MyATMPinIs1234

I can't figure out whether to file this in the "What could possibly go wrong" folder, or the "We're from the government, and we're here to help" folder.

A few projects are decidedly low-tech. Take the plan to flood the border with a particular breed of wasp with a taste for Carrizo cane, a massive weed that grows in dense stands along the Rio Grande, providing cover to smugglers. Ms. Duong's scientists, working with the Department of Agriculture, tracked down the wasps in Spain and have spent two years watching the critters in a secure greenhouse -- gauging their appetites, assessing their role in a swampy ecosystem and finally breeding them into a swarm suitable for deployment on the Texas border.

Nobody begrudges a starving man who desperately seeks food.

Nobody belittles a man dying of thirst who will do anything for some water.

So why is it the sleep deprived man who endeavors to catch up by sleeping late or taking naps is scorned and viewed as lazy?

The complete lack of sleep will kill a person well before starvation and only slightly behind dehydration.

Skipping a night of sleep will hamper mental and physical performance way more than skipping a few meals.

Chronic sleep deprivation might be more detrimental to your health than a crappy diet.

So next time your employee is late to work because his alarm clock didn't go off -- rather than looking down upon him, give him your admiration as you would someone who drinks 8 glasses of water a day or eats many servings of fruit and vegetables.

Peter Orszag, Obama's Director of OMB, has the whole healthcare crisis figured out. In today's WSJ, he lays out his plan.

How can we move toward a high-quality, lower-cost system? There are four key steps:

1) health information technology, because we can't improve what we don't measure;

2) more research into what works and what doesn't, so doctors don't recommend treatments that don't improve health;

3) prevention and wellness, so that people do the things that keep them healthy and avoid costs associated with health risks such as smoking and obesity; and

4) changes in financial incentives for providers so that they are incentivized rather than penalized for delivering high-quality care.

If this is the plan, we are all fucked. If you think about these points for 5 seconds, you realize:

1) Ah yes computers. It's actually brilliant. They'll solve the healthcare problem just like putting them in classrooms fixed our public schools.

2) First of all, HMOs tried to do this and got pilloried by politicians. Also, doctors don't recommend things that don't improve health because they don't know any better, they do so because if they don't run every test and perform every procedure the trial lawyers that fund the Dem party will sue them.

3) The US Government has a pretty dismal record getting involved with prevention. The blew the single most important contributor to good health -- diet. By spending 20 years recommending people avoid fat at all costs and eat like 57 servings of grains, they f'ing caused the obesity epidemic they are now whining about. I shudder to think how they'll screw it up next.

4) The free market would accomplish this goal very easily. Incentives to deliver high quality at low prices are exactly what happens when you have to convince people to trade their money for your particular service over someone else's. But I doubt this is what Orszag has in mind. I'm sure it's some kind of monstrous technocratic jumble of taxes and subsidies that will only cause more distortions.

Detroit

I have a plan for fixing the auto industry. Make every member of Congress transfer their retirement savings into a mutual fund holding GM, Ford, and Chrysler stock. I have a feeling the myriad rules and mandates that are now crushing the industry would vanish as quickly as you can say "ha ha we were totally kidding about that ridiculous electric car."