Michael Tanner presently heads research into a variety of domestic policies with a particular emphasis on health care reform, social welfare policy, and Social Security. His most recent book, Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution (2007), chronicles the demise of the Republican Party as it has shifted away from its limited government roots and warns that reform is necessary.

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Under his direction, Cato launched the Project on Social Security Choice, widely considered the leading impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a private savings program. Time Magazine calls Tanner, “one of the architects of the private accounts movement,” and Congressional Quarterly named him one of the nation’s five most influential experts on Social Security.

According to Michael, the Obama health care plan is,

“essentially government taking over 1/6 of the US economy. Government would then control some of the most personal and private information. Government would tell us what type of insurance to buy, the benefits we would have, how doctors have to practice medicine, and what employees have to carry. It’s top down command and control economics. The Government plan is subsidized by the taxpayer so it can always have lower premiums and higher benefits… You can’t compete against an entity backed by government. That’s like competing against the Mafia.”

Join in for more of Mr. Tanner’s outspoken and cutting edge views on the Obama health care plan. And as always thanks for watching as we talk about things that matter with people who care.

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/ Producer

• David Boaz, CATO
• Doug Casey, Casey Research;
• Daniel Mitchell,CATO
• Steve Moore, Wall Street Journal
• Richard Rahn, CATO
• Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine
• Thomas Woods, author of the controversial best seller, MELTDOWN

We look forward to hearing your comments on our blog or through Twitter.

• Dee Smith: CEO, Strategic Insight Group
• Jim Harper, J.D.: Director of Information Policy Studies, CATO

Internet privacy is a thing of the past. By Googling  someone or something and by going into cached sites, you can pull  back the covers on things that quite possibly the individual may have wanted to keep private. As Dee Smith says, “It’s an early warning sign. There’s an enormous array of credit card information and magazine subscriptions that all have a collected pattern. Privacy is threatened, yet there is a lot of information to help protect you against fraud.”

Jim Harper of CATO says of the Internet privacy condition, “What is privacy? Medical privacy and other is out there. The average person may not find this, but there is a lack of practical obscurity. Records exist. So from Government surveillance to marketing research and identity theft, a Google search can turn up lots of pieces and places. Not one place is definitive and complete. Still, ultimately, the result is a better economy.”

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Today there is a new human condition. The Web makes it very hard to escape your past. Data that is out there is difficult to impossible to retrieve. This information is going to be with you for a very long time. Knowledge is critical and needs to be managed. What one puts out on MySpace today can come back to haunt one and even result in the loss of a potential job. The knowledge intelligence pyramid, talked about by Dee Smith is a critical component of out future personal and marketing strategy.

From top to bottom the Knowledge Intelligence Pyramid, gives data that is critical to know and work with:

Tactical
Operational
Strategic
Specific and focused information
Specific but broad information
Background information.

Knowledge today is indeed power. And the more you know about a prospect or other individual, the more effective you can be.

Thank you for watching this segment on the Internet privacy condition,

Niki McCuistion
Producer

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1518 – 07.19.09