Perverse Incentives

Obamacare panel approves free cancer screenings for heavy smokers

"Using a highly sensitive test like a CT scan to look for early signs of lung cancer will undoubtedly result in high rates of false positives. The NLST found that 320 high-risk smokers had to be screened to prevent one lung cancer death. Because of that, and the risk from radiation from the CT scans, LeFevre stressed that the screening should only be used in the high-risk groups specified by the guidelines. What worries LeFevre and others is that some doctors and hospitals will try to profit from screening, which costs a few hundred dollars a test. 'We hope that physicians will not use this recommendation to exaggerate the benefits of screening,' he said." Continue reading →

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More Coloradans than ever are packing heat

"More Coloradans than ever are carrying concealed weapons, according to data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which processed 31,518 background checks for concealed carry permits in the first six months of the year. That’s more than in all of 2011 and just 1,300 fewer than in all of 2012, according to the Denver Post. County sheriffs are responsible for issuing concealed carry permits and 55 of the state’s 64 sheriffs are suing Colorado to overturn what they see as overly restrictive gun control laws. These include a law mandating universal background checks and one limiting the size of ammunition magazines." Continue reading →

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Enforcement of immigration laws could be making human trafficking tougher to detect

"The threat of arrest and deportation is a common tool traffickers use to control their victims, experts say. Even those immigrants who arrive on a legitimate work-related visa have become trafficking victims. These visas usually bind the worker to an employer, who can hold that requirement over their head and even become their trafficker. 'If employment ends, then so does visa status,' says Avaloy Lanning, a senior director at Safe Horizon, a New York-based victim's services agency. 'The trafficker uses that against them, [saying], if you run then you're going to be illegal, then immigration is going to pick you up, arrest you and deport you.'" Continue reading →

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Working Class Whites Are Giving Up Hope.

"Working class whites are giving up economic hope, according to a recent poll. They did not vote for Obama. The article did talk about single-mother households. They are in poverty, of course. What did the social planners expect? If the government subsidizes a particular behavior, we get more of it. That was the conservative argument a generation ago. It was dismissed as heartless by liberals. This is what 80 years of welfare state politics have produced. But of course, no one in the mainstream mentions this. Pessimism now reigns." Continue reading →

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Colombia Illegal Gold Mines Prosper in Global Rout

"Investments by companies are being held back as ambiguous local regulations exacerbate the effects of the global gold slump. In contrast, informal operations in remote rivers and jungle areas are flourishing. The government acknowledges that the number of producers without licenses probably has risen from the last census in 2010-2011, when they accounted for 87 percent of all gold mines. While authorities are shutting down unregulated producers at an unprecedented rate, the growth of new operations shielded from environmental and labor restrictions is even faster, police say. Armed groups can reap more profit from illegal gold mining than cocaine." Continue reading →

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Kafka’s America: Secret Courts, Secret Laws, and Total Surveillance

"A mechanism to protect the American people from unwarranted government surveillance became instead a bureaucratic mechanism to rubber stamp government applications for surveillance. The Court is structured such that applications for surveillance are rarely ever denied. If a judge were to reject an application, that judge would have to immediately write a report detailing every reason for the rejection, then transmit the report to a 3-person court of review. If that court finds that the application was properly denied, it must also write a report, which is then subject to a writ of certiorari by the Supreme Court. No reviews are necessary if an application is granted." Continue reading →

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A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold

"The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again. This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman." Continue reading →

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A CEO’s-Eye View of ObamaCare

"The ACA could actually cause the number of our covered employees to decrease, particularly in the first year. The penalty for declining coverage will be low compared with the cost of coverage; and employees will know that if they happen to get sick, they can get insurance after that. So the economically rational decision for young people, like our crew employees, is to pay the penalty and forego the insurance. Despite what the government may believe, our employees are smart enough to figure this out. For insurers, it's simple math: Premiums collected must exceed claims paid. If too few young healthy people enroll, insurers will raise premiums on those who do." Continue reading →

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Safety Statistics Are Not to Be Ignored, Especially Not in Oil Transport

"An oil spill is 34 times more likely with a railway accident compared to just the aging pipeline infrastructure. So why then are we relying more and more on rail transports? The answer is simple: there is simply too much uninformed opposition to building new pipelines and replace the aging infrastructure criss-crossing North America. But the fact of the matter is this: for every day that we delay implementing a 'Casey Sensible Solution,' we are in fact putting rural communities such as Lac Mégantic at risk from either rail disasters or spills from pipelines that have been around since the Eisenhower administration." Continue reading →

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“You’re Fired. Want to Work Part-Time?”

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce summarizes what the situation is. 'Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate.' Thanks, Nancy. Thanks Barack. You have just created the new normal for low-paid workers: lower pay! This is why the government decided to delay implementation of small business rules until 2015. You see, there are Congressional elections in November of 2014." Continue reading →

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