Instapundit - GENEROUS PAY for new Freddie Mac CFO. -
“The government-controlled mortgage finance company is giving CFO Ross Kari compensation worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million.” It’s okay to pay him a lot. He works for the government.
How does this not send a message that the Obam administration is anti-business/anti-free enterprise?
Little Green Footballs - The White House never tried to exclude Fox News from the Fienberg interview - this is based on an article in Talking Points Memo DC, (as far left as you can go), which is based on anonymous interviews. Amazingly when this story broke none of the other networks denied it, nor did the White House. They just let Fox go on blatantly lying and took all the heat they were catching from the NY Times, Washington Post, et. al. In other fantasy news Rahm Emmanuel has appeared on Fox News Sunday every week since the election. He always brings coffee and bagels for the host and crew.
The Jawa Report - al Qaeda and Taliban on the outs? - Ronin points to an article in Foreign Policy magazine that beleives they are going in opposite directions.
Al Jazeera - Afghans condemn 'Quran-burning' -
Afghan police have fired into the air to break up a protest in Kabul by thousands of people who are condemning an alleged desecration of a copy of the Quran by foreign soldiers.
Protesters, claiming foreign forces had burned a copy of Islam's holiest book during a raid in Maidan Wardak province last week, blocked traffic in the Afghan capital for more than an hour on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for US and Nato-led forces in Afghanistan said none of their troops were involved in the incident and blamed the Taliban for spreading a false rumour that a copy of the Quran had been burned.
Charles Johnson and TPMDC checked and it was actually Fox News that burned the Koran.
Yahoo - FACT CHECK: Health insurer profits not so fat -
WASHINGTON – Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.
In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."
Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.
Related - NY Times - How an Insurance Mandate Could Leave Many Worse Off - The problems appear to boil down to two. Implicit Marginal Tax Rates:
A subtler problem is what economists call “implicit marginal tax rates.”
The fiscal reality is that not all income groups can receive equal subsidies; as a family earns more, its subsidy would probably decrease, eventually falling to zero. But then we are taking money away from the poor as they climb into higher income categories. This is a disincentive to earn more, and the strength of the disincentive increases with our initial generosity. For many people, the health insurance aid would phase out when food stamps, housing vouchers and the earned income tax credit also end and the personal income tax kicks in.
This structure of incentives would likely discourage many parents from earning a better life for their children. Congress could tweak the subsidies so they don’t phase out so quickly, but then we’re back to very high fiscal costs and subsidies for many families in the higher income classes.
and Mandate Creep:
A further problem is “mandate creep,” which we’ve seen at the state level, as groups lobby for various types of coverage — whether for acupuncture, alcoholism and fertility treatments, for example, or for chiropractor services or marriage counseling.
There are now about 1,500 insurance mandates among the various states, and hundreds of others are under consideration. The dynamic at work here is that the affected groups have a big incentive to push for mandates, while most other people are unaware of the specific issues and don’t become involved.
Because mandates don’t stay modest for long, health insurance would become all the more expensive. The Obama administration’s cost estimates haven’t considered these longer-run “political economy” issues.
That one is fairly easily dealt with in my opinion by codify a basic health plan that must be available in all states. Maybe it has a $1000 deductible and only covers non-routine and catostrophic care. If the country decides that this is the way it wants to go then that would at least allow everyone to have a safety net policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment