Zeev as to the issues of inflation, stagflation, and Fed tightening.
Is inflation really dead?
In spite of everybody stating for a year now ,
" we see no inflation ",
I have maintained that soon, the real
inflation will show up: Rising Health care costs
through the entitlement process.
Simply because I see( and I try and be objective here,
so we don't turn this into a " feel thread "),
that
the true costs of Healthcare have been hidden under the carpet
for the last 20 years.
So that there has developed in the last 20 years,
3 systems that have contributed to the masking
of true Health costs:
a)the DRG Medicare system ( Designated Diagnostic Groups )
for seniors,
b)the HMO system for the middle class, and
c)the system of just walking into an Emergency Room when you
don't have insurance, for everybody else.
That system is now falling apart:
For a)Medicare has run out of money.
Bush will resist increasing unfunded mandates,
and I see no effort in letting seniors who are
terminal ill, die to cut your losses while you are ahead.
For b)HMOs are dead and are changing into the old Blue Cross
model:Pay all costs.
For c)The Emergency Rooms are closing the door,
Message 15300302
because of
1.Lack of new facilities.ERs are not expanding.
2.No nurses.
3.Hospital Administrators refuse to subdize
Health Care at their hospitals' expense.
All this is only now beginning to filter down to the population.
Americans, have been reassured and put to sleep
in the last 15 years, that
" all's well in healthcare "
by Bill Clinton, the Democrats and Republicans.
Unfortunately, the costs are astronomical.
The No.1 guilty party in this are Doctors:
We have developed fantastic technologies of drugs,surgery
and organ replacement and transplantation that whilst
on the one hand have provided happy extensions to our
lives from a life expectancy of 42 years , 100 years ago,
to the current 75 years it has now reached a plateau
and the costs are unsustainable
No.2 guilty party are patients
in their pathological fear of trying to cling to life at
any cost when all hopes are gone.
They do not believe the doctor, and the legal system allows them
to demand deficit financing and allows them to
just fill in their desired expeditures in a a blanc signed check from Medicare or Insurances.
No.3 guilty party is The Entitlement philosophy
of the last 100 years that informs modern Goverments.
Unfortuantely this can now only be achieved at a
cost that far exceeds the ability of the individual
to pay. Health care has now an incurable disese:
Baumol's Disease ,
ama-assn.org
-to pay for himself
-pay for others ( charity, free or coerced/IRS )
-sustain an extravagant lifestyle of high consumption of
homes, energy,IT,cars, double families w/alimony payments
in 50% of marriages,
- sustain the world, and be their growth engine.
Bottom line: If stagflation is back,
are Greenspan's hands tied in further rate cutting?
While rapid Inform. Tech. see though this and take the Nasdaq
directly to 1900? and stay there until
Congress can resolve the Health Care morass,
through the only possible way of
Intelligent Rationing?
Message 12148198
and slowly decreasing the Entitlement Mentality and unfunded debt:
Message 15331035
TA |
