POLITICAL: Fixing healthcare? Not gonna happen with the gooferment involved

Friday, October 23, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/scott-m1.1.1.html

Your Doctor Serves The State, Not You
by Michael Scott, MD

*** begin quote ***

While I agree that physicians commonly order tests and perform procedures that are medically unnecessary, this fact is due to two main reasons the author completely fails to mention: first, the tort system, which terrorizes doctors in their practices on a daily basis, and second, that patients have minimal if any financial stake in their care. As a consequence, they demand everything in excess, and are often angry when we suggest a desired test or treatment is not indicated, no matter how much time we spend trying to educate them. When people don’t pay for something with their own money, they hardly care about costs. They just milk others for all they’re worth, because after all, that’s what they perceive everybody else is doing to them, too.

*** end quote ***

Clearly, the current insurance system is broken. And, isn’t going to get fixed anytime soon.

We clearly have to get the lawyers out of suing the doctors for everything that goes wrong. They are docs ; not gods.

We clearly have to return to the days of yesteryear, when insurance was insurance. Car insurance doesn’t insure oil changes. And, patients have to pay a percentage of the true cost; not a “co-pay”!

We have to make health care insurance like auto or life; disconnected from employment.

Finally, we have to get the gooferment OUT of health, health care, and health care insurance completely. They can’t do anything right. It’s in their nature. (I still haven’t heard of then doing ANYTHING effectively. Never mind efficiently!)

Argh!

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GOLDBUG: Never ask a gold bug for comments!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

http://tslrf.blogspot.com/2009/10/buying-gold.html

Friday, October 16, 2009

Buying Gold?

*** begin quote ***

We may or may not face serious inflation but I would like to hold as much gold as possible either way. It might cost me a couple bucks more for the same thing but worst cast I will just laugh about that when I buy for less in a few months.

Thoughts?

*** end quote ***

Gold — bullion; not “collectibles” — currently has a 10% premium. Silver seems to be about 12%. (Palladium is an “interesting” play; rarer than platinum, but priced 60% below gold?) Unfortunately, that’s a lot of “commission” to pay. (A loan shark’s vig?) In the past it was as low as 2%. A mutual fund with a 10% load would be found unacceptable; why should we treat bullion any different. Hold it for 10 years and it doesn’t feel as bad.

The other consideration is what are your protecting against. In an “orderly” inflation scenario, other investments may “surf” the riding tide of inflation (i.e., real estate; stocks). In a “disorderly” inflation scenario (e.g., hyperinflation like Rwanda or pre-WW2 Germany), then you want the bullion coins in your possession. (Or, where you can get to them in a pinch.)

Bottom line: In hyperinflation, bullion coins will overcome the premium in a heartbeat. But what’s the probability of it happening? Tough call.

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GLOBAL: End of the American empire?

Monday, October 19, 2009

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-a-budget/63005-going-bust-the-end-of-an-age

Going bust: The end of an age
By Bernie Quigley – 10/14/09 09:50 AM ET

*** begin quote ***

We might consider thinking about the benefits of regionalization, because if the U.S. economy is to contract and consolidate, it might contract within a matrix that makes for better packaging than the internal world-without-walls we have now. Does northern New England really need four farm colleges? One might work better. We might begin to think about tax spending and tax breaks to encourage naturally occurring regional cultures and regional community tier economies. We might feature farming where there are farms and factories where there are or have been factories. Because life in the city is different than the hills and prairies and one size does not fit all in temperament, personality, culture and economics.

And we might begin to ask ourselves, How did we get to where we are? What do we want to be? What have we become?

*** end quote ***

Would seem that we have to hunker down. Get “small”. And, maybe secession is a good idea to do that?

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MONEY: Thinking about your paycheck

Saturday, October 17, 2009

http://dailyreckoning.com/your-salary-not-slashed-yet-just-wait-it-could-still-be-offshored/

Your Salary Not Slashed Yet? Just Wait, it Could Still be Offshored
By Rocky Vega

*** begin quote ***

It’s not an isolated occurrence, as former White House economist Alan Blinder points out, 38 percent of American jobs could ultimately meet this fate. He recommends that measures be immediately taken in anticipation of these extraordinarily tough times.

*** end quote ***

In the formula of how much of an emergency fund you need, you better reassess how stable your job is.

The answer is “not very”!

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PRODUCTIVITY: Book price war

Friday, October 16, 2009

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/10/16/price-war-breaks-out-between-amazon-and-wal-mart-over-10-new-books/

Price War Breaks Out Between Amazon and Wal-Mart over 10 New Books

*** begin quote ***

In this time of eBook, eBooks and more eBooks we think it’s worth noting that a price war has broken out over 10 pre-order hard cover titles. We wonder if it more books will be added to the list, the price keeps getting reduced, and if other online book providers will join in.

It began yesterday when Wal-Mart announced that they were reducing the price of ten titles to $10 for books purchased on Walmart.com. Then, Amazon.com came back by lowering the price for those same titles to $9. This morning (Friday), Wal-Mart returned the volley and is now selling the books for $9.

*** end quote ***

Ain’t capitalism wonderful!

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TECHNOLOGY: “Smart readers”; too smart?

Friday, October 16, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6292809/Smart-meters-could-be-spy-in-the-home.html

Smart meters could be ‘spy in the home’

Smart meters could become a ‘spy in the home’ by allowing social workers and health authorities to monitor households, adding to conce rn at Britain’s surveillance society.

By Alastair Jamieson

Published: 10:30AM BST 11 Oct 2009

*** begin quote ***

The DECC document adds households could even have their power to some appliances turned off remotely to help the national grid if there is too much demand. It says: “In terms of potentially intrusive non-physical behaviour unrelated to data, smart metering potentially offers scope for remote intervention such as dynamic demand management, which is designed to assist management of the network and thus security of supply. This could involve direct supplier or distribution company interface with equipment, such as refrigerators, within a property, overriding the control of the householder.”

*** end quote ***

I always think of what can go wrong.

Turn off the refrig to “save the grid” and the food goes bad.

Turn off the heat to “save the grid” and people die.

Turn off power to politically “wrong” people?

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MONEY: Pirate’s chest

Friday, October 9, 2009

http://townhall.com/columnists/PeterFerrara/2009/09/10/making_up_crime

*** begin quote ***

When Fed Ex got started, the Feds charged it with violating the legal monopoly of the post office. When Fed Ex won that battle, it was a landmark victory for all Americans. The case against Liberty Dollar offers another potential landmark victory for American liberty.

*** end quote ***

Everyone needs competition and “dollars” are no different.

Here’s an entertaining thought experiment. You find a “pirates’ treasure chest”. Breathlessly you open it. What finding would excite you most:

(a) A chest full of 1940 Federal Reserve notes. (When our “pirate” buried a million “dollars”, it was worth the equivalent of a a hundred million. Reference: coffee was 22 cents per pound. You do the math.)

(b) A chest full of Confederate money.

(c) A chest full of Sadam’s Iraqi dinars.

(d) A chest full of GM stock.

(e) A chest full of gold coins.

Yea, I know what I’d pick. And, rebury them under the shore house. Just like our proverbial pirate. For the coming “rainy day”.

Argh!

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RANT: Building stadiums at taxpayer expense!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/30/bomberphobia

Sports Arena
Bomberphobia
By Lisa Fabrizio on 9.30.09 @ 6:06AM

*** begin quote ***

Yet, many of you secretly applaud baseball’s version of socialism, euphemistically called the Competitive Balance Tax, which has resulted in the Yanks paying out over $150 million in the last six years to their direct competitors. Meanwhile, Robert Nutting, the dastardly owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates who pocketed $40 million in revenue-sharing alone last year, saw fit to reduce his 2009 payroll to $20 million by selling off the few good players he had. Such doings make those who cooked up the Oil for Food program look like pikers.

*** end quote ***

MP4B = “Millionaires Playing For Billionaires”

Argh!

Before I would hold up ANY sports team as an exemplar of “conservative” values, I’d think about the stadiums they play in.

Taxpayer funded.

We don’t build McD’s. We don’t build WalMarts. We don’t build lots of things for businesses!

Why are we building stadiums for billionaires where they can exercise their millionaire “talent”?

Argh!

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SOCIALISM: Cash for … Sheeple

Sunday, October 4, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster164.html

Cash for Clunkers, RIP by Karen De Coster

*** begin quote ***

The program was little more than a political redistribution of wealth from the people of America to politicians’ power base that includes unions, environmentalists, and social justice bulldogs. Along the way, a few select people who fell within certain purchase guidelines received a generous discount for turning in their paid-off cars in exchange for a new chunk of steel and a large chunk of debt. As with most government programs, a select group of people became empowered or enriched while the general population paid the bill.

*** end quote ***

To see perfectly good cars being destroyed shocked this old injineer.

Those cars were better than some of the wrecks I drove around when I was a “poor” student. (Poor in both a monetary and academic meaning!)

How many really poor people were denied a car they could afford by this absolute stupidity.

Even if you never studied “economics” and the parable of the broken window created by Frédéric Bastiat, you have common sense. Don’t you?

In what universe does destroying a perfectly good car make any economic sense at all?

If for no other reason than that, if your rep voted for this, then you should vote them out of office. There’s no excuse for having an idiot representing you.

Argh, sheeple!

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POLITICS: Increase savings and decrease spending at home

Saturday, October 3, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff49.1.html

The Price of Pretense in Pittsburgh by Peter Schiff

*** begin quote ***

Noting that a return to pre-crisis economics is impossible, the president assured the world that his administration will pursue policies to increase savings and decrease spending at home and challenged his Chinese counterparts to enact measures with the opposite effect in their own country.

While this is roughly what needs to happen, President Obama is actually doing everything in his power to prevent it. In point of fact, every policy move undertaken by his administration has exacerbated the very imbalances he supposedly wants to curtail. To so seamlessly profess one goal while simultaneously undermining it is an impressive piece of political theater. Unfortunately, this particular drama is likely to have an unhappy ending – and the ticket price will be staggering.

*** end quote ***

Upon reflection, when these very ugly chickens come home to roost, as also forecast by Reverend Wright, will there be any way to escape it?

It would seem that getting out of debt and getting very small in terms of exposures would be a good strategy.

Tactically, shift assets to durables, stockpile, and think defensively.

Argh!

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