House Trades Freedom for Health Coverage, Senate’s Move
The House passed a trillion dollar bill that will force Americans to buy health insurance, force even small businesses to provide health coverage, and require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. (The last, as I have previously argued, makes it something other than "insurance.") Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray for WaPo: Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to "answer the call ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 8, 2009 09:38
Jobs Created or Saved…Again
It looks like the Obama Administration’s brilliant political jujutsu move of using “jobs saved or created” is making its way around some of the economics blogs again. First up is Brad DeLong’s attack on Allan Meltzer. Meltzer wrote the following, There is no greater recognition of the failure of the stimulus program to create jobs than the efforts to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 19:03
Health Care: Better, Faster, Cheaper!
In a much discussed post, Ezra Klein produced a series of graphs showing that Americans pay more for office visits, scans and imaging, drugs, and other aspects of health care -- often, far more -- than is the case in Canada or Western Europe. There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 15:43
American Opportunity Myths
Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins have written a piece for Brookings titled "Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity." None of it's new to those who've paid much attention to these things in recent years. What's interesting, though, is the seeming contradiction in Myths 1 and 4. 1. Americans enjoy more economic opportunity than people in other countries. Actually, some other advanced ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 09:30
Political Control of Government Motors
Back when talks about bailing out General Motors started one potential issue was that GM would “encouraged” to make decisions based on political considerations vs. a sound business plan. Looks like there is evidence for such concerns with this story of how Montana’s Congressional Representative and two Senators are pushing to get a contract reinstated with a Montana palladium ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 2, 2009 15:01
Ford Posts 3Q09 Profit
Ford Motor Companies, the only major American automobile company to adequately prepare for a future where fewer cars are manufactured, and the only one not to receive signficant government handouts in the past year, posted a proft last quarter.Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F - News) posted a quarterly profit on Monday, defying Wall Street forecasts for a loss as it cut ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 2, 2009 13:50
Lobbying and Sunk Costs
Economist David Zetland explains the political economy of lobbying by auctioning a dollar bill for $3.75. As he explains: This set of incentives ("on the margin") makes it rational to keep raising the stakes given that you have bid because winning always has a higher payoff than losing. The "right strategy" is, of course to not bid at all. (As Joshua, the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 2, 2009 12:21
Capitalism: A Love Story
I was reading the review of Capitalism over at Reason and at the end it had this, One final note: Just before the film started, Moore asked the audience to turn off any recording devices because the studio did not want bootleg versions of the film getting around. Apparently this socialism stuff has its limits. I had to laugh. Frankly I ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 16:24
Recession Over?
While it is good news that the economy grew last quarter I think claims that the recession is over are premature. Why? Because I think the last quarter’s numbers are due to gimmicks by the Obama Administration as was discussed last night on OTB Blog Radio and also when looking at this post by Dave Shuler at the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 13:13
Efficient Market Hypothesis
Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School looks at the claims that the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is the cause of the current crisis and rejects these claims. The main part of his argument is, But is the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) really responsible for the current crisis? The answer is no. The EMH, originally put forth by Eugene Fama of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 29, 2009 14:14
Recession Over, Obama Takes Credit
As widely expected, the Powers That Be have declared the recession over, while cautioning that the economy still has a long way to go. And, of course, the Obama administration is crediting its stimulus packages for the good news. It might not feel like it to most voters, but the U.S. economy is growing again after a more than a year ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 29, 2009 13:01
Multiple Choice: Economics
The New York Times has an interesting multiple choice question regarding how to spend money to help stimulate the economy, If you wanted to help the economy and you had $14 billion to bestow on any group of people, which group would you choose: a) Teenagers and young adults, who have an 18 percent unemployment rate. b) All the middle-age long-term jobless who, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 28, 2009 14:04
Top Employees Flee Pay-Limited Firms
Remember that plan by Obama's pay czar to radically limit executive pay at bailed out banks? And how some of us were predicting that they'd just go to companies whose pay was not limited? Well, it didn't take long. Even before the Obama administration formally tightened executive compensation at bailed-out companies, the prospect of pay cuts had led some top employees ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 23, 2009 08:50
Obama Pay Czar Slashes Compensation for Bailed Out Firms
The top earners at the top firms bailed out by the U.S. government during the financial crisis will have their pay and bonuses drastically cut. Deborah Soloman and Dan Fitzpatrick for WSJ: The U.S. pay czar will cut in half the average compensation for 175 employees at firms receiving large sums of government aid, with the vast majority of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 22, 2009 09:36
Credit Card Fees
With regulation threatening their current business model, credit card companies are responding with new fees, Sandra Block reports for USA Today. Starting next year, Bank of America will charge a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99. The bank has characterized the fee as experimental. But card holders who have never carried a balance or paid ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 21, 2009 07:31
