Writing for Bloomberg View yesterday, Peter Orszag explained how in the private sector, “defined contribution” pensions have become the rule:

“The defined-contribution concept is already familiar to most American workers through their retirement benefits. Over the past two decades, company retirement programs have moved decisively away from defined-benefit plans, in which workers are paid a given amount of retirement income, and toward defined- contribution 401(k) plans, in which risks — from fluctuating financial markets, for example — are borne by workers.”

“In 1985, a total of 89 of the Fortune 100 companies offered their new hires a traditional defined-benefit pension plan, and just 10 of them offered only a defined-contribution plan. Today, only 13 of the Fortune 100 companies offer a traditional defined-benefit plan, and 70 offer only a defined-contribution plan.”

Orszag predicts that the same trend should be expected in the health-care market too. In fact, he claims that the adoption of the president’s health-care bill will accelerate this transition.

–Veronique de Rugy, NRO Corner

What is Peter Orszag saying here? He’s saying that a transition period is beginning where more and more of our health care costs are going to be paid by us directly, instead of our employers. This won’t come in the form of higher premiums. It will come in the form of higher co-pays and higher deductibles. This has already begun in the place where I work.

Every company I’ve worked for over my career has split my monthly health care premium costs with me 50/50 and every year the premium goes up about 8%-10%. This is a fairly standard way of doing it in the private sector corporate world. But, two years ago, we were notified that in order to avert an increase in premiums, we were raising the deductibles for certain procedures and raising the co-pay by $10 per visit. The same thing happened again this year. You see what’s happening right? The premium didn’t rise, but my out-of-pocket costs still rose. I’m paying a larger percentage of my health care costs now, even though my premium hasn’t risen in two years. This is what you can expect to happen over the course of the next decade or two. It’s unavoidable.

As health insurance companies shift more of the cost on to us, it’s going to hurt. But, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Sure, some people will be hurt very badly by this. But, the net result will be a lowering of prices in the health care market as consumers have to pay more and more of the costs directly to the provider without going through the insurance company. It’s going to hurt doctors as well as consumers, since they will have to adjust to this new paradigm too.

But, as I said earlier, it’s unavoidable, and necessary. Prices simply have to come down or consumers won’t be able to pay. In case you haven’t noticed, being charged $100′s of dollars just to talk to a doctor for 5 minutes and have him write you a Zithromax prescription isn’t exactly sustainable market pricing. And the fact that the total(employee + employer) premium for my family coverage health insurance is now more than my monthly mortgage payment further indicates a massive correction coming at some point.

I’ve been telling people for months that Republicans have no interest in stopping health care legislation. People like Rush Limbaugh have marveled out loud about why Congressional Republicans aren’t being more vocal and active in opposing it. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Because they don’t oppose it, as is evidenced in the above video. The only reason they have given passive resistance to it for the last few months is that it’s good positioning for campaign donations and re-election.

You have to begin looking at all politics from the angle of “who wins? who loses?” So let’s do that. If health care passed right now, would the Republicans lose? No. They’ll just claim that they tried hard to fight it, but didn’t have enough numbers on their side. They will still be re-elected and Democrats will get hammered in November. Plus, now they can enjoy the same benefits the Democrats wanted. Namely, large new campaign contributions from the healthcare lobby. That’s a win for them.

So, what if health care doesn’t pass. Do Republicans lose? No. They still get re-elected in November on the idea that they defeated the bill, and Democrats get hammered. They also still get massive campaign contributions from an energized base. That’s a win for them also.

See what I mean? That’s how politics works. Smart politicians always set themselves up to win on both sides of potential legislation. Values and ideology in Washington are like unicorns and fairies. They don’t exist.

–Dave Jones, SouthernBread.org

And so, today, we have this little nugget of a story from AP:

GOP Sees Risks in Push to Repeal Health Law

Republican leaders are stepping cautiously, wary of angering staunchly conservative voters bent on repealing the new law. In recent public comments, they have quietly played down the notion of repealing the law while emphasizing claims that it will hurt jobs, the economy and the deficit.

Asked if he advises Republican Senate candidates to call for repealing the law, Cornyn said: “Candidates are going to test the winds in their own states. … In some places, the health care bill is more popular than others.”

On Tuesday, Cornyn issued a 1,280-word campaign memo that mentioned “repeal” only once. It did not advocate repeal but noted that in a recent poll, “46 percent of respondents support a full repeal” of the health law.

Three weeks ago, Cornyn told reporters he thought GOP Senate candidates would and should run on a platform of repealing the legislation.

–AP, via Fox News

Ah. So the Republicans are cool with the bill after all? Surprise, surprise. Fire up the base for the fight and then cool ‘em down when it’s over. It’s all clockwork. It’s almost as if it was planned that way.

Why do I think it’s so important? Well, partly it’s because of what i just wrote above. There are laws of economics, just like there are laws of physics. Gravity is a law. And, jumping off of a tall building means you will fall and kill yourself. Even if you don’t understand gravity and could care less about physics, you will still die. And, economic law might play itself out differently in the real world, but it’s no less of a law than physical laws are. If you do A, then B will happen. It’s that simple. And, because of that, Christians are consistently making stupid blunders in thinking on moral and social issues because we don’t understand these things.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. I stumbled on an article the other day while doing some research for an upcoming blog post on retirement. The title is: “Does God only care about abortion and homosexuality?” The article was a critique of a response that William Lane Craig recently gave to a question about politics. In general, I see the writer’s point and agree with his conclusion that evangelicals seem to only get involved in politics when it comes to abortion, same-sex marriage and one or two other hot button issues. This has been a critique by the so-called “Christian Left” for a long time, and it’s generally true. But he attempts to make larger points that show his total ignorance of economics:

I was more than a bit dismayed by these comments. Craig only seems interested in the ethical dimensions of healthcare when the issue touches on the life of a fetus. But what about healthcare itself? Isn’t that a moral issue? What about a baby born addicted to crack? Or a single mom who cannot afford health insurance? Or a family who just had Cigna deny their request for their child’s organ transplant? What about the very idea of a system of healthcare that is driven not by care of the patient but delivering profits to shareholders? What about the soaring profits of corporations like Wellpoint even as they raise premiums on people already living at the margins? On what planet aren’t these moral issues?

–Randal Rauser, ChristianPost.com

This sentence is the heart of his argument: “What about the very idea of a system of healthcare that is driven not by care of the patient but delivering profits to shareholders?” That’s what he is complaining about, and the rest of what he describes are, in his view, logical outflows of that one issue. And that issue is an economic complaint about the nature of health care. He is complaining that health care workers care more about making money than helping people. The problem is that is a completely meaningless, but sadly oft-repeated, statement because of what is called the “economic calculation problem.” Let’s look at it in more detail.

What’s called the “economic calculation problem” is a law of economics that, in part, describes the impossibility of making rational economic decisions when confronted with unknowable values. These unknowable values can be unknowable by virtue of the “knowledge problem” of central planning, or because their value is simply inscrutable, such as with slavery. What is the “value” of a slave? How do you rationally factor labour costs when you don’t value that labour(slaves in this case) in monetary units? You know that the slaves are costing you something, but you don’t know how much. You can’t know because you are trying to factor monetary decisions using non-monetary criteria. It’s the same problem as putting a price tag on “good will” when buying a business. The valuations of the owner, the buyer and independent valuators can be wildly different.

And, this is the problem with a statement like, “What about the very idea of a system of health care that is driven not by care of the patient but delivering profits to shareholders?” Health care providers must operate in the realm of monetary calculation. They cannot purchase 1000 gallons of betadine solution with 100 units of “care of the patient.” That’s completely irrational. There must be money(a medium of exchange) involved in order to make the proper business calculations to properly allocate the necessary resources to provide “care of the patient.” There’s no other way this can happen. And, what’s being completely missed in Rauser’s complaint is the role of the consumer in these calculations.

When he says, “What about the very idea of a system of health care that is driven not by care of the patient but delivering profits to shareholders?”, he’s making an implicit argument that valuing profits devalues your product. But this is silly. It doesn’t matter if the product in question is health care or basketballs. As consumers value your product less, more of them will buy that product elsewhere, which will reduce your profits. In a properly functioning free market, increasing profits requires increasing product value to the consumer. This is the way that businesses know what they are doing wrong and what they are doing right. By profits. As profits go down, good businessmen will see that for what it is: a signal that consumers are valuing their products less. As profits go up, the reverse it true. Thus, you must calculate “care of the patient”, not on some inscrutable emotional level, but by profits. How else do you know, as a business man, if you’ve given satisfactory care to your customers(the patients), unless profits increase. That’s called the price signal.

Rauser has, unknowingly, set up a false dichotomy between profits and product value that doesn’t make any sense. Profits are the results of increasing product value. They are inextricably linked together by economic law. And for good reasons. This relationship of profit to product is absolutely necessary to produce quality products that consumers need. But, Rauser is commenting on the basis of Christian conviction, without a proper understanding of economics to inform those convictions, so what he says comes off confused. He just doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

I want to make a followup point, though. When the natural relationship of product to profit is interfered with by government intervention, as our health care system has been, bad things happen. Again, there’s the law aspect. I’m not saying that the health care industry as we know it now is functioning properly. It’s not. Government has been slowly encroaching more and more into health care for decades, to the point where most of the industry are actively in bed with government policy makers. They have destroyed their own pricing mechanism through government involvement in the market, so that now, many of them simply don’t have a coherent link to the consumer any more.

The channel of health care provider -> insurance company -> place of business -> consumer with hundreds of layers of mandated government compliance at every step has retarded the price mechanism beyond recognition. This is why the age old example of an aspirin costing $8 per pill in the hospital but .05 cents per pill at the grocery store holds true. The answer to our health care woes, therefore, is to eradicate government involvement from the industry. This would restore the proper competition and economic calculation to the industry. But, something makes me think this isn’t what Rauser had in mind. And that’s too bad. Because, if he understood the underlying economics better, as all Christians should, he would be part of a solution that would restore good quality medical care to even the most poor among us. The problems he lists would be solved once and for all instead of just band-aided with more government manipulation which will eventually collapse the whole system.

The more interesting thing to me is that as this process has moved along, the consequences have shifted in a direction that I don’t think was ever anticipated. In order to get this thing passed, they are having to break all of the “rules” in the senate and house. The whole thing with reconciliation being used in the Senate and the new proposal of the so-called “Slaughter Solution” in the house is frightening. Not in some Glenn Beck, we need to go back to the Constitution sort of way. That’s naive. None of these “rules” are constitutional any how. No, the real problem is that the more of their own rules they break, the more they get used to not having any rules at all.

Once they break a rule, it’s dead. As soon as they violate their stupid reconciliation rule, the whole process of filibuster is gone. They will never again need anything other than a 51 vote majority to pass anything. That’s the definition of tyranny by the majority. And, of course that violates the constitution in every shape and manner, but what’s the constitution? It’s a dead piece of paper. It’s meaningless. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we can move on and stop buying into the notion that politics is ever going to be “good.”

The health care “bill” has become an end game to an entirely new endeavor. It’s not about health care any more. It’s become a starting point that will kick off a long, systematic dismantling of any and all congressional limitations. I foresee that in 20 or 30 years there will be no recognizable rules in congress any more. They will pretty much write whatever legislation they want and pass it with bare majorities in each house. There will be no more limits on them. And when there are no more checks on their power, God help us all.

This guy voted for state-run healthcare in Mass. and Mitt Romney (another Republican) signed it into law. I’ve been telling people for months that Republicans have no interest in stopping health care legislation. People like Rush Limbaugh have marveled out loud about why Congressional Republicans aren’t being more vocal and active in opposing it. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Because they don’t oppose it, as is evidenced in the above video. The only reason they have given passive resistance to it for the last few months is that it’s good positioning for campaign donations and re-election.

You have to begin looking at all politics from the angle of “who wins? who loses?” So let’s do that. If health care passed right now, would the Republicans lose? No. They’ll just claim that they tried hard to fight it, but didn’t have enough numbers on their side. They will still be re-elected and Democrats will get hammered in November. Plus, now they can enjoy the same benefits the Democrats wanted. Namely, large new campaign contributions from the healthcare lobby. That’s a win for them.

So, what if health care doesn’t pass. Do Republicans lose? No. They still get re-elected in November on the idea that they defeated the bill, and Democrats get hammered. They also still get massive campaign contributions from an energized base. That’s a win for them also.

See what I mean? That’s how politics works. Smart politicians always set themselves up to win on both sides of potential legislation. Values and ideology in Washington are like unicorns and fairies. They don’t exist.

And, by the way. In the end they will probably stick all the abortion stuff back in there anyway. It’ll only stay out long enough for a vote. Then they’ll amend it right back in.

And, of course that’s exactly what happened:

A House Democratic leader said Monday she’s “confident” controversial language on abortion will be stripped from a final healthcare bill.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from subsidizing abortions.

“I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won’t be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we’re all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that’s the case.”

–Michael O’Brien, The Hill

So, the language banning funding of abortion is coming out of the bill. Surprise, surprise. But, that’s not what you should be taking away from this whole scenario. If you see how all of this played out and then walk away thinking the Republicans and Blue-dogs got duped then you’ve played right into what they want you to believe. The dirty little secret is that the Republicans want this Obamacare bill just as much as the Democrats. They just need to appear as if they don’t for the purpose of re-election. Don’t believe me? Is that just too much to swallow? Well then, do a little thought experiment with me.

Imagine that Obamacare passes the Senate in a few weeks and it’s as bad as everyone fears it will be. It’s got the public option, mandatory death consultations(death panels), abortion funding, buy mandates, etc., etc. Of course, none of this goes into effect until 2013/2014. That’s always been the case. Now, imagine that because of all this, the Republicans win back control of the House and even the Senate(unlikely) in 2010. Can you convince yourself that they would immediately repeal Obamacare? Can you? No. Of course they won’t. Did they repeal anything Clinton did when they took control in 1994? Nope.

You see, they could have scuttled the entire House vote this past Saturday night by voting “present” instead of a “no.” But they didn’t do that. They used the abortion thing as cover just as much as the blue dogs did:

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) said he plans to buck right-to-life groups and his own party and vote “present” on a Democratic amendment that would prevent federal funding for abortions as part of health-care overhaul legislation.

Shadegg is doing so in the face of strong support from groups like National Right to Life and Americans United for Life, which say they will count present votes as not supporting its pro-life agenda. He said this was a “bad call” for pro-life organizations and he vowed not to “give a vote away” to right-to-life groups for what he considers a very flawed process. Shadegg contends that Pelosi is using this amendment to wrangle votes for the overall bill.

“(Nancy) Pelosi is speaker and she’s pro abortion every minute of every hour of every day as speaker,” Shadegg said in an interview with POLITICO Saturday evening. “This is a vote to help her move the bill forward.”

He said he expects at least four or five other Republicans to join along. Sources say Republican Reps. Phil Gingrey (Ariz.), Steve King (Iowa), and Scott Garrett (N.J.) are likely to also vote present.

The Arizonan has been bickering all day via email with his Republican colleagues. He said he feels House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) circumvented his conference by announcing he would support the amendment, brought by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), without consensus from GOP lawmakers.

“This is a gut-wrenching issue for a lot of people,” Shadegg said. “But I won’t support Pelosi’s bill, which is not pro-life at all.”

–Jake Sherman, Politico

Shadegg saw it for what it was. Organizations like NRL can’t see beyond their own nose. They should have stayed out of the whole thing. Instead, their lobbying gave cover. And in the end it allowed the very thing to happen that they claim to be opposed to. Regardless, the thing to take away from all this is that – like I’ve said a thousand times – you don’t have anyone in Washington that cares about you. You must understand this. The whole system is built to make you think that you do. But you absolutely do not have a “representative” in D.C. I’m sorry, but that’s just the truth.

President Barack Obama’s landmark health care overhaul moved toward a vote in the House Saturday after anti-abortion lawmakers won a chance to knock out language that would let people who get federal subsidies buy insurance plans that include abortion coverage.

Abortion-rights supporters were outraged at the concession to abortion opponents. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said “there is a risk” that some in the Pro-Choice Caucus would vote against the bill as a result.

–Erica Werner, AP

What a load of BS. You just have to laugh at how transparent these people are. There isn’t a single politician in congress that gives a rats butt about whether abortion is in this bill or not. This entire story is a manufactured argument designed to create the appearance of concessions to right-wingers to provide some cover to Democrats from conservative districts(the so-called blue dogs). Let me be clear: everything in this entire story is completely false and made up. For instance:

The abortion agreement was reached at midnight Friday after hours of intense negotiations brokered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Democratic Reps. Bart Stupak of Michigan, Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and other abortion opponents fought for and won an opportunity to insert tougher restrictions into the legislation during debate, despite fervent opposition from pro-choice liberals who are a driving force behind the overall bill.

“We wish to maintain current law, which says no public funding for abortion,” Stupak said.

DeGette called Stupak’s amendment “the biggest restriction on a women’s right to chose that’s been considered on the floor of the House” in her 13 years in office.

–Erica Werner, AP

BS. Every word. The idea that there were a bunch of Democrat politicians in conference battling over the merits of federal funding of abortions is ridiculous. The negotiations were instead about how to use this media story to create the appearance of victory for blue-dog principles(for the purpose of misleading the voters in those districts) in order to bring them on board to vote for the health bill. How stupid they think we are. It’s offensive. But the saddest part is that it will work. Thousands of conservatives will think to themselves, “Awesome! They got abortions removed from the bill.” How naive.

The goal is to takeover healthcare for the benefit of politician’s re-elections. Please don’t get sucked into their game of trying to use a moral issue to pull the wool over your eyes. Nobody in Washington has your best interest in mind at all. Republicans aren’t “right”, and Democrats aren’t “left.” They are all crooked and in it for themselves. They see us as their enemy. So, in that vein they are going to try to make us think one thing while they carry out their real plan. Don’t fall for it.

And, by the way. In the end they will probably stick all the abortion stuff back in there anyway. It’ll only stay out long enough for a vote. Then they’ll amend it right back in.

But rather than consider these common sense proposals, congressional Democrats are insisting we push through a new trillion-dollar government controlled scheme.

Proponents of ObamaCare can’t cite one shred of evidence that giving politicians and Washington bureaucrats more power and control will produce better quality health care or lower costs. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office admitted it has had no time to study exactly how much the bill will increase premiums for average Americans—something it routinely does for health-care legislation that is moving through Congress.

Does anyone believe the billions in new taxes as well as hundreds of pages of new rules and regulations being proposed will lower the cost of health care in America? But not knowing how much this will harm families didn’t stop Congress from advancing one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation our nation has ever seen. That’s scary and irresponsible.

Why aren’t we trying, or even debating, these no-cost solutions that insert choice into the health-care reform equation? Before Congress acts and passes an expensive, untested, new health-care system, the American people need to be heard.

–John Shadegg, WSJ (em. mine)

Why aren’t they trying no-cost solutions? I’m sorry, but that’s just the worst kind of naivety. There is one simple reason that none of what’s going through congress ever makes any financial sense at all. Because sound economic decisions don’t benefit congressmen. Again, Mr. Shadegg:

The solution: Allow American families to purchase health coverage across state lines. According to a study by the University of Minnesota, 12 million more Americans would be able to buy coverage if this simple solution were enacted into law.

–John Shadegg, WSJ (em. mine)

Why doesn’t congress support such an obviously good idea that won’t cost taxpayers a dime? Again, you have to think like a politician on these things. How does crushing state insurance monopolies get more money into Nancy Pelosi’s re-election campaign fund? It doesn’t. How would doing that keep big insurance in the tank for more campaign contributions? It wouldn’t. That’s all that matters. Politicians think of themselves and their gravytrain jobs first. Everything else is subservient to that one goal.

And, if you are of the Rush Limbaugh mindset that all of this is somehow aimed at damaging big corporations then you’re kidding yourself. Sure, the anti-big insurance rhetoric is there from folks like Pelosi and Schumer, but that’s all for show. The truth is that politicians must keep big business on board with them. Exhibit A. is the very same Rep. Shadegg’s disclosure that Pelosi inserted language into the house healthcare bill that grant’s legal immunity to insurance companies to protect them from any legal action in the case of death or injury resulting from decisions made by the company. In other words, you can sue the doctor, but not the insurance company that mandated what the doctor did. Does that sound like hostility to big business to you?

The sooner you come to grips with the fact that everything done in government is a complete fabrication, disguised to throw you off the real scent of what’s going on, the sooner you’ll see that you have no true “representative” in congress. The only ones they represent are themselves.

Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.

“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life,” Carper told CNSNews.com.

Carper described the type of language the actual text of the bill would finally be drafted in as “arcane,” “confusing,” “hard stuff to understand,” and “incomprehensible.” He likened it to the “gibberish” used in credit card disclosure forms.

Committee members did not have a “clue,” he said, when one senator recently read them an example of some actual legislative language. When you look at the legislative language, he said, “it really doesn’t make much sense.”

“When you get into the legislative language, Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue–including people who have served on this committee for decades–what he was talking about,” said Carper. “So, legislative language is so arcane, so confusing, refers to other parts of the code—‘and after the first syllable insert the word X’–and it’s just, it really doesn’t make much sense.”

Carper questioned whether anybody could read the actual legislative text and credibly claim to understand it.

Last week, the Finance Committee considered an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) that would have required the committee to post the full actual language of the proposed legislation online for at least 72 hours before holding a final committee vote on it. The committee defeated the amendment 13-10.

–Nicolas Ballasy, CNS News

72 hours? It could be posted in large print for 72 days and we still wouldn’t be able to understand half of the BS in this atomic bomb of a bill.

There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants.  This, too, is false.  The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You lie!  (Boos.)

THE PRESIDENT:  It’s not true.  And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.  (Applause.)
–President Obama, Speech to Joint Session(9/9/09)

Another day, another reason why nobody trusts anything this man or this congress says. The above paragraph is from Obama’s highly touted speech to the joint session of congress on September 9th. But today we get this story in the NY Times:

As if it were not complicated enough, the debate over health care in Congress is becoming a battlefield in the fight over abortion.

Abortion opponents in both the House and the Senate are seeking to block the millions of middle- and lower-income people who might receive federal insurance subsidies to help them buy health coverage from using the money on plans that cover abortion. And the abortion opponents are getting enough support from moderate Democrats that both sides say the outcome is too close to call. Opponents of abortion cite as precedent a 30-year-old ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions.

The question looms as a test of President Obama’s campaign pledge to support abortion rights but seek middle ground with those who do not. Mr. Obama has promised for months that the health care overhaul would not provide federal money to pay for elective abortions, but White House officials have declined to spell out what he means.
–David Kirkpatrick, NY Times

Oh, so his promise in the speech actually had no basis in reality?  Surprise, surprise.  This is just the same ol’ song and dance’.  Politicians feign adherence to public opinion, then go off and do exactly what they need to do in order to keep the campaign contributions flowing in from their biggest backers.  How many times have we seen this same scenario play out at all levels of government.  A politician pushes a big issue and then brings it up for a vote.  Then, when it gets voted down, they go right ahead and use some loophole or something to just push it through and do it anyway.

As I said in the last post, it’s the contradictions and blatant lying that’s killing this whole thing for him.  I honestly believe that if he came out and said flatly that he wants government run healthcare, federally subsidized abortion, etc. that the poll numbers would probably be about the same or even higher.  It makes me sick to believe that, but I’m afraid it’s true.  Maybe I’m too cynical.  I hope so.