Old Wizard's Comments RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.comuser/215989/comments http://seekingalpha.com/article/177981-etf-update-health-care-enters-the-home-stretch?source=feed#comment-805603 805603 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:10:31 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/177981-etf-update-health-care-enters-the-home-stretch?source=feed#comment-805598 805598 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:07:40 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/177981-etf-update-health-care-enters-the-home-stretch?source=feed#comment-805596 805596 b] A risk pool for catastrophic illness to which all could belong for $250/yr/family and to which insurance companies would contribute .5 % of gross profit/ yr. The government would budget $5b/ yr to this pool and it would be independently held by a coop. that woud make investments that were risk constrained, but not gov. bonds.
c] Bussinesses would unerwrite tax free amounts up to $ 6k/ yr to each employee for health insurance which would be a business expense. Any amount above this would be taxable both to the employee and the company.
d] The small business association would be allowed to purchase insurance across state lines similar to AARP..
e] Mal- practise awards would be limited to $250k plus medical expenses. Any doctor found to be guilty of mal-practise 2x in 3 years would have to go back to school for a year and be recertified before continuing to practise. Lawyers' fees bringing such suites would be limited to 20% of award and if the suite was judged to be frivilous would have to pay the legal fees and court costs for both parties. These suites would be ejudicated by a three person panel consisting of a judge, a lawyer appointed by the ABA and a doctor appointed by the AMA or the association to which the doctor being sued belongs. All decisions would be final.
There are several other tenets of real refom should that I have included on my blog, Keeperofthefaith.wordp... My plan has 9 bullets, costs the Gov.$60b over ten years. If the fraud and abuse savings the congress and the president claim possible in medicare in the revenue neutral assertion really materialize, then the cost curve will truly bend by $340b over ten years. If not, then by definition the costs will be known and can at least be budgeted. This plan in the end would address most of that which concerns us, makes the reform understandable to our citizens and removes it from the political agenda that furthers either party's power. Approaching this proplem with a real desire to solve it rather than both logic that doesn't compute and legislation that even the most diligent among us either can't or won't understand should be an absolute requirement of our elected officials. If it turns out not to be, I say we should replace them all regardless of party, the training they had before they got elected.,sex,race, religion or sexual orientation.]]> Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:03:09 -0500 b] A risk pool for catastrophic illness to which all could belong for $250/yr/family and to which insurance companies would contribute .5 % of gross profit/ yr. The government would budget $5b/ yr to this pool and it would be independently held by a coop. that woud make investments that were risk constrained, but not gov. bonds.
c] Bussinesses would unerwrite tax free amounts up to $ 6k/ yr to each employee for health insurance which would be a business expense. Any amount above this would be taxable both to the employee and the company.
d] The small business association would be allowed to purchase insurance across state lines similar to AARP..
e] Mal- practise awards would be limited to $250k plus medical expenses. Any doctor found to be guilty of mal-practise 2x in 3 years would have to go back to school for a year and be recertified before continuing to practise. Lawyers' fees bringing such suites would be limited to 20% of award and if the suite was judged to be frivilous would have to pay the legal fees and court costs for both parties. These suites would be ejudicated by a three person panel consisting of a judge, a lawyer appointed by the ABA and a doctor appointed by the AMA or the association to which the doctor being sued belongs. All decisions would be final.
There are several other tenets of real refom should that I have included on my blog, Keeperofthefaith.wordp... My plan has 9 bullets, costs the Gov.$60b over ten years. If the fraud and abuse savings the congress and the president claim possible in medicare in the revenue neutral assertion really materialize, then the cost curve will truly bend by $340b over ten years. If not, then by definition the costs will be known and can at least be budgeted. This plan in the end would address most of that which concerns us, makes the reform understandable to our citizens and removes it from the political agenda that furthers either party's power. Approaching this proplem with a real desire to solve it rather than both logic that doesn't compute and legislation that even the most diligent among us either can't or won't understand should be an absolute requirement of our elected officials. If it turns out not to be, I say we should replace them all regardless of party, the training they had before they got elected.,sex,race, religion or sexual orientation.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/177314-head-of-california-s-cap-and-trade-offsets-program-it-s-a-scam?source=feed#comment-799930 799930 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:48:37 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/176662-notes-on-the-employment-report?source=feed#comment-794318 794318 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:19:19 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/175734-economic-recovery-commodity-charts-don-t-think-so?source=feed#comment-784391 784391 Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:45:21 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/175575-global-warming-models-out-of-order?source=feed#comment-782756 782756 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:49:58 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/175575-global-warming-models-out-of-order?source=feed#comment-781949 781949 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:42:54 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/175575-global-warming-models-out-of-order?source=feed#comment-781934 781934 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:20:39 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/172174-ge-to-close-its-only-u-s-solar-panel-factory?source=feed#comment-756104 756104 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:41:35 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/172174-ge-to-close-its-only-u-s-solar-panel-factory?source=feed#comment-754248 754248 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:30:42 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/172174-ge-to-close-its-only-u-s-solar-panel-factory?source=feed#comment-752560 752560 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:24:07 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/171549-charlie-gasparino-another-crash-has-to-happen-again?source=feed#comment-748861 748861 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:20:58 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/170419-how-bloomberg-fabricates-u-s-housing-numbers?source=feed#comment-740870 740870 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:07:06 -0500 http://seekingalpha.com/article/169488-george-soros-the-guru-outlook?source=feed#comment-738722 738722 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:36:27 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/169488-george-soros-the-guru-outlook?source=feed#comment-735403 735403 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:32:01 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/167156-a-crude-10-year-perspective-the-djia-oil-and-gold?source=feed#comment-732607 732607 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:51:38 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/167156-a-crude-10-year-perspective-the-djia-oil-and-gold?source=feed#comment-727196 727196 The spread between savings account interest and treasuries interest, home mortgages interest to qualified buyers and the more risky loans represents a bonanza for the banks.This bonanza winds up being paid for in part by those folks who put their money in savings accounts and CDs, if th real inflation rate plus the decreasing value of the dollar is more than the 1% the savings accounts are yielding. BTW I don't think my comment stated that lithium was a rare earth element.]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:21:59 -0400 The spread between savings account interest and treasuries interest, home mortgages interest to qualified buyers and the more risky loans represents a bonanza for the banks.This bonanza winds up being paid for in part by those folks who put their money in savings accounts and CDs, if th real inflation rate plus the decreasing value of the dollar is more than the 1% the savings accounts are yielding. BTW I don't think my comment stated that lithium was a rare earth element.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/167156-a-crude-10-year-perspective-the-djia-oil-and-gold?source=feed#comment-723602 723602 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:34:01 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/165251-the-u-s-dollar-and-oil-is-an-endgame-near?source=feed#comment-712841 712841 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:53:42 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/165251-the-u-s-dollar-and-oil-is-an-endgame-near?source=feed#comment-707123 707123 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:21:59 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/164713-how-much-natural-gas-remains-in-the-usa?source=feed#comment-704087 704087 Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:55:40 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/164026-battery-investing-for-beginners-part-2?source=feed#comment-698993 698993 Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:47:20 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/164026-battery-investing-for-beginners-part-2?source=feed#comment-696880 696880 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:33:02 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/160548-why-is-congress-agnostic-about-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-685298 685298 I am indenting so that you realize I am changing the discussion. You are aware that the port of long beach, which is a transfer point for about 60%+ of our shipments to and fro the far east has legislated that trucks coming to the port will be natural gas-driven due to the air pollution at the port. You also must be aware that IRAN is converting their automobiles and vehicles to natural gas because stategically they have to rely on overseas refineries. AT&T has announced a 600m investment for converting their trucks to natural gas. I also believe that getting natural gas from the oil sands in the US and Canada will continue for the foreeable future and the recent drop in natural gas prices has been due to a glut of this commodity here. The price approached the lowest in memory and only started to rise as producers cut back drastically. On the other side of the issue of clean coal generated diesel the time to convert or translate half of our vehicles to this fuel is not estimated by anyone and the country is not putting its investment into this fuel but rather into phevs, batteries etc. Hawaii just announced a 100m program to create electrical charging stations. In conjunction with this annoucement, a joint venture of Nissan/ Renault committed to provide automobiles consistent with these facilities. This leads me to the final point I have harped on: our investment as a country, should not be driven only by a desire to be the ideal environmentalists, but to insure that we don't perish economically by making investments in strategies that benefit other countries more than our own. When the administration talks about clean coal, can you garner from their actions or investment strategy, what timetable they are on for reducing our dependency on oil and that they see a future in hydrogen fuel. While we cancelled the fuel cell work at GM this year as impractical, Toyota launched an ad campaign that brags about its work in this area.I see no felt urency on the part of our Gov. to solve our underlying economic problem and no focus on the near term that matches that urgency except the scare tactic that global warming will bring imminent doom to the world and we the USA are the bad guys. I believe that if we don't solve our fundamental economic problems we as a country might be able to use the famous self-pitying words of Richard Nixon,'' you won't have the USA to kick around any more".]]> Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:33:57 -0400 I am indenting so that you realize I am changing the discussion. You are aware that the port of long beach, which is a transfer point for about 60%+ of our shipments to and fro the far east has legislated that trucks coming to the port will be natural gas-driven due to the air pollution at the port. You also must be aware that IRAN is converting their automobiles and vehicles to natural gas because stategically they have to rely on overseas refineries. AT&T has announced a 600m investment for converting their trucks to natural gas. I also believe that getting natural gas from the oil sands in the US and Canada will continue for the foreeable future and the recent drop in natural gas prices has been due to a glut of this commodity here. The price approached the lowest in memory and only started to rise as producers cut back drastically. On the other side of the issue of clean coal generated diesel the time to convert or translate half of our vehicles to this fuel is not estimated by anyone and the country is not putting its investment into this fuel but rather into phevs, batteries etc. Hawaii just announced a 100m program to create electrical charging stations. In conjunction with this annoucement, a joint venture of Nissan/ Renault committed to provide automobiles consistent with these facilities. This leads me to the final point I have harped on: our investment as a country, should not be driven only by a desire to be the ideal environmentalists, but to insure that we don't perish economically by making investments in strategies that benefit other countries more than our own. When the administration talks about clean coal, can you garner from their actions or investment strategy, what timetable they are on for reducing our dependency on oil and that they see a future in hydrogen fuel. While we cancelled the fuel cell work at GM this year as impractical, Toyota launched an ad campaign that brags about its work in this area.I see no felt urency on the part of our Gov. to solve our underlying economic problem and no focus on the near term that matches that urgency except the scare tactic that global warming will bring imminent doom to the world and we the USA are the bad guys. I believe that if we don't solve our fundamental economic problems we as a country might be able to use the famous self-pitying words of Richard Nixon,'' you won't have the USA to kick around any more".]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/160548-why-is-congress-agnostic-about-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-685018 685018 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:44:43 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/160548-why-is-congress-agnostic-about-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-681375 681375 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:42:38 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/160548-why-is-congress-agnostic-about-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-678403 678403 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:22:16 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/161489-why-the-sudden-run-up-in-natural-gas-prices?source=feed#comment-677916 677916 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:26:30 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/160548-why-is-congress-agnostic-about-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-672576 672576 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:40:22 -0400