I don’t envy the position our state lawmakers are in. Passing a budget that requires a 2/3rds majority, in a state where no seats are ever up grabs because of district funkiness, and where Democrats refuse to cut spending and Republicans refuse to pass new taxes? Instant recipe for a stalemate.

They say that California leads in innovation, and I must say I find this budget gap fixing instrument to be pretty innovative:

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > State — Compromise budget skips long-term solutions
Paychecks for Californians could shrink with a 10 percent increase in withholding for state income taxes, yielding $1.6 billion. The total amount of tax paid would not increase, and any over-collection would be refunded.

That’s right even though the top state income tax bracket is 9.3%, this budget which the Democratic-majority, Republican-controlled State Assembly  (it makes sense, really) passed indicates that we will now have to withhold 10%. The extra will be refunded the next year.

Wow.

Really, you can’t tell me that another state has thought of doing this before. This has got to be precedent setting. And this is just one of the many techniques to fix the $17 billion deficit gap.

And while our budget is now 78 days over due, I’d have to agree with Schwarzenegger in vetoing this budget.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, also assailed the budget plan, saying this morning that it “gives gimmicks a bad name.”

“It’s banana republic financing,” Lockyer said. The spending plan relies on “phony money and phony estimates.”

Update at 7 p.m. ET: “When they send me the budget, I will veto it,” Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol news conference, the Los Angeles Times reports. “If my veto is overriden,” he said, ” … hundreds of bills will be vetoed.”

Oh boy.

What a peculiar coincidence that these two events happened on the same day:

New Research Raises Concerns About BPA Levels in Humans - WSJ.com
A chemical commonly used in plastic food and drink containers was associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes, according to the first large-scale study in humans, released Tuesday.

The chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to make plastic hard and appears in products such as baby bottles, CDs and sunglasses. It is also used in resins that coat the inside of bottle tops and metal cans.

The study’s release, which will appear in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, coincides with a Food and Drug Administration panel meeting Tuesday on the subject.

The FDA, in a draft assessment of BPA, has concluded BPA is safe at current levels found in food and beverage containers. The FDA’s assessment relied primarily on industry data, and critics have charged the agency with ignoring other data, including a report released earlier this month by a unit of the National Institutes of Health, that raised safety questions.

The report by the National Toxicology Program said BPA was of “some concern for effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposures.” Frank Torti, FDA’s chief scientist, has said the agency would consider the NIH report before making any decisions on BPA.

The FDA will ask a panel of outside medical experts to review its draft assessment and comment on whether it is scientifically sound. The bulk of BPA studies have been conducted in animals, and many have raised safety concerns.

Meanwhile in a country far far away…

Canada likely to label plastic ingredient BPA ‘toxic’
By Ian Austen
Published: April 16, 2008

OTTAWA: The Canadian government is said to be ready to declare as toxic a chemical widely used in plastics for baby bottles, beverage and food containers as well as linings in food cans.

Sometimes things just leave me speechless.

Obituaries for Lehman Brothers have started rolling out. Here’s one:

Bloomberg.com: Special Report

Fuld’s Subprime Bets Fueled Lehman Profits, Undermined Survival
By Peter Robison and Yalman Onaran

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) — Richard Fuld, a one-time international squash player accustomed to playing the angles, finally found one he couldn’t master.

The longest-serving chief executive officer on Wall Street battled for more than a year to contain the fallout from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bad bets on real estate. His defense of the 158-year-old firm ended yesterday when Barclays Plc and Bank of America Corp. walked away from buyout talks, leaving a bankruptcy filing as his only option.

Over 14 years, Fuld, 62, turned a money-losing bond trading shop into a full-service investment bank. He won acclaim from Wall Street leaders such as Lazard Ltd. chief Bruce Wasserstein, who on June 4 called him “very able.” Fuld joined the circle of CEOs sought-after by boards, such as the New York Federal Reserve’s. Fuld ultimately gambled almost four times the firm’s shareholder equity last year on mortgage securities that he insisted were hedged by other bets.

“It makes me rather sad to see this organization brought to its knees as the result of what I’ll call a lack of control, poor management of internal risk and ultimate self-interest,” said Walter Gerasimowicz, who worked at Lehman as an investment strategist and now heads Meditron Asset Management in New York. His firm manages $1 billion and doesn’t own any Lehman shares.

The apparent upcoming death of LEH also saddens me. LEH holds a special place in my memory for being the only investment bank to give me a non-tech job interview in 1999. I still remember the grilling they gave me in a series of hotel rooms (the kinds with beds, not conference) at the Marriott World Trade Center. I didn’t think that in my lifetime, I’d have read the obits for both.

Throughout most of this election season, I haven’t really thought or said much. After all, both candidates are fine candidates. But then I read this:

Palin sticks to the familiar in first solo outing - Yahoo! News
Palin spoke less than 20 minutes, using a teleprompter, at the late Saturday event in a roller hockey rink. She drew a loud and boisterous crowd eager to get their first look at the previously unknown candidate who’s brought a fresh energy to the McCain bid. A group of roughly 5,000 broke into chants of “Drill, baby, drill!” and “Sarah! Sarah!”

“We are going to drill now to make this nation energy efficient,” she said. “You’re right, drill, baby, drill!”

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t read through this energy policy clearly, but I’m a bit perplexed as to how drilling for oil in the US will make this nation energy efficient. That seems a bit counterintuitive.

It’s also a bit alarming considering I had just heard this fantastic interview with Thomas Friedman the other day. I highly recommend it. In this interview, you’ll hear some good rationale as to why you should be outraged by the slogan “Drill, baby, drill” - and how this lead to further ails for America. You’ll also have some reasons as to why you should be outraged about how alternative energy and energy efficiency measures have been acted against by our elected representatives.

It’s only 30 minutes. Check it out.

R.O.I. - WSJ.com
Super-billionaire Warren Buffett warns that the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could end up costing the taxpayers “hundreds of billions of dollars” if the housing market continues to slump. But Mr Buffett, the worlds richest man, defended the controversial bailout as necessary nonetheless.

“It all depends on what housing does,” he told me from the sidelines of Bostons Fenway Park, where he was appearing to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Tuesday night. “If housing falls off another 15 or 20%, theyre going to lose some real money” on the bailout. The “they” means “the government,” which actually means, “you”.

As a taxpaying renter, I’m pretty appalled at how this situation has panned out. As if not enough of my my tax dollars were subsidizing mortgage holders, keeping housing expensive, apparently even more of my tax dollars will be heading in this direction. What a rigged system.

One of the things that really bugs me is how complicated, messy, and time consuming dealing with health care bills are. I work for a company with one of the nation’s best coverages (almost no copays on anything) and I’m in generally good health - and still looking at EOBs, doctors invoices, etc for my wife and I confuse the crap out of me. I can only wonder how this is for most other people!

Here’s today’s shocker, courtesy of my fav blog consumerist:

Medical Bills You Shouldnt Pay
As health-care costs continue to soar, millions of confused consumers are paying medical bills they dont actually owe. Typically this occurs when an insurance plan covers less than what a doctor, hospital, or lab service wants to be paid. The health-care provider demands the balance from the patient. Uncertain and fearing the calls of a debt collector, the patient pays up.

Most consumers dont realize it, but this common practice, known as balance billing, often is illegal. When doctors or hospitals think an insurer has reimbursed too little, state and federal laws generally bar the medical providers from pressuring patients to pay the difference. Instead, doctors and hospitals should be wrangling directly with insurers. Economists and patient advocates estimate that consumers pay $1 billion or more a year for which theyre not responsible.

Amazing! This is almost as odious as the fact that doctors and hospitals are now offering credit cards and upselling patients on services. I love this quote:

As some authorities get tougher, physicians are trying to overturn prohibitions on balance billing. The American Medical Assn. is lobbying Congress to allow balance billing within the Medicare program, as was allowed until 1991. Two Republican congressmen, Tom Feeney of Florida and Tom Price of Georgia, have sponsored legislation that would accomplish that goal. The AMA cites declining reimbursements from Medicare and private insurers in support of its bid to bill patients directly. AMA member David McKalip, a neurosurgeon in St. Petersburg, Fla., says patients can trust doctors to behave ethically and not gouge the poor: “Doctors will know up front which patients are willing to pay” beyond what the government reimburses.

Seriously? I love this counter example:

The case began in December 1995, when Siglinger’s wife, Laura, and his daughter, Allison, then three, were injured in a car accident. Both were taken to the emergency room at Bridgeport Hospital, where Dr. Charles Gianetti, the plastic surgeon on call, stitched a cut on Allison’s face. The Siglingers’ insurer paid Gianetti $1,981 under a contract with the family’s health plan. Later in 1996, he claimed the Siglingers owed him an unpaid balance of $4,496. The Siglingers refused to pay, and Gianetti sued them. Ruling for the Siglingers, the trial judge ordered Gianetti to pay their legal fees, in addition to the punitive damages. The Siglingers say he hasn’t paid them anything.

“It was traumatic enough seeing my daughter go through a serious accident, but then to go through this,” says Siglinger, a real estate investor. He and his wife have since divorced; Allison is now 15. “I wonder how many people paid these bills without giving it a second thought,” he says. The Siglingers are among 150 patients Gianetti has sued for unpaid balances, according to state records. The Connecticut Attorney General’s Office is scheduled to go to trial next year against Gianetti, having accused him in a civil suit of improper billing.

Gianetti, 69, no longer practices medicine, but he continues to pursue former patients in court. He says the state of Connecticut has “nothing on me,” declining other comment.

I don’t pretend to have any solutions for fixing our health care solution. And I’m keenly aware that the solutions in other countries have their own pros and cons - but it just seems to me that we really ought to be able to do better than the status quo.

Hm, this week turned out to be a bit more meetingful than I had originally thought it would be:

I really need a 8 or 10 day work week to get everything I need done, done.

Satisfying a Bagel Craving in Beijing - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog
An interesting thing is how Ms. Chen’s staff chooses to eat them. It is not obvious to them that bagels should be limited to being cut in half and spread with cream cheese or butter.

Ms. Chen says the workers will slice up the bagels into little strips and stir-fry them in a way similar to noodles. “They would slice it and slice it again,” she said. The bagel’s chewiness allows it to absorb flavor without becoming too soggy. “They tried it and it was very good, stir fried with cabbage and sometimes bean sprouts.”

Well that’s certainly interesting…