There’s little doubt that one of the most persistent of the crises that we face is in health care. A Rand Corporation study recently concluded that 60% of the care delivered was substandard and that about 25% of the cost goes to administration. This problem is about to become even worse as people lose their jobs and the bennies that come with them.
Home » 2009 (Page 29)
Yearly Archives: 2009
Overhead or Head Count?
Roughly 11 million people are unemployed in the USofA, and there is every reason to believe that this will increase. Every month another 600k or so workers file for unemployment insurance. This figure doesn’t include those who do not have a full 40 hours of work each week but would like to – add them in, and the number might be twice as high. If this grows substantially, any discussion regarding this as a recession or depression will be academic. Stopping the job loss is likely to become the highest priority soon.
Underwrite and Under-Write
Anyone who doubts the potential for a Depression needs to read the newspaper. No, don’t bother with the front page or the business section – skip over to the part that matters. A quick glance at the ads taken out by retail stores shows an amazing number of deep sales, running 50 or even 75 percent off on everything. They’re doing this because the stores are unusually, unreasonably quiet. That’s the defining characteristic of any market failure, whether you’re looking at it from the strip mall or the Capitol Mall. It’s the unusual quiet that comes from everyone staring at each other, shrugging their shoulders.
Was it so Great?
President Obama has gotten his first bill through, an $825B package of tax breaks, local government aid, and unemployment extensions. They call it an “Economic Recovery” bill because the term “Stimulus” is a bit passé now. What’s clear about it, however, is that this bill is designed to do little more than avoid Depression and turn it into an ordinary Recession, no matter what they call it.
What’s in a name? A little, and a lot.
Renno!
In the city of Saint Paul, there are 2200 plus vacant homes, and the inspection staff at the city agree that they are probably counting about half of the total. That means about 4% of the units are vacant in the City overall, and a lot more expected to hit foreclosure. As bad as this is, I’m quite sure that Saint Paul has a better handle on this than most cities across the nation, and is far ahead of any suburb.
What does this mean for the future?
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 