Our friends over in the EU are in real trouble it seems. With the latest Ireland bailout, they have sunk to such a level that private investment may no longer be insured by public funds. In the event of further economic collapses among member states, actual investors may loose their capital. Well, things may be bad here but at least we can all sleep better at night knowing that the largest capital investments still have the golden "too big to fail" stamp on them.
I suspect part of the rationale, used to justify the administration's response to the current economic situation, is that many funds necessary for pension plans and individual retirement are threatened. "Re-inflating the housing bubble, " a direct quote from President Obama, to shore up banking collateral is viewed as a lesser liability than millions of unfunded pensioners. This begs the question "Why are necessary funds in risk based investments"? Who was responsible for their care? Why were they not in bonds or Treasury bill? I have noticed that the Chinese have been avoiding the stock market in favor of treasury bills for years. Its not as if these conditions were unforeseeable, rather we were too greedy to accept the lower rate of return in exchange for increased security.
In my opinion Greenspanism creates a disincentive to save responsibly by increasing the money supply past productivity, creating artificially low interest rates. When the money supply more closely tracks productivity, the demand for capital results in higher returns through higher interest rates. It may not be as fun as Reaganitis, (remember the late '70's) but I imagine it is a better foundation for a sustainable economy.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Freemarket Healthcare
This week several provisions of the new healthcare bill come into effect. All that I have heard about are limitations on the deniability of various costs to health insurance providers. I guess that is as progressive as a muslim socialist radical gets these days.
I had health insurance once. Twice actually. Once as a generous benefit from my wife’s government job and once on my own tab. My productivity contributed over $1,000 pre-bailout dilution USD to a well known health insurance provider who shall remain nameless because I don’t room in my head to store such meaningless things. My wife became pregnant and around that time my employer switched providers to cut costs. The pregnancy was then considered a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered.
The doctor was not pleased and wrote a letter to the insurance company detailing her grievances. Within a month we received a short letter to inform us that we had been dropped. Eden was over two years old before we were able to finish paying the hospital, doctor, anesthesiologist, lab ect… For a long time we got bills nearly everyday.
The whole thing reminded me of a little saying I once heard from my Father, “when a mouse and an elephant sleep in the same bed, the mouse gets hurt no matter how nice the elephant is.” The balance of power in the customer/insurance provider relationship is out of balance. They have all the power and you have none. While I was dutifully paying my monthly “premiums” as they are called, they were using the money to hire lobbyists to write favorable legislation into law in Albany and Washington, build tall building in downtown areas and fill those buildings with lawyers to find ways to deny claims. I was paying them to undermine my standing. I could have paid the healthcare costs if I had not given them over $14,000 over the previous year. I can either pay insurance companies or hospitals but paying both is hard work. So I decided to just pay the hospital when the need arises.
If the American people want a more rational healthcare bill, they can certainly have one. Here is one way I think would work. Everyone stop paying health insurance premiums for a month or two. Write a nice letter saying that you are uncomfortable with the influence the health insurance industry had in writing the latest healthcare bill and you don’t want your money being used to make the lives of others difficult but once a new bill is through the senate, you will gladly resume payment. I believe in this so much that I have started already.
Lately I have heard the president speak proudly of all the good his healthcare bill has done. I haven’t read all the provisions of that bill but it seems to me that meat of it is forcing me to back into purchasing health insurance products I have already tried and rejected. With a little luck, I should be able to get the same provider who dumped me three years ago.
I had health insurance once. Twice actually. Once as a generous benefit from my wife’s government job and once on my own tab. My productivity contributed over $1,000 pre-bailout dilution USD to a well known health insurance provider who shall remain nameless because I don’t room in my head to store such meaningless things. My wife became pregnant and around that time my employer switched providers to cut costs. The pregnancy was then considered a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered.
The doctor was not pleased and wrote a letter to the insurance company detailing her grievances. Within a month we received a short letter to inform us that we had been dropped. Eden was over two years old before we were able to finish paying the hospital, doctor, anesthesiologist, lab ect… For a long time we got bills nearly everyday.
The whole thing reminded me of a little saying I once heard from my Father, “when a mouse and an elephant sleep in the same bed, the mouse gets hurt no matter how nice the elephant is.” The balance of power in the customer/insurance provider relationship is out of balance. They have all the power and you have none. While I was dutifully paying my monthly “premiums” as they are called, they were using the money to hire lobbyists to write favorable legislation into law in Albany and Washington, build tall building in downtown areas and fill those buildings with lawyers to find ways to deny claims. I was paying them to undermine my standing. I could have paid the healthcare costs if I had not given them over $14,000 over the previous year. I can either pay insurance companies or hospitals but paying both is hard work. So I decided to just pay the hospital when the need arises.
If the American people want a more rational healthcare bill, they can certainly have one. Here is one way I think would work. Everyone stop paying health insurance premiums for a month or two. Write a nice letter saying that you are uncomfortable with the influence the health insurance industry had in writing the latest healthcare bill and you don’t want your money being used to make the lives of others difficult but once a new bill is through the senate, you will gladly resume payment. I believe in this so much that I have started already.
Lately I have heard the president speak proudly of all the good his healthcare bill has done. I haven’t read all the provisions of that bill but it seems to me that meat of it is forcing me to back into purchasing health insurance products I have already tried and rejected. With a little luck, I should be able to get the same provider who dumped me three years ago.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Lest the Terrorist Win
A day or so after the attacks on the World Trade Center President Bush suggested that we “go shopping” lest “the Terrorists win.” I was taken by the strange logic and the phrase has echoed in the back of my mind ever since. I’m beginning to understand it.
The Barnharts recently spent sixty hours or so strapped in a confined space exactly the shape of a minivan. To keep my mind from spinning out of control and self destructing, I listened to several books on cassette tape, including “Sitting Bull and his world” by Albert Marrin. It is a full account of the last days of the “Plains Indians”, including the Sioux. I learned the demise of the American Buffalo was purposefully engineered by Washington to starve the Sioux out of Canada and confine them in concentration camps, called reserves. The US army supplied weapons to marksmen and thrill seekers to maximize buffalo casualties. Cavalrymen rode organized patrols to turn back or shoot any herds that might wander north and become food for 19th century terrorists. When Sitting Bull and the last of the starving Sioux moved off the Canadian Prairie to become wards of the state, they numbered less than 200, men, women and children.
One event caught my attention especially. In 1873, the economy of the US was jeopardized by collapse of over-leveraged investment banks. President Grant was advised that salvaging the investments would require an increase in gold production. Coincidentally, the undeveloped gold fields lay in the Black Hills of Dakota, the crown jewel of the Sioux reserve. Without the game rich Black Hills, the Sioux were left with Buffalo free Prairie and no hope of sustaining a hunter-gatherer society. As you can imagine, the Sioux ended up mostly dead and the Black Hills became a commodity. This time around there are no Indians to expend in the interest of “recovering” the economy, so it has been decided to steal from the future. Capital and its economic machinery must be protected.
A co-worker periodically attempts, in Spanish, to convert me to various conspiracy theories. I told him the conspiracies I am afraid of are not hidden, they are written in business plans, mission statements and quarterly reports, they are in the President’s speeches. Allow me to interpret that cryptic Presidential message of 2001: “Our enemies will try to convince you their war is with the economic system of the West. Do not believe this. They are just bad people who hate freedom. They fight for no reason. Go buy something or the industrialists will lose.”
The Barnharts recently spent sixty hours or so strapped in a confined space exactly the shape of a minivan. To keep my mind from spinning out of control and self destructing, I listened to several books on cassette tape, including “Sitting Bull and his world” by Albert Marrin. It is a full account of the last days of the “Plains Indians”, including the Sioux. I learned the demise of the American Buffalo was purposefully engineered by Washington to starve the Sioux out of Canada and confine them in concentration camps, called reserves. The US army supplied weapons to marksmen and thrill seekers to maximize buffalo casualties. Cavalrymen rode organized patrols to turn back or shoot any herds that might wander north and become food for 19th century terrorists. When Sitting Bull and the last of the starving Sioux moved off the Canadian Prairie to become wards of the state, they numbered less than 200, men, women and children.
One event caught my attention especially. In 1873, the economy of the US was jeopardized by collapse of over-leveraged investment banks. President Grant was advised that salvaging the investments would require an increase in gold production. Coincidentally, the undeveloped gold fields lay in the Black Hills of Dakota, the crown jewel of the Sioux reserve. Without the game rich Black Hills, the Sioux were left with Buffalo free Prairie and no hope of sustaining a hunter-gatherer society. As you can imagine, the Sioux ended up mostly dead and the Black Hills became a commodity. This time around there are no Indians to expend in the interest of “recovering” the economy, so it has been decided to steal from the future. Capital and its economic machinery must be protected.
A co-worker periodically attempts, in Spanish, to convert me to various conspiracy theories. I told him the conspiracies I am afraid of are not hidden, they are written in business plans, mission statements and quarterly reports, they are in the President’s speeches. Allow me to interpret that cryptic Presidential message of 2001: “Our enemies will try to convince you their war is with the economic system of the West. Do not believe this. They are just bad people who hate freedom. They fight for no reason. Go buy something or the industrialists will lose.”
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