Us v. Them: The People and the Political Class (Jack McHugh, Mackinac Center for Public Policy). “The fundamental problem facing our nation is that true representative government has been supplanted by an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating political class that does not represent the people. As a result, the government has escaped the control of the people.” McHugh explains how resistance to term limits, campaign finance regulations, public employees and their unions, even the political parties, work against the interests of the people.
When Change Is Really More Of The Same (Howie Rich of Americans For Limited Government). “No more lobbyists dictating terms. No more bitter partisanship. No more wasteful earmarks.” Can President Obama deliver on the promised change? “Not hardly” says the author.
What Are the Odds of a Depression? International evidence suggests there is a 20% chance our stock-market crash will lead to much worse. (Robert J. Barro, Wall Street Journal) It’s a grim picture: “The bottom line is that there is ample reason to worry about slipping into a depression. There is a roughly one-in-five chance that U.S. GDP and consumption will fall by 10% or more, something not seen since the early 1930s.”
Sweden’s Government Health Care (Walter E. Williams). What about health care in Sweden, a country often described as a place where socialism works? “Malmo, with its 280,000 residents, is Sweden’s third-largest city. To see a physician, a patient must go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist. The clinics have security guards to keep patients from getting unruly as they wait hours to see a doctor. The guards also prevents new patients from entering the clinic when the waiting room is considered full. Uppsala, a city with 200,000 people, has only one specialist in mammography. Sweden’s National Cancer Foundation reports that in a few years most Swedish women will not have access to mammography. … I wonder how many Americans would like a system that would, as in the case of Mr. D. of Gothenburg, prohibit private purchase of your own medicine if the government refused paying.” Further information is at Sweden’s Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations and Mammography at risk in Sweden, says Cancerfonden.