FIRE Dead?

[petertribo]

Re: FIRE Dead?

FIRE alive and more than well according to Sen Dick Durbin

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis "own" the U.S. Congress -- according to one of that institution's most powerful members -- demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

But there is more:

The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves:

Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...hip/index.html

Where is the Economics which analyses Rot and Corruption?

[don]

Re: FIRE Dead?

FIRE alive and more than well according to Sen Dick Durbin

But there is more:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...hip/index.html

Where is the Economics which analyzes Rot and Corruption?

When FIRE's domination of Washington is at all threatened, one of the first lines of its defense is the "What, let government run things" gambit. That only works for FIRE if FIRE is on the bridge of the ship of state. Closely akin to the IMF "we know better than your government" gambit as we asset strip your sorry ass for a loan. Is our government f**ked up? Undoubtedly. Is it a critical defense against oligarchic mayhem, if it can ever be fixed? I think so, senor.

[wayiwalk]

Re: FIRE Dead?

There are only three things that need to be done (and all 3 together must be done):

1) pass laws which allow a simple, "major medical" coverage plan in all states, and make the coverage a bit like term life insurance, to provide incentive for individuals and the insurers that offer it to take a "long term view"

2) allow companies to sell insurance in all markets across the US

3) eliminate the ability of companies/organizations/unions/gov't entities to offer medical coverage as a tax free benefit

The more gov't gets involved in a sector of the economy, the more costs go up. The more gov't spends (gives free money), the more costs for everyone (on average) go up.

Gov't regulations are one thing. People agree to abide by rules, and certainly regulations can result in safer services, or higher standards. Gov't rules are one way to achieve this (there are other ways, of course, such as professional organizations)

But gov't spending? Can anyone name 5 services that the gov't provides on the behalf of others who aren't paying that have seen a decrease in inflation adjusted prices?

The gov't has been spending on medicaid and medicare for decades now. Has that had no impact on prices for the rest of us?

I don't forsee any major changes by the present administration - the trial lawyers and mal practice insurers certainly don't want "change", do they???

[wayiwalk]

Re: FIRE Dead?

FIRE alive and more than well according to Sen Dick Durbin
Quote:

The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves: Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

But there is more:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...hip/index.html

Where is the Economics which analyses Rot and Corruption?

Gotta love it - my quick peruse of the quote and I initially read it:


"......a role held last year by former Tom Daschle inmate, Mark Patterson...."

I guess you can see the high regard I have for our gov't.

[Raz]

Re: FIRE Dead?

Let's see...

WWII turned out OK. The Cuyahoga River doesn't catch fire anymore. You can breath the air in Pittsburgh without a visit to the emergency room. Once endangered fisheries and wildlife are recovering in many parts of the U.S. The G.I. bill was a roaring success. The percentage of elderly eating cat food is way way down compared to pre-1930s. I rather enjoy being able to travel from DC to my hometown on Interstates in four hours instead of the eight+ it took when I was a kid. NASA seems to have accomplished rather a lot. NIH hands off an awful lot of useful proto-research to the for-profit sector too. Glass-Steagall and the other post-Depression reforms helped limit credit crises for almost 50 years - right up until they were repealed. Six year old kids aren't dying in coal mines of my home state these days. In fact, almost no one is dying in coal mines anymore. Until FDA was taken over by anti-regulation ideologues we had the privilege of not living as characters in an Upton Sinclair novel. Planes don't seem to crash into each other very often. Etc etc etc...

I just LOST a five paragraph, 750 word reply to your response to the points I brought up and the question I posed.
I'm simply too tired to do it all over again.

Here is the short version: you are confusing regulation with administration and operation. They are two VASTLY different things.

Comparing a nationalized health system or a national insurance company run by government employees to the Interstate Highway System (built by private contractors) or the G.I. Bill is ridiculous.

Perhaps my admission to being a Paleoconservative sent you on a mission of your own.

[Kcim67]

Re: FIRE Dead?

I just LOST a five paragraph, 750 word reply to your response to the points I brought up and the question I posed.
I'm simply too tired to do it all over again.

Here is the short version: you are confusing regulation with administration and operation. They are two VASTLY different things.

Comparing a nationalized health system or a national insurance company run by government employees to the Interstate Highway System (built by private contractors) or the G.I. Bill is ridiculous.

Perhaps my admission to being a Paleoconservative sent you on a mission of your own.

Undoubtedly as a Paleoconservative you feel that this mess you find yourself in is just down to those reckless fellow americans who just could not control their compulsive desire to make their Mark on the slavery papers and get out in the fields voluntarily!

There is no evidence of any "epidemic" of overspending - certainly nothing that could explain a 255% increase in the foreclosure rate, a 430% increase in the bankruptcy rolls, and a 570% increase in credit-card [COLOR=green ! important][COLOR=green ! important]debt[/COLOR][/COLOR]. A growing number of families are in terrible financial trouble, but despite the accusations, their frivolity is not to blame.

Americans are not straining under the back-breaking burden of financing their luxuries, but of their necessities.

A generation ago, the one-income family committed about 54% of its pay to the basics - housing, [COLOR=green ! important][COLOR=green ! important]health [COLOR=green ! important] insurance[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], transportation, and taxes. That is, the one-income family spent about half its income to make the "nut" - the basic expenses that must be paid even if someone gets sick or loses a job. Today, these basic expenses, including child care so that both parents can work, consume 75% of the family's combined income.

And what are those basic expenses that are now costing Americans so dearly? One is, of course, health care. With close to 50 million people now uninsured, for this population any medical expense much more serious than something that could have been handled by old-fashioned family doctors such as Marcus Welby, from the 1970s' ABC network drama, is going to lead to penury.

[Raz]

Re: FIRE Dead?

Undoubtedly as a Paleoconservative you feel that this mess you find yourself in is just down to those reckless fellow americans who just could not control their compulsive desire to make their Mark on the slavery papers and get out in the fields voluntarily!

There is no evidence of any "epidemic" of overspending - certainly nothing that could explain a 255% increase in the foreclosure rate, a 430% increase in the bankruptcy rolls, and a 570% increase in credit-card [COLOR=green ! important][COLOR=green ! important]debt[/color][/color]. A growing number of families are in terrible financial trouble, but despite the accusations, their frivolity is not to blame.

Americans are not straining under the back-breaking burden of financing their luxuries, but of their necessities.

A generation ago, the one-income family committed about 54% of its pay to the basics - housing, [COLOR=green ! important][COLOR=green ! important]health [COLOR=green ! important] insurance[/color][/color][/color], transportation, and taxes. That is, the one-income family spent about half its income to make the "nut" - the basic expenses that must be paid even if someone gets sick or loses a job. Today, these basic expenses, including child care so that both parents can work, consume 75% of the family's combined income.

And what are those basic expenses that are now costing Americans so dearly? One is, of course, health care. With close to 50 million people now uninsured, for this population any medical expense much more serious than something that could have been handled by old-fashioned family doctors such as Marcus Welby, from the 1970s' ABC network drama, is going to lead to penury.

First thing, take a DEEP breath, calm yourself down, then see if you can organize your thoughts into logical, concatenated sentences so that I can understand what you are trying to convey. Foaming, frothing, emotional outbursts might make sense to you, but they are jibberish to me.

Secondly, I don't find myself in ANY mess of any kind, because I (1) never borrowed money for things I couldn't afford - I lived in an apartment for fourteen (14) years saving money to buy a house; (2) never bought into the idea that anyone owed me "free" health care, or "affordable housing" or a "college education" or any of the other bullcrap that your countrymen bought hook, line, and sinker from Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, Michael Foot, and the rest of the socialist idiots who bankrupted your country long, long ago (and thanks to these same "tax and spend, spend and elect" leftists, the "Entitlements" they established in the 1960s and quintripled during the 1970s and 1980s have greatly contributed to the bankruptcy of my country as well; NeoCon fools like George W. Dumbass added a senseless war, erasable borders, and furthered a disasterous trade policy to finally bring the catastrophic cocktail together).

Thirdly, have you lived in the United States? If so, for how long?
If not, then how do YOU know how Americans have or have not lived beyond their means, elected and re-elected the morons who have wrecked much of our public school system, and on and on and so on and so forth. Having never lived in the UK I would not presume to tell you who ruined the present British economy. (History shows who ruined it from the 1950s through the 1970s.) If it is anything like here, then it was a joint effort stimulated by the passion of greed from bankers, corporate CEOs, labor unions (they are mostly to blame for the ruin of the American Auto Industry), self-serving, neocriminal politicians from both major political parties, and the naturally occuring human tendency to desire more than what we legitimately have.

And lastly, what's the "slavery papers" about?

You might want to check your blood pressure - or lay off the Guinness.

[flintlock]

Re: FIRE Dead?

As long as the party paying for medical service is different than the party demanding it or providing it costs will continue to climb.

Somewhere along the line Americans have forgotten that 'nsurance is for expensive and rare events. Not to spread the price of annual checkups over 12 months or get free MRIs when you have the sniffles.

I pay about $30 a month in health premiums because my deductible is $1000, like insurance was meant to be. However, Aetna is so scared of me getting sick they give me 2 doctors visits and 1 dentist visit a year for free. If you assume those are about $100 a pop then I pay $60 a year for health coverage.


I remember the 1990s arguments for and against hillary-care. Remember the beef people had about HMOs not covering *potential* life saving procedures because the cost/benefit didn't work out? A single payer system would be so much worse because everyone will have to be averaged together.

I'll be happy to determine the cost and fork over the cash for my own life, thank you.

$30 month! What are you, a kid? I have a $10,000 deductible and still pay over $500 month for my family! Wait until you are older, I think you'll be singing a different tune about health care costs. I agree people have come to expect too much from health insurance, but there's a lot more problems with health care than that. A lot of people who get insurance through their job have no idea what insurance really costs. Perhaps that's why your premium is so low? $30 month doesn't seem like a full premium to me. I think I paid $60 month back in the 80s when I was in my 20s! $30 month sounds more like an extended warranty on a TV.

Most people I hear against ANY health reform are either very young, never needed serious health care, have great coverage paid by an employer, or are simply wealthy enough it's not a major expense. I'm not sure what form it should take, I just know what we have now sucks. I think someone mentioned above, its bankrupting people. Even people who thought they were covered and had saved for retirement. The costs of a serious illness are staggering.

Doctors are now introducing concierge service, where they charge a large yearly upfront fee to actually treat you the way doctors used to treat you, like an individual. That's because they are tired of seeing 60 patients a day for the fees Medicare pays. So anyone who is young now is crazy to think they'll have any decent doctors left if they are relying on medicare to take care of them in 30+ years. Something has to change. We have to make the system more efficient and put more dollars towards actual health care and less towards the red tape.

[Raz]

Re: FIRE Dead?

GRG55 wrote: "The politics of health care causes a lot of people to call the Canadian single payer system "socialized medicine".

The provincial health care systems up here provide a basic level of health care services, and there are national "rules" under the Federal Canada Health Act. The doctors get paid from the single payer system, so there is no issue about whether the patient "can pay", or whether the insurance company is going to dispute the fees. In addition we don't have quite the same level of malpractice related nonsense that the legal system has created in the USA, and that adds so much cost to health care there.

The Canadian system doesn't completely cut out the insurance companies. Large numbers of employers here provide benefit plans with supplemental coverage for things that are not covered by the provincial plans, including dental care, eye care, and that sort of thing. These plans are administered on contract by insurance companies. In addition there's private supplemental service insurance that any citizen can buy. I travel a lot, sometimes to rather remote and difficult places [God had a sense of humour when she decided where to put the oil...just about every hell hole on earth] so I carry a private plan that gives me comprehensive coverage anywhere in the world [the provincial health care plans do not cover you if you are out of province, so even a trip to the USA or Mexico means that most Canadians buy travel insurance health coverage from a private insurance company].

The Canadian system is far from perfect, but I think any effort to truly improve the insanely expensive US health care system needs to objectively look at the systems in other jurisdictions like Canada, France and elsewhere to see what can be learned. We'll see if the politics down there allows that..."

Hello, GRG55,

If you say we should take a look at alternatives then I'm willing to listen.
I've long considered you to be one of the most well informed and reasonable people on this forum, and I do believe that we have a real problem with our health care system in the States. I trust the free market more than ANY government, but when your child is sick, or you are bleeding from an automobile wreck you can't "shop around". Thanks to the greed of many in the medical industry together with the unreasonable expectations fostered by our government we have a system with costs which are almost out of control. I agree that changes are needed.

A question: why do a lot of Canadians seek medical treatment here in the United States? Is it because of the rationing of care leading to unacceptable delays in treatment?

[snakela]

Re: FIRE Dead?

$30 month! What are you, a kid? I have a $10,000 deductible and still pay over $500 month for my family! Wait until you are older, I think you'll be singing a different tune about health care costs. I agree people have come to expect too much from health insurance, but there's a lot more problems with health care than that. A lot of people who get insurance through their job have no idea what insurance really costs. Perhaps that's why your premium is so low? $30 month doesn't seem like a full premium to me. I think I paid $60 month back in the 80s when I was in my 20s! $30 month sounds more like an extended warranty on a TV.

Most people I hear against ANY health reform are either very young, never needed serious health care, have great coverage paid by an employer, or are simply wealthy enough it's not a major expense. I'm not sure what form it should take, I just know what we have now sucks. I think someone mentioned above, its bankrupting people. Even people who thought they were covered and had saved for retirement. The costs of a serious illness are staggering.

Doctors are now introducing concierge service, where they charge a large yearly upfront fee to actually treat you the way doctors used to treat you, like an individual. That's because they are tired of seeing 60 patients a day for the fees Medicare pays. So anyone who is young now is crazy to think they'll have any decent doctors left if they are relying on medicare to take care of them in 30+ years. Something has to change. We have to make the system more efficient and put more dollars towards actual health care and less towards the red tape.

Technically I kick in $60 but $30 is put into an HSA along with another $200 or so I put in there on my own. I'm fairly young, so a high deductible plan makes sense for me. Whats crazy is, after I use the deductible and have to put in the 10% copay my max out of pocket expense per year is only $1000 than it was on the standard plan I had before for $120 or so a month. Thats what tells me a lot of the cost is small, regular stuff. Its different state to state and all that has an effect as well.

[Munger]

Re: FIRE Dead?

Have any of you ever seen the US Government run ANYTHING efficiently?

Nasa back in the day. Manhatten project. Military in general in the past. Etc.

[jwonks]

Re: FIRE Dead?

i the va health system is also run relatively well [at least in the last several years] with low administrative costs.

My anecdotal evidence is that although they may be run well administratively, the va's actual medical care (doctors) is of low quality. My va grandfathers over the years have been repeatedly misdiagnosed and have been told "everything is ok" only to be rushed immediately to surgery by private doctors after seeking second opinions from outside the va system. We're talking blatant incompetence or ignorance.

[wayiwalk]

Re: FIRE Dead?

I just LOST a five paragraph, 750 word reply to your response to the points I brought up and the question I posed.
I'm simply too tired to do it all over again.

Here is the short version: you are confusing regulation with administration and operation. They are two VASTLY different things.

Comparing a nationalized health system or a national insurance company run by government employees to the Interstate Highway System (built by private contractors) or the G.I. Bill is ridiculous.

Perhaps my admission to being a Paleoconservative sent you on a mission of your own.

Well - you did sum up the key points pretty well.

Where I work, at an environmental consulting firm, there are many individuals that would clearly be in support of much more gov't ownership of private corporations, as well as the gov't instituting price controls in industries with spiraling costs (health care!), and I like to remind them that along with being a firm with a very high regard for the high quality work we do - we're not cheap, and ask how they'd like to take a 25% haircut on their salary so our rates would be more like "the little guys". Seems fair enough, we do a good handful of work for the government - they have every right to step in and tell us what we should charge :eek:.

I'm still waiting to hear their response when the haircut is on THEIR head. ;)

[Slimprofits]

Re: FIRE Dead?

FIRE Dead? Here is President Obama's response:

"We’re going to have to figure out what we do with the nonbanking sector that was providing almost half of our credit out there...I’m optimistic that ultimately we’re going to be able to get that part of the financial sector going again."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/ma...pagewanted=all

After the Great Recession
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: April 28, 2009

On April 14, President Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University, trying to explain why he was taking on so many economic issues so early in his administration....Later that afternoon (shortly before the Obama family introduced its new dog, Bo, on the South Lawn of the White House), I sat down with the president to talk about how his agenda might change daily life in this country.

[..]

And so I wonder if you would be willing to describe a little bit of your learning curve about finance, and what you envision finance being in tomorrow’s economy: Does it need to be smaller? Will it inevitably be smaller?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I think that we should distinguish between finance as the lifeblood of our economy and finance as a significant industry where we have a comparative advantage — right? So in terms of just growing our economy, we’ve got to have enough credit out there to fund businesses, large and small, to allow consumers the flexibility to make long-term purchases like cars or homes. So that’s not going to change. And I would be concerned if our credit market shrunk in ways that did not allow for the financing of long-term growth.

What that means is not only do we have to have a healthy banking sector, but we’re going to have to figure out what we do with the nonbanking sector that was providing almost half of our credit out there. And we’re going to have to determine whether or not as a consequence of some of the steps that the Fed has been taking, the Treasury has been taking, that we see the market for securitized products restored.

I’m optimistic that ultimately we’re going to be able to get that part of the financial sector going again, but it could take some time to regain confidence and trust.

[wayiwalk]

Re: FIRE Dead?

Nasa back in the day. Manhatten project. Military in general in the past. Etc.

Not NASA, not back in the day, if back in the day meant the days of the space race when we landed on the moon.

It was the private contractors that put us on the moon, and got us back. NASA is just the gov't agency that's still in business and around to take credit.

I used to work at an aerospace company, and knew many of the engineers responsible for designing the vehicle that landed on the moon. No offense to anyone associated with NASA - but they would NEVER have achieved that amazing engineering achievement. NEVER. I learned from these guys first hand that NASA back in the day were mostly beaurocrats, more than truly gifted engineers, which is what it took to pull it off. And as a side note - I'm not sure we raise the same type of men that populate and lead those type of corporations anymore. Software? Beta version, we'll fix it next time around? Going to the moon meant getting everything right the first time.

Take note that as the NASA beaurocracy grew during the 70's, the product they oversaw was the development and use of the space shuttle. Two massive failures of the space shuttle are not what I'd consider worthy of being competent "back in the day".

And a postscript. A fellow coworker, now with the FAA, says that NASA made a visit back to the records library of that same private aerospace company recently, to study documents describing the design process, the designs, etc that got us to the moon. Apparently the gov't lost all of their copies of these documents and they wanted to try to figure out how it was done....good thing the Navy made sure all of these records were kept.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to have worked with such people in such an organization - because as a result I know the difference between what the gov't can and should do, and what they should never try to do.

And don't let me get started talking about my wife's experience as a former EPA employee - the stories she used to tell.....

Manhattan project was a pretty unique undertaking, but I'll agree that was certainly a tremendous achievement.

I'd actually suggest that our volunteer army of today is the pinnacle of such achievements of what a gov't can do when it does it well. Friends in the reserve truly understand the meaning of "civic duty", something I wish our pols had just a fraction of a notion of.