The 6 Pack Economist

I am sorry for the delays in posting but my life recently has gotten very busy. It should all calm down in a week or so. In addition I have been working on my own theme for the website.
I know that this is disappointing to the 8 of you. I will be back in a week or so.

Does anyone think that the government not accepting the money back from TARP a good idea?

I am against this on so many levels.  How can anyone who is not a total communist think that this is good idea.  If you were against the bailout to begin with how could you not want them to give the money back?  If you were for the bailout (and not a communist) of course this would be a sign that the banks are doing just fine and the crisis has passed. 

I initial thought that they way we would see government control more and more of our lives and economics was through a more soft style power like carbon credits.  But it now seems that they want something more direct.  And how else could you control things more completely then by actually controling the money. 

The primary reason for the mess we are in was because of the government directly jamming loan requirements down the throut of the banks and by allowing Fannie and Freddie to buy crappy mortgages and take on excessive risk because the government would come to the rescue.  All of the other crap about secruitzation of debt and repackaging loans would not have been possible without Fannie artificially taking more risk then would normally be acceptable.  And no one in the government would stop it.

Does anyone really think this is a good idea?  And who else is really scared of this?

I hate this crap.  It is freaking war not a damn sport played on the weekends. 

Did this guy not get the memo about the fact that in war you are trying to kill people.  You may try to not kill too many but in the end war is intended to brutal, harsh, and not something taken lightly. 

Why don’t they just outlaw bullets too?  Oh thats right when it comes down to it ,War is War and when faced with defeat all weapons will be used.  Making war more friendly just makes more war.  Keep War dirty, disgusting, and brutal lest we become too fond of it.

With all the discussions about the changes to the healthcare industry in the United States I figured I should put my two cents in.  Not  to mention with the way the dollars been going you’re better off using your pennies as projectiles thrown at the car in front of you that is too slow at the green light, then using them to actually purchase something.  Back to the point, which is how I see the new healthcare system shaping up. 

First and foremost I do not believe the private system is going anywhere.  Simply put there is far too much money in it.  In addition don’t forget that everyone with socialized medicine needs the USA’s private system for when things need to get done and it’s not an emergency situation.  Given that we are not going to get rid of the private system lets discuss the options.  The private system is there to make money.  Never forget that one fact.  The private insurance industry tries to insure people that it thinks will not cost them more then the premiums the people pay.   When someone has obvious aliments that will cost the insurance company more money than they can make in premiums it will not insure the person.  It is simply bad business.  I don’t blame them per say given that they are in the business to make money.

If a strictly government run system were to replace the current hodgepodge of private and public insurance with a strict government only system it will be a disaster.  The reason being is that the government run system will not start to fail till long after it was too late.  It will fail for the same reasons the rest of the government programs in this country eventually fail.  It will be run into the ground by a series of political appointees, unions, lobbyists and lawyers.  It will start off all well and good but in ten years it will start to show its strain.

Where does that leave us?  How can the two systems be combined to satisfy everyone?  Or at least long enough to function till artificial intelligences takes over our decision making for us all ( I for one welcome our future robot masters  and hope they enjoy my sarcastic humor).  I am usually a very pro-business kind of person and I am still pro-business when it comes to the healthcare industry, but something has to be done about the coverage given to high risk and those with prior conditions.  Those with high-risk conditions and/or prior conditions are almost impossible to insure and still be profitable.  The price to be paid would simply be too high for the person to pay.  What if the government plan would take care of this high risk pool? 

I am going to go out on a limb and say that the end result system will be something similar to the mortgage industry.  Purely private companies will handle the gravy of the healthcare industry.   This means that the industry will cover those they think will not actually need the healthcare.  After all they are betting that you will use less healthcare resources then you pay for each year.  The government program will then take care of the high risk people or at least handle the high risk portion of their care. 

The system will be able to leverage the existing infrastructure and allow for most the private insurance companies to slowly fade out of existence over the next twenty or so years.  This will primarily happen as each election will bring in a new politician who will promise to have the government funded system take on more and more of what was provided by the private companies.  The private insurance companies will react as most private business react, they will allow the government to keep nibbling at the services they offer, till one day before they know it, the private companies will have no use. 

I have one other way that this will go down too.  This is the more cynical approach but given the intelligence of those running the whole darn thing it seems just as likely to happen.  The politicians will create the healthy mae and pharma mac (HMPM) almost private not quite public either corporation.  But unlike the above mentioned scenario, HMPM will not be a retail service.  They instead will be a sort of re-insurer.  They will be the dump where the private insurance companies put the people they cannot make any money from.  In the first go round the system will work very well as common sense rules will apply.  HMPM will evaluate the people and do the right thing by taking only calculated risks.  But soon the pseudo private nature of the company will come through.

HMPM will have their CEOs make their bonuses not on the smart decision making of their auditors, the bonuses will be based on just how many people they “insure”.  The politicians will be paid a portion of the bonuses via campaign donations till soon every basket case the private insurance can find will be on the HMPM roles.  They will agree to insure them with sole express knowledge that they will dish the person off on HMPM. We all see where this going right?  The private companies will just dump and dump and dump till it all just collapses.  This should be just about in time for me to retire. 

This system should last long enough for either me to die or for our computers to treat like little pets.  Personally they way my dog spends her days are pretty damn good.  Sit down, lift a paw and get a treat.  I might even be able to do better than that.  With all this crap going on, smoking seems like a pretty good habit to pickup.  It could solve the social security problem.

Deep inside the stimulus bill was a series of rules and regulations relating to healthcare records.  I highly suggest you read this link about the healthcare record system.  Did you read it yet?  Seriously just read the article. 

Ok now that you are back and hopefully you are scared.  If you are not scared then you did not read the article.  The stimulus package has essentially setup a great big database to keep track of your health records.  The basic idea is pretty noble.  Unfortunately it will not stay that way.

Let’s start off with the comedic result of this debacle since laughter is still not tracked. 

Heather recognizes her husband is having a heart-attack and calls 911.  Lucky for her she called during regular business hours so someone picked up.  Unfortunately she was directed to the non-heart related emergencies and had to call back.  When she called back it turned out that it was during a mandatory break period.  Heather gave up and dragged her husband into the back of the car.

Heather arrives at the Barney Frank memorial hospital but she cannot find a parking place.  She double parks and drags her husband to the emergency room.  With her husband in her arms she goes to the nurse’s station.  There are four people ahead of her.  Two have what looks like broken limbs of some sort, another has a bloody rag on his head, and one other is hacking away. 

After 10 minutes she moves to the front of the line to let the nurse know that this is an emergency.  The nurse responds that she is helping another patient.  But the nurse’s four inch long neon colored nails are preventing her from efficiently punching in the current patients name and address.  Heather drags her husband back to the end of the line again.

Forty minutes later she reaches the front of the line.  Shortly after explaining the symptoms her husband has the nurse tells Heather that she is in the wrong line.  The line for heart related emergencies is down the hall and to the left.  Heather exhausted by this point can barely explain the symptoms to the nurse at the heart related emergency counter.  Mid way through the explanation the nurse informs Heather that it is time for her break and walks away.  A new nurse sits down but the new nurse informs heather that she does not have the proper paper work for this emergency and proceeds to call a supervisor. 

The supervisor comes over to try and help out.  In between taking bites out of his ham and cheese sandwich he punches a few numbers into the computer and then allows heather to drag her husband to a bed. 

The doctor comes over to see her husband.  Heather believing her husband is only unconscious is relieved to see a doctor.  The doctor lifts up the husband’s wrist, pronounces him dead and walks out the room.   Heather in a fit rage screams at the doctor but he keeps walking away only the words “security please” are heard. 

Heather is thrown on the curb.  She is crying and gasping and sees her car is now being towed away.  In shock she has a heart-attack.   She is dead too.

Ok it is not that funny unless you have a dark, dry, and sarcastic humor like me.  In all seriousness I don’t think the system will break down like this quickly.  Instead it will take years for it to happen but gradually it will break down.  If you are one of the truly rich I would not worry as you will still be able to get care.  It is everyone else that will get screwed. 

I get a little shaky when governments start going after bloggers, especially when it’s a supposedly free government like south korea.  This guy apparently made is name by posting bad news.  Let me start by saying I don’t know what this guy actually wrote or if he played some type of stock manipulation game but it is still scary.

More people are starting to recognize that an economy is 50% psychological.  If you feel good you spend money with allows someone else to spend money and the cycle goes on.  So what if governments in an attempt to control their own economy make it illegal to post bad stories about the economy?   

I enjoy reading conspiracy theories because they tend to be such cool stories and when they are read as stories people can keep their heads.  But this batshit story truly boggles the mind.  So I am to believe the CIA made a copy of Bin Laden so the war could continue?  Do I think they are that evil, sure but they are not that competent.  Seriously they are more concerned about the FBI getting credit for a bust then actually doing a bust. I believe that this will become a recurring theme.  BatShit links.

In the ongoing conspiracy theory segment I bring you another one.  Although this one I thought of on my own.  It is about global warming or climate change depending on their current predictions.  As with all conspiracy theories I would read this as a good story and not as an authoritarian piece on what is actually going on.  I personally believe that most conspiracy theories are too complex to work.

In any type of political movement I always try to look at whole will gain and what they will gain. What confused me for a long time was that it seemed that the climate change produced no-gainers.  Sure some people were able to get on a stage and preach to use how bad we are and such, but no one seemed to gain anything from these proposals.  I eventually figured it out that it was not monetary gain but a gain in power.

The capitalist model depends on a goods and services being exchanged and valued by the market participants.  In order to either create goods or perform a service there is a need for energy.  This can be in the form of burning oil, wind, or just eating a burger.  What all transactions boil down to is an exchange of energy.  It is all most like another form of E=MC2 but for economics. 

Now that we have established that capitalism requires “energy” to function (all economic systems depend on energy it’s just that capitalism depends on more of it).  We can start to see what kind of power one can have if they were able to ration energy.  Control the flow of energy by rations, carbon credits, etc. and one could essentially control the world. 

We have the “what” and “why” all we need now is the “how”.  I remember reading sometime around 2002ish that a few scientists were predicting a drop in global temps by 2010 even if we do nothing about carbon output. (I am sorry I can’t find the link any more)  Well if you haven’t noticed global temperatures have been coming down. The reasons for this seem to primarily be La Nina or the cycle of the Sun.  I am one of those crazy people who believe our climate has more to do with the massive fireball in the sky then anything we (humans) can do short of or nuclear war. 

I have still not yet gotten into the “how”. I just established that there were scientists predicting a drop in global temperatures towards the end of first decade of this century.  So let us pretend that Kyoto was implemented or that people in general took Climate Change serious, and we all did our part to reduce our carbon footprint.  Seven years later the global temperatures had began to show an effect.  This would have successfully created a sense of cause and effect.  We reduced carbon output and the temperatures decreased therefore we can control the global temperature by regulating carbon output. 

Perhaps those who desire to rule the world realized that temps were going to cycle anyway, but if they could implement something to make it seem like an action they did or were in charge of caused the change, then they would gain power.   Almost like a mystic or high priest who understood the solar cycle could gain power by predicting the change of season.  “Send me your most beautiful virgins and I will make summer come”

Of course what did happen was we as a species basically said “that carbon stuff seems like it could be bad, I am going to drive my Hummer to a meeting about it”.   We gave lip-service to the environmentalists concerns and went on increasing carbon output and then the temps decreased. 

In closing my conspiracy theory is as follows:  The powerful are using the climate change groups to control the availability of energy and thereby control the method of commerce.  Once they control the primary engine of commerce it will enable them to control all that occurs on a macro-level on the planet.

P.S.  Remember all posts in the conspiracy theory section should be taken with a large dash of salt or sugar.  Most are just a crazy idea I came up with while walking somewhere.

I think that what will eventually kill capitalism is these moron CEOs.  Capitalism depends on that the people who are rewarded, are also to take the risk.  But the latest issues with these CEOs who have golden parachutes have thrown the whole system to the wolves.

 I have no problem with the money they were paid per se, what I have a problem with is the amount of money they made with little to no risk.  They screwup and are forced to resign, the company is in ruins and they walk away with a multi-million dollar severance package.  That’s like walking into your neightbors house and throwing your feces on the wall and charging them for painting their house.

 This type of compensation for failure just pisses a lot of people who then vote in a socialist who say that they will take care of everything and tax the rich.  PS taxing the rich never really works.  They tax them which just trickles down to the person who put the socialist in office to begin with.  Which in turn brings more taxes on you etc….  I have whole posts on this crap.

 I would love for these guys to be hung out to dry.  Lets be honest most of these guys are not that smart anyway.  They really do not have some grand talent that makes them really deserve this kind of money. Then again they are not that stupid either they were able to set themselves up in such a way that if they succeed they make money and if they fail they make money and get a vacation.  I guess in the end they are smarter then I am.

 How to solve the problem?  I don’t know.  But rewards for failure should not be part of it.  I think the top salary should be limited.  I know it sounds socialist but the guaranteed pay should be limited.  Everything else should be bonuses.  With something nominal for becoming disabled or whatever, but the principle is simple.  Do good get stuff, do bad don’t get stuff.

 There should also be rewards for post retirement kind of like a five year bonus plan.  One bonus for yearly achievement and then more bonuses for two, three, four, and five year achievement.  This way short term actions that kill the company long run will not be undertaken.  It could be a dividend based system or some other method. 

 Think about it this way.  You go into your neighbor’s house (your neighbor had some bad luck).  You promise to make your neighbor more money this year then your neighbor made last year. They agree (we are going to pretend they really don’t know you too well).  Afterwards you sell everything they have including the house.  Take your 50% cut and leave them with the shirts on their back.  You on the other hand get to walk away with your 50% cut. At the end of the year they have more money but the next year does not seem too good for them.

 The only real punishment for these crooks is to empty their bank accounts and sell their assets.  Then force them to live off a janitor’s salary for 5 years with no-contact of their former business associates.  Then again their business associates are the same people giving out the punishment so fat chance there (Politicians are cheap). 

So my alienware computer is now a paper weight in addition I have a feeling my 160gb Ipod is also a paper weight.  So 2600 plus 400 is 3000 thrown down the toilet. 

 I guess I should have stuck with my philosophy on computers get just what you need and throw it out in 3 years when nothing will run on it.  But I thought that for once I will go and get something really really nice.  I play games a lot and most are of the strategy variety and do not really push the graphics too much so I figured that if get something really good now if should last me about 5 years.  In which case the investment would have paid off. Well the first time I really spend money on a piece of electronics it dies in two years.  I did not buy the extended warrenty since I never really had hardware problems that either did not show up in the first year or did not give me trouble till I was ready to replace the thing anyway. 

 So the great alienware turns out to be an overheating piece of junk.  Sure it was able to max out every game I had but now it’s a paper weight because the mother board is shot.  I would buy another motherboard and replace it (it’s a laptop) but these bastards don’t sell them to the regular public.  I have to send it in.   So I am out like 500 bucks and a computer for a month.  And if their message board is any indication of quality of work it will happen again or they will mis-diagnosis the problem.

 As for the ipod I am not sure what is wrong.  I tried to sync it up after a month of not syncing it up and it just froze.  The screen is on but nothing happens.  Will wonders never cease.  And yes I played with the lock and unlock button.  But wonderful apple does not allow anyone to have access to a failsafe on/off button so that is all I can do.

 So I guess I could sell designer Paper Weights on Ebay.