Brit Hume

Clifford Asness Verified account @CliffordAsness · 2h

Your occasional reminder that “RINO” now means believing in things Republicans have championed for 50+ years. Things that worked to make this country great (see what I did there?). Free markets, free trade, conservative values, love of country, and limited government just to start. Believing in these things make you a “RINO.”

To not be “RINO” you need to believe in right-wing socialism, regressive protectionism, and extreme executive authority, just to start.

Got it?

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Ken Gardner Verified account @KenGardner11 · 9h

I am listening to, or was listening to until I couldn't take it any more, NRO's The editors post-election episode. You all sound like radical environmentalists who argue whether human beings are solely responsible for global warming. Then one guy (the obvious Vanceguard guy who hates the Iran war, you all know who I mean) argues for that position and the others (again with one possible exception, you all probably know who I mean) gives lip service to some but not all of the other causal factors, but still lose the forest for the trees.

Get away from your microphones and look up Mill's methods (a topic in logic). Learn it. Live it. Love it. Then reassess your entire approach to what actually happened.

If you need a hint about the right way to think about the election and, accordingly, what needs to be done going forward, go back and read David Bahnsen's piece in NRO on the same topic. You don't even have to look outside your own organization; you published it.

Good grief, NRO podcast people. Learn how to make a good intellectual argument.

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Rich Lowry Verified account @RichLowry · 1d

This really gets to the crux of the matter re Trump, Vance and Iran, which isn’t whether the war badly hurt Republicans in the midterms or not (obviously it did).

It’s whether or not Trump botched one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency. Vance clearly thinks he did, while Trump—absent a stark turnabout—is never going to concede that he did.

Maybe Vance finds a way to cleverly finesse this question, or Trump gives him a pass on it, or other considerations prevail, but it is very treacherous territory for a VP to have such a dim view of a such a major decision made by the president whose favor he needs to win his party’s nomination.

The question some journalist is going to ask Vance now is, “Do you agree with the president that the war was right call, and that, if he had it to do over again, he should do it again?”

Trump’s statement suggested the answer he wants to hear.

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60 Minutes Verified account @60Minutes · 2d

Ross Douthat asks the President how his net worth rose by nearly $3 billion, according to a Forbes estimate, since he returned to office.

Watch the interview Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on 60 Minutes.

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The Rational Animal 🤔 Verified account @theobjectivist · 1d

Mark, you started by saying we have no idea what healthcare costs to buy or to provide in this country. None. Then your conclusion is to propose that the people who cannot see the costs should be the ones to run it.

There is a reason nobody knows what anything costs, and you listed it yourself. Medicaid, Medicare, supplemental plans, Medicare Advantage, self insured employers under a tax code that hides the premium in the paycheck. Every layer you named is a government program or a government created structure, and in every one of them the person getting the care is not the person paying for it. That is where the price went. Prices exist where buyers pay. Remove the buyer and you get exactly the fog you are describing. Universal care removes every buyer who is left.

Then look at what you are asking for. Every private contract in the industry published by federal order. Every claim in the country handed to state and federal researchers. The DOJ turned loose on the pricing structure. Bipartisan legislation to work out what care we need to provide and what it should cost. That is not a market reform. That is the state seizing the information of an entire industry so it can set the terms of trade for every doctor, hospital, and patient in the country. You call the conglomerates Too Big To Care. The entity you want running it is the only one with a monopoly on force.

And the number. The post you are replying to has CBO at $3 trillion a year in new federal spending, 21.4 percent of payroll, with the author conceding it is illustrative and not scored. You respond that nobody knows the real cost and we should find out after we commit. No investor you have ever met would fund a company on those terms, and you have never funded one that way yourself. Only government gets to spend money first and discover the price later, because only government can send the bill to people who did not agree to it.

The information asymmetry you are describing is not a reason to negotiate blind. It is a reason to stop having a single buyer negotiating at all. Put the patient back in the transaction and prices appear on their own. Cost Plus is proof that you already know this.

Mises showed a century ago that a planner without prices cannot calculate, Hayek showed why the knowledge he needs is never in one place, and Rand showed why he has no right to try. You are proposing to prove all three wrong with a commission while you admit no one has any idea how much all of it will cost. Do you think they did not know what they were talking about, or do you just not want to find out?

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