The International Federation of Health Plans released its 2010 report today. (PDF here.) The good news is that the problem is clear: Americans pay too much for the same services. The bad news is (1) we’ve known that for years and (2) the factions who are gaining these excessive rents want to keep their sinecures. […]
Mark Thoma goes to something called the Business Ethics Blog for an economics thought-experiment: A Montreal accessories company has taken its policy of using no animal products beyond the rack and has forbidden its staff from eating meat and fish at work. A former employee says the policy violated her rights as a non-vegetarian…. It’s […]
Brad DeLong notes an experiment subject (as is the wont of the Obama Administration to date) to regulatory capture: In a surprising move, the Obama administration will extend special bonus payments meant to reward top-performing Medicare Advantage insurers to those that score only average ratings….The law says bonuses, which start in 2012, would go to […]
Floyd Norris discovers a mathematical impossibility: Asked to rank, on a scale of one (excellent) to five (poor), the ability of their board’s compensation committee to “effectively manage C.E.O. compensation, 83 percent of the directors chose one or two, and only 4 percent picked four or five. But asked, “In general, do you believe U.S. […]
Max Sawicky, on his Twitter feed, sends us to this classic piece from Donald Luskin Believe me, if we raise taxes on hedge-fund managers we’ll get fewer hedge-fund managers. Today, with lots of hedge-fund managers trading all the time and keeping markets efficient, stocks are at record highs around the globe and markets are deeper, […]
There’s a reason for this. After the (wholly justified, understated) bitterness of my last post, a moment of cheer: An old friend of mine is in the process of losing his job. Now, normally I wouldn’t celebrate anyone—let alone a friend—losing a job, but, you see, he sells medical insurance in Texas and Indiana. And […]
I doubt even the Internet’s self-appointed Chief Geithner Apologist will be foolish enough to stand by him after this piece of shite: Some people just don’t like movies with happy endings. How else to explain this week’s report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP)? Rather than […]
This is actually good news, since everything else the Fed has done has been to benefit the insolvent large banks. Still, I didn’t expect my post of three days ago to be such a perfect “negative indicator” so soon.
I have (vainly, I suspect, in both senses of the phrase), tried to start a meme on Twitter, #ifTimGeithnerrantheEmergencyRoom. “The defibrillator would only charge to 30 to prevent scarring; anything more and you’re on your own” probably isn’t winning friends or influencing people, but it does make me feel better. It also makes me look […]
Via Jonathan Turley, a real “it gets better” video: