OT: Ray, how's your Bitcoin investment going?

[Pete Mckeon]

I appreciate your explanation/education but I can tell you from what I see that starting with 100k in expenes the total expeditures has increased more than 2 % per annum. I am in same houseshold so that is a constant except for taxes, electricity and upkeep. Medical for my first year of medicare, and having the new retirement from IBM HAS risen in double digit because we were lucky to have the taxable income.
That is not even counting extra funds spent because of 3500 you pay first for specific hospital I spent over $25k last year due to cancer deductibles. I can go into a lot more detail but all expenses for the year were more than a 2% increase. I am fortunate and did ok and also got retirement and maxed 401k. 'Out of pocket' costs per annum, I hope only increase to what they are and it has been more than 5% for me.
.

I really feel bad for people in their 40s or 50s without a pension or did not MAX their 401k or savings. I do not know all the problems or answers for them BUT the middle class is being attacked and income is not growing as liked, except for a few small segments. This is just my irish opinion

Seen too many of them because i have triend unsucessfuuly to teach and convince them of how to plan for a retirement years down the road.

I have/had a mba in finance and bba in accounting:

Originally Posted by verticaldoug

Pete, CPI includes energy, food etc:

FOOD AND BEVERAGES (breakfast cereal, milk, coffee, chicken, wine, full service meals, snacks)
HOUSING (rent of primary residence, owners' equivalent rent, fuel oil, bedroom furniture)
APPAREL (men's shirts and sweaters, women's dresses, jewelry)
TRANSPORTATION (new vehicles, airline fares, gasoline, motor vehicle insurance)
MEDICAL CARE (prescription drugs and medical supplies, physicians' services, eyeglasses and eye care, hospital services)
RECREATION (televisions, toys, pets and pet products, sports equipment, admissions);
EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION (college tuition, postage, telephone services, computer software and accessories);
OTHER GOODS AND SERVICES (tobacco and smoking products, haircuts and other personal services, funeral expenses).


The inflation you feel is primary driven by high frequency purchases. So if gas at the pump, food prices are increasing (which they are), inflation feels high. However, less frequent purchases, (appliances, housing etc) may be increasing at a much slower rate. Hence the CPI looks low. For most people, rent equivalent, and energy are the two largest parts of the budget. For most of the U.S., housing has depressed the rent equivalent calculations helping to keep CPI low.

Chain CPI which is what you are referring to for SS Colas etc is a much nastier animal. Essentially the gov decides people can substitute down, so as prices go up, you will change your spending habits and buy cheaper stuff. Literally they count on your going from Banana Republic to the Gap to Old Navy eventually to goodwill. This is a nasty cycle. See Japan for details.

For as much as Paul Krugman gets bashed lately, you need to see his comments on 'Rent Seekers' to really understand what the elites are doing to the economy.

There is a turkish saying: If you hold the honey pot, you get to lick your fingers.

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by Pete Mckeon

I do not know all the problems or answers for them BUT the middle class is being attacked and income is not growing as liked, except for a few small segments. This is just my irish opinion

Pete

I am not disagreeing with you. I believe CPI calculations as whole are not that bad. Your basket of goods and services differs significantly from the standard CPI baskets. Up until this year, my basket was also different in that I am fortunate to have a healthy family, heated my home with natural gas and don't drive that much, so my CPI was lower than the national average. Now this year, with a daughter's tuition costs, the spike in natgas, and my CPI is probably higher. So if the government decides to unfairly weight the CPI basket, the results are skewed. We can agree to that.

The more important point, though, is the insidious nature of chained CPI. If because of price increases, I substitute from a Mercedes to Ford to Hyundai, J Crew to Gap to Uniqlo, I may still have a car and clothing on my back , but I am definitely poorer even if my substitution allows the Gov to monkey with chain cpi and tell me inflation is not as high as I imagine.

And I don't disagree with you on middle class being under attack. It's just under attack from both parties. A friend and I were discussing the nuttiness of Tom Perkin's OpEds today, and he sent me this link to an old rant on FOX News from the 2012 election. Normally, I don't watch Fox, but Napolitano basically rants on the both parties. Probably the truest piece ever to air on Fox and he was fired for it.

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/01/...ox-5-mins.html

Video halfway down the page.

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by Pete Mckeon

I really feel bad for people in their 40s or 50s without a pension or did not MAX their 401k or savings. I do not know all the problems or answers for them BUT the middle class is being attacked and income is not growing as liked, except for a few small segments.

Very true. The words "defined benefit" does not enter into the lexicon of an entire cross section of virtually anyone that started a career about the time John Travolta filmed "Saturday Night Fever". I dunno about any of the union worker base if this is also true or not.

Middle class is under attack in the desperate attempt in maintaining living standard expectations amid an overall declining standard of living for the USA. Scary stuff.

Growing segment of income is misleading as it mainly applies to the health care professions. This is one contributor to a very dangerous death spiral in light of the overall US economy - it a fundamental perversion to have health care driven and incentivized by the profit motive. It is as rapacious as unfettered capitalism.

[1centaur]

"it a fundamental perversion to have health care driven and incentivized by the profit motive"

How about food?

Realize that the amount of health care the population gets can be made suboptimal not only by profit leakage but by bureaucratic indifference and inefficiencies (and even official priorities) that reflect the lack of profit motive. I am not advocating one or the other, just pointing out that what is obvious to some about profit is obvious to others about non-profit beyond a certain size. There are goods and bads about both visions, period.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by 1centaur

How about food?

People are somewhat better qualified to make buying decisions about what food to consume than they are about what to do for health care, so in general the free market works better for food.

[Vientomas]

Plus I can grow my own food. I can't operate on myself.

[Louis]

Med School for the 99%:

[1centaur]

Originally Posted by Louis

People are somewhat better qualified to make buying decisions about what food to consume than they are about what to do for health care, so in general the free market works better for food.

Not quite sure how ignorance interacts with how something is paid for. We don't know a lot about a lot of services we buy, really. And if we made a concerted effort to give excellent information to everyone on the web about health to at least equal what we know about our food, would it be OK to introduce profit to the equation then?

BTW, even a single payer government would be buying from for-profit companies and doctors, so it's not like one can get it out of the system. We have a hybrid system today (some government, some profit) and we'll have a hybrid system tomorrow.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by 1centaur

Not quite sure how ignorance interacts with how something is paid for.

Not how something is paid for, but how the buying decisions are made.

[93legendti]

Thank G-d for govt making health care decisions for us stupid folk:


'It's been less a month since the Affordable Care Act started providing health coverage for people who bought insurance through the exchange, and now some people who are going to the doctor for the first time are finding some complications.

"We have health insurance that is worthless," said customer Shawnna Simpson.

Simpson found out last week the new insurance for which she is paying $600 a month was a bad choice for her family.

Her 15-year-old daughter was hurt in a cheerleading accident, so Simpson called her family doctor only to learn they don't take her new health plan: Blue Cross Network E.

Ever since, she's been on the phone with the healthcare exchange, looking for a family doctor in Williamson County that accepts her plan, but finding none.

"We can't use it in the county where we live," she said.'

http://www.wsmv.com/story/24560302/s...ealth-exchange

[fuzzalow]

As famously quoted by Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks, he replied "Because that's where the money is".

The health care profession has been one of the few showing steady growth in jobs while the rest of the US labor market has been stagnant or in decline. And with many who have now entered into one of the few industries with growth in jobs and attractive salaries, there will be a vested interest of the industry participants in sustaining and fueling that growth as long as possible. The danger and pitfall occurs when the view and attitude towards the persons under care in the health care profession are no longer seen as patients but as revenue streams. indeed, with many hospitals, institutions and MDs, that malignant view of patients has already occurred. I believe the handling of patients as tantamount to revenue streams to be immoral and inhumane.

I am not adverse to the profit motive in the health care industry. I am adverse to the profit motive in the health care industry that incentivizes and rewards financial profitability rather than some metric centered on the success of patient outcomes.

The health care industry is not a growth industry in the sense of it expanding economic growth, fostering opportunity and export of goods and services. It is a zero-sum game that leeches from the misfortune of illness and malady that befalls a percentage of the citizenry drawn from a reasonably fixed population pool. Its dominance in an economy the size of the USA speaks not of innovation but of opportunism and exploitation of its own citizenry. Concerning a matter of health and wellness on which many have no leeway in choosing or expertise insofar as negotiating or education themselves in order to contribute to their own better outcome.

Originally Posted by 1centaur

Realize that the amount of health care the population gets can be made suboptimal not only by profit leakage but by bureaucratic indifference and inefficiencies (and even official priorities) that reflect the lack of profit motive. I am not advocating one or the other, just pointing out that what is obvious to some about profit is obvious to others about non-profit beyond a certain size. There are goods and bads about both visions, period.

Respectfully, that is speculation as to outcomes that may be for a strawman construct of your own conjecture. If your phrasing of "and even official priorities" is a trope for "government death panels" I simply view that as inflammatory language from nescient polemics.

There are no easy fixes. Without resorting to speculation, the facts can be distilled to the simple numbers that the US ranked 37th overall in quality while 1st in expenditure for health care as per the World Health Organization (WHO) report from a few years back. Those two numbers don't jibe. The World Bank number for health care as a percent of USA GDP was about 17%. Sure, Belize was some big % number too but that country's GDP is peanuts - 17% of the USA GDP is a very big number.

I am not a socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but I know when somethings not working.

Originally Posted by 93legendti

Thank G-d for govt making health care decisions for us stupid folk:


'It's been less a month since the Affordable Care Act started providing health coverage for people who bought insurance through the exchange, and now some people who are going to the doctor for the first time are finding some complications.

"We have health insurance that is worthless," said customer Shawnna Simpson.

Simpson found out last week the new insurance for which she is paying $600 a month was a bad choice for her family.

Her 15-year-old daughter was hurt in a cheerleading accident, so Simpson called her family doctor only to learn they don't take her new health plan: Blue Cross Network E.

Ever since, she's been on the phone with the healthcare exchange, looking for a family doctor in Williamson County that accepts her plan, but finding none.

"We can't use it in the county where we live," she said.'

http://www.wsmv.com/story/24560302/s...ealth-exchange

There will always be outliers that can be made illustrative of and a story about as testimony to the problems in moving forwards with anything new. So what? It is not that I don't feel for the persons in this news story, but this discussion is about the bigger story and not localized to the plight of this particular circumstance. Change is a fundamental condition of life.

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by fuzzalow

There are no easy fixes. Without resorting to speculation, the facts can be distilled to the simple numbers that the US ranked 37th overall in quality while 1st in expenditure for health care as per the World Health Organization (WHO) report from a few years back. Those two numbers don't jibe. The World Bank number for health care as a percent of USA GDP was about 17%. Sure, Belize was some big % number too but that country's GDP is peanuts - 17% of the USA GDP is a very big number.

I believe there is a huge spend in the U.S. during the last 6 mo of a patients life that is non-existent in other countries and a small percentage of the population end up being a big percentage of the total consumption. Unless you ration, you are throwing deck chairs off the titanic hoping it doesn't sink.

[Tony T]

Originally Posted by 93legendti

Simpson found out last week the new insurance for which she is paying $600 a month was a bad choice for her family.

Her 15-year-old daughter was hurt in a cheerleading accident, so Simpson called her family doctor only to learn they don't take her new health plan: Blue Cross Network E.

What I find extremely hard to believe in this story (but I don't doubt its accuracy), is that someone would commit to a plan for $7,200/year without first calling their "Family Doctor" to make sure that they take that health plan.

I mean, come-on… "Blue Cross Network E"… Call your doctor to see if he's in that Network before you sign-up.

[Tony T]

Originally Posted by Louis

Wow! Wish I had bought some bit-coin when you started this thread

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by 93legendti

Thank G-d for govt making health care decisions for us stupid folk:


'It's been less a month since the Affordable Care Act started providing health coverage for people who bought insurance through the exchange, and now some people who are going to the doctor for the first time are finding some complications.

"We have health insurance that is worthless," said customer Shawnna Simpson.

Simpson found out last week the new insurance for which she is paying $600 a month was a bad choice for her family.

Her 15-year-old daughter was hurt in a cheerleading accident, so Simpson called her family doctor only to learn they don't take her new health plan: Blue Cross Network E.

Ever since, she's been on the phone with the healthcare exchange, looking for a family doctor in Williamson County that accepts her plan, but finding none.

"We can't use it in the county where we live," she said.'

http://www.wsmv.com/story/24560302/s...ealth-exchange

9 mos, 3 days......then 2 more years.

"Anecdotal evidence", perfect for the news, faux or otherwise.

BTW, I am on Tricare, 100% government policy, ala what members of congress has, and it is tremendous. Another isolated instance that 'proves' nothing.