Freedom Isn't Free

The group Reporters Without Borders just release their 2006 Press Freedom Index. By their standards, the U.S. has dropped yet again this year, though the usual suspects appear at the bottom of the list.

They ask a series of questions from a number of people, but I don't know if there is any weighting to the responses. It isn't clear what their "index" really means – the scale doesn't seem to have a maximum value. I'd rather see boundary conditions, and I'd like to know that there is some relative weighting, instead of what appears to be a measure of absolute numbers. Can you really compare Cuba, where a large contingent of anti-government forces are entrenched in the United States and receiving heavy financial and political support, to a country where those critical of their government are truly isolated?

So, in the spirit of bad statistics, here's some additional numbers. We are told that "freedom isn't free." This would imply that the higher a country's GDP, the more they can afford freedoms such as the press. The index doesn't scale well to do a straight ratio, so subtract the ratio from 100 (North Korea adjusted to 99.9 to fit the scale). Then divide this modified RWB index by the GDP (from CIA data) of each nation.

The results ... The United States is one of the worst in the world. They rank only after China and North Korea. At the other end of the scale, countries like Tonga and the Comoros are doing quite well, given that they just don't have any money to begin with. If we only look at countries with fairly good GDP, Finland, Ireland, and New Zealand still end up at the top of the list.

What's hinted at here is that countries like Finland and Ireland are getting pretty good bang for the buck. Those of us here in the U.S., however, are getting ripped off. Americans are used to it though, they get the worst return on their dollar for health care, too.

California Election, November 2006

Finally had a chance to read through all the voter information this weekend. Here's a rundown.

My Vote — Proposition — Reasoning

• No — 1A — The State government has already borrowed money from the 2003-05 budgets. At the current schedule, they have to pay that loan off within a 2007-09 time frame. This proposition, if it passes, allows them to not pay the money back until June 30, 2016. Sorry, but pay the money back now like you are supposed to.


• No — 1B — Only a small portion of this money is going to public transit. In L.A., that's where the money really needs to be spent, so I cannot back any transportation bill that doesn't focus on this.


• Yes — 1C — This looks like development for people who actually need it, and in the areas that need it.


• No — 1D — I'm all for education, but this one would lift earthquake-safety regulations for community colleges. No thanks, I'd like everyone to survive an earthquake, even the people who cannot afford high-end educations.


• No — 1E — The costs here just seem too high and misallocated. I have this sinking feeling that agribusiness should be footing most of this bill, not us.


• No — 83 — I'm confused as to why this is a constitutional amendment. Shouldn't these things be covered by law already? These are the kinds of laws that politicians jump at so they can put it on their record. If they haven't passed it themselves, there is a reason. Most importantly for me, though, is the fact that this proposition openly throws the idea of reform out the window. Once you have committed a crime, you must always pay for it?


• Yes — 84 — This is a hesitant Yes. It seems broader in scope than 1E, and most of it sounds good. My one concern: the exemption for emergency water. Why?


• No — 85 — This is anti-woman, plain and simple. Only the most backwards of societies allow men to force women on this decision.


• Yes — 86 — How can a tax on tobacco be bad thing? It may not be the best place to put the money, but experience has shown us that if we don't pre-allocate the money, it will be misappropriated.


• Yes — 87 — How can a tax on oil companies be a bad thing? Sure, they've been lowering gas prices for a couple of months to make use think they are swell guys, but no one is fooled by that.


• No — 88 — I hate regressive taxes, and this is one. It disproportionately affects small property owners more.


• No — 89 — The problem isn't with how campaigns are funded, and fiddling with this a little more isn't going to make any serious kind of difference. At best, this proposition shifts a little more money to one group of warmongers over another. None of these parties have proposals that aren't fundamentally anti-worker.


• No — 90 — We don't need restrictions on eminent domain, especially if it makes it harder to get more parks and public transit. Reality is that the government usually only seizes property from poorer folks, and this wouldn't change that at all.

Yet Another Giveaway

Wonderful bit of information enclosed in the two paragraph article, Panel Endorses Plan to Simplify Business Taxes. The City of Los Angeles is planning to cut business taxes by 4% next year. They also plan to adjust the business tax system, which will likely lead to more tax cuts for businesses in the affected categories.

And what is the reason for this change? Because revenue projections have been met.

There are a couple issues here. First of all, this is the primary basis of the supposed budget issues of the last half decade. In the face of higher income, cities and counties cut business taxes in the 90s and then took a hit when business income dropped because of the dot-bomb. I don't remember hearing that those taxes were increased as a result of the changing economic situation. Instead, the cumulative effect over time is to shift more and more of the tax burden onto tax sources that derive more disproportionately from working people. It also becomes an excuse to cut more and more public services from the very people who are bearing more of the taxes.

The other thing is that there is no shortage of needs. Instead of cutting taxes (which no legitimate economist has shown actually increases jobs – usually the opposite) it would make sense to either save it somehow or spend it on important projects. The Mayor has played up public transit a lot, that needs money. Public health has taken a hit, that needs money. Public schools, that always needs money. The City Councils actions speak louder than words.

First to be Sacrificed

Two years on, the Workers' Comp dismantling has had some profound effects, as outlined in Workers' Comp Gains Haven't Eased the Pain of Tough Cases.

For businesses and insurance companies, the "reform" has been a great success. Insurance companies have cut medical care and disability payments by 37% over the past two years. They are raking in $0.69 on the dollar from premiums, a significant change from their former claims of paying out more than they were taking in (a number you cannot trust without actually opening their books to public examination). Businesses are raving about their savings and the governor who consistently stands by their side.

Of course, while there is plenty of analysis of the business gains, there is no data yet on how much damage it has done to workers nor any enthusiasm to collect such data. The anecdotal evidence is pointing toward incredible increases in delays and denials of claims. Workers face delays in the order of years on their claims. The article points out a wonderful example of a woman who received shoulder surgery but then only received two weeks of physical therapy – for those unaware, thorough therapy is essential for recovery from these kinds of surgery, and it can easily take months to see real progress and recovery.

Schwarzenegger made it clear up front: "The most important thing for us was putting workers first." In case you misunderstood this statement, he meant that it is important to put workers first in line for sacrifice to profits. More grist for the capitalist mill.

How to Dismantle a Public Health System

As the King/Drew fiasco continues, I decided to crunch some numbers.

I think I've figured out what's wrong with the hospital: yesterday's article, Hospital Turmoil to Affect Staffing, mentioned that there is a 5000 job shortage of healthcare workers in the county.

I looked into the County budget. Since 1999, there has been a roughly 15% cut in real dollars spent on health and social services. This, during a period when the percentage of uninsured has increased by about 4%. For the community that King/Drew serves, we're looking at over 50% of the population being uninsured. On top of this is the dramatic increase in medical costs over the same period, something like 75%, I think. This really puts Yaroslavsky's comment that "Money is not the issue" into perspective. Since he's been on the County Board of Supervisors since 1994, he's played an active role in gutting local health care.

And what is their "plan"? Set it up so other county hospitals collapse, too. They want to push King/Drew onto Harbor, where staff is already stretched thin. Rumors are floating that the director there will resign if their load is doubled like that. And what about services? They want to cut the number of beds down to less than 20% of what it is now. They are even threatening to shut the hospital down temporarily while they "reorganize".

King/Drew was built because of the Watts Riots. It is going to take at least that much to keep it, and a lot more than that to fix health care in L.A. County.

Worker vs. Worker — Guess Who Loses

There are a couple of articles on pensions in today's paper: Private-Sector Anger Builds as Public Pension Costs Rise and Workers Get a Double Jolt on Pension Benefits.

The second article simply lays out a couple ways in which laws have been changed in order to short-change public-sector workers out of their Social Security. There is, of course, little movement by politicians to fix this, since it means several billion dollars per year that they can spend elsewhere.

The first article talks about supposedly growing resentment by those in the private sector against public-sector workers who are set to receive pensions. They present it as if these are grass-roots organizations of people opposed to paying more taxes to fund "underfunded" public pension funds. The article doesn't bother to track down who "Americans for Prosperity" is, but a quick search shows that they are an established lobbying group. Pure astroturf. The article hints at this later when it talks about how this organization as well as the Heritage Foundation are pushing for the destruction of pensions. Oh yeah, and there's that windfall Wall Street would get from switching all that money into 401(k) pits.

What is truly disgusting is that there are union people supporting this idea. What it boils down to, of course, if that these officials already betrayed their base by letting the companies steal their pensions. This, without challenging the fact that pensions cannot be underfunded because of any fault on the workers' part. In many cases, they aren't even underfunded, but when combined with CEO pensions, suddenly they look to be in dire straits since those pensions are underfunded (mostly because they are so bloated in the first place).

Fact is, as long as this attitude predominates, kiss pensions good-bye, along with health care, safe working conditions, and wages. Even the public-sector unions who say correctly that their pensions should be kept and should be the standard ... well, as long as they don't take up the fight and spread it to the rest of the working class, they are gone.