Amy Ridenour finds the claim that the answer to this question is “yes” dubious at best.

I would add that if the health care in a given country is in reality uniformly awful, the fact that it is just as awful for rich and poor alike doesn’t count. Cuba, that Workers’ Paradise that is “somehow” home of the hospital pictures at this Captain Ed link, comes to mind. Even there, the Maximum Leader has managed to get better care during his vaguely-covered illness than any regular Cuban, party member or not, could ever hope to obtain.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday:

In 2006, 12.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of persons belonging to a union fell by 326,000 in 2006 to 15.4 million. The union membership rate has steadily declined from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available. Some highlights from the 2006 data are:

The union membership rate for government workers (36.2 percent) was substantially higher than for private industry workers (7.4 percent).

48.0% of unionized workers are in the public sector (7.38 million in the public sector, 7.98 million in the private sector, per this BLS supporting report). That is up from 47.4% the previous year, and has to be an alltime record.

There are certain private-sector industries that would probably benefit from unionization, but the labor movement hasn’t figured out how to reach them, opting to try a legacy-betraying legislative solution instead of figuring out how to serve those who could truly use them.

There are certain public-sector areas that are being hurt badly by their unions, who are forgetting and need to recognize that the well of taxpayer money is not limitless, and that too-high taxes hold back economic growth (see New Jersey).

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UPDATE: Kudlow points out something that is unfortunate and doesn’t have to be, but that is definitely true — “The high union states—New York, New Jersey, Washington, etc—also happen to be high tax, slow growth, population losing, states. On the other hand, the low union states—places like Utah, Virginia, and both Carolinas—are low tax, pro business, population growing states, with strong economic growth.”

Challenge: Name the only US senator who did not vote when the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA; also known as “Bankruptcy Reform”) came before the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body for a final vote on March 10, 2005.

The answer (click “more” if you are on the home page):

(more…)

From OpinionJournal.com’s interview of President Bush, on immigration:

WSJ: How concerned are you about the issue of immigration dividing the Republican Party?

GWB: ….. I hope I can get a bill through the Congress so that the issue is dealt with in a rational way, before the [presidential] election process [begins].

The slow but sure movement of consumers to debit cards as a replacement for cash and checks continues.
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Spam made up 94% of all e-mail in December. Even that doesn’t even begin to describe the scope of the growing menace:

It’s not just the rising volume of spam that’s a problem, but the size of the spam messages. Because botnets use stolen bandwidth, spammers can send files of any size at no cost. And that’s just what they’re doing. In order to defeat content filters that might block their messages, spammers are increasingly using images. The result is that unsolicited bulk e-mail is getting bulkier. The 147% increase in spam that Postini observed in 2006 resulted in a 334% increase in e-mail processing requirement for companies. “This is causing the e-mail infrastructure of many businesses to melt down,” says Druker. “Nobody budgeted for four-and-a-half times more infrastructure capacity in one year.”

As with most conflicts, it looks like playing defense isn’t enough in the fight against unwanted junk. Governments and law enforcement may need to go on offense just to keep the world’s communications infrastructure from collapsing under the weight.
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Robots Parking Your Car? It’s being tried in New York City. I’m not as worried about problems as some may be, because I still have fresh visions of how some valet parkers drive.
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Quietest Story of the Past Few Days: “Consumer confidence inches to five-year high”

From CardWeb’s CardTrak:

More VISA and MasterCard issuers are backing away from using the two-cycle method of calculating finance charges. The least understood credit card gotcha has been used by some of the top credit cards in the country including the Discover card and the General Motors MasterCard.

….. the two-cycle method of calculating finance charges, which recaptures interest from the previous billing cycle if the current balance due is not paid-in-full by the due date. The controversial method can add up to four months of extra interest charges per year under the worst case scenario for a cardholder.

If you have been paying your bill in full for several months and then let your balance float by making only a minimum or partial payment, the two-cycle method charges interest from the date of the original unpaid transactions all the way to the current statement’s cutoff date. So, for example, a purchase made on January 7, billed on a February 4 statement, and not paid in full by the next payment due date of February 28, would have 56 days of interest charged against it on a March 4 statement if the two-cycle method is being used (24 in Jan., 28 in Feb., and 4 in March). Normal people would expect interest charges from Feb. 4 until Mar. 4.

Now that more card companies are going away from the rapacious two-cycle method, you should consider switching to cards that don’t have it if yours does — especially if you’re the kind of person who sometimes carries a balance, and sometimes doesn’t.

The best answer, of course, is never to carry a balance, in which case how interest is calculated become irrelevant.

From the Toronto Star (HT Return of the Conservatives):

The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own personal computers. In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the “user experience” from the user.

Vista’s legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user’s knowledge. During the installation process, users “activate” Vista by associating it with a particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information directly to Microsoft.

Even after installation, the legal agreement grants Microsoft the right to revalidate the software or to require users to reactivate it should they make changes to their computer components. In addition, it sets significant limits on the ability to copy or transfer the software, prohibiting anything more than a single backup copy and setting strict limits on transferring the software to different devices or users.

….. Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated “high” or “severe,” even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that “this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights.” For those users frustrated by the software’s limitations, Microsoft cautions that “you may not work around any technical limitations in the software.”

It gets more technical from there, but it appears that you really don’t own your Vista OS computer. I will be surprised if there isn’t a great deal of outrage over this that will hold back Vista adoption.

Disclosure: I am a 20-plus year Mac user.

From AP Hi Tech:

Silicon Valley Economy Revs Up
Jan 29, 5:03 PM (ET)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Silicon Valley’s economy has revved up thanks to plucky Internet and alternative energy startups, according to a new report.

Local technology companies created 33,000 jobs last year – the first increase since 2001, a year after the dot-com downturn. The region’s median household income jumped to $76,300 last year, representing a 6.5 percent increase from 2005 and the first uptick since 2001. It decreased 13 percent from 2001 to 2004.

They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t like each other:

Recycling regards: Card has seen plenty of use since it was first purchased in 1969
Brothers have used the same birthday card for 37 years, and they estimate it has traveled 100,000 miles.

By Lawrence Budd

Sunday, January 28, 2007

CLEARCREEK TWP., Warren County — Irwin Kahn is still honing the tone of sarcastic comments he’ll add to the birthday card he and his little brother have been exchanging for 37 years.

Next month, Kahn, 70, of Clearcreek Twp. will return the card, which sold for 25 cents in 1969, to his brother, Jerry, for the 38th time, in recognition of his 69th birthday.

“You might think we’re the pioneers, one of the early people who believed in recycling,” Jerry Kahn said in a phone interview from Ormond Beach, Fla.

Jerry, who moved from Cincinnati to Florida in 1984, estimated the card has traveled 100,000 miles through the mail from his home to Irwin’s in Warren County.

With each year, “it becomes more precious, more of an heirloom,”" Jerry said. “The card becomes an expectation.”

He laminated its outside surfaces, marked with the 74 dates and initials tracing its path, begun in July 1969, when Irwin, then living in Middletown, first sent “Birthday Wishes, Brother,” to his little brother, then living in Cincinnati.

In 1983, Irwin’s wife, Sondra, and her sister, Judy, took up the ritual — until Judy’s death in 2000.

Now living off Ohio 73, Sondra and Irwin also reuse anniversary, Christmas and other greeting cards.

“I just tell her … She’s not worth spending the money on,” Irwin said, with a comic smirk and tip of a Honduran cigar, ala Groucho Marx.

While enjoying their retirement, both brothers joked about the frugality and durability — demonstrated by the card custom.

“This card is 37 years old — Amazing!” Jerry concluded his note recognizing Irwin’s 70th birthday on Aug. 2, on a post-it stuck to the inside left page.

“It hasn’t been lost in the mail,” said Irwin, who will replace the post-it with one bearing his latest cracks before sending it off again.