ladies[heart]tk

I was infuriated when I read this opinion piece in the WSJ advocating that the U.S. drop its H1-B visa cap on high tech workers. The author, Shikha Dalmia, says that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge unless it works harder to attract smart people from other countries to move and stay here. Around the same time, there was a spate of news stories about the extremely high dropout rate in American urban centers - in some places as high as 50%. Some journalists danced around the issue but David Harsanyi of the Denver Post frames the issue bluntly:

This catastrophe is predominantly about minority kids living in inner cities.

So on the one hand, we have American businesses fiercely lobbying for the opportunity to hire more knowledge workers from second world countries like India and China and on the other hand we have American kids who have voluntarily checked out of the labor market and who will in all likelihood burden society until their dying breath.

I have an idea. If we need skilled labor so badly, why can’t we up-skill some of these kids who are dropping out of high school? Why do we need to go halfway around the world to find workers? It is frickin appalling that someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language can come over here and take jobs away from kids who were educated in America.

I realize that I am coming off as a nativist but I don’t give a crap because you know what? Those dropout kids are in a competition, whether they like it or not. They’re not just competing with rich kids from the suburbs. No they’re competing with kids who come from places where there’s no food to eat; kids who will come over here and eat their lunch without a second thought. What the effin eff is going on?  How can we have let these kids down so badly? Why can’t our society produce people we can employ?

Before Ashton Kutcher ruined the word, getting “punked” was what happened in prison to guys who talk a lot of s#1t but are revealed to be ineffectual weaklings. The first thing that came to mind when I read about the NIE’s revelations about Iran’s nuclear program was, “dude, they just got punked.”

In fact, the effect of the NIE finding is acutely damaging to Iran’s aspirations to become a regional power. As a matter of fact, the NIE finding essentially recasts the balance of power in the Middle East. Remember that Israel has real nukes - not imaginary ones like Ahmadinejad. Pakistan also has nukes and it shares a border with Iran. Both Pakistan and Israel receive U.S. aid and have a lot to lose if Iran becomes the dominant player in the Middle East.

Iran’s new vulnerability isn’t just theoretical. Israel’s recent stealth bombing of quasi-military installations deep inside Syria clearly demonstrates their ability and desire to kick ass. Since Iran has been de-pantsed in front of the world, what’s to keep Israel from sending bombers to Iran? If Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the map now the world will respond, “Yeah? With what?”

A lot of media reports have taken the naive angle that the NIE finding somehow undermines Bush’s foreign policy objective to isolate and subdue Iran. To the contrary, I think the NIE finding essentially hangs a big target on Iran’s back. Geopolitics is chess not checkers beotch! Just ask Alonzo Harris.

In researching how much money we would need to divert for universal health care, I ran across this article, where Obama gives his views on health care. I like very much that Obama calls out the appalling inefficiencies in the health care industry. However, I am somewhat skeptical that the answer is more Sarbanes-Oxley type regulation. Here’s something to ponder: We have no idea what health care would look like with less regulation, because the industry has become ever more regulated over the past five decades. We have a very good idea what health care would look like with more regulation, because we already have a highly regulated system. (Think Medicare and Medicaid for starters)

Will increasing regulation merely amplify the lameness of the current system? Perhaps. Personally, I’m not clear on how requiring providers to computerize medical records will benefit the uninsured kid who dies from Hodgkins disease, or the family forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills. I can see how it would benefit the IT industry and the federal bureaucracy.

In general, a lot of the anguish in the health care debate seems to emanate from confusion over whether health care is a commodity or an entitlement. I don’t know the answer. I think it’s both. I think the solution needs to subject providers to the same market pressure that banks and retailers and auto manufacturers feel. They should constantly be straining to innovate, cut costs, streamline operations, and take away each others’ customers. However, I don’t see how that can happen when they’re ignoring consumers to shoulder-surf with the other squealing piglets at the government trough.

Both Hillary and Obama have plans for rolling out universal health care. Both candidates propose to fund their health care programs by raising taxes, though the details differ somewhat. The reflexive urge on the part of Dems to raise taxes has always puzzled me and exposes a singular lack of imagination from the people who want to lead the country. I have a better idea for how to fund health care that I call […..Drumroll…..] the LLTK 3 Point Plan to save America. I have to do some further research to figure out how much money the plan would actually save, but I’ll put the details together later.

1. Stop funding the UN
The UN is an anti-semitic cabal of mandarins whose chief aim seems to be lining their own wallets and spoon-feeding dictators around the world. If you don’t believe it, read Melanie Kirkpatrick’s deeply depressing article about how malfeasance at the UN has kept Kim Jong-Il in power. Instead of juicing up the UN with our tax dollars, why not divert all of that money to provide health care to Americans?

2. Stop funding the World Bank
See above - the World Bank is also a cabal of anti-semitic mandarins except that its mission is to loan money to developing countries. I really like the idea of loaning money to developing countries. I really do not like the idea that the World Bank avoids lending money to Africa. As a matter of fact, it pisses me off. Instead the World Bank lends huge sums to China and India - countries that could easily raise money in the capital markets. When you factor in the World Bank’s corruption, the question naturally presents itself, “why are we paying for this sh!$?” Or to put it another way, why are Americans dying from lack of health care while our tax dollars go to prop up the regime that massacres civilians in Tibet and Tianmen Square?

3. Pull troops from Western Europe and South Korea
At enormous cost we operate military bases in Germany and South Korea. In recent years the scale of operations has been somewhat reduced and many troops have been relocated to so-called “lilypads” in Romania and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, I think that Europeans and South Korea should bear full responsibility for their own defense. They can start paying for their own military, rather than leeching off of American taxpayers to enjoy security that they have been too weak, cowardly and venal to provide for themselves. Ironically, both South Korea and Germany have universal health care. This is possible because they don’t have to pay for their own militaries.

It’s difficult for me to quantify how much money we could divert to Universal Health Care through the LLTK 3 Point Plan, but I’m guessing it’s at least a billion or more a year. I’ll have to get back to you after I rationalize the figure more. Also, if it doesn’t add up to enough, I might have to add points to the 3 Point Plan.