Sophia Voravong has a good and lengthy article in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier on embezzlement cases in Tippecanoe County. Special attention was paid to embezzlement from small, non-profit type organizations. The psychology of the embezzler stood out to me:

Although greed is a possible factor, people who steal from nonprofit organizations and small businesses typically begin doing so out of perceived necessity — for example, outstanding medical bills or rising credit card balances, according to Tony Greig, a continuing term lecturer in the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.

“They say they’re just going to borrow a small amount and pay it back,” said Greig, who teaches a class on forensic accounting. “They do that a couple of times and realize, ‘No one’s seen anything, so why pay it back?’
. . .
“In many cases, they rationalize that, ‘I’m a volunteer for a club. I’m doing work that it may cost others to do.’ They feel they’re entitled.

“They have to come up with some sort of rationalization because people have to live with themselves.”

I think I’ve mentioned the creative writing teacher who gave us a nugget of wisdom for writing about people who do bad things to the effect that everybody is the protagonist and basically a good guy in their own internal narrative. I suspect that goes a long way toward understanding the psychology of these people. Or, you know, Guns ‘N Roses sing about Mr. Brownstone, “I used to do a little but the little wouldn’t do it, so the little got more and more.”

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has a pretty sensible editorial discussing how the current school funding issues are the result of actions taken by the General Assembly on property taxes. They note that shifting school funding from property taxes to sales taxes has led to the current shortfall for local schools.

They blame the current state of things on partisan bickering. I’m not sure that’s the case, necessarily. It’s a policy choice to rely on sales tax instead of property taxes. If the vote to proceed in this fashion was unanimous, it wouldn’t make the policy any more successful. And I’m not sure that full cooperation among lawmakers would have made the ideal solution any more obvious. In hard times, there is just less money to go around. The choice is between a funding mechanism that reflects this hardship and passes it along to schools or one that stays level, thereby taking proportionately higher amount of available money. The former is fair, but sacrifices education; the other preserves education but does so by making the tax bite bigger.

In any case, the J&C cautions against enshrining the current property tax caps into the Constitution — this, once again, changes nothing currently but only ties our hands in the future if we find that this is the wrong policy choice — it’s a caution I share, but I think that ship has sailed. Perhaps I’m cynical about my fellow citizens’ ability to see nuance beyond “taxes = bad” and to appreciate the difference between a statutory provision and a constitutional one. I think the Constitutional amendment will pass in a landslide and we’ll be no better off for it.

It would certainly be a shame if Obamacare put an end to all of this. A story in the Indianapolis Star by Daniel Lee reports on the financial impact medical care has on patients in Indianapolis. About half of patients surveyed going to the major hospitals which are tax-exempt, “non-profits” have to go into debt to pay their bills.

The survey by the Citizen’s Action Coalition wasn’t scientific, which is a shame, since I suspect the issues it raises are valid, but renders it worthless to those who don’t think there is a problem worth addressing.

Federal and state laws require that nonprofit hospitals provide a community benefit in return for their tax-exempt status. Because of that status, hospitals save tens of millions of dollars each year by not having to pay local, state and federal taxes.

However, the law does not require any set amount of charity-care services. In Indiana, tax-exempt hospitals are required to file a community benefit report, but hospitals often define benefits they provide in different ways.

As a guy who has obtained thousands of judgments for medical providers against debtors, I’m part of the system. I don’t make any apologies for it; that’s the system we’re in, and I would be doing my clients a disservice if I didn’t take the system as I found it. But, I’d be blind if I suggested that the system was working well or treating people fairly.

I have some respect for those who suggest that the forthcoming solutions, anemic as they probably are, will be worse than the problem. That’s at least rational in that the effect of the solutions have yet to be seen. But those who suggest that the current system in the United States for financing healthcare is the best in the world are borderline delusional.

I’ve never been a big fan of the “won’t someone *please* think of the children!” gambit in political policymaking, but I guess I’m a little more sympathetic how that I have kids of my own. That’s probably why this story by Robert King about a report from the Anne E. Casey Foundation caught my eye.

Apparently Hoosier kids (and kids nationally for that matter) are losing ground in a number of indicators. 20% of Hoosier children are living in poverty (up from 18%).

Indiana children lag behind the national average on eight of 10 key indicators, according to the report, released today. In terms of the overall well-being of kids, the state ranked 33rd nationally, down from 31st in the 2009 report.

Low birth weight babies are increasing as are babies in single-parent families.

Most of the gains documented by the Kids Count, now in its 20th year, were made in the late 1990s, Beavers said.

A healthier economy then was a big factor. But so were expanding government support for children’s health insurance and day-care programs. That’s an important lesson now, Beavers said, as governments with shrinking budgets look to make cuts.

“Children’s programs are critical going into the next budget period. Kids get only one chance to be a child, and they can’t wait until the recession is over to be born, to go through school,” she said.

Or, as Mr. Young put it:

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she’s gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she’s done to it
There’s one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

One of the meatier blogs I read is that of Gary Becker and Richard Posner. They have similar notions on extension of unemployment insurance: they’re ag’in it. Both of their entries are pretty cold, giving the impression that unemployed workers are widgets or disposable cogs in a machine. When discussing policy, that is appropriate to some extent – good policy can’t be abandoned every time a hard luck tale comes along. But, people aren’t objects, and so some consideration has to be given to the notion that we might want to treat people a little more delicately.

That said, here are a couple of the passages I found especially interesting.

Becker:

However, the actual large extension poses a major risk of creating an unemployment culture where men and women remain “ unemployed” for years. Once the period of unemployment becomes long enough, people begin to get the habits from being unemployed for a long time: they sleep late, develop various leisure interests, and at the same time their work skills depreciate from not using them for an extended period. Studies have shown that skill depreciation is a serious effect of being unemployed for a long time.

Some might retort that this argument is persuasive during periods of normal unemployment rates, perhaps 7% and under, but not when jobs are scarce, the unemployment rate is over 9%, and it is coming down slowly. There is merit to this response, but on the other hand, the JOLTS data show that even with the current high unemployment rates, about 4.5 4 million persons were hired in May 2010 (and about the same number are either being laid off or quitting their jobs). So for the most part, even the long term unemployed can find jobs if they are willing to take a cut in their earnings, and/or move to other industries and occupations.

This analysis leads me to the following conclusions. During bad times, 6 months of unemployment compensation may not be long enough, but the 2 years in the new law is too long. About 9 months of unemployment compensation would be the right length. Anyone unemployed longer than that would lose these benefits. If they want to work they should be forced to adjust, at least temporarily, to the bad economic environment, and accept jobs that they would turn down during good economic times.

Posner:

Far from being effective as stimulus, the extension of unemployment benefits will have two negative effects on employment. First, it will increase the opportunity cost of the recipient’s rejoining the labor force. Unemployment benefits are set lower than earnings to reduce the moral hazard that Becker discusses, but the gap between benefits and earnings is narrowed by the costs of work (such as commuting, and any disutility associated with work, such as fatigue and boredom) and by the benefits of household production and of leisure—and those benefits, unlike earnings, are not taxed. The gap is so small for many unemployed people that studies show that they do not begin a serious job hunt until their unemployment benefits are about to expire.

So extending or otherwise enhancing unemployment benefits, far from stimulating employment, is likely to reduce employment and so slow the pace of economic recovery.

Robert Sullivan, writing for Richmond’s Palladium-Item, has an article on Richmond’s scooter/moped ordinance. Apparently by August 1, scooters operated in the city must be registered with the city for a fee of $35. In addition, the following restrictions are imposed:

You have to be 15 or over, and anyone under 18 has to wear protective head gear. You have to carry a valid state ID or driver’s license. Speed limit of 25 mph.

I’ll be interested to see if anyone challenges the authority of the city to adopt this ordinance. I’m not immediately aware of anything prohibiting it, but there might be a state preemption argument to be made. The default setting under our Home Rule scheme is that municipalities have the authority to engage in regulation, but once the state steps into an area, municipalities aren’t allowed to regulate in that area anymore absent specific authority from the state. I’m not immediately aware of motor vehicle laws specifically pertaining to mopeds; but the State has adopted a system regulating motor vehicle traffic on Indiana’s roadways. So, it depends on how you define the scope of state activity for preemption purposes.

This article also caught my eye because a friend & I were discussing the use of mopeds and scooters yesterday. He’s an avid bicyclist, and he got the sense that people on bicycles were treated with more respect by people in cars than did people on mopeds and the like. Maybe it’s simply a speed differential thing – it’s just easier to get around bicycles. But, it could be a social stigma thing – there’s often an assumption that adults on mopeds or scooters are riding them because they’ve done something wrong; probably gotten their license yanked for a DUI or something. (I’ve heard them called DUI-mobiles or liquor-sickles.) More than once, I’ve heard it suggested that someone who gets their license pulled shouldn’t be allowed to operate a moped – the theory being that part of the punishment should be that the person isn’t allowed to operate motorized transport of any kind.

Ken Bode has a column in the Indy Star commenting on deeply anti-Semitic propaganda being distributed at Tea Party gatherings.

Now, if you attend some tea party meetings in Indiana, a different kind of challenge is emerging. On the information tables, along with candidate brochures and handouts from right-wing blogs, is a stack of DVDs, one of them titled “Rothschild’s Choice: Barack Obama and the Hidden Cabal Behind the Plot to Murder America.”

As described in breathless narration over ominous, pounding, suspenseful music, the cabal is made up of Jewish financiers and billionaires, run today by Lord Jacob Rothschild, the 4th Baron. Along with Jewish-run secret societies and globalist organizations, their control of Barack Obama has turned him into a water boy to their causes.

Obama is a Zionist puppet, goes the argument, supported by Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Barney Frank — all Jews, all part of the banking system, all tools of the conspiracy. “David Axelrod,” says the narrator, “That’s right, he had a Jewish campaign manager.”

Sounds like this is a lot of rehashed crap with some more current names plugged in here or there. I recall being 13 or 14 first seeing this sort of stuff on bulletin board systems I was dialing into with my Commodore 64. And I know it was old then.

Is the Tea Party a racist? I think the “movement” is so incoherent, it’s difficult to ascribe any particular attribute to it. What we know is that it consists of people who are mad. They’re mad about a lot of different things. They seem to make a lot of noises about “taking their country back.” (From whom isn’t usually articulated.) However, the “movement” seems pretty uniformly white. And they seem to be more opposed to government spending that might help people of color than spending that might be used to blow up people of color. In fairness, that might not have a racial component at all; simply the notion that military spending = good & domestic spending = bad.

At the end of the day, I think the Tea Party folks have at the very least a perception problem. Standing up to their own who are pushing this anti-Semite garbage, and doing so in a very visible way, might be a good first step. For those who disagree with it, anyway.

I forget if we’ve discussed this phenomenon here before or not, but I recall hearing this notion in the recent past, and I was reminded of it by a discussion at Mike Kole’s site regarding copy fees (his specific post had to do with wildly unrelated subsidies and hidden taxes).

Anyway, the notion is this: price caps often act as price magnets. (Now I recall, I heard it from a commentator on NPR discussing maximum rates on payday loans). I’m obviously not a free market purist, but this is at least something that do-gooder regulators should keep in mind. When the government sets a cap, it saves industry competitors the trouble of having to conspire to restrain trade – the price is effectively fixed for them.

My particular experience had to do with medical copying fees. 760 IAC 1-71-3 (pdf) sets maximum prices for your medical records of $20 for any pages 1-10; $0.50/page from 10-50; and $0.25/page thereafter. I forgot the exact wording but the medical provider I got my records from had a notice that suggested, without explicitly stating, that the fees were mandated by statute as opposed to being a maximum fee. (“Oh, we wouldn’t charge such outrageous prices for copies, but darn it, the mean old government is *making* us.”)

When I heard that Sen. Lugar was voting in favor of Obama-court nominee, Elana Kagan, and the subsequent uproar from some quarters accusing Lugar of being a RINO (Republican In Name Only), I opined that something had jumped the shark: conservatism, Lugar, or the folks pissed off by Lugar.

Matt Tully has a column in the Indy Star on how tiring the partisanship is. I tend to agree. I don’t have a Broder-esque desire for bipartisanship just for the sake of bipartisanship. Where there are fundamental policy disagreements, I think you should compromise where you can, and fight it out the best you’re able and let the dust settle where it may when the votes come down. But, in D.C., it’s not even about policy so much anymore. It’s basically “my team rules, your team sucks” and you shape your policy arguments to fit that basic premise. If the other team adopts your policy, you don’t agree, you run from the policy. It’s about winning the game, not about governing, and it’s stupid.

Yesterday was the 6th Annual golf outing for the benefit of the Legal Aid Corporation of Tippecanoe County. I haven’t gotten the money count, but I think it may have been as successful as we have had yet. A lot of credit goes to 1st Source Bank which stepped up and became the major sponsor. The folks at 1st Source seem to be a solid addition to the Lafayette community. Huge credit also goes to Gregg Theobald, a local Lafayette attorney, who has taken the bull by the horns and turned a fair-to-middling event and turned it into a very good event. There were a good number of hole sponsors, including my own Hoffman, Luhman & Masson, but I want to give special thanks to Triclinic Labs. They had no prior relationship to Legal Aid, and stepped up with a hole sponsorship basically because I’m friends with one of their employees. Among other things, they provide chemical analysis – for example litigation support in intellectual property claims involving chemistry.

Legal Aid provides legal services to indigent citizens of Tippecanoe County in civil, non-fee generating cases. For criminal cases, the government provides attorneys. And, in cases where there is a pot of money at the end, poor people can find attorneys willing to take the case on contingency. But, in civil cases where there is no money to be made — for example a case involving the termination of parental rights — people need lawyers, but can’t get them without organizations like Legal Aid.

Our outing this year was at Coyote Crossing, and we had 50-55 people come and play. Because I know you were wondering, my foursome came in 4th out of 13 or 14 foursomes. And, I got lucky and won the closest to the pin hole. (This hole has been pretty lucky for me – #17 at Coyote – it’s the second closest to the pin I’ve won in the last month or so, and probably the 4th time I’ve won the closest to the pin on that hole over the past 5 years.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone involved; and hopefully it gets even better next year. Times are tough, and non-profits like Legal Aid are taking it on the chin. So, any money we can send their way is very useful.