Category: Politics

Press Release: An Instrument of Distortion

I loosely follow a rule in my blogging that I don’t bother with press releases. They’re skewed to push the angle of whoever is paying the bill. It might be worth picking out the propaganda from a press release to find the facts, but I can usually achieve that with less effort by going to news sources to make a point. (Of course, most news sources reporting on circumcision are filled with propaganda, too.) Generally a press release is only good for demonstrating propaganda. This recent press release is a good example:

Hospitals in states where Medicaid does not pay for routine male circumcision are only about half as likely to perform the procedure, and this disparity could lead to an increased risk of HIV infection among lower-income children later in life, according to a UCLA AIDS Institute study.

The first half is fact. The second half is conjecture. News, then propaganda. The HIV-circumcision studies researched the effect of voluntary, adult male circumcision in reducing the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission from heterosexual intercourse. It is inaccurate to draw the conclusion that the foreskin puts men at higher risk of HIV. Unprotected sex with HIV-infected partners increases an individual’s risk of HIV infection. The male must first engage in that specific activity to become infected. Focusing on the foreskin distracts from efforts to reduce such behavior.

But that doesn’t sell the way fear sells.

But recent clinical trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda have revealed that male circumcision can reduce a man’s risk of becoming infected with HIV from a female partner by 55 to 76 percent. In June 2007, the AAP began reviewing its stance on the procedure.

By now you know what was left out of that summary, right? When public health officials talk about voluntary, adult male circumcision, they never mean voluntary, adult. Never.

As the press release so helpfully theorizes in its opening line:

Lack of coverage puts low-income children at higher risk of HIV infection

Think of the (poor) children. That’s not very original. It has the added bonus of being inaccurate. Are these children sexually active? Specifically for the age of the children discussed in this press release, the answer is no for 100% of them. They are not at risk of (female-to-male) sexually-transmitted HIV infection. But those necessary, contradictory details must be ignored. Think of the (poor) children.

That is how propaganda is done.

**********

Not to let an opportunity go to push for a collective response to an individual problem, the Family Planning Cooperative Purchasing Program helpfully regurgitates this press release, with the necessary bits of speculation helpfully emphasized in bold. An example:

In addition to the overall lower circumcision rates, the researchers found that the more Hispanics a hospital served, the fewer circumcisions the hospital performed. For Hispanic parents, the circumcision decision was about more than simply cost, since male Hispanic infants were unlikely to receive the procedure even in states in which it was fully covered by Medicaid.

What point is FPCPP trying to make with that emphasis, given the sentence that follows it? The only justification I infer is an implicit suggestion that we need to encourage Hispanics to “Americanize”. That wouldn’t surprise me because it’s the typical, mindless support for non-therapeutic genital mutilation in America. And FPCPP files this under “Public Policy”, among other categories. See above re: voluntary and adult. If it’s not that, I’m stumped.

**********

You and I, through a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, paid for this research. Mental Health? With mission creep like that, who could possibly worry about government-run health care?

However, this raises the question of national health care and the future of routine infant male circumcision in America. I’ve long held that the former would not end the latter. The political environment for defending non-therapeutic circumcision is too strong, as evidenced by studies like the one leading to the above press release. No politician is going to say that parents can’t circumcise, despite the clear constitutional flaw in our status quo.

Ending public funding isn’t sufficient. The state should not pay for mutilation, but fails to end the practice. Poor parents pay for the surgery out-of-pocket. They complain about it, citing the potential benefits as an excuse for why Someone Else should pay, but they pay the cost anyway. Their sons are not protected by their state’s lack of Medicaid reimbursement. And ending government reimbursement doesn’t always end government reimbursement, as Minnesota’s politically-motivated solution showed.

Still, I need to have a think on my position. I won’t suddenly support government-run health care, but I should explore the nuances further.

How to Require Extra Rules for Opponents

Steven Pearlstein began his Friday Washington Post column with this line:

To most Americans, the language on Page 52 of the report of the House Committee on Appropriations would have seemed perfectly sensible.

He’s picking a fight, but he intends to pretend that he’s not fighting because only the other side is fighting what is supposed to be “perfectly sensible”. Given that President Obama uses this tactic repeatedly to push the deficit spending bill, Pearlstein is not alone.

He continues:

The report spelled out the committee’s rationale for including $1.1 billion for something called “comparative effectiveness research” in the massive economic stimulus bill. For those of not steeped in the argot of health policy, that’s research done by doctors and statisticians who troll through large number of patient records to determine, for any particular disease, which treatments work best.

“By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and healthcare professionals, those [treatments] that are most effective . . . will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and in some cases more expensive will no longer be prescribed.”

Those of us Pearlstein attempts to discredit are those who will ask the important question. It doesn’t matter that comparative effectiveness research already occurs. Who will make those decisions? Stating without support that “nearly all experts agree [the effort] is a necessary first step to reforming a broken health-care system” does not dismiss the question.

After describing the opposition as a right-wing brushfire, he continues:

It’s not that these various groups have no reason for concern. If comparative effectiveness research is done badly, or if the results are used simply as an excuse to deny insurance coverage for all expensive treatments, then there would be plenty of reason to get out the pitchforks and storm Capitol Hill. And there are surely examples from Britain and other countries of people being denied access to the latest drugs and procedures, including some that are significantly more effective than other treatments.

So, we’re in agreement, right? What were we arguing about?

What the critics don’t have, however, is any shred of evidence that the professionals who do this research are incompetent or have any but the best intentions in trying to figure out what treatments are the most effective for patients. …

This is a bait-and-switch. We’re not arguing about the ability or integrity of the researchers. No one said anything about that. The issue is who will make decisions resulting from the research. Pearlstein’s desire to obfuscate the issue suggests he has an intention he doesn’t want fully known. It’s obvious since he spoke of experts he did not quote, but he gives it away as the paragraph continues:

… There is no reason to believe that once this clinical research is completed, it cannot be used in a disciplined, scientific way by physicians, economists and medical ethicists to determine whether there are drugs, tests, surgical procedures or devices that simply don’t deliver enough benefit to justify their cost. …

Physicians? Sure. Many could use a lesson about cost-benefit mixed with ethics. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of inertia, despite evidence. But where do economists come into this? Again, who is making the decision? I don’t think he means economists at insurance companies or parents as economic actors. As Pearlstein continues:

… And there is no reason we cannot set up reasonable procedures, overseen by independent health professionals, to protect patients who can demonstrate a special need for a treatment that is not normally cost-effective.

We finally get there. Patients need procedures to demonstrate a special need for “not normally cost-effective treatments”. When not trying to pretend that is enlightened, it’s called rationing. Regardless of an individual’s willingness to pay, someone else must decide if it’s cost-effective rather than first asking if the treatment is effective, followed by the question of how much it costs? That’s government-run health care, despite Pearlstein’s pretense that it is not.

Remember: Good, cheap, and universal. We can only have two. Yet, we actually try for three, despite Pearlstein reciting the tired lies that America denies “vital medical services to the 40 million Americans without health insurance”. Lies, plural, because we do not deny care to the poor in the manner Pearlstein implies, nor are there 40 million Americans without insurance because of it’s cost. He’s advocating services without visible sacrifice. Why would anyone think the goal of this is government-run health care?

From the Archives: Sirius XM

Consider:

Financially strapped Sirius XM Radio Inc. said Friday that it could file for bankruptcy as early as Tuesday if it cannot successfully negotiate with the holders of its debt.

Flash back to February 2007, where I defended the then-newly-proposed merger between Sirius and XM:

More to the case at hand, perhaps it’s better to let one of the two surrender and preserve assets for productive use than to make them fight each other until one company is toast.

Or both companies are toast, thanks to the FCC ignoring its 180 window for review and burdening the merged company with its theories on how satellite radio should operate. Look at the positive side, though. If Sirius XM fails, there won’t be a monopoly. Merger opponents will have saved the American consumer from a catastrophe!

(Disclosure: I own shares in Sirius XM. I expect the company to go into bankruptcy. I do not expect it to disappear.)

Mobility Improves an Economy

I dislike putting requirements on the ability to exercise a right, but we don’t live with a perfect government. In that context I endorse the idea Thomas Friedman discussed earlier this week:

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

This is not the first time I’ve heard this idea; the first was possibly from Jonathan Rowe. It made sense when I first read it. I haven’t changed my mind.

I disagree with part of Friedman’s conclusion, though. It’s the same short-sighted belief that government can accurately predict all economic factors.

We don’t want to come out of this crisis with just inflation, a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs. We want to — we have to — come out of it with a new Intel, Google, Microsoft and Apple. I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today — in the clean-energy space they’re dying like flies — because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources.

Friedman was so close. He is saying that government should (partially) get out of the way of economic growth, but it should get in the way of decisions made to build wealth by those who benefit from better immigration policy. Now we need to require that immigrants buy a house and have skills in politically preferred sectors. A question or three: Would government-backed venture capital have funded Apple when it wanted to build its first home computer in the 1970’s? Would it have funded a company making mainframes? Would a major industry player like IBM have leaned on politicians?

Still, the bulk of this argument is logical, which is why our government will never do it. Our present climate of fear and populism is too strong.

Ted Poe Field at House of Representatives Stadium?

Following up on a story I discussed last month, six U.S. House members from New York urged Treasury to ignore the call to cancel Citigroup’s naming-rights deal with the New York Mets:

“It is deceitful and unreasonable to single out Citigroup for an agreement signed several years ago,” they wrote, “without referencing the many other companies who have stadium naming rights deals and also received federal assistance.”

“Are we ready to remove their names from those stadiums?” Engel asked in a statement. “Or is this a rule to apply solely to Citigroup and the Mets?”

Naturally one of the original instigators, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), gave a rebuttal:

“All companies that came to Washington with their hands out for taxpayer money should have to answer to the taxpayer as well,” he said. “This is the consequence of getting in bed with the federal government — they are going to tell you how to spend your money.”

Isn’t it interesting that Rep. Poe refers to this as “getting in bed”? A responsible government leader would’ve rebuffed such advances. Instead we have an excuse to force control of resources and business decisions – retroactively – upon those companies. This includes the companies that tried to refuse former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s “take or take it” offer.

I have no reason to believe that the six New York representatives are acting out of principle. But the push is correct. And the Treasury Department is playing along:

“While we have implemented new restrictions on executive compensation and luxury perks, we will not get involved in individual companies’ marketing decisions,” Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker said Wednesday.

We’ll see.

Is God an economist?

Charles Munger has a column in this morning’s Washington Post. I’d use an insulting adjective to preface “column” if I could think of one awful enough to accurately depict his nonsense.

Our situation is dire. Moderate booms and busts are inevitable in free-market capitalism. But a boom-bust cycle as gross as the one that caused our present misery is dangerous, and recurrences should be prevented. The country is understandably depressed — mired in issues involving fiscal stimulus, which is needed, and improvements in bank strength. A key question: Should we opt for even more pain now to gain a better future? For instance, should we create new controls to stamp out much sin and folly and thus dampen future booms? The answer is yes.

Sin. That’s how you know you need to go no further. But we must, just to know where it will lead because central planners never understand that “imposing” is not a synonym for “restoring”.

Sensible reform cannot avoid causing significant pain, which is worth enduring to gain extra safety and more exemplary conduct. And only when there is strong public revulsion, such as exists today, can legislators minimize the influence of powerful special interests enough to bring about needed revisions in law.

Speaking of synonyms, “strong public revulsion” is a synonym for “populism”. Through the first two paragraphs, it’s clear that Munger has no interest in the economics of the current recession. Its narrative offends him so we must all act with the force of the government, consequences be damned.

Many contributors to our over-the-top boom, which led to the gross bust, are known. They include insufficient controls over morality and prudence in banks and investment banks; …

Insufficient controls over morality. Does Munger explain this? Of course not, because strong public revulsion covers it. We’re all outraged, so we must Do Something. His something is to increase taxes because it is our duty to “demand at least some increase in conventional taxes or the imposition of some new consumption taxes” to punish ourselves for our immorality.

The rest of the column is an incoherent, crusading mess.

Only We the People go to jail for unpaid taxes.

I wrote about Tom Daschle not paying his taxes on Twitter this morning, but it warrants another mention, this time with a comment from David Boaz at Cato @ Liberty:

I sympathize with anybody trying to hold down his tax bill. Government is too big and too expensive, few of us feel we get our money’s worth from our taxes, and we all have better uses for our money than bridges to nowhere and free condoms. But honestly, shouldn’t people who want to increase taxes on the rest of us — like Daschle, Geithner, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chairman Charles Rangel, Al Franken, Governor David Paterson’s top aide, Democratic National Convention staffers, Al Sharpton, and so on — pay their own taxes? [Links omitted for aesthetics]

Higher taxes are always about forcing the other guy to pay for what you think everyone should have. When it’s not about power, it’s about requiring people to care about the “right” outcomes.

But, never forget that it’s always about power.

Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don’t win it’s a … Congressional takeover?

You knew that TARP would lead to public shaming and Congressional indifference to contracts, right?

U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Ted Poe are urging the Obama administration to demand that Citigroup drop its $400 million, 20-year naming rights deal for Citi Field, the New York Mets’ new stadium scheduled to open in April, because of $45 billion the bank received in government aid.

“At Citigroup, 50,000 people will lose their jobs. Yet in the boardroom of Citigroup, spending $400 million to put a name on stadium seems like a good idea,” said Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat.

Citigroup and the New York Mets signed a contract. Now, because it’s not a populist expenditure, it’s invalid and Congress thinks it can tell the two parties that the contract is worthless. Surely demonstrating that contracts can’t be relied upon will strengthen the long-term economy.

However, notice how Rep. Kucinich refers to Citigroup spending $400 million. That is spread across 20 years. Are Reps. Kucinich and Poe suggesting that the economy will be bad for the next 20 years? Are they suggesting that the banks will be under Congressional control for the next 20 years? I know the answer to the latter, but I want to know if they’re invoking the politicians favorite power grab, the permanent crisis. That’s the safe assumption.

I also wonder if Reps. Kucinich and Poe have evidence to support their implicit assumption that naming rights do not work as a marketing tool. Being seen on television at least 81 times per year, as well as every sports highlight show after those 81 home games, are valued at less than $20 million per year? Based on what evidence?

More on Hillary Clinton at State Department

Didn’t Hillary seriously bungle the organization of her campaign, worse than even the shoddy results we saw? Fear, chaos, confusion? Is this the manager we want putting together an organization designed to represent the United States to the world?

Rather than politically stupid, this is starting to strike me as politically smart, if extremely short-sighted. That short-sightedness speaks to an unbelievable indifference to the leadership task at hand. It’s incompetently stupid. At least before, I thought it was motivated by something thought out.

Now I don’t even think that. It helps him protect his flank because Hillary’s political future rests on helping Obama rather than undermining him. But she’s not competent to do the job he’s offering, which is to correct and manage our international reputation and interests. Who thinks she’ll fall on her figurative sword at the first major screw-up?

I think Kip’s theory is likely, that Clinton will be the Democratic VP nominee in 2012. How better to protect himself from her, if necessary, during his potential second term? I also think this confirms my analysis on Obama saving Lieberman for his own political sake, not because he’s a new type of politician.

I’m thrilled that I did not vote for Obama. No buyer’s remorse here.

P.S. I link to Megan McArdle’s blog entry stating buyer’s remorse at Austan Goolsbee apparently being bypassed for chairman of Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers not to gloat that I’m smarter because she voted for Obama and I didn’t. I’m only saying that being skeptical beyond the point of cynicism will successfully predict a politician’s future behavior more often than his considering his campaign behavior. Ohio revealed the real Obama, not the rhetoric he offered before, or “secretly” during.

Two Random Political Observations

Joe Lierberman is still in good standing. Which is nothing more than “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” All of the babbling about how this proves that President-elect Obama is somehow a new, enlightened politician statesman above petty politics and revenge is nonsense. It’s a tactical move. Who honestly believes that Lieberman would maintain his position in the Senate if the Democrats had 60 other Senators? Please.

Also, Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State is a miserable idea. She’s not suited for the job because she’s a politician without a hint of diplomat. She’s wrong on all the major foreign policy points because she’s a wet-thumb-in-the-air-which-way-is-the-wind-blowing adherent to polls rather than considered thought. If it helps her, it’s good. If not, it’s bad.

And the talk that this sets her up for another run at the presidency in 2016 (or 2012 if Obama falters/she stabs him in the back) is complete nonsense. Ignore that she proved herself an inept campaigner. In 2016, she’ll be 70. Follow some cliche about 70 being the new whatever. I agree, but it doesn’t matter. It will be a long time, if ever again, before we see another president that old. Think the Republicans will start grooming any 62-year-olds, on the billion-to-one chance they quickly figure out that effective government is not about Jesus? Nope. The future is politicians like Rep. Jeff Flake. Young, photogenic, and at least moderately informed. This is surprising?

So, if Hillary Clinton ends up Secretary of State: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.