Health Care: a System or Industry?

As a nation, we are now deeply embroiled in a debate about the future of our health care industry.  My next few posts are going to be delving into the grimy details of this debate with two goals:

  1. to define what we currently have
  2. to understand what is being proposed and where it might lead us

I want to get it #1 nailed down, first, before we get into #2.  Perhaps the single most frustrating thing is to discuss a topic when not everyone in the room is coming from a similar basic understanding of the actual state of affairs…

So here we go…

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New Retail Strategy

lady with moneyRetail has always had catchy slogans to help train the masses of employees and customers they try to get to buy stuff.  I’m thinking:

  • “The Customer is Always Right”
  • “We sell for less”
  • “Where’s the beef?”

Well, I’m here to inform you that there’s a new strategy out there.  It must be due to the recent recession, so I’m calling it Recession Strategy 09 or RS09 for short.  It appears to be: “We pay you to shop here!”

Three examples from this past weekend:

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The Solution to the Bagel

Some economists are starting to get antsy for the end of this bagel (recession).  Many are already saying that they see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Many are already saying that by the end of the year we will have an official end to the bagel (positive GDP growth).

Which led me to think… what kind of major event would happen which would stimulate this country’s economy out of such a severe recessional slump?

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Sustainability vs Wealth

This weekend, I finally got around to watching the movie Wall-E, which I absolutely loved.  Pixar has some of the most amazing storytellers in “the business” today!  Who else could take a lone animated robot and make the first hour of that movie so delightful!

Before I saw Wall-E, a few articles and videos crossed my desk:

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At the Cost of Our Ideals

On this season of Fox’s “24”, Jack Bauer continues to be pummeled for his insistence that torture is a viable mechanism to get vital information out of a terrorist, especially when the timeliness of that information is critical to preventing a terrorist attack.

jack-bauer

In last week’s episode, the White House was attacked and the President is taken hostage, all because they chose to stick by their ‘ideals’ rather than continuing a torturous interrogation of a key player who was about to give up the location of the imminent attack.

Characters in high ranking government positions are being forced to ask themselves the question, “Does this betray our American ideals?”  and “At what cost of life and property do we hold onto our ‘ideals’?”

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The Allegory of the Economic Stimulus

There’s a lot of talk about this stimulus package going on – some of it ‘for reals’ and some of it is hot air.

I question the intentions of everyone.  Everyone has an agenda.  Some want to kill the stimulus just to show that they (Republicans) aren’t dead yet.  Others genuinely oppose such huge government spending.  Others really want pork.  Others genuinely view this as a way to prop up our economy and create jobs.

I see it this way…

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Irony of the Economy

I’m no economist, but I do make one particular observation regarding the current economy:

The recession we are currently experiencing was undoubtedly caused by the collapse of many financial institutions.  This collapse was caused by lenders making bad loans to people who were spending more than they could ever repay.

The exposing of that truth put us into a lending/financial/banking crisis which struck fear into people and companies.  They began saving and scrimping and protecting their capital at all costs.  People stopped spending money, and the layoffs started.  Since most jobs are dependent on companies selling stuff and people buying it.  If everyone stands around and no one buys anything, then the recession just gets worse.  More layoffs, less spending – it’s a downward spiral.  And so began the protectionist phase of this recession.

Now we’re entering the next phase – which seems to be the consumer and corporate confidence crisis.  No one is willing to take the first risk right now into an economic situation that is still unsure.  No one knows how long the recession will last and is holding their cards until the last round.

Someone has to take the first step.  Confidence has to be restored.  Unfortunately, the government is the one with deep enough pockets and a large enough megaphone to do anything about the confidence crisis.  The only question is, will their stimulus package stimulate the right places of the economy, such that people and companies will then increase their spending and turn their confidence around?

It’s ironic – we were put into this recession by spending, and the only proposed way out will be spending.  Is our continual, unsustainable spending really the only way out of this crisis, or am I missing something?

The Auto Bailout

I’ve been meaning to write a post for over a week now about the prospective automobile industry bail out, but just haven’t been able to bring myself to do so.  See, I don’t want to get into trouble for all the hate-speech that I would surely engage in against the huge doofaces who have run these companies into the ground for YEARS!

This should be their new mantra: consistently poor performance will yield consistently poor results.

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