Author: Nathan Hunstad

Where the uninsured live

Wonkblog has a great post today showing two maps: the first shows where the uninsured live who make less than 138% of the poverty level, which shows who could benefit from the expansion of Medicaid, and the second shows uninsured people who make less than 400% of the poverty level, which shows who could benefit… Continue reading Where the uninsured live

Land Value Taxes

I’m not an Econ major, but I’ve always wondered why we don’t tax land values by themselves instead of taxing land values plus the values of buildings on them. Specifically, I wonder why we have so many surface parking lots in downtown Minneapolis. For example, according to Hennepin County, the surface lot just north of… Continue reading Land Value Taxes

Healthcare Roundup

What’s going on with health care these days? Here’s a story about a Congressman who took some heat for being less than supportive when it comes to the new healthcare law. What I find very interesting is that he supports ending discrimination against pre-existing conditions, but is opposed to Obamacare. As many people have pointed… Continue reading Healthcare Roundup

Spying and corporate fallout

For good reason, a lot of discussion about recent NSA revelations has focused on the government, what they are actually doing, and what controls are in place. However, it’s important to keep in mind, however, that most of the data collection utilized the services of private companies in one of the best examples of outsourcing… Continue reading Spying and corporate fallout

Doorknocking doesn’t work

I’ve been campaigning since I was a precinct chair my senior year of high school. In that time, I’ve knocked on thousands of doors and made thousands of phone calls to undecided voters. There may be a few people in the world who appreciate being interrupted during dinner or during the Gopher football game on… Continue reading Doorknocking doesn’t work

Chrome security and best practices

Many in the security community are all atwitter about the Chrome browser not encrypting passwords. They call this bad security; a lot of people disagree. I tend to agree with the latter group: putting a master password or otherwise putting some kind of encryption in Chrome’s password store wouldn’t materially increase security, and would give… Continue reading Chrome security and best practices

Constituent Service

There have been a couple of stories recently about how Republicans are essentially telling people not to take advantage of the benefits of Obamacare, i.e. signing up for subsidized health insurance on the new health exchanges. It’s one thing for radio hosts to peddle this story (and how nice is it to see Twila Brase… Continue reading Constituent Service

Hedge Fund Blues

Businessweek has put out a quite memorable story on the decline of hedge funds. The story, and a very good response, are worth a read. Even if you don’t pay much attention to that sector of finance a whole lot.