Today's Buggy Topic

No need for clarifying remarks.  The subject-title pins down the topic accurately, and you can find the three prof bug posts if you click here.

Today's Buggy Topic

The subject-title deals with one of two long posts that prof bug left earlier today at Economist View . . . both found in a thread about the reform of the US health-care system, now being debated in Congress and elsewhere. 

In Particular,  

. . . the first buggy post deals with the virtues of the Swiss health-care system, which relies on universally compulsory health-insurance offered by dozens of Swiss insurance companies . . . the much lower cost as a percentage of Swiss GDP (roughly 11.3% vs. 16% in the US) its biggest virtue.  The second post reveals some startling survey data about American attitudes toward our health-care system, across two broad groups: those with health-care insurance and the 13% or so of Americans who don't have it.  Plus, the even more startling opinion-results that emerge when you compare both groups with the satisfaction of Canadians with their health-care system.

Click here for the thread and the bugged-out stuff.

Today's Buggy Topic

The subject-title, windy though it is, captures faithfully two posted prof bug comments found at Economist View the laudable economic blog run by Professor Mark Thoma of the University of Oregon.    Click here 

Be Sure To . . .

 .  read the article linked to by Prof. Thoma that begins the thread, then --- if you want --- read down to the first buggy post about a third way into the thread, then be sure to look at the buggy follow-up much later on  . . . left at 9:46 A.M. on July 24th,  2009.  Both of the posts are,  as usual, filled with hard evidence and links to scholarly studies, plus once or twice to illuminating journalistic articles.  They roam widely, cover a lot of diverse subjects that all relate to the overarching question set out in the title here, and come up with some unusual results . . . none of which will gladden, I suppose, the minds of left-wing radicals and convinced socialists or even some liberals.

Today's Buggy Topic

That the US healthcare system needs reforms is probably recognized by almost all visitors to this site.  Prof bug himself supports the current efforts in that direction now undertaken by President Obama. 

Note Though

Yes, there are several problems that need to be improved on --- above all:

• the non-portability of insurance-coverage from job to job; 
•  the unusually high healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP, compared to other rich democratic countries; ;
•  the lack of competitive insurance-policies available to individuals and families across state-lines, with consequently huge and puzzling differences in the costs around our country;
• the problems of the uninsured

For all that,  the US healthcare system has some stand-outstrengths. 

Enter the Buggy Posts 

These strengths are set out by prof bug in several posts in a thread found at Economist's View . . .  including the reasons why none of the left-wing radical posters there --- all eager to cite the World Health Organizations Report of 2000, the only one that ever ranked the healthcare systems of dozens of countries world-wide when it pointed up the problems of the US healthcare system (the US system compared on 8 criteria ranked 37th, the French 1st) --- would credit the buggy prof's links to the same study that set out the comparative virtues of our system.  

That pigheaded ideology-driven resistance than led the buggy prof to explain it by reference to the psychological theories of "cognitive dissonance" and "groupthink." 

As You'll See, Two Virtues of the US Healthcare System Are Particularly Impressive 

 . . . and are discussed at length, along with other supporting evidence from a forum-exchange between American and European specialists.  Click here, for the thread at Economist 's View. 

Once you're linked to the thread, you'll note that it isn't just the unparalleled innovation of our healthcare system that looms significantly as a strength in this country--- it's also the survey data collected by the WHO showing that our system ranks 1st in the world in its "Responsiveness" to the health problems of our population.  Meaning?  Meaning the dignity with which patients feel they are treated by doctors, nurses, and others in medical offices and in clinics and hospitals; the timeliness of getting treatment; the timeliness in access to medical specialists; and the overall pleasantness of the system.  The US, to repeat, ranked 1st in the world on that score, and France tied with Belgium for the 16th-17th places.

Today's Buggy Topic?

The wordy subject-title above captures the topic accurately enough.  It's set out at length in a thread at Economist's View and --- for all its length --- is really only part one of a two-post commentary that prof bug hopes to unfurl at that site.

Click here please. 

Today's Buggy Topic

It's unfolded in a fairly lengthy post, crammed with recent survey data about public opinion in 20 different countries world-wide, is found at Economist's View.  As a bonus twist, it sticks in some humor that, prof bug trusts, will prove amusing.  Click here

Today's Buggy Topic . . .

is set out above without need of further comment, other than to note that it appeared as a post yesterday evening at Marginal Revolution . . . a very good economic blog run by Professor Tyler Cowen of George Mason University, an unusually flexible libertarian economist with an uncommon range of cultural interests. 

Click here for the thread and prof bug's stuff.

Today's Buggy Topic

The subject-title comes pretty close to capturing it --- except that it also deals with the changes in European opinion, found in 19 European countries, during the spring of 2009 and the new Obama administration.  As you'll see if you look at the three buggy posts in the following Economist View link --- click here --- the changes are generally for the better.

More Specifically,

Prof bug then seeks to analyze whether mass-opinion of the US actually influences governmental behavior between the US and its NATO allies.  He also notes that some June 2009 survey data deal with similar views across the 19 European countries regarding American culture and its influences in European life.  A little later, he notes that while 65% of Frenchmen in the survey said they detested American food, other survey data taken in France show that 69% of the population eats at least once a month at McDonald restaurants there . . . 1049 at the end of 2008.

And, as frequently happens, prof bug gets in  a few jocular blows, all friendly you understand (?), directed at this or that fellow poster.

Today's 2nd Buggy Topic, As the Windy Subject-Title Above Suggests . . .

ranges widely, in response to some queries left by a poster at Economist View where prof bug had posted an initial, spun-out analysis of institutional reforms in Europe carried out by Napoleonic conquest in the late 1790 down until 1815  --- contrasted, more specifically, with the far-reaching, global institutional changes initiated and sustained by the US superpower: first in the non-Communist world since 1945 down to the end of the cold war;  and then, since 1991, world-wide.

What's At Stake Here, Politically and Economically?

 Just this: for a good 64 years now, the US has emerged as the first hegemonic super-power in all of history  anywhere, on any continent --- never mind globally ---that has had no territorial demands on others; has not created colonies outside its borders; and has set up and largely managed (with help from other democratic, economically advanced countries) a global order of institutionalized rules for trade flows of goods, services, finance, and technology in economics. 

The same is true in security-matters. 

Specifically, in  that more difficult and challenging realm, the US has initiated and fostered an institutionalized rule-based set of organizations like NATO and the United Nations.  And, by way of illustration, since 1991 --- when the cold war ended for good --- the United States has used force aborad without either NATO or Security Council authorization only once . . . over Saddamite Iraq in 2003.  Even then, it had the support of all 28 members of NATO (including those who were candidate-members) except for France, Germany, Belgium, Greece, and Canada.  As compensation, Australia heavily supported the US position and sent a fairly large military force to join the US-led invasion.  Several more democratic countries like Japan and South Korea similarly supported it.

Not Liked by Left-Wing Enthusiasts, This Pro-American Buggy Analysis --- On the Contrary

Not hard to understand why, is it?

Hopeful, you see,  for some sort of socialism --- and antagonistic, as well, to American-style capitalism, the entire country seen largely as a racist, sexist, oligarchic-controlled  menace of aggressive imperialist designs world-wide --- our always-frustrated left-wing liberals and radicals invariably bridle, it seems, at anything that doesn't jibe with their cocky, taken-for-granted beliefs and socialist longings. 

Enter the pleasure of  prof bug, the arch-dissenter at Economist View --- just as, until the late spring of 2008, please observe, he was the equally frisky dissenter at the ultra-libertarian web-site known as Econ-Log . . . only to be booted off in May or June.   No matter.  Can't be helped.  Prof bug forever brashly happy to have a go at cliques of cocksure ideologues, whether left-wing, right-wing, or just intolerant religious or pc pulpit-pounders. 

In his view, all are fair game for fun-filled dissection . . . particularly if the substantive dismantling ends in a conclusive coroner's report. 

And So . . .

And so, to put it in plain language, nothing gives prof bug more giddy pleasure than to see these cocky zealots --- whether of the left, right, or just outer-space tub-thumpers--- go skyhooting into fits of raw rage as he unpacks his arguments at odds with their cocky, intransigently held dogmas.  Click here for the buggy post in question (the 2nd in that thread).  Oh, as a follow-up post with (let us hope) some comic buzz, click here in a different thread.

Today's 1st Buggy Topic

Found, as usual, in a thread left at Economist View --- run in laudable manner by Professor Mark Thoma, an economist at the University of Oregon --- the topic and the buggy commentary on it deal with a different views of the impact of the great English, French, and American thinkers (some German too, toward the end) on a host of issues: above all, democracy, human rights, the status of women, and the status of American Indians and black slaves.  

Click here for the source.

Please Note

The intrusive issue of Political Correctness was raised by some left-wing posters --- in a dispute with a couple of libertarians --- over the pc-status of the more important Enlightenment thinkers in Scotland like Adam Smith, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Thomas Reid (among others) and elsewhere, especially Jefferson in America.  Prof bug's lengthy commentary --- filled with easily accessible links to the thought of the great Scottish thinkers (Adam Smith holding a post as a Moral Philosopher at Edinburgh University), and to Jefferson and his views of democracy, human rights, women, and that status of American Indians and African slaves --- came after these acrimonious exchanges and willy-nilly deals with them, among other things.

A Happy 4th of July to All Buggy Visitors!

And while you're celebrating, you might find time to read a lengthy buggy comparative analysis of something relevant to our country's impact on the world since 1776: how the United States --- the dominant rule-setting power in economics and security in the non-communist world since 1945, and globally since the end of the cold war in 1990-1991 --- has used its dominance to foster large institutional reforms world-wide.  In particular, that means democratic government, market-economies, and a global institutional framework of organizations and rules for regulating economic exchange --- the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, NAFTA, and support for the EU.

In the international security sphere, the major institutional innovations fostered by the US have been no less important.  Think of the UN and NATO, plus American bilateral and regional alliances with Japan and others in Asia. 

No Need to Say More:

Click on the link to the buggy stuff, set out at Economist's View yesterday (July 3, 2009).