Another Day, Another Euro

[Charmin]

Yeah if you happen to get a couple of fingers chopped off for some reason you'll be able to discuss with your doctor right on the operating table which ones you want to keep if you only got coverage for less than the total fingers that got chopped instead of having a bureaucrat demand and pay for all the fingers.

If I did get some fingers cut off I'd be demanding partial disability from the bureaucrat. My employer probably could justify that I was no longer able to do my job.

[Jorma]

Yeah if you happen to get a couple of fingers chopped off for some reason you'll be able to discuss with your doctor right on the operating table which ones you want to keep if you only got coverage for less than the total fingers that got chopped instead of having a bureaucrat demand and pay for all the fingers.

 

 

You already have a bureaucrat deciding what procedures and care you can get. It's called an insurance company. I've never understood this line of argument. It's made by people evidently who have never been sick enough to run up 5 figure bills.

 

Fingers getting cut off isn't being sick by the way. It's trauma and it is where modern medicine shines. It's also where there are no questions asked, at least initially at the hospital especially the emergency room. In many many cases trauma is covered by liability insurance, worker, auto, etc. which bypasses the health insurance bureaucracy, which is dedicated to denying coverage.

 

Over the last 15 years the amount of premiums payments paid out in claims by the health insurance companies has gone for 95% to 80%. Only 8 companies nationwide now provide the huge proportion of all health insurance.

 

If you have bills running over $30K there is a 10% chance a health insurance company will recind the policy for technical reasons usually pertaining to preexisting conditions.

 

etc. etc. The system such as it is is a screwed up with perverse incentives and vast inefficiencies. For instance different towns and areas can have wildly different gross numbers on annual health care cost per person. Those areas that have the highest cost per person have the lowest score on quality of care, and the wealthiest doctors. In other words there is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. This happens because a small number of well insured get really highly priced tests and care, which is usually no better than the less expensive alternatives, and many people get nothing.

 

I don't think there is any answer because being a bear I don't think the money is going to be there systematically to keep it operating anywhere near it's current form. A form which lavishes huge money on some who are chronically ill, and have great insurance, and short shifts and overcharges everyone else. You know, the $50 Tylenol.

 

60 years ago you went to the hospital to die. The business of delivering modern medical miracles is an odd one.

 

The health insurance mania currently has done one thing. You don't see anyone on the street protesting Bernanke, Geithner or GS and you sure as hell don't see any K Street firms suggesting anger aimed at Wall Street. Remember propoganda works not by telling people what to think. It works by telling them what to think about. A very large portion of the town hall discontented sceaming about keeping the government out of their health care are on Medicare. It's enough to make your head explode.

[BusKow]

haven't posted one of these in quite some time

 

some interesting individual sub-sectors, so I posted details on LOB

[quanta]

The Fog of Numbers

 

Now that Newsweek Magazine -- along with the mendacious cretins at CNBC -- have declared the "recession" officially over, it's a sure thing that we are entering the zone of greatest danger. Some foul odor rides the late summer wind, as of a rough beast slouching toward the US Treasury. The stock markets have gathered in the critical mass of suckers needed to flush all remaining hope out of the system. The foreign holders of US promissory notes are sharpening their long knives in the humid darkness. The suburban householders are watching sharks swim in their driveways. The REIT executives are getting ready to gargle with Gillette blue blades. The Goldman Sachs bonus babies are trying to imagine the good life in Paraguay or the archepelego of Tristan da Cunha.

 

Kunstler is a real word slinger.

[briarberrys]

World landgrabs (and water) - an area half the size of Europe's farmland - Veteran speculators such as George Soros, Jim Rogers and Lord Jacob Rothschild are snapping up farmland right now....

 

The Independent - Sunday, 9 August 2009

 

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, says Paul Vallely, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

...

The government of President Ravalomanana (Madagascar) became the first in the world to be toppled because of what the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization recently described as "landgrabbing". The Daewoo deal is only one of more than 100 land deals which have, over the past 12 months, seen massive tracts of cultivable farmland across the globe bought up by wealthy countries and international corporations. The phenomenon is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in just the past six months.

...

So what is the cause of this sudden explosion of land acquisition across the globe? It has its roots in the food crisis of 2007/8, when prices of rice, wheat and other cereals skyrocketed across the world, triggering riots from Haiti to Senegal. The price spike also led food-growing countries to slap export tariffs on staple crops to minimise the amounts that left their countries. That tightened the supply still further, meaning food prices were driven up more by a situation of policy-created scarcity than by supply and demand.

 

This situation also made many rich countries that are reliant on massive food imports question one of the fundamentals of the global economy: the idea that every country should concentrate on its best products and then trade. Suddenly having unimaginable quantities of cash from oil was not enough to guarantee you all the food you needed. The oil sheikhs of the Gulf states found that food imports had doubled in cost over less than five years. In the future it might get even worse. You could no longer rely on regional and global markets, they concluded. The rush to grab land began. The Independent (on Sunday)

 

 

 

US farmland, a rare price drop...

 

The U.S. Agriculture Department said in its annual report that the value of all land and buildings on U.S. farms averaged $2,100 an acre Jan. 1, down 3.2% from last year. The decline in farm real-estate values was the first since 1987, the agency said. WSJ

[Sea urchin]

Man, you dragged that up fast. I was so lazy I hadn't looked for evidence in a long time. Thanks

 

Same goes for heathcare: I don't want a bureaucrat between myself and my doctor.

 

I can't recall exact number but the number of Caesarean operations in the US is 3 times higher than that in Japan. In general, the number of surgeries in the US is significantly higher than not only in Japan but also than industrialized European countries.

 

Doctors tend to avoid invasive surgeries in Japan unless such procedures are necessary from the standpoint of the patient's health.

 

Why are there so many surgeries in the US? Because surgeries make more money.

 

I personally know that some doctors in Japan are cheaters. Many years ago, my friend (we were just freshmen in colleges) had abortion. I calculated days and realized that there had been no way for any mortals to know that she was pregnant or not. That's when I shockingly realized that some doctors take advantage of patients' fear. But as a group, statistically, Japanese doctors tend to avoid invasive surgeries, unless necessary.

 

In the US, I was recommended a surgery this January ( should say "ordered"). I earnestly wanted to recover from the misfortune of developing shoulder pain which, I believe, had been caused by the intensive use of a mouse for a short-term project. I was incredulous that my doctor prescribed that I go to an orthopedic surgeon only after 6 times of physical therapies (by the way, this is workman's compensation case) and physical therapies were, I felt, working. I reminded myself of the US doctors' preferences to surgeries. I decided to depend more on my own perception and insisted another 6 times more of physical therapy. I am fine now (98 percent recovery, I rate, and I'm working on it via exercise). Can you believe that for the case that required only total of 12 times of physical therapy, the nice doctor of mine, who specialized in work-related issues instructed me to see an orthopedic surgeon? What if he or she happens to be needed some money?

 

Doctors are just as merchants, some of whom operate in higher standards and some are not (like some merchants in SF Mission District who cheated changes with a skill of magician!).

 

I believe that a government is and should be something like an organizing body that plan and set certain standards when projects are "too big to" plan and implement on a personal level or state level. Highway projects are one of these but not many people call the US highway system socialism. I don't know today but the US Highway system was one of the great things in the US and has become a model for highway systems in many countries including Japan!

 

And even if some ideas have an origin in socialism, I don't see anything wrong with it, if it works here under a different system.

 

By the way, I forgot to mention the last time I talked about Japanese National Health Insurance System. Except poor, adult (or maybe income making people) is required to make a monthly contribution to the insurance system. If I want to join the system, I go back to Japan and pay about $15 per month. The insurance covers medical, dental and vision with one health insurance card. No insurance payment for reading glasses. If you work for a company, the amount will be automatically deducted from your pay. I'm not sure but I think that if you make more money, you may be required to pay more contribution. Anyways, such monthly contributions account for 50 percent of the total medical costs and the government pay the rest from the revenue.

 

I buy Obama's argument, given the fact that my company's insurance getting less fabulous each year for the last 10 years at least. I think that health insurance system is a deficit reduction measure as much as it is a more efficient health improvement and delivery plan for the US population.

[jickiss]

jickiss is back!

 

 

 

jickiss is back!

 

 

and

 

now, them that "represent" the "vics" of the line item veto want to, of all things, Sue da gov of paradise, aka, Kal-lee-forn-ah-kate.

 

cool, did gov A lie???????

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Calif-lawmak...ml?x=0&.v=1

[twignberries]

This chart has been much on my mind. It's about economics and perception not the market.

 

Look at the numbers for 1959 and you would think we were in a depression that year. I am not sure what it all means but it sure is a different perspective.

 

The GDP line should be on a log scale, which makes it a very different line. And I have a hard time extracting much meaning from the poverty rate line. The poverty level is an arbitrary level set by a bureaucrat somewhere. Did it keep up with inflation? Did it outpace inflation? Were other "adjustments" made over the years to massage the numbers (like the unemployment numbers)? Without a some context, that line means nothing.

[summoner]

Sea Urchin, the chances of an Orthopaedic surgeon operating on you with your history is almost zero. Unless you had a non traumatic rotator cuff tear. Non traumatic, overuse shoulder pain typically responds to rest, analgesics, activity modification, plus or minus an injection. Don t a sume because you were going to see a surgeon that surgery was going to be a rec. You probably didnt need the P.T. In my practice I see about 10-15 new patients for every elective surgery I schedule. My elective practice is almost exclusively shoulder and knee surgery. TRADE SAFE

[capitall]

You already have a bureaucrat deciding what procedures and care you can get. It's called an insurance company. I've never understood this line of argument. It's made by people evidently who have never been sick enough to run up 5 figure bills.

 

Fingers getting cut off isn't being sick by the way. It's trauma and it is where modern medicine shines. It's also where there are no questions asked, at least initially at the hospital especially the emergency room. In many many cases trauma is covered by liability insurance, worker, auto, etc. which bypasses the health insurance bureaucracy, which is dedicated to denying coverage.

 

Over the last 15 years the amount of premiums payments paid out in claims by the health insurance companies has gone for 95% to 80%. Only 8 companies nationwide now provide the huge proportion of all health insurance.

 

If you have bills running over $30K there is a 10% chance a health insurance company will recind the policy for technical reasons usually pertaining to preexisting conditions.

 

etc. etc. The system such as it is is a screwed up with perverse incentives and vast inefficiencies. For instance different towns and areas can have wildly different gross numbers on annual health care cost per person. Those areas that have the highest cost per person have the lowest score on quality of care, and the wealthiest doctors. In other words there is an inverse relationship between cost and quality. This happens because a small number of well insured get really highly priced tests and care, which is usually no better than the less expensive alternatives, and many people get nothing.

 

I don't think there is any answer because being a bear I don't think the money is going to be there systematically to keep it operating anywhere near it's current form. A form which lavishes huge money on some who are chronically ill, and have great insurance, and short shifts and overcharges everyone else. You know, the $50 Tylenol.

 

60 years ago you went to the hospital to die. The business of delivering modern medical miracles is an odd one.

 

The health insurance mania currently has done one thing. You don't see anyone on the street protesting Bernanke, Geithner or GS and you sure as hell don't see any K Street firms suggesting anger aimed at Wall Street. Remember propoganda works not by telling people what to think. It works by telling them what to think about. A very large portion of the town hall discontented sceaming about keeping the government out of their health care are on Medicare. It's enough to make your head explode.

 

What's to make your head explode? Propaganda techniques, expertly researched by special interest groups who can well afford the high cost of the research, are highly effective at persuading people to vote and demonstrate in ways that are totally opposite to their own best interests. Why does marketing/propaganda subconscious research cost so much? Because it's worth it.

 

Also, in this economy, lots of people need some extra money. I understand that a lot of these town hall meeting disrupters are paid to go to town hall meetings and shout out scripts that have been written for them by the medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries. It may be that a number of Medicare recipients are getting a little extra spending money to cover the rising cost of living, and the medical expenses that are not coverd by Medicare, by working at a Town Hall Meeting Shouter job. Rumor has it that this pays more than a Walmart Greeter job. Apparently some Congressional districts are short of unethical people though, so they have to hire people who don't even live in the district.

[cwd]

Absolute drivel backed by voodoo math meant to appeal to the feeble minded.

 

The increase in "purchasing power" came from the increase in the notional value of the listed stocks. $2.3 Trillion did not move into stocks. Only enough flowed into stocks to force the total valuation up.

 

Just like if one house on street of 50 goes up by $100k, it doesn't take $5M of investment to move the "average" price of all of them up by $100K.

 

 

I agree, but one has to use some hyperbole to convince J6P that he is being swindled. I think the statement at the bottom sums it up quite well.

 

Zero Hedge and Denninger must be hitting on close to the truth because the MSM is starting to respond to anynomous bloggers and some bloggers without mainstream credentials,ie speak for a major borker or be a professor consulting for a borker.

Regonition is the sincerest form of flatery.

[cwd]

Man, you dragged that up fast. I was so lazy I hadn't looked for evidence in a long time. Thanks

 

Just think what the payouts are for the PBGC if it continues.

 

I told the president of my company to dump the pension plan and give the employees their lump sum and let them manage it themselves through the 401k. Why? Because the employees could lose money as bad as the idiot fund managers who don't know how to manage risk. Let the employees learn how to manage risk at their own discretion and avoid the bureaucrat between them and their retirement money. It certainly would benefit the company anyway. The company might end up forking over 1.8 million just to get the pension fund back in order.

 

Same goes for heathcare: I don't want a bureaucrat between myself and my doctor.

 

 

The SM maybe helping the pension funds, but what is killing them is the ZIRP, no interest and dividends to cover the pension payouts so it has to come out of capital gains. As the SM cycles up and down there is a steady draw down as the pension funds pay out the promised benies, and at the end of each cycle the fund has established a new low and is deeper in the hole on their long term obligations.

[cwd]

The Fog of Numbers

 

Now that Newsweek Magazine -- along with the mendacious cretins at CNBC -- have declared the "recession" officially over, it's a sure thing that we are entering the zone of greatest danger. Some foul odor rides the late summer wind, as of a rough beast slouching toward the US Treasury. The stock markets have gathered in the critical mass of suckers needed to flush all remaining hope out of the system. The foreign holders of US promissory notes are sharpening their long knives in the humid darkness. The suburban householders are watching sharks swim in their driveways. The REIT executives are getting ready to gargle with Gillette blue blades. The Goldman Sachs bonus babies are trying to imagine the good life in Paraguay or the archepelego of Tristan da Cunha.

 

Kunstler is a real word slinger.

 

 

He is a great wordsmith, but I believe his basic premise is correct, there are some big changes coming and they are not going to be pleasant for J6P.

[cwd]

What's to make your head explode? Propaganda techniques, expertly researched by special interest groups who can well afford the high cost of the research, are highly effective at persuading people to vote and demonstrate in ways that are totally opposite to their own best interests. Why does marketing/propaganda subconscious research cost so much? Because it's worth it.

 

Also, in this economy, lots of people need some extra money. I understand that a lot of these town hall meeting disrupters are paid to go to town hall meetings and shout out scripts that have been written for them by the medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries. It may be that a number of Medicare recipients are getting a little extra spending money to cover the rising cost of living, and the medical expenses that are not coverd by Medicare, by working at a Town Hall Meeting Shouter job. Rumor has it that this pays more than a Walmart Greeter job. Apparently some Congressional districts are short of unethical people though, so they have to hire people who don't even live in the district.

 

I know people going to the Tea parties around here, and they are not paid street people.

I know there is another group named after the seed of a tree that is well know for that kind of activity.

A lot are old folks stand to lose the most under Ocare. According to what I know about Ocare and what I observed about NHS when I lived in the UK, folks over 60 don't get the extraordinary care they receive in the US.

There are a lot of over 60 folks in this country who will die if they don't receive the care they are receiving now and they know that.

It is the duty of old folks to stay healthy until they are ready to die.

[Jetlag]

Fingers getting cut off isn't being sick by the way. It's trauma and it is where modern medicine shines. It's also where there are no questions asked, at least initially at the hospital especially the emergency room. In many many cases trauma is covered by liability insurance, worker, auto, etc. which bypasses the health insurance bureaucracy, which is dedicated to denying coverage.

 

I was just exaggerating one of the situations portrayed in Michael Moore's "Sicko". Moore has a tendency to go over the top, sometimes endangering the whole point he's trying to make.