milkchaser

The Next Leg of the Crisis: Unavoidable Catastrophe

Where can I read about the problem of long-term decay in TBT?

Healthcare Reform Costs Are Always Underestimated

One could argue that the problem is not optimism that costs will be contained, but lack of optimism and foresight about how new and more expensive medical technologies will be adopted and become the standard of care (e.g. replacement of knees, hip joints, eye lenses; arterial stents; blood pressure medicine, etc). The alternative is to let grandma and grandpa die or live in pain, which we choose through our representatives not to do.

Other significant costs contribute, of course. The cost of litigation and defensive medicine come to mind. Wise legislators could foresee this, but who ever said we have wise legislators?

To JCC: The FDA and medical regulation in general, while contributing to the cost, also contribute mightily to the safety of American medicine. On balance, they do more good than harm.

What's Plausible for the Fiscal Outlook?

The deficit in the first year of Obama is greater than all 8 years of Bush administration (during which the Democrats had a Senate majority half the time and a House majority 25% of the time).

But we are to believe that Bush was the sole font of fiscal irresponsibility? Was Bush fiscally irresponsible? Sure. He seemed to have lost his veto pen. But the Obama's $800 billion stimulus package did not deem a mention? Was not that irresponsible, too?

I believe it was Cheney who said "deficits don't matter". Friedman made a related argument along the lines that it is better to have a large deficit with lower spending than higher spending with no budget deficit. The problem is that Congress uses the capacity to borrow as an excuse to overspend.

As Coolidge said, taxing people for spending we do not absolutely need "is nothing more than legalized larceny". Better not to spend, but for necessary spending, why tax and inhibit productivity when you can borrow at a reasonable rate? It is irresponsible not to borrow a reasonable amount.

Unfortunately, there is nothing reasonable about fiscal policy in our lifetimes.

Forget the 1930s; We're Reliving 1975 (Part 1)

Does it seem odd to anybody else to date the start of the recession to a single quarter of barely negative growth in Q407 that was followed by two quarters of mild positive growth?

Obama Basically Nixes Second (Third?) Stimulus

sethmcs -- I am convinced that this recession will not soon be forgotten, nor will Obama's misguided response to it.

Obama Basically Nixes Second (Third?) Stimulus

Keith Hennesy has an excellent response to Obama's Op-Ed here:
keithhennessey.com/200.../

He calls out Obama's use of "straw man" arguments.

Obama Basically Nixes Second (Third?) Stimulus

When he wanted this clunker passed, Obama said that it was absolutely and immediately necessary to save the economy now. Now he says that he always claimed that the stimulus would take time to work. Sounds like he is rationalizing its failure.

More Bad News for Retail Investors, Siegel Had It Wrong

TeresaE -- I take your points, but what kind of history teacher could gloss over slavery? Are you saying that they did not teach the Civil War? My experience (40 years ago) was that the Civil War was taught as the thing that ended the abomination of slavery, but the subsequent 80+ years of racism were glossed over. The states' rights argument was equated with racist slavery. It is only now that the issue of states' rights is beginning to re-emerge as legitimate having been separated from the ignominious history of slavery.

More Bad News for Retail Investors, Siegel Had It Wrong

GM is defunct. Should it have been excluded from indexes? Did no one profit from GM those many decades when it turned a profit?

Perhaps there was a "survivor" bias in Siegel's work, but that only diminishes his conclusion -- it does not reverse it. One can lose all one's capital in a year if one makes spectacularly bad investments. I suspect for all the rubber hat and canal stocks, one can find bonds that defaulted, as well. A fair study would examine stocks and bonds that accrued a heavy volume of investment, as blue-chip indexes do.

Zweig also makes a mistake of saying that, since we only have good figures from 1870 on, we only have 4 good 30 year periods in which to examine the performance of stocks vs. bonds. This is wrong. We have 109 30-year periods from 1870 to now, as each successive period contains the last 29 years of the previous period, plus the next full year.

To make things easier to count, I suggest looking for those few periods when bonds outdid stocks.

Austrian School of Economics Is on the Rise

The Mises Institute does inject anti-war, libertarian politics into its presentations, along with Austrian economics. They are fascinating presentations, nonetheless. I tend to dismiss the anti-war, anti-Lincoln stuff. Intelligent people often disagree.

Minimum Wage Increase Will Send Teenage Jobless Rate to a Record High

They raised wages during the Great Depression thinking that if people were paid better they would spend more. Instead, this just decreased productivity as fewer people were left working and more families had to contend with unemployment.

Maybe if Americans get a second look at Hoover/FDR policies (high wage mandates, high taxees, high tariffs) as Obama and the Democratic Congress retry them, they will finally learn that such policies only prolong and deepen a recession. But FDR was loved after the Depression, so maybe Obama figures that keeping people out of work and overtaxed is the best way for him to be eternally loved.

Starve the Economic Beast, Part 3

There is only one solution: a Constitutional amendment that prohibits members of Congress who have served more than 5 years from seeking re-election from any state or district if the Federal Budget has not been balanced at least 4 of the previous 5 years.

Things would change in a hurry.

Starve the Economic Beast, Part 3

Obama's Treasury Sec'y is so "intelligent" he could not figure out how to do his taxes (and TurboTax flummoxed him). His VP is risible. Granted, Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod are clever. I'll grant that, even though I detest their aims. But I do not think the Obama administration will distinguish itself from its predecessors (of either party) on the basis of its intellectuals. To believe so is to disclose one's pro-Obama bias.


On Jun 25 09:55 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:

> I'm impressed by your knowledge and writing ability, James, but you
> have gone too far.
>
> War is ten percent fighting, ten percent waiting, and 80 percent
> self-improvement according the The Chairman. That formula won't work
> with Americans, because self-improvement is exactly what they are
> not interested in any longer. The reason is because it requires patience.
>
>
> Tell your followers to forget about banks, governments, and the like.
> Work with young people, and particularly schools. Personally I support
> the present US government, because I think that Obama is not afraid
> to work with intelligent people. Of course all of those on his team
> could not be described as intelligent, but they can be replaced when
> the time comes.

Starve the Economic Beast, Part 3

Brilliant -- all three parts.

Back in the U.S.S.A.

I do not apologize for joining with my co-workers to help save a company imperiled by mistakes of former management. However, my personal circumstances at this time do not reflect the possibility that the American economy will revive and expand. I suspect that current Federal gov't policy is counter-productive, however, I hope I am wrong. I suspect Mr. Schiff agrees that the current course is mistaken, if I read the article correctly.

BTW, I second Mr. Schiff's approval of borshcht.


On Jun 22 04:47 PM User 357705 wrote:

> Whatever makes it easier for you to get out of bed and head to that
> no benefits no future job contractors job you are pretty sure you'll
> be sacked from in the fall.