by Linda Beale Linda Beale writes at ataxingmatter: Health Care Reform or a boondoggle for private insurers? The Baucus proposal for health care “reform” doesn’t include a public option. And the Senate Finance Committee voted this afternoon-by 15 to 8–to reject the Rockefeller proposal to add a public option “community choice health plan’. See Hershenson, […]

Robert Waldmann Angry Bear September 04 2009 Tell reluctant senators and representatives that, if they think their constituents don’t want any public insurance except for medicare and medicaid, then they can refuse to have it. Ezra Klein and Senator Maria Cantwell October 1 2009 EK Can they opt out? MC States can opt out. Senator […]

Robert Waldmann A proposed reform (already shelved) is to require banks to offer “plain vanilla” products. I am very confused about this proposal, so this is a semi bleg. I can’t see any possible benefit from the regulation (probably because I haven’t read the fine print of the draft bill). My thoughts after the jump. […]

rdan The PEW economic policy department task force report suggests we take a better look at other models of regulation, perhaps to Australia. In this short paper we look at the structure of international financial regulation in teh context of their response to the crisis in order to see what lessons there may be for […]

rdan Seeking Alpha’s Matthew Goldstein notes that the OCC is continuing the last decade of regulatory non-action. The OCC, in its quarterly derivatives report, routinely notes that the Big Four “have the resources needed to be able to operate this business in a safe and sound manner.” In other words, the biggest banks are best […]

Robert Waldmann It would be easy to pass a law that issuers of securities aren’t allowed to pay ratings agencies. One problem is that if purchasers of securities paid for ratings, the ratings would have to be their secret at least for a while. One might add a provision that ratings be made public after […]

Rick Perry famously declared that there was no recession in Texas, even though the only way they balanced the budget was through emergency funding. Rick Perry and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas appear not to talk with each other: Texas factory activity showed the first signs of bottoming out in September, according to the […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt How malpractice drives health care costs. This is a bullet point narrative, representing a long time line, but illustrates what happens to drive health care costs: Emergency physicians use x-rays to diagnose closed-head injuries and miss brain bleeds. The hospital and physicians are threatened or sued for malpractice. Word circulates […]

Robert Waldmann Neoconservatives have expressed sympathy for “intelligent design theory,” that is, creationism. This is well documented by Ronald Bailey’s article in “Reason on line.” Bailey discusses why neoconservatives might claim they don’t believe in evolution by natural selection even though there is no scientific basis for that view. update: link corrected thanks to VtCodger […]

Manufacturing evidence is apparently legal for prosecutors who then prosecute the case. This, at least, is the argument a couple of crooked prosecutors are making. Radley Balko is more optimistic than I am about prosecutors: If the Supreme Court…would essentially overturn Buckley and give prosecutors complete immunity, even when they conspire to convict an innocent […]