Pres08_WTA
2008 US Presidential Election Winner Takes All Market
This graph is also available in flash format with the datapoints annotated, or in a simple jpg format.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Hillary Kicks Butt on Health Care
I'm not sure what I think of Hillary, but I'm sure pleased to see someone take on the ignorant views about what 'socialized' medicine is and how well our current system works or doesn't. Great performance in a short clip.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Why Health Care is Sick and Fading
The sympthoms are clear enough. A smaller percentage of the population has real health care coverage and the cost of that coverage rises dramatically every year. Yet diagnosing the underlying causes is political suicide given the huge power of the vested interests which control the debate: big pharma, hospitals and HMOs, and insurance companies.
Healthcare's biggest single problem is the huge portion of total health care costs – about 31 percent, ....– that are consumed by the insurance and billing bureaucracy without ever providing direct patient care. Costs for marketing, broker sales commissions, actuarial costs, gatekeepers, high executive salaries, increasing shareholder profits, even the high costs of their lobbying and campaign contributions are passed on to the patient (and in most cases employers, who have been taking their jobs offshore to avoid the costs).
Even our effective system of delivery for the aged, Medicare, is currently under attack by the Bush administration which is using government subsidies to pretend that its Medicare Advantage program is a better deal. It is for insurance companies, but not for the tax payer,
Medicare is stunningly successful and popular. Why would anyone want to desert it? Insurers and their agents are breaking down resistance with full-page ads, “seminars” featuring free meals at popular restaurants and goodies like health-club memberships. Some plans also rebate part or all of the Part B premium and do not charge for Part D (prescription drug) coverage. ......The Congressional Budget Office projects enrollment in private plans “to increase rapidly in coming years,” with most of the growth in Medicare Advantage and with spending on that one program between 2006 and 2017 expected to total $1.5 trillion.
The concept that introducing yet another layer of unnecessary administration to the healthcare system makes it more competitive and efficient simply defies common sense.
Healthcare's biggest single problem is the huge portion of total health care costs – about 31 percent, ....– that are consumed by the insurance and billing bureaucracy without ever providing direct patient care. Costs for marketing, broker sales commissions, actuarial costs, gatekeepers, high executive salaries, increasing shareholder profits, even the high costs of their lobbying and campaign contributions are passed on to the patient (and in most cases employers, who have been taking their jobs offshore to avoid the costs).
Even our effective system of delivery for the aged, Medicare, is currently under attack by the Bush administration which is using government subsidies to pretend that its Medicare Advantage program is a better deal. It is for insurance companies, but not for the tax payer,
Medicare is stunningly successful and popular. Why would anyone want to desert it? Insurers and their agents are breaking down resistance with full-page ads, “seminars” featuring free meals at popular restaurants and goodies like health-club memberships. Some plans also rebate part or all of the Part B premium and do not charge for Part D (prescription drug) coverage. ......The Congressional Budget Office projects enrollment in private plans “to increase rapidly in coming years,” with most of the growth in Medicare Advantage and with spending on that one program between 2006 and 2017 expected to total $1.5 trillion.
The concept that introducing yet another layer of unnecessary administration to the healthcare system makes it more competitive and efficient simply defies common sense.
Can American leadership be restored?
Leadership to this administration seems to mean the willingness to exercise power and to stay on a course regardless of its consequences. Amb. Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., president of the Middle East Policy Council, argues that this form of leadership is ultimately useless because fewer and fewer will follow.
"The world now fears our savagery but has lost confidence in our fair-mindedness, judgment, and competence. What are the consequences of this and how can we overcome them?
....So, for example, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and key Africans are courting China; Europe is flirting with Asia; and all are seeking the affections of the oil and gas producers of the Middle East as well as of Russia and India. In most countries, politicians now see public spats with the United States as the easiest way to rally their people and enhance their prestige. The result is the progressive displacement of our previously indispensable influence and leadership in more and more areas of the world."
"The world now fears our savagery but has lost confidence in our fair-mindedness, judgment, and competence. What are the consequences of this and how can we overcome them?
....So, for example, Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and key Africans are courting China; Europe is flirting with Asia; and all are seeking the affections of the oil and gas producers of the Middle East as well as of Russia and India. In most countries, politicians now see public spats with the United States as the easiest way to rally their people and enhance their prestige. The result is the progressive displacement of our previously indispensable influence and leadership in more and more areas of the world."
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Say it ain't so Joe.
Joseph Biden "acknowledges that his candidacy is a long shot. He says he just wants a chance to say what he thinks."
Biden, the national spokesman for Delaware-based credit card banks and prime mover behind the tough new bankruptcy laws, thinks representing the interests of the nation's largest banks is wonderful. He has also lost any chance to be taken as a serious presidential candidate.
Biden, the national spokesman for Delaware-based credit card banks and prime mover behind the tough new bankruptcy laws, thinks representing the interests of the nation's largest banks is wonderful. He has also lost any chance to be taken as a serious presidential candidate.
Is Our Economy "Strong"?
There seems to be two basic approaches to measuring economic strength in the US: the Dow Jones Industrial Average for those with investments and employment conditions for those living off their wages.
For those who can live off their investments and with the Dow at an all time high, recent times are high times, and the credit is largely attributed to the Bush tax cuts. So much so that Mitt Romney is currently touring the TV talk shows threatening Americans with the specter of a Democratic president pushing through a huge tax increase in 2010 that kills economic growth. This same argument was recently made by New York hedge fund managers who have threatened to take their money to the Cayman Islands if they have to pay taxes on the same basis as most Americans. Clearly the economy is being good to these groups, but does that make it "strong"?
For more and more wage earners the answer would be 'no", because they haven't been treated well. Many of the same forces driving the Dow higher are also reducing the number of well paying jobs, increasing the ranks of the poor, and shrinking the middle class. Health care continues to less and less affordable, and the financial risks of a major illness are on the rise. Productivity has risen, but real wages have not.
So which measures should we use to determine how we are doing? Let's look at the long term trends and see where they take us. Currently the economy allocates an increasing share of our wealth to an ever smaller percentage of the population while the vast majority of share a shrinking part of the economy's pie. Over the long run this is a recipe for producing the next Brazil or perhaps India: countries with a fabulously wealthy ruling class and most of the population living near or in poverty. A better direction would be one that returns to a situation more like post WWII America when the American dream was alive and well. People worked hard, shared to varying degrees in the results, but generally we all rose together. Education and housing were affordable, health care was available, and retirement was something to be looked forward to.
Countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan, and India which strive to emulate our success are working hard to develop and sustain their middle classes, increase the education of their work forces, and improve working conditions. They see the US of the 50's as a model for achieving a strong economy. It's ironic that in the US, we seem to have abandoned our own model of success and are aspiring to become what these countries are hoping to escape.
For those who can live off their investments and with the Dow at an all time high, recent times are high times, and the credit is largely attributed to the Bush tax cuts. So much so that Mitt Romney is currently touring the TV talk shows threatening Americans with the specter of a Democratic president pushing through a huge tax increase in 2010 that kills economic growth. This same argument was recently made by New York hedge fund managers who have threatened to take their money to the Cayman Islands if they have to pay taxes on the same basis as most Americans. Clearly the economy is being good to these groups, but does that make it "strong"?
For more and more wage earners the answer would be 'no", because they haven't been treated well. Many of the same forces driving the Dow higher are also reducing the number of well paying jobs, increasing the ranks of the poor, and shrinking the middle class. Health care continues to less and less affordable, and the financial risks of a major illness are on the rise. Productivity has risen, but real wages have not.
So which measures should we use to determine how we are doing? Let's look at the long term trends and see where they take us. Currently the economy allocates an increasing share of our wealth to an ever smaller percentage of the population while the vast majority of share a shrinking part of the economy's pie. Over the long run this is a recipe for producing the next Brazil or perhaps India: countries with a fabulously wealthy ruling class and most of the population living near or in poverty. A better direction would be one that returns to a situation more like post WWII America when the American dream was alive and well. People worked hard, shared to varying degrees in the results, but generally we all rose together. Education and housing were affordable, health care was available, and retirement was something to be looked forward to.
Countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan, and India which strive to emulate our success are working hard to develop and sustain their middle classes, increase the education of their work forces, and improve working conditions. They see the US of the 50's as a model for achieving a strong economy. It's ironic that in the US, we seem to have abandoned our own model of success and are aspiring to become what these countries are hoping to escape.
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