Explaining Economics one 6 Pack at a time.


  • Tag Archives government

  • Healthy Mae and Pharma Mac

    Posted on March 25, 2009 by drinker

    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.

    This entry was posted in Conspiracy Theories, Politics and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • And the corruption begins

    Posted on March 19, 2009 by drinker

    Ok its not like corruption ever stopped, its just has  a lot more to feed it now.  And larges pots of money feeds corruption.  I knew the stimulus would attract the flies like a pile of dog crap. 

    I look at obama and his crew and see a typical academic arrogance with the stimulus bill and the extra spending bills.  Arrogance may be too strong of word but what I mean is they seem to think that while other governments have failed to spend the money properly they will succeed.  They are making a very good go at it with the media.  The speechs about holding people accountable for where the money gets  spent are all well and good but it won’t get spent correctly.  And I can’t think of anyone who really did a good job of spending our money. 

    But what will happen is that after about a year the bulk of the spending money will begin to hit the local governments and by that time americas attention will be on the next great thing.  Perhaps the budding adult movie career of Britney Spears will captivate us at that point I don’t know.  Part of me thinks the reason for so much of the stimulus money being spent so long after it was signed may be because by then (a year from now) they will be able to do as they please with it.

    I need another beer.

    This entry was posted in Economics, Politics and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • And they overplayed their hand

    Posted on March 17, 2009 by drinker

    I want to say I am sorry to the 8 of you how read this.  I deprived you with my wisdom for a week.  I am sure you are all very sad.  Unfortunately for me, your sad because I decided to write again.

    In today’s post I want to talk about government overplaying their hand with their bailout money and thank god they did.  In this story about the strings the government attached to the bailout money the banks have basically balked at taking the money or they are trying to give it back.  In classic government fashion everyone tried to get their little social engineering or pet project task on the strings of the bail out money.  I am very thankful for that.

    In general am not a big fan of large government.  The primary reason is that the government is incompetent.  Like the old saying about those that can’t do something, teach it.  Well those who can’t work, go to the government.  And of course my disclaimer about some people at the government actually trying to do the right thing.  That being said I love to limit the governments power.  By returning the money and overall telling the government bureaucrats to stay out their business they are limiting the governments power.  Which I think is great.  In addition it is less of my money going to people who are incompetent (If you needed this money then you were incompetent).

    Here’s to the government continuing to overplay their hand.

    This entry was posted in Economics, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Drinking to forget your broke

    Posted on February 19, 2009 by drinker

    When they came for cigarettes,  I did not speak up
    When they came for porn, I did not speak up
    When they came for my beer, I was freaking too drunk to speak anyway.

    There is nothing like slaughtering the golden goose.  Oregon wants to raise the tax on a barrel of beer by  about 1900% or something like 2.50 a barrel to upwards of 50.00 a barrel.  If you don’t know a barrel of beer is about 31 gallons or two kegs.  In Pennsylvania a keg will run you about 60 bucks for something descent.  So if this was happening in Pennsylvania it would be an additional 25 bucks or almost a 50% surcharge in the price of keg of beer.  You can decide if you think that this is too much, but for me I think it is just a money grab.

    You know that I could not preach about something after this but here goes.  Taxes should never have to increase if they are based on a percentage of something.  By something I mean income, stamps, tea, or beer.  In other words if taxes are taken as a percentage of the cost of something then they will automatically adjust with inflation. 

    Unfortunately taxes are taken by a group of people who are not held accountable.  Go over budget and the next year you get more money.  Do poorly with the money you have, just ask for more.  Achieve goals and do it for less then you thought, then you lose your budget to someone who did poorly.  This is why taxes never really go down. 

    What really sucks is that for you in Oregon, crying in your beer will cost you a lot more.  Oh and they want to raise the taxes on your cigarettes too.

    This entry was posted in Beer Reviews, Economics, Politics, Random Thoughts for the Day and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Healthcare from the people who brought you the DMV

    Posted on February 10, 2009 by drinker

    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. 

    This entry was posted in Conspiracy Theories, Economics, Politics and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Riots of the Financial Crisis

    Posted on February 3, 2009 by drinker

    So there seems to be a bunch riots going on over the finincial crisis.  Many of the acts of protest seem to be strikes or work stoppages.  Given that the businesses and factories are dealing with a surplus of product this is a good thing for them.  After all the plant does not have to pay people who are not working. 

    This ends up being counter productive for the people actually performing the strike since they are not earning money and with the surplus of goods decreasing the price of the goods will stay steady.  Unless of course the whole damn system collapses and at that point who cares.

    This entry was posted in Economics, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • O’Rourke Had It Wrong. The Legislators bought the banks.

    Posted on January 23, 2009 by drinker

    P.J. O’Rourke said “When the legislature controls what is bought and sold the first thing that is bought and sold is legislators”.  Well as it turns he was wrong.  Who knew that is was the legislators who would be doing the buying of the businesses?

     I am going to explain how this could work out for the better before I tell you how it will actually work.  The government buys large amounts preferred stocks and can start guiding the bank on the right path. The banks will be required to hold the top executives responsible and start making good solid lending decisions.  The economy would start to pick up and they banks would be profitable.  The banks are able to return a dividend and the stock price goes up.  The economy now on its way to recovery the government can now sell its share of the company and use that money toward paying down the deficit (hopefully no new spending, but this is the positive part of the piece so let us assume that).   

     Unfortunately the preceding paragraph has as much to do with reality as my dreams of winning the lottery, moving to the Caribbean with a sail boat and being known as the drunken American sailor.  What will happen is this; the government will start off making good decisions for the bank.  Much like the preceding scenario where lending is restored and top executives can’t pillage the banks coffers; these actions will get the economy moving.  Once people have moved on to a new dog and pony show the rats will show up. 

     The return of the rats will mean business as usual.  These banks will be used as leverage between legislators to get pet projects financed in the legislators’ respective districts and to get deals for their own private homes.  Employment from the mailroom to the boardroom will become a patronage bonanza.  The legislators unwilling to give up control of this grand candy machine will not, I repeat will not sell their preferred shares. 

     The banks being essentially a department of the DMV will stop making smart business moves; instead they will devolve into a fat tub of immovable flesh. The banks will be so dependent on government money they will no longer be able to function on their own.  The patronage jobs and pet projects will have bloated the bank’s own accounting records so much that legitimate loans will be squeezed out.  They will know their master and their master is some legislator who will be voted into office again and again not because of his actions destroying a bank, which will be too hard to explain in a sound bite campaign, but because of his stance on some other issue that the legislators will not change anyway.

     The only thing left to do at this point is to get a large loan from a non-nationalized bank and then use that money to give to a legislator’s campaign.  Then the legislator can get you a big paying job at the bank.  While at the bank you can make a bid to buy the bank you got your original loan from and then lose the paperwork for your loan in the merger.

     Toast your next good beer to taking advantage of government corruption.

    This entry was posted in Economics, Politics and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Do not write bad news

    Posted on January 22, 2009 by drinker

    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?   

    This entry was posted in Conspiracy Theories and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.



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