Your Money Was Not Stolen

An AP story appearing in today’s Boston.com reports that during the last 3 years $1.3M has been embezzled from the Crotched Mountain rehab center in Greenfield, NH. Regulators and donors should not fear, however, for the center’s CEO Daniel Shumway assures the reporter:

Shumway said…None of the missing funds were from any government-funded program. "I also want to assure our supporters that none of the funds were taken from any charitable accounts intended for specific programs or projects,"

Spoken like a truly terminal accountant.

Somehow the center’s money is not fungible?

A Mortgage Primer

Boston Globe business reporter Robert Gavin writes a decent primer on the rising foreclosures of sub-prime mortgages. The Globe Editorial Board and other leftish do-gooders would do well to comprehend it lest they continue to advocate against the inevitable or do for Massachusetts mortgages what they have already done for Massachusetts auto insurance.

But Kristen Harol, deputy director of the [Lawrence Community Works]community group, said her staff can't even figure out whom to call to negotiate purchases of the foreclosed properties. "We can't get to square one," she said. "The problem is: Real estate is local, but the money is national."

The “problem” of global investors buying aggregated mortgages is the exactly the reason that local mortgage markets have always been liquid for the last 20-30 years. This becomes a problem only when (1) the loans become very risky because they are dependent on rising incomes or rising property values and (2) the rising real estate market turns down.

Two decades ago, local institutions primarily originated, serviced, and held mortgages. A borrower struggling to make payments might work out a solution with the same banker who made the loan. Later, financial markets got involved, seeing an opportunity to turn home mortgages into investments that could be packaged and traded for profit. Lenders bundled mortgages together and sold them to investment banks. The investment banks then sold bonds to investors, promising to pay off them off with cash from mortgage payments made by borrowers. These bonds are known as mortgage-backed securities.

If you want to test whether a do-gooder in this space is only a well-intentioned idiot, find out if they understand the concept (and the benefits to consumers) of mortgage-backed securities.

The Green Acres Casino

The Boston Globe Editorial today “Middleborough Antes Up”spins the Middleborough town meeting like a major league curve ball:

Traditionally, municipal decision-making in Massachusetts has been slow and methodical. By requiring that even the smallest zoning changes be subject to lengthy public processes, town officials could control growth. On Saturday, Middleborough voters turned this tradition on its head.

With just a note that:

Opponents believe that the billionaire casino developers dictated the outcome by dictating the pace.

Billionare veteran developer Sol Kerzner vs. small-town selectmen. Do you suppose?

Unglamorous Civil Maintenance

There is a superb Op Ed column in today’s Boston Globe by David Westerling and Steve Poftak. The column observes that our state budgeting process provides incentives for government officials to neglect the maintenance of public capital assets.

If you closely examine just a few such assets, and you will see plenty of supporting evidence. They note:

Utah has taken a more aggressive approach, prohibiting the design and construction of any major new capital project until the Legislature has appropriated 1.1 percent of the replacement cost of existing state facilities for capital improvements.

Learning from its own experience and adopting best practices from other states, Massachusetts should put the following procedures in place to achieve substantial long-term savings.

Stop building new assets without first calculating and budgeting for the cost of maintaining them.

Take advantage of new technology to regularly inventory state assets, assess their condition and estimate repair costs.

Require agencies responsible for capital assets to budget 2 percent of the replacement value of those assets for maintenance

All very responsible ideas, with little chance of being enacted by politicians who love to take credit for building new projects far more than maintaining what taxpayers have already invested in.

Deval Patrick and the proposed $1B commuter rail line to New Bedford comes to mind as a classic case in point.

Republicans who are interested in differentiating their party in a positive way would do well to think about this question. Incumbents in power likely will not.

Mitt Leads – Globe Shocked and Dismayed!

Today a nightmare scenario for the liberal Boston Globe newsroom is reported on the front page: Despite their personal antipathy and the Globe’s relentless efforts to discredit him, Mitt Romney has pulled into the lead in the New Hampshire primary. The front page story by Lisa Wangsness reports:

…as recently as February, Granite Staters appeared to harbor little interest in the boy next door. Polls had him lagging far behind John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. In the last few months, however, Romney has steadily pushed to the head of the Republican pack in New Hampshire, while his major rivals have lost ground. A mid-July poll had him opening up a 15-point lead.

Romney angst has also spread to the Globe Editorial cloister. Today staunch Democrat columnist Joan Vennochi sheds crocodile tears over the fading fortunes of her favorite (Republican) candidate, John McCain:

Romney also has what McCain needs to rebuild -- a strong, supple political organization, designed to nurture the candidate and muscle him through the marathon of presidential politicking. The McCain organization was weakened by staff infighting, a major personnel shakeup, and a series of related defections. This is of little interest to anyone but the media.

Absolutely not. The ability to form and lead a large organization is obviously one critical skill for any president. It was a skill which the Globe’s parent paper, the NY Times reported as noticeably lacking in John Kerry.

For “balance”, today’s Globe Op Ed page includes a hack criticism of the Romney administration’s economic record. Only near the end of the column do the authors admit:

Real world experience has shown that a governor is limited in his power to influence the course of economic development in a state.

Why be constrained by the “real world” when criticizing Mitt? No kidding such power is limited! Especially limited is a governor who cannot sustain a veto because in the same “real world” more than 80% of the legislature consists of members of the opposing party.

Deans Gone Wild

I’m always tempted to believe that the academic world cannot descend any deeper into self-parody, but fresh evidence periodically emerges to disprove this hypothesis. To wit:

The University of Michigan’s Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Affairs (UMOLGBTA) has announced a plan to choose and adopt a more inclusive new name. The time-line for this name change calls for 3 years of sustained effort, but the time-line includes a step to “Evaluate feedback and reevaluate timeframe[sic] and process” should a 3 year schedule prove too precipitous to be adequately inclusive.

One commenter at the Seattle Stranger newspaper blog SLOG notes (with tongue in cheek):

I find this a commendable process: democratic, while still taking account of administrative necessities. My only concern is that the name-change proposal is being fast-tracked. One understands the enthusiasm and energy behind the cause, but all the same I recommend that appropriate appeals mechanisms be built-into the process. Nothing too rigorous: a three-tiered review procedure would suffice, with the last word given to an appropriately constituted University Council (elections could be held for this office). And of course petitioners would retain their rights in state and federal courts should matters warrant further review. Otherwise, I think the process mapped out above is timely and expeditious. Congratulations to all concerned.

Regarding that energy and enthusiasm, the UMOLGBTA started a blog on May 30 with a single initial post. In the 2 months since that time, the blog has attracted exactly 0 additional posts and 0 comments, perhaps indicating that 3 years is not enough time to collect community input on this important issue For speed, this project rivals any executed by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

Congratulations to the UMOLGBTA, or whatever they eventually decide to call themselves! They are keeping the University of Michigan on the very cusp of the zealous quest for inclusiveness.

Hat tips: Andrew Sullivan and SLOG

Boston's Uppity Whites

James Taranto, editor of the OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web Today, had fun yesterday with the content of a Boston Globe article. The article concerned the Metco program that sends inner-city students to suburban schools. Metco’s policies, which exclude all white students, are threatened by the recent US Supreme Court decision on school integration. The most ironic quote from the Globe article is the one that actually describes Metco’s selection criteria (emphasis mine):

Metco refers minority applicants to suburban school systems as seats open. Under state guidelines, for every 10 names Metco refers, six are black, three are Latino and one is Asian, reflecting Boston's minority demographics. A few white students, trying to exploit the system, slip through because they classify themselves as Latino, [Metco Executive Director] McGuire said.

How poorly behaved are these white people! They could give their whole race a bad reputation! How dare they pass themselves off as Latino in order to go where they are neither allowed nor wanted! What is this world coming to? Where is their respect for authority? Don’t they know their place?

Uncovering A Sucker Bet

A Boston Globe news story reports that the revenue to the town of Middleboro projected by developers of a proposed casino hotel is ridiculously optimistic.

We are shocked, shocked!

The Globe story says that a realistic estimate is roughly half of the $4M in annual revenue that persuaded (snookered?) the small town’s Selectmen to sign an agreement with developers.

Perhaps this news will be read by the Globe Editorial Board, which just yesterday endorsed casinos because of their promised ability to generate large amounts of additional state revenue (never mind the sources of that revenue…or the sources of the promises).

State Revenue Whores

Today’s Boston Globe lead editorial “Casinos reconsidered” proves beyond a doubt that the Globe Editorial board consists of “revenue whores”.

As public attitudes and the state's needs have evolved, so has this page's view of casinos. The Patrick administration and the Legislature should make way for casino gambling here as a way to recapture and redirect money that could be used to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts.

How much might casinos mean for Massachusetts? A 2002 study prepared for former acting governor Jane Swift cites figures of $135 million to $450 million in annual added revenue before the market is saturated. Others have higher estimates. But the state's take would depend on the nature and number of gambling venues.

Massachusetts just passed a $26 billion dollar state budget. The high end of this estimate (very unlikely to be achieved) represents less than a 2% increase in gross state revenue. Yet the Globe obtusely argues:

The strongest rationale, however, remains the need for a consistent level of support for cities and towns. State aid has been eroding for years, forcing municipalities to raise property taxes. Still, they can't keep pace, as evidenced by escalating school fees, teacher layoff notices, and cutbacks in library hours.

How much of a difference will that extra 2% of state revenue make to the quality of life here when reduced by all the liabilities that come with these casinos? The Globe editorial concludes that:

Casino gambling is not the ideal way to increase state revenues, but it is a proven winner in that field.

The Globe of course doesn’t elaborate on why casinos are “not the ideal way”.

Perhaps it is because the extra revenue comes from a demographic slice that is so impoverished, so uneducated, and so high in minority groups, that any tax designed to have a similar impact would be widely rejected as unconscionable. But for another hundred million or so of state revenue, the Globe editors are willing to ignore the demographics and join in soaking the poor. They can look the other way and ignore the regressive nature of this additional revenue.

They are rightly called whores.

Sliding the Slippery Slope Toward Las Vegas

A recent post at the gay legal site GLAD informs readers that:

Yesterday, July 18, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, via the Department of Public Health and Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, issued a corrective notice to all Massachusetts city and town clerks authorizing them to allow same-sex couples from New Mexico to apply for marriage licenses.

Somehow the Boston Globe managed not to report this.

UPDATE: The Globe finally reported the story on July 27.

Blessing Harvard's Bells

You have to blink when a Boston Globe story has the headline “Bells for Harvard are consecrated”.

Who knew that an institution so militantly modern in matters such as gender would feel a need to have some of its assets consecrated by priests? What gives?

The tiny Globe story provides just a hint.

The subject bells come from the Danilov Monastery in Moscow and were purchased from the Soviet government in 1930 when it closed the monastery. They were installed in the Lowell House tower, which was then under construction. The monastery (which became a NKVD prison after it was closed by Stalin and its monks either executed or dispatched to the Gulag) reopened in 1985. The original bells will soon be returned to the monastery in exchange for a new set that was recently cast (and consecrated) in Moscow.

The Lowell House website has a superb page about the bells here. Check it out.

Casting Debtors as Victims

A Boston Globe story today reports on a new foreclosure prevention initiative by the Patrick administration to help those who “lose their homes to foreclosure”. The rather accurate headline is “Foreclosure plan would make lenders pay”. No mention is made of the inconvenient truth that foreclosure is not a communicable disease but is rather a process of law stemming from chronic non-payment of mortgage obligations.

As is often the case, read the end of the Globe article first to find the journalistic “balance”:

In some cases, the agencies will ask lenders to delay foreclosure proceedings by 30 to 60 days to allow homeowners to find alternatives, which could include selling the house or signing the deed over to the lender in lieu of foreclosure, according to the draft.

Homeowners eligible for refinancing under the recently unveiled state program may also need their loans reduced and prepayment penalties waived to avoid foreclosure, the draft said.

Putting these provisions into place, however, could be difficult. Mortgages today are sold and resold to investors, making it unclear who has the authority to make decisions on foreclosures. Often firms that hold and service the mortgages are restricted in what they can do by agreements with investor groups.

“Making it unclear who has the authority to make decisions on foreclosures”?

This reporter should read his own home mortgage contract. I doubt any such contract is “unclear” concerning the process of foreclosure. If that was the case, the mortgages would be quite unattractive to investors.

By the way, a much more nuanced report on the subprime lending crisis appeared in last Sunday's Globe Op Ed page. There is no evidence that today's reporter has read that column.

Politics and Human Nature

Every morning author Roland Merullo passes the spot where Mussolini and his mistress were executed. He reflects on civic culture in an Op Ed column in today’s Boston Globe (“A grave lesson from Mussolini”). The pith:

We are so confident in the architecture of our American democracy, and in the abundance created by our labor, sacrifice, and ingenuity. But the balance we have been able to strike and maintain is a work in progress, our reward for a continual resistance to the natural human tendency toward divisiveness, corruption, and viciousness.

Division is inevitable. But corruption and the viciousness that becomes tyranny is why our government was formed with the built-in “inefficiency” of multiple branches operating in a balance of powers.

Our Founder's view of human nature was much like that of their contemporary Adam Smith. Today we don’t much discuss our view of human nature in political discourse. It is viewed as appropriate subject matter only for religion. That’s too bad. It is fundamental to thinking about government and economics as well.

Light Posting Around Here

The forecast calls for light posting until July 23, 2007

Thanks for visiting.

Hack Chutzpah

Here is a story you won’t find in the Boston Globe, but one that should be there.

Patricia Walsh separated from her state-employed husband in 1984, but through their expertise in the art of hackdom, Mrs. Walsh maintained her state dependent health care coverage fraudulently for 20 years. The fraudulent coverage was not discovered until 2004, when her former husband died. Then, according to the Attleboro Sun Chronicle:

After his death, the state agency overseeing the coverage discovered the mistake, denied her the benefit but did not order back payment of premiums for the years of coverage.

Not content with getting 20 years of fraudulent subsided health care benefits, State Senator Marian Walsh filed an earmark to this year’s budget on behalf of Mrs. Walsh that would have provided subsided health insurance for the 82 year old, who is the mother of former Plymouth County DA Paul Walsh (not related to Marian except in the tribal sense).

Governor Deval Patrick vetoed the earmark.

Here is hack Chutzpah at its very finest. Mr. Walsh apparently learned well from mom and dad.

EC 10

An otherwise OK Boston Globe editorial about China’s problems with tainted products (“Another China syndrome”) is marred by its final words:

China was able to export products that killed dozens of people not because of one corrupt official but because of its one-party system, its lack of a truly free press, and its savage style of unregulated capitalism.

Economic development in China is not being practiced through laissez faire capitalism. Economic and political liberties are highly interdependent. China’s monopoly of political power by the Communist Party and the resulting lack of political liberty inevitably leads to corruption in the commercial sector, because Chinese commerce depends on the permission of an unaccountable and opaque party.

China is not practicing a “savage unregulated capitalism”, though aspects of its economic development may fairly be called harsh. China is practicing a form of capitalism that is handicapped because it is regulated by thousands of party cronies who exploit their political monopoly power.

In a better paper, editorial writers would recognize this distinction.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Today’s Boston Globe has another story on Massachusetts auto insurance regulation, but this time in the Globe's business section written by business reporter Bruce Mohl. His article emphasizes the dispassion and thoroughness of new insurance commissioner Nonnie Burns, a former judge. He also notes:

A study group appointed by [Governor Deval] Patrick backed limited competition. Some industry officials have said competition would drive down insurance premiums, but the study group supported phased-in competition to appeal to large national insurers such as Progressive Corp., Geico, and Allstate Corp., which currently shun the state because of its heavily regulated system.

"The automobile insurance market is ailing, and some form of competitive rating is essential to attract and retain insurers willing to write this line of business," the study group said.

Perhaps the Patrick administration should “leak” this report to the people’s commissars serving at the Boston Globe Editorial Board, who have steadfastly opposed any changes in insurance regulation that would increase competition and substitute market forces for regulatory dictates.

On second thought, Patrick should leak the report to the Boston Herald instead.

It's Only Fair!

This Reuters headline in today's Boston Globe is a shocker:

Senator seeks fair taxes on partnerships

All Senators who are opposed to fair taxes say "nay".

Stop the presses! The "ayes" have it!

Ironically, the taxes in question are proposed new taxes on private equity firms, the political left's newest boogeymen, but also this liberal Senator's most financially powerful constituents.

Islamists Now a Part of the "Religious Right"

The New York Times opens its story on the Red Mosque fighting in Islamabad with these astounding words:

The battle for the Red Mosque, the fiery epicenter of Pakistan’s religious right, ended today…

In this most unsubtle categorization, the label “religious right” now applies to both Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and to Islamist militants fighting to the death behind human shields.

The Flipside of the Story

Here are the facts of a story in today’s Boston Globe, but reported with a different spin than in our local journal:

• In 2006 a 23 year old mother of 3 pleads guilty to child endangerment and turns her 3 children over to her mother, thus getting the Massachusetts DSS off her back.
• A year later, the same woman is getting emergency housing assistance through the Department of Transitional Assistance. She has given birth to a 4th child (paternity unreported) and is sharing the apartment with a man who is fresh from the Boston jail on trespassing charges after he spent 6 years in the state pen for armed robbery. Her male companion is so drunk on her couch that he loses control of his bladder.
• Furious, she orders him out of the apartment, and he slashes the baby on the neck and shoulder with a razor blade and then hands the child to its mother. Police rush the child to Boston Medical Center, where she is listed in stable condition.
• The lady then leaves her child in the hospital to attend her boyfriend’s arraignment in court.

The Globe headline writer describes this story today as “Man slashed infant, then handed baby to her mother, police say”.

That headline is part of the story but not the main part, I say.

No Need to Save on Insurance

Today a Boston Globe editorial entitled “No need to swerve on insurance” continues the Globes usual foolishness about Massachusetts auto insurance.

Many urban drivers fear that a dramatic swerve from the current system could increase their annual bills by 25 percent or more. Many suburban drivers would welcome a deregulated system that relieves them of the roughly $100 they now pay annually to subsidize urban and inexperienced drivers who are more vulnerable to accidents and theft. [State Insurance Commissioner] Burnes, a former Superior Court judge, needs to find a way to balance these interests.

“More vulnerable” is a way of saying “at greater risk”, but saying it in a way that paints these people purely as victims. That wording is the cognac of liberalism. Simply priceless.

Competition for auto insurance business in Massachusetts isn't as fierce as elsewhere. Some national insurers want no part of a system that gives the state insurance commissioner power to set the annual rate that all insurers must use to calculate premiums.

“Some national insurers”? Some? Exactly which of the top 5-10 national insurers now operate in Massachusetts? State Farm, GEICO, Allstate, Progressive, and Liberty Mutual (to name a few) do not operate here, but operate in 49 other states. Might that be an indication (ever so slight) that the Massachusetts regulatory policy is anomalous? Not to the Globe.

But Massachusetts residents can live without such companies, and especially their often specious criteria -- credit rating, occupation, homeownership -- for setting rates. When such companies are in the driver's seat, customers are unfairly relegated to assigned risk pools, in which they are forced to pay the company's preposterous "dirty rates." Faced with premiums they can't afford, more drivers will hit the road uninsured. And no one wants to run into them.

Might the Globe explain exactly who would be “forcing” consumers to accept these “specious” criteria if another 5-6 major insurance companies joined the competition in our state market? Or might consumers willingly choose a different risk metric if it measured their own risk as lower and thus offered them lower rates?

A seven-member auto insurance study group convened earlier this year by Governor Patrick unequivocally defended the practice of limiting rating factors to driving experience, at-fault accidents, location, and traffic violations. Any insurance company unwilling to abide by such relevant and reasonable criteria should not be welcomed here.

It’s laughable to imagine the hubris of the Globe editors, who know so very much about how to measure risk and thus how to run an insurance business. Perhaps they should walk down the hall and offer their valuable services to the business operations of their own sick newspaper, which from a financial standpoint has been taking on water faster than the Big Dig tunnels.

Today's Globe Op Eds

In today’s Boston Globe Op Ed columns, Jeff Jacoby notes official and media reticence to report the religion (and the religious motivation) of the recent British physician-bombers in “Avoiding the M-word”.

Yvonne Abraham debuted as an Op Ed columnist in last Sunday’s Globe with a column entitled “You can bet on this” mocking the concept of casino gambling as the fiscal savior from Massachusetts government spending constraints. Today in “Deval's false promise” she notes a whiff of hypocrisy in the Governor’s office:

So right now, there's not a lot of difference between Romney deputizing a couple of dozen troopers to arrest people for immigration violations in the course of their normal duties and the situation that exists under Patrick, in which troopers are taking part in federal operations or turning over to the feds illegal immigrants encountered during traffic stops. Except that Patrick's approach seems more haphazard, with troopers in every corner of the state apparently left to do their own thing. All of which makes his January reversal look a lot like grandstanding, too.

This Miss Yvonne is off to an OK start in the wacky Pee-Wee’s Playhouse on Morrissey Boulevard.

Hacks Come in All Colors

Today’s Boston Globe reports that the nursing program at MassBay Community College is now banned from accepting new students by the State Board of Registration in Nursing:

In a scathing letter to the school's president, the Board of Registration in Nursing said the program's lack of leadership and direction threatened its ability to train qualified nurses.

The board said the lack of a dean, a nursing program administrator, and several nursing instructors raised "grave concerns" that the school could run an effective program. It also cited the college's provost, saying he tampered with one student's grades and improperly advanced the student through the program.

MassBay's provost, Steve Berrien, said the school is responding seriously to the board, but he disputed the allegation that he tampered with a student's grades.

"We didn't interfere with the integrity of program, its grade policy, or its standards," Berrien said. "It was just one student and one exam, and some of us feel it's been blown slightly out of proportion." He said he anticipates that the ban on admissions will be lifted this week.

However, MassBay faculty members said in interviews that they believe administrators have tampered with other students' grades to keep as many participants as possible in the program, one of the largest in the state.

But it seems that the chaos has roots at the top of the school. Towards the end of the article (must we always read Globe articles from the end to the beginning?) the Globe reports:

Faculty leaders blamed the nursing program's woes on Berotte Joseph's reorganization of the school, saying it has led to an exodus of administrators, who have not been replaced.

Berotte Joseph, who in March 2005 became the first Haitian to head a US college, was criticized last year for spending more than $90,000 in university funds on events marking her inauguration.

This blog was disgusted when Dr. Michael F. Collins, a health care executive ousted from Caritas Christi “for reasons he never disclosed” (who was also very male, very white and very Irish) was named to head UMass Boston and promptly spent $500,000 on his inaugural events. That hubris virus is contagious. Here is a CC president who is female, non-white, and Haitian. She begins her job by dropping $90,000 to celebrate her inauguration and then promptly runs her school into the ground.

Did you actually believe that minority hacks would be any different?

The TSA Was Right!

Last week we noted the Boston Globe’s insouciance at the news that physicians were responsible for the attempted UK terrorist bombings, and noted that "at least it keeps that pesky I-word off the front page". Now the new British government has done even better. From the UK Daily Express:

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis. The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on ­terror” is to be dropped…

Later Smith is quoted:

“Let us be clear – terrorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religions. Terrorists attack the values shared by all law-abiding citizens. As a Government, as communities, as individuals, we need to ensure that the message of the terrorists is rejected.”

So there! The US Transportation Safety Administration was right after all to screen 80-year old jewish grandmothers for hidden bombs with equal zeal as was applied to 20-something Middle Eastern males carrying 1-way tickets.

The new British government is making things too easy for satirist Iowahawk, who reports:

The elevated alert levels come on the heels of a week when London and Glasgow narrowly escaped potential events that intelligence experts say may have been related to diverse groups of people doing things. Initially police had specifically asked the public for information relating to doctors driving automobiles, but that initial warning brought angry denunciations from the British Medical Association and the UK Automobile Association.

At Slate, Christopher Hitchens levels the coverage of this story by the New York Times, concluding:

…the votaries of theocracy now claim the God-given right to slaughter females at random for nothing more than their perceived immodesty. The least we can do, confronted by such radical evil, is to look it in the eye (something it strives to avoid) and call it by its right name.

It seems that rather than the least we can do, this is the thing we are most unable to do, lest we be mistakenly perceived as racists. We seem skeptical and embarrassed of all Western values, except the desire not to give offense.

A "cohabitant" or a “live-in boyfriend”?

I wonder if this question is answered in the Boston Globe’s unpublished Usage Guide?

Question: When is a person who is in a progressive, respectable cohabitation situation denigrated by the Boston Globe as a “live-in boyfriend”?

Answer: If the relationship is dysfunctional, and if it involves an unmarried straight couple, and if there is evidence of child abuse, then the Globe will describe the male cohabitant using exactly the same judgmental (though technically accurate) term that my mother would use.

Otherwise not.

When Race-baiting is Acceptable in the Globe

Boston Globe Op Ed columnist Ellen Goodman aims a borderline racist and ad hominem attack at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas today in her column entitled Supreme Court's predictable 'rebel':

And a special shout-out to Clarence Thomas, who may embark on his annual road trip in his 40-foot motor home knowing that he's accomplished one life goal. The justice is now talked about even less in terms of race -- less as the profligate successor to Thurgood Marshall than as a certified member of the court's right wing. Color him conservative...

Thomas' s psyche still intrigues those who search for the biography in his opinions. We know Thomas as a man who benefited from the affirmative action he scorns. He attended Holy Cross with a scholarship established for blacks after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. He was accepted to Yale Law School, where a program committed 10 percent of the seats to minorities…

I have no doubt that Thomas sees himself as the victim of racism and the "racism lite" experienced by many black professionals tagged as "affirmative action babies." He's kept the pile of rejection letters received after graduating from law school. At his searing confirmation hearings, he froze the senators in their tracks by consciously describing himself as the victim of a "high-tech lynching." He also knows that many people questioned his credentials for the Supreme Court…

He not only convinced senators that Anita Hill lied, he convinced them that he wouldn't be a rigid ideologue. Honk if you believe Anita now.

Nice, huh?

Note carefully that you will never read such nasty things from Ellen about "affirmative action babies" who are dogmatic liberals. She reserves her race-baiting for black conservatives. How telling.

UPDATE: Over at this afternoon's Best of the Web Today column James Taranto has a field day with this column, calling it "Soft White Supremacy".

In the white liberal's worldview, if a white past beneficiary of discrimination favors racial equality or even discrimination against whites, that is an act of atonement or principle. But if a black past beneficiary of discrimination favors equality, white liberals view him as a traitor to his race. To put it another way, white liberals expect blacks to act out of self-interest based on race, while they expect whites to act altruistically. They attack blacks like Thomas who rise above racial self-interest--and they do so in explicitly racial terms--while faulting whites who fail to do so.

This may be the most invidious racial view to remain respectable in 21st century America. The idea that whites are on a higher moral plane than blacks is a form of white supremacy; and the attacks on Thomas and other blacks who embrace equality and reject racial self-interest are an attempt to keep black people in their place.

White liberals often claim that racism is everywhere, "just beneath the surface." Given the intensity with which they target blacks who reject liberal orthodoxy on race, one suspects they are telling the truth--about themselves.

Low Expectations for Islamic Doctors?

The front page of today’s Boston Globe devotes space to a number of worthwhile stories. But you have to wonder why the Globe would choose to devote 10 times as much front-page space to a story about “parenting consultants” compared with a tiny pointer to a story on page A3 that that notes:

Doctors are suspects
As many as five of the eight people
in police custody in the British
bomb attacks are reportedly either
doctors or doctors in training. A3

If these doctors were Unitarians, there would be bold headlines in the Globe about their behavior. It does keep that pesky "I-word" off the front page, though.

Missing It in Massachusetts – Our Socialized Auto Insurance System

There was a delicious article about Massachusetts auto insurance in last Sunday’s Boston Globe. The Globe’s editorial board would benefit by contemplating it. The gist of the article is that the Patrick administration might make some moves this month to allow market-based auto insurance pricing to slowly emerge once again in Massachusetts.

With the possible exception of rent control in New York City, auto insurance in Massachusetts is a textbook example of how NOT to regulate a market. It is a superb illustration of what happens to a market when liberal reformers by successive adjustments eventually restrain market forces until a market becomes fully dysfunctional.

From an economic perspective there are 2 fundamental facts concerning the present sorry condition of Massachusetts auto insurance:

1. Insurance rates are set by state government, and the rate structure in place effectively subsidizes auto insurance for urban car owners. Suburban and rural car owners pay these subsidies through above-market insurance rates. The Globe’s own editorial board estimated the value of these subsidies at $400 per year per urban car.
   
   
2. The high degree of regulation in the Massachusetts insurance market has led major national insurance firms (Allstate, State Farm, GEICO, Progressive, Liberty Mutual) to leave the state. Auto insurance is provided by smaller state-based firms whose business (and political influence) is concentrated here in Massachusetts, and who will therefore fight to their last lobbying dollar to preserve the present regulatory climate that keeps national competitors out of "their" market.

I doubt that the emergence of market pricing, if it ever happens, will be rapid. Subsidies are highly addictive, and their removal is painful. Deval Patrick has not shown he can stomach the kind of pressure that removal of these subsidies would entail. I’d be delighted to be wrong about this, though.

Here is what the Globe article, by Frank Phillips, reported:

Massachusetts is the only state that requires the insurance commissioner to set auto rates. This system was established decades ago and is designed to ease the disparity in insurance rates between cities and suburbs. A high-risk pool provides coverage for drivers who cannot get coverage in the regular market.

Leading the nation on the road to socialism. I’m so proud of Massachusetts! Also note that besides subsidizing urban car owners, the present system also subsidizes “high risk” drivers. These are mostly what we commonly refer to as BAD drivers. They “cannot get coverage in the regular market” because their poor driving record makes the risk of insuring them higher than can be covered by a policy with regulatory price caps. The state regulators step in and allocate these bad high risk drivers among the insurance companies, subsidizing bad driving, but making their auto insurance “affordable” so they can continue to have auto accidents in peace and prosperity.

But, by introducing a market-based overhaul, Patrick would make strides in his effort to show a friendly face to the corporate world, including auto insurance companies, many of whom left Massachusetts to seek more profitable, less regulated markets...

The debate pits the so-called domestic insurers -- mainly Commerce Insurance and Arbella Insurance, which dominate the auto insurance business in the Bay State -- against those firms, led by Liberty Mutual, that have abandoned Massachusetts but would be eager to return if they can set their own rates.

Really the insurers left Massachusetts to seek markets in which their risk position is under their control rather than under the control of politicians and bureaucrats. The insurance business is all about taking risks and pricing them accurately. When government dictates all the rules and prices, insurance ceases to be a business and becomes an agent of government policy.

The profit margin for auto insurers in Massachusetts, she said, is about 40 percent below the national average. In 2005, the profit by Bay State companies was 5.7 percent, while the national average was 8.1 percent.

This silly obfuscation ignores the COST of auto insurance in Massachusetts paid by consumers, which is 39% above the national average. Not all factors that make our cost higher would be remedied by market-based pricing, but the cost of auto insurance in Massachusetts is now higher than any state except New York and New Jersey. Market competition and pricing will certainly improve that.

Commerce Insurance, Arbella, and Plymouth Rock Assurance Corp. -- which are fiercely guarding their dominance of the Massachusetts market -- lead the fund-raising. Campaign finance records show that the firms' executives and lobbyists donated $154,000 in the 2005-2006 election cycle. Menard picked up $40,000 from the insurers; Wilkerson, $14,000; and Berry, $33,000.

These firms are lobbying to keep in place regulations that drive larger more efficient competitors from this market, creating a less competitive protected market in which they have competitive advantage. “Fiercely” is a perfect word for their lobbying. Of course they are willing to spend big sums for this! It is an important part of their business strategy!

But the most obtuse liberal do-gooders are not found on Beacon Hill but in the cloister of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. These folks dogggedly defend a $400 per year subsidy for urban cars. There are about 3.3 million cars in Massachusetts and a subsidy of that size for ¼ of them (the Globe’s own estimate) represents a $330 million dollar per year subsidy, paid for by suburban and rural consumers.

At the same time the Globe’s astute editorial reasoners also staunchly defend a different subsidy of about $900 million annually to support the MBTA, which lacks riders in part because auto ownership in its service area is kept “affordable” through insurance subsidies.

That the Globe editors see no contradiction in this shows progressive social thought at its very finest.

And to top it all they then wonder why many people find it difficult to afford living in Massachusetts!

Focusing on (one) Candidate's Hair

The Boston Globe’s multi-part 80,000 word deluge on the life of Mitt Romney features a strangely constructed video montage showing Mitt Romney’s hair styles as his photo morphs over almost a 50 year period. The text accompanying the video snarkily reads:

Mitt Romney’s Look
To achieve his clean-cut look, Mitt Romney has
visited the same hair stylist for nearly 30 years.

I ask defenders of the journalistic objectivity of Globe reporting to please locate similar video or other content on boston.com that focused on the hairstyle history of 2004 candidate John Kerry. I suspect that any such Kerry video would show that dogged pursuit of trends in fashion is tougher on the eyes than Romney’s boring consistency.