Middle America Has Gone Insane

In Nebraska, a coalition of Republicans and Democrats voted to repeal the state’s death penalty. So the Republican governor says he’ll have all the inmates on death row put to death before the law takes effect.(Reported in the Atlantic)

Kansas is falling apart because of the extreme Republicanness of Governor Brownback's fiscal policies. Even the rather conservative USNews and World Report knows this is a crazy way to run a state.

In Tontitown, Arkansas, in that obey-your-husband-and-older-brother church life isn't as pretty as you might think. (Reported in Salon)

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Scott Walker says women made pregnant from incest or rape are only upset about it for a very short time and will accept the blessing of bringing a new life into the world... (New York Magazine reports)

Scott Walker is also eagerly defunding the state’s top university system and public schools. (Reported in the Washington Post)

The latest idea (reported by an NBC affiliate in Wisconsin) is to allow public school students to be taught by teachers who never graduated from college.

Our Financial House Doesn't Actually Need A Roof

I read a New York Times piece this morning about the insurance business. You should read it. You wouldn't believe the kinds of tricks and schemes they get away with. I've learned some new terms for trickery. "Captive Reinsurance" for example. "Hollow Assets" is another. Some of the names of these shell companies will make you laugh. "Tapioca View." Is that a company you'd trust with your money? Insurers used to be the most careful people in the world, but they've changed. Fast and Loose makes bigger profits, at least in the short term...

Imagine paying for the insurance policy on your house with shingles from your roof?

When it isn’t raining, insurance companies think their financial structures don’t need a roof. As long as the sun shines and the premiums pour in they don’t need to have a functioning brain.

They’ve behaved the same way about climate change and the enormous risks––beyond enormous risks––sea level rises present to insured coastal properties and port facilities. "If it’s not happening now it will never happen” seems to be the bizarre logic of insurance giants.

“What me worry?"

How can they be so foolish? Because foolishness earns more in the short run. And the more a division earns this quarter the more important it is. And the more colossal the foolishness the likelier the government will bail them out. Insurance companies used to be more careful and responsible than that.

Well, a few of them are beginning to come around and behave responsibly. Finally.

Why did it take them so long? I suspect it’s because the big insurers have changed from thinking of themselves as insurance companies into thinking of themselves as investment companies. The side of the company that invested the premiums became sexier and more profitable. Also, low interest rates made secure, safe investments like bond funds less profitable and therefore less sexy. Life threatening risks might be bringing their attention back to their jobs. Is it in time?

This is the Government Republicans Want––No Government At All.

Doug Grow does a good job describing the atmosphere at the state capitol. It's ugly, but the ugliness is on one side of the disagreement. The governor offered compromises; the Republicans made additional demands.

The Republican Party is happy for the government to shut down. It's exactly the kind of government they want. No government at all.

Look at the extremist policy amendments Republican legislators tried to load onto the state funding bill and you realize it's a different kind of game to them. The Republican Party has mastered the strategy of hostage negotiation. They don't want an agreement; they won't take compromise. They want everything.

Consider the key issue of government spending and government revenue. Republicans are adamant about protecting the low low tax rate of the richest Minnesotans, lower than the rest of us pay.

Republicans demand the firing of 30,000 state workers, working people with mortgages to pay and families to feed, so they can protect 7,700 very very rich people, most of whom don't work in the conventional sense at all but finance their extremely comfortable lifestyle from dividends and financial transactions. Rather than raise taxes on millionaires, rather than removing recent tax breaks in fact, the Republicans are happy to raise taxes on all Minnesotans who own homes or rent apartments.