"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

Oh Golly, Pollyanna, is it true that the same American businessmen who
made
their fortunes during the horrific uncertainty of the Cold War and the
ever-present threat of Nuclear Winter no longer live and breathe? I
hear
this "uncertainty myth" and I ask you to name what "certainties" modern
businesses enjoy today. They have almost no guaranties of any kind. To
make the "uncertainty of health care costs" into the horrible, fearsome
incalculable uncertainty monster holding the entire US business sector
at bay
borders on the ludicrous. I'm just saying . . . (-:

If you can't refute the stats, ridicule them. Works every time.

What stats? Did you post something that conclusively showed businesses
weren't hiring due to this "uncertainty factor" that's so often thrown
around in the press? I must have missed it. All I saw were two trends that
matched up for what could have been a dozen different and far more like
reasons. I believe Cindy nailed it: there are no jobs because there is no
demand because too many people are out of work or underwater on a home. As
unemployment benefits and stimulus money runs out and states "shut down"
like Minnesota:

http://www.statesman.com/news/nation...e-1578074.html

we can expect demand to slacken even more and the housing and unemployment
numbers to react accordingly.

"
Consider these tricky rules: The State Department of Revenue says it still
expects people to pay their taxes, but it won't be sending out refunds.
Residents may renew their driver's licenses in certain locations, but no
driver's exams will be offered. The Minnesota Zoo is closed to visitors, but
a "Music in the Zoo" concert series was to proceed (though no animals would
be on display). State lottery ticket sales have ceased, costing the state
revenue, but people with winning tickets in hand can't redeem them for
cash."

Yes, that's certain to create jobs. In the Twilight zone.

There is a big difference from the amorphous maybe of a missile strike
and the actual lack of knowledge of what will happen with what is most
people's second biggest expense. Especially in the great unwashed of
those who don't currently have to will past reform.

You need to translate that into English for me and perhaps the rest of us.
Your English teacher is rolling in his or her grave. Well, at least mine
would be.

My employers/companies always paid for health benefits. Since the
recent,
mostly manufactured debate on the debt limit centers on "the children"
it
seems that taking away their health care at more and more businesses
every
day doesn't factor into "robbing their future." Our children should
have
better lives than we've led because of the addition of our life's labor
to
society. I had employer/company provided healthcare during my life.
Why
should the next generation get ripped off? That's how companies can
afford
$20M+ salary packages for CEOs - by reducing costs to the bone for
everyone
*else* in the company.

Actually the employer paid HC is a large part of the reason we are
in the fix we are.

Agreed. But the source was the practice of providing outrageously cheap
health care as a way to circumvent the WWII wage freeze that began the
problem. It's another of the many *gifts* that wars keep on giving us.
Once it got established, it was very hard to put the brakes on it.

It managed to divorce the user (you and me) from the
costs of healthcare. CMS figures have shown every year that the average
person in America pays less then 20% (topping out at 18%) of all
healthcare expenses out of pocket, and that includes the o-o-p part of
the premium.

Is that working Americans? Retirees? Out of work people? I haven't seen a
detailed study of medical cost issues that didn't have structural "issues"
you could drive a Mack truck through. The way the health care system is
arranged if you DON'T belong to an organization like Carefirst or even
Medicare, you'll pay the full freight for your medical care, including the
outrageously kited prices of medicines, fees and DME that in many cases
doubled before the RX portion of Medicare started up. Sure you can offer
the government "great" prices on drugs after you've raised them enormously.
Europeans pay less (up to 40% less!) for American drugs than Americans do.
How is that right? Why am *I* subsidizing Europeans?

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/eu...u-s/2009-07-08

"Decision Resources came out with a report showing that drug costs in Europe
are an average of 40 percent less than in the U.S.--a price differential
that shows why reimportation was ever raised in the first place. The study
covered 170 of the most popular drugs and found costs to range from a low of
55 percent of the U.S. price in Italy to a high of 70 percent in Germany.
Most of the biggest price differences were on older drugs--such as Eli
Lilly's Prozac--that face generic competition; apparently, branded
drugmakers tend to cut prices in the face of generic competition in Europe,
but hold those prices steady in the U.S. Differentials varied not only by
geographic area, but also by therapeutic area, too."

Why do seniors have to take buses to Canada to buy medicine there? There's
a lot wrong with American medicine, and much of it starts with Big Pharma
and trickles down. Anyone who's ever seen the liner of a garbage dump knows
that what trickles down is NOT good stuff.

When things are subsidized to such a great extent, then all
sorts of weird things happen to demand and supply. That and for awhile
(in one of the great ironies of the latter 20th century) it was actually
cheaper to give better health insurance than to actually pay a similar
wage.

As a result of many factors, but all started in WWII to evade wage controls.
To me it's simple. If the nation has a right to draft you at 18 and send
you off to war, then it has a vested interest in its citizen's health.
Regrettably, medicine is a very profit-oriented business, and not
necessarily a "healthy customer" oriented one. If it were, the MRSA scandal
couldn't possibly exist. But it does because hospitals were making money on
second visits treating the horrific infections they gave the patients during
their FIRST visit. Now that Medicare won't pay for treatment of
iatrogenically-caused MRSA, hospitals are cleaning up their act. Very, very
s l o w l y.

THis exacerbated the above problems by moving (for awhile anyway)
toward hiding even more of the expenses through low co-pays. We haven't
had health insurance (with insurance defined as taking a rare but
expensive risk and dividing that risk among many people) since the
demise of the old Major Medical policies.

Are all Major Med/high deductible policies gone? As I noted before, if
you're not in a big plan like Carefirst aka Blue Double Cross or Medicare,
you pay full (highly inflated) rates for drugs, DME and medical fees. Many
people I know express awe when they see the numbers for "rate charged" and
"rate negotiated" on their statements because they are so radically
different.

Obviously I am astounded at the idea that businessmen who've created
entire
new sectors of the economy out of scratch cower at taking on the risk of
once again having to at least co-pay worker's health care. Where was
this
alleged incredible risk aversion when businesses were buying the complex
financial securities that sank the economy? It wasn't there then, it
isn't
there now.

Well is you are astounded, everyone must be astounded.

I *is* very astounded. (-: In the light of all the uncertainties most
businesses face without fear, the theory just doesn't hold a lot of water.
But it's promulgated any time change is threatened.

There's no demand for products or the new employees to make more of them
because the economy hasn't restarted. That's why the numbers are flat.
If
it's up to some in Congress, it will never restart.

Job formation is THE major driver of demand for products, especially
in the early stages of a recovery (which we are in). I also noted you
haven't done anything to actually call into question the validity of the
stats.

What stats? That jobs are lagging again? Maybe it's the uncertainty of
knowing whether the US will default on its debts that's scaring business.
Lack of demand is historically far more likely than either healthcare or
debt ceiling uncertainties to keep the job creation rate low. Companies are
finding that in a recession they can fire people and get their co-workers to
work even harder to cover the gaps for fear that they, too, will get sacked.
Now *that's* real fear - seeing co-workers getting the boot, knowing no one
will be hired to replace them and that the remaining workers will now have
to carry that load. Accounts for that "productivity increase" that you
often tout as being a positive economic indicator.

A 2008 study of 24 leading economies by the Organisation of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) concludes that, "Taxation is most
progressively distributed in the United States, probably reflecting
the
greater role played there by refundable tax credits, such as the
Earned
Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. . . . Taxes tend to be
least
progressive in the Nordic countries (notably, Sweden), France and
Switzerland."

Yabbut. Compare the cradle-to-grave care some of these countries offer
compared to ours and the numbers come out a little differently in what
it
costs to actually "live a life." That's a metric that's pretty hard to
come
by in way that's easily comparable and not subject to incredible
cherry-picking and criticism.

WHich has nothing to do with the progessivity of the tax system.

Which causes me to ask, what did tax progressiveness or lack thereof have
anything to do with the subject of business uncertainty? That knife cuts
both ways. FWIW, I was merely attempting to point out that different
nations have very different financial and social structures and any attempts
to cross-level them are fraught with as many potential interpretations and
problems as climate modeling has.

Except for now, when for a lot of people there's NO capital gain when
they
have to sell a house for less than they paid for it.

Which is completely beside the point since under current law, you
don't PAY cap gains taxes on housing unless you have a monster cap gain
(IIRC it somewhere over $500,000 of cap gains that are excluded. That is
cap gains, not the price of the house.) and then only if you don't
recycle the gain into another abode within two years.

Having an asset you can't sell (for most people their most expensive asset)
is going to effect every other financial decision you make.

something both sides conveniently forget to mention for differing
reasons.

Hard to imagine that when the Constitution was written there was no
income
tax. No capital gains tax. No sales tax.

Yep.

Hey, we agree on something. Break out the champagne.

--
Bobby G.