Wonks Anonymous: Recent Comments

Comment on Nobody Asked But

Rent Boy — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:11:02 GMT

This is a kooky idea. It would work but the country would suffer a beating in international diplomacy and human rights concerns. It would be like legalizing human trafficking. Terrorists and Criminal elements would gain the system and loan the money to potential immigrant with onerous interest rate they would never be able to pay back. And it would be legal. The immigrant families would suffer all because of the approval of the US for the trade traffic.

My solutions are to to make enforce the law and make it more effective. 1) have five immigration courts stuff with judges all year around that will only hear about immigration cases. We could do this in a heart bit and would not cost a lot of money. We should have one court in the east, one in the west, one in the central part of the US, one in near the Canadian border, and one in the south near Mexico.

2) the judges would be able to allow deportation in most cases in 30- 60- 0r 90 days. As soon we apprehend the illegals and verify that they are in fact are illegal either through illegal entry or expiring visas, sham marriage, etc. For criminal illegal immigrants would be sent to the criminal court for prosecution and jail time and deportation after serving their sentence or sentences. The legal immigrants would also fall under the jurisdiction of those court if they fail to follow the law.

3)We should allow more guest workers if there is a demand for for them. We should have a more human immigration policy that make it easier for people to enter the country legally by eliminating some red tapes. We should also have AN AMNESTY every ten years before the CENSUS for people who manage to evade the system for 10 years. They will only get that amnesty by proving no criminal past activities except their illegal status, have been a model citizens, have worked and paid taxes. Have american citizens in their community testified on their behalf. All the burden of proof will be on them and verify by the FBI. community leader, etc.

That way we can reboot the system every ten years before the census to get a better pictures of our reform and our population as a whole.

Comment on Milton Friedman, Where Are You Now That We Need You?

Gman — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:06:24 GMT

I like the simplicity of the issue and how complex things become over time..

Comment on Unprincipled Agents

LetMeGoogleItForYou — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:58:37 GMT

Don't let the facts get in your way, Williams and Marinucci didn't... Anybody who can use Google knows that the EBay IPO had a price on the opening day of $50 vs. $18 for the pre-IPO subscription. Now a 180% price-jump is pretty unheard-of and indicates that Whitman didn't fulfill her duties as a CEO and Goldman was careless in its IPO pricing -- but it is nowhere near the 10000% markup that you try to insinuate here (which would be obviously fraudulent etc).

Comment on Local Control

jh — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:45:37 GMT

"So this guy was still a priest and could go anywhere in the country and show his priest credentials and volunteer to work with youth - the reader will note that Pinole is near Oakland but not in the same diocese. And if nobody checked with Oakland it would all look O.K.

Because the Vatican, in the person of Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict, figured that if it just sat on the whole thing the guy would die or come to Jesus of something and no one would have to admit that they were wrong.

So much for local control."

This is completely wrong I am afraid that being how you are viewing it.

Most Priests don't have a Priest badege they can show. Once he is barred from Public Ministry he cannot just to go to another Diocese and be a Priest in good standing. If he is a Diocesean Priest he is under the jurisdiction of that Bishop. A Bishop cannot just overturn another Bishop's Barring from public ministry unless he appeals it. In fact the Priest has to be released from that Bishop jurisdiction

So no he can't just set up shop somewhere else

The quotes have been taken out context
First a little clarity on what is going on here

Until 2001 the Congregation only dealt with Sex Abuse cases that involved the Confessional

The latest supposed Controversal involved a Priest that wanted a dispensation (called some times Laicization or at time defrocking which is an unfortunate term for many reasons.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Fatih had jurisdiction over this matter because it handled these dispensations. A person can leave the Priesthood on his on but that does not mean his obligation of celibacy is relieved. The real consequence of people asking for dispensations (which this Priest did) and the reason they are asking it is to marry (which after he got it at the age of 40) which this guy did. I am not sure why the Pope should be making a exception for a child abuser to move to the front of the line and so as a Lay person can marry. Hopefully he had no kids. I am not sure of that. Again this is being framed as punshiment which is strange since the abusing priest was asking for it.

That is the scandal that Benedict is talking about. That being Priests who left the Priesthood and then in short years just got married. Pope John Paul the II made a iron clad rule that unless the PRiest that had left the active Priesthood or had been barred from public ministry could not have a dispensation untill the age of 40. That is the reference to His "young age"

Again a Priest can barred from active Ministry (which happened here and is similar to a Protestant defrocking" however he is still under the obligation of celibacy until released. He was realesed from it at the age of 40 which was the practice and I believe still is the practice today.
In the end the techincal moving of someone under Canon Law from the Cleric State to the Lay State is usually the last offical step and in reality is largely symbolic except they can marry

Comment on The Eternal Truths Of Nature

Ann Y Nomous — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:20:00 GMT

I agree with your analysis of the situation. I think the investigation should start at the top, with those who protected the abusers, rather than with those who abused and their abusers.

Keep up the good work!

Comment on God Sees The Truth But Waits

Kimberly Cross — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:40:31 GMT

so...does that mean that if we don't have a war (I'm assuming she means ANOTHER one?) that the Republicans will perish?

I could live with that.

Comment on Supply And Demand Applied To Health Care

greg — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:36:22 GMT

Free market economics also says that if you supply more of something, the price will go down, or less of something the price will go up. I suggest one of the reasons US health care is so expensive is because there isn't really enough of it to go around. See my post.

Greg's Post

Comment on Barium Enemas

gelboak — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:33:14 GMT

I am not sure I understand your complaint.

According to this on the CMS website, flexible sigmoidoscopies (HCPCS G0104), colonoscopies (HCPCS G0105 or G0121), in addition to barium enemas, are defined as preventative services in the Medicare regs.

As a matter of course, one would expect goverment regs to be a bit behind the times, considering the deliberations that they are required to go through. Now if they failed to include sigmoidoscopies decades after they became the standard diagnostic, I could see what you are saying. But is there much harm in the fact that they haven't bothered to take barium enemas off the list yet?

Or are you saying that prepaid Medicare Advantage plans should be exempt from these sorts of regs entirely?

Actually I have a general problem with the layer of HCPCS detail regs that are spawned when you try to pay for health care as HCPCS procedures.

Capitation with consumer choice of medical group!

WA

Comment on Worst Case Scenario

gelboak — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:06:08 GMT

While I agree that an orderly decline in the $$-Yuan exchange rate would be a good thing, I am not so sure about a sudden one. Remember the J-curve. When a country's currency depreciates, the first thing that happens is an increase in its trade deficit, since the price of what it imports goes up, but the elasticity of demand is very low in the short run. (What else are people who need to buy Chinese-made underwear at Walmart going to do, but suck up the higher prices).

Oh, and you missed the part about how the immediate effect of such an announcement would be a spike in the spot prices of crude oil, soybeans, and every other exchange-traded commodity, as a decrease in the yuan-denominated price of a commodity subject to arbitrage implies and increase in the dollar price of the same.

The J curve point is taken. As far as I can tell there are no open commodity markets that trade in Yuan. If ther were the pressure of arbitrage would add to the problem faced by the Chinese Government when it tries to maintain an artificially low Yuan.

If we forced the Chinese to raise the dollar value of the Yuan but they kept the Euro price of the yuan stable there might be some issues.

WA

Comment on The Labor Theory Of Taxation

greg — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:39:21 GMT

And the joke is: A person who lives by his own sweat gets taxed at a higher rate than someone who lives by the sweat of others.