Ever notice how easy it is to pull up the "off lawn" dandelions? The ones growing in the woods, beyond the reach of the mower, shoot up tall and strong. Grasp them by the leaves and tug and up they come root and all. Whereas the lawn living survivors of the mower grow low and hug the ground. The root never comes up, the leaves pull off and you know that feller will be there next spring.
Kinda like Kipling's story How the Elephant Got his Trunk. Remember the elephant's child had an close encounter with a crocodile who pulled and pulled and stretched the elephant child's nose out into a trunk. The dandelions get whacked and whacked by the mower and react by growing lower.
Cute stories. But Darwin doesn't work that way. "Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited." Evolution happens when less successful organisms die before they can reproduce, and the fitter organisms survive and breed.
Tell that to those dandelions.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Detroit tries marketing
I got a letter from Chrysler, addressed to me (rather than occupant), explaining how wonderful Chrysler is going to become and including a $1000 discount ticket for a new Chrysler. Not too bad, I did buy a new Dodge Caravan back in 1999. So somehow the Chrysler IT system dredged up my address after ten years and one change of address. One day, when the current wheels wears out, I will buy a new car, and I have been a loyal buyer of Detroit iron over the years. (Ford, Chevy and Dodge, plus one Fiat and one Jaguar). At least they are trying.
GM ran a TV commercial yesterday on cable. It was an "image" ad, like the one PBS runs, rather than a traditional buy-this-car ad. First ad from the General I've seen in a long time.
I wish Chrysler and GM lots of luck, but I fear that they will loose money this year, find no one to lend to them, and Uncle will give in and give them another umpteen billion of taxpayer money to keep them going for another year. This might go on for decades.
GM ran a TV commercial yesterday on cable. It was an "image" ad, like the one PBS runs, rather than a traditional buy-this-car ad. First ad from the General I've seen in a long time.
I wish Chrysler and GM lots of luck, but I fear that they will loose money this year, find no one to lend to them, and Uncle will give in and give them another umpteen billion of taxpayer money to keep them going for another year. This might go on for decades.
Car money time
Let's see, to keep the car on the road for another year
$120 Town of Franconia
$43.20 State of NH
$40 Inspection sticker
$203.20 All in one day. Easy come, easy go
$120 Town of Franconia
$43.20 State of NH
$40 Inspection sticker
$203.20 All in one day. Easy come, easy go
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Cost is missing from the health care debate
The Democrats are pushing hard for health care "reform" by which they mean everyone gets health coverage and Uncle pays for it. Problem is we cannot afford it.
Right now, with millions of uninsured, we spend 18% of GNP on health care. We cannot afford that. Insure the uninsured and the health care slice of the economy will go up, and we can't afford that either. The US spends twice as much on health care as any other country on the globe. 18% of GNP means 18 people out of 100 are providing health care. Each health care worker only cares for 5.5 patients. This is insane. US products sold abroad cost 18% more just to pay the workers health care. We have to compete with the rest of the first world that is only paying an 9% health care markup. Companies move production off shore to avoid US health care costs.
We need to cut costs, by a half, to be competitive. Adding tens of millions of people to health care insurance isn't the way to do it.
The US spends as much as it does on health care because health care is free. The bulk of us have company paid health care that pays for everything. So whatever the doctor orders in the way of tests, procedures, imaging, motorized wheelchairs, prescriptions, and office visits, we do. Doesn't matter how outrageous the bill is, we don't care, it's paid for. And the bills ARE outrageous. Like $500 for a 50 minute office visit or $1023 for prescription drugs that can be had at Walmart for $48.
Only way to fix the excessive amounts of care and the gouging on the bills it to have us patients pay for it out of own pockets. Insurance ought to only pay for major catastrophes beyond any ordinary patient's purse. Routine stuff ought to be paid for out of pocket.
Then we could clamp down on the tort lawyers that sue for malpractice at the drop of a hat. A lot of testing and scanning and such is done to cover the ass of the doctor against a possible malpractice suit. Do something about predatory lawyers and costs would go down.
We need to clamp down on drug costs. The sky high prices charged for on-patent drugs goes not to research and development, but into marketing. Big drug companies have fancy salesmen, wearing suits, visit every doctor in the country every couple of weeks to peddle pills. Not quite sure how you deal with this but I'm sure there is a way. Allowing drugs in from Canada might be a start, taxing marketing expenses might be another.
Allow more competition. Allow insurance companies to sell insurance in every state of the union. Get a license in one state and you have the right to sell the same insurance policy in every state. Right now states won't allow out of state companies to sell insurance instate.
Drop state mandated support of every strange condition. Plenty of people would be happy to skip support for drug addiction, chiropody, contact lenses, dental coverage, gender change, and who knows what else, in return for a lower insurance premium.
Something like 30% of health care costs are incurred in the last year of the patient's life. At end of life, there is always something that can be done, even if it won't help much. It may not help, but the doctor and the hospital can bill for it and Medicare will pay for it. This isn't health care, it's making money. One fix might be to have a law that says "Death cancels all medical bills. If the patient dies, clearly the medical treatment was ineffective and will not be paid for."
Right now, with millions of uninsured, we spend 18% of GNP on health care. We cannot afford that. Insure the uninsured and the health care slice of the economy will go up, and we can't afford that either. The US spends twice as much on health care as any other country on the globe. 18% of GNP means 18 people out of 100 are providing health care. Each health care worker only cares for 5.5 patients. This is insane. US products sold abroad cost 18% more just to pay the workers health care. We have to compete with the rest of the first world that is only paying an 9% health care markup. Companies move production off shore to avoid US health care costs.
We need to cut costs, by a half, to be competitive. Adding tens of millions of people to health care insurance isn't the way to do it.
The US spends as much as it does on health care because health care is free. The bulk of us have company paid health care that pays for everything. So whatever the doctor orders in the way of tests, procedures, imaging, motorized wheelchairs, prescriptions, and office visits, we do. Doesn't matter how outrageous the bill is, we don't care, it's paid for. And the bills ARE outrageous. Like $500 for a 50 minute office visit or $1023 for prescription drugs that can be had at Walmart for $48.
Only way to fix the excessive amounts of care and the gouging on the bills it to have us patients pay for it out of own pockets. Insurance ought to only pay for major catastrophes beyond any ordinary patient's purse. Routine stuff ought to be paid for out of pocket.
Then we could clamp down on the tort lawyers that sue for malpractice at the drop of a hat. A lot of testing and scanning and such is done to cover the ass of the doctor against a possible malpractice suit. Do something about predatory lawyers and costs would go down.
We need to clamp down on drug costs. The sky high prices charged for on-patent drugs goes not to research and development, but into marketing. Big drug companies have fancy salesmen, wearing suits, visit every doctor in the country every couple of weeks to peddle pills. Not quite sure how you deal with this but I'm sure there is a way. Allowing drugs in from Canada might be a start, taxing marketing expenses might be another.
Allow more competition. Allow insurance companies to sell insurance in every state of the union. Get a license in one state and you have the right to sell the same insurance policy in every state. Right now states won't allow out of state companies to sell insurance instate.
Drop state mandated support of every strange condition. Plenty of people would be happy to skip support for drug addiction, chiropody, contact lenses, dental coverage, gender change, and who knows what else, in return for a lower insurance premium.
Something like 30% of health care costs are incurred in the last year of the patient's life. At end of life, there is always something that can be done, even if it won't help much. It may not help, but the doctor and the hospital can bill for it and Medicare will pay for it. This isn't health care, it's making money. One fix might be to have a law that says "Death cancels all medical bills. If the patient dies, clearly the medical treatment was ineffective and will not be paid for."
Fools Gold by Gilliam Tett
From the dust cover "How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe". It's a 2009 copyright which brings it right up to date. Gilliam Tett must have read Tracy Kidder somewhere along the line and her book has Kidder's closeups of the people involved. Those are fun to read. The "Small Tribe" at Morgan invented the credit default swap in the early '90s. This bit of financial magic amounts to default insurance. A credit default swap issuer gets paid a modest amount of money. In return the issuer guarantees the deal. If the borrower doesn't pay up, the issuer will make good the buyer's losses.
The first credit default swaps were issued on ultra safe packages of blue chip bonds. The banks persuaded the federal regulators to lower their reserve requirements if their loans were protected with credit default swaps. The credit default swap market took off like a rocket and the issuer's made a lot of money selling them. Late comers, stuck on stupid, began issuing credit default swap protection on shaky mortgage backed securities. The whole thing crashed in the fall of 2008 when Bear Stearns and Lehman imploded and everyone started collecting on their swaps. The issuers of the swaps didn't have the cash to pay off, and the Bush administration picked up the tab, fearing that letting AIG and the rest of them fail would touch off Great Depression II.
The author reviews some of the famous Wall St catastrophes of the past, Drexel Burnham Lambert , Long Term Capital Management, Enron and WorldCom. She gives J.P.Morgan a sympathetic treatment, they were smart enough not to get sucked into the mortgage backed security black hole.
She skims over the housing crash and the role of Fannie and Freddie in that crash. Fannie and Freddie fueled the sub prime disaster when they bought sub prime backed securities. This prompted the dumber Wall St houses to buy shakey mortgages, "securitize" them, and sell them. The resulting demand for mortgages led the mortgage companies to write mortgages on worthless property and to borrowers unable to make the payments. But not to worry, we will sell this sub prime mortgage to a bigger sucker on Wall St. When the suckers wised up and stopped buying the roof fell in.
The first credit default swaps were issued on ultra safe packages of blue chip bonds. The banks persuaded the federal regulators to lower their reserve requirements if their loans were protected with credit default swaps. The credit default swap market took off like a rocket and the issuer's made a lot of money selling them. Late comers, stuck on stupid, began issuing credit default swap protection on shaky mortgage backed securities. The whole thing crashed in the fall of 2008 when Bear Stearns and Lehman imploded and everyone started collecting on their swaps. The issuers of the swaps didn't have the cash to pay off, and the Bush administration picked up the tab, fearing that letting AIG and the rest of them fail would touch off Great Depression II.
The author reviews some of the famous Wall St catastrophes of the past, Drexel Burnham Lambert , Long Term Capital Management, Enron and WorldCom. She gives J.P.Morgan a sympathetic treatment, they were smart enough not to get sucked into the mortgage backed security black hole.
She skims over the housing crash and the role of Fannie and Freddie in that crash. Fannie and Freddie fueled the sub prime disaster when they bought sub prime backed securities. This prompted the dumber Wall St houses to buy shakey mortgages, "securitize" them, and sell them. The resulting demand for mortgages led the mortgage companies to write mortgages on worthless property and to borrowers unable to make the payments. But not to worry, we will sell this sub prime mortgage to a bigger sucker on Wall St. When the suckers wised up and stopped buying the roof fell in.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Did speed sensors cause Air France mystery crash?
The TV pundits are in love with the story. The "speed sensor" is the pitot tube, a simple piece of tubing that sticks out head on into the air stream. The air speed indicator works by measuring the air pressure generated from the pitot tube. Airbus had been replacing the pitot tubes on the A-330's for some reason or other. The replacement program had been running BEFORE the crash.
Worst case, the pitot tube falls off or ices up and the airspeed indication drops to zero. Planes will fly with no airspeed indicator. Leave the engines set to cruise power and keep the plane level and it will keep flying. The zero airspeed will probably confuse the autopilot enough to make it drop off line, but again, the crew can fly the plane by hand.
Dispite pitot tube excitement on the TV news, I very much doubt that the pitot tube caused the crash.
Worst case, the pitot tube falls off or ices up and the airspeed indication drops to zero. Planes will fly with no airspeed indicator. Leave the engines set to cruise power and keep the plane level and it will keep flying. The zero airspeed will probably confuse the autopilot enough to make it drop off line, but again, the crew can fly the plane by hand.
Dispite pitot tube excitement on the TV news, I very much doubt that the pitot tube caused the crash.
TV pundit talking thru his hat.
Commenting upon the CIA director's opinion that Bin Laden is still in Pakistan, the Time magazine pundit, said that Bin Laden was unable to leave Pakistan.
Scratch that pundit. All Bin Laden needs is a credit card, a passport, and a shave and he can fly anywhere in the world.
Scratch that pundit. All Bin Laden needs is a credit card, a passport, and a shave and he can fly anywhere in the world.
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