Sleepless in Midland

States' high risk insurance pools worked -- Obamacare extinguished them

I've written about this before. The Texas high risk insurance pool worked just fine to insure those who couldn't get medical insurance elsewhere. Those would be people with the infamous "pre-existing conditions."

Now comes an article penned by Ted Nickel, the insurance commissioner for the state of Wisconsin, to wit. I Ran Wisconsin's Successful High-Risk Pool Before Obamacare.. Excerpt:

Prior to the ACA, Wisconsin consumers could choose from over 20 individual insurance companies offering coverage in our state. These included for-profit and not-for-profit companies; HMO’s and PPOs; and local and national insurers. There were a variety of plan options to meet a range of coverage needs.

While these plans were underwritten, individuals denied coverage would receive coverage from Wisconsin’s high-risk pool known as the Health Insurance Risk Sharing Plan (HIRSP). HIRSP provided Wisconsin consumers with peace of mind by providing high quality, comprehensive coverage to over 20,000 of our friends and neighbors.

Unlike the current ACA market where most people must wait until open enrollment to purchase coverage, consumers could enroll in HIRSP at any time. There were no pre-existing condition limits for people signing up for coverage if they had prior coverage. If consumers had no prior coverage, they would receive coverage for most conditions, but had to wait six months for pre-existing conditions.

In contrast, with Obamacare you may have to wait up to 11 months for any coverage if you miss open enrollment.

Once enrolled in HIRSP, consumers chose from a variety of benefit plans including both high and low deductible plans. While Obamacare plans are criticized for having narrow networks, there were no network limitations for HIRSP; members were able to visit any medical provider in our state and receive coverage when traveling outside of Wisconsin. Subsidies were also available to offset premiums, deductibles and prescription drug out-of-pocket maximums for low-income members.

HIRSP benefit and administrative costs were funded by member premiums and contributions from insurers and providers. No state dollars were needed to support this program.

That program, as well as the other state programs worked. But they didn't fit the narrative for the Obamacare sales pitch.

Meanwhile, CBO says Senate bill would increase number of uninsured Americans by 22 million. Someone should conduct a serious study about how accurate those CBO predictions have been.  Here's a good start: CBO Gets ObamaCare Reform Estimates Wrong — Again.

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12:47 PM 6/27/2017

universal basic income -- not such a bad idea if it really means extinguishing all other subsidies

Mark Zukerberg is the latest prominent person to advocate for it.

And conservatives are vehemently opposed to it, because after all, our nation was built on personal responsibility. They have a point. But we're on the verge of socialism anyway with that "safety net" propping up a lot of able bodied citizens already.

The beauty of the basic minimum guaranteed income as it's been proposed by Charles Murray and others it that extinguishes all over subsidies. That would include welfare, social security, SSI, food stamps, and all other forms of subsidies. Overall, they say it will be cheaper.

If it were to be implemented as they propose, it probably would be cheaper. But all those stuck cows will be screaming like stuck pigs. Under the guise of opposition to socialism, those beneficiaries of government largess will stop it from ever happening. Too bad.

As much power to influence as Mark Zukerberg has with the Facebook mind control tool, it's doubtful he could change attitudes enough to get this one through. Heck, Congress is so set in the status quo that it can't even adopt something as beneficial to the people as tax reform.

Meanwhile, as conservative argue it goes too far. Progressives argue that it doesn't go far enough and should also ensure a guaranteed job. Now we're talking real socialism.

A gun for every militiaman -- Maduro's armed supporters vs unarmed protesters

Many gun owners in the U.S. are opposed to gun control because they are law abiding citizens who believe they have a right to protect themselves, their families, and their property against villains who would ignore the gun control laws. Also, lurking in the recesses of their minds is the nagging fear that they might need to protect themselves from the government that disarmed them. Couldn't happen here, you say?

It's hard to predict the future, but there probably weren't many who predicted it would happen in Venezuela, either. But it is happening there as President Maduro called for arming citizen militia with military weapons. See 'A gun for every militiaman!': Venezuela's president wants to beef up armed civilian groups:

Maduro said he hopes to expand the number of civilians involved in the Bolivarian militias created by the late Hugo Chavez to 500,000, up from the current 100,000, and provide each member with a gun.

This is to protect his regime from protesters who he calls "traitors."

See also A lesson in Democracy from Venezuela where Russ Vaughn warns against Democrats' calls for disarming Americans. Ha! With record numbers of guns having been purchased by citizens in the last few years it's not likely those new gun owners will be too eager to relinquish them.

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2:20 PM 4/21/2017

MIT publishes communism for kids book -- for more realism the kids should be forced to give away all their toys

There's a story famous in the blogosphere in which a college prof responds to his students keenness for socialism by applying it to his grading system. Each student's test scores would be averaged with each of the other student's scores. The arithmetic mean would be the grade that each of them received all the way through the semester, including the final exam.

As you might have predicted, the first test scores ran the range from high to low. But the students who made the highest grades realized that too many others were free-loading off their work. So they slacked off, too. The final grade they all ended up with was well below the mean of the first test score.

Lesson leaned. The story is so good even Snopes can't debunk it except to say "his scheme was actually more a demonstration of communism than of socialism." Alrighty then.

So when we hear that MIT Press Publishes ‘Communism for Kids’ Book, one has to wish the kids could be given a real life experience like the one above. For example, each would be required to put his/her favorite toy in a community box, and any other child could take it. The kids who grabbed the best toys would like it.

For a real life example, see Venezuela. Oh wait, that's not communism, that's socialism. OK then, see Russia. The end result is totalitarianism.

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3:51 PM 4/17/2017

Ah socialism -- Sweden's tax system allows taxpayers to earn more interest on overpayments than banks pay, so they overpay their taxes

Sweden is on everyone's mind these days because Donald Trump raised the issue of their horrid experience with the hoards of violent migrants. It's a teachable lesson that the U.S. open borders crowd should heed. But let's switch gears for a moment and talk about this interesting quirk in Sweden's tax system.

A deposit in a Swedish bank is subject to a negative interest rate -- the depositor has to pay the bank to hold the money. The goal in Sweden's case is to curb deflation. But depositors who want their money to work for them and not the bank have figured out a way to game the system.

Seems that the country's tax code provides that the government will pay interest on tax overpayments. So those who might otherwise put the money in the bank merely give it to the government in the form of a tax payment. That way they earn interest on it. Here's Business Insider in Sweden's government has a bizarre economic problem — it is collecting too much tax:

With interest rates in the country at -0.5%, holding cash in bank accounts and other savings vessels provides little to no return and in many cases actually costs people money.

But thanks to the way Sweden's taxation system is set up, Swedes can earn interest by paying more tax than they need to and leaving it in their taxpayer payment accounts. These accounts pay interest of 0.56%, far in excess of bank interest rates in the country.

Pretty clever work-around. Now if only it were that easy to solve the problem of immigrants unwilling to assimilate.

Why Americans are sour on immigration -- too many in other countries don't understand free markets

We have enough problems already. We don't need more people prone to rioting. OK, not every immigrant is ready to riot, but the face of things at the old country don't look so good.

I'm talking here about the recent deregulation of gasoline prices in Mexico. In a free market prices will fluctuate with supply and demand. With a central economic planning committee setting prices, the market doesn't really get to correct itself when shortages occur.

So when we see items like this, it's troubling. Protests ignited by gasoline price hikes continue to roil Mexico. Excerpt:

More than a week after the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto deregulated gasoline prices, which instantly rose as much as 20%, Mexico is engulfed in a nationwide rebellion.

Four people have been killed and more than 1,500 arrested while looting, staging road blockades and marching in protests such as the weekend demonstrations in Rosarito and along the border.

The price hike, which many believe will lead to higher prices for food and household goods, is opposed by 99% of Mexicans, according to a recent poll, and has drawn the condemnation of business groups, truckers unions, leaders of the political opposition and even the Catholic Church.

What's worrisome about this is the prospect that immigrants from Mexico bring their politics to the U.S.

And Democrats struggle to understand why Trump's promise of a wall was so popular among his supporters.

Meanwhile, is Mexico another Venezuela but with drug cartels? We'll see.

Gloria Alvarez -- a voice of reason in South America

As everyone knows by now, John Stossel's TV show on Fox News has ended. I'll miss him even though I missed most of his shows. He was a breath of fresh air for conservatives and liberals alike, although his libertarian message seemed more at home on a conservative network than it did when he was on a liberal one.

This came to mind when I ran across a link to a segment from his show featuring Gloria Alvarez. Mark J. Perry has a tribute to Stossel at John Stossel’s TV show ends — his contributions to advancing libertarian principles have been unmatched, invaluable. There he linked to a youtube segment of a show I actually did see.

If you've got any concern for South America and its people, this is a must see. Gloria Alvarez is an amazing speaker, and let's hope she is persuasive, because she has a message about socialism South Americans need to hear.

It should be clear that socialism has a brilliant but short life span. And it always ends in misery. (Yeah, I know, Sweden seems to be an exception. But whatever magic keeps them going hasn't occurred elsewhere.)

Anyway, here's John Stossel's interview with Gloria Alvarez. It's short. Watch it. With enough young people in South America like her, there's hope.

Nordic socialism doesn't live up to hype

It's sad that so many people claim to want socialism for the U.S., but it's interesting that their model isn't South America where it has been an absolute failure but the Nordic countries which are held up as the ideal.

It's nice to have someone come along to debunk the Nordic myth. The Nordic nations were characterized by "free markets and small government in the 19th century and early 20th century. Unfortunately, the big welfare state policies, starting in the 1960s, have hampered their economic performance." Source: Veronique de Rugy's Does Socialism Work for Sweden? That's the Wrong Question. She goes on:

Work ethics and a higher tolerance for collecting undeserved benefits have developed slowly, but the data show that over time, "Nordic people have changed their attitudes as social democratic policies have made it less rewarding to work hard and more rewarding to live off the government."

She's quoting from a book by Nima Sanandaji titled Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism. More from de Rugy:

Finally, Sanandaji writes, "Nordic countries have more generous welfare systems than the United States, but change has indeed taken place." In recent years, they've tempered the damage of their big-government policies by scaling back their welfare states and setting limits on their fiscal burdens. Their governments have adopted more work incentives, lowered taxes and allowed for more flexibility when hiring and firing workers. They've opened their public schools and health care to more competition, and Sweden partially privatized its pension system. They may not be free market quite yet, but they're no socialist—or even liberal—utopia, either.

So the right question would seem to be, "when will politicians stop promising a utopia they know is not achievable?" The answer is, "after they get elected to the office they seek."

Meanwhile, here are two penned by Nima Sanandaji himself:
Nordic Socialism Isn't the Answer for America and
The Nordic Democratic-Socialist Myth.

Matt Patterson explains how to be a liberal -- shortened version, bury head in sand

Mr. Patterson really does a number on liberals in How to Be a Liberal. Seems that ignorance and hypocrisy are the two main requirements.

And he's probably right. So much of what today passes as progressive dogma has been demonstrated time and time again to bring more destruction than progress to the people under its influence.

Here's Patterson:

Ignorance is an absolute must, but especially ignorance of three things: economics, human nature and all of recorded history.

One has to be truly economically illiterate to believe that high taxes encourages productivity, that union-imposed labor regulations don't dis-incentivize hiring, that energy regulations don't raise prices on the poor and working class.

Likewise, to be a liberal you must pretend that men and women are exactly alike in every respect and that communism produces the most happiness for the most people.

Of course you can search the history books in vain for a communist society that did not produce poverty, misery and/or death on vast scales. But American liberals don’t read history books – just note the vast throngs who came out to support Bernie Sanders for President of the United States.

My only complaint is the use of the word "liberal." It's more of a regret than a complaint. The word meant something entirely different a while ago, and it was a good thing. But lefties took over the word to label their own deeds with it, but they ruined it and are trying to abandon it. "Progressive" is another word from long ago that is having a revival. But if we agree that lefties don't know much about history then any old word will do. Hey, "Lefty" still works.

Let's hope American socialists are learning the right lessons from Venezuela

The only candidate who actually admitted to being a socialist was the defeated Bernie Sanders. But Hillary Clinton, who aspires to a third Obama term, certainly bumps up against socialist principles with her own promises. You know the ones: free college tuition, free medicare and more entitlements in general. If some Americans want it, she promised it to them to get their votes.

The sad news from the socialist world of Venezuela is that President Maduro may order citizens to work on the farms to alleviate food shortages. This provides a good example of the famous lesson that socialism works just fine until you run out of other people's money.

Will Democrats learn from that? If those person-on-the-street interviews we see on TV are any clue, it's doubtful that many even know what's going on there.

But hey, maybe it will work here. I don't mean socialism, I mean citizens working on the farm. Nah, probably not. Unfortunately, these may be the jobs that Americans won't do. Americans have become too accustomed to demonstrating in the streets to get what they want. If it isn't forthcoming, then the demonstration becomes a shelf clearing riot. Good times ahead, for sure.

Charles Murray makes the case for a universal basic income

Free money! What's not to like about that? It's a wonder Bernie Sanders isn't promising that.

Not everyone likes the idea, though. A referendum was just defeated by voters in Switzerland which would have given every citizen a basic income paid from the government treasury. Most of us thought that was probably the best outcome. However, Charles Murray has a different take on the universal basic income (UBI) that's worth a look.

He contends "that a UBI is our only hope to deal with a coming labor market unlike any in human history and that it represents our best hope to revitalize American civil society." See A Guaranteed Income for Every American.

However, it will work only if replaces all other payment systems and the agencies that manage them. And there's where it starts to make sense. Here's Murray:

The UBI is to be financed by getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare. As of 2014, the annual cost of a UBI would have been about $200 billion cheaper than the current system. By 2020, it would be nearly a trillion dollars cheaper.

Read the whole thing for the numbers and the upper individual income limit where it would partially phase out. He acknowledges that the UBI might make bums of some people. But, he says, we've got plenty of those already. The question would be whether we would have more of them.

In that regard, the survey cited here isn't encouraging:

"The millennial workforce is predominantly 'checked out,' not putting energy or passion into their jobs. They are indifferent about work and show up just to put in their hours," said the survey of the 73-million strong group.

In any event, Murray always makes a good point. And we would do well not to ignore him however unlikely the ideas are to get implemented.

It really is the takers vs the makers

I don't remember whether it was Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders who promised her/his audience free college tuition. Perhaps it was both. An audience member planning to attend or currently attending college would be very receptive to that promise. And anyone stuck under debt for his/her college tuition would be similarly receptive to a promise of debt forgiveness.

Presumably the promise of a free single payer full coverage medical insurance program would garner the same level of support. A promise of a higher minimum wage certainly has an eager audience. We've already seen that.

But when we factor in that 45% of Americans don't pay income taxes, we need to wonder where all that money to pay for these promises will come from. They could tax the rich 100% and it wouldn't cover the cost of all those promises. Someone has to make money before they can pay taxes, and if you remove any incentive to do that and throw in all the free stuff, then there's little reason to work for pay above the minimum wage, however much it happens to be.

What we've become is a nation populated with people with fantasy prone personalities. It's the takers vs the makers with the takers mesmerized by the promises of a politician whose only interest is getting elected.

Post Script: Speaking of fantasy prone personalities, Republicans have plenty of those in their midst, too.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need -- Socialism vs socialism

We've all heard that famous quote. As for its origin, here's what Wikipedia says: "Although Marx is popularly thought of as the originator of the phrase, the slogan was common to the socialist movement and was first used by Louis Blanc in 1851."

In any event, it does seem to represent the theory of socialism. And in a Utopian sense it embodies fairness.

But it runs head first into the present day theory of socialism that holds that everyone should earn the same amount. For the strongest example of this listen to the arguments set forth whenever the issue of women's wages comes up. When all American women are lumped together and their wages are compared with all American men, the women come out losers. Career choices and hours worked caused that difference. But that doesn't matter. Everyone should be making the same amount, according to the theory.

Minimum wage laws seek to accomplish the same thing.

But what about that famous quote about redistribution according to ability and need? The flaw is that in order to take from the ones with ability, those people need to be making more money than those without the ability. If everyone is making the same, then there is nothing to distribute to the ones with needs and no ability.

Whether we call it redistribution, socialism, marxism, communism, or making the rich pay their fair share, it won't work because it destroys the incentive of those with ability to use that ability. Everyone earns the same, and there's no reason to work any harder than the weakest member of the work force.

Most Dems say they prefer socialism, when it's described in a certain way

There's a big disconnect. Many of our fellow Americans say they prefer socialism for our country. But what they don't realize is that the people who would attempt to run the country under such a system aren't smart enough to do it. That's not an attack on anyone's intelligence, it's simply an obvious fact. There are plenty of examples where it was proven to be true. Look at the various federal government agencies and try to find one you would use as a model for how the economy would be run.

How about the Department of Veterans Affairs? It has all the earmarks of a socialist environment, specifically, government run, worker rewards unrelated to accomplishment, under-served clients, and corruption aplenty.

Anyway, back to the point. Rick Moran writes this: Poll: Majority of Dems say socialism has a 'positive impact' on society, and he quotes from Politico:

The two competing economic theories were described to respondents by the pollster. Socialism was defined as a system for those who believe “corporations have too much control and that the capitalist system is set up to favor the rich and powerful,” and that “the only way to police corporations and protect the citizens is for the government to take a larger role in managing the economy to make sure that every individual has equal access to basic necessities and public goods, even if that means that some people have to transfer their wealth to others."

What a distorted view. Little wonder so many people said they favored socialism -- it's all about fairness and equality. Mr. Moran wisely favors Webster's dictionary over Bloomberg/Des Moines Register for definitions.

Hiding the bodies -- the one thing socialists are good at

Given how popular the "Socialist" brand has become in the U.S. lately, it's refreshing to see someone bring to the forefront the horrors that have accompanied it through time. Mark J. Perry does the review justice with The ‘Everest of bodies’ who are the ‘victims of socialism’ in which he quotes from Alan Charles Kors' article “Can There Be an ‘After Socialism’?” Here is Kors as quoted by Perry:

No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. The bodies are all around us. And here is the problem: No one talks about them. No one honors them. No one does penance for them. No one has committed suicide for having been an apologist for those who did this to them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag Archipelago: “No, no one would have to answer. No one would be looked into.” Until that happens, there is no “after socialism.”

The West accepts an epochal, monstrous, unforgivable double standard. We rehearse the crimes of Nazism almost daily, we teach them to our children as ultimate historical and moral lessons, and we bear witness to every victim. We are, with so few exceptions, almost silent on the crimes of Communism.

This time is different, they'll say. Sure, we yearn for an autocratic leader who'll take charge and redistribute the wealth accumulated by all those filthy rich people. But there it will stop. Our autocratic leader is a nice one. We love our autocratic leader.

Tom Trinko has categorized self professed socialists into four types

This is pretty good. Mr. Trinko has described four categories of thought for individuals who claim to be socialists in The Four Types of Socialists.

The easiest category consists of those who expect to be on the receiving end of the government largess. I confess to having thought until now that this category dominates the Democrat party. But Mr. Trinko goes farther.

There are those who think the government can spend money better than they could do it themselves. This seems a little crazy to most of us, but they are out there. Mr. Trinko assumes these people are also expecting a benefit, but their benefit comes in the form of crony capitalism.

I would expand on this group and speculate it is a lot larger because it consists of all those kind hearted individuals who see a problem, or are convinced of a problem by politicians or the media, and they think to themselves, "That's terrible. Someone should do something." What they mean is, "Someone else should do something." Because they themselves will do nothing but press a button in the voting booth. I suspect this is a very large group.

Then there are the politicians like Bernie Sanders who believe that they really can spend tax payers' money better than they can.

Bernie is the latest in a long line of liberals who believe that the people lack the ability to decide for themselves how they are to live. People like Bernie believe that the enlightened few, such as him, have a responsibility to save the people from themselves.

Mr. Trinko's last category consists of people who have such a poor understanding of money, economics, and industry that they think money is produced magically and in unlimited supply. These people have the right to vote just like you and me. If only they would recognize their limitations and abstain.

Meanwhile, if you want to see conservatives put into categories, you shouldn't have to look too hard, because their detractors have been doing that for a long time.

What's the difference between socialists and Democrats?

The answer is easy enough.

According to Merriam-Webster, socialism means the following:

a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies

The difference is that Democrats believe major industries can be owned by individual people and companies, but they should be controlled by government. See the difference?

However, both Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz dodge the question. Would the answer scare voters? Seems they think it will. So they continue to come up with new phrases, like progressive Democrat, to describe themselves. There. Problem solved and commoners mollified.

Americans: People should have the freedom to make their own mistakes.

Democrats: No. We should be able to make the mistakes for you.

News media laments fact that doctors aren't on board with socialized medicine

President Obama and his accomplices in the House and Senate performed a major transformation of the nation's health care with the unpopular Obamacare law.

There's still hope that a newly elected president can get it repealed. Yes, that means they'll have to replace that tiny portion that attempted to correct some of the problems with the old system. But it would have to be an improvement.

What brings this to mind today is an infuriating opinion piece on the front page of the print edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram titled "Doctors must bend a little to help fix a broken health care system."

So it's up to doctors to fix a system broken by the government. Doctors probably hate socialism as much as the rest of us. The government dictates they they must work in an environment where prices are fixed at a rate that is too low. But here's what must really hurt. They get condemned for complaining about it and are told that the problem is theirs to fix.

BTW, here's a suggestion to the morning paper. If it's the people you want to help, you could conduct a survey of local practitioners. With more and more people dumped into Medicaid by Obamacare, the morning paper might provide a service by conducting a survey among local doctors and tell its readers which ones, if any, will accept new Medicaid patients.

Related: Medicaid: A Fifty-Year-Old Flimflam.

The North won the war and wants to obliterate Confederate symbols -- So let them, there are bigger things worth fighting for

A conquering nation typically wants to extinguish any symbols of the conquered nation. For the losing side, those are the breaks. It's a little bit tougher when the conquering nation has in its constitution an amendment prohibiting government interference with free speech. So the winning side has to try to shame the losing side into abolishing its symbols. It seems to be working in the case of the Confederate flag.

But so what? This is all a distraction. The flag had very little if anything to do with the massacre at Charleston. But there seem to be plenty of people who think it does. So let them have this one.

The big issue now is whether the United States is going to continue down the path to socialism, low productivity, increased dependency, and weakened defense. That's the battle we need to fight.

Looks like the boatload of money Obama's stimulus package dumped on Baltimore went down the drain

Last week we commented about President Obama's speech telling us what we should do about Baltimore and how if only the Republicans weren't so bullheaded the government could spend the money to get those impoverished areas in Baltimore going again.

The reason we are revisiting this today is because of an item at freebeacon.com titled Baltimore Received $1.8 Billion from Obama’s Stimulus Law. Go to the link to see a breakdown. But the title makes the point.

The War on Poverty is 50 years old. President Obama's knowledge of American history doesn't go back that far. But the story is there for anyone to see it. While it might have seemed like a good idea at its inception, throwing money at the problem only created dependents. And more problems.

So, President Obama, your suggestion looks a little tired, especially since you've already tried it. Look where it got Baltimore. But that's a hallmark of liberal activism. If spending money didn't work. Spend more money.

And there's the problem with socialism. In theory it sounds like a good idea to put smart people in charge of running an economy in a way that makes everyone financially successful. Problem is, no one is that smart. We would end up with a government picking winners and losers with lots of unintended consequences. What works is to get the government out of the way and let entrepreneurs do what they do best.

Editor's note: Your title would have made a better metaphor if you said the money went up in flames. Robo-ed. -- DOH! Sleepless.

Will genuflect for food -- Venezuela to nationalize food distribution

Democrats don't boast much about their desire for a socialist America. But if polls are correct, as recently as 2010 sixty-one percent of liberals said their image of socialism was positive. Source: Gallup.com.

Perhaps this is one of those cases where liberals and progressives are less informed than conservatives. So it's up to us to help bring everyone up to speed on just what socialism does to the countries that are stuck with it.

A case in point is Venezuela. See Venezuela to nationalize food distribution. How does one put a happy face on that? Excerpt:

Venezuela is struggling with a recession, 68.5-percent annual inflation and severe shortages of the basic goods that it relies on oil money to import.

On any given day, people in Venezuela can wait hours to get some subsidized milk, cooking oil, milk or flour -- if they can be found at all.

Maduro's government is strapped for cash in the face of a global supply glut that caused oil prices to collapse by more than 50 percent between June and January.

Nonetheless, Maduro also announced a 30-percent increase in public wages on Friday.

Venezuela is a country rich in natural resources but poor in economic opportunity. Then they get leaders who promise the moon and deliver dirt. That's what socialism does. Democrats, please snap out of it.

Don't know much about history -- If it happened before Obama was born, it doesn't matter any more

I watched a part of Obama's presser last night on Fox News and heard him say that the problems with Cuba occurred before he was born. So it doesn't matter. He's made it clear that his knowledge of history is probably "C." And that's with grade inflation.

It makes me wonder what John F. Kennedy would say. JFK was an ardent anti-communist, and he was very much anti-Castro to boot. But his thinking then is out of step with the current Democrat Party line, at least according to Obama. Now communism is the game, and Obama is ready to play.

Obama's mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, must have taught him well in his formative years. Bill Ayers took over at a later point in Obama's life. Heck, Ayers wrote the book on Obama.

But aside from sticking it to "the man," a satisfying moment for some, communism would be no better for the U.S. than is has been for Cuba, Venezuela, or any other country where it's been tried. Surely American voters are smart enough to figure that out, even if they don't know history.

Extending Marxist principles to the entitlementariat

Entitlementariat -- that's a new word to me. Although, entitlementarianism appears to have been around a while to identify the belief that some people were born with a legitimate ownership or entitlement to certain things.

Michael Bargo, Jr. has applied the concept to Karl Marx's principles in A Marxist View of the Democrats' Entitlement Economy.

Marx divided people into two classes: either bourgeoisie -- the people who owned the factories, or proletariat -- the people exploited by the bourgeoisie to work in the factories. Bargo says Marx omitted the class of people who would become dependent on government, the entitlementariats, the class that replaced the proletariat. And about the bourgeoisie, he continues:

The entitlementariat may have replaced the proletariat but then one can ask if Marx’s bourgeoisie has been replaced by the Democrat Bourgeoisie. The answer is “yes” since Democrats, not Republicans, have created the entitlementariat and they have complete power over them. And just by coincidence they use this power to transfer the wealth of the nation to themselves through campaign contributors from public sector unions and accumulation of personal wealth.

Everywhere Democrat bourgeoisie are in power, the middle-class workers are exploited and subjugated, while those who are in poverty are forced into the entitlementariat. ...

Up to now, since America is a wealthy country, it was temporarily able to afford to subsidize the entitlementariat. But no longer. The money needed to sustain the entitlementariat is obtained from national debt which will, in the long run, result in the oppression of the working class.

To paraphrase the brilliant Margaret Thatcher, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

Bill Whittle -- master explainer

A fantastic program aired last night on C-Span. It was the video of Bill Whittle speaking before the The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley about how to communicate with the young about conservatism.

Watch it here and/or read a summary of the talk here.

We don't run across people like Whittle often. He's smart, and he has a knack for explaining complex topics in a manner that everyone can understand. If he had been a teacher he would be remembered by his students years later as the best, or one of the best, teachers they had.

The topic that night was Political Messaging For Youth. TV shows like "The Family Guy" are popular with young people, but -- "it is a message of collectivism and envy and bitterness and hopelessness and entitlement." The message becomes so prevalent in our culture that it becomes embedded in our brains.

He tells the audience that progressives have mastered the art of the story and making villains of their political opponents. We saw that in the election of 2012. Exit polling revealed that voters agreed with Mit Romney on every question except the one asking who did the voters believe cared most about them. Democrats had made a villain out of him.

Conservatives can put out reams of statistics about how bad socialism is and how providing an environment where people can maximize opportunities is better for everyone. But all progressives have to do is put out one good story about how some sympathetic individual was harmed by the awful insurance companies and how they will benefit from Obamacare, and conservatives lose. Conservatives need to learn the power of the story.

Anyway, Whittle had plenty of stories, and his message is one worth listening to.

Guaranteed income -- proponents make a fine argument but omit one important issue

There was a social experiment in a community in Canada in the '70s wherein each resident was guaranteed a minimum income. It's written about fondly at The Town Where Everyone Got Free Money by Whitney Mallett. Here are some excerpts that should provide the gist of it, to wit:

Between 1974 and 1979, the Canadian government tested the idea of a basic income guarantee (BIG) across an entire town, giving people enough money to survive in a way that no other place in North America has before or since. For those four years—until the project was cancelled and its findings packed away—the town's poorest residents were given monthly checks that supplemented what modest earnings they had and rewarded them for working more. And for that time, it seemed that the effects of poverty began to melt away. Doctor and hospital visits declined, mental health appeared to improve, and more teenagers completed high school. ...

"Originally the interest was primarily prompted by the concern that the welfare system was discouraging people from working,"Ron Hikel, who coordinated the Mincome program, told Dutch television last year. Today, he says, the motivation for guaranteed income is an increase in inequality. "At some point, the income inequality begins to interfere with people's ability to have education, and also to take care of their own health. To the extent that that effects the relations in society, it begins to accentuate divisions and differences, and you get an increase in social pathologies, alcohol addiction, the use of drugs, an increase in mental illness, a decrease in provision of educational courses and an increase in the crime rate."

Let's assume for a moment that a guaranteed income does not discourage the recipients from working. There's still a pretty big issue out there. And that's the fact that in order to give money to some people, you have to take it from other people. There's where the disincentive to work occurs. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."