The Worst Idea in the World

Five years after the Bolshevik Revolution, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises predicted that the Soviet project was doomed to fail. In his classic work Socialism, Mises explained that the attempt to replace the market system with central economic planning could not succeed, because the planners could not possibly have the information necessary to make all the decisions which, in a market economy, are made by individuals whose needs and desires are reflected in prices: "The problem of economic calculation is the fundamental problem of Socialism."
"Everything brought forward in favour of Socialism during the last hundred years," Mises wrote in 1922, "in thousands of writings and speeches, all the blood which has been spilt by the supporters of Socialism, cannot make Socialism workable. .... Socialist writers may continue to publish books about the decay of Capitalism and the coming of the socialist millennium; they may paint the evils of Capitalism in lurid colours and contrast with them an enticing picture of the blessings of a socialist society; their writings may continue to impress the thoughtless -- but all this cannot alter the fate of the socialist idea."

http://spectator.org/articles/57691/worst-idea-world 

White House threatens to veto Republican-backed California water bill

The White House threatened to veto legislation on Wednesday that would curtail federal rules limiting the amount of water pumped out of California's San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta while the state struggles with its worst drought in decades.
The Obama administration said the bill would "undermine years of collaboration between local, state, and federal stakeholders to develop a sound water quality control plan for the Bay-Delta."
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Republican-backed water bill later on Wednesday.
A record-breaking dry spell has led to a water crisis that could further endanger California's Central Valley agriculture hub.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/05/california-drought-congress-idUSL2N0LA1D820140205

Retreat: Obama Admin May Extend Plans Canceled by Obamacare for 3 Years

This is either a glaring admission of defeat from the White House or… no, that’s really all it could be.
After weeks of defending the cancellation of health plans insurers discontinued in 2013 in order to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandates, the White House announced in November of last year that it was urging insurers to reinstate those plans. The catch was, of course, that most insurers would be unable to turn on a dime and reinstate those plans. Furthermore, the administration allowed individual states leeway to determine whether or not they would even allow insurers to reinstate those cancelled plans.
President Barack Obama’s maneuver was more of a political solution than a policy fix, and a temporary one at that. But that appears to be changing.
“Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for an additional three years,” the AP reported on Thursday.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/retreat-obama-admin-may-extend-plans-canceled-by-obamacare-for-3-years/ 

Just Because The CBO Says Something Doesn't Mean It's True

One of the headlines out of yesterday's Congressional Budget Office report was that the risk corridor provision of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have assailed as a "bailout" of insurance companies, is actually expected to save taxpayers $8 billion through 2016.

Maybe. Maybe not. Don't put too much stock in this prediction from CBO.

Remember: The risk corridor is a program through which the government assumes, for the first three years of Obamacare, much of the risk of selling health insurance through the exchanges. If people who buy insurance in are sicker than expected, and therefore consume lots of health care, the government will pay insurers to cover much of the excess cost. If costs come in below expectations, insurers will make payments to the government.

This program exists because the cost of providing insurance to a new pool of customers is hard to predict. Insurers did their best to predict the costs when they set their premiums, and they have big incentives to get it right: If they price too low, they'll lose a bunch of money, even after the partial offset from the risk corridor. And if they price too high, they'll lose customers (and they'll end up sending the government much of the excess revenue from the signups they do get, through the risk corridor).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/just-because-cbo-says-something-194508634.html 

Newly-Passed Farm Bill's Costs Ballooning Despite Food Stamp Cuts

Coming in at almost $1 trillion, and after three years of legislative delays, Congress has passed a farm bill. President Obama is expected to sign the farm bill into law at Michigan State University Friday.

A key takeaway from the nearly 1,000-page mega-bill is a measure that could cut about $9 million from food stamps over ten years. The cuts are said to trim an average of $90 a month in benefits from some 850,000 Americans who rely on the program.
However, the farm bill’s overall spending totals are exploding.
The Congressional Budget Office says this year’s farm bill is projected to cost a total of $956 billion from 2014-2023. That’s a 49 percent increase from 2008’s $640 billion farm bill which was vetoed by President Bush due to its nearly 50 percent cost increase over the 2003 farm bill. Both houses of Congress overrode Bush’s veto.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/05/Farm-Bill-Costs-Balloon-Despite-Food-Stamp-Cuts 

Which Fact Is Fact

The Left Spins Job Losses Due to ObamaCare as a Good Thing

In the wake of yesterday’s Congressional Budget Report that ObamaCare will cost 2.5 million jobs over the next ten years, the progressive left is spinning like crazy. The first is that people will be liberated from jobs that they hate but were forced to stay at, lest they lose their health insurance. Worked forty hours a week as a shipping clerk but secretly yearned to be a writer of neo-classical poetry that will make angels weep and puppies spontaneously clone themselves with joy? Well, according to outfits like The New York Times, you’re now liberated to chase your dreams, away from the evil shackles of the workaday world. The reason that you’re able to do so is that the government will subsidize your health care, so you can choose where you work and how much you work.

http://rightwingpatriot.com/the-left-spins-job-losses-due-to-obamacare-as-a-good-thing/ 

 FACT CHECK: Anti-Obamacare chorus is off key

New estimates that President Barack Obama's health care law will encourage millions of Americans to leave the workforce or reduce their work hours have touched off an I-told-you-so chorus from Republicans, who've claimed all along that the law will kill jobs. But some aren't telling it straight.

The analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the law will give several million people an opportunity to work less or not at all, because they won't be stuck in jobs just for the sake of keeping the health insurance they get from employers. To some Republicans, that amounts to "wreaking havoc on working families," "dire consequences for workers" and a shower of pink slips across the land - conclusions unsupported by the report.

The study estimates that the workforce will be reduced by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers by 2021 as people choose to leave it. More would take early retirement, work fewer hours or otherwise rearrange their work-home balance to take advantage of new subsidies for health insurance and new markets for individual policies that don't depend on having a job.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_FACT_CHECK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-02-06-03-12-50 

 

A Tale of Two Droughts

Despite recent sporadic rain, California is still in the worst extended drought in its brief recorded history. If more storms do not arrive, the old canard that California could withstand two droughts -- but never three -- will be tested for the first time in memory.
There is little snow in the state's towering Sierra Nevada mountains, the source of much of the surface water that supplies the state's populated center and south. The vast Central Valley aquifer is being tapped as never before, as farms and municipalities deepen wells and boost pump size. Too many straws are now competing to suck out the last drops at the bottom of the collective glass.
The vast 4-million-acre farming belt along the west side of the Central Valley is slowly drying up. Unlike valley agriculture to the east that still has a viable aquifer, these huge farms depend entirely on surface water deliveries from the distant and usually wet northern part of the state. So if the drought continues, billions of dollars of Westside orchards and vineyards will die, row cropland will lay fallow, and farm-supported small towns will likewise dry up.

http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2014/02/06/a-tale-of-two-droughts-n1790132