Today’s Links: October 9, 2012

OPINION

DAMON LAVRINC: “Auto Dealers Whine That Tesla Stores Are Illegal”
“Buying a new car has always meant one thing: going into a dealership, finagling a price and driving something off the lot. Tesla Motors is turning that business model on its head with high-end retailers that have automotive dealership associations crying foul. The Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, among others, is waving around a decades-old law as it calls the Silicon Valley automaker’s network of ‘Tesla stores’ illegal. Dealership associations have long lobbied to make it illegal for automakers to sell cars directly to consumers. The idea behind the protectionist law is to prevent automakers from killing competition and driving independent franchises out of business.”

NICK SCHULZ interviewing VIVEK WADHWA: “Is the Nation of Immigrants Becoming a Nation of Emigrants?”
“Nick Schulz: If a spaceship were to land in the United States and extraterrestrial visitors were to listen to the nation’s discussion on immigration, they would conclude America is being overwhelmed by immigrants. And yet you have published a book called The Immigrant Exodus. What’s going on?”

AMESH ADALJA: “Universal Health Insurance Mandates, And The Emergency Care Myth”
“Advocates of single payer healthcare often cite the fact that the emergency care delivered to the indigent by healthcare facilities and providers prompts a “cost shift” to insured individuals to recoup the losses incurred. This scenario results, these advocates say, in all insured individuals being indirectly forced to bear the burden of uncompensated emergency care—which, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), amounts to 55% of emergency care. […] However, there is much more to the story that is neglected by the majority of healthcare commentators, including the origins of this system (in which policymakers from both parties played roles).”

NEWS

TAXES – Cook County mulling violence tax on guns and ammunition
“Drawing the ire of the gun lobby, Cook County Board President Preckwinkle is eyeing a violence tax on guns and ammunition sold in the city and suburbs, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.”

CHINA – Federal report highlights unease about Chinese firms
“Eager to expand in the United States, China’s biggest technology companies face an America anxious about threats to jobs and national security.”

SCIENCE – Nobel Awarded For Stem Cell, Early Cloning Work
“Two scientists from different generations won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for the groundbreaking discovery that cells in the body can be reprogrammed into completely different kinds, work that reflects the mechanism behind cloning and offers an alternative to using embryonic stem cells.”