With government health care, the government makes decisions on who lives and dies: Italians over 80 'will be left to die' as country overwhelmed by coronavirus

Battlefield triage in Italy. From the UK Telegraph:

Coronavirus victims in Italy will be denied access to intensive care if they are aged 80 or more or in poor health should pressure on beds increase, a document prepared by a crisis management unit in Turin proposes. 

Some patients denied intensive care will in effect be left to die, doctors fear.The unit has drawn up a protocol, seen by The Telegraph, that will determine which patients receive treatment in intensive care and which do not if there are insufficient spaces. Intensive care capacity is running short in Italy as the coronavirus continues to spread. 

The document, produced by the civil protection deparment of the Piedmont region, one of those hardest hit, says: "The criteria for access to intensive therapy in cases of emergency must include age of less than 80 or a score on the Charlson comorbidity Index [which indicates how many other medical conditions the patient has] of less than 5." 

The ability of the patient to recover from resuscitation will also be considered.One doctor said: "[Who lives and who dies] is decided by age and by the [patient's] health conditions. This is how it is in a war."

Sensible Swiss: 62 percent of voters reject replacing private health insurance with public system

From Agence France-Presse:

Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a plan for a seismic shift from the country's all-private health insurance system to a state-run scheme. 

Referendum results showed that almost 62 percent of voters had shot down a reform pushed by left-leaning parties which say the current private system is busting the budgets of ordinary residents. 

The results also underlined the national divisions over the hotly-contested issue as the country's German-speaking regions voted against the plan, while their French-speaking counterparts were in favor. . . . 

"Our health system is among the top performers in the world. Competition between health insurers and freedom of choice for clients play a major role in this," it added. . . .

U.K. authorities had refused to give child medical treatment he needs, parents take child out of country, UK seek extradition to force family back to country

Socialized medical system in the UK can't give a young boy suffering a brain tumor the specialized medical treatment he needs.  So the family, trying to save the boy's life, takes the boy out of the country.  In response, the government puts out a criminal warrant for the family.  From the Associated Press:

The grandmother of a 5-year-old British boy with a severe brain tumor accused U.K. authorities on Monday of cruelty for seeking an arrest warrant and pursuing the family abroad after his parents removed him from a British hospital against medical advice.
Hours later, a Spanish judge ordered the parents' detention for 72 hours while a court in Madrid considers whether to grant Britain an extradition request. 

Grandmother Patricia King told the BBC it was an "absolute disgrace" that her son and daughter-in-law were accused of child neglect after they took Ashya from Southampton General Hospital last week. The family says U.K. authorities had refused to give Ashya the kind of treatment he needed. 

The family has criticized Britain's health care system, saying he needs an advanced treatment option called proton beam therapy and that it wasn't being made available to him. 

King's parents were arrested Sunday in southeastern Spain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Interpol at the request of British police. Their son is receiving medical treatment for a brain tumor. After his parents' arrest, he was admitted to a Spanish hospital. . . .

Venezuela's medical care system collapsing under Socialism

Well, at least Chavez was able to get doctors from Spain or Cuba to provide him medical care for his cancer.  But at least Venezuelans can get easy to provide products such as toilet paper and milk.  From the Associated Press:

Evelina Gonzalez was supposed to undergo cancer surgery in July following chemotherapy but wound up shuttling from hospital to hospital in search of an available operating table. On the crest of her left breast, a mocha-colored tumor doubled in size and now bulges through her white spandex tank top. 

Gonzalez is on a list of 31 breast cancer patients waiting to have tumors removed at one of Venezuela's biggest medical facilities, Maracay's Central Hospital. But like legions of the sick across the country, she's been neglected by a health care system doctors say is collapsing after years of deterioration. 

Doctors at the hospital sent home 300 cancer patients last month when supply shortages and overtaxed equipment made it impossible for them to perform non-emergency surgeries.  

Driving the crisis in health care are the same forces that have left Venezuelans scrambling to find toilet paper, milk and automobile parts. Economists blame government mismanagement and currency controls set by the late President Hugo Chavez for inflation pushing 50 percent annually. The government controls the dollars needed to buy medical supplies and has simply not made enough available. . . .

French Socialist Government finally realizes that high taxes drives away business

From the UK Telegraph:

Company taxes will fall by €20bn a year equal to 1pc of GDP, to be phased in gradually by 2015 under a convoluted system of rebates. 

Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault said it amounted to a 6pc cut in unit labour costs, enough to close the gap with eurozone rivals. "France is not condemned to a spiral of decline, but we need a national jolt to regain control of our destiny," he said. 

The mid-rate of VAT for restaurants and services will jump from 7pc to 10pc. The top rate will rise slightly to 20pc. Spending cuts will plug the revenue gap in order to meet the EU’s 3pc deficit target. 

Critics call it the most humiliating U-turn in French politics since François Mitterrand abandoned his disastrous experiment of "Socialism in one country" under a D-Mark currency peg in 1983. . . . .

With North Korea possibly dumping communism, is there any place left?

North Korea's agricultural reforms are only about 80 years behind those in the former USSR, where private plots were created under Stalin and later encouraged under Khrushchev, but it is still a start.  While private plots in the former USSR may have accounted for just a tiny fraction of the farm land (just 2.8 percent in 1974), they made up a huge percentage of total agricultural output.  In 1974, 41% of eggs, 32% of milk, and 64% of potatoes were produced on these private plots.  You would think that the benefits of private property would then be obvious to even many of the most loyal socialists/communists.  Hopefully, this change in North Korea will eventually have the same impact.  Meanwhile, Obama wants to take the US in the opposite direction in areas such as health care.

From the Washington Post:

Under new leader Kim Jong Eun, North Korea in recent months has shifted its rhetoric to emphasize the economy rather than the military and is introducing small-scale agricultural reforms with tantalizing elements of capitalism, according to diplomats and defector groups with informants in the North. 

The changes, which allow farmers to keep more of their crops and sell surpluses in the private market, are in the experimental stage and are easily reversible, analysts caution. But even skeptical North Korea watchers say that Kim’s emerging policies and style — and his frank acknowledgment of the country’s economic problems — hint at an economic opening similar to China’s in the late 1970s. . . .

Yet, some caution is in order and the North Korean reforms are different from those in the former USSR.  In particular, farmers can only keep for private use output above their quotas.  One problem with this is that farmers might feel that if they exceed their quotas, the government could come back and simply raise their quotas in the future.  The farms are still collectively run, though the free-riding problem might be somewhat reduced.

Those measures, according to the reports, reduce the size of cooperative farm units from between 10 and 25 farmers to between four and six. The decrease is critical because it allows one or two households, not entire communities, to plan and tend to their own farms. . . .  

Socialists who own Rolex watches

Obama explains his views on Capitalism

Why does the government think that it can do a better job of advertising job openings?

Who really thinks that the government can do a better job on this? From the WSJ:

The Obama Administration is outputting job-creation proposals at Twitter-speed and ridiculing Republicans for not signing onto the whole package. Which brings us to an already up-and-running federal jobs program called USAJobs.gov. Well, up-and-running is an overstatement.

Americans in search of federal employment can go to a website called USAJobs.gov, which matches openings with applicants. Since 2004, the feds have outsourced the site's operation to Monster.com. Good call by whoever was in charge in 2004. Monster.com is the private company that pioneered employment websites and is today the largest job search engine in the world.

But 18 months ago the "smart" Obama Office of Personnel Management decided the federal government could do a better job of running USAJobs.gov. It spent some $6 million developing a new in-house version of the site, promising to improve the job-search experience. It unveiled its creation two weeks ago. It's a monster all right.

The volume of requests instantly crushed government servers, slowed the system and locked out thousands of applicants. Naturally, the site has a Facebook page. Naturally, the comment queue is boiling over. Examples:

"Why am I having to do the same search 3 times before anything shows up?" "Over one week now and I still haven't received my password reset email!!" "USAJOBS WEB SITE IS A DISASTER!" "I entered Delaware and got Germany jobs and all of the Forest Service." . . .

And one wonders why there is a capital flight from Argentina

With this type of nationalization and regulation, you would think that people would understand why no one wants to invest in Argentina. From Bloomberg:

Argentina ordered oil, gas and mining companies to repatriate all export revenue as the government struggles to stem accelerating capital flight from South America’s second-biggest economy.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in her first move since winning re-election on Oct. 23, changed a 2002 decree requiring companies such as Repsol YPF SA and Pan American Energy LLC to keep at least 30 percent of their export revenue in the country. Today’s decree, published in the official gazette, applies to future sales.
The decision by Fernandez, who nationalized the $24 billion pension fund industry and called for a limit on purchases of farmland by foreigners, is part of an effort to slow capital flight estimated at $3 billion per month that is draining central banks reserves. The policy may make it harder to attract foreign direct investment to Argentina that the United Nations estimates fell 30 percent in the first half of the year. . . .

The Federal Government Destroys the Return to Pharmaceutical developing new drugs and now the government wants to develop new drugs

Big surprise. The continuing threat of price controls has destroyed the incentives to invest in new research. So now the socialist Obama is having the government take over the Pharmaceutical company's role of developing new drugs. Not "intended to be competitive with private" firms? Be serious. Where "private industry has failed"? Here is the bottom line: Can government create as many new drugs for the same amount of money as private companies? If they can, that will be the first for the government. If not, rather than forcing the companies to charge low prices so that the government can "save money" and then have the government have to pay to get the research done. Why not just let the private companies keep their money and let them do the research?

The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines.

The new effort comes as many large drug makers, unable to find enough new drugs, are paring back research. Promising discoveries in illnesses like depression and Parkinson’s that once would have led to clinical trials are instead going unexplored because companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort.

The initial financing of the government’s new drug center is relatively small compared with the $45.8 billion that the industry estimates it invested in research in 2009. The cost of bringing a single drug to market can exceed $1 billion, according to some estimates, and drug companies have typically spent twice as much on marketing as on research, a business model that is increasingly suspect. . . .

“None of this is intended to be competitive with the private sector,” Dr. Collins said. . . .

Whether the government can succeed where private industry has failed . . .

UPDATE: "“Startup America,” the administration's new campaign designed to put the focus on jobs and inspiring Americans to think like entrepreneurs." Is this ironic?

As much of Washington kept its gaze on protests in Egpyt on Monday, President Obama's Cabinet sought to turn attention to “Startup America,” the administration's new campaign designed to put the focus on jobs and inspiring Americans to think like entrepreneurs.

“It’s quite clear that some of the biggest employers in the nation ... started in somebody’s garage as just an idea that they had,” economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said at the White House along with Cabinet secretaries and other members of the administration. “And whether you look at innovation itself and new ideas, if you look at employment, if you look at the growth that gives people careers – all of those things are tied to entrepreneurial ventures in a quite ... direct way.”

Gene Sperling, Obama's new director of the National Economic Council, said a bill for small businesses signed by Obama was “just the start,” calling the new policy measures a “top priority” for the president.

Obama's "Freudian slips"

This piece has only a partial list of Obama's "slips," but these slips show the Obama that I knew at the University of Chicago. The guy is a left winger, a socialist. An comprehensive list would include his claim that the market caused the recession, that profits increase the cost of insurance because they have to be added on top of other costs, his micromanaging of what companies can invest in, etc..

But Obama’s effort to overhaul his image is encumbered by conflicting impressions of who he is that have been engraved in voters’ minds by his own words.

During unguarded and even some staged — but inadvertently revealing — moments, Obama has allowed unintended glimpses into his thinking. At various times, his offhand comments have led critics, and many voters, to view him as an ardent leftist or an elitist or — most recently — a partisan Democrat.

These Freudian slips, uncovering the man beneath the spin and the speeches, are embedded in Americans’ subconscious, if you will, because they seem to come directly from the president’s inner self. Obama can change his policies, but he cannot easily erase these perceptions. And because of his cool opaqueness — noted even by his own staff — and his relatively brief track record on the national stage, voters have little else to go on. . . .

His surprising self-revelations began during the presidential campaign. They were harmful but did not create major problems.

First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” . . .

Obama as anti-free market, is there even a question?

Is Obama anti-business? Last week Obama defended himself against these claims. Now Austan Goolsbee explains that Obama isn't anti-business because (video available at link):

“There have been people criticizing the president, saying he’s a socialist, he doesn’t believe in the private market — that’s totally bogus." . . . “From the beginning and continuing up to the present, the president has always said that the private sector is going to be the only sustainable source of job creation and growth in this country, and that’s what we need to have.” . . . .

Ugh? What does the fact that the president says that most jobs will have to be working for private firms have to do with proving that he isn't anti-business. He wants to use government grants to business to determine what businesses will grow. That is pro-market?

Goolsbee blames the angry sentiments on: “When the unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, and when you’re coming out of the deepest hole in anybody’s lifetime, you knew that there were going to be a lot of people generally upset and not feeling good about where they are. ..." Obama is surely anti-free market. He dislikes businesses, though he is happy to give wealth transfers to some of them.

Goolsbee also did an interview that just came out with the WSJ. He claims that Obama isn't anti-business because he "pushed through 16 tax cuts to assist small businesses and proposed additional incentives." The problem is that Obama doesn't trust businesses to make decisions. See also here.

Obama and Goolsbee keep claiming that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression, though Goolsbee claims that this is "the deepest recession since 1929."

Obama's anti-business attitudes don't just stem from his support for various price controls on everything from credit markets to health insurance. It isn't just that he is constantly attacking corporate officers for their excessive pay. He attacks insurance companies for being excessively concentrated and he lies about how concentrated they are.

Strong arming bondholders to get them to agree to forfeit their investments. Obama denounced Chrysler creditors as "speculators" who refuse to sacrifice as they should. Forcing the removal of auto dealerships that the companies didn't want removed and remove dealerships based on the gender and race of the dealers. After bailing out banks, Obama sought authority to seize any financial institution whose collapse might be "a systemic risk" to the economy. Attacking the profits of insurance companies and blaming those profits for the high cost of their insurance. He attacked doctors who give patients unnecessary tests or medicine as: "And it's driven from a business mentality instead of a mentality of, how do we make patients better?" What about calling Wall Street "fat cats."

His discussions with CEOs involve lecturing them: "He has held a number of meetings with CEOs, formally and off the record, but attendees I’ve talked to feel that although he listens intently, he rarely changes course."

Possibly Obama may go as far as claiming that the health care bill was done for businesses because he wanted to lower their costs.

Dinesh D'Souza is wrong when he says that Obama "isn't exactly a socialist." If he isn't socialist, he is fascist. Where private ownership is allowed, there is complete government control.

"Cuba to cut one million public sector jobs"

Cuba gradually moves towards privatization of the economy.

Cuba has announced radical plans to lay off huge numbers of state employees, to help revive the communist country's struggling economy.

The Cuban labour federation said more than a million workers would lose their jobs - half of them by March next year.

Those laid off will be encouraged to become self-employed or join new private enterprises, on which some of the current restrictions will be eased.

Analysts say it is biggest private sector shift since the 1959 revolution.

Cuba's communist government currently controls almost all aspects of the country's economy and employs about 85% of the official workforce, which is put at 5.1 million people.

As many as one-in-five of all workers could lose their jobs.

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls and losses that hurt the economy," the labour federation said in a statement. . . .

Castro says that Cuban model doesn't work any more

For a long time he was propped up by a subsidy from the USSR, then he was propped up with a subsidy from Venezuela. Even then you would think that he had noticed the decades old cars on the streets. The notion of direct government control over the economy has been crumbling there for years as they have open up more and more private operations. I suppose better late than never:

HAVANA – Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.
The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg's account. . . .

So why not have government fund sex with prostitutes for the disabled?

At least that is the attitude of one columnist in Ireland. I guess if the government pays for everything else, why not sex?

I thought the story about public money sending a 21-year-old guy with learning difficulties off to Amsterdam to soak in the sights, sample the unique local cuisine and have sex with a prostitute was the feelgood story of the week.

Not everyone agreed. Since it came to light that council money handed out to disabled people has paid for visits to lap-dancing clubs, prostitutes and sign-ups to internet dating sites, newspapers and radio phone-ins have been jam-packed with indignant voices.

Some object to a ‘mis-use of public funds’, some have expressed concern about the immorality of promoting ‘loveless’ sex as a social service, and some have even suggested that the state putting money into the hands of a sex-worker is ‘evil’ and/or ‘sick’.

It never ceases to amaze me how energetic people can get disapproving of acts of compassion being visited upon those less fortunate than themselves. . . .

Remembering Milton Friedman's Birthday: August 1

Venezuela has become a real economic basket case

From the BBC

Venezuela's biggest beer producer, food and drink giant Polar, is also the country's largest company still in private hands after President Hugo Chavez's nationalisation drive.

But that may not be the case for long.

Last week, Mr Chavez stepped up his attacks on Polar's billionaire owner, Lorenzo Mendoza, whom he has previously accused of pushing up food prices by hoarding products to cause artificial shortages.

For its part, Polar has called the allegations "absurd" and "senseless". . . .

Venezuelan economist Angel Alayon, of food industry body Cavidea, says that the government now controls 75% of coffee production, 42% of maize flour, 40% of rice, 25% of cooking oil, 52% of sugar and 25% of milk.

The government says it has a duty to secure food supplies and to prevent what it sees as "economic sabotage" by private companies. . . .

The country's economy contracted 5.8% in the first quarter of this year compared with a year earlier.

The International Monetary Fund predicts that its GDP will shrink by 2.6% in 2010, making it the only Latin American economy, and the world's only oil exporter, to see a contraction for this year.

Mr Chavez believes that a bigger economic role for the state is the only way to ensure the effectiveness of his price controls and stave off stagflation - the deadly combination of economic stagnation and high inflation that is currently assailing the country.

Venezuela's consumer inflation rate is currently the worst in Latin America, reaching an annual rate of 27% last year and expected to rise to 29.7% in 2010, according to the IMF. . . .

EU: Subsidized vacation trips abroad is a "human right"

What does one say about this? What this means is that people can't decide for themselves how to spend their money. Taxes take money from citizens and they get it back only if they take a trip overseas.

Get packing: Brussels decrees holidays are a human right

The idea for subsidised tours is the brainchild of Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry
Bojan Pancevski

AN overseas holiday used to be thought of as a reward for a year’s hard work. Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right and pensioners, youths and those too poor to afford it should have their travel subsidised by the taxpayer.

Under the scheme, British pensioners could be given cut-price trips to Spain, while Greek teenagers could be taken around disused mills in Manchester to experience the cultural diversity of Europe.

The idea for the subsidised tours is the brainchild of Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, who was appointed by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.

The scheme, which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year, is intended to promote a sense of pride in European culture, bridge the north-south divide in the continent and prop up resorts in their off-season.

Tajani, who unveiled his plan last week at a ministerial conference in Madrid, believes the days when holidays were a luxury have gone. “Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,” he said.

Tajani, who used to be transport commissioner, said he had been able to “affirm the rights of passengers” in his previous office and the next step was to ensure people’s “right to be tourists”.

The European Union has experience of subsidised holidays. In February the European parliament paid contributions of up to 52% towards an eight-day skiing trip in the Italian Alps for 80 children of Eurocrats.

Tajani’s programme will be piloted until 2013 and then put into full operation. It will be open to pensioners and anyone over 65, young people between 18 and 25, families facing “difficult social, financial or personal” circumstances and disabled people. The disabled and the elderly can be accompanied by one person.

In the initial phase, northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe and vice versa. Details of how participants are chosen have not yet been finalised, but it is expected the EU will subsidise about 30% of the cost. . . .

Editorial in the Washington Times

The Welfare State of America: The U.S. government is as intrusive as any socialist state