Nothing good from the good ol’ days

George Rebane

[This is the transcript from my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 28 April 2016.]

Conservatives, and even some libertarians for good measure, are accused of wanting to bring back the America of the early post-war years – the period from, say, 1945 to 1960. When any of the progressive media find someone prominent longing for those bygone days, they are immediately pounced upon and ridiculed as a knuckle dragger who wants the country to return to Jim Crow racism, to abandon the technical advances such as the personal computer, the internet, modern medicines, and most certainly to go back to a time when we ignored our environment.

And there is nothing nuanced about how liberals perceive someone who points out another silly aspect of today’s political correctness. These are stigmatized and accused of longing for what today is labeled as the ‘bad old days’, an epoch we abandoned as we became aware of social injustices to which formerly we were blind, and we realized that equal opportunity and equal outcomes were the measure of each other, and came to understand that all forms of diversity are now the new normal no longer subject to our individual value judgments. But most of all, that western culture and civilization has been and continues to be the source of evil in this world.

That aspects of the Americana of those bygone days might be worth another look never crosses the minds of our progressive neighbors. And most certainly, even if yesterday did have any good parts, these would be so ineradicably bound up with the really bad parts, that separating them out would be futile. How could we ever return to a time when kids played unsupervised on neighborhood streets, took part in unplanned pick-up baseball or basketball games, carried a BB-gun, earned money doing chores for neighbors, built forts and played war, and learned to resolve differences all by themselves? How could we again conceive of forsaken liberties that did not need to be reined in by growing stacks of laws, ordinances, and regulations to keep us on the straight and narrow?

Today we are taught that all conflict resolution must involve the state, that defense of your person or property makes you at least as guilty as your assailant, that your parenting skills are problematic at best, that your children are really wards of the state and only tentatively in your custody, that your property is yours only to the degree that it pleases the state, that owning and operating a business is prima facie evidence of greed and corruption, and that we should strive to build a society in which we can take from each according to their excesses, and redistribute to each according to their need. All that within a framework in which a famous 20^th century social engineer observed that to make a delicious omelet, one first had to crack a few eggs.

Today it does not take a genius to see that we are already in the egg cracking phase on our way to a brave new global society. And how could we miss that certain candidates running for office this year have already promised and pointed out the next eggs that will need to be cracked when they get elected. Most certainly those of us longing for the ‘bad old days’ are prime candidates to be whipped into a homogeneous and undifferentiated amalgam that will become the fundamentally transformed omelet of our collective future.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively. However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Thank you for listening.

Comments

[Todd Juvinall]

Yep!

[Walt]

Here is something worthy of going back to said yesteryear,,,
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/28/significant-premium-hikes-expected-under-obamacare.html?intcmp=hpbt2
Health care we could once afford.

[Jon]

Healthcare hasn't been affordable for most Americans in the private market since the early 1980s. The private insurance industry profit machine took off right after that and destroyed any hope of an efficient and affordable insurance market. Walt my man, you really need to get informed.

[Bill Tozer]

In the good old days, filling venues to capacity was considered a sure sign of one's popularity to draw SRO crowds. Nowadays, it's considered racism and an indictment.

"It's obvious that America loves Trump," said Kou, who is from Laos, as she pointed at the waiting throng. "This thing about him being racist? Look around the crowd."

Blocking freeways ain't my thing. Neither is smashing police cars or marking them and the building with graffiti.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/29/at-least-20-arrested-following-violent-protests-after-southern-california-trump-rally.html?intcmp=hpbt1

[Bill Tozer]

Now college presidents have to escorted off campus whenever a handful get their feelings hurt or are factually called out on their actions.
The agrieved:
We said, ‘Listen, there’s no way all these students are gonna leave just because you’re gonna meet with me. The only thing that will get these students to leave is a public admission that you’re sorry for the way that you’ve treated them,’ ” Alkhawaja said.

The good old days:
"Any time something happens on campus, people want the president to make a statement,” Block said. “He can’t make a statement for everything that happens.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-terrorism-fliers-protest-20160428-story.html

In a related story, FUE (fired university educator) Melissa Click is enraged she was fired from the U of Mizzoo. She says she was fired because she is white. Hmm, she has a valid point. Professors of color would not be fired for yelling profanities at municipal law enforcement telling folks to stand on the curb, not in the streets and for advocating violence against a student reporter standing by. No, only a white FUE could get fired for than. Now, in the good old days, people got fired for their actions and race did not matter. How quaint, how Ozzie and Harriet.

[Brad C.]

Here is an indicator why the good old, happy days are not coming back. Orange County California's population in 1930 was 118,674; 216,224in 1950; 703,925 in 1960; 1,420,386 in 1970; 1,931.570 in 1980; 2,410,556 in 1990; 2,846,289 in 2000; and 3,010,232 in 2010.
There was still ag land, open spaces, and eucalyptus windbreaks in which to build forts in the 1960s; now, not so much. The only good thing about the development in the 50's and 60's was that all the subdivisions going up in the ag lands provided plenty of scrap construction materials for the tree houses;)

[Bill Tozer]

C
https://www.facebook.com/Themillenialconservatives/photos/a.259949001003614.1073741827.259935354338312/294082117590302/?type=3&theater

[fish]

Posted by: Jon | 28 April 2016 at 09:57 PM

If you're going to comment at least have the decency to not "mail it in"....you're starting to sound like a DailyKos ChatBot.

[Bill Tozer]

Z. https://www.facebook.com/165567981461/photos/a.10150646075126462.411496.165567981461/10154082316196462/?type=3&theater

[George Rebane]

jon 957pm - I didn't know that about the affordability of healthcare. Pray, from what sources do you get all this good information?

[Todd Juvinall]

In the 80's I paid 110 bucks a month for my family policy. 1000 deductible. All private. So "jon" where did you get the "facts" for your statement?

[Gary Smith]

Health care was more affordable back in 1953 when I was born. My parents did not have insurance and went to a real non profit hospital. I have the hospital bill in my family scrapbook. My mom stayed in the hospital 4 days and the total bill was $180. My dad paid about half and paid the rest later. Though when I was teenager he probably thought about their return policy. That $180 today would get you a 15 minute office visit appointment with a doctor. Health care is one of the few industries that I can think of were technology innovations make the cost go up, not down. The cost of everything from 1953 is dramatically more but I cannot think of anything else were the cost has exploded like health care.

[Todd Juvinall]

I recall paying attention for some reason the ads back then for a 100 dollar a day stay in the hospital. I spent 6 days and the bill was 45,000 in 2010.

[George Rebane]

While also experiencing very affordable healthcare all my life, and being no fan of either Obamacare or the world's single payer systems, I need to remind readers not to get carried away with the comparison of nominal dollar figures when hearkening back to yesteryear.

For example, today you need about $892 to buy what $100 bought back in 1953. Such calculations do not negate the points made above about the cost of healthcare, but it does help to put them into a better perspective. The CPI inflation calculator can be found here -
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100&year1=1953&year2=2016

[Gregory]

Blaming insurers for high health care costs is a sign of willful blindness, as all they do is handle the money as a middleman, spreading the risks and taking a little off the top. A small percentage of a vast fortune is still a lot of money, but they aren't the bogeyman.

After a brush with what may have been a dreaded "flesh eating bacteria" that infected a wasp sting, my wife spent one night as an admitted patient at Sierra Nevada Memorial to receive intravenous antibiotics. The rapid advance of the infection was stopped and rapidly dissipated once they identified the proper antibiotic. She was never on life support, never cut, just an IV. They were thinking of not admitting her and just having us come back every few hours all night but in the end, decided it would be better with her there in a regular hospital bed.

The bill was over $10k. The crappy insurance chosen for us by my local employer paid little of the total but the good news is my wife didn't lose her leg... that was one of the scary scenarios that were looking quite possible for a time.

That bill was generated locally, not off in the distant planets Frisco or Manhattan.

PS Since then, I've been happy to wage genocide against all polistine wasps. Tiny little prehistoric monsters that deserve to die when they decide to build nests at my house. Yes, the little bastards were only defending their nest but the new nest was on the steps to my house, mostly hidden from view.

[Walt]

In contrast Dr.R ,, in today's dollars everyone is going broke under the unaffordable healthcare act. Don't forget the "buy it or else!" provision. The only ones who love it, are the ones on the dole, or almost there. Now the Progressive administration wants to put illegals into the mix, at the taxpayer expense. Ca. is well on the way to doing just that.
Where will the money come from to deal with the added load? (give you a guess or two...)

[Todd Juvinall]

GeorgeR, I was wondering this. I have heard that our dollar is now worth two cents or some very low number compared to the 1950's. How does that enter into the cost as you stated in the inflation index? Does that make sense?

[Bill Tozer]

I don't know how anyone can ever say "in today's dollars" with a straight face. The inflation/ COLA had been messed with so much, a true compassion needs a mathetician. Bubba really turned it on its head during his administration, for political reasons. No longer possible to compare apples with apples. Bubba wasn't the first to mess with the cost of living index, but his was the most flagrant rewriting of it. Inflation?
It used to cost 10k for snake bite antivenin. Heard it straight from a guy that paid that once. Now, last year he said it costs 20k.

[Jon]

As I said.

http://kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/snapshots-health-care-spending-in-the-united-states-selected-oecd-countries/

Scroll down to find the graph of spending since 1980. You will see it diverges from the rest of the world during that decade- more than dramatically. Must be a commie organization though.

[Jon]

"in today's dollars everyone is going broke under the unaffordable healthcare act." So opines Walt.

Who? Please name some names. Thanks Walt. I can always count on you to back up your wild accusations.

[George Rebane]

Walt 1159am & ToddJ 1211pm - Don't know about going broke (yet) attempting to buy the same quality of healthcare as before Ocare, but what no one in the lamestream wants to talk about are the numbers of before/after people who wanted and couldn't afford healthcare, and, of course, the total cost much of which has been buried through accounting legerdemain and tax subsidies not reflected back to the payers. Here is an interesting bunch of data on the subject -
http://dailysignal.com/2016/03/23/in-five-charts-how-obamacare-has-worked-past-six-years/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=saturday&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWW1VeE1tTmxOVEF4WmpneCIsInQiOiJzcFNudHhnemg1YndKcDFXaDlaZVg2SFJVTWhuNFNGRTZCZVI0Y1lzRktCK1UrMEpmbXA4RlpvZ2l0QnhRaXBBdjhmekhaOWtPVmxpK2s4SFJWbGFWaWxESkpoYW9XUjB0cHByKzBLd0krUT0ifQ%3D%3D

I think the CPI calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is pretty much in line with most people's experience; it is with mine with some interesting exceptions that fall mostly into the apples/bananas comparisons.

[Gregory]

"Jon", until you name your last name, you have no moral authority here. You claim your first name really is 'Jon'. Prove it. If you truly need to hide, reveal it to me and I promise to keep your secret *if* you've been telling the truth.

[Walt]

The facts are out there "jon", you just have to look. I know it doesn't mean a hill of beans to you, since your one of those that don't pay.(you said so a while back...freeloader)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/22528-health-insurers-going-broke-thanks-to-obamacare

http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2015/nov/20/obamacare-premiums-deductibles-increase-health-care

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nearly-half-obamacare-co-ops-folded/

This one describes the "jon" well.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13298998/1/obamacare-actually-isn-t-all-that-affordable-unless-you-re-broke.html

That should keep you busy for a while.

[Gregory]

"Who? Please name some names. Thanks Walt."- "Jon"

"Jon", please name just that one name you've not shared.

[Jon Dozer]

Moral Authority to post? On a little local message board? Right. LOL.
How utterly dumb. Again proving my point about people with supposedly advanced degrees.

[George Rebane]

JonD 248pm - Mr Dozer, what has been your point about people with "supposedly" vs actual advanced degrees?

BTW, I take it that you have now revealed the last name of our perennial commenter 'Jon' since both you and the formerly-only-known-as 'Jon' have the same IP address. If so, then I welcome the revelation.

[Todd Juvinall]

Jon Dozer is a phony name.

[Jon Dozer]

1. Responding to Greg in regard to grading one's moral authority, which I find humorous.

2. Yes, I join with folks like our most prolific message board poster in adding a last name. No relation to him however.

[Todd Juvinall]

Not in phone book or voter rolls.

[s]

And George, what were the tax rates for individuals and corporations during Eisenhower & Kennedy`s administrations, aka "The Good Old Days"?

[George Rebane]

Administrivia - Well that was a piece of work! Logging on this morning I found more than a usual pile of crap in this comment stream that had nothing to do with the topic of my commentary. So I picked an arbitrary point and unpublished the crap. I tried to save the relevant ones, but if I accidentally blew one away, I figure a visiting reader would also not have bothered to dig it out of the shit pile that surrounded it.

All of the departed comments at best (and that's saying a lot) belonged in a sandbox instead of littering posts to which they haven't the remotest connection. Again, apologies if I ripped out someone's opening paragraphs to their 'great American novel'.

As promised before, I'll try to do such house cleaning more frequently in the future. Sifting through a hundred plus comments to find the junk is just too much work.