Check the edit coming from Rochester, NY from a young crew that’s ripping the scene. The crew consists of Eric Kearney, Allen Thorogood, Connor Kenrick, Dan Lewandowski, Ryan Egeling, Matt Miller and Andy Pieri who all range from ages 14-16 years-old. Footage from East Rochester, City of Rochester, and Pittsford, NY. Filmed and edited by Allen Thorogood

Strange game, strange scoreline and a strange atmosphere at the NIC this evening. Although it finished a close scoreline I never really felt that the game would be anything other than a Panthers win while the game was in progress!

After a scrappy start  the Panthers took a two goal lead. Clever line changing left McAslan through one on one for the first, while Kevin Bergin grabbed the second on the powerplay with a blast from the right. Devils pulled one back late on in the period, Matt Miller scoring on the backhand.
The second saw the Devils equalise early on. Mark Smith pulled off a dive of Tessier-esque quality right in front of Hicks, who promptly called David Clarke for a hook when he had barely touched Smith! Of course the Devils equalised from the subsequent powerplay, Phil Hill’s deflected shot beating KSP. Panthers re-took the lead through David Clarke on the powerplay with a nice finish from an angle, then made it 4-2 with a trademark D’Amour point blast. Rather than extend the lead Panthers let the Devils right back into it almost straight away, as Jay Latulippe found the net. Panthers should have made it 5-3, but Stevie Lyle pulled of a quite astonishing point blank save from Steve Lee.
Panthers made the game safe early in the third, first David Clarke grabbed his second of the night, poking the loose puck through Lyle’s five-hole. less than two minutes later it was 6-3 as Panthers scored the goal of the game. Bruce drop passed to Galbraith who one timed the pass in front of the net where Cameron Mann made no mistake, an absolutely perfectly executed goal. Still the Devils came back, as Latulippe made it 6-4 with a blast into the top corner. A late powerplay gave Devils another sniff, but a Smith goal at 59.42 was too little, too late and the game finished with 6-5 scoreline.

The biggest surprise for me tonight was the lack of impact of Brad Voth on the game. He got a boat load of ice time, but never really made his presence felt, especially at 6-4 down when a hit or a fight could have given Devils the momentum to get something out of the game. I thought he was largely anonymous, which is unusual as he is normally immense against us.

So Panthers go back to the top, but wins against Newcastle and Edinburgh this week are essential to keep up the momentum. As for the Devils, they’ll be up there at season’s end, of that I have no doubt.

Mckinsey & Company’s name has been in the news a lot lately and much of it has been on the negative side.  I wanted to shed some positive light on what the company does, especially via their Social Sector Office, which studies Global Public Health, Economic Development, Philanthropy, Education and Climate Change.

Here’s a link to a not so new report, but one that is a fascinating read.  It examines the economic impact of the achievement gap in America’s schools.

Read and Download Full Article Here

4 to choose from with fins to flex and rails to dip:

7′0  Greg Liddle “Death Board” Displacement Hull $750

7′2 Greg Liddle “Marty Peach” Displacement Hull – SOLD

7′6 Greg Liddle “Mr Putnam” Displacement Hull with Golden Yellow Tint and Black Resin Pin Line – $795

6′11 1/2 “PG/Matt Miller”  Displacement Hull with Golden Yellow Tint and Black Resin Pin Line -SOLD

]]> http://mslacat.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/odds-and-ends-9-8-09/ Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:33:19 +0000 mslacat http://mslacat.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/odds-and-ends-9-8-09/ http://daynurseryindy.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/fc-tucker-volunteers-help-with-luau-preparation/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:35:33 +0000 Day Nursery Indianapolis http://daynurseryindy.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/fc-tucker-volunteers-help-with-luau-preparation/ http://megancasephotography.com/2009/08/21/south-atlant-flickr/ Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:31:18 +0000 megansampsel http://megancasephotography.com/2009/08/21/south-atlant-flickr/

I have so much fun shooting with this group.  For those of you in the Atlanta area it is well worth the drive to shoot with the South Atlanta Flickr group.  Props to Julie Harnage and Jason Morrison for always organizing professional models and fantastic make up artists to make the shoot extra special.

This is the second time I’ve had the opportunity to work with Reggie Carson (aka the Stylistocrat).   Stylistocrat by R&R is a lifestyle men’s clothing brand that specializes in showing Gentlemen the proper ways to dress. Reggie, and business partner Robert, have years of experience in men’s fashion… look for the next chapter and future in Style from these two Stylistocrats. And prepare to read and know the Who, What and Wear!  You can check out their blog here.

Below is the contact information for the make up artists and the models.

MUA:

Melodie of Beyond Beauty Studios 678.432.2507, MM # 1298142
www.beyondbeautystudio.com

Toi of InSideOutBeauty Consulting 770.276.1220 MM# 1249882
www.wix.com/themakeupdesigner/insideoutbeauty

Models:

Reggie Carson -
www.modelmayhem.com/623256
www.flickr.com/photos/stylistocrat

Danielle Korman -
www.modelmayhem.com/1289240

Nakry Peeler-

Currently waiting on model mayhem account verification

Aaannnd….one more just for fun.  Meet Matt Miller and Jason Morrison’s hands……

CLASS AAA: COLORADO SPRINGS 7 @ NEW ORLEANS 4 – Eric Young Jr and Matt Miller both went 2 for 5, scoring a run each

CLASS AA: MIDLAND 7 @ TULSA 4 – Not a great night of pithcing by the Drillers. Starting pitcher Ching Lung Lo went 3 innings giving up 5 hits, 5 earned runs and 3 walks.

CLASS A (ADVANCED): VISALIA 1 @ MODESTO 6 – Cory Riordan struck out 7 through 7 innings of work only allowing 4 hits and a run. Riordan is now 10-6 this season.

CLASS A: KANNAPOLIS 8 @ ASHEVILLE 1 – Jonnathan Aristil got off to a bad start only going 4 innings, giving up 7 hits and 4 runs, 2 of them homeruns.

CLASS A (SHORT SEASON): TRI CITY 5 @ VANCOUVER 6 – Vancouver scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th off Eric Federico, his first loss as a reliever.

CLASS A (ROOKIE): BILLINGS @ CASPER – Postponed due to rain. The Ghost like the Rockies will also play a doubleheader today.

[Photo credit]

Dear Bike Chicks,

You manage to ride the rough streets of Philly in your cute little mini-dresses and heels without a scratch while I huff and puff in my ungainly red bicycle helmet and Keds. And not only can you demurely ride a bike in skirts/dresses (a feat that I have still to master as a pedestrian), you do it all while wearing full makeup. Lipstick. Mascara. Eyeliner. Just tell me how. And why.

First how? What sort of black magic do you use to preserve yourself while rushing down the Parkway in your vintage Raleighs. As much as I try to pull off the too-cool-to-wear-a-helmet look, every time I read about a cyclist getting killed or injured, I give up my dreams of forgoing helmet hair and accept that my chin is going to be imprinted with a red strap-mark.

And the heels. Why the heels? Who rides bikes with heels? I thought I was dreaming the first time I saw a gal rushing down Center City’s South Broad Street on her bike wearing black heels. But then I saw it again. And again. I get it. You want to be feminine.  And eco-conscious. And tough. But seriously, one crash and you could be kissing those little pedicured toes goodbye. No joke. I’ve gotten tangled up in bike wheels before. Not pretty. Isn’t wearing covered-toe shoes like the number one rule of bike safety? At least that’s what I learned as a kid.

At the end of a bike ride, I usually look like I’ve been flattened by a steamroller. And you look like you’ve just been to a fashion shoot. Ah, well. C’est la vie. I’d rather not be gorgeous all the time than die trying.

Love,

PG

There are so many things wrong with the current conversation on Health Care Reform that it makes it difficult to catch a whiff of civility on the topic. Most of the problems come from good old fashioned ignorance. Why do we continue to see this debate more in mythic terms than fact-based? It’s enough to make this Cajun country economist round up a few alligators to go after her blue dog pols. This reform should save the country and businesses beaucoups bucks if done right. Every other industrialized/advanced nation has gone before us! There are examples we can learn from! Most of them include way more provider choice than we have now!

Still, all we get are canards of epic proportion. Moses did not come down from the Mount with employer based insurance programs inscribed on the tablets. We can do much better! The continuing screed from the right claiming that a single payer insurance option is complete nationalization of the delivery system that will lead to huge wait times and ice floe ends for the elderly is probably the most obvious example of making policy based on myth rather than common sense and data.

I continue to have to remind people that while that story about some one’s Aunt Sally that died in Canada while awaiting hip replacement surgery is touching, it is an anecdote. Anecdotes are just specific data points in a population that may or may not be representative of what goes on for the most part within that population. You need a database to get the complete picture. That explanation even gives the anecdote the benefit of being true since many are just those viral things passed around the internet as urban myths. One data point is not the proper reference for any kind of policy decision. Try, however, to tell that to the general population and some depressingly dim witted pol like the majority of mine from Louisiana.

There are so many myths surrounding the health care debate that Nancy Pelosi has sent fact sheets to Democratic Congress critters to help them fight off the disinformation. (Yeah, like people are going to take THAT source as the best messenger for the program. What’s her approval rating? Some where in vpResident Evil range?)

House speaker Nancy Pelosi returned home to San Francisco this weekend carrying a red, white and blue pocket card that will help guide her through the August recess. The card lists talking points she hopes will convince everyday Americans of the benefits they could receive under the health-care reform plan she hatched with other House Democrats last week.

Pelosi distributed the cards to all 256 of her caucus members, arming the unruly Democratic majority for battle in their disparate districts across the country. After laboring for weeks in Washington to reach a compromise between liberal and conservative factions of her caucus, Pelosi is taking the fight outside the Beltway, where polls show that her popularity is faltering. She plans to stump for health-care reform in San Francisco, Denver and other cities.

At stake is legislation that could define her legacy as speaker and shape President Obama’s political future. Pelosi called health-care reform with a public insurance option “the issue of an official lifetime.”

“August will be a month of inoculation against the negative message of the insurance industry,” Pelosi said in an interview, resting in a yellow armchair in her stately office, which has sweeping views of the Mall. “It will be a month of education in terms of what is in our bill. It will be a month of communication — listening, listening, listening to what constituents have to say.”

In this particular debate, I’m not sure we need to listen to everything constituents have to say because they’re getting their data from viral email anecdotes and TV infomercials from the insurance industry. I’d say it’s more about at looking at what the facts on the ground say and helping constituents make sense of what various options with health care reform would mean to the American people. We need to debunk the myth that we have this great functioning system now. We also need to de-link from the US pathology that makes our health care system unique, costly, and deadly.

The Financial Times had an op-ed piece today by Matt Miller that succinctly explained one of our main problems. Health care in this country is basically linked to employment. Here’s a taste of his thesis.

The bipartisan “gang of six” in the Senate wants to fine employers whose workers choose Medicaid, the US public healthcare system, rather than more costly insurance from their company. The House wants to impose an 8 per cent payroll tax on all but the tiniest companies that do not offer healthcare. These damaging proposals show that both political parties remain deeply confused about the roles of government and corporations in a modern economy. Their premise – that companies have a duty to provide health benefits – has such perverse consequences that it may doom reform efforts altogether.

America’s unique employer-based healthcare system may have made sense 50 years ago, when healthcare was cheap and business faced little global competition. But today’s circumstances are radically different. Soaring health costs strangle business and absorb cash that could otherwise go to wages. The link between healthcare and employment explains why millions of Americans have lost coverage during this recession. Budding entrepreneurs with ill spouses or children stay in jobs they loathe for fear of losing the insurance they need. Keeping employers at the core of the welfare state is bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for families.

The word perverse is correct. A perverse disincentive is why good paying automobile assembly jobs go to Canada and out of Michigan. Canada has unions. Canada has higher taxes. Canada, for all intents and purposes, should have no comparative advantage over the United States for Automobile Manufacturing but it does. The one big cost that every business faces here if it wants to attract workers is their health insurance liability. The price of that liability continues to spiral out of control. Businesses simply cannot compete with other industrialized nations if they offer health insurance to their employees. It increases the cost of their product by an ever increasing amount. If you were truly interested in American business, why would you saddle the majority of them with costs that simply provide profits to a bunch of inept third party paper shufflers and naysayers? Wouldn’t you be more concerned with the majority of businesses than the profit seeking tentacles of the insurance industry?

How can we move beyond the meme that a program that is non-employer provided is socialism? The move to something else is about creating a cost effective structure that can take advantage of risk pooling and uniform paperwork to provide every one cheap health insurance, regardless of employment status. People don’t seem to get that it doesn’t even have to be the Federal Government providing the single payer insurance. Is your utility company or your cable company Fidel Castro’s wet dream?

In this day where 1 out of 10 of us are unemployed, and many of us work for small businesses with no ability to provide coverage, you would think this would dawn on a few folks. For some reason, the blue dogs, the Republicans, and some hold out U.S. citizens that scream “I have mine!!” just don’t get it. That’s not even the majority of us, however, so why do their voices count more than ours? It appears that it’s not their voices. It’s the campaign contributions.

You would think that all of those folks would like the extra money in their pockets and not in the pockets of the bonus class. Unfortunately, some of that profit-making off the ill in this country winds up in the pockets of the very folks who are voting on reform. Here’s some information from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on that very issue. If you are from Wisconsin, it details the entire list of who bought your representatives on the issue this year from the health care industry. We need a list like that for every state.

In the first six months of 2009 alone, the health care sector has given $11.4 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Campaign contributors – from insurance companies to hospitals to doctors – are showering Wisconsin members of Congress with donations.

“There’s tons of money coming in,” said Mike Klein, of the Sunlight Foundation, who argues that the health care sector has significantly boosted its campaign donations to Congress in an attempt to get “a seat at the table” as the debate over health reform takes shape.

Back to the rational from the FT article and the argument that needs to be made.

The most depressing examples of this thinking are the proposed rules to keep people in job-based care. Strict limits, for example, would govern who could use new insurance “exchanges” that would give access to competing plans, including a public insurance option. Those who already have coverage from an employer would be barred from seeking coverage there. But this is exactly the opposite of what sound policy should be doing. Worse, this lockdown obviously does not lower national health costs at all – it just keeps the amount on the public ledger below some threshold deemed politically acceptable.

The better solution would be a “grand bargain”, through which business shifts health costs off its payrolls and on to government, in exchange for business supporting the broader revenue needed for government to accommodate this shift. Contrary to conservative claims, it is perfectly possible to do so in market-friendly ways. As health systems in Switzerland and Holland show, the US could have universal coverage without taking the road of single-payer care.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has been the lonely voice arguing that America must move beyond job-based healthcare to boost business competitiveness while assuring family health security. Mr Wyden mustered a small bipartisan coalition around such a plan, but the weight of dead ideas in Washington has stifled the proposal.

Why can’t we get a discussion going on salient information like this? Why are we bombarded with 30 second junkomercials instead of real information that we could use? Well, of course, it’s the money and it’s the profits of one industry lording itself over the benefits of the society and even the business community. How can we get a real conversation going under these circumstances? There should be a lot more on the table than what we see now. We should be able to expect more from the Democratic party and its POTUS and its huge majority. We need to demand more than facts from little red, white and blue index cards and TOTUS. We need some kind of Health Care Reform Marshall Plan.

There are so many things wrong with the current conversation on Health Care Reform that it makes it difficult to catch a whiff of civility on the topic.  Most of the problems come from good old fashioned ignorance.  Why do we continue to see this debate more in mythic terms than fact-based?  It’s enough to make this Cajun country economist round up a few alligators to go after her blue dog pols.  This reform should save the country and businesses beaucoups bucks if done right.  Every other industrialized/advanced nation has gone before us!  There are examples we can learn from! Most of them include way more provider choice than we have now!

Still, all we get are canards of epic proportion.  Moses did not come down from the Mount with employer based insurance programs inscribed on the tablets.  We can do much better!  The continuing screed from the right claiming that a single payer insurance option is complete nationalization of the delivery system that will lead to huge wait times and ice floe ends for the elderly is probably the most obvious example of making policy based on myth rather than common sense and data.

I continue to have to remind people that while that story about some one’s Aunt Sally that died in Canada while awaiting hip replacement surgery is touching, it is an anecdote. Anecdotes are just specific data points in a population that may or may not be representative of what goes on for the most part within that population.  You need a database to get the complete picture.  That explanation even gives the anecdote the benefit of being true since many are just those viral things passed around the internet as urban myths. One data point is not the proper reference for any kind of policy decision. Try, however, to tell that to the general population and some depressingly dim witted pol like the majority of mine from Louisiana.

There are so many myths surrounding the health care debate that Nancy Pelosi has sent fact sheets to Democratic Congress critters to help them fight off the disinformation.  (Yeah, like people are going to take THAT source as the best messenger for the program. What’s her approval rating?  Some where in vpResident Evil range?)

House speaker Nancy Pelosi returned home to San Francisco this weekend carrying a red, white and blue pocket card that will help guide her through the August recess. The card lists talking points she hopes will convince everyday Americans of the benefits they could receive under the health-care reform plan she hatched with other House Democrats last week.

Pelosi distributed the cards to all 256 of her caucus members, arming the unruly Democratic majority for battle in their disparate districts across the country. After laboring for weeks in Washington to reach a compromise between liberal and conservative factions of her caucus, Pelosi is taking the fight outside the Beltway, where polls show that her popularity is faltering. She plans to stump for health-care reform in San Francisco, Denver and other cities.

At stake is legislation that could define her legacy as speaker and shape President Obama’s political future. Pelosi called health-care reform with a public insurance option “the issue of an official lifetime.”

“August will be a month of inoculation against the negative message of the insurance industry,” Pelosi said in an interview, resting in a yellow armchair in her stately office, which has sweeping views of the Mall. “It will be a month of education in terms of what is in our bill. It will be a month of communication — listening, listening, listening to what constituents have to say.”

In this particular debate, I’m not sure we need to listen to everything constituents have to say because they’re getting their data from viral email anecdotes and TV infomercials from the insurance industry.  I’d say it’s more about at looking at what the facts on the ground say and helping constituents make sense of what various options with health care reform would mean to the American people.  We need to debunk the myth that we have this great functioning system now.  We also need to de-link from the US pathology that makes our health care system unique, costly, and deadly.

The Financial Times had an op-ed piece today by Matt Miller that succinctly explained one of our main problems.  Health care in this country is basically linked to employment.   Here’s a taste of his thesis.

The bipartisan “gang of six” in the Senate wants to fine employers whose workers choose Medicaid, the US public healthcare system, rather than more costly insurance from their company. The House wants to impose an 8 per cent payroll tax on all but the tiniest companies that do not offer healthcare. These damaging proposals show that both political parties remain deeply confused about the roles of government and corporations in a modern economy. Their premise – that companies have a duty to provide health benefits – has such perverse consequences that it may doom reform efforts altogether.

America’s unique employer-based healthcare system may have made sense 50 years ago, when healthcare was cheap and business faced little global competition. But today’s circumstances are radically different. Soaring health costs strangle business and absorb cash that could otherwise go to wages. The link between healthcare and employment explains why millions of Americans have lost coverage during this recession. Budding entrepreneurs with ill spouses or children stay in jobs they loathe for fear of losing the insurance they need. Keeping employers at the core of the welfare state is bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for families.

The word perverse is correct.  A perverse disincentive is why good paying automobile assembly jobs go to Canada and out of Michigan.  Canada has unions.  Canada has higher taxes. Canada, for all intents and purposes, should have no comparative advantage over the United States for Automobile Manufacturing but it does.    The one big cost that every business faces here if it wants to attract workers is their health insurance liability.  The price of that liability continues to spiral out of control.  Businesses simply cannot compete with other industrialized nations if they offer health insurance to their employees.  It increases the cost of their product by an ever increasing amount.  If you were truly interested in American business, why would you saddle the majority of them with costs that simply provide profits to a bunch of inept third party paper shufflers and naysayers?  Wouldn’t you be more concerned with the majority of businesses than the profit seeking tentacles of the insurance industry?

How can we move beyond the meme that a program that is non-employer provided is socialism?    The move to something else is about creating a cost effective structure that can take advantage of risk pooling and uniform paperwork to provide every one  cheap health insurance, regardless of employment status.  People don’t seem to get that it doesn’t even have to be the Federal Government providing the single payer insurance.  Is your utility company or cable company Fidel Castro’s wet dream?

In this day where 1 out of 10 of us are unemployed, and many of us work for small businesses with no ability to provide coverage, you would think this would dawn on a few folks.  For some reason, the blue dogs, the Republicans, and some hold out U.S. citizens that scream “I have mine!!”  just don’t get it.  That’s not even the majority of us, however, so why do their voices count more than ours?  It appears that it’s not their voices.  It’s the campaign contributions.

You would think that all of those folks would like the extra money in their pockets and not in the pockets of the bonus class.  Unfortunately, some of that profit-making off the ill in this country winds up in the pockets of the very folks who are voting on reform.  Here’s some information from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on that very issue.  If you are from Wisconsin, it details the entire list of who bought your representatives on the issue this year from the health care industry.  We need a list like that for every state.

In the first six months of 2009 alone, the health care sector has given $11.4 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Campaign contributors – from insurance companies to hospitals to doctors – are showering Wisconsin members of Congress with donations.

“There’s tons of money coming in,” said Mike Klein, of the Sunlight Foundation, who argues that the health care sector has significantly boosted its campaign donations to Congress in an attempt to get “a seat at the table” as the debate over health reform takes shape.

Back to the rational from the FT article and the argument that needs to be made.

The most depressing examples of this thinking are the proposed rules to keep people in job-based care. Strict limits, for example, would govern who could use new insurance “exchanges” that would give access to competing plans, including a public insurance option. Those who already have coverage from an employer would be barred from seeking coverage there. But this is exactly the opposite of what sound policy should be doing. Worse, this lockdown obviously does not lower national health costs at all – it just keeps the amount on the public ledger below some threshold deemed politically acceptable.

The better solution would be a “grand bargain”, through which business shifts health costs off its payrolls and on to government, in exchange for business supporting the broader revenue needed for government to accommodate this shift. Contrary to conservative claims, it is perfectly possible to do so in market-friendly ways. As health systems in Switzerland and Holland show, the US could have universal coverage without taking the road of single-payer care.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has been the lonely voice arguing that America must move beyond job-based healthcare to boost business competitiveness while assuring family health security. Mr Wyden mustered a small bipartisan coalition around such a plan, but the weight of dead ideas in Washington has stifled the proposal.

Why can’t we get a discussion going on salient information like this?  Why are we bombarded with 30 second junkomercials instead of real information that we could use?  Well, of course, it’s the money and it’s the profits of one industry lording itself over the benefits of the society and even the business community.  How can we get a real conversation going under these circumstances?  There should be a lot more on the table than what we see now.  We should be able to expect more from the Democratic party and its POTUS and its huge majority.  We need to demand more than facts from little red, white and blue index cards and TOTUS.  We need some kind of Health Care Reform Marshall Plan.

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So many problems out there — health care costs, climate change, mortgage crisis — and so many complicated solutions being pursued.  Some solutions that economists would tend to favor that do not seem to be part of the current political debate involve eliminating a couple of expensive tax loopholes, for health insurance and mortgage interest, and imposing a carbon tax.

All of these would raise a lot of revenue, and tax increases of any kind are like kryptonite to politicians and of course counterproductive in a recession, but they could be made revenue-neutral by cutting tax rates or increasing the personal exemptions or standard deductions.  Or, when the economy has recovered, tax increases like these could be part of a deficit-reduction package.

One by one:

(1) Close the health insurance tax loophole, which makes people with employer-provided insurance feel like they’re getting it for free, when of course the employer pays for it (and the worker probably pays indirectly in the form of a lower salary to offset this big benefit, and other people pay in the sense that more of the tax burden gets shifted to them).  So most people aren’t going to be very cost-conscious when it comes to their health care.

I actually kind of liked John McCain’s proposal last year to eliminate this loophole and replace it with a $7000 (?) tax credit so that people could buy their own health insurance directly.  The main thing I found missing in that proposal was the lack of some kind of public option that would ensure that everyone would be able to afford some kind of minimally acceptable health plan.  Combine McCain’s proposal with the public option in some of the current Democratic plans, and you’ve got something.

Employer-provided health insurance is really not the best way to go, as Matt Miller argued in The Financial Times this week. (In fact, it’s mainly the outcome of World War II labor markets and another loophole: The government imposed wage controls but did not think it needed to regulate fringe benefits. Labor demand was high, and so was workers’ bargaining power, so workers got firms to provide health insurance. Since then, it’s been a path-dependent process.)  Under the current system, people who lose their jobs also lose their health insurance (unless they qualify for Medicaid or Medicare), and people whose employers can’t or won’t pay for health insurance are S.O.L.  The system is hard on employers as well, as health insurance is a high and rising part of their labor costs over which they have little control.  It hurts their bottom line,  and it hurts their competitiveness. Just ask General Motors.

(2) Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction – Among the lessons of the mortgage meltdown is that homeownership is not for everybody and the government should not be subsidizing it quite so much.  A house is simply not that great an investment — before the bubble, housing prices did basically no better than the general price level. Many people would be better off renting and putting their extra money into stocks, bonds, etc., instead of tying themselves down financially and geographically with a mortgage. The mortgage interest deduction is one of the biggest ones, so ending it would raise a lot of revenue.  (It might also simplify a lot of people’s tax preparation — before we bought a house and started paying a mortgage, we always took the standard deduction, so tax prep was a breeze.)

(3) Impose a carbon tax.  Something like this is in every microeconomics textbook:  If certain profitable activities cause negative externalities like pollution or global warming, then the market (which doesn’t care about externalities unless made to do so) will produce too much of them.  A tax on those activities, or better yet on the emissions themselves, will induce firms to produce less of them.

This seems a lot simpler, more straightforward, and less subject to political maneuvering than the current cap-and-trade plan that is before Congress.  Cap and trade (where there would be emissions permits adding up to a total emissions ceiling and firms would be allowed to buy and sell those permits among themselves) is not a bad idea, but economists generally prefer that those permits be auctioned off at market value rather than just handed out to firms, as in the leading bill.  It’s hard to believe that the better-connected firms didn’t get a disproportionate share of those free permits.

***

Yet another idea, which would find less consensus among economists than the first three (sometimes economists break down along partisan lines just like everyone else), is to raise the top marginal tax rate, currently at 35% (exactly half what it was when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, by the way).  Candidate Barack Obama proposed hiking it to 39.6%, where it was when Bill Clinton left office, but President Obama has shelved that idea while the depression is still raging.  It’s not a bad idea, though. And it seems preferable to imposing pay caps, as has been discussed (and done with TARP recipients).  It should be up to the shareholders to decide if executives are overpaid and then to act (another thorny issue, the lack of shareholder power and what to do about it, but one for a future post). Also, a higher top tax rate — preferably starting at a much higher threshold, like $1 million, instead of the current threshold of about $300,000 — would apply to everyone earning above that amount, not just financial executives or whichever Freak of the Week has earned the public’s wrath.  Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had a great NYT op-ed back in February advocating raising the top tax rate to 50%.  I would set it a bit lower, so that virtually nobody has to pay more than half their income in taxes (which seems to me like an important psychological threshold).

When the economy returns to full employment, however many years that might be from now, deficit reduction will probably crowd out nearly every other domestic priority.  (And in the minds of many, mostly Republican politicians and CNBC talking heads, the crowding out is already here.)  Tax increases are never popular, but they’ll be hard to avoid with the country in a precarious fiscal position.  (1) – (3) would command majority support among economists, I think, and raising the top tax rate to about 40% or so works for me, too.

CLASS AAA: SACRAMENTO 11 @ COLORADO SPRINGS 10 - 12 innings later the Sky Sox couldn’t hang on for the win. Matt Miller went 3 for 5 with 4 RBIs.

CLASS AA: TULSA 5 @ ARKANSAS 6 – Starting pitcher Chaz Roe gave up 5 earned runs in 4.2 innings and left with a no decision.

CLASS A (ADVANCED): BAKERSFIELD 0 @ MODESTO 11 – Jay Cox led the Nuts with 3 RBIs on 2 for 4 hitting. Cox also scored 2 runs. Joey Williamson gets his 11th win on the season for a record of 11-1.

CLASS A: LAKEWOOD 3 @ ASHEVILLE 9 – Juan Nicasio improves his record to 5-1 with tonight’s win. Nicasio struck out 5 batters in 6.2 innings.

CLASS A (SHORT SEASON): TRI CITY 3 @ EVERETT 1 - The Dust Devils scored 2 runs in the 8th and another in the 9th. Rhett Ballard gets his 4th win of the season striking out 4 in 2.1 innings.

CLASS A (ROOKIE): CASPER 6 @ OREM 0 - Shortstop Joseph Scott led the way with 3 RBIs on 1 for 2 hitting. Jonathan Vargas stikes out 3 through 5 innings for his 3rd win of the season.

CLASS AAA: COLORADO SPRINGS 11 @ LAS VEGAS 6 – Eric Young Jr went 3 for 4 with an RBI and scored 3 runs, while Matt Miller had 4 RBIs on 2 for 4 hitting. Jason Hirsh gets his 6th win of the season going 3.1 innings after Greg Smith gave up 5 runs after 2.2 innings.

CLASS AA: SPRINGFIELD 2 @ TULSA 4 – Keith Weiser (6-9) scattered 5 hits and struck out 4 over 7 innings for his 6th win of the season.

CLASS A (ADVANCED): VISALIA 6 @ MODESTO 10 – Wilin Rosario led Modesto with 3 RBIs on 3 for 4 hitting. Connor Graham (7-4) struck out 9 batters in 5 innings.

CLASS A: ASHEVILLE - No game scheduled.

CLASS A (SHORT SEASON): EUGENE 2 @ TRI CITY 6 – Sheng-An Kuo struck out 5 batters and walked 1 in 5.2 innings.

CLASS A (ROOKIE): HELENA 8 @ CASPER 4 - Juan Gonzalez takes the loss after a 6 inning performance that saw him give up 6 hits, 5 runs (3 earned) and a homerun. Gonzalez is 0-2 on the season.

Zoo York’s State of Mind came out a couple of weeks ago, and as expected the zoo york team rips it apart. Probably one of my favorite videos that have come out this year so far. Couldn’t get my hand on the full video to post but hey check out the trailer and go out and download this shit.

CLASS AAA: COLORADO SPRINGS – PCL vs Intl League Triple A all-star game played. Rockies prospects Eric Young Jr, Matt Miller and Matt Murton collectively went 2 for 10 with 6 strikeouts.

CLASS AA: TULSA – Texas League off

CLASS A (ADVANCED): MODESTO 6 @ SAN JOSE 4 – Joey Williamson gets his 10 win of the season to go to 10-1. Shortstop Hector Gomez went 3 for 4 with 3 RBIs.

CLASS A: ASHEVILLE 11 @ LAKE COUNTY 3 – DH Kiel Roling led the way with 4 RBIs on 3 for 5 hitting.

CLASS A (SHORT SEASON): TRI CITY 2 @ SPOKANE 1 – The Dust Devils scored 2 in the top of the 9th and Charles Ruiz closed out the Indians in the bottom half for the save.

CLASS A (ROOKIE): MISSOULA 7 @ CASPER 3 – Casper scored in the first and second innings, but were shut out the rest of the way. The Ghosts left 8 men on base and were 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

CLASS AAA: SALT LAKE 2 @ COLORADO SPRINGS 8 – PCL All-stars Eric Young Jr, Matt Miller, and Matt Murton went 4 for 10 with 5 RBIs collectively

CLASS AA: TULSA 1 @ CORPUS CHRISTI 7 – The Drillers only run of the game came in the first inning. They finished with 8 hits on the night. Keith Weiser loses the game going 7 innings and giving up 10 hits and 5 runs.

CLASS A (ADVANCED): BAKERSFIELD 7 @ MODESTO 3 - Shortstop Hector Gomez went 0 for 5 as the DH. Catcher Wilin Rosario went 0 for 4.

CLASS A: ASHEVILLE 5 @ SAVANNAH 1 – The Tourists shutout Savannah for 8 innings, allowing a run in the ninth. Juan Nicasio threw for 6.2 innings, striking out 12. Nicasio is 2-1 on the season with an ERA of 1.76.

CLASS A (SHORT SEASON): BOISE 0 @ TRI CITY 12 – Scott Beerer in as the DH role went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs and has an average of .600 on the season. Dust Devils pitching struck out 9, onlt giving up 3 hits.

CLASS A (ROOKIE): IDAHO FALLS @ CASPER – Scheduled doubleheader was rained out.