Financial News

[StrangeSox]

Oh, so now you're in favor of the government cutting the bills that it pays to doctors and hospitals? Gosh, where have I been attacked repeatedly over that.

 

I think the argument might be cutting the government program all together.

[Balta1701]

I think the argument might be cutting the government program all together.

I really hope more people in the campaign this fall take up that mantra.

[StrangeSox]

I really hope more people in the campaign this fall take up that mantra.

 

Honestly, you're bolstering kap's point here. So many of these programs have become untouchable in our political landscape, but so has raising taxes. Just look at what's happened with Cali's ridiculous prop system. Unfunded mandate after unfunded mandate.

[Y2HH]

I think the argument might be cutting the government program all together.

 

The problem is, for me, is that there is no fair value pricing available.

 

When you go to a car dealership, you see the price of the car. When you get your oil changed, you see the price of the oil change. This applies to ANYTHING but the health care industry. There are no prices, as they're all arbitrary.

 

Need a knee surgery -- tell you what, we'll perform the surgery and THEN we will tell you how much it costs. This way you can't go compare pricing elsewhere. And if we happen to charge 30x times more than a friend of yours paid, we will simply say the surgery took longer for X, Y and Z, three things your friend didn't have to deal with -- and you wouldn't know one way or another, because there were 8 people roaming around the entire time doing god knows what.

 

If they truly wanted to make things cheaper, they'd change this, so instead they "reformed the health INSURANCE industry", which accomplishes almost nothing in regard to the CORE problem, and that is simply -- nobody knows what ANYTHING in the medical services industry costs, and therefore cannot shop around for non ER care where you SHOULD have such a choice.

[Balta1701]

Man, bond yields are falling off a cliff. 30 year hasn't been at this level since April of 2009.

[Jenksismyhero]

The problem is, for me, is that there is no fair value pricing available.

 

When you go to a car dealership, you see the price of the car. When you get your oil changed, you see the price of the oil change. This applies to ANYTHING but the health care industry. There are no prices, as they're all arbitrary.

 

Need a knee surgery -- tell you what, we'll perform the surgery and THEN we will tell you how much it costs. This way you can't go compare pricing elsewhere. And if we happen to charge 30x times more than a friend of yours paid, we will simply say the surgery took longer for X, Y and Z, three things your friend didn't have to deal with -- and you wouldn't know one way or another, because there were 8 people roaming around the entire time doing god knows what.

 

If they truly wanted to make things cheaper, they'd change this, so instead they "reformed the health INSURANCE industry", which accomplishes almost nothing in regard to the CORE problem, and that is simply -- nobody knows what ANYTHING in the medical services industry costs, and therefore cannot shop around for non ER care where you SHOULD have such a choice.

 

Great point, agree 100%

[Balta1701]

Consumer confidence number declines sharply and surprisingly in June and the markets are cratering in response.

[NorthSideSox72]

Consumer confidence number declines sharply and surprisingly in June and the markets are cratering in response.

There is an interesting dichotomy right now in market expectations. The recovery has still been pretty much the same - slow and steady. Consumers actually spent basically the same in May though as April, and April was the same as March, so no growth. And consumer confidence is going down. New home sales are plummeting, existing sales increasing slightly. The x-factor though, is business health. Analysts are looking for 2Q numbers to be ugly across the board, while the companies themselves are reporting expectations of the best quarter since the recession started. It will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out in July.

 

[mr_genius]

Unemployment is going to start rising again. Expect more big losses in the market and in consumer spending.

[mr_genius]

That's not deflation. That's paying fair value for a service, two completely different things. And the bill they signed will do nothing to lower the costs of health care. It *may* slightly lower the costs of health insurance to *SOME* people in need, while raising it for others. But the bills the hospitals and doctors send to the insurance companies will remain the same and/or increase...this was a point of contention I've had about the bill since the start, it was ignored, especially around here. But give it time, you'll all see.

 

I was being a bit sarcastic with the 'deflation' comment. I agree with you about the root causes of health care costs.

Edited June 30, 2010 by mr_genius

[kapkomet]

The problem is, for me, is that there is no fair value pricing available.

 

When you go to a car dealership, you see the price of the car. When you get your oil changed, you see the price of the oil change. This applies to ANYTHING but the health care industry. There are no prices, as they're all arbitrary.

 

Need a knee surgery -- tell you what, we'll perform the surgery and THEN we will tell you how much it costs. This way you can't go compare pricing elsewhere. And if we happen to charge 30x times more than a friend of yours paid, we will simply say the surgery took longer for X, Y and Z, three things your friend didn't have to deal with -- and you wouldn't know one way or another, because there were 8 people roaming around the entire time doing god knows what.

 

If they truly wanted to make things cheaper, they'd change this, so instead they "reformed the health INSURANCE industry", which accomplishes almost nothing in regard to the CORE problem, and that is simply -- nobody knows what ANYTHING in the medical services industry costs, and therefore cannot shop around for non ER care where you SHOULD have such a choice.

 

 

Great point, agree 100%

 

LMAO.

 

Look at post #1 in the health care thread. I said almost exactly that.

 

That's a majority of the problem but not all of it.

[mr_genius]

That's a majority of the problem but not all of it.

 

agreed.

[Balta1701]

The NYT on how much the people in charge of the bailout shafted the taxpayers in the AIG case to protect the banks.

Unknown outside of a few Wall Street legal departments, the A.I.G. waiver was released last month by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform amid 250,000 pages of largely undisclosed documents. The documents, reviewed by The New York Times, provide the most comprehensive public record of how the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Treasury Department orchestrated one of the biggest corporate bailouts in history.

 

The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008 when it forced Chrysler’s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out the auto giant.

 

As a Congressional commission convenes hearings Wednesday exploring the A.I.G. bailout and Goldman’s relationship with the insurer, analysts say that the documents suggest that regulators were overly punitive toward A.I.G. and overly forgiving of banks during the bailout — signified, they say, by the fact that the legal waiver undermined A.I.G. and its shareholders’ ability to recover damages.

 

“Even if it turns out that it would be a hard suit to win, just the gesture of requiring A.I.G. to scrap its ability to sue is outrageous,” said David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The defense may be that the banking system was in trouble, and we couldn’t afford to destabilize it anymore, but that just strikes me as really going overboard.”

 

“This really suggests they had myopia and they were looking at it entirely through the perspective of the banks,” Mr. Skeel said.

 

Regulators at the New York Fed declined to comment on the legal waiver but disagreed with that viewpoint.

[kapkomet]

Barack Obama was/is in charge of the bailout. Don'tcha know, by passing this financial reform, "this will never happen again" ... why don't those evil motherf***ers across the aisle agree with me, myself and I?

 

[Balta1701]

Barack Obama was/is in charge of the bailout. Don'tcha know, by passing this financial reform, "this will never happen again" ... why don't those evil motherf***ers across the aisle agree with me, myself and I?

I never knew that Obama appointed Paulson. Impressive, this man's time travel skills.

[Balta1701]

The experts expected home sales to drop once the homebuyer tax credit lapsed at the end of April, but the depth of the decrease was shocking.

 

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales fell a whopping 30% in May. Their index, which measures signed sales contracts but not closed sales, plunged to 77.6 from 110.9 in April. It's even off 15.9% from a year ago when the nation was barely emerging from the recession.

 

"The pending home sales report is a disaster," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst for Weiss Research. "Sales fell off a cliff after the tax credit expired. It's the biggest monthly decline ever and the index is at its lowest level since NAR began tracking it in 2001."

Link

[Jenksismyhero]

Link

 

well no f***ing s***. You can't offer EIGHT GRAND in cash to people, artificially creating demand, and then expect the same level of interest once the program goes away. They're idiots for even starting that nonsense (though i'll happily take my eight grand to the bank. thanks everyone!), and they're even bigger idiots for letting the deadline pass only to extend it 2 months later.

Edited July 2, 2010 by Jenksismybitch

[kapkomet]

I never knew that Obama appointed Paulson. Impressive, this man's time travel skills.

 

Once again, you're back to the GWB hate. You can't help yourself.

 

Nevermind the whole house of cards that was constructed during the Clinton years.

 

There's plenty of "blame" for all involved... but not Mr. Teflon... "he will prevent it from ever happening again" - which is a LIE, a bald faced lie. But it sets up the strawman hate arguement he has to bring up to get ANYTHING done.

[Balta1701]

Once again, you're back to the GWB hate. You can't help yourself.

 

Nevermind the whole house of cards that was constructed during the Clinton years.

 

There's plenty of "blame" for all involved... but not Mr. Teflon... "he will prevent it from ever happening again" - which is a LIE, a bald faced lie. But it sets up the strawman hate arguement he has to bring up to get ANYTHING done.

LOL...let me get this straight...I say anything about the oil spill is Bush's fault and I need to let the past go. However, the economic crisis, that's Clinton's fault.

 

If I wasn't in a hotel, I'd post the Daily Show clip 2 days ago that basically mocked Fox and Friends for that exact one. I'm going to hope someone else does it for me.

 

Literally, the Daily Show made fun of Kap the day before he wrote it. I'm laughing a lot now.

[mr_genius]

Nevermind the whole house of cards that was constructed during the Clinton years.

 

these types of things take a while to build up, and Bill Clinton sure as hell laid out a lot of the ground work. GW Bush played a big role too.

Edited July 3, 2010 by mr_genius

[southsider2k5]

LOL...let me get this straight...I say anything about the oil spill is Bush's fault and I need to let the past go. However, the economic crisis, that's Clinton's fault.

 

If I wasn't in a hotel, I'd post the Daily Show clip 2 days ago that basically mocked Fox and Friends for that exact one. I'm going to hope someone else does it for me.

 

Literally, the Daily Show made fun of Kap the day before he wrote it. I'm laughing a lot now.

 

There have to be plenty of posts during the Bush admin of me getting told the exact same thing by people on here anytime Clinton's name came up during those eight years.

[Balta1701]

There have to be plenty of posts during the Bush admin of me getting told the exact same thing by people on here anytime Clinton's name came up during those eight years.

At least IMO, if a person screwed up badly enough, the statute of limitations doesn't end. Feel free to keep blaming Reagan/Bush/Clinton for the whole Afghanistan mess, for example.

 

You just don't get to use an infinite statute of limitations for a Dem and a 3 month one for a Republican.

[kapkomet]

At least IMO, if a person screwed up badly enough, the statute of limitations doesn't end. Feel free to keep blaming Reagan/Bush/Clinton for the whole Afghanistan mess, for example.

 

You just don't get to use an infinite statute of limitations for a Dem and a 3 month one for a Republican.

 

 

Most conservatives here do call out Republicans when they mess up. That pretty much makes that a moot point

[southsider2k5]

At least IMO, if a person screwed up badly enough, the statute of limitations doesn't end. Feel free to keep blaming Reagan/Bush/Clinton for the whole Afghanistan mess, for example.

 

You just don't get to use an infinite statute of limitations for a Dem and a 3 month one for a Republican.

 

I was told multiple times that six weeks was enough time for Bush to cause a recession on his own...

 

[kapkomet]

I was told multiple times that six weeks was enough time for Bush to cause a recession on his own...

 

Hell, according to some around here, it only took six hours.