A normal phone call with your average ISP cartel

I really wish we lived in a country with robust ISP competition. Instead I have to appeal to the self preservation interest of my ISP cartel whenever they screw me over. I had such a conversation today. It went something like this.

ME: I'm recording this conversation. You changed my rates to from $59 to $72 a month without explanation or warning.
TWC: you had an introductory promotional rate that expired
ME: I don't want this rate, give me back my old rate or I'm leaving
TWC: what service provider do you plan on using? [a trick question if there ever was one]
ME:  none [knowing there isn't another answer that will further the conversation]
TWC: I can see if you qualify for another promotional rate. You'll need to answer some questions first.
ME: I want the 20 MPS speed that I have at the same rate
TWC: That offer no longer exists, I'll need to ask you some questions before I can see what rate you qualify for
ME: how much does 20 MPS cost per month?
TWC: we have over 300 packages. I need to know more info before I can quote you a rate. What do you use the internet for?
ME: I just want 20 MPS a month.
TWC: Sir, I know. But I can't determine what you qualify for unless you answer my questions. What do you use the internet for?
ME: Fine. I use it to check email.
TWC: Do you have a TV provider?
ME: No.
TWC: How do you watch movies?
ME: [unwilling to start the you need more bandwidth conversation) DVDs
TWC: how do you stay in touch with family?
ME: I write letters and send them in the mail
TWC: you qualify for a new rate! We can give you your current rate at $59 a month!
ME: you're totally awesome and we love you so much

How I'm being forced to buy Medicare

Two years after I went out on leave due to visual impairment, I got a letter in the mail welcoming me to Medicare. A lot of people are, understandably, very happy when this day comes. Me? Not so much.

I didn't request to participate in Medicare. The government just automatically signed me up for Medicare Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is free to me and covers hospital stays. Plan B will cost me $104 a month, increases yearly, and is a major medical plan. To get a truly functional health plan I'd need to pay for Plan C; a Medicare Advantage plan offered by an HMO/PPO.

Thing is, I don't need Medicare. I have insurance already through my employer. And since my plan provides for my family, I'm not making any changes. So clearly I'm not going to pay for Plan C - I don't need two complete health policies for one person. And Plan B looks redundant and not worth the expense. I'll keep Plan A because it literally isn't possible to cancel.

So here's the rub, the government has built in an incentive to try and force me to sign-up for Plan B. If I don't sign up when Plan B is first made available and I want to sign-up at a later date, there will be a penalty. Plan B will go up 10% in cost for every year that I'm eligible but didn't participate.
So If ten years from now I lose my employer based insurance and want to get Plan B, it will double in cost to $208 (in 2014 dollars) a month, every month! If I wait 15 years, it will cost $260. Remember this is just for a major medical plan, not an actual health plan. I'd still have to pay for Medicare Advantage separately.

I talked to the Social Security administration and they confirmed that there is no cap to the 10% yearly penalty. They said it would reset when I hit 65, over two decades from now. In theory I could end up having to pay more than 240% in penalties on a monthly basis if I lose my employer based insurance.

But isn't that why we have the affordable care act? If I lose my insurance I can just jump on healthcare.gov and buy a plan from the exchanges. But I can't. Since the government signed me up for Medicare, I lost the ability to buy insurance on the open market. Providers are only allowed to sell me Medicare Advantage plans, which I have to purchase Plan B to qualify for.

Normally, Medicare doesn't impose the Plan B penalty on people who have employer based insurance. But for some un-explained reason, people in my situation do not qualify for the penalty exemption based upon how the IRS taxes my income.

So I'm left with a choice. If I waive Plan B the government will start adding the fees onto to my hypothetical premiums. Which wouldn't matter as long as I keep my employer based insurance. But we live in uncertain times. Will I really be able to participate in my employer's plan until age 65?  Since I will not be allowed to purchase insurance on the open market it's hard to see how I do anything but pay the Plan B $1,250 yearly fee.

I might be able to make back a small percentage of the Plan B premiums if Plan B covers my employee based insurance policy co-pays. But the vast majority of my Plan B premiums are going to be wasted on a product I'm already purchasing. I'm essentially buying Plan B as a hedge against my actually insurance plan going away. Plan B is functioning as very expensive liability insurance. On my insurance.

Oh, well. My family didn't need that money anyway.

The Politics of Hate

I grew up a multi-generation household.  My grandparents were mid-western small business owners.  Which meant we were Republicans.  Historically, the Republican party was the party of small business and the Democratic party represented Wall Street.  Now they are both the party of Wall Street.  But that's a separate essay.  My grandparents were Goldwater republicans and cheered the election of Ronald Regan.  But politics was just too far removed from my life to have much of an impact.  That changed when my mother re-married when I was a teenager. 

My mother married an evangelical Christian.  And I was suddenly made aware that our country was locked in a mortal battle for its very soul.  At least it felt that way.  And for the first time I had an opinion.  In my first presidential election I supported George Bush in his re-election campaign.  Which, of course, he lost.  

While in college I explored my political interests.  First step was joining the Model UN debate team.  Where we spent all year preparing for debates to be held at the UN in New York.  I also went to a few Young Republican meetings and was eventually elected to the student government association.  What I learned from these activities shaped my political outlook.   

The Model UN taught me directly how much appearance has an effect on success.  We hear that all our lives but I finally got to live that reality.  It also taught me how the sausage is made, which isn't pretty. The  Young Republicans taught me that I just wasn't like them in some fundamental way.  They were very judgmental of people who disagreed with them.  There was a harshness to their views I didn't share.  I was much more interested in the philosophy, the ideas, than some crusade. 

Student government taught me the most.  Our elected body was split between the Black Caucus (democrats) and the Young Republicans.  A divide that never made sense to me.  The body mostly debated national issues.  I ended up in a small, quiet, moderate minority.  We'd sit together and roll our eyes.  The most often point I stood up to make would be that our current discussion was wasting everyone's time.  Very little of what we did helped our student body.  

I was also on the Ways and Means committee.  Which was really the only committee that mattered.  We took the duly collected student fees and passed them out to the worthy.  And I was there to represent the Model UN debate team.  I made this clear to everyone early on.  There was no quid pro quo with my professor, it was just understood.  As a member of a debate team I was expected to win my debate. 

I was moderately successful for the Model UN.  I kept our team from being defunded but I didn't increase funding.  Having played my card, I was on the sidelines for much of the rest of the budget fight.  But it was all very political.  The two sides who fought in public were quite happy to trade money behind closed doors.  And worthy causes that didn't play the game got nothing.  Halfway through my term the appropriations were finished.  And I was disgusted with the whole process, including my part.  I tendered my resignation.

It was around this time that I started having conversations with my brother about libertarianism.  It really fit with how I  was felling.  Having been on the inside just a tiny bit, I couldn't identify with either major party.  I started reading up on F. A. Hayek and taking out copies of Reason magazine. And by the 1996 election I voted Libertarian for the first time.  Seeing no difference between Bush and Gore I didn't even bother to vote in the 2000 election.  

The lesson I've taken from my experiences is that people basically fall within the 80/20 rule.  The Democrats, the Republicans, share many of the same core values.  What they disagree on is largely aesthetics.  And yet they all seem to hate each other.  Is it evolutionary to hate the other?  Or are we just that easily manipulated?  Or do we actually enjoy hating other people?  I don't have any answers.  I just don't want to be part of it.     

Men On Stirke: A Review

I just finished reading Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters by Dr. Helen Smith.  For those unfamiliar with misandry, paternity fraud, sperm jackers, modern Coverture or debtor’s prison for unemployed fathers, Men On Strike will be a shock. 

Dr. Smith’s thesis is that the incentives for male engagement in modern society have shifted to the point where men are rationally choosing to opt out of marriage, fatherhood and the economy.  Dr. Smith paints a world where men judge a culture that treats them all as potential pedophiles as one not worth participating in. 

Dr. Smith is most convincing when discussing the judicial system.  Men should have equal rights in family courts.  And no man should ever be thrown into debtors prison or denied legal representation simply because he lost his job and couldn’t pay child support.  No man should be forced to pay child support when the mother lied about paternity.  These issues  are simply outrageous.        

Yet, the title of the book suggests that men are on strike.  A strike implies that men have some level of organization.  And there simply isn’t an organized men’s movement in the US.  At least not one that the general public can identify.  And the best Dr. Smith can do to support her title is to  explain why she thinks there should be an active men’s movement.         

Beyond the title, Dr. Smith’s writing style will be off-putting to some.  She uses terms she made up that she doesn’t define until towards the end of her book.  She’s a Libertarian and is critical of other view points.  And she assumes that the readers are on her “side" which allows her to be lazy in her arguments.

Even worse, it’s hard not to notice a cherry picking in Dr. Smith’s informal research.  She interviews almost exclusively men from coastal regions and extrapolates their answers for the whole country.  She avoids the mid-west completely in her male case studies.  And she is at her least persuasive when she gets lost in her blog comment’s echo chamber.

Men On Strike could have been improved if Dr. Smith hadn’t expressed male problems in just negative terms.  Instead of only interviewing men with an axe to grind, Dr. Smith could have expanded the narrative by:
·interviewing members of happy, healthy relationships for insights on why they continue to function   successfully despite 21st century realities
·Providing men criteria to use to identify women worth getting involved with
·Getting a reaction from women on her thesis, pro and con

One of the cornerstones of Dr. Smith’s argument is a Pew Research Center study that shows that 37% of women think that having a successful marriage is an important life goal compared to just 29% of men.  Dr. Helen focuses on the delta between men and women who want a successful marriage as if that is the most significant finding of the study.  What is striking to me is that so few women want a “successful marriage." 

Additionally, how trustworthy is this study?  The language used is vague to the point of having no meaning.  Define “successful marriage," and an “important goal." Was there a follow-up study?  Has anyone else replicated these kinds of poll results?

Further, the United States is a large, diverse country. And while discussing the decline in marriage rates, it’s just not possible to make generalizations.  Marriage trends are vastly different when separated by class, race, geography and education.  Yet none of those nuances are presented in Men On Strike.

On an emotional level, Dr. Smith celebrates men who refuse to get married.  But she somehow misses that for a vast majority of men, being single is not great either.  There is a lot of pressure in the single world and a lot of loneliness.  Being single is not all fun and games. 

Potshot rebuttals:

Men On Strike: men aren’t going to college 
Response: college degrees offer poor ROI and men are positioning themselves for the post higher education bubble without six figure debt

MOS: men are bashed in movies and TV 
Response: The nation is no longer hooked up to one cable.  There is so much choice in modern media that no one message can resonate

MOS: men no longer have any public space, outside of sports arenas 
Response: men have moved online

MOS: men don’t want children anymore because of legal entanglement issues
Response: incentives to have children are evolutionary and not simply a social construct

MOS: men don’t want to get married because women have the legal upper hand
Response: many men and women are driven by their religion to both get married and have a family (despite the risks)

Where Dr. Smith misses the boat most is on demographics.  Most of the people in power are baby boomers.  They grew up during a radical shift in sexual relations.  Boomers are currently at their apex of political power.  And it’s not clear that their sexual values will continue.  The next generation of Feminists won’t be able to count on ubiquitous media propaganda and post-bubble educational institutions.

Let’s not forget the women.  In Men On Strike women are raised from birth to hate men and are taught how to use them for their own ends.  It’s as if women have no free agency and are influenced by cartoons more than their families, personal experiences or their religious institutions.  In Men On Strike Dr. Smith does to women exactly what she complains other authors do to men; they are presented as cutout forces of evil.  The real irony here is that Dr. Smith is yet another woman preaching at men to change.

Having said all that, Men On Strike is worth reading.  It’s entertaining and a good introduction to the challenges facing men today.  It could have been more in-depth and less preachy.  And unfortunately, the men who could most use this book, men who are getting shafted by our legal system, probably won’t run across it until it’s too late to help them.

When the Cure is Worse

This morning my wife walked my son to his classroom to donate supplies. In order to get to his classroom she had to produce an ID, state her purpose and sign in at the front office. When she arrived at my son's classroom, my son's teacher was overjoyed to see a student's parent. The teacher mentioned that since the new security rules were put into place after the Sandy Hook shooting, she no longer received regular parental visits. I assume that classroom donations are also down.

Is this the best that we can do for our students? The vast majority of school shootings are caused by students who, by default, would have been waived past the sign in desk. And the rest are caused by people with a connection to the school who would have been allowed to sign in anyway. The fear of random shooters wanting access to our schools is a farce. And the thought that a front office school secretary could stop such a person with a sign in sheet is face palm worthy.

The sad truth is that school security has become the new Transportation Safety Administration. The TSA routinely harasses millions of law abiding Americas each year. Meanwhile, if you're motivated to avoid detection, you simply jump the security fence. That's exactly how a 16 year old CMS student got aboard the wheel well of a jet at the Charlotte International Airport in 2010. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you ignore the rules.

Why do schools punish parents in the name of security? Because when schools feel the need to do something about security, it's the only card they have to play. Just as we cannot secure our national border with Mexico, no school board anywhere can truly secure a school. Until we recognize that schools cannot be secured we will continue to spend millions of dollars to punish parents and harm school involvement.

The Case For Citizens United

When the SCOTUS decided Citizens United it caused an uproar among many Leftists.  The case has been framed by pundits as big corporate money versus democracy.  Contrary to this simple narrative, the court had  to decide and balance tricky issues concerning the First Amendment.  If nothing else, those who are against Citizens United should understand the real issues the court faced.

The ACLU, the usual darling of the Left, supports the Citizen United ruling.  They are against "[a]ny rule that requires the government to determine what political speech is legitimate." And "how much political speech is appropriate is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment. Our system of free expression is built on the premise that the people get to decide what speech they want to hear; it is not the role of the government to make that decision for them." The ACLU goes on to point out that "It is also useful to remember that the mixture of money and politics long predates Citizens United and would not disappear even if Citizens United were overruled."

Michael Kinsley, another Left darling, asks in the LA Times "[i[f 'money isn't speech,' may the government put a limit on how much a corporation can spend publishing a newspaper? The law Citizens United overturned actually exempted media companies from its spending limits. But the difficulty — impossibility, really — of defining a media company and explaining why it should have more rights than any other company suggests that a right granted to one company should be granted to all."

The fear being that a company like GE, who owned NBC,  could make a movie against a politician who favored Samsung.  But Samsung, not owning a media company, could not reply in kind.  This would also further limit political influence to large companies that could "cover" themselves with an affiliated media corporation.  But the restrictions would still apply to most companies, bloggers and sites like Reddit. 

Background

Campaign finance reform is, surprise, all about power.  "Considered in detail, each step in the effort to limit campaign spending turns out to advantage the party that sought it. If its own numbers are insufficient to pass the legislation (as was the case with McCain-­Feingold in 2002), then it seeks to broaden its base by adding incumbent-­protection sweeteners to attract enough members of the opposing party to create a bipartisan majority. John Samples notes that McCain-­Feingold drew most of its support from Democrats — who, he argues, saw long-term electoral disaster in the growing Republican fundraising edge, which was increasing after Republicans won the presidency in 2000. But to gain a legislative majority, the minority Democrats had to gain Republican votes; Samples finds that the Republicans who supported McCain-Feingold were, by and large, those most in danger of losing their seats. For them, the incumbent-benefit protections of the law made it irresistible.

John Samples "makes the Madisonian observation that "politicians use political power to further their own goals rather than the public ­interest....Campaign finance laws might be, in other words, a form of ­corruption." Noting that "scholars date the largest decline in congressional electoral competition from 1970" and that the Federal Election ­Campaign Act — the foundation of modern campaign-finance law — was passed in 1972, Samples points out that "the decline in ­electoral competition and the new era of campaign finance regulation are virtually conterminous."

Citizens United

When Citizens United went before the SCOTUS, the government lost in oral arguments over censorship.  This exchange was reported in the New York Times:  

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked, for instance, whether a campaign biography in book form could be banned. Mr. Stewart [Deputy Solicitor General - the government's lawyer] said yes, so long as it was paid for with a corporation’s general treasury money, as opposed to its political action committee.

“That’s pretty incredible,” Justice Alito said.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked whether it would make a difference if a 500-page book had a single sentence in it that said “vote for X.” Then he asked about “a sign held up in Lafayette Park saying vote for so and so.”

If corporate money were used to pay for the book or the sign, Mr. Stewart said, Congress would have the power to ban them before elections."

So next time you see Citizens United framed as corporate greed against democracy remember there is another thorny issue here: free speech.