Danish and American Medical Systems, a Basic Comparison

After the American Century 

Americans often hear that the Obama medical plan is socialistic. It is not, as anyone living in France, Germany, England, Holland, or the Nordic countries knows. The fundamental difference can be stated quickly and easily. In Europe, taxes pay for medical care, and you do not need to buy insurance. All residents have a card that they show when visiting a hospital or doctor, and they do not pay anything for their treatment. Furthermore, Europeans live longer than Americans.

Americans have to pay for insurance to avoid paying medical bills. Even so most  policies have rather large "deductables." Often the pateint must pay the first $500 or $1000 or more before the coverage kicks in. There are situations where the insurance company refuses to pay, for whatever reason. And of course there are lots of forms to fill out.

Having experienced the Danish and the British systems first hand, I can say that one of the great things about them is that the patient does not have to fill out forms, save receipts, make copies, or anything like that. You show up, get cared for, and go home. The only administration fromteh patient's point of view  is a simple swipe of a card. That is a socialist system.

What Americans now have is not socialism, but a hybrid system. The health care is still often private, private insurance companies get their hands on a lot of the money that flows through the system, and patients still have to pay quite a bit, by European standards. The Americans have largely private delivery of service, mostly private insurance, and the whole thing costs almost twice as much per person as in Europe.  Europeans have largely public delivery of service and only supplemental private insurance, but not so many people have that. I do not have private insurance for example, and even if I did have such a policy it would not cover the really big operations, which are almost all done in the public hospitals, which alone have the facilities and the research-based expertise. 

Which system is better? In terms of cost, the Americans pay a great deal more, overall, and yet millions of people have not had coverage until recently, and all must buy health insurance.  In the Nordic countries, everyone is covered and the total cost per capita is much lower. In Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France the annual costs (2008) were in each case close to about $3750 per capita. In the same year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the US was spending twice as much, or $7500 per person. Partly this is because in Europe malpractice suits are relatively rare and pay infinitely less than in the US. Tthis in turn means that there is none of that expensive malpractice insurance. I do not mean to say Danish doctors never make mistakes, but the system automatically covers the costs of mistakes that can be rectified, so no one sues to get back extra medical costs, though they may sue for mistakes that cannot be corrected and fatal errors.

In terms of life expectancy, Danes live on average about four months longer than Americans (78.8 vs. 78.5 years). The results are even better in Germany (80.2), France (81.5), and England (80.2). Perhaps Americans should look more closely at Canada, where life expectancy is 81.5, fully three years longer than in the US. (All of these statistics come from the CIA World Factbook.) Putting this another way, because care is universal in Canada and Europe, the poor are generally healthier than in the US, where they often have to go to emergency rooms for treatment and do not have a regular doctor.

In both the UK and Denmark I know from personal experience that I can choose my own doctor, and I also have the right to change doctors if I want a different one. 

I am not going to say that the Nordic system is perfect, but it works well, and I have a bit of extra information, as my wife works in quality control at one of the Danish hospitals. 

For Americans who hate the Obama plan because it seems to rob them of their freedom, think of how free from worry you would be if medical care was a certainty, regardless of your wealth or whether you had a job or not. From Europe, the problem with the Obama plan is that it does not go far enough, leaving so much in private hands and building so much profit-making into the system. Think how much less expensive it would be without all those insurance company salaries, lawyer fees, accountants, court cases, malpractice payments, etc.

So, where do I stand on the Obama plan? It is probably the best that Americans can do at this time, as a compromise between the warring factions. I see nothing wrong with compelling all drivers to have a license to drive, and by the same token see no reason why people should not be compelled to have at least basic health insurance. Yet, if entire states want to opt out of the system, I think that ought to be allowed, with the understanding that then ALL the citizens of that state would have to go over to the local alternative programs or lack thereof. Opting out would create expensive complexity, I fear, but the federal system could and perhaps should allow that choice. Many companies have employees in several states, and administering such variety will be a headache. Moreover, some families have breadwinners in more than one state, creating further possible complexities,

The bottom line: the European system is preferable, supplying care to all citizens and eliminating individual economic ruin for those who have severe illness or who are victims of nasty accidents. No doubt the best care is often the most expensive care, which only wealthy people can afford, in exclusive private hospitals. But very good care is possible at much lower cost than Americans have been accustomed to paying.

Final thought. Japan's average medical costs per person are fully $1000 less than in Europe, but its citizens live longer than in any other large industrial country: 83.9 years. That is more than 5 years longer than in the US. There is no correlation between how much money a nation spends on health care and how long its citizens live.

Technology: Avoid Multitasking and Put All Your Eggs in One Basket.

After the American Century                               

A new study has confirmed that my writing habits a couple of years ago were better than those I have today. No one was examining my behavior directly, but this is an inescapable conclusion from a study made of office workers, reported on in the New York Times. Each wore heart monitors and the study examined stress levels and computer use. It found that people who continually checked their email were less effective and had higher levels of stress than those who mostly worked off-line.

This result does not surprise me. For some years I intentionally did not hook up my home computer to the Internet, so that I could not be distracted from writing by in-coming emails and by the temptations of surfing the net. There was a computer downstairs where I could do those things, so I was not cut off. Those were productive years, and I will try to shut off the email most of the time at home again.

During this off-line productive period, in Technology Matters, among many other things I wrote about the myth of multitasking, citing various reports that have found people are less effective when trying to do several things at once. In one sense, this is surely obvious. When writing an article, it is not a good thing to be interrupted to reply to an email, because it breaks the concentration. The office workers in the new study jumped from one window to another on their computers frequently. Those hooked up to the email did so 37 times every hour. On average they were looking at any one page for 97 seconds. Those disconnected stayed changed windows only 17 times an hour, or once every 211 seconds. Of course every time one changes from one window to another it does not mean one is changing tasks. When I create a powerpoint presentation, for example, I am continually jumping from one window to another as I search for images, look at the paper it is to accompany, and so forth.  I will shift back and forth between the same two or three windows when doing this or many other tasks. But email generally is not on the same topic as whatever one was working on, and the difference between those with and without email strongly suggest how disruptive it can be.

When such disruptions continue all day, the result is stress, not least because one is continually being reminded of new tasks, unfinished business, and possible problems. Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson once wisely advised against the popular wisdom of "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." To the contrary, he declared, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket."

To be productive with the Internet always at hand requires new habits of attention.

Technology: Energy Rationing or Quotas? America VS. Europe, 2100

After the American Century

In the following, I imagine the world energy situation in 2100, based on cultural differences between Europe and the United States.
 

During the twenty-first century, every nation responded to global warming and the accompanying shift away from fossil fuels to non-polluting, renewable energies. Norway produced virtually all of its electricity from waterpower, and with the addition of windmills and ocean current generation, it became a major electricity exporter after its North Sea oil fields ran out. With the exceptions of Dubai and the Arab Emirates, however, few oil exporting nations made a graceful transition to sustainability, and some ended in bankruptcy. In contrast, solar power gave Greece, Spain, Italy, and North Africa near self-sufficiency. France continued to develop its nuclear system, supplemented by wind energy along the Atlantic coast and solar arrays in the south. Most nations developed a mix of generating sources. This was also the case in the United States, where solar power became the dominant energy form in the Southwest and California, thermal power in selected western locations, windmills in the Great Plains, and wind and current driven turbines off the coast of New England. The United States also continued to burn large amounts of coal, to the distress of environmentalists. The energy footprint of different nations, or regions with nations, varied considerably. At one extreme lay Norway, with virtually no pollution or CO2 emissions. At the other extreme was Russia, which still burned wood, coal, gas, and the remains of its once vast oil reserves. Several of the largest industrial nations of the twentieth century, notably Russia, Britain, and the United States, remained the world's largest polluters. They had attained much greater energy efficiency, but had failed to achieve energy independence, and as a result paid a hefty price for energy imports and CO2 offsets. One economist estimated that on average energy imports to the United States had reduced its growth rate by 1% for every year of the century. 

Yet despite variations in supply and self-sufficiency, there were many similarities between nations. Large private cars and gasoline automobiles could only be seen in museums. They had been replaced by lightweight electric or hybrid electric/ethanol cars.  All nations rewrote their building codes, requiring that new houses be heavily insulated and largely self-sufficient for heating and cooling. To do this, they adopted the heat exchange technologies and housing designs pioneered in Germany before 2010. Heat pumps were widely in use, and many people chose spring-driven models that were wound up manually, usually by riding a stationary bicycle. Thus they could help heat the house and get a workout at the same time. As these heat pumps might suggest, during the early decades of the twenty-first century many hoped that an array of "technological fixes" would permit the high-energy society to keep expanding as before. Entrepreneurs and inventors created longer-lasting batteries, more efficient, cheaper, windmills and durable solar panels that snapped together to cover exterior walls and roofs. New home appliances used energy ever more parsimoniously. Nevertheless, the technological fix was in some ways a mirage.

Despite the many innovations, for decades per capita energy consumption continued to grow, though more slowly than in the twentieth century. If consumers used less energy in any one device, they wanted a never-ending flood of new appliances and gadgets. They bought larger television and computer screens. They wanted more elaborate kitchens. They wanted cars every few years and new mobile phones and laptops even more often. They also wanted a car for every adult. Reductions in energy consumption were the most cost-effective approach to combating global warming, but they proved difficult to achieve in practice. Families found it "natural" to have a home of 140 to 200 square meters, and they resisted attempts to downsize to a more environmentally sustainable 80-100 square meters. The pace of change was slow. It took forty years to eliminate inefficient automobiles and appliances, and even longer to retrofit and rebuild the housing stock. Curbing energy use ultimately proved to be less a technical problem than a human problem. The public had to embrace new energy habits.

Attempts to solve this social problem ranged widely, from the United States, whose strategy relied on the marketplace and individualistic choice, to the other extreme represented by Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia, which chose a centralized, top-down approach. While the same technologies were available everywhere, the social organization of energy varied tremendously. Americans felt that every person had the right to use as much energy as he or she was able to produce or to buy from others. Every US resident was allotted an annual energy ration, creating a market where every adult and child was permitted to sell unused personal rations. The federal government guaranteed a minimum price, but it seldom needed to purchase unused rations because demand usually exceeded supply. To make up for the shortfall, Americans purchased Canadian surpluses, or bought the more expensive international energy transfers outside North America. Americans became highly ware of energy tradeoffs, cycling when they could instead of driving, holding house temperatures lower, buying houses with lower ceilings, replacing old appliances with more energy-efficient units. Every year, a few homeless persons with virtually untouched energy rations were paid handsomely to become official members of households in order to gain access to their ration. This was legal, so long as the homeless person moved in for at least half the year. A few people became celebrities by flaunting a retro high-energy lifestyle, notably John "Kilowatt" King, who routinely exhausted his ration in the first two weeks of the year. There were also examples of conspicuous non-consumption, typically environmentalists who bought but did not use extra rations, in this way lowering CO2 emissions and driving up energy prices. A few refused to be part of the rationing system, living completely off-grid. But most managed to live comfortably on their ration. Some cultivated a low-energy lifestyle and made a tidy income selling their unused rations. 

Controls over this system were far from perfect. Rural areas had persistent problems with unlicensed wood burning, which illegally released CO2 and allowed some citizens to appear far more energy-efficient than they were. Occasionally, a family quietly buried a loved one and then delayed reporting the death, in order to retain the deceased's energy ration as long as possible. In public places such as coffee shops, airports, and libraries, some people stole energy. Every electric car, computer, mobile telephone, or other portable electrical device contained a chip that automatically charged a person's account for public electricity use. However, the black market offered pirate adapter plugs that falsified consumer identities and sent the electric bills to innocent third parties. A whole police division focused on stolen rations and energy identity fraud. The American ration system also rewarded anyone who increased the non-polluting energy supply with a correspondingly larger ration, leading many to install vast arrays of solar panels or a windmill park far in excess of their own needs. Thus, despite the quota system, the wealthy often used far more energy than the middle-class or the poor. Yet overall, the American rationing system encouraged energy savings and rewarded homeowners who installed solar and wind power. However, the result was inefficient, insofar as most Americans still wanted single-family housing and preferred to commute to work from the suburbs. The American system also it made various forms of energy fraud attractive, and, for a price, it permitted people to exceed their rations.

In contrast to the individualistic, market-oriented American model, the traditional welfare states of Scandinavia, Germany, and Holland did not permit any citizen to exceed the personal energy quota. In all of these nations, individual energy consumption was strictly monitored, with a energy statement issued at the end of the month, just like a phone bill. An energy bar code was mandatory on credit cards, and exceeding the quota was immediately punished. Attempted purchases in excess of the limit were denied. As a result, when deciding whether to buy an item made of plastic or wood or metal, consumers looked at both the price and the energy quota deduction. At times, it made more sense to purchase a more expensive item because it "cost" less in energy terms. The bar code was also on the personal identity card used in health and human services. While medical tests and hospital care remained cost-free, the energy required to conduct diagnostic tests, such as a CAT-scan or blood test was deducted from the patient's annual quota, though it could not be more than 7% of it. Surgery and medical treatment (as opposed to tests) were exempted from this system. In contrast to the United States, there was no market in unused energy rations. Nevertheless, everyone knew the economic value of energy points, and at times friends and relatives helped one another by putting purchases on their credit cards, particularly near the end of the energy year. At this time any energy unconsumed was credited as an individual tax deduction, retired from the national pool, and sold on the international energy credit market. To help citizens live within their quotas, government dictated that all new housing had to be multiple-unit apartment buildings or row houses, which required fewer resources per inhabitant to construct and inhabit. Their common walls reduced energy losses, and they concentrated the population, making mass transit more efficient. 

The welfare states also reduced their 25% VAT to 10%, and imposed new energy taxes (ET) instead. The ET was based on the amount of electricity and hydrocarbon fuel needed to produce and ship an item. This form of taxation put a premium on buying locally-made products and on transporting goods in new wind-blown ships. The second age of sail featured containerized catamarans, with supplemental solar power. Goods moved more slowly, but the smaller ships could enter more harbors and bring containers closer to their final destinations. As a result of such energy policies, by 2100 the Northern European welfare states collectively had all but eliminated carbon emissions. At the same time, per capita energy consumption had fallen by more than half. There were few class differences in this area. Indeed, the wealthy tended to purchase the most energy efficient cars and appliances, in order to maximize their tax break from unused energy. 

The two systems of distribution (rationing vs. quotas) led to different generating systems. That in Northern Europe was more centralized and more standardized in its components. It was controlled from the top-down. The American system was more decentralized, diverse in its components, and controlled by market forces under federal regulation. Where the American rationing system permitted homeowners to use more energy if they installed extra solar panels or windmills, the Northern European quota system mandated more collective forms of living that by law had to include solar and wind generation, as appropriate to the site. While Europeans did not permit anyone to be off grid, Americans had made it a constitutional right.

Overall, Americans had halved personal consumption, and non-polluting energies supplied 60% of their total supply. Yet, oil and gas imports continued, and the United States remained one of the world's most polluting nations. Its energy consumption was almost double the European average and three times the Chinese average. American energy overconsumption continued because consumers long resisted reforms that came more easily in India, China, and Japan, where the high-energy style of life and wasteful habits had never become as entrenched. Indeed, it had been an "Asian century", as Europe had grown slowly and the United States performed erratically. The sprawling high energy cities of the South and West fared particularly badly. Their boom from 1945 until 2010 had built up a sprawling infrastructure that was uncompetitive when energy became expensive. The economy was so inextricably intertwined with intensive energy use that the rising costs for oil, gas, and coal proved lethal to growth. Politically conservative, the region resisted both urban re-concentration and conversion to zero emissions.

Yet if the twenty-first century belonged to efficient energy regimes, global warming affected almost all nations. A few areas benefited from it, notably mountainous Norway. In the southern Saharan desert, higher temperatures brought monsoon rains that made the region greener than it had been for two thousand years. Simultaneously, an enormous solar-powered Libyan project desalinated sea water and transformed the northern Sahara through irrigation. It was impressive in scale, but it scarcely removed as much water from the sea as it flowed into from the melting glaciers of Greenland and the thawing permafrost of Canada and Siberia. Deserts spread in the United States, Mexico, China, and Australia, and new desert areas appeared in Russia and India. Low-lying regions such as Bangladesh and some island nations had to permanently evacuate millions of people. Northern regions whose growing seasons once had been too short for agriculture, could now be farmed, and these areas attracted millions of drought and flood refugees. Their resettlement demanded more resources than conventional aid organizations could muster and forced governments to find comprehensive solutions, including building entirely new cities.

Climate change fostered the professions of engineering, urban planning, architecture, and design. Some nations built entirely new cities, and all extensively rebuilt existing ones. Where modern cities had been built around transportation systems, the new cities forced transport underground. The twenty-first century replaced sprawl with concentration, investing heavily in mass transit, bicycle lanes, and new people moving technologies. Where Los Angeles, Houston, or Phoenix once devoted more than half their total area to automobiles, the new cities put electric vehicles and mass transit under the narrower streets, and sought to reduce the surface space given to automobiles to less than 10%, while giving at least 20% to parks and other green areas. The few roads that remained were for delivery vans, ambulances, fire trucks, and the police. In colder climates, some towns revived R. Buckminster Fuller's idea of placing a geodesic dome over an entire municipality, reducing wind chill, harvesting passive solar energy, and visually enhancing the sense of community. However, the same technology was used to reify social divisions in domed, air-conditioned neighborhoods for wealthy persons in Indonesia, India, Texas, and Mexico. Nevertheless, overall the twenty-first century witnessed a renaissance in urban design that rediscovered the spatial traditions of the compact cities that predated industrialization.

A typical apartment building in the Dutch new city of Niew Haarlem exemplifies the energy efficient urban ideal. Built in 2085, the 12-story building is energy self-sufficient. It is so well-insulated that the heat from lights and appliances suffice for warmth. Its outer walls and roof are covered with solar panels, and there are two large windmills on the roof. The flats are extremely soundproof, so neighbors do not bother one another. While the apartments are not large, they are well laid out, drawing on traditions of Dutch yacht design. Built-in cabinets and drawers abound. For those who want interior complexity, some flats have multiple levels that provide spatial variety. Few residents need or even want a car, because the city of 300,000 is so compact that all areas can easily be reached by bicycle, walking, or mass transit, usually within twenty minutes. High-speed electric trains connect the city to Amsterdam and other major cities. Shopping for many small items occurs locally, but most goods can also be bought on-line or by cell phone. Orders are delivered to the concierge in the foyer of the building, usually within 24 hours. Every year the residents receive a tax deduction because their building is so energy-efficient. Indeed, the residents have a friendly competition to see how much extra energy they can generate using the workout machines in the basement gym, that looks out on a sunken garden where they grow herbs and vegetables. The energy surplus is sold on the international CO2 offset market and put into the building's maintenance fund.

There turn out to be unexpected benefits to living in such a town. With almost no traffic noise or pollution, it has many outdoor cafes and restaurants, and it has become something of a mecca for musicians and street performers, who provide entertainment of a high standard. The cost of medical care is lower, since there are virtually no traffic accidents or chronic conditions related to pollution, and because its citizens walk more and therefore are a bit healthier. The city is so quiet that stress levels are low and hearing loss is uncommon. Employees miss few work days due to illness. The local population has a life-expectancy above the already high Dutch average. Best of all, because energy efficiency has been woven into all aspects of local life, it has become naturalized. In stark contrast to the United States, in Europe, energy has faded away as a domestic political issue.

 

        In foreign affairs, however, the European Union made global warming and energy efficiency central issues and the focus of its international aid. Indeed, the EU has built new zero-emissions cities in Indonesia, Angola, and Bolivia. The rising seas have cost Europeans dearly in terms of ever-higher dikes and defenses against storms. Indeed, the government has moved much of the population inland, away from the worst dangers of flooding, in the process constructing fourteen new cities resembling Niew Haarlem. Europeans do not understand why a few nations still have not eliminated carbon emissions. They do not understand why all nations have not built energy-efficient cities to counteract the ravages of global warming. They are gratified that New Zealand, China and India are moving in the right direction. But they feel that wealthy, resource-rich nations, such as the United States, Australia, Russia, Brazil, and Argentina, no longer have any excuse for their failure to do likewise. After all, most of the technologies needed to build such cities and to eliminate carbon emissions already existed in 2012.

Romney Selects Robert Bork as Legal Advisor: Was Rejected as Supreme Court Nominee

After the American Century

Robert Bork

Gov. Romney has made a disturbing decision. He has appointed Robert Bork, an extremist, as his chief legal advisor, as discussed in the New York Times editorial page. A former professor at Yale, Bork was rejected as a Supreme Court nominee by a wide margin in 1987, and he has since that time moved further to the right. In recent years he converted to Catholicism and he is now married to a former nun. Bork is perhaps most (in)famously recalled by the public for the "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973. That is, he was the man who fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox who was getting too close to the truth. That Bork would carry out this order from Richard Nixon rather than resign (as his superior did) says a great deal about his character and opinions.

Romney might have chosen any number of reputable conservative thinkers who are less controversial. Making Bork the head of his "Justice Advisory Committee" suggests that Romney agrees with Bork's extreme views. It also suggests the kind of nominees he might try to send to the Supreme Court. 

What, then, does Bork stand for? A great many things, but here are a few of them:

(1) Chicago School style economics applied to the law. He famously argued that mergers and near monopolies should not be opposed by law, because they in fact benefit consumers. (I am not making this up.)

(2) He has opposed the Supreme Court's decision (in a series of cases) to acknowledge and defend a right to privacy.  (See Dronenburg v. Zech, 741 F.2d 1388, decided in 1984.) At issue in this case was a gay man's right to privacy, not at all incidentally.

(3) Despite his general advocacy of something much like strict-construction of the Constitution (adhering to the ideas of the authors of that document in the late eighteenth century), Bork supports a new amendment to the Constitution that would allow large Congressional majorities to override Supreme Court decisions.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy vehemently (and successfully) opposed Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, and his words are worth repeating here:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Bork now provides Romney with advice on justice? Presumably this is part of his outreach to the Republican Right, but it will only confirm Romney's unpopularity with women and minorities.

Election 2012: Romney's Campaign Strategy Could Determine What Kind of Running Mate He Needs

After the American Century  

The election campaign is moving into a new phase that will test Romney in ways he has not been tested until now. The questions and problems he now faces cannot be solved by spending more money or by negative campaigning. These two fundamental questions are the following.

(1) Can Romney move toward the center and still attract the more conservative Republicans? He must move toward the center to court the swing voters, most of them Independents. They decide most elections. Almost every candidate makes this move toward the center after the primaries, but it may be harder for Romney to do so, because he is constantly referred to as a flip-flopper on the issues. I have seen at least five editorial cartoons showing him speaking out of both sides of his mouth or contradicting himself. Moreover, can Romney move toward the center in a way that leaves the evangelical and right-wing voters feeling comfortable and enthusiastic? One possibility is that he will do this by making the campaign a contrast between himself and Obama. The more he emphasizes persons the less policies will matter to many of the voters. This approach has a problem, however, namely that Romney is not a terrific personality. Whether you liked or agreed with FDR or Ike or Reagan, all of them were warm, likable people. Call it charisma or what you will, they each had in their own way a strong personal presence. But Romney does not have anything like that, and to a greater degree, Obama does. He has turned out to be somewhat less inspirational in office than he was on the hustings, but he does have oratorical powers that no recent candidate can match, certainly not Gore, Bush, Kerry or that Senator from Arizona who ran last time, you know who I mean, but his name is fading away. In short, emphasizing personality might not be a winning strategy for Romney.

Romney would be better off choosing the other option, which is to emphasize policy differences and to keep personality in the background. If he can convince voters that the election is about fundamental policy differences, then the more conservative Republicans presumably will help push that bandwagon. He would need to stick to domestic issues using this approach, since Obama has continued the Bush foreign policy more than most people thought he would. The Defense Department has the same head, and the troops are still in Afghanistan. (It may be fortunate for both candidates, in fact, that the public does not care too much about foreign policy.)

(2) The answer to the first question has an effect on the second one. Will Romney choose a running mate who appeals to women and minorities more than he does? He wants a VP who brings him votes that he cannot get himself, but is he looking on the Right, in the Center, or toward women and minorities?  His ideal partner would have more of the common touch, appeal to women and minorities, and be a big lovable personality. With such a side-kick Romney can be a bit more centrist, presenting himself as the analytical businessman and champion of free and unregulated markets, smaller government, and lower taxes, while leaving alone the cultural issues like abortion, gay marriage, teaching Creationism in the schools, etc. etc. that instead the VP can talk about. His VP  might borrow Santorum's playbook but tone down the rhetoric. In short, the ideal VP should be a more intelligent Palin. (A certain Minnesota member of Congress does come to mind, but note that I did not name her in my list of four leading candidates for VP, posted here at the end of March.)

Assuming this is how Romney decides to play it, he might have a good chance to win. However, how much different is this from McCain's strategy?

See also my earlier posting on four possible VP candidates. 

Election 2012: Florida's Discriminatory Voting Laws Continue

After the American Century

The State of Florida has perhaps never conducted an election that was fair, when it comes to race. The long and sorry history is outlined in a New York Times article. 

After the debacle of the hanging chads in the 2000 presidential election, one might have thought that Florida would do all in its power to make its voter registration and election above reproach. Not so. The Republican dominated state legislature is actively inhibiting voter registration. It has done so by passing laws that fine volunteers who help others to register to vote. These are not trivial fines. The first version of the law set the fine at $5000 for every form with a mistake on it. The League of Women Voters, hardly a radical organization, took this law to court and it was struck down. But the Florida Republicans know that their state is crucial in the coming election, and they immediately got up another law which reduces the fine to "only" $1000.  

The intimidation and fines have worked: the League of Women Voters has stopped registering people to vote in Florida. 

Imagine that you are a volunteer, seeking to register voters for either party, and the form you help someone submit has a mistake on it somewhere. Perhaps the middle initial in the applicant's name has been left out. Perhaps you have forgotten to tick the small box, which says that you have never been judged insane or mentally handicapped. (I am not making this up.)Three forms out of 100 lack that little tick in the box, and are rejected.  Register voters at your peril, for not only is there a fine of $1000 for each erroneous form, but the volunteer's name ends up in a database. Instead of being praised for trying to do the right thing - helping people to vote - volunteers feel threatened by the Republican State of Florida.  In other words, every mistake is treated as though one were engaged in the fraudulent activity of intentionally filing a false claim. That, of course, should be punished.

But the State of Florida has created more obstacles. Suppose that you discover an error in your own voter registration, quite possibly an error made by some state employee in recording the information. Possibly a computer error, especially when dealing with a Spanish or Russian or Scandinavian name. Suppose your name has the letters ñ or ø or å in it, and suppose that  the State of Florida - glorious state of the hanging chads - has computers that simply do not process those strange letters. Un-American letters. What then? Even if the mistake is not one you made, on election day, you will not be allowed to vote. 

Now, who benefits from such a system? Who are those new voters that the Florida Republicans are so keen to punish? The punishment is completely non-partisan, of course, and the fines can be taken from anyone, rich or poor, white or blank, Anglo of Hispanic.  These laws are surely not directed at poorer people, who tend to vote Democratic. Why would the State want them to decide not to register since it could cost so much money?  It would be unworthy of me to suggest that Florida's Republicans are  carrying on the traditions of voter intimidation pioneered in the American South and used so successfully against African-Americans and poor people for more than a century. Of course Florida today has escaped from its racist heritage and it is ashamed of the disgraceful 2000 Presidential election. Or so one might think.

In fact, Florida is a disgrace to American values. Its history of voter intimidation offers a model only to tin-pot dictators. Florida ought to be ashamed, but it is apparently a state with no conscience, no shame, and no shred of self-respect. 

The Presidential election of 2000 was quite possibly stolen in and by the State of Florida. Land of the hanging chads.

Historical Document, 1891: Horses Won’t Go Out of Fashion

Horse driven cotton gin

After the American Century

The following article appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on July 14, 1891, page 23. It declared the unnamed author's belief that horses would continue to be popular and numerous in the United States, regardless of the technological changes in the wind. In fact, the number of horses in the nation would continue to increase to an all-time high during World War I. So for at least a quarter century, the author of this piece proved correct.

Horses Won’t Go Out of Fashion

If any one is laboring under the delusion that horses are going to become curiosities when the trolley railroad people have grid-ironed the streets with electric wires, he will soon get rid of it. He will catch the fact that the horse is still appreciated as the pet, companion and pride of man, woman and child, even if he is to be relieved of the heavy labor of pulling streetcars. A similar change in the condition of horses occurred when the railroads took the place of turnpikes and engines superseded horses, but the census showed no diminution, but an increase in the number of horses sold, raised and owned. Rapid transit may be improved until the city or country man may go anywhere he wishes at a hundred miles an hour. The dry goods stores may deliver bundles by pneumatic tube express, and plowing and harrowing for a whole township be done by a central electric power plant with wires running to each farm – imagine any improvement or extension of motive power you will, but you can’t imagine the horse becoming effete and disused, so long as men’s blood runs red in their veins. In fact, the horse – the typical, average horse – will be vastly improved, a thing of beauty, power, grace and intelligence by his enfranchisement from coarser and heavier labors.  [reprinted from Horse and Stable, n.d.]

Notes about the technology of 1891

Streetcars were being rapidly adopted after Sprague's successful construction of a system in 1887 that worked well in hilly, Richmond, Virginia.

Pneumatic tube systems of moving mail and other small items were successfully being used in Paris, London, New York, and elsewhere.

Electric power stations had been around for a decade by 1891, although they were largely confined to larger cities and towns. Almost no one in 1891 had electricity in their home yet.