The Housing Bubble

Farreed Zakaria? had a great health care special on GPS which I think is CNN. Unfortunately I think they charge to watch it again.

Hard to argue the quality of health care has not gone up with the amount of technology that is around today (lasers, MRIs/imaging, laproscopic surgery, molecular medicine, new drugs, etc., etc.). The extended life expectancy pretty much shows that. As for cost, if you die at 65yrs you won’t have to be “treated” (looked after) for years if you get dementia at 80 yrs. I certainly like my chances of surviving a major health issue now than say even fifty years ago. Fifty years from now it will be even better. The newest technologies cost a lot at first but soon become “old” technology available to everyone and health care progresses. Maybe some people don’t have access at first - life/death goes on, but in the long run it gets progressively better. Some of the cost may be related to ridiculous judgements against individual Dr.s and medical companies and the insurance they have to carry.

(Health-care quality has improved with technology) The extended life expectancy pretty much shows that.

True, but let’s not make the mistake of using this as an argument against single-payer or universal healthcare.
(Which I don’t think you were)

Most all modern/western countries with “socialized” medicine have higher life expectancies than high-tech USA’s.

Obamacare doesn’t get private insurance out of health care. It may be the first step into people seeing that the private companies are in the way of effectively structured insurance and then moving to their elimination from the system someday in the future, but there is nothing in there yet that eliminates private health insurance. It does eliminate some of the most egregious practices - like kicking people who get seriously ill off their policy for a previously undisclosed, minor, unrelated illness. The last media reported example that I remember was a young man who got very ill (leukemia, maybe?) whose policy was cancelled because they found that he didn’t disclose a case of jock itch that had been cured with over the counter fungal cream. How they found out about it, I have no idea, but that was the report.

completely and turn medical care back over to ourselves and our doctors.

You know very well that doctors and hospitals don’t want to deal with patients in collecting payments. Hence the birth of Insurance Industry.

“…Obamacare doesn’t get private insurance out of health care….”

Agreed. As it stands now, it’s actually a give-away to the insurance industry, BUT the provision for creating exchanges will inject interstate competition into the mix, and that gives me hope that we’ll eventually get to a single payer system (with private insurance available for non-covered elective care).

“I agree that other than palliative care, obesity/tobacco/addiction-related illnesses are not something that should be subsidized by the public health system…”

Wouldn’t you have to lump everything in there that involves fault/stupidity on the part of the person needing care and not just cherry pick the PC taboos?

The list of things you can’t do and expect public health care would be very long. Break those rules of the state and it is a death sentence?

And you would also have to prove to me exactly what causes and what cures obesity. I’m going to be a stickler on that.

I will say no more.

I worry that lobbyists will get federal mandates for flakey alt medicine treatments like chiropracty, acupuncture, homeopathy etc. like they’ve done with a bunch of state legislatures.

Insurance companies pay for this quackery now– and our premiums reflect it. Back in the 1970’s Blue Cross actually paid a $35 reimbursement for something called “Absent Healing” in which a Seventh Day Adventist would sit in a room somewhere and “pray” for you.

Insurance companies pay for this quackery now– and our premiums reflect it. Back in the 1970’s Blue Cross actually paid a $35 reimbursement for something called “Absent Healing” in which a Seventh Day Adventist would sit in a room somewhere and “pray” for you.

Why do they pay? It’s not like the CEO doesn’t want to deny and enrich himself.

obesity/tobacco/addiction-related illnesses are not something that should be subsidized by the public health system;

But why not when looked at in the context of the cost of liberty? Is not smoking a form of freedom and does not the USA have a history of subsidizing freedoms? We’ve funded our military through taxes for over 200 years to subsidize the cost of freedom and freedoms that some do not agree with.

When someone uninsured gets his foot shot off while playing with his Constitutionally protected gun, does Smith & Wesson get the hospital bill? No. Is that not subsidizing the cost’s of gun ownership?

Freedom is not free and is subsidized many ways in the USA.

I worry that lobbyists will get federal mandates for flakey alt medicine treatments like chiropracty, acupuncture, homeopathy etc. like they’ve done with a bunch of state legislatures.

That’s something worth worrying about, but you could apply that to every part of government. For example, I worry that, if we have a Department of Defense, lobbyists will convince Congress to purchase military hardware that is overpriced or not actually needed to defend the country. However, I wouldn’t suggest eliminating the Defense Department as a way to address that worry.

“I worry that lobbyists will get federal mandates for flakey alt medicine treatments like chiropracty, acupuncture, homeopathy etc. like they’ve done with a bunch of state legislatures.”

Contemporary, traditionally-accepted, medical treatments (i.e. drugs prescribed by doctors that barely look at a patient or prescribed over the phone) have failed a lot of people I know and some of these “flakey alt medicine treatments” cost less and cure more.
Check out (not literally since most libraries don’t shelve this) this interesting book. http://www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com/
I wish they had a lobby. Why should pharma and insurance companies be the only ones in the industry with a lobby?

Preach it dizzy!! So called traditional doctors are too often about treating the symptoms of an affliction rather the addressing the cause. Someone who thinks chiropractors etc. are quacks has never had a pinched nerve or bulging disc causing them great pain. The doctor will just prescribe some pain killers, tell you to get some rest and exercise, and push you out the door to move on to the next patient. Or worse yet, recommend an expensive, painful surgery that in most cases will make things worse later on. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count.

Oh, Smithers….

Wait until (heavens forfend) one (or more) of your family develops a serious chronic illness or suffers a catastrophic injury and then get back to me on how that 20K/year/person deductible is going for you, kay?

Wait until (heavens forfend) one (or more) of your family develops a serious chronic illness or suffers a catastrophic injury and then get back to me on how that 20K/year/person deductible is going for you, kay?

You seem not to understand the purpose of Insurance or the meaning of insuring. I am sure Smitty knows about that and has plans. Sure the Insurance company can deny some coverage, so can the government I suppose. Then again if it’s a serious chronic illness, does a family ever come out of physical, mental and financial exhaustion whether the insurance covers it or the government covers it. I am sure there’s gonna be quite a financial cost to a family even in government system.

Yet somewhere along the lines the masses were convinced that insurance meant free checkups, free flu shots, free birth control,…

I know. It’s crazy. It’s like they spoke with someone who got all those “free” things in Canada and France and now expect it in America.

Canada spends about $3,900 per person per year on health-care while the USA spends almost $8,000. That’s why Canada gets “free” checkups and we don’t. Because Canada insures everyone while the USA does not come close. Does this make more sense now?

The only reason the Americans accepted the Insurance Health care system was because originally the Employer ‘
paid most the costs ,and the costs were pretty low to begin with . Originally we didn’t have this long term drugs health care system to the degree it evolved into . I don’t see how this current insurance system has reduced costs ,as most insurance systems do by spreading out the costs .

Add to this the cash cow of when Medicare came in and it just set the stage for the development of a medical system
that makes the Pharma Industry one of the biggest industries in the World,with profit margins that are off the chart .

I see it all the time in the 55 and older tract I live in . The seniors on a bunch of Pharma drugs get to the breakdown point ,they end up in and out of the hospitals with expensive break downs of body systems medical care ,and some die and some live a little longer . The ones that are
healthy at advanced age are the ones that aren’t on Pharma drugs who eat a decent diet and exercise . Now this is just a 10 years observation in my little world were I live . The ones on anti-depression drugs really check out early .

But my point is how are the people going to afford what this Health Care Industry is demanding ,for what I would call questionable health care that isn’t designed to really cure diseases.

“Wait until (heavens forfend) one (or more) of your family develops a serious chronic illness or suffers a catastrophic injury and then get back to me on how that 20K/year/person deductible is going for you, kay?”

$20K/family. $7500/per person. And yes, I’d be fine with it if the alternative is pay $1000/month for a policy with a $500 deductible.

“Canada spends about $3,900 per person per year on health-care while the USA spends almost $8,000. That’s why Canada gets “free” checkups and we don’t. Because Canada insures everyone while the USA does not come close. Does this make more sense now?”

And that’s why Canada has a 6 month wait for routine surgery that can have performed tomorrow if I choose. Does this make more sense now? But hey what’s 6 months of waiting in pain…it’s all good since it’s FREEEEEEE!!

So who’s stopping them from paying top dollar to a private physician to perform that surgery on a more convenient time schedule? Were it for a life-threatening condition, they’d be triaged to the front of the line in Canada. If not, they get to wait their turn. Pretty much like we do here for non-emergency surgeries.

But then, if you’d actually had any experience in these matters, you’d know that.

“$20K/family. $7500/per person. And yes, I’d be fine with it if the alternative is pay $1000/month for a policy with a $500 deductible.”

Since your against Obamacare, when the exchanges open up and offer you a policy to pay $400 a month for a policy with a $500 deductible…or better…you won’t be jumping on that, right?

“free checkups, free flu shots, free birth control, free everything……. I’ve made this analogy to auto insurance before… GEICO pays your bills if you get in an accident. They don’t pay each time you get an oil change. Yet for some reason people expect BlueCross to pay for the equivalent of an oil change.”

OK, an oil change is the preventative medicine. But Geico has no financial interest in paying for our oil change. When we get in an accident, it likely has nothing to do with an oil change. The health insurance companies, however, have a vested interest in our bodies’ oil changes–if we take care of ourselves, they’re less likely to be paying out big-time when we get really sick. And they are then likely to make more money collecting insurance from the healthy.

“Now how would a bureaucrat react to this same person pitching a fit?”

Possibly the same way the TSA reacts when you object to them groping you at the airport? Nothing worse than a government employee with a power complex and the full weight of the government behind them.

It is amusing how some people here and elsewhere go ape s**t at the mere mention of TSA or the Federal Reserve ….yet want the govt to control every aspect of their health care.

Curious, isn’t it how the “bureaucrats” at Medicare seem to manage patient satisfaction quite nicely. In fact Medicare patients report a far-higher doctor satisfaction than do private insured.

While I’ve not a clue as to your ex wife’s diagnosis, I’m guessing it was likely a benign or slow-growing lesion or tumor of some sort which merited watchful waiting. The administrator probably told the doc to go ahead and take it off/out (unnecessarily) to collect the additional billing, not because it was medically indicated. Practices like this (as Dio mentioned above) are why our premiums and costs are inflated beyond sustainability.

and doctors just love their Medicare patients, don’t they?

Even with Medicare however, people buy supplemental insurance because Medicare doesn’t cover it all.

That’s the fallacy with the “choice” between single payer or private insurance.

Take the UK for an example. People have government sponsored healthcare, but it isn’t good enough (fast enough, etc.), so people ALSO have private insurance.

In the US, if Medicare is any guide (with people buying supplemental), that is where we would end up in the US.

There is no provision in the Affordable Care Act to turn all doctors into bureaucrats.

On the other hand, we do have a health care system in which the hospitals are owned by the government and the doctors and nurses are federal employees. It’s called the Veterans Administration and it delivers quality health care with even less waste and bureaucracy than Medicare, which in turn has less waste and bureaucracy than the insurance companies.

Practices like this (as Dio mentioned above) are why our premiums and costs are inflated beyond sustainability.

Have to disagree with you on this. The reason costs are out of control are the following:

1. A preference for treating the symptoms (via drugs) of medical problems vs treating the causes (lifestyle, eating habits, etc). Call this the “profit motive” for the industry as well as the “lazy American” effect.
2. Increased demands from an aging population (boomers) as well as an increasing population (illegals/minorities) with generally poor health (again, lifestyle)
3. Emergency room care for all, regardless of ability to pay or whether covered by insurance
4. Illegal immigration (see 2 and 3 above)
5. A lack of tort reform

Fix the above and costs come down. This crap about increasing the insurance pool to reduce costs and price-fixing for services is exactly that, crap. Increase demand for a limited supply of product and you increase price, economics 101. All cost-fixing does is create supply constraints. Doctors will go out of business rather than lose money on cost-fixing. Overall quality of care will decrease, not increase through this. Do you honestly think medical schools will lower tuition because doctors make less money? Do you honestly think the best and brightest will flock to become doctors because prices are fixed at a level that doesn’t allow doctors to make money? Learn from the ’70’s people…

Having said that, the few good things Obamacare does is open competition with the exchanges and prevent insurance companies from dropping people who make claims… but the mandate is still crap. Americans forced to buy a product from a private company or pay a tax? Come on!

Is health care a right or a privilege? If it is a right, a government take over of the industry is warranted. If it isn’t, then stop with the fascist crap… it’s about as Un-American as you can get.

It’s called the Veterans Administration and it delivers quality health care with even less waste and bureaucracy than Medicare, which in turn has less waste and bureaucracy than the insurance companies.

Ask all the vets coming back from the sandbox how the VA is treating them. Many have PTSD, among other issues. Most are going un-diagnosed…

It’s called cost-containment at the expense of the afflicted. Yes, even the government-run system has problems.

Veterans fight to keep ptsd diagnosis

Rental Watch,

Medicare supplemental policies cover the 20% co-pays. They generally aren’t for additional services. My mother was trying to convince me that standard blood work tests didn’t have co-pays because it has been so long since she paid one. I kept telling her she didn’t have co-pays because of her supplemental insurance on top of Medicare and that I would have to pay co-pays. I still don’t think she believes me.

NE–
You know, I listened to these same arguments back when Medicare was first being suggested in the early 1960’s. Doctors will choose to go out of business rather than accept socialized medicine! Government bureaucrats will come between you and your doctor! Quality of care will be compromised!

Except we had a public health service then and doctors DID accept a salary rather than a fee-for-service. Not all of them certainly, but the ones who worked for the public health service did. And they still somehow managed to eke out a decent living. Today many doctors work for HMO’s and giant corporations– and they, too, manage to get by.

No one is saying that private practice dox should have to accept fixed rates for non-standard outcomes– the human body doesn’t work that way. But there’s no reason why reading a normal chest x-ray should reimburse at $95 in one facility and $5 in another. Or why a flu shot should cost $99 at one office and $15 at another. Or why a physician should have to bill $80,000 to collect $10,000 for a surgery. (Well, there ARE reasons, some of which you noted above, but the main one is that middlemen have inserted themselves at every step along the road to Wellville– and that Americans are by and large undisciplined slobs in their health habits and profligate in their expectations.)

The whole IDEA of Medicare was to move away from what was referred to as “two-tiered medicine”. (One standard of care for private payers and another for clinic patients.) What I’m saying is that maybe it’s time we consider returning to that two-tiered system.

Thanks for that Polly.

Call me crazy, but I trust (my doctor) a lot more than I trust the government. who regulates him.

Your doctor did the PSA test because it is a procedure and they get paid more for a procedure. Also, he may own shares in the testing facility.

Again, there is NO accurate test for prostate cancer other than a biopsy and even that can be wrong in the circumstances I offered above.

The other option is a finger up the butt and that doesn’t detect cancer. It can detect an enlarged prostate. They don’t get paid extra for sticking a finger up your butt.

Call me crazy but thinking Doctors are the way they use to be would be the same as thinking stock brokers are the same as they were prior to deregulation of the financial markets. The Pharma industry are in the Medical schools now making sure that the Pharma created ‘Standard of Care ” ,is taught .

The way you describe it takes all the romance out of it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_in_the_United_States

You didn’t answer the question.

Also tell us about all the information you can get information from United Health and if they are bound to supply information when you request it.

Measton,

When is the last time the US Govmnt had an audit of their books? It would be impossible I think.

I am not here to suggest that all insurance companies are worth their insurance policies. “IF” the government would get out of the way, competition between insurers would provide us with the ability to choose. Choose different policies, different deductibles (a way to self insure), different types of coverages for different types of illnesses, etc.

Now we are going to be told that “all” policies will cover all of these things. Then the Unaffordability Healthcare Bill tells insurance companies that they have to provide all of these coverages but they aren’t allowed to charge for all of the exposure. Therefore:

The Unaffordability Healthcare Bill is designed to push all private insurers out of business, so you will get your choice if BHO is re-elected. But thankfully, his chances are much poorer than the current polls would suggest.

Peace, have a nice weekend.

Remove the profit motive and you have Communism.

So all charities and churches are communist?

And soldiers, don’t forget us.

or should we just embrace Communism because “for profit” healthcare is “evil”?

Can’t you fit in anymore buzzwords than 2 there?

Yes, some people need medication to keep them healthy. And they need it every day. Would they be healthier if they didn’t need it? Yes. That doesn’t mean they don’t need it. Can drugs have side effects? You bet. That doesn’t mean the side effects are worse than the person would be without it.

Does any of this mean we should take as much of it as we can when we don’t really need it? No, of course not.

Polly , maybe if your given a pill that immediately takes away any other options you might of had ,such as changing your lifestyle ,you stay with the conventional medical
approach ,which encourages a quick fix ,because you don’t know any better .

Last I checked there wasn’t an effective lifestyle treatment for cancer, or a broken leg. Although I suppose a sedentary lifestyle would reduce the risk of a broken leg.

Never would suggest that cancer shouldn’t be treated . But ,lifestyle could be highly contributory to the development of cancer to begin with ,along with environment toxins ,possible diet ,and some doctors think that stress can cause cancer and other diseases .

Never would suggest that a broken bone shouldn’t be treated , thats considered a accident and should be treated .

… but at least with health care in private hands you could go elsewhere even if it costs you more. At least you could get it done if you decided it was worth the cost. What happens when the govt. is the only game in town? Surely there is some advantage to having many competing options.

I guess there is always medical tourism. Lots of good surgeons in India that have been trained in the US.

but at least with health care in private hands you could go elsewhere even if it costs you more

Is such a thing forbidden under Obamacare?

… but at least with health care in private hands you could go elsewhere even if it costs you more.

The problem here is that medical care is typically an urgency, not a luxury, other than routine checkups.

If you’re lying on the side of the road with shattered bones, you get taken to the ER and they get to work. No shopping.

If you get a diagnosis of something serious, you look to your doctor to hook you up with the specialists. No internet research, picking doctors at random, spending days trying to figure out which one is better.

That’s the nature of the beast.

Differential shopping for medical care, because of its urgency and complexity, is a wildly different beast than shopping for the cheapest can of baked beans or box of cereal.

DOWN WITH PROFITS!!
DOWN WITH CAPITALISM!!
ALL HAIL COLLECTIVISM!

You’re the strawman king today.

Some reports state that 50% of the population have diseases now . That tells me something is wrong with the food supply ,the environment ,
and the lifestyles of the folks , lack of effectiveness of chemical based Pharma drug ,and maybe stress in general
is creating a lot of disease now .

I suggest your sources are a bunch of government-take-over left-wing lunatics, with an axe to grind against any form of free enterprise.
We’ve come a long way from “limited government” under the Federalist idea, but I think you may have gone over the edge.
You have NO basis for saying we will save 15% or 20% or whatever basis bureaucrats devise with their “models”.
Here is a simple rule of LIFE: You can’t change x without effecting y or z. Every stinking time.
When you make “healthcare” free or so cheap that it’s free, DEMAND will increase.
If everyone is paying “something” they will feel entitled to MORE service, for less money. they will line up at the doctor’s office like cowboys at a rodeo, all wanting in on the new game in town.
You are correct. The costs are out of control and most of the increasing costs have been due to government regulations and intervention. FRAUD is especially rampant in government because they have no interest in cost-control. The FRAUD in the system should have been the highest priority of “Fixing” the problems. That wouldn’t expand government much, so no, we won’t worry about that.
TORT lawyers have a good time with private insurance companies.
It’s the so-called “justice” when they refuse to pay for things they probably shouldn’t have to pay for anyway, but spare us the court costs.
Will we be able to sue the government Board or Agent that refuses services? HUmmmm??? Maybe not.
IF we can, then who pays? Oh, the government? so, will costs increase, or will Tort lawyers run out of business?
Government NEVER does anything better than private companies…..at least at the same cost. You can always do better for MORE money. But we are talking about REDUCING costs. How’s that work? Oh, no profit. That’s the problem. Spend what would be a profit on something else.
Yea, that’ll work just fine. Let’s see who gets prosecuted for skimming the system.

Wiz,

Interesting how those of us with most extensive experience in the medical insurance industry are the ones screaming loudest for a single payer system.

I’ve not only worked in it from a medical malpractice POV, I’ve been subjected to it as a catastrophic patient and as the member of a medical family. Whether the board of review is commissioned by the government or the insurance industry is immaterial, the decisions as to what will and will not be covered and why will be made by physicians and public health officials.

The only reason for single-payer, is across-the-board consolidation to cut down on fraud and inefficiency. The rest is just politics and special interest spin.

Some of the information was taken from the FDA websites ,
so I guess the left or right wing nut jobs must be influencing Government regulatory data .

But it seems like the big question is “Who is going to pay”,and just how fair is it going to be ,or who is really going to end up footing the bill . No doubt ,based on what has been going on lately in terms of policy and laws/taxes ,the
decreasing middle class /upper middle class will pay and
the poor won’t and the 20 percenters will make the profit off the system .

Ahansen…Yesterday you said you burned through both insurance & assets…Was that due to the lifetime CAP or that they would not cover you ??

50% have diseases.

And millions don’t care and would deny them treatment while claiming government interference, incompetence and tyranny for trying to help those people.

But yes, there is also a lot of poor lifestyle choices. Our culture seems to CREATE a lot of mental illness. Maybe it’s the 24/7 advertising propaganda of want, want, want? Naw, couldn’t be.

Some reports state that 50% of the population have diseases now . That tells me something is wrong with the food supply ,the environment ,
and the lifestyles of the folks , lack of effectiveness of chemical based Pharma drug ,and maybe stress in general
is creating a lot of disease now .

Or we’ve managed to keep a bunch of diseased people alive that would otherwise be dead.

SCdave,

I’ve maintained a private-payer insurance policy for 30+ years, (still have it, actually) but what they deemed “reasonable and customary” and “medically-indicated” differed substantially with what my physicians and I felt. Moreover, my policy has exclusions for ophthalmic, dental, and cosmetic procedures (and drugs) which were pretty much the only things I needed.

Bottom line is they fudged and weaseled, postposed and obfuscated, denied and challenged as critical time factors and protocols were allowed to run out. I have a high-deductible policy which resets every year whether or not I’m in the middle of a protocol or not, so that, combined with all the denials of service and co-pays knocked my $2,500 deductible up to about 15K a year before they kicked in for a maximum of 70% of billing.

My reconstruction was a multi-year project with several surgeries and procedures approaching 100K apiece. Even fully “covered” $100K a year in expenses comes to $30K– and that’s after all the deductibles have been satisfied. Then there are all the procedures and associated expenses (travel, multi-month lodging, private nursing, supplies and meds) that they didn’t cover at all.

At the same time the economy was tanking and all this was going on, I had a kid in college and an ex-husband in psychiatric in-patient. Let’s just say that I went through my retirement funds pretty quickly.

“Some reports state that 50% of the population have diseases now .”

I am guessing that would be closer to 100%. From the day you are born you start to die.

Smithers, using lack of having a mortgage loan among “credit mix” for auto insurers to determine premiums is total BS. Having a credit file 15+ years old with all accounts either paid off or paying as agreed (their terms) should be enough to demonstrate responsible payment.

The FICO industrial complex are SCUM, totally ties into turkey lurkey’s post “Maybe it’s the 24/7 advertising propaganda of want, want, want?”

“White” neighborhoods weren’t systematically discriminated against simply because they were full of white people. Similar credit scores deserve similar interest rates and fees.

Presumably, they would have to count whites and non-whites to make a case. If the bank screwed everyone without regard to race, it wouldn’t be discrimination.

“But who will actually pay that tax?

If you already have insurance, it won’t be you.”

What if I have it and don’t want it anymore? Guess what? It will be me.

“it amounts to approx ONE MONTH of many people’s current premiums.”

Wrong again. My premium is $200. If I were to decide I don’t want insurance the ObamaTax (that he swore wouldn’t apply to me since I make less than $250K a year) would be $2000.

If I were to decide I don’t want insurance the ObamaTax (that he swore wouldn’t apply to me since I make less than $250K a year) would be $2000.

link?

You don’t believe? There are no markets these days only governmental interventions.

By “they” I mean everybody who can, p-bear.

It could be underwater FB’s who are current but thinking to list. They can list and yank their own homes whenever they please.
It could be Fannie/Freddie. They can time-release those bulk sales whenever they want.
It could be individual banks. They could allow a short sale to go “under contract” and then refuse the sale (i’ve seen this more than once.)
It could be lying realtors playing games flipping or flopping their own listings, depending on which direction prices are going and whether they are best buds with the FB.

All parties with property are simply listing and delisting their own properties in response to the trend. Since they have the same goal, they all respond to a trend in the same way at roughly the same time. But that does not mean they are colluding. It’s simply the invisible hand.

‘By “they” I mean everybody who can, p-bear.’

That’s not how decentralized markets work. I don’t think you can get the kind of coordination you suggest without collusion and coordination from the top.

And as you posted earlier about Libor and I saw a similar article: Documents obtained by Reuters earlier on Friday showed that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the British central bank in June 2008 to make changes to the way that the widely used interest rate benchmark was set.

This is the point, it is at the top, financial repression=war of savers, various government programs with the government making virtually all of the loans, etc. are all designed to allow a slow decline in real prices while maintaining nominal prices until the inventory is worked off.

“I don’t think you can get the kind of coordination you suggest without collusion and coordination from the top.”

Garbage. Read the rest of what she wote. Everyone making similar decisions based on the same information isn’t the same as collusion.

After reading up on what happened at BOA during the collapse I’m inclined to think there is collusion or rather pressure from central banks.

I would SO turn out for a classical sax performance, Carl. If your wife ever plays Tucson, I’ll be there with bells on.

There it is.

“Between Turkey’s corporate welfare queens and the run-of-the-mill poor welfare queens, it’s any wonder I have anything left in my check come payday…”

Truer words were never spoken. This is a fact of life for millions of hard working honest people in this nation.

Does anyone find it a little odd that the govt is worried about Syria using gas/chemical and biological weapons and they know that Syria has one of the largest stock piles in the area. A few years ago Hussein was a bigger nut than Assad yet no one could find any WMDs in Iraq.

Things that make you go Hmmnnnn….