My fellow Americans — Perhaps it was unfair of me to be critical of President Obama’s healthcare speech without having heard it. There’s not much to do on a Saturday night when you’re dead, so I read the transcript: We’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies . . . Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. And how much money are we talking about, sir? Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years. WTF?! I… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Money
Thomas Jefferson on Healthcare Reform
My fellow Americans — Did you watch President Obama’s healthcare speech tonight? Neither did I. But I did learn from msnbc.com’s First Read that he hoped in his speech to explain to ordinary American voters — “call them Joe and Jane from Kansas City” — that his health-care reform will 1) cover nearly everyone and 2) cut costs in the long run. So let me get this straight — we’re going to spend money to save money! Does he think everyone in Kansas City is that stupid or just Joe and Jane? What — you don’t believe we can insure 50 million more people and cut costs at the same time? Well then, you’re an uninformed kook! You’re scared that those cost savings will come from drastically rationing access to care, particularly for people who are chronically ill and/or near the end of their lives? You’re un-American! Probably a Nazi!… Read more →
Twitter: 2009-09-09
Best Undergrad College Degrees by Salary – http://bit.ly/qaRn1 # Lowest paying college majors – http://tinyurl.com/lnx5fn # RT @capricecrane: Enough already, Mr. Gosselin. We hate your wife too, so we just stopped talking about her all together. Give it a shot. # Read more →
Love and Money
My son and I are watching a TV commercial for Love Happens, which seems to be about a man forced to choose between financial gain and the love of a woman. This is one of those “teachable moments,” because the boy, who’s 15 now, may someday find himself facing the same choice as the guy in the movie, so I look at him with love and hard-earned wisdom and with a voice of great sincerity, I say: “Take the money.” Read more →
White House Adds $2 Trillion to Deficit Forecasts
The nation would be forced to borrow more than $9 trillion over the next decade under President Obama’s policies, the White House acknowledged late Friday, bringing their long-term budget forecast in line with independent estimates. The new projections add approximately $2 trillion to budget deficits through 2019. Earlier this year, the administration had predicted that Obama’s policies would require the government to spend $7.108 trillion more than it collects in tax revenue over the next decade. An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report will not be formally released until Tuesday, said the change is due primarily to updated projections of economic growth that are far less rosy than data used when the White House released its first long-term budget outlook in February. — washingtonpost.com I think I’d be way more upset about this if the numbers weren’t beyond human comprehension . . . Read more →
Cash for Clunkers
Cash for Clunkers has the following elements of spectacle: Americans destroying perfectly functional cars Americans whose skills are uncompetitive in the global marketplace driving around in fancy new cars Somewhere in China and India they must be having a good laugh. — Philip Greenspun Read more →
Twitter: 2009-08-02
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something. — Jackie Mason # Read more →
The Capitalists Failed Us
There are some things that one just didn’t do. That’s the way I was brought up. It’s not gray; it was black and white. Now the ethical standard seems to be if everybody else is doing it, I can do it too. Carry that over into the banking. Everybody else is doing these funny loans and having earnings grow faster, building up their margins, leveraging those margins. The more leverage A gets, the more leverage B feels inclined to get. So the system fed on itself and drove bankers to making decisions that they, presumably, should have known better than to make. I don’t blame government for this. I was at a meeting of CEOs, even though I haven’t been to one for quite a while, and someone asked me to sum up the morning. This was a bunch of bankers and other CEOs. They said, what do you think… Read more →
Income Tax Fact of the Day
IRS data shows that in 2007 — the most recent data available — the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act. Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. — The Tax Foundation Read more →
I’m Killing It on Amazon
I’m explaining to my wife how being an Amazon.com associate works . . . “If I mention a book on my web site, I link it to the book’s page on Amazon. Then if someone clicks through on the link and buys something, I get a small commission.” She loves money-making enterprises. “How much do you make?” she asks excitedly. “It’s around four percent, which usually amounts to around 5 or 10 bucks a year.” “Oh,” she says, rapidly losing interest. “But look,” I say, showing her my online associate report. “Last month, someone clicked through on one of my links and while they were on Amazon, they bought a very expensive camera lens and I got the commission on it: 18 dollars and 48 cents! We could dine out on burritos and beer with that kind of money!” “That’s wonderful!” she says. “Can you print that out so I… Read more →
Unicorn Dust and Pixie Wings
Donald Marron points out that another one of those great cost-saving ideas in the healthcare debate (the Independent Medicare Advisory Council) has taken a hit: CBO estimates that the proposed legislation would save a paltry $2 billion over the next ten years, less than 1/500 of the 10-year cost of health reform. Damn that CBO! They keep killing all these great ideas with, like, analysis and numbers and all that stuff. Everything would work out just fine if only they would close their eyes, click their heels together three times, and say, “There is no policy like reform…there is no policy like reform….” — Greg Mankiw Read more →
California Fiscal Crisis
The median wage of a California state employee is $66,000 (source). The median wage among all Californians (including those state workers) is just over $36,000. The state employee can retire with a full pension in his or her late 40s or early 50s, which essentially means that the taxpayers have to pay for double the number of state workers that are required to provide current services. In addition to salaries that are much higher than private sector equivalents, the state employee has health care and other benefits that by themselves may exceed the total compensation of a full-time private sector employee. The reasonable question to ask is not “How did they run out of cash?” but “How was this ever supposed to work?” — Philip Greenspun Read more →
Low-End Wealth
Flying back to California from the east coast, I sat next to one of about 60 kids coming back from a three-week tour of Europe to celebrate their graduation from an Orange County high school. “You guys must be rich,” I said to her, “traveling around Europe for three weeks.” “We’re on the low end of wealthy,” she said. She put her hand out in front of her, palm down — not too high — to indicate her standing on the wealth ladder. Read more →
The Last Frontier
California’s fiscal crisis has left the US state without courts and some administration offices were ordered to close on Friday. A predicted 24 billion dollar budget deficit over the next two years has forced Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to order massive cost-cutting measures. — California closes state offices to save cash There is no more new frontier We have got to make it here — The Eagles, “The Last Resort” All the economic news from here in California is bad and unfortunately the cry heeded by our forbears — “Go West!” — is no longer an option . . . Read more →
Another Thing I Learned in Canada
Our hotel room had a fridge, so we went to the market to stock up on a few drinks and snacks. We weren’t planning to buy a lot of stuff so instead of a cart we just put the items in a hand basket. At the checkout line, the girl asked me, “Do you want bags for this?” Am I missing something? “How else are we going to get it to the car?” I asked. “I’m going to charge you for them,” she said, “so I have to ask you if you want them.” Plastic grocery bags in Canada will set you back five cents apiece . . . Read more →
Show Me the Canadian Money
I handed the girl at the McDonalds drive-thru a Canadian 5-dollar bill and asked her, “Who is that guy?” “I don’t know,” she said. “I only came here three years ago and I’m not really into money.” When we got back to the hotel, I asked the guy at the front desk the same question. He had no idea. I was dumbfounded to discover that Canadians don’t know the people on their money! By googling “canadian 5-dollar bill,” I learned that the gentleman is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada. The prime minister is like the president in the United States, isn’t he? Wouldn’t this be like an American not recognizing Abraham Lincoln? Read more →
A Cool Thing I Learned About Canada
There’s a picture of kids playing hockey on the back of the 5-dollar bill: Read more →
Feeling the Pinch
How Korean Markets Keep Prices Low
My wife’s in a great mood. She’s just back from grocery shopping at the local Korean market, where fresh produce is sold cheaply. “Guess how much for these,” she says excitedly, holding up a package of eggs. “How many are there?” “Twenty.” I haven’t bought eggs in years so I have no idea how much they cost. I’m thinking of guessing $1.99 but I don’t want to undershoot the real price and take all the fun out of it for her. “Two ninety-nine,” I say. “Ninety-nine cents!” She’s now holding up a small carton of fruit. “How much for these?” she asks. “What are those?” “Boysenberries.” “Ninety-nine cents,” I say, since that was the right answer on the eggs. “Thirty-three cents! How can they sell this stuff so cheap?” “They sneak around local farms by night, stealing eggs and boysenberries. It’s the only possible explanation.” Read more →
You Have to Look at the Total Cost
My wife decided to highlight her own hair, which costs five dollars if you do it yourself versus 50 dollars at the hair salon. Later I noticed, in the master bathroom, a large black carpet stain in front of her sink. “That can be taken care of,” she said. I said, “I can’t help noticing that someone, probably you, has already tried to get that stain out without much success.” “I don’t have the right cleaning product,” she said. “And it’s time to get the carpet cleaned anyway. Carpet cleaners can get that out easily. Easily. Been there, done that.” “So let’s review,” I said. “We saved 45 dollars on the hair coloring but we’re going to end up spending a thousand to replace the carpet . . .” Read more →