Month: March 2012

The CBO estimates that employers dumping lower-income employees onto the exchanges will slightly lower the deficit. Avik S. A. Roy is skeptical:

It appears that the CBO has made a critical assumption in its calculations: that employers who dump health coverage will replace that coverage, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, with increased cash wages.

So, for example, if your boss is paying you $50,000 a year, and spending $20,000 a year on your health insurance, under the ACA, he'll drop your health coverage and give you $70,000 in wages. Since you'd be paying income taxes on that extra $20,000 of wages, whereas you weren't paying taxes on your employer-sponsored health insurance, the CBO estimates that the subsidies you'd get from the exchange are offset by new income taxes on your extra wages.

However, it's far from clear that it would work out this way in reality. Under the ACA exchanges, that $50,000 worker would get a premium subsidy of about $12,200, along with cost-sharing subsidies of up to about $3,600, for a total of over $15,000. So an employer could dump your coverage, give you a raise of only $7,000, and feel like he has given you a better deal. That smaller raise could lead to much lower tax revenues than the CBO is projecting.

A reader begins by quoting Matthew Kobachther:

[W]hen audiences are given the choice between watching violent content or an edited version, people more often want to watch the violent version. This is where the disconnect exists: We choose to watch content that we enjoy less.

This is not a disconnect; one simply has to understand that people have an aversion to having information censored from them. If they’re told there is violent content, then asked if they want it hidden from them like they’re little children who can’t handle it, of course most people are going to choose not to have that happen. Whether or not they get some special enjoyment from that content is beside the point. I also don’t want my war coverage censored and sanitized on the news. It’s not because I get some kind of enjoyment out of seeing people blown apart; it’s because that’s the reality of the situation and it shouldn’t be hidden.

The current archbishop of Canterbury just announced his resignation. I didn't think much of him until reading this truly superb profile by Paul Elie in the Atlantic. More tributes here. Among the more heart-felt, this from the Labour party leader, Ed Miliband:

In the last three years I have grown to appreciate more and more the fine qualities of Archbishop Rowan – his kindness, his sharp intellect, his dedication to striving for harmony between peoples, especially within the Christian family, his courage and his friendship.

He had the mark of a true Christian, as opposed to a partisan Christianist: a deep discomfort with wielding power.

Spelled out:

Alyssa Rosenberg nods:

I’m in the camp of people who don’t mind being spoiled one iota—I regularly spoil myself on things I’m watching thanks to Wikipedia, and I fully believe the study that came out last summer that spoilers increase our enjoyment of entertainment. But I do try to avoid being a jerk in person.

Dan Amira wants more – and he has a point:

[I]t's not the number of debates that's the problem, it's the pacing. There were six debates in January, but just one February, and now none in March or for the foreseeable future. Consequently, the candidates very thoroughly debated the issues that were popular in January and before, but not the ones that have arisen over the past six weeks.

For example, you may have noticed that there have been some major developments in Afghanistan since the last debate took place on February 22. Wouldn't it be nice to hear the candidates discuss those events, and be pressed — by one another and by the moderators, before a national TV audience — on their plans for the future of the war? Could anyone in America describe what those plans are right now?

I agree on the pacing. And the emergence of social issues in the face of what looks like a slowly strengthening economy would provide a different dynamic. Newt must surely be desperate for airtime. And a lack of debates only reinforces the inference that Romney is just waiting, rather than campaigning. Earlier Dish on the subject here.

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson claim that Syria's vast economic equality and ethnic political system precludes any negotiated settlement:

Because the ruling elite in Syria is more monolithic and more likely to be swept aside when its tight grip is loosened, there was always less room for [an Egyptian-style] managed transition. And once the choice was made for using overwhelming force, any small possibility of a negotiated settlement that existed disappeared, and the cleavages in Syrian society became even deeper.

Tracy Clark-Flory surveys the increasingly sophisticated market for male sex toys:

"Pocket" vaginas have long been ridiculed as objects of desperation and creepiness: Most are misproportioned and rubbery — some even have synthetic pubic hair sewn into faux flesh (they aim for far greater anatomical literalness than most vibrators or dildos). These types of toys range from a few bucks to a couple hundred, but are generally known for being pathetic imitations of the real thing. Thanks to a couple of leading companies, though, masturbatory sleeves — which are generally soft tubes that go over the penis — are becoming sleeker, sexier and more high-tech. …

[Japanese company Tenga's] new 3-D line of sleeves are being advertised using images of them turned inside out, revealing elaborate and, quite frankly, beautiful raised geometric patterns. The Zen model looks like a phallic Japanese rock garden.

The American company Fleshlight is quickly adapting to the growing market. Here is a review of their modern-designed sleeve called The Flight.

Get your popcorn. This is getting good in Missouri:

Discussing Romney’s record on various topics, including health and the 2008 bailouts, Santorum argued that the GOP needed a nominee who contrasted sharply with Obama, not “someone who advocated everything President Obama did on those subjects, everything, and worse, as governor, put things in place” and “on top of that, nominated and confirmed some of the most liberal justices in the history of the state of Massachusetts.” …

“On the life issue,” Santorum said of Romney, “this is a man who gave money to Planned Parenthood, personal checks, who on every race he ran until he started to run for president filled out 100 percent pro-choice, and then at the end of his governor’s term when he decided to run for president, he had a conversion.” “Wonderful,” Santorum continued, a sarcastic edge to his voice. “I’m happy for him. But also at the end of his term his economic team gave low-interest loans to Planned Parenthood to build a clinic in Massachusetts after his conversion.”

Then this jibe about the geography of Romney's appeal:

“If you look at where my Republican opponent has won, it’s always in and around the cities. It almost looks like a Republican versus a Democrat,” Santorum said, referring to some states that he did not explicitly name. “He’s winning the areas the Democrats win and I win the areas Republicans win.” Santorum paused for a moment. “Does that tell you something maybe?”

It tells me that this is not over – by a long shot.

Ryan Gilbey finds the portrayal of therapy on film so much worse than its portrayal on TV:

Those hours of television provide space for the riveting essence of psychoanalysis: the fumbling misunderstandings; the drawn-out silences; the sheer, staring-at-the-wall nothingness. What cinema’s prevailing view of therapy cannot countenance is that mysteries aren’t always wrapped up in time for the closing credits. They take a long time to crack, or they get taken to the grave.

And then there is therapy on the web.