This is the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 over at the FDICswebsite. You may read it if you like, but I can assure you that what Ive written aboutS&Ls is concordant with the mainstream view held by many.

http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-2200.html

This is the Depository Institutions Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Theabove stipulation I made applies here as well.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_bills&docid=f:s900enr.txt.pdf

This is a PDF of the text of Gramm Leach Bliley

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_bills&docid=f:h5660ih.txt.pdf

A PDF of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act

Pay particular attention to sections 2h and 2g. These were the sections that gave usthe Enron disaster. Further proof of the efficacy of government regulation in producingbenefits to all, aye?

Conclusion
http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-4100.htmlhttp://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-2200.htmlhttp://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-2200.htmlhttp://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-4100.htmlhttp://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/8000-4100.html


19/20

In short, Leslie, if you are truly to be champion of individual interest and thebetterment of your audiences lot in life, the last thing you would take up as your causewould be government regulation of any sort. Weve had two New Deals, a NewFrontier, a Great Society, various deregulatory efforts, and a host of efforts designed toreverse the damage done by those deregulatory and regulatory efforts, the majority of

which have only worsened the lot of individual Americans and working families. Want agovernment of the people? Youll need a rope to tie its hands together behind its backand a piece of cloth for a blindfold. Thats the only way youll get a government that a.)doesnt interfere unduly in the lives of its citizens with disastrous results, and b.) doesntfavor one group over another. In short, Leslie, what we need is a government thatdoesnt regard the proscriptions on its power by the Constitution as mere suggestionswhich it can disregard.

You do well at talking over people. Youre quite skillful at interruption. But on themerits of the argument, you know very little of which you speak. This letter is intendedboth to communicate my vehement disagreement with your political philosophy and my

objections to the way in which you handled our discussion on your show. Ourgovernment does not have a record which bespeaks to any especial competence on itspart. On the contrary, its record is a strong statement in favor of limiting the power andscope of government in order to limit the damage it can do to the lives and fortunes ofits citizens.

The current crisis we find ourselves facing requires us to deal in facts rather thanrhetoric. It requires an objective reckoning of what works and what does not. Given thefact that many of the ills we face currently have their genesis in government regulationand interference, you cannot plausibly argue that more government regulation andinterference is the answer. Its time to limit government and to expand the power of

ordinary citizens to master their own courses and destinies.

You can choose to vilify the wealthy for their role in corrupting our government.However, people make moral decisions. You cannot buy someone if they are not forsale. You cannot blame the wealthy for recognizing the Gods honest reality of ourgovernment; namely that it is comprised of dishonest and unethical individuals whohave never met a tradeoff they couldnt justify on some level. In many cases, ourelected officials are the ones who solicited the wealthy and the corporations for bribesand contributions with the implicit promise of a favorable vote on a particular bill.

I choose my country. I am not an elected official, but I choose my country over a

quick buck. I choose to honor my obligations as a citizen by voting, by participating,and by corresponding with my political opponents in a sincere and honest manner.Would it were that you were capable of coming off of your blustery and bellicosemethods for a moment to entertain the ideas put forth in this letter as possessingpotential merit. What I have put forth in this letter is real. Its the way things are.

A good many of the people you might assume Im in lockstep with would recoil atthe notion of bringing back Glass Steagall, thereby splitting commercial and investment


20/20

banks. However, Glass Steagall was the rare piece of regulation that worked. It hasmerit. I am no parrot. My political philosophy is borne of long hours of personalinvestigation and research. It is not made up of slogans which any five year old ormedia pundit can spout mindlessly.

We stand on the edge of decisions which will have vast ramifications forAmericans in future generations. The greatness of our difference as a country is at

stake. America is uniquely different, and it is important that we preserve our distinctionsfrom other countries and cultures in order to ensure that those unique qualities thatmake our country great remain vital components of our society. The individuals right tochoose for himself or herself whether or not to buy a private product should not beoverturned by the government. Mandates are antithetical to our nations identity. Inimplementing such mandates we sacrifice our difference and come to resemble othernations with far less respect for individual freedom and self determination. It must nothappen. We will not have tyrannies of the majority. America is not a democracy; it is arepublic where the will of the individual is sacrosanct.

If you cannot understand this, I am sorry. You will be poorer in personal freedomand in an understanding of what it is to be an American if you refuse to accept the idealsthis nation was founded upon. I will fight with every fiber of my being against the notionthat the government should erect universal healthcare in the manner proposed by thisAdministration. It is tyranny; moreover, it is unnecessary and unwise for the reasons Ihave outlined in the preceding paragraphs.

Sincerely,

Jay BatmanMomus1978