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April 30, 2007
April 29, 2007
Sony's Bloody Awful Bloody Offal Playstation Promotion
Sony, the global, diversified entertainment and electronics firm, is coming under fire for a promotional event for its Playstation 3 console, an event that gives new meaning to the phrases cut-throat competition and bloody awful:
Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game. The corpse of the decapitated animal was the centrepiece of a party to celebrate the launch of the God Of War II game for the company’s PlayStation 2 console. Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach. Sickening images of the party have appeared in the company’s official PlayStation magazine – but after being contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Sony issued an apology for the gruesome stunt and promised to recall the entire print run. Critics condemned the entertainment giant, which produces scores of Hollywood blockbusters each year, for its "blood lust" and said the grotesque "sacrifice" highlighted increasing concerns over the content of video games and the lengths to which the industry will go to exploit youngsters. At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal – procured elsewhere and intended to resemble the goat’s intestines – from its stomach. They also threw knives at targets and pulled live snakes from a pit with their bare hands. The party was held last month in Athens in homage to the game’s Greek mythology themes. Revellers partied against the floodlit backdrop of the Parthenon.
Commentary
As Wikipedia rightly notes, competition is a pillar of market capitalism. Among its benefits are greater innovation and efficiency, reduced prices, more optimal resource allocation, improved product quality, and expanded customer choice. While competition in the business and economics fields is an undeniably good thing, critics are correct when they state that these benefits do not come without costs. And like all good things, it's possible to have too much of it:
The tendency toward extreme, unhealthy competition has been termed hypercompetitive. This concept originated in Karen Horney's theories on neurosis, specifically the highly aggressive personality type that is characterized as "moving against people." In her view, some people have a need to compete and win at any cost as a means of maintaining their self-worth. These individuals are likely to turn any activity into a competition, and they will feel threatened if they find themselves losing. Researchers have found that men and women who score high on the trait of hypercompetitiveness are more narcissistic and less psychologically healthy than those who score low on the trait... Hypercompetitive individuals generally believe that "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."
William F. Buckley is reported to have said that "the problem with capitalism is capitalists." I suspect that by this he meant their oft bad behavior. Though second to none in my defense of market capitalism, I agree with the criticism leveled at Sony's brand of cut-throat competition. It's not so much the crassness and blood lust that bothers me. (Who after all could take such antics seriously? I have no doubt the revelers showed up primarily for the free food, the flowing drinks, and the naked girls.) It's that such acts give ammunition to anti-capitalists because it conjures up images of the mistreatment and disregard for the weak, the defenseless, and the losers. Such behavior is the kind of thing to which socialists and their fellow travelers allude when they disparage free-market advocates as "dangerous brutes."
Links: Carnival of the Insanities
links for 2007-04-29
April 28, 2007
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April 26, 2007
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April 25, 2007
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April 24, 2007
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April 23, 2007
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April 22, 2007
La France Qui Tombe?
Can France be Saved? So asks Michel Gurfinkiel in this month's Commentary Online. His analysis of the symptoms and causes of France's prolonged social and economic malaise, as well as the prospects for her recovery, struck this reader as fair, informed, and insightful. The symptoms include "demographic upheaval"
But the French population as a whole is aging: in 2005, almost one-fourth of the population was above sixty, while citizens between the ages of twenty and fifty-nine—i.e., those whose labor supports the rest of the population, either directly or indirectly—amounted to just 50 percent.
and "immigration shock"
Six million legal immigrants, 90 percent of them from the Islamic lands of the southern Mediterranean or from sub-Saharan Africa, have entered France over the past 30 years. ... The immigrant and post-immigrant community is estimated today at more than 15 million. It is much younger than the native French population, and it tends to have a much higher birthrate.
Among the causes are the "disintegration" of the nuclear family, the collapse of the Catholic Church, "the feminization of the teacher corps", the deterioration of the university system (not a single French academic institution ranks among the world's top 100 universities), the loss of farmers and farmland, a vanishing middle class, spiraling crime rates, and looming bankruptcy:
In fact, the true public debt amounts to something like 2.7 trillion euros, or 130 percent of GDP. Marseille warns that it may double over the next fifteen years. This is on the scale of the debt of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century.
But chief among the culprits, Gurfinkiel contends, is the decades long march of statist policies, policies advanced and reinforced by enarchs- graduates of the presitigious Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA):
The post-1958 Fifth Republic went much farther, embarking on large-scale industrial schemes that blurred most distinctions between state-run and private companies. The latter became so dependent on government contracts as to behave like de-facto divisions of the former. Some government contracts were also tailored to help favored private companies against their competitors. ... One need not be familiar with Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom to surmise that such comprehensive sway over a country will gradually become counterproductive, and worse. The more absolute their power, the more the enarchs have tended to run France in their own interest, while assuaging the citizenry with bribes of all sorts. One such bribe, rhetorical but no less effective for that, has taken the form of nationalistic posturing, usually directed against the United States; a favorite slogan of the enarchs is that France’s mission is to uphold and protect a superior continental civilization based on the welfare state against the Anglo-Saxon model of “predatory” free-market capitalism. Structural problems—an aging population, swelling immigration, the public debt—have been ignored.
The challenges facing a would-be reformer are succinctly summed up in the question that ends the piece.
But suppose a reforming, anti-statist president were actually elected. Who would assist him in carrying out his declared program, when enarchs and other state servants are all there is?
Commentary
Excluding stopovers in Charles De Gaulle Airport, I have spent a grande total of fewer than seven days in France. Thus, I can offer no additional insight into its malaise or what it would take to overcome it. That said, I do find two things notable.
First, the moderately pro-American, front-runner Nicolas Sarcozy appears remarkably Reaganesque in the above photo. Reagan, as well as his ideological soul mate, Margaret Thatcher, were acolytes of Austrian economist Friederich Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom. I've been re-reading Hayek a great deal these days and what now ails France strikes me as just what he described in painstaking detail over 60 years ago.
It is equally notable, at least for those of us old enough to remember, that Sarcozy inspires the same vitriol from his political rivals that the Great Communicator and the Iron Lady did.
Finally, I would note that CNN International, BBC World, and Al-Jazeera International all are loathe to mention Sarkozy's front runner status. Instead of mentioning that he has been leading every opinion poll of late, they continue to emphasize the number of undecided voters. While I have no empirical basis for saying so, were the photogenic Segolene Royal I suspect the reporting would be quite different.
links for 2007-04-22
April 21, 2007
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April 19, 2007
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April 14, 2007
links for 2007-04-14
April 13, 2007
The Cost of Business Process Outsourcing in Dubai
Despite undeniable success in retail, financial services, tourism, and real estate and enviable geographical advantages, Dubai's attempts to establish itself as a center for business process outsourcing are failing. According to The Hindu, it's not for lack of talent. Rather, it's the cost of living in Dubai that is a major factor:
Dubai is seeking to attract Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) trade in the region in direct competition from India, but higher cost in setting up these centres is acting as a dampener. Although the World Economic Forum, which has adjudged UAE economy as the most competitive Arab economy praising the region's strong entrepreneurial skills, has also noted its lack of educational reforms and reliance on migrant workers. Of late higher costs from rising rents and spiraling inflation has proved to be a setback for businesses in the UAE, especially in Dubai. Analysts believe, India still has an edge over Dubai in attracting call centres, that require basic communication skills of individuals - available at a cheaper price. India's expertise in information technology and expertise in BPO business makes it a natural hub for call centres. Especially, when high inflation, soaring house rents are forcing employers to raise their operational budgets - the cheaper alternatives.
To my eyes, Dubai's development trajectory seems designed to attract high new wealth individuals into the Emirate and to move low income service workers to the outlying, northern Emirates. This is underscored by the fact that I have yet to see anything resemble "affordable housing" being built amidst all of the shiny residential skyscrapers and internationally-themed housing communities. If this trend continues, I see little hope likelihood that Dubai will be on the line when I call for customer service.
April 12, 2007
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April 11, 2007
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April 10, 2007
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April 9, 2007
Dhow Chemical
Today comes word that private equity firm KKR, the minds behind some of the biggest and most notorious leveraged buyouts on Wall Street, has joined a consortium of Middle Eastern investors to undertake what could be the biggest LBO thus far:
A consortium of Middle Eastern investors and American buyout firms is preparing a $50 billion approach for Dow Chemical Co. in what could be the world's biggest ever leveraged buyout, a paper said on Sunday. Quoting sources close to the deal, The Sunday Express, a UK tabloid paper, said a financing package has been put in place for a break-up bid of between $52 to $58 a share and an approach valuing the company at least $50 billion could come by the end of this week. Dow's shares closed up 35 cents at $44.47 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. At least half of the capital is being provided by investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman, with the rest contributed by a number of U.S. buyout firms including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts it said.
No word on whether the Dow's name will be changed to Dhow Chemical, whether it will be a component of the Dhow Jones Industrial Average, or whether like Halliburton, they company will move it's headquarters to Dubai.
links for 2007-04-09
April 8, 2007
Mamma Mia!
On the street where I grew up, saying the wrong thing about people's mamma could get you in world of hurt. On Wall Street the rules are a little different: it's okay if the mamma in question is metasearch engine mamma.com. In fact the more talk about mamma the better, especially if the topic of conversation is whether or not Google wants to be mamma's daddy:
In this morning's CNBC "Six in 60" segment, which highlights six stocks on the move early in the trading session, Squawk Box anchor Mark Haines reported that shares of Mamma.com are higher on renewed rumors that Google Inc. might want to buyout the company. The stock is higher by $.63, or 13.68%, to $5.27 on heavy morning volume of 5.2 million shares.
On a serious note, there is some substance behind the rumors. Trader Beacon continues:
Mamma.com is riding the YouTube popularity wave and that the release of its video search engine in beta format earlier this year which caused the stock price to triple, is again sparking rumors that other companies' could be interested in its video search technology.
links for 2007-04-08
April 7, 2007
What's it really like to work for Abercrombie & Fitch?
Every once in a while an article comes along about which is is so good, I can't blog about it. The article in question is freelance writer Tom Michelson's "Poseurs Paradise! What's it really like to work at the new Abercrombie & Fitch store?". It is, quite simply, so witty and well-written and insightful that it is better read in full than blogged in part. If a major paper doesn't soon offer Michelson a job as a full-time journalist, there is something seriously wrong. See if you agree.
Leave Us a Loan
Topix.net (via AP) reports on the growing student loan scandal at three of the nation's leading universities:
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office is investigating stock grants from student loan companies to financial aid officers at three major universities as part of a widening investigation into the $85 billion student loan industry. Cuomo's office on Wednesday sent a subpoena to Columbia University and sent letters to the University of Southern California and the University of Texas seeking information about financial aid officers ownership of stock in a loan company that appears on each school's list of preferred lenders. Securities and Exchange Commission records for Education Lending Group Inc. show officials at the three schools in September 2003 owned at least 1,500 shares each of the company. Education Lending Group's subsidiary, Student Loan Xpress, is listed as a preferred lender at each school. The records show David Charlow, the associate dean of student affairs at Columbia University, owned 7,500 shares of Education Lending Group's stock and owned 2,500 stock warrants at the time of the stock prospectus. Cuomo's office said Charlow sold the 7,500 shares for about $9.50 each and in 2005 sold more of the securities for a total profit of more than $100,000.
Commentary
I see five things in my crystal ball. One, a call for new legislation that regulates the multi-billion dollar student loan industry, legislation that though well-meaning will result in less competition and no net benefit to students.
Two, I see a number of universities, whether involved directly in the scandal or not, quickly beginning to "voluntarily" changes in their policies regarding how and why some lenders are preferred. My guess is that they will now explicitly rule out ownership of stock in lenders by school officials connected with student services.
Three, I see the probe expanding nationwide, encompassing up to perhaps 20 major schools across all major regions of the country, both private and public. There will not, however, be a single HBCU, i.e. historically black college and university.
Four, though this scandal will not be big enough to become a national election issue, I do see young Mr. Cuomo using it to his political advantage when he runs- and he will run- for a national political office. How long it will be until that happens, the crystal ball won't say.
Finally, I see a cottage industry that will emerge. The outlines are fuzzy but it looks like consultants who will advise universities how to continue doing just what they have been doing all along but without seeming to do so. The name of one of the consulting firms- or perhaps it's their motto- is "Leave Me a Loan."
Fairy Tales
Apparently no one at Disney sees the irony in allowing same sex couples to participate in the "Fairy" Tale Wedding program:
The Walt Disney Co. has changed its policy to allow same-sex couples to participate in a popular Fairy Tale Wedding program it runs mainly at its two U.S. resorts and cruise line, a Disney spokesman said on Thursday. Disney previously had allowed gay couples to organize their own weddings or commitment ceremonies at rented meeting rooms at the resorts, but had barred them from purchasing its Fairy Tale Wedding package and holding the event at locations at Disneyland and Walt Disney World that are set aside specifically for weddings. Disney had allowed gay couples to take part in its vow renewals program but excluded them from buying wedding packages by requiring a valid marriage license from California or Florida, which do not permit or recognize gay marriages.
Let's hope they're smart enough not to start calling the mens formalwear Fairy "Tails".
Paid in Full
CNN-Money reports that Ford's new CEO has gotten paid in full:
Struggling Ford Motor Co., which posted a record $12.7 billion net loss in 2006, gave its new CEO Alan Mulally $28 million for four months on the job, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday. The Ford pay package for Mulally comes on top of the $7.4 million that aerospace company Boeing had previously reported paying him for his eight months running that company's commercial aircraft unit before he made the move to Ford at the beginning of September. Mulally's pay package at Ford included a $7.5 million hiring bonus, as well as $11 million that Ford described as an offset for forfeited performance and stock option awards at Boeing. In addition he received $55,469 for relocation costs and temporary housing.
According to the article the timing is, to some, suspect and the terms unfair: "The details of the compensation packages and costs come as Ford moves ahead with plans to close plants and cut more than 30,000 hourly positions from the company in an effort to stem losses." Approximately 78% of respondents to a poll about the article answered that this level of compensation is "inappropriate", while only 19% say it's "appropriate if he can turn Ford around."
Commentary
Predictably, union bosses, anti-capitalists and anti-globalists, social responsible business proponents, and everyone other self-declared friend and protector of "little guy" will see Mullaly's salary as both excessive and emblematic of all that is wrong with the world. What they overlook, however, is that while some (maybe many) of the less fortunate and less well-compensated think CEO pay is excessive, not all do. Instead, some do the math. Some see the sky high salary and think, "That's how I want to get paid." Some set their sites just a little bit higher, aspire to something beyond their immediate grasp. And when they do, they learn just how little their so-called advocates have to offer those with individual initiative and the will-to-achieve.
Where is "Super Mario" When You Really Need Him?
There will be many VIP's here in Doha, Qatar this week for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Among the countries being represented are Iran, Algeria, Qatar, and Russia. The reason for concern in some quarters is that the parties could emerge from the forum with an implicit, if not explicit, agreement to form a gas cartel:
Industry analysts said the session could result in a decision to form a cartel that would control gas supplies to the West. "If created, such an organization would be dominated by Russia, which is the world's largest reserve holder, producer, exporter, and transiter of gas," the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said in a report. "As a 'new Saudi Arabia of gas,' Russia could shape a gas cartel's behavior to an extent similar to Saudi Arabia's dominant role in OPEC, though with different methods." The foundation said any gas cartel would not have the same influence over prices as OPEC. Jamestown pointed out that gas supply contracts have usually been long-term.
Russian officials deny that they have any plans to establish a cartel or sign any agreements that result in the creation of a "gas OPEC."
Commentary
I don't have any expertise or deep knowledge in the area of cartels and anti-competitive practices, let alone in anti-trust regulation. My impression is that regulators apply anti-trust laws primarily to companies and industries that, though vital, are not central to national security. Two recent and memorable examples are the trouble that both General Electric and Microsoft ran into with former EU anti-trust commissioner Mario Monti, aka "Super Mario." As readers may recall:
He was vilified in U.S. industry and government circles for blocking the merger of General Electric Co. and Honeywell International Inc. in 2001 after the Justice Department had approved it. And when the European Union directorate he heads ordered Microsoft Corp. to remove a key feature from its Windows operating system, the U.S. antitrust community convulsed again.
But if the industry is an organ of the state, if it provides an organizing principle and the bulk of income for that state, if its existence is a source of national pride and international prestige, and if its customers are states, states that are highly dependent upon the product, then it seems that they are beyond regulation reach of outsiders. I can recall no time when "Super Mario's" visible hand grabbed hold of OPEC. Nor does I sense that his predecessor would considering doing the same to a "gas OPEC."
links for 2007-04-07
April 6, 2007
Everybody Hates Xerxes?
According to AP writer Nasser Karimi, many Iranians apparently think the international box-office phenomenon, The 300, is an insult to their Persian heritage.
TEHRAN, Iran -- The hit American movie "300" has angered Iranians who say the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes animosity against Iran. "Hollywood declares war on Iranians," blared a headline in Tuesday's edition of the independent Ayende-No newspaper. The movie, which raked in $70 million in its opening weekend, is based on a comic-book fantasy version of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the United States tries to "humiliate" Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran. State-run television has run several commentaries the past two days calling the film insulting and has brought on Iranian film directors to point out its historical inaccuracies."
Commentary
I have seen more than my fair share of movies about Iran. During the seven years l lived in Boston, I regularly attended the yearly Iranian Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts. It's where I met some of my Iranian friends in Boston. Two things upon which serious film buffs agree is that Iranian make some remarkably fine films and that they manage to do so despite heavy censorship. What the Iranian cultural advisor either doesn't know or doesn't care to admit is that American films are not written and produced at the behest of the US government. Nor are they routinely positioned as vehicles for the advancement of US foreign policy. US filmmakers have other prerogatives, first and foremost of which is the profit motive. They are allowed to make movies about anyone and everyone they see fit. They are not Washington's tool.
That "The 300" is released right at the point of especially heightened tensions between Iran and the West is merely a coincidence and, incidentally, an a profitable one for the producers. It is not, however, part of any Western conspiracy to denigrate Iranians or their heritage. It's just a comic book/ graphic novel adapted for the big screen. Not that one would expect officials from a country with no respect for free speech or individual rights to understand that. The battle at Thermopylae was, after all, about self-determination and the battle against subjugation to rule of a foreign despot. Some didn't get it then and some still don't get it now.
Stinging the Scorpion
In a recent Times online (UK) piece entitled "Here's a way to deal with the scorpion", Middle East analyst Amir Taheri offers his advice about how to deal with Iran. In short, he is one of a growing number advocating the use of economic weapons:
The Western democracies could give the Islamic republic a taste of its own medicine — and engage it in the kind of low-intensity warfare that Iran itself indulges in. The mischief must not be cost-free. It would be resisted though diplomatic and economic means as well as through support for the democratic and reformist forces inside Iran. Throughout history, adversaries end up by adopting aspects of each other’s strategy.
Consumed by Capitalism?
I order a book today- "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" - by Benjamin R. Barber, author of Jihad vs. McWorld. I don't expect that I will like it very much. That's not judging a book by its cover, however. I like the cover. It's the book's central thesis, as recently expounded in very well-written but off-the-mark LA Times editorial entitled "Overselling Capitalism", that makes me say this. That's not to say the entire argument is wrong. Here are the parts Barber gets right:
Capitalism's core virtue is that it marries altruism and self-interest. In producing goods and services that answer real consumer needs, it secures a profit for producers. Doing good for others turns out to entail doing well for yourself.
Here's where the argument starts to go awry:
Capitalism's success, however, has meant that core wants in the developed world are now mostly met and that too many goods are now chasing too few needs. Yet capitalism requires us to "need" all that it produces in order to survive. So it busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy. Global inequality means that while the wealthy have too few needs, the needy have too little wealth.
Agreed. Free markets have enabled the developed world to meet our most "core" or material wants. And yes, the world is full of poor and needy people. The question is "why?" According to Barber, it's the developed world's promotion of infantile "consumerism" that's to blame for the crisis that he sees threatening capitalism and democracy:
The world teems with elemental wants and is peopled by billions who are needy. They do not need iPods, but they do need potable water, not colas but inexpensive medicines, not MTV but their ABCs. They need mortgages they can afford, not funny-money easy credit.To serve such needs, however, capitalism must once again learn to defer profits and empower the needy as customers. Entrepreneurs wanted! With micro-credit, villagers can construct hand pumps and water filters from the clay under their feet. Pharmaceutical companies ought to be thinking about how to sell inexpensive retro-virals to Africans with HIV instead of pushing Botox to the "forever young" customers they are trying to manufacture here. And parents can refuse to relinquish their gatekeeping roles and let marketers know they won't allow their kids to be targeted anymore.
This is where Barber has it wrong. The problem of the undeveloped world is not that too few n the developed world care. Nor is the problem that we are self-absorbed consumerists. Rather, it's because too much of the developed world doesn't provide the appropriate environment and precursory conditions that would allow for investment. The poorest and neediest people live in countries that do not have capitalistic-friendly institutions like respect for the rule of law, property rights, and individual liberty. Corruption and illiberal political systems are what keep people needy. Those who run their countries are the ones that need to change their ways. As soon as they do, their will be more business of the kind Barber wants to see, but not before.
Gas Pains
"What should we make of the Iranians' behavior?" So asks historian Victor Davis Hanson in an recent essay. His answer:
Namely that the country's leadership is in deep political trouble. The Iranian government is desperate to provoke the West to win back friends in the Islamic world, and to quell growing unrest at home. Subsidizing food and gas, providing billions for terrorists and building nukes all cost money at a time when the state-run Iranian economy is in shambles.Because of incompetence in their oil industry, the Iranian mullahs have achieved the impossible: Despite having among the world's largest petroleum reserves, their production is shrinking and they have managed to earn increasingly less petrodollars even as the world price has soared.
And what to do about their bad behavior? Hanson suggests economic measures, i.e. giving the Mullahs gas pains:
It is undeniable that the U.S., without either invading or suffering many casualties, could use its air power to send the Iranian economy and military back to the mullahs' cherished 7th century. But there is no need to do so. Instead, if the EU would cease all its trade with Iran, and if the West would divest entirely from the country - that is, boycott all companies that do any business with Tehran - the theocracy would face bankruptcy within months.
Take A Number
"Take a number." "Please be seated and wait for your number to called." "Now serving # 4165." These are not phrases you are probably used to hearing in a hospital or a doctor's office. But according to a recent LA Times article, you will if the advocates of universal health care have their way. Entitled "Universal Healthcare's Dirty Little Secrets", two Cato Institute scholars describe the numerous "hurdles to care" experienced by patients in several countries whose governments provide health coverage.
Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."
But this is not news, really. Everyone has heard about the long waiting lists, about people dying waiting for care. What is news is that the underlying assumption motivating much of the debate doesn't have much empirical support:
You may think it is self-evident that the uninsured may forgo preventive care or receive a lower quality of care. And yet, in reviewing all the academic literature on the subject, Helen Levy of the University of Michigan's Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, and David Meltzer of the University of Chicago, were unable to establish a "causal relationship" between health insurance and better health. Believe it or not, there is "no evidence," Levy and Meltzer wrote, that expanding insurance coverage is a cost-effective way to promote health. Similarly, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year found that, although far too many Americans were not receiving the appropriate standard of care, "health insurance status was largely unrelated to the quality of care."