Sawickipedia Tumblr

Nov 01 2009

The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more “choice” and “competition”) to expand government power. But why would a plan tied to Medicare control health spending, when Medicare hasn’t? From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers — and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting. Congress periodically improves Medicare benefits, and there’s a limit to how much squeezing reimbursement rates can check costs. Doctors and hospitals already complain that low payments limit services or discourage physicians from taking Medicare patients.

Even [Yale Political Scientist and Public Plan idea creator Jacob] Hacker concedes that without reimbursement rates close to Medicare’s, the public plan would founder. If it had to “negotiate rates directly with providers” — do what private insurers do — the public plan could have “a very hard time” making inroads, he writes. Hacker opposes such weakened versions of the public plan.

By contrast, a favored public plan would probably doom today’s private insurance. Although some congressional proposals limit enrollment eligibility in the public plan, pressures to liberalize would be overwhelming. Why should some under-65 Americans enjoy lower premiums and others not? In one study that assumed widespread eligibility, the Lewin Group estimated that 103 million people — half the number with private insurance — would switch to the public plan. Private insurance might become a specialty product.

Many would say: Whoopee! Get rid of the sinister insurers. Bring on a government single-payer system. But if that’s the agenda, why not debate it directly? It’s not insurers that cause high health costs; they’re simply the middlemen. It’s the fragmented delivery system and open-ended reimbursement. Would strict regulation of doctors, hospitals and patients under a single-payer system provide control? Or would genuine competition among health plans over price and quality work better?

That’s the debate we need, but in truth, doctors, hospitals and patients don’t want to be limited, whether by government or markets. Congress reflects public opinion. Fearing a real debate, we fake it.

Oct 29 2009

“Along the way, here we are a 14-year-old Internet company that somehow got boring,” said Bartz, who said the company’s 6 percent operating margins were “pathetic” and “unacceptable.”

“Today is the beginning of a journey back to respect,” Bartz said.

Yahoo executives said the company would invest in editorial staff to produce more original features and tweak its online products to keep users on the site longer and boost advertising revenue.

Yahoo begins journey back to respect

Rafer sez:

Am I to interpret that Y! expects they can raise operating margins by adding more human editorial?

(via rafer)

That is exactly what I thought when reading that. Didn’t former CEO Terry Semel prove that Yahoo The Media Company was a bad idea?

(via caterpillarcowboy)

Sawickipedia: You both are missing the fact that the last refuge of high cpm’s is in branded content or high value original content.  I agree the margins aren’t there but when you’ve got a salesperson’s mentality the focus isn’t on margin - it’s on high rate revenue.

+

How I Learned to Appreciate Dance Being Married to a Ballerina - Todd Sawicki (via ignitenight)

Sawickipedia: Now seeing this I actually think I did the topic a little justice - now I need to actually let my dancing wife see it.  She’ll be the real judge.

Oct 25 2009
Of course you want to set up a system where an institution dreads the day it happens because management gets whacked, shareholders get whacked and the board gets whacked,” said Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association. “But you don’t want to create a system that raises great uncertainty and changes what institutions, risk management executives and lawyers are used to.

Trying to Rein In ‘Too Big to Fail’ Institutions - NYTimes.com

Sawickipedia: Too f’in bad.  A system that creates uncertainty for the very institutions and parasites that feed off them that nearly f’ed every western citizen as a result of your careless and excessively risky self-serving, bonus chasing, master of the universe?  Too f’in bad.  Yeah it’s going to suck to actually have to live within the bounds of reason.

+

how to deal with institutions that are so big that the government has no choice but to rescue them when they get in trouble.

A senior administration official said on Sunday that after extensive consultations with Treasury Department officials, Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would introduce legislation as early as this week. The measure would make it easier for the government to seize control of troubled financial institutions, throw out management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution.

The official said the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday.

The White House plan as outlined so far would already make it much more costly to be a large financial company whose failure would put the financial system and the economy at risk. It would force such institutions to hold more money in reserve and make it harder for them to borrow too heavily against their assets.

Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, that plan would require that they come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, a plan that administration officials say ought to be made public in advance.

Trying to Rein In ‘Too Big to Fail’ Institutions - NYTimes.com

Sawickipedia: Thank goodness - I have no idea whether this proposal actually will work - but it’s about time that the current administration finally started realizing that too big to fail is and was one of the things that got us into this mess.  Given the crony capitalism inherent in too big to fail I give this no shot of going anywhere if Congress has a say.  <sigh>

Oct 24 2009
In an effort to push consumers toward buying more movies, some major film studios are considering a new policy that would block DVDs from being offered for rental until several weeks after going on sale. Under the plan, new DVD releases would be available on a purchase-only basis for a few weeks, after which time companies such as Blockbuster and Netflix would be allowed to rent the DVDs to their customers. The move comes as the studios are grappling with sharply declining DVD revenue, which has long propped up the movie business.

Business & Technology | DVD rental delay considered by Hollywood studios | Seattle Times Newspaper

Sawickipedia: This is literally one of the dumbest things i have ever heard w/r/t the media business.  I guarantee this will not lead to more sales.  I also guarantee it will lead to more pirating.

Dumb.

Oct 22 2009
We must not get diverted by the financial sector’s opposition or by populist rage. We must focus, instead, on the core issue. Trying to make financial systems safer has made them more perilous. Today, as a result, neither market discipline nor regulation is effective. There is a danger, therefore, that this rescue will lead to still greater risk-taking and an even worse crisis at some point in the not too distant future. Either we impose a credible threat of bankruptcy, or institutions we have to support are made safer, or, better, we have both of these. Open-ended insurance of weakly regulated institutions that take complex gambles is intolerable. We dare not return to business as usual. It is as simple – and brutal – as that.

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - How to manage the gigantic financial cuckoo in our nest

Sawickipedia: Martin Wolf is one of the best financial commentators on the planet.  Everyone interested in finance and economics should read his columns.  To his point - the threat of bankruptcy - the threat of failure must be real as failure is a very powerful organizational and personal motivator.  That’s where socialism and crony capitalism fail - they remove the risk of failing which either allows you to make insane risks because you aren’t worried about not being bailed out or you become so insular because success is “guaranteed” sort of like social promotion in schools.  Bankruptcy is good.  Creative Destruction is good.  Failure is ok.
(via sawickipedia)

Rafer sez:
This is a restatement of Too Big to Fail/Survive, with an attempt to swap cause and effect of anti-scaling regulation/bailouts. His restatement is unfortunately just another diversion.

(via rafer)

Sawickipedia: @Rafer you have it backwards Wolf is extolling against too big to fail.  His point, and my agreement, is that all businesses need to face the realities of bankruptcy - big, small and otherwise.  It was the unstated expectation of bailouts that helped caused the mess we’re in.  Wolf is far, far from being in the too big to fail camp.

+

Say what you like about healthcare reform—say that it is necessary, or it is unnecessary; say that it is just another government program bound to fail, or that it is an important government duty to pick up where the private sector has failed; say that it is a manufactured crisis or that it is the most serious political issue of our time—but you can’t say this bill is rational, well-considered, and logical.

It is political, it is pay-for-play, and it is not reform. Indeed, it is Chicago politics at the National level. How did our most populist modern President since Jimmy Carter come to allow such a state of affairs? Well, apparently, everything—even principle—is negotiable.

Still, we leave the political name-calling for others who care about such stuff. Our business is to make money.

And unless something goes terribly wrong in subsequent legislative maneuvering, we think so-called “healthcare reform” provides the best opportunity for profitable investment in Big Pharma in decades.

The “Audacity of Hope”? Not that we can see. More like, the Audacity of Extortion.

+
We must not get diverted by the financial sector’s opposition or by populist rage. We must focus, instead, on the core issue. Trying to make financial systems safer has made them more perilous. Today, as a result, neither market discipline nor regulation is effective. There is a danger, therefore, that this rescue will lead to still greater risk-taking and an even worse crisis at some point in the not too distant future. Either we impose a credible threat of bankruptcy, or institutions we have to support are made safer, or, better, we have both of these. Open-ended insurance of weakly regulated institutions that take complex gambles is intolerable. We dare not return to business as usual. It is as simple – and brutal – as that.

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - How to manage the gigantic financial cuckoo in our nest

Sawickipedia: Martin Wolf is one of the best financial commentators on the planet.  Everyone interested in finance and economics should read his columns.  To his point - the threat of bankruptcy - the threat of failure must be real as failure is a very powerful organizational and personal motivator.  That’s where socialism and crony capitalism fail - they remove the risk of failing which either allows you to make insane risks because you aren’t worried about not being bailed out or you become so insular because success is “guaranteed” sort of like social promotion in schools.  Bankruptcy is good.  Creative Destruction is good.  Failure is ok.

+

YOUR PET’S MARK The eco-footprints of the family pet each year as calculated by the Vales:

German shepherds: 1.1 hectares, compared with 0.41ha for a large SUV.

Cats: 0.15ha (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf).

Hamsters: 0.014ha (two of them equate to a medium-sized plasma TV).

Goldfish: 0.00034ha (an eco-finprint equal to two cellphones).

Save the planet: eat a dog? | Stuff.co.nz

Sawickipedia: Cats beat Dogs once again

Cocoa Sawicki (now since passed but one very cool cat)

Cocoa Sawicki - now since passed - but one cool cat when he was still here

Page 1 of 11